I shall show you, in discussing the conspiracy, that by any test ever put forward by any responsible authority, by all the canons of plain sense, these were unlawful wars of aggression in breach of treaties and in violation of assurances.
The third group of crimes was: "Warfare in Disregard of International Law.
It is unnecessary to labor this point on the facts. Goering asserts that the Rules of Land Warfare were obsolete, that no nation could fight a total war within their limits. (25) He testified that the Nazis would have denounced the Conventions to which Germany was a party, but that General Jodl wanted captured German soldiers to continue to benefit from their observance by the Allies. (26) Teutonic fury knew no bounds, in spite of a warning by Admiral Canaris that the treatment was in violation of International Law. (27) recite the revolting details of starving, beating, murdering, freezing, and mass extermination admittedly used against the eastern soldiery. Also, we may take as established or admitted that the lawless conduct such as shooting British and American airmen, mistreatment of Western prisoners of war, forcing French prisoners of war into German war work, and other deliberate violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, did occur, and in obedience to hightest levels of authority.(28) The fourth group of crimes is:
Enslavement and Plunder of Populations in Occupied Countries. Labor,(29) authority for the statement that "out of five million foreign workers who arrived in Germany, not even 200,000 came voluntarily." (30) It was officially reported to defendant Rosenberg that in his territory "recruiting methods were used which probably have their origin in the blackest period of the slave trade." (31) Sauckel himself reported that male and female agents went hunting for men, got them drunk, and "shanghaied" them to Germany. (32) These captives were shipped in trains without heat, food, or sanitary facilities.
The dead were thrown out at stations, and the newborn were thrown out the windows of moving trains. (33) Sauckel ordered that "all the men must be fed, sheltered and treated in such a way as to exploit them to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure". (34) About two million of those were employed directly in the manufacture of armaments and munitions.
(35) The director of the Krupp Locomotive factory in Essen complained to the company that Russian forced laborers were so underfed that they were too weakened to do their work,(36) and the Krupp doctor confirmed their pitiable condition, (37) Soviet workers were put in camps under Gestapo guards, who were allowed to punish disobedience by confinement in a concentration camp or by handing on the spot.(38) oppressed unmercifully. Terror was the order of the day. Civilians were arrested without charges, committed without counsel, executed with hearing. Villages were destroyed, the male inhabitants shot or sent to concentration camps, the women sent to forced labor, and the children scattered abroad.(39) The extent of the slaughter in Poland alone was indicated by Frank, who reported, and I quotes:
"If I wanted to have a poster put up for every seven Poles who were paper for such posters."
(40) ing them. Boastful reports show how thoroughly and scientifically the resources of occupied lands were sucked into the German war economy, inflicting shortage, hunger, and inflation upon the inhabitants. (41) Besides this grand plan to aid the German war effort there were the sordid activities of the Rosenberg Einsatzstab, whihc pillaged art treasures for Goering and his fellow-bandits. (42) It is hard to say whether the spectable of Germany's No. 2 leader urging his people to give up every comfort and strain every sinew on essential war work while he rushed around confiscating art by the trainload should be cast as tragedy or comedy.
In either case it was a crime. prevision and authority respecting the protection due civilians of an occupied country, (43) and the slave trade and plunder or occupied countries was at all times flagrantly unlawful.
And the fifth group of crimes is: Persecution and Extermination of Jews and Christians. persecution of the Jews, the most far-flung and terrible racial persecution of all time. Although the Nazi Party neither invented nor monopolized antiSemitism, its leaders from the very beginning embraced it, incited it, and exploited it. They used it as "the psychological spark that ignites the mob." After seizure of power, it became an official state policy. The persecution began in a seriies of discriminatory laws eliminating the Jews from the civil service, the professions, and economic life. As it became more intense it included segregation of Jews in ghettos, and exile. Riots were organized by party leaders to loot Jewish business places and to burn synagogues. Jewish property was confiscated and a collective fine of a billion marks was imposed upon German Jewry. The program progressed in fury and irresponsibility to the "final solution." This consisted of sending all Jews who were fit to work to concentration camps as slace laborers, and all who were not fit, which included children under 12 and people over 50, as well as any others judged ubfit by an SS doctor, to concentration camps for extermination. (44) mination program, has estimated that the anti-Jewish activities resulted in the killing of six million Jews. Of these, four million were killed in extermination institutions, and two million were killed by Einsatzgruppen, mobile units of the Security Police and SD which pursued Jews in the ghettos and in their homes and slaughtered them by gas wagons, by mass shooting in anti-tank ditches and by every device which Nazi ingenuity could conceive. So thorough and uncompromising was this program that the Jews of Europe as a race no longer exist, thus fulfilling the diabolic "prophecy" of Adolf Hitler at the beginning of the war.
