DR. STAHMER: I had gone somewhat further, that is true; but in order to get this into the context again I have started again with Number 2, but if the Court wishes, I can continue where I stopped.
Especially in the beginning every endeavor was made to wage war with decency and chivalry. If any evidence is needed, a glance at the orders of the High Command of the Army regulating the behavior of the soldiers in Norway, Belgium, Holland, is sufficient proof. Moreover, a leaflet with “10 Commandments for the Conduct of the German Soldier in Wartime” was issued to the soldiers when they went into the field. Field Marshal Milch has read them out from his pay book, during this Trial. They all obliged the soldier to act in a proper manner and according to international law.
A gang of conspirators at the head of the state, which plans to wage a war regardless of right and morals, would certainly not send their soldiers into the field with a detailed written order saying just the opposite.
I believe the assumption of the Prosecution that these 22 men are conspirators against peace and the laws of war and humanity is quite erroneous.
It is up to counsel for the individual defendant to show what connection his client might have had with the alleged conspiracy.
I just mentioned that Reich Marshal Göring was the second man in the State. During the Trial the Prosecution also referred repeatedly to this elevated position of Göring’s and tried to make it the basis of a special charge against the defendant, pointing out that Göring, by virtue of this advantageous position, knew about everything, even the most secret matters, and had the possibility of intervening independently in a practical way in the course of government business.
This opinion is wrong and is based on ignorance of the importance of his position. It meant that according to rank Göring was the second man in the State.
This rank was due to the fact that Hitler, in the fall of 1934, had made a will and by a secret Führer order had appointed Göring as his successor in the Government. In 1935 or 1936 this succession was confirmed in an unpublished Reich law which was signed by all the ministers. On 1 September 1939 Hitler announced this law in the Reichstag. In this way the successorship of Göring became known to the German people.
Göring’s task of deputizing for the Führer in the Government was to apply only in the event of Hitler’s being incapacitated by illness or absence from Germany—this occurred when in March 1938 Hitler spent a few days in Austria. During Hitler’s presence, that is, as long as Hitler exercised office himself, Göring derived no special powers from the deputyship. In this instance his authority was limited to the offices directly under him, and he was not entitled to issue any official directives to other offices. From this follows that, although the second man in the State, Göring could neither rescind, nor change, nor supplement Hitler’s orders. He could give no orders whatsoever to offices of which he was not directly in charge. He had no possibility of giving any binding orders to any other office, whether it were an office of the Party, the Police, the Army, or Navy, nor could he interfere in the authority of those offices which were not his own.
This position as second man in the State cannot, therefore, be judged as especially incriminating for Göring; nor is it qualified to serve as a basis for the assumption of a conspiracy.