promulgated in November 1938, is running a long the same line. In a people hostile towards the Jews, any trade with Jewish circles would have necessarily ceased aid their business would have automatically come to a standstill. eliminate Jewry from the economic life. of the German populace to the demonstrations carried out against the Jews during the night from 9th to 10th November 1938. spontaneously by the German people but that they were organized and executed with the aid of thestate and party apparatus upon instructions of Dr. Goebbels in Berlin. which in a cynical way were portrayed abroad as an expression of indignation of the German people over the assassination of the secretary of the Embassy in Paris, vom Rath, was a totally different one, than had been visualized by the originators of this demonstration. were unanimously rejected in the circles of the party and even of its leadership. reused pity and compassion with their fate. such a way on all hands. The effect upon the public was so incisive that the defendant Rosenberg in his capacity of "Gauleiter" found it necessary to make an address in Nurnberg, warning against an exaggerated sympathy for the Jews. According to his deposition he did not do this because he approved these measures but only in order to strengthen by his infouence the heavily impaired prestige of the party. Herrwerth examined here, he refused to SA-Obergruppenfuehrer v. Obernitz to take part personally in the planned demonstration and designated the latter as being useless and prejudicial.
He publicly expressed this standpoint later also, during a meeting of the League of Jurists at Nurnberg.
In doing so he took the risk of placing himself in an open opposition to the official policy of the State. on by the Government, an actual hostility against the Jewish population did net exist in the people itself. Thus it is proved already that neither Streicher's publications in the "Stuermer" nor his speeches had a provoking effect upon the German people in the sense upheld by the prosecution. carried out and loading to a criminal end, cannot be furnished by pointing to the general attitude of the Germannation. But the prosecution has supported its reproach to that effect by the specific assertion that only a nation educated to the absolute hatred of Jews by men like the defendant could approve of such measures like the mass extermination of Jews. Thereby the repreach is made to the totality of the Germans that they knew about the extermination of the Jews and they approved of it, a reproach, the severity and consequences of which upon the whole future of the German nation cannot be estimated at all.
But did really the German nation approve of these measures?
Only an occurrence which is known can be approved of. Therefore, should this assertion of the prosecution be considered as proved, logically it must also be considered as proved that the German nation actually knew of these occurrences. Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, charged with the mass assassinations by Hitler, and his close collaborators, have surrounded this whole story with the veil of deepest secrecy. By threatening with the most severe punishments any violation of the absolute commandment of silence which was imposed, they managed to lower before the events in the East in the extermination camps, an iron curtain which hermetically shut off these facts from thepublic. and state from gaining any insight and information. Hitler didnot hesitate to supply with false informations even his closest collaborators like Reich Minister Dr. Lammers, who was heard here as a witness, and tomake him believe that the removal of the European Jews to the East meant their settlement in the Eastern territories and by no means their extermination.
Although the statements of the defendants may deviate in many points, yet in this connection they all agree so completely one with the ether and with the statements of other witnesses, that the veracity of their testimonies simply cannot be questioned. If it was not oven possible for the defendant Frank in his capacity as Governor General of Poland to get through to Auschwitz, because without Himmler's special consent he himself was denied entrance, then this fact speaks for itself. exception of a very small circle were not informed and if even they had at best very vague informations, then how could the public at large have known it? Under these circumstances the possibilities for finding out what was going on in the camps were extremely scanty. of information. Listening to foreign radio stations was threatened with the heaviest penalties and therefore did not take place. And when it did, the news broadcast by foreign radio stations concerning events in the East were, however or rather because they corresponded to facts, so coarse, so horrible beyond any human understanding, that they were bound to appear to any normal individual, and in fact did, as intentional propaganda. against Jewry only from people who either were working in the camps themselves or came in contact withthe camp or its inmates, and, lastly, from former concentration camp inmates. silent, not only because they were strictly compelled to do so, but also in their own interest. Furthermore, it is known that Himmler had threatened death penalty for any information about the camps, and that not only the actual culprit, but also his relatives, were threatened with this punishment. Finally, it is knows that the extermination camps proper were so hermetically out off from any contact with the world that nothing concerning the events which took place therein could penetrate to the public.
workers kept silence, because they had to keep silent. People who came to the camps were also under the threat of this punishment, inasmuch as they were at all able to obtain some insight, a thing which was all but impossible in the extermination camps. could not flow. measure, for every concentration camp inmate who had been released. Anyhow, hardly anybody ever came back to life from the actual murder camps. But if, once in a tine, a man or woman were released, the danger of their being sent back into the camp was hovering about than ifthey infringed on the order for silence, and this in addition to the other threatened punishments. And this renewed detention would have been tantamount to gruesome death. camp prisoners positive feats concerning the occurrences in the camps. This being the case with regard to normal concentration camps in Germany, it applied in a still greater measure to the extermination camps. in a concentrationcamp, and who was visited by them again after their release, will be able to confirm that it was net possible, even for a man holding such a position of trust and under the protection of a lawyer's professional secret, to get former concentration camp inmates to talk. standing who was highly trusted by his party comrades and who was, because of this, in touch with many former concentration camp inmates, came to know of the real facts connected with the extermination of the Jews but very late and even then to a very restricted extent, then such considerations ought to apply even more to any normal German.
It can be derived with absolute certainty from these facts that the government, that Hitler and Himmler wanted under all circumstances to keep secret the genocide, extermination, of the Jews, and this forms the base for another argument -- in my opinion, a cogent one - - against the antisemitism of the German people assorted by the prosecution.
Jewry as the prosecution affirms, then such rigorous methods for secrecy would have been superfluous. On the contrary. principal enemy, that it approved of and desired the extermination of Jewry, then he would have been forced, of needs, to publish the plans for and likewise the accomplishment of the extermination of this very enemy. Under the sign of total war as constantly propagandized by Hitler and Goebbels, there would indeed have been no hotter means to strengthen the faith in victory and the will of the people to fight than the information that Germany's principal enemy, this very Jewish people, had already been annihilated. failed to use such a striking argument if he could have taken as a basis the necessary presupposition, that is, the German people's determined will to exterminate the Jews.
However, the "final solution" of the Jewish question had by all means to be kept secret even from the German people who had, for years, stood under the hardest possible pressure by the Gestapo. Even loading persons of state and party were not allowed to learn of it. even in the midst of a total war end after decades of education and gagging by national socialism, the German nation and, above all, its armed forces, would have reacted most violently to the publication of such a policy against the Jews. consideration for enemy nations. In the years 1942 and 1943 the whole world was already engaged in a bitter war against national socialist Germany. An aggravation of this struggle hardly seemed possible, certainly not by publishing facts which had long since become known abroad.
Aside from this, the consideration of making a still worse impression on the enemy countries could hardly influence men as Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler.
If they would have counted even upon the smallest possible positive result of a publication of the genecide of the Jews, then they certainly would not have omitted such publications. On the contrary, they would have tried by all means to strengthen the faith in victory of the German people therewith. The fact that they have not done this is the best proof that even they did not consider the German people as radically anti-semitic, and it is the best proof too, that one cannot speak of such anti-semitism on the part of the German people. such an end he did not reach such a goal. the Prosecution to the defendant Streicher, that he had educated the German youth in an anti-semitic spirit and that he had sunk the poison of anti-semitism so deeply into the hearts of the youth that this pernicious result would make itself felt a long time after actual life yet. is to be seen in the fact that young people, due to the Streicher education in hatred toward Jews were supposed to have been ready to commit crimes again Jews, which otherwise they would not have committed and that youth thus educated might be expected to perpetrate such crimes in the future too, put out by the publishing house of the "Stuermer" and some announcements addressed to Youth which appeared in this paper.
Far be it from me to extenuate or defend these products. Evaluation of them can and must be left to the Tribunal. In accordance with the basic principle of the defense, the only question to be taken up here will be whether or not the defendant, in one way or another, influenced the education of Youth towards criminal hatred of Jews. be said that for the greater part German Youth did not knew them at all, much less read them. No evidence has been produced to substantiate the contrary which is assumed by the Prosecution.
The healthy common sense of German Youth refused such stuff. German boys and girls preferred other reading material.
It may well be emphasized here, that neither the contents of nor the illustrations in these books could prove in any way attractive to youth. They were, of necessity much more likely to be avoided. Of special importance in regard to this point is the fact that defendant Baldur von Schirach, the man responsible for the education of the whole body of German youth, as a witness declared under oath, that the mentioned juvenile books of the publishing company were neither circulated by the Hitler Youth leaders nor found a circle of readers among the Hitler Youth.
The witnessmade the same assertions for the "Stuermer". One of his closet co-workers, witness Lauterbacher, declared on this subject that the "Stuermer" was actually forbidden for the Hitler Youth by defendant von Schirach. not suited to attract the interest of young person or even to offer them ethical support. The measure taken by the Reich Youth leaders is therefore quite understandable.
If some of the "Stuermer" articles submitted by the Prosecution seem to indicate that the "Stuermer" was read in youth circles and there produced a certain effect, then it should be said on this point that typical works, that is, works ordered for propaganda purposes were concerned. No proof whatsoever has been furnished for the assertion of the Prosecution that Germa youth harbored criminal hate toward Jews.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, perhaps this would be a convenient time to break off.
(A recess was taken).
Accordingly, neither the German antion, nor its youth can be termed criminally from the charge made against the defendant Striecher that he educated the youth and the nation on these lines.
Now, one might be tempted to assume that the "Stuermer" exercised an especially great influence upon the organizations of the party, the SA and SS, but this was not the case either. in the same way as the mass of the people did. Its publications were "The SA-Leader" and "The SA". From these, the mass of the SA drew the foundation of their ideology. These publications do nut contain even one article, written by the pen of the defendant Striecher. If the latter had really been the man the Prosecution thinks him, the authoritative and most influential propaganeist of anti-semitism, he would necessarily have been called in for collaboration in these publications, which were issued to instruct the SA on the Jewish question.
A publication aiming at ideological education would never have been able to dispense with the collaboration of such a man. in these papers, demonstrates again that the picture drawn of him by the prosecution does not correspond in any way with the actual facts. Through his own publication, the defendant Streicher could not gain any influence ever the SA, and the columns of "The SA-Leader" and "The SA" were closed to him. Even the highest SA-Leaders declined to advocate his ideas. With regard to this the SA deputy chief of staff SA-Obergruppenfuehrer Juettner, made the following statement when he was heard as witness before the commission on 21 May 1946 :
"At a leader conference, the former SA chief of staff, Lutze, expressed his wish that there should be no propaganda for the "Stuermer" in the SA. In certain groups the "Stuermer" was even prohibited. The contents of the "Stuermer" disgusted and repelled most of the SA men. The policy of the SA with reward to the Jewish question was in no way directed at the extermination of the Jews; the fight aimed only at preventing a large scale immigration of Jews from the East."
Thus the ideology of the "Stuermer" was rejected on principle by the individual SA man as well as by the SA leaders, and it is, therefore, out of the question to speak of any influence of Streicher upon the SA. publications, but his articles did not appear in any other newspapers and publications. Neither in the "Veolkischer Beobachter" nor in other leading organs of the German press, was he allowed to say a word, although accordinq to the will of the Propaganda Ministry, enlightment on the Jewish question was supposed to belong to the noblest tasks of the German press. from the state leadership or the Propaganda Ministry, to impress his ideas upon a wider circle. The defendant Fritzsche, the man who had also the right of decision in the propaganda ministry, declared as a witness that Streicher never exerted any influence upon propaganda and that he was completely disregarded. Thus, in particular, he was not entrusted with broadcasting speeches, although just an address ever the radio would have had an entirely different mass effect then an article in the Stuermer which necessarily affected only a limited circle. The fact that even the official pro paganda of the Third Reich did not utilize the defendant Striecher, makes apparent that his activity would net have premised any effect, that in fact he did not exert any influence at all. The official German state government recognized Streicher as what he actually was, the unimportant publisher of a really unimportant weekly. said with all clarity, was as little radically antisemitic as that of the German Youth and also that of the party organizations. Any success in instigating and inciting to criminal antisemitism is therefore not proven.
I now come to the last and decisive part of the accusation, i.e., to the examination of the question : who were the persons mainly responsible for the orders given for the mass-extermination of Jewsy; how was it possible that men were found who were ready to execut these orders, and whether, without the influence of defendant Streicher, such orders would not have been given or executed.
Though this greatest trial of all in world history suffers from the deficiency that the chief offenders are not sitting in the defendant's box because they are either dead or not to be found, the facts ascertained have, nevertheless resulted in cogent conclusions concerning the actual responsibility. of unique and even demoniacal brutality and disregard, whereto was added in the latter years that he had lost all sense of proportion and all sefl-control.
