Читать книгу The Nuremberg Trials: Complete Tribunal Proceedings (V. 5) - International Military Tribunal - Страница 17

LT. COL. BALDWIN: May it please the Tribunal, the way in which the resettlement at Zamosc was carried out was described to Defendant Frank by Krüger at a meeting at Warsaw on January 25, 1943. The report is contained in the Frank diary and is our Document 2233(aa)-PS, and appears at Page 58 in the document book. I offer the original of it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-613. The German text appears in the labor conference volume for 1943, at Pages 16, 17, and 19. Krüger in this excerpt reports that they had settled the first 4,000 in the Kreis Zamosc shortly before Christmas; that, understandably, friends were not made of the Poles in the resettlement program; and that the Poles had to be chased out. He then stated to Frank, and I quote:

“We are removing those who constitute a burden in this new colonization territory. Actually, they are the asocial and inferior elements. They are being deported; first brought to a concentration camp and then sent as labor to the Reich. From a Polish propaganda standpoint, this entire first action has an unfavorable effect. For the Poles say: ‘After the Jews have been destroyed, then they will employ the same methods to get the Poles out of this territory and liquidate them just like the Jews.’ ”

Krüger went on to mention that there was a great deal of unrest in the territory as a result; and Frank informed him, that is, Krüger, that each individual case of resettlement would be discussed in the future exactly as that one of Zamosc had been.

Although the illegality of this dispossession of Poles to make room for Germans was evident and although the fact that the Poles who were not only being dispossessed but sent off to concentration camps became increasingly difficult to handle, the resettlement projects continued in the Government General.

The third item mentioned by Frank—the encroachments and confiscations of industry and private property—was again an early Frank policy. He explained this to his department heads in December 1939. The report is from his diary and is our Document 2233(k)-PS, and it appears at Page 40 in the document book. I now offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-173. The German text appears in the department heads conference volume for 1939-40 at the entry for 2 December 1939 at Pages 2 and 3. Dr. Frank states:

“Principally it can be said regarding the administration of the Government General: This territory in its entirety is booty for the German Reich, and thus it will not do for this territory to be exploited in separate individual parts; but the territory in its entirety shall be economically used and its entire economic worth redound to the benefit of the German people.”

Reference is made to Exhibit Number USA-297, if any further support of an early policy of ruthless exploitation is deemed necessary by the Tribunal. In addition, the decree permitting sequestration in the Government General heretofore pointed out to the Tribunal (Verordnungsblatt für das Generalgouvernement, Number 6, 27 January 1940, Page 23), which decree was signed by the Defendant Frank, permitted and empowered the Nazi officials to engage in wholesale seizure of property. This was made the easier by the undefined criteria of the decree. The looting of the Government General under this and other decrees has already been presented to the Tribunal on 14 December 1945, under the subject heading, “Germanization and spoliation of occupied territories,” and the Tribunal is respectfully referred to that portion of the record and in particular to that segment dealing with the Government General.

The Defendant Frank mentioned mass arrests and mass shooting and the application of collective responsibility as the fourth reason for the apparent deterioration of the attitude of the entire Polish people. In this, too, he is to blame, for it was no part of Defendant Frank’s policy that reprisal should be commensurate with the gravity of the offense. He was, on the contrary, an advocate of the most drastic measures. At a conference of district political leaders at Kraków, on 18 March 1942, Frank stated his policy. This extract is from the diary and is our Document 2233(r)-PS and will be found at Page 49 in the document book. I offer it in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-608. The German text may be found in the diary volume for 1942, Part I, Pages 195 and 196. I quote Frank’s statement:

“Incidentally, the struggle for the achievement of our aims will be pursued cold-bloodedly. You see how the state agencies work. You see that we do not hesitate at anything, and stand dozens of people up against the wall. This is necessary because a simple reflection tells me that it cannot be our task at this period, when the best German blood is being sacrificed, to show regard for the blood of another race; for out of this, one of the greatest dangers may arise. One already hears today in Germany that prisoners of war, for instance, in Bavaria or Thuringia, are administering large estates entirely independently, while all the men in a village fit for service are at the front. If this state of affairs continues, then a gradual retrogression of Germanism will result. One should not underestimate this danger. Therefore, everything revealing itself as a Polish power of leadership must be destroyed again and again with ruthless energy. This does not have to be shouted abroad; it will happen silently.”

