dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. GUSTAV STEINBAUER (Counsel for the Defendant Seyss-Inquart): Mr. President, under Number 115 I am submitting the sworn questions and answers which were admitted by the Tribunal, as well as the cross-examination of Dr. Arved Bolle, the harbor construction engineer of Hamburg. I am submitting this in German and in a certified English translation, and with respect to the accusation that Seyss-Inquart was responsible for the catastrophic famine in September 1944, I quote merely one sentence on Page 3 of the translation: "Practically speaking, therefore, as soon as the strike commenced, all inland shipping in Holland was taken over by the military and was thereby withdrawn from the influence of the civil administration and the Ministry of Transportation." Furthermore, under Number 116 I submit the affidavit of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart which was granted me yesterday, and I should like to ask that the entire contents be accepted as evidence. I have only one correction to make: Documents 3640-PS and 3645-PS, which we had not been able to submit to Seyss-Inquart according to the affidavit, were immediately placed at my disposal in photostat form upon my return by the French Delegation in their usual considerate manner, and the French Prosecution is ready to submit both of these documents in the original, as desired by the Tribunal.
DR. HANS FLAECHSNER (Counsel for the Defendant Speer): Mr. President, from the interrogatories which were granted me in the spring of this year I have now received three more answers at the finish, which I should like to submit now as Speer Exhibits 47, 48, and 49. These are the interrogatories of the witnesses Von Poser, Malzacher, and Baumbach.
THE PRESIDENT: Then I call upon the Defendant Sauckel.
FRITZ SAUCKEL (Defendant): Gentlemen of the Tribunal: I have been shaken to the very depths of my soul by the atrocities revealed in this Trial. In all humility and reverence, I bow before the victims and the fallen of all nations, and before the misfortune and suffering of my own people, with whom alone I must measure my fate. I come from a social level completely different from that of my comrades accused with me. In my nature and thinking I remained a sailor and a worker. After the first World War, the course of my life was determined through my own experience of the sorrows and needs of the masses of my people who were struggling for their existence. Inner conflicts forced me into politics. I could be nothing else but a Socialist. But I could not embrace the Communist manifesto. I was never antireligious or even irreligious, but quite the contrary. I fought a hard struggle with myself before I turned to politics. And so I finally dedicated myself to socialist love and justice toward those whose only wealth is their labor and, at the same time, to the destiny of my nation. In this I saw the only possible connection between socialist thinking and true love of one's country. This belief alone determined my life and my actions. I saw here no contradiction to the laws of humanity. I recognized no arbitrary dictatorship or tyranny in the principle of leaders and loyal followers. My error was perhaps the excess of my feelings and my confidence in, as well as my great veneration of, Hitler. I knew him only as the champion of the German poeple's rights to existence and saw him as the man who was kind to workers, women, and children, and who promoted the vital interests of Germany. The Hitler of this Trial I could not recognize. Perhaps my loneliness and submersion in the world of my imagination and my work was a further defect. I hardly ever had social contact with the occupants of high positions in the Reich; what little spare time I had belonged to my family. I was and am happy that my wife is the daughter of a worker, who himself was and remained a Social Democrat.
FRITZ SAUCKEL (Defendant): In this, my last word, I solemnly assure you that I was completely surprised by all foreign political events and the beginning of all military actions. Under no circumstances would I have cooperated as a German worker--and for German workers--to help plan the madness of unleashing a war of aggression. I only became a National Socialist because I condemned class struggle, expropriation, and civil war, and because I firmly believed in Hitler's absolute desire for peace and understanding with the rest of the world, and in his work of reconstruction. Because I was a worker, I always did everything possible in my own field of activity to prevent excesses, arbitrary acts, and brutality of any kind. I was sufficiently naive, against the opposition of Himmler and Goebbels, to put through my manifesto and many other decrees for the employment of labor, which prescribed humane and correct treatment of foreign workers as compulsory for all offices. I never would have been able to bear the knowledge of these terrible secrets and crimes without protest, nor, with such knowledge, would I have been able to face my people or my 10 innocent children. I had no part in any conspiracy against peace or against humanity, nor did I tolerate murders or mistreatment. During the war itself I had to do my duty. I received the position of Plenipotentiary General for the Allocation of Labor in 1942, at a time of grave military crisis, and it came as a complete surprise to me. I was bound by the existing labor laws, the orders of the Fuehrer, and the decrees of the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich. I do not know why it was just I who received this task. In my own Gau I had particularly gained the confidence of the workers, farmers, and artisans, and even before 1933, that is, before Hitler assumed power, I had been elected by a large majority in free parliamentary elections as the chief of the state government there. I believe that Providence endowed me with a good talent for organization and practical work, as well as with a capacity for enthusiasm.
