FRITZSCHE: Above all, the failure to call on the population for their own administration and the lack of decisive political concessions to the countries which administered themselves. Immediately after the French campaign, I had repeatedly demanded the establishment of a Magna Charta for Europe, laying down the basic rights of the European peoples. I prepared many memoranda on this subject which were accepted by Dr. Goebbels and taken to Hitler; and when in the autumn of 1942 I decided to return to the Propaganda Ministry, one of the promises which Dr. Goebbels gave me was that now finally that Magna Charta for Europe would be proclaimed.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, on this occasion I should like to quote a passage from the Scharping affidavit, Document Number Fritzsche-2, Page 13 of the affidavit:
“After the occupation of various European countries, Fritzsche issued directives for news releases to the effect that the peoples of Europe were to form a league of states on the basis of equality with Germany. He told me to work out a series of speeches to this effect in which this point of view was to play the decisive role and which at the same time should give the authorities hints for a healthy reconstruction in the occupied territories.”
[Turning to the defendant.] Did you know what has been said here by the Prosecution about the activity of the Police in the occupied territories?
FRITZSCHE: No.
DR. FRITZ: At this point I should like to interpolate a question: I have already asked the witness Paulus about your conduct after you learned of the Commissar Order. How about that?
FRITZSCHE: I learned of the order to shoot captured Soviet commissars at the beginning of May 1942 when I came to the 6th Army. I immediately opposed it. Whether it was carried out or not, I do not know. Field Marshal Paulus, no doubt, is correct when he said that he had already prevented in his army the execution of this order. At any rate, I made it my business to have the order as such rescinded, and I achieved this. The 6th Army, at my advice, gave certain information to the High Command of the Wehrmacht or to the Armed Forces Operations Staff. I am convinced, moreover, that many army leaders acted in the same way as the leader of the 6th Army and simply did not carry out the order. At any rate, it was expressly rescinded afterward.
DR. FRITZ: The Prosecution quotes two paragraphs from your radio speech of 5 July 1941.
Mr. President, that is in the English record of Captain Sprecher, Pages 32 and 33.
[Turning to the defendant.] The Prosecution concludes from this presentation that you had agitated for ruthless measures against the population of the Soviet Union. You are said to have vilified the people of the Soviet Union.