Under the division of the case agreed on by the Chief Prosecutors of the four Allied nations, the French and Soviet delegates are responsible for the presentation of evidence bearing on the proof of Count III (War Crimes) and Count IV (Crimes against Humanity) of the Indictment. The French case will concern itself with these crimes when committed in the West, while the Russian evidence will concern the commission of these crimes in the East. None of the documents obtained by these two prosecuting nations are included in these volumes. The reason is that, at this writing, the French case has just commenced and the Soviet case will not be reached for several weeks. Since one of the objects of this undertaking is to acquaint the American public at the earliest opportunity with the character of the evidence produced by its representatives, there seems no justification in delaying publication until the close of the French and Russian cases, when all the prosecution documents will be available. As is indicated by the title of these present volumes, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, this collection relates only to Counts I and II of the Indictment, or one-half of the prosecution case. It is to be hoped, however, that supplementary volumes containing the French and Soviet documents may be published at a later time.
Finally, this collection, by its nature limited to a part of the prosecution case, does not of course purport to present the whole story of the evidence adduced at Nurnberg. The evidence and arguments of defense counsel will not be presented for some time, and the text of these matters will, if possible, be included in any additional volumes, which it may become possible to publish.
III
On the other hand, it may be useful to indicate what this collection is. The publication is offered in accordance with the conviction which has constantly animated the American prosecution, that only a part of its duty would have been done if it succeeded in persuading the judges of the International Military Tribunal. Its full task will be accomplished only if the world is also convinced of the justness of the cause. There were always some people who, perhaps under the spell of the exposure of the “atrocity propaganda” used in the First World War, felt that the deceptions and the outrages laid to the Nazis were quite possibly untrue and in any event exaggerated. The mission of convincing these skeptics is one that has not been and cannot be discharged by newspaper reports of the Nurnberg proceedings, which by their nature are incomplete and evanescent. But an inspection of the Nazis’ own official records should suffice to banish all honest doubts, and to make it undeniably clear that those things really happened because the Nazis planned it that way. It is the hope of the American prosecution that these volumes may in some measure expose, for the warning of future generations as well as a reminder to the present, the anatomy of National Socialism in all its ugly nakedness. Many of these documents disclose the repressive governmental machinery and intricate Party bureaucracy by which the Nazis stifled initiative and opposition. They reveal also the image of horror which a gang of brigands created in the name of the German state, in order to seize and maintain power for themselves at the expense of the liberties of their own people and the lives of their neighbors. Legal proof has perhaps seldom been so overwhelming, certainly never so self-admitted, as is this proof of the deeds with which the Nazi leadership befouled the earth.
Yet, although these documents naturally are concerned primarily with the guilt of the leaders of the German Reich, they also contain a wealth of information, much of it hitherto unavailable elsewhere, on many other matters of importance. Their pages illuminate many dark corners of recent history. Hence, this collection has an additional purpose. It is offered as a source book, of interest to historians, political scientists, students, universities, libraries, government agencies, private research groups, newspaper editors, and others, so that they may see, from the official papers of the Nazi government and from the words of its own leaders, the things that went on in Germany in the days of that blasphemous regime. These papers, although they include a few legal matters, are not addressed nor are they expected to appeal primarily to lawyers. The satisfaction of these professional interests must perforce be postponed until publication of the official record of the trial.
IV
It is apparent that such a vast collection of documents on a variety of subjects would be useless to any one not thoroughly conversant with the field, without some sort of guide through the maze. That is the reason for the first two volumes, which consist of various explanatory materials included in order to facilitate understanding. The average reader who tries to cope with some of the more pompous of the Nazi titles—such as Beauftragter des Fuehrers fuer die ueberwachung des Gesamten Geistigen und Weltausschaulichers Schulung und Erziehung der NSDAP, or Delegate of the Fuehrer for the Total Supervision of Intellectual and Ideological Training and Education of the Party (Rosenberg)—is plainly in need of assistance. A Glossary of common German and Nazi titles, designations, and terms has therefore been compiled. For those who are unfamiliar with the difference between a Hauptmann and a Hauptsturmfuehrer, a table of military ranks, with their American equivalents, has been prepared. A brief biographical gazeteer of the more prominent Nazis, together with a listing of the major officials of the Government, Party, and Armed Forces, has also been included for reference purposes. In addition, an index of the Code-Words used by the Nazis to preserve the secrecy of the invasions they plotted has been compiled. Moreover, in order to make clear developments in the proceedings affecting the status of several of the defendants, certain motions of counsel and rulings of the Tribunal, together with factual accounts, are also presented. And finally the international treaties relating to land warfare and prisoners of war are printed in full (3737-PS; 3738-PS).
The principal content of Volumes I and II is composed of what might be called essays, summarizing and connecting up most of the documents relating to particular subjects in the order of their mention in Counts I and II of the Indictment. As an additional aid, at the end of each essay there appears a descriptive list of all documents referred to in the essay, so that the reader may quickly discover which of the published documents bear upon the subject in which he is interested. In many cases these lists include documents not discussed in the essays for the reason that they are cumulative in nature or were discovered subsequent to the preparation of the essays.
Some of these essays are adaptations of factual “trial briefs” prepared by the staff of OCC. Some of these “trial briefs” were handed to the Tribunal for its assistance, while others were used only for the guidance of trial counsel. Others of the essays have been adapted from the oral presentation and summary of counsel in court. Their difference in origin explains their difference in form. It must be borne in mind that each of these essays, which were originally prepared for the purpose of convincing the Tribunal of the legal guilt of the defendants, has been submitted to a process of editing and revision in order to serve a quite different purpose—to give the general reader a general and coherent conception of the subject matter.
These essays bear the marks of haste and are not offered as in any sense definitive or exhaustive. The task of translation from German into English was a formidable one, and in many instances translations of documents could be made available to the brief-writers only a few days before the briefs were scheduled to be presented in court. In other instances it was utterly impossible, with the constantly overburdened translating staff available, to translate in full all the material known to be of value if the prosecution was to be ready on the date set for trial. The diary of Hans Frank, for example (2233-PS) consisted of 42 volumes, of which only a few outstanding excerpts, chosen by German-reading analysts, were translated. Similarly, large portions of the 250 volumes of the Rosenberg correspondence remain still untranslated and unused. Books, decrees, and lengthy reports were not translated, in full, and only salient excerpts were utilized. Approximately 1,500 documents in the possession of OCC have not yet been translated and more are being received daily. It is expected that they will be used for purposes of cross-examination and rebuttal, and may later be published.