DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, that is enough now. In other words, you have indicated that you believed you could rely on the judgment of architects who seemed to you to be authorities?
STREICHER: Yes.
DR. MARX: At the time when the synagogue was demolished, did you make a speech?
STREICHER: Yes, but I want to point out that the Prosecution have submitted an article, a report from the Tageszeitung, that was written by a simple young man. I want to state that this article does not contain a true representation of the statements which I made.
DR. MARX: I now come to the demonstrations on the night of 9 to 10 November 1938. What can you say concerning those demonstrations and what role did you play in that connection? Were those demonstrations initiated by the population?
STREICHER: Every year the Gauleiter and SA and SS leaders met the Führer in Munich on the occasion of the historic day of 9 November. We sat down to dinner in the old Town Hall, and it was customary for the Führer to make a short speech after the dinner. On 9 November 1938, I did not feel very well. I participated in the dinner and then I left; I drove back to Nuremberg and went to bed. Toward midnight I was awakened. My chauffeur told me that the SA leader Von Obernitz wanted to talk to the Gauleiter. I received him and he said the following: “Gauleiter, you had left already when the Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Goebbels, took the floor and said”—I can now repeat it only approximately—“said, ‘Legation Counsellor Vom Rath has been murdered in Paris. That is now the second murder abroad of a prominent National Socialist. This murder is not the murder by the Jew, Grünspan; this is rather the execution of a deed which has been desired by all Jewry. Something should now be done.’ ” I do not know now whether Goebbels said the Führer had ordered it; I remember only that Von Obernitz told me that Goebbels had stated the synagogues were to be set on fire; and I cannot now remember exactly, but I think he told me that the windows of Jewish business houses were to be smashed and that houses were to be demolished.
Then I said to Obernitz—for I was surprised—“Obernitz, I think it is wrong that synagogues be set on fire, and at this moment I think it is wrong that Jewish business houses be demolished; I think these demonstrations are wrong. If people are let loose during the night, deeds can be perpetrated for which one cannot be responsible.” I said to Obernitz that I considered the setting on fire of synagogues particularly wrong because abroad and even among the German people the opinion might arise that National Socialism had now started the fight against religion. Obernitz replied, “I have the order.” I said, “Obernitz, I will not assume any responsibility here.” Obernitz left and the action took place. What I have said under oath here I have previously stated in several interrogations; and my chauffeur will confirm it, for he was witness to this night’s conversation, and shortly afterwards when he went to bed told his wife what he had heard up there in my bedroom.
DR. MARX: Have you finished?
STREICHER: Yes, but you asked another question...
DR. MARX: Yes, whether it was a spontaneous act of force initiated by the masses of the people?