dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
WALTER FUNK (Defendant): In the days of my nation's greatest need I joined a political movement, the aim of which was the struggle for the freedom and honor of my fatherland and for a true social community of the people. This movement received the leadership of the State in a legal way. I served this State by virtue of my duty as a civil servant engaged in the execution of the German laws. I felt myself to a high degree bound to perform this duty at a time when there was danger of war and during the war itself, when the existence of the fatherland was threatened in the extreme. But in war the state is absolutely dependent on the loyalty and faithfulness of its officials. Now, horrible crimes have become known here, in which the offices under my direction were partly involved. I learned this here in court for the first time. I did not know of these crimes, and I could not have known them. These criminal deeds fill me, like every German, with deep shame. I have examined my conscience and memory with the utmost care, and I have told the Court frankly and honestly everything that I knew and have concealed nothing. As far as the deposits of the SS in the Reichsbank are concerned, I only acted in performance of the official duties incumbent on me as President of the Reichsbank. According to law, the acceptance of gold and foreign currency was one of the business tasks of the Reichsbank. The fact that the confiscation of these assets was taking place through the SS agencies subordinate to Himmler could not arouse any suspicion in me. The entire police system, the border control, and especially the search for foreign currency in the Reich and in all occupied areas were under Himmler, but I was equally deceived and imposed upon by Himmler. Until the time of this Trial, I did not know and did not suspect that among the assets delivered to the Reichsbank there were enormous quantities of pearls, precious stones, jewelry, gold objects, and even spectacle frames, and--horrible to say--gold teeth. That was never reported to me, and I never noticed it either. I never saw these things.
WALTER FUNK (Defendant): But until this Trial I also knew nothing of the fact that millions of Jews were murdered in concentration camps or by the Einsatzkommandos in the East. Never did a single person say even one word to me about these things. The existence of extermination camps of this kind was totally unknown to me. I did not know a single one of these names. I have never set foot in a concentration camp either. I, too, assumed that some of the gold and foreign currency which was deposited in the Reichsbank came from concentration camps, and I frankly stated this fact from the beginning in all of my interrogations. But according to German law everyone was obliged to deliver these assets. Apart from that, the kind and quantity of these shipments from the SS were never made known to me. But how was I even to suspect that the SS had acquired these assets by desecrating corpses? If I had known of these horrible circumstances, my Reichsbank would never have accepted these assets for storage and conversion into money. I would have refused, even risking the danger that it might have cost me my head. If I had known of these crimes, Your Honors, I would not be sitting in the defendant's dock today, you may be convinced of that. In that case the grave would have been better for me than this tormented life, this life full of suspicions, slanders, and vulgar accusations. Not a single human being has ever lost his life because of any measures decreed by me. I have always respected the property of others. I have always tried to help people in need and, as far as it lay within my power, to bring happiness and Joy into their lives. And for that, many will be grateful to me and remain grateful. Human life consists of error and guilt. I, too, have made many mistakes; I, too, have let myself be deceived in many things and I frankly acknowledge, I admit, that I have let myself be deceived all too easily, and in many ways have been too unconcerned and too gullible. Therein I see my guilt, but consider myself free from any criminal guilt which I am supposed to have incurred in discharging my official duties.
WALTER FUNK (Defendant): In that respect, my conscience is just as clear today as on the day when I entered this courtroom 10 months ago for the first time.
THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Hjalmar Schacht.
HJALMAR SCHACHT (Defendant): My sense of justice was deeply wounded by the fact that the final speeches of the Prosecution completely by-passed the evidence resulting from this Trial. The only accusation raised against me under the Charter is that I wanted war. The overwhelming evidence in my case has shown, however, that I was a fanatical opponent of war and tried actively and passively, by protests, sabotage, cunning, and force, to prevent the war. How, then, can the Prosecution assert that I favored war? How can the Russian prosecutor assert that I did not turn from Hitler until 1943, when my first attempt at a coup d'etat had already been undertaken in the autumn of 1938? And now Justice Jackson has raised a new accusation against me in his final speech, which has not been discussed at all in the Trial until now. I am said to have planned to release Jews from Germany in exchange for a ransom in foreign currency. This, too, is untrue. Disgusted by the Jewish pogrom of November 1938, I managed to obtain Hitler's approval to a plan which was to facilitate emigration for the Jews. I intended to place 1,500 million Reichsmarks taken from confiscated Jewish property under the administration of an international committee, and Germany was to undertake the obligation to repay this amount to the committee in 20 yearly instalments, and in foreign currency, which is the exact opposite of what Justice Jackson asserted here. I discussed this plan in December 1938 in London with Lord Berstedt of Samuel and Samuel, with Lord Winterton, and with the American representative, Mr. Rublee. They were all sympathetically disposed towards the plan. But since I was removed from the Reichsbank shortly afterwards by Hitler, the matter was dropped. Had it been carried through, not a single German Jew would have lost his life. My opposition to Hitler's policies was known at home and abroad and was so clear that even in 1940 the United States Charge d'Affaires, Mr.
