I submit, therefore, that, quite apart from the evidence already submitted to the Tribunal, the evidence of Mein Kampf, taken in conjunction with the facts of Nazi Germany’s subsequent behavior towards other countries, goes to show that from the very first moment that they attained power, and indeed long before that time, Hitler and his confederates, the defendants, were engaged in planning and preparing aggressive war as is alleged against them in this Indictment.
Events have proved in the blood and misery of millions of men, women, and children that Mein Kampf was no mere literary exercise to be treated with easy indifference, as unfortunately it was treated before the war by those who were imperiled, but was the expression of a fanatical faith in force and fraud as the means to Nazi dominance in Europe, if not in the whole world. The Prosecution’s submission is that, accepting and propagating the jungle philosophy of Mein Kampf, the Nazi confederates who are indicted here deliberately pushed our civilization over the precipice of war.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now adjourn for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: May it please the Tribunal, the next stage of the Prosecution is the presentation of the cases against the individual defendants under the Counts One and Two of the Indictment. Before that is begun the chief prosecutors for the United States and Great Britain wish, with the permission of the Tribunal, to make four points perfectly clear:
The object of this part of the case is to collect for the benefit, first, of the members of the Tribunal and, secondly, of the Defense Counsel concerned, the evidence against each defendant under Counts One and Two which has been presented by the American and British Delegations. Otherwise it would be easy among the many documents already before the Court to miss relevant pieces of evidence which the Tribunal might wish to consider and to which the defendants may wish to make a reply.
This does not mean that the case against these defendants has in any way ended. Vital and important parts of the case remain concerning the actual atrocities, both War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. The evidence in regard to these will shortly be presented by the French Delegation and the Delegation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and when the massive documentation of these crimes is placed before the Court, the French and Soviet Delegations will have the opportunity of relating them to the individual defendants in the dock.
It has been the desire of all the chief prosecutors to delimit as clearly as possible the evidence under the respective Counts of the Indictment. The documents in evidence, however, were not written with a view to this Trial, and therefore many of them inevitably deal with offenses under more than one Count. It is by reason of this alone that some overlapping and repetition necessarily exists.
Similarly it may occur that as the French and Soviet cases are developed documents may come to light which bear on the common plan or the initiation of wars of aggression or on other material connected with Counts One and Two. The American and British Delegations will welcome any addition to the evidence on these parts of the case which such documents may provide and gladly receive such reinforcement from their French and Soviet colleagues.
With this explanation, and I am very grateful to the Tribunal for allowing me to make it, I call on my friend Mr. Albrecht to commence this part of the case.