The active participation of Göring in the preparation for aggression

against the U.S.S.R. has been established beyond all possible doubt. The

Tribunal will find proof of Göring’s active participation as far back as

November 1940 in the development of a plan for the attack against the

U.S.S.R., contained in the record of the conference of 29 April 1941 on

the organisation of the economic staff “Oldenburg” and in the minutes of

the conference held on 23 February 1941 at the house of General Thomas,

as well as in the testimony of Göring himself during the session of 21

March 1946.

It was Göring who, together with Rosenberg, Keitel and Bormann, at the

conference with Hitler on 16 July 1941, gave concrete form to the plans

for the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, the enslavement of her

population and the despoliation of her riches. The plan to “... raze

Leningrad to the ground and hand it over to the Finns” was conceived

with his participation. It was he who recommended the hangman, Koch, for

the post of Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine, as the “personality with

the greatest initiative and the best training.” Therefore, it can be

considered that Göring’s guilt in the planning and preparation of

aggressive wars by Hitlerite Germany has been fully established, and for

this he must bear responsibility.

My colleagues have already invited the attention of the Tribunal to the

criminal treatment of prisoners of war. I shall just remind the Tribunal

of the testimony given by the witness Maurice Lampe during the afternoon

session of 25 January 1946 concerning the execution of Soviet, British,

French, and other officers in Camp Mauthausen, in the extermination

camps of Auschwitz and Maidanek; of the notes issued by the People’s

Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., Molotov, dated 25

November 1941 and 27 April 1942, presented to the Court in connection

with the monstrous ill-treatment inflicted by the German military

authorities on Soviet prisoners of war, for which Göring is personally

greatly responsible. I would also remind you of the depositions of the

witness Halder, on 31 October 1945, describing a conference held at

Hitler’s headquarters, on the nonapplication of the Hague Convention

with respect to the treatment of Russian prisoners of war, and of the

order issued from Hitler’s headquarters on 12 May 1941 on the treatment

of captured Russian commanding officers and political workers.

All these crimes, established beyond any doubt before the Court, need

not be further clarified, since the Defense in their pleas were unable

to advance any arguments in rebuttal.

In the “12 Commandments for the Behavior of the Germans in the East” of

1 June 1941, the sixth commandment reads as follows:

“You must clearly understand that you for centuries to come are

the representatives of Greater Germany and the standard bearers

of National Socialism in the new Europe. You must, therefore,

coolly carry out the most ruthless and the most cruel measures

which will be demanded of you by the necessities of the State.”

The beginning of the systematic persecution and extermination of the

Jewish population is connected with the name of Göring. It was he who

signed the odious Nuremberg Laws, the decrees for the expropriation of

Jewish property, for the imposition on the Jews of a penalty of one

billion, and other decrees; such activities were in full keeping with

the whole of Göring’s savage world outlook.

At the Trial Göring denied that he was an adherent of the racial theory,

while in 1935 he made a speech before the Reichstag in defense of the

Nuremberg racial instigators. On that occasion he loudly declared: “God

has created races. He did not will equality and for this reason we

reject energetically every attempt to pervert the idea of race purity

...”

Numerous documents presented to the Court by the Prosecution expose the

criminal actions of Göring in respect to other nations. Göring’s order

issued on 19 October 1939 clearly demonstrated the attitude of the

defendant toward the Polish people and the Polish State. In an order

relating to the economic policy in the East, issued on 23 May 1941 just

before the attack on the U.S.S.R., Göring wrote as follows on the

attitude toward the Russians:

“Germany is not interested in maintaining productivity in this

territory. She will supply only the troops stationed there ...

The population in those regions, and especially the urban

population, is doomed to starvation. It will be necessary to

deport this population to Siberia.”

In his capacity of Delegate for the Four Year Plan Göring is responsible

for the plunder and spoliation of state property and personal property

of the citizens, carried out by the Nazis in the occupied territories of

the U.S.S.R., in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and other

countries. It was precisely Göring who headed the activities of the Nazi

conspirators directed toward the economic plunder of the occupied

territories of the U.S.S.R.

A conference in connection with the elaboration of economic measures

according to Case Barbarossa was held on 29 April 1941 prior to the

treacherous attack against the U.S.S.R. As a result of this conference

there was created a special economic staff “Oldenburg” which was

subordinated to Göring. The creation of special economic inspectorates

and units in the largest centers of the U.S.S.R. was planned; they were

to handle important tasks for the exploitation and plunder of Soviet

industry and agriculture.

The file of a district agricultural leader contained instructions to

agricultural officials who were given full freedom in the choice of

methods for the achievement of their criminal purposes. The demand for

ruthless treatment of the Soviet peoples, the Russians, the Ukrainians

and the Byelorussians, was expressly put forward. The report of the

U.S.S.R. Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes committed by the

Hitlerites in Kiev, in the region of Stalino and other places, states

that these criminal plans of the Defendant Göring and his accomplices

were for the greater part realized.

To secure the necessary manpower for the German war industry and

agriculture, and at the same time for the purpose of the physical

extermination and economic weakening of the enslaved peoples, the

Defendant Göring and his accomplices in the Nazi conspiracy exploited

the foreign workers as slaves. The exploitation of forced labor had been

planned by the Nazis even before the war. It is sufficient to remind you

of the conference at Hitler’s headquarters which took place on 23 May

1939 and in which the Defendant Göring also participated. At the

conference of 7 November 1941 and in his order issued on 10 January 1942

Göring demanded of all the departments subordinated to him the necessary

manpower for the German industries at the expense of the population of

the occupied Soviet territories.

On 6 August 1942 Göring held a conference with the Reich Commissioners

for the occupied territories and the representatives of the High

Command. Addressing himself to the participants in this conference,

Göring said:

“You are being sent there not to work for the well-being of the

peoples entrusted to you, but for the purpose of extracting

everything available.... You must be like bloodhounds, wherever

there is still something left.... I intend to plunder and to do

it efficiently....”

These intentions were carried out. Göring plundered, the Reich Ministers

and Reich Commissioners for the occupied territories plundered, the

representatives of the High Command, from the generals to the ordinary

soldiers, also plundered. Such were the activities of Defendant Göring.

There is not a single measure executed by the fascist party, not a

single step taken by the Hitlerite Government in which Göring did not

participate. He participated actively in all the crimes of the fascist

gang and for all his deeds he must be duly punished.

Hess.

The Defendant Rudolf Hess occupied a leading position among the Nazi

conspirators from the very beginnings of the fascist state.

It was Hess who had been the leader of the fascist organization of the

University of Munich. It was he who had participated in the Munich

Putsch. It was he who, together with Hitler, had worked at the fascist

bible _Mein Kampf_, assuming the duties of Hitler’s private secretary.

It was he who had been president of the Central Political Commission of

the fascist party, and it was he who had carried into effect the bestial

policy of the fascist cutthroats as Deputy of the Führer after the

seizure of power. It was precisely Hess to whom, according to Hitler’s

decree of 21 April 1933, “full rights were granted to take decisions on

Hitler’s behalf in all questions concerning the leadership of the

Party.”

Immediately afterward Hess continued to seize one new post after the

other in Hitler’s Government. As from 1 December 1933 he was Reich

Minister without Portfolio “to insure close collaboration of the Party

and the SA with the civil authorities”; on 4 February 1938 he was

appointed member of the Secret Council; on 30 August 1939, member of the

Reich Defense Council; and on 1 September 1939 Hitler declared Hess his

successor after Göring. Hess was also appointed Obergruppenführer SS and

SA.

By a decree of 27 July 1934 Hitler compelled the leaders of all the

departments and ministries in Germany to present all drafts of laws to

Hess for preliminary approval. Hess had to select and allocate the

leading staff of the fascist cadres. This is proved by Hitler’s decree

of 24 September 1935 and by other documents submitted to the Tribunal by

the Prosecution.

Special note should be taken of the active part played by Hess in

planning and carrying out aggressive wars. All the aggressive actions of

Hitler’s Germany had been planned and prepared with the direct

assistance of Hess and the Party machinery of the Nazis subordinated to

him. Already on 12 October 1936, in his speeches in Bavaria, Hess

appealed to the Germans:

“... at times to use a little less fat, a little less pork,

fewer eggs.... We know”—said Hess—“that the foreign currency

that is saved in this way goes for armaments. And the slogan of

the day is: ‘Cannons instead of butter.’”

Hess spoke about this on the eve of his flight to England on 1 May 1941,

speaking at the Messerschmitt factory where he made an appeal for the

continuation of the aggressive war.

Together with Hitler, Göring, and other leaders of the Nazi conspiracy,

Hess signed the decrees concerning the annexation of the territories

seized by the Germans.

The man-hating Nuremberg Laws, for the publishing of which this

defendant is also responsible, contain a special proviso authorizing

Frick and Hess to issue the necessary decrees for carrying these laws

into effect. Hess signed the law on the “Protection of Race and Honor,”

the decree of 14 September 1935, depriving the Jews of their right to

vote and of their right to employment in government offices; and also

the decree of 20 May 1938 extending the Nuremberg Laws to Austria. The

question of the part played by Hess in organizing a network for

espionage and terroristic units abroad, as well as in creating the SD

(Security Service) and in the recruitment of SS units, has been

sufficiently elucidated at this Trial.

The very position occupied by Hess in the fascist party and Hitler’s

Government shows the active and leading participation of the defendant

in the preparation and realization of the common criminal plan of the

fascist conspirators, and consequently the enormous share of his guilt

and responsibility for the crimes against peace, for the war crimes and

the crimes against humanity.

Your Honors, in order to evaluate more correctly the importance of the

criminal activity of the Defendant Hess as one of the most notorious

leaders of the Nazi Party and Hitler’s Government, I shall remind you of

the article in the newspaper _Nationalzeitung_ of 24 April 1941,

dedicated to Hess.

“Many years ago—it was before the beginning of this war—Rudolf

Hess was called the ‘Conscience of the Party.’ It is not

difficult to answer the question why this honorable name was

given to the Führer’s Deputy. There is not an event in our

public life that is not connected with the name of the Deputy

Führer. He is so versatile and original in his work and in his

sphere of activity, that they cannot be described in a few words

... many measures carried out by the Government, especially in

the field of war economy and in the Party, which at their

publication are so readily welcomed by the public because they

answer to a high degree the real feeling of the people,

originate in the personal initiative of the Deputy of the

Führer.”

Hess refused to offer explanations to the Tribunal. His counsel, Seidl,

declared with false pathos that Hess considered the present Tribunal

incompetent to judge the German war criminals, and immediately

afterward, without a pause, he presented proofs in his defense. Hess

even tried to declare himself insane to avoid punishment deserved. But

when he was convinced that such a maneuver would not help him, he was

forced to tell the Tribunal that he had simulated loss of memory, that

it had been a trick on his part, and he had to admit that he bore full

responsibility for all that he had done and signed together with the

others.

Thus, this clumsy attempt of Hess to avoid responsibility was fully

exposed at the Trial and he should suffer the full extent of his

punishment for his participation in the Common Plan or Conspiracy for

committing crimes against peace, war crimes and the most grievous crimes

against the world and humanity, crimes perpetrated by him together with

the other defendants.

Bormann.

The name of Martin Bormann is closely connected with the creation of

Hitler’s regime. He was one of those who committed the most outrageous

crimes, directed at the annihilation of many hundreds of thousands.

Together with the Defendant Rosenberg, Bormann carried on with cruel

perseverance a propaganda of racial theories together with the

persecutions of the Jews. He issued numerous instructions aiming at

discrimination against the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, which

discrimination later on had such fatal effects and resulted in the

annihilation of millions of Jews. By this activity he won Hitler’s

confidence. He was “authorized to represent the Party in the sphere of

government activities” (_Verordnungen und Befehle der Parteikanzlei_,

Volume II, Page 228) and did so. Thus, as chief of the Party

Chancellery, he directly participated in the annihilation of Jews,

Gypsies, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Czechoslovaks.

Under his leadership the NSDAP became a police organization, closely

co-operating with the German Secret Police and the SS. Bormann not only

knew of all the aggressive plans of Hitler’s Government but he also took

an active part in their realization. He made full use of the entire

Party machinery of the NSDAP to realize the aggressive plans of Hitler’s

Government, and he appointed the Party Gauleiter Reich Defense

Commissioners in the regions where they operated.

The NSDAP Party machinery and Bormann personally participated actively

in all measures taken by the German military and civil authorities for

the inhuman exploitation of prisoners of war. This is proved by the

numerous instructions and directives issued by Bormann. The evidence of

the Prosecution and the legal proceedings have now established the

extent of mass annihilation resulting from the savage ill-treatment of

the prisoners of war.

The Party machinery and the Defendant Bormann personally participated

directly in the measures adopted by Hitler’s Government in connection

with the deportation of the peoples of the occupied territories for

slave labor. The secret deportation of Ukrainian girls to Germany for

enforced Germanization was carried out with Bormann’s approval. By

Hitler’s order of 18 October 1944, Bormann and Himmler were entrusted

with the leadership of the Volkssturm, consisting of all men from 16 to

60 years of age, capable of carrying arms. On the eve of the collapse of

Hitler’s Germany, Bormann headed the Werewolf underground organization

for diversion and subversive activities behind the Allied lines. Bormann

participated directly in the plunder of historical and cultural

treasures and works of art in the occupied territories. In 1943 he made

suggestions for the intensification of the economic plunder in the

occupied territories.

Such are the crimes of the Defendant Bormann, Hitler’s closest

collaborator, sharing the full responsibility for the numerous crimes of

Hitler’s Government and the Nazi Party.

Ribbentrop.

Joachim von Ribbentrop was not only one of the principal instigators and

leaders of the foreign policy of Hitlerite Germany, but he was also one

of the most active participants in the criminal conspiracy. Having

officially entered the Nazi Party in 1932, the defendant, however,

contributed actively to the seizure of power by the Nazis long before

this actually occurred, and he rapidly became the official adviser of

the Party, inasmuch as he was the “collaborator of the Führer on matters

of foreign policy.”

Ribbentrop’s promotion is indissolubly connected with the development of

the activities of the Nazi conspirators, activities directed against the

interests of peace. In his testimony Ribbentrop declared: “He (Hitler)

knew that I was his loyal collaborator.” That is why on 4 February 1938

Hitler appointed the convinced and faithful Nazi, Ribbentrop, as

official leader of foreign policy, a post which was one of the most

important forces in the realization of the entire Nazi conspiracy.

Ribbentrop, however, did not limit his activities to the scope of

foreign policy. As member of the Hitlerite Government, the Reich Defense

Council, and the Secret Council, he participated in the solution of all

the innumerable problems connected with the preparation of aggressive

wars. That is why he, Ribbentrop, although he was Minister for Foreign

Affairs, participated in the solution and realization of problems only

faintly relevant to foreign policy, such as the exploitation of manpower

in wartime, the organization of the concentration camps, and so forth.

In this connection it should be noted that Ribbentrop signed a special,

far-reaching agreement with Himmler on the organization of joint

intelligence service.

Ribbentrop became Reich Foreign Minister exactly at the beginning of the

realization of the plans of aggression, which counted on the submission

of Europe to Germany. This coincidence is no accident. Ribbentrop was

considered, not without reason, as the most qualified person for the

realization of this criminal conspiracy. He was preferred even to such

an expert on international provocation as Rosenberg, which induced the

latter to lodge an official complaint, not without reason. And Hitler

was not mistaken in his choice, for Ribbentrop fully justified his

confidence.

As early as 12 February 1938, a week after his appointment, Ribbentrop

together with Hitler and the Defendant Papen, who for a long time before

this date had been directing the diversionist activities of the Nazi

agents in Austria, participated in a conference at the Obersalzberg. At

this meeting he addressed an ultimatum, punctuated by threats, to the

Austrian Federal Chancellor Schuschnigg and the latter’s Foreign

Minister, Schmidt, demanding their agreement to the sacrifice of

Austria’s independence and this object was attained.

As Minister, Ribbentrop was present at the conference of 28 May 1938,

during which a decision was made for the execution of Case Green—the

plan for aggression against Czechoslovakia. In conformity with the Nazi

tactics of weakening their future victim from inside, Ribbentrop

constantly kept a close contact with and gave material assistance first

to the German Sudeten Party, and then to the Slovak National Socialists,

with the object of attaining an internal split and fratricidal war in

Czechoslovakia.

Having seized Czechoslovakia, the Nazi conspirators, and Ribbentrop

among them, began to prepare for the next aggressive act, which had

already been outlined by them in their criminal plan against peace—the

attack on Poland.

Being forced by reason of the recently realized annexation of Austria

and Czechoslovakia to temporarily conceal Germany’s further intentions,

Ribbentrop personally and through his agents and his diplomats

endeavored to allay the vigilance of the European states by hypocritical

declarations to the effect that Germany had no further territorial

demands.

On 26 January 1939, in Warsaw, the Foreign Minister of fascist Germany,

Ribbentrop, declared:

“... that the consolidation of friendly relations between

Germany and Poland on the basis of our agreement constituted the

most important factor of Germany’s foreign policy.”

A very short time elapsed and Poland experienced the full value of these

assurances of Ribbentrop.

I will not dwell here on the perfidious part played by the Defendant

Ribbentrop in the German aggression against Denmark, Norway, Belgium,

Holland, and Luxembourg, for my colleagues have already dealt with this

matter convincingly enough. The Defendant Ribbentrop personally and

actively participated in carrying out the aggression against Yugoslavia

and Greece.

Reverting to his favorite method of giving false guarantees in order to

conceal future aggressions, Defendant Ribbentrop assured Yugoslavia, on

20 April 1938, that after the Anschluss Germany’s frontiers with

Yugoslavia were considered both “final and unalterable.”

At the same time manifold preparations for aggression were carried out

with the assistance of the Defendant Ribbentrop. On 12 and 13 August

1939, at the conferences held by Hitler and Ribbentrop with Ciano on the

Obersalzberg, an agreement was reached concerning the liquidation of the

neutrals one by one.

With the direct and immediate assistance of the Defendant Ribbentrop,

the Nazi conspirators planned, prepared, and executed the treacherous

attack on the U.S.S.R. of 22 June 1941.

The Defendant Ribbentrop himself admitted in the courtroom, that at the

end of August and the beginning of September 1940, that is, at the time

when the work on Case Barbarossa was being carried out—as is evident

from the depositions of General Warlimont, General Müller and Field

Marshal Paulus—the Defendant Keitel was discussing with him the

question of attacking the U.S.S.R. The activities of the defendant, and

the Ministry directed by him, played a primary part in the organization

of war against the U.S.S.R. with the participation of Finland, Hungary,

Romania, and Bulgaria.

After the beginning of the aggression of Germany against the Soviet

Union, the Defendant Ribbentrop continued to apply his efforts to lure

new accomplices to the side of Germany. Thus in a telegram to the German

Ambassador in Tokio on 10 June 1941 he said:

“I beg you to try all the means at your disposal to influence

Matsuoka in order to force Japan to enter into war with Russia

as soon as possible. The sooner, the better. The aim, of course,

should be that Japan and Germany shake hands on the Siberian

railway before winter comes ...”

As has been established at the Trial, Ribbentrop, together with the

other defendants, was preparing a policy of extermination and plunder,

planned by the Hitlerites and then carried out in the temporarily

occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The Defendant Rosenberg, who

was elaborating the plans for the exploitation of the occupied

territories in eastern Europe, held a conference on this question with

the OKW, the Ministry of Economics, the Ministry of the Interior, and

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his “Report on Preparatory Work on

the Eastern European Questions” he wrote: “As a result of negotiations

with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the latter appointed Consul

General Bräutigam as their representative to Rosenberg.”

It is therefore indisputable that Ribbentrop not only knew about the

preparations for the military attack on the U.S.S.R., but that he,

together with the other conspirators, had planned beforehand the

colonization of the territory of the Soviet Union and the enslavement of

the Soviet citizens.

The defendant was compelled to admit that he had known of the notes

issued by the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs V. M. Molotov

concerning the atrocities of the Hitlerites in the temporarily occupied

territories of the Soviet Union. He, as well as the other conspirators,

had also known the other declarations of the chiefs of the Allied

Governments concerning the responsibility imposed upon the Nazi

Government for the perpetration of the monstrous atrocities by the

Hitlerites in the occupied countries.

Ribbentrop, as the witness for the Defense, Steengracht, former

Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has confirmed,

had been one of the initial organizers and was to be appointed honorary

member of the International Anti-Jewish Congress which the Germans hoped

to convene in July 1944, in Kraków.

Ribbentrop himself admitted at the Trial that he had negotiated with the

governments of European countries concerning the banishment of the Jews.

According to the record of Ribbentrop’s conversation with Horthy: “The

Minister of Foreign Affairs declared to Horthy that the Jews should

either be exterminated or sent to concentration camps. There can be no

other decision.”

