Two Hundred and Fifteenth Day:
Friday, 30th August, 1946 [Page 340]
In fact, the Charter of the Tribunal provides for the
decision of the question concerning criminal organizations
on the indispensable condition of considering the case of
any factual representative of this organization sitting in
the defendants' dock. The defendants at this Trial were, at
the same time, both participants in the conspiracy and the
leading members of the organizations, in whose case the
Tribunal has to decide the question of considering them as
criminal. Therefore, the evidence that has already been
admitted in the case of individual defendants is, at the
same time, the fundamental evidence for the organizations
which they represent. The documents submitted by the
prosecution have quite clearly proved how the organizations
mentioned in the Indictment served as continuous and direct
instruments for realizing the criminal plots of the
conspirators. Thus the legal proceedings have fully and
comprehensively proved the criminal character of these
organizations.
In order to secure the most comprehensive and many-sided
investigation of the cases of the organizations, the Charter
of the Tribunal invited by broadcast, through the Press and
by special announcements, the members of the accused
organizations to submit their explanations to the Tribunal.
The Tribunal is aware of the number of persons interned in
concentration camps who wish to avail themselves of this
possibility. The formation of an auxiliary commission
enabled the Tribunal to interrogate the greatest possible
number of members of the organizations who are to be
examined and later judged by the National Courts. Thus, as a
result of intricate preparatory work, the group of witnesses
selected by the defence counsel appeared before the
Tribunal. Being unable to deny the irrefutable force of the
documental evidence submitted by the prosecution, the
defence counsel decided to oppose them with their own
witnesses.
Your Honours, we remember these witnesses and their
testimonies. If more evidence were required to prove that,
with the Hitlerites, lies were a constant and unvarying
companion of their crimes, then the lying evidence of
Kaufmann, Sievers, Manstein, Reinecke, Best and others may
serve as convincing illustrations. These "witnesses" in
their effort to whitewash the criminal organizations, of
which they were the leading members, talked themselves into
crass absurdities. The SS as well as the Gestapo are found
to be a society of the elite, a club of noble-minded men -
an order of knighthood. It is not without reason that the
counsel for the defence had previously included Rosenberg
among the knights. There everybody shines with moral purity
and all are filled with charity towards their
[Page 341]
At the same time it is instructive to note that, according
to the testimonies of the witnesses, all the organizations
without exception, which are considered as criminal by .the
Indictment, are innocent and pure. But who in that case had
committed the murder of twelve million peaceful inhabitants?
Who tortured the prisoners of war and deported millions for
slave labour to Germany from the occupied territories? It
appears such defendants do not exist.
Lies, the cynical and blasphemous lies of people whose
conscience did not hesitate before murder, and honour which
did not hesitate before perjury, do not deserve to be
refuted.
When examining the case concerning the criminal
organizations, the prosecution submitted supplementary and
striking documents testifying to new atrocities perpetrated
by the criminal Hitlerite organizations.
Facts, irrefutable facts have been established. The
inflexible will of the law is clear. The time has come for
drawing conclusions.
At the congress of the Nazi Party in 1934, Hitler declared:
"It is not the State that has created us, but it is we who
have created the State. It is possible that some considered
us a party, others an organization, and others again as
something different, but in reality we are what we are."
The present Trial gives an exhaustive and exact answer to
the question - what the Hitlerites were. The Fuehrer, at the
head of a criminal gang of conspirators, appearing in
different roles and nominations (Minister, Gauleiter,
Obergruppenfuehrer, etc.) surrounded by a network of
criminal organizations of their creation, which had seized
in their clutches millions of German citizens - such was the
outline of the political structure of Hitler's Germany.
The recognition of the criminality of the organizations
mentioned in the Indictment, as well as the recognition of
the existence of the conspiracy, are therefore the necessary
conditions for the triumph of justice, the triumph longed
for by all the freedom-loving nations.
With regard to the individual organizations which were
necessarily considered as criminal by the prosecution, I
would in addition to the convincing arguments expressed by
my honourable colleagues mention the following:
THE LEADERSHIP CORPS OF THE NAZI PARTY
In Count I, Paragraph IV, Art. (A) of the Indictment,
entitled "Nazi Party as the central core of the Common Plan
or Conspiracy," it is said:
The numerous crimes of Hitler's clique were inspired and
directed by the Nazi Party - the motive power of the Fascist
conspiracy.
