(Tr. p. 5828).
"...Towards the further strengthening of power, those laws were established which.
..did away with the so called freedoms.
.." (Tr. p. 5829). See also Tr. p.
6049, 6051. Frick accurately predicted the Nazi method to an opposing member of the Reichstag in 1932, "Don't guys into concentration camps."
(Affidavit of Gebhart
H. Seger, L-83, USA-234). 113. English transcript, p. 6064. 114. English transcript, p. 6054. 115. English transcript, p. 5860. 116. Stenographic report of the meeting on The Jewish Goering, 12 November 1938, (1816-PS, USA-261, Tr. p.1440). 117.
Memorandum, 19 November 1938, concerning meeting of Reich Defense Council (3575-PS, USA-781, Tr. p. 6406, 6157). See also Tr. p. 5846.
For similar reasons of their property (1816-PS). 118.
English transcript, p. 13706. 119. Other factors were not overlooked. One of the reasons for von Neurath's selection as Foreign Minister at connections abroad.
(Tr. p. 6024). 120. Hitler's speech to Commanders-in-Chief, 22 August 1939 (1014-PS, USA-30, Tr. p. 377). 121.
Affidavit of Alfred Helmut Naujocks, 20 November 1945 (2751-PS, USA-482, Tr. p. 1907). Likewise, Jodl noted 26 July LJG 10-5e excuse for the operation ( 1809-PS, GB-88, Tr. p. 1088, 2403). 122.
Case Green with wider implications, report of Intel 1938.
(375-PS, USA-84, Tr. p. 752).
Footnote 123 Minutes of conference, 23 May 1939, "Indoctrination on the political situation and future aims."
(L-79, USA-27, Tr. pp.
399, 408, 930). 124 Goering has accepted responsibility for the Nurnberg Laws, which he signed (Tr.p. 5871), for the Austrian Anschluss (Tr.p. 5895), (Tr.p. 6219). Von Schirach had admitted responsibility for the training of the Hitler Youth:
"It is ray guilt that I educated I believed in that man.
That is all that I can say as an ex planation for my attitude.
But that guilt is my own, my personal guilt.
I had the responsibility for the youth. I carried the authority of command; and so I alone carry the guilt for that youth."
(Tr.p. 10295). Frank has admitted, "I feel a terrible guilt within me."
(Tr.p. 8092). 125 Goering blamed persecution of the churches on Himmler and Bormann.
Tr.p. 5856. Schirach blamed extermination of the Jews on Hitler and Himmler:
"The murder was ordered by Adolf Hitler.
.. he and Himmler together committed that crime, which of all times is the darkest spot in our history.
It is a crime which is shameful to every German."
(Tr.p. 10293). 126 Final argument of Dr. Stahmer, counsel for Goering. Tr.pp. 127 "The Nazi Plan", excerpt of script of a motion picture composed of captured German film.
(3054-PS, USA-167, Tr.p. 1264). 128 Goering testified: "No, I did not want any war..." Tr.p. 6087.
Ribbentrop testified: "The Fuehrer has -- and then I have upon always tried to solve these problems in a diplomatic way."
Tr.p.6826. 129 Goering testified: "to set aside Versailles, the State had to Footnote be strong, for a weak state was never listened to; that we know from experience."
Tr.p. 6070.
130 Goering testified: "I told the Fuehrer that in spite of this Russia; I still would ask him to rather let this menace continue interests of Russia against England."
Tr.p. 3957.
131 English transcript, p. 6048.
132 English transcript, pp. 5894-5, 6036, 6069.
133 English transcript, p. 5998.
Schacht testified: "Q. Well, we found something we agree on, Doctor.
You know of the invasion of Poland? A. Yes. Q. As an unqualified act of aggression on Hitler's part?
