The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)
Nuremberg, war crimes, crimes against humanity

The Trial of German Major War Criminals

Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
16th April to 1st May, 1946

One-Hundred-and-Sixteenth Day: Monday, 29th April, 1946
(Part 7 of 12)


[LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES continues his cross examination of Julius Streicher]

[Page 332]

Q. Well, you can take it from me, that that list contains the addresses of some eight hundred properties in Nuremberg and Furth which have been taken from the Jews and handed over to Aryans. Would you agree that that would be at least eight hundred houses in your city here that were aryanised?

A. I do not know about it in detail; but I must establish something. I have already stated today that my Party comrade Holz started aryanising. That was rescinded by Berlin. Then came the aryanisation carried out by the State. I could not have had any influence here, either, so that this was none of my business. This aryanisation, the expropriation of Jewish property, was ordered by Berlin.

Q. Now, you mentioned this morning that you were a subscriber to a weekly newspaper called the "Israelitisches Wochenblatt"; is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. When did you start subscribing to that newspaper?

A. What did you say?

Q. At what date did you start subscribing to that newspaper?

A. I do not know.

Q. Well, I have no doubt you can tell the Tribunal approximately. Have you always, since 1933, been a subscriber to that newspaper?

A. Well, I don't think I could have read every issue, since I travelled a great deal.

Q. You were, as I think this application of your wife to give evidence states, a regular reader of it, were you not?

A. My friends, the editors, and I used to share in the reading of this paper.

Q. May I take it, that between yourself and your editors - I don't say every copy was read - but it was regularly read from 1933 onwards; is that fair?

A. You cannot say "read regularly."

Q. A large number of the copies that you subscribed for, which came weekly to you, were they read by yourself or by your editors?

A. Certainly.

Q. Now, I want to turn to something else for a moment. I want to make myself perfectly clear to you.

DR. MARX: Mr. President, I should like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the document which has just been presented, "Confiscated Property and Real Estate," has the heading "Aryanisation Department for Real Estate, Nuremberg." That cannot mean anything except that this document comes from the official department which was later set up for the confiscation of such real estate. But by no means can this be a document to prove that we are concerned here with the real estate aryanised by Holz, subsequent to 9 November.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: I accept that that may be so.

DR. MARX: I should like to ask, therefore, that the appropriate correction be made.

BY LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES:

If I was mistaken in saying that those properties had been aryanised, I would be right, then, would I not, in saying that that list of properties was prepared

[Page 333]

by the Aryanisation Department in Nuremberg for the purpose of aryanising them in the future? Would that be a fair statement to make?

A. No.

Q. I won't pursue that matter any further.

I want to make myself quite clear to you in what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that from 1939 onwards you set out to incite the German people to murder and to accept the fact of the murder of the Jewish race. Do you understand that?

A. That isn't true.

Q. No doubt you will say it isn't true. I just wanted you to be quite clear on what my suggestion is going to be.

I want you to look at a bundle of extracts which will be given to you, from "Der Sturmer." You can see the originals which are in court if you desire to do so, but it will save time if we use the document books there.

Now, will you look at Page 3-A. For convenience, the pages in this bundle are all marked "A" to distinguish them from the numbers in the original document book.

THE PRESIDENT: Are they all in evidence?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: There are none of them in evidence at the moment. Perhaps the most convenient way would be for me to put the actual documents in evidence together at the end, unless the Tribunal or the defendant desires to see any copies of them. I will give them numbers as I go along.

BY LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES:

Q. Will you look at Page 3-A of that bundle, Document 809, which becomes Exhibit GB-331:-

"The Jewish problem is not yet solved, nor will it be solved when one day the last Jew will have left Germany. Only when world Jewry has been annihilated, will it have been solved."
Is that what you were working for when you say you were working for the international solution to this problem, an annihilation of world Jewry?

A. If that is how you understand "annihilation." That was written by my chief editor at the time. He says that the Jewish problem will not be solved even when the last Jew will have left Germany. And when he suddenly says that only when world Jewry has been annihilated will it be solved, then he may at any rate have meant that the power of world Jewry should be eliminated. But my Party comrade Holz didn't think of mass killing or the possibility of mass killing.

Q. The German word used there is "vernichtet," is it not? Look at your copy. "Vernichtet" - that means "to annihilate."

A. Today, when you look back, you could interpret it like that, but not at that time.

Q. Very well, we won't waste time because we have quite a number to look through. Will you look on to the next page. That was in January you were writing that. In April, 1939, Document 810, Exhibit GB-332, I refer only to the last two lines. This is an article again by your editor:-

"Then perhaps their graves will proclaim that this murderous and criminal people has, after all, met its deserved fate."
What do you mean by "graves" there? Do you mean excluding them from the business of the world?

A. This is the first time that I have seen this article. That is the statement of opinion of a man who was probably looking ahead and making a play on words, but as far as I know him, and as far as we discussed the Jewish problem, there was no question of mass extermination; we didn't even think of it. Maybe it was his wish, I don't know, but anyway, that is the way it happened to be written.

[Page 334]

Q. Very well. Just turn over, will you now, to May, 1939, Document 811, Exhibit GB-333. I quote the last six lines:-
"There must be a punitive expedition against the Jews in Russia."
This, of course, was after the Russian invasion.
"There must be a punitive expedition against the Jews in Russia, a punitive expedition which will provide the same fate for them that every murderer and criminal must expect, the death sentence and execution. The Jews in Russia must be killed. They must be utterly exterminated. Then the world will see that the end of the Jews is also the end of Bolshevism."
A. Who wrote that article?

Q. It is published in your "Sturmer." We can find out, if necessary. It is not written by you, but it is published in your "Sturmer," and you have told the Tribunal that you accept responsibility for everything that was written in that newspaper.

A. All right, I assume responsibility, but I want to state that, here too, this is the private opinion of a man who in May, 1939, could not have thought that, ex nihilo - for we had no soldiers - a "March to Russia" could be started. This is the theoretically and very strongly worded opinion of that anti-Semitic person.

Q. All I ask you about that is: Is that not advocating the murder of Jews, that article; if it is not, what is it advocating?

A. The whole article would have to be read so that I could tell what motives existed for writing something like that. I therefore ask you to make public the whole article. Then one can form a proper judgement.

Q. Well, we'll go on. We won't waste time unless you really want to see the whole article.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES:

My Lord, if I, perhaps, might be allowed to put these documents in evidence. As your Lordship will see, this bundle is a bundle of extracts from "Der Sturmer."

DR. MARX: Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to make the following statements: A number of extracts from "Der Sturmer" have been mentioned here which have been put before me for the first time. Some of them are articles which have not been written by the defendant personally. Some are signed by Hiemer, and some by Holz, who was particularly radical in his style of writing, and passages are being quoted which are perhaps taken out of the context.

I must ask, therefore, that I be afforded the opportunity of going over these extracts together with the defendant Streicher. Otherwise he might come to the conclusion that his defence is being made too difficult for him, and that it is being made impossible for him to prepare himself appropriately.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, you will have an opportunity of checking up on these various extracts, and then you will be able to introduce, if necessary, any passages which explain the extracts. That is a matter which has been explained to defendants' counsel over and over again.

Lieutenant Colonel Griffith-Jones, are there not certain of these extracts which are written or signed by the defendant?

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, with your Lordship's permission I will refer to some of them, but so that I should not have to refer to all of them, I was going to suggest that perhaps I might put them in and, if it is necessary, let the Tribunal know afterwards the numbers of them to save time.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: I put the whole bundle in evidence and will not refer to all of them.

THE PRESIDENT: Then you can give us the exhibit numbers later.

[Page 335]

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: If that is suitable to the convenience of the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

BY LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES:

Q. Well now, the Tribunal will see by looking at this bundle, from the first page, which I think is 3-A, to Page 25-A, are various extracts which have been written either by yourself or by members of your staff between January, 1939, and January, 1941.

Do I understand you to say now, to have said in your evidence, that you never knew that Jews were being exterminated in thousands and millions in the Eastern territories? Did you never know that?

A. No.

Q. As I understood your evidence about the "Israelitisches Wochenblatt" this morning, you said this, as I have written it down:-

"Sometimes that journal contained hints that everything was not in order. Later in 1943 an article appeared stating that masses of Jews were disappearing but the article did not quote any figures and did not mention anything about murders."
Are you really saying that those copies of the "Israelitisches Wochenblatt," which you and your editors were reading, contained nothing except for a hint of disappearance with no mention of figures or murder? Is that what you are telling this Tribunal?

A. Yes, I stick to that, certainly.

Q. Now, I want you, if you will, to take this bundle and keep it in front of you. It is a bundle of extracts from the "Israelitisches Wochenblatt" from July, 1941, until the end of the war. The Tribunal will be able to see what a fanatic for the truth really tells.

(Witness is handed a document.)

LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, this bundle, for convenience again, is marked "B."

BY LIEUTENANT COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES:

Q. Will you look at the first page. That is an article of 11 July, 1941.

"Some 40,000 Jews died in Poland during the last years. The hospitals are overfull."
Now, you need not turn over for the moment, defendant. We will turn the pages soon enough. Did you happen to read that sentence in the issue of 11 July, 1941?

A. No.

Q. Will you look at Page 3, 3 "B"? In November, 1941:-

"Very bad news comes from the Ukraine. Thousands of Jewish dead are being mourned, among whom are many of the Galician Jews who were expelled from Hungary."
Did you read that?

A. That might be possible. It says "thousands," thousands are being mourned. That is no proof that millions were killed. There are no details as to how they came to their end.

Q. If that is the explanation you want us to accept we will leave it.

Just go on again to the next page, will you? The 12 December, 1941, a month later:-

"According to news which has arrived from several sources, thousands of Jews - one even speaks of many thousands - have been executed in Odessa," and so on. "Similar news reaches us from Kiev and other Russian cities."
Did you read that?

A. I do not know; and if I had read it then it would not change a thing. That is no proof.

[Page 336]

Q. But you have told the Tribunal, you know, that there was nothing except hints of disappearance. Doesn't it show that you were not telling the truth when you read these extracts?

A. In that case may I say the following? When the war started we no longer received the "Israelitisches Wochenblatt." During the later years one could only get the "Israelitisches Wochenblatt" through the police. We got that paper into Germany toward the end by smuggling. On one occasion we asked the police to provide us with foreign newspapers and this Weekly, and we were told that it was not possible. But we nevertheless got it. What I mean to say by this is that I did not read every one of those issues. The issues which I did read were confiscated on my farm. Whatever is underlined has been read by me, or it was read by my editor-in-chief. I cannot, therefore, guarantee that I read every article.


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