dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
HERR PELCKMANN: Will this Tribunal be in a position to save, by its verdict, Germany and all the world from an abyss deeper and more horrible than anything experienced before? This Trial is a criminal trial. It is truly the greatest as far as the number of defendants and people concerned goes, and above all, the most important which ever was recorded by legal history-but still, in all its characteristics, it remains a typical criminal trial. Therefore, it follows the Anglo-Saxon legal principle governing the Charter, which was reaffirmed during these public proceedings, namely, that the Prosecution must collect and present only those factors which could incriminate the accused, never those that could excuse them. The Prosecution is being effectively supported by the mass psychosis to which all the witnesses of the greatest causes c6Mbres of World history are subject, for reasons which international scientists, particularly Le Bon, have given in detail. Openly and gladly do I proclaim that in the course of the defense which I have conducted, I did not use the principle of painting everything in black and white. I, too, was endangered by the possible mass suggestion exerted by those hundreds of thousands of voices which reached me from the internment camps, and I was tempted to defend at any price-thereby losing the sound basis of facts as they actually were. This effect in itself shows the dangerous reaction brought about by such a mass accusation and its political consequences. I am most thoroughly convinced that by such black and white painting the High Tribunal would have been led astray in its search for the real truth. I did not conceive this to be my task, although the principles of the Charter would have given me the right to do so. In such a trial, concerned with the very basis of humanity, with the fate of the German people and the future of the world, it cannot be left to the cleverness of methods in voicing the conflicting conceptions of Prosecution and Defense to bring the Tribunal to consider that the truth must lie halfway between.
HERR PELCKMANN: It is not the task of the Defense to gain tactical successes by emphasizing the one and suppressing the other argument. Incorruptibly we have to find clarity-Clart6, as demanded by that fanatic seeker of truth, Henry Barbusse. That is the rule in accordance with which I selected my witnesses. I particularly remind you of Reinecke and Morgen, whose evidence I shall evaluate later. It was my endeavor to assist the Tribunal in ascertaining the historic truth. In doing so I was inspired by the simple and therefore all the more beautiful German medieval proverb, "Geschehenes hat kein Umkehr," that is to say, "What is done cannot be undone." Those words imply not only all the tragedy of the fact that there is no undoing what is done; those words have a deeper meaning: Past events do not permit or tolerate a retrospective study; this means that no deed can be correctly grasped and understood if speculated upon ex post. No, one must look at it as it appeared to the contemporaries at the time of its performance, from the beginning to the end. One must examine all the circumstances surrounding the deed and the person who performed it, as well as his psychological situation at the time of its performance. The judges must familiarize themselves most thoroughly with the personality of the perpetrator to measure the extent of his guilt. This is equally true of this Trial. One nation judges another nation; the family of peoples judges one people which has brought deep suffering to the world, a State which has committed crimes against humanity. In the organizations there have been indicted huge formations; large sectors of the German people have been put in the dock and, therefore, it seems necessary that the judges of these millions of people should acquaint themselves most thoroughly with the lives, the knowledge, the hopes, and the beliefs of these masses as they were at the moment when the ideas and ai2complishments of National Socialism were becoming effective, and its criminal excesses were beginning.
HERR PELCKMANN: Hence, the judges of the four largest and, for the outcome of this World War, most important nations of all the world, will have to make the endeavor to decide-just as in a case before any normal jury-"How did the deed come about?" In what situation did the defendant find himself at that time? What speculations and sentiments drove him to commit the act? Did he have any intention of doing anything illegal? Is it possible that he himself was deceived? Was he at all able to recognize the illegal nature of his doing, and if he learned of it only gradually, was he in a position to adjust his action in accordance with that insight? It is extremely difficult for the judge even in normal criminal proceedings to free himself from the ex post reflection and to evaluate correctly the circumstances of the deed, the milieu of the deed, and the personality of the one who performed it. How exorbitant are the demands for justice upon the judge when he has to pass sentence on a man who has transgressed against a member of his, the judge's family! Every one of the four nations sitting in this Court has suffered tremendous damage by the crimes of the Nazi regime, for which millions of members of the organizations have to account now. But in accordance with the statements made by Justice Jackson in his opening speech, I venture to hope that you, High Tribunal, will succeed in this titanic undertaking in being free of feelings of revenge, and will seek justice and nothing but justice. Will you, as non-Germans, who have not yourselves lived through the unique historic phenomenon of a mass psychosis and a tyranny of continental proportions-will you indeed be able to grasp and to picture to yourselves how such things could happen? Can you conceive that crimes were not committed by the bulk of, the members, that they were not consciously organized by them-that they were not even known to them?
HERR PELCKMANN: The Charter rightly states, and the Tribunal has acted accordingly, that it is not the task of this Court to ascertain what inner causes-whether justified or not-led to this war. The decisive question is only: was it an aggressive war? Nevertheless, already in the cases of the individual defendants evidence was allowed to be admitted as to how the historical development psychologically conducted them from the first World War to this new murder of nations. How infinitely more is one justified, when endeavoring to establish the guilt and the crime of the organizations in their very incipiency, in examining the historical background, the political situation as a whole, in and around Germany. The masses have no clear thoughts or sentiments. They are moved by vague emotions, emanations of a phenomenon which the scientists have called "mass soul." They are moulded by the pictures and promises offered by their leaders. One of the prosecutors in his final speech against the individual defendants stressed how enormous was their guilt and how disastrous the consequences of their acts because of the clever use made of the masses, the seducing of the soul of the people by the glittering magic of slogans and the promise of Utopian development. Do not these very words give the best. proof that the bulk of the members desired only the good and the noncriminal? Already in its very beginnings, even before 1933, the principles of the SS were identical with the program of the NSDA-P. Not only before this Tribunal has the question been discussed whether that program and the means and methods of its realization were criminal. This question stirred the public, the authorities of the German Republic, and the best heads and hearts of our people for many years before 1933.
HERR PELCKMANN: Were the motives criminal if the masses followed a politician who did not promise them easy predatory incursions at home and abroad, but rather work and bread; when he rallied them to national unity as contrasted to the p6le-ra&e of a parliamentary system turned to ridicule by 41 parties, and a democracy which brought about its own death by weakness and half measures? It is the German peoples deep tragedy that it could not turn its efforts, having come too late when the material riches of the world were distributed, towards strengthening and improving its recognized position in the world of intellect and applied sciences. Germans are romantics-particularly in the field of politics. This romanticism circles around vague concepts of fate and doom and the dream of power once held in the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" of a thousand years ago. This belief in destiny has been fostered by an absolutely incorrect presentation of German history for more than a hundred years, so that it needed only a skilful sorcerer to send once more millions of German youth to death and destruction by suppressing the real facts. But the great seducer, Hitler, had not yet reached that point. The protestations of peaceful intentions towards the opponents among his own people were as yet more important than those towards foreign countries, which did not yet enter into the picture. As a result of shortcomings of all the large political parties and their formations and because of the weakness of the republican government, the issues of domestic politics were more and more being decided by street brawls. Nevertheless, the secret parliamentary elections were carried through without terror or deceit. Through these elections the citizen could observe a steady increase of strength of the extreme parties of the Right and of the Left.
HERR PELCKMANN: He could not consider it a crime to join the extreme party of the Right, the NSDAP, or its SS, which in contrast to the SX which ruled the streets, was mainly concerned with the protection of the speakers during the guerilla warfare among the political adversaries of those days. Every German who lived through those days knows with what tension the question was discussed whether the NSDA-P and its formations were planning undertakings which signified high treason or aimed at overthrowing the Government by force. In 1923, in the early days of the Party, Hitler had attempted a coup d'etat which had failed. Now, for many years he had been advocating "legality." When in September 1930, three young officers of the 100,000-man Army were indicted before the German Supreme Court for high treason for having attempted to found National Socialist cells in the Army, Hitler as a witness testified under oath his revolution was -one of the spirit and that his aim was to come to power by legal means. This appeared in all the papers in huge headlines and impressed itself on the enemies and the followers of Hitler alike. Professor Dr. Kempner, then Oberregierungsrat in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, now a member of the American Prosecution, was one of the few who considered that oath perjury. He submitted to his Ministry a detailed report which ended with the conclusion that the NSDAP was guilty of high treason. But even that seeker after truth had to admit in his description of the situation as it existed then (Volume XIII, Number 2, June 1945, Research Studies of the State College of Washington, Page 120) that even ministerial officials of the German Republic did not consider Hitler a liar at that time, 1930. That was how Hitler's clever propaganda influenced such critical and hostile circles. Should one be surprised that the masses of the SS put their trust in him? Incidentally, at that time they numbered only a few thousand. Well, matters went even farther. When Dr.
HERR PELCKMANN: Kempner denounced the Nazi Party in 1930, after a thorough investigation before the Supreme Court, the Chief Public Prosecutor ruled in August 1932 that there existed no reason to prosecute or dissolve it. (Compare Kempner's study, Page 133.) What other effect could such statements, voiced by the highest authorities of the Republic, have had on the masses? The effects were reflected in ever-increasing election returns for the Nazis. But the most striking feature is-and that is of decisive importance for the inner attitude of those thousands who joined the SS immediately after 30 January 1933-that Hitler actually did not break his oath. Although it is quite true that Dr. Kempner's prophecies in regard to the further development were correct in general-this was not recognized until much later-he was mistaken in his early predictions. The Nazi Party in fact remained a legal one; it did not seize power by a coup d'etat, but Hitler was asked by Hindenburg to form a cabinet in accordance with parliamentary rules. What is it that those ministerial officials who had refused to believe the -pessimist, Dr. Kempner, were able to say? Is it not likely that they could triumph at the fact that they had been right? Was their conscience not set at rest? After all, that man Hitler was not as bad as people had said. Now that he had entered the Government he would become a moderate-like every opposition after gaining power. And was it not true, too, that the bulk of Hitler's followers were proud that they had succeeded in coming to power by peaceful means after an election fight whose propaganda machine was almost of American proportions? In viewing that period of time one question inevitably arises: were the mass of Hitler's followers, the mass of SS men, at that time able to recognize that that point of the Party Program which- probably was the most clear-cut, namely, anti-Semitism, contained a criminal element? Anti-Semitism is not a new phenomenon; neither is it, if one studies its spiritual basis, something typically German.
HERR PELCKMANN: In my opinion it is based on the inferiority complex of the average man, on his mistrust of the Jews' superiority in certain intellectual fields. Neither is the refutation of anti-Semitism by all civilized nations and individuals anything new. It culminates in the Pope's statement, "He who discriminates between Jews and other human beings does not believe in God and is in conflict with the divine commands." But the enigma which we cannot pass by when discussing the question of criminality is that there should exist at all a Jewish -problem which is not based on religious differences, but on race. The enigma is that there still exists a race problem which leads continuously to conflicts in our modern world which has grown so small. Is it not puzzling that the Polish Cardinal Mond, who went through all the horrors of the Nazi regime, only a few weeks ago tried to justify to some extent Polish anti-Semitism by referring to the leading role played by Jews in the Polish Government? Is it not puzzling that even today, after the horrible experiences of the Hitler regime, the Arabs take action against the Jews in their traditional homeland, Palestine, and particularly against their influx, and that mutual acts of violence are committed? The situation is similar in Europe. Race problems, not only anti-Semitism, still exist in all other corners of the globe. All of them cry out for a just solution, and that can be found only in the granting of equal rights to all races. Some progressive nations have made anti-Semitism a criminal offense. But was it criminal when society, the State, under the influence of those false ideas, sought the solution by prohibiting the races from mixing and influencing public life? Here again much can be explained by what was happening in those days.
HERR PELCKMANN: The bad example of a few Jewish immigrants from Eastern European countries, such as the notorious swindlers Barmat and Kutisker, was in sharp contrast to that of the great German Jew and unforgettable statesman, Walter Rathenau, who long ago had appealed to his brethren for a reawakening of their moral consciousness. This situation offered the basis for a collective attitude, for a mass psychosis against the Jews, aided by external economic distress, as always happens in the course of great political and social upheavals, just as in this present Trial it is about to happen again by creating collective injustice against certain categories of people. The demand to put this anti-,Semitic principle into practice by legal means could not have been a crime, because the State appeared to be the guarantor that the principle would be applied without hatred and personal revenge. In a way it was merely another version and anachronistic aggravation of the American legal principle of ...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Pelckmann, I do not want to interrupt you, but you will not lose sight of the fact that you are only going to be allowed half a day for the speech, and I observe that it is said to occupy 100 pages; and I 6nly interrupt you at the present stage to point out to you that the matters which you are dealing with now are matters of a general nature, to which our attention has been drawn throughout the course of this Trial, and it may be in your interest to shorten this part of your speech rather than other parts of it. That's the only reason why I interrupt you now.
HERR PELCKMANN: Yes, Your Lordship, I have already considered abbreviating the speech. The demand to put this anti-Semitic principle into practice by legal means could not have been a crime, because the State appeared to be the guarantor that the principle would be applied without hatred and revenge. That in all this Hitler was inwardly moved by hatred-this is revealed by his most trusted mouthpiece, Rauschning, in his book Hitler Speaks, Page 91-was not known to the masses. That hatred which sprang from the -feeling of inferiority of him who recognized the superiority of the penetrating intellect over dark impulses remained concealed; for anti-Semitism was preached to the SS men merely as the other side of race eugenics on which emphasis , was laid. By skilful use of those race emotions which spring from a country's history, so difficult for the non-European to understand, and which were bound up with such conceptions as "Ordensprinzip," "Mannerbunde," and "Sippengemeinschaft"-I refer to Documents Numbers SS-1, 2, and 3 with all their twisted romanticism dressed up in modern clothes-Hitler endeavored to create in the SS a breed of men who by their bearing and self-discipline would represent an Mite for purposes of raising his own people to a high level. This tendency, though very alien to modern Europeans or cosmopolitans, can hardly be called criminal-I am referring to the pertinent questions asked by the High Tribunal-and it did exclude automatically an anti-Semitic tendency of the nature of the Sturmer, or even of the brand of the less vulgar SA-Mann. It is also significant that the Prosecution has not charged the SS with one single case of brutality towards Jews before 1933. The Leithefte, the monthly publication of the SS, and the evidence given before the Commission by the witness Schwalm concerning the training of the SS, testify to the reserved attitude of the SS towards the Jewish question. Later it was reaffirmed by the nonparticipation of the SS in the anti-Jewish pogroms of 1938, which I shall describe in another connection.
HERR PELCKMANN: I shall also demonstrate how the atrocities committed during the war against Jews, and the mass killings, were in conflict with the original tendency of the SS and how they were made possible by direct secret orders from Hitler and Himmler through criminal individuals and groups, and how they were kept secret from the masses of SS members. Of the many points of the Party Program, which the SS accepted as a matter of course, I would like to pick out only the rejection of the Versailles Treaty and the demand for living space, because those two things might be important factors for the alleged preparation of an aggressive war. Nowhere has the Prosecution said how at that stage the bulk of SS members could assume that those demands were criminal, that is, that they should be accomplished by an aggressive war. I have shown how Hitler by his legal assumption of power not only strengthened the confidence of his SS men, but how he gained the trust of new men who never would have started with him on the road to crime. May I respectfully request the High Tribunal to read the testimony of State Secretary Grauert before the Commission and learn how a man with the best intentions entered the Hitler administration and the SS, and did not leave it until 1936 when he, an experienced legal administrator, realized that the suspension of the historic principle of the separation of powers ...
THE PRESIDENT: Will you spell the name?
HERR PELCKMANN: G-r-a-u-e-r-t, Grauert.
THE PRESIDENT: All right.
HERR PELCKMANN: ... which he, an expert, realized only in 1936-remained hidden from the masses. In this connection I ask you to read the summary of approximately 136,000 affidavits which show why the membership of the General SS increased within a few months from 50,000 on 30 January 1933 to approximately 300,000. Hitler's great gamble for power, and with it the tremendous betrayal of the German people, only begins-however paradoxical that may sound-after the so-called seizure of power. After one month of triumph over the Chancellery and this parliamentary revolution, in the course of which, no doubt, the Right did commit excesses, which cannot, however, be laid to the charge of the masses as premeditated planning, the pretext was created for the final elimination of all opponents, the burning of the German Reichstag. The Prosecution does not assert that the German people, the members of the organizations, the SS men, knew or even suspected that this fire had been planned by the Nazis and carried through by the Brown Shirts by using the tool Van der Lubbe. Such an assertion would, of course, be absurd. In order to understand the mentality of the SS men who after January 1933 filled the ranks of the BS and formed four-fifths of their strength, one must recall Hitler's Reichstag speech of 17 March 1933. When the new Reichstag was elected, a large part of the opposition was eliminated after -the fire by the banning of the Communist Party and the arrest of many of their members, and this with the approbation of the enraged population, because they had committed high treason by their alleged participation in the crime of arson. When Hitler, while observing all parliamentary forms, asked for an Enabling Law, the Social Democrat members of the Reichstag asserted that this law would undermine legal security.