Chapter XI: Front Matter (11)

The Defendant Frick is further charged, in his capacity as Reichsleiter, with membership in the Political Leadership Corps. My colleague, charged with the defense of this organization, will in his turn deal with the character of this organization. As to the Defendant Frick, I have only to point out that he held the formal position of a Reichsleiter in his role as chairman of the Reichstag faction of the NSDAP. The Reichstag itself having lost all political importance after 1933, which requires no further explanation, this position of Frick’s was in practice equally unimportant and could not be compared with the position of a Reichsleiter who administered important political departments.

Finally Frick, as Reich Minister, was a member of the Reich Cabinet. With regard to the character and the authority of this organization I also refer first of all to the statements, which are yet to follow, of my colleague who has been appointed defense counsel for this organization.

I refer here only to the testimony of Lammers and Gisevius, and further to the excerpt from the book of this latter witness, which I have submitted as Exhibit Number Frick-13 as evidence of the position and authority which the Reich Cabinet had with respect to the dictatorial practices of Hitler. From all this, the Defendant Frick appears as a person who certainly took action politically to bring Hitler to power, and who temporarily exercised a decisive influence on internal policy after his goal had been achieved. All his measures, however, had inner political aims; they were not intended to have anything to do with the foreign political aims of a war of aggression, much less with Crimes against Peace or against the rules of warfare—and, as also specified by Article 6 of the Charter, only in such cases would this Court have jurisdiction, as stated by the Prosecution itself.

When Frick realized later that the policy was taking a course of which he could no longer approve, he tried to exert all his influence to bring about a change. But he had perforce to find out more and more clearly that Hitler would not listen to his remonstrances and complaints. On the contrary, he was forced to realize that these complaints destroyed Hitler’s confidence in him, and that he preferred to be advised by Himmler and similarly minded persons, so that finally, after the year 1937, Frick was no longer received by Hitler when he wanted to present complaints. Frick then gave up such hopeless attempts to bring about a change in the situation. Things would not have been altered by his resignation either, which the evidence has shown he repeatedly tendered in vain. Thus his tragedy lies in his entanglement in a system, in the first steps of which he had participated enthusiastically and the development of which he had imagined would be quite different. In any case, it appears important to me, in judging his personality and his actions, that even this presentation of evidence, which has gone on for months, has not given any proof of the personal participation of the defendant in any crime.

It is not without reason that John Gunther in his book _Inside Europe_, which I have presented to the Tribunal as evidence, describes precisely the Defendant Frick as “the only honest Nazi.” At the same place Gunther goes on to call him a “bureaucrat through and through.” Hitler himself kept calling him the “pen pusher” (“Paragraphenschuster”) because Frick—which was typical of him—did not become acquainted with him at some public meeting, but in his office in the police department in Munich in the year 1923.

This man felt enthusiasm for Hitler’s suggestive power, so lacking in himself, a Hitler who with big words appealed to his heart, his honor, and his patriotism. It was Hitler who made him proud of being able to participate in the reconstruction of a German nation which, through powerful armed forces, was to be in a position to play a peaceful yet active role in world politics.

And it was again Hitler who knew how to make his program appear to the bourgeois official Frick as the only way to forestall Bolshevik rule in Germany—this and many more superficial truths, twisted statements, and devices of propaganda which fooled so many people who fell for the suggestive power of Hitler, not realizing in time that they had subordinated themselves to the hypnotic will of a criminal, who was prepared to overthrow the pillars of civilization for his aims and who finally would leave Germany a monstrous spiritual and material field of rubble, for the removal of which I pray that this Trial may also contribute through a sentence in accordance with law and justice.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx.

DR. HANNS MARX (Counsel for Defendant Streicher): Gentlemen of the Tribunal, Mr. President.

I begin the speech for the defense of Julius Streicher.

When in May of the past year the final battles of the greatest and most horrible war of all time came to an end, the Germans were slow to rise again from the stupor in which they had, for the most part, spent the last months of the war. Like all the peoples of Europe they had suffered unspeakably for years. The last months in particular, with their hail of bombs, had brought so much misery to both the country and the people that it almost surpassed human endurance. This terror was increased by the knowledge that the war was lost, and by the fear of the uncertain fate which the occupation period would bring. And when finally the period of first anxiety had passed, when the German people were slowly beginning to breathe again, paralyzing horror spread once more.

