COLONEL SMIRNOV: I have no more questions of the witness, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the other members of the Prosecution wish to ask any questions?
(The answer was in the negative).
Do any of the Defense Counsel wish to put any questions ?
(The answer was in the negative).
COLONEL SMIRNOV: May I saw a few words by way of concluding my report?
THE PRESIDENT: You may.
COLONEL SMIRNOV: Your Honors, in his Note of the 6th of January, 1942, the Peoples Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR stated that the Soviet Government considered it its duty to inform the entire civilized world and all honest citizens through the world of the monstrous crimes of the Hitlerite bandits. Victory over Fascist Germany was wen in battle by millions of honest people in this war, the greatest in scale in the history of the world. This International Tribunal was created by the will of millions of honest people, to judge the chief criminals of war, and each representative of the Prosecution feels back of him the invisible support of these millions of honest persons, in whose name he accuses the chiefs of the Fascist conspiracy. the honor of that task has fallen to my lot. I know that in this moment the millions of citizens of my carry together with the millions of honest persons throughout all countries of the world, await your just and speedy verdict. Let me end on that.
MR. DODO: (of the United States prosecution ). May it please the Tribunal, I have a few matters that will take but a few minutes, with respect to the record. taining to economic aspects of the conspiracy, certain documents were read from, but they werenot formally offered in evidence. At that time the Tribunal indicated that sufficient time had not been allowed Counsel for the Defense to make an examination of these documents, and we did not offer them, agreeing instead that we would make them available in the Defendants' Centre.
We did so, and they have been there all of the time since.
They should be formally offered. The extracts were read. There is no necessity of going through that again.
They are as follows:
EC-14, which we offer as USA Exhibit 758. Extracts from this document The next one is EC-27, which we offer as USA Exhibit 749.
Extracts The third one is EC-28, which we offer as USA Exhibit 760.
Extracts from this document were quoted on page 275 of the record.
On that page EC-174 was quoted from on pages 303 and 304 of the record.
We EC-252. Extracts from that were quoted on page 303 of the record.
EC-257. Extracts from this document were quoted on page 303 of the record.
We offer it as USA Exhibit 763.
EC-404. We summarized and quoted from this document on pages 291 and 292 of the record.
We now offer it as USA Exhibit 764.
it as USA Exhibit No. 765.
298 of the record, and we offer it as USA Exhibit No. 766.
and we offer it as USA Exhibit No. 767.
offered as USA Exhibit No. 768.
the record, and we offer it as USA Exhibit No. 769.
of the record, and we offer it as USA Exhibit No. 770.
Now in addition to these documents Lieutenant Bryson, who presented the case for the prosecution against the individual defendant Schacht, offered in evidence the documents EC437 and 258 in their entirety on the condition that the French and Russian translations subsequently would be filed with the Tribunal.
Now EC437 was assigned as USA Exhibit No. 624, and EC 258 was assigned as USA Exhibit 625, and the Tribunal ruled on page 2543 of the record that the documents would be received in their entirety only after the translations had been completed. Copies of these documents in all four languages have been filed with the Tribunal, and in the Defendants' Information Center, and that was done a few weeks ago. In accordance with the ruling of the Tribunal, we now offer these documents in evidence in their entirety , and we assume that they will retain the numbers USA Exhibit No.624, and USA Exhibit No. 625.
Schacht, which was recently submitted to the Tribunal and to the defendants' counsel, reference is made to a few documents which have not already, or heretofore, been offered in evidence. I think there is no necessity for taking the time of the Tribunal to read from these documents, and instead we have had pertinent extracts made available in German, French, Russian and English, and, copies in all the four languages have already been distributed to the Tribunal, and placed in the Defendants' Information Center. They have these documents, and we ask that they be received in evidence. They are EC384, which we offer as USA Exhibit No. 771, and EC406, which we offer as USA Exhibit No. 772. EC456 which is offered as USA Exhibit No. 773. EC495 which is offered as USA Exhibit No. 774. EC497 which is offered as USA Exhibit No. 775. 1945, which is one of those referred to in the Trial Brief as USA Exhibit No. 776, and finally, with respect to this economic aspect of the file, we respectively ask that the secret minutes of the meeting of the Ministers, date 30 May 1930, which are included as State documents No. 1301-PS, and which is assigned USA Exhibit No. 123, be received in evidence in their entirety. These minutes have been made available to the Tribunal, and the defendants' counsel in all four languages.