(45) Christian Church. This was recognized from the very beginning. Defendant Bormann wrote all Gauleiters in 1941 that "National Socialism, and Christian concepts are irreconciliable," and that the people must be separated from the Churches and the influence of the Churches totally removed. (46) Defendant Rosenberg even wrote dreary treatises advocating a new and weird Nazi religion. (47) The Gestapo appointed "Church specialists" who were instructed that the ultimate aim was "destruction of the confessional Churches."
(48) The record is full of specific instances of the persecution of clergymen, (49) the confiscation of Church property, (50) interference with religious publications, (51) disruption of religious education, (52) and suppression of religious organizations. (53) concentration camp, sired by the defendant Goering and nurtured under the overall authority of defendants Frick and Kaltenbrunner. documents (54) and testified to by witnesses.(55) The Tribunal must be satiated with ghastly verbal and pictorial portrayals. From your records it is clear that the concentration camps were the first and worst weapon of Nazi oppression used by the National Socialist State, and that they were the primary means utilized for the persecution of the Christian Church and the extermination of the Jewish race. This has been admitted to you by some of the defendants from the witness stand. (56) In the words of defendant Frank:
"A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased."
(57) Their commission, which cannot be denied, stands admitted. The defendant Keitel, who is in a position to know the facts, has given the Tribunal what seems to be a fair summation of the case on the facts:
"The defendant has declared that he admits the contents of the point of view (that is to say, not every individual case) and trial.
It would be senseless, despite the possibility of shake the Indictment as a whole."
(58) were integrated in a common plan or conspiracy. crimes were not separate and independent phenomena but that all were committed pursuant to a common plan or conspiracy. The defense admits that these classes of crimes were committed but denies that they are connected one with another as parts of a single program. them all together, is the plot for aggressive war. The chief reason for international cognizance of these crimes lies in this fact. Have we established the plan or conspiracy to make aggressive war? First is the fact that such war of aggression did take place. Second, it is admitted that from the moment the Nazis came to power, everyone of them and every one of the defendants worked like beavers to prepare for some war. The question therefore comes to this; Were they preparing for the war which did occur, or were they preparing for some war which never has happened? It is probably true that in their early days none of them had in mind what month of what year war would begin, the exact dispute which would precipitate it, or whether its first impact would be Austria, Czechoslovakia, or Poland. But I submit that the defendants either know or were chargeable with knowledge that the war for which they were making ready would be a war a German aggression. This is partly because there was no real expectation that any power or combination of powers would attack Germany. But it is chiefly because the inherent nature of the German plans was such that they were certain sooner or or later to meet resistance and that they could then be accomplished only by aggression.
"Mein Kampf," of which over six million copies were published in Germany. He not only openly advocated overthrowing the Treaty of Versailles, but made demands which went far beyond a mere rectification of its alleged injustices. (59) He avowed an intention to attack neighboring states and seize their lands,(60) which he said would have to be won with "the power of a triumphant sword."(61) Here, for every German to hearken to, were the "ancestral voices prophesying war." Hitler, long before the seizure of power: quoting:
"I noted that Hitler had a definite view of the impotency of pro many should be freed of the Peace of Versailles.
*** We did not say we shall have to have a war and defeat our enemies; this was situation."
(62) When asked if this goal were to be accomplished by war if necessary.
