THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the pure truth—and will withhold and add nothing.
[The witness repeated the oath in German.]
You may sit down.
DR. MARX: Since when have you known Herr Streicher, how did you get into contact with him, and what position did you have on Der Stürmer?
HIEMER: At the end of 1934 I was introduced to the then Gauleiter Julius Streicher in the Deutscher Hof in Nuremberg. Streicher gave me the assignment of working for his public health journal, Die Deutsche Volksgesundheit. In 1935 I also wrote reports for Der Stürmer. Streicher then had me transferred to the editorial staff of Der Stürmer.
Eventually, under Streicher’s direction and the direction of other staff members of Der Stürmer, I did editorial work as a co-editor. The responsible editor of Der Stürmer was Karl Holz, Streicher’s deputy, but the leading spirit of the paper was Streicher himself. In the year 1938 instructions came from Berlin to the effect that Holz was permitted to contribute to Der Stürmer, but in his capacity as state official—he was the Deputy Gauleiter—he was no longer to be mentioned in the editions of Der Stürmer. Thereupon, on instruction from Streicher, my name was entered in Der Stürmer as responsible editor. The overall direction of the paper and all authority connected therewith remained in Streicher’s hands, and Streicher retained this position until the collapse.
DR. MARX: What was the main idea of Der Stürmer’s policy? What was the Leitmotiv?
HIEMER: Streicher wanted by means of Der Stürmer, in the simplest and most popular language, to convey to every man and every woman of the German nation knowledge about the Jews. Streicher wanted the entire German people to realize that the Jew was a stranger among them.
DR. MARX: Herr Hiemer, I do not want to know that. I want you to tell me whether Herr Streicher, let us say, wished to advocate emigration or whether he followed a different train of thought. Long expositions on the Jewish problem are not required.
HIEMER: Streicher was of the opinion that in Germany the Jewish question should be solved by emigration. He repeatedly criticized the leadership of the Reich because the emigration of Jews was not being carried through in the manner desired by Streicher. When the war came, Streicher asserted that the Jewish problem would no longer have had any significance for a Germany at war if in accordance with his idea it had been solved by complete emigration of the Jews during the preceding time of peace.