Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, Volume 07

by Various

Afternoon Session

M. CONSTANT QUATRE (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President, Your Honors, I have the honor today to bring to a close the presentation of the French Prosecution by recapitulating the charges against the Defendants Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl. Before going into my statement, I shall ask the Tribunal for permission to present a few observations. First of all, to spare the time of the Tribunal, we have joined the two defendants in the same brief. Their activities were carried on so much in common that in separating them we would run the risk of tedious repetitions and for this reason, I am condensing as far as possible what I have to say.

This presentation consists of three parts. In an introduction, I have endeavored to show the position of the two defendants in the general design of their activities. The first part following this deals with the preparation of plans of aggression, and will only be mentioned. It has already been sufficiently expounded so that it need not be brought up again.

The second part will claim my special attention. It concerns the responsibility incurred by the defendants for the crimes committed in the course of the war. In this connection, I shall not mention all the documents, testimonies, and interrogatories concerning these two defendants. If their guilt is a function of the repetition of their crimes, its main characteristic is the criminal intent which caused these crimes to be carried out. This criminal intent is made particularly clear by the few documents to which I have limited myself. I shall ask the Tribunal’s permission to make a few intentionally brief quotations from these.

The documents quoted will be first quoted under the session number, which you will find written in red in the margin of the copy before you. I shall thereupon indicate the original number. If the document has already been submitted, I shall furnish the date at which it was submitted and the number under which it was submitted.

As Chief of the National Socialist Party and subsequently as Chancellor of the Reich, Hitler endeavored to gain sole control of the German Army. He wanted the unity which he had established between Party and State to prevail throughout the Army, the State, and the Party. Only under these conditions would the war machine be capable of fulfilling its function. The initial impulse would come from the Party, the State would translate it into action, and the Army would impose it, if necessary, both at home and abroad.

To achieve this aim it was necessary first of all to impose legislation which would in fact bring the whole military organization under the Führer’s orders. It was also necessary to take steps to eliminate personalities too unyielding to submit to these measures. The execution of Von Schleicher in 1934 and the disgrace of Blomberg in 1938 are two examples. All that remained was to provide for their replacement by military chiefs whose conscience was sufficiently elastic to allow them to play the part of faithful executives. Keitel and Jodl were among these.

Their personal convictions and their rapid rise to eminence prove this. Questioned on 3 August 1945 by Colonel Ecer of the Czechoslovakian Military Judiciary, the Defendant Keitel spoke thus of his relations with Hitler and the National Socialist Party, (Exhibit Number RF-1430, formerly Document Number RF-710):

“In my innermost thoughts I was a faithful supporter of Adolf Hitler and my political convictions were National Socialist. When the Führer accorded me his confidence, my personal contact with him further influenced me towards National Socialism. Today I am still a firm partisan of Adolf Hitler, which does not imply that I adhere to all the points of the program and policy of the Party.”

On 7 November 1943, in a speech delivered in Munich to the leaders of the Reich and of the provinces on the strategic position of Germany at the beginning of the fifth year of the war, Jodl made the following statement by way of peroration, Exhibit Number RF-1431, Document Number L-172, submitted by the American Prosecution of 27 November 1945 under Number USA-34:

“At this moment I should like to testify, not only with my lips but from the bottom of my heart, that our trust and confidence in the Führer are boundless.”

Keitel, who entered the Army in 1901, was still a colonel in 1931. Jodl, who was 3 years younger, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel only in 1932, in spite of the opportunities offered by the war of 1914-18. The past years had brought them only mediocre advancement. Those which lay before them were to lead them to the heights of honor and responsibility. They saw their star rising at last simultaneously with that of the new master of Germany. The immediate result was their admission to public life.

During the years preceding the war, Keitel did not cease to exercise high functions in the most exalted ranks of the German Armed Forces. As he was in special favor with the new master of Germany, he adopted every possible means of strengthening the influence of Nazi ideology within the Army from the moment of Hitler’s accession to power. His activities in the Armed Forces Department were particularly fruitful. This was a ministerial organization which temporarily replaced the Reich Ministry of War and was responsible among other things for the preparation and co-ordination of plans affecting the German Army. The defendant’s period in office is rendered the more noteworthy by the fact that sweeping changes in organization had just been effected. The Reichswehr of the professional soldier was replaced by the Wehrmacht, recruited by compulsory military service. It was not enough to call the whole youth of Germany to the flag; it had to be clothed and fed and supplied with powerful modern weapons. This increase in the number of men under arms, these beginnings of a military economy and of a policy of rearmament, were largely due to the efforts of the defendant, who at that time enjoyed, in fact if not in theory, the prerogatives of a Minister of War.

On 4 February 1938, when Hitler abolished the War Ministry and proclaimed himself Commander-in-Chief, he transferred the chief powers of the Ministry to the High Command of the Armed Forces and its chief, Keitel, became at the same time Chief of the Führer’s personal staff.

The defendant was to retain these functions until the German Army capitulated. As Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces, Keitel did not exercise direct authority over the three services composing the Armed Forces: the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy, which were directly under Hitler. His particular function was the co-ordination of matters affecting the three services; he acted as liaison agent between Hitler and these three services, but he did more than this. His main role was that of adviser. He collated the information reaching him from the different services under his orders. This included reports from the Operations Staff under Jodl, information from the office of Admiral Canaris, reports made by the economic Armament Office under General Thomas, and by the administrative, financial, and legal branches. No matter how personal and authoritative Hitler’s way of working may have been, it did not exclude the regular and constant participation of Keitel in the acts of his master. It was he who was in a position to carry out his chief’s demands, to suggest, to prepare, or to modify his decisions.

If we consider his qualifications as a member of the Defense Council of the Reich and as a member of the Secret Cabinet Council and also consider their political importance, it is easy to see the scope of the role played by the defendant in every sphere, whether in the preparation of military plans in the strict sense of the term, the life or conduct of the German Army, the distribution of manpower, or the utilization of the economic resources of Germany.

Whenever a meeting was held at general headquarters or at the Chancellery, Keitel was present. He was present when Hitler made decisions of major importance. He was at his side on marches into the countries to be annexed. When orders by Hitler had to be transmitted, he in his turn would give orders, elaborating his chief’s ideas and adding his personal contribution. In countersigning Hitler’s decrees, Keitel did not alter the validity of these texts as regards the law of the Third Reich, but he gave Hitler a guarantee of their usefulness for the Wehrmacht and their execution to the last detail. It was in that way in particular that he acknowledged responsibility.

Like Keitel, Jodl was one of those men who staked their success on the success of the new regime and its creator. His attitude, his orders, and his activities show that he was a general inspired by political considerations, attached to Hitler, who showered favors on him. In assuming the direction of the general Operations Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces, he also took an active and important part in the elaboration of his chief’s orders.

Hitler represented the exclusive right to make decisions (Page 9 of my brief) but the two defendants who shared his every-day life during the period of hostilities brought his decisions into being, elaborated them, and ensured their execution.

Jodl fulfilled this role of counsellor, although in theory his authority was by no means equal to Keitel’s. This did not prevent him from intervening in matters outside the field of pure operations, but in which he likewise engaged his personal responsibility.

This responsibility of the two defendants has a bearing on the preparation and execution of plans of aggression. We shall not come back to this point. In this matter our British colleague, Mr. Roberts, has brought out perfectly the role played by these two defendants, and we shall consider more particularly their responsibility in the conduct of the war.

First of all, their responsibility for the murder and ill-treatment of civilians, collective sanctions, and the murder of hostages (Page 13 of my brief).

From the beginning of the war and keeping pace with the occupation of new territories by the German armies, there appeared measures against the civilian population, in violation of the laws of war and of the law of nations. These violations range from the apparently harmless to the most severe sanctions, the most cruel treatment, the most senseless and inhuman executions.

If we turn to the occupied territories in the East, towards Norway, towards the western countries, we find everywhere the same reactions, the same scrupulous execution of the same directives. On 16 September 1941, Keitel signed an order regarding the repression of communist insurrectionary movements in the occupied territories. This is Exhibit Number RF-1432, Document Number 389-PS. If the Tribunal will permit me, I should like to read briefly from this document. Keitel’s directives are the following:

“Every case of insurrection against the German occupying power is to be attributed to communist initiative irrespective of the particular circumstances.

“The most severe measures are to be taken to nip the rising in the bud at the first signs, so as to uphold the authority of the forces of occupation and to prevent such movements from spreading. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that in the countries in question human life often means nothing and that intimidation can be achieved only by unusual severity. In this case, the death penalty must as a general rule be considered a fitting reprisal for the death of a German soldier.”

THE PRESIDENT: We have had this read already.

M. QUATRE: I am sorry, Mr. President. On 5 May 1942, addressing himself to Belgium and France in particular, Keitel ordered hostages to be taken and executed in these two countries. They were to be chosen from the nationalists, the democrats, and the communists. This is Exhibit Number RF-1433 (Document Number 1590-PS), the original of which is now in the hands of the Prosecution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which will not fail to submit it in the course of its presentation. This order merely confirms previous directives, since orders given in August and September 1941 by General Von Stülpnagel, Commander-in-Chief in France, already concerned the execution of hostages. This is Exhibit Number RF-1434 (Document Number 1588-PS) submitted 29 January 1946 by the French Prosecution under Exhibit Number RF-274.

To impose order in the occupied territories and to protect the members of the German Army from attempted violence, Keitel did not hesitate to violate the stipulations of Articles 46 and 50 of the Hague Convention, which forbid the use by the occupying power of all means of coercion or collective reprisals and which, on the contrary, impose respect for the lives of individuals.

These were not isolated cases of violation; the same things are repeated in all the occupied countries. These preventive arrests were built up into a system. They are well suited to the goal that the High Command had set itself: That of assuring in this manner a certain attitude on the part of the population which should be advantageous from a military point of view. The terms of Exhibit Number RF-1433, which I have just quoted, are perfectly definite:

“. . . the military commanders should always have on hand a certain number of hostages of various political leanings. . . .

“It is important that these should include personalities in the public eye. . . .

“In cases of attempted violence, hostages belonging to the same group as the guilty person are to be shot.”