Through the press and radio, through newspapers and motion pictures, knowledge was spread of the atrocities which had taken place in the East, on the steppes and in the concentration camps. Germany learned that people, men of its own blood, had slaughtered millions upon millions of innocent Jewish people. Most people felt instinctively that these deeds would necessarily be the greatest of all the accusations the world had to level against Germany.

The question of whether the German people in its totality had known and approved of these actions was, and is, the truly fateful question. It is the touchstone by which the decision must be made as to whether or not Germany will ever be able to return again as a nation with equal rights into the common cultural and spiritual sphere of the world. As in every case of guilt, there immediately arose here also the question as to who was responsible, and the search for that individual. Who had ordered these atrocities, who had carried them out, and how could such inconceivable things have happened at all, the like of which cannot be found in history even in the earliest days?

During all this asking and guessing, the news arrived that the former Gauleiter of Franconia and publisher of Der Stürmer, the present Defendant Julius Streicher, had fallen into the hands of the American troops. From the echo this news aroused in the press, which was exclusively directed and published by the occupying power, as well as in the radio news, it was to be gathered that the world was of the opinion that in the person of Julius Streicher not only had one of the numerous anti-Semitic propaganda agents of the Third Reich been taken prisoner, but in short Enemy Number One of the Jews.

Throughout the rest of the world the opinion evidently prevailed that in the person of Julius Streicher not only the most active propaganda agent for the persecution and extermination of the Jews had been seized, but that he had also participated to the highest degree in carrying out these acts of extermination. He was said to have been, as one heard, not only the greatest hater of the Jews and the greatest preacher of extermination of the Jews, but also the person to whose direct influence one could trace back the extermination of European Jewry.

It is only from this angle that it can be explained why the Defendant Streicher should sit here in the dock, together with the other defendants, among those chiefly responsible for the National Socialist system. For neither by virtue of his personality nor measured by his offices and positions does he belong to the circle of leaders of the NSDAP or to the Party’s decisive personalities. This view was probably also held in the beginning by the Prosecution, but was abandoned by them at an early stage, for the written Indictment already no longer charged the Defendant Streicher with any personal and direct part in the abominable mass murders. Rather did it state that there was less guilt with which he would be charged than in the case of any of the other defendants; only his propaganda, his activities by the written and spoken word, were made the subject of the accusation against him.

As far as particulars are concerned, the Counts of the Indictment against the Defendant Streicher were summed up as follows:

I. Support of seizure of power and consolidation of power of the NSDAP after the latter’s entry into the Government.

II. Preparation of aggressive wars by propaganda aimed at the persecution of the Jews.

III. Intellectual and spiritual preparation and education to encourage hatred against the Jews,

(a) in the German people,

(b) in the German youth, and

(c) in the active extermination of Jewry.

Without Julius Streicher, no Auschwitz, no Mauthausen, no Maidanek, no Lublin—thus the Indictment may be summed up briefly.

As far as Count One of the Indictment is concerned, the defendant does not deny that as regards the Party’s later seizure of power he supported and promoted it with all his might from its earliest inception. His support went to the extent of placing a whole movement which he had built up personally in Franconia at the disposal of Adolf Hitler’s Party which was small after the first World War, as one can imagine, and limited to southern Bavaria only. Furthermore, after Hitler’s release from the fortress of Landsberg, he immediately joined him again and subsequently championed his ideas and goals with the greatest determination.

THE PRESIDENT: I think this is a good time to break off. The Tribunal will adjourn.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 12 July 1946 at 1000 hours._]

NOTES

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[1] Proceeding from this interpretation of the Charter there arises the need for a discussion on how the Indictment is to be construed with respect to the conspiracy charged therein. This construction is based on the legal concept of Anglo-American law which determines the responsibility of a plurality of persons differently and in a more far-reaching way than the German penal code, which contains the principles of law to which the accused were subject at the time when they committed the deed. The German penal code also provides that a person can be held responsible for offenses committed by others provided he participated in a common plan which was later carried out by others. But the German penal code places decisive weight on determining the extent to which the acts committed at a latter date correspond to the common plan. Since in the serious crimes which are being prosecuted before this Court the determination of the form of guilt in the original plan is necessary in order to permit punishment, later acts of commission by others can be charged against a defendant only to the extent to which they corresponded to arrangements to which the defendant deliberately agreed. A defendant who participated in certain plans cannot be held responsible for subsequent plans of a wider scope, or for acts of commission which far exceeded the original plans without his co-operation.

