Archive/File: imt/nca/supp-b/nca-sb-02-streicher.03-00
Last-Modified: 1997/12/08

         Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Supplement B
           What Streicher Meant by "Extermination"
                              
     Excerpts from Testimony of Julius Streicher, taken
     at Nurnberg, Germany, 17 October 1945, 1050-1250,
     by Col. Howard A. Brundage, JAGD. Also present:
     Siegfried Ramler, Interpreter; S/Sgt. William A.
     Wiegel, Court Reporter.
     
                                                 [Page 1427]
                                                            
Q. So, summarizing your testimony, there was a change in the
basic teaching, merely because you read a book written by a
man named Kaufmann?

A. Yes. One only has to read the edition of Der Stuermer
that related to that and one can see that a tendency has
been adopted which was far more radical.

Q. Just briefly, what was the teaching prior to that time?

A. Always the same. I have been asked before whether it was
my point of view that I thought it right that a Jewish
national state should be established. I can say now that
between 1941 and 1943 -- I don't know exactly at what period
-- we wrote an article in our paper, where we asked that
Madagascar should be given to the Jews. The German
Censorship Department in Berlin sent back the finished
article -- I think it was already printed -- and did not
accept it. This can be certified by my chief editor, Ernst
Hiemer.

Q. Did you approve everything that Hiemer wrote?

A. I have had different journalists. Naturally, I did not
approve everything, not every single sentence; that is
clear.

Q. Did you approve the articles as published in your paper?

                                                 [Page 1427]
                                                            
A. Yes, certainly, mainly, yes. I want to amplify something
in the question of Madagascar. There was an International
Anti-Semite League. On every Reichsparteitag in Nurnberg,
anti-Semites gathered in Nurnberg from America, from
England, from South America, from everywhere. It happened
every year. There, repeatedly the question came up regarding
a Jewish National State. I want you to ask Mr. Rosenberg.
Rosenberg, who was in charge of the ideological education,
can certify that he has spoken about this question of
Madagascar.

Q. What about Palestine?

A. Palestine is a request of the Zionist Jews. Theodore
Herzl has been one of the most famous and greatest Jewish
leaders. It was Herzl who caused the Balfour Declaration.
Balfour, after the request of the Jews, has given a written
declaration where he stated that Palestine should be given
for the creation of the Jewish State. At the beginning of
this war, discussions in this respect have taken place.

Q. If I understand you correctly, you have at all times
advocated the removal of Jews from Germany?

A. Yes. Always on an international basis. I have always
propagated in my paper that the Jewish question should be
solved by the Jews forming a national state, just like any
other nation, and should create a home there.

Q. What mechanics did you advocate that should be used for
moving Jews out of Germany?

A. Whatever I have advocated publicly is here written down
in my paper. I can declare under oath that there is nobody,
not here in the prison or anywhere else, who can say that at
any time I have been asked by the Fuehrer to discuss with
him the question of the Jews. I can declare here that my
paper was the only one which was not recognized by the
Party. My paper did not bear the Party stamp of approval.
All the other papers did. I have not been asked to take part
in the discussions of the Nurnberg laws. Everybody can
certify to that. Frick has been taking part in it, but I
have not.

Q. Now will you direct your attention to my question. How
did you preach that the Jews were to be moved out of
Germany?

A. I have made no public suggestions.

Q. Did you ever use the word "exterminate"?

A. I think my chief editor used it once, and in this article
he also cited Kaufmann. This must have been one of his last
articles, of February or March -- I don't know exactly. He
pointed out Kaufmann's request. I don't know exactly, but I
do not believe that

                                                 [Page 1428]
                                                            
I myself have ever used the expression "extermination." Had
I only used the expression "extermination" now, the
extermination would have happened already anyway, as I found
out here in Mondorf. [See footnote, p. 1193 of this volume.]
May I say something about that? It is quite a general
explanation.

I want to declare under oath that there might be gentlemen
present here, I don't want to defend them, of whom it is
supposed that they know about this question. I declare that
they did not know about it. In Mondorf a Jewish officer came
to me and presented to me an illustrated paper which had
been published by Eisenhower. I declare here, I was
terrified myself. I did not think it  was possible. I want
to give another explanation. The Fuehrer is dead. I respect
the majesty of the dead. I am not the defense counsel of the
Fuehrer. In December 1938, when I visited the prison in
Landsberg, [sic] I spoke to the Fuehrer for the last time. I
declare here that up to the year 1938 I have not heard the
Fuehrer express the opinion that the Jews should be
exterminated, either in an unofficial talk or in a Party
official talk.

Q. Did you ever use the word "liquidate"?

A. No.

Q. Did you approve the article that was written by Hiemer
where he used the word "exterminate"?

A. "Exterminate" and "destroy" are two different words in
the German language. At the moment I am speaking about
destruction. This word "destruction" was used by the
Fuehrer. A report might have come from the Fuehrer, "The
English or American company has been destroyed. There were
so many prisoners and so many dead." In the German language,
when I say that somebody's life should be taken, I would use
either "killed" or "murdered," but I think "kill" would be
the right expression. Extermination can result by
sterilization, as Kaufmann wrote. The word "extermination"
does not necessarily mean killing.

Q. Now will you answer my question: Did you approve the
article that was written by Hiemer?

A. I believe yes. I have approved it, because he was my
chief editor. He stated what different Jews had said, and
referring to what Kaufmann, this Jew, has said, he also used
the word "extermination." He just used it in one article.

Q. Who became radical first? Hitler or you?

A. I only know about myself.

Q. When did you become radical?

A. As soon as the book was published by Kaufmann, but we did
not write anything about killing or murdering.

                                                 [Page 1429]
                                                            
Q. Basically, what was the change that took place after you
read the Kaufmann book?

A. I think I have written that if the Jews want to
exterminate us they should be exterminated, too. I think
these articles should be presented to me. I cannot remember
them in detail.

Q. They will be presented to you in due time.

A. Yes.

Q. Is that the only time you ever made such a statement?

A. I believe, yes. No letter and no correspondence exists in
my file where I said or I suggested to anybody that Jews
ought to be killed.

Q. Do you accept any responsibility for the killing of Jews
in concentration camps as a result of your teachings?

A. Only such a person can testify to a thing like that, who
is paid to falsify the truth. This is impossible. Here are
the documents. The killings have been ordered from Berlin.
Nobody in Germany would have carried through any killings
without having received orders.

Q. Do you remember on the 11th day of August 1938, that you
gave the signal for the destruction of the main synagogue of
Nurnberg? [See documents 1724-PS, vol. IV, p.224; 2711-PS,
vol. V, p. 376.]

A. No. No. I have not done that.

Q. Do you remember that the issue of the Fraenkische
Tageszeitung of 11 August 1938 came out with a banner
headline "Julius Streicher Gave the Signal for the
Destruction of the Main Synagogue of Nurnberg."

A. I have not read this article, but I have already said
that the main synagogue of Nurnberg has been removed by the
Oberbuergermeister.

Q. Do you remember seeing that edition where the entire four
pages were taken up with pictures of yourself officiating at
the ceremony and giving the text of your address, giving the
order for the destruction of the synagogue?

A. Even before the acquisition of power of Hitler in 1933, I
have already made speeches and said that, in Nurnberg, "An
oriental building in the middle of the town is a shame and
it is high time that it disappeared."

Q. Then you were there, and you did participate in that
ceremony?

A. Yes. We have also removed a Protestant church in Munich,

                                                 [Page 1430]
                                                            
because it did not fit into the street. However, that has
nothing to do with the 9th of November, with the burning of
synagogues.

Q. I didn't say it had anything to do with it. I asked you
if you gave the signal for the destruction of the synagogue.

A. Yes, for this synagogue, yes.

Q. You then want the record to be changed where you said
"No" the first time?

A. At that time I thought you were referring to the burning
of the synagogues. I mixed it up.

Q. This article in substance says that "Many people are
quite smug because the Jewish question in Germany is solved.
The Jew is barred from civil life and politics. German blood
is protected by the Nurnberg laws," and so forth. "Such
persons," according to you, "are taking only a superficial
view of the Jewish question. The German people will not be
free of danger from the Jewish plague until the Jewish
question is liquidated in its entirety. The danger of the
plague infecting the German people will continue to exist as
long as there is a seat of this pestilence anywhere in the
world."

A. This has nothing to do with killing. With that is meant
that as long as a Jew anywhere in the world has the
possibility either to mix sexually or acquire the power in
the individual country. I beg to point to some other of my
similar articles where I wrote, "as long as the power of the
Jews is not broken," and these articles referred back to
this time.

Q. What do you mean by the word "liquidate"?

A. I have not used the word "liquidate."

Q. What is meant by that?

A. No more sexual intercourse. No more political influence.
No more possibilities for them to play off peoples against
one another.

Q. If you were proposing a safe haven for Jews, how do you
consider that any seat of pestilence, as you say, can be
cleared up?

A. All this belongs to the solution of the whole Jewish
question.

Q. If you say there is a danger of the German people
becoming infected so long as there is any place where Jews
are in control, how did you propose to solve that question?

A. The Jews are the only people that are distributed among
all countries, and in spite of that, they have remained a
people, a race, a unified religion, and a nation. There is
only one solution, and this solution can only be arrived at
in an international way by a conference of the big powers.
In this state, they would be under their king or president,
citizens of the state, and just like

                                                 [Page 1431]
                                                            
any Chinese or Japanese, they could come into another
country as members of their own country. This state would
have the same international rights as every other state,
with their ambassadors and delegations but the Jew would not
have the right to make politics in another country as a
member of a Jewish state.

Q. Then you say that in connection with that particular
article, that you didn't mean that the solution of the
Jewish question would be the liquidation of the Jews?

A. No.

Q. Do you admit that the reading of that article permits
that interpretation?

A. Whoever knows all my writings and articles during my 25
years of journalism cannot have such an impression.

Q. Why did you permit Hiemer to use the word "exterminate"?
In view of this article of yours, that permits of some wrong
interpretation.

A. This is a way of expression which does not mean killing,
but merely means exterminate them; get them out. At that
time the article was read to me, but of course, I do not
remember every detailed word.

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