dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. DIX: Previous to this Schacht had particularly warned the foreign countries of this development, and thus he had not contributed to it. After the seizure of power only two roads were open to him, as to every German: He either had to estrange himself or to enter the Movement actively. The decision at these crossroads was a purely political one without any criminal aspect. Just as we respect the reasons which caused the foreign countries to collaborate with Hitler much more intensively and in a more pro-German way than with the previous democratic Governments of Germany, we must recognize the good faith of all those Germans who believed themselves able to serve the country and humanity better by remaining in the Movement, that is, within the Party or the apparatus · of officialdom, because of the greater possibilities of exerting their influence, than by grumbling and keeping aloof. To serve Hitler as minister and President of the Reichsbank was a political decision, about the political correctness of which one can argue em facto but one which certainly lacked any criminal character. Schacht has always remained loyal to the motivating reason for his decision, namely, to combat any radicalism from an influential position. Nowhere in the world, which knew his oppositional attitude, could he see any signs of warning or support. He saw only that the world trusted Hitler much longer than he himself did and permitted Adolf Hitler to gain honors and foreign political successes, which hampered Schacht's work which had already for a long time been directed toward removing Adolf Hitler and his Government. He led this struggle against Adolf Hitler and his Government with a courage and determination which must make it appear a pure miracle that not until after 20 July 1944 did fate overtake him, when he was sent to a concentration camp and was in danger of losing his life either through the Peoples' Court or through a spectacular act of the SS.
DR. DIX: He is sufficiently wise and self-critical to realize that from a purely political angle the picture of his character will be adjudged diversely in history, or at least in the immediate future, according to favor or hatred of the parties. He humbly resigns himself to the judgment of history, even if one historian or another will label his political line as incorrect. But with the pride of a good conscience he faces the judgment of this High Tribunal. He stands before his judges with clean hands. He also stands before this Tribunal with confidence, as he has already manifested in a letter which he addressed to this Tribunal before the beginning of the proceedings, in which he states that he is grateful to be able to expose before this Tribunal and before the whole world his actions and doings and their underlying reasons. He stands before this Tribunal with confidence because he knows that favor or hatred of the parties will have no effect on this Tribunal. While recognizing the relativity of all political actions in such difficult times, he remains sure of himself and full of confidence with regard to the criminal charges which have been raised against him. Whoever would be found guilty of being criminally responsible for this war and the atrocities and inhuman acts committed in it, Schacht, according to the evidence which has been given here with minute exactness, can confront that culprit with the words which Wilhelm Tell flings in the face of the emperor's assassin, Parricida: "I raise my clean hands to Heaven, and curse you and your deed!" I therefore request the findings to be established to the effect that Schacht is not guilty of the accusation which has been raised against him and that he be acquitted.
THE PRESIDENT: I call on Dr. Kranzbuhler for the Defendant Doenitz.
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Tribunal: "War is a cruel thing, and it brings in its train a multitude of injustices and misdeeds." * With these words of Plutarch's, Hugo Grotius begins his examination of responsibility for war crimes; and they are as true today as they were 2,000 years ago. Acts constituting war crimes, or considered as such by the opponent, have at all times been committed by belligerents. But this fact was always held against the vanquished parties and never against the victors. The law which was applied here was necessarily always the law of the stronger. While more or less stable rules have been governing land warfare for centuries, in naval warfare the conceptions of the belligerents with regard to international law have always clashed. No one knows better than the British statesmen to what extent these conceptions are dictated by national or economic interests. I refer in this respect to noted witnesses such as Lord Fisher and Lord Edward Grey.** Therefore, if ever in history a naval power would have had the idea of prosecuting a defeated enemy admiral, based on its own conception of the rules of naval warfare, the sentence would have been a foregone conclusion from the very indictment. At this trial two admirals are under indictment for a naval war which has been termed criminal. Thus the Tribunal is confronted with a decision regarding conceptions of law which are necessarily as divergent as the interests of a naval power and a land power. It is not only the fate of the two admirals which depends upon this decision. It is also a question of personal honor · De jure pacis ac belli, Book II, Chapter XXIV, Paragraph 10. .* Lord Edward Grey: "Twenty-five Years of Politics 1892-1916." (Retranslated into English from the German edition published by Bruckmann, Munich 1926). ``International Law has always been very flexible ....
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): A belligerent possessing an over-powefful navy has at all times been in search of an interpretation of International Law which would justify a maximum of intervention in respect of merchandise liable to reach the enemy. This attitude was naturally adopted by Great Britain and the Allies owing to their supremacy at sea. The British position on this subject had not always been the same. When we figured among the neutrals, we naturally contested the right to maximum intervention claimed by the belligerents." to hundreds of thousands of German seamen who believed they were serving a good cause, and who do not deserve to be branded by history as pirates and murderers. It is for these men, the living as well as the dead, that I feel bound by a moral obligation to reject the accusations raised against German naval warfare. What are these accusations? They are divided into two main groups: Unlawful sinking of ships and deliberate killing of shipwrecked personnel. I shall deal first with the accusation of the illegal sinking of ships. Two reports by Mr. Roger Allen, of the British Foreign Office, made in the autumn of 1940 and spring of 1941, form the nucleus of that accusation. I do not know to whom and for what purpose these reports were made. According to their form and content they appear to serve propaganda purposes, and for that reason alone I consider them to have little value as evidence. Even the Prosecution submitted only part of the accusations made therein. The reports trace only one-fifth of the total number of supposedly unlawful attacks back to submarines, whereas four-fifths are ascribed to mines, airplanes, or surface craft. The Prosecution omits these four-fifths, and this reticence may be explained by the fact that the use of these combat means on the British side differed in no way from that on the German side. With regard to the use of submarines, however, there does seem to exist a difference between the principles followed in Germany's conduct of the naval war and that of our enemies.
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): At any rate, the public in enemy countries and in many neutral countries believed so during the war, and partly still believes it today. Propaganda dominated the field. At the same time the vast majority of all critics neither knew exactly what principles applied to German U-boat warfare, nor on what factual and legal foundations they were based. It shall be my task to attempt to clarify this. The reports by Mr. Roger Allen culminate in the assertion that the German U-boats, beginning with the summer of 1940, torpedoed everything within range. Undoubtedly, the methods of submarine warfare gradually intensified under the pressure of the measures directed against Germany. This war, however, never degenerated into an orgy of shooting governed only by the law of expediency. Most of what might have been expedient for a U-boat was left undone to the last day of the war because it could only be regarded as legally inadmissible, and all measures of which Germany in her conduct of naval warfare is being accused today by the Prosecution were the result of a development in which both sides took part through measures and countermeasures, as occurs in the course of every war. 313· The London Protocol of 1936 formed the legal basis for German submarine warfare at the beginning of this war. These regulations were incorporated verbatim into Article 74 of the German Prize Ordinance, which even Mr. Roger Allen calls a reasonable and not inhuman instrument. This Prize Ordinance was sent in 1938 in draft form to the two U-boat flotillas and to the U-boat training school and served as a basis for the training of commanders. Stopping and examining merchant vessels was performed as a tactical task. In order to facilitate for the commander in economic warfare the quick and correct evaluation of his legal position towards ships and cargoes of the enemy and of neutral countries, the prize disc was constructed, which through simple manipulations indicated the articles of the Prize Ordinance to be applied.
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): Thus, insofar as preparations had been made at all for economic warfare by submarines they were based exclusively on the German Prize Ordinance, and thus on the London Protocol. The German High Command actually did adhere to this legal foundation in the initial stages of the war. The combat instructions for U-boats of 3 September 1939 contained clear orders to the effect that submarine warfare was to be carried on in accordance with the Prize Ordinance. Accordingly, sinkings were permissible only after stopping and examining the ship, unless it attempted to escape or offered resistance. Some examples were submitted to the Tribunal, from the abundance of available instances, showing the chivalrous spirit in which the German submarine commanders complied with instructions given. In particular, assistance afforded · to the crews of ships lawfully sunk, after having been stopped and examined, occasionally reached a point where it could scarcely be justified on military grounds. Lifeboats were towed over long distances, whereby the few available U-boats were diverted from their combat mission. Enemy ships which might have been sunk lawfully were permitted to go free in order to send the crews of ships previously sunk to port aboard them. It is therefore only correct that Mr. Roger Allen stated that the German U-boats, during the first weeks of the war, adhered strictly to the London regulations. Why was this practice not kept up? Because the conduct of the enemy made such a procedure militarily impossible, and at the same time created the legal prerequisites for its modification. I shall consider the military side first. From the very first day of the war, U-boat reports reached the Flag Officer of U-boats and the Naval Operations Staff stating that hardly an enemy ship submitted voluntarily to being stopped and examined. The merchant vessels were not content with attempting to escape through flight or by changing their course and bearing directly down upon the U-boat in order to force it to dive.