The reign of terror thus instituted was to reach its climax in the regulations for applying the Nacht und Nebel decree, issued by Keitel on 12 December 1941. This is Exhibit Number RF-1436, which I submit today as Document Number 669-PS. If the Tribunal will allow me, I shall read a few characteristic lines indicating Keitel’s intentions.

THE PRESIDENT: I think we had it more than once already.

M. QUATRE: I apologize, Mr. President, and I shall go on. This is the starting point of the deportations to which France, among other countries, has contributed in such a great degree. It is unnecessary to labor the point. You know the treatment inflicted upon these women and men, torn from their homes in contempt of every law; and the atrocities committed on them are present to all our minds.

Let us likewise call attention to Exhibit Number RF-1437 (Document Number UK-20) submitted 9 January 1946 as Exhibit Number GB-163. That is an order of 26 May 1943, signed on his behalf, in which Keitel prescribed in Paragraph 3 that detailed investigations are to be made in given cases regarding the relatives of Frenchmen fighting for the Russians, if these relatives reside in the occupied zone of France. If the investigation reveals that these relatives have helped to facilitate their flight from France, severe measures are to be taken.

On 22 September 1943 the High Command of the Armed Forces, this time over Jodl’s signature, sent the Commander-in-Chief in Denmark a telegram interesting from two points of view. It is Exhibit Number RF-1438 (Document Number UK-56) already submitted on 31 January 1946, under Exhibit Number RF-335. The first paragraph authorizes the enrollment of Danish nationals in the military formations of the occupying army, in SS formations. Apart from being injurious to the honor of the individuals, it contravenes the terms of the preamble of the Hague Convention, which stipulates that, in cases not included in the regular provisions, the population and the belligerents must remain under the safeguard of the laws of humanity and the exigencies of the public conscience. This attempt at Germanization ignored completely the exigencies of the public conscience.

As for the second paragraph of this telegram ordering the Jews to be deported from Denmark to Germany, that is the application of the general principle of the deportation of Jewish populations which was to lead to their utter extermination. The Tribunal is sufficiently informed on this point, so it is unnecessary to labor it.

I now come to the unwarranted devastation and destruction of cities, towns, and villages (Page 20 of my brief). The policy of terrorism carried on by the German armies in France against the resistance movement, against the Free French Forces, broke all bounds when the occupying power took steps, not against the members of the resistance forces themselves, but against the inhabitants of villages and towns suspected of harboring these resistance forces or giving them aid. I quote in this connection from a brochure put out by the High Command of the German Armed Forces under the date of 6 May 1944, which bears the signature of the Defendant Jodl in the name of the Chief of the OKW. This is Exhibit Number RF-1439, formerly Document Number F-665, submitted 31 January 1946 under Exhibit Number RF-411. Paragraph 161 of this notice reads as follows:

“The cleaning up of villages suspected of concealing bands needs experience. The forces of the Security Service and the rural Secret Police are to be employed. The real helpers of the bands are to be identified and the most rigorous measures taken against them. Collective measures against the populations of entire villages, including the burning of the places in question, can be ordered only in exceptional cases and then only by divisional commanders, SS leaders, or chiefs of police.” (Page 21 of my brief.)

But what the Defendant Jodl had ordered as an exceptional measure became the general rule in France in the spring and in the summer of 1944. Actions which had been exceptional when this order was signed now took on the aspect of large-scale operations, ordered and carried out in violation of the law of nations by army units assisted by the forces of the Security Service and the rural secret police.

On the pretext of investigating or making reprisals against local resistance elements, German officers and men scrupulously carried out the orders given by the Chief of the Operations Staff.

It was in this way that the withdrawal of German armies in France was marked by dead towns such as those which bore the names of Oradour-sur-Glane, Maillé, Cerizay, Saint-Dié, and Vassieux-en-Vercors. Jodl is responsible for these “mopping-up” operations, which began with the most arbitrary arrests and went on by progressive stages to torture, the wholesale massacre of men, women, old people, and children—even infants in arms—and the looting and burning of the villages themselves. No distinction was made among the inhabitants; all of them, even the babies, were “genuine auxiliaries.”

Never have the necessities of war justified such measures, all of which constituted violations of Articles 46 and 50 of the Hague Convention.

I come now (Page 23 of my brief) to the mobilization of civilian workers and to the deportation of civilians for forced labor. The decree appointing Sauckel Plenipotentiary for Labor Allocation, under date of 21 March 1942, is signed by Hitler, Lammers, Chief of the Reich Chancellery, and the Defendant Keitel. This is Exhibit Number RF-1440 (Document Number 1666-PS) submitted by the American Prosecution on 12 December 1945 under Exhibit Number USA-208.

The first paragraph provides for the recruiting of all available civilian labor for employment in the German war industry and particularly in the armament industry. All unemployed workers in Germany, the Protectorate, the Government General, and all the occupied territories were liable for this. This constitutes a violation of Article 52 of the Hague Convention.

On 7 November 1943, in the course of the speech to which we have already alluded, the Defendant Jodl, speaking of the tasks incumbent upon the populations of German-occupied territories, declared in Exhibit Number RF-1431 (Document Number L-172) which I quoted some time ago:

“In my opinion the time has come when we must have no scruples in taking stern and resolute measures in Denmark, Holland, France, and Belgium in order to force thousands of unemployed to work on fortifications, which is more essential than any other work. The necessary orders have already been given.”

Sauckel would not have expressed himself otherwise. Jodl also champions this requisitioning of services to utilize the potential labor of the western occupied territories for military purposes in the exclusive interest of Germany. It matters little that the Hague Convention prohibits such procedure. For him, too, total warfare and the triumph of Germany take precedence over respect for international conventions or the customs of war.

I now come to the responsibility of the Defendant Keitel in the sphere of economic spoliation and looting of art treasures. I shall be extremely brief. I point out to the Tribunal three documents which have already been submitted to it. I simply refer to them: Exhibit Number RF-1441 submitted yesterday by my colleague of the Economic Section under Exhibit Number RF-1302, and Exhibit Number RF-1400 (Document Number 137-PS) submitted 18 December 1945 by the American Prosecution under Number USA-379, and finally Exhibit Number RF-1443 (Document Number 138-PS), submitted yesterday under Exhibit Number RF-1310.

In regard to this, I shall merely submit to the Tribunal today a short letter consisting of five lines, addressed by Keitel to Rosenberg, Chief of the Einsatzstab. This is Exhibit Number RF-1444, (Document Number 148-PS) which reads as follows:

“Most Honored Reich Minister.

“In reply to your letter of 20 February I inform you that I have instructed the High Command of the Army to make the necessary arrangements with your delegate for the work of your special units in the operational area.”

It can therefore be said that Rosenberg’s activities received the continued support and assistance of the Army from the very first and in this way Keitel also made a personal contribution to the looting of the art treasures of France and the western countries. These measures were at first invested with an appearance of legal justification. They did not take place, according to Keitel, by virtue of a right to take, but simply as a guarantee for future peace negotiations. But these measures quickly degenerated into a general plundering of the art treasures of all kinds possessed by these western countries, in violation of the stipulations of Articles 46, 47, and 56 of the Hague Convention, which forbid the confiscation of private property and the pillage or seizure of works of art and science by the members of the occupying army.

I have now reached the last main part of my brief, which concerns (Page 28) the violations of conventions and laws of war relating to prisoners of war. In this field, in particular, Keitel and Jodl have made themselves guilty of peculiarly unwarrantable measures, contrary to the laws of war.

To begin with, they have violated Article 6 of the Appendix to the Hague Convention, which stipulates that “work carried out by war prisoners shall not be excessive and shall have no connection with war operations.”

Now, in a memorandum signed on his behalf, dated 31 October 1941, Keitel, as Chief of the OKW, forces Russian prisoners of war, interned in the Reich, to perform work connected with war operations. This is proved by Exhibit Number RF-1445 (Document Number EC-194) submitted by the American Prosecution on 12 December 1945, under Exhibit Number USA-214. In this text Keitel expresses himself thus:

“The Führer has just ordered that even the labor capacity of Russian prisoners of war must be placed at the disposal of the German war economy on a large scale.”

That is the signal for the immediate setting up of a program for incorporating these prisoners into the German war economy. It is true that in 1941, this document concerns only Russian prisoners of war; but from 21 March 1942, the incorporation of all war prisoners into the German war industry, and more especially the armament industry, is put into practice. The decree signed by Hitler appointing Sauckel Plenipotentiary for Labor Allocation, to which reference already has been made, provides, likewise, for the use of all prisoners of war in the German armaments industry. This is shown by Document RF-1440, which reveals the violation of Articles 27, 31, 32, and 33 of the Geneva Convention.

One month later, on 20 April 1942, Sauckel expressed himself thus, in his mobilization program for the labor forces, Exhibit Number RF-1446 (Document Number 016-PS) submitted 11 December 1945 by the American Prosecution, under Exhibit Number USA-168:

“It is absolutely necessary to make the fullest possible use of all prisoners of war and to employ the greatest possible number of new civilian workers, both men and women, if the labor program in this war is to be realized.”

In this way Sauckel succeeded in incorporating 1,658,000 prisoners of war into the war economy of the Reich by 6 February 1943, as he announced in a speech made at Posen. This is shown by Exhibit Number RF-1447 (Document Number 1739-PS), submitted on 8 January 1946 by the French Prosecution under Exhibit Number RF-10.

The 1,658,000 prisoners of war were the following: Belgians, 55,000; French, 932,000; British, 45,000; Yugoslavs, 101,000; Poles, 33,000; Russians, 488,000; Others, 4,000; Total: 1,658,000.

The fact that such a large contingent was put at the disposal of the German war economy implies perfect collusion between Sauckel’s labor services and Keitel, who, in his capacity of Chief of the High Command, was responsible for this reservoir of manpower and the use to which it was put.

These flagrant violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions were later accompanied by measures inspired or authorized by the defendants, which were even more serious because they no longer violated only the war prisoners’ rights as such but also involved physical assaults on their persons, which might even cause their deaths. These violations have a bearing, first of all, on the violation of security (Page 32 of my brief).

