dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
LT. ATHERTON: If the Tribunal please, at the time the Tribunal rose, I was in the process of considering the functions of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart, his place as Deputy Governor General of Poland, between 1939 and 1940. Now the Tribunal has already heard evidence of the atrocities which were perpetrated by the administration which Seyss-Inquart thus helped to create. The prosecutors for the Soviet Union will present to the Tribunal more evidence of such atrocities. For our present purposes, to show the importance of the work which this man did to further the Nazi plan for the Government General of Poland, it is enough to quote a few words from the diary of the Defendant Frank. On the occasion of what was apparently a farewell lunch to Seyss-Inquart, when he became Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands, Frank said-and I now quote from Document 3465-PS, Pages 510 and 511 of Volume 2, the 1940 volume of the diary, which is Exhibit Number USA-614: "I am extremely glad, Mr. Reich Commissioner and Reich Minister, to assure you, in this hour of your departure, that the months of our collaboration with you belong to the most precious memories of my life and that your work in the Government General will be remembered forever in the building of the coming world empire of the German nation." Skipping down a little, if the Tribunal please, Frank went on to say: "In the construction of the Government General your name will forever take a place of honor as an originator of this organization and this state system.... I express our thanks, Mr. Reich Minister, for your collaboration and for your creative energy." Then reading the last two or three sentences: "During the hard times common work united us here in the East, but it is at the same time the beginning point for a gigantic power development of the German Reich. Its perfection will show the development of the greatest energy unit which there ever was in the history of the world.
LT. ATHERTON: In this work you were placed by the Fuehrer, very effectively, in the most important position." And to these remarks the Defendant Seyss-Inquart replied and I now quote from the second page of the translation: "I learned here a lot, many things which I did not understand before at all, and mainly on account of the initiative and firm leadership as I saw them in my friend Dr. Frank." Then, skipping a sentence: "I will now go to the West, and I want to be quite open with you. With my whole heart I am present, because my whole attitude is one directed toward the East. In the East we have a National Socialist mission; over there, in the West, we have a function; that may be the difference." I submit, if the Tribunal please, that the sentences which I have just read show clearly enough the conscious participation of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart in the Polish phase of the conspiracy. Thus equipped with experience- gained in Poland under the Defendant Frank, Seyss-Inquart was ready to undertake his last and most ambitious task, the enslavement of the Netherlands. The ruthless manner in which he performed it marks his position in the Nazi Common Plan or Conspiracy. I ask the Tribunal first to take judicial notice of a decree of Hitler of 18 May 1940, which is found in 1940 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 778. The translation will be found in the book as Document 1376-PS. By Section 1 of this decree it is provided that: "The Reich Commissioner is protector of the interests of the Reich and will represent the supreme power of the Government within the civil sphere. He will be directly subordinated to me and will receive directives and orders from me." Section 3 provides that: "The Reich Commissioner may use German Police forces to carry out his orders.
LT. ATHERTON: The German Police forces are at the disposal of the German military commander in the Nether lands insofar as military necessities require this and if the missions of the Reich Commissioner permit it." Then by Paragraph or Section 5 of the law it is provided that the Reich Commissioner may promulgate laws by decree, such orders to be published in the Verordnungsblatt for the occupied territory of the Netherlands, a publication which I shall hereafter refer to merely as the Verordnungsblatt. On the 29th of May 1940, acting within these powers, the defendant promulgated an order covering the exercise of governmental authority in the Netherlands and this appears as Document 3588-PS in the document book. I, ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of its contents. That will contain two decrees. I am now referring to the first one. By Section I of this decree the defendant modestly purports to assume, to the extent required for the fulfillment of his duties, "an powers, privileges, and rights heretofore vested in the King and the Government, in accordance with the constitution and the laws of the Netherlands." That is a direct quotation. And then Section 5 of the order entrusts the maintenance of public peace, safety, and order to the Netherlands Police force unless the Reich Commissioner calls on German SS or Police forces for the enforcement of his orders. It further provides that the investigation and combatting of all activities hostile to the Reich and Germanism shall be the concern of the German Police force. On June 3, 1940, a further decree was promulgated concerning the organization and establishment of the Office of the Reich Commissioner. This decree is found in the Verordnungsblatt for 1940, Issue 1, at Page 11, and is the second decree under Document 3588-PS. This decree provided for general commissioners on the staff of the Reich Commissioner to head four enumerated sections, one of which, the Superior SS and Police Chief, was to head the section for public safety.
LT. ATHERTON: It was provided by Section 5 of this decree that: "This official should command the units of the military SS and German Police forces transferred to the occupied Netherlands territories, supervise the Netherlands central and municipal police forces and issue to them necessary orders." Section 11 provided that the Reich Commissioner alone ...
THE PRESIDENT: Lieutenant Atherton, don't you think that we can assume that the Defendant Seyss-Inquart, who had been appointed to administer the occupied territory of the Netherlands, had all these powers and that you can turn your attention to what he did under those powers?
LT. ATHERTON: Yes, Sir; I will do that but I wanted to make plain to the Tribunal, because of the peculiar set-up of this German Police force, the fact that he was granted the power to give orders to them, and not only that, but that he customarily did. If that point is made clear, as I believe it is, in these two decrees, I will pass on to the next matter.
THE PRESIDENT: I think the Tribunal has no doubt that an officer under the Reich who had got the powers of the administrator of an occupied territory could make use of the police forces.
LT. ATHERTON: Yes, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: It is really a matter that we should be prepared to assume until it is proved to the contrary.
LT. ATHERTON: I agree, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: We would wish you to turn attention to show what lie did, under those powers, which constitute crimes.
I LT. ATHERTON: Yes, Sir. It is not our intention at this time to go into the crimes against persons and property which the Defendant Seyss-Inquart is responsible for in the Netherlands in any detail, because evidence of Nazi barbarity in this country is to be presented by our associates, the prosecutors for the French Republic. It is only our purpose to show a few illustrations and to give some idea of the scope of this defendant's activities and his responsibilities as evidence of his part in the execution of the Nazis' Common Plan or Conspiracy, which it is our part to prove. Now, in the first place, there will be much evidence to show that the defendant was responsible for widespread spoliation of property. Merely as an illustration of the way in which he was implicated in the smallest parts of this, I offer in evidence Document 176-PS, as Exhibit Number USA-707. This document is a report on the activities of the "Task Force Netherlands," a part of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, on which the Tribunal has already heard evidence. Quoting from the first page of this report, the first sentence:, "The Task Force Netherlands of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg began its work in agreement with the competent representative of the Reich Commissioner during the first days of September 1940." 4 The report then proceeds to detail the property taken from Masonic lodges and similar institutions to a considerable extent. Reading from-I believe it is Page 3 of this report, the very bottom: "An extremely precious library, containing invaluable works on Sanskrit, was confiscated, when the 'Theosophic Society' in Amsterdam was dissolved, and, packed into 96 cases. "A number of smaller libraries belonging to the Spiritists, the Esperanto movement, the Bellamy movement, the International Bible Students, and various other minor international organizations were packed into seven cases; texts belonging to various minor Jewish organizations were packed into four cases; and a library of the 'Anthroposophic Society' in Amsterdam into three.
I LT. ATHERTON: "It is safe to say that the stocks of books confiscated, packed, and so far sent to Germany by the task force are of extraordinary scientific value and will contribute an integral part of the library of the 'Hohe Schule.' "The money value of these libraries... can only be estimated but must surely amount to from 30 million to 40 million Reichsmark." Then, quoting from the very end of the report: "The task force, in executing the aforementioned tasks, is bound strictly to the pace set by the Reich Commissioner for the handling of the Jewish questions and those of the international organizations." As Reich Commissioner it was one of the functions of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart to supervise the execution of the conspirators' program for deportation of Dutch citizens to Germany for slave labor. The Tribunal will recall that Mr. Dodd read into evidence at Page 1372 (Volume III, Page 477) a portion of a transcript of an interrogation of the Defendant Sauckel, on 5 October 1945, in which it appeared that the quotas for the workers for Holland were agreed upon and then the numbers given to the Reich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart to fulfill; and after the quota was given to Seyss-Inquart, it was his mission to fulfill it with the aid of Sauckel's representative. And -then the Tribunal will recall that at Page 1310 (Volume III, Page 433) of the Record Mr. Dodd, having shown the Defendant Seyss-Inquart's part in recruitment for slave labor in this fashion and his responsibility for it, read into the Record, Page 1310 (Volume III, Page 433), some portions from Document 1726-PS, Exhibit Number USA-195, which showed the numbers of Netherlands citizens deported to the Reich at various times. Since that is all a matter of record, I will not go into it again. In the Netherlands, as in Austria and elsewhere, Seyss-Inquart was relentless in his treatment of Jewish Netherlanders. To illustrate his attitude, I offer in evidence Document 3430-PS, which consists of extracts from the defendant's book Four Years in the Netherlands (Collected Speeches).
I LT. ATHERTON: It becomes Exhibit Number USA-708. In a speech in Amsterdam on 13 March 1941-and I am now quoting from Page 57 of the original book, the last extract on the translation, Seyss-Inquart said: "The Jews, for us, are not Dutch. They are those enemies with whom we can come to neither an armistice nor to peace. This applies here, if you wish, for the duration of the occupation. Do not expect an order from me which stipulates this, except regulations concerning police matters. We will beat the Jews wherever we meet them, and those who join them must bear the consequences. The Fuehrer declared that the Jews have played their final act in Europe, and therefore they have played their final act." Now, as promised, the Defendant Seyss-Inquart proceeded to promulgate the long series of decrees which first threatened to deprive the Jewish people in the Netherlands of their property, of their rights, and degraded them to something lower than the lowest, which eventually resulted in their deportation to Poland. These decrees, all signed by Seyss-Inquart, are collected in our brief, Page 65. 1 ask the Court to take judicial notice of them. By way of illustration, the first to which I wish to refer appears in the document book as 3333-PS, and it is a decree of 26 October 1940, requiring the registration of businesses belonging to Jews as defined in the decree, including partnerships or corporations in which Jews owned a substantial interest. You have seen that this type of law was the inevitable prelude to mass confiscation of the property of Jews under the Nazi administration. In a law found in Verordnungsblatt, Volume Number 6, Page 99, 11 February 1941, Document 3325-PS, Dutch universities and colleges were limited in the registration of Jewish students. This of itself does not seem important, but it is a part of the program to take away from these people their rights and degrade them. Document Number 3328-PS is a decree published in Verordnungsblatt Number 44 at Page 841, of 22 October 1941.
I LT. ATHERTON: This prevented the Jews from exercising any profession or trade without authorization from administrative authorities and permitted such authorities to order the termination of any employment contract concerning Jews. As a final illustration I refer in passing to Document 3336-PS, a decree published in the Verordnungsblatt, Issue 13, Page 289, and dated 21 May 1942. This decree required all Jews to make written declaration of claims of any kind, under which they might be beneficiaries, at a banking firm known as Lippmann-Rosenthal and Company, which was actually an agency of the Reich at Amsterdam. The decree gave the bank, this named bank, all rights to dispose of the claim and provided that payment to the bank should be released in full. This type of Nazi decree was, of course, a forerunner of ultimate deportation to the East and allowed the Nazis to snatch the insurance. Evidence of the success of this defendant's efforts to annihilate all Jews in the Netherlands has already been read into the Record. The court will find that Major Walsh-again reading from the report of the Netherlands Government, Exhibit Number USA-195, at Page 1497 (Volume III, Page 565)-showed that out of 140,000 Jewish Netherlanders, 117,000 were deported, over 115,000 of them to Poland, over 80 percent. The evidence has shown what was the probable fate of most of these people, and I shan't dwell on it further. Finally, I want to say a few words about the responsibility of this defendant for the systematic terror practiced against the inhabitants of the occupied territory by the Nazis throughout the occupation. Referring again to the collected -speeches in Document 3430-PS, on 29 January 1943, the defendant left little doubt of his point of view. He said, and I quote: "It is also clear, now more than ever, that every resistance which is directed against this fight for existence must be suppressed.
I LT. ATHERTON: Some time ago the representatives of the churches had written to the Wehrmacht commander and to me, and they presented their ideas in regard to the execution of death sentences which the Wehrmacht commander announced in the meantime. To this I can say only the following: At the moment in which our men, fathers, and sons with iron determination look towards their fate in the East and unflinchingly and steadfastly perform their highest pledge, it is unbearable to tolerate conspiracies whose goal is to weaken ,the rear of this eastern front. Whoever dares this must be annihilated. We must be severe and become even more severe against our opponents. This is the command of a relentless sequence of events and for us, perhaps, inhumanly hard but our holy duty. We remain human because we do not torture our opponents. We must remain hard in annihilating them." I do not offer any evidence of the commission of these crimes, because that is to be done by prosecutors of the French Republic. But the position of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart as Reich Commissioner, the control which he exercised, which has been shown, particularly over the SS and Police, and the attitude of the man himself will make clear his authorization and participation in the crimes to be proved and are a further indication of his part in the common plan. Seyss-Inquart supported the Nazi Party as early as 1931. He -was a traitor to the government to which he owed allegiance and in which he held high office. With full knowledge of the ultimate purposes of the conspirators he bent every effort to integrate Austria into the Reich and to make its resources and manpower, as well as its Strategic position, available for the Nazi war machine. He performed these tasks with such ruthless efficiency that he was chosen thereafter for key positions in the enslavement of Poland and the Netherlands-the positions which he filled with such satisfaction to his superiors, that ultimately he came to be one of the foremost and most detested leaders in this common plan.
I LT. ATHERTON: As such, under Article 6 of the Charter, he is responsible for all acts performed by any persons in the execution of that plan. As such, he is guilty of the crimes charged to him under Counts One and Two of the Indictment. I wish to introduce to the Tribunal at this time Dr. Robert M. W. Kempner, who will represent the Prosecution in the next phase of the case dealing with the Defendant Frick.
DR. ROBERT M. W. KEMPNER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal: There have been distributed to the Tribunal and to all Defense Counsel, trial brief and documents relating to the Defendant Frick. The trial brief prepared by my colleague, Karl Lachmann, sets forth, in great detail, evidence, in the form of both documents and decrees, against the Defendant Wilhelm Frick. English translations of the evidentiary material referred to in the trial brief are included in the document book prepared by my colleague Lieutenant Felton. This book has been marked "LL." Defendant Frick's great contribution to the Nazi conspiracy was in the field of governmental administration. He was the administrative brain who devised the machinery of state for Nazism, who geared that machinery for aggressive war. In the course of his active participation in the Nazi conspiracy, from 1923 to 1945, the Defendant Frick occupied a number of important positions. Document 2978-PS, which has previously been introduced as Exhibit Number USA-8, lists the positions in detail. The original was signed by the Defendant Frick on 14 November 1945. 1 do not. repeat these positions; they are known to the Court. Frick's past activity on behalf of the Nazi conspirators was his participation in promoting their rise to power. Frick betrayed, in his capacity as law enforcement official of the Bavarian Government, his own Bavarian Government by participating in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch of November 8, 1923. Frick was tried and sentenced together with Hitler on a charge of complicity in treason. His position in the Putsch is described in a record of the proceeding called The Hitler Trial before the Peoples' Court in Munich, published in Munich in 1924. I will ask this Tribunal to take judicial notice of this record of these proceedings. Hitler's appreciation of Frick's assistance is evidenced by the fact that he honored Frick by mentioning his name in Mein Kampf. Only two other Defendants in this proceeding share this honor, namely, Hess and Streicher.
DR. ROBERT M. W. KEMPNER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of the favorable mentioning of Defendant Frick in Mein Kampf, German edition, 1933, Page 403. During the period after the Putsch, Frick made, further contributions to the Nazi conspiracy. I should' like to refer briefly to Document 2513-PS, an excerpt of Pages 36 and 38 from a report entitled, "The National Socialist Workers Party as an Association Hostile to the State and to the Republican Form of Government and Guilty of Treasonable Activity." This report has been previously introduced as Document 2513-PS, Exhibit Number USA-235. It is an official report of the criminal activities of Hitler, Frick, and other Nazis prepared by the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in 1930. It states that Frick, next to Hitler, can be regarded as the most influential representative of the Nazi Party at that time. This document reported that at the 1927 Party Congress in Nuremberg Frick said that the Reichstag would first be misused by the Nazi Party, would then be abolished, and that its abolition would open the way for racial dictatorship. The document also reported that Frick stated in a speech in 1929 at Pyritz that this fateful struggle will first be taken up with the ballot, but this cannot continue indefinitely, for history has taught us that in battle blood must be shed and iron broken. I Back in 1927 Frick's prominent role in helping to bring the Nazis to power was recognized when, on 23 January 1930, he was appointed Minister of the Interior and Education in the State of Thuringia. I
THE PRESIDENT: Are you passing from that document now? I thought you were reading from 2513.
DR. KEMPNER: No, this is an introduction of the next document.
THE PRESIDENT: I see, Dr. Kempner.
DR. KEMPNER: I just started to refer to the fact that Adolf Hitler at this time, when Frick was Minister of the Interior in the State of Thuringia, was an undesirable alien, not a German citizen. In his capacity as Minister of Thuringia the Defendant Frick began his manipulations to provide Adolf Hitler, the undesirable alien, with German citizenship, an essential step toward the realization of the Nazi conspiracy. This lack of German citizenship was highly detrimental to the cause of the Nazi Party because, as an alien, Hitler could not become candidate for the Reich Presidency in Germany. It was the Defendant Frick who solved this problem by an administrative maneuver. We now introduce in evidence Document 3564-PS, Exhibit Number USA-709. This document is an affidavit by Otto Meissner of 27 December 1945. Meissner was former state secretary and chief of Hitler's Presidential Chancellery. The last two sentences of this affidavit read as follows: "Frick also, in collaboration with Klagges, Minister of Brunswick, succeeded in naturalizing Hitler as a German citizen in 1932 by having him appointed a Brunswick government official Regierungsrat. This was done in order to make it possible for Hitler to run as a candidate for the office of President in the Reich." When Hitler came to power on 30 January 1933, Frick was duly awarded a prominent post in the new regime as Reich Minister of the Interior. In this capacity he became responsible for the establishment of totalitarian control over Germany, an indispensable prerequisite for the preparation of aggressive warfare. Frick assumed responsibility for the realization of a large part of the Nazi conspirators' program both through administration and legislation. I must explain very briefly the -significance of the Ministry of the Interior in the Nazi State to show the contribution made by Frick to the conspiracy. I offer, as evidence of Frick's extensive jurisdiction as Minister of the Interior, Document 3475-PS, Exhibit Number USA-710, which is part of the official German manual for administrative officials, dated 1943.