A. Absolutely Q. And of Holland?
A. Absolutely. Q. And of Denmark?
A. Absolutely. Q. And of Norway? A. Absolutely. Q. And of Yugoslavia?
A. Absolutely. Q. And of Russia? A. Absolutely, sir; and Norway and Belgium, which you left out."
Tr.p. 8910.
135 Goering testified: "I urged him not at that moment or an even short time thereafter to start any war against Russia."
Tr.p.
5956; see also Tr.p. 6056. Keitel testified that he wrote a memorandum to Hitler opposing the attack on Russia.
He said:
"But I did in that memorandum most certainly refer to the fact that the Non-aggression Pact existed."
Tr.p. 7096.
136 English transcript, p. 12929.
covering letter from von Blomberg, 24 June 1937. (C-175, USA-69, Tr.p. 547). Yet it was in this period that Goering was trying (Tr.p. 5871). Goering has admitted the non-defensive nature of the Luftwaffe (Tr.p.5896). Footnote 138 Final argument of Dr. Stahmer, counsel for Goering.
"Therefore, itself.
A dictator does not enter into a conspiracy with his Tr.p. 12970.
139 English transcript, p. 12155.
140 English transcript, p. 12183.
141 English transcript, pp. 5854, 6036, 6056.
(1893-PS, USA 323, Tr. p. 1578).
143 Criminal Code, 1871, Sec. 128 (never repealed).
144 Goering testified: "In the case of Schacht he was a very strong other had to cede finally."
Tr.p. 6082.
145 "Q. Mr. Dahlerus, will you tell me whether I got all of your last answer to Dr. Stahmer correctly?
Did you say that 'I then realized that it was on the 26th of September, that his, Goering' consent of Great Britain'? Is that right?
A. Yes, it is correct but I should like to say it was the German Government's, inclu ding Goering's, aim."
Tr.p. 6119. The Fuehrer informed Goering was to "eliminate British intervention."
(TC-90, GB-64).
146 Hitler's speech to the Commanders-in-Vhief, 22 August 1939.
(1014-PS, USA-30, Tr.p. 376).
147 Frank Diary. Tagebuch. 1 January 1944 to 28 February 1944.
Entry of 14 January, 15 January, 8 February 1944. (2233-BB-PS, USA-295, Tr.p. 1501). Footnote Ukraine.
(1130-PS, USA-169, Tr.p. 1269).
149 Frank testified: "Q. Did you ever participate in the destruc tion of Jews?
A. I saw yes, and the reason why I say yes is over to these small *---* alone.
I myself have never installed must be mine too.
We have fought against Jewry; we have fought against it for years; and we have allowed ourselves to me in this connection -- utterances which are terrible.
It is this connection with Yes.
A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased."
(Tr.p. 8099).
150 Funk explained that he did not hold "the position of minister as one would generally think of it."
(Tr. p. 9014).
151 Ribbentrop, Tr.p. 6837, 6823; Keitel, Tr.p. 7157; Funk, Tr.p.
9118; Goering, Tr.p. 6247.
152 English transcript, p. 8910, supra note 121.
153 English transcript, p. 8808, 8814-17, 8923-25.
154 "The fact was that Hitler tried to use this defeat for the self for the period of reconstruction.
Hitler fled into death, and he left the official report that he had died in battle.
I bud."
(Tr.p.12547). Dahlerus has recorded his impression of Hitler, before the war, as "a completely abnormal person."
(Tr.p. 6125). 155 English transcript, p. 12080. 156. English transcript, p. 12117 157. Milch testified: "My offer that I would try to speak to Hit as absolutely hopeless."
(Tr.p. 5576). 158. English transcript, p. 12118. 159 English transcript, p. 6881 160. Minutes of second session of Working Committee of the Reich Defense Council held on 26 April 1933.
(EC-177, USA-390, Tr.pp.
1699, 1727). 161. Raeder testified: "That is the circumvention of the Versailles which I explained during the recent days here.
It was a matter of honor for every man to do it."
