The fight against Jewry in the Third Reich grew more and more embittered from year to year, especially after the outbreak of war and during its course. In contrast to this, however, the influence of the Defendant Streicher yearly grew weaker. Already by 1939 he was almost entirely pushed aside and had no relations with Hitler or other leading men of State and Party. In 1940 he was relieved of his office as Gauleiter and after that he played no further part in political life.
If the Defendant Streicher had really been the man the Prosecution believes him to be, his influence and his activity would have increased automatically with the intensification of the fight against the Jews. His career would not have ended, as it actually did, in political powerlessness and banishment from the scene of action, but with the commission to carry out the destruction of Jewry.
It cannot be denied that by writing ad nauseam on the same subject for years in a clumsy, crude, and violent manner, the Defendant Streicher has brought upon himself the hatred of the world. By so doing, he has created a strong feeling against himself which led to his importance and influence being rated far higher than they actually were, for which he now runs the risk of having the extent of his responsibility similarly misjudged.
The defense counsel, who in this case had a difficult and thankless task, had to limit himself to presenting those aspects and facts which allow the true significance of this man and the role he played in the tragedy of National Socialism to be recognized. But it cannot be the task of the Defense to deny indisputable facts and to defend acts for which absolutely no excuse exists.
The fact remains, therefore, that this defendant took part in the demolition of the main synagogue of Nuremberg, and thus allowed a place of religious worship to be destroyed. The defendant states as an excuse that his aim in so doing was not the demolition of a building meant for religious worship, but the removal of an edifice which appeared out of place in the Old Town of Nuremberg, and that his opinion had been shared by art experts. The truth of this was proved by the fact that he left the second Jewish house of worship untouched until it finally, and without his connivance, went up in flames during the night of 9 to 10 November. However that may be, the defendant shows the same lack of scruple here as he does in his other actions. He must account here for his actions in this connection alone; the Defense cannot shield him. But here, too, the fact that the population of Nuremberg disapproved of these actions clearly and unmistakably must be stressed. It was clear to any impartial observer that the people viewed such actions with icy detachment and that only brute force could compel them to tolerate such measures and to look on at such senseless proceedings.
It is just as impossible for the Defense to express any opinion on the revival of the ritual murder myth. No interest whatsoever was taken in these articles; but their tendency is obvious. The only point in the defendant’s favor, apart from the good faith with which we must credit him, is the fact that the author of these articles was not himself, but Holz; he must, however, put up with the charge that he allowed it to happen.
It must appear incomprehensible that the defendant continued to play a part in the publication of Der Stürmer long after he had been politically crippled and vanished from the scene of action. This very fact reveals his one-track mind better than anything else.
When the Prosecution accuses the defendant of having aimed at the physical annihilation of the Jews and prepared the way for this later result by means of his publications, I would like to refer to the statements given by the defendant under oath at his interrogation, to which I am here referring in their entirety.
The defendant claims that in the long series of articles published by Der Stürmer since its foundation there were none demanding actual deeds of violence against the Jews. He also claims that among the issues, of which there were over one thousand, only about 15 were found to contain expressions which could form the basis for a charge against him in the meaning of the Indictment.
On the contrary, the defendant argued that his articles and speeches had always shown an unmistakable tendency to achieve a solution of the Jewish problem in its entirety throughout the world, since any kind of partial solution would serve no useful purpose and failed to reach the heart of the problem. Basing himself on this very point of view he had always expressed himself unequivocally as opposed to any kind of violence, and he would never have approved of an action such as that finally carried out by Hitler in such a gruesome manner.