Afternoon Session
LT. LAMBERT: The Tribunal will recall that at the close of the morning session I had been putting in a series of decrees of the Defendant Bormann in which he called for increasingly harsh and severe treatment of Allied prisoners of war. These instructions issued by the Defendant Bormann culminated in his decree of 30 September 1944. The attention of the Tribunal is invited to Document 058-PS, previously put in as Exhibit Number USA-456. The Tribunal will recall that this decree of the Defendant Bormann removed jurisdiction over all prisoners of war from the Nazi High Command and transferred it to Himmler. The decree also provided that all PW camp commanders should be under the orders of the local SS commanders. By virtue of this order of the Defendant Bormann, Hitler was enabled to proceed with his program of inhuman treatment and even extermination of Allied prisoners of war.
We now proceed to put in what the Prosecution conceive to be extremely important and extremely incriminating evidence against Bormann and the co-conspirators, that is, the responsibility of the Defendant Bormann for the organized lynching of Allied airmen. I offer in evidence Document 062-PS, Exhibit Number USA-696; and I very respectfully request the Tribunal to turn to this document. On its face it is an order dated 13 March 1940 from the Defendant Hess addressed to Reichsleiter, Gauleiter, and other Nazi officials and organizations. In this order these Party officials are instructed by the Defendant Hess to instruct the German civil population to arrest or liquidate all bailed-out Allied fliers. I call the attention of the Tribunal to the third paragraph on the first page of the English translation of Document 062-PS. In the third paragraph Hess directs that these instructions, which I shall soon read, are to be passed out only orally to all—will the Tribunal please mark that—district leaders or Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppenleiter, cell leaders, and even the block leaders; that is to say, this order must be passed out by all the officials of the Leadership Corps to the Hoheitsträger, ranging from Reichsleiter down to, and including, the Blockleiter.
Now turn to Document 062-PS, and the Tribunal will find the instructions which Hess demanded be disseminated by the Leadership Corps orally: The lynching of Allied fliers. These directions are headed: “About behavior in case of landings of enemy planes or parachutists.” The first three instructions I omit as not material to the basic point now being made. Instruction 4 reads, and I quote: “Likewise enemy parachutists are immediately to be arrested or liquidated.”
It speaks for itself and requires no further comment from the Prosecution.
Now, in order to insure the success of this scheme ordered by the Defendant Hess, Bormann issued a secret letter, dated 30 May 1944, to the officials, if the Tribunal will please mark, of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, prohibiting any police measures or criminal proceedings against German civilians who had lynched or murdered Allied airmen. This document, our 057-PS, has been previously put in and received by the Tribunal in connection with the Prosecution’s case against the alleged criminal organization, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party.
Now, may it please the Tribunal, that such lynchings, organized, authorized, and consented to by Defendant Bormann, actually took place has since been fully and indisputably demonstrated by trials by American military commissions which have resulted in the conviction of German civilians for the murder of Allied fliers. I request the Tribunal to take judicial notice of Military Commission Order Number 2, Headquarters 15th U. S. Army, dated 23 June 1945. This order is our Document 2559-PS. This order imposed the sentence of death upon a German civilian for violation of the laws and usages of war in murdering an American airman who had bailed out and landed without any means of defense.
The Tribunal will note from that order of the American Military Commission the 15th of August 1944 as date of crime; Bormann’s order was dated May 1944.
I request the Tribunal to notice judicially Military Commission Order Number 5, Headquarters 3rd U. S. Army and Eastern Military District, dated 18 October 1945. This order is set forth in Document 2560-PS. This order imposed a sentence of death upon a German national for violating the laws and usages of war by murdering, on or about 12 December 1944, an American airman who landed in German territory.
We could cite further orders of American and other Allied military commissions sentencing German civilians to death for the lynching and murdering of Allied airmen who had bailed out and landed without means of defense on German territory. We think our point is made by taking the time of the Tribunal to cite those two orders.
As previously mentioned in the trial address, on 20 October 1944, when Nazi defeat in the war had become certain, Bormann assumed political and organizational command of the newly-formed Volkssturm, the people’s army. By virtue of ordering the continued resistance by the Volkssturm, Bormann bears some responsibility for the resistance which prolonged the aggressive war for months.
I come now, if it please the Tribunal, to present the proofs showing that Bormann authorized, directed, and participated in a wide variety of Crimes against Humanity in aid of the conspiracy. Bormann played an important role in the administration of the forced labor program. I offer in evidence Document D-226, Exhibit Number USA-697. This is a Speer circular, a circular of the Defendant Speer of 10 November 1944, transmitting Himmler’s instructions that the Party and the Gestapo should co-operate in securing a larger productivity from the millions of impressed foreign workers in Germany. I quote the second numbered paragraph of Page 2 of the English translation of Document D-226, which reads as follows. I quote:
“All men and women of the NSDAP, its subsidiaries and affiliated bodies in the works”—meaning of course factories—“will, in accordance with instructions from their Kreisleiter, be warned by their local group leaders”—we intrude to say that means Ortsgruppenleiter—“and be put under obligation to play their part in keeping foreigners under the most careful observation. They will report the least suspicion to the works foreman, which he will pass on to the defense deputy or, where such a deputy has not been appointed, to the police department concerned, while at the same time reporting to the works manager and the local group leader”—the Ortsgruppenleiter—“to exert untiringly and continuously their influence on foreigners, both in word and deed, in regard to the certainty of German victory and the German will to resist, thus producing a further increase of output in the works.
“Party members, both men and women, and members of Party organizations and affiliated bodies must be expected more than ever before to conduct themselves in an exemplary manner.”
Now, in a word, the significance of that decree: It is true it is a circular of Speer’s reciting an arrangement between himself and Himmler, but the effect of the arrangement is to impose the onus and the continuous task of supplying foreign workers on Party members, a Party which, as the Tribunal knows, Bormann headed as executive chief.
Under the decree of 24 January 1942 no such directive could have been issued without the participation of Bormann, both in its preparation and its enactment.
I now offer in evidence Document 025-PS as Exhibit Number USA-698. This is a conference report dated 4 September 1942 which states that the recruitment, importation, mobilization, and processing of 500,000 female domestic workers from the east would be handled exclusively by the Defendant Sauckel, Himmler, and the Defendant Bormann. I quote the first two sentences of the third paragraph of the English translation of Document 025-PS, which reads as follows:
“The Führer has ordered the immediate importation of 400,000 to 500,000 female domestic eastern workers from the Ukraine between the ages of 15 and 35 and has charged the Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor with the execution of this action which is to end in about 3 months. In connection with this—this is also approved by Reichsleiter Bormann—the illegal bringing of female housekeepers into the Reich by members of the Armed Forces, or various other agencies is to be allowed subsequently and, furthermore, irrespective of the official recruiting, is not to be prevented.”
And I now quote from the first sentence of the last paragraph on Page 4 of the English translation of Document Number 025-PS, and this is the part that hooks in the Defendant Bormann with the scheme:
“Generally one gathered from this conference that the questions concerning the recruitment and mobilization, as well as the treatment of female domestic workers from the east, are being handled by the Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor, the Reichsführer SS, and the Chief of the German Police and the Party Chancellery, and that the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories is in these questions considered as having no, or only limited, competence.”
The Party Chancellery is here mentioned in terms, and Bormann was the leader of the Party Chancellery, as the Tribunal knows.
Now the defendant imposed his will on the administration of the German-occupied areas and insisted on the ruthless exploitation of the inhabitants of the occupied East. The attention of the Tribunal is respectfully invited to Document R-36, previously put in as Exhibit Number USA-344. The Tribunal is well acquainted with this document, for it has been referred to several times in these proceedings, and knows that this is an official memorandum of the Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories, dated 19 August 1942, which states that the repressive views of the Defendant Bormann with respect to the inhabitants of the Eastern areas actually determined German occupational policies in the East. The Tribunal recalls the now almost notorious quotation from this Document R-36, which purports to paraphrase and constitute the essence of Bormann’s views with respect to German occupational policy in the East. So often has it been quoted that I shall resist the temptation to repeat it, but in essence it comes to this. Bormann in effect says:
“The Slavs are to work for us. In so far as we don’t need them, they may die. They should not receive the benefits of the German public health system. We do not care about their fertility. They may practice abortion and use contraceptives; the more the better. We don’t want them educated; it is enough if they can count up to 100. Such stooges will be the more useful to us. Religion we leave to them as a diversion. As to food, they will not get any more than is absolutely necessary. We are the masters; we come first.”
We respectfully submit this as an accurate paraphrase and summary of the text of that document, Document R-36.
The attention of the Tribunal is next respectfully invited to Document 654-PS, previously put in as Exhibit Number USA-218. The Tribunal will recall that this is a conference report, dated 18 November 1942, embodying an agreement between the Minister of Justice and Himmler entered into by Bormann’s suggestion under which all inhabitants of the Eastern occupied areas are subjected to a brutal police regime in the place of an ordinary judicial system. And the agreement refers all disputes between the Party, Reich Minister for Justice, and Himmler to Bormann for settlement.
Now, because Bormann issued these and related orders, we submit that he bears a large share of the responsibility for the discriminatory treatment and the extermination of great numbers of persons in German-occupied areas of the East.
With the indulgence of the Tribunal, I put the substance of what I have been privileged to present in a few words. We have shown that Bormann, only 45 years old at the time of Germany’s defeat, contributed his entire adult life to the furtherance of the conspiracy. His crucial contribution to the conspiracy lay in his direction of the vast powers of the Nazi Party in advancing the multiple objectives of the conspiracy. First, as Chief of Staff to the Defendant Hess and then, as leader, in his own name, of the Party Chancellery, subject only to Hitler’s supreme authority, he applied and directed the total power of the Party and its agencies to carry into execution the plans of the conspirators. He used his great powers to persecute the Christian Church and clergy and was an unrepentant foe of the fundamentals of the Christianity with which he warred.
