dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
COMMANDER JAMES BRITT DONOVAN (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, the United States now offers in evidence Document Number 3054-PS, United States Exhibit Number 167, the motion picture entitled The Nazi Plan . This document contains several affidavits with exhibits, copies of which have been furnished to Defense Counsel. I ask the Tribunal whether it believes it to be necessary that I formally read the affidavits at this time. Since the motion pictures themselves will be presented to the Tribunal and thereafter be in its permanent record, I respectfully submit that the reading be waived. In the past 3 weeks the Prosecution has presented to this Tribunal a vast amount of evidence concerning the nature of the Nazi conspiracy and what we contend to be its deliberate planning, launching, and waging of wars of aggression. That evidence has consisted of documentary and some oral proof, but the Nazi conspirators did more than leave behind such normal types of evidence. German proficiency in photography has been traditional. Its use as a propaganda instrument was especially wed known to these defendants, and as a result the United States in 1945 captured an almost complete chronicle of the rise and fall of National Socialism as documented in films made by the Nazis themselves. It is from excerpts of this chronicle that we have compiled the motion picture now presented, entitled The Nazi Plan, which in broad outline sums up the case thus far presented under Counts One and Two of the Indictment. The motion picture has been divided into four parts. This morning we first offer to the Tribunal Parts 1 and 2, respectively entitled "The Rise of the NSDAP, 1921 to 1933," and "Acquiring Totalitarian Control of Germany, 1933 to 1935." These will be concluded by 11:20, at which time we assume the Tribunal will order its customary morning adjournment. At 11:30 we shallpresentPart3, entitled "Preparation for Wars of Aggression, 1935 to 1939." This will be concluded shortly before 1 o'clock. At 2 p. m. we will offer Part 4, 'Wars of Aggression, 1939 to 1944," and this will be concluded by 3 p.m.
COMMANDER JAMES BRITT DONOVAN (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): Parts 1 and 2 now to be presented, enable us to re-live those years in which the Nazis fought for and obtained the power to rule all life, in Germany. We see the early days of terrorism and propaganda bearing final fruit in Hitler's accession to the Chancellery in 1933, then the consolidation of power within Germany, climaxed by the Parteitag of 1934, in which the Nazis proclaimed to the nation their plans for totalitarian control. It is in simple and dramatic form the story of how a nation forsook its liberty. I wish again to emphasize that all film now presented to the Tribunal, including, for example, pictures of early Nazi newspapers, is the original German film, to which we have added only the tine in English. And now, if it please the Tribunal, we shall present Parts 1 and 2 of The Nazi Plan.
THE PRESIDENT: It may be convenient for the United States Prosecutor to know that the Tribunal propose to rise this afternoon at 4 o'clock instead of 5.
COMMANDER DONOVAN: May it please the Tribunal, in the films which have just been shown to the Tribunal we have watched the Nazi rise to power. In Part 3 of our documentary motion picture now to be presented, we see the use they made of that power and how the German nation was led by militaristic regimentation to preparation for aggressive war as an instrument of national policy. Part 3, "Preparation for Wars of Aggression, 1935-1939; 1935-Von Schirach urges Hitler Youth to follow principles of Mein Kampf ."
COLANDER DONOVAN: This morning we presented photographic evidence of the history of National Socialism from 1921 to September 1939. We saw the dignity of the individual in Germany destroyed by men dedicated to perverted nationalism, men who set forth certain objectives and then preached to a regimented people the accomplishment of those objectives by any necessary means, including aggressive war. In September 1939 the Nazis launched the first of a series of catastrophic wars, terminated only by the military collapse of Germany. It is this final chapter in the history of National Socialism that the Prosecution now presents. May I again remind the Tribunal that all film presented and all German narration heard is in the original form as filmed by the Nazis. [The showing of the film, part 4, then continued.]
COMMANDER DONOVAN: The Prosecution has concluded its presentation of the photographic summation entitled The Nazi Plan. We shall deliver for the permanent records of the Tribunal, as soon as possible, the original films projected today.
COL. STOREY: If the Tribunal please, just a brief announcement about the presentation that shall follow. The rest of the week will be consumed in the presentation of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, starting with exploitation of forced labor, concentration camps, persecution of the Jews, and Germanization and spoliation in occupied countries. We should like to call the Tribunal's attention to the fact that many of these chines will be crimes attributed to the criminal organizations which will follow. The program following will be the criminal organizations, beginning with the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Reich Cabinet, the SA, the SS, and finally, the SD and Gestapo. Mr. Dodd will now present "Exploitation of Forced Labor."
