"1. To advise the military agencies in political matters.
"2. To maintain a permanent contact with the Government of Vichy "3. To bring to a way of thinking favorable to us the important "4. To guide from the political point of view the press, the "5. To concern himself with the German, French and Belgian "6. To advise the secret military police and the secret police "7. To put in safety all the treasures, public art treasures, and "Two:
The Fuehrer has expressly ordered that only Ambassador Abetz shall be responsible for all the political questions in occupied and non-occupied France. Insofar as his functions concern military interests, Ambassador Abetz shall act only in accord with the military command in France.
"Three: Ambassador Abetz shall be attached as my delegate to the military command in France. His domicile shall remain in Paris as up to now. He shall receive from me the instructions for the accomplishment of his tasks and shall be responsible exclusively to me. I shall greatly appreciate the fact that the supreme command of the armed forces, the OKW -- I shall appreciate this command giving the necessary orders to the military agencies involved as soon as possible. (Signed) Ribbentrop." between the military administration and the administration of foreign affairs.
a collaboration about which I have already said, on several occasions, that it was one of the determining elements of the responsibility in this trial, a collaboration of which I shall give a little later, examples having a criminal character. the following document which was numbered 1062, although I am personally certain of the value of this document which comes from a French judicial dossier. I did not the original German text and because of this, the translation might create difficulties, and it is naturally necessary for each document produced to present absolute guarantees as to their authenticity. I shall therefore pass directly to the last document, which I wish to present and which I present under No. 1063.
This is a detailed dossier on this problem, on the collaboration of the German administrations, but sometimes detailed documents of a formal nature may present some interest. This has to do with a note found in the German Archives in Paris, a note of 5 November 1943, which gives the numbering of the dossiers in the German Embassy. I shall simply read the first three lines of this note: The dossiers in conformity with the division adopted by the military administration in France are distributed into ten chief groups. There follows the enumeration of these methods and groups, utilized for the classification of dossiers or files. I simply wish to point out that in their narrow collaboration and in their close collaboration, the German Embassy, a civil service depending on the foreign affairs and the military command, had adopted systems of classifications that were such that the indications of all their files were established in a corresponding fashion. examination of this seizure of sovereignty in the occupied territories, and I should like to point out that these files hive been established with the collaboration of my assistant, M. Monneray, a collaboration which has for that matter extended to the whole brief which I present to the Tribunal. devoted to the spiritual Germanization, that is, to propaganda. economic pillage, I had said that the Germans had made exactions of available manpower, goods, and raw materials in the occupied countries. They drained these countries of their reserves and just as the Germans proceeded with regard to the accululated intellectual, the Germans proceed in the same way with regard to the accumulated intellectual and moral resources. They wished to seize and eliminate the mental reserves. This expression "mental reserves" which is extremely significant, was not selected by the Prosecution. I borrow it from the Germans themselves. I quote on this point, to the Tribunal, a new extract from a work which was introduced into evidence under No. 5 of the French documentation. This was a book published in Berlin, edited by the Nazi Party. The author was Dr. Friedrich Didier. This work has a preface by the Defendant Sauckel and it is entitled "Working For Europe."
The quotation which I would like to make appears in the document book under No. 100, which is simply the number of its order, because the book itself has already been presented and submitted. The book includes a chapter entitled "Spiritual Orientation and Social Assistance." The author is concerned with the spiritual orientation of the foreign workers who, in numbers of millions, were taken by force and brought into the Reich. This is concerned with the spiritual organization with regard to an element as important, as the occupation of the occupied countries is already notable and remarkable in itself, but it is, on the other hand, obvious that this preoccupation is general with regard to all the inhabitants of the occupied countries, the author in this case having simply limited himself to his subject. I have chosen this quotation to being my chapter, because its drafting seems to me to be particularly happy for us to get an idea of the German plan in regard to propaganda, the German conception of progaganda.
The quotation, page 79 of the work, that has been introduced in evidence;
"The method of spiritual orientation of foreign workers is not so simple as that used in regard to his German comrade. The elimination, for instance, in the foreign worker of mental reserves is of the greatest importance. The foreigner must accustom himself to a working atmosphere which is unknown to him. His ideas as to the world must be expurgated. The conception of the nationals of X-enemy States must be actively fought, as this manifestation of foreign conceptions." reserves and to expurgate each man of his ideas as to the world in order to substitute for them the Nazi conception. Such was the object of the propaganda. This propaganda had already been exercised in Germany and it continued there unceasingly. We have seen from the article just quoted that there is also a preoccupation with the intellectual reorientation of the German worker, though this problem is there considered as "more simple." When we speak today of Nazi propaganda we are often tempted to minimize the importance of this undertaking, and their reason for this and these reasons are false. On the one hand, when we consider works and theses of propaganda, we are struck most often by their crudeness, these of an obviously mendacious character, which they assume their intellectual or artistic poverty.
But we must not forget that the Nazi propaganda utilized all means, the most crude on the one hand and at the same time, means which were more subtle and often skillful. From another point of view, the crudest affirmations are those that carry most weight on simple minds. these films which we find ridiculous, would have constituted in the future our chief and very soon our sole spiritual affair. only very feeble results. Indeed, these results are quite insignificant, especially if one takes into account the scope of the means which this propaganda had at its disposal. The enslaved peoples did not listen to the news and to the exhortations of the Germans. They threw themselves into the resistance. But there also it must be considered that the war continued, but the broadcasts from the countries which had remained free were engaged in magnificent counter-propaganda, and that finally the Germans rather quickly underwent military reverses. long run, have brought about, on the part of more important elements of the population, a consent, an acquiescence, which would have been worse that the oppression itself. It is fortunate that only a very small minority in the different countries were corrupted by the Nazi propaganda, but however weak and small this minority may have been, it is for us a matter of sadness and of just complaint. ridiculous when we consider the few wretches who, because of this, enrolled in a legion or in the Waffen SS to fight against their countries and against humanity. The deaths of certain ones of these men in the dishonoring combat or after their condemnation has punished their crimes, but the Nazi propaganda is responsible for each one of these deaths and for each one of these crimes. the Nazi propaganda. We are not sure that we are able to measure the whole harm which they have done to us. The nations count their visible wounds, but propaganda is a poison which dissolves in the mental organism and leaves traces that cannot be discerned.
There are still men in the world who, because of the propaganda which they have undergone, believe, perhaps obscurely, that they have the right to despise or to eliminate another man because he was born a Jew or because he became a Communist. The men who believe this have remained accessories to and, at the same time, victims of Naziism. peoples was severely tried. Their moral health appears more robust, but it must still be anxiously watched for a certain time in the future. room in this accusation for the chapter on the spiritual Germanization and propaganda. The propaganda is an enterprise which is, in itself, criminal. It is an enterprise against the spiritual condition, according to the definition of M. Menthon, but it is also a moons and an aggravating circumstance of the whole of the criminal enterprises of the Nazis since it prepared their successes and because it was to maintain these successes. It was considered by the Germans themselves, as numerous texts show, as one of the most reliable seapons of total war. It is more particularly a means and an aspect of the Germanization which we are studying at this moment.
forms. We have therefore only to define some principal features and performed important functions.
But this Ministry and its department were not the only ones responsible for questions of propaganda.
We Department of Foreign Affairs is equally involved.
We shall were very active.
This fact must be added to all those which one negative aspect and one positive aspect:
the negative or, in a liberties, certain intellectual possibilities which existed before; lies.
This duality of the restrictive propaganda and of the by the Germans as concerns meetings and associations.
The authorities meeting or of association in the occupied countries.
The subject thought.
In France; an ordinance of 21 August 1940, which appeared hostile to them, or even those whose object was political.
They influence which was not directly subordinated to them.
On this line No. 1101, which is a letter from the Militaerbefehlshaber of 13 Government.
This deals with the youth groups. Even with regard to "The General Secretariat of Youth has notified us in its decomposition which threatens it.
The creation of these social by the Commander-in-Chief of the Military Forces in France.
Before teaching and education of these your people."
I shall now produce document 11*2. This document is a-
THE PRESIDENT (interposing): Faure, could you tell us how long you think you will be on this subject of propaganda?
M. FAURE: I expect to speak for about two hours or two and a half hours.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the program after you have done with this subject of propaganda?
M. FAURE: M. President, as I indicated at the beginninf of my presentation, it includes four chapters. The chapter of propaganda, of which I am speaking now, constitutes Chapter 3. The fourth chapter is devoted to the administrative organization of the criminal action. It corresponds, more exactly, to the second heading under Count 4 of the Indictment relative to the persecution of the Jews in the occupied countries of the West. the program of the French prosecution?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, we would like to know.
M. FAURE: M. Mounier will treat the analytical brief, and the recapitulation of the individual accusations of the prosecution. Then I think that M. Gerthofer is to speak rather briefly about the artistic pilfering which has not been dealt with in the French Prosecution's Brief.
THE PRESIDENT: Then we will adjourn new.
M. FAURE: Mr. President, I beg your pardon. I should like to ask the Tribunal if it is convenient for it to see tomorrow, in the course of my propaganda chapter, a few projections on the screen of documents which relate to this chapter.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think so. Certainly.
DR. BABEL: (Counsel for SS and SD): The reasons for the questions which I posed to the witness seem to have been misunderstood. I spoke about the resistance movement. I wanted only to prove that
THE PRESIDENT: (Interposing) One moment. You are going too fast.
DR. BABEL: I wanted only to prove that deeds which are said to have been committed by the German troops in many cases were caused by the attitude of the civilian population, and that actions against International Law, against Germans, have not been judged in the same way as these actions committed by members of the German Wehrmacht.
THE PRESIDENT (interposing): Dr. Babel, will you forgive me for a moment. You concluded your cross examination some time ago, and the Tribunal doesn't desire
DR. BABEL (Interposing): I thought that by this statement I could clarify it for the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: We don't need any clarification at all. We quite understand the point of your cross examination and we shall hear you when the time comes, very fully in all probability, in support of the arguments which you desire to present.
DR. BABEL: I did it only because of the results that I saw this morning. I thought it was necessary.
THE PRESIDENT: You must give the Tribunal credit for understanding your cross examination. We really cannot continue to have interruptions of this sort. We have some 20 defendants and some 20 counsel, and if they are all going to get up in the way that you do and make protests, we shall never get to the end of this trial.
(Whereupon at 1710 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjourned to reconvene at 1000 hours on 5 February 1946).
Military Tribunal in the matter of: The
MARSHAL OF THE COURT: May it please the Court: I desire to announce that the Defendant Kaltenbrunner will be absent from this morning's session on account of illness.
M. FAURE (Counsel for France): One of the attorneys would like to address the Tribunal.
DR. LATERNSER (Counsel for the General Staff): In the name of the organization I represent, I make application that the testimony of the witness who was heard yesterday should be stricken from the record for this reason: that the witness made declarations, first, concerning the allegedly gratutitous destruction of the library in Louvain; secondly, concerning the treatment of the inhabitants of the country during the Rundstedt offensive.
THE PRESIDENT: I didn't hear that last translation. I thought I heard "he made declarations concerning the destruction of the Louvain library", and then
THE INTERPRETER: Concerning the German treatment of the inhabitants of the country during the Rundstedt offensive.
DR. LATERNSER: He made statements regarding the treatment of the inhabitants, which led him to the conclusion that there were orders specifically requiring such treatment. reasons: First, during yesterday's testimony it was not a question of testimony of witnesses, A witness should base his testimony on his own knowledge, and his declaration should be based only on his own observations. These prerequisites were not there in the testimony yesterday. The witness repeated statements based on testimony of other people, testimony regarding matters which he himself did not witness. The knowledge of this witness can, consequently, be based only on documents, rather than on hearsay.
as soon as the documents on which it is based are put at his disposal; and, consequently, any such person, any person with whom the witness had spoken and who had given him his information, could have made such testimony. was not really eye-witness testimony, because the testimony that is given in a court should not be of such a sort that any other person could give it. Charter, is not committed to the ordinary rules of proof, the proof in the case of yesterday's witness must be rejected, because it does not have any probative value, as defined by the Court. This is to be seen in the fact that the sources of the witness' testimony cannot be judged according to their value. proof does not lead to the discovery of the truth.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to hear, Mr. Faure, what you have to say in answer to the motion which has just been made.
M. FAURE: Gentlemen, your Honors: I should like, first of all, to observe that, as the Counsel who has just spoken already indicated, the Charter of this Tribunal provides that it will not be held by formal rules of proof. But, aside from this consideration, I consider that there is no occasion to accept the objection of the counsel, this objection being founded on three considerations which he has enumerated, but which, as I understand what he has said, come down to a single objection, namely, that this witness was an indirect witness.
I would like to specify that I called Mr. Van Der Essen as a witness particularly in his quality as a member of the Belgian Inquiry Commission, which is official and governmental, on the study and the research of war crimes. It is in conformity with all legal procedure which I personally know that a person who has made inquiries on criminal matters may be called before a court of justice to state the conditions under which this inquiry was made and the results which it produced. It is therefore not necessary that the witness who comes to testify on an investigation should have been himself a direct witness of the criminal activities which this investigation is intended to bring to light.
Mr. Van Der Essen, therefore, in my opinion, testified as to facts and acts which he knows personally, namely, as concerns the matters of Stavelot. He stated that he himself had heard witnesses and that he verified that these testimonies were authentic. records which exist of the commission of which he is a regular member. the calling to the witness stand of a considerable number of individual witnesses. However, in order that all guarantees may be given as concerns the demonstration of facts which are called before the Tribunal, I have decided to bring here the briefs, the dossiers, the texts of testimony to which the witness referred. I shall then be able to communicate to the Defense the affidavits of the witnesses who were mentioned yesterday, and I think that this will give the defense ample guarantee. the acceptability of the testimony, it being understood that the Defense will discuss as it sees fit the value and the probative force of this testimony.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Faure, you said something about the affidavits of witnesses which you would furnish to the Defendants Counsel. I understand that you intended also to put in the governmental report or the committee's report with reference to which the witness had testified, did you not?
M. FAURE: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: As a matter of courtesy, to furnish the affidavits which were before that Committee to the Defendants Counsel; is that what you meant?
M. FAURE: Yes, if this meets with the approval of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: The governmental report, I suppose, does not actually annex the affidavits, does it?
M. FAURE: Yes, Mr, President.
THE PRESIDENT: It does? The affidavits are part of the report, are they?
M. FAURE: The report which was submitted does not contain the elements which the witness brought out yesterday in certain respects, particularly because the investigation on Stavelot was very long and very conscientous and was not summarized in time.
I said, therefore, that I proposed to submit as evidence and thus to communicate to the Defense this complementary element.
THE PRESIDENT: That is what I thought; that is to say, the report did not contain all the details which were in the affidavits or evidence?
M. FAURE: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Therefore, you thought it right, as a matter of courtesy, to allow the Defendants to see those details upon which the report proceeded. The Tribunal understands that.
The Tribunal will consider the motion which has been made. We will consider the motion which has been made at a later stage. You can now proceed with your argument.
M. FAURE: Your Honors, I should like, first of all, to point out to the Tribunal that since a certain amount of time has been given to witnesses and discussions, and as I wish not to exceed the time limit which was announced, A find myself obliged to shorten to a considerable degree the presentation of the brief which I am presenting on the subject of propaganda.
I shall therefore ask the Tribunal kindly to excuse me if there are some hesitations in this presentation, inasmuch as I shall not follow exactly my brief. cerns the right of assemblage or of association, which was eliminated or suppressed or was maintained and exploited to their own advantage. I should like now to say something about books and Publishings. of August 1940, published in the Official Journal of 5 September, to forbid certain class or shcool books in France. We have already seen that they had proceeded in the same fashion in Belgium. Another initiative of the Germans was that of forbidding a certain number of books which did not please them. I present in this connection document 1103, which is the "Otto" list. This list, which was published in September, 1940, is a list of 1175 volumes which were forbidden by the Germans. Naturally, I shall not read it to the Tribunal. It appears in the document book under No. 1103, as I have just said.
A second "Otto" list, longer than the first, was published subsequently on 8 July 1942, and I present it under No. 1104. The conclusion of this second document, which is the last page in my document book, indicates clearly to what principle the German authorities appealed. I read a few lines.
"In principle, all translations from English, except works of the English classics, are withdrawn from sale; and, further, all books by Jewish authors, as well as books in which Jews have collaborated, are to be withdrawn from sale, with the exception of works of a scientific nature, in connection with which special measures are anticipated. From now on, biographies, even written by French aryans, dealing with the Jews, as, for instance, biographies relative to the Jewish musicians Offenback, Mayerberg, etc., are to be withdrawn from circulation." beginning, since only about 1200 volumes were involved, but one can see how important the principle itself is.
On the other hand, by this pro-
cedure the German authorities achieved a practical result which they were seeking, which was essentially, aside fromother prohibitions, not causing completely the dispersal of serious and objective works, making possible the study of German doctrines, the policy of Germany, and the philosophy of Nazism. naturally instituted a censorship. They first of all proceeded in a rather disguised manner by having a kind of agreement with publishers in which they charged the publishers themselves with pointing out which were the books on their lists which appeared to them to be subject to censorship. I submit this convention on censorship under document No. 1105, and I wish, without reading it, to make a single observation in this regard which is very revealing of the constant German method. original, there appears, aside from the convention itself, a notice drafted in terms which do not correspond to French feeling. This notice was not drafted by the publishers upon whom the convention itself was imposed, but this notice, drafted by the Germans, was published in the same brochure, which bears the indication "National Syndicate of Publishers", so that one might have thought that the French publishers accepted the phrases that were written in this preamble. It is sufficient, for that matter, for an attentive person to observe that this brochure does not bear any indication of a printer and to know and to realize that this is a German publication and not a publication of the French publishers, for only the Germans were free of the French legal rule requiring the mention of the name of the printer. somewhat liberal, and later an ordinance of 27 April 1942 was published in the Official Journal of May 13, an ordinance entitled "Concerning the Rational Use of Printing Paper." This ordinance decided, under the pretext of the rational utilization of paper, that all publications, without exception, should bear the German authorization number.
I point out in addition that, in order to smother French publishing, the Germans had a very effective weapon, which was their control over paper.
I submit as document No. 1106 the affidavit of M. Marcel Rives, Director of Internal Commerce at the Ministry of Industrial Production. I shall not read this document, to shorten the proceedings. I summarize that this document demonstrates that the whole distribution of paper available was made under the authority of the Germans, and that the Germans reduced the amount of paper that was made available to publishers to a proportion of reduction of any other contingent of paper with relation to the situation before the war. I must add that out of this very reduced amount of paper which the French had at their disposal, the Germans furthermore took a certain amount for their own propaganda publications. Thus, for their propaganda, not only did they utilize the paper which they had in Germany, but they took part of the small amount of paper which they allowed to French publishers, I should like simply to read in this connection a few lines of a document which constitutes Appendix 2 of document 1106, which I have just submitted. I simply read a few lines in this Appendix 2, which is a letter fromthe German Military command of the 28th of June, 1943, to the Ministry of National Economy.
"Notably, in the course of the month of March, which you particularly mention, it has been impossible to grant the publishers any quantity out of the current production, inasmuch as this was needed for important purposes of propaganda." in fact, an intensive propaganda by means of all kinds of pamphlets andpublications of all sorts. This propaganda literature is extremely far-fetched. I should like to mention a single detail, which is indicative of the constant method of camouflage of the Germans. I have here, and I shall naturally submit them without reading them, under No. 1006b, a few pamphlets of German propaganda, the first of which constitutes a part of a collection entitled "England without a Mask", or "England Unmasked," The first numbers of this collection, taken at random, indicate on the left page, "Office of German Information, England Without a Mask, No. etc." There is here then no kind of attempt to conceal. The reader knows what he has before him, but by a curious hazard, No. 11 of the same collection no longer bears the mention "German Office of Information", and we see instead of this, "International Publishing House, Brussels."
author's name is Reinhard Wolf, and this is a German name.
But here, by way of a last example, is a pamphlet entitled "The Pact Against Europe", and which is also published by the International Publishing House, Brussels. We know from the other examples that this publishing house is but a firm of the German bureau, but the people who are not informed may believe that this is a French or Belgian publication, for here the name of the author is Jean Dubreuil. say a few words about the press. occupied countries were under the control of the Germans, and that most of them had been set up at the instigation of the Germans by persons who were in their pay. As these facts are well known, I shall abstain from submitting documents on this point, and I shall limit myself to the following indications: First, restrictive measures -- censorship. Although all, these newspapers were practically their own papers, the Nazis nevertheless submitted them to a very severe censorship. I shall submit as evidence on this point document 1108, which is the account of a press conference of 8 January 1943, in the course of which are defined the new orders and the new regime of censorship. the same nature were found in the archives of the French Office of Information, which was under German control, and they are submitted, They have been deposited either in the Bibliothece National in Paris or in the Documentation Library of the War Museum, and these documents have been selected by us either in the form of copies, photocopies, or original documents of the French collection.
the Germans the problem was to set up a more liberal regime of censorship. If one reads the document one sees, nevertheless, thet almost all news and articles are submitted to censorship, with the exception of serial novels, criticisms of films and plays, scientific or university news, radio programs on a certain number of subjects completely secondary. was constituted by the directives given to the press, and these directives were given through press conferences such as that of which I have just spoken. number of documents numbered 1109 to 1118. These documents I produce in evidence not because of their content -- which is a far-fetched repetition of German propaganda -- but as proof of the continual guidance and pressure on the press. I should like to indicate also how these things were carried on, Champs Elysees, or at the German Embassy. The representatives of the press were gathered by the competent Nazi officials, who gave them directives. After the conference, the extracts of these directives were established in the form of a dispatch from the French Office of Information. The Tribunal knows that agencies sent to the papers dispatches which served as a basis for the information of the latter. Once a dispatch was established, it was submitted to the control of the German Bureau, which affixed to the dispatch a seal, and at that point it could be distributed to the papers. these conferences, which are dealt with in Documents 1109 to 1120. I should like only to read a very brief document, which I submit under the number 1121, which is the minutes of a press conference of 16 April 1943 at the Propaganda Abteilung. I quote:
"At the end of the conference the German commentator declare that on the occasion of the Fuehrer's birthday the newspapers would appear on Tuesday, the 20th of April, in four pages instead of 2, and on Wednesday, the 21st of April, in two pages instead of four. He asked the reporters present to stress the European aspects of the Fuehrer's political personality and to treat Franco-German relations very broadly.