dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. FAURE: We are not sure that we are able to measure all the harm which it has done to us. The nations count their visible wounds, but propaganda is a poison which dissolves in the mental organism and leaves traces that cannot be discerned. There are still men in the world who, because of the pro paganda to which they have been subjected, believe, perhaps obscurely, that they have the right to despise or to eliminate another man because he is a Jew or because he is a Communist. The men who believe this still remain accomplices and, at the same time, are victims of Nazism. One of my colleagues has shown that while the physical health of the occupied peoples was severely undermined, their moral health appears more robust; but it must still be anxiously watched for a certain time in the future. For these reasons, the French Prosecution has considered that there was room in this accusation for the section on spiritual Germanization and propaganda. This propaganda is a criminal enterprise in itself. It is an onslaught against the spiritual condition, according to the definition of M. de Menthon, but it is also a means and an aggravating circumstance of the whole of the criminal methods of the Nazis, since it prepared their success and since it was to maintain their success. It was considered by the Germans themselves , as numerous quotations show, as one of the most reliable weapons of total war. It is more particularly a means and an aspect of the Germanization which we are studying at this moment. I should add that German propaganda has been constantly developed for many years and over considerable areas. It assumed very diverse forms. We have therefore only to define some of its principal features and to quote merely a few characteristic documents, chiefly from the point of view of the responsibility of certain persons or of certain organizations.
M. FAURE: Over a long period of time the Reich had developed official propaganda services in a ministerial department created as early as 1933 under the name of Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, with Goebbels at the head and the Defendant Fritzsche performing important functions. But this ministry and its department were not the only ones responsible for questions of propaganda. We shall show that the responsibility of the Minister and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is equally involved. We shall likewise show that the Party took an active part in propaganda. Finally, I mention here that in the occupied countries the military commands constituted organs of propaganda and were very active. This fact must be added to all those which show that the German military command exercised powers wholly different from what are normally considered to be military powers. By this abnormal extension of their activities, apart from the crimes committed within the framework of their direct competence, the military chiefs and the High Command have furnished justification for the allegation of joint responsibility. The German propaganda always presents two complementary aspects, a negative aspect and a positive aspect: A negative or, in a sense, a destructive aspect, that of forbidding or of limiting certain liberties, certain intellectual possibilities which existed before; a positive aspect, that of creating documents or instruments of propaganda, of spreading this propaganda, of imposing it on the eyes, on the ears, and on the mind. An authority has already said that there are two different voices: The voice that refuses truth and the voice that tells lies. This duality of restrictive propaganda and of constructive propaganda exists in the different realms of the expression of thought. I shall mention now, in my first paragraph, the measures taken by the Germans as regards meetings and associations. The German authorities have always taken measures to suppress the right of assembly and association in the occupied countries.
M. FAURE: We are here concerned both with the question of political rights and of thought. In France, a decree of 21 August 1940, which appeared in the Official Gazette of German Decrees of 16 September 1940, forbade any meeting or association without the authorization of the German military administration. It must not be thought that the Germans utilized their powers in this matter only in regard to associations and groups which were hostile to them, or even those whose object was political. They were anxious to avoid any spreading of an intellectual or moral influence which would not be directly subordinated to them. In this connection I present to the Tribunal, merely by way of example, Document Number RF-1101, which is a letter from the Military Commander dated 13 December 1941, addressed to the General Delegate of the French Government. This deals with the youth groups. Even with regard to associations or groups which should have a general public character, the German authorities gave their authorization only on condition that they would be able to exercise not only their control over these organizations, but a real influence by means of these organizations. I shall read the first paragraph of this Document Number RF-1101. "The General Secretariat of Youth has informed us by letter of 11 November 1941 of its intention to establish so-called social youth centers whose aim shall be to give to youth a civic education and to safeguard it from the moral degeneracy which threatens it. The creation of these social youth centers, as well the establishment of youth camps, must be sanctioned by the Commander-in-Chief of the Military Forces in France.
M. FAURE: Before being able to make a final decision as to the creation of these social centers, it appears indispensable that greater -details should be furnished, particularly about the persons responsible for these centers in the various communes, the points of view which win prevail when selecting the leaders of these centers, the principal categories of youth to be recruited and detailed plans for the intended instruction and education of these young people." I shall now produce Document Number RF-1102. This document is a note, dealing with ...
THE PRESIDENT: [Interposing] M. Faure, could you tell us how long you think you will be on this subject of propaganda?
