Afternoon Session
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: May it please the Tribunal, if I might just refer to two further copies of Der Stürmer on the subject of “ritual murder,” the first of which appears on Page 32 of the document book, 2700-PS. It is the copy in Exhibit USA-260. It is an article in Der Stürmer for July 1938:
“Whoever has had the occasion to be an eyewitness to the ritualistic slaughtering of animals or at least to see a truthful film on this method of slaughtering will never forget this gruesome experience. It is horrifying. And instinctively he is reminded of the crimes which the Jews have committed for centuries on human beings. He will be reminded of the ritual murder. History offers hundreds of cases in which non-Jewish children were tortured to death by Jews. They, too, received the same gash in the throat as is found on ritualistically slaughtered animals. They, too, were slowly bled to death while fully conscious.”
My Lord, on special occasions, or when he had some particular subject matter to put before the world, he was in the habit of issuing special editions of his newspaper Der Stürmer. Ritual murder was such a special subject that he issued one of these special editions dealing solely with it. The Tribunal will have a photostatic copy of the complete issue for May 1939.
Now I have not attempted to have translated all, or indeed any, of the articles which appear in that edition. It is perhaps sufficient to look at the pictures, the illustrations, and for me to read the captions which appear underneath the photographs; and I regret the translations of the captions have not been attached to the Tribunal’s copy but perhaps I may be permitted to refer to the pictures and read the captions for the Tribunal.
The pages are marked in red pencil on the right-hand corner. On Page 1 I see a picture of a child having knives stuck into its side, blood spurting from it, and below the pedestal on which it stands are five presumably dead children lying on the ground. The caption to that picture is as follows:
“In the year 1476 the Jews in Regensburg murdered six boys. They drew their blood and tortured them to death. In an underground vault which belonged to the Jew Josfol, the judges found the bodies of the murdered boys. A bloodstained earthen bowl stood on an altar.”
On the next page there are two pictures, and the captions explain them. The one at the top left-hand corner:
“For the Jewish New Year celebrations in 1913, World Jewry published this picture as a postcard. On the Jewish New Year and on the Day of Atonement the Jews slaughter a so-called ‘kapores cock,’ that is to say, dead cock, whose blood and death is intended to purify the Jews. In 1913 the ‘kapores cock’ had the head of the Russian Czar Nicholas II. By publishing this postcard the Jews intended to say that Nicholas II would be their next political purifying sacrifice. On the 16th of July 1918 the Czar was murdered by the Jews Jurovsky and Goloschtschekin.”
The picture at the bottom of the page, again, has a Jew holding a similar bird:
“The ‘kapores cock’ has the head of the Führer. The Hebrew script says that one day Jews will ‘kill all Hitlerites.’ Then they, the Jews, will be delivered from all misfortunes. But in due course the Jews will realize that they have reckoned without an Adolf Hitler.”
The next page of the newspaper contains reproductions of a lot of previous articles on ritual murder, with a picture of the Defendant Julius Streicher at the top.
On the fourth page, a picture at the bottom of the right-hand corner has the caption:
“Jew at the Passover Meal. The wine and matzoth,”—unleavened bread—“contain non-Jewish blood. The Jew ‘prays’ before the meal. He ‘prays’ for death to all non-Jews.”
On the fifth page are reproductions from some of the European and American newspaper articles and letters which had been received by those newspapers during the course of the last years in protest to this propaganda on the subject of ritual murder, and in the center of it you will see the letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury written to the editor of the Times in protest.
On the next page, Page 6, is another ghastly picture of a man having his throat cut—again the usual spurt of blood falling into a basin on the floor—and the caption to that is as follows:
“The Ritual Murder of the Boy Heinrich. In the year 1345 the Jews in Munich slaughtered a non-Jewish boy. The martyr was beatified by the Church.”
On Page 7 appears a picture representing three ritual murders. On Page 8 there is another photo-picture:
“St. Gabriel. This boy was crucified and tortured to death by the Jews in the year 1690. The blood was drawn from him.”
I think we can pass Page 9 and Page 10.
On Page 11 there is shown a piece of sculpture which appears on the wall of the Wallfahrts Chapel in Wesel and it represents the ritual murder of a boy, Werner. It is a somewhat disgusting picture of the boy strung up by his feet and being murdered by two Jews.
Page 12 reproduces another picture taken from the same place. The caption is:
“The Embalmed Body of ‘Simon of Trent’ Who Was Tortured to Death by the Jews.”
Page 13 has another picture—somebody else having a knife stuck into him, more blood coming out into a basin.
On Page 14 are two pictures. The one at the top is said to be the ritual murder of the boy Andreas, and the one at the bottom is the picture of a tombstone, the caption of which reads as follows:
“The Tombstone of Hilsner. This is the memorial to a Jewish ritual murderer, Leopold Hilsner. He was found guilty of two ritual murders and was condemned in two trials to death by hanging. The emperor was bribed and pardoned him. Masaryk, the friend of the Jews, liberated him from penal servitude in 1918. Even on his tombstone lying Jewry calls this two-fold murderer an innocent victim.”
The next page again reproduces the picture of a woman being murdered by having her throat cut in the same way; and perhaps I might refer to Page 17, which reproduces a picture of the Archbishop of Canterbury and a picture of an old Jewish man, and the caption says:
“Dr. Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Highest Dignitary of the English Church. His ally, a typical example of the Jewish race.”
The last page, Page 18, reproduces a picture called, “St. Simon of Trent, Who Was Tortured to Death.”
My Lord, it is my submission that that document is nothing but an incitement to the people of Germany who read it, an incitement to murder. It is filled with pictures of murder, murder alleged to be against the German people, and is an encouragement to all who read it to revenge themselves, and to revenge themselves in the same way. That document, M-10, becomes Exhibit GB-173.
DR. HANNS MARX (Counsel for Defendant Streicher): The Defendant Julius Streicher has just called my attention to the fact that he has not been given the opportunity to prove from where these pictures, which the Prosecution referred to just now, were taken. It is, in the opinion of the Defense, necessary that the origin of these pictures should be made clear to the Tribunal; otherwise one might think that these pictures had been especially borrowed for Der Stürmer from some obscure source. The Defendant Streicher, however, points out that these pictures came from recognized historical sources. I should therefore like to suggest that the Prosecution make this material also available. I think that the articles of Der Stürmer which have been referred to must show what the sources are from which Streicher was supplied.
THE PRESIDENT: Do the articles show the sources? Do the articles themselves indicate the sources?
DR. MARX: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I should have said so. There wasn’t any intention to misrepresent the matter, that these pictures are taken from original pictures. These were not invented by the newspaper, and in some cases the sources are shown in the caption. This is a collection of medieval pictures and frescoes dealing with this matter. In actual fact the papers show in almost all cases where they come from.
DR. MARX: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: You have already given us the dates of them, which indicated they were medieval.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That is so. My Lord, in January 1938—and it will be remembered that in 1938 the persecution of the Jews became more and more severe—in January 1938, for some reason or other, another special issue of Der Stürmer was published. If the Tribunal would look at Page 34 of their document book I will quote a short passage from the leading article in that paper—an article written by the defendant:
“The supreme aim and highest task of the State is therefore to preserve People, Blood, and Race. But if this is the supreme task, any crime against this law must be punished with the supreme penalty. Der Stürmer takes therefore the view that there are only two punishments for the crime of polluting the race: 1. Long-term penal servitude for attempted race pollution. 2. Death for the completed crime.”