He actively authorized and participated in measures designed to persecute the Jews, and his was a strong hand in pressing down the crown of thorns of misery on the brow of the Jewish people, both in Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
As Chief of the Party Chancellery and secretary to the Führer, Bormann authorized, directed, and participated in a wide variety of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, including, without limitation, the lynching of Allied airmen, the enslavement and inhuman treatment of the inhabitants of German-occupied Europe, the cruelty of impressed labor, the breaking up of homes contrary to the clear provisions of the Hague regulations, and the planned persecution and extermination of the civil population of Eastern Europe.
May it please this Tribunal, every schoolboy knows that Hitler was an evil man. The point we respectfully emphasize is that without chieftains like Bormann, Hitler would never have been able to seize and consolidate total power in Germany, but he would have been left to walk the wilderness alone.
He was, in truth, an evil archangel to the Lucifer of Hitler; and, although he may remain a fugitive from the justice of this Tribunal, with an empty chair in the dock, Bormann cannot escape responsibility for his illegal conduct.
And we close with what seems to us an extremely important point. Bormann may not be here, but under the last sentence of Article VI of the Charter every defendant in this dock shown in our evidence to have been a leader, an organizer, an inciter, and an accomplice of this conspiracy is responsible for the acts of all persons in furtherance of the general scope of the conspiracy. And resting squarely on this proposition we submit, even though Bormann is not here, that every man in the dock shares responsibility for his criminal acts. And with this we close. The name of Bormann is not “written in water,” but will be remembered as long as the Record of Your Honors’ Tribunal is preserved.
I now have the privilege of introducing Lieutenant Henry Atherton, who will present the case for the Prosecution against the individual Defendant Seyss-Inquart.
LIEUTENANT HENRY K. ATHERTON (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution has prepared a trial brief for the convenience of the Tribunal showing the individual responsibility of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart. Copies of this brief are now being handed to the Tribunal. At the same time the document books which bear the letters “KK” and which contain translations of the evidence referred to in the brief, or to be introduced in evidence at this time, are also being handed to the Tribunal. At the outset I wish to make clear my intention to deal at this time only with the individual responsibility of Seyss-Inquart for the crimes charged in Counts One and Two of the Indictment. Evidence to show his guilt as charged under Counts Three and Four of the Indictment, that is, evidence specifically directed thereunto, is to be introduced later by the prosecutors of the French Republic and the Soviet Union.
Seyss-Inquart has agreed that he held the following positions in State and Party, and I am referring now to Document 2910-PS, which is Exhibit Number USA-17. He was State Councillor of Austria from May 1937 to 12 February 1938. He was Minister of [the] Interior and Security of Austria from 16 February 1938 to 11 March 1938; Chancellor of Austria from 11 March to 15 March 1938; Reich Governor of Austria from 15 March 1938 to 1 May 1939; Reich Minister without Portfolio from 1 May 1939 until September of that year; member of the Reich Cabinet from 1 May 1939 until the end of the war; Chief of the Civil Administration of South Poland from the early part of September 1939 until 12 October 1939; Deputy Governor General of Poland under the Defendant Frank from 12 October 1939 until May 1940; and, finally, Reich Commissioner of the Occupied Territories of the Netherlands from 29 May 1940 until the end of the war. He has also agreed that he became a member of the National Socialist Party on 13 March 1938 and that he was appointed a general in the SS 2 days later.
Now this list of positions which Seyss-Inquart has agreed that he held, if the Tribunal please, shows the place which he held in the Nazi Common Plan or Conspiracy. It shows his steady rise to greater influence and power, and especially it emphasizes his particular talent, his skill in effecting the enslavement of the smaller nations surrounding Germany for the benefit of what he called the Greater German Reich.
Now the Defendant Seyss-Inquart first became a member of the Nazi conspiracy in connection with the Nazi assault on Austria. Mr. Alderman has shown how the Nazis implemented their diplomatic and military preparations for this event by intensive political preparations within Austria.
The ultimate purpose of these preparations was to secure the appointment of Nazis, or persons known to be sympathetic to them, to key positions in the Austrian Government, particularly that of Minister of the Interior and Security, which controlled the police, thus permitting quick suppression of all opposition to the Nazis when the time came.
For this purpose Seyss-Inquart was a most effective tool, the first of the so-called Quislings or traitors used by the Nazis to further their aggressions and to fasten their hold on their victims. Seyss-Inquart has admitted his membership in the Party only from 13 March 1938, but I want to show that he was closely affiliated with them at a much earlier time. For this purpose I now offer in evidence Document 3271-PS as Exhibit Number USA-700.
Reading from Page 9 of the translation, he says in this letter, which is a letter to Himmler, dated 19 August 1939:
“As far as my membership in the Party is concerned, I state that I was never asked to join the Party but had asked Dr. Kier in December 1931 to clarify my relationship with the Party, since I regarded the Party as the basis for the solution of the Austrian problem . . . I paid my membership fees and, as I believe, directly to the Gau Vienna. These contributions also took place after the period of suppression. Later on I had direct contact with the Ortsgruppe in Dornbach. My wife paid these fees, but the Blockwart”—and I believe that is another word for Blockleiter—“was never in doubt, considering that this amount, 40 shillings per month, was a share for my wife and myself, and I was in every respect treated as a Party member.”
Seyss-Inquart, in the last sentence of the paragraph says:
“In every way, therefore, I felt as a Party member, considered myself a Party member, thus, as stated, as far back as December 1931.”
Now, if the Tribunal please, and before I leave this letter, I want just to refer to one or two sentences which the Tribunal will find in the third paragraph on Page 7 of the translation. Referring to a meeting which he had had with Hitler, Seyss-Inquart says:
“I left this discussion a very upright man with the unspeakably happy feeling of being permitted to be a tool of the Führer.”
The truth of the matter is that Seyss-Inquart was an active supporter of the Nazis at all times after 1931. But after the Nazi Party in Austria was declared illegal in July 1934, he avoided too notorious a connection with the Nazi organization, in order to safeguard what the Nazis called his good legal position. By this device he was better able to use his connections with Catholics and others in his work of infiltration for his Nazi superiors.
The Tribunal will remember, as Document 2219-PS, Exhibit Number USA-62, a letter from Seyss-Inquart to Göring of 14 July 1939, in which Seyss-Inquart makes this clear. It was in this letter also that he said:
“Yet, I know that I cling with unconquerable tenacity to the goal in which I believe; that is Greater Germany and the Führer.”
The evidence which Mr. Alderman introduced told in detail the manner in which the Nazi conspirators carried out their assault on Austria. I do not intend to attempt to review any part of this evidence. I merely wish to refer the Tribunal to two documents which are particularly important in showing the part played by this defendant. I refer to the Rainer report to Gauleiter Bürckel, dated 6 July 1939, which relates the part played by the Austrian Nazi Party, the Defendant Seyss-Inquart and others between July 1934 and March 1938; and the astonishing record of telephone calls between the Defendant Göring or his agents in Berlin and Seyss-Inquart and others in Vienna on 11 March 1938. The Rainer report is Document 812-PS, Exhibit Number USA-61, and was read into the Record beginning at Page 502 (Volume II, Page 370) of the English version and continuing for a number of pages thereafter. The transcript of the telephone calls is Document 2949-PS, Exhibit Number USA-76, and was introduced first at Page 566 (Volume II, Page 414) of the English Record.
Now, in order to supplement this and further to show that part played by Seyss-Inquart, I wish now to introduce in evidence the voluntary statement which Seyss-Inquart signed with advice of his counsel on 10 December 1945. This is Document 3425-PS, and I offer it as Exhibit Number USA-701.
In this statement Seyss-Inquart explains, from his point of view, his part in bringing about the Anschluss. I want to read first just a few sentences from the second paragraph on the first page. It states, and I quote:
“In 1918 I became interested in the Anschluss of Austria with Germany. From that year on I worked, planned, and collaborated with others of a like mind to bring about a union of Austria with Germany. It was my desire to effect this union of the two countries in an evolutionary manner, and by legal means.”
Skipping just a sentence or two:
“I supported also the National Socialist Party as long as it was legal, because it declared itself with particular determination in favor of the Anschluss. From 1932 onwards I made financial contributions to this Party, but I discontinued financial support when it was declared illegal in 1934.”
Then skipping down another couple of sentences:
“From July 1936 onwards I endeavored to help the National Socialists to regain their legal status and, finally, to participate in the Austrian Government. During this time, particularly after the Party was forbidden in July 1934, I knew that the radical element of the Party was engaged in terroristic activities, such as attacks on railroads, bridges, telephone communications, et cetera. I knew that the governments of both Chancellors, Dollfuss and Schuschnigg, although they held in principle the same total German viewpoint were opposed to the Anschluss then because of the National Socialist regime in the Reich. I was sympathetic towards the efforts of the Austrian Nazi Party to gain political power and corresponding influence, because they were in favor of the Anschluss.”
Now, briefly summarizing, the Tribunal will note that the defendant tells how his appointment as State Councillor, in May 1937, was the result of an agreement between Austria and Germany in July 1936, and that was the agreement which Rainer agreed Seyss-Inquart had helped to bring about; that his appointment as Minister of the Interior and Security was one of the results of the agreement between Schuschnigg and Hitler at Berchtesgaden, 12 February 1938. And he admits that after the appointment and the agreement the Austrian National Socialists engaged in more and more widespread demonstrations. He tells how immediately after this appointment as Minister of the Interior and Security he went directly to Berlin and talked with Himmler and Hitler; and then, finally, he describes the events of that day, of the 11th of March 1938, when with the full support of German military power he became Chancellor.
I don’t want to quote at length from that description, because the Tribunal knows already what happened. Reading from the middle of Page 3, he says:
“At 10 o’clock in the morning Glaise-Horstenau and I went to the office of the Bundeskanzler and conferred for about 2 hours with Dr. Schuschnigg. We frankly told him all that we knew, particularly about the possibility of disturbances and of preparations by the Reich.