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): Every U-boat sighted was at once reported by radio; and subsequently, in the shortest space of time, attacked by enemy airplanes or naval forces. However, it was the arming of all enemy merchant vessels that settled the matter. As early as 6 September 1939 a German U-boat was shelled by the British steamship Manaar, and that was the starting signal for the great struggle which took place between the U-boats, on the one hand, and the armed merchant vessels equipped with guns and depth charges, on the other hand, as equal military opponents. In order to show the effect of all the measures taken by the adversary, I have presented to the Tribunal some examples which I do not wish to repeat. They show unequivocally that further action against enemy merchant ships in accordance with the Prize Ordinance was no longer feasible from the military standpoint and meant suicide for the submarine. Nevertheless, the German command for weeks on end continued to act according to the regulations governing the Prize Ordinance. Only after it was established that action on the part of enemy merchant ships- especially armed action-no longer took the form of individual measures but of general instructions, was the order given on 4 October 1939 to attack all armed enemy merchant ships without warning. The Prosecution will perhaps take the standpoint that, in lieu of this, submarine warfare against armed merchant vessels should have been discontinued. In the last war the most terrible weapons of warfare were ruthlessly employed by both sides on land and in the air. In view of this experience the thesis can hardly be upheld today that in naval warfare one of the parties waging war should be expected to give up using an effective weapon after the adversary has taken measures making the use of it impossible in its previous form. In any case such a renunciation could only be considered if the novel utilization of the weapon were undeniably illegal.
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): But this is not the case for the utilization of German submarines against enemy merchant shipping, because the measures taken by the enemy changed not only the military but also the legal situation. According to German legal opinion a ship which is equipped and utilized for battle does not come under the provisions granting protection against sinking without warning as laid down by the London Protocol for merchant ships. I wish to stress the fact that the right of the merchant ship to carry weapons and to fight is not thereby contested. The conclusion drawn from this fact is reflected in the well-known formula: "He who resorts to weapons must expect to be answered by weapons." During cross-examination the Prosecution referred to this interpretation of the London Protocol as fraudulent. It admits only the closest literal interpretation and considers the sinking of a merchant ship as admissible only if the latter has offered active resistance. It is not the first time that fundamental differences of opinion exist between contracting parties with respect to the interpretation of a treaty, and the extremely divergent interpretations of the meaning of the Potsdam Agreement of 2 August 1945 provide a recent example. Diversity of conception, therefore, does not permit the conclusion that the one or the other party acted fraudulently during the signing or the subsequent interpretation of a treaty. I will endeavor to show how unjustified this charge is particularly in regard to the German interpretation of the London Submarine Protocol. There are two terms on which the German interpretation hinges, namely, that of "merchant vessel" and "active resistance." If I now consider some legal questions, this will in no way represent a comprehensive exposition. I can only touch on the problems and due to lack of time must limit myself also when dealing with research on the subject.
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): I shall primarily refer to American sources, because the interests of naval strategy of that nation were not as firmly established as those of the European nations and its research literature can thus claim greater objectivity. The text of the London Protocol of 1936 is based, of course, on a declaration which was signed at the London Naval Conference of 1930. The committee of jurists appointed at that time expressed its opinion concerning the greatly disputed definition of a merchant vessel in the report of 3 April 1930: "The committee wishes to place on record that the expression 'merchant vessel' where it is employed in the declaration is not to be understood as including a merchant vessel which is at the moment participating in hostilities in such a manner as to cause her to lose her right to the immunities of a merchant vessel." This definition clarifies at least one thing, namely, that by no means every vessel flying a merchant flag may lay claim to being treated as a merchant vessel in the sense of the London Agreement. Beyond this, the explanation has few positive aspects because the question through what kind of participation in hostilities a vessel loses her right to the immunity of a merchant vessel is again subject to the interpretation of the contracting parties. The London Conference, as far as I can see, did not consider this ticklish question any further, and one is probably entitled to assume that this remarkable reserve is based on experiences which the same powers had accumulated in Washington 8 years before. The Washington Conference of 1922 was held under the impression of the first World War; and therefore it is no wonder that Great Britain, the naval power which during the World War had suffered most from German submarine warfare, now tried to outlaw and abolish altogether by international law submarine warfare against merchant shipping. The resolution, named after the American chief delegate, Root, which in its first part substantially corresponded to the London text of 1930, served that aim.
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): But in the second part the Root Resolution goes further and stipulates that any commander who, no matter whether he acted with or without higher orders, violated the rules established for the sinking of merchant vessels should be punished as a war criminal like a pirate. Finally it was recognized that under the conditions stipulated in the resolution submarine warfare against merchant shipping was impossible, and such warfare was therefore renounced altogether by the contracting powers. The Root Resolution designates these principles as an established part of international law. While it was accepted as such by the delegates, none of the five participating naval powers, U. S. A., Britain, France, Japan, and Italy ratified it. In connection with the Root Resolution, however, another question was discussed which is of the greatest importance for the interpretation of the London Protocol, namely, the definition of the term "merchantman." Here the two conflicting views in the entire U-boat question became clearly evident. On the one side there stood Britain, on the other France*, Italy, and Japan, while the United States took the position of a mediator. According to the minutes of the Washington Conference, the Italian delegate, Senator Schanzer, opened the offensive of the weaker naval powers by expressly emphasizing that a merchantman, when regularly armed, might be attacked by a submarine without preliminaries. In a later session Schanzer repeated his statement that the Italian delegation applied the term of "merchantman" in the resolution only to unarmed merchant vessels. He declared this to be in explicit accordance with the existing rules of international law.** The French delegate, M. Sarraut, at that time received instructions from his Foreign Minister, M. Briand, to second the reservations of the Italian delegate.*** He thereupon moved to have the Italian reservations included in the minutes of the session.
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): *Yamato Ichihalie, The Washington Conference and After, Stanford University Press, Cal., 1928, Page 80, "The chief reason for the British plea was the apprehension of the craft in the hands of the French navy." **Conference on the Limitation of Armaments, Washington. November 12, 1921-February 6, 1922, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1922, Pages 606, 688, 692. ***French Yellow Book, La Conference de Washington, Page 93. The Japanese delegate, Hanihara, supported this trend with the statement that he thought it was clear that merchant vessels engaged in giving military assistance to the enemy ceased in fact to be merchant vessels.* It can therefore be seen that in 1922, three of the five powers represented expressed the opinion that armed merchant vessels were not to be regarded as merchant vessels in the sense of the Agreement. Since the whole resolution threatened to collapse because of this difference of opinion, a way out was found which is typical of conferences of this kind. Root closed the debate with the statement that in his opinion the resolution held good for all merchant ships as long as the ship remained a merchant vessel.** With this compromise a formula was created which, while representing a momentary political success, would not however carry any weight in the case of war, for it was left to every participating power to decide whether or not it would grant the armed merchant vessels the protection of the resolution in case of war. I have described these events of the year 1922 a little more in detail because the powers which took part in them were the same as those which participated in the London Naval Conference of 1930. The London Conference was the continuation of the Washington Conference, and the subjects that had been discussed and included in the minutes of the first conference were of great importance for the second conference.
FLOTTENRICHTER OTTO KRANZBUEHLER (Counsel for the Defendant Doenitz): Experts too-and by no means only German but above all American and French experts-based their examinations on the close connection of both conferences, and it was precisely for that reason that they declared the result achieved in the question of submarines to be ambiguous and unsatisfactory. Here I merely wish to point to Wilson's summarizing report on the London Naval Treaty.*** This report, besides the ambiguity of the concept "merchant vessel," also stresses the uncertainty connected with the words "active resistance"; and it is with these very words that an exception from the protection of the merchantman is connected, an exception which likewise is not contained in the actual text of the London Agreement but which nevertheless is generally recognized. I am referring to merchantmen in an enemy convoy. If the London Agreement were interpreted literally, it would be understood that even merchantmen in an enemy convoy must not be attacked without warning but that an attacking warship would have to put the escort vessels out of action first and then stop and search the · Protocol Pages 693, 702. * Protocol Page 704. I'* American Journal of International Law, 1931, Page 307. merchantmen. However, this suggestion, which is impossible from a military point of view, evidently is not made even by the Prosecution. In the report of the British Foreign Office, which has been mentioned several times, it says: "Ships sailing in enemy convoys are usually deemed to be guilty of forcible resistance and therefore liable to be sunk forthwith." Here even the Prosecution accepts an interpretation of the words "active resistance," an interpretation which results in no way from the treaty itself but is simply a consequence of military necessity and thus dictated by common sense. And this very same common sense demands also that the armed merchantman be held just as guilty of forcible resistance as the convoyed ship. Let us take an extreme instance in order to make the matter quite clear.