Q What were the answers you received? completely wrong and was an invention, or that the report had this or that legal basis.
Frequently figures and details were reported in reports which in effect were quite disarming.
Q Is there anything set down in writing about this?
A Yes. The Important questions and answers were put in writing and partially they were multigraphed and sent to the various agencies within and outside the Propaganda Ministry. All the material was collected in the archives "Schnelldienst", material for which I applied but which has not been found.
Q Then, did you just believe these answers as they came to you? which were given to me by official sources and I had experienced on numerous occasions that the authenticity of these reports from these sources, to whom I applied had been proved very drastically.
Q What do you mean by that?
A I might perhaps give you just one example. The first propaganda of the war was that the report which was given out by Mar saw abut the destruction of the picture "black Madonna" of Zehnstachau. This report was transmitted around the world. We took German and foreign journalists to Zehnstachau, who could prove and check the fact that this report was not true. to cite another example in reply to this question put by my counsel, an example which really had its after-effects for mein this Courtroom some two or three days ago.
The British newspaper "The News Chronicle", on 24 September, 1939, had brought out the news -
THE PRESIDENT: what is the evidential value of the "News Chronicle", in 1939?
DR. FRITZ: The defendant wants to prove to the High Tribunal that he found that that many reports from abroad, dealing with German atrocities, actually were wrong and incorrect so that -
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we do nut need details about that. No doubt there were frequent reports which were not accurate. We do not want you to go into details.
THE WITNESS: I wanted to prove with just one bit of news and one report, how at that time something could be denied which the world believed and then, in the shadow of this denial, quite unnoticed by ghe German public opinion, something did take place, such as a larger wave of arrests or a similar matter.
THE PRESIDENT: He can state the facts but he need not go into detail about particular issue of the newspaper. BY DR. FRITZ:
Q Was it only once, Mr. Fritsche, that the falsehood of such foreign broadcasts were ascertained by you?
Q Please be very brief, Mr. Fritsche.
A One of my co-workers gathered material under the title "In seven weeks of war a list of 108 cases." The gathering of these reports, given out by our enemy, gave me a feeling of moral superiority as applied to that kind of reporting and this feeling was the basis of my later works, a work which could not be explained without this feeling. place and occurred only in the beginning of the war?
A No, that thought never occurred to me. The reports were so numerous in the beginning and I could check them in later years, especially as to my own person. just one statement out of many? hundred thousand Swedish -
THE PRESIDENT: What is the purpose of this ?
DR. FRITZ: I want to show how false statement about him was made how a wrong statement was applied to him personally. He wanted to state that briefly.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I said already, there were, no doubt, erroneous statements made in the foreign press and every press. We cannot investigate these sort of matters.
DR. FRITZ: Then we shall pass on. We shall turn to another question, BY DR. FRITZ:
news service, have the feeling that where there is smoke there 27 Juneis fire?
Did you not believe that at least something must be true of the on my reports about murders and so forth in the German areas?
A. This feeling, as a specialist in reporting, I did not have. Again and again I thought and I also reminded the public of one erroneous bit of reporting of the First World War and I boy the Tribunal to grant me permission to mention this erroneous report briefly for it is the fundamentals of propaganda which I carried on.
THE PRESIDENT: No, I have already pointed out that we assume that there are a variety of errors. We do not want to go into detail.
DR. FRITZ: Then I shall turn to another question. BY DR. FRITZ:
Q. But you knew for certain that the Jews had been transported away from the Reich, and you noticed that they disappeared from the streets?
A. Yes, that I did notice, even though this incident occurred very gradually, and up and beyond that I heard on one occasion how Dr. Goebbels mentioned, on the occasion of a ministerial conference, that a Gaulieter in Berlin had put the demand for the transporting of Jews.
Q. A nd in your opinion where were these Jews taken, what were you told about these things?
A. Dr. Goebbels told, me that they were being taken to reservations in Poland. Never was the assertion or the assumption made that they were being tkane to concentration camps, or that they were even being murdered.
Q. Did you try to inquire about these reservations into which the Jews were allegedly being taken?
A. Of course I did that. I learned something as was told me by a former co-worker of nine who had gone over into the administration of the Government General and who had a position in the region Biala-Bodlaska. he said that this area of his, under his control, had bee one a Jewish area, and he pictured the arrival and the housing of the so transportees.
He also mentioned the difficulties and the employment of Jews as workers as mechanics and on plantations. The picture he drew for me was drawn as a condition of humanity, and he told no that on his tract of land, the Jews were faring better than they were in the Reich.
Q. What was the name of this man?
A. Oberregienrungsrat Robert Kuehl.
Q. Did you hear unfavorable news about these deported Jews?
A. Yes. Sturmbannfuehrer Radke of the staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS reported, perhaps in the winter of 1942, that the mortality rate of the Jews in the eastern ghetts was abnormally high because of the changeover from spiritual to manual labor, and he mentioned there was some typhus, some isolated cases of this disease.
Apart from that Dr. Tauber, who was head of the department dealing with Jewish questions in the Propaganda ministry, told no in the year 1941, if I remember correctly, that in the occupation of Lomberg and Kovno pogroms had resulted, Jewish poggrams, but they were carried out by the local population. He assured me at the same time that the German authorities had taken steps against these pogroms. The references to things of that kind caused me to criticize matters severely, even though these things today look insignificant compated with the knowledge at our disposal today, This criticism by me was exerciser against my subordinates, and was also specially directed against co-workers and against members of the Gestapo and members of the party. Again and again I referred to the legal, political and moral necessity of the protection of these Jews, who had been entrusted to our care.
Q. Did you learn anything else about the fate of these Jews?
A. On many occasions Jews or relatives of Jews turned to me because of arrests or because they had been discriminated against as well as against non-Jews in large numbers.
All this did cause my name to become well-known to the public.
Without exception, I made these requests as my own and I tried to help. I tried to help through various offices, through the RS HA, through the personnel section of my ministry, through particular ministers and particular Gauleiters.
Q. Why did you turn to so many different authorities and offices?
A. Many, many requests were involved, and if my name had been used too many times, the effecticeness of my name would have been exhausted very quickly.
Q. Did you on occasion turn down these requests?
A. No, not in a single instance, and I should like to emphasize especially the fact, for a letter addressed to me in this prison here was not handed over to me but was published in the press instead. It was a letter in which a woman asserted that I had turned down a request for pardon. I remember this case exactly, and I should like to emphasize, but briefly, that in this case I had called -
THE PRESIDENT: It is sufficient for him to say that he did not turn them down. We do not want one instance of somebody who wrote to him.
How long are you going to be, Dr. Fritz?
DR. FRITZ: I believe I shall be able to conclude the entire case tomorrow morning, the entire case Fritsche.
Mr. President, I have just heard that there is no open session this afternoon.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. FRITZ: Otherwise I would have been able to conclude the entire case Fritsche today However, in this event, I hope to be able to conclude my examination in chief of the defendant and to call the witness, and I hope that tomorrow noon I shall be able to conclude.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal hopes so too, because, as I have pointed out to you, we do not want you to go into such elaborate detail. You have been going, in the opinion of the Tribunal, far too much into detail, and we want the matter dealt with more generally.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 28 June 1946, 1000 hours.)
Military Tribunal in the matter of the DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Bench, the Defendant Fritsche, toward the end of yesterday morning's session, testified as to how he tried to aid persecuted persons insofar as he could with the very small means which were at his disposal. In order to conclude this testimony, and with the approval of the prosecution, I submit Exhibit No. 6, which is an affidavit of Count Westarp, which may be found in my Document Book No. 2 on rages 23 to 25. I should like to submit this document to the attention of the High Tribunal. The date is the 15th of June, 1946. May I respectfully ask that the High Tribunal take judicial notice of the contents of this document. another affidavit, which is to be Fritsche Exhibit No. 8, deposed by a Mrs. Krueger residing in Berlin. This affidavit had not been incorporated into my document book as yet. However, the original has been deposed by Mrs. Krueger in G erman as well as in English and copies have been affirmed and sworn to. I should like to refer to the contents of this affidavit, especially to the last paragraph. From the next to the last paragraph we can see that Mrs. Krueger judges from singular cases and can speak generally as well, and that she has knowledge of the defendant.The last paragraph is quite interesting.
It deals with the manner of life led by the Defendant Fritsche. Apart from that, I should like to refer you Honors' attention only to the contents of this article and I ask that the High Tribunal take judicial notice of this document. affidavit which has been frequently quoted, deposed by Dr. Scharping, Fritsche Exhibit No. 2, which is to be found in the Document Book, Fritsche Exhibit No. 2, Pages 6 to 15. I should lik e to refer to Page 13. at the bottom of the page, and the top of age 14.
BY DR. FRITZ:
Q Mr. Fritsche, I should like to put two more general questions to you on this topic. During the last period of the war, didn't you try to find out something shout the final fate of the Jews?
