dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. LATERNSER: Regarding the attitude of the military leaders toward the rules of war and toward human laws, I refer to Affidavits Number 505 to 514. ^Furthermore, in this connection I refer to the following documents in 'my document book: 440-PS, Pages 105 and 106 of the document book; 2329-PS, Pages 105 to 112; C-119, Pages 116 to 119, and the announcements on Pages 120 to 141 which were valid in all theaters of war. Affidavit 531 is submitted to refute the accusation that the German military leaders tried to bring about an incident between Hungary and Russia by having German air planes with Soviet insignia attack Hungarian territory. The High Tribunal will remember this assertion, which is refuted in Affidavit 531 by the intelligence officer serving with the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe at that time. To refute the assertion that military orders were issued for the murder of enemy air crews who were shot down, I refer to Affidavits 652 to 659. 651 particularly shows that the Wehrmacht protected the airmen who were shot down-protected them against the excited population. The fact that lynching was condemned and rejected is evident from Affidavits 518, 519, and 520-a. Two of these affidavits refer to the Chiefs of the General Staff of the Air Force, General Koller and General Kreipe. In particular, Affidavit 520-a shows that General Kreipe officially took measures to punish civilians who used violence against aviators. Number 521 is an affidavit deposed by Lieutenant General Galland, who testifies that German fighter squadrons never received orders to carry on the fight against crew members who had parachuted from their planes. Affidavit 522 ...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, how do you think it helps the Tribunal for you to have made the statement which you have just made, when we have before us Affidavit Number 521, "General Galiand, 7 July 1946: no order was ever given for the combating of shot-down air crews." Now, do you really think that you have added anything to that?
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I intended to go into more detail on this point, but in consideration of the Tribunal's wishes I curtailed my remarks. This is the only reason. I shall conclude in a moment. I refer now to Affidavits Number 522 and 523, which also show rescue measures for enemy fliers. In conclusion, I should like to refer to Affidavits Number 3103 and 3106. In both of them, it is proved that the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau rescued the survivors of the British auxiliary cruiser Rawalpindi, even though that ship had sent out a radio call for help and fast ' British naval forces could have arrived and would have been in a position to cut off the return route of the German ships to the Bight of Heligoland. Affidavit 3106, deposed by Rear Admiral Peters, describes similar rescue measures of the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the spring of 1941, and also an incident in 1943 when a German U-boat was sent to Spitzbergen specially for the purpose of rescuing persons ,shipwrecked in that area. That concludes the submission of my documentary evidence. I should like to introduce the documents which have been translated, Numbers I to 4, 933, 935, 939, 1501, 508a, 508b, 513, and 514b. And finally, I should like to refer to my Document General Staff Number 1 dealing with the speech of Generaloberst Beek on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the foundation of the Military Academy, because this speech shows the attitude of the military leaders.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Bohm.
HERR BOHM: Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal, I should like, first of all, to submit an index showing that Document Books SA 1A, 1B, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are being submitted; I shall do that as soon as the originals are here. Then the index includes the transcripts of the Commission sessions, which refer to evidence on this subject before the Commission, affidavits for the General SA, namely, 21 affidavits which have been translated, and an additional 68 affidavits which were also deposed and were dealt with by the Commission, and 17,089 affidavits which have been summarized. Then affidavits for the SA which refer to members of the SA who came from the Stahlhelm, and the corresponding transcripts of the Commission's sessions. Also documents dealing with the mounted SA units, namely 72 affidavits, of which Numbers 1, 13, 21, 24, 29, 30, 64, 68, 70, 72, and 75 have been translated. Then an index which lists the individual affidavits deposed for the General SA, for the Stahlhelm, and for the SA Mounted Corps. I should like to submit this index.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you submitted it?
