Toward the end of 1938 he saw himself deprived of practically all political influence, even in his own district. The controversy between him and Göring ended with the victory of the latter. Hitler, when pressed to do so by the Defendant Göring, had dropped Streicher completely, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe at that time was naturally more important and far more influential than the Gauleiter, Streicher. The defendant even had to submit to Aryanization as carried out in the district of Franconia with its correctness being checked by a special commission sent by Göring. In the course of the year 1939 Streicher was completely pushed aside and was even forbidden to speak in public. At the outbreak of the war, in contrast to all other Gauleiter, he was not even appointed to the position of Wehrkreiskommissar of his own district.
During the last phase, in the war years, the Defendant Streicher had no political influence whatsoever. As from February 1940 he was relieved of his position as a Gauleiter and lived on his estate in Pleikershof, cut off from all connections. Even Party members were forbidden to visit him. Since the end of 1938 he had no connections whatsoever with Hitler, by whom he had been completely cast off from that time on.
In what way now did Der Stürmer exert any influence during the war period? It can be said that during the war Der Stürmer no longer attracted any attention worth mentioning. The gravity of the times, the anxiety for relatives on the battlefield, the battles at the front, and finally the heavy air attacks completely diverted the German people’s interest from questions dealt with in Der Stürmer. The people were weary of the continuous repetition of the same assertions. The best proof of how little Der Stürmer was desired as reading matter can be seen in the fact that in restaurants and cafés Der Stürmer was always available for perusal, whereas other papers and magazines were permanently being read. The circulation figures decreased steadily and unceasingly in those years. Certainly the influence of Der Stürmer in the political sphere no longer amounted to anything.
During the periods mentioned Der Stürmer was rejected by large circles of the population from the very outset. Its crude style, its often objectionable illustrations, and its one-sidedness aroused widespread displeasure. There can be no question of any influence being exercised by Der Stürmer upon the German people or even the Party. Although the German people for years had been deluged with Nazi propaganda, or rather because of that very fact, a journal such as Der Stürmer could exert no influence upon its inner attitude. Had the German people—as maintained by the Prosecution—actually been saturated with the spirit of fanatical racial hatred, other factors certainly would have been far more responsible for it than Der Stürmer and would have contributed far more essentially to a hostile attitude towards the Jews.
But nothing of such nature can be established. The general attitude of the German people was not anti-Semitic, at any rate, not in such a way or to such a degree that they would have desired, or approved of, the physical extermination of the Jews. Even official Party propaganda with regard to the Jewish problem had exerted no influence upon the broad masses of the German people, neither had it educated them in the direction desired by the State leadership.
This is shown by the fact that it was necessary to issue a number of legal decrees in order to segregate the German population from the Jewish. The first example of this is the so-called Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor of September 1935, by the provisions of which any racial intermingling of German people with the Jewish population was subject to the death penalty. The passing of such laws would not have been necessary if the German people had been predisposed to an anti-Semitic attitude, for they would then of their own accord have segregated themselves from the Jews.
The law for the elimination of the Jews from German economic life, promulgated in November 1938, was along the same lines. In a people hostile towards the Jews, any trade with Jewish circles would have necessarily ceased and their business would have automatically come to a standstill. Yet in fact the intervention of the State was needed to eliminate Jewry from economic life.
The same conclusion can be drawn from the reaction of the greater part of the German populace to the demonstrations carried out against the Jews during the night of 9-10 November 1938. It is proved that these acts of violence were not committed spontaneously by the German people but that they were organized and executed with the aid of the State and Party apparatus upon instructions of Dr. Goebbels in Berlin. The result and the effect of these State-directed demonstrations—which in a cynical way were depicted for their effect abroad as an expression of the indignation of the German people at the assassination of the Secretary of the Embassy in Paris, Vom Rath—were different from that visualized by the instigators of this demonstration.
These acts of violence and excesses based upon the lowest instincts found unanimous condemnation, even in the circles of the Party and its leadership. Instead of creating hostility towards the Jewish population they roused pity and compassion for their fate. Hardly any other measure taken by the NSDAP was ever rejected so generally. The effect upon the public was so marked that the Defendant Streicher in his capacity as Gauleiter found it necessary in an address in Nuremberg to give a warning against exaggerated sympathy for the Jews. According to his statement he did not do this because he approved of these measures but only in order to strengthen by his influence the impaired prestige of the Party.
Previously, as appears from the testimony of the witness Fritz Herrwerth examined here, he refused SA Obergruppenführer Von Obernitz’s request to take part personally in the demonstration planned and called it useless and prejudicial. He publicly expressed this point of view later also, during a meeting of the League of Jurists at Nuremberg. In doing so he risked placing himself in open opposition to the official policy of the State.