The camps, both in Reich terri-
tories and in all areas occupied by German troops, were exclusively under the command of the SS WVHA and/or the Inspector-General of the concentration camps. Neither the Governor General nor the general administration of the Government General had anything to do with these camps. supported violence and economic pressure as a means of recruiting workers for deportation to Germany. It is true that during the recent war, many Poles came to work in Germany, But in this connection the following should be noted: to Germany as vagrant workers. This stream of vagrant workers continued to flow even during the period between the first and the second world wars. In consequence of the ill-fated demarcation line, the Government General became an area that was distinctly over-populated. The agricultural. superfluity areas had fallen to the Soviet Union, whereas important industrial areas were incorporated into the Reich, Under these circumstances, because there were no riches to be found in the soil, the only valuable means of production lay in the working capacity of the population. And this - at any rate for the first few years - could not be absorbed to a sufficient extent, because the other production factors were lacking. In order to avoid unemployment and above all in the interest of maintaining public order and security, the administration of the Government General was bound, if only for reasons of state policy, to try to transfer as many workers as possible to Germany. There can indeed be no doubt that during the first years of the administration most of the polish workers went to the Reich voluntarily. When liter, in consequence of the continuous bombing raids, not only Germany's cities, but also her factories crashed in ruins and a not inconsiderable part of Germany's capacity for the production of war materials had to be removed to the Government General for reasons of security, the aim of the defendant Frank was necessarily to put a stop to any further transfer of labor. One and above this, however the defendant Frank had from the very, beginning opposed all violent measures in recruiting labor, and alone for security reasons and in order not to create new centres of unrest, had insisted that no compulsory measures were to be used, and only propagandistic methods employed.
That is certain, as shown by the testimony of the witnesses Dr. Buehler and Dr. Boepple, and also by a large number of entries in the diary. In my presentation of evidence I have already referred to several of them. Thus, for example, the defendant Frank said among other things on March 4, 1940:
"...I refuse to issue the decree demanded by Berlin, establishing compulsory measures and threatening punishment. Measures that viewed from the outside would create a sensation must be avoided under all circumstances. There is everything to be said against the removal of people by violence." Security Police. I quote:
"The Governor General is strongly opposed to the suggestion that police forces should be used in recruiting labour." These quotations could be amplified by many more. treatment of Polish workers in Germany. The defendant Frank continuously and repeatedly pleaded for better treatment of the Polish workers in the Reich does not appear to be quite clear. I do not intend to go further into the legal questions pertaining to this matter. the conception of vital stress (Notstand) as recognized in criminal law, would, in international law, too, precluded illegality in the case of a violat of law committed within that framework. interests being paramount, safeguard them if necessary by injuring the just interests of a third party. Even those writers who deny the application of the "vital stress" theory to international law -- they are in the minority -grant the threatened state the "right to self-preservation" and therewith the right to enforce "necessities of State" even at the cost of the just interests of other states. It is a recognized principle of international law that a state need not wait until the direct threat of extinction is at its very threshold. There can be no doubt that after the entry into the war of the United States, with which for all practical purposes the productive capacity and the military might of almost the whole world were gathered together to overthrow Germany, the German Reich was faced with a situation which not only threatened the State as such with extinction, but over and above that placed the bare existence of the people in jeopardy. Under these circumstances the right of the state leadership to make use of labour forces, even those in occupied territory, in this defensive struggle had to be acknowledged.
In addition, the following should not be passed over: The prosecution alleges that many, if not most of the foreign workers were brought to Germany by force and that they were then obliged to do heavy labour under degrading conditions. However one may look upon the evidence on this question, the fact cannot be ignored that there are hundreds of thousands of foreign workers still living in Germany who were allegedly deported thither by force. They refuse to return to their homes, although no one now attempts to hinder them. Under these circumstances it must be assumed that the force cannot have been as great, nor the treatment in Germany as bad as is alleged by the Prosecution.
Another allegation refers to the closing of the schools. It may be left out of account whether international law recognizes any criminal classification which would make the closing of schools appear as a war crime or a crime against humanity. In time of war this would seem to be all the more unlikely as it is well-known that schooling in war-time was considerably reduced, not only in Germany, but in many other belligerent countries. There is all the less reason to investigate this question more thoroughly, as the evidence has shown that the schools were for the most part already closed when the defendant assumed office asGovernor-General. During his whole period of office he left no means untried to re-activate not only the elementary and technical, but also the higher forms of school. In this connection I will only mention the University courses which he initiated.
The Soviet Prosecution haspresented as USSR Exhibit No. 335 a decree issued by the defendant to combat attacks against German reconstruction work in the Government General, dated October 2, 1943. There is no question but that this decree setting up a drumhead-court-martial is not in conformity with what must be demanded of Court procedure under normal circumstances. This decree can only be judged correctly if the circumstances which led to its promulgation are taken into consideration. administration of the Government General had to be carried on in a difficult territory and under circumstances which must be among the most difficult that have ever fallen to the lot of any administration.
After the collapse of the Polish State, the German administration found so to speak an empty space in which to organize and administer. In all spheres of administration they had to start completely afresh. If in spite of the difficulties they succeeded fairly quickly in removing war damage, particularly in the communications system, then that is incontestably to their credit. restoration in the area of the Government General could be carried out under fairly normal conditions. As the year 1941 opened, the Germans began to concentrate their troops for action against the Soviet Union, and therewith initiated a period of immense strain for the administration of the Government General. The Government General became the greatest repair workshop and the greatest military transit territory that history has ever known. This carried in its train an increasing deterioration of the security situation. The resistance movement began to re-organize on an intensified scale. But the menace inherent in the security situation developed to a still more alarming degree when the German armies were forced to arrest their progress in Russia and when -- after the catastrophe of Stalingrad -- their march forward was transformed into a general retreat. In the course of the year 1943, the activities of the resistance movement and in particular of the numerous guerilla bands in which thousands of a-social elements were grouped, reached extremes that represented a danger to any kind of orderly administration. The administration of the Government General was forced again and again to deal with this matter. Thus on May 31, 1943 a service meeting of the government of this Government General was held to deal with the security situation. Administration felt obliged to state among other things (I quote from the Diary):
"...In their activities the guerilla bands have revealed an increasingly well-developed system. They have now gone ever to the systematic destruction of institutions belonging to the German administration; they steal money, procure typewriters and reduplication machines; destroy quota-lists and lists of workers in the communal offices, and take away or burn criminal records and taxation lists.
Moreover raids on important production centers in the country have multiplied, for instance on saw-mills, dairies and distilleries, as also on bridges, railway installations and post-offices. The organization of the guerillas has become strongly military in character." activities of the partisans and the improvement in their military organization and equipment so endangered security in the Government-General that it might perhaps under the circumstances have been better to turn over its entire administration to the appropriate army commanders, and to proclaim martial law. It is indeed not possible to describe the conditions then existing in the Government-General as anything else but a state of war. It was the period when at any moment the possibility had to be taken into account that a general revolt would break out over the whole country. thwart any violent measures by the security police and the SD under all circumstances. It was in order to exercise at least a modifying influence on the security police and the SD and to have at least some guarantee against excesses that the defendant Frank agreed to the order dated October 9, 1943, setting up a drumhead court-martial. to serve as a general preventive. It was meant as a deterrent to the guerillas, and there can be no question but that in this it was temporarily successful. For the rest, the evidence has shown that even while this drumhead court-martial order was in operation, the Pardon Boards continued to act and that many sentences passed by the drumhead court-martial were reversed by the Pardon Boards. report by SS Brigadefuehrer Stroop concerning the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in the year 1943. USA Exhibit 275 (1061 PS). Both that report and a number of other documents reveal that all the measures in connection with the Warsaw Ghetto were undertaken exclusively on the direct instructions of Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of German Police Himmler. I refer in this connection to the affidavit of SS Bridgadefuehrer Stroop of February 21, 1946, submitted by the Prosecution as USA Exhibit No. 804 (3841 PS), and to the affidavit of the same date given by the former Aide-de-Camp of the SS and Police-leader of Warsaw, Karl Kaleske.
