against Jodl only in two cases:
1.) If he had permitted the warfare to take place in a disorderly and "chaotic" manner, as one witness has asserted, or
2.) if he had issued battle directions, but if these had been contrary to international law.
But neither of the two is the case; Jodl was not personally responsible for this matter, but he had to take some interest in the partisan activity when it reached an extent which was beginning to interfere with the military operations. He issued a directive in 1942, a bandit order, which was replaced by a second one in 1944. It is therefore out of the question that no rules existed for the combatting of partisans.
Not can Jodl be reproached on the second point. Although Hitler wished to have a type of warfare waged against these dangerous opponents which had no consideration for ethics and internation law, Jodl -- without his knowledge -- issued a pamphlet about the combatting of partisans which cannot be attacked legally. He went as far as to have partisans in civilian clothing treated as prisoners of war, and to permit the burning down of villages to be carried out only on the orders of a divisional commander; this was intended to, and could prevent violations of Article 50 of the Hague Convention for Land Warfare (RF 665, Document book 11, Jo 44.). theless degenerated badly. It is not a matter for the Chief of the Operational Staff of the Armed Forces to supervise the observance of his directions in four theatres of war.
c.) Burning down of houses in Norway (PS 754) ordered the destruction of Norwegian villages. This accusation refers to the teleprint of 28-10-1944 to the High Command of the 20th Mountain Army.
The Prosecution have a false idea of the role which fell to Jodl's lot he The military position was then as follows:
the Germans were retreating to the not yet completed Lyngen line. And there was a danger thatthe Red Army would continue to follow up during the winter and would destroy the much weaker German units, if, whilst advancing along the Reich road #50, the only one that could be used at this time of the year, they found the homes and the population with their local knowledge available. Without these billets and the support from the population., the Russian advance was impossible. The evacuation of the population and the destruction of the houses would exercise the danger and, over and above this, it would make partisan warfare against the German troops impossible. But the evacuation of the population was also necessary in the interests of the population itself. that of the Reich Commissar for the occupied Norwegian territories--the decre which Jodl reported, by order, to the High Command of the 20th Mountain Army through the proper channels with all Hitler's military and ethical considerati One can really hear Hitler's radical way of speaking. General Rendulic, that the mountain troops did not need such a far-reaching order military and therefore did not want it, was against this order and-- wh he could not prevent it--sought for a solution which in practice led to the correct result. He wanted the order to be carried out by the troops only in so far as was absolutely essential military and in accordance with what was permissable under the Hague Convention for Land Warfare (Art. 23 g). He knew that his brother who was in command in the North, thought exactly like him; he knew the soldierly spirit of the mountain troops in general, and he knew in this particular case in advance that this order went too far for the troops so that it should be understood correctly by everyone right from the start, in the introduction to the teleprint he not only explained clearly that it was a "Fuehrer order"--the second paragraph expressly uses these words--but he let the soldiers know that the Fuehrer had issued this order on the suggestion of the Reich Commissar, and not on the suggestion of the military. Then they knew, and they acted accordingly. No military unjustified demolitions occurred. Thus, among others, the 3 towns of Kirkenes, Hammerfest and Alta were not destroyed.
According to the literal application of the order, they had to be destroyed. d.) Deportation of the Jews from Denmark (UK 56): Jews from Denmark. The Prosecution bases this accusation on a teleprint which Jodl sent "by order" (I.A.) to the Commander of the German troops in Denmark. It is particularly difficult to understand this accusation by the Prosecution; for the different documents submitted by the Prosecution unequivocally prove that the deportation of the Jews from Denmark was decided upon by Hitler on a suggestion from Dr. Best, therefore on a suggestion from the civil authorities and against the objections for the Commander of the German troops, and that this task was assigned to the Reichsfuehrer SS. The OKW was concerned with the whole affair only because at that time the military state of emergency existed in Denmark, so that the Commander of the German troops, as the highest executive authority in the country, had to be informed by his superior authority of the action ordered by Hitler and assigned to Himmler, in order to prevent friction between the German authorities in Denmark. of the discussions between Hitler, the Foreign Office and Himmler, in a teleprint from the German commander. Jodl had only one wish -- to keep the Armed Forces out of this affair. His temperamental remark on General von Hanneken's teleprint of the 3 October 1943 (D 647)-- also a matter of complete indifference to us" (namely: whether the Reichsfuehrer SS publishes the figure of the Jews arrested or not) --shows only too will this has nothing at all to do with ethical considerations, either positively or negatively.