(Tr.p. 9919.) 162. Goering testified: "During a conversation which I had with but by Seyss-Inquart.
That was absolutely true. Legally, in was de jure, and why should I be an exception there?"
(Tr.p.5891) Goering saying:
"Now, remember the following: You go immediately together with Lt. General Muff and tell the Federal President line, and Austria will case to exist."
Transcript of tele phone calls from Air ministry, 11-14 March 1938.
(2949-PS, USA-76, Tr.p.566 163.
German assurance to Czechoslovakia of 11 March 1938.
(Tc-27, GB-21, Tr.p. 962.) 164 Speer's conference minutes of Central Planning Board, 1942-44, concerning labor supply.
(R-124, USA-179, Tr.pp. 1286, 1293, 1309, 2989.)
165. English transcript, p. 5878. 166. English transcript, p. 6150 167. English transcript, p. 5900: see also Tr.p. 5998. 168. English transcript, p. 8527. 169. English transcript, pp. 8516-19 170. English transcript, p. 13276. 171. English transcript, p. 6857. 172. Examples of the application of this philosophy may be found in Goerings' explanation of his art looting:
he had intended to for the German people -- some day (Tr.p. 5934): his statement treated as "comrades" (Tr.p. 5979); and his attempt to the result of conversational excitement (Tr.p. 6192).THE PRESIDENT:
The Tribunal will adjourn.
(A recess was takne until 1400 hours.)
(The hearing reconvened at 1345 hours, 26 July 1946)
THE PRESIDENT: I call on the Chief Prosecutor of the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: May it please the Tribunal; like my distinguished colleague whose suecinct, able and eloquent speech I cannot hope to emulate, I desire on behalf of the British Prosecutors at this trial to lay before the Tribunal some comment. I am afraid it is of some length on those salient and outstanding features of the evidence which, in our submission, make clear the guilt of these defendants. Although throughout these proceedings the representatives of the prosecuting powers have worked in the closest cooperation and agreement and although there are certain matters which I shall be laying before the Tribunal on behalf of all of us, we all thought it right at this final stage, even at the cost of some inevitable repetition and overlapping, that we should prepare our final submissions quite independently so that the Tribunal and our own countries might know exactly the grounds on which we seek the condemnation of these men; and if it turns out that several of us point to the same evidence or reach similar conclusions, a: no doubt it will, that very coincidence reached independently may perhaps add force to our submissions that each of these defendants is legally guilty. so frightful that the imagination staggers and reels back at their very contemplation is not in doubt. Let the words of the Defendant Frank, which were repeated to you this morning, be well remembered: "thousands of years will pass and this guilt of Germany will not be erased." Total and totalitarian war, waged in defiance of solemn undertakings and in breach of Treaties; great cities, from Coventry to Stalingrad, reduced to rubble, the country side laid waste, and now the inevitable aftermath of war so fought -- hunger and disease stalking through the world: millions of people homeless, maimed, bereaved. And in their graves, crying out, not for vengeance but that this shall not happen again, ten million who might be living in peace and happiness at this hour, soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians killed in battles that ought never to have been.
Nor was that the only or the greatest crime. In all our countries who perhaps in the heat of passion or for other motives which impair restraint some individual is killed, the murder becomes a sensation, our compassion is aroused, nor do we rest until the criminal is punished and the rule of law is vindicated. Shall we do less when not one but on the lowers computation twelve million men, women and children, are done to death. Not in battle, not in passion, but in the cold, calculated, deliberate attempt to destroy nations and races, to disintegrate the traditions, the institutions a the very existence of free and ancient States. Twelve million murders. Two thirds of the Jews in Europe exterminated, more than six million of them on the killers' own figures. Murder conducted like some mass production industry in the gas chambers and the ovens of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Maidanek and Oranienburg.
