Chapter III: Part 3

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.