dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. CHAMPETIER DE RIBES: In requesting of your justice the moral condemnation of the organizations, without which the crimes of National Socialism could not have been perpetrated, we are not asking you to condemn without hearing men who can indeed plead their cases in person before the competent tribunals Moreover, although the Charter of your Tribunal decrees that "in cases where a group or organization is declared criminal lay the Tribunal.... such criminal nature is considered proved and shall not be questioned," it does not say anywhere that all members of such groups or organizations must be arraigned before competent authorities, and in our opinion only those should be prosecuted who, having knowledge of the criminal activity of the group or organization, deliberately joined it, thus participating personally in the crimes committed by all collectively. We think, on the other hand, that in the interest of serene justice and in the hope of universal pacification, the penalties must be made proportionate to the gravity of the offences charged, and that if the most severe penalties are justly attendant upon the crimes of which a member of an organization is found personally guilty, mere affiliation, even voluntary, to- one of these groups should only be punished by penalties involving loss of freedom or even only by loss of all or some civil or political rights. And if the Tribunal share this opinion, nothing in the Charter prohibits them from saying so in whatever form they deem most fitting. Your verdict therefore will not be, as Dr. Steinbauer seemed to fear in his final pleading for Seyss-Inquart, the conclusion of a "trial of the vanquished by the victor." It will be the solemn and serene manifestation of eternal justice. In this same final pleading, trying to contrast the words of M. de Menthon with the attitude of one of the most heroic chiefs of the French Resistance, who has since become President of the Government of the Republic, Dr. Steinbauer recalled M. Georges Bidault's words while visiting severely wounded Germans after the liberation.
M. CHAMPETIER DE RIBES: "Comrades," he said to them, "I wish you a speedy recovery and a happy return to your country." Seyss-Inquart's counsel was wrong. There is no contradiction between the words of Frangois de Menthon and those of Georges Bidault; and the French people, just as, I am sure, the free citizens of the United Nations, can all reconcile the severity necessary for the culprits with pity for those who perhaps were only the victims. In declaring the collective organizations criminal in order to enable the competent authorities to punish the guilty, but only the guilty, in solemnly reminding the world that before the arbitrary rule of men and governments a moral law existed, incumbent on public figures as well as on private persons, on nations as well as on individuals, a law which cannot be broken with impunity, your sentence will contribute greatly to the great work of universal peace which is being undertaken in the organization of the United Nations as well as at the Peace Conference, in New York as in Paris, by the representatives of the free peoples, "anxiously awaited by sincere men of upright heart."
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Your Lordship! Your Honors! We have now come to the final stage of the Trial which has been conducted with exceptional care and with the greatest skill. The Prosecution has presented exhaustive proofs for the individual cases of the major war criminals now in the dock. We fully support also the charges against the criminal organizations-the Government of Fascist Germany, the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces, the Leadership Corps of the German National Socialist Party, the State Secret Police (Gestapo), the Security Detachments of the German National Socialist Party (SS), Security Service (SD), and Detachments of SA. As it has been established by the legal proceedings, Hitlerized Germany was headed by a gang of conspirators who seized the power of the State and the administration of the whole country. A group of conspirators of this kind, operating in a state with a population of many millions, at the centre of a huge State machinery, could not exist without a whole system of subsidiary criminal organizations connecting the conspirators with the remote districts, the leaders of the main thoroughfares with the leaders of the streets and byways. Therefore in Hitler's Germany there was a network of organizations possessed of great power: the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, Gestapo, SS, SD, et cetera , which functioned under the constant and direct leadership of the conspirators. The law of 1933, according to which the machinery of the Fascist Party was merged into the State machinery of Hitler's Germany, was an open legal recognition of the fact.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): To strengthen the union between the governing body and the organizations, each of the conspirators acted in several capacities and held several offices, representing many persons: Goering, for example-Reich Minister, Commander of the Air Force, Delegate for the Four Year Plan, Reichsleiter, Supreme Commander of SA and SS; Hess-Cabinet Minister, Hitler's Deputy for the Party, General of SS and SA; Rosenberg-Reichsleiter of 'the National Socialist Party for questions of ideology and foreign policy, as well as Cabinet Minister and Obergruppenfuehrer of SA and SS, et cetera. Just as Goering the Minister is inseparable from Goering the Obergruppenfuehrer of SS, so are the Gestapo and the other criminal organizations inseparable from the State in Hitler's Germany. It is possible to imagine Hitler's Germany without libraries, without schools, even without hospitals, but Hitler's Germany without SS and Gestapo could not exist. Reflecting this political reality, the Charter of the International Military Tribunal provides for two kinds of participation in the criminal associations of Hitler: Article 6 of the Charter refers to participation in the criminal conspiracy, and Articles 9 and 10 refer to the participation in the criminal organizations. Both of these conceptions are organically and indissolubly connected, for they express in legal terms the correlation and the connection which actually existed in real life between the conspiracy and the organizations in Hitler's Germany. After having closely connected these two kinds of participation of the Hitlerites in international crimes, that is, participation in the conspiracy and participation in the organizations, the Charter of the International Military Tribunal has established with full reason different criminal and legal consequences for two kinds of participation. Participation in the conspiracy can by its very nature only refer to a limited number of persons, and is provided for by the Charter as an independent criminal action.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): The question of responsibility for participation in the criminal organizations, comprising hundreds of thousands of members, on the other hand, is differently defined by the Charter. Based entirely upon the principles of law and justice, the Charter of the Tribunal leaves it to the competence of the national tribunals to determine the individual responsibility of the members of the organization, which is closely connected with the determination of the guilt and of the criminality of a great number of individual persons. According to Article 10 of the Charter, "if the Tribunal considers one or another organization as criminal, the national courts have a right to prosecute separate individuals for belonging to criminal organizations." Therefore the Tribunal has the right to consider an organization as criminal, not for the purpose of punishing this organization as a whole or all of its members, but thus to enable the national courts to prosecute individuals for belonging to such organizations as have been declared criminal. In accordance with the instructions of Article 10 of the Charter the tribunals of the U.S.S.R., the U.S.A., Great Britain, and France, and of 18 states which joined the London Agreement, may certainly condemn, but they have the right also to come to a conclusion that the defendant was not a member of the organization at all, or belonged to it only formally and was in fact far removed from it, and according to such a conclusion they may acquit him. All these questions, as well as related -questions, were and remain within the competence of the national courts.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): These courts are limited only in one theoretically important respect, which is in principle of profound importance: if the International Tribunal considers the organization as criminal, the national tribunals cannot deny or, even discuss the criminal character of such an organization; here for the first time in legal history the sovereignty of individual countries is limited by the enforcing power of the verdict of the international legal authority--the Tribunal. This definition of the competence of the International Tribunal and the national courts is very essential in order to understand the regulations of the Charter of the Tribunal concerning criminal organizations. And, indeed, just because the Tribunal will have to decide only the general question concerning the criminality of the organization, and not separate questions about the individual responsibility of these various organizations, the Charter does not indicate any particular criterion of the concept "organization," and in this case does not bind the Tribunal by any formal requirement. The absence in the Charter of a detailed definition of a criminal organization is not, therefore, an omission in the Charter but a theoretical position on principle, which follows from the above-mentioned fact, namely, relegating the elucidation of the question of facts to the, agencies of national justice. Therefore, attempts to require some kind of factual signs (voluntary membership, mutual information) in order to consider the organization as criminal do not find any support in the Charter but differ from its entire structure. The main and only task presenting itself to the Tribunal is not such investigations with which national courts deal and will have to deal, but the establishing of one decisive fact, namely, whether by its criminal actions the organization participated in the realization of the plan of Hitler's conspirators. Complying with this task the Charter established the order of the proceedings for the prosecution of organizations.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): In fact, the Charter of the Tribunal provides that for the decision on the question concerning the criminal organizations it is necessary to consider the case of the definite representative of such an organization sitting in the defendants' dock. The defendants at this Trial were at the same time participants of the conspiracy and leading members of the organizations, the criminal character of which the Tribunal has to decide. Consequently the evidence submitted that has been used for the individual cases of the defendants is at the same time the essential evidence for the organizations which they represent. The documents submitted by the Prosecution have quite clearly proved that the organizations mentioned in the Indictment served as a constant and direct instrument for realizing the criminal plans of the conspirators. Thus the criminal character of these organizations has been fully and comprehensively proved through the present proceedings. The Tribunal has endeavored to secure the most comprehensive investigation of the case of the organizations. By means of broadcasts, through the Press, and by special announcements, the members of the accused organizations have been invited to submit their explanations to the Tribunal. The Tribunal is aware of the number of persons now in internment camps who wish to avail themselves of this possibility. The formation of an auxiliary commission has made it possible for the Tribunal to interrogate the greatest possible number of members of the organizations who will later be examined and dealt with by competent national courts. Thus, as a result of complicated preliminary work, a group of witnesses selected by the Defense appeared before the Tribunal. Not being able to deny the irrefutable force of the documentary evidence submitted by the Prosecution, the Defense decided to summon its own witnesses in opposition. Your Honors, we remember these witnesses and their, testimonies.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): If more evidence is required to prove that falsehood is a constant and invariable companion of crime among the Hitlerites, the false testimonies of Kaufmann, Sievers, Von Manstein, Reinecke, Best, and others can serve as convincing illustrations. These "witnesses," in their effort to whitewash the criminal organizations, of which they were the leading members, reached the heights of absurdity. The SS and the Gestapo are found to be a society of the elect, a club of noble men, an Order of Knights. It is not without reason that the Defense included Rosenberg among the Knights. All of them sparkle with moral purity and all of them are filled with pity towards their neighbors. The Obergruppenfuehrer of the professional tormentors of the SS hastened to save Jews from the pogroms, while General Von Brauchitsch was a zealous pacifist. It is instructive to find that without any exception, all the organizations, which are considered as criminal by the Indictment, are pure and immaculate according to the testimonies of the witnesses. But who then murdered the 12 million peaceful citizens? Who tortured the prisoners of war and deported millions of people for slave labor in Germany from the occupied territories? No defendants are to be found! Lies-cynical, blasphemous lies, from the lips of men whose -conscience did not hesitate before murder, whose honor did not prevent them from committing perjury-do not deserve to be refuted. While examining the case concerning the criminal organizations, the Prosecution submitted striking supplementary documents testifying to new atrocities of the Hitlerite criminal organizations. Facts, irrefutable facts have been established. The inflexible will of the law is clear. The time has come to draw conclusions.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): At the congress of the Nazi Party in 1934 Hitler declared: "It is not the State that has created us, but we who have created the State: it is possible that we are considered by some as a party, by others as an organization, by yet others as something else; but in reality we are what we are." The present Trial gives a comprehensive and exact answer to the question of who the Hitlerites were. The Fuehrer at the head of a criminal gang of conspirators, appearing in different roles and having various titles (Ministers, Gauleiter, Obergruppenfuehrer, and so forth), surrounded by a network of criminal organizations created by him, who had seized in their grip millions of German citizens--this was the outline of the political structure of Hitler's Germany. The recognition of the criminal character of the organizations mentioned in the Indictment, as well as the recognition of the existence of the conspiracy, are therefore the necessary conditions for the triumph of justice, the triumph longed for by all freedom-loving nations. With regard to the separate organizations which the Prosecution deemed indispensable to designate as criminal, I find it necessary to mention the following, in addition to the convincing arguments expressed by my honorable colleagues: In Count One, Paragraph IV, Article "A" of the Indictment, entitled "The Nazi Party as the Central Core of the Common Plan or Conspiracy," it says: "In 1921 Adolf Hitler became the supreme leader or Fuehrer of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party), known as the Nazi Party, which had been founded in Germany in 1920. He continued as such throughout the period covered by this Indictment. The Nazi Party, together with certain of its subsidiary organizations, became the instrument of cohesion among the defendants and their co-conspirators and an instrument for the carrying out of the aims and purposes of their conspiracy." The legal investigation has fully confirmed this conclusion.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): The numerous crimes of Hitler's clique were inspired and directed by the Nazi Party-the motive power of the Fascist conspiracy. Many of the defendants and the so-called witnesses for the Defense said that they were National Socialists who wanted to protect Germany against attack from other countries. This is an evident falsehood. Only impostors could assert that Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and other freedom-loving countries wanted to strike a blow against the integrity and independence of Germany. In reality the German Fascists are not nationalists but imperialists, whose main and decisive aim was the seizure of foreign land so as to further the expansion of militant German capitalism. They shamelessly called themselves Socialists. Only insolent demagogues can assert that the German Fascists--who eliminated all democratic freedom from the people, replacing it by concentration camps, who introduced slave labor at works and factories and restored serfdom in the villages of Germany and in the countries occupied by them--are the defenders of the interests of the workers and peasants. And if these imperialists and reactionaries disguised themselves in the garb of "nationalists" and "socialists," they did it exclusively to deceive the nation. The program of the Nazi Party itself contained the principles of the plan for domination, involving the seizure of foreign territories and establishing the principles of human hatred. In one of the annuals of the NSDAP, published under the direction of Ley, it was said: "The Program ... is the political foundation of the NSDAP and, consequently, the fundamental political law of the State. All legal principles should be applied in the spirit of the Party Program.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): After seizing power the Fuehrer has managed to realize the fundamental parts of the Party Program, beginning with the basic principles up to the details." Hitler's Party is inseparable from Hitler's Government, from the SS, Gestapo, and other criminal organizations of Hitler's regime, as the Nazi leaders in the dock are inseparable from the tormentors of Auschwitz and Maidanek, Babye-Yar and Treblinka. "What I have achieved,"--said Hitler--"is known to the Party, thanks to which I became great, and which was in turn glorified by me." Indeed, soon after the Hitlerites seized power the decree of 14 July 1933 forbade the creation of any other political parties besides the Nazi Party. The NSDAP became the only political party in Germany. A little later, on 1 December 1944, the law was issued "Concerning the Unity of the Party and State," in which it was mentioned: "After the victory of the' National Socialist revolution, the NSDAP is the standard-bearer of German statesmanship and is inseparably connected with the State. "To ensure close collaboration of the Party organizations with the offices of the State, the Deputy of the Fuehrer is appointed member of the Government of the Reich." Paragraph 3 of this law proclaimed the members of the NSDAP and the SA (including the organizations subordinated to them) as "the leaders and motive power of the National Socialist Government." The law of 1 December 1933 was the fundamental measure which provided the leaders of the criminal Nazi Party with full political power in Germany, as this law established the Nazi Party as the embodiment of the State. In order to attract the masses of the population to the Fascist regime, the Hitlerites introduced the most shameless social bribery, besides exploiting the national feelings and the unheard-of social demagogy. Major organizations were created: the Hitler Youth, Labor Front, the SA, the SS, et cetera .
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): The numerous members of these organizations were bound to the Fascist regime not only through various privileges and material, advantages, but also, by mutual responsibility for committing common crimes. The overwhelming terror machine, with its ramified network of detection, provocation, perfidy, concentration camps, summary justice, operated against all who were discontented with the regime. The system of combining the leading posts of the Nazi Party with the leading posts of the terroristic organizations--SS, SD, Gestapo--and of the Government helped in promoting the realization of the plans of the Fascist conspirators and rendered easier the realization of the plans for the subordination and control of the German nation and the German State. The Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler was simultaneously Reichsleiter of the NSDAP. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ribbentrop, was a general of the SS, and, the Deputy of the Fuehrer, Hess, was simultaneously a Reichsminister. The President of the Secret Cabinet Council, Neurath, was a general of the SS, and one of the leaders of the Gestapo, Best, was Kreisleiter of the Nazi Party, and so on. After having secured, with the assistance of the Party, full control over Germany, Hitler's conspirators went on with the realization of their aggressive plans. In his speech before the Reichstag on 20 February 1938, Hitler said: "The greatest guarantee of the National Socialist revolution consists in complete external as well as internal domination by the National Socialist Party over all offices and organizations of Germany....
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): All offices are under control of the supreme political leadership." I have already mentioned in my final statement that the Party changed, under the leadership of Bormann, into a police organization, which was in close co-operation with the Gestapo and the SS; that the entire Party machinery was drawn upon for the realization of the aggressive plans of the leaders of Hitlerite Germany; that the Party machinery took an active part in the measures of the German military and civil authorities for the inhuman exploitation of prisoners of war, and participated in the deportation into slavery of the population of the territories occupied by the Germans. When we speak here at the Trial about Goebbels' lies, Himmler's terror, and Ribbentrop's perfidy, this refers also to the Nazi Party. When the Prosecution submitted proofs of the criminal activity of Goering and Hess, Rosenberg and Streicher, Von Schirach and Frank, Speer and Sauckel, these were simultaneous proofs of charges against the Party, at the head of which were the defendants. These proofs were quite sufficient to consider the entire Nazi Party as a criminal organization, as understood in Article 9 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal. However, the Prosecution does not raise the question of the responsibility of the rank-and-file members of the Party, many of whom became the victims of their faith. In full conformity with the Indictment, we raise the question of declaring it as a criminal organization only as far as it concerns the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, which was the brain, the backbone, and the driving power of the. Party, without which the Hitlerite conspirators would not have been able to carry out their criminal plans. The Leadership Corps was a specially selected group, within the Nazi Party itself, and as such was endowed with extraordinary prerogatives. Political Leaders were 'organized according to the "Fuehrerprinzip," which was applied not only to Hitler, but to the entire Leadership Corps.