dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. LATERNSER: Just as the functionaries of a "group" were lacking, so also was a constitution or a statute governing the joining and withdrawal of members, the authority and the activity of its functionaries, their election or appointment. There existed not a single written or -oral provision dealing with any kind of a community. The Prosecution were, therefore, unable to submit even a single 'document proving the existence of a "group" or an "organization." The affidavits submitted to the Tribunal by the Prosecution, which were to prove, on the strength of the statements made by Generals Von Brauchitsch, Halder, and Blaskowitz, that a "group" did exist, have proved to be quite unsuitable for this purpose as a result of the corrections which were subsequently made. The hearings of Field Marshal Von Brauchitsch before this Court, and of General Halder before the Commission, have shown that the identical affidavits of both generals constituted a condensed version of several interviews, drawn up by the interrogating officer and submitted to them for signature, and that those written statements were unintelligible in all the points which are of decisive importance in this question, without the additional explanations given by the witnesses before they signed these statements. Consequently, the interpretation given to those statements by the Prosecution is wrong. The corrections which have now been made have not been refuted and have thus deprived the Prosecution of its main argument and of every proof in favor of the existence of a "group." The same applies to the affidavit of General Blaskowitz, which was submitted to the Tribunal in the course of these proceedings. They have also been rectified and completed by Affidavit Number 55. Thus, the conclusions drawn by the Prosecution have also in this case proved to be wrong. Nor has a joint action which could be regarded as the expression of the collective will of the organization been proved in any of the cases under consideration.
DR. LATERNSER: It is quite impossible to bring such proof since this circle of officers had neither by law nor by nature the capacity to negotiate, and could not therefore have exercised any joint action as an organization. Nor did these officers hold any meetings from which the existence of any kind of an organization might be inferred. The Prosecution are quite wrong if they believe that as a proof of their theory they can cite military discussions with Hitler, and a number of meetings of field commanders. When from time to time meetings of the Supreme Commander of the Army were held with the commanders-in-chief of the army groups, or armies, this was always done for purely military purposes, and the discussions were exclusively concerned with military questions. The assignment of the commanders-in-chief to widely dispersed theaters of operations and their permanent and complete absorption by their military duties made it impossible from the very outset for them to meet for reasons other than purely military ones. For the same reason not even the highest military commanders maintained close contact with each other, particularly since the frequently mentioned Fuehrer Order Number 1 limited the knowledge of each one of these commanders-in-chief to his own sphere, whatever his position might be. Since the three service branches, apart from their operational co-operation in individual cases, existed side by side in complete independence, joint discussions of the commanders from the various service branches were, for this very reason, held only on very rare occasions. Although the Prosecution have referred to an affidavit by General Blaskowitz in order to prove the contrary, the latter's supplementary affidavit, Number 55, has shown that he was misunderstood on this point too. There have never been frequent meetings of the high-ranking generals in the sense implied by the Prosecution. The Prosecution have wrongly interpreted event's and acts resulting from the purely military execution of certain tasks.
DR. LATERNSER: The well-known meetings with Hitler can be used even less as a proof of the existence of an institution similar to an organization, since they were held -- and this was repeatedly explained in the course of these proceedings -- merely in order to allow the participants to listen to a speech by Hitler, and subsequently to receive his orders. Regarded from the point of view of the commanders, these meetings, therefore, had a purely military character. I think I can therefore sum up as follows: (1) The 129 officers concerned merely represent a multiplicity of persons, who neither in law nor de facto possessed the capacity to negotiate, and therefore cannot be the object of a special legal, much less penal, judgment. (2) The designations "General Staff" and "High Command" are misleading and wrong. (3) The circle of officers concerned was neither a "group," nor an "organization," nor an institution of organizational character. (4) The circle of members, which is clearly defined in any organization, would in this case be the subject of long drawn-out discussions. (5) None of the officers ever declared to have joined an organization, or was conscious that he had joined an organization, or of having been a member of it. Most of the so-called "members" did not even know each other personally, and their attitude to the regime was widely divergent. (6) There was no acting "executive organ," no "constitution" or "character." No "concerted will" was in evidence, nor was any "concerted action" discernible. (7) The officers concerned, whose names and number we know exactly, can therefore be held responsible only as individuals, and only for crimes which they have personally committed. They were never grouped together collectively, and therefore cannot now be grouped together collectively merely in order to facilitate their punishment. In ancient times -- after the battle of Aigospotamoi -- certain generals were once to be condemned by a collective verdict for a kind of crime against humanity. They had failed to bury their dead.
