Chapter V, the acquisition of Belgian investments in foreign industrial

enterprises.

Since 1940 according to their general policy in all occupied countries of Western Europe, the Germans concerned themselves with acquiring shares in Belgian financial enterprises abroad. The official German point of view emerges clearly from a letter dated 29 July 1941, from the Minister of Finance to the Military Commander in Belgium. I have submitted it under Number 187, in the document book (Document Number RF-187).

This conception of the right to acquire shares is certainly very far from the idea as laid down by the Hague Convention in respect to the right of requisition. It clearly shows the German leaders’ determination for enrichment at the expense of Belgium.

Thus, the Germans, since May 1940, sought to obtain influence in Belgian holding companies. Not being able to violate directly international laws, particularly Article 46 of the Hague Convention, they strove to influence the members of the executive boards through persuasion rather than by force.

In the course of a conference held on 3 May 1940 at the Reich Ministry of Economics, dealing with Belgian and Dutch capital which it would still be possible to acquire, it was decided that the Military Commander in Belgium should take all necessary measures to prevent, on the one hand, the destruction, transfer, sale, and illegal holding of all bonds and stocks of these countries and, on the other hand, to induce Belgian capitalists to hand over their foreign securities to the Germans. The minutes of this conference are found in the document book under Number RF-187 above.

To prevent the flight of any capital, an ordinance of 17 June 1940 was promulgated, subjecting to authorization the sending abroad of any securities and any acquisitions or disposal of foreign securities.

From 2 August 1940 the German leaders and the Defendant Göring himself took a definite stand on this point. In the course of the general remarks on economic plundering secret directives issued in this respect by the Defendant Göring were read to you. It is the document submitted under Number RF-105 (Page 97).

In spite of the German assurances and in spite of the wish of the occupying power to preserve the appearance of regularity, the German desire to absorb certain shares met with serious resistance. The occupation authorities several times had to resort to compulsion to conclude sales, in spite of the rights which they had reserved for themselves in the above cited decree of 27 August 1940. This was particularly the case with regard to the shares held by the Belgian Metal Trust in the electrical enterprises of Eastern Silesia and, still more clearly, the case regarding the shares of the Austrian Metal Company, which at that time were wanted by the Hermann Göring Works.

The Belgian ill-will increased as the German determination to pillage became more evident. In this report of 1 December 1942, Exhibit Number RF-191 (Document Number ECR-132), the German Commissioner with the National Bank very clearly denounces this resistance on the part of the Belgian market. Almost all acquisitions which could be realized by the Germans were settled by means of clearing (Page 98).

The balance of clearing capital credited to Belgium, to the amount of 1,000 million Belgian francs on 31 August 1944, represents a forced loan imposed upon Belgium without any legal or logical relation to occupation costs, unless it is the Germans’ will to hegemony.

Such a practice, contrary to the principles of international law and to the rules of criminal law of civilized nations, falls under Article 6(b) of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal and constitutes an act of pillage of public or private property such as is envisaged in the above-mentioned text.

Closely allied to the acquisition of shares and always within the framework of legality, the levies made by the German authorities on foreign, enemy, and Jewish property, should be pointed out to the Tribunal.

As to foreign property seized by the Germans, it must be mentioned that this measure was applied to French capital in Belgium in spite of numerous protests by the French Government. As to Jewish property, for the years 1943 and 1944, the figures are presented in Document Number ECH-35 (Exhibit Number RF-192).

With this I conclude the presentation of the economic spoliation of Belgium (Page 100).

The damage caused to Belgian economy in its principal branches have just been submitted to the Tribunal. The statistical data have been taken either from German reports or from official reports of the Belgian Government. The available estimates and figures are not yet sufficiently exact to fix the costs of war, the occupation and economic spoliation of Belgium; some losses and damages cannot be expressed in money. Among them, first of all, we must mention the privations resulting from the German commandeering of a large part of food supplies and from the particular situation of billeting and clothing. This purely material aspect of the question should not cause us to overlook the consequences of the occupation upon the public health (Page 103). For lack of statistical data, it is difficult to show precisely the final state of public health resulting from the particular circumstances.

One fact, however, must be remembered: The considerable increase in the number of persons who were eligible for special invalid diets. This number rose from 2,000 a month in 1941 to more than 25,000 a month in 1944. It had, therefore, increased more than tenfold, in spite of the rationing measures which became more and more severe.

This increase in nutritional aid given to sick persons deserves the attention of the Tribunal, less for itself and for its statistical interest, than because it is the indication of the increase of disease in Belgium. This increase is itself the result of the undernourishment of the population during the four years of occupation.

This deplorable state of affairs, however, had not escaped the attention of the occupation authorities, as appears from the letter of the Military Commander in Belgium already quoted which is found in the document book under Document Number RF-187:

“Regarding the food situation in Belgium, neither the minimum for existence for the civilian population is secured nor the minimum amount necessary for feeding heavy laborers who are employed solely in the interest of the German war economy.”

I shall not dwell on this. This undernourishment of the Belgian population has been the inevitable and the most serious result of the huge levies made by the occupation authorities who willfully disregarded the elementary requirements of an occupied country in order to pursue only the war aims of the Reich.

The lowering of the average standard of health and the rise in the death rate in Belgium from 1940 to 1945 may therefore be rightly considered the direct result of the spoliations committed by the Germans in Belgium in transgression of international law.

I have concluded the presentation on Belgium.

I would like to make a few brief remarks on the economic pillaging of Luxembourg (Page 106).

Supplementing the presentation on Belgium it is fitting to present to the Tribunal some details on the conduct of the Germans in Luxembourg. The Government of the Grand Duchy has submitted a general summary of its accusations which has been lodged with the Tribunal as Document Number UK-77 and in which an extract covering the crimes against property, the economic section, is in the document book under the Number RF-194.

The Germans, shortly after their entry into the Grand Duchy, proceeded to annex it in fact. This attitude, similar enough to that adopted towards the inhabitants of the Departments of Moselle, Bas-Rhin, and Haut-Rhin, calls for some remarks.

As was their wont, one of the first measures they put into effect was the exchange of the Luxembourg money at the rate of 10 Luxembourg francs to 1 mark. This was the subject of the ordinance of 26 August 1940, to be found in the document book under Number 195 (Document Number RF-195). This rate of exchange did not correspond to the respective purchasing power of the two currencies. It constituted a considerable levy on the wealth of the inhabitants and especially assured the Germans of a complete seizure of the monies. It thus procured for them the means for seizing a considerable part of the reserves of raw materials and manufactured goods of the country. The purchases were paid for in depreciated marks on the basis of controlled prices imposed by the Germans.

Finally, by the Ordinance of 29 January 1941, the Reichsmark was introduced as the only legal tender (ordinance submitted as Document Number RF-196). The Luxembourg francs and the Reichskreditkasse notes were taken out of circulation, as well as Belgian francs, up to then considered as currency of the Franco-Luxembourg monetary union. All of these became foreign currency, as from 5 February 1941.

I should like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that of all the countries occupied by Germany, Luxembourg is, like Alsace and Lorraine, one of the few countries which was totally deprived of its national currency.

Moreover, to procure for the Reich the financial means necessary for the prosecution of the war, the ordinance of 27 August 1940 (Document Number RF-197) prescribed compulsory delivery of gold and foreign currency. Moreover, the same ordinance stipulated that foreign shares and bonds had to be offered for sale to the Reichsbank at rates and under conditions fixed by the occupying power.

As has already been pointed out, the Germans seized industrial stocks. In this respect, the report dated 21 May 1940, on the economic situation in Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, contains information on the stocks found in the country:

1,600 million tons of iron ore; 125,000 tons of manganese; 10,000 tons of crude iron; 10,000 tons of ferro-manganese; 36,000 tons of plated products and finished products, and I could continue this enumeration. The German seizure spread from stocks to the management of the industrial production.

According to the memorandum presented by the Reparations Commission of the Luxembourg Government, Document Number RF-198, the total economic damages amount to 5,800 million Luxembourg francs at the 1933 value. This figure can be analyzed as follows:

Industry and commerce, 1,900 million; Railroads, 200 million; Roads and Highways, 100 million; Agriculture, 1,600 million; Damage to property in general, 1,900 million.

From the same official source, the total loss in capital represents about 33 percent of the national wealth of Luxembourg, before the war estimated at approximately 5,000 million Luxembourg francs.

The effect on the financial and monetary situation of the country was a loss exceeding 6,000 million Luxembourg francs. In these damages the increase in circulation of money and the amount of forced investments in Germany—more than 4,800 million Luxembourg francs—as well as an additional charge imposed upon the taxpayers of the Grand Duchy following the introduction of the German fiscal system figure particularly. To these burdens must be added the skimming of profits, fines, and the allegedly voluntary gifts of every kind imposed upon Luxembourg.

Similar to what was done in other countries, the Ordinance of 21 February 1941 (Document Number RF-199, Exhibit Number RF-199 of the document book concerning Luxembourg) provided that no German managers could be appointed in large enterprises, particularly in smelting works, who—and this is the text of the ordinance—“would not be prepared to favor the interests of Germanism in every circumstance.”

The task of these commissioners was to insure for the Reich, within the scope of the Four Year Plan, the direction and control of exploitation in the exclusive interest of the German war effort. Thus, on 2 August 1940, the “Reichskommissar” for the administration of enemy property appointed to the largest metal company in Luxembourg, the United Steel Works of Burbach-Eich-Dudelange (Arbed), three German commissioners who ensured the complete control of the company. Neither did other large companies escape this domination as can be seen from the documents submitted to the Tribunal under Number 200 (Document Number RF-200).

The spoliation of Luxembourg and foreign interests in the insurance field, one of the most important branches of Luxembourg’s activities, was complete. With the exception of three Swiss companies and a German company, all transactions were prohibited to the Luxembourg companies, whose assets were transferred to German insurance companies—in an official way as regards the national companies, and secretly as regards the foreign companies.

The insurance companies of Luxembourg were deprived of the premiums from fire insurance by the introduction of compulsory fire insurance, for which the German companies were given the monopoly.

Introducing in Luxembourg their racial policy, the National Socialists seized and confiscated all Jewish property in the Grand Duchy to the profit of the “Verwaltung für die Judenvermögen” (Administration of Jewish Property).

Also in regard to the Umsiedlungspolitik (resettlement policy), 1,500 families (that is 7,000 Luxembourg persons) were deported. The Germans took possession of their property. A German trust company, set up in the German Office for Colonization and Germanization, was charged with the administration of this property, and, in fact, set about to liquidate it. Important assets were thus confiscated and transferred to the Reich.

Germans from the Tyrol were, as has already been pointed out, installed in the buildings, and industrial, commercial, and artisan enterprises of the deportees.

That is to say, Your Honors, that the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was the victim of economic pillage as systematically organized as that in Belgium.

THE PRESIDENT: M. Delpech, the Tribunal is grateful to you for the way in which you have performed the task which they asked you to perform last night, a task which is not altogether easy, of shortening the address which you had intended to make. As far as they are able to judge, no essential parts of your address have been omitted. It is of great importance that the Trial should be conducted, as the Charter indicates, in an expeditious way, and it was for this reason that the Tribunal asked you, if you could, to shorten your address.

M. DELPECH: I thank you, Your Honor, for your kindness.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, M. Gerthoffer.

M. CHARLES GERTHOFFER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President, Your Honors, I come to the sixth section of this presentation, which deals with the economic pillage of France.

When the Germans invaded France, they found there considerable wealth. They set about with ingenuity to seize it and also to subjugate the national production.

When they failed to attain their ends by mere requisitions, they resorted to devious methods, using simultaneously ruse and violence, striving to cloak their criminal actions with legality.

To accomplish this, they misused the conventions of the armistice. These, in fact, did not contain any economic clauses and did not include any secret provisions but consisted only of regulations, which were published. Nevertheless, the Germans utilized two clauses to promote their undertakings. I submit to the Tribunal as Document Number RF-203 a copy of the Armistice Conventions, and I cite Article 18, which reads as follows:

“The maintenance costs of German occupation troops in French territory will be charged to the French Government.”

This clause was not contrary to the regulations of the Hague Conventions, but Germany imposed payment of enormous sums, far exceeding those necessary for the requirements of an occupation army. Thus she was enabled to dispose, without furnishing any compensation, of nearly all the money which, in fact, was cleverly transformed into an instrument of pillage.

Article 17 of the Armistice Convention reads as follows:

“The French Government undertakes to prevent any transfer of economic securities or stocks from the territory to be occupied by the German troops into the non-occupied area or into a foreign country. Those securities and stocks in the occupied territory can be disposed of only in agreement with the Reich Government, it being understood that the German Government will take into account what is vitally necessary for the population of the non-occupied territories.”

Apparently the purpose of this clause was to prevent things of any kind which might be utilized against Germany from being sent to England or to any of the colonies. But the occupying power took advantage of this to get control of production and the distribution of raw materials throughout France, since the non-occupied zone could not live without the products of the occupied zone and vice versa.

This intention of the Germans is proved particularly by Document Number 1741-PS which was discovered by the American army, and which I now submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number RF-204.

I do not want to trouble the Tribunal by reading this long document, I shall give only a short summary.

It is a secret report, dated 5 July 1940 addressed to the President of the Council . . .

THE PRESIDENT: M. Gerthoffer, as this is not a document of which we can take judicial notice, I think you must read anything that you wish to put in evidence.

M. GERTHOFFER: I shall read a passage of the document to the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

M. GERTHOFFER: “Article 17 grants Germany the right to seize the securities and economic reserves in occupied territory, and any arrangements of the French Government are subject to approval by Germany.

“In compliance with the request of the French Government, Germany has agreed that when considering applications of the French Government regarding the disposal of securities and reserves in the occupied zone, she will also take into consideration the needs of the inhabitants of the non-occupied zone.”

I shall cite only this passage in order to shorten my explanatory remarks, and I now come to the following document, which is in the nature of a reply to the German official who drew up this report, a document which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-205 (Document Number EC-409) and which is a document found by the American army. Here is the reply to the document from which I just quoted one passage:

“The elimination of the demarcation line is now out of the question, and if the revival of the economic life of France is thereby paralyzed, that is quite immaterial to us. The French have lost the war and must pay for the damages. Upon my objection that France would then soon become a center of unrest, I was answered that either shots would settle that or the occupation of the still free zone.

“For all concessions we make, the French must pay dearly in deliveries from the unoccupied zone or the colonies. We must strive to stop non-coordination in the economic field in France.”

Finally, another document captured by the U. S. Army which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-206 (Document Number EC-325), signed by Dr. Gramsch, gives us the following information:

“In the course of the negotiations regarding relaxation of the restrictions of the demarcation line, it has been suggested that the French Government seize the gold and foreign currency in the whole of France.”

Further in this document:

“The foreign currency reserves of occupied France would strengthen our war potential. This measure could, moreover, be used in negotiations with the French Government as a means of pressure in order to make it show a more conciliatory attitude in other respects.”

A study of these documents shows the German intent, in disregard of all legal principles, to get all the wealth and economy of France under their control.

Through force the Germans succeeded, after one year of occupation, in putting all or nearly all the French economy under their domination. This is evident from an article, published by Dr. Michel, director of the Economic Office, attached to the Military Government in France which appeared in the _Berliner Börsen Zeitung_, of 10 April 1942. I submit it as Document Number RF-207, and shall read one passage from it:

“The task of the competent offices of the German military administration should be regarded as directing ‘Economic Direction,’ that is issuing directives and at the same time seeing that these directives are really followed.”

Further, on Page 12 of the statement, Dr. Michel writes:

“Now that the direction of raw materials and the placing of orders has been organized and is functioning efficiently, rigorous restrictions on consumption not important to war economy are a matter of prime consideration in France. The restrictions imposed upon the French population in respect of food, clothing, footwear, and fuel, have been for some time more severe than in the Reich.”

After having shown you, Mr. President and members of the Tribunal, in this brief introduction concerning the economic spoliation of France, the consequences of German domination upon this country, I give you an account of the methods employed to arrive at such a result. This will be the purpose of the four following chapters: German seizure of means of payment; clandestine purchases of the black market; outwardly legal acquisitions; finally, impressment of labor.

I. German seizure of means of payment.

This seizure was the result of paying occupation costs, the one-way clearing system, and outright seizures and levies of gold, bank notes, foreign currency, and the imposition of collective fines (Page 15).

Indemnity for the maintenance of occupation troops:

I shall not recapitulate the legal principles of the matter, but shall merely confine myself to a few explanatory remarks, so that you may realize the pressure which was brought to bear on the leaders in order to obtain the payment of considerable sums.

As I have had the honor of pointing out to you, in the Armistice Conventions the principle of the maintenance of occupation troops is succinctly worded, with no stipulation as to the amount and the method of collection. The Germans took advantage of this to distort and amplify this commitment of France, which became nothing more than a pretext for the imposition of exorbitant tribute.

At the first sessions of the Armistice Commission, the discussions bore on this point, while the French pointed out that they could only be forced to pay a contractual indemnity representing the cost of maintaining an army strictly necessary for the occupation of the territory. The German General Mieth had to recognize the just foundation of this claim and declared that troops which were to fight against England would not be maintained at expense to France.

This is evident from an extract of the minutes of the Armistice Commission, which I submit as Document Number RF-208. But later this General Mieth apparently was overruled by his superiors, since in the course of a subsequent session, 16 July 1940, without expressly going back on his word, he declared in this respect that he could not give any reply, that this question would no longer be discussed, and that, in short, everything necessary would be done to enable the French Government to draw up its budget. This appears from an extract of the minutes of the Armistice Commission which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-209.

On 8 August 1940 Hemmen, Chief of the German Economic Delegation, at Wiesbaden, forwarded a memorandum to General Huntziger, President of the French Delegation, in which he stated:

“As at present it is impossible to assess the exact costs of occupation, daily installments of at least 20 million Reichsmark are required until further notice, at a rate of exchange of 1 mark to 20 French francs.