And again, indeed if it is now still necessary to show the type of paper this was, if the Tribunal will turn over to the next page they will see the headlines set out for some of the articles that are contained in that edition:
“Jewish Race Polluters at Work.”
“Fifteen-Year-Old Non-Jewess Violated.”
“A Dangerous Race Polluter. He regards German women as fair game for himself.”
“The Jewish Sanatorium. A Jewish institution for the cultivation of race pollution.”
“Rape of a Feeble-Minded Girl.”
“The Jewish Butler. He steals from his Jewish masters and commits race pollution.”
The copy of that paper is already in as Exhibit USA-260.
On the next page of the document book I will quote only the last two lines. It is an article appearing in Der Stürmer; and it is true that it is not an article actually written by the Defendant Streicher but by his then editor, Karl Holz:
“Revenge will break loose one day and will exterminate Jewry from the face of the earth.”
And again on Page 37, in September 1938, Der Stürmer has written an article in which the last two lines read as follows:
“. . . a parasite, a mischief maker, an evil-doer, a disseminator of disease, who must be destroyed in the interest of mankind.”
It is my submission to the Tribunal that this is no longer propaganda for the persecution of the Jews; this is propaganda for the extermination of Jews, for the murder not of one man but of millions.
The next document in the document book, on Page 38, has already been put in evidence and read to the Tribunal. It is Exhibit USA-260. It appears in the document book and was read into the transcript at Page 1438 (Volume III, Page 523). This is a short article appearing in December 1938, Number 50 of Der Stürmer.
I would draw the Tribunal’s attention to the next document which is a picture taken from that same copy. It shows the upper part of a girl’s body being strangled by the arms of a man with his hands around her neck and the shadow of the man’s face is shown against the background, quite obviously with Jewish features. The caption under that picture is as follows:
“Castration for Race Polluters. Only heavy penalties will preserve our womenfolk from a tighter grip from the loathsome Jewish claws. The Jews are our misfortune.”
I pause for the moment from Der Stürmer to a particular incident that occurred, in which the Defendant Streicher took a leading part. It will be remembered that the organized demonstrations against the Jews took place the 9th and 10th of November 1938. All this propaganda, as I say, was becoming fiercer and more ferocious. In the autumn of that year the Defendant Streicher organized the breaking up of the Nuremberg synagogues on the occasion of a meeting of press representatives in Nuremberg. That incident has in fact been referred to previously in this case and the documents in connection with it are 1724-PS, which were put in as Exhibit USA-266 and were referred to and read in the transcript at Page 1443 (Volume III, Page 526).
Gauleiter Julius Streicher was personally to set the crane in motion with which the Jewish symbols were to be torn down from the synagogue. From another document which also was put in, 2711-PS, which became USA-267, and also was read in the transcript at Page 1443 (Volume III, Page 526), I quote two lines:
“. . . the Synagogue is demolished! Julius Streicher himself inaugurates the work by a speech lasting an hour and a half. By his order then—so to speak as a prelude of the demolition—the tremendous Star of David came off the cupola.”
The defendant, of course, took active part in the November demonstrations of that year. I do not suggest that he was responsible for the idea of them. The evidence against him is confined only to the part that he took in his Gau in Franconia.
On Page 43 of the document book, Document M-42 is an account of the Nuremberg demonstrations as they were reported in the Fränkische Tageszeitung, which of course was his paper, on the 11th of November. I quote:
“In Nuremberg and Fürth there were demonstrations by the crowd against the Jewish murderers. These lasted until the early hours of the morning. Long enough had one watched the doings of the Jews in Germany.”
And then I go to the last three lines of that paragraph:
“After midnight the excitement of the populace reached its peak and a large crowd marched to the synagogues in Nuremberg and Fürth and burned these two Jewish buildings where the murder of Germans had been preached.
“The fire brigades, which had been notified immediately, saw to it that the fire was confined to the original outbreak. The windows of the Jewish shopkeepers, who still had not given up hope of selling their rubbish to the stupid Gojim, were smashed. Thanks to the disciplined behaviour of the SA-men and the police, who rushed to the scene, there was no plundering.”
That becomes Exhibit GB-174.
The following document in the document book is the report of Streicher’s speech on the 10th of November, the day of the demonstration. I will quote from two paragraphs on that page—or rather, starting in the middle of the first paragraph:
“From the cradle the Jew is not taught, as we are, such texts as ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ or ‘Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ No, he is told ‘With the non-Jew you can do whatever you like.’ He is even taught that the slaughtering of a non-Jew is an act pleasing to God. For 20 years we have been writing about this in Der Stürmer; for 20 years we have been preaching it throughout the world, and we have made millions recognize the truth.”
I go to the last paragraph:
“The Jew slaughtered in one night 75,000 Persians; when he emigrated from Egypt he killed all the first-born, that is, a whole future generation of Egyptians. What would have happened if the Jew had succeeded in driving the nations into war against us, and if we had lost the war? The Jew, protected by foreign bayonets, would have fallen on us and would have slaughtered and murdered us. Never forget what history teaches.”
My Lord, after the November demonstrations irregularities occurred in the Gau of Franconia in connection with the organized Aryanization of Jewish property. Aryanization of Jewish property was, of course, regulated by the State; and under a decree it had been laid down that the proceeds, or any proceeds that there might be, from taking over Jewish properties and giving them to Aryans—all such proceeds were to go to the State. What apparently happened in Franconia was that a good deal of the proceeds never found their way as far as the State, and as a result Göring set up a commission to investigate what had taken place. We have the report of that commission, and I would refer the Tribunal to certain short passages in it. On Page 45, we see from that report exactly what had been taking place in this Defendant Streicher’s Gau. I quote from the paragraph, opposite where it says “Page 13”. . .
DR. MARX: As proof of the irregularities which occurred in connection with the Aryanization in Nuremberg after the 9th of November, the prosecutor intends to quote a report which the Deputy Gauleiter Holz made when he was interrogated before the examining commission. I wish to protest against making use of this report. Between Streicher and the Deputy Gauleiter Holz there existed real tension if not enmity. The Deputy Gauleiter Holz was the very person responsible for the measures of Aryanization. It is not at all proved that Streicher had agreed to these measures being undertaken. It is rather to be assumed that Holz, in order to cover himself, made statements here which he himself could not answer for if he were to appear here as witness today. Therefore, in this report of Holz it is a question of statements made by a man who was deeply involved in this matter, a man who participated in these deeds, and a man who was an enemy of the Defendant Streicher. Holz incriminated Streicher because Streicher did not protect him in front of the commission and from the then Minister President Göring. Therefore I do not think that this report should be used.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you said what you wished to say?
DR. MARX: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal considers that this document, being an official document, is admissible under Article 21 and that the objections which you have made to it are not objections which go to its admissibility as evidence but go to its weight; and as to that, you will have an opportunity to develop your objections at a later stage when you come to speak. The Tribunal rules that the document is admissible.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I read from the center of that Page 45 of the document book:
“After the November demonstrations the Deputy Gauleiter Holz took up the Jewish question. His reasons can be given here in detail on the basis of his statement of 25th March 1939:
“The 9th and 10th of November 1938. During the night of the 9th to the 10th of November and on the 10th of November 1938, events took place throughout Germany which I”—and I emphasize that that is Holz speaking—“considered to be the signal for a completely different treatment of the Jewish question in Germany. Synagogues and Jewish schools were burnt down and Jewish property was smashed both in shops and in private houses. Besides this, a large number of prominent Jews were taken to concentration camps by the police. Towards midday we discussed these events in the Gauleiter’s house. All of us were of the opinion that we now faced a completely new state of affairs on the Jewish question. By the great action against the Jews carried out in the night and morning of the 10th of November all precedents and all laws on this subject had been made meaningless. We were of the opinion (particularly I myself) that we should now act on our own initiative in this respect. I proposed to the Gauleiter that in view of the great existing lack of housing the best thing would be to put the Jews into a kind of internment camp. Then the houses would become free at once; and the housing shortage would be relieved, at least in part. Besides that, we should have the Jews under control and supervision! I added ‘The same thing happened to our prisoners of war and war internees.’
“The Gauleiter said that this suggestion was for the time being unfeasible. Thereupon I made a new proposal to him. I said to him that I considered it unthinkable that, after the Jews had had their property smashed, they should still be able to own houses and land. I proposed that these houses and this land ought to be taken away from them, and declared myself ready to carry through such an action. I declared that by the Aryanization of Jewish land and houses a large sum could accrue to the Gau out of the proceeds. I named some millions of marks. I stated that, in my opinion, this Aryanization could be carried out as legally as the Aryanization of shops. The Gauleiter’s answer was something to this effect: ‘If you think you can carry this out, do so. The sum gained will then be used to build a Gau school.’ ”
I go down now to where it says “Page 18”:
“The Aryanization was accomplished by the alienation of properties, the surrender of claims, especially mortgage claims, and reductions in buying price.
“The payment allowed the Jews was basically 10 percent of the nominal value or nominal sum of the claim. As a justification for these low prices, Holz claimed, at the Berlin meeting of the 6th of February 1939, that the Jews had mostly bought their property during the inflation period for less than a tenth of its value. As has been shown by investigating a large number of individual cases selected at random, this claim is not true.”
My Lord, I would turn to Page 48 of the document book, which appears in the second part of this report, and that part of the report is really the part containing the findings of the commission. I quote from the top of the page, Page 48 of the document book . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Is this still part of the report?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: This is still part of the report. It is, in fact, as I say, the findings of the commission.
“Gauleiter Streicher likes to beat people with a riding whip but only if he is in the company of several persons assisting him. In most cases the beatings are carried out with sadistic brutality.
“The best known case is that of Steinruck, whom he beat in the prison cell until the blood came, together with Deputy Gauleiter Holz and SA Oberführer König. After returning from this scene to the Deutscher Hof he said, ‘Now I am relieved. I needed that again!’ Later he also stated several times that he needed another Steinruck case in order to ‘relieve’ himself.
“In August 1938 he beat the editor Burker at the Gauhaus together with District Office Leader Schöller and his adjutant, König.”
To show the authority and power that he held in his Gau, I refer to the last paragraph on that page:
“According to reports of reliable witnesses, Gauleiter Streicher is in the habit of pointing out on the most varied occasions that he alone gives orders in the district of Franconia. For instance, at a meeting in the Colosseum in Nuremberg in 1935 he said that nobody could remove him from office. In a meeting at Herkules Hall, where he described how he had beaten Professor Steinruck, he emphasized that he would not let himself be beaten by anybody, not even by an Adolf Hitler. . . .
“For, this also must be stated here, in Franconia the Gau acts first and then orders the absolutely powerless authorities to approve.”
My Lord, both of those volumes of that report, Document 1757-PS, will become Exhibit GB-175.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal isn’t altogether satisfied that that has any bearing on the case against Streicher.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, it is the object of that document to show the kind of treatment and persecution which the Jews were receiving in the district or Gau over which this defendant ruled and, secondly, to show the absolute authority with which this defendant acted in his district. That is the purpose of that document.
As a result either of that investigation or of some other matter the defendant was relieved of his position as Gauleiter in February 1940, but he did not cease from his propaganda or from the control of his newspaper. I would only quote one further short extract from Der Stürmer. An article written by him on the 4th of November 1943, which appears in the document book on Page 53, is Document 1965-PS and becomes Exhibit GB-176; and it is an extract of importance:
“It is actually true that the Jews have so to speak disappeared from Europe and that the Jewish ‘Reservoir of the East,’ from which the Jewish pestilence has for centuries beset the peoples of Europe, has ceased to exist. But the Führer of the German people at the beginning of the war prophesied what has now come to pass.”
My Lord, that article was signed by Streicher, and it is my submission that it shows that he had knowledge of what was going on in the East, of which this Court has had such evidence. That was written November 1943. In April ’43, the Tribunal will remember, the Warsaw ghetto was destroyed. Between April 1942 and April 1944, 1,700,000-odd Jews were killed in Auschwitz and Dachau—I quote now from the transcript—and throughout the whole of that period millions of Jews were to die. It is my submission that that article appearing on the 4th of November and signed by him shows that he knew what was happening, perhaps not the details, but that he knew that the Jews were being exterminated.
I leave Der Stürmer and I would draw the attention of the Tribunal quite shortly to a matter which is perhaps as evil as any other aspect of this man’s activity, and that is the particular attention that he paid to the instruction—if you can call it that—or the perversion of the children and the youth of Germany. He was not content with inciting the German population. He seized the children as early as he could at their schools, and he started to poison their minds at the earliest possible date. Already in some of the extracts to which I have referred, the Tribunal will remember that there are mentions of children and the need for teaching them anti-Semitism. I refer now to Page 54 of the document book, and I would quote four or five lines from the last paragraph, starting in the middle of the last paragraph. It is a report of a speech by Streicher as early as June 1925, when he says:
“I repeat, we demand the transformation of the school into an ethno-German institution of education. If German children are taught by German teachers, then we shall have laid the foundations for the ethno-German school. This ethno-German school must teach racial doctrine.”
I now go to the last line of the first paragraph on the following page:
“We demand, therefore, the introduction of racial doctrine into the school.”
That is in a copy of Der Stürmer which has already been put in. It is Exhibit GB-165 (Document M-30).
The following Document, M-43, is an extract from the Fränkische Tageszeitung of the 19th of March 1934, when he addressed the pupils at a girls’ school at Preisslerstrasse after their finishing their vocational course. He was continually holding children’s meetings and attending children’s schools. I quote the third paragraph:
“Then Julius Streicher spoke about his life and told them about a girl who had at one time been a pupil of his and who had fallen a victim to a Jew and was finished for the rest of her life.”
I need not read the rest. It is all in the same tone. That becomes Exhibit GB-177.
Every summer they celebrated in Nuremberg what they called their solstice celebration, some pagan rite where the youth of Nuremberg rallied—organized or at least encouraged by the Defendant Streicher.
On Page 58 of the document book is a report taken from his paper, Fränkische Tageszeitung, of his speech to the Hitler Youth on what they called the “Holy Mountain” near Nuremberg, on the 22d of June 1935.
“Boys and girls, look back a little more than 10 years ago. A great war—the World War—had raged over the peoples of the earth and had left in the end a heap of ruins. Only one people remained victorious in that dreadful war, a people of whom Christ said that its father is the Devil. That people had ruined the German Nation in body and soul. At that time Adolf Hitler, an unknown man, arose from among the people and became a voice which proclaimed a holy war and struggle. He cried to the people to take courage again and to rise and join in liberating the German people from the Devil, so that mankind might again be free from that race which has roamed the globe for centuries and millennia, marked with the brand of Cain.
