dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): For more than two thousand years the defense of our people's interests, as we should designate our more or less successful activity in the field of foreign affairs, was world history. We ourselves were witnesses to this fact: For the gigantic struggle of the nations in the years 1914-18 was only the struggle of the German people for its existence on the globe, but we designated the type of event itself as a world war. "The German people entered this struggle as a supposed world power. I say here 'supposed,' for in reality she was none. If the German nation in 1914 had- had a different relation between area and population, Germany would really have been a world power, and the war, aside from all other factors, could have been terminated favorably." (Excerpt from Page 647) Second quotation: "I should like to make the following preliminary remarks: The demand for restoration of the frontiers of 1914 is a political absurdity of such proportion and consequences as to make it seem a crime. Quite aside from the fact that the Reich's frontiers in 1914 were anything but logical! For in reality they were neither complete in the sense of embracing the people of German nationality, nor sensible with regard to geomilitary expediency. They were not the result of a considered political action, but momentary frontiers in a political struggle that was by no means concluded; partly, in fact, they were the results of chance." (Excerpt from Page 649) Third quotation: "The boundaries of the year 1914 mean nothing at all for the German future. Neither did they provide a defense of the past, nor would they contain any strength for the future.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): Through them the German nation will neither achieve its inner integrity, nor will its sustenance be safeguarded by them, nor do these boundaries, viewed from the military standpoint, seem expedient or even satisfactory, nor finally can they improve the relations in which we at present find ourselves toward the other world powers, or, better expressed, the real world powers." (Excerpt from Page 650) Another quotation: "As opposed to this we National Socialists must hold un	flinchingly to our aim in foreign policy, namely, to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth. And this action is the only one which, before God and our German posterity, would make any sacrifice of blood seem justified, before God, since we have been put in this world with the mission of eternal struggle for our daily bread, beings who receive nothing as a gift, and who owe their position as lords of the earth only to the genius and courage with which they can conquer and defend it; and for German posterity insofar as we have shed its blood out of which a thousand others will rise. The soil on which some day German generations of peasants can beget powerful sons will sanction the investment of the sons of today, and will someday acquit the statesmen of blood-guilt and sacrifice of the people, even if they are persecuted by their contemporaries." (Excerpt from Page 687) Another quotation: "A state which in this age of racial poisoning dedicates itself to the care of its best racial elements must some day become lord of the earth." (Excerpt from Page 135) "A stronger race will drive out the weak, for the vital urge in its ultimate form will, time and again, burst all the absurd fetters of the so-called humanity of individuals in order to replace it by the humanity of nature, which destroys the weak to give place to the strong." And then the machinery of State and Party gathered force. The Army secretly reorganized, was soon strong enough to allow Germany to rearm openly.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): Who, at that time, would have dared to interfere with the monstrous growth of this biological materialism? Hitler expounded his theories to a small circle and those who heard his words are by no means all Nazis. Informed of their master's aims, they were still willing to stay by his side, and that condemns them. Is this not the case with Raeder? "It is not a question of conquering populations but of conquering territories suitable for cultivation...." Hitler, in conference with Von Blomberg, Von Fritsch, Raeder, 5 November, said: "Expansion cannot be achieved without breaking resistance and without taking risks . . ." (Document Number 386-PS). After the disgrace of Von Fritsch and Von Blomberg, Keitel and Jodl, chosen for their servile attitude to the regime, had a solid weapon in their hands. On the eve of the conflict Hitler reiterated his ideas: "Circumstances must rather be adapted to aims. This is impossible without invasion of foreign states or attacks on foreign property. "Living space, in proportion to the magnitude of the state, is the basis of all power. One may refuse for a time to face the problem, but finally it is solved one way or the other. The choice is between advancement or decline. In 15 or 20 years' time we shall be compelled to find a solution. No German statesman can evade the question longer than that. We are at present in a state of patriotic fervor, which is shared by two other nations, Italy and Japan. "The period which lies behind us has indeed been put to good use. All measures have been taken in the correct sequence and in harmony with our aims. "After 6 years, the situation is today as follows: "The national-political unity of the Germans has been achieved, apart from minor exceptions. Further successes cannot be attained without the shedding of blood.... "Danzig is not the subject of the dispute at all. It is a question of expanding our living space in the East and of securing our food supplies.... The population of non-German areas will perform no military service, and will be available as a source of labor.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): "The Polish problem is inseparable from the conflict with the West." Extract from minutes of a conference held at the Reich Chancellery on 23 May 1939, in the presence of Hitler, Goering, Raeder, Keitel, and others (Document Number L-79, Exhibit USA-27). And then came the war; and in a few months' time all Germany was led to believe that her strength was irresistible and that she was on the way to the conquest of the world. All that was implied by Hitler's cruel and monstrous words: "As opposed to that we National Socialists must keep firmly to the aim of our foreign policy,-namely, to secure for the German people the territory to which it is entitled in this world. And this act is the sole act which, before God and our German posterity, justifies bloodshed...." All the cruel and monstrous implications of these words were elaborated here. Speech by Hitler on the Eastern Territories 16. 7. 41 (Document Number L-221): "We shall emphasize again that we were forced to occupy, administer, and secure a certain area.... Nobody shall be able to recognize that it initiates a final settlement. This need not prevent us taking all necessary measures: shooting, deportation... et cetera." Further: "Partisan warfare will have one advantage for us; it enables us to eradicate all those who oppose us...." The same theme was taken up and cynically proclaimed by the spokesmen of the State. This Trial has brought you many echoes thereof. In a speech by Himmler we find these words again: "What the nations can offer us of good blood we shall take, if necessary by taking their children away from them and bringing them up among us." From the same speech: "Whether nations thrive or starve only interests me inasmuch as we can use them as slaves for our civilization." Still from the same speech: "That 10,000 Russian women should die of exhaustion in digging an antitank ditch only interests me as to whether or not the antitank ditch has been completed for Germany.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): "When somebody comes and says to me, 'I cannot dig the antitank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it will kill them'; then I have to say, 'You are a murderer of your own kin, because if the antitank ditch is not dug, German soldiers will die and they are sons of German mothers.' " And concerning the extermination of Jews: "We have exterminated a microbe. We do not wish to be contaminated and die from it. We have fulfilled this duty for the sake of our people. Our spirit and character have not suffered from it" (Document 1919-PS). The conquest of living space, that is, of territories emptied of their population by every means including extermination-that was the great idea of the Party, the system, the State, and consequently of all those at the head of the main administration of both State and Party. That is the main idea, in the pursuit of which they united and for which they worked. They stopped at nothing in order to achieve their end: Violation of treaties, invasion, and enslavement in peacetime of weak and peaceful neighbors, wars of aggression, and total warfare, with all the atrocities which these words imply. Goering and Ribbentrop cynically admitted that they took both a spiritual and a material part in it; and the generals and admirals did their utmost to help matters forward. Speer exploited to the point of exhaustion and death the manpower recruited for him by Sauckel, Kaltenbrunner, the NSDAP Gauleiter, and the generals. Kaltenbrunner made use of the gas chambers, the victims for which were furnished by Frick, Schirach, Seyss-Inquart, Frank, Jodl, Keitel, and the rest. But the existence of the gas chambers themselves was only made possible through the development of a political ideology favorable to such things; there, inextricably merged, we find the responsibility of all of them- Goering, Hess, Rosenberg, Streicher, Frick, Frank, Fritzsche, down to Schacht himself, the pro-Jewish Schacht.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): Did he not say to Hirschfeld: "I want Germany to be great; to accomplish this I am prepared to ally myself with the very devil." He did enter into this alliance with the devil and with hell. We may include Papen, who saw his secretaries and his friends killed around him and still continued to accept official missions in Ankara and Vienna because he thought he could appease Hitler by serving him. Some are not present; some are dead, and some still living, as, for example, the industrialists who exploited the workers of the enslaved countries after putting Hitler and his system in power by providing the funds, without which no action could have been possible, and who put them in power as much for reasons of nationalistic fanaticism as because they expected from Nazism the guarantee of their privileges. Everything kept steady, everything was indissolubly united because totalitarian policy, total war, the preparation and direction of the campaign of extermination of peoples for the conquest of living space, implied the closest co-ordination and liaison between all the parts of the machine, between Police and Army; Foreign Affairs and Police and Army; Justice and Police; Economics and Justice; Universities and Propaganda and Police. And now we come to the second point which we have to present to you. The co-ordination of the various departments at the head of which these men stood, implies close co-operation between them. The Defense have tried to establish the existence of watertight partitions between the different elements of the German State. According to them, there is supposed to be a parallel without a horizontal bond between the various State and Party departments, between individual ministerial administrations and between individual National Socialist organizations. The only connecting link would be the person of the chief, at the head. According to the Defense, the dominating principle of the German structure would be a personal union, not co-ordination and co-operation. This is false.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): This is contrary to the principles of the Nazi State and requirements of a State in which every force strives toward the same goal and toward the actual reality of German life as revealed by the debates. According to National Socialist conception, the Party must take the place of democracy. The Party is the political expression of the nation, which materializes in the political action of the State carried out by the activity of its administrations. The 1st of December 1933 Act proclaims, for the purpose of insuring the unity of the Party and State, that the Party is the exclusive support of the State conception, and indissolubly unites the Party and the State. At the Party Congress in 1931, Hitler says: "It is not the State that created us. We create the State for ourselves. To some it may appear as the Party, to others as an organization, for yet others as something different, but actually we are what we are." The aim pursued by the Party was therefore the achievement of an increasingly complete union between the State and the Party. This is the reason of the legislation which makes it compulsory for the head of the Party Chancellery to be consulted on the appointment of high-ranking officials, which incorporates Party chiefs into municipal administration, integrates the SS into the Police, and converts the SS to police officers, makes the direction of the Hitler Youth a State department, brings the direction of Party headquarters abroad under the Foreign Office, and merges the military personnel of the Party to an ever increasing degree with those of the Army. General Von Brodowsky's war diary, which we have submitted to the Tribunal, shows that this merger was a fact at the time of the landing in France. Hitler, however, continued to maintain the system of parallel State and Party administration, because they exercised mutual control and supervision. But he insisted on the closest co-operation by both parties in order to be certain that the control was effective.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): All the defendants, moreover, with the exception of Hess, are representatives of State departments. They cannot plead the absolute power of the Party as an excuse, since Party and State shared the power. The doctrine preached by the Party must guide the actions of the State, but the actions of the State in turn modify and develop the doctrine of the Party. Many items of the Party Program of-24 February 1920 never came into effect and were completely forgotten when the Party had been in power for some time. For instance, unearned income was not abolished (Item 11); trusts were not nationalized Item 13); land reform was not carried out as provided for in Item 17;* interest on property and speculation id real estate remained. In the end, every aspect of German life was affected by the combined influence of the State and Party forces. All the departments of the State and the Party combined to make the component parts. Examples are plentiful and may be found in every State department. Let us take the department of Foreign Affairs. Of all the administrational sections of the State, this, according to the orthodox conception, should be The farthest removed from political doctrine. Not so in Nazi Germany. With a view to the extermination of the Jews, headquarters abroad co-operated with the Reich Security Main Of lice through Wilhelmstrasse, as is shown by Documents RF-1206, 1220, 1502, 1210, and Exhibit Number USA-433 Document Number 3219-PS). Wilhelmstrasse officials were called upon to advise the military police and Secret State Police Document Number RF-1061). It was Best, Ribbentrop's representative in Denmark, who transmitted the order for the deportation of the Jews to the Chief of the German Police Mildner Document Number RF-1503). Document Number RF-1501 shows Ribbentrop defending anti-Semitism to Mussolini and- asking for Italian co-operation. Ribbentrop and Kaltenbrunner are implicated in all the terrorist measures taken against the elite.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): The SD and Wilhelmstrasse are also involved in the organization of attacks of a provocative nature, such as that made on the broadcasting station at Gleiwitz in order to furnish the pretext of an attack by the Poles. The report made by the German military administration on the pillage of art treasures in France incriminates both the special staff of Rosenberg and the * This program, known as the 25-point Program, was drawn up by Hitler, Drexler, and Feder and read out on 24 Feb. 1920 at the Hofbrau beer house. It was the program of the German Labor Party. 29 July 46 ' German Embassy in Paris (Document Number RF-1505). Wilhelmstrasse and the Army are involved along with the Police in the question of hostages, reprisals, and deportations. Examples could be multiplied. We do not claim to exhaust the subject, but only to give illustrations in support of an opinion. Let us now examine the activities of Rosenberg's organizations. Rosenberg, by virtue of his function, co-ordinated several branches of the German State. His function in foreign policy was incorporated in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Moreover, he was the philosopher of the regime, Minister for the Eastern Territories, and chief of the special staff in charge of art treasures. The SD and the Secret Police worked in liaison with him (Documents Number L-188 and 946-PS). We note the same liaison and the same co-ordination within the machinery of the State in questions of forced labor. All the ministers and higher functionaries, such as the Gauleiter, were involved, either by planning or preparing the operation, or simply enforcing it, or benefiting by it. We remember the interministerial meetings in Berlin to discuss this subject and the conference between Sauckel, Kaltenbrunner, Speer, Funk, and the representatives of the OKW which forms the subject of Document Number PS-3819. We remember the meeting in Paris presided over by Sauckel and attended by representatives of the Army, the Police, and the Embassy (Document Number RF-1517). Neither was economic life any more independent.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): During the war there existed under Funk a close co-operation between the economic and administrative services of the Army and those of economic affairs (Document Number RF-3 his). The Ministry of Economy appealed to the Police to work out plans for economic Germanization (Documents RF-803 and 814). The Ministry of Finance subsidized the SS to carry out scientific research under abominable conditions using internees as involuntary subjects for experiment (Document Number 002-PS). Under Schacht and long before the war, politics, finance, and economic affairs were linked with the Army, at first secretly, and then publicly, and by bands closer than in any other country in the world. Schacht, in a speech on 29 November 1938, pronounced the following opinion on his achievement: "It is impossible that any other issuing bank has followed in peacetime a credit policy so audacious as that of the Reichsbank since the assumption of power by National Socialism. With the aid of this policy, however, Germany has created an armament that ranks foremost in the world, and this armament has made possible the results of our policy..." (EC-611). Nor was the judicial system more independent. We find it associated with the Police in highly criminal enterprises. Document Number 654-PS contains an account of a discussion between Thierack, Himmler, and others, at the end of which it was decided that antisocial elements and concentration camp prisoners-Jews, gypsies, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles-sentenced to more than 3 years' imprisonment should be turned over by the administration to Himmler to be exterminated through labor, and that in future individuals belonging to these categories should not be judged by ordinary tribunals but handed over immediately to Himmler's department. Finally, during the war, the terrorist activities of the Army and the German Police and the activities of the State and the Party merged together. On occasion, the Police were subordinated to the Army, though retaining a certain autonomy, on the orders of the Reich Security Main Office.
M. CHARLES DUBOST (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): This was the case in Belgium. In France, although separate from the Army, the Police maintained close co-operation-with it. The Army participated with the Sipo (Security Police) and the SD in the persecution of the Jews, the administration of the internment camp at Compiegne and the selection of hostages (Documents RF-1212 and 1212 his) and execution (Document Number RF-1244). As we have seen, the Army and the Police were associated in the terrorist actions against the populations. The Navy and the Police are also associated in the massacre of the Commandos, and the Police were responsible for the murder of certain categories of war prisoners, although all these prisoners without exception came under the authority of the OKW (Document Number 1165-PS). One might multiply instances of the close association of Party machinery and State services and the co-ordination between them, which at times amounted to symbiosis. In one way or another, they all worked for the realization of the common political aim: the conquest of space by all possible means. The co-operation of the defendants is an obvious consequence. Apart from the definite fact of co-operation alleged by us, all that we know of the general functioning of this totalitarian State, bound to the destiny of the Party, the vigorous measures taken by it against its opponents, for whom it prepared camps and gas chambers-all this leads us to affirm that the defendants, whether ministers, dignitaries or high functionaries with State or Party powers, combined with others who are not present-who are dead or held for Trial in other courts-to form one whole. And this entity was the Government of the Reich, this was the State-Party or Party-State; an entity, perhaps, but a conscious and criminal entity which decreed the murder of millions of human beings in order to enlarge the Reich beyond all limits. The acts of the defendants are not only those particular ones which we analyzed a moment ago in the light of the national penal codes of their own or our countries respectively.