And this brings us to our third proposition: in that criminal policy of which they were the promoters and instruments.
Was it not Dr. Seidl who, in defending Frank, has said: (page 55) "This is an acknowledged principle and it derives from the penal time of the working out of the verdict."
They are, as we know the elements of a criminal Stale policy. To consider the defendants as offenders of the common law, to forget that they have acted in the name of the German State and for the account of that State, to apply a standard to them the same as that applied to hooligans or to assassins, would narrow the amplitude of the trial, would misinterpret the character of their crimes. Crimes which the Courts of our countries ordinarily adjudicate show the criminal in opposition to the social order. These are individual deeds; their range is limited; their consequences are circumscribed. Their crimes never strike more than a few victims, and it is impossible to find in the annals of our countries an example of murder methodically perpetrated by terror organizations whose victims would run higher than a few hundred people. national Communities. institutions, our national communities can eliminate delinquents before they can do all the harm they are capable of. the community of States, an unorganized world which is just beginning to be conscious of Its own existence and had then neither armed power nor judges. State, putting at the service of their criminal plans all the executive might of the State. They acted as chiefs or leaders of political, diplomatic, juridical, military, economic and financial staffs. The activity of these staffs is normally coordinated in any country since they serve a common purpose, indisputably a common political idea.
But in National Socialist Germany, as we know, such coordination was reinforced by the interpenetration of party and administrative agencies. Private crimes became community crimes when committee by the State. Indeed, they were bred by the political thought of each individual: "Conquest of space at any price". department were made possible only because all those who controlled every other major department contributed their share. Should some of them and their departments default, it meant the collapse of the State, the annihilation of its criminal power, which was tantamount to the end of the was chambers or to the technical impossibility of creating them. But none had either the will or the wish to default, since gas chambers and extermination to make space were the paramount idea of the system -- indeed were the system. of the defendants, their constant efforts, and those of their counsels to prove the autonomy of their departments and cast the Army's responsibility upon the Police, that of the Foreign Office upon the head of the Government, that of the Labor Department upon the Four-Year Plan, that of the Gauleiters upon the Generals; in short, by their attempt to persuade us that everything in Germany was run in tight compartments, whereas the interdependence of the administration and Party and multiplicity of connecting and controlling links between the State and Party prove the contrary by their clever overlapping. All French people who have lived in occupied France remember having seen on the wals of local Kommandanturs a poster depicting the bricks of a wall with the words:
"Teneo quia Teneor" printed over the picture. It was the whole motto of the system. A few bricks taken away were enough to make the wall crumble. None of these men have done that. On the contrary, they all contributed a brick to the edifice.
city which may perhaps be subject to discussion according to the different characterisation of the jurists, we shall furnish proof of the solidarity in crime and of the equal culpability of all. high officials of the Party or of one of the main State departments and acting on the State's account, to have with the object of extending by all possible means German living space conceived, to have been willing, to have ordered or merely tolerated by their silence that treaties ensuring the independence of other countries be violated, that wars of aggression be prepared or declared, that mass murders and other atrocities be systematically carried out, that demolitions and lootings without justification be systematically committed. conspired to commit it. drawn from the trial. For each defendant, the three principal propositions of this demonstration will be the following:
1) the defendant occupied an eminent position in the machinery of the state and the party which granted him authority over one entire office or several.
2) the defendant acquiesced in, if he did not conceive, the idea of the government :"conquest of space by any means".
3) he has personally taken part in the development of this idea by hisown activity. going into them at length. They were the designated successors of the Fuehrer They belonged to the movement from the beginning. Hess took the responsibility for the racial laws. Both contributed to the government's political ideas of which in the eyes of the masses they were the living representatives. By their speeches, their lectures, they made this idea penetrate into all circles.
and economic preparation of wars of aggression. millions of supposed enemies of the government found their death, where genocide was finally and completely consummated. tation of the 4 Years Plan, which, proof has been offered, was intirely direc ted towards the preparation for war With other, he is responsible for the deportation of workers, the brutalities exerted against them, of their allocation to sectors of production aimed against their own country. Furthermore he has taken part in the allocation of prisoners of war and political internees to works directly connected with the war effort of the Reich. He has organized the -destruction of the economy and the looting of the occupied nations. looting of works of art on a large scale, often with the aim of enriching his own collections. powers to decide about all questions concerning the management of the party. He participated in the preparation of laws and decrees in general, and even in the preparation of the orders of the Fuehrer. He participated in the appointment of government officials and labor office chiefs. He strengthened the hold of the party on the internal life of Germany. He had a direct influence on the army and on foreign policy. The part which he played in the development of anti-semitism implicates him in the criminal consequences of the movement.
Ribbentrop was one of the king-pins of the party and state machine. Pl ced in the Wilhelmstrasse by Hitler who distrusted "old-fashioned" diplomats he worked with all his might to create diplomatic conditions favourable to the war of aggression, the essential means for realizing the conquest of space. We recall the document submitted by our British colleagues and which establishes that Ribbentrop assured Ciano in August 1939 that Germany would make war even if Danzig and the corridor were ceded to her.
As it has already be shown, he and his offices are involved in acts of terrorism and extermination in the occupied Countries.
Concerning Keitel, my explanation will be equally short. The condition under which he agreed to be chosen by Hitler instead of von Fritsch and von Blomberg, to be placed at the head of the High Command of the Army and introposts, expressed by his presence at the side of the Fuehrer in Godesberg, later on during the discussions with Petain and Horthy, expressed again by the orders he signed and of which the order for implementation of the N.N. decree is not the least famous, show that it is not just a question of a men soldier, but a politician general. His part in the arrests and massacres of patriots condemn him. Without any possible doubt he has participated in the exterminations, if only by abandoning to the police, for special treatment, certain classes of prisoners of war, Moreover, we recall the connections of this offices with the police and the armed force of the party.
(A recess was taken).
SS in Austria. He became Secretary of State of the Security and the Police in Austria, afterwards Chief of Police in Vienna and Chief of RSHA (Reich Regent's Office) from 30 January up to the capitulation. During this last period he was responsible for the Gestapo, the Police, the Security Service and the concentration camps. realization of the policy of extermination and in accomplishing the annihil* tion of a race (genocide). His responsibility for the mass-murders has been established. He issued the orders of internment and execution.
"The measures of protective custody", he says, "were measures justified by the war". He also tries to make us believe he made a stand against the application of these measures. It is impossible to believe him, We have proof that he ha full power over the camps.
We are aware of Rosennerg's important position in the 3rd Reich. A Department bore his name. Moreover, he was Minister of the Eastern Territories and Propagandist. In "Blood and Honor" (Blut und Ehre) he resumed and developed the thesis of the space cue to the so-called German race. He starts from the unfounded affirmations that "the irradiation of Nordism gives its entire meaning to the evolution of humanity" and that "there is decadence wherever the Nordic culture, instead of condemning the Asisties and the Jews to a permanent enslavement, mingles with these impure elements... He concluded by saying that the continent must be subjected to the concept of the German race "Blodd and Honour". To bring Germany back by all possible means to her racial purity was the subject of his speech at Nuremberg in 1933. He extolled the extermination of the Jews, and we know that it was not an oratorical phrase. Besides, he wrote in a report to the Fuehrer on 11 August 1942 (042-PS):
"Instructions aiming at keeping down the number of the population of the Ukraine and at the non-application of Article 218 of the German pena Code were studied last year and resumed on the occasion of a tripof the Director of the Ministry of Health ......
"In the Ukraine measures have been taken with a view to preventing epidemics not in the interest of other races, but exclusively for the protection of the German occupation forces and for maintaining labour in the service of the German war industry ?" Finally he was implicated in the attack on Norway, and thanks to his special staff he proceeded to a methodical plundering of the artistic riches of Europe.
Frank is one of the very first adherents of the Party. He was its le adviser and took part in the elaboration of the program. He was also the Fuehrer's advisor. He was Minister of Justice in Bavaria, then Minister of State charged with the co-ordinating of Reich Justice, and lastly Governor General of Poland. It is he who tried to give a legal shape to the State's and the Party's terroristic program of persecution and extermination. He defended the institution of concentration camps in the German "Legal Gazette" in 1936, and he proclaimed that the second fundamental law of the Hitlerite Reich was racial legislation. His personal activity in Poland contributed to the extermination of numerous poles. He boasted about it al in his paper.
Frick was Party member from 1925 on. He became a Reich Leader and afterwards Reich Director for the elections from 30 January 1933 up to 20 August 1943. He was Chief of the service for the annexation of Austria to Germany for the incorporation of the Sudetenland, Memel, Danzig, the Eastern Territories, Eupen Malmedy and Moresnet. Moreover, he was Director of the Central O ffice for the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, the Government-General Lower Styria, Upper Carinthia, Norway, Alsace, Lorraine and all the other occupied countries. He was Protector of Bohemia-Moravia for more than one year. He was Reich Minister of the Interior since the assumpt of power, a member of the Defense Council. Being elected to the Reichstag in 1924, he posed anti-Jewish laws. Strictly obedient, he became several time the spokesman for the political thought of the organization : He declared among other things :
"In National Socialist Germany, the direction is in the hands of an organized community, viz. the National Socialist Party. This latter represents the will of the nation. The policy adopted by the Party in keeping with the vital interests of the nation is at the same time the policy adopted by the country." (3258 PS) It is he who appointed Himmler. He is responsible for the anti-Jewish legislation and finally he had sterilization applied to the descendants of coloured soldiers. Moreover he caused the lunatics reputed to be incurable to be killed.
Streicher entered the party practically as soon as it was formed. He engaged in an unrestrained propaganda against the Jews in his speeches as well as in his writings and he incited the German people to persecute and to exterminate them. He has been a Gauleiter. He does not reject anything that has been done. He stated :
"When one has known the Fuehrer as I have known him in his deepest personality as I have, and when I later learned from his testament that he knowingly gave the order to execute the Jews, well I declare that this man has a right to do so."
Funk entered the party in 1931. He had the golden badge bestowed on him. He was the head of the Reich's press, Secretary of State for propaganda Finally he succeeded Schacht in the Ministry of the Interior in 1937. He became Plenipotentiary General for Economy and President of the Reichsbank in 1941. In 1932 he was acting as middleman between the Fuehrer and certain heads of the German industry. He took part in the meeting of the industrialists on 20 February 1933 organized by Goering in order to obtain the political and financial support of industry for the realization of the Nazi program. He stated on 4 May 1946 :
"As State Secretary for propaganda I have a formal responsibility. I have of course favoured propaganda as did all those who found themselves in position of importance in Germany, for propaganda filled and permeated the nation's spiritual life." He asked that the Jews be excluded from important positions.
He issued decrees for the realization of that idea. He has received the de exterminations. Finally, he built up the war economy and signed the secret law of 4 September 1938.
Doenitz was Commander-in-Chief of the German navy. He succeeded Hitler with Seyss-Inquart as Foreign Minister. He was a recipient of the golden party badge. His adherence to the criminal policy of the system is testified by a speech in which he said :
"The officer is a representative of the state. The ridiculous babble about a non-political officer is plain nonsense." he said, to increase putput by 100%. He proclaimed submarine warfare without resturctions and ordered his sailors "to be hard", and not to effect anymore rescues. He approved and extolled massacres of communists. He was present at Hitler's conferences in which the latter revealed his plans. The texts were noted down in assing. He placed the navy at the Nazi regime's service. He conducted the clandestine rearming and contributed in preparing the aggression against Poland, against Norway.
His contempt for international Law is well known. It is enough to quote the memorandum of 15 September, U.K.65 Schirach was a party member from the age of 18 years on.
He joined it in 1925; leader of the Hitler Youth from 1931 to 1940, Gauleiter of Vienn up to the capitulation, he was one of the essential parts of the machine.
He admits that as Gauleiter of Vienna he united in himself the powers of the State, of the city and of the party. It was he who shaped the German youth in accordance with the party's ideology and he has claimed the responsibility for the consequences of this exclusive formation. He allowed Himmler to recruit SS among the Hitler Youth. on the Jews, but long before that he had taken a quite clearly defined stand as to this question and had conducted an active anti-semitic propaganda.
Sauckel joined the party in 1925. As Gauleiter of Thuringia, and Plenipotentiary General for labor commitment, and honorary Obergruppenfuehrer SS, he held a quite select situation in the State-Party machine. all of them devoted to the development of Nazi ideology. He approved the idea of extermination and said:
"Concerning the extermination of asocial element, by work is far the best."
(632-PS) Again he stated:
"....The Fuehrer stated that we had to revise people .... it is the Fuehrer's wish that germanic language be settled in Europe."
(025-PS) tions and he declared the following on this subject the 28 May 1946:
"One can only obtain results in production by employing labor economically."
nearly two million Frenchmen to collaborate in the war by their toil. To recruit them he used force and the intervention of the police, the SS and the Army.
In document PS-827 he states:
"I have charged a few intelligent men with special of the supreme chief of the SS and of the police.
I have for these men.
...." Such a declaration reduces to zero the insinuation of Speer's counsel that the French population accepted willingly their forced labor in Germany.