This statement amply confirms the fact that Ribbentrop was aware of the

existence of the concentration camps although he tried hard to prove the

reverse here. Ribbentrop lent his support to other Nazi leaders and

above all to the Defendant Sauckel in deporting the population of the

occupied countries for forced labor in Germany. Moreover, the Defendant

Ribbentrop when carrying out the common plan of conspiracy which

included the destruction of the national culture of the peoples of the

occupied territories, took a most active part in plundering cultural

treasures which are the common property of all nations.

To carry out this task, a “Special Service Battalion” had been created

on Ribbentrop’s instructions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which,

during the entire war, followed the advance units, requisitioned, and

deported to Germany all kinds of cultural treasures from the occupied

territories in the East, in accordance with Ribbentrop’s directions.

Thus the Defendant Ribbentrop had participated in the seizure of power

by the Nazis, playing a leading role in planning, preparing, and waging

aggressive and predatory wars; together with the other conspirators he

participated, in pursuance of the fascist plans, in the leadership,

committing most grievous crimes against the nations whose territories

had been temporarily occupied by the Hitlerite invaders.

The military group.

Several of the defendants in the dock at this Trial of the major war

criminals may be said to form a military group. Excluding Göring—who is

quite a peculiar figure, uniting in his person the politician,

administrator, and soldier—there remain Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz and

Raeder. In the course of these proceedings not only have all the Counts

of the Indictment against them been sustained, but even more

incriminating evidence has been brought to light.

The documentary evidence, the testimony of witnesses, including those

called by the Defense, helped tip the scales in favor of the

Prosecution.

The Defense Counsel tried to convince the Tribunal that their clients

were the pawns of destiny, involved in this sinister tragedy in spite of

themselves.

The defendants—Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz, and Raeder endeavor to appear in

the role of noble-minded simpletons. To do the Defense justice, they did

the best they could to help them in this attempt.

We have heard a great deal about the honor of the soldier—of military

discipline, fidelity to duty and oaths of allegiance—and the consequent

obligation to fulfill Hitler’s orders, even those which in their hearts

aroused both doubt and direct protest. Such a presentation of their

position completely distorts the actual state of affairs. Before passing

to the question of the guilt of Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz, and Raeder, I

consider it necessary to ask the following four questions:

1) Did these defendants know that Hitlerite Germany, in violation of her

international obligations, had prepared a series of aggressive and

predatory wars?

2) Did they take an active part in the planning, preparing, launching

and waging of these wars?

3) Are they guilty of cynically trampling on the laws and customs of

warfare?

4) Are they responsible for the atrocities and for the extermination of

the peaceful population, for the sinking of passenger and hospital

ships, for the towns and villages destroyed by the military machine of

the Hitlerite Reich?

It seems to me that after this investigation which has so carefully gone

into all the details of this case it would be impossible, unless we

remain blind to the facts, to give any but an affirmative answer to

these questions.

The evidence submitted to the Tribunal has fully proved that the

military group of criminals is guilty of the most appalling crimes and

that they have actively participated in the planning and execution of

the common criminal conspiracy.

The very fact that these crimes were committed by men in uniform not

only does not mitigate their responsibility, it seems to me, but on the

contrary, merely serves to heighten it.

How can they attempt to whitewash themselves by referring to the “duty

of a soldier,” “the honor of an officer,” and the “obligation of

fulfilling orders”? Since when has “the duty of a soldier” and “the

honor of an officer” been compatible with shooting prisoners without

trial or exterminating women, children, and old people?

The only true and correct explanation of the amazing fact that these

generals and admirals did commit what, in effect, were ignoble crimes,

lies in the fact that they were actually generals and admirals of

Hitler’s making. These are men of a special brand. They are fascists in

military uniform bound in body and soul to the Nazi regime. This is the

only reason why Hitler gathered these men around him and collaborated

with them for so long a period of time. This is the only way to explain

why they collaborated with Hitler in perpetrating crimes unprecedented

in history. They fitted together and understood one another to

perfection.

Keitel.

It is only natural that, when speaking of the military group, I begin

with Defendant Keitel. Keitel held the leading post in Hitler’s military

machine from the very first years of its conception. Keitel’s counsel

admits that “the decree”—of 4 February 1938—“gave Keitel the marvelous

title: ‘Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces.’” Further he goes

on to say:

“... the factual significance of Keitel’s activities ... was

immense ... It was an extremely ungrateful job and its miserly

remuneration was a brilliant position in the immediate proximity

to the head of the State.”

In the light of all subsequent events it may be taken for granted that

the primary stage of all the future wars of aggression included

everything connected with the secret rearmament of Germany after the

Versailles Treaty.

It is difficult to minimize the significance of all that was done at the

time by the then Colonel Keitel in the committee of experts which

painstakingly and consecutively sought and found means of circumventing

and even violating the treaty.

It was none other than Keitel in particular who gave instructions to the

effect that in Geneva it was possible to say what one pleased, but care

must be taken not to leave anything behind on paper. This cynical

statement fully tallies with the role played by Keitel in the subsequent

preparation and waging of aggressive wars. During the negotiations

between Hitler and Schuschnigg, Keitel in person was the living reminder

of Germany’s preparedness to resort to arms. Keitel issued orders for

troops to cross into Czechoslovakia at the time when President Hacha was

so treacherously called to Berlin “for continuing negotiations.” It was

the OKW, and none other, which was fully prepared through the Department

of the Abwehr to provoke an incident with Czechoslovakia in order to

justify the invasion by the German hordes, ready to fall upon

Czechoslovakia. In his strictly confidential memorandum Keitel demanded

that Hess and Himmler advise the OKW in advance of all measures taken by

Party organizations or Police which were not included in Case Green.

The declarations alleging that after the seizure of Czechoslovakia

Germany had no more territorial aspirations in Europe were downright

lies. This seizure was but a link in the chain of aggressive wars.

I wish to emphasize the leading role of the OKW in the preparation and

carrying out of aggression. The directive regarding the waging of war

and the invasion of Poland is known to us as Keitel’s and Hitler’s

directive of 10 May 1939. It was forwarded to the High Command of the

Air Force, Navy, and Army. How is it possible, after this, to maintain

that the OKW was not the driving power behind all the branches of the

Armed Forces of the fascist Reich?

If we once more peruse the documents pertaining to German aggression

against Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, and

Greece, we will again come across the name of Keitel. He appears either

as a participant in the most important events, or as the author of

secret orders addressed to Raeder, Göring and the General Staff. We find

the initials of Keitel and Jodl entered in their own hand on the secret

directive signed by Hitler regarding “Operation Marita.”

Much has been said here of Case Barbarossa and its authors. At present

it is important to stress that this document took shape in the innermost

depths of the OKW, and on its initiative, and that the methods planned

prior to a treacherous attack on the U.S.S.R. were likewise the work of

the OKW. The significance of a military specialist’s visa on a document

is clear to everybody.

Some of the defendants in their untruthfulness attempted to portray the

attack on the U.S.S.R. as a preventive war. This contention is to such a

degree unconvincing and contradictory to the irrefutable evidence

presented in court—German documents—that I see no need for wasting the

Tribunal’s time.

Keitel’s counsel stated that his defense is based on the point of view

that Keitel “is fighting not for his head but to save his face.” I

should like to help the Tribunal to unveil Keitel’s true face. For this

I should have to remind you of a number of Keitel’s directives which may

well lay claim to being among the foremost of all the infamous documents

pointing to the barbarity of the German military clique, to its baseness

and foul and unlimited contempt for every concept of the rules and

customs of warfare.

Let us consider the documents dealing with the shooting of political

officers. Keitel, the soldier, as he likes to call himself, ignoring his

oath, shamelessly lied to the representatives of the American

Prosecution at the preliminary investigation by avowing that, to begin

with, this order was in the nature of a reprisal and that the political

officers were separated from the other prisoners of war at the request

of the prisoners of war themselves. At the Trial he was unmasked.

Exhibit Number USSR-351, Document Number 884-PS proved that this

directive had been issued before the war had broken out. We also

submitted a document under Document Number USSR-62, the text of a letter

from German prisoners of war. This document makes it clear that even

before the attack on the U.S.S.R. the armies in the field had been

instructed absolutely to exterminate Soviet women in military service as

well as political officers.

And what can be said of the following statement, appalling in its

boundless cynicism: “... human life in the countries concerned is not of

value at all ... a terrifying influence can only be achieved by

unheard-of brutality.” And what can we say of the directive of 13 May

1941 introducing courts-martial in the “Barbarossa” region? And of the

order of 16 October 1941 calling for the execution of 80 to 100

Communists for each German killed? What could Keitel say about the

document known as “Nacht und Nebel”?

These are documents stained in blood. No one can compute how many

thousands of prisoners of war, soldiers and officers of the Red Army,

had been killed and tortured to death in the camps of fascist Germany.

You remember how on 21 January 1946 at the afternoon session the witness

Lampe testified that for Himmler’s amusement the shooting of 50 Soviet

officers was organized in Mauthausen Camp. You remember the witness

Blaha testifying that in the spring of 1944, 94 Soviet senior military

officers were tortured and then killed for refusing to impart military

information. I should like to mention the testimony of the SS man, Paul

Waldmann, regarding the slaughter of 840 Russian prisoners of war. You

remember the testimony of the witness Kivelisha regarding the endless

chain of scoffing and suffering to which all Russians captured by the

Germans were subjected?

It is impossible to overlook Keitel’s directive calling for the branding

of Soviet prisoners of war. One cannot forget the Keitel directive of 16

December 1942. It is entitled “Measures to be adopted against bands.”

Under the word “bands” Defendant Keitel understood any resistance

movement and demanded that his troops revert to harshest methods,

stopping at nothing, even with regard to women and children.

The Soviet Prosecution submitted Le Court’s testimony as Document Number

USSR-162. Le Court states that he shot and burned Soviet citizens and

razed their houses. He alone had shot over 1,200 persons and for this

achievement was prematurely promoted to the rank of Obergefreiter and

awarded the medal for service in the East. He acted in accordance with

Keitel’s directives.

The directive of Keitel’s instituting courts-martial in the “Barbarossa”

region freed such persons of all responsibility for their crimes.

Keitel’s hands are stained with the blood of the victims of Le Court and

his kind. It was in carrying out Keitel’s directive to the effect that

“life in the eastern regions was of no value at all,” that the soldiers

and officers of Hitlerite Germany committed their atrocities.

Document Number USSR-51, submitted by the Prosecution, shows how, on 28

August 1941, attacking German troops drove a group of women, children,

and old men in front of their combat units. In the village of Kolpino

the fascists forced the peasants to dig trenches and build bridges for

them. Then they shot all the peasants.

In Yugoslavia the mass shooting of hostages was a daily practice of the

Armed Forces and military administration. In a secret report of 15

February 1940, addressed to Göring, the OKW justifies the practice of

seizing hostages.

I wish to conclude with Exhibit Number USSR-356, Document Number EC-338,

which Your Honors will, of course, remember. In this document Admiral

Canaris informs Keitel of the club law prevalent in the prisoner-of-war

camps, of the hunger, and of the mass shootings of Soviet prisoners of

war. Even that hardened fascist spy, Canaris, fearing eventual

responsibility, could not ignore a cruelty which cried to High Heaven

and a flagrant violation of all accepted laws and customs of warfare.

You will remember Keitel’s note on this report: “I approve and support

these measures.”

On 7 April 1946 in the course of the cross-examination, I put the

following question to Keitel:

“You, Defendant Keitel, called a Field Marshal, repeatedly

referred to yourself as a soldier before this Tribunal, and you,

by your bloodthirsty resolution of September 1941 approved and

sanctioned the murder, in cold blood, of thousands of unarmed

captured soldiers. Do you confirm this?”

Keitel was forced to admit this fact.

This resolution alone unveils the true, the authentic face of Field

Marshal Keitel. The highly involved arguments of the defense cannot

absolve him of his responsibility for the bloodshed and for the

innumerable human lives cut short by the fascist military clique acting

on orders and directives signed by Keitel’s hand.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess now.

[_A recess was taken._]

GENERAL RUDENKO: Jodl.

The Defendant Alfred Jodl shares equal responsibility with Defendant

Keitel as his assistant and as Hitler’s closest military adviser.

Everything connected with the preparation and execution of the

aggressive plans of Hitlerite Germany is inseparably linked to the name

of Jodl, as well as to Keitel’s. There is no need to repeat all the

aggressive acts of Hitler’s Germany which had been individually planned

and executed with the direct connivance of Defendant Jodl. They are

already facts of common knowledge.

As the representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I

should like to emphasize once again that the criminal plan for the

perfidious attack on the Soviet Union, coded by the Hitler clique under

the name of the ill-fated conqueror, Friedrich Barbarossa, is signed not

only by Hitler and Keitel, but by Jodl as well. But this is more than a

mere signature.

As far back as the summer of 1940, in Reichenhall, Jodl held the first

conference with his staff officers at which the question of a possible

attack by Hitler Germany on Soviet Russia was discussed. It was the

Defendant Jodl alone who, even before the attack against the U.S.S.R.,

issued his well-known “Instructions on the Use of Propaganda in the

‘Barbarossa’ Region.” In these instructions it is definitely stated that

“propaganda directed at the partition of the Soviet Union should not, as

yet, be carried out.”

Thus, Defendant Jodl knew beforehand of the actual aims of Germany’s

attack on the U.S.S.R. and knew of the predatory, violent nature of a

war which called for the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. It was Jodl

who participated in the preparation and organization of a provocative

incident staged on the Czechoslovak border intended to justify the

aggressive act of Hitler’s Germany against this peace-loving nation. It

was Jodl who signed the directive of 28 September 1938 regarding the

order in which the so-called Henlein Corps was to be used should Case

Green be realized. How full of derision are the words of the Defendant

Jodl about the “honor of the soldier” when we read his order for the

destruction of Leningrad, Moscow, and other cities of the Soviet Union.

It was this selfsame Jodl who with inimitable cynicism declared at a

conference with Hitler on 1 December 1941 that German troops could with

impunity “hang by the feet and quarter” the Soviet patriots.

As Hitler’s closest military adviser, who had personally participated in

the preparation and execution of all the bloodthirsty and aggressive

plans of Hitlerite Germany, Defendant Jodl has been justly included in

the ranks of the major German war criminals.

Dönitz and Raeder.

My British colleague has proved the guilt of Defendants Karl Dönitz and

Erich Raeder so convincingly and thoroughly that I see no need to dwell

particularly on these Grossadmiral of Hitlerite Germany, who have

stained their admirals’ uniforms by such infamous crimes.

In the course of his cross-examination Dönitz told the Soviet prosecutor

that he was unaware of the reasons for which Hitler had appointed him as

his successor. I do not believe that Dönitz was quite sincere in making

this statement. One has only to refer to the transcripts of the sessions

of 8 May in order to understand without any confession on his part why

he became Hitler’s successor when the Hitlerite Reich collapsed to the

ground. The important point is not the fact that an admiral was needed

at a moment like this, but the fact that in the opinion of Hitler, who

so soon was to fade from the picture, only the Nazi Grossadmiral Dönitz

could do anything to save the sinking ship.

Under Hitler Dönitz commanded the submarine arm of the German Reich. We

know the role which the German U-boats played in this war. In this

connection it is worth emphasizing that Dönitz prided himself on being

the author of the so-called “wolf-pack tactics.” The people of the

Soviet have not forgotten how Dönitz’ submarines, in the Baltic and

Black Seas, sank both hospital ships and steamers evacuating peaceful

citizens—women and children.

The last head of the Hitlerite Government should also be one of the

first to pay the penalty for all those crimes which have led to the

trial of the major war criminals before the International Military

Tribunal.

The name of Raeder is linked to the impious directive for the

destruction of Leningrad. At the Trial Raeder tried to act the part of

an “honest soldier.” But the mere fact that it was he, together with

Hitler and Keitel, who conspired to “wipe Leningrad off the face of the

earth” and to exterminate more than 3 million of the population of that

great city, whose very name is indissolubly connected with the

development of the culture and history of mankind, makes Raeder one of

the major war criminals.

Raeder participated in drafting all the most important plans of

aggression of German fascism. This participant in the criminal fascist

conspiracy must, therefore, bear the punishment meted out to his

associates.

Kaltenbrunner.

The Defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner was considered by Himmler as the most

deserving successor to that hangman, Heydrich, executed by Czech

patriots. On 30 January 1943, he was appointed head of the Reich

Security Main Office and chief of the SD.

Numerous documents and especially directives signed by Kaltenbrunner for

the mass deportation of people to the concentration camps, the

testimonies of his subordinates, including the depositions of Walter

Schellenberg, former chief of foreign intelligence (Amt VI), and of Otto

Ohlendorf, chief of the security within Germany (Amt III or SD), fully

convict Kaltenbrunner of the most heinous crimes.

At the session of 12 April 1946, in the course of Kaltenbrunner’s

examination, the testimonies of Johann Kandutor, ex-prisoner of

Mauthausen, were read into the record. In his depositions Kandutor

described as follows the manner in which Kaltenbrunner passed his time

on one of his visits to the camp:

“Laughing, Kaltenbrunner entered the gas chamber; then the

prisoners were led from the barracks to execution and all three

methods of execution were demonstrated—hanging, shooting in the

neck, and gassing.”

I shall not dwell upon the numerous proofs available, since they have

been sufficiently clarified before the Tribunal. There is only one point

of the accusation against Kaltenbrunner on which I consider it necessary

to dwell.

Together with the other RSHA organizations, Kaltenbrunner took over from

Heydrich five Einsatzgruppen. The citizens of the Soviet Union well

remember these cruel organizations of German fascism, headed by

Kaltenbrunner. Einsatzgruppe A reached the approaches to Leningrad. It

created the “Fort of Death Number 9” near Kaunas and the secret center

for the mass extermination of human beings in Panarai; it carried out

executions by shooting in the woods of Salaspilsk and Bikerneksk near

Riga; it erected gallows in the parks of Pushkino one of Leningrad’s

suburbs.

Einsatzgruppe B settled down in the vicinity of Smolensk. It burned

alive the peasants of Byelorussia; it shot down the victims of the awful

Pinsk action; it drowned thousands of Byelorussian women and children in

the Masurian Lakes; it operated with “murder vans” in Minsk; it

liquidated the ghetto in the Verchnye Sadka district of Smolensk.

Einsatzgruppe C was billeted in Kiev. This group carried out the mass

action in Babij Jar near Kiev, an execution unmatched in cruelty, when

100,000 Soviet citizens perished on a single day.

Einsatzgruppe D operated in the southern regions of the temporarily

occupied territories of the Soviet Union. This group was the first to

experiment with the “murder vans” on Soviet citizens in the district of

Stavropol and in Krasnodar.

And when Kaltenbrunner’s fate will be decided, all the victims

asphyxiated in the “murder vans” near Stavropol, buried alive in the

graves near Kiev and Riga, burnt alive in the Byelorussian villages,

must never be forgotten. All these innocent victims are on his unclean

conscience.

Successor to a hangman, and himself a hangman, Kaltenbrunner carried out

the most revolting function in the common criminal plan of the Hitlerite

clique.

Rosenberg.

I shall now summarize the evidence relevant to the guilt and

responsibility of the Defendant Rosenberg.

In spite of Rosenberg’s efforts to minimize both his role and his

importance, in spite of his efforts to juggle with historical facts and

events, he cannot deny that he was the official ideologist of the Nazi

Party; that already a quarter of a century ago, he had laid the

“theoretical” foundations of the fascist Hitlerite State, which during

this whole period morally corrupted millions of Germans, preparing them

“ideologically” for the monstrous crimes committed by the

Hitlerites—crimes unprecedented in history, and which are the subject

of this Trial.

When, at the Trial, Rosenberg was asked: “Were you not one of Hitler’s

closest collaborators?” he did not even speak—he shouted in reply:

“That is not true, I never was.” But however hard Rosenberg tried to

deny his “Führer,” he has not succeeded in washing away the stigma of

being “one of the oldest and the most faithful of Hitler’s

comrades-in-arms.” For 25 years Rosenberg, first acting as Hitler’s

collaborator and afterward under his direction, worked out and assisted

in the realization of the fantastic plan for world supremacy, having

chosen, for the justification of this criminal plan, the misanthropic

theory of racism.

The fact that Rosenberg utilized for his purposes garbled science and

borrowed theories from Karl Lueger and Paul Lagarde, Count Gobineau,

Oswald Spengler, and Arthur Moeller cannot affect the question of

Rosenberg’s guilt and responsibility. The important fact is that

Rosenberg, having assembled all these “scientific excreta,” raised the

racial theories to a degree of racial fanaticism and educated in this

spirit the members of the Nazi Party and the youth of Germany. And when

the representatives of the “master race” elaborated and committed acts

of aggression, when the German occupation troops enslaved and

exterminated nations and peoples, when the factories of death were

created at Maidanek and Auschwitz, Treblinka and Chelmno, Rosenberg’s

share in all these crimes was not insignificant. All this was the

outcome of the fascist racial ideology, the essence of which consists in

the idea that the “Aryan, North Germanic” race is a “master race,” and

that all other races and nations belong to “lower strata.”

Rosenberg’s counsel said: “The Tribunal must judge crimes and not

theories.” In Rosenberg’s case such an argument is clearly unconvincing.

For Rosenberg not only confessed the fascist racial theory, but

knowingly propagated it and instilled it into the conscience of the

German people, this very theory which became a direct menace to the

existence of the democratic European states. The person who carries

microbes must be isolated, but the person who willingly disseminates

microbes must be tried.

Rosenberg’s criminal activities were not limited to the ideological

preparation for aggression and to the propagation of man-hating

theories. His activities had many facets. The criminal activities of the

foreign policy department of the NSDAP have already been sufficiently

elucidated at this Trial; this department, which for many years was

subordinated to the Defendant Rosenberg, was in charge of a network of

semilegal Nazi agencies abroad. The influence of this organization on

the measures of foreign policy undertaken by Hitlerite Germany and in

the initiation of aggressive wars was very great indeed.

One of the documents submitted by Neurath’s counsel and accepted by the

Tribunal reads as follows:

“There existed at one time in Berlin three sorts of ministries

for foreign affairs: Herr Rosenberg’s Ministry, Herr Von

Ribbentrop’s Ministry, and the official ministry on

Wilhelmstrasse.”

And finally, Rosenberg’s letter to Hitler of 6 February 1938 stressed

his real influence on the foreign policy of Hitlerite Germany and his

“merits” in this field, when he applied for membership in the Secret

Cabinet Council.

I see no need for giving an analysis of all Rosenberg’s criminal

activities and I only intend to dwell briefly on his activities as

“Führer’s plenipotentiary” and later as Reich Minister for the Occupied

Eastern Territories. In these functions Rosenberg most clearly showed

himself as a participant in the criminal conspiracy.

Rosenberg declares that he was against war with the U.S.S.R. and that he

learned from Hitler about the preparations for an attack against the

U.S.S.R. only when all the orders to military channels had already been

issued, that he never really had any influence on the foreign policy of

Hitlerite Germany. I affirm, Your Honors, that all these declarations of

Rosenberg are false.

It is a well-known fact that the plan for a German crusade against

Soviet Russia was actually the starting point of the National Socialist

foreign policy, as set out in the 1921 New Year publication of the

_Völkischer Beobachter_, and that the author of this policy was Alfred

Rosenberg. It was Rosenberg who, inspired by Ludendorff and Rechberg,

propagated—together with Hitler—a foreign policy directed toward the

creation of an anti-Semitic, anti-Bolshevik, and anti-British continent

of Europe.

Rosenberg’s speeches, setting out plans for the “exchange” of the Polish

Corridor for the Ukraine, his “diplomatic” journeys into certain

countries after the seizure of power by the fascists, his clumsy efforts

to realize the foreign policy program of the fascists, were widely

voiced in the press.

The documents submitted give a clear picture of Rosenberg’s feverish

activities in April 1941 during the period immediately preceding the

attack by Germany on the U.S.S.R., when he was nominated the Führer’s

plenipotentiary for the central control of the questions connected with

the eastern European territories.

On 7 April 1941, 2 weeks prior to his nomination, Rosenberg sent his

proposals to Hitler for the division of the Soviet Union into Reich

Commissariats and for the appointment of fascist governors for the

occupied territories. Byelorussia and the Ukraine, Minsk and Kiev,

Rostov and Tiflis, Leningrad and Moscow, were all enumerated in

Rosenberg’s proposals. For the post of Reich Commissioner of Moscow,

Rosenberg recommended the notorious Erich Koch.

We have heard about Rosenberg’s meetings with Brauchitsch and Raeder and

of his conferences with Funk, General Thomas, State Secretary Backe and

others, on the questions of economic exploitation of the eastern

territories, and about his negotiations with Ribbentrop, the SA chief of

staff, and the chief of the German Intelligence Service, Admiral

Canaris. Already 6 weeks prior to the attack on the U.S.S.R. he drafted

directives for all the Reich Commissioners of the eastern territories to

be occupied, in which he provided for a “Reich Commissariat Russia” and

a “Reich Commissariat Caucasus,” while the Byelorussian Republic was to

form a part of the “Reich Commissariat Ostland.”

Rosenberg attempted to affirm that he did not share in the aggressive

and predatory aims of the war against the U.S.S.R. and that on the

contrary, in his capacity of Minister for the Occupied Eastern

Territories, he even loaded with benefits the population of these

territories. And this he dared to affirm, when the directive to the

Reich Commissioner of the Baltic States and Byelorussia described his

aims as follows:

“... the creation of a German protectorate for the purpose of

subsequent inclusion of these regions in the Greater German

Reich, by the Germanization of elements suitable from the racial

point of view, by the colonization by representatives of the

Germanic race, and by the extermination of all undesirable

elements.”

And this is maintained after the following recommendations were made in

another of Rosenberg’s directives on the subject of the civil

administration in the Eastern Occupied Territories:

“The main and foremost task ... is the furtherance of the

interests of the Reich. The regulations of the Hague Convention

regarding land warfare are no more valid, since we can consider

the U.S.S.R. defeated.... For this reason, all measures which

the German administration may consider necessary or convenient

are admissible.”

Rosenberg was too hasty in his assertion that the U.S.S.R. was defeated,

he let the cat out of the bag and gave away his most secret plans. But

this document is also an irrefutable proof, invalidating all the

attempts of the defendant to cast the burden of responsibility for the

monstrous crimes perpetrated by the German fascist oppressors throughout

the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. from his own shoulders to those

of individual officials and policemen, to Koch and Himmler.

It was Rosenberg who permitted the repudiation of the Hague Convention

and the utilization of all measures which might seem “convenient.” When

Koch, for his “convenience,” exterminated the population of the entire

Zuman district, he was merely acting in the spirit of this directive of

Rosenberg’s.

Rosenberg described here his dissensions with Koch. He alleged that he

followed a humanitarian policy and even imported agricultural machinery.

Even if Rosenberg did indeed, from time to time, object to Koch’s

actions, it was only because he was afraid of premature publicity, and

because he was afraid that Koch’s unparalleled ill-treatment of the

Ukrainian people would only strengthen the resistance movement.

Rosenberg was influenced by fear and not by any humanitarian

considerations. Rosenberg’s true policy is set out in numerous documents

which have now become known to the public opinion of the world and which

are in the files of the Tribunal.

In an official note for the Führer dated 16 March 1942, Rosenberg set

out the aims of the German policy in the occupied territories of the

U.S.S.R. and, primarily, in the Ukraine:

“... the utilization of minerals, the creation of a German

colony in certain regions, no artificial intellectual

development of the population, but its preservation as a source

of manpower.”

In his report on the reorganization of the Caucasus Rosenberg wrote

that:

“The problem of the Ostland consists in the transplanting of the

Baltic nations to the soil of German culture and in the

preparation for an adequate German strategic frontier. The task

of the Ukraine is to secure necessary food supplies for Germany

and Europe, and raw materials for the continent. The problem of

the Caucasus is primarily a political problem and it will lead

to the expansion of continental Europe, headed by Germany, from

the isthmus of the Caucasus to the Near East.”

And finally, I would like to point out that it was Rosenberg who had

made the following statement in a speech before the German Labor Front,

on the policy adopted in the occupied U.S.S.R. territories: “It seems

that if these peoples are left to themselves, arbitrary justice and

tyranny will be the most suitable form of government.” The Defense

affirm that Rosenberg and his Einsatzstab were not concerned with the

plunder of cultural treasures, but with their preservation. This

statement is also entirely false. Numerous documents read into the

record at this Trial have proved that as early as April 1941, that is,

more than 2 months prior to the attack on the U.S.S.R., Rosenberg was

organizing special units and staffs and was elaborating plans for the

removal of the cultural treasures of the Soviet Union.

On 16 October 1941 Rosenberg wrote to Hitler as follows:

“I have issued an order to the same Einsatzstab of my

organization now to carry out in a more comprehensive manner in

the Eastern Occupied Territories the work already accomplished

in the West ... having the whole picture before our eyes, we can

satisfy all the just wishes and demands of the agencies of the

Greater German Reich. On this basis I would also be willing

personally to guarantee that all the art treasures for Linz and

other museums which can be utilized for your own plans, my

Führer, were factually used for this purpose.”

On 17 October 1944 Rosenberg wrote to Lammers that for the transport of

goods “listed” by his organization, it was necessary to use 1,418,000

railroad cars, while 427,000 further tons were shipped by water. In this

same letter Rosenberg mentioned that among the confiscated goods removed

to Germany, there were 9,000 cars with agricultural and other machinery.

And after this he dares to speak about some machines which he has

allegedly imported into the Ukraine!

And finally I shall speak about the ridiculous theory of the so-called

Rosenberg’s “noble anti-Semitism.” It is absurd to argue with

Rosenberg’s counsel who affirms that such a thing as a “noble

anti-Semitism” really exists, and it is all the more absurd to argue

with Rosenberg. In my statement to the Tribunal I threw some light on

the fascist propaganda contained in the speech of the Defense. I would

now like to recall to the Tribunal the text of two of Rosenberg’s

documents:

In his directive of 29 April 1941 he wrote:

“The Jewish problem requires a general settlement; temporary

measures are to be decided upon. (Compulsory labor for Jews, the

creation of ghettos, _et cetera_).”

Even more cynical and frank is the statement made by Rosenberg in

November 1942 when he, in his capacity of Minister for the Occupied

Eastern Territories, addressed a conference of the German Labor Front:

“We must not be satisfied”—said Rosenberg—“with the

deportation of Jews from one country to another and with the

existence, here or there, of a large Jewish ghetto; no, our

object must always remain the same. The Jewish problem in Europe

and in Germany will be solved only when there are no more Jews

left on the European continent.”

And all the operations “Cottbus” for the extermination of Jews in the

Baltic towns, in the Ukraine and Byelorussia—all these were carried out

in conformity with Rosenberg’s theories and with his agreement.

In 1937 Rosenberg received the German National Prize. Commenting on this

event, the fascist press wrote as follows:

“Alfred Rosenberg has brilliantly succeeded with his books in

building up the scientific and spiritual foundations and in

consolidating and strengthening the philosophy of National

Socialism.... Only future generations will be able fully to

appreciate the profound influence of this man on the

philosophical foundations of the National Socialist Reich.”

But the future has now become the present. And I am sure that the

Tribunal will be able duly to appreciate not only the influence

exercised by Rosenberg on the “philosophical foundations of the National

Socialist Reich,” but also his active participation in all the crimes

against peace and humanity perpetrated by the Hitlerites.

Frank.

A lawyer by training, the Defendant Hans Frank was one of those who

liked to talk about the reception of the “ancient German” law for

Germans, about “principles of justice” for the “select,” about the

“right of the chosen people” to annihilate nations and countries.

In 1939 he was the man who for a long time past had been corrupting the

German legal concept, to whom Hitler entrusted the fate of subjugated

Poland. Frank arrived in Poland to realize practically his entire

program for the enslavement and extermination of the people on the

territory of a country with an age-old history and with its own culture

of high standing.

I should like to remind the Tribunal of some of Frank’s views expressed

during the first months of his stay in Poland, taken from his so-called

“diary.” It is hardly worth while, to discuss with the counsel the

probative value of this document. Frank himself declared to the Court

that “this document was of historical importance” and to the question,

“whether all his statements contained in the diary were true,” he

replied “they fully correspond to what I know.”

On 19 January 1940 Frank declared with cynical frankness, at a

conference of the departmental leaders:

“On 15 September 1939 I was entrusted with the task of governing

the conquered Eastern Territories and received a special order

to ruin this territory ruthlessly as a war territory and a war

trophy, and to turn it into a heap of rubble from the viewpoint

of the social, economic, cultural, and political structure.”

On 31 October 1939, in the presence of Goebbels, at a conference uniting

the leading officials of the Government General, he declared: “A

perfectly clear differentiation must be made between the German

people—the master race—and the Poles.”

He then remembered that Polish culture which Frank, as counsel Dr. Seidl

has said here, cared for so greatly. He stated:

“The Poles can be allowed only those possibilities for educating

themselves which would prove the hopelessness of the destiny of

their nation. Bad films alone or films demonstrating the might

and greatness of the Germans can be taken into consideration for

this purpose.”

One of Frank’s first instructions was the order to shoot hostages. Later

on similar orders were to be counted by the hundreds and by the

thousands until they finally culminated in the edition of the regulation

dated 2 October 1943.

On 10 November 1939 Frank was informed that the day of Polish

independence was approaching and that posters were to be hung up on

certain houses to remind the Poles of their national holiday. The

following entry then appeared in Frank’s diary:

“... the Governor General decreed that one inhabitant of the

male sex is to be taken from every house on which an affixed

poster of this kind is not removed and is to be shot. ...

“The Pole must feel that we do not intend building a

constitutional state for him.”

The short extract we are quoting from the speech Frank made at the

conference of the chiefs of departments of the Government General

characterizes this Hitlerite “lawyer” far better than any lengthy

excerpts taken from his full-dress speeches which we were obliged to

listen to here.

Frank’s criminal activities in Poland were so very manifold that there

is no possibility, in a short speech, to reconstruct to the Tribunal the

innumerable proofs of his guilt which have been submitted in this

courtroom and which are evidently still fresh in the memory of the

judges.

But from Frank’s criminal activities in Poland we must isolate that

predominant trait which is Frank’s criminal activity as the murderer of

millions of people. Of course he looted; he was Göring’s plenipotentiary

for the Four Year Plan and he looted, so to say, “in the course of his

duties.”

He sent over 2 million Poles to Germany for forced labor. The attempt of

the defense to represent Frank as “the enemy of coercive methods of

recruitment” can be based only on the assumption that nobody excepting

counsel had studied Frank’s diaries. For Frank never can escape

documents such as the minutes of the meeting of the departmental

leaders, dated 12 April 1940, or the notes of Gauleiter Sauckel of 18

August 1942, or the transcript of the meeting with Bühler, Krüger, and

others of 21 April 1940.

But he sent people to forced labor in order to wring them dry in the

interests of the Reich before sending them to their doom. The regime,

established by Hans Frank throughout Poland during all the stages of the

temporary German domination in this country, was a regime for the

inhuman destruction of millions of people by varied, but invariably

criminal, methods.

It is not merely incidental that the German fascist assassins who

annihilated 11,000 Polish prisoner-of-war officers in Katyn forest

should refer to the regime which Frank instituted in Poland as an

example for their own activities—as the Tribunal has been able to

ascertain not so very long ago in this courtroom from the evidence

presented by the former deputy mayor of Smolensk—Professor Bazilevsky.

I consider it to be particularly important, at this point, to emphasize

the concept Frank had of the relations with the Polish population after

the war:

“I insistently draw your attention”—said Frank—“to the fact

that, should peace be concluded, nothing would change in this

respect. This peace will signify that we, as a world power, will

conduct more firmly than hitherto our general line of policy.

This peace would signify that we will have to carry out

colonization on a still far greater scale, but the principle

will not have changed.”

This was stated in 1940 when Frank was contemplating the first mass

murder of the Polish “intelligentsia,” the so-called “AB Action.”

In 1944, at the meeting of the agricultural leaders at Zakopane Frank

said:

“If we win the war, then, as far as I care, we could make

mincemeat of the Poles and Ukrainians and of all those who are

idling around ... then come what may.”

It was not Frank’s fault that as far back as 1944, dreaming to make

“mincemeat” of Poles and Ukrainians, he was compelled to add “if we win

the war.” At this time he could not be so emphatic in his utterings as

on 2 August 1943, when at the reception of the Party speakers in the

Royal Palace of the Kraków Castle he spoke about the exterminated Polish

Jews: “Here we started out with 3,500,000 Jews, now but a few workers’

companies remain of this number. All the others have—let us

say—emigrated.”

Both Frank and his counsel attempted to prove that the defendant had

known nothing about the happenings in the concentration camps of the

Government General. However, in these secret reports addressed by Frank

to Hitler, which counsel tried to utilize on Frank’s behalf, we may find

a confirmation of the fact that Frank was well informed about what was

occurring in the camps. It is said there: “The majority of the Polish

intellectuals have not reacted to the news from Katyn and quote in

answer similar atrocities in Auschwitz.”

Frank then quotes a highly characteristic passage describing the

reaction of the Polish workers to the provocative communications of the

Germans about Katyn: “There are concentration camps in Auschwitz and

Maidanek where mass murder of the Poles was carried out on assembly

lines.” And further:

“Today, unfortunately, Polish public opinion, and not the

intellectuals alone, compares Katyn to the mass death rate in

the German concentration camps, as well as to the shooting of

men, women, and even of children and old people, during the

infliction of collective punishment in the districts.”

After the secret report addressed to Hitler no other new course was

adopted by Frank. On the contrary, Frank published his regulation of 2

October 1943 which the defendant himself termed as “dreadful” when

questioned by his counsel. After this regulation had been carried into

effect, many thousands of innocent people became the victims of this

decision. The number of executions increased steadily till it amounted

to 200 persons executed at one time in Warsaw.

The same happened in the streets of all the Polish towns where the

so-called “police courts” carried out executions, as stated in the text

of the regulation itself, immediately following the verdict. The people

doomed to die were brought to the execution grounds, wearing paper

clothing, their lips glued together with adhesive tape, or their mouths

stuffed with plaster. After their imprisonment they seemed to have been

drained of the last drop of blood. At the state conference held in

Kraków on 16 December 1943, where Frank stated with satisfaction that

the executions had had “favorable consequences,” another question was

simultaneously discussed. In the records of this conference it is

stated:

“One must perhaps also consider whether special places of

execution should not be created for this, for it had been

ascertained that the Polish population streamed to places of

execution which were accessible to all, in order to put the

blood-soaked earth into containers and take these to the

church.”

The defense counsel tried to speak here about the interminable

dissensions of Frank with the Police; he had allegedly disagreed with

their action. Let us see what kind of dissensions these were.

The first special action carried out in Poland, namely, the AB

Action—the extermination of several thousands of Polish

intellectuals—had not been initiated by the Police, but by Frank

himself. According to Hitler’s decree of 2 May 1942, the chief of Police

was subordinated to the Governor General. When some dissensions between

Frank and the chief of Police did arise, it was Krüger who had to leave

his post of Police chief, whereas Frank remained Governor General of

Poland. As for Obergruppenführer Koppe, who took over from Krüger, who

else but Frank expressed his thanks to him on 16 December 1943 for

shooting the hostages, his “gratitude for his fruitful work” and noted

with satisfaction, “One of the greatest specialists is at the head of

the Police in the Government General.” It is incomprehensible what

dissensions with the Police counsel Seidl was talking about.

The defense even tried to represent Frank as “a kind of peaceful

anti-Semite,” who, while entertaining a negative attitude toward the

Jewish people, never initiated massacres of the Jews or even instigated

them. It is incomprehensible in this case how the following words of

Frank would be interpreted by the counsel: “The Jews are a race that

should be exterminated. Wherever we catch even one, we shall do away

with him.”

Or his declaration at the government session of 24 August 1942, when he

said:

“The fact that we have condemned 1.2 million Jews to starvation

may only be mentioned by the way. It stands to reason that if

these Jews do not die of starvation, it will precipitate active

measures against the Jews.”

The criminal activity of this hangman of the Polish nation led to the

extermination of millions.

“You see how the state organs are working, you see that they do not

shrink before anything and people by the dozen are put up against the

wall.” This is the manner in which Frank himself, at a conference of the

Standartenführer held on 18 March 1942, characterized the bloody regime

of terror set up throughout Poland.

“I did not hesitate to declare that for one German killed, up to a

hundred Poles would be shot”—these words were pronounced by Frank on 15

January 1944, at a meeting of the Political Leaders of the NSDAP. “Had I

gone to the Führer and told him: ‘My Führer, I report that I have

destroyed another 150,000 Poles,’ he would have said: ‘Fine, if it was

necessary’”—Frank stated this on 18 March 1944 while making a speech at

the Reichshof, that same Frank who now tries to convince the Tribunal

that he had some “differences of opinion on matters of principle” with

Hitler and Himmler.

Those declarations that Frank made during the first months of his stay

in Poland constituted a genuine murder program, perpetrated by the

defendant methodically, ruthlessly, and according to plan. Frank, of

course, was fully aware of the fact that should war not lead to victory

he would have to bear the full responsibility for the crimes committed

in Poland, as well as for his participation in the fascist conspiracy.

As far back as 1943 Frank spoke about this at a meeting with his

accomplices. We must give credit where it is due: As a lawyer he was far

more correct in his depiction and formulation of the concepts of a

criminal conspiracy than certain lawyers at this Trial who, basing

themselves on obsolete ideas, endeavor to dispute the foundation for a

conspiracy put forward by the Prosecution. It was at this government

meeting, held jointly with the Police on 25 January 1943, that the then

Governor General declared to Himmler’s hyenas:

“... I should like to state one thing: We must not be squeamish

when we learn that a total of 17,000 people have been shot.

After all, these people who were shot are also war victims ...

We must remember that all of us who are gathered together here

figure on Mr. Roosevelt’s list of war criminals. I have the

honor of being Number One. We have therefore become, so to

speak, accomplices in the sense of world history. For this very

reason we must get together, we must feel together, and it would

be ridiculous if we were to let ourselves get involved in any

squabbles over methods.”

This appeal to murder is very far from the “interminable quarrels with

the Police” which Frank’s counsel has mentioned here.

The defendant made a mistake about one thing: He was incorrect in

defining his place in the dock. But he was not mistaken about the

fundamental facts: He took his place in the dock as a “criminal in the

sense of world history.”

Frick.

The history of the development of the Nazi movement in Germany and the

numerous crimes of the Hitlerites is indissolubly connected with the

name of the Defendant Wilhelm Frick. As Minister of the Interior of the

Hitlerite Government, Frick participated in the promulgation of numerous

laws, decrees and other acts directed at the destruction of democracy in

Germany, the persecution of the Church, the discrimination against the

Jews, et cetera. In this capacity the Defendant Frick contributed

actively to the creation in Germany of the Hitlerite totalitarian State.

Over a period of many years the German Secret State

Police—Gestapo—which was to acquire a grim and ill-famed reputation

was subordinated to the Defendant Frick. The directive concerning the

extermination of old people and of the insane was issued in 1940 by none

other than the Defendant Frick. In his function of Minister of the

Interior in Hitlerite Germany, as testified by the witness Gisevius in

this Court, Frick was fully cognizant of the vast system of

concentration camps spread throughout the Reich, as well as of the

existence in these camps of an inhuman regime.

The part played by the Defendant Frick in the preparation and

realization of the Hitlerite Government’s aggressive plans was very

considerable. He was a member of the Reich Defense Council as well as

Plenipotentiary General for Administration. All the documents by which

the Hitlerite conspirators legalized the incorporation by Germany of the

territories seized were signed, among the other Hitlerite ringleaders,

also by the Defendant Frick.

In his capacity of Protector of Bohemia and Moravia the Defendant Frick

bears personal responsibility for all the crimes committed on that

territory by the Hitlerites.

After the treacherous attack of Hitlerite Germany on the Soviet Union,

the Defendant Frick’s Ministry of the Interior participated actively in

creating the administration of the territories seized in the U.S.S.R.

The administrative machinery of the German occupational authorities in

the East was mainly staffed by officials of the Ministry of the

Interior.

There is no need to dwell once again on the part played by this

administrative machinery, which had been created with the most active

co-operation of the Defendant Frick, for the extermination, enslavement

and the other inhuman actions carried out against the civilian

population of the occupied territories.

Frick bears full and direct responsibility for all these crimes,

inasmuch as he was an active participant in the Nazi conspiracy.

Streicher.

Notwithstanding the fact that during the war years the Defendant Julius

Streicher did not formally hold functions directly connected with the

perpetration of murders and mass executions, it is hard to overestimate

the crimes committed by this man. Together with Himmler, Kaltenbrunner,

Pohl, and those who conceived, constructed and brought into action the

gas chambers and gas wagons; together with those who personally

committed mass actions, Streicher must bear responsibility for the

monstrous crimes of German fascism. The incitement to national and

racial dissension, the cultivation of perverted cruelty and the call to

murder—all these not only represented the Party duties of this man for

many years, they were also the source of his income.

And it is not by accident that in his greeting to Streicher of April

1937, which is already known to the Tribunal, Himmler expressed his high

esteem for the merits of the _Stürmer_ and of its editor-in-chief.

One can consider Streicher as the actual “spiritual father” of those who

quartered the children of Treblinka. Had it not been for the _Stürmer_

and its editor German fascism would not have been able to educate, at

such short notice, those mass murder gangs who put into effect the

criminal plans of Hitler and his thugs by murdering over 6 million

European Jews. Over a period of many years Streicher spiritually

corrupted the children and the youth of Germany. The detestable

“children’s editions” of _Der Stürmer_ have been submitted to the

Tribunal.

And therefore, together with Baldur von Schirach, Streicher must bear

responsibility for the selection of Jewish children from the Lvov ghetto

for target practice by the morally perverted Hitlerjugend. It is not by

accident that Von Schirach held Streicher’s “historical merits” in so

high esteem.

The fanatical Nuremberg Laws were only the “beginning of the struggle”

for this “Judophobe Number 1,” as he called himself, who was also the

organizer of the first anti-Jewish pogroms. As the Tribunal will recall,

after these laws were issued, Streicher called for the actual

extermination of the Jews in Europe and wrote: “This problem will only

be solved when world Jewry is exterminated.”

I will not dwell on the shameless and mendacious “ritual murder numbers”

of _Der Stürmer_, intended to incite the SS men to the killing of

millions of innocent persons and to justify any atrocity directed

against the Jews. These proofs of Streicher’s guilt, which were inter

alia submitted to the Tribunal, are indisputable and of common

knowledge. In 1939 he anticipated Maidanek and Treblinka and wrote that

“perhaps graves alone will testify to the previous existence of Jews in

Europe.” In 1943, when the gas chambers of Treblinka and Auschwitz were

already engulfing millions of victims, _Der Stürmer_ published articles

inciting to the liquidation of the “ghetto,” articles full of lies and

malice; and finally _Der Stürmer_ could state with sadistical

satisfaction, that “the Jews of Europe have disappeared.”

Streicher lied all his life. He attempted to lie here in Court. I do not

know whether he believed he would be able to deceive anybody by these

lies, or whether he lied from habit or from fear. But it seems to me

that it must be apparent, even to the defendant himself, that his last

lie will not deceive anybody and will never bring him salvation.

Schacht.

In carrying out a vast and complicated task, the Defendant Hjalmar

Schacht played a prominent part in the preparation and realization of

the criminal plans of the Nazi conspirators. Schacht’s position, where

his defense is concerned, is extremely simple.

If he is to be believed, purely patriotic motives attracted him to

Hitlerism. He was against aggressive wars but in favor of rearmament for

Germany in order to maintain peace. He was all for the return of

Germany’s colonies in view of establishing economic stability in Europe.

Having come to the conviction that the policy of the Nazi Government was

directed toward excessive armament and thereby threatened with another

world war, Schacht went over to the opposition. He sabotaged the

measures taken by the Hitlerite Government and, as a result, he was

persecuted as a participant in the plot against Hitler. Defendant

Schacht now strives to depict the enthusiastic letters, full of

expressions of loyalty, which he addressed to Hitler, as a method of

camouflaging his true feeling of opposition toward the Hitlerite regime.

Actually, Schacht’s connection with the Nazi movement dates back to

1930. Schacht gravitated toward National Socialism, and both Hitler and

Göring sought Schacht’s support. Indeed the latter, with his vast

connections in Germany’s industrial and financial spheres, could, better

than anyone else, render invaluable services to the Nazi movement. And

this he did. As far back as 29 August 1932, in a letter addressed to

Hitler, Schacht assured the latter of his loyalty.

These were not mere words, for more than anybody Defendant Schacht

played a decisive part in Hitler’s advent to power. It was he, Schacht,

who organized the demand formulated by the German industrialists for

Hitler to be appointed Reich Chancellor. As early as 1932 he, Schacht,

advised Von Papen, then Reich Chancellor of Germany, to hand over his

post to Hitler. It was Schacht again who in 1933 on the eve of the

Reichstag elections called a conference of industrialists who collected

an election fund of several million marks for the Nazi Party.

Hitler’s closest follower, Goebbels, thus characterized the part played

by Schacht and his importance in the creation of Nazi Germany. On 21

November 1932 he wrote down in his diary: “In a talk with Dr. Schacht I

came to the conviction that he fully shares our point of view. He is one

of the few who absolutely agrees with the position of the Führer.”

In his Leipzig spring fair speech on 4 March 1935 the Defendant Schacht

himself defined his part in the Nazi State:

“I can assure you that all that I do and say is in full

agreement with the Führer and that I will do and say nothing

that would not be approved by the Führer. That is why it is with

the Führer, and not with me, that all decisions rest in economic

matters.”

As expected by Schacht, Hitler appreciated his merits at their full

value. On his advent to power in 1933 Hitler first appointed Schacht to

the post of president of the Reichsbank then to that of Reich Minister

of Economics and finally to the post of Plenipotentiary for War Economy.

The Prosecution and the proceedings have clearly proved the

extraordinary part played by Schacht in the preparation of Germany’s

armaments and, consequently, in the launching of aggressive wars. The

former War Minister, Von Blomberg, testified that in 1937 the plans of

the Armed Forces were nearing completion and that Schacht was informed

of these plans and of their financing.

Schacht was one of the most consistent supporters of the Nazi criminal

plans. In a talk with the United States Ambassador Fuller on 23

September 1936 Schacht stated that: “Germany absolutely needs colonies.

If it is possible, we shall acquire them by peaceful negotiations. If

not we shall seize them.”

Speaking in Vienna in March 1938 Schacht declared:

“Thank God, this could not hinder the great German people in its

forward march because Adolf Hitler unified German will and

German thought. He strengthened it with reborn armed forces and

in the end he gave an outer shape to the inner unity of Germany

and Austria.”

Defendant Schacht was entrusted with extraordinary powers in the sphere

of war economy.

Over a period of many years Schacht cumulated the functions of president

of the Reichsbank, Minister of Economics and Plenipotentiary for War

Economy. If only as a result of these important functions, the Defendant

Schacht played an enormous and decisive part in the creation and

resurrection of Nazi Germany’s war economy and Armed Forces. This part

of the Defendant Schacht is clearly described in the numerous laudatory

letters which he received from Hitler. The Defendant Schacht, and no

other, was the creator of the adventurous method of issuing so-called

mefo bills, by which 12 billion Reichsmark were allotted, apart from

budget allocations, to Germany’s economy for purposes of rearmament. As

mentioned before, the Defendant Schacht attempted, at various periods of

his activities, to stress his alleged and ever-increasing dissension

with the Nazi regime. In reality Schacht was playing a double game. On

the one hand he shielded himself from the responsibility for the

criminal policy of the Nazi Government by flirting with persons who

actually did strive to overthrow this regime; on the other hand he

remained loyal to the regime to all intents and purposes.

It was only in 1943, when the downfall of Nazi Germany became completely

apparent to such a hard-boiled politician as Schacht, that he contacted

more closely the circle of the opposition. However, true to himself, he

took precautions for any event and did not actually do anything

personally to overthrow the Nazi regime. That is why Hitler spared him.

This is the portrait of the Defendant Schacht, and this is the part he

played in Hitler’s conspiracy and war crimes. It is the part of the

creator of Nazi Germany’s war economy and of an instigator of the second

World War launched by the criminal Nazi Government.

Funk.

Walter Funk became a Nazi long before his official admission in 1931

into the membership of the NSDAP, and he remained a Nazi to the end. His

economic knowledge, his experience as a journalist, and his extensive

connections with the leaders of the German industry, trade, and finance

were placed by him at the service of the Hitlerite conspirators. An

article published in the newspaper _Das Reich_ on 13 August 1940, under

the heading “Walter Funk—A Pioneer of National Socialist Economic

Reasoning,” read as follows:

“Walter Funk remained true to his principles because he was, is,

and always will be a true National Socialist, a champion

devoting all his labors to the victory of the Führer’s ideals.”

The Führer’s ideals are only too well known. Funk devoted 15 years of

his life to these “ideals.” Funk declared that he had nothing in common

with the SS but it was he, Funk, who transformed the vaults of the

Reichsbank into depositories for the treasures plundered by the SS men

in the eastern and other occupied territories. Funk personally gave the

orders, after his negotiations with Himmler, to take into the Reichsbank

the gold teeth and plates, the spectacle frames and other valuables

belonging to the victims tortured to death in numerous concentration

camps.

The SS Gruppenführer Hayler was Funk’s deputy. Also under Funk’s

direction operated Ohlendorf, the murderer, with the death of 90,000

persons on his conscience.

Funk, in supplement of Schacht’s measures, placed the whole of Germany’s

economy at the service of Hitlerite plans for aggression and later on,

the economy of the territories occupied by Germany.

As early as May 1939 Funk, together with his deputy, Landfried,

elaborated plans for financing the war and the utilizing of all economic

resources of Germany and of occupied Czechoslovakia. On 23 June 1939,

Funk took part in the conference of the Reich Defense Council which

adopted detailed plans for the placing of all national economy on a war

footing.

Already at that time, Funk was not only informed of Germany’s impending

attack on Poland, was not only co-operating in the realization of this

aggressive plan, but was also economically preparing new war and the

seizure of new territories. These were the “Führer’s great political

aims” which were set out by Funk a few months later in his article

entitled “Economic and financial mobilization.”

I shall mention one more document; on 25 August 1939, Funk wrote to

Hitler:

“Generalfeldmarschall Göring told me that you, my Führer,

yesterday evening approved the main points of the measures

conceived by me for the financing of a war, stabilization of

prices, fixation of wages, and the organization of an obligatory

war contribution; this news made me profoundly happy.”

A long time before the treacherous attack of Germany against the

U.S.S.R., Funk participated in the elaboration of plans for the

spoliation of the riches of the Soviet Union. Funk attached his

collaborators to Rosenberg’s Ministry and to that predatory organization

Economic Staff East. Funk’s agents participated also in the plunder of

Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and other occupied countries. Funk was the

president of the “Continental Oil Company,” created for the exploitation

by the Germans of the crude oil wells in the Occupied Eastern

Territories, and especially, the oil fields of Grozny and Baku.

Funk was in full agreement with the predatory aims of the war launched

by Germany against the U.S.S.R. He made a speech on 17 December 1941 in

Prague, to the effect that the East was the future German colony. Funk

participated at the conference held on 6 August 1942 at Göring’s office

for the discussion of the most effective measures for the economic

plunder of the occupied territories of the Soviet Union, Poland,

Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, France, Norway and other countries.

At this conference, as well as at the conference of the Central Planning

Board, Funk participated in the drafting of plans for the deportation to

slavery of millions of people from the occupied territories.

Such are the fundamental stages in the criminal activities of that

Hitlerite conspirator, the Defendant Funk—Hitler’s personal adviser on

economic questions since 1931, Reich Minister and Plenipotentiary for

Economy, president of the Reichsbank and member of the Reich Defense

Council—during the period of the preparation and the realization of the

criminal plan, the conspiracy.

The guilt of Funk—this active participant of fascist conspiracy, for

the crimes against individuals, for war crimes and crimes against

humanity—has been fully proved and he must bear full responsibility for

the evil deeds perpetrated by him.

Schirach.

Since 1931 and until the end of the war the Defendant Baldur von

Schirach was at the head of the Nazi youth movement. After the

publication on 1 December 1936 of a decree concerning the Hitler Youth,

Von Schirach was, in his capacity as the Reich Youth Leader, directly

subordinated to Hitler.

In his deposition before the Court the Defendant Schirach, in his

efforts to evade the responsibility for the education of German youth in

the spirit of National Socialist ideas, made frequent references to the

fact that the Hitlerjugend was a youth organization independent of the

Nazi Party and the Hitlerite Government. To defend himself, the

Defendant Schirach considered it both possible and relevant to refer to

the great Goethe whose words—“youth itself educates young people”—he

quoted with open cynicism.

Goethe was, of course, right when he said that “youth itself educates

young people.” But he meant the healthy, normal, joyful youth, and not

youth morally corrupted with the obscurantism of the Hitlerites, so

clearly described by Hitler’s words addressed to Rauschning:

“We shall educate a youth before which the whole world shall

tremble, rough, exacting, cruel youth. That is what I want. Our

youth must possess all these qualities. It must be pitiless

before the sight of suffering. It must be without weakness or

softness. I want to see the glint of the wild animal in their

eyes.”

And the Defendant Schirach instilled systematically the ideas of

Hitlerism in the conscience of German youth and educated the German

youth in the spirit of Hitler’s wishes, modeling them after the image of

the arrant leaders of the Hitlerite gang.

During cross-examination, the Defendant Schirach was finally forced to

admit that the youth of Germany was brought up in the spirit of the

National Socialist idea; that members of the SA, officers of the German

Armed Forces and the SS participated in their education; and that

intense military training of the youth was being carried out in Germany.

For this purpose special agreements were made between the Reich leaders

of Hitlerjugend and the OKW, as represented by the Defendant Keitel and

the Reichsführer SS Himmler, which provided for the education of youth

in the spirit of aggressive militarism, and appropriate recruitment and

the preparation of youth for the Armed Forces and the units of the SS.

The part played by the Defendant Von Schirach and his participation in

the common conspiracy, in war crimes and crimes against humanity, are

characterized best of all by the behavior of German youth brought up in

Hitlerjugend during the war.

The Soviet Prosecution have presented to the Tribunal under Document

Number USSR-6, in conformity with Article 21 of the Charter, a report of

the Extraordinary State Commission about the crimes of the Germans on

the territory of Lvov. This report records the declaration of the French

citizen, Ida Vasseau, about the inhuman cruelty of the members of the

Hitlerjugend against young children, whom they used as targets for

shooting practice. In her written deposition of 16 May 1946, and also in

her answers to the questionnaire of counsel for the Defendant Schirach,

Ida Vasseau has fully confirmed this declaration.

Conclusive testimony about the actions of the members of the

Hitlerjugend within the cadre of the Armed Forces was given by a German

soldier, prisoner of war, Gert Knittel, himself a former member of the

Hitlerjugend since 1938 on, who in 1942 at the age of 18 enlisted in

German Army.

Describing his participation in numerous crimes, Gert Knittel declared:

“In the locality of Lishjask in June 1943 our company set fire

to a house with a number of people in it ... All who tried to

jump out of the house, we shot down, excepting one old woman

whom we did not shoot, as she lost her mind under our very eyes

...”

For all these crimes the Defendant Von Schirach bears full

responsibility together with this Gert Knittel and tens of thousands of

others.

Schirach himself did not, of course, shoot, did not set on fire; but he

did arm the German youth, morally corrupted them and prepared them for

the perpetration of every atrocity.

But the activities of the Hitlerjugend during the war and of the

Defendant Schirach were not limited only to these crimes. The

Hitlerjugend actively participated in the preparation of the war of

aggression by creating fifth columns in Poland and Yugoslavia; the

official reports of the Polish and the Yugoslav Governments testify to

this fact. The Hitlerjugend organization took an active part in the

execution of all the measures undertaken by the Ministry for the

Occupied Eastern Territories, and this is proved by the report of the

Defendant Rosenberg, presented to the Tribunal as Document Number

1039-PS; it also actively participated in the deportation for slavery,

from the occupied territories, of children between the ages of 10 and

14, which fact is proved by a document presented to the Tribunal under

Document Number 031-PS.

In his capacity of Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter of Vienna, Schirach

personally directed the eviction from Vienna of 60,000 Jews, who

subsequently were exterminated in the concentration camps of Poland. The

documents presented by the Prosecution—weekly reports addressed to

Schirach—prove the fact that he was informed of all the numerous crimes

perpetrated by the German Armed Forces and the occupational authorities

in the East and, in particular, about the tragic fate of the tens of

thousands of Jews deported from Vienna.

In 1940, the Defendant Schirach sent a telegram to Bormann, in which he

demanded the destruction from the air of one of the cultural towns of

Great Britain, as a reprisal for the murder of Heydrich, hangman of

Bohemia and Moravia. This telegram is in itself a sufficiently vivid and

convincing description of the moral aspect of Von Schirach’s character.

Faithful to the Hitlerite clique right until the end, aware of all its

criminal deeds, in which he himself had actively participated—the

Defendant Von Schirach is one of the most sinister figures of the Third

Reich.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 30 July at 1000 hours._]

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Punctuation and spelling have been maintained except where obvious

printer errors have occurred such as missing periods or commas for

periods. English and American spellings occur throughout the document;

however, American spellings are the rule, hence, “Defense” versus

“Defence”. Unlike Blue Series volumes I and II, this volume includes

French, German, Polish and Russian names and terms with diacriticals:

hence Führer, Göring, etc. throughout.

Although some sentences may appear to have incorrect spellings or verb

tenses, the original text has been maintained as it represents what the

tribunal read into the record and reflects the actual translations

between the German, English, French, and Russian documents presented in

the trial.

An attempt has been made to produce this eBook in a format as close as

possible to the original document presentation and layout.

As noted at the beginning of the volume: In respect to the presentation

of the final pleas by Counsel for the Defense, the Tribunal in several

instances directed that written speeches of excessive length be

shortened for oral presentation in Court and that notice would be taken

by the Tribunal of the paragraphs omitted. Such passages have been

reproduced in small type. For .txt files a “[sm type begins]” note

precedes the text and a “[sm type ends]” note follows the text to

identify these passages. Passages within the small text which would

normally be italics appear as gesperrt in non-txt formats and as _text_

in .txt.

[The end of _Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International

Military Tribunal Vol. 19_, by Various.]