HJALMAR SCHACHT (Defendant): Kirk, sent me his regards before leaving his Berlin post, adding that after the war I could be counted on as a man free from guilt, which is reported in detail by the witness Huelse in his affidavit (37-b in my document book). Instead of that, however, the Prosecution has branded me in the world press for a whole year as a robber, murderer, and betrayer. It is this accusation alone which I have to thank for the fact that in the evening of my life I am without means of subsistence and without a home. But the Prosecution are mistaken if they believe, as was mentioned in one of their first speeches, that they can count me amongst the pitiful and broken characters. To be sure, I erred politically. I never claimed to be a politician, but my economic and financial policy of creating work by assisting credit proved brilliantly successful. The figure of unemployment dropped from 7,000,000 to zero. In the year 1938 the state revenues had risen to such an extent that the repayment of the Reichsbank credits was fully guaranteed. The fact that Hitler refused this repayment, which he had solemnly confirmed, was a tremendous fraud which I could not foresee. My political mistake was not realizing the extent of Hitler's criminal nature at an early enough time. But I did not stain my hands with one single illegal or immoral act. The terrorism of the Gestapo did not frighten me. For terrorism must always fail before the appeal to conscience. In this lies the great source of strength which religion gives us. In spite of that, Justice Jackson considered it proper to accuse me of opportunism and cowardice. And this when the end of the war found me in the Flossenbuerg extermination camp, where I had been imprisoned for 10 months, and where I escaped Hitler's order of murder only by a merciful fate. At the conclusion of this Trial I stand shaken to the very depths of my soul by the unspeakable suffering which I tried to prevent with all my personal efforts and with all attainable means, but which in the end I failed to prevent not through my fault.
HJALMAR SCHACHT (Defendant): Therefore, my head is upright and I am unshaken in the belief that the world will recover, not through the power of violence, but only through the strength of the spirit and morality of actions.
THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Karl Doenitz.
KARL DOENITZ (Defendant): I should like to say three things. Firstly, you may judge the legality of German submarine warfare as your conscience dictates. I consider this form of warfare justified and have acted according to my conscience. I would have to do exactly the same all over again. My subordinates however, who carried out my orders, acted with complete confidence in me and without there being a shadow of a doubt about the necessity and legality of these orders. In my eyes no subsequent judgment can deprive them of their belief in the honorable character of a struggle for which they voluntarily made sacrifice after sacrifice up to the last hour. Secondly, there has been much talk here about a conspiracy which is alleged to have existed among the defendants. I consider this allegation a political dogma. As such it cannot be proved, but can only be believed or rejected. Considerable portions of the German people will never believe, however, that such a conspiracy could have been the cause of their misfortune. Let politicians and jurists argue about it; they will only make it harder for the German people to draw a lesson from this Trial, which is of decisive importance for its attitude toward the past and the shaping of its future the acknowledgement that the Fuehrer principle as a political principle is wrong. In the military leadership of all armies in this world, the Fuehrer principle has proved itself in the best possible way. On the strength of this experience I considered it also right with regard to political leadership, particularly in the case of a nation in the hopeless position in which the German people found itself in 1932. The great successes of the new government and a feeling of happiness such as the entire nation had never known before seemed to prove it right.
KARL DOENITZ (Defendant): But if, in spite of all the idealism, all the decency, and all the devotion of the great majority of the German people, no other, result has been achieved through the Fuehrer principle, in the last analysis, than the misfortune of this people, then this principle as such must be wrong, wrong because apparently human nature is not in a position to use the power of this principle for good, without falling victim to the temptations of this power. Thirdly, my life was devoted to my profession and thereby to the service of the German people. As the last Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy and as the last Head of the State, I bear the responsibility towards the German people, for everything which I have done and left undone.
THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Erich Raeder.