And is the world to overlook the revival of slavery in Europe, slavery on a scale which involved 7,000,000 men, women and children taken from their homes, treated as beasts, starved, beaten and murdered?
of Germany share it in large measure, but it was these men who, with a handful of others, brought that guilt upon Germany and perverted the German people. "It is my guilt"- confessed the defendant Schirach "that I educated the German youth for a man who committed murders a millionfold." by summary executive action and had the treatment, which they had been parties to meting out against so many millions of innocent people been meted out to them they could hardly have complained. But this Tribunal is to adjudge their guilt not on any moral or ethical basis alone, but according to law. That natural justice which demands that these crimes should not go unpunished, at the same time insists that no individual should be punished unless patient and careful examination of the facts shows that he shared the guilt for what has been done. And so, during these many months, this Tribunal has been investigating the facts and has now to apply the law in order both that justice may be done to these individuals as to their countless victims, and also that the world may know that in the end the predominance of power will be drivenoout and law and justice shall govern the relations between States. ment of a score or so of guilty men. Issues are at stake far greater than their fate, although upon their fate those issues, in some measure, depend. In the pages of history it will count for nothing whether this trial lasted for two months or for ten. But it will count for much that by just and patient examination the truth has been established about deeds so terrible that their mark may never be erased, and it will count for much that law and justice have been vindicated in the end. presented to any Tribunal in history as been collected, sifted and placed before you. Almost all of that evidence consists of the captured records and documents of the Government to which these men belonged, and much of it directly implicates each one of them with knowledge of, and participation in one or other aspect of the crimes committed by the Nazi State.
This evidence has not been refuted and it will remain for ever to confront those who may hereafter seek to excuse or mitigate that which has been done. Yet now that this mass of evidence has been presented to you, shall invite you for a little to detach your minds from its detail to consider the cumulative effect and to review this overwhelming case as a whole. It is only by chance that their own captured papers have enabled us to establish these crimes out of the very mouths of the criminals. But the case against these men can be established on a broader basis than that, and must be looked at in the light of its historical background. ted, the responsibility of those who hold the highest positions of influence and authority in the Nazi State, is manifest beyond doubt. For years, in a world where was had itself been declared a crime, the German State was organized for war; in a world where we proclaim the equality of men, for years the Jews were boycotted, deprived of their elementary rights of property, liberty, life itself; for years honest citizens lived in fear of denunciation and arrest by one or other of the organizations, criminal as we allege them to be, through which these men ruled Germany; for years throughout the German Reich millions of foreign slaves worked in farm and factory, were moved like cattle on every road, on every railway line. ates were at once the leaders and the drivers of the German people; it was when they held the highest positions of authority and of influence that these crimes were planned and perpetrated. If these men are not responsible, who are? If minions who did no more than obey their orders, Dostler, Eck, Kramer and a hundred others have already paid the supreme penalty, are these men less responsible? How can it be said that they and the offices of State which they directed took no part? Lammers, their own witness, Head of the Reich Chancellory, said in 1938:
"Despite the total basic concentration of power every individual order he may issue.
This principle Fuhrer's unlimited power of command.
Willingness of his subordinate leaders.
Therefore he allows their tasks". the power and influence they exercised how they will, we have only to recall their ranting, as they strutted across the stage of Europe dressed in their brief authority, to see the part they played.
They did not then tell the German people or the world that they were merely the ignorant, powerless puppets of their Fuhrer. The Defendant Speer has said:
"Even in a totalitarian system there must be total responsibility.
....it is impossible after the cat astrophe to evade this total responsibility.
If assumed total responsibility". Had the war been won is it to be supposed that these men would have retired to the obscurity and comparative innocence of private citizenship?
That opportunity was denied to them before the war had they wished to disassociate themselves from what was taking place.