Responsibility for subsequent plans and acts of commission can be established according to German law only if it can be proved that the defendant, without participating in those subsequent plans and actions, at the time of his original participation recognized and approved this manner of development and execution and, in other words, deliberately encouraged it.

To revert to the example of the Prosecution:

He who participates’ in the plan for robbing a bank is responsible if this plan is carried out, even though he does not personally participate in the execution. But a person does not at the same time become guilty of premeditated murder if the active members subsequently and without his participation discuss murdering the guard or in case one of the members should shoot one of the guards without prior agreement, because the latter has caught him in the act.

Nobody can be convicted of premeditated murder if he did not participate in a plan to commit murder, unless it can be proved that when he participated in the plan for robbing the bank such killing of a guard was already contemplated and that in spite of this he approved the plan for the bank robbery. In that case he, too, would have deliberately contributed to the murder. In other words, according to the provisions of German substantive criminal law there does not exist a liability for so-called excesses of the immediate culprits or for an unforeseen development of plans not originally conceived on such a wide scope, so that a more far-reaching interpretation in line with the concept of conspiracy in Anglo-American law, which at the time when the accused committed their deed did not exist, would violate the principle which prohibits retroactive application of penal laws.

ONE HUNDRED
AND SEVENTY-SEVENTH DAY
Friday, 12 July 1946

_Morning Session_

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn today at 4 o’clock.

DR. MARX: Mr. President, with the permission of the Tribunal I shall now continue with the presentation of the final plea for the Defendant Streicher. Yesterday I had come to the point where the individual accusations against Streicher had been summarized, and I had taken liberty of explaining that these accusations are subdivided into three different paragraphs:

1. Support of seizure of power and consolidation of the power of the NSDAP after its entry into the Government.

2. Preparation of aggressive wars by propaganda aimed at the persecution of the Jews.

3. Intellectual and spiritual preparation and education of the German people and German youth to effect the destruction of Jewry and to encourage hatred of the Jews.

With respect to Count One of the Indictment, the defendant does not deny that, with regard to the Party’s later seizure of power, he supported and promoted it with all his might from the very beginning. His support went to the extent of a whole movement which he had built up personally in Franconia and which he put at the disposal of Adolf Hitler’s Party, which was quite small after the first World War and limited to Southern Bavaria only. Furthermore, after Hitler’s release from the fortress of Landsberg he immediately joined him again and subsequently championed his ideas and aims with the greatest determination.

Until 1933 the defendant’s activity was limited to propaganda for the NSDAP and its aims, particularly in the field of the Jewish question. Nothing criminal can be seen in this attitude of the defendant as such. Participation in a party within a state which allows such an opposition party can be regarded as criminal only if, first of all, the aims of such a party are objectively criminal and if, subjectively, a member of such a movement knows, approves of, and thereby supports, these criminal aims.

The foundation of the entire charges against all the defendants lies in this very fact that the NSDAP is accused of having had criminal aims from the very beginning. According to the assertion of the Prosecution, the members of this Party started out with the plan of subjugating the world, of annihilating foreign races, and of setting the German master race above the whole world. They are accused of having harbored the will to carry out these aims and plans from the very outset by means of aggressive wars, murder, and violence. If, therefore, the Defendant Streicher’s mere participation in the NSDAP and his support of it are to be ascribed to him as a crime, it must be proved that the Party had such plans and that the defendant knew and approved of them.

The gentlemen who spoke before me have already demonstrated sufficiently that a conspiracy with such aims did not exist. Therefore I can save myself the trouble of making further statements on this subject and I can refer to what has already been set forth by the other defense counsel. I have only to deal with the point that the Defendant Streicher did not in any case participate in such a conspiracy, if the latter should be considered by the High Tribunal to have existed.

The official Party Program strove to attain power in a legitimate way. The aims advocated therein cannot be considered as criminal. Thus, if such aims did actually exist, they could only—by the very nature of a conspiracy—be known in a restricted circle.

