just as there is no doubt about the leading part played in it by the defendants. during the legal proceeding, by irrefutable documents, by the testimonies of witnesses and of the defendants themselves. and the initiation of aggressive wars. All their so-called "ideological work consisted in the cultivation of beastly instincts, in the intillation of the absurd idea of racial superiority in the conscience of the German people and in the practical realization of the plans for extermination and enslavement the peoples of "inferior"races, who were supposed to serve as a fertiliser for the growth of the "master race". Their "ideological work" consisted in calling to murder, to plunderm to the destruction of culture, and the extermination of human beings. them, attacking other countries, seizing foreign territories, exterminating people. When was this plan or conspiracy conceived? Of course, it is hardly possible to give an exact date, day and hour, on which the defendants conspired to commit their crimes. guesses and suppositions, but it must be considered as established beyond doubt that from the moment when the fascists seized power in Germany they started the realization of their aims and utilized this power for the preparation of aggressive war. Indeed, immediately, after their seizure of pow the fascists began to carry out a huge program of rearmament and reconversion of economy for war purposes. of Germany for war. This rearmament and reconversion of economy for war purposes is an irrefutable fact; it has been proved by documents and admitted by the defendants themselves.
immediately after the seizure of power ? Could this be a defensive war ? But nobody intended attacking Germany; nobody had such an idea, and in my opinion such an idea could not have even existed. As Geramny was not preparing for a defensive war and in as much as the very fact that she did prepare for war is established it is evident that she was preparing for a war of aggression. That is the logic of the facts and such are the facts themselves. Germany initiated and waged the war which she had been preparing, and the events of 1937-1939 were that for what she had been preparing in 1933.
Hence we may conclude : the plan or the conspiracy existed at least since 1933, i.e., from the moment when the Fascists seized the power and used it for their own criminal purposes. themselves uttered at a time when they did not suppose that they ever would be defendants in this dock. which they describe how the Fascist Government was preparing for war and how all the fields of political and economic life were subordinated to this one purpose. that in 1933 when the Hitlerites seized the Power in Germany they created a plan or conspiracy including the perpetration of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. ted by the defendants which consists in planning, preparing, initiating and waging aggressive wars, in violation of international treaties, agreements and assurances.
The facts here speak for themselves; wars which involved innumerable victims and destructions; wars, the aggressive nature of which has been undoubtedly established. has been fully proved.
The charge of perpetrating war crimes, in waging war by methods contrary to the laws and customs of war, have been fully proved. Neither the defendants themselves, nor their counsel, could contest the very facts of their having committed these crimes. not committed these atrocities the extermination of people, "murder vans" and concentration camps; they had not destroyed the Jews with their own hands, and had not even known about such particular facts. But that such facts existed the defendants themselves do not deny. The defendants admit these facts. This is indeed fruitless method of defense ! Certainly, the defendants occupying high leading posts in Hitler's Germany wer in no need of shooting, hanging, smothering, freezing live people themselves, by way of experiment. Their subordinates did that according to their insturctions; henchmen did, so to say, the dirty work whilst the defendants only had to give orders which were unwaveringly obeyed. Therefore, the attempts of the defendants to deny their connection with the henchmen, to separate themselves from them, were hopeless. This connection is evident and indisputable. If the Commandant of Auschwitz Rudolph Hoess, pulled out the golden teeth of the dead, we may say that the Reichsminister, Walter Funk, opened special safes in the cellars of the Reichsbank to keep these golden teeth in. If the subordinates of Kaltenbrunner exterminated people in "murder vans", the vans themselves were built at the works of Sauer, Daimler and Wenz, which were subordinated to the defendant Speer. If the prisoners of war were destroyed by professional henchmen of the unit "Toten Kopf" (Death Head Unit) and by the guards of the camp, the orders to exterminate were signed by Fieldmarshal of the German army, Keitel. That is to say, the defendants appointed the terms of extermination, the date and issued the orders to create a special technique of murder, explained the reasons for the right of the master races to exterminate "inferior races."
For every murder, for every drop of innocent blood shed by Hitler's henchmen the defendants are responsible, for between them and the direct perpetraters of the crimes, murderm torture, there is a difference only in rank and scope of action; these were direct henchmen, and these are the principal henchmen the chiefs of the henchmen, henchmen of a higher grade. They are far more dangerous than those trained in the spirit of hatred towards humanity and wild fanaticism, whom they now repudiate in order to save themselves. The criminality of the defendants in the perpetration of war crimes, has been fully proved; that they initiated a system of exterminating war prisoners peaceful inhabitants, women, old men and children; it is their fault, that wherever the German soldier stepped, there lay heaps of murdered and tortured people, ruins and places left barren by fire, land desecrated and soaked with blood.
The crimes committed against humanity have been completely proved.
29 July A LJG 13-1 We cannot omit the crimes committed by the defendants in Germany during their domination: the extermination of all those who expressed their discontent in any way with the Nazi regime; slave labor and extermination of people in concentration camps, mass extermination of Jews, and the same slave labor and extermination of people in the occupied territories. All this has been proved and the charges are irregutable. What means of defense have the counsels used? What kind of proofs and arguments could they give to refute the charges? main groups. First, a number of witnesses summoned by the defense counsel. These witnesses had to extenuate the guilt of the defendants with their evidence, to diminish the part taken by then in committing the crimes, rehabilitating them by all means. in other trials. the evidence given by the witnesses of the defense, if the innocence of the defendant Funk should be confirmed by his deputy and accomplice, a member of SS since 1931, Heller, bearing the rank of Gruppenfuehrer SS; if the criminal Rainer, member of the Fascist Party since 1930, and Gauleiter of Salzburg, and then of Kaernten was summoned to give evidence on behalf of Seyss-Inquart? the right hand of the defendant Frank and accomplice to all his crimes, or Bohle, one of the principal leaders of the spying activities of the Hitlerites abroad and chief of the foreign section of the fascist party, came here in order to commit a perjury to try to protect their former "bosses" and to save their own lives.
Nevertheless most of the "witnesses" for the defense during the cross-examination, became witnesses for the Prosecution.
They were themselves convicted by the "mute witnesses" - documents 29 July A LJG 13-2 mostly German; they themselves were forced to expose those whom they had intended to protect.
and considerations. quantity of irrefutable facts and strongly established on the principles of law and justice. Therefore, already in the opening speeches for the Prosecution, so much attention had been paid to the legal aspect of the responsibility of the defendants. were again raised:
a) Of the importance of the principle "Nulla crimen sine lege"
b) Of the importance of the order
c) Of the responsibility of the State and individuals
d) Of the concept of conspiracy. to some legal questions in order to answer to the attempts of the defense to confuse the simple and clear statements and to transform legal argument into a kind of smoke-screen in an effort to conceal from the Tribunal the gruesome reality of the fascist crimes. that at the time when the defendants were perpetrating the offenses incriminating them, the latter had not been foreseen by the existing laws to be crimes, and therefore the defendants bear no criminal responsibility for them.
I could simply refer to the principle "Nulla Crimen Sine Lege", as the Charter of International Military Tribunal, which is an immutable law, and which provides that this Tribunal "shall have the power to try and punish persons, who, acting in the interest of European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organization" committed any of the crimes enumerated in Article 6 of the Charter.
Therefore from the legal point of view, sentence can be 29 July A LJG 13-3 pronounced and carried out without requiring the deeds incriminating to the defendants to have been fore seen by the criminal law at the time of their perpetration.
Nevertheless, it is without doubt that the deeds of the defendants at the time when they were being committed were criminal acts from the point of view of the existing, criminal law. international Military Tribunal are the expression of the principles contained in a number of international agreements enumerated in my opening statement of 8 February 1946 and in the criminal law of all civilized countries. bility for murder, torture, violence, plunder, and so on. The fact that those crimes have been initiated by the defendants on a scale surpassing human imagination and bearing the marks of unheard of sadistic cruelty, does not of course exclude, but on the contrary, increases many times the responsibility of the defendants. and in respect of the citizens of any country, according to the Declaration of the Heads of the Governments of USSR, Great Britain and United States of America, published on 2 November 1943, and - in full agreement with the universally accepted principles of criminal law, they would have been tried in that country and according to its laws.
This Declaration set forth that "the German officers, soldiers and members of the Nazi Party who were responsible for the above-mentioned cruelties, murders and executions, or who voluntarily took part in those, would be deported to the countries where those gruesome crimes had been committed, in order to be tried and punished according to the law of those liberated countries and free governments which would be established there."
Nevertheless, the defendants are war criminals "whose 29 July A LJG 13-4 offenses have no particular geographical location" (Article 1 of the Agreement of the four Powers of the 8 August 1945), and, therefore, the International Military Tribunal, acting in accordance with the Charter, is competent to try their crimes.
The Counsel for the defendant Hess took the liberty to assert that there can be no doubt that the crimes against peace, as they are stated in article 6, Paragraph 2, of the Charter, do not exist. national agreements. ago recognized as criminal.
B. Execution of an Order Tribunal attempted to present themselves as poor dwarfs, blind and obedient executors of another's will - the will of Hitler. Defense Counsel Jahrreiss spoke at length about Hitler's order. In the opinion of Counsel Jahrreiss Hitler's order was quite different from the order of any other leader; Hitler's order was an act "legally immutable". Therefore, Counsel Jahrreiss asserts that; "Whatever the Charter understands by the orders which it rejects, as a factor excluding criminal responsibility, is it possible to take the same attitude towards an order of Hitler? Could this order be considered as an order in the meaning of the Charter?" lawyers, including the Defense Counsels, nevertheless, it is uncomprehensible what logical or other methods were guiding his assertion that the provisions of the Charter specially elaborated for the trial of major war criminals of the fascist Germany, did not indeed aim at the very conditions of the activity of these criminals.
What orders then, issued by whom and in what country, are 29 July A LJG 13-5 contemplated by the Charter of the Tribunal?
the Charter were fully aware of the specific conditions existing in Hitlerite Germany, were thoroughly familiar, by means of the material of the Kharkov and other trials, with the attempts of the defendants to hide themselves behind Hitler's orders, and it is for this very reason that they made a special provision to the effect that the execution of an obviously criminal order does not free from criminal responsibility. large group of ministers, Gauleiters and war commanders behind. Hitler's back, became to a certain extent, doubtful of the convincing power of such a defensive manoeuvre, and a new line of defense was set up to assist this manoeuvre.
"If the German Reich began an attack in spite of the stillexistent non-aggression pact" - said the counsel Jahrreis, "then Germany committed an international offense and must answer for it according to the principles of international law ... the Reich alone, but not an individual person." above point of view is not exactly now: even before the beginning of the official defense at this trial, certain unofficial defenders of war criminals willingly propagated the version to the effect that it was the German government and the German nation, who were be bear responsibility for the criminal aggression and war crimes and not individual persons.
When the subject of international law, i.e. a state, violates the principles of international law, this entails certain consequences of an international character, but in no case does it entail the criminal responsibility of the state. tions is committed by physical persons, by officials and by the agents of that state. In carrying out such acts, these individuals may be guilty of the most varied offenses in violation of either the common or the criminal law. In the latter case, i.e. when their individual criminal responsibility is involved, they bear this responsibility in appropriate cases, in conformity with the laws and before the courts of their own country, as well as - if such is the case - in conformity with the laws and before the courts of a foreign state. of international law, resulting in measures taken against the states, but also some individuals, in committing these acts, have personally committed criminal offenses, for which they bear the criminal responsibility in accordance with the Charter before the International Military Tribunal. versions, to dispute the charges of criminal conspiracy made against the defendants. Extracting from various sources one-sided and selected definitions of the conspiracy, the counsels have tried to prove that Goering, Hess, bibbentrop and others cannot be considered as accomplices of the conspiracy. of the statemens of the defense. acting to achieve common criminal purposes. Such a society doubtlessly existed. I stands to reason that in this case the threads and lovers uniting the members of this conspiratory criminal society are very complicated, as the conspirators had seized the government of a country.
