dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
COL. WHEELER: I now offer in evidence the first of a number of documents which the Vatican has supplied to the Prosecution in this case from its own files and which authoritatively state the acts of suppression of the Church by the Nazi conspirators. This first Vatican document, which deals in part with acts of suppression within Germany, is Document Number 3261-PS, Exhibit Number USA-568, a verbal note of the Secretariat of State of His Holiness the Pope to the German Embassy, dated January 18, 1942. I read the certificate accompanying this document: "The Vatican, November 13th, 1945. "I, Domenico Tardini, Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, hereby certify that the attached document, consisting of nine printed pages and entitled, 'Verbal note of the Secretariat of State of His Holiness to the German Embassy,' January 18th, 1942, Pages 3-11, is a true and correct translation into the English language from the Italian language of a carbon copy of a document now in the possession of the Secretariat of State of His Holiness, the original of which was dispatched to the German Embassy."-Signed-"Domenico Tardini." The paper in the document book, Your Honors, is a mimeographed copy of the same printed document which we received from the Vatican. We did not have enough printed documents to make them in the document books. On Page 2 of the English mimeographed text of this verbal note, Paragraphs 3 and Appearing on Page 2 of the German translation, Paragraphs 3 and 4-the Papal Secretary of State describes, I quote: "Measures and acts which gravely violate the rights of the Church, being contrary not only to the existing concordats but to the principles of international law ratified by the Second Hague Conference... "
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say you were reading the third paragraph?
COL. WHEELER: Yes, Your Honor. It is the third full paragraph on Page 2. It starts in the middle of the paragraph with the last word on the seventh line of the third paragraph. · THE PRESIDENT: It is very difficult for us to find it if you don't tell us it begins in the middle of the paragraph.
COL. WHEELER: The last word of that line is "measures". It's the seventh line of the paragraph beginning "Yet, despite this keen desire," Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I see.
COL.WHEELER: "... but often-and this is much more grave-to the very fundamental principles of Divine Law both natural and positive." The next paragraph specifies these measures. I quote: "Let it suffice to recall in this connection, among other things, the changing of the Catholic state elementary schools into undenominational schools; the permanent or temporary closing of many minor seminaries, of not a few major seminaries, and of some theological faculties; the suppression of almost all the private schools and of numerous Catholic boarding schools and colleges; the repudiation, decided upon unilaterally, of financial obligations which the State, municipalities, and so forth, had towards the Church; the increasing difficulties put in the way of the activity of the religious orders and congregations in the spiritual, cultural, and social field, and above all the suppression of abbeys, monasteries, convents, and religious houses in such great numbers that one is led to infer a deliberate intention of rendering impossible the very existence of the orders and congregations in Germany." The Nazis did not overlook other sects or denominations in their efforts to suppress Christian religion in Germany. They persecuted the "Bibelforscher" or Bible students...
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps, if you are going on to another church, it would be better to break off until tomorrow morning. [The Tribunal adjourned until 8 January 1946 at 1000 hours.]
COL.WHEELER: The Nazis did not overlook other sects or denominations in their efforts to suppress Christian religion in Germany. They persecuted the Bibelforscher or International Bible Students as well. There has already been introduced and read into evidence Document Number D-84, Exhibit Number USA-236, showing that members of this sect were not only prosecuted in the courts, but also seized and sent to concentration camps, even after serving or remitting of their judicial sentences. In Document Number 2928-PS, Exhibit Number USA-239, included in U.S. Document Book A, further evidence of persecution of Bibelforscher appears.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you are going a little bit fast. We are not going to refer to D-84?
COL. WHEELER: I am not going to read from it, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Then you go to 2928-PS?
COL.WHEELER: 2928-PS; it is in the document book, Sir. This document is an affidavit by Matthias Lex, Vice President of the national union of shoemakers. In describing his experience in Dachau Concentration Camp he says, and I quote from the third page of his affidavit: "I include in the political prisoners the International Bible Students"-Bibelforscher-"whose number I estimate at over 150." I want to read further from the last line of that page and the next few lines of the next page: "The following groups were kept entirely isolated: The members of the so-called 'punishment companies,' "-Strafkompanien-"those who were in a concentration camp for a second time, and after about 1937 also the 'Bibelforscher'. Members of the 'punishment companies' were such prisoners who had committed disciplinary or slight offenses against the camp regulations. The following groups lived separately but could mix with the other groups during the day, either while working or while strolling through the camp: "Political prisoners, Jews, anti-socials, gypsies, felons, homosexuals, and, before 1937, also the International Bible Students." I refer also to Document Number 1531-PS-this is not in the document book-Exhibit Number USA-248, which is already in evidence. This was an order by the RSHA in 1942 authorizing third-degree methods against Jehovah's Witnesses. That was read by Colonel Storey. I now turn to acts of suppression in the annexed and occupied territories. In Austria Bishop Rusch of Innsbruck has written an illuminating report on this subject. I offer this sworn statement in evidence, Document 3278-PS, Exhibit Number USA-569. This is a report on the fighting of National Socialism in the Apostolic Administration of Innsbruck-Feldkirch, of Tyrol and Vorarlberg.
