Читать книгу The History of Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression - Various - Страница 34

(a)

The Nazi conspirators reduced the Reichstag to a body of their own nominees and curtailed the freedom of popular elections throughout the country. They transformed the several states, provinces and municipalities, which had formerly exercised semi-autonomous powers, into hardly more than administrative organs of the central government. They united the offices of the President and the Chancellor in the person of Hitler; instituted a widespread purge of civil servants; and severely restricted the independence of the judiciary and rendered it subservient to Nazi ends. The conspirators greatly enlarged existing State and Party organizations; established a network of new State and Party organizations; and “co-ordinated” State agencies with the Nazi Party and its branches and affiliates, with the result that German life was dominated by Nazi doctrine and practice and progressively mobilized for the accomplishment of their aims.

(b)

In order to make their rule secure from attack and to instil fear in the hearts of the German people, the Nazi conspirators established and extended a system of terror against opponents and supposed or suspected opponents of the regime. They imprisoned such persons without judicial process, holding them in “protective custody” and concentration camps, and subjected them to persecution, degradation, despoilment enslavement, torture and murder. These concentration camps were established early in 1933 under the direction of the defendant GOERING and expanded as a fixed part of the terroristic policy and method of the conspirators and used by them for the commission of the Crimes against Humanity hereinafter alleged. Among the principal agencies utilized in the perpetration of these crimes were the SS and the GESTAPO, which, together with other favored branches or agencies of the State and Party, were permitted to operate without restraint of law.

(c)

The Nazi conspirators conceived that, in addition to the suppression of distinctively political opposition, it was necessary to suppress or exterminate certain other movements or groups which they regarded as obstacles to their retention of total control in Germany and to the aggressive aims of the conspiracy abroad. Accordingly:

(1)

The Nazi conspirators destroyed the free trade unions in Germany by confiscating their funds and properties, persecuting their leaders, prohibiting their activities, and supplanting them by an affiliated Party organization. The leadership principle was introduced into industrial relations, the entrepreneur becoming the leader and the workers becoming his followers. Thus any potential resistance of the workers was frustrated and the productive labor capacity of the German nation was brought under the effective control of the conspirators.

(2)

The Nazi conspirators, by promoting beliefs and practices incompatible with Christian teaching, sought to subvert the influence of the Churches over the people and in particular over the youth of Germany. They avowed their aim to eliminate the Christian Churches in Germany and sought to substitute therefor Nazi institutions and Nazi beliefs and pursued a programme of persecution of priests, clergy and members of monastic orders whom they deemed opposed to their purposes and confiscated church property.

(3)

The persecution by the Nazi conspirators of pacifist groups, including religious movements dedicated to pacifism, was particularly relentless and cruel.

(d)

Implementing their “master race” policy, the conspirators joined in a program of relentless persecution of the Jews, designed to exterminate them. Annihilation of the Jews became an official State policy, carried out both by official action and by incitements to mob and individual violence. The conspirators openly avowed their purpose. For example, the defendant ROSENBERG stated: “Anti-Semitism is the unifying element of the reconstruction of Germany.” On another occasion he also stated: “Germany will regard, the Jewish question as solved only after the very last Jew has left the greater German living space … Europe will have its Jewish question solved only after the very last Jew has left the Continent.” The defendant LEY declared: “We swear we are not going to abandon the struggle until the last Jew in Europe has been exterminated and is actually dead. It is not enough to isolate the Jewish enemy of mankind—the Jew has got to be exterminated.” On another occasion he also declared: “The second German secret weapon is anti-Semitism because if it is consistently pursued by Germany, it will become a universal problem which all nations will be forced to consider.” The defendant STREICHER declared: “The sun will not shine on the nations of the earth until the last Jew is dead.” These avowals and incitements were typical of the declarations of the Nazi conspirators throughout the course of their conspiracy. The program of action against the Jews included disfranchisement, stigmatization, denial of civil rights, subjecting their persons and property to violence, deportation, enslavement, enforced labor, starvation, murder and mass extermination. The extent to which the conspirators succeeded in their purpose can only be estimated, but the annihilation was substantially complete in many localities of Europe. Of the 9,600,000 Jews who lived in the parts of Europe under Nazi domination, it is conservatively estimated that 5,700,000 have disappeared, most of them deliberately put to death by the Nazi conspirators. Only remnants of the Jewish population of Europe remain.

(e)

In order to make the German people amenable to their will, and to prepare them psychologically for war, the Nazi conspirators reshaped the educational system and particularly the education and training of the German youth. The leadership principle was introduced into the schools and the Party and affiliated organizations were given wide supervisory powers over education. The Nazi conspirators imposed a supervision of all cultural activities, controlled the dissemination of information and the expression of opinion within Germany as well as the movement of intelligence of all kinds from and into Germany, and created vast propaganda machines.

(f)

The Nazi conspirators placed a considerable number of their dominated organizations on a progressively militarized footing with a view to the rapid transformation and use of such organizations whenever necessary as instruments of war.