“Boys and girls, even if it is said that the Jews were once the chosen people do not believe it, but believe us when we say that the Jews are not a chosen people. Because it cannot be that a chosen people should act among the peoples as the Jews do today.”
And so on, with similar kind of propaganda. That Document, M-1, will be Exhibit GB-178.
The next Document, M-44, from which I will not read now, becomes Exhibit GB-179. The Tribunal will see that it was a report of Streicher’s address to 2,000 children at Nuremberg at Christmastime 1936. Underlined it says:
“ ‘Do you know who the Devil is?’ he asked his breathlessly listening audience. ‘The Jew, the Jew,’ resounded from a thousand children’s voices.”
But he wasn’t content only with writing and talking. He actually issued a book for teachers, a book which he published from his Der Stürmer offices, called The Jewish Question and School Instruction.
I have not had the whole of that book translated. It is addressed to school teachers. It is intended for their benefit, and it emphasizes the necessity of anti-Semitic teaching in schools, and it suggests ways in which the subject can be introduced and handled.
On Page 60 of the document book, M-46, the Tribunal will see a few extracts which have been taken from that book. The preface part of it is as follows:
“The National Socialist State has brought fundamental changes into all spheres of life of the German people.
“It has also presented the German teacher with new duties. The National Socialist State demands that its teachers instruct German children on racial questions. As far as the German people is concerned the racial question is a Jewish question. Those who want to teach the child about the Jew must themselves have a thorough knowledge of the subject.”
I will quote from the paragraph opposite “Page 5” in the margin. The whole of the rest of the extracts are really suggestions for teachers as to how to introduce the Jewish subject into their teaching, and at Page 5 of the introduction:
“Racial and Jewish questions are the fundamental problems of the National Socialist ideology. The solution of these problems will secure the existence of National Socialism and with this the existence of our nation for all time. The enormous significance of the racial question is recognized almost without exception today by all the German people. In order to come to this realization, our people had to travel through a long road of suffering.”
DR. MARX: I should like to point out the following: The prosecutor omitted in his presentation to state that the book he referred to was not written by the Defendant Streicher but by the school inspector Fink. If the prosecutor had read the next sentence, the Tribunal would have known about this fact. My client has called my attention to this point. I noticed it myself also because the next sentence reads as follows:
“Schulrat Fritz Fink desires to help German teachers on the road to information and knowledge with his book: The Jewish Question in the Schools.”
There can thus be no doubt that this School Inspector Fink is the author of the book. It is, after all, an essential thing to know that Fink and not Streicher was the author of this book.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you finished what you wish to say?
DR. MARX: Yes; that is what I wanted to say.
THE PRESIDENT: I would point out to you that although the book does appear to have been written by Fritz Fink, which is stated in the paragraph at the top, it has a preface by Streicher, so we may presume that Streicher authorized it; and it was published and printed by Der Stürmer.
DR. MARX: That is correct. I just wanted to point out to the Tribunal that it did not appear to be understood, that just that particular sentence was not read. One might have thought that an original work of Streicher’s was concerned, in which case the question of whether Streicher agreed with that work would appear of minor importance.
THE PRESIDENT: But you see, Dr. Marx, counsel was reading actually from the preface by Streicher. The last passage that he read, or almost the last, was the preface by Streicher. The last passage I have got marked is the passage on Page 60, which is headed “Preface” and is signed by Julius Streicher, which says in terms that the book was written by School Inspector Fritz Fink.
Let us not take any further time about it.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I think I have reached. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Will you read the last words of that preface on Page 60 there: “Those who take to heart . . .”?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, I read towards the end of the paragraph—the first paragraph of the preface:
“Those who take to heart all that has been written with such feeling by Fritz Fink, who for many years has been greatly concerned about the German people, will be grateful to the creator of this outwardly insignificant publication.”—Then it is signed—“Julius Streicher, City of the Reich Party rallies, Nuremberg, in the year 1937.”
I omitted that last part only in the interest of time.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That book is Exhibit GB-180. I would just read the last two lines, which I was not able to read before Dr. Marx interposed. The last three lines of the paragraph under “Introduction”:
“No one should be allowed to grow up in the midst of our people without this knowledge of the frightfulness and dangerousness of the Jew.”
I will not occupy the time of the Tribunal by reading further from that book. The nature of the book I hope is clear. I would only refer to the last three lines on the next page in the document book, taking another extract from it:
“One who has reached this stage of understanding will inevitably remain an enemy of the Jews all his life and will instill this hatred into his own children.”
Der Stürmer also published some children’s books, although I make it quite clear that I am not alleging that the defendant himself wrote the books. But they were published from his publishing business; and they are, of course, on the same line as everything else that was published and issued from that business.
The first of them to which I would call attention was entitled in English—or the English translation is—as follows: Don’t Trust the Fox in the Green Meadow Nor the Jew on His Oath. It is a picture book for children. There are pictures, all of them offensive pictures depicting Jews, of which a variety of selections appears in the Tribunal’s book. And opposite each picture there is a little story.
On Page 62 of the document book the Tribunal will see the kind of thing which appears opposite each picture. Opposite the picture in the Tribunal’s document book appears the following:
“Jesus Christ says, ‘The Jew is a murderer through and through.’ And when Christ had to die the Lord didn’t know of any other people that would torture him to death, so he chose the Jews. That is why the Jews pride themselves on being the chosen people.”
The writing opposite the first picture, which depicts a very unpleasant looking Jewish butcher cutting up meat, is as follows:
“The Jewish butcher: He sells half-refuse instead of meat. A piece of meat lies on the floor, the cat claws another. This doesn’t worry the Jewish butcher since the meat increases in weight. Besides, one mustn’t forget, he won’t have to eat it himself.”
Again in the interest of time, it is not worth quoting the contents of that book any further. The Tribunal can see the type of book it is, the type of teaching it was instilling into the minds of the children. The pictures speak for themselves.
The second picture is a rather beastly picture of a girl being led away by a Jew. On the next page we see the defendant smiling benignly at a children’s party, greeting the little children. The next picture depicts copies of Der Stürmer posted on a wall with children looking at them.
The next picture perhaps requires a little explanation. It is a picture of Jewish children being taken away from an Aryan school, led away by an unpleasant looking father; and all the Aryan children shouting and dancing and enjoying the fun very much.
That book, Document M-32, becomes Exhibit GB-181.
THE PRESIDENT: You won’t be able, will you, to finish in a short time? Perhaps we’d better adjourn now.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I have about another 20 minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yes; we will adjourn now.
[A recess was taken.]
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I had finished describing that one children’s book. There is a similar book called The Poisonous Fungus, which has, in fact, been put in evidence already as Exhibit USA-257, but it was not read to the Tribunal; and I would like to read one of the short stories from that book because it shows, perhaps more strikingly, I think, than any other extract to which we have referred, the revolting way in which this man poisoned the minds of his listeners and readers.
It is a book of pictures again with short stories, and Page 69 of the document book shows one of the pictures, a girl sitting in a Jewish doctor’s waiting room.
My Lord, it is not a very pleasant story, but he is not a very pleasant man; and it is only by reading these things that it becomes possible to believe the kind of education that the German children have been receiving during these years, led by this man.
I quote from the story:
“Inge”—that is the girl—“Inge sits in the reception room of the Jew doctor. She has to wait a long time. She looks through the journals which are on the table. But she is much too nervous to read even a few sentences. Again and again she remembers the talk with her mother. And again and again her mind reflects on the warnings of her leader of the League of German Girls. A German must not consult a Jew doctor. And particularly not a German girl. Many a girl that went to a Jew doctor to be cured met with disease and disgrace.
“When Inge had entered the waiting room, she experienced an extraordinary incident. From the doctor’s consulting room she could hear the sound of crying. She heard the voice of a young girl, ‘Doctor, doctor, leave me alone.’
“Then she heard the scornful laughter of a man. And then, all of a sudden it became absolutely silent. Inge had listened breathlessly.
“ ‘What can be the meaning of all this?’ she asked herself, and her heart was pounding. And again she thought of the warning of her leader in the League of German Girls.
“Inge had already been waiting for an hour. Again she takes the journals in an endeavor to read. Then the door opens. Inge looks up. The Jew appears. She screams. In terror she drops the paper. Horrified she jumps up. Her eyes stare into the face of the Jewish doctor. And this face is the face of the Devil. In the middle of this devil’s face is a huge crooked nose. Behind the spectacles gleam two criminal eyes. Around the thick lips plays a grin, a grin that means, ‘Now I have you at last, you little German girl!’
“And then the Jew approaches her. His fat fingers snatch at her. But now Inge has got hold of herself. Before the Jew can grab hold of her, she smacks the fat face of the Jew doctor with her hand. One jump to the door. Breathlessly Inge runs down the stairs. Breathlessly she escapes from the Jew house.”
Comment is almost unnecessary on a story like that, read by children of the age of those who are going to read the books you have seen.
Another picture which I have included in the book is a picture, of course of the defendant, and the script opposite that picture, which appears on Page 70 of the document book, includes the words—and I quote from the last but one paragraph: “Without a solution of the Jewish question there will be no salvation for mankind.”
The page itself contains an account of how some boys attended one of his speeches:
“That is what he shouted to us. We all understood him. And when, at the end, he shouted, ‘Sieg-Heil for the Führer,’ we all acclaimed him with tremendous enthusiasm. Streicher spoke for two hours that time. To us it seemed to have been but a few minutes.”
One can begin to see the effect that all this was having from the columns of Der Stürmer itself. In April 1936 there appears only one letter—many others appear in other copies from children of all ages—I quote the third paragraph of this letter, the letter signed by the boys and girls of the National Socialist Youth Hostel at Gross-Möllem:
“Today we saw a play on how the Devil persuades the Jew to shoot a conscientious National Socialist. In the course of the play the Jew did it, too. We all heard the shot. We would have all liked to jump up and arrest the Jew. But then the policeman came and after a short struggle took the Jew along. You can imagine, dear Stürmer, that we heartily cheered the policeman. In the whole play not one name was mentioned, but we all knew that this play represented the murder by the Jew Frankfurter. We were very sad when we went to bed that night. None felt like talking to the others. This play made it clear to us how the Jew sets to work.”
My Lord, that book is already in evidence as I have stated. It is Exhibit GB-170 (Document M-25).
To conclude, I would draw the attention of the Tribunal again only to his authority as a Gauleiter. It appears in the Organization Book of the NSDAP for 1938—which is already in as Exhibit USA-430—in the description of the duties and authority of Gauleiter: The Gauleiter bears over-all responsibility to the Führer for the sector of sovereignty entrusted to him. The rights, duties, and jurisdiction of the Gauleiter result primarily from the mission assigned by the Führer and, apart from that, from detailed direction.
His association with the Führer and with the other defendants—or some of the other defendants—can be seen from the newspapers. On the occasion of his 50th birthday Hitler paid a visit to Nuremberg to congratulate him. That was on the 13th of February 1935. The account of that meeting is published in the Völkischer Beobachter of that date, and I quote as follows:
“Adolf Hitler spoke to his old comrade in arms and the latter’s followers in words which went straight to their hearts. By way of introduction he remarked that it was a special pleasure for him to spend, on this day of honor to Julius Streicher, a short while in Nuremberg, the town of battle-steeled National Socialist solidarity, within the circle of the veteran standard-bearers of the National Socialist idea.
“Just as they all, during the years of misery, had unshakeably believed in the victory of the Movement, so his friend and comrade in arms, Streicher, had stood faithfully at his side at all times. It had been this unshakeable belief that had moved mountains.
“For Streicher it would surely be an inspiring thought that this 50th anniversary meant to him not only the turn of a half century, but also of a thousand years of German history. He had in Streicher a comrade of whom he could say that here in Nuremberg was a man who would never waver for a single second and who would unflinchingly stand behind him in every situation.”
That is Document M-8 and becomes Exhibit GB-182.
The next document (M-22) is a letter from Himmler published in Der Stürmer of April 1937. That edition is already Exhibit USA-258.
“When in future years the history of the reawakening of the German people is written and the next generation is already unable to understand that the German people were once friendly to the Jews, it will be recognized that Julius Streicher and his weekly paper Der Stürmer contributed a great deal toward the enlightenment regarding the enemy of mankind.”—Signed—“The Reichsführer SS, H. Himmler.”
That is Exhibit USA-258. A number of these documents are already in evidence in the bound volumes.
Lastly, we have a letter from Baldur von Schirach, the Reich Youth Leader, published in Der Stürmer of March 1938 (Document M-45, Exhibit USA-260):
“It is the historical merit of Der Stürmer to have enlightened the broad masses of our people in a popular way as to the Jewish world danger. Der Stürmer is right in not carrying out its task in a purely aesthetic manner, for Jewry has shown no regard for the German people. We have, therefore, no reason for being considerate toward our worst enemy. What we fail to do today, the youth of tomorrow will have to suffer for bitterly.”
My Lord, it may be that this defendant is less directly involved in the physical commission of the crimes against Jews, of which this Tribunal have heard, than some of his co-conspirators. The submission of the Prosecution is that his crime is no less the worse for that reason. No government in the world, before the Nazis came to power, could have embarked upon and put into effect a policy of mass extermination in the way in which they did, without having a people who would back them and support them and without having a large number of people, men and women, who were prepared to put their hands to their bloody murder. And not even, perhaps, the German people of previous generations would have lent themselves to the crimes about which this Tribunal has heard, the killing of millions and millions of men and women.
It was to the task of educating the people, of producing murderers, educating and poisoning them with hate, that Streicher set himself; and for 25 years he has continued unrelentingly the education—if you can call it so—or the perversion of the people and of the youth of Germany. And he has gone on and on as he saw the results of his work bearing fruit.
In the early days he was preaching persecution. As persecutions took place he preached extermination and annihilation; and, as we have seen in the ghettos of the East, as millions of Jews were being exterminated and annihilated, he cried out for more and more.
That is the crime that he has committed. It is the submission of the Prosecution that he made these things possible—made these crimes possible—which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those like him. He led the propaganda and the education of the German people in those ways. Without him the Kaltenbrunners, the Himmlers, the General Stroops would have had nobody to carry out their orders. And, as we have seen, he has concentrated upon the youth and the childhood of Germany. In its extent his crime is probably greater and more far-reaching than that of any of the other defendants. The misery that they caused finished with their incarceration. The effects of this man’s crime, of the poison that he has injected into the minds of millions and millions of young boys and girls and young men and women lives on. He leaves behind him a legacy of almost a whole people poisoned with hate, sadism, and murder, and perverted by him. That German people remains a problem and perhaps a menace to the rest of civilization for generations to come.
My Lord, I submit that the Prosecution’s case against this man as set out in the Indictment is proved.
My Lord, Lieutenant Brady Bryson, of the United States Delegation, will present to the Court the case against Schacht.
LIEUTENANT BRADY O. BRYSON (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, a document book has been prepared and filed and the appropriate number of copies has been delivered to the defendants.
We ask the Tribunal’s permission to file within the next few days a trial brief which now is in the process of preparation.
Our proof against the Defendant Schacht is confined to planning and preparation of aggressive war.
THE PRESIDENT: What was it you said about the trial brief?
LT. BRYSON: We ask permission to file a trial brief within the next few days, as our brief is not yet ready.
THE PRESIDENT: I see.
LT. BRYSON: Our proof against the Defendant Schacht is limited to planning and preparation for aggressive war and to membership in a conspiracy for aggressive war.
The extent of Schacht’s criminal responsibility as a matter of law, under the Charter of the Tribunal, will be developed in our brief. Only a few of our 50-odd documents have been previously submitted in evidence. We have taken special pains to avoid repetition and cumulative proof; but for the sake of continuity we would like, in several instances, simply to draw the Tribunal’s attention to evidence previously received, with an appropriate reference to the transcript of the Record.
Before commencing our proof, we wish to state our understanding that the Defendant Schacht’s control over the German economy was on the wane after November 1937, and that by the time of the aggression on Poland his official status had been reduced to that of Minister without Portfolio and personal adviser to Hitler. We know too that he is sometimes credited with opposition to certain of the more radical elements of the Nazi Party; and I further understand that at the time of capture by United States forces he was under German detention in a prison camp, having been arrested by the Gestapo in July 1944.
Be this as it may, our proof will show that at least up until the end of 1937 Schacht was the dominant figure in the rearming of Germany and in the economic planning and preparation for war, that without his work the Nazis would not have been able to wring from their depressed economy the tremendous material requirements of armed aggression, and that Schacht contributed his efforts with full knowledge of the aggressive purposes which he was serving.
The details of this proof will be presented in four parts:
First, we will very briefly show that Schacht accepted the Nazi philosophy prior to 1933 and supported Hitler’s rise to power.
Second, proof of the contribution of Schacht to German rearmament and preparation for war will be submitted. This evidence will also be brief, since the facts in this respect are well-known and have already been touched upon by Mr. Dodd in his presentation of the case on economic preparation for war.
Third, we will show that Schacht assisted the Nazi conspiracy purposely and willingly with knowledge of, and sympathy for, its illegal ends.
And last, we will prove that Schacht’s loss of power in the German Government did not in any sense imply disagreement with the policy of aggressive war.
We turn now to our proof that Schacht helped Hitler to power.
Schacht met Göring for the first time in December 1930, and Hitler early in January 1931 at Göring’s house. His impression of Hitler was favorable. I offer in evidence Exhibit USA-615 (Document 3725-PS), consisting of an excerpt from a pre-trial interrogation of Schacht under date of 20 July 1945, and quote two questions and answers related to this meeting, near the middle of the first page of the interrogation.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you going to give us the Exhibit number? You haven’t given us the other number?
LT. BRYSON: This is an interrogation, Sir, and it will not have two.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you got a number for it?
LT. BRYSON: You will find it in your document book in the back, labeled “Schacht Interrogation of 20 July 1945.” I quote from the middle of the first page:
“Q: ‘What did he’ ”—that is, Hitler—“ ‘say?’
“A: ‘Oh, ideas he expressed before, but it was full of will and spirit.’ ”
And near the bottom of the page:
“Q: ‘What was your impression at the end of that evening?’
“A: ‘I thought that Hitler was a man with whom one could co-operate.’ ”
After this meeting Schacht allied himself with Hitler; and at a crucial political moment in November 1932, he lent the prestige of his name, which was widely known in banking, financial, and business circles throughout the world, to Hitler’s cause. I offer in evidence Exhibit USA-616 (Document 3729-PS) consisting of excerpts from a pre-trial interrogation of Schacht on 17 October 1945. I wish to quote, beginning at the top of Page 36 of this interrogation. This is the interrogation of 17 October 1945, at Page 36. I may say that when I refer to the page numbers, I speak of the page of the document book:
“Q: ‘Yes, and at that time’ ”—referring to January 1931—“ ‘you became a supporter, I take it, of. . .’
“A: ‘In the course. . .’
“Q: ‘Of Hitler’s coming to power?’
“A: ‘Especially in the course of the years 1931 and 1932.’ ”
And I quote further from the lower half of Page 37 of the same interrogation:
“Q: ‘But what I mean—to make it very brief—did you lend the prestige of your name to help Hitler come to power?’
“A: ‘I have publicly stated that I expected Hitler to come to power; for the first time, if I remember, in November ’32.’
“Q: ‘And you know, or perhaps you don’t, that Goebbels in his diary records with great affection. . .’
“A: ‘Yes.’
“Q: ‘. . . the help that you gave him at the time?’
“A: ‘Yes, I know that.’
“Q: ‘November 1932?’
“A: ‘From the Kaiserhof to the Chancellery and back.’
“Q: ‘That’s right. You have read that?’
“A: ‘Yes.’
“Q: ‘And you don’t deny that Goebbels was right?’
“A: ‘I think his impression was that that was correct at that time.’ ”
I now refer the Tribunal to this statement of Goebbels, set forth in 2409(a)-PS. The entire diary of Goebbels is in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-262. The entry I wish to read, which appears in 2409(a)-PS, was made on 21 November 1932:
“In a conversation with Dr. Schacht I assured myself that he absolutely shares our point of view. He is one of the few who stand immovable behind the Führer.”
It is believed that Schacht joined the Party only in the sense that he allied himself with the cause. Dr. Franz Reuter, whose biography of Schacht was officially published in Germany in 1937, has stated that Schacht refrained from formal membership in order to be of greater assistance to the Party. I offer in evidence Document Number EC-460, Exhibit Number USA-617, consisting of an excerpt from Reuter’s biography, and I quote the last sentence of the excerpt:
“By not doing so, he was able eventually to help more toward the final victory than if he had become an enrolled Party member.”
It was Schacht who organized the financial means for the decisive March 1933 election, at a meeting of Hitler with a group of German industrialists in Berlin. Schacht acted as the sponsor or host of this meeting, and a campaign fund of several million marks was collected. Without reading therefrom, I offer in evidence Document Number EC-439, Exhibit Number USA-618, an affidavit of Von Schnitzler under date of 10 November 1945, and refer the Tribunal to the transcript for 23 November, Pages 282-283 (Volume II, Pages 223, 224), where the text of the affidavit already appears in the Record.
Further evidence on this point is also contained in the excerpt from the interrogation of Schacht on 20 July 1945, from which I read a part a moment ago. Schacht lent his support to Hitler not only because he was an opportunist, but also because he shared Hitler’s ideological principles. Apart from the entry in Goebbels’ diary, this may be seen from Schacht’s own letter to Hitler, under date of 29 August 1932, pledging continued support to Hitler after the latter’s poor showing in the July 1932 elections. I offer this letter in evidence as Document Number EC-457, Exhibit Number USA-619, and quote from the middle of the first paragraph and further from the next to the last paragraph:
“But what you could perhaps do with in these days is a kind word. Your movement is carried internally by so strong a truth and necessity that victory in one form or another cannot elude you for long.”
And further down—and keep in mind that neither Hitler nor Schacht was then in the German Government—Schacht says:
“Wherever my work may take me in the near future, even if you should see me one day behind stone walls, you can always count on me as your reliable assistant.”
THE PRESIDENT: What do those words mean at the top: “The President of the Reichsbank in Retirement”? Are they on the letter?
LT. BRYSON: Yes, they are, Sir. Dr. Schacht had previously been a president of the Reichsbank. At this time he was in retirement. You will remember, this is prior to Hitler’s accession to power.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, of course.
LT. BRYSON: And then Hitler reinstated Dr. Schacht as President of the Reichsbank after the Nazis had taken over.
THE PRESIDENT: And he put that at the top of his letter, did he?
LT. BRYSON: That I cannot say.
I will also point out that Schacht signed this letter, “With a vigorous Heil.”
We turn now to the second part of our proof, relating to Schacht’s contribution to preparation for war.
The detailed chronology of Schacht’s official career in the Nazi Government, as set forth in Document 3021-PS, has already been submitted in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-11. However, it may be helpful at the outset to remind the Tribunal that Schacht was recalled to the Presidency of the Reichsbank by Hitler on 17 March 1933, which office he continuously held until 20 January 1939; that he was Acting Minister and then Minister of Economics from August 1934 until November 1937; and that he was appointed Plenipotentiary General for War Economy in May 1935. He resigned as Minister of Economics and Plenipotentiary General for War Economy in November 1937, when he accepted appointment as Minister without Portfolio, which post he held until January 1943. His position as virtual economic dictator of Germany in the 4 crucial years from early 1933 to the end of 1936 is practically a matter of common knowledge.
Schacht was the guiding genius behind the Nazi expansion of the German credit system for rearmament purposes. From the outset he recognized that the plan for the German military supremacy required huge quantities of public credit. To that end a series of measures was adopted which subverted all credit institutions in Germany to the over-all aim of supplying funds for the military machine. I will briefly mention some of these measures.
By Cabinet decree of 27 October 1933 the statutory reserve of 40 percent in gold and foreign exchange required against circulating Reichsbank notes was permanently abandoned. By the Credit Act of 1934 the Government assumed jurisdiction of all credit institutions, and control over the entire banking system was centralized in Schacht as Chairman of the Supervisory Board for the Credit System and President of the Reichsbank. This act not only enabled Schacht to control the quantity of credit but also its use. On 29 March 1934 a system of forced corporate lending to the Reich was imposed on German business. And on 19 February 1935 the Treasury was authorized to borrow funds in any amounts approved by the Reich Chancellor, that is, by Hitler.
On these points I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of the Reichsgesetzblatt 1933, Part II, Page 827; Reichsgesetzblatt 1934, Part I, Page 1203; Reichsgesetzblatt 1934, Part I, Page 295; and Reichsgesetzblatt 1935, Part I, Page 198.
THE PRESIDENT: Are they found here in the document book?
LT. BRYSON: They’re not in the document book, Sir.
I asked only that judicial notice be taken of them as published laws of Germany.
These measures enabled Schacht to embark upon what he himself has termed a “daring credit policy,” including the secret financing of a vast amount of armaments through the so-called ‘mefo’ bill, a description of which appears in the transcript for 23 November at Page 295 (Volume II, Page 232). I offer in evidence Document Number EC-436, Exhibit Number USA-620, consisting of a statement, dated 2 November 1945, by Emil Puhl, a director of the Reichsbank during Schacht’s presidency, and quote the second paragraph thereof as follows:
“In the early part of 1935 the need for financing an accelerated rearmament program arose. Dr. Schacht, President of the Reichsbank, after considering various techniques of financing, proposed the use of mefo bills to provide a substantial portion of the funds needed for the rearmament program. This method had as one of its primary advantages the fact that secrecy would be possible during the first years of the rearmament program; and figures indicating the extent of rearmament, that would have become public through the use of other methods, could be kept secret through the use of mefo bills.”
The extent of the credit expansion and the importance of mefo financing may be seen from Document Number EC-419, which I now offer as Exhibit Number USA-621 and which consists of a letter from Finance Minister Von Krosigk to Hitler, under date of 1 September 1938. I quote the following figures from the middle of the first page:
“The Reich debt accumulated as follows:
“As of 31 December 1932: Funded debt, 10,400 millions of Reichsmark; short-term debt, 2,100 millions of Reichsmark; debt not published in the budget (trade and mefo bills of exchange), 0.
“As of 30 June 1938: Funded debt, 19,000 million Reichsmark; short-term debt, 3,500 million Reichsmark; and debt not published in the budget (trade and mefo bills of exchange), 13,300 million Reichsmark.
“Total: as of 31 December 1932, 12,500 million Reichsmark; as of 30 June 1938, 35,800 million Reichsmark.”
The Reich debt thus tripled. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Would you read the next section, beginning with the words “Provisions were made to cover. . .”?
LT. BRYSON: “Provisions were made to cover the armament expenditures for the year 1938 (the same amount as in 1937) as follows:
“Five thousand millions from the budget, that is, taxes; 4,000 millions from loans; 2,000 millions from 6-month treasury notes, which means postponement of payment until 1939; total: 11,000 millions.”
The Reich debt thus tripled under Schacht’s management. More than one-third of the total was financed secretly and through the instrumentality of the Reichsbank by mefo and trade bills. It is clear that this amount of financing outside the normal public issues represented armament debt. I read further from Document EC-436, at the beginning of the last long paragraph:
“These mefo bills were used exclusively for financing rearmament; and when in March 1938 a new finance program discontinuing the use of mefo bills was announced by Dr. Schacht, there was a total volume outstanding of 12,000 million marks of mefo bills which had been issued to finance rearmament.”
The character of Schacht’s credit policy and the fact that it was ruthlessly dedicated to the creation of armaments plainly appear from his own speech delivered on 29 November 1938.
I offer it in evidence as Document Number EC-611, Exhibit Number USA-622; and I quote from Page 6 at the beginning of the last paragraph:
“It is possible that no bank of issue in peacetime carried on such a daring credit policy as the Reichsbank since the seizure of power by National Socialism. With the aid of this credit policy, however, Germany created an armament second to none; and this armament in turn made possible the results of our policy.”
Beyond the field of finance Schacht assumed totalitarian control over the German economy generally in order to marshal it behind the rearmament program.
He acquired great power over industry as a result of the Nazi reorganization of German industry along military lines and in accordance with the so-called Leadership Principle. On this point I refer the Tribunal to the transcript for 23 November at Pages 287-290 (Volume II, Pages 227-228); and to the Reichsgesetzblatt 1934, Part I, Page 1194, of which the Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice.
Schacht also exercised broad powers as a member of the Reich Defense Council, which was secretly established on 4 April 1933 and the function of which was preparation for war. The Tribunal is referred to the transcript for 23 November, Page 290 (Volume II, Pages 228-229). I also offer in evidence as Document Number EC-128, Exhibit Number USA-623, a report under date of 30 September 1934, showing the functions of the Ministry of Economics in this respect. The report reveals concentration upon all the familiar wartime economic problems, including stockpiling, production of scarce goods, removal of industry to secure areas, fuel and power supply for war production, machine tools, control of wartime priorities, rationing, price control, civilian supply, and so on. I wish to read into the Record merely an excerpt showing the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economics, beginning near the top of Page 2 of Document Number EC-128:
“With the establishment of the Reich Defense Council and its permanent committee the Reich Ministry of Economics has been given the task of making economic preparation for war. There should really be no need to explain the tremendous importance of this task. Everyone remembers vividly how terribly the lack of any economic preparation for war hit us during the World War.”
Finally, in 1934, Schacht acquired sweeping powers under legislation which authorized him, as Minister of Economics, to take any measure deemed necessary for the development of the German economy. In this connection reference is made to the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1934, Part I, Page 565, of which the Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice.
The so-called “New Plan” devised by Schacht was announced in the fall of 1934 shortly after he became Minister of Economics. In this connection the Tribunal is referred to the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1934, Part I, Page 816 and the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1935, Part I, Page 105, with the request that judicial notice be taken thereof. The New Plan was Schacht’s basic program for obtaining the necessary foreign-produced raw materials and foreign exchange required to sustain the rearmament program.
With respect to the details of the New Plan, I offer in evidence Document Number EC-437, Exhibit Number USA-624, consisting of an affidavit of Emil Puhl, dated 7 November 1945. The entire text is pertinent. Therefore, permission is requested to submit the affidavit without reading therefrom, on condition that French and Russian translations be prepared and filed.
THE PRESIDENT: And German ones supplied, too.
LT. BRYSON: We will supply copies. I wish to say that the original is in English, but the affidavit has already been translated into German.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
LT. BRYSON: This affidavit by a co-worker of Schacht describes in detail the many ingenious and often ruthless devices he used, including negotiating “stand-still” agreements, forcing payment in Reichsmark of interest and amortization on debts incurred in foreign currency, using scrip and funding bonds for the same purpose, suspending service on foreign-held debts, blocking foreign-held marks, freezing foreign claims in Germany, eliminating unessential foreign expenditures, requisitioning German-held foreign exchange, subsidizing exports, issuing restricted marks, bartering under clearing agreements, licensing imports, and controlling all foreign exchange transactions to the end of favoring raw materials for armaments.
The Tribunal is also asked to take judicial notice of Reichsgesetzblatt, 1934, Page 997; Reichsgesetzblatt, 1933, Part I, Page 349; and Reichsgesetzblatt, 1937, Part I, Page 600, relating to the clearing bank, the conversion bank, and the maturity of foreign loans, all of which decrees are mentioned in the affidavit.
Schacht even went so far as to invest foreign-held Reichsmark on deposit in German banks in rearmament notes, thus, as he put it, financing rearmament with the assets of his political opponents. Without reading therefrom, I refer your Honors to Document Number 1168-PS, Exhibit USA-37, being a memorandum from Schacht to Hitler, dated 3 May 1935, which already appears in the transcript on Pages 412 and 413 (Volume II, Pages 312, 313). Moreover, Schacht even resorted to capital punishment to prevent the loss of foreign exchange when frightened capital began to flee from the country. In this connection reference is made to the Law against Economic Sabotage, found in 1936 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 999, of which the Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice.
Schacht took particular pride in the results which were accomplished under the stringent controls which he instituted under his New Plan. I refer the Tribunal to Document Number EC-611, in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-622, consisting of Schacht’s speech in Berlin on 29 November 1938. I wish to read into the Record an excerpt from the top of Page 10:
“If there is anything remarkable about the New Plan, it is again only the fact that German organization under National Socialist leadership succeeded in conjuring up in a very short time the whole apparatus of supervision of imports, direction of exports, and promotion of exports. The success of the New Plan can be proved by means of a few figures. Calculated according to quantity, the import of finished products was cut down by 63 percent between 1934 and 1937. On the other hand, the import of ores was increased by 132 percent, of petroleum by 116, of grain by 102, and of rubber by 71 percent.”
While President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics, Schacht acquired still another key position, that of Plenipotentiary General for War Economy.
He received this appointment from Hitler pursuant to the unpublished Reich Defense Law secretly enacted on 21 May 1935. This law is in evidence as Document Number 2261-PS, Exhibit Number USA-24, consisting of a letter from Von Blomberg dated 24 June 1935 to the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Forces, together with copies of the Reich Defense Law and the Cabinet’s memorandum relating thereto. Pertinent comments on and excerpts from this document appear in the transcript for 23 November, at Pages 278 and 292 (Volume II, Pages 220-229). I will simply state therefore that by virtue of this appointment Schacht was put in complete charge of economic planning and preparation for war in peacetime, except for certain direct armament production under control of the War Ministry. Upon the outbreak of war he was to be the economic czar of Germany with complete control over the activities of a number of key Reich ministries.
Schacht appointed Wohlthat as his deputy and organized a staff to carry out his directives. In this connection I offer in evidence excerpts from a pre-trial interrogation of Schacht under date 17 October 1945. This document is Exhibit Number USA-616 (Document 3729-PS). I wish to read into the Record a question and answer found at the bottom of Page 40 of the document book:
“Q: ‘Let me ask you a general question then: Do you take the responsibility as Plenipotentiary General for War Economy for the writings that were made and the actions that were done by Wohlthat and his assistants?’
“A: ‘I have to.’ ”
I also offer in evidence Document Number EC-258, Exhibit Number USA-625, consisting of a status report issued in December 1937 under the signature of Schacht’s deputy, Wohlthat. The report is entitled, “The Preparation of the Economic Mobilization by the Plenipotentiary General for War Economy.” Schacht had withdrawn from office immediately prior to the preparation of this report, and it plainly is a recapitulation of his accomplishments while in office. Since the entire text is relevant, we ask permission to submit the document without reading therefrom on condition that translations into French and Russian be later filed with the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: I do not think this is consistent with the rule laid down by the Tribunal, which was that the translations in the French and Russian languages should be submitted at the same time. You are now suggesting that you can submit translations at a later stage.
LT. BRYSON: Well, if Your Honor pleases, in any event I did not plan to read from the document at this time and Defense Counsel do have the German original.
THE PRESIDENT: I was not speaking of the Defense Counsel so much as of the members of the Tribunal.
LT. BRYSON: We have the Russian translation in process now and it was delayed and we were unable to get it here at this time, but the delay will be very short and the document is of critical importance to our case.
THE PRESIDENT: How long will it be before it is ready?
LT. BRYSON: I wouldn’t like to say precisely, Sir, but perhaps within 4 or 5 days.
THE PRESIDENT: What do you propose to do now, because it is a very complicated and long document, is it not?
LT. BRYSON: It is and it shows. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Were you proposing to summarize it?
LT. BRYSON: I was proposing to summarize it, Sir, now.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks that if you would summarize it now and only be permitted to put it in at the stage when you have the translation ready, you may summarize it now.
LT. BRYSON: I will summarize it now, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Will it take long to summarize?
LT. BRYSON: Not very long, Sir; no.
THE PRESIDENT: You see, it is 5 o’clock.
LT. BRYSON: I think there will be time to summarize it, and then we will stop.
This document discloses that before his resignation Schacht had worked out in amazing detail his plans and preparations for the management of the economy in the forthcoming war. For example, 180,000 industrial plants in 300 industries had been surveyed with respect to usefulness for war purposes; economic plans for the production of 200 basic materials had been worked out; a system for the letting of war contracts had been devised; allocations of coal, motor fuel, and power had been determined; 248 million Reichsmark had been spent on storage facilities alone; evacuation plans for war materials and skilled workers from military zones had been worked out; 80 million wartime ration cards had already been printed and distributed to local areas; and a card index on the skills of some 22 million workers had been prepared.
That concludes the summary, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.