A Yes. I used an opportunity that I want to discuss in the future. I asked a co-worker of Obergruppenfuehrer Gluecks, located at Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen, about the Jews. Briefly stated, his answer was as follows: that the Jews were under the special protection of the Reichsfuehrer SS and this Reichsfuehrer wished to make a political deal with them; that he considered them to be a kind of hostage, and that he had the wish that not a hair of their heads would be harmed.
Q In this proceeding, some of the prosecution's witnesses have stated that the German public knew about these murders. Now I should like to ask you, as a journalist, a journalist who worked in the National Socialist State, according to your knowledge and observation, what was the attitude of the broad mass of the German people to the Jews? Did the people know about the murder of the Jews? Please be brief. in this proceeding, I should like to state only a few observations which to me seem important. I shall omit the period of time which has already been described shortly after the First World War, a period of time in which certain anti-Semitic feelings were popular in Germany. I should like to state only that in the year 1933, at the time of the Jewish boycott which was established by the NSDAP, the sympathies of the German people openly turned to the Jews. During a period of years the "Party, embittered, tried to prevent the public from buying in Jewish stores. Finally, there were warnings of punishments to keep the people from buying there. A decisive factor in this development was the issuing of the Nuernberg Laws. Through these Nuernberg Laws, for the first time, the fight against the Jews was taken away from the sphere of purely agitation, that is the kind of agitation from which one could remain aloof, and was transplanted into the soil of State policy. At that time there was a shutter between the German people, for now there was a division which applied even to single families. At that time many human tragedies resulted, tragedies which were obvious to many.
These racial laws could be justified on only one ground; there was only one excuse for them and one explanation. That was the assertion and the thought, now, through this separation of the tw o peoples which is being carried through now, even quite painfully, new, at last, the wild and unbridled agitation will be at an end and in this separation peace will result where before there was only a lack of peace.
instance, in Berlin they were prohibited from occupying seats on streetcars, the German people took up the cause of the Jews in a demonstrative way, and again and again it happened that Jews were offered seats.
I heard many statements concerning this by Dr. Goebbels, who was quite embittered about the result which came about after the Jews had been marked in such a manner. that the German people did not know about the mass murders of the Jews. assertions which were made and rumors and reports which penetrated to the German people from the outside, were again and again officially denied. Because I do not have the actual proof at hand, I cannot tell you from memory the actual individual cases of denial, but I do remember one case specifically and exactly. That was the moment when the Russians, after they recaptured Karkov, started a legal proceeding in whichfor the first time killing by gas was mentioned.
I ran to Dr. Goebbels with these reports in my hand and I asked him just what was going on here. He stated that he wanted to have the matter investigated, that he was going to discuss this matter withHimmler and with Hitler. The next day he announced a denial to me, this denial was not announced publicly, and the reason for that was that in a German legal proceeding, the things which would have to be cleared would have to be brough forth in a much cleaner way.
Quite specifically, Dr. Goebbels stated to me that the gas vans which had been mentioned in the Russian legal proceeding were a pure figment of the imagination and that there was no proof, in fact, for any statement like that. ban of strictest secrecy. If the German people had learned of those mass murders, certainly they would not have stood behind Hitler any longer. Perhaps they would have sacrificed 5 million for a victory, but never would the German people have wished to bring about victory by the murder of 5 million people.
I should like to state further that this murder decree of Hitler's seems to no the end of every race theory, every race philosophy, every kind of race propaganda, for after this catastrophe, any further representation of the race theory would be equivalent to standing for the introduction of murde, an ideology in whose name 5 million people were murdered is a theory which cannot continue to exist.
Q Now I shall turn to a different topic. You are accused by the Prosecution of having agitated in favor of atrocities, and that the results of your propaganda applied to every phase of conspiracy, including abnormal and inhuman treatment and behavior. In this connection, I shall have to ask you about the pattern of concentration camps.
Did you know that the concentration camps existed? in 1933, and the concentration camps were mentioned later in official communiques.
Q In your opinion at that time, what was the purpose of these camps? were to be taken to those camps who could not be prevented from active work against the now state. It was described in this way, that there were two large parties with a rather incompetent center. One of these large part had assumed thepower. Later, habitual criminals were to be taken into these concentration comps no that they would not revert back into crime. which were established in the course of time?
A Before the war, I had heard about three camps. During the war, I assumed there were five to six, and the picture which was shown here of a large number of camps was quite a surprise for me.
Q Did you know anything about the number of inmates in these camps?
A Nothing definite. In the beginning of the war, foreign reports mentioned millions of inmates. At that time, together with some other journalists, I asked Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich to speak before the legal and foreign press and to declare himself ready to debate and discuss this matter. He did this. According to my recollection, he did not give any absolute figures, but rather he drew a parallel and a comparison to the inmates of the prisons and penitentiaries of former days.
This comparison did not seem to be disturbing. That was in the winter of 1940 or 1941.
Q Didn't you have any doubts as to the accuracy or authenticity of those figures? the concentration camps? Did you speak with anyone who had over been in a concentration camp?
A Yes. Even as early as 1933 or 1934 I spoke with a journalist who for some weeks had been interned in the old concentration camp Oranienburg. He reported that he himself had not been tortured, but that he had seen and heard how others had been beaten and how their fingers had deliberately been squeezed in a door.
Q Did you just receive these reports and do nothing about them?
A Quite the contrary. I made a lot of noise. This journalist -I believe his name was Stolzenberg, as far as I remember -- did not wish to be quoted by name. I wrote three letters, one to Dr. Goebbels, and Dr. Goebbels advised me that he would look into this matter. I wrote a letter to Frick as Minister of the Interior, and one to Goering as Prussian Prime Minister. one told me that an investigation was being carried on. A short period thereafter, I heard that this old camp Oranienburg had been dissolved, that the commandant had been sentenced to death. This was a report given to me by a Mr. von Luetzow, who was the press chief of the then leader of the State Police, Diehls. receive further reports about cruelties and atrocities in concentration camps?
A No. No further reports about mistreatments came to me. On the contrary, however, I frequently inquired of people of the Gestapo or the press section of the Reichsfuehrer SS. All of the individuals whom I asked stated the following, that the methods which were to be decried, had taken place in 1933 or in the beginning of 1934 in the concentration camps, supervised by SA men.
These were members of the SA, who did not have a profession and 2 8 June LJG -M-3-1 whose time was there own and who were ready to serve all day long and among those people the better elements were not very frequently found.
I was further told that the 30th of June had been a housecleaning for these matters. The 30th of June had done sway with those Gauleiters and those SA leaders who had abused their power. Now, they told me, the concentration camps were being guarded by SS guards who were professional guards, administrators by profession and officials dealing with criminal matters who were professionals in that line and other supervisory personnel and I was told that that would be a guarantee against abuses. concentration camps? Niemoeller or Schuschnigg and I inquired after Leipkin, who was the private secretary of Hess, who had been arrested and in each case I received information which was calming and reassuring. were prominent people or important people. Did you not try to speak with other people from concentration camps?
A Yes. In April of 1942 I met a former functionary of the Communist Party, whose name was Reintgen. We had been together as soldiers for six months and therefore he reported quite openly, without keeping anything back from me. on his back. However, he had not been mistreated later on and this was a piece of information which coincided with my observations.
Q Did you yourself visit concentration camps? tration camp. However, frequently in the winter of '44-'45 I was in the administrative building near the camps Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen. Apart from that, I spoke as far as it was possible for me at all, with inmates if I happened to see them on the march or at work.
28 June M LJG 3-2
Q With whom did you speak at Oranienburg? and two times with this man himself. These people told me that the foreign reports regarding cruel treatment were incorrect. They said that the treatment was not only humane but extra-ordinarily good for the inmates after all were valuable laborers. I spoke at length about the working hours and especially did mention this point for at that time a rather silly decree was given out about the lengthening of all working hours. The attitude taken by Gluecks was very reasonable and it was to the effect that a longer period of working time would not necessarily result in more work and therefore a period of time from eight to ten hours a day was maintained. Destruction through work he did not mention and that is something about which I heard here for the first time. inmates directly? quite naturally showed a deep mistrust but when I put factual questions, on the whole, I received factual replies and to summarize these briefly, the gist of these replies was always that there arrest was unjust; that their food was really better than in prison and frequently I heard this sentence -- "Well, anyway we are not soldiers here" -- and the weapons used by the guards were only rifles or revolvers. I saw no instruments for beating. and more distrustful, especially when you received the radio reports from abroad? terday. In April of 1945 reports came in from English members of Parliament regarding the Buchenwald case but this case is so very recent in the course of time that for brevity's sake I do not need to describe the incidents and happenings that occurred 28 June M LJG 3-3 there.
and mistreatment of the worst sort did take place in concentration camps? course of my imprisonment I heard the first reliable reports about those things. Only a part of these terrible conditions which existed can be explained through the stoppage of traffic and communication at the end of the war. The balance is more than enough. Obviously, the decree for the secret murder of masses of poeple had brutalized these people who were charged with the execution of this decree to such a terrible extent.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal does not know whether this explanation has any evidential value for us and we have heard all about this matter already. He has given is his explanation as to why lie says he did not know.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, I have but two more questions I should like to put to the defendant. BY DR. FRITZ:
Q. Mr. Fritsche, it has been said here in this Court that conditions in concentration camps were generally known to the German people. Will you give us your opinion and your attitude as a journatlist? Give your attitude which you can justify?
