“During the period immediately preceding the invasion of Yugoslavia, on the 6th of April 1941, the German press emphasized by headlines and leading articles the following boldly made up announcements: (1) The systematic persecution of racial Germans in Yugoslavia including the burning down of German villages by Serbian soldiers and the confining of racial Germans in concentration camps, as well as the physical mishandling of German-speaking persons; (2) the arming of Serbian bandits by the Serbian Government; (3) the indictment of Yugoslavia by the plutocrats against Germany; (4) growing anti-Serbian feeling in Croatia; (5) the chaotic situation of the economic and social conditions in Yugoslavia.”
Since Germany had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and because these conspirators wanted the advantage of surprise, there was no special propaganda campaign immediately preceding the attack on the U.S.S.R. Fritzsche in Paragraph 33 of his affidavit discussed the propaganda line, however, for the justification of this aggressive war to the German people:
“During the night from the 21st to the 22d of June 1941, Ribbentrop called me in at about 5 o’clock in the morning for a conference in the Foreign Office at which representatives of the domestic and foreign press were present. Ribbentrop informed us that the war against the Soviet Union would start that same day and asked the German press to present the war against the Soviet Union as a preventive war for the defense of the fatherland, a war which was forced upon us by the imminent danger of an attack of the Soviet Union against Germany. The claim that this was a preventive war was later repeated by the newspapers which received their instructions from me during the usual daily parole of the Reich Press Chief. I myself have also given this presentation of the cause of the war in my regular broadcasts.”
Fritzsche, throughout his affidavit, constantly refers to his technical and expert assistance to the colossal apparatus of the Propaganda Ministry. In 1939 he apparently became dissatisfied with the efficiency of the existing facilities of the German Press Division in furnishing grist for the propaganda mill and for its intrigues. He established a new instrument for improving the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda. In Paragraph 19 of his affidavit, Page 24 of your document book, Fritzsche describes this new propaganda instrument as follows:
“About the summer of 1939 I established within the German Press Division a section called ‘Speed Service.’ ”
And then skipping and quoting again:
“. . . at the start it had the task of checking the correctness of news from foreign countries. Later on, about the fall of 1939, this section also worked on the compilation of material which was put at the disposal of the entire German press: For instance, dates from the British Colonial policy, political statements of the British Prime Minister in former times, descriptions of social distress in hostile countries, et cetera. Almost all German newspapers used such material as a basis for their polemics, whereby close concentration in the fighting front of the German press was gained. The title ‘Speed Service’ was chosen because materials for current comments were supplied with particular speed.”
Throughout this entire period preceding and including the launching of aggressive war, Fritzsche made regular radio broadcasts to the German people under the following titles: “Political Newspaper Review,” “Political and Radio Show,” and later “Hans Fritzsche Speaks.” His broadcasts naturally reflected the polemics and the control of his Ministry and thus of the Common Plan or Conspiracy.
We of the Prosecution contend that Fritzsche, one of the most eminent of Goebbels’ propaganda team, helped substantially to bathe the world in the blood bath of aggressive war.
With the Tribunal’s consent I will now pass to proof bearing on Fritzsche’s incitement of atrocities and his encouragement of a ruthless occupation policy. The results of propaganda as a weapon of the Nazi conspirators reach into every aspect of this conspiracy, including the abnormal and inhuman conduct involved in the atrocities and the ruthless exploitation of occupied countries. Most of the ordinary members of the German nation would never have participated in or tolerated the atrocities committed throughout Europe if they had not been conditioned and goaded to barbarous convictions and misconceptions by the constant grinding of the Nazi propaganda machine. Indeed, the propagandists who lent themselves to this evil mission of instigation and incitement are more guilty than the credulous and callous minions who headed the firing squads or operated the gas chambers, of which we have heard so much in this proceeding. For the very credulity and callousness of those minions was in large part due to the constant and evil propaganda of Fritzsche and his official associates.