COL.WHEELER: In this the Bishop declares, and I start on the first page of the English text and of the German translation: "After having seized power, National Socialism immediately showed the tendency to exclude the Church from publicity." The expression "publicity"-this was written in English by the Bishop-evidently means "public activities." I continue with the quote: "At Corpus Christi in 1938 the customary solemn procession was forbidden. In the summer of the same year all ecclesiastical schools and kindergartens were disbanded. Daily newspaper and weekly reviews of Christian thinking were likewise removed. In the same year all kinds of ecclesiastical organizations, especially youth organizations such as Boy Scouts, were disbanded, all activity forbidden. "The effect of these prohibitions came soon: The clergy took opposition against them, they could not do otherwise. Then a great wave of priest arrests followed. About a fifth of them were eventually arrested. Reasons for arrests were: "1. The 'pulpit-paragraph.' When Party actions were mentioned or criticized even in the humblest manner. "2. The practice of taking care of young people. A specially heavy prohibition was given in November 1939. Children's or youth's mass or services were forbidden. Religion or faith lessons were not allowed to be given in the church except lessons of preparing for first Communion or confirmation. Teaching of religion at school was very often forbidden without any reason. "The priest, according to his conscience, could not follow this public proscription and this explained the great number of arrests of priests. Finally, the priests were arrested on account of their 'caritative' work. It was, for instance, forbidden to give anything to foreigners or prisoners. A priest was arrested because he gave a cup of coffee and bread to two hungry Dutchmen. This 'caritative' act was seen to favor elements foreign to the race. "In 1939 and 1940 a new activity began. Cloisters and abbeys were seized, disbanded, and many churches belonging to them closed.
COL.WHEELER: Among these two convents were disbanded: the cloister of the Dominican Sisters of Bludenz and that of the 'Perpetual Adoration' of Innsbruck. In the latter the Sisters were dragged, one by one, out of the cloister by the Gestapo. In the same way ecclesiastical property such as association houses, parish and youth homes were seized. A list of these closed churches, disbanded cloisters, and ecclesiastical institutions is attached. "Despite all these measures the results were not satisfactory. Then priests were not only arrested, but also deported to concentration camps. Eight priests of Tyrol and Vorarlberg have been imprisoned, among them the Provicar Monseigneur Dr. Charles Lampert. One died there on account of the ill-treatment, the others returned. Provicar Lampert was released but required to remain in Stettin, where later he was re-arrested and executed in November 1944, after having been condemned to death by secret proceedings." There is attached to this report a three-and-a-half-page list entitled, "List of churches, convents, monasteries, and ecclesiastical objects of Tyrol and Vorarlberg seized-that is, confiscated-and of the institutions, confessional schools, et cetera, disbanded." Unless the Tribunal requires it, I shall not read these names. I offer in evidence Document 3274-PS, Exhibit Number USA-570, received from Cardinal Innitzer of Vienna and authenticated by him. This is the first joint pastoral letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of Austria after liberation, dated October 17, 1945. I quote from Page 1, second paragraph of the English and German texts, which sums up the Nazi conspirators' campaign in Austria: "A war which has raged terribly and horribly, like none other in past epochs of the history of humanity is at an end.
COL.WHEELER: ...At an end also is an intellectual battle, the goal of which was the destruction of Christianity and' Church among our people; a campaign of lies and treachery against truth and love, against divine and human rights, and against international law." I quote further from the fourth and following paragraphs: "Direct hostility to the Church was revealed in regulations against orders and monasteries, Catholic schools and institutions, against religious foundations and activities, against the ecclesiastical recreation centers and institutions; without the least rights to defend themselves they were declared enemies of both people and state and their existence destroyed. "Religious instruction and education of children and adolescents were purposely limited, frequently entirely prevented. They encouraged in every manner all efforts hostile to religion and the Church and thus sought to rob the children and youth of our people of the most valuable treasure of holy faith and of true morality born of the Spirit of God. Unfortunately the attempt succeeded in innumerable cases to the permanent detriment of young people. "Spiritual care of souls in churches and ecclesiastical houses, in hospitals and other institutions was seriously obstructed. It was made ineffectual in the Armed Forces and in the Labor Service, in the transfer of youth to the country and, beyond that, even in individual families and among numerous persons, to say nothing of the prohibition of spiritual ministration to people of another nationality and of other races. "How often was the divine service as such, also sermons, missions, Communion days, retreats, processions, pilgrimages, restricted for the most impossible reasons and made entirely impossible! "Catholic literature, newspapers, periodicals, church papers, religious writings were stopped, books and libraries destroyed. "What an injustice occurred in the dissolution of many Catholic societies, in the destruction of numerous church activities!
COL.WHEELER: "Individual Catholic and Christian believers, whose religious confession was allegedly free, were spied upon, criticized on account of their belief, scorned on account of their Christian activity. How many religious officials, teachers, public and private employees, laborers, businessmen, and artisans, indeed, even peasants were put under pressure and terror! Many lost their jobs, some were pensioned off, others dismissed without pension, demoted, deprived of their real professional activity. Often enough such people who remained loyal to their convictions were discriminated against, condemned to hunger or tortured in concentration camps. Christianity and the Church were continually scorned and exposed to hatred. "The apostasy movement found every assistance. Every opportunity was used to induce many to withdraw from the Church." In assessing responsibility for these acts of suppression in Austria, the Court will recall that the Defendant Von Schirach was Gauleiter of Vienna from 1940 to 1945. I now come to the acts of suppression in Czechoslovakia, where, the Court will recollect, the Defendant Von Neurath was Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia from 1939 to 1943 and was succeeded by the Defendant Frick. These acts have been summarized in an official Czech Government report. I refer to Document 998-PS, Exhibit Number USA-91, already in evidence. These are excerpts not previously read or referred to from the "Czech Official Report for the Prosecution and Trial of the German Major War Criminals by the International Military Tribunal Established according to the Agreement of the Four Great Powers, of August 8, 1945." Since this is an official government document or report of one of the United Nations, I ask that the Tribunal take judicial notice of it under Article 21 of the Charter and I suggest that I be permitted to summarize rather than read it.
COL.WHEELER: It describes the maltreatment of Catholic priests-487 of whom were sent to concentration camps as hostages-dissolution of religious orders, suppression of religious instruction in Czech schools, suppression of Catholic weeklies and monthlies, dissolution of the Catholic gymnastic organization of 800,000 members, and seizure of Catholic Church property. It describes the entire prohibition of the Czechoslovak National Church and confiscation of all its property in Slovakia and its crippling in Bohemia. The report describes the severe restriction on freedom of preaching by the Protestants and the persecution and imprisonment and execution of ministers and the suppression of Protestant Church youth organizations and theological schools and shows the complete subordination and later dissolution of the Greek Orthodox Church. It states that all Evangelical education was handed over to the civil authorities and many Evangelical teachers lost their employment. The repressive measures adopted by the Nazi conspirators in Poland against the Christian Church were even more drastic and sweeping. The Vatican documents now to be introduced describe persecutions of the Catholic Church in Poland in three areas: First, the incorporated territories, especially the Warthegau; second, the Government General; and third, the incorporated Eastern territories. The Court will recall that the incorporated territories comprised territories adjacent to the old Reich, chiefly the Reich District Wartheland or Warthegau, which included particularly the cities of Poznan and Lodz and the Reich district Danzig-West Prussia. The occupied Polish territories which were organized into the Government General comprised the remainder of Poland, seized by the German forces in 1939 and extending to the new boundary with the Soviets formed at that time. This included Warsaw and Krakow.
COL.WHEELER: After the Nazis attacked the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in June 1941, the parts of old Poland lying farther to the east and then overrun were included in the so-called Occupied Eastern Territories. For the purpose of tying the defendants' responsibility for the persecutions occurring in their respective areas, the Court will bear in mind that the Defendant Frick was the official chiefly responsible for the reorganization of the Eastern territories. The Defendant Frank was head of the Government General from 1939 to 1945. The Defendant Seyss-Inquart was Deputy Governor General there frown 1939 to 1940. And the Defendant Rosenberg was Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories from July 17, 1941 to the end. I now offer in evidence Document Number 3263-PS, Exhibit Number USA-571, headed, "Memorandum of the Secretariat of State to the German Embassy regarding the religious situation in the 'Warthegau,' October 8, 1942." This document bears a certificate of authenticity from the Vatican signed by the Papal Secretary of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs corresponding to that accompanying Document 3261-PS, read in evidence a few minutes ago. Unless the Court requires otherwise, I suggest that it is not necessary to read each of these certificates, which are all similar one to another. I quote from Document 3263-PS, the first paragraph: "For quite a long time the religious situation in the region called 'Warthegau' gives cause for very grave and ever-increasing anxiety.
COL.WHEELER: There, in fact, the Episcopate has been little by little almost completely eliminated; the secular and regular clergy have been reduced to proportions that are absolutely inadequate, because they have been in large part deported and exiled; the education of clerics has been forbidden; the Catholic education of youth is meeting with the greatest opposition; the nuns have been dispersed; insurmountable obstacles have been put in the way of affording people the help of religion; very many churches have been closed; Catholic intellectual and charitable institutions have been destroyed; ecclesiastical property has been seized." On March 2, 1943 the Cardinal Secretary of State addressed to the Defendant Von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of the Reich, a note setting forth in detail the persecution of bishops, priests, and other ecclesiastics and the suppression of the exercise of religion in the occupied Polish provinces. This document is so explicit and so authoritative that it deserves extensive quotation. I accordingly offer it in evidence: Document Number 3264-PS, Exhibit Number USA-572. It is headed, "A Note of His Eminence the Cardinal Secretary of State to the Foreign Minister of the Reich about the religious situation in the 'Warthegau' and in the other Polish provinces subject to Germany." It bears a Vatican certificate of authenticity like that of Document 3261-PS. It is signed, "L. Card. Maglione," meaning "Luigi Cardinal Maglione." I quote from this note, starting with Page 1, the third paragraph of the English mimeographed text and of the German translation: "The place where, above all, the religious situation, by its unusual gravity, calls for special consideration is the territory called the 'Reichsgau Wartheland.' "Six bishops resided in that region in August 1939; now there is left only one.
COL.WHEELER: In fact, the Bishop of Lodz and his auxiliary were, in the course of the year 1941, confined first in a small district of the diocese and then expelled and exiled in the 'Generalgouvernement.' "Another bishop, Monseigneur Michael Kozal, Auxiliary and Vicar General of Wloclawek, was arrested in the autumn of 1939, detained for some time in a prison in the city and later in a religious house in Lad, and finally was transferred to the concentration camp at Dachau. "Since His Eminency the Cardinal Archbishop of Gniezno and Poznan and the Bishop of Wloclawek, who had gone away during the period of military operations, were not allowed to return to their Sees, the only bishop who now remains in the 'Warthegau' is His Excellency Monseigneur Valentine Dymek, Auxiliary of Poznan; and he, at least up to November 1942, was interned in his own house." I pass now to Page 2, fourth paragraph of the English text, the fifth paragraph of the German text: "If the lot of their Excellencies the Bishops has been a source of anxiety for the Holy See, the condition of an immense number of priests and members of religious orders has caused it, and still causes it, no less grief. "In the territory now called 'Warthegau' more than 2,000 priests exercised their ministry before the war; they are now reduced to a very small number. "According to accounts received from various quarters by the Holy See, in the first months of the military occupation not a few members of the secular clergy were shot or otherwise put to death, while others-some hundreds-were imprisoned or treated in an unseemly manner, being forced into employments unbecoming their state and exposed to scorn and derision. "Then, while numbers of ecclesiastics were exiled or constrained in some other way to take refuge in the 'Generalgouvernement,' many others were transferred to concentration camps.
COL.WHEELER: At the beginning of October 1941 the priests from the dioceses of the 'Warthegau' detained in Dachau already numbered several hundreds; but their number increased considerably in that month following a sharp intensification of police measures which culminated in the imprisonment and deportation of further hundreds of ecclesiastics. Entire 'Kreise' (districts) remained thus completely deprived of clergy. In the city of Poznan itself the spiritual care of some 200,000 Catholics remained in the hands of not more than four priests. "No less painful was the fate reserved for the regular clergy. Many religious were shot or otherwise killed; the great majority of the others were imprisoned, deported, or expelled. "In the same way far-reaching measures were taken against the institutions preparing candidates for the ecclesiastical state. The diocesan seminaries of Gniezno and Poznan, of Wloclawek, and of Lodz were closed. The seminary in Poznan for the training of priests destined to work among Polish Catholics abroad was also closed. "The novitiates and houses of formation of the religious orders and congregations were closed. "Not even the nuns were able to continue their charitable activities without molestation. For them was set up a special concentration camp at Bojanowo, where towards the middle of 1941 about 400 sisters were interned and employed in manual labor. To a representation of the Holy See made through the Apostolic Nunciature in Berlin (Memorandum N. 40.348 of June 11th, 1941) your Reich Ministry for Foreign Affairs replied in the Memorandum Poll III 1886 of September 28 of the same year that it was only a question of a temporary measure, taken with the consent of the Reich lieutenant for Wartheland, in order to supply the lack of housing for Polish Catholic sisters. In the same memorandum it was admitted that as a result of reorganization of charitable institutions many Catholic sisters were without employment.
COL.WHEELER: "But, in spite of the fact that this measure was declared to be temporary, it is certain that towards the end of 1942 some hundreds of nuns were still interned at Bojanowo. It is established that for some time the religious were deprived even of spiritual help. "Likewise in the matter of education and religious instruction of youth no attention was paid in the 'Warthegau' to the rights of the Catholic Church. "All the Catholic schools were suppressed."
THE PRESIDENT: Who was the Foreign Minister of the Reich at the time that document was sent?