30 Aug A LJG 24-5 Ninabuck measure of Army group " center", concerning the seizure on Soviet territory or 40-50 thousand children between the ages of 10 to 14 and their transfer to Germany. Do not these examples testify to the crimes committed by Hitler's Government? organized plunder of the territories seized by the Germans, was carried out in conformity with official directives and insurrection of the Hitlerite Government and of its individual members. The directive of Minister Goering concerning the planned plunder of the occupied Soviet territories (the so-called "Goering's Green File"), the activities of the looting "Eimsatzstab" and "units of special purpose", the activities of the Ministers Rosenberg and Ribbentrop concerning the plunder of cultural treasures and monuments of art, as well as the activities of the Ministers Funk and Speer, is not all this sufficient to conclude about the participation of Hitler's Government in the plunder of the territories occupied by the Germans.
plunder of the public, private and communal property, and for the destruction and looting of cultural treasures in the occupied territories. In the USSR alone the material damages amount to 679 billion rubles. forced germanization of areas seized by the Germans. It is the Reich ministers Goering, Frick, Hess and Lammers who have signed the decree incorporating into Germany the four western provinces of Poland. Rainer stated, and I quote:
" ... Your principal task will be to include into the German Reich the entire new areas of Yugoslav Corinthia and Kraina ... Because without the setting up of a "German wall" any administrative building, as good as it may be, will sooner or later fall down... Your task, comrade Rainer, is to make this district entirely German ..." for us to recall the agreement between the Ministers Ribbentrop and Himmler concerning the organization of the intelligence services abroad, the September 1942 concerning the special mass police measures for the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles and Czechs, who allegedly were anti-social elements; the letter of Minister Lammers of 4 June 1944, addressed to Minister von Schirach regarding the non-prosecution of the authors of murders of shot down Allied airmen; the letter of Minister Keitel to the Minister of Foreign Affairs concerning treatment to be given to Allied airmen. its purpose in those Words: "I am establishing this Secret Council to advise me in questions of foreign policy." Ribbentrop, Goering, Hess, Goebbels, Lammers, Brauchitsch, Raeder and Keitel. Reich into the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the German Reich, He appointed Goering chairman of this Council and as members the Ministers Hess, Frick, Funk, Keitel and Lammers emphasized that "the Council for the Defense of the Reich is the deciding organization in the Reich on questions connected with the preparation of war", and that "the Council for the Defense of the Reich will convene in order to take all the more important decision."
aggressive wars which were the tasks of this Council, In the preparation of the war participated not only the members of the Council for the Defense of the Reich, but all other ministers as well. with Goering, Funk, Frick, Himmler, Keitel and Lammers, the ministers Schwerin von Krossigk, Dorpmueller, and others. the war industry of prisoners of war and of the population of the occupied territories, but the utilization of internees and even the number of internees in war time were discussed as well.
In the minutes of this meeting it is stated: "the General Plenipotentiary for Economy, that is Funk, has to define the task which is to be executed by the prisoners of war as well as by the person confined in prisons, concentration camps, etc." number of people in the concentration camps during the war. According to preliminary data 20,000 prisoners will be employed in the concentration cam workshops. collaboration of the OKW and the General Plenipotentiary for Economy of 3 May 1939 concerning plans for the war economy; and the plans of total warfare. There were also special reports from the Chief of Section IV, of the General Staff, Gerke, and from the Minister of Transport, Dorpmueller.
Were allmembers of the Reich Government informed of these decisions? the minutes of the meeting of the 23 June 1939 were sent. The minutes of the meeting of the Council for the Defense, of the Reich were sent to Deputy Fuehrer, to the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, to the Chairman of the Secret Council of Ministers, to the Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year Plan, and to the Ministers of Foreign affairs, Justice, Interior, Education, Economy, Church and Religion, Food and Agriculture, Labor, Finance, Communication, Postal service, Director of the Reichsbank, etc.
The very fact that the majority of the members of the Reich Government are defendants in the present trial says a great deal about the nature of the organization here discussed. Government for the heaviest crimes here mentioned is fully proven and that the Reich Cabinet should therefore be declared a criminal organization.
