dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
LIEUTENANT COLONEL M. C. GRIFFITH-JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): And if I might just quote one or two passages from his newspapers and show one or two pictures which he published in connection with his campaign of ritual murder, it will illustrate to the Court the type of teaching and propaganda that he was putting up. On Page 29 of the Tribunal's document book, I will quote from the third but last paragraph: "This the French front-line soldier should take with him to France: The German people have taken a new lease on life. They want peace, but if anybody should attack them, if anyone should try to torture them again, to throw them back into the past, then the world would witness another heroic epic; then may Heaven decide where righteousness lies - here with us, or where the Jew has the whiphand and where he instigates massacres, one could almost say the biggest ritual murders of all times. If the German people are to be slaughtered according to the Jewish rites, the whole world will be thus slaughtered at the same time." And the last paragraph: "Just as you have drummed morning and evening prayers into your children's heads, so now drum this into their heads, so that the German people may gain the spiritual power to convince the rest of the world which the Jews desire to lead against us." That Document is M-2, Exhibit GB-172. And on the following page of the document book there is a reproduction of a photograph taken from Der Sturmer of April 1937 which illustrates three Jews ritually murdering a girl by cutting her throat and shows the blood pouring out into a bucket on the ground. The caption underneath that photograph is as follows: "Ritual Murder at Polna. Ritual murder of Agnes Hruza by the Jews Hilsner, Erdmann, and Wassermann (taken from a contemporary postcard.)" That is Exhibit Number USA-258. It is already in a copy of Der Sturmer, which has been put in. There appears on the next page of the document book an extract from that same Der Sturmer, April 1937. I will not read it now, because it has been put in and has all been read to the Court.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL M. C. GRIFFITH-JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): It describes what happens when ritual murder takes place, and the blood is mixed with the bread and drunk by the Jews having their feast. The Tribunal will remember that during the feast the head of the family exclaims, "May all gentiles perish - as the child whose blood is contained in the bread and wine." That is already Exhibit Number USA-258, and it has been read in the transcript at Page 1437 (Volume III, Pages 522, 523).
THE PRESIDENT: Would that be a good time to break off?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If My Lordship pleases. [A recess was taken until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: May it please the Tribunal, if I might just refer to two further copies of Der Sturmer on the subject of "ritual murder," the first of which appears on Page 32 of the document book, 2700-PS. It is the copy in Exhibit USA-260. It is an article in Der Sturmer for July 1938: "Whoever has had the occasion to be an eyewitness to the ritualistic slaughtering of animals or at least to see a truthful film on this method of slaughtering will never forget this gruesome experience. It is horrifying. And instinctively he is reminded of the crimes which the Jews have committed for centuries on human beings. He will be reminded of the ritual murder. History offers hundreds of cases in which non-Jewish . children were tortured to death by Jews. They, too, received the same gash in the throat as is found on ritualistically slaughtered animals. They, too, were slowly bled to death while fully conscious." My Lord, on special occasions, or when he had some particular subject matter to put before the world, he was in the habit of issuing special editions of his newspaper Der Sturmer. Ritual murder was such a special subject that he issued one of these special editions dealing solely with it. The Tribunal will have a photostatic copy of the complete issue for May 1939. Now I have not attempted to have translated all, or indeed any, of the articles which appear in that edition. It is perhaps sufficient to look at the pictures, the illustrations, and for me to read the captions which appear underneath the photographs; and I regret the translations of the captions have not been attached to the Tribunal's copy but perhaps I may be permitted to refer to the pictures and read the captions for the Tribunal. The pages are marked in red pencil on the right-hand corner. On Page 1 I see a picture of a child having knives stuck into its side, blood spurting from it, and below the pedestal on which it stands are five presumably dead children lying on the ground. The caption to that picture is as follows: "In the year 1476 the Jews in Regensburg murdered six boys.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: They drew their blood and tortured them to death. In an underground vault which belonged to the Jew Josfol, the judges found the bodies of the murdered boys. A bloodstained earthen bowl stood on an altar." On the next page there are two pictures, and the captions explain them. The one at the top left-hand corner: "For the Jewish New Year celebrations in 1913, World Jewry published this picture as a postcard. On the Jewish New Year and on the Day of Atonement the Jews slaughter a so-called kapores cock,' that is to say, dead cock, whose blood and death is intended to purify the Jews. In 1913 the kapores cock' had the head of the Russian Czar Nicholas II. By publishing this postcard the Jews intended to say that Nicholas II would be their next political purifying sacrifice. On the 16th of July 1918 the Czar was murdered by the Jews Jurovsky and Goloschtschekin." The picture at the bottom of the page, again, has a Jew holding a similar bird: "The kapores cock' has the head of the Fuehrer. The Hebrew script says that one day Jews will 'kill all Hitlerites.' Then they, the Jews, will be delivered from all misfortunes. But in due course the Jews will realize that they have reckoned without an Adolf Hitler." The next page of the newspaper contains reproductions of a lot of previous articles on ritual murder, with a picture of the Defendant Julius Streicher at the top. On the fourth page, a picture at the bottom of the right-hand corner has the caption: "Jew at the Passover Meal. The wine and matzoth," - unleavened bread "contain non-Jewish blood. The Jew 'prays' before the meal. He 'prays' for death to all non-Jews." On the fifth page are reproductions from some of the European and American newspaper articles and letters which had been received by those newspapers during the course of the last years in protest to this propaganda on the subject of ritual murder, and in the center of it you will see the letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury written to the editor of the Times in protest.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: On the next page, Page 6, is another ghastly picture of a man having his throat cut - again the usual spurt of blood falling into a basin on the floor and the caption to that is as follows: "The Ritual Murder of the Boy Heinrich. In the year 1345 the Jews in Munich slaughtered a non-Jewish boy. The martyr was beatified by the Church." On Page 7 appears a picture representing three ritual murders. On Page 8 there is another photo-picture: "St. Gabriel. This boy was crucified and tortured to death by the Jews in the year 1690. The blood was drawn from him.', I think we can pass Page 9 and Page 10. On Page 11 there is shown a piece of sculpture which appears on the wall of the Wallfahrts Chapel in Wesel and it represents the ritual murder of a boy, Werner. It is a somewhat disgusting picture of the boy strung up by his feet and being murdered by two Jews. Page 12 reproduces another picture taken from the same place. The caption is: "The Embalmed Body of 'Simon of Trent' Who Was Tortured to Death by the Jews." Page 13 has another picture - somebody else having a knife stuck into him, more blood coming out into a basin. On Page 14 are two pictures. The one at the top is said to be the ritual murder of the boy Andreas, and the one at the bottom is the picture of a tombstone, the caption of which reads as follows: "The Tombstone of Hilsner. This is the memorial to a Jewish ritual murderer, Leopold Hilsner. He was found guilty of two ritual murders and was condemned in two trials to death by hanging. The emperor was bribed and pardoned him. Masaryk, the friend of the Jews, liberated him from penal servitude in 1918. Even on his tombstone lying Jewry calls this twofold murderer an innocent victim." The next page again reproduces the picture of a woman being murdered by having her throat cut in the same way; and perhaps I might refer to Page 17, which reproduces a picture of the Archbishop of Canterbury and a picture of an old Jewish man, and the caption says: "Dr. Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Highest Dignitary of the English Church.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: His ally, a typical example of the Jewish race." The last page, Page 18, reproduces a picture called, "St. Simon of Trent, Who Was Tortured to Death." My Lord, it is my submission that that document is nothing but an incitement to the people of Germany who read it, an incitement to murder. It is filled with pictures of murder, murder alleged to be against the German people, and is an encouragement to all who read it to revenge themselves, and to revenge themselves in the same way. That document, M-10, becomes Exhibit GB-173.
DR. HANNS MARX (Counsel for Defendant Streicher): The Defendant Julius Streicher has just called my attention to the fact that he has not been given the opportunity to prove from where these pictures, which the Prosecution referred to just now, were taken. It is, in the opinion of the Defense, necessary that the origin of these pictures should be made clear to the Tribunal; otherwise one might think that these pictures had been especially borrowed for Der Sturmer from some obscure source. The Defendant Streicher, however, points out that these pictures came from recognized historical sources. I should therefore like to suggest that the Prosecution make this material also available. I think that the articles of Der Sturmer which have been referred to must show what the sources are from which Streicher was supplied.
THE PRESIDENT: Do the articles show the sources? Do the articles themselves indicate the sources?
DR. MARX: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I should have said so. There wasn't any intention to misrepresent the matter, that these pictures are taken from original pictures. These were not invented by the newspaper, and in some cases the sources are shown in the caption. This is a collection of medieval pictures and frescoes dealing with this matter. In actual fact the papers show in almost all cases where they come from.
