dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. SERVATIUS: He had to rely upon the press and the broadcasts like everybody else. He had no contact with the leading men. This is demonstrated somewhat tragically by his action, so often ridiculed, of boarding a submarine as an ordinary seaman for some mission. That is no way to participate in conspiracies. As a faithful follower of Hitler, the Defendant Sauckel remained isolated in the circle of the initiated. It is understandable that the extremists should have shunned him owing to his well-known opinions. He was not initiated into the secrets of people who aspired to be Hitler's friends and murderers at the same time, nor was he kept informed by the group of people who were Hitler's enemies, but who kept their knowledge secret with a novel kind of courage. A believer to the end, the Defendant Sauckel cannot to this day understand what has happened. Must he, like a heretic, recant his error in order to find mercy? He lacks the contact with reality, which would make understanding possible. Does his sentence depend on his having unknowingly served a good or a bad cause? Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. One thing, however, is always and under all circumstances good, and that is a good intention. This good intention was shown by the Defendant Sauckel. Therefore, I ask that he be acquitted.
THE PRESIDENT: I call on Dr. Exner for the Defendant Jodl.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): May it please the Tribunal, in this unique Trial the discovery of the truth is faced with difficulties of an exceptional nature. At a time when the wounds of the war are still bleeding, when the excitement of the events of the last few years is still felt, at a time when the archives of one side are still closed, it is asked that a just verdict be given with dispassionate neutrality. Material for the Trial has been spread out before us covering a quarter of a century of world history and events from the four corners of the globe. On the grounds of this tremendous amount of material we see 22 men being accused simultaneously. That makes it immensely difficult to gain a clear picture of the guilt and responsibility of each individual, for inhumanities of an almost unimaginable vastness have come to light here, and there exists a danger that the deep shadow which falls upon some of the defendants may also darken the others. Some of them, I fear, appear in a different light because of the company in which they now sit than they would if they were alone in the dock. The Prosecution has promoted this danger by repeatedly making joint accusations, thereby mixing legal and moral reproaches. They have said that all the defendants had enriched themselves from the occupied territories, that there was not one who did not shout, "Perish, Judah!" and so forth. No attempt to prove this in the case of any single individual was made, but the statement in itself creates an atmosphere hostile toward all of them. Another fact brought about by the Prosecution which renders elucidation of the question of individual guilt still more difficult is that the Defendants Keitel and Jodl are treated as inseparable twins: One common plea against them by the British prosecutor, one common trial brief by the French Prosecution; the Russian Prosecution indeed spoke very little about the individual defendants but preferred to heap reproach after reproach upon all of them.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): All of this is presumably intended to shorten the Trial, but it hardly serves to clear up the question of individual responsibility. Indeed, the Indictment goes still further. It reaches beyond these 22 defendants and affects the fate of millions through a prosecution of certain organizations, which, taken in conjunction with Law Number 10, leads to the result that one can be punished for the guilt of other persons. Something that is more important at the moment is a further form of summary treatment of the defendants. The Prosecution is bringing in the conception of a "conspiracy" in order once more to obtain the result that persons may be made individually responsible for some wrong that others committed. I must deal with this point in greater detail,. since it also concerns my client. It is actually clear, I think, from the previous speakers' statements that a conspiracy to commit Crimes against Peace and the laws of war and humanity did not in fact exist. Therefore, I shall demonstrate only that, if such a conspiracy did actually exist, Jodl at least did not belong to it. The Prosecution has admitted that Jodl's participation in the conspiracy before 1933 could not be proved. In fact, anyone whose attitude toward the whole National Socialist movement was so full of distrust and who spoke with such skepticism about its seizure of power did not conspire to help Hitler take over the reins of Government. But the Prosecution seems to think that Jodl joined the alleged conspiracy in the period before 1939. In truth, during this time, too, nothing essential changed as far as he was concerned. True, his attitude toward Hitler was now an entirely loyal one. But it was Jodl's respected Field Marshal Von Hindenburg who had called Hitler into the Government, and the German people had confirmed this decision with more than 90 percent of its votes.