Your Honors: In order to carry out their plotted crimes, the heads of the Fascist conspiracy created a system of criminal organisations which have been the subject of my statement here. whole nations, are now awaiting with trepidation the coming verdict of the court. initiators of these sanguine Fascist "ideas", the main organizers of the crimes of Hitlerism. Fascism, the complicated and widely ramified network of party, government SS, military organizations which were the means of realizing these vile premeditations of the chief conspirators. battlefields. by the heroic Red Army and the valiant armies of the Allied Forces has not only destroyed the hordes of the Hitlerites but it has determined the sublime and noble principles of international cooperation, morality of mankind, the humane rubles of social community. towards the serene memory of the innocent victims, towards the conscience of the nations, as well as towards their own conscience.
Fascist hangmen.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn until 10:00 o'clock tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 31 August 1946, at 10:00 hours.)
THE PRESIDENT: Article 24 D (j) provides that each Defendant may make a statement to the Tribunal. I therefore now call upon the Defendants whether they wish to make statements. Defendant Herman Wilhelm Goering.
DEFENDANT HERMANN WILHEIM GOERING : The prosecution in its final speeches have treated the defendants and the presentation of evidence as completely worthless. The statements made under oath; the statements made by the defendants were assumed to be absolutely true, whether they served to support the Prosecution and the documents, but at the same moment, the statements were treated as perjury when the statements refuted the Indictment. That is not a convincing statement for the proceedings and thesis of evedence. the State as a proof that I should have known everything that happened. But it does not present any documentary or other convincing proof that there, under my oath, I refuted the contents of this knowledge, and therefore, it is only en assertion and an assumption when the Prosecution says, " who should have Known that if not Goering who was the successor of the Fuehrer ? were veiled with the most secrecy. But I condemned these terrible mess murders to the utmost, and to show that I am not lacking any misunderstanding in this connection, I wish to state emphatically the following comments once more, quite clearly, before the High Tribunal. Never did I ever decree a murder upon a single individual in any period of any time, but neither did I decree any cruelties at any time while I had the power and the Knowledge to prevent them.
The new statements presented by Mr. Dodd in his final statement that I had. ordered Heydrich to kill the Jews, that lacks every proof and that statement is not true. There is not a single order signed by me or signed in my behalf that enemy fliers should be shot or should be turned over to the SD. And, not e single case has been established where units of my Airforce have carried out things like that. which contain alleged statements, and written down by third and fourth parties without my having, seen these statements, in order to correct erroneous statements contained therein and to preclude misunderstanding.
be disterted. This fact may be proved also by the stenographic records taken in those proceedings which, in many cases, need correction when they are checked. statements which were made under completely different circumstances and without any conclusions arising at the time These statements were made, and new they are used to prove intent and built. ometimes statements can easily be. made because of the commitment of the moment and because of the atmosphere that obtains. There is hardly one leading personality on the neither side of whom we could not say the sea in the course of a quarter of a century, about when something similar was not set down in word or in writing and decisions, the prosecution seizes at the consequences and makes a connection according to which everything had been intended and wished that way from the beginning. This is a statement or an opinion which is errorneous and which is entirely devoid of logic, an opinion which will be rectified some day by history, after the proceeding here will arrive at the erroncousnes of this assertion.
Mr. Jackson in his final speed, referred to the fact that the signatory states are still in a state of War against Germany and, because of unconditional surrender, a state of truce is object sides. Therefore, if everything which is happening in Germany because of the occupying powers -- that is, if everything is admission after International law, then before that time, as far as France, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Yugoslavia and Greece are concerned, Germany found herself in the same position. If today the Geneva Convention, so far as the Germans are concerned, does not have any validity army longer, if today in all parts of Germany industry is being dismantled and other great assets in all spices can be brought to the other states, if today the monies of millions of Germans are being confiscated and other serious interventions in freedom are taking place, then measures like that token by Germany in the countries mentioned above cannot have been criminal on the part of Germany as far as other countries are concerned Mr. Jackson stated further that you cannot accuse and punish a state but rather, that you have to held the leaders responsible.
One seems to forget that Germany was a sovereign state, that Germany had a sovereign right, and that her legislation for the German people was not subject to the jurisdiction of foreign countries. No state ever, through a notification, called the attention of the Rich in time to time fact that the activity towards National Socialism would be made subject to punishment and persecution. To the contrary, if now individual persons, first of all -- we, the fuehrers -- are being called to account and are to be sentenced, very well. But, at the same time, you cannot punish the German people as well. The German people confided their trust in the Fuehrer and, in his authoritarian government, had no influence on happenings. Without knowledge of the grave crimes which we have learned of today, the people, loyal, ready to sacrifice, courageously endured the struggle for existence, the struggle to the death.