They chose a disferent path. From small beginning, at a time when resistance instead of participation could have destroyed thist thing, they fostered the Hitler legend, they heloed to build up the Nazi Power and ideology and to direct its acticities until, like some foul octopus, it spread its slime over Europe and extended its tentacles throughout the world. Were these men ignorant of the ends sought to be achieved during that period of the rise to power? Paul Schmidt, Hitler's interpreter, a witness of great knowledge, has testified:
"The general objectives of the Nazi leadership slogan of 'Lebensraum'". That slogan "Lebensraum" - that entirely false idea that the very existence of the German people depended upon territorial expansion under the Nazi flag - was from the earliest days an openly avowed part of the Nazi doctrine - yet any thinking person must have known that it would lead inevitabley to war.
at those secret meetings on the 5th November 1937, 23rd May and 23rd November 1939, at which the fate of so may countries was sealed. revision of the Treaty of Versailles. The so-called injustice of Versailles so cunningly exploited to provide a popular rallying point under the Nazi banner, had succeeded in unsuing behind the Nazis many Germans who would not otherwise have supported some of the rest of the Nazi program. efforts here made by the Defense to develop the alleged injustice of them Treat. Unjust or not, it was a Treaty and no Government content to live at peace need have complained of its provisions.
Even if the complaints were justified, there was comparatively soon no ground left for them.
They provisions of the Treaty could have been - in some respects they were revised by peaceful negotiations. By 1935, four years before the world was plunged into war, these men had publicly renounced the Treaty, and by 1939 not only were they free of nearly all the restrictions of which they had complained, but they had seized territory which had never belonged to Germany in the whole of European history. The cry of Versailles was a device for rallying men to wicked and aggressive purposes. But it was a device less diabolical than the cry of anti-Semitism and racial purity, by which these men sought both to rally in their own country and to sow discord and antagonism amongst the people of foreign lands. Rauschning reports Hitler's statement:
"Anti-Semitism is a useful revolutionary expedient.
campaign. You will see how little time we shall need world simply and solely by attacking Judaism.
It is paganda arsenal". words of Bach Zelewski who, when he was asked how Ohlendrof could admit that the men under his command had murdered 90,000 people, replied:
"I am of the opinion that when, for years, for then such outcome is inevitable."
And so, from the earliest day, the aims of the Nazi movement were clear:
and beyond dount: expansion, European domination, elimination of the Jews; ultimate aggression, ruthless disregard of the rights of any people but themselves.
Such were the beginnings. I shall not pause to trace the Nazi party's growth to power; how, as the writer of the History of the SA has said they found that "Possesion of the streets is the key to power in the State."
or how, by the organized terror which the witjess Severing has described the storm troops of Brownshirts terrified the people whilst the Nazi propaganda, headed by "Der Sturmer", vilified all opponents and incited people against the Jews. democratic peoples ought to learn from it, for it may not be easy to say exactly at what date each of these Defendants must have real zed, if, indeed, he had not know and gloried in it all from the beginning that Hitler's apparently hysterical outpourings in Mein Kampf were intended in all seriousness and that they formed the very basis of the German plan. Some, no doubt, such as Gearing, Hess, Ribbentrop, Rosenberg, Streicher, Frick, Frank, Schacht, Schirach and Fritzsche realized it, very early. In the case of one or two such as Doenitz and Speer, it may have been comparatively late. Few can have been ignorant after 1933: all must have been active participants by 1937. When one remembers the apprehension caused abroad during that period there can be no doubt, in our submission, that these men, almost all of whom were the rulers of Gemany from 1933 onwards, Hitler's intimate associates, admitted to his secret meetings, with full knowledge of plans and events not only acquiesced in what was taking place, but were active and willing participants. "build up" - the position of domestic government in Germany between 1933 and 1939; because what happened then makes clear the criminal involvment of these men in what was done later. What I say now has some special reference to the first Count in the Indictment, for it is against this general backgrond that must be considered the allegation that these men were common conspirators to commit the crimes (such as crimes against peace, and the crime against humanity), which are more specifically charged in the later Counts.
