Some charts have been prepared. This is a mere graphic representation of the proportions of persons that we have accused, and which we ask this Tribunal to declare as constituting criminal organizations.
In the first column are the 79 million German citizens. We make no accusation against the citizenry of Germany. The next is the 48 million voters, who at one time voted to keep the Nazi Party in power. They voted in response to the referendum. We make no charge against those who supported the Nazi Party, although in some aspects of the denazification program the supporters are included. Then come the 5 million Nazi members, persons who definitely joined the Nazi Party by an act of affiliation, by an oath of fealty. But we do not attempt to reach that entire 5 million persons, although I have no hesitation in saying that there would be good grounds for doing so; but as a mere matter of practicality of this situation it is not possible to reach all of those who are technically and perhaps morally well within the confines of this conspiracy. So the voters are disregarded, the 48 million, the 5 million members are disregarded, and the first that we propose to reach are the Nazi leaders, starting with Blockleiter, which are shown in the last small block, and piled together, amounting to the fourth block on the diagram.
It is true that we start with the local block leader, but he had responsibilities—responsibilities for herding into the fold his 50 households, responsibilities for spying upon them and reporting their activities; responsibilities, as this evidence shows, for disciplining them and for leading them. No political movement can function in the drawing rooms and offices. It has to reach the masses of the people and these block leaders were the essential elements in making this program effective among the masses of the people and in terrorizing them into submission.
I submit that on this diagram the accusation which we bring here is a moderate one reaching only persons of admitted leadership responsibilities and not trying to reach people who may have been beguiled into following in an unorganized fashion.
We have also accused the formations, Party formations, such as the SA and the SS. These were the strong arms of the Party. These were the formations that the Blockleiter was authorized to call in to help him if he needed to discipline somebody in his block of 50 houses.
But we do not accuse every one of the formations of the Party, nor do we accuse any of the 20 or more supervised or affiliated Party groups, Nazi organizations in which membership was compulsory, either legally or in practice, such as the Hitler Youth and the Student League. We do not accuse the Nazi professional organizations, although they were Nazi dominated, like the civil servants’ organization, the teachers’ organization, and the National Socialist lawyers’ organization, although I should show them as little charity as any group. We do not accuse any Nazi organizations which have some legitimate purpose, like welfare organizations. Only two of these Party formations are named, the SA and the SS, the oldest of the Nazi organizations, groups which had no purpose other than carrying out the Nazi schemes, and which actively participated in every crime denounced by the Charter and furnished the manpower for most of the crimes which we have proved.
In administering preventive justice with a view to forestalling repetition of the Crimes against Peace, Crimes against Humanity, and War Crimes, it would be a greater catastrophe to acquit these organizations than it would be to acquit the entire 22 individual defendants in the box. These defendants’ power for harm is past. They are discredited men. That of these organizations goes on. If these organizations are exonerated here, the German people will infer that they did no wrong, and they will easily be regimented in reconstituted organizations under new names, behind the same program.
In administering retributive justice it would be possible to exonerate these organizations only by concluding that no crimes have been committed by the Nazi regime. For these organizations’ sponsorship of every Nazi purpose and their confederation to execute every measure to attain these ends is beyond denial. A failure to condemn these organizations under the terms of the Charter can only mean that such Nazi ends and means cannot be considered criminal and that the Charter of the Tribunal declaring them so is a nullity.
I think my colleagues, who have somewhat different aspects of the case to deal with, would like to be heard on this subject.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Justice Jackson and Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, the Tribunal thinks the most convenient course would be to hear argument on behalf of all the chief prosecutors and then to hear argument on behalf of such of the defendants’ counsel as wish to be heard, and after that the Tribunal will probably wish to ask some questions of the chief prosecutors.