And on 15 January 1944 Defendant Frank assured the political leaders of the NSDAP that reprisals would be made for German deaths. These remarks are to be found in the Frank diary, in our Document 2233(bb)-PS at Page 60 in the document book, the second quote on that page, the original of which I offer in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-295. The German text appears in the loose-leaf volume of the diary covering the period from 1 January 1944 to 28 February 1944, and appears at Page 13. Frank says quite simply—“I have not hesitated to declare that when a German is shot, up to 100 Poles shall be shot too.”

The whole tragic history of slave-labor and recruitment of workers has been placed before this Tribunal in great detail. When the Defendant Frank refers to these methods as his fifth reason for disaffection in Poland in his report to Hitler, he once more cites policies which he executed. Force, violence, and economic duress were all supported by him as means for recruiting laborers for deportation to slavery in Germany. This was an announced policy, and I have already alluded to Exhibit Number USA-297, which contains verification of this fact.

While in the very beginning recruitment of laborers in the Government General may have been voluntary, these methods soon proved inadequate. In the spring of 1940 the question of utilizing force came up and the matter was discussed at an official meeting at which the Defendant Seyss-Inquart was also present. I refer to the Frank diary and our Document 2233(n)-PS, which the Tribunal will find at Page 43 in the document book. I offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-614. The German text appears in the diary volume for 1940, Part II, at Page 333. I quote the conference report:

“The Governor General stated that all means in the form of proclamations, et cetera, not having succeeded, one is led to the conclusion that the Poles, out of malevolence and with the intention of harming Germany by not putting themselves at its disposal, refuse to enlist for labor service. Therefore, he asks Dr. Frauendorfer if there are any other measures not as yet employed to win the Poles on a voluntary basis.

“Reichshauptamtsleiter Dr. Frauendorfer answered the question in the negative.

“The Governor General emphasized the fact that he will now be asked to take a definite attitude towards this question. Therefore, the question will arise whether any form of coercive measures should now be employed.

“The question put by the Governor General to SS Lieutenant General Krüger as to whether he sees possibilities of calling Polish workers by coercive means, is answered in the affirmative by SS Lieutenant General Krüger.”

In May 1940, at an official conference—and this record is already before the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USA-173—Defendant Frank stated that compulsion in recruitment of labor could be exercised, that Poles could be snatched from the streets and that the best method would be organized raids.

As in the case of persecution of the Jews, the forced labor program in the Government General is almost beyond belief. I refer to the Frank diary and to our Document 2233(w)-PS, which will be found at Page 53 in the document book, the original of which I offer into evidence as Exhibit Number USA-607. This excerpt is a record, if the Court please, of a discussion between the Defendant Sauckel and the Defendant Frank at Kraków on 18 August 1942; and it appears in the diary volume for 1942, Part III, at Pages 918 and 920. Dr. Frank speaks:

“I am pleased to report to you officially, Party Comrade Sauckel, that we have up to now supplied 800,000 workers for the Reich. . . .”

He continues:

“Recently you have requested us to supply a further 140,000. I have pleasure in informing you officially that in accordance with our agreement of yesterday, 60 percent of the newly requested workers will be supplied to the Reich by the end of October and the balance of 40 percent by the end of the year.”

Dr. Frank continues:

“Beyond the present figure of 140,000 you can, however, next year reckon upon a higher number of workers from the Government General, for we shall employ the Police to conscript them.”

How this recruitment was carried out—by wild and ruthless manhunts—is clearly shown in Exhibit Number USA-178, which is in evidence before the Tribunal. Starvation, violence, and death, which characterized the entire slave-labor program of the conspirators, was thus faithfully reflected in the administration of the Defendant Frank.