many ramifications, single accomplices commit criminal acts comprised by the general plan of the conspiracy, but they can practically remain unknown to a number of the members of this society. Nevertheless, as these crimes result from a single criminal plan, common to the whole society, the accomplices who have not personally committed, these separate criminal actions and were not practically informed of them, bear the responsibility for them. the circumstance that, for instance, Schirach could be unaware of some of the measures taken by the slave trader Sauckel or the "pogrom maker" Streicher. Neither is the existence of the conspiracy precluded by the differences of opinion among individual accomplces of the conspiracy concerning particular questions such as the intrigues of Goering against Bormann etc. Such dissensions may take place in any band of robbers or thieves, but the gang does not cease to exist on account of this. Very often the head of a criminal band usurps the unlimited power over the other members of the band, even the very right of life and death. However it seems that it never occurred to any lawyer in the world to deny the existence of a criminal society only because its accomplices were not alike and one of them had power over the others. present case on account of the indisputable fact that great personal power was concentrated in the hands of the ring leader - Hitler. In the same way the existence of the conspiracy does not preclude, but on the contrary it implies, a definite distribution of the parts played by the accomplices of the criminal group, when achieving the common aim (one coordinates the entire criminal activity, the other is in charge of the questions of ideological training, the third one prepares the army, the fourth organises the work of the war industry, the fifth carries on the diplomatic preparations, etc.) Therefore, the Fascist conspiracy does not cease being a conspiracy, but is a conspiracy were examined in detail by my honorable colleagues.
As you have seen, your himself.
He was his first successor. He took upon himself extensive powers, Airforce.
The main point is that this extensive field was utilized by him and 39 SA in February 1933 at a conference with the prominent German industrialists, 18 Goering took upon himself this task.
He exterminated ruthlessly the all people who disagreed with fascism.
He created the Gestapo, which from the day of its birth established a bloody regime of terror.
He dePS It is he, Goering, who declared: "Each bullet fired from the pistol 2324 USA of a policement, is my bullet, and if anyone calls it murder, this means 233 that I have committed murder" (from Goering's book 'Rebirth of a Nation'-published by him in 1934). PS- Goering was tireless in his efforts to abbihilate everybody and everything 3442 USA- which hampered the consolidation of this conspiracy.
And Hitler praised. 576 him for this.
For example, on 13.VII.1934 he declared to the Reichstag that Goering:
"... with his iron fist smashed the attack against the national-socialist state before it could take force".All this terroristic activity of Goering's was calculated to clear the way for the realization of the fundamental idea of the fascist conspiracy, i.e.The legal proceedings have proved Goering's guilt in the planning and the PS- active part played by Goering in the initiation of aggressive wars.
I 3441 USA shall remind you of Goering's declaration in 1935 at a conference of the 437 Luftwaffe officers.
At that conference he declared that it is his intention "to create the Luftwaffe which shall strike the enemy as an avenging blow.
Even before the attack, the enemy must feel that his cause is lost", and this intention, as we know, he put into effect, preparing P-140 1938, Goering hints that war is near, and that, if Germany come victorious USA160 out of it, she will be the most powerful state in the world, dominating the world market and she will become rich.
To attain this objective "We must be prepared to take risks". Such was the slogan which Goering On 14.