That is USA Exhibit No. 803 (3840 PS). These documents show quite clearly that those measures, like all others within the competence of the Security Police and undertaken on direct orders from either Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, the Higher SS and Police-Leader East, or on instructions from the RSHA, were carried out exclusively by the Security Police and the SD, and that the administration of the Government General had nothing to do with them.
under Article 21 of the Charter the report of the Polish Government. That report makes no distinction between the areas which were incorporated in the German Reich and the territories of the former Polish State which were grouped together in the Government General. But, with particular reference to the fact that the report makes no substantiated statements as to the personal responsibility of the defendant Frank, it does not seem necessary to delve further into this voluminous document. Like the indictment itself, the report constitutes an accusation of a general nature; it does not deal in detail with the results of investigations and with evidence which might justify the conclusions drawn in the report. The objections to be raised to the report must appear all the more valid, as to take only one example in Annex (1) of the report directives for cultural policy are quoted in evidence which are obviously intended to represent instructions given by the Governor-General or his administration. Actually however nothing of the kind is to be found either in the order Gazette of the Government-General or in any other documents. The witness Dr. Buehler stated during his interrogation that the administration of the Government-General had never issued such or similar directives. In consideration of this alone, it would seem at most admissible to attach substantive probative value to this Exhibit USSR 93, in so far as the statements therein made are confirmed by genuine documents and other unobjectionable evidence. in the trial brief presented by the Prosecution, the defendant Frank is also alleged to be responsible for the under-nourishment of the Polish population. Actually however the Prosecution is unable to produce any evidence to show that in the area governed by the defendant Frank either hunger-catastrophes occurred or epidemics broke cut. The evidence has revealed on the contrary that the efforts of the defendant Frank in the years 1939 and 1940 were successful in inducing the Reich to deliver no less man 600,000 tons of grain.
That made it possible to overcome the nutrition difficulties caused by the war. in no small degree to the war effort by itself delivering grain. But it must not be overlooked that these deliveries were made possible by an extraordinary increase in agricultural production in the Government-General. And this was in its turn made possible by a far-seeing economic policy, especially by the distribution of agricultural machinery, seed-corn and so on. Nor should it be forgotten that the deliveries of grain by the Government-General from the year 1941 onwards, also served to feed the Polish workers placed in Reich territory, and that in general these grain deliveries were utilized to maintain the internal balance as between the European economic systems. reproaches against the administrative activities of the defendant Frank in his capacity as Governor-General, without making an attempt to give an even approximately adequate description of the general work of the defendant, and without pointing out its inherent difficulties. There can be no question but that such an attitude transgresses the fundamental rules of any criminal procedure. It is a recognized principle derived from the criminal law principles of all civilized states that a uniform natural process must be judged in its entirety and that it s evaluation must rest on all the circumstances of the case that is in any way suitable for consideration by the Court when passing judgement. This would seem to be all the more necessary in the present case as the defendant Frank is accused of having pursued a long-term policy of oppression, exploitation and Germanization. My Lords: If the defendant Frank had in truth had any such intentions, then he could certainly have attained his goal in far simpler fashion. It would not have been necessary to issue hundreds of decreed every year, decrees which, for example, for the year 1942, reached the proportions of this volume that I hold here in my hand. The defendant Frank from his first day of office set himself to intergrate all the economic policy which one can only call constructive. Certainly he did this partly in order to strengthen the productions capacity of the German nation engaged in a struggle of life and death. But just as little can there be any doubt that the success of this measures also benefited the Polish and Ukrainian peoples.
I do not intend to go into this matter in detail. I will only ask the Tribunal in this connection to take notice of the Report given by the Chief of Government on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of the existence of the Government-General on October 26, 1943. I have included this Report in the Document Books I put in evidence. It is in volume IV, page 42. The Report gives a concise summary of the measures token and the successes achieved by the administrative acts of the defendant during these four years in all fields of industrial economy, in agriculture, commerce and transport, in finance and credit system, in the sphere of public health, and so on. Only in consideration of all these facts is it possible to form an approximately correct estimate of the whole position. By way of marginal note I will add that the defendant by his administration succeeded in reducing the dange of epidemics - in particular typhus and typhoid - to a degree which had been found impossible in this area in the preceding decades. ment-General was destroyed in the subsequent fighting, that can certainly furnish no grounds for reproach against the general administration, which had nothing to do with military measures. My Lords: terrible crimes were committed in the territory known as the Government-General. Concentration camps had been established, in which mass destruction of human beings was carried out. Hostages were shot. Expropriations took place, and so on. The defendant Frank would be the last to deny this;
he himself waged a five-year struggle against all violent measures.
