dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: We won't go on with that. You know, do you not, that starting with the boycott which you led yourself in 1933, the Jews thereafter were, during the course of the years, deprived of the right to vote, deprived of holding any public office, excluded from the professions; demonstrations were conducted against them in 1938, they were fined a billion marks after that, they were forced to wear a yellow star, they had their own separate seats to sit on, and they had their houses and their businesses taken away from them. Do you call that "enlightenment"?
STREICHER: That has nothing to do with what I wrote, nothing to do with it. I did not issue the orders. I did not make the laws. I was not asked when laws were prepared. I had nothing to do with these laws and orders.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: But as those laws and orders were passed you were applauding them, and you were going on abusing the Jews and asking for more and more orders to be passed; isn't that a fact?
STREICHER: I ask to have put to me which law I applauded.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, you told the Tribunal yesterday, did you not: that you were responsible, you thought, for the Nuremberg Decrees, which you had been advocating for years before they came into force; isn't that a fact?
STREICHER: The Nuremberg Decrees? I did not make them. I was not asked beforehand, and I did not sign them either. But I state here that these laws are the same laws which the Jewish people have as their own. It is the greatest and most important act of legislation which a modern nation has at any time made for its protection.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that is the time to break off. [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom): My Lord, I wonder if the Tribunal would be good enough to consider setting aside a half hour some time for the discussion of the documents of the Defendant Von Schirach. We are ready to clear up outstanding points at any time that is suitable to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: [Turning to the defendant.] Now, I just want to ask you a few questions as to the part you played in the various actions against the Jews between 1933 and 1939. Will you look at Document M-6, which is at Page 20 in the document book that you have before you, Page 22 in the document book that the Tribunal have in English. It is Page 20 in the German document book; M-6, which is already Exhibit Number GB-170. Now, I just want to refer to what you said about the Nuremberg Decrees. You told us this morning that you thought when they had been passed that that was already the final solution of the Jewish question. Will you look at the paragraph beginning in the center of the page, "However, to those who believe... ": "However, to those who believe that the Jewish question has been finally solved and the matter thus settled for Germany by the Nuremberg Decrees, be it said that the battle continues-world Jewry itself is seeing to that anyhow-and we shall only get through this battle victoriously if every member of the German people knows that his very existence is at stake. The work of enlightenment carried on by the Party seems to me to be more necessary than ever today, even though many Party members seem to think that these matters are no longer real or urgent."
STREICHER: Yes, I wrote that.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: What do you mean by saying "the battle continues," if you have already solved the Jewish problem by the issuance of the Nuremberg Decrees?
STREICHER: I have already stated today that the solution of the Jewish problem was regarded by me as having to be solved, first of all, within the country and then in conjunction with other nations. Thus "the battle continues" means that in the International Anti-Semitic Union, which I had formed and which had representatives from all countries in it, the question was discussed as to what could be done from an international point of view to terminate the Jewish problem.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Are we, therefore, to take it that everything that you said and wrote after 1936 was in connection with an international problem and had nothing to do with the Jews in Germany as such?
STREICHER: Yes, mainly international, of course.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Let me just refer you to half way through the next paragraph, " Der Stuermer 's 15 years' work of enlightenment has already led an army of those who know, millions strong, to National Socialism." Is that so?
STREICHER: That is correct.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You see, you were telling the Tribunal this morning that up to 1933, and indeed afterwards, you said the circulation of your paper was only very small. Is it true, in fact, that your 15 years' work had led an army, millions strong, to National Socialism?
STREICHER: I have said today that the moment the press was politically co-ordinated, 3,000 daily newspapers were committed to the purpose of enlightenment about the Jewish problem. There were 3,000 daily papers ire addition to Der Stuermer .
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. I don't think you need go on. Let me just finish reading through that paragraph: "The continued work of Der Stuermer will help to insure that down to the last man every German will, with heart and hand, join the ranks of those whose aim it is to crush the head of the serpent Pan-Judah." Wait one moment, let me ask my question. There is nothing there about an international problem. You are addressing yourself to the German people, are you not?
STREICHER: In that article? Yes. And if that article was read abroad, then also to countries abroad, but as to the remark about crushing the serpent's head, that is a biblical expression.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you now let us discuss for a moment the breaking up of the synagogue in Nuremberg, which you have told about, on the 10th of August of 1938. Will you look at Page 41 of the book that you have in front of you, Page 42 of the English document book that the Tribunal has. Now we have heard your explanation of that breaking up of the synagogue. The Frankische Tageszeitung of the 11th of August states this; "In Nuremberg the synagogue is being demolished. Julius Streicher himself inaugurated this work by a speech lasting more than an hour and a half." Were you talking to the inhabitants of Nuremberg upon the architectural value of their city for an hour and a half on the 10th of August 1938?