I also wish to refer to document No. 1639-PS, which we offer as --
DR. DIX: I am Dr. Dix for the defendant Schacht. The prosecution has jus made the motion to accept in evidence a number of documents concerning the defendant Schacht, and they have to offer them at this time. These documents are contained in a supplementary volume which we received after the special case against the defendant Schacht had been finished, or a short time afterwards. procedure provided by the Court, and the Tribunal agreed with it, as a consequence, for the defendants counsel, that we have to follow this procedure, and we agree to that fact; but we have to be in a position also after finishing the whole case, or proof in favor of our clients at a later date to prevent introduction of such material, or of documents, if they can still add in favor of our plans.
witnesses, and I should like to ask the Tribunal to make a decision to give us the information on this point.
THE PRESIDENT: I shall say, Dr. Dix, the Tribunal believes that the prosecution is entitled to apply, as they have applied, and to have any of these documents admitted in evidence, and, similarly, that the defendants will be entitled to apply to have any documents which they offer in evidence in presenting the individual defendants' cases, as they come to an end.
DR. DIX: Thank you, sir.
MR. DODD: Now I wish to refer to document bearing our number 16398-PS, which we wish to offer as USA Exhibit No. 777. For the benefit of the Tribunal this document is entitled "Mobilization Book for the Civil Administration," and a 1939 edition. It was published in February, or, about in February 1939, over the signature of the defendant Keitel, the Chief of the OKN. It is classified "Top Secret," and was distributed in 125 copies to the higher Reich Ministry, as well as to the Army, Navy and Air Force. In its original form the document runs to some 150 pages. We have had translated into English, Russian and French pages 2 to 18, which gives the essential text of the document. It appears froma statement in the document itself, that the "Mobilization Book" had previously been issued, and was revised annually. This particular book which we introduce, or offer to introduce, was effective the 1st day of April 1939, and this was the operative basis that was used for the mobilization calendar at the time the Nazis launched their aggression against Poland. dealing with the Nazi plan and preparation for the aggression, because the "Mobilization Book" or such a "Mobilization Book" had been in effect for a year prior to 1939. and 1938 which are contained, in Documents 2261-PS and 2194-PS, introduced before the Tribunal as Exhibits USA Nos. 24 and 36 respectively. preparations for aggressive war. That portion of the Prosecution's case dealin with Nazi preparations for aggression was presented by Mr. Alderman of the American Prosecution staff at the morning and afternoon sessions of the Tribunal on November 27, 1945, and may be found at pages 399 to 464 of the record.
assume that it is not necessary to read it into the record, but we do wish to quote, however, directly, two extracts -- we will withdraw that. They are included in the translation and I see no necessity for reading them over the translation system. for the United States in his opening address, and it is the only document there, in referred to which has not been offered formally to the Tribunal in evidence.
I should like to take up one other matter. I wish to move to strike one piece of evidence offered by the Prosecution and by an American member of the Prosecution. in the record was presented on behalf of the United States Chief Prosecutor. A further examination of this document indicates to us that there is some grave question as to its authenticity, although, of course, at the time we believed that it was authentic. We have reason now for having grave doubt about it. be stricken. It reads as follows -- it is only three brief paragraphs. Quoting from the record at that page, 2760:
"Now, in concluding the question of the ideological significance of the Hitler Youth, I would like to ask your indulgence while I make a short quotatio from that master ideological leader, the defendant Alfred Rosenberg, found in Document 130-PS, your document book page 122, which is offered as U.S. Exhibit 672. Rosenberg was making an answer to some inquiries of the defendant Bormann about the expediency of initiating some legal proceedings against the churches in 1939. Rosenberg replied, apparently inclosing an article which he had writt the year before, and it is from this article that I wish to quote. Quoting fro the article, from Document 130-PS:
"'We have made quite some progress in carrying the N.S. ideology to German youth. But what there is still left of Catholic youth are only small groups which will be absorbed as time goes on. The Hitler Youth is the absorbing sponge which nobody can resist.
Furthermore, our program for educational categories of our schools has been built up already with such an antiChristian and anti-Jewish tendency that the generations growing up now will be safe from the black swindle,'" That is the end of the quotation from the document.
Then the prosecutor representing the U. S. Chief Prosecutor went on to say, quoting from that page of the record:
"That is on pages 122 and 123. The quotation is from page.
123. The document begins at page 122; all underlined in red. I use that extract, your Honor, in connection with the expectancy of these conspirators themselves with respect to the Hitler Youth and what it was to do to the minds of young Germans."
document, and it was misunderstood when offered. Actually, it was found in the files of the defendant Rosenberg, but it amounts to a letter from the defendant Bormann to the defendant Rosenberg, enclosing what was a pamphlet or a throwaway or a scatter-paper, calling the defendant Rosenberg's attention to it, and this quotation was read from that pamphlet, so we ask that it be stricken from the record, and I assume there is no objection.
THE PRESIDENT: Has the defendant Rosenberg's counsel any objection to this being struck out of the record?
DR. THOMA: I have no objection to make, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Then it will be struck out.
MR. DODD: I have only one last matter, which I am sure I can conclude before the usual recess time. defendant Ribbentrop, our distinguished colleague Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, the Deputy Chief British Prosecutor, introduced Document 3358-PS as Exhibit GB-158. This was on the 9th day of January, 1946, and may be found at page 2380 of the record. January 1939, and it is on the subject of the "Jewish Question as a Factor in German Foreign Policy in the Year 1938." Sir David read portions of this document into the record, including the first sentence of the full paragraph appearing on page 3 of the English translation of the document. agreed that we might ask the permission of the Tribunal to add two more sentences to the quotation which he read, because we feel, and Sir David feels with us, that the additional two sentences which follow immediately the sentence which he read add something to the proof with reference to the persecution of the Jews as related to crimes against peace. It is desired, therefore, by the Prosecution, that the entire paragraph on page 3 of the English translation of this document be considered as in evidence by the Tribunal, and in accordance with the ruling of the Tribunal generally made as to other such situations, we submit now an English, German, French, and Russian translation of that entire paragraph to obviate the necessity of reading it, and the original, of course, is in the German language.
It is a very brief paragraph, but I don't think that the Tribunal would care to have me read it, even to take a minute or two. It is already in the record. It is only two sentences. It does not wrench anything from the text; in our opinion, it only adds a little to the proof. It you would like to have it read, I can do so.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think we would.
MR. DODD: The sentence read by Sir David reads as follows:
"It is certainly no coincidence that the fateful year 1938 has brought nearer the solution of the Jewish question simultaneously with the realization of the idea of greater Germany, since the Jewish policy was both the basis and consequence of the events of the year 1938." on the 9th day of January, at page 2380. We wish to add the following, beginning right after that sentence:
"The advance made by Jewish influence and the destructive Jewish spirit in politics, economy, and culture, paralyzed the power and the will of the German people to rise again, or perhaps even in the power policy opposition of the former enemy allied powers of the World War." well:
"The healing of this sickness among the people was therefore certainly one of the most important requirements for exerting the force which in the year 1938 resulted in the joining together of greater Germany in defiance of the world." persecution of the Jesw.
THE PRESIDENT: Some time ago I wrote to Mr. Justice Jackson on behalf of the Tribunal, asking whether a list of the persons who formed the German General Staff could be submitted to the Tribunal.
Has that been done?
MR. DODD: I am familiar with that communication. I recall Mr. Justice Jacks n's showing it to me.
If it has not been done, it shall be done directly. It may have been overlooked.
THE PRESIDENT: I had a letter back from Mr. Justice Jackson saying that it should be done.
MR. DODD: Yes, I recall it.
THE PRESIDENT: And I will be glad if you will verify that it has been done.
MR. DODD: I am afraid I must say that if it hasn't been done, it is probably my fault. I recall the Justice handing it to me, and I think I passed it to Colonel Taylor's organization, but I will check up on it and see that it is delivered.
THE PRESIDENT: It will be an appropriate time for it to be done, I should think, during the course of the argument on the organizations, if it hasn't been done.
MR. DODD: Very well.
THE PRESIDENT: And an affidavit accompanying it, showing how it has been made up.
MR. DODD: Very well, your Honor.
Lt. Margolies tells me he thinks it has just been sent a few days ago, but he is not certain.
THE PRESIDENT: He thinks it has been done?
MR. DODD: He thinks so, but we will look into it.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
Then, tomorrow morning at 10:00 o'clock counsel for the Prosecution will be ready, will they, to argue the case of the organizations which they asked to be declared criminal under Article 9 of the Charter?
MR. DODD: The Prosecution is prepared to be heard tomorrow morning at 10:00 o'clock on that.
THE PRESIDENT: And counsel for the various organizations are prepared to argue against that?
Then it is understood that at 10:00 o'clock tomorrow the Tribunal will sit for that purpose and will continue until the argument is concluded.
DR. KUBUSCHOK (Counsel for the Reich Cabinet): The counsel for the organisations are ready, according to the suggestion of the Court, to enter in the discussion of the case against their clients tomorrow.
The Prosecution has supported them in so far as they have presented the basic document for the accusation. it be discussed tomorrow, but that these new legalistic questions should be discussed, in so far as they are relevant, for the examination of the extent and the relevancy of the matters of proof, the defense counsel for the organizations will be very glad if the prosecution will make available to us the speech which they are going to make on legal questions, since we would like to answer immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't know, but we haven't had any copy of any written argument presented to us. I don't/whether counsel for the Prosecution would say whether they have any written argument.
MR. DODD: Well, Sir David can say much better for himself. What I was going to say is what I said previously, that I am informed that he has already presented his outline to both the Tribunal and to counsel.
Mr. Justice Jackson is still working on his remarks, and while he did hope to submit a draft, late communications were received only this morning from interested persons in the war Department that have made it necessary for him to work right up to now, and therefore we are faced with the practical difficulty of not having a prepared statement to submit.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: May it please the Tribunal, I have prepared two appendices which endeavor to cover the first two points in the Tribunal's statement of January, the elements of criminality and the connected defendants mentioned in Article 9 of the charter. I have arranged that copies in German should be given to all the defense counsel. I hope everyone has got a copy. I have also arranged that copies be submitted to the Tribunal. and in some cases to the documents on each of the points, and I am afraid that is in English, but it is reference to paragraphs, so it shouldn't be difficult for the defense counsel to fit it into their document.
Justice's speech and mine. What, I intended to add was largely on the facts which I have endeavored to put before the defense counsel already, but if the defense counsel for the organizations would care to hear informally what is the sort of general line, I should be very pleased to tell them if it would be any help. I want to help in any way I can.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very well.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 28 February 1946 at 1000 hours);
Official transcript of the International
DR. HORN (Counsel for Defendant Ribbentrop): Mr. President, when on Monday I made my motion to call the witness Winston Churchill, and when I wanted to bring grounds, the Court asked me to present that in writing so that the Tribunal may make a decision. been made, on the 26th of February, before the Tribunal has received my written statement. I assume that there must be a mistake, and I ask the Tribunal, under consideration of the reasons for my written motion, to reconsider that question.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will reconsider the matter. Do you propose, Mr. Justice Jackson, to argue first on the question of the organizations?
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: If that is agreeable to the Tribunal. We are taking up, as I understand it, the deferred subject of the rules which should guide in governing the criminality of organizations, partly upon our initiative and partly in response to the questions propounded by the Tribunal. difficult problems of law and administration. Being the first such surrender of an entire and modernly organized society, precedents and part experiences are of little help in guiding our policy toward the vanquished. whole people certainly must include a duty to discriminate justly and intelligently between the opposing elements of that population which bore dissimilar relations to the policies and conduct which led to the catastrophe. This differentiation is the object of those provisions of the Charter which authorize this Tribunal to declare organizations or groups to be criminal. essential to its interpretation and application.
surrender was that the state itself played only a subordinate role in the exercise of political power, while the really drastic controls over German society were organized outside of the nominal government. This was accomplished through an elaborate network of closely knit and exclusive organizations of selected volunteers, both bound to execute without delay and without question the commands of the Nazi leaders. subdivided into little Nazi principalities of about fifth households each, and every such community had its recognized Party leaders, Party police, and its undercover spies. Those were combined into larger units with higher ranking leaders, executioners, and spies, the whole forming a pyramid of power outside of the law, with the Fuehrer at its apex, the loval Party officials constituting its broad base, which rested heavily on the German population. Def endants alone. A thousand little fuehrers dictated; a thousand imitation Goerings strutted; a thousand Schirachs incited the youth; a thousand Sauckels worked slaves; a thousand Streichers and Rosenbergs stirred up hate; a thousand Kaltenbrunners and Franks tortured and killed; a thousand Schachts and Speers and Funks administered and supported and financed this movement. hamlet. The Party power resulting from this system of organizations first rivaled and then dominated the power of the state itself. The primary vice of this web of organizations was that they were used to transfer the power of coercing men from the government and the law to the Nazi leaders. Liberty, self-government, and security of person and property do not exist except where the power of coercion is possessed only by the state and is exercised only in obedience to law. The Nazis, however, set up this private system of coercion outside of and in immunity from the law, with Party controlled concentration camps and firing squads to administer privately decreed sanctions. were enabled to seize property and take away liberty and even take life itself.
extremes of the Nazi movement. They served chiefly to exploit mob psychology and to manipulate the mob. Multiplying the numbers of persons in a common enterprise always tends to diminish the individual's sense of moral responsibility and to increase his sense of security. The Nazi leaders were masters of this technique. They manipulated these organizations to make before the German populace impressive exhibitions of numbers and of power, which have already been shown on the screen. These were used to incite a mob spirit and then riotously to gratify the popular hates they had inflamed and the Germanic ambition they had inflated. They provided the systematized, aggressive, and disciplined execution throughout Germany and the occupied countries of the plan for crimes which we have proven. The flowering of this system is represented in the fanatical SS General Ohlendorf, who told this Tribunal without shame or trace of pity how he personally directed the putting to death of 90,000 men, women and children. No tribunal ever listened to a recital of such wholesale murder as this Tribunal heard from him and from Wisliceny, a fellow officer of the SS. Their own testimony shows the SS responsibility for the extermination that organization welcomed and discharged methodically, remorselessly and thoroughly. These crimes with which we deal are unprecedented, first because of the shocking numbers of victims. They are even more shocking and unprecedented because of the large number of people who united to perpetrate them. All scruple or conscience of a very large segment of the German people was committed to the keeping of these organizations, and their devotees felt no personal sense of guilt as they went from one extreme to another. On the other hand, they developed a contest in cruelty and a competition in crime. Ohlendorf from the witness stand accused other SS commanders, whose killings exceeded his, of "exaggerating" their figures which imposed upon passive, unorganized and inarticulate Germans the same burdens as upon those who voluntarily handed themselves together in these powerful, and notorious gangs. One of the basic requirements both of justice and of successful administration of the occupation responsibility of our four countries, is a seggregation of these organized elements from the masses of Germans for seperate treatment.
this web of organized bodies in the midst of post-war society would be to foster the nucleus of a new Nazidom. These members are accustomed to an established chain of centralized command, they have formed a habit and developed a technique of both secret and open cooperation. They still nourish a blind devotion to the suspended, but not abandoned, Nazi program. They will keep alive the hates and ambitions which generated the orgy of crime we have proved. These organizations are carriers, from this generation to the next, of the infection of aggressive and rughless war. The Tribunal has seen on the screen how easily an assemblage that ostensibly is only a common labor force can be in fact a military outfit training with shovels. The next war and the next pogroms will be hatched in the nests of these organizations as surely as we leave their membership with its prestige and influence undiminished by condemnation and punishment. consider the demoralized state of German society. It will be years before there can be established in the German State any political authority that is not inexperienced and provisional. It cannot quickly acquire the stability of a government aided by long habit of obedience and traditional respect. The intrique, obstruction, and possible overthrow, which older and established governments always fear from conspiratorial groups, is a real and present danger to any stable social order in the Germany of today and of tomorrow. retribution, it is obvious that it could not overlook these organized instruments and instigators of past crimes. In opening this case, I said that the United States does not seek to convict the whole German people of crime. But it is equally important that this trial shall not serve to absolve the whole German people except 22 men in the dock. The wrongs that have been done to the world by these defendants and their top confederates was not done by their will and their strength alone. The success of their designs was made possible because great numbers of Germans organized themselves to become the fulcrum and the lever by which the power of these leaders was extended and magnified.
If this trial fails to condemn these organized confederates for their share of responsibility for this catastrophe, it will be construed as their exoneration.
But the Charter was not concerned with retributive justice alone. It manifests a constructive policy influenced by exemplary and preventive considerations. The primary objective of requiring that the surrender of Germany be unconditional was to clear the way for a reconstruction of German society on such a basis that it will not again threaten the peace of Europe and of the world. Temporary measures of the occupation authorities may, by necessity, and I mean no criticism of them, have been more arbitrary and applied with less discrimination than befits a permanent policy. For example, under existing denazification policy, no member of the Nazi party or its formations may be employed in and position, other than ordinary labor, in any business enterprise unless he is found to have been only a nominal Nazi. Persons in certain categories whose standing in the community is one of prominence or influence, are required to be, and others may be, denied further participation in their businesses or professions. It is mandatory to remove or exclude from public office and from positions of importance in quasi-public and private enterprises persons falling within about 90 specified categories deemed to consist of either active Nazis, Nazi supporters, or militarists. Property of such persons is blocked. of this Charter, that a permanent long-term program should be based on a more careful and more individual discrimination than was possible with sweeping temporary measures. There is a movement now within the Control Council for reconsideration of its whole denazification policy and procedure. The action of this Tribunal in declaring, or in failing to declare, an accused organization criminal has a vital bearing or this future occupation policy. Tribunal and its judgment to identify and condemn those Nazi and militaristic forces that were so strongly organized as to constitute a continuing menace to the long-term objectives for which our respective countries have spent their young lives.
It is in the light of this great purpose that we must examine the provisions of this Charter. without some modification, be adapted to this task. No system of jurisprudence has yet evolved any satisfactory technique for handling a great number of common charges against a great multitude of accused persons. The number of individual defendants that fairly can be tried in a single proceeding probably does not greatly exceed the number now in your dock. Also, the number of separate trials in which the same voluminous evidence as to a common plan must be repeated is very limited in actual practice. Yet adversary proceedings of the type in which we are engaged are the best assurance the law has ever involved that decisions will be well considered and just. The task of the framers of the Charter was to find some way to overcome the obstacles to practicable and early decision without sacrificing the fairness implicit in hearings. The solution prescribed by the Charter is certainly not faultless, but not one of its critics has ever proposed an alternative that would not either deprive the individual of all hearing or contemplate such a multitude of long trials that it would break down and be impracticable. In any case, this Charter is the plan adopted by our respective governments and our duty here is to make it work. of the general issues which would be common to all individual trials from the particular issues which would differ in each trial. The plan is comparable to that employed in certain war-time legislation of the United States dealt with in the case of Yakus v. United States, in which questions as to the due process quality of the order must be determined in a separate tribunal and cannot be raised by a defendant when he is defending on indictment. Those countries which do not have written constitutions and constitutional issues may find it difficult to follow the logic of that decision, but essentially the plan was to separate general issues relative to the order as a whole from specific issues which would arise when an individual was confronted with a charge of guilt.