The Tribunal finds that Frank is not guilty on Count One but guilty under Counts Three and Four.
Frick is indicted on all four counts. Recognized as the M. DE VABRES:
FRICK chief Nazi administrative specialist and bureaucrat, he was appointed Reichminister of the Interior in Hitler's first cabinet. He retained this important position until August, 1943, when he was appointed Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. In connection with his duties at the center of all internal and domestic administration, he became the Prussian Minister of the Interior, Reich Director of Elections, General Plenipotentiary for the Administration of the Reich, and a member of the Reich Defense Council, the Ministerial Council for defense of the Reich, and the "Three Man College.'' As the several countries incorporated into the Reich were overrun, he was placed at the head of the Central Offices for their incorporation. 1925, he had previously allied himself with Hitler and the National Socialist cause during the Munich Putsch, while he was an official in the Munich Police Department, Elected to the Reichstag in 1924, he became a Reichsleiter as leader of the National Socialist faction in that body. the German Nation under the complete control of the NSDAP. After Hitler became Reich Chancellor, the new Minister of the Interior immediately began to incorporate local governments under the sovereignty of the Reich. The numerous ition parties and prepared the way for the Gestapo and their laws he drafted, signed, and administered abolished all opposconcentration camps to extinguish all individual opposition.
He was largely responsible for the legislation which suppressed the Trade Unions, the Church, the Jews. He performed this task with ruthless efficiency. concerned only with domestic administration within the Reich. The evidence does not show that he participated in any of the conferences at which Hitler outlined his aggressive intentions. Consequently the Tribunal takes the view that Prick was not a member of the common plan or conspiracy to wage aggressive war as defined in this Judgment. visions of the Reich defense Law of September 4, 1938, Prick became General Plenipotentiary for the Administration of the Reich. He was made responsible for war administration, except the military and economic, in the event of Hitler's proclaiming a state of defense. The Reich Ministries of Justice, Education, Religion, and the Office of Spatial Planning were made subordinate to him. Performing his allotted duties, Frick devised an administrative organization in accordance with wartime standards. According to his own statement, this was actually put into operation after Germany decided to adopt a policy of war. Austria with the Reich, and he was made responsible for its accomplishment. In setting up German administration in Austria, he issued decrees which introduced German law, the Nurnberg Decrees, the Military Service Law, and he provided He also signed the laws incorporating into the Reich the Sudetenland, for police security by Himmler.
Memel, Danzig, the Eastern territories (West Prussia and Posen) and Eupen, Malmedy, and Moresnot. He was placed in charge of the actual incorporation, and of the establishment of German administration over these territories. He signed the law establishing the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Government General, and Norway, he was charged with obtaining close cooperation between the German officials in these occupied countries and the supreme authorities of the Reich. He supplied German civil servants for the administrations in all occupied territories, advising Rosenberg as to their assignment in the Occupied Eastern Territories. He signed the laws appointing Terboven Reich Commissioner to Norway and Seyss-Inquart to Holland. many laws designed to eliminate Jews from German life and economy. His work formed the basis of the Nurnberg Decrees, and he was active in enforcing them. Responsible for prohibiting Jews from following various professions, and for confiscating their property, he signed a final decree in 1943, after the mass destruction of Jews in the East, which placed them "outside the law" and handed them over to the Gestapo. These laws paved the way for the "final solution," and were extended by Frick to the Incorporated Territories and to certain of the Occupied Territories.
were transferred from the Terezin Ghetto in Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz, While he was Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, thousands of Jews where they were killed.
He issued a decree providing for special penal laws against Jews and Poles in the Government General. of the Interior. Put Frick actually exercised little control over Himmler and police matters. However, he signed the law appointing Himmler Chief of the German Police, as well as the decrees establishing Gestapo jurisdiction over concentration camps and regulating the execution of orders for protective custody. From the many complaints he received, and from the testimony of witnesses, the Tribunal concludes that he knew of atrocities committed in these camps. With knowledge of Himmler's methods, Frick signed decrees authorizing him to take necessary security measures in certain on the Incorporated Territories, What those "security measures" turned out to be has already been dealt with. general responsibility for the acts of oppression in that territory after 20 August, 1943, such as terrorism of the population, slave labor, and the deportation of Jews to the concentration camps for extermination. It is true that Frick's duties as Reich Protector were considerably more limited than those of his predecessor, and that he had no legislative and limited personal executive authority in the Protectorate. Nevertheless, Frick knew full well what the Nazi policies of occupation were in Europe, particularly with respect to Jews, at that time, and by accepting the office of Reich Protector he assumed responsibility for carrying out those policies in Bohemia and Moravia.