DR. MARX: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: You have already given us the dates of them, which indicated they were medieval.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That is so. My Lord, in January 1938 - and it will be remembered that in 1938 the persecution of the Jews became more and more severe - in January 1938, for some reason or other, another special issue of Der Sturmer was published. If the Tribunal would look at Page 34 of their document book I will quote a short passage from the leading article in that paper - an article written by the defendant: "The supreme aim and highest task of the State is therefore to preserve People, Blood, and Race. But if this is the supreme task, any crime against this law must be punished with the supreme penalty. Der Sturmer takes therefore the view that there are only two punishments for the crime of polluting the race: 1. Long-term penal servitude for attempted race pollution. 2. Death for the completed crime." And again, indeed if it is now still necessary to show the type of paper this was, if the Tribunal will turn over to the next page they will see the headlines set out for some of the articles that are contained in that edition: "Jewish Race Polluters at Work." "Fifteen-Year-Old Non-Jewess Violated." "A Dangerous Race Polluter. He regards German women as fair game for himself." "The Jewish Sanatorium. A Jewish institution for the cultivation of race pollution." "Rape of a Feeble-Minded Girl." "The Jewish Butler. He steals from his Jewish masters and commits race pollution." The copy of that paper is already in as Exhibit USA-260. On the next page of the document book I will quote only the last two lines. It is an article appearing in Der Sturmer; and it is true that it is not an article actually written by the Defendant Streicher but by his then editor, Karl Holz: "Revenge will break loose one day and will exterminate Jewry from the face of the earth." And again on Page 37, in September 1938, Der Sturmer has written an article in which the last two lines read as follows: ". . .
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: a parasite, a mischief maker, an evil-doer, a disseminator of disease, who must be destroyed in the interest of mankind." It is my submission to the Tribunal that this is no longer propaganda for the persecution of the Jews; this is propaganda for the extermination of Jews, for the murder not of one man but of millions. The next document in the document book, on Page 38, has already been put in evidence and read to the Tribunal. It is Exhibit USA-260. It appears in the document book and was read into the transcript at Page 1438 (Volume III, Page 523). This is a short article appearing in December 1938, Number 50 of Der Sturmer. I would draw the Tribunal's attention to the next document which is a picture taken from that same copy. It shows the upper part of a girl's body being strangled by the arms of a man with his hands around her neck and the shadow of the man's face is shown against the background, quite obviously with Jewish features. The caption under that picture is as follows: "Castration for Race Polluters. Only heavy penalties will preserve our womenfolk from a tighter grip from the loathsome Jewish claws. The Jews are our misfortune." I pause for the moment from Der Sturmer to a particular incident that occurred, in which the Defendant Streicher took a leading part. It will be remembered that the organized demonstrations against the Jews took place the 9th and 10th of November 1938. All this propaganda, as I say, was becoming fiercer and more ferocious. In the autumn of that year the Defendant Streicher organized the breaking up of the Nuremberg synagogues on the occasion of a meeting of press representatives in Nuremberg. That incident has in fact been referred to previously in this case and the documents in connection with it are 1724-PS, which were put in as Exhibit USA-266 and were referred to and read in the transcript at Page 1443 (Volume III, Page 526). Gauleiter Julius Streicher was personally to set the crane in motion with which the Jewish symbols were to be torn down from the synagogue.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: From another document which also was put in, 2711-PS, which became USA-267, and also was read in the transcript at Page 1443 (Volume III, Page 526), I quote two lines: "...the Synagogue is demolished! Julius Streicher himself inaugurates the work by a speech lasting an hour and a half. By his order then - so to speak as a prelude of the demolition - the tremendous Star of David came off the cupola." The defendant, of course, took active part in the November demonstrations of that year. I do not suggest that he was responsible for the idea of them. The evidence against him is confined only to the part that he took in his Gau in Franconia. On Page 43 of the document book, Document M-42 is an account of the Nuremberg demonstrations as they were reported in the Frankische Tageszeitung, which of course was his paper, on the 11th of November. I quote: "In Nuremberg and Furth there were demonstrations by the crowd against the Jewish murderers. These lasted until the early hours of the morning. Long enough had one watched the doings of the Jews in Germany." And then I go to the last three lines of that paragraph: "After midnight the excitement of the populace reached its peak and a large crowd marched to the synagogues in Nuremberg and Furth and burned these two Jewish buildings where the murder of Germans had been preached. "The fire brigades, which had been notified immediately, saw to it that the fire was confined to the original outbreak. The windows of the Jewish shopkeepers, who still had not given up hope of selling their rubbish to the stupid Gojim, were smashed. Thanks to the disciplined behaviour of the SA-men and the police, who rushed to the scene, there was no plundering." That becomes Exhibit GB-174. The following document in the document book is the report of Streicher's speech on the 10th of November, the day of the demonstration.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I will quote from two paragraphs on that page - or rather, starting in the middle of the first paragraph: "From the cradle the Jew is not taught, as we are, such texts as 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself' or 'Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.' No, he is told With the non-Jew you can do whatever you like.' He is even taught that the slaughtering of a non - Jew is an act pleasing to God. For 20 years we have been writing about this in Der Sturmer; for 20 years we have been preaching it throughout the world, and we have made millions recognize the truth." I go to the last paragraph: . "The Jew slaughtered in one night 75,000 Persians; when he emigrated from Egypt he killed all the first-born, that is, a whole future generation of Egyptians. What would have happened if the Jew had succeeded in driving the nations into war against us, and if we had lost the war? The Jew, protected by foreign bayonets, would have fallen on us and would have slaughtered and murdered us. Never forget what history teaches." My Lord, after the November demonstrations irregularities occurred in the Gau of Franconia in connection with the organized Aryanization of Jewish property. Aryanization of Jewish property was, of course, regulated by the State; and under a decree it had been laid down that the proceeds, or any proceeds that there might be, from taking over Jewish properties and giving them to Aryans - all such proceeds were to go to the State. V/hat apparently happened in Franconia was that a good deal of the proceeds never found their way as far as the State, and as a result Goering set up a commission to investigate what had taken place. We have the report of that commission, and I would refer the Tribunal to certain short passages in it. On Page 45, we see from that report exactly what had been taking place in this Defendant Streicher's Gaul I quote from the paragraph, opposite where it says "Page 13"...
DR. MARX: As proof of the irregularities which occurred in connection with the Aryanization in Nuremberg after the 9th of November, the prosecutor intends to quote a report which the Deputy Gauleiter Holz made when he was interrogated before the examining commission. I wish to protest against making use of this report. Between Streicher and the Deputy Gauleiter Holz there existed real tension if not enmity. The Deputy Gauleiter Holz was the very person responsible for the measures of Aryanization. It is not at all proved that Streicher had agreed to these measures being undertaken. It is rather to be assumed that Holz, in order to cover himself, made statements here which he himself could not answer for if he were to appear here as witness today. Therefore, in this report of Holz it is a question of statements made by a man who was deeply involved in this matter, a man who participated in these deeds, and a man who was an enemy of the Defendant Streicher. Holz incriminated Streicher because Streicher did not protect him in front of the commission and from the then Minister President Goering. Therefore I do not think that this report should be used.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you said what you wished to say?
DR. MARX: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal considers that this document, being an official document, is admissible under Article 21 and that the objections which you have made to it are not objections which go to its admissibility as evidence but go to its weight; and as to that, you will have an opportunity to develop your objections at a later stage when you come to speak. The Tribunal rules that the document is admissible. .
LT. COL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I read from the center of that Page 45 of the document book: "After the November demonstrations the Deputy Gauleiter Holz took up the Jewish question. His reasons can be given here in detail on the basis of his statement of 25th March 1939: "The 9th and 10th of November 1938. During the night of the 9th to the 10th of November and on the 10th of November 1938, events took place throughout Germany which I" and I emphasize that that is Holz speaking "considered to be the signal for a completely different treatment of the Jewish question in Germany. Synagogues and Jewish schools were burnt down and Jewish property was smashed both in shops and in private houses. Besides this, a large number of prominent Jews were taken to concentration camps by the police. Towards midday we discussed these events in the Gauleiter's house. All of us were of the opinion that we now faced a completely new state of affairs on the Jewish question. By the great action against the Jews carried out in the night and morning of the 10th of November all precedents and all laws on this subject had been made meaningless. We were of the opinion (particularly I myself) that we should now act on our own initiative in this respect. I proposed to the Gauleiter that in view of the great existing lack of housing the best thing would be to put the Jews into a kind of internment camp. Then the houses would become free at once; and the housing shortage would be relieved, at least in part. Besides that, we should have the Jews under control and supervision! I added 'The same thing happened to our prisoners of war and war internees.' "The Gauleiter said that this suggestion was for the time being unfeasible. Thereupon I made a new proposal to him. I said to him that I considered it unthinkable that, after the Jews had had their property smashed, they should still be able to own houses and land. I proposed that these houses and this land ought to be taken away from them, and declared myself ready to carry through such an action.
LT. COL GRIFFITH-JONES: I declared that by the Aryanization of Jewish land and houses a large sum could accrue to the Gau of the proceeds. I named some millions of marks. I stated that, in my opinion, this Aryanization could be carried out as legally as the Aryanization of shops. The Gauleiter's answer was something to this effect: 'If you think you can carry this out, do so. The sum gained will then be used to build a Gau school."' I go down now to where it says "Page 18": "The Aryanization was accomplished by the alienation of properties, the surrender of claims, especially mortgage claims, and reductions in buying price. "The payment allowed the Jews was basically 10 percent of the nominal value or nominal sum of the claim. As a justification for these low prices, Holz claimed, at the Berlin meeting of the 6th of February 1939, that the Jews had mostly bought their property during the inflation period for less than a tenth of its value. As has been shown by investigating a large number of individual cases selected at random, this claim is not true." My Lord, I would turn to Page 48 of the document book, which appears in the second part of this report, and that part of the report is really the part containing the findings of the commission. I quote from the top of the page, Page 48 of the document book...
THE PRESIDENT: Is this still part of the report?