* *---* - * - *---* - * that you may have had at that time, you also had a conscience?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, are you cross-examining on behalf of some other Defendant, or what?
DR. EXNER (Counsel on behalf of Defendant Jodl): I should like to ask two or three questions that seem to me, or that my client stated during the intermission is important to him.
THE PRESIDENT: You have already cross-examined, have you not?
DR. EXNER: Yes, but I now have three new questions. We were not able to prepare ourselves for this cross-examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. EXNER: regarding the fighting of partisans and during this intermission I have read in the document book provided us by the Prosecution, under 1786-PS, and there I found mentioned a regulation regarding the fighting of partisans, of 27 November, 1942. Do you know anything about this?
Q It must exist, since here it is. It is not known to you? regarding partisans?
Q Could you tell us something of its contents?
Q Do you know where this regulation is to be found?
DR. EXNER: Thank you.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you know how many members of the Wehrmacht were used at any one time in this antipartisan activity? What was the largest number of troops?
THE WITNESS: Large undertakings were called, that is to say, undertakings in the strength of one division upwards. I believe the largest number might have been a number such as three divisions.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): I mean all the troops on the Eastern Front at any one time used in these anti-partisan activities?
THE WITNESS: I cannot answer that because these troops were never under my direction at one time. They were there with individual operations simultaneously and continually;
large and small operations. Day by day and every day reports of these activities came in.
TEE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you know how many Einsatz groups were used?
THE WITNESS: I know of three, one for each army group.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you want to re-examine?
COLONEL TAYLOR: No, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Then the witness may go.
COLONEL TAYLOR: Your Lordship, that concludes the evidence under Counts Three and Four of the Indictment and I have only a few more words by way of general conclusion. an evanescent thing, the creature of a decade of unrest, or a school of thought or tradition which is shattered and utterly discredited. The German High Command and military tradition have in the past achieved victory and survived defeat. They have met with triumph and disaster, and they have survived through a singular durability.
An eminent American statesman and diplomat, Dr. Sumner Welles, has written, and I quote from his book "The Time for Decision", page 261:
"...the authority to which the German people have so often and so "Whether their ostensible ruler is the Kaiser, or Hindenburg, or German General Staff."
decision which this Tribunal is called upon to make. But we are not now indicting the German General Staff at the bar of history, but on specific charges of crimes against International Law and the dictates of the conscience of mankind, as embodied in the Charter, which governs this Court. power for good or ill, who chose the latter; who deliberately set out to arm Germany to the point where the German will could be imposed on the rest of the world and who gladly joinced forces with the most evil forces at work in Germany.
"Hitler produced the results which all of us warmly desired" we are told by Blomberg and Blaskowitz, and that is obviously the truth. The converse is no less clear; the military leaders furnished Hitler with the means and might which were necessary to his survival, to say nothing of the accomplishment of those purposes which seem to us so ludicrously impossible in 1032 and so fearfully imminent in 1942. persistent. Helpless as Hitler would have been without them, he succeeded in mastering them. The generals and the Nazis were allies in 1933. But it was not enough for the Nazies that the generals should be voluntary allies; Hitler wanted them permanently and completely under his control. Devoid of political skill or principle, the generals lacked the mentality or morality to resists. On the day of the death of President Hindenburg in August 1934, the German officers swore a new oath. Their previous oath had been to the fatherland; now it was to a man, Adolph Hitler. It was not until a year later the Nazi emblem became part of their uniform, and the Nazi flag their standard. By a clever process of infiltration into key positions, Hitler seized control of the entire military machine. about it. We will hear that they were helpless, and that to protect their jobs and families and their own previous lives, they had to follow Hitler's decisions. No doubt this became true, but the generals were a key factor in Hitler's rise to complete power and a partner in his criminal aggressive designs. It is always difficult and dangerous to withdraw from a criminal conspiracy. Never has it been suggested that a conspirator may claim mercy on the ground that his fellow conspirators threatened him with harm should be withdrawn from the plot. High Command group presents today is the most degrading of all the groups and organizations charged before this court. The bearers of a tradition The bearers of a tradition not devoid of valour and honour, they emerge from this war stained both by criminality and ineptude.
Attracted by the militaristic and aggressive Nazi policies, the German generals found themselves drawn into adventures of a scope they had not foreseen. From crimes in which almost all of them participated willingly and approvingly were born others in which they participated because they were too ineffective to alter the governing Nazi policies, and because they had to continue collaboration to save their own skins. Command group planned and carried through manifold acts of aggression which turned Europe into a chanelhouse, and caused the Armed Forces to be used for foul practices, foully executed, of terror, pillage, murder and wholesale slaughter. Let no one be heard to say that the military uniform shall be their cloak, or that they may find sanctuary by pleading membership in the profession to which they are in eternal disgrace.
COLONEL STOREY: If the Tribunal, please, the next subject will be the presentation of supplemental evidence concerning the persecution of the churches as presented by Colonel Wheeler.
COLONEL LEONARD WHEELER JR: The material now to be submitted comprises, first, supplemental proof on the suppression of the churches within Germany - the Evangelical Churchs, the Catholic Church, and the Bibelforscher, or Bible Researchers; and, second acts of suppression in the annexed and occupied territories - Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. A large part of this proof will be from the official files of the Vatican.
I now submit to the Court United States trial brief "H" Supplemental" on "Suppression of the Christian Churches in Germany and in the Occupied Territories", and document Book "H - Supplemental", containing English translation of all the documents referred to in the supplemental brief, or to be referred to in my oral presentation. I'll take up first the supplemental proof on the suppression of the churches in Germany.
Hitler announced in March 1933, a distinction in his policy toward politics and morals, on the one hand, and religion on the other. I offer in evidence the document number 3387-PS, USA Exhibit No. 566. It is a speech by Hitler to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933, quoted in the Voelkischer Beobachter, March 24, 1933, page one, column seven of the German newspaper. I quote from this speech:
"While the government is determined to carry through the political prerequisites for a truly religious life.
The government sees maintenance of our Folkdom.
It will respect agreements concluded between them and the states.
However, it expects that its work or tolerate crimes.
The Government will devote its care to the sincere living together of Church and State."
with caution, and an appearance of legality. They set up a new constitution of the German Evengelical Church, which introduced the innovation of a single Lutheran Reichs Bishop, who assumed all the administrative functions of the old agencies of the Churches. I refer to document 3433-PS, the decree concerning the Constitution of the German Evangelical Church, dated July 14, 1933, appearing in the Reichsgesetzblatt 1933, Part I, page 471, and I request that the Court take judicial notice of it. Bishop Mueller, heeded the voice of his Nazi masters. One of his first steps was to maneuver the Evangelical Youth Association into the Hitler Jugend under the defendant von Schirach in December 1933. I refer to document No. 1458-A-PS, already in evidence as part of Document Book D Transcript for November 23, page 255. It is an excerpt from von Schirach's book, "The Hitler Youth, Idea and Formation."
Bishop was necessary. Consequently, the Nazi conspirators promulgated a number of public laws which, under innocent-sounding titles, gradually wove a right net of state control over all the affairs of the Evangelical churches. We ask that the Court take judicial notice of these laws published in the Reichsgesetzblatt? These may be briefly summarized as follows: Evangelical Church, dated 26 June 1935, signed by Hitler and Frick, appearing in 1935 in Reichsgezetzblatt, Part I, page 774. This gave the Reich Ministry of the Interior - the defendant Frick - when question was raised in the civil lawsuit, sole authority to determine the validity of measures taken in the Evangelical State Church, or in the German Evangelical Church since May 1, 1933. Decisions in Legal Affairs of the Evangelical Church, dated 3 July 1935, appearing in 1935 Reichsgezetzblatt, Page I, page 851. This implemented the earlier law, by setting up an Office for Decisions with three members appointed by the Reich Ministers of the Interior. Affairs, dated 16 July 1935, signed by Hitler, published in 1935 Reichsgezetzblatt, Part I, page 1029. This transferred to "Reich Minister without Portfolio Kerrl" the church affairs hitherto handled by the Reich and Prussian Ministries of the interior and for Science, Education and Training of the Population. 24 September 1935, published in the 1935 Reichsgezetzblatt, Part I, page 1178, signed by Hitler and the Minister for Church affairs, Dr. Kerrl. This empowered the Reich Minister of church affairs to issue ordinances with binding legal force. the German Evangelical Church, dated 2 December 1935, published in 1935 Reichsgestzblatt Part I, page 1370. This prohibited "Organs of church leadership" in the Evangelical Churches from filling pastorates, engaging clerical assistants, examining and ordaining candidates of the State Churches, visitation, publishing of the banns, and collection and administration of church dues and assessments. Decree for the Execution of the Law for Security of the German Evangelical Church, dated 25 June 1937, published in 1937 Reichsgesetzblatt Part I, page 697. By Decree for the Execution of the Law for Security of the German Evangelical Church dated 25 June 1937, published in 1937 Reichsgesetzblatt Part I, page 697.
