dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
STREICHER: Such intentions existed quite often, and also at that time. Perhaps I might refer to two other documents in this connection in order to save time. The Prosecution have submitted copies of a letter from Himmler and Baldur von Schirach. Here I can give quite a simple explanation right now. At that time, in 1939, there were intentions of prohibiting Der Stuermer . Bormann had even issued some such order. Then the Chief Editor of Der Stuermer wrote to prominent members of the Party, asking them to state their opinion about Der Stuermer . And thereupon letters were also received from Himmler and Von Schirach. Altogether, I think about 15 letters were received from prominent members of the Movement; they were merely kind replies to an inquiry.
DR. MARX: That is sufficient. Is it true that at the outbreak of the war you were not made Armed Forces District Commissioner (Wehrkreis-Kommissar) in your own Gau?
STREICHER: Yes.
DR. MARX: How can that be explained?
STREICHER: Well, maybe that is not so important; that is how conditions were at the time. There were certain personal feelings, et cetera ; it is of no significance. At any rate, I did not become Armed Forces District Commissioner.
DR. MARX: The Prosecution have stated that after 1 September 1939 the persecution of the Jews increased more and more. What was that due to?
STREICHER: That question only the Fuehrer could answer; I cannot.
DR. MARX: But do you not think this had something to do with the outbreak of war?
STREICHER: The Fuehrer always said so in public, yes.
DR. MARX: A proceeding was instituted against you before the Supreme Party Court. How did that happen? What was the development and the result of that trial?
STREICHER: I am grateful that I have an opportunity to state quite briefly before the International Military Tribunal something which I have had to keep silent about up to now because of a Fuehrer order. I myself had instituted proceedings against myself before the Supreme Party Court in order to defend myself against people who were denouncing me. I was being accused...
THE PRESIDENT: Is the defendant talking about some order which Hitler gave that he was not to be allowed to speak or is he talking about something else? You remember, Dr. Marx, that certain allegations were struck out of the record. If he is talking about those, it seems to me that we have got nothing whatever to do with it. Am I right in recollecting that something was struck out of the record?
DR. MARX: Yes it was, Mr. President, but only certain things from the Goering report were struck out, only the one passage which concerned the affair with the three young persons; but everything else was retained by the Prosecution. The Defense, therefore, must be able to take a stand in regard to these points, if the Prosecution do not say that they are dropping the entire Goering report; and in that connection this proceeding before the Supreme Party Court also plays a part. He can make a brief statement about it.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
DR. MARX: Witness, be brief.
STREICHER: Yes. It is important then that I instituted proceedings against myself; about 10 points were involved which had been raised against me, among them a matter referring to some shares. An affidavit exists from the Goering report which states that I had been found guilty. May I state here that the trial was never completed and no sentence was passed. That is the answer to the question which you have put to me.
DR. MARX: The matter referring to shares, does that have something to do with the shares of the Mars works?
STREICHER: We will come to it later. It was not the main point.
DR. MARX: And then you were ordered to remain permanently at the Pleikershof? Were you under the guard of the Gestapo there, and was there also a check-up as far as visitors were concerned?
STREICHER: It is not correct that I was ordered to stay at the Pleikershof. What is true is that I retired voluntarily with the intention of never again being active in the Movement. It is correct that the Gestapo watched me, and every visitor was called to the police station and interrogated as to his conversations he had had. That is a fact.
DR MARX: During your stay at the Pleikershof did you have any connections or correspondence with any leading personalities of the Party or State?
STREICHER: No. As far as prominent persons of the Movement and of the State are concerned, I had no correspondence whatsoever with them; that is why the Prosecution could hardly find any letters. I never stated in letters my opinion on the Jewish problem or on other matters. I shall have to state then, in order to answer your question exactly, that I had no correspondence with prominent persons of the Party and the State.
DR. MARX: After the outbreak of the war, were you informed of or consulted in any way on any measures intended against the Jews?
STREICHER: No.
DR. MARX: What were your relations to Himmler? Did you know him at all closely? Did you ever speak to him about measures against the Jews or did he talk about intended mass executions of the Jews?
STREICHER: I knew Himmler just as I knew the SA leaders, or other SS leaders. I knew him from common meetings, Gauleiter conferences, et cetera . I did not have a single political discussion with Himmler' except in society when he may have touched on this or that, in the presence of others. The last time I saw Himmler was in Nuremberg when he spoke to the officers in their mess. When that was I cannot say exactly but I think it was shortly before the war. I never had a talk with him on the Jewish question. He himself was, of course, well informed on this question. He had an organ of his own called the Schwarze Corps . And what his inner attitude toward me was is something that I did not discover until my stay on the farm. There were denunciations against me which reached him. It was stated that I was being too humane with the French prisoners. Shortly after that I received a letter in which he reproached me and made serious representations against me. I gave no answer at all. Without having made any previous inquiries with me as to whether these denunciations were true, he made a serious charge against me; and I state quite openly that it was actually my feeling at the time that I might possibly lose my liberty through arrest. These were my relations with Himmler.