HERR BOHM: I shall submit this material, Mr. President, as , soon as I receive it, and I shall then call the attention of the High Tribunal to it. It will not take more than a few minutes. As the first part of my evidence I shall submit documents showing the legal measures taken by the National Socialist State to force the young generation to join the affiliated organizations of the Party. Document General SA-144 shows how members of the Evangelical youth organizations were individually forced into the Hitler Youth. A simple calculation shows that when these young people reached the age of 13, they were taken over by the Party and by the organizations affiliated with the Party, such as the SA. In order to lay 4old on youth, the Reich Government issued at the same time a decree concerning the creation of student associations in the universities of the Reich; on the basis of this decree the student associations received certain powers. That may be seen in Document SA-147. This document refers to Bavaria, but it applied to the whole of Germany; that is proved by Document SA-148, the so-called Prussian Students Rights Decree, the purpose of which clearly was the training of the students for their place in the national community and their training for military fitness. This decree was the basis for the directive concerning the creation of an SA Department for Universities-Document SA-156. This order, which in this, form applied to all universities in the Reich, compelled all students who were physically fit to serve in the SA. It is important to note that the students could not join up with the SA University Department, but had to join up with the local SA companies (Sturme). The SA University Department was later dissolved, but since the. students had to join the local SA companies, they remained in the SA. The obligation to serve in the SA was emphasized in every newspaper, as is shown by Document 150. This is an excerpt from the monthly periodical of the C.V., the Catholic German Youth associations.
HERR BOHM: These obligations however were not sufficient in the National Socialist State, and in the year 1936, all students in their first, second, and third semesters were taken over by the NS Students League, and, as Document SA-151 shows, the National Socialist Students League was given the task of seeing to it that all students belonged in addition to one of the affiliated organizations of the Party; as a result of this, great numbers of German students were again incorporated into the SA. In Document SA-159, we see the results of noncompliance with the directives of the SA University Department. It shows that study without membership in the SA or a similar formation was impossible. Document SA-164 shows that the first step of legal coercion was taken in Prussia. The document clearly shows that the Prussian Ministry of Science, Art, and Education ordered that service in the SA and the Labor Service was a condition for being admitted to the second teachers' examination. Document SA-165 gives evidence that in the year 1935 the Gazette of the7 Bavarian State Ministry of Education and Culture stated, on Page 56, that one of the conditions for study as a teacher was activity and service in an organization such as the SA. It is obvious that legal coercion was most marked in its effect on those who were economically weak. I want to prove this by submitting Document SA-167, in which service in the Labor Service and in the affiliated organizations is demanded. Document SA-170 shows that not even schoolboys, of the sixth class and upward in the high schools, were exempt from this compulsion to be active in the NSDAP or its formations. In the first part of my evidence I dealt with legal coercion in high schools and universities. I now come to the second part, the legal compulsion applied to recruits to the civil service. Document SA-162 shows that the law for the restoration of the professional civil service had turned out to be a much-feared discriminating law directed against the civil service.
HERR BOHM: Document 173, a commentary dealing with the German Civil Service Law of 1937, says on Page 66: "Of the young German official it must be required, if his physical condition permits, that he be a member of the SA or the SS." The development which was started by the law for the restoration of the professional civil service ended with the regulation concerning preliminary training for the career of a German civil servant. In Paragraph 2 of this directive-Document SA-176-it is stated: "Applicants must belong or have belonged to the Party or one of its formations." In this connection I should like to refer to Document SA-175; and as an exception I should like to deal at greater length with this document and quote from it: "At last each applicant for an official position can be required to belong to the Party or one of its formations. For the civil  servant should not only belong to the SA or to the SS, but should have been in the Hitler Youth as well, since, through the law of 1 December 1936, the Fuehrer has set for all German youth the goal that, in addition to being trained in the home and at school, physical, spiritual, and moral training in the spirit of National Socialism should be given in the Hitler Youth for service to the nation and to the national community." I should like to quote another passage briefly: "Thus the material content of the decree had its origin in the individual particles and was built up organically. This kind of refashioning of the law is in accord with the basic principles of the National Socialist State.
HERR BOHM: Its method is not that of the Weimar Constitution State which first issued pleasant sounding laws but was then unable to carry them out because the prerequisites were lacking, apart from the fact that the governmental agencies were too weak to carry them out; but the Government of the Third Reich first creates the actual conditions necessary for the carrying out of a governmental measure, and then issues the corresponding law." The period from- 1933 to 1939 was an epoch in which one law after the other appeared and one directive after the other was issued. I have incorporated only a few of these directives in my document book. Document SA-178 shows that apprentices in the Prussian State administration were to be taken only from National Socialist formations such as the SA and SS. As early as 1934, as Document SA-183 shows, a condition for being admitted to practical training in the advanced construction service was that the applicant be a member of a formation such as the SA. The same applied, as is shown in Document 165, in the case of the Reich Railways. One can say, to sum up, that the young generation, which was not old enough to vote in 1933, was forced into formations of the NSDAP through laws and directives. It cannot be regarded as an exception that the Reich Minister of Transport says in a letter, Document SA-186: "A special case prompts me to point out once more to all civil servants entering training courses for higher posts, as well as assessors and construction assessors already belonging to the administration, that they should take an active part in the Party or in one of its formations." This is not an exception involving the Reich Minister of Transport, but it is a typical case for all agencies of the Reich, of the states, communities, and other public institutions. We will see later that large parts of industry and trade were also affected b this so-called political co-ordination of the younger y generation.
HERR BOHM: Document SA-188 shows that the Reich Post Office, in all its employment regulations, required membership in the Party or its formations. The same can be seen in the Reich regulations for legal training, in Document SA-191. Document SA-194 shows that the Reich Minister of Justice was not satisfied with a formal membership, but demanded active participation in the Party or its formations, such as the SA. That the Police also did not make any exception, is shown in Document SA-196. Membership in the NSDA-P or one of its formations was a condition for entry into the police service. Document SA-197 is a collective order, and it concludes this array of directives in 1944. Documents SA-200, 201, 203, 208,'and 213 show that service in the SA was required of young personnel in the financial administration. It is regrettable ...
THE PRESIDENT: What is regrettable?
HERR BOHM: I beg your pardon!
THE PRESIDENT: Finish your sentence.
HERR BOHM: Yes, I shall submit all the documents, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now. [The Tribunal adjourned until 22 August at 1000 hours.]
HERR BOHM: Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal, yesterday I submitted some of the documents which prove that many people were forced into the SA through legal compulsion. I should now like to continue my presentation of evidence in that direction. Documents SA-200, 201, '203, 208, and 213 demand service for young personnel in the financial administration. It is regrettable that on account of the attitude of one of the occupying powers the witness Dr. Meder could not appear here. Defense counsel for the SA was able to correspond with him until it became known that he had been selected as a witness in this Trial. In spite of all the efforts of the General Secretary of this High Tribunal we have not succeeded in bringing this witness to Nuremberg from the Russian Zone. This witness had been called to testify that in the years 1936 to 1944, 14 Reich Finance Schools ... THE PRESIDENT [Interposing]: Dr. Bohm, we are hearing you now upon your documents; we are not hearing you upon the question of any difficulties there may have been in getting witnesses. Kindly go on.
HERR BOHM: The following are the Finance Schools which existed in the Reich: Herrsching, Ilmenau, Meersburg, Wo1lershof, Berlin, Molln, Feldkirch, Leipa, Leitmeritz, Bodenbach, Thom, Sigmaringen, and Boppard. Even private enterprises, to a large extent, requir6d membership in the HJ and the SA as a condition for employment. This is proved by Documents 215 and 216. Document SA-218 states that the directive of 3 October 1933 ...
THE PRESIDENT: You are going a little bit too fast; your light is flickering.
HERR BOHM: Very well, Mr. President, I shall try to speak more slowly. Document SA-218 states that the directive of 3 October 1933 ordered that the Auxiliary Engineer Service of the Technical Emergency Service was to be transferred into the SA. 22 Aug- 46 Document SA-220 deals with the question of whether expulsion from the SA was a reason for terminating an employment contract, and under certain circumstances the answer was "yes." A commentary on this point is furnished by Document 221, and quote: "The obligation under the oath sworn to the Fuehrer means that leaving the SA or any other association is absolutely impossible. Only physical unfitness or an assignment to special work elsewhere can warrant leaving the SA." This is an excerpt from the Handbook of the SA, published by permission of the Supreme SA Command. Document 222 also shows that expulsion from the Party or from its formations might result in loss of occupation. The fact that this was stated in a basic official directive of the Reich and Prussian Ministry of Justice explains why this attitude was adopted in practice. Therefore it is not surprising that even non-German quarters pointed out the existing coercion. As may be seen from Document SA-243, a Note of the Holy See dated 14 May 1934 reads: "The Holy See is aware of the extent to which freedom to make decisions is restricted in Germany today through the pressure brought to bear on officials, employees, workmen, scholars, even on the formerly free professions, in fact on almost 'all German citizens, by economic factors and by exploiting the anxieties for a bare existence."
THE PRESIDENT: Is it 243 in your Document Book?
HERR BOHM: 143, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
HERR BOHM: In the third part of my presentation of evidence, I should like to deal with the aims of the SA as they appeared to members of the SA who had no special leading position; thus, in keeping with the decision of the Tribunal of 13 March 1946, Paragraph 6, Figure 3, 1 shall quote testimony on behalf of the SA by members of the SA themselves. In Document 224, an excerpt of the periodical Der SA Fuehrer, a magazine for the SA, the term "Wehrtuchtigkeit" is defined as follows: "Instruction in the use of arms and the mastering of the weapons of war and their use will be given. to German men in the Wehrmacht by service and exercises." Document SA-224 shows clearly that the SA did not have anything to do with the Waffenschule (Military Training School), and it did not give military training to its members. This is also proved by Documents SA-225 and 226, again excerpts from the magazine Der SA Fuehrer, published by the Supreme SA Command. I quote: "In addition one can recognize the clear limits drawn between the tasks of the SA on the one hand, and those of the Wehrmacht on the other; these limits always have existed and always will exist. After the HJ, the SA only creates the necessary spiritual, mental, and physical preliminary conditions." Document 226 shows that Hitler was quite clearly and definitely opposed to giving the SA a military character, the character of a defense organization, of a militia or of a Free Corps. Document 229 shows that members of the SA could not have known of the criminal aims of the SA, as the Prosecution calls them, because already on 21 March 1925 the Rhineland Commission lifted the ban on the German Freedom Party and the National Socialist Party. How well Hitler knew how to lull the people to sleep is proved by his order of 1 July 1934, in which he gave to the R6hm Putsch a background entirely different from the real facts. Mr.
HERR BOHM: Jackson has said that members of the various formations could not be charged with joining the organizations, but were charged with remaining- in the organizations, once they knew-as they did-of the conditions in the concentration camps. In this connection I should like to- submit Document 250, in which one of the most prominent members of the Catholic Church in Munich, who spent many years in a concentration camp, deals with the question of whether the injustices which took place in the Third Reich were easily apparent. The document quite clearly shows that the answer was "no." I quote: "For eight years I collected everything available concerning National Socialist laws, decrees, police measures, information about injustices, acts of violence, infamy, crimes, blasphemies, persecution of the Church, murder, et cetera. Hundreds of pages of the book The Persecution of the Catholic Church, published in 1940, which I have already mentioned, come from my collection. It will carry all the more weight if I testify that as far as atrocities in concentration camps and crimes in the occupied territories were' concerned, I could discover and report practically nothing." How, then, could the things which have now come to light be discovered by an ordinary person who moreover would not have at his disposal the sources of information available to Prelate Neuh5usler? Now, I shall turn to the third part of the presentation of documents which deals with the assertion of the Prosecution that the SA was a terror organization. What the real facts regarding this so-called terror were may be seen from Documents 285, 286, and 287. The pamphlet quoting from the judgment of the State Tribunal of the Republic illustrates clearly that it was the KPI) (German Communist Party) which incited the people against the democratic republic; and that it was the KPD which propagated the class conflict. As is shown in Document 286, this incitement to class conflict was embodied in the so-called idea of world revolution.
HERR BOHM: In this connection I also submit Document 132, which describes how civil war was advocated by the KPD in 1921. The terroristic conflicts, therefore, originated with the political Left. Document SA-287, a judgment passed by the State Tribunal on 14 January 1925 against Link and his associates, shows that in this period of latent civil war the call to fight the Fascists, that is the NSDA-P and the Reichswehr, was made again and again. The fact that the SA was established for this reason, namely, as a protection against the Leftists, is shown in Documents 311 and 314. These are excerpts from Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf. Document SA-300, an excerpt from Gisevius's book, Until the Bitter End, also states that pressure from the Reds produced counterpressure from the Brown Shirts. Although these were very like times of civil war, even an opponent such as Herr Gisevius must admit, and this is evident from Document SA-301, that the National Socialist revolution claimed comparatively few victims. In Document SA-302, Herr Gisevius admits that when excesses did occur, it was on the whole just a very small clique which perpetrated them. May I quote: "They were the group staffs, their hired staff guards, and that gang of hooligans which can be found wherever mischief is afoot." Documents SA-304, 305, and 306 show how seriously Hitler, as the Supreme SA Leader, was determined to prevent a civil war. For that reason he repeatedly in his many proclamations demanded discipline. In this connection I would like to present the directive of 30 March 1931' as Document SA-306. It expressly says, in Figure 2: "Every Party member, regardless of his position in the Party, will be immediately excluded from the Party if he should venture either deliberately to violate the regulations of the emergency decrees, or to tolerate or approve such offenses." Document SA-312 deals with the directive forbidding terrorization of Jewish citizens. In the fifth part of my document book I have set forth the attitude of the SA with regard to the Church.