dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. FRITZ: I just wanted to make an application, Mr. President. If these three records are used for the findings, then I wish to make an application that at least one of these persons who were interrogated be brought here in person for the purpose of cross-examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Were you Meaning that you should see, or that we should examine, the whole of those three affidavits, or were you meaning that you wanted one of the people who made the affidavits to come here in order to give evidence and be crossexamined? Which do you mean?
DR. FRITZ: The latter, Mr. President. I should merely like to request that all three be summoned.
FRITZSCHE: All three. I can only ask to have all three called.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider your application.
DR. FRITZ: Apart from this, Mr. President, I do not wish to carry out any further redirect examination.
THE PRESIDENT: There is one thing, Defendant. You referred to the Commissar Decree, or order, and you spoke of it as though it were an order not to treat commissars as prisoners of war. That was not the order, was it? The order was to kill them.
FRITZSCHE: The order which I got to know about in the 6th Army was an order saying that commissars who had been captured should be shot.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. That is a very different thing from not being treated as prisoners of war. The answer you gave was that you imagined the Commissar Order came from Hitler, but it is a very different thing, an order not to treat commissars as ordinary prisoners of war and to kill 5 million Jews. That was not a fair comparison at all, was it?
FRITZSCHE: In this case I must admit that my way of expressing myself with reference to these commissars was not correct.
THE PRESIDENT: There is one other thing I want to ask you. In October 1939 this untruthful statement about the Athenia was published in a German newspaper. That is right, is it not?
FRITZSCHE: In October 1939? During the whole of September and October untruthful statements about the Athenia were made in the German press as well as on the German radio.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. But on the 23d of October 1939 a particularly untruthful statement attributing the sinking of the Athenia to Mr. Winston Churchill was made in a German newspaper. You told us about it.
FRITZSCHE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And you continued to broadcast referring to those alleged facts for some time, did you not?
FRITZSCHE: Of course, because at the time I was still under the impression that they were true and my. . .
THE PRESIDENT: That is what I wanted to ask you about. You had a naval liaison officer in your office?
FRITZSCHE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: What inquiries did you make?
FRITZSCHE: This naval officer was not actually the liaison officer between us 'end the High Command of the Navy. He was censorship officer for the entire Armed Forces. Nevertheless I naturally called on his services in connection with naval matters. And several times I ordered him, or rather, requested him to find out from the High Command of the Navy how the investigation of the Athenia case stood. The answer was always the same: "The position still is that no German submarine was near the place of the catastrophe."
THE PRESIDENT: And are you saying that that liaison officer of the Navy told you that after the 23d of October 1939?
FRITZSCHE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Did he continue to tell you that?
FRITZSCHE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: That is all. He may return to the dock. Yes, Dr. Fritz?
DR. FRITZ: Now, with the permission of the Tribunal, I should like to call the witness Herr Von Schirmeister. [The witness Von Schirmeister took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name, please?
MORITZ VON SCHIRMEISTER (Witness): Moritz von Schirmeister.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God-the Almighty and Omniscient-that I will speak the pure truth-and will withhold and add nothing. [The witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. FRITZ: Witness, before beginning your examination, I should like to ask you to make your answers quite general and as brief as possible. Will you please give the Tribunal very briefly some particulars of your career, so that the Tribunal may know more about you.
VON SCHIRMEISTER: I come from a family of officers and civil servants; studied theology for three terms; 10 years as a banking official, 5 of them in South America; then editor until my appointment in Berlin; on 1 October 1931 I became a member of the Party; SS Hauptsturmfuehrer in the Allgemeine SS; during the war four times a soldier; the last time from 31 July 1944 on; on 22 September 1944 prisoner of war in British hands; since then I have been in Great Britain.
DR. FRITZ: When I discussed the subject of your examination with you a few days ago, you told me that your former positive attitude toward National Socialism would not prevent you in any way from making truthful statements here, is that true?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: I have already told you that I believed in this cause, that I have sacrificed everything to it, that I have lost everything through it. It was very bitter for me. But today I know that I have served a bad cause. I have freed myself entirely of it. In my last camp in England I was permitted to assist in the reeducation of my comrades. There I was allowed to edit the camp newspaper. And if I only could, then I would help today to rebuild a democratic Germany.
DR. FRITZ: When did you become acquainted with the Defendant Fritzsche?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: On 1 July 1938.
DR. FRITZ: What were you at the time? What position were you to occupy?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: I was an editor in Braunschweig and I was called to the Ministry of Propaganda in order to become Dr. Goebbels' personal press expert.
DR. FRITZ: What position did you actually occupy in the Ministry of Propaganda?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Up to 1 July 1943 I was Dr. Goebbels' personal press expert; then I was personal expert to State Secretary Dr. Gutterer until 1 April 1944; then I went with him for 3 months to the UFI which was the controlling company of all film companies. Then, on 31 July 1944, I went to the front.
DR. FRITZ: Did you have daily contact with Dr. Goebbels?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Yes, since the outbreak of the war. Let me describe briefly what my main activities were.
DR. FRITZ: Very briefly, please.
VON SCHIRMEISTER: During the war I had to look through all the news and propaganda material coming in from enemy broadcasting stations and regularly submit extracts from it to Goebbels. These extracts formed the basis for Dr. Goebbels' propaganda instructions which he himself issued every morning. In the afternoon and evening I had to telephone them to the press section and radio section. So that during the war, except when my deputies took my place, I was with Dr. Goebbels in his apartment, I took my meals with him, slept in his house, accompanied him on journeys, and so on.
DR. FRITZ: What position did Fritzsche occupy at the time?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Herr Fritzsche in those days was the deputy chief in the department Home Press.
DR. FRITZ: Will you please describe the nature and importance of Fritzsche's position in the Propaganda Ministry also during the period which followed. Very briefly, please.
VON SCHIRMEISTER: I was to get acquainted with the work of the department Home Press. Conditions there were as bad as they could be. The chief, Herr Berndt, adopted undisguised table-thumping tactics. He went about barking out commands and sacking editors en masse. In ability and knowledge the officials in charge were 'inferior to the average editor. The only steadying influence was Herr Fritzsche; he was the only expert. He knew the needs and requirements of the press. On the one hand he had to mend the ' chine which Herr Berndt was constantly smashing and on the other hand he tried to replace inefficient officials in the organization with better ones.
DR. FRITZ: Would it be correct to say, therefore, that Defendant Fritzsche was not appointed as an exponent of the Party, but as an expert?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Only as an expert. The extremist Party men in the Ministry did not give Fritzsche his full due. But as an expert he was thee' end later the good spirit of the press.
DR. FRITZ: Was Fritzsche one of those collaborators in the Ministry who had regular conferences with Goebbels?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: These regular conferences had not yet begun to be held in those days, and Fritzsche did not partake in them in any case.
DR. FRITZ: So that he was not consulted until he became a department chief?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Yes; only as far as such conferences were taking place, but actually only since the outbreak of war.
DR. FRITZ: In what way did Dr. Goebbels confer with his associates?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: After the war broke out there were daily conferences at 1100 hours, which were presided over by Dr. Goebbels personally and at which he gave all necessary propaganda instructions. ,
DR. FRITZ: How many people attended these 11 o'clock meetings?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: At the beginning, that is to say, up to the beginning of the Russian campaign, about 20 people. Later the circle grew to about 50 people.
DR. FRITZ: Were there discussions during these conferences or was it more or less the giving out of orders?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: There was no discussion during these conferences. First of all, the liaison officer from the OKW would give a survey of the military situation and then Dr. Goebbels would give his instructions regarding propaganda, mostly for the press, the radio, and the newsreels.
DR. FRITZ: Who presided over the conferences when Dr. Goebbels was not present?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Normally the State Secretary.
DR. FRITZ: And who presided when the State Secretary was not there either?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Usually Herr Fritzsche, sometimes also the head of the foreign press department or the foreign department, but mostly Herr Fritzsche.
DR. FRITZ: Did Fritzsche in these cases give the daily propaganda instructions on his own initiative or how was that done?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: No; if the Minister was not in Berlin, he was kept informed about news material coming in from abroad. He would then give the instructions to me or to one of my deputies in the same way as he did during the conferences. I had to pass on these instructions by telephone. In Berlin they were taken down by stenographers and then read out during the conference verbatim as instructions coming from the Minister. By the way, this must be seen by the minutes of the meetings. They were always called "Instructions from the Minister."
DR. FRITZ: If Fritzsche used written instructions such as you have described, given by Dr. Goebbels, did he not try to clear up questions which Goebbels had not dealt with, by bringing them up for discussion?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: When Dr. Goebbels was farther away from Berlin, it might happen that the latest news did not reach him in time. In these cases Herr Fritzsche would bring things up for discussion, consider the pros and cons and then give instructions on his own initiative. That was then put down in writing; the Minister read it afterward and he either approved it or altered it.
DR. FRITZ: But then, surely apart from the big conferences with 30 or 50 people present at which Goebbels gave his instructions there must have been more confidential conferences as well.
VON SCHIRMEISTER: In the course of the morning, naturally, individual department chiefs also came for official discussions with the Minister.
DR. FRITZ: Was Fritzsche also called to these more confidential conferences?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Generally, no. The Minister used the conferences at which all departments were represented to summarize whatever he had to say for the press, radio, and newsreels. The heads of those departments whose special functions were not of interest to the others, came for individual conferences.
DR. FRITZ: How often was Herr Fritzsche consulted as compared with, say, the state secretaries-Hahnke, Gutterer, and Dr. Naumann?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: The state secretaries could always be present during these individual conferences and so could the personal advisers who were always there. Herr Fritzsche was very rarely present at these individual conferences.
DR. FRITZ: What was the position of the 12 department heads of the Ministry of Propaganda, one of whom was the Defendant Fritzsche?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: These department heads can be classified into experts on the one side, such as, for instance, the head of the budget department, Dr. Ott, and confirmed Party men on the other side as, for instance, Herr Berndt. Officially they had not a particle of the authority which was normally exercised by a department head in a ministry. It was generally known that the Minister was using them as tools and that when he did not need them any more he would throw them out. That did not apply to the department heads only. I remember the unworthy manner in which he threw out State Secretary Gutterer when he had enough of him.
DR. FRITZ: The Indictment accuses Fritzsche of having made of Germany's news agencies, radio, and press an instrument that played an important part in the hands of the so-called conspirators in carrying out their plans. Was Fritzsche responsible for the organization of the press in the National Socialist State and what can you say to this charge?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: When Herr Fritzsche entered the Ministry, this press department had been set up and organized for some time. Moreover, I can also say that even Dr. Goebbels himself cannot be regarded as belonging to this circle of conspirators as defined by the Indictment; for, after all, he did not want to drive us into war, but always advocated the conquest of countries without bloodshed.
DR. FRITZ: So that the organization was already set up when Fritzsche took over the department German Press in the winter of 1938-39?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Yes, already completely organized.
DR. FRITZ: As the head of that department was Fritzsche independent? If not, who was his superior?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Unfortunately Fritzsche was not only subordinate as department chief to Dr. Goebbels, but he also stood between two fires. On the other side there was the Reich Press Chief, Dr. Dietrich, and the entire German press knew about this discord between the two. Although Reich Press Chief, as State Secretary, was a staff member of the Ministry of Propaganda, nevertheless he demanded the right to be able to give orders independently in his capacity of Reich Press Chief. If, therefore, the Minister and the Reich Press Chief did not agree on a certain point, then it was the unfortunate chief of the department German Press who bore the brunt of this.