STREICHER: I no longer know in detail what I said, but I refer to what you have remarked and what you find important. There was a branch of the Propaganda Ministry in Nuremberg. The young Regierungsrat had press conferences with the editors every day, and at that time he told the editors during a press conference that Streicher would speak and that the synagogue was being demolished and that this was to be kept secret.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I asked you, were you talking for that hour and a half on the architectural beauties of Nuremberg and not against the Jews? Is that what you are telling us?
STREICHER: That, too, of course.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: At the press conference to which you referred-you no doubt have seen the document; it is Page 40 of the Tribunal's document book-do you remember that it was arranged that the show should be staged in a big way, the show of pulling down the synagogue? What was the object of arranging the demonstration to demolish that synagogue in such a big way?
STREICHER: I was merely the speaker. What you are intimating here that was done by the representative of the Ministry of Propaganda; but I would not object to it if you decided to assume, let me put it like that, that I would naturally have been in favor of making a big show if I had been asked.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Let me just ask you now a word about the demonstrations which followed that in November of that year-My Lord, I refer to Page 43 of the document book; 42 of the German-as I understand it, you tell us that you disapproved of those demonstrations that took place and they took place without your knowledge or previous knowledge. Is that correct, "yes" or "no"?
STREICHER: Yes, it is correct.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I just want to remind you of what you said on the following day, the 10th of November. This is an account of what happened: "In Nuremberg and Fuerth there were demonstrations by the crowd against the Jewish gang of murderers. These lasted until the early hours of the morning." I now pass to the end of that paragraph: "After midnight the excitement of the public had reached its peak and a large crowd marched to the synagogues in Nuremberg and Fuerth and burned those two Jewish buildings where the murder of Germans had been preached." This is now what you say-it is on Page 44 of the document book, My Lord: "From the cradle on, the Jew is not taught as we are: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself' or 'If you are smitten on the left cheek offer then your right one.' No. He is told 'With the non-Jew you can do whatever you like.' He is even taught that the slaughtering of a non-Jew is an act pleasing to God. For 20 years we have been writing about this in Der Stuermer . For 20 years we have been preaching it throughout the world, and we have made millions recognize the truth." Does that sound as though you had disapproved of the demonstrations that had taken place the night before?
STREICHER: First of all I must state that the report, part of which you read, appeared in a daily paper. Thus I am not to be held responsible for this. If someone wrote that part of the populace rose up against the gang of murderers then that is in keeping with the order from the Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin; outwardly that action was described as a spontaneous demonstration of the populace . . .
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That does not answer my question. Does that passage that I have read sound as though you had disapproved of the demonstrations that had taken place the night before? Does it or does it not?
STREICHER: I was against that demonstration.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Just let me read on: "But we know that we have in our midst people who take pity on the Jews, people who are not worthy of living in this town, who are not worthy of belonging to this people, of whom you are a proud part." Why should it have been necessary for people to have had pity on the Jews, if you were not-you and the Nazi Party-persecuting them?
STREICHER: I have already pointed out today that I was forced, after this demonstration had taken place, to make a public comment and say that one should not have so much pity. I wanted to prove thereby that this was not a spontaneous action by the people; in other words, the matter does not speak against me; it speaks for me. The people, as I myself, were opposed to the demonstration and I found that I had cause to-should I say-get public opinion to the point where one might possibly not regard that action as something too severe.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: But, why, if you were opposed to it and if the people were opposed to it, should it have been your duty to try and convert them so that they should be in favor of that kind of thing? Why were you opposed to it and why should you try to turn them against the Jew?
STREICHER: I do not understand what you mean.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I understand you to say that you were opposed to these demonstrations and that the people also were opposed to the demonstrations; that, therefore, it was your duty to try to stir them up and make them in favor of the demonstrations after they had happened. Why should it have been your duty to do that?
STREICHER: Today one can perhaps say that this or that was my duty, but one must consider what those times were-the confusion that existed--that to make a quick decision, as one might have to in this courtroom, was quite impossible. What happened has happened. I was against it and the public too. What was written about it otherwise was done so for tactical reasons.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Were you in favor of the Aryanization of Jewish houses and businesses? Were you in favor of that or did you disapprove of that issue?
STREICHER: I have answered that question today in great detail, in connection with a statement of Party comrade Holz. I have stated and I repeat that my deputy came to me. . .
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Just stop for a moment, I don't want a speech. I asked you a question which you could answer "yes" or "no." Did you approve or disapprove of the system of Aryanization of Jewish businesses and houses?
STREICHER: One cannot answer that quickly with "yes" or "no." I have made it clear today, and you must allow me to explain it so that there is not any misunderstanding. My Party comrade. ..
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am not going to allow you to repeat it. I will go on if you are not prepared to answer that question. The Tribunal have heard it and I pass on.
STREICHER: I certainly want to answer it. After my Party comrades . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant...
STREICHER: After the Party comrades came...
THE PRESIDENT: You have refused to answer the question properly, a question to which you can give either an affirmative or a negative answer. Did you approve or did you not approve? You can give an answer to that and then you can give any explanation afterwards.
STREICHER: I personally was not for Aryanization. When Holz repeated that, giving as a reason that the houses had been pretty badly damaged, et cetera , that we might get material for a Gau (district) building, I said "All right, if you can do it, go ahead." I already stated today that this was carelessness on my part.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: There were in fact a very great number of Jewish businesses and houses Aryanized in Nuremberg and Franconia, were there not?
STREICHER: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Would you just look at a new exhibit, Document Number D-835, which becomes Exhibit GB-330. That is a list-it is an original document-it is a list of Jewish property in Nuremberg and Fuerth which was Aryanized. Have you seen that list or anything Like it before?
STREICHER: No.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, you can take it from me that that list contains the addresses of some 800 properties in Nuremberg and Fuerth which have been taken from the Jews and handed over to Aryans. Would you agree that that would be at least 800 houses in your city here that were Aryanized?
STREICHER: I do not know about it in detail; but I must establish something: I do not know-is that the official document? I have already stated today that my Party comrade Holz started Aryanizing. That was rescinded by Berlin. Then came the Aryanization carried out by the State. I could not have had any influence here, either, so that this was none of my business. This Aryanization, the expropriation of Jewish property, was ordered by Berlin.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, you mentioned this morning that you were a subscriber to a weekly newspaper called the Israelitisches Wochenblatt ; is that correct?
STREICHER: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: When did you start subscribing to that newspaper?
STREICHER: What did you say?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: At what date did you start subscribing to that newspaper?
STREICHER: I do not know.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, I have no doubt you can tell the Tribunal approximately. Have you always, since 1933, been a subscriber of that newspaper?
STREICHER: Well, I do not think I could have read every issue, since I traveled a great deal.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You were, as I think it is stated in this application of your wife to give evidence, a regular reader of it, were you not?
STREICHER: My friends, the editors, and I used to share in the reading of this paper.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: May I take it that between yourself and your editors-I don't say every copy was read-but it was regularly read from 1933 onwards; is that fair?
STREICHER: You cannot say "read regularly."
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: A large number of the copies that you subscribed for, which came weekly to you, were they read by yourself or by your editors?
STREICHER: Certainly.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, I want to turn to something else for a moment. I want to make myself perfectly clear to you.
DR. MARX: Mr. President, I should like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the document which has just been presented, "Confiscated Property and Real Estate," has the heading "Aryanization Department for Real Estate, Nuremberg." That cannot mean anything except that this document comes from the official department which was later set up for the confiscation of such real estate. But by no means can this be a document to prove that we are concerned here with the real estate Aryanized by Holz, subsequent to 9 November.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I accept that that may be so.
DR. MARX: I should like to ask, therefore, that the appropriate correction be made.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If I was mistaken in saying that those properties had been Aryanized, I would be right then, would I not, in saying that that list of properties was prepared by the Aryanization Department in Nuremberg for the purpose of Aryanizing them in the future? Would that be a fair statement to make?
STREICHER: No.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I won't pursue that matter any further. I want to make myself quite clear to you in what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that from 1939 onwards you set out to incite the German people to murder and to accept the fact of the murder of the Jewish race. Do you understand that?
STREICHER: That is not true.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: No doubt you will say it isn't true. I just wanted you to be quite clear on what my suggestion is going to be. I want you to look now at a bundle, which will be given to you, of extracts from Der Stuermer . You can see the originals which are in Court if you desire to do so, but it will save time if we use the document books there. Now, will you look at Page 3-A. For convenience, the pages in this bundle are all marked "A" to distinguish them from the numbers in the original document book.
THE PRESIDENT: Are they all in evidence?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: None of them are in evidence at the moment. Perhaps the most convenient way would be for me to put the actual documents in evidence together at the end, unless the Tribunal or the defendant desire to see any copies of them. I will give them numbers as I go along. Will you look at Page 3-A of that bundle, Document Number D-809, which becomes Exhibit Number GB-331: "The Jewish problem is not yet solved, nor will it be solved when one day the last Jew will have left Germany. Only when world Jewry has been annihilated, will it have been solved." Is that what you were working for when you say you were working for the international solution to this problem, an annihilation of world Jewry?
STREICHER: If that is how you understand "annihilation." That was written by my chief editor at the time. He says that the Jewish problem will not yet be solved when the last Jew will have left Germany. And when he suddenly says that only when world Jewry has been annihilated will it be solved, then he certainly may have meant that the power of world Jewry should be annihilated. But my Party comrade Holz did not think of mass killing or the possibility of mass killing.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: The German word used there is "vernichtet," is it not? Look at your copy. "Vernichtet" that means "to annihilate."
STREICHER: Today when you look back, you could interpret it like that, but not at that time.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well, we won't waste time because we have quite a number to look through. Will you look on to the next page. That was in January you were writing that. In April 1939, Document D-810, Exhibit GB-332, I refer only to the last two lines. This is an article again by your editor: "Then perhaps their graves will proclaim that this murderous and criminal people has, after all, met its deserved fate." What do you mean by "graves" there? Do you mean excluding them from the business of the world?
STREICHER: This is the first time that I have seen this article. That is the statement of opinion of a man who was probably looking ahead and making a play on words; but as far as I knew him, and as far as we discussed the Jewish problem, there was no question of mass extermination; we did not even think of it. Maybe it was his wish-I do not know-but anyway, that is the way it happened to be written.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Just turn over, will you now, to May 1939, Document Number D-811, Exhibit Number GB-333. I quote the last six lines: "There must be a punitive expedition against the Jews in Russia." This, of course, was before the Russian invasion. "There must be a punitive expedition against the Jews in Russia, a punitive expedition which will provide the same fate for them that every murderer and criminal must expect, death sentence and execution. The Jews in Russia must be killed. They must be utterly exterminated. Then the world will see that the end of the Jews is also the end of Bolshevism."
STREICHER: Who wrote that article?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: It is published in your Stuermer . We can find out, if necessary. It is not written by you, but it is published in your Der Stuermer ; and you have told the Tribunal that you accept responsibility for everything that was written in that newspaper.
STREICHER: All right, I assume responsibility; but I want to state that, here too, this is the private opinion of a man who in May 1939 could not have thought that ex nihilo -- for we had no soldiers-a "March to Russia" could be started. This is a theoretic and very strongly-worded expression of opinion of that anti-Semitic person.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: All I ask you about that is: Is that not advocating the murder of Jews, that article; if it is not, what is it advocating?
STREICHER: The whole article would have to be read so that I could tell what motives existed for writing something like that. I therefore ask you to make public the whole article. Then one can form a proper judgment.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, we'll go on. We won't waste time unless you really want to see the whole article. My Lord, if I perhaps might be allowed to put these documents in evidence. As Your Lordship will see, this bundle is a bundle of extracts from Der Stuermer .
DR. MARX: Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to make the following statements: A number of extracts from Der Stuermer have been mentioned here which have been put before me for the first time. Some of them are articles which have not been written by the defendant personally. Some are signed by Hiemer, and some by Holz, who was particularly radical in his manner of writing, and passages are being quoted which are perhaps taken out of context. I must ask, therefore, that I be afforded the opportunity of going over these extracts together with the Defendant Streicher. Otherwise, he might come to the conclusion that his defense is being made too difficult for him and that it is being made impossible for him to prepare himself appropriately.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, you will have an opportunity of checking up on these various extracts, and then you will be able to introduce, if necessary, any passages which explain the extracts. That is a matter which has been explained to defendants' counsel over and over again. Colonel Griffith-Jones, are there not certain of these extracts which are written or signed by the defendant?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, with Your Lordship's permission I will refer to some of them, but so that I should not have to refer to all of them, I was going to suggest that perhaps I might put them in and, if it is necessary, let the Tribunal know afterwards the numbers of them to save time.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I put the whole bundle in evidence and will not refer to all of them.