dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. NELTE: Here we are concerned with the destruction of an ideology." Keitel noted this passage down word for word and added to his written statement of 15 September 1941: "I therefore approve and countenance these measures." It was a typical example of Keitel expressing his doubts and Hitler taking his final decision. Keitel stood up for these decisions and did not let his subordinate offices know that he was of a different opinion. Such was his attitude. For this also he is, within the limits of his official position, taking responsibility. What Keitel actually thought is revealed in the excerpt submitted as Document Keitel-6, Document Book 1, from the book Employment Conditions for Eastern Workers and Soviet Russian Prisoners of War. The Codefendant Speer has testified in cross-examination that he over and over again told the Defendant Keitel that any employment of prisoners of war of any enemy country in enterprises prohibited by the Geneva Convention was out of the question. Speer further testified that Keitel several times rejected any attempt to employ prisoners of war of any western nation in actual war plants. The defense counsel for the Defendant Speer will also deal with this question in detail. In addition, I just want to submit certain individual eases charged against the Defendant Keitel personally by the Prosecution, that is to say, eases where, in the opinion of the Prosecution, he is supposed to have exceeded the limits of the general responsibility inherent in his position. I should not like to omit that case which was repeatedly mentioned-and rightly so-in the course of the evidence, the case of the 50 Royal Air Force officers, the shameful case of Sagan. It particularly affects us as Germans, because it shows the utter lack of all restraint and proportion in the orders and the character of Hitler, who did not allow himself to be influenced for an instant in his explosive decisions by any thought of the honor of the German Armed Forces.
DR. NELTE: The cross-examination of the Defendant Keitel by the representative of the British Prosecution has determined how far his name too has been implicated in these abominable facts. Although the evidence clearly establishes the fact that Keitel neither heard nor transmitted Hitler's murderous order, that he and the Armed Forces had nothing to do with the execution of this order and, finally, that he did everything in his power to prevent the escaped officers from being handed over to Himmler and did at least succeed in saving the officers who were taken back to the camp, he is painfully conscious of his guilt in not realizing at the time the terrible blow which such a measure must inflict on German military prestige throughout the world. In connection with the treatment of the Sagan case the French Prosecution confronted the Defendant Keitel with Document 1650-PS, which deals with the treatment of escaped prisoners of war. This, Mr. President, is the so-called "Bullet Decree." Considering the lack of time, I should like to deal shortly with this case, but I must deal with it because it is one of the most significant and gravest accusations against my client; I shall only summarize. During his cross-examination, Keitel made the following statement: "This Document 1650-PS emanates from a police agency and contains a reference to the OKW by the words: 'The OKW has decreed the following. . .'" Keitel says: "I have certainly neither signed this order of the OKW nor seen it; there is no doubt about that." He cannot explain it; he can only assume how this order came to be issued by the Reich Security Main Office. In his examination he mentions the various possibilities whereby such an order could have reached the office which issued it. Then he refers to another document, 1544-PS, which contains all the orders and directives concerning prisoners of war, but not this order referring to the escaped officers noncommissioned officers.
DR. NELTE: The witness Westhoff has confirmed that the concept "Stufe III" and its meaning were unknown to him and to the office of the OKW Prisoners of War Organization. He also stated that on assuming office on 1 April 1944 he found no order of this nature, not even a file note. The meaning of that Bullet Decree was completely obscure. I believe this obscurity has been cleared up by the evidence given by the Codefendant Kaltenbrunner, who on his part had never before spoken to the Defendant Keitel on the matter. I pass on to Page 187, where Kaltenbrunner said: "I had never heard of the Bullet Decree before I assumed the office. It was art entirely new concept for me. Therefore I asked what it meant. He answered that it was a Fuehrer order; that was all he knew. I was not satisfied with this information, and on the same day I sent a teletype message to Himmler asking for permission to look up a Fuehrer order known as the Bullet Decree.... A few days later, Muller came to see me on Himmler's orders and submitted to me a decree which, however, did not originate with Hitler but with Himmler, and in which Himmler stated that he was transmitting to me a verbal Fuehrer order." From this it is safe to assume that, without consulting Keitel and without the latter's knowledge, Hitler must have given a verbal order to Himmler, as stated in Document 1650-PS which was submitted here. Now I come to Page 190 of my final plea: This confirms the assumption which Keitel expressed in his interrogation, although Kaltenbrunner had not previously informed him that he knew of verbal orders given by the Fuehrer. 3) In another ease also, the one dealing with the branding of Soviet prisoners, Keitel's statement in the witness box has proved to be the simple truth. The witness Roemer has confirmed in her supplementary affidavit that the order to mark Soviet prisoners of war by branding was cancelled immediately after being issued.