DR. FRITZ: In what way was Fritzsche active in the press organization? Did he tighten the fetters or did he try to loosen them?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: I have already said that Herr Fritzsche was the only, real expert of any caliber who worked in the press department. He knew the needs, the worries, and the requirements of the press. He knew that an editor could work only if you give him a certain amount of freedom, and thus always and at every opportunity he fought to have the fetters loosened. He did much more than was apparent to the outside world, for the Minister would make such and such a decision and the outside world would come to know only what the Minister wanted.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think he has answered the question?
DR. FRITZ: Did Dr. Goebbels have any objections to the way the press worked? Was it not aggressive enough for him? Please be very brief.
VON SCHIRMEISTER: No, it was not aggressive and not obdurate enough for him.
DR. FRITZ: And how did Fritzsche react to such demands both with reference to individual journalists and with reference to the newspapers as a whole?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Again and again, at every opportunity, both during the conferences presided over by the Minister and at private meetings with the Minister, he spoke on behalf of the press and the journalists and tried to represent their point of view to the Minister.
DR. FRITZ: Can you mention a few names of journalists . or papers whom Fritzsche tried to protect in the manner described?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Fritz, why should he give the names of individual journalists and papers? Isn't it too detailed to go into that?
DR. FRITZ: Very well; but Mr. President, may I, in that case, at least offer an affidavit in connection with this question as Document Number Fritzsche-5. It is in my Document Book Number 2 on Page 22. It comes from the editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung , Dr. Wendelin Hecht, and I should like to quote it very briefly: "I herewith make the following affidavit for submission to the International-Military Tribunal in Nuremberg: "1. It is true that the Defendant Hans Fritzsche also helped to protect the Frankfurter Zeitung for several years against a ban by withholding copies of the Frankfurter Zeitung from the Fuehrer's headquarters. "2. In the numerous attacks directed against the Frankfurter Zeitung because of its political attitude the Defendant Hans Fritzsche repeatedly intervened in favor of the continued publication of the Frankfurter Zeitung . "Leutkirch, 6 March 1946. Dr. Wendelin Hecht." What other influential persons, apart from Dr. Goebbels, were there in the Ministry of Propaganda?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: After State Secretary Hahnke's departure there was only one man in the Ministry of Propaganda who had any real influence on the Minister, only one man with whom Dr. Goebbels had some personal relations, and that was his first personal adviser, Dr. Naumann, who later became his state secretary.
DR. FRITZ: Did Fritzsche come to you frequently to learn more about the Minister's views because the Minister did not inform Defendant Fritzsche?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Very often, because Herr Fritzsche knew that I also had many private conversations with the Minister and he always complained that he was left in suspense and all at sea, and he asked me if I could not tell him the Minister's view about this or that matter. I did succeed in helping him by occasionally arranging for him to be invited by Dr. Goebbels to private meetings in which I spoke openly about Herr Fritzsche's needs.
DR. FRITZ: Did Goebbels keep the radio strictly under his own control?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: During the war the radio was for Dr. Goebbels the most important instrument of propaganda. He did not keep such a strict watch on any department as he did on the radio department. At meetings over which he presided he personally decided the most minute details of the artistic program...
DR. FRITZ: That is enough, Witness. Was Fritzsche really the leading man of German broadcasting, as he appeared to the outside world?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: By no means. The leading man was Dr. Goebbels himself. Apart from that, Fritzsche here again was between two stools, because on the other side demands came in from the Foreign Office with reference to foreign broadcasts.
DR. FRITZ: Was Fritzsche in his radio speeches perhaps too halfhearted for Dr. Goebbels?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: I myself, by order of the Minister, repeatedly had to reprimand Fritzsche, because the former claimed that his broadcasts were much too weak.
DR. FRITZ: Did Goebbels also praise him? And if so in what manner?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: If, as was often the case, the Minister did praise Fritzsche...
THE PRESIDENT: We haven't any interest in whether Goebbels praised him.
DR. FRITZ: Then another question: Did Defendant Fritzsche ever contradict the Minister?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Herr Fritzsche was one of the few people in the Ministry of Propaganda who did contradict the Minister, both during conferences and in his apartment. He was always calm and determined and often it had a certain effect.
DR. FRITZ: Mr. President, may I have your permission to draw your attention at this point to a document, an affidavit by Scharping, Document Number Fritzsche-2, which has already been mentioned frequently. It is at the end of Page 7 and the beginning of Page 8 in my Document Book Number 2. Might I perhaps quote one short sentence: "At the so-called ministerial conferences it was Fritzsche alone who contradicted Goebbels on political questions." Witness, who was responsible for the definitely false or exaggerated news in the German press during the Sudeten crisis?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: That was Alfred Ingemar Berndt, the head of the department. At that time he spent whole nights pouring over General Staff maps, directories, and lists of names, using them to fabricate atrocity reports from the Sudetenland. Herr Fritzsche watched this with anxiety. He came to me once and asked me' "What are we drifting into? Are we not drifting into war? If only we knew what they really want at the top and what is behind it all."
DR. FRITZ: And then another question on the same subject. Did Goebbels, in connection with any military or political actions, which were being carried out or were to be carried out, ever consult beforehand with the Defendant Fritzsche?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: Not only did he not consult with Herr Fritzsche, but with nobody at all. The Minister never had any such consultations.
DR. FRITZ: Fritzsche asserts that he did not hear of Dr. Goebbels' instigation of the anti-Semitic excesses in November 1938 until much later, a remark made by Dr. Goebbels himself. That does not sound very credible, because, after all, Defendant Fritzsche was a close associate of Dr. Goebbels. Can you give us an explanation?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: In 1938 certainly none of us in the Ministry realized that Dr. Goebbels was the instigator. During the night in question Dr. Goebbels was not in Berlin. As far as I remember, just before that he had been to see the Fuehrer and he was still in southern Germany. The conversation which you have just mentioned did not take place until the middle of the war. It took place at Lanke, where the Minister had a house and it was on an occasion when Herr Fritzsche had also been invited. Someone put the direct question to the Minister as to the cause of these excesses of November 1938. Thereupon Dr. Goebbels said that the National Socialist economic leadership had come to the conclusion that the elimination of Jewry from Germany's economy could not be carried out further...
DR. FRITZ: Witness, excuse me, that is enough. We have heard about it already today. Did Fritzsche later on-I believe it is supposed to have been in June 1944-talk to you about his general attitude toward the Jewish problem?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: In May or June 1944 I talked to Fritzsche in his apartment about the fact that on the day of these outrages he had said to me, "Schirmeister, can one participate in this sort of thing and still be a decent human being?" And then Herr Fritzsche said to me, "You know, I have really always been an anti-Semitic, but only in the sense that some of the Jews themselves also were." And he mentioned a Jewish newspaper, I believe the C. V. Zeitung . . .
DR. FRITZ: That is enough, Witness. Then how do you explain Fritzsche's anti-Semitic statements in various of his radio speeches?
VON SCHIRMEISTER: They had been ordered by the Minister. We had seen from the British press that a certain anti-Semitic current in Britain was growing, but a law in England stopped this from appearing in the British press. Now the Minister tried to find a common factor against which our propaganda abroad could be directed. This common factor was the Jew. To give support to the foreign propaganda by the Reich, Herr Fritzsche received orders that in Germany, too, he should touch upon this subject in some of his broadcasts.
THE PRESIDENT: How long do you think you will be in concluding the case of the Defendant Fritzsche?
DR. FRITZ: I think three-quarters of an hour at the most, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Well then, after that the Tribunal will continue the case of the Defendant Bormann until 1 o'clock tomorrow. [The Tribunal adjourned until 29 June 1946 at 1000 hours.]