dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR.DIX: To give only a few examples: We were confronted here with the conflicts between Himmler and Frank, between Himmler and Keitel, between Sauckel and Seldte, between Schellenberg and Canaris, between Bormann and Lammers, between SA and SS, between Wehrmacht and SS, between SD and Justice, between Ribbentrop and Neurath, and so on and so forth. The list could be continued ad libitum. Even ideologically the Party in itself was divided into pronounced oppositional groups, which was shown already at the very beginning of the presentation of evidence by Goering's testimony. These oppositions were fundamental, and they were not bridged by Hitler but rather deepened. They were the instrument from which he elicited his power. The ministers were not responsible governing persons, as in any other state where law is the foundation; they were nothing but employees with specialized training who had to obey orders. And if a departmental minister, as in the case of Schacht, did not wish to submit to this, it resulted in conflict and resignation from his post. For this very reason no minister could in the long run take full responsibility for his department, because he was not exclusively competent for it. A minister, in accordance with constitutional law, must first of all have access to the head of State; and he must have the right to report to him in person. He must be in a position to reject interference and influences coming from irresponsible sources. None of the characteristics applicable to a minister apply to the so-called ministers of Adolf Hitler. The Four Year Plan came as a surprise to Schacht. Similarly, the Minister of Justice was surprised by so extremely important a law as the Nuremberg Decrees. Ministers were not in a position to appoint their staffs independently. The appointment of every civil service employee required the consent of the Party Chancellery. The intetvention and influence of all possible agencies and persons of the various Chancelleries- Chancellery of the Fuehrer, Party Chancellery, et cetera-asserted themselves.
DR.DIX: They, however, were agencies placed above the ministries and they could not be controlled. Special delegates governed over the heads of the departmental chiefs. Ministers, even the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, as we have heard from Lammers, might wait for months for an audience, while Herr Bormann and Herr Himmler had free access to Hitler. The anticamera and camarilla, indispensable accessories of all absolutism, have at all times been difficult to fathom as to the personal responsibility of the individual circles of which they are composed. The irresponsible influences exerted over and affecting Hitler were absolutely intangible. Generaloberst Jodl described to us here how Hitler's sudden actions, caused by some urge and attended by the most serious consequences, could be traced back to influences of an entirely obscure and unknown sort, such as pure chance, conversations at a tea party, or the like. For the objective facts this bears out what I already mentioned in the beginning. And so this state of affairs precludes even the possibility of the planning of a crime such as a war of aggression within a clearly defined circle of persons, much less within the so-called Reich Government. But where no planning is possible, there can be no plot, no conspiracy either, the most striking characteristic of which is this very common planning, even though the participants have different and varied roles. Let us assume the broadest conceivable interpretation of the ostensible exterior characteristics of the conspiracy. I am following Justice Jackson's line of reasoning. He who takes part in a counterfeiters' plot is guilty of conspiracy, even through he may have written only a letter or acted as bearer of the letter. He who participates in a plot for robbing a bank is guilty of murder if, in the course of the execution, not he but a third party in the group of planners commits murder. At all times, however, the prerequisite is a body of persons capable of evolving a common plan.
DR.DIX: Such a thing was not possible for Adolf Hitler's ministers; it was not possible at all under Hitler. From this it follows that no conspirator could participate in Hitler's crime of having forced upon his own people and the world a war of aggression, except those who served Hitler as assistants. The forces at work in the Third Reich as depicted thus permit in thesis only the assumption that there existed a punishable complicity or punishable assistance, not, however, a punishable group offense such as a conspiracy. Whether such complicity or such punishable aid in the crime of a war of aggression committed by Hitler exists for individual defendants personally can only be investigated and decided in each individual case. It is my task to investigate this only in the case of Schacht. A collective crime such as conspiracy is, however, excluded as inconceivable and impossible in the light of the actual conditions as already established. But even if this were not the case, the subjective aspect of the deed is completely lacking in the case of Schacht. Even if the objective facts of a conspiracy were to exist for a certain circle of the accused and even with the most liberal interpretation of the concept of conspiracy, it is still essential that the conspirator should include the plan of conspiracy and the aims of the conspiracy within his will, at least in the form of dolts eventualis. The strict facts constituting a conspiracy can best be illustrated by comparison with a pirate ship. In reality every crew member of the pirate ship, even a subordinate, is guilty and an outlaw. But a person who did not even know that he was on a pirate ship but believed himself to be on a peaceful merchant vessel, is not guilty of piracy. He is equally innocent if, after realizing the pirate character of the ship, he has done everything he could to prevent any piracy, as well as to leave the pirate ship. Schacht did both.
DR.DIX: As far as that is concerned, research on conspiracy also recognizes that a person is not guilty who has withdrawn from the conspiracy by a positive act before attainment of the goal of the conspiracy, even if he did co-operate previously in the preparation of the plan for conspiracy, which was not the case with Schacht. In this connection, I also consider as being in my favor Mr. Justice Jackson's answer when I put up for discussion, during Schacht's interrogation, the question whether the persecution of the Jews is also charged to Schacht. Mr. Justice Jackson said, yes, if Schacht had helped prepare the war of aggression before he withdrew from this plan for aggression and its group of conspirators and went over unreservedly to the opposition group, that is, to the conspiracy against Hitler. This desertion would then be the positive act which I have mentioned whereby a person at first participating in a conspiracy would separate himself from it. This legal problem does not even enter into consideration as far as Schacht is concerned, because the evidence has shown that he never desired to participate in the preparation for a war of aggression. As already stated, this accusation of the subjective fact of the conspiracy has not been proved either by direct or by indirect evidence. For the events up to the year 1938 I can point to the statements made previously. It has been proved that from 1938 on, at the latest, Schacht fought the bitterest struggle imaginable against any possibility of war in such a form that he attempted to overthrow the person responsible for this risk of war and this will for aggression and, thereby, the regime. Your Lordship, I have now arrived at the end of a section, if Your Lordship would care to announce a recess now.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn. A recess was taken.7
DR. DIX: I beg your pardon for being late, but I was detained at the entrance. Gentlemen of the Tribunal, I have arrived at the discussion of the beginning of the opposition by means of the various Putsch actions. It is quite irrelevant and of incidental importance to investigate whether the attempts at a Putsch, which occurred at shorter or longer intervals during the war, would have been instrumental in securing better peace terms for Germany. This is absolutely meaningless for the criminal evaluation of Schacht's course of action. Doubtlessly, according to human reckoning, a successful prewar Putsch would have prevented the outbreak of war; and a successful Putsch after the outbreak of war would at least have shortened the duration of the war. Therefore such skeptical considerations about the political value of these Putsch attempts do not disprove the seriousness of the plans and intentions for a Putsch, and that is all that counts in a criminal legal evaluation. For it proves first of all that a person who has been pursuing them since 1938, and even since 1937, if one includes the attempt with Kluge, could not possibly previously have had warlike intentions. One does not try to overthrow a regime because it involves the danger of war, if previously one has oneself worked toward a war. One does so only if by all one's actions, even that of financing armament, one wished to serve peace. For this reason these repeated Putsch attempts on the part of Schacht do not have any legal significance of a so-called active repentance for previous criminal behavior but constitute em post proof that he cannot be accused even before 1938 of deliberately working for war, because it would be logically and psychologically incompatible with Schacht's activity of conspiracy against Hitler. These Putsche thus prove the credibility of Schacht in respect to his explanation of the reasons and intentions which caused him actively to enter the Hitler Government and to finance armament to the extent to which he did, namely, to the amount of 12,000 millions.
DR. DIX: They prove em post the purely defensive character of this financing of armament; they prove the credibility of Schacht's contention of having tactically achieved, in addition, a general limitation of armament. If one does believe this explanation of Schacht's, and I think one must believe it, then one cannot speak of Schacht's co-operation in instigating a war of aggression. This credibility is also proved by another circumstance. Schacht originally contradicted the testimony of Gisevius and my questions following the same line, that he had admired Hitler at the beginning and had unreservedly considered him a brilliant statesman. He described this in his interrogation as an erroneous assumption. He said that he had recognized from the beginning many of Hitler's weaknesses, especially the fact of his poor education, and had only hoped to be in a position to control the disadvantages and dangers resulting from them. By this contradiction Schacht made his defense more difficult; but he is wise enough to have recognized this. Thus what he deliberately forfeited from the point of view of evidence which would serve his defense, he gains with regard to his credibility upon objective evaluation of evidence based on psychological experience. For a person who serves the truth by contradiction deserves increased credibility, when the suggested untruth or the half-truth is more advantageous to him technically and tactically by way of evidence. There should be no doubt about Schacht's leading role in the activities of the various conspiracies about which Gisevius testified on the very basis of this credible testimony. During the crossexamination Mr. Justice Jackson confronted Schacht with photographs and films which superficially show a close connection with Hitler and his paladins. This can only have been done in order to throw doubt on the earnestness of his active opposition to Hitler. I must, therefore, deal briefly with this point of the photographs and films. Mr.
DR. DIX: Justice Jackson has coupled this accusation with another one by quoting speeches ostensibly expressing great devotion on the part of Schacht toward Adolf Hitler even during the Putsch period. This accusation is on the same level. I believe that this argument cannot stand up either before the experiences of life nor before what we can observe of history. History teaches us that conspirators, especially if they belong to the closer circle of dignitaries of the threatened head of state, show special devotion for purposes of camouflage. Nor has it ever been observed that such people impart their intentions to the prospective victim in a spirit of contradictory loyalty. One could cite many examples of this from history. There exists an effective German drama by a certain Neumann which concerns itself with the murder of Czar Paul by his first Minister, Count Pahlen. The Czar believes to the very end in the ostentatious devotion of Count Pahlen, even while the latter is already sharpening his knife. And the historical documents in existence include a note by Count Pahlen to the Russian Ambassador in Berlin, immediately before the assassination, in which Count Pahlen persists in speaking about "Notre auguste Empereur," and so forth. Significantly, this drama bears the title The Patriot. Thus, there is a higher patriotism than the merely formal loyalty of a servant of the nation. It would be closer to the psychological truth if this presumptive devotion, assumed for the sake of appearances, and the assurances of loyalty during this period were judged more in favor of the objective credibility of Schacht's explanations than vice versa. As a conspirator, he had to camouflage himself especially well. To a certain degree this had to be done by practically everyone who lived under this regime in Germany. As far as the photographs are concerned, it is probably an inevitable consequence of every social and representative participation in a body that one becomes a victim of the cinema along with the members of the body whether one likes it or not.
DR. DIX: A member of a Government cannot always avoid being photographed with these people on the occasion of their meetings. As a result we have pictures that show Schacht between Ley and Streicher and the scene in the film showing the reception of Hitler at the railroad station. Viewed en post, these pictures give no pleasure to the observer, and certainly not to Schacht either. But they do not prove anything. In a natural evaluation belonging to a normal average experience of life, I consider these pictures without any value as evidence, either pro or contra. Foreign countries, too, through their prominent representatives, had social intercourse with Adolf Hitler's Government, and this not only through their diplomatic corps. I wish to assure you that the Defense is in a position to produce pictures of a much more grotesque sort which do not seem nearly as natural as Schacht being photographed together with men who, after all, were his fellow dignitaries in the Third Reich. To produce such pictures, however, might not be very tactful on the part of the Defense; yet should it be necessary to investigate the truth in all seriousness, a defense counsel might have to take upon himself the odium of indiscretion. I do not believe that there is any need for me to do so in this case, because the irrelevance and insignificance of such a presentation of evidence through pictures taken on state occasions of the Third Reich seems to me to be obvious. The only incriminating point pressed by the Prosecution which · is left for me to argue now appears to be that Schacht, after his retirement as Minister of Economics and even after his retirement as President of the Reichsbank in January 1939, remained Minister without Portfolio until 1943. Schacht declared that this had been stipulated by Hitler as a condition for his release from the Ministry of Economics. Hitler's signature, as that of the head of the State, was necessary for his dismissal.
DR. DIX: Had Schacht refused to remain as Minister without Portfolio, he would surely have been arrested sooner or later as a political suspect and thus been deprived of all possibility of action against Hitler. The witness Gisevius has testified as to the discussions at that time between him and Schacht concerning the continuation of Schacht's function as Minister without Portfolio. In these deliberations the idea was quite justly considered important that Schacht could be of more use to the group of conspirators as a scout or an outpost if he remained in this position, to outward appearances at least, within the Reich Government. Even as Minister without Portfolio, Schacht remained exposed to great danger, as is shown by his and Gisevius' declarations and as becomes obvious from Ohlendorf's statement that Schacht already in 1937 was on the black list of the State Police. How much Hitler feared Schacht is proved by his subsequent remarks to Speer, which have been discussed here, particularly his remarks about Schacht after the attempted assassination on 20 July. I would also remind you once more of Hitler's memorandum of 1936, which he gave to Speer in 1944 and which shows that he saw in Schacht a saboteur of his rearmament plans. It has been declared and proved by Lammers that Schacht tried later on to get rid even of this nominal position. Lammers and Schacht have proved furthermore that this position of Minister without Portfolio was without any special importance. Hence my reference to him as an officer with assimilated rank, that is, an officer without command authority, a sham officer. Schacht could not give up the position unless there was a row, and the same held true of his position as Reichsbank President. Schacht, therefore, had to maneuver in such a way that he would be thrown out. He succeeded in this, as I explained, as Reichsbank President through the well-known memorandum of the Directorate of the Reichsbank and the refusal of credits by the Reichsbank in November 1938 contained therein.
DR. DIX: As far as his position of Minister without Portfolio was concerned, he succeeded through his defeatist letter of November 1942. In the meantime he made use of the time for the attempted coup d'etat in autumn 1938 and for the various other attempted coups d'etat leading up to that of 20 July 1944, which finally caused him to be put in a concentration camp. A criminal reproach can on no account be made against him in his position as Minister without Portfolio. For his proved conspiratorial activity against Hitler during all this time eliminates by force of logic the supposition that he had furthered Hitler's war plans and war strategy during this time. In any event, we can only raise-and even that only in the vacuum of abstraction- a political reproach against the Schacht of the years 1933-37. But this, too, is fully compensated by the extraordinarily courageous attitude of Schacht after this period. To obtain its just evaluation, may I remind you of the interesting statement of Gisevius to the effect that he, who had at first looked with a certain skepticism upon Schacht's original attitude, not fin a criminal but in a political sense, had later become completely reconciled with Schacht by the extraordinary courage which Schacht displayed as opponent and conspirator against Hitler since 1938. I am of the opinion, therefore, that the fact that Schacht remained as Minister without Portfolio does not incriminate him either directly or indirectly, neither according to penal law, which is out of the question, nor morally, if one takes into consideration his behavior as a whole, his motives, and the accompanying circumstances and conditions. If the Prosecution now finally argues, on the basis of the text of the afore-mentioned memorandum by the Directorate of the Reichsbank, that an opposition' to war is not evident from the memorandum, but only technical reflections on finance and currency, then I have only to refer in this respect to my earlier statements and the testimony of Vocke.
DR. DIX: The presentation of facts by Schacht himself would not even be necessary to refute this argumentation. Vocke in his capacity as closest collaborator declared quite unequivocally that Schacht wished to limit and sabotage rearmament from the moment when he recognized that it was becoming a potential war danger. The sworn affidavit of Hulse and the sworn affidavits of all-the collaborators of Schacht in the Reich Ministry of Economics tally with the testimony of Vocke in this respect. I need not quote them individually. They are known to the Tribunal. The Tribunal does not need the commentary of a defense counsel on them; they speak for themselves. If the Prosecution now finally bases its argument on the text of the memorandum which, it is true, actually only deals with financial problems, then again I cannot suppress the remark that such an argumentation moves in a vacuum insofar as one does not take the experiences of history and the general experiences of life into consideration. Naturally, as I have already said, the Directorate of the Reichsbank could only bring up arguments from their department, particularly so in dealing with a Hitler. One says one thing while meaning another. If the Directorate of the Reichsbank, along with their President, Schacht, had revealed their true purpose in this memorandum, namely, to avert the danger of war and to combat Hitler's will of aggression, then they would have deprived themselves of the effect of technical departmental influence. Hitler very well understood the purpose of this memorandum when he shouted, after reading it: "That is mutiny!" With this, Hitler recognized the only thing that can be said of Schacht as conspirator: He was never a mutineer and conspirator against world peace; but, insofar as he was a conspirator and mutineer, he was so only against Adolf Hitler and his regime.
DR. DIX: Again in this case I must ask the High Tribunal to turn their attention to Appendix Number II, which I must insert at this moment, because the matter that is dealt with here did not reach me for translation until after I had submitted my final speech. I said that Schacht, insofar as he was a conspirator, was so only against Hitler. As such, he was the subject of ironical belittling by Generaloberst Jodl and my colleague Nelte through the epithet, "frock-coat and drawing-room revolutionary." Now history teaches that the quality of the tailor does not play any role in the case of the revolutionary. And as far as the drawing room is concerned, shacks have no revolutionary precedence over palaces. I would just recall the political drawing rooms of the great French Revolution or, for example, the elegant officers' club of the select Preobrashensk regiment under many a Czar. Should the Gentlemen of the Tribunal be of the opinion that Schacht and his accomplices themselves should have done the shooting, then all I can say is that things were not as easy as all that. Schacht would have loved to do the shooting himself; he proclaimed that here emphatically. But it was not possible for him to do so without possessing the power to master the attendant confusion, thereby making the attempt a revolutionary success. Thus generals with troops were necessary. I do not wish to repay Generaloberst Jodl with the same coin and shall therefore refrain from saying "a necessary evil." The further reproach of the basic lack of working-class elements to strengthen the Putsche is contradicted by the social composition of the revolutionaries of 20 July. As I stated before, all this is irrelevant for the decision of the Tribunal. But my client is morally entitled to expect his defense counsel not to let this ironical thrust pass, especially since it was delivered in the limelight of public opinion. In summing up I may say: After the elections in July 1932 it was certain that Hitler was able and bound to seize power.