Fifthly. I wish to state that by this International Military Tribunal an undisturbed and therefore just defense was not made possible for me.
THE PRESIDENT: You can rest assured that the Tribunal will see that everything, in the opinion of the Tribunal, that bears upon the case or is relevant to your case or is in any way material in your case will be presented and that you will be given the fairest opportunity of making your defense.
THE WITNESS: I thank you, your Lordship.
DR. MARX: Excuse me, Mr. President; may I ask briefly to be permitted to speak about that. May it please the Court, when I was put, before, the question at the time to take over the defense of Mr. Streicher, in my mind, of course, there were strong objections.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, I don't think it is necessary, really, for you to make any personal explanation at this stage. It is very possible that the defendant may have different ideas about his own defense. I think we better let him go on with his defense.
DR. MARX: Just the same, I should like to ask permission, Mr. President, to speak about this one point which deals with the following: As attorney and as defense counsel of a defendant, I have to reserve the right for myself to determine in which manner I lead the defense. If my client is of the opinion that certain documents or books, in his opinion, are relevant, and the attorney, however, is of the opinion that they are not relevant, than there is a discrepancy between the counsel and his client.
If Mr. Streicher is of the opinion that I am not capable or not in a position to take care of his defense, then he should ask for another defense counsel, but I am certain that at this stage of the proceeding it would be very difficult for me to take that consequence and to say that I ask you to relieve me of that task of defense; I do not feel terrorized by any newspaper writer, but it is another thing if my own client loses confidence of his counsel; therefore, I see cause to ask for the decision of the Court whether, under these circumstances, I shall continue my defense, or whatever the opinion of the Tribunal is.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks, Dr. Marx, that the explanation and the statement which you have just made is in accordance with the traditions of the legal profession and they think therefore that the case ought to proceed and that you should proceed with the case. Now, defendant, will you go on.
THE WITNESS: About my life -- I was born on the 12th of February 1885 in a small village in Bavaria. I was the last of nine children. My father was a public school teacher. I, myself, became a teacher also. After I had remained several years in my closer home province in Bavaria, in 1909, I came to the municipal schools at Nurnberg. Here I had the opportunity to get in contact with the families of the workers' children in the suburbs and here I had an opportunity to see the social contrast and what I recognized there, led to it, that in the year 1911, I decided to go into politics. I became a member of the Democratic Party -- in the year 1912, as a young democratic speaker, I spoke at the time of the Reichstag elections. The car that was put at my disposal, was paid for by the banking firm Kohn. I emphasize that because at that time, I had much opportunity to meet Jews -also in the Democratic Party; therefore must have been fateful reasons, if later I became a writer and speaker in the field of racial politics. infantry regiment. I became an officer in a machine-gun company. I returned home with both Iron Crosses, with two Bavarian decorations, and the Cross of Merit, the Austrian silver Cross of Merit. When I had returned home, I did not have the desire to go into politics again. I only had the intention to continue quietly in my profession. Then I saw the glowing red posters of the revolution and I first went with the masses of that period and when the speaker had finished, I asked to be heard as an unknown. An inner-voice sent me up there to the platform and I spoke. I spoke in discussions and what had happened in Germany--in Germany, through the November revolution of 1918, Jews and friends of Jews had seized political power. Jews were in the Reich Cabinet and could be found in all provincial governments. In my own home country, Bavaria, the Minister-President was a Polish Jew, Eisner Kosmarowsky.
The reaction in Germany among the citizens, among the middle classes, manifested itself in the form of an organization, the "Schutz und Trutzbund," protection and fighting organization. In all large cities of Germany, sections and branches were formed of that organization, and as fate wanted it, when once again I was at the revolutionary meeting and spoke in the discussion, a man approached me and asked me to come to the Kulturverein Atis Peron, in the Golden Hall, and hear what one had to say there.
here today. It was a stroke of fate which made me what international propaganda believed me to be made. One called me a bloodhound; one stamped me a bloody sire of Franconia; one touched my honor, paid a crime with 300 marks. A criminal who had to life his hand in this hall for the oath stated he had seen how I, during the war, as an officer in France, had allegedly violated a teacher's right, a Madame Duquesne. It took two years until the truth come out by treason.
Here in this court, gentlemen, was the receipt. We have seen the receipt for 300 marks. With 300 marks, one wanted to take my honor. case, and if it should be judged with justice, then I must be permitted in passing to make such a remark. third question of the Soviet Russian officer who interrogated me was whether I was a sex criminal. I have told you what conditions were in Germany at that time, and it was quite a natural development that I did not go any more into the houses of the revolution to speak in discussions. I felt that I myself had to call meetings, and so, I spoke, I may say, through 15 years, almost every Friday before about 5,000 to 6,000 people. I spoke during the course of 20 years, and I admit that frankly, in the largest cities of Germany, sometimes before meetings in sport fields, on public squares, before 150,000 to 200,000 people. I have done that for 20 years, and I state here I was not paid by the Party. The Prosecution will never succeed, not even by a public proclamation, in getting anybody here into this room who could testify that I had ever been paid. I had a small income which was left after I was relieved from my job in 1924. Just the same, I remained the one and only unpaid Gauleiter in the movement. But later, through my writings, I took care of myself and my assistants. That goes without saying. I went to Munich. I was curious because someone had told me you had to hear Adolf Hitler, and now again, there is the finer faith.
One can only understand that tragedy if one not only sees it materially, but if one can conceive the higher vibrations which can still be felt today.
I went to Munich, to the Buergerbrau Cellar. There Adolf Hitler spoke. I had only heard his name. I had never seen that man before. And I sat, an unknown individual among individuals unknown. I saw this man, after three hours of speaking, drenched in perspiration, and a neighbour next to me saw what he thought was a halo around his head, and I, gentlemen, felt something which was not of every day. up. I went to the platform. When Adolf Hitler came down, I approached him and I told him my name. The Prosecution has submitted a document to the Tribunal which is reminiscent of that moment. Adolf Hitler wrote in his book "Mein Kampf" that it must have been with great effort that I turned over my movement, which I had created in Nurnberg, to him.
I mentioned this because the Prosecution thought that these things in Hitler' book "Mein Kampf" had to be submitted and used against me. Yes. I am proud of it. I myself the movement which I had created in Franconia and turned it over to Hitler. With that Franconian movement, the movement which Adolf Hitler had created in Munich and in Southern Barvaria became the bridge to northern Germany. Thai was also my deed.
In 1923 I took part in the First National Socialist revolution. That is to say it was an attempt at revolution. It entered into history as the Hitler Putsch. Adolf Hitler had asked me to come to Munich. I went to Munich and took part in the meeting during which Adolf Hitler agreed with the representatives of the middle class to go to northern Germany together and to put an end to the thing.
I experienced a march to the Feldherrnhalle. I was arrested later and , like Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess, I came to Landsberg on the Lech. After a few months I was nominated by the Voelkischer Block as a representative for the Bavarian Diet, and elected in the year 1924. the prison, I was nominated Gaulieter of Franconia. In 1933, I became representativein the Reichstag. In 1933 or 1934, I also received the honorary title of an SA Gruppenfuehrer.
