It is a decisive fact, however, that the German nation in its totality did not let itself be influenced by all these groups either in its business relations or in its attitude towards Jewry and that even during the last years before the NSDAP came to power no violent actions against the Jews were committed anywhere by the people. However, when towards the end of the second decade after the first World War a considerable increase of the NSDAP became noticeable, this was not due to anti-Semitic reasons but to the fact that the prevailing confusion in the various parties had been unable to point to a way out of the ever-increasing economic misery. The call for a strong man became ever more urgent. The conviction became more and more firmly rooted among the broad masses that only a personality who was not dependent on the change of majorities would be able to master the situation.
The NSDAP knew how to exploit this general trend for its own ends and to win over the nation, sunk in despair, by making promises in all directions. But never did the masses think, when electing the NSDAP at that time, that its program would produce developments as we have witnessed.
With the seizure of power by the NSDAP in 1933, the second epoch was introduced. The power of the State was exclusively in the hands of the Party and nobody could have prevented the use of violence against the Jewish population. Now would have been just the right moment for the Defendant Streicher to put into effect the baiting the Prosecution has alleged. If by that time wide circles of the population, or at least the veteran members of the NSDAP, had been trained to be radical Jew haters, as stated by the Prosecution, acts of violence against the Jewish population would necessarily have taken place on a greater scale due to that feeling of hatred. Pogroms on the largest scale would have been the natural result of a truly anti-Semitic attitude of the people. But nothing like that happened. Apart from some minor incidents, evidently caused by local or personal conditions, no attacks on Jews or their property took place anywhere. It is quite clear that a feeling of hatred for the Jewish people did not prevail anywhere at least up to 1933, and the charge brought by the Prosecution against the defendant that ever since the very outset of his fight he successfully educated the German people to hate the Jews can thus be dropped.
The year of the seizure of power by the NSDAP also put Der Stürmer to a decisive test. Had Der Stürmer been considered by the broad masses of the German people as the authoritative champion against the Jews and therefore indispensable for that fight, an unusually large increase in the circulation would have followed. No such interest was, however, shown. On the contrary, even in Party circles demands were made that Der Stürmer should be discontinued entirely; or at least that its illustrations, style, and tone should be altered. It became more and more clear that the already small interest in Streicher’s Jewish policy was steadily declining. It must be added that with the seizure of power by the Party the total press apparatus came under the control of the Party, which immediately undertook to co-ordinate the press, that is, to direct it from a central office in the spirit of the National Socialist policy and ideology. This was done through the Minister of Propaganda and the Reich Press Chief via the official “National Socialist Correspondence.” Particularly Dr. Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, described by various witnesses such as Göring, Schirach, Neurath, and others as the most bitter advocate of the anti-Semitic trend in the Government, is said to have given each week to the entire German press several anti-Jewish leaders, which were printed by more than 3,000 dailies and illustrated papers. If in addition we take into account that Dr. Goebbels was making broadcasts of an anti-Semitic nature, we need no further explanations for the fact that the interest in a one-sided anti-Semitic journal should diminish and that is what actually happened.
It is particularly significant that at that time it had been repeatedly suggested that Der Stürmer should be suppressed altogether. This is brought out clearly in the testimony given by Fritzsche, on 27 June 1946, who stated in addition that neither Streicher nor Der Stürmer had any influence in the Ministry of Propaganda and that he was considered so to speak as nonexistent. It may have been for the same reason that Der Stürmer was not even declared a press organ of the NSDAP and was not even entitled to show the Party symbol. It was looked upon by the Party and State administration, in contrast to all papers which were considered to be of any importance, as a private paper belonging to a private writer.
The firm which published Der Stürmer, and which belonged at that time to a certain Härdel, was not inclined, however, to accept so quietly the dwindling of its circle of readers, for it was now aided by the fact that Streicher had become the highest leader in Franconia; and it knew how to make the most of this circumstance. Already at that time pressure was exerted on many sections of the population to prove their loyal political attitude and trustworthiness by subscribing to Der Stürmer. The witness Fritzsche also has alluded to this circumstance, stating that many Germans only decided to subscribe to Der Stürmer because they thought it would be a means of paving the way for their intended membership in the Party.
So as not to give a false impression of the circulation figures of Der Stürmer during the years between 1923 and 1933, the following analysis will show the different stages of its development.
In the years 1923 to 1933 Der Stürmer was able to increase its circulation from some 3,000 to some 10,000 copies, and this in turn went up to some 20,000 shortly before the seizure of power. On the average, however, between 1923 and 1931 the circulation was only some 6,000 copies. Following the seizure of power, by the end of 1934 it had reached an average of some 28,000 copies. It was not until 1935 that Der Stürmer became the property of the Defendant Streicher who, according to his statement, bought it from the widow of the previous owner for 40,000 RM—a not very considerable sum. From 1935 on the management of the business was taken over by an expert, who succeeded by clever canvassing in increasing the circulation to well over 200,000 copies; and this figure was later increased still further until it more than doubled. The relatively low circulation figures for Der Stürmer up to the beginning of 1935 show that, despite the Party’s rise to power, popular interest in Der Stürmer existed only to a small extent. The extraordinary increase in the circulation which began in 1935 is to be traced to the adroit canvassing methods already mentioned which were carried out by the new director Fink. The use of the Labor Front, as explained by the proclamation of Dr. Ley in Number 36 of Der Stürmer, 1935—which copy, Mr. President, I have taken the liberty of submitting as an exhibit—and the acquisition thereby of many thousands of forced subscribers must be ascribed to the personal relations of the manager Fink with Dr. Ley.
In that connection I further refer to a quotation from the Pariser Tageblatt of 29 March 1935 reproduced in Der Stürmer of May 1935. Here, too, it is stated that the increase of Der Stürmer’s circulation cannot be ascribed to the desire of the German people for such kind of spiritual food. It is neither presumable nor probable in any way that the compulsory subscription to Der Stürmer, forced on the members of the Labor Front in such a manner, could have actually turned subscribers into readers of Der Stürmer and followers of its line of thought. On the contrary, it is known that bundles of Der Stürmer in their original wrappings were stored in cellars and attics and that they were brought to light again only when the paper shortage became more acute.
When, therefore, the Defendant Streicher wrote in his paper in 1935—Document Number GB-169—that the 15 years’ work of enlightenment of Der Stürmer had already attracted to National Socialism an army of a million of “enlightened” members, he claimed a success for which there was no foundation whatsoever. The men and women who joined the Party after 1933 did not apply for membership as a result of the so-called enlightenment work of Der Stürmer but either because they believed the Party’s promises and hoped to derive advantages from it or because by belonging to the Party they wanted, as the witness Severing expressed it, to insure for themselves immunity from political persecution. The sympathy for the Party and its leadership very soon decreased in the most marked manner. Thus the Defendant Streicher, too, lost authority and influence to an ever-increasing extent even in his own district of Franconia, at least from 1937 on. The reasons for this are sufficiently known.