The Tribunal now turns to the consideration of the Crimes against peace charged in the Indictment. Count One of the Indictment charges the defendants with conspiring or having a common plan to commit crimes against peace. Count Two of the Indictment charges the defendants with committing specific crimes against peace by planning, preparing, initiating, and waging wars of aggression against a number of other States. It will be convenient to consider the question of the existence of a common plan and the question of aggressive war together, and to deal later in this Judgment with the question of the individual responsibility of the defendants. The charges in the Indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity.
War is essentially an evil thing.
Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent States alone, but affect the whole world. Before examining that charge it is necessary to look more closely at some of the events which preceded these acts of aggression. From the beginning, the National Socialist movement claimed that its object was to unite the German People in the consciousness of their mission and destiny, based on inherent qualities of race, and under the guidance of the Fuehrer. This necessarily involved the seizure of foreign territories. War was seen to be inevitable, or at the very least, highly probable, if these purposes were to be accomplished.