THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THIS TRIBUNAL
To apply the sanctions of the law to those whose conduct is found criminal by the standards I have outlined, is the responsibility committed to this Tribunal. It is the first court ever to undertake the difficult task of overcoming the confusion of many tongues and the conflicting concepts of just procedure among divers systems of law, so as to reach a common judgment. The tasks of all of us are such as to make heavy demands on patience and good will. Although the need for prompt action has admittedly resulted in imperfect work on the part of the prosecution, four great nations bring you their hurriedly assembled contributions of evidence. What remains undiscovered we can only guess. We could, with witnesses’ testimony, prolong the recitals of crime for years—but to what avail? We shall rest the case when we have offered what seems convincing and adequate proof of the crimes charged without unnecessary cumulation of evidence. We doubt very much whether it will be seriously denied that the crimes I have outlined took place. The effort will undoubtedly be to mitigate or escape personal responsibility.
Among the nations which unite in accusing these defendants the United States is perhaps in a position to be the most dispassionate, for, having sustained the least injury, it is perhaps the least animated by vengeance. Our American cities have not been bombed by day and night, by humans and by robots. It is not our temples that have been laid in ruins. Our countrymen have not had their homes destroyed over their heads. The menace of Nazi aggression, except to those in actual service, has seemed less personal and immediate to us than to European peoples. But while the United States is not first in rancor, it is not second in determination that the forces of law and order be made equal to the task of dealing with such international lawlessness as I have recited here.
Twice in my lifetime, the United States has sent its young manhood across the Atlantic, drained its resources, and burdened itself with debt to help defeat Germany. But the real hope and faith that has sustained the American people in these great efforts was that victory for ourselves and our Allies would lay the basis for an ordered international relationship in Europe and would end the centuries of strife on this embattled continent.
Twice we have held back in the early stages of European conflict in the belief that it might be confined to a purely European affair. In the United States, we have tried to build an economy without armament, a system of government without militarism, and a society where men are not regimented for war. This purpose, we know now, can never be realized if the world periodically is to be embroiled in war. The United States cannot, generation after generation, throw its youth or its resources onto the battlefields of Europe to redress the lack of balance between Germany’s strength and that of her enemies, and to keep the battles from our shores.
The American dream of a peace and plenty economy, as well as the hopes of other nations, can never be fulfilled if those nations are involved in a war every generation so vast and devastating as to crush the generation that fights and burden the generation that follows. But experience has shown that wars are no longer local. All modern wars become world wars eventually. And none of the big nations at least can stay out. If we cannot stay out of wars, our only hope is to prevent wars.
I am too well aware of the weaknesses of juridical action alone to contend that in itself your decision under this Charter can prevent future wars. Judicial action always comes after the event. Wars are started only on the theory and in the confidence that they can be won. Personal punishment, to be suffered only in the event the war is lost, will probably not be a sufficient deterrent to prevent a war where the warmakers feel the chances of defeat to be negligible.
But the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law. This trial represents mankind’s desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world’s peace and to commit aggressions against the rights of their neighbors.
The usefulness of this effort to do justice is not to be measured by considering the law or your judgment in isolation. This trial is part of the great effort to make the peace more secure. One step in this direction is the United Nations organization, which may take joint political action to prevent war if possible, and joint military action to insure that any nation which starts a war will lose it. This Charter and this trial, implementing the Kellogg-Briand Pact, constitute another step in the same direction—juridical action of a kind to ensure that those who start a war will pay for it personally.
While the defendants and the prosecutors stand before you as individuals, it is not the triumph of either group alone that is committed to your judgment. Above all personalities there are anonymous and impersonal forces whose conflict makes up much of human history. It is yours to throw the strength of the law back of either the one or the other of these forces for at least another generation. What are the real forces that are contending before you?
No charity can disguise the fact that the forces, which these defendants represent, the forces that would advantage and delight in their acquittal, are the darkest and most sinister forces in society—dictatorship and oppression, malevolence and passion, militarism and lawlessness. By their fruits we best know them. Their acts have bathed the world in blood and set civilization back a century. They have subjected their European neighbors to every outrage and torture, every spoliation and deprivation that insolence, cruelty, and greed could inflict. They have brought the German people to the lowest pitch of wretchedness, from which they can entertain no hope of early deliverance. They have stirred hatreds and incited domestic violence on every continent. These are the things that stand in the dock shoulder to shoulder with these prisoners.
The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. In all our countries it is still a struggling and imperfect thing. It does not plead that the United States, or any other country, has been blameless of the conditions which made the German people easy victims to the blandishments and intimidations of the Nazi conspirators.
