dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President, Your Honors: We have asked you to condemn the leaders responsible for the drama which has bathed the world in blood. Today, when we ask you to declare as criminal the organizations which served as instruments for their designs, we seek from your justice the moral condemnation of an entire coherent system, which has brought civilization into the gravest danger it has known since the collapse of the Roman world. And we attach as much importance to the sentence which we are asking for today as to the one which we requested yesterday. For, if we believe it necessary that the guilty should be punished, we think it no less salutary solemnly to remind those in power today, and who will be in power tomorrow, of the dictates of a moral law without which neither order nor peace can rule in the universe. Who does not see, in fact, that in the times in which we are living, when man's folly has made use of the prodigious progress of science and technology for the work of death, and when, as a philosopher has said "our civilization has equipped itself for suicide," the problems confronting the agony of the world are above all moral problems? "Humanity," says our great Bergson, "groans, half crushed by the weight of the progress it has made.... The increased body awaits the addition of a soul, and the machine requires a mystic faith." We know what it is, this mystic faith of which Bergson was thinking. It was there at the zenith of the Graeco-Roman civilization, when Cato the Elder, the wisest of the wise, wrote in his treatise on political economy: "One must know the right time to sell one's old oxen and one's old slaves," and introduced these two ideas of the individual person and human brotherhood into the world, which sufficed to convulse it.
M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): The person, that is to say, the spiritualized individual, no longer an isolated human being, a mere cipher in the political order, a cog in the economic gear, but man as a whole, body and soul-soul incarnate, no doubt, but, above all, a soul for the flowering of which society has been fashioned; social man, who finds his full development only in fraternal communion with his neighbor, man whose mission confers a dignity upon him which gives him the right to escape from every attempt at bondage or monopoly. It is this mystic faith which in the realm of politics has inspired all the written or traditional constitutions of all civilized nations ever since Great Britain, the mother of democracies, guaranteed to every free man, by virtue of Magna Charta and the Act of Habeas Corpus, that he should be "neither arrested nor imprisoned, except by the judgment of his peers delivered by the due process of the law." It is this faith which inspired the American Declaration of 1776: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men have been endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." It is that which inspired the French Declaration of 1791: "The representatives of the French people, constituting a National Assembly, considering that ignorance, forgetfulness, or contempt for the rights of man are the sole causes of common misfortunes and the corruption of governments, have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of man. Consequently, the National Assembly recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the protection of the Supreme Being, the following rights of the man, of the citizen." Does not the idea of the high dignity of the human individuality also inspire the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which, in Chapter X, proclaims "the fundamental rights and duties of citizens of the U.S.S.R.... without distinction as to nationality or race"?
M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): Finally, does not the' Charter of the United Nations, signed on 26 June 1945 at San Francisco by 51 nations, begin with this solemn declaration: "We, the Peoples of the United Nations, are resolved to preserve future generations from the scourge of war, which twice within the span of human life has inflicted indescribable sufferings on humanity, and to proclaim our faith in the fundamental rights of man, in the dignity and value of the human individual, in the equality of rights of men and women, as well as of nations, large and small...." Certain ones among us have been able to secularize this mystic faith as much as they desired. All of us recognize that it is Christianity's chief contribution to the world and that, extending its conquests slowly in the course of centuries, it has laid the foundations of world-wide civilization. It was against this mystic faith that Hitler, in the middle of the 20th century, attempted a violent reaction, by opposing' to it his barbarous ideology of race distinction, his primitive conception of social life regulated by biological laws alone. For he not only envisaged establishing the military domination of Germany in Europe, but his ambition was to impose on the world his "culture," which overthrows all the moral and intellectual foundations upon which the civilized world has rested ever since the dawn of the Christian era. For him the biological laws which govern animal communities are equally applicable to human communities, and first of all those of natural selection and the struggle for existence. So there could be no question of the autonomy of the human individual. Like the ant in the ant-heap, the individual exists only by and for the whole. The State is not made for the individual, but the individual for the State. So, also, there could be no question of pity, nor of brotherly love. Christianity, the religion of the degenerate and the sick, would be replaced by the new religion which recognizes no law but that of might, no duty but that of domination.
M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): This animal conception of human life, this "culture," this religion, is not the work of a philosopher propounding a new theory in the field of intellectual speculation, it is the work of a realist who puts it into practice. In the sphere of domestic policy it would order the purging of the German people of the elements which contaminate it, and the improvement of the race of blond Aryans. And so Jews would be driven out or exterminated. The abnormal, the sick, the weak, would be eliminated or at least sterilized. Youth, snatched at an early age from family life, would be trained by the State for its mission, which is "to make the world tremble." "I want," Hitler said to Rauschning, "I want to see in its eyes the gleam which one sees in the eyes of a stag." But by this he slanders the stag, which kills, no doubt, because it is hungry, because it is afraid, or because it is in rut, but which is not versed in the sadism of refined tortures. This conception of life is applied by Hitler to international relations. "A stronger race"--he writes in Mein Kampf --"will drive out the weaker ones, for the vital urge in its ultimate form will break down the absurd barriers of the so-called humanity of individuals, to make way for the humanity of Nature, which destroys the weak to give their place to the strong." And we know what crimes have been committed in the name of this new religion, how many dead the realization of this sham doctrine of life has cost: the concentration camps, the gas chambers, and the crematory ovens; the inoculations with viruses, the sterilizations, the vivisection practised on prisoners and deportees, the enslavement of peoples considered assimilable, and above all the methodical extermination of those alleged to be inferior, and, in short, "genocide"--all this is the monstrous fruit of the Hitlerite ideology. M. de Menthon was right when he said that the sin against the spirit is the fundamental vice of National Socialism, and the source of all the crimes committed in its name.
M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): And did not Louis Veuillot have the gift of prophecy when he wrote in his Parfums de Rome in 1871: "Germany, Germany, to whom heaven had-given so much! When thou shalt see the ghost of an emperor reappear, who will not wield the sword to protect justice and defend the ancient law, but who will call himself the emperor of the people and the sword of the new law.... then will be the hour of great expiation." We have shown who those were who were principally guilty of all the crimes of National Socialism. But to realize their diabolical plan of universal domination, not only of territories but of men's consciences, they needed collaborators inspired with the same faith, trained in the same school, and that is why the leaders, the "Fuehrer," conceived and brought into being, little by little, this complicated and coherent system of leadership, coercion, and control, which constitutes the whole of the organizations of the State and of the National Socialist Party. Executive bodies were necessary, from which emanated, by virtue of the "Fuehrerprinzip," general orders and directives; and they were the Reich Cabinet and the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. Instruments were needed for control, for propaganda, for Police and for the execution of orders, and they were the Gestapo, the SA, the SD, and the SS. Finally, it was necessary for the Army to be at the service of Party policy, and this was the work of the General Staff and the High Command, purged of all elements which were insufficiently nazified. It is possible that the members of these organizations, these groups or these services were more or less the fanatics of the regime, and the Tribunal will recall the plausible distinction made in the course of Ribbentrop's examination between the "pure Nazis" and those who were so only halfway. All had at least accepted the doctrine and the material advantages which the regime lavished upon them. Because certain of them made mental reservations are they less contemptible and less guilty?
M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): That all these organizations, these groups or these services contributed to the work of universal domination by every means has been abundantly proved in the course of these proceedings. Have not the defense counsel of the organizations constantly intervened during the interrogations of the individual defendants, and were not all of these defendants, in various capacities, members of one, and often of several, of these organizations, so that the close cooperation between the collective organizations and the men who are now in the dock has been indisputably established? After-these proceedings, which have been so thorough, and after the presentations of my eminent colleagues of the American and British Prosecution, I shall refrain from recalling once more the innumerable atrocities in which the groups or organizations enumerated in the Indictment have participated by ordering them, by committing them, or by permitting them. I should only like to reply, briefly to two of the arguments to which the Defense Counsel, and particularly those for the Gestapo, the SD and the High Command, appear to attach the greatest importance. It is possible, they say at first, that abuses were committed in the heat of the struggle, which had become pitiless in the course of the war which had become total, but, it was never a question of anything but individual crimes, which might involve the responsibility of the persons who committed them, but not that of the groups which censured them. Watertight compartments, says the Defense in the second place, separated the various organizations of the Reich. For this reason the activity of each organization should be examined separately and this examination does not reveal a criminal intention or activity in any of them. First argument: In order to determine whether or not an organization is criminal, it is necessary, says the Defense, to examine the essential principles of its structure. Now, there is nothing criminal in these.
M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): So that the crimes, should any have been committed, can only be attributed to individuals, and do not permit the conclusion to be drawn that the character of the group as a whole is criminal. Thus the Gestapo, according to the terms of its constitution, was a State Police, charged, like the police of all civilized states, with aiding in the work of justice and protecting the community against individuals who might threaten its security. It is possible that it may sometimes have received and carried out orders from above which were not directly relevant to its essential mission of protection, such as mass arrests of Jews, the extermination' of Russian prisoners of war, the murder of recaptured prisoners who had escaped. But such accidental activities did not fall within its competence as an institution. They would not alter the essential character of the organization which had nothing criminal about it. Thus the SD is constitutionally simply a service for obtaining information and sounding public opinion, a sort of Gallup poll, harmless in itself. It is possible that members of the SD accidentally collaborated in the repressive measures of the Gestapo. It is true that members of the SD held a number of high positions and indulged in a number of questionable activities, but they were not acting then as functionaries of the SD and could not compromise the organization, the institutional character of which had nothing criminal about it. Thus the High Command was charged institutionally only with the defense of the Reich, and solely with that defense. It did not deal with politics and had nothing to do with the Police. It is possible that it may sometimes have overstepped its mission. It is true that it signed orders to deport to an unknown destination those who resisted, to hand over to the Police for extermination the commandos and escaped prisoners, which was contrary to military honor, but it acted then merely as an intermediary for Hitler's or Himmler's orders.
M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): This accidental activity outside its own province could not change its essential character, which was not criminal in any way. Thus the Defense always tries to distinguish between the institutional character of the organization, which it believes it has shown to be non-criminal, and the practical activity of the group which, it admits, is open to criticism, a distinction which is understandable in a democratic regime, where pre-established institutions limit the arbitrary nature of governments, and the autonomy of the individual and the liberty of the citizen are protected from the misuse of power, but which is incomprehensible in the Hitler regime. Did Best, the police theorist, trouble himself about respecting a principle when he wrote that the methods of the Police are prescribed by the enemy? Does the decree of 28 February 1933 trouble itself about principle, when it allows the all-powerful state to ignore all legal restraints? Did Hitler make any distinction between principle and practice, when, at the conference of 23 May 1939 held in the Chancellery and attended by the members of the High Command, he stated: "The principle of avoiding the solution of problems by adaptation to circumstances must be banished. Rather must circumstances be adapted to necessities.... It is no longer a question of justice or injustice, but of the existence or nonexistence of 80 million people." In reality, under the Hitler regime no pre-established institutions, no legality, no limitation to arbitrariness, no excesses of power were possible. There is no other principle than the "Fuehrerprinzip," no other legality than the good pleasure of the chief, whose orders must be executed without any possible dissension all the way down the scale. The concept of a so-called institution which was supposed to have presided over the constitution of the collective organizations and given them a certain character, is merely an a posteriori construction originating in Defense Counsel's ingenuity.
M. AUGUSTE CHAMPETIER DE RIBES (Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic): The concrete activity of the collective organizations is the only thing which counts, and we have proved that it was criminal. Moreover, the Defense seeks grounds for the exculpation of the collective organizations in the fact that the members of the Gestapo, the SS, or the SD who indulged in these criminal acts did not perform them in the name of their original organization, but were temporarily detached from them. Has it not been proved, on the contrary, that in the general organization of the National Socialist system these groups played the role of reserves and preparatory schools from which the leaders, for their work of domination, drew executives who were perfectly prepared for the criminal deeds entrusted to them? And is not the fact that Hitler often conferred on his accomplices the dignity of honorary membership in one of these organizations also proof of the importance which he attached to the evidence of orthodoxy implied by membership of one or other of these groups? Thus, whatever point of view one may take, the first argument of the Defense cannot be maintained.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Champetier de Ribes, I think you can hardly finish your speech before the adjournment; I think perhaps we had better adjourn now.
M. CHAMPETIER DE RIBES: Yes, Sir. [A recess was taken until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has had an application from Dr. Stahmer on behalf of the Defendant Goering that certain affidavits offered in evidence by Dr. Laternser on behalf of the General Staff and High Command should be considered on behalf of the Defendant Goering. And the Tribunal, of course, will consider those affidavits on behalf of the Defendant Goering as it would consider all the rest of the record. Yes, M. Champetier de Ribes.
M. CHAMPETIER DE RIBES: Mr. President and Gentlemen, the Defense submits a second argument. The organizations, it says, were independent and did not know each other. Some were subject to the State, others to the Party; and State and Party were active in different domains. The various sections within the organizations themselves were watertight compartments and acted quite independently. And at the risk of sacrificing the most compromised cells, Defense Counsel are trying to clear from responsibility the greatest possible number of these supposedly isolated groups. But this argument is contradicted by all we know of the general organization of the Reich's administrative services. In establishing the personal responsibility of each individual defendant, M. Dubost showed that the close interlocking of the organizations and the services is beyond discussion. The National Socialist State is totalitarian. Its officials, as well as its services, derive their inspiration from a common ideology and pursue common aims. Unity of action is ensured by the penetration of the Party, the expression of the political will of the people, throughout the whole State machine. This unification of State and Party was effected by the law of 1 December 1933: "The National Socialist Party has become the representative of the conception of the German State and is indissolubly bound to the State." (Article 1.) Public services must cooperate with the Party services. In fact, this interpenetration and unification of State and Party was effected by the concentration into the same hands of the powers emanating from both. Hitler was simultaneously head of the State, the Army, and the Party. Himmler, as Chief of the SS, which is subject to the Party, was simultaneously head of the Police, which was subject to the State. The Gauleiter, Party functionaries, in most cases also represented the State in their capacity of Reich Governors or Chief Administrators of Prussia. The Chief of the Party Chancellery had a part in the elaboration of important laws and in appointing higher State officials.
M. CHAMPETIER DE RIBES: The law of 7 April 1933 provides for the purging of State officials suspected of insufficient devotion to the Party, and we know with what brutality this purging was carried out in the High Command. Thus, in their acts as in their writings, the interdependence of State, Party, and Army is realized to the fullest extent, and in the sum total of their activity it is impossible to distinguish what share of responsibility belongs to the one or to the other. Is it necessary to give examples of this? We have already furnished many and fear to weary the Tribunal. It will suffice to recall the close co-operation between the Gestapo, the SD, the SS, and the Army in the common elaboration of general instructions and in the execution of operations against resistance forces, reprisals against civil population, and the extermination of the Jews. Do we not find convincing proof of it in Hitler's instruction of 30 July 1944, which has frequently been quoted: "All acts of violence committed by non-German civilians in the occupied territories, against the Wehrmacht, the SS and the Police, and against the installations which they use, must, as acts of terror or sabotage, be fought in the following way: "a) The troops and each individual member of the Wehrmacht, SS, and Police must kill on the spot terrorists and saboteurs caught in the act. "b) Anyone caught afterwards must be transferred to the nearest local station of the Security Police and the Security Service..." (F-673). By mentioning the Wehrmacht, the SS, and the, Police three times, side by side, does not Hitler stress the close co-operation existing between these organizations? Is it necessary to recall once more Keitel's numerous instructions, Marshal Kesselring's order of 14 January - 1944, and General Von Brodowski's diary of operations, which place the Army at the disposal of the Police, or the Police at the disposal of the Army, for the savage repression of the resistance forces?
M. CHAMPETIER DE RIBES: Is it necessary to recall Keitel's orders to the commanding generals in France, Holland, and Belgium that the Army should participate in the pillage of art treasures organized and directed by Rosenberg? Did not, the witness Hoffmann--quoted by the Gestapo--declare to the Court on 1 August that the "Nacht und Nebel" decree was the work of collaboration between the High Command and the Ministry of Justice? The Defense therefore tries in vain to lessen these responsibilities by dividing them between the State and the Party agencies, between the so-called independent organizations. It is no more successful when it tries to establish the existence of watertight compartments separating within the same organization the various sections composing it. For example, whom does it expect to believe that the administrative officials of the SD (Security Service) and of the Gestapo were unaware of the vast scale of the deportations, when they had to solve the difficult problem of arranging the convoys; or that the maintenance offices could fail to know of the exterminations carried out by chemical means, when they had to repair the gas vans? In fact, all the departments of the Gestapo, the SD, the SS, and the High Command are jointly responsible for the crimes committed in common; and what is true of these organizations is true also of the Reich Cabinet and the Political Leaders, as has been shown by my honorable colleagues of the Prosecution. Are organizers less guilty than those who committed the deeds; is the brain less responsible than the arm? We therefore consider we have proved the joint culpability of all those organizations which we request you to declare as criminal. Does that mean that our purpose is to obtain from the competent tribunals the most severe sentences against all members of these organizations? Certainly not.