“The Chancellor said that he would give his decision by 1400 hours. While I was with Glaise-Horstenau and Dr. Schuschnigg, I was repeatedly called to the telephone to speak to Göring.”
THE PRESIDENT: Has this been read already?
LT. ATHERTON: No, Sir; this document has not been in before.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
LT. ATHERTON: “He informed . . . me that the agreement of 12 February had been cancelled and demanded Dr. Schuschnigg’s resignation and my appointment as Chancellor.”
The Tribunal has heard the other side of that story, the actual telephone conversations. And then, finally, the next two paragraphs, he tells how Keppler repeatedly urged him to send a telegram calling on Germany to send troops, and that at first he refused but finally acquiesced, and I now read from the next to the last paragraph:
“As I am able to gather from the records available, I was requested about 10 p. m. to give my sanction to another somewhat altered telegram about which I informed President Miklas and Dr. Schuschnigg. Finally President Miklas appointed me Chancellor, and a little while later he approved my list of proposed ministers.”
If the Tribunal will recall, the telegram in question called on Hitler, on behalf of the Provisional Austrian Government, to send German troops as soon as possible in order to support it in its task and help it to prevent bloodshed. The text of the telegram, as printed in Volume 6 of the Dokumente der Deutschen Politik, appears as Document 2463-PS of the document book. It is interesting to note that the text of this telegram is substantially identical with that dictated by Göring over the phone to Keppler on the evening of the 11th of March, which appears on Page 575 (Volume II, Page 420) of the Record.
Now, on the next morning, again referring to the statement of the defendant, he admits that he telephoned Hitler. . .
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Are you reading?
LT. ATHERTON: No, Sir; I am summarizing.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): If you don’t read it it is not in evidence.
LT. ATHERTON: In that event I will read a little further. I read now the last paragraph on Page 3:
“During the morning of the 12th of March I had a telephone conversation with Hitler in which I suggested that, while German troops were entering Austria, Austrian troops, as a symbol, should march into the Reich. Hitler agreed to this suggestion and we agreed to meet in Linz, Upper Austria, later on that same day. I then flew to Linz with Himmler, who had arrived in Vienna from Berlin. I greeted Hitler on the balcony of the City Hall and said that Article 88 of the Treaty of St. Germain was now inoperative.”
I have referred to the slavish manner in which, as the evidence has shown, Seyss-Inquart carried out orders conveyed to him by telephone from Göring on 11 March 1938 in his negotiations with Chancellor Schuschnigg and President Miklas. This relationship had in fact existed for some time. Early in January 1938, Seyss-Inquart, although he then held an important position in the Austrian Government, had already considered himself as holding a mandate from the Nazi conspirators in Berlin in his negotiations with his own Government. As evidence of the way in which this happened, I offer Document 3473-PS as Exhibit Number USA-581. This is a letter from Keppler to Göring, dated 6 January 1938, in which he states, and I quote:
“My dear Colonel General:
“Councillor of State, Dr. Seyss-Inquart, has sent a courier to me with the report that his negotiations with the Federal Chancellor, Dr. Schuschnigg, have run aground, so that he feels compelled to return the mandate entrusted to him. Dr. Seyss-Inquart desires to have a discussion with me regarding this before he acts accordingly.
“May I ask your advice, whether at this moment such a step, entailing automatically also the resignation of the Federal Minister Glaise von Horstenau, appears indicated or whether I should put forth efforts to postpone such an action.”
The letter is signed by Keppler. On top of the original is a brief note apparently attached by the secretary of the Defendant Göring and dated Karinhall, 6 January 1938, reading as follows:
“Keppler should be told by telephone:
“1) He should do everything to avoid the resignation of Councillor of State Dr. Seyss-Inquart and State Minister Glaise von Horstenau. If some difficulties should arise, Seyss-Inquart should come to him first of all.”
Now as a result of this directive, apparently telephoned to Keppler, Keppler, on the 8th of January 1938, wrote a letter to Seyss-Inquart. I now offer this letter, which is Document Number 3397-PS, in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-702. Keppler writes, and the Tribunal will remember that Keppler was, at that time, Secretary of State in charge of Austrian affairs of the German Government:
“Dear State Councillor:
“The other day I had a visit from Mr. Pl. who gave us a report of the state of affairs, and informed us that you are seriously considering the question of whether or not you are forced to hand back the mandate entrusted to you.
“I informed General Göring of the situation in writing, and G. just had me informed that I should try my utmost to prevent you, or any one else, from taking this step. This is also in the same vein as G.’s conversation with Dr. J. before Christmas; at any rate, G. requests you to undertake nothing of this nature under any circumstances before he himself has the opportunity of speaking with you once more.
“I can also inform you that G. is, furthermore, making an effort to speak to Ll., in order that certain improper conditions be eliminated by him.”
Then the letter is signed by Keppler.
The two letters together, if the Tribunal please, show clearly enough the extent to which this defendant was a tool, the extent to which he was being used at that time by the conspirators in their planning for their assault on Austria. Now, once German troops were in Austria and Seyss-Inquart had become Chancellor, he lost no time carrying out the plan of his Nazi fellow conspirators.
I next offer in evidence Document 3254-PS, which is a memorandum written by the Defendant Seyss-Inquart entitled, “The Austrian Question.” It is Exhibit Number USA-704. I offer it only because of the description which he gives of the manner in which he secured the passage of an Austrian act in annexing Austria to Germany. He said that on March 13 German officials brought him a proposal for inviting Austria into Germany. They reported that. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Are you quoting?
LT. ATHERTON: I now quote from the middle of Page 20 of the English text:
“I called a meeting of the Council of Ministers, after having been told by Dr. Wolf that the Bundespräsident would make no difficulties in regard to that realization; he would return to his home in the meantime and would await me there. On my proposal the Council of Ministers assembled in the meantime adopted the draft bill to which my law section had made some formal modifications. The vote on the 20th of April had been planned already in the first draft. According to the provisions of the Constitution of 1 May 1934, any fundamental modification of the Constitution could be decided by the Council of Ministers with the approbation of the Bundespräsident. A vote or a confirmation by the nation was in no way provided for. In the event that the Bundespräsident should, for any reason, either resign his functions or be for some time unable to fulfill them, his prerogatives were to go over to the Bundeskanzler. I went to the Bundespräsident with Dr. Wolf. The President told me that he did not know whether this development would be of benefit to the Austrian nation but that he did not wish to interfere and preferred to resign his functions, so that all constitutional rights would come into my hands.”
And then, skipping two or three sentences to the top of Page 21:
“Thereafter I returned to Linz by car, where I arrived about midnight and reported to the Führer the accomplishment of the Anschluss law.”
The same day Germany formally incorporated Austria into the Reich by a decree and declared it to be a province of the German Reich, in violation of Article 80 of the Treaty of Versailles. I ask the Court to take judicial notice of Document Number 2307-PS, which is the decree to this effect, published in 1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 237.
If the Defendant Seyss-Inquart seems unduly modest as to the part which he played in undermining the Government to which he owed allegiance, his fellow conspirators were quick to recognize the importance of his contributions. In a speech on the 26th of March 1938, the Defendant Göring said—and I am reading now from Document 3270-PS, Exhibit Number USA-703, which is an extract from the Dokumente der Deutschen Politik, Volume 6, Page 183:
“A complete unanimity between the Führer and the National Socialist confidants inside of Austria existed. . . . If the National Socialists’ rising succeeded so quickly and thoroughly and without bloodshed, it is first of all due to the calm, firm, prudent, and decisive attitude of the present Reichsstatthalter Seyss-Inquart and his confidants.”
I want, before leaving the matter of the Anschluss, to stress this once more, because this was a time of great importance, and it was Seyss-Inquart who held the key position in this first open attack on another country. Had it not been for his part, as has been shown, things might have gone very differently, and if there were no other place where he was connected with the conspirators’ plans for aggression, this would be sufficient to rank him with the foremost of the conspirators.
Now, passing on, Mr. Alderman has shown the way in which Seyss-Inquart co-operated with the conspirators in integrating Austria as fully as possible into the Reich, making its resources available to the Reich—its resources of wealth and its resources of manpower.
In furtherance of the conspirators’ plan, Reichsstatthalter Seyss-Inquart for the first time demonstrated his talent for the persecution of Jewish citizens. In an address in Vienna on the 26th of March 1938, which will be found at Page 2326 (Volume IV, Page 552) of the Record, he recalls that Göring expressly commissioned this defendant, as Reichsstatthalter, to institute anti-Semitic measures.
And the Tribunal will remember from previous evidence the kind of wholesale larceny which this involved. So successfully did Seyss-Inquart perform his task that at the meeting of the Air Ministry under the chairmanship of the Defendant Göring on the 12th of November 1938, Fischböck, a member of Seyss-Inquart’s official family, was able to relate the efficiency with which the civil administration in Austria dealt with the so-called “Jewish question.” I refer to Document Number 1816-PS, Exhibit Number USA-261, and I am reading first from Page 14 of the English translation. The Tribunal will note that this is the third full paragraph from the bottom of Page 14:
“Your Excellency: In this matter we have already a very complete plan for Austria. There are 12,000 Jewish artisans and 5,000 Jewish retail shops in Vienna. Before the seizure of power we had already a definite plan for tradesmen, regarding this total of 17,000 stores. Of the shops of the 12,000 artisans about 10,000 were to be closed definitely and 2,000 were to be kept open; 4,000 of the 5,000 retail stores should be closed and 1,000 should be kept open, that is, Aryanized. According to this plan, between 3,000 and 3,500 of the total of 17,000 stores would be kept open, all others closed. This was decided following investigations in every single branch and according to local needs, in agreement with all competent authorities, and is ready for publication as soon as we receive the law which we requested in September. This law shall empower us to withdraw licenses from artisans quite independent of the Jewish question.”
