THE PRESIDENT: We thought that you had given us the reasons in support of the documents in Book 1, Volumes I and II.
DR. THOMA: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: If you have given us the reasons, it is not necessary for you to say anything further.
DR. THOMA: Yes, Mr. President; but I thought that, with reference to the different books, I might state very briefly what I wished to prove.
With Messer, Tillich, Leeuw, and Bergson, I am trying to prove that neoromanticism—that is, the philosophy of the irrational, whose forerunner was Rousseau—invaded Germany with elementary force and was at the same time influenced by French, English, and American philosophers.
Secondly, through Martin Buber I wish to prove that this philosophy is not anti-Semitic, but that, on the contrary, Martin Buber not only preached this philosophy but also recommended its application in practice; it is precisely Martin Buber’s work wherein we find those vital terms and expressions, which have acquired such importance in this Trial, such as the significance of blood, the myth of blood, the relation between national character and living space, of intuition, of the concepts of movement, of the character of inheritage, and so forth.
And further, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, in connection with these quotations from Eickstedt, Mühlmann, Scheidt, Keiter, I wish to state that these authors are not National Socialists, but that, in fact, they were partly opposed to Rosenberg’s ideology; but they are proof of the fact that the concepts of race, people, nation, blood, and soil, et cetera, are recognized by natural science experts. And Hellpach, in his Introduction to the Psychology of Nations, made the extremely important statement—and Hellpach is a very famous name in German philosophic literature—that every thesis leads to a synthesis and eventually breaks down.
Gentlemen, I have only one brief concluding remark to make. In the last number of Die Neue Zeitung there was an article to the effect that in the French Constituent Assembly a few days ago a discussion on one of the most important and basic issues of our times had begun, a discussion on the rights of man—during which the inner attitude of the members of the resistance was examined and definite theses were set up regarding liberty and the crises liable to affect the rights of man, and various contradictions were pointed out.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. THOMA: And, Gentlemen, the following was established: There is a contradiction between the preaching of liberty and the ever greater enslavement by the machine. That is exactly what we assert. Secondly, there is a contradiction between the increase of material wealth and the decrease of spiritual values. Thirdly, contradiction is involved in every type of progress, in that every improvement is counterbalanced by corresponding decadence. Fourthly, there is an opposition between the ideals of humanism of the 18th century and the discoveries of the science of the human being—biology and psychoanalysis—which demonstrate that man is subject to the laws of nature.