Reich came under his jurisdiction while he was Minister of the Interior.
Having created a racial register of persons of German extraction, Frick conferred German citizenship on certain catefories of citizens of foreign countries. He Is responsible for Germanization in Austria, Sudetenland, Memel, Danzig Eastern Territories (West Prussia and Posen), and in the territories of the Eupen, Malmedy, and Moresnot. He forced on the citizens of these territories, German law, German courts, German education, Gentian police security, and compulsory military service. euthanasia was practiced as described elsewhere in this Judgment, came under Frick's jurisdiction. He had knowledge that insane, sick and aged people, "useless eaters," were being systematically put to death. Complaints of these murders reached him, but he did nothing to stop them. A report of the Czechoslovak War Crimes Commission estimated that 275,000 mentally deficient and aged people, for whose welfare he was responsible, fell victim to it. He is guilty on Counts Two, Three and Four.
THE PRESIDENT: STREICHER Streicher is indicted on Counts One and Four.
One of the earliest members of the Nazi Party, joining in 1921, he took part in the Munich Putsch. From 1925 to 1940 he was Gauleiter of Franconia. Elected to the Reichstag in 1932, he was an honorary general in the SA. His persecution of the Jews was notorious. He was the publisher of "Der Sturmer", an anti-Semitic weekly newspaper, from 1923 to 1945 and was its editor until 1933.
Streicher was a staunch Nazi and Supporter of Hitler's main policies. There is no evidence to show that he was ever within Hitler's inner circle of advisers; nor during his career was he closely connected with the formulation of the policies which led to war. He was never present, for example, at any of the important conferences when Hitler explained his decisions to his leaders. Although he was a Gauleiter there is no evidence to prove that he had knowledge of those policies. In the opinion of the Tribunal, the evidence fails to establish his connection with the conspiracy or common plan to wage aggressive war as that conspiracy has been elsewhere defined in this judgment. preaching hatred of the Jews, Streicher was widely known as "Jew-Baiter Number One". In his speeches and articles, week after week, month after month, he Infected the German mind with the virus of anti-Semitism, and incited the Sturmer", which reached a circulation of 600,000 in 1935, German people to active persecution.
Each issue of "Der was filled with such articles, often lewd and disgusting. 1933. He advocated the Nurnberg Decrees of 1935. He was responsible for the demolition on August 10, 1933, of the Synagogue in Nurnberg. And on November 10, 1933, he spoke publicly in support of the Jewish pogrom which was taking place at that time. advocated his doctrines. As early as 1933 he began to call for the annihilation of the Jewish race. Twentythree different articles of "Der Sturmer" between 1938 and 1941, were produced in evidence, in which extermination "root and branch" was preached. Typical of his teachings was a leading article in September 1938 which termed the Jew a germ and a pest, not a human being, but "a parasite, an enemy, an evil-doer, a disseminator of diseases who must be destroyed in the interest of mankind". Other articles urged that only when world Jewry had been annihilated would the Jewish problem have been solved, and predicted that fifty years hence the Jewish graves "will proclaim that this people of murderers and criminals has after all met its deserved fate". Streicher, in February 1940, published a letter from one of "der Sturmer's" readers which compared Jews with swarms of locusts which must be exterminated completely. Such was the poison Streicher injected into the minds of thousands of Germans which caused, them to follow the National Socialist policy of Jewish persecution and extermination. A leading article of "Der Sturmer" in May 1939, shows clearly his aim:
Jews in Russia. A punitive expedition which "A punitive expedition must come against the murderer and criminal must expect.
Depth sentence and execution.
The Jews in Russia must be killed.
They must he exterminated root and branch."
acquiring more and more territory for the Reich, Streicher even intensified his efforts to incite the Germans against the Jews. In the record pre twenty-six articles from "Der Sturmer", published between August 1941 and September 1944, twelve by Streicher's own hand, which demanded annihilation and extermination in unequivocal terms. He wrote and published on December 25, 1941:
"If the danger of the reproduction of that is the devil.
" And in February 1944 his own article stated:
"Whoever does what a Jew does is a scoundrel, a criminal.
And he who repeats and wishes tion, death.