I did not want a war, nor did I bring it about. I have done everything to prevent it through negotiations. After it had broken out, I did everything to assure victory. Since the three greatest powers on earth, together with other rations, fought against us, finally we were conquered by tremendous enemy superiority. emphatically and reject most emphatically that my actions were dictated by the will to subjugate foreign peoples through wars, to murder them, to rob them, or to enslave then, or to commit cruelties or crimes. fortunes, its freedom, and its life. And for this I call on the Almighty and my German people as a witness.
THE PRESIDENT: I call on the defendant Rudolf Hess. High Tribunal that I may remain seated because of my state of health.
THE PRESIDENT: Certainly.
DEFENDANT RUDOLF HESS: Some of my comrades here can confirm the fact that at the beginning of the proceedings I predicted the following: statements and, at the same time, these Witnesses could create an absolutely reliable impression and could enjoy the best possible reputation.
Point 2: It was to be reckoned with that the Court would receive affidavits containing untrue statements.
Point 3: The defendants would, with a few German witnesses, hear of astonishing facts.
Point 4: Some of the defendants would act rather strangely: They would make shameless utterances about the Fuehrer; they would incriminate their own people ; they would incriminate each other wrongly, in part, and perhaps they would even incriminate themselves, and also wrongly. vits are concerned, in dozens of cases the defendants, under unequivocal oath, were confronted with statements made under oath. the Great Admiral at Berlin and allegedly, claims to have talked with him in Berlin when the Admiral was in the Indian Ocean or in the Pacific Oacean, to my knowledge. proceedings, but rather months before the beginning of those proceedings in England, And, among other things, I made these predictions to the physician who was with me, Dr. Jones, and at the same time I set these predictions down in writing. of Germany. In this connection I should like to emphasize right here and now, that, if I mention the so incidents I am convinced from the beginning that the governments involved knew nothing whatsoever of these happenings. Therefore, I do not wish to accuse these government in any way.
proceedings or trials were taking place. These were characterized in such a way that the defendants were accusing each other in against arising way. In part they cited great numbers of crimes which they had committed or which they claimed to have committed. At the end, *---* death sentences were passed against them, they clapped their approval. the impression that these defendants, through a means unknown up until that time, had been transported to an abnormal state of mind, and that was the reason for their behavious, the reason they acted the way they did.
(Hess)
These incidents were recalled to my mind through a certain happening; in England. It wasn't possible for me there to receive the reports on the proceedings at that time just the way I had not had them here, but here the various numbers of the newspapers "Voelkischer Beobachter" were at my disposal. When I perused those number, I got to the date of the 8th of March, there was a passage I found -- here in a report from Paris, under the date of the 7th of March, 1938, it reads as follows: A large Paris newspaper "Le Jour" made revelations about the means which obviously were viewed in these trials. This is a rather mysterious means. I quote literally: this is the report:
"This means affords the possibility that the victims are them" and I emphasize and should like to refer to the fact that in this report of "Le Jour" it does not only say that they can be made to speak according to orders given them but that they can be made to act according to the orders given them.
The latter point is of tremendous importance in connection with the actions which had not been explained, of the personnel of the German concentration camps, including the physicians and scientists who carried through these atrocious experiments on the inmates, incidents Which normal human beings, especially physicians and scientists, could not possibly carry out. But it is of equally great significance as well, when we look at the actions of those people who, without doubt, gave the orders and directions for these atrocities in the concentration camps and who gave the order to shoot prisoners of war, and lynch-mob justice and others all the way up to the Fuehrer himself. Fieldmarshal Milch testified here that he had the impression that the Fuehrer during the last years was not quite normal mentally and a series of my comrades here quite independently of each other and without having any knowlodge of the testimony which I am giving new, my comrades have told me that the facial expressions and the expression of the eyes of the Fuehrer in the last years contained something cruel and even had a tendency towards madness and I can callthe comrades involved by name.
of the reports of the earlier trials. My motive was that my surroundings during my internment acted towards me in an inexplicable way, in a way which would lead me to include that these people somehow were acting in a state of mind which was not normal. At the same time, these people of my surroundings, the people that surrounded me were exchanged from time to time, some of them who had been exchanged, and new people who came in, some of them bad Strange eyes. They were glassy eyes and they had a dreamy cast. The symptoms, however, lasted but a few days and then they created a completely normal impression. They could not be differentiated from completely normal beings. Not only I noted those strange eyes but the doctor who attended, me at the time, Dr. Jones Johnston, A British military physician, a Scotsman. In the Spring of 1942 I had a visitor, a visitor who quite obviously wanted to be nice to me and acted in a strange way towards me. This visitor had those stranger eyes. Afterwards, Dr. Johnston asked me just what my opinion was of this visitor. He told me--rather, I told him that I had had the impression that for some reason or other he was not quite normal mentally and Dr. Johnston, not quite the way I expected, protested but agreed with me and asked me whether these strange eyes had not come to my attention, these eyes that had adreamy cast. Dr. Johnston did not suspect that he, himself, when he visited me, had the same eyes. still be found in the press archives, these are the trials which took place in Moscow; in these reports, it said that the defendants had strange eyes but they had glassy and dreamy eyes. I have already stated that I am convinced that the government involved know nothing of those happenings; therefore, it would not be in the interest of the British Government, in my statements about that which I experienced in my internment, the outside world, would be excluded; for in this way the impression would arise as if, in fact, something was to be concealed. or in fact the British Government had been involved or had her fingers in the pie. On the contrary, I am convinced that the Government of Churchill, as well as the present government, gave directions that I was to be treated fairly and according to the rules of the Geneva Convention.
I fully realize that everything that I should like to state, dealing with, the treatment which I received, on first glance will be incredible but to my good luck, at an earlier period of time, prison guards treated the inmates which, first of all, at first glance, seemed quite incredible when the first rumors of this treatment reached the world. These rumors were to the effect that quite deliberately, prisoners had been permitted to starve to death, that the sparse food which they had been given, among other things, had been mixed with ground glass; that the physicians who attended the prisoners Who had taken ill as a result of this, that the prisoners had received harmful medicants and harmful medicines and in that way the number of victims was increased that way. For a fact, all of these rumors afterwards came out to be true. It is an historical fact that a monument was erected for 26,000 or so poor women and children who, in British concentration camps, who died in British concentration camps, who in the most part died of hunger. Many Englishmen, among other Lloyd George, at that time objected to these happenings in British concentration camps and protested most emphatically -- and an English eye-witness, Miss Emily Hopfords objected; however, at that time, the world stood before the riddle which could not be explained, for the same riddle which the word is confronted with today, relating to the happenings in German concentration camps. At that time, the British people stood before a riddle which could not be solved and the same riddle which confronts the German people today in connection with the happenings in German concentration camps, even the British Government itself, at that time, as far as the incidents in the South African concentration camps are cone earned, the British Government found, herself confronted with the riddle. The same enigma which faces today the members of the British Government and the other defendants in this trial and the ether trials, as far as the incidents in German concentration camps were concerned. say about the incident, during my own arrest and incarceration in England, that I should like to make those statements under oath; however, it was quite impossible for me to bring my defense counsel to the point where he would declare himself willing to put these questions to me and in the same way, it was impossible for me to set out another defense counsel to put these questions to me, but it is of the utmost significance that that which I am saying; has been said under oath and under oath I should like to state that now I swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient, that I am saying the pure truth, that I shall leave out nothing and add nothing.
I should like to ask the High Tribunal therefore, to consider everything which I will say from now on as being under my oath and I should like to interpolate regarding my oath that I am not a church person. I had no innerrelationship to the churches, but I am a deeply religious person. I am convinced that my belief in God is stronger than that of most other peoples and there I ask that high Tribunal to evaluate these things which I am stating under oath and calling upon God as my witness.
In the spring of 1942 -
THE PRESIDENT: I must draw the attention of the defendant Hess to the fact that he has already spoken for twenty minutes, and the Tribunal has indicated to the defendants that it cannot allow then to continue to make Statements of great length at this stage of the proceedings.
We have to hear all the defendants. The Tribunal, therefore, hopes that the defendant Hess will conclude his speech.
DEFENDANT HESS: Mr. President, may I call the attention of the High Tribunal to the fact that I took into account that I am the only defendant who, up till now, has not made any statement For those things which I should like to say now, I could have said as a witness only if corresponding questions had been put to no. But as I have already stated -
THE PRESIDENT: I do not propose to argue with the defendants. The Tribunal has made its order that the defendants shall only make short statements. The defendant Hess had a full opportunity to go into the witness box raid give his evidence upon oath. He chose not to do so. defendants and will be confined to a short statement.