The Prosecution has put in evidence as USA Exhibit No, 610 (437 PS) a memorandum which Frank addressed to the Fuehrer on June 19, 1943. In this memorandum on page 11 he listed 9 points in which he sharply condemned all the evils which had arisen in consequence of the violence practised by the Security Police and the SD and of the excesses committed by various Reich authorities, violence and excesses against which all his efforts had proved unavailing. These 9 points are in the main identical with the points of accusation against Frank. The content of the memorandum of June 19, 1943 however, shows very plainly that the defendant denies responsibility for these abuses. It reveals, on the contrary quite clearly that neither the defendant nor the general administration of the Government-General can be he. responsible for the said evils, but that the whole responsibility must be borne by the institutions mentioned above, in particular the Security Police and the SD, and or the Higher SS and Police-Leader East. If the defendant Frank had had the instruments of power wherewith to abolish the evils he condemned, it would not have been necessary for him to address that memorandum to Hitler at all. He would then himself have been able to take all necessary steps. In addition to this the evidence has shown that that memorandum of June 19, 1943 was not the only one addressed to the Fuehrer on the matter. It is clear from the testimony of the witnesses Dr. Lammers and Dr. Buehler, and the defendant's own statements in the witnessbox, that from the year 1940 onwards he (the defendant) sent protests and memoranda at regular intervals of a few months both to Hitler personally and to the Chief of the Reich Chancellory. These written protests were invariably on the subject of the violent measures taken and the excesses committed by the Higher SS and Police-Leader and the Security Police including the SD. But none of the protests met with success continually made suggestions to Hitler on the subject of improving relations between the administration of the Government-General and the population. The memorandum of June 19, 1943 too is cast in the form of a comprehensive political programme. It includes moreover all the essential points of protest contained in a memorandum presente in February 1943 to the Governor-General at his own desire, by the leader of the Ukrainian Chief Committee.
This latter memorandum was put in evidence by the Prosecution as USA Exhibit No. 178 (1526-PS). Such suggestions were also consistently rejected by Hitler. Frank could have done. Certainly he should have resigned, But that too he did. He offered his resignation no less than 14 times, the first time as early as 1939. His resignation was rejected by Hitler as often as it was tendered. But the defendant Frank did more. He approached Field-Marshal Keitel with the request that he be allowed to rejoin the Armed Forces as lieutenant. That was in the year 1942. Hitler refused his consent to that one too. These facts allow of only one conclusion, namely that Hitler saw in the defendant Frank a man behind whose back he (with the help of Himmler and the organs of the Security Police and the SD) could carry out the measures he considered requisite for attaining the aims of his power policy.
My Lords: Himmler were about to abolish the last remnants of a state resting on law; when it became increasingly apparent that the power of the police know no bounds and that a police-state of the purest water was in process of development, the defendant Frank came forward and addressed four great speeches to the German public with a last appeal on behalf of the idea of a state resting on law. He did that when Hitler stood at the summit of his power, He addressed this appeal to the German public at a time when the German forces were marching on Stalingrad and into the Caucasus, when the German Panzer Armies in Africa stood at El Alamein barely 100 km from Alexandria. In the course of the evidence I read some extracts from these great speeches which the defendant Frank made in Berlin, Heidelberg, Vienna and Munich. Those Speeches contained a clear repudiation of every form of police-State and championed the idea of the State resting on law, of the independence of the judiciary and of law as such. These speeches found a tremendous echo among lawyers, but unfortunately not in wider circles. Nor in particular were they echoed by the men who alone would have possessed the power to ward off the threatening catastrophe.
The consequences of this attempt to avert the extinction of the idea of the state resting on law by a last great effort are well-known.
The defendant Frank was deprived of all his Party Offices, he was dismissed from his post as President of the Academy for German Law. The leadership of the National Socialist Lawyers Association was conferred on Reich Minister of Justice Thierack. Frank himself was forbidden by Hitler to speak in public. Although the defendant Frank again on this occasion sent in his resignation as Governor-General, Hitler refuse to accept it, as he had always dons before. The reason for this, as given in a letter from the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery to the defendant Frank, was that considerations of foreign policy had caused the Fuehrer again to refuse this latest request of Frank to be allowed to resign. According to everything that has emerged from the evidence in this trial it may be looked upon as certain that it was not only (and probably not even mainly) for such reasons that Hitler refused to accept Frank's resignation. policy not to let the security police and Reichfuehrer SS Himmler's other organs fulfil their appointed task openly, but rather to let them continue their work under cover while maintaining a general civil administration under the Governor-General. and Hitler and the state police system represented by Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler and the Higher SS and Police-Leader East on the other, could not fail to have repercussions on the position of the defendant in his capicity as GovernorGeneral, Still more than before the various Reich authorities now began to interfere in the administration of the Government-General. Above all however, it was quite clear from the summer of 1942 onwards that the Higher SS and PoliceLeader East, together with the organs of the Security Police and SD subordinated to him, took no more notice at all of any instructions issued by the GovernorGeneral and the general administration. receded more and more into the background. The State was transformed into an umaldulterated police-state, and developments took the inevitable course which the defendant Frank had foreseen and feared. The course which on November 19, 1941 he had outlined at a Congress of the principal sektion chiefs and Reich Group leaders of the National Socialist Lawyers Association in the following words:
"Law cannot be degraded to a position wh ere it becomes an object of bargaining. Law cannot be sold. It is either there or it is not there. Law cannot be marketed on the Stock Exchange. If the Law finds no support, then the State too loses its moral prop and sinks into the depths of night had horror." The President: We will begin again at 10 minutes past two.
(A recess was taken.)
(The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours, 11 July 1946.)
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pannenbecker.
DR. PANNENBECKER: Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Tribunal: The American prosecution has charged defendant Frick with criminal actions according to Article 6, items a, b, and c of the Charter. charter, with the series of penal cases contained therein, is to be considered as the authoritative criterion of the actual penal law which shall state, in a manner irrevocably binding for the Tribunal, those actions that are to be regarded as criminal, or whether Article 6 of the Charter concerns a rule of procedure defining the competence of this Tribunal for specific situations.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps it will be for the convenience of the interpreters if I say that we might, as it is now nearly half past two, sit without a break until four o'clock when we rest.
DR. PANNENBECKER: This latter concept has been implied in the prosecution's exposition of the case by Sir Hartley Shawcross' remark that Article 6 fills a gap in international penal procedure but that the actual penal law to be applied to the defendants has already been previously standardized by positive laws. Equally to the point is Part II of the Charter, beginning with Article 6 and entitled: "Competence and general principles", and it may be inferred therefrom that Article 6 purports to establish a ruling as to the competence of this Tribunal to engage a procedure for specific series of crimes.
Sir Hartley Shawcross' statements were directed against the objection that it is inadmissible and in contradiction with a basic legal principle, to punish someone for an act which had not yet been forbidden at the time of its perpetration; an objection which has as a basis the conception that the charter has created a new material penal law with retroactive effect. is so important a legal principle that it should not be infringed. I need not state to the Court the reasons for which this legal principle found general recognition in all civilized countries, as a presupposition and a basic precept of Justice. defendants with the fact that they themselves had continuously disregarded law and justice, and inferred from this that the defendants in this trial could not as far as they were concerned appeal to such a legal principle. I do not believe, however, that such an argument can be decisive in these legal proceedings. would not have been better to repay a person with the same coin and not give the defendants of this trial any possibility at all to defend themselves in an ordered legal procedure. However such an attitude, simply to apply the power of the victor on the defendants, haspurposely not been assumed by the signatory powers for reasons presented in detail by the prosecution. On the cont rary, Sir Hartly Shawcross has appended to the Tribunal to use in this procedure -- I quote -- "the undisputable basis of international custom." according to equal principles of law in reference to the question whether the deeds with which the defendant is incriminated are to be regarded as criminal action for which, according to the recognized basis of international custom, punishment is possible. On the basis of international principles of law, there should be no argument if the use of a fundamental law, as in the prohibition of a retroactive law, in its application is to be made dependent on whether or not the defendants concerned themselves with justice and injustice. The decision of the signatory powers, on the basis of considerations which have been seriously weighed to subject the conduct of the defendants to a judicial examination observing all principles of international custom, signifies not only the adherence to legal procedure equipped with all assurances for fair trial, but this decision by the signatory powers also signifies the observance of the fundamental principles of a materialistic guarantee of justice and to those principles belongs the prohibition of retroactive laws.