In February of 1940 I was dismissed. I lived for five years, until the end of the war, on my estate. At the end of April, I went to Southern Bavaria, to the Tyrol. I wanted to comit suicide. Then an event happened which I do not care to talk about, but I can say one thing: I stated to friends that for 20 years, before the public of the world, I have confessed that I do not want to end by suicide. I want my way; I want to walk my path, be it as it may, as a fanatic for the truth until the very end, a fanatic for the truth. I had a subtitle, and that was, "A Weekly for the fight for the Truth". I was quite conscious that I could not own the entire truth, but I am also conscious that about 80 or 90 per cent of what I have expressed has been the truth. description of an experience which will show you, gentlemen of the Tribunal, that without the government's wanting it, things may happen which are not human, not according to the principles of humanity.
as we, the Gestapo, have been accused of. For Four days I was without clothes in a cell. I was burned; I was thrown on the floor, and an iron chain was put upon me. I had to kiss the feet of Negroes who spit into my face, Two colored men and a white officer spit into my mouth, and when I didn't open it any more, they opened it with a wooden stick, and when I asked for water I was led to the latrin and I was ordered to drink from there. of the hospital acted correctly. I state here, in order not to be misunderstood, the Jewish officers who are guarding us here in the prison have acted correctly, and the doctors who also treat me have even been considerate. And you may see from this statement the contrast from that prison until this moment.
officer has forwarded the report to Frankfort. What happened to it I have never found out. That was my life. Now, please ask your questions.
Q Witness, why were you dismissed from the teaching profession? Did you ever commit any punishable act or dishonorable act?
A I have answered that question I believe already. Everybody knows that in that profession I could not have been active in public life if I would have committed a crime. That is untrue. I was dismissed because the majority of the parties in the Bavarian Diet in the fall of 1923 after the Hitler Putsch demand ed that I should be dismissed. That was my sex crime, yes.
Q It is known to you that you are accused of two points. First you are accused that you were a member of the conspiracy which had the purpose of launching an aggressive war or aggressive wars, in general to break treaties and in that connection committed crimes against humanity.
Regarding the first point, I should like to ask several questions now. Did you discuss or take part in conversations with Adolf Hitler or other leading men of the state or the party in which the question of aggressive war was considered to make a short statement. on the platform I turned over my movement to the Fuehrer and I wrote a letter later. Furthermore, there was no conference, no conversation with Adolf Hitler or with any other personality. I returned to Nurnberg and continued to speak. That proclamation was made in public and that shows how public that conspiracy was and political opponents could make attempts at terror. would have been taken or something would have been arranged or agreed to which the public could not have or should not have known. The program had been presented to the police and on the basis of the laws governing organizations and parties just as other organizations that entered to register as unions or organizations. So that at that time there was no conspiracy of any kind.
program, was the demands of Versaille. What were your thoughts about that, as to how the dictates of Versaille could be removed at one time? things were, of course. There are amongst the people such a traitor as we have seen here today. But here are a large number of decent people. These decent people after the war had the slogans themselves to get rid of Versaille.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: If your Honor please, I think I must object to this sort of procedure. This witness has no right to call another witness a traitor. He has not been asked any question to which that is responsive and I ask that the Tribunal afmonish him in no uncertain terns and he confine himself to answering the questions here and we may have an orderly proceeding.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, you will observe that injunction.
THE WITNESS: I ask the Tribunal to excuse me. I apoligize.
THE PRESIDENT: The observation that you made apparently I did not catch myself but it was made with reference to a witness who has just given evidence here and you Had no right at all to call him a traitor or to make any comment upon his evidence. BY DR. MARX:
Q Mr. Streicher, you cannot make such remarks and you will not make the community. adherents were one with him in their convictions and in their hearts and in the political faith in conspirators community (Verschworen Gemeinschaft), meaning united in their intentions.
Q Should not that mean that a conspiracy existed?
