The scope of the proof which I shall offer is:
First, that the Nazi Party set for itself certain aims and objectives, involving basically the acquisition of “Lebensraum”, or living space, for all “racial” Germans.
Second, that it was committed to the use of any methods, whether or not legal, in attaining these objectives, and that it did in fact use illegal methods.
Third, that it put forward and disseminated various lines of propaganda, and used various propaganda techniques to assist it in its unprincipled rise to power.
Fourth, that it ultimately did seize all governmental power in Germany.
Fifth, that it used this power to complete the political conquest of the State, to crush all opposition, and to prepare the nation psychologically and otherwise for the foreign aggression upon which it was bent from the outset.
In general we undertake to outline, so far as relevant to the charge, what happened in Germany during the pre-war period, leaving it to others to carry the story and proof through the war years.
The aims of this conspiracy were open and notorious. It was far different from any other conspiracy ever unfolded before a court of justice, not only because of the gigantic number of people involved, the period of time covered, the magnitude and audacity of it, but because, unlike other criminal conspirators, these conspirators often boastfully proclaimed to the world what they planned to do, before they did it.
As an illustration, Hitler, in his speech of 30 January 1941, said:
“My program was to abolish the Versailles Treaty. It is futile nonsense for the rest of the world to pretend today that I did not reveal this program until 1933 or 1935 or 1937. Instead of listening to the foolish chatter of emigres, these gentlemen would have been wiser to read what I have written thousands of times. No human being has declared or recorded what he wanted more than I. Again and again I wrote these words, ‘The abolition of the Treaty of Versailles’.”