dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
CAPT. SPRECHER: We have seen only too frequently how the defeats suffered by the warmongers only doubled their senseless and impotent fury." Another broadcast of the 8th January 1944-Your Honors, I have tried to pick out illustrative broadcasts from different periods here: "It is revealed clearly once more that not a new system of government, not a young nationalism, and not a new and well-applied socialism brought about this war. The guilty ones are exclusively the Jews and the plutocrats. If discussion on the post-war problems brings this to light so clearly, we welcome it as a contribution for later discussions and also as a contribution to the fight we are waging now, for we refuse to believe that world history will entrust its future development to those powers which have brought about this war. This clique of Jews and plutocrats have invested their money in armaments and they had to see to it that they would get their interests and sinking funds; hence they unleashed this war." Concerning Jews, I had one last quotation from the year 1945. It is from a broadcast of the 13th of January 1945, found on Pages 2258 and 2259 of the BBC translations: "If Jewry provided a link between such divergent elements as plutocracy and Bolshevism and if Jewry was first able to work successfully in the democratic countries in preparing this war against Germany, it has by now placed itself unreservedly on the side of Bolshevism which, with its entirely mistaken slogans of racial freedom against racial hatred, has created the very conditions the Jewish race requires in its struggle for domination over other races." And then skipping a few lines in that quotation: "Not the last result of German resistance on all the fronts, so unexpected to the enemy, is the fruition of a development which began in the pre-war years, that is, the process of subordinating British policy to far-reaching Jewish points of view.
CAPT. SPRECHER: This development started long before this when Jewish emigrants from Germany commenced their warmongering against us from British and American soil." And then skipping several sentences and going to the last sentence on that page. "This whole attempt, aiming at the establishment of Jewish world domination, was obviously made at a time when the national- racial consciousness had been too far awakened to promise such an aim success." Your Honors, we suggest that that is an invitation to further persecution of the Jews and, indeed, to their elimination. Fritzsche also incited and encouraged ruthless measures against the peoples of the U.S.S.R. In his regular broadcasts Fritzsche's incitements against the peoples of the U.S.S.R. were often linked to, and were certainly as inflammatory as, his slanders against the Jews. If these slanders were not so tragic in their relation to the murder of millions of people, they would be comical, indeed ludicrous. It is ironic that the propaganda libels against the peoples of the U.S.S.R. concerning atrocities actually described some of the many atrocities committed by the German invaders, as we now well know. The following quotations are again taken from the BBC intercepted broadcasts and their translations, beginning shortly after the invasion of the U.S.S.R. in June 1941. The first one is taken again from Page 16 of our document book. I will read only the last half of Item 7, beginning with the third paragraph: "As can be sufficiently seen by letters reaching us from the front, from P.K. reporters"-and may I interrupt my quotation there to say that "P.K." stands for "Propaganda Kompanie," propaganda companies which were attached to the German Army wherever it went-"P.K.
CAPT. SPRECHER: reporters and soldiers on leave, in this struggle in the East not one political system is pitted against another, not one philosophy is fighting another, but culture, civilization, and human dignity have stood up against the diabolical principle of a subhuman world." And then another quote in the next paragraph: "It was only the Fuehrer's decision to strike in time that saved our homeland from the fate of being overrun by those subhuman creatures, and our men, women, and children from the unspeakable horror of becoming their prey." In the next broadcast I want to quote from 10th of July 1941, in the first paragraph Fritzsche speaks of the inhuman deeds committed in areas controlled by the Soviet Union, and he states that one, upon seeing the evidence of those deeds committed, comes- and here I quote: ". . . finally to make the holy resolve to lend one's assistance in the final destruction of those who are capable of such dastardly acts." And then quoting again, the last paragraph: "The Bolshevist agitators made no effort to deny that in towns, thousands, and in the villages, hundreds of corpses of men, women, and children have been found, who had been either killed or tortured to death. In spite of this Bolshevik agitators assert that this was not done by Soviet commissars but by German soldiers. But we know our German soldiers. No German women, fathers, or mothers require proofs that their husbands or their sons cannot have committed such atrocious acts." Evidence already in the Record, or shortly to be offered in this case by our Soviet colleagues, will prove that representatives of these Nazi conspirators did not hesitate to exterminate Soviet soldiers and civilians by scientific mass methods.
CAPT. SPRECHER: These inciting remarks by Fritzsche made him an accomplice in these crimes because his labeling of the Soviet peoples as members of a "subhuman world" seeking to "exterminate" the German people and similar desperate talk helped, by these propaganda diatribes, to fashion the psychological atmosphere of utter and complete unreason and the hatred which instigated and made possible these atrocities in the East. Although we cannot say that Fritzsche directed that 10,000 or 100,000 persons be exterminated, it is enough to pause on this question: Without these incitements of Fritzsche, how much harder it would have been for these conspirators to have effected the conditions which made possible the extermination of millions of people in the East.
THE PRESIDENT: Would that be a convenient time to break off? [A recess was taken.]
CAPT. SPRECHER: Fritzsche encouraged, affirmed, and glorified the policy of the Nazi conspirators in ruthlessly exploiting the occupied countries. Again I read an excerpt from his radio broadcast of the 9th of October 1941, found at Pages 2102 and 2103 of the BBC translation. I would like to cut it down, but it is one of those long German sentences that just cannot be broken down: "Today we can only say: Blitzkrieg or not, this German thunderstorm has cleansed the atmosphere of Europe.
CAPT. SPRECHER: Certainly it is quite true that the dangers threatening us were eliminated one after the other with lightning speed but in these lightning blows which shattered England's allies on the continent, we saw not a proof of the weakness, but a proof of the strength and superiority of the Fuehrer's gift as a statesman and military leader; a proof of the German peoples' might; we saw the proof that no opponent can rival the courage, discipline, and readiness for sacrifice displayed by the German soldier, and we are particularly grateful for these lightning, incomparable victories, because-as the Fuehrer emphasized last Friday-they give us the possibility of embarking on the organization of Europe and on the lifting of the treasures"-I would like to repeat that-"lifting of the treasures of this old continent, already now in the middle of war, without its being necessary for millions and millions of German soldiers to be on guard, fighting day and night along this or that threatened frontier; and the possibilities of this continent are so rich that they suffice to supply all needs in peace or war." Concerning the exploitation of foreign countries, Fritzsche states himself, at Paragraph 39 of his affidavit: "The utilization of the productive capacity of the occupied countries for the strengthening of the German war potential, I have openly and with praise pointed out, all the more so as the competent authorities put at my disposal much material, especially on the voluntary placement of manpower." Fritzsche was a credulous propagandist indeed if he gloriously praised the exploitation policy of the German Reich, chiefly or especially because the competent authorities gave him a sales talk on the voluntary placement of manpower. I come now to Fritzsche as the high commander of the entire German radio system. Fritzsche continued as the head of the German Press Division until after the conspirators had began the last of their aggressions.
CAPT. SPRECHER: In November 1942, Goebbels created a new position, that of Plenipotentiary for the Political Organization of the Greater German Radio, a position which Fritzsche was the first and the last to hold. In Paragraph 36, Document Number 3469-PS, the Fritzsche affidavit, Fritzsche narrates how the entire German radio and television system was organized under his supervision. That is at Page 29 of your document book. He states: "My office practically represented the high command of German radio." As special Plenipotentiary for the Political Organization of the Greater German Radio, Fritzsche issued orders to all the Reich propaganda offices by teletype. These were used first in conforming the entire radio apparatus of Germany to the desires of the conspirators. Goebbels customarily held an 11 o'clock conference with his closest collaborators within the Propaganda Ministry. When both Goebbels and his undersecretary, Dr. Naumann, were absent, Goebbels, after 1943, entrusted Fritzsche with the holding of this 11 o'clock press conference. In Document Number 3255-PS the Court will find Goebbels! praise of Fritzsche's broadcasts. This praise was given in Goebbels' introduction to a book by Fritzsche called, War to the War Mongers. I would like to offer the quotation in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-724, from the Rundfunk Archiv, at Page 18 of Your Honors' document book. This is Goebbels speaking: "Nobody knows better than I how much work is involved in those broadcasts, how many times they were dictated within the last minutes to find some minutes later a willing ear by the whole nation." So we have it from Goebbels himself that the entire German nation was prepared to lend willing ears to Fritzsche, after he had made his reputation on the radio. The rumor passed that Fritzsche was "His Master's Voice" (Die Stimme seines Herrn). This is certainly borne out by Fritzsche's functions. When Fritzsche spoke on the radio it was indeed plain to the German people that they were listening to the high command of the conspirators in this field.
CAPT. SPRECHER: Fritzsche is not being presented by the Prosecution as the type of conspirator who signed decrees or as the type of conspirator who sat in the inner councils planning all of the over-all grand strategy of these conspirators. The function of propaganda is, for the most part, apart from the field of such planning. The function of a propaganda agency is somewhat more analogous to an advertising agency or public relations department, the job of which is to sell the product and to win the market for the enterprise in question. Here the enterprise, we submit, was the Nazi conspiracy. In a conspiracy to commit fraud, -the gifted salesman of the conspiratorial group is quite as essential and quite as culpable as the master planners, even though he may not have contributed substantially to the formulation of all the basic strategy, but rather contributed to the artful execution of this strategy. In this case the Prosecution most emphatically contends that propaganda was a weapon of tremendous importance to this conspiracy. We further contend that the leading propagandists were major accomplices in this conspiracy, and further, that Fritzsche was a major propagandist. When Fritzsche entered the Propaganda Ministry, the most fabulous "lie factory" of all time, and thus attached himself to this conspiracy, he did this with a more open mind than most of these conspirators who had committed themselves at an 'earlier date, before the seizure of power. He was in a particularly strategic position to observe the frauds committed upon the German people and upon the world by these conspirators. The Tribunal will recall that in 1933, before Fritzsche took his party oath of unconditional obedience and subservience to the Fuehrer and thus abdicated his moral responsibility to these conspirators, he had observed at first hand the operations of the storm troopers and the Nazi race pattern in action.
CAPT. SPRECHER: When, notwithstanding this, Fritzsche undertook to bring the German news agencies in their entirety within fascist control, he learned from the inside, from Goebbels' own lips, much of the cynical intrigue and many of the bold lies against opposition groups within and without Germany. He observed, for example, the opposition journalists, a profession to which he had previously been attached, being forced out of existence, crushed to the ground, either absorbed or eliminated. He continued to support the conspiracy. He learned from day to day the art of intrigue and quackery in the process of perverting the German nation, and he grew in prestige and influence as he practiced this art. The Tribunal will also recall that Fritzsche had said that his predecessor Berndt fell from the leadership of the German Press Division partly because he overplayed his hand by the successful but blunt and overdone manipulation of the Sudetenland propaganda. Fritzsche stepped into the gap which had been caused by the loss of confidence of both the editors and the German people, and Fritzsche did his job well. No doubt Fritzsche was not as blunt as the man he succeeded; but Fritzsche's relative shrewdness and subtlety, his very ability to be more assuring and "to find," as Goebbels said, "the willing ears of the whole nation," these things made him the more useful accomplice of these conspirators. Nazi Germany and its press went into the actual phase of war operations with Fritzsche at the head of the particular propaganda instrument controlling the German press and German news, whether by the press or by radio. In 1942 when Fritzsche transferred from the field of the press to the field of radio, he was not removed for bungling but only because Goebbels then needed him most in the field of radio.
CAPT. SPRECHER: Fritzsche is not in the dock as a free journalist, but as an efficient, controlled Nazi propagandist, a propagandist who helped substantially to tighten the Nazi stranglehold over the German people, a propagandist who made the excesses of these conspirators more palatable to the consciences of the German people themselves, a propagandist who cynically proclaimed the barbarous racialism which is at the very heart of this conspiracy, a propagandist who coldly goaded humble Germans to blind fury against people they were told by him were subhuman and guilty of all the suffering of Germany, suffering which indeed these Nazis themselves had invited. In conclusion, I wish to say only this. Without the propaganda apparatus of the Nazi State it is clear that the world, including Germany, would not have suffered the catastrophe of these years; and it is because of Fritzsche's able role on behalf of the Nazi conspirators and their deceitful and barbarous practices in connection with the conspiracy that he is called to account before this International Tribunal.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom): May it please the Tribunal, it was intended that the next presentation would be by Colonel Griffith-Jones in the case of the Defendant Hess. I understand that the Tribunal has in mind that it might be better if that were left for the moment; if so, Major Harcourt Barrington is prepared to make the presentation with regard to the Defendant Von Papen.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. We understood that the Defendant Hess's counsel could not be present today, and therefore it was better to go on with one of the others.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If your Lordship pleases, then Major Harcourt Barrington will deal with the presentation against the Defendant Von Papen.
MAJOR J. HARCOURT BARRINGTON (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): My Lord, I understand that the court interpreters have not got the proper papers and document books up here yet, but they can get them in a very few minutes. Would your Lordship prefer that I should go on or wait until they have got them?
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Go on then.
MAJOR BARRINGTON: May it please the Tribunal, it is my duty to present the case against the Defendant Von Papen. Before I begin I would like to say that the documents in the document books are arranged numerically and not in the order of presentation, and that the English document books are paged in red chalk at the bottom of the page.
THE PRESIDENT: Does that mean that the French and the Soviet are not?
MAJOR BARRINGTON: My Lord, we did not prepare French and Soviet document books.
THE PRESIDENT: Major Barrington, the French members of the Tribunal have no document books at all.
MAJOR BARRINGTON: My Lord, there should be a German document book for the French member. I understand it is now being fetched. Should I wait until it arrives?
THE PRESIDENT: I think you can go on.
MAJOR BARRINGTON: The Defendant Papen is charged primarily with the guilt of conspiracy, and the proof of this charge of conspiracy will emerge automatically from the proof of the four allegations specified in Appendix A of the Indictment . These are as follows: (1) He promoted the accession of the Nazi conspirators to power. (2) He participated in the consolidation of their control over Germany. (3) He promoted the preparations for war. (4) He participated in the political planning and preparation of the Nazi conspirators for wars of aggression, et cetera. Broadly speaking, the case against Von Papen covers the period from the 1st of June 1932 to the conclusion of the Anschluss in March 1938. So far in this Trial, almost the only evidence specifically implicating Von Papen has been evidence in regard to his activities in Austria. This evidence need only be summarized now. But if the case against Von Papen rested on Austria alone, the Prosecution would be in the position of relying on a period during which the essence of his task was studied plausibility and in which his whole purpose was to clothe his operations with a cloak of sincerity and innocent respectability. It is therefore desirable to put the evidence already given in its true perspective by showing in addition the active and prominent part he played for the Nazis before he went to Austria. Papen himself claims to have rejected many times Hitler's request that he should actually join the Nazi Party. Until 1938 this may indeed have been true, for he was shrewd enough to see the advantage of maintaining, at least outwardly, his personal independence. It will be my object to show that, despite his facade of independence, Papen was an ardent member of this conspiracy and, in spite of warnings and rebuffs, was unable. to resist its fascination. In the submission of the Prosecution, the key to Von Papen's activities is that, although perhaps not a typical Nazi, he was an unscrupulous political opportunist and ready to fall in with the Nazis when it suited him.
MAJOR BARRINGTON: He was not unpracticed in duplicity and viewed with an apparent indifference the contradictions and betrayals which his duplicity inevitably involved. One of his chief weapons was fraudulent assurance. Before dealing with the specific charges, I will refer to Document 2902-PS, which is on Page 38 of the English document book, and I put it in as Exhibit GB-233. This is Von Papen's own signed statement showing his appointments. It is not in chronological order, but I will read the relevant parts as they come. I need not read the whole of it. The Tribunal Will note that this statement is written by Dr. Kubuschok, Counsel for Von Papen, although it is signed by Von Papen himself. Paragraph 1: "Von Papen many times rejected Hitler's request to join the NSDAP. Hitler simply sent him the Golden Party Badge. In my opinion, legally speaking, he did not thereby become a member of the Party." Interposing there, My Lord, the fact that he was officially regarded as having become a member in 1938 will be shown by a document which I shall refer to later. Going on to Paragraph 2: "From 1933 to 1945 Von Papen was a member of the Reichstag." Paragraph 3: "Von Papen was Reich Chancellor from the 1st of June 1932 to the 17th of November 1932. He carried on the duties of Reich Chancellor until his successor took office-until the 2d of December 1932." Paragraph 4: "On the 30th of January 1933 Von Papen was appointed Vice Chancellor. From the 30th of June 1934"-which was the date of the Blood Purge----"he ceased to exercise official duties. On that day he was placed under arrest. Immediately after his release on the 3rd of July 1934 he went to the Reich Chancellery to hand in his resignation to Hitler." The rest of that paragraph I need not read. It is an argument which concerns the authenticity or otherwise of his signature as it appears in the Reichsgesetzblatt to certain decrees in August 1934. I am prepared to agree with his contention that his signature on those decrees may not have been correct and may have been a mistake. He admits holding office only to the 3rd of July 1934.
MAJOR BARRINGTON: He was, as the Tribunal will also remember, in virtue of being Reich Chancellor, a member of the Reich Cabinet. Going on to Paragraph 5: "On the 13th of November 1933, Von Papen became Plenipotentiary for the Saar. This office was terminated under the same circumstances described under Paragraph 4." The rest of the document I need not read. It concerns his appointments to Vienna and Ankara, which are matters of history. He was appointed Minister to Vienna on the 26th of July 1934, and recalled on the 4th of February 1938, and he was Ambassador in Ankara from April 1939 until August 1944. The first allegation against the Defendant Von Papen is that he used his personal influence to promote the accession of the Nazi conspirators to power. From the outset Von Papen was well aware of the Nazi program and Nazi methods. There can be no question of his having encouraged the Nazis through ignorance of these facts. The official NSDAP program was open and notorious; it had been published in Mein Kampf for many years; it had been published and republished in the Yearbook of the NSDAP and elsewhere. The Nazis made no secret of their intention to make it a fundamental law of the State. This has been dealt with in full at an earlier stage of the Trial. During 1932 Von Papen as Reich Chancellor was in a particularly good position to understand the Nazi purpose and methods; and in fact, he publicly acknowledged the Nazi menace. Take, for instance, his Munster speech on the 28th of August 1932. This is Document 3314-PS, on Page 49 of the English document book, and I now put it in as Exhibit GB-234, and I quote two extracts at the top of the page: "The licentiousness emanating from the appeal of the leader of the National Socialist movement does not comply very well with his claims to governmental power... I do not concede him the right to regard only the minority following his banner as the German nation -and to treat all other fellow countrymen as free game." Take also his Munich speech of the 13th of October 1932.