Afternoon Session

THE PRESIDENT: I call on the chief prosecutor for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

GEN. RUDENKO: Your Lordship, Your Honors.

We are summing up the results of the legal proceedings against the major German war criminals. In the course of 9 months all the aspects of the case and all the evidence presented to the Tribunal by the Prosecution and by the Defense have been subjected to a careful and detailed scrutiny. Not a single deed of which the defendants have been accused has been left without verification, not a single significant circumstance has been overlooked during the investigation of the present case.

For the first time in the history of mankind criminals against humanity are being held responsible for their crimes before an international criminal tribunal; for the first time nations are trying those who have soaked large areas of the earth with blood, who have annihilated millions of innocent people, destroyed cultural treasures, instituted a systematic massacre and torture, exterminated old people, women, and children, and who in their mad desire for world domination have hurled the universe into an abyss of unprecedented misery.

This Trial, to be sure, is the first of its kind in legal history. A tribunal is sitting in judgment, a tribunal created by the peace-loving free countries, who represent the desire of mankind for progress and to prevent the recurrence of calamities suffered, determined not to permit a gang of criminals to carry out with impunity their preparations for the enslavement of nations and the extermination of peoples in the realization of their fanatic plans. Mankind has called the criminals to account and we, the prosecutors, on behalf of all mankind, are the accusers at this Trial.

And how pitiful are the efforts to dispute the right of mankind to judge its enemies, how vain the efforts to deprive nations of the right to punish those who made enslavement and genocide their aim, and who for many years strove to realize this criminal aim by criminal methods. The present Trial is being so conducted that the defendants, who are accused of the most heinous crimes, are given every possibility to defend themselves and are offered all the necessary legal guarantees. In their own country the defendants who stood at the helm of the Government destroyed all legal forms of justice, and discarded all the principles of legal procedure accepted by civilized mankind. But they themselves are being tried by an international court with legal guarantees to assure all the rights of defense.

We are now summing up the results of the legal proceedings, we are drawing conclusions from the evidence examined before the Court, we are considering all the data upon which the accusation is based. We now ask: Were the charges levied against the defendants proved before the Court, has their guilt been established? There is only one answer to this question: The legal proceedings fully confirm the charges.

We charge the defendants only with those facts which have been fully established and proved beyond all doubt in the course of the proceedings in which monstrous crimes have been proved, crimes which were prepared over a period of many years by a band of bragging criminals who had seized power in Germany, and who perpetrated these crimes over a period of many years, without regard for the principles of law or the most elementary standards of human morality. These crimes have been proved, the defendants’ testimony and the arguments of the Defense have been powerless to refute the charges—they cannot be refuted because it is impossible to refute the truth, and truth is the enduring result of this Trial, the consequence of our long and stubborn efforts. The accusation has been proved in every detail. It has been proved that there existed a Common Plan or Conspiracy in which the defendants participated for the preparation of aggressive wars, in violation of international law and for the enslavement and extermination of peoples. There can be no doubt as to the existence of such a plan just as there is no doubt about the leading part played in it by the defendants. This point of the accusation is confirmed by all the data introduced during the legal proceedings by irrefutable documents, and by the testimonies of witnesses and of the defendants themselves.

All the activities of the defendants were directed toward the preparation and the launching of aggressive wars. All their so-called “ideological work” consisted in the cultivation of bestial instincts, in the installation of the absurd idea of racial superiority in the conscience of the German people, and in the practical realization of their plans for the extermination and enslavement of peoples of “inferior” races, who were supposed only to serve for fertilizing the growth of the “master race.” Their “ideological work” consisted in a call to murder, to plunder, to the destruction of culture, and to the extermination of human beings.

The defendants prepared these crimes a long time in advance and then committed them by attacking other countries, seizing foreign territories and exterminating the population. When was this plan or conspiracy conceived? Of course, it is scarcely possible to give an exact date, day and hour on which the defendants conspired to commit their crimes. We cannot and shall not establish our conclusions and assertions on guesses and suppositions. But it must be considered as established beyond any possible doubt that from the moment when the fascists seized power in Germany they embarked on their criminal aims and utilized this power for the preparation of aggressive war. All the activity of the defendants was directed toward the preparation of Germany for war. The rearmament and reconversion of economy for war purposes is an irrefutable fact—it has been proved by documents and admitted by the defendants themselves.

We may ask, what was this war for which the defendants began to prepare immediately after the seizure of power? Could this possibly be a defensive war? But then nobody intended attacking Germany; nobody had any idea of the kind, and—in my opinion—such an idea could not even have existed. Since Germany was not preparing for a defensive war and inasmuch as the very fact that she did prepare for war has been established—it is evident that she was preparing for a war of aggression. That is the logic of the facts and such are the facts themselves. Germany initiated and waged this very war which she had been preparing, and in 1937-39 occurred precisely that for what she had been preparing since 1933. Hence the conclusion: The plan or the conspiracy existed at least since 1933, that is, from the moment when the fascists seized power and used it for their criminal purposes. These are the facts which are confirmed by the words of the defendants themselves uttered at a time when they did not expect that they would ever be defendants. It is enough to mention the speeches of Schacht, Krupp and others in which they describe how the fascist Government was preparing for war and how all fields of political and economic life were subjected to this one purpose.

I consider as fully proved the charges against the defendants to the effect that in 1933, when the Hitlerites seized power in Germany, they created a plan or conspiracy for the perpetration of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The legal proceedings have unequivocally proved the crimes against peace committed by the defendants, which consisted in planning, preparing, initiating and waging aggressive wars, in violation of international treaties, agreements and assurances. Here the facts speak for themselves—wars which involved innumerable victims and destruction, wars whose aggressive nature has been undoubtedly established. The guilt of the defendants in the perpetration of crimes against peace has therefore been fully proved.

The charge of perpetrating war crimes, in waging war by methods contrary to all laws and customs of war, has also been fully proved. Neither the defendants themselves, nor their defense counsel could raise any objections to the very fact of their having committed these crimes.

All that they could say to this was that the defendants themselves had not committed these atrocities, as for instance the extermination of people in “murder vans” and concentration camps; they had not destroyed the Jews with their own hands, and some of them had not even known about such particular facts. But that such facts really did exist the defendants themselves do not deny. The defendants admit these facts. A fruitless method of defense!

Certainly, the defendants occupying high leading posts in Hitler’s Germany were in no need of personally shooting, hanging, smothering, freezing live people to death by way of an experiment, and so on. Their subordinates did that according to their instructions, their henchmen did the dirty work, so to speak, while the defendants only had to give orders which were obeyed without a murmur. Therefore, the attempts of the defendants to deny their connection with these henchmen, to detach themselves from them, were hopeless.

This connection is evident and indisputable. If the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess, extracted the gold teeth of the dead, we may say that the Reich Minister, Walter Funk, opened special vaults in the cellars of the Reichsbank in which to keep these gold teeth. If Kaltenbrunner’s subordinates exterminated people in “murder vans,” the vans themselves were built at the works of Sauer, Daimler and Benz, who again were the subordinates of the Defendant Speer. If the prisoners of war were destroyed by professional henchmen of the Death’s-Head unit and by the camp guards, the orders to exterminate were signed by Keitel, Generalfeldmarschall of the German Armed Forces. That is to say, it is the defendants who gave the sign for extermination, issued the orders to create a special murder technique, and explained the ideological reasons for the right of the master races to exterminate “inferior races.” It was they who calmly and ruthlessly watched the tortured victims and, as Hans Frank, delivered solemn speeches about “one more step forward” taken by German fascism toward ridding “the living space” of “the inferior races.”

The defendants are responsible for every murder, for every drop of innocent blood shed by Hitler’s hangmen, for between them and the direct perpetrators of the crimes, murders, tortures, there is a difference only in rank and scope of action. Those are the direct hangmen, and these are the principal hangmen, hangmen of a higher rank. They are far more dangerous than those they trained, in the spirit of hatred toward humanity and cruelty, and whom they now repudiate in order to save themselves.

The criminality of the defendants in the perpetration of war crimes has been fully proved in the sense that they initiated a system of exterminating prisoners of war, peaceful inhabitants, women, old men, and children. It is their fault that wherever the German soldier stepped there lay the heaps of murdered and tortured people, ruins and places left barren by fire, devastated towns and villages and the land desecrated and soaked in blood.

The crimes committed against humanity have been completely proved. We cannot omit the crimes committed by the defendants in Germany during their domination: The extermination of all those who in any way expressed their discontent with the Nazi regime, the slave labor and the extermination of human beings in concentration camps, mass extermination of Jews, and the same slave labor and extermination of people in the occupied territories—all this has been proved and the charges are irrefutable. What means of defense have the counsels used, what kind of proofs and arguments could they give to refute the charges?

The arguments of the defendants may be divided into two main groups. First, a number of witnesses summoned by the Defense Counsel. These witnesses were to extenuate the guilt of the defendants by their evidence, to play down the part taken by them in committing the crimes, and to rehabilitate them by all possible means.

These witnesses themselves were, in most cases, defendants in other trials. How can we discuss the objectivity and authenticity of the evidence given by such witnesses of the Defense, if the innocence of the Defendant Funk should be confirmed by his deputy and accomplice, a member of the SS since 1931, Hayler, bearing the rank of SS Gruppenführer; if the criminal Rainer, member of the fascist Party since 1930, and Gauleiter of Salzburg and then of Kärnten, was summoned to give evidence on behalf of Seyss-Inquart.

Those so-called “witnesses”—such as for instance Bühler—the right-hand man of the Defendant Frank and accomplice in all his crimes, or Bohle, one of the principal leaders of the Hitlerite espionage and counterespionage activities and chief of the Auslands-Organisation of the fascist party, came here in order to commit perjury to try to protect their former “bosses” and to save their own lives.

And yet most of the “witnesses” for the Defense in the course of the interrogation became witnesses for the Prosecution. They were convicted by the “mute witnesses”—documents, mostly of German origin; they themselves were forced to expose those whom they intended to protect.

Another type of the means used by the Defense is legal arguments and considerations.

a) Some legal aspects of the Trial.

The accusation in the present Trial is based on an enormous quantity of irrefutable facts and is firmly established on the principles of law and justice. Therefore, in the opening speeches for the Prosecution, so much attention has already been paid to the legal justification of the responsibility of the defendants.

In the speeches of the Defense a number of legal questions was again raised:

a) On the importance of the principle Nullum crimen sine lege;

b) on the importance of the order;

c) on the responsibility of the state and individuals;

d) on the concept of conspiracy.

I therefore consider it necessary to return again to some legal questions in order to answer the attempts of the Defense to confuse clear and simple statements and to change the legal argumentation into a kind of “smoke screen” in an effort to conceal from the Tribunal the gruesome reality of the fascist crimes.

a) Principle Nullum crimen sine lege.

The Defense attempted to deny the accusation by proving that at the time the defendants were perpetrating the offenses with which they were charged, the latter had not been foreseen by existing laws, and that therefore the defendants cannot bear criminal responsibility for them.

I could simply pass over the principle Nullum crimen sine lege, as the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which is an immutable law and is unconditionally to be carried out, provides that this Tribunal “shall have the power to try and punish all persons, who acting in the interest of European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organization or group,” committed any of the crimes enumerated in Article 6 of the Charter.

Therefore, from the legal point of view, sentence can be pronounced and carried out without requiring that the deeds which incriminate the defendants be foreseen by the criminal law at the time of their perpetration. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the deeds of the defendants, at the time when they were being committed, were actual criminal acts from the standpoint of the then existing criminal law.

The principles of criminal law contained in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal are the expression of the principles contained in a number of international, agreements, enumerated in my opening statement of 8 February 1946 and in the criminal law of all civilized countries. The law of all civilized countries provides criminal responsibility for murder, torture, violence, plunder, et cetera. The fact that those crimes have been initiated by the defendants on a scale surpassing all human imagination and bear the marks of unheard-of sadistic cruelty does not, of course, exclude but rather increases the responsibility of the defendants. If the defendants had committed the crimes on the territory and against the citizens of any one country, then in accordance with the declaration of the heads of the Governments of the U.S.S.R., of Great Britain and the United States of America, published on 2 November 1943, and in full agreement with the universally accepted principles of criminal law, they would be tried in that country and according to that country’s laws.

This declaration set forth that “the German officers, soldiers, and members of the Nazi Party who were responsible for the afore-mentioned cruelties, murders and executions, or who voluntarily took part in them, would be deported to the countries where those gruesome crimes had been committed, in order to be tried and punished according to the law of those liberated countries and free governments which would be established there.”

Nevertheless, the defendants are war criminals “whose offenses have no particular geographical location” (Article 1 of the Agreement of the Four Powers of 8 August 1945) and, therefore, the International Military Tribunal, acting in accordance with the Charter, is competent to try their crimes. The counsel for the Defendant Hess took the liberty to affirm that, “there can be no doubt that the Crimes against Peace, as they are stated in Article 6, Paragraph 2a, of the Charter, do not exist.”

There is no need here to refer to the international agreements as I have already mentioned them in my opening statement on 8 February 1946, in which aggressive war was declared an international crime. Therefore the attempts of the defendants and their counsels to hide behind the principle Nullum crimen sine lege have failed. They are charged with deeds which civilized humanity had long ago recognized as criminal.

b) Execution of an order.

Some of the defendants, in their depositions before the Tribunal, attempted to present themselves as pitiful dwarfs, blind and obedient executors of another’s will—the will of Hitler.

In his search for a legal basis for this assertion, counsel for the defense, Jahrreiss, spoke at great length about the importance of Hitler’s orders. In the opinion of the counsel Jahrreiss, an order of Hitler’s “was something quite different” from the order of any other leader, that a Hitler order was an act “legally immutable.” Therefore, Professor Jahrreiss questions whether, whatever the Charter may mean by the orders which it rejects as a factor excluding criminal responsibility, it would, be possible to adopt the same attitude toward an order of Hitler’s. He asks: Could such an order be looked upon as an “order” within the meaning of the Charter?

The right to interpret law is the irrefutable right of every lawyer, including the counsels for the Defense. Nevertheless, it is quite incomprehensible what logical or other methods have led him to assert that the provisions of the Charter, specially drafted for the trial of major war criminals of fascist Germany, did not factually imply the very conditions themselves of the activities of these criminals. What orders then issued by whom and in what country are meant by the Charter of the Tribunal?

On, the contrary it is indisputable that the authors of the Charter were fully aware of the specific conditions existing in Hitlerite Germany, were thoroughly familiar—from the material of the Kharkov and other trials—with the attempts of the defendants to hide behind Hitler’s orders, and it is for this very reason that they made a special proviso to the effect that the execution of an obviously criminal order does not exonerate one from criminal responsibility.

c) Responsibility of countries and individuals.

We think that the very authors of this attempt to conceal a large group of ministers, Gauleiter, and military commanders behind Hitler’s back doubted to a certain extent the efficacy of a similar defensive maneuver since a new line of defense was introduced to support the maneuver in question.

“If the German Reich launched an attack in spite of a still-existent nonaggression pact”—said counsel Jahrreiss—“then Germany committed an international offense and must answer for it according to the principles of international law—the Reich alone, but not the individual person...”

We cannot help noticing that the above point of view is not exactly a brand new one: Even before the beginning of the official Defense at this Trial, certain unofficial advocates of war criminals propagated a version to the effect that it was the German Government and the German nation who were to bear responsibility for the criminal aggression and war crimes and not individual persons. When one who is subject to international law, that is the state, violates its principles, certain consequences of an international character are entailed, but in no case does it entail the criminal responsibility of the state. Any action on the part of the state in the sphere of international relations is committed by individual persons, by officials, and by the agents of that state. In carrying out such acts, these individuals may be guilty of the most varied offenses in violation of either the common or the criminal law. In the latter case, that is, when their individual criminal responsibility is involved, they have to bear this legal responsibility before the court, in conformity with the laws of their own country, as well as—if such is the case—in conformity with the laws and before the courts of a foreign state.

In the present case, not only did the Hitlerite State violate the principles of international law, as a result of which measures were taken against the states; but also some particular individuals, in committing those acts, have personally committed criminal offenses for which they bear the criminal responsibility in accordance with the Charter before the International Military Tribunal.

d) Concerning the concept of conspiracy.

The Defense Counsel is unanimous in trying, although in different forms and versions, to contest the charges of criminal conspiracy directed against the defendants. Extracting from various sources one-sided and tendentiously selected definitions of conspiracy, the Defense Counsel have endeavored to prove that Göring, Hess, Ribbentrop, and others cannot be considered as participants in the conspiracy. I should like to quote here several arguments proving the lack of basis for the statements of the Defense.

Conspiracy implies the existence of a criminal society created for and working toward the achievement of a common criminal purpose. Such a society undeniably existed. It stands to reason that in this case the threads and levers uniting the members of this conspiratory criminal society are extremely complicated, since the conspirators had seized the government of the state.

In any criminal society and particularly in a highly complicated society like this, individual participants commit criminal acts included in the general plan of the conspiracy but they can practically remain unknown to a number of the members of this society. Nevertheless, as these crimes result from a single criminal plan, common to the entire society, the participants who have not personally committed these separate criminal actions and were not practically informed of them, still bear the responsibility for them.

In this particular case the existence of the conspiracy is not precluded by the circumstance that, for instance, Schirach could be unaware of some of the measures of the slave trader Sauckel, or the “pogrom maker” Streicher; neither is the existence of the conspiracy precluded by the differences of opinion among individual participants in the conspiracy concerning particular questions, the intrigues of Göring against Bormann, et cetera. Such dissensions may occur in any gang of robbers and thieves, but the gang does not cease to exist on this account.

In nearly every society there exists a certain hierarchy among its members. Very often the head of a criminal gang usurps unlimited power over the other members, even the right of life and death, but it never occurred to any lawyer in the world to deny the existence of a criminal society merely because its participants were not equal among themselves and one of them had power over the others.

It is, at any rate, strange to deny the existence of the conspiracy in the present case because of the fact that enormous personal power was vested in the hands of the leader Hitler. In the same way the existence of the conspiracy does not preclude but, per contra, implies a definite distribution of the parts played by the participants of the criminal group in pursuance of the common criminal aim: One directs all the criminal activities, the other is in charge of questions of ideological training, the third prepares the army, the fourth organizes the war industry, the fifth carries on diplomatic preparations, et cetera. Therefore, the fascist conspiracy does not cease to be a conspiracy, but is one which presents special danger, since the entire machinery of the government and enormous resources of men and material are in the hands of the conspirators. In the hands of the international criminals, in the hands of Göring, Keitel, and the other defendants countless people became instruments of most grievous crimes. This is the reason why specific features which distinguish the conspirators of fascist Germany from any other gang only lend it a specially dangerous character without changing in any way the legal nature of the conspiracy. This completes the analysis of the legal arguments of the Defense, which were examined in detail by my honorable colleagues. As you have seen, Your Honors, the arguments of the Defense were found to be inconsistent and incapable of rebutting the charges. I shall now consider the question concerning the guilt of the individual defendants.

Göring.

In Hitlerite Germany the Defendant Göring was next in importance to Hitler himself, he stood next in the line of succession. He assumed enormous powers, and seized the most responsible posts. He was the president of the Ministerial Council for Defense of the Reich, he was the dictator of German economy—the Delegate for the Four Year Plan—and the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force. The main point was that he utilized this extensive field and dedicated all his forces to the organization and perpetration of the crimes set out in the Indictment.

As we already know, the aim of this conspiracy consisted first of all in the conquest of Europe and then in the world supremacy of Hitlerite Germany, regardless of any methods, however criminal and inhuman. To realize this aim, the way had to be cleared since Hitler had already declared in February 1933 at a conference with prominent German industrialists that the parliamentary system must be destroyed.

Göring undertook this task. He began energetically to exterminate the political opponents of fascism, and for this purpose carried out mass arrests of members of political parties unfavorable to Nazism. He organized concentration camps where he interned, without trial, all those who disagreed with fascism. He created the Gestapo which, from the day of its birth, established a regime of bloody terror. He demanded of all the officials, in the camps, and of the Gestapo to stop at nothing—and savage punishments of human beings, tortures and massacres became under his guidance fundamental procedures. It is he, Göring, who declared: “Every bullet fired from the pistol of a policeman is my bullet, and if anyone calls it murder, this means that I have committed murder ...” (From Göring’s book, Aufbau einer Nation, published by him in 1934). Thus he cleared the way for fascism and paved the path for the unhampered progress and the realization of the fascist conspiracy. Göring was tireless in his efforts to annihilate everybody and everything which hampered this conspiracy. And Hitler praised him for this. For example, on 13 July 1934 he declared to the Reichstag that Göring, “... with his iron fist smashed the attack against the National Socialist State before this attack could become effective.”

All these terroristic activities of Göring were calculated to clear the way for the realization of the fundamental idea of the fascist conspiracy, that is, the conquest of Europe and, later, to achieve world supremacy of Hitlerite Germany. The legal proceedings have established Göring’s guilt in the planning and preparation of all aggressive wars by Hitlerite Germany.

Numerous documents have been presented to the Tribunal, testifying to the active part played by Göring in launching aggressive wars. I shall remind you of Göring’s declaration in 1935 at a meeting of Air Force officers. At that conference he declared that it was his intention “to create an air force which shall strike the enemy an avenging blow. Even before the attack, the enemy must feel that his cause is lost”; and this intention, as we know, he realized by preparing for war from day to day.

At the conference of the leaders of the German air industry on 8 July 1938 Göring hinted that war was near, and that if Germany emerged victorious from this war she would be the most powerful state in the world, dominating the world markets, and she would become a wealthy nation. “But one must risk, one must stake all.” Such was the slogan which Göring coined on that occasion.

On 14 October 1938, not long before he presented demands to Czechoslovakia, Göring declared that he had begun to carry out a gigantic program in comparison with which all previous undertakings were insignificant.

“In the shortest possible time, the Air Force must be increased fivefold; the Navy must be rearmed at a much greater speed, and the Army has to procure more speedily large numbers of weapons of attack, especially heavy artillery and heavy tanks. This must be accompanied by the production of war materials and particularly explosives.”

The active participation of Göring in the preparation for aggression against the U.S.S.R. has been established beyond all possible doubt. The Tribunal will find proof of Göring’s active participation as far back as November 1940 in the development of a plan for the attack against the U.S.S.R., contained in the record of the conference of 29 April 1941 on the organisation of the economic staff “Oldenburg” and in the minutes of the conference held on 23 February 1941 at the house of General Thomas, as well as in the testimony of Göring himself during the session of 21 March 1946.

It was Göring who, together with Rosenberg, Keitel and Bormann, at the conference with Hitler on 16 July 1941, gave concrete form to the plans for the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, the enslavement of her population and the despoliation of her riches. The plan to “... raze Leningrad to the ground and hand it over to the Finns” was conceived with his participation. It was he who recommended the hangman, Koch, for the post of Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine, as the “personality with the greatest initiative and the best training.” Therefore, it can be considered that Göring’s guilt in the planning and preparation of aggressive wars by Hitlerite Germany has been fully established, and for this he must bear responsibility.

My colleagues have already invited the attention of the Tribunal to the criminal treatment of prisoners of war. I shall just remind the Tribunal of the testimony given by the witness Maurice Lampe during the afternoon session of 25 January 1946 concerning the execution of Soviet, British, French, and other officers in Camp Mauthausen, in the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Maidanek; of the notes issued by the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., Molotov, dated 25 November 1941 and 27 April 1942, presented to the Court in connection with the monstrous ill-treatment inflicted by the German military authorities on Soviet prisoners of war, for which Göring is personally greatly responsible. I would also remind you of the depositions of the witness Halder, on 31 October 1945, describing a conference held at Hitler’s headquarters, on the nonapplication of the Hague Convention with respect to the treatment of Russian prisoners of war, and of the order issued from Hitler’s headquarters on 12 May 1941 on the treatment of captured Russian commanding officers and political workers.

All these crimes, established beyond any doubt before the Court, need not be further clarified, since the Defense in their pleas were unable to advance any arguments in rebuttal.

In the “12 Commandments for the Behavior of the Germans in the East” of 1 June 1941, the sixth commandment reads as follows:

“You must clearly understand that you for centuries to come are the representatives of Greater Germany and the standard bearers of National Socialism in the new Europe. You must, therefore, coolly carry out the most ruthless and the most cruel measures which will be demanded of you by the necessities of the State.”

The beginning of the systematic persecution and extermination of the Jewish population is connected with the name of Göring. It was he who signed the odious Nuremberg Laws, the decrees for the expropriation of Jewish property, for the imposition on the Jews of a penalty of one billion, and other decrees; such activities were in full keeping with the whole of Göring’s savage world outlook.

At the Trial Göring denied that he was an adherent of the racial theory, while in 1935 he made a speech before the Reichstag in defense of the Nuremberg racial instigators. On that occasion he loudly declared: “God has created races. He did not will equality and for this reason we reject energetically every attempt to pervert the idea of race purity ...”

Numerous documents presented to the Court by the Prosecution expose the criminal actions of Göring in respect to other nations. Göring’s order issued on 19 October 1939 clearly demonstrated the attitude of the defendant toward the Polish people and the Polish State. In an order relating to the economic policy in the East, issued on 23 May 1941 just before the attack on the U.S.S.R., Göring wrote as follows on the attitude toward the Russians:

“Germany is not interested in maintaining productivity in this territory. She will supply only the troops stationed there ... The population in those regions, and especially the urban population, is doomed to starvation. It will be necessary to deport this population to Siberia.”

In his capacity of Delegate for the Four Year Plan Göring is responsible for the plunder and spoliation of state property and personal property of the citizens, carried out by the Nazis in the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R., in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and other countries. It was precisely Göring who headed the activities of the Nazi conspirators directed toward the economic plunder of the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R.

A conference in connection with the elaboration of economic measures according to Case Barbarossa was held on 29 April 1941 prior to the treacherous attack against the U.S.S.R. As a result of this conference there was created a special economic staff “Oldenburg” which was subordinated to Göring. The creation of special economic inspectorates and units in the largest centers of the U.S.S.R. was planned; they were to handle important tasks for the exploitation and plunder of Soviet industry and agriculture.

The file of a district agricultural leader contained instructions to agricultural officials who were given full freedom in the choice of methods for the achievement of their criminal purposes. The demand for ruthless treatment of the Soviet peoples, the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Byelorussians, was expressly put forward. The report of the U.S.S.R. Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes committed by the Hitlerites in Kiev, in the region of Stalino and other places, states that these criminal plans of the Defendant Göring and his accomplices were for the greater part realized.

To secure the necessary manpower for the German war industry and agriculture, and at the same time for the purpose of the physical extermination and economic weakening of the enslaved peoples, the Defendant Göring and his accomplices in the Nazi conspiracy exploited the foreign workers as slaves. The exploitation of forced labor had been planned by the Nazis even before the war. It is sufficient to remind you of the conference at Hitler’s headquarters which took place on 23 May 1939 and in which the Defendant Göring also participated. At the conference of 7 November 1941 and in his order issued on 10 January 1942 Göring demanded of all the departments subordinated to him the necessary manpower for the German industries at the expense of the population of the occupied Soviet territories.

On 6 August 1942 Göring held a conference with the Reich Commissioners for the occupied territories and the representatives of the High Command. Addressing himself to the participants in this conference, Göring said:

“You are being sent there not to work for the well-being of the peoples entrusted to you, but for the purpose of extracting everything available.... You must be like bloodhounds, wherever there is still something left.... I intend to plunder and to do it efficiently....”

These intentions were carried out. Göring plundered, the Reich Ministers and Reich Commissioners for the occupied territories plundered, the representatives of the High Command, from the generals to the ordinary soldiers, also plundered. Such were the activities of Defendant Göring.

There is not a single measure executed by the fascist party, not a single step taken by the Hitlerite Government in which Göring did not participate. He participated actively in all the crimes of the fascist gang and for all his deeds he must be duly punished.

Hess.

The Defendant Rudolf Hess occupied a leading position among the Nazi conspirators from the very beginnings of the fascist state.

It was Hess who had been the leader of the fascist organization of the University of Munich. It was he who had participated in the Munich Putsch. It was he who, together with Hitler, had worked at the fascist bible Mein Kampf, assuming the duties of Hitler’s private secretary. It was he who had been president of the Central Political Commission of the fascist party, and it was he who had carried into effect the bestial policy of the fascist cutthroats as Deputy of the Führer after the seizure of power. It was precisely Hess to whom, according to Hitler’s decree of 21 April 1933, “full rights were granted to take decisions on Hitler’s behalf in all questions concerning the leadership of the Party.”