decreeing of the retroactive validity of penal laws, when so ordered by the National Socialist government for certain individual cases, aroused horror in the entire civilized world. Dr. Stahmer has already referred to these cases. At that time, the violation of such a principle of law was generally condemned as a deplorable retrogression in culture. taken by the occupation powers for delivery from National Socialist abuses of law, was to declare void any laws instituting retroactive application of the substantive penal code. argue that according to its caption, Article 6 of the Charter be regarded on agreement on the jurisdiction of this Tribunal, all the more so as the signatory powers have already and with so much emphasis gone on record for a strict and uniform reobservance of the prohibition against retroactive penal laws. the jurisdiction of this tribunal, it is up to the Tribunal, through its own decision ret only to determine whether the charges on which the indictment is based are substantiated, but also to rule on the legal question as to whether, for the facts established in each case by the prosecution, substantive criminal law provides a law which makes punishment possible. To revert in this way to provisions of substantive criminal law in existence at the time the act was committed does not mean it would be impossible for thie tribunal to call the accused to account for offenses which are punishable under all circumstances. There are, however, a number of restrictions resulting from this which in the opinion of the defense, however, it would be better to accept rather than to violate a principle so essential to a just procedure as is the prohibition against retroactivity in criminal laws.
inconsistent with the need for a just expiation for actual war crimes to interpret Article 6 according to its caption as an agreement on the jurisdiction of this court to try criminal cases bu not as a now kind of substantive criminal law. which has been pleaded ingreat detail by Dr. Stahmer, to such an extent that I can omit those pages and I shall turn now to page 7, beginning with my summary. responsible also for such acts of commission as exceed the measure of his participation in the common plans. The wording of the charter "in the execution of a common plan "does not contradict the interpretation that the charter establishes responsibility for acts of commission which remained within the scope of the plan discussed.
to an equal extent to a judicial precept, but beyond it would violate essential legal principles. actions of others are concerned and for which a defendant is supposed to be liable, the proof cannot be foregone that these actions, in the manner of their execution, have corresponded to the intention of the defendant.
To give an example:
"The participation of a defendant in rearmament against the regulations of the Versailles Treaty does not in itself justify the assumption that this defendant has also desired a war of aggression, which was later on planned by others, in the further shaping of the plan to mobilize the German people. Frick is accused and the first assertion of the Prosecution that the defendant participated in the planning and preparation of wars of aggression. With regard to the problem, as to whether a war of aggression is a criminal offense according to the concepts of law for the period in question, I refer, in order to avoid repetitions, to the statements of Professor Jahreis, with which, in the name of the defendant Frick, I completely agree. possibility of punishing cooperation in a war of aggression as a criminal offense that can be perpetrated by single persons, if, namely, in opposition to the statements of Sir Hartley Shawcross, the Charter is applied as a rule of substantive penal law, which has for the first time, formulated with retroactive effect that a war of aggression is a criminal offense by individual persons. Considering the other interpretation, which regards Article 6 of the Charter as a proecedural regulation on jurisdiction of this Court, the Defense holds that the deduction is cogent that the court is indeed declared competent to judge offenses against peace, but that so far a criminal guilt of the individual defendants is not proven, because one condition for this is lacking, namely, the possibility of establishing that the defendants have offended against a principle of generally valid international custom or national law which characterised the war of aggression at the time of their act and declared it punishable as a crime of which a single individual could be guilty.
For the statesmen during the period between the two world wars neglected to establish adequate measures of general validity, by which it would have been made clear that anyone who after the first awful slaughter of nations organized second world war would run about with a rope around his neck. international, law are necessary, are absolutely compelling, but the fact cannot be overlooked that such rules, however, were not created by statesmen at the right time. case, and replaced by an order of procedure or by the sentence of a court, whose task is to apply the general law, but not to create for a single special case. a participation by the defendant Frick in the planning and preparation of wars of aggression.
The Prosecution sees such an activity in Frick's earliest cooperation with the Party which he continued until the year 1933, in order to bring Hitler to power. of Frick after the taking over of the government by Hitler, when he worked to consolidate the power of the Party and its leaders through measures of domestic policy especially by his participation to the legal measures, by which an armed force (Wehrmacht) was created, against the stipulations of the Treaty of Versailles, and finally his collaboration in measures by which direct preparations were made in case of war. of the defendant in the preparation of a war of aggression is of penal importance, I shall now enter upon the question as to whether the Prosecution has proved that the defendant recognized this by collaboration in the advancement of the Party and its aims as a preparation for war, and wanted it to be so, and therefore deliberately helped to bring about war himself.