Streicher, Rosenberg, and the Jews

The Nuremberg Transcripts

Thomas Dalton

Castle Hill Publishers

P.O. Box 243, Uckfield, TN22 9AW, UK

June 2020

Thomas Dalton:

Streicher, Rosenberg, and the Jews: The Nuremberg Transcripts

Uckfield, East Sussex: Castle Hill Publishers

PO Box 243, Uckfield, TN22 9AW, UK

June 2020

ISBN10: 1-59148-249-6 (print edition)

ISBN13: 978-1-59148-249-9 (print edition)

Published by Castle Hill Publishers

Manufactured worldwide

© 2020 by Thomas Dalton.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise.

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Set in Garamond

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE: “JUSTICE” AT NUREMBERG

The Structure of the IMT

“A Maelstrom of Incompetence”

Documenting the Trials

The Core of Holocaust Revisionism

Textual Edits and Commentary

CHAPTER TWO: THE NAZI “PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS”

CHAPTER THREE: THE CASE AGAINST ROSENBERG

CHAPTER FOUR: ROSENBERG’S DEFENSE

CHAPTER FIVE: TESTIMONY OF RUDOLF HÖSS

CHAPTER SIX: THE CASE AGAINST STREICHER

CHAPTER SEVEN: STREICHER’S DEFENSE (1)

CHAPTER EIGHT: STREICHER’S DEFENSE (2)

CHAPTER NINE: STREICHER’S DEFENSE (3)

CHAPTER TEN: CLOSING STATEMENTS

CHAPTER ELEVEN: VERDICTS, SENTENCES, and EXECUTIONS

CHAPTER TWELVE: AN EPILOGUE ON ETERNAL JUSTICE

Appendices

APPENDIX A: THE 25-POINT PROGRAM OF THE NSDAP

APPENDIX B: “THE JEWISH QUESTION IN EDUCATION” (“Die Judenfrage im Unterricht”)

APPENDIX C: ADOLF HITLER’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

Bibliography

Index

Holocaust Handbooks

Section One: General Overviews of the Holocaust

Section Two: Specific non-Auschwitz Studies

Section Three: Auschwitz Studies

Section Four: Witness Critique

CHAPTER ONE:
“JUSTICE” AT NUREMBERG

On 30 April 1945, with enemy forces closing
in on all sides, Adolf Hitler took his own life. The next day, his second-in-command, Joseph Goebbels, did the same. Thus ended the grand 12-year German experiment with National Socialism—a period that witnessed a defeated, demoralized, and economically ruined nation rise to the heights of global power and prestige, only to be crushed by the combined forces of the largest militaries in the world. Hitler’s visionary idealism had proven so successful, for so long, that it evoked the enmity of France, the UK, the US and the Soviet Union. His actions against European Jews provoked global Jewry to conspire in his defeat.

And even though Jewry won that battle, Hitler and Germany’s National Socialism left the world with a social blueprint for success: a system by which native peoples everywhere might cast off pernicious influences, celebrate their own nationhood, and strive toward greatness. Despite Germany’s defeat, the long-term effects of Hitler’s system have yet to be revealed. The consequences are still being played out. In a larger sense, the war goes on.

Upon the formal end of the war on May 8, the four major Allied powers—the UK, France, the US and the Soviet Union—proceeded to partition and occupy Germany and Austria. The Soviets took control of what would become East Germany, the Americans occupied most of the south, the UK the north, and France took control of two large regions of southwest Germany. The foreigners retained absolute power for some five years, until the nations of West Germany and East Germany were established in 1949. The two sides reunified in 1990, restoring Germany to a single nation, but the invaders never left; to this day, there are nearly 40,000 American troops stationed in that country.

Along with efforts to secure the peace and look after the immediate needs of civilians and displaced persons, the postwar occupying powers quickly began the process of hunting down and arresting anyone formerly in positions of influence in the Nazi government. Then, within a matter of months, the occupiers initiated an extensive and lengthy series of “war-crime trials” against their captives. But these were unlike any trials ever seen before. There was no precedent. No “civil law” could be applied because the alleged crimes were international in scope, and the alleged perpetrators were citizens of a polity—National Socialist Germany—that no longer existed. The Allies were effectively absolute powers, establishing any rules or procedures that they saw fit.

And we must bear in mind: they were the victors. They were no neutral parties; they were belligerent and hostile forces, the very same ones that had just expended so much blood and treasure on the battlefield to defeat the very men now on trial. And they had complete control. They were, quite literally, judge, jury and executioner. This was in no sense an objective and dispassionate process. There was no real quest for any truth. Guilt was the pre-determined outcome, and all proceedings aimed at that end.¹ Furthermore, there was no functional right of appeal. All verdicts were permanently and irrevocably binding. The victors set the rules, and the victors had the final say.

But the first step, as mentioned, was to bring the guilty parties into custody. In the Nazi hierarchy, the “big five” were Hitler, Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring, and Martin Bormann. Of these, the first two were already dead as of May 1. Bormann was soon to follow; he apparently committed suicide by leaping off a bridge on May 2, although his body was not confirmed at the time, and rumors of his survival and escape persisted for many years, until his buried corpse was unearthed in 1972. Himmler was arrested on May 21 and held by British authorities, but committed suicide two days later via a cyanide pellet hidden in his mouth, or so his British captors claimed. The only surviving member of this ruling caste was Göring, who was captured by the Americans on May 6. Consequently, he was the only one of the Big Five to sit under judgment at Nuremberg.

Over time, hundreds of former Nazi officers and party functionaries were arrested, by all four Allied powers. The Powers were anxious to assert their authority and mete out so-called justice to the captive Germans, thus confirming and finalizing their military conquest. Most importantly, trials would allow the Allies to “prove” to the world the evil nature of the Nazis and their absolute guilt in the war—and especially to document their malicious war against the innocent and beleaguered Jews. Stories of German atrocities against the Jews had been in the popular press for years, at least since August 1941, but there had been no real proof. Now, with the looming trials of actual German leaders, the Allies could prove to the world that such stories were true, that the Germans were the evil monsters that the Jews had said they were, and that no punishment could be too harsh. The extent to which they succeeded will be assessed in the text to follow.

The intent to hold military tribunals began in earnest already in late 1943, as eventual German defeat became more apparent. The Moscow Declarations were four statements signed by the Big Four powers in October of that year that declared an intent to prosecute leading Germans after the war. By April 1945, it was decided that each occupying power would initiate its own series of trials in their respective territories, and furthermore, that the Allies would jointly conduct one international tribunal at Nuremberg, to begin in November of that year. The joint trial would be called the International Military Tribunal, or IMT, and it would serve to prosecute the highest-ranking Nazis captured. It would run for one full year, from November 1945 to October 1946. It was also agreed that the Americans would later conduct another set of 12 Nuremberg trials, independent from the IMT; these would come to be called the subsequent “Nuremberg Military Trials” or NMTs. The NMTs began in December 1946 and weren’t completed until April 1949.

With all the big names, though, the IMT was clearly the star of the whole show, and it is the focus of the present study. The subsequent 12 NMTs got far less attention, and today are rarely cited in the literature.² But as mentioned, there were yet more trials conducted, by all four major powers, in their respective zones of control; some of these began even before the IMT. The Majdanek Trial, for example, was initiated already in November of 1944; the Chelmno Trial in May 1945; and the Belsen Trial in September 1945. On the other hand, the initial Auschwitz Trial—held in Poland, and conducted uniquely by Polish authorities—did not commence until much later, in November 1947.

And then there were the Dachau Trials. Running contemporaneously with the IMT, this American-led effort was itself a massive undertaking: a series of 465 separate trials over two full years, trying a total of some 1200 defendants. It was so complex that it had to be organized into a number of sub-trials; there was the main Dachau Camp Trial, along with dedicated trials for camps at Mauthausen, Flossenbürg, Buchenwald, Mühldorf and Dora-Nordhausen. All told, these resulted in around 115 death sentences.

Clearly, a huge amount of work was put into all these trials. Clearly, they served a vital purpose for the victorious Allies.

The Structure of the IMT

By mid-1946, the Allies had designated 24 men, among the hundreds captured, as “major war criminals”; these would be subject to the IMT’s unprecedented brand of justice. Of the 24, the two highest-ranking men were Göring and Bormann—the former being captured in May, and the latter, missing but believed to be alive, tried in absentia. The remaining 22 men, all held in custody, were as follows:

– Karl Dönitz, head of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy).

– Hans Frank, head of the General Government in occupied Poland.

– Wilhelm Frick, Minister of the Interior.

– Hans Fritzsche, popular radio commentator and head of the Nazi news division.

– Walther Funk, Minister of Economics.

– Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s Deputy.

– Alfred Jodl, Wehrmacht Generaloberst.

– Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of Reichssicherheits-Hauptamt (RSHA; Germany’s Department of Homeland Security) and highest-ranking SS leader to be tried.

– Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Wehrmacht’s Oberkommando (Supreme Command).

– Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, major industrialist.

– Robert Ley, head of Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF; German Labor Front).

– Baron Konstantin von Neurath, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

– Franz von Papen, Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and Vice-Chancellor in 1933–34.

– Erich Raeder, Commander in Chief of the Kriegsmarine.

– Joachim von Ribbentrop, Ambassador-Plenipotentiary 1935–36.

– Alfred Rosenberg, leading racial theorist and Minister of the Eastern Occupied Territories.

– Fritz Sauckel, Gauleiter (district leader) of Thuringia.

– Hjalmar Schacht, prominent banker and economist.

– Baldur von Schirach, Head of the Hitler Youth from 1933–40 and Gauleiter of Vienna.

– Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Reichskommissar of the occupied Netherlands.

– Albert Speer, architect, and Minister of Armaments.

– Julius Streicher, Gauleiter of Franconia and publisher of the weekly tabloid newpaper Der Stürmer.

From the perspective of the Holocaust and the German response to the Jewish Question, the two most important figures here are Rosenberg and Streicher; hence their testimony is featured in the present work.

The defendants would face four charges:

Conspiring to commit crimes against peace

Waging wars of aggression

Committing war crimes

Committing crimes against humanity

Each man could be charged with any one, or any combination, of all four counts. Twelve men were in fact indicted on all four counts. Verdict would then be rendered for each man on each individual count. A guilty verdict on even one count was sufficient for the death penalty—as was the case with Streicher.

In order to implement the tribunal, each of the four powers would supply one judge and one leading prosecutor, along with a support team of many individuals. These leading men were as follows:

Judge

Lead Prosecutor

Britain:

Geoffrey Lawrence

Hartley Shawcross

US:

Francis Biddle

Robert Jackson

France:

Henri de Vabres

François de Menthon

USSR:

Iona Nikitchenko

Roman Rudenko

British Judge Lawrence would also serve as president of the IMT. It was said that a Briton as head of the proceedings would help to refute the widespread belief that the Americans were the driving force behind the tribunal. The American team was extensive, and included such men as Telford Taylor, Thomas J. Dodd, William Walsh, and Walter Brudno.³ On the British side, Shawcross was supported by David Maxwell-Fyfe, John Wheeler-Bennett and Mervyn Griffith-Jones.

Notable, though, was the extensive Jewish presence on both the American and British teams from the very beginning. Roosevelt’s close confidant Samuel Rosenman “crafted… the founding document of the IMT,” together with Jackson.⁴ British Jews at the trial itself included Maxwell-Fyfe, Benjamin Kaplan, Murray Bernays, David Marcus and Hersh Lauterpacht. Jewish-American prosecutors or advisors were far more numerous; they included William Kaplan, Richard Sonnenfeldt, Randolph Newman, Raphael Lemkin, Sidney Alderman, Benjamin Ferencz, Robert Kempner, Cecilia Goetz, Ralph Goodman, Gustav Gilbert, Leon Goldensohn, Siegfried Ramler, Hannah Wartenberg and Hedy Epstein. Other likely Jews, on either the IMT or NMT American teams, include Morris Amchan, Mary Kaufman, Emanuel Minskoff, Henry Birnbaum, Esther Glasman, Moriz Kandel, Max Frankenberg, Alfred Lewinson and Elvira Raphael. And this is not to mention such men as Fritz Bauer, a German Jew who led the prosecution in the Auschwitz trials of the early 1960s.

Perhaps for good reason, it is difficult to get complete lists of team members, and even harder to determine which ones are Jews. And even a list of Jewish names, even a lengthy one, does not determine relative presence. Perhaps, then, we should take the word of someone who was there: Thomas Dodd. A non-Jew, Dodd was taken aback by the remarkable Jewish role at Nuremberg. In a letter to his wife of 20 September 1945, he explains his concerns about Jewish dominance:

The staff continues to grow every day. Col. [Benjamin] Kaplan is now here, as a mate, I assume, for Commander [William] Kaplan. Dr. [Randolph] Newman has arrived and I do not know how many more. It is all a silly business—but “silly” really isn’t the right word. One would expect that some of these people would have sense enough to put an end to this kind of a parade. … [Y]ou will understand when I tell you that this staff is about 75% Jewish. (2007: 135)

An amazing claim, in fact. Given the lack of specifics, we can assume he was making an off-the-cuff assessment. But even as a subjective estimate, if, say, more than two-thirds of the American staff were Jews, it becomes an astonishing indictment of the fairness and objectivity of the trials—not to mention what it says about the power of a Jewish Lobby that could produce such presence. Dodd clearly felt that this undermined the integrity of the trials:

[T]he Jews should stay away from this trial—for their own sake. For—mark this well—the charge “a war for the Jews” is still being made, and in the post-war years it will be made again and again. The too-large percentage of Jewish men and women here will be cited as proof of this charge. Sometimes it seems that the Jews will never learn about these things. They seem intent on bringing new difficulties down on their own heads. I do not like to write about this matter… but I am disturbed about it. They are pushing and crowding and competing with each other, and with everyone else. They will try the case I guess…⁵ (135f.)

Understandably, not all present-day observers are happy with this statement. Jewish scholar Laura Jockusch (2012: 117) states that “Dodd’s assessment of the Jewish presence at the IMT was not only exaggerated but certainly also biased.” In typical fashion, however, she offers neither argument nor data to back up her claim. Her immediate concession is revealing: “there were indeed dozens of Jewish lawyers and officials who assisted in the preparation of the trial.” So: Who decided it was appropriate to have “dozens” of Jews on the prosecution? Who believed that anything like 75% representation was acceptable, from a nation that has, at best, 2% Jews? And why?

Then there were structural problems—not the least being that the trials lacked such inconvenient features as “innocent until proven guilty.” The very nature of the IMT demanded relatively rapid verdicts for a large number of people, which effectively prohibited time-consuming but essential phases of evidence-collection and refutation, on-site visits, expert reports, and the like. Time-cutting measures were integrated into the very rules of the IMT. Article 19, for example, states: “The Tribunal shall not be bound by technical rules of evidence. It shall adopt and apply to the greatest possible extent expeditious and non-technical procedure, and shall admit any evidence which it deems to have probative value”.⁶ In other words, testimony did not have to be confirmed with material or forensic evidence. The IMT could accept virtually any statement as fact: opinion, hearsay, rumor, inference, belief. The top priority seems to have been “expeditiousness.”

Furthermore, any facts that the court chose to take as “common knowledge,” no matter how they were obtained or how improbable they were, required no proof or evidence at all. This was known as “judicial notice.” Hence we have Article 21: “The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge, but shall take judicial notice thereof”.[6] Once the court has taken judicial notice of something, it stands as an established fact and cannot be challenged. If the defendant should happen to disagree, he has no recourse. If the court “judicially notices” the homicidal gas chambers, or the 6-million death figure, then it becomes unquestionable in the courtroom. This was true in 1947, and it is still true today. Modern courts, particularly in Europe, will “judicially notice” that 6 million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis. Consequently, anyone charged with Holocaust denial cannot even challenge this point in his own defense. And if his lawyer raises the issue, he or she will in turn be charged with ‘denial’—a remarkable situation, to say the least.

“A Maelstrom of Incompetence”

Yet another major problem—unsurprising in retrospect—is that many of the German defendant testimonies and affidavits were obtained under terrible conditions of duress or torture. This was true of all trials and was performed at the hands of all four Allies. After conducting extensive research in multiple original German sources, Germar Rudolf concludes:

In many and pervasive respects, the conduct of the IMT was shockingly similar to that of the [other] trials... [numerous researchers] recount threats of all kinds, of psychological torture, of non-stop interrogation and of confiscation of the property of defendants as well as of coerced witnesses. Intimidation, imprisonment, legal prosecution, and other means of coercion were applied to witnesses for the defense; distorted affidavits, documents, and synchronized translations; arbitrary refusal to hear evidence, confiscation of documents, and the refusal to grant the defense access to documents; as well as to the systematic obstruction of the defense by the prosecution such as, for example, making it impossible for the defense to travel abroad in order to locate defense witnesses, or censoring their mail. (Rudolf 2019: 96-97)

In 2013, British journalist Ian Cobain published an enlightening book, Cruel Britannia, which highlighted, for the first time since the war, a number of abuses during Nuremberg. The book focused on a detention center in central London known as the “London Cage.” As he explains in a 2012 article, it was “a torture center that the British military operated throughout the 1940s,” and in complete secrecy. “Thousands of Germans passed through the unit,” he says; many were beaten, sleep-deprived, held in stress positions for days at a time, threatened with murder, starved, hair ripped out. Another such facility, “Camp 020,” kept prisoners in either total light or total dark for days at a time, subjected to “mock executions,” or “left naked for months at a time.” Camp leaders “experimented in techniques of torment that left few marks”—no incriminating evidence that way. Centers at Bad Nenndorf and Minden in Germany subjected inmates to extreme cold, starvation and random beatings.

Of greatest concern in all this, apart from the humanitarian abuses, was the fact that

after the war, interrogators switched from extracting military intelligence to securing convictions for war crimes. Of 3,573 prisoners who passed through [the Cage], more than 1,000 were persuaded to sign a confession or give a witness statement for use in war crimes prosecutions

—exactly the situation described by Rudolf above.⁷ Historian Stephen Howe summed up the situation: “a horribly repetitive picture… of British governments and their agents using systematic brutality… and then lying about it all”.⁸ Suffice it to say that virtually any statement, on any topic, could be obtained from the captive Germans under such conditions.

And it is clear that the Allies did extract key statements this way from central German witnesses. Rudolf (2019: 93) describes the situation of the former Auschwitz commandant, Rudolf Höss, in the Minden Prison:

This torture was not only mentioned by Höss himself in his autobiography, but has also been confirmed by one of his torturers who, rather as an aside, also mentioned the torture of Hans Frank in Minden. And further, in his testimony before the IMT, Oswald Pohl reported that similar methods were used in Bad Nenndorf and that this was how his own affidavit had been obtained. The example of Höss is especially important since his statement was used at the IMT as the confession of a perpetrator, to prove the mass murder of the Jews.⁹

These, then, were the circumstances surrounding the famous IMT—highly problematic procedures, criminal actions against helpless detainees, and “confessions” obtained under the worst conditions imaginable. Little surprise that it found prominent critics, even among Westerners. American jurist Harlan Fiske Stone served on the US Supreme Court from 1926 until his death in 1946. In his final year, he famously referred to the situation as “a high-grade lynching party in Nuremberg” (in Mason 1956: 716). He was not speaking metaphorically. Ten of the 23 men, including Streicher and Rosenberg, were ultimately executed by hanging.

Then consider the comments of one American judge, Charles Wennerstrum, who presided over the seventh of the 12 later NMT trials, the “Hostages Trial.” Wennerstrum stated the obvious: “The victor in any war is not the best judge of the war crime guilt.” The whole system was “devoted to whitewashing the allies and placing sole blame for World War II upon Germany.” Trial proceedings were fundamentally biased. “The prosecution has failed to maintain objectivity aloof from vindictiveness, aloof from personal ambitions for convictions… The entire atmosphere is unwholesome,” he added. Most troubling was the use of highly questionable testimony from captive Germans:

[A]bhorrent to the American sense of justice is the prosecution’s reliance upon self-incriminating statements made by the defendants while prisoners for more than 2½ years, and repeated interrogation without presence of counsel.

Today such testimony would be utterly inadmissible in court; back then, it was standard procedure. Upon packing up to return to America, Wennerstrum remarked, “If I had known seven months ago what I know today, I would never have come”.¹⁰

And then we have the reflections of lawyer and US senator from Ohio Robert Taft (and son of William H. Taft, 27th President of the US). Though not directly involved in the trials, Taft took a sincere interest in events happening in postwar Europe, and he was generally appalled at the brutality and harshness of the victorious Allies. Just after the conclusion of the IMT on 1 October 1946, Taft gave a speech at Kenyon College in Ohio in which he pointedly condemned US actions: “Our treatment has been harsh in the American Zone as a deliberate matter of government policy, and has offended Americans who saw it and felt that it was completely at variance with American instincts.” He then offered a stinging indictment of the entire trial process based primarily on the principle that one cannot, after the fact, create laws by which individuals can then be prosecuted:

I believe that most Americans view with discomfort the war trials which have just been concluded in Germany and are proceeding in Japan. They violate that fundamental principle of American law that a man cannot be tried under an ex post facto statute. The hanging of the 11 men convicted at Nuremberg will be a blot on the American record which we shall long regret.

The trial of the vanquished by the victors cannot be impartial, no matter how it is hedged about with the forms of justice. I question whether the hanging of those who, however despicable, were the leaders of the German people, will ever discourage the making of aggressive war, for no one makes aggressive war unless he expects to win. About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice. (Papers of Robert A. Taft, Vol. 3: 2003: 200)

Topping it all off were charges of gross ineffectiveness and blatant ineptitude. Dodd wrote, “At least 150 [individuals here] are superfluous and worse… [T]here is not one outstanding man in an important place in this organization—saving Jackson himself. I never saw anything as bad… [T]his is a maelstrom of incompetence. It is awful” (2007: 140-145). One could hardly construct a harsher indictment.

Overall, we get a clear picture of a highly flawed and tendentious legal process, one aimed not at truth or justice but at revenge, punishment and ideological hegemony. For many years, this facet of the trial was downplayed or covered up. It simply did not look good to have the ‘morally superior’ Allies dispensing a brutal sort of mock-justice, even to the wicked Nazis. In the past decade, however, even conventional historians have come to admit the truth. The authoritative work International Prosecutors, for example, now has this to say:

Nuremburg was part of a strategy of total war and total victory. To inverse Clausewitz, the IMT was the continuation of war by other means. The tribunal was intended to be a court of victors, not a forum of neutral parties or an imaginary ‘international community,’ and the trial was intended to be a ‘show trial.’ (Reydams and Wouters 2012: 15)

And again:

Neither the Statute of the IMT nor the [IMT in the Far East] provides any safeguards at all to guarantee the independence of the prosecutor. Both [Nuremburg and Tokyo] tribunals were set up by the victorious parties to judge and punish the major war criminals of the defeated countries promptly, to dispense what is today rightly and commonly called ‘victor’s justice.’ Both were set up by occupying forces during occupation, and operated on the occupied territory of the defeated side. Both were highly criticized for lacking independence and impartiality, and both were “multinational but not international in the strict sense, as only the victors were represented.” (Côté 2012: 372)

Yes, but this is only so much ancient history at this point; no lessons here for the present, surely—or so our historians would have us think.

But once again, this is obviously not just about history. Given that this whole event has direct bearing on the conventional Holocaust story—a story that is deployed repeatedly in the present day for highly consequential political ends—the trial demands a critical inquiry.

Documenting the Trials

Documentation on both the IMT and the NMT is extensive, and somewhat confusing. The full proceedings, mostly in the form of transcripts and documents submitted as evidence, were published shortly after the trials. Just the IMT documentation alone is impressive; in hard-copy format, it comprises 42 volumes, each running to 500 or 600 pages. Only the largest research universities have actual copies, but fortunately it is now available for free online. The work, published in 1947, appears under two titles: The Trial of German Major War Criminals, and Trial of the Major War Criminals before the IMT. It is also referred to as the “Blue Series” or the “Blue Set” due to the blue cloth these 1947 volumes were bound with. The full series is online at the US Library of Congress website:

(www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NT_major-war-criminals.html).

Additionally, Yale Law School has published text versions—unfortunately with many typographical errors—of the first 22 volumes, as part of their “Avalon Project”:

(https://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus /imt.asp).

The 12 trials of the NMT, formally titled Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, are published as a 15-volume set and known as the “Green Series” (green cloth used for binding). Again, the full set is found at the Library of Congress site:

(www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NTs_war-criminals.html).

Finally, there is the 10-volume work called Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. This set, also known as the “Red Series,” contains English translations of many of the German documents included in the full 42-volume IMT set. It can be found at:

(www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/NT_Nazi-conspiracy.html).

And the first four volumes, in text form, are on the Yale website listed above.¹¹

Needless to say, it can take a lot of searching to find the relevant material among the thousands of pages. The present work intends to contribute to a clearer illumination of the Jewish aspect of the trials.

The Core of Holocaust Revisionism

As stated, the present book is important primarily because of its contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust. As it happens, we have two fundamentally conflicting versions of that event. On the one hand, there is the standard, conventional, orthodox account: the intent by Hitler and the leading Nazis to kill every Jew in Europe, the gas chambers, the mass graves, the 6 million Jewish fatalities. This version is well-known because it is presented in countless ways, small and large: in schools, in text books, in films, in news stories, in governmental policy. And indeed, for most people in the Western industrial nations, this version of the story is almost inescapable. On the other hand, we have a competing view known as Holocaust revisionism. It’s worthwhile reviewing a few of the basics of each perspective.

First the conventional view: According to the experts, the plan to exterminate the German Jews was only hinted at prior to 1941. Then, upon the attack on the Soviet Union in June of that year, Germany allegedly began a process of mass-shooting of Jews behind the Eastern Front, by special units known as the Einsatzgruppen (‘task groups’). These troops, we are told, eventually killed some 1.5 million Jews. Also beginning in 1941 was the mass ghettoization of Jews, mostly in Poland. Through various means of deprivation, disease and oppression, the Nazis allegedly managed to kill another 1 million Jews in these ghettos by the end of the war.

The third main category of deaths, and the most notorious, occurred in the so-called extermination camps. Despite the fact that the Germans had hundreds of concentration camps, labor camps and related facilities, our experts tell us that mass killing occurred in only six camps: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Chełmno and Majdanek. At the horrific center of these camps were the gas chambers: specialized, purpose-built facilities for the mass murder of Jews. Some of the gassing, such as at Auschwitz, allegedly occurred via cyanide gas (packaged as “Zyklon B”), but other camps, like Treblinka, supposedly used carbon-monoxide gas produced from diesel engines. Unfortunately, our experts cannot quite agree on exactly how the gassing procedure worked, nor how many Jews were killed in the chambers. Approximate present-day (traditionalist) consensus figures for each of the six camps are as follows:

Camp

Jews killed

Method of gassing

Auschwitz

1,000,000

cyanide gas

Treblinka

900,000

carbon monoxide

Belzec

550,000

carbon monoxide

Chełmno

250,000

carbon monoxide

Sobibor

225,000

carbon monoxide

Majdanek

75,000

carbon monoxide + cyanide

In sum, based on all three categories of killing (ghettos, shootings, camps), some 6 million Jews allegedly perished at the hands of the Nazis.

Holocaust revisionism, by contrast, challenges major aspects of the traditional account. As with the other view, there is some disagreement among specialists, but there seems to be a broad consensus on the following points:

– Hitler did indeed dislike the Jews, and strongly desired to rid Germany of them. This desire was shared by most of the top Nazi leadership. Their antipathy had three sources: (1) Jewish domination of major sectors of German finance, trade, media, the judiciary and cultural life; (2) the Jewish role in the treasonous November Revolution at the end of World War I; and (3) the prominent Jewish role in Soviet Bolshevism, which was seen by most Germans as a mortal threat.

– To achieve their goal, the Nazis implemented various means, including evacuations, deportations and forced resettlement. Their main objective was to remove the Jews, not kill them. Hence their primary goal was one of ethnic cleansing, not genocide. This is why no one has ever found a Hitler order to exterminate the Jews.

– Of course, many Jews would likely die in the process, but this is an inevitable consequence of ethnic cleansings generally.

– The Germans actively sought places to send the Jews. Proposed destinations included Siberia, central Africa and most notably Madagascar.

– By mid-1941, due to speedy victories in the Soviet Union, large areas of territory came under German control, and hence a new option emerged—the Jews would be shipped to the East.

– After late 1942, things were turning against the Germans. Shipments to the East were no longer viable, and furthermore all available manpower was needed to support the war effort. Thus deportations became subordinated to forced labor—hence the heavy reliance on Auschwitz, which was first and foremost a labor camp.

– A major problem with deporting and interning large numbers of Jews was disease, especially typhus. Therefore, a major effort was needed to kill the disease-bearing lice that clung to bodies and clothing. All Nazi camps were thus equipped to delouse and disinfest thousands of people.

– The primary means for killing lice was in ‘gas chambers,’ in which clothing, bedding and personal items were exposed to hot air, steam or cyanide gas. The gas chambers described by witnesses really did exist—but each one was built and operated as a disinfesting chamber, not as a homicidal gas chamber.

– The larger part of witness testimonies—both from former (Jewish) inmates and from captured Germans—consists of rumor, hearsay, exaggeration or outright falsehood. This does not mean that entire testimonies are invalid, but only that specific claims must be verified by scientific methods before we should accept them. In particular, claims about huge casualty figures, mass burials and burnings as well as murder with diesel exhaust are largely discredited.

– The total number of Jewish deaths at the hands of the Nazis—the ‘six million’ number—is highly exaggerated. The actual death toll was perhaps 10 percent of this figure: on the order of 500,000.¹²

Individual revisionists place emphasis on different aspects of the above account, but all would likely agree with all these points. Notably, not a single serious revisionist claims that the Holocaust “never happened.” This is a red herring that shows up repeatedly in the words of our traditionalist defenders. The claim is pure nonsense. Everyone agrees that something bad “happened” to the Jews; they simply disagree on the means and the extent of the suffering, along with the actions and intentions of the perpetrators.

In retrospect, it hardly seems controversial. This could well be seen as one more obscure debate among historians about events occurring some 80 years ago. And yet, traditionalists don’t see it that way. In fact, they view revisionists as a mortal threat. Keepers of the orthodoxy spare no means to suppress, censor and harass revisionists; they pull any strings necessary, and expend any amount of money, to make sure that the public never hears about this debate. By all accounts, they have something very important to hide.

In the present context, we will see that the Nuremberg trials, and especially the IMT, laid the groundwork for the entire Holocaust story. All the key elements appeared in those trials. And most of these were challenged by a few knowledgeable Germans in the process of their own defense. Of special interest are the defenses of Alfred Rosenberg and Julius Streicher; they gave extended testimony on many aspects of the Jewish Question, and their remarks are highly revealing.

Of course, their statements come with a few caveats. First, as described above, all Germans were held captive for months prior to the start of the trial, and were subjected to unknown degrees of duress, psychological pressure, coercion and outright torture. Second, they were obviously defending themselves in a legal process that could well lead to their deaths; they were surely highly motivated to exonerate themselves, disavow any involvement in mass killings, and to cast all blame onto others. And yet, many facts were apparent to all, and outright lies would likely have been useless—unless the lies were favorable to the prosecution, in which case they would pass unchallenged. In the end, we have to treat the words of Streicher, Rosenberg and the other Germans with the same skeptical stance that we would with any witness in a trial.

Even so, their remarks turn out to be most enlightening. The comments by Rosenberg and Streicher are almost uniformly true and correct, to the best of our knowledge. Erroneous statements on their part are either honest mistakes or false interpretations based on bad information. In his testimony, Rudolf Höss made a number of obviously false statements, which may be attributed to coercion or perhaps even to deliberate falsification on his part, likely in response to torture and abuse; it may have been his way of signaling to the world the absurdity of his very “testimony.”

Textual Edits and Commentary

The text to follow is taken directly from the IMT documentation. Source information (volume and page number) is included for purposes of verification. However, a number of superficial edits have been made in order to improve readability and flow of argument. The prosecution made many redundant references to specific documents, for example, and these have been edited out. Passages on formalities or trivial issues, such as might arise in any trial, have been deleted. And lengthy passages that have minimal or no relation to the Jewish Question or the Holocaust have likewise been removed (and noted).

Importantly, at many points along the way, commentary has been added to explain, highlight or otherwise clarify statements made by either the prosecution or the defense. Such commentary has been set in bold font on a grey background to clearly distinguish it from the verbatim testimony.

In terms of the flow of the text, it is broadly chronological. Chapter Two opens with the general case against the Nazis with respect to Jewish persecution. Chapters Three and Four address Rosenberg: first the case against him, and then his own defense. Chapter Five then covers Rudolf Höss’s testimony, which is so central to the modern Holocaust narrative. After this, we jump back in time (to January 1946) to give the case against Streicher in Chapter Six; Chapters Seven through Nine then move ahead (to April) to present his extended and detailed defense. Chapter Ten—dating from August 1946—presents short closing statements by both Rosenberg and Streicher, along with a few relevant passages by other defendants. Chapter Eleven gives the verdicts and sentences, and the final chapter offers some concluding thoughts.

With this in mind, we now turn to the transcripts themselves.

CHAPTER TWO:
THE NAZI “PERSECUTION
OF THE JEWS”

IMT, Vol. 3: 519-573
13-14 December 1945
(19th – 20th days)

COMMENTARY: The formal IMT proceeding began its first day on 20 November 1945, but several days of preliminary work preceded that start. IMT Volume 1 contains documentation on formal rules and procedures for the trial, and Volume 2 documents some preliminary hearings and the first nine days of the actual proceeding. Volume 3 begins a series of some 20 “cases” on various aspects of the Nazis: on aggressive warfare, on forced labor, on the SA and so forth. Of interest here is the case on “the persecution of the Jews.” It is a general case against the National Socialist government rather than targeted at specific individuals.

COL. ROBERT STOREY: If the Tribunal please, the next phase of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, the Persecution of the Jews, will be presented by Major Walsh.

THE PRESIDENT: Major Walsh.

MAJOR WILLIAM F. WALSH (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): If the Tribunal please, on behalf of the United States Counsel, I now present to this august Tribunal the evidence to establish certain phases of the Indictment alleged in Count One under War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, and by agreement between the prosecutors the allegations in Count Four, Paragraph X(B), Crimes against Humanity. The topical title of this presentation is “The Persecution of the Jews.”

At this time, I offer in evidence a Document Book of translations. The title, “The Persecution of the Jews,” is singularly inappropriate when weighed in the light of the evidence to follow. Academically, I am told, to persecute is to afflict, harass, and annoy. The term used does not convey, and indeed I cannot conjure a term that does convey the ultimate aim, the avowed purpose to obliterate the Jewish race.

This presentation is not intended to be a complete recital of all the crimes committed against the Jews. The extent and the scope of the crimes was so great that it permeated the entire German nation its people and its organizations.

I am informed that others to follow me will offer additional evidence under other phases of the Prosecution’s case. Evidence relating to the Party organizations and state organizations, whose criminality the Prosecution will seek to establish, will disclose and emphasize the part that these organizations played in the pattern and plan for annihilation. The French and the Soviet Prosecutors, too, have a volume of evidence all related to this subject, which will be submitted in the course of the Trial.

Before I begin a recital of the overt acts leading to the elimination of the Jews, I am prepared to show that these acts and policies within Germany from the year 1933 to the end of the war related to the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of aggressive wars, thus falling within the definition of Crimes against Humanity.

It had long been a German theory that the first World War ended in Germany’s defeat because of a collapse in the zone of the interior. In planning for future wars, it was determined that the home front must be secure to prevent a repetition of this 1918 debacle. Unification of the German people was essential to successful planning and waging of war, and the Nazi political premise must be established—“One race, one state, one Führer.” Free trade unions must be abolished, political parties (other than the National Socialist Party) must be outlawed, civil liberties must be suspended, and opposition of every kind must be swept away. Loyalty to God, church, and scientific truth was declared to be incompatible with the Nazi regime. The anti-Jewish policy was part of this plan for unification because it was the conviction of the Nazis that the Jews would not contribute to Germany’s military program, but on the contrary would hamper it. The Jew must therefore be eliminated.

This view is clearly borne out by a statement contained in Document 1919-PS. This document is a transcript of a Himmler speech at a meeting of the SS major generals on 4 October 1943. I read a very short passage:

We know how difficult we should have made it for ourselves if, with the bombing raids, the burdens, and deprivations of war, we still had Jews today in every town as secret saboteurs, agitators, and trouble mongers; we would now probably have reached the 1916-17 stage when the Jews were still in the German national body.

COMMENTARY: Himmler refers to the later stages of World War One, in which the military stalemate was slowly turning toward Germany’s favor until strikes and rebellions in the homeland, many led by Jews, undermined the Kaiser’s rule. Riots in Berlin and Munich led to the Kaiser’s abdication on 9 November 1918, and the subsequent government surrendered within two days. In 1916-17 Jews had the power to drive out the Kaiser and cost Germany the war; Himmler knew that, if Germany had such Jews in 1943, that they too would have been doomed already then.

The treatment of the Jews within Germany was therefore as much of a plan for aggressive war as was the building of armaments and the conscription of manpower. It falls within the jurisdiction of this Tribunal as an integral part of the planning and preparation to wage a war of aggression. [… ]

I know of no crime in the history of mankind more horrible in its details than the treatment of the Jews. It is intended to establish that the Nazi Party precepts, later incorporated within the policies of the German State, often expressed by the defendants at bar, were to annihilate the Jewish people. I shall seek to avoid the temptation to editorialize or to draw inferences from the documents, however great the provocation; rather I shall let the documentary evidence speak for itself—its stark realism will be unvarnished. Blood lust may have played some part in these savage crimes, but the underlying purpose and objective to fixate the Jewish race was one of the fundamental principles of the Nazi plan to prepare for and to wage aggressive war. I shall from this point limit my proof to the overt acts committed; but I dare to request the Court’s indulgence, if it is necessary in weaving the pattern of evidence, to make reference to certain documents and evidence previously submitted.

Now this ultimate objective, that is, the elimination and extermination of the Jews, could not be accomplished without preliminary steps and measures. The German State must first be seized by the Nazi Party, the force of world opinion must be faced, and even the regimented German people must be indoctrinated with hatred against the Jews.

The first clear-cut evidence of the Party policies concerning the Jews was expressed in the Party program in February 1920. I offer in evidence Document 1708-PS, “Program of the National Socialist Party.” With the Court’s permission, I would like to quote the relevant part of that program:

Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of confession. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of the race. … The right to determine matters concerning administration and law belongs only to the citizen; therefore, we demand that every public office of any sort whatsoever, whether in the Reich, the county, or municipality, be filled only by citizens.

COMMENTARY: Walsh quotes from Points 4 and 6 of the 25-point NSDAP Program; see Appendix A (alternate translation). In fact, the sole reference to Jews, cited above, can hardly be called anti-Semitic. It simply excludes Jews from citizenship—which, given events to come, is scarcely worth mention.

I now offer Document 2662-PS, Mein Kampf. Hitler, in this book, speaking of the Jew, said that if the National Socialist movement was to fulfill its task—and I quote:

It must open the eyes of the people with regard to foreign nations and must remind them again and again of the true enemy of our present-day world. In the place of hate against Aryans—from whom we may be separated by almost everything but to whom, however, we are tied by common blood or the great tie of a common culture—it must dedicate to the general anger the evil enemy of mankind as the true cause of all suffering.

It must see to it, however, that at least in our country he be recognized as the most mortal enemy and that the struggle against him may show, like a flaming beacon of a better era, to other nations, too, the road to salvation for a struggling Aryan mankind.

COMMENTARY: This passage comes from Volume 2 of Mein Kampf, Chapter 13, Section 23. It is an odd selection, given that it does not explicitly mention the Jews, and that many harsher statements can be found in the book. This suggests that the prosecution did not know the book very well at all. See Hitler (2018, Vol. 2: 271).

Discussion then shifts briefly to the topic of the ‘blood libel’—of Jews using Gentile or Christian blood in various religious ceremonies. This is addressed in more detail later on, especially in Chapter Six. In brief, though it had long been denied, there is in fact some historical basis for this claim. In particular, see the book Passovers of Blood (Toaff 2020).

A flood of abusive literature of all types and for all age groups was published and circulated throughout Germany. Illustrative of this type of publication is the book entitled Der Giftpilz.¹³ This book brands the Jew as a persecutor of the labor class, as a race defiler, devil in human form, a poisonous mushroom (Giftpilz), and a murderer. This particular book instructed school children to recognize the Jew by caricature of his physical features; taught them that the Jew abuses little boys and girls; and that the Jewish Bible permits all crimes. The Defendant Streicher’s periodical Der Stürmer, Number 14, April 1937, in particular, went to such extremes as to publish the statement that Jews at the ritual celebration of their Passover slaughtered Christians. I quote:

Also the numerous confessions made by the Jews show that the execution of ritual murders is a law of the Talmud Jew. The former chief Rabbi (and later monk) Teofiti declares that the ritual murders take place especially on the Jewish Purim (in memory of the Persian murders) and Passover (in memory of the murder of Christ). The rules are as follows:

The blood of the victims is to be tapped by force. On Passover it is to be used in wine and matzos. Thus a small part of the blood is to be poured into the dough of the matzos and into the wine. The mixing is done by the head of the Jewish family.

The procedure is as follows: The family head empties a few drops of the fresh and powdered blood into a glass, wets the fingers of the left hand with it and sprays (blesses) with it everything on the table. The head of the family then says, “Thus we ask God to send the 10 plagues to all enemies of the Jewish faith.” Then they eat, and at the end the head of the family exclaims, “May all Gentiles perish, as the child whose blood is contained in the bread and wine.”

The fresh (or dried and powdered) blood of the slaughtered is further used by young married Jewish couples, by pregnant Jewesses, for circumcision and so on. Ritual murder is recognized by all Talmud Jews. The Jew believes he absolves himself thus of his sins.

It is difficult for our minds to grasp that falsehoods such as these could fall on fertile soil, that a literate nation could read, digest, or believe these doctrines. We must realize, however, that with a rigidly controlled press which precluded an expose of such lying propaganda, some of the ignorant and gullible would be led to believe.

I now offer in evidence Document 2697-PS, a copy of Der Stürmer. This publication, Der Stürmer, was published by the Defendant Streicher’s publishing firm. In this publication, Streicher, speaking of the Jewish faith, said, “The Holy Scripture is a horrible criminal romance abounding with murder, incest, fraud, and indecency.” And again he said, “The Talmud is the great Jewish book of criminal instructions that the Jew practices in his daily life.”

This propaganda campaign of hate was too widespread and notorious to require further elaboration. Within the documents offered in evidence in this and in other phases of the case will be found similar and even more scurrilous statements, many by the defendants themselves and others by their accomplices. [… ]

COMMENTARY: At this point, Walsh goes into an extended and relatively trivial discussion of anti-Jewish laws, Kristallnacht, and the process of ghettoization. This section has been edited out here. Walsh resumes with some references to Rosenberg.

MAJOR WALSH: The Chief Editor of the official organ of the SS, the Schwarze Corps, expressed similar sentiments on August 8, 1940. I offer in evidence Document 2668-PS, as follows: “Just as the Jewish Question will be solved for Germany only when the last Jew has been deported, so the rest of Europe should also realize that the German peace which awaits it must be a peace without Jews.”

These were not the only officials of the Party and of the State to voice the same views. The Defendant Rosenberg wrote for the publication World Struggle. This publication, Volumes 1 and 2, April and September 1941, reads, “The Jewish Question will be solved only when the last Jew has left the European continent.”

The Court will recall Mr. Justice Jackson’s reference to the apologetic note contained in the diary of Hans Frank, when he wrote: “Of course, I could neither eliminate all lice nor all Jews in only one year’s time. But in the course of time and, above all, if you will help me, this end will be attained.”

While this presentation is not necessarily intended to be a chronological narrative of events in the treatment of the Jewish people, it would appear at this point that we should pause to examine the record to date. We find that the Nazi Party and the Nazi-dominated State have, by writings and by utterances, by decrees and by official acts, clearly expressed their intent: the Jew must be eliminated. [… ]

I offer in evidence a copy of a memorandum from Defendant Rosenberg’s file entitled, “Directions for Handling of the Jewish Question,” Document 212-PS. I quote from the top of Page 2 of the translation before the Court:

The first main goal of the German measures must be strict segregation of Jewry from the rest of the population. The presupposition of this is, first of all, the registration of the Jewish population by the introduction of a compulsory registration order and similar appropriate measures....

All rights of freedom for Jews are to be withdrawn. They are to be placed in ghettos and at the same time are to be separated according to sexes. The presence of many more or less closed Jewish settlements in White Ruthenia and in the Ukraine makes this mission easier. Moreover, places are to be chosen which make possible the full use of the Jewish manpower as a consequence of present labor programs. These ghettos can be placed under the supervision of a Jewish self-government with Jewish officials. The guarding of the boundaries between the ghettos and the outer world is, however, the duty of the police.

Also, in the case in which a ghetto could not yet be established, care is to be taken through strict prohibition and similar suitable measures that a further intermingling of blood of the Jews and the rest of the populace does not continue.

In May 1941 Rosenberg, as the Reich Minister for the Eastern Regions, issued directions confining the Jews to ghettos in the Ukraine. [… ]

COMMENTARY: Hereafter followed more detailed and largely irrelevant references to the ghetto system and the abuses in it. These have been deleted.

MAJOR WALSH: It is difficult from this point to follow the thread of chronological order or a topical outline. So numerous are the documents and so appalling the contents that in this brief recital the Prosecution will make no effort to itemize the criminal acts. Selected documents, however, will unfold the crimes in full detail.

Before launching a discussion of the means utilized to accomplish the ultimate aim, that is the extermination of the Jewish people, I now turn to that fertile source of evidence, the diary of Hans Frank, then Governor General of occupied Poland. In a cabinet session on Tuesday, 16 December 1941, in the government building at Krakow, the Defendant Frank made a closing address to the session. I offer now in evidence that part of the document, Number 2233(d)-PS, identified CV 1941, October to December. I quote:

COMMENTARY: The following lengthy statement by Frank was apparently made on 16 December 1941. The source of the Hitler quotation cited at the beginning is unclear. It recalls Hitler’s famous “prophecy” of 30 January 1939: “If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Germany should succeed in plunging the nations once again into a world war, then the result will be not the Bolshevization of the Earth and with it the victory of Jewry, but rather the destruction (Vernichtung) of the Jewish race in Europe.” Perhaps Frank was paraphrasing, or perhaps his memory had faded. The term Vernichtung, incidentally, is of some importance; see Rosenberg’s and Streicher’s remarks to follow.

Notable too is Frank’s reference to “deportation to the East.” This was in fact the German plan, at least since August 1941, when large amounts of territory in the East came under German control. And deportation, of course, is something far different than mass murder. The reference to the upcoming Berlin meeting in January 1942 is the Wannsee Conference that examined in some detail the Jewish Question, and began to lay out specific plans for mass deportation.

Frank clearly detested the Jews, and he personally seemed to have no concern for their lives. But even if he had wished their demise, he was in no position to do anything about it. As he said in the final paragraph, “We cannot shoot or poison these 3,500,000 Jews… ” And yet, he says, we must nonetheless “bring them to nothing” (annihilate, in terms of neutralize). Mass deportation would indeed accomplish this. As to the specifics, Frank seems to have no clue. He clearly has no idea about any pending gassing program—even though the Chełmno Camp had allegedly started gassing Jews that very month, Auschwitz would commence in February, and Belzec in March of 1942. Very odd, to say the least.

As far as the Jews are concerned, I want to tell you quite frankly that they must be done away with in one way or another. The Führer said once: “Should united Jewry again succeed in provoking a world war, the blood of not only the nations which have been forced into the war by them will be shed, but the Jew will have found his end in Europe.” I know that many of the measures carried out against the Jews in the Reich at present are being criticized. It is being tried intentionally, as is obvious from the reports on the morale, to talk about cruelty, harshness, et cetera. Before I continue, I would beg you to agree with me on the following formula: We will principally have pity on the German people only and nobody else in the whole world. The others, too, had no pity on us. As an old National Socialist I must also say: This war would be only a partial success if the whole lot of Jewry would survive it, while we would have shed our best blood in order to save Europe. My attitude towards the Jews will therefore, be based only on the expectation that they must disappear. They must be done away with. I have entered negotiations to have them deported to the East. A large conference concerning that question, to which I am going to delegate the State Secretary Dr. Buehler, will take place in Berlin in January. That discussion is to take place in the Reich Security Main Office with SS Lieutenant General Heydrich. A great Jewish migration will begin, in any case. “But what should be done with the Jews? Do you think they will be settled down in the ‘Ostland’ in villages? This is what we were told in Berlin: Why all this bother? We can do nothing with them either in the ‘Ostland’ or in the ‘Reichskommissariat.’ So liquidate them yourselves.

Gentlemen, I must ask you to arm yourselves against all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews, wherever we find them and wherever it is possible, in order to maintain there the structure of the Reich as a whole. This will, naturally, be achieved by other methods than those pointed out by Bureau Chief Dr. Hummel. Nor can the judges of the Special Courts be made responsible for it because of the limitations of the frame work of the legal procedure. Such outdated views cannot be applied to such gigantic and unique events. We must find at any rate a way which leads to the goal, and my thoughts are working in that direction.

The Jews represent for us also extraordinarily malignant gluttons. We have now approximately, 2,500,000 of them in the Government General, perhaps with the Jewish mixtures and everything that goes with it, 3,500,000 Jews. We cannot shoot or poison those 3,500,000 Jews; but we shall nevertheless be able to take measures which will lead, somehow, to their annihilation, and this in connection with the gigantic measures to be determined in discussions with the Reich. The Government General must become free of Jews, the same as the Reich. Where and how this is to be achieved is a matter for the offices which we must appoint and create here. Their activities will be brought to your attention in due course.

This, if the Tribunal please, is not the planning and scheming of an individual, but is the expression of the official of the German State, the appointed Governor General of occupied Poland. The methods used to accomplish the annihilation of the Jewish people were varied and, although not subtle, were highly successful.

I have from time to time made reference to certain utterances and actions of the Defendant Rosenberg as one of the leaders and policy makers of the Nazi Party and German State. It is perhaps reasonable to assume that the Defendant Rosenberg will claim for many of his actions that he pursued them pursuant to superior orders. I have before me, however, a captured document, Number 001-PS, marked “secret,” dated 18 December 1941, entitled “Documentary Memorandum for the Führer—Concerning Jewish Possessions in France.” I dare say that no document before this Tribunal will more clearly evidence the Defendant Rosenberg’s personal attitude, his temperament, and convictions toward the Jews more strongly than this memorandum, wherein he, in his own initiative, urges plundering and death. The body of the memorandum reads as follows:

In compliance with the order of the Führer for protection of Jewish cultural possessions, a great number of Jewish dwellings remained unguarded. Consequently, many furnishings have disappeared because a guard could, naturally, not be posted. In the whole East the administration has found terrible conditions of living quarters, and the chances of procurement are so limited that it is not possible to procure any more. Therefore, I beg the Führer to permit the seizure of all Jewish home furnishings of Jews in Paris who have fled or will leave shortly and those of Jews living in all parts of the occupied West to relieve the shortage of furnishings in the administration in the East.

2. A great number of leading Jews were, after a short examination in Paris, again released. The attempts on the lives of members of the Forces have not stopped; on the contrary they continue. This reveals an unmistakable plan to disrupt the German-French co-operation, to force Germany to retaliate and, with this, evoke a new defense on the part of the French against Germany. I suggest to the Führer that, instead of executing 100 Frenchmen, we shoot in their place 100 Jewish bankers, lawyers, et cetera. It is the Jews in London and New York who incite the French Communists to commit acts of violence, and it seems only fair that the members of this race should pay for this. It is not the little Jews but the leading Jews in France who should be held responsible. That would tend to awaken the anti-Jewish sentiment. –Signed– A. Rosenberg.

COMMENTARY: This was effectively the end of the 19th day of the proceedings (13 December). Testimony would resume the following day. Early that next day, there was a lengthy discussion about the clearance of the ghettos and the alleged starvation of Jews; this section is here omitted. Walsh continues his case below.

MAJOR WALSH: It was not always necessary, or perhaps desirable, first to place the Jews within the ghettos to effect the elimination. In the Baltic States a more direct course of action was followed. I refer to Document L-180. This is a report by SS Brigadeführer Stahlecker to Himmler, dated 15 October 1941, enabled “Action Group A,” found in Himmler’s private files. He reported that 135,567 persons, nearly all Jews, were murdered in accordance with basic orders directing the complete annihilation of the Jews. This voluminous document provides me with the following statement by the same SS Brigade Führer, and from the translation at the bottom of Page 6, I read:

To our surprise it was not easy, at first, to set in motion an extensive pogrom against the Jews. Klimatis, the leader of the partisan unit mentioned above, who was used for this purpose primarily, succeeded in starting a pogrom on the basis of advice given to him by a small advanced detachment acting in Kovno and in such a way that no German order or German instigation was noticed from the outside. During the first pogrom in the night from 25 to 26 June, the Lithuanian partisans did away with more than 1,500 Jews, setting fire to several synagogues or destroying them by other means and burning down a Jewish dwelling district consisting of about 60 houses. During the following nights 2,300 Jews were eliminated in a similar way.

It was possible, though, through similar influences on the Latvian auxiliary, to set in motion a pogrom against the Jews also in Riga. During this pogrom all synagogues were destroyed and about 400 Jews were killed.

COMMENTARY: The presentation now turns to a specific murder weapon: gas vans. Allegedly first used at Chełmno, these were said to be large moving vans that were specially converted to pump engine-exhaust gas into the rear compartment. Jews would be loaded in the back—between 25 and 70 people—and then killed with the gas. The vans would then drive off to a remote location to bury the bodies. But there are problems. We have no tangible evidence of such vans—no physical vehicles, no verifiable photos, no technical documentation. Second, it is technically impossible to pump exhaust gas into a sealed “hermetic” compartment; either the engine will stall or the windows or doors will blow out. Third and most importantly, the largest of the alleged vehicles ran on diesel fuel. But diesel engines put out far too little carbon monoxide to kill anyone in a reasonable time. The many problems have been analyzed in detail by Santiago Alvarez; see his book The Gas Vans (2016).

The following letter cited by Walsh, from Becker to Rauff, is dated 11 May 1942. It explicitly describes the murderous intent of the vans. Unfortunately, there are good reasons to believe that the letter is a forgery; see Alvarez (2016) or Weckert (2019) for details. And yet, this single letter is central to the entire case for the gas vans, and thus central to the whole Chełmno story. Perhaps because of these problems of the forged letter and diesel exhaust, the official Chełmno Camp museum in Poland is now promoting the idea that the vans used compressed (bottled) carbon monoxide. And yet such a thing is not attested to in any authoritative source. It strikes one as a desperate attempt to sustain the gas-van theory.

Nazi ingenuity reached a new high mark with the construction and operation of the gas van as a means of mass annihilation of the Jews. A description of these vehicles of horror and death and the operation of them is fully set forth in a captured top-secret document, dated 16 May 1942, addressed to SS Obersturmbannführer Rauff, 8 Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, Berlin, from Dr. Becker, SS Untersturmführer. I offer this document, 501-PS. I quote:

The overhauling of vans by groups D and C is finished. While the vans in the first series can also be put into action if the weather is not too bad, the vans of the second series (Saurer) stop completely in rainy weather. If it has rained for instance for only one-half hour, the van cannot be used because it simply skids away. It can only be used in absolutely dry weather. It is a question now of whether the van can be used only when it stands at the place of execution. First the van has to be brought to that place, which is possible only in good weather. The place of execution is usually 10 to 15 kilometers away from the highway and is difficult of access because of its location; in damp or wet weather it is not accessible at all. If the persons to be executed are driven or led to that place, then they realize immediately what is going on and get restless, which is to be avoided as far as possible. There is only one way left: to load them at the collecting point and to drive them to the spot.

I ordered the vans of group D to be camouflaged as house-trailers by putting one set of window shutters on each side of the small van and two on each side of the larger vans, such as one often sees on farm houses in the country. The vans became so well-known that not only the authorities but also the civilian population called the van ‘death van’ as soon as one of the vehicles appeared. It is my opinion the van cannot be kept secret for any length of time, not even camouflaged.

Because of the rough terrain and the indescribable road and highway conditions, the caulkings and rivets loosen in the course of time. I was asked if in such cases the vans should not be brought to Berlin for repairs. Transportation to Berlin would be much too expensive and would demand too much fuel. In order to save these expenses, I ordered them to have smaller leaks soldered and, if that should no longer be possible, to notify Berlin immediately by radio, that License Number… is out of order. Besides that, I ordered that during application of gas, all the men were to be kept as far away from the vans as possible, so that they should not suffer damage to their health by the gas which eventually would escape.

I should like to take this opportunity to bring the following to your attention: Several commands have had the unloading, after the application of gas, done by their own men. I brought to the attention of the commanders of these special detachments concerned the immense psychological injury and damage to their health which that work can have for those men, even if not immediately, at least later on. The men complained to me about headaches which appeared after each unloading. Nevertheless they don’t want to change the orders, because they are afraid prisoners called for that work could use an opportune moment to flee. To protect the men from such damage, I request orders be issued accordingly. The application of gas usually is not undertaken correctly. In order to come to an end as fast as possible, the driver presses the accelerator to the fullest extent. By doing that, the persons to be executed suffer death from suffocation and not death by dozing off as was planned. My directions now have proved that by correct adjustment of the levers, death comes faster and the prisoners fall asleep peacefully. Distorted faces and excretions, such as could be seen before, are no longer noticed.

Today I shall continue my journey to group B, where I can be reached with further news. –signed– Doctor Becker; SS Untersturmführer.

On Page 3 in Document 501-PS we find a letter signed by Hauptsturmführer Trühess on the subject of S-Vans, addressed to the Reich Security Main Office, Berlin, marked “top secret.” This letter establishes that the vans were used for the annihilation of the Jews. I read this top-secret message; subject, “S-Vans”:

A transport of Jews, which has to be treated in a special way, arrives weekly at the office of the commandant of the Security Police and the Security Service of White Ruthenia. The three S-vans which are there are not sufficient for that purpose. I request assignment of another S-van (5 tons). At the same time I request the shipment of 20 gas hoses for the three S-vans on hand (two Diamond, one Saurer), since the ones on hand are leaky already. –signed– the Commandant of the Security Police and the Security Service, Ostland.

It would appear from the documentary evidence that a certain amount of discord existed between the officials of the German Government as to the proper means and methods used in connection with the program of extermination. A secret report dated 18 June 1943, addressed to Defendant Rosenberg, complained that 5,000 Jews killed by the police and SS might have been used for forced labor and chided them for failing to bury the bodies of those liquidated. [… ]

COMMENTARY: Incredibly, the Germans allegedly gassed around 250,000 Jews in vans, in a period of just some ten months—around 25,000 per month, or almost 1,000 per day, seven days a week. Given the technical problems mentioned above, this is simply impossible. The situation might be different if we had clear physical evidence of 250,000 dead bodies—bones, ashes, grave space etc. But neither bones nor ashes have been found, and no excavations have ever confirmed the mass graves of a quarter-million people. And no one has ever found a single remaining gas van, nor even any remnants of such a van. The entire orthodox story collapses.

The next section of the presentation returns to the Einsatzgruppen and their alleged atrocities. Unfortunately, here too are countless problems: unconfirmed claims of huge casualties, utter lack of physical evidence, insufficient excavations to confirm thousands of murders, exaggeration by frontline German commanders, and so on. See Dalton (2020: 87-96) for details. That said, even on the revisionist view, tens of thousands of Jews died at the Front—perhaps as many as 150,000 in total, by the end of the war. Hence such reports are not unexpected.

MAJOR WALSH: A further complaint is contained in a secret letter addressed to General of the Infantry Thomas, chief of the industrial armament department, dated 2 December 1941. It might be noted with interest that the apprehensive writer of this letter stated that he did not forward the communication through official channels. I offer in evidence captured Document 3257-PS; and I quote from the first paragraph:

For the personal information of the chief of the industrial armament department, I am forwarding a total account of the present situation in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine in which the difficulties and tensions encountered so far and the problems which give rise to serious anxiety are stated with unmistakable clarity.

Intentionally I have desisted from submitting such a report through official channels or from making it known to other departments interested in it because I do not expect any results that way, but on the contrary am apprehensive that the difficulties and tensions and also the divergent opinions might only be increased due to the peculiarity of the situation.

Jewish problem: Regulation of the Jewish Question in the Ukraine was a difficult problem because the Jews constituted a large part of the urban population. We therefore have to deal just as in the Government General with a mass problem of policy concerning the population. Many cities had a percentage of Jews exceeding 50 percent. Only the rich Jews had fled from the German troops. The majority of Jews remained under German administration. The latter found the problem more complicated through the fact that these Jews represented almost entire trades and even a part of the manpower in small and medium industries, besides business, which had in part become superfluous as a direct or indirect result of the war. The elimination therefore necessarily had far-reaching economic consequences and even direct consequences for the armament industry (production for supplying the troops).

The attitude of the Jewish population was anxious—obliging from the beginning. They tried to avoid everything that might displease the German administration. That they hated the German administration and army inwardly goes without saying and cannot be surprising. However, there is no proof that Jewry as a whole or even to a greater part was implicated in acts of sabotage... Surely there were some terrorists or saboteurs among them, just as among the Ukrainians. But it cannot be said that the Jews as such represented a danger to the German Armed Forces. The output produced by Jews who, of course, were prompted by nothing but the feeling of fear, was satisfactory to the troops and the German administration.

The Jewish population remained temporarily unmolested shortly after the fighting. Only weeks, sometimes months later, specially detached formations of police executed a planned shooting of Jews. This action as a rule proceeded from east to west. It was done entirely in public with the use of the Ukrainian militia; and unfortunately, in many instances also with members of the Armed Forces taking part voluntarily. The way these actions, which included men and old men, women, and children of all ages, were carried out was horrible. The great masses executed make this action more gigantic than any similar measure taken so far in the Soviet Union. So far about 150,000 to 200,000 Jews may have been executed in the part of the Ukraine belonging to the Reichskommissariat; no consideration was given to the interests of economy.

Summarizing, it can be said that the kind of solution of the Jewish problem applied to the Ukraine, which obviously was based on the ideological theories as a matter of principle, had the following results:

(a) Elimination of a part of partly superfluous eaters in the cities;

(b) Elimination of a part of the population which undoubtedly hated us;

(c) Elimination of badly needed tradesmen who were in many instances indispensable even in the interests of the Armed Forces;

(d) Consequences as to foreign policy propaganda which are obvious;

(e) Bad effects on the troops, which in any case get indirect contact with the execution;

(f) Brutalizing effect on the formations which carry out the execution—regular police.

[… ]

MAJOR WALSH: This presentation, if the Court please, would be incomplete without incorporating herein reference to the concentration camps insofar as they relate to the hundreds of thousands—millions—of Jews who died by mass shooting, gas, poison, starvation, and other means. The subject of concentration camps and all its horrors was shown to the Tribunal not only in the motion picture film but by the most able presentation by Mr. Dodd yesterday; and it is not intended, at this time, to refer to the camps—only in so far as they relate to the part played in the annihilation of the Jewish people. For example, in the camp at Auschwitz during July 1944 Jews were killed at the rate of 12,000 daily. This information is contained in Document L-161. The Document L-161 is an official Polish report on Auschwitz Concentration Camp. It is dated 31 May 1945. I quote: “During July 1944, Hungarian Jews were being liquidated at the rate of 12,000 daily; and as the crematoria could not deal with such numbers, many bodies were thrown into large pits and covered with quicklime.”

COMMENTARY: The above reference to Auschwitz was one of the first in the IMT. It would appear extensively in the testimonies to follow. Later we will return to that camp, and to the alleged murder of the Hungarian Jews in summer 1944.

Also at this point, Walsh moves his discussion to the second-most-deadly camp, Treblinka; this is the first such mention at the IMT. Notable here is the claim that Jews were murdered by steam; this is a ludicrous and impossible claim, and clear evidence of fabrication or gross error. No present-day expert defends the steam-gassing thesis. (Some delousing chambers, however, did operate on steam, and this may well have been the source of the rumor.)

On the revisionist thesis, camps like Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec were transit camps. Jews would arrive there, be disinfested of any typhus-bearing lice, and then shipped on to labor camps or ghettos further east. Of course, many would have arrived there dead, or died on site of various causes; revisionists estimate that perhaps 25,000 Jews died at Treblinka—a tragic figure, but far less tragic than the 900,000 claimed by traditionalism. Again, the utter lack of bodies, bones, ashes, mass graves etc. all suggest that the number of deceased was relatively small.

I offer in evidence Document 3311-PS. This is an official Polish Government Commission report on the investigation of German crimes in Poland. The document describes the concentration camp at Treblinka; I read as follows:

In March 1942 the Germans began to erect another camp, Treblinka B, in the neighborhood of Treblinka A, intended to become a place of torment for Jews.

The erection of this camp was closely connected with the German plans aimed at a complete destruction of the Jewish population in Poland, which necessitated the creation of a machinery by means of which the Polish Jews could be killed in large numbers. Late in April 1942 erection was completed of the first chambers in which these general massacres were to be performed by means of steam. Somewhat later the erection of the real death building, which contains 10 death chambers, was finished. It was opened for wholesale murders early in autumn 1942.

The average number of Jews dealt with at the camp in the summer of 1942 was about two railway transports daily, but there were days of much higher efficiency. From autumn 1942 this number was falling.

After unloading in the siding, all victims were assembled in one place, where men were separated from women and children. In the first days of the existence of the camp, the victims were made to believe that after a short stay in the camp, necessary for bathing and disinfection, they would be sent farther east for work. Explanations of this sort were given by SS men who assisted at the unloading of the transports, and further explanations could be read in notices stuck up on the walls of the barracks. But later, when more transports had to be dealt with, the Germans dropped all pretenses and only tried to accelerate the procedure.

All victims had to strip off their clothes and shoes, which were collected afterwards, whereupon all victims, women and children first, were driven into the death chambers. Those too slow or too weak to move quickly were driven in by rifle butts, by whipping and kicking, often by Sauer himself. Many slipped and fell; the next victims pressed forward and stumbled over them. Small children were simply thrown inside. After being filled up to capacity, the chambers were hermetically closed and steam was let in. In a few minutes all was over. The Jewish menial workers had to remove the bodies from the platform and to bury them in mass graves. By and by, as new transports arrived, the cemetery grew, extending in an easterly direction.

From reports received, it may be assumed that several hundred thousands of Jews have been exterminated in Treblinka.

I now offer in evidence the document identified by Number L-22. This is an official United States Government report issued by the Executive Office of the President of the United States, War Refugee Board, on the German camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau, dated 1944. On Page 33 of this report is set forth the number of Jews gassed in Birkenau in the 2-year period between April 1942 and April 1944. I have been assured that the figure printed in this report is not a typographical error. The number shown is 1,765,000.

COMMENTARY: Here again we find clear evidence of misinformation, gross exaggeration or outright lies. Today, the total death toll for Auschwitz and Birkenau, over three full years (not two), is presumed to be around 1 million Jews. Today, the two-year figure (April 1942 to April 1944) is presumed to be about 400,000. Neither of these numbers approaches the 1,765,000 that Walsh stated so confidently. And his figure is vastly higher than the 140,000 suggested by the revisionists.

I would now like to turn to the German bookkeeping and statistics for enlightenment on the extermination of Jews in Poland. Referring again to the diary of Hans Frank already in evidence, Document 2233-PS, I read briefly from the beginning of the fourth paragraph on Page 1: “For us the Jews also represent extraordinarily malignant gluttons. We have now approximately 2,500,000 of them in the Government General...perhaps with the Jewish mixtures, and everything that goes with it, 3,500,000 Jews.” Now this figure, if the Court please, was as of 16 December 1941. I now wish to turn to 25 January 1944, 3 years and 1 month later, and make reference to another excerpt from Frank’s diary. This volume covers the period from 1 January 1944 to 28 February 1944, and Page 5 of the original reads: “At the present time we still have in the Government General perhaps 100,000 Jews.” In this period of 3 years, according to the records of the then Governor General of Occupied Poland, between 2,400,000 and 3,400,000 Jews had been eliminated.

The Prosecution could offer this Tribunal a wealth of evidence on the total number of Jews who died by Nazi hands, but it is believed that cumulative evidence would not vary the guilt of these defendants.

I do wish, however, to offer one document, a statement, to establish the deaths of 4 million Jews in camps and deaths of 2 million Jews by the State Police in the East, making a total of 6 million—Document 2738-PS. This is a statement—of Adolf Eichmann, Chief of the Jewish Section of the Gestapo, and the source of the figures quoted—made by Dr. Wilhelm Höttl, Deputy Group Leader of the foreign section of the Security Police Amt IV of the RSHA. Dr. Wilhelm Höttl, in affidavit form, made the following statement; and I quote from Page 2:

Approximately 4 million Jews had been killed in the various concentration camps, while an additional 2 million met death in other ways, the major part of which were shot by operational squads of the Security Police during the campaign against Russia.

May I, in conclusion, emphasize that the captured documents in evidence are, almost without exception, from the official sources of the Nazi Party.

COMMENTARY: Above is a crucial passage in the IMT, and for the entire Holocaust story. A minor Nazi functionary, William Höttl (or Hoettl), signed an affidavit—surely under duress—that claimed four million Jewish deaths in the camps, two million in “other ways” (presumably shootings and ghettos), resulting in a total of 6 million fatalities. This is the first formal appearance of the infamous “6 million”.¹⁴

President Lawrence goes on to rightly ask, “Where does the person (Höttl) get his information?” And Walsh confidently replies, “from Eichmann.” As if this resolves the whole question. In other words, there was no objective, verifiable data on the 6 million. The situation is unchanged even to the present day, over 75 years later.

As we now realize, the 6-million figure, with respect to dying or suffering Jews, literally goes back decades. In the New York Times alone we find dozens of reports of 6 million suffering Jews, dating back to the late 1800s; see Dalton (2020: 53-64) for examples and details. The “6 million” evidently came to be representative of “many Jews” or “all the Jews,” got lodged in the public (or at least Jewish) consciousness, and was simply regurgitated here at the IMT. There never was, nor will there be, any objective data to support such a figure. It is an exaggeration by a factor of 10, at least.

THE PRESIDENT: You only read that one statement, but where does the person who made the affidavit get his information from?

MAJOR WALSH: I shall be pleased to read that in there, Sir. I made a statement that Eichmann has been the source of the information given to Dr. Wilhelm Höttl, one of his assistants, and on Page 1 it says:

According to my knowledge, Eichmann was at the time a section leader in Amt IV (Gestapo) of RSHA; and in addition, he had been ordered by Himmler to get hold of the Jews in all the European countries and to transport them to Germany. Eichmann was then very much impressed with the fact that Romania had withdrawn from the war in those days. Therefore, he had come to me to get information about the military situation, which I received daily from the Hungarian… Ministry of War and from the Commander of the Waffen-SS in Hungary. He expressed his conviction that Germany had lost the war and that he personally had no further chance. He knew that he would be considered one of the main war criminals by the United Nations, since he had millions of Jewish lives on his conscience. I asked him how many that was, to which he answered that although the number was a great Reich secret, he would tell me since I, as a historian too, would be interested and that probably he would not return anyhow from his command in Romania. He had, shortly before that, made a report to Himmler, as the latter wanted to know the exact number of Jews who had been killed.

It was on that basis of this information, Sir, that I read the following quotation.

COMMENTARY: At this point, president Lawrence suddenly adjourned for the day. The following day, Walsh issued a short closing statement.

MAJOR WALSH: [… ] The slaughter of the Jews in Europe cannot be expressed in figures alone, for the impact of this slaughter is even more tragic to the future of the Jewish people and mankind. Ancient Jewish communities with their own rich spiritual, cultural, and economic life, bound up for centuries with the life of the nations in which they flourished, have been completely obliterated. The contribution of the Jewish people to civilization, the arts, the sciences, industry, and culture, need not, I am sure, be elaborated upon before this Tribunal. Their destruction, carried out continuously, deliberately, intentionally, and methodically by the Nazis, represents a loss to civilization of special qualities and abilities that cannot possibly be recouped.

I have not attempted to recount the multitudinous and diabolical crimes committed against the Jewish people by the state which these defendants ruled, because, with sober regard for contemporary and historical truth, a detailed description of some of these crimes would transcend the utmost reaches of the human faculty of expression. The mind already recoils and shrinks from the acceptance of the incredible facts already related. Rather, it is my purpose to elucidate the pattern, the successful and successive stages, the sequence and concurrence of the crimes committed, the pre-determined means to a pre-ordained end.

Yet, these cold, stark, brutal facts and figures, drawn largely from the defendants’ own sources and submitted in evidence before this Tribunal, defy rebuttal.

From conception to execution, from the Party program of 1920 to the gloating declarations of Himmler and the Defendant Frank in 1943 and 1944, the annihilation of the Jewish people in Europe was man-made—made by the very men, sitting in the defendants’ box, brought to judgment before this Tribunal.

CHAPTER THREE:
THE CASE AGAINST ROSENBERG

IMT, Vol. 5: 41-51
9 January 1946
(30th day)

COMMENTARY: The first few weeks of the trial were consumed with preliminaries, background statements and a few individual testimonies. Into the year 1946, prosecutors began to lay out their cases against the targeted individuals. The first such case was against Kaltenbrunner (2 January), followed by Göring a few days later. On 9 January, cases were presented against Ribbentrop, Keitel and Jodl jointly (both worked together in the Wehrmacht), and then Alfred Rosenberg. In each instance, the defendant and his attorney were present but were not allowed to speak; the preliminary phase was strictly reserved for the prosecutors to lay out their evidence. Later, each man would be allowed to be examined by his own attorney and speak in his own defense.

The case against Rosenberg was presented by a 32-year-old American private first class, Walter Brudno. Normally this would have been an odd selection, but Brudno met two key criteria: he was a lawyer, and he was Jewish. It seems clear that he took a special interest in the “leading Nazi ideologue,” and obviously persuaded his superiors that he was the right man to make the case. After the war, Brudno would go on to teach law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He died in 1992.

Rosenberg would have to wait more than three months—until 15 April—to present his defense.

Your Lordships, Mr. Walter W. Brudno of the American Delegation will present the case against Alfred Rosenberg.

MR. WALTER W. BRUDNO (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, in connection with the case against the Defendant Rosenberg, I wish to offer the document book designated as United States Exhibit EE. This book contains the English translation of all the documents which I will offer into evidence, as well as the English translation of those documents previously offered to which I will refer. [… ]

The Indictment at Page 29 charges the Defendant Rosenberg under all four Counts of the Indictment. In the presentation which follows, I will show that as charged in Count One, Section IV, Subparagraph D, Rosenberg played a particularly prominent role in developing and promoting the doctrinal techniques of the conspiracy, in developing and promoting beliefs and practices incompatible with Christian teaching, in subverting the influence of the churches over the German people, in pursuing the program of relentless persecution of the Jews, and in reshaping the educational system in order to make the German people amenable to the will of the conspirators and to prepare the people psychologically for waging an aggressive war.

Finally I will show that Rosenberg participated in the planning and direction of the War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. Particularly, he participated in the planning and direction of the spoliation of art treasures in the western countries and in the numerous crimes committed in that part of the eastern countries formerly occupied by the USSR.

The political career of the Defendant Rosenberg embraced the entire history of National Socialism and permeated nearly every phase of the conspiracy with which we are concerned. In order to obtain a full conception of his influence upon and participation in the conspiracy, it is necessary to review briefly his political history, and to consider each of his political activities in their relation to the thread of the conspiracy which stretches from the inception of the Party in 1919 to the defeat of Germany in 1945.

It is both interesting and revealing to note that for Rosenberg the 30th of November 1918 marked the “beginning of political activities with a lecture about the ‘Jewish Question’.” That statement is found at Line 2 of the translation of Document 2865-PS, which is an excerpt from a book entitled, The Work of Alfred Rosenberg, a biography.

From the Document 3557-PS, which has excerpts from an official pamphlet entitled Dates in the History of the NSDAP, we learn that Rosenberg was a member of the German Labor Party (DAP), afterwards the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), in January 1919, and that Hitler joined forces with Rosenberg and his colleagues in October of the same year. Thus, Rosenberg was a member of the National Socialist movement even before Hitler himself.

Now I wish to offer Document 3530-PS, which is an extract from Das Deutsche Führer Lexikon, the year of 1934-35. In this document we obtain additional biographical data on Rosenberg as follows:

From 1921 until the present he was editor of the Völkischer Beobachter; editor of the N. S. Monatshefte; in 1930, he became member of the Reichstag and representative of the foreign policies for the Party... Since April 1933 he was leader of the foreign political office of the NSDAP, then designated Reichsleiter; in January 1934, deputized by the Führer for the supervision of the ideological education of the NSDAP, the German labor front, and all related organizations.

The Document 2865-PS, which I have just referred to, adds that, in July 1941, Rosenberg was appointed Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories.

With this general background information in mind, the first phase of proof will deal with Rosenberg as official National Socialist ideologist. The proof which I will present will show the nature and scope of the ideological tenets he expounded, and the influence he exerted upon the unification of German thought, a unification which was an essential part of the conspirators’ program for the seizure of power and preparation for aggressive war.

Rosenberg wrote extensively on, and actively participated in, virtually every aspect of the National Socialist program. His first publication was the Nature, Basic Principles, and Aims of the NSDAP. This publication appeared in 1922. Rosenberg spoke of this book in a speech which we have seen and heard delivered in the motion picture previously introduced as Exhibit Number USA-167. On Page 2, Part 1, of the transcription of the speech, which is our Document Number 3054-PS, Rosenberg stated as follows:

“During this time”—that is, during the early phase of the Party—“I wrote a short thesis which nevertheless is significant in the history of the NSDAP.” This is Rosenberg speaking:

It was always being asked what points of program the NSDAP had and how they were to be interpreted. Therefore I wrote the Nature, Basic Principles, and Aims of the NSDAP, and this writing made the first permanent connection for Munich and local organizations being created and friends within the Reich.

We thus see that the original draftsman of, and spokesman on, the Party program was the Defendant Rosenberg. Without attempting to survey the entire ideological program advanced by the Defendant Rosenberg in his various writings and speeches, which are very numerous, I wish to offer into evidence certain of his statements as an indication of the nature and broad scope of the ideological program which he championed. It will be seen that there was not a single basic tenet of the Nazi philosophy which was not given authoritative expression by Rosenberg.

COMMENTARY: Brudno then goes into an attack on Rosenberg’s seminal 1930 work, The Myth of the Twentieth Century. A myth, for him, is not a fairy tale or fiction but rather a guiding vision, an overarching self-image for a people or a nation. Rosenberg’s myth is in fact “the myth of blood”—that is, of race, of genetics—by which all peoples can be evaluated and assessed. Every civilization is a consequence of the particular racial characteristics of its people, and of the guiding vision possessed by them. In his book, Rosenberg lays out a German/Nordic/Aryan vision of nobility, idealism and cultural greatness. He promotes and praises a rustic, pastoral, agrarian lifestyle, in contrast to the corrupting cosmopolitanism of the Jews and others. He advances a “positive” or original Christianity, rather than the corrupted, Catholic, Judeo-Christianity of the day. And he calls for racial purity among the German nation, including the expulsion—but not the killing—of Jews and other ethnic minorities.

Regarding military objectives, Rosenberg explicitly calls for an expansion “to the East” in order to acquire more land, more living space (Lebensraum) for the German people. Here he is aligned with Hitler: military force will be directed toward Poland, Ukraine and perhaps even Russia, not toward Western Europe, in which the Germans saw no direct threat—Russian Bolshevism, of course, being the primary danger.

Rosenberg wrote the book titled The Myth of the Twentieth Century, published in 1930. At Page 479, Rosenberg wrote on the race question as follows:

The essence of the contemporary world revolution lies in the awakening of the racial type; not in Europe alone but on the whole planet. This awakening is the organic counter-movement against the last chaotic remnants of the liberal economic imperialism, whose objects of exploitation out of desperation have fallen into the snare of Bolshevik Marxism, in order to complete what democracy had begun: the extirpation of racial and national consciousness.

Rosenberg expounded the Lebensraum idea, which idea was the chief motivation, the dynamic impulse behind Germany’s waging of aggressive war. In his journal, the National Socialist Monatshefte, for May 1932, he wrote at Page 199:

The understanding that the German nation, if it is not to perish in the truest sense of the word, needs ground and soil for itself and its future generations; and the second sober perception that this soil can no more be conquered in Africa, but in Europe and first of all in the East, these organically determine the German foreign policy for centuries.

Rosenberg expressed his theory as to the place of religion in the National Socialist State in his Myth of the Twentieth Century, additional excerpts from which are cited in Document 2891-PS. At Page 215 of the “Myth” he wrote as follows:

We now realize that the central supreme values of the Roman and the Protestant Churches, being a negative Christianity, do not respond to our soul, that they hinder the organic powers of the people designated as a Nordic race, that they must give way to them, that they have to be remodeled to conform to a Germanic Christianity. Therein lies the meaning of the present religious search.

In the place of traditional Christianity, Rosenberg sought to implant the neo-pagan myth of the blood. At Page 114 in the Myth of the Twentieth Century he stated as follows: “Today, a new faith is awakening; the myth of the blood, the belief that the divine being of mankind generally is to be defended with the blood. The faith embodied by the fullest realization that the Nordic blood constitutes that mystery which has supplanted and overwhelmed the old sacraments.”

Rosenberg’s attitudes on religion were accepted as the only philosophy compatible with National Socialism. In 1940 the Defendant Bormann wrote to Rosenberg in Document 098-PS; and I quote: “The churches cannot be conquered by a compromise between National Socialism and Christian teachings but only through a new ideology, whose coming you, yourself, have announced in your writings.”

Rosenberg was particularly avid in his pursuit of what he called the “Jewish Question.” On the 28th of March 1941, on the occasion of the opening of the Institute for the Exploration of the Jewish Question, he set the keynote for its activities and indicated the direction which the exploration was to take. I would like to quote from Document 2865-PS. This is an excerpt from the Völkischer Beobachter, 29th of March 1941. This is a statement made by Rosenberg on the occasion of the opening of the institute:

For Germany, the Jewish Question is only then solved when the last Jew has left the Greater German space. Since Germany with its blood and its folkdom has now broken for always this Jewish dictatorship for all Europe and has seen to it that Europe as a whole will become free from the Jewish parasitism once more, we may, I believe, also say for all Europeans: For Europe, the Jewish Question is only then solved when the last Jew has left the European continent.

COMMENTARY: This is an instructive passage. The Jews must “leave Germany,” “leave Europe.” They need not be imprisoned or killed, and indeed not even harmed; rather, they simply must leave. This was always the consistent view of the leading Nazis. There was no plan for mass murder, gas chambers or the like. The policy was one of evacuation, expulsion and deportation—in other words, of ethnic cleansing.

It has already been seen that Rosenberg did not overlook any opportunity to put these anti-Semitic beliefs into practice. Your Honors will recall that in Document 001-PS, which was introduced as Exhibit Number USA-282 in connection with the case on persecution of the Jews, Rosenberg recommended that instead of executing 100 Frenchmen as retaliation for attempts on lives of members of the Wehrmacht, there be executed 100 Jewish bankers, lawyers, et cetera. The recommendation was made with the avowed purpose of awakening the anti-Jewish sentiment.

Document 752-PS, which was introduced this morning by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe as Exhibit GB-159, discloses that Rosenberg had called an anti-Semitic congress in June 1944, although this congress was cancelled due to military events.

In the realm of foreign policy, in addition to demanding Lebensraum, Rosenberg called for elimination of the Versailles Treaty and cast aside any thought of revision of that treaty. In his book The Nature, Basic Principles, and Aims of the NSDAP, written by Rosenberg in 1922, he expressed his opinions regarding the Treaty of Versailles. He stated as follows:

The National Socialists reject the popular phrase of the ‘Revision of the Peace of Versailles’ as such a revision might perhaps bring a few numerical reductions in the so-called ‘obligations’; but the entire German people would still be, just as before, the slave of other nations.

Then he goes on to expound the second point of the Party: “We demand equality for the German people with other nations, the cancellation of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.”

COMMENTARY: Brudno’s remark here on the “second point of the Party” refers to the 25-Point Program of the NSDAP, given in full in Appendix A. Later references to the “program” of the NSDAP refer to the same document.

Rosenberg conceived of the spread of National Socialism throughout the world and, as will be subsequently shown, took an active part in promoting the infection of other nations with his creed. In the Nature, Basic Principles, and Aims of the NSDAP he states:

But National Socialism still believes that its principles and ideology—though in individual methods of fight according to various racial conditions—will be directives far beyond the borders of Germany for the inevitable fights for power in other countries of Europe and America. There too a clear line of thought must be drawn, and the racial-nationalistic fight against the everywhere-similar loan-capitalistic and Marxist-internationalism must be taken up. National Socialism believes that once the great world battle is concluded, after the defeat of the present epoch, there will be a time when the swastika will be woven into the different banners of the Germanic peoples as the Aryan symbol of rejuvenation.

This statement was made in 1922. It is thus seen that the Defendant Rosenberg gave authoritative expression to the basic tenets upon which National Socialism was founded, and through the exploitation of which, the conspiracy was crystallized in action.

Rosenberg’s value to the conspiratorial program found official recognition with his appointment in 1934 as the Führer’s delegate for the entire spiritual and philosophical education and supervision of the NSDAP. His activities in this capacity were vast and varied. [… ]

COMMENTARY: Deletion here of approximately one page of testimony unrelated to the Jewish Question.

THE PRESIDENT: Aren’t you dealing with this rather in a cumulative way? Isn’t it possible to summarize this evidence against Rosenberg more than you are doing?

MR. BRUDNO: I will try to, Your Honor. However, although the Indictment charges, and there is already substantial proof to show that the defendant conspirators used ideological training as an implement in achieving their rise to power and in consolidating their control, there seems to be little evidence as to Rosenberg’s position; and I am introducing this evidence in order to show that he played a dominant role in this connection. However, I will try to summarize these documents if I can.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’ve taken down about 20 documents that you have alluded to, all of which deal with Rosenberg’s ideological theories.

MR. BRUDNO: Yes, Your Honor. I was merely trying to show the scope of his activities.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

MR. BRUDNO: Your Honors will recall that it was in his capacity as Führer’s delegate that Rosenberg established the Institute for the Exploration of the Jewish Question in Frankfurt. This institute, commonly known as the “Hohe Schule,” has been referred to in connection with the exposition of art plunders. Into its library there flowed books, documents, and manuscripts which were looted from virtually every country of occupied Europe. Further evidence on this score will be introduced by the prosecutor of the Republic of France.

Your Honors will also recall that it was as ideological delegate that Rosenberg conducted the fabulous art looting activities of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, activities which extended to virtually every country occupied by the Germans. I will not attempt to summarize the extent of the plunder and merely refer the Tribunal to Document 1015(b)-PS, and Document L-188. Document 1015(b)-PS details the looting of 21,000 objects of art; Document L-188, the looting of the contents of over 71,000 Jewish homes in the West. This subject, too, will be further developed by the French Prosecutor.

The importance of Rosenberg’s activities as official ideologist of the Nazi Party was not overlooked. In Document 3559-PS, incidentally, is the Hart biography of Rosenberg, entitled Alfred Rosenberg, The Man and His Work—it is stated that Rosenberg won the German National Prize in 1937. The creation of this prize, Your Honors will recall, was the Nazis’ petulant reply to the award of the Nobel Prize to Karl von Ossietzki,¹⁵ an inmate of a German concentration camp. The citation which accompanied the award to Rosenberg reads as follows:

Alfred Rosenberg has helped with his publications to lay the scientific and intuitive foundation and to strengthen the ideology of National Socialism in the most excellent way.... The National Socialist movement, and beyond that, the entire German people will be deeply gratified that the Führer has distinguished Alfred Rosenberg as one of his oldest and most faithful fighting comrades by awarding him the German National Prize.

The contribution which Rosenberg’s book, The Myth of the Twentieth Century, the foundation of all his ideological propaganda, made in the development of National Socialism, was appraised in a publication Bucher Kunde in 1942. The first page sets forth an appraisal of the Myth of the Twentieth Century.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Brudno, you referred us to the Myth of the Twentieth Century on several occasions.

MR. BRUDNO: Yes, Your Honor.

THE PRESIDENT: We really don’t want to hear any more about it.

MR. BRUDNO: I wish to show that this book is regarded as being one of the pillars of the movement and I wish to show also, Sir, that it had a circulation of over a million copies.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it is absolutely clear from the evidence which has already been given that Rosenberg was enunciating doctrines of the ideology of the Nazi Party; and I don’t think that it is necessary to go any further into details about it.

MR. BRUDNO: Very well. If the Tribunal is satisfied that Rosenberg’s ideas formed the foundation for the National Socialist ideological movement, I will pass on.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you have already brought out the fact that he was appointed the Führer’s deputy for that purpose; wasn’t he?

MR. BRUDNO: Yes, Your Honor. I shall pass on from that point. I would merely like to make reference, however, to Document 789-PS. This document records a meeting between Hitler and his supreme commanders, on which occasion Hitler said, “The building up of our Armed Forces was possible only in connection with the ideological education of the German people by the Party.”

We submit that the contribution which Rosenberg made through formulation and dissemination of National Socialist ideology was fundamental to the conspiracy. As the apostle of neo-paganism, the exponent of the drive for Lebensraum, and the glorifier of the myth of Nordic superiority and as one of the oldest and most energetic Nazi proponents of anti-Semitism, he contributed materially to the unification of the German people behind the swastika. He provided the impetus and the inspiration for the National Socialist movement. His doctrines were responsible for the sublimation of morality and the crystallization of the Nordic dream in the minds of the German people, thereby making them useful tools in the hands of the conspirators and willing collaborators in the prosecution of their criminal plan.

COMMENTARY: Brudno then moves onto the “second phase” of his case, dealing largely with Rosenberg’s time as minister of the Eastern Occupied Territories, but only marginally addressing the Jewish Question. These 10 pages of testimony are omitted here. This was the end of Brudno’s case.

In the following chapter, we will jump ahead to Rosenberg’s testimony of 15 April in order to hear his own defense. After that, we turn to the other main defendant, Julius Streicher.

CHAPTER FOUR:
ROSENBERG’S DEFENSE

IMT, Vol. 11: 444-563
15-17 April 1946
(108th – 110th days)

COMMENTARY: Beginning in mid-March with Göring, the individual defendants were put on the stand to testify in their own defense. From 15 April, Rosenberg testified over a period of three days, with most commentary of interest coming on the final day. During the first two days, he was questioned by his own attorney, Alfred Thoma. On the third day he faced hostile questioning from Carl Haensel and Thomas Dodd.

DR. ALFRED THOMA (Counsel for the Defense): Mr. President, first of all, I am submitting copies of the documents which were granted me this morning and which are from Rosenberg’s publications—Tradition and Our Present Age, Writings and Speeches, Blood and Honor, Formation of the Idea, and The Myth of the 20th Century—as evidence of the fact that the defendant did not participate in a conspiracy against the peace and in the psychological preparation for war. These excerpts contain speeches which the defendant made before diplomats, before students, before jurists, and are meant to prove that on these occasions he fought for social peace, and that, in particular, he did not want the battle of ideologies to result in foreign political enmity. In these speeches, he advocated respect for all races, spoke against the propaganda for leaving the church, advocated freedom of conscience and a sensible solution of the Jewish problem, even giving certain advantages to Jews. In particular, he called for equality and justice in this matter. I ask the Tribunal to take official notice of these speeches, and with the permission of the Tribunal, I call the Defendant Rosenberg to the witness stand.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?

ALFRED ROSENBERG (Defendant): Alfred Rosenberg.

THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.

DR. THOMA: Mr. Rosenberg, will you please give the Tribunal your personal history.

ROSENBERG: I was born on 12 January 1893 in Reval in Estonia. After having graduated there from high school I began to study architecture in the autumn of 1910 at the Institute of Technology at Riga. When the German-Russian front lines approached in 1915, the Institute of Technology, including the professors and students, was evacuated to Moscow, and there I continued my studies in this capital of Russia. The end of January or the beginning of February 1918, I finished my studies, received a diploma as an engineer and architect, and returned to my native city.

When the German troops entered Reval, I tried to enlist as a volunteer in the German Army, but since I was a citizen of an occupied country, I was not accepted without special recommendation. Since in the future I did not want to live between the frontiers of several countries, I tried to get to Germany.

To the Baltic Germans, notwithstanding their loyalty toward the Russian State, German culture was their intellectual home, and the experience I had had in Russia strengthened my resolution to do everything within my power to help prevent the political movement in Germany from backsliding into Bolshevism. I believed that this movement in Germany, because of the precarious structure of the system of the German Reich, would have meant a tremendous catastrophe. At the end of November 1918, I travelled to Berlin and from there to Munich. Actually, I wanted to take up my profession as an architect, but in Munich I met people who felt the way I did, and I became a staff member of a weekly, which was founded at that time in Munich. I went to work on this weekly paper in January 1918 and have continued in literary work since that time. I lived through the development of the political movement here in Munich until the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 and its overthrow.

COMMENTARY: By November 1918, as World War One stretched on into its fourth year, civil unrest in Germany began to cause significant problems. This activity, largely orchestrated by union leaders and various Jewish radicals, resulted in the abdication of Wilhelm II on 9 November, leaving the nation in a state of chaos. Jewish groups in Berlin and Munich rushed in to seize power, and immediately surrendered, thereby ending the war. In Berlin, a “Free Socialist Republic” was formed by several Jews, including Rosa Luxemburg, Hugo Haase, Karl Liebknecht, Leo Jogiches, Karl Radek and Alexander Parvus. In Munich, Jewish journalist Kurt Eisner seized power at that time, until his assassination by a fellow Jew, Anton Arco-Valley, on 21 February 1919.

The so-called Bavarian Soviet Republic that Rosenberg refers to was a short-lived—about one month—government formed by another Jew, Eugen Levine, in April 1919, along with Otto Neurath. German army troops moved in by May, captured Levine, and executed him for treason in June. For details on these events, see Dalton (2019: 79-81).

DR. THOMA: You just mentioned Germany as your intellectual home. Will you tell the Tribunal by which studies and by which scientists you were influenced in favor of the German mentality?

ROSENBERG: In addition to my immediate artistic interests in architecture and painting, I had since childhood pursued historical and philosophical studies and thus, of course, instinctively I tended to read Goethe, Herder, and Fichte in order to develop intellectually along these lines. At the same time, I was influenced by the social ideas of Charles Dickens, Carlyle, and, with regard to America, by Emerson. I continued these studies at Riga and, naturally, took up Kant and Schopenhauer and, above all, devoted myself to the study of the philosophy of India and related schools of thought. Later, of course, I studied the prominent European historians of the history of civilization: Burckhardt and Rohde, Ranke and Treitschke, Mommsen, and Schlieffen. Finally, in Munich I started to study modern biology more closely.

DR. THOMA: You frequently mentioned in the course of your speeches “the embodiment of the idea.” Was this due to Goethe’s influence?

ROSENBERG: Yes, it is a matter of course that the idea of seeing the world as an “embodiment” goes back to Goethe.

DR. THOMA: How did you come to the NSDAP and to Hitler in Munich?

ROSENBERG: In May 1919 the publisher of the journal which I mentioned was visited by a man by the name of Anton Drexler, who introduced himself as the chairman of a newly-founded German Workers’ Party. He stated that he advocated ideas similar to those expressed by this journal, and from that time I began to have connections with a very small group of German laborers which had been formed in Munich. There in the autumn of 1919, I also met Hitler.

COMMENTARY: Drexler (1884-1942) founded the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or DAP) in January 1919, along with Dietrich Eckart and Gottfried Feder. He served as chairman for the first year of the party’s existence. Hitler joined the party in September, and in February 1920 they renamed the group Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or NSDAP—“Nazi” for short. In July 1921, Hitler assumed full leadership of the group.

DR. THOMA: When did you join Hitler?

ROSENBERG: Well, at that time I had an earnest conversation with Hitler, and on that occasion, I noticed his broad view of the entire European situation. He said that, in his opinion, Europe was at that time in a social and political crisis, such as had not existed since the fall of the ancient Roman Empire. He said that seats of unrest were to be found everywhere in this sphere, and that he was personally striving to get a clear picture from the viewpoint of Germany’s restoration to sound conditions. Thereupon, I listened to some of the first speeches by Hitler which were made at small meetings of 40 and 50 people. I believed, above all, a soldier who had been at the front, and who had done his duty silently for 4½ years, had the right to speak now.

At the end of 1919, I entered the Party—not before Hitler, as it is contended here, but later. In this original Party, I was assigned Number 625 as a member. I did not participate in setting up the program. I was present, however, when this program was read and commented upon by Hitler on 24 February 1920.

COMMENTARY: Again, the “program” refers to the 25-Point Program, as shown in Appendix A. Hitler offers a concise explanation of the development of the Program at the end of Volume One of Mein Kampf (Sections 12.19-12.22). See Hitler (2018: 359-363).

DR. THOMA: Then you gave a justification for the Party program and probably wanted to solve the problems which referred to the social and political crisis. How did you picture the solution?

ROSENBERG: In response to different inquiries regarding the 25 points of the program, I wrote a commentary at the end of 1922, which has been read to the Tribunal in fragments. Our general attitude at the time may perhaps be stated briefly as follows:

The technical revolution of the 19th century had certain social and mental consequences. Industrialization and the clamor for profit dominated life and created the industrial state and the metropolis, with all its backyards and estrangement from nature and history. At the turn of the century, many people who wanted to regain their homeland and its history turned against this one-sided movement. The revival of tradition, folk song, and folklore of the past, originated with the youth movement of that time. The works of art, for instance, by Professor Schultze-Naumburg and by some poets were a characteristic protest against this one-sided movement of the time, and it is here that National Socialism attempted to gain a foothold—in full consciousness though, that it was a modern movement and not a movement of retrospective sentimentality. It linked itself with the social movement of Stöcker and the national movement of Schönerer in Austria without using them in their entirety as a model. I should like to add that the name “National Socialism,” I believe, originated in the Sudetenland, and the small German Workers’ Party was founded under the name of “National Socialist German Workers’ Party.”

COMMENTARY: Adolf Stöcker (1835-1909) was a Lutheran clergyman and politician, court chaplain to Kaiser Wilhelm I, and founder of the Christian Socialist Party in 1878. He was also a prominent anti-Semite, having been influenced by Martin Luther’s book On the Jews and Their Lies. Georg von Schönerer (1842-1921) was an Austrian politician, pan-German nationalist and anti-Semite. Both men, but especially Schönerer, influenced the young Hitler and the other NSDAP founders. Rosenberg continues:

If I may say so, what finally animated us in essence and the reason for our calling ourselves National Socialists—for, you see, many terrible things have been delivered during these three months by the prosecution, but nothing has been said about National Socialism—we were, at the time, aware of the fact that there were two hostile camps in Germany, that in both camps millions of decent Germans were fighting; and we found ourselves facing the problem of what could be acceptable to both these camps from the viewpoint of national unity and what was preventing an understanding between these two camps. In short, at that time as well as later we explained to the proletarian side, that even if the class-conflict had been and still was a factor in social and political life, nevertheless, as an ideological basis and permanent maxim it would mean eternal disunity of the nation. The direction of a movement for social appeasement or any kind of social conflict by an international center was the second decisive obstacle to social reconciliation. The call for social justice, raised generally by labor, was, however, justified, worthy, and necessary.

Concerning the bourgeoisie, we believed we would be able to establish that in some cases the reactionary caste prejudice of privileged circles had worked to the detriment of the people, and secondly that the representation of national interests should not be based on privileges of certain classes; on the contrary, the demand for national unity and dignified representation was the right attitude on their part. From this resulted the ideas which Hitler…

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, would you try to confine the witness to the charges which are against him? The charges against the defendants are not that they attempted to reconstruct Germany, but that they used this form of reconstruction with a view to attacking outside races and nations.

DR. THOMA: Did you realize that these questions of socialism and the questions of labor and capital were in truth international questions? And why did you fight against democracy as a matter of international struggle?

MR. THOMAS DODD: Mr. President, I think this is a continuation of this same line of examination, and I should like to say that no one in the prosecution has made any charge against this defendant for what he has thought. I think we are all, as a matter of principle, opposed to prosecuting any man for what he thinks. And I say with great respect that I feel very confident that is the attitude of this Tribunal. Therefore, we think it is entirely unnecessary to spell out whatever thoughts this defendant had on these subjects, or on any other, for that matter.

DR. THOMA: To my knowledge, the defendant is also accused of fighting democracy; and that is why I believe I should put this question to him.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the question?

DR. THOMA: Why he was fighting democracy—why National Socialism and he himself fought against democracy.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think that has got anything to do with this case. The only question is whether he used National Socialism for the purpose of conducting international offensives.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, National Socialism as a concept must be dissected into its constituent parts. Since the prosecution maintains that National Socialism was a fight against democracy, a one-sided stress on nationalism and militarism, he ought now to have the opportunity to say why National Socialism supported militarism, and whether that was actually the case. National Socialism must be analyzed as a concept in order to determine its constituent parts. [… ]

I should like to ask the defendant how he will answer the charge that National Socialism preached a master-race.

ROSENBERG: I know that this problem is the main point of the indictment, and I realize that at present, in view of the number of terrible incidents, conclusions are automatically drawn about the past and the reason for the origin of the so-called racial science. I believe, however, that it is of decisive importance in judging this problem to know exactly what we were concerned with.

I have never heard the word “master-race” (Herrenrasse) as often as in this court room. To my knowledge, I did not mention or use it at all in my writings. I leafed through my Writings and Speeches again and did not find this word. I spoke only once of super-humans as mentioned by Homer, and I found a quotation from a British author, who in writing about the life of Lord Kitchener, said the Englishman who had conquered the world had proved himself as a creative superman (Herrenmensch). Then I found the word “master-race” (Herrenrasse) in a writing of the American ethnologist, Madison Grant, and of the French ethnologist, Lapouge.

I would like to admit, however—and not only to admit, but to emphasize—that the word “superman” (Herrenmensch) came to my attention particularly during my activity as Minister in the East—and very unpleasantly—when used by a number of leaders of the administration in the East. Perhaps when we come to the question of the East, I may return to this subject in detail and state what position I took in regard to these utterances which came to my attention. In principle, however, I was convinced that ethnology was, after all, not an invention of the National Socialist movement, but a biological discovery, which was the conclusion of 400 years of European research. The laws of heredity discovered in the 1860s, and rediscovered several decades later, enable us to gain a deeper insight into history than many other earlier theories. Accordingly, race…

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Thoma, the defendant is going back now into the origins of the views which he held. Surely, all we have got to consider here is his statement in speeches and in documents and the use to which he put those statements, not as to whether they were 400 years old, or anything of that sort.

DR. THOMA: The defendant just spoke about the racial problem and I will take the opportunity to speak on the so-called Jewish problem as the starting point of this question. I would like to ask the defendant the following question: You believed that the so-called Jewish problem in Europe could be solved if the last Jew left the European continent. At that time, you stated it was immaterial whether such a program was realized in 5, 10, or 20 years. It was, after all, merely a matter of transport facilities, and, at the time, you thought it advisable to put this question before an international committee. How and why did you arrive at this opinion? I mean to say, how, in your opinion, would the departure of the last Jew from Europe solve the problem?

ROSENBERG: In order to comply with the wish of the Tribunal, I do not want to give a lengthy exposition of my views as evolved from my study of history; I do not at all mean the study of anti- Semitic writings but of Jewish historians themselves.

It seemed to me that after an epoch of generous emancipation in the course of national movements of the 19th century, an important part of the Jewish nation also found its way back to its own tradition and nature, and more and more consciously segregated itself from other nations. It was a problem which was discussed at many international congresses, and [Martin] Buber in particular, one of the spiritual leaders of European Jewry, declared that the Jews should return to the soil of Asia, for only there could the roots of Jewish blood and Jewish national character be found.

But my more radical attitude in the political sphere was due partly to my observations and experiences in Russia and partly to my experiences later in Germany, which seemed to particularly confirm their strangeness. I could not conceive how, at the time when the German soldiers returned, they were greeted by a Jewish university professor who explained that the German soldiers had died on the field of dishonor. I could not understand that lack of reverence could go so far. If it had been but an individual reaction, one could have said that the man had slipped. But in the course of 14 years, it became apparent that it was indeed the expression of a definitely alienating tendency.

COMMENTARY: Martin Buber (1878-1965) was a Jewish existentialist philosopher, born in Vienna but moved to Israel/Palestine prior to World War Two. A committed Zionist, he believed that the Jewish people were rooted in the soil of Asia, and thus had to return there in order to recover their true selves. In 1912 he wrote, “Here [in Europe] we are a wedge, which Asia placed in Europe’s clockwork, a thing of fermentation and disturbance. If we return to Asia’s womb… we return to the meaning of our existence—to serve the Divine, to experience the Divine, to be in the Divine.” Rosenberg and Hitler were more than happy to comply.

The “14 years” is reference to the duration of the Jewish-led Weimar Republic, which stood as Germany’s ruling government from 1919 to 1933.

DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, I believe we should also discuss the fact that opposition was partly due to the contradiction provoked by certain National Socialist newspaper articles.

ROSENBERG: The statements of the opposite side, as they appeared constantly during these 14 years, had in part already appeared prior to the rise of the National Socialist movement. After all, the incidents of the Soviet Republic in Munich and in Hungary took place long before the National Socialist movement was in a position to gain influence.

DR. THOMA: Herr Rosenberg, what did you have to say to the fact that, in the first World War, 12,000 Jewish soldiers died at the Front?

ROSENBERG: Of course, I have always been conscious of the fact that many Jewish-German citizens were assimilated into the German environment, and that in the course of this development many tragic individual cases appeared, and that these, of course, deserved consideration. On the whole, however, this did not involve the entire social and political movement, especially since the leading papers of the so-called democratic parties recognized the increase of unemployment in Germany and suggested that Germans should emigrate to the French colonies, to the Argentine, and to China. Prominent Jewish people and the chairman of the Democratic Party suggested three times quite openly that, in view of the increase of unemployment, Germans should be deported to Africa and Asia. After all, during those 14 years, just as many Germans were expelled from Poland as there were Jews in Germany, and the League of Nations took no effective steps against this violation of the pact in favor of the minorities. [… ]

COMMENTARY: Ironic that prominent German Jews should be calling for the deportation of ethnic Germans to Africa and Asia, during the Weimar years. In this sense, Hitler was just giving the Jews a bit of their own medicine. Rosenberg also rightly points out the double-standard in which the expulsion of Germans (from the eastern German provinces, subsequently annexed by the Soviet Union and Poland) draws no attention but Nazi expulsion of Jews brings global condemnation, along with transmogrification into a program of mass-murderous genocide.

In any case, this was the last relevant excerpt of the day. Testimony continued the following day, but with only one short remark by Rosenberg on the Jewish Question.

16 April 1946
(109th day)

DR. THOMA: Witness, in the course of these proceedings you have been accused at least four times in the matter of gold dental fillings in the prison in Minsk. In this connection, a document has even been submitted, regarding the handling of the Jewish Question, and a further document deals likewise with an arson and anti-Jewish “action,” also in the district of Minsk. Will you please tell us what you have to say in that connection?

ROSENBERG: I might perhaps give the following general answer about the many files and reports from my office: In the course of 12 years of my Party office and 3 years in the Eastern Ministry, many reports, memoranda, carbon copies from all sorts of divisions were delivered to my office. I know of some of them, of some I received oral knowledge which was then entered in detail in the files, and there are a great number of more important and some entirely unimportant things which I was entirely unable to take note of during these years.

As far as these documents are concerned, I must say with regard to Document 212-PS, that this clearly represents a submission to my office—which is without heading, without signature, and without any other details—which I never received personally, but which I assume was probably delivered from police circles to my office. Thus, with the best intentions, I cannot state my position as to the contents of this document.

As far as Document 1104-PS which deals with the terrible incidents in the city of Sluzk is concerned, that is a report from October 1941, and I must say that this report was submitted to me. This report aroused indignation in the Eastern Ministry, and as is seen here, my permanent representative, Gauleiter Meyer, sent a copy of this complaint of the civil administration, together with all the criticism of the civil administration, to the police, to the Chief of the Security Police at that time, Heydrich, with the request for investigation. I must say that the police had their own jurisdiction, in which the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories could not interfere. But I am unable to say here what measures Heydrich took.

Yet, as may be seen from this, I could not assume that an order—which was attested to by the witness here yesterday—was given to Heydrich or Himmler by the Führer. This report, and many other communications which came to my ears, regarding shootings of saboteurs and also shootings of Jews, pogroms by the local population in the Baltic States and in the Ukraine, I took as occurrences of this war. I heard that in Kiev a large number of Jews had been shot, but that the greater part of the Jews had left Kiev; and the sum of these reports showed me, it is true, terrible harshness, especially some reports from the prison camps.

But that there was an order for the individual annihilation of the entire Jewry, I could not assume; and if, in our polemics, the extermination of Jewry was also talked about, I must say that this word, of course, must make a frightful impression in view of the testimonies we think are available now. But under conditions prevailing then, it was not interpreted as an individual extermination, an individual annihilation of millions of Jews.

I must also say that even the British Prime Minister, in an official speech in the House of Commons on 23 or 26 September 1943, spoke of the extermination in root and branch of Prussianism and of National Socialism. I happened to read these words from this speech. However, I did not assume that in saying this he meant the shooting of all Prussian officers and National Socialists. [… ]

COMMENTARY: The second-to-last paragraph gets right to the heart of the matter. Rosenberg could not, and would not, have assumed that there was any order for the annihilation of all Jews. Rather, the whole concept was, as he says, polemical—intended for effect. Nazi “extermination” was, he says, never interpreted as the killing of millions of individual Jews. Debate about the specific German words for extermination—Vernichtung and Ausrottung—follows below.

In the last paragraph above, Rosenberg is exactly correct once again. On 21 September 1943, while speaking in Parliament, Churchill stated the following: “Nazi tyranny and Prussian militarism are the two main elements in German life which must be absolutely destroyed. They must be absolutely rooted out if Europe and the world are to be spared a third and still more frightful conflict. … [T]he twin roots of all our evils, Nazi tyranny and Prussian militarism, must be extirpated” (see Churchill 1944). These are virtually identical to the words used by Hitler with respect to the Jews, upon which Hitler was pronounced a monster and demon, a mass-murderer who had to be stopped at all costs. Yet Churchill said the same thing about Germans, and the words passed utterly unnoticed—in the Allied press, at least. Once again we see evidence of a gross double standard. Of course, both men were speaking polemically; neither intended the literal murder of every single Jew or German. For Rosenberg, this was obvious. But Allied Jewish media did not care about this. For them, any interpretation was good if it fanned hatred and heaped abuse upon Hitler, and drove the world into war.

Relevant commentary continues the next day.

17 April 1946
(110th day)

DR. CARL HAENSEL (Junior counsel for the prosecution): Witness, you were the Plenipotentiary of the Führer for the ideological objectives of the NSDAP and its affiliated organizations. Are you of the opinion that what you did as Plenipotentiary of the Führer in carrying out your duties and everything you said and wrote for these aims and for the systematic so-called ideological combating of Jewry may be considered as an official outline of the activity of the Party and its affiliated organizations?

ROSENBERG: My office, as far as ideological education was concerned, worked with the SS Main Office for Political Training. We were, of course, in constant contact with them. The so-called “guiding pamphlets” of the SS, which appeared as an instruction periodical, were read in my office. I myself had it repeatedly in my hands, and during these years I found that in this Office for Political Training, in these periodicals, a great number of very valuable articles with mostly very decent ideas was contained. This is one of the reasons why, through all these years, I did not enter into any conflict with the SS.

As far as the Jewish Question is concerned, the objective as to this problem was expressed in the program of the NSDAP.¹⁶ That is the only official statement which guided the Party members. Anything which I said about it, and what others wrote about it, were just reasons that were set forth. Certainly much of that was accepted, but as far as the Führer and the State were concerned, these proposals were not binding rules.

DR. HAENSEL: Was the objective of your fight against Jewry limited? Did you envisage that the Jews were to be eliminated from economic and State administration, or did you from the first have a vague notion of stronger measures, such as extermination, etc? What was your objective?

ROSENBERG: In agreement with the Party program, I had the one objective in mind—to change the leadership in the German State as it existed from 1918 to 1933. That was the vital aim. As to elimination, even from economic life, we did not talk about it at that time; and yesterday I already referred to two of my speeches—which are available in print—in which I declared that after the end of this harsh political battle, an investigation or examination of the problem would have to take place. There was even earlier talk about the demand for Jewish emigration from Germany, quite rightly. Later, when matters became more critical, I expressed this idea again in conformity with the proposals of very prominent Jewish leaders that German unemployed be deported to Africa, South America, and China. [… ]

COMMENTARY: We come now to the critical issue of the precise language used by Hitler and other leading officials. Their harsh talk about ‘extermination’ or ‘destruction’ or ‘annihilation’ of the Jews was always cast in English media as intending mass murder, as literally killing all the Jews. Even today, this is taken, even by professional academics, as so obvious as to be not worth discussing. And yet, there is much ambiguity here. The two most commonly-cited German words are Vernichtung (or in verb form, vernichten) and Ausrottung (or ausrotten). The former literally means ‘to bring to nothing,’ but there are many ways to achieve this with a collective body of people, such as Jews, other than by killing them; imprisoning, ghettoizing, marginalizing or deporting them would all accomplish much the same end, namely, to “bring them to nothing” as a social entity. The latter word, Ausrottung, means that something is literally ‘rooted out’ or ‘uprooted.’ Again, this does not demand the killing of anything.

And in any case, politicians have, for millennia, used tough talk against their opponents and enemies. Recent US presidents, for example, routinely spoke of “destroying” or “rooting out” terrorists, but no one accused them of calling for mass murder. Yes, likely some would die, perhaps many; but even many incidental deaths is still far short of deliberate mass murder. Rosenberg is remarkably firm and poised in his defense of the language used. He gives a masterful presentation on the linguistics of war-talk, as we will now see.

MR. THOMAS DODD: Now, in your Party Day speech to which you made reference yesterday, you said you used harsh language about the Jews. In those days you were objecting to the fact that they were in certain professions, I suppose, and things of that character. Is that a fair statement?

ROSENBERG: I said yesterday that in two speeches I demanded a chivalrous solution and equal treatment, and I said the foreign nations might not accuse us of discriminating against the Jewish people, so long as these foreign nations discriminate against our nation.

MR. DODD: Yes, very well. Did you ever talk about the extermination of the Jews?

ROSENBERG: I have not in general spoken about the extermination of the Jews in the sense of this term. One has to consider the words here. The term “extermination” has been used by the British Prime Minister.¹⁷

MR. DODD: You will get around to the words. You just tell me now whether you ever said it or not? You said that, did you not?

ROSENBERG: Not in a single speech, in that sense.

MR. DODD: I understand the sense. Did you ever talk about it with anybody as a matter of State policy or Party policy, about the extermination of the Jews?

ROSENBERG: In a conference with the Führer there was once an open discussion on this question about an intended speech which was not delivered. The sense of it was that now a war was going on, and that this threat which had been made should not be mentioned again. That whole speech was also not delivered.

MR. DODD: When was it you were going to deliver that speech? Approximately what was the date?

ROSENBERG: In December 1941.

MR. DODD: Then you have written into your speech remarks about the extermination of Jews, haven’t you? Answer that “yes” or “no.”

ROSENBERG: I have said already that that word does not have the sense which you attribute to it.

MR. DODD: I will get around to the word and the meaning of it. I am asking you, did you not use the word or the term “extermination of the Jews” in the speech which you were prepared to make in the Sportpalast in December of 1941? Now, you can answer that pretty simply.

ROSENBERG: That may be, but I do not remember. I myself did not read the phrasing of the draft any further. In which form it was expressed, I can no longer say.

MR. DODD: Well then, perhaps we can help you on that. I will ask you be shown Document 1517-PS. Now, this is also a memorandum of yours written by you about a discussion you had with Hitler on the 14th of December 1941, and it is quite clear from the first paragraph that you and Hitler were discussing a speech which you were to deliver in the Sportpalast in Berlin, and if you will look at the second paragraph, you will find these words:

I remarked on the Jewish Question that the comments about the New York Jews must perhaps be changed somewhat after the conclusion (of matters in the East). I took the standpoint not to speak of the extermination (Ausrottung) of Jewry. The Führer affirmed this view and said that they had laid the burden of war on us and that they had brought the destruction; it is no wonder if the results would strike them first.

Now, you have indicated that you have some difficulty with the meaning of that word, and I am going to ask you about the word “Ausrottung.” I am going to ask that you be shown—you are familiar with the standard German-English dictionary, Cassell’s, I suppose, are you? Do you know this work, ever heard of it?

ROSENBERG: No.

MR. DODD: This is something you will be interested in. Will you look up and read out to the Tribunal what the definition of Ausrottung is?

ROSENBERG: I do not need a foreign dictionary in order to explain the various meanings “Ausrottung” may have in the German language. One can exterminate an idea, an economic system, a social order, and as a final consequence, also a group of human beings, certainly. Those are the many possibilities which are contained in that word. For that I do not need an English-German dictionary. Translations from German into English are so often wrong. And just as in that last document you have submitted to me, I heard again the translation of “Herrenrasse.” In the document itself “Herrenrasse” is not even mentioned; however, there is the term “ein falsches Herrenmenschentum” (a false master mankind). Apparently everything is translated here in another sense.

MR. DODD: All right, I am not interested in that. Let us stay on this term of “Ausrottung.” I take it then that you agree it does mean to “wipe out” or to “kill off,” as it is understood, and that you did use the term in speaking to Hitler.

ROSENBERG: Here I heard again a different translation, which again used new German words, so I cannot determine what you wanted to express in English.

MR. DODD: Are you very serious in pressing this apparent inability of yours to agree with me about this word, or are you trying to kill time? Don’t you know that there are plenty of people in this courtroom who speak German and who agree that that word does mean to “wipe out,” to “extirpate”?

ROSENBERG: It means “to overcome” on one side, and then it is to be used not with respect to individuals but rather to juridical entities, to certain historical traditions. On the other side, this word has been used with respect to the German people and we have also not believed that in consequence thereof, 60 millions of Germans would be shot.

COMMENTARY: Dodd next refers to testimony by Rudolf Höss, former commandant of the Auschwitz Camp. Höss had testified two days earlier, on 15 April, in the morning of the first day of Rosenberg’s initial testimony; hence Rosenberg was present to hear it. Höss was an important figure, but not sufficiently high-ranking to warrant inclusion in the targeted individuals of the IMT; he would be charged in a later Auschwitz trial staged in Poland. As it happens, Höss’s testimony was to be of vital importance for the entire Holocaust story. It is included here in Chapter Five, along with considerable critical commentary. Among other things, Höss readily agreed to the “extermination” language, and explicitly in the sense of mass murder. Hence his statement contradicts Rosenberg’s claims.

Also, Rosenberg’s reply below refers to Hitler’s “declaration” at the Reichstag, which occurred on 30 January 1939. On the Jewish Question, Hitler famously said, “If international finance-Jewry in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations into a world war once more, then the result will be not the Bolshevization of the Earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the destruction (Vernichtung) of the Jewish race in Europe” (see Hitler 2019: 161). Most present-day commentators portray this as a threat of mass murder, but this is absurd; Hitler would never have broadcast such a message in a major event like a Reichstag speech. In reality, it was a polemical statement aimed at eradicating Jewish economic and social influence in Europe.

MR. DODD: I want to remind you that this speech of yours in which you use the term “Ausrottung” was made about 6 months after Himmler told Höss, whom you heard on this witness stand, to start exterminating the Jews. That is a fact, is it not?

ROSENBERG: No, that is not correct, for Adolf Hitler said in his declaration before the Reichstag: Should a new world war be started by these attacks of the emigrants and their backers, then as a consequence there would be an extermination and an extirpation. That has been understood as a result and as a political threat. Apparently, a similar political threat was also used by me before the war against America broke out. And, when the war had already broken out, I have apparently said that, since it has come to this, there is no use to speak of it at all.

MR. DODD: Well, actually, the Jews were being exterminated in the Eastern Occupied Territories at that time and thereafter, weren’t they?

