torture from the inmate to his family and friends. Men and women disappeared from their homes or business or from the streets, and no word came of them. The omission of notice was not due to overworked staff; it was due to policy. The Chief of the SD reported that in accordance with orders from the Fuehrer anxiety should be created in the minds of the family of the arrested person. (Document No. 668-PS.) Deportations and secret arrests were labeled, with a Nazi wit which seems a little ghoulish, "Nacht und Nebel" (Night and Fog) (Document No. 833-PS.) the Wehrmacht High Command, in which the fields were advised that this decree carries a basic innovation. "The Fuehrer and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces commands that crimes of the specified sort committed by civilians of the occupied territories, are to be punished by the pertinent courts-martial in the occupied territories only when, (a) the sentence calls for the death penalty; and (b) the sentence is pronounced within eight days after arrest. Only when both conditions are met, does the Fuehrer and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces hope for the desired deterrent effect from the conduct of punitive proceedings in the occupied territories. In other cases, in the future, the accused are to be secretly brought to Germany, and the further conduct of the trial carried on here. The deterrent effect of these measures lies (a) in allowing the disappearance of the accused without a trace; (b) therein that no information whatsoever may be given about their whereabouts and their fate."
To clumsy cruelty, scientific skill was added, "Undesirables", as they were called, were exterminated by injection of drugs into the bloodstream, by asphyxiation in gas chambers. They were shot with poison bullets, to study the effects. (Document No. 1974-PS.)
Then, to cruel experiments the Nazi added obscene ones. These were not the work of underling degenerates but of master minds high in the Nazi conspiracy. On May 20, 1942, General Field Marshal Milch authorized SS General Wolff to go ahead at Dachau Camp with so-called "cold experiments"; and four female gypsies were supplied for the purpose.
(Document No. 400-PS.) Himmler gave permission to carry on these "experiments" elsewhere. (Document No. 1615-PS.) (Document No. 1617-PS.) (Document 1971-PS.) At Dachau, the reports of the "doctor" in charge show that victims were immersed in cold water until their body temperature was reduced to 28 degrees centigrade (82.4 degrees Farenheit), when they all died immediately. (Document No. 1618-PS.) This was in August 1942. But the "doctor's" technique improved. By February, 1943, he was able to report that thirty persons were chilled to 27 to 29 degrees, their hands and feet frozen white, and their bodies "rewarmed" by a hot bath. But the Nazi scientific triumph was "rewarming with animal heat." The victim, all but frozen to death, was surrounded with bodies of living women until he revived and responded to his environment by having sexual intercourse. (Reports of Dr. Rascher, Document No. 1616-PS.) Here Nazi degeneracy reached its nadir. are in the grim business of trying men as criminals, and these are the things that their agents say happened. We will show you these concentration camps in motion pictures, just as the Allied armies found them when they arrived, and the measures General Eisenhower had to take to clean up the enormous accumulation of human bodies. Our proof will be disgusting and you will say I have robbed you of your sleep. But these are the things which have turned the stomach of the world and set every civilized hand against Nazi Germany.
Germany became one vast torture chamber. Cries of its victims were heard round the world and brought shudders to civilized people everywhere. I am one who received during this war most atrocity tales with suspicion and skepticism. But the proof here will be so overwhelming that I venture to predict not one word I have spoken will be denied. These defendants will only deny personal responsibility or knowledge. that any modern state has endured, and persecution and torture of a kind that has not been visited upon the world in many centuries, the elements of the German population which were both decent and courageous were annihilated. Those which were decent but weak were intimidated. Open resistance, which had never been more than feeble and irresolute, disappeared. But resistance, I am happy to say, always remained, although it was manifest in only such events as the abortive effort to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944. With resistance driven underground, the Nazi had the German State in his own hands.