The whole thing had nothing to do with the armed forces. But difficulties could arise as a result of Himmler's action, as the armed forces were after all responsible for quiet and order in Denmark. The armed forces could not alter the decision taken by Hitler in this police matter, and could not have altered it even if they had been competent for this question. Hitler had taken in the field of the police. And the Reichsfuehrer SS, the Foreign Office, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Reserve Army were simultaneously informed by Jodl that he had let the Commander in Denmark know, Now there was a clear line, and friction between German offices was excluded. And the OKW had only to see to this.
the execution of the order, which Hitler had decided on apart from the Wehrmacht, easier. It is clear to anyone who knows even a little about Hitler's position of power that friction between German offices would in no way have prevented the thing being carried out, but would it must only have delayed it, and would certainly not have made it pleasanter for the persons affected. which I always find cited in foreign decisions too, that "actus no facit reum nisi mens sit rea". Two things go to made a crime; the "actus", the objective side of the crime, the deed, and the "mens rea", the subjective side, the guilt. there; in some cases it stresses the "mens rea" and fails to see that the criminal "actus" is lacking: I have shown this in the case of the above-mentioned marginal comments, which do not represent any illegal actions, but at must could allow one to infer an illegal frame of mind. In other cases the prosecution looks only at the "actus", but does not ask whether a "mens rea" is also present. This second mistake is more dangerous, as here the outside of the crime is visible to everyone and it is often only a delicate psychological examination that comes to the conclusion that there is no "mens rea" which corresponds to the "actus". We will come to speak of this further on. criminal by the Charter. This behavior can consist of positive action or of omission. If a father sees his child drowning while bathing and does nothing to save it although he could have done so, we declare him guilty either of murder or of killing by negligence, according to the degree of his guilt. This commission of a crime by omission is important in this trail too, for the Prosecution repeatedly stresses that Jodl was present at this or that meeting, at this or that speech. On one single page of the Anglo-American trail brief the sentence "Jodl was present at" occurs 6 times. What does this mean legally?
Being present at and listening to things can be of great importance for the evaluation of a later deed, for the doer cannot excuse himself by saying "I didn't know" if he participated in the discussion of a plan. But mere presence does not in itself make one co-guilty. According to British law, even presence actually when a crime is committed makes one coguilty only if encouragement is added. The same applied in German law. But where such does not come into the question, to lay stress on a person's presence when a criminal intention was discussed can only be a reproach that he knew about and tolerated it. Not only in this court. The whole German people are reproached with having tolerated a criminal regime and the annihilation of millions of Jews, Undoubtedly a crime can also be committed by tolerating things. But to make it a serious criminal indictment, e.g. one for intentional killing, two prerequisites must be fulfilled: 1) the subjective side, he must have known that the victim would meet his death if he did not intervene; 2) he must have been, in duty bound, and able, to prevent this death.
Mr. President, would this not be a convenient time to adjourn?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours.)
(The Tribunal reconvened at 1400 hours.)
THE MARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, the defendant Hess is absent.
DR. EXNER: We were dealing with crimes committed because such crimes were tolerated. As far as Jodl is concerned, the following applies: What an officer or official is legally bound to do or prevent depends on the regulations governing competence, and we knew how strictly Hitler insisted on their being adhered to, how sharply he managed to divide up the political and military leadership and the military and the SS in their spheres of tasks. This was indeed the reason why Jodl took every opportunity to oppose the plan for extending the SS, for one thing was clear: once something had become the sphere of the SS, the armed forces had lot the right to have any say in it. It does not therefore mean much, for instance, that Jodl was present at a discussion between Hitler and Dr. Best, at which one of the things discussed was terrorism in Denmark and the way to fight it (RF 90). The mention of so-called "counter-murders", if such were really discussed, was not heard by Jodl (he was not present at parts of the session). His presence at this session does not mean much if only because the whole matter concerned occupied territory and did not concern the chief of the Operational Staff of the armed forces, who was brought into this meeting because of other things which were discussed at it. So even if Jodl had heard more drastic things at that time than he actually did, any interference would have been out of the question and would have been rejected at once. existed of preventing the crime. In the case of Jodl, only orders by the Fuehrer come into the question primarily; these orders he should -- as peopl say -- have prevented. But enough has already been said here about how thin stood with regard to influence on Hitler's decisions. As long as his decision had not yet been made, arguments could, under favourable circumstances, still impress him; but once his decision was made, it was irreversible. Any contrary opinion is simply based on ignorance of the fact In course of time Jodl did actually develop other methods for influencing decisions of the Fuehrer, or at least for influencing their practical effects.
He used delaying tactics; either he waited so as to let the matter be forgotten if possible, or else he made difficulties and raised objections, the type of counter-arguments having actually to be adapted to Hitler's way of thinking -- the order regarding Commissars is a case in point -- or he sent for opinions from various departments in order to gain time. This is the case of low-flying airmen. If the order had to be published, he often inserted into it on whose application the order had been issued, in order to show the Commanders in Chief that he did not identify himself with this matter such as in the case of the Norwegian villages. Or he tried to influence the practical application by not objection to behaviour contrary to the order, su as in the case of the Commando order, etc. But if one thinks that he could simply have refused to draft an unethical order, one has only to look at the Commando order, where this method had exactly the opposite effect to what was intended.
I now come to the second part of the Latin saying I quoted: "The deed * itself is no crime, "nisi sit mens rea". difficult and the most important in a modern criminal trial .
"No guilt, no punishment": this principle has been accepted in all civilized states since the Renaissance, even though different views as to the nature of guilt may exist in some places. view and that of the Continent, e.*. of Germany. It is important when jud i some cases. when discussing the aggressive wars. If one wishes to make Jodl, the General Staff Officer, responsible for waging those wars at all, it is at any rate of decisive importance how he viewed the whole state of affairs. If he believed on the basis of the reports he received, that facts existed which -- if they were true -- justified the waging of war, Jodl can not be reproached with havi knowingly waged a wrongful war. This applies even if his assumption rested mistakes. Such mistakes exclude design. In a decision, Regina v. Tolson, is stated:
"at common law a reasonable belief in the existence of circumstances which, if true, would make the act for which a prisoner is indicted an innocent act has always been held to be a good defense". In another decision Regina v. Prince it is stated: It seems to me to follow that the maxim as to "mens rea" applies whenever the facts which are present to the prisoner's min* and which he has reasonable ground to believe, and does believe to be the fac would, if true, make his acts no criminal offence at all." In a third case, Commonwealth v. Pressby in an American sentence, a good example is given: a sentry shoots at his commanding officer who is approaching him, in the belief that he is an enemy. This last example is closely related to the wars of aggression which are to be judged here.
However, one finds the noteworthy principle: "If,however, there is a doubt as to a question of law, a person cannot be convicted and subjected to imprisonment if he has merely acted on a mistaken view as to the law." Naturally a mistake about preliminary questions in civil law can also exclude criminal intention: "If a person takes what he believes to be his own, it is impossible to say that he is guilty of felony." This rule could also be significant in our field too for mistakes regarding the regulations of international law. law for in German law any mistake, even if resulting from negligence, excludes intention. In British law this seems to apply only to "reasonable" mistakes "Unaccompanied by negligence." If that sentry had shot too soon without sufficient investigation, he would, under German law indisputably only have to be sentenced for killing by negligence. In England and America, if I understand it correctly, this careless mistake would not be taken into consideration at all, and this soldier would have to expect a sentence of intentional killing. But this difference in the conceptions of law should not play any part in our case. For one can hardly reproach Jodl with having come to his conception of the situatuation on the basis of a hurried and careless examination of his reports. to omit paragraph one on page 110. Starting with the second paragraph, I shall continue. again agree. Every serious crime must be deliberate, thorugh, for deliberate ness, one need not have the consciousness of doing something criminal, but one must be aware that it is not right to act in this manner. To constitute a criminal act there must, as a general rule, be acriminal intent. The general doctrine is stated in Hales Pleas of the Crown, that "where there is no will to commit an offense, there can be notransgression." must know that he is acting in direct contravention of the law, or whether it is sufficient for him to know that he is in general committing something contrary to his duty. And the prevailing opinion which has also been taken over by the plan of our German Criminal Code states:
"The perpetrator must be conscious of acting against the law, or of acting wrongly in some other way, in a natural sense." I was greatly interested to find the same idea, expressed in almost the same words, in a British decision of Green v. Tolson "it must at least be the intention to do something wrong. That intention may belong to one or other of two classes. It may be to do a thing wrong in itself and apart from positive law, or it may be to do a thing merely prohibited by statute or by common law, or both elements of intention may coexist with respect to some deed." Thus, according to British law, knowledge of not being allowed to act thus is one of the constitutents of intent: "There is a presumption that 'men's rea', an evil intention or a knowledge of the wrongfulness of the act, is an essential ingredient in every offense." This decision quotes some exceptions to this principle, which do not interest us here. They concern Bigamy and seduction, where positive definition of the statute intervene, as well as certain offenses against public order, etc.
Our question now is: Was Jodl aware of wrongdoing during the preparation and passing on of the various plans and orders of which he is accused of today? According to my innermost conviction: No. question: why if he had a clear conscience was he in some cases so intent on observing strict secrecy? There is an answer to this: in military question there are the most manifold reasons for not allowing certain things to become known. This was so before the war and all the more so during the war, and even now, after the war, deep secrecy shrouds the atom bomb to quote an example. This kind of observance of secrecy need not be connected with a guilty conscience. And if Jodl says he hed arranged that one of the two Commando orders should -- irrespective of other reasons bekept secret because of its repulsive final regulation, he did so, presumably, for the sake of the honour of the German Wehrmacht, and truly not because he thought that he himself was doing something wrong by passing on the order, an order which he had after all not drafted himself and for which as he was convinced, he was not responsible.
This last fact must be stressed. It is of general importance. In all Jodl's military preparatory work, whether he was making plans for wars, or drafts of decrees or memoranda, the point is not only whether he knew or suspected that this war or that decree were contrary to law, but it is decisive whether he knew that by his co-operation, by his actions he was doing something wrong. That Jodl did not have a bad conscience clearly follows; it seems to me, from the fact that before his capture, he had 3 weeks time in which to burn most of these documents, but did not do so, because he was quite convinced that he had nothing to conceal.
When drawing up this order, he was not conscious of wrong-doing. He could not be if only for two reasons: partly because he left himself bound by the Fuehrer's orders, partly because - regardless of any concrete orderhe was convinced that in his position as Chief of the Operational Staff of the Armed Forces he was in duty bound to act in this way.
Let us look into this more closely: About the order and its legal meaning I will not speak any further. One point, however, appears to me to be in need of elucidation. Mr. Jackson quoted paragraph 47 of the German Military Penal Code to prove that, accordoing to German law, an order by a superior officer does not excuse the subordinate. British-American law is used, whereas, in the case of this order, German law is drawn on -- in each case according to which ever is the less favourable to the defendant. I do not know, however, whether Mr. Jackson would have referred to para.47 of the Military Penal Code, if had he known how it was interpreted by the Supreme Military Courts and what was therefore the real legal position in Germany. 47 there stands the principle: "Should, by the execution of an order on official business a criminal law be infringed, the superior officer issuing the order is alone responsible." And now comes the exception which practice has cut down to the absolute minimum for the sake of maintaining military discipline. It is based on the point of view that a subordinate is subject to punishment as a participant only if the order was not binding on him because, for instance, owing to its nature it did not come within the framework of Wehrmacht tasks and, if the subordinate was aware that the action ordered had a crime or an offense as its aim, the offense must thus be directly intended by the person issuing the order and the subordinate must be certain of this.
That he could and should have realized this is not sufficient. And, even if the subordinate is responsible, in case of slight guilt punishment may be waived. courts, havelimited its validity, in order to cover the obedient soldier as much as possible. Actually, a punishment of cases in this kind occurred very rarely. Jodl does not remember a single case in his 30 years of service.
I must insert something here, since a few days ago Mr. Jackson presented a document subsequently, which concerns this problem (PS-3881). These are statements which Dr. Freisler, made as President of the People's Court, during the trial of those who took part in the attempt of the 20 July 1944. Freisler was always considered in Germany as a caricature of the judge. His unworthy shouts in that murder trail were produced here before us by the prosecutors a few months ago in a sound film. This legal expert, so far as thesense of his remarks, torn from the general context, is recognizable meant: When an officer ordered a subordinate to give assistance in murdering Hitler, this order did not justify the one who obeyed.
In order to establish this, Freisler's "authority" was not required in any case. If ever a military order was issued which went outside the competence of the Wehrmacht and was therefore not binding, and did not therefore serve as an excuse, it was the order to murder the head of this very Wehrmacht. But how an order by some officer or other to murder the head of the State can be compared with the order of the Head of the State to commit an act contrary to international law, is incomprehensible, to me.
I am not, however, dwelling further on this idea. No understanding of Jodl's position can be achieved and no correct judgement of his actions formed if we do not look at the two men who faced each other here.
The prosecution have made it easy for themselves. Were Hitler still alive, he, as the head of the major war criminals would sit in the first place on the defendant's bench and would be considered as the base and source of all terrible events.
Now that he is dead, his person is minimised when judging the other defendants, and their conduct is treated almost as if he had never existed at all.
This man of force, this infernal power, as Jodl called him, cannot be passed ever as a negligeable quantity when the question is to do justice to the commissions and omissions of his immediate entourage. During these months, I have again and again had to think of the connection between genius, madness and crime which was once shown by the perspicacious Cesaer Lembroso. In history it is success that has the last word on the worth and worthlessness of men. That is why the judgment of history on Hitler will perhaps be a crushing one. But one must not forget his beginnings when Germany's position at about the end of 1932 is compared with that at the end of 1938, one is not surprised at the incomparable prestige which he had at the very time when Jodl came into close contact with him.
Jodl now stood opposite this man. Jodl, an honest soldier, extraordinarily gifted, but never striving for anything else but to be a conscientious soldier, with a prosaically realistic mind, ill-disposed towards all diplomacy, all political machinations, grown up in accordance with the ideals of the German officer corps bravery, faithfulness, obedience - trained according to the 100 year old tradition of the German General Staff, which know only fulfilment of duty, selfless work and more work.
That this man, who was working at Adolf Hitler's side, was bound to come under his influence is self - evident. One must consider - the time at which this took place. A relation of confidence could not grow out of it, of course, but Jodl was also not the man to submit without opposition. There were enough clashe and explosions. Jodl was regarded as the man who dared to oppose the Fuehrer more than anybody else. He could, as Kesselring reported, oppose him with a sharpness which at times reached the limits of what is militarily permissible. obedience which can make us appreciate fully Jodl's behaviour during these years.
fulfilment of duty: complete devotion to what had been allotted to him as his task at a critical time. One should realize and appreciate the situation in which Jodl found himself. His country battle for existence, the demands of the war which was continually becoming more horrible, and at the same time the view of his Supreme Commander-in-Chief which deviated from all tradition about what was permissible and not permissible in a war. It becomes quite clear that Jodl was bound to come into conflicts, int conflicts with Hitler and into conflicts with himself.
Permit me to make a comparison: You, Your Honours, feel yourselves bound by the Charter of this Tribunal, as you have already informed ut. Perhaps some of you have been assailed by doubts as to whether all the conditions of this Charter conformed to the international law at present valid and to be generally recognized legal principles. But you have rejected such doubts, since you, as judges, consider yourselves bound by the rules which your four governments have agreed upon. felt himself bound, in a similar way, to assist in the orders of his supreme Commander-in-Chief even if doubts regarding their admissibility in international law may have assailed him here and there. But he considered himself bound by his office to draw up plans for war without examining whether and under what conditions they were carried out; he had to formulate and issue thousands of orders, even if he disagreed on some of them. Where neither remonstrances nor delaying,tactics had any effect, he had to submit. As a General Staff officer he had a purely assistant function. That he might be doing wrong while fulfilling this function according to the best of his knowledge and conscience never even occurre to him.
It is said now: Jodl should not have taken any part in this or that affair under any circumstances. What should he have done?
that one must be in a position to state what action would have been right in that situation.
This would of course have been an easy way out. It could be taken in peace time, but in war time it was quite different. to the front but in vain. Applications for resignation were altogether futile unless they were desired by the Fuehrer, as in the case of v. Brauchitsch and v. Loeb. In war time, he strictly forbade his generals to apply to resign. That was desertion, he said. The private in the front line could nit resign when he fou things were unpleasant. The general also had to remain at the post where he was put. In 1944 this order was repeated in writin with all possible emphasis and reasons were given. If a general wanted to quit for reasons of conscience, he was to know that the Fuehrer himself bore full and sole responsibility for his orders and that the generals' sole duty was to be responsible for their strict execution. Resignations on such grounds were not soldierlike and were criminal. Therefore, Jodl could not resign.
Should he perhaps have faked an illness? This also is desertion and, in wartime, a crime punishable by death. Is it possble seriously to expect an officer brought up in the good old traditions to betray his country in time of need like a coward his country, to which he had devoted all his life, the effect of which would be that he would no longer be able to look any new recruit in the face. I do not believe so.
There was therefore only the third solution: Murder and revolution. In peace time this world at the same time have meant civi war, in wartime the immediate collapse of the front and the end of the Reich. Was he then supposed to cry: "Fiat Justia percat patr an attitude was to be demanded from the defendants. An astonishin idea: Whether murder and treason can ever be justified ethically had better be left to moralists and theologians to dispute ever.
For lawyers, at any rate, something like that cannot be a subject for discussion. To be obliged on pain of punishment to murder the head of the State? And, what is more, as a solider? And in war-time? People who commit such crimes have always been punished but to punish them for not doing so would be something new. too, but in dilemnas which offer only this kind of solution, the old saying applies: Ultra posse nemo obligatur.
Jodl was no rebel. His conscience told him: The Fatherland is a need. Everybody at his post: Jodl's place was at the head of the operational staff of the armed forces. He did not got this post voluntarily, he did not keep it voluntarily. It was a hard duty. He fulfilled the task which this post imposed on him according to the best of his ability and conscience - unto the bitter end. Your Honours; which throws mere light on Jodl's personality. his uncle, the philosopher Friedrich Jodl, in Vienna. There I had a conversation with him on education for a career as an officer. What the young captain said about it was of such moral earnestness and so far from anything that could be called militarism that I have always retained it in my memory. I had no more contact with him of any sort until last autumn when I received the surprising summons to defend him here. My first thought was: "This gallant soldier must be helped." But I doubted whether I should undertake this, since I am not a professional attorney. Still, when I met him in the court building for the first time, he said something to me which scattered all doubts: "Rest assured, professor", he said "if I felt a spark of guilt in me, I would not chose you as my defense counsel." speaks thus. I ask that the Colonel General Alfred Jodl be acquitted
THE PRESIDENT: I call on Dr. Steinbauer for the defendant SeyssInquart.
DR. STEINBAUER: Mr. President, members of the Tribunal: German nation but also to the world one of its most deeply significant painters, Albrecht Duerer, an unsurpassed sculptor, Veit Stoss, and the mastersinger Hans Sachs, has, on her ruins, become the stage for the greatest criminal trials which legal history knows. Nuernberg has seen within her walls not only the pomp of the old emperors, but the rallies of the NSDAP also took place there, year after year, as a part of that propaganda machine which understood how to put into motion millions of people by a gigantic, but also diabolical stage management, with flags and standards, drums and fanfares under the slogan of German equality rights in order finally, in the extravagance of its aims, to lead a nation which has given humanity so much that is good and beautiful to the verge of ruin. way that some men had conspired to conquer the peaceful world by the waging of wars of aggression. It was said that the waging of these wars not only violated the treaties which were supposed to prevent war, but furthermore the rules for a humane conduct of the war, and had also trodden under foot the basic rights of humanity in the most contemptible way. Justice Jackson's passionate opening speech will go down into the history of this world trial like the speech of a Cicere against the conspirator Catalina. We saw for months, how mountains of documents and a long chain of witnesses were supposed to confirm the Indictment, and, on the other hand, how the Defense as keeper and servant of the law was striving to help the Tribunal discover the truth. But in the gallery the representatives from all parts of the world were seated, and only too often the whole world hold its breath, when there was a break in the dark fog banks and again and again made a glimpse into the depths of unsuspected crimes possible. But outside, before the gates of the Courthouse, stand the deeply moved German people, among whose former leaders the defendants after all belong. But regardless of how the trials will end, the Defense must be given credit for one thing, namely that, with regard to the question of the guilt of the German people, one will neveragain be able to talk about complicity or collective guilt, perhaps rather about collective disgrace, because they were German men, under whose leadership crimes of the most horrible kind were committed.
