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asserted by the Prosecution. In this connection, may I refer to the report of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army to the Secretary of War for the period from 1 July 1943 to 30 June 1945. I quote: ". . . The available evidence shows that Hitler's original intent was to create by absorption of Germanic peoples i... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 21,600 | 22,100 |
recognized that Japan was bound by the neutrality pact with Russia, but hoped that the Japanese would tie up strong British and American land, sea, and air forces in the Far East." The statements which the Defendants Keitel and Jodl have made on the witness stand are essentially the same as the statements of the Americ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 22,050 | 22,550 |
Socialist ideology and is determined by the size of the area and number of inhabitants. Every German Government had to and still must deal with this question. If any argument by Hitler found a lasting response in the German people, it was the demand made by him for an appropriate share for the German people in the mate... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 22,500 | 23,000 |
a hungry people, must in the long run become a center of unrest because of its instinct of self-preservation against which even the most ingenious statesman is powerless. For hunger is a natural instinct which cannot be subdued either by warnings or by orders. Our desire for colonies is therefore only the desire for a ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 22,950 | 23,450 |
mentioned, these persons are to be responsible not only for the acts which they themselves have committed, but they also are to take upon themselves the penal consequences for all acts which were committed by any person in the execution of such a plan. In Article 6, Paragraph 2a, of the Charter the fact of a crime agai... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 23,400 | 23,900 |
to me, namely, that it was not possible until now to create an effective organization and a procedure which would satisfy the justified claims of the peoples for a proper participation in the material goods of the world, and which would also in other respects take care of a just settlement of the conflicting interests.... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 23,850 | 24,350 |
one of the main tasks of the International Military Tribunal which was then to be set up would be to develop international law further. This latter opinion, for example, stands out clearly in the report of the American chief prosecutor to the President of the United States of 7 June 1945. Here, word for word, it states... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 24,300 | 24,800 |
Thus, for example, it is contained in Article 39 of the English Magna Charta of King John of 1215, in the American Constitution of 1776 and in the declarations of the French Revolution in 1789 and 1791. This principle of nulla poena sine lege is not only contradictory to the assumption of a crime against peace as the P... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 24,750 | 25,250 |
the knowledge of the defendant should not matter very much. Without it being necessary to probe any deeper into the subjective elements 383 25 July 46 of the case, it can be said that, in application of principles such as can be derived from the penal law of all civilized countries there is here not even question of an... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 25,200 | 25,700 |
text as well as the sense of this Figure 4, there cannot be the slightest doubt that this was only meant to say that enemy parachutists were to be fought and subdued if they did not surrender voluntarily and tried to avoid their arrest by using force, particularly by the use of firearms. This becomes evident from the w... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 25,650 | 26,150 |
Hess, as the contents of this document can under no circumstances be considered a crime against the rules of warfare or against humanity, if the afore-mentioned principles are applied. Besides being indicted as an individual, Rudolf Hess is also indicted as a member of the SA, the SS, the Corps of Political Leaders and... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 26,100 | 26,600 |
organization of which he was the leader; it cannot be denied that this is a legal situation which does not happen every day. But something else appears more important. The Defense were compelled to attack the very heart of the Charter, namely Article 6, as not being consistent with generally valid principles of interna... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 26,550 | 27,050 |
actual guilt was very soon replaced by the principle of responsibility attaching to the guilty only and thereby that state was reached which is alone compatible with the dignity of man. The regulation provided by Article 9 of the Charter signifies not only a regrettable contribution to the hastening of the apparently i... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 27,000 | 27,500 |
the Indictment. It is sufficient here to point to the testimony of the witness Lammers and to the fact that Adolf Hitler, from whom such facts could not remain hidden, finally issued a prohibition to the effect that the individual Reich ministers no longer had the right to assemble for conferences on their own motion. ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 27,450 | 27,950 |
aim which Hess pursued in his flight to England. When the Defendant Hess was led before the Duke of Hamilton on the day after his landing, he declared to the latter, "I come on a mission of humanity." During the conversations which the defendant had with Mr. Kirkpatrick of the Foreign Office on 13, 14, and 15 May, he e... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 27,900 | 28,400 |
announced by Hess provided that Europe was to be the sphere of interests of the Axis Powers, the conclusion can in no way be drawn from this that this was synonymous with a 'domination of Europe by the Axis Powers. The declarations made by Hess-they are included in written notes on the conversation between him and Lord... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 28,350 | 28,850 |
be assumed, even after the flight to England. The Defendant Hess himself does not wish to have any favorable conclusions drawn for him in the course of this Trial from this flight and from the intentions connected with it. He has, therefore, also asked me to omit a part of the following statement. Nevertheless, I consi... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 28,800 | 29,300 |
to the Charter. There is all the more reason for that assumption, in that it has been a practice on principle to apply German law in cases where the Charter fails to establish a binding rule. With regard to the Defendant Rudolf Hess, there should be even less reason for doubt, because the acts charged against the Defen... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 29,250 | 29,750 |
In that letter Hess did not mention the Soviet Union by a single word. It must rather be assumed, with a probability which almost amounts to certainty, that if Hess had had knowledge of the proposed attack, and if he had intended to combine the intention with his flight, which the Prosecution now claims, Hess would hav... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 29,700 | 30,200 |
linked with his plans for the restoration of peace, the Defendant Hess committed his entire person in an attempt which obviously sprang from the desire to avoid further bloodshed at all costs. In application of principles of law such as are derived from the penal codes of all civilized nations, and especially in applic... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 30,150 | 30,650 |
of the material wealth of the world. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal is undoubtedly not part of such a general new order. It was enacted by the victorious powers for a limited duration, namely, as a foundation for a criminal trial against the statesmen, military commanders, and economic leaders of th... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 30,600 | 31,100 |
1000 hours.] 396 185 Day Volume 19 Menu 187 Day Nuremberg Trials Page Avalon Home Document Collections Ancient 4000bce - 399 Medieval 400 - 1399 15 th Century 1400 - 1499 16 th Century 1500 - 1599 17 th Century 1600 - 1699 18 th Century 1700 - 1799 19 th Century 1800 - 1899 20 th Century 1900 - 1999 21 st Century 2000 ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Sixth Day | 31,050 | 31,150 |
Avalon Home Document Collections Ancient 4000bce - 399 Medieval 400 - 1399 15 th Century 1400 - 1499 16 th Century 1500 - 1599 17 th Century 1600 - 1699 18 th Century 1700 - 1799 19 th Century 1800 - 1899 20 th Century 1900 - 1999 21 st Century 2000 - Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Volume 19 186 Day Volume 19 Menu 188 Day... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 0 | 500 |
In drawing the Charter of this Tribunal, we thought we were recording an accomplished advance in international law. But they say we have outrun our times, that we have anticipated an advance that should be, but has not yet been made. The Agreement of London, whether it originates or merely records, at all events marks ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 450 | 950 |
from the basic principles of jurisprudence which are assumptions of civilization and which long have found embodiment in the codes of all nations. 398 26 July 46 Of one thing we may be sure. The future will never have to ask, with misgiving, what could the Nazis have said in their favor. History will know that whatever... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 900 | 1,400 |
peoples of Europe. We may admit too that the world had failed to provide political or legal remedies which would be honorable and acceptable alternatives to war. We do not underwrite either the ethics or the wisdom of any country, including my own, in the face of these problems. But we do say that it is now, as it was ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 1,350 | 1,850 |
criminally responsible? The charge requires examination of a criminal policy, not of a multitude of isolated, unplanned, or disputed crimes. The substantive crimes upon which we rely, either as goals of a common plan or as means for its accomplishment, are admitted. The pillars which uphold the conspiracy charge may be... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 1,800 | 2,300 |
were exempted from effective legal responsibility for their acts (2347-PS). With all administrative offices in Nazi control and with the Reichstag reduced to impotence, the judiciary remained the last obstacle to this reign of terror (2469-PS). But its independence was soon overcome and it was reorganized to dispense a... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 2,250 | 2,750 |
in a series of undeclared wars against nations with which Germany had arbitration and nonaggression treaties, and in violation of repeated assurances. On September 1, 1939, this rearmed Germany attacked Poland. The following April witnessed the invasion and occupation of Denmark and Norway, and May saw the overrunning ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 2,700 | 3,200 |
got them drunk, and "shanghaied" them to Germany (220-PS). These captives were shipped in trains without heat, food, or sanitary facilities. The dead were thrown out at stations, and the newborn were thrown out the windows of moving trains (054-PS). Sauckel ordered that "all the men must be fed, sheltered, and treated ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 3,150 | 3,650 |
of the Jews, the most far-flung and terrible racial persecution of all time. Although the Nazi Party neither invented nor monopolized anti-Semitism, its leaders from the very beginning embraced it, incited it, and exploited it. They used it as "the psychological spark that ignites the mob." After the seizure of power, ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 3,600 | 4,100 |
over-all authority of Defendants Frick and Kaltenbrunner. The horrors of these iniquitous places have been vividly disclosed by documents (2309-PS, 3870-PS) and testified to by witnesses. The Tribunal must be satiated with ghastly verbal and pictorial 405 26 July 46 portrayals. From your records it is clear that the co... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 4,050 | 4,550 |
them had in mind what month of what year war would begin, the exact dispute which would precipitate it, or whether its first impact would be Austria, Czechoslovakia, or Poland. But I submit that the defendants either knew or were chargeable with knowledge that the war for which they were making ready would be a war of ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 4,500 | 5,000 |
of power Schacht was host to Hitler, Goering, and some 20 leading industrialists. Among them were Krupp von Bohlen of the great Krupp armament works and representatives of I. G. Farben and other Ruhr heavy industries. Hitler and Goering explained their program to the industrialists, who became so enthusiastic that they... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 4,950 | 5,450 |
some 240,00Q industrial plants. Again it was agreed that nothing should be in writing so that "the military purpose may not be traceable" (EC-404). On 21 May 1935, the top secret Reich Defense Law was enacted. Defendant Schacht was appointed Plenipotentiary for War Economy with the task of secretly preparing all econom... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 5,400 | 5,900 |
the cynical objective: "The question for Germany is where the greatest possible conquest could be made at the lowest possible cost." He discussed various plans for the invasion of Austria and Czechoslovakia, indicating clearly that he was thinking of these territories not as ends in themselves, but as means for further... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 5,850 | 6,350 |
"no further territorial demands to make in Europe." The record of this Trial shows that those promises were calculated deceptions and that those high in the bloody brotherhood of Nazidom knew it. As early as 15 April 1938 Goering pointed out to Mussolini and Ciano that the possession of those territories would make pos... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 6,300 | 6,800 |
approved 727,000 of them. They boasted that orders to workers to report for duty "are ready and tied up in bundles at the labor offices." And they resolved to increase the industrial manpower supply by bringing into Germany "hundreds of thousands of workers" from the Protectorate to be "housed together in hutments" (37... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 6,750 | 7,250 |
pointing out that they would "result in arbitrary mistreatments and killing," protested to the OKW against them as breaches of international law. The reply of Keitel was unambiguous. He said: "The objections arise from the military conception of chivalrous warfare! This is the destruction of an ideology! Therefore, I a... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 7,200 | 7,700 |
but an objection of such a nature that it would actually be considered." , With these purposes, Goering admitted that the plan was made to overthrow the Weimar Republic, to seize power, and to carry out the Nazi program by whatever means were necessary, whether legal or illegal. From Goering's cross-examination vile le... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 7,650 | 8,150 |
for it was the wholesale confiscation of their property which helped finance German rearmament. Although Schacht's plan to have foreign money ransom the entire race within Germany was not adopted, the Jews were stripped to the point where G8ring was able to advise the Reich Defense Council that the critical situation o... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 8,100 | 8,600 |
of power. When apprehensions abroad threatened the success of the Nazi regime for conquest, it was the duplicitous Ribbentrop, the salesman of deception, who was detailed to pour wine on the troubled waters of suspicion by preaching the gospel Of limited and peaceful intentions. Keitel, the weak and willing tool, 415 2... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 8,550 | 9,050 |
and cruelest slaver since the Pharaohs of Egypt, produced desperately needed manpower by driving foreign peoples into the land of bondage on a scale unknown even in the ancient days of tyranny in the kingdom of the Nile. Jodl, betrayer of the traditions of his profession, led the Wehrmacht in violating its own code of ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 9,000 | 9,500 |
Socialist collaborators did not previously follow a trade requiring technical education." It was the fatal weakness of the early Nazi band that it lacked technical competence. It could not from among its own ranks make up a government capable of carrying out all the projects necessary to realize its aims. Therein lies ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 9,450 | 9,950 |
population of several nations on the basis of their blood and birth, could be destroyed and their bodies disposed of, except that the operation fitted into the general scheme of government. Could the enslavement of 5 millions of laborers, their impressment into service, their transportation to Germany, their allocation... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 9,900 | 10,400 |
using the additional and nontechnical term, "common plan." Omitting entirely the alternative term of "conspiracy," the Charter reads that "leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan to commit any of the described crimes are responsible for all acts p... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 10,350 | 10,850 |
that the Nazis did not want war it comes down, in substance, to this: "The record looks bad indeed- objectively-but when you consider the state of my mind-subjectively I hated war. I knew the horrors of war. I wanted peace." I am not so sure of this. I am even less willing to accept Goering's description of the General... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 10,800 | 11,300 |
the repeatedly avowed intentions of the German leaders to attack, which I have previously cited; and third, the fact that a series of wars occurred in which German forces struck the first blows, without warning, across the borders of other nations. Even if it could be shown-which it cannot-that the Russian war was real... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 11,250 | 11,750 |
They bristle with the spirit of aggression and not of defense. They contemplate always territorial expansion, not the maintenance of territorial integrity. Minister of War Von Blomberg, in his 1937 directive prescribing general principles for the preparation for war of the Armed Forces, has given the lie to these feebl... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 11,700 | 12,200 |
considered to be the common responsibility of the leaders of the German nation: ". . . with reference to utterly decisive matters, there is total responsibility. 'where must be total responsibility insofar as a person is one of the leaders, because who else could assume responsibility for the development of events, if ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 12,150 | 12,650 |
cliques. Of course, it is not necessary that men should agree on everything in order to agree on enough things to make them liable for a criminal conspiracy. Unquestionably there were conspiracies within the conspiracy, and intrigues and rivalries and battles for power Schacht and Goering disagreed, but over which of t... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 12,600 | 13,100 |
of responsibility to know, first of all, just what it is that a conspiracy charge comprehends and punishes. In conspiracy we do not punish one man for another man's crime. We seek to punish each for his own crime of joining a common criminal plan in which others also participated. The measure of the criminality of the ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 13,050 | 13,550 |
the films show them again and again together on important occasions. The documents show them agreed on policies and on methods, and all working aggressively for the expansion of Germany by force of arms. Each of these men made a real contribution to the Nazi plan. Each man had a key part. Deprive the Nazi regime of the... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 13,500 | 14,000 |
and SD were somewhat on the order of directing traffic; A Party philosopher who was interested in historical research and had no idea of the violence which his philosophy was inciting in the twentieth century; A governor general of Poland who reigned but did not rule; A Gauleiter of Franconia whose occupation was to po... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 13,950 | 14,450 |
of his name and prestige. Having armed Hitler to blackmail a continent, his answer now is to blame England and France for yielding. Schacht always fought for his position in a regime he now affects to despise. He sometimes disagreed with his Nazi confederates about what was expedient in reaching their goal, but he neve... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 14,400 | 14,900 |
He is the man at whom nearly every defendant has pointed an accusing finger. I shall not dissent from this consensus, nor do I deny that all these dead and missing men shared the guilt. In crimes so reprehensible that degrees of guilt have lost their significance they may have played the most evil parts. But their guil... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 14,850 | 15,350 |
out without any consideration, did after all turn out to be mistakes . . . This system-let me put it like this-to the end of the system it had become clear what tremendous dangers are contained in any such system, as such, quite apart from Hitler's principle. The combination of Hitler and this system, then, brought abo... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 15,300 | 15,800 |
worthy of the crimes at which it is directed. We have presented to this Tribunal an affirmative case based on incriminating documents which are sufficient, if unexplained, to require a finding of guilt on Count One against each defendant. In the final analysis, the only question is whether the defendant's own testimony... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 15,750 | 16,250 |
stated by his counsel to have always had in 431 26 July 46 mind a "chivalrous solution" to the Jewish problem. When it was necessary to remove Schuschnigg after the Anschluss, Ribbentrop would have had us believe that the Austrian Chancellor was resting at a "villa." It was left to cross-examination to reveal that the ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 16,200 | 16,700 |
reading it. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. The Tribunal will adjourn. [The Tribunal recessed until 1345 hours.] 432 26 July 46 Afternoon Session THE PRESIDENT: I call on the Chief Prosecutor of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS (Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom): May it p... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 16,650 | 17,150 |
and the rule of law is vindicated. Shall we do less when not one but on the lowest computation 12 million 433 26 July 46 men, women, and children, are done to death? Not in battle, not in passion, but in the cold, calculated, deliberate attempt to destroy nations and races, to disintegrate the traditions, the instituti... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 17,100 | 17,600 |
patient examination the truth has been established about deeds so terrible that their mark may never be erased, and it will count for much that law and justice have been vindicated in the end. 434 26 July 46 Within the space of a year evidence far exceeding that previously presented to any tribunal in history has been ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 17,550 | 18,050 |
that they and the offices of state which they directed took no part? Lammers, their own witness, head of the Reich Chancellery, said in 1938 (Document Number 3863-PS): "Despite the total concentration of power of authority in the person of the Fuehrer as a matter of principle, no excessively strong and unnecessary cent... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 18,000 | 18,500 |
of the European continent, to be achieved first by the incorporation of all . , 436 26 July 46 1 German-speaking groups in the Reich, and secondly, by territorial expansion under the slogan of 'Lebensraum.' " l That slogan "Lebensraum"-that entirely false idea that the very existence of the German people depended upon ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 18,450 | 18,950 |
simply and solely 437 26 July 46 by attacking Judaism. It is beyond question the most important weapon in our propaganda arsenal." And as a result of this wicked propaganda, I would remind you of the words of Bach-Zelewski who, when he was asked how Ohlendorf could admit that the men under his command had murdered 90,0... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 18,900 | 19,400 |
what was done later. What I say now has some special reference to the first Count in 438 26 July 46 the Indictment, for it is against this general background that we must consider the allegation that these men were common conspirators to commit the crimes (such as Crimes Against Peace, and the Crime Against Humanity), ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 19,350 | 19,850 |
organizations, were deliberately so run as to strike terror throughout the country. In 439 26 July 46 the words of the witness Severing, the concentration camps represented for the people "the incarnation of all that was terrible." Goering has said: "We found it necessary-that we should permit no opposition," and he ad... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 19,800 | 20,300 |
If confirmation of the evidence of these defense witnesses were required, it is to be found in the series of reports dated in May and June 1933, from the Munich Public Prosecutor to the Minister of Justice, which are in evidence recording a succession of murders by SS officials in the concentration camp at Dachau (Docu... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 20,250 | 20,750 |
long after the 30th of January 1933 that the Communist and Social Democratic parties were decreed illegal and all form of public expression, other than by the Nazis, was prevented. This action resulted from deliberate planning. Frick has said as far back as 1927 (Document Number 2513-PS): "The National Socialists longe... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 20,700 | 21,200 |
results of the religious struggle: "Instances of disturbances of congregations are mounting terribly fast lately, often necessitating the intervention of the emergency squad.... After discarding the rubber truncheon, the idea of exposing executive officials to situations in which, during interruptions of meetings, they... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 21,150 | 21,650 |
Germany unbearable for Jews. To the never-ceasing accompaniment of the Sturmer and the official Nazi press the campaign of Jew-baiting was fostered and encouraged. Rosenberg, Von Schirach, Goering, Hess, Funk, Bormann, Frick joined hands with Streicher and Goebbels. The boycott in April 1933 celebrated the Nazi accessi... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 21,600 | 22,100 |
healthy men, not too old, are to be arrested. Upon their arrest, the appropriate concentration camps should be contacted immediately in order to confine them in these camps as fast as possible." We now know from the evidence with regard to the seizure of the houses of Jews by Neurath and Rosenberg why the orders were t... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 22,050 | 22,550 |
live in districts inhabited by the criminal classes." Hess, who set up an office for racial policy in 1933, shares responsibility for the Nuremberg Decrees (Document Number 1814-PS). At the meeting of 12 November 1938 a full report was given of similar measures against the Jews in Austria (Document Number 1816-PS) and ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 22,500 | 23,000 |
Schacht accepted the Golden Party Badge in January 1937 when Von Eltz refused it. Schirach has confirmed his part in insuring that the younger generation of Germany grew up rabid anti-Semites under his teaching. He cannot escape responsibility for training the youth to bully Jews, to persecute the Church, to prepare fo... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 22,950 | 23,450 |
the specific Crimes set out in the subsequent counts have been considered. And first of these is the Crime against Peace, set out in Count Two. I say first, first in its place in the Indictment. Moralists may argue which is greatest in moral guilt. But this perhaps should be said at the very outset. It is said that the... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 23,400 | 23,900 |
not concerned with that, and, of course, I do not concede it. But let them argue that it was wrong. Do two wrongs make a right? Not in that international law which this Tribunal will administer. The review which Defense Counsel have made entirely overlooks the two basic facts in this case, that from the time of Mein Ka... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 23,850 | 24,350 |
credit policy as the Reichsbank since the seizure of power by National Socialism. With the aid of this credit policy, however, Germany created an armament second to none and this armament in turn made possible the results of our policy." Schacht's speech on 29 November 1938 is seen to be no boast when the report of his... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 24,300 | 24,800 |
in case of war. It is unnecessary in assessing this work of rearmament to do more by way of summary than to quote the words of Hitler himself in the memorandum which Jodl described as written during two nights of work by the Fuehrer personally and which he sent to the Defendants Raeder, Goering, and Keitel. In that mem... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 24,750 | 25,250 |
3 weeks earlier on the very day of the conclusion of the Franco-Soviet Pact, later to become the official excuse for the reoccupation of the Rhineland, and the defense for it, before this Tribunal, the first directive for reoccupation had been issued to the service chiefs. The Defendant Jodl, having perhaps noted the s... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 25,200 | 25,700 |
After the evidence in the case of the Defendant Neurath, there can be little doubt as to his assassination being plotted in Berlin and arranged by Habicht and Hitler some six weeks before. The failure of that Putsch made it necessary to temporize, and accordingly in May 1935 Hitler gave a complete assurance to Austria ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 25,650 | 26,150 |
Number TC-75): "The formation in great secrecy but with wholehearted tenacity of a coalition against England." In the case of Poland, however, the German Foreign Office had already advised Ribbentrop as long ago as a month before Munich in the following terms (Document Number TC-76): "It is unavoidable that the German ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 26,100 | 26,600 |
not propose to take time now by tracing again the various steps. As Hitler said at the meeting in November 1939 (Document 739-PS): "Breach of the neutrality of Belgium and Holland is meaningless. No one will question that when we have won. We shall not bring forth as silly a reason for the breach of neutrality as in 19... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 26,550 | 27,050 |
Hitler's memorandum preceding the passage I have just quoted, that (Document Number L-52): "Provided no completely unforeseen factors appear, their neutrality in the future is also to be assumed. The continuation of German trade with these countries appears possible even in a war of long duration." Hitler saw no threat... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 27,000 | 27,500 |
before it was to take place are as conclusive as anything else of the dishonesty of this defense. Once again all these men in their different spheres were playing their appointed parts-notably, of course, Rosenberg, who paved the way, Goering, Raeder, Keitel, Jodl, and Ribbentrop who took the necessary executive action... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 27,450 | 27,950 |
or even decency. In no single case did a declaration of war precede military action. How many thousands of innocent, inoffensive men, women, and children, sleeping in their beds in the happy belief that their country was and would remain at peace, were suddenly blown into eternity by death dropped on them without warni... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 27,900 | 28,400 |
of war had collapsed before the outbreak of the second World War and therefore ceased to be law. It was further argued that these treaties were not taken seriously by numerous jurists and journalists whose opinions were cited and were not really entitled to be treated seriously because they contained no provision for c... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 28,350 | 28,850 |
international law with a solemnity and clarity which is often lacking in customary international law; that the profound change which it produced, and this is important, although indeed the distinction between just and unjust wars had been recognized in medieval times, was reflected in weighty pronouncements of governme... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 28,800 | 29,300 |
aggressors had abrogated the law against aggression, the defendants have introduced some question of self-defense. They have not, indeed, really suggested that these wars were defensive wars. Not even Goebbels in his wildest extravagances went quite so far as that. It appears that what they seek to say is not that thei... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 29,250 | 29,750 |
it transforms "selfdefense" into an instrument of conquest and lawlessness, if it twists the natural right of self-defense into a weapon of predatory aggrandizement and lust. The ultimate decision as to the lawfulness of action claimed to be taken in self-defense does not lie with the state concerned, and for that reas... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 29,700 | 30,200 |
state if such acts by the state were not themselves crimes. There is, in our submission, no substance at all in the view that international law rules out the criminal responsibility of states and that since, because of their sovereignty, states cannot be coerced, all their acts are legal. Legal purists may contend that... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 30,150 | 30,650 |
of the League of Nations made provision, in Article 16, for sanctions against sovereign states-sanctions being only another name for coercion, probably coercion of a punitive character. The Charter of the United Nations has followed suit-much more decisively. It is true that, because of the absence of a competent compu... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 30,600 | 31,100 |
no one. It is a startling proposition that those who aid and abet, who counsel and procure the commission 464 26 July 46 of a crime are themselves immune from responsibility. The international crime does not differ from the municipal offense in this respect. Then the argument is put in another way. Where the act concer... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 31,050 | 31,550 |
superior orders is excluded by the Charter although Article 8 provides that it may in appropriate cases be considered in mitigation of punishment, if the Tribunal thinks that justice so requires. But the Charter no more than declares the law. There is no rule of international law which 465 26 July 46 provides immunity ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 31,500 | 32,000 |
no question of post factum law making, nor is there any shadow of novelty in the Decision of the Charter that those who shared the ultimate responsibility for these frightful deeds should bear individual responsibility. It is true that the lawyers and the statesmen who, at The Hague and elsewhere in days gone by, built... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 31,950 | 32,450 |
charged is the violation of the most firmly established and least controversial of all the rules of warfare, namely, that noncombatants must not be made the direct object of hostile operations. What a mockery the Germans sought to make of the Fourth Hague Convention on the laws and customs of war-convention which merel... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 32,400 | 32,900 |
army of occupation"- and that-"they shall be in proportion to the resources of the country and of such a nature as not to involve the population in the obligation of taking part in the operations of war against that country." With these simple and categorical provisions we have to contrast the staggering dimensions of ... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 32,850 | 33,350 |
that orders were given that survivors should not be rescued, that steps should be taken to prevent the shipwrecked from surviving, for the use of such weapons that there could be no question of survivors, you will have no doubt that what was done was contrary to law. It is no answer that to allow noncombatants to survi... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 33,300 | 33,800 |
matter but that directly or indirectly it was associated with crimes against other nations or other nationals, in that, for instance, it was undertaken in order to strengthen the Nazi Party in carrying out its policy of domination by aggression, or to remove elements such as political opponents, the aged, the Jews, the... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 33,750 | 34,250 |
and their ringleader, were, when committed with the intention of affecting the international community-that is in connection with the other crimes charged-not mere matters of domestic concern but crimes against the law of nations. I do not minimize the significance for the future of the political and jurisprudential do... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 34,200 | 34,700 |
in their own country they act at their peril, for they affront the international law of mankind. As for the criticism which is made of retroactive law, that it makes that criminal which men did not know to be wrong when they committed it-what application can that have here? You will not disregard it even if these defen... | Yale Avalon (proceedings_vol19): One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Day | 34,650 | 35,150 |
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