DR. DIX: Your Honors, in the translated copy which you have before you, there are two appendices at the end. I had to employ this device because the matters dealt with in this annex occurred after I had given my speech to be translated. Therefore, I had to work in my comments on this subject somehow, and could only do it by way of an appendix.
And so I now come to the reading of Appendix 1, which is at the back, and to the opinion of the testimony of Gisevius as expressed by my colleague, Dr. Nelte, since I am here concerned with evaluating the testimony of witnesses.
Insofar as my colleague Dr. Nelte criticized the objective reliability of the testimony of Gisevius regarding his statements incriminating the Defendants Keitel, Göring, and so on, I refrain from any statements. The Prosecution may take any standpoint it desires. This is not my task.
But now Dr. Nelte has also attacked the subjective credibility of Gisevius in the personal character of this witness and thus also indirectly the reliability of his testimony concerning Dr. Schacht. This demands a statement of my opinion, and a statement of a very fundamental nature.
Your Honors, it is here that minds part company. A gap that cannot be bridged opens up between Schacht’s standpoint and the standpoint of all those who adopt the train of thought with which Dr. Nelte attempts to discredit the character of Gisevius, the deceased Canaris, Oster, Nebe, and others. I most certainly owe it to my client, Dr. Schacht, to state the following fundamental point very clearly and unequivocally:
Patriotism means loyalty to one’s fatherland and people and fight without quarter against anyone who criminally leads one’s fatherland and people into misery and destruction. Such a leader is an enemy of the fatherland; his actions are infinitely more dangerous than those of any enemy in war. Every method is justified against such a criminal State leadership, and the motto must be: à corsaire, corsaire et demi.
High treason against such a State leadership is true and genuine patriotism and as such highly moral, even during war. Who could still entertain the slightest doubt after the findings of this Trial, and finally after the testimony of Speer about Hitler’s cynical remarks regarding the destruction of the German people, that Adolf Hitler was the greatest enemy of his people, in short, a criminal toward this people, and that to remove him any means were justified and any, literally any, deed was patriotic. All those on the defendant’s bench who do not recognize this are worlds apart from Schacht.
I had to make this point in order to clear the atmosphere. After this fundamental clarification I can refrain from refuting details in Dr. Nelte’s attacks against Dr. Gisevius. Insofar as Dr. Nelte fails to see any willingness for active service among these resistance groups to which Dr. Schacht belonged, I need only point to the many hundreds who were hanged on 20 July alone; Schacht numbers among the very few survivors, and he too was to be liquidated in Flossenbürg. I point to the dead victims of the political judiciary of the Hitlerian State whose numbers run into thousands. Truly, the waging of a war of conspiracy against Hitler and the necessity for cunning and dissimulation in connection therewith were no less dangerous to life and limb than exposing one’s self at the front.
During the very fair cross-examination conducted by my colleague, Dr. Kubuschok, Gisevius immediately admitted his mistake resulting from the ban on publication, in the affair of Papen’s resignation. I have nothing more to say about this.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.