Göring said:
“I shall have this decree issued today.”
Then, if the Tribunal please, I just wish to read one more sentence from the middle of the next page, in which Fischböck says:
“Out of 17,000 stores 12,000 or 14,000 would be closed and the remainder Aryanized or handed over to the Bureau of Trustees which is operated by the State.”
And Göring replies:
“I have to say that this proposal is grand. This way the whole affair would be wound up in Vienna, one of the Jewish capitals, so to speak, by Christmas or by the end of the year.”
The Defendant Funk then says:
“We can do the same thing over here.”
In other words, Seyss-Inquart’s so-called solution was so highly regarded that it was considered a model for the rest of the Reich.
The task of integrating Austria into the Reich being substantially complete, the Nazi conspirators were able to use Seyss-Inquart’s expert services for the subjugation of other peoples. As an illustration I refer the Tribunal to Document D-571, Exhibit Number USA-112, which has already been read in evidence. The Tribunal will recall that from this document it appeared that on the 21st of March 1939 an official of the British Government reported from Prague to Viscount Halifax that a little earlier, on the 11th of March 1939, Seyss-Inquart, Bürckel, and five German generals attended a meeting of the Cabinet of the Slovak Government and told them that they should proclaim the independence of Slovakia, that Hitler had decided to settle the question of Czechoslovakia definitely (this has been read in court today) and that, unless they did as they were told, Hitler would disinterest himself in their fate. It just gives an indication of the manner in which this man continued to be busy in the aggressive plans of these Nazi conspirators.
Now early in September 1939, after the opening of the attack against Poland, Seyss-Inquart became Chief of the Civil Administration of south Poland. A few weeks later, on 12 October 1939, Hitler promulgated a decree providing that territories occupied by German troops, except those incorporated within the German Reich, should be subject to the authority of the Governor General of the occupied Polish territories and he appointed the Defendant Frank as Governor General and the Defendant Seyss-Inquart as Deputy Governor General. This decree will be found in the 1939 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 2077, and I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it. Shortly thereafter, on 26 October 1939, Frank promulgated a decree establishing the administration of the occupied Polish territories, of which he was Governor. This decree is published in the Dokumente der Deutschen Politik and appears in the document book as 3468-PS. I am informed that this book, Volume 7, has also received the Exhibit Number 705 and I offer it as such.
Article 3 of the decree provided that the Chief of the Office of the Governor General and the Higher SS and Police Leader are directly subordinate to the Governor General and his Deputy. The Deputy, of course, was the Defendant Seyss-Inquart.
The significance of that provision is obvious in the light of the evidence which the Tribunal has heard and will hear. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of it.
As Deputy Governor General of the Polish occupied territories, Seyss-Inquart seems to have had the job of setting up a German administration throughout this territory; that is, he worked under the Defendant Frank but did much of the work of interviewing the various local leaders, telling them what they should do. As an illustration I offer in evidence a report of a trip which Seyss-Inquart and his consultants took between the 17th and 22d of February 1939. This is our Document Number 2278-PS, and I offer it as Exhibit Number USA-706. If the Tribunal please, I have misstated that date or period. It was the 17th to the 22d of November 1939, in other words, shortly after the administration was set up. On the first page of the English translation—and I now quote from the second full paragraph—the following appears:
“At 3:00 p. m. Reich Minister, Dr. Seyss-Inquart, addressed the department heads of the district chief and stated among other things that the chief guiding rule for carrying out German administration in the Government General must be solely the interests of the German Reich. A stern and inflexible administration must make the area of use to German economy; and, so that excessive clemency may be guarded against, the results of the intrusion of the Polish race into German territory must be brought to mind.”
This report is too long, if the Tribunal please, to quote from at too great length; but if the Tribunal will turn over to Page 7, I would like to read in some extracts of what occurred while the defendant was in Lublin. From the report it appears that the Defendant Seyss-Inquart after meeting the various local German administrative officers “then expounded the principles,” and I am now quoting from the top of Page 7, “in accordance with which the administration in the ‘Government’ must be conducted.” Then, skipping a sentence:
“The resources and inhabitants of this country would have to be made of service to the Reich, and only within these limits could they prosper. Independent political thought should no longer be allowed to develop. The Vistula area might perhaps be still more important to German destiny than the Rhine. The Minister then gave as a guiding theme to the district leaders: ‘We will further everything which is of service to the Reich and will put an end to everything which may harm the Reich.’ Dr. Seyss-Inquart then added that the Governor General wished that those men who were fulfilling a task for the Reich here should receive a post with material benefits in keeping with their responsibility and achievements.”
Then, if the Tribunal will turn over two more pages, the reporter is describing a sightseeing tour which was made to the village of Wlodawa, Cycow, and I quote:
“Cycow is a German village. . .”—skipping down a couple of sentences—“Reich Minister Dr. Seyss-Inquart made a speech in which he pointed out that the fidelity of these Germans to their nationality now found its justification and reward through the strength of Adolf Hitler.”
And then the next sentence, apparently thrown in by the reporter:
“This district with its very marshy character could, according to District Chief Schmidt’s deliberations, serve as a reservation for the Jews, a measure which might possibly lead to heavy mortality among the Jews.”
THE PRESIDENT: We might break off here for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
LT. ATHERTON: If the Tribunal please, at the time the Tribunal rose, I was in the process of considering the functions of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart, his place as Deputy Governor General of Poland, between 1939 and 1940.
Now the Tribunal has already heard evidence of the atrocities which were perpetrated by the administration which Seyss-Inquart thus helped to create. The prosecutors for the Soviet Union will present to the Tribunal more evidence of such atrocities. For our present purposes, to show the importance of the work which this man did to further the Nazi plan for the Government General of Poland, it is enough to quote a few words from the diary of the Defendant Frank.
On the occasion of what was apparently a farewell lunch to Seyss-Inquart, when he became Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands, Frank said—and I now quote from Document 3465-PS, Pages 510 and 511 of Volume 2, the 1940 volume of the diary, which is Exhibit Number USA-614:
“I am extremely glad, Mr. Reich Commissioner and Reich Minister, to assure you, in this hour of your departure, that the months of our collaboration with you belong to the most precious memories of my life and that your work in the Government General will be remembered forever in the building of the coming world empire of the German nation.”
Skipping down a little, if the Tribunal please, Frank went on to say:
“In the construction of the Government General your name will forever take a place of honor as an originator of this organization and this state system. . . . I express our thanks, Mr. Reich Minister, for your collaboration and for your creative energy.”
Then reading the last two or three sentences:
“During the hard times common work united us here in the East, but it is at the same time the beginning point for a gigantic power development of the German Reich. Its perfection will show the development of the greatest energy unit which there ever was in the history of the world. In this work you were placed by the Führer, very effectively, in the most important position.”
And to these remarks the Defendant Seyss-Inquart replied and I now quote from the second page of the translation:
“I learned here a lot, many things which I did not understand before at all, and mainly on account of the initiative and firm leadership as I saw them in my friend Dr. Frank.”
Then, skipping a sentence:
“I will now go to the West, and I want to be quite open with you. With my whole heart I am present, because my whole attitude is one directed toward the East. In the East we have a National Socialist mission; over there, in the West, we have a function; that may be the difference.”
I submit, if the Tribunal please, that the sentences which I have just read show clearly enough the conscious participation of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart in the Polish phase of the conspiracy.
Thus equipped with experience gained in Poland under the Defendant Frank, Seyss-Inquart was ready to undertake his last and most ambitious task, the enslavement of the Netherlands. The ruthless manner in which he performed it marks his position in the Nazi Common Plan or Conspiracy.
I ask the Tribunal first to take judicial notice of a decree of Hitler of 18 May 1940, which is found in 1940 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 778. The translation will be found in the book as Document 1376-PS. By Section 1 of this decree it is provided that:
“The Reich Commissioner is protector of the interests of the Reich and will represent the supreme power of the Government within the civil sphere. He will be directly subordinated to me and will receive directives and orders from me.”
Section 3 provides that:
“The Reich Commissioner may use German Police forces to carry out his orders. The German Police forces are at the disposal of the German military commander in the Netherlands insofar as military necessities require this and if the missions of the Reich Commissioner permit it.”
Then by Paragraph or Section 5 of the law it is provided that the Reich Commissioner may promulgate laws by decree, such orders to be published in the Verordnungsblatt for the occupied territory of the Netherlands, a publication which I shall hereafter refer to merely as the Verordnungsblatt.
On the 29th of May 1940, acting within these powers, the defendant promulgated an order covering the exercise of governmental authority in the Netherlands and this appears as Document 3588-PS in the document book. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of its contents.
That will contain two decrees. I am now referring to the first one.
By Section 1 of this decree the defendant modestly purports to assume, to the extent required for the fulfillment of his duties, “all powers, privileges, and rights heretofore vested in the King and the Government, in accordance with the constitution and the laws of the Netherlands.” That is a direct quotation.
And then Section 5 of the order entrusts the maintenance of public peace, safety, and order to the Netherlands Police force unless the Reich Commissioner calls on German SS or Police forces for the enforcement of his orders. It further provides that the investigation and combatting of all activities hostile to the Reich and Germanism shall be the concern of the German Police force.
On June 3, 1940, a further decree was promulgated concerning the organization and establishment of the Office of the Reich Commissioner. This decree is found in the Verordnungsblatt for 1940, Issue 1, at Page 11, and is the second decree under Document 3588-PS. This decree provided for general commissioners on the staff of the Reich Commissioner to head four enumerated sections, one of which, the Superior SS and Police Chief, was to head the section for public safety. It was provided by Section 5 of this decree that:
“This official should command the units of the military SS and German Police forces transferred to the occupied Netherlands territories, supervise the Netherlands central and municipal police forces and issue to them necessary orders.”
Section 11 provided that the Reich Commissioner alone. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Lieutenant Atherton, don’t you think that we can assume that the Defendant Seyss-Inquart, who had been appointed to administer the occupied territory of the Netherlands, had all these powers and that you can turn your attention to what he did under those powers?
LT. ATHERTON: Yes, Sir; I will do that but I wanted to make plain to the Tribunal, because of the peculiar set-up of this German Police force, the fact that he was granted the power to give orders to them, and not only that, but that he customarily did. If that point is made clear, as I believe it is, in these two decrees, I will pass on to the next matter.
THE PRESIDENT: I think the Tribunal has no doubt that an officer under the Reich who had got the powers of the administrator of an occupied territory could make use of the police forces.
LT. ATHERTON: Yes, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: It is really a matter that we should be prepared to assume until it is proved to the contrary.
LT. ATHERTON: I agree, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: We would wish you to turn attention to show what he did, under those powers, which constitute crimes.
LT. ATHERTON: Yes, Sir. It is not our intention at this time to go into the crimes against persons and property which the Defendant Seyss-Inquart is responsible for in the Netherlands in any detail, because evidence of Nazi barbarity in this country is to be presented by our associates, the prosecutors for the French Republic. It is only our purpose to show a few illustrations and to give some idea of the scope of this defendant’s activities and his responsibilities as evidence of his part in the execution of the Nazis’ Common Plan or Conspiracy, which it is our part to prove.
Now, in the first place, there will be much evidence to show that the defendant was responsible for widespread spoliation of property. Merely as an illustration of the way in which he was implicated in the smallest parts of this, I offer in evidence Document 176-PS, as Exhibit Number USA-707.
This document is a report on the activities of the “Task Force Netherlands,” a part of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, on which the Tribunal has already heard evidence. Quoting from the first page of this report, the first sentence:
“The Task Force Netherlands of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg began its work in agreement with the competent representative of the Reich Commissioner during the first days of September 1940.”
The report then proceeds to detail the property taken from Masonic lodges and similar institutions to a considerable extent. Reading from—I believe it is Page 3 of this report, the very bottom:
“An extremely precious library, containing invaluable works on Sanskrit, was confiscated, when the ‘Theosophic Society’ in Amsterdam was dissolved, and packed into 96 cases.
“A number of smaller libraries belonging to the Spiritists, the Esperanto movement, the Bellamy movement, the International Bible Students, and various other minor international organizations were packed into seven cases; texts belonging to various minor Jewish organizations were packed into four cases; and a library of the ‘Anthroposophic Society’ in Amsterdam into three.
“It is safe to say that the stocks of books confiscated, packed, and so far sent to Germany by the task force are of extraordinary scientific value and will contribute an integral part of the library of the ‘Hohe Schule.’
“The money value of these libraries . . . can only be estimated but must surely amount to from 30 million to 40 million Reichsmark.”
Then, quoting from the very end of the report:
“The task force, in executing the aforementioned tasks, is bound strictly to the pace set by the Reich Commissioner for the handling of the Jewish questions and those of the international organizations.”
As Reich Commissioner it was one of the functions of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart to supervise the execution of the conspirators’ program for deportation of Dutch citizens to Germany for slave-labor. The Tribunal will recall that Mr. Dodd read into evidence at Page 1372 (Volume III, Page 477) a portion of a transcript of an interrogation of the Defendant Sauckel, on 5 October 1945, in which it appeared that the quotas for the workers for Holland were agreed upon and then the numbers given to the Reich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart to fulfill; and after the quota was given to Seyss-Inquart, it was his mission to fulfill it with the aid of Sauckel’s representative. And then the Tribunal will recall that at Page 1310 (Volume III, Page 433) of the Record Mr. Dodd, having shown the Defendant Seyss-Inquart’s part in recruitment for slave-labor in this fashion and his responsibility for it, read into the Record, Page 1310 (Volume III, Page 433), some portions from Document 1726-PS, Exhibit Number USA-195, which showed the numbers of Netherlands citizens deported to the Reich at various times. Since that is all a matter of record, I will not go into it again.
In the Netherlands, as in Austria and elsewhere, Seyss-Inquart was relentless in his treatment of Jewish Netherlanders. To illustrate his attitude, I offer in evidence Document 3430-PS, which consists of extracts from the defendant’s book Four Years in the Netherlands (Collected Speeches). It becomes Exhibit Number USA-708. In a speech in Amsterdam on 13 March 1941—and I am now quoting from Page 57 of the original book, the last extract on the translation, Seyss-Inquart said:
“The Jews, for us, are not Dutch. They are those enemies with whom we can come to neither an armistice nor to peace. This applies here, if you wish, for the duration of the occupation. Do not expect an order from me which stipulates this, except regulations concerning police matters. We will beat the Jews wherever we meet them, and those who join them must bear the consequences. The Führer declared that the Jews have played their final act in Europe, and therefore they have played their final act.”
Now, as promised, the Defendant Seyss-Inquart proceeded to promulgate the long series of decrees which first threatened to deprive the Jewish people in the Netherlands of their property, of their rights, and degraded them to something lower than the lowest, which eventually resulted in their deportation to Poland. These decrees, all signed by Seyss-Inquart, are collected in our brief, Page 65. I ask the Court to take judicial notice of them. By way of illustration, the first to which I wish to refer appears in the document book as 3333-PS, and it is a decree of 26 October 1940, requiring the registration of businesses belonging to Jews as defined in the decree, including partnerships or corporations in which Jews owned a substantial interest. You have seen that this type of law was the inevitable prelude to mass confiscation of the property of Jews under the Nazi administration. In a law found in Verordnungsblatt, Volume Number 6, Page 99, 11 February 1941, Document 3325-PS, Dutch universities and colleges were limited in the registration of Jewish students. This of itself does not seem important, but it is a part of the program to take away from these people their rights and degrade them. Document Number 3328-PS is a decree published in Verordnungsblatt Number 44 at Page 841, of 22 October 1941. This prevented the Jews from exercising any profession or trade without authorization from administrative authorities and permitted such authorities to order the termination of any employment contract concerning Jews.
As a final illustration I refer in passing to Document 3336-PS, a decree published in the Verordnungsblatt, Issue 13, Page 289, and dated 21 May 1942. This decree required all Jews to make written declaration of claims of any kind, under which they might be beneficiaries, at a banking firm known as Lippmann-Rosenthal and Company, which was actually an agency of the Reich at Amsterdam. The decree gave the bank, this named bank, all rights to dispose of the claim and provided that payment to the bank should be released in full. This type of Nazi decree was, of course, a forerunner of ultimate deportation to the East and allowed the Nazis to snatch the insurance.
Evidence of the success of this defendant’s efforts to annihilate all Jews in the Netherlands has already been read into the Record. The court will find that Major Walsh—again reading from the report of the Netherlands Government, Exhibit Number USA-195, at Page 1497 (Volume III, Page 565)—showed that out of 140,000 Jewish Netherlanders, 117,000 were deported, over 115,000 of them to Poland, over 80 percent. The evidence has shown what was the probable fate of most of these people, and I shan’t dwell on it further.
Finally, I want to say a few words about the responsibility of this defendant for the systematic terror practiced against the inhabitants of the occupied territory by the Nazis throughout the occupation. Referring again to the collected speeches in Document 3430-PS, on 29 January 1943, the defendant left little doubt of his point of view. He said, and I quote:
“It is also clear, now more than ever, that every resistance which is directed against this fight for existence must be suppressed. Some time ago the representatives of the churches had written to the Wehrmacht commander and to me, and they presented their ideas in regard to the execution of death sentences which the Wehrmacht commander announced in the meantime. To this I can say only the following: At the moment in which our men, fathers, and sons with iron determination look towards their fate in the East and unflinchingly and steadfastly perform their highest pledge, it is unbearable to tolerate conspiracies whose goal is to weaken the rear of this eastern front. Whoever dares this must be annihilated. We must be severe and become even more severe against our opponents. This is the command of a relentless sequence of events and for us, perhaps, inhumanly hard but our holy duty. We remain human because we do not torture our opponents. We must remain hard in annihilating them.”
I do not offer any evidence of the commission of these crimes, because that is to be done by prosecutors of the French Republic. But the position of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart as Reich Commissioner, the control which he exercised, which has been shown, particularly over the SS and Police, and the attitude of the man himself will make clear his authorization and participation in the crimes to be proved and are a further indication of his part in the common plan.
Seyss-Inquart supported the Nazi Party as early as 1931. He was a traitor to the government to which he owed allegiance and in which he held high office. With full knowledge of the ultimate purposes of the conspirators he bent every effort to integrate Austria into the Reich and to make its resources and manpower, as well as its strategic position, available for the Nazi war machine. He performed these tasks with such ruthless efficiency that he was chosen thereafter for key positions in the enslavement of Poland and the Netherlands—the positions which he filled with such satisfaction to his superiors, that ultimately he came to be one of the foremost and most detested leaders in this common plan. As such, under Article 6 of the Charter, he is responsible for all acts performed by any persons in the execution of that plan. As such, he is guilty of the crimes charged to him under Counts One and Two of the Indictment.
I wish to introduce to the Tribunal at this time Dr. Robert M. W. Kempner, who will represent the Prosecution in the next phase of the case dealing with the Defendant Frick.
DR. ROBERT M. W. KEMPNER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal: There have been distributed to the Tribunal and to all Defense Counsel, trial brief and documents relating to the Defendant Frick. The trial brief prepared by my colleague, Karl Lachmann, sets forth, in great detail, evidence, in the form of both documents and decrees, against the Defendant Wilhelm Frick. English translations of the evidentiary material referred to in the trial brief are included in the document book prepared by my colleague Lieutenant Felton. This book has been marked “LL.”
Defendant Frick’s great contribution to the Nazi conspiracy was in the field of governmental administration. He was the administrative brain who devised the machinery of state for Nazism, who geared that machinery for aggressive war.
In the course of his active participation in the Nazi conspiracy, from 1923 to 1945, the Defendant Frick occupied a number of important positions. Document 2978-PS, which has previously been introduced as Exhibit Number USA-8, lists the positions in detail. The original was signed by the Defendant Frick on 14 November 1945. I do not repeat these positions; they are known to the Court. Frick’s past activity on behalf of the Nazi conspirators was his participation in promoting their rise to power. Frick betrayed, in his capacity as law enforcement official of the Bavarian Government, his own Bavarian Government by participating in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch of November 8, 1923. Frick was tried and sentenced together with Hitler on a charge of complicity in treason. His position in the Putsch is described in a record of the proceeding called The Hitler Trial before the People’s Court in Munich, published in Munich in 1924.
I will ask this Tribunal to take judicial notice of this record of these proceedings. Hitler’s appreciation of Frick’s assistance is evidenced by the fact that he honored Frick by mentioning his name in Mein Kampf. Only two other Defendants in this proceeding share this honor, namely, Hess and Streicher. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of the favorable mentioning of Defendant Frick in Mein Kampf, German edition, 1933, Page 403.
During the period after the Putsch, Frick made further contributions to the Nazi conspiracy. I should like to refer briefly to Document 2513-PS, an excerpt of Pages 36 and 38 from a report entitled, “The National Socialist Workers Party as an Association Hostile to the State and to the Republican Form of Government and Guilty of Treasonable Activity.” This report has been previously introduced as Document 2513-PS, Exhibit Number USA-235. It is an official report of the criminal activities of Hitler, Frick, and other Nazis prepared by the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in 1930. It states that Frick, next to Hitler, can be regarded as the most influential representative of the Nazi Party at that time. This document reported that at the 1927 Party Congress in Nuremberg Frick said that the Reichstag would first be misused by the Nazi Party, would then be abolished, and that its abolition would open the way for racial dictatorship. The document also reported that Frick stated in a speech in 1929 at Pyritz that this fateful struggle will first be taken up with the ballot, but this cannot continue indefinitely, for history has taught us that in battle blood must be shed and iron broken.
Back in 1927 Frick’s prominent role in helping to bring the Nazis to power was recognized when, on 23 January 1930, he was appointed Minister of the Interior and Education in the State of Thuringia.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you passing from that document now? I thought you were reading from 2513.
DR. KEMPNER: No, this is an introduction of the next document.
THE PRESIDENT: I see, Dr. Kempner.
DR. KEMPNER: I just started to refer to the fact that Adolf Hitler at this time, when Frick was Minister of the Interior in the State of Thuringia, was an undesirable alien, not a German citizen. In his capacity as Minister of Thuringia the Defendant Frick began his manipulations to provide Adolf Hitler, the undesirable alien, with German citizenship, an essential step toward the realization of the Nazi conspiracy.
This lack of German citizenship was highly detrimental to the cause of the Nazi Party because, as an alien, Hitler could not become candidate for the Reich Presidency in Germany.
It was the Defendant Frick who solved this problem by an administrative maneuver. We now introduce in evidence Document 3564-PS, Exhibit Number USA-709. This document is an affidavit by Otto Meissner of 27 December 1945. Meissner was former state secretary and chief of Hitler’s Presidential Chancellery. The last two sentences of this affidavit read as follows:
“Frick also, in collaboration with Klagges, Minister of Brunswick, succeeded in naturalizing Hitler as a German citizen in 1932 by having him appointed a Brunswick government official Regierungsrat. This was done in order to make it possible for Hitler to run as a candidate for the office of President in the Reich.”
When Hitler came to power on 30 January 1933, Frick was duly awarded a prominent post in the new regime as Reich Minister of the Interior. In this capacity he became responsible for the establishment of totalitarian control over Germany, an indispensable prerequisite for the preparation of aggressive warfare. Frick assumed responsibility for the realization of a large part of the Nazi Conspirators’ program both through administration and legislation.
I must explain very briefly the significance of the Ministry of the Interior in the Nazi State to show the contribution made by Frick to the conspiracy. I offer, as evidence of Frick’s extensive jurisdiction as Minister of the Interior, Document 3475-PS, Exhibit Number USA-710, which is part of the official German manual for administrative officials, dated 1943. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of Frick’s jurisdiction mentioned in this document. The names of the men who, according to this document, worked under Frick’s supervision, and I stress this point “worked under Frick’s supervision,” are symbolic. They are listed on Page 1 of the English translation. Here we find among the subordinates of Frick: Reich Health Leader, Dr. Conti; Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police, Heinrich Himmler; and Reich Labor Service leader, Hierl. This document shows Frick as supreme commander of three important pillars of the Nazi State: the Nazi health service, the Nazi police system, and the Nazi labor service.
The wide variety of Frick’s activities as Reich Minister of the Interior can be judged from the following catalogue of his functions, enumerated on the following pages of the manual. He had final authority over constitutional questions, drafted legislation, had jurisdiction over governmental administration and civil defense, and was final arbiter in all questions concerning race and citizenship. The manual also lists sections of the Ministry concerned with administrative problems for the occupied territories and annexed territories, the “New Order” in the Southeast, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the “New Order” in the East. He also had full jurisdiction in the field of civil service, including such matters as appointment, tenure, promotion, and dismissal.
The Defendant Frick used his wide powers as Reich Minister of the Interior to advance the cause of the Nazi conspiracy. To accomplish this purpose, he drafted and signed the laws and decrees which abolished the autonomous state governments, the autonomous local governments, and the political parties in Germany other than the Nazi Party.
In 1933 and 1934, the first 2 years of the Nazi regime, Frick signed about 235 laws or decrees, all of which are published in the Reichsgesetzblatt. I should like to refer briefly to a few of the more important laws and decrees, such as the law of 14 July 1933 outlawing all political parties other than the Nazi Party, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1933, Part I, Page 479, Document 1388(a)-PS; then the law of 1 December 1933 securing the unity of Party and State, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1933, Part I, Page 1016, Document 1395-PS; the law of 30 January 1934 transferring the sovereignty of the German states to the Reich, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1934, Part I, Page 75, Document 3068-PS; the German Municipality Act of 30 January 1935, which gave Frick’s Ministry of the Interior final authority to appoint and dismiss all mayors of municipalities throughout Germany, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1935, Part I, Page 49, Document 2008-PS; and, finally, the Nazi Civil Service Act of 7 April 1933 which provided that all civil servants must be trustworthy as defined by Nazi standards and also must meet the Nazi racial requirements, published in Reichsgesetzblatt, 1933, Part I, Page 175, Document 1397-PS.
One category of Frick’s activities, however, deserves special notice; that is, the crushing of opposition by legally camouflaged police terror. This is shown by the book Dr. Wilhelm Frick and His Ministry, our Document 3119-PS, which is in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-711, written by Frick’s undersecretary and co-conspirator, Hans Pfundtner, apparently written to establish Frick’s eternal contribution to the creation of the Nazis’ thousand-year Reich. It states, and I quote briefly from Page 4, paragraph 4, of the English translation:
“While Marxism in Prussia was crushed by the hard fist of the Prussian Prime Minister Hermann Göring and a gigantic wave of propaganda was initiated for the Reichstag elections of 5 March 1933, Dr. Frick prepared the complete seizure of power in all states of the Reich. All at once the political opposition disappeared. All at once the Main”—River—“line was eliminated; from this time on only one will and one leadership reigned in the German Reich.”
How was this done? On February 28, 1933, the day after the Reichstag fire, civil rights in Germany were abolished. This decree was published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1933, Page 83; and an English translation of it appears in the document book as 1390-PS. I refer to this decree at this time because it carries the signature of the Reich Minister of the Interior Frick. And now something important. It is stated at the beginning of the decree, which was published on the morning after the Reichstag fire, that the suspension of civil rights is decreed as a defense measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the State. At the time of publication of this decree, the Nazi Government announced that a thorough investigation had proven that the Communists had set fire to the Reichstag building. I do not intend to go into the controversial issue of who set fire to the Reichstag, but I should like to offer proof that the official Nazi statement that the Communists were responsible for the fire was issued without any investigation and that the preamble of the decree which had Frick’s signature was a mere subterfuge.
I offer in evidence a very short excerpt of an interrogation of Defendant Göring, dated October 13, 1945, our Document 3593-PS, Exhibit Number USA-712, and I should like to read the following brief portion, beginning on Page 4:
“My question to Göring: ‘How could you tell your press agent, 1 hour after the Reichstag caught fire, that the Communists did it, without investigation?’
“Göring’s answer: ‘Did the public relations officer say that at that time?’
“My answer: ‘Yes. He said you said it.’
“Göring: ‘It is possible when I came to the Reichstag the Führer and his gentlemen were there. I was doubtful at that time, but it was their opinion that the Communists had started the fire.’
“My question: ‘But you were the highest law enforcement official in a certain sense. Daluege was your subordinate. Looking back at it now, and not in the excitement that was there once, wasn’t it too early to say without any investigation that the Communists had started the fire?’
“Göring: ‘Yes, that is possible, but the Führer wanted it this way.’
“Question: ‘Why did the Führer want to issue at once a statement that the Communists had started the fire?’
“Answer: ‘He was convinced of it.’
“Question: ‘It is right when I say he was convinced without having any evidence or any proof of that at this moment?’
“Göring: ‘That is right, but you must take into account that at that time the Communist activity was extremely strong, that our new government as such was not very secure.’ ”
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kempner, what has that got to do with Frick?
DR. KEMPNER: He signed the decree, as I said before, abolishing civil liberties on the morning after, pointing out that there was a Communist danger. On the other side, this Communist danger was a mere subterfuge and was one of the things which finally led to the second World War.
The Defendant Frick not only abolished civil liberties within Germany, but he also became the organizer of the huge police network of the Nazi Reich.
Parenthetically, I may state that before this time there was no unified Reich police system; the individual German states had police forces of their own.
I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of the decree of June 17, 1936, signed by Frick and published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1936, Page 487. An English translation of this decree is in the document book under Document Number 2073-PS.
Section 1 of this Frick decree reads as follows:
“For the unification of police duties in the Reich, a Chief of German Police is appointed in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, to whom is assigned the direction and conduct of all police affairs. . . .”
And from Section 2 we learn that it was the Defendant Frick and Hitler, the signers of the decree, who appointed Himmler as Chief of the German Police.
Paragraph 2 of Section 2 of the decree states that Himmler was, and I quote, “subordinated individually and directly to the Reich and Prussian Minister of the Interior.” And of course that is Frick.
The official chart of the German Police system, Document 1852-PS, which has already been introduced into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-449, clearly shows the position of the Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, as the supreme commander of the entire German Police system, including the notorious RSHA, of which the Defendant Kaltenbrunner became chief, under Frick, in January 1943.
The Defendant Frick used his authority over the newly centralized police system for the promotion of the Nazi conspiracy. The Tribunal may take judicial notice of Frick’s decree of September 20, 1936, published in the Ministerial Gazette of the Reich (Ministerialblatt des Reichs- und Preussischen Ministeriums des Innern), 1936, Page 1343, Document 2245-PS.
In this decree Frick reserved for himself the authority to appoint inspectors of the security police, subordinated them to his district governors, the Oberpräsidenten, and ordered them to have a close co-operation with the Party and the Armed Forces.
Another example of the use of his activities in the police sphere is in his ordinance of March 18, 1938, concerning the Austrian Anschluss, in which Frick authorized the Reichsführer of the SS and Police, Himmler, to take security measures in Austria without regard to previous legal limitations. This decree is published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938, Page 262, and appears in the document book as Document Number 1437-PS.
I shall not here repeat the evidence concerning the criminal activities of the German police, over which the Defendant Frick had supreme authority. I should simply like to refer the Tribunal to the presentations already made on the subject of concentration camps and the Gestapo, two of the police institutions under Frick’s jurisdiction. But I should like to show that not only Himmler’s subordinate machine but also Frick’s ministry itself was familiar with these institutions. Therefore, I now offer into evidence Document 1643-PS, as Exhibit Number USA-713.
This document is a synopsis of correspondence between the Reich Ministry of the Interior and its field offices, from November 1942 through August 1943, on the subject of the legal aspects of the confiscation of property by the SS for the enlargement of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. At the bottom of Page 1 and the top of Page 2 of the English translation there appears a synopsis of the minutes of a meeting held on December 17 and 18, 1942, concerning the confiscation of this property. These minutes indicate that a further discussion was to be held on the subject on 21 December 1942, between the representatives of the Reich Minister of the Interior and the Reichsführer SS. On Page 2 there appears also a summary of a teletype letter dated January 22, 1943 from Dr. Hoffmann, representing the Reich Minister of the Interior, to the District Governor in Katowice.
The summary begins as follows, and I quote:
“The territory of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp will be changed into an independent estate”—which means an administrative territory of itself.
The fact that the Defendant Frick demonstrated personal interest in a concentration camp became known through the testimony of Dr. Blaha, to which I should like to refer the Tribunal, in which he testified that Frick visited the Dachau Camp in 1943.
The next aspect of the participation of the Defendant Frick in the Nazi conspiracy concerns his promotion of racial persecution and racism, involving the wiping out of the Jews.
In addition to the many other responsibilities of Frick, this vast administrative empire covered the entire area of the enactment and administration of racial legislation.
I refer again to Document 3475-PS, The Manual for German Administrative Officials, previously introduced, and I refer to Pages 2 and 4, showing that Frick was administrative and legislative guardian and protector of the German race.
In order to avoid any repetition, I shall not quote the various acts drafted by Frick’s ministry against the Jews. The presentation concerning persecution of the Jews made by Major Walsh before the Christmas recess listed a number of decrees signed by Frick, including the infamous Nuremberg Laws and the laws depriving Jews of their property, their rights of citizenship and stigmatizing them with the Yellow Star.
But the activities of Frick’s ministry were not restricted to the commission of such crimes, camouflaged in the form of legislation. The police field offices, subordinate to Frick, participated in the organization of such terroristic activities as the pogrom of November 9, 1938.
I refer to a series of Heydrich’s orders and reports concerning the organization of these pogroms or, as they were termed by Heydrich, “spontaneous riots,” Documents 3051-PS and 3058-PS, which are already in evidence as Exhibit Numbers USA-240 and 508.
Three days after this pogrom of 9 November 1938 Frick, his undersecretary Stuckart, and his subordinates, Heydrich and Daluege, participated in a conference on the Jewish question under the chairmanship of the Defendant Göring. At this meeting were discussed the various measures which the individual governmental departments should initiate against the Jews. A stenographic record of this meeting, Document 1816-PS, is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-261. May I briefly refer to the bottom of Page 23 of the English translation, where we find Göring’s concluding remarks:
“Also the Ministry of the Interior and the Police will have to think over what measures have to be taken.”
This remark shows that Göring regarded it as Frick’s duty to follow-up by administrative devices the pogrom, organized by Frick’s own subordinates.
In the foregoing presentation we have shown that the Defendant Frick, as a member of the conspiracy, devised the machinery of the State for Nazism. In the following presentation we will show that Frick actively supported the preparation of the Nazi State for war.
May we begin this portion by showing that Frick was in sympathy with the flagrant violations by Germany of her treaties of non-aggression. This is clearly shown by the affidavit of Ambassador Messersmith, Document 2385-PS, previously introduced as Exhibit Number USA-68. I shall quote only one sentence from this affidavit, Page 4, line 10. It reads as follows:
“High-ranking Nazis with whom I had to maintain official contact, particularly men such as Göring, Goebbels, Ley, Frick, Frank, Darré, and others repeatedly scoffed at my position as to the binding character of treaties and openly stated to me that Germany would observe her international undertakings only so long as it suited Germany’s interests to do so.”
In May 1935, by his appointment as Plenipotentiary General for the administration of the Reich, Frick became one of the big three in charge of preparing Germany for war. The other two members of the triumvirate were the Chief of the OKW and the Plenipotentiary General for War Economy, at that time the Defendant Schacht. Frick has admitted that he held the position of Plenipotentiary General since 21 May 1935, the date of the original secret Reich Defense Law. I refer to his statement of positions, Document 2978-PS, Exhibit Number USA-8.
His functions as Plenipotentiary General are outlined in the Reich Defense Law of 4 September 1938, which was classified top military secret and appears in our document book as 2194-PS, Exhibit Number USA-36. Under this law of 1938, Paragraph 3, tremendous power was concentrated in the hands of Frick as Plenipotentiary General for Administration. In addition to the offices under his supervision as Minister of the Interior, the law made the following offices subordinate to Frick for the purpose of carrying out the directives of the law: Reich Minister of Justice, Reich Minister of Education, Reich Minister for Religious Matters, and the Reich Minister for Planning.
Frick admitted the significant part he played in the preparations for war as a member of the triumvirate in a speech made on 7 March 1940 at the University of Freiburg. Excerpts appear in the document book as Document Number 2608-PS, which I offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-714. I think it would be helpful if the Tribunal would allow me to read two short paragraphs, beginning at the top of Page 1 of the English translation:
“The organization of the non-military national defense fits organically into the entire structure of the National Socialist Government and administration. This state of affairs is not exceptional, but a necessary and planned part of the National Socialist order. Thus, the conversion of our administration and economy to wartime conditions has been accomplished very quickly and without any friction—avoiding the otherwise very dangerous change of the entire structure of the State.
“The planned preparation of the administration for the possibility of a war has already been carried out during peacetime. For this purpose the Führer appointed a Plenipotentiary General for the Reich Administration and a Plenipotentiary General for War Economy.”
Many of Frick’s contributions to the preparation of the German State for war are outlined in detail in the book Dr. Wilhelm Frick and His Ministry, which is already in evidence as Document 3119-PS. May I quote two short sentences from the top of Page 3 of the English translation:
“Besides, the leading co-operation of the Reich Minister of the Interior in the important field of ‘military legislation,’ and thus in the establishment of our Armed Forces, has to be particularly emphasized. After all, the Reich Minister of the Interior is the civilian minister of the defense of the country, who in this capacity, together with the Reich War Minister, not only signed the military law of 21 May 1935 but, in his capacity as Supreme Chief of the General and Inner Administration as well as of the Police, has also received from the Führer and Reich Chancellor important powers in the fields of the recruitment system and of military supervision.”
I have previously mentioned that as Minister of the Interior Frick was responsible for the administrative policy in occupied and annexed territories. It was his ministry which introduced the new German order throughout the vast territory of Europe occupied by the German Armed Forces, and the Defendant Frick exercised these powers. I request that the Tribunal take judicial notice of three decrees signed by Frick, introducing German law into Austria, the Sudetenland, and the Government General of Poland respectively:
Decree of 13 March 1938, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938, Part I, Page 237, Article 8, Document 2307-PS; decree of 1 October 1938, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938, Part I, Page 1331, Paragraph 8, Document 3073-PS; decree of 12 October 1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1939, Part I, Page 2077, Paragraph 8 (1), Document 3079-PS.
Frick’s ministry also arranged the selection and assignment of hundreds of occupation officials for the Soviet territory even before the invasion. This fact appears in a report by the Defendant Rosenberg of April 1941 on preparations for the administration of occupied territory in the East. May I refer to Page 2, Paragraph 2, of Document 1039-PS, which has previously been introduced as Exhibit Number USA-146.
One category of Frick’s contribution to the planning of, and preparation for, aggressive war deserves special notice. This is the systematic killing of persons regarded as useless to the German war machine, such as the insane, the crippled, and aged, and foreign laborers who were no longer able to work. These killings were carried out in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums. The Tribunal will recall that the Defendant Frick, in his capacity as Reich Minister of the Interior, had jurisdiction over public health and all institutions. May I refer again briefly to the Manual for German Administrative Officials, Document 3475-PS, this time to Pages 3, 4, and 7 of the English partial translation. There the following are mentioned as Frick’s jurisdictional areas: “Health Administration,” “Social Hygiene,” “Racial Improvement and Eugenics,” “Reich Plenipotentiary for Sanatoria and Nursing Homes.”
As proof that Frick’s jurisdiction covered the death cases in these institutions, I now offer in evidence Document 621-PS, Exhibit Number USA-715. This is a letter of 2 October 1940 from the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, Dr. Lammers, to the Reich Minister of Justice, informing the latter that material concerning the death of inmates of nursing homes had been transmitted to the Reich Minister of the Interior for further action. In fact, the Defendant Frick not only had jurisdiction of these establishments, but he was one of the originators of a secret law organizing the murdering.
I now offer Document 1556-PS, Exhibit Number USA-716. This is an official report, dated December 1941, of the Czechoslovak War Crimes Commission entitled, “Detailed Statement on the Murdering of Ill and Aged People in Germany.” I should like to quote very brief excerpts from this report. Paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 read as follows:
“1) The murdering can be traced back to a secret law which was released some time in the summer of 1940.
“2) Besides the Chief Physician of the Reich, Dr. L. Conti, the Reichsführer SS Himmler, the Reich Minister of the Interior Dr. Frick, as well as other men, the following participated in the introduction of this secret law:. . .”—Other names listed.
“3) As I have already stated, there were—after careful calculation—at least 200,000, mainly mentally deficient, imbeciles, besides neurological cases and medically unfit people—these were not only incurable cases—and at least 75,000 aged people.”
The most striking example of the continued killings in these institutions, which were under Frick’s jurisdiction and operated under the order of which Frick was a co-author, is the famous Hadamar case.
Your Honor, may I ask you whether I may have 10 more minutes to end this presentation, because the Chief Prosecutors agreed, as I understood, to start tomorrow morning the case of the French, and I have just 10 more minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very well.
DR. KEMPNER: Thank you, Your Lordship.
I refer to the Hadamar case. I now offer in evidence Document Number 615-PS, Exhibit Number USA-717.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): What is this last report that you spoke about? Whose is it?
DR. KEMPNER: The Czechoslovak War Crimes Commission report. After I have shown the general scheme, of which Frick was a co-author, I would like to show that Frick’s ministry was acquainted with the things that were going on under his organizational authorship; and therefore I am quoting now a letter to the fact that he was acquainted with these killings and that these killings had even become public knowledge. For this reason I offer in evidence Document 615-PS, Exhibit number USA-717. This document is a letter from the Bishop of Limburg of 13 August 1941 to the Reich Minister of Justice. Copies were sent to the Reich Minister of the Interior—this means Frick—and to the Reich Minister for Church Affairs. I quote:
“About 8 kilometers from Limburg, in the little town of Hadamar, on a hill overlooking the town, there is an institution which had formerly served various purposes and of late had been used as a nursing home; this institution was renovated and furnished as a place in which, by consensus of opinion, the above-mentioned euthanasia has been systematically practiced for months, approximately since February 1941. The fact has become known beyond the administrative district of Wiesbaden, because death certificates from a Registry Hadamar-Moenchberg are sent to the home communities. . . .”
And I quote further:
“Several times a week buses arrive in Hadamar with a considerable number of such victims. School children of the vicinity know this vehicle and say, ‘There comes the murder-box again.’ After the arrival of the vehicle, the citizens of Hadamar watch the smoke rise out of the chimney and are tortured with the ever-present thought of the miserable victims, especially when repulsive odors annoy them, depending on the direction of the wind.
“The effect of the principles at work here, are: Children call each other names and say, ‘You’re crazy; you’ll be sent to the baking oven in Hadamar.’ Those who do not want to marry or find no opportunity say, ‘Marry, never! Bring children into the world so they can be put into the bottling machine!’ You hear old folks say, ‘Don’t send me to a state hospital! After the feeble-minded have been finished off, the next useless eaters whose turn will come are the old people.’
“. . . The population cannot grasp that systematic actions are carried out which, in accordance with Paragraph 211 of the German criminal code, are punishable with, death! . . .
“Officials of the Secret State Police, it is said, are trying to suppress discussion of the Hadamar occurrences by means of severe threats. In the interest of public peace this may be well intended. But the knowledge and the conviction and the indignation of the population cannot be changed by it; the conviction will be increased with the bitter realization that discussion is prohibited with threats but that the actions themselves are not prosecuted under penal law.”
I quote the last paragraph of the letter, the postscript:
“I am submitting copies of this letter to the Reich Minister for Church Affairs.” Initialed by above.
Nevertheless, the killings carried out in these institutions under the secret law created by Defendants Frick, Himmler, and others continued year after year.
THE PRESIDENT: Was any answer made to that letter?
DR. KEMPNER: No answer has been found. I have other letters which I am not able to quote here today which have the remark, “Please don’t answer.”
THE PRESIDENT: “Please don’t answer”?
DR. KEMPNER: That it should be unanswered.
Nevertheless, the killings carried out in these institutions under the secret law created by Defendants Frick, Himmler, and others continued year after year. I offer in evidence Document 3592-PS, Exhibit Number USA-718, which is a certified copy of the charge, specifications, findings, and sentence of the U.S. Military Commission at Wiesbaden, against the individuals who operated the Hadamar Sanatorium, where many Russians and Poles were murdered. In this particular proceeding seven defendants were charged with the murder in 1944 of 400 persons of Polish and Russian nationality, and three of the defendants were sentenced to be hanged; the other four were sentenced to confinement at hard labor.
Now I come to the last page of my presentation, the final case of Frick’s responsibility, which arises under his position as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia for the period from August 20, 1943, until the end of the war. I think it is not necessary to say anything about the functions of the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia; these broad powers are known to the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Before you pass from 3592-PS, is it clear that that trial relates to the killing of Polish and Russian nationals in nursing homes or institutions of that sort?
DR. KEMPNER: It is absolutely clear in this document, the sentence of the Military Commission of Hadamar for Wiesbaden.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you show me where that is?
DR. KEMPNER: Document Number 3592-PS. I quote:
“Specification: In that Alfons Klein, Adolf Wahlmann, Heinrich Ruoff, Karl Willig, Adolf Merkle, Irmgard Huber, and Philipp Blum, acting jointly and in pursuance of a common intent and acting for and on behalf of the then German Reich, did, from or about July 1, 1944, until about April 1, 1945, at Hadamar, Germany, wilfully, deliberately, and wrongfully aid, abet, and participate in the killing of human beings of Polish and Russian nationality; their exact names and number being unknown, but aggregating in excess of 400, and who were then and there confined by the German Reich as an exercise of belligerent control.”
THE PRESIDENT: It doesn’t show that it came within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior.
DR. KEMPNER: Some time ago I referred to the manual of the German administrative officials. This manual points out very clearly that nursing homes, sanitaria, and similar establishments are under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior.
THE PRESIDENT: I follow that, but this document does not refer to nursing homes. That is what I was asking you.
DR. KEMPNER: Yes, it says only Hadamar. It is, in fact, the Hadamar Nursing Home. This portion wasn’t given by the Judge Advocate General, but I am willing to give later a more extended document that Hadamar is a common name for the so-called Hadamar killing mill, which is a nursing home.
Now I come to the last paragraph of my presentation.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a moment, Dr. Kempner. Counsel for the Defense wishes to speak. There is a gentleman standing by your side.
DR. PANNENBECKER: From Document 3592-PS, which was just read, I cannot find that the Defendant Frick is connected with the document in any way.
THE PRESIDENT: Surely it is not necessary for you to get up and repeat what I have just said.
DR. PANNENBECKER: I would like to add something else.
THE PRESIDENT: I beg your pardon.
DR. PANNENBECKER: I would like to add that the Defendant Frick since August 1943 was not Minister of the Interior, and for that reason this document cannot be used against him.
THE PRESIDENT: And it does not give the date of the death of these people. At any rate, until Dr. Kempner produces something to show that this was a nursing home and in a time during which the Defendant Frick was Minister of the Interior, the Tribunal will not treat it as being evidence which implicates Frick.
DR. KEMPNER: I quoted this killing in Hadamar for two reasons: First, because the Ministry of the Interior has become acquainted, as I said before, with the letter of the Bishop of Limburg, in 1941, when Frick was Minister of the Interior and knew about these facts; and I quoted the military decision for this reason, that these killings were still going on in 1944 and 1945 under a law of which the Defendant Frick was the co-author.
The final phase of Frick’s responsibility arises under his position as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia for the period from 20 August 1943 until the end of the war. I have not to prove his function but I shall mention one example, and I offer in evidence Document Number 3589-PS, Exhibit Number USA-720, which is a supplement to an official Czechoslovak report on German crimes against Czechoslovakia. I would like to quote only the following brief passage from this report:
“During the tenure of office of Defendant Wilhelm Frick as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia from August 1943 until the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945 many thousands of Czechoslovak Jews were transported from the Terezin ghetto in Czechoslovakia to the concentration camp at Oswieczim (Auschwitz) in Poland and were there killed in the gas chambers.”
Brought from the territory over which Frick was Protector to the gas chamber.
Thus, we submit, it has been shown that the Defendant Frick was a key conspirator from 1923 until the Allied armies crushed the resistance of the Nazi Armed Forces. Frick’s guilt rests on his own record and on the record of his co-defendants, for whom he is co-responsible under our Charter.
I would like to express my appreciation for the assistance rendered in connection with the preparation of this case by my colleagues Mr. Karl Lachmann, Lieutenant Frederick Felton, and Captain Seymour Krieger.