By this, the Reich Minister for Church Affairs (Kerrl) established a Finance Department for the churches to supervise the administration of church property, the budget, and the use of budget funds, and to regulate salaries and allowances of officials, clergy and employees. Thus, before the outbreak of the war, the Nazi conspirators had the Evangelical Churches ties hand and foot physically and administratively, if not spiritually. conspirators launched a most vigorous and drastic attack again, at first cloaked undef a mantel of cooperation and legality. A Concordat signed by the defendant Von Papen, one of the foremost Catholic laymen in Germany, was concluded between the Reich Government and the Vatican on July 20, 1933. It is printed in the 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, part 2, page 679, at page 680 and contained in document No. 3280-A-PS, and I will ask the court to take judicial notice of it. I quote Article 1:
"The German Reich guarantees freedom of profession and public practice of the Catholic religion.
"It acknowledges the right of the Catholic Church, within the limit of those laws which are applicable to all, to manage and regulate her own affairs independently, and, within the framework of her own competence, to publish laws and ordinances binding on her members". need not be read into the record, formulated basic principles such as freedom of the Catholic press, of Catholic education, and of Catholic charitable, professional and other organizations.
Vatican. I refer to 3268-PS, USA Exhibit No. 356, excerpts from the Allocution of Pope Pius XII to the Sacred College on June 2, 1945 already read into evidence. I quote from page 1 of the English mimeographed excerpt, page 1 of the German translation, third paragraph, which has not previously been read:
"In Spring 1933 the German Government asked the Holy See to conclude a Concordat with the Reich."
Rely upon the Nazi's assurances, particularly Hitler's speech of March 23, 1933, above quoted -- 3387-PS--the Catholic hierarchy revoked its previous opposition against Catholics becoming members of the National Socialist Party. I offer in evidence document No. 3389-PS, USA Exhibit 566, a pastoral letter, dated March 23, 1933, from the Bishop of Cologne, and I quote from the Voelkischer Beobachter from March 29, 1933, page 2, colums 2 and 3:
"The Official announcement by the Arch-Bishop of Cologne, Cardinal Schulte, in behalf of the Bishops' Conference at Fulda, 28 March 1933.
"The high shepherds of the dioceses of Germany in their dutiful anxiety to keep the Catholic faith pure and to protect the untouchable aims and rights of the Catholic Church have adopted, for profound reasons, during the last years, an oppositional attitude towards the National Socialist movement, through prohibitions and warnings, which was to be in effect as long and as far as those reasons remained valid.
"It now must be recognized that there are official and solemn declarations issued by the highest representative of the Reich government-who at the same time is the authoritarian leader of that movement--which acknowledge the invoilability of the teachings of Catholic faith and the unchangeable tasks and rights of the church, and which expressly assures the full value of the legal pacts concluded between the various German States (Laender) and the church.
