dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. RALPH G. ALBRECHT (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): But all of these facets of character were but deceptions, because they helped to conceal the man's core of steel, his vindictiveness, his cruelty, his lust for self-adornment, self-glorification, and power. This man was most dangerous, furthermore, because the outward characteristics to which I have called attention and which he has to some extent demonstrated here in the presence of the Tribunal were useful in deceiving the representatives of foreign states who, in their concern, sought to learn from him the true intentions of the Nazi State which, by its repeated floutings of its international commitments, had so seriously disturbed the tranquillity of the world since 1933. And I think that the record should show how throughout the earlier stages of this Trial, that is, before the nature, of the documentary evidence offered by the Prosecution-too grim and almost implausible-much of the benevolence of this conspirator, his everready smile and ingratiating manner, were daily in evidence in this chamber. His ready affirmation, by a pleasant nod for all to see, of the correctness of statements made or the contents of documents offered by counsel, his chiding shake of the head when he disagreed with such facts were commonplace.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think the Tribunal is interested in this, Mr. Albrecht.
MR.ALBRECHT: I shall pass on, then, with the presentation, with the permission of the Tribunal, and I shall give an account of certain facts already established by the documents in evidence; and with the permission of the Tribunal I shall not, unless it is so wished, refer to the exhibit numbers or citations of most of the old evidence that I shall allude to. These are all set forth in the trial brief that has already been distributed. Against the background of this factual account, into which we have drawn the main threads of the case already presented that show the complicity of the Defendant Goering, we shall offer certain additional documentary evidence which we believe necessary to demonstrate Goering's connection and responsibility for certain phases of the conspiracy. I should have said before, if Your Honors please, that there have been distributed and are now before you three volumes of document books bearing the letters "DD," which contain substantially all the documents, new as well as old, bearing on the individual responsibility of this defendant. We shall first deal with the individual responsibility of this conspirator for Crimes against Peace. These crimes include Goering's participation in the acquisition and consolidation of power in Germany, the economic and military preparations for war, and the waging of aggressive war. For more than two decades Goering's activities extended over nearly every phase of the conspiracy. He was one of the conspirators associated with Hitler from the very beginning. A member of the Party since 1922, he participated in the Munich Putsch of November 1923 at the head of the SA, a Nazi organization shown to have been committed to the use of violence. Goering fled the country after the Putsch in order to escape arrest. After his return he became more than a commander of street fighters. He was designated Hitler's first political assistant.
MR.ALBRECHT: A measure of the man may be gleaned from an exhibit already in evidence, namely, Gritzbach's official biography of Goering, in which are recorded his dealings with the Bruning Government, his attempts to break down the barrier around President Von Hindenburg, and his coup as Reichstag President in September 1932 in procuring a vote of no confidence against the Von Papen Government just before the Reichstag was dissolved. Goering's writings show him not to be backward in taking credit for his efforts to advance the cause of the Party. Full credit has also been accorded him by Hitler, and Goering has boasted that no title and no decoration could make him so proud as the designation given to him by the German people, and I quote, "the most faithful paladin of our Fuehrer." That short quotation, may it please the Court, comes from our Exhibit Number USA-233, our Document 2324-PS. With the advent of the Nazis to power in January 1933 Goering became acting Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister of Prussia. In these capacities he proceeded promptly to establish a regime of terror in Prussia designed to suppress all opposition to the Nazi program. His chief tool in that connection was the Prussian Police, which remained under his jurisdiction until 1936. As early as February 1933, he directed the entire police force to render unqualified assistance to the para-military organizations supporting the new government, such as the SA and the SS, and to crush all political opponents with firearms, if necessary, and regardless of the consequences. The Tribunal will take judicial notice of the directives of the 10th and 17th of February 1933, which are cited on Page 7 of our brief and which appear in that collection of decrees known as the Ministerialblatt fur die Preussische Innere Verwaltung of 1933.
MR.ALBRECHT: Goering has frequently and proudly acknowledged his personal responsibility for the crimes committed pursuant to orders of this character, and I recall his words which he uttered before thousands of his fellow Germans: "Each bullet which leaves the barrel of a police pistol now is my bullet. If one calls this murder, then I have murdered; I ordered all this, I back it up. I assume the responsibility and I am not afraid to do so." That quotation, may it please the Tribunal, comes from our Exhibit Number USA-233, already in evidence, our Document 2324-PS. Soon after he became Prime Minister of Prussia, in pursuance of the conspiracy, Goering began to develop the Gestapo or Secret State Police, the details of which organization of terror were presented to the Court by my learned colleague, Colonel Storey. As early as the 26th of April 1933, he signed the first law officially establishing the Gestapo in Prussia; and, pursuant to a decree which he signed, he named himself Prime Minister, Chief of the Prussian Secret State Police. Goering was undoubtedly an efficient conspirator. He was impatient to consolidate the power of the Party at home. Already in spring 1933 the concentration camps were established in Prussia. Men and women, so-called "Marxists" and other political opponents, taken into custody by the Gestapo were thrown into concentration camps without trial. Goering said, "Against the enemies of the state we must proceed ruthlessly." That statement appears in our Document 2324-PS, which is already in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-233. The range of political terrorism under his leadership was almost limitless. A glance at a few of his police directives in those early days will indicate the extent and thoroughness with which every dissident voice was silenced. I ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice of some of these decrees in the same collection I mentioned a short while ago, entitled the Ministerialblatt fur die Preussische Innere Verwaltung , and we have cited these decrees on Pages 9 and 10 of our brief.
MR.ALBRECHT: These include: A directive of the 22d of June 1933, which required all officials to watch the statements of civil servants and to denounce to the Defendant Goering those who made critical remarks. The failure to make such reports was to be regarded as proof of hostile attitude. Then there was the directive of the 23rd of June 1933, which suppressed all activities of the Social Democratic Party, including meetings and the party press, and ordered the confiscation of its property. There was the directive of the 30th of June 1933, which directed the Gestapo authorities to report to the Labor Trustees on the political attitude of the workers. There was the directive of the 15th of January 1934, which ordered the Gestapo and the frontier police to keep track of emigres, particularly political emigres and Jews residing in neighboring countries, and to arrest them and to put them in concentration camps if they returned to Germany. The essential ruthlessness of Goering is further illustrated by a well-known bloody episode. After the elimination of the forces of the opposition, the Nazis felt it necessary to dispose of non-conformists within their own ranks. This they accomplished in what has become known as the Rohm Purge of The 30th of June 1934. The Defendant Frick, a chief conspirator in his own right, stated in that connection, in an affidavit, that many people were murdered who had nothing to do with the internal SA revolt, but who were "just not liked very well." Goering's role in this sordid affair was related less than 2 weeks after the event by Hitler in a speech to the Reichstag, and I would like to offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-576 our Document 3442-PS, in which is contained the speech of Hitler made on the 13th of July 1934 in the Reichstag. It is published in Das Archiv, Volume 4, at Page 505. I quote: "Meanwhile Minister President Goering had already received my instructions that in case of a purge he was to take analogous measures at once in Berlin and in Prussia.
MR.ALBRECHT: With an iron fist he beat down the attack on the National Socialist State before it could develop." With the accession of the Nazis to power Goering at once assumed a number of the highest and most influential positions also in the Reich. The proof already presented on the composition and functions of the Reich Cabinet and of the offices held by Goering shows him to have been, in fact, the most important executive of the Nazi State. A member of the Reichstag since 1928 and its President since 1932, he was a member of The Cabinet from the beginning as Reich Minister without Portfolio. Shortly thereafter he received the portfolio as Reich Minister for Air. When, in an early meeting, the Cabinet discussed the pending Enabling Act, which gave the Cabinet plenary powers of legislation, he offered the suggestion that the required two-thirds majority might be obtained simply by refusing admittance to Social Democratic delegates. I offer in evidence, as Exhibit Number USA-578, our Document 2962-PS, which contains the minutes of that meeting. If Your Honors will note, that meeting was held on the 15th of March 1933, and there were present, besides the Defendant Goering, the Defendants Von Papen, Von Neurath, Frick, and Funk. I read from Page 6 of that document: "Reich Minister Goering expressed his conviction that the Enabling Act would be passed with the necessary two-thirds majority. Possibly a majority could be obtained by banishing several Social Democrats from the hall. Possibly the Social Democrats would even refrain from voting on the Enabling Act...." In 1935, with the unmasking of a secret Luftwaffe, Goering became its Commander-in-Chief. He sat as a member and the Fuehrer's Deputy on the Reich Defense Council, established by the secret law of the 21st of May 1933.