DR. MARX: That is enough. During this Trial you have heard mentioned the names of a great number of Higher SS and Police Leaders who played a leading part in the Jewish persecutions, as for instance, Heydrich, Eichmann, Ohlendorf, and so on. Were there any connections between you and one of these Higher SS and Police Leaders?
STREICHER: I heard the names you have mentioned for the first time during an interrogation here. I did not know these men; they may well have seen me, but there was never a discussion involving me and the senior SS or SA leaders. Furthermore, I never was in any of Himmler's offices in Berlin, or any Ministry in Berlin. Thus, no conference ever took place.
DR. MARX: The Prosecution have drawn the conclusion from numerous articles in Der Stuermer , that as early as 1942 and 1943 you must have had knowledge of the mass executions of Jews which had taken place. What statement can you make on this, and when, and in what way, did you hear of the mass executions of Jews which took place in the East?
STREICHER: I had subscribed to the Jewish weekly that appeared in Switzerland. Sometimes in that weekly there were intimations that something was not quite in order; and I think it was at the end of 1943 or 1944-I believe 1944-that an article appeared in the Jewish weekly, in which it said that in the East-I think it was said in Poland-Jews were disappearing in masses. I then made reference to this in an article which perhaps will be presented to me later. But I state quite frankly that the Jewish weekly in Switzerland did not represent for me an authoritative source, that I did not believe everything in it. This article did not quote figures; it did not talk about mass executions, but only about disappearances.
DR. MARX: Have you finished?
STREICHER: Yes.
DR. MARX: Did you make proposals in Der Stuermer for the solution of the Jewish question, during the war?
STREICHER: Yes.
DR. MARX: And in what sense?
STREICHER: As I said yesterday, I represented the point of view that the Jewish question could be solved only internationally, since there were Jews in all countries. For that reason we published articles in my weekly journal referring to the Zionist demand for the creation of a Jewish state, such as had also been provided for or indicated in the Balfour Declaration. There were therefore two possibilities for a solution, a preliminary solution within the countries through appropriate laws; and then the creation of a Jewish state. During the war, I think it was in 1941 or 1942, we had written another article-we were subject to the Berlin censorship-and the censorship office sent back the proof submitted with the remark that the article must not be published in which we had proposed Madagascar as the place for the establishment of a Jewish state. The political relations with France were given as the reason why that article should not be published.
DR. MARX: If you had expected that question to be solved by mass executions, would you then too have written this article?
STREICHER: At that time, at any rate, it would still have been nonsensical to publish it.
DR. MARX: Did it not make you uneasy to deal with the Jewish question in a biased way, in a way which left completely out of sight those qualities of the Jews which can be described as great?
STREICHER: I did not understand this question fully, perhaps I did not hear it correctly.
DR. MARX: You can be accused of treating, in a biased way, only those qualities of the Jews that appear disadvantageous to you, whereas the other qualities of the Jewish people you ignored. What is your explanation?
STREICHER: I think that this question is really superfluous here. It is perfectly natural that I, as an anti-Semitic person and as I saw the Jewish question, was in no way interested in that. Perhaps I did not see the good traits which you or some others see in the Jews. That is possible. But at any rate I was not interested in investigating as to what particular good qualities might be recognized here.
DR. MARX: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: This would seem a good time to break off. [A recess was taken.]
DR. MARX: Did you visit concentration camps?
STREICHER: Yes. I visited the Dachau Concentration Camp.
DR. MARX: When was that?
STREICHER: I believe the first time was when all the Gauleiter were called together. I believe 1935, I do not know definitely, 1934 or 1935, I do not know.
DR. MARX: At what intervals did you then visit this camp? It is said that you were in Dachau every 4 weeks.
STREICHER: Altogether I was at Dachau four times.
DR. MARX: It is asserted that after each of your visits in Dachau, Jews disappeared there.
STREICHER: I do not know whether Jews disappeared.
DR. MARX: What caused you to visit the Dachau Camp repeatedly?
STREICHER: I went to the Dachau Camp to visit Social Democratic and Communist functionaries from my Gau who were in prison there to have them introduced to me. I picked out-I do not know how many hundreds of them there were-but every time I was in Dachau I picked out 10 or 20 of those of whom it had been ascertained by the Police that they had no criminal record; I had them picked out from among the inmates, and at Christmas every year I had them brought in buses to Nuremberg to the Hotel Deutscher Hof, where I brought them together with their wives and children and had dinner with them. I should like to ask the Tribunal, for the benefit of the Nuremberg public, to permit me to make a very short statement as to why I took these Communists out. Party proceedings were initiated against me because I did this. There were rumors which were not true. May I make a very short statement as to why I did it?
DR. MARX: I should like to ask the Tribunal to approve this, Mr. President, so that the reasons why the defendant did this may be ascertained.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, as long as it is brief.
DR. MARX: Be brief.
STREICHER: When I walked through the streets of Nuremberg children approached me and said, "My father is in Dachau." Women came to me and asked to get their husbands back. I knew many of these officials from the time when I spoke at revolutionary meetings, and I could vouch for these people. I know of only one case where I was wrong in the selection of those people. All the others behaved impeccably. They kept the word which they had given me. Thus, perhaps my Party comrades, who sit here in the dock, see now that I did not want to harm my country but that I wanted to do, and did do, something humanely good.
DR. MARX: Now I come to the picture books which appeared in Der Stuermer publishing house. You know that two picture books were published, one with the title, Trust No Fox in the Field , and the other one with the title, The Poisonous Toadstool . Do you assume responsibility for these picture books?
STREICHER: Yes. May I say, by way of summary, that I assume responsibility for everything which was written by my assistants or which came into my publishing house.
DR. MARX: Who was the author of these picture books?
STREICHER: The book Trust No Fox in the Field and No Jew Under His Oath was done and illustrated by a young woman artist, and she also wrote the text. The title which appears on the picture book is from Dr. Martin Luther. Tthe second picture book was done by the Editor-in-Chief of Der Stuermer , who was a former schoolteacher. Two criminal cases in Nuremberg, which were tried here in this courtroom, as far as I know, were the occasion for my publishing these two books. There was a manufacturer, Louis Schloss, a Jew, who with young Nuremberg girls some of them still innocent, had...
DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, we do not want to hear that now. My question was only as to who was the author of these picture books and whether you assumed the responsibility for them?
STREICHER: It is important for the Tribunal, in fact, right for them to know how it came about that all of a sudden two picture books for young people appeared in my publishing house. I am making this statement absolutely objectively. I am speaking here of legal cases. There are gentlemen here, who are witnesses, who were here in this court and were present during the proceedings. Only thus can one understand why these books were published. They were the answer to deeds that had occurred.
DR. MARX: Yes. but we are concerned here only with the accusation made against you, that thereby you exerted an influence on the minds of young people which was not beneficial and which could be considered designed to have a poisonous effect.
STREICHER: And I should like to prove by my statement that we wanted to protect youth because things had, in fact, occurred.
DR. MARX: Yes, but young persons could hardly understand the Schloss case, or any such case, could they?
STREICHER: It was a matter of public discussion in Nuremberg and beyond that all over Germany.
DR. MARX: As far as I am concerned, this question is answered, Mr. President.
STREICHER: But not for me as defendant.
THE PRESIDENT: You told us that the books were published to answer things which had occurred here. That is sufficient.
DR. MARX: Witness, another serious accusation made by the Prosecution against you is that a special issue concerning ritual murders was published in the publishing house of Der Stuermer and appeared in one number of Der Stuermer . How did this special issue come about and what was the cause for it? Were you the author of that special issue?
STREICHER: No.
DR. MARX: Who was the author?
STREICHER: My collaborator, the Editor-in-Chief at that time, Karl Holz, who is now dead. But I assume the responsibility.
DR. MARX: Is it not true that even during the twenties you dealt with that question in Der Stuermer ?
STREICHER: Yes, and in public speeches.
DR. MARX: Yes, in public speeches. Why did you now in 1935 stir up again this doubtlessly very grave matter?
STREICHER: I should like to ask my counsel to express no judgment as to what I have written; to question me, but not to express judgment. The Prosecution are going to do that. You have asked me how this issue came about. I will explain very briefly...
DR. MARX: Excuse me, Mr. President. I have to protest against the fact that Herr Streicher here, in the course of his interrogation by me, thinks he can criticize the manner in which I put my questions. Therefore, I ask the Court to give a decision on this, since otherwise I am not in a position to ask my questions at all.
THE PRESIDENT: You have already stated your position and the Tribunal has given you full support in your position. Will you please continue? And let me tell you this, Defendant, that if you are insolent either to your counsel or to the Tribunal, the Tribunal will not be able to continue the hearing of your case at this moment. You will kindly treat your counsel and the Tribunal with due courtesy.
STREICHER: May I ask to say something about this?
THE PRESIDENT: No. Answer the question, please.
DR. MARX: I will go on now with my questioning. The Prosecution accuse you, in connection with this ritual murder affair, of having treated the matter without documentary proof, by referring to a story from the Middle Ages. What, in brief, was your source?
STREICHER: The sources were given in that issue. Nothing was written without the sources being given at the same time. There was reference made to a book written in Greek by a former Rabbi who had been converted to Christianity. There was reference made to a publication of a high clergymen of Milan, a book which has appeared in Germany for the last 50 years. Not even under the democratic government did Jews raise objections to that book. That ritual murder issue refers to court files which are located in Rome, it refers to files which are in Court. There are pictures in it which show that in 23 cases the Church itself has dealt with this question. The Church has canonized 23 non-Jews killed by ritual murder. Pictures of sculptures, that is, of stone monuments were shown as illustrations; everywhere the source was pointed out; even a case in England was mentioned, and one in Kiev, Russia. But in this connection I should like to say, as I said to a Jewish officer here, that we never wanted to assert that all Jewry was ready now to commit ritual murders. But it is a fact that within Jewry there exists a sect which engaged in these murders, and has done so up until the present. I have asked my counsel to submit to the Court a file from Pisek in Czechoslovakia, very recent proceedings. A court of appeal has confirmed a case of ritual murder. Thus, in conclusion I must say...
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I object to this statement, Your Honor. After his counsel has refused to submit it, he insists on stating here the contents of a court record. Now this is not an orderly way to make charges against the Jewish people. Streicher says he is asking counsel to submit. His counsel apparently has refused, whereupon he starts to give evidence of what he knows, in any case, is a resume of the matters which his counsel has declined to submit here. It seems to me that, having appointed counsel to conduct his case, he has shown repeatedly that he is not willing to conduct his case in an orderly manner and he ought to be returned to his cell and any further statements that he wishes to make to this Court transmitted through his counsel in writing. This is entirely unfair and in contempt of Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, I think you had better continue.
DR. MARX: I should like to say that that closes this affair. The essential thing is whether one can say that he treated the case without documentary proof. The Defense is not interested in the affair at all; and, according to my recollection, I even suggested to one of the gentlemen of the Prosecution that this affair perhaps be left out altogether, because it is really so gruesome and so horrible that it is better not to treat it. But the defendant only wanted to say that it was only on the basis of various pieces of evidence that he dealt with the case, and I believe that is sufficient; that should close the matter. Now, Herr Streicher, you fall again and again into the mistake of going too far in your explanations and of discussing things which can be considered propaganda on your part. I should like to ask you now for the last time to stick to the questions and leave out everything else. It is in your own interest. You are accused of having carried on various activities in your Gau, which were Crimes Against Humanity, of having mistreated people who lived in your Gau. Thus you are accused of having sought out a political prisoner, a certain Steinruck, in his cell and of having beaten him. Is that correct?
STREICHER: Yes. DR. MARX, Was Steinruck a Jew?
STREICHER: No. DR, MARX: For what reason did you do that?
STREICHER: Steinruck, in a public place, in the presence of many witnesses, had made derogatory statements about the Fuehrer, libelous statements. He was at police headquarters. I had spoken to the Police President about it and told him that I should like to look at that Steinruck once. I went with my adjutant-the Goering report says that a Party member, Holz, was there too, but that is not correct-I went with my adjutant to police headquarters. The same Police President, who later denounced me to Reich Marshal Goering, took me to Steinruck's cell. We went into the cell; I stated here that I had come with the intention of talking to him, talking to him reasonably. We talked to him. But he behaved so cowardly that it became necessary at the moment that he be chastised. I do not mind stating here that I am sorry about that case, that I regret it as a slip.
DR. MARX: Then it is asserted that in August 1938 you beat up an editor, Burger. Is that correct?
STREICHER: No, that is not correct. If I had beaten him up, then I would say so here. But I believe that my adjutant and somebody else had an argument with him.
DR. MARX: What about the incident in the Kuenstlerhaus in Munich?
STREICHER: I went to Munich to the Inn Kuenstlerstatte, or something like that. I was received by the manager. Then a young man came up to me, drunk and quarrelsome, and shouted at me. The manager protested and ordered him out of the place. But the drunken young fellow came back again and again and then my chauffeur grabbed him and my son helped. They took him into a room and beat him up and then the proprietor of the inn thanked me for having rid him of the drunkard. And now I should like to have the Tribunal's permission to state very briefly my position on one case which I believe the Prosecution also have dropped, where I was accused of sadistic tendencies . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, you know perfectly well that that incident has been stricken from the record and is not, therefore, mentioned against you, so that it is quite unnecessary to go into it. The Tribunal cannot hear you on it.
DR. MARX: Witness, from the so-called Goering report I should like to submit to you some points which have been presented by the Prosecution. You know that after the action of November 1938, in the district of Franconia, Aryanization of Jewish property was undertaken to the utmost extent. Would you like to make a statement about that?