Following the Party-planned and Party-directed program of 8 and 9 November 1938, in the course of which a large number of Jews were killed and harmed, Jewish shops pillaged and wrecked, and synagogues set ablaze all over the Reich, the Defendant Bormann, on orders from Hitler, instructed the Defendant Göring to proceed to the “final settlement of the Jewish question” in Germany.
The attention of the Tribunal is invited to Document 1816-PS, previously put in as Exhibit USA-261. The Tribunal is well acquainted with this document. It has frequently been referred to. The Tribunal knows that Document 1816-PS is the minutes of a conference on the Jewish question, held under the direction of Göring on the 12th of November 1938. 1 quote only the first sentence of Document 1816-PS, which fastens the responsibility upon Bormann and which reads as follows:
“Göring: ‘Gentlemen, today’s meeting is of a decisive nature. I have received a letter written on the Führer’s orders by the Chief of Staff of the Führer’s Deputy, Bormann, requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, co-ordinated and solved in one way or another.’ ”
The Tribunal is well aware of the proposals, the discussions, and the actions taken in this conference that constituted the so-called “settlement of the Jewish question.”
As a result of this conference a series of anti-Jewish decrees and measures were issued and adopted by the Nazi conspirators. I offer in evidence Document 069-PS, Exhibit USA-589. This is a decree of Bormann, dated 17 January 1939, in which Bormann demands compliance with the new anti-Jewish regulations stemming and flowing from the Göring conference just referred to, under which Jews were denied access to housing, travel, and other facilities of ordinary life. I quote the Bormann order, which appears at Page 1 of the English translation of Document 069-PS, which reads as follows:
“According to a report of General Field Marshal Göring, the Führer has made some basic decisions regarding the Jewish question. The decisions are brought to your attention in the enclosure. Strict compliance with these directives is requested.”—Signed—“Bormann.”
In the interests of expediting the proceedings, I shall resist the temptation to quote extensively from the enclosed order in Bormann’s letter of transmittal. In effect, the crux of it is that Jews are denied sleeping compartments in trains, the right to give their trade to certain hotels in Berlin, Munich, Nuremberg, Augsburg, and the like. They are banned and excluded from swimming pools, certain public squares, resort towns, mineral baths, and the like. The stigma, the degradation, and the inconvenience in the ordinary affairs of life promoted by this decree are plain.
I next request the Tribunal to notice judicially the decree of 12 November 1938, 1938 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 1580 (Document JN-6), quite familiar to this Tribunal, for it was the decree which excluded Jews from economic life. This decree forbade Jews to operate retail shops, and it was a decree which went far to eliminate Jews from economic life.
Now Bormann also acted through other state agencies to wipe out the economic existence of large sections of the Jewish population. In that respect I request the Tribunal to notice judicially the authoritative Nazi publication entitled Decrees of the Deputy of the Führer, edition of 1937, our Document 3240-PS. At Page 383 of this publication there appears a decree of the Defendant Bormann, dated 8 January 1937, reproducing an order of the Defendant Frick, issued at Bormann’s instigation, denying financial assistance to government employees who employed the services of Jewish doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, morticians, and other professional classes. I shall forbear from quoting the text of that decree. Its substance is as given.
If it please the Tribunal, for the benefit of the translators I shall continue reading from Page 25 of the manuscript.