Exhibit Number RF-1448, (Document Number 823-PS), submitted 30 January 1946 under Exhibit Number RF-359 offers us a report drawn up by the office of the Operations Staff for the Chief of the High Command. It relates to the establishment of camps for British and American Air Force prisoners in German bombed towns. The Operations Staff of the Luftwaffe proposed this arrangement so that the presence of these air force prisoners might protect the population of the cities concerned against possible attacks by the British and American Air Forces and in order to transfer all the existing camps for air force prisoners to these places.

Jodl approved this measure on behalf of the General Staff of the High Command, considering that if it was limited to the establishment of new camps, it would not be contrary to international law.

If we did not know the reason underlying this decision we might believe, like the Defendant Jodl, that it does not run counter to international law. But this measure, as the first lines of this document specify, is above all an indirect means of safeguarding the German urban population. The Allied war prisoners are only a means of warding off possible air attacks; and to attain this end no hesitation is shown in aggravating their condition by exposing them to the dangers of war. This is a grave violation of the obligation regarding the safety of prisoners imposed by Article 9 of the Geneva Convention upon the power detaining prisoners of war.

Keitel writes only two words on the first page of the document—“No objections”—and adds his initials.

I now come (Page 34) to the measures taken against escaped prisoners. The nature of these measures later became particularly serious, as is shown by Exhibit Number RF-1449 (Document Number 1650-PS), submitted on 13 December 1945 by the American Prosecution under Number USA-246. The Tribunal is sufficiently informed as to this and it is not necessary, I think, for me to read it.

This document reveals the “Aktion Kugel” which was designed to put a stop to the escapes of officers and noncommissioned officers. Its only purpose was to turn escaped prisoners over to police organizations. This is the Sonderbehandlung mentioned in orders and reports, but this “special treatment,” as you know, is nothing more or less than extermination.

Yet, in the terms of Article 47 and succeeding articles of the Geneva Convention, only disciplinary punishment in the form of arrest can be inflicted by the detaining power on escaped prisoners of war. Keitel did not hesitate to abandon these methods for more radical means.

DR. OTTO NELTE (Counsel for Defendant Keitel): The French prosecutor is about to refer to a document which is in the document book under RF-711 and has been presented to the Court under Document RF-1450. This document is marked as a summary of an interrogation of General Westhoff, and it forms a particularly grave charge against the Defendant Keitel. It concerns the shooting of R.A.F. officers who had escaped from the Camp of Sagan. I protest against the use of this document in evidence for the following reasons:

1. The original is not an affidavit but only a summarized report of General Westhoff’s statements. 2. The report submitted is not signed by Colonel Williams, who conducted the interrogation. It is not signed at all but has only a translator’s note on it. 3. One cannot see, from the document, who drafted it. 4. In addition, one cannot see from that report whether General Westhoff was questioned under oath. 5. General Westhoff is, as far as I know, right here in Nuremberg. 6. There is a protocol concerning General Westhoff’s interrogation. For these reasons I ask the Court to verify whether that document, which has been presented as a résumé of General Westhoff’s interrogation, can be admitted in evidence.

THE PRESIDENT: [Turning to M. Quatre.] Well, what do you say to the various points raised by Dr. Nelte?

M. QUATRE: Mr. President, I recognize the soundness of the request by the Defense and I shall be in a position at the end of this session to produce before the Tribunal the complete minutes of the interrogation of General Westhoff, accompanied by an affidavit by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe. I regret not being able to produce them at the moment. I received these minutes late for certain reasons and I thought it better not to add them to my document book.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal considers that the document which you have submitted to us cannot be admitted. It is a mere résumé. The Tribunal thinks, also, that it can allow the interrogatory to be used only if a copy of it is handed to the defendants’ counsel and the witness who made the interrogatory is submitted to the defendants’ counsel for cross-examination, if they wish to cross-examine him. Otherwise you must call General Westhoff and examine him orally. Is that clear? I will repeat it if you like.

The document you have submitted to us is rejected. You can either call General Westhoff as a witness, in which case, of course, he will be liable to cross-examination; or you can put in the interrogatory after you have supplied a copy of it to Defense Counsel, and then General Westhoff, who made the interrogatory, will be liable to cross-examination by the Defense Counsel.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Would the Tribunal allow me to intervene for one moment?

The document to which my learned friend referred a moment ago as having been certified by myself is a report of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, which I received from the Chairman, Lord Reith, and certified as such a report. It therefore, in my respectful submission, becomes admissible under Article 21 of the Charter. It is not merely a transcript of the interrogation. That is the document to which my learned friend referred and that is available and can be procured quite shortly.

THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, I follow that point, but at the same time that does not altogether meet the situation. If it is true that General Westhoff is in Nuremberg at the present moment, it would scarcely be fair that a document of that sort should be put in unless the person who made the statement or from whose interrogatory the statement was composed was submitted for cross-examination.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: With the greatest respect, My Lord, I should like the Tribunal to consider that point because the Tribunal has not got the document in front of it; but it is a report to the United Nations War Crimes Commission, based on the interrogatory. It therefore, in my respectful submission, becomes admissible as a report within the actual words of Article 21 and therefore is a matter which the Tribunal shall, under the Charter, take judicial notice of.

THE PRESIDENT: Would your submission be that the right course would be to take that report into consideration and leave it to the defendants, if they wished it, to call General Westhoff?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That would be my submission—that is my submission because of the effect of Article 21 or the course which is contemplated in view of the special powers and special validity given to such reports by Article 21.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know whether the interrogation was made by the Prosecution in Nuremberg?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am told that the interrogation was made in London. I did not know that General Westhoff was in Nuremberg. I will make inquiries on that point.

THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, were you able to inform us whether or not the interrogation was made in Nuremberg or in London?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I am told it was made in London.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you know where the witness is now?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I did not know he was in Nuremberg until Your Lordship mentioned it, but I can easily verify that point.

DR. NELTE: Last week I received a letter from General Westhoff, from the witnesses’ block of the prison here in Nuremberg, with answers to other questions. So you see that he was here last week.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.

[A recess was taken.]

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I wonder if I might just add one or two words to clarify the position. I do this because this is a matter to which the British Government, in particular, attached very great importance.

The position was that last September—on 25 September—the British Government sent a full report of this incident to the United Nations War Crimes Commission. That report included statements before a court of inquiry, statements of Allied witnesses, statements taken from German witnesses, including General Westhoff, a copy of the official lists of the dead, and a report of the protecting power. All that was sent by the British Government to the United Nations War Crimes Commission last September; and the statement of General Westhoff, which I certified as being a report of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, was part of an appendix to that report which was then in the custody of the United Nations War Crimes Commission and of which a copy was sent to me here.

I provided that to my French colleagues and that refers to an earlier report made by General Westhoff at an interrogation which took place in London as a part of the matter of that report.

The document which my learned friend was adducing today was a summary of a subsequent interrogation of General Westhoff taken in Nuremberg. My Lord, I wanted to get the position perfectly clear, if I could, to the Tribunal, because, as I say, the incident is one of some importance and the British Government report will be, I hope, tendered the Tribunal by my Soviet colleague, as the incident lies to the east of the line which we have drawn through the center of Berlin and therefore falls within the Soviet case.

But I do not want the Tribunal to be under any misapprehension as to the nature of the earlier report that was made, the one which my learned friend referred to as being able to put in later should the Tribunal desire it.

THE PRESIDENT: But you are agreed that the document which is now being offered to the Tribunal is not a government document within Article 21 of the Charter?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I quite respectfully agree that that is not really the document on which I intervened. I intervened on the second one.

THE PRESIDENT: At this stage we are not concerned with that document, only with the document offered in evidence to which Dr. Nelte objected, and that document is not a government document within Article 21.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: That I understand is so, but I was really intervening to explain that the second document comes. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: I quite understand, yes. The Tribunal allows the objection of Dr. Nelte. It considers that the document which has been submitted is not a governmental document within Article 21 of the Charter and is therefore rejected. The Tribunal adheres to the decision which I announced just before we adjourned, namely, that if the Prosecution desires to do so, they can produce the interrogation of which the document submitted to them is understood by them to be a résumé; and if they do so, then they must produce the witness, General Westhoff, for cross-examination by the defendant’s counsel. In the alternative, they can produce and call General Westhoff himself and then, of course, he will be liable to cross-examination by the defendants’ counsel.

M. QUATRE: I take notice of the Tribunal’s decisions and I should like to state that as I am eager not to lose time, and much time has already been lost in the course of today’s session, we shall not make use of this document now, nor shall we call General Westhoff. I shall simply request the Tribunal to note that we reserve the right to call General Westhoff, if necessary, when the defendants are cross-examined. May I continue, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: You may.

M. QUATRE: I had reached, Gentlemen, Page 36 of my brief, concerning the treatment of Allied airmen who were prisoners. This point had already been discussed at some length before you.

THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps I ought to say that the Tribunal will be willing to sit this evening until half past five, in order that the case against the Defendant Hess may be concluded; but it is very important that the case should be concluded tonight, against the Defendant Hess, because the Soviet Prosecution will require the whole day for their presentation tomorrow.

M. QUATRE: Mr. President, I shall be very brief. I shall pass straight on to my conclusion. I shall say nothing about the treatment of Allied airmen. You know the circumstances, as well as the treatment of commando troops, and I once more beg the Tribunal’s pardon for having unintentionally spoken at such length. I shall now conclude.

It is definitely the conception of criminal intention which was present in the drafting of the orders and directives which we have just examined. The reality of the acts perpetrated as a result of these decisions cannot be denied, nor should we overlook or underestimate this moral element, qualified by French penal law, to use the formula of an eminent jurist as “knowledge on the part of the agent of the illicit character of the acts performed by him.” The two defendants were fully cognizant of the illicit nature of orders which they knew would be scrupulously carried out.

With Keitel and Jodl the systematic rejection of the laws and customs that mitigate the horrors of war and the setting up, as a matter of principle, of the most barbarous practices, are the reflection of the norms and precepts of National Socialism and its leader, for whom all international rules, all conventions, any ethical code represented an intolerable restraint, an obstacle to the goal to be attained, inasmuch as they interfered with the higher interests of the German community.

It is not a matter of indifference to know whether Keitel and Jodl were urged by personal ambition or whether, true to the pan-German tradition of the German General Staff, they yielded to the National Socialist frenzy in the hope of one day seeing the arrogant pretensions of Germany fully realized.

The most important point in our opinion is the personal contribution which they consciously and voluntarily made to the enterprise of destruction carried out by the Third Reich.

For 10 years Keitel was the “king pin” of the German Army and from 1936 onward Jodl did not cease to be his collaborator. Before the war they worked to promote the war, and during the war they deliberately flouted the rules of law and justice, the sole safeguards of fighting men, held the dignity of mankind in utter contempt, and thus failed to do their duty as soldiers.

Nacht und Nebel, the Kugel Aktion, the Sonderbehandlung, the destruction of our cities—all this will be forever associated with the names of these men, and particularly with the name of Keitel who dared to proclaim that human life was less than nothing.

And at this moment we cannot prevent our thoughts from turning towards the innumerable absent ones who for that reason sacrificed their lives.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL J. M. G. GRIFFITH-JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): May it please the Tribunal, it is my duty to present the evidence upon Counts One and Two of the Indictment against the Defendant Hess.

My Lord, the trial brief, which I believe the Tribunal have before them, has been made out in the form of a fairly full note of the evidence to which I intend to refer, and it may be of convenience to the Tribunal to have it before them during the court sitting.

May I first prove the positions which he held and which are set out in Appendix A of the Indictment, and say a word about his early life.

The defendant was born in 1894. He is now 52 years old. He served in the German Army during the last war and in 1919 he went to Munich University. There he became the leader of the Nazi organization in that university and in 1920 he became a member of the Nazi Party itself. He was among the first of the SA, and he became the leader of the students’ corps of police. In 1923 he took part in the Munich Putsch, and as a result of that he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Half of that period he served in jail with Hitler himself. I stress that, because it was during those seven and one-half months in prison with Hitler that Hitler dictated Mein Kampf.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you got. . . .

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I think I know what the difficulty is. This case was originally scheduled to be presented by the American Delegation and they did have a brief of their own. It may be that that is the brief which Mr. Biddle has before him. I will hand you up a spare copy.

THE PRESIDENT: Go on, Sir.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It was during that time that Hitler dictated Mein Kampf to this defendant.

Now, dealing with his actual appointments: From 1925 until 1932 he was private secretary and aide-de-camp to Hitler. In 1932 he became the Chairman of the Central Political Committee of the Party, in succession to Gregor Strasser. In March 1933, after the Nazi Party became a power, he became a member of the Reichstag, and in April of that year he was appointed Deputy to the Führer, a position which he held until he flew to England in May of 1941.

That evidence so far is all contained in two documents, one a book called Dates of the History of the Nazi Party, by Volz, which is already in evidence as Document Number 3132-PS and was put in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-592, and the other the Deutsches Führerlexikon, Document Number 3191-PS, Exhibit Number USA-593.

On the first of December 1933, he became Reich Minister without Portfolio, another position which he held throughout the remainder of his time in Germany. That appears in the Reichsgesetzblatt. It is Document Number 3178-PS and it goes in now as GB-248. On the 4th of February 1938 he became a member of the Secret Cabinet Council. My Lord, that is Document Number 3189-PS, and becomes GB-249.

On the 30th of August 1939 he became a member of the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich, Document Number 2018-PS, which becomes GB-250. On the 1st of September 1939 he was appointed successor designate to the Führer, after Göring. Göring, it will be remembered, was successor Number 1, and during that time Hess held the positions of Obergruppenführer in the SS and in the SA.

That completes the formal proof of the positions charged against him in the Indictment. I would say a word upon the authority he exercised under and holding these positions. The Tribunal will remember that in appointing Hess as his Deputy, the Führer decreed, in the decree by which he made the appointment, as follows: “I hereby appoint Hess as my Deputy and give him full power to make decisions in my name on all questions of Party leadership.” The extent of his office as Deputy Führer can be seen from the Party year book of 1941, to which I would briefly refer the Tribunal, as it appears on Page 104 of the Tribunal’s document book. It is Document Number 3163-PS and has already been put in as USA-255. I quote from that year book:

“By decree of the Führer of 21 April 1933 the Deputy of the Führer received full power, to decide in the name of the Führer on all matters concerning Party leadership. Thus, the Deputy of the Führer is the representative of the Führer, with full power over the entire leadership of the National Socialist German Workers Party. The office of the Deputy of the Führer is therefore an office of the Führer.

“In essence, it is the duty of the Deputy of the Führer to direct the basic policies of Party work, to give directives, and take care that all Party work be done in agreement with National Socialist principles.

“All the threads of the Party work are gathered together by the Deputy of the Führer. He gives the final Party word on all intra-Party plans and all questions vital for the existence of the German people. The Deputy of the Führer gives the directives required for all the Party work, in order to maintain the unity, determination, and striking power of the National Socialist German Workers Party as the bearer of the National Socialist philosophy.

“In addition to the duties of Party leadership, the Deputy of the Führer has far reaching powers in the field of the State. These are:

“1. Participation in national and state legislation, including the preparation of Führer decrees. The Deputy of the Führer in this way validates the conception of the Party as the guardian of National Socialist philosophy.

“2. Approval of the Deputy of the Führer of proposed appointments for officials and labor service leaders.

“3. Securing the influence of the Party over the self-government of the regional administrations.”

I would refer the Tribunal to Page 119 of the document book, which is a chart which shows the organization of the Deputy of the Führer’s office. It is Document Number 3201-PS which becomes GB-251. I would particularly refer the Tribunal to the square in the center, showing the liaison officer of the Wehrmacht, and showing his close association with the Army; and in the right-hand column at the top: “Chief of the Foreign Organization,” of which I shall tell the Tribunal in a moment; “Commissioner for Foreign Policy,” showing his concern with the foreign policy of the German State; “Commissioner for All Technological Matters and Organization”; “Commissioner for All University Matters”; “Commissioner of University Policy,” showing his concern with the education of Germany; and further down “Office for Racial Policy,” showing his concern with the anti-Jew policy of the Nazi Government that followed; and at the bottom again, “Specialist on Education.”

But a glance at that chart will show that he was really involved in every aspect and every branch of Nazi life and the organization and administration of the State. As Reich Minister without Portfolio, in the Law to Secure the Unity of Party and State of 1 December 1933, it was stated that his task was to guarantee the close working co-operation of the Party and the SA with public authority. Put in as Document Number 1395-PS, it becomes GB-252.

He acquired wide legislative powers, as it has already been seen from the extract which I have read from the Nazi year book of 1941. I would particularly draw the attention of the Tribunal to a decree of Hitler’s dated 27 July. The extract which I wish to quote is set out in the trial brief. It has already been read and therefore I will do nothing now other than to draw the attention of the Tribunal to it. The document is Document Number D-138 and has been put in as USA-403. By the law for the protection of people in November 1933, it will be remembered that Hitler and his cabinet obtained for themselves full powers of legislation, independently of the Reichstag, and this defendant, being a member of the cabinet, of course, shared in these powers.

His approval of that procedure can be seen from a speech he made on the 16th of January 1937, and a short extract is again set out in the trial brief that the Tribunal has before them:

“National Socialism has seen to it that vital necessities of our nation can today no longer be taken away by a Reichstag and made the object of the haggling of parties. You have seen that in the new Germany decisions of historic importance are made by the Führer and his cabinet within a few hours, decisions which in other countries must be preceded by parliamentary debates lasting days and weeks.”

That last extract is taken from Document Number 2426-PS, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-253.

That these powers and offices were no sinecure is clear from Hess’ own order which he issued in October 1934. I will not read it now because it has already been read. It is Document Number D-139 and was put in as USA-404; and the Tribunal will remember that he is there issuing a decree saying he has been given the right to participate in legislation by the Führer and any office that is promoting legislation, in which he therefore ought to take part, must let him have the draft in time to take effective action on it if he disapproves of it.

I think again the extract I have read from the year book sufficiently describes the powers that he had without my referring to more than two other documents upon this matter. On Page 5 of the trial brief it will be seen that he acquired powers and took part in the organization and production under the Four Year Plan. I quote from a lecture given by the Defendant Frick on the 7th of March 1940, which is Document Number 2608-PS and has already been put in as USA-714. But the short passage that I quote now was not actually read. In that lecture Frick said:

“In order to guarantee the co-ordination of the various economic agencies of the Four Year Plan, those agencies were formed into a general council, under the chairmanship of Göring. Its members are the state secretaries of the agencies working in the field of war economy, the Chief of the Military Office of Economy, and a representative of the Deputy of the Führer.”

And lastly, a quotation from the National Zeitung of the 27th of April 1941, which is Document Number M-102 and becomes GB-254. My Lord, it appears on Page 4 of the trial brief. I quote from these passages, set out simply to save the Tribunal’s time in referring to the document book. It does appear on Page 12 of the document book if the Tribunal desires to refer to the full extract:

“A long while ago—it was still before the outbreak of the war—Rudolf Hess was once called the ‘Conscience of the Party.’ If we ask why the Führer’s Deputy was given this undoubtedly honorable title, the reason for this is plain to see. There is no aspect of our public life which is not the concern of the Führer’s Deputy. So enormously many-sided and diverse is his work and sphere of duty that it cannot be outlined in a few words; and it lies in the nature of the duties laid on the Führer’s Deputy that the public at large hears little of the work of Rudolf Hess. Few know that many government measures taken, especially in the sphere of war economy and the Party, which meet with such hearty approbation when they are proclaimed because they voice true public feeling, can be traced back to the direct initiation of the Führer’s Deputy.”

Perhaps I ought to remind the Tribunal that in the decree appointing a Secret Cabinet Council, that council was appointed by Hitler to advise him in the conduct of foreign policy. The Tribunal will find attached to that document book a few photos. They are of little importance. They were really to emphasize or remind the Tribunal of the film that was shown earlier in the course of these proceedings, when, it will be remembered, the Defendant Hess appeared in practically every scene of that film “The Rise to Power of the Nazi Party.” These photographs are not actually photographs from that film; they are somewhat similar and I produce an affidavit with them to state they were taken by Hitler’s own private photographer. That affidavit becomes Document Number GB-255.

That, then, is the evidence of his position and of his authority; and perhaps I might be allowed to make one short submission upon that. I make it in respect of this Defendant Hess, although it is perhaps a submission which can be made in respect of every one of these defendants.

The Prosecution has presented these cases against the individual defendants in the form of a collection of the documents which directly refer and which directly connect these defendants with specific instances of participation in the various crimes that were committed by the German people. My Lord, it will be my submission that it is sufficient to justify and bring home the conviction of this man and his colleagues to produce simply evidence of their positions in the Nazi State and the control of that State and also the general evidence of the crimes which were committed by the German people. It is only perhaps now, at this late stage in the trial, as day by day the extent and scope of those crimes is becoming clearer, that we realize that they cannot have happened by themselves. Crimes on that scale must be organized, co-ordinated, and directed. If the government of Nazi Germany, or the government of any country, is not the organization which directed and co-ordinated, what is? If the members of the German nation who are committing those crimes are not people responsible for them, then, in my submission, one is entitled to ask, Who is?

My Lord, there can be no question that these men had knowledge. Again, as the picture unfolds, it will be my submission that everybody in Germany must have had knowledge of what was going on; and if everybody had knowledge, then, my submission is, these men must certainly have had knowledge; and I would urge upon this Tribunal the fact that the conviction of these men does not rely upon the mere chance of how many documents happened to have been captured bearing their signatures. It might well have been that no documents at all had been captured. But, in the submission of the Prosecution, these men could equally well and equally justifiably have been proved guilty in the part they took, beyond any kind of doubt, upon the evidence of the positions that they held and the evidence of the scope and extent of the crimes that were committed by the people they controlled.

My Lord, that is my submission, and in view of that, I would perhaps deal briefly, for the convenience of the Tribunal, with the small matters, the many matters, which do directly connect him with, as I say, almost every aspect of the crimes and life of Nazi Germany.

I turn to Page 6 of the trial brief. . . .

DR. ALFRED SEIDL (Counsel for the Defendant Rudolf Hess): The prosecuting attorney just mentioned a sworn statement. I cannot find this sworn statement either in the document book or in his trial brief. I can, consequently, take no position in regard to this sworn statement, nor, especially, can I go into the question as to whether there is any objection to the statement as regards the terms of the Charter. I request the prosecuting attorney to present me with this sworn statement.

THE PRESIDENT: We couldn’t hear the rest of the translation through. Well, go on!

DR. SEIDL: Mr. President, I am not sure how much of the translation you heard.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, there is some document that you are saying is not in the document book?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I intend to say that the photographs are in the book. The affidavit by the photographer was by mistake omitted from the book; the original is here. I will produce a copy for Dr. Seidl, and I regret it was not done before. It was not a very important document.

My Lord, it might be expected that, in the positions he held, the Defendant Hess took a leading part in the acquisition of power by the Nazi Party and in its consolidation of control over the State. By the law of the 1st of August the office of Reich President. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: 1934?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I beg your pardon, 1934, yes. [Continuing] . . . and of Reich Chancellor were joined together under Hitler. Hitler held both offices. That decree was signed by others and by Hess. Hess also signed a decree on the 20th of December 1934, a decree entitled “Laws against Treacherous Acts against the State and Party.” By Article 1 of that decree penalties were imposed upon anybody making false statements injuring the prestige of the government, the Party, or its agencies; and by Article 2 penalties were imposed for statements proving a malicious attitude against the Party or its leading personalities. The decree was signed by Hess, and it was Hess who had to issue the necessary regulations for carrying the decree into effect.

He took a leading part in the gaining of control over government appointments. I quote again in all these matters only a few examples. If one wanted to quote every decree that the defendant signed and every act he took in participation of these matters, it would really entail writing a history of the Nazi Party from 1920 until 1941, and a history of Germany from 1933 until 1941. Set out in the trial brief at Page 7, it will be seen that there are various decrees, all signed by Hess: On the 24th of September 1935, a decree providing for his consultation in the appointment of Reich civil servants; 3rd April 1936, providing for his participation in the appointment of labor service officials; and I refer again to the 10th of July 1937, another decree under which he participated by having to be consulted upon the appointment of other minor civil servants.

With respect to the control of the Nazi Party gained over the German youth, again there are various decrees signed by this defendant and I set out in the trial brief, particularly, a reference to the book which has already been put in, Volz’ dates of the Nazi Party, where it appears that he appointed a University Commission of the Party, which, was under his supervision. The Tribunal will remember that we have already seen from the chart of his staff that he had a department dealing with universities and with teachers.

And I am quoting from the same document. On the 18th of July 1934, the Nazi League of German Students was directly subordinated to the Deputy of the Führer.

The defendant, as the Tribunal has heard, was an Obergruppenführer himself in the SS and the SA. His responsibility for an association with those organizations can be seen from three documents. Amongst the papers found in the Krupp files was a circular sent by Hess, apparently to various industries, asking for funds or subscriptions for the Adolf Hitler Fund for German Industry. The document is Document Number D-151, which I put in now as Exhibit Number GB-256, and the relevant extract again is set out in the trial brief for convenience:

“The ‘Adolf Hitler Fund for German Economy’ is founded upon an agreement between the Reich management of the NSDAP and leading representatives of German industry.”

Then its purpose is set out:

“To put, firstly, at the disposal of the Reich leadership the funds required for the unified execution of the tasks which fall to the lot of the SA, SS, St., HJ and other political organizations. . . .”

He signed a decree on the 9th of June 1934.

For the convenience of the Tribunal, perhaps I ought to mention that that last document I mentioned can be found at Page 5 of the document book.

On the 9th of June 1934 he signed a decree by which the Security Service of the Reichsführer SS was established as the sole political news and defense service of the Party.

On the 14th of December 1938, he issued a decree by which the SD, which Himmler had established, was taken off the establishment of the Party; and it was, under that decree, to be organized by the SS. Those were both Hess decrees; and they are here both the same document, Document Number 3385-PS, which becomes GB-257; and they appear at Page 172 of the Tribunal’s document book.

My Lord, there has already been given much evidence of the subversion of the churches in order to eliminate any hostile parties there may have been to the Nazi Party. Hess again took his share in that legislation, and there are set out in the trial brief, on Pages 8 and 9, a series of decrees which have already been put before the Tribunal during the presentation of the case against Bormann.

Bormann, it will be remembered, was at this time and throughout, until Hess flew to England, Hess’ deputy; and therefore, it will be my submission that decrees issued by Bormann as deputy for the Deputy of the Führer are, of course, the responsibility of this defendant as well.

For the sake of time I believe the Tribunal has a reference to the decrees and will bear in mind the evidence that was offered against the Defendant Bormann.

I come now, then, to his activity in the general persecution of the Jews. Again it will be remembered that the chart of his organization showed an office of his which described itself as the Office for Racial Policy. His own views about this matter are found in a speech which he made on the 16th of January 1937 and which is reported in a volume of his speeches which is Document Number 3124-PS. It is already in as Exhibit Number GB-253. The extract I desire to quote is set out in the trial brief. The document can be found on Page 98 of the document book.

“The organizations of the NSDAP will be used for the enlightenment of the people on questions concerning race and health with the aim of improving the latter and increasing the population. . . .”

“As at home, so in foreign countries, the Germans will be influenced in the National Socialist sense by the Landesgruppen or local groups of the Party. They will be educated to become again proudly conscious of their German origin, to stand together in mutual esteem and will be taught to place the German higher than any foreigner, irrespective of state or descent.”

It was Hess who signed the Law for Protection of Blood and Honor, one of the Nuremberg decrees of the 15th of September 1935. It is Document Number 3179-PS. It is already in evidence as Exhibit USA-200. It will be remembered that under that decree and under the other Reich Citizenship Law of the same date, it was the Deputy of the Führer who was to issue the necessary decrees and regulations for the carrying out and supplementing of those laws, the Nuremberg Decrees.

On the 14th of November 1935, it was Hess who issued an ordinance under the Reich Citizenship Law which deprived the Jews of the right to vote or to hold public office. That is Document Number 1417-PS and becomes Exhibit Number GB-258.

By a further decree of the 20th of May 1938, those Nuremberg laws were extended to Austria, that law of extension again being signed by this defendant—Document Number 2124-PS, Exhibit Number GB-259.

As I said, those are only a few examples of the decrees and activities of this man in the acquisition of power and consolidation of power in the Nazi Party. There is a document which I will hand up to the Tribunal that perhaps it might add to its document books, and there is a copy in French for the learned French Judge. There are examples in this and other exhibits which I have not mentioned now but which are already before the Tribunal, put in when the case of Bormann was put before the Tribunal, for which, as I have already said, this defendant must take responsibility.

You will see that under various headings—there are one or two German copies and the rest are in English—there are various documents set out under the headings, “Association with the SD and Gestapo”; “Subversion of the Churches”; and again, “The Persecution of the Jews.”

I turn then to the part which he played in the actual planning and preparation for aggressive war. We find that as early as in 1932 he was concerned with the rearmament and reorganization of the Air Force. The Tribunal will remember a Document Number 1143-PS, Exhibit USA-40, dated the 20th of October 1932, which showed that a report on the preparation of material and the training of air personnel to provide for the armament of the Air Force was sent to Hess by Rosenberg’s chief of staff. That document, for reference, appears on Page 43 of the Tribunal’s document book.

That was in 1932. Throughout the years we find him connected with the rearmament of the German Armed Forces. On the 16th of March 1935 it was Hess who signed the decree for the introduction of compulsory military service. On the 11th of October 1936 in a speech that he made, he took up Göring’s cry of “Guns before Butter,” when he said:

“We are prepared in the future, too, if need be, at times to eat a little less fat, a little less pork, a few eggs less, since we know that this little sacrifice is a sacrifice on the altar of the freedom of our people. We know that the foreign exchange which we thereby save will benefit our armaments. The phrase still holds good today: ‘guns instead of butter.’ ”

That document is Document Number M-104. It becomes Exhibit Number GB-260, and will be found on Page 14 of the Tribunal’s document book.

In May of 1941 he was making a speech at the Messerschmidt Works, of which occasion the Tribunal has already got a photograph before it. It was one of those four photographs we were looking at a moment ago. Then he said:

“The German soldier must understand that for the uniqueness and abundance of his weapons and his material, he has to thank Adolf Hitler’s untiring efforts of many years.”

A report of that speech appears in the Völkischer Beobachter on the 2d of May 1941. It is Document Number M-105 and becomes Exhibit Number GB-261. It is on Page 15 of the Tribunal’s document book.

One of the most important parts that this defendant took in the preparation for aggressive war was his organization of the famous German Fifth Column. He was the responsible person, as Deputy of the Führer, of the Auslands-Organisation of the Party, that is to say, the foreign organization of the Party. A history of that organization, a very brief history, will be found in an American state publication, Document Number 3258-PS. It becomes Exhibit Number GB-262. It is on Page 147 of the document book.

I would only mention now two matters. In October 1933 that organization was placed directly under Hess’s control, and a year later it was Hess himself who gave it its present name of the Foreign Organization, (Auslands-Organisation).

For the convenience again of the Tribunal, a chart is set out in the organization book for 1938, which is Document Number 2354-PS, Exhibit Number USA-430, and is on Page 69 of the Tribunal’s document book, and I think it is unnecessary to refer to it now in detail. It had the various offices—civil services offices, cultural offices, press and propaganda offices, labor front offices, and the foreign trade offices, the various offices dealing with the German merchant marine—which afforded, of course, an excellent medium for spreading Nazi propaganda to every port through the world.

The Tribunal has heard a good deal about a somewhat similar organization of Rosenberg, the APA. Very briefly and in a word, I think the distinction between the two can be said to be that the APA was concerned with the enrollment and propaganda for non-Germans, for foreigners, whereas the Auslands-Organisation was concerned with Germans living abroad, who, of course, were to form the basis of Fifth Column activities in future years.

I think the Tribunal will see that there are set out under the heading, “Scope of the Organization’s Work,” two documents. I think that perhaps it is sufficient to refer to the first of them now, Document Number 3401-PS, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-263 and which the Tribunal will find on Page 173 of that document book.

That is an article from the Völkischer Beobachter, which starts off by saying, “National Socialism is a philosophy which takes hold of our fellow Germans and strengthens them in holding fast to the German race and customs,” and then goes on to say that the authority for the practical application of that policy and principle is the foreign organization of the NSDAP, which is directly subordinated to the Deputy of the Führer, Hess. I quote the last three lines of that paragraph.

“The activities of the Auslands-Organisation extend literally round the globe. With full justice there might be displayed over its offices at the Harvestehuderweg in Hamburg the device ‘My field is the world.’ The Auslands-Organisation under the leadership of Gauleiter Bohle, who is aided by a large staff of experts and qualified coworkers, today includes over 350 Landesgruppen and bases of the NSDAP in all parts of the world. In addition to this it looks after a large number of individual Party members in the most varied places.”

My Lord, in view of the time, I will not refer to any further documents about the activity and the scope of that organization. They will be found as set out in the following document, Document Number 3258-PS, which is at Page 150 of the document book. I beg your pardon, that is Exhibit Number GB-262, already in evidence. There is another extract from the British Basic Handbook on Germany, which is in the addendum to the document book. It is not, I think, actually put into the Tribunal’s brief. It appears under the Document Number M-122, and becomes Exhibit Number GB-264.

Two of the various other organizations which were run by the Foreign Organization were known as the League for Germans Abroad, the VDA, and the German Eastern League, the BDO.

I would refer the Tribunal to a document which they will find on Page 38 of the document book. It is Document Number 837-PS, which becomes Exhibit Number GF-265. That is a letter, which it will be seen on the next page is signed by Hess, dated 3 February 1939. It is a circular order, “Not for publication.” The subject is the League of Germans Abroad and the German Eastern League. I quote from the first paragraph:

“The director of the agency for racial Germans, SS Gruppenführer Lorenz. . . .”

The agency for racial Germans, which was the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, was another similar organization, but one run by Himmler and the SS. All these gentlemen appear to have had their own foreign organizations. No doubt they were all engaged for the same purpose. Himmler’s was called the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle. I quote again:

“The director for that agency has instigated on my behalf the following new ruling for questions affecting racial work and work in the border country. The League for Germans Abroad, the VDA, is the association responsible for national work beyond the frontiers.”

I go down to the last two lines of that paragraph:

“The VDA is organized into state associations which correspond in area to the Gaue of the NSDAP.”

And the first two lines of the next paragraph:

“The German Eastern League, the BDO, is the association responsible for work in the border country.”

I turn to the next page, Paragraph 4 of that letter:

“The VDA is solely responsible for racial work beyond the frontiers. I hereby forbid the Party, its organizations, and affiliated associations from all racial work abroad. The only competent body for this task is the agency for racial Germans and the VDA as its camouflaged tool. Within the Reich, the VDA, generally speaking, is responsible only for providing the means for racial work beyond the frontiers. In this task VDA must be supported in every way by the Party offices. Any outward appearance of connection with the Party is, however, to be avoided.”

Then it goes on to set up the activity of the BDO and in the last paragraph:

“The activity of the VDA and the BDO is to be supported in every way by the Party offices. The National Socialist leaders of both associations will assure energetic co-operation, on their part, in all tasks assigned to them by the NSDAP. Their nature is determined by considerations of foreign policy and the associations must bear this in mind when representing

Now I come to the activity, therefore, of the Foreign Organization, which as I say, was the basis of the Fifth Column movement when war eventually broke out. I pass, then, to consideration of Hess’ part in the preliminary occupations of Austria and Czechoslovakia, which led up to the aggressive wars themselves.

Hess is seen to be participating in the preparations to occupy Austria from the very beginning. In the autumn of 1934 it was he that appointed Reinthaller as leader of the Austrian peasants in the Nazi Party in Austria, after the failure of the July 1934 rising. That has already been given in evidence as Document Number 812-PS, (Exhibit Number USA-61) and the relevant passage was read into the transcript at Page 504 (Volume II, Page 372).

Another document that has already been put in evidence, Document Number 3254-PS (Exhibit Number USA-704), is Seyss-Inquart’s statement of the 10th of December 1945, when he mentions that he held meetings with Göring and Hess in 1936.

On the morning that the German troops eventually marched into Austria, the 12th of March 1938, Hess and Himmler, together, were the first of the leaders of the German Government to appear in Vienna; and they were there by midday on that day.

It was Hess who signed the law of the 13th of March, the next day, for the reunion of Austria with the German Reich; and the Tribunal will no doubt remember the occasion, which was described fully by Mr. Alderman, of the shocking celebrations which were held in anniversary of the murder of Dollfuss, the celebrations being held the 24th of July 1938, when the high-light of the occasion was a speech by Hess.

I would refer the Tribunal to a document which appears on Page 165 of the document book, which throws some light on his own words, both on his activity as far as Austria was concerned and also with Czechoslovakia. This was a speech he made on 28 August 1938 at the annual meeting of the Foreign Organization. It is Document Number 3258-PS. It is already in as Exhibit Number GB-262. I quote from the third to last paragraph on Page 165 of the document book:

“At the close of his talk Rudolf Hess recalls the days, last year, in Stuttgart, when German men and women, German boys and girls in their native costumes appeared here in Stuttgart aglow with enthusiasm for the ideal of greater Germany, passionately moved by National Socialism, but nevertheless outwardly ‘Volksdeutsche’ Germans of foreign citizenship.

“ ‘Today,’ Rudolf Hess continued, ‘they also stand openly in our ranks. Proudly and happily they will march in the formation of the National Socialist movement past their Führer in Nuremberg, this time with German citizens. With all our hearts we rejoice as we see them. They have fought a long and tough battle, a battle against a treacherous and mendacious enemy.’ ”—and so on.

And then on the next page, Number 166, where he turns to discuss the struggle of the Sudeten German:

“The German people look at the German racial comrades in Czechoslovakia with the profoundest sympathy for their suffering. No one in the world who loves his own people and is proud of his own people will find fault with us if from this place here we also turn our thoughts to the Sudeten German. If we say to them that, filled with admiration, we see how they are maintaining an iron discipline, despite the worst chicanery, despite terror and murder. If it had, in general, required a proof. . . .”

I don’t think, perhaps, it is necessary for me to read any more of that document; but it shows, as I say, his interest in Czechoslovakia; and by Document Number 3061-PS, which has already been put in as Exhibit Number USA-126, it has been shown that during the summer of 1938—that speech was made in August 1938—during the whole of that summer continuous conversations were being held between Henlein and Hitler, Hess, and Ribbentrop, informing the Reich Government of the general situation in Czechoslovakia. That document has been read into the Record; but, if anything condemns Hess as participating in this action, it is a letter dated the 27th of September 1938, which was a letter, it will be remembered, that the Tribunal has had before it. It was written by Keitel to Hess, asking for the Party’s participation in the secret mobilization, which was intended to take place without even issuing the code word for mobilization. It was on the 27th of September 1938 that that letter was written. It is Document Number 388-PS and has been put in as Exhibit Number USA-26, and it appears on Page 30 of the Tribunal’s document book.

I would refer the Tribunal to one short document on Page 120 of the document book, on which begins another speech by the defendant, a speech he made on the 7th of November 1938 on the occasion of the initiation of the Sudeten German Party into the NSDAP.

“If we have had to defend our rights, then they would have really got to know us, we, the National Socialist Germans. The Führer”—Rudolf Hess declared amidst the ringing cheers of the masses—“learned his lessons. He armed at a speed that no one would have believed possible. When the Führer has gained the power and, especially since the Führer has awakened the resolution of the German people to put their strength behind their rights, then Germany’s right will be conceded!”

One might wonder what all those rights were at that time, November 1938, when already Hitler had said on the 26th of September that he had no more territorial demands, at any rate, to make in Europe.

I turn then to some fragment of evidence of the part he played in the waging of aggressive war against Poland. On Page 16 of the document book there is a report of a speech that he made on the 27th of August 1939, which shows at least that he was taking part in the official propaganda that was being thrown at the world in those days, two days before the war was declared. I quote from the second paragraph:

“Rudolf Hess, constantly interrupted with strong applause from the German citizens living abroad as well as fellow countrymen from the District of Styria, stressed the unexampled forbearance shown by Germany towards Poland in the magnanimous offer of the Führer that had assured peace between Germany and Poland—an offer that Mr. Chamberlain seems to have forgotten, for he says he has heard nothing of Germany’s having tried to solve certain acute present-day questions by peaceful discussion. What else was the German offer then, if it was not such an attempt?”

Then he goes on to accuse Poland of agitating for war, Poland’s lack of responsibility and so on. In view of the time, I shall quote no more of that. The Document Number M-107 is in evidence and it becomes Exhibit Number GB-266.

After the conquest of Poland, it was Hess that signed the decree incorporating Danzig into the Reich, the decree of the 1st of September 1939, a decree incorporating Polish territories into the Reich on the 8th of October 1939 and on the 12th of October 1939, a decree of Polish territory, in which it was stated that regulations were to be made for the planning of German Lebensraum and economic scope. Those are all decrees in the Reichsgesetzblatt. I regret that the last two that I mentioned are not actually included in the Tribunal’s document book, but the effect of them is set out in the trial brief. That, in view of the evidence that has been given as to his Fifth Column organization, is all that I propose to offer in respect to Poland. It must be clear that my submission will be that he was deeply involved both in the planning and in the preparation for aggressive war.

I turn to an example of his participation in War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity and would refer only to two documents; one appears as set out on Page 18 of the trial brief, Document Number 3245-PS, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-267. It was an order issued by Hess through the Party Chancellery demanding support from the Party for recruiting members for the Waffen-SS; and one paragraph, which is set out in the trial brief, I quote:

“The units of the Waffen-SS, consisting of National Socialists, are more suitable than other armed units for the specific tasks to be solved in the Occupied Eastern Territories due to their intensive National Socialist training in regard to questions of race and nationality.”

But, in view of what was happening and what was going to happen in the Occupied Eastern Territories because of the Waffen-SS, we haven’t, I know, forgotten the part they played in the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. I suggest that the inference that can be drawn from that letter is damning.

There is one further document. That document will be found on Page 121 of the Tribunal’s document book. The other document that I would refer to in this respect is Document Number R-96, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-268, and again that will be found on Page 175 of the document book. It is a letter written by the Reich Minister of Justice to the Chief of the Reich Chancellery on the 17th of April 1941, and it is discussing proposed penal laws for Jews and Poles in the Occupied Eastern Territories. It shows quite clearly that Hess has been involved in discussions on this subject because it refers to certain proposals that he, himself, has made. My Lord, I would venture to draw the attention of the Tribunal to one or two passages. I quote from the beginning of that letter on Page 175:

“It has been my opinion from the outset that special conditions prevailing in the annexed eastern territories require special measures of penal law and penal procedure against Poles and Jews.”

And then I go on to the second paragraph, the first two lines:

“The aim to create a special law for Poles and Jews in the eastern territories was pursued further according to plan by the ordinance dated 6 June 1940. By this ordinance German penal law, which had been used in the eastern territories already from the outset was formally made applicable.”

There I skip three lines.

“The procedure for enforcing a prosecution has been abrogated for it seems intolerable that Poles or Jews should be able to force the German public prosecutor to launch an accusation. Poles and Jews have also been deprived of the right to prosecute in their own names or join the public prosecutor in an action. In addition to this special law in the sphere of procedure, some special conditions have been included in Article 2 of the introductory ordinance. These provisions were established in agreement with the Reich Minister of the Interior by reason of requirements which had arisen. From the beginning it was intended to augment the special conditions in case of need. This need, which had become apparent in the meantime, should be met by an executive and supplementary order to be added to the original ordinance and which was referred to in the letter from the Deputy of the Führer. . . .”

I turn to the next page, top of the page:

“After I was informed of the express wish of the Führer that, as a matter of principle, Poles and presumably the Jews, too, are to be treated differently from the Germans within this sphere of penal law, after preliminary discussions,”—et cetera,—“I draw up the enclosed draft concerning criminal law and procedure against Poles and Jews. . . .”

I skip to the next paragraph:

“The draft represents altogether special law, both in the sphere of penal law and penal procedure. The suggestions of the Deputy of the Führer have been taken into consideration to a far reaching extent. Number 1, Paragraph 3, contains a general crime formula on the basis of which any Pole or Jew in the eastern territory can in future be prosecuted and any kind of punishment can be inflicted on him for any attitude or action which is considered punishable and is directed against Germans.”

Then I go on to the next paragraph:

“In accordance with the opinion of the Deputy of the Führer, I started from the point of view that the Pole is less susceptible to the infliction of ordinary imprisonment.”

And a few lines further down:

“Under these new kinds of punishment prisoners are to be lodged outside prisons in camps and are to be forced to do heavy and heaviest labor.”

I go to the next page, second paragraph:

“The introduction of corporal punishment, and that is either as penal punishment or as disciplinary measure, which the Deputy of the Führer has brought up for discussion, has not been included in the draft. I cannot agree to this type of punishment because its infliction does not, in my opinion, correspond to the cultural level of the German people.”

My Lord, as I said, the purpose of that document is to show that the Deputy of the Führer was well aware of what was going on in the Eastern Occupied Territories and indeed was advocating even stronger measures than the Reich Minister of Justice was prepared to accept.

I turn then to give such evidence as I can upon the flight of the Defendant Hess to England on the 10th of May 1941.

On that evening he landed in Scotland, within 12 miles of the home of the Duke of Hamilton; and on landing he at once asked to be taken to the Duke of Hamilton, whom he wanted to see. He gave a false name and was shut up; and on the following day, the 11th of May, he had an interview with the Duke of Hamilton, a report of which is set out in the addendum to the document book, if the Tribunal would now turn to the small addendum to the document book.

THE PRESIDENT: Has this been put in evidence yet or not?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I am putting it in evidence.

THE PRESIDENT: Is it properly authenticated?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It is authenticated, and the original is certified as being a government report from the files of the Foreign Office in London. There are four reports altogether, which come from the Foreign Office file and which have been certified as reports from the Foreign Office.

The first one that I would refer to is Document Number M-116, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-269 and which is a report on the interview that he had with the Duke of Hamilton on the 11th of May 1941. I can summarize most of the contents of that report by saying that he introduced himself as Hess. He said that he had met the Duke of Hamilton at the Olympic Games in 1936, and that his old friend, Haushofer, under whom he studied at Munich University after the last war, had suggested that he, Hess, should make contact with the Duke of Hamilton.

And he said that, in order to do so, he had already tried to fly three times before, the first time being in December of 1940, the previous year. The reasons he then gave for his visit will be found on the second page of that document. I quote from the end of the fourth line.

I beg your pardon. Perhaps I ought to say really before that, he said that he had said, earlier in the interview, that Germany was willing to have peace with England; she was certain to win the war; and he himself was anxious to stop the unnecessary slaughter that would otherwise inevitably take place.

“He asked me if I could get together leading members of my party to talk over things with a view to making peace proposals. I replied that there was now only one party in this country. He then said he could tell me what Hitler’s peace terms would be. First, he would insist on an arrangement whereby our two countries would never go to war again. I questioned him as to how that arrangement could be brought about; and he replied that one of the conditions, of course, is that Britain would give up her traditional policy of always opposing the strongest power in Europe.”

I think I need really read no more of that document, because he enlarges upon those proposals in the subsequent interviews that he had on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of May with Mr. Kirkpatrick of the Foreign Office.

I turn to Document Number M-117, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-270, which is another official report of the interview with Mr. Kirkpatrick on the 13th of May. Again I can summarize practically all of it.

He started off by explaining the chain of circumstances which led up to his present situation, which really involved a history of Europe from the end of the last war up to that time. He dealt with Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, saying in each case that Germany was justified and it was all England’s and France’s fault that they had had to get in it. He blamed England entirely for starting the war. He did say—and I quote one line which is of interest, dealing with Munich—he said: “The intervention of Mr. Chamberlain. . . .”

THE PRESIDENT: [Interposing.] Where are you reading?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am reading from the fifth paragraph, my Lord. It starts off:

“The Czechoslovakian crisis was caused by the French determination, expressed by the French Air Ministry, to make Czechoslovakia an air base against Germany. It was Hitler’s duty to scotch this plot. The intervention of Mr. Chamberlain and the Munich conference had been a source of great relief to Hitler.”

If one remembers somewhere having heard in the course of this case, Hitler saying that he had of course no intention of abiding by that agreement at all, that that would never do. . . .

I go on with that document. He then says that Germany must win the war. He says that the bombing of England had only just started and only just started with the greatest reluctance. As he puts it at the top of Page 2, the German production of U-boats was enormous. They had enormous raw material resources in occupied territory, and the confidence in Hitler and in final victory in Germany was complete; and that there was no kind of hope for any revolution among the German people.

He gave his reasons for his flight, his personal reasons again, that he was horrified at the prospect of a long war. England could not win, and therefore she had better make peace now. He said the Führer entertained no designs against England. He had no idea of world domination, and he would greatly regret the collapse of the British Empire.

I quote from the last three lines of the large paragraph in the center of the page:

“At this point Hess tried to make my flesh creep by emphasizing that the avaricious Americans had fell designs upon the Empire. Canada would certainly be incorporated into the United States.

“Reverting to Hitler’s attitude, he said that only as recently as May 3rd, after his Reichstag speech, Hitler had declared to him that he had no oppressive demands to make of England.

“The solution which Herr Hess proposed was that England should give Germany a free hand in Europe, and Germany would give England a completely free hand in the Empire, with the sole reservation that we should return Germany’s ex-colonies, which she required as a source of raw materials. I asked, in order to draw him on the subject of Hitler’s attitude to Russia, whether he included Russia in Europe or in Asia. He replied, ‘In Asia’. I then retorted that under the terms of his proposal, since Germany would only have a free hand in Europe, she would not be at liberty to attack Russia. Herr Hess reacted quickly by remarking that Germany had certain demands to make of Russia which would have to be satisfied either by negotiation or as the result of a war. He added, however, that there was no foundation for the rumors now being spread that Hitler was contemplating an early attack on Russia.

“I then asked about Italian aims and he said that he did not know. I replied that it was a matter of some importance. He brushed this aside and said that he was sure that Italy’s claims would not be excessive. I suggested that Italy scarcely deserved anything, but he begged to differ. Italy had rendered considerable services to Germany; and, besides, England had compensated defeated nations like Romania after the last war.

“Finally, as we were leaving the room, Herr Hess delivered a parting shot. He had forgotten, he declared, to emphasize that the proposal could only be considered on the understanding that it was negotiated by Germany with an English Government other than the present British Government. Mr. Churchill, who had planned the war since 1936, and his colleagues, who had lent themselves to his war policy, were not persons with whom the Führer could negotiate.”

My Lord, presumably when he came over he was not attempting to be funny. One can only conclude from these reports that at that time the people in Germany and the German Government really had no kind of idea of what the conditions in England were like at all; but throughout it appears that this man thought England was ruled by Churchill and a small war-mongering gang. It only needed him to come over and make a peace proposal for Churchill to be turned out in the course of two or three days.

I go on, then, to the next document, My Lord. I am afraid that it is now half past five. I have only the other reports and one further document to refer the Tribunal to.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you had better go on. We will finish tonight.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am sorry it has taken so long. I go on to the next interview of the 14th of May, which is Document Number M-118 and becomes Exhibit Number GB-271.

He started off that interview by making certain complaints about the treatment, asking for a number of things, including Three Men in a Boat, the book which perhaps is one of the few signs that any of these defendants have shown any kind of culture or normal feelings at all.

He described his flight to England, and then I quote from the third paragraph:

“He then passed to political questions. He said that, on reflection, he had omitted to explain that there were two further conditions attached to his peace proposals. First, Germany could not leave Iraq in the lurch. The Iraqis had fought for Germany and Germany would, therefore, have to require us to evacuate Iraq. I observed that this was going considerably beyond the original proposal that German interests should be confined to Europe, but he retorted that, taken as a whole, his proposals were more than fair. The second condition was that the peace agreement should contain a provision for the reciprocal indemnification of British and German nationals, whose property had been expropriated as the result of war.

“Herr Hess concluded by saying that he wished to impress on us that Germany must win the war by blockade. We had no conception of the number of submarines now building in Germany. Hitler always did things on a grand scale and devastating submarine war, supported by new types of aircraft, would very shortly succeed in establishing a completely effective blockade of England. It was fruitless for anyone here to imagine that England could capitulate and that the war could be waged from the Empire. It was Hitler’s intention, in such an eventuality, to continue the blockade of England, even though the island had capitulated, so that we would have to face the deliberate starvation of the population of these islands.”

I think I can leave then that interview. Nothing more was added and I turn to the next document, Document Number M-119, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-272 and which is the report of the interview of the 15th of May, the third and last interview with Mr. Kirkpatrick. I quote from the third paragraph and then there was some mention of Iraq at the beginning of the interview and then Mr. Kirkpatrick writes:

“I then threw a fly over him about Ireland. He said that in all his talks with Hitler, the subject of Ireland had never been mentioned except incidentally. Ireland had done nothing for Germany in this war and it was therefore to be supposed that Hitler would not concern himself in Anglo-Irish relations. We had some little conversation about the difficulty of reconciling the wishes of the South and North and from this we pass to American interest in Ireland, and so to America.

“On the subject of America, Hess took the following line.

“1. The Germans reckoned with American intervention and were not afraid of it. They knew all about American aircraft production and the quality of the aircraft. Germany could outbuild England and America combined.

“2. Germany had no designs on America. The so-called German peril was a ludicrous figment of imagination. Hitler’s interests were European.

“3. If we made peace now, America would be furious. America really wanted to inhabit the British Empire.

“Hess concluded by saying that Hitler really wanted a permanent understanding with us on a basis which preserved the Empire intact. His own flight was intended to give us a chance of opening conversations without loss of prestige. If we reject this chance, it would be clear proof that we desired no understanding with Germany and Hitler would be entitled—in fact it would be his duty—to destroy us utterly and to keep us after the war in a state of permanent subjection.”

My Lord, those reports show the substance and indeed the whole substance of the visit. His humanitarian reasons for coming, which sounded so well on the 10th or between the 10th and 15th of May, took on quite a different light when barely a little more than a month later Germany attacked the Soviet Union.

One cannot help remembering an exact parallel between this business and that which took place before Germany attacked Poland, when every effort was made to keep England out of the war and so let her fight her battle on one front only. Here the same thing appears to be happening; and what is more, we have it from himself in the course of those interviews that, at that time, Germany had no intentions of attacking Russia immediately at all. But that must be untrue, because it will be remembered and the evidence is set out in the trial brief, that so far back as November 1940 plans were being made, initial plans, for the invasion of Russia.

On the 18th of December 1940 a directive ordered preparations to be completed by the 15th of May 1941. On the 3rd of April 1941 orders were given delaying the “Case Barbarossa” for 5 weeks; and on the 30th of April 1941, 10 days before he arrived in England, D-Day was actually fixed for the invasion of Russia for the 22d of June.

Well now, in my submission, nobody who held the position that this defendant did at that time—in charge of the foreign organization, Deputy to the Führer, having been made designate successor Number 2 only a year ago—never in that position could he have been kept in ignorance of those preparations and of those plans.

My Lord, my submission, therefore, is that the only reason he came to England was not humanitarian at all, but purely, as I say, to allow Germany to fight her battle against Russia on one front only.

There is—and I hesitate to refer the Tribunal to any other document—but there is one document, which is a document of extreme interest from many points of view and has only just come to light. I did ask that it should be put in at the back of the Tribunal’s document book; but if it has not been, I have some spare copies which perhaps the clerk may now hand out.

It is Document Number 1866-PS, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-273, and it is an account of conversations between Ribbentrop and Mussolini and Ciano on the 13th of May 1941, signed by Schmidt.

It carries the question very little further, but of course the question has existed, and still does exist—the question, of course, as to whether or not the flight to England was undertaken with the knowledge and approval of Hitler, or any other members of the Government, or on his own initiative and in complete secrecy. He himself has always maintained that he did it secretly. On the other hand, it is difficult to see how he could have been planning it and practicing it for months before and having tried three times before, without anybody knowing.

This account of the conversations with the Italians casts little further light on it; but it does show anyway what Ribbentrop is saying to the Italians, their allies, three days later. I would ask the Tribunal to look at and read the first page of this document, and the paragraph of the next page:

“To begin with, the Reich Foreign Minister conveyed the Führer’s greetings to the Duce.

“He would shortly propose to the Duce a date for the planned meeting, which he would like to take place as soon as possible. As the place for the meeting he would probably prefer the Brenner. At the present moment he was, as the Duce could well understand, still busy with the Hess affair and with a few military matters.

“The Duce replied that he would agree with all the Führer’s proposals. . . .”—and so on.

“The Reich Foreign Minister then said that the Führer had sent him to the Duce in order to inform him about the Hess affair and the conversations with Admiral Darlan. With regard to Hess’s affair he remarked that the Führer and his staff had been completely taken aback by Hess’s action and that it had been the deed of a lunatic.

“Hess had been suffering for a long time from bilious attacks and had fallen into the hands of magnetists and nature-cure doctors who caused his state of health to become worse.

“All these matters were being investigated at the moment, as well as the responsibility of the aides-de-camp who had known about Hess’s forbidden flights. Hess had for weeks carried out secret practice flights in an ME-110. Naturally he had acted only from idealistic motives. Disloyalty towards the Führer was utterly out of the question. His conduct had to be explained by a kind of abstractness and a state of mind caused by his illness.”

And it goes on, and the gist of it really is that Ribbentrop is emphasizing again that it was done without the authority of Hitler or without the knowledge of anybody else in Germany. I say he does not carry. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Can’t you read the beginning of the next paragraph?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: “Being sympathetically inclined towards England, he had conceived the crazy idea of using Great Britain’s fascist circles to persuade the British to give in. He had explained all this in a long and confused letter to the Führer. When this letter reached the Führer, Hess was already in England. It was hoped in Germany that he would perhaps meet with an accident on the way, but he was now really in England and had tried to contact the former Marquis of Clydesdale, the present Duke of Hamilton. Hess quite wrongly considered him as a great friend of Germany and had flown to the neighborhood of his castle in Scotland.”

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That is what Ribbentrop is saying to Mussolini. Ribbentrop, we know, is a liar, and indeed what he said later on in an interview proves it, and I would refer to Page 5—or rather to the bottom of Page 4—if the Tribunal would bear with me while I read that, because it would have been put in previously during this trial had this document been known of. And as I am putting it in now, perhaps I might be allowed to read this one paragraph which really concerns the Defendant Ribbentrop.

“The Duce returned to his remark concerning the united front of Europe against England and the two countries, Spain and Russia, that were absent from it, with the remark that to him it seemed that it would be advantageous if a policy of collaboration with Russia could be carried out. He asked the Reich Foreign Minister whether Germany excluded such a possibility, that is, collaboration with Russia. The Reich Foreign Minister replied that Germany had treaties with Russia and that the relations between the two countries were, by the way, correct. He personally did not believe that Stalin would undertake anything against Germany, but should he do so, or should he follow a policy that was intolerable to Germany, then he would be destroyed within three months. The Duce agreed to this. The Führer would certainly not look for any quarrel, but he had nevertheless taken precautions”—this is again, I think, Ribbentrop speaking—“The Führer would certainly not look for any quarrel, but he had nevertheless taken precautions for all eventualities. He had in no way come to any decision, but as a result of certain occurrences and want of clearness on the Russian side, he had become suspicious. Thus for example, the Russians had strengthened their forces along their western frontier, which of course, caused Germany to reinforce her troops too, but only after the Russians started it.”

It really must have been a remarkable position in the German Government if undoubtedly the Führer and the foreign secretary knew on the 13th of May 1941 that Germany was going to attack Russia a month later.

My Lord, that is the evidence which I have to present to the Tribunal on this matter. I regret that this should have taken so long. I am grateful to Your Honors for your patience.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 8 February 1946 at 1000 hours.]

FIFTY-FOURTH DAY
Friday, 8 February 1946