MR. THOMAS J. DODD (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, we propose to submit during the next several days, as Colonel Storey has said a moment ago, evidence concerning the conspirators' criminal deportation and enslavement of foreign labor, their illegal use of prisoners of war, their infamous concentration camps, and their relentless persecution of the Jews. We shall present evidence regarding the general aspects of these programs, and our French and Soviet colleagues will present evidence of the specific application of these programs in the West and the East respectively. These crimes were committed both before and after Nazi Germany had launched her series of aggressions. They were committed within Germany and in foreign countries as well. Although separated in time and space, these crimes had, of course, an inter-relationship which resulted from their having a common source in Nazi ideology; for we shall show that within Germany the conspirators had made hatred and destruction of the Jews an official philosophy and a public duty, that they had preached the concept of the master race with its corollary of slavery for others, that they had denied and destroyed the dignity and the rights of the individual human being. They had organized force, brutality, and terror into instruments of political power and had made them commonplaces of daily existence. We propose to prove that they had placed the concentration camp and a vast apparatus of force behind their racial and political myths, their laws and polices. As every German Cabinet minister or high official knew, behind the laws and decrees in the Reichsgesetzblatt was not the agreement of the people or their representatives but the terror of the concentration camps and the police state. The conspirators had preached that war was a noble activity and that force was the appropriate means of resolving international differences; and having mobilized all aspects of German life for war, they plunged Germany and the world into war.
MR. THOMAS J. DODD (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): We say this system of hatred, savagery, and denial of individual rights, which the conspirators erected into a philosophy of government within Germany or into what we may call the Nazi constitution, followed the Nazi armies as they swept over Europe. For the Jews of the occupied countries suffered the same fate as the Jews of Germany, and foreign laborers became the serfs of the "master race," and they were deported and enslaved by the million. Many of the deported and enslaved laborers joined the victims of the concentration camps, where they were literally worked to death in the course of the Nazi program of extermination through work. We propose to show that this Nazi combination of the assembly line, the torture chamber, and the executioner's rack in a single institution has a horrible repugnance to the twentieth century mind. We say that it is plain that the program of the concentration camp, the anti-Jewish program, and the forced labor program are all parts of a larger pattern, and this will become even more plain as we examine the evidence regarding these programs, and then test their legality-by applying the relevant principles of international law. The evidence relating to the Nazi slave labor program has been assembled in a document book bearing the letter "A"; and in addition, there is an appendix to the document book consisting of certain photographs contained in a manila folder. Your Honors will observe that on some of the books we have placed some tabs, so that it would be easier for the Tribunal to locate the documents. Unfortunately, we did not have a sufficient number of tabs to do the work completely, and that would account for tabs which are missing on some of the document books. It may illuminate the specific items of evidence which will be offered later if we first describe in rather general terms the elements of the Nazi foreign labor policy.
MR. THOMAS J. DODD (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): It was a policy of mass deportation and mass enslavement, as I said a minute ago, and it was also carried out by force, by fraud, by terror, by arson, by means unrestrained by the laws of war and laws of humanity, or the considerations of mercy. This labor policy was a policy as well of underfeeding and overworking foreign laborers, of subjecting them to every form of degradation, brutality, and inhumanity. It was a policy which competed foreign workers and prisoners of war to manufacture armaments and to engage in other operations of war directed against their own countries. It was a policy, as we propose to establish, which constituted a flagrant violation of the laws of war and of the laws of humanity. We shall show that the Defendants Sauckel and Speer are principally responsible for the formulation of the policy and for its execution: that the Defendant Sauckel, the Nazis' Plenipotentiary General for Manpower, directed the recruitment, deportation, and the allocation of foreign civilian labor, that he sanctioned and directed the use of force as the instrument of recruitment, and that he was responsible for the care and the treatment of the enslaved millions; that the Defendant Speer, as Reich Minister for Armament and Munitions, Director of the Organization Todt, and member of the Central Planning Board, bears responsibility for the determination of the numbers of foreign slaves required by the German war machine, was responsible for the decision to recruit by force and for the use under brutal, inhumane, and degrading conditions Of foreign civilians and prisoners of war in the manufacture of armaments and munitions, the construction of fortifications, and in active military operations. We shall also show in this presentation that the Defendant Goering, as Plenipotentiary General for the Four Year Plan, is responsible for all of the crimes involved in the Nazi slave labor program.
MR. THOMAS J. DODD (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): Finally, we propose to show that the Defendant Rosenberg, as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and the Defendant Frank, as Governor of the Government General of Poland, and the Defendant Seyss-lnquart, as Reich Commissar for the occupied Netherlands, and the Defendant Keitel, as Chief of the OKW, share responsibility for the recruitment by force and terror and for the deportation to Germany of the citizens of the areas overrun or subjugated by the Wehrmacht. 11 Dec.45 The use of vast numbers of foreign workers was planned before Germany went to war and was an integral part of the conspiracy for waging aggressive war. On May 23, 1939 a meeting was held in Hitler's study at the Reich Chancellery. Present were the Defendants Goering, Raeder, and Keitel. I now refer to Document L-79, which has already been entered in evidence as Exhibit USA-27. The document presents the minutes of this meeting at which Hitler stated, as Your Honors will recall, that he intended to attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity; but I wish to quote from Page 2 of the English text starting with the 13th paragraph as follows. In the German text, by the way, the passage appears at Page 4, Paragraphs 6 and 7. Quoting directly from the English text: "If fate brings us into conflict with the West, the possession of extensive areas in the East will be advantageous. We shall be able to rely upon record harvests even less in time of war than in peace. "The population of non-German areas will perform no military service and win be available as a source of labor." We say the slave labor program of the Nazi conspirators was designed to achieve two purposes, both of which were criminal. The primary purpose, of course, was to satisfy the labor requirements of the Nazi war machine by compelling these foreign workers, in effect, to make war against their own countries and their allies. The secondary purpose was to destroy or weaken peoples deemed inferior by the Nazi racialists or deemed potentially hostile by the Nazi planners of world supremacy.
MR. THOMAS J. DODD (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): These purposes were expressed by the conspirators themselves. I wish to refer at this point and to offer in evidence Document 016-PS, which is Exhibit USA-168. This document was sent by the Defendant Sauckel to the Defendant Rosenberg on the 20th of April 1942, and it describes Sauckel's labor mobilization program. I wish to quote now from Page 2 of the English text, starting with the sixth paragraph; and in the German text, again, it appears at Page 2 of the second paragraph. Quoting from the text directly: "The aim of this new, gigantic labor mobilization is to use all the rich and tremendous sources, conquered and secured for us by our fighting Armed Forces under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, for the armament of the Armed Forces and also for the nutrition of the homeland. The raw materials as well as the fertility of the conquered territories and their human labor power are to be used completely and conscientiously to the profit of Germany and her allies." The theory of the master race underlay the conspirators' labor policy in the East as welt. I now refer to Document Number 1130-PS, which is marked Exhibit USA-169. This document consists of a statement made by one Erich Koch, Reich Commissar for the Ukraine, on the 5th day of March 1943 at a meeting of the National Socialist Party in Kiev. I quote from the first page of the English text, starting with the first paragraph-and in the German text it appears at Page 2, Paragraph 1. Quoting directly again from the English text Koch said: "1. We are the master race and must govern hard but just .... "2. I will draw the very last out of this country. I did not come to spread bliss. I have come to help the Fuehrer. The population must work, work, and work again . . . for some people are getting excited that the population may not get enough to eat. The population cannot demand that. One has only to remember what our heroes were deprived of in Stalingrad .... We definitely did not come here to give out manna. We have come here to create the basis for victory. "3.
MR. THOMAS J. DODD (Executive Trial Counsel for the United States): We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population here." At this point I should like to offer in evidence Document Number 1919-PS, which is Exhibit USA-170. This is a document which contains a speech delivered by Himmler, the Reichsfuehrer SS, to a group of SS Generals on the 4th day of October 1943 at Posen; and I am referring to the first page of the English text, starting with the third paragraph. For the benefit of the interpreters, in the German text it appears at Page 23 in the first paragraph. Quoting directly again from this document on the first page, starting with the third paragraph: "What happens to the Russians, to the Czechs, does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary, by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether the other nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch or not interests me only insofar as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished."
THE PRESIDENT: Who is the author of that document?
MR. DODD: The author of that quotation is the Reichsfuehrer SS, Heinrich Himmler. The next document to which I make reference is Number 031-PS, which is Exhibit USA-71. This document is a top-secret memorandum prepared for the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories on the 12th of June 1944 and approved by the Defendant Rosenberg; and from it I wish to quote, from the English text starting with the first paragraph, and in the German text it appears at the first paragraph of Page 2. Quoting directly: "The Army group center has the intention to apprehend 40,000-50,000 youths at the ages of 10 to 14 who are in the Army territory and to transport them to the Reich." I wish to pass now to line 21 of Paragraph 1. Quoting directly I read as follows: "It is intended to allot these juveniles primarily to the German trades as apprentices to be used as skilled workers after 2 years' training. This is to be arranged through the Organization Todt which is especially equipped for such a task by means of its technical and other set-ups. This action is being greatly welcomed by the German trade since it represents a decisive measure for the alleviation of the shortage of apprentices." Passing a lime further on in that document, I wish to call to the attention of the Tribunal Paragraph 1 on Page 2, and to quote it directly: "This action is aimed not only at preventing a direct reinforcement of the enemy's military strength but also at a reduction of his biological potentialities as viewed from the perspective of the future. These ideas have been voiced not only by the Reichsfuehrer SS but also by the Fuehrer. Corresponding orders were given during last year's withdrawals in the southern sector...." I call to Your Honor's attention particularly that the approval of the Defendant Rosenberg is noted on Page 3 of the document. It is a note in ink on the original. I quote it: "Obergruppenfuehrer Berger has received another memorandum on June 14, according to which the Reich Minister now has approved the action."
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, did you mean to leave out the sentence at the bottom of Page 1?
MR. DODD: No, Your Honor, I did not, but I did not want to refer to it at this time. I will refer to it a little later on.
THE PRESIDENT: Isn't it really a part of what follows at the top of Page 2, which you did read, "Following are the arguments . . ."
MR. DODD: Yes, I did omit that. I thought you were referring to the sentence above. I'm sorry. "Following are the arguments against this decision of the Minister."-and then quoting "This action is not only aimed at preventing direct reinforcement of any military..."
THE PRESIDENT: Yes and you were telling us how you showed that the Defendant Rosenberg was implicated.
MR. DODD: Yes. On the last page of that document, the original bears a note in ink, and in the mimeographed copy it is typewritten: "Obergruppenfuehrer Berger has received another memorandum on June 14, according to which the Reich Minister now has approved the action." One page back on that same document, from the first paragraph, four sentences down, the sentence begins: "The Minister has approved the execution of the 'Hay Action' in the Army territories under the conditions and provisions arrived at in talks with Army group center." The purposes of the slave labor program which we have just been describing, namely the strengthening of the Nazi war machine and the destruction or the weakening of peoples deemed inferior by the Nazi conspirators, were achieved, we repeat, by the impressment and the deportation of millions of persons into Germany for forced labor. It involved the separation of husbands from their wives, and children from their parents, and the imposition of conditions unfit for human existence, with the result that countless numbers were killed. Poland was the first victim. The Defendant Frank, as Governor of the Government General of Poland, announced that under his program 1 million workers were to be sent to Germany; and he recommended that police surround Polish villages and seize the inhabitants for deportation. I wish to refer to Document Number 1376-PS, whim is Exhibit USA-172. This document is a letter from the Defendant Frank to the Defendant Goering and it is dated the 25th day of January 1940; and I wish to quote from the first page of the English text, starting with the first paragraph, and in the German text, again, it appears at Page 1 of the first paragraph. Quoting directly: "1.
MR. DODD: In view of the present requirements of the Reich for the defense industry, it is at present fundamentally impossible to carry on a long-term economic policy in the Government General Slather, it is necessary so to steer the economy of the Government General that it will, in the shortest possible time, accomplish results representing the maximum that can be secured out of the economic strength of the Government General for the immediate strengthening of our capacity for defense. "2. In particular the following performances are expected of the total economy of the Government General...." I wish to pass on a little bit in this text to the second page and particularly to Paragraph 9 in the English text. In the German text, the same passage appears on Page 3 in Paragraph 9. I am quoting directly again: . "Supply and transportation of at least 1 million male and female agricultural and industrial workers to the Reich- among them at least 750,000 agricultural workers of which at least 50 percent must be women-in order to guarantee agricultural production in the Reich and as a replacement for industrial workers lacking in the Reich." The methods by which these workers were to be supplied were considered by the Defendant Frank, as revealed in another document to which we now refer. It is an entry in the Defendant Frank's own diary, to which we have assigned our Document Number 2233(a)-PS and which we offer as Exhibit USA-173. The portion which I shall read is the entry for Friday, the 10th of May 1940. It appears in the document book as 2233(a)-PS, on the third page in the center of the page. Just above it are the words "Page 23, Paragraph 1" to the left: "Then the Governor General deals with the problem of the compulsory labor service of the Poles. Upon the pressure from the Reich it has now been decreed that compulsion may be exercised in view of the fact that sufficient manpower was not voluntarily available for service inside the German Reich. This compulsion means the possibility of arrest of male and female Poles.