Goering did not deny that eventuality but evaded a direct answer by saying, "We did not even debate about those things at that time." He went on to say that the aim to overthrow the Treaty of Versailles was open and notorious and that I quote again "every German in my opinion was for its modification, and there was no doubt that this was a strong inducement for joining the party." (63) Thus, there can be no possible excuse for any person who aided Hitler to get absolute power over the German people, or who took a part in his regime, to fail to know the nature of the demands he would make on Germany's neighbors. plement these aggressive intentions by preparing for war. They first enliste German industrialists in a secret rearmament program. Twenty days after the seizure of power Schacht was host to Hitler, Goering, and some twenty leading industrialists. Among them were Krupp von Bohlen of the great Krupp armament works and representatives of I.G. Farben and other Ruhr heavy industries. Hitler and Goering explained their program to the industrialists, who became so enthusiastic that they set about to raise three million Reichsmarks to strengthen and confirm the Nazi Party in power (64). Two months later Krupp was working to bring a reorganized association of German industry into agreement with the political aims of the Nazi government (65). Krupp later boasted of the success in keeping the German war industries secretly alive and in readiness despite the disarmament clauses of the Versailles Treaty, and recalled the industrialists' enthusiastic acceptance of "the great intentions of the Fuehrer in the rearmament period of 1933-1939." (66) the support of the industrialists, the Nazis moved to harness industrial labor to their aggressive plans. In April 1933 Hitler ordered Dr. Ley "to take over the trade unions", numbering- some 6 million members. By Party directive Ley seized the unions, their property and their funds. Union leaders, taken into "protective custody" by the SS and SA were put into concentration camps (67). The free labor unions were then replaced by a Nazi organization known as the German Labor Front, with Dr. Ley as its head.
It was expanded until it controlled over 23 million members(68). Collective bargaining was eliminated, the voice of la or could no longer be heard as to working conditions, and the labor contract was prescribed by "trustees of labor" appointed by Hitler. (69) The war purpose of this labor program was clearly acknowledged by Robert Ley five days after war broke out, when he declared in a speech that "We National Socialists have monopolized all resources and all our for the supreme effort of battle."
(70) of war. In April 1933 the Cabinet formed a Defense Council, the working committee of which met frequently thereafter. In the meeting of 23 May 1935 at which defendant Keitel presided, the members were instructed that "No document must be lost since otherwise the enemy propaganda would make use of it.
Matters communicated orally cannot be proven; they can be denied by us in Geneva."
(71) In January 1934, and, your Honors, dates, in this connection are important, with defendant Jodl present, the Council planned a mobilization calendar and mobilization order for some 240,000 industrial plants. Again it was agreed that nothing should be in writing so that "the military purpose may not be traceable." (72) On May 21, 1933 the top secret Reich Defense Law was enacted.
Defendant Schacht was appointed Plenipotentiary General for War Economy with the task of secretly preparing all economic forces for war and, in the event of mobilization, of financing the war. (73) Schacht's secret efforts were supplemented in October 1936 by the appointment of defendant Goering as Commissioner of the Four-Year Plan, with the duty of putting the entire economy in a state of readiness for war within four years. (74). credits necessary for extensive rearmament was also set on foot immediately upon seizure of power. In September of 1934, the Minister of Economics was already complaining that "The task of stockpiling is being hampered by the lack of foreign currency; the need for secrecy and camouflage also is a retarding influence."
(75) Foreign currency controls were at once established. (76) Financing was delegated to the wizard Schacht, who conjured up the MEFO bill to serve the dual objectives of tapping the short-term money market for rearmament purposes while concealing the amount of these expenditures. (77) at a meeting of the Council of Ministers, which included Schacht, on 27 May 1936, when he said, "All measures are to be considered from the standpoint of an assured waging of war."
(78) Most of the Generals, attracted by the prospect of rebuilding their armies, became willing accomplices. The hold-over Minister of War von Blomberg and the Chief of staff General von Fritsch, however, were not cordial to the increasingly belligernet policy of the Hitler regime, and by vicious and obscene plotting they were discredited and removed in January 1938. (79) Thereupon, Hitler assumed for himself Surpeme Command of the Armed Forces, and the positions of Blomberg said of Keitel, "a willing tool in Hitler's hands for every one of his decisions." (80) The Generals did not confine their participation to merely military matters. They participated in all major diplomatic and political maneuvers, such as the Obersalzburg meeting where Hitler, flanked by Keitel and other top Generals, issued his virtual ultimatum to Schischnigg. (81) definiteness as to time and victim. In a meeting which included the defendants Raeder, Goering, and von Neurath, Hitler stated the cynical objective:
"The question for Germany is where the greatest possible conquest could be made at the lowest possible cost."
He discussed various plans for the invasion of Austria and Czechoslovakia, indicating clearly that he was thinking of these territories not as ends in themselves, but as means for further conquest.
He pointed out that considerable military and political assistance could be afforded by possession of these lands and discussed the possibility of constituting from them new armies up to a strength of about 12 divisions. The aim he stated boldly and baldly as the acquisition of additional living space in Europe, and recognized that "The German question can be solved only by way of force." (82) Hitler, in a secret directive to Keitel, stated his "unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future." (83) On the same day, Jodl noted in his diary that the Fuehrer had stated his final decision to destroy Czechoslovakia soon and had initiated military preparations all along the line. (84) By April the plan had been perfected to attack Czechoslovakia "with lightning swift action as the result of an incident". (85) expansion on the assumption that it would result in a world-wide conflict. In September 1938 admiral Carls officially commented on a "Draft Study of Naval Warfare against England":
"There is full agreement with the main theme of the study.
"1. If according to the Fuehrer's decision Germany is to acquire a 2. Both requirements can only be fulfilled in opposition to Anglo French interests and will limit their positions as world powers.
It is unlikely that they can be achieved by peaceful means.
The deci 3. War against England meansat the same time war against the Empire of countries overseas; in fact, against one-half to one-third of the aim of conquering for Germany an outlet to the ocean."
(86) med world after the Anschluss, after Munich, after the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia, that German ambitions were realized and that Hitler had "no further territorial demands to make in Europe."
(87) The record of this trial shows that those promises were calculated deceptions and that those high in the bloody brotherhood of Nazidom knew it. that the possession of these territories would make possible an attack on Poland. (88) Ribbentrop's Ministry on August 26, 1938 was writing :
"After the liquidation of the Czechoslovakian question, it will be generally assumed that Poland will be next in turn". (89) Hitler, after the Polish invasion, boasted that it was the Austrian and Czechoslovakian triumphs by which "the basis for the action against Poland was laid."
(90) Goering suited the act to the purpose and gave immediate instructions to exploit for the further strengthening of the German's war potential, first of the Sudetenland, and then of the whole Protectorate. (91) Hitler confided to the defendants Goering, Raeder, Keitel, and others, his readiness "to attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity", even though he recognized that "further successes cannot be attained without the shedding of blood." The larcenous motives behind this decision he made plain in word that echoed the coverous theme of "Mein Kampf:"
"Circumstances must be adapted to aims. This is impossible without invasion of foreign states or attacks upon foreign property.
Living living space in the East.
.." (92) assurances of peaceful intentions the Nazis prepared not as before for a war but now for the war. The defendants Goering, Keitel, Raeder, Frick and Funk with others, met as the Reich defense Council in June of 1939. The minutes, authenticayed by Goering, are revealing evidences of the way in which each step of Nazi planning devetailed with every other.
These five key defendants, three months before the first panzer unit had knifed into Poland, were laying plans for employment of the population in wartime", and had gone so far as to classify industry for priority in labor supply after "five million servicemen had been called up". They decided upon measures to avoid "confusion when mobilization takes place," and declared a purpose "to again and maintain the lead in the decisive initial weeks of a war."
They then planned to use in production prisoners of war criminal prisoners, and concentration camp inmates. They tehn decided on "compulsory work for women in wartime." They had already passed on applications from 1,172,000 specialist workmen for classification as indispensable, and had approved 727,000 of them. They boasted that orders to workers to report for duty "are ready and tied up in bundles at the labor offices." And they resolved to increase the industrial manpower supply by bringing into Germany "hundreds of thousands of workers" from the Protectorate to be "housed together in hutments." (93) which disclose how the plan to start the war was coupled with the plan to wage the war through the use of illegal sources of labor to maintain production.
Hitler, in announcing his plan to attack Poland, had already foreshadowed the slave labor program as one of its corollaries when he cryptically pointed out to the defendants Goering, Raeder, Keitel, and others that the Polish population "will be available as a source of labor" (94). This was part of the plan made good by Frank, who, as Governor General notified Goering that he would supply "at least one million make and female agricultural and industrial workers to the Reich," (95) and by Saukel, whose impressments throughout occupied territory aggreagated numbers equal, to the total population of some of the smaller nations of Europe. centration camps, a manpower source that was increasingly used and with increasing cruelty. An agreement between Himmler and the Minister of Justice Thierack in 1942 provided for "the delivery of anti-social elements from the execution of their sentence to the Reichs Fuehrer SS to be worked to death", (96). An SS directive provided that bedridden prisoners be drafted for work to be performed in bed. (97) The Gestapo ordered 46,000 Jews arrested to increase the "recruitment of manpower into the concentration camps". (98) One hundred thousand Jews were brought from Hungary to augment the camps' manpower. (99) On the initiative of the defendant Doenitz, concentration camp labor was used in the construction of submarines. (100) Concentration camps were thus geared into war production on the one hand, and into the administration of justice and the political aims of the Nazis on the other. also grew with German needs. At a time when every German soldier was needed at the front and forces were not available at home, Russian prisoners-of-war were forced to man anti-aircraft guns against Allied planes. Field Marshal Milch reflected the Nazi merriment at this flagrant violation of International Law, saying:
"....This is an amusing thing, that the Russians must work the guns."
(101) The orders for the treatment of Soviet prisoners-of-war were so ruthless that Admiral Canaris, pointing out that they would ''result in arbitrary mistreatments and killing," protested to the OKW against them as breaches of International Law.
The reply of Keitel was unambigugous. He said:
"The objections arise from the military con ception of chivalrous warfare! This is the destruction of an ideology! Therefore, I approve and back the measures". (102). that Jodl objected because he would the benefits of Allied observance of it while it was hot being allowed to hamper the Germans in any way (103). ness as a means of insuring victory of German arms.
In October 1938, almost, a year before the start of the war, the large-scale violation of the established rules of warfare was contemplated as a policy, and the Supreme Command circulated a Most Secret list of devious explanations to be given by the Propaganda Minister in such cases (104). Even before this time commanders of the armed forces were instructed to employ any means of warfare so long as it facilitated victory (105). After the war was in progress the orders increased in savagery. A typical Keitel order, demanding the use of the "most brutal means", provided that:
"...It is the duty of the troops to use all success."
(106). the land forces. Reader ordered violations of the accepted rules of warfare wherever necessary to gain strategic successes. (107). Doenitz urged his submarine crews not to rescue survivors of torpedoed enemy ships in order to cripple merchant shipping of the Allied Nations by decimating their crews. (108).
Thus, the war crimes against Allied forces and the crimes against humanity committed in occupied territories are incontestably part of the program of making the war because, in the German calculations, they were indispensable to its hope of success.
secutions within Germany, fall into place around the plan for aggressive war like stones in a finely wrought mosaic. Nowhere is the whole catalogue of crimes of Nazi oppression and terrorism within Germany so well integrated with the crime of war as in that strange mixture of wind and wisdom which makes up the testimony of Hermann Goering. In describing the aims of the Nazi program before the seizure of power, Goering said:
"The first question was to achieve and establish tate (of Versailles), and not only a protest, actually be considered."
(109). With these purposes, Goering admitted that the plan was made to overthrow the Weimar Republic, to seize power, and to carry out the Nazi program by whatever means were necessary, whether legal or illegal. (110).
From Goering's cross-examination we learn how necessarily the whole program of crime followed. (111). Because they considered a strong state necessary to get rid of the Versailles Treaty, they adopted the fuehrerprinzip. Having seized power, the Nazis thought it necessary to protect it by abolishing parliamentary government, and suppressing all organized opposition from political parties. (112) This was reflected in the philosophy of Goering that the opera was more important than the Reichstag (113). Even the "opposition of each individual was not tolerated unless it was a matter of unimportance." To insure the suppression of opposition a secret political force was necessary. In order to eliminate incorrigible opponents, it was necessary to establish concentration camps and to resort to the device of protective custody. Protective custody, Goering testified, meant that:
"People were arrested and taken into State."
(114).
The same war purpose was dominant in the persecution of the Jews. In the beginning, fanaticism and political opportunism played a principle part, for anti-Semitism and its allied scapegoat, mythology, was a vehicle on which the Nazis rode to power. It was for this reason that the filthy Streicher and the blasphemous Rosenberg were welcomed at Party rallies and made leaders and officials of the State or Party. But the Nazis soon regarded the Jews as foremost amongst the opposition to the policestate with which they planned to put forward their plans of military aggression. Fear of their pacifism and their opposition to strident nationalism was given as the reason that the Jews had to be driven from the political and economic life of Germany. (115) Accordingly, they were transported like cattle to the concentration camps, where they were utilized as a source of forced labor for war purposes. anti-Jewish pogroms instigated by Goebbels and carried out by the Party Leadership Corps and the SA, the program for the elimination of Jews from the German economy was mapped out by Goering, Funk, Heydrich, Goebbels, and the other top Nazis. The measures adopted included confinement of the Jews in ghettos, cutting off their food supply, "aryanizing" their shops, and restricting their freedom of movement. (116) Sere another purpose behind the Jewish persecutions crept in, for it was the wholesale confiscation of their property which helped finance German rearmament. Although Schacht's plan to have foreign money ransom the entire race within Germany was not adopted, the Jews were stripped to the point where Goering was able to advise the Reich Defense Council that the critical situation of the Reich exchequer, due to rearmament, had been relieved "through the billion Reichsmark fine imposed on Jewry, and through profits accrued to the Reich in the aryanization of Jewish enterprises." (117) A glance over the dock will show that, despite quarrels among them-selves, each defendant played a part which fitted in with every other, and that all advanced the common plan.
It contradicts experience that men of such diverse backgrounds and talents should so forward each other's aims by coincidence. gangster. He stuck his pudgy finger in every pie. He used his SA musclemen to help bring the gang into power. In order to entrench that power he contrived to have the Reichstag burned, established the Gestapo, and created the concentration camps. He was equally adept at massacring opponenets and at framing scandals to get rid of stubborn generals. He huilt up the Luftwaffe and hurled it at his defenseless neighbors. He was among the foremost in harrying Jews out of the land. By mobilizing the total economic resources of Germany he made possible the waging of the war which he had taken a large part in planning. He was, next to Hitler, the man to tied the activities of all the defendants together in a common effort. and loss spectacular than that of the Reichsmarshal, were nevertheless integral and necessary contributions to the joint undertaking, without any one of which the success of the common enterprize would have been in jeopardy. There are many specific deeds of Which these men have been proven guilty. No purpose would be served -- nor indeed is time available -- to review all the crimes which the evidence has charged up to their names. Nevertheless, in viewing the conspiracy as a whole and as an operating mechanism, it may be well to recall briefly the outstanding services which each of the men in the dock rendered to the common cause.
THE PRESIDENT: Would that be a convenient time to adjourn?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Entirely, your Honor.
(A recess was taken).
the Party machinery, passing orders and propaganda down' to the Leadership Corps, supervising every aspect of Party activities, and maintaining the organization as a loyal and ready instrument of power. When apprehensions abroad threatened the success of the Nazi regime for conquest, it was the duplicitous Ribbentrop, the salesman of deception, who was detailed to pur wine on the troubled waters of suspicion by preaching the gospel of limited and peaceful intentions. Keitel, the weak and willing tool, delivered the armed forces, the instrument of aggression, over to the Party and directed then in executing its felonous designs. to stifle opposition and terrorize compliance, and buttressed the power of National Socialism on a foundation of guiltless corpses. It was Rosenberg, the intellectual high priest of the "master race", who provided the doctrine of hatred which gave the impetus for the annihilation of Jewry, and put his infidel theories into practice against the eastern occupied territories. His woolly philosophy also added boredom to the long list of Nazi atrocities. The fanatical Frank, who solidified Nazi control by establishing the new order of authority without law, so that the will of the Party was the only test of legality, proceeded to export his lawlessness to Poland, which he governed with the lash of Caesar and whose population he reduced to sorrowing remnants. Frick, the ruthless organizer, helped the Party to seize power, supervised the police agencies to insure that it stayed in power, and chained the economy of Bohemia and Moravia to the German war machine. racial libels which incited the populace to accept and assist the progressively savage operations of "race purification". As Minister of Economics Funk accelerated the pace of rearmament, and as Reichsbank president banked for the SS the gold teeth fillings of concentration camp victims -- probably the most ghoulish collateral in banking history. It was Schacht, the facade of starche respectability, who in the early days provided the window dressing, the bait fo: the hesitant, and whose wizardry later made it possible for Hitler to finance the colossal rearmament program, and to do it secretly.
Doenitz, Hitler's legatee of defeat, promoted the success of the Nazi aggressions by instructing his pack of submarine killers to conduct warfare at sea with the illegal ferocity of the jungle. Raeder, the political admiral, stealthily built up the German navy in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, and then put it to use in a series of aggressions which he had taken a leading part in planning. Von Schirach, poisoner of a generation, initiated the German youth in Nazi doctrine, trained then in legions, for service in the SS and Wehrmacht, and delivered then up to the Party as fanatic, unquestioning executors of its will. produced desperately needed manpower by driving foreign peoples into the land of bondage on a scale unknown even in the ancient days of tyranny in the kingdom of the Nile. Jodl, betrayer of the traditions of his profession, led the Wehrmacht in violating its own code of military honor in order to carry out the barbarous aims of Nazi policy. Von Papen, pious agent of an infidel regime, held the stirrup while Hitler vaulted into the saddle, lubricated the Austrian annexation, and devoted his diplomatic cunning to the service of Nazi objectives abroad. government of his own country only to make a present of it to Hitler, and then, moving north, brought terror and oppression to the Netherlands and pillaged its economy for the benefit of the German juggernaut. Von Neurath, the old-school diplomat, who cast the pearls of his experience before Nazis, guided Nazi diplomacy in the early years, soothed the fears of prospective victims, and as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, strengthened the German position for the coming attack on Poland. Speer, as minister of Armaments and Production, joined in planning and executing the program to dragoon prisoners of war and foreign workers into German war industries, which waxed in output while the laborers waned in starvation. Fritsche, radio propaganda chief, by manipulation of the truth goaded German public opinion into frenzied support of the regime and anesthetized the independent judgment of the population so that they did without question their masters' bidding. And Bormann, who has not accepted our invitation to this reunion, sat at the throttle of the vast and powerful engine of the Party, guiding it in the ruthless execution of Nazi policies, from the scourging of the Christian Church to the lynching of captive Allied airmen.
and talents, were joined with the efforts of other conspirators not now in the dock, who played still other essential roles. They blend together into one consistent and militant pattern animated by a common objective to reshape the map of Europe by force of arms. Some of those defendants were ardent members of the Nazi movement from its birth. Others, less fanatical, joined the common enterprise later, after success had made participation attractive by the promise of rewards. This group of latter-day converts remedied a crucial defect in the ranks of the original true believers, for as Dr. Seimers has pointed out in his summation:
"...There were no specialists among the National Socialists for the particular tasks.
Most of the National Socialist technical education."
(118) It was the fatal weakness of the early Nazi band that it lacked technical competence. It could not from among its own ranks make up a government capable of carrying out all the projects necessary to realize its aims. There lies the special crime and betrayal of men like Schacht and von Neurath, Speer and von Papen, Raeder and Doenitz, Keitel and Jodl. It is doubtful whether the Nazi master plan could have succeeded without their specialized intelligence which they so willingly put at its command.(119) They did so with knowledge of its announced aims and methods, and continued their services after practice had confirmed the direction in which they were tending. Their superiority to the average run of Nazi mediocrity is not their excuse. It is their condemnation. record of this trial is that the central crime of the whole group of Nazi crimes -- the attack on the peace of the world -- was clearly and deliberately planned. The beginning of these wars of aggression was not an unprepared and spontaneous springing to arms by a population excited by some current indignation. A week before the invasion of Poland Hitler told his military commanders: