The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Fifty-Fourth Day: Friday, 8th February, 1946
(Part 18 of 22)


[Page 201]

COLONEL Y. V. POKROVSKY: Mr. President. The opening statements of the Chief Prosecutors have enlightened us as to how Fascist Germany pursued the ideological preparation for aggressive war.

The connection between Hitlerite propaganda and acts of aggression against peace was also revealed in the statement of the U.S.S.R. chief of counsel. Therefore, may I be allowed to quote just one short extract from Horst von Metzsch's book entitled "Krieg als Saat" (War as Seed), which was published in Breslau in 1934. It reads as follows:

"It is impossible to conceive of the National Socialist movement without war: German martial glory is its father; its finest musketeer is its leader; and war's hardy spirit is its soul."
That is not just a phrase dropped by a garrulous Fascist penman; that is a programme which is blurted out. War, and only war, was considered by the Hitlerite conspirators as the most effective means of attaining the objectives of their foreign policy. It is, therefore, only natural that Germany was turned into an armed camp and became a constant menace to her neighbours after the Fascists had seized power in the country.

The East was the first objective of the Fascist conspirators.

I am now going to quote a passage from "Mein Kampf." This passage can be found in Volume I, Page 1, of the document book now being handed to the Tribunal, and is marked in red. Hitler wrote, as far back as 1930, in "Mein Kampf":

"The movement Eastwards is continuing, even though Russia must be erased from the list of European powers." (Page 732 of "Mein Kampf," 1930 edition).
Hypocritically proclaiming her love of peace and giving her neighbours assurances of her intention to live in peace with them, Hitlerite Germany merely strove to conceal her real, her ever-present aggressive intentions.

The conspirators gladly concluded any agreement on arbitration, non- aggression, etc. They did it, not because they were really striving for peace, but with the sole intention of waiting for a suitable moment to strike the next treacherous blow and of lulling to the nations of the world into a sense of false security. Having committed one of their scheduled aggressive acts, they strove with still greater energy to convince everybody that from now on they had no further aggressive plans. A combination of hypocrisy and fraud, of treason and aggression, ruled the entire system of German foreign policy.

With incredible insolence the Fascist conspirators violated any of their international obligations or agreements, including those which directly prohibited the use of war as a solution of international disputes. Not one of the wars provided by the Hitlerites can be classified under the concept of "defensive wars." In every instance the German Fascists acted as aggressors. They admitted, themselves, that they did not hesitate to resort to provocation in order to have an excuse for attacking their next victim at the most propitious moment.


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