Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, Volume 12

by Various

Afternoon Session

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom): My Lord, I wonder if the Tribunal would be good enough to consider setting aside a half hour some time for the discussion of the documents of the Defendant Von Schirach. We are ready to clear up outstanding points at any time that is suitable to the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: [Turning to the defendant.] Now, I just want to ask you a few questions as to the part you played in the various actions against the Jews between 1933 and 1939.

Will you look at Document M-6, which is at Page 20 in the document book that you have before you, Page 22 in the document book that the Tribunal have in English. It is Page 20 in the German document book; M-6, which is already Exhibit Number GB-170.

Now, I just want to refer to what you said about the Nuremberg Decrees. You told us this morning that you thought when they had been passed that that was already the final solution of the Jewish question. Will you look at the paragraph beginning in the center of the page, “However, to those who believe...”:

“However, to those who believe that the Jewish question has been finally solved and the matter thus settled for Germany by the Nuremberg Decrees, be it said that the battle continues—world Jewry itself is seeing to that anyhow—and we shall only get through this battle victoriously if every member of the German people knows that his very existence is at stake. The work of enlightenment carried on by the Party seems to me to be more necessary than ever today, even though many Party members seem to think that these matters are no longer real or urgent.”

STREICHER: Yes, I wrote that.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: What do you mean by saying “the battle continues,” if you have already solved the Jewish problem by the issuance of the Nuremberg Decrees?

STREICHER: I have already stated today that the solution of the Jewish problem was regarded by me as having to be solved, first of all, within the country and then in conjunction with other nations. Thus “the battle continues” means that in the International Anti-Semitic Union, which I had formed and which had representatives from all countries in it, the question was discussed as to what could be done from an international point of view to terminate the Jewish problem.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Are we, therefore, to take it that everything that you said and wrote after 1936 was in connection with an international problem and had nothing to do with the Jews in Germany as such?

STREICHER: Yes, mainly international, of course.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Let me just refer you to half way through the next paragraph, “Der Stürmer’s 15 years’ work of enlightenment has already led an army of those who know, millions strong, to National Socialism.” Is that so?

STREICHER: That is correct.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You see, you were telling the Tribunal this morning that up to 1933, and indeed afterwards, you said the circulation of your paper was only very small. Is it true, in fact, that your 15 years’ work had led an army, millions strong, to National Socialism?

STREICHER: I have said today that the moment the press was politically co-ordinated, 3,000 daily newspapers were committed to the purpose of enlightenment about the Jewish problem. There were 3,000 daily papers in addition to Der Stürmer.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. I don’t think you need go on. Let me just finish reading through that paragraph:

“The continued work of Der Stürmer will help to insure that down to the last man every German will, with heart and hand, join the ranks of those whose aim it is to crush the head of the serpent Pan-Judah.”

Wait one moment, let me ask my question. There is nothing there about an international problem. You are addressing yourself to the German people, are you not?

STREICHER: In that article? Yes. And if that article was read abroad, then also to countries abroad, but as to the remark about crushing the serpent’s head, that is a biblical expression.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you now let us discuss for a moment the breaking up of the synagogue in Nuremberg, which you have told about, on the 10th of August of 1938. Will you look at Page 41 of the book that you have in front of you, Page 42 of the English document book that the Tribunal has.

Now we have heard your explanation of that breaking up of the synagogue. The Fränkische Tageszeitung at the 11th of August states this, “In Nuremberg the synagogue is being demolished. Julius Streicher himself inaugurated this work by a speech lasting more than an hour and a half.” Were you talking to the inhabitants of Nuremberg upon the architectural value of their city for an hour and a half on the 10th of August 1938?

STREICHER: I no longer know in detail what I said, but I refer to what you have remarked and what you find important. There was a branch of the Propaganda Ministry in Nuremberg. The young Regierungsrat had press conferences with the editors every day, and at that time he told the editors during a press conference that Streicher would speak and that the synagogue was being demolished and that this was to be kept secret.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I asked you, were you talking for that hour and a half on the architectural beauties of Nuremberg and not against the Jews? Is that what you are telling us?

STREICHER: That, too, of course.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: At the press conference to which you referred—you no doubt have seen the document; it is Page 40 of the Tribunal’s document book—do you remember that it was arranged that the show should be staged in a big way, the show of pulling down the synagogue? What was the object of arranging the demonstration to demolish that synagogue in such a big way?

STREICHER: I was merely the speaker. What you are intimating here, that was done by the representative of the Ministry of Propaganda; but I would not object to it if you decided to assume, let me put it like that, that I would naturally have been in favor of making a big show if I had been asked.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Let me just ask you now a word about the demonstrations which followed that in November of that year—My Lord, I refer to Page 43 of the document book; 42 of the German—as I understand it, you tell us that you disapproved of those demonstrations that took place and they took place without your knowledge or previous knowledge. Is that correct, “yes” or “no”?

STREICHER: Yes, it is correct.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I just want to remind you of what you said on the following day, the 10th of November. This is an account of what happened:

“In Nuremberg and Fürth there were demonstrations by the crowd against the Jewish gang of murderers. These lasted until the early hours of the morning.”

I now pass to the end of that paragraph:

“After midnight the excitement of the public had reached its peak and a large crowd marched to the synagogues in Nuremberg and Fürth and burned those two Jewish buildings where the murder of Germans had been preached.”

This is now what you say—it is on Page 44 of the document book, My Lord:

“From the cradle on, the Jew is not taught as we are: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ or ‘If you are smitten on the left cheek offer then your right one.’ No. He is told ‘With the non-Jew you can do whatever you like.’ He is even taught that the slaughtering of a non-Jew is an act pleasing to God. For 20 years we have been writing about this in Der Stürmer. For 20 years we have been preaching it throughout the world, and we have made millions recognize the truth.”

Does that sound as though you had disapproved of the demonstrations that had taken place the night before?

STREICHER: First of all I must state that the report, part of which you read, appeared in a daily paper. Thus I am not to be held responsible for this. If someone wrote that part of the populace rose up against the gang of murderers then that is in keeping with the order from the Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin; outwardly that action was described as a spontaneous demonstration of the populace...

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That does not answer my question. Does that passage that I have read sound as though you had disapproved of the demonstrations that had taken place the night before? Does it or does it not?

STREICHER: I was against that demonstration.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Just let me read on:

“But we know that we have in our midst people who take pity on the Jews, people who are not worthy of living in this town, who are not worthy of belonging to this people, of whom you are a proud part.”

Why should it have been necessary for people to have had pity on the Jews, if you were not—you and the Nazi Party—persecuting them?

STREICHER: I have already pointed out today that I was forced, after this demonstration had taken place, to make a public comment and say that one should not have so much pity. I wanted to prove thereby that this was not a spontaneous action by the people; in other words, the matter does not speak against me; it speaks for me. The people, as I myself, were opposed to the demonstration and I found that I had cause to—should I say—get public opinion to the point where one might possibly not regard that action as something too severe.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: But, why, if you were opposed to it and if the people were opposed to it, should it have been your duty to try and convert them so that they should be in favor of that kind of thing? Why were you opposed to it and why should you try to turn them against the Jew?

STREICHER: I do not understand what you mean.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I understand you to say that you were opposed to these demonstrations and that the people also were opposed to the demonstrations; that, therefore, it was your duty to try to stir them up and make them in favor of the demonstrations after they had happened. Why should it have been your duty to do that?

STREICHER: Today one can perhaps say that this or that was my duty, but one must consider what those times were—the confusion that existed—that to make a quick decision, as one might have to in this courtroom, was quite impossible. What happened has happened. I was against it and the public too. What was written about it otherwise was done so for tactical reasons.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Were you in favor of the Aryanization of Jewish houses and businesses? Were you in favor of that or did you disapprove of that issue?

STREICHER: I have answered that question today in great detail, in connection with a statement of Party comrade Holz. I have stated and I repeat that my deputy came to me...

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Just stop for a moment, I don’t want a speech. I asked you a question which you could answer “yes” or “no.” Did you approve or disapprove of the system of Aryanization of Jewish businesses and houses?

STREICHER: One cannot answer that quickly with “yes” or “no.” I have made it clear today, and you must allow me to explain it so that there is not any misunderstanding. My Party comrade...

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am not going to allow you to repeat it. I will go on if you are not prepared to answer that question. The Tribunal have heard it and I pass on.

STREICHER: I certainly want to answer it. After my Party comrades...

THE PRESIDENT: Defendant...

STREICHER: After the Party comrades came...

THE PRESIDENT: You have refused to answer the question properly, a question to which you can give either an affirmative or a negative answer. Did you approve or did you not approve? You can give an answer to that and then you can give any explanation afterwards.

STREICHER: I personally was not for Aryanization. When Holz repeated that, giving as a reason that the houses had been pretty badly damaged, et cetera, that we might get material for a Gau (district) building, I said “All right, if you can do it, go ahead.” I already stated today that this was carelessness on my part.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: There were in fact a very great number of Jewish businesses and houses Aryanized in Nuremberg and Franconia, were there not?

STREICHER: Yes.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Would you just look at a new exhibit, Document Number D-835, which becomes Exhibit GB-330. That is a list—it is an original document—it is a list of Jewish property in Nuremberg and Fürth which was Aryanized. Have you seen that list or anything like it before?

STREICHER: No.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, you can take it from me, that that list contains the addresses of some 800 properties in Nuremberg and Fürth which have been taken from the Jews and handed over to Aryans. Would you agree that that would be at least 800 houses in your city here that were Aryanized?

