It could not be the task of the defense to gain tactical successes by emphasizing the one and suppressing the other complex - nay, incorruptibly we have to find clarity, - 'Clarte', as demanded by the fanatic seeker for truth, Henry Barbusse. That is the rule in accordance with which I selected my witnesses - I particularly remind you of Reinecke and Morgen, the evidence of whom I shall evaluate later. the historic truth. ful German medieval proverb, "Those things that happened cannot be reversed." occurred based on the impossibility to reverse it, - there is even a deeper sense in it:
Past events do not stand nor tolerate a retrospective study; that means no deed can correctly be grasped and understood if speculated upon ex post. No, one has to look at it as it offered itself to the contemporaries at the time of its performance, from the beginning to the end. end the person who accomplished it as well as the psychological situation at the time of its performance. The judges must familiarize themselves most thoroughly with the personality of the perpetrator to judge the extent of his guilt.
This is equally true for this trial. Nations judge another nation; the family of peoples judges one people which has brought deep suffering to the world, a state which has committed crimes against humanity. In the organizations there have been indicted huge units, large sectors of the German people have been put on the dock, and therefore it seems necessary that the judges of these millions of people acquaint themselves most thoroughly with the lives, the knowledge, the hopes and beliefs of these masses at the very moment when the ideas and accomplishments of National Socialism were effective and its criminal excesses were beginning.
Hence, the judges of the four largest, and for the decision of this world war most important nation as of all the world, will have to make the attempt to decide - just as in the case before any normal jury - "How did it come that the deed was performed? In what situation did the defendants find themselves at that time? Which speculations and sentiments did drive them to commit the act? Did they have at all the intention of doing anything illegal? Is it possible that they themselves were deceived? Were they at all able to recognize the illegal nature of their doing and if they learned of it only gradually-- were they in a position to adjust their action in accordance with that insight?" It is extremely difficult even for the judge in a normal trial to free himself from the ex post reflection and to evaluate correctly the circumstances of the deed, the milieu of the deed, and the personality of the one who performed it. How exorbitant are the demands for justice put before the judge when he has to judge people who have transgresses just again his, the judge's family. Every nation contributing to this jury has suffered tremendous damages by the crimes of the Nazi regime for which millions of members of the organizations have to account now. But in accordance with the statements made by Justice Jackson in his opening speech, I venture to hope that you, High Tribunal, will succeed in performing this titanic undertaking to be free of feelings of revenge and rather to seek justice and nothing but justice. Will you, as non-Germans, who have not personally lived through the unique historic phenomena of a mass-psychosis and a tyranny of continental extent,-- Can you be able at all to grasp and to explain to yourself how something of that kind could happen? Can ported by them that is, the masses,-- nay, not even known by them?
The Charter rightly stated that the Tribunal acted accordingly; that it could not be the task of this court to ascertain which inner causes had led to this war, with or without justification. The decisive question is only: Was it an aggressive war? Nevertheless, even in the case of the individual defendants, proof was admitted as to how the historic development physchologically conducted them since the first World War to this now murder of nations.
With even far greater justification one has to demand that in the case of establishing the guilt and the crime of the organizations just in their very beginnings, one should exam the historical background, the political total situation in and around German. The masses have no clear thoughts or sentiments. They are moved by dark emotion emanations of a phenomenon which the scientists have called "mass-soul". It is formed by the pictures and promises offered by their leaders. stressed how gigantic their guilt and the consequences of their acts could become just by the clever use of the masses, by seducing the very sould of the people, by the glistening magic of slogans and the promise of an utopian development. I not those very words give the host proof for the fact that the masses of member desired only the goo and the non-criminal? were identical with the program of the NSDAP. Not only before this Tribunal one has discussed the question whether that program and the means ans methods of it realization were criminal. This problem concerned the public, the authorities of the German Republic, and the best heads and hearts of our people throughout mar years before 1933. Were it motives of a criminal nature when the masses follow our politicians, who did not promise them easy plundering expeditions at home and abroad, but rather work and bread, when they rallied them to national unity as contrasted to the pellmell of a parliamentary system scorned by forty-one parti*---* a democracy which killed itself by weakness and half measures? It is the German people's deep tragedy that it could not sublimate its insight, that it came late when the fortunes of the world were distributed by strengthen' and improving its recognized position in the world of intellect and applied sciences. The German is a romantic - particularly in the field of politics. This romanticism circles around vague concepts of fate and deem and the dream of and power in the "Holy Roman Empire of Germans" of a thousand years ago. This belief in destiny has been supported by an absolutely incorrect discription of German history for more than a hundred years and therefore one needed only a skillful sorcerer who again sent millions of German youth into death and destruction by suppressing the real facts.
more important than those taught foreign countries which did not yet matter. Due to the fault of all large political parties and their armies, so well as the weakness of the republican administration, the inner political life had changed to an ever-increasing degree into a real state of war in the streets. Nevertheless, the secret parliamentary elections were carried through without terror or deceit. Through these elections the citizen could observe a steady increase of strength of the extreme parties of the Bight and of the Left. He could not consider it a crime to join the extreme party of the Right, the NSDAP, or its SS, who in contrast to the SA, which ruled the streets, mainly was concerned with the protection of the speakers during the fraternal warfare carried on among the political adversaries of those days. the problem was discussed, whether the NSDAP and its formations planned any undertakings which had the character of high treason, or which aimed at the revolutionary change of the government. In 1923, in the early days of the party, Hitler had attempted a coup d'etat which had failed. Now, since, many years, he advocated "legality". When In September 1930, three young officers of the 100,000 men army were indicted before the German Supreme Court for treasonable activities by having planned nationalsocialist cells in the army, Hitler as a witness testified under oath that his revolution was one of the spirit and that he aimed to seize power by legal means. This news went through all papers in bold lines and in that manner, it entered both the heads of the enemies and the followers of Hitler. Dr. Kempner, then Oberrogierungsrat in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, new a member of the American Prosecution, was one of the few who considered that oath perjury. He submitted to his Ministry a detailed report, concluding that the NSDAP was guilty of high treason.
But even that seeker of truth had to admit in this description of the situation as it existed then (Volume XIII, No. 2, June, 1945, "Research Studies of the State College of Washington", Page 120) that oven high ministerial officials of the German Republic did not consider Hitler a liar at that time, 1930. That was hew Hitler's clever propaganda influenced such critical, hostile circles. Should one be surprised that the masses of the SS put their trust in him. Incidentally, there were only a few thousand of them. Yes, matters went even farther. When Dr. Kempner accused the Nazi Party in 1930, the highest state attorney with the supreme court decided in August, 1932, that there existed no reason to prosecute or dissolve it. (Compare Kempner's study, Page 133) What were the results caused by such opinions voiced by the highest authorities of the republic as far as them asses were concerned? They were expressed by ever-increasing election returns for the Nazis. importance for the inner attitude of those thousands who joined the SS just after January 30, 1933--that Hitler actually did not break his oath. Although it is quite true that Dr. Kempner's prophesies in regard to the further development were correct in general -- this one recognized only much later -- he was at the very beginning mistaken with his predictions The Nazi Party actually remained a legal one, it seized power not by a coup d'etat, but Hitler was asked to form a cabinet by Hindenburg in accordance with parliamentary rules. refused believing the pessimist, Dr. Kempner? Is it not likely that they believed that they had been right? Was it not that their conscience was quieted? After all, that man Hitler was not as bad as people had said. Now, after he had entered the government he would become a moderate -as every opposition after gaining power. And was it not true, too, that the great mass of Hitler's followers was proud that they had seized power by peaceful means after an election fight of almost American proportions?
Considering that period of time one question inevitably arises: was the mass of Hitler's followers, or the mass of SS-men at that time able to recognize that that point of the Party Program which probably was the clearest one, anti-Semitism, contained a criminal element?
Anti-Semitism is not a new phenomenon; it is also, if one studies its intellectual bases, nothing typically German. In my opinion it is based on the feeling of inferiority of the average man, on his lack of self-trust caused by the Jews' superiority in certain intellectual fields. Equally it is true that the refutation of anti-Semitism by all civilized nations and individuals is nothing new; it culminated in the Pope's statement, "The one who discriminates between Jews and other human beings does not believe in God and is in conflice with the Divine Commands." But the enigma which we cannot pass by when discussing the question of criminality is that there exists at all a Jewish problem which is not based on religious differences, but on race. Yes, the enigma is that there still exists a race problem which leads continuously to conflicts in our modern world which has grown so small. Isn't it puzzling that the Polish Cardinal Hlond, who went through all the horrors of the Nazi regime, only a few weeks ago tried to justify to some extent Polish anti-Semitism by referring to the leading role played by Jews in the Polish government? Isn't it puzzling that even today, after the horrible experiences of the Hitler regime the Arabs act against the Jews in their traditional homeland, Palestine, and particularly against their influx and that acts of violence should result from that opposition? The situation is similar in Europe. Race problems, not only anti-Semitism, still exist in all other corners of the globe.
only in granting equal rights to all races. Some progressive nations have made anti-Semitism a criminal offense. But was it criminal when the society, the state under *---* those mad illusions, at that time tried solution. prohibiting the mixture of races and their influencing public life? Again much has to be explained on the basis of events of these days. The peer exam*--* given by a few Jewish immigrants from Eastern European countries, as the notorious swindlers Barmat and Kutisker, stood in opposition to that of the Great German Jew and the unforgotten statesman, Walter Rathenau, who long ago had issued to his brethern a call to their moral consciousness. This situation offered the basis for a collective mood, for a mass psychosis against the Jews, supported by the external economic calamities as it reoccurs always in the course of great Political and social upheavals, and as it threatens just in the cause of this present trial to create again a new collective injustice against certain categories of people.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, I do not want to interrupt you, but you will not lose sight of the fact that you are only going to be allowed half a day for the speech, and I observe that it is said to occupy 100 pages, and I only interrupt you at the present stage to point out to you that the matters which you are dealing with now are matters of a general nature and to which our attention has been drawn throughout the course of this trial, and it may be in your interest to shorten this part of your speech rather than other parts of it. That's the only reason why I interrupted you now.
DR. PELCKMANN: Yes, Your Lordship, I have already considered abbreviating the speech. could not have appeared as a crime because it appeared that its application guaranteed by the state would be carried out without hate and personal revenge. To some extent it was merely the transfer of the American legal resolutions concerning immigration quotas to the European scone. Hitler's most trusted confidant, Rauschning, reveals in his book, "Hitler Speaks", page 91, that his inner-most intention was hate; the masses could not as certain that.
Concealed remained that hate which emerged from the feeling of inferiority of the one who recognized the superiority of the penetrating intellect over dark impulses. The SS-men learned of anti-Semitism only as the other side of race eugenics which was emphasized. By a skillful use of the historic emotions difficult to understand for the non-European and which were connected with the terms "Ordensprinzip", "Maennerbuende", and "Sippengemeinschaft" -- I refer to documents SS Nos. 1, 2, and 3, and the twisted romanticism in modern clothe to be found there -- Hitler endeavored to create in the SS a group of men which by attitude and self-discipline represented an "elite" for purposes of most intensive breeding of the own people. This tendency, though very remote to modern Europeans, or cosmopolitians, yet might hardly he called criminal -- I am referring to occasional questions asked by the High Tribunal -- and it did exclude automatically an anti-Semitic tendency of the nature of the "Stuermer" or even of the brand of the less vulgar SA.
It is significant indeed that the indictment has not charged the SS with one single case of brutality towards Jews before 1933. The so-called "Leithefte", the monthly publication of the SS, and the evidence given before the Commission by witness Schwalm concerning the training of the SS clarify the reserved position of the SS toward the Jewish question. Later it was reaffirmed by the non-participation by the SS in the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1933 which I described in other connection. I shall also demonstrate how the atrocities committed during the war against Jews and the mass killings were in conflict with the original tendency of the SS and how they were made possible by direct secret orders of Hitler and Himmler through criminal individuals and groups and how they were kept secret as far as masses of SS members is concerned. as a matter of course, I would like to pick out only the elimination of the Wersailles Treaty, and the demand for living space because these two could be decisive for the later supposed preparation of an aggressive war. The prosecution stated with not a single word how at so early a stage the mass of SS members could assume that those demands were criminal, that means that they should be accomplished by an aggressive war. of his SS men by his legal assumption of power but how he acquired the trust of such new men who never had followed him on a criminal read. May I respectfully request the High Tribunal to read the evidence which State Secretary Grauert made before the Commission to learn how a man with the best intentions entered the Hitler administration and the SS, and how he left it not before 1936 when he as an experienced legal administrator realized that the suspension of the historic principle of the separation of powers was bound to corrupt the state basically.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you spell that name you mentioned?
DR. PELCKMANN: G-R-A-U-E-R-T, Grauert.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
DR. PELCKMANN: That thing which he as an expert realized - only in 1936 - remained hidden to the masses. For that reason please read the summary of approximately 136,000 affidavits which show why the membership of the General SS increased from 50,000 on 30 January 1933 to approximately 300,000 within a few months.
Hitler's great gamble for power, and with it the tremendous betrayal of the German people, only begins - as paradox as it may sound - after the so-called seizure of power. After one month of triumph over the Chancellory, and this parliamentary revolution in the course of which, no doubt, excesses and crimes have occurred with which the mass cannot be incriminated under premeditated planning. The pro-requisite is being created for the final elimination of all opponents; the burning of the German Reichstag. The prosecution does not assert that the German people, the members of the organizations, the SS men, know or even assumed that this arson was decided among the rank of the Nazis and was carried through by the Brown Shirts by using the tool of van der Lubbe. Such an assertion would, of course, be absurd. 1933, filled the ranks of the SS and formed four-fifths of their strength, one must recall the Reichstag speech of Hitler of the 17th of March 1933. A large part of the opposition was eliminated after the fire by prohibiting the Communist Party and arresting many of their members which was approved by the enraged population because of their alleged participation in the arson involving high treason. Law upholding all parliamentary formalities, the Social Democratic members of the Reichstag asserted that this Law was undermining the security of justice. mad devilry when Hitler answered the following in reply: "I really must say that had we not possessed an understanding of justice, then we would not be sitting here and you would not be sitting there ---Gentlemen, it would not have been necessary for us to embark on this election, nor would it have been necessary to call in the Reichstag."
of the old and new members of the General SS, knew at the time how bluntly Hitler was lying. These men were Ms led by a cloak of justice with which Hitler veiled himself. Not only with this speech; just consider how the Reichs Court, old, experienced, previously Republican judges, which exacting accuracy during many months of trial until the year 1934 considered the question of guilt with reference to the Reichstag Fire. They found the Communists Torglor, Dimitroff and others innocent; but they sentenced the Communist von der Lubbe and determined publicly the complicity of Communist circles who remained unknown. Did not the mass of SS members, as well as the furtherest circles of the German people, have to assume that Hitler had actual saved the people and the State of a violent revolution for which the Communists were blamed at that time? Who, perchance, could possibly learn as I did being a defense counsel here -- that the indictment which had been prepared for months, even years against Thaelmann, had to be withdrawn since then the evidence material was just not sufficient. These few who then, or soon after, learned or guessed the truth and who, subjected to the overincreasing danger of arrest, pronounced doubts regarding the authenticity of the official and popular thesis in discussions with friends and acquaintance the e few know that, confronted with the appearance of justice, tirelessly pursued by propaganda, they were not given credibility by the masses. called "enemies of the State" were to be made harmless in time. Seen from this point of view even the concentration camps appeared justified. But I shall come back to that later. All these were harsh and, in many cases, even criminal measures which partly also incriminate SS members but not the entire mass of the SS.
However, we must not leave one thing out of sight: the use of force typical in a revolution by their members did not only occur after Hitler's acquisition of power, the cunning thing in that connection was that these excesses - such as arrests and bodily injuries - which were carried through I manners of Nazi formations - to the least part by members of the SS - were carried through with the realization that they were necessary in order to safeguard and defend the power which was legally acquired against attacks or threats.
deception of the masses regarding the true events which, indeed, must be considered something unique in history, bears the typical trends of all revolutionary excesses: Under the cover of factual or alleged idealistic motives - such as love of the Fatherland, love of humanity - crimes are being committed. Just consider, gentlemen of the Tribunal - since we are not sufficiently removed from the many involutions of the modern age - just consider the French involution: what amount of crimes were committed under the slogan of, "Equality, Liberty and Brotherhood!" Considering the experience of modern psychology it seems to me to be quite out of the question that mass movement can be unleashed or incited with inferior moral aims. The mass cannot consciously be led to crime. Even Gustave le Bon inclines to this opinion. In the shadow of high ideals of the masses crimes frequently occur, but then, they are only caused or executed by the few who deceive the masses about the true reasons and events. This thought, in my opinion, is the central point with regard to the question of concentration camps and cruelties committed therein and the responsibility in that regard of the mass of the SS, a question which is to be dealt with later. One must be acquainted with the German mentality in order to be able to gauge what immense possibilities of shameless misuse of hundreds of thousands were offered to the psychopathological misleader of a people -- Adolf Hitler, with this concept. We know how much the word "Faith" means to a German on the basis of his education, influenced by romantic and retrospective contemplation of history. Tacitus praised the ancestors of the Germans in that respect. Hitler is utilizing this weakness of the Germans and thereby chaining hundreds of thousands, even millions to himself and his fate. We know what is possible and understandable in private life is a basic wrong in the State.
By that I mean the absolute binding to a human being. The philosopher Karl Jaspers has the following to say to this question in his work, "The Question of Guilt."
"The faith of followers is an unpolitical relation within narrow circles and among primitive conditions. In a free State there prevails control and change of all people."
The German Socialist Bebel expressed it once in the following manner:
"Mistrust is a Virtue of Democracy." For a peoples, however, who wanted to create a modern state according to retrospective historical dreams, they are a new revelation. Quite justifiably Jaspers is seeing a double guilt.
"First, the fact of generally, politically submitting oneself to a leader without reservation, and secondly, the evaluation to whom one subjects oneself. Even the atmosphere of such subjections means a collective guilt." guilt, but not a criminal guilt. fate for the individual perpetrator. That becomes clear when listening to the secret speech of Himmler at Posen before SS Obergruppenfuehrers of the home country and of the rear army area. That was only late in the war -- October, 1943, (PS 1919, SS Document 98). After various statements concerning obedience and the possibility to refuse execution of orders, he says quite clearly: "The man, however, who becomes unfaithful and be it only in his thoughts, will be dismissed from the SS and he, Himmler, will see to it that he disappears from life." the question of guilt in the individual case, and with reference to the question, to what extent coercion and order during the war eliminates the guilt and thereby the criminality of certain individual persons or subordinated groups. This is additional to the question of refusal of military service and its consequences according to military law.
Himmler, with his own personality gives the best example in his relation to Hitler during the last days of the war. book, "The Curtain Falls", how Himmler could not make the decision to save the German people from it's destruction by the ceasing of hostilities, in spite of his very clear realization of the consequences. Bernadotte admits that it was due to the fact that even in this hopeless situation he would not violate the faith to Hitler. We also know how at all times and will all peoples it was this faith that made soldiers keep going on until the last drop of blood during heaviest battles, just as the Waffen SS who thereby won the respect of their opponents in this war. Ana from those two examples we see how this hypnotic word, "faith", determines criminal madness as well as the highest virtue of the soldier at the same time. points of the program of the Party -- that is, if he at all knew them sufficiently, and that is indeed doubtful according to the affidavits of 136,000 SS men, and how he viewed the ideal of this organization. But did not the Nazi leaders intend war from the very beginning? Mr. Justice Jackson asserts this, and I answer: According to the knowledge that we have today, I admit it, yes. But how could the SS man know about it? fessional soldiers to a peoples Army should mean the planning of on aggressive war. In Switzerland, an example of a country with a people's army, the militia did not wage wars for a long time. Was the advocation of physical training and sport activities of youth to be a camouflaged plan for military education? Mr. Jackson failed to give us the proof for that assertion. The training of the General SS was not military. Field manuevers as practiced with the SA were completely lacking, and -- a typical example -- the riding units of the SS who were numerically smaller than those of the SA, did not even give their members the right of a riding certificate, as was the case with the SA. (Testimony of Wokowsky-Biedau before the Commission).
intimate conversations with Rauschnigg and when considering the total events, but Gentlemen of the Tribunal, note: It is an ex post realization. position in which the German people found themselves after the first World War to present a new war as loss disagreeable or bad, or even as a "noble and necessary undertaking," just to use Justice Jackson's own expression. Hitler, whom you can accuse of everything, but certainly not of not knowing the facts of mass psychology, has again and again before and after 1933 pointed out that he wanted peace, peace and nothing but peace. He pointed out that he experienced the horrors of war on his own body, that war always proved results, damaging the most valuable assets belonging to the people of every nation. And only because of that assurance, he won ever-increasing numbers of the German people for himself and his ideas. With propaganda for war, however carefully conducted, he would have never achieved it. confirmation of the world of peace and as being a defensive measure against the non-disarmament of other nations and against possible attempts to interfere with the peaceful re-building of Germany. The building of the West Wall confirms it, and so do many utterances of foreign military experts such as for instance the English Brigadier General Fuller. The high-ranking main defendants and many witnesses including the certainly reliable witness, Gisevius, have confirmed that not even in the leading circles a planning of aggressive war was discussed.
This applies to the SS in a stronger sense. The entire training with the organizations was always headed with the aim that the execution of the party program be carried through in a legal and peaceful manner. Not only was there no psychological preparation for war carried through in all the SS organizations, but to the contrary, it was the Reichs's will for peace that was continually confirmed. document SS 70, 71, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82 from the years 1933 to 1935, particularly an article from the "Black Corps" of 1937, entitled "The SS does not love War", written in 1933, the public declaration of the Austrian Bishops of March 31, 1938, stating that they were convinced that Nazism did not mean war, and the secret decree of the Fuehrer of August 17, 1938, re-affirming that the General SS as a political organization of the NSDAP was not in need of military formations and training and that it was unarmed. equally among the SS never became as clear both to domestic and foreign observers as by the reaction of the mass of the people to the Munich Pact in 1938. The masses including the SS who formed the cordons was not aimed at that Adolf Hitler who had enforced the surrender of the Sudetenland, but rather that Hitler and even more those foreign statesmen who had saved the peace. stated at this historic spot for the sake of historic truth -- when war came in 1939 they accepted this fate not without cheering jubilance as in 1914, but with solemn silence, in their majority victims of the erroneous belief that their leadership had not desired the war. try to deny that the young Germans, particularly in the SS, saw his ideal in those manly virtues, in the same virtues of standing up and the resolution to dare anybody, virtues cherished by other people too. However, the SS men possibly over-emphasized those virtues in a manner which not always was good or wise. But none of the old soldiers, students and farmers,who had joined the SS imagine that war would in anyway resemble that what Hitler aimed at.
If Hitler ever had dared to speak to those men about attacks on other peoples with whom he had just recently concluded solemn pacts of friendship, or of Einsatzkommandos in foreign lands he would never had found any followers apart from a few desperate souls. I must assure that that war which the tall, blond and perhaps intellectually not too alert, typical SS man did not fear, the war as it had been conducted in his imagination since centuries by his ancestors, in the long run, it ended always with the appeal to destiny, the great gamble of the gods. Certainly,it is true that we have to free the Germans and particularly the young Germans of this atavistic longing -and I dare say that in this regard I am now more optimistic for my follow countrymen than for many another people -- but war as such of which it appears that it cannot yet be uprooted (The Kellogg Pact and modern international law do not condemn was as a means of defense and self-preservation) that war is something essentially different than that high treason, that betrayal of world peace, that attack and robbery coupled with exterminating ideas, which was invented by Hitler. the Prosecution charges it from the very beginning and due to which it declares it criminal, there is above all one event which is said to throw light like a flash on the criminal character; the killings which have been performed on June 30, 1934. save time, your Lordship. and I do not attach too much importance to the fact that the Prosecution wants to assert that even in the beginning a criminal development had to be considered or contemplated, and what means contributed to the forming of his opinion, and thereby we must honestly start from the facts, and that unlike his opponent the SS man did not with a particularly critical eye examine everything said about his Fuehrer and his State, but he wanted to believe in something, and this belief, as I shall prove was not found by him in the surrounding world, and the world around him unfortunately did not take the same view of it. right to adjourn now?
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours) (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours, 26 August 1946.)
DR. PELCKMANN: I have said, your Honor, that the surrounding world, unfortunately, did nothing to shake it. and to distract from ones own guilt if it exists. No -- these statements are supposed to clarify how we all, the whole world did something -- in part, likewise deceived about the true danger; in part in the hope that we would thus best master this danger -- which, in its effects on the whole German people, Hitler's followers, and his SS men had to be interpreted as confirmation of the correctness, the legality of his intentions and his deeds. defense of the individual defendants, for they are being changed precisely with having deceived the world consciously. Then, one cannot use the conduct of the world as an index for its credulity. In the case of the organizations this problem is different. Prosecution will not seriously charge with having known of the criminal aims and intentions of Hitler and they will certainly not be able to prove such knowledge. I have just shown how the events up to about 1934/35 had to appear to the SS man. Thus, the objection of the Prosecution that they could not have been strengthened in error, which is worthy of consideration for the principal defendants, does not apply to the organization which I am defending.
What was the situation at that time? (I quote essentially from Jasper's "The Question of Guilt" (Die Schuldfrage), pages 82-83).
"In the early summer 1935 the Vatican, concluded a Concordat with Hitler. Papen conducted the negotiations. It was the first great confirmation of the Hitler regime; a mighty gain in prestige for Hitler.
All states recognized the Hitler regime. One heard voices of admiration. Ribbentrop.
In 1933 the Olympic games were hold in Berlin. The whole world flocked there.
In 1936 the Rhineland was occupied by Hitler. France tolerated it.
Times, in which there occurred sentences like this one:
"Could England be overcome by a national misfortune comparable to the misfortune of Germany in 1918? I should ask God to send us a man of your strength of will and of spirit." men -- accompanied respectfully and in confidential conversations by SS men -at party rallies, in the Reich Chancellery, and in the Ministry, shook the hands of murderers and arsonists? What effect did that have to have on the consciousness of the SS men, who considered those hands pure and clean? in his book, "The German Question" (Die Deutsche Frage"), which was published in Switzerland.
"The present world catastrophe is the gigantic price which the world must pay for having been deaf to all alarm signals, which from 1930 to 1939 in increasingly shrill tones, proclaimed the hall which the satanic forces of National Socialism were to unbash, at first against Germany itself, and then against the rest of the world. The horrors of this war correspond exactly to the others which the world let pass in Germany while it even maintained normal relations with the National Socialist and organized International celebrations and congresses with the National Socialist and organized international celebrations and congresses with them." I will not read the quotation and ask the Tribunal to read it. as an affair which did not concern them. Only as a result of the experience with the Hitler regime and the second world conflagration, is the solidarity of the great states and, we hope one day that of the United Nations, seeing to it that dictatorships and, undemocratic methods in all countries do not lay the cornerstone to now world conflicts. I cite the remonstrances of the United States because of the internal government conditions in Argentina a few months age.
which the Prosecution has listed, I should like to interrupt the consideration and evaluation of material with a few statements on the law of the Charter and on the rules of procedure. I did not want to bore the Tribunal with this at the beginning, but first I wanted to create a factual atmosphere in which the legal argument would gain strength. My arguments will be as brief as possible, for much has already been said in this connection by my colleagues, and I fear that more will be said, and the Tribunal knows the memorandum of my colleague Klefisch. I hope that my statements may afterward clarify what I have already discussed, and I hope that they may give insight into the underbrush of the voluminous factual material which I can offer in the remaining period of three hours which was granted me for my speech. possible finding of an organization as criminal must be cleared up. The general statements of the defense regarding the possibility of the organizations'committing offenses are known to the Tribunal. I consider them fitting and correct. And yet no must ask the question : Who is really indicted with the purpose of a statement according to Article 9 of the Charter ? Is it really the formations as former legal entity or, is it not rather, in reality, the millions of individual members who, merely represented by one of the principal defendants and represented by the dead formations, are sitting in the deck ? It is the individual members who are \ the whole complex of questions. The Trial will not decide on the fate of the former organizations which are not alive and can never become dangerous but only on the fate of the many members. A glance at Law No. 10 and the disastrous consequences of the declarations of criminality confirms this. Declaration of criminality creates a previous decision -- constituting guilt and unassailable-- for possible charges under Law No. 10. quent proceedings, that is, it is up to the Prosecution whether it considers it expedient to indict the individual member. But this does not change the basic idea.