X.1938, not long before he presented demands to Czechsslovakia PS-1301 USA- Goering declares that he has began carrying out a vast program in com123 Trans. parison with which previous undertakings were insignificant. Evn.Sess. 23.XI. "In the shortest possible time, the Luftwaffe must be increased fivefold; page the Navy must be rearmed at a much greater speed, and the Army must be 18.
rearmed much more extensively... especially as regards the heavy artillery and the heavy tanks.
At the same time, the production of war PS-447 The active participation of Goering in the preparation for aggresUSA-135 1185- sion against the USSR has been established beyond all doubt. PS USA-141 The Tribunal will find proof of Goering's active participation as zation of economic staff "Oldenbourg", in the record of the conference the conference with Hitler on 16.
7.1941, gave concrete form to the plans and the plundering of its riches.
The plan to "level Leningrad to the L-221 USA- ground and hand it over to the Finns" was conceived with his participation. 317 kommissar for the Ukraine, as a "personality with great initiative and good training". Lamp during the evening session of 25.
1.1946, concerning the executions the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Majdanek, the Notes of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of USSR, Molotov, of 24.
XI.1941 and 27.
VI.1942, presented to the Court, concerning the monstrous treatment in for which Goering is personally greatly responsible.
I shall also remind USSR341 about the depositions of the witness Halder on 31.X.1945 which described PS-884 USA-351 the conference at Hitler's office on the non-application of the Hague PS-1191 Trans convention with respect to the treatment of Russian war-prisoners and the Mn.sess. 13.2.46 order issued from Hitler's headquarters on 12.5.1941 concerning the treatpp 30 All these facts of crimes, established beyond doubt before the Court, SSR-89 In the "12 Commandments for the behaviour of the Germans in the East" of 1 June 1941, the sixth commandment reads as follows:
"You must clearly understand that for a whole century you bearers of national socialism in new Europe.
You must, requested of you by the State."
of the penalty of 1 billion and other decrees; such activity was in full keeping with the whole world of Goering's cannibalistic conception of the USA-588 Trans.
whilst in 1935, he made a speech before the Reichstag in the defense of even.s. 8.1.46 the Nurnberg racial provocators. On that occasion, he loudly declared; page 21 "...God has created races, He did not will equality and for this reason we reject (energetically every attempt to pervert the idea of the purity of race.
.." C-410 Goering's order issued on 19 October 1939 demonstrates clearly the SA-298 on the attitude towards the Russians:
EC -126 "Germany is not interested in maintaining the productivity USA-316 USSR-93 in this territory. She is supplying food only to the troops USSR-36 USSR-60 stationed there.... The population in those regions, and especially the urban population, is doomed to starvation.
It will be necessary to deport this population to Siberia." USSR-93 In his capacity as Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, Goering USSR-36 USSR-60 is responsible for the plunder and the spoliation of state property and territories of the USSR' in Czechoslovkai, Poland, Jugoslavia, and other countries.
It was indeed Goering who headed the activity of the nazi con1157-PS A conference in connection with the elaboration of economic measures USA-141 treacherous attack against the USSR.
As a result of this conference, there was created the economic staff of special purpose "Olderbourg" which was subordinated to Goering.
The creation of special economci inspectorates and units in the largest centers of the USSR was planned; they were to USSR-89 The file of the district agricultural fuehrer contained instructions methods is for the fulfillment of their criminal aims.
The demand for ruthUSSR-2 The report of the USSR Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes USSR-9 L-79 The utilization of forced labour had been planned by the Nazis even USA-27 before the war.
It is sufficient to remind you of the conference at Hitler's USSR-10 At the conferences of 7 November 1941 and in his order issued on USSR-386 USSR- 10 January 1942, Goering demanded of all the departments subordinated to On 6.8.42 Goering held a conference with the Reichskommissars for the USSR- occupied territories and the representatives of military command.
said:
"You are being sent there not to work for the welfare of the I intend to plunder and to do it efficiently."
