Certainly he knew that there still were concentration camps, also that the number of inmates had risen because of war tension and that they contained foreigners because of the expansion of the war machine over all of Europe; but the terrible happenings which have been disclosed in this Trial were unknown to him. He knew nothing of the inhuman experiments which were being carried out on inmates in misinterpretation of true scientific methods. The testimony of the witness Field Marshal Milch has shown that the Luftwaffe was not interested in these experiments and that the defendant personally did not learn anything specific at all about this matter.
By no means did the establishment of concentration camps as such have anything to do with the later extermination of Jews, which apparently originated in Heydrich’s and Himmler’s brains and was kept secret in a masterly manner until it was disclosed after the collapse as the horror of Auschwitz and Maidanek.
This brings me to the Jewish question. The Defendant Göring has explained in detail his views on the Jewish question during his interrogation as witness; furthermore, he has shown in all detail the reasons which influenced the National Socialist Party and, after the seizure of power, the State, to take a hostile attitude toward the Jews.
The defendant is reproached for having promulgated the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, which were intended to keep the race pure, and for having, in his capacity as Delegate for the Four Year Plan, issued decrees during the years 1938 and 1939 which had as their aim the exclusion of Jews from economic life. Furthermore he is blamed for a number of other laws which meant a one-sided and serious intervention into the legal sphere of Jews.
The legal reason for this reproach is obscure. For this deals with a purely domestic problem, namely, the regulation of the legal status of German subjects; according to internationally recognized legal opinion at that time, the German Reich as a sovereign state was free to settle such a matter. Even if these encroachments were harsh and the limitations of citizenship rights extremely severe, they nevertheless in no way represent an offense against humanity.
Legal provisions which limit a certain race or a certain circle of citizens in their legal position have been made by other states without offense being taken at such measures and without other states considering themselves bound to intervene. Reich Marshal Göring always rejected any illegal or violent action against Jews. This is clearly shown by his attitude toward the action against Jews during the night of 9 to 10 November 1938, instigated by Goebbels, of which he was informed only after the deed had been done and which he condemned most severely. In this respect he raised serious objections with Goebbels and Hitler. On this matter, the precise statements of the witnesses Bodenschatz and Körner are available. The testimony of Dr. Uiberreither shows how greatly Göring disapproved of this action. According to the former, the defendant summoned all Gauleiter to Berlin several weeks after this incident and in an address sharply censured this violent action, which was not in keeping with the dignity of the nation and which caused serious damage to German prestige abroad. That the defendant was no race fanatic became generally known by his expression, “I decide who is a Jew.” It has been established sufficiently that he aided many Jews.
About a biological extermination of the Jews he learned only at the end of the war. He never would have approved such a measure and would have opposed it with all his might. For he had too much political insight not to recognize the tremendous and at the same time senseless dangers which would perforce result for the German people from such a brutal and horrible act of extermination. Göring had already made it clear in the above-mentioned speech to the Gauleiter that he did not wish to fall foul of the world public and world opinion because of the treatment of the Jews. It is therefore out of the question that Göring should have approved of such an undertaking or participated therein in any manner, although it is natural that it should be put to the defendant that he must have been informed about such horrible measures as the second man in the State.
Furthermore it is no wonder that the statements of the defendant that he knew nothing of these atrocities should meet with a certain amount of distrust. Despite such doubts, however, the defendant insists that no information about such acts ever reached him.
This ignorance of the defendant, which can be completely understood only by one familiar with German conditions, may be explained from the fact—and this is the sole solution of the riddle—that Himmler, as was also emphasized by General Jodl during his interrogation, knew truly masterfully how to keep his actions secret, to obliterate all traces of his atrocities, and to deceive the surrounding world and even his and Hitler’s closer entourage. In this connection I also refer to the testimony of the witness Hoess, who confirms Himmler’s instruction concerning absolute secrecy toward everyone.
The question may come up here: Did not a legal obligation exist for the defendant to make investigations about this matter and to get reliable information as to the true whereabouts of supposedly evacuated Jews and as to their fate? And what legal consequence results if he negligently refrained from investigating and by such negligence violated his legal obligation to act, incumbent on him by virtue of his position? The decision of this extremely complicated question of law and fact may be considered a moot question, because Göring, even as the second man in the State, did not have the power to prevent such measures if they were carried out by Himmler and were ordered, or at any rate approved, by Hitler.