In the Fritzsche affidavit there are a number of statements which I would say were in the nature of self-serving declarations. With respect to these, the Prosecution requests only that the Tribunal consider them in the light of the whole conspiracy and the indisputable facts which appear throughout the Record. The Prosecution did not feel, either as a matter of expediency or of fairness, that it should request Fritzsche, through his defense lawyer, Dr. Fritz, to remove some of these self-serving declarations at this time and submit them later in connection with his defense.
Since I shall refer to this affidavit at numerous times throughout the presentation, perhaps the members of the Tribunal will wish to place a special marker in their document book.
By referring to Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the affidavit, the Tribunal will note that Fritzsche first became a successful journalist in the service of the Hugenberg Press, the most important chain of newspaper enterprises in pre-Nazi Germany. The Hugenberg concern owned papers of its own, but primarily it was important because it served newspapers which principally supported the so-called “national” parties of the Reich, including the NSDAP.
In Paragraph 5 of his affidavit Fritzsche relates that in September 1932, when the Defendant Von Papen was Reich Chancellor, he was made head of the Wireless News Service, replacing someone who was politically unbearable to the Papen regime. The Wireless News Service, I might say, was a government agency for spreading news by radio.
Fritzsche began making radio broadcasts at about this time with very great success, a success which Goebbels recognized and was later to exploit very efficiently on behalf of these Nazi conspirators.
The Nazis seized power on the 30th of January 1933. From Paragraph 10 of the Fritzsche affidavit we find that that very evening, the 30th of January 1933, two emissaries from Goebbels visited Fritzsche. One of them was Dressler-Andress, head of the Radio Division of the NSDAP; the other was an assistant of Dressler-Andress named Sadila-Mantau. These two emissaries notified Fritzsche that although Goebbels was angry with Fritzsche for writing a critical article concerning Hitler, still Goebbels recognized Fritzsche’s public success on the radio since the previous fall. They stated further that Goebbels desired to retain Fritzsche as head of the Wireless News Service on certain conditions: (1) That Fritzsche discharge all Jews; (2) that he discharge all other personnel who would not join the NSDAP; and (3) that he employ with the Wireless News Service the second Goebbels’ emissary, Sadila-Mantau.
Fritzsche refused all these conditions except the hiring of Sadila-Mantau. This was one of the first ostensible compromises after the seizure of power which Fritzsche made on his road to the Nazi camp.
Fritzsche continued to make radio broadcasts during this period in which he supported the National Socialist coalition government then still existing.
In early 1933 SA troops several times called at the Wireless News Service and Fritzsche prevented them, with some difficulty, from making news broadcasts.
In April 1933 Goebbels called the young Fritzsche to him for a personal audience. At Paragraph 9 of his affidavit, Document Number 3469-PS, Fritzsche has volunteered the following concerning his prior relationships with Dr. Goebbels: