There is no evidence that a single German commander protested against or opposed the flagrant and ruthless violation of the neutrality of the Low Countries. peace are labored and implausible, and are in conflict equally with the documents before the Tribunal and with the history of the years in question. Nor is it true that the military leaders were more puppets without influence on Hitler or the course of events. Naturally there were disagreements not only between Hitler and the Wehrmacht, but within the Wehrmacht itself. If Hitler prevailed at times, so at times did the Wehrmacht, whether it was to postpone the western offensive or to launch the attack on Denmark and Norway. Despite the attempt to make the contrary appear, Hitler was not so stupid as to act without the benefit of military advice. One need only look at Hitler's directive to the military leaders of 12 November 1940, written after the successful conclusion of the western offensive, in which Hitler discusses very tentatively his future plans in France, a possible offensive in Spain, whether Madeira and the Azores should be occupied, what assistance should be given the Italians North Africa, what to do in Greece and the Balkans, what the future might hold with regard to the Soviet union, and whether to invade England in the spring of 1941. Hitler concluded:
"I shall expect the commanders-in-chief to express their opinions of the measures anticipated in this directive.
I.
and synchronization of the individual actions."
No, the leaders of the Wehrmacht were not puppets. If the generals owed their opportunity to rebuild the Wehrmacht largely to Hitler and the Nazis, it is very true that Hitler was utterly dependent on the generals for carrying out his plans. Brauchitsch has pointed out that "the carrying out of the orders that were 30 Aug M LJG 3-5a Gallagher given to the army and to the army groups required such a high knowledge of military matters and such ability and psychological understanding that there were only a few people who were actually able to carry out such orders."
And it is worth noting that despite the very real and natural friction between the war lords and a former corporal, Hitler never, until July, 1944, turned outside the ranks of the army for his commanders-in-chief. Even during those final desperate months, only four outsiders, Himmler himself end three others from the Waffen-SS achieved the coveted distinction. Europe led by reluctant men. These aggressive wars were launched and waged by men who worshipped armed might, and wanted to extend the hegemony of Germany. That is, at bottom, why the Nazis and the Wehrmacht leaders gave the Third Reich its unity. I recall the Tribunal's attention to Admiral Fricke's memorandum of June, 1940:
"It is too well known to need further mention that Germany's dependent on Germany.
If the following results are achieved -- that expansion is undertaken (on a scale I shall describe later) by means of powers of resistance (popular unity, mineral resources, industry and Armed Forces) are so broken that a revival must be considered out of * * * * * "The solution * * *, therefore, appears to be * * * to crush Franco, to Denmark and Norway to existen the basis indicated above."
the generals say over and over again that they were never told about what was going on and heard about events for the first time over the radio. Over and over a gain they have protested that they never heard about certain things until they were lodged in the jail at Number. Military figures, like so many others in this case, have not hesitated to out the responsibility for things which they cannot deny or avoid on the shoulders of one or two people when they seek to portray as peculiar and unrepresentative of the group. The common denominator of these scapegoats is that they are all dead. The dead Reichenau is made to share the blame with the other dead who cannot speak -Hitler, Himmler, Dr. Rasche and the rest. These defenses are mean and they are utterly incredible. The world will never believe them. leaders with what was going on in and around Germany in the years before the war. The military leaders now tell us that they neither knew, nor cared to know, nor ought to have known about these things. If what they say is true, then they are utterly unique, for nearly all the world had heard something about these things.
One of the most remarkable things about this trial has been that instead of a series of startling revelations, the documents assembled here and the labor devoted to them have served to confirm what was already known or suspected throughout the world many years ago. I cannot suppose that anybody will everysubscribe to the view, which the military leaders have been forced by circumstances to put forward here in order to try and clear themselves from a stain which is far too dark to be effaced. participated led inevitably to the war crimes which followed. Without the participation of this group in the crimes against peace, there would not have been any war crimes. It is not a change from one subject to another, but only the inevitable chain of causation, which leads us now to consider the methods by which the Wehrmacht waged the wars it had launched. plunged into innocent blood, or that the rules of war and the laws of decency were disregarded by every German commander. But we do say that the nature and extent of the atrocities ordered by the leaders of the Wehrmacht and thereafter perpetrated by it in many countries of Europe, reveal and prove a calculated indifference on the part of the military leaders to the commission of crimes. instructions from Hitler as its commander-in-chief, issued various orders which flagrantly contravened the rules of war. These included the orders for the shooting of commandos and political commissars, the orders to "pacify" the occupied territories of the Soviet Union by spreading terror, and others. The efense does not dispute the issuance of these orders, and it does not and cannot contest their criminality. Rather we are told that the German commanders were honorable soldiers, that they disapproved of these orders, that they tacitly agreed not to execute the orders, and that the orders were not executed. order. The original order and the other relevant documents are all in evidence. In October, 1942, Hitler ordered that enemy commandos were to be slaughtered to the last man; that even if they surrendered, they were nonetheless to be shot immediately, unless interrogation were necessary, in which case they were to be shot thereafter.
The order was not a purposeless piece of criminality; allied commando operations were doing serious harm to the German war effort, and Hitler thought this order would act as a deterrent. of the service, Army, Navy and Air Force. There is ample evidence that it was widely distributed and well-known within the Wehrmacht. Rundstedt, Supreme Commander in the West, reported on June 23, 1944 that "the treatment of enemy commando groups has so far been carried out" according to the Hitler order. Two years later, under different circumstances, Rundstedt testified that he "evaded and "sabotaged" the order, and that it was not carried out. But we know from the documents that it was carried cut. Pursuant to this order, British and Norwegian commandos were executed in Norway in 1942 and 1943; American commandos were shot in Italy in 1944, allied soldiers were executed in Slovakia in 1945. And, in the nature of things, the order must have been carried out in other instances of which, unhappily, no trace now remains.
In the light of these documents, what remains of the defense? Stated most favorably, merely that because some of the military leaders disapproved the order, it was not executed as often as it might otherwise have been. But this defense is worse than worthless; it is shameful. only a violation of the rules of war. It is murder. And murder is not the less murder whether there is one victim, or 55 (which is the number of slaughtered commandos shown by the documents), or Ohlendorf's 90,000. Crime has been piled upon crime in this case until we are in danger of losing our sense of proportion. We have heard, so much of mass extermination that we are likely to forget that simple murder is a capital offense. to avoid associating himself with murder, whether as an accomplice or accessory or co-conspirator. And these requirements can reasonably be applied to the German military leaders. Before this Tribunal they have made much of their traditions of honor, decency, courage and chivalry.
Aug-30-RT-M-4-1a-Ninabuck the order of a superior, if the subordinate knows that the order requires the commission of a general or a military crime. The commando order required the commission of murder, and every German officer who handled the order knew that perfectly well. knew that it required the commission of murder. The responsibility for handling this question lay squarely on the group defined in the Indictment. The chiefs at OKW, OKH, and OKM had to decide whether to refuse to issue a criminal order or whether to pass it on to the commanders-in-chief in the field. The commanders in field, Army. Navy and Air Force had to decide whether to execute it or refuse and whether to distribute it to their subordinates. among various members of the group to discuss this matter. There is no evidence that a single member of the group openly protested or announced his refusal to execute it. The general result was that the order was distributed throughout a large part of the Wehrmacht. This put the subordinate commanders in the same position as their superiors. We are told that some of the generals tacitly agreed not to carry out the order. If so, it was a miserable and worthless compromise. By distributing the order with "Secret" or "tacit" understandings, the commandersin-chief merely spread the responsibility and deprived themselves of any effective control over the situation. A tacit agreement to disobey cannot be so widely circulated. The inevitable result, and the result proved by the documents, was that the order was carried out, and innocent men were murdered. was tried, convicted, and soot to death. For the same crime, General Falkenhorst now stands condemned to die. But the responsibility for these murders is shared by Falkenhorst and Dostler with every German Commander-in-chief, at home or in the field, who allowed this order to become the official law of the Wehrmacht and participated in its distribution; On this charge alone, I submit, the General Staff and High Command group is proved to have participated directly, effectively, and knowingly in the commission of war crimes. violations of the laws of war and to mass suffering and death produced results equally criminal and, because on a grander scale, far more horrible.
The atrocities committed by the Wehrmacht and other agencies of the Third Reich in the east were of such staggering enormity that they rather tax the power of comprehension. Why did, all these things happen? Analysis will show, I believe, that this was not simply madness and blodlust. On the contrary, there was both method and purpose. These atrocities accurredas the result of carefully calculated orders and directives, issued prior to or at the time of the attack on the Soviet Union, which form a coherent, logical pattern. to consider seriously making an attack on the Soviet Union. We do not know that beginning in September of 1940, he was constantly discussing this posssiblity with the military leaders, who had ample opportunity to express their views to him. We know that there was a division of opinion among the generals and admirals. none of them appear to have been much governed by moral scruples, but some thought the attack unnecessary, and others were dubious that a quick victory could be achieved, However, still others agreed with Hitler that the attack should be launched. Then Hitler, in consultation with and with the support of part of the military leadership, decided to make the attack, there is no indication that any leading Generals stood out decisively against the decision, and they embarked on the war with the utmost determination to carry it through to a successful conclusion. factor which, once the decision had been made, became a vitally important object and purpose of the attack. That was to seize areas of the Soviet Union and to exploit too so areas the material benefit of Germany. To accomplish this, it was desired to "pacify" and crush all opposition to the occupied territory as rapidly as possible and with a minimum expenditure of manpower and material to obliterate the Soviet political system and set up new, German supported, regional political administrations, and to revise and expand the productive resources of these areas and convert them to the uses of the Third Reich.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.
(Recess, was taken.)
GEN. TAYLOR: Mr. President, at our recess I was describing the program for the exploitation and pacification of the occupied Eastern territories. Hitler had very definite ideas as to how this program should be carried out, and these ideas were partially embodied in the series of directives and orders with which the Tribunal is now familiar. Some of these orders were to be executed directly by the Wehrmacht, some of them by other agencies of the Reich, but in coordination with and supported by the Wehrmacht.
For the rapid and economical "pacification" of occupied territories, after Hitler had consulted Brauchitsch the OKW issued the order of 22 July, 1941, which ordered the commanders-in-chief to establish security, not by sentencing the guilty in courts of law, but by spreading "such terror as is likely, by its more existence, to crush every will to resist amongst the population." For the same purpose, OKW issued the order of 13 May, 1941, which, suspended the use of military courts for punishing offenses by enemy civilians, and directed that the troops themselves should accomplish pacification by "ruthless action", the most extreme methods," and "collective despotic measures" against localities. In furtherance of these abominable policies, it was further ordered that the German troops who committed offenses against Soviet civilians were not to be punished at all, unless punishment were necessary to maintain discipline and security or prevent waste of food or material. Every commissioned officer on the eastern front was to be instructed promptly and emphatically to behave in accordance with these principles. The language of the order was calculated to incite officers and men alike to the most despicable behaviour. In these two orders we can see the basic composition of this revolting picture. In more detail, Hitler expected particularly bitter opposition to his new Russian policies and regimes from officers and agents of the Soviet government and from all Jews. These elements he decided to exterminate utterly, as they would otherwise remain a constant focal point of resistance within the occupied regions. for the killing of all political commissars who might be captured. This, like the commando order, required the murder of defenseless prisoners-of-war. And in this case the military leaders behaved in precisely the same fashion. Not one commander-in-chief openly protested or openly announced his refusal to execute the order.
A few commanders may have refused to distribute it down to the troops, but it was distributed and became well-known over the entire eastern front. As in the case of the commando order, we are told that by tacit agreement among the commanders, it was not carried out. The evidence in support of this is that particular commanders or other officers never personally knew of an instance where a captured commissar was shot. We may assume the truth of some of these statements, but it is nonetheless totally incredible, in view of the order's wide distribution, and the deliberate brutalizing of the German soldier by such orders as these and such directives as Reichenau and Manstein issued to their troops, that the commissar order was not carried out in many cases. It must have been. all Communists by the OKW order of 16 September 1941, which directed that all cases of resistance to the Wehrmacht, no matter what the circumstances, should be attributed to Communists and that "the death penalty for 50-100 communists should generally be regarded as suitable atonement for one German soldier's life." of undesired elements could not, obviously, be carried out by the Wehrmacht alone.
Many other agencies of the Third Reich had an important share in this far-flung, evil program. Among these other agencies, perhaps the most unspeakable were the special task forces of Himmler, known as Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos. The mission of these units was to assist in "pacification" and pave the way for the new political regime by stamping out opposition, and particularly by slaughtering communists and Jaws. We know, both from contomperary documents and from the confession of the leader of one of these units, with what terrible fidelity that mission was performed. but these units could not simply be turned loose in the operational and rear areas of a conquered territory, without administration, supply, communication facilities, and sufficient control by the military to insure that their tasks would be coordinated with, and at least would not obstruct, military operations The defense has made every effort to conceal this plain fact, but any soldier, and indeed anyone who gives the matter thought, must know that it is true.
And this is quite clear from the documents. The OKW Directive for Special Areas of 13 March 1941 provided that Himmler could send these units into operational areas in order to perform "special tasks for the preparation of the political administration, tasks which result from the struggle which has to be carried out between two opposing political systems." But the order carefully specified that the execution of Himmler's tasks should not disturb military operations, and that the units were subject to the supreme authority of the commander-in-chief of the army in the operational area. The and feeding of Himmler's units was to be furnished by the army. It was directed that further details should be arranged between the OKH and Himmler. Brauchitsch has confirmed that subsequently the details were settled at a conference between Heydrich and General Wagner of OKH, and Schellenberg, who drafted the agreement, has described its contents. army and would have been helpless without the army's support. The testimony of some of the German generals taht these killings of thousands upon thousands took place without their knowledge would make one smile, were not the truth so black and sickening.
A military area, even far behind the front, is not a desert where one can wander to and fro unchallenged. It is a veritable maze of roar headquarters, trucking companies, ammunition dumps, supply depots, signal installations, hospitals, gasoline dumps, railway guards, prisoner-of-war stockades, anti-aircraft batteries, airfields, engineer, ordnance units, motor pools--a thousand and one other tropps that furnish the base of operations and the line of communications for an army in the field. The smooth functioning of this vast and complicated train is vital to the success of the combat troops. The enemy knows this, and is eager both to disrupt it and to extract intelligence from it through sabotage groups, agents, and partisans. Wherefore the occupying forces guard their installations, patrol the roads and railways, and garrison the centers of population. Travellers, no matter what uniform they wear, are stopped and questioned and asked for identification. These troops in the rear come in close contact with the civilian population, and know what is going on among them. Military police and counter-intelligence troops police the area and report on its condition to higher headquarters. under special orders from home at large in his area. This is particularly true when, as here, the units came as servants of Himmler, whom the German generals say they thought to be their enemy, intent on usurping their powers and functions. The idea that Himmler's extermination squards flitted through Russia, murdering Jews and communists on a large scale, but secretly and unbeknownst to the army, is utterly prposterous-- the desperate sparring of men who have no recourse but to say what is not true.
Let us look again at the pattern as a whole. Most of it was written down in plain German before the attack on Russia was launched. Terrorize the populace, let acts of violence and brutality on the part of German troops go unpunished, kill the commissars, kill 100 communists whenever you can find an excuse, make way for and food and house Himmler's squads performing "tasks which result from the struggle which has to be carried out between two opposing political systems." And the political system for which the commanders-in-chief were fighting had already been exterminating communists and Jews and boosting about it for years.
The German generals were bright enough to understand this pattern. In any event, it had been explained to them The OKW directive suspending the courts martial ended with a directive to the military leaders to inform their legal advisors about the "verbal information in which the political intentions of the High Command were explained to the Commanders-in-Chief." The defendant Rosenberg, at the time of or before the invasion, advised Keitel, Jodl, Warlimont, Brauchitsch, and Raeder about his "political and historical conception of the eastern problem." According to Brauchitsch, Hitler and had explained the "ideological" nature of the war to all the commanders-in-chief in conference at the time the commissar order was issued. The affidavits of Generals Roettiger, Rode, and Heusinger further confirm the obvious conclusion that the whole pattern of "pacification" was well understood throughout the German military leadership. will behave in a brutal way in circumstances where they have no explicit orders, I have not, for instance, instance, se*---* a written order that Soviet prisoners who could not march should be shot. I am prepared to believe that some German generals treated prisoners as well as they could, but I also find convincing the complaint of the young German lieutenant that efforts to pacify and exploit the Ukraine were being frustrated because:
"prisoners were shot when they could not march any more, right in the enemy propaganda."
and with enormous loss of life among innocent civilians. As the divisions of the German army were transferred between the eastern and western fronts, the practices on each front spread to the other. Slaughter at Kherson and Kovno was reflected in massacre at Malmedy and Oradour. The German army had been demoralized by its leaders. I recall to the Tribunal that a high German military judge, as early as 1939, granted "extenuating circumstances" to an SS officer who, without any reason, shot 50 Jews in a Polish synagogue because:
"as an SS man, particularly sensitive to the sight of Jews, and to the hostile attitude of Jewry to the Germans, he therefore acted quite thoughtlessly in a youthful spirit of adventure."
One must remember the observation before this Tribunal of SS ObergruppenFuehrer Bach-Zelewsky, who pointed out that:
"when for years, for decades, the doctrines are preached that the Slavic is inevitable."
order. A mass of affidavits have been submitted by individual commanders-inchief and subordinate officers in which they express their abhorrence of these orders and profess that they did not execute them. Again we hear of tacit understandings, even in the fact of evidence as to the slaughter which the orders caused. It makes one gasp that such a defense can be put forward at all, apparently without shame. in the indictment. Keitel, Jodl, Brauchitsch, Goering, and their colleagues at the center of affairs circulated these malignant orders, the criminality *---* which a child could see.
Kleist, Kluge, Rundstedt, Reichenau, S**ebert, Manstein and the other field commanders - in-chief distributed them to their subordinate officers. No secret agreements could forestall the terrible result which followed inevitably. have refused to distribute these orders ? Is soldiers they were bound to obey their supreme commander, but their own law an code says that it is the duty of every soldier to refuse to obey order; which he knows to be criminal. This is hard for the ordinary sold acting under pistol-point orders from his lieutenant. It is far less difficult for the commander-in-chief, He is expected to be mature, educated, accustomed to responsibility end disciplined to be steady and unfliching when put to a test. Under their own law and under the traditions they are so shameless as still to vaunt, the leaders were in duty bound to reject these orders. Their failure caused suffering and death to hundreds of thousands; their failure resulted directly in countless murders and other brutal crimes; and they, far more than the soldiers whom these orders led into crime, are the real criminals.
Hitler needed the commanders-in-chief; he needed them desperately and would have been helpless without them. They could have held securely and firmly to the standards which every soldier and, indeed every man, is expected to meet. And it was not, in most cases, fear of Hitler that caused then to betray these standards. They were ready enough to desagree with Hitler on other matters which they regarded as more important. They did not want to risk a breach with Hitler over what they callously regarded as a minor matter. They were intent on "larger " things--the conquest of Europe -- on which they and Hitler were in agreement. willing to go much farther and to stand sponsor for Nazi ideology, Reichenau and Manstein lent their names and prestige shamelessly in order to advance these vile doctrines. We cannot capture all the orders; we cannot tell how many German commanders-in-chief there are who, like Manstein, unctuously protesting their desapproval of Nazi doc-trine, could he confronted with their Own nauseating manifestos.
ders-in-chief disliked the pattern of orders and doc/trines which the evedence here has unfolded. He who touches filth is not excused because he holds his nose. For reasons which appeared to them sufficient, the German military leaders helped to weave this pattern. It is just this calculated indefference to crime which makes their conduct so unspeakable. Those individual commandersin-chief, if any, who can show clean hands may come forth and clear themselves. But the military leaders as a group, I submit, are proved beyond doubt to have participated directly, effectively, and knowingly in numerous and wide-spread war crimes and crimes against humanity. of major war ciriminals, Keitel and Raeder and the other military defendants are on trial not only as individuals but as representatives of the German military leadership. The military defendant committed their crimes as military leaders and hand-in-hand with others. It is in their representative capacity that the military leaders in the dock are truly important. that their attempts at defense must be desperately and inconsiste ly contrived. When called to account as a group fort their crime the famous German General Staff disintegrates, like a child's puzzle thrown on the floor, into 130 separate pieces. We are told that here is nothing there. Called upon to state their views on Hitler, aggressive war, or other unpleasant subject, the pieces reassemble themselves into pattern instantly and magically. With true German discipline, the same words come from every mouth. When the question is the participation of the Wehrmacht in killi Jews, they indignantly deny that their soldiers would do such things. When the question is the enforcement of law and discipli within the Wehrmacht, we are met by affidavits saying that German soldiers who killed Jews were court martialed and shot.
Charged with responsibility as a group, they plead immunity on the ground that they could not resign and that their statuts was therefore involuntary. Seeking to establish that they desapproved the policie of Hitler, they boast that many of their number who expressed their opposition were allowed or requested to resign. The inconsistency to their appeal to the soldier's oath of obedience is particularly shameless. Charged with launching aggressive wars against neighboring countries, they plead the oath in their defense. Accused of crimes committed during the war, they take credit to themselves for refusing to obey criminal orders. And so it is represented that the soldier who in time of peace was completely bound by his oath give unquestioning obedience, regardless of consequences, to a perjured head of state, could nevertheless, when his country was at war and obedience supposidly far more necessary, dabble in secret disobedience and thereby shift the blame and responsibility for the murder of cammandos and kommissars onto other shoulders. we have just examined. They are a group in more ways than one. They are more than a group; they are a class, almost a caste. They are a course of thought and a way of life. They have distinctive qualities of mind, which have been noted and commented on by the rest of the world for many decades, and which have thir roots in centuries. They have been a histrical force, and are still to be reckoned with. They are proud of it. deny all this. But in their very denial, the truth is apparent. Ther group spirit and unity of outlook and purpose is so deep that it drops from their lips willy-nilly. Read their testimony; always they refer to themselves as " we " or " we old soldiers", and they are forever stating " our " attitude on this or that subject. Rundstedt's testimony is full of such expressions of the attitude of the German military leaders as a group on a great variety of questions.
Manstein told us that " we soldiers mistrusted all parties "; " we all considered ourselves the trustees of the unity of Germany "; and " The National Socialist aim of unification was according to our attitude, but not the National Socialist methods. " What are the characteristics of the German military leaders ? They have been familiar to students of his try for a long time; books have been written by them and about them.
They are manifest in the documents and testimony before the Tribunal.
They are careful observers of Germany's internal politics, but their tradition and policy is not to indentify themselves with parties or internal political movements. This is the only true note in the refrain, sung so often at this trial, that " we were soldiers and not politicians. " They regard themselves as above politics and politicians. They are concerned only with what they consider to be the deeper, unchanging interests of Germany as a nation. As Manstein put it :
" We soldiers mistrusted all parties because every party of Germany.
We all considered ourselves the rustees of the unity of Germany in this respect ..." politics and diplomacy.
Any intelligent professional officer must be. Training is conducted, equipment is built, and plans are evolved in the light of what is known about the military potential and intentions of other countries. No officiers in the world were more aware of this than the Germans; none studied the international scene as closely or with such cold calculation. It was their mentor, Clausewitz, who described war as an instrument of politics.
fluctuations, and a government which will mobilize German resources behind the Wehrmacht and inculcate in the German public the spirit and purposes of militarism. This is what Rundstedt meant when he said that: "The National Socialist ideas which were good were usually ideas which were carried ever from old Prussian times and we had known already without the National Socialists." That is what Manstein meant by the "unity" of Germany.
The German military leaders believe in war. They regard it as part of a normal, well-rounded life. Manstein told us from the witness box that they "naturally considered the glory of war as something great". The "considered opinion" of OKW in 1938 recited that:
"Despite all attempts to outlaw it, war is still a law of nature which may be challenged but not eliminated.
It serves the survival of the "This high moral purpose gives war its total character and its ethical justification."
permanent. They have been bad for the world, and bad for Germany too. Their philosophy is so perverse that they regard a lost war, and a defeated and prostate Germany, as a glorious opportunity to start again on the same terrible cycle. Their attitude of mind is nowhere better set forth than in a speech delivered by General Beck before the German war Academy in 1935. The audience of young officers was told that "the hour of death of our old magnificent army" in 1919 "led to the new life of the young Reichswehr", and that the German army returned from the first world war "crowned with the laurels of immortality". Later on they were told that if the military leaders have displayed intelligence and courage, then losing a war "is ennobled by the pride of a glorious fall". In conclusion, they are reminded that Germany is a "military-minded nation" and are exhorted to remember "the duty which they owe to the man who re-created and made strong again the German Wehrmacht".
In 1935, that man was Hitler. In previous years it was other men. The German militarist will join forces with any man or government that offers fair prospect of effective support for military exploits. Men who believe in war as a way of life learn nothing from the experience of losing one.
is an unfamiliar one, but because it is so familiar that it may be in danger of being overlooked. We must not become preoccupied with the niceties of a chart or details of military organization at the expense of far more important things which are matters of common knowledge. The whole world has long known about and suffered at the hands of the German military leadership. Its qualities and conduct are open and notorious. Is the world now to be told that there is no such group? Is it to hear that the German war-Lords cannot be judged because they were a bunch of conscripts? We have had to deal seriously with such arguments only because there are no others. less important. We are at grips here with something big and evil and durable; something that was not born in 1933 or oven 1921; something much older than anyone here something far more important than any individual in the dock; something that is not yet dead and that cannot be killed by a rifle or a hangman's noose. mountains of corpses, human-skin lampshades, shrunken skulls, freezing experiments, and bank vaults filled with gold teeth. It is vital to the conscience of the world that all the participants in these enormities shall be brought to justice. But these exhibits, gruesome as they are, do not Lie at the heart of this case. Little will be accomplished by shaking the poisoned fruit from the tree. It is much harder to dig the tree up by the roots, but only this will, in the long run, do much good.
The tree which bore this fruit is German militarism. Militarism was as much the core of the Nazi party as of the Wehrmacht itself, Militarism is not the profession of arms. Militarism is embodied in the "military-minded nation" whose leaders preach and practice conquest by force of arms, and relish war as something desirable in itself. Militarism inevitably Leads to cynical and wicked disregard of the rights of others and of the very elements of civilization. Militarism destroys the moral character of the nation that practices it and, because it can be overthrown only by its own weapons, undermines the character of nations that are forced to combat it.
group of professional military leaders who have become known to the world as the "German General Staff". That is why the exposure and discrediting of this group through the declaration of criminality is far more important than the fate of the uniformed individuals in the box, or of other members of this group as individuals. Keitel and Reader and Rundstedt and Kesselring and Manstein have shot their bolt. They will not lead the legions of the Wehrmacht again. but the future influence of the German General Staff within Germany, and, consequently, on the lives of people in all countries. That is why it was declared at Yalta:
"It is our inflexible purpose to destroy German militarism and the peace of the world.
We are determined to disarm and disband all.
German armed forces; break up for all time the German General Staff that has repeatedly contrived the resurgence of German militarism."
right here in this court room. The German General Staff has had plenty of time to think since the spring of 1945, and it well knows what is at stake here. The German militarists know that their future strength depends on reestablishing the the faith of the German people in their military prowess and in disassociating themselves from the atrocities which they committed in the service of the Third Reich. Why did the Wehrmacht meet with defeat? Hitler interfered too much in military affairs, says Manstein. What about the atrocities? The Wehrmacht committed none. Hitler's criminal orders were discarded and disregarded by the generals. Any atrocities which did occur were committed by other men such as Himmler and other agencies such as the SS. Could not the generals have taken any stops to prevent Germany's engulfment in war and eventual destruction? No, the generals were bound by their oath of obedience to the chief of state. Did not an SS general say that the Field Marshals could have prevented many of the excesses and atrocities? The reaction is one of superiority and scorn: "I think it is impertinent for an SS man to make such statements about a Field Marshal", says Rundstedt.