DR. LATERNSER: Thereupon, Socrates rose in court, argued against this proposition in a passionate speech, and demanded that the Tribunal should uphold the principle which was the absolutely indispensable condition of any just verdict, namely: That every military leader could only be indicted as an individual, and sentenced only in accordance with the measure of his personal guilt. Socrates was heeded. The Tribunal maintained the principle in spite of the opposition of public opinion, and refused to render a collective verdict. Should modem times throw overboard so easily something which has been looked upon as a fundamental principle of law for the past 2,000 years? I believe that a collective indictment and a collective conviction are impossible. If only for the reasons which I have just presented, the Tribunal will have to reject the motion to declare the so-called "General Staff" and, "High Command" group as a criminal organization. But if one follows through the theory of the Prosecution further-without personally accepting it-the "criminality" of all the 129 officers would have to be examined. In other words, it must be ascertained whether this group as a whole has committed crimes in the sense of Article 6 of the Charter. For my part I deny this. The accusation leveled by the Prosecution at the military leaders, of having at some time combined with the Nazi Party for purposes of executing a common plan, the objects of which were wars of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, presupposes that such a general plan did exist, that it was known as a common plan, and finally, that the military leaders, as a whole, had made this plan their own. The Prosecution have raised these charges against the indicted group of persons as a whole. But I believe I have already proved that such an "organization" or "group" as an acting entity of these persons did not exist.
DR. LATERNSER: The Prosecution circumvents this unavoidable difficulty by asserting that, (1) the character and the actions of the five military major defendants are characteristic of all the 129 officers, and (2) that, moreover, there is no doubt as to the criminal character of the entire group of these officers. The American Chief Prosecutor explained in his speech that the human actions which are the subject of this Trial have been considered crimes ever since the time of Cain. To this I reply that since the days of Cain it has been claimed that the just shall not be destroyed together with the unjust in the expiation of crimes. The requirement of individual expiation of crimes committed is among the oldest elements of European morality. I think it ought not to be too difficult for the four great victorious nations in practice to reach a similar decision in 107 individual trials on the individual guilt or innocence of these 107 living men as is being done in the trial against the five military major defendants. Where is the inner justification of, and the legal necessity for, a collective trial against these men? The innocent individual is only too easily condemned by a preconceived collective verdict. The opinion, expressed by the Prosecution that the ideas and actions of the five major defendants are "with absolute certainty" typical also of the other members of the so-called "group," and thus at the same time of the criminal character of the "group" itself, is contradicted by the facts themselves. Membership in the "group" is conditioned exclusively by the holding of certain positions. Therefore only the holder of a typical position is typical of the "group." Since 95 percent of the officers concerned were commanders-in-chief of armies or army groups, the holders of these posts might possibly be considered as typical of the "group" as such, but this can in no case be said of the five major defendants, not a single one of whom ever held such a post.
DR. LATERNSER: On the other hand, the five major defendants are definitely nontypical inasmuch as they held positions not held by any other members of the "group." There is no second Chief of the High Command or Chief of the Operations Staff in this group, nor is there a second Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, and there is certainly not a second Reich Marshal. As the major defendants occupy a higher level in the military hierarchy than the typical military leaders, their position is different in respect to the decisive points. Although one or the other of the major defendants perhaps had a theoretical opportunity to influence the military resolutions of the Supreme Leadership, the typical members of the group certainly could not do so. If the major defendants, at least in their own sphere, knew the circumstances and backgrounds of the orders given, or could obtain such knowledge, this was impossible for the typical member of the group. If, in the case of the major defendants, a certain amount of political activity was unavoidable because they were at the highest levels, this was completely absent in the case of the field commanders. This short observation strikingly shows the arbitrary character of the Indictment combining heterogeneous elements and extending without further ado to the whole of the heterogeneous elements charges which the Prosecution, rightly or wrongly, believe they can bring against the major defendants. I am unable to follow the Prosecution in this direction, and in my observations I shall therefore not deal with the nontypical major defendants, but only with those members who can be considered as typical of the overwhelming majority of the "group." Only the attitude which these members adopted towards the alleged plans of the Nazis, only their knowledge of these plans, and the extent to which they co-operated in their execution, might lead to a charge against the "group" in the sense of the Indictment. Since Hitler is dead, the Prosecution leaves him in the background, and looks for other responsible parties.
DR. LATERNSER: Yet no one can deny that Hitler alone wielded the power of the Reich in his hands, and consequently also had the sole and total responsibility. The essence of every dictatorship ultimately lies in the fact that one man's will is almighty, that his will is decisive in all matters. In no other dictatorship was this principle developed so exclusively as in Hitler's dictatorship. If all military men and all politicians emphasize this repeatedly, it is impossible to suspect every one of them of lack of courage to stand by his conviction; it must have been a fact. The dictator exercised the power given to him with an almost demonic strength of will. Other than his, there was no will, no plan, no conspiracy. As regards the soldiers, it was particularly significant for them that Hitler had been called upon to assume power by Reich President Von Hindenburg, and had then been made absolute head of State by Reich law and public plebiscite. The perfectly legal and formally correct transfer of legislative power, and of the power to give orders, resulted in the fact that the soldiers, too, submitted to Hitler's personality. Furthermore, he knew how to play off one party against the other, but in his decisive resolutions he had neither advisers nor did he allow independent planning. Hitler's character is truly comparable with that of Lucifer; just as Lucifer starts out on his radiant course of light with tremendous speed and immense momentum, gaining the highest pinnacle before falling into utter darkness, so Hitler followed a similar course. Who ever heard that Lucifer needed assistance, advisers, helpers in his lightning ascent? Does he not rather by the force of his personality carry with him to the dizzy heights all the others, and then pull them down into the depths with the same force? Is it imaginable that a man of this kind should have engaged in a long-term preparation of a plan, surrounded himself with a circle of conspirators, and sought their advice and assistance for his ascent?
DR. LATERNSER: This picture should not be interpreted as an attempt to elude responsibility: every German general is enough of a man to stand up for his actions; but if justice is to be done, the actual circumstances, as they really were, must be recognized and serve as a basis for the final judgment. The best proof, however, against the participation of the generals in Hitler's plans is given by Hitler himself when he says: "I do not expect my generals to understand my orders; I only expect them to obey them." Just as at the end of the first World War it was the General Staff, so it is now the military leaders as such--again grouped together under the misleading collective term "General Staff"--who are clearly fated to suffer by the prejudice that they are possessed not of a soldierly but of a "militaristic" mentality. Literature and the press of the world declare with many voices that the German officer does not exercise his soldier's profession only as a duty, but that to him war--as the hub of all his planning and scheming--constitutes the highest value of all personal and national life. The American Chief Prosecutor defines this idea by saying that "war is a noble and necessary occupation for all Germans." Such glorification of war has directed the mentality of the German officer corps for generations, it is asserted, exclusively towards aggression, conquest, domination, and violation of other nations. It may sometimes be difficult to refute prejudices--but to prove this slogan to be unfounded nonsense is fairly easy. The attitude and mentality which find its characteristic expression in the General Staff are known to have been created by men like Frederick the Great, Scharnhorst, Moltke, Schlieffen, and Seeckt. If we search the life and the writings of these men for evidence of a militaristic spirit, the result is distinctly negative.
DR. LATERNSER: Hardly ever did a monarch meet with such enthusiastic praise as Frederick the Great found from the Englishman, Thomas Carlyle, and the American, George Bancroft, who says, in his History of the United States , that Frederick the Great did not contribute less to the freedom of the world than Washington and Pitt. Helmut von Moltke, who formed the personality of the German General Staff officer as no one else before or after him, expressly calls war, "the last means of safeguarding the existence, the independence, and the honor of a State." He also declared: "It is to be hoped that this last means will be applied ever more infrequently with our progressing culture. Who would wish to deny that every war, even a victorious one, constitutes a misfortune for one's own nation, because no territorial aggrandizement, no war reparations amounting to billions, can replace the loss of life and offset the grief of mourning. families." Von Moltke's most famous successor, Count Schlieffen, was the author of the often misinterpreted slogan: "To be rather than to appear," which requires of every General Staff officer modesty, quiet work, and absolute renunciation of appearance before the public. Is it possible to express more strikingly in a few words the fundamental difference existing between this mentality and that of the National Socialists? When in 1914 the German General Staff started on its crucial test, it was directed by the younger Moltke, a man of resignation, who as an anthroposophist was even further removed from militaristic conceptions than any of his predecessors. As regards General Von Seeckt, the creator of the Reichswehr, his principles as laid down in his programmatic essay Statesman and General , published in 1929, are such that this essay might, without substantial alterations, be immediately included in any handbook for British, American, or French officers.
DR. LATERNSER: To conclude this survey, allow me to quote from the memoirs of Field Marshal Von Mackensen, who was a man who must be considered, together with Hindenburg, as the chief representative of William II's officer corps. On the day when he gave orders for the great break-through in the battle of Gorlice--that was on 28 April 1915--he wrote the following lines: "Today my expectations center around a murderous battle... It is expected of me that I should win a great success, but decisive and great successes in war are mostly achieved at the cost of considerable losses. How many death sentences does my order of attack involve? It is this thought that weighs heavily on me whenever I give an order; but I am myself acting under order, driven by unavoidable necessity. How many of the strong and healthy boys who marched past me yesterday and are today on their way to the front lines, will lie dead on the battle field within a few days ... Many of the radiant pairs of eyes into which I was able to look will soon be closed forever ... That is the reverse side of a military leader's job." These, therefore, are the facts: How little do the leading men among the German generals correspond to the picture drawn of them by an envious, biased, or uninformed propaganda in the world. To correct this erroneous picture, is, I think, a duty which I have to fulfill in this unique Trial of historic importance. Has the German officer corps, and in particular, have the German generals changed since 1933? Have they, under Hitler, become disloyal to their teachers and drifted into a "militaristic" backwater? Has the spirit of a Moltke, of a Schlieffen, of a Seeckt become extinct in them? Have the generals turned to a criminal Nazi plan and taken an active part in it? I believe that the facts speak a language of sufficient clarity.
DR. LATERNSER: The "common plan," the "conspiracy," with the object of an extension of power destined finally to lead to aggressive war, was at first and primarily, as the Prosecution emphasized again and again, aimed at the subjugation of Germany itself, at the extermination of all elements of opposition in its own people. In this process, so the Prosecution alleges, the facts and experiences required for the planned subjugation and extermination of other nations were to be gained. Such an all-embracing plan, however, would under all circumstances have been conditioned by an inner agreement of the military leaders with these alleged objectives and principles. What were the facts? Relations between the officer corps and the Party were anything but good. When the Party was entrusted with the leadership in all spheres of public life as well as in the creation of a totalitarian control of trade and industry, the officer corps was devoid of all influence. The officer corps participated in no political decisions. Excesses of high Party officials, terrorist methods of the Party, action against the Jews, the political education, of the young generation, and the anti-Church attitude adopted by the Party under the leadership of Himmler and Bormann, were sharply rejected. The attempt of the SA to take the place of the Armed Forces, and that of the SS to constitute a second Armed Force in addition, to the Wehrmacht, met with the strongest opposition. This was the typical attitude of the military leaders. Where, then, was that ideological foundation which alone would have rendered common planning possible? Hitler's personality excluded every plan and every conspiracy under, beside, or with him. As regards the military leaders, there was no room, constitutionally or practically, for the pursuit of political aims or political plans. Beyond that, warnings arose from among the indicted officers against the policy pursued since 1935, which later on proved to be a va banque policy.
DR. LATERNSER: The Chief of the General Staff risked his position and his life to call a halt to the fateful actions of a head of State who was resolved to go to the last extreme. From among the same quarters, a coup d'etat was finally attempted right in the middle of the war. Is there anyone who can still seriously assert that the mentality of these men, their planning and their scheming, was directed only toward war and to nothing but war, and to the assistance of a policy having a war of aggression as its purpose? If the Chief of the American General Staff, General Marshall, whose sources of information were no doubt excellent, in his reports to the American President gives expression to his conviction that there existed no common plan between the General Staff and the Party, but that on the contrary sharp differences often arose between the two, this is certainly an important and conclusive testimony to which I need add nothing more. I am now coming to the section of the Indictment according to which the military leaders as a whole are said to have deliberately, consciously, and treacherously committed the crime of planning and executing a war of aggression. The serious legal objections to characterizing a war of aggression as a crime under the Kellogg Pact have so often been dealt with by the Defense that I can refer to them. I wish to point out particularly the arguments put forward by Professor Jahrreiss, and in this connection I should only like to direct the attention of the Court to the fact that the men represented by me are neither politicians, nor statesmen, nor experts of international law, but merely soldiers. Should we require of the soldiers of a country something that, during the preceding 20 years, the diplomats and legal advisers of the League of Nations were unable to achieve? A soldier bases his judgment primarily on his surroundings. In at least three cases during the last decade, he noted that perpetrators of an alleged crime of a war of aggression were not persecuted.