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): Added to this was the feet that in Jodl's eyes-and not only in his-Hitler's authority was bound to rise by leaps and bounds in view of his remarkable- successes at home and abroad, which now followed one after another in quick succession; yet personally Jodl remained without any connection with Hitler. He did not participate in any of the big meetings at which Hitler developed his program. He had only read extracts of Hitler's book Mein Kampf, the bible of National Socialism. Jodl remained just an unpolitical man, quite in line with his personal inclinations, which were far removed from Party politics and in accordance with the traditions of the old family of officers from which he sprang. Of liberal leanings, he had little sympathy for National Socialism; as an officer he was forbidden to belong to the Party, and he had no right to vote or be politically active. If, as the Prosecution says, the Party held the conspiracy together and was the "instrument of cohesion" between the defendants, then one asks with wonder what cohesion actually existed between Jodl and, let us say, Sauckel, or between Jodl and Streicher. Of all the defendants, the only one he knew before the war, outside of the officers, was Frick, from one or two official conferences in the Ministry of the Interior. He kept clear of the NSDAP, and his attitude toward its organizations was even in a certain sense inimical. His greatest worry during these years, right up to the end, was the danger of Party influence in the Armed Forces. Jodl did what lay in his power to prevent the SS from being puffed up into a subsidiary Wehrmacht, to prevent the transfer of the customs frontier guards to Himmler, and he notes triumphantly in his diary that after the withdrawal of General Von Fritsch, Hitler did not, as had been feared, make General Von Reichenau, who had Party ties, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but the unpolitical General Von Brauchitsch, and so forth.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): If Jodl had conspired for , 18 July 46 National Socialism in any way, his attitude would have been the opposite on every one of these points. Nor was Jodl present at any of the so-called meetings of the conspirators, as on 5 November 1937-Hitler's testament was unknown to him-at Obersalzberg in February 1938, and at the meetings on 23 May 1939 and 22 August 1939. No wonder; for Jodl was after all at that time still much too insignificant to be permitted to participate in conferences and meetings which were of such decisive importance to the State. People do not conspire with lieutenant colonels or colonels of the General Staff. They simply tell them what to do, and that settles the matter. However, the most incontrovertible proof of the fact that Jodl can have belonged to no conspiracy to wage aggressive war is his absence for 10 months just before the beginning of the war. Jodl had left the OKW in October 1938 and was sent to Vienna as artillery commander. At that time there was in his mind so little probability of war that before leaving Berlin he drafted, on his own initiative, a plan of deployment in all directions for security purposes. In this he disposed the bulk of the German forces in the center of the Reich because he could not see any definite opponent against whom a deployment plan might have to be prepared. Exactly a year before the beginning of the attack, this alleged conspirator for aggressive wars drew up a purely defensive General Staff plan, and, although he knew definitely that in case of war he would have to return to Berlin, this possibility seemed so remote that he moved to Vienna, taking along all his furniture. Besides, since he wished to get away from of lice work again, he arranged to have the mountain division at Reichenhall promised him for 1 October 1939. Lastly, as late as July he obtained passage on a sea cruise planned to last several weeks, which was to have started in September-so sure was he of peaceful developments during these 10 months.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): Up to the time he was called to Berlin shortly before the outbreak of the war, Jodl had no official or private connections with the OKW. The only letter he got from them at that time was the one which promised him his transfer to Reichenhal1 on 1 October. Note that at the most critical time when the alleged conspirators were discussing and working out the Polish plan, Jodl was for 10 months out of all contact with the authoritative persons and knew no more of what was happening than one of his second lieutenants. When the Fuehrer came to Vienna during the summer, it did not even seem worth while to Keitel to introduce Jodl to him, although Jodl, as the Supreme Commander's strategic adviser, was called upon in the event of war to carry out the allegedly common aggressive plan. One can imagine how astonished Jodl was to read in the Indictment that he had been a member of the conspiracy to launch the war. Mr. President, I have reached the end of a paragraph, and this perhaps might be an opportune moment to recess.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. [The Tribunal adjourned until 19 July 1946 at 1000 hours.]