“That is to say, 400 million French francs daily. In this amount the costs for billeting troops were not included, but were to be paid separately.”

This is found in Document 210 (Document Number RF-210), which I submit to the Tribunal and which bears the signature of Hemmen.

These exorbitant requirements provoked the reply of 12 August 1940, in which it was emphasized that the amount of the daily payment did not permit the supposition that it had been fixed in consideration of the normal forces of an occupation army and the normal cost of the maintenance of this army, that, moreover, such forces as corresponded to the notified figure would be out of proportion to anything that military precedent and the necessity of the moment might reasonably justify. This is the content of a note of 12 August, submitted as Document Number RF-211.

On 15 August 1940 the German delegation took notice of the fact that the French Government was ready to pay some accounts, but in a categorical manner refused to discuss either the amount of payment or the distinction between occupation and operation troops. This is found in Document Number RF-212, which I submit to the Tribunal.

On 18 August the French delegation took note of the memorandum of 15 August and made the following reply (Document Number RF-213):

“. . . that France is to pay the costs for the maintenance of operation troops is a demand incontestably beyond the spirit and the provisions of the Armistice Convention.

“. . . that the required costs are converted into francs at a rate considerably in excess of the purchasing power of the mark and franc respectively; furthermore, that the purchases of the German Army in France are a means of control over the life in this country and that they will, moreover, as the German Government admits, partly be replaced by deliveries in kind.”

The memorandum terminates as follows:

“In these circumstances the onerous tribute required of the French Government appears arbitrary and exceeds to a considerable extent what might legitimately be expected to be demanded.

“The French Government, always anxious to fulfill the clauses of the Armistice Convention, can only appeal to the Reich Government in the hope that it will take into account the arguments presented above.”

THE PRESIDENT: The Court will adjourn now.

[_The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours._]

_Afternoon Session_

M. GERTHOFFER: This morning I had the honor of presenting to the Tribunal the fact that the Germans demanded of France an indemnity of 400 million francs a day for the maintenance of their army of occupation. I indicated that the French leaders of that time, without failing to recognize the principle of their obligations, protested against the sum demanded.

At the moment of their arrival in France the Germans had issued, as in the other occupied countries, Reichskreditkasse notes and requisition vouchers over which the bank of issue had no control and which was legal tender only in France. This issue represented a danger, for the circulation of this currency was liable to increase at the mere will of the occupying power.

At the same time, by a decree of 17 May 1940, published in the VOBIF of 17 May 1940, Number 7, which appears as Document Number 214 in the document book (Exhibit Number RF-214), the occupying power fixed the rate of the Reichsmark at 20 French francs per mark, whereas the real parity was approximately 1 mark for 10 French francs.

The French delegation, having become concerned over the increasing circulation of the Reichskreditkasse notes and over the increased volume of German purchases, as well as over the rate of exchange of the mark, was informed by the German delegation, on 14 August 1940, of its refusal to withdraw these notes from circulation in France. This is to be found in a letter of 14 August, which I submit as Document Number RF-215.

The occupying power thus unjustifiably created a means of pressure upon the French Government of that time to make it yield to its demands concerning the amount of the occupation costs, as well as concerning the forced rate of the mark and the clearing agreements, which will be the subject of a later chapter.

General Huntziger, President of the French delegation, addressed several dramatic appeals to the German delegation in which he asked that France should not be hurled over the precipice, as shown by a teletype report addressed by Hemmen on 18 August 1940, to his Minister of Foreign Affairs, a report discovered by the United States Army, bearing the Document Number 1741-PS(5), which I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number RF-216. Here is the interesting passage of this report:

“These large payments would enable Germany to buy up the whole of France, including its industries and foreign investments, which would mean the ruin of France.”

In a letter and a note of 20 August, the German delegation summoned the French delegation to make partial payments, specifying that no distinction would be made between the German troops in France, that the strength of the German occupation would have to be determined by the necessities of the conduct of war. In addition, the fixing of the rate of the mark would be inoperative as far as the payments were concerned, since they would constitute only payments on account. I submit the note of the 20th of August of the German Government as Document Number RF-217.

The next day, 21 August 1940, General Huntziger, in the course of an interview with Hemmen, made a last vain attempt to obtain a reduction in the German demands. According to the minutes of this interview (Document Number RF-218), Germany was already considering close economic collaboration between herself and France through the creation of commissioners of exchange control and of foreign trade. At the same time Hemmen pledged elimination of the demarcation line between the two zones. But he refused to discuss the question of the amount of the occupation costs.

In a note of 26 August 1940, the French Government indicated that it considered itself obliged to yield under pressure and protested against the German demands; this note ended with the following passage:

“The French nation fears neither work nor suffering, but it must be allowed to live. This is why the French Government would be unable in the future to continue along the road to which it is committed if experience showed that the extent of the demands of the government of the Reich is incompatible with this right to live.” (Document Number RF-219.)

The Germans had the incontestable intention of utilizing the sums demanded as occupation costs, not only for the maintenance, the equipment, and the armament of their troops in France, or for operations based in France, but also for other purposes. This is shown in particular in a teletype from the Supreme Command of the Army, dated 2 September 1940, discovered by the United States Army, which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-220 (Document Number EC-204). There is a passage from this teletype message which I shall read to the Tribunal (Page 22):

“To the extent to which the incoming amounts in francs are not required for the troops in France, the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces reserves for itself the right to make further use of the money. In particular, the allocation of the money to any offices not belonging to the Armed Forces must be authorized by the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, in order to insure definitely that, first, the entire amount of francs required by the Armed Forces shall be covered and that thereafter any possible surplus shall remain at the disposal of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces for purposes important to the Four Year Plan.”

From another teletype message, which was seized in the same manner and which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-221 (Document Number EC-201), I read the following:

“It is clear that there was no agreement at all with the French as to what should be understood by ‘costs for maintenance of occupation troops’ in France. If we are in agreement among ourselves that at the present moment we must, for practical reasons, avoid interminable discussions with the French, on the other hand there must be no doubt that we have the right to interpret the term ‘maintenance’ in the broadest possible sense.”

Further on in the same teletype, Page 24, Paragraph 2, there is the following:

“In any case, the concessions demanded by the French on the question of specifying the amount of occupation costs and of the utilization of the francs thus delivered must be rejected.”

And finally the following paragraph:

“The utilization of sums paid in francs.

“Concerning the use of the francs paid which are not really required for the costs of the maintenance of the occupation troops in France, there can, of course, be no discussion with French authorities.”

The French then attempted, in vain, to obtain a reduction in the occupation costs and also a modification in the rate of the mark, but the Germans refused all discussion.

At the beginning of the year 1941, negotiations were resumed. In view of the intransigence of the Germans, the French Government suspended payments in the month of May 1941. Then, at the insistence of the occupying powers, they resumed it, but paid only 300 million francs a day. This is found in the document submitted as Document Number RF-222.

On the 15 December 1942, after the invasion of the entire French territory, Germany demanded that the daily payment of 300 million francs be raised to 500 million a day.

The sums paid for the occupation troops increased to a total of 631,866 million francs, or at the imposed rate, 31,593,300,000 marks. This amount is not only to be gathered from the information given by the French administration, but can also be verified by German documents, in particular by the report of Hemmen.

Hemmen, Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, had been designated President of the German economic delegation of the Armistice Commission, and he was acting, in fact, under the direct orders of his Minister, Von Ribbentrop, as a veritable dictator in economic questions. His chief assistant in Paris was Dr. Michel, of whom we have already spoken.

While maintaining his functions as chief of the economic delegation of the Armistice Commission of Wiesbaden, the same Hemmen was to be appointed by a decision of Hitler, under date of 19 December 1942, Reich Government delegate for economic questions, attached to the French Government. This is verified in the document submitted as Exhibit Number RF-223 (Document Number 1763-PS).

Hemmen periodically sent secret economic reports to his minister. These documents were discovered by the United States Army. They are of a fundamental importance in this part of the Trial, since, as you will see, they contain Germany’s admission of economic pillage.

These voluminous reports are submitted as Exhibits Numbers RF-224, 225, 226, 227, 228, and 229 (Documents Numbers 1986-PS, 1987-PS, 1988-PS, 1989-PS, 1990-PS, 1991-PS) of the French documentation. It is not possible for me, in view of their length, to read them in their entirety to the Tribunal. I shall confine myself to giving a few brief extracts therefrom in the course of my presentation. To show their importance, here is the translation of the last volume of the Hemmen reports. In this last report, printed in Salzburg on 15 December 1944, on Page 26, Hemmen recognizes that France has paid by way of indemnity for the maintenance of occupation troops 31,593,300,000 marks, that is . . .

THE PRESIDENT: M. Gerthoffer, these documents are in German, are they not?

M. GERTHOFFER: Yes, Mr. President, they are in German. I have only been able to have the last one translated into French. Because of their length it has not been possible for me to have all the translations made, but it is from the last volume, which is translated into French, that I will make certain very brief quotations by way of proof.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, well then are you confining yourself to the last document, and to certain passages in the last document?

M. GERTHOFFER: I shall limit myself to this.

THE PRESIDENT: And then, as these are not documents of which we can take judicial notice, only the parts which you read will be regarded as part of the Record, and be treated as in evidence.

M. GERTHOFFER: This enormous sum imposed was much greater than Germany was entitled to demand. In spite of the enormous sums which the Germans may have spent in France during the first two years, they were not able to use a sum less than half of that for which they were credited.

This is shown in the Hemmen report, where on Page 27 (Page 59 of the French translation) he gives a summary of the French payments made as occupational indemnity, and the German expenses in millions of marks corresponding to these expenses. This summary is very short. I shall read it to the Tribunal. It will constitute a German proof in support of my presentation.

_French payment_ _German expenditure_ _in millions of marks_ _in millions of marks_ 1940 4,000 1,569 1941 6,075 5,205 1942 5,475 8,271 1943 9,698.3 9,524 1944 6,345 6,748

This makes from 1940 to 1944 a total amount of 31,593,300,000 marks paid by the French and 31,317 million marks of German expenditure.

The figures contained in this table unquestionably constitute the German admission of the exorbitance of the indemnity for the maintenance of occupation troops, for Germany was not able to utilize the credit at its disposal. Most of it served to finance expenses relative to armament, operation troops, and feeding of Germany. This is shown by Document Number EC-232, which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-230.

According to the calculation of the “Institut de Conjoncture,” the maximum sum of the indemnity which could be exacted was 74,531,800,000 francs, taking as a basis the average daily costs of upkeep per troop unit during the Allied occupation of the Rhineland in 1919, namely the sum of seventeen francs or twenty-one francs with billeting, which was at that time provided by the German Government. According to the report on the average cost of living (coefficient -3.14) the sum of 21 francs should correspond to 66 francs at the 1939 value when applying the coefficient of depreciation of the franc during the occupation, that is 2.10 percent, or a daily average cost of 139 francs per day.

Granting that the real costs of the occupation army were half of those calculated by Hemmen, that is to say, 27,032,279,120 marks, this sum is still lower than the 74,531,800,000 calculated by the Institut de Conjoncture.

Even accepting the calculation most favorable to the accused, one can estimate that the indemnity imposed without justification amounted to 631,866 million less 74,531,800,000, that is, 557,334,200,000 francs.

In his final report, Page 10, and Page 22 of the French translation, Hemmen writes:

“. . . during the 4 years which have elapsed since conclusion of the Armistice, there has been paid for occupation costs and billeting 34,000 million Reichsmark, or 680,000 million francs. France thus contributed approximately 40 percent of the total cost of occupation and war contributions raised in all the occupied and Allied countries. This represents a charge of 830 Reichsmark, or 16,600 francs, per head of the population.”

In the second part of this chapter we shall examine briefly the question of clearing. The Tribunal is acquainted with the functioning of clearing, and I shall not revert to this. I shall indicate under what conditions the French Government at the time was made to sign agreements which were imposed upon it.

Parallel to the discussions relative to the indemnity for the maintenance of occupation troops, discussions were entered into concerning a Clearing Agreement.

On the 24 July 1940 the German Delegation announced that it would shortly submit a project. On 8 August 1940 Hemmen submitted to the French Delegation a project of a Franco-German arrangement for payment by compensation. This project, which I submit as Document Number RF-231(bis) of the French documentation, shows arbitrary provisions, which could not be voluntarily accepted.

It provided for financial transfers from France to Germany without any equivalent in financial transfers from Germany to France. It fixed the rate of exchange at 20 francs for 1 Reichsmark by a unilateral and purely arbitrary decision, whereas the rate on the Berlin Exchange was approximately 17.65 and the real parity of the two currencies, taking into account their respective purchasing power on both markets, was approximately ten francs for one Reichsmark.

I pass to Page 34. The French Delegation of the Armistice Commission submitted unsuccessfully a counter project, on 20 August 1940, and attempted to obtain a modification of the most unfavorable clauses. I submit this project as Document Number RF-232.

On 29 August 1940, the French delegation at the Armistice Commission brought up in detail the question of the parity of the franc and the Reichsmark. It called attention to the fact that the prohibition of the financial transfers from Germany to France would create gross inequality, whereas the transfers in the other direction were organized, and this meant the French Government giving its agreement to a veritable expropriation of French creditors. An extract from this report is submitted as Document Number RF-233.

In a letter of 31 August, General Huntziger again took up in vain the argument concerning the Franc-Reichsmark rate of exchange. I submit this letter as Document Number RF-234.

On 6 September 1940 the French delegation made a new attempt to obtain a modification of the most unfavorable clauses in the draft of the Clearing Agreement, but it encountered an absolute refusal. The German delegation meant to impose under the cloak of a bilateral agreement a project elaborated by it alone.

I quote a passage from the minutes of the Armistice Delegation (Document Number RF-235). Herr Schone, the German delegate, stated: “I cannot reopen the discussion on this question. I can make no concession.”

Concerning the Franc-Reichsmark rate of exchange, on 4 October 1940 Hemmen notified the French delegation that the rate of 20 francs must be considered as definite and according to his own words “this is no longer to be discussed.” He added that if the French for their part refused to conclude the payment agreement, that is to say, the arbitrary contract imposed by Germany, he would advise the Führer of this and that all facilities with regard to the demarcation line would be stopped. I submit as Document Number RF-236 this passage of the minutes.

Finally, in the course of the negotiations which followed on 10 October 1940, the French delegation attempted for the last time to obtain an alleviation of the drastic conditions which were imposed upon it, but the Germans remained intransigent and Hemmen declared in particular . . .

THE PRESIDENT: M. Gerthoffer, do these negotiations lead up to a conclusion, because if they do, would it not be sufficient for your purpose to give us the conclusion without giving all the negotiations which lead up to it?

M. GERTHOFFER: Mr. President, I am just finishing the statement with the last quotation, in which the Tribunal will see what pressure, what threats, were made upon the French, who were then in contact with the Germans. I shall have concluded the discussion on clearing with this quotation, if the Tribunal will allow it, it will be a short one and it will then be finished:

“You are attempting to make the rate of the mark fictitious. I beg you to warn your government that we shall break off negotiations. I have in fact foreseen that you would be unable to prevent prices from rising, but export prices are rising systematically. We shall find other means of achieving our aims. We shall get the bauxite ourselves.” (Document Number RF-237.)

This is the end of the quotation.

Perhaps the Tribunal will allow me a very brief comment. At the Armistice Commission all kinds of economic questions were discussed; and the French delegates resisted, for Germany wanted to seize immediately the bauxite beds which were in the unoccupied zone. This last sentence is the threat: if you do not accept our Clearing Agreement, we shall seize the bauxite. That is to say, we shall occupy by force of arms the free zone.

The so-called compensation agreement worked only to Germany’s advantage. The results of the agreement are the following:

At the moment of liberation the total transfer from France to Germany amounted to 221,114 million francs, while the total transfer from Germany to France amounted to 50,474 million francs. The difference—that is, 170,640 million francs credit balance on the French account—represents the means of payment which Germany improperly obtained through the functioning of the clearing which she had imposed.

I now come to the third part of this chapter, which will be very brief. This is the seizure of goods and collective fines.

Besides the transactions which were outwardly legal, the Germans proceeded to make seizures and impose collective fines in violation of the principles of international law.

First, a contribution of 1,000 million francs was imposed upon the French Jews on 17 December 1941 without any pretext. This is shown in the documents submitted as Document Number RF-239 and cannot be contested.

Secondly, a certain number of collective fines were imposed. The amount actually known to the Finance Ministry amounts to 412,636,550 francs.

Thirdly, the Germans proceeded to make immediate seizure of gold. Even Hemmen admits in his last secret report, on Pages 33 and 34, Page 72 of the French translation, that on 24 September 1940 the Germans seized 257 kilograms of gold from the port of Bayonne, which represents at the 1939 rate 12,336,000 francs; and in July 1940 they seized a certain number of silver coins amounting to 55 millions.

Still following the secret report of Hemmen, for the period between 1 January to 30 June 1942 Germany had seized in France 221,730 kilograms of gold belonging to the Belgian National Bank, which represents at the 1939 rate the sum of 9,500 million francs.

It is not possible for me to present in detail the conditions under which the Belgian gold was delivered to the Germans. This question in itself would involve me in an explanation which would take up several sessions. The fact is undeniable since it is admitted by Hemmen. I shall simply indicate that as early as the month of September 1940, in violation of international law, Hemmen had insisted on the delivery of this gold, which had, in May 1940, been entrusted by the National Bank of Belgium to the Bank of France. Moreover, these facts are part of the accusations made against the ex-ministers of the Vichy Government before the High Court of Justice in Paris.

The results of this procedure were long, and frequent discussions took place at the Armistice Commission, and an agreement was concluded on 29 October 1940, but was in fact not carried out because of difficulties raised by the French and Belgians.

