dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR KUBUSCHOK: There was no change in the technical work of the committee when in April 1933, instead of the voluntary collaboration of individual experts from the ministries, every minister was obliged to send an expert to the commission. It was only for this purpose that the ministers grouped together to form the Reich Defense Council. This council never worked as a group or held consultations; the work was done in the same manner as hitherto on the Reich Defense Committee. A survey of the work it did can be found in the Mobilization Book for Civilian Authorities , published in 1939, which contained a list of the administrative measures to be taken by the civil authorities in case of a mobilization. The contents of the book in no way show an aggressive intent. The preparations that were made were obvious state security measures for the event of war. One cannot conclude either that a war of aggression was being planned because the work of the committee was kept secret. It is only natural and a generally accepted fact that measures for the defense of a country are not revealed to the public. The work of the Reich Defense Committee continued until the outbreak of the war. Nor did it change when the unpublished Reich Defense Law of 21 May 1935 finally gave a legal basis to the Reich Defense Council, which had been founded in April 1933 through an internal Cabinet decision. As the interrogation of Goering, Lammers, Schacht, Keitel, and Neurath has shown, this Reich Defense Council did not hold a single meeting. There was not a single conference, nor was the procedure of circulating questionnaires to consult members ever employed. It merely carried on the work of the Reich Defense Committee, which has already been discussed here. The Reich Defense Council was merely an over-all organization for the committee. By the Reich Defense Law of 21 May 1935 the position of the Plenipotentiary for War Economy was also created. He was given the right already in peacetime to secure the economic forces for the event of a war and to give directions to this end.
DR KUBUSCHOK: Actually, Schacht, as Plenipotentiary for War Economy, did not take any measures in his official capacity. In practice, already in 1936 these tasks were given to the Delegate for the Four Year Plan. Here again it must be pointed out that organizational and precautionary measures for the event of a war are an ordinary procedure. By themselves they cannot in any way be considered proof of aggressive intentions. To take economic measures for the event of a war was an absolute necessity for Germany, owing to her dangerously exposed economic and geographical position in the event of a war. One could not afford to await the outbreak of a war to make the organizational preparations, because an uncontrolled German industry would not have been able to survive in case of war. In condemning this purely defensive preparation the Prosecution stated that defensive measures were uncalled for because no country had the intention of attacking Germany. In answer to this, it must be pointed out that it is the responsibility of the leaders of a country, where vital questions are concerned, to take precautions for even the remotest eventualities. There is never a time when a country can completely exclude the possibility of sooner or later being drawn into a war from the outside. When changes came about in the leadership of the Armed Forces through Hitler's decree of 4 February 1938, it was not at first noticed, because the Reich Defense Council never met, that its personnel composition according to the Reich Defense Law of 1935 was no longer in line with the new decree. It was only when Keitel, as head of the council, pointed them out that these discrepancies were removed by the new Reich Defense Law of 4 September 1938, and at the same time -- in the Nazi regime people were generous as regards organizational matters and they went in for ballyhoo and boosting -- a huge apparatus was set up. The Reich Defense Council was remodeled; the committee suffered some change in its personnel.
DR KUBUSCHOK: In addition to the "Plenipotentiary for War Economy," a "Plenipotentiary for Administration" was created. Both of these, together with the Chief of the OKW, formed the "Three Man College"; and most of the other ministers were subordinated to them in separate groups. The whole apparatus, with the exception of the committee, was to start to function only after the outbreak of a war, when the extensive legislative powers of the "Three Man College" were also to become effective. However, when the war did break out, Hitler did not concern himself with these preparations on paper, but set up the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, which virtually replaced the organizations existing hitherto. Only later, when the legislative machine of the Council of Ministers was found to be too slow, did the authority of the "Three Man College" appear again, and decrees were based on its decisions. Even if it was the duty of the "Three Man College", just as generally it is the duty of every department, to have ready in its own particular field those measures which are necessary in a purely defensive sense, one cannot infer from this any aggressive intentions, or even consciousness of an approaching war. Such general war preparations are of necessity based on the supposition of the possibility of war. There is no indication in them of aggressive intentions. If there were, then one would be forced to the conclusion that every country was latently planning aggression, since no state can afford not to make such preparations. The "Three Man College" did not hold any conference until the outbreak of the war, and therefore could neither have worked towards a war nor made any plans for a war of aggression. The same is true of the Reich Defense Council.