Alfred Jodl was chief of the operations staff of the OKW. He had the entire confidence of the Fuehrer to the same extent as Keitel (3798-PS) He participated in the drafting of the successive plans of aggression. Encouraged to serve Hitler by the presence of such conservatives as Neurath, Papen, Schacht, at Hitler's side, he transmitted the 22 March 1943 order concerning the expulsion of the Jews from Denmark and their internment in Germany. He also insured the execution of Hitler's order concerning the annihilation of commandos of 18 October 1942. flyers who had been forced down. He signed the notice of the High Command of the Army concerning the fight against the guerillas, notice which contained regulations contrary to the rules of humanity.
Von Papen prepared Hitler's accession to power. The constitution of his Cabinet on 30 May 1942 was contrary to the normal procedures of parliamentary institutions. On 2 June he ordered the dissolution of the Reichstag and at the same time gave free course to Hitler's terrorism. On the occasion of an interview with Hitler in June 1932 he said:
"I have accepted the demands of Hitler -
Namely the right of the SS and SA to wear uniforms." At the same time Papen had no illusions as to the consequences for his party of the Hitlerian disturbances which he had himself released. But he preferred Hitler to democracy. After the elections of 30 July he endeavored to induce Hindenburg to tolerate Hitler and he succeeded in doing so during the month of November.
Sir David Maxwell Fyfe reminded us of Von Papen's vindication of National Socialism in Essen in November 1933.
attitude in his speech at Gleiwitz in 1934. I quote:
"Surely nothing can be said against racial research or as much as possible.
..." We allknow what this care consisted of. the capitulation, and his activity was not interrupted, neither by the assassination nor the imprisonment of his collaborators and friends which the State and Party were guilty. March 1938. He occupied various positions within the core of the party or in the state civil service, and finally became Assistant Governor of Poland, then Reich Commissar for the Netherlands.
He declared, and I quote from document 2219-PS:
"I attach myself with indomitable tenacity to the goal in which I believe:
the greatest Germany and the Fuehrer.
(Excerpt from a letter of Seyss-Inquart to Goering on 14 July 1939."
) In a speech of January 23, 1939, document 3640-PS, he said:
"....the task of a generation, that is to say the vital blood of that nation.
..." And he also said:
"....as the task of a whole generation, the entire territory should be settled by Germans .... the present Slovakia, The situation appears to me to be ripe.
...I believe that tion for this entire territory."
This is a passage from a letter of Seyss-Inquart to Bormann of 20 July 1940 -
3645-PS. the party: conquest of space at any price. He used all his resources for theannexation of Austria, of which he was a native. He admits that he worked for 20 years to realize the idea of the Anschluss. And we have the proof of his collusion with Korrad Henlein for the reunion of the Sudeten territory with Germany. Finally, in Holland he bound that country politically and economically to the Reich. Furthermore, he is personally responsible for the systematic pillage suffered by Holland, for the deportation of part of the population and for measures which provoked famine.
Speer became a member of the Party in 1933. He was appointed by Hitler's personal architect, and in this capacity he came into very close contact with the Fuehrer. As chief of the Todt Organization from February 1942 on. Munitions Chief in the Four Years Flan since March 1942, Minister of Munitions since September 1943, he was one of the high ranking officials both in the State and in the Party. Speer exploited more than a million men in the Todt Organization, and in 1943 more than 50,000 deported Frenchmen in the territory of the Ruhr alone. He is responsible for the maltreatment of foreign workers in German factories, particularly in the Krupp plants. He employed more than 400,000 war prisoners in the armament industry. His delegates were authorized by the OKW to go to the camps and to select skilled workmen. He exploited the labor of the concentration camps, more than 32,000 men, as he has himself admitted. He visited Mauthausen and shared the responsibility for the deportation of Jews into special working camps, as well as the 100,000 Hungarian Jews who were assigned to aircraft factories. remained in this office when the Nazis seized power in 1933. He continued occupying this post until 1939 and was, together with his services, gradually absorbed in the growing State Party Machine. As a member of the government from the very outset, he was familiar with the political ideology of the movement. If he claims to have been radically upset in 1937 when he learned that Hitler was planning aggression, he nonetheless remained in his office and did nothing to dissuade Hitler.
On the contrary, it was his favourable opinion that encouraged Hitler to militarize the left bank of the Rhine, which constituted the first stage in the war of aggression for the conquest of space.