"Without lifting the condemnation of certain religious and ethical errors implied in our previous measures, the Episcopage now believes it can entertain the confidence that those prescribed general prohibitions and warnings may not be regarded as necessary any more."
pressure was dissolved on July 5, 1933. I refer to 2403-PS already in evidence as part of U. S. document Book B, an excerpt from Documents of German Politics, an official Nazi publication, a document of which the Court can take judicial notice; and I quote from the last five lines of page 1 of the English translation, appearing on page 55 of the original German text, which states:
"Also the parties of German Catholicism, which were supposed to be most deeply rooted, had to bow to the law of the new order. On July 4, 1933, the Bavarian People's party (Document 27) and on July 5, 1933, the Center Party (Document 29) published an announcement of their dissolution." mission on the part of the Catholics, the Nazi conspirators almost immediately commenced a series of violations of the Concordat. I offer in evidence 3476-PS, USA Exhibit No. 576, being the Papal Encyclical, Mit Brennender Sorge, in German by Pope Pius XI, on March 14, 1937, and ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of all of it. I quote from the one page English excerpt-
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say 3476 or 3466?
COL. WHEELER: 3476.
THE PRESIDENT: We don't seem to have that.
COL. WHEELER: That may be a mistake, sir, for 3563; the number was changed. Part of it, which is in English in the Document Book, is under 3280-PS. The difficulty is that the German original came in after the translation had been made from another source. which is in evidence now, which was secretly reproduced at Fulda, from copies smuggled into Germany from Rome, and read defiantly from pulpits all over Germany:
"It discloses intrigues which from the beginning had no other aim than a war of extermination. In the furrows in which he had laboured to sow the seeds of true peace, others -- like the enemy in the Holy Scripture (Matt.
xiii.25) -- sowed the tares of suspicion, discord, hatred, calumny, of secret and open fundamental hostility to Christ and His Church, fed from a thousand different sources and making use of every available means. On them and on them alone and on their silent and vocal protectors rests the responsibility that now on the horizon of Germany there is to be seen not the rainbow of peace but the threatening storm-clouds of destructive religious wars."
"Anyone who has any sense of truth left in his mind and even a shadow of the feeling of justice left in his heart will have to admit the agreement; but also he will have to recognize with surprise and deep agreements."
DR. ALFRED SEIDL (COUNSEL FOR HANS FRANK): The representative for opposition to the church has been made available to the defense.
The The question is as follows:
THE PRESIDENT: None of your question has come through.
DR. SEIDL: I shall repeat my question:
Military Tribunal?
Secondly, did he dilever the material as co-defendant?
The third question: Does he have to answer to this Tribunal as defendant?
THE PRESIDENT: I think it is desirable that the Tribunal under The first question that you ask is:
Is the Vatican a signatory to the Charter?
Is that right?
DR. SEIDL: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Your second question was shat? What was your second question?
DR. SEIDL: Whether the Vatican contributed to the material being THE PRESIDENT:
You third?
DR. SEIDL: The third question was -- and it is directed first of THE PRESIDENT:
Whether the Vatican recognizes the principles upon which the trial is being conducted?
Will you repeat the question, DR. SEIDL: The last question?THE PRESIDENT:
Yes.
DR. SEIDL: Has the Vatican familiarized itself with the material under which the trial is being conducted as a co-prosecutor?
(Discussion by the Court off the record.)
THE PRESIDENT: In the opinion of the Tribunal, the observations COLONEL WHEELER:
I now offer in evidence the first of a number suppression of the Church by the Nazi conspirators.
This first Vatican is Document No. 3261-PS, U.S.A. Exhibit No. 568, a verbal note of the dated January 18, 1942.
I read the certificate accompanying this document:
"The Vatican, November 13th, 1945.
"I, Domenice Tardini, Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical printed pages and entitled:
Embassy (January 18th, 1942)' (pp, 3-11) is a true and correct translation into the English language from the Italian language of a carbon copy of a document now in the possession of the Secretariate of State of his Holiness, the original of which was dispatched to the German Embassy.
"(Signed) Domenico Tardini" same printed document which we received from the Vatican. We did not have enough printed documents to put them in the document books. and 4, appearing on page 2 of the German translation. The papal Secretary of State describes, -- I quote - "Measures and acts which gravely violate the rights of the Church, being contrary not only to the existing Concordats but to the principles of international law ratified by the Second Hague Conference"-
THE PRESIDENT (Interposing): Did you say you were reading the third paragraph?