comradeship which could be considered a conspiracy and are you in closer relationship to any one of these defendants? community of people with the same intentions. One met them at Party meetings, when they spoke in Gaus. But the Reich Ministers I had the honor to meet here and the gentlemen from the army the same. Therefore, a political group did certainly not exist. the relation of the Jewish problem? the Jewish problem just as one did not speak about how the question of Versaille could be solved. One has to consider the chaos that existed at that time in Germany. A man like Adolf Hitler who would have said to his members in the year 1923 -- "I will start to call for the war", one would have said this man is a fool. We had no arms in Germany. The army of one hundred thousand men had only a few cannon left. The possibility for a war or to predict a war was absolutely excluded and to speak of a Jewish question at the time when I would like to say the public distinguished Jews only by their religion, to speak about a Jewish problem would have been nonsense. Jewish problem. You have not heard that from Adolf Hitler and there is no one here who I could say I heard one word from him about that. Hitler and that you had a considerable influence on the decisions of that man. Therefore, I should like to ask you to describe your relations to Adolf Hitler and to clarify them. know him knows how correct what I have to say now is. If anyone believed that he could pave a way to become a friend of Adolf Hitler then his thoughts were completely useless. Adolf Hitler was something peculiar in every respect and I believe I can say that a friendship between him and other men did not exist, a friendship that one could have said, this is truly a friendship of the heart.
him only did so by a manly deed. say before 1923 Adolf Hitler did not trust me. I had turned over my movement to him without any reserve. He sent the later Reichsmarshal Goering to Nurnberg as a young SA leader, which I believe he was at that time. He came and examined conditions as to whether I was right or the people who denounced me. That should not be taken as an accusation but just as clarification. A short time later he sent another one and then another one.
Adolf Hitler before 1923 did not trust me. Then come Munich, the Putsch. After midnight when most men had left him I appeared before him and told him one had to tell the public now when the day would arrive. He looked at me with his great eyes and said:
"Would you do it? I will do it."
Maybe the Prosecution has the document now. After midnight he wrote on a piece of paper:
"Streicher has to be put in charge of the entire organization. He has to prepare for the day, that is the 11th of November, for the next day."
everything was prepared. The flag was in front, which later became the blood flag. I went into the tenth rank and we marched into the city; we marched in the direction of the Feldherrnhalle. Then I saw rifle next to rifle before the Feldherrnhalle, and I knew, "Now they will shoot." I went ten paces in front of the flag and marched right into the guns. Then there was this fighting, and we were arrested. the men who were in prison with him, that he would never forget that. So, because I took part in the march to Feldherrnhalle at the head of the columns, Adolf Hitler probably had more sympathy to me than to the others.
Q Are you through?
Q Were you consulted by Adolf Hitler on important matters?
A I saw Adolf Hitler only in meetings of the Gauleiters. If he came to a meeting in Nurnberg then we were together at meals, five, ten, or more people. I recall only one time when I was alone with him, in the brown house at Munich, when the brown house was finished. That was a nonpolitical conversation. All conversations which I had with Adolf Hitler, be it in Nurnberg, be it in Munich, or anywhere else, occurred in the circle of Party members.
Q Now I come to the period of 1933. On the 1st of April, 1933, there was a day of boycott throughout the entire German Reich against the Jewish population. What can you say about that and what was your part in it? brown house. Adolf Hitler explained to me--and I knew this before--that a tremendous propaganda against Germany was going on in the foreign press; that although Hindenburg was still the head of the Reich, although the Reichstag was still there, the Parliament was still there, a tremendous hate campaign had started in the foreign press against Germany.
The Fuehrer told me that "even the Reich flag was injured, insulted abroad, and now we know that we have to tell the world Jewry to go that far and no further. We have to show them that we will not tolerate that further." and he wanted me to take care of it.
Perhaps it is of importance to point out the following. For that antiboycott day Adolf Hitler believed that it would be well to use my name. Later that was no longer done. I took charge, then, of that anti-boycott and issued a directive, which I believe has been submitted to the Court and I do not have to say any more about it. I directed that no Jewish life should be attacked; that in front of Jewish property, that is to say, in front of every Jewish store, there should be a guard or mere who would be responsible to see to it that nothing would be destroyed materially. In short, I issued a directive which one probably would not have expected from me, and probably in many parts of the Party one would not have expected it.
But this is certain; the anti-boycott day, with the exception of small, unimportant things, went on without disturbance. I believe there is no one who can state to the contrary. It was something definitely in the way of discipline and it was against boycott. leading members of the Party, and did that committee ever become active? It never met, and I believe the members-
Q You mean the committee members?
A The boycott committee. That was put in the papers by Goebels. That was just a matter for the newspapers. Once I spoke to Goebbels on the telephone. He asked when I was in Munich, How things were going. I said, "everything is O.K." That is to say, never a conference or a meeting occured, it was merely built up from the outside for the masses.
Q Witness, you made a mistake before, in speaking of Munich in 1923. You wanted to say the 9th of November, did you not?
Q What was that?
A I don't know any more, but the 9th of November is what it should be.
Q It should be the 9th of November?
Q In the year 1935. on the Reich Party Day in Nurnberg, the so-called Race Law was proclaimed. Were you consulted concerning the planning and preparation of the draft of that law, and did you have any part in its preparation particularly
A Yes. I believe I had a part in it so far as for years I wrote that a furth mixing of German blood with Jewish blood had to be avoided. I have written such articles repeatedly, and again and again in my articles I emphasized that we had to take the Jewish race as an example, the Jewish people. races because they have created a racial law, the law of Moses, which says if you come into a foreign land you should not take a foreign women. And, gentlemen, the is of tremendous importance if one wants to judge the Nurnberg laws. These laws of the Jews were the example. When, after centuries, the Jewish Legislator Ezra found out that in spite of this many Jews had married non-Jewish women. these marriages were then separated. That was the beginning and that is why Jewry, because of the race laws, has lasted through centuries while all other races and cultures have perished.
Q Mr. Streicher, this goes a little too far, I have just asked you whether you took part in the planning and the working out of the draft of the law, or whether the proclomation of these laws was not a surprise to you. buted to these laws.
Q But you were not consulted in making the draft?
A No. I declare the following.
without knowing what would happen. I had no idea. And then the race laws were proclaimed, and it was only there that I heard of these laws. I believe, so far as the gentlemen are concerned who are here as defendants now who were present on that Reich Party Day, that they also found out about these laws at the Reich Party Day. I had not collaborated directly, and I have to state frankly, and I repeat, that I had not been consulted in the preparation of these laws.
Q It was thought that your assistance was not needed for that? the final solution of the Jewish question on the part of the State?
A With reservations, yes. Yes, I was convinced that by the adherence to the party program the Jewish question would be solved. The Jews became citizens of Germany in 1848 and, these citizen rights were taken from them by these laws. Intermarriages were prohibited and that, for no, solved the Jewish question in Germany. I believe that a national solution would come, that there would be consultations from state to state and nation to nation, in the sense of the postulates that Zionism had established, and that these demands would lead to a Jewish state. lation from the 9th to the 10th of November 1938, and what was your part?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, if you are going into that, it is now 5 o'clock and I think we had better adjourn now until Monday morning.
(A recess was taken until Monday 28 April 1946 at 1000 hours.)
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx.
DR. MARX (Counsel for Defendant Streicher): Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Tribunal: Before continuing with questions to the Defendant Streicher, may I ask permission to make a statement.
Mr. Streicher, on Friday afternoon, referred to a case connected with the press which had dealt with my person and my attitude as a solicitor. I have found in this case cause for me to refer to this matter in my statement, and I have pointed out that I at that time was asking for the protection of this Tribunal against an attack lowering my reputation, which was given to me in a very kind way. On that occasion, and on the occasion when I gave an extemporized explanation, I used the words "newspaper writer." I used it exclusively with reference to that particular journalist who had written the article in question in that Berlin newspaper regarding my person and regarding my activities as a lawyer. that I was talking about the press in general. That was far from me. And I did not wish in any way to refer to the group of press experts or in particular the members of the world press who are active during this trial. I did not wish to attack them or in any way insult their honor. according to which I, lawyer Marx, had attacked the press in general and made insulting remarks. I am, of course, aware of the significance of the press. I know, of course, what the press has to do, and I should want to be the last person who would fail to recognize in full the extreme responsibility and the useful work done by the press.
just said, and may I be permitted to make this statement to the gentlemen of the press in the spirit in which it is made, namely, that this was merely a special reference to this particular journalist, but not in any way to the entire press. That is what I wanted to say.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, the Tribunal understood your statement the other day in the sense in which you have now explained it.
DR. MARX: With the permission of the Tribunal, I shall then continue with my examination. BY DR. MARX:
Q. Witness, which aims did you pursue with your speeches and your articles in "Der Stuermer"?
A. My speeches and my articles which I wrote were meant to inform the public about a question which appeared to me as being one of the most important problems. I didn't want to cause hatred or anger. I wanted to explain.
Q. Apart from your weekly journal, and particularly since the Party came into power, were there any other instruements of the press in Germany which were discussing the Jewish problem in an antagonistic way?
A. Anti-Semitic writings in the press in Germany existed for centuries. A book, for instance, was confiscated among my property, written by Martin Luther. He would very probably sit in my place in the Defendant's bench if this book had been used by the Prosecution. In the book "The Jews and Their Lies", Dr. Martin Luther writes that the one should bran them down to the ground and destroy them.
Q. Mr. Streicher, that wasn't my question. I am asking you to answer my question in accordance to the way I put it. Please answer with yes or no, first of all, whether were there -
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I should like to interpose an objection to this method of answering unresponsively and with speeches here. We are utterly unable in this procedure to make objections when answers are not responsive to questions. We have already got into this case through Streicher's volunteered speeches an attack on the United States which will take considerable evidence to answer if we are to answer it.
It seems to me very improper that a witness should do anything but make a responsive answer to a question, so that we may control this proceeding from getting into issues that have nothing to do with here. It will not help the Tribunal to go into questions which Streicher has raised here against us to decide the one question, which is his guilt or innocence -- a matter that is perfectly capable of explanation, if we take the time to do it. that he will understand it, if that is possible, that he is to answer question and stop, so that we can know and object to orations on irrelevant subjects.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, will you try, when you put the questions to the witness, to stop him if he is not answering the questions you put to him?
DR. MARX: Yes, Mr. President. I was just in the process-
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Streicher, you have heard what has been said and you will understand that the Tribunal cannot put up with your long speeche which are not answers to questions which are put to you. BY DR. MARX:
Q. I now repeat the question that I'm asking you. First of all, I want you to answer the question with yes or no, and then to add a brief explanation regarding the context of the question. Apart from your weekly journal and, particularly, since the seizure of power through the Party, were there other instruments of the press in which the Jewish problem was dealt with in an antagonistic way?
A. Yes. Even before the seizure of power in every district and county there were weekly journals that were anti-Semitic and one daily paper called the "Der Voelkische Beobachter" in Munich. Apart from that, there were a numb of publications which weren't acting directly for the Party. There were also anti-Semitic writings after the seizure of power. The daily press was coordinated, and now the Party suddenly found themselves in control of three thousand daily papers and numerous weekly journals. Any number of other periodicals and orders had been given by the Fuehrer that every newspaper should give enlightening articles about the Jewish problem. The antiSemitic enlightenment was, therefore, after the seizure of power carried out on a very large scale in the daily press as well as weekly journals, periodicals and books. The "Stuermer", therefore, with its enlightening activity was not isolated, but I want to state quite openly that I have enlightened about them all in the most popular way.
Q. Were the directives necessary for this issued by an essential source, essential department, say, for instance, the National Socialist correspondent?
A. Yes. The propaganda ministry in Berlin issued a National Socialist press correspondence. In this correspondence, and in every number of it, there were a number of articles enlightening on the Jewish problem. During the war the Fuehrer personally had given the order that the press, much more than until then, should publish enlightening articles about the Jewish question.