STREICHER: I do not know about it in detail; but I must establish something: I do not know—is that the official document? I have already stated today that my Party comrade Holz started Aryanizing. That was rescinded by Berlin. Then came the Aryanization carried out by the State. I could not have had any influence here, either, so that this was none of my business. This Aryanization, the expropriation of Jewish property, was ordered by Berlin.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, you mentioned this morning that you were a subscriber to a weekly newspaper called the Israelitisches Wochenblatt; is that correct?

STREICHER: Yes.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: When did you start subscribing to that newspaper?

STREICHER: What did you say?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: At what date did you start subscribing to that newspaper?

STREICHER: I do not know.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, I have no doubt you can tell the Tribunal approximately. Have you always, since 1933, been a subscriber of that newspaper?

STREICHER: Well, I do not think I could have read every issue, since I traveled a great deal.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You were, as I think it is stated in this application of your wife to give evidence, a regular reader of it, were you not?

STREICHER: My friends, the editors, and I used to share in the reading of this paper.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: May I take it that between yourself and your editors—I don’t say every copy was read—but it was regularly read from 1933 onwards; is that fair?

STREICHER: You cannot say “read regularly.”

LT. COL, GRIFFITH-JONES: A large number of the copies that you subscribed for, which came weekly to you, were they read by yourself or by your editors?

STREICHER: Certainly.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, I want to turn to something else for a moment. I want to make myself perfectly clear to you.

DR. MARX: Mr. President, I should like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the document which has just been presented, “Confiscated Property and Real Estate,” has the heading “Aryanization Department for Real Estate, Nuremberg.” That cannot mean anything except that this document comes from the official department which was later set up for the confiscation of such real estate. But by no means can this be a document to prove that we are concerned here with the real estate Aryanized by Holz, subsequent to 9 November.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I accept that that may be so.

DR. MARX: I should like to ask, therefore, that the appropriate correction be made.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If I was mistaken in saying that those properties had been Aryanized, I would be right then, would I not, in saying that that list of properties was prepared by the Aryanization Department in Nuremberg for the purpose of Aryanizing them in the future? Would that be a fair statement to make?

STREICHER: No.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I won’t pursue that matter any further.

I want to make myself quite clear to you in what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that from 1939 onwards you set out to incite the German people to murder and to accept the fact of the murder of the Jewish race. Do you understand that?

STREICHER: That is not true.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: No doubt you will say it isn’t true. I just wanted you to be quite clear on what my suggestion is going to be.

I want you to look now at a bundle, which will be given to you, of extracts from Der Stürmer. You can see the originals which are in Court if you desire to do so, but it will save time if we use the document books there.

Now, will you look at Page 3-A. For convenience, the pages in this bundle are all marked “A” to distinguish them from the numbers in the original document book.

THE PRESIDENT: Are they all in evidence?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: None of them are in evidence at the moment. Perhaps the most convenient way would be for me to put the actual documents in evidence together at the end, unless the Tribunal or the defendant desire to see any copies of them. I will give them numbers as I go along.

Will you look at Page 3-A of that bundle, Document Number D-809, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-331:

“The Jewish problem is not yet solved, nor will it be solved when one day the last Jew will have left Germany. Only when world Jewry has been annihilated, will it have been solved.”

Is that what you were working for when you say you were working for the international solution to this problem, an annihilation of world Jewry?

STREICHER: If that is how you understand “annihilation.” That was written by my chief editor at the time. He says that the Jewish problem will not yet be solved when the last Jew will have left Germany. And when he suddenly says that only when world Jewry has been annihilated will it be solved, then he certainly may have meant that the power of world Jewry should be annihilated. But my Party comrade Holz did not think of mass killing or the possibility of mass killing.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: The German word used there is “vernichtet,” is it not? Look at your copy. “Vernichtet” that means “to annihilate.”

STREICHER: Today, when you look back, you could interpret it like that, but not at that time.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well, we won’t waste time because we have quite a number to look through. Will you look on to the next page. That was in January you were writing that. In April 1939, Document D-810, Exhibit GB-332, I refer only to the last two lines. This is an article again by your editor: “Then perhaps their graves will proclaim that this murderous and criminal people has, after all, met its deserved fate.”

What do you mean by “graves” there? Do you mean excluding them from the business of the world?

STREICHER: This is the first time that I have seen this article. That is the statement of opinion of a man who was probably looking ahead and making a play on words; but as far as I knew him, and as far as we discussed the Jewish problem, there was no question of mass extermination; we did not even think of it. Maybe it was his wish—I do not know—but anyway, that is the way it happened to be written.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Just turn over, will you now, to May 1939, Document Number D-811, Exhibit Number GB-333. I quote the last six lines: “There must be a punitive expedition against the Jews in Russia.”

This, of course, was before the Russian invasion.

“There must be a punitive expedition against the Jews in Russia, a punitive expedition which will provide the same fate for them that every murderer and criminal must expect, death sentence and execution. The Jews in Russia must be killed. They must be utterly exterminated. Then the world will see that the end of the Jews is also the end of Bolshevism.”

STREICHER: Who wrote that article?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It is published in your Stürmer. We can find out, if necessary. It is not written by you, but it is published in your Der Stürmer; and you have told the Tribunal that you accept responsibility for everything that was written in that newspaper.

STREICHER: All right, I assume responsibility; but I want to state that, here too, this is the private opinion of a man who in May 1939 could not have thought that ex nihilo—for we had no soldiers—a “March to Russia” could be started. This is a theoretic and very strongly-worded expression of opinion of that anti-Semitic person.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: All I ask you about that is: Is that not advocating the murder of Jews, that article; if it is not, what is it advocating?

STREICHER: The whole article would have to be read so that I could tell what motives existed for writing something like that. I therefore ask you to make public the whole article. Then one can form a proper judgment.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, we’ll go on. We won’t waste time unless you really want to see the whole article.

My Lord, if I perhaps might be allowed to put these documents in evidence. As Your Lordship will see, this bundle is a bundle of extracts from Der Stürmer.

DR. MARX: Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to make the following statements: A number of extracts from Der Stürmer have been mentioned here which have been put before me for the first time. Some of them are articles which have not been written by the defendant personally. Some are signed by Hiemer, and some by Holz, who was particularly radical in his manner of writing, and passages are being quoted which are perhaps taken out of context.

I must ask, therefore, that I be afforded the opportunity of going over these extracts together with the Defendant Streicher. Otherwise, he might come to the conclusion that his defense is being made too difficult for him and that it is being made impossible for him to prepare himself appropriately.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, you will have an opportunity of checking up on these various extracts, and then you will be able to introduce, if necessary, any passages which explain the extracts. That is a matter which has been explained to defendants’ counsel over and over again.

Colonel Griffith-Jones, are there not certain of these extracts which are written or signed by the defendant?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, with Your Lordship’s permission I will refer to some of them, but so that I should not have to refer to all of them, I was going to suggest that perhaps I might put them in and, if it is necessary, let the Tribunal know afterwards the numbers of them to save time.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I put the whole bundle in evidence and will not refer to all of them.

THE PRESIDENT: Then you can give us the exhibit numbers later.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If that is suitable to the convenience of the Court.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well now, the Tribunal will see by looking at this bundle, from the first page—which I think is 3-A—to Page 25-A, that there are various extracts which have been written either by yourself or by members of your staff between January 1939 and January 1941.

Do I understand you to say now, to have said in your evidence, that you never knew that Jews were being exterminated in thousands and millions in the Eastern territories? Did you never know that?

STREICHER: No.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: As I understood your evidence about the Israelitisches Wochenblatt this morning you said this, as I have written it down:

“Sometimes that journal contained hints that everything was not in order. Later in 1943 an article appeared stating that masses of Jews were disappearing but the article did not quote any figures and did not mention anything about murders.”

Are you really saying that those copies of the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, which you and your editors were reading, contained nothing except for a hint of disappearance with no mention of figures or murder? Is that what you are telling this Tribunal?

STREICHER: Yes, I stick to that, certainly.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, I want you, if you will, to take this bundle and keep it in front of you. It is a bundle of extracts from the Israelitisches Wochenblatt from July 1941 until the end of the war. The Tribunal will be able to see what a fanatic for the truth really tells.

[The document was submitted to the defendant.]

My Lord, this bundle, for convenience again, is marked “B.”

[Turning to the defendant.] Will you look at the first page? That is an article on the 11th of July 1941. “Some 40,000 Jews died in Poland during the last years. The hospitals are overfull.”

Now, you need not turn over for the moment, Defendant. We will turn the pages soon enough.

Did you happen to read that sentence in the issue of the 11th of July 1941?

STREICHER: No.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you look at Page 3, 3-B? In November 1941: “Very bad news comes from the Ukraine. Thousands of Jewish dead are being mourned, among whom are many of the Galician Jews who were expelled from Hungary.”

Did you read that?

STREICHER: That might be possible. It says “thousands,” thousands are being mourned. That is no proof that millions were killed. There are no details as to how they came to their end.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If that is the explanation you want us to accept we will leave it.

Just go on again to the next page, will you? The 12th of December 1941, a month later:

“According to news which has arrived from several sources, thousands of Jews—one even speaks of many thousands—are said to have been executed in Odessa”—and so on.—“Similar reports reach us from Kiev and other Russian cities.”

Did you read that?

STREICHER: I do not know; and if I had read it then it would not change a thing. That is no proof.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: But you have told the Tribunal, you know, that there was nothing except hints of disappearance. Doesn’t it show that you were not telling the truth when you read these extracts?

STREICHER: In that case may I say the following? When the war started we no longer received the Israelitisches Wochenblatt. During the later years one could only get the Israelitisches Wochenblatt through the Police. We got that paper, toward the end, into Germany by smuggling. On one occasion we asked the Police to provide us with foreign newspapers and this weekly, and we were told that it was not possible. But we nevertheless got it. What I mean to say by this is that I did not read every one of those issues. The issues which I did read were confiscated on my farm. Whatever is underlined has been read by me or it was read by my editor in chief. I cannot, therefore, guarantee that I read every article.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: No, I appreciate that and that is why we have quite a number of them. You see, we have an extract for practically every week or month over the course of 3 years.

I would just like you to turn to Page 30-A of the “A” bundle. I just want you to see what you were writing after having heard, or after having read, or anyway after those copies of the Israelitisches Wochenblatt had been published. This is a leading article by yourself.

“If the danger of the reproduction of that curse of God in the Jewish blood is finally to come to an end, then there is only one way open—the extermination of that people whose father is the devil.”

And is the word that you use for extermination there “Ausrottung,” rooting out, extirpation?

STREICHER: First of all, I would like to ask whether this issue is known to my defense counsel, and if the translation is correct?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It does not matter. He has copies of all this and he will be able to protect your interests. We are now just testing the truth of the evidence that you have given.

Can you tell me, is that “extermination”? Does that mean murder of Jews? What else can it mean?

STREICHER: It depends on the whole context. In that case I want you to read the whole article.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, if there is anything in the rest of the article which can be helpful to you, your counsel will have an opportunity to see the article and be able to put it before the Tribunal. I can assure you that the remainder of your articles, as a general rule, do not assist your case.

STREICHER: When that article appeared, mass killing had already taken place a long time ago.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Well now, we will not go through this at any length.

If you will look at your “B” bundle, your bundle of extracts from the Israelitisches Wochenblatt...

THE PRESIDENT: I think you should draw his attention to the date on Page 30-A.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am very much obliged to Your Lordship.

[Turning to the defendant.] The 25th of December 1941.

If you will glance at “B” bundle you will see a number of extracts going from Page A to Page 21. Now, I would like you to glance at Page 24 of that “B” bundle.

STREICHER: Page 24?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes, Page 24. This is an article which appeared in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt on the 27th of November 1942. I just wondered whether you read this:

“At the Zionist Congress of Switzerland the representative of the ‘Jewish Agency’ in Geneva... gave a report on European Jewry.... The number of victims goes into millions. If the present conditions continue and the German program is carried out, it is to be reckoned that, instead of 6 or 7 million Jews in Europe only 2 million will still be left.”

Then there are the three last lines of the extract:

“The Jews who were there had mostly been deported to the notorious unknown destination further to the East. At the end of this winter the number of victims will be 4 million.”

Is that what you call a hint of disappearance of Jews from the East?

STREICHER: I cannot recollect that I have ever read that but I do want to say that if I had read it I would not have believed it.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well now, let us just turn to the “A” bundle again and look at the article that you wrote on the 17th of December 1942. It is Page 34-A. This is an article which is initialed “STR” so I presume it was written by you.

“The London newspaper, The Times, of the 16th of September 1942 published a...”

STREICHER: I have not got it yet.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Page 34-A.

STREICHER: Just a minute.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Find it for him. It is headed: “Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth.”

“The London newspaper, The Times, of 16 September 1942 published a resolution which had been unanimously passed by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. This resolution expresses the grief and horror of the Anglo-Jewish Community at the unspeakable atrocities committed by Germany and her allies and vassals against the Jews of Europe which had only one aim, to exterminate the whole Jewish population of Europe in cold blood.”

Now, you must have read of that in The Times because you say so.

STREICHER: Yes.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES:

“Strange how the Jews of the Anglo-Jewish Community suddenly begin to prick up their ears. When the second World War began the Führer of the German nation warned the Jewish warmongers against plunging the world into a blood bath again. Since then the German Führer has warned and prophesied again and again that the second World War, instigated by world Jewry, must necessarily lead to the destruction of Jewry. In his last speech too, the Führer again referred to his prophecies.”

Did you write that?

STREICHER: Yes, this is merely a quotation. It refers to a forecast from the Führer, of which nobody could possibly tell what it really meant.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well.

If you had not even read that or the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, did you ever hear of the declaration of the United Nations which was made on the 17th of December 1942?

[The document was submitted to the defendant.]

Do you remember hearing of that? You appear to have been reading The Times; you appear to have been reading some copies of the Israelitisches Wochenblatt. Maybe you heard of this declaration which was published in London, Washington, and Moscow at the same time with the assent and support of all Allied nations and dominions. I will just read it to you and see if you remember it:

“The attention of the Belgian, Czechoslovak, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norwegian, Polish, Soviet, United Kingdom, United States, and Yugoslav Governments and also the French National Committee has been drawn to numerous reports from Europe that the German authorities, not content with denying to persons of Jewish race in all the territories over which their barbarous rule has been extended the most elementary human rights, are now carrying into effect Hitler’s often repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe.

“From all the occupied countries Jews are being transported in conditions of appalling horror and brutality to Eastern Europe. In Poland, which has been made the principal Nazi slaughterhouse, the ghettos established by the German invaders are being systematically emptied of all Jews except a few highly skilled workers required for war industries. None of those taken away are ever heard of again. The able-bodied are slowly worked to death in labor camps. The infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation, or are deliberately massacred in mass executions.

“The number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women, and children.

“The above-mentioned Governments and the French National Committee condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination. They declare that such events can only strengthen the resolve of all freedom-loving peoples to overthrow the barbarous Hitlerite tyranny. They reaffirm their solemn resolution to ensure that those responsible for the crimes shall not escape retribution, and to press on with the necessary practical measures to this end.”

Did you never hear of this declaration?

STREICHER: I do not know, but if I should have heard of it, then I would have to say the following:

After the seizure of power the foreign press published so many atrocity stories, which turned out to be rumors, that I would have had no reason to believe anything like this; nor is there any mention here that millions of Jews were killed.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, you see, it isn’t altogether uncorroborated. You say you had no reason to believe it; but your Israelitisches Wochenblatt, which you were subscribing to, was saying exactly the same thing.

Would you look at Page 26-B of the “B” bundle? That is the declaration of the United Nations of the 17th of December. Just see what the Israelitisches Wochenblatt says on the 18th. And there I quote the second paragraph:

“At that time the Polish Government in London gave the number of Jews executed as 700,000. The Berlin radio hereupon declared that these reports were untrue, but admitted that in Poland ‘Jews’ had had to be executed because they carried out acts of sabotage.”

Then the last paragraph quoted:

“ ‘Up to the end of September 1942,’ writes the Daily Telegraph, ‘2 million Jews have lost their lives in Germany and in the countries occupied by the Axis, and it is to be feared that the number of victims will be doubled by the end of this year.’ ”

Did you happen to read that article?

STREICHER: I cannot remember having read it, but I would not have believed it if I had.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You see, there is another article in that same paper on the 23rd of December, in the same terms; another on the 30th of December; and another on the 8th of January. Look at what it says on the 8th of January:

“The Polish Government in London has issued a new declaration which states that all the information received agrees that a third of the 3 million odd Jews have lost their lives.”

Did you read that?

STREICHER: I do not know, but I have to repeat, I would not have believed it.

LT. COL GRIFFITH-JONES: Well now, just let’s see just what you were writing on the 28th of January. Look at 35-A of your own bundle; 35-A. Now just see what your Chief Editor, the witness you are going to call, I understand, Hiemer—see what he has got to say first of all:

“But the ghetto too, which has today been re-established in nearly all European countries, is only an interim solution, for mankind once awakened will not merely solve the ghetto question but the Jewish question in its totality. A time will come when the present demands, of the Jews will be fulfilled. The ghetto will have disappeared—and with it Jewry.”

What is he referring to, if he isn’t referring to the mass killing, murder, of the Jewish race?

STREICHER: That was a statement of his opinion, his conviction. That conviction must be understood in the same way as something which a Jewish author wrote in his book in America. Erich Kauffmann wrote that German men capable of fathering children should be sterilized, and in that manner the German people should be exterminated. It was at the same time that Hiemer wrote his article, and I want to say that the very severe tone in Der Stürmer at that time was due to that book from America.

The interrogating officers know—and so does my counsel—that I have repeatedly pointed out that I wanted that book to be produced. It was in the Völkischer Beobachter.

If in America an author called Erich Kauffmann can publicly demand that all men in Germany capable of fathering children should be sterilized, for the purpose of exterminating the German people, then I say, eye for eye and tooth for tooth. This is a theoretical literary matter.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. I am sure we have heard your explanation. Let’s see what you have to say about your own article on the same date. I quote from the middle of the next paragraph:

“But now, in the fourth year of this war, world Jewry is beginning in its retrospective considerations to understand that the destiny of Jewry is finding its fulfillment at the hands of German National Socialism.”

What did you mean by that? Perhaps I should have quoted a little earlier, going back to the beginning:

“When, with the outbreak of the second World War, world Jewry again began to manifest themselves as warmongers, Adolf Hitler announced to the world from the platform of the German Reichstag that the World War conjured up by world Jewry would result in the self-destruction of Jewry. This prophecy was the first big warning. It was met with derision from the Jews, as were all the subsequent warnings.”

And then you go on to say:

“But now, in the fourth year of this war, world Jewry is beginning in its retrospective considerations to understand that the destiny of Jewry is finding its fulfillment at the hands of German National Socialism.”

What did you mean by that?

STREICHER: Pardon me?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: What do you mean by saying “World Jewry is finding its fulfillment at the hands of National Socialism”? How did you mean that National Socialism was finding the fulfillment of Jewry’s destiny?

STREICHER: National Socialism could not fulfill the fate, that is to say, find the solution, since the Führer intervened with the hand of destiny. That was not a solution.

During an interrogation I pointed out that I who personally wanted a total solution, was, right from the beginning, against trying to solve the Jewish problem by means of pogroms. If I said that the destiny of Jewry was to be fulfilled by National Socialism, then I wanted to say that through National Socialism the world would gain the knowledge and the realization that the Jewish problem must be solved internationally.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Let’s just go on.

“That which the Führer of the German people announced to the world as a prophecy at the beginning of this second World War is now being fulfilled with unrelenting inevitability. World Jewry, which wanted to reap big dividends from the blood of the warring nations, is rushing with gigantic steps toward its extirpation.”

And again you use the word “Ausrottung.”

Does that mean just as it sounds, as though the fulfillment that you were aiming at was warning the world about Jewry? What do you mean by it? “Rushing with gigantic steps toward its extirpation”—Ausrottung. What did you mean by it?

STREICHER: This is a warning. The Führer made a prophecy; nobody could interpret that prophecy properly. The prophecy was not quoted only in this article, but in 10 others. Again and again we referred to these prophecies, the first of which had been made in 1929. Today we know what the Führer wanted to say; at that time we did not. And I confess quite openly that with this quotation we wanted to warn world Jewry: “Against their threat, this threat.”

So as to defend myself I might mention in this connection that the author, Dr. Emil Ludwig Kohn, who had left Germany and emigrated to France, had written in the paper Le Fanal, in 1934, “Hitler does not want war, but he is being forced into it. Britain has the last word.” Thus...

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: We are not discussing war now. We are discussing the extermination, the mass murder of Jews, by the National Socialists. That is what we are discussing. Let me read on:

“When Adolf Hitler stepped before the German people 20 years ago to submit to them the National Socialist demands which pointed the way into the future, he also made the promise which was to have the gravest repercussions; that of freeing the world from its Jewish tormentors. How wonderful it is to know that this great man and leader is following up this promise with practical action. It will be the greatest deed in the history of mankind.”

Do you say that you are not putting forward propaganda for the policy of mass extermination which the Nazi Government had set out to do?

STREICHER: We too had freedom of the press like democratic countries. Every author knew of the forecast, which perhaps later on turned out to be a fact, and could write about it. That is what I did.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well.

STREICHER: But for my defense, Mr. Prosecutor, I want to be allowed to say that wars too can be mass murder, with their bombs, et cetera. And if it is proved that someone says that we are forcing Hitler into war, then I can certainly say that a man who knows that Hitler is being forced into war is a mass murderer.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: With the permission of the Tribunal I am going to interrupt you again because we are not discussing whether or not Hitler was forced into war. We will leave that now.

Just let us go on and see if you are really speaking the truth in saying that while you are writing these articles you are not perfectly well aware of what was happening in the Eastern territories.

We got as far as January 1943. I would like you to just look at one or two more of the Israelitisches Wochenblatt and see if you remember reading any of these. Will you look at Page 30-B the 26th of February, in your “B” bundle?

“Exchange reports from the Polish Government circles in London that Warsaw, Lvov, Lodz and other cities have been ‘liquidated,’ and that nobody from the ghettos remained alive. The last investigations have ascertained that only about 650,000 Jews remain out of 2,800,000.”

Listen to me. Did you read that? Do you remember it?

STREICHER: I do not know. For months, perhaps half a year, we did not get an issue, but if I had read it, I would not have believed that either.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Did you believe Hitler? If you will turn over the page to 31-B, did you believe Hitler? According to the last two lines quoted in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt of the 5th of March 1943: “Hitler, in his proclamation of 24 February, again proclaimed the extermination of the Jews in Europe as his goal.”

Did you believe your own beloved Führer when he was saying the same things as the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, the United Nations, and The Times newspaper in London?

STREICHER: No, I declare that whoever got to know the Führer’s deepest emotions and his soul, as I have personally, and then later had to learn from his testament that he, in full possession of his faculties, consciously gave the order for mass extermination, is confronted with a riddle. I state here...

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: We really don’t want another long speech about the Führer. Just turn over the page and look at what is being said on the 26th of March:

“The report of the Polish Government on the measures against the Jewish population is published in full in the English press. A passage reads, ‘In the town of Vilna 50,000 Jews were murdered, in Rovno 14,000; in Lvov half of the total Jewish population.’

“Many details are also given about the use of poison gas, as at Chelm, of electricity in Belzec, of the deportations from Warsaw, the surrounding of blocks of houses, and of the attacks with machine guns.”

Did you read that one?

STREICHER: I do not know. However, that shootings must have occurred, of course, where Jews committed sabotage, et cetera, is self-evident. During a war that is considered as a matter of course. However, the figures which are quoted here were just simply not believable.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes. I understand you to say that now, but what I do not understand is what you meant when you said this morning that the Israelitisches Wochenblatt made no mention of murders and gave no figures. You didn’t say that the figures were unbelievable; you told this Tribunal, on your oath, that the newspaper contained nothing except the hints of disappearance, with no mention of figures. What did you mean by that?

STREICHER: I have said the truth under oath, but it is possible that one might not remember everything. During an interrogation some time back I stated, based on memory, that an issue must exist which mentions the disappearance of Jews, and so on. It is in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, and I thought I said that it was in 1943 and it is true. If one article after the other is put before me—well, even if I had seen it, how can I remember it? But that I, under oath, should have deliberately told you an untruth, that is, at any rate, not so.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: We will deal with the article you mention in 1943 in one moment; but just before we do that, just see if you believe your own staff. Turn, will you, to 38-A, M-139. Now, on the 6th of May it so happens just after those last three extracts from the Israelitisches Wochenblatt we have looked at, within 2 or 3 months, 1 or 2 months afterwards your newspaper is publishing this article. It is headed “Children of the Devil.”

“Der Stürmer paid a visit to the ghettos in the East. Der Stürmer sent its photographic reporter to various ghettos in the East; a member of Der Stürmer’s staff is well acquainted with the Jews. Nothing can surprise him easily. But what our contributor saw in these ghettos was a unique experience for him. He wrote, ‘What my eyes and my Leica camera saw here convinced me that the Jews are not human beings but children of the devil and the spawn of crime.... It is hard to see how it was possible that this scum of humanity was for centuries looked upon as God’s chosen people by the non-Jews. ... This satanic race really has no right to exist.’ ”

Now, you have heard of what was happening in the ghettos in the East during 1942 and 1943? Are you really telling this Tribunal that your photographer went with his camera to those ghettos and found out nothing about the mass murder of Jews?

STREICHER: Yes, otherwise he would have reported to us about it.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Warsaw ghetto, you remember, exterminated, wiped out in April 1943. Your photographer must have been around just about that time, if you were writing this on the 6th of May, if he had just returned. Did you think he could have been there looking at ghettos for Der Stürmer, for Julius Streicher, the Jew-baiter, and have discovered nothing of what was happening in the ghetto in Warsaw and elsewhere?

STREICHER: I can only remember that immediately after the end of the Polish campaign a Viennese reporter went over there, made films and made reports, in 1942. I would like to ask—is there a name, a signature there, to show by whom it was written? One thing I know is that the ghetto was destroyed; I read it in a summary, an illustrated report which I think originated in the Ministry of Propaganda. But as to the destruction of the ghetto during an uprising—well, I consider that legal; from my point of view it was right. But mass murders in the ghetto in Warsaw are something I never heard of.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, just let’s look at the article to which you referred a moment ago. Will you look at 44-A of the document book?

My Lord, this is the same as was included at Page 53 in the original document book; it was Document Number 1965-PS, Exhibit Number GB-176, but there is slightly more of the extract quoted at Page 44-A.

[Turning to the defendant.] Now, I just want you to examine for the last time whether or not you are speaking the truth in telling the Tribunal that you did not know what was happening. You quote in that article from the Swiss newspaper, the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, of the 27th August 1943—you will see that date, My Lord, in the middle of the first paragraph—I start now from that line in the middle:

“The Swiss Jewish newspaper goes on to say, ‘The Jews of Europe, with the exception of those in England and of insignificant Jewish communities in the few neutral countries, have disappeared, so to speak. The Jewish reservoir of the East that was able to counterbalance the force of assimilation in the West no longer exists.’ ”

That is the end of your quotation from the newspaper, and you go on to say:

“This is not a Jewish lie; it is really true that the Jews have, ‘so to speak,’ disappeared from Europe and that the ‘Jewish reservoir of the East’ from which the Jewish pestilence spread for centuries among the European nations has ceased to exist. If the Swiss newspaper wishes to affirm that the Jews did not expect this kind of development when they plunged the nations into the second World War, this is to be believed; but already at the beginning of the war the Führer of the German Nation prophesied the events that have taken place. He said that the second World War would swallow those who had conjured it.”

Now, are you really saying that when that article was written you did not know how to interpret the word “disappearance,” the disappearance of the Jews from the East? Are you really telling the Tribunal that?

STREICHER: Yes, the word “disappear” after all does not mean extermination en masse. This deals with a quotation from the Israelitisches Wochenblatt and is a repeated quotation of what the Führer had prophesied.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, now, would you look at the article from which you quote there, which you will find at Page 36-B; and I would like you to follow it, and we will read the two together. Now, the particular paragraph which I want to read in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt is that quotation which I have just read to you and you will find the same quotation.

My Lord, it starts at the end of the eighth but last line, “The Jews were” or rather “The Jews of Europe...” Have you got them in front of you, Defendant?

STREICHER: I shall listen to you.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It would be better, I think, if you followed it. I want to help you as much as possible. Page 44-A and 36-B. I will read slowly first of all from your Stürmer again:

“The Jews of Europe, with the exception of those in England and of insignificant Jewish communities in the few neutral countries, have, so to speak, disappeared...”

and you will see that you then go on in the quotation and say:

“...the Jewish reservoir of the East which was able to counterbalance the force of assimilation in the West no longer exists.”

Now, would you look at the original article:

“The Jews of Europe”—this is 36-B—“the Jews of Europe, with the exception of those in England and of insignificant Jewish communities in the few neutral countries, have, so to speak, disappeared.”

Now—there you go on, “The Jewish reservoir of the East”—the original goes on—“three million dead, the same number outlawed; many thousands, all over the world, mentally and physically broken.”

Are you telling this Tribunal now that on the 27th of August, or when you read that article of the 27th of August, you didn’t know that Jews were being murdered in the East and that you had not read of those things in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt?

STREICHER: Whether I had read it or not, I would not have believed it, that 3 million Jews had been killed. That is something I would not have believed, and that is why I left it out, at any rate. Anyhow, the German censorship would not have allowed the spreading of something which is not credible.

THE PRESIDENT: You didn’t read the last part of the line, did you?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: [Repeating.] “...were mentally and physically broken. That is the result of the new order.” I am very much obliged to you.

[Turning to the defendant.] “That is the result,” you say, “of the ‘new order’ in Europe...”

You say you didn’t believe it. Is that what you say now, that you must have read it—must you not?

STREICHER: Yes.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: But you just didn’t believe it; is that right?

STREICHER: No, I did not believe it.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Even if you didn’t believe it, when you were reading this newspaper more or less regularly, when your cameraman had been to the ghettos in the East, did you think it right to go on, week after week, in your newspaper crying for the extermination, murder, of the Jews?

STREICHER: That is not correct. It is not true that murder was demanded week after week. And I repeat again, the sharpening of our tone was the answer to the voice from America that called for our mass murder in Germany—eye for eye, tooth for tooth. If a Jew, Erich Kauffmann, demands mass murders in Germany, then perhaps I, as an author, can say that the Jews too should be exterminated. That is a literary matter. But the mass murders had taken place a long time before without our having known about them; and I state here that if I had known what had in fact happened in the East, then I would not have used these quotations at all.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: But, Defendant, you must have known then, must you not, after reading that article, after sending your cameraman, after the United Nations published their declaration, after Hitler’s prophecies had been made again and again in his proclamations, after you said his prophecy had been fulfilled? You really say you didn’t know?

STREICHER: The cameraman is at your disposal. He is in Vienna, and I ask to have him brought here. And I state that this cameraman reported nothing, and could not have reported anything, about mass murders.

THE PRESIDENT: I think we might adjourn now.

[A recess was taken.]

DR. MARX: Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal, and in the interest of clarification of the facts, I should like to point out the following: The Prosecutor, Sir Griffith-Jones, has mentioned a document, Page 38-A from Der Stürmer of 6 May 1943. That seems to be an error, because we are dealing here with Der Stürmer of 6 March 1943.

That date is of the greatest importance because if the photographer of Der Stürmer published a report of 6 March in Der Stürmer, then he must have been at the ghetto in Warsaw before 6 March 1943. Presumably...

THE PRESIDENT: Why do you say 6 March? The document I have before me has 6 May.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: There has been a mistake, I am afraid, in the German that Dr. Marx has. I have the original before me, which is 6 May 1943.

DR. MARX: Excuse me. At the present moment I cannot recall when the destruction of the ghetto of Warsaw took place. That was Document 1061-PS.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I cannot remember for the moment the number of the document, but the date was, I think from memory, from the 1st to the 23rd of April.

DR. MARX: Then, of course, my remark is without foundation. Please excuse me.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Now we had just dealt with the Israelitisches Wochenblatt issue for 27 August, the copy that you quoted from. I just refer you to one more copy of that newspaper. Would you look at Page 37-B, which is an issue of 10 September 1943:

“Statistics presented by the Convening Committee showed that 5 millions out of the 8.5 million Jews of Europe had died or been deported ... About 3 million Jews had lost their lives through forced labor and deportation.”

Did you read that one?

STREICHER: I do not know, and again I would not have believed it. To this day I do not believe that 5 million were killed. I consider it technically impossible that that could have happened. I do not believe it. I have not received proof of that up until now.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It is quite clear that there were plenty of figures for you, quoted in this Israelitisches Wochenblatt over the period that we are discussing. Plenty of figures, it now turns out, doesn’t it?

STREICHER: Pardon?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: We will go on. Now, I just want to put one or two further articles of your own to you. You remember what I am suggesting, that you are inciting the German people to murder. We know now that at least you had read one article in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt where murder is mentioned. I just want to see what you go on to publish in your own paper after that date.

Would you look at Page 47-A. This is an article by yourself on 6 January 1944. This is after you had been living on your estate for some time.

“After the National Socialist uprising in Germany, a development began in Europe, too, from which one can expect that it will free this continent for all time of the Jewish disintegrator and exploiter of nations; and, over and above this, that the German example will, after a victorious termination of the second World War, bring about the destruction of the Jewish world tormentor on the other continents as well.”

What example was the German nation setting to the other nations of the world? What example do you mean there?

STREICHER: This article corroborates what I have been saying all along. I spoke of an international solution of the Jewish question. I was convinced that if Germany had won this war or had been victorious over Bolshevism, then the world would have agreed that an understanding should be reached with the other nations for an international solution of the Jewish question. If I wrote here about destruction, it is not to be understood as destruction by mass killing; as I have said, that is an expression; I have to point out that I do not believe that Erich Kauffmann really wanted to kill the German people by sterilization, but he wrote it, and we sometimes wrote in the same manner, echoing the sounds that we heard in the other camp.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You have not yet told us what is this international solution that you are advocating by talking about extermination; if it is not murder, what is it? What is the solution?

STREICHER: I have already said that I founded the Anti-Semitic Union, and through this Anti-Semitic Union we wanted to create movements among the nations which should, above and beyond governments, act in such a way that an international possibility would be created, such as has been represented today here in this Trial—thus, I conceived it, to form an international congress center which would solve the Jewish question by the creation of a Jewish state and thereby destroy the power of the Jews within the nations.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That is your answer—that you were advocating a Jewish state? Is that all that this comes to? Is it simply that you were advocating a Jewish national home? Is that what you have been talking about in all these extracts that we have read? Is that the solution which you are advocating?

STREICHER: Well, I do not know what you want with that question. Of course, that is the solution.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Let us just go on now. Turn to Page 48-A now, will you? This is 24 January 1944, “Whoever does what a Jew does is a scoundrel, a criminal, and he who repeats and wishes to copy him deserves the same fate—annihilation, death.”

Are you still advocating a national Jewish home?

STREICHER: Yes, that has nothing to do with the big political plan. If you take every statement by a writer, every statement from a daily newspaper, as an example, and want to prove a political aim by it, then you miss the point. You have to distinguish between a newspaper article and a great political aim.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well, let us just turn now to the next page, 2 March 1944, “Eternal night must come over the born criminal race of Jews so that eternal day may bless awakening non-Jewish mankind.”

Were they going to have eternal night in their national Jewish state? Is that what you wanted?

STREICHER: That is an anti-Semitic play of words. Again it has nothing to do with the great political aim.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It may be an anti-Semitic play of words, but the only meaning it can have is murder. Is that not true?

STREICHER: No.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you turn to the next page, 25 May 1944; and I remind you that these are all after you must have read of the murder in Israelitisches Wochenblatt. I quote the second paragraph:

“How can we overcome this danger and restore humanity to health? Just as the individual human being is able to defend himself against contagious diseases only if he proclaims war against the cause of the disease, the germ, so the world can be restored to health only when the most terrible germ of all times, the Jew, has been removed. It is of no avail to battle against the outward symptoms of the world disease without rendering the morbific agents innocuous. The disease will break out again sooner or later. The cause and the carrier of the disease, the germ, will see to that. But if the nations are to be restored to health and are to remain healthy in the future, then the germ of the Jewish world plague must be destroyed, root and branch.”

Is that what you mean? Are you saying there when you say “must be destroyed root and branch”—did you mean to say “ought to be given a Jewish national state”?

STREICHER: Yes, it is a far cry from such a statement in an article to the act, or to the will, to commit mass murder.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Turn over to the 10th of August. “When it loses this struggle, Judaism will be ruined, then the Jew will be extinguished. Then will Judaism be annihilated down to the last man.”

Are we to read from these words: Provide the Jews with a Jewish national state?

STREICHER: That is a vision of the future. I would like to call it an expression of a prophetic vision. But it is not incitement to kill 5 million Jews. That is an opinion, a matter, of belief, of conviction.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It is the prophetic vision of what you wanted, is it not—of what you have been advocating now for the last 4 years—the beginning of the war? Isn’t that what it is?

STREICHER: Mr. Prosecutor, I cannot tell you today what I may have been thinking years ago at a certain moment when writing an article. But still I admit that when I saw lying before me on the table declarations from the Jewish front, many declarations saying, “the German nation has to be destroyed; bomb the cities, do not spare women, children, or old men”—if one has declarations like these in front of one, it is possible that things will come from one’s pen such as I have often written.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You know, do you not, now, even if you do not believe the full figures, that millions of Jews have been murdered since the beginning of the war? Do you know that? You have heard the evidence, have you not?

STREICHER: I believe it...

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I only wanted to know whether you had heard that evidence. You can answer “yes” or “no,” and I presume it will be “yes.”

STREICHER: Yes, I have to say, evidence for me is only the testament of the Führer. There he states that the mass executions took place upon his orders. That I believe. Now I believe it.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Do you think that it would have been possible to carry out the extermination of 6 million Jews in 1921? Do you think the German people would have stood for it? Do you think it would have been possible under any regime in 1921 to have carried out the murder of 6 million men, women, and children of the Jewish race?

STREICHER: Whether that would have been possible with the knowledge of the people—no, it would not have been possible. The prosecutor himself has said here that since 1937 the Party had full control over the people. Now even if the people had known this, according to the opinion of the Prosecution, they could not have done anything against that dictatorship because of that control. But the people did not know it. That is my belief, my conviction, and my knowledge.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Was it possible to exterminate people in that way only after some 20 years of incitement and propaganda by you and other Nazis? Is that what made that possible?

STREICHER: I deny that the population was incited. It was enlightened, and sometimes a harsh word may have been directed against the other side as an answer. It was enlightenment, not incitement. And if we want to keep our place before history I have to state again and again that the German people did not want any killings, whether individually or en masse.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am not going to let you go into another history about the German people. I am going to remind you of what you have said...

STREICHER: Adolf Hitler...

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am going to remind you of what you said yesterday. I read from the transcript: You speak of a Jewish question at the time—that is 1923—“I would like to say that the public distinguished Jews only by their religion; to speak about a Jewish problem then would have been nonsense.”

Was that because there was no Jewish problem then, and that the Jewish problem had only been created by you and the Nazi regime?

STREICHER: It was my aim, and I reached that goal in part: If the laws which in the future should make impossible sexual intercourse between different races, that is to say if that should become law—then it would make the public realize that to be a Jew is not a point of religion but of people and race. I helped to create that basis. But mass killings were not the result of the enlightenment, or as the Prosecution say, incitement. Mass killings were the last acts of will of a great man of history who was probably desperate because he saw that he would not win.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I have no further questions. Perhaps I might be allowed to just sort out the exhibits and then mention to the Tribunal their numbers. If the Tribunal would agree, those that I have put in evidence, which are the other parts of the bundle other than I have actually quoted from—perhaps I could put them all in as one number and hand the exhibits in to the clerk, if that would be the convenient course.

THE PRESIDENT: I think so, yes. If they are in one bundle and you are going to give one number to a number of documents, it had better be in one bundle, had it not?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, do you want to re-examine?

DR. MARX: I do not consider it necessary any more.

THE PRESIDENT: Then the defendant can return to the dock. Dr. Marx, will you continue the defendant’s case?

DR. MARX: I call now, with the permission of the Court, the witness Fritz Herrwerth.

[The witness Herrwerth took the stand.]

THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?

FRITZ HERRWERTH (Witness): Fritz Herrwerth.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: “I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the pure truth—and will withhold and add nothing.”

[The witness repeated the oath in German.]

You may sit down.

DR. MARX: How long have you known the Defendant Streicher?

HERRWERTH: Since the Party Rally in 1934.

DR. MARX: When did you enter his service and in what capacity?

HERRWERTH: I was employed on 15 October 1934, in Nuremberg, not in the personal service of Herr Streicher himself, but in the municipal motor pool. However, I worked for the then Gauleiter Streicher.

DR. MARX: When did you leave that service?

HERRWERTH: In August 1943.

DR. MARX: For what reason?

HERRWERTH: It was a personal dispute, and mainly due to my fault.

DR. MARX: Did you have any other tasks to carry out for Herr Streicher?

HERRWERTH: Yes.

DR. MARX: And which?

HERRWERTH: Well, whatever came up. I also did agricultural work at the end.

DR. MARX: Thus you were very often with Streicher?

HERRWERTH: Yes.

DR. MARX: And therefore you knew about the most important incidents during that period?

HERRWERTH: Yes. I do not know, however, what you call important incidents. There were things that I do not know about, that is, at least I assume that.

DR. MARX: I will ask you later in detail.

HERRWERTH: Yes, if you please.

DR. MARX: The Defendant Streicher is accused of having caused acts of violence against the Jews and of having participated in these acts. Do you know of any such case?

HERRWERTH: Not a single one.

DR. MARX: Will you please wait until the end of my question, and then I shall say “end of question.” On 9 November 1938, did you drive Streicher back to Nuremberg from Munich, and when? End of question.

HERRWERTH: It was on 9 November, yes. I do not know the time exactly. At that time Streicher left Munich a bit earlier, and it may have been about—I do not know for sure—9 o’clock perhaps.

DR. MARX: Did Streicher know already during that ride back that something was to be done that night against the Jewish population?

HERRWERTH: No, he knew nothing about that.

DR. MARX: Then, during the night of 9 November, did you witness a conversation between Streicher and the SA Leader, Von Obernitz?

HERRWERTH: Yes.

DR. MARX: Where did that conversation take place?

HERRWERTH: In order to answer that question, I have to explain a little further. When Herr Streicher went to bed, I was usually with him or the house superintendent. On that evening Herr Streicher went to bed earlier than usual. I do not know the reason. And that concluded my work for the day. I went from Herr Streicher to the Casino of the Gauleitung. That was in the cellar of the Gauleitung building on Schlageterstrasse. I played cards there. And then the former SA Obergruppenführer, Von Obernitz, came and called me, as was customary, by the name of Fritz and told me he had to speak to Herr Streicher very urgently; and I answered him that Herr Streicher had already gone to bed. Then he said, “Then I must rouse him,” and he told me he would assume the responsibility; it was an important affair. Herr Von Obernitz went to Herr Streicher’s apartment in my car. Herr Streicher’s bedroom is above my apartment. I had the keys and of course I could get in at any time.

On the way to the apartment at night I noticed that many SA men were in the streets. I asked Herr Von Obernitz the reason for that. He told me that that night something was going to happen; the Jewish homes were to be destroyed. He did not say anything further to me.

I accompanied Herr Von Obernitz all the way to the bed of Herr Streicher. Herr Von Obernitz then reported to Streicher about what was happening that night. I cannot recall the details very well any more, but I believe that he said that that night the Jewish homes were to be destroyed. Herr Streicher was, if I may say so, surprised. He had not known anything about it. He said literally to Herr Von Obernitz, and I remember that very clearly, “That is wrong. One does not solve the Jewish question that way. Do what you have been ordered. I shall have no part in it. If anything should occur so that you need me, then you may come for me.” I can also mention that thereupon Herr Von Obernitz said that Hitler had declared that the SA should be allowed to have a fling as retribution for what had occurred in Paris in connection with Herr Vorn Rath. Streicher stayed in bed and did not go out during that night.

DR. MARX: Did Herr Von Obernitz mention anything about the fact that the synagogues were to be set on fire?

HERRWERTH: I believe so, yes. But, as far as I remember, Herr Streicher refused to do that, too, because the synagogue, as far as I know, was burned down by the regular fire department, and upon orders from Herr Von Obernitz.

DR. MARX: How do you know that?

HERRWERTH: I was there.

DR. MARX: Did you watch it?

HERRWERTH: Yes. I was at the synagogue during the night.

DR. MARX: And how could one assume that the regular fire department started the fire?

HERRWERTH: How that could be assumed I do not know, but I saw it. The regular fire department started the fire.

DR. MARX: Were you there in time to see how the fire was started or did you arrive when the building was already on fire?

HERRWERTH: The building was not yet on fire, but the fire department was there already.

DR. MARX: Is that right?

HERRWERTH: I can say nothing else.

DR. MARX: Did Herr Streicher at that time mention anything about the fact that he was afraid of a new wave of excitement on the part of the world press if the synagogue was burned? Did he say that that is why he refused to do it?

HERRWERTH: I believe so, yes, but I could not say definitely; but, if I remember correctly, they spoke about that.

DR. MARX: Did Obernitz say from whom he had received the order?

HERRWERTH: He only repeated what Hitler had said—the SA should be allowed to have a fling.

DR. MARX: Is it correct that you, Witness, told your wife during the same night about that conversation between Obernitz and Streicher?

HERRWERTH: I believe I did not speak about the conversation; but when I walked down from the second floor to the ground floor through my apartment, I told my wife that I would probably be a little late because that night that action was going to be started; I told her briefly what was happening but nothing about the conversation.

DR. MARX: Then, later you were at the Pleikershof when Streicher had been forced to retire there or had retired?

HERRWERTH: Yes.

DR. MARX: Do you remember an incident where the future Frau Streicher spoke about the incidents at Magdeburg which had occurred there the same night?

HERRWERTH: No, I know nothing of that.

DR. MARX: Did you not tell the then Frau Merkel that she should not talk about these incidents because Streicher always got very excited about them?

HERRWERTH: I can recall that Herr Streicher once said that he had been right in his opinion, for, not long after that night he received information—I do not know through whom—that, for instance, the glass for the window panes had to be bought from Holland again. Herr Streicher said then that that was the first confirmation of the correctness of the opinion he had expressed at that time.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, just one moment.

Sir David, would it be convenient to you and the counsel for the Defendant Von Schirach if we discussed the question about the documents at 0930 tomorrow morning?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I will find out. Yes, counsel for Von Schirach says that he thinks it is all right.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, 0930 tomorrow morning.

DR. MARX: What observations did you make during your stay at Pleikershof about the attitude of Streicher with regard to the Jewish question? What was that about the Israelitisches Wochenblatt?

HERRWERTH: Well, what do you want to know about the Israelitisches Wochenblatt? Herr Streicher received it.

DR. MARX: Did he receive it regularly?

HERRWERTH: Yes, I believe I can say that quite certainly. I always saw large bundles of newspapers of the Israelitisches Wochenblatt. They came continuously.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher said that during the first years of the war he had great difficulty in getting that paper and the Police did not release it easily.

HERRWERTH: Yes, that can very well be. For I do not know, after all, of what year they were. I just saw them and it is difficult for me to tell now of what date these papers were.

DR. MARX: Yes, you said there were always large bundles of them.

HERRWERTH: Yes, on and off, but there were other newspapers too. Swiss newspapers were there, the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, and so on. There were always so many newspapers lying about and among them I saw here and there the Israelitisches Wochenblatt. I mean to say that it would not be possible for me to say how many there were.

DR. MARX: All right. Did Streicher speak at times about his knowledge of happenings in the East or of happenings in concentration camps in the East?

HERRWERTH: Well. Herr Streicher did not know anything at all about it. Thus he could not say anything about it. At least that is my conviction.

DR. MARX: Did you, then, ever speak to him about it?

HERRWERTH: Not that I know of; I did not know anything about it myself.

DR. MARX: Did you ever receive knowledge of a letter in which Streicher was reproached by Reichsführer SS Himmler because he treated the French prisoners too well? Did you understand me?

HERRWERTH: Yes, I understood, but I have to think about it. I know quite well that Herr Streicher once mentioned something about the treatment of prisoners. I know that the Frenchmen were treated very well, but whether the cause for that was a letter from Himmler I do not know.

DR. MARX: No, no. The cause for the good treatment, you mean?

HERRWERTH: No, the cause for Herr Streicher’s speaking about it. Herr Streicher spoke about reproaches against the good treatment of the Frenchmen; but I do not know whether the fact that he spoke about it was due to a letter from Himmler. But I do not believe that there was a single Frenchman who could complain in any way about the treatment.

DR. MARX: You were no longer present when the Frenchmen left?

HERRWERTH: No.

DR. MARX: Do you know about an incident when the publisher Fink came into the garden of Streicher’s home and admitted having lied to the police in an affair concerning shares?

HERRWERTH: The question must be put in detail, Mr. Attorney, for I do not know all about it, only part of it. I know that the then Director Fink stood in tears before Streicher, that he wailed, that he accused himself, saying that he was a rascal and a traitor. But why, I do not know. For Herr Streicher then walked farther into the garden with him, and I only saw that Herr Fink wept, and again heard how he accused himself.

DR. MARX: Do you know that Streicher at certain intervals brought people from the SPD and the KPD (Social Democratic Party and Communist Party) from the Dachau Concentration Camp?

HERRWERTH: Yes.

DR. MARX: How many do you suppose there were?

HERRWERTH: I do not know. It was every year around Christmas time. I estimate that there were about 100 to 150 men every year. They came from Dachau. Herr Streicher had dinner prepared for them in a separate room, in the Hotel Deutscher Hof, and I believe that used to be the family reunion—that is to say, the prisoners rejoined the members of their family. Streicher also saw to it that released prisoners found work, and he intervened personally for them.

DR. MARX: Did he also get work for one or another of these released persons?

HERRWERTH: Yes.

DR. MARX: What do you know about that?

HERRWERTH: I remember that three men, I believe, came into the Mars motorcycle factory. Herr Streicher at that time told the plenipotentiary of the German Labor Front to find positions for these people, as far as I remember.

DR. MARX: What was the attitude of Streicher when he found out that members of the Party had acquired cars and villas of Jewish property at very low prices?

HERRWERTH: I can still remember when Herr Streicher returned from Berlin. I do not know how much Herr Streicher knew at that time about these purchases; but at any rate, when Herr Streicher returned from Berlin where Herr Göring had expressed his views about these low-priced purchases of buildings, Herr Streicher, just arrived at the Nuremberg railroad station, said—and I heard it myself—that these purchases had to be nullified at once.

Besides, I know only about one case where a Party member had to do with the purchase of a house. I do not know whether there were more of them.

DR. MARX: Do you know whether Streicher was under surveillance by the Gestapo while on his farm and that there was a prohibition against visiting him there?

HERRWERTH: In answering the first question, I cannot say for sure that Criminal Police agents were there. I cannot affirm categorically that Herr Streicher was once under observation, but it could be safely assumed. I know of a woman who even stated that she had been photographed in the forest when she came from the railroad station to the farm. And what was the second question?

DR. MARX: Whether people were prohibited from visiting him.

HERRWERTH: Yes. I met various members of the Party within the city and whomever I asked said to me, “Impossible to get out there, impossible to get out there.” And if I asked who had issued the prohibition, then no one would talk about it; but as one heard it here and there, this prohibition was said to have been issued by the Deputy of the Führer, Herr Hess.

DR. MARX: Do you know anything about the fact that Streicher, when he found out that acts of violence against Jews or other political adversaries were intended, stopped them immediately?

HERRWERTH: Yes. At least, on the basis of his statements. He always said that that was wrong.

DR. MARX: Do you know of any case where he took measures against somebody who had been a party to such acts of violence? If you do not know it, say you do not know.

HERRWERTH: Very well, at this moment I cannot recall any case.

DR. MARX: Do you know anything about that affair concerning the Mars Works shares? What do you know about it?

HERRWERTH: Yes. I know about that case through statements made by Streicher at that time. I was not a witness to these events myself, but Herr Streicher once related to me what had happened. Shall I describe it briefly?

DR. MARX: Yes, but very condensed, please.

HERRWERTH: Streicher was in a Turkish bath at the time when the Director Fink and his adjutant, König, came and offered to sell the shares to Herr Streicher. Herr Streicher said, “What kind of shares are they?” The answer was, “They are shares of the Mars Works.” He said, “How many?” The answer was “100,000 marks’ worth.” Then Streicher said, “What do the shares cost?” He was told “5,000 marks.” Herr Streicher asked, “Why are these shares so cheap?” Finally Herr Fink said, I believe, “Because they are Jewish shares.”

Whoever knows Herr Streicher as I do, knows that Herr Streicher has never taken anything from a Jew. He protested very emphatically against the fact that such an offer had been made to him at all.

That seemed to settle the matter for the time being, and then suddenly the then Gauleiter Herr Streicher had the thought that with that money he could possibly construct the third Gau building. He mentioned that to the gentlemen as they left, and they decided to buy the shares. Herr Streicher forbade them to use Party money. Then both did not know what to do. Herr Streicher said he would advance these 5,000 marks.

That settled the case, but I had another experience later. It was about one and a half years after that trial that Streicher had had in Munich, when he was dismissed. At that time the wife of NSKK Obergruppenführer Zühlen came to me and asked whether I already knew that the criminal police was again in Nuremberg concerning the Streicher case. I said “no” to Frau Zühlen and added, “If they want to find out something why do they not come out to the farm to Herr Streicher himself? He will give them all the necessary information.”

After about 2 to 3 weeks, I met the Director of Der Stürmer, Fischer, successor to Herr Fink. He told me—but I would like to mention first that the shares, together with the 5,000 marks, were confiscated from Herr Streicher. The then Director Fischer told me that on that same day he had received a phone call from the trustee association, and that the trustee association had reported to Director Fischer that they had transferred to the account of Der Stürmer the 5,000 marks which Streicher at that time had advanced for the purchase of the shares.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, do you not think he is going into rather too much detail about this?

DR. MARX: Yes.

HERRWERTH: Yes, I will make it shorter.

The man from the trustee association said that the 5,000 marks were released because the innocence of Streicher had been proved in this matter.

DR. MARX: You witnessed the Supreme Party Court session at that time?

HERRWERTH: Yes.

DR. MARX: What did Herr Fink say at that time? Did he not accuse himself again of having made false statements?

HERRWERTH: I was not present when Herr Fink was questioned.

DR. MARX: Very well. Then I would like to ask you, were you present when the incident in Munich occurred at the Künstlerhaus Inn—with the man who accosted Streicher?

HERRWERTH: Yes.

DR. MARX: Can you give us a description of how that incident occurred?

HERRWERTH: Well, Herr Streicher left the inn after dinner. I cannot remember the exact words any more, but I am going to try to describe it as well as possible. Herr Streicher left the inn, and as he went out that man approached Herr Streicher in a—may I say—improper manner. Streicher continued on his way and was silent at first. He asked the people around him, myself also, whether we knew that man. Nobody knew him.

Then Herr Streicher sent his son, Lothar, back into the room again to speak to the man and to ask him what the reason was for such behavior. Lothar Streicher came out and said that the man had behaved in just the same manner again.

DR. MARX: Will you please be more brief? You should only tell us how that incident occurred and what caused you and also Herr Streicher to use violence against the man.

HERRWERTH: You mean his behavior?

DR. MARX: Yes. What happened then?

HERRWERTH: Herr Streicher asked the landlord for a room, and in that room Streicher spoke to the man personally. There again the man made offensive remarks, and then it came to blows, first with Lothar Streicher. Now, as it happened, he was a strong man, and of course all of us helped to get him down.

DR. MARX: All right.

I am through with the questioning of this witness, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the Defense Counsel want to ask any questions? Do any of the Prosecution Counsel wish to cross-examine? Then the witness can retire.

[The witness left the stand.]

DR. MARX: Then I should like to call the witness Wurzbacher, if he is available. Is he not? I do not know which one of the witnesses is still in the witness room. Is there anyone? Wurzbacher? Hiemer?

MARSHAL (Colonel Charles W. Mays): Frau Streicher is available.

THE PRESIDENT: Is not the witness Wurzbacher here?

MARSHAL: I will see, Sir. He was not here a while ago. He was not called for.

THE PRESIDENT: What other witnesses have you got, Dr. Marx?

DR. MARX: The wife of the defendant could be called as a witness now.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well, let her be called then.

MARSHAL: The witness Strobel is available now.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx wants to call Frau Streicher.

DR. MARX: Excuse me, Mr. President. If it is rather difficult to call Frau Streicher, then the witness...

[The witness Frau Streicher took the stand.]

THE PRESIDENT: Will you give me your full name?

FRAU ADELE STREICHER (Witness): Adele Streicher, born Tappe.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: “I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the pure truth—and will withhold and add nothing.”

[The witness repeated the oath in German.]

You may sit down.

DR. MARX: Your maiden name is Tappe and you were born in Magdeburg?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: Were you a member of the NSDAP or of the Frauenschaft?

FRAU STREICHER: No.

DR. MARX: When did you become Herr Streicher’s secretary and for how long were you in that job?

FRAU STREICHER: On 7 June 1940, I became Julius Streicher’s secretary and I remained in that job until the end of the war.

DR. MARX: And during that period, you were continuously on his farm?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes, I was always with him.

DR. MARX: Were you also in charge of all the correspondence for Herr Streicher?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: What did that correspondence mainly consist of?

FRAU STREICHER: Mainly letters to his sons and to relatives.

DR. MARX: What were Streicher’s activities during that period of 5 years?

FRAU STREICHER: Julius Streicher did mainly physical work; that is, agriculture and gardening, and from time to time he wrote articles for Der Stürmer.

DR. MARX: During these 5 years did he leave the farm at all or was he ever absent from the farm for any length of time?

FRAU STREICHER: During the first few years of his stay there Julius Streicher did not leave the farm at all; later, once in a while, he would pay a visit in the neighborhood. His longest absence did not comprise an entire day and never a single night.

DR. MARX: Did you know that it was prohibited for prominent Party members to visit Herr Streicher?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes, there was such a prohibition.

DR. MARX: How did you know that?

FRAU STREICHER: From conversations. Then, too, I myself remember, when Dr. Goebbels visited the farm, that Julius Streicher said to him, “Doctor, you dare to come here? Do you not know that it is prohibited by the Party chiefs to visit me?”

DR. MARX: When did the visits of Dr. Ley and Dr. Goebbels occur?

FRAU STREICHER: Dr. Ley came to the farm on 7 May 1944. The visit of Dr. Goebbels occurred on 4 June 1944.

DR. MARX: Would you please describe the character of these visits and what was the subject of the conversations?

FRAU STREICHER: Both visits were of a rather unofficial character. Dr. Ley wanted mainly to know how Julius Streicher was doing, personally. No political questions were raised. Ley said only, “Streicher, the Führer is waiting for you.”

DR. MARX: And what did Streicher say to that?

FRAU STREICHER: Julius Streicher answered that he had become accustomed to his solitude, that he was happy as a farmer, and that Ley should tell the Führer that he, Streicher, wanted nothing more. At the visit of Dr. Goebbels the subject of the conversation dealt mainly with Julius Streicher’s dismissal from his office as Gauleiter, and Dr. Goebbels was of the opinion that Julius Streicher should return into the circle of old Party members; but he gave him the same answer, “Tell the Führer I wish for nothing.”

DR. MARX: Were you always present during these conversations?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: Was not the Jewish question a subject of these conversations?

FRAU STREICHER: No, they never spoke about the Jewish question.

DR. MARX: Did they not speak about the happenings in the Eastern territories, or in the concentration camps?

FRAU STREICHER: No, that never came up any more.

DR. MARX: Did not Streicher speak to you about the articles he intended to write for Der Stürmer, and did he not also speak about what he considered to be the solution of the Jewish problem?

FRAU STREICHER: From all conversations with Julius Streicher I could see with certainty that he never thought of the solution of the Jewish question in terms of violence, but hoped for the emigration of Jews from Europe and their settlement in territories outside Europe.

DR. MARX: Was Herr Streicher in correspondence with leading personalities of the Party or of the State?

FRAU STREICHER: No, neither personally nor by correspondence was there any such connection.

DR. MARX: I will now mention several names, of whom I want you to tell me whether they had any connection with him: Himmler, Heydrich, Bormann, or other leading men of the Police or the SS or the Gestapo.

FRAU STREICHER: No, I know nothing of any of these men. With the exception of one letter from Herr Himmler there was never any mail.

DR. MARX: What was the reason for that letter?

FRAU STREICHER: In that letter Herr Himmler complained about the fact that the French prisoners of war who were employed on our Pleikershof farm were treated too well.

DR. MARX: How was the treatment of the prisoners of war and the foreign civilian workers on the farm?

FRAU STREICHER: On the Pleikershof eight French prisoners of war, one Polish girl, and one Slovene girl were employed. They were all treated very well and very humanely. Each service for which Julius Streicher asked, each piece of work for which he asked personally, was especially rewarded with tobacco, pastry, fruit, or even money. Such cordial relations developed with some of the Frenchmen during the years that they were there that they assured us, with tears in their eyes at their departure, that they would visit Julius Streicher after the war with their families.

DR. MARX: Did Streicher not finally receive credible information about these mass executions in the East?

FRAU STREICHER: I believe he found out about it through Swiss newspapers in 1944. We were never informed about it officially.

DR. MARX: But it is asserted that he already had knowledge before that.

FRAU STREICHER: No.

DR. MARX: You do not know anything about it?

FRAU STREICHER: I only know about the Swiss newspapers.

DR. MARX: Very well. You once brought up the subject, in a conversation, that in Magdeburg, from the 9 to 10 November 1938, you witnessed the demonstration against the Jews and that you were revolted by it. Is that true?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes, I spoke about it and said that I was shocked at this action. Julius Streicher got very excited during that conversation and said, “Such nonsense occurred in Nuremberg also. That is not anti-Semitism; that is just great stupidity.”

DR. MARX: Is it correct that Herr Streicher was hardly interested in the financial affairs of the publishing firm and left these things to the manager?

FRAU STREICHER: Julius Streicher never bothered about financial affairs at all, neither in the house nor in the firm. Again and again the gentlemen of the firm were disappointed when they wanted to report about annual balances or the like and Julius Streicher would tell them, “Do not worry me with your business matters. There are other things besides that are more important than money.”

DR. MARX: How did he take care of the household expenses, then?

FRAU STREICHER: I received 1,000 marks every month from the firm. That provided for the household, presents, and so on.

DR. MARX: Do you know that he is supposed to have acquired shares through illegal pressure against a Jewish banker?

FRAU STREICHER: That is completely out of the question. I consider it quite impossible that Julius Streicher acquired shares that way. I believe that he does not even know what a share looks like.

DR. MARX: Did he not tell you anything about it?

FRAU STREICHER: I only heard that he never received shares.

DR. MARX: How did it come about that you and the defendant were married as late as April 1945?

Did you understand the question?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes. Julius Streicher wanted to take part in the fighting in Nuremberg. I wanted to accompany him, so he married me before we left. We wanted to die together.

DR. MARX: Then you left the Pleikershof with him, and where did you go from there?

FRAU STREICHER: First we wanted to go to Nuremberg, and that was refused for fear of difficulties with the authorities. So we drove in the direction of Munich. In Munich we were told to continue in the direction of Passau. From Passau they sent us to Berchtesgaden; from Berchtesgaden they sent us to Kitzbühel.

DR. MARX: How did it happen that the original intention to die together was not followed up? What caused him to change his mind?

FRAU STREICHER: The cause for that was a conversation with three young soldiers.

DR. MARX: And what was that? I will be through right away, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you should go into that, Dr. Marx.

DR. MARX: Well, then. I will forego the question. Only one more question: Is it correct that Streicher gave the managers of his publishing firm a written power of attorney which meant that they could dispose of the money as they saw fit?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes, Julius Streicher gave the power of attorney to whoever happened to be the manager of the firm, and thereby gave him his full confidence without any restrictions.

DR. MARX: Mr. President, I have no more questions.

THE PRESIDENT: Do any of the defendants’ counsel want to ask any questions?

Does the Prosecution wish to ask any questions?

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: No.

THE PRESIDENT: Then the witness can retire, and the Court will adjourn until 0930 tomorrow morning.

[The Tribunal adjourned until 30 April 1946 at 0930 hours.]

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ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEENTH DAY
Tuesday, 30 April 1946