COLONEL WHEELER: Paragraphs 3 and 4, yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Page 2?
COLONEL WHEELER: Yes, Your Honor. It is the third paragraph on page 2. It starts in the middle of the paragraph with the last word on the 7th line of the third paragraph.
THE PRESIDENT: It is very difficult for us to find it if you don't tell us it beings in the middle of the paragraph.
COLONEL WHEELER: I'm sorry, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: What does it begin with?
COLONEL WHEELER: The last word of that line is "measures", beginning "yet, despite this keen difficulty," sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I see.
COLONEL WHEELER: " -- but often -- and this is much more grave -to the very fundamental principles of divine law both natural, and positive."
The next paragraph specifies these measures. I quote.
"Let is suffice to recall in this connection, among other things, the changing of the Catholic State elementary schools into undenominational schools; the permanent or temporary closing of many minor seminaries, of not a few major seminaries and of some theological faculties; the suppression of almost all the private schools and of numerous Catholic boarding schools and colleges; the repudiation, decided unilaterally, of financial obligations which the State, Municipalities, etc.
had towards the Church; the increasing difficulties put in the way of the activity of the religious Orders and Congregations in the spiritual cultural and social field and above all the suppression of Abbeys, monasteries, convents and religious houses in such great numbers that one is led to infer a deliberate intention of rendering impossible the very existence of the Orders and Congregations in Germany." suppress Christian religion in Germany. They persecuted, the "Bibelforscher" or Bible Research -
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps, as you are going to another church, it would be better to break off until tomorrow morning.
(Whereupon at 1700 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjourned, to reconvene at 1000 hours, January 8, 1946.)
Military Tribunal, in the matter of: The United.
States of America, The French
COL. WHEELER: The Nazis did not overlook ether sects or denominations in their efforts to suppress Christian religion in Germany. They persecuted the "Bibelforscher" or Bible Research Workers as well. There has already been introduced and read, into evidence Document No. D-84, USA Exhibit No. 236, showing that members of this sect were not only prosecuted in the courts, but also seized and sent to concentration camps even after serving or remitting of their judicial sentences.
In Document No. 2928-PS, USA Exhibit 239, included in USA Document Book A, further evidence of persecution of Bibelforschers appears.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you are going a little bit fast. We are not going to refer to D-84?
COL. WHEELER: I am not going to read from it, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Then you go to 2928-PS?
COL. WHEELER: 2928-PS, in the Document Book, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you going to read from there?
COL. WHEELER: I was going to read a few lines from that.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
COL. WHEELER: This document is an affidavit by Matthias Lex, VicePresident of the National Union of Shoemakers. In describing his experience in Dachau concentration camp he says, and I quote from the third page of his affidavit.
THE PRESIDENT: The third page?
COL. WHEELER: Paragraph 9, 11 lines from the bottom.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
COL. WHEELER: "I include in the political prisoners the Bibleresearchers"-
THE PRESIDENT: That is not at the beginning of paragraph 9?
COL. WHEELER: That is near the end of the page, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Paragraph 9 you said, didn't you?
COL. WHEELER: Of 2928-PS; paragraph 9 is a long paragraph, and there is a list of names of individuals at the camp, and it is on the second page of that list, at the bottom of the page, about ten lines up from the bottom of that page. This is a long paragraph, and starts after No. 33, the name of one of the men in the camp, and I am just reading that one sentence: "I include in the political prisoners the Bible-researchers ('Bibelforscher') whose number I estimate at over 150." lines of the next page:
"The following groups were kept entirely isolated: The members of the so-called 'Punishment-Companies' ('Strafkompanien'), who were in a concentration camp for a second time and after about 1937 also the 'Bibelforscher'. Members of the 'Punishment-Companies' were such prisoners who had committed disciplinary or slight offenses against the camp regulations. The following groups lived separately but could mix with the other groups during the day, either while working or while strolling through the camp: Political prisoners, Jews, Anti-Socials, Gypsies, Felons, Homosexuals, and before 1937 also the Bible-Researchers."