Immediately afterward Hess continued to seize one new post after the other in Hitler’s Government. As from 1 December 1933 he was Reich Minister without Portfolio “to insure close collaboration of the Party and the SA with the civil authorities”; on 4 February 1938 he was appointed member of the Secret Council; on 30 August 1939, member of the Reich Defense Council; and on 1 September 1939 Hitler declared Hess his successor after Göring. Hess was also appointed Obergruppenführer SS and SA.

By a decree of 27 July 1934 Hitler compelled the leaders of all the departments and ministries in Germany to present all drafts of laws to Hess for preliminary approval. Hess had to select and allocate the leading staff of the fascist cadres. This is proved by Hitler’s decree of 24 September 1935 and by other documents submitted to the Tribunal by the Prosecution.

Special note should be taken of the active part played by Hess in planning and carrying out aggressive wars. All the aggressive actions of Hitler’s Germany had been planned and prepared with the direct assistance of Hess and the Party machinery of the Nazis subordinated to him. Already on 12 October 1936, in his speeches in Bavaria, Hess appealed to the Germans:

“... at times to use a little less fat, a little less pork, fewer eggs.... We know”—said Hess—“that the foreign currency that is saved in this way goes for armaments. And the slogan of the day is: ‘Cannons instead of butter.’ ”

Hess spoke about this on the eve of his flight to England on 1 May 1941, speaking at the Messerschmitt factory where he made an appeal for the continuation of the aggressive war.

Together with Hitler, Göring, and other leaders of the Nazi conspiracy, Hess signed the decrees concerning the annexation of the territories seized by the Germans.

The man-hating Nuremberg Laws, for the publishing of which this defendant is also responsible, contain a special proviso authorizing Frick and Hess to issue the necessary decrees for carrying these laws into effect. Hess signed the law on the “Protection of Race and Honor,” the decree of 14 September 1935, depriving the Jews of their right to vote and of their right to employment in government offices; and also the decree of 20 May 1938 extending the Nuremberg Laws to Austria. The question of the part played by Hess in organizing a network for espionage and terroristic units abroad, as well as in creating the SD (Security Service) and in the recruitment of SS units, has been sufficiently elucidated at this Trial.

The very position occupied by Hess in the fascist party and Hitler’s Government shows the active and leading participation of the defendant in the preparation and realization of the common criminal plan of the fascist conspirators, and consequently the enormous share of his guilt and responsibility for the crimes against peace, for the war crimes and the crimes against humanity.

Your Honors, in order to evaluate more correctly the importance of the criminal activity of the Defendant Hess as one of the most notorious leaders of the Nazi Party and Hitler’s Government, I shall remind you of the article in the newspaper Nationalzeitung of 24 April 1941, dedicated to Hess.

“Many years ago—it was before the beginning of this war—Rudolf Hess was called the ‘Conscience of the Party.’ It is not difficult to answer the question why this honorable name was given to the Führer’s Deputy. There is not an event in our public life that is not connected with the name of the Deputy Führer. He is so versatile and original in his work and in his sphere of activity, that they cannot be described in a few words ... many measures carried out by the Government, especially in the field of war economy and in the Party, which at their publication are so readily welcomed by the public because they answer to a high degree the real feeling of the people, originate in the personal initiative of the Deputy of the Führer.”

Hess refused to offer explanations to the Tribunal. His counsel, Seidl, declared with false pathos that Hess considered the present Tribunal incompetent to judge the German war criminals, and immediately afterward, without a pause, he presented proofs in his defense. Hess even tried to declare himself insane to avoid punishment deserved. But when he was convinced that such a maneuver would not help him, he was forced to tell the Tribunal that he had simulated loss of memory, that it had been a trick on his part, and he had to admit that he bore full responsibility for all that he had done and signed together with the others.

Thus, this clumsy attempt of Hess to avoid responsibility was fully exposed at the Trial and he should suffer the full extent of his punishment for his participation in the Common Plan or Conspiracy for committing crimes against peace, war crimes and the most grievous crimes against the world and humanity, crimes perpetrated by him together with the other defendants.

Bormann.

The name of Martin Bormann is closely connected with the creation of Hitler’s regime. He was one of those who committed the most outrageous crimes, directed at the annihilation of many hundreds of thousands. Together with the Defendant Rosenberg, Bormann carried on with cruel perseverance a propaganda of racial theories together with the persecutions of the Jews. He issued numerous instructions aiming at discrimination against the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, which discrimination later on had such fatal effects and resulted in the annihilation of millions of Jews. By this activity he won Hitler’s confidence. He was “authorized to represent the Party in the sphere of government activities” (Verordnungen und Befehle der Parteikanzlei, Volume II, Page 228) and did so. Thus, as chief of the Party Chancellery, he directly participated in the annihilation of Jews, Gypsies, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Czechoslovaks.

Under his leadership the NSDAP became a police organization, closely co-operating with the German Secret Police and the SS. Bormann not only knew of all the aggressive plans of Hitler’s Government but he also took an active part in their realization. He made full use of the entire Party machinery of the NSDAP to realize the aggressive plans of Hitler’s Government, and he appointed the Party Gauleiter Reich Defense Commissioners in the regions where they operated.

The NSDAP Party machinery and Bormann personally participated actively in all measures taken by the German military and civil authorities for the inhuman exploitation of prisoners of war. This is proved by the numerous instructions and directives issued by Bormann. The evidence of the Prosecution and the legal proceedings have now established the extent of mass annihilation resulting from the savage ill-treatment of the prisoners of war.

The Party machinery and the Defendant Bormann personally participated directly in the measures adopted by Hitler’s Government in connection with the deportation of the peoples of the occupied territories for slave labor. The secret deportation of Ukrainian girls to Germany for enforced Germanization was carried out with Bormann’s approval. By Hitler’s order of 18 October 1944, Bormann and Himmler were entrusted with the leadership of the Volkssturm, consisting of all men from 16 to 60 years of age, capable of carrying arms. On the eve of the collapse of Hitler’s Germany, Bormann headed the Werewolf underground organization for diversion and subversive activities behind the Allied lines. Bormann participated directly in the plunder of historical and cultural treasures and works of art in the occupied territories. In 1943 he made suggestions for the intensification of the economic plunder in the occupied territories.

Such are the crimes of the Defendant Bormann, Hitler’s closest collaborator, sharing the full responsibility for the numerous crimes of Hitler’s Government and the Nazi Party.

Ribbentrop.

Joachim von Ribbentrop was not only one of the principal instigators and leaders of the foreign policy of Hitlerite Germany, but he was also one of the most active participants in the criminal conspiracy. Having officially entered the Nazi Party in 1932, the defendant, however, contributed actively to the seizure of power by the Nazis long before this actually occurred, and he rapidly became the official adviser of the Party, inasmuch as he was the “collaborator of the Führer on matters of foreign policy.”

Ribbentrop’s promotion is indissolubly connected with the development of the activities of the Nazi conspirators, activities directed against the interests of peace. In his testimony Ribbentrop declared: “He (Hitler) knew that I was his loyal collaborator.” That is why on 4 February 1938 Hitler appointed the convinced and faithful Nazi, Ribbentrop, as official leader of foreign policy, a post which was one of the most important forces in the realization of the entire Nazi conspiracy.

Ribbentrop, however, did not limit his activities to the scope of foreign policy. As member of the Hitlerite Government, the Reich Defense Council, and the Secret Council, he participated in the solution of all the innumerable problems connected with the preparation of aggressive wars. That is why he, Ribbentrop, although he was Minister for Foreign Affairs, participated in the solution and realization of problems only faintly relevant to foreign policy, such as the exploitation of manpower in wartime, the organization of the concentration camps, and so forth. In this connection it should be noted that Ribbentrop signed a special, far-reaching agreement with Himmler on the organization of joint intelligence service.

Ribbentrop became Reich Foreign Minister exactly at the beginning of the realization of the plans of aggression, which counted on the submission of Europe to Germany. This coincidence is no accident. Ribbentrop was considered, not without reason, as the most qualified person for the realization of this criminal conspiracy. He was preferred even to such an expert on international provocation as Rosenberg, which induced the latter to lodge an official complaint, not without reason. And Hitler was not mistaken in his choice, for Ribbentrop fully justified his confidence.

As early as 12 February 1938, a week after his appointment, Ribbentrop together with Hitler and the Defendant Papen, who for a long time before this date had been directing the diversionist activities of the Nazi agents in Austria, participated in a conference at the Obersalzberg. At this meeting he addressed an ultimatum, punctuated by threats, to the Austrian Federal Chancellor Schuschnigg and the latter’s Foreign Minister, Schmidt, demanding their agreement to the sacrifice of Austria’s independence and this object was attained.

As Minister, Ribbentrop was present at the conference of 28 May 1938, during which a decision was made for the execution of Case Green—the plan for aggression against Czechoslovakia. In conformity with the Nazi tactics of weakening their future victim from inside, Ribbentrop constantly kept a close contact with and gave material assistance first to the German Sudeten Party, and then to the Slovak National Socialists, with the object of attaining an internal split and fratricidal war in Czechoslovakia.

Having seized Czechoslovakia, the Nazi conspirators, and Ribbentrop among them, began to prepare for the next aggressive act, which had already been outlined by them in their criminal plan against peace—the attack on Poland.

Being forced by reason of the recently realized annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia to temporarily conceal Germany’s further intentions, Ribbentrop personally and through his agents and his diplomats endeavored to allay the vigilance of the European states by hypocritical declarations to the effect that Germany had no further territorial demands.

On 26 January 1939, in Warsaw, the Foreign Minister of fascist Germany, Ribbentrop, declared:

“... that the consolidation of friendly relations between Germany and Poland on the basis of our agreement constituted the most important factor of Germany’s foreign policy.”

A very short time elapsed and Poland experienced the full value of these assurances of Ribbentrop.

I will not dwell here on the perfidious part played by the Defendant Ribbentrop in the German aggression against Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg, for my colleagues have already dealt with this matter convincingly enough. The Defendant Ribbentrop personally and actively participated in carrying out the aggression against Yugoslavia and Greece.

Reverting to his favorite method of giving false guarantees in order to conceal future aggressions, Defendant Ribbentrop assured Yugoslavia, on 20 April 1938, that after the Anschluss Germany’s frontiers with Yugoslavia were considered both “final and unalterable.”

At the same time manifold preparations for aggression were carried out with the assistance of the Defendant Ribbentrop. On 12 and 13 August 1939, at the conferences held by Hitler and Ribbentrop with Ciano on the Obersalzberg, an agreement was reached concerning the liquidation of the neutrals one by one.

With the direct and immediate assistance of the Defendant Ribbentrop, the Nazi conspirators planned, prepared, and executed the treacherous attack on the U.S.S.R. of 22 June 1941.

The Defendant Ribbentrop himself admitted in the courtroom, that at the end of August and the beginning of September 1940, that is, at the time when the work on Case Barbarossa was being carried out—as is evident from the depositions of General Warlimont, General Müller and Field Marshal Paulus—the Defendant Keitel was discussing with him the question of attacking the U.S.S.R. The activities of the defendant, and the Ministry directed by him, played a primary part in the organization of war against the U.S.S.R. with the participation of Finland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.

After the beginning of the aggression of Germany against the Soviet Union, the Defendant Ribbentrop continued to apply his efforts to lure new accomplices to the side of Germany. Thus in a telegram to the German Ambassador in Tokio on 10 June 1941 he said:

“I beg you to try all the means at your disposal to influence Matsuoka in order to force Japan to enter into war with Russia as soon as possible. The sooner, the better. The aim, of course, should be that Japan and Germany shake hands on the Siberian railway before winter comes ...”

As has been established at the Trial, Ribbentrop, together with the other defendants, was preparing a policy of extermination and plunder, planned by the Hitlerites and then carried out in the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The Defendant Rosenberg, who was elaborating the plans for the exploitation of the occupied territories in eastern Europe, held a conference on this question with the OKW, the Ministry of Economics, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his “Report on Preparatory Work on the Eastern European Questions” he wrote: “As a result of negotiations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the latter appointed Consul General Bräutigam as their representative to Rosenberg.”

It is therefore indisputable that Ribbentrop not only knew about the preparations for the military attack on the U.S.S.R., but that he, together with the other conspirators, had planned beforehand the colonization of the territory of the Soviet Union and the enslavement of the Soviet citizens.

The defendant was compelled to admit that he had known of the notes issued by the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs V. M. Molotov concerning the atrocities of the Hitlerites in the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. He, as well as the other conspirators, had also known the other declarations of the chiefs of the Allied Governments concerning the responsibility imposed upon the Nazi Government for the perpetration of the monstrous atrocities by the Hitlerites in the occupied countries.

Ribbentrop, as the witness for the Defense, Steengracht, former Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has confirmed, had been one of the initial organizers and was to be appointed honorary member of the International Anti-Jewish Congress which the Germans hoped to convene in July 1944, in Kraków.

Ribbentrop himself admitted at the Trial that he had negotiated with the governments of European countries concerning the banishment of the Jews.

According to the record of Ribbentrop’s conversation with Horthy: “The Minister of Foreign Affairs declared to Horthy that the Jews should either be exterminated or sent to concentration camps. There can be no other decision.”

This statement amply confirms the fact that Ribbentrop was aware of the existence of the concentration camps although he tried hard to prove the reverse here. Ribbentrop lent his support to other Nazi leaders and above all to the Defendant Sauckel in deporting the population of the occupied countries for forced labor in Germany. Moreover, the Defendant Ribbentrop when carrying out the common plan of conspiracy which included the destruction of the national culture of the peoples of the occupied territories, took a most active part in plundering cultural treasures which are the common property of all nations.

To carry out this task, a “Special Service Battalion” had been created on Ribbentrop’s instructions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which, during the entire war, followed the advance units, requisitioned, and deported to Germany all kinds of cultural treasures from the occupied territories in the East, in accordance with Ribbentrop’s directions.

Thus the Defendant Ribbentrop had participated in the seizure of power by the Nazis, playing a leading role in planning, preparing, and waging aggressive and predatory wars; together with the other conspirators he participated, in pursuance of the fascist plans, in the leadership, committing most grievous crimes against the nations whose territories had been temporarily occupied by the Hitlerite invaders.

The military group.

Several of the defendants in the dock at this Trial of the major war criminals may be said to form a military group. Excluding Göring—who is quite a peculiar figure, uniting in his person the politician, administrator, and soldier—there remain Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz and Raeder. In the course of these proceedings not only have all the Counts of the Indictment against them been sustained, but even more incriminating evidence has been brought to light.

The documentary evidence, the testimony of witnesses, including those called by the Defense, helped tip the scales in favor of the Prosecution.

The Defense Counsel tried to convince the Tribunal that their clients were the pawns of destiny, involved in this sinister tragedy in spite of themselves.

The defendants—Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz, and Raeder endeavor to appear in the role of noble-minded simpletons. To do the Defense justice, they did the best they could to help them in this attempt.

We have heard a great deal about the honor of the soldier—of military discipline, fidelity to duty and oaths of allegiance—and the consequent obligation to fulfill Hitler’s orders, even those which in their hearts aroused both doubt and direct protest. Such a presentation of their position completely distorts the actual state of affairs. Before passing to the question of the guilt of Keitel, Jodl, Dönitz, and Raeder, I consider it necessary to ask the following four questions:

1)

Did these defendants know that Hitlerite Germany, in violation of her international obligations, had prepared a series of aggressive and predatory wars?

2)

Did they take an active part in the planning, preparing, launching and waging of these wars?

3)

Are they guilty of cynically trampling on the laws and customs of warfare?

4)

Are they responsible for the atrocities and for the extermination of the peaceful population, for the sinking of passenger and hospital ships, for the towns and villages destroyed by the military machine of the Hitlerite Reich?

It seems to me that after this investigation which has so carefully gone into all the details of this case it would be impossible, unless we remain blind to the facts, to give any but an affirmative answer to these questions.

The evidence submitted to the Tribunal has fully proved that the military group of criminals is guilty of the most appalling crimes and that they have actively participated in the planning and execution of the common criminal conspiracy.

The very fact that these crimes were committed by men in uniform not only does not mitigate their responsibility, it seems to me, but on the contrary, merely serves to heighten it.

How can they attempt to whitewash themselves by referring to the “duty of a soldier,” “the honor of an officer,” and the “obligation of fulfilling orders”? Since when has “the duty of a soldier” and “the honor of an officer” been compatible with shooting prisoners without trial or exterminating women, children, and old people?

The only true and correct explanation of the amazing fact that these generals and admirals did commit what, in effect, were ignoble crimes, lies in the fact that they were actually generals and admirals of Hitler’s making. These are men of a special brand. They are fascists in military uniform bound in body and soul to the Nazi regime. This is the only reason why Hitler gathered these men around him and collaborated with them for so long a period of time. This is the only way to explain why they collaborated with Hitler in perpetrating crimes unprecedented in history. They fitted together and understood one another to perfection.

Keitel.

It is only natural that, when speaking of the military group, I begin with Defendant Keitel. Keitel held the leading post in Hitler’s military machine from the very first years of its conception. Keitel’s counsel admits that “the decree”—of 4 February 1938—“gave Keitel the marvelous title: ‘Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces.’ ” Further he goes on to say:

“... the factual significance of Keitel’s activities ... was immense ... It was an extremely ungrateful job and its miserly remuneration was a brilliant position in the immediate proximity to the head of the State.”

In the light of all subsequent events it may be taken for granted that the primary stage of all the future wars of aggression included everything connected with the secret rearmament of Germany after the Versailles Treaty.

It is difficult to minimize the significance of all that was done at the time by the then Colonel Keitel in the committee of experts which painstakingly and consecutively sought and found means of circumventing and even violating the treaty.

It was none other than Keitel in particular who gave instructions to the effect that in Geneva it was possible to say what one pleased, but care must be taken not to leave anything behind on paper. This cynical statement fully tallies with the role played by Keitel in the subsequent preparation and waging of aggressive wars. During the negotiations between Hitler and Schuschnigg, Keitel in person was the living reminder of Germany’s preparedness to resort to arms. Keitel issued orders for troops to cross into Czechoslovakia at the time when President Hacha was so treacherously called to Berlin “for continuing negotiations.” It was the OKW, and none other, which was fully prepared through the Department of the Abwehr to provoke an incident with Czechoslovakia in order to justify the invasion by the German hordes, ready to fall upon Czechoslovakia. In his strictly confidential memorandum Keitel demanded that Hess and Himmler advise the OKW in advance of all measures taken by Party organizations or Police which were not included in Case Green.

The declarations alleging that after the seizure of Czechoslovakia Germany had no more territorial aspirations in Europe were downright lies. This seizure was but a link in the chain of aggressive wars.

I wish to emphasize the leading role of the OKW in the preparation and carrying out of aggression. The directive regarding the waging of war and the invasion of Poland is known to us as Keitel’s and Hitler’s directive of 10 May 1939. It was forwarded to the High Command of the Air Force, Navy, and Army. How is it possible, after this, to maintain that the OKW was not the driving power behind all the branches of the Armed Forces of the fascist Reich?

If we once more peruse the documents pertaining to German aggression against Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, and Greece, we will again come across the name of Keitel. He appears either as a participant in the most important events, or as the author of secret orders addressed to Raeder, Göring and the General Staff. We find the initials of Keitel and Jodl entered in their own hand on the secret directive signed by Hitler regarding “Operation Marita.”

Much has been said here of Case Barbarossa and its authors. At present it is important to stress that this document took shape in the innermost depths of the OKW, and on its initiative, and that the methods planned prior to a treacherous attack on the U.S.S.R. were likewise the work of the OKW. The significance of a military specialist’s visa on a document is clear to everybody.

Some of the defendants in their untruthfulness attempted to portray the attack on the U.S.S.R. as a preventive war. This contention is to such a degree unconvincing and contradictory to the irrefutable evidence presented in court—German documents—that I see no need for wasting the Tribunal’s time.

Keitel’s counsel stated that his defense is based on the point of view that Keitel “is fighting not for his head but to save his face.” I should like to help the Tribunal to unveil Keitel’s true face. For this I should have to remind you of a number of Keitel’s directives which may well lay claim to being among the foremost of all the infamous documents pointing to the barbarity of the German military clique, to its baseness and foul and unlimited contempt for every concept of the rules and customs of warfare.

Let us consider the documents dealing with the shooting of political officers. Keitel, the soldier, as he likes to call himself, ignoring his oath, shamelessly lied to the representatives of the American Prosecution at the preliminary investigation by avowing that, to begin with, this order was in the nature of a reprisal and that the political officers were separated from the other prisoners of war at the request of the prisoners of war themselves. At the Trial he was unmasked. Exhibit Number USSR-351, Document Number 884-PS proved that this directive had been issued before the war had broken out. We also submitted a document under Document Number USSR-62, the text of a letter from German prisoners of war. This document makes it clear that even before the attack on the U.S.S.R. the armies in the field had been instructed absolutely to exterminate Soviet women in military service as well as political officers.

And what can be said of the following statement, appalling in its boundless cynicism: “... human life in the countries concerned is not of value at all ... a terrifying influence can only be achieved by unheard-of brutality.” And what can we say of the directive of 13 May 1941 introducing courts-martial in the “Barbarossa” region? And of the order of 16 October 1941 calling for the execution of 80 to 100 Communists for each German killed? What could Keitel say about the document known as “Nacht und Nebel”?

These are documents stained in blood. No one can compute how many thousands of prisoners of war, soldiers and officers of the Red Army, had been killed and tortured to death in the camps of fascist Germany. You remember how on 21 January 1946 at the afternoon session the witness Lampe testified that for Himmler’s amusement the shooting of 50 Soviet officers was organized in Mauthausen Camp. You remember the witness Blaha testifying that in the spring of 1944, 94 Soviet senior military officers were tortured and then killed for refusing to impart military information. I should like to mention the testimony of the SS man, Paul Waldmann, regarding the slaughter of 840 Russian prisoners of war. You remember the testimony of the witness Kivelisha regarding the endless chain of scoffing and suffering to which all Russians captured by the Germans were subjected?

It is impossible to overlook Keitel’s directive calling for the branding of Soviet prisoners of war. One cannot forget the Keitel directive of 16 December 1942. It is entitled “Measures to be adopted against bands.” Under the word “bands” Defendant Keitel understood any resistance movement and demanded that his troops revert to harshest methods, stopping at nothing, even with regard to women and children.

The Soviet Prosecution submitted Le Court’s testimony as Document Number USSR-162. Le Court states that he shot and burned Soviet citizens and razed their houses. He alone had shot over 1,200 persons and for this achievement was prematurely promoted to the rank of Obergefreiter and awarded the medal for service in the East. He acted in accordance with Keitel’s directives.

The directive of Keitel’s instituting courts-martial in the “Barbarossa” region freed such persons of all responsibility for their crimes. Keitel’s hands are stained with the blood of the victims of Le Court and his kind. It was in carrying out Keitel’s directive to the effect that “life in the eastern regions was of no value at all,” that the soldiers and officers of Hitlerite Germany committed their atrocities.

Document Number USSR-51, submitted by the Prosecution, shows how, on 28 August 1941, attacking German troops drove a group of women, children, and old men in front of their combat units. In the village of Kolpino the fascists forced the peasants to dig trenches and build bridges for them. Then they shot all the peasants.

In Yugoslavia the mass shooting of hostages was a daily practice of the Armed Forces and military administration. In a secret report of 15 February 1940, addressed to Göring, the OKW justifies the practice of seizing hostages.

I wish to conclude with Exhibit Number USSR-356, Document Number EC-338, which Your Honors will, of course, remember. In this document Admiral Canaris informs Keitel of the club law prevalent in the prisoner-of-war camps, of the hunger, and of the mass shootings of Soviet prisoners of war. Even that hardened fascist spy, Canaris, fearing eventual responsibility, could not ignore a cruelty which cried to High Heaven and a flagrant violation of all accepted laws and customs of warfare.

You will remember Keitel’s note on this report: “I approve and support these measures.”

On 7 April 1946 in the course of the cross-examination, I put the following question to Keitel:

“You, Defendant Keitel, called a Field Marshal, repeatedly referred to yourself as a soldier before this Tribunal, and you, by your bloodthirsty resolution of September 1941 approved and sanctioned the murder, in cold blood, of thousands of unarmed captured soldiers. Do you confirm this?”

Keitel was forced to admit this fact.

This resolution alone unveils the true, the authentic face of Field Marshal Keitel. The highly involved arguments of the defense cannot absolve him of his responsibility for the bloodshed and for the innumerable human lives cut short by the fascist military clique acting on orders and directives signed by Keitel’s hand.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess now.

[A recess was taken.]

GENERAL RUDENKO: Jodl.

The Defendant Alfred Jodl shares equal responsibility with Defendant Keitel as his assistant and as Hitler’s closest military adviser. Everything connected with the preparation and execution of the aggressive plans of Hitlerite Germany is inseparably linked to the name of Jodl, as well as to Keitel’s. There is no need to repeat all the aggressive acts of Hitler’s Germany which had been individually planned and executed with the direct connivance of Defendant Jodl. They are already facts of common knowledge.

As the representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I should like to emphasize once again that the criminal plan for the perfidious attack on the Soviet Union, coded by the Hitler clique under the name of the ill-fated conqueror, Friedrich Barbarossa, is signed not only by Hitler and Keitel, but by Jodl as well. But this is more than a mere signature.

As far back as the summer of 1940, in Reichenhall, Jodl held the first conference with his staff officers at which the question of a possible attack by Hitler Germany on Soviet Russia was discussed. It was the Defendant Jodl alone who, even before the attack against the U.S.S.R., issued his well-known “Instructions on the Use of Propaganda in the ‘Barbarossa’ Region.” In these instructions it is definitely stated that “propaganda directed at the partition of the Soviet Union should not, as yet, be carried out.”

Thus, Defendant Jodl knew beforehand of the actual aims of Germany’s attack on the U.S.S.R. and knew of the predatory, violent nature of a war which called for the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. It was Jodl who participated in the preparation and organization of a provocative incident staged on the Czechoslovak border intended to justify the aggressive act of Hitler’s Germany against this peace-loving nation. It was Jodl who signed the directive of 28 September 1938 regarding the order in which the so-called Henlein Corps was to be used should Case Green be realized. How full of derision are the words of the Defendant Jodl about the “honor of the soldier” when we read his order for the destruction of Leningrad, Moscow, and other cities of the Soviet Union. It was this selfsame Jodl who with inimitable cynicism declared at a conference with Hitler on 1 December 1941 that German troops could with impunity “hang by the feet and quarter” the Soviet patriots.

As Hitler’s closest military adviser, who had personally participated in the preparation and execution of all the bloodthirsty and aggressive plans of Hitlerite Germany, Defendant Jodl has been justly included in the ranks of the major German war criminals.

Dönitz and Raeder.

My British colleague has proved the guilt of Defendants Karl Dönitz and Erich Raeder so convincingly and thoroughly that I see no need to dwell particularly on these Grossadmiral of Hitlerite Germany, who have stained their admirals’ uniforms by such infamous crimes.

In the course of his cross-examination Dönitz told the Soviet prosecutor that he was unaware of the reasons for which Hitler had appointed him as his successor. I do not believe that Dönitz was quite sincere in making this statement. One has only to refer to the transcripts of the sessions of 8 May in order to understand without any confession on his part why he became Hitler’s successor when the Hitlerite Reich collapsed to the ground. The important point is not the fact that an admiral was needed at a moment like this, but the fact that in the opinion of Hitler, who so soon was to fade from the picture, only the Nazi Grossadmiral Dönitz could do anything to save the sinking ship.

Under Hitler Dönitz commanded the submarine arm of the German Reich. We know the role which the German U-boats played in this war. In this connection it is worth emphasizing that Dönitz prided himself on being the author of the so-called “wolf-pack tactics.” The people of the Soviet have not forgotten how Dönitz’ submarines, in the Baltic and Black Seas, sank both hospital ships and steamers evacuating peaceful citizens—women and children.

The last head of the Hitlerite Government should also be one of the first to pay the penalty for all those crimes which have led to the trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal.

The name of Raeder is linked to the impious directive for the destruction of Leningrad. At the Trial Raeder tried to act the part of an “honest soldier.” But the mere fact that it was he, together with Hitler and Keitel, who conspired to “wipe Leningrad off the face of the earth” and to exterminate more than 3 million of the population of that great city, whose very name is indissolubly connected with the development of the culture and history of mankind, makes Raeder one of the major war criminals.

Raeder participated in drafting all the most important plans of aggression of German fascism. This participant in the criminal fascist conspiracy must, therefore, bear the punishment meted out to his associates.

Kaltenbrunner.

The Defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner was considered by Himmler as the most deserving successor to that hangman, Heydrich, executed by Czech patriots. On 30 January 1943, he was appointed head of the Reich Security Main Office and chief of the SD.

Numerous documents and especially directives signed by Kaltenbrunner for the mass deportation of people to the concentration camps, the testimonies of his subordinates, including the depositions of Walter Schellenberg, former chief of foreign intelligence (Amt VI), and of Otto Ohlendorf, chief of the security within Germany (Amt III or SD), fully convict Kaltenbrunner of the most heinous crimes.

At the session of 12 April 1946, in the course of Kaltenbrunner’s examination, the testimonies of Johann Kandutor, ex-prisoner of Mauthausen, were read into the record. In his depositions Kandutor described as follows the manner in which Kaltenbrunner passed his time on one of his visits to the camp:

“Laughing, Kaltenbrunner entered the gas chamber; then the prisoners were led from the barracks to execution and all three methods of execution were demonstrated—hanging, shooting in the neck, and gassing.”

I shall not dwell upon the numerous proofs available, since they have been sufficiently clarified before the Tribunal. There is only one point of the accusation against Kaltenbrunner on which I consider it necessary to dwell.

Together with the other RSHA organizations, Kaltenbrunner took over from Heydrich five Einsatzgruppen. The citizens of the Soviet Union well remember these cruel organizations of German fascism, headed by Kaltenbrunner. Einsatzgruppe A reached the approaches to Leningrad. It created the “Fort of Death Number 9” near Kaunas and the secret center for the mass extermination of human beings in Panarai; it carried out executions by shooting in the woods of Salaspilsk and Bikerneksk near Riga; it erected gallows in the parks of Pushkino one of Leningrad’s suburbs.

Einsatzgruppe B settled down in the vicinity of Smolensk. It burned alive the peasants of Byelorussia; it shot down the victims of the awful Pinsk action; it drowned thousands of Byelorussian women and children in the Masurian Lakes; it operated with “murder vans” in Minsk; it liquidated the ghetto in the Verchnye Sadka district of Smolensk.

Einsatzgruppe C was billeted in Kiev. This group carried out the mass action in Babij Jar near Kiev, an execution unmatched in cruelty, when 100,000 Soviet citizens perished on a single day.

Einsatzgruppe D operated in the southern regions of the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. This group was the first to experiment with the “murder vans” on Soviet citizens in the district of Stavropol and in Krasnodar.

And when Kaltenbrunner’s fate will be decided, all the victims asphyxiated in the “murder vans” near Stavropol, buried alive in the graves near Kiev and Riga, burnt alive in the Byelorussian villages, must never be forgotten. All these innocent victims are on his unclean conscience.

Successor to a hangman, and himself a hangman, Kaltenbrunner carried out the most revolting function in the common criminal plan of the Hitlerite clique.

Rosenberg.

I shall now summarize the evidence relevant to the guilt and responsibility of the Defendant Rosenberg.

In spite of Rosenberg’s efforts to minimize both his role and his importance, in spite of his efforts to juggle with historical facts and events, he cannot deny that he was the official ideologist of the Nazi Party; that already a quarter of a century ago, he had laid the “theoretical” foundations of the fascist Hitlerite State, which during this whole period morally corrupted millions of Germans, preparing them “ideologically” for the monstrous crimes committed by the Hitlerites—crimes unprecedented in history, and which are the subject of this Trial.

When, at the Trial, Rosenberg was asked: “Were you not one of Hitler’s closest collaborators?” he did not even speak—he shouted in reply: “That is not true, I never was.” But however hard Rosenberg tried to deny his “Führer,” he has not succeeded in washing away the stigma of being “one of the oldest and the most faithful of Hitler’s comrades-in-arms.” For 25 years Rosenberg, first acting as Hitler’s collaborator and afterward under his direction, worked out and assisted in the realization of the fantastic plan for world supremacy, having chosen, for the justification of this criminal plan, the misanthropic theory of racism.

The fact that Rosenberg utilized for his purposes garbled science and borrowed theories from Karl Lueger and Paul Lagarde, Count Gobineau, Oswald Spengler, and Arthur Moeller cannot affect the question of Rosenberg’s guilt and responsibility. The important fact is that Rosenberg, having assembled all these “scientific excreta,” raised the racial theories to a degree of racial fanaticism and educated in this spirit the members of the Nazi Party and the youth of Germany. And when the representatives of the “master race” elaborated and committed acts of aggression, when the German occupation troops enslaved and exterminated nations and peoples, when the factories of death were created at Maidanek and Auschwitz, Treblinka and Chelmno, Rosenberg’s share in all these crimes was not insignificant. All this was the outcome of the fascist racial ideology, the essence of which consists in the idea that the “Aryan, North Germanic” race is a “master race,” and that all other races and nations belong to “lower strata.”

Rosenberg’s counsel said: “The Tribunal must judge crimes and not theories.” In Rosenberg’s case such an argument is clearly unconvincing. For Rosenberg not only confessed the fascist racial theory, but knowingly propagated it and instilled it into the conscience of the German people, this very theory which became a direct menace to the existence of the democratic European states. The person who carries microbes must be isolated, but the person who willingly disseminates microbes must be tried.

Rosenberg’s criminal activities were not limited to the ideological preparation for aggression and to the propagation of man-hating theories. His activities had many facets. The criminal activities of the foreign policy department of the NSDAP have already been sufficiently elucidated at this Trial; this department, which for many years was subordinated to the Defendant Rosenberg, was in charge of a network of semilegal Nazi agencies abroad. The influence of this organization on the measures of foreign policy undertaken by Hitlerite Germany and in the initiation of aggressive wars was very great indeed.

One of the documents submitted by Neurath’s counsel and accepted by the Tribunal reads as follows:

“There existed at one time in Berlin three sorts of ministries for foreign affairs: Herr Rosenberg’s Ministry, Herr Von Ribbentrop’s Ministry, and the official ministry on Wilhelmstrasse.”

And finally, Rosenberg’s letter to Hitler of 6 February 1938 stressed his real influence on the foreign policy of Hitlerite Germany and his “merits” in this field, when he applied for membership in the Secret Cabinet Council.

I see no need for giving an analysis of all Rosenberg’s criminal activities and I only intend to dwell briefly on his activities as “Führer’s plenipotentiary” and later as Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories. In these functions Rosenberg most clearly showed himself as a participant in the criminal conspiracy.

Rosenberg declares that he was against war with the U.S.S.R. and that he learned from Hitler about the preparations for an attack against the U.S.S.R. only when all the orders to military channels had already been issued, that he never really had any influence on the foreign policy of Hitlerite Germany. I affirm, Your Honors, that all these declarations of Rosenberg are false.

It is a well-known fact that the plan for a German crusade against Soviet Russia was actually the starting point of the National Socialist foreign policy, as set out in the 1921 New Year publication of the Völkischer Beobachter, and that the author of this policy was Alfred Rosenberg. It was Rosenberg who, inspired by Ludendorff and Rechberg, propagated—together with Hitler—a foreign policy directed toward the creation of an anti-Semitic, anti-Bolshevik, and anti-British continent of Europe.

Rosenberg’s speeches, setting out plans for the “exchange” of the Polish Corridor for the Ukraine, his “diplomatic” journeys into certain countries after the seizure of power by the fascists, his clumsy efforts to realize the foreign policy program of the fascists, were widely voiced in the press.

The documents submitted give a clear picture of Rosenberg’s feverish activities in April 1941 during the period immediately preceding the attack by Germany on the U.S.S.R., when he was nominated the Führer’s plenipotentiary for the central control of the questions connected with the eastern European territories.

On 7 April 1941, 2 weeks prior to his nomination, Rosenberg sent his proposals to Hitler for the division of the Soviet Union into Reich Commissariats and for the appointment of fascist governors for the occupied territories. Byelorussia and the Ukraine, Minsk and Kiev, Rostov and Tiflis, Leningrad and Moscow, were all enumerated in Rosenberg’s proposals. For the post of Reich Commissioner of Moscow, Rosenberg recommended the notorious Erich Koch.

We have heard about Rosenberg’s meetings with Brauchitsch and Raeder and of his conferences with Funk, General Thomas, State Secretary Backe and others, on the questions of economic exploitation of the eastern territories, and about his negotiations with Ribbentrop, the SA chief of staff, and the chief of the German Intelligence Service, Admiral Canaris. Already 6 weeks prior to the attack on the U.S.S.R. he drafted directives for all the Reich Commissioners of the eastern territories to be occupied, in which he provided for a “Reich Commissariat Russia” and a “Reich Commissariat Caucasus,” while the Byelorussian Republic was to form a part of the “Reich Commissariat Ostland.”

Rosenberg attempted to affirm that he did not share in the aggressive and predatory aims of the war against the U.S.S.R. and that on the contrary, in his capacity of Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, he even loaded with benefits the population of these territories. And this he dared to affirm, when the directive to the Reich Commissioner of the Baltic States and Byelorussia described his aims as follows:

“... the creation of a German protectorate for the purpose of subsequent inclusion of these regions in the Greater German Reich, by the Germanization of elements suitable from the racial point of view, by the colonization by representatives of the Germanic race, and by the extermination of all undesirable elements.”

And this is maintained after the following recommendations were made in another of Rosenberg’s directives on the subject of the civil administration in the Eastern Occupied Territories:

“The main and foremost task ... is the furtherance of the interests of the Reich. The regulations of the Hague Convention regarding land warfare are no more valid, since we can consider the U.S.S.R. defeated.... For this reason, all measures which the German administration may consider necessary or convenient are admissible.”

Rosenberg was too hasty in his assertion that the U.S.S.R. was defeated, he let the cat out of the bag and gave away his most secret plans. But this document is also an irrefutable proof, invalidating all the attempts of the defendant to cast the burden of responsibility for the monstrous crimes perpetrated by the German fascist oppressors throughout the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. from his own shoulders to those of individual officials and policemen, to Koch and Himmler.

It was Rosenberg who permitted the repudiation of the Hague Convention and the utilization of all measures which might seem “convenient.” When Koch, for his “convenience,” exterminated the population of the entire Zuman district, he was merely acting in the spirit of this directive of Rosenberg’s.

Rosenberg described here his dissensions with Koch. He alleged that he followed a humanitarian policy and even imported agricultural machinery. Even if Rosenberg did indeed, from time to time, object to Koch’s actions, it was only because he was afraid of premature publicity, and because he was afraid that Koch’s unparalleled ill-treatment of the Ukrainian people would only strengthen the resistance movement. Rosenberg was influenced by fear and not by any humanitarian considerations. Rosenberg’s true policy is set out in numerous documents which have now become known to the public opinion of the world and which are in the files of the Tribunal.

In an official note for the Führer dated 16 March 1942, Rosenberg set out the aims of the German policy in the occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. and, primarily, in the Ukraine:

“... the utilization of minerals, the creation of a German colony in certain regions, no artificial intellectual development of the population, but its preservation as a source of manpower.”

In his report on the reorganization of the Caucasus Rosenberg wrote that:

“The problem of the Ostland consists in the transplanting of the Baltic nations to the soil of German culture and in the preparation for an adequate German strategic frontier. The task of the Ukraine is to secure necessary food supplies for Germany and Europe, and raw materials for the continent. The problem of the Caucasus is primarily a political problem and it will lead to the expansion of continental Europe, headed by Germany, from the isthmus of the Caucasus to the Near East.”

And finally, I would like to point out that it was Rosenberg who had made the following statement in a speech before the German Labor Front, on the policy adopted in the occupied U.S.S.R. territories: “It seems that if these peoples are left to themselves, arbitrary justice and tyranny will be the most suitable form of government.” The Defense affirm that Rosenberg and his Einsatzstab were not concerned with the plunder of cultural treasures, but with their preservation. This statement is also entirely false. Numerous documents read into the record at this Trial have proved that as early as April 1941, that is, more than 2 months prior to the attack on the U.S.S.R., Rosenberg was organizing special units and staffs and was elaborating plans for the removal of the cultural treasures of the Soviet Union.

On 16 October 1941 Rosenberg wrote to Hitler as follows:

“I have issued an order to the same Einsatzstab of my organization now to carry out in a more comprehensive manner in the Eastern Occupied Territories the work already accomplished in the West ... having the whole picture before our eyes, we can satisfy all the just wishes and demands of the agencies of the Greater German Reich. On this basis I would also be willing personally to guarantee that all the art treasures for Linz and other museums which can be utilized for your own plans, my Führer, were factually used for this purpose.”

On 17 October 1944 Rosenberg wrote to Lammers that for the transport of goods “listed” by his organization, it was necessary to use 1,418,000 railroad cars, while 427,000 further tons were shipped by water. In this same letter Rosenberg mentioned that among the confiscated goods removed to Germany, there were 9,000 cars with agricultural and other machinery. And after this he dares to speak about some machines which he has allegedly imported into the Ukraine!

And finally I shall speak about the ridiculous theory of the so-called Rosenberg’s “noble anti-Semitism.” It is absurd to argue with Rosenberg’s counsel who affirms that such a thing as a “noble anti-Semitism” really exists, and it is all the more absurd to argue with Rosenberg. In my statement to the Tribunal I threw some light on the fascist propaganda contained in the speech of the Defense. I would now like to recall to the Tribunal the text of two of Rosenberg’s documents:

In his directive of 29 April 1941 he wrote:

“The Jewish problem requires a general settlement; temporary measures are to be decided upon. (Compulsory labor for Jews, the creation of ghettos, et cetera).”

Even more cynical and frank is the statement made by Rosenberg in November 1942 when he, in his capacity of Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, addressed a conference of the German Labor Front:

“We must not be satisfied”—said Rosenberg—“with the deportation of Jews from one country to another and with the existence, here or there, of a large Jewish ghetto; no, our object must always remain the same. The Jewish problem in Europe and in Germany will be solved only when there are no more Jews left on the European continent.”

And all the operations “Cottbus” for the extermination of Jews in the Baltic towns, in the Ukraine and Byelorussia—all these were carried out in conformity with Rosenberg’s theories and with his agreement.

In 1937 Rosenberg received the German National Prize. Commenting on this event, the fascist press wrote as follows:

“Alfred Rosenberg has brilliantly succeeded with his books in building up the scientific and spiritual foundations and in consolidating and strengthening the philosophy of National Socialism.... Only future generations will be able fully to appreciate the profound influence of this man on the philosophical foundations of the National Socialist Reich.”

But the future has now become the present. And I am sure that the Tribunal will be able duly to appreciate not only the influence exercised by Rosenberg on the “philosophical foundations of the National Socialist Reich,” but also his active participation in all the crimes against peace and humanity perpetrated by the Hitlerites.

Frank.

A lawyer by training, the Defendant Hans Frank was one of those who liked to talk about the reception of the “ancient German” law for Germans, about “principles of justice” for the “select,” about the “right of the chosen people” to annihilate nations and countries.

In 1939 he was the man who for a long time past had been corrupting the German legal concept, to whom Hitler entrusted the fate of subjugated Poland. Frank arrived in Poland to realize practically his entire program for the enslavement and extermination of the people on the territory of a country with an age-old history and with its own culture of high standing.

I should like to remind the Tribunal of some of Frank’s views expressed during the first months of his stay in Poland, taken from his so-called “diary.” It is hardly worth while, to discuss with the counsel the probative value of this document. Frank himself declared to the Court that “this document was of historical importance” and to the question, “whether all his statements contained in the diary were true,” he replied “they fully correspond to what I know.”

On 19 January 1940 Frank declared with cynical frankness, at a conference of the departmental leaders:

“On 15 September 1939 I was entrusted with the task of governing the conquered Eastern Territories and received a special order to ruin this territory ruthlessly as a war territory and a war trophy, and to turn it into a heap of rubble from the viewpoint of the social, economic, cultural, and political structure.”

On 31 October 1939, in the presence of Goebbels, at a conference uniting the leading officials of the Government General, he declared: “A perfectly clear differentiation must be made between the German people—the master race—and the Poles.”

He then remembered that Polish culture which Frank, as counsel Dr. Seidl has said here, cared for so greatly. He stated:

“The Poles can be allowed only those possibilities for educating themselves which would prove the hopelessness of the destiny of their nation. Bad films alone or films demonstrating the might and greatness of the Germans can be taken into consideration for this purpose.”

One of Frank’s first instructions was the order to shoot hostages. Later on similar orders were to be counted by the hundreds and by the thousands until they finally culminated in the edition of the regulation dated 2 October 1943.

On 10 November 1939 Frank was informed that the day of Polish independence was approaching and that posters were to be hung up on certain houses to remind the Poles of their national holiday. The following entry then appeared in Frank’s diary:

“... the Governor General decreed that one inhabitant of the male sex is to be taken from every house on which an affixed poster of this kind is not removed and is to be shot. ...

“The Pole must feel that we do not intend building a constitutional state for him.”

The short extract we are quoting from the speech Frank made at the conference of the chiefs of departments of the Government General characterizes this Hitlerite “lawyer” far better than any lengthy excerpts taken from his full-dress speeches which we were obliged to listen to here.

Frank’s criminal activities in Poland were so very manifold that there is no possibility, in a short speech, to reconstruct to the Tribunal the innumerable proofs of his guilt which have been submitted in this courtroom and which are evidently still fresh in the memory of the judges.

But from Frank’s criminal activities in Poland we must isolate that predominant trait which is Frank’s criminal activity as the murderer of millions of people. Of course he looted; he was Göring’s plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan and he looted, so to say, “in the course of his duties.”

He sent over 2 million Poles to Germany for forced labor. The attempt of the defense to represent Frank as “the enemy of coercive methods of recruitment” can be based only on the assumption that nobody excepting counsel had studied Frank’s diaries. For Frank never can escape documents such as the minutes of the meeting of the departmental leaders, dated 12 April 1940, or the notes of Gauleiter Sauckel of 18 August 1942, or the transcript of the meeting with Bühler, Krüger, and others of 21 April 1940.

But he sent people to forced labor in order to wring them dry in the interests of the Reich before sending them to their doom. The regime, established by Hans Frank throughout Poland during all the stages of the temporary German domination in this country, was a regime for the inhuman destruction of millions of people by varied, but invariably criminal, methods.

It is not merely incidental that the German fascist assassins who annihilated 11,000 Polish prisoner-of-war officers in Katyn forest should refer to the regime which Frank instituted in Poland as an example for their own activities—as the Tribunal has been able to ascertain not so very long ago in this courtroom from the evidence presented by the former deputy mayor of Smolensk—Professor Bazilevsky.

I consider it to be particularly important, at this point, to emphasize the concept Frank had of the relations with the Polish population after the war:

“I insistently draw your attention”—said Frank—“to the fact that, should peace be concluded, nothing would change in this respect. This peace will signify that we, as a world power, will conduct more firmly than hitherto our general line of policy. This peace would signify that we will have to carry out colonization on a still far greater scale, but the principle will not have changed.”