dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
STREICHER: Here in the Goering report is a reference to a statement of the deceased Party member, Holz. In that statement it is pointed out that Holz came to see me after that action, that he made a report about the action and likewise declared the action to be wrong; he said furthermore that now that this had happened, he considered it necessary to go further and Aryanize the property. The Goering report states that I then told Holz that could not be done and that I opposed it. Then it states further that Holz said to me that he still thought it would be right if one were to do it. We could then get out of it the means for the establishment of a Gau school. Holz also states that I said something like: "Well, Holz, if you believe you can do it, then go ahead and do it." I want to state here that what Party member Holz said is true. I was opposed at first; and then, acting on a sudden impulse, which I cannot understand today, I said, "Well, if you can do it, then go ahead and do it." I want to state that at that time when I said it, I did not believe at all that it was to be done or would be done; but it was done. The Reich Marshal, as Delegate for the Four Year Plan, later stated his position on it in Berlin, sharply rejecting it. Only at that time did I find out exactly how Holz accomplished this Aryanization. I had a talk with him, got into a serious dispute; and our friendly relations were broken off at that time. Holz volunteered in an armored unit, went to the front, and resigned as deputy. I returned from Berlin to Nuremberg, and later there appeared in Nuremberg a Police Inspector sent by the Reich Marshal in his capacity as Delegate for the Four Year Plan. He reported to me and asked me if I would agree to an investigation of the whole matter, and I stated that I would welcome the investigation. Then the investigation took place. The Aryanization was repealed, and it was established that Holz personally had not gotten any material advantage from it. Aryanization was then taken over by the State, repealed, and taken over.
STREICHER: I state frankly that in that affair I am at least guilty of negligence.
DR. MARX: Did you know that the amounts paid in the Aryanization of houses or real estate represented only about 20 percent, or even less, of the actual value?
STREICHER: Holz had not come to see me for weeks. He had carried on the Aryanization in the Labor Front Office with the expert there. Not until later, in Berlin during the meeting which the Reich Marshal held, did I learn of the real facts; and thus the dispute and the break between Holz and me came about, because I had to disapprove the manner in which the Aryanization had been handled.
DR. MARX: You are further accused of having had shares in the Mars Works at Nuremberg acquired at an extraordinarily low price, for purposes of enriching yourself and, in the course of this acquisition, of having exerted an undue pressure on the owner of the shares?
STREICHER: It says in the Goering report, literally, that I had instructed and in another place that I had given the order that the Mars shares be acquired for me. I state here that I neither instructed nor ordered anyone to acquire the Mars shares. The whole thing was like this. The director of my publishing house, who had power of attorney because I, personally, never in all the years bothered with financial or business matters, could do what he wanted. One day he came to see me with my adjutant. I do not recollect now whether the adjutant or the director of my publishing house was the one who spoke first. I was told the following: An attorney had called and said that the Mars shares were being offered for sale at an advantageous price. The director of my publishing house asked me whether I agreed. I stated that never in my life had I owned any shares, that I had never bothered about financial matters in my publishing house. If he thought that the stock should be bought, then he could do it. The shares were bought. It was the most serious breach of confidence ever committed against me by any Party comrade or employee. After a short time it turned out; that is, I was informed how these shares had been acquired. I found out that the owner had been threatened. When I found out under what conditions this stock purchase had been made, I gave the order at once to return the stock. In the Goering report it is noted that this return took place. Among the confiscated files of my publishing house there is an official statement about this affair which shows that these shares were returned. In this connection perhaps I may be permitted to say that my publishing house was located until the end of the war in a rented house. At the time of the Aryanization I was approached with the plan that an Aryanized house be acquired for my publishing firm. I refused that. I state here in conclusion that I have in my possession no Jewish property. When those demonstrations occurred in 1938, jewels had been brought into the Gau house. These pieces of jewelry were turned over to the police.
STREICHER: A man who was bearer of the honorary Party emblem was convicted and sentenced to 6 years penal servitude because he had given his sweetheart a ring and another piece of jewelry dating from that time. But I may add one thing: The guilt of this bearer of the Party emblem rests perhaps with those who gave the order: "Go into the Jewish houses." That man, as far as I knew him, had always been personally decent. Because of that order, he got into a position in which he committed a crime. I have finished what I wanted to say.
DR. MARX: Is it not true the allegations, made by the chief of the publishing firm Fink before the Party Court and also even before that, at a police interrogation, were different, in the main points, from your present statements?
STREICHER: The whole thing was that Fink, the publishing house manager, was called to police headquarters and interrogated. The police Chief was interested in the hearing since for many years he had been a friend of mine and of my family. Fink returned from the interrogation completely upset. He paced up and down in front of me and shouted, "I was threatened, I have made statements which are not true. I am blackguard. I am a criminal" A witness of that incident was my chauffeur. I calmed him down and told him, "I was called in for a hearing once, too. I was even imprisoned once. I will give you opportunity. . ."
THE PRESIDENT: Is it necessary to go into such detail in this matter?
DR MARX: Excuse me, Mr. President. Perhaps this is necessary, because in this very report reference is made to the testimony of Fink; and an attempt is made to prove with this that the explanation made by the Defendant Streicher is wrong, that he gave the order to purchase this stock, possibly under pressure, and that he approved of it, whereas he counters that he knew neither that these shares were to be bought at such a low price nor that blackmail was to be used. If this is taken for granted, then, of course, we can close the matter.
THE PRESIDENT: That is what he has already said. He has said that quite clearly, has he not? I was only suggesting that it was not necessary to go into such detail in the matter.
DR. MARX: Witness, it may be of some importance to state what the development of Der Stuermer has been since 1933, as far as circulation is concerned. Give us a short statement on the circulation of Der Stuermer , and then I shall put another question to you.
STREICHER: Der Stuermer appeared in 1923 in octave format, and in the beginning it had a circulation of 2,000 to 3,000 copies. In the course of time the circulation increased to 10,000. At that time Der Stuermer circulated-until 1933 really-only in Nuremberg, in my Gau, perhaps also in Southern Bavaria. The publisher was a bookseller and he worked first with one man, then with two. This is proof that the circulation was really small. In 1933-but I say this with certain reservations because it may be that the publisher did not always tell me the correct circulation figures and I had no written contract with him-I say with reservations, that in 1933 the circulation was 25,000 copies. In 1935 the publisher died; and at that time it was, I believe, 40,000. Then an expert took over the publishing house and organized it to cover all of Germany. The circulation increased then to 100,000, and went up as high as 600,000. It fluctuated, decreased, and then dropped during the war; I cannot say exactly but I believe it was about 150 000 to 200,000.
DR. MARX: You said that that new man organized the circulation to cover all of Germany. Was the Party machinery utilized in this, and were not industries and other offices-the German Labor Front, for instance-utilized in order to increase the circulation forcibly?
STREICHER: Well, the attitude of the Party was made manifest in a letter, which was sent to all Gaue, signed by Bormann. There it was expressly pointed out that Der Stuermer was not a Party organ and had nothing to do with the Party. Thereupon several Gauleiter saw this an occasion for ordering that Der Stuermer should not appear in their Gaue any more. Now it is clear that within the organizations there were Party members who, because of idealism or for other reasons, worked to increase the distribution of Der Stuermer . However, I myself, neither in writing nor orally, ever issued any order to any Party organization to support Der Stuermer .
DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, even before 1933 you came in contact with the courts on various occasions, both because of your articles and because of your attitude as evidenced in Der Stuermer . Would you give us a short statement as to how often that occurred and what consequences it had for you?
STREICHER: How often? I cannot answer that exactly now, but it was very often. I was frequently given a court summons. You ask me about the consequences. I was many times in prison, but I can say proudly that in the sentences it repeatedly stated "an incorruptible fanatic for the truth." That was the consequence of my activity as a speaker and writer, but perhaps it is important to add the following: I never was arraigned because of criminal charges, but only because of my anti-Semitic activity; and the charge was brought by an organization of citizens of the Jewish faith. The chairman filed charges repeatedly when we made a slip in speaking and thus exposed ourselves to prosecution on the basis of the laws and regulations existing at that time. But perhaps I may also point out here that the Jewish Justizrat, Dr. Suessheim, the Prosecuting Attorney, stated before the court here in this courtroom, "Your Honors, he is our inexorable enemy, but he is a fanatic for the truth. He is convinced of what he does; he is honest about it."
THE PRESIDENT: What years were they that you were repeatedly in jail?
STREICHER: That was, of course, before 1933. The first time I went to Landsberg, to prison, because I had taken part in the Hitler Putsch. Then I was sentenced to three and a half months in prison in Nuremberg, where I am now. Then I got three months...
THE PRESIDENT: You needn't bother with the details.
STREICHER: That is to say, before 1933 I was repeatedly given prison sentences or fined.