MR.ALBRECHT: The purpose of that Council was, as stated by the Defendant Frick in an affidavit that is in evidence -and I quote: "To plan preparations and decrees in case of war, which later on were published by the Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich." His assumption of ever greater responsibility seemed limitless. In 1936 Goering was made Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, whereby he acquired plenary legislative and administrative powers over all German economic life. In 1938 he became a member of the Secret Cabinet Council, which had been established to act as "an advisory board in the direction of foreign policy." The Ministerial Council for the Defense of the Reich, created in 1939, took over, in effect, all of the legislative powers of the Cabinet which had not been reserved otherwise, and Goering became its chairman. His efficient and ruthless services were recognized by Hitler in 1939, when he designated Goering as his successor, as heir apparent to the "New Order." In April 1936 Goering was appointed Coordinator for Raw Materials and Foreign Exchange and empowered to supervise all State and Party activities in these fields. I offer in support of that fact, as Exhibit Number USA-577, our Document 2827-PS, which is an excerpt from Ruble, Das Dritte Reich . I read from the fourth paragraph of the excerpt, if Your Honor pleases, which is an excerpt from a decree signed by Hitler, and it reads as follows: "Minister President, Colonel General Goering will take the measures necessary for the accomplishment of the tasks given to him and has the authority to issue decrees and general administrative directives.
MR.ALBRECHT: He, for this purpose, is authorized to question and issue directives to all authorities, including the highest Reich authorities, and all agencies of the Party, its formations and attached organizations." In this capacity Goering convened the War Minister, the Defendant Schacht as Minister of Economics and President of the Reichsbank, and the Finance Minister for the Reich and the State of Prussia to discuss inter-agency problems connected with war mobilization. At a meeting of this group on the 12th of May 1936, when the question of the prohibitive cost of synthetic raw material substitutes arose, Goering decided: "If we have war tomorrow we must help ourselves by substitutes. Then money will not play any role at all. If that is the case, then we must be ready to create the prerequisites for that in peacetime." A few days later, on the 27th of May 1936, at a meeting of the same group Goering opposed any limitations dictated by orthodox financial policies. He said that "all measures are to be considered from the standpoint of an assured waging of war." The well-known Four Year Plan was proclaimed by Hitler at the 1936 Nuremberg Party Day. Goering was appointed Plenipotentiary in charge of the program, which was intended to achieve national self-sufficiency.
MR.ALBRECHT: Furthermore, Goering commented in 1936 that his chief task as Plenipotentiary was "to put the whole economy on a war footing within 4 years." I would like to offer into evidence, as Exhibit Number USA-579, our Document EC-408, so that I may direct the Tribunal's attention to a memorandum, dated the 30th of December 1936, of the Defense Division of the Wehrmacht, entitled, "Memorandum on the Four Year Plan and Preparation of the War Economy"; and in the third paragraph of the translation, or at Page 2, in the middle of Paragraph Number 3 in the German original, there is the statement registered in the protocol, in the memorandum, that: "Minister President General Goering, as Commissioner for the Four Year Plan, by authority of the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor, granted 18 of October 1936. "As regards the war economy, Minister President, Colonel General Goering sees it as his task within 4 years to put the entire economy in a state of readiness for war."' The exhibit from which I have just read is of interest because of another document that has just been brought to the attention of the Prosecution. It is a note for the files, dated December 2, 1936, written in longhand on the letterhead of "Minister President General Goering," and is in the handwriting of Colonel Bodenschatz, Goering's Chief of Staff. I offer this memorandum as Exhibit Number USA-580. It is our Document 3474-PS, and I direct the Tribunal's attention to the fact that the date of this document is the 2d of December 1936. That was a conference, apparently, at which all the chief officers and generals of the Air Force, the German Air Force, met. Besides the Defendant Goering, there were General Milch, General Kesselring, Rudel, Stumpff, Christiansen, and all the top commanders of the Air Force, and I read: "World press excited about the landing of 5,000 German volunteers in Spain. Official complaint by Great Britain; she gets in touch with France. "Italy suggests that Germany and Italy send, each, one division ground troops to Spain.
MR.ALBRECHT: It is, however, necessary that Italy, as interested Mediterranean power, issue a political declaration first. A decision can be expected only within a few days. "The general situation is very serious. Russia wants the war. England rearms speedily. Command therefore: Beginning today 'hochste Einsatzbereitschaft"'-apparently the translator did not see fit to translate those words, which mean the "highest degree of readiness"-"regardless of financial difficulties. Goering takes over full responsibility." "Peace until 1941 is desirable. However, we cannot know whether there will be implications before. We are already in a state of war. It is only that no shot is being fired so far."
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps that would be a convenient time to break off.
MR. ALBRECHT: May it please the Tribunal, two important conferences which have already been adverted to by the Prosecution show clearly how the Defendant Goering inspired end directed the preparation of the German economy for aggressive war. On the 8th of July 1938 he addressed a number of the leading German aircraft manufacturers and laid the groundwork for a vast increase in aircraft production. He stated that war with Czechoslovakia was imminent and boasted that the German Air Force was already superior in quality and quantity to the English.. He said that: ". . . if Germany wins the war. Then she will be the greatest power in the world, dominating the world market, and Germany will be a rich nation. For this goal, risks must be taken...." That quotation, may it please the Court, is taken from Document R-140, Exhibit Number USA-10. A few weeks after the Munich Agreement , on the 14th of October 1938, at another conference held in Goering's office, he made the statement that Hitler had instructed him to organize a gigantic armament program which would make insignificant all previous achievements. He indicated that he had been ordered to build as rapidly as possible an air force five times as large, to increase the speed of army and navy rearmament, and to concentrate on offensive weapons, principally heavy artillery and heavy tanks; and at that meeting he proposed a specific program designed to accomplish those ends. That is a short summary of facts which appear' from Exhibit Number USA-123 already in evidence, our Document 1301-PS. In his dual role as Reich Air Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the German Air Force it was Goering's function to develop the Luftwaffe to practical war strength. As early as the 10th of March 1935, in an interview with the correspondent of the London Daily Mail, the mask of hypocrisy was removed and Goering frankly announced to the world that he was in the process of building a true military air force. Two months later, in a speech to 1,000 Air Force officers, Goering spoke in a still bolder vein.
MR. ALBRECHT: I offer in evidence from Exhibit Number USA-437, our Document 3441-PS-which is Goering's Reden And Aufsatze-another excerpt that has not yet been read in evidence, from Page 242. Goering said: "I repeat: I intend to create a Luftwaffe which, if the hour should strike, shall burst upon the foe like a chorus of revenge. The enemy must have the feeling of being lost already before having fought." In the same year, on the 16th of March 1935, he signed his name to the conscription law which provided for compulsory military service and constituted an act of defiance on the part of Nazi Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty . The Tribunal will take judicial notice of that decree, which is our Document 1654-PS, from which I shall not read, with the permission of the Tribunal- the Law for the Organization of the Armed Forces; it is cited in 1935 Reichsgesetzblatt , Part I, Page 369. As is demonstrated by the affidavit of Ambassador Messersmith already in evidence, Goering's statements during this period left no doubt in the minds of Allied diplomats that Germany was engaged in full mobilization of air power for an impending war. Goering was in fact the central figure in German preparation for military aggression. In German economic development, too, he held the key positions throughout the pre-war period. Although he held no official position in the field of foreign affairs, as the Number Two Nazi, history records that he was prominent in all major phases of Nazi aggression between 1937 and 1941. In the Austrian affair Goering was the prompter and director of the diplomatic "tragicomedy" enacted before a shocked but silent world. The Tribunal is familiar with Goering's complicity in the aggression against Austria. However, some additional documents have just come to our notice which show that Goering not only participated actively, but may even have been in direct charge of the German plan to bring about the Austrian Anschluss. I will offer the first of these documents, our Document 3473-PS, as Exhibit Number USA-581.
MR. ALBRECHT: I shall not read from that exhibit, if Your Honors please, but I would like to call the attention of the Tribunal to the letter from Keppler, who was one of Goering's agents, addressed to the Defendant Goering. It is dated the 6th of January 1938. From its context it would seem that a valid inference can be drawn that Goering was already active in the Austrian matter in 1937. Our prior evidence brought him into the picture much later. The Prosecution believes this document to be of great significance, as it shows that the Defendant Seyss-Inquart actually had Goering's mandate to carry out the orders of the Nazi conspirators in Vienna. The document itself will be read and discussed in the presentation of the case showing the individual responsibility of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart; and I shall not take the time of the Tribunal at this time. The second document I wish to introduce is Exhibit Number USA-582, our Document 3472-PS. This exhibit would seem to show that the conspirators attempted to create the impression that the Anschluss, when it took place, was achieved by "legal" means. The command apparently was given the members of the NSDAP in Austria to keep "hands off" in order to permit the deviltry to be worked out by the official Reich agencies, that is, through the Defendant Goering and, presumably, the Defendant Von Papen, by direct contact with the Austrian officials. I read from that document: "Yesterday information reached me to the effect that Landesleiter Leopold"-and may I interrupt for a moment to point out that the word "Landesleiter" is the title of the leader of the Nazi community in Austria-"also on his part has started negotiations with Chancellor Schuschnigg. Thereupon I have asked the Foreign Office to investigate the truth of this information and, in case it is true, to take care that such negotiations are not held because they would merely disturb the proceedings of the other negotiations. "Just now I got word from the Foreign Office that they received a report from the embassy in Vienna confirming the facts.