But it points to the dreadful sequence of aggressions and crimes I have recited, it points to the weariness of flesh, the exhaustion of resources, and the destruction of all that was beautiful or useful in so much of the world, and to greater potentialities for destruction in the days to come. It is not necessary among the ruins of this ancient and beautiful city, with untold members of its civilian inhabitants still buried in its rubble, to argue the proposition that to start or wage an aggressive war has the moral qualities of the worst of crimes. The refuge of the defendants can be only their hope that International Law will lag so far behind the moral sense of mankind that conduct which is crime in the moral sense must be regarded as innocent in law.
Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance. It does not expect that you can make war impossible. It does expect that your juridical action will put the forces of International Law, its precepts, its prohibitions and, most of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace, so that men and women of good will in all countries may have “leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the law.”
[In most instances, documents referred to or quoted from have been cited by number, even though some of them have not been introduced in evidence as part of the American case. Where they were not offered as evidence it was chiefly for the reason that documents subsequently discovered covered the point more adequately, and because the pressure of time required the avoidance of cumulative evidence.
In some instances, no citations are given of documents quoted from or referred to. These are documents which for a variety of reasons were not introduced in evidence during the American case. The length of some of them was disproportionate to the value of their contents, and hence instead of full translations only summaries were prepared in English. In some cases a translation of the document referred to was made only for use in the address and was not included in the evidence which it was proposed to offer in court. In other cases the document, although translated, was turned over to the French or Russian delegations for use in the proof of Counts III and IV, and hence forms no part of the American case.]
Chapter VI
ORGANIZATION OF THE NAZI PARTY AND STATE
I. THE NAZI PARTY
In the opinion of the prosecution, some preliminary references must be made to the National Socialist German Labor Party, the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) which is not itself one of the defendant organizations in this proceeding, but which is represented among the defendant organizations by its most important formations, viz., the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party (Das Korps der Politischen Leiter der NSDAP), the SS (Die Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP), and the SA (Die Sturmabteilungen der NSDAP).
The prosecution has prepared a chart (Chart No. 1) showing the structure and organization of the NSDAP substantially as it existed at the peak of its development in March 1945. This chart has been prepared on the basis of information contained in important publications of the National Socialist Party, with which the defendants must be presumed to have been well acquainted. Particular reference is made to the Organization Book of the Party (Das Organisationsbuch der NSDAP) and to the National Socialist Year Book (Nationalsozialistisches Jahrbuch), of both of which Robert Ley was publisher. Both books were printed in many editions and appeared in hundreds of thousands of copies, throughout the period when the National Socialist party was in control of the German Reich and of the German people. This chart has been certified on its face as correct by a high official of the Nazi party, viz. Franz Xaver Schwarz, its Treasurer (Reichsschatzmeister der NSDAP), and its official in charge of party administration, whose affidavit is submitted with the chart.
Certain explanatory remarks concerning the organization of the National Socialist party may be useful.
The Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, named as a defendant organization, comprised the sum of the officials of the Nazi party. It was divided into seven categories:
| 1. The Fuehrer | ||
| 2. Reichsleiter | ||
| { | 3. Gauleiter | |
| { | 4. Kreisleiter | |
| Hoheitstraeger | { | 5. Ortsgruppenleiter |
| { | 6. Zellenleiter | |
| { | 7. Blockleiter |
The Fuehrer was the supreme and only leader who stood at the top of the party hierarchy. His successor designate was first, Hermann Goering, and second, Rudolf Hess.
The Reichsleiter, of whom 16 are shown on the chart, made up the Party Directorate (Reichsleitung). Through them, coordination of party and state machinery was assured. A number of these Reichsleiter, each of whom, at some time, was in charge of at least one office within the Party Directorate, were also the heads of party formations and of affiliated or supervised organizations of the party, or of agencies of the state, or even held ministerial positions. The Reichsleitung may be said to have represented the horizontal organization of the party according to functions, within which all threads controlling the varied life of the German people met. Each office within the Reichsleitung of the NSDAP executed definite tasks assigned to it by the Fuehrer, or by the leader of the Party Chancellory (Chef der Parteikanzlei), who in 1945 was Martin Bormann and before him, Rudolph Hess.
It was the duty of the Reichsleitung to make certain these tasks were carried out so that the will of the Fuehrer was quickly communicated to the lowliest Zelle or Block. The individual offices of the Reichsleitung had the mission to remain in constant and closest contact with the life of the people through the subdivisions of the party organization, in the Gaue, Kreisen, and Ortsgruppen. These leaders had been taught that the right to organize human beings accrued through appreciation of the fact that a people must be educated ideologically (weltanschaulich), that is to say, according to the philosophy of National Socialism. Among the former Reichsleiter on trial in this cause are the following defendants:
Alfred Rosenberg—The delegate to the Fuehrer for Ideological Training and Education of the Party. (Der Beauftragte des Fuehrer’s fuer die Ueberwachung der gesammten geistigen und weltanschaulichen Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP).