M. FAURE: I expect to speak for about two hours, or two and a half hours.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the program after you have done with this subject of propaganda?
M. FAURE: Mr. President, as I indicated at the beginning of my presentation, it includes four sections. The propaganda section, about which I am speaking now, constitutes Section 3. The fourth section is devoted to the administrative organization of the criminal action. It corresponds, more exactly, to the second heading under Count Four of the Indictment relative to the persecution of the Jews in the occupied countries of the West. After this section I shall have completed my presentation. Does the Tribunal likewise wish me to indicate what will follow in the program of the French Prosecution?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, we would like to know.
M. FAURE: M. Mounier will deal with the analytical brief and the recapitulation of the individual accusations of the Prosecution. Then I think M. Gerthoffer is to speak rather briefly about the pillage of art treasures which has not been dealt with; it appears now that it would be suitable to deal with it within the framework of the presentation.
THE PRESIDENT: Then we will adjourn now.
M. FAURE: Mr. President, I should like to ask the Tribunal if it is convenient for it to see tomorrow, in the course of my propaganda section, a few projections on the screen of documents which relate to this chapter.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think so. Certainly.
HERR BABEL: Regarding the questions which I asked the witness, there is something I did not understand. I did not want, in any case, to speak about the resistance or about its methods which were animated by patriotism. I did not want to judge, or even think anything derogatory about it. I wanted only to prove that deeds which are said to have been committed by the German troops were in many cases caused by the attitude of the civilian population and that actions against Germans which were contrary to international law have not been judged in the same way as lapses laid to the charge of members of the German Wehrmacht. I am of the opinion that the Indictment of the organizations...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Babel, will you forgive me for a moment. You concluded your cross-examination some time ago, and the Tribunal doesn't desire
HERR BABEL: Yes, Mr. President, but I thought that by this statement I could clarify it for the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: We -don't need any clarification at all. We quite understand the point of your cross-examination and we shall hear you when the time comes, very fully in all probability, in support of the arguments which you desire to present.
HERR BABEL: I did so because I thought that you ...
THE PRESIDENT: You must give the Tribunal credit for understanding your cross-examination. We really cannot continue to have interruptions of this sort. We have some twenty defendants and some twenty counsels, and if they are all going to get up in the way that you do and make protests, we shall never get to the end of this Trial. [The Tribunal adjourned until 5 February 1946 at 1000 hours.]
MARSHAL (Colonel Charles W. Mays): May it please the Court, I desire to announce that the Defendant Kaltenbrunner will be absent from this morning's session on account of illness.
M. EDGAR FAURE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): One of the counsel would like to address the Tribunal. DR. HANS LATERNSER (Counsel for the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces): In the name of the organization I represent, I make application that the testimony of the witness, Van der Essen, who was. heard yesterday should be stricken from the Record for this reason: That the witness made declarations, firstly, concerning the alleged wanton destruction of the library in Louvain; secondly, concerning the treatment of the local population during the Rundstedt offensive, which led him to the conclusion that orders to this effect must have been received from higher quarters. I wish that this testimony should be stricken from the Record for these reasons: Firstly, as regards yesterday's testimony there was no question of testimony by a witness. A witness should base his testimony on his own knowledge, which can be based only on his own observations. These prerequisites are not present in the points to which objection is made. For the most part the witness repeated statements made by other people, some of them actually made by people whom he himself did not know. The knowledge of this witness can consequently be ascribed only to a study of the documents. Secondly, any third party is in a position to give similar testimony as soon as the documents to which this witness had access are put at his disposal, and if he is also in a position to talk to the people to whom the witness talked and who gave him his information. It is consequently proved that this witness, Van der Essen, was not a genuine witness at all, because such a witness cannot be replaced by a third person who may happen to come along. Thirdly, although the Tribunal, in accordance with Article 19 of the Charter , is not bound by the ordinary rules of evidence, this evidence must be rejected because it has no probative value which can be determined by the Court. This emerges of necessity from the fact that the sources of the witness' testimony cannot be taken into consideration.
M. EDGAR FAURE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): I regard it as my duty to point out that the introduction of such indirect proof cannot lead to the discovery of the truth regarding the points in dispute.,
THE PRESIDENT (Lord Justice Sir Geoffrey Lawrence): The Tribunal would like to hear, M. Faure, what you have to say in answer to the motion which has just been made.
M.FAURE: Gentlemen, Your Honors, I should like, first of all, -ñ to observe that, as already indicated by the counsel who has just spoken, the Charter of this Tribunal provides that it shall not be bound by the formal rules concerning the burden of proof. But, apart from this, I consider that counsel's objection cannot be upheld; this objection being based on three considerations which he has enumerated but which, as I understand, boil down to one single objection, namely, that this witness was an indirect witness. I would like to emphasize the fact that I called Mr. Van der Essen as a witness precisely because of his capacity as a member of the official and governmental Belgian commission of inquiry into the study and research of war crimes. It is in conformity with all legal procedure with which I personally am acquainted that a person who has made investigations in connection with criminal matters may be called before a court of justice to state the conditions under which the inquiry was made and the results arrived at. It is therefore not necessary that the witness who has just testified regarding an investigation should have been himself an eye-witness of the criminal activities which this investigation is intended to bring to light. Mr. Van der Essen, therefore, in my opinion, testified to facts of which he has personal knowledge, to wit, as regards the matter of Stavelot, he stated that he himself had heard witnesses and that he verified the authenticity of this testimony. As concerns the matter of the Library of Louvain, he testified as to the existing minutes of the commission of which he is a regular member. I add that this procedure appears to me to have the advantage of avoiding the necessity of calling a large number of individual witnesses to the witness stand. However, in order to have every possible guarantee regarding the facts laid before the Tribunal in evidence, I have decided to bring here the briefs, the texts of the testimonies to which the witness referred.
M.FAURE: I shall then be able to communicate to the Defense the affidavits of the witnesses who were mentioned yesterday, and I think that this will give the Defense ample guarantee. I therefore propose to the Tribunal to reject the objection as far as the admissibility of the testimony is concerned; it being understood that the Defense will discuss the value and probative force of this testimony as it sees fit.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Faure, you said something about the affidavits of witnesses which you could furnish to the Defendant's Counsel. I understand that you intended also to put in the governmental report or the committee's report with reference to which the witness had testified, did you not?
M. FAURE: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: But you intended also, as a matter of courtesy, to furnish the affidavits which were before that committee to the Defendants' Counsel; is that what you meant?
M.FAURE: Yes, Mr. President; if this meets with the approval of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: The governmental report, I suppose, does not actually annex the affidavits, does it?
M.FAURE: Yes, Mr. President, precisely.
THE PRESIDENT: It does? The affidavits are part of the report, are they?
M.FAURE: The report which was submitted does not contain the elements on which the witness depended yesterday with regard to certain points, particularly because the investigation on Stavelot was very long and very conscientious and has not been summed up in time. I said, therefore, that I proposed to submit these complementary elements as evidence and in this way to communicate them to the Defense.
THE PRESIDENT: That is what I thought; that is to say, the report did not contain all the details which were in the affidavits or evidence?
M. FAURE: No, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Therefore, you thought it right, as a matter of courtesy, to allow the Defendants' Counsel to see those details upon which the report proceeded. The Tribunal understands that. The Tribunal will consider the motion which has been made. We will consider the motion which has been made at a later stage. You can now proceed with your argument.
M. FAURE: Your Honors, I should like, first of all, to point out to the Tribunal that since a certain amount of time has been given to witnesses and discussions, and as I do not wish to exceed the time limit which was announced, I am compelled to shorten to a considerable extent the presentation of the brief which I am now presenting on the subject of propaganda. I shall therefore ask the Tribunal kindly to excuse me if I occasionally hesitate during this presentation, inasmuch as I shall not follow my brief exactly. I indicated yesterday the method employed by the Germans with regard to the freedom of public meetings and of association, which they suppressed. When they did uphold these rights they exploited them to their own advantage. I should like now to say something about books and publishing: The German authorities, first of all, issued an ordinance on 30 August 1940, published in the Journal Officiel of 16 September, forbidding certain school books in France., We have already seen that they had done the same thing in Belgium. Another step taken by the Germans was to prohibit a certain number of books of which they disapproved. I present in this connection Document Number RF-1103, which is the "Otto" list, published in September 1940; it is a list of 1,074 volumes forbidden by the Germans. I shall not, of course, read it to the Tribunal. It appears in the document book under Document Number RF-1103, as I have just said. A second "Otto" list, longer than the first, was drawn up later and published on 8 July 1942, and I present it as Document Number RF-1104. The conclusion to this second document, which is the last page in my document book, gives a clear indication of the principles on which the German authorities worked.
M. FAURE: I read a few lines: "As a matter of principle, all translations of English books, except the English classics, are withdrawn from sale."-And further-"All books by Jewish authors, as well as books in which Jews have collaborated, are to be withdrawn from sale with the exception of works of a scientific nature where special measures are anticipated. From now on biographies of Jews, even if written by, French Aryans, as, for instance, the biographies of the Jewish musicians Offenbach, Meyerbeer, Darius Milhaud, et cetera, are to be withdrawn from sale." This method of procedure may have appeared fairly harmless at first, since only about 1,200 volumes were involved, but one can see the significance of the principle itself. By this procedure the German authorities achieved the practical result they sought, which was essentially, apart from other prohibitions, the complete disappearance of serious and objective works permitting a study of German doctrines, the policy of Germany, and the philosophy of Nazism., Apart from prohibiting works already existing, the Germans naturally established a censorship. At first they proceeded in a veiled manner by making a kind of agreement with publishers in which the publishers themselves were made responsible for indicating which of the books appeared to them to be subject to censorship. I submit this censorship agreement as Document Number RF-1105; and I wish, without reading it, to make but one observation in this regard which is highly characteristic of the invariable German method. In the printed brochure of this agreement, of which the original is submitted, there appears, in addition to the agreement itself, a notice drafted in terms which do not reflect French feeling. This notice was not drafted by the publishers upon whom the agreement itself was imposed but was drafted by the Germans and published in the same brochure, which bears the words, "National Syndicate of Publishers," so that one might think that the French publishers accepted the phrases occurring in this preamble.
M. FAURE: For that matter, the attentive reader has only to see that this brochure does not bear the printer's name to realize that this is a German publication and not one put out by French publishers, for only the Germans were exempted from the French rule requiring mention of the printer's name. The Germans did not limit themselves to this procedure which was apparently rather liberal; and later an ordinance of 27 April 1942 entitled, "Concerning the Rational Use of Printing Paper," was published in the Journal Officiel of 13 May. This ordinance stated, on pretext of the rational utilization of paper, that all publications without exception should bear the German authorization number. I point out in addition that in their control of paper the Germans had a very effective weapon with which to put a stop to French publishing. I submit as Document Number RF-1106 the affidavit of M. Marcel Rives, Director of Internal Commerce at the Ministry of Industrial Productions In order to shorten the proceedings I shall not read this document. I may say in short that this document makes it clear that the distribution of available paper stocks was made entirely under the authority of the Germans and that the Germans reduced the amount of paper placed at the disposal of publishers in a proportion exceeding that of the general reduction in paper quotas as compared with the prewar situation. I must add that the Germans also took for their own propaganda publication a certain amount of the reduced paper quota allotted to the French publishers. Thus, they not only used for their propaganda the paper which they themselves had in Germany, but they also took some of the small amount of paper which they allotted to the French publishers. I should like simply to read in this connection a few lines of the document which constitutes Appendix 2 of Document Number RF-1106, which I have just submitted.
M. FAURE: I merely read a few lines of this Appendix 2, which is a letter from the German Military Command to the Ministry of National Economy dated 28 June 1943: "More especially during the month of March, which you particularly mention, it has been impossible to allot the publishers any quantity from current production, as this was needed for urgent propaganda purposes." The other aspect of this German activity in the publishing sphere was, in fact, the carrying on of an intensive propaganda by means of all kinds of pamphlets and publications. This propaganda literature is extremely tedious. I should like to mention only one detail, which shows the method of camouflage always employed by the Nazis. I have here a few German propaganda pamphlets which I shall submit, naturally without reading them, as Document Number RF-1106 (his). The first ones are part of a series entitled England Unmasked. The first numbers of this series, taken at random, have on the flyleaf, "Office of German Information, England Unmasked Number. .." et cetera. No attempt at concealment is made, and the reader knows what he has before him. But by some curious accident, Number 11 in the same series no longer bears the words, "German Office of Information," and we see instead, "International Publishing House, Brussels." Here again, however, we are warned of its origin, for the author's name is Reinhard Wolf, and this is a German name. But here, by way of a final example, is a pamphlet entitled The Pact against Europe, which is also published by the International Publishing House, Brussels, (Document Number RF-1106(ter)). We know after seeing the other specimens that this publishing house is only a firm attached to the German office; but people who are not so well informed may believe the pamphlet to be a French or Belgian compilation, for in this case the name of the author is Jean Dubreuil. I shall not dwell further on publishing, and I should like now to say a few words about the press.