In February 1940 I was given leave of absence. I lived for 5 years, until the end of the war, on my estate. At the end of April I went to southern Bavaria, to the Tyrol. I wanted to commit suicide. Then something happened which I do not care to relate. But I can say one thing: I said to friends, “I have proclaimed my views to the world for 20 years. I do not want to end my life by suicide. I will go my way whatever happens as a fanatic in the cause of truth until the very end, a fanatic in the cause of truth.”
I might mention here that I deliberately gave my fighting paper, Der Stürmer, the subtitle, A Weekly for the Fight for Truth. I was quite conscious that I could not be in possession of the entire truth, but I also know that 80 or 90 percent of what I proclaim with conviction was the truth.
DR. MARX: Witness, why were you dismissed from the teaching profession? Did you ever commit any punishable or immoral act?
STREICHER: Actually I have answered this question already. Everybody knows that I could not have been active publicly in this profession if I had committed a crime. That is not true. I was dismissed from my profession because the majority of the parties in the Bavarian Parliament in the fall of 1923, after the Hitler Putsch, demanded my dismissal. That, Gentlemen, was my crime of indecent behavior.
DR. MARX: You know that two charges are made against you. First, you are accused that you were a party to the conspiracy which had the aim of launching a war, or wars, of aggression generally, of breaking treaties and by so doing, or even at an earlier stage, of committing Crimes against Humanity.
Secondly, you are accused of Crimes against Humanity as such. I should like to ask various questions on the first point now. Did you ever have discussions with Adolf Hitler or other leading men of the State or the Party at which the question of a war of aggression was discussed?
STREICHER: I can answer that with “no” right away, but I should like to be permitted to make a short statement.
In 1921, as I have already said, I went to Munich; and before the public on the platform I handed over my movement to the Führer. I also wrote him a letter in this connection later. No other conference took place with Adolf Hitler or any other person. I returned to Nuremberg and went on making speeches. When the Party program was proclaimed I was not present. That announcement, too, was made in public; the conspiracy was so public that political opponents could make attempts at terrorization.
To sum up: At none of the secret meetings was any oath taken or anything agreed upon which the public could not have known. The program stood; it had been submitted to the Police; on the basis of the law governing organizations the Party, like other parties, was entered in the register of organizations. So that at that time there was no conspiracy.
DR. MARX: Witness, one of the most important points of the Party program was the demand, “Freedom from Versailles.” What were your ideas as to the possibility of some day getting rid of the Versailles Treaty?