DR. NELTE: A further statement of the Defendant Keitel is therefore also credible, according to which this order had been issued without his knowledge, although naturally Keitel's responsibility for the acts of the party concerned is not thereby contested. 4) In this connection I refer finally to Document 744-PS dated 8 July 1943, submitted in support of the charge against Keitel. It deals with the increased iron and steel program, for the execution of which the allocation of the necessary miners from among the prisoners of war was ordered. The first two paragraphs of the document read: "For the extension of the iron and steel program the Fithrer on 7 July ordered the unqualified promotion of the necessary coal production and the employment of prisoners of war to cover the labor requirements. The Fuehrer ordered the following measures to be taken with all possible dispatch for the ultimate purpose of assigning 300,000 additional workers to the coal mining industry." The last paragraph reads: "In connection with the report to the Fuehrer, the Chief of Prisoner of War Affairs will advise every 10 days concerning the progress of the drive. First report on 25 July 1943, reference date: 20 July 1943." I submit this document, not because of its actual content, which will be taken up by the defense of the Defendant Speer, but because of its symptomatic evidential value for the answer of the Defendant Keitel, when he stated that Hitler was particularly interested in prisoner of war affairs and himself personally issued the principal orders and those he considered important. 5) The cases also connected with this complex such as: Terrar-fliers, lynch law, Commando tasks, combat against partisans will be dealt with by other defense counsels. The Defendant Keitel has made his statement regarding these individual facts during his interrogation and cross-examination. For the subjective facts of the alleged crimes one element is of special importance: the knowledge of them.
DR. NELTE: Not only from the point of view of guilt, but also in view of the conclusions which the Prosecution have drawn, namely, acquiescence, toleration, and omission to take any counteraction. The fact of knowledge comprises: (1) Knowledge of the facts; (2) recognition of the aim; (3) recognition of the methods; (4) conception of, or possibility of conceiving the consequences. During the discussion of the question of how far the Defendant Keitel could possibly have drawn any conclusion as to the intention of realization by force from knowledge of the text of the National Socialist Party Program and from Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, I have already demonstrated why Keitel did not have this recognition of a realization by force. Keitel denied any knowledge of the intended wars of aggression up to the time of the war against Poland, and his statement is confirmed by Grossadmiral Raeder. This comment is certainly a subjective truth inasmuch as Keitel did not seriously believe in a war with Poland, not to mention one involving intervention by France and England. This belief, held by Keitel and other high-ranking officers, was based on the fact that the military potential was insufficient, according to past experiences, to wage a war with any chance of victory, especially if it developed into a war on two fronts. This belief was strengthened by the nonaggression pact signed on 23 August 1939 with the U.S.S.R. However, that is not the core of the problem. The speeches which Hitler delivered before the generals, beginning with the conference of 5 November 1937, at which Keitel was not present, made it increasingly clear that Hitler was determined to attain his goal by any means, that is, if peaceful negotiations did not succeed, he was prepared to fight, or at least to use the Armed Forces as an agent of pressure. There is no doubt about that. It is a debatable point whether the text of Hitler's speeches, of which no official record is available, is altogether accurately reproduced.
DR. NELTE: There is, however, no doubt at all that they allow Hitler's intentions to be clearly recognized. A distinction must be made as to whether it was possible for his hearers merely to gather that a definite plan was to be carried out, or whether they could not but recognize the existence of a general aim of aggression. If they did not recognize this, the only explanation lies in the fact that the generals on principle did not include the question of war or peace in their considerations. From their point of view this was a political question which they did not consider themselves competent to judge since, as has been stated here, they were not acquainted with the reasons for such a decision and, as the Defendant Keitel has testified, the generals were bound to have confidence in the leadership of the State to the extent of believing that the latter would only undertake war for reasons of pressing emergency. That is a consequence of the traditional principle that although the Armed Forces was an instrument of the politicians it should not itself take part in politics-a principle which Hitler adopted in its full stringency. The Court must decide whether this may be accepted as an excuse. Keitel stated on the witness stand that he recognized the orders, directives, and instructions which had such terrible consequences, and that he drew them up and signed them without allowing himself to be deflected by any consequences which they might entail. This testimony leaves three questions undecided: (1) The question of the methods used to carry out the orders; (2) the question of the conception of the consequences which actually followed; (3) the question of the dolus eventualis. The Defendant Keitel, in his affidavit (Document Book Number 12), showed with reference to the so-called ideological orders how the SS and Police organizations influenced the conduct of the war, and how the Wehrmacht was drawn into events.
DR. NELTE: The evidence has shown that on their own responsibility numerous Wehrmacht commanders failed to apply such terrible orders, or applied them in a milder form. Keitel, brought up in a certain military tradition, was unfamiliar with SS methods which made the effects of these orders so terrible, and they were therefore inconceivable to him. According to his testimony he did not learn of these effects in their full and terrible extent. The same is true of the Fuehrer's Night and Fog Decree which I have just discussed. If he did not allow himself to be deflected by the "possible" results when he transmitted the orders, the dolus eventualis cannot be affirmed in regard to the results which took place. It must be assumed rather that if he had been able to recognize the horrible effects, he would, in spite of the ban on resignations, have drawn a conclusion which would have freed him from the pangs of conscience and would not have drawn him from month to month further and further into the whirlpool of events. This may be an hypothesis; but there are certain indications in the evidence which confirm it. The five attempts made by Keitel to leave his position, and the fact that he resolved to commit suicide, which General Jodl confirmed in his testimony, enable you to recognize the sincerity of Keitel's wish. The fact that he did not succeed must be attributed to the circumstances which I have already presented: The unequivocal and, as Keitel says, unconditional duty of the soldier to do his duty obediently to the bitter end, true to his military oath. This concept is false when it is exaggerated to the extent of leading to crime. It must be remembered, however, that a soldier is accustomed to measure by other standards in war. When all high-ranking officers, including Field Marshal Paulus, represent the same point of view, the honesty of their convictions cannot be denied, although it may not be understood.
DR. NELTE: In reply to the questions asked so often during this Trial-why he did not revolt against Hitler or refuse to obey his orders-the Defendant Keitel stated that he did not consider these questions even for a moment. His words and behavior show him to be unconditionally a soldier. Did he incriminate himself by such conduct? In general terms: May or must a general commit high treason if he realizes that by carrying out an order or measure he will be violating international law or the laws of humanity? The solution of this problem depends on whether the preliminary question is answered as to who is the "authority" which "permits or orders" such criminal high treason. This question seems to me important because the source of the authority must be established-the authority which can permit or order the general to commit high treason; which can "bind and absolve." Since the existing state power, which in this case was represented by the Chief of State, who was identical with the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, can certainly not be this authority, we merely have to decide whether an authority exists above or beyond the authority of the particular state, which could "bind or absolve." Since the struggle for power between Pope and Emperor, which dominated the Middle Ages, has no longer any significance in regard to constitutional law, such a power can only be impersonal and moral. The German poet Schiller expresses the supreme commandment of the unwritten eternal law in the words: "The tyrant's power yet one limit bath..." That is only one of the manifold poetical revelations in world literature, which express the deep yearning for freedom felt by all peoples. If there is an unwritten law which indisputably expresses the conviction of all men, it is this, that with due consideration for the necessity of maintaining order in the state, there is a limit to the restriction of freedom. Where this is transgressed, a state of war will arise between the national order and the international power of world conscience.
DR. NELTE: It is important to state that no such statute of international law has hitherto existed. This is understandable, since freedom is a relative conception, and the different conceptions existing in various states and the anxiety of all states for their sovereignty are irreconcilable with recognition of an international authority. The authority which "binds and absolves"-which absolves us of guilt before God and the people-is the universal conscience which becomes alive in every individual. He must act accordingly. The Defendant Keitel did not hear the warning voice of the universal conscience. The principles of his soldierly life were so deeply rooted, and governed his thoughts and actions so exclusively, that 9 July 4B he was deaf to all considerations which might deflect him from the path of obedience and faithfulness, as he understood them. This is the really tragic role played by the Defendant Keitel in this most terrible drama of all times.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kaufmanns-yes, go on, Dr. Kaufmanns.
DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): Mr. President, may I first say that I have a few changes which I will announce when I come to them. I shall take about two hours altogether, Mr. President. May it please the Tribunal: The present Trial is world history- world history full of revolutionary tensions. The spirits conjured up by mankind are stronger than the cries of the tortured peoples for justice and peace. Since man was deified and God humiliated, chaos, as an inevitable consequence and punishment, has afflicted mankind with wars, revolutions, famine, and despair. Whatever the guilt borne by my country, it is now enduring-and permanently enduring-the greatest penance ever endured by any people. The means adopted to restore longed-for prosperity are wrong, because they are second-rate. And none of my listeners can question the truth of my assertion that the present Trial was not begun at the end of a period of wrong, and in order to end it, but is surrounded by-the surging waves of a furious torrent bearing on its surface the hopeless wreckage of a civilization guarded through the centuries, and in the demoniacal depths of which lurk those who hate the true God, who are the enemies of the Christian religion, and therefore opposed to all forms of justice. The European commonwealth of peoples, of which my country, if only because of its geographical position, was the very heart, is seriously afflicted. It suffers from the spirit of negation and humiliation of human dignity. Rousseau would have cursed his own maxims had he lived to see the radical refutation of his theories in this twentieth century. The peoples proclaimed the "liberty" of the great revolution, but in the course of a mere 150 years they have in the name of that same liberty created a monster of bondage, cruel slavery, and ungodliness, which contrived to elude earthly justice, but did not escape the living God. This Tribunal, conscious of its task and its mission, will some day have to submit to the searching eye of history. I do not doubt that the judges selected are striving to serve justice as they see it.
DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): But is not this task indeed impossible of solution? The American chief prosecutor stated that in his country important trials seldom begin until one or two years have elapsed. I do not need to elucidate the profound core of truth contained in this practice. Could human beings, torn between love and hate, justice and revenge, conduct a trial immediately after the greatest catastrophe humanity has ever known-and constantly harassed by the statutory demands for rapid and time-saving proceedings-in such a way as to earn the thanks of mankind when the waters of this second deluge have withdrawn into their old bed? Would it not have been better to allow for that very lapse of time between crime and atonement with regard to the present proceedings? Justice can be administered only when the Court possesses that inner liberty and independence which owes allegiance only to conscience and to God himself. Such a sacred activity had largely been forgotten in my country, above all, by the governing class of the nation; Hitler had prostituted the law. But this Tribunal intends to prove to the world that the welfare of the peoples is based on law alone. And no conception could arouse more joy and hope within the heart of people of good will than that of unselfish justice. I am not criticizing the provisions of the Charter; but I do ask whether any justice has ever been, or ever could be, found on earth if might submitted to reason so far as to grant its enemies regular trial, but could not see fit to crown this tribute to reason by appointing a genuinely international tribunal; for even though 19 nations have approved of the legal basis of the Charter it is far more difficult to administer the laws laid down. ' The American chief prosecutor has emphatically declared that he did not propose to hold the entire German nation guilty; but the records of this Tribunal, which history will some day scrutinize attentively, nevertheless contain many things which, to us Germans, appear to be false and, therefore, painful.
DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): Unfortunately they also contain numerous explicit questions on the part of the French Prosecution as to the extent to which, for instance, certain Crimes against Humanity committed both inside and outside Germany were known to the German people. Indeed, the French Prosecution have asked explicitly: "Could these atrocities remain, on the whole, unknown to the entire German nation, or were they aware of them?" These and similar questions are not conducive to the solution of such a difficult and tragic problem with even the slightest approach to the truth. Insofar as evil, which always grows and manifests itself organically, reigns supreme in a nation, every individual who has reached the age of reason will bear some guilt for his country's disasters. Yet even this guilt, which is on the metaphysical plane, could never become the collective guilt of a nation unless every individual member of this nation has incurred a separate guilt. But who would be entitled to establish the existence of such a guilt without examining thousands of individual circumstances? The problem, however, becomes even more difficult if one should try-and this is the final aim-to establish the so-called national guilt for any past crimes against peace, humanity, and so forth, committed on the part of the omnipotent State, no matter through what agencies. One must bear in mind most carefully the condition of the Reich before 1933. This has been done sufficiently here and I shall not discuss it. Hitler claimed for himself alone such far-reaching concepts as the powerful German diligence, austerity, family affection, willingness to make sacrifices, aristocracy of labor, and a hundred more. Millions believed in this; millions of others did not. The best of them did not lose hope of being able to avert the tragedy which they foresaw. They flung themselves into the stream of events, assembled the good, and fought, visibly or invisibly, against the evil.