The acquittal of Defendant Hans Fritzsche follows from the reasoning
that Fritzsche, allegedly, had not reached in Germany the official
position making him responsible for the criminal actions of the Hitler
regime and that his own personal activity in this respect cannot be
considered criminal. The verdict characterizes him as a secondary figure
carrying out the directives of Goebbels and Von Ribbentrop, and of the
Reich Press Director Dietrich.
The verdict does not take into consideration or mention the fact that it
was Fritzsche who until 1942 was the director _de facto_ of the Reich
press and that, according to himself, subsequent to 1942 he became the
“commander-in-chief of the German radio” (Transcript, Morning Session,
23 January 1946).
For the correct definition of the role of Defendant Hans Fritzsche it is
necessary, firstly, to keep clearly in mind the importance attached by
Hitler and his closest associates (as Göring, for example) to propaganda
in general and to radio propaganda in particular. This was considered
one of the most important and essential factors in the success of
conducting an aggressive war.
In the Germany of Hitler, propaganda was invariably a factor in
preparing and conducting acts of aggression and in training the German
populace to accept obediently the criminal enterprises of German
fascism.
The aims of these enterprises were served by a huge and well centralized
propaganda machinery. With the help of the police controls and of a
system of censorship it was possible to do away altogether with the
freedom of press and of speech.
The basic method of the Nazi propagandistic activity lay in the false
presentation of facts. This is stated quite frankly in Hitler’s _Mein
Kampf_: “With the help of a skilful and continuous application of
propaganda it is possible to make the people conceive even of heaven as
hell and also make them consider heavenly the most miserly existence”
(USA-276).
The dissemination of provocative lies and the systematic deception of
public opinion were as necessary to the Hitlerites for the realization
of their plans as were the production of armaments and the drafting of
military plans. Without propaganda, founded on the total eclipse of the
freedom of press and of speech, it would not have been possible for
German fascism to realize its aggressive intentions, to lay the
groundwork and then to put to practice the War Crimes and the Crimes
against Humanity.
In the propaganda system of the Hitler State it was the daily press and
the radio that were the most important weapons.
In his court testimony, Defendant Göring named three factors as
essential in the successful conduct of modern war according to the Nazi
concept, namely, (1) the military operations of the armed forces, (2)
economic warfare, (3) propaganda. With reference to the latter he said:
“For what great importance the war of propaganda had, enemy
propaganda which extended by way of radio far into the
hinterland, no one has experienced more strongly than Germany”
(Transcript, Afternoon Session, 15 March 1946).
With such concepts in ascendance it is impossible to suppose that the
supreme rulers of the Reich would appoint to the post of the Director of
Radio Propaganda who supervised radio activity of all the broadcasting
companies and directed their propagandistic content—a man they
considered a secondary figure.
The point of view of the verdict contradicts both the evidence submitted
and the actual state of affairs.
Beginning with 1942 and into 1945 Fritzsche was not only Chief of the
Radio Department of the Reich Ministry of Propaganda but also
“Plenipotentiary for the Political Organization of Radio in Greater
Germany”. This circumstance is fully proven by the sworn affidavit of
Fritzsche himself (PS-3469, USA-721). It thus follows that not at all
was Fritzsche merely “one of the 12 departmental chiefs in the Ministry
of Propaganda” who acquired responsibility for all radio propaganda only
toward the end of the war, as the verdict asserts.
Fritzsche was the political director of the German radio up and into
1945, i. e., up to the moment of German defeat and capitulation. For
this reason it is Fritzsche who bears responsibility for the false and
provocative broadcasts of the German radio during the years of the war.
As Chief of the Press Section inside Germany it was also Fritzsche who
was responsible for the activity of the German daily press consisting of
2,300 newspapers. It was Fritzsche who created and perfected the
Information Section winning from the Reich Government for the purpose an
increase in the subsidy granted the newspapers from 400,000 to 4,000,000
marks. Subsequently Fritzsche participated energetically in the
development of the propaganda campaigns preparatory to the acts of
aggression against Czechoslovakia and Poland. (Transcript, Morning
Session, 23 January 1946). A similar active propaganda campaign was
conducted by the defendant prior to the attack on Yugoslavia as he
himself admitted on oath in Court (Transcript, Morning Session, 23
January 1946).
Fritzsche was informed of the plan to attack the Soviet Union and was
made _au courant_ of the military intentions at a conference with
Rosenberg (PS-1039, USA-146, “Rosenberg’s Written Report to Hitler on
the Subject of Preliminary Work in Eastern European Questions”).
Fritzsche headed the German press campaign falsifying reports of
Germany’s aggressive war against France, England, Norway, the Soviet
Union, the United States, and the other States.
The assertion that Fritzsche was not informed of the War Crimes and the
Crimes against Humanity then being perpetrated by the Hitlerites in the
occupied regions does not agree with the facts. From Fritzsche’s
testimony in Court it is obvious that already in May 1942, while in the
Propaganda Section of the 6th Army, he was aware of Hitler’s decree
ordering execution for all Soviet political workers and Soviet
intellectuals, the so-called “Commissar Decree” (Transcript, Afternoon
Session, 27 June 1946). It is also established that already at the
beginning of hostilities Fritzsche was fully aware of the fact that the
Nazis were carrying out their decision to do away with all Jews in
Europe. For instance, when commenting on Hitler s statement that “among
results of the war there will be the annihilation of the Jewish race in
Europe” (Transcript, Afternoon Session, 22 November 1945), Fritzsche
stated that: “As the Führer predicted it would occur in the event of war
in Europe, the fate of the European Jewry turned out to be quite sad”
(Transcript, Morning Session, 23 January 1946). It is further
established that the defendant systematically preached the anti-social
theory of race hatred and characterized peoples inhabiting countries
victimized by aggression as “sub-humans” (Transcript, Afternoon Session,
27 June 1946; Transcript, Morning Session, 28 June 1946).
When the fate of Nazi Germany became clear, Fritzsche came out with
energetic support of the Defendant Martin Bormann and of other fanatical
Hitler adherents who organized the undercover fascist association, the
so-called “Werewolf”.
On 7 April 1945, for example, in his last radio address, Fritzsche
agitated for all the civilian population of Germany to take active part
in the activities of this terroristic Nazi underground organization.
He said:
“Let no one be surprised to find the civilian population,
wearing civilian clothes, still continuing the fight in the
regions already occupied and even after occupation has taken
place. We shall call this phenomenon “Werewolf” since it will
have arisen without any preliminary planning and without a
definite organization, out of the very instinct of life.”
(USSR-496)
In his radio addresses Fritzsche welcomed the German use of the new
terror weapons in conducting the war, specifically the use of the “V”
rockets. On receiving a plan for the introduction of bacterial warfare
he immediately forwarded it to the OKW for acceptance. (USSR-484;
Evidence submitted during the Afternoon Session, 28 June 1946)
I consider Fritzsche’s responsibility fully proven. His activity had a
most basic relation to the preparation and the conduct of aggressive
warfare as well as to the other crimes of the Hitler regime.