MR. BRUDNO: May it please the Tribunal, when the Tribunal rose yesterday I had finished the submission of proof as to Rosenberg's responsibility and authority in the Occupied Eastern Territories and was about to conclude my presentation with four brief examples as to the manner in which his authority was exercised. I was in the middle of the third example, which, Your Honors will recall, dealt with Rosenberg's participation in the forced labor program. I wish to conclude that illustration with reference to Document 199-PS, which we offer as Exhibit Number USA-606. This document is a letter from Alfred Meyer, Rosenberg's deputy, and is addressed to Sauckel, dated July 11, 1944. This time, Your Honors will note, it is Rosenberg's Ministry that is urging action. I wish to quote Item Number 1 of this letter, which reads as follows:
"The War Effort Task Force Command formerly stationed in Minsk must continue, under all circumstances, the calling up of young White Ruthenian and Russian men for military employment in the Reich. In addition the Command has the mission of bringing young boys of 10-14 years of age into the Reich."
My third illustration deals with Rosenberg's exercise of his legislative powers, and I ask the Court to take judicial notice of the decree signed by Lohse, who was Reich Commissar for Ostland. This decree is published in the Verordnungsblatt of the Reich Commissar for Ostland, 1942, Number 38, Pages 158 and 159. It provides for the seizure of the entire property of the Jewish population in the Ostland, including the claims of Jews against third parties. The seizure is made retroactive to the day of occupation of the territory by German troops. This sweeping decree was issued and published by Rosenberg's immediate subordinate, and it must be assumed that Rosenberg knew of it and acquiesced in it.
I now come to my final illustration. This illustration is derived from Document 327-PS, which is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-338.
It is a copy of a secret letter from Rosenberg to Bormann dated 17 October 1944. It furnishes a graphic account of Rosenberg's
65
10 Jan. 46
activities in the economic exploitation of the occupied East. I wish to quote from the first paragraph on Page 1, which has not been read into the Record. I quote:
"In order not to delay the liquidation of companies under my supervision, I beg to point out that the companies concerned are not private firms but business enterprises of the Reich, so that directives with regard to them, just as with regard to Government offices, are reserved to the highest authorities of the Reich. I supervise the following companies...."
There follows a list of nine companies: A trading company, an agricultural development company, a supply company, a pharmaceutical company, and five banking concerns. On Page 3 of the translation at Item 1 (a) the mission of the trading company is stated to be, and I quote:
"Seizure of all agricultural products as well as commercial marketing and transportation thereof. (Delivery to Armed Forces and the Reich)."
I now call your attention to Item 5 of the same page. It describes the activities of the companies as follows:
"During this period, the Z.O."-that is, the Central Trading Corporation East-"together with its subsidiaries has seized: "Grain 9,200,000 tons, meat and meat products 622,000 tons, linseed 950,000 tons, butter 208,000 tons, sugar 400,000 tons, fodder 2,500,000 tons, potatoes 3,200,000 tons, seeds 141,000 tons, other agricultural products 1,200,000 tons, and 1,075,000,000 eggs.
"The following was required for transportation: 1,418,000 freight cars and 472,000 tons shipping space."
In conclusion we submit that the evidence has shown that the Defendant Rosenberg played a leading role in the Nazi Party's rise to power by moulding German thought so as to promote the conspirators' ambitions; that he played a leading role in spreading propaganda and intrigue, and in instigating treason in foreign countries, so as to pave the way for the waging of wars of aggression; and that he bears full responsibility for the War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity which were perpetrated in the Occupied Eastern Territories and which will be further developed by the prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.
This completes the presentation of the case against the Defendant Rosenberg. The next presentation will be that of the case against the Defendant Frank, which will be presented by Lieutenant Colonel Baldwin.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM H. BALDWIN (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal,
66
10 Jan. 46
We wish now to deal with the individual responsibility of the Defendant Frank. In accordance with the expressed desire of the Tribunal, this presentation has been strictly limited; and, of course, I should welcome any direction from the Tribunal as to length or method as I proceed.
First, I must acknowledge my indebtedness to Miss Harriet Zetterberg, of our legal staff, and to Dr. Pietrowski, of the Polish Delegation, for their invaluable work - Dr.. Pietrowski and the Polish Delegation, naturally, having a special interest in the Defendant Frank.
"Aspects of the criminal complicity of the Defendant Hans Frank under Count One of the Indictment have been placed before this Tribunal on several occasions. There remain, however, certain matters for discussion - either novel in presentation or in development - concerning this defendant as an individual, before the United States' portion of the Prosecution's case against him is completed. Our Soviet colleagues will carry further the heavy complaint against the Defendant Frank in their treatment of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the East. We wish here merely to touch upon that evidence which, we believe, irrefutably discloses Frank to have been a tremendously important cog in the machine which conceived, promoted, and executed the Nazi Common Plan or Conspiracy. Documents relating to this point have been assembled in a document book bearing the letters "FF." I am informed that these books, as well as explanatory briefs, have been distributed for the use of the members of the Tribunal.
Reference will be made in the course of this argument to the so-called Frank diary, portions of which have already been brought to the attention of the Tribunal. It seems appropriate that brief mention should here be made of the content and source of this diary. It is a set of some 38 volumes, most of which are on the table at the front of the courtroom, detailing the activities of the Defendant Frank from 1939 to the end of the war in his capacity as Governor General of Occupied Poland. It is a record, in short, of each day's business, hour by hour, appointment by appointment, conference by conference, speech by speech, and - in truth we believe - crime by crime. Each volume, excepting the last few, is now handsomely bound; and in those volumes, which deal with the conferences of Frank and his underlings in the Government General, the name of each person attending the meeting is inscribed in his own handwriting on a page preceding the minutes of the conference itself. It is incredibly shocking to the normal conscience that such a neat history of murder, starvation, and extermination should have been maintained by the individual responsible for such deeds, but by now the Tribunal is well aware that the Nazi leaders
67
10 Jan. 46
were sentimentally fond of elaborately documenting their exploits, as witness the Rosenberg volumes displaying the looted art treasures and the album reporting on the extermination of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. The complete set of the Frank diary was found in Bavaria, at Neuhaus, near Schliersee, on 18 May 1945, by the 7th American Army. It was taken to the 7th Army document center at Heidelberg and on or about 20 September 1945 the collection was sent to the Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel here at Nuremberg. It is here in court in its entirety; and now its tones, we submit, are those of accusation rather than boastful narration.
That the Defendant Frank held a position of leadership in the Nazi Party and in the German Government is undeniable. Even, presumably, it would be unfair to the Defendant Frank to underestimate his importance in the Nazi hierarchy and the Third Reich. Like the other defendants in this case, he was a man of far reaching influence and position; and his office-holding record is already before this Court. It is an affidavit signed by the Defendant Frank and identified as Exhibit Number USA-7. This document contains a listing of 11 important positions held by Frank in the Party and in the Government and supports the assertion of influence and position which I have just made, especially since this Tribunal has been fully apprised of the criminal activities of the Nazi organizations and formations.
The machinations of Frank divide themselves logically into two periods. In the one, from 1920 to 1939, he was by his own admission the leading Nazi jurist, although parenthetically the word "jurist" loses its reputable content when modified by the word "Nazi". In the other period, extending from 10 October 1939 until the end of the war, he was Governor General of occupied Poland. While he is most notorious for his persecutions and carrying out of the conspiracy in the latter capacity, it is the opinion of the United States Prosecution that the Defendant Frank's contributions to the Nazi rise to power as the leading Nazi jurist should not pass without mention. It is with this aspect that I shall first deal - the Defendant Frank's furtherance of the realization of the conspirators' program in the field of law, his knowledge of the criminal purpose of the program, and his active participation therein.
The Defendant Frank, himself, described his role in the Nazi struggle for power in the following words, which were remarks he ordered his secretary' to place in the Frank diary on 28 August 1942. The remarks appear in the diary and are translated in our Document 2233(x)-PS, which, if the Court please, is at Page 54 in the document book before it.
The numbers of the pages of the document book will be found in the upper right-hand corner in colored pencil, either red or
68
10 Jan. 46
blue. The original of this document I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-607. In the German text these extracts appear in Part 3 of the 1942 diary volume on Pages 968, 969, and 983. Frank says:
"I have since 1920 continually dedicated my work to the NSDAP. As a National Socialist I was a participant in the events of November 1923, for which I received the Order of the Blood. After the resurrection of the movement in the year 1925, my really greater activity in the movement began, which made me, first gradually, later almost exclusively, the legal adviser of the Fuehrer and of the Reich Party Directorate of the NSDAP. I was thus the representative of the legal interests of the growing Third Reich in a legal-ideological as well as in a practical way."
He goes on to say:
"The culmination of this work I see in the Leipzig army trial, in which I succeeded in having the Fuehrer admitted to the famous oath of legality, a circumstance which gave the Movement legal grounds to expand on a large scale. The Fuehrer, indeed, recognized this achievement and in 1926 made me leader of the National Socialist Lawyers' League; in 1929, Reichsleiter of the Reich Legal Office of the NSDAP; in March 1933, Bavarian Minister of Justice; in the same year, Reich Commissioner for Justice; in 1934, President of the Academy of German Law, founded by me; and in December 1934, Reich Minister without Portfolio. And in 1939, I was finally appointed Governor General for the occupied Polish territories.
"So I was, am, and will remain the representative jurist of the struggle period of National Socialism....
"I profess myself now and always, as a National Socialist and a faithful follower of the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, whom I have now served since 1919...."
It is indeed significant and worth mentioning to the Court...
THE PRESIDENT: Is this an extract from his diary?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir; it is.
THE PRESIDENT: And are the words "Present: Dr. Hans Frank and others" written by him in his diary?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir; they are. Before each of these excerpts, if Your Honor pleases, if it was in conference it was indicated which members of the Government General were present or who made the address.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
69
10 Jan. 46
LT. COL. BALDWIN: It is indeed significant and worth mentioning to the Court that the Defendant Frank assumes responsibility for the so-called oath of legality at the Leipzig army trial. At that trial, in 1930, three army officers were accused of curiously enough - conspiracy to high treason. The charge was that the defendants in that trial, in their capacity as members of the German Army, tried to form National Socialist cells in the German Army and to influence the German Army to such an extent that, in the case of a Putsch by the National Socialists, the army would not fire at the National Socialists, but would stand at ease instead. All three of the officers were found guilty and sentenced to 18 months' confinement. At that trial, however, Hitler was a witness; and during the course of the trial, testified under oath that the term "revolution," used by him, meant only spiritual revolution in Germany and that the expression "heads would roll in the sand" meant only that they would do so as a result of legal procedure through state tribunals, if the National Socialists came to power. This, if the Court please, was the so-called oath of legality, the lie that the Defendant Frank provided his Fuehrer as a facade for the conspiracy and which he, at least in 1942, considered the culmination of his efforts.
As the "representative jurist of the struggle period of National Socialism" and in various juridical capacities Listed in his affidavit of positions held, Defendant Frank was, between 1933 and 1939, the most prominent policy- maker in the field of German legal theory. For example, Defendant Frank founded the Academy of German Law in 1934 and he was president of this once potent body until 1942. The statute defining the functions of this Academy conferred upon it wide power to initiate and co-ordinate juridical policies.
This statute appears in the translation at Page 5 in the document book as our Document 1391-PS and appears in the 1934 Reichsgesetzblatt at Page 605. We ask the Court to take judicial notice of it. I now quote briefly from the decree:
"It is the task of the Academy for German Law to further the reorganization of legal procedure in Germany. Closely connected with the agencies competent for legislation, it shall further the realization of the National Socialist program in the realm of the law. This task shall be carried out by approved scientific methods.
"The Academy's task shall cover primarily:
"1. The formulation, initiation, judging, and preparing of drafts of law; 2. collaboration in rejuvenating and unifying the training in jurisprudence and political science; 3. the editing and supporting of scientific publications; 4. financial
70
10 Jan. 46
assistance for work and research in specific fields of law and political economy."
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you have to read all this? We will take judicial notice of it.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: Among the early tasks which Defendant Frank set for himself, as policy maker in the field of law, were the unification of the German State, the promotion of racial legislation, and the elimination of political organizations other than the Nazi Party. In a radio address given on 20 March 1934 he announced success in these matters. Our partial English translation of this speech appears as Document 2536-PS, at Page 64 in the document book. The official text of this speech appears in Dokumente der Deutschen Politik, Volume II (first edition), Pages 294-298. In the German text the extracts which I shall quote appear at Pages 296 and 298, and I will ask the Court to take judicial notice of these passages:
"The first task was that of uniting all Germans into one State. It was an outstanding historical and legislative accomplishment on the part of our Fuehrer that by boldly grasping historical development he eliminated the sovereignty of the various German states. At last we have now, after 1,000 years, again a unified German State in every respect. It is no longer possible for the world, based on the spirit of resistance inherent in small states, which are set up on an egoistical scale and solely with a view to their individual interest, to make calculations to the detriment of the German people. That is a thing of the past for all times to come."
I pass on now to the second excerpt:
"The second fundamental law of the Hitler Reich is racial legislation. The National Socialists were the first in the entire history of human law to elevate the concept of race to the status of a legal term. The German Nation, unified racially and nationally, will in the future be legally protected against any further disintegration of the German race stock." I pass now to the mention of the sixth law:
"The sixth fundamental law was the legal elimination of those political organizations which within the State, during the period of the regeneration of the people and the reconstruction of the Reich, were once able to place their selfish aims ahead of the common good of the nation. This elimination has taken place entirely legally. It is not the coming to the fore of despotic tendencies, but it was the necessary legal consequence of a clear political result of the 14 years' struggle of the NSDAP.
71
10 Jan. 46
"In accordance with these unified legal aims" Frank continues "in all spheres, particular efforts have for months now been made regarding the work of the great reform of the entire field of German law.
"As the leader of the German jurists, I am convinced that,. together with all strata of the German people, we shall be able to construct the legal state of Adolf Hitler in every respect and to such an extent that no one in the world will at any time be able to dare to attack this constitutional state as regards its laws."
In his speech on the occasion of the day of the Reich University Professors of the National Socialist Lawyers' League on 3 October 1936, the Defendant Frank explained to the gathering of professors the elimination of Jews from the legal field, in accordance with the Nazi plan. Our partial translation of this speech appears as Document 2536-PS, at Page 62 of the document book. The official text appears likewise in Dokumente der Deutschen Politik, in Volume IV, Pages 225 to 230. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this. It deals, to summarize...
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you need it because we have already had documents of the same sort.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: As the leading Nazi jurist, the Defendant Frank accepted, condoned, and promoted the system of concentration camps and of arrest without warrant. He apparently had no hesitancy in subverting his professional ethics, if any he had, while subverting the legal framework of the German State to Nazi ends. He explains the outrageous departure from civilization that were concentration camps in an article on "Legislation and Judiciary in the Third Reich," published in 1936 in the official journal of the Academy of German Law, of which' of course, he was the editor. The partial translation of this article appears as our Document 2533-PS, at Page 61 of the document book. The official German text of the extract appears in Zeitschrift der Akademie fur Deutsches Recht, 1936, at Page 141, and I will ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this. Since the extract is short, I will ask permission to read it. Frank says:
"Before the world we are blamed again and again because of the concentration camps. We are asked: Why do you arrest without a warrant of arrest? I say: Put yourselves into the position of our nation. Don't forget that the very great and still untouched world of Bolshevism cannot forget that here on our German soil we have made final victory for them impossible in Europe."
It can be seen, therefore, that just as other defendants mobilized the military, economic, and diplomatic resources for aggressive war,
72
10 Jan. 46
the Defendant Frank, in the field of legal policy, geared the German juridical machine for a war of aggression, which war of aggression, as he explained in 1942 to the NSDAP political leaders of Galicia at a mass meeting in Lvov - and I now quote from the Frank diary, our Document 2233(s)-PS, at Page 50 in the document book, the original of which I offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA - 607 - had for its purpose, and I quote: "... to expand the living space for our people in a natural manner."
The distortions and warpings of German law, which Defendant Frank engineered for the Party, gave him, if riot the world, vast satisfaction. He reported this to the powerful Academy for German Law in November 1939, 1 month after becoming Governor General of occupied Poland. This speech is partially translated in our Document 3445-PS, at Page 73 in the document book. The official text of the speech appears in Deutsches Recht, 1939, Volume 2, the week of 23-30 December 1939, beginning at Page 2121; and we ask the Court to take judicial notice of this, but would ask permission to read the excerpt, as it is very short. Frank stated:
"Today we are proud of having formulated our legal principles from the very beginning in such a way that they need not be changed in the case of war. For the maxim - that which serves the Nation is right, and that which harms it is wrong, which stood at the beginning of our legal work and which established this idea of the community. of the people as the only standard of the law - this maxim shines out also in the social order of these times."
If this sentiment has a familiar ring to it, it is because it is a restatement of a Party commandment tailored and furnished by the
Party lawyer to fit the Party's concept of law. I allude, of course, to the Party commandment, commented upon at Page 1608 (Volume IV, Page 38) of the official English transcript of these proceedings in the treatment of the Leadership Corps, which commandment stated and I quote, "Right is that which serves the Movement and thus Germany."
It follows, I think, that the Prosecution conceives the Defendant Frank to be jointly responsible for all those cruel and discriminatory enabling acts and decrees through which the Nazis crushed minorities in Germany and consolidated their control over the German State and prepared it for its early entry upon aggression. It matters not, in our view, that the signature of this lawyer does not appear at the foot of every decree. Enough has been shown, in our submission, to indicate culpability in this regard. There is sufficient, we believe, now in this Record - and I refer to decrees cited by Major Walsh in his treatment of the persecution of the Jews and by Colonel Storey in his treatment of the Reich Cabinet - to
73
10 Jan. 46
demonstrate that type of enactment and the consequences thereof, for which we hold the Defendant Frank liable. In following this theory, may it please the Tribunal, we are only arriving at conclusions already arrived at for us by the Defendant Frank himself.
I now pass to that second and well-known phase of the Defendant Frank's official life, wherein he for 5 years, as chief Party and Government agent, was bent upon the elimination of a whole people. He was appointed Governor General of the occupied Polish territory by a decree signed by his then Fuehrer on 12 October 1939. The decree defined the scope of Frank's executive power and is contained in our Document 2537-PS, at Page 66 in the document book. I shall ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of this, since it appears in Reichsgesetzblatt, 1939, Part I, Page 2077.
It merely states that Dr. Frank is appointed as Governor General of the occupied Polish territory; that Dr. Seyss-Inquart is appointed
as Deputy Governor General, and that "the Governor General shall be directly responsible to me" meaning Hitler, he having signed the decree.
While some of the outside world was prone in earlier days to wonder at the apparent efficiency of Nazi administration, we now know that it was often riddled with the petty jealousies of small men in positions of some authority and with jurisdictional fractiousness. No such difficulty existed with the Defendant Frank, however, for though he was not without the threat of divided authority, he insisted upon, and was granted, the favor of supreme command within the territorial confines of the Government General. Only two references from his diary, one in 1940 and one in 1942, are necessary to show the all- inclusiveness of his direction and authority.
At a meeting of department heads of the Government General on 8 March 1940 in the Bergakademie, the Defendant Frank clarified his status as Governor General; and these remarks appear in the diary and in our Document 2233(m)-PS, at Page 42 in the document book, the original of which I offer into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-173.
In the German text, the extracts appear in the meetings of department heads, Volume 2 for 1939-1940, at Pages 5, 6, 7, and 8. Frank says:
"One thing is certain. The authority of the Governor General as the representative of the will of the Fuehrer and the will of the Reich in this territory is certainly strong, and I have always emphasized that I would not tolerate misuse of this authority. I have made this known anew at every office in
Berlin, especially after Herr Field Marshal Goering on 12. 2. 1940, from Karin Hall, had forbidden all administrative of offices of the Reich, including the Police and even the Wehrmacht, to
74
10 Jan. 46
interfere in administrative matters of the Government General...."
He goes on to say:
"There is no authority here in the Government General which is higher as to rank, stronger in influence, and of greater authority than that of the Governor General. Even the Wehrmacht has no governmental or official functions here of any kind; it has only security functions and general military duties - it has no political power whatsoever. The same applies to the Police and the SS. There is here no state within a state, but we are representatives of the Fuehrer and of the Reich."
Later, in 1942, at a conference of the district political leaders of the NSDAP in Krakow on 18 March, Defendant Frank further explained the relationship between the administration and the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler. These remarks appear in the diary and in our Document 2233(r)-PS and at Page 48 of the document book, the original of which I offer into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-608. In the German text, the extract to be quoted appears at Pages 185 and 186 of diary Volume 18, 1942, Part I. I quote:
"As you know" says Frank "I am a fanatic as to unity in administration.... It is therefore clear that the Higher SS and Police Leader is subordinated to me, that the Police is a component of the Government, that the SS and Police Leader in the district is subordinated to the Governor, and that the district chief has the authority of command over the gendarmerie in his district. This the Reichsfuehrer SS has recognized, in the written agreement all these points are mentioned word for word and signed. It is also self-evident that we cannot establish a closed shop here which can be treated in the traditional manner of small states."
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle):): Do you think all this has to be read?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: It is considered important, Sir, by the United States Prosecution, in view of the fact that this is the later extract from the diary and indicates that 2 years later even Frank considered himself to be the supreme authority in the Government General. This is a point which we conceive to be of importance, Sir. May I proceed?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: "It would, for instance, be ridiculous if we would build up here a security policy of our own against our Poles in the country, while knowing that the Poles in
75
10 Jan. 46
West Prussia, in Posen, in Warthegau, and in Silesia have one and the same movement of resistance. So the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police must be able to carry out, with his agencies, his police measures concerning the interests of the Reich as a whole. This, however, will be done in such a way that the measures to be adopted will first be submitted to me and carried out only when I give my consent. In the Government General the Police are the armed forces. Consequently the leader of the Police will be called by me into the Government of the Government General; he is subordinate to me, or to my deputy, as a state secretary for security."
At this juncture, it is appropriate to mention that the man who filled the position of State Secretary for Security in the Government General was Frank's Higher SS and Police Leader, Kruger.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you read the next page?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal; I shall come to that excerpt later.
THE PRESIDENT: In the same document?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir. It seems more appropriate at another point.
The Tribunal may recall that the reports of the extermination of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were made in the spring of 1943 by SS Leader Stroop, who immediately supervised the operation, to this same Kruger, who was still at that time one of the two most influential members of Frank's Cabinet, as State Secretary for Security.
It was inevitable that the grand conspiracy or common plan should have as its component parts a host of small plans each dealing with a particular sphere of activity. These plans, differing from the master plan only in size, are the blueprints for a specific action drawn from the broad policies. Occupied Poland was no exception to this rule. The plan for the administration of Poland was contained in a top-secret memorandum of a conference between Hitler and the Chief of the OKW, Defendant Keitel, entitled "Regarding Future Relations of Poland to Germany" and dated 20 October 1939. This report was initialed by General Warlimont. It is our Document 864-PS and may be found at Page 3 of the document book, and I shall offer it into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-609.
I shall quote, if the Court please, only from Paragraphs 1, 3, 4, and 6:
"1) The Armed Forces will welcome it if they can dispose of administrative questions in Poland. On principle, there cannot be two administrations....
76
10 Jan. 46
"3) It is not the task of the administration to make Poland into a model province or a model state of the German order or to put her economically or financially on a sound basis. "The Polish intelligentsia must be prevented from forming a ruling class. The standard of living in the country is to remain low; we want only to draw labor forces from there. Poles are also to be used for the administration of the country. However, the forming of national political groups may not be allowed.
"4) The administration has to work on its own responsibility and must not be dependent on Berlin. We do not want to do there what we do in the Reich. The responsibility does not rest with the Berlin Ministries since there is no German administration unit concerned.
"The accomplishment of this task will involve a hard racial struggle which will not allow any legal restrictions. The methods will be incompatible with the principles otherwise adhered to by us.
"The Governor General is to give the Polish nation only bare living conditions and is to maintain the basis for military security....
"6)....Any tendencies towards the consolidation of conditions in Poland are to be suppressed. The 'Polish muddle' must be allowed to develop. The Government of the territory must make it possible for us to purify the Reich territory from Jews and Poles too. Collaboration with new Reich 'provinces (Posen and West Prussia) only for resettlements (compare Himmler mission).
"Purpose: Shrewdness and severity must be the maxims in this racial struggle in order to spare us from going to battle on account of this country again."
The Defendant Frank was the chosen executor of this program. He knew its aims, approved of them, and actively carried out the scheme. The Tribunal's attention has already been invited to Exhibit Number USA-297 wherein - this may be found at Page 1512 of the English text of the official transcript (Volume III, Pages 576, 577) the Defendant Frank expounded the mission which his Fuehrer assigned to him and according to which he intended to administer in Poland. It contemplated, in brief, ruthless exploitation, deportation of all supplies and workers, reduction of the entire Polish economy to an absolute minimum necessary for bare existence of the population, and the closing of all schools. No more callous statement exists than the one Frank made in this report, wherein he said, "Poland shall be treated as a colony; the Poles shall be the slaves of the Greater German world empire."
77
10 Jan. 46
In December 1940 Frank submitted to his department heads that the task of administering Poland did truly involve a hard racial struggle which would not allow any legal restrictions. I refer to our Document 2233(o)-PS, which may be found at Page 45 in the document book. It is taken from the Frank diary, and I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-173. In the German text the extract to be quoted appears in the volume of the diary entitled, "Department Heads Meetings 1939-1940," on Pages 12 and 13. I now quote:
"In this country the force of a determined leadership must rule. The Pole must feel here that we are not building him a legal state, but that for him there is only one duty, namely, to work and to behave himself. It is clear that this leads sometimes to difficulties; but you must, in your own interest, see that all measures are ruthlessly carried out in order to become master of the situation. You can rely on me absolutely in this."
As for the Poles and Ukrainians, Defendant Frank's attitude was clear. They were to be permitted to slave for the German economy as long as the war emergency continued. Once the war was won, even this cynical interest would cease. I refer to a speech before German political leaders at Krakow on 12 January 1944. It appears in the Frank diary and as our Document 2233(bb)-PS at Page 60 in the document book. It is the first passage on that page. I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-295. In the diary, the German text will be found in the loose-leaf volume covering the period from 1 January to 28 February 1944, at the entry for 14 January 1944, at Page 24. "Once the war is won" Frank tells these leaders - and here we have, may it please the Court, the classic example of the completely brutal statement:
"Once the war is won, then, for all I care, mincemeat can be made of the Poles and the Ukrainians and all the others who run around here; it doesn't matter what happens."
In accordance with the racial program of the Nazi conspirators, the Defendant Frank makes it quite clear in his diary that the complete annihilation of Jews was one of his cherished objectives. In Exhibit Number USA-271, Frank stated in late 1940 in his diary that he could not eliminate all lice and Jews in a year's time. In Exhibit Number USA-281, he notes in his diary in the year 1942 that a program of starvation rations sentencing, in effect, 1,200,000 Jews to die of hunger, should be noted only marginally. In Exhibit Number USA-295, he confided to a secret press conference that in the year 1944 - and this, too, is from the diary - there were still in the Government General perhaps 100,000 Jews.
78
10 Jan. 46
These facts, if the Tribunal please, are from the diary of the man himself. We do no more here than to tabulate the results. The supreme authority within a certain geographic area admits that in a period of 4 years' time up to 3,400,000 persons from that area have been annihilated pursuant to an official policy and for no crime, but only because of having been born a Jew. No words could possibly reveal the inferences of death and suffering which must needs be drawn from these stark facts.
It was a Nazi policy that the population of occupied countries should endure terror, oppression, impoverishment, and starvation. The Defendant Frank succeeded so well in this regard that he was forced to report to his Fuehrer in 1943 that, in effect, Poles did not regard the Government General with affection. This report to Hitler was a summarization of the first 3 « years of the Defendant Frank's administration. It, better than anything else, can show the conditions as they then existed as a result of the conspiratorial efforts of the defendants;
The report is contained in our Document 437-PS, at Page 2 of the document book, and I now offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-610. In the German text, the extract to be quoted appears at Pages 10 and 11 of this report by Frank to Hitler dated 19 June 1943, regarding the situation in Poland. I now quote. Frank says:
"In the course of time, a series of measures, or of consequences of the German rule, have led to a substantial deterioration of the attitude of the entire Polish people to the Government General. These measures have affected either individual professions or the entire population and frequently also - often with crushing severity - the fate of individuals."
He goes on:
"Among these are in particular:
"1. The entirely insufficient nourishment of the population, mainly of the working classes in the cities, the majority of which are working for German interests.
"Until the war of 1939 their food supplies, though not varied, were sufficient and were generally assured owing to the agrarian surplus of the former Polish State and in spite of the negligence on the part of their former political leadership.
"2. The confiscation of a great part of the Polish estates, expropriation without compensation, and evacuation of Polish peasants from maneuver areas and from German settlements.
"3. Encroachments and confiscations in the industries, in commerce and trade, and in the field of other private property.
79
10 Jan. 46
"4. Mass arrests and shootings by the German Police who applied the system of collective responsibility. "5. me rigorous methods of recruiting workers. "6. The extensive paralyzing of cultural life.
"7. The closing of high schools, colleges, and universities. "8. The limitation, indeed the complete elimination, of Polish influence from all spheres of State administration. "9. Curtailment of the influence of the Catholic Church, limiting its extensive influence - an undoubtedly necessary move - and, in addition, until quite recently, often at the shortest notice, the closing and confiscation of monasteries, schools, and charitable institutions." Indeed, the Nazi plan for Poland succeeded all too well.
THE PRESIDENT: This is only an extract here. Was he saying that these measures were inevitable or that he justified them, or what was he saying in the report?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: He was saying, Sir, that the Polish people's attitude to the Government General had substantially deteriorated. The reasons for that deterioration are the listings I gave to the Court. In other words...
THE PRESIDENT: Is that all he said?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: No, Sir; that is just taken from Pages 10 and 11 of the report. The report is an extremely long one.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I suppose you know what the general tenor of the report was.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: The general tenor of the report, Sir, was in the nature of a complaint to Hitler, that he, Frank, was having an extremely difficult time in the Government General because of these measures and because of these happenings in the Government General.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: In order to illustrate how completely the Defendant Frank is identified with the policies...
DR. SEIDL: [Interposing.] As the Tribunal has already asked the Prosecution what the purpose of this document is, I would like to point out here that it concerns a document of 40 typewritten pages addressed to Hitler and that Frank condemns the conditions which the Prosecution has brought forward and that in this document he makes far-reaching proposals to remedy the situation which he severely criticizes.
I shall, when my turn comes, read the whole document.
80
10 Jan. 46
THE PRESIDENT: Exactly. You will have full opportunity, when it is your turn, to explain this document; but it is not your turn at the moment.
DR. SEIDL: I only mention it now because the Tribunal itself drew my attention to this point.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, Lieutenant Colonel Baldwin, I asked you what was the whole content of the document from which you were reading this paragraph. According to counsel for Frank, the document, which is a very long document, shows that Frank was suggesting remedies for the difficulties which he here sets out. Is that so?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: That is so, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the...