DR KUBUSCHOK: It did meet twice, but how very unimportant these meetings were, and what is more, how little suited they were to the drawing-up of secret plans, is shown by the fact that of the 12 members of the council only a few were present, whereas there was a very large number of experts from the individual departments. The large number of persons who attended -- at one meeting about 40 and at the other as many as 70 -- would have made it impossible to discuss a subject which required to be handled so discreetly. As a matter of fact, the business of these two meetings was limited to the Defendant Goering's announcing part of the contents of the unpublished Reich Defense Law. Apart from that there were no meetings or written discussions with the members of the council. Therefore, in summing up it can only be said that an organization had been created for the event of a war, but that in practice it never functioned. If the purpose of this organization really had been the preparation of a war of aggression, then, in view of the great number of tasks which it would have been necessary to undertake because of the time factor, the organization would have had to start work already in peacetime. The "Law Concerning the Rebuilding of the Wehrmacht" of 16 March 1935 and the "Military Service Law" of 21 May 1935 have also been made the subject of argument by the Prosecution. I do not wish to discuss at this point whether these laws constitute a violation of the Versailles Treaty or not, since the only thing that is relevant for the judgment is whether the fact of the issue of these laws can be considered as proof of plans of aggression. The necessary publication of the entire contents of these laws alone shows that they were not the basis for such a plan. The limitation to a comparatively small number of divisions in the law of 16 March 1935 excludes any idea of a war of aggression. Neither is the introduction of compulsory military service an indication of a plan of aggression.
DR KUBUSCHOK: Compulsory military service was introduced, as in most countries, and apart from its resulting in an increase 9f fighting reserves, it undoubtedly also had certain non-material advantages. In order to judge these laws which concerned the military organization, it must be borne in mind that the introduction of compulsory military service in March 1935 called for a new set-up of the military organization. In previous years practically nothing had been planned in this field. It was not surprising, therefore, that a decree was now issued containing the principles required. This complete and necessary reshaping of an organization demanded the passing of the laws in question, but it provides no grounds for concluding that a war was being planned. As regards the question of whether all the Cabinet members were informed of the situation, we need not establish whether at the outbreak of war German armament was really ready for an attack or not. The legal basis -- it was only from this aspect that the majority of Cabinet members had to deal within their departments with questions of rearmament -- could give no comprehensive insight into the actual extent of rearmament. They were dependent upon whatever information was furnished them. Judging by the extent of the rearmament, the generals themselves were of the opinion that it could only have a defensive nature. Hitler himself told them nothing about any aim at an aggressive war. Finally, mention must be made of the law of 13 March 1938 which announced Austria's Anschluss to Germany. This law was not passed by all of the Cabinet members. The ministers had not previously been informed in any way of the march of events. They merely received word in the usual way about the entry of the troops. As regards the other laws brought up by the Prosecution, the idea that they should have any connection with the planning of a war of aggression is, in my opinion, so far-fetched that I need not go into them in detail. There are factual reasons for the creation of these laws which cannot be denied.
DR KUBUSCHOK: These are contained in the official preamble of the bills, as shown in my document book. These preambles were added to the bills in the course of circulation, and informed the ministers of the meaning and purpose of the law. Moreover, these laws were issued at a time when, as I have explained above, there was no longer any cohesion among the Cabinet members. This is especially true of those laws which were issued during the war and which have not been mentioned in detail by the Prosecution. At this period the Cabinet can no longer be considered as functioning collectively in any way. At that time the complete reorganization of the legislative procedure was already visible to the outside world by the fact that the essential laws were issued by the newly-created offices endowed with full legislative powers and set up for the different spheres of activity. Stress was laid on the Fuehrer decrees and the Fuehrer orders, especially as regards all fundamental and general political questions. From the very start, this excluded the ministers from any other functions save the purely departmental, subordinate work. The idea of a Cabinet working in unison, with the members making free decisions, had for a long time been nothing but a myth. Consequently, the responsibility for each individual law can be placed upon the individual minister or ministers who participated in making it, but not upon the Cabinet. The Prosecution sees in the activity of the Reich Cabinet the aim to commit the crimes mentioned in the Charter, more especially in the fact that a close connection existed between the highest Reich offices and the Party. Individual ministers are alleged to have held the highest Party offices. The "Law To Insure Unity of Party and State" is said to have brought about co-operation between the Party and the state offices. By this infiltration of the Party into Government leadership, Party ideas had actually become part and parcel of Government leadership.
DR KUBUSCHOK: In reality, neither the "Law To Insure Unity between Party and State" nor later decrees could secure full co-operation of the Government with the Party. It was here that the differences of opinion between the ministers and the leading Party offices were most marked. The ministers looked on their tasks in the administration as purely matters of State. The Party had to struggle constantly, supported by Hitler's decrees, to have a bigger say in the affairs of the state offices. The witness Schlegelberger has given a clear account of this. He declared that a considerable part of the work in the state offices, especially in the Ministry of Justice of which he himself was the head, was directed to warding off the repeated attempts of the Party offices to make their influence felt. We saw Fuehrer decrees which were supposed to accomplish this up till the very end of the war -- an indication that the Party never fully succeeded in its intended penetration into the Government administration. It is, therefore, not possible to follow the Prosecution in its claim that owing to the infiltration of the Party the state apparatus was really an instrument of the Party. In summing up I therefore come to the conclusion that the proceedings have in no way proved that collectively the members of the groups included in the Indictment ever desired a war of aggression and its criminal consequences as stated in the articles of the Charter, or that they even set it up as their goal and directed all their activities towards it. As long as it is at all possible to speak of a certain cohesion in the Cabinet, that is, until the death of Hindenburg in 1934, probably not even Hitler had any clear conception of this aim. Even if he himself had perhaps reckoned with this possibility and taken it into account in his decisions, nevertheless all the circumstances show that the group of people indicated here were the least suitable to be informed of such plans or even possibilities.
DR KUBUSCHOK: The fact that on 5 November 1937 Hitler did not consider he could have sufficient confidence in the Cabinet to reveal to it his intentions, that he made even greater efforts to divide the Cabinet and carried his secrecy so far as to withhold from the competent minister preparations which concerned a certain department, as in the case of Darre divulging them only to some expert official, shows quite plainly that collectively the Cabinet neither had knowledge of the alleged aim nor could have directed its activities towards it. If the theory of the Prosecution were correct, Hitler would have left the existing organization as it was and would not have completely reshuffled the key positions. His alleged loyal followers in the conspiracy, once the common plan had been conceived, would have been best suited to carry it out. Also, when we consider the persons forming the Cabinet, it seems absurd to imagine so close and intimate a collaboration between its members and Hitler. Here were men from the most widely divergent camps. The ministers of the individual departments, of whom some had been taken over by Hitler and others newly assigned, were not all of them his party followers. Most of them had had no close connection with him. It is impossible to explain psychologically how and when Hitler should have won over these people not only to share his Party ideas for the achievement of the common aim but also to commit the capital crimes of the Charter. Furthermore, we see a constant change in the composition of the Cabinet. People like Hugenberg, Papen, Schmidt, Eltz von Ruebenach, and Schacht left the Cabinet. All of them had differences with Hitler, some of which were for far less weighty reasons than the crimes mentioned in the Charter. But according to the Indictment all these people, from the very start of their activities as ministers, are alleged to have acquiesced blindly in the criminal plot.
DR KUBUSCHOK: Does it seem probable -- to mention only the case of Eltz von Ruebenach, which has been brought up by the Prosecution -- that when receiving the golden insignia of, the Party a man should express his religious scruples against Nazi ideas, if on. the other hand he was already involved in such-criminal aims and had worked for them for years? Is it not clear from his letter to Hitler that he had no doubts as to the integrity of the work of the, Cabinet? How could a man like Minister Popitz, who paid for his active opposition with his life as one of the conspirators in the plot of 20 July 1944, be connected with such aims and their attainment? The circle of persons mentioned in the Indictment under the conception of "Reich Cabinet" is small. It is precisely this fact which shows how dangerous it is to attempt to define the character of a group of persons, and at the same time of an individual, by means of the declaration sought by the Prosecution. The Indictment is directed particularly against the Secret Cabinet Council and the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich. I need say little about the Secret Cabinet Council. It never met, and so never took any decisions or displayed any activity. It was founded for personal reasons connected with the departure of the Foreign Minister Von Neurath. In this Cabinet council, which was merely called into being by a law, but which in reality was never active, it would not have been possible to elaborate or execute plans. The Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich had been founded by a decree of Hitler at the start of the war. It is incomprehensible to me on what grounds the Prosecution should single out this Council of Ministers in the Indictment as a separate institution within the framework of the Reich Cabinet. All its members belong to the Cabinet and, except for Lammers, they are all present in the dock.
DR KUBUSCHOK: It can therefore have no practical value for the declaration asked for with regard to the number of people accused, unless the Prosecution themselves have doubts as to the acceptance of their arguments concerning the Cabinet and want to insure the sentencing of at least this part of the Cabinet members, as a minimum of their Indictment. My arguments for the Reich Cabinet are equally valid for the Council of Ministers. Moreover, the Prosecution have omitted to make any statements in support of their assertion of participation in the Charter crimes. It is clear to me that the scope of this Trial makes it impossible to establish, even in the small circle of the Cabinet members, the intentions, acts, and motives of individual members. The precept in Article 9 of the Charter is not an inflexible precept. It should make provision for the inclusion of a greater number of persons. The case of the Reich Cabinet embraces a numerically small circle; 17 of them are present in the dock. Apart from these only 20 are still alive. It is quite possible by ordinary and legal means to form a clear judgment of their former activities, both objectively and subjectively, by separate proceedings. This is also necessary in view of their former important place in public life. To put all of them now into one category and by the verdict to outlaw all of them, including those members who are dead, and to deprive them in subsequent proceedings of an argument which would affect an essential part of their defense-for this there are no reasons of any practical nature. In the case of the Reich Cabinet, considerations of expediency should not lead to the sacrifice of the universal principles of legal life for the sake of practical requirements. Finally, I feel obliged to express the following idea which generally touches the problem of the organizations: Mr. Justice Jackson said that considerations of expediency could also influence the verdict asked for by the Prosecution. He believed that otherwise a great number of participants in the crimes would not be included.
DR KUBUSCHOK: Some of the anonymous perpetrators would perhaps remain in the background. He believes that one can also see a political reason for the verdict asked for in the principle that the "good ones" should be separated from the "bad ones." I have explained in my statements that a general condemnation of an organization would necessarily and ultimately include in the essential points a condemnation of possibly innocent persons, But is this sacrifice of the absolute principles of justice to considerations of political expediency really necessary, and can it be advocated? Anyhow, will it be possible to attain by this means what it is sought to establish for political reasons? The greater the circle of persons included in a verdict, the less dishonor does it bring to those affected. If several million members are declared criminals, and if one considers that the dependents and friends of these outlaws are also affected by such a declaration, I believe that whatever it is intended to attain by the separation of "good ones" and "bad ones" will not be accomplished. If the circle is extended in this manner, the person who judges first visualizes those persons who in his opinion neither did nor willed any wrong The desired result can be attained only if the circle of affected persons is limited to an extent which allows, even when judging critically, a just separation of really bad elements. The possibility of outlawing morally, and to some extent also physically, a part of the population from the body of the nation is numerically limited. I ask that this also be considered if one has in view the aim of a general appeasement. Neither do I believe that the verdict applied for is necessary in order to bring to punishment those wrong-doers who up till now have remained anonymous. Those who can be considered as wrongdoers have for the greater part been arrested. Their examination in the internment camps and in the denazification proceedings provides an easy way of determining the real culprits.
DR KUBUSCHOK: Therefore, if the condemnation of all members of an organization is not necessary in order to attain the desired aim, the encroachment on the security offered by the law, which such a condemnation necessarily entails, gives- rise to serious misgivings. One of the worst oppressions we in Germany suffered under the Nazi regime was the feeling of legal insecurity. We, who had to deal professionally with these matters, experienced daily what it means for a legal-minded person to know that there was no legal system based on fundamentals and codes to give the individual that protection which alone makes him a free person. This feeling of insecurity, this feeling that on the grounds of some consideration of political expediency one could be pounced upon at any hour by that system based upon violation of this primitive human right, weighed upon every German. Now that the whole situation has changed we all would like to think that these things have been abolished once and for all time. After the experience of the past we consider that the principle of justice in particular must be without compromise. One desires to live with the conviction that only he can lose his freedom whose criminal activity is established beyond question in a legal trial provided with all possible legal guarantees. That is why countless people look with eager expectation to the first tribunal which will help this principle to prevail, and be recognized by the world as an example-this principle which has been trampled under foot for years. All of us who were called to co-operate in these proceedings found this hope strengthened in all phases of the Trial. The Tribunal now faces the decision whether a verdict according to the motion of the Prosecution shall in effect include innocent people too. Representatives of the Prosecution have declared, of course, that by cautious use of the legal possibilities the number of persons to be subsequently prosecuted could be limited to include only such people as are really guilty.