MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: May it please the Tribunal:
Dr. Gisevius, yesterday you made some reference to Herbert Goering in saying that Schacht had sent word to you about the Gestapo microphones in Schacht's house. Will you tell us who Herbert Goering was in relation to the defendant?
GISEVIUS: Herbert Goering was a cousin of the Defendant Goering. I had known him for many years. Herbert, as well as his brothers and sisters, warned me already years ago about the disaster which would overtake Germany if at any time a man like their cousin Hermann Goering should get a position of even the smallest responsibility. They acquainted me with the many characteristics of the defendant which all of us had come to know in the meantime, starting with his vanity, and continuing with his love of ostentation, his lack of responsibility, his lack of scruples, even to the extent of walking over the dead. In this way I already had some idea what to expect of the defendant.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, during the period when you were making these investigations and having these early conversations with Schacht, and up until about 1937, you, as I understand it, were very critical of Schacht because he had helped the Nazis to power and continued to support them. Is that true?
GISEVIUS: I did not understand how an intelligent man, and one who was as capable in economics as he was, could enter into such a close relationship with Hitler. I was all the more bewildered because, on the other hand, this man Schacht, from the very first day and in a thousand small ways resisted the Nazis, and the German public took pleasure in many sharp and humorous remarks which he made about the Nazis. Great was my bewilderment, until I actually met the man Schacht. And then...
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: During this period Schacht did have great influence with the German people, did he not, particularly with German people of responsibility and power?
GISEVIUS: He had great influence to the extent that many Germans hoped to find a proponent of decency and justice in him, since they heard that he undertook many steps in that direction. I
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remember his activity in the Ministry of Economics, where officials who were not Party members...
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think we have covered that, and I am anxious to get along with this, if I may interrupt you.
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: During this period you reported to Dr. Schacht fully concerning your findings about the criminal activities of the Gestapo, did you not?
GISEVIUS: Yes; from time to time I spoke more frankly, and it is obvious that I...
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And he took the position, as I understand you, that Hitler and Goering did not know about these things.
GISEVIUS: Yes. He was of the opinion that Hitler did not know anything about such terrible things, and that Goering knew at most only a part.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And he stood by Goering until 1937, when Goering pushed him out of the economics office, did he not?
GISEVIUS: I believe that was at the end of 1936. I may be wrong. I believe it would be more correct to say that he looked for support from Goering and hoped that Goering would protect him from the Party and the Gestapo.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In other words, Schacht did not heed warnings about Goering until late 1936 or 1937?
GISEVIUS: That is correct.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And during this period there would be no doubt, would there, that Schacht was the dominant economic figure in the rearmament program until he was superseded by Goering with the Four Year Plan?
GISEVIUS: I do not know whether everything went through like that exactly. He was, of course, as Minister of Economics, the leading man in German economy, not only for rearmament but for all questions of German economy; rearmament was just one of them.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now Schacht believed, and as I understand it, you too believed during all this period that under German constitutional law no war could be declared except by authority of the Reich Cabinet. Is that correct?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In other words, from the point of view of the German Constitution, the war was illegal, by German law, as declared and carried out by Hitler, in your view.
GISEVIUS: According to our firm conviction, yes.
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MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think we found out yesterday the position you were to have if there was a successful overthrow of the Hitler regime. Schacht was under consideration for Chancellor, was he not, if that movement was successful?
GISEVIUS: No. It is only correct as to the first offer that Halder made in August of 1938, or perhaps July 1938, when he visited Schacht for the first time. At that time, according to the information which I received, Halder asked Schacht whether, in the case of an overthrow, he would be ready to take over a position like that. Schacht replied that he would be ready for anything if the generals would eliminate the Nazi regime and Hitler.
As early as the year 1939 individual opponents formed a group, and at the last, when Beck was the acknowledged head of all conspirators from the left to the right wing, Goerdeler emerged in the foreground together with Beck as the leading candidate for the position of Reich Chancellor, so that after that time we need speak only of Goerdeler in that regard.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, I want to ask you some questions about the Defendant Keitel. Of course, we have heard that Hitler was the actual head of the state, but I want to ask you whether Keitel occupied a position of real leadership and power in the Reich.
GISEVIUS: Keitel occupied one of the most influential positions in the Third Reich. I would like to say at this point that I was a very close friend of four of the closest collaborators of Keitel. One was the Chief of the Ordnance Office in the OKW, the murdered General Olbricht; the second was the Chief of the Counterintelligence Service, Admiral Canaris, who was also murdered; the third was the Chief of the Army Legal Department, Ministerial Director Sack-he was also murdered-and finally there was the chief of the armament economy department, General Thomas, who escaped being murdered as though by a miracle. A close friendship, I might say, bound me to these men, and thus from these men I found out exactly what tremendous influence Keitel had over the OKW and in all Army matters, and thereby what influence he wielded in representing the Army in the eyes of the German people.
It may be that Keitel did not influence Hitler to a great extent. But I must testify here to the fact that Keitel influenced the OKW and the Army all the more. Keitel decided which documents were to be transmitted to Hitler. It was not possible for Admiral Canaris or one of the other gentlemen I mentioned to submit an urgent report to Hitler of his own accord. Keitel took it over, and what he did not like he did not transmit, or he gave these men the official order to abstain from making such a report. Also, Keitel repeatedly threatened these men, telling them that they were to limit themselves exclusively to their own specialized sectors, and that he would
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not protect them with respect to any political utterance which was critical of the Party and the Gestapo, of the persecution of the Jews, the murders in Russia, or the anti-Church campaign, and, as he said later, he would not hesitate to dismiss these gentlemen from the Wehrmacht and turn them over to the Gestapo. I have read the notes in regard to this which Admiral Canaris made in his diary. I have read the notes of General Oster in regard to this from the conferences of commanders in the OKW. I have talked with the Chief Judge of the Army, Dr. Sack, about this, and it is my strong wish to testify here that Field Marshal Keitel, who should have protected his officers, repeatedly threatened them with the Gestapo. He put these men under pressure, and these gentlemen considered that a special insult.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In other words, whether Keitel could control Hitler or not, he did have a very large control of the entire OKW underneath him. Is that not true?
GISEVIUS: Did you say Hitler? No, Keitel.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Whether Keitel could control Hitler or not he did control and command the entire OKW underneath him?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In other words, whatever Hitler's own inclinations may have been, these men in this dock formed a ring around him which kept out information from your group as to what was going on unless they wanted Hitler to hear it, isn't that a fact?
GISEVIUS: Yes. I believe that I should cite two more examples which I consider especially significant. First of all, every means was tried to persuade Keitel to warn Hitler, before the invasion of Belgium and Holland and to tell him, that is Hitler, that the information which had been submitted by Keitel regarding the alleged violation of neutrality by the Dutch and Belgians was wrong. The counterintelligence was to produce these reports which would incriminate the Dutch and Belgians. Admiral Canaris at that time refused to sign these reports. I ask that this be verified. He told Keitel repeatedly that these reports, which were supposedly produced by the OKW, were wrong. That is one example when Keitel did not transmit to Hitler what he should have transmitted. The second was that Keitel was asked by Canaris and Thomas to submit to Hitler the details of the murders in Poland and Russia. Admiral Canaris and his friends were anxious to prevent even the beginning of these mass murders and to inform Keitel while the first preparations by the Gestapo were being made for these infamous actions. We received the documents through Nebe and others. Keitel was informed as to this in detail, and here again he did not resist at the beginning; and he who did not stop the Gestapo at the beginning
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can not be surprised if in the end a millionfold injustice was the upshot.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Justice Jackson, I think you put your question, "Did not these men in the dock form a ring which prevented you getting to Hitler," and the question was answered rather as though it applied only to Keitel. If you intended to put it with reference to all defendants I think it ought to be cleared up.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think that is true.
[Turning to the witness.] Each of the defendants who held ministerial positions of any kind controlled the reports which should go to Hitler from that particular ministry, did he not?
GISEVIUS: As far as this general question is concerned, I must reply cautiously, for, first of all, it was a close clan which put a cordon of silence around Hitler. A man like Von Papen or Von Neurath cannot be included in this group, for it was obvious that Von Papen and Von Neurath, and perhaps one or the other of the defendants, did not have the possibility, or much later no longer had the possibility, of having regular access to Hitler, for besides Von Neurath, Hitler already had his Ribbentrop for a long time. Thus I can only say that a certain group, which is surely well known, composed the close circle of which I am speaking.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I should like you to identify those of the defendants who had access to Hitler and those who were able to prevent access to Hitler by their subordinates. That would apply, would it not, to Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Frick, and to Schacht-during the period until he broke with them, as you have testified-and to Doenitz, Raeder, Sauckel, and Speer?
GISEVIUS: You mentioned a few too many and some are missing. Take the Defendant Jodl, for instance. I would like to call your attention to the strange influence which this defendant had and the position he had with regard to controlling access to Hitler. I believe my testimony shows that Schacht, on the other hand, did not control access to Hitler, but that he could only be glad about each open and decent report which got through to Hitler from his and other ministries. As far as the defendant Frick is concerned, I do not believe that he was necessarily in a position to control access to Hitler. I believe the problem of Frick centers in the matter of responsibility.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Should I have included Funk in the group that had access to Hitler?
GISEVIUS: Funk, without a doubt, had access to Hitler for a long time, and for his part Funk had of course the responsibility to see that affairs in the Ministry of Economics and in the Reichsbank
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were conducted in the way Hitler desired. Without a doubt Funk put his surpassingly expert knowledge at the service of Hitler.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did you prepare or participate in preparing reports which were sent to Keitel as to the criminal activities of the Gestapo?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did others participate with you in the preparation of those reports?
GISEVIUS: Yes, it was the work of a group. We gathered reports about plans and preparations of the Gestapo, and we gathered material about the first infamous acts, so that some courageous men at the front, officers of the General Staff and of the Army, went to the scene, prepared reports, made photographs, and this material came then to both Canaris and Oster. Then the problem arose: how can we bring this material to Keitel? It was generally known that officers, even highly placed officers like Canaris and Thomas, were forbidden to report on political matters. The difficulty was, therefore, not to have Canaris and the others come under the suspicion that they were dealing with politics; we employed the roundabout method of preparing so-called counterintelligence agents' reports from foreign countries or from occupied countries; and with the pretext that different agents from all countries were here reporting about these outrages, or that agents traveling through or in foreign countries had found such infamous photographs we then submitted these reports to Field Marshal Keitel.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, did Canaris and Oster participate in submitting those reports to Keitel?
GISEVIUS: Yes. Without Canaris and Oster the working out and the gathering of this material would have been inconceivable.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And what positions did Canaris and Oster hold with reference to Keitel at this time when these reports were being submitted?
GISEVIUS: Canaris was the senior officer of the OKW. Formally he even had to represent Keitel when Keitel was absent. Keitel was only concerned that someone else should take his place at such times, usually his Party general, Reinecke; and Oster, as the representative, Chief of Staff for Canaris, was also in close association with Canaris. Keitel could not have wished for closer contact with reality and truth than through this connection with the Chief of his Wehrmacht Counterintelligence Service.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: So these reports which were sent to Keitel came from the highest men in his own organization under himself?
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GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, what did they report to Keitel? Let me ask you if they reported to him that there was a systematic program of murder of the insane going on.
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed. On these subjects, too, records were completed in detail including the despairing reports of the directors of the lunatic asylums. I recall this exactly because here, too, we had great difficulties in giving a reason for these reports, and we actually put them through as reports of foreign doctors who had heard of these things with indignation.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did he report to him the persecution and murder of the Jews and the program of extermination of the Jews that was being carried out?
GISEVIUS: From the first Jewish pogroms in 1938 on Keitel was minutely informed of each new action against the Jews, particularly about the establishment of the first gas chamber, or rather, the establishment of the first mass graves in the East, up to the erection of the murder factories later.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did these reports mention the atrocities that were committed in Poland against the Poles?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed, here I would say again that the atrocities in Poland, too, started with isolated murders which were so horrible that we were still able to report on single cases, and could add the names of the responsible SS leaders. Here, too, Keitel was spared nothing of the terrible truth.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And did that condition of informing Keitel also prevail as to the atrocities against nationals in other occupied countries?
GISEVIUS: Yes. First of all I must of course mention the atrocities in Russia, because I must emphasize that Keitel now certainly, on the basis of the Polish atrocities, had been warned sufficiently as to what was at hand in Russia. And I remember how the preparation of these orders, such as the order for the shooting of commissars and the Night and Fog Decree, was continued for weeks in the OKW, so that, as soon as the preparation of these orders was begun, we begged Canaris and Oster to present a petition to Keitel. But I would like to add that I do not doubt that other courageous men also presented a petition to Keitel in this connection. Since I belonged to a certain group, the impression might be created that only in this group were there persons who were interested in these problems, and I would be withholding vital information if I did not add that even in the High Command of the OKW and in the General Staff there were excellent men who did everything to reach Keitel
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through their separate channels, and that there were also brave men in many ministries who tried to reach every officer whom they saw in order to plead with him to order a stop to this injustice.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did the reports to Keitel mention the forced enslavement of millions of foreign workers and their deportation or importation into Germany?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And those enslaved laborers are the displaced persons, largely, of this day-that are plaguing Germany today, are they not?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed. In this connection I would also like to say that in our reports it was already mentioned just what responsibility the Wehrmacht would have to bear if these ill-treated people should be free some day. We had an idea of what was to come, and those who made the reports at that time can understand what has now taken place.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Did the reports to Keitel report the persecution of the churches in the occupied countries?
GISEVIUS: Yes, they did. I would like to cite as a special example how we even once sent leading churchmen to Norway in the guise of agents. They established contact with Bishop Bergraf, and brought back very detailed reports of what Bishop Bergraf thought about the persecution of the churches in Norway and other countries. I can still see this report before me because Keitel also wrote one of his well-known National Socialist Party phrases on this document.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, these reports consisted both of information furnished by Canaris and Oster and of the reports coming in from the field under this plan?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I want to ask you a few questions about the SA and the SS organizations. In your book, which you have been asked about, I think you have characterized the SA as a private army of the Nazi organization. Is that a correct characterization?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: During the early part of the struggle for power the SA constituted a private army for carrying out the orders of the Nazi Party, did it not?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: They took in a good many people in the SA, and it got pretty large, and there came a time when there was some danger it would get away from them; wasn't there?
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GISEVIUS: Yes, that is correct.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON. And the murder of Roehm and his associates was a struggle for power, was it not, between Goering and Himmler and the Nazi crowd associated with them on one hand and Roehm and his associates on the other?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: After the murder of Roehm, this SA organization, which was very big at the time, rather lost importance, didn't it?
GISEVIUS: Yes, completely.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And the SS, which was a smaller and more compact organization, came in to take its place as a private army, didn't it?
GISEVIUS: Yes, as the decisive private army.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, let's go back to the SA during the period before the struggle for power resulting in the Roehm purge. What part did the SA play in the battle for power, the seizure of power?
GISEVIUS: As is said in the song, "It cleared the streets for the Brown Battalions." and without a doubt the SA played a dominant role in the so-called seizure of power. Without the SA Hitler would undoubtedly never have come to power.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, let's take up their methods. Perhaps I can shorten this by quoting from your book. I think you say that:
"Whoever had not entirely made up his mind, had it made up for him unequivocally by the SA. Their methods were primitive, therefore all the more effective. For instance, one learned the new Hitler salute very quickly when, on the sidewalks, beside every marching SA column-and where were there no parades in those days-a few stalwart SA men went along giving pedestrians a crack on the head right and left if they failed to perform the correct gesture at least three steps ahead of the SA flag. And these Storm Troopers acted the same way in all things."
Is that a correct account of their activities and influence?
GISEVIUS: I hope so.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, you know so, don't you?
GISEVIUS: Yes, yes, of course, for it is my own description, I cannot criticize it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Yes, but you saw these things yourself, did you not? You were in Germany at that time?
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GISEVIUS: Yes, certainly.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You see, it is very difficult for us, with all the documents we have, Doctor, to get the picture of the day to day events, and you were there and we were not.
Now, let me make another question:
"The chronicle of that private army is colorful and stirring. It teemed with beer hall brawls, street fights, knifings, shootings, and fist fights, altogether a mad rough and tumble affair, where naturally there was no question of crises of leadership or of mutinies. In this brotherhood of the wild men of German nationalism there was undoubtedly much idealism, but at the same time the SA was the repository for political derelicts. The failures of all classes found refuge there. The discontents, the disinherited, the desperados streamed to it wholesale. The core, the paid permanent group, and particularly the leaders, were recruited, as time went on, more and more from the riffraff of a period of political and social decay."
Is that a correct statement of your observations of the SA at that time?
GISEVIUS: Yes, quite.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: May I call your attention to another question:
"The SA organized huge raids. The SA searched houses. The SA confiscated property. The SA cross-examined people. The SA put people in jail. In short, the SA appointed themselves permanent auxiliary police and paid no attention to any of the principles of the so-called system period (Weimar Republic). The worst problem for the helpless authorities was that the SA never returned its booty at all. Woe unto anyone who gets into their clutches!
"From this time dated the 'Bunker,' those dreaded private prisons of which every SA Storm Troop had to have at least one. 'Taking away' became the right of the SA. The efficiency of a Standartenfuehrer was measured by the number of arrests he had made, and the good reputation of an SA man was based on the effectiveness with which he 'educated' "-in quotation marks, the quotation marks being yours-"'educated' his prisoners. Brawls could no longer be staged in the fight for power, yet the 'fight' went on, only the blows were now struck in the full enjoyment of power."
Is that a correct statement of your observations of the SA?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
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MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think you also used the term "Bunker," and it is a slightly technical term with which some of us are not familiar. Will you tell the Tribunal what this Bunker system of the SA was?
GISEVIUS: Bunkers were those cellars or other dungeons with thick walls in which the poor prisoners were locked up, where they were then beaten and in a large measure beaten to death. They were these private jails in which, during the first months, the leaders of the leftist parties and of the trade unions were systematically rendered harmless, which explains the phenomenon that the leftist groups did not act again for so long a time, for there, at the outset and most thoroughly, the entire leadership was done away with.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You also use the expression "'taking away' became the inalienable right of the SA," and "taking away" is in quotation marks. Will you tell us about this "taking away," what it means?
GISEVIUS: That was the arbitrary arrest, whereby the relatives often for periods of weeks or months did not know where the poor victims had disappeared to, and could be glad if they ever returned home.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I think you also make this observation in your book:
"Every excess, pardoned as 'overzealousness in the cause of the National Socialist Revolution,' was a demonstration of official sanction and necessarily drew in its wake a new excess. It was the bestiality tolerated during the first months that later encouraged the sadistic murderers in the concentration camps. The growth in brutality and insensibility of the general public, which toward the end of the revolution extended far beyond the domain of the Gestapo, was the unavoidable consequence of this first irresponsible attempt to give free rein to the Brown Shirts for their acts of violence."
Does that, too, represent your observation of the SA?
GISEVIUS: Yes-not of the SA alone but also of general conditions in Germany.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, will you tell us about-as I understand you, after the Roehm Purge the SA was rather abandoned as the private army, and a more reliable and smaller and more compact private army was created under Himmler.
GISEVIUS: A guard which had been established by Himmler long before this time now actually came into action. I do not doubt that Himmler and his closest circle for years had worked toward
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this very objective so that one day, with their Schutztruppe (protective guard), they could establish the terror system in Germany. But until 30 June the SS had been a part of the SA, and Goering- excuse me, Roehm was also the chief of the SS. The road for Himmler to police chief in Germany, to police chief of evil, was only open after Roehm had been eliminated with his much larger SA. But the will to power of the SS and all the confused and unscrupulous ideas connected therewith must be assumed to have existed in the leadership of the SS already for many years previous to that.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, this SS organization selected its members with great care, did it not?
GISEVIUS: Yes, indeed.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Will you tell us something about the qualifications for membership? What was necessary?
GISEVIUS: The members had to be so-called Nordic types. Actually I always considered these questionnaires as a good subject for a humorous paper, and for that reason I am not in a position today to give you exact particulars, except that, if I am not mistaken, the distinguishing characteristics of men and women went so far as underarm perspiration. I recall that Heydrich and Himmler, in selecting SS men who were to do police duty, decided only after a picture had been submitted to them of the future victim who would be charged with carrying out their evil commands. I know that, for example, Nebe repeatedly saved officials in the criminal police force (Kripo) from being transferred to the ranks of the Gestapo by having poor photographs taken of these people so that, as far as possible, they did not look Nordic. In that case, of course, they were turned down immediately. But it would be going too far afield to relate more about these dismal things in this courtroom.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, was the membership of the SS recruited only from what we may call fanatical Nazis, reliable Nazis?
GISEVIUS: I believe we have to make a distinction. In the first years of the SS, many decent German people, especially farmers and people in the country, felt drawn to the SS, because they believed Himmler's assurance that the SS was to bring order to Germany and to be a counterbalance to the SA terror. In that way, to my knowledge, some people in the years before 1933, and even in 1933 and 1934, entered the SS, because they hoped that here would be a nucleus standing for order and right, and I believe it is my duty to point out the tragedy of these people. Each and
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every case should be examined before deciding whether, later on, a member was guilty or whether he remained decent.
But from a certain period of time on-I believe I specified yesterday 1935-no one could have any doubts as to the real SS objectives. From then on-here I would like to take up your own expression-fanatical National Socialists, that is, "super" National Socialists, entered the SS.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And from 1935 on, was it, in your judgment as one who was on the ground, necessarily so, that the persons who entered it knew what its actual activities were?
GISEVIUS: Yes; what he was entering into and what orders he had to expect.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The Tribunal wishes me to ask you in reference to yesterday's incident if you have anything to add. I know nothing further on that incident, in reference to the threat made. Is there anything that you wish to add about that incident in order to make it clear to the Tribunal, anything that has not been told about it?
GISEVIUS: I would like to make clear that Dr. Dix did not merely inform me about a discussion he had with Dr. Stahmer. That morning I arrived in the room of the attorneys, and I do not wish to state further particulars, but the atmosphere there was not exactly cordial to begin with. Then I went up to Dr. Dix to report something else. Dr. Stahmer approached, obviously very excited, and asked Dr. Dix for an immediate interview. Dr. Dix refused on the ground that he was talking to me. Dr. Stahmer said in a loud voice that he must speak to Dr. Dix immediately and urgently. Dr. Dix took only two steps aside and the conversation that followed was carried on by Dr. Stahmer in such a loud voice, that I was bound to hear most of it. I did hear it and said to attorney Dr. Kraus who was standing nearby, "Just listen how Dr. Stahmer is carrying on." Dr. Dix then came over to me, very excited, and after all this fuss, in response to my questions as to what precisely was the demand of the Defendant Goering, he told me what I had half heard anyway. I would like to underline that if I had had the opportunity to tell the story first in my own way, I would have emphasized that I was under the impression that Dr. Stahmer had merely transmitted a statement, or rather what I would call a threat, by the Defendant Goering.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, in this Nazi regime, after Hitler came to power, will you state whether there was, as far as you could see, a systematic practice of the Nazi ministers and Nazi officials enriching themselves by reasons of their confiscation of property of Jews and others?
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GISEVIUS: Yes. This became more cynical from year to year and we kept lists as to which of the civil ministers and, above all, which of the generals and field marshals participated in this system. We planned to inquire of all the generals and ministers at a later date whether these donations had been put into a bank account or whether they had possibly used this money for their own personal interests.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And will you state to the Tribunal which of the defendants were engaged in self-enrichment in the manner that you have indicated?
GISEVIUS: I am sorry I am only able to give a negative reply since we repeatedly inquired from the Defendant Schacht...
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps this will be a good time to adjourn for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Dr. Gisevius, I have just a few more questions which I would like to put to you in reference to the war and the resistance movement of which you were a part.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Justice Jackson, there is just one question I should like to ask the witness. You said that you kept lists of the ministers and generals who participated in this system of spoils. What was your source of information?
GISEVIUS: We had information from the various ministries, from antechambers of ministries, and from the Finance Ministry. But I did not finish the answer before. I said that I could answer the question as to which of the defendants had enriched himself only in the negative.
Concerning the Defendant Schacht, I wanted to continue saying that I personally did not look into these lists, and that I took part only in the questioning of the Defendant Schacht and that he personally had not enriched himself. I did not intend to say in any sense, therefore, that all the defendants, especially Defendants Von Papen or Von Neurath, to name only these two, had enriched themselves. I do not know. I wanted to say only that about Schacht we know, or rather I know, that he did not take part in that system.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, in addition to a system of spoils from confiscated property, there were also open gifts from Hitler to the generals and ministers, were there not, of large sums of property and money?
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GISEVIUS: Yes. These were the famous donations with which, especially in the years after the outbreak of the war, the top generals were systematically corrupted.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And did that hold true with reference to many of the ministers?
GISEVIUS: I do not doubt it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, as I understood your testimony, whatever doubts you may have had before 1938 when the affair Fritsch occurred, that event or series of events convinced even Schacht that Hitler was bent on aggressive warfare.
GISEVIUS: After the Fritsch crisis Schacht was convinced that now radicalism and the course toward war could no longer be stopped.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: There was never any doubt in the minds of all of you men who were in the resistance movement, was there, that the attack on Poland of September 1939 was aggression on Hitler's part?
GISEVIUS: No, no, there could be no doubt about that.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And that diplomatic means of righting whatever wrongs Germany felt she suffered in reference to the Corridor and Danzig had not been exhausted?
GISEVIUS: I can only point to the existing documents. There was no will for peace.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, in the German resistance movement, as I understand you, there was agreement that you wanted to obtain various modifications of the Treaty of Versailles, and you also wanted various economic betterments for Germany, just as other people wanted them. That was always agreed upon, was it not?
GISEVIUS: We were all agreed that a calm and a reasonable balance could be achieved again in Europe only when certain modifications of the Versailles Treaty were carried through by means of peaceful negotiations.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Your difference from the Nazi group was chiefly, in reference to that matter, one of method.
GISEVIUS: Yes.
Mat, JUSTICE JACKSON: From the very beginning, as I understand you, it was the position of your group that a war would result disastrously for Germany as well as for the rest of the world.
GISEVIUS: Yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And that the necessary modifications, given a little patience, could be brought about by peaceful means.
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GISEVIUS: Absolutely.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, it was in the light of that difference of opinion, I suppose, that your resistance movement against the regime in power in Germany carried out these proposals for Putsche and assassinations which you have described.
GISEVIUS: Yes, but I would like to add that we were not only thinking of the great dangers outside, but we also realized what dangers lay in such a system of terror. From the very beginning there was a group of people in Germany who still did not even think of the possibility of war, and nevertheless protested against injustice, the deprivation of liberty, and the fight against religion.
In the beginning, therefore, it was not a fight against war, but if I may say so, it was a fight for human rights. From the very first moment on, among all classes of people, in all professional circles, and in all age groups, there were people who were ready to fight, to suffer, and to die for that idea.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, the question may arise here as to what your motives and what your purposes in this resistance movement were with reference to the German people, and I shall ask you to state to the Tribunal your over-all purpose in resisting the Government in power in your country.
GISEVIUS: I should like to say that death has reaped such a rich harvest among the members of the resistance movement, that it is only for that reason I can sit here, and that otherwise more worthy and able men could give this answer. Having said this, I feel that I can answer that, whether Jew or Christian, there were people in Germany who believed in the freedom of religion, in justice, and human dignity, not only for Germany but also, in their profound responsibility as Germans, for the higher concept of Europe and the world.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: There was a group which composed this resistance, as I understand it.
GISEVIUS: It was not only just a group, but many individuals had to carry the secret of their resistance silently to their death rather than confide it to the Gestapo records; and only a very few persons have enjoyed the distinction of being referred to now as a group.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Most of the men who were associated with you in this movement are dead?
GISEVIUS: Almost all of them.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Is there anything you would like to add to clarify your position to the Tribunal, Dr. Gisevius?
GISEVIUS: Excuse me, I did not understand you.
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MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Is there anything you would like to add in order that the Tribunal may understand your position in this, your feeling, your very strong feeling in this matter, to understand and appraise your own relation to this situation?
GISEVIUS: I do not like to talk of myself, but I want to thank you, Mr. Prosecutor, for giving me an opportunity to testify emphatically on behalf of the dead and the living.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I have concluded the examination.
MAJOR GENERAL G. A. ALEXANDROV (Assistant Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Was not the understanding arrived at with Counsel for the Prosecution that the witness for the Defendant Frick should only be cross-examined by one prosecutor?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Mr. President, I have an agreement with the prosecutors to the effect that the examination of the Defendant Schacht and his witnesses will be carried out by the American Prosecution, but that, in the presence of additional questions during cross-examination, the prosecutor from the Soviet Prosecution could also join in the examination. In view of the fact that the Soviet Prosecution has several additional questions to ask the witness Gisevius, which are of great importance to the case, I ask permission to address these questions to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: What are the questions which you say are of particular importance to the Soviet Union? I do not mean the individual questions but the general nature of them.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Questions in connection with the part played by the Defendant Frick in the preparation for war, questions connected with the attitude of the Defendant Schacht towards the Hitler regime, as well as a number of other important questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn in order to consider whether the Prosecution ought to be allowed to cross-examine this witness in addition to the cross-examination which has already taken place.
[A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has before it two documents which were presented to it by the Chief Prosecutors upon the subject of cross-examination. In the first of these documents it was provided that the following procedure for the cross-examination of the Defendants Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Frank, Frick, Streicher, and Funk was agreed; and that with reference to Frick the American Prosecution was to conduct the cross-examination of the defendant and his witness. The document was presented because
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of the Tribunal's express desire that too much time should not be taken up by the cross-examination by more than one prosecutor.
In addition to that document there was another document, which was only a tentative agreement, and with reference to the Defendant Schacht it provided that the American delegation should conduct the principal cross-examination and the Soviet and the French delegations should consider whether either would wish to follow.
In view of those two documents, the first of which suggests that the Prosecution have agreed to only one cross examination of the witnesses of the Defendant Frick, and the second of which tentatively suggests that, in addition to the American Prosecution, the Soviet and the French might wish to cross-examine, the Tribunal propose to allow the additional cross-examination in the present instance, and they are loath to lay down any hard and fast rule concerning cross-examination. They hope, however, that in the present instance, after the full cross-examination by the Prosecutor of the United States, the Soviet Prosecutor will make his cross-examination as short as possible. For the future, the Tribunal hopes that the prosecutors may be able to agree among themselves that in the case of witnesses one cross-examination only will be sufficient, and that in any event the additional cross-examination will be made as brief as possible.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Witness, in order to save time, I beg you to answer my questions as briefly as possible.
Tell me, what part did the German Ministry of the Interior and the Defendant Frick personally play in the preparation for the second World War?
GISEVIUS: This question is very difficult for me to answer. I left the Ministry of the Interior as early as May 1935, and I actually cannot say any more about conditions after that time than any other German, that is, that the Ministry of the Interior was part of the German government machine and doubtlessly there, as in all other ministries, those preparations for war were made which administrations have to make in such cases.
DR. PANNENBECKER: May I say something? The witness has just stated that he could not say any more in answering that question than any other German could. I believe that, under these circumstances, the witness is not the right person to make any factual statements.
THE PRESIDENT: He has just said so himself. That is exactly what he said. I don't see any reason for any intervention. The witness said so.
DR. PANNENBECKER: I only meant that he could not even function as a witness concerning these facts.
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GEN. ALEXANDROV: For perfectly obvious reasons I am deprived of all possibility to put these questions to any German, but I am perfectly satisfied with the answers of the witness Gisevius.
[Turning to the witness.] Do you know anything about the so-called "Three Man College"? It consisted of the Plenipotentiary for the Administration of the Reich, of the Plenipotentiary for Economy, and of a representative of the OKW. This Three Man College was entrusted with the preparation of all fundamental questions pertaining to the war.
GISEVIUS: I personally cannot give any information on that.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Do you know anything about the activities of the Ministry of the Interior in territories occupied by the Germans?
GISEVIUS: As far as I know, the Ministry of the Interior sent important officials into the military administration, but it is not clear to me whether these officials, from that moment on, were subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior or the OKW.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Have you any special knowledge as to whether the machinery of the Reich Commission in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union was recruited from the Ministry of the Interior or at least with considerable help from this ministry?
GISEVIUS: I should assume so, yes. It holds good as far as help is concerned, because the ministry for the occupied Russian territories could take its officials only from the personnel department of the Ministry of the Interior.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: What do you know of the visits paid by the Defendant Frick to the concentration camps?
GISEVIUS: At the time when I was in the Ministry of the Interior I did not hear anything about that.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: And after that?
GISEVIUS: After that I did not hear anything about it either.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Could a situation arise in which the Defendant Frick, although Minister of the Interior, would not be informed regarding the system of concentration camps established in Germany and of the violence and lawlessness practiced in the camps?
GISEVIUS: I believe that I have already yesterday given exhaustive information as to the fact that we were informed about everything.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: In this particular case I am interested in the Defendant Frick. What do you know about him in this connection?
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GISEVIUS: I have said yesterday that the Reich Ministry of the Interior received numberless calls for help from all over the country, and yesterday we even saw a letter from the Ministry of Justice. Also I have referred...
THE PRESIDENT: This subject was fully covered yesterday.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I shall pass on to the next question.
[Turning to the witness.] Are you acquainted with the secret law issued in Germany in 1940 concerning the killing of sick persons and the old?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: What was the attitude of the Defendant Frick towards the promulgation and enforcing of this law?
GISEVIUS: I assume that he, as Minister of the Interior, signed it.
THE PRESIDENT: The law, if there was a law, was after 1935, was it not? What is the law that you are putting? If it was in 1935, then this witness was not in the Ministry of the Interior.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I am speaking of the law which was promulgated in 1940.
THE PRESIDENT: He would not know anything about it any more than anybody else.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I am satisfied with the answer which I have received from the witness. Will you now allow me to proceed to questions concerning the Defendant Schacht?
[Turning to the witness.] Witness, you were in close relations with the Defendant Schacht for a considerable period of time; have I understood you correctly?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Thus you were sufficiently acquainted with the state and political activities of the Defendant Schacht?
GISEVIUS: I believe so, yes.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Tell me, what do you know about the part played by the Defendant Schacht in Hitler's seizure of power?
GISEVIUS: That was just the time when I did not yet know Schacht, and about which I cannot give any information.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: What do you know about it?
GISEVIUS: I knew only that he entered the Cabinet and that without doubt he assisted Hitler in the preliminary political negotiations.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Do you know anything about the meeting engineered by Schacht between Hitler and the big industrialists, in February 1933?
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GISEVIUS: No.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: As a result of this meeting a fund was created by the industrialists with a view to guaranteeing the success of the Nazi Party at the elections. What do you know about this meeting?
GISEVIUS: I know nothing about this meeting. In my book I wrote that to my knowledge the largest amount for the election campaign in 1932 was given by Thyssen at that time and Grauert, a member of the Rhein-Hessian iron and steel industry group.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: What was the part played by the Defendant Schacht on this occasion?
GISEVIUS: At that time I did not see Schacht in the Ruhr district, and I also do not know whether he was there at that time. I emphasize again that I did not know him at all.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I know that. But in your book entitled Until the Bitter End, published in 1946, and in your replies to preliminary interrogations by defendant's counsel Dix, you favorably described the Defendant Schacht; is that correct?
GISEVIUS: I did not understand the last words.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I repeat that you favorably described the Defendant Schacht; is that correct?
GISEVIUS Yes, yes.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You state that as from 1936, the Defendant Schacht was in opposition to Hitlerite regime, and that he expressed these opinions in a fairly open manner; is that true?
GISEVIUS: No, I state expressly that beginning with 1936 his suspicions were aroused, but that he only became an opponent of Hitler during the Fritsch crisis.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: In which year do you place this crisis?
GISEVIUS: End of 1937 and beginning of 1938. The Fritsch crisis was at the beginning of 1938.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Tell us, under the then existing regime in Germany, could a situation arise where Hitler would not be informed as to these opposite views of Schacht which, according to you, existed at the end of 1937?
GISEVIUS: You mean that Hitler was not informed after 1938?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: No. I asked you, could it be possible, under the then existing regime in Germany, that Hitler was not informed as to this antagonistic attitude on the part of Schacht?
GISEVIUS: Hitler knew very well that Schacht was very critical towards the system and that he frequently expressed disapproval.
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He often received letters from Schacht and of course heard a great deal, too. But he did not know how far that opposition went.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Then how could Schacht remain in the Government of the Reich, as Minister without Portfolio and personal adviser to Hitler, right up to January 1943, if Hitler, as you say, was fully aware of his critical attitude towards his, Hitler's, policy
GISEVIUS: Hitler always took care to let prominent individuals disappear quietly or put them in the shade so that foreign propaganda could not take advantage of these facts. The Schacht case is not the only one in which Hitler tried to camouflage an open crisis.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Were you acquainted with a letter from Hitler of 19 January 1939, addressed to Schacht, who at that time was being relieved of his post as President of the Reichsbank? I should like to remind you of the contents of that letter in which Hitler writes to Schacht as follows:
"I avail myself on the occasion of your release from the post of President of the Board of Directors of the Reichsbank to thank you most warmly, most sincerely for the services you have repeatedly rendered while in that position, to Germany and to me personally, during long and arduous years. Above all else, your name will be connected forever with the first period of national rearmament. I am happy that you will now be able, as Reichsminister, to proceed to the solution of new tasks..."
THE PRESIDENT: This was all gone over yesterday by the witness.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Please forgive me, but I have a question to put to the witness in connection with this letter.
[Turning to the witness.] It would appear, from the contents of this letter, that in January 1939-and I stress the date, Witness- Hitler expressed his appreciation of Schacht's activities rather differently from the manner in which you worded your evidence. How do you reconcile this divergence of opinion with your assertion that the Defendant Schacht was already in direct opposition to Hitler's regime towards the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1938?
GISEVIUS: I should like to answer that I am not accustomed to consider any written or oral proclamation by Hitler as truthful. That man always said only that which seemed opportune to him at the moment to deceive the world or Germany. In this particular case Hitler intended to avoid the impression that Schacht's resignation would cause a difficult economic crisis. But I am only saying now what Hitler could have had in his mind. Yesterday I
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described with what indignation Schacht received that letter. He considered it derision and debasement.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Then I shall refer to another document, to a letter from Schacht himself addressed to Hitler. This is a memorandum of 7 January 1939, in which Schacht wrote to Hitler:
"From the very beginning the Reichsbank has realized that the fruits of a successful foreign policy can only be obtained if this policy is founded on the rebirth of the Wehrmacht. It therefore took upon itself, to a very large extent, the financing of the armament program, despite the monetary and political difficulties involved. The justification of this consisted in the necessity, which far outweighed all other arguments, of manufacturing arms immediately, ex nihilo, often even under disguise, in order to ensure a foreign policy which would command respect."
Do you also consider this document as an expression of Schacht's attitude?
GISEVIUS: As far as I have understood, you refer to a letter from the year 1935, is that correct?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I refer to a letter of 7 January 1939.
GISEVIUS; Please pardon me. Then I can say only what I said yesterday: that all these letters were very carefully written so that they could not be considered a provocation, and the factual contents of the letter made illusory lest Hitler should simply say, "This is a personal attack on me." I said yesterday that the problem was to convince the other conservative ministers, who were not so much against Hitler, about the actual situation and neutralize any opposition.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: What was the attitude of the Defendant Schacht towards the Anschluss?
GISEVIUS: The Anschluss happened right in the middle of the Fritsch crisis, or probably at the dramatic climax, and that is why we were firmly convinced that this was a particularly malevolent case of camouflage, and in that sense we were indignant. We had no doubt that the German Army was to be diverted outwards...
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, wait a minute. You were asked if you knew what the attitude of Schacht was to the Anschluss question at that time. You are not answering that question. Do you or do you not know?
GISEVIUS: I cannot give a definite answer about that, because all of us saw clearly that the problem of Austria had to be solved in a legal way. There were differences of opinion with regard to this question in our group. Most of us hoped that the independence of
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Austria could be preserved. Especially from the German point of view, it was desirable that another independent German State should exist, if at any later time there should be a League of Nations or diplomatic negotiations. However, I cannot state under oath whether Schacht personally was of that opinion or whether he was for an outright annexation. He was certainly against the method.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I shall quote an excerpt from a speech made by Schacht in Vienna, in March 1938:
"Thank God, these matters could not, in the end, hinder the forward march of the great German people, for Adolf Hitler has created a community of German will and thought, he supported it with the reborn strength of the Wehrmacht, and thereby gave an outward form to this spiritual union of Germany and Austria."
Do you qualify these statements of Schacht's also as expressions of his opposition to the Hitler regime?
GISEVIUS: I would have to be able to read the speech in its entirety. I personally would not have said it, but I do not know whether pure judgment on my part here serves any purpose. Would it not be better to ask Schacht what he meant?
THE PRESIDENT: The speech can be put to Schacht when he goes into the witness box, if he does.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Tell me, Witness, you are currently residing in Switzerland? In which town?
GISEVIUS: I live near Geneva in a village called Commugny.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: How long have you lived in Switzerland?
GISEVIUS: Since the first of October 1940.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Did you know about Schacht's arrival in Switzerland in 1943?
GISEVIUS: No. He did not come to Switzerland in 1943.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: In 1942?
GISEVIUS: He did not come to Switzerland in 1942 either.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Then Schacht was not in Switzerland either in 1942 or 1943?
GISEVIUS: That is correct.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: In all the time that you yourself lived in Switzerland; did you ever meet the Defendant Schacht or not?
GISEVIUS: Yes, repeatedly. I was in Berlin at least every 4 weeks or 8 weeks and until 1943...
GEN. ALEXANDROV: No. I am asking you about Schacht's visit to Switzerland.
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GISEVIUS: During the war there was only one visit to Switzerland by Schacht-in 1941, on the occasion of his wedding trip, and then I saw him.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: That was in 1941?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: On 14 January 1946, an article was published in the newspaper Basler Nachrichten, entitled "What Schacht Thinks." Do you know anything about that article?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: What do you know about that article?
GISEVIUS: Not more than I read in the paper about it. I have tried to find out who that American was with whom Schacht had the conversation.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: The details do not interest me.
One last question: Did you know anything about a conference held at Hitler's house in Berchtesgaden in the summer of 1944, when the advisability of killing imported foreign workers was discussed, in the case of further successful advances by the Allied Forces? Did you hear anything about that conference?
GISEVIUS: No, at that time I could not go to Germany any more, because there were proceedings against me, and I heard nothing about that.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I have no further questions to ask.
THE PRESIDENT: Then do you wish to re-examine, or does any other member of the defendants' counsel wish to ask questions of the witness?
DR. PANNENBECKER: Witness, yesterday during the cross-examination the American prosecutor submitted to you a letter of 14 May 1935 by the Reich Minister of Justice to the Reich and Prussian Minister of the Interior. In that letter there is an enclosure which mentions a copy of a letter by an inspector of the Secret State Police. Witness, did I understand you correctly to say that you personally assisted in writing that letter?
GISEVIUS: We had cross-connections between the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice, and at times it was desirable, if a letter of a severe nature came from another ministry, for me to present it to my minister. And I do not doubt that Frick was also glad when he received a sharp letter, so that he could submit a matter in a general way and before the Cabinet. Thus I remember that the sending of that letter was discussed in advance with several gentlemen of the Ministry of Justice and with myself.
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DR. PANNENBECKER: Do I understand you correctly then that the letter was a joint effort of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior to do something against the Gestapo terror?
GISEVIUS: As for myself, I can certainly say "yes." I was at that time a member of the Ministry of the Interior. Of course I did not speak to my chief about that point.
DR. PANNENBECKER: In that letter we find on Page 5 of the German text the following sentence-I quote:
"In the concentration camp at Hohnstein in Saxony, inmates had to stand under a dripping apparatus especially constructed for that purpose, until the drops of water, falling at regular intervals, produced serious infected injuries on the scalp."
Do you know that the guards of that camp were heavily punished for that?
GISEVIUS: No, and if that happened it was an astounding exception.
DR. PANNENBECKER: Witness, then I have one more question. That is in connection with the statement which you just made, that there was an atmosphere of hostility toward you in the room of the attorneys due to the incident which has been mentioned. A number of colleagues are deeply shocked by that statement of yours, and these colleagues were glad that you described conditions in Germany so openly. Could you tell me whether that statement you made applies to all of the Defense Counsel?
GISEVIUS: I am grateful to you that you give me the opportunity to correct an apparent misstatement, or a misunderstanding which was created by my statement. I meant a different incident which occurred as I entered the counsel room, about which I do not want to speak any further here. I wish to emphasize that I realize the difficult task of the Defense Counsel, and that I want to apologize if in any way the impression was created or might be created that I had reproached the great majority of the Defense Counsel in the carrying out of their difficult task.
DR. PANNENBECKER: I thank you. I have no more questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Gisevius, I want to ask you some questions to try and get clear what your various positions were and where you were at various times.
As I understand it, in 1933 you were a civil servant, is that right?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: And then you became a member of the Gestapo?
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GISEVIUS: The first position I held as a qualified civil servant was in the service of the Political Police. In Germany one is a civil servant even in the training stage. Therefore I have to say that I received my first real position as an official in August of 1933 when I entered the Gestapo.
THE PRESIDENT: And when did you leave that position?
GISEVIUS: The end of December 1933.
THE PRESIDENT: And to what position did you go?
GISEVIUS: Then I entered the Ministry of the Interior; that is to say, the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. In the course of the year 1934 I also entered the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and in May of 1935 I was dismissed from the Ministry of the Interior.
Then I came into the newly created, or to-be-created, Reich Criminal Office, which, at its beginning, was the Police Presidium in Berlin. On the date when Himmler was appointed Reich Chief of Police, on 17 June 1936, I was finally dismissed from the police service.
I was then transferred to the Government office in Muenster, worked there in price control supervision, and, in the middle of 1937, I took an unpaid vacation, ostensibly to make studies in economics. That vacation was canceled by the Ministry of the Interior at the beginning of 1939, and I was attached to the Government office in Potsdam near Berlin. There I had to do with road building . . .
THE PRESIDENT: In the middle of 1937 you took unpaid service and studied in economics, I think you said, or an unpaid vacation.
GISEVIUS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You still remained a member of the civil service then, did you?
GISEVIUS: Yes; until the 20th of July I was continuously in the civil service.
THE PRESIDENT: Then, in the beginning of 1939 you were posted to the Ministry of the Interior and attached to Potsdam?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, go on; after that?
GISEVIUS: When war broke out the difficulty arose that I had no mobilization order and, on the other hand, my friends wanted to have me in the OKW. From the date of the outbreak of the war until 1 October 1940 I had only a forged mobilization order, and every day I expected to be found out. At which time I would have had to take the consequences.
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After the fall of Paris I stated to Canaris and Oster that I would have to ask them now to release me from that somewhat complicated situation. At that time the position of Canaris, temporarily, was so strong that he placed me in an intelligence position with the Consulate General in Zurich. There I received the title of a Vice Consul with the Consulate General in Zurich, and I stayed there as a counterintelligence man, without belonging to the Abwehr formally, until 20 July.
After 20 July I was dismissed from all posts, and I do not know whether I was not even deprived of citizenship. I have found out nothing about that.
THE PRESIDENT: Between the time you went to Zurich and 20 July, were you returning to Germany from time to time?
GISEVIUS: During that time I was mainly in Germany, and only from time to time Oster and Canaris sent me to Switzerland as a courier, on travel orders. Schacht was still quite helpful to me at that time in getting me a Swiss visa, through the Swiss Legation.
THE PRESIDENT: During the time that you were in the Gestapo, from August to December 1933, what was your actual job or function?
GISEVIUS: When I received my first civil service position I was only in training, and I was attached to the then Chief of the Executive Department, Oberregierungsrat Nebe, for training. After the warrant for arrest was issued, at the end of October 1933, I was sent to Leipzig as a reporter for the Reichstag Fire trial.
THE PRESIDENT: You spoke yesterday very often of a man whose name I am not clear about, Nebe, I believe it was.
GISEVIUS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: What was his position?
GISEVIUS: Nebe was a well-known criminologist at the Berlin Police headquarters before 1933. As a National Socialist he was called into the Gestapo in July 1933 and until the beginning of 1934; he was promoted there to Oberregierungsrat. Then we were successful, with the aid of the Defendant Frick, in having him transferred for some time to the Ministry of the Interior. And then he became the founder and Chief of the Reich Office of Criminology. On the day of the appointment of Himmler as Chief of Police of the Reich he was put into the new Reich Security Main Office. In the course of time he was taken over into the SS; he became an SS Gruppenfuehrer, SS General, and, until 20 July, he was one of the closest subordinates of the Defendant Kaltenbrunner. The Defendant Kaltenbrunner was Chief of the Gestapo as well as the Criminal Police
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and the Information Service. So that thereby Nebe became a subordinate of Kaltenbrunner and received continuously official orders from him, just like the Gestapo Chief Mueller.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you wish to ask any questions, Dr. Dix?
DR. DIX: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, perhaps we had better do that after the adjournment at a quarter past 2.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1415 hours.]
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DR. DIX: The Soviet Prosecutor put a question to you in connection with the annexation of Austria. While answering the question you were interrupted. You had just said, I quote "But the form..." Would you please complete your answer now?
GISEVIUS: What I wanted to say was that Schacht was undoubtedly opposed to the Anschluss in this form.
DR. DIX: Then I have one last question, which concerns the so-called incident of yesterday. I discussed this incident with you yesterday and explained the situation as regards my colleague Dr. Stahmer. I also gave you permission to make use of this explanation at any time.
I now request you to give this explanation to the Tribunal.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: May I interpose an objection. I think that is a most irregular way to inform the Tribunal, if there is anything the Tribunal should be informed about, that Dr. Dix should tell the witness what the witness should tell the Tribunal.
Now, I have no objection to the witness' relating to the Tribunal anything that he knows from his own knowledge. I do object to the witness' being asked to relate what Dr. Dix has told him he may tell the Tribunal. I think that is a most irregular way of clarifying it.
DR. DIX: That is not the case. I made a remark about Dr. Stahmer to Dr. Gisevius. That is a matter between the witness and myself; I consider it important that this remark of mine be related and testified to by the witness. It is an incident which he observed, and I prefer that the witness should confirm the fact that I explained this to him. I cannot see anything irregular about this procedure, and I ask for a decision by the Tribunal. Otherwise I should make the explanation myself, but I consider it better for the witness to say what I told him immediately after that incident.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks that you may properly put the question to the witness.
DR. DIX: I have already put the question, and you may answer it at this time.
THE PRESIDENT: I am not quite sure now what your question was, but the Tribunal thinks that you may put the question. Was there anything in connection with the incident which the witness has not already told us, which he wishes to say?
DR. DIX: Yes. The question relates to a conversation between the witness and myself.
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[Turning to the witness.] Witness, what did I tell you yesterday?
GISEVIUS: You told me immediately that, in your opinion, your colleague Dr. Stahmer did not wish to put undue pressure upon me but that this undue pressure came rather from the Defendant Goering.
DR. DIX: I have no further questions.
DR. SEIDL: Witness, were you, during the war. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Seidl, are you attempting to re-examine?
DR. SEIDL: I wanted to put a single question . . .
THE PRESIDENT: I was not thinking of the time which you would take up, but the question of whether you ought to be allowed to put any question. Yes, go on, Dr. Seidl.
DR.SEIDL: Witness, during the war were you at any time active in the intelligence service of a foreign power?
GISEVIUS: At no time.
DR. SEIDL: It is also not correct . . .
THE PRESIDENT: That is not a question which you ought to put to this witness in re-examination.
DR. SEIDL: But, Mr. President, it is a question affecting the credibility of this witness. If it should turn out that this witness, who is or was a citizen of the German Reich, had been active in the intelligence service of a foreign power, that fact would have an important bearing on the credibility of the witness.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I should like to be heard on that. In the first place, I do not think that this witness should be subjected to any attacks. In the second place. I respectfully submit that it does not militate against the credibility of the witness that he should have opposed this kind of an organization. I think that the attack upon the credibility of this witness, if there were one to be made-he is sworn on behalf of the defendants and is not the Prosecution's witness-the attack is not timely, is not a proper attack, and the substance of it does not go to credibility.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will allow you to put the question.
DR. SEIDL: Please answer my question and remember your oath.
GISEVIUS: Mr. Attorney, it is not at all necessary for you to remind me of my oath. I have said that I was never in the intelligence service of a foreign power. I was in the service of a good, clean German cause.
DR.SEIDL: During the war did you receive funds from any power at war with Germany?
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GISEVIUS: No.
DR SEIDL: Do you know what the three letters OSS mean?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
DR.SEIDL: What do they stand for?
GISEVIUS: They stand for an American intelligence service.
DR. SEIDL: You had nothing to do with that organization?
GISEVIUS: I had friendly and political contacts with several members of this organization.
DR. SEIDL: I have no further questions to put to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: I hope the defendants' counsel will remember that they have all had a free opportunity to cross-examine this witness already and have not...
DR. EGON KUBUSCHOK (Counsel for Defendant Von Papen): The person of Herr Von Papen was not mentioned until the cross-examination by the American prosecutor. Therefore I could not ask questions before.
Witness, you replied in the negative to a question put by the American chief prosecutor yesterday as to whether the Defendant Von Papen at any time protested. Of course, you modified this by pointing out that some written communication by Von Papen had not been addressed to the Ministry of the Interior.
In order to clarify this problem, I should like to know whether this assertion of yours refers only to the Ministry of the Interior. On Page 133 of your book you pointed out that one of the Defendant Von Papen's main activities as Vice Chancellor consisted in handing in protests and that he addressed these protests above all to Hindenburg and Goering.
GISEVIUS: I again emphasized the latter point yesterday or today. I have no official knowledge of any protest made by Von Papen to the competent police minister after 30 June 1934. I can say only that it would greatly have strengthened the position of the ministry of police if a protest of that nature, describing in detail the murder of Von Papen's closest co-workers, had reached the Ministry of the Interior. In that case, it is unlikely that this rumor about the suicide or rather the suspicious death of Von Bose and Jung would have reached the public.
DR KUBUSCHOK: Do you not think that it is understandable, especially considering the position held by Frick, the comparatively insignificant and uninfluential position held by Frick, that one should make such protests to higher authorities if it is possible to do so?
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GISEVIUS: At the very moment when the ministers took the position that they could apply only to higher authorities, that is, the dictator himself, they, of their own accord, shattered the constitutional competency of the individual ministries and the Cabinet.
It would have meant a great deal if Herr Von Papen at that time had used the prescribed channels.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: In agreement with your book, you do not dispute the fact that Von Papen made many protests to these higher authorities in respect to other questions as well?
GISEVIUS: No; he did protest frequently.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Yesterday, within the scope of your general statements you gave an unfavorable characterization of the Defendant Von Papen. This character sketch coincides with the one you gave in your book. In your book you pay special attention to certain details and draw your conclusions from them.
Since the Defendant Von Papen only occupies a comparatively small amount of space in your book and you probably had nothing to do with him in your official capacity, you must have had to base your statements on second-hand information. Since all these statements, as far as they refer to Von Papen, are incorrect, I refer to them briefly.
First, you proceed from the assumption that, in spite of the events of 30 June, Von Papen did not resign.
On the contrary, it is historically significant that Papen did send in his resignation after the suppressor of his Marburg speech, that negotiations about this resignation were pending between Hitler and Hindenburg, and that Hitler accepted Papen's resignation immediately after the latter's release on 3 July, when it was again tendered, but did not intend to make it public until a later date, in spite of Papen's request to the contrary.
Is it possible, Witness, that you were not correctly informed of this internal event?
GISEVIUS: It is perfectly possible for me not to have known of internal events. I should like, however, to stress the fact that a minister or vice chancellor is under an obligation to give a certain amount of publicity to his opinion and to his decisions; and I can say only that, whatever Papen may have said to Hitler in private, he contrived with consummate skill to conceal from the German people the fact that he intended to resign-or had already resigned; and that is the point.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Are you aware that this same Defendant Von Papen had had a very bad experience a few weeks earlier, when the press was forbidden to publish his speech at Marburg,
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which contained a frank statement of his opinions, and warning was given that persons found circulating it would be punished?
GISEVIUS: I am aware of it because we were appalled that a Vice Chancellor of the German Reich allowed himself to be silenced in such a way. I believe that the 30th of June would not have involved such a heavy death-roll for the middle classes if Vice Chancellor Von Papen had given a manly "no"-a definite "no" at the proper time.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Your answer makes no reference to the point which I raised before, that Von Papen had actually resigned because the publication of his Marburg speech had been prohibited.
Secondly, you make the assumption that Von Papen took part in the Cabinet session of 3 July, in which the law was passed that the measures involved by 30 June were legal as emergency measures for the protection of the State. Is it known to you that Yon Papen did not participate in this session, that he had just been released and went into the Chancellery while the session was in progress, that Hitler asked him to go from the session-room into the adjoining room, that Von Papen again tendered his resignation, which Hitler accepted, and that he left the Chancellery immediately afterwards, without participating in the session at all?
THE PRESIDENT: I do not know whether it is possible for the witness to follow your questions, but they are so long and contain so many statements of fact that it is very difficult for anybody else to follow them; it is very difficult for the Tribunal.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: The gist of my question was that Von Papen did not attend the Cabinet session on 3 July. My question to the witness...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kubuschok, why do you not ask the witness whether he knows whether he did participate or not? If that is the question you want to ask why do you not ask it?
DR. KUBUSCHOK: My question is simply an attempt to find out whether the assertion to the contrary which appears in his book can also be explained by an error in information obtained from a third party.
GISEVIUS: It can be explained by false information, which, through the silence of Herr Von Papen, became known to the public and by which I myself was misled.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Thirdly, you go on with the statement that Von Papen, although he went to see Hindenburg afterwards, did not make a sufficiently strong protest against the measures taken. Is it known to you that Von Papen did everything in his power to reach Hindenburg but was kept away from him and he did not
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reach Hindenburg's estate at Neudeck until after the 30th of June, after Hindenburg's death? Can the assertion to the contrary contained in your book be traced back to an error in information?
GISEVIUS: Yes, if you tell me that even in his capacity of Vice Chancellor of the Reich he did not have access to the President of the Reich and still remained in office, in spite of the fact that there were foreign journalists, the foreign diplomatic corps, and even a large number of Germans who heard of this attitude of a German vice chancellor.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: But, Witness, you are forgetting that he was a retired vice chancellor and had already been out of office for several weeks.
Fourthly, you start with the premise that Von Papen attended the Reichstag session at which the measures taken on 30 June were justified. Do you know that Von Papen did not attend that session in spite of Hitler's summons to him to do so? Is it possible that you could have been informed incorrectly on that point, too?
GISEVIUS: I believe you have already asked me that.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: No, this is not the Cabinet session; this is the Reichstag session.
GISEVIUS: Yes, then I must be misinformed.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Thank you.
[Dr. Laternser approached the lectern.
GEN. RUDENKO: Mr. President, it seems to me that the Defense has had every opportunity to interrogate this witness. After the witness was examined by the Prosecution, after his cross-examination, the Defense makes again an application to cross-examine the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks, at any rate, that it is perfectly able to manage its own proceedings without any interruptions of this sort. We can deal with Dr. Laternser when he makes his application to cross-examine.
GEN. RUDENKO: I understand, Mr. President. I merely wanted to say that we would like to shorten the duration of the proceedings as much as possible, and the Prosecution would like the Defense to consider that the same way.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I have several further questions to put to the witness, arising from his cross-examination; I assume that the Tribunal have no objection to my questioning him.
THE PRESIDENT: No, if they arise out of the cross-examination of him.
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DR. LATERNSER: Witness, yesterday, in answer to a question of the American prosecutor, you expressed the opinion that a Putsch against the then existing regime would have been possible only with the co-operation of the generals but that the many discussions which took place did not achieve this co-operation. I should like to ask you, Witness, to which generals you spoke personally about the existing plans for a Putsch on the part of your group?
THE PRESIDENT: You are not concerned with every general in the German Army; you are only concerned with those who are charged with being a criminal group.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Your question must be addressed to them, or with reference to them.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes, Mr. President. Then I ask the Court's permission to describe to the witness the OKW and General Staff circle so that he can answer my question.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you can put to him, I think, whether he had contact with any members of the General Staff who are charged with being a criminal group. You know who the generals are.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes. I should like to make a few preliminary remarks to the witness and then put the question. Witness...
THE PRESIDENT: Now, what is the question you want to put?
DR. LATERNSER: So that the witness can answer the question within the limits prescribed by the Tribunal, I should like to give the witness a brief explanation as to the circle of persons actually belonging to this group and then ask him with which of these persons he talked personally in order to win them over for the Putsch intended by his groups. Otherwise...
THE PRESIDENT: If you do it shortly.
DR. LATERNSER: Witness, the group General Staff and OKW is held to include the holders of certain appointments from February 1938 to May 1945. These appointments are as follows: The Commanders-in-Chief of the various branches of the Armed Forces . . .
THE PRESIDENT: You are not going through the whole lot, are you, 130 of them?
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, the list is really quite short and otherwise I cannot restrict my question as desired by the Tribunal.
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THE PRESIDENT: I do not know what you mean. What I said was, are you proposing to go through the whole 130 generals or officers?
DR. LATERNSER: No, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, go on.
DR. LATERNSER: The group includes those holding certain appointments; briefly, all those who were commanders-in-chief during the period February 1938 to May 1945. Now, I ask you, with which generals of this group did you personally discuss the subject of Putsch plans, in order to obtain their co-operation in a Putsch, if such were made?
GISEVIUS: You mean commanders-in-chief of groups?
DR. LATERNSER: Of armies, of army groups, branches of the Wehrmacht, and General Staff chiefs of the Wehrmacht branches.
GISEVIUS: I have already mentioned Halder and Brauchitsch.
DR. LATERNSER: One question, Witness; did you discuss with Field Marshal Von Brauchitsch an intended Putsch against the regime or only against the Gestapo?
GISEVIUS: I discussed both with him; and in both cases he answered in the affirmative and acted in the negative.
I spoke to Balder and Witzleben. I knew Kluge well from the old times. I do not know at what period he entered the category to which you refer. At any rate my connection with Kluge was never broken off. I may have talked to other individuals falling within this category.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes',but to discuss Putsch plans with a high-ranking military leader is an event of some importance; if you had had a discussion of this kind with a field marshal you would surely remember it.
GISEVIUS: It was not such an important event as all that, Mr. Attorney. Field marshals were not such important people in the Third Reich.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, the fact that these generals were spoken to and refused to join a Putsch is not a crime within the meaning of the Charter.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, yesterday I explained that this point is very important because it would exclude the assumption of a conspiracy.
THE PRESIDENT: I am afraid, Dr. Laternser, it is no good answering me that a point is very important. What I asked you was, how is it relevant to show that these generals discussed a
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revolt against the regime? That, I am putting to you, is not a crime within the meaning of the Charter.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes, but this circumstance would exclude the assumption of the conspiracy alleged by the Prosecution.
THE PRESIDENT: But does it preclude the possibility of a conspiracy to make aggressive war? It has nothing to do with it.
DR. LATERNSER: I did not quite understand that.
THE PRESIDENT: The question of a revolt against the regime in Germany is, it seems to me, not necessarily connected with the conspiracy to carry out aggressive war; therefore, anything which has to do with a revolt against the regime in Germany is not relevant to the question which you have to deal with.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, the conspiracy is assumed precisely in connection with the wars of aggression; and if the high military leaders turned against the regime to such an extent that they discussed and even attempted a Putsch, there would be no question of conspiracy.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, the Tribunal think the proper way of putting the question, which they understand you want to put, is to ask which of the generals were prepared to join in a revolt. You may put that question.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, in order to decide how far the circle as a whole was willing to take part I must ask the witness how many of them he spoke to and how many of those declared themselves ready to act with him.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you might put that to him-how many. Ask him how many.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, that was the question I asked at the beginning.
THE PRESIDENT: I said you may put it.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes, Mr. President.
[Turning to the witness.] Witness, with how many generals of this group did you discuss the matter?
GISEVIUS: In the course of years it may have been a dozen or several dozen, but I should like to say that it was the task of Generaloberst Beck and Oster or Canaris to talk to these gentlemen rather than mine. As regards names, I cannot give you much of the information you want; on the other hand I can shorten your question by saying that, unfortunately, very few of the leading generals in the appointments referred to by the Prosecution ever seriously declared their intention of helping to overthrow the system.
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DR. LATERNSER: Witness, that is exactly what I want to know. You spoke to Field Marshal Von Brauchitsch, Halder, and Witzleben?
GISEVIUS: And Olbricht.
DR. LATERNSER: He did not belong to this group. You did speak to these three, then?
GISEVIUS: Also to Kluge.
DR. LATERNSER: Regarding the intended Putsch?
GISEVIUS: Yes, of course.
DR. LATERNSER: And of these four that you mentioned did Field Marshal Von Witzleben agree?
GISEVIUS: They all agreed to begin with. Witzleben was the only one who stuck to his word.
DR. LATERNSER: Then he did participate in this Putsch?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: Did I understand you correctly when you said yesterday that the Putsch of 20 July originated mainly with the Wehrmacht, that is, with the generals and the officers of the General Staff:, and that they intended to keep down as far as possible the number of those taking part?
GISEVIUS: No, I did not make such an exact statement as that. Under a terror regime, only the military circles are in a position to carry out a Putsch; to this extent it is true to say that these few generals who participated were the mainstay of the Putsch. But on 20 July the main weight lay with the wide front of the civilians who for years had fought for the generals and were invariably disappointed by the generals. For this reason alone, because the generals had repeatedly broken their word, we decided this time that on 20 July we would wait until the generals had really taken action, in order not to raise the hopes or burden the conscience of many civilians all to no purpose. That is what I meant by limitation.
DR. LATERNSER: Then the only Putsch which was actually attempted was effected by generals and General Staff officers?
GISEVIUS: And civilians.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes. And the head of this group was, as you testified, Generaloberst Beck?
GISEVIUS: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: And he also belonged to the group indicated under the name General Staff and OKW. Now, I have a further question: Do you know of relations between these military leaders
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and the Minister of Finance Popitz, who also had designs for a Putsch and is even said to have negotiated with Himmler for the purpose of doing away with Hitler; and do you know anything about that?
GISEVIUS: Yes, that is true. Popitz made great efforts to incite the generals to make a Putsch and to assassinate him. I regret that I did not mention his name at the right time. He too was one of those who, from 1938 or 1939 on, did their best to overthrow the regime.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you discuss that with Minister Popitz?
GISEVIUS: Yes, repeatedly.
DR. LATERNSER: Did he tell you anything about the identity of the high military leaders he had contacted for this purpose?
GISEVIUS: Popitz was in contact with Beck in particular. He is certain to have been in contact with Witzleben; he was in touch with Halder and Brauchitsch. The list of his disappointments is no shorter than the list of disappointments which all the rest of us had.
DR. LATERNSER: Did he himself call it a disappointment?
GISEVIUS: Yes, he was bitterly disappointed. This bitter, everlasting disappointment was our one topic of conversation, and that was the difficulty confronting the civilians, Mr. Attorney.
DR. LATERNSER: There were no other possible ways of doing away with Hitler?
GISEVIUS: No. Since, through the fault of the generals, there was no other means of power, constitutional or otherwise, left in Germany, and the generals, who were the only armed power of the nation, took their orders from Hitler, it was impossible to organize opposition through any other circles. I may remind you that after 1938 every attempt made by the Leftists to organize a strike was punishable in the same way as mutiny in time of war, and I remind you of the hundreds of death sentences imposed on civilians under the war laws.
DR. LATERNSER: Now, a different subject. When . . .
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks that this matter has been fully covered and is really not relevant. You have already cross-examined this witness at some length before this, and the Tribunal does not wish to hear any further evidence on this subject in any further cross-examination.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I have just finished.
Witness, as regards the Fritsch crisis, when did you...
THE PRESIDENT: I thought you said you had concluded?
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DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I am afraid I was misunderstood. I have concluded those questions referring to an intended Putsch and I should like to pass on to another point now and put a question on the Fritsch crisis.
THE PRESIDENT: What question?
DR. LATERNSER: As regards the Fritsch crisis I should like to ask the witness when he learned of the exact state of affairs and whether he transmitted his knowledge to high military leaders or caused that knowledge to be transmitted to them.
THE PRESIDENT: But the Fritsch crisis has nothing to do with the charges against the High Command. The charges against the High Command are crimes under the Charter, and the Fritsch crisis has nothing whatever to do with that.
DR. LATERNSER: Then I will withdraw that question.
Witness, today in cross-examination...
THE PRESIDENT: What are you going to put to him now?
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I should like to ask the witness now about some points which he made in reply to the American chief prosecutor's questions. I believe that some clarification is necessary here.
THE PRESIDENT: The principle is not whether you think the clarification is necessary, but whether the Tribunal thinks it; and, therefore, the Tribunal wishes to know what points you wish to put to him.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes, indeed. In the course of his testimony today the witness mentioned the fact that he had in his possession documentary evidence of murders in Poland and Russia. I wanted to ask him who had prepared these reports and in particular whether he is acquainted with a very thorough and scientifically prepared report made by Blaskowitz, commander in Poland, and intended for transmission to his superiors. That would be an extremely important point. Generaloberst Blaskowitz is a member of the group which I represent. From the facts to be shown, it is clear that the members of this group have always taken a stand against cruelty, if such cases were reported to them through official channels. I must therefore establish whether these reports, the object of which was to prevent atrocities, are to be ascribed to the co-operation of generals belonging to the indicted group.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: It seems to me, if I may suggest, Your Honors, that counsel is under the apprehension that he has here to deal with individual generals. We are dealing only with the group. If what counsel says about General Blaskowitz is true, that is a defense for him, and I am right to say that General
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Blaskowitz did defy this Nazi conspiracy. And if that fact is ever verified, he certainly should not be subject to penalties for the acts which he stood up against.
It seems to me that we are going into individual defenses here under a misapprehension that this is the occasion to try each and every one of the generals. We made no charge against them that they either did or did not have a Putsch or a Fritsch affair. The Fritsch affair is only referred to here as fixing the time when the Defendant Schacht became convinced that aggressive warfare was the purpose of the Nazi regime. The Putsch is only introduced because in his defense Schacht says he tried to induce a Putsch. It enters not at all into the case against the General Staff. And most of the General Staff who took any part in the Putsch were hanged and I cannot see how it could be any defense to those who remained and are under trial that a Putsch was or was not conducted. It seems that we are off the main track.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I would like to define my position with regard to this point. Unless I am permitted to ask questions about the attitude of the members of this group and in respect to such an important point, from which it is clear that they combated atrocities, it is impossible for me to make clear to the Tribunal the attitude typical of the high military leaders. It is absolutely necessary for me to follow up such points, especially since I have no other evidence material at my disposal; for I cannot consider a group criminal unless-for instance-the majority of its members actually committed crimes. I must be in a position to ask in this case what position Generaloberst Blaskowitz took in regard to the murders which took place in Poland.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn to consider the matter.
[A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, the Tribunal considers that the questions that you have been putting, if relevant at all, are only extremely remotely relevant, and they cannot allow the cross-examination to continue for any length of time, or the time of the Tribunal would be wasted further. They think, and they rule, that you may put the question which they understand you desire to put in this form: The witness has spoken of reports which were received by the group of which he has spoken about atrocities in the East, and they think you may ask him who submitted those reports.
DR. LATERNSER: Witness, I should like you to answer this question: With whom did these reports of murders in Poland and Russia originate?
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GISEVIUS: I know of one report made by Generaloberst Blaskowitz during the first few months of the Polish campaign on the basis of information received by him and the military offices under him. Beyond that, as far as I know, such reports were compiled only by the group Canaris-Oster. But I should not care to assert that another report was not written by someone else somewhere.
DR. LATERNSER: What was the aim of the report which Generaloberst Blaskowitz submitted?
GISEVIUS: Generaloberst Blaskowitz intended...
THE PRESIDENT: The report which one particular general made does not tend to show that the group was either innocent or criminal.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, it helps us to find out what the attitude of the group was.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal think that the report of one general is not evidence as to the criminality of the whole group.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, is that question approved? I asked about the aim of the report.
THE PRESIDENT: No; the Tribunal is of the opinion that what was contained in that report is not admissible.
DR. LATERNSER: I have no more questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Then the witness may retire. Dr. Pannenbecker, that concludes your case, does it?
DR. PANNENBECKER: The case of the Defendant Frick is hereby concluded, except for the answers to the interrogatories which I have not yet received.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Counsel for the Defendant Streicher, Dr. Marx, go on.
DR. HANNS MARX (Counsel for Defendant Streicher): With the permission of the Tribunal, Mr. President, I now call the Defendant Julius Streicher to the witness box.
[The Defendant Streicher took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?
JULIUS STREICHER (Defendant): Julius Streicher.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: I swear by God-the Almighty and Omniscient-that I will speak the pure truth-and will withhold and add nothing.
[The defendant repeated the oath in German.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. MARX: Witness, would you give the Tribunal first a short description of your career?
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STREICHER: I should like to ask the Tribunal to let me make a brief statement in respect to my defense. Firstly. . .
THE PRESIDENT: You really ought to answer the questions that are put to you.
STREICHER: My Lord, my defense counsel cannot say what I must say now. I should like to ask permission-in short, my defense counsel has not conducted and was not in a position to conduct my defense in the way I wanted; and I should like to state this to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, you understand that the Tribunal does not wish to have its time taken up with unnecessary matters. It has no objection to your stating what is material or to your reading it if necessary. It hopes that you will be as brief as possible.
STREICHER: I mention only facts, four facts.
Firstly, the Charter created for this International Military Tribunal guarantees the defendant the right to an unhampered and just defense.
Secondly, before the Trial began the defendants received a list containing the names of the attorneys from whom the defendant could choose his counsel. Since the Munich attorney whom I had selected for my defense could no longer be put at my disposal, I asked the Military Tribunal to put the Nuremberg attorney Dr. Marx at my disposal. That was done.
Thirdly, when I met my counsel for the first time, I told him he must expect, as my counsel, to be attacked before the public. Shortly afterwards, an attack was made by a Communist newspaper published in the Russian zone of Berlin. The International Tribunal was compelled to make a public statement repudiating the attack of that newspaper and assuring my counsel of the express protection of the Military Tribunal.
Fourthly, although the statement made by the International Military Tribunal left no doubt as to the fact that the Tribunal wished to see the defense of the defendants unhampered, a renewed attack occurred, this time by radio. The announcer said, "There are camouflaged Nazis and anti-Semites among the defendants' counsel." That these terroristic attacks were made with the intention of intimidating the defendants' counsel is clear. These terror attacks might have contributed to the fact-that is my impression-that my own counsel had refused to submit to the Tribunal a large number of pieces of evidence which I considered important.
Fifthly, I wish to state that I have not been afforded the possibility of making an unhampered and just defense before this International Military Tribunal.
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THE PRESIDENT: You can rest assured that the Tribunal will see that everything that, in the opinion of the Tribunal, bears upon the case or is relevant to your case or is in any way material in your case will be presented and that you will be given the fairest opportunity of making your defense.
STREICHER: I thank you. From my life...
DR. MARX: Excuse me, Mr. President; may I ask briefly to be permitted to state my position. May it please the Court, when I was asked to take over Herr Streicher's defense, I naturally had grave misgivings. I have...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, I do not think it is necessary, really, for you to make any personal explanation at this stage. It is very possible that the defendant may have different ideas about his own defense. I think we had better let him go on with his defense.
DR. MARX: Nevertheless, I should like to ask permission, Mr. President, just to mention the following point: As attorney and as defense counsel of a defendant I have to reserve for myself the right to decide how I shall conduct the defense. If the client is of the opinion that certain documents or books are relevant, and the attorney is of the opinion that they are not, then that is a difference of opinion between the counsel and his client.
If Herr Streicher is of the opinion that I am incapable or not in a position to conduct his defense, then he should ask for another defense counsel. I am aware that at this stage of the proceedings it would be very difficult for me to follow the matter to its logical conclusion and ask to be relieved of this task of defense. I am not terrorized by any journalist, but for a counsel to lose the confidence of his own client is quite another matter; and for that reason I feel bound to ask the Court to decide whether in these circumstances I am to continue to defend my client.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal thinks, Dr. Marx, that the explanation and the statement which you have just made is in accordance with the traditions of the legal profession and they think therefore that the case ought to proceed and that you should proceed with the case. Now, Defendant, will you go on?
STREICHER: About my life: I was born on 12 February 1885 in a small village in Bavaria Swabia. I was the youngest of nine children. My father was an elementary school teacher. I too became a teacher at an elementary school. In 1909, after I had taught for several years in my native district, I was called to the municipal school in Nuremberg. Here I had the opportunity of contact with the families of the working-class children in the suburbs and of observing social contrasts. This experience led to my decision in 1911 to go into politics. I became a member of the Democratic Party.
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As a young democratic speaker, I spoke at the Reichstag election in 1919. The car put at my disposal was paid for by the banking firm of Kohn. I stress this point because at that time I had occasion to associate a good deal with Jews, even in the Democratic Party. I must therefore have been fated to become later on a writer and speaker on racial politics.
The World War came and I, too, went into the army as a lance corporal in an infantry regiment. Then I became an officer in a machine-gun unit. I returned home with both Iron Crosses, with the Bavarian Order, and the rare Austrian Cross of Merit attached to the Ribbon for Gallantry. When I had returned home, I had no desire to go into politics again. I intended only to stay in private life and devote myself to my profession. Then I saw the blood-red posters of revolution in Germany and for the first time I joined the raging masses of that time. At a meeting, when the speaker had finished, I asked to be heard as an unknown person. An inner voice sent me onto the platform and I spoke. I joined in the debate and I spoke on recent happenings in Germany. In the November revolution of 1918 the Jews and their friends had seized the political power in Germany. Jews were in the Reich Cabinet and in all the provincial governments. In my native Bavaria the Minister President was a Polish Jew called Eisner-Kosmanowsky. The reaction among the middle classes in Germany manifested itself in the form of an organization known as Schutz und Trutzbund (Society for Protective and Offensive Action). Local branches of this organization were formed in all the large cities in Germany; and fate willed that after I had again spoken at a gathering, a man came up to me and asked me to come to the Kulturverein (Cultural Society) in the Golden Hall and hear what they had to say there.
In this way, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, I became involved in what brings me here today. Destiny made of me what international propaganda thought it had made. I was called a bloodhound-a blood czar of Franconia; my honor was attacked, a criminal was paid 300 marks to swear in this very hall that he had seen me, as an officer in France during the war, rape a Madame Duquesne, a teacher's wife in Atis, near Peronne. It was 2 years before someone betrayed him and the truth came out.
Gentlemen, the receipt for 300 marks was produced here in this court. With 300 marks they tried to deprive me of my honor.
I mention this case only because my case is a special case; and if it is to be judged with justice, then I must be allowed to make such a remark in passing. In this connection, I may say that it is no coincidence that the first question asked me by the Soviet Russian officer who interrogated me was whether I was a sex criminal.
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Gentlemen, I told you how I was fated to be drawn into the Schutz und Trutzbund. I told you what conditions were like in Germany at the time, and it was therefore quite a natural development that I no longer visited the centers of revolution to join in debate. I felt myself impelled to call meetings of my own and so I spoke for perhaps 15 years almost every Friday before about 5,000 to 6,000 people. I admit quite frankly that I went on making speeches over a period of 20 years in the largest cities of Germany, sometimes at meetings on sport fields and on public squares, to audiences of 150,000 to 200,000 people. I did that for 20 years, and I state here that I was not paid by the Party. The Prosecution will never succeed, not even through a public appeal, in getting anybody into this room who could testify that I had ever been paid. I still had a small salary which continued after I was relieved of my position in 1924. Nonetheless, I remained the one and only unpaid Gauleiter in the Movement. It goes without saying that my writing supported myself and my assistants later on.
And so, Gentlemen, in the year 1921-I return now to that period-I went to Munich. I was curious because someone had said to me, "You must hear Adolf Hitler some time." And now destiny again takes a hand. This tragedy can only be grasped by those whose vision is not limited to the material, but who can perceive those higher vibrations which even today have not had their full outcome.
I went to the Munich Buergerbraeukeller. Adolf Hitler was speaking there. I had only heard his name. I had never seen the man before. And there I sat, an unknown among unknowns. I saw this man shortly before midnight, after he had spoken for 3 hours, drenched in perspiration, radiant. My neighbor said he thought he saw a halo around his head; and I, Gentlemen, experienced something which transcended the commonplace. When he finished his speech, an inner voice bade me get up. I went to the platform. When Adolf Hitler came down, I approached him and told him my name.
The Prosecution has submitted a document to the Tribunal which recalls that moment. Adolf Hitler wrote in his book, Mein Kampf, that it must have cost me a great effort to hand over to him the movement which I had created in Nuremberg.
I mention this because the Prosecution thought that these things in Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, should be submitted and used against me. Yes, I am proud of it; I forced myself to hand over to Hitler the movement which I had created in Franconia. This Franconian movement gave the movement which Adolf Hitler had created in Munich and southern Bavaria a bridge to northern Germany. That was my doing.
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In 1923 I took part in the first National Socialist revolution or, rather, attempted revolution. It will go down in history as the Hitler Putsch. Adolf Hitler had asked me to come to Munich for it. I went to Munich and took part in the meeting in which Adolf Hitler came to a solemn agreement with representatives of the middle classes to go to northern Germany and put an end to the chaos.
I marched with them up to the Feldherrnhalle. Then I was arrested and, like Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, and others, was taken to Landsberg on the Lech. After a few months I was put up as candidate for the Bavarian Parliament by the Volkischer Block and was elected in the year 1924.
In 1925 after the Movement had been permitted again and Adolf Hitler had been released from jail, I was made Gauleiter of Franconia. In 1933 I became a deputy to the Reichstag. In 1933 or 1934 the honorary title of SA Gruppenfuehrer was bestowed on me.
In February 1940 I was given leave of absence. I lived for 5 years, until the end of the war, on my estate. At the end of April I went to southern Bavaria, to the Tyrol. I wanted to commit suicide. Then something happened which I do not care to relate. But I can say one thing: I said to friends, "I have proclaimed my views to the world for 20 years. I do not want to end my life by suicide. I will go my way whatever happens as a fanatic in the cause of truth until the very end, a fanatic in the cause of truth."
I might mention here that I deliberately gave my fighting paper Der St.uermer, the subtitle, A Weekly for the Fight for Truth. I was quite conscious that I could not be in possession of the entire truth, but I also know that 80 or 90 percent of what I proclaim with conviction was the truth.
DR. MARX: Witness, why were you dismissed from the teaching profession? Did you ever commit any punishable or immoral act?
STREICHER: Actually I have answered this question already. Everybody knows that I could not have been active publicly in this profession if I had committed a crime. That is not true. I was dismissed from my profession because the majority of the parties in the Bavarian Parliament in the fall of 1923, after the Hitler Putsch, demanded my dismissal. That, Gentlemen, was my crime of indecent behavior.
DR. MARX: You know that two charges are made against you. First, you are accused that you were a party to the conspiracy which had the aim of launching a war, or wars, of aggression generally, of breaking treaties and by so doing, or even at an earlier stage, of committing Crimes against Humanity.
Secondly, you are accused of Crimes against Humanity as such. I should like to ask various questions on the first point now. Did
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you ever have discussions with Adolf Hitler or other leading men of the State or the Party at which the question of a war of aggression was discussed?
STREICHER: I can answer that with "no" right away, but I should like to be permitted to make a short statement.
In 1921, as I have already said, I went to Munich; and before the public on the platform I handed over my movement to the Fuehrer. I also wrote him a letter in this connection later. No other conference took place with Adolf Hitler or any other person. I returned to Nuremberg and went on making speeches. When the Party program was proclaimed I was not present. That announcement, too, was made in public; the conspiracy was so public that political opponents could make attempts at terrorization.
To sum up: At none of the secret meetings was any oath taken or anything agreed upon which the public could not have known. The program stood; it had been submitted to the Police; on the basis of the law governing organizations the Party, like other parties, was entered in the register of organizations. So that at that time there was no conspiracy.
DR. MARX: Witness, one of the most important points of the Party program was the demand, "Freedom from Versailles." What were your ideas as to the possibility of some day getting rid of the Versailles Treaty'
STREICHER: I think I can state that very shortly. I believe the Tribunal has known this for some time. Of course you will sometimes find one traitor in a people-like the one who was sitting here today; and you will also find unlimited numbers of decent people. And after the last war these decent people themselves took up the slogan, "Freedom from Versailles."
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: If Your Honor pleases, I think I must object to this sort of procedure. This witness has no right to call another witness a traitor. He has not been asked any question to which that is a response, and I ask that the Tribunal admonish him in no uncertain terms and that he confine himself to answering the questions here and that we may have an orderly proceeding.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, you will observe that injunction.
STREICHER: I ask the Tribunal to excuse me. It was a slip of the tongue.
THE PRESIDENT: The observation that you apparently made I did not catch myself, but it was made with reference to a witness who has just given evidence here and you had no right at all to call him a traitor or to make any comment upon his evidence.
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DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, you will please refrain from making such remarks. Adolf Hitler always spoke on the anniversary days of the Party about a sworn fellowship. What do you say about that?
STREICHER: Sworn fellowship-that meant that he, Hitler, was of the conviction that his old supporters were one with him in thought, in heart, and in political loyalty-a sworn fellowship sharing the same views and united in their hearts.
DR. MARX: Would not that mean that a conspiracy existed?
STREICHER: Then he would have said we were a fellowship of conspirators.
DR. MARX: Was there any kind of close relationship between you and the other defendants which could be termed a conspiracy, and were you better acquainted or did you have especially close relations with any one of these defendants?
STREICHER: Inasmuch as they were old members of the Party we were one community of people with the same convictions. We met at Gauleiter meetings; or when one of us spoke in the other's Gaustadt, we saw one another. But I had the honor of getting to know the Reich Ministers and the gentlemen from the Army only here. A political group therefore-an active group-certainly did not exist.
DR. MARX: In the early days of the Party what solution was foreseen for the Jewish problem?
STREICHER: Well, in the early days of the Party, the solution of the Jewish problem was never mentioned just as the question of solving the problem of the Versailles Treaty was never mentioned. You must remember the state of chaos that existed at that time in Germany. An Adolf Hitler who said to his members in 1933, "I shall start to promote a war," would have been dubbed a fool. We had no arms in Germany. Our army of 100,000 men had only a few big guns left. The possibility of making or of prophesying war was out of the question, and to speak of a Jewish problem at a time when, I might say, the public made distinctions with respect to Jews only on the basis of religion, or to speak of the solution of this problem, would have been absurd. Before 1933, therefore, the solution of the Jewish problem was not a topic of discussion. I never heard Adolf Hitler mention it; and there is no one here of whom I could say I ever heard him say one word about it.
DR. MARX: It is assumed that you had particularly close relations with Adolf Hitler and that you had considerable influence on his decisions. I should like to ask you to describe your relations with Adolf Hitler and to clarify them.
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STREICHER: Anyone who had- occasion to make Adolf Hitler's acquaintance knows that I am correct in saying that those who imagined they could pave a way to his personal friendship were entirely mistaken. Adolf Hitler was a little eccentric in every respect and I believe I can say that friendship between him and other men did not exist-a friendship that might have been described as intimate friendship. It was not easy to approach Adolf Hitler; and any one who wanted to approach him could do so only by performing some manly deed.
If you ask me now-I know what you mean by that question- I may say that before 1923 Adolf Hitler did not trust me. Although I had handed over my movement to him unreservedly, he sent Goering-who later became Marshal of the Reich-some time later to Nuremberg. Goering was then a young SA leader-I think he was an SA leader-and he came to investigate matters and to determine whether I or those who denounced me were in the right. I do not mean this as an accusation, but merely as a statement of fact. Soon after that he sent a second and then a third person-in short, he did not trust me before 1923.
Then came Munich and the Putsch. After midnight, when most of them had left him, I appeared before him and told him that the public must be told now when the next great day would come. He looked at me intently and said, "Will you do it?" I said, "I will do it."
Maybe the Prosecution has the document before it. Then, after midnight, he wrote on a piece of paper, "Streicher will be responsible for the entire organization." That was to be for the following day, 11 November; and on 11 November I publicly conducted the propaganda, until an hour before the march to the Feldherrnhalle. Then I returned and everything was in readiness. Our banner-which was to become a banner of blood-flew in front. I joined the second group and we marched into the city towards the Feldherrnhalle. Ashen I saw rifle after rifle ranged before the Feldherrnhalle and knew that now there would be shooting, I marched up 10 paces in front of the banner and marched straight up to the rifles. Then came the massacre, and we were arrested.
I have almost finished.
At Landsberg-and this is the important part-Hitler declared to me and to the men who were in prison with him, that he would never forget this action of mine. Thus, because I took part in the march to the Feldherrnhalle and marched at the head of the procession, Adolf Hitler may have felt himself drawn to me more than to the others.
That was the friendship born of the deed.
DR. MARX: Have you finished?
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STREICHER: Yes.
DR. MARX: Were you consulted by Adolf Hitler on important matters?
STREICHER: I saw Adolf Hitler only at Gauleiter conferences; when he came to Nuremberg for meetings we had meals together, along with five, ten, or more people. I recall having been alone with him only once in the Brown House at Munich, after the completion of the Brown House; and our conversation was not a political one. All the conversations which I had with Adolf Hitler, whether in Nuremberg, Munich, or elsewhere, took place in the presence of Party circle members.
DR. MARX: Now I come to 1933. On 1 April 1933 a boycott day was decreed throughout the entire German Reich against the Jewish population. What can you tell us about that and what part did you play in it?
STREICHER: A few days before 1 April I was summoned to the Brown House in Munich. Adolf Hitler explained to me something that I already knew, namely, that a tremendous propaganda campaign against the new Germany was being carried on by the foreign press. Although he himself had only just become Chancellor, although Hindenburg was still at the head of the Reich, although Parliament existed, a tremendous campaign of hate against Germany had begun in the foreign press.
The Fuehrer told me that even the Reich flag, the emblem of sovereignty, was being subjected to insults abroad and that we would have to tell world Jewry, "Thus far and no farther." We would have to show them that we would not tolerate it any longer.
Then he told me that a boycott day was to be fixed for 1 April and that I was to organize it. Perhaps it would not be irrelevant to point out the following facts: Adolf Hitler thought that it might be a good thing to use my name in connection with this boycott day; that was not done in the end. So I undertook the organization of the boycott and issued a directive, which I believe is in the hands of the Court. There is no need for me to say much about it. I gave instructions that no attempts should be made on the lives of Jews, that one or more guards should be posted in front of all Jewish premises-that is to say, in front of every Jewish store-- and that these guards should be responsible for seeing that no damage was done to property. In short, I organized the proceedings in a way which was perhaps not expected of me; and perhaps not expected by many members of the Party. I frankly admit that.
One thing is certain; except for minor incidents the boycott day passed off perfectly. I believe that there is not even one Jew who can contradict this. The boycott day was a disciplined proceeding
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and was not "anti" in the sense of an attack on something. It has a purely defensive connotation.
DR. MARX: Was a committee formed at the time consisting of prominent, that is, leading members of the Party and did that committee ever appear?
STREICHER: As to the committee, it was like the Secret Cabinet Council in Berlin, which never met. In fact, I believe that all the members of the Cabinet did not even see each other or get to know each other.
DR. MARX: The committee members?
STREICHER: The boycott committee, that was put in the newspapers in Berlin by Goebbels. That was a newspaper story. I spoke to Goebbels on the telephone once. He asked how things were going in Munich, where I was. I said that everything was going perfectly. Thus no conference ever took place; it was only done for effect, to make it appear a much bigger thing than it was.
DR. MARX: Witness, you made a mistake a few minutes ago, speaking of the Munich affair in 1923. You meant 9 November-or did you not-9 November 1923, and what did you say?
STREICHER: I do not remember.
DR. MARX: It should be 9 November 1923?
STREICHER: 9 November 1923.
DR. MARX: Yes. The so-called "Racial Law" was promulgated at the Reich Party Day in Nuremberg in 1935. Were you consulted about the planning and preparation of the draft of that law; and did you have any part in it, especially in its preparation?
STREICHER: Yes, I believe I had a part in it insofar as for years I have written that any further mixture of German blood with Jewish blood must be avoided. I have written such articles again and again; and in my articles I have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the Jews should serve as an example to every race, for they created a racial law for themselves-the law of Moses, which says, "If you come into a foreign land you shall not take unto yourself foreign women." And that, Gentlemen, is of tremendous importance in judging the Nuremberg Laws. These laws of the Jews were taken as a model for these laws. When, after centuries, the Jewish lawgiver Ezra discovered that notwithstanding many Jews had married non-Jewish women, these marriages were dissolved. That was the beginning of Jewry which, because it introduced these racial laws, has survived throughout the centuries, while all other races and civilizations have perished.
DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, this is rather too much of a digression. I asked you whether you took part in planning and working
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out the draft of the law, or whether you yourself were not taken by surprise when these laws were promulgated.
STREICHER: I was quite honest in saying that I believe I have contributed indirectly to the making of these laws.
DR. MARX: But you were not consulted on the law itself?
STREICHER: No. I will make a statement, as follows:
At the Reich Party Day in Nuremberg in 1935, we were summoned to the hall without knowing what was going to happen-at least I myself had no knowledge of it-and the racial laws were proclaimed. It was only then that I heard of these laws; and I think that with the exception of Herr Hess, et cetera, this is true of most of the gentlemen in the dock who attended that Reich Party Day. The first we heard of these decrees was at the Reich Party Day. I did not collaborate directly. I may say frankly that I regarded it as a slight when I was not consulted in the making of these laws.
DR. MARX: It was thought that your assistance was not necessary?
STREICHER: Yes.
DR. MARX: Were you of the opinion that the 1935 legislation represented the final solution of the Jewish question by the State?
STREICHER: With reservations, yes. I was convinced that if the Party program was carried out, the Jewish question would be solved. The Jews became German citizens in 1848. Their rights as citizens were taken from them by these laws. Sexual intercourse was prohibited. For me, this represented the solution of the Jewish problem in Germany. But I believed that another international solution would still be found, and that some day discussions would take place between the various states with regard to the demands made by Zionism. These demands aimed at a Jewish state.
DR. MARX: What can you tell us about the demonstrations against the Jewish population during the night of 9 to 10 November 1938, and what part did you play in it?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, if you are going into that, it is now 5 o'clock; and I think we had better adjourn now until Monday morning.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 29 April 1946 at 1000 hours.]
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