dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): When the territory of the Reich embraces all the Germans and finds itself unable to assure them a livelihood, only then can the moral right arise from the need of the people, to acquire foreign territory. The plough is then the sword; and the tears of war will produce the daily bread for the generations to come." Hitler in this book also roundly declares that the mere restoration of Germany's frontiers as they were in 1914 would be wholly insufficient for his purposes. At Page 553 he writes: "In regard to this point I should like to make the following statement: To demand that the 1914 frontiers should be restored is a glaring political absurdity that is fraught with . such consequences as to make the claim itself appear criminal. The confines of the Reich as they existed in 1914 were thoroughly illogical because they were not really complete, in the sense of including all the members of the German nation. Nor were they reasonable, in view of the geographical exigencies of military defense. They were not the consequences of a political plan which had been well considered and carried out, but they were temporary frontiers established in virtue of a political struggle that had not been brought to a finish; and indeed, they were partly the chance result of circumstances." In further elaboration of Nazi policy, Hitler does not merely denounce the Treaty of Versailles ; he desires to see a Germany which is a world power with territory sufficient for a future German people, of a magnitude which he does not define. In the next quotation, from Page 554, the first sentence reads: "For the future of the German nation the 1914 frontiers are of no significance." And in the third paragraph the Court sees: "We National Socialists must stick firmly to the aim that we have set for our foreign policy, namely, that the German people must be assured the territorial area which is necessary for it to exist on this earth.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): And only for such action as is undertaken to secure those ends can it be lawful in the eyes of God and our German posterity to allow the blood of our people to be shed once again; before God, because we are sent into this world with the commission to struggle for our daily bread, as creatures to whom nothing is donated and who must be able to win and hold their position as lords of the earth only through their own intelligence and courage. "And this justification must be established also before our German posterity, on the grounds that for each one who has shed his blood the life of a thousand others will be guaranteed to posterity. The territory on which one day our German peasants will be able to bring forth and nourish their sturdy sons will justify the blood of the sons of the peasants that has to be shed today. And the statesmen who have decreed this sacrifice may be persecuted by their contemporaries, but posterity will absolve them from all guilt for having demanded this offering from their people." Then, the next quotation; Hitler writes at Page 557: "Germany will either become a world power or will not continue to exist at all. But, in order to become a world power, it needs that territorial magnitude which gives it the necessary importance today and assures the existence of its citizens." And, finally, he writes: ". . . we must take our stand on the principles already mentioned in regard to foreign policy, namely, the necessity of bringing our territorial area into just proportion with the number of our population.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): From the past we can learn only one lesson, and this is that the aim which is to be pursued in our political conduct must be twofold, namely: (1) The acquisition of territory as the objective of our foreign policy, and (2) the establishment of a new and uniform foundation as the objective of our political activities at home, in accordance with our doctrine of nationhood." Now these passages from Mein Kampf raise the question: Where did Hitler expect to find the increased territory beyond the 1914 boundaries of Germany? To this Hitler's answer is sufficiently explicit. Reviewing the history of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918, he wrote in an early passage of Mein Kampf, at Page 132: "Therefore, the only possibility which Germany had of carrying a sound territorial policy into effect was that of acquiring new territory in Europe itself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose so long as they are not suited for settlement by Europeans on a large scale. In the nineteenth century it was no longer possible to acquire such colonies by peaceful means. Therefore, any attempt at such a colonial expansion would have meant an enormous military struggle. Consequently, it would have been more practical to undertake that military struggle for new territory in Europe rather than to wage war for the acquisition of possessions abroad "Such a decision naturally demanded that the nation's undivided energies should be devoted to it. A policy of that kind, which requires for its fulfillment every ounce of available energy on the part of everybody concerned, cannot be carried into effect by half measures or in a hesitant manner. The political leadership of the German Empire should then have been directed exclusively to this goal. No political step should have been taken in response to considerations other than this task and the means of accomplishing it. Germany should have been alive to the fact that such a goal could have been reached only by war, and the prospect of war should have been faced with calm and collected determination.