DR. MARX: Mr. President, the Goering report also mentions the fact that the Defendant Streicher was personally interested in various Jewish plants, allegedly in order to get some capital out of them. However, I am of the opinion that it is not essential to deal with these points. The same applies to the fact that the house on Lake of Constance was sold, and to whom. I do not know whether the defendant should make any statements about this here. In my opinion there is no cause to ask him any questions concerning that.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you could leave that and see whether it is taken up in cross-examination. If it is, then you may reexamine him.
DR. MARX: Yes, certainly. Mr. President, this concludes my questions to the defendant.
THE PRESIDENT: Do any members of defendants' counsel wish to ask questions of the defendant? [There was no response.] The Prosecution?
LIEUTENANT COLONEL J. M. G. GRIFFITH-JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): If the Tribunal please. When you handed over your Party to Hitler in 1922, did you know his policy and what was to become the policy of the Nazi Party?
STREICHER: The policy? First I should like to say, "no." At that time one could not speak of things which could not exist even as thoughts. The policy then was to create a new faith for the German people, that is, a faith which would deny the chaos and disorder and which would bring about a return to order.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: May I take it that, within a short course of time, you knew the policy, the policy according to the Party program and according to Mein Kampf ?
STREICHER: I did not need a Party program. I admit frankly that I never read it in its entirety. At that time programs were not important, but mass meetings...
THE PRESIDENT: That's not an answer to the question. The question was whether, a short time after 1922, you knew the policy as indicated in the Party program and in Mein Kampf .
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You knew, did you not, that the policy included the Anschluss with Austria? Can you answer that "yes" or "no''?
STREICHER: No. There was never any talk about Austria. I do not remember that the Fuehrer ever spoke about the fact that Austria should be annexed.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I only want you to answer my question. My question was: Did you know that the Fuehrer's policy was the annexation of Austria to Germany? I understand your answer to be "no." Is that correct?
STREICHER: That he intended it? No, that I did not know.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Did you know that he intended to take over Czechoslovakia or at least the Sudetenland?
STREICHER: No.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Did you know that from the beginning in Mein Kampf his ultimate objective was Lebensraum?
STREICHER: What I read in Mein Kampf is marked in red. The book has been confiscated. I only read that. I read only what concerns the Jewish question; I did not read anything else. However, that we had the objective of acquiring Lebensraum for our people, that goes without saying. I personally also had set myself the objective of contributing in some way to providing a future for the surplus children.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. May I take it that during the years 1922 and 1923, as editor and owner of Der Stuermer , and as a Gauleiter from 1925, you did everything you could to put the Nazi Party into power?
STREICHER: Yes; that is to be taken as a matter of course.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: And after 1933 did you continuously support and issue propaganda on behalf of the Nazi Party's policy?
STREICHER: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Not only in respect to the Jewish question, but to the foreign policy as well?
STREICHER: No, that is not correct. In Der Stuermer there is not a single article to be found which dealt with foreign policy. I devoted myself exclusively...
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That is quite enough. I am not going to occupy very much time with this matter. But I would ask you to look at Document Number D-802. My Lord, this is a new exhibit.
THE PRESIDENT: Which will be what?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Exhibit Number GB-327. My Lord, I am sorry, but the document seems to be missing for the moment. Perhaps I might read the extract. [Turning to the defendant.] Let me just read to you an extract from an article which you wrote in Der Stuermer of March 1938, immediately after the Anschluss with Austria. I want you to tell me whether or not you are advocating the Nazi policy in regard to Austria. "Our Lord is making provision that the power of the Jews may not extend to heaven itself. What was only a dream up to a few days ago has now become reality. The brother nation of Austria has returned home to the Reich." And then, a few lines farther down: "We are entering into glorious times, a Greater Germany without Jews." Do you say that you are not there issuing propaganda on behalf of the Nazi policy?
STREICHER: I did not indulge in propaganda politics, for Austria was already annexed. I just welcomed the fact. I did not need to make any more propaganda about it.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Perhaps you'll tell me what you mean by the "Greater Germany" that you are approaching. What Greater Germany are you approaching in March 1938, a Germany greater than it was after the Anschluss with Austria?
STREICHER: A Greater Germany, a living area in which all Germans, German-speaking people, people of German blood, can live together.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Do I understand that you are advocating Lebensraum, greater space, not yet owned by Germany?
STREICHER: Not at first, no. At first it was merely a question of Austria and Germany. The Austrians are Germans and, therefore, belong to a Greater Germany.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I won't argue with you. I will just ask you once more, what do you mean by the "Greater Germany" that you are approaching in March of 1938?
STREICHER: I have already explained, a Germany where all those can live and work together who speak German and have German blood.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Would you look at Document Number D-818, which will become Exhibit Number GB-328. Perhaps I can carry on. In November of 1938, after Munich, did you yourself personally send a telegram to Konrad Henlein, the leader of the Sudeten-German Party?
STREICHER: If it says so here, then it is true. I do not recall it.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Let me refresh your recollection as to what you said, "Without your courageous preparatory work the great task would not have succeeded." Are you there advocating and issuing propaganda in support of the policy of the Nazi Government?
STREICHER: I have to ask you again, would you please repeat your question?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I am asking you whether or not that telegram, which you sent to Konrad Henlein and reprinted in your newspaper under a picture of that gentleman-I am asking you whether or not that was propaganda in support of the Nazi policy, Nazi foreign policy?
STREICHER: I have to say the same to this as I said before. That was a telegram of greeting, of thanks. I did not have to make propaganda any more because the Munich Agreement had already taken place.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I put it to you and I'll leave it. I'll put it to you that throughout the years from 1933 until 1944 or 1945 you were in fact doing everything you could to support the policy of the Government, both domestically and in regard to its foreign affairs.
STREICHER: As far as possible within my field of activity, yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I want to turn now to the question of the Jews. May I remind you of the speech that you made on 1 April 1933, that is to say, the day of the boycott. My Lord, this will be found in the original document book, Document Number M-33. It was not actually put in before. It now becomes Exhibit Number GB-329. It is in the document book on Page 15, in the original document book which the Tribunal have. [Turning to the defendant.] Now, I give you the document book. If you want to see the original, you may do so in every case. [The document book was submitted to the defendant.] "For 14 years we have been crying to the German nation, 'German people, learn to recognize your true enemy,' and 14 years ago the German Philistines listened and then declared that we preached religious hatred. Today German people have awakened; even all over the world there is talk of the eternal Jews. Never since the beginning of the world and the creation of man has there been a nation which dared to fight against the nation of blood-suckers and extortioners who, for a thousand years, have spread all over the world." And then I go down to the last line of the next paragraph: "It was left to our Movement to expose the eternal Jew as a mass murderer." Is it right that for 14 years you had been repeating in Germany, "German people. learn to recognize your true enemy"?
STREICHER: I state first of all that what you have given me here has nothing to do with that. You have given me an article...
THE PRESIDENT: You are asked a question. You are asked whether it is true that for 14 years you had been repeating to Germany, "Learn to recognize your true enemy." Is that true?
STREICHER: Yes.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: And in doing so, is it true that you had been preaching religious hatred?
STREICHER: No.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you look at . . .
STREICHER: May I be permitted to make a statement concerning this answer? In my weekly, Der Stuermer , I repeatedly stated that for me the Jews are not a religious group but a race, a people.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: And do you think to call them "blood-suckers," "a nation of blood-suckers and extortioners"-do you think that's preaching hatred?
STREICHER: I beg your pardon. I have not understood you?
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: You may call them a race or a nation, whichever you like, now; but you were saying, on 1 April 1933, that they were a "nation of blood-suckers and extortioners." Do you call that preaching hatred?
STREICHER: That is a statement, the expression of a conviction which can be proved on the basis of historical facts.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Understand me. I did not ask you whether it was a fact or not. I am asking whether you called it preaching hatred. Your answer is "yes" or "no."
STREICHER: No, it is not preaching hatred; it is just a statement of facts.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you look two pages further on in that last document, M-33, and do you see the fourth paragraph from the end of the extract? That is Page 17 of the document book: "As long as I stand at the head of the struggle, this struggle will be conducted so honestly that the eternal Jew will derive no joy from it."
STREICHER: That I wrote; that was right.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: And you were, were you not, one of those who did stand and continue to stand at the head of that struggle?
STREICHER: Did I stand at the head? I am too modest a man for that. But I do claim to have declared my conviction and my knowledge clearly and unmistakably.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Why did you say that so long as you were at the head of it, the Jew would derive no joy from it?
STREICHER: Because I considered myself a man whom destiny had placed in a position to enlighten people on the Jewish question.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: And "enlightenment"-is that another word for persecution? Do you mean by "enlightenment," "persecution"?
STREICHER: I did not understand that.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Do you mean by "enlightenment" the word "persecution"? Is that why the Jew was to have no joy from it, from your enlightenment?
STREICHER: I ask to have the question repeated.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I can show it to you and we will repeat the question as loud as you want it. Do you mean by "enlightenment" the word "persecution"? Do you hear that?
STREICHER: I hear "enlightenment" and "production." I mean by "enlightenment" telling another person something which he does not yet know.