" in the Occupied Eastern Territory, this defendant continued to write and publish his propaganda of death. Testifying in this trial, he vehemently denied any knowledge of mass executions of Jews. But the evidence makes it clear that he continually received current information on the progress of the "final solution". His press photographer was sent to visit the ghettos of the East in the spring of 1943, the time of the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. The Jewish newspaper, "Israelitisches Wochenblatt", which Streicher received and read, carried in each issue accounts of Jewish atrocities in the Fast, and gave figures on the number of Jews who had been deported and killed. For example, issues appearing in the summer and fall of 1942 reported the death of 72,729 Jews Rumania, 14,000 in Latvia, 85,000 in Yugoslavia, 700,000 in Warsaw, 17,542 in Lodz, 13,000 in Croatia, 125,000 in in all of Poland.
In November 1943 Streicher quoted verbatim an article from the "Israelitisches Wochenblatt" which stated that the Jews had virtually disappeared from Europe, and commented "This is not a Jewish lie." In December 1942, referring to an article in the "London Times" about the atrocities, aiming at extermination, Streicher said that Hitler had given warning that the second World War would lead to the destruction of Jewry. In January 1943 he wrote and published an article which said that Hitler's prophecy was being fulfilled, that world Jewry was being extirpated, and that it was wonderful to know that Hitler was freeing the world of its Jewish tormentors. idle for Streicher to suggest that the solution of the Jewish problem which he favored was strictly limited to the clarification of Jews as aliens, and the passing of discriminatory legislation such as the Nurnberg Laws, supplemented if possible by international agreement on the creation of a Jewish State somewhere in the world, to which all Jews should emigrate.
Streicher's incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed, under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes, as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a crime against humanity. on Count One, but that he is guilty on Count Four.
Funk is indicted under all four counts. Funk, who had previously been a financial journalist, joined the Nazi Party in 1931, and shortly thereafter became one of Hitler's personal economic advisors. On January 30, 1933 Funk was made press Chief in the Reich Government, and on March 11, 1933, became Under Secretary in the Ministry of Propaganda and shortly thereafter a leading figure in the various Nazi organizations which were used to control the press, films, music and publishing houses. Funk took office as Minister of Economics and Plenipotentiary General for War Economy in early 1932 and as President of the Reichsbank in January 1939. He succeeded Schacht in all three of these positions. He was made a member of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich on August 1939, and a member of the Central Planning Board in September 1943. wage aggressive war had been clearly defined. One of his representatives attended a conference on October 14, 1938, at which Goering announced a gigantic increase in armaments and instructed the Ministry of Economics to increase exports to obtain the necessary exchange. On January 28, 1939, one of Funk's subordinates sent a memorandum to the OKW on the use of prisoners of war to make up labor deficiencies which would arise in case of mobilization. On May 30, 1939, the Under Secretary of the Ministry of Economics attended a meeting at which detailed plans were made for the financing of the war.
that his plans for the "financing of the war," for the control of wage gratitude that he had been able to participate in such world Shaking events; and price conditions and for the strengthening of the Reichsbank had been completed; and that he had inconspicuously transferred into gold all foreign exchange resources available to Germany.
On October 14, 1939, after the war had begun, Funk made a speech in which he stated that the economic and financial departments of Germany working under the Four Year Plan had been engaged in the secret economic preparation for war for over a year. on the USSR. His deputy held daily conferences with Rosenberg on the economic problems which would arise in the occupation of Soviet territory. Punk himself participated in planning for the printing of ruble notes in Germany prior to the attack to serve as occupation currency in the USSR. After the attack he made a speech, in which he described plans he had made for the economic exploitation of the "vast territories of the Soviet Union" which were to be used as a source of raw material for Europe. plans for aggressive war. His activity in the economic sphere was under the supervision of Goering as Plenipotentiary General of the Four Year Plan. He did, however, participate in the economic preparation for certain of the aggressive wars, notably those against Poland and the Soviet Union, but his guilt can be adequately dealt with under Count Two of the Indictment.
In his capacity as Under Secretary in the Ministry of Propaganda and Vice-Chairman of the Reichs Chamber of Culture, Funk had participated in the early Nazi program of economic discrimination against the Jews.
On November 12, 1938, after the pogroms of November, he attended a meeting held under the chairmanship of Goering to discuss the solution of the Jewish problem and proposed a decree providing for the banning of Jew from all business activities, which Goering issued the same day under the authority of the Four Year Plan. Punk has testified that he was shocked at the outbreaks of November 10, but on November 15, he made a speech describing these outbreaks as a "violent explosion of the disgust of the German people, because of a criminal. Jewish attack against the German people," and saying that the elimination of the Jaws from economic life followed logically their elimination from political life. which the Reichsbank was to receive certain gold and jewels and currency from the SS and instructed his subordinates, who were to work out the details, not to ask too many questions. As a result of this agreement the SS sent to the Reichsbank the personal belongings taken from the victims who had been exterminated in the concentration camps. The Reichsbank kept the coins and bank notes and sent the jewels, watches and personal belongings to Berlin Municipal Pawn Shops. The gold from the eyeglasses, and gold teeth and fillings was stored in the Reichsbank vaults. Funk has protested that he did not knew that the Reichsbank was receiving articles of this kind. The Tribunal is of the opinion that Funk either knew what was being received or was deliberately closing his eyes to what was being done.
Funk participated in the economic exploitation of occupied territories.
He was President of the Continental Oil Company which was charged with the exploitation of the oil resources of occupied territories in the East. He was responsible for the seizure of the gold reserves of the Czechoslovakian Nation Bank and for the liquidation of the Yugoslavian National Bank. On June 6, 1942, Funk's deputy sent a letter to the OKW requesting that funds from the French Occupation Cost Fund be made available for black market purchases. Funk's knowledge of German occupation policies is shown by his presence at the meeting of August 8, 1942, at which Goering addressed the various German occupation chiefs, told them of the products required from their territories, and added: "It makes no difference to me in this connection if you say that your people will starve." Planning Board which determined the total number of laborers needed for German industry, and required Sauckel to produce them, usually by deportation from occupied territories. Funk did not appear to be particularly interested in this aspect of the forced labor programme, and usually sent a deputy to attend the meetings, often SS General Ohlendorf, the former Chief of the SD inside of Germany and the former Commander of Einsatzgruppe D. But Punk was aware that the Board of which he was a member was demanding the importation of slave laborers, and allocating them to the various industries under its control. involved in the utilization of concentration camp labor. Under his direction the credit of the SS for the construction of factories to use the Reichsbank set up a revolving fund of 12,000,000 Reichsmarks to concentration camp laborers.
Funk was never a dominant figure in the various programs in which he participated. This is a mitigating fact of which the Tribunal takes notice. guilty under Counts Two, Three and Four.
THE PRESIDENT: The Court will adjourn for 10 minutes.
(Ashort recess was taken) Schacht is indicted under Counts One and Two of the Mr. BIDDLE:
SCHACHT Indictment. Schacht served as Commissioner of Currency and President of the Reichsbank from 1923 to 1930; was reappointed President of the bank on March 17, 1933; Minister of Economics in August 1934; and Plenipotentiary General for War Economy in May 1935. He resigned from these two positions in November 1937, and was appointed Minister without Portfolio. He was reappointed as President of the Reichsbank for a one-year term on March 16, 1957, and for a four-year term on March 9, 1938, but was dismissed on January 20, 1939. He was dismissed as Minister without Portfolio on January 22, 1943. before its accession to power on January 30, 1933, and supported the appointment of Hitler to the post of Chancellor. After that date he played an important role in the vigorous rearmament program which was adopted, using the facilities of the Reichsbank to the fullest extent In the German rearmament effort. The Reichsbank, in its traditional capacity as financial agent for the German Government floated longterm Government loans, the proceeds of which were used for rearmament. He devised a system under which five year notes, known as M.E.F.O. bills, guaranteed by the Reichsbank and backed, in effect, by nothing more than its position as a bank of issue, were used, to obtain large sums for rearmament from the short-term money market. As Minister of Economics and as Plenipotentiary General for War Economy he was active in organizing the trial mobilization and the coordination of the Army with German economy for war.
He made detailed plans for indusindustry in the event of war. He was particularly concerned with shortages of raw materials and started a scheme of stock-piling, and a system of exchange control designed to prevent Germany's weak foreign exchange position from hindering the acquisition abroad of raw materials needed for rearmament. On May 3, 1935, he sent a memorandum to Hitler stating that "the accomplishment of the armament program with speed and in quantity is the problem of German politics, that everything else therefore should be subordinated to this purpose."
Schacht, by April 1936, "began to lose his influence as the central figure in the German rearmament effort when Goering was appointed Coordinator for Raw Materials and Foreign Exchange. Goering advocated a greatly expanded program for the production of synthetic raw materials which was opposed by Schacht on the ground that the resulting financial strain might involve inflation. The influence of Schacht suffered further when on October 16, 1936, Goering was appointed Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan with the task of cutting "the entire economy in a state of readiness for war" within four years. Schacht had opposed the announcement of this plan and the appointment of Goering to head it, and it is clear that Hitler's action represented a decision that Schacht's economic policies were too conservative for the drastic rearmament policy which Hitler wanted to put into effect.
After Goering's appointment, Schacht and Goering promptly became embroiled in a series of disputes. Although there was an element of personal controversy running through those disputes, Schacht disagreed grounds, advocated a retrenchment in the rearmament programme, opposed with Goering on certain basic policy issues.
Schacht, on financial as uneconomical much of the proposed expansion of production facilities, particularly for synthetics, urged a drastic tightening on government credit and a cautious policy in dealing with Germany's foreign exchange reserves. As a result of this dispute and of a bitter argument in which Hitler accused Schacht of upsetting his plans by his financial methods, Schacht went on leave of absence from the Ministry of Economics on September 5, 1937, and resigned as Minister of Economics and as Plenipotentiary General for war Economy on November 16, 1937. disputes. Throughout 1938, the Reichsbank continued to function as the financial agent for the German Government in floating long-term loam to finance armaments. But on March 31, 1938, Schacht discontinued the practice of floating short-term notes guaranteed by the Reichsbank for armament expenditures. At the end of 1938, in an attempt to regain control of fiscal policy through the Reichsbank, Schacht refused an urgent request of the Reichsminister of Finance for a special credit to pay the salaries of civil servants which were not covered by existing funds. On January 2, 1939, Schacht held a conference with Hitler at which he urged him to reduce expenditures for armaments. On January 7, 1939, Schacht submitted to Hitler a report signed by the Directors of the Reichsbank which urged a drastic curtailment of armament expenditures and a balanced budget as the only method of preventing inflation. On January 19, Hitler dismissed Schacht as President of the Reichsbank. On January 22, 1943, Hitler dismissed Schacht as Reichs Minister without fight of the German nation."
On July 23, 1944, Schacht was arrested by Portfolio because of his "whole altitude during the present fateful the Gestapo and confined in a concentration camp until the end of the war.
It is clear that Schacht was a central figure in Germany's rearmament program, and the steps which he took, particularly in the early days of the Nazi regime, were responsible for Nazi Germany's rapid rise as a military power. But rearmament of itself is not criminal under the Charter. To be a crime against peace under Article 6 of the Charter it must be shown that Schacht carried out this rearmament as part of the Nazi plans to wage aggressive wars. program only because he wanted to build up a strong and independent Germany which would carry out a foreign policy which would command respect on an equal basis with other European countries; that when he discovered that the Nazis were reaming for aggressive purposes he attempted to slow down the speed of rearmament; and that after the dismissal of von Fritsch and von Blomberg he participated in plans to get rid of Hitler, first by deposing him and later by assassination. rearmament programme for financial reasons. Had the policies advocated by him been put into effect, Germany would not have been prepared for a general European war. Insistence on his policies led to his eventual dismissal from all positions of economic significance in Germany. On the other hand, Schacht, with his intimate knowledge of German finance, was in a peculiarly good position to understand the true significance of - Hitler's frantic rearmament, and to realize that the economic policy adopted was consistent Moreover Schacht continued to participate in German only with war as its object.
economic life and even, in a minor way, in some of the early Nazi aggressions. Prior to the occupation of Austria he set a rate of exchange between the mark and the schilling. After the occupation of Austria he arranged for the incorporation of the Austrian National Bank into the Reichsbank and made a violently pro-Nazi speech in which he stated that the Reichsbank would always be Nazi as long as he was connected with it, praised Hitler, defended the occupation of Austria, scoffed at objections to the way it was carried out, and ended with to our Fuehrer a triple 'Sieg Heil'." He has not contended that this speech did not represent his state of mind at the time. After the occupation of the Sudetenland, he arranged for currency conversion and for the Incorporation into the Reichsbank of local Czech banks of issue. On November 29, 1938, he made a speech in which he pointed with pride to his economic policy which had created the high degree of German armament, and added that this armament had made Germany's foreign policy possible. specific wars of aggression charged in Count Two. His participation in the occupation of Austria and the Sudetenland (neither of which are charged as aggressive wars) was on such a limited basis that it does not amount to participation in the common plan charge in Count One. He was clearly not one of the inner circle around Hitler which was most closely involved with this common plan. He was regarded by this group with undisguised hostility. The testimony of Speer shows that Schacht's arrest on July 23, 1944, was based as much on Hitler's enmity towards Schacht growing out Of his attitude plot.