But the Nazis not only silenced discordant voices. They created positive controls as effective as their negative ones. Propaganda organs, on a scale never before known, stimulated the party and party formations with a permanent enthusiasm and abandon such as we democratic people can work up only for a few days before a general election. They inculcated and practiced the Fuehrerprinzip which centralized control of the Party and of the Party-controlled state over the lives and thought of the German people, who are accustomed to look upon the German State by whomever controlled with a mysticism that is incomprehensible to my people. energy and singlemindedness to put Germany on a war footing. We will show from the Nazis' own documents their secret training of military personnel, their secret creation of a military air force. Finally, a conscript army was brought into being. Financiers, economists, industrialists, joined in the plan and promoted elaborate alterations in industry and finance to support an unprecendented concentration of resources and energies upon preparations for war.
Germany's rearmament so outstripped the strength of her neighbors that in about a year she was able to crush the whole military force of Continental Europe, exclusive of that of Soviet Russia, and then to push the Russian armies back to the Volga. These preparations were of a magnitude which surpassed all need of defense and every defendant, and every intelligent German, well understood them to be for aggressive purposes. rather cautious experiments to test the spirit and resistance of those who lay across their path. They advanced, but only as others yielded, and kept in a position to draw back if they found a temper that made persistence dangerous. ceeded to fortify it in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Pact of Locarno. They encountered no substantial resistance and were emboldered to take the next step, which was the acquisition of Austria. Despite repeated assurances that Germany had no designs on Austria, invasion was perfected. Threat of attack forced Schuschnigg to resign as Chancellor of Austria and put the Nazi defendant Seyss-Inquart in his place. The latter immediately opened the frontier and invited Hitler to invate Austria "to preserve order". On March 12th the invasion began. The next day, Hitler proclaimed himself Chief of the Austrian State, took command of its armed forces, and a law was enacted annexing Austria to Germany. Fears nevertheless had been stirred. They were lulled by an assurance to the Czechoslovak Government that there would be no attack on that country. We will show that the Nazi Government already had detailed plans for the attack. We will lay before you the documents in which these conspirators planned to create an incident to justify their attack. They even gave consideration, according to their own documents, to assassinating their own Ambassador at Prague in order to create a sufficiently dramatic incident. They did precipitate a diplomatic crisis which endured through the summer. Hitler set September 28th as the day when troops should be ready for action.
Under the threat of immediate war, the United Kingdom and France concluded a pact with Germany and Italy at Munich on September 29, 1938, which required Czechoslovakia to acquiesce in the cession of the Sudetenland to Germany. It was consummated by German occupation on October 1, 1933. but the Nazi pledge was lightly given and quickly broken. On the 15th of March, 1939, in defiance of the treaty of Munich itself, the Nazis seized and occupied Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the major part of Czechoslovakia not already ceded to Germany. Once again the West stood aghast, but it dreaded war, it saw no remedy except war, and it hoped against hope that the Nazi fever for expansion had run its course. But the Nazi world was intoxicated by these unresisted successes in open alliance with Mussolini and in covert alliance with France. Then, having made a deceitful, delaying peace with Russia, the conspirators entered upon the final phase of the plan to renew world war. ing to the war of aggression which began with the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The further story will be unfolded to you by the British Delegation from documents including those of the German High Command itself. I speak only of the conspiracy aspects of the aggression. The plans had been laid long in advance. As early as 1935 Hitler appointed the defendant Schacht to the position of "General Deputy for the War Economy". (Document No. 2261-PS) We have the diary of General Jodl (Document No. 1780-PS); the "Plan Otto", Hitler's own order for attack on Austria in case trickery failed (Document No. C-102); the "Plan Green" which was the blueprint for attack on Czechoslovakia; the plan for the War in the West (Document No. 375-PS); Funk's letter to Hitler dated August 25, 1939, detailing the long course of economic preparation for war (Document No. 699-PS). We have the top-secret mobilization order for 1939-40 prescribing secret steps to be taken during a "period of tension," as it was described, during which no "'state of war' will be publicly declared even if open war measures against the foreign enemy will be taken."