These intentions were carried out. Goering plundered; the Reichs plundered; the representatives of military command plundered, beginning Such was the activity of the defendant.
Goering.
Trans. It was Hess who had been the leader of the Fascist organization, of the even.
s.
7-2-46. University of Munich, It was he who had participated in the Munich Puts p. 37-38 "Mein Kampf", carrying out the duties of Hitler's private secretary.
It policy of the Fascist cutthroats as "Deputy-Fuehrer" after the seizure PS-3196, It was indeed Hess to whom, according to Hitler's decree of 21 trans.
even. s. April 1933,"the full right was given to take decisions on behalf of 7-2-46 p. 38-39 Hitler on all questions concerning the leadership of the party." Transc. After this, Hess continued to take over one new post after the other even. s. 7-2-46 in Hitler's government. After 1 December 1933 he was Reichsminister withp. 42 37-38 out portfolio "to secure close collaboration of the party and shock 1395-PS GB-252 troops with the civil authorities; on 4 February 1938 he was appointed 1389-PS GB-249 member of the secret council; on 30 August 1939, member of the Cabinet 2018-PS GB-250 for the defense of the Reich, and on 1 September 1939 Hitler declared Hess as successor of Goering.
Hess was also appointed Obergruppenfuehrer D-138 By the Decree of 27 July 1934 Hitler obliged all leaders of all the USA-403 D-139 departments and ministries of Germany to present projects of laws to Hess USA-404 PS-3180 Hess had to select and nominate leadership corps of the Fascist trans. even. s. cadres. This is testified to by Hitler's decree of 24 September 1935 7-2-46 p. 49-50 and by other documents submitted to the Tribunal by the Prosecution.
planning and carrying out aggressive wars. All the aggressive actions of Hitler's Germany had been planned and prepared with the direct assisM-102 GB-260 Already on 12th October 1936 in his speeches made in Bavaria, Hess appealed to the German "to use a little less fat, a little less perk, fewer eggs.
..."."We know", said Hess, "that the foreign currency that is saved in this way, goes for armament.
And the slogan of the day is 'Cannons instead of butter.
'" M-105 Hess spoke about this on the eve of his flight to England on 1st GB-261 transc. May 1941, speaking at the Messerschmitt factory when he made an appeal even s. 7/11/46 for the continuation of an aggressive war. page 56 Trans. Together with Hitler, Goering and other leaders of the Nazi coneven. s. 7/11/46 spiracy, Hess signed the decrees concerning the annexation of other page 65 PS-3179 The misanthropic Nurnberg laws, for the publishing of which the USA-200 Transc.
defendant is also responsible, contain a special provision authorizing even. s. 7/11/16 Frick and Hess to issue the necessary decrees to carry these laws into p. 53-54 effect.
Hess signed the law on the "protection of race and honour", extending the Nurnberg laws to Austria.
The question of the part played, in creating SD (Security Service) and recruitment of SS units has been Transc.
The very position occupied by Hess in the Fascist party and Hitler's 7/11/46 Government shows the active leading participation of the defendant p. 56-61 M-102 Your Honours, in order to evaluate more correctly the importance GB-254 leaders of the Nazi Party and Hitler's Government, I shall remind you of the article in the newspaper "National Zeitung" of 24 April 1941, dedicated to Hess:
"Many years ago, it was before the beginning of the war Rudolf Hess was called "the conscience of the Party". If we inquire why this honorable name was given to Fuehrer's deputy, it is not difficult to answer this question:
There the name of the deputy Fuehrer.
He is so versatile and cannot be described in a few words.
... Many measures carried and in the party were realized entirely by the deputy Fuehrer.
' Transc. Hess refused to give explanations to the Tribunal. His Counsel even. s. 22 March Seidl declared with false pathos that Hess considered the present Tribunal 1946 incompetent to judge the German war criminals.
... and immediately after.