He remained Minister of the Reich up to the end .... His presence encouraged conservative Germany to cooperate with Hitler. King pin of the Party State machine, von Neurath was closely connected with this machine in the crimes of extermination of which he had full knowledge.
....On 31 August 1940 von Neurath transmitted to Dr. Lammers two Notes Verbales, the one drawn up by him, and the other by his secretary of State Frank, both of which advised the total germanization of BohemiaMoravia and the elimination of the Czech intelligentsia. One of the two reports contains the following lines, and Von Neurath accepts the full responsibility for it since he transmitted it:
"As regards the future organization of Bohemia-Moravia, all From the political angle there can be but one goal:
the total incorporation into the Greater German Reich; from completely with Germans.
A brief survey of the actual posi in order to reach the clear and unequivocal goals; .... Things possible."
(Document 3859-PS) join until 1933 and quickly turned into a remarkable propagandist. In the course of the war he became the head of the Radio Service, of the Reich. Expressing the great idea of the system, he inci ted to the massacre of the Jews.
Moreover, his repeated speeches endeavored to implant into the German people's minds the idea that the Jews and Democracy endangered its very life, and that it was to yield itself without reserve to the men whom Providence had sent to govern them.
Schacht's position is something special. On his case I shall go into greater details. He presents himself here as the victim of the System and pretends to be surprised to find himself here at the side of Kaltenbrunner, was his gaoler. Schacht told us that the program of the party did not appeal to him. Still, during the Session of 21 May, 1946, former Minister Severing declared that he had learned from a communication of the Berlin Police that Schacht had been holding conversations with the Nazi Chiefs. He added that Schacht's relations with plutocracy and with militarism impressed him as most compromising, and that he himself would not have wished to join the same Cabinet as Schacht. Hitler bringing to him his credit both in Germany and abroad. National Socialism benefited from this in a considerable measure. Schacht took his seat by the side of Hitler, Hugenberg and Seldte. He had already attempted to bring Hitler into the Bruening Government. Schacht organized the financing of the decisive elections of March 1933 in the course of a reunion of the leading industrialists in Goering's home, on which occasion Hitler delivered a speech. USA 874. From the moment of the seizure of power, Schacht played an outstanding role in the machinery of the Party and of the State. He became President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economy. On 19 January 1939 he left the Reichsbank, but he became Minister of State and held that post until 21 January 1943. Clever, subtle and knowing how to hide his thoughts behind irony or insolence, he never committed himself completely, but it is also established that he persistently demanded extension of vital space for Germany. When he tried to put people on the wrong scent by speaking of colonial claims and the remark was made by his interlocutors that considering world conditions no possession of colonies could assist Germany in solving her domestic problems, he neglected to answer He knew how to use threats towards democracies and even resorted to blackmail when remarking on a Party success during a visit to America. He stated:
"I warned in the clearest Possible language by saying: if you in foreign countries do not change your policy towards Germany, there will very soon be many more members and adherents to Hitler's Party."
He also said :
"This is all quite clear : we ask for more space in order to feed our people". What part did he play in the development of this criminal policy? As soon as he came to the Reichsbank, a huge program for financing public works was launched; new railroads, motor highways, all of them works of strategic interest. Moreover, an important portion of the credits was secretly used for purely military purposes. of new financial measures devised by him. The academic and upright economist turned into an adventurer in order to carry into being the grand idea of the party. By means of accommodation drafts: the M E F O drafts, rearmament was financed. Issued on a drawee who had provided no cover, a Society created to serve the purpose, the drafts had blank endorsement by a second similar Society .... When issuing the first draft the drawer annexed extension drafts calculated in such a way that the last became due in January or March 1942. When looking *ack, the selection of that date attains full significance. The year 1942 was the time appointed by Schacht for the term of his swindle. He hoped that by then the war would help him to solve the problem. The original draft was discounted by the Reichsbank. The bills were not subject to fiscal law in order to prevent the evaluation of the volume in circulation by means of the modifications in the yield of the taxes. The operations were veiled in the utmost secrecy. All the available credits in marks were engaged by the Reichsbank in these armament drafts as far back as 1935. At the end of 1938 there were 6 million M E F O drafts in the assets of the Reichsbank and 6 million to discount, of which 3 million were short term. At the due date, Schacht could not but be aware that there were only three possible solutions:
1) Consolidation of the debt by foreign loans, but these would be refused of course to a nazified and overarmed Germany;
2) an inflation comparable to that of 1923 but this would have meant the end of the regime;
3) War.
