When Fritzsche entered the Propaganda Ministry, which has been called the most fabulous “lie factory” of all time, and thus attached himself to the conspiracy, he did so with more of an open mind than most of the conspirators who had committed themselves at an earlier date, before the seizure of power. He was in a particularly strategic position to observe the frauds committed upon the German people and the world by the conspirators.
In 1933, before Fritzsche took his Party oath of unconditional obedience and subservience to the Fuehrer, he had observed at first hand the operations of the storm troopers and the execution of Nazi race actions. When, notwithstanding, Fritzsche undertook to bring all German news agencies within Nazi control, he learned from the inside, indeed from Goebbels himself, the intrigue and lies against opposition groups within and without Germany. He observed, for example, how opposition journalists, a profession to which he had previously belonged, were either absorbed or eliminated. He continued to support the conspiracy. He learned from day to day the art of intrigue and quackery in the process of perverting the German nation, and he grew in prestige and influence as he practiced this art.
Fritzsche learned a lesson from his predecessor, Berndt, who fell from the leadership of the German Press Division partly because he over-played his hand by blunt and excessive manipulation of the Sudetenland propaganda. Fritzsche stepped into the gap caused by the loss of confidence of both the editors and the German people, and did his job with more skill and subtlety. His shrewdness and ability to be more assuring and “to find,” as Goebbels said, “willing ears of the whole nation,”—these things made him the more useful accomplice of the conspirators.
Nazi Germany and its press went into war with Fritzsche in control of all German news, whether by press or radio. In 1942, when Fritzsche transferred from the field of the press to radio, he was not removed for bungling, but because Goebbels then needed his talents most in the field of radio. Fritzsche is not in the dock as a free journalist but as a propagandist who helped substantially to tighten the Nazi stranglehold over the German people, who made the excesses of the conspirators palatable to the German people, who goaded the German nation to fury and crime against people they were told by him were sub-human.
Without the propaganda apparatus of the Nazi State, the world would not have suffered the catastrophe of these years, and it is because of Fritzsche’s role in behalf of the Nazi conspirators, and their deceitful and barbarous practices, that he is called to account before the International Military Tribunal.
(See also Section 9 of Chapter VII on Propaganda, Censorship, and Supervision of Cultural Activities.)
LEGAL REFERENCES AND LIST OF DOCUMENTS RELATING TO HANS FRITZSCHE
| Document | Description | Vol. | Page |
| Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Article 6. | I | 5 | |
| International Military Tribunal, Indictment Number 1, Section IV (H); Appendix A. | I | 26, 68 | |
| ———— | |||
| Note: A single asterisk (*) before a document indicates that the document was received in evidence at the Nurnberg trial. A double asterisk (**) before a document number indicates that the document was referred to during the trial but was not formally received in evidence, for the reason given in parentheses following the description of the document. The USA series number, given in parentheses following the description of the document, is the official exhibit number assigned by the court. | |||
| ———— | |||
| 2029-PS | Decree establishing the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, 13 March 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 104. | IV | 652 |
| 2030-PS | Decree concerning the Duties of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, 30 June 1933. 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 449. | IV | 653 |
| *2434-PS | The Reich Ministry for Enlightenment of the People and for Propaganda, Berlin 1940, by Georg Mueller. (USA 722) | V | 102 |
| 2976-PS | Affidavit of Fritzsche, 19 November 1945, concerning positions held. (USA 20) | V | 682 |
| *3064-PS | Official British Broadcasting Corporation translation of radio speeches of Fritzsche. (USA 723) | V | 877 |
| *3255-PS | Ministerial Director Hans Fritzsche—Leader of Radio, published in Radio Archives, Vol. 15, November 1942, pp. 473-474. (USA 724) | V | 992 |
| *3469-PS | Affidavit of Hans Fritzsche, 7 January 1946. (USA 721) | VI | 174 |
| *Chart No. 1 | National Socialist German Workers’ Party. (2903-PS; USA 2) | VIII | 770 |