Hans Frank—At one time head of the Legal Office of the party (Reichsleiter des Reichsrechtsamtes).
Baldur von Schirach—Leader of Youth Education (Leiter fuer die Jugenderziehung).
and the late
Robert Ley—Leader of the Party Organization (Reichsorganisationsleiter der NSDAP) and Leader of the German Labor Front (Leiter der Deutschen Arbeitsfront).
The next categories to be considered are the Hoheitstraeger, the “bearers of sovereignty.” To them was assigned political sovereignty over specially designated subdivisions of the state of which they were the appointed leaders. The Hoheitstraeger may be said to represent the vertical organization of the party. These leaders included all:
a. Gauleiter, of which there were 42 within the Reich in 1945. A Gauleiter was the political leader of the largest subdivision of the State. He was charged by the Fuehrer with political, cultural, and economic control over the life of the people, which he was to coordinate with the National Socialist ideology. A number of the defendants before the bar of the Tribunal were former Gauleiter of the NSDAP. Among them are Julius Streicher (Franconia) whose seat was in Nurnberg, Baldur von Schirach (Vienna), and Fritz Sauckel (Thuringia).
b. Kreisleiter, the political leaders of the largest subdivision of a Gau.
c. Ortsgruppenleiter, the political leaders of the largest subdivision of a Kreis consisting of several towns or villages, or of a part of a larger city, and including from 1500 to 3000 households.
d. Zellenleiter, the political leaders of a group of from 4 to 8 city blocks or of a corresponding grouping of households in the country.
e. Blockleiter, the political leaders of from 40 to 60 households.
Each of these Hoheitstraeger, or “bearers of sovereignty,” was directly responsible to the next highest leader in the Nazi hierarchy. The Gauleiter was directly subordinate to the Fuehrer himself, the Kreisleiter was directly subordinate to the Gauleiter, the Ortsgruppenleiter to the Kreisleiter, and so on. The Fuehrer himself appointed all Gauleiter and Kreisleiter, all Reichsleiter, and all other political leaders within the Party Directorate (Reichsleitung) down to the grade of Gauamtsleiter, the head of a subdivision of the party organization within a Gau.
The Hoheitstraeger and Reichsleitung together constituted the all-powerful group of leaders by means of which the Nazi party reached into the lives of the people, consolidated its control over them, and compelled them to conform to the National Socialist pattern. For this purpose, broad powers were given them, including the right to call upon all party machinery to effectuate their plans. They could requisition the services of the SA and of the SS, as well as of the HJ and the NSKK.
The controlled party organizations (Gliederungen der NSDAP) actually constituted the party itself, and substantially the entire party membership was contained within these organizations, viz.:
SA—NS Storm Troops (Sturmabteilungen).
SS—NS Elite Corps (Schutzstaffeln).
NSKK—NS Motor Corps (Kraftfahrkorps).
HJ—Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend).
NS Women’s Organization (Frauenschaft).
NS German Students’ Bund (Deutscher Studentenbund).
NS University Teachers’ Bund (Deutscher Dozentenbund).
There were additional affiliated organizations (Angeschlossene Verbaende der NSDAP). Among these were included the following:
DAF—German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront).
NS Public Welfare Organization (Volkswohlfahrt).
NS War Victims’ Organization (Kriegsopferversorgung).
NS Bund for German Technology (Bund Deutscher Technik).
German Civil Service (Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten).
NS Physicians’ Bund (Deutscher Aerztebund).
NS Teachers’ Bund (Lehrerbund).
NS League of Legal Officials (Rechtswahrerbund).
A third group of organizations was officially known as supervised organizations (Betreute Organisationen der NSDAP). These included the following:
German Women’s Work (Deutsches Frauenwerk).
German Students’ Society (Deutsche Studentenschaft).
NS Bund of Former German Students (Altherrenbund der Deutschen Studenten).
Reich League “German Family” (Reichsbund Deutsche Familie).
German Communal Congress (Deutscher Gemeindetag).
NS Bund for Physical Exercise (Reichsbund fuer Leibesuebungen).
According to the official party designations, there was a fourth classification known as Weitere Nationalsozialistische Organisationen, and in this category the following organizations appeared:
RAD—Reich Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst), at one time subordinate to the Reich Labor leader (Reichsarbeitsfuehrer).
NSFK—NS Flying Corps (NS-Fliegerkorps), which was subordinate to the Reich Minister for Aviation.