1938 is shown by the calculation made by us and by Mr. Gerthofer of our delegation in particular (we annex his report hereto.) Let us not forget that Hitler, in his letter of 19 January 1939 to Schacht, wrote to the latter : "Your name will above all and for ever be connected with the first period of national re-armament". From 1 April 1935 to 31 December 1938 the expenditures for Germany's re-armament which we can now discover although part of them are missing, amounted to three hundred fortyfive million four hundred and fifteen million francs. During the same period France spent only thirty five milliard nine hundred and sixty four million francs. This was Schacht's work and only his work. Such a discrepancy shows quite clearly what Schacht's aim was. In 1940 the same proportion was found again on the battlefields of France : ten German armoured divisions against one French. Economics can in no way militate in his favour. Difficulties arose between Goering and him in regard to the carrying out of the Four Year Plan. Schacht did notwish to be subordinate to Gering. He resigned from the Ministry of Economy on 26 November 1937, but remained President of the Reichsbank and Minister without Portfolio. On 7 January 1939 he handed Hitler a memorandum in which he established that the volumen of the MEFO drafts in circulation through his own fault was becoming a menace to the currency. Technically his position at the Reichsbank had become impossible. The causes therefore underlying his departure were questions of economic organization, not political reasons. He, however, remained Minister without portfolio. He resigned this post only in January 1943 at the time of the Stalingrad defeat, when the Party-State machinery as well as the Reich were beginning to break down. Evidently he was of no more use them but it is equally evident that he might have be come useful again later on as negotiator of peace. guess at of Hitler's advisers. Was it machiavelism on his part or was it bad luck ? It is of little importance. This nefarious man who succeeded in rounding up and in handing over to Hitler all the financial and industrial pangermanist powers, who helped Hilter to seize power, who by his presence imspired confidence in Nazi Germany, who succeeded through his financial wizardry in providing Germany with the most powerful war machine of the time, and who did all this to enable the Party-State machine to rush to the conquest of space, this man was one of those mainly responsible for the criminal activities of the Party-State mcahined.
His financial clvereness was that of the Nazi, State, his participation in the crime of that State is beyond doubt. It is capital. His guilt, his responsibility are complete. With regard to the last of Hitler's confidents, Bormann, we know that he assumed the responsibility of the liquidation of the Jews. There is no need to say anything further.
I am new through with the demonstration of each defendant's guilty, not that the subject is exhausted, but the time allotted by the Court for each Prosecution expound his address to the Court only allows us to prepare the draft of a working plan, deserving of systematic execution. The example illustrating our thesis could be multiplied. All the facts submitted during the last nine months by the four delegations fit without any effort within our plan, and this single fact proves that our logic is unimpeachable and conforms strictly to reality. have been a party to the crime of the German State. That all these men were, in fact, united in the pursuit of the same political purpose and that all of them have in one way or another participated in the greatest crime of all: genocide, the extermination of the races or people from which they intended to conquer the space they deemed necessary for the so-called Germanic race. Dr. Seidl stated them most forcibly (on page 25 of his speech on behalf of Frank).
"The law in force starts from the individual.
..."
In conclusion he denies you the right of sentencing these men.
First let us say that not one of the defendants was the "single individual" that Dr. Seidl speaks about. We think that we have demonstrated their co-operation and their solidarity, strengthened by the Party system veyond the usual intercourse between the Ministers and the principle administrators of any democratic country. conscience to assure immunity to the men who have lent their intelligence, their good will to the "State" entity, to slaughter as is the case, millions of human beings in the execution of a criminal policy long since decided on. The principle of State sovereignty which might cover these men seems to be only a mask. Remove this mask, and the man's responsibility reappears! Maitre Seidl knows it was we do. But he states "Such is the International Law in force". What a respect on his part for the law in force, and how surprising in his mouth the words which follow. A few moments later, examining the Hague Conventions of 1907, which, let us remember, have not been denounced by any of the signatories, not even by Germany, he satisfies, under stress, that, inspired by the experiences of the wars of the XIXthe century, they are no longer valid in the XXth. Modern wars would have broken through the limitations foreseen by the Hague Conventions, and he states further:
"One cannot make use of the modalities thereon a personal penal responsibility". Thus for Dr. Seidl, International Law is static when he belives he can draw favorable conclusions therefrom, but this law is also in the process of evolution when it condemns his client.
are fallacious. Maitre Seidl is well versed in the art of sophism; but he convinces no one.