dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: But while the United States is not first in rancor, it is not second in determination that the forces of law and order be made equal to the task of dealing with such international lawlessness as I have recited here. Twice in my lifetime, the United States has sent its young manhood across the Atlantic, drained its resources, and burdened itself with debt to help defeat Germany. But the real hope and faith that has sustained the American people in these great efforts was that victory for ourselves and our Allies would lay the basis for an ordered international relationship in Europe and would end the centuries of strife on this embattled continent. Twice we have held back in the early stages of European conflict in the belief that it might be confined to a purely European affair. In the United States, we have tried to build an economy without armament, a system of government without militarism, and a society where men are not regimented for war. This purpose, we know now, can never be realized if the world periodically is to be embroiled in war. The United States cannot, generation after generation, throw its youth or its resources on to the battlefields of Europe to redress the lack of balance between Germany's strength and that of her enemies, and to keep the battles from our shores. The American dream of a peace-and-plenty economy, as well as the hopes of other nations, can never be fulfilled if those nations are involved in a war every generation so vast and devastating as to crush the generation that fights and burden the generation that follows. But experience has shown that wars are no longer local. All modern wars become world wars eventually. And none of the big nations at least can stay out. If we cannot stay out of wars, our only hope is to prevent wars. I am too well aware of the weaknesses of juridical action alone to contend that in itself your decision under this Charter can prevent future wars. Judicial action always comes after the event. Wars are started only on the theory and in the confidence that they can be won.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Personal punishment, to be suffered only in the event the war is lost, will probably not be a sufficient deterrent to prevent a war where the warmakers feel the chances of defeat to be negligible. But the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law. This trial represents mankind's desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world's peace and to commit aggressions against the rights of their neighbors. The usefulness of this effort to do justice is not to Tbe measured by considering the law or your judgment in isolation. This trial is part of the great effort to make the peace more ecure. One step in this direction is the United Nations organization, which may take joint political action to prevent war if possible, and joint military action to insure that any nation which starts a war will lose it. This Charter and this Trial, implementing the Kellogg-Briand Pact , constitute another step in the same direction and juridical action of a kind to ensure that those who start a war will pay for it personally. While the defendants and the prosecutors stand before you as individuals, it is not the triumph of either group alone that is committed to your judgment Above all personalities there are anonymous and impersonal forces whose conflict makes up much of human history. It is yours to throw the strength of the law back of either the one or the other of these forces for at least another generation.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: What are the real forces that are contending before you? No charity can disguise the fact that the forces which these defendants represent, the forces that would advantage and delight in their acquittal, are the darkest and most sinister forces in society-dictatorship and oppression, malevolence and passion, militarism and lawlessness. By their fruits we best know them. Their acts have bathed the world in blood and set civilization back a century. They have subjected their European neighbors to every outrage and torture, every spoliation and deprivation that insolence, cruelty, and greed could inflict. They have brought the German people to the lowest pitch of wretchedness, from which they can entertain no hope of early deliverance. They have stirred hatreds and incited domestic violence on every continent. These are the things that stand in the dock shoulder to shoulder with these prisoners. The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. In all our countries it is still a struggling and imperfect thing. It does not plead that the United States, or any other country, has been blameless of the conditions which made the German people easy victims to the blandishments and intimidations of the Nazi conspirators. But it points to the dreadful sequence of aggressions and crimes I have recited, it points to the weariness of flesh, the exhaustion of resources, and the destruction of all that was beautiful or useful in so much of the world, and to greater potentialities for destruction in the days to come. It is not necessary among the ruins of this ancient and beautiful city with untold members of its civilian inhabitants still buried in its rubble, to argue the proposition that to start or wage an aggressive war has the moral qualities of the worst of crimes. The refuge of the defendants can 
be only their hope that international law will lag so far behind the moral sense of mankind that conduct which is crime in the moral sense must be regarded as innocent in law.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance. It does not expect that you can make war impossible. It does expect that your juridical action will put the forces of international law, its precepts, its prohibitions and, most of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace, so that men and women of good will, in all countries, may have "leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the law."
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now adjourn until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. [The Tribunal adjourned until 22 November 1945 at 1000 hours.]