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): "The whole system of alliances should have been envisaged and valued from that standpoint." And then this is the vital sentence: "If new territory were to be acquired in Europe, it must have been mainly at Russia's cost, and once again the new German Empire should have set out on its march along the same road as was formerly trodden by the Teutonic Knights, this time to acquire soil for the German plough by means of the German sword and thus provide the nation with its daily bread." To this program of expansion in the East, Hitler returned again at the end of Mein Kampf. After discussing the insufficiency of Germany's pre-war frontiers, he again points the path to the East and declares that the 'Drang nach Osten' (the drive to the East) must be resumed; and he writes: "Therefore we National Socialists have purposely drawn a line through the line of conduct followed by pre-war Germany in foreign policy .... We put an end to the perpetual Germanic march towards the south and west of Europe and turn our eyes towards the lands of the East. We finally put a stop to the colonial and trade policy of pre-war times and pass over to the territorial policy of the future. "But when we speak of new territory in Europe today we must principally think of Russia and the border states subject to her." Now Hitler was shrewd enough to see that his aggressive designs in the East might be endangered by a defensive alliance between Russia, France, and England. His foreign policy, as outlined in Mein Kampf, therefore was to detach England and Italy from France and Russia and to change the attitude of Germany towards France from the defensive to the offensive. The final quotation from Mein Kampf comes from Page 570: "As long as the eternal conflict between France and Germany is waged only in the form of a German defense against the French attack, that conflict can never be decided, and from century to century Germany will lose one position after another.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): If we study the changes that have taken place, from the 12th century up to our day, in the frontiers within which the German language is spoken, we can hardly hope for a successful issue to result from the acceptance and development of a line of conduct which has hitherto been so detrimental for us. "Only when the Germans have taken all this fully into account will they cease allowing the national will-to-live to wear itself out in merely passive defense and will rally together for a last decisive contest with France. And in this contest the essential objective of the German nation will be fought for. Only then will it be possible to put an end to the eternal Franco-German conflict which has hitherto proved so sterile. "Of course it is here presumed that Germany sees in the suppression of France nothing more than a means which will make it possible for our people finally to expand in another quarter. Today there are 80 million Germans in Europe. And our foreign policy will be recognized as rightly conducted only when, after barely a hundred years, there will be 250 million Germans living on this continent, not packed together as the coolies in the factories of another continent, but as tillers of the soil and workers whose labor will be a mutual assurance for their existence." I submit, therefore, that, quite apart from the evidence already submitted to the Tribunal, the evidence of Mein Kampf, taken in conjunction with the facts of Nazi Germany's subsequent behavior towards other countries, goes to show that from the very first moment that they attained power, and indeed long before that time, Hitler and his confederates, the defendants, were engaged in planning and preparing aggressive war as is alleged against them in this Indictment.
MAJOR F. ELWYN JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): Events have proved in the blood and misery of millions of men, women, and children that Mein Kampf was no mere literary exercise to be treated with easy indifference, as unfortunately it was treated before the war by those who were imperiled, but was the expression of a fanatical faith in force and fraud as the means to Nazi dominance in Europe, if not in the whole world. The Prosecution's submission is that, accepting and propagating the jungle philosophy of Mein Kampf, the Nazi confederates who are indicted here deliberately pushed our civilization over the precipice of war.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now adjourn for 10 minutes. [A recess was taken.]
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: May it please the Tribunal, the next stage of the Prosecution is the presentation of the cases against the individual defendants under the Counts One and Two of the Indictment. Before that is begun the chief prosecutors for the United States and Great Britain wish, with the permission of the Tribunal, to make four points perfectly clear: The object of this part of the case is to collect for the benefit, first, of the members of the Tribunal and, secondly, of the Defense Counsel concerned, the evidence against each defendant under Counts One and Two which has been presented by the American and British Delegations. Otherwise it would be easy among the many documents already before the Court to miss relevant pieces of evidence which the Tribunal might wish to consider and to which the defendants may wish to make a reply. This does not mean that the case against these defendants has in any way ended. Vital and important parts of the case remain concerning the actual atrocities, both War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. The evidence in regard to these will shortly be presented by the French Delegation and the Delegation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and when the massive documentation of these crimes is placed before the Court, the French and Soviet Delegations will have the opportunity of relating them to the individual defendants in the dock. It has been the desire of all the chief prosecutors to delimit as clearly as possible the evidence under the respective Counts of the Indictment. The documents in evidence, however, were not written with a view to this Trial, and therefore many of them inevitably deal with offenses under more than one Count. It is by reason of this alone that some overlapping and repetition necessarily exists. Similarly it may occur that as the French and Soviet cases are developed documents may come to light which bear on the common plan or the initiation of wars of aggression or on other material connected with Counts One and Two.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: The American and British Delegations will welcome any addition to the evidence on these parts of the case which such documents may provide and gladly receive such reinforcement from their French and Soviet colleagues. With-this explanation, and I am very grateful to the Tribunal for allowing me to make it, I call on my friend Mr. Albrecht to commence this part of the case.
DR. THOMA: Colonel Wheeler in his accusation concerning the oppression of the Christian churches in the Eastern territory also named the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, The Defendant Rosenberg, and held him responsible. I have, however, neither in the speech of the Prosecution nor in The document book, found any proof that such persecution of the Church also took place in the territories administered by Rosenberg. I wish rather to direct the attention of the Tribunal to Document 1517-PS, in which there is a note signed by Rosenberg concerning a discussion on questions of the East. This document contains the following statement made by Rosenberg, "The Fuehrer agrees with Rosenberg's Edict of Tolerance."
THE PRESIDENT: Am I to understand that you are making a motion at this stage?
DR. THOMA: I have a request to make to the Prosecution: that it should, if possible, subsequently substantiate its charge against Rosenberg.
THE PRESIDENT: Is your point that this Document 1517-PS has not yet been in, or what is your point?
DR. THOMA: To my knowledge this document has already been submitted, and that was in connection with Hitler's opinion that the Crimea question should be cleared up completely. But in my present request I am concerned with the fact that the Prosecution stated that in the Government General and likewise in Warthegau and in the Eastern countries, and in the areas administered by the Defendant Rosenberg as well, persecution of the Church took place. The Prosecution has produced documents concerning the first three territories, but as far as the latter territory is concerned, I have learned of no such documents being either in the document book or in the personal presentation made by the Prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you must understand that the Tribunal are not at this stage accepting everything that has been said by the Prosecution. You will have full opportunity when you present the case on behalf of the Defendant Rosenberg to present any documents which may be relevant and to comment upon any documents which have been cited by the Prosecution and to make any argument that you think right; but this is not the appropriate time to make any such argument. We are still considering the case for the Prosecution, and you will have full opportunity hereafter. Do you understand?
DR. THOMA: Then I ask the High Tribunal to consider my present explanation as a statement.
THE PRESIDENT: We will do so, but it is not convenient for Counsel for the Defense to intervene with statements of this sort; otherwise each one of the defendants' counsel might be doing it all the time. We must ask you therefore to withhold such statements until your time comes to answer the case for the Prosecution.
MR. RALPH G. ALBRECHT (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, I have been charged by the Chief of Counsel for the United States with the duty of pointing out, on the basis of evidence already admitted and of additional evidence that will be offered, the individual responsibility of some of these defendants for the crimes specified in Counts One and Two of the Indictment. When these defendants chose to abandon everything that had been recognized as good in German life and affirmatively participated in the work of achieving the objectives of the Party, we submit that they well knew what National Socialism stood for. They knew of the program announced by the Nazi Party and they also had knowledge of Nazi methods. The official NSDAP program with its 25 points was open and notorious. Announced and published to the world in 1920, it was published and republished and adverted to throughout the years. The Nazis made no secret of their intentions to make the Party program the fundamental law of the German State. The Nazis made no secret of their intentions generally. For all to read there was Mein Kampf, the product of the warped brain of the Fuehrer, and there were the prolific writings and utterances of many other leaders who rose to prominence, some of whom are not sitting in the defendants' box. And Hitler himself had announced that the Nazis would use force if necessary to achieve their purposes. Among these conspirators there were those who, like the Defendants Hess, Rosenberg, and Goering, were associated with Hitler since the very inception of the conspiracy. These men were among the original planners. They were the men who subsequently set the pace and cast the mould for the future. But there were also other conspirators (the balance of the defendants in the dock fit into this category), who voluntarily joined the conspiracy later. While these men may be characterized perhaps as cruel, callous, or inhuman, they certainly may not be called dull or stupid.
MR. RALPH G. ALBRECHT (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): They knew, and had had the opportunity to observe, the manifestations of Nazi violence and Nazi methods as the pattern of the swastika developed. They knew the nature of what they were getting into. Therefore they must be presumed to have had the desire to participate-and participate they did-voluntarily, and so we submit that it may not validly be inferred that they did not join the stream of the conspiracy with their eyes open, scienter, as the conspiracy gathered momentum and developed into a rushing torrent. Much evidence has already been admitted by the Tribunal of the overt acts of these defendants, as well as of their fellow conspirators. We shall make no effort at this time to present an exhaustive recital of all crimes planned or initiated by these defendants for which they must bear full responsibility beyond peradventure. The world already knows more of the evil deeds of these men and of their co-conspirators than the Prosecution possibly could hope to establish within the reasonable limits of time and of men's patience. At this point we shall attempt to focus attention merely to illustrative criminal conduct of the individual conspirators. There is an advantage to proceeding, we submit, as we propose to do, with the permission of the Tribunal, to show in outline the extent to which these defendants have become implicated in the serious charges against them. In the case of many of these conspirators, a recital of their crimes will relate to their planning of several of the categories of crimes described in Counts One and Two of the Indictment. We shall draw these various threads together and show, as I have said, the outline of the completed proof, as it were, within Count One of the Indictment, against the individual conspirators. Thus, on behalf of the United States, I shall commence to show how some of these defendants fit into the broad stream of the Common Plan or Conspiracy to wage aggressive war and the extent of their individual responsibility for their acts in pursuance of that conspiracy.
MR. RALPH G. ALBRECHT (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): First of all, we mention the late Defendant Robert Ley who, by recourse to self-destruction, has escaped all punishment for his participation in the conspiracy. Next we mention Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the action against whom has been severed from this proceeding. Nevertheless, it should be noted that documentary proof has been offered and will be offered in support of the allegations of the Indictment that implicate both Ley and Krupp as co-conspirators, for whose crimes the remaining defendants also must accept responsibility. Next we consider the Defendant Fritz Sauckel. The case against Sauckel has been completely stated and supported by a wealth of damning evidence by my learned colleague Mr. Dodd in his presentation of the case on slave labor. We submit that it is unnecessary to add anything further to the case against Sauckel to demonstrate how completely he filled his place in the stream of the conspiracy. The next defendant to be considered is Albert Speer. Like his fellow-conspirator Sauckel, Speer is deeply implicated as a member of the conspiracy and much of the case against him has been presented by Mr. Dodd in the case on slave labor. But, unlike Sauckel, Speer's criminal activity went substantially beyond the realm of slave labor. His was one of the master minds in the plan for the systematic robbery and spoliation of the lands overrun by the German war machine. Documentary proof of Speer's participation in the spoliation practices in the countries of Western Europe, as well as in the Occupied Eastern Territories, will be presented subsequently by our learned colleagues, the Chief Prosecutor representing the Soviet Union and the Chief French Prosecutor, under the remaining Counts of the Indictment . This is essentially the case that proves Speer to have been a member of the conspiracy. There is, however, one additional exhibit that I would like to offer into evidence at this time.
MR. RALPH G. ALBRECHT (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): It was received only a few days ago from the Ministerial Document Center at Kassel and it is a dossier maintained on the Defendant Speer in the offices of the Reichsfuehrer SS. I offer this file as Exhibit Number USA-575. It is our Document 3568-PS and' I shall read from the dossier. I shall read from the letter dated the 25th of July 1942, from the second paragraph: "Reich Minister Speer was enrolled as an SS man on the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS under SS Number 46104, in effect from the 20th of July 1942, by order of the Reichsfuehrer SS." And I think that is all I need to read from that letter. But I should like to call the Tribunal's attention to the annexed document, which is a questionnaire, and right at the beginning of the same it is related that Albert Speer was in the SS since the autumn of 1932, and his membership number in the Party was 474481. I next mention the Defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner, whose case has been completely presented in connection with the presentation on the Gestapo and the SD as criminal organizations. We submit that further proof is not needed to prove how completely this enemy of his own fatherland, Austria, had been carried along in the stream of the conspiracy. We pass then to the case of perhaps the most important conspirator on trial before this Tribunal-the Number Two Nazi, the Nazi who stood next to the Fuehrer himself, the Nazi who was in some respects even more dangerous than the Fuehrer and other leading Party leaders. We say that he was more dangerous because, unlike many leading Nazis, including Hitler, who were morally and socially on the fringes of society before the Nazi Party rode to success in 1933, this conspirator was known to come of substantial family which had furnished officers to the army and important civil servants to the country in the past. Moreover, he was possessed of substantial appearance, an ingratiating manner, a certain affability.