We have seen, in January, his own orders for preparations to invade Yugoslavia and then Greece.
And now, on the 25th of March, he is signing a pact with that country and his Foreign Minister is writing assurances of respect for her sovereignty and territorial integrity.
As a result of the signing of that pact, an anti-Nazi element in Yugoslavia immediately accomplished a coup d'etat and established a new government. And thereupon, no longer prepared to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of her ally, Germany immediately took the decision to invade. On the 27th of March, two days after the three-power pact had been signed, Hitler issued instructions that Yugoslavia was to be invaded and used as a base for the continuance of the combined German and Italian operation against Greece.
Following that, further deployment and instructions for the action Marita were issued by von Brauchitsch on the 30th of March, 1941.
It was stated -- and I quote -- that "the orders issued with regard to the operation against Greece remain valid so far as not affected by this order. On the 5th April, weather permitting, the Air Forces are to attack troops in Yugoslavia, while simultaneously the attack of the 12th Army begins against both Yugoslavia and Greece."
As we now know, the invasion actually commenced in the early hours of the 6th of April.
Treaties, pacts, assurances, obligations of any kind, are brushed aside and ignored wherever the aggressive interests of Germany are concerned.
I turn now to the last act of aggression in Europe -- my American colleagues will deal with the position in relation to Japan -- I turn now to the last act of aggression in Europe with which these Nazi conspirators are charged, the attack upon Russia.
In August of 1939 Germany, although undoubtedly intending to attack Russia at some convenient opportunity, concluded a treaty of non-aggression with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. When Belgium and the low countries were occupied and France collapsed in June of 1940, England -- although with the inestimably valuable moral and economic support of the United States of America -- was left alone in the field as the sole representative of democracy in the face of the forces ofaggression.
At that moment only the British Empire stood between Germany and the achievement of her aim to dominate the Western World. Only the British Empire -- only England as its citadel. But it was enough. The first, and possibly the decisive, military defeat which the enemy sustained was in the campaign against England; and that defeat had a profound influence on the future course of the war.
On the 16th of July of 1940 Hitler issued to the Defendants Keitel and Jodl a directive -- which they found themselves unable to obey -- for the invasion of England. It started off -- and Englishmen will forever be proud of it -- by saying that:
"Since England, despite her militarily hopeless situation, shows no signs of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England and if necessary to carry it out. The aim is to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the carrying on of the war against Germany. The preparations for the entire operation must be completed by mid-August."
But the first essential condition for that plan was -- and I quote -"that the British Air Force must morally and actually be so far overcome that it does not any longer show any considerable aggressive force against the German attack."
The Defendant Goering and his Air Force, no doubt, made the most strenuous efforts to realize that condition, but, in one of the most splendid pages of our history, it was decisively defeated. And although the bombardment of England's towns and villages was continued throughout thatdark winter of 1940-41, the enemy decided in the end that England was not to be subjugated by these means, and, accordingly, Germany turned back to the East, the first major aim unachieved.
On the 22nd of June, 1941, German armed forces invaded Russia, without warning, without declaration of war.
It was, of course, a breach of the usual series of Treaties; they meant no more in this case than they had meant in the other cases.
It Was a violation of the Pact of Paris; it was a flagrant contradiction of the treaty of non-aggression which Germany and Russia had signed on the 23rd of August a year before.
Hitler himself said, inreferring to that agreement, that agreements were only to be kept as long as they served a purpose.
The Defendant Ribbentrop was more explicit. In an interview with the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin on the 23rd of February 1941, he made it clear that the object of the agreement had merely been, so far as Germany was concerned, to avoid a two-front war.
In contrast to what Hitler and Ribbentrop and the rest of them were planning within the secret councils of Germany, we know what they were saying to the rest of the world.
On the 19th of July, Hitler spoke in the Reichstag: "In these circumstances", he said, "I considered it proper to negotiate as a first priority a sober definition of interests with Russia. It would be made clear once and for all what Germany believes she must regard as her sphere of interest to safeguard her future and, on the other hand, what Russia considers important for her existence."
From this clear delineation of the sphere of interest there followed the new regulation of Russo-German relations.
"Any hope that now at the end of the term of the agreement a new Russo-German tension could arise is childish. Germany has taken no step which would lead her outside her sphere of interest, nor has Russia. But England's hope, to achieve an amelioration of her own position through the engineering of some new European crisis, is, in so far as it is concerned with Russo-German relations, an illusion.
"English statesmen perceive everything somewhat slowly, but they too will learn to understand this in the course of time."
The whole statement was, of course, a tissue of lies. It was not many months after it had been made that the arrangements for attacking Russia were put into hand. The Defendant Raeder gives us the probable reasons for it, in a note which he sent to Admiral Assmann:
"The fear that control of the air over the Channel in the Autumn of 1940 could no longer be attained, a realization which the Fuehrer no doubt gained earlier than the Naval War Staff, who were not so fully informed of the true results of air raids on England (our own losses), surely caused the Fuehrer, as far back as August and September"--this was August and September of 1940--"to consider whether, even prior to victory in the West, an Eastern campaign would be feasible with the object of first eliminating our last serious opponent on the Continent. The Fuehrer did not openly express this fear, however, until well into September."
He may not have spoken to the Navy of his intentions until later in September, but by the beginning of that month he had undoubtedly told the Defendant Jodl about them.
Dated the 6th of September, 1940, we have a directive of the OKW signed by the Defendant Jodl; and I quote:
"Directions are given for the occupation forces in the East to be increased in the following week.
For security reasons this should not create the impression in Russia that Germany is preparing for an eastern offensive."
Directives are given to the German Intelligence Service pertaining to the answering of questions by the Russian Intelligence Service, and I quote:
"The total strength of the German troops in the East is to be camouflaged by frequent changes in this area. The impression is to be created that the bulk of the troops in the South have moved, whilst the occupation in the North is only very small."
And so we see the beginning of the operations.
On the 12th of November, 1940, Hitler issued a directive signed by the Defendant Jodl in which it was stated that the political task to determine the attitude of Russia had begun, but without reference to the result of preparations against the East, which had been ordered orally.
It is not to be supposed that the USSR would have taken part in any conversations at that time if it had been realized that on the very day orders were being given for preparations to be made for the invasion of Russia, the order for the operation, which was called the plan Barbarossa, was in active preparation. On the 16th of November the order was issued, and I quote:
"The German armed forces have to be ready to defeat Soviet Russia in a swift campaign before the end of the war against Great Britain."
And later, in the same instruction--and I quote again:
"All orders which shall be issued by the High Commanders in accordance with this instruction have to be clothed in such terms that they may be taken as measures of precaution in case Russia should change her present attitude towards ourselves."
Germany kept up the pretense of friendliness and, on the 10th of January 1941, well after the Plan Barbarossa for the invasion of Russia had been decided upon, Germany signed the German-Russo frontier treaty.
Less than a month later, on the 3rd of February of 1941, Hitler held a conference, attended by the Defendants Keitel and Jodl, at which it was provided that the whole operation against Russia was to be camouflaged as if it was part of the preparation for the Seelowe, as the plan for the invasion of England was described.
By March of 1941 plans were sufficiently advanced to include provision for dividing the Russian territory into nine separate states to be administered under Reich Commissars, under the general control of the Defendant Rosenberg; and at the same time detailed plans for the economic exploitation of the country were made under the supervision of the Defendant Goering, to whom the responsibility in this matter--and it is a serious one--had been delegated by Hitler.
You will hear something of the details of these plans. I remind you of one document which has already been referred to in this connection.
It is significant that on the 2nd of May of 1941 a conference of State Secretaries took place in regard to the Plan Barbarossa, and in the course of that it was noted:
"1. The war can only be continued if all armed forces are fed out of Russia in the third year of the war.
"2. There is no doubt that as a result many millions of people will be starved to death if we take out of the country the things necessary for us".But that apparently caused no concern.
The Plan Oldenberg, as the scheme for economic organization, went on.
By the 1st May 1941, the D-day of the operation had been fixed.
By the 1st June preparations were virtually complete and an elaborate time-table was issued.
It was estima ted that although there would be heavy frontier battles, lasting perhaps four weeks, after that no serious opposition was to be expected.
On the 22nd June, at 3.30 in the morning, the German armies marched again.
As Hitler said in his proclamation to them: "I have decided to give the fate of the German people and of the Reich and of Europe again into the hands of our soldiers."
The usual false pretexts were, of course, given. Ribbentrop stated on the 28th June that the step was taken because of the threatening of the German frontiers by the Red Army.
It was a lie, and the Defendant Ribbentrop knew it was a lie.
On the 7th June, 1941, Ribbentrop's own Ambassador in Moscow was reporting to him, and I quote, that "All obsertations show that Stalin and Molotov, who are alone responsible for Russian foreign policy, are doing everything to avoid a conflict with Germany."
The staff records which you will see make it clear that the Russians were making no military preparations and that they were continuing their deliveries under the Trade Agreement to the very last day.
The truth is, of course, that the elimination of Russia as a political opponent and the incorporation of the Soviet territory in the German Labenstraum had been one of the cardinal features of Nazi policy for a very long time, subordinated latterly for what the Defendant Jodl called diplomatic reasons.
And so, on the 22nd June, the Nazi armies were flung against the power with which Hitler had so recently sworn friendship, and Germany embarked upon that last act of aggression in Europe, which, after long and bitter fighting, was eventually to result in Germany's own collapse.
That, then, is the case against these Defendants, as amongst the rulers of Germany, under Count 2 of this Indictment.
It may be said that many of the documents which have been referred to were in Hitler's name, and that the orders were Hitler's orders, and that these men were mere instruments of Hitler's will.
But they were the instruments without which Hitler's will could not be carried out; and they were more than that.
These men were no mere willing tools, although they would be guilty enough if that had been their role.
They are the men whose support had built Hitler up into the position of power he occupied; these are the men whose initiative and planning often conceived and certainly made possible the acts of aggression done in Hitler's name; and they are the men who enabled Hitler to build up the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the War Economy, the political philosophy by which these treacherous attack were carried out, and by which he was able to lead his fanatical followers into peaceful countries to murder, to loot, and to destroy.
They are the men whose cooperation and support made the Nazi Government of Germany possible.
The Government of a totalitarian country may be carried on without representatives of the people, but it cannot be carried on without any assistance at all.
It is no use having a leader unless there are also people willing and ready to serve their personal greed and ambition by helping and following him.
The dictator who is set up in control of the destinies of his country does not depend upon himself alone either in acquiring newer or in maintaining it.
He depends upon the support and backing which lesser men, themselves lusting to share in dictatorial power, anxious to bask in the adulation of their leader, are prepared to give.
In the criminal courts of our countries, when men are put upon their trial for breaches of the municipal laws, it not infrequently happens that of a gang indicted together in the Dock, one has the master mind, the leading personality.
But it is no excuse for the common thief to say "I stole because I was told to steal", for the murderer to plead "I killed because I was asked to kill."
And those men are in no different position for all that it was nations they sought to rob, and whole people which they tried to kill. "The warrant of no man excuseth the doing of an illegal act." Political loyalty, military obedience, are excellent things, but they neither require nor do they justify the commission of patently wicked acts. There comes a point whore a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his conscience. Even the common soldier, serving in the ranks of his army, is not called upon to obey illegal orders. But these men were no common soldiers: they were the men whose skill and cunning, whose labor and activity, made it possible for the German Reich to tear up existing treaties, to enter into new ones and to flount them, to reduce international negotiations and diplomacy to a hollow mockery, to destroy all respect for and effect in international law, and finally, to march against the peoples of the world to secure that domination in which, as arrogant members of their self-styled master race, they professed their belief.
If these crimes were in once sense the crimes of Nazi Germany, they also are guilty as the individuals who aided, abetted, counselled, procured and made possible the commission of what was done.
The total sum of the crime these men have committed--so awful in its comprehension--has many aspects. Their lust and sadism, their deliberate slaughter and degradation of so many millions of their fellow creatures that the imagination reels, are but one side of this matter. Now that an end has been put to this nightmare, and we come to consider how the future is to be lived, perhaps their guilt as murderers and robbers is of less, importance and of less effect to future generations of mankind than their crime of fraud and deceipt--the fraud by which they placed themselves in a position to do their murder and their robbery. That is the other aspect of their guilt. The story of their "diplomacy", founded upon cunning, hypocrosy and bad faith, is a story less gruesom but no less evil and deliberate. And should it be taken as a precedent of behavior in the conduct of international relations, its consequences to mankind will no less certainly lead to the end of civilized society.
Without trust and confidence between nations, without the faith that what is said is meant and what is undertaken will be observed, all hope of peace and security is dead. The Governments of the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth, of the United States of America, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and of France, backed by and on behalf of a very other peace-loving nation of the world, have therefore joined to bring the inventors and perpertrators of this Nazi conception of international relation before this Tribunal. They do so, so that these Defendants may be punished for their crimes. They do so, so that their conduct may be exposed in all of its naked wickedness and they do so in the hope that the conscience and good sense of all the world will see the consequences of such conduct and the end to which it must inevitably lead. Let us once again restore sanity and with it also the sanctity of our obligations towards each other.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Attorney, would it be convenience to the Prosecutors of Great Britain to continue?
MR. SHAWCROSS:The proposal was that my friend, Mr. Sidney Alderman, would continue with the presentation of the case with regard to the final acts of aggression against Czechoslovakia and that that being done, my British colleagues would continue. As the Tribunal will appreciate, Counts one and two are in many respects compelementary, and America and ourselves are working in closest cooperation in presenting the evidence affecting those counts.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Alderman, would it be convenient for you to go on until five o'clock?
MR. ALDERMAN:Yes. May it please the Tribunal, it is quite convenient for me to proceed. I can but feel that it will be quite an anti-climax after the address to which you have just listened.
When the Tribunal rose yesterday afternoon, I had just completed an outline of the plans laid by the Nazi conspirators in the weeks immediately following the Munich agreement. These plans called for what the German officials called the liquidation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia.
You will recall that three weeks after Munich, on 21 October, the same day on which the administration of the Sudetenland was handed over to the civilian authorities, Hitler and Keitel had issued an order to the armed forces.
This document is C-136, Exhibit U.S.A. No-104.
In this order, Hitler and Keitel ordered the beginning of preparations by the armed forces for the conquest of the remainder of Czechoslovakia. You will also recall that two months later, on 17 December, the Defendant Keitel issued an appendix to the original order directing the continuation of these preparations. This document is C-138, Exhibit U.S.A. No-105, and both these documents have already been introduce.
Proceeding on the assumption that no resistance worth mentioning was to be expected, this order emphasized that the attack on Czechoslovakia was to be well camouflaged so that it would not appear to be a war-like action.
"To the outside world" it said--and I quote-
"it must appear that it is merely an action of pacification and not a war-like undertaking."
Thus, in the beginning of 1939 the basic plan for military action against the mutilated Czechoslovakian Republic had already been carried out by the German High Command.
I turn now to the underhanded and criminal method used by the Nazi conspirators to ensure that no resistance worth mentioning would, in fact, be met by the German Army.
As in the case of Austria and the Sudetenland, the Nazi conspirators did not intend to rely on the Wehrmacht alone to accomplish their calculated objective of a liquidated Czechoslovakia.
With the German minority separated from Czechoslovakia, they could no longer use the cry, "Home to the Reich."
One sizable minority, the Slovaks, still remained within the Czechoslovak State.
I should mention at this point that the Czechoslovak Government had made every effort to conciliate Slovak extremists in the months after the cession of the Sudetenland.
Autonomy had been granted to Slovakia, with an autonomous Cabinet and Parliament at Bratislava.
Nevertheless, despite these concessions it was in Slovakia that the Nazi conspirators found fertile ground for their tactics.
The picture which I shall now draw of Nazi operations in Slovakia is based on the Czechoslovakian official Government Report, Document No. 998-PS, already admitted in evidence, Exhibit USA 91, of which the Court has already taken judicial notice.
Nazi propaganda and research groups had long been interested in maintaining close connection with the Slovak Autonomist Opposition.
When Bela Tuka, who later became Prime Minister of the puppet state of Slovakia, was tried for espionage and treason in 1939 the evidence established that he had already established connections with Nazi groups in Germany.
Prior to 1938 Nazi aides were in close contact with the Slovak traitors living in exile and were attempting to establish more profitable contacts in the semi-fascist Catholic People's Party of Monsignor Andrew Hlinka.
In February and July, 1938, leaders of the Henlein movement conferred with top men of Father Hlinka's party and agreed to furnish one another with mutual assistance in pressing their respective claims to autonomy.
This understanding proved useful in the September agitation when at the proper moment the Foreign Office in Berlin wired Henlein leader, Kundt, in Prague to tell the Slovaks to start their demands for autonomy.
This telegram, our Document Number 2858 PS, Exhibit USA 87, has already been introduced in evidence and read.
By this time-midsummer, 1938--the Nazis were in direct contact with figures in the Slovak Autonomist Movement and had paid agents among the higher staff of Father Hlinka's party. These agents undertook to render impossible any understanding between the Slovak Autonomists and the Slovak parties in the Government at Prague.
Hans Karmasin, later to become Volksgruppenfuehrer, had been appointed Nazi leader in Slovakia and professed to be serving the cause of, Slovak autonomy while actually on the Nazi payroll. On 22 November, the Nazis indiscreetly wired Karmasin to collect his money at the German legation in Prague, and I offer in evidence Document 2859-PS as Exhibit USA 107, captured from the German Foreign Office files. I read this telegram which was sent from the German legation at Prague to Pressburg:
"Delegate Kundt asks to notify State Secretary Karmasin he would appreciate it if he could personally draw the sum which is being kept for him at the treasury of the embassy. /signed/ Hencke."
Karmasin proved to be extremely useful for the Nazi cause. Although it is out of its chronological place in my discussion, I should like now to offer in evidence Document 2794-PS, a captured memorandum of the German Foreign Office which I offer as Exhibit USA 108, dated Berlin, 29 November, 1939.
This document, dated eight months after the conquest of Czechoslovakia, throws a revealing light both on Karmasin and on the German Foreign Office, and I now read from this memorandum:
"On the question of payments to Karmasin.
"Karmasin receives 30,000 Marks from the VDA (Peoples' League for Germans Abroad) until 1 April 1940; from then on 15,000 Marks monthly.
"Furthermore, the Central Office for Racial Germans (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle) has deposited 300,000 Marks for Karmasin with the German mission in Bratislava (Pressburg) on which he could fall back in an emergency.
"Furthermore, Karmasin has received money from Reich Minister Seyss-
Inquart; for the present it has been impossible to determine what amounts had been involved, and whether the payment still continue.
"Therefore, it appears that Karmasin has been provided with sufficient money; thus one could await whether he would put up new demands himself.
"Herewith presented to the Reich Foreign Minister. /signed/ Woermann."
This document shows the complicity of the German Foreign Office in the subsidization of illegal organizations abroad. More important, it shows that the Germans still considered it necessary to supply their undercover representatives in Pressburg with substantial funds, even after the declaration of the so-called Independent State of Slovakia.
Sometime in the winter of 1938-1939, the defendant Goering conferred with Durkansky and Mach, two leaders in the Slovak extremist group, who were accompanied by Karmarsin. The Slovaks told Goering of their desire for what they called independence, with strong political, economic and military ties to Germany. They promised that the Jewish problem would be solved as it had been solved in Germany; that the Communist Party would be prohibited. The notes of the meeting report that Goering considered that the Slovak efforts toward independence were to be supported, but as the document will show, his motives were scarcely altruistic.
I now offer 2801-PS as Exhibit USA 109, undated minutes of a conversation between Goering and Durkansky. This document was captured among the files of the German Foreign Office.
I now read these minutes, which are jotted down in somewhat telegraphic style:
"To begin with Durkansy (Deputy Prime Minister) reads out declaration. Contents: 'Friendship for the Fuehrer; gratitude, that through the Fuehrer autonomy has become possible for the Slovaks'. The Slovaks never want to belong to Hungary. The Slovaks want full independence with strongest political, economic and military ties to Germany. Bratislava to be the capital. The execution of the plan only possible if the army and police are Slovak.
"An independent Slovakia to be proclaimed at the meeting of the first Slovak Diet.
In the case of a plebiscite the majority would favour a separa-
tion from Prague. Jews will vote for Hungary. The area of the plebiscite to be up to the March, where a large Slovak population lives.
"The Jewish problem will be solved similarly to that in Germany. The Communist Party to be prohibited.
"The Germans in Slovakia do not want to belong to Hungary but wish to stay in Slovakia.
"The German influence with the Slovak Government considerable; the appointment of a German Minister (member of the cabinet) has been promised.
"At present negotiations with Hungary are being conducted by the Slovaks. The Czechs are more yielding towards the Hungarians than the Slovaks.
"The Fieldmarshall--" That is Fieldmarshall Goering--"considers that the Slovak negotiations towards independence are to be supported in a suitable manner. Czechoslovakia without Slovakia is still more at our mercy.
"Air bases in Slovakia are of great importance for the German Air Force for use against the East."
On 12 February a Slovak delegation journed to Berlin. It consisted of Tuka, one of the Slovaks with whom the Germans had been in contact, and Karmarsin, the paid representative of the Nazi conspirators in Slovakia. They conferred, with Hitler and the defendant Ribbentrop in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin on Sunday, 12 February 1939.
I now offer in evidence Document 2790-PS as Exhibit USA 110, the captured German Foreign Office minutes of that meeting.
(reading)
"After a brief welcome Tuca thanks the Fuehrer for granting this meeting. He addresses the Fuehrer with 'My Fuehrer' and he voices the opinion that he, though only a modest man himself, might well claim to speak for the Slovak nation. The Czech courts and prison gave him the right to make such a statement. He states that the Fuehrer had not only opened the Slovak question but that he had been also the first one to acknowledge the dignity of the Slovak nation. The Slovakian people will gladly fight under the leadership of the Fuehrer for the maintenance of European civilization. Obviously future association with the Czechs had become an impossibility for the Slovaks from a moral as well as an economic point of view."
Then, skipping to the last sentence:
"I entrust the fate of my people to your care,'" addressing that to the Fuehrer.
During the meeting the Nazi conspirators apparently were successful in planting the idea of insurrection with the Slovak Delegation. I refer to the final sentence of the document, which I have just read, the sentence spoken by Tuka: "I entrust the fate of my people to your care."
It is apparent from these documents in mid-February, 1939, the Nazis had a well disciplined group of Slovaks at their service, many of them drawn from the ranks of Father Hlinka's party.
Flattered by the personal attention of such men as Hitler and the defendant Ribbentrop and subsidized by German representatives, these Slovaks proved willing tools in the hands of the Nazi conspirators.
In addition to Slovaks, the conspirators made use of the Germans still remaining within the mutilated Czechoslovak Republic. Kundt, Henlein's deputy who had been appointed leader of this German minority, created asmany artificial "focal points of German culture" as possible. Germans from the districts handed over to Germany were ordered from Berlin to continue their studies at the German University in Prague and to make it a center of aggressive Nazism. With the assistance of German civil servants, a deliberate campaign of Nazi infiltration into Czech public and private institutions was carried out, and the Henleinist movement gave full cooperation to Gestapo agents from the Reich who appeared on Czech soil. The Nazi political activity was designed to undermine and to weaken Czech resistance to the commands from Germany.
In the face of continued threats and duress on both diplomatic and propaganda levels, the Czech Government was unable to take adequate measures against these trespassers upon its sovereignty.
I am using as the basis of my remarks the Czechoslovak official Government Report, Document No. 998-PS.
In early March, with the date for the final march into Czechoslovakia already close at hand, fifth column activity moved into its final phase.
In Bohemia and Moravia the FS, Henlein's equivalent of the SS, were in touch with the Nazi conspirators in the Reich and laid the groundwork of the events of 14 and 15 March.
I now offer in evidence document 2826 PS as Exhibit U.S.A.111. This is an article by SS Group Leader Karl Herman Frank, published in the publication Bohemia und Mahren, the official Periodical of the Reichs Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, edition May 1941, page 179.
This is an article written by one of the Nazi leaders in Czechoslovakia at the moment of Germany's greatest military successes. It is a boastful article and reveals with a frankness rarely found in the Nazi press both the functions which the FS and the SS served and the pride the Nazi conspirators took in the activities of these organisations. It is a long quotation.
THE PRESIDENT:Are you going on with this tomorrow, Mr. Alderman?
MR. ALDERMAN :Yes.
THE PRESIDENT:Will you take the whole day?
MR. ALDERMAN:No, not more than an hour and a half.
THE PRESIDENT:And after that the British Prosecutors will go on?
MR. ALDERMAN:Yes.
(Whereupon at 1700 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjourned to reconvene at 1000 hours on 4 December 1945).
Official transcript of the International Military Tribunal, in the matter of:
The United States of America, the French Re public, the United Kingdom of Great Bri tain and Northern Ireland, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, against Hermann Wilhelm Goering, et al, Defend ants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on December 1945, 1010-1245, Lord Justice Lawrence, presiding.
MR. ALDERMAN:May it please the Tribunal: When the Tribunal rose yesterday afternoon, I had just offered in evidence Document 2826-PS, Exhibit USA 111. This was an article by SS Group Leader Karl Herman Frank, published in Bohmen and Mahren, or Bohemia and Moravia, the official periodical of the Reich's Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, the issue of March 1941, at page 79. It is an article which reveals with considerable frankness the functions which the FS and the SS had, and shows the pride which the Nazi conspirators took in the activities of these organizations. I read from that article, under the heading "The SS on March 15, 1939":
"A modern people and a modern state are today unthinkable without political troops. To these are allotted the special task of being the advance guard of the political will and the guarantor of its unity. This is especially true of the German folk-groups, which have their home in some other people's state. Accordingly the Sudeten German Party had formerly also organized its political troop, the Voluntary Vigilantes" -- or, in German -"Freiwilliger Selbstschutz, called FS for short. This troop was trained especially in accordance with the principles of the SS, so far as these could be used in this region at that time. The troop was likewise assigned here the special task of protecting the homeland actively, if necessary. It stood up well in its first test in this connection, wherever in the fall crisis of 1938 it had to assume the protection of the homeland, arms in hand.
"After the annexation of the Sudeten Gau, the tasks of the FS were transferred essentially to the German student organizations as compact troop formations in Prague and Brunn, aside from the isolated German communities which remained in the second republic. This was also natural because many active students from the Sudeten Gau were already members of the SS. The student organizations then had to endure this test, in common with other Germans, during the crisis of March 1939.