According to the former Assistant Director of the Bank of France, the German pressure became stronger and stronger. Laval, who was then determined to pay any price for the authorization to go to Berlin, where he boasted that he would be able to achieve a large scale liberation of prisoners, the reduction of the occupation costs, as well as the elimination of the demarcation line, yielded to the German demands.

Thus, this gold was delivered to the Reichsbank and was requisitioned by order of the Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan. The documents relative to this question are submitted as Document Number RF-240.

I shall simply add that after the liberation the Provisional Government of the French Republic transferred to the National Bank of Belgium a quantity of gold equal to that which the Belgian Bank had entrusted to the Bank of France in the month of May 1940.

To conclude the gold question I shall indicate to the Tribunal that Germany was unable to obtain the gold reserve of the Bank of France, for it had been put in safekeeping in good time. Finally, still according to the last secret report of Hemmen, Pages 29 and 49 of the French translation, at the moment of their retreat the Germans seized without any right the sum of 6,899 million francs from branches of the Bank of France in Nancy, Belfort, and Epinal. Document 1741-PS (24). (Exhibit Number RF-241.)

I note for the Record that during the occupation the Germans seized great quantities of gold which they arranged to be bought from private citizens by intermediaries. I cannot give figures for this. I simply touch on the question for the Record.

If we summarize the question of the means of payment which Germany unduly requisitioned in France, we shall reach—still taking the calculation most favorable to the defendants and taking the maximum amount for the cost of maintaining occupation troops—a minimum total of 745,833,392,550 francs, in round figures 750,000 million francs.

I now come to Page 50, that is to say the use which the Germans made of these considerable sums; and first of all, the black market organized by the occupying power. Here again I don’t want to take advantage of your kind attention. I have had the honor of presenting to you the mechanism of the black market in all the occupied countries. I have indicated how it arose, how the Germans utilized it, how, under the orders of the Defendant Göring, it was organized and exploited. I do not wish to revert to this, and I shall pass over the whole section of my written exposé which was devoted to the black market in France.

I come to Page 69 of my written exposé. Chapter 3: Ostensibly legal acquisitions.

Under the pressure of the Germans, the Vichy Government had to consent to reserve for them a very high quota of products of all kinds. In exchange the Germans undertook to furnish raw materials, the quantities of which were determined by them alone. But these raw materials, when they were delivered, which was not always the case, were for the most part absorbed by the industry which was forced to supply them with finished products. In fact, there was no compensation, since the occupiers got back in the form of finished products the raw materials delivered and did not in reality give anything in return.

In the report of the Economic Control which has already been quoted, submitted as Document Number RF-107, the following example may be noted which I shall read to the Tribunal:

“An agreement permitted the purchase in the free zone of 5,000 trucks destined for the German G.B.K., whereby the Reich furnished five tons of steel per vehicle or a total of 25,000 tons of steel destined for French industry. In view of the usual destination of the products of our metal industry at that time, this was obviously a one-sided bargain, indeed if our information is exact, the deliveries of steel to be made in return were not even fulfilled, and they were partly used for the defense of the Mediterranean coast, rails, antitank defenses, _et cetera_.”

It is appropriate to call attention to the fact that a considerable part of the levies in kind were the object of no regulation whatever, either because the Germans remained debtors in these transactions, or that they considered without justification that these levies constituted war booty.

In regard to this there are no documents available; however, the United States Army has discovered a secret report of one called Kraney, the representative of Roges, an organization which was charged with collecting both war booty and purchases on the black market. It appears from this report that in September 1944, the Roges had resold to Germany for 10,858,499 marks, or 217,169,980 francs, objects seized in the southern zone as war booty. I submit this document as Exhibit Number RF-244.

As a result of the means of payment exacted by Germany and of requisitions regulated by her, or not, France was literally despoiled. Enormous quantities of articles of all kinds were removed by the occupiers. According to information given by the French statistical services, preliminary estimates of the minimum of these levies have been made. These estimates do not include damages resulting from military operations, but solely the German spoliations, computed in cases of doubt at a minimum figure. They will be summarized in the eight following sections.

1. Levies of agricultural produce.

I submit as Document Number RF-245, the report of the Ministry of Agriculture and a statistical table drawn up by the Institut de Conjoncture, summarizing the official German levies which included neither individual purchases nor black market purchases which were both considerable. It is not possible for me to read to the Tribunal a table as long as this; I shall confine myself to giving a brief résumé of this statistical table.

Here are some of the chief agricultural products which were seized and their estimate in thousands of francs (I am indicating the totals in round figures): Cereals, 8,900,000 tons, estimate 22 million francs; meat, 900,000 tons, estimate 30 million; fish, 51,000 tons, estimate 1 million; wines, liquors, 13,413,000 hectoliters, estimate 18,500,000; colonial products, 47,000 tons, estimate 805,900; horses and mules, 690,000 head; wood, 36 million cubic meters; sugar, 11,600,000 tons.

I shall pass over the details. The Germans settled through clearing and by means of occupation costs 113,620,376,000 francs; the balance, that is 13,000 million, was not settled in any way.

Naturally, these estimates do not include considerable damage caused to forests as a result of abnormal cutting and the reduction of areas under cultivation. There is no mention, either, of the reduction in livestock and damage caused by soil exhaustion. This is a brief summary of the percentage of official German levies on agriculture in relation to the total French production: Wheat, 13 percent; oats, 75 percent; hay and straw, 80 percent; meat, 21 percent; poultry, 35 percent; eggs, 60 percent; butter, 20 percent; preserved fish, 30 percent; champagne, 56 percent; wood for industrial uses, 50 percent; forest fuels, 50 percent; alcohol, 25 percent. These percentages, I repeat, do not include quantities of produce which the Germans bought up either by individual purchases or on the black market.

I have had the privilege of presenting to you the fact that these operations were of a considerable scope and amounted for France approximately to several hundred thousand millions of francs. The quantities of agricultural produce thus taken from French consumers are incalculable. I shall simply indicate that wines, champagne, liquors, meat, poultry, eggs, butter were the object of a very considerable clandestine traffic to the benefit of the Germans and that the French population, except for certain privileged persons, was almost entirely deprived of these products.

In Section 2 of this chapter I shall discuss the important question concerning levies of raw materials.

THE PRESIDENT: That would be a good time for us to adjourn for ten minutes.

[_A recess was taken._]

M. GERTHOFFER: The summary of the levies in raw materials from the statistical point of view is contained in charts which I shall not take the time to read to the Tribunal. I shall submit them as Document Number RF-246 and point out that the total amount of these supplies reaches the sum of 83,804,145,000 francs.

On Pages 77 to 80 of my written statement I had thought it necessary to make a summary of these charts, but I consider it is not possible to read even the summary because the figures are too numerous.

According to information provided by the French administration, of that sum the Germans settled, by way of occupation costs and clearing, only 59,254,639,000 francs, leaving the difference of 19,506,109,000 francs charged to the French Treasury.

The percentage of the German levies in relation to the whole French production can be summarized in a chart which I have given in my brief and I ask the Tribunal for permission to read it:

“The percentage of levies of raw materials in relation to French production: Coal, 29 percent; electric power, 22 percent; petroleum and motor fuel, 80 percent; iron ore, 74 percent; steel products, crude and half finished, 51 percent; copper, 75 percent; lead, 43 percent; zinc, 38 percent; tin, 67 percent; nickel, 64 percent; mercury, 50 percent; platinum, 76 percent; bauxite, 40 percent; aluminum, 75 percent; magnesium, 100 percent; sulphur carbonate, 80 percent; industrial soap, 67 percent; vegetable oil, 40 percent; carbosol, 100 percent; rubber, 38 percent; paper and cardboard, 16 percent; wool, 59 percent; cotton, 53 percent; flax, 65 percent; leather, 67 percent; cement, 55 percent; lime, 20 percent; acetone, 21 percent.”

This enumeration permits us to consider that officially about three-quarters of the raw materials were seized by the occupying power, but these statistics must be qualified in two ways: A large part of the quota of raw materials theoretically left to the French economy was in fact reserved for priority industries, that is to say, those industries whose production was reserved for the occupying power. Secondly, these requisitions and percentages include only the figures of official deliveries; but we have seen that the Germans acquired considerable quantities of raw materials from the black market, especially precious metals: gold, platinum, silver, radium, or rare metals, such as mercury, nickel, tin and copper.

In fact, one can say in general that the raw materials which were left for the needs of the population were insignificant.

Now, I come to Section 3: Levies of manufactured goods and products of the mining industry.

As I had the honor to point out to you in my general remarks, the Germans, using divers means of pressure, succeeded in utilizing directly or indirectly the greater part of the French industrial production. I shall not go over these facts again and I shall immediately pass to a summary of the products which were delivered. I submit as Document Number RF-248 a chart which contains statistical data, according to industries, of levies by the occupying power of manufactured goods during the course of the occupation.

I do not want to tax the patience of the Tribunal by reading this; I shall simply cite the summary of this chart, which is as follows: Orders for products finished and invoiced from 25 June 1940 until the liberation—Mechanical and electrical industries, 59,455 million; chemical industry, 11,744 million; textiles and leather, 15,802 million; building and construction material, 56,256 million; mines (coal, aluminum, and phosphates), 4,160 million; iron industry, 4,474 million; motor fuel, 568 million; naval construction, 6,104 million; aeronautical construction, 23,620 million; miscellaneous industries, 2,457 million; making a total of 184,640 million.

These statistics should be commented upon as follows:

1) The information which is contained here does not include the production of the very industrialized departments of Nord and of Pas de Calais, attached to the German administration of Brussels, nor does it include the manufactures of the Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle departments, actually incorporated into the Reich.

2) Out of the total sum of 184,640 million francs worth of supplies, the information which we have to date does not as yet permit us to fix the amount regulated by the Germans by way of either occupation costs or clearing, or the balance which was not made the subject of any settlement.

3) If, on the basis of contracts, one made an estimate of the industrial production levied by Germany in the departments of Nord and Pas de Calais, one would obtain a figure for those two departments of 18,500 million, which would bring the approximate total up to more than 200,000 million francs.

The extent of the German levies on manufactured products is summarized in the following chart which I submit to the Tribunal, and which I have summarized on Page 87 of my written statement. I shall take the liberty of reading it once more to the Tribunal. It will show the proportion of the manufactured goods which the French population was deprived of: Automobile construction, 70 percent; electrical and radio construction, 45 percent; industrial precision parts, 100 percent; heavy castings, 100 percent; foundries, 46 percent; chemical industries, 34 percent; rubber industry, 60 percent; paint and varnish, 60 percent; perfume, 33 percent; wool industry, 28 percent; cotton weaving, 15 percent; flax and cotton weaving, 12 percent; industrial hides, 20 percent; buildings and public works, 75 percent; woodwork and furniture, 50 percent; lime and cement, 68 percent; naval construction, 79 percent; aeronautic construction, 90 percent.

The scrutiny of this chart leads to the following remarks:

The proportion of entirely finished products is very large, for instance: automobiles, 70 percent; precision instruments, 100 percent; heavy castings, 100 percent; whereas, the proportion of the products in the process of manufacture is not as great, for example: foundry, 46 percent; chemical industry, 34 percent; _et cetera_.

This state of affairs results from the fact that the Germans directed the products in the process of manufacture—in theory reserved for the French population—into finishing industries which had priority, that is to say, whose production was reserved for them.

Finally, through their purchases on the black market, the Germans procured an enormous quantity of textiles, machine tools, leather, perfumes, and so forth. The French population was almost completely deprived of textiles, in particular, during the occupation. That is also the case as regards leather.

Now, I reach Section 4: the removal of industrial tools.

I shall not impose on your time. This question has already been treated as far as the other occupied countries are concerned. I would merely point out that in France it was the subject of statistical estimates which I submit to you as Document Number RF-251. These statistical estimates show that the value of the material which was removed from the various French factories, either private or public enterprise, exceeds the sum of 9,000 million francs.

It was observed that for many of the machines which were removed, the Germans merely indicated the inventory values after reduction for depreciation and not the replacement value of the machines.

I now come to Section 5: Securities and Foreign Investments. In Document EC-57, which I submitted as Exhibit Number RF-105 at the beginning of my presentation, I had indicated that the Defendant Göring himself had informed you of the aims of the German economic policy and he ventured to say that the extension of German influence over foreign enterprises was one of the purposes of German economic policy.

These directives were to be expressed much more precisely in the document of the 12th of August 1940, which I submit as Exhibit Number RF-252 (Document Number EC-40), from which I shall read a short extract:

“Since”—as the document says—“the principal economic enterprises are in the form of stock companies, it is first of all indispensable to secure the ownership of securities in France.”

Further on it says:

“The exerting of influence by way of ordinances. . . .”

Then the document indicates all the means to be employed to achieve this, in particular this passage concerning international law:

“According to Article 46 of the Hague Convention concerning Land Warfare, private property cannot be confiscated. Therefore the confiscation of securities is to be avoided in so far as it does not concern state owned property. According to Article 42 and following of the Hague Convention concerning Land Warfare, the authority exercising power in the occupied enemy territory must restrict itself in principle to utilizing measures which are necessary to re-establish or maintain public order and public life. According to international law it is forbidden in principle to eliminate the still existing boards of companies and to replace them by ‘commissioners.’ Such a measure would, from the point of view of international law, probably not be considered as efficacious. Consequently, we must strive to force the various functionaries of such companies to work for German economy, but not to dismiss those persons . . .”

Further on:

“If these functionaries refuse to be guided by us, we must remove them from their posts and replace them by persons we can use.”

We will briefly consider the three categories of seizure of financial investments, which were the purpose of German spoliation during the occupation, and first of all the seizure of financial investments in companies whose interests were abroad.

On the 14th of August 1940 an ordinance was published in VOBIF, Page 67 (Document Number RF-253), forbidding any negotiations regarding credits or foreign securities. But mere freezing of securities did not satisfy the occupying power; it was necessary for them to become outwardly the owners of the securities in order to be able, if necessary, to negotiate them in neutral countries.

They had agents who purchased foreign securities from private citizens who needed money, but above all, they put pressure on the Vichy Government in order to obtain the handing over of the principal French investments in foreign countries. That is why, in particular, after long discussions in the course of which the German pressure was very great, considerable surrenders of securities were made to the Germans.

It is not possible for me to submit to the Tribunal the numerous documents concerning the surrender of these securities: minutes, correspondence, valuations. There would be without exaggeration, several cubic meters of them. I shall merely quote several passages as examples.

Concerning the Bor Mines Company, the copper mines in Yugoslavia of which the greater part of the capital was in French hands, the Germans appointed, on 26 July 1940, an administrative commissioner for the branches of the company situated in Yugoslavia. This is found in Document Number RF-254 which I submit to the Tribunal. The administrative commissioner was Herr Neuhausen, the German Consul General for Yugoslavia and Bulgaria.

In the course of the discussions of the Armistice Commission Hemmen declared (extract from the minutes of 27 September 1940 at 10:30, which I submit to the Tribunal as Document Number RF-255):

“Germany wishes to acquire the shares of the company without consideration for the juridical objections made by the French. Germany obeys, in fact, the imperative consideration of the economic order. She suspects that the Bor Mines are still delivering copper to England and she has definitely decided to take possession of these mines.”

Faced with the refusal of the French delegates, Hemmen declared at the meeting of 4 October 1940 (I submit to the Tribunal an extract from the minutes of this meeting as Document Number RF-256):

“I should regret to have to transmit such a reply to my government. See if the French Government cannot reconsider its attitude. If not, our relations will become very difficult. My government is anxious to bring this matter to a close. If you refuse, the consequences will be extremely grave.”

M. de Boisanger, the French Delegate, replied:

“I will therefore put that question once more.”

And Hemmen replied:

“I shall expect your reply by tomorrow. If it does not come, I shall transmit the negative reply which you have just given.”

Then, in the course of the meeting on 9 January 1941, Hemmen stated—I submit again an extract from the minutes, Document Number RF-257:

“At first I was entrusted with this affair at Wiesbaden. Then it was taken over by Consul General Neuhausen on behalf of a very high-ranking personage (Marshal Göring), and it was handled directly in Paris by M. Laval and M. Abetz.”

As far as French investments in petroleum companies in Romania are concerned, the pressure was no less. In the course of the meeting of 10 October 1940, of the Armistice Commission, the same Hemmen stated (I submit as Document Number RF-258, an extract from the minutes of the meeting):

“Moreover we shall be satisfied with the majority of the shares. We will leave in your hands anything which we do not need for this purpose. Can you accept on this point in principle? The matter is urgent, as for the Bor Mines. We want all.”

On the 22 November 1940, Hemmen stated again (I submit this extract of the minutes of the Armistice Commission meeting as Document Number RF-259):

“We are still at war and we must exert immediate influence over petroleum production in Romania. Therefore we cannot wait for the peace treaty.”

When the French delegates asked that the surrender should at least be made in exchange for a material compensation, Hemmen replied in the course of the same meeting:

“Impossible. The sums which you are to receive from us will be taken out of the occupation costs. This will save you from using the printing. This kind of participation will be made general on the German side when the new collaboration policy has once been defined.”

We might present indefinitely quotations of this kind, and many even much more serious from the point of view of violation of the provisions of the Hague Convention.

All these surrenders, apparently agreed to by the French, were accepted only under German pressure. Scrutiny of the contracts agreed upon shows great losses to those who handed over their property and enormous profits for those who acquired it, without the latter having furnished any real compensation.

The Germans thus obtained French shares in the Romanian petroleum companies, in the enterprises of Central Europe, Norway, and the Balkans, and especially those of the Bor Mines Company which I mentioned. These surrenders paid by francs coming from occupation costs, rose to a little more than two thousand million francs. The others were paid by the floating of French loans abroad, notably in Holland, and through clearing.

Having given you a brief summary of the seizure of French business investments abroad, I shall also examine rapidly the German seizure of registered capitals of French industrial companies.

Shortly after the Armistice, in conformity with the directives of the Defendant Göring, a great number of French industries were the object of proposals on the part of German groups anxious to acquire all or part of the assets of these companies.

This operation was facilitated by the fact that the Germans, as I have had the honor of pointing out to you, were in reality in control of industry and had taken over the direction of production, particularly by the system of “Paten Firmen.” Long discussions took place between the occupying power and the French Ministry of Finance, whose officials strove, sometimes without success, to limit to 30 percent the maximum of German shares. It is not possible for me to enter into details of the seizure of these shares. I shall point out, however, that the Finance Minister handed to us a list of the most important ones, which are reproduced in a chart appended to the French Document Book under Document RF-260 (Exhibit Number RF-260).

The result was that the seizure of shares, fictitiously paid through clearing, reached the sum of 307,436,000 francs; through occupation costs accounts, 160 millions; through foreign stocks a sum which we have not been able to determine; and finally, through various or unknown means, 28,718,000 francs.

We shall conclude the paragraph of this fifth section by quoting part of the Hemmen report relative to these questions (Page 63 of the original and 142 of the French translation). Here is what Hemmen writes, in Salzburg in January 1944, concerning this subject:

“The fifth report upon the activity of the delegation is devoted to the difficulty of future seizures of shares in France, in the face of the very challenging attitude of the French Government concerning the surrender of valuable domestic and foreign securities. This resistance increased during the period covered by the report to such an extent that the French Government was no longer disposed to give any approval to the transfer of shares even if economic compensation were offered.”

Further on, Page 63 in the third paragraph:

“During the 4 years of the occupation of France the Armistice Delegation transferred stocks representing altogether about 121 million Reichsmark from French to German ownership, among them shares in enterprises important for the war in other countries, in Germany, and in France. Details of this are found in the earlier reports of the activities of the delegation. For about half of these transfers, economic compensation was given on the German side by delivery of French holdings of foreign shares acquired in Holland and in Belgium, while the remaining amount was paid by way of clearing or occupation costs. The use of French foreign investments as a means of payment resulted in a difference, between the German purchasing price and the French rate, of about 7 million Reichsmark which went to the Reich.”

There is reason to emphasize that the profit derived by Germany merely from the financial point of view is not 7 million Reichsmark, or 140 million francs according to Hemmen, but much greater. In fact, Germany paid principally for these acquisitions with the occupation indemnity, clearing, and French loans issued in Holland or in Belgium, the appropriation of which by Germany amounted to spoliation of these countries and could not constitute a real compensation for France.

These surrenders of holdings, carried out under the cloak of legality, moved the United Nations in their declarations made in London on 5 January 1943 to lay down the principle that such surrenders should be declared null and void, even when carried out with the apparent consent of those who made them.

I submit as Document Number RF-261, the solemn statement signed in London on 5 January 1943, which was published in the French _Journal Officiel_ on 15 August 1944, at the time of the liberation. I might add that all these surrenders are the subject of indictments before the French Courts of high treason against Frenchmen who surrendered their holdings to the Germans, even though undeniable pressure was brought to bear upon them.

I shall conclude this chapter with one last observation: The German seizure of real estate in France. It is still difficult to give at this time a precise account of this subject, for these operations were made most often through an intermediary with an assumed name. The most striking is that of a certain Skolnikoff, who during the occupation was able to invest nearly 2,000 million francs in the purchase of real estate.

This individual of indeterminate nationality, who lived in poverty before the war, enriched himself in a scandalous fashion, thanks to his connection with the Gestapo and his operations on the black market with the occupying power. But whatever may have been the profits he derived from his dishonest activities, he could not personally have acquired real estate to the value of almost 2,000 million in France.

I submit, as Document Number RF-262, a copy of a police report concerning this individual. It is not possible for me to read this to the Tribunal in its entirety, but this report contains the list of the buildings and real estate companies acquired by this individual. These are without question choice buildings of great value. It is evident that Skolnikoff, an agent for the Gestapo, was an assumed name for German personalities whose identity has not been discovered up to the present.

Now I shall take up Section 6; the requisition of transport and communication material.

A report from the French administration gives us statistics which are reproduced in very complete charts, which I shall not read to the Tribunal. I shall merely point out that most of the locomotives and rolling stock in good shape were removed, and that the total sum of the requisitions of transport material reaches the sum of 198,450 million francs.

I shall now deal with requisitions in the departments of Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle. From the beginning of the invasion the Germans incorporated these departments into the Reich. This question will be presented by the French Prosecution when they discuss the question of Germanization. From the point of view of economic spoliation it must be stressed that the Germans sought to derive a maximum from these three departments. If they paid in marks for a certain number of products, they made no settlement whatever for the principal products, especially coal, iron, crude oil, potash, industrial material, furniture, and agricultural machinery.

The information relating to this is given by the French administration in a chart which I shall summarize briefly and which I submit as Document Number RF-264. The value of requisitions made in the three French departments of the east—requisitions not paid for by the Germans—reaches the sum of 27,315 million francs.

To conclude the question of the departments in the east, I should like to point out to the Tribunal that my colleague, who will discuss the question of Germanization, will show how the firm, Hermann Göring Werke, in which the Defendant Göring had considerable interests, appropriated equipment from mines of the large French company called the “Petits-Fils de François de Wendel et Cie.” (See Document RF-1300.)

I now come to the Section 8, concerning miscellaneous levies.

1) Spoliations in Tunisia. The Germans went into Tunisia on 10 November 1942 and were driven out by the Allied Armies in May 1943. During this period they indulged in numerous acts of spoliation.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you think that it is necessary to go into details of the seizures in this part of the country if they are of the same sort as those in other parts of the country?

M. GERTHOFFER: Mr. President, it is similar; there is only one difference, and that concerns the amount. I believe the principle cannot be contested by anyone; therefore I shall go on.

Gentlemen, I shall also pass over the question of compulsory labor. I shall conclude my summary, however, by pointing out to the Tribunal that French economy suffered enormous losses from the deportation of workers, a subject which was discussed by my colleague. We have calculated the losses in working hours and we estimate—and this will be my only remark—that French economy lost 12,550 million working hours through the deportation of workers, a figure which does not include the number of workers who were more or less forced to work for the Germans in enterprises in France.

If you will permit me, gentlemen, I shall conclude this presentation concerning France by giving you a general review of the situation; and I shall refer once more to Hemmen, the economic dictator who actually ruined my country upon the orders of his masters, the defendants. While in the first five reports submitted, despite their apparently technical nature, the author shows the assurance of the victor who can allow himself to do anything, in the last report of 15 December 1944 at Salzburg, the only one I shall refer to, Hemmen sought visibly, while giving his work a technical quality, to plead the case of Germany—that of his Nazi masters and his own case. He only succeeded, however, in bringing forth unwittingly an implacable accusation against the nefarious work with which he was entrusted. Here are some short extracts, gentlemen, of Hemmen’s final report.

On Page 1 of his report, Page 2 of the French text, he implied the co-responsibility of the German leaders, and Göring particularly. He writes as follows:

“According to the directives formulated on 5 July 1940 by the Reich Marshal and Delegate of the Four Year Plan, concerning the existing legal situation, the Armistice Convention does not give us rights in the economic domain of the unoccupied parts of France, not even when loosely interpreted.”

A little farther on he admits blackmail with regard; to the demarcation line with these words (Page 3 of the translation):

“The Pétain Government manifested from the beginning a strong desire to re-establish rapidly the destroyed economy by means of German support and to find work for the French population in order to avoid the threat of unemployment, but above all to reunite the two French zones, separated by the demarcation line, into a unified economic and administrative territory. They were at the same time willing to bring this territory into line with German economic direction, under French management, thoroughly reorganizing it according to the German model.”

Then Hemmen adds:

“In return for considerable relaxations regarding the demarcation line, the Armistice Delegation has come to an agreement with the French Government to introduce into French legislation the German law, relating to foreign currency.”

Farther on, concerning pressure, on Page 4, and Page 7 of the translation, Hemmen wrote:

“Thereby the automatic rise of prices aggravated by the unchecked development of the black market was felt all the more strongly, since wages were forcibly fixed.”

I pass over the passage in which Hemmen speaks of French resistance. However, I should like to point out to the Tribunal that, on Page 13—Page 29 of the translation—Hemmen tries to show through financial evaluations and most questionable arguments that the cost of the war per head was heavier for the Germans than for the French. He himself destroys with one word the whole system of defense which he had built up by writing at the end of his bold calculations that from autumn 1940 to February 1944 the cost of living increased 166 percent in France, while in Germany it increased only 7 percent. Now, gentlemen, it is, I am quite sure, through the increase in the cost of living that one measures the impoverishment of a country.

Last of all, on Page 4, and this is my last quotation from the Hemmen report, he admits the German crime in these terms:

“Through the removal, for years, of considerable quantities of merchandise of every kind without economic compensation, a perceptible decrease in substance had resulted with a corresponding increase in monetary circulation, which had led ever more noticeably, to the phenomena of inflation and especially to a devaluation of money and a lowering of the purchasing power.”

These material losses, we may say, can be repaired. Through work and saving we can re-establish, in a more or less distant future, the economic situation of the country. That is true, but there is one thing which can never be repaired—the results of privations upon the physical state of the population.

If the other German crimes, such as deportations, murders, massacres, make one shudder with horror, the crime which consisted of deliberately starving whole populations is no less odious.

In the occupied countries, in France particularly, many persons died solely because of undernourishment and because of lack of heat. It was estimated that people require from 3,000 to 3,500 calories a day and heavy laborers about 4,000. From the beginning of the rationing in September 1940 only 1,800 calories per day per person were distributed. Successively the ration decreased to 1,700 calories in 1942, then to 1,500, and finally fell to 1,220 and 900 calories a day for adults and to 1,380 and 1,300 for heavy laborers; old persons were given only 850 calories a day. But the true situation was still worse than the ration theoretically allotted through ration cards; in fact, frequently a certain number of coupons were not honored.

The Germans could not fail to recognize the disastrous situation as far as public health was concerned, since they themselves estimated in the course of the war of 1914-1918 that the distribution of 1,700 calories a day was a “regime of slow starvation, leading to death.”

What aggravated the situation still more was the quality of the rations which were distributed. Bread was of the poorest quality; milk, when there was any, was skimmed to the point where the fat content amounted to only 3 percent. The small amount of meat given to the population was of bad quality. Fish had disappeared from the market. If we add to that an almost total lack of clothing, shoes, and fuel, and the fact that frequently neither schools nor hospitals were heated, one may easily understand what the physical condition of the population was.

Incurable sicknesses such as tuberculosis developed and will continue to extend their ravages for many years. The growth of children and adolescents is seriously impaired. The future of the race is a cause for the greatest concern. The results of economic spoliation will be felt for an indefinite period.

THE PRESIDENT: Could you tell me what evidence you have for your figures of calories?

M. GERTHOFFER: I am going to show you this at the end of my presentation. It is a report of a professor at the Medical School of Paris who has been specially commissioned by the Dean of the University to make a report on the results of undernourishment. I will quote it at the end of my statement. I am almost there.

The results of this economic spoliation will be felt for an indefinite length of time. The exhaustion is such that, despite the generous aid brought by the United Nations, the situation of the occupied countries, taken as a whole, is still alarming. In fact, the complete absence of stocks, the insufficiency of the means of production and of transport, the reduction of livestock and the economic disorganization, do not permit the allotting of sufficient rations at this time. This poverty, which strikes all occupied countries, can disappear only gradually over a long period of time, the length of which no one can yet determine.

If in certain rich agricultural regions the producers were able during the occupation to have and still do have a privileged situation from the point of view of food supply, the same is not true in the poorer regions nor in urban districts. If we consider that in France the urban population is somewhat more numerous than the rural population, we can state clearly that the great majority of the French population was subject to and still remains subject to a food regime definitely insufficient.

Professor Guy Laroche, delegated by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris to study the consequences of undernourishment in France as a result of German requisitions, has just sent a report on this question.

I do not wish to prolong my explanation by reading the entire report. I shall ask the Tribunal’s permission to quote the conclusion, which I submit as Document Number RF-264(bis). I received the whole report only a few days ago. It is submitted in its entirety, but I have not been able to have 50 copies made of it. Two copies have been made and are being submitted. Here are Dr. Laroche’s conclusions:

“We see how great the crime of rationing was, which was imposed by the Germans upon the French during the occupation period from 1940 to 1944. It is difficult to give exact figures for the number of human lives lost due to excessive rationing. We would need general statistics and these we have been unable to establish.

“Nevertheless, without overestimating, we may well believe that, including patients in institutions, the loss of human life from 1940 to 1944 reached at least 150,000 persons. We must add a great number of cases which were not fatal, of physical and mental decline often incurable, of retarded development in children, and so forth.

“We think that three conclusions can be drawn from this report, which of course is incomplete:

“1.) The German occupation authorities deliberately sacrificed the lives of patients in institutions and hospitals.

“2.) From the way everything happened it seemed as if they had wished to organize, in a rational and scientific fashion, the decline of the health of adolescents and adults.

“3.) Suckling babies and young children received a normal ration; it is probable that this privileged position is explained by the fact that the Nazi leaders hoped to spread their doctrine more easily among beings who would not have known any other conditions of life and who would, because of a planned education, have accepted their doctrine, for they knew they could not expect to convince adolescents and adults except through force.”

The report is signed by Professor Guy Laroche.

This report, gentlemen, has attached to it a photograph, which you will find at the end of the document book. I beg to hand it to you. The unfortunate beings that you see in that picture are not the victims of a concentration or reprisal camp. They are simply the patients of an asylum in the outskirts of Paris who fell into this state of physical weakness as a result of undernourishment. If these men had had the diet of the asylum prior to rationing, they would have been as strong as normal people. Unfortunately for them they were reduced to the official rationing and were unable to obtain the slightest supplement.

Do not let adversaries say: “But the German people are just as badly off!”

I should reply that, in the first place, this is not true. The German did not suffer cold for four years; he was not undernourished. On the contrary, he was well-fed, warmly clothed, warmly housed, with products stolen from the occupied countries, leaving only the minimum necessary for existence for the peoples of these countries.

Remember, gentlemen, the words of Göring when he said: “If famine is to reign, it will not reign in Germany.”

Secondly I should say to my adversaries if they made such an objection: The Germans and their Nazi leaders wanted the war which they launched, but they had no right to starve other peoples in order to carry out their attempt at world domination. If today they are in a difficult situation, it is the result of their own behavior; and they seem to me to have no right to take recourse to the famous sentence: “I did not want that.”

I am coming to the end of my statement. If you will permit me, gentlemen, I will conclude in two minutes the whole of this presentation by reminding the Tribunal in a few words what the premeditated crime was, of which the German leaders have been accused, from the economic point of view.

The application of racial and living space theories was bound to engender an economic situation which could not be solved and force the Nazi leaders to war.

In a modern society because of the division of labor, of its concentration, and of its scientific organization, the concept of national capital takes on more and more a primary importance, whatever may be the social principles of its distribution between nationals, or its possession in all or in part by states.

Now, a national capital, public or private, is constituted by the joint effort of the labor and the savings of successive generations.

Saving, or the putting into reserve of the products of labor as a result of deprivations freely consented to, must exist in proportion to the needs of the concentration of the industrial enterprises of the country.

In Germany, a country highly-industrialized, this equilibrium did not exist. In fact, the expenditures, private or public, of that country surpassed its means; saving was insufficient. The establishment of a system of obligatory savings was formulated only through the creation of new taxes and has never replaced true savings.

As a result of the war of 1914-1918, after having freed herself of the burden of reparations (and I must point out that two-thirds of the sum remained charged to France as far as this country is concerned), Germany, who had established her gold reserve in 1926, began a policy of foreign loans and spent without counting the cost. Finding it impossible to keep her agreements, she found no more creditors.

After Hitler’s accession to power her policy became more definite. She isolated herself in a closed economic system, utilizing all her resources for the preparation of a war which would permit her, or at least that is what she hoped, to take through force the property of her western neighbors and then to turn against the Soviet Union in the hope of exploiting, for her profit, the immense wealth of that great country. It is the application of the theories formulated in _Mein Kampf_, which had as a corollary the enslavement and then the extermination of the populations of conquered countries.

In the course of the occupation the invaded nations were systematically pillaged and brutally enslaved; and this would have permitted Germany to obtain her war aims, that is to say, to take the patrimony of the invaded countries and to exterminate their populations gradually, if the valor of the United Nations had not delivered them. Instead of becoming enriched from the looted property, Germany had to sink it into a war which she had provoked, right up to the very moment of her collapse.

Such actions, knowingly perpetrated and executed by the German leaders contrary to international law and particularly contrary to the Hague Convention, as well as the general principles of penal law in force in all civilized nations, constitute War Crimes for which they must answer before your high jurisdiction.

Mr. President, I should like to add that the French Prosecution had intended to present a statement on the pillage of works of art in the occupied countries of western Europe. But this question has already been discussed in two briefs of our American colleagues, briefs which seem to us to establish beyond any question the responsibility of the defendants. In order not to prolong the hearing, the French Prosecution feels that it is its duty to refrain from presenting this question again; but we remain respectfully at the disposal of the Tribunal in case, in the course of the trial, they feel they need further information on this question.

The presentation of the French Prosecution is concluded. I shall give the floor to Captain Sprecher of the American Delegation, who will make a statement on the responsibility of the Defendant Fritzsche.

CAPTAIN DREXEL A. SPRECHER (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, I notice that Dr. Fritz, the defendant’s attorney, is not here; and in view of the late hour, it would be agreeable if we hold it over until tomorrow.

THE PRESIDENT: It is 5 o’clock now, so we shall adjourn in any event now.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 23 January 1946 at 1000 hours._]

FORTY-FIRST DAY Wednesday, 23 January 1946

_Morning Session_

CAPT. SPRECHER: May it please the Tribunal, it is my responsibility and my privilege to present today the case on the individual responsibility of the Defendant Hans Fritzsche for Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity as they relate directly to the Common Plan or Conspiracy.

With the permission of the Tribunal, it is planned to make this presentation in three principal divisions:

First, a short listing of the various positions held by the Defendant Fritzsche in the Nazi State.

Second, a discussion of Fritzsche’s conspiratorial activities within the Propaganda Ministry from 1933 through the attack on the Soviet Union.

Third, a discussion of Fritzsche’s connection, as a Nazi propagandist, to the atrocities and the ruthless occupation policy which formed a part of the Common Plan or Conspiracy.

In listing Fritzsche’s positions, it is not intended at first to describe the functions of these positions. Later on, in describing some of Fritzsche’s conspiratorial acts, I shall take up a discussion of some of these positions which he held.

Fritzsche’s Party membership and his various positions in the propaganda apparatus of the Nazi State are shown by two affidavits by Fritzsche himself: Document Number 2976-PS, which is already in evidence as Exhibit USA-20; and Document Number 3469-PS, which I offer in evidence as Exhibit USA-721. Both of these affidavits have been put into the four working languages of this Tribunal.

Fritzsche became a member of the Nazi Party on the 1st of May 1933, and he continued to be a member until the collapse in 1945. Fritzsche began his services with the staff of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, hereinafter referred to as the Propaganda Ministry, on the 1st of May 1933; and he remained within the Propaganda Ministry until the Nazi downfall.

Before the Nazis seized political power in Germany and beginning in September 1932, Fritzsche was head of the Wireless News Service (Drahtloser Dienst), an agency of the Reich Government at that time under the Defendant Von Papen. After the Wireless News Service was incorporated into the Propaganda Ministry of Dr. Goebbels in May 1933, Fritzsche continued as its head until the year 1938. Upon entering the Propaganda Ministry in May 1933, Fritzsche also became head of the news section of the Press Division of the Propaganda Ministry. He continued in this position until 1937. In the summer of 1938, Fritzsche was appointed deputy to one Alfred Ingemar Berndt, who was then head of the German Press Division.

The German Press Division, in the Indictment, is called the Home Press Division. Since “German Press Division” seems to be a more literal translation, we have called it the German Press Division throughout this presentation. It is sometimes otherwise known as the Domestic Press Division. We shall show later that this division was the major section of the Press Division of the Reich Cabinet.

Now in December 1938 Fritzsche succeeded Berndt as the head of the German Press Division. Between 1938 and November 1942 Fritzsche was promoted three times. He advanced in title from Superior Government Counsel to Ministerial Counsel, then to Ministerialdirigent, and finally to Ministerialdirektor.

In November 1942 Fritzsche was relieved of his position as head of the German Press Division by Dr. Goebbels and accepted from Dr. Goebbels a newly created position in the Propaganda Ministry, that of Plenipotentiary for the Political Organization of the Greater German Radio. At the same time he also became head of the Radio Division of the Propaganda Ministry. He held both these positions in radio until the Nazi downfall.

There are two allegations of the Indictment concerning Fritzsche’s positions for which we are unable to offer proof. These allegations appear at Page 34 of the English translation.

The first unsupported allegation states that Fritzsche was “Editor-in-Chief of the official German News Agency (Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro).” The second unsupported allegation states that Fritzsche was “head of the Radio Division of the Propaganda Department of the Nazi Party.” Fritzsche denies having held either of these positions, in his affidavit, and therefore these two allegations must fall for want of proof.

Before discussing the documentation of the case I wish, in passing, to state my appreciation for the assistance of Mr. Norbert Halpern, Mr. Alfred Booth, and Lieutenant Niebergall, who sits at my right, for their assistance in research, analysis, and translation.

The Tribunal will note the relative shortness of this document book. It has been marked as Document Book MM. It contains only 32 pages, which have been numbered consecutively in red pencil for your convenience. The shortness of the documentation on this particular case is possible only because of a long affidavit made by the Defendant Fritzsche, which was signed by him on the 7th of January 1946.

It seems appropriate to comment on this significant document before proceeding. It is before Your Honors as Document Number 3469-PS, beginning at document book Page 19. As I said, it has been translated into the four working languages of this proceeding.

This affidavit contains materials which have been extracted from interrogations of Fritzsche and many materials which Fritzsche volunteered to give himself, upon request made by me, through his Defense Counsel, Dr. Fritz. Some of the portions of the final affidavit were originally typed or handwritten by the Defendant Fritzsche himself during this Trial or during the holiday recess. All these materials were finally incorporated into one single affidavit.

This affidavit contains Fritzsche’s account of the events which led to his entering the Propaganda Ministry and his account of his later connections with that Ministry. Before Fritzsche made some of the statements in the affidavit concerning the role of propaganda in relation to important foreign political events, he was shown illustrative headlines and articles from the German press at that time, so that he could refresh his recollection and make more accurate statements.

It is believed that the Tribunal will desire to consider many portions of this affidavit independent of this presentation, along with the proof on the conspirators’ use of propaganda as a principal weapon in the conspiracy. Some of this proof, you will recall, was submitted by Major Wallis in the first days of this Trial in connection with Brief E, entitled “Propaganda, Censorship, and Supervision of the Cultural Activities,” and the corresponding document book, to which I call the Tribunal’s attention.

In the Fritzsche affidavit there are a number of statements which I would say were in the nature of self-serving declarations. With respect to these, the Prosecution requests only that the Tribunal consider them in the light of the whole conspiracy and the indisputable facts which appear throughout the Record. The Prosecution did not feel, either as a matter of expediency or of fairness, that it should request Fritzsche, through his defense lawyer, Dr. Fritz, to remove some of these self-serving declarations at this time and submit them later in connection with his defense.

Since I shall refer to this affidavit at numerous times throughout the presentation, perhaps the members of the Tribunal will wish to place a special marker in their document book.

By referring to Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the affidavit, the Tribunal will note that Fritzsche first became a successful journalist in the service of the Hugenberg Press, the most important chain of newspaper enterprises in pre-Nazi Germany. The Hugenberg concern owned papers of its own, but primarily it was important because it served newspapers which principally supported the so-called “national” parties of the Reich, including the NSDAP.

In Paragraph 5 of his affidavit Fritzsche relates that in September 1932, when the Defendant Von Papen was Reich Chancellor, he was made head of the Wireless News Service, replacing someone who was politically unbearable to the Papen regime. The Wireless News Service, I might say, was a government agency for spreading news by radio.

Fritzsche began making radio broadcasts at about this time with very great success, a success which Goebbels recognized and was later to exploit very efficiently on behalf of these Nazi conspirators.

The Nazis seized power on the 30th of January 1933. From Paragraph 10 of the Fritzsche affidavit we find that that very evening, the 30th of January 1933, two emissaries from Goebbels visited Fritzsche. One of them was Dressler-Andress, head of the Radio Division of the NSDAP; the other was an assistant of Dressler-Andress named Sadila-Mantau. These two emissaries notified Fritzsche that although Goebbels was angry with Fritzsche for writing a critical article concerning Hitler, still Goebbels recognized Fritzsche’s public success on the radio since the previous fall. They stated further that Goebbels desired to retain Fritzsche as head of the Wireless News Service on certain conditions: (1) That Fritzsche discharge all Jews; (2) that he discharge all other personnel who would not join the NSDAP; and (3) that he employ with the Wireless News Service the second Goebbels’ emissary, Sadila-Mantau.

Fritzsche refused all these conditions except the hiring of Sadila-Mantau. This was one of the first ostensible compromises after the seizure of power which Fritzsche made on his road to the Nazi camp.

Fritzsche continued to make radio broadcasts during this period in which he supported the National Socialist coalition government then still existing.

In early 1933 SA troops several times called at the Wireless News Service and Fritzsche prevented them, with some difficulty, from making news broadcasts.

In April 1933 Goebbels called the young Fritzsche to him for a personal audience. At Paragraph 9 of his affidavit, Document Number 3469-PS, Fritzsche has volunteered the following concerning his prior relationships with Dr. Goebbels:

“I was acquainted with Dr. Goebbels since 1928. Apparently he had taken a liking to me, besides the fact that in my press activities I had always treated the National Socialists in a friendly way until 1931.

“Already before 1933 Goebbels, who was the editor of _The Attack_ (_Der Angriff_), Nazi newspaper, had frequently made flattering remarks about the form and content of my writings, which I did as contributor of many ‘national’ newspapers and periodicals, among which were also some of more reactionary character.”

At the first Goebbels-Fritzsche discussion in early April 1933, Goebbels informed Fritzsche of his decision to place the Wireless News Service within the Propaganda Ministry as of 1 May 1933. He suggested that Fritzsche make certain rearrangements in the personnel which would remove Jews and other persons who did not support the NSDAP. Fritzsche debated with Goebbels concerning some of these steps. It must be said that during this period Fritzsche made some effort to place Jews in other jobs.

In a second conference with Goebbels, shortly thereafter, Fritzsche informed Goebbels about the steps he had taken in reorganizing the Wireless News Service. Goebbels thereupon informed Fritzsche that he would like to have him reorganize and modernize the entire news services of Germany within the control of the Propaganda Ministry.

It will be recalled by the Tribunal that on the 17th of March 1933, approximately two months before this time, the Propaganda Ministry had been formed by decree, 1933 _Reichsgesetzblatt_, Part I, Page 104, our Document Number 2029-PS.

Fritzsche was intrigued by the Goebbels offer. He proceeded to conclude the Goebbels-inspired reorganization of the Wireless News Service; and on the 1st of May 1933, together with the remaining members of his staff, he joined the Propaganda Ministry. On this same day he joined the NSDAP and took the customary oath of unconditional loyalty to the Führer. From this time on, whatever reservations Fritzsche may have had, either then or later, to the course of events under the Nazis, Fritzsche was completely within the Nazi camp. For the next 13 years he assisted in creating and in using the principal propaganda devices which the conspirators employed with such telling effect in each of the principal phases of this conspiracy.

From 1933 until 1942 Fritzsche held one or more positions within the German Press Division. For 4 years indeed he headed this Division, during those crucial years 1938 to 1942. That covers the period when the Nazis undertook actual military invasions of neighboring countries. It is, therefore, believed appropriate to spell out in some detail, before this Tribunal, the functions of this German Press Division. These functions will show the important and unique position of the German Press Division as an instrument of the Nazi conspirators not only in dominating the minds and the psychology of Germans through the German Press Division and through the radio but also as an instrument of foreign policy and psychological warfare against other nations.

The already broad jurisdiction of the Propaganda Ministry was extended by a Hitler decree of the 30th of June 1933, found in 1933 _Reichsgesetzblatt_, Part I, Page 449. From that decree I wish to quote only one sentence. It is found in Document 2030-PS, your document book Page 3:

“The Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda is competent for all problems concerning the mental moulding of the nation, the propaganda for the State, for culture and economy, and the enlightenment at home and abroad about these questions. Furthermore, he is in charge of the administration of all institutions serving these purposes.”

It is important to underline the stated propaganda objective of “enlightenment at home and abroad.”

For a clear exposition of the general functions of the German Press Division of the Propaganda Ministry, the Tribunal is referred to Document Number 2434-PS, document book Page 5. It is offered in evidence as Exhibit USA-722. This document is an appropriate excerpt from a book by Georg Wilhelm Müller, a Ministerial Director in the Propaganda Ministry, of which the Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice.

Fritzsche’s affidavit, Paragraphs 14, 15, and 16, beginning at Page 22 of your document book, contains an exposition of the functions of the German Press Division, a description which confirms and adds to the exposition in Müller’s book. Concerning the German Press Division, Fritzsche’s affidavit states:

“During the whole period from 1933 to 1945 it was the task of the German Press Division to supervise the entire domestic press and to provide it with directives by which this division became an efficient instrument in the hands of the German State leadership. More than 2,300 German daily newspapers were subject to control.

“The aim of this supervision and control, in the first years following 1933, was to change basically the conditions existing in the press before the seizure of power. That meant the coordination into the New Order of those newspapers and periodicals which had been serving capitalistic individual interests or party politics. While the administrative functions wherever possible were exercised by the professional associations and the Reich Press Chamber, the political direction of the German press was entrusted to the German Press Division.

“The head of the German Press Division held daily press conferences in the Ministry for the representatives of all German newspapers. Thereby all instructions were given to the representatives of the press. These instructions were transmitted daily, almost without exception and mostly by telephone from headquarters by Dr. Otto Dietrich, Reich Press Chief, in a set text, the so-called ‘Daily Parole of the Reich Press Chief.’ Before the formulation of this text the head of the German Press Division submitted to him, Dietrich, the foremost press wishes expressed by Dr. Goebbels and by other ministries. This was the case especially with the wishes of the Foreign Office about which Dr. Dietrich always wanted to make decisions personally or through his representatives at headquarters, Helmut Sündermann and chief editor Lorenz.

“The actual interpretation of the direction in detail was thus left entirely to the individual work of the various editors. Therefore, it is by no means true that the newspapers and periodicals were a monopoly of the German Press Division or that essays and leading articles had to be submitted by them to the Ministry. Even in war times this happened in exceptional cases only. The less important newspapers and periodicals which were not represented at the daily press conferences received their information in a different way—by providing them either with ready-made articles and reports, or by confidential printed instruction. The publications of all other official agencies were directed and coordinated likewise by the German Press Division.

“To enable the periodicals to get acquainted with the daily political problems of newspapers and to discuss these problems in greater detail, the _Informationskorrespondenz_ was issued especially for periodicals. Later on it was taken over by the Periodical Press Division. The German Press Division likewise was in charge of pictorial reporting insofar as it directed the employment of pictorial reporters at important events.

“In this way, and conditioned upon the prevailing political situation, the entire German press was, by the German Press Division, made a permanent instrument of the Propaganda Ministry. Thereby, the entire German Press was subordinate to the political aims of the government. This was exemplified by the timely limitation and the emphatic presentation of such press polemics as appeared to be most useful, as shown for instance in the following themes: The class struggle of the system era; the Leadership Principle and the authoritarian state; the party and interest politics of the system era; the Jewish problem; the conspiracy of world-Jewry; the Bolshevistic danger; the plutocratic democracy abroad; the race problem generally; the church; the economic misery abroad; the foreign policy; the living space (Lebensraum).”

This description of Fritzsche establishes clearly and in his own words that the German Press Division was the instrument for subordinating the entire German press to the political aims of the government.

We now pass to Fritzsche’s first activities on behalf of the conspirators within the German Press Division. It is appropriate to read again from his affidavit, Paragraph 17, your document book Page 23. Fritzsche begins by describing a conference with Goebbels in late April or early May 1933:

“At this time Dr. Goebbels suggested to me, in my capacity as the expert on news technique, the establishment and direction of a section ‘News’ within the Press Division of his Ministry, in order to thoroughly organize and modernize the German news agencies. In carrying out the task assigned to me by Dr. Goebbels my field covered the entire news service for the German press and the radio in accordance with the directions given by the Propaganda Ministry, excepting at first the DNB”—German News Agency.

An obvious reason why the DNB was excepted from Fritzsche’s field at this time is that the DNB did not come into existence until the year 1934 as we shall later see. Later on, in Paragraph 17 of the Fritzsche affidavit, the Tribunal will note the tremendous funds put at the disposal of Fritzsche in building up the Nazi news services. Altogether the German news agencies received a 10-fold increase in their budget from the Reich, an increase from 400,000 to 4 million marks. Fritzsche himself selected and employed the chief editor for the Transocean News Agency and also for the Europa Press. Fritzsche states that some of the “directions of the Propaganda Ministry which I had to follow were,” and then skipping, “. . . increase of German news copy abroad at any cost,” and then skipping again, “. . . spreading of favorable news on the internal construction and peaceful intentions of the National Socialist system.”

About the summer of 1934 the Defendant Funk, then Reich Press Chief, achieved the fusion of the two most important domestic news agencies, the Wolff Telegraph Agency and the Telegraph Union, and thus formed the official German news agency, ordinarily known as DNB. It has already been pointed out to the Tribunal that the Indictment is in error in alleging that Fritzsche himself was Editor-in-Chief of the DNB. Fritzsche held no position whatsoever with the DNB at any time. However, as head of the news section of the German Press Division, Fritzsche’s duties gave him official jurisdiction over the DNB, which was the official domestic news agency of the German Reich after 1934. In the last part of Paragraph 17 of this affidavit, Fritzsche states that he coordinated the work of the various foreign news agencies “at home and within European and overseas foreign countries with one another and in relationship to DNB.”

The Wireless News Service was headed by Fritzsche from 1932 to 1937. After January 1933, the Wireless News Service was the official instrument of the Nazi Government in spreading news over the radio. During the same time that Fritzsche headed the Wireless News Service, he personally made radio broadcasts to the German people. These broadcasts were naturally subject to the controls of the Propaganda Ministry and reflected its purposes. The influence of Fritzsche’s broadcasts upon the German people, during this period of consolidation of control by the Nazi conspirators, is all the more important since Fritzsche was concurrently head of the Wireless News Services, which controlled for the government the spreading of all news by radio.

It is by now well known to the world that the Nazi conspirators attempted to be, and often were, very adept in psychological warfare. Before each major aggression, with some few exceptions based on the strategy of expediency, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically for the impending Nazi madness. They used the press after their earlier conquests as a means for further influencing foreign politics and in maneuvering for the next following aggression.

By the time of the occupation of the Sudetenland on the 1st of October 1938, Fritzsche had become deputy head of the entire German Press Division. Fritzsche states that the role of German propaganda before the Munich Agreement on the Sudetenland was directed by his immediate chief, Berndt, then head of the German Press Division. In Paragraph 27 of the Fritzsche affidavit, Page 26 of your document book, Fritzsche describes this propaganda which was directed by Berndt. Speaking of Berndt, Fritzsche states:

“He exaggerated minor events very strongly, sometimes used old episodes as new—and there even came complaints from the Sudetenland itself that some of the news reported by the German press was untrustworthy. As a matter of fact, after the great foreign political success at Munich in September 1938, there arose a noticeable crisis in the confidence of the German people in the trustworthiness of its press. This was one reason for the recalling of Berndt, in December 1938 after the conclusion of the Sudeten action, and for my appointment as head of the German Press Division. Beyond this, Berndt, by his admittedly successful but still primitive military-like orders to the German press, had lost the confidence of the German editors.”

Now, what happened at this time? Fritzsche was made head of the German Press Division in place of Berndt. Between December 1938 and 1942, Fritzsche, as head of the German Press Division, personally gave to the representatives of the principal German newspapers the “daily parole of the Reich Press Chief.” During this history-making period he was the principal conspirator directly concerned with the manipulations of the press. The first important foreign aggression after Fritzsche became head of the German Press Division was the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia. In Paragraph 28 of the affidavit, your document book, Page 26, Fritzsche gives his account of the propaganda action surrounding the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia as follows:

“The action for the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia, which took place on 15 March 1939, while I was head of the German Press Division, was not prepared for such a long period as the Sudeten action. According to my memory it was in February that I received the order from the Reich Press Chief, Dr. Dietrich, and repeated requests by the envoy Paul Schmidt of the Foreign Office, to draw the attention of the press to the aspirations of Slovakia for independence and to the continued anti-German coalition politics of the Prague Government. I did this. The daily paroles of the Reich Press Chief and the press conference minutes at that time show the wording of the pertinent instructions. The following were the typical headlines of leading newspapers and the conspicuous leading articles of the German daily press at that time: (1) The terrorizing of Germans within the Czech territory by arrest, shooting at Germans by the state police, destruction and damaging of German homes by Czech mobs; (2) the concentration of Czech forces on the Sudeten frontier; (3) the kidnapping, deportation, and persecution of Slovakian minorities by the Czechs, (4) the Czechs must get out of Slovakia; (5) secret meetings of Red functionaries in Prague.

“Some few days before the visit of Hacha, I received the instruction to publish in the press very conspicuously the incoming news on the unrest in Czechoslovakia. Such information I received only partly from the German News Agency DNB but mostly from the Press Division of the Foreign Office and some from big newspapers with their own news services. Among the newspapers offering information was, above all, the _Völkischer Beobachter_ which, as I learned later on, received its information from the SS Standartenführer Gunter D’Alquen, who was at that time at Bratislava. I had forbidden all news agencies and newspapers to issue news on unrest in Czechoslovakia until I had seen it. I wanted to avoid a repetition of the very annoying accompaniments of the Sudeten action propaganda, and I did not want to suffer a loss of prestige caused by untrue news. Thus, all news checked by me was admittedly full of tendency but not invented. Following the visit of Hacha in Berlin and after the beginning of the invasion of the German Army, which took place on 15 March 1939, the German press had enough material for describing these events. Historically and politically the event was justified with the indication that the declaration of independence of Slovakia had required an interference and that Hacha with his signature had avoided a war and had reinstated a thousand-year-old union between Bohemia and the Reich.”

The propaganda campaign of the press preceding the invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939—and thus the propaganda action just preceding the precipitation of World War II—bears again the handiwork of Fritzsche and his German Press Division. In Paragraph 30 of Fritzsche’s affidavit, document book Page 27, Fritzsche speaks of the conspirators’ treatment of this episode as follows:

“Very complicated and varying was the press and propagandists treatment in the case of Poland. Under the influence of the German-Polish Agreement, the German press was for many years forbidden, on principle, to publish anything on the situation of the German minority in Poland. This was still the case when in the spring of 1939 the German press was asked to become somewhat more active as to the problem of Danzig. Also when the first Polish-English conversations took place and the German press was advised to use a sharper tone against Poland, the question of the German minority still remained in the background. At first during the summer this problem was picked up again and created immediately a noticeable sharpening of the situation. Each larger German newspaper had for some time quite an abundance of material on complaints and grievances of the Germans in Poland without the editors having had a chance to use this material. The German papers, from the time of the minority discussions at Geneva, still had correspondents or free collaborators in Katowice, Bydgoszcz, Posen, Toruń, _et cetera_. Their material now came forth with a bound. Concerning this, the leading German newspapers brought but in accordance with directions given for the so-called daily paroles the following articles, in conspicuous setting: (1) Cruelty and terror against racial Germans and the extermination of racial Germans in Poland; (2) Construction of field works by thousands of racial German men and women in Poland; (3) Poland, land of servitude and disorder; the desertion of Polish soldiers; the increased inflation in Poland; (4) provocation of frontier clashes upon direction of the Polish Government; the Polish aspirations for conquest; (5) persecution of Czechs and Ukrainians by Poland. The Polish press retorted hotly.”

The press campaign preceding the invasion of Yugoslavia followed the conventional pattern. You will find the customary defamations, the lies, the incitement and the threats, and the usual attempt to divide and to weaken the victim. Paragraph 32 of the Fritzsche affidavit, your document book Page 28, outlines this propaganda action as follows:

“During the period immediately preceding the invasion of Yugoslavia, on the 6th of April 1941, the German press emphasized by headlines and leading articles the following boldly made up announcements: (1) The systematic persecution of racial Germans in Yugoslavia including the burning down of German villages by Serbian soldiers and the confining of racial Germans in concentration camps, as well as the physical mishandling of German-speaking persons; (2) the arming of Serbian bandits by the Serbian Government; (3) the indictment of Yugoslavia by the plutocrats against Germany; (4) growing anti-Serbian feeling in Croatia; (5) the chaotic situation of the economic and social conditions in Yugoslavia.”

Since Germany had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and because these conspirators wanted the advantage of surprise, there was no special propaganda campaign immediately preceding the attack on the U.S.S.R. Fritzsche in Paragraph 33 of his affidavit discussed the propaganda line, however, for the justification of this aggressive war to the German people:

“During the night from the 21st to the 22d of June 1941, Ribbentrop called me in at about 5 o’clock in the morning for a conference in the Foreign Office at which representatives of the domestic and foreign press were present. Ribbentrop informed us that the war against the Soviet Union would start that same day and asked the German press to present the war against the Soviet Union as a preventive war for the defense of the fatherland, a war which was forced upon us by the imminent danger of an attack of the Soviet Union against Germany. The claim that this was a preventive war was later repeated by the newspapers which received their instructions from me during the usual daily parole of the Reich Press Chief. I myself have also given this presentation of the cause of the war in my regular broadcasts.”

Fritzsche, throughout his affidavit, constantly refers to his technical and expert assistance to the colossal apparatus of the Propaganda Ministry. In 1939 he apparently became dissatisfied with the efficiency of the existing facilities of the German Press Division in furnishing grist for the propaganda mill and for its intrigues. He established a new instrument for improving the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda. In Paragraph 19 of his affidavit, Page 24 of your document book, Fritzsche describes this new propaganda instrument as follows:

“About the summer of 1939 I established within the German Press Division a section called ‘Speed Service.’”

And then skipping and quoting again:

“. . . at the start it had the task of checking the correctness of news from foreign countries. Later on, about the fall of 1939, this section also worked on the compilation of material which was put at the disposal of the entire German press: For instance, dates from the British Colonial policy, political statements of the British Prime Minister in former times, descriptions of social distress in hostile countries, _et cetera_. Almost all German newspapers used such material as a basis for their polemics, whereby close concentration in the fighting front of the German press was gained. The title ‘Speed Service’ was chosen because materials for current comments were supplied with particular speed.”

Throughout this entire period preceding and including the launching of aggressive war, Fritzsche made regular radio broadcasts to the German people under the following titles: “Political Newspaper Review,” “Political and Radio Show,” and later “Hans Fritzsche Speaks.” His broadcasts naturally reflected the polemics and the control of his Ministry and thus of the Common Plan or Conspiracy.

We of the Prosecution contend that Fritzsche, one of the most eminent of Goebbels’ propaganda team, helped substantially to bathe the world in the blood bath of aggressive war.

With the Tribunal’s consent I will now pass to proof bearing on Fritzsche’s incitement of atrocities and his encouragement of a ruthless occupation policy. The results of propaganda as a weapon of the Nazi conspirators reach into every aspect of this conspiracy, including the abnormal and inhuman conduct involved in the atrocities and the ruthless exploitation of occupied countries. Most of the ordinary members of the German nation would never have participated in or tolerated the atrocities committed throughout Europe if they had not been conditioned and goaded to barbarous convictions and misconceptions by the constant grinding of the Nazi propaganda machine. Indeed, the propagandists who lent themselves to this evil mission of instigation and incitement are more guilty than the credulous and callous minions who headed the firing squads or operated the gas chambers, of which we have heard so much in this proceeding. For the very credulity and callousness of those minions was in large part due to the constant and evil propaganda of Fritzsche and his official associates.

With respect to Jews, the Department of Propaganda within the Propaganda Ministry had a special branch for the “Enlightenment of the German people and of the world as to the Jewish question, fighting with propagandistic weapons against enemies of the State and hostile ideologies.” This quotation is taken from a book written in 1940 by Ministerial Director Müller, entitled _The Propaganda Ministry_. It is found in Document Number 2434(a)-PS, your document book Page 10, offered in evidence as Exhibit USA-722. It is another excerpt from Ministerial Director Müller’s book and I merely ask that you take judicial notice of it for that one sentence that I have read.

Fritzsche took a particularly active part in this “enlightenment” concerning the Jewish question in his radio broadcasts. These broadcasts literally teemed with provocative libels against Jews, the only logical result of which was to inflame Germany to further atrocities against the helpless Jews who came within its physical power. Document Number 3064-PS contains a number of complete broadcasts by Fritzsche which were monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation and translated by BBC officials. For the convenience of the Tribunal, I have had those excerpts upon which the Prosecution relies to show illustrative types of Fritzsche’s broadcasts mimeographed and made into one document, which I offer in evidence as Exhibit USA-723. Even the Defendant Streicher, the master Jew-baiter of all time, could scarcely outdo Fritzsche in some of his slanders against the Jews. All the excerpts in Document Number 3064-PS are from speeches by Fritzsche given on the radio between 1941 and 1945, which we have already proven was a period of intensified anti-Jewish measures. With the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to read some of these excerpts.

Page 14 of our document book, Item 1, from a broadcast of 18 December 1941—it is found on Page 2122 of the translations from BBC:

“The fate of Jewry in Europe has turned out to be as unpleasant as the Führer predicted it would be in the event of a European war. After the extension of the war instigated by Jews, this fate may also spread to the New World, for it can hardly be assumed that the nations of this New World will pardon the Jews for the misery of which the nations of the Old World did not absolve them.”

From a radio broadcast of 18 March 1941, found at Page 2032 of the BBC translations:

“But the crown of all wrongly-applied Rooseveltian logic is the sentence: ‘There never was a race and there never will be a race which can serve the rest of mankind as a master.’ Here, too, we can only applaud Mr. Roosevelt. It is precisely because there exists no race which can be the master of the rest of mankind, that we Germans have taken the liberty to break the domination of Jewry and of its capital in Germany, of Jewry which believed it had inherited the crown of secret world domination.”

In passing, I would merely like to note that it seems to us that that is not only applause for past acts concerning persecution of Jews but an announcement that more is coming and an encouragement of what was coming.

I would like to read another excerpt from the 9th of October 1941 broadcast, translated at Page 2101 of the BBC translation:

“We know very well that these German victories, unparalleled in history, have not yet stopped the source of hatred which for a long time has fed the warmongers and from which this war originated. The international Jewish-Democratic-Bolshevistic campaign of incitement against Germany still finds cover in this or that fox’s lair or rat hole. We have seen only too frequently how the defeats suffered by the warmongers only doubled their senseless and impotent fury.”

Another broadcast of the 8th January 1944—Your Honors, I have tried to pick out illustrative broadcasts from different periods here:

“It is revealed clearly once more that not a new system of government, not a young nationalism, and not a new and well-applied socialism brought about this war. The guilty ones are exclusively the Jews and the plutocrats. If discussion on the post-war problems brings this to light so clearly, we welcome it as a contribution for later discussions and also as a contribution to the fight we are waging now, for we refuse to believe that world history will entrust its future development to those powers which have brought about this war. This clique of Jews and plutocrats have invested their money in armaments and they had to see to it that they would get their interests and sinking funds; hence they unleashed this war.”

Concerning Jews, I had one last quotation from the year 1945. It is from a broadcast of the 13th of January 1945, found on Pages 2258 and 2259 of the BBC translations:

“If Jewry provided a link between such divergent elements as plutocracy and Bolshevism and if Jewry was first able to work successfully in the democratic countries in preparing this war against Germany, it has by now placed itself unreservedly on the side of Bolshevism which, with its entirely mistaken slogans of racial freedom against racial hatred, has created the very conditions the Jewish race requires in its struggle for domination, over other races.”

And then skipping a few lines in that quotation:

“Not the last result of German resistance on all the fronts, so unexpected to the enemy, is the fruition of a development which began in the pre-war years, that is, the process of subordinating British policy to far-reaching Jewish points of view. This development started long before this when Jewish emigrants from Germany commenced their warmongering against us from British and American soil.”

And then skipping several sentences and going to the last sentence on that page.

“This whole attempt, aiming at the establishment of Jewish world domination, was obviously made at a time when the national-racial consciousness had been too far awakened to promise such an aim success.”

Your Honors, we suggest that that is an invitation to further persecution of the Jews and, indeed, to their elimination.

Fritzsche also incited and encouraged ruthless measures against the peoples of the U.S.S.R. In his regular broadcasts Fritzsche’s incitements against the peoples of the U.S.S.R. were often linked to, and were certainly as inflammatory as, his slanders against the Jews. If these slanders were not so tragic in their relation to the murder of millions of people, they would be comical, indeed ludicrous. It is ironic that the propaganda libels against the peoples of the U.S.S.R. concerning atrocities actually described some of the many atrocities committed by the German invaders, as we now well know. The following quotations are again taken from the BBC intercepted broadcasts and their translations, beginning shortly after the invasion of the U.S.S.R. in June 1941. The first one is taken again from Page 16 of our document book. I will read only the last half of Item 7, beginning with the third paragraph:

“As can be sufficiently seen by letters reaching us from the front, from P.K. reporters”—and may I interrupt my quotation there to say that “P.K.” stands for “Propaganda Kompanie,” propaganda companies which were attached to the German Army wherever it went—“P.K. reporters and soldiers on leave, in this struggle in the East not one political system is pitted against another, not one philosophy is fighting another, but culture, civilization, and human dignity have stood up against the diabolical principle of a subhuman world.”

And then another quote in the next paragraph:

“It was only the Führer’s decision to strike in time that saved our homeland from the fate of being overrun by those subhuman creatures, and our men, women, and children from the unspeakable horror of becoming their prey.”

In the next broadcast I want to quote from, 10th of July 1941, in the first paragraph Fritzsche speaks of the inhuman deeds committed in areas controlled by the Soviet Union, and he states that one, upon seeing the evidence of those deeds committed, comes—and here I quote:

“. . . finally to make the holy resolve to lend one’s assistance in the final destruction of those who are capable of such dastardly acts.”

And then quoting again, the last paragraph:

“The Bolshevist agitators made no effort to deny that in towns, thousands, and in the villages, hundreds of corpses of men, women, and children have been found, who had been either killed or tortured to death. In spite of this Bolshevik agitators assert that this was not done by Soviet commissars but by German soldiers. But we know our German soldiers. No German women, fathers, or mothers require proofs that their husbands or their sons cannot have committed such atrocious acts.”

Evidence already in the Record, or shortly to be offered in this case by our Soviet colleagues, will prove that representatives of these Nazi conspirators did not hesitate to exterminate Soviet soldiers and civilians by scientific mass methods. These inciting remarks by Fritzsche made him an accomplice in these crimes because his labeling of the Soviet peoples as members of a “subhuman world” seeking to “exterminate” the German people and similar desperate talk helped, by these propaganda diatribes, to fashion the psychological atmosphere of utter and complete unreason and the hatred which instigated and made possible these atrocities in the East.

Although we cannot say that Fritzsche directed that 10,000 or 100,000 persons be exterminated, it is enough to pause on this question: Without these incitements of Fritzsche, how much harder it would have been for these conspirators to have effected the conditions which made possible the extermination of millions of people in the East.

THE PRESIDENT: Would that be a convenient time to break off?

[_A recess was taken._]

CAPT. SPRECHER: Fritzsche encouraged, affirmed, and glorified the policy of the Nazi conspirators in ruthlessly exploiting the occupied countries. Again I read an excerpt from his radio broadcast of the 9th of October 1941, found at Pages 2102 and 2103 of the BBC translation. I would like to cut it down, but it is one of those long German sentences that just cannot be broken down:

“Today we can only say: Blitzkrieg or not, this German thunderstorm has cleansed the atmosphere of Europe. Certainly it is quite true that the dangers threatening us were eliminated one after the other with lightning speed but in these lightning blows which shattered England’s allies on the continent, we saw not a proof of the weakness, but a proof of the strength and superiority of the Führer’s gift as a statesman and military leader; a proof of the German peoples’ might; we saw the proof that no opponent can rival the courage, discipline, and readiness for sacrifice displayed by the German soldier, and we are particularly grateful for these lightning, incomparable victories, because—as the Führer emphasized last Friday—they give us the possibility of embarking on the organization of Europe and on the lifting of the treasures”—I would like to repeat that—“lifting of the treasures of this old continent, already now in the middle of war, without its being necessary for millions and millions of German soldiers to be on guard, fighting day and night along this or that threatened frontier; and the possibilities of this continent are so rich that they suffice to supply all needs in peace or war.”

Concerning the exploitation of foreign countries, Fritzsche states himself, at Paragraph 39 of his affidavit:

“The utilization of the productive capacity of the occupied countries for the strengthening of the German war potential, I have openly and with praise pointed out, all the more so as the competent authorities put at my disposal much material, especially on the voluntary placement of manpower.”

Fritzsche was a credulous propagandist indeed if he gloriously praised the exploitation policy of the German Reich, chiefly or especially because the competent authorities gave him a sales talk on the voluntary placement of manpower.

I come now to Fritzsche as the high commander of the entire German radio system. Fritzsche continued as the head of the German Press Division until after the conspirators had begun the last of their aggressions. In November 1942, Goebbels created a new position, that of Plenipotentiary for the Political Organization of the Greater German Radio, a position which Fritzsche was the first and the last to hold. In Paragraph 36, Document Number 3469-PS, the Fritzsche affidavit, Fritzsche narrates how the entire German radio and television system was organized under his supervision. That is at Page 29 of your document book. He states:

“My office practically represented the high command of German radio.”

As special Plenipotentiary for the Political Organization of the Greater German Radio, Fritzsche issued orders to all the Reich propaganda offices by teletype. These were used first in conforming the entire radio apparatus of Germany to the desires of the conspirators.

Goebbels customarily held an 11 o’clock conference with his closest collaborators within the Propaganda Ministry. When both Goebbels and his undersecretary, Dr. Naumann, were absent, Goebbels, after 1943, entrusted Fritzsche with the holding of this 11 o’clock press conference.

In Document Number 3255-PS the Court will find Goebbels’ praise of Fritzsche’s broadcasts. This praise was given in Goebbels’ introduction to a book by Fritzsche called, _War to the War Mongers_. I would like to offer the quotation in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-724, from the _Rundfunk Archiv_, at Page 18 of Your Honors’ document book. This is Goebbels speaking:

“Nobody knows better than I how much work is involved in those broadcasts, how many times they were dictated within the last minutes to find some minutes later a willing ear by the whole nation.”

So we have it from Goebbels himself that the entire German nation was prepared to lend willing ears to Fritzsche, after he had made his reputation on the radio.

The rumor passed that Fritzsche was “His Master’s Voice” (Die Stimme seines Herrn). This is certainly borne out by Fritzsche’s functions. When Fritzsche spoke on the radio it was indeed plain to the German people that they were listening to the high command of the conspirators in this field.

Fritzsche is not being presented by the Prosecution as the type of conspirator who signed decrees or as the type of conspirator who sat in the inner councils planning all of the over-all grand strategy of these conspirators. The function of propaganda is, for the most part, apart from the field of such planning. The function of a propaganda agency is somewhat more analogous to an advertising agency or public relations department, the job of which is to sell the product and to win the market for the enterprise in question. Here the enterprise, we submit, was the Nazi conspiracy. In a conspiracy to commit fraud, the gifted salesman of the conspiratorial group is quite as essential and quite as culpable as the master planners, even though he may not have contributed substantially to the formulation of all the basic strategy, but rather contributed to the artful execution of this strategy.

In this case the Prosecution most emphatically contends that propaganda was a weapon of tremendous importance to this conspiracy. We further contend that the leading propagandists were major accomplices in this conspiracy, and further, that Fritzsche was a major propagandist.

When Fritzsche entered the Propaganda Ministry, the most fabulous “lie factory” of all time, and thus attached himself to this conspiracy, he did this with a more open mind than most of these conspirators who had committed themselves at an earlier date, before the seizure of power. He was in a particularly strategic position to observe the frauds committed upon the German people and upon the world by these conspirators.

The Tribunal will recall that in 1933, before Fritzsche took his party oath of unconditional obedience and subservience to the Führer and thus abdicated his moral responsibility to these conspirators, he had observed at first-hand the operations of the storm troopers and the Nazi race pattern in action. When, notwithstanding this, Fritzsche undertook to bring the German news agencies in their entirety within fascist control, he learned from the inside, from Goebbels’ own lips, much of the cynical intrigue and many of the bold lies against opposition groups within and without Germany. He observed, for example, the opposition journalists, a profession to which he had previously been attached, being forced out of existence, crushed to the ground, either absorbed or eliminated. He continued to support the conspiracy. He learned from day to day the art of intrigue and quackery in the process of perverting the German nation, and he grew in prestige and influence as he practiced this art.

The Tribunal will also recall that Fritzsche had said that his predecessor Berndt fell from the leadership of the German Press Division partly because he overplayed his hand by the successful but blunt and overdone manipulation of the Sudetenland propaganda. Fritzsche stepped into the gap which had been caused by the loss of confidence of both the editors and the German people, and Fritzsche did his job well.

No doubt Fritzsche was not as blunt as the man he succeeded; but Fritzsche’s relative shrewdness and subtlety, his very ability to be more assuring and “to find,” as Goebbels said, “the willing ears of the whole nation,” these things made him the more useful accomplice of these conspirators.

Nazi Germany and its press went into the actual phase of war operations with Fritzsche at the head of the particular propaganda instrument controlling the German press and German news, whether by the press or by radio. In 1942 when Fritzsche transferred from the field of the press to the field of radio, he was not removed for bungling but only because Goebbels then needed him most in the field of radio. Fritzsche is not in the dock as a free journalist, but as an efficient, controlled Nazi propagandist, a propagandist who helped substantially to tighten the Nazi stranglehold over the German people, a propagandist who made the excesses of these conspirators more palatable to the consciences of the German people themselves, a propagandist who cynically proclaimed the barbarous racialism which is at the very heart of this conspiracy, a propagandist who coldly goaded humble Germans to blind fury against people they were told by him were subhuman and guilty of all the suffering of Germany, suffering which indeed these Nazis themselves, had invited.

In conclusion, I wish to say only this. Without the propaganda apparatus of the Nazi State it is clear that the world, including Germany, would not have suffered the catastrophe of these years; and it is because of Fritzsche’s able role on behalf of the Nazi conspirators and their deceitful and barbarous practices in connection with the conspiracy that he is called to account before this International Tribunal.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom): May it please the Tribunal, it was intended that the next presentation would be by Colonel Griffith-Jones in the case of the Defendant Hess. I understand that the Tribunal has in mind that it might be better if that were left for the moment; if so, Major Harcourt Barrington is prepared to make the presentation with regard to the Defendant Von Papen.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. We understood that the Defendant Hess’s counsel could not be present today, and therefore it was better to go on with one of the others.

SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If your Lordship pleases, then Major Harcourt Barrington will deal with the presentation against the Defendant Von Papen.

MAJOR J. HARCOURT BARRINGTON (Junior Counsel for the United Kingdom): My Lord, I understand that the court interpreters have not got the proper papers and document books up here yet, but they can get them in a very few minutes. Would your Lordship prefer that I should go on or wait until they have got them?

THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Go on then.

MAJOR BARRINGTON: May it please the Tribunal, it is my duty to present the case against the Defendant Von Papen. Before I begin I would like to say that the documents in the document books are arranged numerically and not in the order of presentation, and that the English document books are paged in red chalk at the bottom of the page.

THE PRESIDENT: Does that mean that the French and the Soviet are not?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: My Lord, we did not prepare French and Soviet document books.

THE PRESIDENT: Major Barrington, the French members of the Tribunal have no document books at all.

MAJOR BARRINGTON: My Lord, there should be a German document book for the French member. I understand it is now being fetched. Should I wait until it arrives?

THE PRESIDENT: I think you can go on.

MAJOR BARRINGTON: The Defendant Papen is charged primarily with the guilt of conspiracy, and the proof of this charge of conspiracy will emerge automatically from the proof of the four allegations specified in Appendix A of the Indictment. These are as follows:

(1) He promoted the accession of the Nazi conspirators to power.

(2) He participated in the consolidation of their control over Germany.

(3) He promoted the preparations for war.

(4) He participated in the political planning and preparation of the Nazi conspirators for wars of aggression, _et cetera_.

Broadly speaking, the case against Von Papen covers the period from the 1st of June 1932 to the conclusion of the Anschluss in March 1938.

So far in this Trial, almost the only evidence specifically implicating Von Papen has been evidence in regard to his activities in Austria. This evidence need only be summarized now. But if the case against Von Papen rested on Austria alone, the Prosecution would be in the position of relying on a period during which the essence of his task was studied plausibility and in which his whole purpose was to clothe his operations with a cloak of sincerity and innocent respectability. It is therefore desirable to put the evidence already given in its true perspective by showing in addition the active and prominent part he played for the Nazis before he went to Austria.

Papen himself claims to have rejected many times Hitler’s request that he should actually join the Nazi Party. Until 1938 this may indeed have been true, for he was shrewd enough to see the advantage of maintaining, at least outwardly, his personal independence. It will be my object to show that, despite his facade of independence, Papen was an ardent member of this conspiracy and, in spite of warnings and rebuffs, was unable to resist its fascination.

In the submission of the Prosecution, the key to Von Papen’s activities is that, although perhaps not a typical Nazi, he was an unscrupulous political opportunist and ready to fall in with the Nazis when it suited him. He was not unpracticed in duplicity and viewed with an apparent indifference the contradictions and betrayals which his duplicity inevitably involved. One of his chief weapons was fraudulent assurance.

Before dealing with the specific charges, I will refer to Document 2902-PS, which is on Page 38 of the English document book, and I put it in as Exhibit GB-233. This is Von Papen’s own signed statement showing his appointments. It is not in chronological order, but I will read the relevant parts as they come. I need not read the whole of it. The Tribunal will note that this statement is written by Dr. Kubuschok, Counsel for Von Papen, although it is signed by Von Papen himself. Paragraph 1:

“Von Papen many times rejected Hitler’s request to join the NSDAP. Hitler simply sent him the Golden Party Badge. In my opinion, legally speaking, he did not thereby become a member of the Party.”

Interposing there, My Lord, the fact that he was officially regarded as having become a member in 1938 will be shown by a document which I shall refer to later.

Going on to Paragraph 2:

“From 1933 to 1945 Von Papen was a member of the Reichstag.”

Paragraph 3:

“Von Papen was Reich Chancellor from the 1st of June 1932 to the 17th of November 1932. He carried on the duties of Reich Chancellor until his successor took office—until the 2d of December 1932.”

Paragraph 4:

“On the 30th of January 1933 Von Papen was appointed Vice Chancellor. From the 30th of June 1934”—which was the date of the Blood Purge—“he ceased to exercise official duties. On that day he was placed under arrest. Immediately after his release on the 3rd of July 1934 he went to the Reich Chancellery to hand in his resignation to Hitler.”

The rest of that paragraph I need not read. It is an argument which concerns the authenticity or otherwise of his signature as it appears in the _Reichsgesetzblatt_ to certain decrees in August 1934. I am prepared to agree with his contention that his signature on those decrees may not have been correct and may have been a mistake. He admits holding office only to the 3rd of July 1934.

He was, as the Tribunal will also remember, in virtue of being Reich Chancellor, a member of the Reich Cabinet.

Going on to Paragraph 5:

“On the 13th of November 1933, Von Papen became Plenipotentiary for the Saar. This office was terminated under the same circumstances described under Paragraph 4.”

The rest of the document I need not read. It concerns his appointments to Vienna and Ankara, which are matters of history. He was appointed Minister to Vienna on the 26th of July 1934, and recalled on the 4th of February 1938, and he was Ambassador in Ankara from April 1939 until August 1944.

The first allegation against the Defendant Von Papen is that he used his personal influence to promote the accession of the Nazi conspirators to power. From the outset Von Papen was well aware of the Nazi program and Nazi methods. There can be no question of his having encouraged the Nazis through ignorance of these facts. The official NSDAP program was open and notorious; it had been published in _Mein Kampf_ for many years; it had been published and republished in the _Yearbook of the NSDAP_ and elsewhere. The Nazis made no secret of their intention to make it a fundamental law of the State. This has been dealt with in full at an earlier stage of the Trial.

During 1932 Von Papen as Reich Chancellor was in a particularly good position to understand the Nazi purpose and methods; and in fact, he publicly acknowledged the Nazi menace. Take, for instance, his Münster speech on the 28th of August 1932. This is Document 3314-PS, on Page 49 of the English document book, and I now put it in as Exhibit GB-234, and I quote two extracts at the top of the page:

“The licentiousness emanating from the appeal of the leader of the National Socialist movement does not comply very well with his claims to governmental power. . . . I do not concede him the right to regard only the minority following his banner as the German nation and to treat all other fellow countrymen as free game.”

Take also his Munich speech of the 13th of October 1932. That is on Page 50 of the English document book, Document Number 3317-PS, which I now put in as Exhibit GB-235, and I will simply read the last extract on the page:

“In the interest of the entire nation, we decline the claim to power by parties which want to bind their followers body and soul and which want to identify their party or movement with the German nation.”

I do not rely on these random extracts to show anything more than that he had, in 1932, clearly addressed his mind to the inherent lawlessness of the Nazi philosophy. Nevertheless, in his letter to Hitler of the 13 of November 1932, which I shall quote more fully later, he wrote of the Nazi movement as, I quote:

“. . . so great a national movement, the merits of which for people and country I have always recognized in spite of necessary criticisms . . . .”

So variable and so seemingly contradictory were Von Papen’s acts and utterances regarding the Nazis that it is not possible to present the picture of Papen’s part in this infamous enterprise unless one first reviews the steps by which he entered upon it. It then becomes clear that he threw himself, if not wholeheartedly, yet with cool and deliberate calculation, into the Nazi conspiracy.

I shall enumerate some of the principal steps by which Papen fell in with the Nazi conspiracy.

As a result of his first personal contact with Hitler, Von Papen as Chancellor rescinded, on the 14th of June 1932, the decree passed on the 13th of April 1932 for the dissolution of the Nazi para-military organizations, the SA and the SS. He thereby rendered the greatest possible service to the Nazi Party, inasmuch as it relied upon its para-military organizations to beat the German people into submission. The decree rescinding the dissolution of the SA and the SS is shown in Document D-631, on Page 64 of the document book; and I now put it in as Exhibit GB-236. It is an extract from the _Reichsgesetzblatt_, which was an omnibus decree. The relevant passage is in Paragraph 20:

“This order comes into operation from the day of announcement. It takes the place of the Decree of the Reich President for the Safeguarding of the State Authority of . . . .”—the date should be the 13th of April 1932.

THE PRESIDENT: Which page of the document book is it?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: I am sorry, My Lord; it is Page 64. And the date shown there should not be the 3rd of May 1932, it should be the 13th of April 1932. That was the decree which had previously dissolved the Nazi para-military organizations under the Government of Chancellor Brüning. At the bottom of the page the Tribunal will see the relevant parts of the decree of the 13th of April reproduced. At the beginning of Paragraph 1 of that decree it said:

“All organizations of a military nature of the German National Socialist Labor Party will be dissolved with immediate effect, particularly the SA and the SS.”

This rescission by Von Papen was done in pursuance of a bargain made with Hitler which is mentioned in a book called _Dates from the History of the NSDAP_ by Dr. Hans Volz, a book published with the authority of the NSDAP. It is already an exhibit, Exhibit USA-592. The extract I want to quote is on Page 59 of the document book, and it is Document Number 3463-PS. I quote an extract from Page 41 of this little book:

“28th of May”—that was in 1932, of course—“In view of the imminent fall of Brüning, at a meeting between the former Deputy of the Prussian Center Party, Franz Von Papen, and the Führer in Berlin (first personal contact in spring 1932); the Führer agrees that a Papen cabinet should be tolerated by the NSDAP, provided that the prohibitions imposed on the SA, uniforms, and demonstrations be lifted and the Reichstag dissolved.”

It is difficult to imagine a less astute opening gambit for a man who was about to become Chancellor than to reinstate this sinister organization which had been suppressed by his predecessor. This action emphasizes the characteristic duplicity and insincerity of his public condemnations of the Nazis which I quoted a few minutes ago.

Eighteen months later he publicly boasted that at the time of taking over the chancellorship he had advocated paving the way to power for what he called the “young fighting liberation movement.” That will be shown in Document 3375-PS, which I shall introduce in a few minutes.

Another important step was when, on the 20th of July 1932, he accomplished his famous _coup d’état_ in Prussia which removed the Braun-Severing Prussian Government and united the ruling power of the Reich and Prussia in his own hands as Reichskommissar for Prussia. This is now a matter of history. It is mentioned in Document D-632, which I now introduce as Exhibit GB-237. It is on Page 65 of the document book. This document is, I think, a semi-official biography in a series of public men.

Papen regarded this step, his _coup d’état_ in Prussia, as a first step in the policy later pursued by Hitler of coordinating the states with the Reich, which will be shown in Document 3357-PS, which I shall come to later.

The next step, if the Tribunal will look at Document D-632, on Page 65 of the document book, the last four or five lines at the bottom of the page:

“The Reichstag elections of the 31st of July, which were the result of Von Papen’s disbandment of the Reichstag on the 4th of June”—which was made in pursuance of the bargain that I mentioned a few minutes ago—“strengthened enormously the NSDAP, so that Von Papen offered to the leader of the now strongest party his participation in the government as Vice Chancellor. Adolf Hitler rejected this offer on the 13th of August.

“The new Reichstag, which assembled on the 30th of August, was disbanded by the 12th of September. The new elections brought about a considerable loss to the NSDAP, but did not strengthen the Government parties, so that Papen’s Government retired on the 17th of November 1932 after unsuccessful negotiations with the Party leaders.”

My Lord, I shall wish to quote a few more extracts from that biography, but as it is a mere catalogue of events, perhaps Your Lordship would allow me to return to it at the appropriate time.

So far as those negotiations mentioned just now in the biography concern Hitler, they involved an exchange of letters in which Von Papen wrote to Hitler on the 13th of November 1932. That letter is Document D-633, on Page 68 of the English document book, and I now put it in as Exhibit GB-238. I propose to read a part of this letter, because it shows the positive efforts made by Papen to ally himself with the Nazis, even in face of further rebuffs from Hitler. I read the third paragraph. I should tell the Tribunal that there is some underlining in the English translation of that paragraph which does not occur in the German text:

“A new situation has arisen through the elections of November the 6th, and at the same time a new opportunity for a consolidation of all nationalist elements. The Reich President has instructed me to find out by conversations with the leaders of the individual parties concerned whether and how far they are ready to support the carrying out of the political and economic program on which the Reich Government has embarked. Although the National Socialist press has been writing that it is a naive attempt for Reich Chancellor Von Papen to try to confer with personalities representing the nationalist concentration, and that there can only be one answer, ‘No negotiations with Papen,’ I would consider it neglecting my duties, and I would be unable to justify it to my own conscience, if I did not approach you in the spirit of the order given to me. I am quite aware from the papers that you are maintaining your demands to be entrusted with the Chancellor’s Office, and I am equally aware of the continued existence of the reasons for the decision of August the 13th. I need not assure you again that I myself do not claim any personal consideration at all. All the same, I am of the opinion that the leader of so great a national movement, whose merits for people and country I have always recognized in spite of necessary criticism, should not refuse to enter into discussions on the situation and the decisions required with the presently leading and responsible German statesman. We must attempt to forget the bitterness of the elections and to place the cause of the country which we are mutually serving above all other considerations.”

Hitler replied on 16 November 1932 in a long letter, laying down terms which were evidently unacceptable to Von Papen, since he resigned the next day and was succeeded by Von Schleicher. That document is D-634, put in as part of Exhibit GB-238 as it is part of the same correspondence. I need not read from the letter itself.

Then came the meetings between Papen and Hitler in January 1933, in the houses of Von Schröder and of Ribbentrop, culminating in Von Schleicher being succeeded by Hitler as Reich Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Referring back again to the biography on Page 66 of the document book, there is an account of the meeting at Schröder’s house, the second paragraph on the page:

“The meeting with Hitler, which took place in the beginning of January 1933, in the house of the banker Baron Von Schröder in Cologne, is due to his initiative”—that means, of course Papen’s initiative—“although Von Schröder was the mediator. Both Von Papen and Hitler later made public statements about this meeting (press of 6 January 1933). After the rapid downfall of Von Schleicher on the 28th of January 1933, the Hitler-Von Papen-Hugenberg-Seldte Cabinet was formed on the 30th of January 1933 as a government of national solidarity. In this cabinet Von Papen held the office of Vice Chancellor and Reich Commissioner for Prussia.”

The meetings at Ribbentrop’s house, at which Papen was also present, have been mentioned by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe (Document D-472, which was Exhibit GB-130).

I now wish to introduce into evidence an affidavit by Von Schröder, but I understand that Dr. Kubuschok wishes to take an objection to this. Perhaps before Dr. Kubuschok takes his objection it might help if I said, quite openly, that Schröder is now in custody, and according to my information he is at Frankfurt; so that physically he undoubtedly could be called. Perhaps I might also say at this moment that there would be no objection from the Prosecution’s point of view to interrogatories being administered to Von Schröder on the subject matter of this affidavit.

DR. EGON KUBUSCHOK (Counsel for Defendant Von Papen): I object to the reading of the affidavit of Schröder. I know that in individual cases the Tribunal has permitted the reading of affidavits. This occurred under Article 19 of the Charter, which is based on the proposition that the Trial should be conducted as speedily as possible and that for this reason the Tribunal should order the rules of ordinary court procedure in that respect. Of decisive importance, therefore, is the speediness of the Trial. But in our case the reading of the affidavit cannot be approved for that reason.

Our case is quite analogous to the case that was decided on the 14th of December with regard to Kurt Von Schuschnigg’s affidavit. Schröder is in the vicinity. Schröder was apparently brought to the neighborhood of Nuremberg for the purposes of this Trial. The affidavit was taken down on 5 December. He could be brought here at any time. The reading of the affidavit would have the consequence that I would have to refer not only to him but also to several other witnesses, because Schröder describes a series of facts in his affidavit which in their entirety are not needed for the finding of a decision. However, once introduced into the Trial, they must also be discussed by the Defense in the pursuance of its duty.

The affidavit discusses internal political matters, using improper terms. For this reason misunderstandings would be brought into the Trial which could be obviated by the hearing of a witness I believe, therefore, that the oral testimony of a witness should be the only way in which Schröder’s testimony should be submitted to the Tribunal, since otherwise a large number of witnesses will have to be called along with the reading of Schröder’s affidavit and his personal interrogation.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you finished?

DR. KUBUSCHOK: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you wish to make any observation?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: Yes, I do, My Lord. The Tribunal has been asked to exclude this affidavit, using as a precedent the decision on Von Schuschnigg’s affidavit. I think I am correct in saying that Von Schuschnigg’s affidavit was excluded as an exception to the general rule on affidavits which the Tribunal laid down earlier the same day when Mr. Messersmith’s affidavit was accepted. Perhaps Your Lordship will allow me to read from the transcript the Tribunal’s decision on the affidavit of Messersmith.

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Messersmith was in Mexico, was he not?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: That is so, My Lord; yes.

THE PRESIDENT: So that the difference between him and Schuschnigg in that regard was very considerable.

MAJOR BARRINGTON: In that regard, but what I was going to say was this, My Lord: In ruling on Messersmith’s affidavit Your Lordship said:

“In view of those provisions”—that is Article 19 of the Charter—“the Tribunal holds that affidavits can be presented and that in the present case it is a proper course. The question of the probative value of the affidavit as compared with the witness who has been cross-examined would, of course, be considered by the Tribunal, and if at a later stage the Tribunal thinks the presence of a witness is of extreme importance, the matter can be reconsidered.”

And Your Lordship added:

“If the Defense wish to put interrogatories to the witness, they will be at liberty to do so.”

Now in the afternoon of that day, when Schuschnigg’s affidavit came up . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Which day was this?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: This was the 28th of November, My Lord. It is on Page 473 (Volume II, Page 352) of the transcript, the Messersmith affidavit; and Page 523 (Volume II, Page 384) is the Schuschnigg affidavit.

Now, when the objection was taken to the Schuschnigg affidavit, the objection was put in these words:

“Today when the resolution was announced in respect of the use to be made of the written affidavit of Mr. Messersmith, the Court was of the opinion that in a case of very great importance possibly it would take a different view of the matter.”—And then defense counsel went on to say—“As it is a case of such an important witness, the principle of direct evidence must be adhered to.”

THE PRESIDENT: Have you a reference to a subsequent occasion on which we heard Mr. Justice Jackson upon this subject, when Mr. Justice Jackson submitted to us that on the strict interpretation of Article 19 we were bound to admit any evidence which we deemed to have probative value?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: My Lord, I haven’t got that reference.

THE PRESIDENT: Why don’t you call this witness?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: I say, quite frankly—and I was coming on to that—this witness is in a position of being an alleged co-conspirator, and I do not make any secret of the fact that for obvious reasons the Prosecution would not desire to call him as a witness, and I put this affidavit forward as an admission by a co-conspirator. I admit that it is not an admission made in pursuance of the conspiracy, but I submit that by technical rules of evidence, this affidavit may be accepted in evidence as an admission by a co-conspirator; and as I said before, there will be no objection to administering interrogatories on the subject matter of this affidavit, and indeed, the witness would be available to be called as a defense witness if required.

That is all I have to say on that, My Lord.

THE PRESIDENT: There would be no objection to bringing the witness here for the purpose of cross-examination upon the affidavit?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: I don’t think there could be any objection if it were confined to the subject matter of the affidavit. I would not like . . .

THE PRESIDENT: How could you object, for instance, to the defendant himself applying to call the witness?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: As I said, I don’t think there could be any objection to that, My Lord.

THE PRESIDENT: The result would be the same, wouldn’t it? If the witness were called for the purpose of cross-examination, then he could be asked other questions which were not arising out of the matter in the affidavit. If the defendant can call him as his own witness, there can be no objection to the cross-examination going outside the matter of the affidavit.

MAJOR BARRINGTON: Of course he couldn’t be cross-examined by the Prosecution in that event, My Lord.

THE PRESIDENT: You mean you would ask his questions in re-examination, but they would not take the form of cross-examination?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: That is what I mean, My Lord.

THE PRESIDENT: You mean that you would prefer that he should be called for the defendants rather than be cross-examined outside the subject matter of the affidavit?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Is there anything you wish to add or not?

MAJOR BARRINGTON: There is nothing I wish to add.

THE PRESIDENT: It is time for us to adjourn. We will consider the matter.

[_The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours._]

_Afternoon Session_

DR. MARTIN HORN (Counsel for Defendant Von Ribbentrop): In the place of Dr. Von Rohrscheidt, counsel for Defendant Hess, I would like to make the following declaration.

Dr. Von Rohrscheidt has been the victim of an accident. He has broken his ankle. The Defendant Hess has asked me to notify the Tribunal that from now on until the end of the Trial, he desires to make use of his right under the Charter to defend himself. The reason that he wants to do that for the whole length of the Trial is to be found in the fact that due to his absence his counsel will not be informed of the proceedings of the Court.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will consider the oral application which has just been made to it on behalf of the Defendant Hess.

As to the objection to the affidavit of Von Schröder which was made this morning by counsel for the Defendant Von Papen, the Tribunal does not propose to lay down any general rule about the admission of affidavit evidence. But in the particular circumstances of this case, the Tribunal will admit the affidavit in question but will direct that if the affidavit is put in evidence, the man who made the affidavit, Von Schröder, must be presented, brought here immediately for cross-examination by the defendant’s counsel. When I say immediately I mean as soon as possible.

MAJOR BARRINGTON: My Lord, I will not introduce this affidavit.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Major Barrington.

MAJOR BARRINGTON: My Lord, before coming on to that affidavit, I last read a passage from the biography about the meeting at Von Schröder’s house, and I ask the Tribunal to deduce from that extract from the biography that it was at that meeting that a discussion took place between Von Papen and Hitler, which led up to the government of Hitler in which Von Papen served as Vice Chancellor. So that now at the point the Defendant Von Papen was completely committed to going along with the Nazi Party, and with his eyes open and on his own initiative he had helped materially to bring them into power.

The second allegation against the Defendant Von Papen is that he participated in the consolidation of Nazi control over Germany.

In the first critical year and a half of the Nazi consolidation Von Papen, as Vice Chancellor, was second only to Hitler in the Cabinet which carried out the Nazi program.

The process of consolidating the Nazi control of Germany by legislation has been fully dealt with earlier in this Trial. The high position of Von Papen must have associated him closely with such legislation. In July 1934 Hitler expressly thanked him for all that he had done for the co-ordination of the government of the National Revolution. That will appear in Document 2799-PS. In fact, although I shall read from that document in a minute, the document has been introduced to the Court by Mr. Alderman.

Two important decrees may be mentioned specially, as actually bearing the signature of Von Papen. First, the decree relating to the formation of special courts, dated the 21st of March 1933, for the trial of all cases involving political matters. The Tribunal has already taken judicial notice of this decree. The reference to the transcript is Page 30 (Volume II, Page 197) of the 22d of November, afternoon session.

This decree was the first step in the Nazification of the German judiciary. In all political cases it abolished fundamental rights, including the right of appeal, which had previously characterized the administration of German criminal justice.

On the same date, the 21st of March 1933, Von Papen personally signed the amnesty decree liberating all persons who had committed murder or any other crime between the 30th of January and the 21st of March 1933 in the National Revolution of the German people. That document is 2059-PS, and is on Page 30 of the English document book. I read Section 1.

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think you need read the decrees if you will summarize them.

MAJOR BARRINGTON: If Your Lordship pleases, I will ask you to take judicial notice of that decree.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

MAJOR BARRINGTON: As a member of the Reich Cabinet, Von Papen was, in my submission, responsible for the legislation carried through even when the decrees did not actually bear his signature. But I shall mention as examples two categories of legislation in particular in order to show by reference to his own previous and contemporaneous statements that they were not matters of which he could say that as a respectable politician he took no interest in them.

First, the civil service. As a public servant himself, Von Papen must have had a hard but apparently successful struggle with his conscience when associating himself with the sweeping series of decrees for attaining Nazi control of the civil service. This has been dealt with on Page 30 (Volume II, Page 197) of the transcript of the 22d of November in the afternoon session, and Page 257 (Volume II, Page 207). In this connection I refer the Tribunal to Document 351-PS, which is on Page 1 of the document book. It is Exhibit USA-389, and it is the minutes of Hitler’s first Cabinet meeting on the 30th of January 1933. I read from the last paragraph of the minutes, on Page 5 of the document book in the middle of the paragraph:

“The Deputy of the Reich Chancellor and the Reich Commissioner for the State of Prussia suggested that the Reich Chancellor should refute, in an interview at the earliest opportunity, the rumors about inflation and the rumors about infringing the rights of civil servants.”

Even if this was not meant to suggest to Hitler the giving of a fraudulent assurance, at the best it emphasizes the indifference with which Von Papen later saw the civil servants betrayed.

Secondly, the decrees for the integration of the federal states with the Reich. These again have been dealt with earlier in the Trial, Page 29 (Volume II, Page 196) of the transcript of 22 November, afternoon session. The substantial effect of these decrees was to abolish the states and to put an end to federalism and any possible retarding influence which it might have upon the centralization of power in the Reich Cabinet. The importance of this step, as well as the role played by Papen, is reflected in the exchange of letters between Hindenburg, Von Papen—in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for Prussia—and Hitler, in connection with the recall of the Reich Commissioner and the appointment of Göring to the post of Prime Minister of Prussia. I refer to Document 3357-PS, which is on Page 52 of the English document book, and I now put it in as Exhibit GB-239.

In tendering his resignation on the 7th of April 1933, Von Papen wrote to Hitler, and I read from the document:

“With the draft of the law for the co-ordination of the states with the Reich, passed today by the Reich Chancellor, legislative work has begun which will be of historical significance for the political development of the German State. The step taken on 20 July 1932 by the Reich Government, which I headed at the time, with the aim of abolishing the dualism between the Reich and Prussia is now crowned by this new interlocking of the interests of the state of Prussia with those of the Reich. You, Herr Reich Chancellor, will now be, as once was Bismarck, in a position to co-ordinate in all points the policy of the greatest of German states with that of the Reich. Now that the new law affords you the possibility of appointing a Prussian Prime Minister, I beg you to inform the Reich President that I dutifully return to his hands my post of Reich Commissioner for Prussia.”

I would like to read also the letter which Hitler wrote to Hindenburg in transmitting this resignation. Hitler wrote:

“Vice Chancellor Von Papen has addressed a letter to me which I enclose for your information. Herr Von Papen has already informed me within the last few days that he has come to an agreement with Minister Göring to resign on his own volition, as soon as the unified conduct of the governmental affairs in the Reich and in Prussia would be assured by the new law on the co-ordination of policy in the Reich and the States.

“On the eve of the day when the new law on the institution of Reichsstatthalter was adopted, Herr Von Papen considered this aim as having been attained, and requested me to undertake the appointment of the Prussian Prime Minister, at the same time offering further collaboration in the Reich Government, by now lending full service.

“Herr Von Papen, in accepting the post of Commissioner for the Government of Prussia in these difficult times since 30 January, has rendered a very meritorious service to the realization of the idea of coordinating the policy in Reich and states. His collaboration in the Reich Cabinet, to which he is now lending all his energy, is infinitely valuable; my relationship to him is such a heartily friendly one, that I sincerely rejoice at the great help I shall thus receive.”

Yet it was only 5 weeks before this that on the 3rd of March 1933, Von Papen had warned the electorate at Stuttgart against abolishing federalism. I will now read from Document 3313-PS, which is on Page 48 of the English document book, and which I now introduce as Exhibit GB-240—about the middle of the third paragraph. This is an extract from Von Papen’s speech at Stuttgart. He said:

“Federalism will protect us from centralism, that organizational form which focuses all the living strength of a nation on one point. No nation is less fitted to be governed centrally than the German.”

Earlier, at the time of the elections in the autumn of 1932, Von Papen as Chancellor had visited Munich. The _Frankfurter Zeitung_ of the 12th of October 1932 commented on his policy. I refer to Document 3318-PS on Page 51 of the English document book, which I introduce as Exhibit GB-241. The _Frankfurter Zeitung_ commented:

“Von Papen claimed that it had been his great aim from the very beginning of his tenure in office to build a new Reich for, and with, the various states. The Reich Government is taking a definite federalist attitude. Its slogan is not a dreary centralism or uniformity.”

That was in October 1932. All that was now thrown overboard in deference to his new master.

I now come to the Jews. In March 1933 the entire Cabinet approved a systematic state policy of persecution of the Jews. This has already been described to the Tribunal. The reference to the transcript is Pages 1442 (Volume III, Page 525) and 2490 (Volume V, Page 93).

Only 4 days before the boycott was timed to begin “with all ferocity”—to borrow the words of Dr. Goebbels—Von Papen wrote a radiogram of reassurance to the Board of Trade for German-American Commerce in New York which had expressed its anxiety to the German Government about the situation. His assurance—which I now put in as Document D-635, and it will be Exhibit GB-242 on Page 73 of the English document book—his assurance was published in the _New York Times_ on the 28th of March 1933, and it contained the following sentence which I read from about the middle of the page. This document is the last but one in the German document book:

“Reports circulated in America and received here with indignation about alleged tortures of political prisoners and mistreatment of Jews deserve strongest repudiation. Hundreds of thousands of Jews, irrespective of nationality, who have not taken part in political activities, are living here entirely unmolested.”

This is a characteristic . . .

DR. KUBUSCHOK: The article in the _New York Times_ goes back to a telegram of the Defendant Von Papen, which is contained in the document