ERICH RAEDER (Defendant): This Trial, now that the evidence has been concluded, has had a beneficial result for the German nation; but an unexpected one for the Prosecution. Unimpeachable testimony has cleared the German people--and with them all the persons in the same situation as myself--of the most serious charge, the charge that they had known of the killing of millions of Jews and other people, if they had not actually participated in it. The attempt of the Prosecution, who through earlier interrogations had known the truth for a long time, and who nevertheless continued and repeated their accusations--with the raised finger of the preacher of morals--in the trial briefs and during cross-examinations, this attempt to defame the entire people has collapsed upon itself. The second result of this Trial, which is general and therefore of interest for me also, is the fact that on the basis of the evidence the German Navy's cleanness and decency in battle were fundamentally confirmed. The German Navy stands before this Court and before the world with a clean shield and an unstained flag. With a clear conscience we can most emphatically refute Shawcross's attempts in his final speech to place the submarine warfare on the same level with atrocities, because according to the clear results of the evidence they are untenable. In particular, the charge that the German Navy "never had the intention to observe the laws of naval warfare," as Shawcross said, Pages 70 and 71, has been completely invalidated. It has likewise been proved that the Naval Operations Staff and its chief never showed "contempt for international law" (Dubost's final speech), but on the contrary made an honest endeavor from the first to the very last moment to bring the conduct of modern naval warfare into harmony with the requirements of international law and humanity, on the same basis as our opponents.
ERICH RAEDER (Defendant): I regret that the Prosecution tried again and again to defame the German Navy, and myself, as was shown by the submission of its second modified trial brief, which differs from the first version only in that the number and severity of insulting statements have been increased. This fact shows that the prosecutors themselves felt that the factual accusations were too weak. But it is also my conviction that the British and American Prosecution have rendered ill service to their own Navies by morally defaming and characterizing as inferior the opponent against whom the Allied naval forces waged hard and honorable naval war over a number of years. I am convinced that the admiralties of the Allied powers understand me and that they know that they have not fought against a criminal. The only way I can explain to myself this attitude adopted by the Prosecution is by assuming that its representatives, as I necessarily perceived again and again, revealed only very little judgment regarding the principles of truly soldier-like conduct and military leadership and that, therefore, they hardly seem qualified to judge soldierly honor. To sum up: I have done my duty as a soldier because it was my conviction that this was the best way for me to serve the German people and fatherland, for which I have lived and for which I am prepared to die at any moment. If I have incurred guilt in any way, then this was chiefly in the sense that in spite of my purely military position I should perhaps have been not only a soldier, but also up to a certain point a politician, which, however, was in contradiction to my entire career and the tradition of the German Armed Forces. But then this would have been a guilt, a moral guilt, towards the German people, and could never at any time brand me as a war criminal. It would not have been guilt before a human criminal court, but rather guilt before God.
THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Baldur von Schirach.
BALDUR VON SCHIRACH (Defendant): On 24 May I made a statement here for which I answer before God and my conscience and which I fully uphold, even today at the end of the Trial, because it is in accordance with my honest innermost conviction. In their final speech the British Prosecution made the following statement: "Schirach corrupted millions of German children so that they became what they really are today, the blind instruments of that policy of murder and domination which these men have carried but." If this charge were justified I would not say a word in my defense. However, it is not justified; it is untrue. Whoever in any way takes into consideration the results of the evidence in this Trial, and honestly appraises it, can never under any circumstances raise the accusation against me that I "had corrupted the youth and poisoned their souls through my educational work." The principles and aims which I set for youth, and which were binding on the community which our youth built up with their own strength under my leadership, were the following: self-sacrificing love of the fatherland, the overcoming of social snobbery and class hatred, planned health supervision, physical training by means of hiking, games and sports, promotion of professional education, and particularly, comradely understanding with the youth of other countries. Ever since my own youth I have kept these principles and aims before my eyes as the ideals of a national German education. These principles and aims were not dictated to me by the Party or by the State, and if Hitler were present here this would be completely unimportant for my defense, because as German Youth Leader I do not appeal to his authority, but to my own. These educational principles, however, which were demonstrated a thousand times in all my speeches, writings, and directives, and to which as Reich Youth Leader I have always remained faithful, are, according to my firm conviction, the principles of every leader of youth who is conscious of his duty toward his people and its youth.
BALDUR VON SCHIRACH (Defendant): The achievements of our youth and its moral attitude have proved me right, and prove that it was never corrupt, and was not corrupted by me either. German youth was and is industrious and decent, honest and idealistic. In peace it contributed honorably toward its higher education, and in war it bravely did its duty towards our nation, for our German fatherland, to the utmost. In this hour, when I can speak for the last time to the Military Tribunal of the four victorious powers, I should like, with a clear conscience, to confirm the following on behalf of our German youth: that it is completely innocent of the abuses and degeneration of the Hitler regime which were established during this Trial, that it never wanted this war, and that neither in peace nor in war did it participate in any crimes. As the leader of German youth for many years, I know the development, the opinions, and the conduct of our younger generation. Who could know it better than I? I always had my friends amongst this youth; in their midst I was always happy and at all times I have been proud of them. I knew that in. all the years when I was Reich Youth Leader, in spite of the fact that its membership counted millions, the youth, as a matter of principle and without exception, kept itself apart from any actions of which it would have to be ashamed today. It knew nothing of the innumerable atrocities which were committed by Germans; and just as it knew of no wrongs, it did not wish any wrong. It cannot and must not be overlooked that even during the greatest embitterment of the period following the war, nobody could consider indicting the organization of German youth and its leaders as criminal. Unselfish comradeship in a youth movement which showed the greatest love for the poorest children of the people, loyalty to the homeland, pleasure in sport, and honest understanding with the youth of other nations, that was the aim of our youth and the content of its training from the first to the last day of my term as Reich Youth Leader.
BALDUR VON SCHIRACH (Defendant): This Youth has not deserved the hard fate which has come upon it. My personal fate is of secondary importance, but youth is the hope of our nation. And if I may express a wish in this last moment, then it is this: Will you, as judges, help to remove the distorted picture of German youth which the world still has today in many places and which cannot stand up under historical investigation? Tell the world in your judgment that the libellous writings of a Gregor Ziemer used by the Prosecution contain nothing but the evil slanders of a man who has extended his hatred against everything German to German youth also. Will you, as judges, also help so that the youth organizations of your nations will once more resume their co-operation with the German youth at the point where, through no fault of the younger generation, it was interrupted in 1939? With a grateful heart our youth has listened to the words of Lord Beveridge who has advocated, with farsightedness and passion, that German youth be declared free of guilt. Joyfully it will grasp the hand which is stretched out to it across the ruins and debris. May you, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, contribute through your judgment towards creating an atmosphere of mutual respect among the younger generation, an atmosphere which is free of hatred and revenge. That is my last request, a heartfelt request on behalf of our German youth!
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn. [ A recess was taken until 1400 hours. ] Afternoon Session
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has today received a further application from Dr. Seidl for a further examination of the condition of the Defendant Hess. As the Tribunal announced on 20 August, the Tribunal had received and considered the report of Captain G. M. Gilbert, dated 17 August, on the Defendant Hess; and it then considered it was unnecessary to have any further report. The Tribunal remains of that opinion, but will, of course, consider all the matters contained in Dr. Seidl's application, including the medical reports and the statement made by the Defendant Hess today. I now call upon the Defendant ...
DR. OTTO NELTE (Counsel for the Defendant Keitel): Mr. President, we have been informed that the High Tribunal considers this time suitable for submitting evidence which has not yet been formally introduced. In the session of 22 August 1946 ...
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, yes. The interrogatories which have come to hand, you mean?
DR. NELTE: Or affidavits which have been approved. In the court session of 22 August I was given permission to submit two affidavits by the Defendant Keitel and General Reinecke as soon as the translations were ready. In the meantime these translations have been made, and after discussing this matter, and with the agreement of the Prosecution, who have raised no objections and specifically expressed their approval through Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe in the session of 22 August, I shall submit two documents, K-26 and K-27, without reading them; and I ask the Tribunal to accept these two documents in evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, they will be considered.
DR. SERVATIUS: Mr. President, I have one more document to submit which has been granted me for the Political Leaders. It is an affidavit by Saqckel, PL-69. Then I also have an excerpt from the book entitled Party Statistics , which is connected with the estimate on the number of members, which I submitted to the Tribunal in a letter of 17 August. I have discussed this matter with the British Prosecution; and I ask permission to submit this page from that book also.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: In the case of Von Papen, I have my answer to the interrogatories sent to the Dutch Minister, Visser. It concerns Papen's efforts on behalf of peace in 1939, which the witness confirms. I should like 'to submit the answer as Exhibit Number 107.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dr. Kubuschok.