LT. COL. BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal, I did not cite this portion of that document, as I will later demonstrate, to show that Frank did or did not suggest remedies for these conditions; but only to explain that these conditions existed as of a certain period.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, when you cite a small part of the document, you should make sure that what you cite is not misleading as compared to the rest of the document.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: I see, Your Honor. I had not considered it to be such, in view of the purpose for which I introduced it, which, as I suggested, was only to indicate a set of conditions which existed at a certain time. I naturally assumed that the Defense, as Dr. Seidl has indicated, will carry on with the rest of the document as a matter of defense.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, of course, that is all very well, but the Defendant Frank's counsel will speak at some remote date; and it is not a complete answer to say that he will have an opportunity of explaining the document at some future date. It is for Counsel for the Prosecution to make sure that no extracts which they read can reasonably make a misleading impression upon the mind of the Tribunal.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: I shall now state, then, that the extract which was just read was read solely for the purpose of indicating that at a certain period, namely, June 1943, those conditions existed in Poland, as the result of statements by the Governor General of Poland.
Would that be satisfactory to the Tribunal?
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Well, what is not satisfactory to the Tribunal is that you did not give us the real purport of the document.
81
10 Jan. 46
LT. COL. Well, Sir, I don't have the complete document before me now. Therefore, I can't read all of it.
THE PRESIDENT: What we would like, would be, if possible, that when an extract is made from a document, counsel who are presenting that extract should instruct themselves as to the general purport of the document so as to make certain that the part that is read is not-misleading.
LT. COL. BALDWIN: Yes, Sir.
In order to illustrate how completely the Defendant Frank is identified with the policies, the execution of which is reported in this document, and how thoroughly they were his own policies; and this, if the Tribunal please, regardless of what remedies he may have had in 1943, it is proposed in this last section to take passages from Frank's own diary in proof of his early espousal and execution of these self-same policies.
As to the insufficient nourishment of the Polish population, there was no need for the Defendant Frank to have waited until June 1943 to have reported this fact to Hitler. In September 1941 Defendant Frank's own chief medical officer reported to him the appalling Polish health conditions. This appears in Frank's diary and in our Document 2233(p)-PS, at Page 46 in the document book, which I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-611. The German text is to be found in the 1941 diary volume at Page 830. I quote:
"Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Walbaum expresses his opinion of the health condition of the Polish population. Investigations which were carried out by his department proved that the majority of Poles had only about 600 calories allotted to them, whereas the normal requirement for a human being was 2,200 calories. The Polish population was weakened to such an extent that it would fall an easy prey to spotted fever." Parenthetically, I think we know that as typhus.
"The number of diseased Poles has amounted to date to 40 percent. During the last week alone, 1,000 new spotted fever cases were officially recorded. That is so far the highest figure. This health situation represents a serious danger for the Reich and for the soldiers coming into the Government General. A spreading of that pestilence into the Reich is very possible. The increase in tuberculosis, too, is causing anxiety. If the food rations were to be diminished again, an enormous increase of the number of illnesses could be predicted."
While it was crystal-clear from this report that in September 1941 disease affected 40 percent of the Polish population, nevertheless the Defendant Frank approved, in August 1942, a new plan
82
10 Jan. 46
which called for a much larger contribution of foodstuffs to Germany at the expense of the non-German population of the Government General. Methods of meeting the new quotas out of the grossly inadequate rations of the Government General and the impact of the new quotas on the economy of the. country were discussed at a cabinet meeting of the Government General on 24 August 1942 in terms which leave no possible doubt that not only was the proposed requisition beyond the resources of the country, but its force was to be distributed on a grossly discriminatory basis. This appears from Frank's diary and in our Document 2233(e)-PS, which is at Page 30 in the document book, which I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-283. The German text appears in the 1942 conference volume at the conference entry for 24 August 1942. I quote the following extract:
"Before the German people" said Frank "suffer starvation, the occupied territories and their people shall be exposed to starvation. In this moment, therefore, we here in the Government General must have the iron determination to help the great German people, that is our fatherland.
"The Government General, therefore, must do the following: The Government General has undertaken to send 500,000 tons of bread grain to the fatherland in addition to the foodstuffs already being delivered for the relief of Germany or consumed here by troops of the Armed Forces, Police, or SS. If you compare this with our contributions of last year you can see that this means a six-fold increase over that of last year's contribution by the Government General.
"The new demand will be fulfilled exclusively at the expense of the foreign population. It must be done cold-bloodedly and without pity."
Defendant Frank was not only responsible for reducing the Government General to starvation level, but was proud of the contribution he thereby made to the Reich. I refer to a statement made to the political leaders of the NSDAP on 14 December 1942 at Krakow. It is contained in the Frank diary and is our Document 2233(z)-PS, at Page 57 in the document book; and I now offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-612. In the German text the extract appears in the 1942 diary volume, Part IV, at Page 1331. Defendant Frank is speaking:
"I will endeavor to get out of the reservoir of this territory everything that is yet to be had out of it."
He continues:
"When you consider that it was possible for me to deliver to the Reich 600,000 tons of bread grain and in addition 180,000
83
10 Jan. 46
tons to the Armed Forces stationed here; further, an abundance amounting to many thousands of tons of other commodities, such as seed, fats, vegetables, besides the delivery to the Reich of 300 million eggs, et cetera, you can estimate how important the work in this territory is for the Reich. In order to make clear to you the significance of the consignment from the Government General of 600,000 tons of bread grain, you are referred to the fact that the Government General, by this achievement alone, covers the raising of the bread ration in the Greater German Reich by two-thirds for the present rationing period. This enormous achievement can rightfully be claimed by us."
Now, as to the resettlement of Polish peasants which Defendant Frank mentions secondly in the report to Hitler - although Himmler was given general authority in connection with the conspirators' project to resettle various districts in the conquered Eastern territories with racial Germans, the projects relating to resettling districts in the Government General were submitted to and approved by the Defendant Frank. The plan to resettle Zamosc and Lublin, for example, was reported to him at a meeting to discuss special problems of the district Lublin by his infamous State Secretary for Security, Higher SS and Police Leader, Kruger, on 4 August 1942. It is contained in Frank's diary and in our Document 2233(t)-PS, at Page 51 in the document book, which I now offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-607. The German text appears in the 1942 volume of the diary, Part III, Pages 830, 831, and 832.
I now quote from the report of the conference:
"State Secretary Kruger then continues, saying that the Reichsfuehrer's next immediate plan until the end of the following year would be to settle the following German racial groups in the two districts" Zamosc and Lublin - "1,000 peasant homes (1 homestead per family of about 6) for Bosnian Germans; "1,200 other kinds of homes; 1,000 homesteads for Bessarabian Germans; 200 for Serbian Germans; 2,000 for Leningrad Germans; 4,000 for Baltic Germans; 500 for Wolhynia Germans; and 200 homes for Flemish, Danish, and Dutch Germans; in all 10,000 homes for 50,000 to 60,000 persons."
Upon hearing this, the Defendant Frank directed that - and I quote: ". . . the resettlement plan is to be discussed co-operatively by the competent authorities and he declares his willingness to approve the final plan by the end of September after satisfactory arrangements had been made concerning all the
84
10 Jan. 46
questions appertaining thereto - in particular the guaranteeing of peace and order - so that by the middle of November, as the most favorable time, the resettlement can begin."
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
LT. COL. BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal, the way in which the resettlement at Zamosc was carried out was described to Defendant Frank by Kruger at a meeting at Warsaw on January 25, 1943. The report is contained in the Frank diary and is our Document 2233(aa)-PS, and appears at Page 58 in the document book. I offer the original of it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-613. The German text appears in the labor conference volume for 1943, at Pages 16, 17, and 19. Kruger in this excerpt reports that they had settled the first 4,000 in the Kreis Zamosc shortly before Christmas; that, understandably, friends were not made of the Poles in the resettlement program; and that the Poles had to be chased out. He then stated to Frank, and I quote:
"We are removing those who constitute a burden in this new colonization territory. Actually, they are the asocial and inferior elements. They are being deported; first brought to a concentration camp and then sent as labor to the Reich. From a Polish propaganda standpoint, this entire first action has an unfavorable effect. For the Poles say: 'After the Jews have been destroyed, then they will employ the same methods to get the Poles out of this territory and liquidate them just like the Jews."'
Kruger went on to mention that there was a great deal of unrest in the territory as a result; and Frank informed him, that is, Kruger, that each individual case of resettlement would be discussed in the future exactly as that one of Zamosc had been.
Although the illegality of this dispossession of Poles to make room for Germans was evident and although the fact that the Poles who were not only being dispossessed but sent off to concentration camps became increasingly difficult to handle, the resettlement projects continued in the Government General.
The third item mentioned by Frank - the encroachments and confiscations of industry and private property - was again an early Frank policy. He explained this to his department heads in December 1939. The report is from his diary and is our Document 2233(k)-PS, and it appears at Page 40 in the document book. I now offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-173. The German text
85
10 Jan. 46
appears in the department heads conference volume for 1939-40 at the entry for 2 December 1939 at Pages 2 and 3. Dr. Frank states: "Principally it can be said regarding the administration of the Government General: This territory in its entirety is booty for the German Reich, and thus it will not do for this territory to be exploited in separate individual parts; but the territory in its entirety shall be economically used and its entire economic worth redound to the benefit of the German people."
Reference is made to Exhibit Number USA-297, if any further support of an early policy of ruthless exploitation is deemed necessary by the Tribunal. In addition, the decree permitting sequestration in the Government General heretofore pointed out to the Tribunal (Verordnungsblatt fur das Generalgouvernement, Number 6, 27 January 1940, Page 23), which decree was signed by the, Defendant Frank, permitted and empowered the Nazi officials to engage in wholesale seizure of property. This was made the easier by the undefined criteria of the decree. The looting of the Government General under this and other decrees has already been presented to the Tribunal on 14 December 1945, under the subject heading, "Germanization and spoliation of occupied territories," and the Tribunal is respectfully referred to that portion of the record and in particular to that segment dealing with the Government General.
The Defendant Frank mentioned mass arrests and mass shooting and the application of collective responsibility as the fourth reason for the apparent deterioration of the attitude of the entire Polish people. In this, too, he is to blame, for it was no part of Defendant Frank's policy that reprisal should be commensurate with the gravity of the offense. He was, on the contrary, an advocate of the most drastic measures. At a conference of district political leaders at Krakow, on 18 March 1942, Frank stated his policy. This extract is from the diary and is our Document 2233(r)-PS and will be found at Page 49 in the document book. I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-608. The German text may be found in the diary volume for 1942, Part I, Pages 195 and 196. I quote Frank's statement: "Incidentally, the struggle for the achievement of our aims will be pursued cold-bloodedly. You see how the state agencies work. You see that we do not hesitate at anything, and stand dozens of people up against the wall. This is necessary because a simple reflection tells me that it cannot be our task at this period, when the best German blood is being sacrificed, to show regard for the blood of another race; for out of this, one of the greatest dangers may arise. One already hears today in Germany that prisoners of war, for
86
10 Jan. 46
instance, in Bavaria or Thuringia, are administering large estates entirely independently, while all the men in a village fit for service are at the front. If this state of affairs continues, then a gradual retrogression of Germanism will result. One should not underestimate this danger. Therefore, everything revealing itself as a Polish power of leadership must be destroyed again and again with ruthless energy. This does not have to be shouted abroad; it will happen silently."
And on 15 January 1944 Defendant Frank assured the political leaders of the NSDAP that reprisals would be made for German deaths. These remarks are to be found in the Frank diary, in our Document 2233(bb)-PS at Page 60 in the document book, the second quote on that page, the original of which I offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-295. The German text appears in the looseleaf volume of the diary covering the period from 1 January 1944 to 28 February 1944, and appears at Page 13. Frank says quite simply "I have not hesitated to declare that when a German is shot, up to 100 Poles shall be shot too."
The whole tragic history of slave labor and recruitment of workers has been placed before this Tribunal in great detail. When the Defendant Frank refers to these methods as his fifth reason for disaffection in Poland in his report to Hitler, he once more cites policies which he executed. Force, violence, and economic duress were all supported by him as means for recruiting laborers for deportation to slavery in Germany. This was an announced policy, and I have already alluded to Exhibit Number USA-297, which contains verification of this fact.
While in the very beginning recruitment of laborers in the Government General may have been voluntary, these methods soon proved inadequate. In the spring of 1940 the question of utilizing force came up and the matter was discussed at an official meeting at which the Defendant Seyss-Inquart was also present. I refer to the Frank diary and our Document 2233(n)-PS, which the Tribunal will find at Page 43 in the document book. I offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-614. The German text appears in the diary volume for 1940, Part II, at Page 333. I quote the conference report:
"The Governor General stated that all means in the form of proclamations, et cetera, not having succeeded, one is led to the conclusion that the Poles, out of malevolence and with the intention of harming Germany by not putting themselves at its disposal, refuse to enlist for labor service. Therefore, he asks Dr. Frauendorfer if there are any other measures not as yet employed to win the Poles on a voluntary basis.
87
10 Jan. 46
"Reichshauptamtsleiter Dr. Frauendorfer answered the question in the negative.
"The Governor General emphasized the fact that he will now be asked to take a definite attitude towards this question. Therefore, the question will arise whether any form of coercive measures should now be employed.
"The question put by the Governor General to SS Lieutenant General Kruger as to whether he sees possibilities of calling Polish workers by coercive means, is answered in the affirmative by SS Lieutenant General Kruger."
In May 1940, at an official conference - and this record is already before the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USA- 173 Defendant Frank stated that compulsion in recruitment of labor could be exercised, that Poles could be snatched from the streets and that the best method would be organized raids.
As in the case of persecution of the Jews, the forced labor program in the Government General is almost beyond belief. I refer to the Frank diary and to our Document 2233(w)-PS, which will be found at Page 53 in the document book, the original of which I offer into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-607. This excerpt is a record, if the Court please, of a discussion between the Defendant Sauckel and the Defendant Frank at Krakow on 18 August 1942; and it appears in the diary volume for 1942, Part III, at Pages 918 and 920. Dr. Frank speaks:
"I am pleased to report to you officially, Party Comrade Sauckel, that we have up to now supplied 800,000 workers
for the Reich...."
He continues:
"Recently you have requested us to supply a further 140,000. I have pleasure in informing you officially that in accordance with our agreement of yesterday, 60 percent of the newly requested workers will be supplied to the Reich by the end of October and the balance of 40 percent by the end of the year."
Dr. Frank continues:
"Beyond the present figure of 140,000 you can, however, next year reckon upon a higher number of workers from the Government General, for we shall employ the Police to conscript them."
How this recruitment was carried out - by wild and ruthless manhunts - is clearly shown in Exhibit Number USA-178, which is in evidence before the Tribunal. Starvation, violence, and death, which characterized the entire slave labor program of the conspirators, was thus faithfully reflected in the administration of the Defendant Frank.
88
10 Jan. 46
There were, of course, other grounds for uneasiness in occupied Poland which the Defendant Frank did not mention in his report to Hitler. He does not mention the concentration camps, perhaps because as a representative jurist of National Socialism, the Defendant Frank had himself defended the system in Germany. As Governor General the Defendant Frank, we feel, must be held responsible for all concentration camps within the boundaries of the Government General. These include, among others, the notorious camp at Maidanek and the one at Lublin and at Treblinka outside of Warsaw. As indicated previously, the Defendant Frank knew and approved that Poles were taken to concentration camps in connection with resettlement projects. He had certain jurisdiction as well in relation to the extermination camp Auschwitz, to which Poles from the Government General were committed by his administration. In February 1944 Embassy Counsellor Dr. Schumberg suggested a possible amnesty of Poles who had been taken to Auschwitz for trivial offenses and kept there for several months. This conference, if the Court please, is reported in the Frank diary and is contained in our Document 2233(bb)-PS, at Page 60 in the document book. It is the third quote on that page. I offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-295.
THE PRESIDENT: You go too fast. Did you say Page 70?
LT. COL. BALDWIN: Page 60, Sir. The German text appears in the loose-leaf volume covering the period 1 January 1944 to 28 February 1944, at the conference on 8 February 1944, on Page 7. I quote:
"The Governor General will take under consideration an amnesty probably for 1 May of this year. Nevertheless, one must not lose sight of the fact that the German leadership of the Government General must not now show any sign of weakness."
This, then, was and is the conspirator Hans Frank. The evidence is by no means exhausted, but it is our belief that sufficient proof has been given to this Tribunal to establish his liability under Count One of the Indictment.
As legal adviser of Hitler and the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, Defendant Frank promoted the conspirators' rise to power. In his various juridical capacities, both in the NSDAP and in the German Government, Defendant Frank certainly advocated and promoted the political monopoly of the NSDAP, the racial program of the conspirators, and the terror system of the concentration camps and of arrest without warrant. His role, early in the Common Plan, was to realize "the National Socialist program in the realm of the law" and to give the outward form of legality to this program of
89
10 Jan. 46
terror, persecution, and oppression which had as its ultimate purpose mobilization for aggressive war.
As a loyal adherent of Hitler, and the NSDAP, Defendant Frank was appointed Governor General in 1939 of that area of Poland known as the Government General. Defendant Frank had defined justice as that which benefited the German nation. His 5 years' administration of the Government General illustrates the most extreme extension of that principle.
It has been shown that Defendant Frank took the office of Governor General under a program which constituted in itself a criminal plan or conspiracy, as Defendant Frank well knew and approved, to exploit the territory ruthlessly for the benefit of Nazi Germany, to conscript its nationals for labor in Germany, to close its schools and colleges, to prevent the rise of a Polish intelligentsia, and to administer the territory as a colonial possession of the Third Reich in total disregard of the duties of an occupying power towards the inhabitants of occupied territory.
Under Defendant Frank's administration this criminal plan was consummated, but the execution went even beyond the plan. Food contributions to Germany increased to the point where the bare subsistence reserved for the Government General under the plan was reduced to a level of mass starvation. The savage program of exterminating Jews was relentlessly executed. Resettlement projects were carried out with reckless disregard of the rights of the local population and the terror of the concentration camp followed in the wake of the Nazi invaders.
This statement of evidence has been compiled in large part from statements by the Defendant Frank himself, from the admission found in his diary, official reports, reports of conferences with his colleagues and subordinates, and his speeches. It is therefore appropriate that a passage from his diary should be quoted in conclusion. It is our Document 2233 (aa)-PS. It appears at Page 59 in the document book. I offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-613. The German text appears in the 1943 volume of labor conference meetings at the 25 January 1943 entry on Page 53. In his address Defendant Frank, prophetically enough, told his colleagues in the Government General that their task would grow more difficult. "Hitler", he said, "could help them only as a kind of 'administrative pill box."' They must depend on themselves.
"We are now duty bound to hold together" and I quote
Frank "We must remember that we who are gathered
together here figure on Mr. Roosevelt's list of war criminals.
I have the honor of being Number One. We have, so to speak,
become accomplices in the world historic sense."
This concludes the presentation on the Defendant Frank.
90
10 Jan. 46
May it please the Tribunal, Lieutenant Colonel Griffith-Jones of the British Delegation will now deal with the individual responsibility of the Defendant Streicher.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL M. C. GRIFFITH-JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): If the Tribunal please, it is my duty to present the case against the Defendant Julius Streicher.
Appendix A of the Indictment, that paragraph of the Appendix relating to Streicher, sets out the positions which he held and which I shall prove. It then goes on to allege that he used those positions and his personal influence and his close connection with the Fuehrer in such a manner that he promoted the accession to power of the Nazi conspirators and the consolidation of their control over Germany, as set forth in Count One of the Indictment; that he authorized, directed, and participated in the Crimes against Humanity, set forth in Count Four of the Indictment, including particularly the incitement of the persecution of the Jews, set forth in Count One and Count Four of the Indictment.
My Lord, the case against this defendant can be, perhaps, described by the unofficial title that he assumed for himself as "Jew-baiter Number One." It is the Prosecution's case that for the course of some 25 years this man educated the whole of the German people in hatred and that he incited them to the persecution and to the extermination of the Jewish race. He was an accessory to murder, perhaps on a scale never attained before.
With the Tribunal's permission I propose to prove quite shortly the position and influence that he held and then to refer the Tribunal to several short extracts from his newspapers and from his speeches and then to outline the part that he played in the particular persecutions that occurred against the Jews between the years 1933 and 1945.
My Lord, perhaps before I start, I might say that the document book before the members of the Tribunal is arranged in the order in which I intend to refer to the documents. They are paged and there is an index at the beginning of the book and if the Tribunal have got what is called the trial brief, it is in effect a note of the evidence to which I shall refer and again in the order in which I shall refer to it, which may be of some assistance.
My Lord, this defendant was born in 1885. He became a school teacher in Nuremberg and formed a party of his own, which he called the German Socialist Party. The chief policy of that party, again, was anti-Semitism. In 1922 he handed over his party to Hitler; and there is a glowing account of his generosity which appears in Hitler's Mein Kampf, which I do not think it worth occupying the time of the Tribunal in reading. It appears as Document M-3, and is the first document in the Tribunal's document book.
91
10 Jan. 46
The copy of Mein Kampf is already before the Tribunal as Exhibit GB-128.
The appointments that he held in the Party and State were few. From 1921 until 1945 he was a member of the Nazi Party. In 1925 he was appointed Gauleiter of Franconia, and he remained as such until about February of 1940; and from the time that the Nazi Government came into power in 1933 until 1945, he was a member of the Reichstag. In addition to that he held the title of Obergruppenfuehrer in the SA. All that information appears in Document 2975PS, which is already exhibited as Exhibit Number USA-9, and is the affidavit that he made himself.
The propaganda that he carried out throughout those years was chiefly done through the medium of his newspapers. He was the editor and publisher of the paper called Der Sturmer, which was a weekly journal, from 1922 until 1933; and thereafter the publisher and owner of the paper.
In 1933 he also founded and thereafter, I think, published certainly was responsible for - the daily newspaper called the Frankische Tageszeitung.
There were, in addition to that and particularly later, several others, mostly local journals, that he published from Nuremberg.
Those are the positions that he held; and now if I may, I shall quite briefly trace the course of his incitement and propaganda more or less in chronological order by referring the Tribunal to the short extracts. I would say this: These extracts are really selected at random. They are selected with a view to showing the Tribunal the various methods that he employed to incite the people against the Jewish race; but his newspapers are crowded with them, week after week, day after day. It is impossible to pick up any copy without finding the same kind of stuff in the headlines and in the articles.
If I might quote from four speeches and articles showing his early activities from 1922 until 1933 - at Page 3 of the Tribunal's document book, Document M-11 - that is an extract from a speech that he made in 1922 in Nuremberg, and - after abusing the Jews in the first paragraph - I refer only to the last two lines: "We know that Germany will be free when the Jew has been excluded from the life of the German people."
I pass to the next document, which is M-12, on Page 4. The first document was Exhibit GB-165. That is the book, I understand, that is being given that number, so that the next document, which is taken from the same book, will be the same. Perhaps I might be allowed to read that short extract. It is an extract from a speech:
"I beg you and particularly those of you who carry the cross throughout the land, to become somewhat more serious when
92
10 Jan. 46
I speak of the enemy of the German people, namely, the Jew. Not out of irresponsibility or for fun do I fight against the Jewish enemy, but because I bear within me the knowledge that the whole misfortune was brought to Germany by the Jews alone.
". . . I ask you once more, what is at stake today? The Jew seeks domination not only among the German people but among all peoples. The Communists pave the way for Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament ordered the Jews to devour and enslave the peoples of the earth? ... "The Government allows the Jew to do as he pleases. The people expect action to be taken....You may think about Adolf Hitler as you please, but one thing you must admit. He possessed the courage to attempt to free the German people from the Jew by a national revolution. That was a great deed."
The next short extract appearing on the next page is taken' from a speech in April of 1925:
"You must realize that the Jew wants our people to perish .... That is why you must join us and leave those who have brought you nothing but war and inflation and discord. For thousands of years the Jew has been destroying the nations." I ask the Tribunal to note now these last few words:
"Let us start today, so that we can annihilate the Jews."
My Lord, so far as I have been able to find, that is the earliest expression of annihilation of the Jewish race. Perhaps it gave birth to what was 14 years later to become the official policy of the Nazi Government.
And one further passage from this period. This is in April 1932, Document M-14, taken from the same book. He starts by saying, "For 13 years I have fought against Jewry." I quote the last paragraph only:
"We know that the Jew, whether he is baptized as a Protestant or as a Catholic, remains a Jew. Why can you not realize this, you Protestant clergymen, you Catholic priests! You are blinded and serve the God of the Jews who is not the God of love but the God of hate. Why do you not listen to Christ, who said to the Jews, 'You are the children of the Devil."'
That, then, was the kind of performance he was putting up during those early years. When the Nazi Party came to power, they officially started their campaign against the Jews by the boycott of 1 April 1933. Now, of that boycott the Tribunal have already had evidence; and I would do no more now than to remind the Tribunal in a word what happened.
93
10 Jan. 46
The boycott was agreed on and approved of by the whole Government, as was shown in a document which is already before you, Document 2409- PS, Exhibit Number USA-262, which was Goebbels' diary.
Streicher was appointed the chairman of the central committee for the organization of that boycott, which appears in Document 2156-PS, Exhibit Number USA-263. It was then said that he started his work on Wednesday, the 29th.
On that same day the central committee issued a proclamation in which they said that the boycott would start on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. sharp. "Jewry will realize whom it has challenged." That short quotation appears in Document 3389-PS, which is USA-566, which is a volume - in actual fact, it is a copy of Der Sturmer which is already before the Court.
I would refer the Tribunal to one short passage from an article in the Nationalsozialistische Partei Korrespondenz which the defendant wrote on the 30th of March, before the boycott was due to start. It is Document 2153- PS and appears on Page 12 of the Tribunal's book, which becomes Exhibit GB-166. There he writes, under the title, "Defeat the enemy of the world! by Julius Streicher, official leader of the central committee to combat the Jewish atrocity and boycott campaign.":
"Jewry wanted this battle. It shall have it until it realizes that the Germany of the brown battalions is not a country of cowardice and surrender. Jewry will have to fight until we have won victory.
"National Socialists! Defeat the enemy of the world. Even if the world is full of devils, we shall succeed in the end."
As head of the central committee for that boycott, Streicher outlined in detail the organization of the boycott in orders which the committee published on the 31st of March 1933, which is the next document in the book, Document 2865-PS Exhibit GB-167. I can summarize those.
The committee stressed that no violence is to be employed against the Jews on the occasion of that boycott, but not perhaps for humane reasons; it is because, if there is no violence employed, then Jewish employers will have no grounds for discharging their employees without notice; and they will have no ground for refusing to pay them any wages.
The Jews were also reported apparently to be transferring businesses to German figureheads in order to alleviate the results of this persecution, and the committee laid it down that any
94
10 Jan. 46
property to be transferred was to be considered as Jewish for the purpose of the boycott.
I do not think I need go into that any further. It does show that at that date he was taking a leading part, and a leading part as appointed by the Government, in the persecution of the Jews.
I would now refer the Court again to a few further extracts to show the form that this propaganda developed as the years went on. At Page 18 of the document book, Document M-20, we have an article in the New Year's issue of a new paper that he had just founded. It was a semi-medical paper called German People's Health Through Blood and Soil, edited by himself; and it is an example of the really remarkable lengths to which he went in putting over this propaganda against the Jews. I quote:
"For the initiated it is established for all time: 'alien albumen' is the sperm of a man of alien race. The male sperm in cohabitation is partially or completely absorbed by the female, and thus enters her bloodstream. One single cohabitation of a Jew with an Aryan woman is sufficient to poison her blood forever. Together with the 'alien albumen' she has absorbed the alien soul. Never again will she be able to bear purely Aryan children, even when married to an Aryan. They will all be bastards, with a dual soul and a body of a mixed breed. Their children, too, will be crossbreeds; that means, ugly people of unsteady character and with a tendency to illnesses....
"Now we know why the Jew uses every artifice of seduction in order to ravish German girls at as early an age as possible; why the Jewish doctor rapes his female patients while they are under anaesthesia.... He wants the German girl and the German woman to absorb the alien sperm of the Jew. She is never again to bear German children!
"But the blood products of all animal organisms right down to bacteria, thus serum, lymph, extracts from internal organs, et cetera, are also 'alien albumen.' They have a poisonous effect if directly introduced into the blood stream either by vaccination or by injection.
"The worst is that by these products of sick animals the blood is defiled, the Aryan is impregnated with an alien species.
"The author and abettor of such action is the Jew. He has been aware of the secrets of the race question for centuries, and therefore plans systematically the annihilation of the nations which are superior to him. Science and 'authorities' are his instruments for the enforcing of pseudoscience and the concealment of truth."
That becomes, My Lord, Exhibit GB-168.
95
10 Jan. 46
The next document, also at the beginning of 1935, an extract from his own paper Der Sturmer, is entitled "The Chosen People of the Criminals":
"And all the same, or let us say, just because of this, the history book of the Jews, which is usually called the Holy Scriptures, impresses us as a horrible criminal romance, which makes the 150 shilling-shockers of the British Jew, Edgar Wallace, grow pale with envy. This 'holy' book abounds in murder, incest, fraud, theft, and indecency."
On the 4th of October 1935 - and the Tribunal will remember that that was the month after the Nuremberg Decrees had been made - he made a speech which is reported in the Volkischer Beobachter and is entitled in that newspaper, "Safeguard of German Blood and German Honor." I read the report in that article: "Gauleiter Streicher speaks at a German Labor Front mass demonstration for the Nuremberg laws." Then the first line of the actual article says that he spoke for the second time within a few weeks. I quote only the last two lines of that first large paragraph: "...we have therefore to unmask the Jew, and that is what I have been doing for the past 15 years." That remark apparently was met with tempestuous applause. That document, M-34, becomes Exhibit GB-169.
And, My Lord, I think it unnecessary to quote from the next document in the Tribunal's book. It is very much the same type of thing. On Page 22 of the document book, Document M-6, there is a leading article by Streicher in his Der Sturmer of which I would refer only to the last half of the last paragraph where again he emphasizes the part that he himself has taken in this campaign.
"The Sturmer's 15 years of work of enlightenment has already led an army of initiated - millions strong to National Socialism. The continued work of Der Sturmer will help to ensure that every German down to the last man will, with heart and hand) joi
n the ranks of those whose aim it is to crush the head of the serpent Pan-Juda beneath their heels. He who helps to bring this about helps to eliminate the devil, and this devil is the Jew." That document becomes Exhibit GB-170.
The next document - I include it in the document book again only to show the extraordinary length to which he went in his propaganda; and it consists of a photograph of the burning hull of the airship Hindenburg when it went on fire in June 1937 in America. Underneath it the caption includes the comment:
"The first radio picture from the United States of America shows quite clearly that a Jew stands behind the explosion of 96
10 Jan. 46
our airship Hindenburg. Nature has depicted quite clearly and quite correctly that devil in human guise."
And although it is not at all clear from that photograph, I think the meaning of that comment is that the cloud of smoke in the air is in the shape of a Jewish face.
On the next page Document M-4 is a speech he made in September 1937 at the opening of a bridge in Nuremberg. I will quote only the last paragraph on Page 24. The bridge in question is called the Wilhelm Gustloff bridge, and he says:
"The man who murdered Wilhelm Gustloff must have come from the Jewish people, because the Jewish text books teach that every Jew has the right to kill a non-Jew; and indeed, that it is pleasing to the Jewish God to kill as many non -Jews as possible.
"Look at the road the Jewish people have been following for thousands of years past; everywhere murder, everywhere mass murder! Neither must we forget that behind present-day wars there stands the Jewish financier who pursues his aims and interests. The Jew always lives on the blood of other nations; he needs such murder and such victims. For us who know, the murder of Wilhelm Gustloff is the same as ritual murder."
And then on the next page:
"It is our duty to tell the children at school and the bigger ones what this memorial means...."
I go to the next paragraph:
"The Jew no longer shows himself among us openly as he used to. But it would be wrong to say that victory is ours. Full
and final victory will have been achieved only when the whole world is rid of Jews."
That becomes Exhibit GB-171.
Now the next two documents in your document books are simply extracts from the correspondence columns of his Der Sturmer, showing again one of the methods he employed in this propaganda. I do not need to read them. The correspondence columns of all his issues are full of letters coming in from Germans saying that some German has been buying her shoes from a Jewish shop and so on, and in that way assisting in the general boycott-of the Jews. In other words, they really are a weekly column of libels against the Jews all over Germany.
I pass then to another and particular form of propaganda that he employed and which he called "ritual murder." The Tribunal may well remember that some years ago - I think it started in 1934
97
10 Jan. 46
this Der Sturmer began publishing accounts of Jewish ritual murder which horrified the whole world to such an extent that even the Archbishop of Canterbury eventually wrote to the Times protesting, as indeed did people from every country in the world, protesting that any Government should allow matter like this to be published in their national newspapers.
He takes his ritual murder, I understand, from a medieval belief that during their Eastertide celebrations the Jews were in the habit of murdering Christian children; and he enlarges upon this and misrepresents this belief, this medieval belief, to show that not only did they do it in the Middle Ages, but that they are still doing it and still want to do it. And if I might just quote one or two passages from his newspapers and show one or two pictures which he published in connection with his campaign of ritual murder, it will illustrate to the Court the type of teaching and propaganda that he was putting up. On Page 29 of the Tribunal's document book, I will quote from the third but last paragraph:
"This the French front-line soldier should take with him to France: The German people have taken a new lease on life. They want peace, but if anybody should attack them, if anyone should try to torture them again, to throw them back into the past, then the world would witness another heroic epic; then may Heaven decide where righteousness lies - here with us, or where the Jew has the whiphand and where he instigates massacres, one could almost say the biggest ritual murders of all times. If the German people are to be slaughtered according to the Jewish rites, the whole world will be thus slaughtered at the same time."
And the last paragraph:
"Just as you have drummed morning and evening prayers into your children's heads, so now drum this into their heads, so that the German people may gain the spiritual power to convince the rest of the world which the Jews desire to lead against us."
That Document is M-2, Exhibit GB-172.
And on the following page of the document book there is a reproduction of a photograph taken from Der Sturmer of April 1937 which illustrates three Jews ritually murdering a girl by cutting her throat and shows the blood pouring out into a bucket on the ground. The caption underneath that photograph is as follows: "Ritual Murder at Polna. Ritual murder of Agnes Hruza by the Jews Hilsner, Erdmann, and Wassermann (taken from a contemporary postcard.)"
That is Exhibit Number USA-258. It is already in a copy of Der Sturmer, which has been put in.
98
10 Jan. 46
There appears on the next page of the document book an extract from that same Der Sturmer, April 1937. I will not read it now, because it has been put in and has all been read to the Court. It describes what happens when ritual murder takes place, and the blood is mixed with the bread and drunk by the Jews having their feast. The Tribunal will remember that during the feast the head of the family exclaims, "May all gentiles perish - as the child whose blood is contained in the bread and wine."
That is already Exhibit Number USA-258, and it has been read in the transcript at Page 1437 (Volume III, Pages 522, 523).
THE PRESIDENT: Would that be a good time to break off?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If My Lordship pleases.
[A recess was taken until 1400 hours.]
99
10 Jan. 46
Afternoon Session
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: May it please the Tribunal, if I might just refer to two further copies of Der Sturmer on the subject of "ritual murder," the first of which appears on Page 32 of the document book, 2700-PS. It is the copy in Exhibit USA-260. It is an article in Der Sturmer for July 1938:
"Whoever has had the occasion to be an eyewitness to the ritualistic slaughtering of animals or at least to see a truthful film on this method of slaughtering will never forget this gruesome experience. It is horrifying. And instinctively he is reminded of the crimes which the Jews have committed for centuries on human beings. He will be reminded of the ritual murder. History offers hundreds of cases in which non-Jewish . children were tortured to death by Jews. They, too, received the same gash in the throat as is found on ritualistically slaughtered animals. They, too, were slowly bled to death while fully conscious."
My Lord, on special occasions, or when he had some particular subject matter to put before the world, he was in the habit of issuing special editions of his newspaper Der Sturmer. Ritual murder was such a special subject that he issued one of these special editions dealing solely with it. The Tribunal will have a photostatic copy of the complete issue for May 1939.
Now I have not attempted to have translated all, or indeed any, of the articles which appear in that edition. It is perhaps sufficient to look at the pictures, the illustrations, and for me to read the captions which appear underneath the photographs; and I regret the translations of the captions have not been attached to the Tribunal's copy but perhaps I may be permitted to refer to the pictures and read the captions for the Tribunal.
The pages are marked in red pencil on the right-hand corner. On Page 1 I see a picture of a child having knives stuck into its side, blood spurting from it, and below the pedestal on which it stands are five presumably dead children lying on the ground. The caption to that picture is as follows:
"In the year 1476 the Jews in Regensburg murdered six boys. They drew their blood and tortured them to death. In an underground vault which belonged to the Jew Josfol, the judges found the bodies of the murdered boys. A bloodstained earthen bowl stood on an altar."
On the next page there are two pictures, and the captions explain them. The one at the top left-hand corner:
"For the Jewish New Year celebrations in 1913, World Jewry published this picture as a postcard. On the Jewish
100
10 Jan. 46
New Year and on the Day of Atonement the Jews slaughter a so-called kapores cock,' that is to say, dead cock, whose blood and death is intended to purify the Jews. In 1913 the kapores cock' had the head of the Russian Czar Nicholas II. By publishing this postcard the Jews intended to say that Nicholas II would be their next political purifying sacrifice. On the 16th of July 1918 the Czar was murdered by the Jews Jurovsky and Goloschtschekin."
The picture at the bottom of the page, again, has a Jew holding a similar bird:
"The kapores cock' has the head of the Fuehrer. The Hebrew script says that one day Jews will 'kill all Hitlerites.' Then they, the Jews, will be delivered from all misfortunes. But in due course the Jews will realize that they have reckoned without an Adolf Hitler."
The next page of the newspaper contains reproductions of a lot of previous articles on ritual murder, with a picture of the Defendant Julius Streicher at the top.
On the fourth page, a picture at the bottom of the right-hand corner has the caption:
"Jew at the Passover Meal. The wine and matzoth," - unleavened bread "contain non-Jewish blood. The Jew 'prays' before the meal. He 'prays' for death to all non-Jews."
On the fifth page are reproductions from some of the European and American newspaper articles and letters which had been received by those newspapers during the course of the last years in protest to this propaganda on the subject of ritual murder, and in the center of it you will see the letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury written to the editor of the Times in protest.
On the next page, Page 6, is another ghastly picture of a man having his throat cut - again the usual spurt of blood falling into a basin on the floor and the caption to that is as follows:
"The Ritual Murder of the Boy Heinrich. In the year 1345 the Jews in Munich slaughtered a non-Jewish boy. The martyr was beatified by the Church."
On Page 7 appears a picture representing three ritual murders. On Page 8 there is another photo-picture:
"St. Gabriel. This boy was crucified and tortured to death by the Jews in the year 1690. The blood was drawn from him.',
I think we can pass Page 9 and Page 10.
On Page 11 there is shown a piece of sculpture which appears on the wall of the Wallfahrts Chapel in Wesel and it represents
101
10 Jan. 46
the ritual murder of a boy, Werner. It is a somewhat disgusting picture of the boy strung up by his feet and being murdered by two Jews.
Page 12 reproduces another picture taken from the same place. The caption is:
"The Embalmed Body of 'Simon of Trent' Who Was Tortured to Death by the Jews."
Page 13 has another picture - somebody else having a knife stuck into him, more blood coming out into a basin.
On Page 14 are two pictures. The one at the top is said to be the ritual murder of the boy Andreas, and the one at the bottom is the picture of a tombstone, the caption of which reads as follows:
"The Tombstone of Hilsner. This is the memorial to a Jewish ritual murderer, Leopold Hilsner. He was found guilty of two ritual murders and was condemned in two trials to death by hanging. The emperor was bribed and pardoned him. Masaryk, the friend of the Jews, liberated him from penal servitude in 1918. Even on his tombstone lying Jewry calls this twofold murderer an innocent victim."
The next page again reproduces the picture of a woman being murdered by having her throat cut in the same way; and perhaps I might refer to Page 17, which reproduces a picture of the Archbishop of Canterbury and a picture of an old Jewish man, and the caption says:
"Dr. Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Highest Dignitary of the English Church. His ally, a typical example of the Jewish race."
The last page, Page 18, reproduces a picture called, "St. Simon of Trent, Who Was Tortured to Death."
My Lord, it is my submission that that document is nothing but an incitement to the people of Germany who read it, an incitement to murder. It is filled with pictures of murder, murder alleged to be against the German people, and is an encouragement to all who read it to revenge themselves, and to revenge themselves in the same way. That document, M-10, becomes Exhibit GB-173.
DR. HANNS MARX (Counsel for Defendant Streicher): The Defendant Julius Streicher has just called my attention to the fact
that he has not been given the opportunity to prove from where these pictures, which the Prosecution referred to just now, were taken. It is, in the opinion of the Defense, necessary that the origin of these pictures should be made clear to the Tribunal; otherwise one might think that these pictures had been especially borrowed
for Der Sturmer from some obscure source. The Defendant Streicher, however, points out that these pictures came from recognized
102
10 Jan. 46
historical sources. I should therefore like to suggest that the Prosecution make this material also available. I think that the articles of Der Sturmer which have been referred to must show what the sources are from which Streicher was supplied.
THE PRESIDENT: Do the articles show the sources? Do the articles themselves indicate the sources?
DR. MARX: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I should have said so. There wasn't any intention to misrepresent the matter, that these pictures are taken from original pictures. These were not invented by the newspaper, and in some cases the sources are shown in the caption. This is a collection of medieval pictures and frescoes dealing with this matter. In actual fact the papers show in almost all cases where they come from.
DR. MARX: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: You have already given us the dates of them, which indicated they were medieval.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That is so. My Lord, in January 1938 - and it will be remembered that in 1938 the persecution of the Jews became more and more severe - in January 1938, for some reason or other, another special issue of Der Sturmer was published. If the Tribunal would look at Page 34 of their document book I will quote a short passage from the leading article in that paper - an article written by the defendant:
"The supreme aim and highest task of the State is therefore to preserve People, Blood, and Race. But if this is the supreme task, any crime against this law must be punished with the supreme penalty. Der Sturmer takes therefore the view that there are only two punishments for the crime of polluting the race: 1. Long-term penal servitude for attempted race pollution. 2. Death for the completed crime."
And again, indeed if it is now still necessary to show the type of paper this was, if the Tribunal will turn over to the next page they will see the headlines set out for some of the articles that are contained in that edition:
"Jewish Race Polluters at Work."
"Fifteen-Year-Old Non-Jewess Violated."
"A Dangerous Race Polluter. He regards German women as fair game for himself."
"The Jewish Sanatorium. A Jewish institution for the cultivation of race pollution."
"Rape of a Feeble-Minded Girl."
103
10 Jan. 46
"The Jewish Butler. He steals from his Jewish masters and commits race pollution." The copy of that paper is already in as Exhibit USA-260.
On the next page of the document book I will quote only the last two lines. It is an article appearing in Der Sturmer; and it
is true that it is not an article actually written by the Defendant Streicher but by his then editor, Karl Holz:
"Revenge will break loose one day and will exterminate Jewry from the face of the earth."
And again on Page 37, in September 1938, Der Sturmer has written an article in which the last two lines read as follows:
". . . a parasite, a mischief maker, an evil-doer, a disseminator of disease, who must be destroyed in the interest of mankind."
It is my submission to the Tribunal that this is no longer propaganda for the persecution of the Jews; this is propaganda for the extermination of Jews, for the murder not of one man but of millions.
The next document in the document book, on Page 38, has already been put in evidence and read to the Tribunal. It is Exhibit USA-260. It appears in the document book and was read
into the transcript at Page 1438 (Volume III, Page 523). This is a short article appearing in December 1938, Number 50 of Der Sturmer.
I would draw the Tribunal's attention to the next document which is a picture taken from that same copy. It shows the upper part of a girl's body being strangled by the arms of a man with his hands around her neck and the shadow of the man's face is shown against the background, quite obviously with Jewish features. The caption under that picture is as follows:
"Castration for Race Polluters. Only heavy penalties will preserve our womenfolk from a tighter grip from the loathsome Jewish claws. The Jews are our misfortune."
I pause for the moment from Der Sturmer to a particular incident that occurred, in which the Defendant Streicher took a leading part. It will be remembered that the organized demonstrations against the Jews took place the 9th and 10th of November 1938. All this propaganda, as I say, was becoming fiercer and more ferocious. In the autumn of that year the Defendant Streicher organized the breaking up of the Nuremberg synagogues on the occasion of a meeting of press representatives in Nuremberg. That incident has in fact been referred to previously in this case and the documents in connection with it are 1724-PS, which were put
in as Exhibit USA-266 and were referred to and read in the transcript at Page 1443 (Volume III, Page 526).
104
10 Jan. 46
Gauleiter Julius Streicher was personally to set the crane in motion with which the Jewish symbols were to be torn down from the synagogue. From another document which also was put in, 2711-PS, which became USA-267, and also was read in the transcript at Page 1443 (Volume III, Page 526), I quote two lines:
"...the Synagogue is demolished! Julius Streicher himself inaugurates the work by a speech lasting an hour and a half. By his order then - so to speak as a prelude of the demolition - the tremendous Star of David came off the cupola."
The defendant, of course, took active part in the November demonstrations of that year. I do not suggest that he was responsible for the idea of them. The evidence against him is confined only to the part that he took in his Gau in Franconia.
On Page 43 of the document book, Document M-42 is an account of the Nuremberg demonstrations as they were reported in the Frankische Tageszeitung, which of course was his paper, on the 11th of November. I quote:
"In Nuremberg and Furth there were demonstrations by the crowd against the Jewish murderers. These lasted until the early hours of the morning. Long enough had one watched the doings of the Jews in Germany."
And then I go to the last three lines of that paragraph:
"After midnight the excitement of the populace reached its peak and a large crowd marched to the synagogues in Nuremberg and Furth and burned these two Jewish buildings where the murder of Germans had been preached.
"The fire brigades, which had been notified immediately, saw to it that the fire was confined to the original outbreak. The windows of the Jewish shopkeepers, who still had not given up hope of selling their rubbish to the stupid Gojim, were smashed. Thanks to the disciplined behaviour of the SA-men and the police, who rushed to the scene, there was no plundering."
That becomes Exhibit GB-174.
The following document in the document book is the report of Streicher's speech on the 10th of November, the day of the demonstration. I will quote from two paragraphs on that page - or rather, starting in the middle of the first paragraph:
"From the cradle the Jew is not taught, as we are, such texts as 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself' or 'Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.' No, he is told With the non-Jew you can do whatever
105
10 Jan. 46
you like.' He is even taught that the slaughtering of a non - Jew is an act pleasing to God. For 20 years we have been writing about this in Der Sturmer; for 20 years we have been preaching it throughout the world, and we have made millions recognize the truth."
I go to the last paragraph:
. "The Jew slaughtered in one night 75,000 Persians; when he emigrated from Egypt he killed all the first-born, that is, a
whole future generation of Egyptians. What would have happened if the Jew had succeeded in driving the nations into war against us, and if we had lost the war? The Jew, protected by foreign bayonets, would have fallen on us and would have slaughtered and murdered us. Never forget what history teaches."
My Lord, after the November demonstrations irregularities occurred in the Gau of Franconia in connection with the organized Aryanization of Jewish property. Aryanization of Jewish property was, of course, regulated by the State; and under a decree it had been laid down that the proceeds, or any proceeds that there might be, from taking over Jewish properties and giving them to Aryans - all such proceeds were to go to the State. V/hat apparently happened in Franconia was that a good deal of the proceeds never found their way as far as the State, and as a result Goering set up a commission to investigate what had taken place. We have the report of that commission, and I would refer the Tribunal to certain short passages in it. On Page 45, we see from that report exactly what had been taking place in this Defendant Streicher's Gaul I quote from the paragraph, opposite where it says "Page 13"...
DR. MARX: As proof of the irregularities which occurred in connection with the Aryanization in Nuremberg after the 9th of November, the prosecutor intends to quote a report which the Deputy Gauleiter Holz made when he was interrogated before the examining commission. I wish to protest against making use of this report. Between Streicher and the Deputy Gauleiter Holz there existed real tension if not enmity. The Deputy Gauleiter Holz was the very person responsible for the measures of Aryanization. It is not at all proved that Streicher had agreed to these measures being undertaken. It is rather to be assumed that Holz, in order to cover himself, made statements here which he himself could not answer for if he were to appear here as witness today. Therefore, in this report of Holz it is a question of statements made by a man who was deeply involved in this matter, a man who participated in these deeds, and a man who was an enemy of the Defendant Streicher. Holz incriminated Streicher because Streicher did not protect him in front of the commission and from the then Minister
106
10 Jan. 46
President Goering. Therefore I do not think that this report should be used.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you said what you wished to say?
DR. MARX: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal considers that this document, being an official document, is admissible under Article 21 and that the objections which you have made to it are not objections which go to its admissibility as evidence but go to its weight; and as to that, you will have an opportunity to develop your objections at a later stage when you come to speak. The Tribunal rules that the document is admissible. .
LT. COL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I read from the center of that Page 45 of the document book:
"After the November demonstrations the Deputy Gauleiter Holz took up the Jewish question. His reasons can be given here in detail on the basis of his statement of 25th March 1939:
"The 9th and 10th of November 1938. During the night of the 9th to the 10th of November and on the 10th of November 1938, events took place throughout Germany which I" and I emphasize that that is Holz speaking "considered to be the signal for a completely different treatment of the Jewish question in Germany. Synagogues and Jewish schools were burnt down and Jewish property was smashed both in shops and in private houses. Besides this, a large number of prominent Jews were taken to concentration camps by the police. Towards midday we discussed these events in the Gauleiter's house. All of us were of the opinion that we now faced a completely new state of affairs on the Jewish question. By the great action against the Jews carried out in the night and morning of the 10th of November all precedents and all laws on this subject had been made meaningless. We were of the opinion (particularly I myself) that we should now act on our own initiative in this respect. I proposed to the Gauleiter that in view of the great existing lack of housing the best thing would be to put the Jews into a kind of internment camp. Then the houses would become free at once; and the housing shortage would be relieved, at least in part. Besides that, we should have the Jews under control and supervision! I added 'The same thing happened to our prisoners of war and war internees.'
"The Gauleiter said that this suggestion was for the time being unfeasible. Thereupon I made a new proposal to him. I said to him that I considered it unthinkable that, after the Jews had had their property smashed, they should still be
107
10 Jan. 46
able to own houses and land. I proposed that these houses and this land ought to be taken away from them, and declared myself ready to carry through such an action. I declared that by the Aryanization of Jewish land and houses a large sum could accrue to the Gau of the proceeds. I named some millions of marks. I stated that, in my opinion, this Aryanization could be carried out as legally as the Aryanization of shops. The Gauleiter's answer was something to this effect: 'If you think you can carry this out, do so. The sum gained will then be used to build a Gau school."'
I go down now to where it says "Page 18":
"The Aryanization was accomplished by the alienation of properties, the surrender of claims, especially mortgage claims, and reductions in buying price.
"The payment allowed the Jews was basically 10 percent of the nominal value or nominal sum of the claim. As a justification for these low prices, Holz claimed, at the Berlin meeting of the 6th of February 1939, that the Jews had mostly bought their property during the inflation period for less than a tenth of its value. As has been shown by investigating a large number of individual cases selected at random, this claim is not true."
My Lord, I would turn to Page 48 of the document book, which appears in the second part of this report, and that part of the report is really the part containing the findings of the commission. I quote from the top of the page, Page 48 of the document book...
THE PRESIDENT: Is this still part of the report?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: This is still part of the report. It is, in fact, as I say, the findings of the commission.
"Gauleiter Streicher likes to beat people with a riding whip but only if he is in the company of several persons assisting him. In most cases the beatings are carried out with sadistic brutality.
"The best known case is that of Steinruck, whom he beat in the prison cell until the blood came, together with Deputy Gauleiter Holz and SA Oberfuehrer Konig. After returning from this scene to the Deutscher Hof he said, 'Now I am relieved. I needed that again!' Later he also stated several times that he needed another Steinruck case in order to 'relieve' himself.
"In August 1938 he beat the editor Burker at the Gauhaus together with District Of Office Leader Schiller and his adjutant, Konig."
108
10 Jan. 46
To show the authority and power that he held in his Gau, I refer to the last paragraph on that page:
"According to reports of reliable witnesses, Gauleiter Streicher is in the habit of pointing out on the most varied occasions that he alone gives orders in the district of Franconia. For instance, at a meeting in the Colosseum in Nuremberg in 1935 he said that nobody could remove him from office. In a meeting at Herkules Hall, where he described how he had beaten Professor Steinruck, he emphasized that he would not let himself be beaten by anybody, not even by an Adolf Hitler ....
"For, this also must be stated here, in Franconia the Gau acts first and then orders the absolutely powerless authorities to approve."
My Lord, both of those volumes of that report, Document 1757-PS, will become Exhibit GB-175.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal isn't altogether satisfied that that has any bearing on the case against Streicher.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, it is the object of that document to show the kind of treatment and persecution which the Jews were receiving in the district or Gau over which this defendant ruled and, secondly, to show the absolute authority with which this defendant acted in his district. That is the purpose of that document.
As a result either of that investigation or of some other matter the defendant was relieved of his position as Gauleiter in February 1940, but he did not cease from his propaganda or from the control of his newspaper. I would only quote one further short extract from Der Sturmer. An article written by him on the 4th of November 1943, which appears in the document book on Page 53, is Document 1965-PS and becomes Exhibit GB-176; and it is an extract of importance:
"It is actually true that the Jews have so to speak disappeared from Europe and that the Jewish 'Reservoir of the East,' from which the Jewish pestilence has for centuries beset the peoples of Europe, has ceased to exist. But the Fuehrer of the German people at the beginning of the war prophesied what has now come to pass."
My Lord, that article was signed by Streicher, and it is my submission that it shows that he had knowledge of what was going on in the East, of which this Court has had such evidence. That was written November 1943. In April '43, the Tribunal will remember, the Warsaw ghetto was destroyed. Between April 1942 and April 1944, 1,700,000-odd Jews were killed in Auschwitz and Dachau
109
10 Jan. 46
I quote now from the transcript - and throughout the whole of that period millions of Jews were to die. It is my submission that that article appearing on the 4th of November and signed by him shows that he knew what was happening, perhaps not the details, but that he knew that the Jews were being exterminated.
I leave Der Sturmer and I would draw the attention of the Tribunal quite shortly to a matter which is perhaps as evil as any other aspect of this man's activity, and that is the particular attention that he paid to the instruction - if you can call it that - or the perversion of the children and the youth of Germany. He was not content with inciting the German population. He seized the children as early as he could at their schools, and he started to poison their minds at the earliest possible date. Already in some of the extracts to which I have referred, the Tribunal will remember that there are mentions of children and the need for teaching them anti-Semitism. I refer now to Page 54 of the document book, and I would quote four or five lines from the last paragraph, starting in the middle of the last paragraph. It is a report of a speech by Streicher as early as June 1925, when he says:
"I repeat, we demand the transformation of the school into an ethno-German institution of education. If German children are taught by German teachers, then we shall have laid the foundations for the ethno-German school. This ethno-German
school must teach racial doctrine."
I now go to the last line of the first paragraph on the following page:
"We demand, therefore, the introduction of racial doctrine into the school."
That is in a copy of Der Sturmer which has already been put in. It is Exhibit GB-165 (Document M-30).
The following Document, M-43, is an extract from the Frankische Tageszeitung of the 19th of March 1934, when he addressed the pupils at a girls' school at Preisslerstrasse after their finishing their vocational course. He was continually holding children's meetings and attending children's schools. I quote the third paragraph:
"Then Julius Streicher spoke about his life and told them about a girl who had at one time been a pupil of his and who had fallen a victim to a Jew and was finished for the rest of her life."
I need not read the rest. It is all in the same tone. That becomes Exhibit GB-177.
Every summer they celebrated in Nuremberg what they called their solstice celebration, some pagan rite where the youth of Nuremberg rallied organized or at least encouraged by the Defendant Streicher.
110
10 Jan. 46
On Page 58 of the document book is a report taken from his paper, Frankische Tageszeitung, of his speech to the Hitler Youth on what they called the "Holy Mountain" near Nuremberg, on the 22d of June 1935.
"Boys and girls, look back a little more than 10 years ago. A great war the World War - had raged over the peoples of the earth and had left in the end a heap of ruins. Only one people remained victorious in that dreadful war, a people of whom Christ said that its father is the Devil. That people had ruined the German Nation in body and soul. At that time Adolf Hitler, an unknown man, arose from among the people and became a voice which proclaimed a holy war and struggle. He cried to the people to take courage again and to rise and join in liberating the German people from the Devil, so that mankind might again be free from that race which has roamed the globe for centuries and millennia, marked with the brand of Cain.
"Boys and girls, even if it is said that the Jews were once the chosen people do not believe it, but believe us when we say that the Jews are not a chosen people. Because it cannot be that a chosen people should act among the peoples as the Jews do today."
And so on, with similar kind of propaganda. That Document, M-1, will be Exhibit GB-178.
The next Document, M-44, from which I will not read now, becomes Exhibit GB-179. The Tribunal will see that it was a report of Streicher's address to 2,000 children at Nuremberg at Christmastime 1936. Underlined it says:
"'Do you know who the Devil is?' he asked his breathlessly listening audience. 'The Jew, the Jew,' resounded from a thousand children's voices."
But he wasn't content only with writing and talking. He actually issued a book for teachers, a book which he published from his Der Sturmer offices, called The Jewish Question and School Instruction.
I have not had the whole of that book translated. It is addressed to school teachers. It is intended for their benefit, and it emphasizes the necessity of anti-Semitic teaching in schools, and it suggests ways in which the subject can be introduced and handled.
On Page 60 of the document book, M-46, the Tribunal will see a few extracts which have been taken from that book. The preface part of it is as follows:
"The National Socialist State has brought fundamental changes into all spheres of life of the German people.
111
10 Jan. 46
"It has also presented the German teacher with new duties. The National Socialist State demands that its teachers instruct German children on racial questions. As far as the German people is concerned the racial question is a Jewish question. Those who want to teach the child about the Jew must themselves have a thorough knowledge of the subject."
I will quote from the paragraph opposite "Page 5" in the margin. The whole of the rest of the extracts are really suggestions for teachers as to how to introduce the Jewish subject into their teaching, and at Page 5 of the introduction:
"Racial and Jewish questions are the fundamental problems of the National Socialist ideology. The solution of these problems will secure the existence of National Socialism and with this the existence of our nation for all time. The enormous significance of the racial question is recognized almost without exception today by all the German people. In order to come to this realization, our people had to travel through a long road of suffering."
DR. MARX: I should like to point out the following: The prosecutor omitted in his presentation to state that the book he referred to was not written by the Defendant Streicher but by the school inspector Fink. If the prosecutor had read the next sentence, the Tribunal would have known about this fact. My client has called my attention to this point. I noticed it myself also because the next sentence reads as follows:
"Schulrat Fritz Fink desires to help German teachers on the road to information and knowledge with his book: The Jewish Question in the Schools."
There can thus be no doubt that this School Inspector Fink is the author of the book. It is, after all, an essential thing to know that Fink and not Streicher was the author of this book.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you finished what you wish to say? DR. MARX: Yes; that is what I wanted to say.
THE PRESIDENT: I would point out to you that although the book does appear to have been written by Fritz Fink, which is stated in the paragraph at the top, it has a preface by Streicher, so we may presume that Streicher authorized it; and it was published and printed by Der Sturmer.
DR. MARX: That is correct. I just wanted to point out to the Tribunal that it did not appear to be understood, that just that particular sentence was not read. One might have thought that an original work of Streicher's was concerned, in which case the question of whether Streicher agreed with that work would appear of minor importance.
112
10 Jan. 46
THE PRESIDENT: But you see, Dr. Marx, counsel was reading actually from the preface by Streicher. The last passage that he read, or almost the last, was the preface by Streicher. The last passage I have got marked is the passage on Page 60, which is headed "Preface" and is signed by Julius Streicher, which says in terms that the book was written by School Inspector Fritz Fink.
Let us not take any further time about it.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I think I have reached...
THE PRESIDENT: Will you read the last words of that preface on Page 60 there: "Those who take to heart..."?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, I read towards the end of the paragraph - the first paragraph of the preface:
"Those who take to heart all that has been written with such feeling by Fritz Fink, who for many years has been greatly concerned about the German people, will be grateful to the creator of this outwardly insignificant publication." Then it is signed "Julius Streicher, City of the Reich Party rallies, Nuremberg, in the year 1937." I omitted that last part only in the interest of time. THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That book is Exhibit GB-180. I would just read the last two lines, which I was not able to read before Dr. Marx interposed. The last three lines of the paragraph under "Introduction":
"No one should be allowed to grow up in the midst of our people without this knowledge of the frightfulness and dangerousness of the Jew."
I will not occupy the time of the Tribunal by reading further from that book. The nature of the book I hope is clear. I would only refer to the last three lines on the next page in the document book, taking another extract from it:
"One who has reached this stage of understanding will inevitably remain an enemy of the Jews all his life and Will instill this hatred into his own children."
Der Sturmer also published some children's books, although 1 make it quite clear that I am not alleging that the defendant himself wrote the books. But they were published from his publishing
business; and they are, of course, on the same line as everything else that was published and issued from that business.
The first of them to which I would call attention was entitled in English or the English translation is - as follows: Don't Trust the Fox in the Green Meadow Nor the Jew on His Oath. It is a picture
113
10 Jan. 46
book for children. There are pictures, all of them offensive pictures depicting Jews, of which a variety of selections appears in the Tribunal's book. And opposite each picture there is a little story.
On Page 62 of the document book the Tribunal will see the kind of thing which appears opposite each picture. Opposite the picture in the Tribunal's document book appears the following:
"Jesus Christ says, 'The Jew is a murderer through and through.' And when Christ had to die the Lord didn't know of any other people that would torture him to death, so he chose the Jews. That is why the Jews pride themselves on being the chosen people."
The writing opposite the first picture, which depicts a very unpleasant looking Jewish butcher cutting up meat, is as follows: "The Jewish butcher: He sells half-refuse instead of meat. A piece of meat lies on the floor, the cat claws another. This doesn't worry the Jewish butcher since the meat increases in weight. Besides, one mustn't forget, he won't have to eat it himself."
Again in the interest of time, it is not worth quoting the contents of that book any further. The Tribunal can see the type of book it is, the type of teaching it was instilling into the minds of the children. The pictures speak for themselves.
The second picture is a rather beastly picture of a girl being led away by a Jew. On the next page we see the defendant smiling benignly at a children's party, greeting the little children. The next picture depicts copies of Der Sturmer posted on a wall with children looking at them.
The next picture perhaps requires a little explanation. It is a picture of Jewish children being taken away from an Aryan school, led away by an unpleasant looking father; and all the Aryan children shouting and dancing and enjoying the fun very much.
That book, Document M-32, becomes Exhibit GB-181.
THE PRESIDENT: You won't be able, will you, to finish in a short time? Perhaps we'd better adjourn now.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I have about another 20 minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yes; we will adjourn now.
[A recess was taken.]
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I had finished describing that one children's book. There is a similar book called The Poisonous Fungus, which has, in fact, been put in evidence already as Exhibit USA-257, but it was not read to the Tribunal; and I would like to read one of the short stories from that book because
114
10 Jan. 46
it shows, perhaps more strikingly, I think, than any other extract to which we have referred, the revolting way in which this man poisoned the minds of his listeners and readers.
It is a book of pictures again with short stories, and Page 69 of the document book shows one of the pictures, a girl sitting in a Jewish doctor's waiting room.
My Lord, it is not a very pleasant story, but he is not a very pleasant man; and it is only by reading these things that it becomes possible to believe the kind of education that the German children have been receiving during these years, led by this man.
I quote from the story:
"Inge" - that is the girl - "Inge sits in the reception room of the Jew doctor. She has to wait a long time. She looks through the journals which are on the table. But she is much too nervous to read even a few sentences. Again and again she remembers the talk with her mother. And again and again her mind reflects on the warnings of her leader of the League of German Girls. A German must not consult a Jew doctor. And particularly not a German girl. Many a girl that went to a Jew doctor to be cured met with disease and disgrace.
"When Inge had entered the waiting room, she experienced an extraordinary incident. From the doctor's consulting room she could hear the sound of crying. She heard the voice of a young girl, 'Doctor, doctor, leave me alone.'
"Then she heard the scornful laughter of a man. And then, all of a sudden it became absolutely silent. Inge had listened breathlessly.
"'What can be the meaning of all this?' she asked herself, and her heart was pounding. And again she thought of the warning of her leader in the League of German Girls.
"Inge had already been waiting for an hour. Again she takes the journals in an endeavor to read. Then the door opens. Inge looks up. The Jew appears. She screams. In terror she drops the paper. Horrified she jumps up. Her eyes stare into the face of the Jewish doctor. And this face is the face of the Devil. In the middle of this devil's face is a huge crooked nose. Behind the spectacles gleam two criminal eyes. Around the thick lips plays a grin, a grin that means, 'Now I have you at last, you little German girl!'
"And then the Jew approaches her. His fat fingers snatch at her. But now Inge has got hold of herself. Before the Jew can grab hold of her, she smacks the fat face of the Jew doctor with her hand. One jump to the door. Breathlessly
115
10 Jan. 46
Inge runs down the stairs. Breathlessly she escapes from the Jew house."
Comment is almost unnecessary on a story like that, read by children of the age of those who are going to read the books you have seen.
Another picture which I have included in the book is a picture, of course of the defendant, and the script opposite that picture, which appears on Page 70 of the document book, includes the words - and I quote from the last but one paragraph: "Without a solution of the Jewish question there will be no salvation for mankind."
The page itself contains an account of how some boys attended one of his speeches:
"That is what he shouted to us. We all understood him. And when, at the end, he shouted, 'Sieg-Heil for the Fuehrer,' we all acclaimed him with tremendous enthusiasm. Streicher spoke for two hours that time. To us it seemed to have been but a few minutes."
One can begin to see the effect that all this was having from the columns of Der Sturmer itself. In April 1936 there appears only one letter - many others appear in other copies from children of all ages - I quote the third paragraph of this letter, the letter signed by the boys and girls of the National Socialist Youth Hostel at Gross-Mollem:
"Today we saw a play on how the Devil persuades the Jew to shoot a conscientious National Socialist. In the course of the play the Jew did it, too. We all heard the shot. We would have all liked to jump up and arrest the Jew. But then the policeman came and after a short struggle took the dew along. You can imagine, dear Sturmer, that we heartily cheered the policeman. In the whole play not one name was mentioned, but we all knew that this play represented the murder by the Jew Frankfurter. We were very sad when we went to bed that night. None felt like talking to the others. This play made it clear to us how the Jew sets to work." My Lord, that book is already in evidence as I have stated. It is Exhibit GB-170 (Document M- 25).
To conclude, I would draw the attention of the Tribunal again only to his authority as a Gauleiter. It appears in the Organization Book of the NSDAP for 1938 which is already in as Exhibit USA-430 in the description of the duties and authority of Gauleiter: The Gauleiter bears over-all responsibility to the Fuehrer for the sector of sovereignty entrusted to him. The rights, duties, and jurisdiction of the Gauleiter result primarily from the mission assigned by the Fuehrer and, apart from that, from detailed direction.
116
10 Jan. 46
His association with the Fuehrer and with the other defendants or some of the other defendants can be seen from the newspapers. On the occasion of his 50th birthday Hitler paid a visit to Nuremberg to congratulate him. That was on the 13th of February 1935. The account of that meeting is published in the Volkischer Beobachter of that date, and I quote as follows:
"Adolf Hitler spoke to his old comrade in arms and the latter's followers in words which went straight to their hearts. By way of introduction he remarked that it was a special pleasure for him to spend, on this day of honor to Julius Streicher, a short while in Nuremberg, the town of battle-steeled National Socialist solidarity, within the circle of the veteran standard-bearers of the National Socialist idea.
"Just as they all, during the years of misery, had unshakeably believed in the victory of the Movement, so his friend and comrade in arms, Streicher, had stood faithfully at his side at all times. It had been this unshakeable belief that had moved mountains.
"For Streicher it would surely be an inspiring thought that this 50th anniversary meant to him not only the turn of a half century, but also of a thousand years of German history. He had in Streicher a comrade of whom he could say that here in Nuremberg was a man who would never waver for a single second and who would unflinchingly stand behind him in every situation."
That is Document M-8 and becomes Exhibit GB-182.
The next document (M-22) is a letter from Himmler published in Der Sturmer of April 1937. That edition is already Exhibit USA-258.
"When in future years the history of the reawakening of the German people is written and the next generation is already unable to understand that the German people were once friendly to the Jews, it will be recognized that Julius Streicher and his weekly paper Der Sturmer contributed a great deal toward the enlightenment regarding the enemy of mankind." Signed "The Reichsfuehrer SS, H. Himmler."
That is Exhibit USA-258. A number of these documents are already in evidence in the bound volumes.
Lastly, we have a letter from Baldur von Schirach; the Reich Youth Leader, published in Der Sturmer of March 1938 (Document M-45, Exhibit USA-260):
"It is the historical merit of Der Sturmer to have enlightened the broad masses of our people in a popular way as to
117
10 Jan. 46
the Jewish world danger. Der Sturmer is right in not carrying out its task in a purely aesthetic manner, for Jewry has shown no regard for the German people. We have, therefore, no reason for being considerate toward our worst enemy. What we fail to do today, the youth of tomorrow will have to suffer for bitterly."
My Lord, it may be that this defendant is less directly involved in the physical commission of the crimes against Jews, of which this Tribunal have heard, than some of his co-conspirators. The submission of the Prosecution is that his crime is no less the worse for that reason. No government in the world, before the Nazis came to power, could have embarked upon and put into effect a policy of mass extermination in the way in which they did, without having a people who would back them and support them and without having a large number of people, men and women, who were prepared to put their hands to their bloody murder. And not even, perhaps, the German people of previous generations would have lent themselves to the crimes about which this Tribunal has heard, the killing of millions and millions of men and women.
It was to the task of educating the people, of producing murderers, educating and poisoning them with hate, that Streicher set himself; and for 25 years he has continued unrelentingly the education - if you can call it so - or the perversion of the people and of the youth of Germany. And he has gone on and on as he saw the results of his work bearing fruit.
In the early days he was preaching persecution. As persecutions took place he preached extermination and annihilation; and, as we have seen in the ghettos of the East, as millions of Jews were being exterminated and annihilated, he cried out for more and more.
That is the crime that he has committed. It is the submission of the Prosecution that he made these things possible - made these crimes possible which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those like him. He led the propaganda and the education of the German people in those ways. Without him the Kaltenbrunners, the Himmlers, the General Stroops would have had nobody to carry out their orders. And, as we have seen, he has concentrated upon the youth and the childhood of Germany. In its extent his crime is probably greater and more far-reaching than that of any of the other defendants. The misery that they caused finished with their incarceration. The effects of this man's crime, of the poison that he has injected into the minds of millions and millions of young boys and girls and young men and women lives on. He leaves behind him a legacy of almost a whole people poisoned with hate, sadism, and murder, and perverted by him.
118
10 Jan. 46
That German people remains a problem and perhaps a menace to the rest of civilization for generations to come.
My Lord, I submit that the Prosecution's case against this man as set out in the Indictment is proved.
My Lord, Lieutenant Brady Bryson, of the United States Delegation; will present to the Court the case against Schacht.
LIEUTENANT BRADY O. BRYSON (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, a document book has been prepared and filed and the appropriate number of copies has been delivered to the defendants.
We ask the Tribunal's permission to file within the next few days a trial brief which now is in the process of preparation.
Our proof against the Defendant Schacht is confined to planning and preparation of aggressive war.
THE PRESIDENT: What was it you said about the trial brief?
LT. BRYSON: We ask permission to file a trial brief within the next few days, as our brief is not yet ready.
THE PRESIDENT: I see.
LT. BRYSON: Our proof against the Defendant Schacht is limited to planning and preparation for aggressive war and to membership in a conspiracy for aggressive war.
The extent of Schacht's criminal responsibility as a matter of law, under the Charter of the Tribunal, will be developed in our brief. Only a few of our 50-odd documents have been previously submitted in evidence. We have taken special pains to avoid repetition and cumulative proof; but for the sake of continuity we would like, in several instances, simply to draw the Tribunal's attention to evidence previously received, with an appropriate reference to the transcript of the Record.
Before commencing our proof, we wish to state our understanding that the Defendant Schacht's control over the German economy was on the wane after November 1937, and that by the time of the aggression on Poland his official status had been reduced to that of Minister without Portfolio and personal adviser to Hitler. We know too that he is sometimes credited with opposition to certain of the more radical elements of the Nazi Party; and I further understand that at the time of capture by United States forces he was under German detention in a prison camp, having been arrested by the Gestapo in July 1944.
Be this as it may, our proof will show that at least up until the end of 1937 Schacht was the dominant figure in the rearming of Germany and in the economic planning and preparation for war, that without his work the Nazis would not have been able to wring from
119
10 Jan. 46
their depressed economy the tremendous material requirements of armed aggression, and that Schacht contributed his efforts with full knowledge of the aggressive purposes which he was serving.
The details of this proof will be presented in four parts:
First, we will very briefly show that Schacht accepted the Nazi philosophy prior to 1933 and supported Hitler's rise to power.
Second, proof of the contribution of Schacht to German rearmanment and preparation for war will be submitted. This evidence will also be brief, since the facts in this respect are well known and have already been touched upon by Mr. Dodd in his presentation of the case on economic preparation for war.
Third, we will show that Schacht assisted the Nazi conspiracy purposely and willingly with knowledge of, and sympathy for, its illegal ends.
And last, we will prove that Schacht's loss of power in the German Government did not in any sense imply disagreement with the policy of aggressive war.
We turn now to our proof that Schacht helped Hitler to power.
Schacht met Goering for the first time in December 1930, and Hitler early in January 1931 at Goering's house. His impression of Hitler was favorable. I offer in evidence Exhibit USA-615 (Document 3725-PS), consisting of an excerpt from a pre-trial interrogation of Schacht under date of 20 July 1945, and quote two questions and answers related to this meeting, near the middle of the first page of the interrogation.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you going to give us the Exhibit number? You haven't given us the other number?
LT. BRYSON: This is an interrogation, Sir, and it will not have two.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you got a number for it?
LT. BRYSON: You will find it in your document book in the back, labeled "Schacht Interrogation of 20 July 1945." I quote from the middle of the first page:
"Q: 'What did he"' that is, Hitler "'say?'
"A: 'Oh, ideas he expressed before, but it was full of will and spirit."'
And near the bottom of the page:
"Q: 'What was your impression at the end of that evening?'
"A: 'I thought that Hitler was a man with whom one could co-operate."'
After this meeting Schacht allied himself with Hitler; and at a crucial political moment in November 1932, he lent the prestige of
120
10 Jan. 46
his name, which was widely known in banking, financial, and business circles throughout the world, to Hitler's cause. I offer in evidence Exhibit USA-616 (Document 3729-PS) consisting of excerpts from a pre-trial interrogation of Schacht on 17 October 1945. I wish to quote, beginning at the top of Page 36 of this interrogation. This is the interrogation of 17 October 1945, at Page 36. I may say that when I refer to the page numbers, I speak of the page of the document book:
"Q: 'Yes, and at that time"' referring to January 1931 "'you became a supporter, I take it, of . . . '
"A: 'In the course...'
"Q: 'Of Hitler's coming to power?'
"A: 'Especially in the course of the years 1931 and 1932."'
And I quote further from the lower half of Page 37 of the same interrogation: "Q: 'But what I mean -
to make it very brief - did you lend the prestige of your name to help Hitler come to power?'
"A: 'I have publicly stated that I expected Hitler to come to power; for the first time, if I remember, in November '32.'
"Q: 'And you know, or perhaps you don't, that Goebbels in his diary records with great affection...' "A: 'Yes.'
"Q: '... the help that you gave him at the time?'
"A: 'Yes, I know that.'
"Q: 'November 1932?'
"A: 'From the Kaiserhof to the Chancellery and back.'
"Q: 'That's right. You have read that?' "A: 'Yes.'
"Q: 'And you don't deny that Goebbels was right?'
"A: 'I think his impression was that that was correct at that time."'
I now refer the Tribunal to this statement of Goebbels, set forth in 2409(a)-PS. The entire diary of Goebbels is in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-262. The entry I wish to read, which appears in 2409(a)-PS, was made on 21 November 1932:
"In a conversation with Dr. Schacht I assured myself that he absolutely shares our point of view. He is one of the few who stand immovable behind the Fuehrer."
It is believed that Schacht joined the Party only in the sense that he allied himself with the cause. Dr. Franz Reuter, whose biography of Schacht was officially published in Germany in 1937, has stated that Schacht refrained from formal membership in order to
121
10 Jan. 46
be of greater assistance to the Party. I offer in evidence Document Number EC-460, Exhibit Number USA-617, consisting of an excerpt from Reuter's biography, and I quote the last sentence of the excerpt:
"By not doing so, he was able eventually to help more toward the final victory than if he had become an enrolled Party member."
It was Schacht who organized the financial means for the decisive March 1933 election) at a meeting of Hitler with a group of German industrialists in Berlin. Schacht acted as the sponsor or host of this meeting, and a campaign fund of several million marks was collected. Without reading therefrom, I offer in evidence Document Number EC-439, Exhibit Number USA-618, an affidavit of Von Schnitzler under date of 10 November 1945, and refer the Tribunal to the transcript for 23 November, Pages 282-283 (Volume II, Pages 223, 224), where the text of the affidavit already appears in the Record.
Further evidence on this point is also contained in the excerpt from the interrogation of Schacht on 20 July 1945, from which I read a part a moment ago. Schacht lent his support to Hitler not only because he was an opportunist, but also because he shared Hitler's ideological principles. Apart from the entry in Goebbels' diary, this may be seen from Schacht's own letter to Hitler, under date of 29 August 1932, pledging continued support to Hitler after the latter's poor showing in the July 1932 elections. I offer this letter in evidence as Document Number EC-457, Exhibit Number USA- 619, and quote from the middle of the first paragraph and further from the next to the last paragraph:
"But what you could perhaps do with in these days is a kind word. Your movement is carried internally by so strong a truth and necessity that victory in one form or another cannot elude you for long."
And further down - and keep in mind that neither Hitler nor Schacht was then in the German Government - Schacht says:
"Wherever my work may take me in the near future, even if you should see me one day behind stone walls, you can always count on me as your reliable assistant."
THE PRESIDENT: What do those words mean at the top: "The President of the Reichsbank in Retirement"? Are they on the letter?
LT. BRYSON: Yes, they are, Sir. Dr. Schacht had previously been a president of the Reichsbank. At this time he was in retirement. You will remember, this is prior to Hitler's accession to power.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, of course.
122
10 Jan. 46
LT. BRYSON: And then Hitler reinstated Dr. Schacht as President of the Reichsbank after the Nazis had taken over.
THE PRESIDENT: And he put that at the top of his letter, did he?
LT. BRYSON: That I cannot say.
I will also point out that Schacht signed this letter, "With a vigorous Heil."
We turn now to the second part of our proof, relating to Schacht's contribution to preparation for war.
The detailed chronology of Schacht's official career in the Nazi Government, as set forth in Document 3021-PS, has already been submitted in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-11. However, it may be helpful at the outset to remind the Tribunal that Schacht was recalled to the Presidency of the Reichsbank by Hitler on 17 March 1933, which office he continuously held until 20 January 1939; that he was Acting Minister and then Minister of Economics from August 1934 until November 1937; and that he was appointed Plenipotentiary General for War Economy in May 1935. He resigned as Minister of Economics and Plenipotentiary General for War Economy in November 1937, when he accepted appointment as Minister without Portfolio, which post he held until January 1943. His position as virtual economic dictator of Germany in the 4 crucial years from early 1933 to the end of 1936 is practically a matter of common knowledge.
Schacht was the guiding genius behind the Nazi expansion of the German credit system for rearmament purposes. From the outset he recognized that the plan for the German military supremacy required huge quantities of public credit. To that end a series of measures was adopted which subverted all credit institutions in Germany to the over-all aim of supplying funds for the military machine. I will briefly mention some of these measures.
By Cabinet decree of 27 October 1933 the statutory reserve of 40 percent in gold and foreign exchange required against circulating Reichsbank notes was permanently abandoned. By the Credit Act of 1934 the Government assumed jurisdiction of all credit institutions, and control over the entire banking system was centralized in Schacht as Chairman of the Supervisory Board for the Credit System and President of the Reichsbank. This act not only enabled Schacht to control the quantity of credit but also its use. On 29 March 1934 a system of forced corporate lending to the Reich was imposed on German business. And on 19 February 1935 the Treasury was authorized to borrow funds in any amounts approved by the Reich Chancellor, that is, by Hitler.
On these points I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of the Reichsgesetzblatt 1933, Part II, Page 827; Reichsgesetzblatt 1934,
123
10 Jan. 46
Part I, Page 1203; Reichsgesetzblatt 1934, Part I, Page 295; and Reichsgesetzblatt 1935, Part I, Page 198.
THE PRESIDENT: Are they found here in the document book?
LT. BRYSON: They're not in the document book, Sir.
I asked only that judicial notice be taken of them as published laws of Germany.
These measures enabled Schacht to embark upon what he himself has termed a "daring credit policy," including the secret financing of a vast amount of armaments through the so-called 'mefo' bill, a description of which appears in the transcript for 23 November at Page 295 (Volume II, Page 232). I offer in evidence Document Number EC-436, Exhibit Number USA- 620, consisting of a statement, dated 2 November 1945, by Emil Puhl, a director of the Reichsbank during Schacht's presidency, and quote the second paragraph thereof as follows:
"In the early part of 1935 the need for financing an accelerated rearmament program arose. Dr. Schacht, President of the Reichsbank, after considering various techniques of financing, proposed the use of mefo bills to provide a substantial portion of the funds needed for the rearmament program. This method had as one of its primary advantages the fact that secrecy would be possible during the first years of the rearmament program; and figures indicating the extent of rearmament, that would have become public through the use of other methods, could be kept secret through the use of mefo bills."
The extent of the credit expansion and the importance of mefo financing may be seen from Document Number EC-419, which I now offer as Exhibit Number USA-621 and which consists of a letter from Finance Minister Von Krosigk to Hitler, under date of 1 September 1938. I quote the following figures from the middle of the first page:
"The Reich debt accumulated as follows:
"As of 31 December 1932: Funded debt, 10,400 millions of Reichsmark; short-term debt, 2,100 millions of Reichsmark; debt not published in the budget (trade and mefo bills of exchange), 0.
"As of 30 June 1938: Funded debt, 19,000 million Reichsmark; short-term debt, 3,500 million Reichsmark; and debt not published in the budget (trade and mefo bills of exchange), 13,300 million Reichsmark.
"Total: as of 31 December 1932, 12,500 million Reichsmark; as of 30 June 1938, 35,800 million Reichsmark."
The Reich debt thus tripled...
124
10 Jan. 46
THE PRESIDENT: Would you read the next section, beginning with the words "Provisions were made to cover..."?
LT. BRYSON: "Provisions were made to cover the armament expenditures for the year 1938 (the same amount as in 1937) as follows:
"Five thousand millions from the budget, that is, taxes; 4,000 millions from loans; 2,000 millions from 6-month treasury notes, which means postponement of payment until 1939; total: 11,000 millions."
The Reich debt thus tripled under Schacht's management. More than one-third of the total was financed secretly and through the instrumentality of the Reichsbank by mefo and trade bills. It is clear that this amount of financing outside the normal public issues represented armament debt. I read further from Document EC-436, at the beginning of the last long paragraph:
"These mefo bills were used exclusively for financing rearmament; and when in March 1938 a new finance program discontinuing the use of mefo bills was announced by Dr. Schacht, there was a total volume outstanding of 12,000 million marks of mefo bills which had been issued to finance rearmament."
The character of Schacht's credit policy and the fact that it was ruthlessly dedicated to the creation of armaments plainly appear from his own speech delivered on 29 November 1938.
I offer it in evidence as Document Number EC-611, Exhibit Number USA-622; and I quote from Page 6 at the beginning of the last paragraph:
"It is possible that no bank of issue in peacetime carried on such a daring credit policy as the Reichsbank since the seizure of power by National Socialism. With the aid of this credit policy, however, Germany created an armament second to none; and this armament in turn made possible the results of our policy."
Beyond the field of finance Schacht assumed totalitarian control over the German economy generally in order to marshal it behind the rearmament program.
He acquired great power over industry as a result of the Nazi reorganization of German industry along military lines and in accordance with the so-called Leadership Principle. On this point I refer the Tribunal to the transcript for 23 November at Pages 287-290 (Volume II, Pages 227-228); and to the Reichsgesetzblatt 1934, Part I, Page 1194, of which the Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice.
Schacht also exercised broad powers as a member of the Reich Defense Council, which was secretly established on 4 April 1933 and
125
10 Jan. 46
the function of which was preparation for war. The Tribunal is referred to the transcript for 23 November, Page 290 (Volume II, Pages 228-229). I also offer in evidence as Document Number EC-128, Exhibit Number USA-623, a report under date of 30 September 1934, showing the functions of the Ministry of Economics in this respect. The report reveals concentration upon all the familiar wartime economic problems, including stockpiling, production of scarce goods, removal of industry to secure areas, fuel and power supply for war production, machine tools, control of wartime priorities, rationing, price control, civilian supply, and so on. I wish to read into the Record merely an excerpt showing the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economics, beginning near the top of Page 2 of Document Number EC- 128:
"With the establishment of the Reich Defense Council and its permanent committee the Reich Ministry of Economics has been given the task of making economic preparation for war. There should really be no need to explain the tremendous importance of this task. Everyone remembers vividly how terribly the lack of any economic preparation for war hit us during the World War."
Finally, in 1934, Schacht acquired sweeping powers under legislation which authorized him, as Minister of Economics, to take any measure deemed necessary for the development of the German economy. In this connection reference is made to the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1934, Part I, Page 565, of which the Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice.
The so-called "New Plan" devised by Schacht was announced in the fall of 1934 shortly after he became Minister of Economics. In this connection the Tribunal is referred to the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1934, Part I, Page 816 and the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1935, Part I, Page 105, with the request that judicial notice be taken thereof. The New Plan was Schacht's basic program for obtaining the necessary foreign-produced raw materials and foreign exchange required to sustain the rearmament program.
With respect to the details of the New Plan, I offer in evidence Document Number EC-437, Exhibit Number USA-624, consisting of an affidavit of Emil Puhl, dated 7 November 1945. The entire text is pertinent. Therefore, permission is requested to submit the affidavit without reading therefrom, on condition that French and Russian translations be prepared and filed.
THE PRESIDENT: And German ones supplied, too.
LT. BRYSON: We will supply copies. I wish to say that the original is in English, but the affidavit has already been translated into German.
126
10 Jan. 46
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
LT. BRYSON: This affidavit by a co-worker of Schacht describes in detail the many ingenious and often ruthless devices he used, including negotiating "stand-still" agreements, forcing payment in Reichsmark of interest and amortization on debts incurred in foreign currency, using scrip and funding bonds for the same purpose, suspending service on foreign-held debts, blocking foreign-held marks, freezing foreign claims in Germany, eliminating unessential foreign expenditures, requisitioning German-held foreign exchange, subsidizing exports, issuing restricted marks, bartering under clearing agreements, licensing imports, and controlling all foreign exchange transactions to the end of favoring raw materials for armaments.
The Tribunal is also asked to take judicial notice of Reichsgesetzblatt, 1934, Page 997; Reichsgesetzblatt, 1933, Part I, Page 349; and Reichsgesetzblatt, 1937, Part I, Page 600, relating to the clearing bank, the conversion bank, and the maturity of foreign loans, all of which decrees are mentioned in the affidavit.
Schacht even went so far as to invest foreign-held Reichsmark on deposit in German banks in rearmament notes, thus, as he put it, financing rearmament with the assets of his political opponents. Without reading therefrom, I refer your Honors to Document Number 1168-PS, Exhibit USA- 37, being a memorandum from Schacht to Hitler, dated 3 May 1935, which already appears in the transcript on Pages 412 and 413 (Volume II, Pages 312, 313). Moreover, Schacht even resorted to capital punishment to prevent the loss of foreign exchange when frightened capital began to flee from the country. In this connection reference is made to the Law against Economic Sabotage, found in 1936 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 999, of which the Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice.
Schacht took particular pride in the results which were accomplished under the stringent controls which he instituted under his New Plan. I refer the Tribunal to Document Number EC-611, in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-622, consisting of Schacht's speech in Berlin on 29 November 1938. I wish to read into the Record a excerpt from the top of Page 10:
"If there is anything remarkable about the New Plan, it is . again only the fact that German organization under National Socialist leadership succeeded in conjuring up in a very short time the whole apparatus of supervision of imports, direction of exports, and promotion of exports. The success of the New Plan can be proved by means of a few figures. Calculated according to quantity, the import of finished products was cut down by 63 percent between 1934 and 1937. On the other
127
10 Jan. 46
hand, the import of ores was increased by 132 percent, of petroleum by 116, of grain by 102, and of rubber by 71 percent."
While President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics, Schacht acquired still another key position, that of Plenipotentiary General for War Economy.
He received this appointment from Hitler pursuant to the unpublished Reich Defense Law secretly enacted on 21 May 1935. This law is in evidence as Document Number 2261-PS, Exhibit Number USA-24, consisting of a letter from Von Blomberg dated 24 June 1935 to the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Forces, together with copies of the Reich Defense Law and the Cabinet's memorandum relating thereto. Pertinent comments on and excerpts from this document appear in the transcript for 23 November, at Pages 278 and 292 (Volume II, Pages 220-229). I will simply state therefore that by virtue of this appointment Schacht was put in complete charge of economic planning and preparation for war in peacetime, except for certain direct armament production under control of the War Ministry. Upon the outbreak of war he was to be the economic czar of Germany with complete control over the activities of a number of key Reich ministries.
Schacht appointed Wohlthat as his deputy and organized a staff to carry out his directives. In this connection I offer in evidence excerpts from a pre- trial interrogation of Schacht under date 17 October 1945. This document is Exhibit Number USA-616 (Document 3729-PS). I wish to read into the Record a question and answer found at the bottom of Page 40 of the document book:
"Q: 'Let me ask you a general question then: Do you take the responsibility as Plenipotentiary General for War Economy for the writings that were made and the actions that were done by Wohlthat and his assistants?'
"A: 'I have to."'
I also offer in evidence Document Number EC-258, Exhibit Number USA-625, consisting of a status report issued in December 1937 under the signature of Schacht's deputy, Wohlthat. The report is entitled, "The Preparation of the Economic Mobilization by the Plenipotentiary General for War Economy." Schacht had withdrawn from office immediately prior to the preparation of this report, and it plainly is a recapitulation of his accomplishments while in office. Since the entire text is relevant, we ask permission to submit the document without reading therefrom on condition that translations into French and Russian be later filed with the Tribunal.
128
10 Jan. 46
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think this is consistent with the rule laid down by the Tribunal, which was that the translations in the French and Russian languages should be submitted at the same time. You are now suggesting that you can submit translations at a later stage.
LT. BRYSON: Well, if Your Honor pleases, in any event I did not plan to read from the document at this time and Defense Counsel do have the German original.
THE PRESIDENT: I was not speaking of the Defense Counsel so much as of the members of the Tribunal.
LT. BRYSON: We have the Russian translation in process now and it was delayed and we were unable to get it here at this time, but the delay will be very short and the document is of critical importance to our case.
THE PRESIDENT: How long will it be before it is ready?
LT. BRYSON: I wouldn't like to say precisely, Sir, but perhaps within 4 or 5 days.
THE PRESIDENT: What do you propose to do now, because it is a very complicated and long document, is it not?
LT. BRYSON: It is and it shows . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Were you proposing to summarize it?
LT. BRYSON: was proposing to summarize it, Sir, now.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks that if you would summarize it now and only be permitted to put it in at the stage when you have the translation ready, you may summarize it now.
LT. BRYSON: I will summarize it now, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Will it take long to summarize?
LT. BRYSON: Not very long, Sir; no.
THE PRESIDENT: You see, it is 5 o'clock.
LT. BRYSON: I think there will be time to summarize it, and then we will stop.
This document discloses that before his resignation Schacht had worked out in amazing detail his plans and preparations for the management of the economy in the forthcoming war. For example, 180,000 industrial plants in 300 industries had been surveyed with respect to usefulness for war purposes; economic plans for the production of 200 basic materials had been worked out; a system for the letting of war contracts had been devised; allocations of coal, motor fuel, and power had been determined; 248 million Reichsmark had been spent on storage facilities alone; evacuation
129
10 Jan. 46
plans for war materials and skilled workers from military zones had been worked out; 80 million wartime ration cards had already been printed and distributed to local areas; and a card index on the skills of some 22 million workers had been prepared. That concludes the summary, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 11 January 1946 at 1000 hours.]
130
| Nuremberg Trials Page | Volume 5 Menu |