I refer also to Document No. 1531-PS. This is not in the Document Book; USA Exhibit No. 248, which is already in evidence. This was an order by the RSHA in 1942, authorizing third-degree methods against Jehovah's Witnesses. That was read by Colonel Storey. In Austria, Bishop Paulus Rusch of Innsbruck has written an illuminating report on this subject. I offer this sworn statement in evidence--3278-PS, USA Exhibit No. 569. This is a report on the fighting of National Socialism in the Apostolic Administration of Innsbruck-Foldkirch, of Tyrol and Vorarlberg. In this the Bishop declares, and I start on the first page of the English text and of the German translation:
"After having seized power Nationalsocialism immediately showed the tendency to exclude Church from publicity."
THE PRESIDENT: Don't go too fast.
COL. WHEELER: That is 3278-PS. The expression "Publicity"--this was written in English by the Bishop--evidently means "public activities." I continue with the quote:
"At 'Corpus Christi' in 1938 the customary solemn procession was forbidden. In the Summer of the same year all ecclesiastical schools and kindergartens were disbanded. Daily newspapers and weekly review of Christian thinking were likewise removed. In the same years all kinds of ecclesiastical organizations, especially youth organizations such as Boy Scouts, were disbanded, all activity forbidden.
"The effect of these prohibitions came soon: The clergy took opposition against them, they could not do otherwise. Then a great wave of priestarrests followed. About a fifth of them were eventually arrested. Reasons for arrests were:
"1. The 'Pulpit-paragraph.' When Party actions were mentioned or criticized even in the humblest manner.
"2. The 'practice of the' care of Young people. A specially heavy prohibition was given in November 1939. Children's or Youth's Mass or Services were forbidden. Religion or Faith-lessions were not allowed to be given in the Church except lessons of preparing for First Communion or Confirmation. Teaching of religion at school was very often forbidden without any reason.
"The priest, according to his conscience could not follow this public proscritpion and this explained the great number of arrests of priests. Finally, the priests were arrested on account of their 'caritative' work. It was for instance forbidden to give anything to foreigners or prisoners. A priest was arrested because he gave a cup of coffee and bread to two hungry Dutchmen. This 'Caritative' act was seen to favor elements foreign to the race.
"In 1939 and 1940 a new activity began. Cloisters and abbeys were seized, disbanded and many churches belonging to them closed.
Among these two nun-convents were disbanded: the clister of the Dominican-sisters of Kludenz and that of the 'Perpetual Adoration' of Innsbruck. In the latter, the Sisters were dragged, one by one, out of the cloister, by the 'Gestapo'. In the same way ecclesiastical property such as Association-Houses, Parish and Youth-Homes were seized. A list of these closed churches, disbanded cloisters, and ecclesiastical institutions is attached.
"Despite all these measures, the results were not satisfactory. Then priests not only were arrested, but also deported to concentration camps. Eight priests of Tyrol and Vorarlberg have been imprisoned, among them the Provicar Monsignore Dr. Charles Lampert. One died there on account of the ill treatment, the others returned. Provicar Lampert was released but required to remain in Stettin, where later he was rearrested and executed in November, 1944, after having been condemned to death by secret proceedings." entitled "List of Churches, convents, monasteries and ecclesiastical objects of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, seized respectively, confiscated, further of the Institutions, confessional schools, etc, disbanded." Unless the Tribunal requires it, I will not read these names.
I offer in evidence 3274-PS, USA Exhibit No. 570, received from Cardinal Innitzer of Vienna, and authenticated by him. This is the first joint Pastoral Letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of Austria, after liberation, dated October 17, 1945 I quote from page 1, second paragraph of the English and German texts, which sums up the Nazi conspirators' campaign in Austria:
"A war which has raged terribly and horribly, like none other in past epochs of the history of humanity, is at an end. At an end also is an intellectual battle, the goal of which was the destruction of Christianity and church among our people; a campaign of lies and treachery against truth and love, against divine and human rights, and against international law."
I quote further from the fourth and following paragraphs: