FRITZSCHE: I am on the horns of a frightful dilemma, since I heard the first reliable reports about these things here in prison. Only a part of these terrible conditions, which were found to exist, can be explained through the stoppage of traffic and communications at the end of the war. The rest is more than enough. Obviously, the decree for the secret murder of masses of people had brutalized to a terrible extent those people who were entrusted with the execution of this decree.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal does not know whether this explanation is of any value to us as evidence. We have already heard all about this matter. He has given us his explanation as to why he says he did not know.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, I have but two more questions I should like to put to the defendant.
Herr Fritzsche, it has been said here in Court that conditions in concentration camps were generally known to the German people. As a journalist, will you give us your opinion and the reasons on which it is based?
THE PRESIDENT: Has he not given us that already?
DR. FRITZ: No, I beg your pardon, Mr. President. He gave his opinion when it was a question of the ill-treatment and extermination of Jews, but on the topic of the extermination of Jews, I asked him...
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you are asking him what his opinion as a journalist was. I do not see that that is of any importance to us.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, I should be grateful if you would allow me to put the question, as this is my last question but one. I expect an answer from the defendant, an answer which would assist the Tribunal in arriving at a judgment.
THE PRESIDENT: On what matter do you want his opinion as a journalist?
DR. FRITZ: The Defendant Fritzsche would like to repeat a few statements such as some made, for instance, by Dr. Goebbels.