ROSENBERG: Then, may I perhaps say something about the use of the words here? We are speaking here of extermination of Jewry; there is also still a difference between “Jewry” and “the Jews.”

COMMENTARY: An important point: the distinction between “Jewry” (Judentum) and “the Jews” (die Juden). Jewry is a social, economic and political entity; the Jews are the people themselves. “Jewry” can be destroyed without killing a single member of “the Jews.”

MR. DODD: I asked you if it was not a fact that at that time and later on Jews were being exterminated in the Occupied Eastern Territories which were under your ministry? Will you answer that “yes” or “no”?

ROSENBERG: Yes. I quoted a document on that yesterday.

MR. DODD: Yes, and after that you told the Tribunal or, as I understood you at least, you wanted the Tribunal to believe that that was being done by the police and without any of your people being involved in it; is that so?

ROSENBERG: I have heard from a witness that a district commissioner is said to have participated in these things in Vilna, and I have heard from another witness that in other cities the report came through that the police would carry it out. From Document 1184, I gathered that a district commissioner opposed in every possible way and protested against this so-called “Schweinerei” (scandalous doings).

MR. DODD: Dr. Leibbrandt was your subordinate; he was in charge of Division II in your Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, wasn’t he?

ROSENBERG: Yes, for a time.

MR. DODD: Now, for the second time, I’ll ask that you be shown Document 3663-PS. Now, this document consists of three parts as you will notice. The first page is a letter written by Dr. Leibbrandt on the stationery of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories and it is dated 31 October 1941; that’s not too many days before you had your conversation with the Führer about your speech, and it is addressed to the Reich Commissioner for the Ostland in Riga. That was Lohse, the man whom you recommended. The letter says:

The Reich Security Main Office has complained that the Reich Commissioner for the Ostland has forbidden execution of Jews in Libau. I request a report in regard to this matter by return mail. By order (signed) Dr. Leibbrandt.

Now, if you will turn to the next page, you will see the answer. Turn that document over if you have the original—do you? You will see the answer, dated Riga, the 15th of November 1941, to the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Berlin. “Subject: Execution of Jews, re: Decree.” It refers to the letter of Leibbrandt, apparently of the 31st of October 1941, and it says:

I have forbidden the wild execution of Jews in Libau because they were not justifiable in the manner in which they were carried out. I should like to be informed whether your inquiry of 31 October is to be regarded as a directive to liquidate all Jews in the Ostland. Shall this take place without regard to age and sex and economic interests of the Wehrmacht, for instance in specialists in the armament industry?

And there is a note in different handwriting:

Of course, the cleansing of the Ostland of Jews is a main task. Its solution, however, must be harmonized with the necessities of war production. … So far, I have not been able to find such a directive, either in the regulations regarding the Jewish Question in the ‘Brown Portfolio’ or in other decrees.

[… ]

MR. DODD: All right. Now, I wish you’d look at Document 3666-PS, which is also related to these other documents, and that is also a letter written on the stationery of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and it is dated December 18, 1941. Subject: Jewish Question. Re: Correspondence of 15 November 1941. This is an answer then to the letter marked “L,” inquiring whether or not execution of the Jews is to be understood as a fixed policy.

Clarification of the Jewish Question has most likely been achieved by now through verbal discussions. Economic considerations should on principle remain unconsidered in the settlement of the problem. Moreover, it is requested that questions arising be settled directly with the Higher SS and Police Leader. By order (signed) Bräutigam.

Have you seen that letter before?

ROSENBERG: No, I have not seen it; in my opinion no. Here I see again such an “R,” pointed on the top, and I cannot identify that as my “R” either.

MR. DODD: So that you do not identify that as having your initial, either?

ROSENBERG: Well, I could simply not identify that as my “R” because this was a letter, signed by Bräutigam sent from the Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories to the Ostland, and the notes on the top are from an office that has received that letter.

DR. THOMA: Mr. President, may I draw your attention to an explicit error here? This “R” is in connection with a “K.” That apparently means “Reichskommissar.”

MR. DODD: I am not discussing the “R” on the top of the letter; I am discussing the one of the handwritten letter.

ROSENBERG: Well, it can be seen from this “R” now quite unequivocally that this concerns the man who received the letter. “Received on 22 December—R.” And it is addressed from the Ministry to the “Ostland.” That note, therefore, was written by a person living in Riga, and that is the same “R” which can be found also on the other document.

MR. DODD: Who is your Reich Commissioner in the East for Riga?

ROSENBERG: Lohse.

MR. DODD: His name didn’t begin with “R,” did it?

ROSENBERG: Yes, but it is clear that this letter obviously was initialed in his department.

MR. DODD: Well, now, I’d like to call your attention to another document, Number 36.

ROSENBERG: I maintain emphatically that that initial “L” was put down by the person who received the letter, to whom the letter was addressed.

MR. DODD: Well, we’ll get around that. I ask that you be shown Document Number 3428. Now, this is a letter written from Minsk in the occupied area on July 31, 1942, and it is written by Kube. He was another one of your subordinates, wasn’t he? Will you answer that please?

ROSENBERG: Yes.

MR. DODD: And it is written to Lohse, the Reich Commissioner for the Eastern territory, isn’t it?

ROSENBERG: Yes, that’s right.

MR. DODD: Now, then, let’s look at it: “Combating of Partisans and Action against Jews in the District General of White Ruthenia.” It says:

In all the clashes with partisans in White Ruthenia it has been proved that; Jewry, in the former Polish section… is the main exponent of the partisan movement. In consequence, the treatment of Jewry in White Ruthenia is mainly a matter of political concern…

In exhaustive discussions with the SS Brigadeführer Zenner and the exceedingly capable leader of the SD, SS Obersturmbannführer Dr. jur. Strauch, it was ascertained that we have liquidated in the last 10 weeks about 55,000 Jews in White Ruthenia. In the area of Minsk, Jewry has been completely eliminated, without endangering the manpower commitment. In the predominantly Polish district of Lida, 16,000 Jews; in Zlonim, 8,000 Jews—and so forth—have been liquidated. Owing to an encroachment by the Army supply and communications zone already reported to you, the preparations made by us for liquidation of the Jews in the Glebokie area have been disturbed. The Army supply and communications zone, without contacting me, has liquidated 10,000 Jews, whose systematical elimination had been provided for by us in any event. In the city of Minsk approximately 10,000 Jews were liquidated on 28 and 29 July, 6,500 of them Russian Jews, predominantly aged persons, women and children; the remainder consisting of Jews unfit for commitment to labor, the greater majority of whom were deported to Minsk in November of last year from Vienna, Brünn, Bremen, and Berlin, by order of the Führer.

The area of Sluzk, too, had been relieved of several thousand Jews. The same applies to Novogrodek and Vileika. Radical measures are imminent for Baranowicze and Hanzewitschi. In Baranowicze alone, approximately 10,000 Jews are still living in the city itself; of these, 9,000 Jews will be liquidated next month.

In the city of Minsk, 2,600 Jews from Germany are left over. In addition, all 6,000 Russian Jews and Jewesses who during the action stayed with the units to which they were assigned for work are still alive. Even in the future Minsk will still retain its character as the strongest center of the Jewish labor commitment, necessitated for the present by the concentration of the armament industries and by the rail problems. In all other areas, the number of Jews to be drafted for labor commitment will be limited by the SD and by me to 800 at the most, but if possible to 500…

And so on. It tells of other situations with respect to Jews, all of which I do not think it is necessary to read. But I do want to call your attention to the last paragraph:

I fully agree with the Commander of the SD in White Ruthenia, that we shall liquidate every shipment of Jews which is not ordered or announced by our superior offices, to prevent further disturbances in White Ruthenia. … Naturally, after the termination of the economic demands of the Wehrmacht, the SD and I would like it best definitely to eliminate Jewry in the District General of White Ruthenia. For the time being, the necessary demands of the Wehrmacht, which are the main employers of Jews, are considered.

I ought to tell you as well that this document was also found in your office in Berlin. Now, that is a letter…

ROSENBERG: That seems very improbable to me, that it has been found in my office in Berlin. If so, it can be at most only that the Reich Commissioner for the Ostland had sent all his files to Berlin, packed in boxes. It was not in my office at that time, and this letter was also never presented to me. There is stamped here, “The Reich Commissioner for the Ostland,” not the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. I stated yesterday, however, that a number of such happenings were reported to me as individual actions in the fighting, and that I received this one report from Sluzk personally, and Gauleiter Meyer was immediately charged to protest to Heydrich and to order an investigation. That presupposes that he, Gauleiter Meyer, did not know of and did not think of such a general action on order of a central command.

MR. DODD: Well, I only want to suggest to you that it is a strange coincidence that two of your top men were in communication in this tone in 1942 without your knowledge. Did you also tell the Tribunal yesterday that you understood that most of the difficulty, or a large part of the difficulty, in the East for the Jewish people came from the local population? Do you remember saying that yesterday?

ROSENBERG: I did not receive this translation.

MR. DODD: I asked you if it was not a fact that yesterday you told the Tribunal that much of the difficulty for the Jews in the East came from the local population of those areas.

ROSENBERG: Yes. I was informed about that in the beginning by returning personalities, that it was not due to local authorities but to parts of the population. I knew the attitude in the East from before and could well imagine that this was true. Secondly, I have stated that I had been informed that along with executions of various other nests of resistance and centers of sabotage in various cities, a large number of Jews were shot by the police. And then I have treated the case of Sluzk here.

MR. DODD: I think you will agree that in the Ukraine your man Koch was doing all kinds of terrible things, and now I don’t understand that you dispute that Lohse and Kube were helping to eliminate or liquidate the Jews, and that Bräutigam, an important member of your staff, and that Leibbrandt, another important member of your staff, were informed of the program. So that five people at least under your administration were engaged in this kind of conduct, and not small people at that.

ROSENBERG: I should like to point out that a decree by the Reich Commissioner for the Ostland is at hand, which in agreement…

THE PRESIDENT: Will you answer the question first? Do you agree that these five people were engaged in exterminating Jews?

ROSENBERG: Yes. They knew about a certain number of liquidation of Jews. That I admit, and they have told me so, or if they did not, I have heard it from other sources. I only want to state one thing: That according to the general law of the Reich, the Reich Commissioner for the Ostland issued a decree according to which Jewry, which of course was hostile to us, should be concentrated in certain Jewish quarters of the cities. And until the end, until 1943-1944, I have heard that in these cities such work was still carried out in these Jewish ghettos to a very large extent.

And may I supplement this with still another case which came to my knowledge, namely that a district commissioner…

MR. DODD: I don’t want you to point out anything else. You have answered the question, and you have explained your answer. I don’t ask you further…

ROSENBERG: What I wanted to add explains another part of my answer in a very concrete case, namely, a district commissioner in the Ukraine had been accused before the court of having committed blackmail in a Jewish community and having sent furs, clothes, etc. to Germany. He was brought before court, he was sentenced to death and was shot.

MR. DODD: Well, that is very interesting, but I don’t think it is a necessary explanation of that answer at all. And I would ask that you try to confine these answers. I would like to get through here in a few minutes.

You are also, of course, the man who wrote the letter, as you told the Tribunal yesterday, suggesting the out-of-hand execution of 100 Jews in France, although you said you thought that was what, a little bad judgment, or not quite just, or something of the kind? Is that right?

ROSENBERG: I made my statement about that yesterday.

MR. DODD: I know you have, and I would like to talk about it for a minute today. Is that what you said about it, that it was not right, and that it was not just? “Yes” or “no,” didn’t you say that to the Tribunal yesterday?

ROSENBERG: You have to quote literally, word for word, if you want me to answer “yes” or “no.”

MR. DODD: I will ask you again. Didn’t you say yesterday before this Tribunal that your suggestion in that letter, in Document 001-PS, was wrong and was not just? Now, that is pretty simple and you can answer it.

ROSENBERG: I stated that it was humanly unjust.¹⁸

MR. DODD: It was murder, isn’t that what it was, a plan for murder? “Yes” or “no”?

ROSENBERG: No. But I considered the shooting of hostages, which was publicly made known by the Armed Forces, as an obviously generally accepted necessity under the exceptional conditions of war. These shootings of hostages were published in the press. Therefore, I had to assume that according to international law and certain traditions of warfare this was an accepted act of reprisal. Therefore, I cannot admit…

MR. DODD: Well, were you talking then as the benign philosopher or as a soldier? When you wrote this letter, in what capacity were you writing it: as a benign, philosophical minister on ideology and culture, or were you a member of the Armed Forces?

ROSENBERG: As can be seen from the document, I have spoken about the fact that certain sabotage and murder of German soldiers was being committed here, so that good future relations, which I also aimed for, between Germany and France would be poisoned forever. For that reason, this letter was written, although I regret it from the human point of view.

MR. DODD: It comes a little late, don’t you think?

The witness Höss—you were in the courtroom when he testified?

ROSENBERG: Yes, I heard him.

MR. DODD: You heard that terrible story of 2½ to 3 million murders which he told from the witness stand, very largely of Jewish people?

ROSENBERG: Yes.

MR. DODD: Although it was not brought out here, you can take it from me as being so. If you care to dispute it, you may, and we will establish it later. You know that he was a reader of your book and of your speeches, this man Höss?

ROSENBERG: I do not know whether he read my books. Anti-Jewish books have existed for the last 2,000 years.

COMMENTARY: Again, the reader is referred to Höss’s testimony in the following chapter. In his written statement he testified that, at Auschwitz, “at least 2,500,000” Jews were gassed, and that another 500,000 died from starvation or disease—though there are numerous problems with such statistics, as explained in the accompanying commentary.

On the 2,000 year history of anti-Jewish writings, Rosenberg is certainly correct. Anti-Jewish writings date back to 300 BC, at least, and the first anti-Jewish book was written by Apollonius Molon circa 75 BC; see Dalton (2020b) for details.

This ends the relevant portion of Rosenberg’s testimony. A lengthy afternoon session was conducted by the Russian general Rudenko, mostly relating to alleged crimes against Russian people during Rosenberg’s tenure.

Rosenberg would issue his final closing statement on 31 August 1946 (see Chapter 10). He was executed by hanging, along with Streicher, on 16 October.

CHAPTER FIVE:
TESTIMONY OF RUDOLF HÖSS

IMT, Vol. 11: 396-421
15 April 1946
(108th day)

COMMENTARY: Rudolf Höss (1901-1947), or Hoess, joined the NSDAP in its early years, in 1922, and later became a member of the SS in 1934. In the late 1930s, he held supervisory positions in the Dachau and Sachsenhausen Camps, and in May 1940 was named commandant of Auschwitz Camp, where, apart from a seven-month hiatus, he served until the camp closed in January 1945. He eluded capture for a year after the war but was eventually tracked down and arrested. What follows here is his verbal testimony at Nuremburg; he himself was not on trial at the IMT, given that he was not a sufficiently high-ranking officer.

After testifying, Höss was turned over to Polish authorities in May 1946 for a dedicated Auschwitz trial. His phase of that trial occurred in March 1947; he was found guilty, sentenced to death, and hanged on a gallows at Auschwitz on 16 April 1947.

As explained in Chapter One, there is considerable evidence that Höss was tortured during his imprisonment and likely coerced into signing a paper affidavit of guilt on 5 April, a few days prior to his personal testimony at the IMT. As we will see below, there are many problems with both the affidavit and the testimony.

DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for the Defense): With the agreement of the Tribunal, I now call the witness Höss.

THE PRESIDENT: Stand up. Will you state your name?

RUDOLF FRANZ FERDINAND HÖSS (Witness): Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth—and will withhold and add nothing.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you sit down?

DR. KAUFFMANN: Witness, your statements will have far-reaching significance. You are perhaps the only one who can throw some light upon certain hidden aspects, and who can tell which people gave the orders for the destruction of European Jewry, and can further state how this order was carried out and to what degree the execution was kept a secret.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kauffmann, will you kindly put questions to the witness.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes. From 1940 to 1943, you were the Commander of the camp at Auschwitz. Is that true?

HÖSS: Yes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: And during that time, hundreds of thousands of human beings were sent to their death there. Is that correct?

HÖSS: Yes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Is it true that you, yourself, have made no exact notes regarding the figures of the number of those victims because you were forbidden to make them?

HÖSS: Yes, that is correct.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Is it furthermore correct that exclusively one man by the name of Eichmann had notes about this, the man who had the task of organizing and assembling these people?

HÖSS: Yes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Is it furthermore true that Eichmann stated to you that in Auschwitz a total sum of more than 2 million Jews had been destroyed?

HÖSS: Yes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Men, women, and children?

HÖSS: Yes. [… ]

COMMENTARY: There is no independent evidence that Eichmann ever issued such a statement, which in any case is today considered false even by orthodox experts; current estimates are that around 1 million Jews died at Auschwitz (Main Camp and Birkenau Camp). The 2-million figure is thus at least 200% of the accepted ‘actual.’ On the revisionist view, of course, far fewer Jews died there; their estimates are around 140,000 deaths, most due to typhus.

DR. KAUFFMANN: When were you commander at Auschwitz?

HÖSS: I was commander at Auschwitz from May 1940 until December 1943.

DR. KAUFFMANN: What was the highest number of human beings, prisoners, ever held at one time at Auschwitz?

HÖSS: The highest number of internees held at one time at Auschwitz, was about 140,000 men and women.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Is it true that in 1941 you were ordered to Berlin to see Himmler? Please state briefly what was discussed.

HÖSS: Yes. In the summer of 1941, I was summoned to Berlin to Reichsführer SS Himmler to receive personal orders. He told me something to the effect—I do not remember the exact words—that the Führer had given the order for a final solution of the Jewish Question. We, the SS, must carry out that order. If it is not carried out now then the Jews will later on destroy the German people. He had chosen Auschwitz on account of its easy access by rail and also because the extensive site offered space for measures ensuring isolation.

DR. KAUFFMANN: During that conference did Himmler tell you that this planned action had to be treated as a secret Reich matter?

HÖSS: Yes. He stressed that point. He told me that I was not even allowed to say anything about it to my immediate superior Gruppenführer Glucks. This conference concerned the two of us only and I was to observe the strictest secrecy.

COMMENTARY: This is absurd: that a camp commandant would be compelled to hold secret from his direct superior a program of mass murder at his own camp.

DR. KAUFFMANN: What was the position held by Glucks whom you have just mentioned?

HÖSS: Gruppenführer Glucks was, so to speak, the inspector of concentration camps at that time and he was immediately subordinate to the Reichsführer.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Does the expression “secret Reich matter” mean that no one was permitted to make even the slightest allusion to outsiders without endangering his own life?

HÖSS: Yes, “secret Reich matter” means that no one was allowed to speak about these matters with any person and that everyone promised upon his life to keep the utmost secrecy.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Did you happen to break that promise?

HÖSS: No, not until the end of 1942.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Why do you mention that date? Did you talk to outsiders after that date?

HÖSS: At the end of 1942 my wife’s curiosity was aroused by remarks made by the then Gauleiter of Upper Silesia, regarding happenings in my camp. She asked me whether this was the truth and I admitted that it was. That was my only breach of the promise I had given to the Reichsführer. Otherwise I have never talked about it to anyone else.

DR. KAUFFMANN: When did you meet Eichmann?

HÖSS: I met Eichmann about 4 weeks after having received that order from the Reichsführer. He came to Auschwitz to discuss the details with me on the carrying out of the given order. As the Reichsführer had told me during our discussion, he had instructed Eichmann to discuss the carrying out of the order with me and I was to receive all further instructions from him.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Will you briefly tell whether it is correct that the camp of Auschwitz was completely isolated, describing the measures taken to insure as far as possible the secrecy of carrying out of the task given to you.

HÖSS: The Auschwitz camp as such was about 3 kilometers away from the town. About 20,000 acres of the surrounding country had been cleared of all former inhabitants, and the entire area could be entered only by SS men or civilian employees who had special passes. The actual compound called “Birkenau,” where later on the extermination camp was constructed, was situated 2 kilometers from the Auschwitz camp. The camp installations themselves, that is to say, the provisional installations used at first were deep in the woods and could from nowhere be detected by the eye. In addition to that, this area had been declared a prohibited area and even members of the SS who did not have a special pass could not enter it. Thus, as far as one could judge, it was impossible for anyone except authorized persons to enter that area.

COMMENTARY: The Auschwitz Main Camp is today directly in the village of Oswiecim. Birkenau is indeed about 2 km from the Main Camp, but it was never surrounded by forests; the main entrance and railway gate were on a well-traveled road with ready access to local residents.

DR. KAUFFMANN: And then the railway transports arrived. During what period did these transports arrive and about how many people, roughly, were in such a transport?

HÖSS: During the whole period up until 1944 certain operations were carried out at irregular intervals in the different countries, so that one cannot speak of a continuous flow of incoming transports. It was always a matter of 4 to 6 weeks. During those 4 to 6 weeks, two to three trains, containing about 2,000 persons each, arrived daily. These trains were first of all shunted to a siding in the Birkenau region and the locomotives then went back. The guards who had accompanied the transport had to leave the area at once and the persons who had been brought in were taken over by guards belonging to the camp. They were there examined by two SS medical officers as to their fitness for work. The internees capable of work at once marched to Auschwitz or to the camp at Birkenau and those incapable of work were at first taken to the provisional installations, then later to the newly-constructed crematoria.

DR. KAUFFMANN: During an interrogation I had with you the other day, you told me that about 60 men were designated to receive these transports, and that these 60 persons, too, had been bound to the same secrecy described before. Do you still maintain that today?

HÖSS: Yes, these 60 men were always on hand to take the internees not capable of work to these provisional installations and later on to the other ones. This group, consisting of about ten leaders and sub-leaders, as well as doctors and medical personnel, had repeatedly been told, both in writing and verbally, that they were bound to the strictest secrecy as to all that went on in the camps.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Were there any signs that might show an outsider who saw these transports arrive, that they would be destroyed or was that possibility so small because there was in Auschwitz an unusually large number of incoming transports, shipments of goods and so forth?

HÖSS: Yes, an observer who did not make special notes for that purpose could obtain no idea about that because, to begin with, not only transports arrived which were destined to be destroyed but also other transports arrived continuously, containing new internees who were needed in the camp. Furthermore, transports likewise left the camp in sufficiently large numbers with internees fit for work or exchanged prisoners.

The trains themselves were closed, that is to say, the doors of the freight cars were closed so that it was not possible, from the outside, to get a glimpse of the people inside. In addition to that, up to 100 cars of materials, rations, et cetera, were daily rolled into the camp or continuously left the workshops of the camp in which war material was being made.

DR. KAUFFMANN: And after the arrival of the transports were the victims stripped of everything they had? Did they have to undress completely; did they have to surrender their valuables? Is that true?

HÖSS: Yes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: And then they immediately went to their death?

HÖSS: Yes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: I ask you, according to your knowledge, did these people know what was in store for them?

HÖSS: The majority of them did not, for steps were taken to keep them in doubt about it and suspicion would not arise that they were to go to their death. For instance, all doors and all walls bore inscriptions to the effect that they were going to undergo a delousing operation or take a shower. This was made known in several languages to the internees by other internees who had come in with earlier transports and who were being used as auxiliary crews during the whole action.

DR. KAUFFMANN: And then, you told me the other day, that death by gassing set in within a period of 3 to 15 minutes. Is that correct?

HÖSS: Yes.

COMMENTARY: Another absurdity, and physically impossible given the alleged mode of operation of the gas chambers. On the standard view, up to 2,000 people were forced into the gassing chamber, at which time pellets of Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide) were either sprinkled over their heads, or dumped into the room from a side wall, or lowered into the room in a small metal cage. In no case could the gas diffuse from those pellets throughout the room to kill everyone in 15 minutes, not to mention 3 minutes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: You also told me that even before death finally set in, the victims fell into a state of unconsciousness?

HÖSS: Yes. From what I was able to find out myself or from what was told me by medical officers, the time necessary for reaching unconsciousness or death varied according to the temperature and the number of people present in the chambers. Loss of consciousness took place within a few seconds or a few minutes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Did you yourself ever feel pity with the victims, thinking of your own family and children?

HÖSS: Yes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: How was it possible for you to carry out these actions in spite of this?

HÖSS: In view of all these doubts which I had, the only one and decisive argument was the strict order and the reason given for it by the Reichsführer Himmler.

DR. KAUFFMANN: I ask you whether Himmler inspected the camp and convinced himself, too, of the process of annihilation?

HÖSS: Yes. Himmler visited the camp in 1942 and he watched in detail one processing from beginning to end.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Does the same apply to Eichmann?

HÖSS: Eichmann came repeatedly to Auschwitz and was intimately acquainted with the proceedings.

[… ]

DR. KAUFFMANN: To what do you attribute the particularly bad and shameful conditions, which were ascertained by the entering Allied troops, and which to a certain extent were photographed and filmed?

HÖSS: The catastrophic situation at the end of the war was due to the fact that, as a result of the destruction of the railway network and of the continuous bombing of the industrial plants, care for these masses—I am thinking of Auschwitz with its 140,000 internees—could no longer be assured. Improvised measures, truck columns, and everything else tried by the commanders to improve the situation were of little or no avail; it was no longer possible. The number of the sick became immense. There were next to no medical supplies; epidemics raged everywhere. Internees who were capable of work were used over and over again. By order of the Reichsführer, even half-sick people had to be used wherever possible in industry. As a result, every bit of space in the concentration camps which could possibly be used for lodging was overcrowded with sick and dying prisoners.

DR. KAUFFMANN: I am now asking you to look at the map which is mounted behind you. The red dots represent concentration camps. I will first ask you how many concentration camps as such existed at the end of the war?

HÖSS: At the end of the war there were still concentration camps. All the other points which are marked here on the map mean so-called labor camps attached to the armament industry situated there. The concentration camps, of which there are 13 as I have already said, were the center and the central point of some district, such as the camp at Dachau in Bavaria, or the camp of Mauthausen in Austria; and all the labor camps in that district were under the control of the concentration camp. That camp had then to supply these outside camps, that is to say, they had to supply them with workers, exchange the sick inmates and furnish clothing; the guards, too, were supplied by the concentration camp. From 1944 on, the supplying of food was almost exclusively a matter of the individual armament industries in order to give the prisoners the benefit of the wartime supplementary rations.

DR. KAUFFMANN: What became known to you about so-called medical experiments on living internees?

HÖSS: Medical experiments were carried out in several camps. For instance, in Auschwitz there were experiments on sterilization carried out by Professor Klaubert [recte: Clauberg] and Dr. Schumann; also experiments on twins by SS medical officer Dr. Mengele. [… ]

COL. JOHN AMEN (Counsel for the Prosecution): Witness, you made an affidavit, did you not, at the request of the Prosecution?

HÖSS: Yes.

COL. AMEN: I ask that the witness be shown Document 3868-PS. You signed that affidavit voluntarily, Witness?

HÖSS: Yes.

COL. AMEN: And the affidavit is true in all respects?

HÖSS: Yes.

COL. AMEN: This, if the Tribunal please, we have in four languages. Some of the matters covered in this affidavit you have already told us about in part, so I will omit some parts of the affidavit. If you will follow along with me as I read, please. Do you have a copy of the affidavit before you?

HÖSS: Yes.

COL. AMEN: I will omit the first paragraph and start with Paragraph 2:

I have been constantly associated with the administration of concentration camps since 1934, serving at Dachau until 1938; then as Adjutant in Sachsenhausen from 1938 to 1 May 1940, when I was appointed Commandant of Auschwitz. I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease making a total dead of about 3,000,000. This figure represents about 70 or 80 percent of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners, the remainder having been selected and used for slave labor in the concentration camp industries; included among the executed and burned were approximately 20,000 Russian prisoners of war (previously screened out of prisoner-of-war cages by the Gestapo) who were delivered at Auschwitz in Wehrmacht transports operated by regular Wehrmacht officers and men. The remainder of the total number of victims included about 100,000 German Jews, and great Numbers of citizens, mostly Jewish, from Holland, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Greece, or other countries. We executed about 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944.

That is all true, Witness?

HÖSS: Yes, it is.

COMMENTARY: Again, an absurdly high Jewish death toll, even higher than the 2 million that Eichmann allegedly stated. A “total dead of 3,000,000” Jews is at least three times higher than the currently sanctioned figure of one million. There is no possible way that Höss could have honestly believed in a 3-million death toll; he was clearly coerced into such a claim.

COL. AMEN: Now I omit the first few lines of Paragraph 3 and start in the middle of Paragraph 3:

[P]rior to establishment of the RSHA, the Secret State Police Office (Gestapo) and the Reich Office of Criminal Police were responsible for arrests, commitments to concentration camps, punishments and executions therein. After organization of the RSHA all of these functions were carried on as before, but pursuant to orders signed by Heydrich as Chief of the RSHA. While Kaltenbrunner was Chief of RSHA orders for protective custody, commitments, punishment, and individual executions were signed by Kaltenbrunner or by Muller, Chief of the Gestapo, as Kaltenbrunner’s deputy.

THE PRESIDENT: Just for the sake of accuracy, the last date in Paragraph 2, is that 1943 or 1944?

COL. AMEN: 1944, I believe. Is that date correct, Witness, at the close of Paragraph 2, namely, that the 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944 were executed? Is that 1944 or 1943?

HÖSS: 1944. Part of that figure also goes back to 1943; only a part. I cannot give the exact figure; the end was 1944, autumn of 1944.

COL. AMEN: Right.

4. Mass executions by gassing commenced during the summer of 1941 and continued until fall 1944. I personally supervised executions at Auschwitz until first of December 1943 and know by reason of my continued duties in the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, WVHA, that these mass executions continued as stated above. All mass executions by gassing took place under the direct order, supervision, and responsibility of RSHA. I received all orders for carrying out these mass executions directly from RSHA.

Are those statements true and correct, Witness?

HÖSS: Yes, they are.

COMMENTARY: Mainstream historiography holds that mass gassings of Soviet POWs began in September 1941, whereas the mass gassings of Jews did not commence until mid-February 1942, first in Krema I at the Main Camp, then since March 20 of that year in the converted Birkenau farmhouse known as “Bunker 1” (see Czech 1990: 90, 135, 146). However, neither of these dates can be correct. Soviet POWs did not begin arriving at Auschwitz until late October 1941, and therefore there could have been no mass gassings “during the summer of 1941” (see Mattogno 2016a). Furthermore, all arriving inmates were registered and set to work, at least through June 1942, and thus there could have been no gassings of Jews until at least July—in other words, a full year later than Höss claimed (see Mattogno 2016b: 29-36).

COL. AMEN:

5. On 1 December 1943 I became Chief of Amt I in Amt Group D of the WVHA, and in that office was responsible for coordinating all matters arising between RSHA and concentration camps under the administration of WVHA. I held this position until the end of the war. Pohl, as Chief of WVHA, and Kaltenbrunner, as Chief of RSHA, often conferred personally and frequently communicated orally and in writing concerning concentration camps....

You have already told us about the lengthy report which you took to Kaltenbrunner in Berlin, so I will omit the remainder of Paragraph 5.

6. The ‘final solution’ of the Jewish Question meant the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe. I was ordered to establish extermination facilities at Auschwitz in June 1941. At that time, there were already in the General Government three other extermination camps: Belzek, Treblinka, and Wolzek. These camps were under the Einsatzkommando of the Security Police and SD. I visited Treblinka to find out how they carried out their exterminations. The camp commandant at Treblinka told me that he had liquidated 80,000 in the course of one-half year. He was principally concerned with liquidating all the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. He used monoxide gas, and I did not think that his methods were very efficient. So when I set up the extermination building at Auschwitz, I used Cyklon B, which was a crystallized prussic acid which we dropped into the death chamber from a small opening. It took from 3 to 15 minutes to kill the people in the death chamber, depending upon climatic conditions. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited about one-half hour before we opened the doors and removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed our special Kommandos took off the rings and extracted the gold from the teeth of the corpses.

Is that all true and correct, Witness?

HÖSS: Yes.

COMMENTARY: Several absurdities here. First, as of June 1941, claims Höss, there were already three existing extermination camps. Belzec, however, would not start “exterminating,” even on the traditional view, until March 1942; Treblinka, not until July 1942. Nothing was happening at those camps in summer 1941; in fact, the Treblinka Camp did not even exist on paper back then, let alone as a camp. But the third camp is astonishing: “Wolzek.” We must be clear—there is not, nor has there ever been, any camp of any kind with any name close to “Wolzek.” This is a pure fantasy, constructed either by Höss or his Jewish interrogators. It serves as striking proof that the affidavit is utterly untrustworthy. (The reader will recall that, apart from Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Belzec, the other three “extermination” camps were Majdanek, Sobibor, and Chelmno.)

Secondly, Höss claims to have visited Treblinka a half-year after they began killing operations, by which time they had murdered 80,000 Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto. However, deportations from that ghetto started only in July 1942, simultaneously with the start-up of the Treblinka Camp. Hence, Höss could not have visited that camp before end of December 1942 at the earliest. But by this time, Auschwitz had been gassing Jews for nearly one year; there was little need to compare methods at that point. But worse, on the orthodox view, Treblinka had gassed an astonishing 800,000 Jews by the end of 1942—not 80,000. Once again, Höss is hugely mistaken, this time by a factor of 10.

Third, as stated above, anything like a 3-minute execution time is physically impossible with Zyklon pellets.

Fourth, he says that the gas-chamber workers waited about 30 minutes, then opened the door and removed the dead bodies. The problem here is that (a) the rooms had no powered ventilation by which to clear the toxic gas, and (b) the pellets themselves continued to emit gas for some two hours or more. In other words, without a full-body air-tight suit, the workers would have died very quickly. Even gas masks would not have been sufficient, because the cyanide easily penetrates bare skin. Höss’s alleged removal process would have been impossible.

As a final remark, the “final solution” (Endlösung) of the Jewish problem was in fact the mass deportation of Jews outside of the European land-mass; it was always a territorial solution, not a mass-murder plot. (For a detailed critique of Höss’s various statements see Mattogno 2020)

COL. AMEN: Incidentally, what was done with the gold which was taken from the teeth of the corpses, do you know?

HÖSS: Yes.

COL. AMEN: Will you tell the Tribunal?

HÖSS: This gold was melted down and brought to the Chief Medical Office of the SS at Berlin.

COL. AMEN:

7. Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas chamber to accommodate 2,000 people at one time, whereas at Treblinka their 10 gas chambers only accommodated 200 people each. The way we selected our victims was as follows: We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners. The prisoners would be marched by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since by reason of their youth they were unable to work. Still another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated and at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact. Very frequently women would hide their children under the clothes, but of course when we found them we would send the children in to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy but of course the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area, and all of the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz.

Is that all true and correct, Witness?

HÖSS: Yes.

COMMENTARY: More bizarre assertions: Höss apparently claims that he built one “gas chamber” (singular) to hold 2,000 people, whereas on the conventional view, Birkenau had fully eight chambers in the four crematoria, of which only the two largest could hold 2,000. And the camp furthermore had two of the converted “Bunkers,” adding two more facilities with a number of small chambers.

He then says that “children were invariably exterminated,” which is provably false, given the many stories and even photos of child survivors from Auschwitz.

The “stench of burning bodies” would have come not from the crematoria ovens—which would not have emitted much smell at all—but rather from the open-air burnings, on log fires, during two brief periods (September-December 1942 and again May-September 1944) of crematoria-overflow. Yet Höss implies a “continuous” stench.

COL. AMEN: Now, I will omit Paragraphs 8 and 9, which have to do with the medical experiments as to which you have already testified.

10. Rudolf Mildner was the chief of the Gestapo at Katowice… from approximately March 1941 until September 1943. As such, he frequently sent prisoners to Auschwitz for incarceration or execution. He visited Auschwitz on several occasions. The Gestapo court, the SS Standgericht, which tried persons accused of various crimes, such as escaping prisoners of war, et cetera, frequently met within Auschwitz, and Mildner often attended the trial of such persons, who usually were executed in Auschwitz following their sentence. I showed Mildner through the extermination plant at Auschwitz and he was directly interested in it since he had to send the Jews from his territory for execution at Auschwitz.

I understand English as it is written above. The above statements are true; this declaration is made by me voluntarily and without compulsion; after reading over the statement I have signed and executed the same at Nuremberg, Germany, on the fifth day of April 1946.

Now I ask you, Witness, is everything which I have read to you true to your own knowledge?

HÖSS: Yes. [… ]

DR. KAUFFMANN: I will be very brief. Witness, in the affidavit which was just read, you said under Point 2 that “at least an additional half million died through starvation and disease.” I ask you, when did this take place? Was it towards the end of the war or was this fact observed by you already at an earlier period?

HÖSS: No, it all goes back to the last years of the war, that is beginning with the end of 1942.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Under Point 3—do you still have the affidavit before you?

HÖSS: No.

DR. KAUFFMANN: May I ask that it be given to the witness again? Under Point 3, at the end you state that orders for protective custody, commitments, punishments, and special executions were signed by Kaltenbrunner or Muller, Chief of the Gestapo, as Kaltenbrunner’s deputy. Thus, do you wish to contradict what you stated previously?

HÖSS: No, this only completes what I said over and again. I read only a few decrees signed by Kaltenbrunner; most of them were signed by Muller.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Under Point 4, at the end, you state: “All mass executions through gassing took place under the direct order, supervision, and responsibility of RSHA. I received all orders for carrying out these mass executions directly from RSHA.” According to the statements which you previously made to the Tribunal, this entire action came to you directly from Himmler through Eichmann, who had been personally delegated. Do you maintain that now as before?

HÖSS: Yes.

DR. KAUFFMANN: With this last sentence under Point 4, do you wish to contradict what you testified before?

HÖSS: No. I always mean regarding mass executions, Obersturmbannführer Eichmann in connection with the RSHA.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Under Point 7, at the end, you state—I am not going to read it—you were saying that even though exterminations took place secretly, the population in the surrounding area noticed something of the extermination of people. Did not, at an earlier period of time—that is, before the beginning of this special extermination action—something of this nature take place to remove people who had died in a normal manner in Auschwitz?

HÖSS: Yes, when the crematoria had not yet been built, we burned in large pits a large part of those who had died and who could not be cremated in the provisional crematoria of the camp; a large number—I do not recall the figure anymore—were placed in mass graves and later also cremated in these graves. That was before the mass executions of Jews began.

COMMENTARY: This is confused and incoherent. Assuming that the phrase “when the crematoria had not yet been built” refers to the Birkenau crematoria (four of them, which became operational between March and June 1943), then what were “the provisional crematoria of the camp”? The Main Camp had only one crematorium (Krema I), yet it was not a “provisional”, but a proper facility. With relatively few inmates dying at first, any “normal” deaths were disposed of in that lone crematorium until early 1943. According to the orthodox narrative, regular mass killings of Jews allegedly began in February 1942, since March of that year mostly in the so-called “Bunker 1” at Birkenau, but some also at the Main Camp crematorium. Until late September 1942, however, Birkenau had no provision (yet) for burning corpses, and hence, for around seven months, all claimed Bunker victims were buried in mass graves.

Simultaneously with this, a typhus epidemic began in early 1942 which caused increasing numbers of fatalities, eventually exceeding Krema I’s cremation capacity. Diseased bodies that could not be cremated are said to have been buried alongside the gassing victims. All these bodies—eventually some 105,000, according to Höss’s memoirs—caused a major risk of contamination to the region’s drinking water. Hence, beginning in late September 1942, they were dug up and burned in open-air pits (Czech 1990: 242). Therefore, if we follow the mainstream narrative, the pit-burning did not occur “before” the mass executions, but as a result of it, and roughly half a year after its commencement.

Although Höss here contradicts claims he made elsewhere, in particular in his memoirs, it may actually be that he told the truth for once. The nightmarish scenario of having to dig up thousands of decomposing corpses and then burn them in the open air almost certainly did occur, but as Höss suggests, it was distinct from any extermination claims. This likely true event forms the real and tragic background upon which the later extermination story was constructed.

DR. KAUFFMANN: Would you agree with me if I were to say that from the described facts alone, one could not conclusively prove that this was concerned with the extermination of Jews?

HÖSS: No, this could in no way be concluded from that. The population…

THE PRESIDENT: What was your question about?

DR. KAUFFMANN: My question was whether one could assume from the established facts that this concerned the so-called extermination of Jews. I tied this question to the previous answer of the witness. It is my last question.

THE PRESIDENT: The last sentence of Paragraph 7 is with reference to the foul and nauseating stench. What is your question about that?

DR. KAUFFMANN: Whether the population could gather from these things that an extermination of Jews was taking place.

THE PRESIDENT: That really is too obvious a question, isn’t it? They could not possibly know who it was being exterminated.

DR. KAUFFMANN: That is enough for me. I have no further questions.

CHAPTER SIX:
THE CASE AGAINST STREICHER

IMT, Vol. 5: 91-119
10 January 1946
(31st day)

COMMENTARY: We now jump back in time, to January 1946, to review the general case against Julius Streicher. Born into a lower-middle-class family, he did not attend university but rather became an elementary school teacher, like his father. He was a distinguished soldier in World War One, but evidently—like Hitler—was appalled at the Jewish role in Germany’s defeat. In 1920, Streicher established a local Nuremberg branch of the nascent German Socialist Party (DSP). The following year he chanced to hear Hitler speak in Munich and was instantly converted to the new NSDAP party; he brought along many former DSP members, giving a huge boost to the small Nazi group.

In 1923 he founded a populist anti-Semitic paper, Der Stürmer (‘The Striker’ or ‘The Attacker’), which he would manage for the next 20 years. In 1925, Hitler appointed him Gauleiter (district leader) of Nuremberg, a position he would hold until 1940, when he fell from grace with Hitler and other leading Nazis. He spent most of the war years ‘retired’ on a farm in the local countryside, though continuing his work at Der Stürmer. After the war he fled to Austria, and was captured there in May 1945. Despite not having held a high position in the NSDAP leadership, Streicher was viewed as sufficiently influential to warrant inclusion with the 24 major indicted defendants at the IMT. Owing to his extensive publishing record, both the case against him and his personal testimony were exceptionally long and detailed.

May it please the Tribunal, Lieutenant Colonel Griffith-Jones of the British Delegation will now deal with the individual responsibility of the Defendant Streicher.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL M. C. GRIFFITH-JONES (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): If the Tribunal please, it is my duty to present the case against the Defendant Julius Streicher.

Appendix A of the Indictment, that paragraph of the Appendix relating to Streicher, sets out the positions which he held and which I shall prove. It then goes on to allege that he used those positions and his personal influence and his close connection with the Führer in such a manner that he promoted the accession to power of the Nazi conspirators and the consolidation of their control over Germany, as set forth in Count One of the Indictment; that he authorized, directed, and participated in the Crimes against Humanity, set forth in Count Four of the Indictment, including particularly the incitement of the persecution of the Jews, set forth in Count One and Count Four of the Indictment.

My Lord, the case against this defendant can be, perhaps, described by the unofficial title that he assumed for himself as “Jew-baiter Number One.” It is the Prosecution’s case that for the course of some 25 years, this man educated the whole of the German people in hatred and that he incited them to the persecution and to the extermination of the Jewish race. He was an accessory to murder, perhaps on a scale never attained before.

With the Tribunal’s permission I propose to prove quite shortly the position and influence that he held and then to refer the Tribunal to several short extracts from his newspapers and from his speeches and then to outline the part that he played in the particular persecutions that occurred against the Jews between the years 1933 and 1945.

My Lord, this defendant was born in 1885. He became a school teacher in Nuremberg and formed a party of his own, which he called the German Socialist Party. The chief policy of that party, again, was anti-Semitism. In 1922 he handed over his party to Hitler; and there is a glowing account of his generosity which appears in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which I do not think it worth occupying the time of the Tribunal in reading. It appears as Document M-3, and is the first document in the Tribunal’s document book. The copy of Mein Kampf is already before the Tribunal as Exhibit GB-128.

COMMENTARY: In Volume Two of Mein Kampf, Hitler had this to say: “By 1920 the NSDAP had slowly crystallized from all these parties and become victorious. There could be no better proof of the sterling honesty of certain individual founders than that many of them decided, in an admirable way, to sacrifice their obviously less-successful movements to the stronger—that is, by joining it unconditionally or dissolving their own.”

“This is especially true in regard to Julius Streicher, who at that time was the chief fighter for the German Socialist Party (DSP) in Nuremberg. The NSDAP and DSP had been founded with similar aims, but quite independently of each other. As mentioned, Streicher, then a teacher in Nuremberg, was the main fighter for the DSP. Initially he had a sacred conviction of the mission and future of his movement. As soon, however, as the superior strength and stronger growth of the NSDAP became clear and obvious to him, he gave up his work in the DSP and the working federation, and called upon his followers to fall into line with the NSDAP—which had come out victorious from the mutual contest—and carry on the fight within its ranks for the common cause. The decision was as personally difficult as it was profoundly decent.” (Section 8.4)

The appointments that he held in the Party and State were few. From 1921 until 1945 he was a member of the Nazi Party. In 1925 he was appointed Gauleiter of Franconia, and he remained as such until about February of 1940; and from the time that the Nazi Government came into power in 1933 until 1945, he was a member of the Reichstag. In addition to that he held the title of Obergruppenführer in the SA. All that information appears in Document 2975PS, and is the affidavit that he made himself.

The propaganda that he carried out throughout those years was chiefly done through the medium of his newspapers. He was the editor and publisher of the paper called Der Stürmer, which was a weekly journal, from 1922 until 1933; and thereafter the publisher and owner of the paper. In 1933 he also founded and thereafter, I think, published—certainly was responsible for—the daily newspaper called the Frankische Tageszeitung. There were, in addition to that and particularly later, several others, mostly local journals, that he published from Nuremberg.

Those are the positions that he held; and now if I may, I shall quite briefly trace the course of his incitement and propaganda more or less in chronological order by referring the Tribunal to the short extracts. I would say this: These extracts are really selected at random. They are selected with a view to showing the Tribunal the various methods that he employed to incite the people against the Jewish race; but his newspapers are crowded with them, week after week, day after day. It is impossible to pick up any copy without finding the same kind of stuff in the headlines and in the articles.

If I might quote from four speeches and articles showing his early activities from 1922 until 1933, that is an extract from a speech that he made in 1922 in Nuremberg, and after abusing the Jews in the first paragraph, I refer only to the last two lines: “We know that Germany will be free when the Jew has been excluded from the life of the German people.”

I pass to the next document, which is M-12, on Page 4. The first document was Exhibit GB-165. That is the book, I understand, that is being given that number, so that the next document, which is taken from the same book, will be the same. Perhaps I might be allowed to read that short extract. It is an extract from a speech:

I beg you and particularly those of you who carry the cross throughout the land, to become somewhat more serious when I speak of the enemy of the German people, namely, the Jew. Not out of irresponsibility or for fun do I fight against the Jewish enemy, but because I bear within me the knowledge that the whole misfortune was brought to Germany by the Jews alone. … I ask you once more, what is at stake today? The Jew seeks domination not only among the German people but among all peoples. The Communists pave the way for him…

Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament ordered the Jews to devour and enslave the peoples of the earth? ... The [Weimar] Government allows the Jew to do as he pleases. The people expect action to be taken.... You may think about Adolf Hitler as you please, but one thing you must admit. He possessed the courage to attempt to free the German people from the Jew by a national revolution. That was a great deed.

The next short extract appearing on the next page is taken from a speech in April of 1925:

You must realize that the Jew wants our people to perish… That is why you must join us and leave those who have brought you nothing but war and inflation and discord. For thousands of years, the Jew has been destroying nations. Let us start today, so that we can annihilate the Jews.

My Lord, so far as I have been able to find, that is the earliest expression of annihilation of the Jewish race. Perhaps it gave birth to what was 14 years later to become the official policy of the Nazi Government.

And one further passage from this period. This is in April 1932, Document M-14, taken from the same book.

For 13 years I have fought against Jewry. … We know that the Jew, whether he is baptized as a Protestant or as a Catholic, remains a Jew. Why can you not realize this, you Protestant clergymen, you Catholic priests! You are blinded and serve the God of the Jews who is not the God of love but the God of hate. Why do you not listen to Christ, who said to the Jews, ‘You are the children of the Devil.’

COMMENTARY: According to the Gospel of John (8:44), Jesus said to the Jews, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

That, then, was the kind of performance he was putting up during those early years. When the Nazi Party came to power, they officially started their campaign against the Jews by the boycott of 1 April 1933. Now, of that boycott the Tribunal have already had evidence; and I would do no more now than to remind the Tribunal in a word what happened. The boycott was agreed on and approved of by the whole Government, as was shown in a document which is already before you, Document 2409-PS, which was Goebbels’ diary.¹⁹ Streicher was appointed the chairman of the central committee for the organization of that boycott, which appears in Document 2156-PS. It was then said that he started his work on Wednesday, the 29th.

On that same day the central committee issued a proclamation in which they said that the boycott would start on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. sharp. “Jewry will realize whom it has challenged.” That short quotation appears in Document 3389-PS, which is a copy of Der Stürmer which is already before the Court.

I would refer the Tribunal to one short passage from an article in the Nationalsozialistische Partei Korrespondenz which the defendant wrote on the 30th of March, before the boycott was due to start. It is Document 2153-PS and appears on Page 12 of the Tribunal’s book. There he writes, under the title, “Defeat the enemy of the world! by Julius Streicher, official leader of the central committee to combat the Jewish atrocity and boycott campaign.”:

Jewry wanted this battle. It shall have it until it realizes that the Germany of the brown battalions is not a country of cowardice and surrender. Jewry will have to fight until we have won victory. … National Socialists! Defeat the enemy of the world. Even if the world is full of devils, we shall succeed in the end.

As head of the central committee for that boycott, Streicher outlined in detail the organization of the boycott in orders which the committee published on the 31st of March 1933, which is the next document in the book, Document 2865-PS. I can summarize those.

The committee stressed that no violence is to be employed against the Jews on the occasion of that boycott, but not perhaps for humane reasons; it is because, if there is no violence employed, then Jewish employers will have no grounds for discharging their employees without notice; and they will have no ground for refusing to pay them any wages. The Jews were also reported apparently to be transferring businesses to German figureheads in order to alleviate the results of this persecution, and the committee laid it down that any property to be transferred was to be considered as Jewish for the purpose of the boycott.

I do not think I need go into that any further. It does show that at that date he was taking a leading part, and a leading part as appointed by the Government, in the persecution of the Jews.

I would now refer the Court again to a few further extracts to show the form that this propaganda developed as the years went on. At Page 18 of the document book, Document M-20, we have an article in the New Year’s issue of a new paper that he had just founded. It was a semi-medical paper called German People’s Health Through Blood and Soil, edited by himself; and it is an example of the really remarkable lengths to which he went in putting over this propaganda against the Jews. I quote:

For the initiated it is established for all time: ‘alien albumen’ is the sperm of a man of alien race. The male sperm in cohabitation is partially or completely absorbed by the female, and thus enters her bloodstream. One single cohabitation of a Jew with an Aryan woman is sufficient to poison her blood forever. Together with the ‘alien albumen’ she has absorbed the alien soul. Never again will she be able to bear purely Aryan children, even when married to an Aryan. They will all be bastards, with a dual soul and a body of a mixed breed. Their children, too, will be crossbreeds; that means, ugly people of unsteady character and with a tendency to illnesses....

Now we know why the Jew uses every artifice of seduction in order to ravish German girls at as early an age as possible; why the Jewish doctor rapes his female patients while they are under anesthesia.... He wants the German girl and the German woman to absorb the alien sperm of the Jew. She is never again to bear German children! … But the blood products of all animal organisms right down to bacteria, thus serum, lymph, extracts from internal organs, et cetera, are also ‘alien albumen.’ They have a poisonous effect if directly introduced into the blood stream either by vaccination or by injection. …

The worst is that by these products of sick animals, the blood is defiled, the Aryan is impregnated with an alien species. … The author and abettor of such action is the Jew. He has been aware of the secrets of the race question for centuries, and therefore plans systematically the annihilation of the nations which are superior to him. Science and ‘authorities’ are his instruments for the enforcing of pseudoscience and the concealment of truth.

That becomes, My Lord, Exhibit GB-168.

The next document, also at the beginning of 1935, an extract from his own paper Der Stürmer, is entitled “The Chosen People of the Criminals”:

And all the same, or let us say, just because of this, the history book of the Jews, which is usually called the Holy Scriptures, impresses us as a horrible criminal romance, which makes the 150 shilling-shockers of the British Jew, Edgar Wallace, grow pale with envy. This ‘holy’ book abounds in murder, incest, fraud, theft, and indecency.

On the 4th of October 1935—and the Tribunal will remember that that was the month after the Nuremberg Decrees had been made—he made a speech which is reported in the Völkischer Beobachter and is entitled in that newspaper, “Safeguard of German Blood and German Honor.” I read the report in that article: “Gauleiter Streicher speaks at a German Labor Front mass demonstration for the Nuremberg laws.” Then the first line of the actual article says that he spoke for the second time within a few weeks. I quote only the last two lines of that first large paragraph: “...we have therefore to unmask the Jew, and that is what I have been doing for the past 15 years.” That remark apparently was met with tempestuous applause. That document, M-34, becomes Exhibit GB-169.

And, My Lord, I think it unnecessary to quote from the next document in the Tribunal’s book. It is very much the same type of thing. On Page 22 of the document book, there is a leading article by Streicher in his Der Stürmer of which I would refer only to the last half of the last paragraph where again he emphasizes the part that he himself has taken in this campaign.

The Stürmer’s 15 years of work of enlightenment has already led an army of initiated—millions strong—to National Socialism. The continued work of Der Stürmer will help to ensure that every German down to the last man will, with heart and hand, join the ranks of those whose aim it is to crush the head of the serpent Pan-Juda beneath their heels. He who helps to bring this about helps to eliminate the devil, and this devil is the Jew.

That document becomes Exhibit GB-170.

COMMENTARY: The Bible, of course, is an entirely Jewish document, written by and about Jews—both the Old Testament and the New. In the above paragraph, Streicher refers to Genesis 3:15, in which God is admonishing the serpent in the Garden of Eden: “and he [a child of Eve] will crush your head.” For Streicher, Jewry is the evil serpent, and the Nazi Party will crush its head.

The next document, I include it in the document book again only to show the extraordinary length to which he went in his propaganda; and it consists of a photograph of the burning hull of the airship Hindenburg when it went on fire in June 1937 in America. Underneath it the caption includes the comment: “The first radio picture from the United States of America shows quite clearly that a Jew stands behind the explosion of our airship Hindenburg. Nature has depicted quite clearly and quite correctly that devil in human guise.” And although it is not at all clear from that photograph, I think the meaning of that comment is that the cloud of smoke in the air is in the shape of a Jewish face.

COMMENTARY: In the passage below, Streicher refers to Wilhelm Gustloff, who was the leader of the Swiss Nazi Party until his assassination in February 1936 by a Croatian Jew, David Frankfurter. Goebbels (2019: 72-73) briefly comments on the killing in his diary; see entries for 6 Feb 1936 and 22 Jan 1937.

On the next page Document M-4 is a speech he made in September 1937 at the opening of a bridge in Nuremberg. I will quote only the last paragraph on Page 24. The bridge in question is called the Wilhelm Gustloff bridge, and he says:

The man who murdered Wilhelm Gustloff must have come from the Jewish people, because the Jewish text books teach that every Jew has the right to kill a non-Jew; and indeed, that it is pleasing to the Jewish God to kill as many non-Jews as possible. … Look at the road the Jewish people have been following for thousands of years past; everywhere murder, everywhere mass murder! Neither must we forget that behind present-day wars there stands the Jewish financier who pursues his aims and interests. The Jew always lives on the blood of other nations; he needs such murder and such victims. For us who know, the murder of Wilhelm Gustloff is the same as ritual murder. … It is our duty to tell the children at school and the bigger ones what this memorial means.... The Jew no longer shows himself among us openly as he used to. But it would be wrong to say that victory is ours. Full and final victory will have been achieved only when the whole world is rid of Jews.

That becomes Exhibit GB-171.

Now the next two documents in your document books are simply extracts from the correspondence columns of his Der Stürmer, showing again one of the methods he employed in this propaganda. I do not need to read them. The correspondence columns of all his issues are full of letters coming in from Germans saying that some German has been buying her shoes from a Jewish shop and so on, and in that way assisting in the general boycott of the Jews. In other words, they really are a weekly column of libels against the Jews all over Germany.

COMMENTARY: The prosecution now shifts to an extended discussion of the issue of Jewish ‘ritual murder’ or ‘blood libel’—a favored topic of Streicher’s. Jews, for centuries, had allegedly been killing Gentiles, usually young boys, and using their blood in various bizarre religious rituals. Long denied, this practice has recently been found to have some basis in fact; see Ariel Toaff’s book Passovers of Blood (2020) or Jewish Ritual Murder (2017) by Hellmut Schramm.

I pass then to another and particular form of propaganda that he employed and which he called “ritual murder.” The Tribunal may well remember that some years ago; I think it started in 1934 this Der Stürmer began publishing accounts of Jewish ritual murder which horrified the whole world to such an extent that even the Archbishop of Canterbury eventually wrote to the Times protesting, as indeed did people from every country in the world, protesting that any Government should allow matter like this to be published in their national newspapers.

He takes his ritual murder, I understand, from a medieval belief that during their Eastertide celebrations the Jews were in the habit of murdering Christian children; and he enlarges upon this and misrepresents this belief, this medieval belief, to show that not only did they do it in the Middle Ages, but that they are still doing it and still want to do it. And if I might just quote one or two passages from his newspapers and show one or two pictures which he published in connection with his campaign of ritual murder, it will illustrate to the Court the type of teaching and propaganda that he was putting up. On Page 29 of the Tribunal’s document book, I will quote from the third but last paragraph:

This the French front-line soldier should take with him to France: The German people have taken a new lease on life. They want peace, but if anybody should attack them, if anyone should try to torture them again, to throw them back into the past, then the world would witness another heroic epic; then may Heaven decide where righteousness lies: here with us, or where the Jew has the whip hand and where he instigates massacres, one could almost say the biggest ritual murders of all times. If the German people are to be slaughtered according to the Jewish rites, the whole world will be thus slaughtered at the same time. … Just as you have drummed morning and evening prayers into your children’s heads, so now drum this into their heads, so that the German people may gain the spiritual power to convince the rest of the world which the Jews desire to lead against us.

That Document is M-2, Exhibit GB-172.

And on the following page of the document book there is a reproduction of a photograph taken from Der Stürmer of April 1937 which illustrates three Jews ritually murdering a girl by cutting her throat and shows the blood pouring out into a bucket on the ground. The caption underneath that photograph is as follows: “Ritual Murder at Polna. Ritual murder of Agnes Hruza by the Jews Hilsner, Erdmann, and Wassermann (taken from a contemporary postcard.)” It is already in a copy of Der Stürmer, which has been put in.

COMMENTARY: In 1899, 19-year-old Hruza, of Polna (in present-day Czech Republic) was found murdered, her blood apparently drained. A local Jew, Leopold Hilsner, was tried and found guilty; his death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

There appears on the next page of the document book an extract from that same Der Stürmer, April 1937. I will not read it now, because it has been put in and has all been read to the Court. It describes what happens when ritual murder takes place, and the blood is mixed with the bread and drunk by the Jews having their feast. The Tribunal will remember that during the feast the head of the family exclaims, “May all gentiles perish—as the child whose blood is contained in the bread and wine.”

May it please the Tribunal, if I might just refer to two further copies of Der Stürmer on the subject of “ritual murder,” the first of which appears on Page 32 of the document book, 2700-PS. It is an article in Der Stürmer for July 1938:

Whoever has had the occasion to be an eyewitness to the ritualistic slaughtering of animals or at least to see a truthful film on this method of slaughtering will never forget this gruesome experience. It is horrifying. And instinctively he is reminded of the crimes which the Jews have committed for centuries on human beings. He will be reminded of the ritual murder. History offers hundreds of cases in which non-Jewish children were tortured to death by Jews. They, too, received the same gash in the throat as is found on ritualistically slaughtered animals. They, too, were slowly bled to death while fully conscious.

My Lord, on special occasions, or when he had some particular subject matter to put before the world, he was in the habit of issuing special editions of his newspaper Der Stürmer. Ritual murder was such a special subject that he issued one of these special editions dealing solely with it. The Tribunal will have a photostatic copy of the complete issue for May 1939.

Now, I have not attempted to have translated all, or indeed any, of the articles which appear in that edition. It is perhaps sufficient to look at the pictures, the illustrations, and for me to read the captions which appear underneath the photographs; and I regret the translations of the captions have not been attached to the Tribunal’s copy but perhaps I may be permitted to refer to the pictures and read the captions for the Tribunal.

The pages are marked in red pencil on the right-hand corner. On Page 1, I see a picture of a child having knives stuck into its side, blood spurting from it, and below the pedestal on which it stands are five presumably dead children lying on the ground.²⁰ The caption to that picture is as follows:

In the year 1476 the Jews in Regensburg murdered six boys. They drew their blood and tortured them to death. In an underground vault which belonged to the Jew Josfol, the judges found the bodies of the murdered boys. A bloodstained earthen bowl stood on an altar.

On the next page there are two pictures, and the captions explain them. The one at the top left-hand corner:

For the Jewish New Year celebrations in 1913, World Jewry published this picture as a postcard. On the Jewish New Year and on the Day of Atonement the Jews slaughter a so-called ‘kapores cock,’ that is to say, dead cock, whose blood and death is intended to purify the Jews. In 1913 the kapores cock had the head of the Russian Czar Nicholas II. By publishing this postcard, the Jews intended to say that Nicholas II would be their next political purifying sacrifice. On the 16th of July 1918 the Czar was murdered by the Jews Jurovsky and Goloschtschekin. … [In the next picture,] the kapores cock has the head of the Führer. The Hebrew script says that one day Jews will ‘kill all Hitlerites.’ Then they, the Jews, will be delivered from all misfortunes. But in due course the Jews will realize that they have reckoned without an Adolf Hitler.

COMMENTARY: Orthodox Jews have a ritual called shlogn kapores, or Kapparot, in which a live chicken is spun around over one’s head while reciting passages from Psalms; it is then slaughtered and eaten. Regarding the murder of the Czar, he and his entire family, including four daughters and a son, were killed by Jewish Bolsheviks on 17 July 1918. Among the lead killers were the Jews Yakov Yurovsky and Filipp Goloshchekin.

The next page of the newspaper contains reproductions of a lot of previous articles on ritual murder, with a picture of the Defendant Julius Streicher at the top.

On the fourth page, a picture at the bottom of the right-hand corner has the caption: “Jew at the Passover Meal. The wine and matzoth, contain non-Jewish blood. The Jew ‘prays’ before the meal. He ‘prays’ for death to all non-Jews.”

On the fifth page are reproductions from some of the European and American newspaper articles and letters which had been received by those newspapers during the course of the last years in protest to this propaganda on the subject of ritual murder, and in the center of it you will see the letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury written to the editor of the Times in protest.

On the next page, Page 6, is another ghastly picture of a man having his throat cut—again the usual spurt of blood falling into a basin on the floor and the caption to that is as follows: “The Ritual Murder of the Boy Heinrich. In the year 1345 the Jews in Munich slaughtered a non-Jewish boy. The martyr was beatified by the Church.”

On Page 7 appears a picture representing three ritual murders. On Page 8 there is another photo-picture: “St. Gabriel. This boy was crucified and tortured to death by the Jews in the year 1690. The blood was drawn from him.”

On Page 11 there is shown a piece of sculpture which appears on the wall of the Wallfahrts Chapel in Wesel and it represents the ritual murder of a boy, Werner. It is a somewhat disgusting picture of the boy strung up by his feet and being murdered by two Jews.

Page 12 reproduces another picture taken from the same place. The caption is: “The Embalmed Body of ‘Simon of Trent’ Who Was Tortured to Death by the Jews.”

Page 13 has another picture—somebody else having a knife stuck into him, more blood coming out into a basin.

On Page 14 are two pictures. The one at the top is said to be the ritual murder of the boy Andreas, and the one at the bottom is the picture of a tombstone, the caption of which reads as follows:

The Tombstone of Hilsner. This is the memorial to a Jewish ritual murderer, Leopold Hilsner. He was found guilty of two ritual murders and was condemned in two trials to death by hanging. The emperor was bribed and pardoned him. Masaryk, the friend of the Jews, liberated him from penal servitude in 1918. Even on his tombstone, lying Jewry calls this twofold murderer an innocent victim.

COMMENTARY: Several references to infamous blood libel cases here. Of those which can be confirmed: (1) Gabriel of Bialystok (present-day Poland) was a six-year-old boy allegedly tortured and killed by Jews in 1690. Today he is a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church. (2) In 1287, 14-year-old Werner of Oberwesel (Germany) was allegedly tortured and killed by Jews. (3) A young boy, Simon of Trent (Trento, Italy), was found murdered in 1472. Fifteen local Jews were arrested and executed.

The Hilsner quotation refers to the Hruza murder, cited above. No verifiable information exists on any “Heinrich of Munich.”

The next page again reproduces the picture of a woman being murdered by having her throat cut in the same way; and perhaps I might refer to Page 17, which reproduces a picture of the Archbishop of Canterbury and a picture of an old Jewish man, and the caption says: “Dr. Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Highest Dignitary of the English Church. His ally, a typical example of the Jewish race.” The last page, Page 18, reproduces a picture called, “St. Simon of Trent, Who Was Tortured to Death.”

My Lord, it is my submission that that document is nothing but an incitement to the people of Germany who read it, an incitement to murder. It is filled with pictures of murder, murder alleged to be against the German people, and is an encouragement to all who read it to revenge themselves, and to revenge themselves in the same way.

DR. HANNS MARX (Counsel for Defendant Streicher): The Defendant Julius Streicher has just called my attention to the fact that he has not been given the opportunity to prove from where these pictures, which the prosecution referred to just now, were taken. It is, in the opinion of the Defense, necessary that the origin of these pictures should be made clear to the Tribunal; otherwise one might think that these pictures had been especially borrowed for Der Stürmer from some obscure source. The Defendant Streicher, however, points out that these pictures came from recognized historical sources. I should therefore like to suggest that the prosecution make this material also available. I think that the articles of Der Stürmer which have been referred to must show what the sources are from which Streicher was supplied.

THE PRESIDENT: Do the articles show the sources? Do the articles themselves indicate the sources?

DR. MARX: Yes.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I should have said so. There wasn’t any intention to misrepresent the matter, that these pictures are taken from original pictures. These were not invented by the newspaper, and in some cases the sources are shown in the caption. This is a collection of medieval pictures and frescoes dealing with this matter. In actual fact, the papers show in almost all cases where they come from.

DR. MARX: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: You have already given us the dates of them, which indicated they were medieval.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That is so. My Lord, in January 1938—and it will be remembered that in 1938 the persecution of the Jews became more and more severe—in January 1938, for some reason or other, another special issue of Der Stürmer was published. If the Tribunal would look at Page 34 of their document book, I will quote a short passage from the leading article in that paper, an article written by the defendant:

The supreme aim and highest task of the State is therefore to preserve People, Blood, and Race. But if this is the supreme task, any crime against this law must be punished with the supreme penalty. Der Stürmer takes therefore the view that there are only two punishments for the crime of polluting the race: 1. Long-term penal servitude for attempted race pollution. 2. Death for the completed crime.

And again, indeed if it is now still necessary to show the type of paper this was, if the Tribunal will turn over to the next page, they will see the headlines set out for some of the articles that are contained in that edition:

– “Jewish Race Polluters at Work.”

– “Fifteen-Year-Old Non-Jewess Violated.”

– “A Dangerous Race Polluter. He regards German women as fair game for himself.”

– “The Jewish Sanatorium. A Jewish institution for the cultivation of race pollution.”

– “Rape of a Feeble-Minded Girl.”

– “The Jewish Butler. He steals from his Jewish masters and commits race pollution.”

On the next page of the document book I will quote only the last two lines. It is an article appearing in Der Stürmer; and it is true that it is not an article actually written by the Defendant Streicher but by his then editor, Karl Holz:²¹ “Revenge will break loose one day and will exterminate Jewry from the face of the earth.”

And again on Page 37, in September 1938, Der Stürmer has written an article in which the last two lines read as follows: “… a parasite, a mischief maker, an evil-doer, a disseminator of disease, who must be destroyed in the interest of mankind.”

It is my submission to the Tribunal that this is no longer propaganda for the persecution of the Jews; this is propaganda for the extermination of Jews, for the murder not of one man but of millions.

The next document in the document book, on Page 38, has already been put in evidence and read to the Tribunal. It appears in the document book and was read into the transcript at Page 1438. This is a short article appearing in December 1938, Number 50 of Der Stürmer.

I would draw the Tribunal’s attention to the next document which is a picture taken from that same copy. It shows the upper part of a girl’s body being strangled by the arms of a man with his hands around her neck and the shadow of the man’s face is shown against the background, quite obviously with Jewish features. The caption under that picture is as follows: “Castration for Race Polluters. Only heavy penalties will preserve our womenfolk from a tighter grip from the loathsome Jewish claws. The Jews are our misfortune.”

COMMENTARY: The final phrase above—“the Jews are our misfortune”—was a famous line by the great German historian Heinrich von Treitschke. In 1879 he published an essay entitled “A Word about Our Jewry” (Ein Wort über unser Judenthum), in which he decried the Jews’ generally deleterious effect on German society since the early 1800s, especially in commerce and the press. Early in the essay he remarks on the widespread belief “among the circles of highly educated men” the notion that “the Jews are our misfortune!” (die Juden sind unser Unglück!). Excerpts of the essay are reprinted in Levy (1991) and Mendes-Flohr (2011).

The prosecutor then turns to Streicher’s role in Kristallnacht.

I pause for the moment from Der Stürmer to a particular incident that occurred, in which the Defendant Streicher took a leading part. It will be remembered that the organized demonstrations against the Jews took place the 9th and 10th of November 1938 [Kristallnacht]. All this propaganda, as I say, was becoming fiercer and more ferocious. In the autumn of that year, the Defendant Streicher organized the breaking up of the Nuremberg synagogues on the occasion of a meeting of press representatives in Nuremberg. That incident has in fact been referred to previously in this case and the documents in connection with it are 1724-PS.

Gauleiter Julius Streicher was personally to set the crane in motion with which the Jewish symbols were to be torn down from the synagogue. From another document which also was put in, 2711-PS, I quote two lines: “...the Synagogue is demolished! Julius Streicher himself inaugurates the work by a speech lasting an hour and a half. By his order then—so to speak, as a prelude of the demolition—the tremendous Star of David came off the cupola.”

The defendant, of course, took active part in the November demonstrations of that year. I do not suggest that he was responsible for the idea of them. The evidence against him is confined only to the part that he took in his Gau in Franconia.

On Page 43 of the document book, Document M-42 is an account of the Nuremberg demonstrations as they were reported in the Frankische Tageszeitung, which of course was his paper, on the 11th of November. I quote: “In Nuremberg and Furth there were demonstrations by the crowd against the Jewish murderers. These lasted until the early hours of the morning. Long enough had one watched the doings of the Jews in Germany.”

And then I go to the last three lines of that paragraph:

After midnight the excitement of the populace reached its peak, and a large crowd marched to the synagogues in Nuremberg and Furth and burned these two Jewish buildings where the murder of Germans had been preached. The fire brigades, which had been notified immediately, saw to it that the fire was confined to the original outbreak. The windows of the Jewish shopkeepers, who still had not given up hope of selling their rubbish to the stupid Goyim, were smashed. Thanks to the disciplined behavior of the SA-men and the police, who rushed to the scene, there was no plundering.

That becomes Exhibit GB-174.

The following document in the document book is the report of Streicher’s speech on the 10th of November, the day of the demonstration. I will quote from two paragraphs on that page—or rather, starting in the middle of the first paragraph:

From the cradle, the Jew is not taught, as we are, such texts as ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ or ‘Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ No, he is told: ‘With the non-Jew you can do whatever you like.’ He is even taught that the slaughtering of a non-Jew is an act pleasing to God. For 20 years we have been writing about this in Der Stürmer; for 20 years we have been preaching it throughout the world, and we have made millions recognize the truth. …

The Jew slaughtered in one night 75,000 Persians;²² when he emigrated from Egypt, he killed all the first-born, that is, a whole future generation of Egyptians. What would have happened if the Jew had succeeded in driving the nations into war against us, and if we had lost the war? The Jew, protected by foreign bayonets, would have fallen on us and would have slaughtered and murdered us. Never forget what history teaches.

My Lord, after the November demonstrations, irregularities occurred in the Gau of Franconia in connection with the organized Aryanization of Jewish property. Aryanization of Jewish property was, of course, regulated by the State; and under a decree it had been laid down that the proceeds, or any proceeds that there might be, from taking over Jewish properties and giving them to Aryans; all such proceeds were to go to the State. What apparently happened in Franconia was that a good deal of the proceeds never found their way as far as the State, and as a result Goering set up a commission to investigate what had taken place. We have the report of that commission, and I would refer the Tribunal to certain short passages in it. On Page 45, we see from that report exactly what had been taking place in this Defendant Streicher’s Gau, I quote from the paragraph, opposite where it says “Page 13”...

DR. MARX: As proof of the irregularities which occurred in connection with the Aryanization in Nuremberg after the 9th of November, the prosecutor intends to quote a report which the Deputy Gauleiter Holz made when he was interrogated before the examining commission. I wish to protest against making use of this report. Between Streicher and the Deputy Gauleiter Holz, there existed real tension if not enmity. The Deputy Gauleiter Holz was the very person responsible for the measures of Aryanization. It is not at all proved that Streicher had agreed to these measures being undertaken. It is rather to be assumed that Holz, in order to cover himself, made statements here which he himself could not answer for if he were to appear here as witness today. Therefore, in this report of Holz it is a question of statements made by a man who was deeply involved in this matter, a man who participated in these deeds, and a man who was an enemy of the Defendant Streicher. Holz incriminated Streicher because Streicher did not protect him in front of the commission and from the then Minister President Göring. Therefore I do not think that this report should be used.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you said what you wished to say?

DR. MARX: Yes, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal considers that this document, being an official document, is admissible under Article 21 and that the objections which you have made to it are not objections which go to its admissibility as evidence but go to its weight; and as to that, you will have an opportunity to develop your objections at a later stage when you come to speak. The Tribunal rules that the document is admissible.

LT. COL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I read from the center of that Page 45 of the document book:

After the November demonstrations, the Deputy Gauleiter Holz took up the Jewish Question. His reasons can be given here in detail on the basis of his statement of 25th March 1939:

The 9th and 10th of November 1938. During the night of the 9th to the 10th of November and on the 10th of November 1938, events took place throughout Germany which I [Holz] considered to be the signal for a completely different treatment of the Jewish Question in Germany. Synagogues and Jewish schools were burnt down and Jewish property was smashed both in shops and in private houses. Besides this, a large number of prominent Jews were taken to concentration camps by the police. Towards midday we discussed these events in the Gauleiter’s [Streicher’s] house. All of us were of the opinion that we now faced a completely new state of affairs on the Jewish Question. By the great action against the Jews carried out in the night and morning of the 10th of November, all precedents and all laws on this subject had been made meaningless. We were of the opinion (particularly I myself) that we should now act on our own initiative in this respect. I proposed to the Gauleiter that, in view of the great existing lack of housing, the best thing would be to put the Jews into a kind of internment camp. Then the houses would become free at once; and the housing shortage would be relieved, at least in part. Besides that, we should have the Jews under control and supervision! I added ‘The same thing happened to our prisoners of war and war internees.’

The Gauleiter said that this suggestion was for the time being unfeasible. Thereupon I made a new proposal to him. I said to him that I considered it unthinkable that, after the Jews had had their property smashed, they should still be able to own houses and land. I proposed that these houses and this land ought to be taken away from them, and declared myself ready to carry through such an action. I declared that by the Aryanization of Jewish land and houses a large sum could accrue to the Gau of the proceeds. I named some millions of marks. I stated that, in my opinion, this Aryanization could be carried out as legally as the Aryanization of shops. The Gauleiter’s answer was something to this effect: ‘If you think you can carry this out, do so. The sum gained will then be used to build a Gau school.’

I go down now to where it says “Page 18”:

The Aryanization was accomplished by the alienation of properties, the surrender of claims, especially mortgage claims, and reductions in buying price. The payment allowed the Jews was basically 10 percent of the nominal value or nominal sum of the claim. As a justification for these low prices, Holz claimed, at the Berlin meeting of the 6th of February 1939, that the Jews had mostly bought their property during the inflation period for less than a tenth of its value. As has been shown by investigating a large number of individual cases selected at random, this claim is not true.

My Lord, I would turn to Page 48 of the document book, which appears in the second part of this report, and that part of the report is really the part containing the findings of the commission. I quote from the top of the page, Page 48 of the document book...

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal isn’t altogether satisfied that that has any bearing on the case against Streicher.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, it is the object of that document to show the kind of treatment and persecution which the Jews were receiving in the district or Gau over which this defendant ruled and, secondly, to show the absolute authority with which this defendant acted in his district. That is the purpose of that document.

As a result either of that investigation or of some other matter, the defendant was relieved of his position as Gauleiter in February 1940, but he did not cease from his propaganda or from the control of his newspaper. I would only quote one further short extract from Der Stürmer. An article written by him on the 4th of November 1943, which appears in the document book on Page 53, is Document 1965-PS; and it is an extract of importance:

It is actually true that the Jews have, so to speak, disappeared from Europe and that the Jewish ‘Reservoir of the East,’ from which the Jewish pestilence has for centuries beset the peoples of Europe, has ceased to exist. But the Führer of the German people at the beginning of the war prophesied what has now come to pass.

My Lord, that article was signed by Streicher, and it is my submission that it shows that he had knowledge of what was going on in the East, of which this Court has had such evidence. That was written November 1943. In April 1943, the Tribunal will remember, the Warsaw ghetto was destroyed. Between April 1942 and April 1944, 1,700,000-odd Jews were killed in Auschwitz and Dachau.

COMMENTARY: As explained in the previous chapter, this figure for Jewish deaths is patently false, even according to today’s vastly inflated estimates. On the orthodox view, only some 440,000 Jews died at Auschwitz in the time period cited. Revisionist analysis suggests a much lower figure, perhaps around 50,000 for the same period. Total Jewish deaths at Dachau were relatively inconsequential; a few thousand, at most.

I quote now from the transcript, and throughout the whole of that period millions of Jews were to die. It is my submission that that article appearing on the 4th of November and signed by him shows that he knew what was happening, perhaps not the details, but that he knew that the Jews were being exterminated.

I leave Der Stürmer and I would draw the attention of the Tribunal quite shortly to a matter which is perhaps as evil as any other aspect of this man’s activity, and that is the particular attention that he paid to the instruction—if you can call it that—or the perversion of the children and the youth of Germany. He was not content with inciting the German population. He seized the children as early as he could at their schools, and he started to poison their minds at the earliest possible date. Already in some of the extracts to which I have referred, the Tribunal will remember that there are mentions of children and the need for teaching them anti-Semitism. I refer now to Page 54 of the document book, and I would quote four or five lines from the last paragraph, starting in the middle of the last paragraph. It is a report of a speech by Streicher as early as June 1925, when he says:

I repeat, we demand the transformation of the school into an ethno-German institution of education. If German children are taught by German teachers, then we shall have laid the foundations for the ethno-German school. This ethno-German school must teach racial doctrine. … We demand, therefore, the introduction of racial doctrine into the school.

That is in a copy of Der Stürmer which has already been put in. The following Document, M-43, is an extract from the Frankische Tageszeitung of the 19th of March 1934, when he addressed the pupils at a girls’ school at Preisslerstrasse after their finishing their vocational course. He was continually holding children’s meetings and attending children’s schools. I quote the third paragraph: “Then Julius Streicher spoke about his life and told them about a girl who had at one time been a pupil of his and who had fallen a victim to a Jew, and was finished for the rest of her life.” I need not read the rest. It is all in the same tone.

Every summer they celebrated in Nuremberg what they called their solstice celebration, some pagan rite where the youth of Nuremberg rallied, organized or at least encouraged by the Defendant Streicher. On Page 58 of the document book is a report taken from his paper, Frankische Tageszeitung, of his speech to the Hitler Youth on what they called the “Holy Mountain” near Nuremberg, on the 22nd of June 1935.

Boys and girls, look back a little more than 10 years ago. A great war, the World War, had raged over the peoples of the earth and had left in the end a heap of ruins. Only one people remained victorious in that dreadful war, a people of whom Christ said that its father is the Devil. That people had ruined the German Nation in body and soul. At that time Adolf Hitler, an unknown man, arose from among the people and became a voice which proclaimed a holy war and struggle. He cried to the people to take courage again and to rise and join in liberating the German people from the Devil, so that mankind might again be free from that race which has roamed the globe for centuries and millennia, marked with the brand of Cain.

Boys and girls, even if it is said that the Jews were once the ‘chosen people’ do not believe it, but believe us when we say that the Jews are not a chosen people. Because it cannot be that a chosen people should act among the peoples as the Jews do today.

And so on, with similar kind of propaganda.

The next Document, M-44, from which I will not read now, becomes Exhibit GB-179. The Tribunal will see that it was a report of Streicher’s address to 2,000 children at Nuremberg at Christmastime 1936. Underlined it says: “‘Do you know who the Devil is?’ he asked his breathlessly listening audience. ‘The Jew, the Jew,’ resounded from a thousand children’s voices.”

But he wasn’t content only with writing and talking. He actually issued a book for teachers, a book which he published from his Der Stürmer offices, called The Jewish Question in Education.²³ I have not had the whole of that book translated. It is addressed to school teachers. It is intended for their benefit, and it emphasizes the necessity of anti-Semitic teaching in schools, and it suggests ways in which the subject can be introduced and handled.

On Page 60 of the document book, M-46, the Tribunal will see a few extracts which have been taken from that book. The preface part of it is as follows:

The National Socialist State has brought fundamental changes into all spheres of life of the German people. It has also presented the German teacher with new duties. The National Socialist State demands that its teachers instruct German children on racial questions. As far as the German people is concerned, the racial question is a Jewish question. Those who want to teach the child about the Jew must themselves have a thorough knowledge of the subject. …

Racial and Jewish questions are the fundamental problems of the National Socialist ideology. The solution of these problems will secure the existence of National Socialism, and with this, the existence of our nation for all time. The enormous significance of the racial question is recognized almost without exception today by all the German people. In order to come to this realization, our people had to travel through a long road of suffering.

DR. MARX: I should like to point out the following: The prosecutor omitted in his presentation to state that the book he referred to was not written by the Defendant Streicher but by the school inspector Fink. If the prosecutor had read the next sentence, the Tribunal would have known about this fact. My client has called my attention to this point. I noticed it myself also because the next sentence reads as follows:

“Schulrat Fritz Fink desires to help German teachers on the road to information and knowledge with his book: The Jewish Question in the Schools.” There can thus be no doubt that this School Inspector Fink is the author of the book. It is, after all, an essential thing to know that Fink and not Streicher was the author of this book.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you finished what you wish to say?

DR. MARX: Yes; that is what I wanted to say.

THE PRESIDENT: I would point out to you that although the book does appear to have been written by Fritz Fink, which is stated in the paragraph at the top, it has a preface by Streicher, so we may presume that Streicher authorized it; and it was published and printed by Der Stürmer.

DR. MARX: That is correct. I just wanted to point out to the Tribunal that it did not appear to be understood, that just that particular sentence was not read. One might have thought that an original work of Streicher’s was concerned, in which case the question of whether Streicher agreed with that work would appear of minor importance.

THE PRESIDENT: But you see, Dr. Marx, counsel was reading actually from the preface by Streicher. The last passage that he read, or almost the last, was the preface by Streicher. The last passage I have got marked is the passage on Page 60, which is headed “Preface” and is signed by Julius Streicher, which says in terms that the book was written by School Inspector Fritz Fink. Let us not take any further time about it.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I think I have reached...

THE PRESIDENT: Will you read the last words of that preface on Page 60 there: “Those who take to heart...”?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: If Your Lordship pleases, I read towards the end of the paragraph—the first paragraph of the preface: “Those who take to heart all that has been written with such feeling by Fritz Fink, who for many years has been greatly concerned about the German people, will be grateful to the creator of this outwardly insignificant publication.” Then it is signed “Julius Streicher, City of the Reich Party rallies, Nuremberg, in the year 1937.” I omitted that last part only in the interest of time.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That book is Exhibit GB-180. I would just read the last two lines, which I was not able to read before Dr. Marx interposed. The last three lines of the paragraph under “Introduction”: “No one should be allowed to grow up in the midst of our people without this knowledge of the frightfulness and dangerousness of the Jew.”

I will not occupy the time of the Tribunal by reading further from that book. The nature of the book I hope is clear. I would only refer to the last three lines on the next page in the document book, taking another extract from it: “One who has reached this stage of understanding will inevitably remain an enemy of the Jews all his life and will instill this hatred into his own children.”

Der Stürmer also published some children’s books, although I make it quite clear that I am not alleging that the defendant himself wrote the books. But they were published from his publishing business; and they are, of course, on the same line as everything else that was published and issued from that business.

The first of them to which I would call attention was entitled in English or the English translation is as follows: Don’t Trust the Fox in the Green Meadow Nor the Jew on His Oath. It is a picture book for children. There are pictures, all of them offensive pictures depicting Jews, of which a variety of selections appears in the Tribunal’s book. And opposite each picture there is a little story.

On Page 62 of the document book the Tribunal will see the kind of thing which appears opposite each picture. Opposite the picture in the Tribunal’s document book appears the following:

Jesus Christ says, ‘The Jew is a murderer through and through.’ And when Christ had to die, the Lord didn’t know of any other people that would torture him to death, so he chose the Jews. That is why the Jews pride themselves on being the chosen people.

The writing opposite the first picture, which depicts a very unpleasant looking Jewish butcher cutting up meat, is as follows: “The Jewish butcher: He sells half-refuse instead of meat. A piece of meat lies on the floor, the cat claws another. This doesn’t worry the Jewish butcher since the meat increases in weight. Besides, one mustn’t forget, he won’t have to eat it himself.”

Again in the interest of time, it is not worth quoting the contents of that book any further. The Tribunal can see the type of book it is, the type of teaching it was instilling into the minds of the children. The pictures speak for themselves.

The second picture is a rather beastly picture of a girl being led away by a Jew. On the next page we see the defendant smiling benignly at a children’s party, greeting the little children. The next picture depicts copies of Der Stürmer posted on a wall with children looking at them.

The next picture perhaps requires a little explanation. It is a picture of Jewish children being taken away from an Aryan school, led away by an unpleasant looking father; and all the Aryan children shouting and dancing and enjoying the fun very much. [… ]

There is a similar book called The Poisonous Fungus,²⁴ which has, in fact, been put in evidence already as Exhibit USA-257, but it was not read to the Tribunal; and I would like to read one of the short stories from that book because it shows, perhaps more strikingly, I think, than any other extract to which we have referred, the revolting way in which this man poisoned the minds of his listeners and readers.

It is a book of pictures again with short stories, and Page 69 of the document book shows one of the pictures, a girl sitting in a Jewish doctor’s waiting room. My Lord, it is not a very pleasant story, but he is not a very pleasant man; and it is only by reading these things that it becomes possible to believe the kind of education that the German children have been receiving during these years, led by this man. I quote from the story:

Inge sits in the reception room of the Jew doctor. She has to wait a long time. She looks through the journals which are on the table. But she is much too nervous to read even a few sentences. Again and again she remembers the talk with her mother. And again and again her mind reflects on the warnings of her leader of the League of German Girls. A German must not consult a Jew doctor. And particularly not a German girl. Many a girl that went to a Jew doctor to be cured met with disease and disgrace.

When Inge had entered the waiting room, she experienced an extraordinary incident. From the doctor’s consulting room, she could hear the sound of crying. She heard the voice of a young girl, ‘Doctor, doctor, leave me alone.’

Then she heard the scornful laughter of a man. And then, all of a sudden it became absolutely silent. Inge had listened breathlessly.

‘What can be the meaning of all this?’ she asked herself, and her heart was pounding. And again she thought of the warning of her leader in the League of German Girls.

Inge had already been waiting for an hour. Again she takes the journals in an endeavor to read. Then the door opens. Inge looks up. The Jew appears. She screams. In terror she drops the paper. Horrified she jumps up. Her eyes stare into the face of the Jewish doctor. And this face is the face of the Devil. In the middle of this devil’s face is a huge crooked nose. Behind the spectacles gleam two criminal eyes. Around the thick lips plays a grin, a grin that means, ‘Now I have you at last, you little German girl!’

And then the Jew approaches her. His fat fingers snatch at her. But now Inge has got hold of herself. Before the Jew can grab hold of her, she smacks the fat face of the Jew doctor with her hand. One jump to the door. Breathlessly Inge runs down the stairs. Breathlessly she escapes from the Jew house.

Comment is almost unnecessary on a story like that, read by children of the age of those who are going to read the books you have seen.

Another picture which I have included in the book is a picture, of course of the defendant, and the script opposite that picture includes the words, and I quote from the last but one paragraph: “Without a solution of the Jewish Question, there will be no salvation for mankind.” The page itself contains an account of how some boys attended one of his speeches: “That is what he shouted to us. We all understood him. And when, at the end, he shouted, ‘Sieg-Heil for the Führer,’ we all acclaimed him with tremendous enthusiasm. Streicher spoke for two hours that time. To us, it seemed to have been but a few minutes.”

One can begin to see the effect that all this was having from the columns of Der Stürmer itself. In April 1936 there appears only one letter—many others appear in other copies from children of all ages. I quote the third paragraph of this letter, the letter signed by the boys and girls of the National Socialist Youth Hostel at Gross-Mollem:

Today we saw a play on how the Devil persuades the Jew to shoot a conscientious National Socialist. In the course of the play, the Jew did it, too. We all heard the shot. We would have all liked to jump up and arrest the Jew. But then the policeman came and after a short struggle took the Jew along. You can imagine, dear Stürmer, that we heartily cheered the policeman. In the whole play, not one name was mentioned, but we all knew that this play represented the murder [of Gustloff] by the Jew Frankfurter. We were very sad when we went to bed that night. None felt like talking to the others. This play made it clear to us how the Jew sets to work.

My Lord, that book is already in evidence as I have stated.

To conclude, I would draw the attention of the Tribunal again only to his authority as a Gauleiter. It appears in the Organization Book of the NSDAP for 1938 which is already in as Exhibit USA-430 in the description of the duties and authority of Gauleiter: The Gauleiter bears over-all responsibility to the Führer for the sector of sovereignty entrusted to him. The rights, duties, and jurisdiction of the Gauleiter result primarily from the mission assigned by the Führer and, apart from that, from detailed direction. His association with the Führer and with the other defendants or some of the other defendants can be seen from the newspapers. On the occasion of his 50th birthday, Hitler paid a visit to Nuremberg to congratulate him. That was on the 13th of February 1935. The account of that meeting is published in the Völkischer Beobachter of that date, and I quote as follows:

Adolf Hitler spoke to his old comrade in arms, and to the latter’s followers, in words which went straight to their hearts. By way of introduction, he remarked that it was a special pleasure for him to spend, on this day of honor to Julius Streicher, a short while in Nuremberg, the town of battle-steeled National Socialist solidarity, within the circle of the veteran standard-bearers of the National Socialist idea.

Just as they all, during the years of misery, had unshakably believed in the victory of the Movement, so his friend and comrade in arms, Streicher, had stood faithfully at his side at all times. It had been this unshakeable belief that had moved mountains.

For Streicher, it would surely be an inspiring thought that this 50th anniversary meant to him not only the turn of a half century, but also of a thousand years of German history. He had in Streicher a comrade of whom he could say that, here in Nuremberg, was a man who would never waver for a single second, and who would unflinchingly stand behind him in every situation.

That is Document M-8.

The next document (M-22) is a letter from Himmler published in Der Stürmer of April 1937.

When in future years the history of the reawakening of the German people is written, and the next generation is already unable to understand that the German people were once friendly to the Jews, it will be recognized that Julius Streicher and his weekly paper Der Stürmer contributed a great deal toward the enlightenment regarding the enemy of mankind. Signed Reichsführer SS, H. Himmler.

That is Exhibit USA-258. A number of these documents are already in evidence in the bound volumes.

Lastly, we have a letter from Baldur von Schirach; the Reich Youth Leader, published in Der Stürmer of March 1938:

It is the historical merit of Der Stürmer to have enlightened the broad masses of our people in a popular way as to the Jewish world-danger. Der Stürmer is right in not carrying out its task in a purely aesthetic manner, for Jewry has shown no regard for the German people. We have, therefore, no reason for being considerate toward our worst enemy. What we fail to do today, the youth of tomorrow will have to suffer for bitterly.

My Lord, it may be that this defendant is less directly involved in the physical commission of the crimes against Jews, of which this Tribunal have heard, than some of his co-conspirators. The submission of the Prosecution is that his crime is no less the worse for that reason. No government in the world, before the Nazis came to power, could have embarked upon and put into effect a policy of mass extermination in the way in which they did, without having a people who would back them and support them and without having a large number of people, men and women, who were prepared to put their hands to their bloody murder. And not even, perhaps, the German people of previous generations would have lent themselves to the crimes about which this Tribunal has heard, the killing of millions and millions of men and women.

It was to the task of educating the people, of producing murderers, educating and poisoning them with hate, that Streicher set himself; and for 25 years he has continued unrelentingly the education—if you can call it so—or the perversion of the people and of the youth of Germany. And he has gone on and on as he saw the results of his work bearing fruit.

In the early days he was preaching persecution. As persecutions took place, he preached extermination and annihilation; and, as we have seen in the ghettos of the East, as millions of Jews were being exterminated and annihilated, he cried out for more and more.

That is the crime that he has committed. It is the submission of the prosecution that he made these things possible; he made these crimes possible which could never have happened had it not been for him and for those like him. He led the propaganda and the education of the German people in those ways. Without him, the Kaltenbrunners, the Himmlers, the General Stroops would have had nobody to carry out their orders. And, as we have seen, he has concentrated upon the youth and the childhood of Germany.

In its extent, his crime is probably greater and more far-reaching than that of any of the other defendants. The misery that they caused finished with their incarceration. The effects of this man’s crime, of the poison that he has injected into the minds of millions and millions of young boys and girls, and young men and women, lives on. He leaves behind him a legacy of almost a whole people poisoned with hate, sadism, and murder, and perverted by him. That German people remains a problem and perhaps a menace to the rest of civilization for generations to come.

My Lord, I submit that the prosecution’s case against this man as set out in the indictment is proved.

CHAPTER SEVEN:
STREICHER’S DEFENSE (1)

IMT, Vol. 12: 305-316
26 April 1946
(115th day)

DR. HANNS MARX (Counsel for Defendant Streicher): With the permission of the Tribunal, Mr. President, I now call the Defendant Julius Streicher to the witness box.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?

JULIUS STREICHER (Defendant): Julius Streicher.

DR. MARX: Witness, would you give the Tribunal first a short description of your career?

STREICHER: I should like to ask the Tribunal to let me make a brief statement in respect to my defense. Firstly…

THE PRESIDENT: You really ought to answer the questions that are put to you.

STREICHER: My Lord, my defense counsel cannot say what I must say now. I should like to ask permission—in short, my defense counsel has not conducted and was not in a position to conduct my defense in the way I wanted; and I should like to state this to the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, you understand that the Tribunal does not wish to have its time taken up with unnecessary matters. It has no objection to your stating what is material or to your reading it if necessary. It hopes that you will be as brief as possible.

STREICHER: I mention only facts, four facts. Firstly, the Charter created for this International Military Tribunal guarantees the defendant the right to an unhampered and just defense. Secondly, before the Trial began the defendants received a list containing the names of the attorneys from whom the defendant could choose his counsel. Since the Munich attorney whom I had selected for my defense could no longer be put at my disposal, I asked the Military Tribunal to put the Nuremberg attorney Dr. Marx at my disposal. That was done. Thirdly, when I met my counsel for the first time, I told him he must expect, as my counsel, to be attacked before the public. Shortly afterwards, an attack was made by a Communist newspaper published in the Russian zone of Berlin. The International Tribunal was compelled to make a public statement repudiating the attack of that newspaper and assuring my counsel of the express protection of the Military Tribunal.

Fourthly, although the statement made by the International Military Tribunal left no doubt as to the fact that the Tribunal wished to see the defense of the defendants unhampered, a renewed attack occurred, this time by radio. The announcer said, “There are camouflaged Nazis and anti-Semites among the defendants’ counsel.” That these terroristic attacks were made with the intention of intimidating the defendants’ counsel is clear. These terror attacks might have contributed to the fact—that is my impression—that my own counsel had refused to submit to the Tribunal a large number of pieces of evidence which I considered important. Fifthly, I wish to state that I have not been afforded the possibility of making an unhampered and just defense before this International Military Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: You can rest assured that the Tribunal will see that everything that, in the opinion of the Tribunal, bears upon the case or is relevant to your case or is in any way material in your case will be presented and that you will be given the fairest opportunity of making your defense.

STREICHER: I thank you. From my life...

DR. MARX: Excuse me, Mr. President; may I ask briefly to be permitted to state my position. May it please the Court, when I was asked to take over Herr Streicher’s defense, I naturally had grave misgivings. I have...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, I do not think it is necessary, really, for you to make any personal explanation at this stage. It is very possible that the defendant may have different ideas about his own defense. I think we had better let him go on with his defense.

DR. MARX: Nevertheless, I should like to ask permission, Mr. President, just to mention the following point: As attorney and as defense counsel of a defendant I have to reserve for myself the right to decide how I shall conduct the defense. If the client is of the opinion that certain documents or books are relevant, and the attorney is of the opinion that they are not, then that is a difference of opinion between the counsel and his client.

If Herr Streicher is of the opinion that I am incapable or not in a position to conduct his defense, then he should ask for another defense counsel. I am aware that at this stage of the proceedings it would be very difficult for me to follow the matter to its logical conclusion and ask to be relieved of this task of defense. I am not terrorized by any journalist, but for a counsel to lose the confidence of his own client is quite another matter; and for that reason, I feel bound to ask the Court to decide whether in these circumstances I am to continue to defend my client.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks, Dr. Marx, that the explanation and the statement which you have just made is in accordance with the traditions of the legal profession and they think therefore that the case ought to proceed, and that you should proceed with the case. Now, Defendant, will you go on?

STREICHER: About my life: I was born on 12 February 1885 in a small village in Bavaria. I was the youngest of nine children. My father was an elementary school teacher. I too became a teacher at an elementary school. In 1909, after I had taught for several years in my native district, I was called to the municipal school in Nuremberg. Here I had the opportunity of contact with the families of the working-class children in the suburbs and of observing social contrasts. This experience led to my decision in 1911 to go into politics. I became a member of the Democratic Party.

As a young democratic speaker, I spoke at the Reichstag election in 1919. The car put at my disposal was paid for by the banking firm of Kohn. I stress this point because at that time I had occasion to associate a good deal with Jews, even in the Democratic Party. I must therefore have been fated to become, later on, a writer and speaker on racial politics.

The World War came and I, too, went into the army as a lance corporal in an infantry regiment. Then I became an officer in a machine-gun unit. I returned home with both Iron Crosses, with the Bavarian Order, and the rare Austrian Cross of Merit attached to the Ribbon for Gallantry.

When I had returned home, I had no desire to go into politics again. I intended only to stay in private life and devote myself to my profession. Then I saw the blood-red posters of revolution in Germany and for the first time I joined the raging masses of that time. At a meeting, when the speaker had finished, I asked to be heard as an unknown person. An inner voice sent me onto the platform and I spoke. I joined in the debate and I spoke on recent happenings in Germany. In the November Revolution of 1918, the Jews and their friends had seized the political power in Germany. Jews were in the Reich Cabinet and in all the provincial governments. In my native Bavaria, the Minister President was a Polish Jew called Eisner-Kosmanowsky.²⁵ The reaction among the middle classes in Germany manifested itself in the form of an organization known as Schutz und Trutzbund (Society for Protective and Offensive Action). Local branches of this organization were formed in all the large cities in Germany; and fate willed that after I had again spoken at a gathering, a man came up to me and asked me to come to the Kulturverein (Cultural Society) in the Golden Hall and hear what they had to say there.

In this way, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, I became involved in what brings me here today. Destiny made of me what international propaganda thought it had made. I was called a bloodhound—a bloody czar of Franconia; my honor was attacked, a criminal was paid 300 marks to swear in this very hall that he had seen me, as an officer in France during the war, rape a Madame Duquesne, a teacher’s wife in Atis, near Peronne. It was 2 years before someone betrayed him and the truth came out. Gentlemen, the receipt for 300 marks was produced here in this court. With 300 marks, they tried to deprive me of my honor.

I mention this case only because my case is a special case; and if it is to be judged with justice, then I must be allowed to make such a remark in passing. In this connection, I may say that it is no coincidence that the first question asked me by the Soviet Russian officer who interrogated me was whether I was a sex criminal.

Gentlemen, I told you how I was fated to be drawn into the Schutz und Trutzbund. I told you what conditions were like in Germany at the time, and it was therefore quite a natural development that I no longer visited the centers of revolution to join in debate. I felt myself impelled to call meetings of my own, and so I spoke for perhaps 15 years almost every Friday before about 5,000 to 6,000 people. I admit quite frankly that I went on making speeches over a period of 20 years in the largest cities of Germany, sometimes at meetings on sport fields and on public squares, to audiences of 150,000 to 200,000 people. I did that for 20 years, and I state here that I was not paid by the Party. The prosecution will never succeed, not even through a public appeal, in getting anybody into this room who could testify that I had ever been paid. I still had a small salary which continued after I was relieved of my position in 1924. Nonetheless, I remained the one and only unpaid Gauleiter in the movement. It goes without saying that my writing supported myself and my assistants later on.

And so, Gentlemen, in the year 1921—I return now to that period—I went to Munich. I was curious because someone had said to me, “You must hear Adolf Hitler some time.” And now destiny again takes a hand. This tragedy can only be grasped by those whose vision is not limited to the material, but who can perceive those higher vibrations which even today have not had their full outcome.

I went to the Munich Bürgerbräukeller. Adolf Hitler was speaking there. I had only heard his name. I had never seen the man before. And there I sat, an unknown among unknowns. I saw this man shortly before midnight, after he had spoken for 3 hours, drenched in perspiration, radiant. My neighbor said he thought he saw a halo around his head; and I, Gentlemen, experienced something which transcended the commonplace. When he finished his speech, an inner voice bade me get up. I went to the platform. When Adolf Hitler came down, I approached him and told him my name.

The prosecution has submitted a document to the Tribunal which recalls that moment. Adolf Hitler wrote in his book, Mein Kampf, that it must have cost me a great effort to hand over to him the movement which I had created in Nuremberg.²⁶

I mention this because the prosecution thought that these things in Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, should be submitted and used against me. Yes, I am proud of it; I forced myself to hand over to Hitler the movement which I had created in Franconia. This Franconian movement gave the movement which Adolf Hitler had created in Munich and southern Bavaria a bridge to northern Germany. That was my doing.

In 1923, I took part in the first National Socialist revolution or, rather, attempted revolution. It will go down in history as the Hitler Putsch. Adolf Hitler had asked me to come to Munich for it. I went to Munich and took part in the meeting in which Adolf Hitler came to a solemn agreement with representatives of the middle classes to go to northern Germany and put an end to the chaos.

I marched with them up to the Feldherrnhalle. Then I was arrested and, like Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, and others, was taken to Landsberg on the Lech. After a few months, I was put up as candidate for the Bavarian Parliament by the Völkischer Block and was elected in the year 1924.

In 1925, after the movement had been permitted again and Adolf Hitler had been released from jail, I was made Gauleiter of Franconia. In 1933, I became a deputy to the Reichstag. In 1933 or 1934 the honorary title of SA Gruppenführer was bestowed on me.

In February 1940, I was given leave of absence. I lived for five years, until the end of the war, on my estate. At the end of April, I went to southern Bavaria, to the Tyrol. I wanted to commit suicide. Then something happened which I do not care to relate. But I can say one thing: I said to friends, “I have proclaimed my views to the world for 20 years. I do not want to end my life by suicide. I will go my way, whatever happens, as a fanatic in the cause of truth until the very end, a fanatic in the cause of truth.”

I might mention here that I deliberately gave my fighting paper Der Stürmer, the subtitle, ‘A Weekly for the Fight for Truth.’ I was quite conscious that I could not be in possession of the entire truth, but I also know that 80 or 90 percent of what I proclaim with conviction was the truth.

DR. MARX: Witness, why were you dismissed from the teaching profession? Did you ever commit any punishable or immoral act?

STREICHER: Actually I have answered this question already. Everybody knows that I could not have been active publicly in this profession if I had committed a crime. That is not true. I was dismissed from my profession because the majority of the parties in the Bavarian Parliament in the fall of 1923, after the Hitler Putsch, demanded my dismissal. That, Gentlemen, was my crime of indecent behavior.

DR. MARX: You know that two charges are made against you. First, you are accused that you were a party to the conspiracy which had the aim of launching a war, or wars, of aggression generally, of breaking treaties and by so doing, or even at an earlier stage, of committing Crimes against Humanity.

Secondly, you are accused of Crimes against Humanity as such. I should like to ask various questions on the first point now. Did you ever have discussions with Adolf Hitler or other leading men of the State or the Party at which the question of a war of aggression was discussed?

STREICHER: I can answer that with “no” right away, but I should like to be permitted to make a short statement.

In 1921, as I have already said, I went to Munich; and before the public on the platform I handed over my movement to the Führer. I also wrote him a letter in this connection later. No other conference took place with Adolf Hitler or any other person. I returned to Nuremberg and went on making speeches. When the Party program was proclaimed, I was not present. That announcement, too, was made in public; the conspiracy was so public that political opponents could make attempts at terrorization.

To sum up: At none of the secret meetings was any oath taken or anything agreed upon which the public could not have known. The program stood; it had been submitted to the police; on the basis of the law governing organizations the Party, like other parties, was entered in the register of organizations. So that, at that, time there was no conspiracy.

DR. MARX: Witness, one of the most important points of the Party program was the demand, “Freedom from Versailles.” What were your ideas as to the possibility of some day getting rid of the Versailles Treaty?

STREICHER: I think I can state that very shortly. I believe the Tribunal has known this for some time. Of course, you will sometimes find one traitor in a people—like the one who was sitting here today; and you will also find unlimited numbers of decent people. And after the last war these decent people themselves took up the slogan, “Freedom from Versailles.”

COMMENTARY: “Freedom from Versailles” is part of Point #2 in the 25-point Party Program of the NSDAP (see Attachment A), which was written in early 1920. The Versailles Treaty, as we recall, was implemented at the end of World War One, and placed onerous financial burdens and full war-guilt upon Germany. It was one of the causes for a young Hitler to become politically active, and he vowed to annul that treaty—which he did.

The “traitor” to whom Streicher refers was Hans Gisevius, a German diplomat and intelligence officer who secretly worked against Hitler. He had testified at Nuremberg prior to Streicher.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: If Your Honor pleases, I think I must object to this sort of procedure. This witness has no right to call another witness a traitor. He has not been asked any question to which that is a response, and I ask that the Tribunal admonish him in no uncertain terms and that he confine himself to answering the questions here and that we may have an orderly proceeding.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, you will observe that injunction.

STREICHER: I ask the Tribunal to excuse me. It was a slip of the tongue.

THE PRESIDENT: The observation that you apparently made I did not catch myself, but it was made with reference to a witness who has just given evidence here and you had no right at all to call him a traitor or to make any comment upon his evidence.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, you will please refrain from making such remarks. Adolf Hitler always spoke on the anniversary days of the Party about a sworn fellowship. What do you say about that?

STREICHER: Sworn fellowship—that meant that he, Hitler, was of the conviction that his old supporters were one with him in thought, in heart, and in political loyalty—a sworn fellowship sharing the same views and united in their hearts.

DR. MARX: Would not that mean that a conspiracy existed?

STREICHER: Then he would have said we were a fellowship of conspirators.

DR. MARX: Was there any kind of close relationship between you and the other defendants which could be termed a conspiracy, and were you better acquainted or did you have especially close relations with any one of these defendants?

STREICHER: Inasmuch as they were old members of the Party we were one community of people with the same convictions. We met at Gauleiter meetings; or when one of us spoke in the other’s Gaustadt, we saw one another. But I had the honor of getting to know the Reich Ministers and the gentlemen from the Army only here. A political group therefore—an active group—certainly did not exist.

DR. MARX: In the early days of the Party, what solution was foreseen for the Jewish problem?

STREICHER: Well, in the early days of the Party, the solution of the Jewish problem was never mentioned, just as the question of solving the problem of the Versailles Treaty was never mentioned. You must remember the state of chaos that existed at that time in Germany. An Adolf Hitler who said to his members in 1933, “I shall start to promote a war,” would have been dubbed a fool. We had no arms in Germany. Our army of 100,000 men had only a few big guns left. The possibility of making or of prophesying war was out of the question, and to speak of a Jewish problem at a time when, I might say, the public made distinctions with respect to Jews only on the basis of religion, or to speak of the solution of this problem, would have been absurd. Before 1933, therefore, the solution of the Jewish problem was not a topic of discussion. I never heard Adolf Hitler mention it; and there is no one here of whom I could say I ever heard him say one word about it.

DR. MARX: It is assumed that you had particularly close relations with Adolf Hitler and that you had considerable influence on his decisions. I should like to ask you to describe your relations with Adolf Hitler and to clarify them.

STREICHER: Anyone who had occasion to make Adolf Hitler’s acquaintance knows that I am correct in saying that those who imagined they could pave a way to his personal friendship were entirely mistaken. Adolf Hitler was a little eccentric in every respect, and I believe I can say that friendship between him and other men did not exist—a friendship that might have been described as intimate friendship. It was not easy to approach Adolf Hitler; and anyone who wanted to approach him could do so only by performing some manly deed.

If you ask me now—I know what you mean by that question—I may say that before 1923 Adolf Hitler did not trust me. Although I had handed over my movement to him unreservedly, he sent Göring—who later became Marshal of the Reich—sometime later to Nuremberg. Göring was then a young SA leader—I think he was an SA leader—and he came to investigate matters and to determine whether I or those who denounced me were in the right. I do not mean this as an accusation, but merely as a statement of fact. Soon after that he sent a second and then a third person—in short, he did not trust me before 1923.

Then came Munich and the Putsch. After midnight, when most of them had left him, I appeared before him and told him that the public must be told now when the next great day would come. He looked at me intently and said, “Will you do it?” I said, “I will do it.”

Maybe the prosecution has the document before it. Then, after midnight, he wrote on a piece of paper, “Streicher will be responsible for the entire organization.” That was to be for the following day, 11 November; and on 11 November, I publicly conducted the propaganda, until an hour before the march to the Feldherrnhalle. Then I returned and everything was in readiness. Our banner—which was to become a banner of blood—flew in front. I joined the second group and we marched into the city towards the Feldherrnhalle. Ashen, I saw rifle after rifle ranged before the Feldherrnhalle and knew that now there would be shooting, I marched up 10 paces in front of the banner and marched straight up to the rifles. Then came the massacre, and we were arrested.

I have almost finished.

At Landsberg—and this is the important part—Hitler declared to me and to the men who were in prison with him, that he would never forget this action of mine. Thus, because I took part in the march to the Feldherrnhalle and marched at the head of the procession, Adolf Hitler may have felt himself drawn to me more than to the others. That was the friendship born of the deed.

DR. MARX: Have you finished?

STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: Were you consulted by Adolf Hitler on important matters?

STREICHER: I saw Adolf Hitler only at Gauleiter conferences; when he came to Nuremberg for meetings we had meals together, along with five, ten, or more people. I recall having been alone with him only once in the Brown House at Munich, after the completion of the Brown House; and our conversation was not a political one. All the conversations which I had with Adolf Hitler, whether in Nuremberg, Munich, or elsewhere, took place in the presence of Party circle members.

DR. MARX: Now I come to 1933. On 1 April 1933 a boycott day was decreed throughout the entire German Reich against the Jewish population. What can you tell us about that and what part did you play in it?

STREICHER: A few days before 1 April, I was summoned to the Brown House in Munich. Adolf Hitler explained to me something that I already knew, namely, that a tremendous propaganda campaign against the new Germany was being carried on by the foreign press. Although he himself had only just become Chancellor, although Hindenburg was still at the head of the Reich, although Parliament existed, a tremendous campaign of hate against Germany had begun in the foreign press.

The Führer told me that even the Reich flag, the emblem of sovereignty, was being subjected to insults abroad and that we would have to tell world Jewry, “Thus far and no farther.” We would have to show them that we would not tolerate it any longer.

Then he told me that a boycott day was to be fixed for 1 April and that I was to organize it. Perhaps it would not be irrelevant to point out the following facts: Adolf Hitler thought that it might be a good thing to use my name in connection with this boycott day; that was not done in the end. So I undertook the organization of the boycott and issued a directive, which I believe is in the hands of the Court. There is no need for me to say much about it. I gave instructions that no attempts should be made on the lives of Jews, that one or more guards should be posted in front of all Jewish premises—that is to say, in front of every Jewish store—and that these guards should be responsible for seeing that no damage was done to property. In short, I organized the proceedings in a way which was perhaps not expected of me; and perhaps not expected by many members of the Party. I frankly admit that.

One thing is certain; except for minor incidents, the boycott day passed off perfectly. I believe that there is not even one Jew who can contradict this. The boycott day was a disciplined proceeding and was not “anti” in the sense of an attack on something. It has a purely defensive connotation.

DR. MARX: Was a committee formed at the time consisting of prominent, that is, leading members of the Party and did that committee ever appear?

STREICHER: As to the committee, it was like the Secret Cabinet Council in Berlin, which never met. In fact, I believe that all the members of the Cabinet did not even see each other or get to know each other.

DR. MARX: The committee members?

STREICHER: The boycott committee, that was put in the newspapers in Berlin by Goebbels. That was a newspaper story. I spoke to Goebbels on the telephone once. He asked how things were going in Munich, where I was. I said that everything was going perfectly. Thus no conference ever took place; it was only done for effect, to make it appear a much bigger thing than it was.

DR. MARX: Witness, you made a mistake a few minutes ago, speaking of the Munich affair in 1923. You meant 9 November 1923, and what did you say?

STREICHER: I do not remember.

DR. MARX: It should be 9 November 1923?

STREICHER: 9 November 1923.

DR. MARX: Yes. The so-called “Racial Law” was promulgated at the Reich Party Day in Nuremberg in 1935. Were you consulted about the planning and preparation of the draft of that law; and did you have any part in it, especially in its preparation?

STREICHER: Yes, I believe I had a part in it, insofar as, for years, I have written that any further mixture of German blood with Jewish blood must be avoided. I have written such articles again and again; and in my articles I have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the Jews should serve as an example to every race, for they created a racial law for themselves—the law of Moses, which says, “If you come into a foreign land you shall not take unto yourself foreign women.” And that, Gentlemen, is of tremendous importance in judging the Nuremberg Laws. These laws of the Jews were taken as a model for these laws. When, after centuries, the Jewish lawgiver Ezra discovered that notwithstanding many Jews had married non-Jewish women, these marriages were dissolved. That was the beginning of Jewry which, because it introduced these racial laws, has survived throughout the centuries, while all other races and civilizations have perished.

COMMENTARY: See, for example, Deuteronomy 7:3: “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them [the Gentiles]; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.” Or again in Ezra 9:11, which also contains a share of typical Jewish misanthropy:

The land you are entering to possess is a land polluted by the corruption of its peoples. By their detestable practices they have filled it with their impurity from one end to the other. Therefore, do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them at any time, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land, and leave it to your children as an everlasting inheritance.

And once more at Ezra 10:11: “Now honor the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.” Even today, orthodox Jews face severe social pressure to marry within. And when they do take Gentile spouses, often the spouse converts to Judaism, and the children are raised as Jews.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, this is rather too much of a digression. I asked you whether you took part in planning and working out the draft of the law, or whether you yourself were not taken by surprise when these laws were promulgated.

STREICHER: I was quite honest in saying that I believe I have contributed indirectly to the making of these laws.

DR. MARX: But you were not consulted on the law itself?

STREICHER: No. I will make a statement, as follows: At the Reich Party Day in Nuremberg in 1935, we were summoned to the hall without knowing what was going to happen—at least I myself had no knowledge of it—and the racial laws were proclaimed. It was only then that I heard of these laws; and I think that with the exception of Herr Hess, etc., this is true of most of the gentlemen in the dock who attended that Reich Party Day. The first we heard of these decrees was at the Reich Party Day. I did not collaborate directly. I may say frankly that I regarded it as a slight when I was not consulted in the making of these laws.

DR. MARX: It was thought that your assistance was not necessary?

STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: Were you of the opinion that the 1935 legislation represented the Final Solution of the Jewish Question by the State?

STREICHER: With reservations, yes. I was convinced that if the Party program was carried out, the Jewish Question would be solved. The Jews became German citizens in 1848. Their rights as citizens were taken from them by these laws. Sexual intercourse was prohibited. For me, this represented the solution of the Jewish problem in Germany. But I believed that another international solution would still be found, and that some day discussions would take place between the various states with regard to the demands made by Zionism. These demands aimed at a Jewish state.

DR. MARX: What can you tell us about the demonstrations against the Jewish population during the night of 9 to 10 November 1938 [i.e. Kristallnacht], and what part did you play in it?

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, if you are going into that, it is now 5 o’clock; and I think we had better adjourn now until Monday morning.

CHAPTER EIGHT:
STREICHER’S DEFENSE (2)

IMT, Vol. 12: 316-349
29 April 1946
(116th day)

DR. MARX: Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Tribunal: Before continuing with questions to the Defendant Streicher, may I ask permission to make a statement?

On Friday afternoon, Herr Streicher referred to a case, namely, that press event which concerned me and my professional attitude. I thereupon took the opportunity to refer to this case in my statement as well, and I pointed out that at that time I had had to ask for the protection of the Tribunal against this damaging attack on my work and that this protection was given me very graciously. On that occasion and in that extemporary explanation I used the expression “newspaper writer.” I used it exclusively with reference to the particular journalist who had written the article in question in that Berlin newspaper regarding my person and my activity as a lawyer.

By no means did I express, or mean to express, a reference to the press in general. It was far from my intention in any way to attack the press, the group of press experts, and particularly not the members of the world press who are active here; nor did I wish to injure their professional honor.

The reason for this statement of mine is a statement made on the radio, according to which I, the attorney Marx, had attacked and disparaged the press in general. I am, of course, aware of the significance of the press. I know precisely what the press has to contribute and I should be the last person to fail to recognize fully the extremely difficult work and the responsible task of the press. May I, therefore, quite publicly before this Tribunal ask that this statement be accepted; and may I ask the gentlemen of the press to receive my statement in the spirit in which it is made, namely, that this was merely a special comment on that particular gentleman and not in any way on the entire press. That is what I wanted to say.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, the Tribunal understood your statement the other day in the sense in which you have now explained it.

DR. MARX: Yes. With the permission of the Tribunal, I shall then continue with my examination. Witness, what aims did you pursue with your speeches and your articles in Der Stürmer?

STREICHER: The speeches and articles which I wrote were meant to inform the public on a question which appeared to me one of the most important questions. I did not intend to agitate or inflame but to enlighten.

DR. MARX: Apart from your weekly journal, and particularly after the Party came into power, were there any other publications in Germany which treated the Jewish Question in an anti-Semitic way?

STREICHER: Anti-Semitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. A book I had, written by Dr. Martin Luther, was, for instance, confiscated. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants’ dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the prosecution. In the book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent’s brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them...

COMMENTARY: In 1543, Martin Luther—initiator of the Protestant movement and founder of the Lutheran Church—wrote a remarkable book, Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (‘On the Jews and Their Lies’). Running some 200 pages in English translation, the book is a sustained and largely theological attack on Jews, Judaism and their role in German society. Jews, said Luther, misread and distort the meaning of the Old Testament, slander Jesus and Mary, and insult the name of God himself. But beyond this, they also wreak havoc on humble Germans everywhere through their greed, arrogance, hatred and violent attacks. Jewish usury exploits and bankrupts simple German workers; Jews are inveterate liars on all matters large and small; their crude materialism defies the religious truths of Christianity; and their ritual murder is a danger to Gentiles everywhere. In response, Germans have no choice but to take action against them. Luther’s recommendations are specific: 1) burn down their synagogues and schools; 2) destroy their homes; 3) banish their holy books; 4) prohibit Judaic teaching; 5) abolish their right to free travel; 6) ban all Jewish lending and usury, and confiscate their wealth; 7) put them to hard physical labor; and finally, 8) drive them out of the country. See Luther (2020).

In sum, Streicher is quite right; Luther was more explicit and more violent than anything said by him or even Hitler. A modern-day Luther would surely have been put on trial by the IMT’s Jewish-backed prosecutors.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, that is not my question, I am asking you to answer my question in accordance with the way I put it. Please answer now with “yes” or “no,” whether there were…

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I should like to interpose an objection to this method of answering unresponsively and with speeches here. We are utterly unable in this procedure to make objections when answers are not responsive to questions. We have already got into this case, through Streicher’s volunteered speeches, an attack on the United States which will take considerable evidence to answer if we are to answer it. It seems to me very improper that a witness should do anything but make a responsive answer to a question, so that we may keep these proceedings from getting into issues that have nothing to do with them. It will not help this Tribunal, in deciding Streicher’s guilt or innocence, to go into questions which he has raised here against us—matters that are perfectly capable of explanation, if we take time to do it.

It seems to me that this witness should be admonished, and admonished so that he will understand it, if that is possible, that he is to answer questions and stop, so that we can know and object in time to orations on irrelevant subjects.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, will you try, when you put the questions to the witness, to stop him if he is not answering the questions you put to him?

DR. MARX: Yes, Mr. President. I was just in the process...

THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Streicher, you understand, you have heard what has been said and you will understand that the Tribunal cannot put up with your long speeches which are not answers to questions which we put to you.

DR. MARX: I will now repeat the question and I want you to answer the question first with “yes” or “no” and then to add a brief explanation regarding the question. Apart from your weekly journal, and particularly after the Party came into power, were there other publications in Germany which dealt with the Jewish Question in an anti-Semitic way?

STREICHER: Yes, even before the coming to power there were in every Gau weekly journals that were anti-Semitic, and one daily paper called the Völkischer Beobachter in Munich. Apart from that, there were a number of periodicals which were not working directly for the Party. There was also anti-Semitic literature. After the seizure of power, the daily press was coordinated, and now the Party found itself in control of some 3,000 daily papers, numerous weekly journals, and all type of periodicals; and orders were given by the Führer that every newspaper should provide enlightening articles on the Jewish Question. The anti-Semitic enlightenment was, therefore, after the seizure of power, carried out on a very large scale in the daily press as well as in the weekly journals, periodicals, and books. Consequently, Der Stürmer did not stand alone in its enlightening activity. But I want to state quite openly that I make the claim of having treated the question in the most popular way.

DR. MARX: Were the directives necessary for this issued by a central office, say, for instance, by the National Socialist press service?

STREICHER: Yes. The Propaganda Ministry in Berlin had a National Socialist press service. In this service, in every issue, there were a number of enlightening articles on the Jewish Question. During the war, the Führer personally gave the order that the press, far more than previously, should publish enlightening articles on the Jewish Question.

COMMENTARY: The Propaganda Ministry was headed by Goebbels. In his diary of 10 May 1943, he recorded his thoughts on this topic: “The [German] press has been called to a special conference where it was made clear that they don’t have to write an anti-Jewish article every other day; the main thing is that our newspapers have an anti-Jewish orientation.” (Goebbels 2019: 213)

DR. MARX: The prosecution accuse you of having contributed indirectly to mass murders by incitation, and according to the minutes of 10 January 1946, the following charge has been made against you: No government in the world could have undertaken a policy of mass extermination, as it was done here, without having behind it a nation which agreed to it; and you are supposed to have brought that about. What have you to say to this?

STREICHER: To that I have the following to say: Incitation means to bring a person into condition of excitement which causes him to perform an irresponsible act. Did the contents of Der Stürmer incite, this is the question? Briefly stated, the question must be answered, “What did Der Stürmer write?” Several volumes of Der Stürmer are available here, but one would have to look at all the issues of 20 years in order to answer that question exhaustively. During those 20 years I published enlightening articles dealing with race, dealing with what the Jews themselves write in the Old Testament, in their history, what they write in the Talmud. I printed excerpts from Jewish historical works, works for instance, written by a Professor Dr. Graetz and by a Jewish scholar, Gutnot.

COMMENTARY: Heinrich Graetz (1817-1891) was a Jewish historian who wrote the first extensive account of the Jewish people: A History of the Jews (1853-1875). The reference to a “Gutnot” is unclear.

In Der Stürmer no editorial appeared written by me or written by anyone of my main co-workers in which I did not include quotations from the ancient history of the Jews, from the Old Testament or from Jewish historical works of recent times. It is important, and I must emphasize that I pointed out in all articles, that prominent Jews, leading authors themselves, admitted that which, during 20 years as author and public speaker, I publicly proclaimed.

Allow me to add that it is my conviction that the contents of Der Stürmer as such were not incitation. During the whole 20 years I never wrote in this connection, “Burn Jewish houses down; beat them to death.” Never once did such an incitement appear in Der Stürmer.

Now comes the question: Is there any proof to be furnished that any deed was done from the time Der Stürmer first appeared, a deed of which one can say that it was the result of an incitement? As a deed due to an incitement I might mention a pogrom. That is a spontaneous deed when sections of the people suddenly rise up and kill other people. During the 20 years, no pogrom took place in Germany; during the 20 years, as far as I know, no Jew was killed. No murder took place, of which one could have said, “This is the result of an incitement which was caused by anti-Semitic authors or public speakers.” Gentlemen, we are in Nuremberg. In the past, there was a saying that nowhere were the Jews in Germany so safe and so unmolested as in Nuremberg.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, is not this becoming a rather lengthy speech?

DR. MARX: Streicher, you have explained this now sufficiently, so that one can form an opinion—you mean, “I have not incited in such a way that any spontaneous action carried out against the Jews by any group of people or by the masses resulted”?

STREICHER: May I make a remark in this connection? Here we are concerned with the most serious, the most decisive accusation raised against me by the prosecution, and here I ask the Tribunal to permit me to defend myself against it objectively. Is it not of tremendous significance if I can establish that in Nuremberg, of all places, no murder took place, no single murder and no pogrom either? That is a fact.

THE PRESIDENT: You have already said it. I have just written down, before I intervened, saying that no Jews have been killed not only in Nuremberg but anywhere else as a result of your incitement.

DR. MARX: Witness, we shall make reference to these demonstrations of 9 and 10 November 1938 later.

STREICHER: Yes, but may I continue? The indictment accuses me of having indirectly contributed by incitation to mass murders, and I ask to be allowed to make a statement on this: Something has been ascertained today about which I myself did not know. I learned of the will left behind by the Führer, and I assume that a few moments before his death, the Führer told the world the truth in that will. In it he says that mass killings were carried out by his order; that the mass killings were a reprisal. Thus it is demonstrated that I, myself, cannot have been a participant in the incredible events which occurred here.

COMMENTARY: In fact, no such thing appears in either Hitler’s last will or final political testament—refer to the full document in Appendix C. Streicher and the other defendants were evidently presented with a fraudulent document or were otherwise misled. In fact, no document of any kind has ever been discovered that indicates a Hitler order for the mass murder of any group.

DR. MARX: Finished?

STREICHER: Yes. You said that the indictment accuses me in saying that these mass killings could never have taken place if behind the Government and behind the leaders of the State there had not been an informed people. Gentlemen, first of all, the question, “Did the German people really know what was happening during the years of the war?” We know today...

THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, that is a matter of argument and not a matter upon which you can give evidence. You can say what you knew.

STREICHER: I was a part of that nation during the war. During the war I lived alone in the country. For 5 years I never left my farm. I was watched by the Gestapo. From 1939 on, I have been forbidden by the Führer to speak.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, we will certainly come to that later. I have interrogated you now on this question, and I will proceed with my questions. The other will come later.

STREICHER: But I wish to state that I had no opportunity—that is why I said this—to learn what was actually going on. I first heard of the mass murders and mass killings at Mondorf when I was in prison. But I am stating here that if I had been told that 2 or 3 million people had been killed, then I would not have believed it. I would not have believed that it was technically possible to kill so many people; and on the basis of the entire attitude and psychology of the Führer, as I knew it, I would not have believed that mass killings, to the extent to which they have taken place, could have taken place. Finished.

COMMENTARY: Streicher, like other leading Nazis, was briefly detained at the Palace Hotel in Mondorf-les-Bains, Luxembourg. By all indications, he is being completely honest here when he says that he “would not have believed” stories of 2 or 3 million killed, nor that it was “technically possible.” This, in fact, is exactly the conclusion of modern-day revisionists: that mass murder in gas chambers—either using Zyklon B or diesel-engine exhaust—is technically impossible in anything close to the manner described. There are so many holes in all the ‘gas-chamber’ stories that they are almost completely discarded by serious researchers; see Dalton (2020) for details.

DR. MARX: The prosecution also raise the charge against you that it was the task of the educators of the nation to educate the people to murder and to poison them with hatred, that you had devoted yourself particularly to these tasks. What do you want to answer to this charge?

STREICHER: That is an allegation. We educated no murderers. The contents of the articles which I wrote could not have educated murderers. No murders took place, and that is proof that we did not educate murderers. What happened during the war—well, I certainly did not educate the Führer. The Führer issued the order on his own initiative.

DR. MARX: I now continue. The prosecution further assert that the Himmler-Kaltenbrunner groups and other SS leaders would have had no one to carry out their orders to kill, if you had not made that propaganda and if you had not conducted the education of the German people along these lines. Will you make a statement on that?

STREICHER: I do not believe that the National Socialists mentioned read Der Stürmer every week. I do not believe that those who received the order from the Führer to carry out killings or to pass on the order to kill, were led to do this by my periodical. Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, existed, and the content of that book was the authority, the spiritual authority; nor do I believe that the persons mentioned read that book and carried out the order on the strength of it. Based on my knowledge of what went on in the movement, I am convinced that if the Führer gave an order, everyone acted upon it; and I state here quite openly that maybe fate has been kind to me. If the Führer had ordered me to do such things, I would not have been able to kill; but perhaps today I would face some indictment which it has not been possible to lodge against me. Perhaps because fate has taken a hand in this.

But the conditions were thus, that the Führer had such a power of hypnotic suggestion that the entire people believed in him; his way was so unusual that, if one knows this fact, one can understand why everyone who received an order acted. And thus I want to reject as untrue and incorrect what was here thought fit to assert against me.

DR. MARX: What do you know about the general attitude of Adolf Hitler to the Jewish Question? And when did Hitler first become hostile to the Jews, according to your knowledge?

STREICHER: Even before Adolf Hitler became publicly known at all, I had occupied myself journalistically with anti-Semitic articles. However, on the strength of his book, Mein Kampf, I first learned about the historic connections of the Jewish problem. Adolf Hitler wrote his book in the prison in Landsberg.²⁷ Anyone who knows this book will know that Hitler, many years back, either by study of anti-Semitic literature or through other experiences, must have developed this knowledge in himself in order then to be able to write that book in prison in so short a time. In other words, in his book Adolf Hitler stated to the world public that he was anti-Semitic and that he knew the Jewish problem through and through. He himself often said to me personally...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, the book Mein Kampf is in evidence, and it speaks for itself.

STREICHER: I will now answer your question, not with reference to the book. You asked me whether Adolf Hitler had discussed the Jewish problem with me. The answer is “yes.” Adolf Hitler always discussed the Jewish problem in connection with Bolshevism. It is perhaps of importance in answering that question to ask whether Adolf Hitler wanted a war with Russia. Did he know long in advance that a war would come, or not? When he was with us, Adolf Hitler spoke of Stalin as a man whom he honored as a man of action, but that he was actually surrounded by Jewish leaders, and that Bolshevism...

COMMENTARY: Soviet Bolshevism was heavily Jewish in the early days, circa 1915 to 1925. In the period just prior to WW2, the non-Jew Stalin still had many Jewish intimates and top officials, including Kaganovich, Radek, Litvinov, Goloshchekin, Mekhlis, Trilisser, Agranov, Berman and Maisky. Other top officials, like Kalinin and Molotov, had Jewish wives. (The Jew Leon Trotsky had long faded from the scene, even by 1930.) But Bolshevism as an ideology, being an outgrowth of Marxism, had a strong Jewish orientation and mindset.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, that is going too far again. The question which I put was quite exact, and I am asking you not to go so far afield. You have heard the Tribunal object to it, and in the interest of not delaying the proceedings you must not go into so many details. You must not make speeches.

GEN. RUDENKO: Mr. President, I believe that some time ago Mr. Justice Jackson remarked, quite justly, quite reasonably, that the Defendant Streicher became so intoxicated by his own speeches that he did not answer the questions put to him or the charges made against him. I therefore invite the attention of the Tribunal to this fact and suggest that the defendant abstain from making lengthy speeches and merely give brief replies to the charges brought against him.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you go on, Dr. Marx, and try to keep the witness to an answer to the questions which you have no doubt prepared.

DR. MARX: Very well, Mr. President.

STREICHER: May I, please, as a defendant, say a few words, here? The question was...

THE PRESIDENT: No, you may not. You will answer the questions, please.

DR. MARX: Next question. Is there reason for the assumption that Hitler, when he decided to have the Jews in Europe killed in masses, was subject to any influence, or what is to be considered the motive for that dreadful decision?

STREICHER: The Führer could not be influenced. As I know the Führer, if somebody had gone to him and said that Jews should be killed, then he would have turned him down. And if, during the war, somebody had gone to him and said, “I have learned that you are giving the order that mass killings are to be carried out,” then he would have turned that man down too. I therefore answer your question by saying that the Führer could not be influenced.

DR. MARX: In other words, you want to say that the decision in this matter was made entirely on his own initiative.

STREICHER: I have already said that that becomes clear from his will.

DR. MARX: In August 1938 the main synagogue in Nuremberg was demolished. Was this done on your orders?

STREICHER: Yes. In my Gau there were approximately 15 synagogues, in Nuremberg one main synagogue, a somewhat smaller one, and I think several other prayer rooms. The main synagogue stood in the outskirts of the medieval Reichsstadt. Even before 1933, during the so-called period of struggle, when we still had the other government, I stated publicly during a meeting that it was a disgrace that there should be placed in the Old City such an oriental monstrosity of a building. After the seizure of power, I told the Lord Mayor that he should have the synagogue torn down, and at the same time the planetarium. I might point out that after the World War, in the middle of the park grounds laid out for the recreation of the citizens, a planetarium had been built, an ugly brick building. I gave the order to tear down that building and said that the main synagogue, too, should be razed.

If it had been my intention to deprive the Jews of their synagogue as a church or if I had wanted to give a general signal, then I would have given the order, after the seizure of power, that every synagogue in my Gau should be torn down. Then I would likewise have had all the synagogues in Nuremberg torn down. But it is a fact that in the spring of 1938 only the main synagogue was torn down; the synagogue in the Essenweinstrasse, in the new city, remained untouched. That the order was then given in November of that year to set fire to the synagogues, that is no fault of mine.

DR. MARX: In other words, you want to say that you did not order the tearing down of this building for anti-Semitic reasons but because it did not conform to the architectural style of the city?

STREICHER: For reasons of city architecture. I wanted to submit a picture to the Tribunal on this, but I have not received any.

DR. MARX: Yes, we have a picture.

STREICHER: But you cannot see the synagogue in it. I do not know whether the Tribunal want to see the picture. The picture actually shows only the old houses, but the front of the synagogue facing the Hans-Sachs-Platz is not visible. I do not know whether I may submit the picture to the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly, the photograph can be put in. Let us see the photograph.

DR. MARX: In that case, I will submit it to the Tribunal as evidence and I am asking you to accept it accordingly.

THE PRESIDENT: What will it be, exhibit what?

DR. MARX: I cannot say at the moment, Mr. President. I shall take the liberty of stating the number later and for the moment I confine myself to submitting it. I could not present it any earlier because I had not come into possession of this picture. It was only in the last days...

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, go on.

DR. MARX: In your measure in connection with the main synagogue, did you rely on any statements of art experts?

STREICHER: I had frequent opportunities to discuss the subject with architects. Every architect said that there must have been a city council which had no feeling whatsoever for city architecture, that it was impossible to explain it.

These statements were not in any way directed against the synagogue as a Jewish church, but rather against such a building in this part of the city. Strangers, too, whom I guided—for on Party rally days I used to accompany British and American people across the Hans-Sachs-Platz—and I remember only one case where when I said “Do you not notice anything?” that the person did not. But all other strangers said “How could that building get there in the midst of these medieval buildings?” I could also have submitted a book, written in 1877, which is in the prison library, where a Professor Berneis, who was famous, wrote at that time to the author, Uhde, in Switzerland, that he had now seen the Sachs Platz...

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, that is enough now. In other words, you have indicated that you believed you could rely on the judgment of architects who seemed to you to be authorities?

STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: At the time when the synagogue was demolished, did you make a speech?

STREICHER: Yes, but I want to point out that the prosecution have submitted an article, a report from the Tageszeitung, that was written by a simple young man. I want to state that this article does not contain a true representation of the statements which I made.

DR. MARX: I now come to the demonstrations on the night of 9 to 10 November 1938.²⁸ What can you say concerning those demonstrations and what role did you play in that connection? Were those demonstrations initiated by the population?

STREICHER: Every year the Gauleiter and SA and SS leaders met the Führer in Munich on the occasion of the historic day of 9 November. We sat down to dinner in the old Town Mall, and it was customary for the Führer to make a short speech after the dinner. On 9 November 1938, I did not feel very well. I participated in the dinner and then I left; I drove back to Nuremberg and went to bed. Toward midnight I was awakened. My chauffeur told me that the SA leader Von Obernitz wanted to talk to the Gauleiter. I received him and he said the following: “Gauleiter, you had left already when the Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Goebbels, took the floor and said”—I can now repeat it only approximately—“said, Legation Counsellor vom Rath has been murdered in Paris. That is now the second murder abroad of a prominent National Socialist. This murder is not the murder by the Jew, Gruenspan; this is rather the execution of a deed which has been desired by all Jewry. Something should now be done.”

I do not know now whether Goebbels said the Führer had ordered it; I remember only that Von Obernitz told me that Goebbels had stated the synagogues were to be set on fire; and I cannot now remember exactly, but I think he told me that the windows of Jewish business houses were to be smashed and that houses were to be demolished.

COMMENTARY: Goebbels provides some enlightening commentary on Kristallnacht in his diary; see Goebbels (2019: 84-88). The killing of Ernst vom Rath—the “second murder”—was preceded by the shooting of Wilhelm Gustloff in February 1936. Both men were killed by Jews: Gustloff by David Frankfurter, and vom Rath by Herschel Gruenspan (or Grynszpan).

Then I said to Obernitz—for I was surprised—“Obernitz, I think it is wrong that synagogues be set on fire, and at this moment I think it is wrong that Jewish business houses be demolished; I think these demonstrations are wrong. If people are let loose during the night, deeds can be perpetrated for which one cannot be responsible.” I said to Obernitz that I considered the setting on fire of synagogues particularly wrong because abroad and even among the German people the opinion might arise that National Socialism had now started the fight against religion. Obernitz replied, “I have the order.” I said, “Obernitz, I will not assume any responsibility here.” Obernitz left and the action took place. What I have said under oath here I have previously stated in several interrogations; and my chauffeur will confirm it, for he was witness to this night’s conversation, and shortly afterwards when he went to bed told his wife what he had heard up there in my bedroom.

DR. MARX: Have you finished?

STREICHER: Yes, but you asked another question...

DR. MARX: Yes, whether it was a spontaneous act of force initiated by the masses of the people?

STREICHER: Yes. In the National Socialist press there appeared after this action an article to the same effect, which stated that a spontaneous demonstration of the people had revenged the murder of Herr Vom Rath. It had therefore been deliberately ordered from Berlin that there should be a public statement to the effect that the demonstration of 1938 was spontaneous. That this was not the case I was also able to learn in Nuremberg; and it is remarkable that the indignation at what had happened during those demonstrations expressed itself even here in Nuremberg, even among the Party members.

The prosecution have submitted an article which is a report on a speech which I made on 10 November; and that is a remarkable piece of evidence of the fact that the people were against this action. I was forced, because of the atmosphere which prevailed in Nuremberg, to make a public speech and say that one should not have so much sympathy for the Jews. Such was the affair of November 1938.

Perhaps it might also be important for you to ask me how I, of all people, happened to oppose the idea of these demonstrations.

DR. MARX: I thought you had explained that already. Very well. Who gave the order then for the burning down of the synagogue still standing on Essenweinstrasse?

STREICHER: I do not know who gave the order; I believe it was SA leader Von Obernitz. I do not know the details.

DR. MARX: A further question: Did you yourself express publicly, your disapproval of these brutalities?

STREICHER: Yes. In a small circle of leading Party members, I said what I have always said, what I have always said publicly: I stated that this was wrong. I talked to lawyers during a meeting— I do not know whether my defense counsel himself was there—I believe it was as early as November 1938 that I stated, to the Nuremberg lawyers at a meeting, that what had happened here during that action, was wrong; that it was wrong as regards the people, and as regards foreign countries. I said then that anyone who knew the Jewish Question as I knew it would understand why I considered that demonstration a mistake. I do not know whether this was reported to the Führer at that time, but after November 1938, I was never again called to the Hotel Deutscher Hof when the Führer came to Nuremberg. Whether this was the reason, I do not know, but at any rate I did criticize these demonstrations publicly.

DR. MARX: It is assumed by the prosecution that in 1938 a more severe treatment of the Jews was introduced. Is that true, and what is the explanation?

STREICHER: Yes. In 1938 the Jewish Question entered a new phase; that is shown, indeed, by the demonstration. I myself can only say in this connection that there was no preliminary conference on this subject. I assume that the Führer, impulsive as he was and acting on the spur of the moment, got around probably only on 9 November to saying to Dr. Goebbels, “Tell the organizations that the synagogues must be burned down.” As I said, I myself did not attend such a meeting; and I do not know what happened to bring about this acceleration.

DR. MARX: On 12 November 1938 the decree was published according to which the Jews were to be eliminated from the economic life of the country. Was there a connection between the orders for the demonstrations of 9 November and that further decree of 12 November 1938, and would that decree be due to the same reason?

STREICHER: Well, here I can say only that I am convinced that there was a connection. The order, rather the decrees, which were to have such an extensive effect in the economic field, came from Berlin. We did not have any conference. I do not remember any Gauleiter meetings in which that was discussed. I do not know of any. That happened just as everything happened; we were not previously informed.

DR. MARX: How was it that not you, but the co-defendant Rosenberg, was given the task of attending to this matter?

STREICHER: Rosenberg was the spiritual trustee of the movement, but he was not given this particular task nor the task of the demonstration nor that of economic matters.

DR. MARX: No, we are talking of different points. Rosenberg was the one given the task by the Leaders of the State of taking care, as it was called, of racial-political and other enlightenment tasks; and you were not. How can that be explained? How can it be explained that you were not chosen?

STREICHER: Rosenberg, as he himself said, had met the Führer very early and was anyway, because of his knowledge, intellectually suited to take over this task. I devoted myself more to popular enlightenment.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, he has told us that he wasn’t given the task. Unless he had some communication with Rosenberg, he can’t tell us anything more about it except that he wasn’t given the task. All the rest is mere comment and argument.

DR. MARX: Yes. I now put the next question to you: Was an order issued during the year 1939 forbidding you to make speeches?

STREICHER: Yes. In the autumn of 1939 my enemies went so far that the Führer, without my being asked beforehand, issued a written order through Party Member Hess forbidding me to make speeches. The threat of immediate arrest was made, should I act against this order.

DR. MARX: Is it also correct that in 1938 an effort was evidently made to stop further publication of Der Stürmer, I mean in government circles?

STREICHER: Such intentions existed quite often, and also at that time. Perhaps I might refer to two other documents in this connection in order to save time.

The prosecution have submitted copies of a letter from Himmler and Baldur von Schirach. Here I can give quite a simple explanation right now. At that time, in 1939, there were intentions of prohibiting Der Stürmer. Bormann had even issued some such order. Then the Chief Editor of Der Stürmer wrote to prominent members of the Party, asking them to state their opinion about Der Stürmer. And thereupon letters were also received from Himmler and Von Schirach. Altogether, I think about 15 letters were received from prominent members of the movement; they were merely kind replies to an inquiry.

DR. MARX: That is sufficient. Is it true that at the outbreak of the war you were not made Armed Forces District Commissioner (Wehrkreis-Kommissar) in your own Gau?

STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: How can that be explained?

STREICHER: Well, maybe that is not so important; that is how conditions were at the time. There were certain personal feelings, etc; it is of no significance. At any rate, I did not become Armed Forces District Commissioner.

DR. MARX: The prosecution have stated that after 1 September 1939 the persecution of the Jews increased more and more. What was that due to?

STREICHER: That question only the Führer could answer; I cannot.

DR. MARX: But do you not think this had something to do with the outbreak of war?

STREICHER: The Führer always said so in public, yes.

DR. MARX: A proceeding was instituted against you before the Supreme Party Court. How did that happen? What was the development and the result of that trial?

STREICHER: I am grateful that I have an opportunity to state quite briefly before the International Military Tribunal something which I have had to keep silent about up to now, because of a Führer order. I myself had instituted proceedings against myself before the Supreme Party Court in order to defend myself against people who were denouncing me. I was being accused...

THE PRESIDENT: Is the defendant talking about some order which Hitler gave that he was not to be allowed to speak, or is he talking about something else? You remember, Dr. Marx, that certain allegations were struck out of the record. If he is talking about those, it seems to me that we have got nothing whatever to do with it. Am I right in recollecting that something was struck out of the record?

DR. MARX: Yes it was, Mr. President, but only certain things from the Göring report were struck out, only the one passage which concerned the affair with the three young persons; but everything else was retained by the prosecution. The Defense, therefore, must be able to take a stand in regard to these points, if the prosecution do not say that they are dropping the entire Göring report; and in that connection, this proceeding before the Supreme Party Court also plays a part. He can make a brief statement about it.

THE PRESIDENT: All right.

DR. MARX: Witness, be brief.

STREICHER: Yes. It is important then that I instituted proceedings against myself; about 10 points were involved which had been raised against me, among them a matter referring to some shares. An affidavit exists from the Göring report which states that I had been found guilty. May I state here that the trial was never completed and no sentence was passed. That is the answer to the question which you have put to me.

DR. MARX: The matter referring to shares, does that have something to do with the shares of the Mars works?

STREICHER: We will come to it later. It was not the main point.

DR. MARX: And then you were ordered to remain permanently at the Pleikershof?²⁹ Were you under the guard of the Gestapo there, and was there also a check-up as far as visitors were concerned?

STREICHER: It is not correct that I was ordered to stay at the Pleikershof. What is true is that I retired voluntarily with the intention of never again being active in the movement. It is correct that the Gestapo watched me, and every visitor was called to the police station and interrogated as to his conversations he had had. That is a fact.

DR MARX: During your stay at the Pleikershof, did you have any connections or correspondence with any leading personalities of the Party or State?

STREICHER: No. As far as prominent persons of the movement and of the State are concerned, I had no correspondence whatsoever with them; that is why the prosecution could hardly find any letters. I never stated in letters my opinion on the Jewish problem or on other matters. I shall have to state then, in order to answer your question exactly, that I had no correspondence with prominent persons of the Party and the State.

DR. MARX: After the outbreak of the war, were you informed of, or consulted in any way on, any measures intended against the Jews?

STREICHER: No.

DR. MARX: What were your relations to Himmler? Did you know him at all closely? Did you ever speak to him about measures against the Jews or did he talk about intended mass executions of the Jews?

STREICHER: I knew Himmler just as I knew the SA leaders, or other SS leaders. I knew him from common meetings, Gauleiter conferences, etc. I did not have a single political discussion with Himmler except in society when he may have touched on this or that, in the presence of others. The last time I saw Himmler was in Nuremberg when he spoke to the officers in their mess. When that was, I cannot say exactly but I think it was shortly before the war. I never had a talk with him on the Jewish Question. He himself was, of course, well informed on this question. He had an organ of his own called the Schwarze Korps.³⁰ And what his inner attitude toward me was is something that I did not discover until my stay on the farm. There were denunciations against me which reached him. It was stated that I was being too humane with the French prisoners.

Shortly after that I received a letter in which he reproached me and made serious representations against me. I gave no answer at all. Without having made any previous inquiries with me as to whether these denunciations were true, he made a serious charge against me; and I state quite openly that it was actually my feeling at the time that I might possibly lose my liberty through arrest. These were my relations with Himmler.

DR. MARX: That is enough. During this Trial you have heard mentioned the names of a great number of Higher SS and Police Leaders who played a leading part in the Jewish persecutions, as for instance, Heydrich, Eichmann, Ohlendorf, and so on. Were there any connections between you and one of these Higher SS and Police Leaders?

STREICHER: I heard the names you have mentioned for the first time during an interrogation here. I did not know these men; they may well have seen me, but there was never a discussion involving me and the senior SS or SA leaders. Furthermore, I never was in any of Himmler’s offices in Berlin, or any Ministry in Berlin. Thus, no conference ever took place.

DR. MARX: The prosecution have drawn the conclusion from numerous articles in Der Stürmer, that as early as 1942 and 1943 you must have had knowledge of the mass executions of Jews which had taken place. What statement can you make on this, and when, and in what way, did you hear of the mass executions of Jews which took place in the East?

STREICHER: I had subscribed to the Jewish weekly that appeared in Switzerland. Sometimes in that weekly there were intimations that something was not quite in order; and I think it was at the end of 1943 or 1944—I believe 1944—that an article appeared in the Jewish weekly, in which it said that in the East—I think it was said in Poland—Jews were disappearing in masses. I then made reference to this in an article which perhaps will be presented to me later. But I state quite frankly that the Jewish weekly in Switzerland did not represent for me an authoritative source, that I did not believe everything in it. This article did not quote figures; it did not talk about mass executions, but only about disappearances.

COMMENTARY: This may have been true for one particular article, but not of the paper as a whole, as Streicher was soon to discover. The “Jewish weekly” was the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, a paper unaffiliated with any religious or political positions. It published a range of articles of general interest to Jews in Switzerland and Germany, including news on alleged atrocities during the war.

Later the prosecution will cite several examples from that paper, but we should acknowledge that published statistics—albeit unjustified ones—were widespread in major papers of the day. As early as January 1942, the New York Times reported on “6 million human beings” who were sent into Poland “where they necessarily starve and freeze to death and die of disease”—complete nonsense, incidentally. Reports followed of 1 million killed (30 June, 7 August), 2 million killed (25 Nov, 13 Dec), “the extermination of some 6,000,000 persons” (25 Jan 1943!), 10,000 killed every day in Warsaw (7 Feb), 7,000 killed every day in Treblinka (5 June), 3,000 killed every day in Majdanek (27 July), 2,000,000 Jews killed in Treblinka using “steam” (8 Aug), up to 80,000 Jews killed in Kiev (29 Nov), and 5.5 million Jews killed “in one form or another” (10 May 1944). There was no shortage of such reports. But the Wochenblatt was apparently less prolific than others, which likely prompted Streicher’s comment above.

DR. MARX: Have you finished?

STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: Did you make proposals in Der Stürmer for the solution of the Jewish Question, during the war?

STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: And in what sense?

STREICHER: As I said yesterday, I represented the point of view that the Jewish Question could be solved only internationally, since there were Jews in all countries. For that reason, we published articles in my weekly journal referring to the Zionist demand for the creation of a Jewish state, such as had also been provided for or indicated in the Balfour Declaration. There were therefore two possibilities for a solution, a preliminary solution within the countries through appropriate laws; and then the creation of a Jewish state.

During the war, I think it was in 1941 or 1942, we had written another article—we were subject to the Berlin censorship—and the censorship office sent back the proof submitted with the remark that the article must not be published in which we had proposed Madagascar as the place for the establishment of a Jewish state. The political relations with France were given as the reason why that article should not be published.

COMMENTARY: The Balfour Declaration was a very brief letter signed by the British Lord Balfour on 2 November 1917, promising to support a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. Certainly Hitler, Streicher and other leading Nazis were pro-Zionist, in that they wanted European Jews to relocate to Palestine. Lacking that option, the Germans discussed other possible destinations, including Siberia, central Africa and the island of Madagascar. Goebbels (2019: 79, 100, 147) repeatedly endorsed the Madagascar option.

DR. MARX: If you had expected that question to be solved by mass executions, would you then too have written this article?

STREICHER: At that time, at any rate, it would still have been nonsensical to publish it.

DR. MARX: Did it not make you uneasy to deal with the Jewish Question in a biased way, in a way which left completely out of sight those qualities of the Jews which can be described as great?

STREICHER: I did not understand this question fully, perhaps I did not hear it correctly.

DR. MARX: You can be accused of treating, in a biased way, only those qualities of the Jews that appear disadvantageous to you, whereas the other qualities of the Jewish people you ignored. What is your explanation?

STREICHER: I think that this question is really superfluous here. It is perfectly natural that I, as an anti-Semitic person and as I saw the Jewish Question, was in no way interested in that. Perhaps I did not see the good traits which you or some others see in the Jews. That is possible. But at any rate I was not interested in investigating as to what particular good qualities might be recognized here.

DR. MARX: Thank you. Did you visit concentration camps?

STREICHER: Yes. I visited the Dachau Concentration Camp.

COMMENTARY: Dachau Camp is located in the small town of Dachau on the outskirts of Munich. It was a large facility, but never held many Jews and never was claimed to be an “extermination camp.” It was claimed, however, to have had a homicidal gas chamber—though one that has since been thoroughly discredited. See Dalton (2011) for details and photographs.

DR. MARX: When was that?

STREICHER: I believe the first time was when all the Gauleiter were called together. I believe 1935, I do not know definitely, 1934 or 1935, I do not know.

DR. MARX: At what intervals did you then visit this camp? It is said that you were in Dachau every 4 weeks.

STREICHER: Altogether I was at Dachau four times.

DR. MARX: It is asserted that after each of your visits in Dachau, Jews disappeared there.

STREICHER: I do not know whether Jews disappeared.

DR. MARX: What caused you to visit the Dachau Camp repeatedly?

STREICHER: I went to the Dachau Camp to visit Social Democratic and Communist functionaries from my Gau who were in prison there to have them introduced to me. I picked out—I do not know how many hundreds of them there were—but every time I was in Dachau I picked out 10 or 20 of those of whom it had been ascertained by the police that they had no criminal record; I had them picked out from among the inmates, and at Christmas every year I had them brought in buses to Nuremberg to the Hotel Deutscher Hof, where I brought them together with their wives and children and had dinner with them.

I should like to ask the Tribunal, for the benefit of the Nuremberg public, to permit me to make a very short statement as to why I took these Communists out. Party proceedings were initiated against me because I did this. There were rumors which were not true. May I make a very short statement as to why I did it?

DR. MARX: I should like to ask the Tribunal to approve this, Mr. President, so that the reasons why the defendant did this may be ascertained.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, as long as it is brief.

DR. MARX: Be brief.

STREICHER: When I walked through the streets of Nuremberg children approached me and said, “My father is in Dachau.” Women came to me and asked to get their husbands back. I knew many of these officials from the time when I spoke at revolutionary meetings, and I could vouch for these people. I know of only one case where I was wrong in the selection of those people. All the others behaved impeccably. They kept the word which they had given me. Thus, perhaps my Party comrades, who sit here in the dock, see now that I did not want to harm my country but that I wanted to do, and did do, something humanely good.

DR. MARX: Now I come to the picture books which appeared in Der Stürmer publishing house. You know that two picture books were published, one with the title, Trust No Fox in the Field, and the other one with the title, The Poisonous Toadstool.³¹ Do you assume responsibility for these picture books?

STREICHER: Yes. May I say, by way of summary, that I assume responsibility for everything which was written by my assistants or which came into my publishing house.

DR. MARX: Who was the author of these picture books?

STREICHER: The book Trust No Fox in the Field and No Jew Under His Oath was done and illustrated by a young woman artist, and she also wrote the text. The title which appears on the picture book is from Dr. Martin Luther.

The second picture book was done by the Editor-in-Chief of Der Stürmer, who was a former schoolteacher. Two criminal cases in Nuremberg, which were tried here in this courtroom, as far as I know, were the occasion for my publishing these two books. There was a manufacturer, Louis Schloss, a Jew, who with young Nuremberg girls, some of them still innocent, had...

COMMENTARY: The editor-in-chief mentioned here was Ernst Hiemer (1900-1974), who worked for Streicher from 1933 to 1940. Schloss was a Nuremberg Jew who solicited, and perhaps sexually assaulted, young German girls. He was eventually arrested, sent to Dachau in May 1933, and died there from severe physical beatings.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, we do not want to hear that now. My question was only as to who was the author of these picture books and whether you assumed the responsibility for them?

STREICHER: It is important for the Tribunal, in fact, right for them to know how it came about that all of a sudden two picture books for young people appeared in my publishing house. I am making this statement absolutely objectively. I am speaking here of legal cases. There are gentlemen here, who are witnesses, who were here in this court and were present during the proceedings. Only thus can one understand why these books were published. They were the answer to deeds that had occurred.

DR. MARX: Yes, but we are concerned here only with the accusation made against you, that thereby you exerted an influence on the minds of young people which was not beneficial and which could be considered designed to have a poisonous effect.

STREICHER: And I should like to prove by my statement that we wanted to protect youth because things had, in fact, occurred.

DR. MARX: Yes, but young persons could hardly understand the Schloss case, or any such case, could they?

STREICHER: It was a matter of public discussion in Nuremberg and beyond that, all over Germany.

DR. MARX: As far as I am concerned, this question is answered, Mr. President.

STREICHER: But not for me as defendant.

THE PRESIDENT: You told us that the books were published to answer things which had occurred here. That is sufficient.

DR. MARX: Witness, another serious accusation made by the prosecution against you is that a special issue concerning [Jewish] ritual murders was published in the publishing house of Der Stürmer and appeared in one number of Der Stürmer. How did this special issue come about and what was the cause for it? Were you the author of that special issue?

STREICHER: No.

DR. MARX: Who was the author?

STREICHER: My collaborator, the Editor-in-Chief at that time, Karl Holz, who is now dead. But I assume the responsibility.

DR. MARX: Is it not true that even during the 1920s you dealt with that question in Der Stürmer?

STREICHER: Yes, and in public speeches.

DR. MARX: Yes, in public speeches. Why did you now in 1935 stir up again this doubtlessly very grave matter?

STREICHER: I should like to ask my counsel to express no judgment as to what I have written; to question me, but not to express judgment. The prosecution are going to do that. You have asked me how this issue came about. I will explain very briefly...

DR. MARX: Excuse me, Mr. President. I have to protest against the fact that Herr Streicher here, in the course of his interrogation by me, thinks he can criticize the manner in which I put my questions. Therefore, I ask the Court to give a decision on this, since otherwise I am not in a position to ask my questions at all.

THE PRESIDENT: You have already stated your position and the Tribunal has given you full support in your position. Will you please continue? And let me tell you this, Defendant, that if you are insolent either to your counsel or to the Tribunal, the Tribunal will not be able to continue the hearing of your case at this moment. You will kindly treat your counsel and the Tribunal with due courtesy.

STREICHER: May I ask to say something about this?

THE PRESIDENT: No. Answer the question, please.

DR. MARX: I will go on now with my questioning. The prosecution accuse you, in connection with this ritual murder affair, of having treated the matter without documentary proof, by referring to a story from the Middle Ages. What, in brief, was your source?

STREICHER: The sources were given in that issue. Nothing was written without the sources being given at the same time. There was reference made to a book written in Greek by a former Rabbi who had been converted to Christianity. There was reference made to a publication of a high clergymen of Milan, a book which has appeared in Germany for the last 50 years. Not even under the democratic government did Jews raise objections to that book.³²

That ritual murder issue refers to court files which are located in Rome, it refers to files which are in Court. There are pictures in it which show that in 23 cases the Church itself has dealt with this question. The Church has canonized 23 non-Jews killed by ritual murder. Pictures of sculptures, that is, of stone monuments were shown as illustrations; everywhere the source was pointed out; even a case in England was mentioned, and one in Kiev, Russia. But in this connection, I should like to say, as I said to a Jewish officer here, that we never wanted to assert that all Jewry was ready now to commit ritual murders. But it is a fact that within Jewry there exists a sect which engaged in these murders, and has done so up until the present. I have asked my counsel to submit to the Court a file from Pisek in Czechoslovakia, very recent proceedings. A court of appeal has confirmed a case of ritual murder. Thus, in conclusion I must say...

COMMENTARY: It is unclear who the “23 cases” are, but they include, at a minimum, William of Norwich (1144), Harold of Gloucester (1168), Robert of Bury (1181), Hugh of Lincoln (1255), Werner of Oberwesel (1287), Andreas Oxner (1462), Simon of Trent (1475), Christopher of La Guardia (1491), and Gabriel of Bialystok (1690). For the historical basis for such murders, see Toaff (2020).

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I object to this statement, Your Honor. After his counsel has refused to submit it, he insists on stating here the contents of a court record. Now this is not an orderly way to make charges against the Jewish people. Streicher says he is asking counsel to submit. His counsel apparently has refused, whereupon he starts to give evidence of what he knows, in any case, is a resume of the matters which his counsel has declined to submit here. It seems to me that, having appointed counsel to conduct his case, he has shown repeatedly that he is not willing to conduct his case in an orderly manner and he ought to be returned to his cell, and any further statements that he wishes to make to this Court transmitted through his counsel in writing. This is entirely unfair and in contempt of Court.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, I think you had better continue. [… ]

DR. MARX: Witness, it may be of some importance to state what the development of Der Stürmer has been since 1933, as far as circulation is concerned. Give us a short statement on the circulation of Der Stürmer, and then I shall put another question to you.

STREICHER: Der Stürmer 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 Stürmer 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 Stürmer was not a Party organ and had nothing to do with the Party. Thereupon several Gauleiter saw this an occasion for ordering that Der Stürmer 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 Stürmer. However, I myself, neither in writing nor orally, ever issued any order to any Party organization to support Der Stürmer.

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 Stürmer. 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 Göring 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? The prosecution?

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: 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.

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.

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 Führer ever spoke about the fact that Austria should be annexed.

GRIFFITH-JONES: I only want you to answer my question. My question was: Did you know that the Führer’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.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Did you know that he intended to take over Czechoslovakia or at least the Sudetenland?

STREICHER: No.

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.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. May I take it that during the years 1922 and 1923, as editor and owner of Der Stürmer, 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.

GRIFFITH-JONES: And after 1933 did you continuously support and issue propaganda on behalf of the Nazi Party’s policy?

STREICHER: Yes.

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 Stürmer there is not a single article to be found which dealt with foreign policy. I devoted myself exclusively...

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?

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 Stürmer 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. … 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.

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.

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.

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. [… ]

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 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.

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. … 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.

GRIFFITH-JONES: And in doing so, is it true that you had been preaching religious hatred?

STREICHER: No.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you look at…

STREICHER: May I be permitted to make a statement concerning this answer? In my weekly, Der Stürmer, I repeatedly stated that, for me, the Jews are not a religious group but a race, a people.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

GRIFFITH-JONES: And “enlightenment”—is that another word for persecution? Do you mean by “enlightenment,” “persecution”?

STREICHER: I did not understand that.

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.

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.

GRIFFITH-JONES: We won’t go on with that. You know, do you not, that starting with the boycott which you led yourself in 1933, the Jews thereafter were, during the course of the years, deprived of the right to vote, deprived of holding any public office, excluded from the professions; demonstrations were conducted against them in 1938, they were fined a billion marks after that, they were forced to wear a yellow star, they had their own separate seats to sit on, and they had their houses and their businesses taken away from them. Do you call that “enlightenment”?

STREICHER: That has nothing to do with what I wrote, nothing to do with it. I did not issue the orders. I did not make the laws. I was not asked when laws were prepared. I had nothing to do with these laws and orders.

GRIFFITH-JONES: But as those laws and orders were passed you were applauding them, and you were going on abusing the Jews and asking for more and more orders to be passed; isn’t that a fact?

STREICHER: I ask to have put to me which law I applauded.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, you told the Tribunal yesterday, did you not: that you were responsible, you thought, for the Nuremberg Decrees, which you had been advocating for years before they came into force; isn’t that a fact?

STREICHER: The Nuremberg Decrees? I did not make them. I was not asked beforehand, and I did not sign them either. But I state here that these laws are the same laws which the Jewish people have as their own. It is the greatest and most important act of legislation which a modern nation has at any time made for its protection.

THE PRESIDENT: I think that is the time to break off.

CHAPTER NINE:
STREICHER’S DEFENSE (3)

IMT, Vol. 12: 350-392
29 April 1946
(116th day)

GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, I just want to ask you a few questions as to the part you played in the various actions against the Jews between 1933 and 1939. Will you look at Document M-6. Now, I just want to refer to what you said about the Nuremberg Decrees. You told us this morning that you thought when they had been passed that that was already the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. Will you look at the paragraph beginning in the center of the page:

However, to those who believe that the Jewish Question has been finally solved and the matter thus settled for Germany by the Nuremberg Decrees, be it said that the battle continues—world Jewry itself is seeing to that anyhow—and we shall only get through this battle victoriously if every member of the German people knows that his very existence is at stake. The work of enlightenment carried on by the Party seems to me to be more necessary than ever today, even though many Party members seem to think that these matters are no longer real or urgent.

STREICHER: Yes, I wrote that.

GRIFFITH-JONES: What do you mean by saying “the battle continues,” if you have already solved the Jewish problem by the issuance of the Nuremberg Decrees?

STREICHER: I have already stated today that the solution of the Jewish problem was regarded by me as having to be solved, first of all, within the country and then in conjunction with other nations. Thus “the battle continues” means that in the International Anti-Semitic Union, which I had formed and which had representatives from all countries in it, the question was discussed as to what could be done from an international point of view to terminate the Jewish problem.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Are we, therefore, to take it that everything that you said and wrote after 1936 was in connection with an international problem, and had nothing to do with the Jews in Germany as such?

STREICHER: Yes, mainly international, of course.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Let me just refer you to half way through the next paragraph, “Der Stürmer’s 15 years’ work of enlightenment has already led an army of those who know, millions strong, to National Socialism.” Is that so?

STREICHER: That is correct.

GRIFFITH-JONES: You see, you were telling the Tribunal this morning that up to 1933, and indeed afterwards, you said the circulation of your paper was only very small. Is it true, in fact, that your 15 years’ work had led an army, millions strong, to National Socialism?

STREICHER: I have said today that the moment the press was politically coordinated, 3,000 daily newspapers were committed to the purpose of enlightenment about the Jewish problem. There were 3,000 daily papers in addition to Der Stürmer.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. I don’t think you need go on. Let me just finish reading through that paragraph: “The continued work of Der Stürmer will help to insure that, down to the last man, every German will, with heart and hand, join the ranks of those whose aim it is to crush the head of the serpent Pan-Judah.” Wait one moment, let me ask my question. There is nothing there about an international problem. You are addressing yourself to the German people, are you not?

STREICHER: In that article? Yes. And if that article was read abroad, then also to countries abroad, but as to the remark about crushing the serpent’s head, that is a biblical expression.³³

GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you now let us discuss for a moment the breaking up of the synagogue in Nuremberg, which you have told about, on the 10th of August of 1938. Now we have heard your explanation of that breaking up of the synagogue. The Frankische Tageszeitung of the 11th of August states this; “In Nuremberg the synagogue is being demolished. Julius Streicher himself inaugurated this work by a speech lasting more than an hour and a half.” Were you talking to the inhabitants of Nuremberg upon the architectural value of their city, for an hour and a half, on the 10th of August 1938?

STREICHER: I no longer know in detail what I said, but I refer to what you have remarked and what you find important. There was a branch of the Propaganda Ministry in Nuremberg. The young Regierungsrat had press conferences with the editors every day, and at that time he told the editors during a press conference that Streicher would speak and that the synagogue was being demolished, and that this was to be kept secret.

GRIFFITH-JONES: I asked you, were you talking for that hour and a half on the architectural beauties of Nuremberg and not against the Jews? Is that what you are telling us?

STREICHER: That, too, of course.

GRIFFITH-JONES: At the press conference to which you referred—you no doubt have seen the document; it is page 40 of the Tribunal’s document book—do you remember that it was arranged that the show should be staged in a big way, the show of pulling down the synagogue? What was the object of arranging the demonstration to demolish that synagogue in such a big way?

STREICHER: I was merely the speaker. What you are intimating here, that was done by the representative of the Ministry of Propaganda; but I would not object to it if you decided to assume, let me put it like that, that I would naturally have been in favor of making a big show if I had been asked.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Let me just ask you now a word about the demonstrations which followed that in November of that year, as I understand it, you tell us that you disapproved of those demonstrations that took place and they took place without your knowledge or previous knowledge. Is that correct, “yes” or “no”?

STREICHER: Yes, it is correct.

GRIFFITH-JONES: I just want to remind you of what you said on the following day, the 10th of November. This is an account of what happened: “In Nuremberg and Fuerth there were demonstrations by the crowd against the Jewish gang of murderers. These lasted until the early hours of the morning.” I now pass to the end of that paragraph: “After midnight, the excitement of the public had reached its peak and a large crowd marched to the synagogues in Nuremberg and Fuerth and burned those two Jewish buildings where the murder of Germans had been preached.”

This is now what you say—it is on page 44 of the document book, My Lord:

From the cradle on, the Jew is not taught as we are: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ or ‘If you are smitten on the left cheek offer then your right one.’ No. He is told ‘With the non-Jew you can do whatever you like.’ He is even taught that the slaughtering of a non-Jew is an act pleasing to God. For 20 years we have been writing about this in Der Stürmer. For 20 years we have been preaching it throughout the world, and we have made millions recognize the truth.

Does that sound as though you had disapproved of the demonstrations that had taken place the night before?

STREICHER: First of all, I must state that the report, part of which you read, appeared in a daily paper. Thus I am not to be held responsible for this. If someone wrote that part of the populace rose up against the gang of murderers, then that is in keeping with the order from the Ministry of Propaganda in Berlin; outwardly that action was described as a spontaneous demonstration of the populace…

GRIFFITH-JONES: That does not answer my question. Does that passage that I have read sound as though you had disapproved of the demonstrations that had taken place the night before? Does it or does it not?

STREICHER: I was against that demonstration.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Just let me read on: “But we know that we have in our midst people who take pity on the Jews, people who are not worthy of living in this town, who are not worthy of belonging to this people, of whom you are a proud part.” Why should it have been necessary for people to have had pity on the Jews, if you were not—you and the Nazi Party—persecuting them?

STREICHER: I have already pointed out today that I was forced, after this demonstration had taken place, to make a public comment and say that one should not have so much pity. I wanted to prove thereby that this was not a spontaneous action by the people; in other words, the matter does not speak against me; it speaks for me. The people, as I myself, were opposed to the demonstration, and I found that I had cause to—should I say—get public opinion to the point where one might possibly not regard that action as something too severe.

GRIFFITH-JONES: But, why, if you were opposed to it and if the people were opposed to it, should it have been your duty to try and convert them so that they should be in favor of that kind of thing? Why were you opposed to it and why should you try to turn them against the Jew?

STREICHER: I do not understand what you mean.

GRIFFITH-JONES: I understand you to say that you were opposed to these demonstrations and that the people also were opposed to the demonstrations; that, therefore, it was your duty to try to stir them up and make them in favor of the demonstrations after they had happened. Why should it have been your duty to do that?

STREICHER: Today one can perhaps say that this or that was my duty, but one must consider what those times were—the confusion that existed——that to make a quick decision, as one might have to in this courtroom, was quite impossible. What happened has happened. I was against it and the public too. What was written about it otherwise was done so for tactical reasons. [… ]

GRIFFITH-JONES: I want to make myself quite clear to you in what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that from 1939 onwards you set out to incite the German people to murder, and to accept the fact of the murder of the Jewish race. Do you understand that?

STREICHER: That is not true.

GRIFFITH-JONES: No doubt you will say it isn’t true. I just wanted you to be quite clear on what my suggestion is going to be. I want you to look now at a bundle, which will be given to you, of extracts from Der Stürmer.

THE PRESIDENT: Are they all in evidence?

GRIFFITH-JONES: None of them are in evidence at the moment. Perhaps the most convenient way would be for me to put the actual documents in evidence together at the end, unless the Tribunal or the defendant desire to see any copies of them.

Will you look at page 3-A of that bundle: “The Jewish problem is not yet solved, nor will it be solved when one day the last Jew will have left Germany. Only when world Jewry has been annihilated, will it have been solved.” Is that what you were working for when you say you were working for the international solution to this problem, an annihilation of world Jewry?

STREICHER: If that is how you understand “annihilation.” That was written by my chief editor at the time. He says that the Jewish problem will not yet be solved when the last Jew will have left Germany. And when he suddenly says that only when world Jewry has been annihilated will it be solved, then he certainly may have meant that the power of world Jewry should be annihilated. But my Party comrade Holz did not think of mass killing or the possibility of mass killing.

GRIFFITH-JONES: The German word used there is “vernichtet,” is it not? Look at your copy. “Vernichtet” that means “to annihilate.”

STREICHER: Today when you look back, you could interpret it like that, but not at that time.

COMMENTARY: Here we arrive at one of the key issues of terminology. Hitler and other top Germans frequently used the words vernichten and ausrotten in reference to the Jews, but the words are highly ambiguous in meaning. Vernichten, again, means ‘to bring to nothing,’ which in fact is close to the meaning of ‘annihilate’; but neither word necessarily entails killing. Dictionary definitions of ‘annihilate’ include (1) “to cause to be of no effect,” and (2) “to regard as of no consequence.” These are precisely correct: the Germans wanted the Jews to have no effect, no consequence, on their society. They wanted the social power of the Jews reduced to nothing—as Streicher says, “the power of world Jewry should be annihilated.” And there are many ways to achieve this goal without any killing at all.

Again, we can see this as mere tough talk on the part of Streicher, a man who had very little power in the Nazi hierarchy. He was a lover of polemics, scare tactics, exaggeration and hyperbole—all in the name of popular appeal. Hitler, in his speeches, was the same.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well, we won’t waste time because we have quite a number to look through. Will you look on to the next page. That was in January you were writing that. In April 1939, Document D-810, I refer only to the last two lines. This is an article again by your editor: “Then perhaps their graves will proclaim that this murderous and criminal people has, after all, met its deserved fate.” What do you mean by “graves” there? Do you mean excluding them from the business of the world?

STREICHER: This is the first time that I have seen this article. That is the statement of opinion of a man who was probably looking ahead and making a play on words; but as far as I knew him, and as far as we discussed the Jewish problem, there was no question of mass extermination; we did not even think of it. Maybe it was his wish—I do not know—but anyway, that is the way it happened to be written.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Just turn over, will you now, to May 1939, Document Number D-811. I quote the last six lines: “There must be a punitive expedition against the Jews in Russia.” This, of course, was before the Russian invasion.³⁴

There must be a punitive expedition against the Jews in Russia, a punitive expedition which will provide the same fate for them that every murderer and criminal must expect, death sentence and execution. The Jews in Russia must be killed. They must be utterly exterminated. Then the world will see that the end of the Jews is also the end of Bolshevism.

STREICHER: Who wrote that article?

GRIFFITH-JONES: It is published in your Stürmer. We can find out, if necessary. It is not written by you, but it is published in your Der Stürmer; and you have told the Tribunal that you accept responsibility for everything that was written in that newspaper.

STREICHER: All right, I assume responsibility; but I want to state that, here too, this is the private opinion of a man who, in May 1939, could not have thought that ex nihilo—for we had no soldiers—a “March to Russia” could be started. This is a theoretic and very strongly-worded expression of opinion of that anti-Semitic person.

GRIFFITH-JONES: All I ask you about that is: Is that not advocating the murder of Jews, that article; if it is not, what is it advocating?

STREICHER: The whole article would have to be read so that I could tell what motives existed for writing something like that. I therefore ask you to make public the whole article. Then one can form a proper judgment.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, we’ll go on. We won’t waste time unless you really want to see the whole article. My Lord, if I perhaps might be allowed to put these documents in evidence. As Your Lordship will see, this bundle is a bundle of extracts from Der Stürmer.

DR. MARX: Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to make the following statements: A number of extracts from Der Stürmer have been mentioned here which have been put before me for the first time. Some of them are articles which have not been written by the defendant personally. Some are signed by Hiemer,³⁵ and some by Holz, who was particularly radical in his manner of writing, and passages are being quoted which are perhaps taken out of context. I must ask, therefore, that I be afforded the opportunity of going over these extracts together with the Defendant Streicher. Otherwise, he might come to the conclusion that his defense is being made too difficult for him and that it is being made impossible for him to prepare himself appropriately.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, you will have an opportunity of checking up on these various extracts, and then you will be able to introduce, if necessary, any passages which explain the extracts. That is a matter which has been explained to defendants’ counsel over and over again. Colonel Griffith-Jones, are there not certain of these extracts which are written or signed by the defendant?

GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, with Your Lordship’s permission, I will refer to some of them, but so that I should not have to refer to all of them, I was going to suggest that perhaps I might put them in and, if it is necessary, let the Tribunal know afterwards the numbers of them, to save time.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly.

GRIFFITH-JONES: I put the whole bundle in evidence and will not refer to all of them.

THE PRESIDENT: Then you can give us the exhibit numbers later.

GRIFFITH-JONES: If that is suitable to the convenience of the Court.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Well now, the Tribunal will see by looking at this bundle, from the first page—that there are various extracts which have been written either by yourself or by members of your staff between January 1939 and January 1941. Do I understand you to say now, to have said in your evidence, that you never knew that Jews were being exterminated in thousands and millions in the Eastern territories? Did you never know that?

STREICHER: No.

GRIFFITH-JONES: As I understood your evidence about the Israelitisches Wochenblatt this morning, you said this, as I have written it down: “Sometimes that journal contained hints that everything was not in order. Later in 1943 an article appeared stating that masses of Jews were disappearing but the article did not quote any figures and did not mention anything about murders.” Are you really saying that those copies of the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, which you and your editors were reading, contained nothing except for a hint of disappearance, with no mention of figures or murder? Is that what you are telling this Tribunal?

STREICHER: Yes, I stick to that, certainly.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, I want you, if you will, to take this bundle and keep it in front of you. It is a bundle of extracts from the Israelitisches Wochenblatt from July 1941 until the end of the war. The Tribunal will be able to see what a fanatic for the truth really tells. My Lord, this bundle, for convenience again, is marked “B.” [Turning to the defendant.] Will you look at the first page? That is an article on the 11th of July 1941. “Some 40,000 Jews died in Poland during the last years. The hospitals are overfull.”

Now, you need not turn over for the moment, Defendant. We will turn the pages soon enough. Did you happen to read that sentence in the issue of the 11th of July 1941?

STREICHER: No.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you look at page 3, 3-B? In November 1941: “Very bad news comes from the Ukraine. Thousands of Jewish dead are being mourned, among whom are many of the Galician Jews who were expelled from Hungary.” Did you read that?

STREICHER: That might be possible. It says “thousands,” thousands are being mourned. That is no proof that millions were killed. There are no details as to how they came to their end.

GRIFFITH-JONES: If that is the explanation you want us to accept, we will leave it. Just go on again to the next page, will you? The 12th of December 1941, a month later: “According to news which has arrived from several sources, thousands of Jews—one even speaks of many thousands—are said to have been executed in Odessa”—and so on. “Similar reports reach us from Kiev and other Russian cities.” Did you read that?

STREICHER: I do not know; and if I had read it, then it would not change a thing. That is no proof.

COMMENTARY: Streicher is again correct: mere news reports, without photographic or forensic evidence, mean little. And news stories repeated by other newspapers does not constitute “confirmation.” Griffith-Jones did not and could not provide proof or even plausible evidence of any mass murder.

GRIFFITH-JONES: But you have told the Tribunal, you know, that there was nothing except hints of disappearance. Doesn’t it show that you were not telling the truth when you read these extracts?

STREICHER: In that case, may I say the following? When the war started, we no longer received the Israelitisches Wochenblatt. During the later years one could only get the Israelitisches Wochenblatt through the police. We got that paper, toward the end, into Germany by smuggling. On one occasion we asked the police to provide us with foreign newspapers and this weekly, and we were told that it was not possible. But we nevertheless got it. What I mean to say by this is that I did not read every one of those issues. The issues which I did read were confiscated on my farm. Whatever is underlined has been read by me or it was read by my editor in chief. I cannot, therefore, guarantee that I read every article.

GRIFFITH-JONES: No, I appreciate that and that is why we have quite a number of them. You see, we have an extract for practically every week or month over the course of 3 years. I would just like you to turn to page 30-A of the “A” bundle. I just want you to see what you were writing after having heard, or after having read, or anyway after those copies of the Israelitisches Wochenblatt had been published. This is a leading article by yourself. “If the danger of the reproduction of that curse of God in the Jewish blood is finally to come to an end, then there is only one way open—the extermination of that people whose father is the devil.” And is the word that you use for extermination there “Ausrottung,” rooting out, extirpation?

COMMENTARY: Here we arrive at the other key word, Ausrottung (in verb form, ausrotten). Again, it means to uproot, or to root out. As with vernichten, this does not demand any killing. Plants are rooted-out and replanted all the time. People can be uprooted and relocated. For a firmly entrenched minority like the Jews, ‘uproot’ is precisely the right term.

In English, Griffith-Jones uses both ‘extermination’ and ‘extirpation’; both words are instructive. To exterminate is literally to ‘push across the borders’ (Latin: ex+terminare), that is, to totally remove; the dictionary says simply, “to get rid of completely.” To extirpate is, literally, to uproot or root-out (Latin: ex+stirp, from stirps, trunk or root). Hence this word is the literal equivalent of ausrotten. Thus we have the correct intent here, as described by Streicher: the Jews would be extirpated (uprooted) and exterminated by removal across the borders of the Reich. It is a cruel and brutal process, perhaps, but far short of the mass murder of millions.

STREICHER: First of all, I would like to ask whether this issue is known to my defense counsel, and if the translation is correct?

GRIFFITH-JONES: It does not matter. He has copies of all this and he will be able to protect your interests. We are now just testing the truth of the evidence that you have given. Can you tell me, is that “extermination”? Does that mean murder of Jews? What else can it mean?

COMMENTARY: Griffith-Jones clearly has no concept of the subtleties of language here, nor of the many possible meanings. Either that, or he is playing stupid.

STREICHER: It depends on the whole context. In that case, I want you to read the whole article.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, if there is anything in the rest of the article which can be helpful to you, your counsel will have an opportunity to see the article and be able to put it before the Tribunal. I can assure you that the remainder of your articles, as a general rule, do not assist your case.

STREICHER: When that article appeared, mass killing had already taken place a long time ago.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Well now, we will not go through this at any length. If you will look at your “B” bundle, your bundle of extracts from the Israelitisches Wochenblatt...

THE PRESIDENT: I think you should draw his attention to the date on page 30-A.

GRIFFITH-JONES: The 25th of December 1941. If you will glance at “B” bundle you will see a number of extracts going from page A to page 21. Now, I would like you to glance at page 24 of that “B” bundle.

STREICHER: Page 24?

GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes, page 24. This is an article which appeared in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt on the 27th of November 1942. I just wondered whether you read this:

At the Zionist Congress of Switzerland, the representative of the ‘Jewish Agency’ in Geneva… gave a report on European Jewry... The number of victims goes into millions. If the present conditions continue and the German program is carried out, it is to be reckoned that, instead of 6 or 7 million Jews in Europe only 2 million will still be left. … The Jews who were there had mostly been deported to the notorious unknown destination further to the East. At the end of this winter, the number of victims will be 4 million.

Is that what you call a “hint of disappearance” of Jews from the East?

STREICHER: I cannot recollect that I have ever read that, but I do want to say that, if I had read it, I would not have believed it.

COMMENTARY: Streicher stands his ground here. This report came at the peak of the war, just as things were beginning to turn against Germany. Anything like a proper investigation would have been absolutely impossible. As described in the previous chapter, unbelievable figures had already been promoted in the New York Times and the Times of London for years at this point; death tolls of 1 million, 2 million, 5 million, even 6 million were in common circulation. But all such figures were mere “reports,” disconnected from any hard evidence. Even to this day, 80 years later, no such evidence has ever been found—no functioning gas chambers, no vast burial pits, no bones or ashes, nothing that would indicate the murder of millions. Certainly at that time, in the midst of a world war, Streicher was absolutely correct to state “I would not have believed it.”

GRIFFITH-JONES: Well now, let us just turn to the “A” bundle again and look at the article that you wrote on the 17th of December 1942. This is an article which is initialed “STR” so I presume it was written by you. It is headed: “Eye for Eye, Tooth for Tooth.”

The London newspaper, The Times, of 16 September 1942, published a resolution which had been unanimously passed by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. This resolution expresses the grief and horror of the Anglo-Jewish Community at the unspeakable atrocities committed by Germany and her allies and vassals against the Jews of Europe, which had only one aim, to exterminate the whole Jewish population of Europe in cold blood.

Now, you must have read of that in The Times because you say so.

STREICHER: Yes.

COMMENTARY: The very brief article in the Times reads, in part, as follows: “The Board of Deputies of British Jews, at their monthly meeting yesterday, unanimously adopted a resolution placing on record, on behalf of the Anglo-Jewish community, its deep sense of grief and horror at the unspeakable atrocities committed by the Germans, their allies, and vassals upon the Jews of Europe, which ‘constitutes a deliberate design to destroy in cold blood the entire Jewish population under their tyrannical slavery.’”

GRIFFITH-JONES:

Strange how the Jews of the Anglo-Jewish Community suddenly begin to prick up their ears. When the second World War began, the Führer of the German nation warned the Jewish warmongers against plunging the world into a blood bath again. Since then, the German Führer has warned and prophesied again and again that the second World War, instigated by world Jewry, must necessarily lead to the destruction of Jewry. In his last speech too, the Führer again referred to his prophecies.

Did you write that?

STREICHER: Yes, this is merely a quotation. It refers to a forecast from the Führer, of which nobody could possibly tell what it really meant.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. If you had not even read that or the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, did you ever hear of the declaration of the United Nations which was made on the 17th of December 1942? Do you remember hearing of that? You appear to have been reading The Times; you appear to have been reading some copies of the Israelitisches Wochenblatt. Maybe you heard of this declaration which was published in London, Washington, and Moscow at the same time with the assent and support of all Allied nations and dominions. I will just read it to you and see if you remember it:

The attention of the Belgian, Czechoslovak, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norwegian, Polish, Soviet, United Kingdom, United States, and Yugoslav Governments and also the French National Committee has been drawn to numerous reports from Europe that the German authorities, not content with denying to persons of Jewish race in all the territories over which their barbarous rule has been extended the most elementary human rights, are now carrying into effect Hitler’s often-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe.

From all the occupied countries, Jews are being transported in conditions of appalling horror and brutality to Eastern Europe. In Poland, which has been made the principal Nazi slaughterhouse, the ghettos established by the German invaders are being systematically emptied of all Jews except a few highly skilled workers required for war industries. None of those taken away are ever heard of again. The able-bodied are slowly worked to death in labor camps. The infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation, or are deliberately massacred in mass executions.

The number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women, and children. The above-mentioned Governments and the French National Committee condemn, in the strongest possible terms, this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination. They declare that such events can only strengthen the resolve of all freedom-loving peoples to overthrow the barbarous Hitlerite tyranny. They reaffirm their solemn resolution to ensure that those responsible for the crimes shall not escape retribution, and to press on with the necessary practical measures to this end.³⁶

Did you never hear of this declaration?

STREICHER: I do not know, but if I should have heard of it, then I would have to say the following:

After the seizure of power, the foreign press published so many atrocity stories, which turned out to be rumors, that I would have had no reason to believe anything like this; nor is there any mention here that millions of Jews were killed.

COMMENTARY: Again, the UN declaration supplies no evidence at all—merely “numerous reports” of people “never heard of again.” Streicher rightly holds firm in his disbelief. Years later, as the Holocaust story took shape, Jews would claim that some 4.5 million of their coreligionists had been killed by December 1942. If that were true, there would be mountains of evidence. And yet the “numerous reports” can cite nothing.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, you see, it isn’t altogether uncorroborated. You say you had no reason to believe it; but your Israelitisches Wochenblatt, which you were subscribing to, was saying exactly the same thing. Would you look at page 26-B of the “B” bundle? That is the declaration of the United Nations of the 17th of December. Just see what the Israelitisches Wochenblatt says on the 18th. And there I quote the second paragraph:

At that time, the Polish Government in London gave the number of Jews executed as 700,000. The Berlin radio hereupon declared that these reports were untrue, but admitted that in Poland ‘Jews had had to be executed because they carried out acts of sabotage.’ … ‘Up to the end of September 1942,’ writes the Daily Telegraph, ‘2 million Jews have lost their lives in Germany and in the countries occupied by the Axis, and it is to be feared that the number of victims will be doubled by the end of this year.’

Did you happen to read that article?

STREICHER: I cannot remember having read it, but I would not have believed it if I had.

GRIFFITH-JONES: You see, there is another article in that same paper on the 23rd of December, in the same terms; another on the 30th of December; and another on the 8th of January. Look at what it says on the 8th of January: “The Polish Government in London has issued a new declaration which states that all the information received agrees that a third of the 3 million-odd Jews have lost their lives.” Did you read that?

STREICHER: I do not know, but I have to repeat, I would not have believed it.

COMMENTARY: Streicher continues to hold firm; no evidence, no belief.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Well now, just let’s see just what you were writing on the 28th of January. Look at 35-A of your own bundle; 35-A. Now just see what your Chief Editor, the witness you are going to call, I understand, Hiemer—see what he has got to say first of all:

But the ghetto too, which has today been re-established in nearly all European countries, is only an interim solution, for mankind once awakened will not merely solve the ghetto question but the Jewish Question in its totality. A time will come when the present demands of the Jews will be fulfilled. The ghetto will have disappeared—and with it, Jewry.

What is he referring to, if he isn’t referring to the mass killing, murder, of the Jewish race?

STREICHER: That was a statement of his opinion, his conviction. That conviction must be understood in the same way as something which a Jewish author wrote in his book in America. Erich Kauffmann wrote that German men capable of fathering children should be sterilized, and in that manner the German people should be exterminated. It was at the same time that Hiemer wrote his article, and I want to say that the very severe tone in Der Stürmer at that time was due to that book from America. The interrogating officers know—and so does my counsel—that I have repeatedly pointed out that I wanted that book to be produced. It was in the Völkischer Beobachter.

If in America an author called Erich Kauffmann can publicly demand that all men in Germany capable of fathering children should be sterilized, for the purpose of exterminating the German people, then I say, eye for eye and tooth for tooth. This is a theoretical literary matter.

COMMENTARY: The author’s name was in fact Theodore Kaufman, author of the 1941 booklet Germany Must Perish. It included this statement: “Of course, after complete sterilization, there will cease to be a birth rate in Germany. At the normal death rate of 2 per cent per annum, German life will diminish at the rate of 1,500,000 yearly. Accordingly, in the span of two generations that which cost millions of lives and centuries of useless effort, namely, the elimination of Germanism and its carriers, will have been an accomplished fact.” It suffices to say that there was no outcry from America about this overtly genocidal plan. The New York Times, in fact, advocated the book, calling it “A Plan for Permanent Peace Among Civilized Nations!”

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. I am sure we have heard your explanation. Let’s see what you have to say about your own article on the same date. I quote from the middle of the next paragraph: “But now, in the fourth year of this war, world Jewry is beginning in its retrospective considerations to understand that the destiny of Jewry is finding its fulfillment at the hands of German National Socialism.” What did you mean by that? Perhaps I should have quoted a little earlier, going back to the beginning:

When, with the outbreak of the second World War, world Jewry again began to manifest themselves as warmongers, Adolf Hitler announced to the world from the platform of the German Reichstag that the World War conjured up by world Jewry would result in the self-destruction of Jewry. This prophecy was the first big warning. It was met with derision from the Jews, as were all the subsequent warnings. … But now, in the fourth year of this war, world Jewry is beginning in its retrospective considerations to understand that the destiny of Jewry is finding its fulfillment at the hands of German National Socialism.

What did you mean by that?

STREICHER: Pardon me?

GRIFFITH-JONES: What do you mean by saying “World Jewry is finding its fulfillment at the hands of National Socialism”? How did you mean that National Socialism was finding the fulfillment of Jewry’s destiny?

STREICHER: National Socialism could not fulfill the fate, that is to say, find the solution, since the Führer intervened with the hand of destiny. That was not a solution. During an interrogation I pointed out that I who personally wanted a total solution, was, right from the beginning, against trying to solve the Jewish problem by means of pogroms. If I said that the destiny of Jewry was to be fulfilled by National Socialism, then I wanted to say that, through National Socialism, the world would gain the knowledge and the realization that the Jewish problem must be solved internationally.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Let’s just go on.

That which the Führer of the German people announced to the world as a prophecy at the beginning of this second World War is now being fulfilled with unrelenting inevitability. World Jewry, which wanted to reap big dividends from the blood of the warring nations, is rushing with gigantic steps toward its extirpation.

And again you use the word “Ausrottung.” Does that mean just as it sounds, as though the fulfillment that you were aiming at was warning the world about Jewry? What do you mean by it? “Rushing with gigantic steps toward its extirpation”—Ausrottung. What did you mean by it?

STREICHER: This is a warning. The Führer made a prophecy; nobody could interpret that prophecy properly. The prophecy was not quoted only in this article, but in 10 others. Again and again we referred to these prophecies, the first of which had been made in 1929. Today we know what the Führer wanted to say; at that time, we did not. And I confess quite openly that with this quotation we wanted to warn world Jewry: “Against their threat, this threat.” So as to defend myself, I might mention in this connection that the author, Dr. Emil Ludwig Kohn, who had left Germany and emigrated to France, had written in the paper Le Fanal, in 1934, “Hitler does not want war, but he is being forced into it. Britain has the last word.” Thus...

GRIFFITH-JONES: We are not discussing war now. We are discussing the extermination, the mass murder of Jews, by the National Socialists. That is what we are discussing. Let me read on:

When Adolf Hitler stepped before the German people 20 years ago to submit to them the National Socialist demands which pointed the way into the future, he also made the promise which was to have the gravest repercussions; that of freeing the world from its Jewish tormentors. How wonderful it is to know that this great man and leader is following up this promise with practical action. It will be the greatest deed in the history of mankind.

Do you say that you are not putting forward propaganda for the policy of mass extermination which the Nazi Government had set out to do?

STREICHER: We too had freedom of the press, like democratic countries. Every author knew of the forecast, which perhaps later on turned out to be a fact, and could write about it. That is what I did.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well.

STREICHER: But for my defense, Mr. Prosecutor, I want to be allowed to say that wars too can be mass murder, with their bombs, etc. And if it is proved that someone says that we are forcing Hitler into war, then I can certainly say that a man who knows that Hitler is being forced into war is a mass murderer.

GRIFFITH-JONES: With the permission of the Tribunal, I am going to interrupt you again because we are not discussing whether or not Hitler was forced into war. We will leave that now. Just let us go on and see if you are really speaking the truth in saying that, while you are writing these articles, you are not perfectly well aware of what was happening in the Eastern territories.

We got as far as January 1943. I would like you to just look at one or two more of the Israelitisches Wochenblatt and see if you remember reading any of these. Will you look at page 30-B the 26th of February, in your “B” bundle?

Exchange reports from the Polish Government circles in London that Warsaw, Lvov, Lodz and other cities have been ‘liquidated,’ and that nobody from the ghettos remained alive. The last investigations have ascertained that only about 650,000 Jews remain out of 2,800,000.

Listen to me. Did you read that? Do you remember it?

STREICHER: I do not know. For months, perhaps half a year, we did not get an issue, but if I had read it, I would not have believed that either.

COMMENTARY: Again, nothing but “exchange reports” out of biased sources in London. No evidence, only mere assertions. Streicher is fully justified in his disbelief.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Did you believe Hitler? If you will turn over the page to 31-B, did you believe Hitler? According to the last two lines quoted in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt of the 5th of March 1943: “Hitler, in his proclamation of 24 February, again proclaimed the extermination of the Jews in Europe as his goal.” Did you believe your own beloved Führer when he was saying the same things as the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, the United Nations, and The Times newspaper in London?

COMMENTARY: We don’t need to hear the Wochenblatt’s recap of Hitler’s proclamation; here he is in his own (translated) words:

This fight will not end with the planned annihilation of the Aryan but with the extermination of the Jew in Europe. Beyond this, thanks to this fight, our movement’s world of thought will become the common heritage of all peoples, even of our enemies. State after state will be forced, in the course of its fight against us, to apply National Socialist theories in waging this war that was provoked by them. And in so doing, it will become aware of the curse that the criminal work of Jewry has laid over all peoples, especially through this war.

As our enemies thought in 1923 that the National Socialist Party was defeated for good and that I was finished with in the eyes of the German people because of my trial, so they actually helped National Socialist ideology to spread like wildfire through the entire German nation, and to convey the essence of Jewry to so many million men, as we ourselves would never have been able to do under normal circumstances. In the same manner, international Jewry, which instigated this new war, will find out that nation after nation engrosses itself more and more in this question to become finally aware of the great danger presented by this international problem.

Above all, this war proves the irrefutable identity of plutocracy and Bolshevism, and the common ambition of all Jews to exploit nations and make them the slaves of their international guild of criminals. (Hitler 2019: 176)

Indeed, the “extermination (Ausrottung) of the Jew in Europe.” But this was old news, a simple reiteration of his “prophecy” of 30 January 1939 when, by all responsible accounts, it did not mean mass murder. Streicher was certainly justified at the time to disbelieve reports of mass murder. But again, when being confronted with false or doctored evidence at Nuremberg regarding a fictious “Hitler order” for mass murder, Streicher is faced with a “riddle” that he cannot explain.

STREICHER: No. I declare that whoever got to know the Führer’s deepest emotions and his soul, as I have personally, and then later had to learn from his testament that he, in full possession of his faculties, consciously gave the order for mass extermination, is confronted with a riddle. I state here...

GRIFFITH-JONES: We really don’t want another long speech about the Führer. Just turn over the page and look at what is being said on the 26th of March:

The report of the Polish Government on the measures against the Jewish population is published in full in the English press. A passage reads, ‘In the town of Vilna 50,000 Jews were murdered, in Rovno 14,000; in Lvov half of the total Jewish population.’ Many details are also given about the use of poison gas, as at Chelm, of electricity in Belzec, of the deportations from Warsaw, the surrounding of blocks of houses, and of the attacks with machine guns.

Did you read that one?

STREICHER: I do not know. However, that shootings must have occurred, of course, where Jews committed sabotage, etc, is self-evident. During a war, that is considered as a matter of course. However, the figures which are quoted here were just simply not believable.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes. I understand you to say that now, but what I do not understand is what you meant when you said this morning that the Israelitisches Wochenblatt made no mention of murders and gave no figures. You didn’t say that the figures were unbelievable; you told this Tribunal, on your oath, that the newspaper contained nothing except the hints of disappearance, with no mention of figures. What did you mean by that?

STREICHER: I have said the truth under oath, but it is possible that one might not remember everything. During an interrogation some time back I stated, based on memory, that an issue must exist which mentions the disappearance of Jews, and so on. It is in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, and I thought I said that it was in 1943 and it is true. If one article after the other is put before me—well, even if I had seen it, how can I remember it? But that I, under oath, should have deliberately told you an untruth, that is, at any rate, not so.

GRIFFITH-JONES: We will deal with the article you mention in 1943 in one moment; but just before we do that, just see if you believe your own staff. Turn, will you, to 38-A. Now, on the 6th of May it so happens just after those last three extracts from the Israelitisches Wochenblatt we have looked at, within 2 or 3 months, 1 or 2 months afterwards, your newspaper is publishing this article. It is headed “Children of the Devil.”

Der Stürmer paid a visit to the ghettos in the East. Der Stürmer sent its photographic reporter to various ghettos in the East; a member of Der Stürmer’s staff is well acquainted with the Jews. Nothing can surprise him easily. But what our contributor saw in these ghettos was a unique experience for him. He wrote, ‘What my eyes and my Leica camera saw here convinced me that the Jews are not human beings but children of the devil and the spawn of crime.... It is hard to see how it was possible that this scum of humanity was for centuries looked upon as God’s chosen people by the non-Jews.... This satanic race really has no right to exist.’

Now, you have heard of what was happening in the ghettos in the East during 1942 and 1943? Are you really telling this Tribunal that your photographer went with his camera to those ghettos and found out nothing about the mass murder of Jews?

STREICHER: Yes, otherwise he would have reported to us about it.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Warsaw ghetto, you remember, exterminated, wiped out in April 1943. Your photographer must have been around just about that time, if you were writing this on the 6th of May, if he had just returned. Did you think he could have been there looking at ghettos for Der Stürmer, for Julius Streicher, the Jew-baiter, and have discovered nothing of what was happening in the ghetto in Warsaw and elsewhere?

STREICHER: I can only remember that immediately after the end of the Polish campaign, a Viennese reporter went over there, made films and made reports, in 1942. I would like to ask—is there a name, a signature there, to show by whom it was written? One thing I know is that the ghetto was destroyed; I read it in a summary, an illustrated report which I think originated in the Ministry of Propaganda. But as to the destruction of the ghetto during an uprising—well, I consider that legal; from my point of view it was right. But mass murders in the ghetto in Warsaw are something I never heard of.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Now, just let’s look at the article to which you referred a moment ago. Will you look at 44-A of the document book? Now, I just want you to examine for the last time whether or not you are speaking the truth in telling the Tribunal that you did not know what was happening. You quote in that article from the Swiss newspaper, the Israelitisches Wochenblatt, of the 27th August 1943—you will see that date, My Lord, in the middle of the first paragraph—I start now from that, line in the middle:

The Swiss Jewish newspaper goes on to say, ‘The Jews of Europe, with the exception of those in England and of insignificant Jewish communities in the few neutral countries, have disappeared, so to speak. The Jewish reservoir of the East that was able to counterbalance the force of assimilation in the West no longer exists.’ This is not a Jewish lie; it is really true that the Jews have, ‘so to speak,’ disappeared from Europe and that the ‘Jewish reservoir of the East’ from which the Jewish pestilence spread for centuries among the European nations has ceased to exist. If the Swiss newspaper wishes to affirm that the Jews did not expect this kind of development when they plunged the nations into the second World War, this is to be believed; but already at the beginning of the war, the Führer of the German Nation prophesied the events that have taken place. He said that the second World War would swallow those who had conjured it.

Now, are you really saying that when that article was written you did not know how to interpret the word “disappearance,” the disappearance of the Jews from the East? Are you really telling the Tribunal that?

STREICHER: Yes, the word “disappear” after all does not mean extermination en masse. This deals with a quotation from the Israelitisches Wochenblatt and is a repeated quotation of what the Führer had prophesied.

COMMENTARY: Streicher again stands firm. ‘Disappear’ (Verschwinden) is the obvious result of a removal process to various camps or ghettos in the Eastern territories, or to the labor camp at Auschwitz. Jews were likely not documented or tracked at that point, and they had no ability to contact family. They had indeed “disappeared.”

GRIFFITH-JONES: Well, now, would you look at the article from which you quote there, which you will find at page 36-B; and I would like you to follow it, and we will read the two together. Now, the particular paragraph which I want to read in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt is that quotation which I have just read to you and you will find the same quotation. “The Jews of Europe, with the exception of those in England and of insignificant Jewish communities in the few neutral countries, have, so to speak, disappeared...” and you will see that you then go on in the quotation and say: “… the Jewish reservoir of the East which was able to counterbalance the force of assimilation in the West no longer exists.” Now, would you look at the original article:

The Jews of Europe, with the exception of those in England and of insignificant Jewish communities in the few neutral countries, have, so to speak, disappeared. … The Jewish reservoir of the East… three million dead, the same number outlawed; many thousands, all over the world, mentally and physically broken.

Are you telling this Tribunal now that on the 27th of August, or when you read that article of the 27th of August, you didn’t know that Jews were being murdered in the East and that you had not read of those things in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt?

STREICHER: Whether I had read it or not, I would not have believed it, that 3 million Jews had been killed. That is something I would not have believed, and that is why I left it out, at any rate. Anyhow, the German censorship would not have allowed the spreading of something which is not credible.

COMMENTARY: Indeed. The likely Jewish death toll at this point in the war, incidentally, was around 400,000—most by disease or shooting, and none by gassing in homicidal chambers.

THE PRESIDENT: You didn’t read the last part of the line, did you?

GRIFFITH-JONES: “That is the result,” you say, “of the ‘new order’ in Europe...” You say you didn’t believe it. Is that what you say now, that you must have read it—must you not?

STREICHER: Yes.

GRIFFITH-JONES: But you just didn’t believe it; is that right?

STREICHER: No, I did not believe it.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Even if you didn’t believe it, when you were reading this newspaper more or less regularly, when your cameraman had been to the ghettos in the East, did you think it right to go on, week after week, in your newspaper crying for the extermination, murder, of the Jews?

STREICHER: That is not correct. It is not true that murder was demanded week after week. And I repeat again, the sharpening of our tone was the answer to the voice from America that called for our mass murder in Germany—eye for eye, tooth for tooth. If a Jew, Erich Kauffmann, demands mass murders in Germany, then perhaps I, as an author, can say that the Jews too should be exterminated. That is a literary matter. But the mass murders had taken place a long time before without our having known about them; and I state here that if I had known what had in fact happened in the East, then I would not have used these quotations at all.

GRIFFITH-JONES: But, Defendant, you must have known then, must you not, after reading that article, after sending your cameraman, after the United Nations published their declaration, after Hitler’s prophecies had been made again and again in his proclamations, after you said his prophecy had been fulfilled? You really say you didn’t know?

STREICHER: The cameraman is at your disposal. He is in Vienna, and I ask to have him brought here. And I state that this cameraman reported nothing, and could not have reported anything, about mass murders.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Now we had just dealt with the Israelititsches Wochenblatt issue for 27 August, the copy that you quoted from. I just refer you to one more copy of that newspaper. Would you look at page 37-B, which is an issue of 10 September 1943:

Statistics presented by the Convening Committee showed that 5 millions out of the 8.5 million Jews of Europe had died or been deported... About 3 million Jews had lost their lives through forced labor and deportation.

Did you read that one?

STREICHER: I do not know, and again I would not have believed it. To this day, I do not believe that 5 million were killed. I consider it technically impossible that that could have happened. I do not believe it. I have not received proof of that up until now.

COMMENTARY: A remarkable statement by Streicher: Despite repeated hammering by the prosecutor, and with his life on the line, he holds his ground—“I would not have believed it.” Even now, he says, 5 million deaths is absurd; and it is, indeed, “technically impossible” to kill that many people in the manner claimed. Such views hold true 80 years later.

The above citation from the Wochenblatt, incidentally, is typical of Jewish mendacity and dissembling. Five million, they say, have “died or been deported.” So, if 1,000 have died and 4,999,000 were deported but still alive, their statement technically is true—but hugely misleading. We often find such wording in Holocaust reports.

But we can well imagine how such a ploy will be used in the future when the untenability of the standard Holocaust story becomes apparent to all. There will be strong pressure to stick with the mythical ‘6 million’ figure, so the storyline will have to change; instead of “6 million Jews killed” it may well become “6 million Jews killed or deported”—meaning, around 500,000 deaths and some 5.5 million evacuated. And then it could be true.

GRIFFITH-JONES: It is quite clear that there were plenty of figures for you, quoted in this Israelitisches Wochenblatt over the period that we are discussing. Plenty of figures, it now turns out, doesn’t it?

STREICHER: Pardon?

GRIFFITH-JONES: We will go on. Now, I just want to put one or two further articles of your own to you. You remember what I am suggesting, that you are inciting the German people to murder. We know now that at least you had read one article in the Israelitisches Wochenblatt where murder is mentioned. I just want to see what you go on to publish in your own paper after that date. Would you look at page 47-A. This is an article by yourself on 6 January 1944. This is after you had been living on your estate for some time.

After the National Socialist uprising in Germany, a development began in Europe, too, from which one can expect that it will free this continent for all time of the Jewish disintegrator and exploiter of nations; and, over and above this, that the German example will, after a victorious termination of the second World War, bring about the destruction of the Jewish world-tormentor on the other continents as well.

What example was the German nation setting to the other nations of the world? What example do you mean there?

STREICHER: This article corroborates what I have been saying all along. I spoke of an international solution of the Jewish Question. I was convinced that if Germany had won this war or had been victorious over Bolshevism, then the world would have agreed that an understanding should be reached with the other nations for an international solution of the Jewish Question. If I wrote here about destruction, it is not to be understood as destruction by mass killing; as I have said, that is an expression; I have to point out that I do not believe that Erich Kauffmann really wanted to kill the German people by sterilization, but he wrote it, and we sometimes wrote in the same manner, echoing the sounds that we heard in the other camp.

GRIFFITH-JONES: You have not yet told us what is this international solution that you are advocating by talking about extermination; if it is not murder, what is it? What is the solution?

STREICHER: I have already said that I founded the Anti-Semitic Union, and through this Anti-Semitic Union we wanted to create movements among the nations which should, above and beyond governments, act in such a way that an international possibility would be created, such as has been represented today here in this Trial—thus I conceived it, to form an international congress center which would solve the Jewish Question by the creation of a Jewish state and thereby destroy the power of the Jews within the nations.

COMMENTARY: A clear and explicit conclusion. The ‘final solution’ is a territorial solution, one in which a majority of the world’s Jews are deported to a homeland (Israel), and their power in their former host-nations is thereby eliminated. Even today, 80 years later, this might well be the only viable long-term solution to the global Jewish problem.

GRIFFITH-JONES: That is your answer—that you were advocating a Jewish state? Is that all that this comes to? Is it simply that you were advocating a Jewish national home? Is that what you have been talking about in all these extracts that we have read? Is that the solution which you are advocating?

STREICHER: Well, I do not know what you want with that question. Of course, that is the solution.

COMMENTARY: Of course. But Griffith-Jones is incredulous: “Is that all that this comes to?” Yes—that’s all that it comes to: destroying the Jewish control, manipulation and corruption of nations in which they comprise even a small percent. That’s all it comes to—is that not enough?

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. Let us just go on now. Turn to page 48-A now, will you? This is 24 January 1944, “Whoever does what a Jew does is a scoundrel, a criminal, and he who repeats and wishes to copy him deserves the same fate—annihilation, death.” Are you still advocating a national Jewish home?

STREICHER: Yes, that has nothing to do with the big political plan. If you take every statement by a writer, every statement from a daily newspaper, as an example, and want to prove a political aim by it, then you miss the point. You have to distinguish between a newspaper article and a great political aim.

COMMENTARY: It must also be pointed out—though Streicher did not—that by this time, in early 1944, the Allies had begun to brutally target German civilian populations, with devastating results. In July 1943, Hamburg was fire-bombed from the air, resulting in 45,000 civilian deaths. In October, Kassel was hit, with another 10,000 deaths.³⁷ Apart from random strikes during “the Blitz,” the Germans never targeted civilians. Thus, men like Streicher, Goebbels and Hitler were fully justified in calling for the deaths of the Jewish criminals and their lackeys. Their language, heretofore ambiguous, had rightly turned more deadly.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well, let us just turn now to the next page, 2 March 1944, “Eternal night must come over the born criminal race of Jews so that eternal day may bless awakening non-Jewish mankind.” Were they going to have eternal night in their national Jewish state? Is that what you wanted?

STREICHER: That is an anti-Semitic play of words. Again, it has nothing to do with the great political aim.

GRIFFITH-JONES: It may be an anti-Semitic play of words, but the only meaning it can have is murder. Is that not true?

STREICHER: No.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Will you turn to the next page, 25 May 1944; and I remind you that these are all after you must have read of the murder in Israelitisches Wochenblatt. I quote the second paragraph:

How can we overcome this danger and restore humanity to health? Just as the individual human being is able to defend himself against contagious diseases only if he proclaims war against the cause of the disease, the germ, so the world can be restored to health only when the most terrible germ of all times, the Jew, has been removed. It is of no avail to battle against the outward symptoms of the world disease without rendering the morbific agents innocuous. The disease will break out again sooner or later. The cause and the carrier of the disease, the germ, will see to that. But if the nations are to be restored to health and are to remain healthy in the future, then the germ of the Jewish world-plague must be destroyed, root and branch.

Is that what you mean? Are you saying there when you say “must be destroyed root and branch”—did you mean to say “ought to be given a Jewish national state”?

STREICHER: Yes, it is a far cry from such a statement in an article to the act, or to the will, to commit mass murder.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Turn over to the 10th of August. “When it loses this struggle, Judaism will be ruined, then the Jew will be extinguished. Then will Judaism be annihilated down to the last man.” Are we to read from these words: ‘Provide the Jews with a Jewish national state’?

STREICHER: That is a vision of the future. I would like to call it an expression of a prophetic vision. But it is not incitement to kill 5 million Jews. That is an opinion, a matter of belief, of conviction.

GRIFFITH-JONES: It is the prophetic vision of what you wanted, is it not—of what you have been advocating now for the last 4 years—the beginning of the war? Isn’t that what it is?

STREICHER: Mr. Prosecutor, I cannot tell you today what I may have been thinking years ago at a certain moment when writing an article. But still I admit that when I saw lying before me on the table, declarations from the Jewish front, many declarations saying, “the German nation has to be destroyed; bomb the cities, do not spare women, children, or old men”—if one has declarations like these in front of one, it is possible that things will come from one’s pen such as I have often written.

COMMENTARY: In Chapter Four, we briefly examined Churchill’s 21 September 1943 speech to Parliament. Here is the extended passage:

Twice within our lifetime, and also three times in that of our fathers, [the Germans] have plunged the world into their wars of expansion and aggression. They combine in the most deadly manner the qualities of the warrior and the slave. They do not value freedom themselves, and the spectacle of it in others is hateful to them. … The core of Germany is Prussia. There is the source of the recurring pestilence. But we do not war with races as such. We war against tyranny, and we seek to preserve ourselves from destruction. I am convinced that the British, American and Russian peoples… will this time take steps to put it beyond the power of Prussia or of all Germany to come at them again with pent-up vengeance and long-nurtured plans.

Nazi tyranny and Prussian militarism are the two main elements in German life which must be absolutely destroyed. They must be absolutely rooted out if Europe and the world are to be spared a third and still more frightful conflict. … Here are two obvious and practical targets for us to fire at—Nazi tyranny and Prussian militarism. Let us aim every gun and let us set every man who will march in motion against them. … But the twin roots of all our evils, Nazi tyranny and Prussian militarism, must be extirpated. Until this is achieved there are no sacrifices that we will not make, and no lengths in violence to which we will not go.

German tyranny and militarism must be ‘destroyed,’ ‘rooted out,’ ‘extirpated’—familiar language, but here it is backed up by fire-bombings against civilian cities. If “every gun” is aimed at the Germans, if there are “no lengths in violence” to which Churchill will not go, then—who is the monstrous criminal?

GRIFFITH-JONES: You know, do you not, now, even if you do not believe the full figures, that millions of Jews have been murdered since the beginning of the war? Do you know that? You have heard the evidence, have you not?

COMMENTARY: It is amazing how blindly Griffith-Jones believes in his numbers. He is so confident that “millions” of Jews have been murdered that he is putting men to death. He speaks so assuredly of “the evidence,” and yet he has none at all—nothing. The sum total of his evidence consists of “reports” and news stories from various Jewish groups, nothing more. One wonders if he is conscious of his criminal ineptitude, or if it has been foisted upon him.

STREICHER: I believe that...

GRIFFITH-JONES: I only wanted to know whether you had heard that evidence. You can answer “yes” or “no,” and I presume it will be “yes.”

STREICHER: Yes, I have to say, evidence for me is only the testament of the Führer. There he states that the mass executions took place upon his orders. That I believe. Now I believe it.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Do you think that it would have been possible to carry out the extermination of 6 million Jews in 1921? Do you think the German people would have stood for it? Do you think it would have been possible under any regime in 1921 to have carried out the murder of 6 million men, women, and children of the Jewish race?

COMMENTARY: Suddenly, Griffith-Jones is also confident of his “6 million” figure, despite not having presented any evidence, even news stories or ‘reports,’ for such a number.

STREICHER: Whether that would have been possible with the knowledge of the people—no, it would not have been possible. The prosecutor himself has said here that, since 1937, the Party had full control over the people. Now even if the people had known this, according to the opinion of the prosecution, they could not have done anything against that dictatorship because of that control. But the people did not know it. That is my belief, my conviction, and my knowledge.

GRIFFITH-JONES: Was it possible to exterminate people in that way only after some 20 years of incitement and propaganda by you and other Nazis? Is that what made that possible?

STREICHER: I deny that the population was incited. It was enlightened, and sometimes a harsh word may have been directed against the other side as an answer. It was enlightenment, not incitement. And if we want to keep our place before history, I have to state again and again that the German people did not want any killings, whether individually or en masse.

GRIFFITH-JONES: I am not going to let you go into another history about the German people. I am going to remind you of what you have said...

STREICHER: Adolf Hitler…

GRIFFITH-JONES: I am going to remind you of what you said yesterday. I read from the transcript: You speak of a Jewish Question at the time—that is 1923—“I would like to say that the public distinguished Jews only by their religion; to speak about a Jewish problem then would have been nonsense.” Was that because there was no Jewish problem then, and that the Jewish problem had only been created by you and the Nazi regime?

STREICHER: It was my aim, and I reached that goal in part: If the laws which in the future should make impossible sexual intercourse between different races, that is to say, if that should become law—then it would make the public realize that to be a Jew is not a point of religion but of people and race. I helped to create that basis. But mass killings were not the result of the enlightenment, or as the prosecution say, incitement. Mass killings were the last acts of will of a great man of history who was probably desperate because he saw that he would not win.

COMMENTARY: Again, this is a baseless concession by Streicher. We have no evidence whatsoever of any “last act of will” by Hitler, ordering mass killings. It is a further indictment against the prosecution that they would employ or concoct false evidence.

GRIFFITH-JONES: I have no further questions. Perhaps I might be allowed to just sort out the exhibits and then mention to the Tribunal their numbers. If the Tribunal would agree, those that I have put in evidence, which are the other parts of the bundle other than I have actually quoted from—perhaps I could put them all in as one number and hand the exhibits in to the clerk, if that would be the convenient course.

THE PRESIDENT: I think so, yes. If they are in one bundle and you are going to give one number to a number of documents, it had better be in one bundle, had it not?

GRIFFITH-JONES: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, do you want to re-examine?

DR. MARX: I do not consider it necessary any more.

* * * * *

COMMENTARY: Thus ends Streicher’s testimony in his own self-defense. His attorney, Marx, then calls to the stand Streicher’s wife, Adele.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx wants to call Frau Streicher. [… ]

THE PRESIDENT: Will you give me your full name?

FRAU ADELE STREICHER (Witness): Adele Streicher, born Tappe.

DR. MARX: Your maiden name is Tappe and you were born in Magdeburg?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: Were you a member of the NSDAP or of the Frauenschaft?³⁸

FRAU STREICHER: No.

DR. MARX: When did you become Herr Streicher’s secretary and for how long were you in that job?

FRAU STREICHER: On 7 June 1940, I became Julius Streicher’s secretary and I remained in that job until the end of the war.

DR. MARX: And during that period, you were continuously on his farm?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes, I was always with him.

DR. MARX: Were you also in charge of all the correspondence for Herr Streicher?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: What did that correspondence mainly consist of?

FRAU STREICHER: Mainly letters to his sons and to relatives.

DR. MARX: What were Streicher’s activities during that period of 5 years?

FRAU STREICHER: Julius Streicher did mainly physical work; that is, agriculture and gardening, and from time to time he wrote articles for Der Stürmer.

DR. MARX: During these 5 years, did he leave the farm at all or was he ever absent from the farm for any length of time?

FRAU STREICHER: During the first few years of his stay there Julius Streicher did not leave the farm at all; later, once in a while, he would pay a visit in the neighborhood. His longest absence did not comprise an entire day and never a single night.

DR. MARX: Did you know that it was prohibited for prominent Party members to visit Herr Streicher?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes, there was such a prohibition.

DR. MARX: How did you know that?

FRAU STREICHER: From conversations. Then, too, I myself remember, when Dr. Goebbels visited the farm, that Julius Streicher said to him, “Doctor, you dare to come here? Do you not know that it is prohibited by the Party chiefs to visit me?”

DR. MARX: When did the visits of Dr. Ley and Dr. Goebbels occur?

FRAU STREICHER: Dr. Ley came to the farm on 7 May 1944. The visit of Dr. Goebbels occurred on 4 June 1944.

DR. MARX: Would you please describe the character of these visits and what was the subject of the conversations?

FRAU STREICHER: Both visits were of a rather unofficial character. Dr. Ley wanted mainly to know how Julius Streicher was doing, personally. No political questions were raised. Ley said only, “Streicher, the Führer is waiting for you.”

DR. MARX: And what did Streicher say to that?

FRAU STREICHER: Julius Streicher answered that he had become accustomed to his solitude, that he was happy as a farmer, and that Ley should tell the Führer that he, Streicher, wanted nothing more. At the visit of Dr. Goebbels the subject of the conversation dealt mainly with Julius Streicher’s dismissal from his office as Gauleiter, and Dr. Goebbels was of the opinion that Julius Streicher should return into the circle of old Party members; but he gave him the same answer, “Tell the Führer I wish for nothing.”

DR. MARX: Were you always present during these conversations?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: Was not the Jewish Question a subject of these conversations?

FRAU STREICHER: No, they never spoke about the Jewish Question.

DR. MARX: Did they not speak about the happenings in the Eastern territories or in the concentration camps?

FRAU STREICHER: No, that never came up any more.

DR. MARX: Did not Streicher speak to you about the articles he intended to write for Der Stürmer, and did he not also speak about what he considered to be the solution of the Jewish problem?

FRAU STREICHER: From all conversations with Julius Streicher I could see with certainty that he never thought of the solution of the Jewish Question in terms of violence, but hoped for the emigration of Jews from Europe and their settlement in territories outside Europe.

DR. MARX: Was Herr Streicher in correspondence with leading personalities of the Party or of the State?

FRAU STREICHER: No, neither personally nor by correspondence was there any such connection.

DR. MARX: I will now mention several names, of whom I want you to tell me whether they had any connection with him: Himmler, Heydrich, Bormann, or other leading men of the police or the SS or the Gestapo.

FRAU STREICHER: No, I know nothing of any of these men. With the exception of one letter from Herr Himmler there was never any mail.

DR. MARX: What was the reason for that letter?

FRAU STREICHER: In that letter, Herr Himmler complained about the fact that the French prisoners of war who were employed on our Pleikershof farm were treated too well.

DR. MARX: How was the treatment of the prisoners of war and the foreign civilian workers on the farm?

FRAU STREICHER: On the Pleikershof, eight French prisoners of war, one Polish girl, and one Slovene girl were employed. They were all treated very well and very humanely. Each service for which Julius Streicher asked, each piece of work for which he asked personally, was especially rewarded with tobacco, pastry, fruit, or even money. Such cordial relations developed with some of the Frenchmen during the years that they were there that they assured us, with tears in their eyes at their departure, that they would visit Julius Streicher after the war with their families.

DR. MARX: Did Streicher not finally receive credible information about these mass executions in the East?

FRAU STREICHER: I believe he found out about it through Swiss newspapers in 1944. We were never informed about it officially.

DR. MARX: But it is asserted that he already had knowledge before that.

FRAU STREICHER: No.

DR. MARX: You do not know anything about it?

FRAU STREICHER: I only know about the Swiss newspapers.

DR. MARX: Very well. You once brought up the subject, in a conversation, that in Magdeburg, from the 9 to 10 November 1938, you witnessed the demonstration against the Jews and that you were revolted by it. Is that true?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes, I spoke about it and said that I was shocked at this action. Julius Streicher got very excited during that conversation and said, “Such nonsense occurred in Nuremberg also. That is not anti-Semitism; that is just great stupidity.”

DR. MARX: Is it correct that Herr Streicher was hardly interested in the financial affairs of the publishing firm and left these things to the manager?

FRAU STREICHER: Julius Streicher never bothered about financial affairs at all, neither in the house nor in the firm. Again and again the gentlemen of the firm were disappointed when they wanted to report about annual balances or the like, and Julius Streicher would tell them, “Do not worry me with your business matters. There are other things besides that are more important than money.”

DR. MARX: How did he take care of the household expenses, then?

FRAU STREICHER: I received 1,000 marks every month from the firm. That provided for the household, presents, and so on.

DR. MARX: Do you know that he is supposed to have acquired shares through illegal pressure against a Jewish banker?

FRAU STREICHER: That is completely out of the question. I consider it quite impossible that Julius Streicher acquired shares that way. I believe that he does not even know what a share looks like.

DR. MARX: Did he not tell you anything about it?

FRAU STREICHER: I only heard that he never received shares.

DR. MARX: How did it come about that you and the defendant were married as late as April 1945?

Did you understand the question?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes. Julius Streicher wanted to take part in the fighting in Nuremberg. I wanted to accompany him, so he married me before we left. We wanted to die together.

DR. MARX: Then you left the Pleikershof with him, and where did you go from there?

FRAU STREICHER: First we wanted to go to Nuremberg, and that was refused for fear of difficulties with the authorities. So we drove in the direction of Munich. In Munich we were told to continue in the direction of Passau. From Passau they sent us to Berchtesgaden; from Berchtesgaden, they sent us to Kitzbuehel.

DR. MARX: How did it happen that the original intention to die together was not followed up? What caused him to change his mind?

FRAU STREICHER: The cause for that was a conversation with three young soldiers.

DR. MARX: And what was that? I will be through right away, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: I do not think you should go into that, Dr. Marx.

DR. MARX: Well, then. I will forego the question. Only one more question: Is it correct that Streicher gave the managers of his publishing firm a written power of attorney which meant that they could dispose of the money as they saw fit?

FRAU STREICHER: Yes, Julius Streicher gave the power of attorney to whoever happened to be the manager of the firm, and thereby gave him his full confidence without any restrictions.

DR. MARX: Mr. President, I have no more questions.

CHAPTER TEN:
CLOSING STATEMENTS

IMT, Vol. 22
31 August 1946
(216th day)

Rosenberg Closing Statement (pp. 381-383)

ALFRED ROSENBERG (Defendant): Besides repeating the old accusations, the prosecutors have raised new ones of the strongest kind; thus they claim that we all attended secret conferences in order to plan a war of aggression. Besides that, we are supposed to have ordered the alleged murder of 12,000,000 people. All these accusations have been collectively described as “genocide”—the murder of peoples. In this connection I have the following to declare in summary.

I know my conscience to be completely free from any such guilt, from any complicity in the murder of peoples. Instead of working for the dissolution of the culture and national sentiment of the Eastern European nations, I attempted to improve the physical and spiritual conditions of their existence; instead of destroying their personal security and human dignity, I opposed with all my might, as has been proven, every policy of violent measures, and I rigorously demanded a just attitude on the part of the German officials and a humane treatment of the Eastern Workers. Instead of practicing “child slavery,” as it is called, I saw to it that young people from territories endangered by combat were granted protection and special care. Instead of exterminating religion, I reinstated the freedom of the Churches in the Eastern territories by a decree of tolerance.

In Germany, in pursuance of my ideological convictions, I demanded freedom of conscience, granted it to every opponent, and never instituted a persecution of religion.

The thought of a physical annihilation of Slavs and Jews, that is to say, the actual murder of entire peoples, has never entered my mind, and I most certainly did not advocate it in any way. I was of the opinion that the existing Jewish Question would have to be solved by the creation of a minority right, by emigration, or by settling the Jews in a national territory over a ten-year period of time. The White Paper of the British Government of 24 July 1946 shows how historical developments can bring about measures which were never previously planned.

The practice of the German State Leadership in the war, as proven here during the Trial, differed completely from my ideas. To an ever-increasing degree, Adolf Hitler drew persons to himself who were not my comrades, but my opponents. With reference to their pernicious deeds, I must state that they were not practicing the National Socialism for which millions of believing men and women had fought, but rather, shamefully misusing it. It was a degeneration which I, too, very strongly condemned.

I frankly welcome the idea that a crime of genocide is to be outlawed by international agreement and placed under the severest penalties, with the natural provision that neither now nor in the future shall genocide be permitted in any way against the German people either.

Among other matters, the Soviet prosecutor stated that the entire so-called “ideological activity” had been a “preparation for crime.” In that connection, I should like to state the following: National Socialism represented the idea of overcoming the class struggle which was disintegrating the people, and uniting all classes in a large national community. Through the Labor Service, for instance, it restored the dignity of manual labor on Mother Earth, and directed the eyes of all Germans to the necessity of a strong peasantry. By the Winter Relief Work, it created a comradely feeling among the entire nation for all fellow-citizens in need, irrespective of their former party membership. It built homes for mothers, youth hostels, and community clubs in factories, and acquainted millions with the yet unknown treasures of art. For all that I served. But along with my love for a free and strong Reich, I never forgot my duty towards venerable Europe. In Rome, as early as 1932, I appealed for its preservation and peaceful development, and I fought as long as I could for the idea of internal gains for the peoples of Eastern Europe when I became Eastern Minister in 1941. Therefore, in the hour of need, I cannot renounce the idea of my life, the ideal of a socially peaceful Germany and a Europe conscious of its values, and I will remain true to it.

Honest service for this ideology, considering all human shortcomings, was not a conspiracy, and my actions were never a crime, but I understood my struggle, just as the struggle of many thousands of my comrades, to be one conducted for the noblest idea—an idea which had been fought for under flying banners for over a hundred years. I ask you to recognize this as the truth. In that case, no persecution of beliefs could arise from this Trial; then, in my conviction, a first step would be taken for a new, mutual understanding among nations, without prejudice, without ill-feeling, and without hatred.³⁹

Streicher Closing Statement (pp. 385-387)

JULIUS STREICHER (Defendant): Your Honors: At the beginning of this Trial, I was asked by the President whether I pleaded guilty in the sense of the indictment. I answered that question in the negative. The completed proceedings and the evidence presented have confirmed the correctness of the statement I gave at that time. It has been established that:

(1) Mass killings were carried out exclusively upon orders by the Head of the State, Adolf Hitler, without other influence.

(2) The mass killings were carried out without the knowledge of the German people and in complete secrecy by the Reichsführer SS, Heinrich Himmler.

The prosecution had asserted that mass killings would not have been possible without Streicher and his Stürmer. The prosecution neither offered nor submitted any proof of this assertion.

It is clearly established that on the occasion of the Anti-Jewish Boycott Day in 1933, which I was ordered to lead, and on the occasion of the demonstration of 1933 ordered by Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels, I, in my capacity as Gauleiter, neither ordered, demanded, nor participated in any acts of violence against Jews.

It is further established that in many articles in my weekly paper, the Stürmer, I advocated the Zionist demand for the creation of a Jewish state as the natural solution of the Jewish problem. These facts prove that I did not want the Jewish problem to be solved by violence.

If I or other authors mentioned a destruction or extermination of Jewry in some article of my weekly paper, Der Stürmer, then these were strong statements in reply to provoking expressions of opinion by Jewish authors in which the extermination of the German people was demanded. According to his last testament, the mass killings ordered by the leader of the State, Adolf Hitler, were supposed to be a reprisal which was only brought about by the course of the war, then recognized as becoming unfavorable. These actions of the leader of the State against the Jews can be explained by his attitude toward the Jewish Question, which was thoroughly different from mine. Hitler wanted to punish the Jews because he held them responsible for unleashing the war and for the bombing of the German civilian population.

It is deeply regrettable that the mass killings, which can be traced back to the personal decision of the leader of the State, Adolf Hitler, have led to a treatment of the German people which must also be considered as not humane. I repudiate the mass killings which were carried out, in the same way as they are repudiated by every decent German.

Your Honors! Neither in my capacity as Gauleiter nor as political author have I committed a crime, and I therefore look forward to your judgment with a good conscience. I have no request to make for myself. I have one for the German people from whom I come. Your Honors, fate has given you the power to pronounce any judgment. Do not pronounce a judgment, Your Honors, which would imprint the stamp of dishonor upon the forehead of an entire nation.

Other Defendants’ Closing Statements, on the Jews

GÖRING

The new allegation presented by Mr. Dodd in his final speech, that I had ordered Heydrich to kill the Jews, lacks every proof and is not true either. There is not a single order signed by me or signed in my behalf that enemy fliers should be shot or turned over to the SD. And not a single case has been established where units of my Luftwaffe carried out things like that.

KALTENBRUNNER

In the Jewish Question, I was just as much deceived as other high officials. I never approved or tolerated the biological extermination of Jewry. The anti-Semitism found in Party and State laws was still to be considered in time of war as an emergency defense measure. The anti-Semitism of Hitler, as we understand it today, was barbarism. I did not participate in either of these forms and maintain, as I shall show, that the discontinuance of the extermination of the Jews is to be traced to my influence on Hitler.

After the presentation of evidence, several photographs were submitted which allegedly show my knowledge of crimes in concentration camps, the camp at Mauthausen, and my knowledge of the criminal tools which were used there. I never set foot in Camp Mauthausen, only that part of the labor camps where the stone quarry was located, where hardened criminals were employed according to law, but no Jews or political prisoners. The pictures show an administration building and nothing else. Affidavit USA-909, pictures 894 to 897-F, are therefore factually impossible and wrong.

FUNK

Until the time of this Trial, I did not know and did not suspect that among the assets delivered to the Reichsbank, there were enormous quantities of pearls, precious stones, jewelry, gold objects, and even spectacle frames, and—horrible to say—gold teeth. That was never reported to me, and I never noticed it either. I never saw these things. But until this Trial, I also knew nothing of the fact that millions of Jews were murdered in concentration camps or by the Einsatzkommandos in the East. Never did a single person say even one word to me about these things.

The existence of extermination camps of this kind was totally unknown to me. I did not know a single one of these names. I have never set foot in a concentration camp either.

SCHACHT

And now Justice Jackson has raised a new accusation against me in his final speech, which has not been discussed at all in the Trial until now. I am said to have planned to release Jews from Germany in exchange for a ransom in foreign currency. This, too, is untrue. Disgusted by the Jewish pogrom of November 1938, I managed to obtain Hitler’s approval to a plan which was to facilitate emigration for the Jews. I intended to place 1,500 million Reichsmarks taken from confiscated Jewish property under the administration of an international committee, and Germany was to undertake the obligation to repay this amount to the committee in 20 yearly instalments, and in foreign currency, which is the exact opposite of what Justice Jackson asserted here.

I discussed this plan in December 1938 in London with Lord Berstedt of Samuel and Samuel, with Lord Winterton, and with the American representative, Mr. Rublee. They were all sympathetically disposed towards the plan. But since I was removed from the Reichsbank shortly afterwards by Hitler, the matter was dropped. Had it been carried through, not a single German Jew would have lost his life.

RAEDER

This Trial, now that the evidence has been concluded, has had a beneficial result for the German nation; but an unexpected one for the Prosecution. Unimpeachable testimony has cleared the German people—and with them all the persons in the same situation as myself—of the most serious charge, the charge that they had known of the killing of millions of Jews and other people, if they had not actually participated in it. The attempt of the Prosecution, who through earlier interrogations had known the truth for a long time, and who nevertheless continued and repeated their accusations—with the raised finger of the preacher of morals—in the trial briefs and during cross-examinations, this attempt to defame an entire people has collapsed upon itself.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:
VERDICTS, SENTENCES,
and EXECUTIONS

IMT vol. 22: 491-496
30 September 1946
(217th day)

COMMENTARY: On the second-to-last day, 30 September 1946, the lengthy judgment statement was read aloud—nearly 50,000 words in all. The portion of interest is reproduced below.

PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS

The persecution of the Jews at the hands of the Nazi Government has been proved in the greatest detail before the Tribunal. It is a record of consistent and systematic inhumanity on the greatest scale. Ohlendorf, Chief of Amt III in the RSHA from 1939 to 1943, and who was in command of one of the Einsatzgruppen in the campaign against the Soviet Union, testified as to the methods employed in the extermination of the Jews. He said that he employed firing squads to shoot the victims in order to lessen the sense of individual guilt on the part of his men; and the 90,000 men, women, and children who were murdered in one year by his particular group were mostly Jews.

When the witness Von dem Bach-Zelewski was asked how Ohlendorf could admit the murder of 90,000 people, he replied: “I am of the opinion that when, for years, for decades, the doctrine is preached that the Slav race is an inferior race, and Jews not even human, then such an outcome is inevitable.”

But the Defendant Frank spoke the final words of this chapter of Nazi history when he testified in this court:

We have fought against Jewry, we have fought against it for years; and we have allowed ourselves to make utterances, and my own diary has become a witness against me in this connection—utterances which are terrible... A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased.⁴⁰

The anti-Jewish policy was formulated in Point 4 of the Party Program which declared: “Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of the race”.⁴¹ Other points of the program declared that Jews should be treated as foreigners, that they should not be permitted to hold public office, that they should be expelled from the Reich if it were impossible to nourish the entire population of the state, that they should be denied any further immigration into Germany, and that they should be prohibited from publishing German newspapers.⁴² The Nazi Party preached these doctrines throughout its history. Der Stürmer and other publications were allowed to disseminate hatred of the Jews, and in the speeches and public declarations of the Nazi leaders, the Jews were held up to public ridicule and contempt.

With the seizure of power, the persecution of the Jews was intensified. A series of discriminatory laws were passed, which limited the offices and professions permitted to Jews; and restrictions were placed on their family life and their rights of citizenship. By the autumn of 1938, the Nazi policy towards the Jews had reached the stage where it was directed towards the complete exclusion of Jews from German life. Pogroms were organized, which included the burning and demolishing of synagogues, the looting of Jewish businesses, and the arrest of prominent Jewish business men. A collective fine of one billion marks was imposed on the Jews, the seizure of Jewish assets was authorized, and the movement of Jews was restricted by regulations to certain specified districts and hours. The creation of ghettos was carried out on an extensive scale, and by an order of the Security Police, Jews were compelled to wear a yellow star to be worn on the breast and back.

It was contended for the Prosecution that certain aspects of this anti-Semitic policy were connected with the plans for aggressive war. The violent measures taken against the Jews in November 1938 were nominally in retaliation for the killing of an official of the German Embassy in Paris. But the decision to seize Austria and Czechoslovakia had been made a year before. The imposition of a fine of one billion marks was made, and the confiscation of the financial holdings of the Jews was decreed, at a time when German armament expenditure had put the German treasury in difficulties, and when the reduction of expenditure on armaments was being considered. These steps were taken, moreover, with the approval of the Defendant Göring, who had been given, responsibility for economic matters of this kind, and who was the strongest advocate of an extensive rearmament program, notwithstanding the financial difficulties.

It was further said that the connection of the anti-Semitic policy with aggressive war was not limited to economic matters. The German Foreign Office circular, in an article of 25 January 1939, entitled “Jewish Question as a factor in German foreign policy in the year 1938,” described the new phase in the Nazi anti-Semitic policy in these words:

It is certainly no coincidence that the fateful year 1938 has brought nearer the solution of the Jewish Question simultaneously with the realization of the idea of Greater Germany, since the Jewish policy was both the basis and consequence of the events of the year 1938. The advance made by Jewish influence and the destructive Jewish spirit in politics, economy, and culture paralyzed the power and the will of the German people to rise again, more perhaps even than the power policy opposition of the former enemy Allied powers of the first World War. The healing of this sickness among the people was therefore certainly one of the most important requirements for exerting the force which, in the year 1938, resulted in the joining together of Greater Germany in defiance of the world.

The Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany before the war, severe and repressive as it was, cannot compare, however, with the policy pursued during the war in the occupied territories. Originally the policy was similar to that which had been in force inside Germany. Jews were required to register, were forced to live in ghettos, to wear the yellow star, and were used as slave laborers. In the summer of 1941, however, plans were made for the “final solution” of the Jewish Question in all of Europe. This “final solution” meant the extermination of the Jews, which early in 1939 Hitler had threatened would be one of the consequences of an outbreak of war, and a special section in the Gestapo under Adolf Eichmann, as head of Section B 4 of the Gestapo, was formed to carry out the policy.

The plan for exterminating the Jews was developed shortly after the attack on the Soviet Union. Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD, formed for the purpose of breaking the resistance of the population of the areas lying behind the German armies in the East, were given the duty of exterminating the Jews in those areas. The effectiveness of the work of the Einsatzgruppen is shown by the fact that, in February 1942, Heydrich was able to report that Estonia had already been cleared of Jews and that in Riga the number of Jews had been reduced from 29,500 to 2,500. Altogether the Einsatzgruppen operating in the occupied Baltic states killed over 135,000 Jews in 3 months.

Nor did these special units operate completely independently of the German Armed Forces. There is clear evidence that leaders of the Einsatzgruppen obtained the co-operation of army commanders. In one case, the relations between an Einsatzgruppe and the military authorities was described at the time as being “very close, almost cordial”; in another case, the smoothness of an Einsatzkommando operation was attributed to the “understanding for this procedure” shown by the army authorities.

Units of the Security Police and SD in the occupied territories of the East, which were under civil administration, were given a similar task. The planned and systematic character of the Jewish persecutions is best illustrated by the original report of SS Brigadier General Stroop, who was in charge of the destruction of the ghetto in Warsaw, which took place in 1943. The Tribunal received in evidence that report, illustrated with photographs, bearing on its title page: “The Jewish ghetto in Warsaw no longer exists.” The volume records a series of reports sent by Stroop to the Higher SS and Police Führer East. In April and May of 1943, in one report, Stroop wrote:

The resistance put up by the Jews and bandits could only be suppressed by energetic actions of our troops day and night. The Reichsführer SS [Himmler] ordered therefore on 23 April 1943 the cleaning out of the ghetto with utter ruthlessness and merciless tenacity. I therefore decided to destroy and burn down the entire ghetto, without regard to the armament factories. These factories were systematically dismantled and then burnt. Jews usually left their hideouts, but frequently remained in the burning buildings, and jumped out of the windows only when the heat became unbearable. They then tried to crawl with broken bones across the street into buildings which were not afire.... Life in the sewers was not pleasant after the first week. Many times, we could hear loud voices in the sewers.... Tear gas bombs were thrown into the manholes, and the Jews driven out of the sewers and captured. Countless numbers of Jews were liquidated in sewers and bunkers through blasting. The longer the resistance continued, the tougher became the members of the Waffen-SS, Police, and Wehrmacht, who always discharged their duties in an exemplary manner.

Stroop recorded that his action at Warsaw eliminated “a proved total of 56,065 people. To that we have to add the number of those killed through blasting, fire, et cetera, which cannot be counted.” Grim evidence of mass murders of Jews was also presented to the Tribunal in cinematograph films depicting the communal graves of hundreds of victims which were subsequently discovered by the Allies.⁴³

These atrocities were all part and parcel of the policy inaugurated in 1941, and it is not surprising that there should be evidence that one or two German officials entered vain protests against the brutal manner in which the killings were carried out. But the methods employed never conformed to a single pattern. The massacres of Rovno and Dubno, of which the German engineer Graebe spoke, were examples of one method, the systematic extermination of Jews in concentration camps was another. Part of the “final solution” was the gathering of Jews from all German-occupied Europe in concentration camps. Their physical condition was the test of life or death. All who were fit to work were used as slave laborers in the concentration camps; all who were not fit to work were destroyed in gas chambers and their bodies burnt. Certain concentration camps, such as Treblinka and Auschwitz, were set aside for this main purpose.

With regard to Auschwitz, the Tribunal heard the evidence of Höss, the commandant of the camp from 1 May 1940 to 1 December 1943. He estimated that in the camp of Auschwitz alone in that time 2,500,000 persons were exterminated, and that a further 500,000 died from disease and starvation. Höss described the screening for extermination by stating in evidence:

We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners. The prisoners would be marched by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since by reason of their youth they were unable to work. Still another improvement we made over Treblinka was that, at Treblinka, the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated, and at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions and we some times had riots and difficulties due to that fact. Very frequently, women would hide their children under their clothes, but of course when we found them we would send the children in to be exterminated.

He described the actual killing by stating:

It took from three to fifteen minutes to kill the people in the death chamber, depending upon climatic conditions. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited about one-half hour before we opened the doors and removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed, our special commandos took off the rings and extracted the gold from the teeth of the corpses.⁴⁴

Beating, starvation, torture, and killing were general. The inmates were subjected to cruel experiments at Dachau in August 1942, victims were immersed in cold water until their body temperature was reduced to 28 degrees centigrade, when they died immediately. Other experiments included high altitude experiments in pressure chambers, experiments to determine how long human beings could survive in freezing water, experiments with poison bullets, experiments with contagious diseases, and experiments dealing with sterilization of men and women by X-rays and other methods.

Evidence was given of the treatment of the inmates before and after their extermination. There was a testimony that the hair of women victims was cut off before they were killed, and shipped to Germany, there to be used in the manufacture of mattresses. The clothes, money, and valuables of the inmates were also salvaged and sent to the appropriate agencies for disposition. After the extermination the gold teeth and fillings were taken from the heads of the corpses and sent to the Reichsbank.

After the cremation, the ashes were used for fertilizer, and in some instances, attempts were made to utilize the fat from the bodies of the victims in the commercial manufacture of soap. Special groups traveled through Europe to find Jews and subject them to the “final solution.” German missions were sent to such satellite countries as Hungary and Bulgaria to arrange for the shipment of Jews to extermination camps, and it is known that by the end of 1944, 400,000 Jews from Hungary had been murdered at Auschwitz. Evidence has also been given of the evacuation of 110,000 Jews from part of Romania for “liquidation.” Adolf Eichmann, who had been put in charge of this program by Hitler, has estimated that the policy pursued resulted in the killing of 6,000,000 Jews, of which 4,000,000 were killed in the extermination institutions.

COMMENTARY: In summing-up the argument for Nazi persecution of the Jews, the Tribunal cites many dubious ‘facts’ and offers a variety of fallacious assertations. Their distortion of the Party Platform seems to be deliberate; given the brevity and clarity of the statement, one could scarcely misread it so badly. Apart from a passing reference to the “Jewish materialist spirit” (Point #24), Jews are explicitly mentioned just once (Point #4), and are otherwise treated equally with all other non-citizens, all of whom held second-class status in the National Socialist state. There is nothing criminal about giving social and political priority to one’s own ethnicity as is done, for example, by Israel.

Worse, the Tribunal naively confirms as absolute truth every claim from international Jewish groups—groups who are surely the least-inclined to be objective. It grants no awareness of the subtleties of language, and no willingness to accept that to “eliminate” someone may in fact mean to simply remove them. It has hard evidence of only “hundreds” of victims, but quickly extrapolates this to thousands or millions. It gives no credence to any of the defendants’ many arguments, and spares neither the time nor the inclination to conduct real investigations at any locations. The Tribunal unconditionally accepts patently absurd figures, such as 3 million Jews killed at Auschwitz, without doing even an elementary analysis of how such a thing might have been possible. It seems fully confident that 2,000 people, in an enclosed room, could be killed in three minutes with Zyklon pellets. No Jewish assertion is too far-fetched for them.

The Tribunal closes its statement with yet more absurdities. It cites, for example, the “commercial manufacture of soap” from Jewish bodies. This is an entire story in itself, one that has been totally discredited for several decades now. In brief, bizarre rumors of Jewish soap were published as early as late 1942; the Chicago Tribune reported that the Germans were “reclaiming bodies of slain civilians, to be processed into such war-vital commodities as soap, fats, and fertilizer” (25 Nov). Russian general and lead prosecutor Roman Rudenko raised the topic at the IMT on 8 February 1946, when he quoted from a report that said “Fats and oils for technical purposes and for the manufacture of soap were also obtained from the corpses” (IMT, Vol. 7: 175). Lead prosecutor Shawcross recalled the same charge on 27 July, when he said, “On occasion, even the bodies of [Nazi] victims were used to make good the wartime shortage of soap” (Vol.19: 506). Hence it is no surprise that the topic surfaced again at the close of the proceedings.

Unfortunately for the Tribunal, they were on the wrong side of history. By 1980 it was clear to everyone, even the traditionalists, that the ‘soap story’ was fiction. As Deborah Lipstadt wrote in the LA Times, “The fact is that the Nazis never used the bodies of Jews, or for that matter anyone else, for the production of soap” (16 May 1981, p. C2). Something approaching ‘official’ acknowledgement came in 1990, with a statement from Yad Vashem: “Nazis never made soap from murdered Jews. … Historians have concluded that soap was not made from human fat” (Chicago Tribune, 25 Apr 1990). Today, the ‘Jewish soap myth’ stands on par with dozens of other discredited claims from Nuremberg, including Jewish shrunken heads and lampshades made from Jewish skin.

Finally, and with equal gullibility, the Tribunal accepts the “6,000,000 Jews” death toll, and the “4,000,000 killed” in death camps. Again, it had utterly no concrete evidence for these figures, no explanation of how such things could be possible, nor any good reason to believe that it wasn’t yet more wartime atrocity rumor-mongering. And yet it was prepared to state its unconditional belief in such figures, for the record, on its way to meting out the death penalty to 12 men.

IMT, Vol. 22: 524-585
1 October 1946
(218th and final day)

VERDICTS

ROSENBERG (p. 539)

Rosenberg is indicted on all four Counts. He joined the Nazi Party in 1919, participated in the Munich Putsch of 9 November 1923, and tried to keep the illegal Nazi Party together while Hitler was in jail. Recognized as the Party’s ideologist, he developed and spread Nazi doctrines in the newspapers Völkischer Beobachter and NS Monatshefte, which he edited, and in the numerous books he wrote. His book Myth of the Twentieth Century had a circulation of over a million copies.

In 1930 Rosenberg was elected to the Reichstag and he became the Party’s representative for Foreign Affairs. In April 1933 he was made Reichsleiter and head of the Office of Foreign Affairs of the NSDAP (The APA). Hitler, in January 1934, appointed Rosenberg his deputy for the supervision of the entire spiritual and ideological training of the NSDAP. In January 1940, he was designated to set up the “Hohe Schule,” the center of National Socialist ideological and educational research, and he organized the “Einsatzstab Rosenberg” in connection with this task. He was appointed Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories on 17 July 1941.

Crimes against Peace

As head of the APA, Rosenberg was in charge of an organization whose agents were active in Nazi intrigue in all parts of the world. His own reports, for example, claim that the APA was largely responsible for Romania’s joining the Axis. As head of the APA, he played an important role in the preparation and planning of the attack on Norway.

Rosenberg, together with Raeder, was one of the originators of the plan for attacking Norway. Rosenberg had become interested in Norway as early as June 1939, when he conferred with Quisling. Quisling had pointed out the importance of the Norwegian coast in the event of a conflict between Germany and Great Britain, and stated his fears that Great Britain might be able to obtain Norwegian assistance. As a result of this conference, Rosenberg arranged for Quisling to collaborate closely with the National Socialists and to receive political assistance by the Nazis.

When the war broke out, Quisling began to express fear of British intervention in Norway. Rosenberg supported this view and transmitted to Raeder a plan to use Quisling for a coup in Norway. Rosenberg was instrumental in arranging the conferences in December 1939 between Hitler and Quisling which led to the preparation of the attack on Norway and at which Hitler promised Quisling financial assistance. After these conferences, Hitler assigned to Rosenberg the political exploitation of Norway. Two weeks after Norway was occupied, Hitler told Rosenberg that he had based his decision to attack Norway “on the continuous warnings of Quisling as reported to him by Reichsleiter Rosenberg.”

Rosenberg bears a major responsibility for the formulation and execution of occupation policies in the Occupied Eastern Territories. He was informed by Hitler, on 2 April 1941, of the coming attack against the Soviet Union, and he agreed to help in the capacity of a “Political Adviser.” On 20 April 1941 he was appointed Commissioner for the Central Control of Questions Connected with the East European Region. In preparing the plans for the occupation, he had numerous conferences with Keitel, Raeder, Göring, Funk, Ribbentrop, and other high Reich authorities. In April and May 1941 he prepared several drafts of instructions concerning the setting up of the administration in the Occupied Eastern Territories. On 20 June 1941, two days before the attack on the USSR, he made a speech to his assistants about the problems and policies of occupation. Rosenberg attended Hitler’s conference of 16 July 1941, in which policies of administration and occupation were discussed. On 17 July 1941, Hitler appointed Rosenberg Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, and publicly charged him with responsibility for civil administration.

War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity

Rosenberg is responsible for a system of organized plunder of both public and private property throughout the invaded countries of Europe. Acting under Hitler’s orders of January 1940 to set up the “Hohe Schule,” he organized and directed the “Einsatzstab Rosenberg,”, which plundered museums and libraries, confiscated art treasures and collections, and pillaged private houses. His own reports show the extent of the confiscations. In “Aktion-M” (Möbel), instituted in December 1941 at Rosenberg’s suggestion, 69,619 Jewish homes were plundered in the West, 38,000 of them in Paris alone, and it took 26,984 railroad cars to transport the confiscated furnishings to Germany. As of 14 July 1944, more than 21,903 art objects, including famous paintings and museum pieces, had been seized by the Einsatzstab in the West.

With his appointment as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories on 17 July 1941, Rosenberg became the supreme authority for those areas. He helped to formulate the policies of Germanization, exploitation, forced labor, extermination of Jews and opponents of Nazi rule, and he set up the administration which carried them out. He took part in the conference of 16 July 1941, in which Hitler stated that they were faced with the task of “cutting up the giant cake according to our needs in order to be able: first, to dominate it, second, to administer it, and third, to exploit it,” and he indicated that ruthless action was contemplated. Rosenberg accepted his appointment on the following day.

Rosenberg had knowledge of the brutal treatment and terror to which the Eastern people were subjected. He directed that the Hague Rules of Land Warfare were not applicable in the Occupied Eastern Territories. He had knowledge of and took an active part in stripping the Eastern territories of raw materials and foodstuffs, in which were sent to Germany. He stated that feeding the German people was first on the list of claims on the East, and that the Soviet people would suffer thereby. His directives provided for the segregation of Jews, ultimately in ghettos. His subordinates engaged in mass killings of Jews, and his civil administrators in the East considered that cleansing the Eastern Occupied Territories of Jews was necessary. In December 1941, Rosenberg made the suggestion to Hitler that in a case of shooting 100 hostages, Jews only be used. Rosenberg had knowledge of the deportation of laborers from the East, of the methods of “recruiting” and the transportation horrors, and of the treatment Eastern laborers received in the Reich. He gave his civil administrators quotas of laborers to be sent to the Reich, which had to be met by whatever means necessary. His signature of approval appears on the order of 14 June 1944, for the “Heu Aktion,” the apprehension of 40,000 to 50,000 youths, aged 10-14, for shipment to the Reich.

Upon occasion Rosenberg objected to the excesses and atrocities committed by his subordinates, notably in the case of Koch, but these excesses continued and he stayed in office until the end.

Conclusion

The Tribunal finds that Rosenberg is guilty on all four Counts.

STREICHER (p. 547)

Streicher is indicted on Counts One and Four. One of the earliest members of the Nazi Party, joining in 1921, he took part in the Munich Putsch. From 1925 to 1940 he was Gauleiter of Franconia. Elected to the Reichstag in 1933, he was an honorary general in the SA. His persecution of the Jews was notorious. He was the publisher of Der Stürmer, an anti-Semitic weekly newspaper, from 1923 to 1945 and was its editor until 1933.

Crimes against Peace

Streicher was a staunch Nazi and supporter of Hitler’s main policies. There is no evidence to show that he was ever within Hitler’s inner circle of advisers; nor during his career was he closely connected with the formulation of the policies which led to war. He was never present, for example, at any of the important conferences when Hitler explained his decisions to his leaders. Although he was a Gauleiter, there is no evidence to prove that he had knowledge of these policies. In the opinion of the Tribunal, the evidence fails to establish his connection with the conspiracy or common plan to wage aggressive war as that conspiracy has been elsewhere defined in this Judgment.

Crimes against Humanity

For his 25 years of speaking, writing, and preaching hatred of the Jews, Streicher was widely known as “Jew-Baiter Number One.” In his speeches and articles, week after week, month after month, he infected the German mind with the virus of anti-Semitism and incited the German people to active persecution. Each issue of Der Stürmer, which reached a circulation of 600,000 in 1935, was filled with such articles, often lewd and disgusting.

Streicher had charge of the Jewish boycott of 1 April 1933. He advocated the Nuremberg Decrees of 1935. He was responsible for the demolition on 10 August 1938 of the synagogue in Nuremberg. And on 10 November 1938, he spoke publicly in support of the Jewish pogrom which was taking place at that time.

But it was not only in Germany that this defendant advocated his doctrines. As early as 1938 he began to call for the annihilation of the Jewish race. Twenty-three different articles of Der Stürmer between 1938 and 1941 were produced in evidence, in which extermination “root and branch” was preached. Typical of his teachings was a leading article in September 1938 which termed the Jew a germ and a pest, not a human being, but “a parasite, an enemy, an evil-doer, a disseminator of diseases who must be destroyed in the interest of mankind.” Other articles urged that only when world Jewry had been annihilated would the Jewish problem have been solved, and predicted that, 50 years hence, the Jewish graves “will proclaim that this people of murderers and criminals has after all met its deserved fate.”

Streicher, in February 1940, published a letter from one of Der Stürmer’s readers which compared Jews with swarms of locusts which must be exterminated completely. Such was the poison Streicher injected into the minds of thousands of Germans which caused them to follow the National Socialist policy of Jewish persecution and extermination. A leading article of Der Stürmer, in May 1939, shows clearly his aim:

A punitive expedition must come against the Jews in Russia. A punitive expedition which will provide the same fate for them that every murderer and criminal must expect. Death sentence and execution. The Jews in Russia must be killed. They must be exterminated root and branch.

As the war in the early stages proved successful in acquiring more and more territory for the Reich, Streicher even intensified his efforts to incite the Germans against the Jews. In the record are 26 articles from Der Stürmer, published between August 1941 and September 1944, 12 by Streicher’s own hand, which demanded annihilation and extermination in unequivocal terms. He wrote and published on 25 December 1941: “If the danger of the reproduction of that curse of God in the Jewish blood is finally to come to an end, then there is only one way—the extermination of that people whose father is the devil.” And in February 1944, his own article stated: “Whoever does what a Jew does is a scoundrel, a criminal. And he who repeats and wishes to copy him deserves the same fate: annihilation, death.”

With knowledge of the extermination of the Jews in the Occupied Eastern Territories, this defendant continued to write and publish his propaganda of death. Testifying in this Trial, he vehemently denied any knowledge of mass executions of Jews. But the evidence makes it clear that he continually received current information on the progress of the “final solution.” His press photographer was sent to visit the ghettos of the East in the spring of 1943, the time of the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. The Jewish newspaper, Israelitisches Wochenblatt, which Streicher received and read, carried in each issue accounts of Jewish atrocities in the East, and gave figures on the number of Jews who had been deported and killed. For example, issues appearing in the summer and fall of 1942 reported the death of 72,729 Jews in Warsaw, 17,542 in Lodz, 18,000 in Croatia, 125,000 in Romania, 14,000 in Latvia, 85,000 in Yugoslavia, 700,000 in all of Poland. In November 1943 Streicher quoted verbatim an article from the Israelitisches Wochenblatt which stated that the Jews had virtually disappeared from Europe, and commented: “This is not a Jewish lie.” In December 1942, referring to an article in the London Times about the atrocities aiming at extermination, Streicher said that Hitler had given warning that the second World War would lead to the destruction of Jewry. In January 1943 he wrote and published an article which said that Hitler’s prophecy was being fulfilled, that world Jewry was being extirpated, and that it was wonderful to know that Hitler was freeing the world of its Jewish tormentors.

In the face of the evidence before the Tribunal, it is idle for Streicher to suggest that the solution of the Jewish problem which he favored was strictly limited to the classification of Jews as aliens, and the passing of discriminatory legislation such as the Nuremberg Laws, supplemented if possible by international agreement, on the creation of a Jewish state somewhere in the world, to which all Jews should emigrate.

Streicher’s incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with War Crimes, as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a Crime against Humanity.

Conclusion

The Tribunal finds that Streicher is not guilty on Count One, but that he is guilty on Count Four.

OTHER DEFENDANTS

COMMENTARY: Similar judgments were read out for all 24 defendants, though not all addressed the Jewish Question. Below are reproduced the relevant sections of judgments of nine other men.

GÖRING

Göring is indicted on all four Counts. The evidence shows that, after Hitler, he was the most prominent man in the Nazi regime. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan, and had tremendous influence with Hitler, at least until 1943, when their relationship deteriorated, ending in his arrest in 1945. He testified that Hitler kept him informed of all important military and political problems. …

Göring persecuted the Jews, particularly after the November 1938 riots, and not only in Germany, where he raised the billion-mark fine as stated elsewhere, but in the conquered territories as well. His own utterances then and his testimony now shows this interest was primarily economic—how to get their property and how to force them out of the economic life of Europe. As these countries fell before the German Army, he extended the Reich anti-Jewish laws to them; the Reichsgesetzblatt for 1939, 1940, and 1941 contains several anti-Jewish decrees signed by Göring. Although their extermination was in Himmler’s hands, Göring was far from disinterested or inactive, despite his protestations in the witness box. By decree of 31 July 1941 he directed Himmler and Heydrich to “bring about a complete solution of the Jewish Question in the German sphere of influence in Europe.”

There is nothing to be said in mitigation. For Göring was often, indeed almost always, the moving force, second only to his leader. He was the leading war aggressor, both as political and as military leader; he was the director of the slave labor program and the creator of the oppressive program against the Jews and other races, at home and abroad. All of these crimes he has frankly admitted.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds the Defendant Göring guilty on all four Counts of the Indictment.

VON RIBBENTROP

Ribbentrop is indicted under all four Counts. He joined the Nazi Party in 1932. By 1933 he had been made foreign policy adviser to Hitler, and in the same year, the representative of the Nazi Party on foreign policy. …

He played an important part in Hitler’s “final solution” of the Jewish Question. In September 1942 he ordered the German diplomatic representatives accredited to various Axis satellites to hasten the deportation of Jews to the East. In June 1942 the German Ambassador to Vichy requested Laval to turn over 50,000 Jews for deportation to the East. On 25 February 1943, Ribbentrop protested to Mussolini against Italian slowness in deporting Jews from the Italian occupation zone of France. On 17 April 1943, he took part in a conference between Hitler and Horthy on the deportation of Jews from Hungary, and informed Horthy that the “Jews must either be exterminated or taken to concentration camps.” At the same conference, Hitler had likened the Jews to “tuberculosis bacilli” and said if they did not work, they were to be shot.

Ribbentrop’s defense to the charges made against him is that Hitler made all the important decisions, and that he was such a great admirer and faithful follower of Hitler that he never questioned Hitler’s repeated assertions that he wanted peace, or the truth of the reasons that Hitler gave in explaining aggressive action. The Tribunal does not consider this explanation to be true. Ribbentrop participated in all of the Nazi aggressions from the occupation of Austria to the invasion of the Soviet Union. Although he was personally concerned with the diplomatic rather than the military aspect of these actions, his diplomatic efforts were so closely connected with war that he could not have remained unaware of the aggressive nature of Hitler’s actions.

In the administration of territories over which Germany acquired control by illegal invasion, Ribbentrop also assisted in carrying out criminal policies, particularly those involving the extermination of the Jews. There is abundant evidence, moreover, that Ribbentrop was in complete sympathy with all the main tenets of the National Socialist creed, and that his collaboration with Hitler and with other defendants in the commission of Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity was whole-hearted. It was because Hitler’s policy and plans coincided with his own ideas that Ribbentrop served him so willingly to the end.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Ribbentrop is guilty on all four Counts.

KALTENBRUNNER

Kaltenbrunner is indicted under Counts One, Three, and Four. He joined the Austrian Nazi Party and the SS in 1932. In 1935 he became leader of the SS in Austria. After the Anschluss he was appointed Austrian State Secretary for Security and, when this position was abolished in 1941, he was made Higher SS and Police Leader. …

The RSHA played a leading part in the “final solution” of the Jewish Question by the extermination of the Jews. A special section under the Amt IV of the RSHA was established to supervise this program. Under its direction, approximately 6 million Jews were murdered, of which 2 million were killed by Einsatzgruppen and other units of the Security Police. Kaltenbrunner had been informed of the activities of these Einsatzgruppen when he was a Higher SS and Police Leader, and they continued to function after he had become Chief of the RSHA.

The murder of approximately 4 million Jews in concentration camps has heretofore been described. This part of the program was also under the supervision of the RSHA when Kaltenbrunner was head of that organization, and special missions of the RSHA scoured the occupied territories and the various Axis satellites, arranging for the deportation of Jews to these extermination institutions. Kaltenbrunner was informed of these activities. A letter which he wrote on 30 June 1944 described the shipment to Vienna of 12,000 Jews for that purpose, and directed that all who could not work would have to be kept in readiness for “special action,” which meant murder. Kaltenbrunner denied his signature to this letter, as he did on a very large number of orders on which his name was stamped or typed, and in a few instances, written. It is inconceivable that in matters of such importance, his signature could have appeared so many times without his authority.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Kaltenbrunner is not guilty on Count One. He is guilty under Counts Three and Four.

FRANK

Frank is indicted under Counts One, Three, and Four. Frank joined the Nazi Party in 1927. …

The persecution of the Jews was immediately begun in the Government General. The area originally contained from 2,500,000 to 3,500,000 Jews. They were forced into ghettos, subjected to discriminatory laws, deprived of the food necessary to avoid starvation, and finally systematically and brutally exterminated. On 16 December 1941, Frank told the Cabinet of the Government General: “We must annihilate the Jews wherever we find them and wherever it is possible in order to maintain there the structure of the Reich as a whole.” By 25 January 1944, Frank estimated that there were only 100,000 Jews left.

At the beginning of his testimony, Frank stated that he had a feeling of “terrible guilt” for the atrocities committed in the occupied territories. But his defense was largely devoted to an attempt to prove that he was not in fact responsible; that he ordered only the necessary pacification measures; that the excesses were due to the activities of the Police which were not under his control; and that he never even knew of the activities of the concentration camps. It has also been argued that the starvation was due to the aftermath of the war and policies carried out under the Four Year Plan; that the forced labor program was under the direction of Sauckel; and that the extermination of the Jews was by the Police and SS under direct orders from Himmler.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Frank is not guilty on Count One but is guilty under Counts Three and Four.

FRICK

Frick is indicted on all four Counts. Recognized as the chief Nazi administrative specialist and bureaucrat, he was appointed Reich Minister of the Interior in Hitler’s first cabinet. He retained this important position until August 1943, when he was appointed Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. …

Always rabidly anti-Semitic, Frick drafted, signed, and administered many laws designed to eliminate Jews from German life and economy. His work formed the basis of the Nuremberg Decrees, and he was active in enforcing them. Responsible for prohibiting Jews from following various professions and for confiscating their property, he signed a final decree in 1943, after the mass destruction of Jews in the East, which placed them “outside the law” and handed them over to the Gestapo. These laws paved the way for the “final solution,” and were extended by Frick to the incorporated territories and to certain of the occupied territories. While he was Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, thousands of Jews were transferred from the Terezin ghetto in Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz, where they were killed. He issued a decree providing for special penal laws against Jews and Poles in the Government General.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Frick is not guilty on Count One. He is guilty on Counts Two, Three and Four.

FUNK

Funk is indicted under all four Counts. Funk, who had previously been a financial journalist, joined the Nazi Party in 1931, and shortly thereafter became one of Hitler’s personal economic advisers. …

In his capacity as Under Secretary in the Ministry of Propaganda and Vice-Chairman of the Reich Chamber of Culture, Funk had participated in the early Nazi program of economic discrimination against the Jews. On 12 November 1938, after the pogroms of November, he attended a meeting held under the chairmanship of Göring to discuss the solution of the Jewish problem and proposed a decree providing for the banning of Jews from all business activities, which Göring issued the same day under the authority of the Four Year Plan. Funk has testified that he was shocked at the outbreaks of 10 November, but on 15 November he made a speech describing these outbreaks as a “violent explosion of the disgust of the German people, because of a criminal Jewish attack against the German people,” and saying that the elimination of the Jews from economic life followed logically their elimination from political life.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Funk is not guilty on Count One but is guilty under Counts Two, Three, and Four.

VON SCHIRACH

Von Schirach is indicted under Counts One and Four. He joined the Nazi Party and the SA in 1925. …

When Von Schirach became Gauleiter of Vienna, the deportation of the Jews had already been begun, and only 60,000 out of Vienna’s original 190,000 Jews remained. On 2 October 1940, he attended a conference at Hitler’s office and told Frank that he had 50,000 Jews in Vienna which the Government General would have to take over from him. On 3 December 1940, Von Schirach received a letter from Lammers stating that, after the receipt of the reports made by Von Schirach, Hitler had decided to deport the 60,000 Jews still remaining in Vienna to the Government General because of the housing shortage in Vienna. The deportation of the Jews from Vienna was then begun and continued until the early fall of 1942. On 15 September 1942, Von Schirach made a speech in which he defended his action in having driven “tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of Jews into the ghetto of the East” as “contributing to European culture.”

While the Jews were being deported from Vienna, reports, addressed to him in his official capacity, were received in Von Schirach’s office from the office of the Chief of the Security Police and SD, which contained a description of the activities of Einsatzgruppen in exterminating Jews. Many of these reports were initialed by one of Von Schirach’s principal deputies. On 30 June 1944, Von Schirach’s office also received a letter from Kaltenbrunner informing him that a shipment of 12,000 Jews was on its way to Vienna for essential war work and that all those who were incapable of work would have to be kept in readiness for “special action.”

The Tribunal finds that Von Schirach, while he did not originate the policy of deporting Jews from Vienna, participated in this deportation after he had become Gauleiter of Vienna. He knew that the best the Jews could hope for was a miserable existence in the ghettos of the East. Bulletins describing the Jewish extermination were in his office.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Von Schirach is not guilty on Count One. He is guilty under Count Four.

FRITZSCHE

Fritzsche is indicted on Counts One, Three, and Four. He was best known as a radio commentator, discussing once a week the events of the day on his own program, “Hans Fritzsche Speaks.” …

Excerpts in evidence from his speeches show definite anti-Semitism, on his part. He broadcast, for example, that the war had been caused by Jews and said their fate had turned out “as unpleasant as the Führer predicted.” But these speeches did not urge persecution or extermination of Jews. There is no evidence that he was aware of their extermination in the East. The evidence moreover shows that he twice attempted to have publication of the anti-Semitic Der Stürmer suppressed, though unsuccessfully.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Fritzsche is not guilty under this Indictment, and directs that he shall be discharged by the Marshal when the Tribunal presently adjourns.

BORMANN

Bormann is indicted on Counts One, Three, and Four. He joined the National Socialist Party in 1925, was a member of the Staff of the Supreme Command of the SA from 1928 to 1930, was in charge of the Aid Fund of the Party, and was Reichsleiter from 1933 to 1945. …

Bormann was extremely active in the persecution of the Jews, not only in Germany but also in the absorbed or conquered countries. He took part in the discussions which led to the removal of 60,000 Jews from Vienna to Poland in co-operation with the SS and the Gestapo. He signed the decree of 31 May 1941 extending the Nuremberg Laws to the annexed Eastern territories. In an order of 9 October 1942 he declared that the permanent elimination of Jews in Greater German territory could no longer be solved by emigration, but only by applying “ruthless force” in the special camps in the East. On 1 July 1943 he signed an ordinance withdrawing Jews from the protection of the law courts and placing them under the exclusive jurisdiction of Himmler’s Gestapo.

Conclusion: The Tribunal finds that Bormann is not guilty on Count One, but is guilty on Counts Three and Four.

IMT, Vol. 22: 588

SENTENCING

Defendant Alfred Rosenberg, on the counts of the indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging.

Defendant Julius Streicher, on the count of the indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to death by hanging.

Death penalties were also pronounced for:

– Bormann (in absentia)

– Frank

– Frick

– Göring

– Jodl

– Kaltenbrunner

– Keitel

– Ribbentrop

– Sauckel

– Seyss-Inquart

Prison terms were given to seven men:

– Dönitz

– Funk

– Hess

– Neurath

– Raeder

– Schirach

– Speer

No decision for:

– Krupp

– Ley (committed suicide prior to trial)

Three men were acquitted and freed:

– Fritzsche

– Papen

– Schacht

EXECUTIONS

In all, 12 defendants were given the death penalty. Martin Bormann was missing but presumed dead; his body was discovered only in 1972. Hermann Göring committed suicide the night before he was to be hanged, using cyanide hidden in a bullet cartridge.

The remaining 10 men, including Rosenberg and Streicher, were scheduled to be hanged in the early morning hours of 16 October 1946. Hangings took place at the Nuremberg Prison. Three gallows were constructed in the prison gymnasium—two to be used, and the third as a back-up. The entire process would take less than two hours.

At 1:11 am, Joachim von Ribbentrop, age 53, was escorted in—the first to die. According to a journalist present, he “maintained his stoicism to the last.” His final words: “God protect Germany. My last wish is that Germany realize its entity, and that an understanding be reached between the East and the West. I wish peace to the world.”

At 1:15, Wilhelm Keitel, age 64, entered the room. His last words: “I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than 2 million German soldiers went to their death for the Fatherland before me. I follow now my sons—all for Germany.”

At 1:36 am, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, at age 43 the youngest to die, was called in. His final words: “I have loved my German people and my Fatherland with a warm heart. I have done my duty by the laws of my people, and I am sorry my people were led this time by men who were not soldiers, and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge. Germany, best wishes.”

At 1:47, Alfred Rosenberg, age 53, walked in. He alone, among all to die that night, had no final words.

At 1:55, Hans Frank, age 46, was brought in. His last words: “I am thankful for the kind of treatment during my captivity, and I ask God to accept me with mercy.”

At 2:05 am, Wilhelm Frick, age 69, entered. His final words: “Long live eternal Germany.”

At 2:12, Julius Streicher, age 61, came into the room. Upon approaching the steps to the gallows, he yelled, “Heil Hitler!” Atop the platform, he said: “Purim Fest 1946!”—referring to events in the Bible, Book of Esther, in which the Jews managed to hang one of their great enemies, Haman; Purim is the Jewish holiday that celebrates that event. His last words: “The Bolsheviks will hang you one day!” Then as the black hood was placed over his head: “Adele, my dear wife.”

At 2:20 am, Fritz Sauckel, age 51, was brought in. His last words: “I am dying innocent. The sentence is wrong. God protect Germany and make Germany great again. Long live Germany! God protect my family.”

At 2:30, in came Alfred Jodl, age 56. His last words: “My greetings to you, my Germany.”

Finally, at 2:38 am, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, age 54, entered the room. His final words: “I hope that this execution is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War, and that the lesson taken from this world war will be that peace and understanding should exist between peoples. I believe in Germany.”

All the bodies were cremated, and their ashes dumped into the Isar River.

Thus ended the Third Reich.

CHAPTER TWELVE:
AN EPILOGUE
ON ETERNAL JUSTICE

Imagine if we, the truth-seekers of the present day, could go back in time, back to 2 October 1946—the very day after the executions of the ten condemned men. Imagine if, armed with the strength of eternal justice, we were able to hunt down and detain all the leading Nuremberg prosecutors: Geoffrey Lawrence (president of the Tribunal) and Hartley Shawcross of the UK, Francis Biddle and Robert Jackson of the USA, Henri de Vabres and Francois de Menthon of France, and Iona Nikitchenko and Roman Rudenko of Russia. Alongside them, we also were able to detain their key associates: William Walsh, David Maxwell-Fyfe, Robert Storey, Walter Brudno, John Amen, and Mervyn Griffith-Jones. Fourteen men, leaders of the Tribunal, the driving forces behind Nuremberg’s unique brand of justice, all together in one room, standing there before us.

Seeking a very different sort of justice, we, the truth-seekers, might then move to interrogate them. We construct a make-shift courtroom, and place our esteemed 14 in the dock. Then our questions begin—very different questions than the ones they posed:

“Good sirs,” we might say, “we bring you together today in the interests of eternal justice. Surely you consent, given that you all were selected for, and willingly accepted, your exalted positions as dispensers of justice—indeed, as dispensers of life and death—here at Nuremberg. In the aftermath of the most momentous war in human history, you all accepted the mantles of judge and prosecutor, inquisitor and investigator, imprisoner and executioner. You then acted decisively, confidently, and with great self-assurance. Surely you all, today, are willing to answer some questions of your own, posed to you, not by victors in some war, not by power-mad or vengeful parties, but by simple seekers of the truth. We seek true justice today. Surely you consent.

“With that in mind, we have several questions for you. Surely you recall the history of Europe since 1900, do you not? Do you recall the chaos of the First World War—of the complex and tangled chain of events that led one country after another into deadly conflict? Do you not recall the deadly trench warfare, the terrible mustard gas attacks, the thousands of men left dead and dying on the battlefield? More specifically, do you recall the American entry into that war in 1917, driven there by president Woodrow Wilson and his team of Jewish advisors—men like Louis Brandeis, Stephen Wise, Louis Marshall, Henry Morgenthau Sr., Oscar Strauss, Cyrus Adler and Bernard Baruch? Do you not recall the infamous Balfour Declaration of November 1917, in which the British government promised a national homeland to the Jewish Zionists in exchange for bringing the Americans in? Were you aware, sirs, that this brief but momentous letter was a key part of what was, in the words of historian Howard Temperley, a ‘contract with Jewry’?⁴⁵

“Esteemed gentlemen! Do you then not recall the events in Germany late in the war—when Jewish insurrectionists like Rosa Luxemburg, Hugo Haase, Karl Liebknecht, Kurt Eisner, Ernst Toller and Eugen Levine agitated for, and attained, the internal collapse of Germany at a critical point in the war? And in the subsequent ‘peace process’ (though we use the words lightly) at Versailles, do you not recall that Wilson’s Jewish team was anxious to dictate terms of surrender for Germany, and to impose monstrously burdensome reparations upon them? Were you aware of the assessment of journalist Emile Dillon, who stated in 1920 that ‘henceforth the world will be governed by the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who in turn are swayed by their Jewish elements’?

“Good sirs! Do you not recall that, after the war, Weimar Jews like Paul Levi, Otto Landesberg, Eduard Bernstein, Walter Rathenau and Hugo Preuss took power in Germany? Surely you recall, do you not, the subsequent decay of German society, the moral licentiousness, the coarsening of culture, the financial ruin of hyperinflation? You remember, do you not, that it was these very conditions that caused three young men—Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart—to create the German Workers’ Party (DAP) in 1919? A party then joined a year later by Adolf Hitler, and rechristened as the National Socialist DAP, or Nazi Party?

“Panel of the wise and just! You are aware, are you not, that, as Hitler’s Germany grew in power and prestige through the 1930s, even as the capitalist world collapsed into economic depression, that even then Franklin Roosevelt and his Jewish advisors were pressing for war? And surely you knew that FDR’s rise to power was aided at every step by powerful Jews, men like Herbert Lehman, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Henry Morgenthau Jr., Bernard Baruch, Sam Rosenman and Ben Cohen? As highly-placed men in the Western powers, surely you were aware, were you not, that Polish ambassador to America, Jerzy Potocki, wrote in 1938 that ‘the pressure of the Jews on Roosevelt and on the State Department is becoming ever more powerful… The Jews are right now the leaders in creating a war psychosis which would plunge the entire world into war… ’? And similarly in the UK, you were aware, were you not, that Prime Minister Chamberlain was being constantly prodded by his Jews to enter into war with Germany—as recounted by the honorable Lord Beaverbrook in late 1938, when he wrote, ‘The Jews are after Chamberlain. He is being terribly harassed by them. … The Jews may drive us into war… ’? Messrs. Lawrence, Shawcross, Maxwell-Fyfe and Griffith-Jones! You are friends and colleagues of the good Lord Beaverbrook, are you not? Did you not know of his views? Or did you know, but not care?

“Fair-minded ones! You recall, do you not, that Chamberlain yielded to Jewish pressure in 1937 when he appointed the ‘Jewish warmonger’ Leslie Hore-Belisha to the central post of Secretary of War? You recall, do you not, the speech given by American General George Moseley in early 1939, in which he stated, ‘The war now proposed is for the purpose of establishing Jewish hegemony throughout the world’? Surely you recall the uproar on both sides of the Atlantic in mid-1939, when American Ambassador to the UK Joseph Kennedy, stated in an interview that ‘Jews were running the United States,’ and that ‘the democratic policy of the US is a Jewish production’?

“Kind sirs! You recall, do you not, the onset of war in September 1939, when Hitler’s army crossed into Poland in an attempt to resolve a centuries-old land dispute? And you must remember, do you not, how, two days later, it was your governments in the UK and France that declared war on Hitler, not vice versa? Do you not recall Hitler’s own words in Mein Kampf, from 1924, in which he explicitly stated that his territorial interests were to the East, not to the West? And yet you declared war on him? Gentlemen!—it is idle to protest that you had a treaty with Poland! The question is: Why did you have such a treaty in the first place?—with a nation, Poland, in which you had no compelling interest, and which, furthermore, you knew was likely to engage in conflict with Hitler? Were you aware of the words spoken by Kennedy to James Forrestal, in which he said ‘neither the French nor the British would have made Poland a cause of war, if it had not been for the constant needling from Washington… Chamberlain stated that America and the world Jews had forced England in the war’? If Kennedy understood this fundamental fact, how could you have failed to know it?

“Gentlemen! In your case against the Nazi leaders, you cited many statistics on Jewish fatalities, none more shocking than the ‘6 million’ allegedly killed overall; and yet, were you aware that such a figure defies even elementary analysis? Do you realize that it implies that, every day of the war, for some 2,000 straight days, the Germans must have killed, and disposed of, an average of 3,000 Jews per day? Every day, for nearly five and a half years? Can you not do elementary arithmetic? Does this seem plausible to you? If so, on what basis? Your silence condemns you, good sirs!

“Furthermore, did you know that claims of 6 million dead or suffering Jews had been made for years—nay, decades—before the war? Were you aware of these news reports, from the First World War: ‘Appeal for aid for… more than 6,000,000 Jews who live within the war zone’ (NYT, 2 Dec 1914), or ‘nearly six million Jews are ruined’ (NYT, 28 Feb 1916), or ‘6,000,000 Jews need help’ (NYT, 24 Sep 1917)? The First World War, gentlemen!

“Were you aware of these stories from the interwar period: ‘6,000,000 [Jews] are in peril’ (NYT, 8 Sep 1919), or ‘unbelievable poverty, starvation, and disease [for] about 6,000,000 souls’ (NYT, 12 Nov 1919), or ‘Russia’s 6,000,000 Jews are facing extermination by massacre’ (NYT, 20 Jul 1921), or ‘6,000,000 unwanted unfortunate Jews… 6,000,000 people without a future’ (London Times, 26 Nov 1936), or ‘five or six million Jews are facing expulsion or direst poverty’ (NYT, 26 Feb 1937), or ‘persecuted Jews seen on increase… 6,000,000 victims noted’ (NYT, 9 Jan 1938), or ‘the treatment of German Jews… the problem now involves some 6,000,000’ (Times, 22 Nov 1938), or ‘the fate of 6,000,000 [Jews] is in the balance’ (Times, 14 Feb 1939)? And this, gentlemen, all before a single shot was fired!

“Kind sirs! Did you realize that the story of the ‘6 million’ persisted into the war years? Were you aware of such reports as: ‘Six million Jews are doomed to destruction’ (NYT, 25 Jun 1940), or ‘Himmler… has uprooted approximately 6,000,000 human beings’ (NYT, 18 Jan 1942), or that Hitler intended ‘the extermination of some 6,000,000 [Jewish] persons’ (Times, 25 Jan 1943), or that a Jewish rabbi was claiming, already in May 1944, that ‘till now, six times a million Jews have been destroyed’? How is it possible, good gentlemen, that Jewish sources had been promoting ‘6 million victims’ literally for decades prior to the war, and then, at the end, they miraculously turn out to be right? Is that plausible? Is it not far more likely that the number had purely symbolic value, without any basis in fact? And if so, why did you all accept it unquestioningly? Where is your evidence? Why did you repeatedly accept Jewish figures at face value, without the slightest questioning? Gentlemen, once again, your silence condemns you!

“Indeed, esteemed panel! How did it come about that, according to your own Thomas Dodd, that your American staff was ‘about 75% Jewish’? Surely you were aware, were you not, of his concern that this entire war might come to be seen as ‘a war for the Jews’? Did this not concern you? Gentlemen, could you do no better than to construct a process that was, according to Dodd, ‘a maelstrom of incompetence’? Did you find it necessary to torture and abuse the captured Germans because they weren’t giving you the story you wanted? Or did you do it out of pure vindictiveness?

“Did you put up any resistance when Churchill and Roosevelt began to fire-bomb German civilians? Did you not know that this was a true ‘crime against humanity’? Or did you not care?

“Did you ever make an effort to truly understand Hitler’s worldview and social vision? Did you ever actually read Mein Kampf? Did you not take into account that Hitler’s speeches, like those of Roosevelt and Churchill, were intended for popular effect, and could not possibly have referred to the mass-murder of millions? Do you not grant the Germans the right to self-determination—a right accorded to virtually every nation on Earth? Who convinced you that Hitler alone, among all world leaders, was the great evil?

“Why did you not question the obvious absurdity of much of the so-called evidence presented at the trial? Why did you allow the submission of such ridiculous things as: soap made from Jewish fat; lampshades, book covers, gloves, slippers, and handbags made from Jewish skin; and shrunken heads of camp inmates? Why did you accept, at face value, such absurd testimony as: SS men skeet-shooting babies in the air; beating people with spanking machines; killing people with poisonous soft drinks; blasting 20,000 Jews with an atomic bomb; mass murder using steam and electricity; cremating human bodies without any fuel; and killing 840,000 Russians at Sachsenhausen?—all of which were formally submitted into the IMT record, without objection.⁴⁶

“Men of wisdom and compassion! Are you unconcerned that in this great war—a war which England and France launched against Germany, and in which a criminal FDR spent years goading and prodding the Japanese into an attack at Pearl Harbor, simply so that he could enter the war against Hitler—are you unconcerned that this war brought death to some 5 million German soldiers, and another 3 million innocent German civilians? Gentlemen of the Western powers! Are you unconcerned that your ill-begotten and ill-advised war brought death and suffering to your own people—to 200,000 soldiers and 400,000 civilians in France, to 380,000 soldiers and 67,000 civilians in Britain, and to over 400,000 American soldiers? Where does the blame for that lie? With Hitler, or with your own leaders, who initiated warfare?

“Mr. Griffith-Jones! In your questioning of Julius Streicher, you expressed incredulity that Hitler and the National-Socialist government might simply wish to live out from under the Jewish thumb. You could not believe Streicher’s statement that the Germans wished to drive out the Jews—since they would not leave willingly—and relocate them elsewhere in the world, far from Europe. This, despite countless identical claims by all the witnesses, none of whom would admit—even on pain of death—to a literal mass-murder scheme. You simply could not believe it. Do you recall your very words: ‘Is that all that this comes to?’ And do you not recall Herr Streicher’s reply: ‘Of course, that is the solution’? Tell us, good sir, why was this so hard for you to accept? Who convinced you that Jews have the right to dominate any nation they please? Who convinced you that nations should abrogate all rights of self-determination when it comes to expelling a ruthless and manipulative minority? Do you, perhaps, owe something to the Jews yourself? Who is paying you? Who appointed you to this role at Nuremberg? Who will reward you after completing your murderous task here?

“Finally, gentlemen: Are you aware of the verdict of history on the Jewish people? Did you know that, in the ancient world, Jews were declared ‘a plague infesting the whole world’ (Emperor Claudius); ‘an accursed race’ (Seneca); and as displaying an incorrigible ‘hatred of mankind’ (Tacitus)? Are you aware of the great German tradition of critical commentary against the Jews, including such judgments as: ‘a den of devils… a blood-thirsty and vengeful people… arrogant usurers, filled with every vice’ (Martin Luther); ‘a nation of deceivers’ (Kant); ‘a republic of cunning usurers’ (Johann Herder); a people who ‘borrow with deceit, and repay confidence with theft’ (Hegel); and ‘great masters of the lie’ (Schopenhauer)? Did you know of Voltaire’s extensive and stinging critique, in which he decried the Jews as ‘cringing in misfortune, insolent in prosperity,’ and indeed as ‘deadly to the human race’? Were you aware of American professor Edward Ross’s academic study in 1914, declaring the Jews as ‘prosperous parasites’? And did you know of the statement by the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who deemed the Jews ‘planetary master criminals’?⁴⁷ Surely such assessments by great men of history have some bearing on the trial, do they not?

“Sirs—it is time for judgment! You stand condemned by your silence, by common sense, by the facts and by elementary reason. It is clear that you all are not, in fact, ‘good sirs’; you are not wise, not far-seeing, not compassionate, not kind, not just. It is clear that you are carrying on to completion the brutal and murderous war which your nations sought, and which you conducted on behalf of your own criminal Jewish minorities. You stand condemned for many of the 50 million global deaths in this terrible conflict. And your leaders stand condemned: Churchill, Roosevelt—although he cheated justice by dying just before the end of the war—and de Gaulle and Stalin. And behind them stand condemned their ‘Jewish elements’ (as Dillon said).

“Sirs! We now pronounce our verdict: guilty as charged, guilty of crimes against humanity in the first degree. The punishment, sirs, is death—death by hanging, on the very gallows you constructed for Rosenberg, Streicher and the rest. May you then be compelled to confront them in the afterlife. Surely they will mete out further justice to your unhappy souls, in fitting measure to the crimes you have committed here.”

—or so we can imagine.

At the close of Volume One of Mein Kampf, Hitler celebrates his “first great mass meeting,” held in the Munich Hofbräuhaus on 24 February 1920. Some 2,000 people stood in rapt attention as he laid out the new 25-point program of the National-Socialist Party. At the end of his speech, recalls Hitler, “I had before me a hall full of people united by a new conviction, a new faith and a new will.” He writes, “I knew that a movement was now set afoot among the German people that would never be forgotten.” And by this process, he said, justice would be delivered to the “November criminals,” those Jewish radicals that had cost Germany the first World War. “I sensed,” writes Hitler, “that die Göttin der unerbittlichen Rache—the Goddess of Inexorable Vengeance—was now getting ready to redress the treason of 9 November 1918.” His closing words: “The movement was on the march.”

Perhaps today as well, some 80 years after “justice” at Nuremberg, truth will yet prevail. Perhaps today, once again, the Goddess of Inexorable Vengeance is on the move, preparing to aim her fury at those who perpetuate the suffering, falsehood, lies and guilt of the Second World War. Perhaps today, once again, a movement is on the march.

* * * * *

Appendices

APPENDIX A:
THE 25-POINT PROGRAM OF THE NSDAP

1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany, on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.

2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations, and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germaine be abrogated.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.

4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Therefore no Jew can be a countryman.

5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.

6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the state shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen. We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favor of the party without regard to character and ability.

7. We demand that the state shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it is not possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.

8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since 2 August 1914 shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.

9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.

10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work, mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all interest-slavery, be abolished!

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small businessmen, and that the strongest consideration be given to ensure that small businessmen shall deliver the supplies needed by the state, the provinces, and the municipalities.

17. We demand agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common good. We demand the abolition of basis rents, and the prohibition of all land speculation.

18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the detriment of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.

19. We demand that Roman law, that serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.

20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the state must assume the responsibility of thoroughly organizing the entire public cultural system. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the state idea (civics) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that exceptionally talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the state’s expense.

21. The state has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.

22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national folk army.

23. We demand that there be a legal battle against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand:

(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.

(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the state. They must not be published in the German language.

(c) All financial interests that in any way affect German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.

(d) Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand a legal battle against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our people; any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.

24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our people can only come about from the principle: Common Good before Individual Good.

25. In order to carry out this program we demand the creation of a strong central authority in the state, and the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole state and all its organizations. Also: The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the Reich, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.

Taken from Feder 1971: 38-43.

APPENDIX B:
“THE JEWISH QUESTION IN EDUCATION”
(“Die Judenfrage im Unterricht”)

by Fritz Fink (1937)

Foreword, by Julius Streicher

In every aspect of life in the German nation, the National Socialist state has brought about fundamental changes. It has also given the German teacher new tasks. The National Socialist state demands that teachers teach German children about the racial question. For the German people, the racial question is the Jewish question. One who wishes to teach the children about the Jews must himself become an expert. Teacher Fritz Fink wants to help the German teacher to gain understanding and knowledge with his pamphlet The Jewish Question in Education. He can and may do this because fate has called him to a battle that let him gain knowledge about Jewish blood and its effects on the German people. He who takes to heart what Fritz Fink has written from his heart, who has cared for many years about his people, will be thankful to the author of this little pamphlet.

* * * * *

Introduction

The racial and Jewish Question is the central problem of the National Socialist worldview. Solving this problem will ensure the survival of National Socialism and thereby the survival of our people for all time. The enormous significance of the Jewish Question is recognized today by nearly every member of the German people. This knowledge cost our people a long period of misery. To spare coming generations this misery, we want German teachers to plant the knowledge of the Jew deep in the hearts of our youth from their childhood on. No one among our people should or may grow up without learning the true depravity and danger of the Jew.

That requires that the German teacher himself master the racial and Jewish Question. Valuable work is done in educational camps and in the groups of the National Socialist Teachers’ Federation. Experience shows, however, that many teachers are not able to present and explain their knowledge of the racial and Jewish Question in a way that profits our youth for their whole lives. He who devotes an hour a week in his school to the racial and Jewish Question, making it into something of an independent subject, approaches it in an unnatural way. The knowledge of the racial and Jewish Question must grow organically from the whole curriculum of our schools. Racial science and the Jewish question must run like a red thread through education at every level. There is no subject in our schools from which valuable knowledge of the Jewish Question cannot be drawn in unexpected fullness.

This small pamphlet, The Jewish Question in Education, will explore several of these opportunities. It does not pretend to be a pedagogic text in the usual sense. It contains none of the familiar sample class sessions which have ruined the style and instincts of some teachers. The pamphlet ‘The Jewish Question in Education’ wants to show German teachers simple ways in which the Jewish Question can be incorporated naturally into the curriculum. He who has mastered the highway will himself discover a thousand side streets and find new ways himself.

German Youth and the Jew

He who addresses the theme ‘The Jewish Question in Education’ is immediately asked: “How do I get this problem across to children?” Another objects: “Is a child even interested in the question?” The expert teacher asks: “Does a child even have the necessary capacity to understand?” Even the most conscientious teacher can be assured that a child has everything necessary: the interest, the ability to understand. In an age when adults did not see or recognize the Jew, the child saw him as foreign. When the Jewish cattle dealer stepped onto the farm, the farmer’s children ran inside and hid behind the mother’s skirt. Their uncorrupted racial instincts smelled he of the foreign race, who brings danger and misery. Adults had lost this healthy racial instinct. They had forgotten how to see racially. They no longer saw he who was different. In working class districts of Nuremberg after the war, children followed Jews shouting: “Jew, Jew, hepp, hepp, hepp!” The fathers and mothers of these children were members of parties of which more than half of the leadership were Jews. A dislike of the Jews is innate in uncorrupted German youth.

Today the child encounters the name Jew everywhere: in the newspapers, in conversations, in the songs of the S.A. and the Hitlerjugend [Hitler Youth]. The disgust with which they hear this name steadily increases, as does their dislike when they meet a representative of the Jewish race. However young he may be, a child asks himself the reasons for this dislike and disgust and wants an explanation from his teacher. That provides the foundation for successful education.

But some teachers still lack the courage to address the Jewish question with enthusiasm. Nervously and shyly they avoid it. To be prepared for inspections, they briefly touch on the Jewish Question now and again. These are the teachers who have in their bones the ideas the Jews propagate of “objectivity, decency and humanity.” These are the teachers who at the behest of the churches display pity and brotherly love to the deadly enemy, even when they sense and see that their own people is being destroyed by this deadly enemy. They are the weaklings, the cowards, those German teachers ruined by foreign powers. They avoid the Jewish question in education but rather than meeting the desire of the child for education and at the same time fulfilling one of their most important tasks.

The question remains: “How do I get the Jewish Question across to a child in education?” The more naturally and directly this happens, the more lasting the effect. The best subject for doing this naturally and easily is science. We see in nature that only similar creatures live together. Similar insects like ants, wasps, bees, termites, etc., build their states. When migratory birds leave for the south in the fall, starlings fly with starlings, storks with storks, swallows with swallows. Although they are all birds, each holds strictly to its kind. A herd of chamois is never led by a deer or a herd of wild horses by a wild boar. Each kind sticks with its own, and seeks a leader of the same species. That is the way of nature.

When these facts are explained in school, the time has to come when a boy or a girl stands up and says: “If that is the way it is in nature, it has to be the same with people. But our German people once allowed itself to be led by those of foreign race, the Jews.” To older students, one can explain that a male starling mates only with a female starling. They build a nest, lay eggs, care for the chicks. Young starlings come from that nest. Like is drawn to like and produces its own kind. That is the way nature is! Only where humanity intervenes do artificial cross-breeds result, the mixed race, the bastard. People cross a horse and a donkey to produce a mule. The mule is an example of a bastard. Nature does not want it to reproduce. It denies the mule offspring. Only man sets himself over the will of nature. He approves and even demands the mixture of blacks or Orientals with white people, or Jews with Gentiles.

Each valued member of a race is racially conscious. No White who is aware of and proud of his race will mate with a Negress or a Jewess; even a racially conscious Negro will not mate with a White. Each prefers its own kind. Only an inferior member of a race inclines toward those of other races, or allows himself to be misused by them. Only inferior members of various races mix with each other, the bad mixes with the bad. It is thus clear that the bastard always gets the worst of it, that is, he unites only the bad characteristics of the races he comes from. A teacher who presents his students with such ideas will have an easy time in explaining the meaning of the Nuremberg Laws to the youth. The children will see in the Nuremberg Laws nothing other than a return to the natural, to the divine, order.

There are countless examples in the sciences that provide wonderful and easy ways to discuss the racial and Jewish Question. Here we will provide only one other example. The Munich scientist Dr. Escherich has studied the wonderful structures and colonies of termites. He summarizes his conclusions in this way:

The queen is at the center of the great pyramid of earth that the termites build. She alone lays eggs and ensures offspring. Termite workers care for her, cleaning and feeding her. Other small workers clean the passageways and carry food through the streets of the wonderful city. Larger ones with sharp pinchers, the soldiers of the termite state, provide order. They are the guardians, the defenders of the structure. As long as life in the mound follows this order and division of labor, the termite race prospers, grows, and lives.

One day foreign insects came to the termite mound. They tried to enter. Where good termite soldiers stood, there was a battle and the foreigners were driven away. But there were also places where guards had forgotten their duty. They mixed with the foreigners. They sipped an apparently tasty liquid that the foreigners exuded from their bodies. They became brothers with the foreign insects that had come to their mound.

They let the foreigners pass and enter the termite state. The termites inside took no offense at the foreign guests. They thought that if their “guard” had admitted them, they could not be enemies. Ever more guests came. One day there was great excitement in the termite mound. There was a terrible battle in every corner. The foreigners had murdered the queen. There was revolution in the termite state. Everyone murdered everyone else in a gruesome manner. A few days later the mound was dead. Everything living had been destroyed.

Students who hear the teacher tell of this amazing natural event will think deeply for a while. It would be surprising if a student then did not stand up and say: “That is the way it was with our people, in our country. The foreigners who came to us and gained entry were the Jews. At first there were a few, then more and more. After the war they came in swarms from the east. When they felt strong enough, they led a revolution. They hunted our people’s leaders. There was murder everywhere. There was no order. The Jew became lord of the country and the state.”

The teacher will help them along by expanding on the subject:

Yes, children, that is how it was. It was not long ago. The “leaders” of our people let the Jews in because they thought they could not get along without the financial and court Jews. The Jew earned the favor of the rulers by bribery. He took over one post after another in the government. He infiltrated everywhere, everywhere he had his paid lackeys. He even got so far as to win the favor of the Kaiser. When the Jew felt strong enough, he struck. Revolution came to the country. Law and order disappeared. The people’s leaders were persecuted. In Russia the Jew murdered them. Brother raised his hand against brother. In Germany everyone hated everyone else. Things grew silent in Germany, silent on the farms and in the factories. Poverty, hunger, misery were everywhere. We were collapsing. The Jew was lord over us.

Such a lesson will help the children understand why the Nuremberg Laws redefined citizenship and excluded the Jews from any influence in political and governmental life. The children must learn that the laws directed against the Jews and the struggle against him is not the result of an arbitrary whim, but an action necessary to defend our people. …

Racial Defilement

I have not yet discussed the most important and dreadful side of the Jewish Question. It especially concerns those teachers in vocational and upper-level schools who care for our female youth. It also demands steady attention and deepening from the Bund Deutscher Mädel [League of German Girls], the German Labor Front, and all the organizations outside the schools that work with our female youth. All of us parents and teachers bear the guilt that countless of our girls and women have been ruined by the Jews. We may not and do not want to judge them. Neither parents, teachers, nor clergy educated or warned them. No one introduced them to the God-given secrets and laws of blood and race. They were fed all sorts of things in school and church. Yet no one gave them the deepest knowledge that would have protected them from physical and spiritual destruction.

Thus the poison of Jewish blood entered our people’s bloodstream thousands upon thousands of times. Many decades will pass before our people eliminates it. No German teacher today can avoid the problem of “The Jew and the German woman.” It would be criminal neglect. Why should we from stupid sinful embarrassment conceal from our more mature girls in school what they can learn five minutes later in all its brutality on the street, in shops, or in offices, or what will perhaps be revealed to them the same evening in the most awful way by a criminal Jew?

The new approach to education has the goal to lead our female youth to motherhood, to womanhood. Mother and child, with all their related questions, are now more the center of education. Thank God, eugenics and a concern with healthy offspring has also entered our schoolrooms. It is easy to build the bridge from them to the Jewish Question. The Nuremberg Laws also provide a starting point. They forbid Jews to have female servants under 45 years of age. The forbid marriage between Jews and Germans. They provide lengthy prison terms for sexual relations between Jews and Germans, even if it does not lead to motherhood. Why is this?

We recall the knowledge gained earlier in the sciences. We extend it. We learn from the animal breeder. We study the ancestors of his animals. He tells us that he breeds only pairs of the same race. Only that ensures that the valuable characteristics of the various races remain intact and improve. Each animal breeder can affirm that crossing the races always results in a bastard, and that such a degenerate animal is worthless. That is clear from thousands of examples.

We then turn to people. Why should they be exempt from these laws? We use pictures as an aid: pictures of children of German-blooded parents, pictures of Jewish children, both of whose parents are full-blooded Jews, and pictures of children who are a mixture of Jew and German. We make the comparisons. We are most interested in the last group of children, those of mixed race. We look to see from which race most of the characteristics come. We see the Jew in his face, his body, his appearance and manner, his thinking, feeling and behavior. We do not need to investigate deeply. Everything about him speaks of the Jew, of discord, of degenerate blood. The person of mixed race is a lamentable creature, tossed back and forth by the blood of his two races. We establish that the bastard is a burden to a people. He weakens it. His offspring carry on the racial degeneration.

I urge each teacher to encourage the reading of Dr. Dinter’s book The Sin Against the Blood. It speaks in a stronger way to our more mature girls than the lovely sweet stuff that one still finds here and there. In schools where girls are trained to be teachers, I think that introducing the racial and Jewish Question in this way is the most important task. I know from experience how helpless, inexperienced, and ignorant some young female teachers are about this problem.

The sin against the blood passes its curse not only to the mixed-race offspring, but rather the curse also sticks to the defiled mother, never leaving her for the rest of her life. Racial defilement is racial death. Racial defilement is bloodless murder. A woman defiled by the Jew can never rid her body of the foreign poison she has absorbed. She is lost to her people. What we have learned from animal breeders is just as true here. Our ancestors knew this. We forgot it. Only one guarded it through the millennia as a valuable treasure: the Jew!

Once again we review the familiar history of the Jewish people. At a time during the Babylonian Captivity when the Jews took Gentile wives and Jewish blood threatened to decay and decline, Ezra entered the scene. The savior of the Jews. He gave the people that law of blood to which Jewry today owes its existence. He forbade marriage with non-Jewesses. He forced the Jews to drive their Gentile wives into the wilderness. Ezra’s laws are holy to the Jews to this day.

The Jew thus recognizes the significance of keeping blood pure. But he persuades other people of the opposite. He preaches racial mixing to other peoples, bastardization. “Why does he do this?” the girls will ask. Because he sees in racial mixing the surest way to break the life force of the nations, to drive them into the depth of destruction. His goal is to contribute to this process of bastardization wherever he is able. The defilement and deracination of Gentile women by the Jews is not the result of a blood-driven Jewish sexual drive. It is far more the result of devilish planning and calculation.

This gives us once again the opportunity to speak to our female youth of the Talmud and to discover that the Talmud not only permits the defilement of Gentile women, it makes it a duty. Once again we encounter the great Jewish hatred, the great Jewish desire for annihilation, when we read what the Talmud says about Gentile women:

– “The Jew may misuse Gentile women.” (Maimonides: Jab chasaka 2,2.)

– “All Gentile women are whores.” (Eben haezar 6,8.)

– “A Gentile girl who is three years and a day old may be defiled.” (Abodah sarah 37a.)

– “A man (Jew) may do everything with a woman that he is able to do. He may treat her like a piece of meat that comes from the butcher. He may eat it raw, grilled, cooked, or smoked.” (Nedarine 20b.)

– “It is forbidden for Jews to commit adultery with the wife of a Jew. Adultery with the wife of a Gentile is permitted.” (Sanhedrin 52b.)

A teacher who has not slept through the past few years will find it easy to give his girls insight into the terrible destructive work the Jew has done to German women. He will speak of the tragedies that have occurred in Jewish homes, offices, department stores, in the offices of Jewish doctors and attorneys. He who has heard nothing of this may read Der Stürmer and follow the battle it wages against Jewish racial defilers. Things had gone so far that the Jew Kurt Münzer could say: “We have ruined the blood of all the races of Europe, defiled them, broken their strength, made everything tired, lazy, and rotten with our corrupt culture.” (The Way to Zion, 1910).

And the Jewess Anselma Heine boasted: “Suddenly I saw in him the typical ancient train of suffering of his race. It was his pleasure to have power over women, and nothing gave him greater joy than to boast of the brutal force with which he ruled his women of the blond nobility.” (Anselma Heine on the poet Ludwig Jakobowski, “Lit. Echo” 3, 1912).

Girls educated in such a way will never become victims of the Jew. They are safe from the devils of this world. They will slap the Jewish seducer in the face if he dares to approach them. Now they understand the Nuremberg Laws. Their hearts are filled with passionate thanks that the National Socialist movement protects the German woman from shame and defilement. They will pass on to their children what we have given them. Thus the blessings of our labors will endure in the coming generations.

Translation with minor edits taken from
https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/fink.htm

APPENDIX C:
ADOLF HITLER’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

WILL

As I did not consider that I could take responsibility, during the years of struggle, of contracting a marriage, I have now decided, before the closing of my earthly career, to take as my wife that girl who, after many years of faithful friendship, entered, of her own free will, the practically besieged town in order to share her destiny with me. At her own desire, she goes as my wife with me into death. It will compensate us for what we both lost through my work in the service of my people.

What I possess belongs—in so far as it has any value—to the Party. Should this no longer exist, to the State, should the State also be destroyed, no further decision of mine is necessary.

My pictures, in the collections which I have bought in the course of years, have never been collected for private purposes, but only for the extension of a gallery in my home town of Linz a.d. Donau. It is my most sincere wish that this bequest may be duly executed.

I nominate as my Executor my most faithful Party comrade, Martin Bormann. He is given full legal authority to make all decisions. He is permitted to take out everything that has a sentimental value or is necessary for the maintenance of a modest simple life, for my brothers and sisters, also above all for the mother of my wife and my faithful coworkers who are well known to him, principally my old Secretaries Frau Winter etc., who have for many years aided me by their work.

I myself and my wife—in order to escape the disgrace of deposition or capitulation—choose death. It is our wish to be burnt immediately on the spot where I have carried out the greatest part of my daily work in the course of a twelve years’ service to my people.

Given in Berlin, 29 April 1945, 4:00 A.M.

POLITICAL TESTAMENT

More than 30 years have now passed since I, in 1914, made my modest contribution as a volunteer in the first World War that was forced upon the Reich.

In these three decades, I have been actuated solely by love and loyalty to my people in all my thoughts, acts and life. They gave me the strength to make the most difficult decisions which have ever confronted mortal man. I have spent my time, my working strength and my health in these three decades.

It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish descent or worked for Jewish interests. I have made too many offers for the control and limitation of armaments, which posterity will not for all time be able to disregard for the responsibility for the outbreak of this war to be laid on me. I have further never wished that after the first fatal world war a second against England, or even against America, should break out. Centuries will pass away, but out of the ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible whom we have to thank for everything, international Jewry and its helpers, will grow.

Three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war, I again proposed to the British ambassador in Berlin a solution to the German-Polish problem—similar to that in the case of the Saar district, under international control. This offer also cannot be denied. It was only rejected because the leading circles in English politics wanted the war, partly on account of the business hoped for and partly under influence of propaganda organized by international Jewry.

I have also made it quite plain that, if the nations of Europe are again to be regarded as mere shares to be bought and sold by these international conspirators in money and finance, then that race, Jewry, which is the real criminal of this murderous struggle, will be saddled with the responsibility. I further left no one in doubt that this time not only would millions of children of Europe’s Aryan peoples die of hunger, not only would millions of grown men suffer death, and not only hundreds of thousands of women and children be burnt and bombed to death in the towns, without the real criminal having to atone for this guilt, even if by more humane means.

After six years of war, which in spite of all setbacks will go down one day in history as the most glorious and valiant demonstration of a nation’s life purpose, I cannot forsake the city which is the capital of this Empire. As the forces are too small to make any further stand against the enemy attack at this place, and our resistance is gradually being weakened by men who are as deluded as they are lacking in initiative, I should like, by remaining in this town, to share my fate with those, the millions of others, who have also taken upon themselves to do so. Moreover, I do not wish to fall into the hands of an enemy who requires a new spectacle organized by the Jews for the amusement of their hysterical masses.

I have decided therefore to remain in Berlin and there of my own free will to choose death at the moment when I believe the position of the Führer and Chancellor itself can no longer be held.

I die with a happy heart, aware of the immeasurable deeds and achievements of our soldiers at the front, our women at home, the achievements of our farmers and workers and the work, unique in history, of our youth who bear my name.

That from the bottom of my heart I express my thanks to you all, is just as self-evident as my wish that you should, because of that, on no account give up the struggle but rather continue it against the enemies of the Fatherland, no matter where, true to the creed of a great Clausewitz. From the sacrifice of our soldiers and from my own unity with them unto death, will in any case spring up in the history of Germany, the seed of a radiant renaissance of the National-Socialist movement and thus of the realization of a true community of nations.

Many of the most courageous men and women have decided to unite their lives with mine until the very last I have begged and finally ordered them not to do this, but to take part in the further battle of the Nation. I beg the heads of the Armies, the Navy, and the Air Force to strengthen by all possible means the spirit of resistance of our soldiers in the National-Socialist sense, with special reference to the fact that also I myself, as founder and creator of this movement, have preferred death to cowardly abdication or even capitulation.

May it, at some future time, become part of the code of honor of the German officer—as is already the case in our Navy—that the surrender of a district or of a town is impossible, and that above all the leaders here must march ahead as shining examples, faithfully fulfilling their duty unto death.

Second Part of the Political Testament

Before my death I expel the former Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring from the party and deprive him of all rights which he may enjoy by virtue of the decree of June 29th, 1941; and also by virtue of my statement in the Reichstag on September 1st, 1939, I appoint in his place Grossadmiral Dönitz, President of the Reich and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

Before my death I expel the former Reichsführer-SS and Minister of the Interior, Heinrich Himmler, from the party and from all offices of State. In his stead, I appoint Gauleiter Karl Hanke as Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police, and Gauleiter Paul Giesler as Reich Minister of the Interior.

Göring and Himmler, quite apart from their disloyalty to my person, have done immeasurable harm to the country and the whole nation by secret negotiations with the enemy, which they conducted without my knowledge and against my wishes, and by illegally attempting to seize power in the State for themselves.

In order to give the German people a government composed of honorable men—a government which will fulfill its pledge to continue the war by every means—I appoint the following members of the new Cabinet as leaders of the nation:

President of the Reich: DÖNITZ

Chancellor of the Reich: DR. GOEBBELS

Party Minister: BORMANN

Foreign Minister: SEYSS-INQUART [… ]

Although a number of these men, such as Martin Bormann, Dr. Goebbels, etc., together with their wives, have joined me of their own free will and did not wish to leave the capital of the Reich under any circumstances, but were willing to perish with me here, I must nevertheless ask them to obey my request, and in this case set the interests of the nation above their own feelings. By their work and loyalty as comrades, they will be just as close to me after death, as I hope that my spirit will linger among them and always go with them. Let them be hard, but never unjust, above all let them never allow fear to influence their actions, and set the honor of the nation above everything in the world.

Finally, let them be conscious of the fact that our task, that of continuing the building of a National Socialist State, represents the work of the coming centuries, which places every single person under an obligation always to serve the common interest and to subordinate his own advantage to this end. I demand of all Germans, all National-Socialists, men, women and all the men of the Armed Forces, that they be faithful and obedient unto death to the new government and its President.

Above all I charge the leaders of the nation and those under them to scrupulous observance of the laws of race and to merciless opposition to the universal poisoner of all peoples, international Jewry.

Given in Berlin, this 29th day of April 1945. 4:00 A.M.

Bibliography

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Index

Page numbers of entries in footnotes are rendered in italics. Page numbers refer to the printed edition.

— A —

Adler, Cyrus: 284

Agranov, Yakov: 179

Alderman, Sidney: 16

Alvarez, Santiago: 44, 45

Amchan, Morris: 16

Amen, John: 108-114, 283

Andreas Oxner: 196

Apollonius Molon: 97

Arco-Valley, Anton: 73

Auschwitz: 16, 20, 25, 26, 41, 50, 52, 88, 97, 101-116, 142, 229, 259-262, 274

Auschwitz Trial: 14, 16, 88, 101

Ausrottung: 82, 85-89, 212, 216, 217, 223, 226

— B —

Bach-Zelewski, Erich von dem: 255

Bad Nenndorf: 19, 20

Balfour Declaration: 190, 191, 284

Baruch, Bernard: 284, 285

Bauer, Fritz: 16

Beaverbrook, William Maxwell Aitken, Lord: 285

Becker, August: 45, 46

Belsen Trial: 14

Belzec Camp: 25, 41, 50, 112, 227

Berman, Boris: 179

Bernays, Murray: 16

Berneis, Professor: 182

Bernstein, Eduard: 284

Berstedt, Walter Samuel, Lord: 252

Biddle, Francis: 16, 283

Birkenau Camp: 52, 102-105, 114

Birnbaum, Henry: 16

blood libel: 37, 130, 134

Bormann, Martin: 12, 14, 63, 186, 197, 240, 276-278, 305, 308

Brandeis, Louis: 284, 285

Bräutigam, Josef: 91, 95

Brudno, Walter: 16, 59, 62, 65-68, 283

Buber, Martin: 78, 79

Burckhardt, Carl Jacob: 73

— C —

Carlyle, Thomas: 73

Chamberlain, Neville: 285, 286

Chelmno Camp: 112

Chelmno Trial: 14

Christianity: 62, 63, 172, 195, 295

Christopher of La Guardia: 196

Churchill, Winston: 12, 82, 86, 234, 235, 236, 287, 289

Clauberg, Carl: 108

Claudius, Roman emperor: 289

Clausewitz, Carl von: 22, 307

Cobain, Ian: 19, 20

Cohen, Ben: 285

Côté, Luc: 23

Czar Nicholas II: 132, 133

Czech, Danuta: 110, 116

— D —

Dachau Camp: 101, 108, 109, 142, 191-193, 260

Dachau Trial: 14

Dalton, Thomas: 17, 27, 47, 54, 73, 97, 177, 192, 284, 289

Der Giftpilz: see Poisonous Mushroom, The

Dickens, Charles: 73

Dillon, Emile: 284, 289

Dodd, Thomas J.: 16, 17, 22, 50, 71, 76, 86-96, 251, 287

Dönitz, Karl: 14, 277, 308

Drexler, Anton: 73, 74, 284

Duquesne, Madame: 158

— E —

Eckart, Dietrich: 74, 284

Eden, Anthony: 12

Eichmann, Adolf: 53, 54, 102, 104, 107, 109, 115, 189, 258, 261

Einsatzgruppen: 13, 24, 47, 255, 258, 272, 275

Einsatzkommandos: 111, 251, 258

Eisner, Kurt: 73, 158, 284

Emerson, Ralph Waldo: 73

Epstein, Hedy: 16

— F —

Feder, Gottfried: 74, 284, 295

Ferencz, Benjamin: 16

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb: 73

Fink, Fritz: 145, 146, 296

Forrestal, James: 286

Frank, Hans: 14, 20, 39, 40, 52, 55, 255, 273-278

Frankenberg, Max: 16

Frankfurter, David: 129, 149, 183

Frankfurter, Felix: 285

Frauenschaft: 238

Frick, Wilhelm: 14, 273, 274, 277, 278

Fritzsche, Hans: 14, 276, 277

Fry, Helen: 20

Funk, Walther: 14, 251, 265, 274, 277

— G —

Gabriel of Bialystok: 134, 196

gas vans: 44, 45, 47

Gaulle, Charles de: 289

Gestapo: 53, 54, 109, 110, 114, 115, 177, 188, 240, 258, 274, 276

Gilbert, Gustav: 16

Gisevius, Hans: 161

Glasman, Esther: 16

Glücks, Richard: 103

Goebbels, Joseph: 11, 12, 125, 129, 165, 174, 183, 185, 191, 234, 239, 240, 249, 308

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: 73

Goetz, Cecilia: 16

Goldensohn, Leon: 16

Goloshchekin, Filipp: 133, 179

Goodman, Ralph: 16

Göring, Hermann: 12, 14, 59, 71, 140, 163, 187, 198, 251, 257, 265, 270, 271, 274, 277, 278, 308

Graebe, Herman Friedrich: 259

Graetz, Heinrich: 175

Grant, Madison: 77

Griffith-Jones, Mervyn: 16, 121, 122, 135, 140, 141, 145, 146, 198-203, 207-238, 283, 285, 288

Gruenspan, Hershel: 183

Gustloff, Wilhelm: 129, 149, 183

— H —

Haase, Hugo: 72, 284

Haensel, Carl: 71, 84

Harbor, Pearl: 288

Harold of Gloucester: 196

Hegel, Georg W.F.: 289

Heidegger, Martin: 289

Heine, Anselma: 304

Herder, Johann Gottfried: 73, 289

Hess, Rudolf: 14, 159, 167, 186, 277

Heydrich, Reinhardt: 41, 81, 82, 94, 110, 189, 240, 251, 258, 270

Hiemer, Ernst: 37, 147, 193, 214, 221, 222

Hilsner, Leopold: 131, 134

Himmler, Heinrich: 12, 34, 35, 43, 54, 55, 82, 89, 103, 107, 115, 150, 151, 178, 186, 188, 189, 240, 241, 249, 258, 270, 273, 276, 286, 308

Hindenburg, airship: 129

Hindenburg, Paul von: 164

Hitler, Adolf: 11-15, 24-26, 36, 40, 60, 62, 68, 73-76, 79, 80, 83-89, 121, 122, 124, 133, 143, 144, 149, 150, 159, 160-165, 173, 176-180, 187, 191, 198, 212, 220, 223-226, 231, 234, 237, 238, 248-252, 257, 261, 264-275, 278, 284-288, 290, 298

Holocaust revisionism: 24, 25, 27

Holz, Karl: 136, 139-141, 194, 212, 214

Homer: 77

Hore-Belisha, Leslie: 285

Höss, Rudolf: 20, 28, 88, 89, 96, 97, 259, see Chapter 5

Höttl, Wilhelm: 53, 54

Howe, Stephen: 20

Hruza, Agnes: 131, 134

Hugh of Lincoln: 196

Hummel, Herbert: 42

— I —

Israelitisches Wochenblatt: 190, 215-221, 225-234, 269

— J —

Jackson, Robert: 16, 22, 39, 161, 173, 179, 196, 252, 283

Jakobowski, Ludwig: 304

Jesus Christ: 37, 125, 143, 147, 172

Jockusch, Laura: 17

Jodl, Alfred: 14, 59, 277, 279

Jogiches, Leo: 72

— K —

Kaganovich, Lazar: 179

Kaiser Wilhelm I: 75

Kaiser Wilhelm II: 35, 300

Kalinin, Mikhail: 179

Kaltenbrunner, Ernst: 14, 59, 110, 111, 115, 151, 178, 251, 272-278

Kandel, Moriz: 16

Kant, Immanuel: 73, 289

Kaplan, Benjamin: 16, 17

Kaplan, William: 16, 17

Kapparot: 133

Kauffmann, Kurt: 101-108, 115-117, 222, 230, 232

Kaufman, Mary: 16, 222

Keitel, Wilhelm: 15, 59, 265, 277, 278

Kempner, Robert: 16

Kennedy, Joseph: 285, 286

Kitchener, Horatio Herbert, Lord: 77

Klimatis, Algirdas: 44

Koch, Erich: 94, 267

Kosmanowski, Salomon: 158

Kristallnacht: 38, 137, 167, 182, 183

Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Gustav: 13, 15, 277

Kube, Wilhelm: 92, 94

— L —

Landesberg, Otto: 284

Landsberg prison: 159, 164, 179, 198

Lang, Cosmo Gordon: 134

Lapouge, Georges Vacher de: 77

Lauterpacht, Hersh: 16

Laval, Pierre: 271

Lawrence, Geoffrey: 16, 53, 54, 283, 285

Lebensraum: 62-65, 68, 199, 200

Lehman, Herbert: 285

Leibbrandt, Georg: 90, 95

Lemkin, Raphael: 16

Levi, Paul: 284

Levine, Eugen: 73, 284

Levy, Richard S.: 137

Lewinson, Alfred: 16

Ley, Robert: 15, 239, 240, 277

Liebknecht, Karl: 72, 284

Litvinov, Maxim: 179

Lohse, Hinrich: 90, 92, 94

London Cage: 19

Ludwig, Emil (Kohn): 224

Luther, Martin: 75, 172, 173, 193, 289

Luxemburg, Rosa: 72, 284

— M —

Madagascar: 26, 191

Maisky, Ivan: 179

Majdanek Camp: 25, 112, 190

Majdanek Trial: 14

Marcus, David: 16

Marshall, Louis: 284

Marx, Hanns: 135, 139, 140, 145, 146, 155-157, 160-167, 171-198, 214, 238-243

Mason, Alpheus T.: 20

master-race: 77

Mattogno, Carlo: 111, 113

Mauthausen Camp: 14, 108, 251

Maxwell-Fyfe, David: 16, 17, 65, 283, 285

Mein Kampf: 36, 74, 122, 159, 178, 179, 198, 199, 285, 287, 290

Mekhlis, Lev: 179

Mendes-Flohr, Paul: 137

Mengele, Josef: 108

Menthon, François de: 16, 283

Meyer, Alfred: 81, 94

Mildner, Rudolf: 114

Minden: 19, 20

Minskoff, Emanuel: 16

Molotov, Vyacheslav: 179

Mommsen, Theodor: 73

Morgenthau Jr., Henry: 285

Morgenthau Sr., Henry: 284

Moscow Declarations: 13

Moseley, George: 285

Müller, Heinrich: 110, 115

Munich: 35, 62, 72-74, 79, 121, 133, 134, 155, 159, 161-165, 174, 182, 188, 191, 242, 264, 267, 290, 299

— N —

Neurath, Baron Konstantin von: 15, 277

Neurath, Otto: 73

Newman, Randolph: 16, 17

Nikitchenko, Iona: 16, 283

— O —

Obernitz, Hanns Günther von: 182-184

Ohlendorf, Otto: 189, 255

Ossietzki, Karl von: 67

— P —

Pan-Juda(h): 128, 208

Papen, Franz von: 15, 277

Parvus, Alexander: 73

Pleikershof: 188, 241, 242

Pohl, Oswald: 13, 20, 111

Poisonous Mushroom, The: 37, 147, 193, 214

Potocki, Jerzy: 285

Preuss, Hugo: 284

Purim: 37, 278

— Q —

Quisling, Vidkun: 265

— R —

Radek, Karl: 73, 179

Raeder, Erich: 15, 252, 265, 277

Ramler, Siegfried: 16

Ranke, Leopold von: 73

Raphael, Elvira: 16

Rath, Ernst vom: 183, 184

Rathenau, Walter: 284

Rauff, Walter: 45

Reydams, Luc: 12, 22

Ribbentrop, Joachim von: 15, 59, 265, 271, 272, 277, 278

ritual murder: see blood libel

Robert of Bury: 196

Roosevelt, Franklin D.: 16, 234, 285-289

Rosenberg, Alfred: 15, 20, 27, 28, 38-43, 47, 185, 234, 247, 249, 264-267, 277, 278, 289, see Chapters 3 & 4

Rosenman, Samuel: 16, 285

Ross, Edward: 289

Rublee, George: 252

Rudenko, Roman: 16, 97, 262, 283

Rudolf, Germar: 19, 20, 27, 28, 88, 101, 159, 288

— S —

Sachsenhausen Camp: 101, 109, 288

Sauckel, Fritz: 15, 273, 277, 279

Schacht, Hjalmar: 15, 252, 277

Schirach, Baldur von: 15, 150, 186, 275, 277

Schlieffen, Alfred von: 73

Schönerer, Georg Ritter von: 75

Schopenhauer, Arthur: 73, 289

Schramm, Hellmut: 130

Schultze-Naumburg, Paul: 75

Schumann, Horst: 108

Seneca: 289

Seyss-Inquart, Arthur: 15, 277, 279

Shawcross, Hartley: 16, 262, 283, 285

shrunken heads: 262, 287

Siberia: 26, 191

Simon of Trent: 134, 135, 196

soap: 261, 262, 287

Sobibor Camp: 25, 50, 112

Sonnenfeldt, Richard: 16

Speer, Albert: 15, 277

Stahlecker, Franz Walter: 43

Stalin, Joseph: 179, 289

Stöcker, Adolf: 75

Stone, Harlan Fiske: 20

Storey, Robert: 283

Strauch, Eduard: 92

Strauss, Oscar: 284

Streicher, Adele: 238-243, 279

Streicher, Julius: 15, 20, 27-29, 37-40, 68, 97, 249, 267-270, 277, 278, 288, 289, 296, see Chapters 6 through 9

Stroop, Jürgen: 151, 258, 259

Süssheim, Max: 197

— T —

Tacitus: 289

Taft, Robert A.: 21, 22

Talmud: 37, 38, 175, 303

Taylor, Telford: 16, 17

Temperley, Howard: 284

Teofiti, rabbi: 37

Thoma, Alfred: 71-81, 91

Toaff, Ariel: 37, 130, 196

Toller, Ernst: 284

Townsend, Gregory: 16

Treblinka Camp: 25, 50-52, 111-113, 190, 259, 260

Treitschke, Heinrich von: 73, 137

Trilisser, Mikhail: 179

Trotsky, Leon: 179

Trühess, SS-Hauptsturmführer: 47

— U —

Uhde: 182

— V —

Vabres, Henri de: 16, 283

Vernichtung: 40, 82, 85, 89, 212, 216

Versailles Treaty: 65, 161, 162, 284, 293

Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet: 289

— W —

Wallace, Edgar: 128

Walsh, William: 16, 33, 36, 38, 40, 43, 45, 48-55, 283

Wartenberg, Hannah: 16

Weckert, Ingrid: 45

Wennerstrum, Charles: 21

Werner of Oberwesel: 134, 196

Wheeler-Bennett, John: 16

William of Norwich: 196

Wilson, Woodrow: 284

Winterton, Edward Turnour, Lord: 252

Wise, Stephen: 284

Wolzek: 111, 112

Wouters, Jan: 12, 22

— Y —

Yad Vashem: 262

Yurovsky, Yakov: 133

— Z —

Zenner, Carl: 92

Zyklon B: 25, 106, 112, 177, 262

Holocaust Handbooks

This ambitious, growing series addresses various aspects of the “Holocaust” of the WWII era. Most of them are based on decades of research from archives all over the world. They are heavily referenced. In contrast to most other works on this issue, the tomes of this series approach its topic with profound academic scrutiny and a critical attitude. Any Holocaust researcher ignoring this series will remain oblivious to some of the most important research in the field. These books are designed to both convince the common reader as well as academics. The following books have appeared so far, or are about to be released. Compare hardcopy and eBook prices at www.findbookprices.com.

Pictured above are all of the scientific studies that comprise the series Holocaust Handbooks published thus far or in preparation. More volumes and new editions are constantly in the works.

ISSN 1529-7748 ∙ All books are 6”×9” paperbacks unless otherwise stated. Discounts are available for the whole set.

Section One: General Overviews of the Holocaust

The First Holocaust. The Surprising Origin of the Six-Million Figure. By Don Heddesheimer. This compact but substantive study documents propaganda spread prior to, during and after the FIRST World War that claimed East European Jewry was on the brink of annihilation. The magic number of suffering and dying Jews was 6 million back then as well. The book details how these Jewish fundraising operations in America raised vast sums in the name of feeding suffering Polish and Russian Jews but actually funneled much of the money to Zionist and Communist groups. 5th edition, 198 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#6)

Lectures on the Holocaust. Controversial Issues Cross Examined. By Germar Rudolf. Between 1992 and 2005 German scholar Germar Rudolf lectured to various audiences about the Holocaust in the light of new findings. Rudolf’s sometimes astounding facts and arguments fell on fertile soil among his listeners, as they were presented in a very sensitive and scholarly way. This book is the literary version of Rudolf’s lectures, enriched with the most recent findings of historiography. Rudolf introduces the most important arguments for his findings, and his audience reacts with supportive, skeptical and also hostile questions. We believe this book is the best introduction into this taboo topic. Third edition, 590 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#15)

Breaking the Spell. The Holocaust, Myth & Reality. By Nicholas Kollerstrom. In 1941, British Intelligence analysts cracked the German “Enigma” code. Hence, in 1942 and 1943, encrypted radio communications between German concentration camps and the Berlin headquarters were decrypted. The intercepted data refutes, the orthodox “Holocaust” narrative. It reveals that the Germans were desperate to reduce the death rate in their labor camps, which was caused by catastrophic typhus epidemics. Dr. Kollerstrom, a science historian, has taken these intercepts and a wide array of mostly unchallenged corroborating evidence to show that “witness statements” supporting the human gas chamber narrative clearly clash with the available scientific data. Kollerstrom concludes that the history of the Nazi “Holocaust” has been written by the victors with ulterior motives. It is distorted, exaggerated and largely wrong. With a foreword by Prof. Dr. James Fetzer. 5th edition, 271 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#31)

Debating the Holocaust. A New Look at Both Sides. By Thomas Dalton. Mainstream historians insist that there cannot be, may not be a debate about the Holocaust. But ignoring it does not make this controversy go away. Traditional scholars admit that there was neither a budget, a plan, nor an order for the Holocaust; that the key camps have all but vanished, and so have any human remains; that material and unequivocal documentary evidence is absent; and that there are serious problems with survivor testimonies. Dalton juxtaposes the traditional Holocaust narrative with revisionist challenges and then analyzes the mainstream’s responses to them. He reveals the weaknesses of both sides, while declaring revisionism the winner of the current state of the debate. 4th, revised and expanded edition, 341 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#32)

The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. The Case against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry. By Arthur R. Butz. The first writer to analyze the entire Holocaust complex in a precise scientific manner. This book exhibits the overwhelming force of arguments accumulated by the mid-1970s. It continues to be a major historical reference work, frequently cited by prominent personalities. This edition has numerous supplements with new information gathered over the last 35 years. Fourth edition, 524 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#7)

Dissecting the Holocaust. The Growing Critique of ‘Truth’ and ‘Memory.’ Edited by Germar Rudolf. Dissecting the Holocaust applies state-of-the-art scientific technique and classic methods of detection to investigate the alleged murder of millions of Jews by Germans during World War II. In 22 contributions—each of some 30 pages—the 17 authors dissect generally accepted paradigms of the “Holocaust.” It reads as exciting as a crime novel: so many lies, forgeries and deceptions by politicians, historians and scientists are proven. This is the intellectual adventure of the 21st century. Be part of it! Third revised edition. Ca. 630 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#1)

The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry. By Walter N. Sanning. Six Million Jews died in the Holocaust. Sanning did not take that number at face value, but thoroughly explored European population developments and shifts mainly caused by emigration as well as deportations and evacuations conducted by both Nazis and the Soviets, among other things. The book is based mainly on Jewish, Zionist and mainstream sources. It concludes that a sizeable share of the Jews found missing during local censuses after the Second World War, which were so far counted as “Holocaust victims,” had either emigrated (mainly to Israel or the U.S.) or had been deported by Stalin to Siberian labor camps. 2nd, corrected edition, foreword by A.R. Butz, epilogue by Germar Rudolf containing important updates; 224 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography (#29).

Air-Photo Evidence: World War Two Photos of Alleged Mass Murder Sites Analyzed. By Germar Rudolf (ed.). During World War Two both German and Allied reconnaissance aircraft took countless air photos of places of tactical and strategic interest in Europe. These photos are prime evidence for the investigation of the Holocaust. Air photos of locations like Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Babi Yar etc. permit an insight into what did or did not happen there. This book is full of air photo reproductions and schematic drawings explaining them. According to the author, these images refute many of the atrocity claims made by witnesses in connection with events in the German sphere of influence. 6th revised and expanded edition, with a contribution by Carlo Mattogno. 167 pages, 8.5”×11”, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index (#27).

The Leuchter Reports: Critical Edition. By Fred Leuchter, Robert Faurisson and Germar Rudolf. Between 1988 and 1991, U.S. expert on execution technologies Fred Leuchter wrote four detailed reports addressing whether the Third Reich operated homicidal gas chambers. The first report on Auschwitz and Majdanek became world famous. Based on chemical analyses and various technical arguments, Leuchter concluded that the locations investigated “could not have then been, or now be, utilized or seriously considered to function as execution gas chambers.” 4th edition, 252 pages, b&w illustrations. (#16)

The Giant with Feet of Clay: Raul Hilberg and His Standard Work on the “Holocaust.” By Jürgen Graf. Raul Hilberg’s major work The Destruction of European Jewry is an orthodox standard work on the Holocaust. But what evidence does Hilberg provide to back his thesis that there was a German plan to exterminate Jews, carried out mainly in gas chambers? Jürgen Graf applies the methods of critical analysis to Hilberg’s evidence and examines the results in light of modern historiography. The results of Graf’s critical analysis are devastating for Hilberg. 2nd, corrected edition, 139 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#3)

Jewish Emigration from the Third Reich. By Ingrid Weckert. Current historical writings about the Third Reich claim state it was difficult for Jews to flee from Nazi persecution. The truth is that Jewish emigration was welcomed by the German authorities. Emigration was not some kind of wild flight, but rather a lawfully determined and regulated matter. Weckert’s booklet elucidates the emigration process in law and policy. She shows that German and Jewish authorities worked closely together. Jews interested in emigrating received detailed advice and offers of help from both sides. 2nd ed., 130 pages, index. (#12)

Inside the Gas Chambers: The Extermination of Mainstream Holocaust Historiography. By Carlo Mattogno. Neither increased media propaganda or political pressure nor judicial persecution can stifle revisionism. Hence, in early 2011, the Holocaust Orthodoxy published a 400 pp. book (in German) claiming to refute “revisionist propaganda,” trying again to prove “once and for all” that there were homicidal gas chambers at the camps of Dachau, Natzweiler, Sachsenhausen, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück, Neuengamme, Stutthof… you name them. Mattogno shows with his detailed analysis of this work of propaganda that mainstream Holocaust hagiography is beating around the bush rather than addressing revisionist research results. He exposes their myths, distortions and lies. 2nd edition, 280 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#25)

Section Two: Specific non-Auschwitz Studies

Treblinka: Extermination Camp or Transit Camp? By Carlo Mattogno and Jürgen Graf. It is alleged that at Treblinka in East Poland between 700,000 and 3,000,000 persons were murdered in 1942 and 1943. The weapons used were said to have been stationary and/or mobile gas chambers, fast-acting or slow-acting poison gas, unslaked lime, superheated steam, electricity, diesel exhaust fumes etc. Holocaust historians alleged that bodies were piled as high as multi-storied buildings and burned without a trace, using little or no fuel at all. Graf and Mattogno have now analyzed the origins, logic and technical feasibility of the official version of Treblinka. On the basis of numerous documents they reveal Treblinka’s true identity as a mere transit camp. 3rd edition, 384 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#8)

Belzec in Propaganda, Testimonies, Archeological Research and History. By Carlo Mattogno. Witnesses report that between 600,000 and 3 million Jews were murdered in the Belzec camp, located in Poland. Various murder weapons are claimed to have been used: diesel gas; unslaked lime in trains; high voltage; vacuum chambers; etc. The corpses were incinerated on huge pyres without leaving a trace. For those who know the stories about Treblinka this sounds familiar. Thus the author has restricted this study to the aspects which are new compared to Treblinka. In contrast to Treblinka, forensic drillings and excavations were performed at Belzec, the results of which are critically reviewed. 142 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#9)

Sobibor: Holocaust Propaganda and Reality. By Jürgen Graf, Thomas Kues and Carlo Mattogno. Between 25,000 and 2 million Jews are said to have been killed in gas chambers in the Sobibór camp in Poland. The corpses were allegedly buried in mass graves and later incinerated on pyres. This book investigates these claims and shows that they are based on the selective use of contradictory eyewitness testimony. Archeological surveys of the camp are analyzed that started in 2000-2001 and carried on until 2018. The book also documents the general National Socialist policy toward Jews, which never included a genocidal “final solution.” Second updated edition, 456 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#19)

The “Extermination Camps” of “Aktion Reinhardt”. By Jürgen Graf, Thomas Kues and Carlo Mattogno. In late 2011, several members of the exterminationist Holocaust Controversies blog published a study which claims to refute three of our authors’ monographs on the camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka (see previous three entries). This tome is their point-by-point response, which makes “mincemeat” out of the bloggers’ attempt at refutation. It requires familiarity with the above-mentioned books and constitutes a comprehensive update and expansion of their themes. 2nd edition, two volumes, total of 1396 pages, illustrations, bibliography. (#28)

Chelmno: A Camp in History & Propaganda. By Carlo Mattogno. At Chelmno, huge masses of Jewish prisoners are said to have been gassed in “gas vans” or shot (claims vary from 10,000 to 1.3 million victims). This study covers the subject from every angle, undermining the orthodox claims about the camp with an overwhelmingly effective body of evidence. Eyewitness statements, gas wagons as extermination weapons, forensics reports and excavations, German documents—all come under Mattogno’s scrutiny. Here are the uncensored facts about Chelmno, not the propaganda. 2nd ed., 188 pages, indexed, illustrated, bibliography. (#23)

The Gas Vans: A Critical Investigation. (A perfect companion to the Chelmno book.) By Santiago Alvarez and Pierre Marais. It is alleged that the Nazis used mobile gas chambers to exterminate 700,000 people. Up until 2011, no thorough monograph had appeared on the topic. Santiago Alvarez has remedied the situation. Are witness statements reliable? Are documents genuine? Where are the murder weapons? Could they have operated as claimed? Where are the corpses? Alvarez has scrutinized all known wartime documents, photos and witness statements on this topic, and has examined the claims made by the mainstream. 390 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#26)

The Einsatzgruppen in the Occupied Eastern Territories: Genesis, Missions and Actions. By C. Mattogno. Before invading the Soviet Union, the German authorities set up special units meant to secure the area behind the German front. Orthodox historians claim that these unites called Einsatzgruppen primarily engaged in rounding up and mass-murdering Jews. This study sheds a critical light into this topic by reviewing all the pertinent sources as well as material traces. It reveals on the one hand that original war-time documents do not fully support the orthodox genocidal narrative, and on the other that most post-“liberation” sources such as testimonies and forensic reports are steeped in Soviet atrocity propaganda and thus utterly unreliable. In addition, material traces of the claimed massacres are rare due to an attitude of collusion by governments and Jewish lobby groups. 830 pp., b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#39)

Concentration Camp Majdanek. A Historical and Technical Study. By Carlo Mattogno and Jürgen Graf. Little research had been directed toward Concentration Camp Majdanek in central Poland, even though it is claimed that up to a million Jews were murdered there. The only information available is discredited Polish Communist propaganda. This glaring research gap has finally been filled. After exhaustive research of primary sources, Mattogno and Graf created a monumental study which expertly dissects and repudiates the myth of homicidal gas chambers at Majdanek. They also critically investigated the legend of mass executions of Jews in tank trenches (“Operation Harvest Festival”) and prove them groundless. The authors’ investigations lead to unambiguous conclusions about the camp which are radically different from the official theses. Again they have produced a standard and methodical investigative work, which authentic historiography cannot ignore. Third edition, 358 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#5)

Concentration Camp Stutthof and Its Function in National Socialist Jewish Policy. By Carlo Mattogno and Jürgen Graf. The Stutthof camp in Prussia has never before been scientifically investigated by traditional historians, who claim nonetheless that Stutthof served as a ‘makeshift’ extermination camp in 1944. Based mainly on archival resources, this study thoroughly debunks this view and shows that Stutthof was in fact a center for the organization of German forced labor toward the end of World War II. Fourth edition, 170 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#4)

Section Three: Auschwitz Studies

The Making of the Auschwitz Myth: Auschwitz in British Intercepts, Polish Underground Reports and Postwar Testimonies (1941-1947). By Carlo Mattogno. Using messages sent by the Polish underground to London, SS radio messages send to and from Auschwitz that were intercepted and decrypted by the British, and a plethora of witness statements made during the war and in the immediate postwar period, the author shows how exactly the myth of mass murder in Auschwitz gas chambers was created, and how it was turned subsequently into “history” by intellectually corrupt scholars who cherry-picked claims that fit into their agenda and ignored or actively covered up literally thousands of lies of “witnesses” to make their narrative look credible. Ca. 300 pp., b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (Scheduled for mid-2019; #41)

The Real Case of Auschwitz: Robert van Pelt’s Evidence from the Irving Trial Critically Reviewed. By Carlo Mattogno. Prof. Robert van Pelt is considered one of the best mainstream experts on Auschwitz and has been called upon several times in holocaust court cases. His work is cited by many to prove the holocaust happened as mainstream scholars insist. This book is a scholarly response to Prof. van Pelt—and Jean-Claude Pressac. It shows that their studies are heavily flawed. This is a book of prime political and scholarly importance to those looking for the truth about Auschwitz. 3rd edition, 692 pages, b&w illustrations, glossary, bibliography, index. (#22)

Auschwitz: Plain Facts: A Response to Jean-Claude Pressac. Edited by Germar Rudolf. French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac tried to refute revisionist findings with the “technical” method. For this he was praised by the mainstream, and they proclaimed victory over the “revisionists.” In Auschwitz: Plain Facts, Pressac’s works and claims are debunked. 2nd ed., 226 pages, b&w illustrations, glossary bibliography, index. (#14)

Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers: An Introduction and Update. By Germar Rudolf. Pressac’s 1989 oversize book of the same title was a trail blazer. Its many document reproductions are still valuable, but after decades of additional research, Pressac’s annotations are outdated. This book summarizes the most pertinent research results on Auschwitz gained during the past 30 years. With many references to Pressac’s epic tome, it serves as an update and correction to it, whether you own an original hard copy of it, read it online, borrow it from a library, purchase a reprint soon on sale, or are just interested in such a summary in general. 144 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography. (#42)

The Chemistry of Auschwitz: The Technology and Toxicology of Zyklon B and the Gas Chambers – A Crime Scene Investigation. By Germar Rudolf. First, this study subjects the claimed chemical slaughterhouses of Auschwitz to a thorough forensic examination. Next, it analyzes the murder weapon, the poison gas Zyklon B, to determine how this substance operated, and what traces, if any, it might have left where it was employed. The results are convincing to the open-minded, but scandalous to the dogmatic reader. To which side do you belong? Fourth edition, 454 pages, more than 120 color and over 100 b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#2)

Auschwitz Lies: Legends, Lies and Prejudices on the Holocaust. By Carlo Mattogno and Germar Rudolf. The fallacious research and alleged “refutation” of Revisionist scholars by French biochemist G. Wellers, Polish Prof. J. Markiewicz, chemist Dr. Richard Green, Profs. Zimmerman, M. Shermer and A. Grobman, as well as researchers Keren, McCarthy and Mazal, are exposed for what they are: blatant and easily exposed political lies created to ostracize dissident historians. In this book, facts beat propaganda once again. Third edition, 404 pages, b&w illustrations, index. (#18)

Auschwitz: The Central Construction Office. By Carlo Mattogno. Based upon mostly unpublished German wartime documents, this study describes the history, organization, tasks and procedures of the Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS and Auschwitz Police. Despite a huge public interest in the camp, next to nothing was really known about this office, which was responsible for the planning and construction of the Auschwitz camp complex, including the crematories which are said to have contained the “gas chambers.” 2nd ed., 188 pages, b&w illustrations, glossary, index. (#13)

Garrison and Headquarters Orders of the Auschwitz Camp. By G. Rudolf und E. Böhm. A large number of all the orders ever issued by the various commanders of the infamous Auschwitz camp have been preserved. They reveal the true nature of the camp with all its daily events. There is not a trace in these orders pointing at anything sinister going on in this camp. Quite to the contrary, many orders are in clear and insurmountable contradiction to claims that prisoners were mass murdered. This is a selection of the most pertinent of these orders together with comments putting them into their proper historical context. 185 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index (#34)

Special Treatment in Auschwitz: Origin and Meaning of a Term. By Carlo Mattogno. When appearing in German wartime documents, terms like “special treatment,” “special action,” and others have been interpreted as code words for mass murder. But that is not always true. This study focuses on documents about Auschwitz, showing that, while “special” had many different meanings, not a single one meant “execution.” Hence the practice of deciphering an alleged “code language” by assigning homicidal meaning to harmless documents – a key component of mainstream historiography – is untenable. 2nd ed., 166 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#10)

Healthcare at Auschwitz. By Carlo Mattogno. In extension of the above study on Special Treatment in Auschwitz, this study proves the extent to which the German authorities at Auschwitz tried to provide appropriate health care for the inmates. This is frequently described as special measures to improve the inmates’ health and thus ability to work in Germany’s armaments industry. This, after all, was the only thing the Auschwitz authorities were really interested in due to orders from the highest levels of the German government. 398 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#33)

Debunking the Bunkers of Auschwitz: Black Propaganda vs. History. By Carlo Mattogno. The bunkers at Auschwitz are claimed to have been the first homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz specifically equipped for this purpose. With the help of original German wartime files as well as revealing air photos taken by Allied reconnaissance aircraft in 1944, this study shows that these homicidal “bunkers” never existed, how the rumors about them evolved as black propaganda created by resistance groups in the camp, and how this propaganda was transformed into a false reality. 2nd ed., 292 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#11)

Auschwitz: The First Gassing—Rumor and Reality. By Carlo Mattogno. The first gassing in Auschwitz is claimed to have occurred on Sept. 3, 1941, in a basement room. The accounts reporting it are the archetypes for all later gassing accounts. This study analyzes all available sources about this alleged event. It shows that these sources contradict each other in location, date, preparations, victims etc, rendering it impossible to extract a consistent story. Original wartime documents inflict a final blow to this legend and prove without a shadow of a doubt that this legendary event never happened. Third edition, 190 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#20)

Auschwitz: Crematorium I and the Alleged Homicidal Gassings. By Carlo Mattogno. The morgue of Crematorium I in Auschwitz is said to be the first homicidal gas chamber there. This study investigates all statements by witnesses and analyzes hundreds of wartime documents to accurately write a history of that building. Mattogno proves that its morgue was never a homicidal gas chamber, nor could it have worked as such. 2nd ed., 152 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#21)

Auschwitz: Open Air Incinerations. By Carlo Mattogno. Hundreds of thousands of corpses of murder victims are claimed to have been incinerated in deep ditches in the Auschwitz concentration camp. This book examines the many testimonies regarding these incinerations and establishes whether these claims were even possible. Using aerial photographs, physical evidence and wartime documents, the author shows that these claims are fiction. A new Appendix contains 3 papers on groundwater at Auschwitz and cattle mass burnings. A must read. Second edition. 202 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#17)

The Cremation Furnaces of Auschwitz. By Carlo Mattogno & Franco Deana. An exhaustive technical study of the history and technology of cremation in general and of the cremation furnaces of Auschwitz in particular. On a sound and thoroughly documented base of technical literature, extant wartime documents and material traces, Mattogno and Deana can establish the true nature and capacity of the Auschwitz cremation furnaces. They show that these devices were cheaper versions than what was usually produced, and that their capacity to cremate corpses was lower than normal, too. Hence this study reveals that the Auschwitz cremation furnaces were not monstrous super ovens but rather inferior make-shift devices. 3 vols., 1198 pages, b&w and color illustrations (vols 2 & 3), bibliography, index, glossary. (#24)

Curated Lies: The Auschwitz Museum’s Misrepresentations, Distortions and Deceptions. By Carlo Mattogno. Revisionist research results have put the Polish Auschwitz Museum under enormous pressure to answer this challenge. They’ve answered. This book analyzes their answer and reveals the appallingly mendacious attitude of the Auschwitz Museum authorities when presenting documents from their archives. With a contribution by Eric Hunt on the Auschwitz Museum’s misrepresentations of its most valued asset, the “gas chamber” in the Main Camp. 248 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#38)

Deliveries of Coke, Wood and Zyklon B to Auschwitz: Neither Proof Nor Trace for the Holocaust. By Carlo Mattogno. Researchers from the Auschwitz Museum tried to prove the reality of mass extermination by pointing to documents about deliveries of wood and coke as well as Zyklon B to the Auschwitz Camp. If put into the actual historical and technical context, however, these documents proof the exact opposite of what these orthodox researchers claim. Ca. 250 pp. b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (Scheduled for mid-2019; #40)

Section Four: Witness Critique

Elie Wiesel, Saint of the Holocaust: A Critical Biography. By Warren B. Routledge. The first unauthorized biography of Wiesel exposes both his personal deceits and the whole myth of “the six million.” It shows how Zionist control has allowed Wiesel and his fellow extremists to force leaders of many nations, the U.N. and even popes to genuflect before Wiesel as symbolic acts of subordination to World Jewry, while at the same time forcing school children to submit to Holocaust brainwashing. Third edition. 458 pages, b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#30)

Auschwitz: Eyewitness Reports and Perpetrator Confessions of the Holocaust. By Jürgen Graf. The traditional narrative of what transpired at the infamous Auschwitz camp during WWII rests almost exclusively on witness testimony from former inmates as well as erstwhile camp officials. This study critically scrutinizes the 30 most important of these witness statements by checking them for internal coherence, and by comparing them with one another as well as with other evidence such as wartime documents, air photos, forensic research results, and material traces. The result is devastating for the traditional narrative. 370 pp. b&w illustrations, bibliography, index. (#36)

Commandant of Auschwitz: Rudolf Höss, His Torture and His Forced Confessions. By Carlo Mattogno & Rudolf Höss. When Rudolf Höss was in charge at Auschwitz, the mass extermination of Jews in gas chambers is said to have been launched and carried out. He confessed this in numerous postwar depositions. Hence Höss’s testimony is the most convincing of all. But what traditional sources usually do not reveal is that Höss was severely tortured to coerce him to “confess,” and that his various statements are not only contradictory but also full of historically and physically impossible, even absurd claims. This study expertly analyzes Höss’s various confessions and lays them all open for everyone to see the ugly truth. Second edition. 410 pages, b&w illust., bibliography, index. (#35)

An Auschwitz Doctor’s Eyewitness Account: The Tall Tales of Dr. Mengele’s Assistant Analyzed. By Miklos Nyiszli & Carlo Mattogno. Nyiszli, a Hungarian physician, ended up at Auschwitz in 1944 as Dr. Mengele’s assistant. After the war he wrote a book and several other writings describing what he claimed to have experienced. To this day some traditional historians take his accounts seriously, while others reject them as grotesque lies and exaggerations. This study presents and analyzes Nyiszli’s writings and skillfully separates truth from fabulous fabrication. Second edition, 484 pages, b&w illust., bibliography, index. (#37)

For current prices and availability see book finder sites such as www.bookfinder.com, www.addall.com, www.bookfinder4u.com or www.findbookprices.com; learn more at www.HolocaustHandbooks.com
Published by Castle Hill Publishers, PO Box 243, Uckfield, TN22 9AW, UK

Notes

[←1]

British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden said, “the guilt is so black that they fall outside and go beyond the scope of any judicial process.” (in Reydams and Wouters 2012: 10). For Churchill’s part, he wanted to simply identify the leading Nazis and have them “shot to death within six hours” (ibid: 11).

[←2]

The 12 trials were: Doctors’ Trial (9 December 1946 – 20 August 1947), Milch Trial (2 January – 14 April 1947), Judges’ Trial (5 March – 4 December 1947), Pohl Trial (8 April – 3 November 1947), Flick Trial (19 April – 22 December 1947), IG Farben Trial (27 August 1947 – 30 July 1948), Hostages Trial (8 July 1947 – 19 February 1948), RuSHA Trial (20 October 1947 – 10 March 1948), Einsatzgruppen Trial (29 September 1947 – 10 April 1948), Krupp Trial (8 December 1947 – 31 July 1948), Ministries Trial (6 January 1948 – 13 April 1949), and High Command Trial (30 December 1947 – 28 October 1948). In total, these tried around 1700 defendants, ultimately putting almost 200 to death.

[←3]

“The total number of US employees… employed at Nuremburg may have reached 1,700” (Townsend 2012: 183).

[←4]

Townsend (2012: 173-174).

[←5]

And in fact, the Jewish Maxwell-Fyfe “emerged as the day-to-day courtroom leader of the prosecution as a whole” (Taylor 1992: 221). On the issue of “a war for the Jews,” the case for this was much stronger than even Dodd realized; see Dalton (2019).

[←6]

IMT, Vol. 1: 15.

[←7]

Quotations from Cobain’s article “How Britain tortured Nazi POWs” (Daily Mail, 26 Oct 2012). See also Fry (2017).

[←8]

S. Howe, “Review of Cruel Britannia” (Independent UK, 24 Nov 2012).

[←9]

For Höss’s full testimony, see Chapter Five.

[←10]

Chicago Daily Tribune (23 Feb 1948, p. 1).

[←11]

To add to the confusion, the UK government published two further sets of the proceedings: (1) A condensed British version of the IMT, published under the same name as the US version, except in 23 volumes; and (2) A British version of the 12 NMT trials, published as Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals (14 volumes). These two sets are rarely cited in the literature.

[←12]

For a more detailed account of Holocaust revisionism, the reader is recommended to see The Holocaust: An Introduction (Dalton 2016), Debating the Holocaust (Dalton 2020), or Lectures on the Holocaust (Rudolf 2017). More advanced readers may find value in Dissecting the Holocaust (Rudolf 2019b). For the full story, see the entire Holocaust Handbooks series, currently numbering 42 volumes and addressing virtually every aspect of these events.

[←13]

The Poisonous Mushroom. Discussed in detail in Chapters 6 and 8. In English translation, see Hiemer (2020).

[←14]

Other occurrences at the IMT include: Vol. 9: 611; Vol. 13: 393; Vol. 19: 405, 418, 434, 467, 611; and Vol. 22: 346, 496.

[←15]

Carl von Ossietzky, as he is more commonly known, was a German anti-Nazi pacifist who opposed the rearmament program of the mid-1930s. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. Ossietzky died of tuberculosis in Berlin in 1938.

[←16]

See Appendix A.

[←17]

See above. Churchill’s exact words regarding the Germans were “destroyed,” “rooted out,” and “extirpated.” But of course, Rosenberg likely read a German translation of Churchill, which was translated again back into English for these transcripts (Rosenberg naturally answered all questions in his native language).

[←18]

See his testimony on p. 475 of the IMT, regarding the shooting of Jews and other hostages.

[←19]

For the full diary entries that relate to Jews and Jewish policy, see Goebbels (2019).

[←20]

An image of the cover can be found here: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1093178

[←21]

Holz (1895-1945) served as Streicher’s editor-in-chief from 1927 to 1933, when he was given the governmental position of Deputy Gauleiter, reporting to Streicher. Holz held this position until 1940; later, after Streicher’s departure, Holz replaced him as Gauleiter of Franconia.

[←22]

As recounted in the Book of Esther (9:16-17): “Meanwhile, the remainder of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also assembled to protect themselves and get relief from their enemies. They killed 75,000 of them but did not lay their hands on the plunder. This happened on the 13th day of the month of Adar, and on the 14th they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.”

[←23]

Excerpts included in Appendix B.

[←24]

Der Giftpilz, more commonly translated as “The Poisonous Mushroom.” Recently reprinted in English translation; see Hiemer (2020).

[←25]

Kurt Eisner, born Salomon Kosmanowski.

[←26]

See Volume Two of Mein Kampf, Section 8.4.

[←27]

That was from the period 1 April to 20 December 1924. He was imprisoned for his failed “Beer Hall Putsch” of late 1923.

[←28]

Kristallnacht, or ‘Night of the Broken Glass.’

[←29]

An 82-hectare farm near Munich that Streicher purchased in 1936, and where he spent the war years.

[←30]

This was the official newspaper of the SS.

[←31]

This is Der Giftpilz. Earlier (Chapter Six) this was called “The Poisonous Fungus”; more commonly cited in English as “The Poisonous Mushroom.” See Hiemer (2020).

[←32]

The “democratic government” was the Weimar Republic. It is unclear to which book he refers.

[←33]

A reference to Genesis 3:15. The same passage was cited in Chapter Six.

[←34]

In June 1941.

[←35]

As noted in Chapter 8, Hiemer was Streicher’s editor-in-chief from 1933 to 1940. He was the author of Der Giftpilz (1938/2020).

[←36]

See also the NYT article “11 Allies Condemn Nazi War on Jews” (18 Dec 1942).

[←37]

Later Allied targets included Darmstadt (12,000 civilians), Dresden (over 45,000), and Pforzheim (17,000). If there were war criminals fit for trial, their names were Churchill and Roosevelt, not Streicher and Rosenberg.

[←38]

The “Women’s League,” an association of women within the National Socialist party.

[←39]

In 2013, an interesting fact came to light. Rosenberg’s long-lost diary was finally found, in a box in a publisher’s office in upstate New York. Holocaust traditionalists were very excited, hoping to find in it yet more evidence of systematic mass murder as contemplated by the leading Nazis. Jewish researcher Henry Mayer was ecstatic at the prospect of “possibly [finding] a witness to the actual order from Hitler authoring the Final Solution.” (We recall that such an order has never been found.) But he and his colleagues were sorely disappointed. Despite running to some 400 handwritten pages, no such order, nor even a hint of such an order, was discovered. As one of the co-investigators stated, “There is no place in the diary where we have Rosenberg or Hitler saying that the Jews should be exterminated. All it said was ‘move them out of Europe’.” Imagine that—a surprise only to those preconditioned or brainwashed into believing that the Germans killed 6 million Jews. For the news story, see the New York Times, “Tracking an elusive diary from Hitler’s inner circle” (30 Mar 2016).

[←40]

Recorded in IMT, Vol. 12: 13 (18 April 1946).

[←41]

See Appendix A.

[←42]

This is highly misleading at best. Only Point #4 explicitly mentions Jews. All other points are uniform in their treatment of non-citizens.

[←43]

Graves with “hundreds” of victims are so far from “millions” as to be inconsequential.

[←44]

See IMT, Vol. 11: 409-411, and the full account in Chapter Five.

[←45]

Sources for this and subsequent quotations can be found in Dalton (2019).

[←46]

For specific source information, see Rudolf (2019: 124-127).

[←47]

Sources for quotations in this paragraph in Dalton (2020b).