Ruthless brutality was the principal feature of his character; this became apparent for the first time in its full force when the so-called Roehm Rebellion was suppressed in June 1934. On this occasion Hitler did not hesitate to have his oldest fellow combatants shot without any process of law. His unrestrained radicalism was further revealed in the way the war with Poland was conducted. Only because he feared an antagonistic attitude toward Germany on the part of loading circles in the Polish nation did he order their ruthless extermination. His orders at the beginning of the Russian campaign were still more drastic. Already at that time he ordered the extermination of Jewry in separate actions. humanity was alien to this man. Furthermore, the proceedings, through the depositions of all defendants, have corroborated the fact that Hitler in basic decisions was net open to any outside influence.
Hitler's basic attitude towards the Jewish question is known. He had already become an anti-semite during his time in Vienna in the years before the first world war. However no actual proofs exist that Hitler from the very beginning had such a radical solution of the Jewish question in mind as was finally effected in the annihilation of European Jewry. When the Prosecution declares that from the book "Mein Kampf" there was a direct road leading to the crematories of Mauthausen and Auschwitz, that is only an assumption, but no evidence for it has been given. The evidence speaks much rather for the fact that Hitler too wanted to see the Jewish problem in Germany solved by way of emigration. This thought, as well as the position of the Jewish part of the population under alien laws, was the official state policy of the Third Reich.
Mary of the leading antisemites considered the Jewish question as settled after the laws of 1935 had been passed. The defendant Streicher shared this opinion. A severer attitude of Hitler's in the Jewish question cannot be traced further back than to the end of 1938, or beginning of 1939. Only then it became apparent that, in case of war -which he believed was propagated by the Jews- he planned a different solution. extermination of the Jewry in case a second world war was let loose against Germany. occasion of the 20th anniversary of the day the Party was founded. And finally also his testament confirms his exclusive responsibility for the murdering of European Jewry as a whole. Hitler since the beginning of the war, there is nothing that goes to show that he visualized the extermination if the Jews right at the beginning of the war. It can be clearly seen that this last resolution, no doubt, came about when Hitler, presumably as early as 1942,saw that it was impossible to bring the war to a victorious end for Germany. minating the Jews was made -as were almost all of Hitler's plans- and criginated exclusively by himself. It can not be ascertained with certainty to what extent other, who were closely attached to Hitler, brought their infl ence to bear on him. If such influences did exist they can have only come from Himmler, Bermann and Goebbels. That much can be stated beyond any doubt at any rate that, during the decisive period from September 1939 to October 1942 Streicher -things being as they were- neither influenced Hitler nor would have been able to influence him.
At this time Streicher was living -- deprived of all his offices and com-
nection with Hitler neither personally nor by correspondence. This has been proved beyond doubt by the statementsof witness Fritz Herrworth, Adele Streicher, and the statement under oath of the defendant himself. But that Hitler was instigated to his orders of wholesale murder by his reading of the Stuermer can, I believe, not be maintained in earnest. influence at all on the man who made the decision and on the decisive order to exterminate Jewry.
In October 1942 Bormann's decree came out, ordering the extermination of Jewry (Document PS 3244). This order came from Hitler, there is no doubt about that, and went to Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler, who was changed with the actual execution of the extermination of the Jews. commissioner for Jewish Affairs Eichmann with the final execution. So, after Hitler, those three men are the main responsible ones. actually supposedly influenced them, hasnot been proved. He ascertains irrefutably that he never knew either Eichmann or Mueller, and thathis connection to Himmler was but loose and far from being friendly. merely be mentioned. From the beginning he had advocated a merciless fight against the Jews, and was, moreover, from all that we know of him, not a man who would have allowed himself to be influenced by another in matters of principle. But aside from that, a comparison of the two personalities shows, a priori, that Himmler was in every way the stronger and more superior man, so that even for this reason the exertion of any influence by defendant Streicher on Himmler may be ruled out. Streicher had a decisive influence on the men actually executing the orders; that is, on the one hand on members of special purpose groups (Einsatzrruppe and on the other hand on the executive commandos in the concentration camps and whether it was at all necessary to prepare these men spiritually and intellecutally to make them willing to execute such measures.
The Reichsfuehrer SS stated unequivocally in his speeches in Nikolajew, Posen and Charkow -- which have often been mentioned here -not only that he, with Hitler, was responsible for the final solution of the Jewish question, but also that the execution of the orders had been possible only by the utilization of forces selected by himself among the SS.
We know from Ohlendorf's testimony that the so-called Einsatzgruppen (Task force) consisted of members of the Gestapo and the SD, of companies of the Waffen SS, of members of the police force withlong years of service, and of natives. Streicher never had the slightest influence on the ideological attitude of the SS. There is no shadow of a proof among the extensive material of evidence of this trial that Streicher had any connections with the SS. The alleged enemy No. 1 of the Jews, the great propagandist for the persecution of the Jews, -- as he has been pictured as the prosecution -- the defendant Streicher, never having had the opportunity to write in the periodical "Das Schwarze Korps" (The black Corps) or even in"SS-Leithefte (SSGuide Magazine). These periodicals alone, however, as the official mouthpieces of the Reichsfuehrer SS, determined the ideological attitude of the Schutzsaffel. These SS periodicals determined their attitude toward the Jewish question. In these circles the Stuermer was read just as little as in othercircles; it was rejected. Therefore, the defendant Streicher could not have influenced ideologically the SS members of the Einsatsgruppen, far less the old soldiers of the police, and least of all the foreign units. be ideologically determined by him. Those men originated for the most part from the Totenkopfverbaende (Death Head Units), that is, the old guard units, for whom the above mentioned is true in a higher degree. Added to this is the fact that the experienced police soldiers, as well as the SS men with long years of service, were trained in absolute obedience to their leaders. Absolute obedience to a Fuehrer command was a foregone conclusion for both.
Even those experienced police men, accustomed to absolute obed-
ience, even the experienced SS, could not be, without any mere ado, entrusted by Himmler to carry out the executions of Jews. Rather, Himmler had to select men whom he trusted as heads of these execution squads and make them personally responsible, for their duties. He pointed out explicitly that he would take all responsibility and that he himself did not put pass on a definite order of Hitler. to the assertion of the Prosecution, the Elite of the Nazism become enemies of the Jews in the sense as asserted by the indictment, that the entire authority of the head of State and the Fuehrer, and of his most brutal follower, Himmler, was necessary to force uponthe men responsible for carrying out the execution orders the conviction that their order was based on the will of the authoritarian head of the State; an order which, according to their conviction, had the power of a fundamental State law and therefore was above all criticism.
Thus it was not ideological reasons, not Stretcher's instigation of those who were, as the prosecution contends, commissioned with the carrying out of annihilation thatmade these men carry out orders, but exclusively and solely the obedience to an order from Hitler transmitted to them by Himmler, and the knowledge that not to carry out a Fuehrer order, meant death.
Thus, in this respect too, Streicher's influence has not been proved. are herewith exhausted. But, on order to reach a conclusion, to form a judgment of the defendant that does full justice to the actual findings, it seems necessary to give once more a short summary of his personality and his activity under the Hitler regime. the leading advocate of the most violent determination to annihilate Jewry. defendant and his actual influence than it does to his personality. The manner in which the defendant was used in the Third Reich and called in for the propagandizing and for the final solution of the Jewish question shows the incorrectness of the conception held by the prosecution.
The only time the defendant was called upon to take an active part in the fight against Jewry was in his capacity as chairman of the action-committee for the anti-Jewish boycott-day on 1 April 1933.
He showed an attitude on that day which stands in direct contrast to his utterances in the Stuermer. One can see from it that the utterances in his paper which are under scrutiny were purely for the purpose ofcreating a tendency. In spite of the fact that on that day he could haveused the entire power of the State and of the Party against Jewry, he merely orderedthe identification of Jewish places of business and the guarding of Jewish business places. In connection with this he gave explicit instructions that any molestation or act of violence against the Jews, as well as damaging of Jewishproperty, was forbidden and punishable. defendant. Not even for the ideological founding of the show-down with Jewrr was he consulted. Neither through the press nor over the radio could he express his ideas. Neither the Party in its training letters (Cchulungsbriefen), nor the organizations in their periodicals, availed themselves of his pen for the clarification of the Jewish question. ideological training of the German people. The latter was responsible for the Institute for the Investigation into the Jewish Question, but the defendant Streicher; he wasnot even contemplated as collaborator in this Institute. The defendant Rosenberg was commissioned with the arrangement of an Anti-Jewish congress in 1944. This assembly, however, never took place, but it is significant that the participation of the defendant Streicher was not even planned. drafted without his participation. He was net even called in for the drafting of the race laws which were proclaimed at the party rally in Nurnber in 1935. The defendant Streicher did not take part in any conference concerning questions of some importance during peace and war. His name is not on any list of participants, on any protocol. Not even in the actual discussions is his name mentioned once.
The fight against Jewry in the Third Reich became more severe from year to year, especially after the outbreak and in the course of the war.
In contrast to this, however, the influence of the defendant Streicher decreasedfrom year to year. Even during the year 1939 he was almost entirely pushed aside, without any connection to Hitler or other leading men of the State and Party. Since 1940 he was relieved of his office and Gau-Leader and was politically a dead man ever since.
If the defendant Streicher really had been the man whom the prosecution bel ieves him to be, his influence and his activity would have increased automatically with the intensification of the fight against the Jews.
The end would not have been, as it actually was, political impotence, and banishment, but the commission to carry out the destruction of Jewry. clumsy, crude and violent manner, the defendant Streicher as cannot be denied - has brought upon himself the hatred of the world. He has hereby created a strong feeling against him which resulted in rating his importance and his influence far beyond his real importance and which now entails the danger for him that his responsibility will be misjudged likewise. difficult task, had to limit himself to presenting those aspects and facts which allow a clear recognition in its true extent of the importance of this man and of the role which he played in the tragedy of National Socialism. iable facts and to sh oeld actions for which simply no excuse exists. in the destruction of the Main Synagogue of Nurnberg and thus allowed a place of religious worship to fall into decay. not the demolition of a building destined for religious worship, but the removal of an edifice which did not fit into the style of old Nurnberg city, and had a disturbing effect and that this, his opinion, had been shared by art experts. That this is truth, was proved by the fact that he had left the second Jewish house of worship untouched until it finally, and without him having anything to do with it, went up in flames the might from the 9th to the 10th of November. However that may be, the defendant has shown here the same ruthlessnes as in his other a ctions.
He himself has to account here for his actions, the defense cannot should him. But here too it must be said that the population of Nurnberg disapproved of these actions clearly and unmistakable. It was clear to any impartial observer that the people viewed such actions with icy coldness and only by brute force could be made to put up with such measures and to witness such absurdities. opinion regarding the reopening of the question of the ritual murder myth. These articles, to be sure, found no interest whatsoever, but their tendency is clear. The only point which, beside the good faith which we have to grant him, is extenuating for the defendant is the fact that it was not he who wrote these articles, but Holz: he cannot avoid, however, that the fact is hel d against him that he allowed it to happen. part in publication of the "Stuermer" after having long since been politically crippled and sent into exile. This very fact better than anything else reveals his one track mind. at physical annihilation of the Jews and of having prepared the way for this later result with the things he published, then I would like to refer to the statements of the defend ant given under oath when he was interrogated as a witness, to which I am here referring to their full extent. articles published since its beginning there was none which asked for real acts of violence against Jews, furthermore, that among the more than thousand issues there could be found only about 15 which contained expressions, which could, be held against him in the meaning of the indictment. spee ches always had displayed ah unmistakeable tendency to briny about a wholesale and universal solution of the Jewish problem, since a partial solution of any kind, could, not have any pur pose and did not yet at the heart of the problem.
Even from this point of view, he had always expressed himself unequivocally against measures of violence of any kind, and he would never have approved of an action, as was finally carried out by Hitler in such a gruesome manner.
prove to the defendant that he ever approved of the resultant mass murder of Jewry, and I leave this decision about this to the Tribunal. He personally however refers to the fact, that he did not recieve certain know lodge of those wholesale murders before 1944, a fact which was corroborated by the statements f the witnesses Adele Streicher and Hiemer. Wochenblatt as a means of propaganda and consequently did not believe them. In his favor is the fact, that up to the fall of 1943, he did no express in any article a satisfaction over the fate of Jewry in the East. ish reservoir in the East, it cannot be surmised that he had available any source for an authentic confirmation. He might of course, have been of the opinion, that this vanishing process was not identical with physical annihilation but was rather to be considered in the light of evacuation of the collected Jewish population to foreign countries or into territory of the Soviet-Union. As no proof has been presented for that fact that the defendant had received hints from any quarters with regard to the intended extermination of Jewry, he could not have conceived such a satanic occurrence, as it appears to be absolutely inconceivable to the human mind. Certainly, it can not be assumed that the mental capacity of the defendant should have put him into a position to foresee such a solution of the Jew ish question, which could only have originated from the brain of a person no longer a master of his mind.