“The Jews did not even possess organizational value. In spite of the fears which he, the Führer, had heard repeatedly in Germany, everything continued to go its normal way without the Jews. Where the Jews were left to themselves, as for instance in Poland, the most terrible misery and decay prevailed. They are just pure parasites. In Poland, this state of affairs had been fundamentally cleared up. If the Jews there did not want to work, they were shot. If they could not work, they had to perish. They had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli, with which a healthy body may become infected. This was not cruel—if one remembers that even innocent creatures of nature, such as hares and deer, have to be killed so that no harm is caused by them. Why should the beasts who wanted to bring us Bolshevism be more preserved? Nations which do not rid themselves of Jews perish. One of the most famous examples is the downfall of that people who were once so proud, the Persians, who now lead a pitiful existence as Armenians.”
And would you look at Exhibit USSR-170, Document Number USSR-170, which is a conference which you had on the 6th of August 1942.
THE PRESIDENT: Before you pass from this document, is there not a passage higher up that is important? It is about 10 lines down, I think, in the middle of the line . . .
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Your Honor is correct.
“To Admiral Horthy’s counterquestion as to what he should do with the Jews, now that they had been deprived of almost all possibility of earning their livelihood—he could not kill them off—the Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs declared that the Jews should be exterminated, or taken to concentration camps. There was no other possibility.”
GÖRING: I do not know this document.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Now, this is a conference which you had with a number of people, and on Page 143, if you will turn to it, you get on to the question of butter. If you will look where it says: “Reich Marshal Göring: How much butter do you deliver? 30,000 tons?”
Do you see that?
GÖRING: Yes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: And then Lohse, who is in the conference, says, “Yes,” and you say, “Do you also deliver to Wehrmacht units?” and then Lohse says, “I can answer that too. There are only a few Jews left alive. Tens of thousands have been disposed of, but I can tell you that the civilian population gets, on your orders, 15 percent less than the Germans.” I call your attention to the statement that “there are only a few Jews left alive, tens of thousands have been disposed of.” Do you still say, in the face of these two documents, that neither Hitler nor yourself knew that the Jews were being exterminated?