United States. Office of Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality

“ It is always difficult and dangerous to withdraw from a criminal conspiracy. Never has it been suggested that a conspirator may claim mercy on the ground that his fellow-conspirators threatened him with harm should he withdraw from the plot.
In many respects the spectacle which the German General Staff and High Command group presents today is the most degrading of all the groups and organizations charged in the Indictment. The bearers of a tradition not devoid of valour and honour, they emerge from this war stained both by criminality and ineptitude. ”

“ Despite this callous jest to the Wehrmacht, all pretense was swept away in Himmler’s speech to his own Gruppenfuehrers at Posen:
“I don’t believe the Communists could attempt any action, for their leading elements, like most criminals, are in our concentration camps. And here I must say this—that we shall be able to see after the war what a blessing it was for Germany that, in spite of all the silly talk about humanitarianism, we imprisoned all this criminal substratum of the German people in concentration camps: I’ll answer for that.” ”

“ As late as 3 March 1933, in an election speech at Stuttgart, von Papen warned that:
“Federalism saves us from centralism, that organizational form which concentrically draws all the vital forces of a people to one point, as a mirror will do with the rays of the sun. No people is less suited for being governed centralistically than the German people.” ”

“ The ‘Stuermer’s’ 15 years of work of enlightenment has already led an army of those who know—millions strong—to National Socialism. The continued work of the ‘Stuermer’ will help to ensure that every German down to the last man will, with heart and hand, join the ranks of those whose aim it is to crush the head of the serpent Pan-Juda beneath their heels. ”

“ Why do you always talk of fighting? You have conquered the State, and if something does not please you, then just make a law and regulate it differently? Why must you always talk of fighting? For you have every power! Over what do you fight? Outer-politically? You have the Wehrmacht—it will wage the fight if it is required. ”

“ What happens to a Russian, to a Czech, does not interest me in the slightest. What other nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type, we will take, if necessary, by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only so far as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an antitank ditch interests me only insofar as the antitank ditch for Germany is finished. ”

“ Ribbentrop is evasive every time I ask him for particulars of the forthcoming German action. He has a guilty conscience. He has lied too many times about German intentions toward Poland not to feel embarrassment now over what he must tell me and what he is preparing to do.
“The will to fight is unalterable. He rejects any solution which might satisfy Germany and prevent the struggle. I am certain that even if the Germans were given everything they demanded, they would attack just the same, because they are possessed by the demon of destruction. ”

“ We must continue to do this—we,—if I may say so, we older men—for twenty years full of toil and work, so that a tradition 30, 35, 40 years, a generation, may be created. Then this organization will march forward into the future young and strong, revolutionary and efficient to fulfill the task of giving the German people, the Germanic people, the superstratum of society which will combine and hold together this Germanic people and this Europe, and from which the brains which the people need for industry, farming, politics, and as soldiers, statesmen and technicians, will emerge. ”

“ Whereupon Doenitz spoke as follows:
“German men and women, soldiers of the German Armed Forces. Our Fuehrer Adolf Hitler is dead. The German people bow in deepest sorrow and respect. Early he had recognized the terrible danger of Bolshevism and had dedicated his life to the fight against it. His fight having ended, he died a hero’s death in the capital of the German Reich, after having led an unmistakably straight and steady life.” ”

“ It stands to reason that the crime of planning and waging aggressive warfare is committed most consciously, deliberately, and culpably by a nation’s leaders—the leaders in all the major fields of activity necessary to and closely involved in the waging of war. It is committed by the principal propagandists and publicists who whip up the necessary beliefs and enthusiasms among the people as a whole, so that the people will acquiesce and join in attacking and slaughtering the peoples of other nations. ”

“ The menace of these organizations is the more impressive when we consider the demoralized state of German society. It will be years before there can be established in the German State any political authority that is not inexperienced and provisional. It cannot quickly acquire the stability of a government aided by long habit of obedience and traditional respect. The intrigue, obstruction, and possible overthrow, which older and established governments fear from conspiratorial groups, is a real and present danger to any stable social order in the Germany of today and of tomorrow. ”

“ We National Socialists have started with anti-Semitism in our fight to free the German people, to re-establish a German Reich and to build our entire German spiritual, cultural and social life on the indestructible foundation of our race. We started a gigantic battle in 1919 * * * It took all the self-confidence of German manhood to withstand and to triumph—in this fight to substitute the German spirit for Jewish corruption over the concerted attacks of powerful world groups of which Jewry is a representative. ”

“ It is therefore necessary for the soldier to support the execution of his duty with all his mental, all his spiritual energy, and for this his conviction, his ideology are indispensable. It is therefore necessary for us to train the soldier uniformly, comprehensively, that he may be adjusted ideologically to our Germany. Every dualism, every dissension in this connection, or every divergence, or unpreparedness, imply a weakness in all circumstances. He in whom this grows and thrives in unison is superior to the other. ”

“ The substantive law which governs the inquiry into criminality of organizations is, in its large outline, old and well settled and fairly uniform in all systems of law. It is true that we are dealing with a procedure easy to abuse and one often feared as an interference with liberty of assembly or as an imposition of “guilt by association.” It also is true that proceedings against organizations are closely akin to the conspiracy charge, which is the great dragnet of the law, rightly watched by courts lest it be abused. ”

“ A great war—the World War—had whirled over the peoples of the earth and had left in the end a heap of ruins. Only one people remained victorious in this dreadful war, a people of whom Christ said its father is the devil. That people had ruined the German nation in body and soul. ”

“ Not out of irresponsibility or for fun do I fight against the Jewish enemy, but because I bear within me the knowledge that the whole misfortune was brought to Germany by the Jews alone.
“I ask you once more, what is at stake today? The Jew seeks domination not only among the German people but among all peoples. The communists pave the way for him. Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament orders the Jews to consume and enslave the peoples of the earth?
“The government allows the Jew to do as he pleases. The people expect action to be taken. ”

“ England cannot live without its imports. We can feed ourselves. The permanent sowing of mines on the English coasts will bring England to her knees. However, this can only occur if we have occupied Belgium and Holland. It is a difficult decision for me. None has ever achieved what I have achieved. My life is of no importance in all this. I have led the German people to a great height, even if the world does hate us now. ”

“ The German High Command and military tradition have in the past achieved victory and survived defeat. They have met with triumph and disaster, and have survived through a singular durability not unmixed with stupidity. ”

“ Look at the way the Jewish people have been following for thousands of years past; everywhere murder, everywhere mass murder. Neither must we forget that behind present-day wars there stands the Jewish financier who pursues his aims and interests. The Jew always lives on the blood of other nations; he needs such murder and such victims. ”

“ From now on, there is only one national authority: The one of the Reich! Thus, the German Reich has become a unified state, and the entire administration in the states is only carried out by order or in the name of the Reich. The state borders are now only administration, technical are boundaries but no longer boundaries of sovereignty! In calm determination, the Reich Cabinet (Reichsregierung) realizes step by step, supported by the confidence of the entire German people, the great longing of the Nation. The creation of the national socialist German, unified state. ”

“ Finally, a letter from von Schirach, the Reich Youth Leader, published in “Der Stuermer” of January 1938, had this to say:
“It is the historical merit of ‘Der Stuermer’ to have enlightened the broad masses of our people in a popular way as to the Jewish world danger. ‘Der Stuermer’ is right in refusing to fulfill its task in the tone of the aesthetic drawing room. Jewry has shown no regard for the German people. We have, therefore, no cause to be considerate and to spare our worst enemy. What we fail to do today our youngsters of tomorrow will have to suffer for bitterly.” ”

“ The supreme War Council will have to decide what measures of military and legal nature are to be taken. Once it has been decided to conduct economic warfare in its most ruthless form, in fulfilment of military requirements, this decision is to be adhered to under all circumstances and under no circumstances may such a decision for the most ruthless form of economic warfare, once it has been made, be dropped or released under political pressure from neutral powers; that is what happened in the World War to our own detriment. Every protest by neutral powers must be turned down. ”

“ But it is too clear for argument that a man who commits crimes cannot plead as a defense that he committed them in uniform.
It is not in the nature of things, and it is not the prosecution’s position, that all members of this group were wicked men, or that they were all equally culpable. But this group not only collaborated with Hitler and supported many Nazi objectives. They furnished one thing which was essential and basic to the success of the Nazi program for Germany—skill and experience in the development and use of armed might. ”

“ The thing which particularly struck the correspondent was the one question asked by the SS prisoners: Why are we charged as war criminals? What have we done except our normal duty?
The evidence which follows will answer that question. It will show that just as the Nazi Party was the core of the conspiracy, so the SS was the very essence of Nazism. For the SS was the elite group of the Party, composed of the most thorough-going adherents of the Nazi cause, pledged to blind devotion to Nazi principles, and prepared to carry them out without any question and at any cost. ”

“ The most essential aim of war against the Jewish-bolshevistic system is a complete destruction of their means of power and the elimination of Asiatic influence from the European culture. In this connection the troops are facing tasks which exceed the one-sided routine of soldiering. The soldier in the eastern territories is not merely a fighter according to the rules of the art of war but also a bearer of ruthless national ideology and the avenger of bestialities which have been inflicted upon German and racially related nations. ”