FRITZ SAUCKEL (Defendant): Perhaps that was the reason why I received my task. It was a heavy burden for me. The soil of Berlin was completely alien to me. Because I am a worker, I never thought of making slaves of foreign human beings. My requirement that people be managed economically does not in any way mean their inhuman exploitation, but rather their economic, rational, and correct employment in labor. It was never my intention to commit crimes against international law, the laws of war, or the laws of humanity. Not for a single moment did I doubt the legality and admissibility of my task, for I thought it completely out of the question that the German Government would break :international law. If, however, you tell me that, in spite of that, German labor laws could not be applied in the occupied territories, then I beg to reply that even high-ranking Frenchmen, Belgians, Poles, and also Russians have told me that they were supporting Germany with labor in order to protect Europe against a threatening Communist system, and in order to prevent unemployment and mass suffering during the war. However, not only did I work for the fulfilment of my task with the greatest zeal, but at the same time I tried with all my might and with all possible means, immediately upon assuming office, to eliminate the critical conditions in the organization and care of foreign laborers, which had developed through the winter catastrophe of 1941 to 1942, and to do away with all shortcomings and abuses. I also believed, as my documents prove, that we could win the foreign workers over to our German cause by giving them the proper treatment I demanded. Perhaps in the eyes of Himmler and Goebbels I was a hopeless Utopian--they were my foes. But I honestly fought to have the foreign workers receive the same rights and conditions as the German workers. This is also attested, to by the numerous documents of my defense counsel and has been confirmed by all the statements of the witnesses before this Tribunal. If my work was incomplete nobody can regret it more deeply and painfully than myself.
FRITZ SAUCKEL (Defendant): Unfortunately that was only partly in my power, as my counsel has proved. The evidence has shown that things happened in the occupied territories on which I and the labor employment office, which was civilian-controlled, could exercise no influence whatsoever. However, all German enterprises and agencies requiring labor complained to me that I was always delivering too few workers for the war effort, and that it would be my fault if the war economy and food economy were threatened by dangerous crises. These heavy responsibilities and worries dominated me so much that I found and had no time at all for other developments. This I regret. I assume responsibility for my decrees and for my employees. I never saw the records of the Central Planning Board before this Trial; otherwise I would have corrected false or unclear passages, as, for instance, the passage with reference to the impossible figure of only 200,000 volunteer workers. This also applies to a number of other statements which were incorrectly taken down by third parties and never actually put into practice. Because I am a worker and have personally served on foreign ships, I am grateful to the foreign workers who were in Germany, for they helped us greatly and they worked well. This, perhaps, is proof of the fact that on the whole they were treated decently and humanely. I myself often visited them. Because I was a working man, I spent the Christmas celebrations of 1943 and 1944 with foreign workers in order to show my attitude towards them. My own children worked among foreign workers, under the same working conditions. Could I, or German workers and the German people, consider that as slavery? The necessity for this was our emergency. The German people and the German workers would never have tolerated conditions comparable to slavery around them. My defense counsel has presented the complete truth about my case with extreme objectivity. I thank him for this from the bottom of my heart. For his own part, he was strict and correct in investigating my case. My intentions and conscience are clean.
FRITZ SAUCKEL (Defendant): The shortcomings and the necessities of the war, the frightful conditions it produced, have touched my heart deeply. I myself am prepared to meet any fate -which Providence has in store for me, just like my son, who was killed in the war. The Gauleiter whom I employed as plenipotentiaries for the allocation of labor had the sole task of providing for the proper treatment and care of the German and foreign workers. God protect my people, whom I love above all else, and may the Lord God again bless the labor of German workers, to whom my entire life and effort were devoted, and may He give peace to the world!
THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Alfred Jodl.
ALFRED JODL (Defendant): Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal, it is my unshakable belief that later historians will arrive at a just and objective verdict concerning the higher military leaders and their assistants, for they, and the entire German Wehrmacht with them, were confronted with an insoluble task, namely, to conduct a war which they had not wanted under a commander-in-chief whose confidence they did not possess and whom they themselves only trusted within limits; with methods which frequently were in contradiction to their principles of leadership and their traditional, proved opinions; with troops and police forces which did not come under their full command; and with an intelligence service which in part was working for the enemy. And all this in the complete and clear realization that this war would decide the life or death of our beloved fatherland. They did not serve the powers of Hell and they did not serve a criminal, but rather their people and their fatherland. As far as I am concerned, I believe that no man can do more than to try to reach the highest of the goals which appear attainable to him. That and nothing else has always been the guiding pinciple for my actions, and for that reason, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, no matter what verdict you may pass upon me, I shall leave this courtroom with my head held as high as when I entered it many months ago. But whoever calls me a traitor to the honorable tradition of the German Army, or whoever asserts that I remained at my post for personal and egotistical reasons, him I shall call a traitor to the truth. In a war such as this, in which hundreds of thousands of women and children were annihilated by layers of bombs or killed by low-flying aircraft, and in which partisans used every--yes, every single means of violence which seemed expedient, harsh measures, even though they may appear questionable from the standpoint of international law, are not a crime in morality or in conscience. For I believe and avow that a man's duty toward his people and fatherland stands above every other.
ALFRED JODL (Defendant): To carry out this duty was for me an honor, and the highest law. May this duty be supplanted in some happier future by an even higher one, by the duty toward humanity.
THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Franz von Papen.
FRANZ VON PAPEN (Defendant): Your Lordship, may it please the Tribunal, when I returned home in 1919, I found a people, tom by the political struggles of the parties, which was then attempting to find a new mode of existence after the downfall. In those days of my country's misfortune, I believed as a responsible German that I had no right to stand inactive on the sidelines. It was clear to me that a rebirth of my country was only possible by way of peace and intellectual understanding, an understanding which did not deal only with political forms, but was even more concerned with the solution of the extremely urgent social problems, the first condition for bringing about internal peace. Against the onslaught of radical ideologies it was necessary--and this was my conviction--that Christianity be maintained as the starting point of the new political order. On the issue of this internal understanding the maintenance of European peace would have to depend. The best years of my lifework were devoted to this question, in the community, in Parliament, in the Prussian State, and in the Reich. Anyone who is acquainted with the facts knows that I did not aspire to high office in 1932. Hindenburg's urgent appeal on behalf of the fatherland was to me a command. And when, like countless other Germans in the emergency of 1933, 1 decided to co-operate by occupying a prominent position, then I did so because I considered it to be my duty, because I believed in the possibility of steering National Socialism into responsible channels, and because I hoped that the maintenance of Christian principles would be the best counterweight against ideological and political radicalism and would guarantee peaceful domestic and foreign development. That goal was not reached. The power of evil was stronger than the power of good and drove Germany inevitably into catastrophe. Put should that be a reason to damn those who kept the banner of faith flying in the struggle against disbelief? And does that entitle Justice Jackson to claim that I was nothing but the hypocritical agent of a godless government?
FRANZ VON PAPEN (Defendant): Or what gives Sir Hartley Shawcross the right to say, with scorn, ridicule, and contempt: "He preferred to reign in Hell rather than serve in Heaven"? Gentlemen of the Prosecution, it is not for you to judge here, that is for others. But I should like to ask: Is not the question of defending transcendental values more than ever the central issue today in the efforts to rebuild a world? I believe that I can face my responsibility with a clear conscience. Love of country and people was the only decisive factor in all my actions. I spoke without fear of man whenever I had to speak. It was not the Nazi regime but the fatherland which I served when, in spite of the severest disappointments at the failure of my hopes in the field of domestic policy, I attempted, from the vantage point of my diplomatic posts, to save at least the peace. When I examine my conscience, I do not find any guilt where the Prosecution has looked for it and claims to have found it. But where is the man without guilt and without faults? Seen from the historical point of view, this guilt may be found on that dramatic day of 2 December 1932, when I did not attempt to persuade the Reich President with all the means at my disposal to abide by the decision he had made the night before--despite the violation of the Constitution and despite the threat by General von Schleicher to start a civil war. Does the Prosecution want to damn all those who with honest intentions offered to co-operate? Does it claim that the German people elected Hitler in 1933 because they wanted war? Does it really claim that the overwhelming majority of the German people made their tremendous spiritual and material sacrifices-including even the sacrifice of their youth on the battlefields of this war--merely for Hitler's Utopian and criminal aims? This High Tribunal faces this infinitely difficult task without yet having gained sufficient distance in time from the catastrophe to be able to recognize the causes and results of historical developments in their true connections.
FRANZ VON PAPEN (Defendant): Only if this High Tribunal recognizes and acknowledges the historic truth will the historical meaning of this Tribunal be fulfilled. Only then will the German people, in spite of the destruction of its Reich, not only come to a realization of its errors, but also find the strength for its future task.
THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Arthur Seyss-Inquart.
ARTHUR SEYSS-INQUART (Defendant): Mr. President, in my final words I want to make one more contribution in my power toward clearing up the matters which have been treated here, by explaining the personal motives and considerations for my actions. I have little to say concerning the Austrian question. I regard the Anschluss, apart from later events, as an exclusively German domestic affair. For every Austrian the Anschluss was a goal in itself and never, even remotely, a preparatory step for a war of aggression. The idea of the Anschluss, was much too important a goal for that; indeed, it was the outstanding goal of the German people. "To the German people I make a report of the greatest success of my life." I believed these words-of the Fuehrer when he spoke on 15 March 1938 in the Hofburg in Vienna. Moreover, they were true. When on 11 March 1938 at about 8 o'clock in the evening, and after the complete breakdown of every other political and state authority, I followed the way prescribed by Berlin, the reason was that the unjustified opposition to the carrying out of orderly elections had opened the doors to radical action, practically as well as psychologically. I asked myself whether I had the right to oppose these methods, after my plan had apparently not been practicable. However, since this procedure appeared justified, I felt it my duty to lend such aid as I could under the circumstances. I am convinced that it is due mainly to my aid that this fundamental revolution, particularly during the night of 12 March, took place so quietly and without bloodshed, although strong hatred was pent up in the hearts of the Austrian National Socialists. I was in favor of the unity of all Germans, no matter what form of government Germany had. I believe that the Prosecution is utilizing documents of the period following the Anschluss in order to deduce my plans for annexation and aggression.
ARTHUR SEYSS-INQUART (Defendant): These are documents and remarks regarding the Danube area and Czechoslovakia dated later than I October 1938, and after the Munich Agreement, and regarding the Vistula area later than 1 September 1939, after the outbreak of war. I admit these statements, and in the mean time their correctness has been confirmed. As long as the Danube area was incorporated in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy its development was beneficial to all, and the German element did not display any imperialistic activity, but only furthered and contributed to culture and industry. Ever since this area was broken up by the integral success of the nationalistic principle, it has never achieved peace. Remembering this, I thought of reorganizing a common Lebensraum, which, as I openly declared, should give as the most essential requirement such a social order to all, namely, Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, and Romanians, as would make life worth living for every individual. I also thought of Czechoslovakia with this in mind, recalling the co-ordination of languages in Moravia, which I myself had witnessed. If I spoke of the Vistula area after 1 September 1939 as a German area of destiny, this was out of my endeavor to prevent dangers for the future, which had become obvious through the outbreak of war and which have today become a terrible reality to every German. These statements can no more serve as evidence of the intention to wage a war of aggression than the decision of Teheran concerning the German eastern territories. Then the war broke out, which I immediately recognized then and afterwards as a life-and-death struggle for the German people. To the demand for an unconditional surrender I could only oppose an unconditional "no" and my unconditional service to my country. I believe in the words of Rathenau: "Courageous nations can be broken, but never bent." In connection with the Netherlands, I should like to say only the following with reference to the charge that I interfered in the administration for political purposes.
ARTHUR SEYSS-INQUART (Defendant): Nobody in the Netherlands was forced into any political allegiance or limited in his freedom or property if he harbored anti-German ideas during the occupation, as long as he did not engage in hostile activity.. I have already explained that I had serious humane and legal scruples against the evacuation of the Jews. Today I must say to myself that there appears to be a fundamental justification for large-scale and permanent evacuations, for such evacuations are today affecting more than 10 million Germans who have been settled in their homes for many centuries. After the middle of 1944, saboteurs and terrorists were shot by the Police on the basis of a direct Fuehrer order, if their activity was proved. During this time I only heard of shootings of this kind, never of "shootings of hostages" in the actual sense. The Dutch patriots who lost their lives during the occupation are today rightly considered fallen heroes. Does it not put this heroism on a lower plane to represent them exclusively as the victims of a crime, thus implying that their conduct would not have been so hazardous at all if the occupying power had conducted itself in a proper manner? They all stood in a voluntary and active connection with the resistance movement. They share the fate of front-line soldiers: the bullet hits the man who is active in a danger zone. Could I have been the friend of the Dutch, the overwhelming majority of whom were against my people, which, in turn, was fighting for its existence? Besides, I have only regretted that I did not come to the country as a friend. But I was neither a hangman nor, of my own will, a plunderer, as the Soviet Prosecution contends. My conscience is untroubled to the extent that the biological condition of the Dutch people during the period of my full responsibility-that is, up to the middle of 1944 was better than in the first World War, when it was neither occupied nor blockaded. This is evidenced by the statistics of marriages and births and by the mortality and illness figures.