dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Surely there can be no serious doubt that the murder of 270,000 persons is a crime against humanity. 270,000 corpses may pale into insignificance beside the slaughter in the occupied territories and the concentration camps; it is, nevertheless, a crime of almost unimaginable proportions. Neither can there be any doubt that it was a crime committed in connection with aggressive war. From Bishop Wurm's letter to Frick on 19 July 1940 (M-152, GB-530) we learn that these murders were taking place on the orders of the Reich Defense Council. Goering, Keitel, Frick, Raeder, Funk, Hess, and Ribbentrop were members of the Reich Defense Council. When the Bishop wrote again on 5 September 1940, he stated: "If the leadership of the State is convinced that it is a question of an inevitable war measure, why does it not issue a decree with legal force?" (M-152, GE-530). The purpose of these crimes is clear, as it was clear to the Catholic population of Absberg whom the Ortsgruppenleiter reported as asserting: "The State must be in a bad way now or it could not happen that these poor people should simply be sent to their death solely in order that the means which until now have been used for the upkeep of these people may be made available for the prosecution of the war" (D-906). I merely remind the Tribunal in the shortest terms of Bormann's remarks as to similarly worded letters to various families; of the Gaustabsamtsleiter of Nuremberg demanding notification in a more clever form when 30,000 had been dispatched and four times as many were waiting; of the doubts of the Kreisleiter of Erlangen; of the grave difficulties as to notification which faced the Kreisleiter of Ansbach. Neither the Kreisleiter nor any of the others appear to have felt any concern at the fact that they themselves were actively supporting an administration conducting mass-murder. If their oath of allegiance to their Fuehrer absolved them from qualms of conscience, can it also acquit them of moral or criminal guilt?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Then, My Lord, if I might resume, after these matters contained in the intervening pages, on Page 35, Line 6. My Lord, I just want to show how it is related to the lower groups of the Political Leaders which we are considering. My Lord, that is after dealing with the various reports and objections to the murder of 270,000 persons on this excuse of euthanasia. Kreisleiter from all over Franconia were reporting in similar terms. The Kreisleiter from Lauf wrote to the Gaustabsamtsleiter: "The doctor also informed me that it was well known that the Commission consisted of one SS doctor and several subordinate doctors, that the patients were not even examined and that they only pronounced the verdict in accordance with the medical history noted down." Then Mrs. Marie Kehr lost two of her sisters in that way and wrote to ask the Reich Minister of the Interior under what decree they had been killed. The Defendant Frick's office passed the matter on to the Gaustabsamtsleiter in Nuremberg. I quote: "I request that you investigate whether Kehr is politically reliable, especially whether she does not have Church connections. In case this should be so, for my part there are no objections if you give Kehr the desired information orally." The Gaustabsamtsleiter passed that, letter on to the Kreisleiter. The Kreisleiter passed it on to the Ortsgruppenleiter, who reported--I quote: "That one can inform Mrs. Kehr. She is calm and circumspect." In February 1941 the Ortsgruppenleiter of Absberg reported on the "wildest scenes imaginable" which had occurred in his village when the local sanatorium had been cleared of patients. You may think his attitude was typical of the great mass of Political Leaders. I quote: "These incidents during this action, which is after all necessary, are to be condemned all the more because even Party members did not shrink from joining in the lamentations of the other weeping spectators....
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: It is even said that these poor victims--as they are regarded by the clergy and the religious inhabitants of Absberg--were taken to the Catholic Church for confession and communion shortly before their departure. It seems absolutely ridiculous to want to take away by an oral confession the possible sins of people some of whom completely lack all mental powers" (D-906). My Lord, it has become manifest during these proceedings that other Political Leaders share the views of that Ortsgruppenleiter as to the absurdity of any oral confession. It is unnecessary for me to remind you of the other reports, except to mention that in addition to the Gaustabsamtsleiter, the Kreisleiter, and the Ortsgruppenleiter, the Gauorganisationsleiter also becomes involved. The Leadership Corps was up to, its elbows in this bloody business. The Corps of Political Leaders take their share of responsibility for the mistreatment of prisoners of war. In September 1941 Bormann circulated to Gauleiter and Kreisleiter the regulations of the OKW for the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. From the receipt stamp of that document it appears that the Gauschulungsleiter was the official on the Gau staff chiefly concerned with these matters. You remember the directives contained in those regulations. They were based on the fact that "Bolshevism is the deadly enemy of Nazi Germany.... The Bolshevist soldier has therefore lost all claim to treatment as an honorable opponent in accordance with the Geneva Convention.... The feeling of pride and superiority of the German soldier ordered to guard Soviet prisoners of war must at all times be visible even in public.... The order for ruthless and energetic action must be given at the slightest indication of insubordination, especially in the case of Bolshevist fanatics.... With Soviet prisoners of war it is necessary already for reasons of discipline that the use of arms should be severe" (1519-PS, GB-525).
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: You will remember the special Einsatz; groups set up by the SD to screen Soviet prisoners of war in the prisoner-of-war camps in order to discover and eliminate their leaders and intelligentsia. These orders, circulated to Gauleiter and Kreisleiter, explain the purpose and the method of work of those special purpose units and state: "The Armed Forces must rid themselves of all elements among the prisoners of war which must be considered as the driving force of Bolshevism. The special conditions of the Eastern campaign demand special measures which can be carried out on their own responsibility free from bureaucratic and administrative influence" (1519-PS, GB-525). No Gauleiter or Kreisleiter can tell this Court that he did not know that Russian prisoners of war were being murdered. It was not only for their information that Political Leaders received these instructions. Bormann, writing to all Reichsleiter, Gauleiter, Verbaendefuehrer, and Kreisleiter in September 1944 emphasized: "The co-operation of the Party In the commitment of prisoners of war is inevitable. Therefore the officers assigned to the Prisoner-of-War Organization have been instructed to co-operate most closely with the Hoheitstraeger; the commanders at the prisoner-of-war camps have to detail immediately liaison officers to the Kreisleiters. Thus the opportunity will be afforded the Hoheitstraeger to alleviate existing difficulties locally, to exercise influence on the behavior of the guard units, and better to assimilate the commitment of the prisoners of war to the political and economic demands." It was to be the task of the Political Leaders to orientate both the guards and the plant owners "again and again politically and ideologically," and this was to be. done in co-operation with the DAF. It is unnecessary to repeat the evidence of the treatment of Russian and other prisoners of war employed by Krupp. The Political Leaders were as callous of their prisoner-of-war slaves when they died as they had been while they lived.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Gauleiter and Kreisleiter received from Bormann Frick's instructions for the burial of Soviet prisoners of war. Tarred paper was made to serve for coffins, no burial ceremonies or decorations of the graves were to be allowed, costs were to be kept as low as possible and the "transfer and burial is to be carried out unobtrusively; if a number of corpses have to be disposed of, the burial will be carried out in a communal grave" (D-163, USA-694). What did the last rites of those whom they had worked to death matter to the Nazi Government and its Political Leaders? They mattered just as much or just as little as any recognized form of simple decency or honor. As early as March 1940 Hess had circularized the Political Leaders with directives for behavior in case of landings of enemy planes or parachutists. You will remember the order, "Likewise enemy parachutists are immediately to be arrested or made harmless." In view of less ambiguous orders which were to follow and of the extraordinary precautions to maintain secrecy in respect of that order, can you now doubt what that somewhat ambiguous phrase was intended to convey? You remember that it was to be disseminated orally only to Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppenleiter, Zellen and Blockleiter. Transmittal of the order by official orders, poster, press, or radio was prohibited, and amongst the other precautions it was declared to be a State secret document. You will remember also that in addition to all the Hoheitstraeger being informed, the order went to the Reich Organization Directorate, the Reich Propaganda Directorate, and the Reich Student Leadership office, which each had their own representative included in the Amtsleiter of the Gau, Kreis, and Ortsgruppen staffs, and that it went also to SS Gruppenfuehrer Heydrich.
THE PRESIDENT: Sir David, would that be a good time to break off?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Yes, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn. [A recess was taken.]
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: In August 1943 Himmler instructed the Police that it was not their task to interfere in clashes between Germans and terror fliers (R-110, USA-333). Gauleiter were to be informed verbally. In May 1944 Goebbels was writing to the Voelkischer Beobachter that it was not bearable to use German Police to protect murderers. The next day Bormann directed all Gauleiter, VerbaendeFuehrer, Kreisleiter, and Ortsgruppenleiter that several instances had occurred in which aircraft crews who had bailed out or had made forced landings had been lynched on the spot by the incensed populace. I quote: "No police measures or criminal proceedings were invoked against the German civilians who participated in these incidents" (057-PS). It was hardly necessary for us, in order to understand the purpose of that letter, to have captured a Gauleiter's order taking advantage of the invitation that Bormann had extended. In February 1945 the Gauleiter for Westfalen-South expressly directed his Kreisleiter to encourage the lynching of Allied airmen: "Fighter bomber pilots"--he wrote--"who are shot down are on principle not to be protected against the indignation of the people. I expect from all police offices that they will refuse to lend their protection to these gangster types" (L-194). You will have seen Gauleiter Hoffmann's evidence before your Commissioners upon this matter and you will pay such attention to it as you think it deserves. Let me conclude this review of the evidence against the Corps of Political Leaders by reminding you of the evidence of two witnesses called in defense of the organization, Von Eberstein, whom you yourselves heard give evidence for the SS, and Wahl, a Gauleiter, who testified before your Commissioners. You know the evidence that all the Political Leaders have given as to concentration camps--that they had nothing to do with them, that they knew nothing of what was happening inside them. But what did the witness Eberstein tell you?
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: I quote from his evidence: "In the beginning of March 1945, the Gauleiter and Reich Defense Commissioner Giesler in Munich ordered me to come to him and demanded that I should influence the commandant of Dachau to the effect that when the American troops approached, the prisoners--there were 25,000 people there at the time--were to be shot. I refused this demand with indignation, and I pointed out that I could not give any orders to the commandant, whereupon Giesler said to me that he, as Reich Defense Commissioner, would see to it that the camp would be bombed by our own forces. I told him that I considered it impossible that any German Air Force commander would be willing to do this. Then Giesler said he would see to it that something would be put into the soup of the prisoners, that is, he threatened to poison them. On my own initiative I sent an inquiry to the Inspector of Concentration Camps by teletype and asked for a decision from Himmler as to what was to be done with the prisoners in case the American troops approached. Shortly thereafter the news came that the camps were to be surrendered to the enemy. I showed that to Giesler. He was quite indignant because I had frustrated his plans" (Record of 5 August 1946, Morning Session). And lastly, the witness Wahl, Gauleiter of Schwaben, gave this evidence: "Question: 'Witness, I was asking you about the conversation which you had with your wife on the question whether or not you should resign your position as Gauleiter. Isn't the implication to be drawn from that conversation this: that you were ashamed of what other Gauleiter were doing and that all around you you saw things going on which you disapproved and wanted to disassociate yourself from?' "Answer: 'Yes.' "Question: 'That is true, isn't it?' "Answer: 'Yes, that is true.'" And in answer to another question he said: "I want to stress the point that it is not my task and not my wish here to justify all the Gaue. Among the Gauleiter there were maniacs and bloodthirsty fools as everywhere else." I pass to the SA.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: Before dealing with the evidence against this organization, I would say a word upon the question of voluntary membership. Counsel for the SA has argued that membership was not voluntary; it is said that great pressure was brought to bear upon the German people to make them join one or other of the Nazi Party organizations and that, in the case of certain sections of the SA, not only was pressure brought to bear but membership was enforced by decree. On the evidence to which I shall draw your attention you may well think that if, as in certain cases, undoubtedly pressure was exerted upon individuals to join the Party, and in some cases, perhaps, to join this particular organization, the consequences of refusal as they have been pictured by the Defense are very much exaggerated. It is submitted that even if you accept without qualification the evidence of some of those witnesses as to particular cases of compulsion, the evidence which you have as to the organization as a whole is perfectly clear: the membership was from the first until the last voluntary; never was there at any time compulsion recognizable in law as such, either physical or as a result of legal decrees. Then, My Lord, I have set out, for the assistance of the Tribunal, the English law on compulsion. I do not intend to trouble the Tribunal with it for the moment. It takes the rest of Pages 4l and 42. If I might, My Lord, I should like to continue at the top of Page 43. The English law upon what constitutes physical compulsion sufficient to excuse crime has been clearly established for many years and is stated in Halsbury's "Laws of England" (Hailsham Edition, volume 9, Pages 23-24, Paragraph 20) in these words: "A person compelled by physical force to do an act which, if voluntarily done, would be a crime, is free from criminal responsibility, but the person compelling him is criminally liable. "The use of threats inducing a person, from present fear of death, to join with rebels is, it seems, an excuse, so long as the person is under the influence of such fear.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: "Subject to this exception, a person who commits a- crime when influenced by threats or 'moral force,' or by the confining of his person, or by violence not amounting to actual compulsion is not excused. Necessity, in the sense of compulsion arising from hunger or from imminent danger to a person's own life or property, is no excuse for crime." Let me shortly discuss the evidence upon this point. The General Service Regulations for the SA, published in 1933, laid it down that, I quote, "He who cannot or will not subordinate himself is not suited to the SA and has to withdraw" (2820-PS, USA-427). The Organization Book of 1940 states again, I quote: "Service with the SA is and remains voluntary.... As in recruitment for the SA no advantages may be promised and no pressure whatever may be exercised, the SA man should have the possibility to withdraw." The witness Juettner agreed with that statement as correct. He was asked: "Did it always remain a fundamental principle of the SA that membership should be voluntary?" and answered: "That was always the principle adhered to by the leadership." He was asked again: "If a man no longer agreed with the SA views, was he expected to withdraw?" and said: "Numerous men left the SA for a variety of reasons." By no stretch of imagination can the evidence given in respect of the Reiterkorps be said to constitute compulsion, physical or by decree. It is true that the original riding organizations were arbitrarily amalgamated into the SA, but as the witness Walle, called on behalf of this branch of the SA, himself admitted: "Membership in the SA was voluntary in 1933 and this did not change.... A man could resign from the Reiterkorps, but he had to give up his sport inasmuch as the riding installations were no longer at his disposal.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: "The Riders' Association"--he said--"submitted to the process of co-ordination because it enabled them to continue their athletic activity." You may think that it was during the years 1933 and 1934 that the activities of the SA were more obviously criminal to all the people of Germany than at any other time. How then can the loss of "sporting activities" constitute compulsion and afford an excuse for membership? Is the risk of the loss of a horse and stable to be regarded as legal justification for participation in murder? It should be remembered also that both in the case of the Reiterkorps and the Stahlhelm, although those organizations may have been amalgamated with the SA by legal decree, there is no evidence before you that the decrees contained one word which might be construed as compulsion upon individual members to take up membership in the SA. The Stahlhelm. is in much the same position as the Reiterkorps, except that the evidence that Juettner gave before the Commission is clearer still. Let me quote from the transcript of his evidence: "Question: 'There was nothing, was there, to stop a member of the Stahlhelm from withdrawing from the SA when the two organizations were combined in 1933?' "Answer: 'As far as I was concerned in my district no member of the Stahlhelm who did not desire to do so would have been compelled to join the SA.' "Question: 'And that goes generally for the whole of Germany, does it not?' "Answer: 'It is reported that there were instances in which members of the Stahlhelm agreed to transfer only because it was ordered.' "Question: 'But there is no instance where a man was forced to join or continue his membership?' "Answer: 'No, Sir.'" Almost pathetic evidence was given of the fate that awaited civil servants if they refused to join--refused to join not the SA, be it noted, but any Party organization.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: But the witness Boley, who himself gave this evidence, showed how exaggerated it was when he admitted to the Commissioner that in those offices in which he was, himself employed, only 18 percent of the civil servants had become members of the Party or of one of its organizations. And those offices were the Reich Finance Ministry and Reich Chancellery--the very heart of the Nazi Government. The witness Freiherr von Waldenfels is another outstanding example of how a German who had the character to stand up for what he believed to be right could continue to do so without any dire results. Himself a civil servant and a leading member of the Stahlhelm in 1933, he resigned on its amalgamation with the SA, refused to join the SA, the Party, or any other Party organization, yet nevertheless continued to hold his position until the end of the war. Evidence has been given by the Defense that university students were compelled by decree to become members of the SA. This contention has been supported by an order of the SA University Department in Munich, dated 16 April 1934, which is contained in the SA Defense Document Book. Upon that document I make two submissions. First, the reference to "SA service" does not connote membership of the SA but a course of training under SA direction; secondly, the sentence in Paragraph 3, "All newly matriculated students are therefore bound to join the SA," is not in accordance with the policy of the SA Leadership and does not represent the practice in universities generally. We have submitted to you another similar order issued by the SA University Department at Cologne 2 days before. When that order is read with the Munich order, it becomes apparent that this submission is well founded. Paragraph 1 of both orders is identical. All students are to be, I quote, "regimented by the SA University Department in order ... to be physically and mentally trained in a uniform manner in the spirit of the National Socialist revolution" (D-971).
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: In Paragraph 2 it is expressly stated that it is a matter of indifference whether they are members of the SA at all. Paragraph 3, while following the same form in both orders, differs essentially. In both cases the orders are said to be based upon the same decree of the Supreme SA Leadership of 27 March 1934. We have not seen that decree, but Paragraph 3 of the Cologne order makes it clear that membership of the SA was not intended to be compulsory as is suggested by the Munich order. It is evident also that the SA service with which both orders are concerned is something different and independent from membership in the organization. How can compulsory "SA service" mean compulsory SA membership when it is expressly stated that except during the 11 days from 25 April to 5 May there is a ban on the enrolment of new members? The next words in both orders mark the essential difference between the two. In Munich students "are therefore bound to join the SA," while in Cologne they are, I quote, "thereby offered the possibility of joining the SA." If the SA service, which was to be compulsory for all German students, connoted membership of the SA, there could be no question of "offering" them "the possibility" of joining. You may think that in Munich, the heart of National Socialism, the decree of the Supreme SA Leadership of 27 March was deliberately misinterpreted to suit the desire of a particularly fanatical Sturmfuehrer. On the face of the documents it is apparent that whatever was happening in Munich was not characteristic of every other university in Germany. Juettner confirms the case for the Prosecution.