The curtain now rises once more on the final act of this world tragedy, in order to lend an eara gain to the Defense, and then to pronounce a sentence which must not only correspond to fundamental legal principles but also ensure that crimes, such as the Prosecution describes, will forever be avoided. stated that these trials are of great importance for millions of people in the whole world. For this reason, he said, everybody participating in them has the solemn responsibility of fulfilling his duty without fear and without favor for anybody, and according to the principles of law and justice. not because of the extent of the material for the trials, not because of the abundance of legal questions which often were of a completely new kind, but because things were revealed here which are so monstrous and abysmally degraded that a normal brain will not even believe the possibility of such happenings. In so saying, I am not thinking of the prepared human skin, of the pieces of soap made out of human fat which were shown to us; I am not thinking of the systematic way in which millions of innocent people were tormented, tortured, slain, hanged or gassed. No, I am thinking of the many touching individual pictures which have made the deepest impression on me personally and probably also on every else. Once more, I shall continue on page 4.
Auschwitz alone was devoured 3 1/2 million people, men, women, and children. That is really the most terrible weapon of the Indictment, that the spirits of all these innocent victims stand beside the prosecutor, admonishing and demanding revenge. But I do not stand alone, either. The many innocent war victims on the German side, women and children who have fallen victim to the terror attacks which violated international law, in Freiburg, in Cologne, in Dresden, in Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna, and in almost all other German cities, step by my side. My comrades from the Wehrmacht who, as honest and decent soldiers, have sacrificed their lives for the fatherland by the hundred thousand young and old, faithful to their oath of allegiance stand by my side.
Judges, then it is even more my sworn duty as lawyer to stand helpfully by his side and to be his shield and defense, and considering the abundance of the indicting material, to call to you, honorable judges: "Do not Judge in wrath, but rather search, like our Austrian poet Wildgans who was a Judge himself, has written in the album of a young Judge: "It is the flower (Edelreis) which blooms under thorns." like to sketch a short picture of the personality of the defendant. Schiller' words in Wallenstein, the drama, apply to him, too: "Distorted by the hate and favor of the parties, his character portrait wavers in history." calculating, political opportunist who had a mission before his eyes. It is more than obvious that he misused his position as Minister, in order to deliver Austria to the conspirators by his double dealing. He has committed atrocitie in Poland and in the Netherlands, in cold blood, and has trampled upon the rights of small nations to religious and political freedom of thought, unconcerned by constitutional obligations.
George S. Messersmith judges similarly in 1760-PS when he says that Dr. Seyss-Inquart, with whom he himself had little personal contact (the defendant denies ever having met Messersmith) had been completely insincere towards his friend, Chancellor Schuschingg, according to reliable information h (Messersmith) received. The statement that Schuschnigg and Seyss-Inquart were friendly is moreover incorrect. Messersmith had left Vienna in the spring of 1937. As all witnesses testify Dr. Schuschingg had at that time only just become acquainted with Syess-Inquart. But Messersmith added literally, that there is only one thing which may be said in favor of SeyssInquart at that time, namely that he may have believed the German protestations which were made to him, namely that Austrian independence would be respected. this is also easy to explain. His immediate home is the old mining town of Iglau, a German language enclave in the Slavonic sea.