THE PRESIDENT: Before the Chief Prosecutor for the United States proceeds to present the evidence on Count One, the Tribunal wishes me to announce the decision on the application made on behalf of the Defendant Julius Streicher by his counsel that his condition should be examined. It has been examined by three medical experts on behalf of the Tribunal and their report has been submitted to and considered by the Tribunal; and it is as follows: "1. The Defendant Julius Streicher is sane. "2. The Defendant Julius Streicher is fit to appear before the Tribunal, and to present his defense. "3. It being the unanimous conclusion of the examiners that Julius Streicher is sane, he is for that reason capable of understanding the nature and policy of his acts during the period of time covered by the Indictment." The Tribunal accepts the report of the medical experts and the trial against Julius Streicher will, therefore, proceed. The other matter to which I have to refer is a motion on behalf of counsel for Bormann, whom the Tribunal have decided to try in his absence in pursuance of Article 12 of the Charter. Counsel for Bormann has made a motion that the trial against him should be postponed, but, in view of the fact that the provisions of the Charter and the Tribunal's rules of procedure have been strictly carried out in the notices which have been given, and the fact that counsel for Bormann will have ample time before he is called upon to present defense on his behalf, the motion is denied. I will now call upon counsel for the United States to present the evidence on Count One.
COL. STOREY: May it please the Tribunal, as the first order of business concerning the evidence, it shall be my purpose to outline the method of capturing, assembling, processing, and authenticating documents to be presented in evidence by the United States. I shall also describe and illustrate the plan of presenting documents and briefs relating to the United States' case-in-chief. As the United States Army advanced into German territory, there were attached to each Army and subordinate organization specialized military personnel whose duties were to capture and preserve enemy information in the form of documents, records, reports, and other files. The Germans kept accurate and voluminous records. They were found in Army headquarters, Government buildings, and elsewhere. During the later stages of the war, particularly, such documents were found in salt mines, buried in the ground, behind false walls, and many other places believed secure by the Germans. For example, the personal correspondence and diaries of the Defendant Rosenberg, including his Nazi correspondence, were found behind a false wall in an old castle in eastern Bavaria. The records of the OKL, or Luftwaffe, of which the Defendant Goering was Commander-in-Chief-equivalent to the records of the Headquarters of the Air Staff of the United States Army Air Forces-were found in various places in the Bavarian Alps. Most of such Luftwaffe records were assembled and processed by the Army at Berchtesgaden. When the Army first captured documents and records, they immediately placed the materials under guard and later assembled them in temporary document centers. Many times the records were so voluminous that they were hauled by fleets of Army trucks to document centers. Finally, as the territory seized was made secure, Army zones were established and each Army established a fixed document center to which were transported the assembled documents and records. Later this material was indexed and cataloged, which was a slow process. Beginning last June, Mr.
COL. STOREY: Justice Jackson requested me to direct the assembling of documentary evidence on the continent for the United States case. Field teams from our office were organized under the direction of Major William H. Coogan, who established United States liaison officers at theory document centers. Such officers were directed to screen and analyze the mass of captured documents, and select those having evidentiary value for our case. Literally hundreds of tons of enemy documents and records were screened and examined and those selected were forwarded to Nuremberg for processing. I now offer in evidence an affidavit by Major Coogan, dated November 19, 1945, attached hereto, describing the method of procedure, capture, screening and delivery of such documents to Nuremberg. (Document Number 001 A-PS, Exhibit USA-1) At this time, if Your Honors please, and in order to present this matter to the Tribunal, I believe it wise to read at least substantial portions of this affidavit. It is dated November 19, 1945. "I, Major William E. Coogan, 0-455814, Q.M.C., a commissioned officer of the United States of America, do hereby certify as follows: "1. The United States Chief of Counsel in July 1945 charged the Field Branch of the Documentation Division with the responsibility of collecting, evaluating, and assembling documentary evidence in the European Theater for use in the prosecution of the major Axis War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal. I was appointed Chief of the Field Branch on 20 July 1945. I am now the Chief of the Documentation Division, Office of United States Chief of Counsel. "2. I have served in the United States Army for more than 4 years and am a practicing attorney by profession. Based upon my experience as an attorney and as a United States Army officer, I am familiar with the operation of the United States Army in connection with seizing and processing captured enemy documents.
COL. STOREY: In my capacity as Chief of the Documentation Division, Office of the United States Chief of Counsel, I am familiar with and have supervised the processing, filing, translating, and photostating of all documentary evidence for the United States Chief of Counsel." I skip to paragraph 4. "4. The Field Branch of the Documentation Division was staffed by personnel thoroughly conversant with the German language. Their task was to search for and select captured enemy documents in the European Theater which disclosed information relating to the prosecution of the major Axis war criminals. Officers under my command were placed on duty at various document centers and also dispatched on individual missions to obtain original documents. When the documents were located, my representatives made a record of the circumstances under which they were found and all information available concerning their authenticity was recorded. Such documents were further identified by Field Branch pre-trial serial numbers, assigned by my representatives who would then periodically dispatch the original documents by courier to the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel. "5. Upon receipt of these documents they were duly recorded and indexed. After this operation, they were delivered to the Screening and Analysis Branch of the Documentation Division of the Office of United States Chief of Counsel, which Branch re-examined the documents in order to finally determine whether or not they should be retained as evidence for the prosecutors. This final screening was done by (German speaking analysts on the staff of the United States Chief of Counsel. When the document passed the screeners, it was then transmitted to the Document Room of the Office of United States Chief of Counsel, with a covering sheet prepared by the screeners showing the title or nature of the document, the personalities involved, and its importance.
COL. STOREY: In the Document Room, a trial identification number was given to each document and to each group of documents, in cases where it was desirable for the sake of clarity to file several documents together. "6. United States documents were given trial identification numbers in one of five series designated by the letters: "US", "L", "R", "C", and "EC", indicating the means of acquisition of the documents. Within each series documents were listed numerically. "7. After a document was so numbered, it was then sent to a German-speaking analyst who prepared a summary of the document with appropriate references to personalities involved, index headings, information as to the source of the document as indicated by the Field Branch, and the importance of the document to a particular phase of the case. Next, the original document was returned to the Document Room and then checked out to the Photostating Department, where photostatic copies were made. Upon return from photostating, it was placed in an envelope in one of the several fireproof safes in the rear of the Document Room. One of the photostatic copies of the document was sent to the translators, thereafter leaving the original itself in the safe. A commissioned officer has been, and is, responsible for the documents in the safe. At all times when he is not present the safe is locked and a military guard is on duty outside the only door. If the officers preparing the certified translation, or one of the officers working on the briefs, found it necessary to examine the original document, this was done within the Document Room in the section set aside for that purpose. The only exception to this strict rule has been where it has been occasionally necessary to present the original document to Defense Counsel for examination. In this case, the document was entrusted to a responsible officer of the Prosecution staff. "8. All original documents are now located in safes in the Document Room, where they will be secured until they are presented by the Prosecution to the court during the progress of this Trial.
COL. STOREY: "9. Some of the documents which will be offered in evidence by the United States were seized and processed by the British Army. Also, personnel from the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel and the British War Crimes Executive have acted jointly in locating, seizing and processing such documents. "10. Substantially the same system of acquiring documentary evidence was utilized by the British Army and the British War Crimes Executive as above set forth with respect to the United States Army and the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel. "11. Therefore, I certify in my official capacity as here in above stated, to the best of my knowledge and belief, that the documents captured in the British Zone of Operations and Occupation, which will be offered in evidence by the United States Chief of Counsel, have been authenticated, translated, and processed in substantially the same manner as hereinabove set forth with respect to the operations of the United States Chief of Counsel . "12. Finally, I certify that all documentary evidence offered by the United States Chief of Counsel, including those documents from British Army sources, are in the same condition as captured by the United States and British Armies; that they have been translated by competent and qualified translators; that all photostatic copies are true and correct copies of the originals and that they have been, correctly filed, numbered, and processed as above outlined." Signed by: "William H. Coogan, Major, QMC, 0-455814." After the documents selected by the screening process outlined reached our office, they were again examined, re-screened, and translated by expert U.S. Army personnel, as outlined by Major Coogan. Finally, more than 2,500 documents were selected and filed here in this Court House. At least several hundred will be offered in evidence. They have been photographed, translated into English, filed, indexed, and processed.
COL. STOREY: The same general procedure was followed by the British War Crimes Executive with regard to documents captured by the British Army, and there has been complete integration and cooperation of activities with the British in that regard. In order to present our case and to assist the Tribunal, we have prepared written briefs on each phase of our case which cite the documents by appropriate numbers. Legal propositions of the United States will also be presented in such briefs. The briefs and documents will cover each allegation of the Indictment which is the United States' responsibility. I hold in my hand one of the trial briefs entitled "Reshaping of Education, Training of Youth," which will be offered later on this day. Accompanying each brief is a document book containing true copies in English of all documents referred to in the brief. I hold in my hand the document book that will be submitted to this Tribunal in support of the brief which I have just exhibited to your Honors. Likewise, copies in German have been, or will be, furnished to Defense counsel at the time such documents are offered in evidence. Upon conclusion of the presentation of each phase or section of our case by counsel, the entire book of documents will be offered in evidence, such as this book. At the same time, Lieutenant Barrett who will sit right here all during the Trial and who is on our staff, will hand to the clerk of this Tribunal the original documents that may be offered in evidence in this form. It will have the seal of the Tribunal, will be Exhibit USA, 2836-PS, and in turn Lieutenant Barrett will hand that original document to the Tribunal. to the same manner, the document book will be passed by Lieutenant Barrett to the clerk of the Court, and these trial briefs for the assistance of the Tribunal will be made available to the Court and to Defense Counsel. Likewise, copies of documents actually introduced in evidence will be made available to the press.
COL. STOREY: Thus, may Your Honors please, it is hoped that by this procedure the usual laborious and tedious method of introducing documentary evidence may be expedited. May I, therefore, respectfully inquire of the Tribunal and of Defense counsel if there is any objection to the procedure outlined? If not, the United States will proceed with the presentation of the documentary and trial briefs as outlined herein.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has no objection to the course that you propose.
COL. STOREY: If Your Honors please, may I now announce what will be presented immediately following by the United States?
THE PRESIDENT: I think perhaps that I ought to say to counsel for the defendants that their silence will be taken as their assent to the course proposed. In the absence of any objection by them to the course proposed by Colonel Storey on behalf of the Chief Prosecutor for the United States, the Tribunal will take it that they agree that the course is convenient. Thank you, gentlemen.
COL. STOREY: If Your Honors please, the next presentation will be the briefs and documents on the Common Plan or Conspiracy up to 1939. We will open by presentation of charts of the Nazi Party and Reich Government with exhibits and explanation by Mr. Albrecht. That will be followed by a presentation of the trial briefs and documents on the other phases of the Common Plan or Conspiracy up to 1939.
RALPH G. ALBRECHT (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution will now allude briefly to certain facts, which may well be considered to be within judicial purview, the consideration of which the Prosecution has found useful in understanding and evaluating the evidence that will be presented in the course of the Trial, in support of the allegations of the Indictment. In the opinion of the Prosecution, some preliminary references must be made to the National Socialist German Labor Party, the NSDAP, which in itself is not one of the defendant organizations in this proceeding, but which is represented among the defendant organizations by its most important formations, namely the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, which you will hear referred to as Das Korps der Politischen Leiter der NSDAP, the SS (Die Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP), and the SA (Die Sturmabteilungen) of the Party. With the permission of the Tribunal the Prosecution will offer at this point, as its first exhibit, a chart showing the structure and organization of the NSDAP, substantially as it existed at the peak of its development in March 1945. This chart has been prepared by the Prosecution on the basis of information contained in important and well-known official publications of the National Socialist Party with which the defendants must be presumed to have been well acquainted. We refer particularly to the Organization Book of the Party, (Das Organisationsbuch der NSDAP) , and to the National Socialist Year Book, (Nationalsozialistisches Jahrbuch) , of both of which, be it noted, the late Defendant Robert Ley was the chief editor or publisher. Both books appeared, in the course of time, in many editions and in hundreds of thousands of copies, throughout the period when the National Socialist Party was in control of the German Reich and of the German people.