There were, of course, other grounds for uneasiness in occupied Poland which the Defendant Frank did not mention in his report to Hitler. He does not mention the concentration camps, perhaps because as a representative jurist of National Socialism, the Defendant Frank had himself defended the system in Germany. As Governor General the Defendant Frank, we feel, must be held responsible for all concentration camps within the boundaries of the Government General. These include, among others, the notorious camp at Maidanek and the one at Lublin and at Treblinka outside of Warsaw. As indicated previously, the Defendant Frank knew and approved that Poles were taken to concentration camps in connection with resettlement projects. He had certain jurisdiction as well in relation to the extermination camp Auschwitz, to which Poles from the Government General were committed by his administration. In February 1944 Embassy Counsellor Dr. Schumberg suggested a possible amnesty of Poles who had been taken to Auschwitz for trivial offenses and kept there for several months. This conference, if the Court please, is reported in the Frank diary and is contained in our Document 2233(bb)-PS, at Page 60 in the document book. It is the third quote on that page. I offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-295.

THE PRESIDENT: You go too fast. Did you say Page 70?

LT. COL. BALDWIN: Page 60, Sir. The German text appears in the loose-leaf volume covering the period 1 January 1944 to 28 February 1944, at the conference on 8 February 1944, on Page 7. I quote:

“The Governor General will take under consideration an amnesty probably for 1 May of this year. Nevertheless, one must not lose sight of the fact that the German leadership of the Government General must not now show any sign of weakness.”

This, then, was and is the conspirator Hans Frank. The evidence is by no means exhausted, but it is our belief that sufficient proof has been given to this Tribunal to establish his liability under Count One of the Indictment.

As legal adviser of Hitler and the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, Defendant Frank promoted the conspirators’ rise to power. In his various juridical capacities, both in the NSDAP and in the German Government, Defendant Frank certainly advocated and promoted the political monopoly of the NSDAP, the racial program of the conspirators, and the terror system of the concentration camps and of arrest without warrant. His role, early in the Common Plan, was to realize “the National Socialist program in the realm of the law” and to give the outward form of legality to this program of terror, persecution, and oppression which had as its ultimate purpose mobilization for aggressive war.

As a loyal adherent of Hitler and the NSDAP, Defendant Frank was appointed Governor General in 1939 of that area of Poland known as the Government General. Defendant Frank had defined justice as that which benefited the German nation. His 5 years’ administration of the Government General illustrates the most extreme extension of that principle.

It has been shown that Defendant Frank took the office of Governor General under a program which constituted in itself a criminal plan or conspiracy, as Defendant Frank well knew and approved, to exploit the territory ruthlessly for the benefit of Nazi Germany, to conscript its nationals for labor in Germany, to close its schools and colleges, to prevent the rise of a Polish intelligentsia, and to administer the territory as a colonial possession of the Third Reich in total disregard of the duties of an occupying power towards the inhabitants of occupied territory.

Under Defendant Frank’s administration this criminal plan was consummated, but the execution went even beyond the plan. Food contributions to Germany increased to the point where the bare subsistence reserved for the Government General under the plan was reduced to a level of mass starvation. The savage program of exterminating Jews was relentlessly executed. Resettlement projects were carried out with reckless disregard of the rights of the local population and the terror of the concentration camp followed in the wake of the Nazi invaders.

This statement of evidence has been compiled in large part from statements by the Defendant Frank himself, from the admission found in his diary, official reports, reports of conferences with his colleagues and subordinates, and his speeches. It is therefore appropriate that a passage from his diary should be quoted in conclusion. It is our Document 2233(aa)-PS. It appears at Page 59 in the document book. I offer the original in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-613. The German text appears in the 1943 volume of labor conference meetings at the 25 January 1943 entry on Page 53. In his address Defendant Frank, prophetically enough, told his colleagues in the Government General that their task would grow more difficult. “Hitler”, he said, “could help them only as a kind of ‘administrative pill box.’ ” They must depend on themselves.

“We are now duty bound to hold together”—and I quote Frank—“We must remember that we who are gathered together here figure on Mr. Roosevelt’s list of war criminals. I have the honor of being Number One. We have, so to speak, become accomplices in the world historic sense.”

This concludes the presentation on the Defendant Frank.

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

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

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

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

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

My Lord, perhaps before I start, I might say that the document book before the members of the Tribunal is arranged in the order in which I intend to refer to the documents. They are paged and there is an index at the beginning of the book and if the Tribunal have got what is called the trial brief, it is in effect a note of the evidence to which I shall refer and again in the order in which I shall refer to it, which may be of some assistance.

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

The appointments that he held in the Party and State were few. From 1921 until 1945 he was a member of the Nazi Party. In 1925 he was appointed Gauleiter of Franconia, and he remained as such until about February of 1940; and from the time that the Nazi Government came into power in 1933 until 1945, he was a member of the Reichstag. In addition to that he held the title of Obergruppenführer in the SA. All that information appears in Document 2975-PS, which is already exhibited as Exhibit Number USA-9, and is the affidavit that he made himself.

The propaganda that he carried out throughout those years was chiefly done through the medium of his newspapers. He was the editor and publisher of the paper called Der Stürmer, which was a weekly journal, from 1922 until 1933; and thereafter the publisher and owner of the paper.

In 1933 he also founded and thereafter, I think, published—certainly was responsible for—the daily newspaper called the Fränkische Tageszeitung.

There were, in addition to that and particularly later, several others, mostly local journals, that he published from Nuremberg.

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

If I might quote from four speeches and articles showing his early activities from 1922 until 1933—at Page 3 of the Tribunal’s document book, Document M-11—that is an extract from a speech that he made in 1922 in Nuremberg, and—after abusing the Jews in the first paragraph—I refer only to the last two lines: “We know that Germany will be free when the Jew has been excluded from the life of the German people.”

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

“I beg you and particularly those of you who carry the cross throughout the land, to become somewhat more serious when I speak of the enemy of the German people, namely, the Jew. Not out of irresponsibility or for fun do I fight against the Jewish enemy, but because I bear within me the knowledge that the whole misfortune was brought to Germany by the Jews alone.

“. . . I ask you once more, what is at stake today? The Jew seeks domination not only among the German people but among all peoples. The Communists pave the way for him. . . . Do you not know that the God of the Old Testament ordered the Jews to devour and enslave the peoples of the earth? . . .

“The Government allows the Jew to do as he pleases. The people expect action to be taken. . . . You may think about Adolf Hitler as you please, but one thing you must admit. He possessed the courage to attempt to free the German people from the Jew by a national revolution. That was a great deed.”

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

“You must realize that the Jew wants our people to perish. . . . That is why you must join us and leave those who have brought you nothing but war and inflation and discord. For thousands of years the Jew has been destroying the nations.”

I ask the Tribunal to note now these last few words:

“Let us start today, so that we can annihilate the Jews.”

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

And one further passage from this period. This is in April 1932, Document M-14, taken from the same book. He starts by saying, “For 13 years I have fought against Jewry.” I quote the last paragraph only:

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

That, then, was the kind of performance he was putting up during those early years. When the Nazi Party came to power, they officially started their campaign against the Jews by the boycott of 1 April 1933. Now, of that boycott the Tribunal have already had evidence; and I would do no more now than to remind the Tribunal in a word what happened.

The boycott was agreed on and approved of by the whole Government, as was shown in a document which is already before you, Document 2409-PS, Exhibit Number USA-262, which was Goebbels’ diary.

Streicher was appointed the chairman of the central committee for the organization of that boycott, which appears in Document 2156-PS, Exhibit Number USA-263. It was then said that he started his work on Wednesday, the 29th.

On that same day the central committee issued a proclamation in which they said that the boycott would start on Saturday at 10:00 a. m. sharp. “Jewry will realize whom it has challenged.” That short quotation appears in Document 3389-PS, which is USA-566, which is a volume—in actual fact, it is a copy of Der Stürmer which is already before the Court.

I would refer the Tribunal to one short passage from an article in the Nationalsozialistische Partei Korrespondenz which the defendant wrote on the 30th of March, before the boycott was due to start. It is Document 2153-PS and appears on Page 12 of the Tribunal’s book, which becomes Exhibit GB-166. There he writes, under the title, “Defeat the enemy of the world!—by Julius Streicher, official leader of the central committee to combat the Jewish atrocity and boycott campaign.”: