dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. SERGE FUSTER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): [Moving pictures were then shown.] M.FUSTER It is taken from the film "Hidden Forces." Here is the map of the world [indicating7 with the zones of influence: the Soviet zone of influence, the British zone of influence, the American zone of influence. It is May 1939.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it necessary to have the accompaniment of music?
M. FOSTER: I am sorry, but it is impossible to cut out the sound from this film.
THE PRESIDENT: It cannot be helped? Very well.
M.FUSTER: The rapidity of the film made it necessary for us first to give a few details of the pictures which passed before the Tribunal. I think, however, that the Tribunal could appreciate them. Now, we are going to show a few photographs of posters. These will be easier to deal with than the film, which cannot be slowed down. We are going to show them one by one, commenting on each as may be necessary. I should like to point out to the Tribunal that the film which it has just seen is submitted as Document Number RF-1152 and also under Document Number RF-1152 (his). The scenarios of other propaganda films, entitled "M. Girouette" (M. Weathercock), "French Workmen in Germany" and taken from the dossier of the proceedings taken against M. Musard before the Seine Court of Justice, will also illustrate the tendency and the subject matter of the German propaganda carried on by this means. The photographs of posters which we are going to show now are submitted as Document Number RF-1153. Before showing these films, we must say something about the way in which poster propaganda was organized. It was organized with extreme care. In this connection we submit a pamphlet which contains full instructions for mounting and shows that a real administrative service existed to carry out projects which had been under consideration for a long time. This is Document Number RF-1150. We shall not read it, since it is a publication, but we will summarize the most important contents. The Tribunal will see that the most exact provision has been made for every detail, the sites for the billboards and so forth. All these posters were issued by the central bureau in Berlin, D.P.A. In their original form, they consisted only of pictures. The text was added later in the country for which they were intended. The text had to be printed in the language of this country and adapted to suit local conditions. The Germans very often refrained from indicating their official German origin or even attributed a different origin to them.
M.FUSTER: For instance, they used the phrase "Printed in France," which has no particular meaning since it never appears on genuine French posters. The French posters bear only the printer's name; and this, in its turn, never appears on German posters. By the use of the phrase "Printed in France," however, the Germans could undoubtedly make the French believe that the propaganda put before them was not directly of enemy origin. This is a feature at once curious and revealing. As we have said, publicity has been practiced for a long time. but Nazi Germany made propaganda into a public institution and applied it internationally in a most reprehensible manner. We are now going to show to the Tribunal a few of the stages in the development of this poster propaganda. [Pictures were then projected on the screen.]
M. FOSTER: Here is the first poster [indicating] . I am obliged to describe it because we see' it rather badly. The text seems to indicate the noble attitude of the victor towards the French victims of war. It is expressed as follows: "Abandoned populations: Have confidence in the German soldier," and we see a German soldier with little French children in his arms. At the same time that the Germans tried to gain the confidence of the French population a second poster, which we are going to show you, was posted in Germany regarding French prisoners of war. This is what they said to the Germans. I read the text of the poster: "Companions: Retain your national dignity. Attitude toward prisoners-the attention of every member of the Party is drawn to the following points: It is unworthy to show the slightest sign of friendship to a prisoner. It is strictly forbidden to give food or drink to prisoners of war. Your fathers, sons, and brothers are fighting with all their strength against an enemy whose purpose is the annihilation of the German people. We have no reason to show the slightest friendship to such an enemy, even when he comes to us as a prisoner. The enemy remains the enemy." We are now going to show a series of photographs of posters which were intended to show the French who their real enemies were; but first I should like to ask the Tribunal whether they can see the posters sufficiently welt considering the bad light.
THE PRESIDENT: We can see clearly enough, I think.
M. FOSTER: I thank you. We shall continue. This first photograph of the series, intended to show the populations who their real enemies were, is entitled, "Fake always comes out of the same spot." The enemy aimed at is England. The caricature shows by means of birds with human heads that the voice of the Free French is only a big story, symbolized by Masonic signs or emblems of the Jewish religion. The placards attached to these birds and which appear to defy these slogans of British propaganda are rather entertaining to read now: "The Germans Take All" and "We Have the Mastery of the Seas"-it refers to the Allies. Another photo-we are still dealing with anti-British propaganda. It is a favorite theme of German propaganda. This photo is entitled, "Thanks to the English, our Road to Calvary." It tries to prove to the French by recalling certain historical events, that the English have always been the cause of French sufferings: Joan of Arc, Napoleon, the war of 1939-40 are the principal themes exploited by means of the poster. This one now represents the English hydra which is encircling Africa; but it is mercilessly beheaded in Germany, in Norway, and rather oddly, in Syria. The text of this poster reads, "The hydra is still being systematically decapitated." Poster Number 6 has the following text, which is almost invisible here: "The ally of yesterday, great promises before the war: No help during the war. Retreat and flight of the English Expeditionary Force. Bombardment of French cities and blockade after the debacle. Let us be done with it!" Poster Number 2, which is also anti-British, is constructed on the same model. There are three parts, "Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow." The Germans developed not only the theme of Anglo-Saxon greed which they represented by a hydra or a bulldog, but also the theme of the prestige of the occupied countries at sea. On this point we show photographs of French and Norwegian posters.
M. FOSTER: This poster is entitled, "You won't catch anything with that De Gaulle, Gentlemen!" British corpulence and Jewish capitalism bulge out from a fishing boat stopped by the coastal guns of Dakar. The style of the wording and the sailor's gesture are purely German. A Frenchman would have said, "With that Gaulle (fishing rod)," and the allusion would have been clear enough. Poster Number 9 invites enrollment in the German Navy, "The Time Has Come to Free the Seas." Here is a Norwegian poster: "Defend Norway. Enlist in the German Navy." The inscription might apply, firstly, to all the services of the German uniformed police; secondly, to all the commands of the German Wehrmacht; thirdly, to German harbor masters and port control officers; fourthly, to the commander of the SS Reserve Corps of Norway in Oslo, et cetera. Another Norwegian poster, with the following title, "All for Norway.... Help from England." This poster tries to prove to the civilian population that ruin, fire, and devastation are the only benefits of the English alliance. The second enemy, America, is the subject of the posters we are going to show now. Poster Number 11-"The American Press: 97 percent in the hands of the Jews." That allows the Germans to kin two birds with one stone: The Jews and America. Poster Number 12-in the middle of this poster is the inscription, "They Wanted War," and the persons concerned are represented by six photographs. These persons, who were responsible for the war, are not any of the men whom you see in the dock, but six Americans: magistrates, officials, men in the public eye. Their names were not familiar to the French public, who had rarely seen them on the screen, except for Mr. La Guardia. Those who read articles on economics knew of Mr. Morgenthau; but it was difficult to persuade the French that Messrs. Baruch, Frankfurter, Wise, and Lehman were the instigators of the present war, and Hitler and Goering the victims. As I have said, however, Nazi propaganda did not shrink from any improbability. The photo Number 13 is more picturesque.
M. FOSTER: It shows both sides of a dollar bill and consists of two lines separated by a Masonic star with the inscription, "A dollar has no value unless signed by Morgenthau." Here are the texts of the inscriptions showing the imagination of the Nazi authors in this matter. On the left-hand side we read: "The Minister of the Treasury is Jew Morgenthau Jr., related to the great racketeers of international finance. All the Jewish attributes are found on this dollar: the Eagle of Israel, the triangle, the Eye of Jehovah, the 13 letters of the motto, the 13 stars of the aureole, the 13 arrows, the 13 olive branches, the 13 steps of the unfinished pyramid. This money is Jewish indeed." And on the right-hand side: "This dollar paid for the Jewish war, the sole message which the Anglo-Americans can address to us. Will it be enough to repay us for the misfortunes. arising from that Jewish war? The money does not stink but the Jew does." Number 14-"Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt are dividing Africa." Number 15-this is anti-Semitic propaganda properly speaking. We have already seen it mingled with anti-British and anti-American propaganda. This photograph shows children of a French technical school who were taken to an anti-Jewish exhibition and given anti-Jewish pamphlets to read. Number 16-"Behold the Jewish invasion." France is gnawed by a symbolical hydra and figures are scrawled across her. "In 1914, 200,000 Jews; in 1939, 800,000 Jews, without mentioning the half-Jews." Number 17-"For the Jews the right to live; for us the right to croak. Beneath the recriminations of all-enveloping Jewry, the crosses of the daily growing number of war victims are lined up." This propaganda aims on the one hand at collecting the Jews into a compact mass and isolating them, and on the other hand, at arousing the hatred of the remainder of the population against them. It aims at dividing France. Number 18-finally, we see the terrible Russian foe.
M. FOSTER: A tortured human beast is hauling a barrow-load of stones while a monster in uniform lashes him with a knout or nagaika and threatens him with a revolver. This picture was first intended for inclusion in a composite picture entitled "The Workers Paradise." This gives it additional interest; but owing to the lack of time, the poster was put out just as it was. We submit the plans for the entire project as Document Number RF-1151. Number 19-this is a lovely Norwegian poster: "No" in the form of a flash of lightning strikes against the Russian hand which attempts to tear the national flag. Number 20-"Never!" A romantic picture reminiscent of certain Russian pictures of the last century. Death escorts a train of deportees. The Nazis showed something which they knew well! Number 21-a final picture concerning Russia, "What Bolshevism would bring to Europe." Scenes of mutilation, infanticide, rape, hangings, murder-exactly what the Nazi movement brought to Europe! However, this Europe must realize her good fortune in being led by the Fuehrer, must realize her strength and her unity, in order to fight victoriously against the barbarous enemy. And here is a photograph of a poster, "A Leader and His People." Hitler is depicted as endowed with every charm: sweetness, simplicity, understanding, while the text, unreadable on the reproduction, recalls that he, Hitler, is the unknown soldier of the first war. We call the Tribunal's attention to the photo.
THE PRESIDENT: Could you let the Tribunal know how much longer you are likely to be?
M. FOSTER: About 10 minutes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: You may continue.
M. FOSTER: In the photograph to the left, Hitler is shaking a little girl's hand and we read underneath, "The Little Congratulator." This term, which is not French, betrays the origin of the document. Here is a poster-Number 23-which was widely circulated in France: "I work in Germany for my family and for France. Do as I do." Number 24-"1918 to 1943-History Speaks. 1918-The Debacle. 1943-The Great Unity." This poster is the counterpart of the inscriptions which patriots used to write on the walls in France. The German defeat was rapidly approaching; and they could hope that the end of the year 1943, like the end of the year 1918, would bring the final victory. The Nazis were unable to make any reply to these crushing communiques except by issuing denials and posters like this, affirming the great unity of Europe. Number 25-here is a poster which combines the productive and fighting forces, "The best workers make the best weapons for the best soldiers." Number 26-finally propaganda attains the level of the conflict of political doctrines, "Socialism against Bolshevism or a free Europe." Number 27-religious doctrine. This is a Norwegian poster which makes fun of the Anglo-Russian alliance. It is entitled, "A Blessed Meeting." An Anglican bishop, armed with a phosphorous bomb, presents a cross symbolizing Finland to Pope Stalin. Stalin accepts it with eyes lifted to heaven and a machine gun in his arms. A placard says, "Christianity is introduced into the country of the Soviets," and the motto says, "My dear brother, we wish to strengthen your faith with these beautiful crosses." Number 28-"Anti-Christ: Communism, the scourge of civilization. Bolshevism against Europe. International Exhibition, 12 July to 15 August 1941." The Nazis pose as the defenders of Christianity. Number 29-and to conclude, this is what the defenders of Christianity did to the Church of Oradour-sur-Glane. We have now finished showing the films.
M. FOSTER: We have taken the liberty to submit to the Tribunal a few pictures forming concrete illustrations of a tendency whose spiritual character makes it perhaps more difficult of recognition but whose importance is considerable. In treating an emotionally subtle theme of this kind, we have used pictures in preference to words, since pictures can make clear in an instant something which it takes time to put into words. In this way we hope we have contributed towards making plain the truth.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn until 10 minutes past 2. [The Tribunal recessed until 1410 hours.]
MARSHAL: May it please the Court, I desire to announce that the Defendant Kaltenbrunner will be absent until further notice, on account of illness.
M. FAURE: Mr. President, I shall now take up the last chapter of my brief, which is devoted to the organization of criminal activities. I shall begin this last chapter by quoting a few words spoken by Monseigneur Piguet, Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, in the course of a pontifical Mass on Whit Sunday, 20 May 1945. Monseigneur Piguet had just been liberated from the concentration camp to which he had been sent by the Nazis. He said: "The criminal institutions of which we have been witness and victim bear within themselves all the scourges of barbarism and old-time servitude systematized and applied by a new method capable of increasing human misery by the whole range of modern scientific possibilities." The evidence that I intend to present to the Tribunal with regard to the occupied countries of the West bears upon this aspect of the systematizing of German criminal enterprises. We have said that Germanization did not consist in the particular fact of the imposition of German nationality or of German law, but in the general imposition of the standards established by the Nazi regime, and in a general way, of its philosophy. This aspect of Germanization implies criminal activity at once as a means and as an end- as a means, because the criminal means is very often highly effective, and we know that Nazism professes indifference in regard to the immorality of the means; as an end, on the other hand, since the final organization of Nazi society postulates the elimination of elements hostile to it or which it regards as undesirable. Under these conditions the criminal activities therefore do not appear as accidents or regrettable incidents of war and of occupation. They must not be ascribed to un-coordinated action on the part of subordinates due to overzealousness or lack of discipline. As the elimination of adversaries is recommended in principle, it will be carried out in fact by the normal and regular functioning of the administrative apparatus.
M. FAURE: If Nazism has a philosophy of criminal action, it also has, properly speaking, a bureaucracy of criminal activity. The will which inspires this action is transmitted from one to another of the chief and secondary centers of the state organism. Each of the misdeeds or series of misdeeds of which we have told you already or shall do so again, assumes the existence of a whole series of transmissions: orders passed by superiors to inferiors, requests for orders or reports passed by inferiors to superiors, and finally the relations maintained between corresponding echelons of different services. This administrative organization of criminal activity appears to us a very important datum for the determination of responsibility and the proving of the charges formulated in the Indictment against the higher leaders and against the group organization. The responsibility of any one of these superior leaders in regard to a determined criminal activity does not, indeed, require that an exhibit or a document signed by the person himself be produced or that it should involve him by name. The existence or nonexistence of such a document is a matter of chance. The responsibility of the higher leader is directly established by the fact that a criminal activity has been carried out administratively by a service at whose head we find this leader. This is all the more true in the case of a criminal activity pursued over a long period of time, affecting a considerable number of persons and whose development has given rise to a series of complications, of consultations, and of solutions. There is in every graded state service a continuous circuit of authority which is at the same time a continuous circuit of responsibility. Moreover, concerning charges made against organizations described as criminal organizations, their criminal nature springs from the very fact that their activity produces criminal results without there being any lack of knowledge or modification of the normal rules of competence and of functioning of their different organisms.
M. FAURE: The collaboration which develops with a view to such an end between a series of agents belonging to the organization both vertically between the upper and lower grades and horizontally between the different specialist departments implies no less forcibly the existence of a collective criminal intent. I shall speak first of the persecution of persons qualified as Jews by the German code. The Tribunal already knows from other evidence the Nazi doctrine on the subject of Jews. The historians of the future will perhaps be able to determine how much of this doctrine was the result of sincere fanaticism and how much was the result of premeditated intent to deceive and mislead public opinion. It is certain that the Nazis found the theories which led them to undertake the extermination of the Jews extremely convenient. In the first place, anti-Semitism was an ever accessible means of averting public criticism and anger. Moreover, it was a method of psychological seduction that was very cleverly calculated to appeal to simple minds. It made it possible to give a certain amount of satisfaction to the most needy and underprivileged person by convincing him that he was nevertheless of a superior quality and that he could despise and bully a whole category of his fellow men. Finally, the Nazis obtained for themselves by this means the possibility of whipping up the fanaticism of their members by awakening and encouraging in them the criminal instincts which are always latent to a certain extent in the souls of men. Indeed, it is a German scientist, Feuerbach, who developed the theory that disposition to crime does not necessarily proceed from long preparation. The criminal instinct present may spring to life in an instant. The Nazis gave to the elite of their servants the possibility of giving free rein to any inclination they might possess for murder, looting, the most atrocious actions, and the most hideous spectacles. In this way they fully assured themselves of their obedience and of their zeal.
M. FAURE: In order to avoid repetition, I shad not speak in detail of the great sufferings endured by the persons qualified as Jews in France and in the other countries of western Europe. I should like simply to indicate here that it also caused great suffering to all the other inhabitants of these countries to witness the abominable treatment inflicted upon the Jews. Every Frenchman felt a deep affliction at seeing the persecution of other Frenchmen, many of whom had earned the gratitude of the fatherland. There is no one in Paris who did not feel deeply ashamed to learn that the dying Bergson had to be carried to the police commission to satisfy the census requirements.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, you will forgive my interrupting you, but the Tribunal feels that what you are now presenting to us, however interesting-and it is interesting-is really an argument and is not presenting evidence to us. And as we have already heard an opening on behalf of the United States, an opening on behalf of Great Britain, and an opening on behalf of France, we think that you really ought to address yourself, if possible, to the evidence which you are presenting, rather than to an argument. I feel sure that, with your readiness to meet the wishes of the Tribunal in expressing your presentation, you will perhaps be able to do that.