Totalitarian Government brooks no opposition. Any means justifies the end and the immediate end war ruthlessly to gain complete control of the German State and to brutalize and train its people for war. What stood in the way in January 1933? Firstly, the members of the other political parties; secondly the democratic system of election and of public assembly, the organisation of trade unions; thirdly the moral standards of the German people, and the Churches which fostered them. this opposition: the first, by imprisoning or terrorizing their opponents; the second, by declaring illegal all elements of tolerance and liberalism, outlawing trade unions and opposition parties, reducing the democratic assembly to a farce and controlling elections: the third, by systematic discouragement and persecution of religion, by replacing the ethics of Christianity with the idolatry of the Fuhrer and the cult of the blood and by rigidly controlling education and youth. Youth was systematically prepared for war and taught to hate and persecute the Jews; the plans for aggression required a nation trained in brutality and taught that it was both necessary and heroic to invade the peoples of other countries. tic policy that, after six years of rule, the Nazis found little difficulty in leading a perverted nation into the greatest criminal enterprize in history. It is perhaps, worth considering from the evidence, a few examples of how this policy developed during these six years. They are examples of what was happening in every German town and village: it must be remembered here, that in the need to avoid cumulative evidence you have, in the result, been deprived of its cumulative effect.
First then, the elimination of political opponents. Within six weeks of the Nazis coming to power in January 1933, the German newspapers were quoting official sources for the statement that 18,000 Communists had been imprisoned whilst the 10,000 prisoners in the gaols of Prussia included many Socialists and intellectuals.
The fate of many of these men was described by Severing, who estimated that at least 1,500 Social Democrats and a similar number of Communists were murdered in the concentration camps recently established by Goering as Chief of the Gestapo. run as to strike terror throughout the country. In the words of the witness Severing, the concentration camps represented for the people "the incarnation of all the terrible".
Goering has said:
"We found it necessary that we should permit no opposition to us" and he admitted that there were arrested and taken into protective custody people who had commited no crime.
which they spoke yesterday, nulla poena sine lege.
Goering added:
"if everyone knows that if he acts against camp.
......that is to our advantage". and according to Goering were created "as an instrument which at all times was gave the following description:
"I was hardly more that two days in that ted there.
There was not police which against arrests, against burglary.
There just those who committed such crimes.
Those their cries for help to the police.
It was crimes; those commandos of the SA and SS who "Special concentration camps for the Gestapo for a terrible shame in history.
They were "Columbia Diele"........I asked one of my civil servant.
...'Tell me, please; am I here in a police office or in a robber's cave?
' The answer that I received was:
'You are in a burgler's cave and you can expect that you will see much more yet'".Gisevius went on to describe Goering's order to murder the National Socialist Strasser and how he gave "blank authority" for murder to the political police, by signing a form granting amnesty to the policeman, leaving a blank space for the name of the murdered person in respect of whom the amnesty had been granted.
required, it is to be found in the seriod of reports dated May and June 1933, from the Munich Public Prosecutor to the Minister of Justice which are in evidence recording a succession of murders by SS officials in the concentration camp at Dachau.
testing against numerous instances of ill treatment in concentration camps including "Beating as a disciplinary punishment.
....
"ill-treatment mostly of political internees in order to make them talk"..... and "ill-treatment of internees arising out of sheer fun or sadistic motives". went on to compain that "the beating of the Communists held in pression of Communist activities". And after citing instances of torture, he concludes:
"These few examples show a degree of German sensibility".Frick's sensibility was apparently not so tender - the very next year he received a similar protest from one of his own subordinates and shortly afterwards he issued a decree making all police forces subordinate to Himmler, the very man whom he knew to be responsible for these atrocities.
were not confined to the privacy of concentration camps. It is perhaps worth quoting one instance from the thousands who suffered from the policy which was being persued. and member of the Reichstaf from 1919 to 1933. He spoke of the incident on March 9th of 1933 when, to quote his own words:
my personal records. At that time I was taken to the Brown House in Cologne, kicked for several hours.