DEFENDANT HESS: Therefore, Mr. President, as far as my future statements Which I had wanted to make are concerned, I shall forego making then. May I ask you to listen to but a few concluding words which are of a general nature and have nothing to do with the things that I have just stated? high Tribunal I let rest because of the sentence, and for history and for my people. That is the onlything which counts with me. I am not defending myself against my accusers, whom I deny the right to accuse no, end my follow countrymen. I will not deal with accusations which concern things Which are purely German matters and therefore are of no concern to foreigners. I am not protesting against statements which are directed at attacking my honor or the honor of the German people. I consider such accusations made against me by the enemy as a sign of honor. under the greatest sun which my people produced in its history of 1,000 years.
Even if I could, I would not want to erase this period of time from my life, I am happy to know that I have done may duty to my country and ray people, and my duty as a German, as a national Socialist, and as a loyal follower of my Fuehrer. I do not regret anything. way I did act, even if I know that at the end I should meet death on a bonfire. No matter what human beings might do, some day I shall be before the judgment seat of the Almighty. I shall be responsible to him, and I know he will call me innocent
THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the defendant Joachim von Ribbentrop.
DEFENDANT von RIBBENTROP: This trial is to serve the research of historical truth. As far as the point of view of German politicas is concerned, I can say the following formulae which up to now have not been known, to show how in all fairness, one can circumvent the most pressing problem of twenty five years of human history and of our history, the Treaty of Versailles. Was it really expedient, the, to inhibit the conflict about an agreement which even those who had insight, among the signers, counted on to bring about evil? The wisest time already predicted from which of the faults of Versailles a new world war would arise. with the result that foreign statesmen, who knew about this today write down in their affidavits that they had not believed me. They should have written that in the interests of their countries they could not believe me. I am held responsible for the conduct of foreign policy, a foreign policy which was determined by another. I knew only this much of it, that it never concerned itself with plans of a world domination, but rather with the doing away with of the consequences of Versailles and with the food problems of the German people. for a war of aggression, that is not an excuse on my part. This truth is proved by the strength that we showed in the course of the Second World war and how weak we were at the beginning of that war. gression much, much better even if we did not intend to carry it through. What we intended was to take note our most elementary conditions of life, in some way that England noted her own interests in that she made one-fifth of the world subordinate to her, and in the same way that the United States and Russia brought the largest continents of the world under their hegemony. The only difference between the policies of those countries as compared with us that parcels of land such as Danzig and the Corridor were demanded of us against our rights, whereas the other powers are accustomed to thinking only in terms of continents. powers of the London Agreement must have had different opinions about international law and politics from those held by them today, when I Went to Marshal Stalin in Moscow in 1939, he did not discuss with me the possibility of a peace ful settlement of the German-Polish conflict in the background of the KelloggBriand Pact?
but rather he let me see that if in addition to half of Poland and the Baltic countries and Lithuania he did not receive the harbour of Lithuania, I might as well return back. peace. Otherwise I could not quite explain Stalin's telgram at the end of the Polish campaign This reads: "The friendship of Germany and the Soviet Union is based on blood which has been shed commonly, and has all prospects of being enduring and steadfast". friendship. Today the nuclear problem remains for Europe and Asia; Who will donate Europe and Asia, or will the influence of Russia on the Eibe, in the Adri or at the Dardanelles beheld back. dilemma as Germany faced at the time when the negotiations were being carried or by me with Russia, I hope with all my heart for my country that they will became successful in their result. German foreign policy? Out of more than 300 Defense documents, more than 150 he turned down without cogent reasons. But the archives of the enemy and the German were inaccessible to the Defense.
Churchill's friendly hint to me that if Germany were to be too strong it would be destroyed will be declared irrelevant in order to judge the motives of the German foreign policy. The revolution cannot be understood the more if it is to be considered from the point of view of a conspiracy.
Fate made me one of the exponents of that revolution. I mourn these awful crimes which are soiling this revolution. But I cannot measure all of them according to puritanical norms, and all the less for I have seen that even the en even through after total victory, neither could prevent nor wanted to prevent atrocities. the point of view of the critical observer it is only makeshift. Whoever stood in a decisive position in the Third Reich knows that it is an historic untruth and the author of the Charter of this Tribunal has proved with Ms inventions only what the background of his thinking was.
oped a conspiracy for the elimination of a brave and highly developed people. When I look back upon my actions and upon my wishes, then I can conclude only this: The only thing of which I consider myself guilty, before my people but not before this Tribunal, is that my foreign political wish remained without success.
THE PRESIDENT: I call on the defendant Wilhelm Keitel.