Many of the defendants and the so-called witnesses of the
defence said that they were nationalists, who had protected
Germany from attempts by other countries. This is an evident
lie. Only impostors can assert that Austria, Czechoslovakia,
Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Yugoslavia, the
Soviet Union and other freedom-loving countries had made any
attempts against the integrity and independence of Germany.
In reality the German Nazis were not nationalists but
imperialists, whose main and decisive purpose was the
seizure
[Page 342]
And if these imperialists and reactionaries disguised
themselves in the robes of "Nationalists" and "Socialists,"
they did this exclusively to deceive the nation.
The very programme of the Nazi Party contained the basis of
the plan for domination, the seizure of foreign territories
and the foundations of the hatred of humanity.
In one of the annuals of the NSDAP, published under the
direction of Ley, it was said:
"What I have achieved," said Hitler, "is known to the Party,
thanks to which I became great and which was in turn
glorified by me."
Indeed, soon after the seizure of power by the Hitlerites
the decree of 14th July, 1933, forbade the creation of any
other political party. Later, on 1st December, 1933, the law
"Concerning the ensuring of unity of Party and State" was
issued, in which it was mentioned: "After the victory of the
National Socialist revolution, the NSDAP is the bearer of
German statesmanship and is indissolubly connected with the
State.
To ensure close collaboration of the Party organizations
with the offices of the State, the Deputy Fuehrer is
appointed Member of the Government of the Reich."
Paragraph 3 of this law proclaimed the members of NSDAP and
the shock detachments (including the organizations
subordinated to them) as "the leaders and motive power of
the National Socialist State."
The law of 1st December, 1933, was the fundamental measure,
which provided the leaders of the criminal Nazi Party with
full political power in Germany, since this law established
the Nazi Party as the embodiment of the State.
In order to win over the masses of the population to the
Fascist regime, the Hitlerites introduced the most shameless
social bribery, besides gambling upon national feelings and
unheard, of social demagogy. Major organizations were
created: The Union of Hitler Youth, Labour Front, SA, SS,
etc. Numerous members of these organizations were connected
with the Fascist regime not only through various privileges
and material advantages, but also by mutual responsibility
in the perpetration of crimes committed in common. The
overwhelming machinery of terror with its ramified network
of detection, provocation, perfidy, concentration camps, and
summary justice operated, against all malcontents in the
regime.
The system of combining the leading posts in the Nazi Party
with the leading posts of the terror organizations - SS, SD,
Gestapo- and of the Government, promoted the realization of
the plans of the Fascist conspirators, the plans of
subjugation and control over the German people and the State
of Germany.
Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler was, at the same time, Reichsleiter
of the NSDAP.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ribbentrop, was General of
the SS; and the Deputy Fuehrer Hess was, at the same time, a
Reichsminister.
[Page 343]
After having achieved, with the assistance of the Party,
full control over Germany, Hitler's conspirators began the
realization of their aggressive plans. In his speech before
the Reichstag, on 20th February, 1938, Hitler said:
When we spoke here, at the trial, about Goebbels's lies,
Himmler's terrorism and Ribbentrop's perfidy - this referred
in its entirety to the Nazi Party. When the prosecution
submitted proofs of the criminal activities of Goering and
Hess, Rosenberg and Streicher, Schirach and Frank, Speer and
Sauckel, these were simultaneous proofs of charges against
the NSDAP, of which the defendants were the chiefs. These
proofs were quite sufficient to recognize the entire Nazi
Party as a criminal organization, as understood in Article 9
of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal.
However, the prosecution does not put the question about the
responsibility of the rank and file of the Party, many of
whom became the victims of their own credulity.
In full conformity with the Indictment we raise the question
of declaring it a criminal organization, only in so far as
it concerns the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, which
was the brain, backbone and motive power of this party,
without which the Hitlerite conspirators would not have been
able to carry out their criminal plans.
The Leadership Corps was a special, selected group, within
the Nazi Party itself, and as such was endowed with
extraordinary prerogatives. Political Leaders were organized
according to principles of leadership, which applied not
only to Hitler but to the entire Leadership Corps.
"The basis of the Party organization is the principle of
leadership" - is stated in the charter of the NSDAP.
Each political leader took the oath of allegiance. According
to the Party Charter the wording of the oath was as follows:
Many of these Reichs- and Gauleiter have passed here before
your Honours. In the defendants' dock are Reichsleiter
Rosenberg, Schirach and Frick. Together with the missing
Reichsleiter Bormann, Himmler, Ley and Goebbels, they
represented the leading group of the Hitler Party and
Government, and were also leaders of the Fascist conspiracy.
There sits the Gauleiter of Franconia - Streicher. There is
the slave-dealer Sauckel Gauleiter of Thuringia. You have
heard of the murderous activities of Erich Koch in the
Ukraine. Erich Koch too was a Gauleiter.
[Page 344]
30th June, 1942. 67 persons were shot in Celje. Among
them were six women," etc.
According to the decree of the 1st September, 1939, sixteen
Gauleiter were appointed Reich Plenipotentiaries for
Defence. Later on in connection with the necessity for the
further mobilization of military resources, the Gauleiter
were endowed with functions of ever-increasing importance:
each Gau (district) becomes a Reich Defence Area and each
Gauleiter is appointed Commissar of this area. According to
the decree of the Cabinet's Council for the Defence of the
Reich of 16th November, 1942, it was established that "in
wartime special functions are laid on the Gauleiter." During
the war Gauleiter also attended to matters of billeting,
they were entrusted with important military tasks, and all
branches of German war economy were coordinated by them.
At the end of the war the Gauleiter were Commanders of the
Volkssturm in their respective areas.
We should remember that when in March, 1945, Speer was
appointed as Hitler's plenipotentiary for the total
destruction of industrial objectives, bridges, railways and
other means of communications, he addressed his telegram to
the Gauleiter, for they personally directed the destruction
of the important objectives on the spot.
And now, after all that has been done, the defence is trying
to present Hitler's Party as a kind of welfare society, and
its leaders as lady patronesses; it is trying to confuse a
perfectly clear matter by a heap of written documentary
evidence collected in various prisons and camps where the
arrested Fascists have been kept.
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(Part 7 of 15)
"In 1921 Adolf Hitler became the supreme leader or
'Fuehrer' of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers'
Party), also known as the Nazi Party, which had been
founded in Germany in 1920 .... The Nazi Party, together
with certain of its subsidiary organizations, became the
instrument of cohesion among the defendants and their co-
conspirators, and an instrument for the carrying out of
the aims and purposes of their conspiracy."
The legal investigation has fully confirmed this conclusion.
"The programme ...... is the political foundation of
NSDAP and, consequently, the fundamental political law of
the State. All legal principles should be applied in the
spirit of the Party programme. After seizing power the
Fuehrer managed to realize the fundamental parts of the
Party programme, beginning with the basic principles, and
continuing with the details."
Hitler's Party is inseparable from Hitler's Government, from
the SS, Gestapo and other criminal organizations of Hitler's
regime, as the Nazi leaders in the dock are inseparable from
the henchmen of Auschwitz and Maidanek, Baby-Yar and
Treblinka.
"The greatest guarantee of the National Socialist
revolution consists in complete external as well as
internal domination of the National Socialist Party over
Germany, and over all offices and organizations of
Germany .... All offices are under the control of the
supreme political leadership."
I have already mentioned in my final statement that NSDAP
was transformed, under the leadership of Bormann, into a
political organization which was in close interaction with
the German Secret Police and SS; that the entire Party
machinery of the NSDAP was utilized for the realization of
the aggressive plans of the leaders of Hitlerite Germany;
that the Party machinery of the NSDAP participated actively
in the measures of the German military and civil authorities
for the inhuman allocation of prisoners of war and
participated in the deportation into slavery of the
population of the territories occupied by the Germans.
"I swear inviolable allegiance to Adolf Hitler: I pledge
unconditional obedience to him and the leaders appointed
by him."
All Political Leaders were appointed by process of a special
selection. The only difference was that some of them, such
as Reichsleiter, Gauleiter and Kreisleiter, were appointed
by Hitler himself, and the others - such as the department
and division chiefs in Gau and Kreis, as well as
Ortsgruppenleiter - by Gauleiter. Political Leaders such as
Block and Zellenleiter were appointed by Kreisleiter.
"20th June, 1942. Within the period accounted for, in the
district of Celje, 105 people were shot and 362 arrested
.... The chief of the Security Police will empty the
prison in two weeks' time. One part of the imprisoned
people will be transferred to other prisons - the other
part will be shot. Thus we shall prepare the premises for
the next large-scale campaign.
Gauleiter Wagner raged in Alsatia, Gauleiter Terboven - in
Norway. Gauleiter Bohle, leader of the organization of the
NSDAP abroad, installed and directed a widely ramified
terroristic espionage and diversionist network and created
the so-called Fifth Column in different countries.