This latter order (Document No. 1639-PS.) is in our possession despite a secret order issued on March 16, 1945, when Allied troops were advancing into the heart of Germany, to burn these plans (Document No. 1640-PS). We have also Hitler's directive, dated December 18, 1940, for the "Barbarossa Contingency," which was a code name, outlining the strategy of the attack upon Russia (Document No. 446-PS). That plan in the original bears the initials of the defendants Keitel and Jodl. They were planning the attack and planning it long in advance of the declaration of war. We have detailed information concerning "Case White," the plan for attack on Poland (Document No. 2327-PS). That began the war. This was in June 14th. The attack did not come until September. It is a top secret document. Only twenty copies were circulated. We have number eight. It starts: "The Commander in Chief of the Armies has ordered the working out of a plan of deployment against Poland which takes in account the demands of political leadership for the opening of the war by surprise and for quick successes." It also declares that it is the duty of Commanding Generals, Provisional Commanders, and Commandants to limit as much as possible the number of persons who will be informed and to limit the extent of the information so that no persons will get information of this plan." We also have the order for the attack on England, initialed again by Keitel and Jodl. It is interesting that it commences by saying that "Although the British military position is so hopeless, they show not the slightest sign of giving in." Raeder, and Neurath, among others, that German rearmament was practically accomplished and that he had decided to secure by force, starting with a lightning attack on Czechoslovakia and Austria, greater living space for Germans in Europe no later than 1943-5 and perhaps as early as 1938. (Document L-12). Not the least incriminating are the minutes of Hitler's own meetings with his high advisors, which we have. These minutes were rather meticulously kept, as the Germans were apt to do. The Fuehrer advised his staff that "It is a question of expanding our living space in the East and of securing our food supplies . . . over and above the enormously increase the surplus."
"There is therefore no question of sparing Poland, and we are left with the decision:"
-- their own underscoring -
"To attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity.
We cannot expect a repetition of the Czech affair. There will be war."
Conclusive evidence! When these men entered Poland they knew they were precipitating war. On August 22nd, 1939 Hitler again addressed members of the High Command, telling them when the start of military operations would be ordered. He disclosed that for propaganda purposes, he would provocate a good reason. But he added, "It will make no difference whether this reason will sound convincing or not. After all, the victor will not be asked whether he talked the truth or not. We have to proceed brutally. The stronger is always right." (Document No. 1014-PS.). It was at all times utterly hopeless for the Western Powers to avoid war, because Hitler was determined to make war. In his conference with all Supreme Commanders, dated November 23, 1939, he said this: "For the first time in history we have to fight on only one front. The other front is at present free, but no one can know how long that will remain so. I have doubted for a long time whether I would strike in the East and then in the West. Basically, I did not organize the armed forces in order not to strike. The decision to strike was always in me. Earlier or later I wanted to solve the problem. Under pressure it was decided that the East was to be attacked first."
We know the bloody sequel. Frontier incidents were staged. Demands were made for cession of territory. When Poland refused, the German forces invaded on September 1st, 1939. Warsaw was destroyed; Poland fell. The Nazis, in accordance with plans which will be developed more fully by my colleagues, moved swiftly to extend their aggression throughout Europe and to gain the advantage of surprise over their unprepared neighbors and I might say parenthetically that in these remarks of Hitler he goes to some length pointing out that the powers of the West were unprepared and unexpectant of war.
Despite repeated and solemn assurances of peaceful intentions, they invaded Denmark and Norway on 9th April, 1940; Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg on 10th May, 1940; Yugoslavia and Greece on 6th April, 1941. her allies, Germany, on 23rd August, 1939 had entered into a non-aggression pact with Soviet Russia. It was only a delaying treaty intended, as the documents will show, to be kept no longer than necessary to prepare for its violation. On June 22, 1941, pursuant to long matured plans, the Nazis hurled troops into Soviet territory without any declaration of war. The entire European world was aflame. might be explained showing the violation of treaties which were involved and showing the systematic plan of violation. There is a key, as you will observe in the lower left-hand corner (indicating chart) to the treaties involved in these aggressions and each of the tongs showing the series of attacks carries marks which show the treaties that were violated. I shall not take pains to go into a detailed analysis of these documents which fall to my brethern representing the British. I think it is sufficient to show the calculated disregard, the uniform disregard, toward the entire world, the obligations under which Germany had entered. show us the Germany of 1935 and show the Germany as it stood when the Nazi conquest was at its height. This chart (indicating chart) will make plain the extent to which Germany had incorporated territory and the extent to which it had occupied and controlled territory although not incorporated. I may say that it is our purpose, as the evidence proceeds, to put these charts in such form as I have here so that you may be enabled to have them in more convenient form.
By these agressions (indicating chart) Germany had incorporated the red on the chart and it occupied and controlled the territory shown in blue, if that is the color that we would call it.
The Nazi plans did not stop at the point I have indicated. The Nazi plans involved a conspiracy with Japan. they found among the Japanese men of kindred mind and purpose. They were brothers, under the skin. General Oshima, Japanese Ambassador at Berlin. We have Mr. Himmler's original memorandum, signed with his signature. He wrote, (Document No. 2195-PS.) among other things, of his interview with Oshima, this:
"Furthermore, he (Oshima) had succeeded up to now to send 10 Russians with bombs across the Caucasian frontier.
These Russians had the mission to kill Stalin.
A number of additional frontier."
Exchanging secrets with the Japanese! Japanese ten-year military and economic alliance by which those powers agreed "to stand by and cooperate with one another in regard to their efforts in Greater East Asia and regions of Europe respectively wherein it is their prime purpose to establish and maintain a new order of things * *." Keitel. It stated that "The Fuehrer has ordered instigation of Japan's active participation in the war" and directed that "Japan's military power has to be strengthened by the disclosure of German war experiences and support of a military, economic and technical nature has to be given." The aim was stated to be to crush England quickly and "keep the United States out of this war." (Document Nos. 384-PS and 1489-PS.)
Matsuoka, the Japanese Foreign Minister, that the German Army was ready to strike against Russia. Matsuoka reassured Ribbentrop about the Far East. Japan, he reported, was acting at the moment as though she had no interest whatever in Singapore, but "intends to strike when the right moment comes." (Document No. 1877-PS.) On April 5, Ribbentrop urged Matsuoka that entry of Japan into the war would "hasten the victory" and would be more in the interest of Japan than of Germany since it would give Japan a unique chance to fulfill her national aims and to play a leading part in Eastern Asia. (Document No. 1882-PS.) leaders of Germany were planning war against the United States from its Atlantic as well as instigating it from its Pacific approaches. A captured memorandum from the Fuehrer's headquarters dated October 29, 1940, signed by General Falkonstein, asks certain information as to air bases and supply and reports.
-- Here again we do not speculate. We have the original document, signed by the General, and it says, dated October 29, 1940--.
"The Fuehrer is at present occupied with the question of the occupation of the Atlantic islands with a view to the prosecution of war against America at a later date. Deliberations on this subject are being embarked upon here." (Document No. 376-PS.) Roosevelt declared "will live in infamy," victory for German aggression seemed certain. The Wehrmacht was at the gates of Stalingrad. Taking advantage of the situation, and while her plenipotentiaries were creating a diplomatic diversion in Washington, Japan without declaration of war treacherously attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines.
Attacks followed swiftly on the British Commonwealth, French Indo-China, and The Netherlands in the Southwest Pacific. Those aggressions were met in the only way they could be met, with instant declarations of war and with armed resistance which mounted slowly through many long months of reverse until finally the Axis was crushed to earth and deliverance for its victims was won.
JUSTICE JACKSON: (continuing) Your Honor, I am about to take up "Crimes in the Conduct of War," which is a quite separate subject. We are within five minutes of the recessing time. It will be very convenient for me if it willbe agreeable to you.
THE PRESIDENT: We will sit again in 15 minutes' time.
(Whereupon the court recessed for 15 minutes starting at 1530 hours).
(The court reconvened at 1550 hours).
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal must request that if it adjourns for 15 minutes, that members of the bar and others are back in their seats after an interval of 15 minutes. Mr. Justice Jackson, I understand that you wish to continue to 5:15, When you may be able to conclude your speech?
JUSTICE JACKSON: I think that would be the most orderly way.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, the Tribunal will be glad to do so. May it please your Honor, I will now take up the subject of "Crimes in the Conduct of War." humanity some limitations on the savagory of warfare. Rules to that end have been embodied in international convention to which Germany became a party. This code had proscribed certain restraints as to the treatment of belligerents. The enemy was entitled to surrender and to receive quarter and good treatment as a prisoner of war. We will show by German documents that these rights were denied, that prisoners of war were given brutal treatment and often murdered. This was particularly true in the case of captured airmen, often my contrymen. airmen should no longer be granted the Status of prisoners of war. They were to be treated as criminals and the Army was ordered to refrain from protecting them against lynching by the populace. This order was sent out at the request of the Reichsfuehrer SS. "I am sending you the inclosed order with the request that the Chief of the Regular Police and of the Security Police be informed.
They are to make this instruction known to their subordinate officers verbally. It is not the task of the police to interfer in clashes between Germans and English and American flyers who have bailed out." pains to incite the civilian population to attack and kill airmen who crash3/4landed. Similarly, we will show Hitler's top secret order that commandos , regardless of condition, were to be killed to the last man. In that case we have the original documents with the Fuehrer's signature attached. We will show the circulation of secret orders, to be passed orally to civilians that enemy parachutists were to be arrested or liquidated. By such means were murders incited and directed. assumed its greatest proportions in the fight against Russia. Eventually all prisoners of war were taken out of control of the Army and put in the hands of Himmler and SS. In the East, the German fury spent itself. Russian prisoners of war were ordered to be branded. They were starved. I shall quote passages from a letter written February 28, 1942 by defendant Rosenberg to defendant Keitel; and this is what he said:
"The fate of the Soviet prisoners of war in Germany is on the contrary a tragedy of the greatest extent.
Of 3.6 millions of prisoners of war,only several hundred thousand are still able to work fully.
A large part of them has starved, or died.
, because of the hazards of the weather.
Thousands also died from spotted fever.
was provided at all. They lay under the open sky during rain or snow.
Even tools were not made available to dig mentioned; for instance, in various camps, all the "Asiatics" were shot.
party had prescribed certain immunities for civilian populations unfortunate enough to dwell in lands overrun by hostile armies. The German occupation forces, controlled or commanded by men on trial before you, committed a long series of outrages against the inhabitants of occupied territory that would be incredible except for captured orders and the captured reports which show the fidelity with which those orders were executed. by the conspirators as part of the common plan. We can appreciate why these crimes against their European enemies were not of a casual character but were planned and disciplined crimes only when we get at the reaon for them. Hitler told his officers on August 22, 1939 that "The main objective in Poland is the destructtion of the enemy and not the reahing of a certain geographical line." Those words were quoted. The project of deporting promising youth from occupied territories was approved by Rosenberg on the theory that " a desired weakening of the biological force of the conquered people is being achieved." To Germanize or to destroy was the program. Himmler announced, "Either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves and give it a place in our people or, gentlemen -- you may call this cruel, but nature is cruel -- we destroy this blood." As to "racially good types" Himmler further advised, "Therefore, I think that it is our duty to take their children with us, to remove them from their environment if necessary by robbing or stealing them." He urged deportation of Slavic children to deprive potential enemies of future soldiers.
The Nazi purpose was to leave Germany's neighbors so weakened that even if she should eventually lose the war, she would still be the most powerful nation in Europe. Against this back ground, we must view the plan for ruthless warfare, which means a plan for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Hostages in large numbers were demanded and killed. Mass punishments were inflicted, so savage that whole communications were extinguished. Rosenberg was advised of the annilhilation of three unidentified villages in Slovakia. In May of 1943, another village of about 40 farms and 220 inhabitants was ordered wiped out. The entire population was ordered shot, the cattle and property impounded, and the order required that "the village will be destroyed totally by fire." A secret report from Rosenberg's Ministry of Eastern territory, where he was responible reveals this as I quote it:"
"Food rations allowed the Russian population are so only for minimum subsistence of limited duration.
The "The roads are clogged by hundreds of thousands of "Sauckel's action has erased great unrest among the civilians.
Russian girls were deloused by men, nude photos railroad station, etc.
All this material has been sent to the OKH."
and extensive slaving operation in history. On few other subjects is our evidence so abundant and so damaging. A speech of the defendant Frank, Governor General of Poland, made on January 25, 1944, boasts, "I have sent 1,300,000 Polish workers into the Reich." The defendant Sauckel reported that "out of the five million foreign workers who arrived in Germany not even 200,000 came voluntarily."
This fact was reported to the Fuehrer and defendants Speer, Goering, and Keitel. (Document No. R-124.) Children of 10 to 14 years were impressed into service. When enough slave labor was not forthcoming, prisoners of war were forced into war work in flagrant violation of international conventions. Slave labor came from France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, and the East. Methods of recruitment were violent. The treatment of these slave laborers was stated in general terms, not difficult to translate into concrete deprivations, in a letter to the defendant Rosenberg from the defendant Sauckel, it is stated:
"All the men (prisoners of war and foreign civilian workers) degree of expenditure."
standards of their neighbors and to weaken them physically and economically, a long series of crimes were committed. There was extensive destruction, serving no military purpose, of the property of civilians. Dikes were thrown open in Holland almost at the close of the war not to achieve military ends but to destroy the resources and retard the economy of the thrifty Netherlanders. of occupied countries. An example of the planning is shown by a report on France dated December 7, 1942 made by the Economic Research Department of the Reichsbank. The question arose whether French occupation costs should be increased from 15 million Reichsmarks per day to 25 million Reichsmarks per day. The Reichsbank analyzed French economy to determine whether it could bear the burden. It pointed out that the armistice had burdened France to that date to the extent of 18 1/2 billion Reichsmarks, equalling 370 billion Francs. It pointed out that the burden of these payments within two and a half years equalled the aggregate French national income inthe year 1940, and that the payments handed over to Germany in the first six months of 1942 corresponded to the estimate for the total French revenue for that year.
The report concluded, "In any case, the conclusion is inescapable that relatively heavier tributes have been imposed on France since the armistice in June 1940 than upon Germany after the World War. In this, connection, it must be noted that the economic powers of France never equalled those of the German Reich and that the vanquished France could not draw on foreign economic and financial resources in the same degree as Germany after the last World War." President of the Reichsbank that made that report; the defendant Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister; the Defendant Goering was Plenipotentary for the Four-Year Plan, and all of them participated in the exchange of views of which this captured document is a part. Notwithstanding this analysis by the Reichsbank, they proceeded to increase the imposition on France from 10 million Reichsmarks daily to 25 million per day. economy. The plan and purpose of the thing appears in a letter from General Stulpnagle, head of the German Armistice Commission, to the defendant Jodl as early as 14th September, 1940 when he wrote, "The slogan 'Systematic weakening of France' has already been surpassed by far in reality." of Germany's neighbors for the purpose of destroying their competitive position, but there was looting and pilfering on an unprecedented scale. recognize that no army moves through occupied territory without some pilfering as it goes. Usually the amount of pilfering increases as discipline wanes. Exactly the contrary with Germany. If the evidence in this case showed no looting from lack of discipline, I certainly would ask no conviction of these defendants for it. cipline or to the ordinary weaknesses of human nature. The German organized plundering, planned it, disciplined it, and made it official just as he organized everything else, and then he compiled the most meticulous records to show that he had done the best job of looting that was possible under the circumstances.
And we have those records. of the art objects of Europe by direct order of Hitler dated September 17, 1940. On the 16th of April, 1943 Rosenberg reported that up to the 7th of April, 92 railways cars with 2,775cases containing art objects had been sent to Germany; and that 53 pieces of art had been shipped to Hitler direct, The defendant apparently did ten times as well in the collection of art objects as the Fuehrer, and 594 to the defendant Goering. The report mentioned something like 20,000 pieces of siezed art and the main locations where they were stored.
Moreover this looting was glorified by Rosenberg. Here we have 39 leather-bound tabulated volumes of his inventory, which in due time we will offer in evidence. One cannot but admire the artistry of this Rosenberg report, 39 volumes such as I hold in my hand. The Nazi taste was cosmopolitan. Of the 9.455 articles inventorized, there were included 5,255 paintings , 297 sculptures, 1,372 pieces of antique furniture, 307 textiles,and 2, 224 small objects of art. Rosenberg observed that there were approximately 10,000 more objects still to be inventorized. Rosenberg himself estimated that the values involved would come close to a billion dollars.
The inventory is typically methodical; A list of the objects dealt with in the particular volume, and photographs of the great masterpieces of art looted from the cultural centers of Europe and shipped to Germany-39 volumes. The one that I hold deals with paintings; sculpture likewise. looting of individual soldiers long away from home who helped themselves to what comes to hand, but an organized, systematic plan to loot Europe. against humanity committed by the Nazi gangster ring whose leaders are before you. It is not the purpose in my part of this case to deal with the individual crimes.
I am dealing with the common plan or design for crime and will not dwell upon individual offenses. My task is only to show the scale on which these crimes occurred, and to show that these are the men who were in the responsible positions and who conceived the plan and design which renders them answerable, regardless of the fact that the plan was actually executed by others. It recovered from the demorilization of surprise attack, assembled its forces and stopped these men in their tracks. Once success deserted their banners, one by one the Nazi satellites fell away. Sawdust Caesar collasped. Resistance forces in every occupied country arose to harry the invader. Even at home, Germans saw that Germany was being led to ruin by these mad men, and the attempt on July 20,1944 to assassinate Hitler an attempt fostered by men of highest station, was a desperate effort by internal forces to stop short of ruin. Quarrels broke out among the failing conspirators, and the decline of the Nazi power was more swift than its ascendancy. German armed forces surrendered, its government disintegrated, its leaders committed suicide by the dozen, and by the fortunes of war these defendants fell into our hands, although they are not by any means all the guilty ones, they are survivors among the most responsible. Their names appear over and over in the documents and their faces grace the photographic evidence. We have here the surviving top politicians, militarists, financiers, diplomats, administrators, and propagandists,of the Nazi movement. Who was responsible for these crimes if they were not? victorious Allies with the question whether there is any legal responsibility on high-ranking men for acts which I have described. Must such wrongs either be ignored or redressed in hot blood? Is there no standard in the law for a deliberate and reasoned judgment on such conduct? to govern the conduct of little men, but that rulers are, as Lord Chief Justice Coke put it to King James, "under God and the law".
The United States believed that the law long has afforded standards by which a juridical hearing could be conducted to make sure that we punish only the right men and for the right reasons. Following the instructions of the late President Roosevelt and the decision of the Yalta conference President Truman directed representatives of the United States to formulate a proposed International Agreement, which was submitted during the San Francisco Conference to Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the Provisional Government of France.