THE PRESIDENT: Has he not given us that already?
DR. FRITZ: No, I beg your pardon, Mr. President. He mentioned something to that effect when he dealt with the mistreatment and destruction of Jews. He touched on that topic as to the extermination of Jews. On that occasion I had asked him-
THE PRESIDENT: Well you are asking him what his opinion as a journalist was. I do not see that that has any importance to us.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, I should be duly grateful if I might ask the question, as this is my next to the last question, and if you would permit me to do so. I expect an answer from the defendant, an answer which would assist the Tribunal in arriving at a judgement.
THE PRESIDENT: What will the answer be about?
DR. FRTIZ: The defendant, Fritsche, would like to make a few statements such as statements made by Dr. Goebbels.
THE PRESIDENT: All right, you may ask the question. BY DR. FRITZ:
Q. Did you understand the question?
A. I believe a confusion has arisen, since we do not wish to quote Dr. Goebbels in this connection but rather we want to quote him in relation to our last series of questions and this last group seems more important to me than one question you have just put to me now.
Q. In any event, I should like you to give me a brief answer to my question. Shat I repeat the question?
A. Thank you, no. to the statements that I made about murders; that there were many, many rumors but these rumors were denied. Without doubt there was an iron ring of silence about these terrible happenings. The observation which I made, and which is important, is that in the RSHA and some of its branches, there must have been groups who worked systematically with the end in view of concealing these atrocities and who issued quieting reassurances and who issued denials and these statements were given out to those groups who represented the public.
Q Now I should like to put my last and summarizing 28 June M : LJG 4-1 question:
In your interrogation by me you have made statements the statements that you made long ago in your radio broadcasts and so forth. Can you briefly tell us the date and the reason for your change of opinion?
A I ask for permission to do this quite accurately. The first station on this way of realization and the first thought in this process was not the German defeat, for right or wrong is independent of victory or defeat. The fact was that Hitler tried to use this defeat for the self-destruction of the German people, as Speer has testified and confirmed, in a most terrible way, and as I could observe in the last phase of the conflict in Berlin when, under the pretense of a false hope, fifteen-yearold, fourteen-year-old and thirteen-year-old boys were equipped for war with hand firearms and called into battle, boys who perhaps might have been the hope for the period of reconstruction. Hitler fled into death, and he left the decree and the order to keep on fighting. He also left the official report that he bad died in battle. statement, on 2 May 1945, was the publication of the fact of this suicide, for I wanted to kill a Hitler legend in the bud. name was Sforner, that he had been arrested by the Gestapo, that he had been tortured in order to get a confession from him and that before his eyes his wife had been beaten. That was point number two which made me change. known General Wiedermeier, who proved to me that the reasons given by Hitler for the attack on Russia had been wrong, at least in one important part. After he had talked with the interpreter, he could tell me that in the decisive discussion of Molotov and Ribbentrop in 1941, Molotov had not put any new demands in this decisive discussion but that, rather, he wanted the 28 June M LJG 4-2 assurances which had been given in 1939 to be put into effect.
A part of the reasons given was that our attack on Russia was to anticipate a Russian attack. Therefore, a part of the reasons was lacking. the millions of Jews. I have already talked a out this matter. statement which Dr. Goebbels made in my presence on Saturday, 21 April 1945. while he was excited, Dr. Goebbels, mentioning the last, decisive breakthrough of the Russians at Berlin, said, "After all, the German people did not want things any different. The German people decided in the referendum or plebiscite on the leaving of the League of Nati ons, and in that step they decided by a great majority against a policy of surrender and chose, instead, a policy of courage and honor," and Dr. Goebbels concluded, " In this way, the German people itself chose the war which it has now lost."
These were the last words which I heard spoken by Dr. Goebbels and these words are untrue. I should like to state on my oath that never before had Dr. Goebbels given such a tremendous significance to that plebiscite.