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal, I shall proceed with the reading of my final argument. I should like to recall the fact that yesterday I tried to show that Jodl, in any event until the year 1939, could not have been party to a conspiracy. But perhaps it is maintained that Jodl did not join the conspiracy until after 1939. As a previous speaker has already explained, an officer who works with others in the place assigned to him in carrying out a war plan can never be considered a conspirator. He does, in fact, have a plan in common with his superior, but he has not adopted it of his own accord, nor has he concluded an agreement to that effect, but within the normal scope of service he simply does what the post he occupies demands. Jodl in particular can be considered a typical example of this. He did not go to Berlin of his own free will. It had already been decided long before that he would enter the Fuehrer's staff in case of war. Orders for the current mobilization year specified this. This mobilization year ended on 30 September 1939; for the following year General Von Sodenstern was already designated as Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff. Therefore, if the war had broken out 6 weeks later, Jodl would have entered the war as commander of his mountain division. He would then, in all probability, not be in this dock today. Thus it becomes clear that his whole activity in the war was fixed by a ruling which was independent of his will and had been laid down in advance long before. This fact is, in my opinion, in itself already striking proof that he did not participate in a conspiracy to wage wars of aggression. When Jodl reached Berlin on 23 August 1939, the beginning of the war had been fixed for 25 August. For reasons unknown to him it was then postponed another 6 days. The plan for the campaign was ready. He did not need to conspire to produce it. If any conspiracy against Poland did exist at that time, the conspirators were to be found elsewhere, as we now know from the German-Russian Secret Treaty.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): Jodl was not introduced to the Fuehrer until 3 September 1939, that is after the war had begun, at a time when the final decision had already been taken. From then on his official position brought him close to Adolf Hitler; but, of course, one must add, close to him in locality only. He was never really on intimate terms with him. Even then, he did not learn of Hitler's plans and intentions and was only told of them as the occasion arose to the extent that his work absolutely demanded. Jodl never became Hitler's confidant and never had cordial relations with him. It remained a purely official relationship-often enough one of conflict. In other ways, too, Jodl had remained a stranger to the Party. There is no suggestion of his having sought contact in Vienna, for instance, with the local Party leaders, although this would have been natural enough. Most of the Party leaders and most of the defendants he came to know only when they visited the Fuehrer's headquarters from time to time. With the exception of the officers, he had no relations with them. He abominated the Party clique in the headquarters and considered it an unpleasant foreign body in the military framework. He never ceased to fight against Party influences in the Armed Forces. He did not attend Party functions. He did not take part in any Reich Party rally, apart from the fact that he once watched the Armed Forces display there on official orders. He never participated in the Munich memorial days on 9 November. The prosecutor has repeatedly referred to his Gauleiter speech to prove that, in spite of all this, Jodl identified himself with the Party and its efforts, and that he was after all not a soldier but a politician, and an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler. Here one must first note that Document L-172, which is presented to us as this Gauleiter speech, is not the manuscript of this speech but a collection of material compiled by his staff, on the basis of which Jodl then drafted his manuscript. In addition, the speech was made extemporaneously.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): Not a single word of this document proves that Jodl really spoke it. Also the occasion of the speech must be taken into account. After 4 hard years of war, after the defection of Italy which had just taken place, before the fresh terrific burden which Hitler planned to impose on the population as the extreme effort, at this critical moment everything depended on upholding the people's will to carry on. For that reason the Party tried to get expert information upon the war situation so as to be able to buoy up sinking courage again. For this task the Fuehrer chose General Jodl, no doubt the only competent person. Many a person would have welcomed this opportunity to make himself popular with the Party leaders, but Jodl accepted the task contre coeur and against his will. The title of l9 July 46 the address was: "The Military Situation at the Beginning of the Fifth Year of War." Its contents are a purely military description of the war situation on the various fronts, and how this situation was created. The beginning and the end, at least according to the document before us, constitute a hymn of praise to the Fuehrer, from which the Prosecution draws unwarranted conclusions. When a lecturer has first and foremost to win the confidence of his listeners-consisting of Party leaders-and when his task is to spread confidence in the supreme military leadership, then such rhetorical flowery speech is quite understandable. Incidentally, Jodl does not deny that he sincerely admired some of the Fuehrer's qualities and talents. But he was never his confidant or his fellow conspirator, and even in the OKW he remained the nonpolitician he always was. Jodl was, therefore, not a member of a conspiracy. No concept of a conspiracy can help to make him responsible for criminal actions which he did not himself commit. And now I will deal with these individual Actions of which Jodl is accused.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): According to Article 6 of the Charter, the Tribunal is competent to deal with certain crimes against the peace, against the laws of war and against humanity, as specified in the Charter and involving personal criminal responsibility of the guilty individual. If we disregard for the time being the crimes against humanity, which come under a special heading, there are two preliminary conditions to any individual punishment of the defendants: (1) There must be a violation of international law in which they were guilty of complicity in some respect. The point of this whole Trial and that of the Charter after all lies in the fact that the force of the rules of international law is to be strengthened by penal sanctions. If, therefore, some specific violation of international law is committed, not only the responsibility of the particular country which violated the law will be established as heretofore, but in addition guilty individuals shall also be punished for it in the future. Thus there can be no punishment without a previous breach of international law. (2) Provision for such a responsibility of individuals is however not made in all cases of a breach of international law, but only for those explicitly named in the Charter. Article 6(a) specifies the crimes against peace, Article 6(b), crimes against the laws and usages of war. Other actions, even if contrary to international law, are not mentioned. Quite a few court sessions might have been dispensed with if the Prosecution had taken these two points into account right from the beginning, because, as I shall show, there is a tendency to accuse the defendants, beyond these limits, of acts contrary to international law which are not specified in the Charter. Nor is this all: they are to be called to account also for deeds which are in no way contrary to law, but can, at most, be considered as unethical. In the following points I shall adhere to the clear arrangement of the Anglo-American trial brief and add to it what was brought up against Jodl by the two other prosecutors.
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): Point (1) Collaboration in the seizure and consolidation of power by the National Socialists has, as I already pointed out, been dropped. Points (2) and (3) concern rearmament and the reoccupation of the Rhineland. Jodl had nothing to do with the introduction of compulsory military service or with rearmament. Jodl's diary contains not a single word about rearmament. He was a member of the Reich Defense Committee, which was not, however, concerned with the rearmament questions. He was here concerned with the measures which were to be taken by the civilian authorities in case of mobilization. There was nothing illegal in that. We were not forbidden to mobilize, for instance, in case of an enemy attack. The preparations in the demilitarized zone, which were proposed to the committee by Jodl, were also limited to the civilian authorities and consisted only of preparations for the evacuation of the territory west of the Rhine in order to defend the line of the river Rhine in case of a French occupation. The preparations were purely of a defensive nature. If, in spite of that, Jodl recommended that these defensive measures be kept strictly secret, this is not evidence of any criminal plans, but was only the natural thing to do. As a matter of fact, particular caution was imperative, for the French occupation of the Ruhr was still fresh in people's memories. Neither did Jodl have anything to do with the occupation of the Rhineland; he learned about this decision of the Fuehrer only 5 days before its execution. Further comment on my part should be superfluous, for according to the Charter neither rearmament nor the occupation of the Rhineland-whether contrary to international law or not-belongs to the criminal actions envisaged by Article 6. These cases would come within the Charter only if a preparation for aggressive war were seen in them. But who would have thought of an aggressive war at that period?
PROFESSOR DR. FRANZ EXNER (Counsel for Defendant Jodl): In 1938, owing to lack of trained troops, we could not have put into the field one-sixth of the number of divisions our probable enemies, France, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, could have produced. The first stage of rearmament was supposed to be reached in 1942. The West Wall was to have been completed by 1952. Heavy artillery was entirely lacking; tanks were at the test stage; the ammunition situation was catastrophic. In 1937 we did not possess a single battleship. As late as 1939 we did not have more than 26 seagoing U-boats, which was less than one-tenth of the British and French total. As far as war plans were concerned there existed only a plan for the protection of the Eastern frontier. The description of our situation in the Reich Defense Committee is very typical. It was said that as a matter of course a future war would be fought on our own territory; hence that it could only be a defensive war. This-please note-was a statement made during a secret session of this committee. The possibility of offensive action was not mentioned at all. But we were then not capable of serious defensive action either. For this very reason the generals considered themselves gamblers already at the time of the occupation of the Rhineland. But that any one of them could have been sufficiently optimistic to contemplate an offensive, of that there is not even the vestige of any evidence. Points (4) to (6) of the trial brief refer to participation in the planning and execution of the attack on Austria and Czechoslovakia. A deployment plan against Austria never existed. The prosecutors have submitted Document C-175 as such. But this is a misunderstanding; it is merely a program for the elaboration of diverse war plans, such as for a war against Britain, against Lithuania, against Spain, et cetera. Among those theoretical possibilities of war, "Case Otto" is also mentioned; this refers to an intervention in Austria in case of an attempt to restore the Hapsburgs.