The Party Program was not kept secret but was announced at a public meeting in Munich, so that not only the whole public of Germany but also that of the entire world could be informed about the aims of the Party. Therefore that element supplied by secret agreement towards a common aim, which is usually the characteristic sign of a conspiracy, is not present.

The evidence too, has shown nothing to the effect that already at that time there existed a plan for a war of revenge or aggression connected with the previous or simultaneous extermination of the Jews. If, nevertheless, a conspiracy should have existed, the latter would have confined itself to the restricted circle which revolved exclusively around Hitler. But the Defendant Streicher did not belong to that circle. None of the offices he occupied provides the least proof of that. As an old Party member he was just one among many thousands. As honorary Gauleiter, as honorary SA Obergruppenführer, he was also only an equal among equals. Thus one cannot find in any of the offices he held any connection or complicity with the innermost circle of the Party. It is also impossible to discern after the end of 1938 any personal relations with the leading men of the Movement, either with Hitler himself or with the Defendant Göring, or with Goebbels, Himmler, or Bormann.

The Prosecution did not offer any evidence on this point, nor did the proceedings produce any proof to that effect. Of all the material presented during all these months of the Trial, nothing can be taken as even a shadow of proof that the Defendant Streicher was so closely connected with the supreme authority of the Party that he could have, or even must have, known its ultimate aims.

In the Jewish question too the final aims of the Party—the effects of which were manifest in the concentration camps—were not, before the seizure of power and for several years after, formulated and determined as they appeared in the end. The Party Program itself provided for Jews to be placed under aliens’ law, and so the laws issued in the Third Reich followed this line. Only later on, it may be added, the program in this as in many other points became more radical and finally went haywire altogether under the influence of the war. But any proof that the Defendant Streicher knew other aims than those of the official Party Program has not been offered. Consequently it has not been proved that the defendant supported the seizure of power of the Party in cognizance of its criminal aims; and only on such a basis could a penal charge be brought against him.

The fact that the defendant, as Gauleiter, further endeavored to increase and maintain the power of the Party after the seizure of power is not disputed by him. But here, too, the defendant’s conduct can only be considered punishable if he knew at that time the objectionable aims of the Party. As a matter of actual fact it must be said here that the Defendant Streicher, in contrast to almost all the other defendants, did not remain in his position until the end, not even until the war. Officially he was dismissed in 1940 from his position of Gauleiter, but actually and practically he had been without any influence and power for more than a year before that time. But as long as he could still work within the modest framework of his capacity of Gauleiter, no criminal plans of the NSDAP were recognizable. In any case not for anybody who, like the Defendant Streicher, was outside the close circle surrounding Adolf Hitler.

Count Two of the Indictment brought against the Defendant Streicher, namely, the persecution of Jews as a means of preparation for a war of aggression, can be included here. Up to 1937 the existence of a plan for a war of aggression was in no way recognizable. In any case, if Hitler had had any intentions in that direction, he did not allow them to be recognized from the outside. If, however, anybody had been taken into his confidence at that time, it would have been the leading men in politics and the Armed Forces, who belonged to the closest circle around him. To those, however, the Defendant Streicher by no means belonged. It is especially significant here that at the outbreak of the war Streicher was not even appointed Wehrkreiskommissar (Commissioner of Military Administrative Headquarters) of his Gau. The individual conferences from which the Prosecution derives the evidence for the planning of the war which broke out later in no case ever saw the Defendant Streicher as participant. His name does not appear anywhere, neither in any written decree, nor in any minutes. Consequently no proof has been offered that Streicher knew of such alleged plans for waging war. This does away with the accusation that he preached hatred against the Jews in order to facilitate thereby the conduct of the war planned for some later time.

In this connection I should add that one of the main points in the program of the NSDAP was the slogan, “Get rid of Versailles!” The defendant adopted this point of the program which, however, does not mean he envisaged a repeal of the treaty by means of war.

Even the former democratic German governments, in the course of their negotiations with their former opponents in the World War, stressed the fact at all times that the Versailles Treaty presented no proper basis for permanent world peace and particularly for economic adjustment. Not only in Germany but everywhere in the rest of the world clear-thinking economic circles were against the Versailles Treaty. We may point especially to the United States of America as an example of this.

Almost all political parties in Germany, irrespective of their other aims, agreed that the Treaty of Versailles should be revised. Neither was there any difference of opinion over the fact that such revision was possible only on the basis of an agreement. Even to consider any other possibility of solution would have seemed Utopian, for the German Reich lacked all military power. The NSDAP also strove, at any rate as far as could be seen from outward signs, to find a solution to the problem in this way. To support such an aim, however, cannot be looked upon as a violation of treaty obligations and, therefore, cannot be made the object of a charge against the defendant. No proof has been offered that he thought of warlike complications or that he desired them.

I now come to the matter of the defendant’s attitude in the Jewish question. He is accused of having incited and instigated for decades the persecution of the Jews and of being responsible for the final extermination of Europe’s Jewry. It is clear that this accusation constitutes the decisive point of the Indictment against Julius Streicher and perhaps the decisive point of the total Indictment, for in this connection the attitude of the German people to this question must be tried and judged as well. The Prosecution takes the point of view that there is just as little doubt as to the responsibility of the defendant as there is doubt about the guilt in which the German people are involved. As evidence of this the Prosecution put forward:

(a) The speeches by Streicher before and after the seizure of power, particularly one speech in April 1925, in which, he spoke about the extermination of the Jews. Herein, in the prosecutor’s opinion, is the first evidence to be seen regarding the final solution of the Jewish question planned by the Party, namely, the extermination of all Jews.

(b) Active assertion of the person and authority of the defendant, especially on “Boycott Day,” 1 April 1933.

(c) Numerous articles published in the weekly paper, _Der Stürmer_, among them especially those dealing with ritual murder and with quotations from the Talmud. He is said to have knowingly and intentionally described therein the Jews as a criminal and inferior race and created and wished to create hatred of these people and the wish to exterminate them. The defendant’s reply to these points is as follows:

He states that he worked merely as a private writer. His aim was to enlighten the German people on the Jewish question as he saw it. His description of the Jews was merely intended to show them as a different and a foreign race and to make it clear that they live according to laws which are alien to the German conception. It was far from his intention to incite or inflame his circle of listeners and readers. Moreover, he always only propagated the idea that the Jews, because of their alien character, should be removed from German national and economic life and withdrawn from the close association with the body of the German people.

Further, he always had in mind an international solution of the Jewish question; he did not favor a German or even European partial solution and rejected it. That was why he suggested, in an editorial in _Der Stürmer_ in the year 1941, that the French island of Madagascar should be considered as a place of settlement for the Jews. Consequently, he did not see the final solution of the Jewish question in the physical extermination of the Jews but in their resettlement.

It cannot be the aim of the Defense to go into further details of the defendant’s actions as a writer and speaker, particularly with regard to _Der Stürmer_ and his reply to the accusations raised against him. His ideology and convictions shall not be explained, excused, or defended, nor his manner of writing and speaking either. Examination and judgment in this respect rest with the Tribunal alone. This much only shall be said, that between the defendant’s actions and the expressions frequently employed by him there is an antithesis which cannot be bridged. It may be stated that the defendant never, when in charge of an anti-Jewish undertaking, had coercive measures used against the Jewish population, as might necessarily be expected of him if the accusations made by the Prosecution were true.

I consider it my duty as defense counsel to broach and examine the question as to whether the Defendant Streicher with his speeches, his actions and his publications, not only strove towards the result alleged by the Prosecution but actually attained it. The question therefore should be examined as to whether Streicher actually educated the German people to a degree of anti-Semitism which made it possible for the leadership of the German nation to commit such criminal acts as actually occurred. Furthermore, it must be examined whether the defendant filled German youth with hatred against the Jews to the extent that is charged by the Prosecution. Finally, the question must be examined whether Streicher actually was the man who spiritually and morally prepared the executive organs for their active persecution of the Jews.

At the beginning of this exposition it appears important to point out that a great many of _Der Stürmer_ articles, from which the Prosecution endeavors to deduce an incitement to stamp out and annihilate the Jews, were not written by Streicher himself, but by his collaborators, especially by the Deputy Gauleiter, Karl Holz, who was well known for extremely radical tendencies. Even though the Defendant Streicher bears formal responsibility for these articles, which responsibility he expressly assumed before the Tribunal, this aspect nevertheless appears very important for the extent of his criminal responsibility.

Further it may be said in this connection that, according to the unrefuted statement of the defendant, the most caustic articles were written in reply to articles and writings in the foreign press, which contained very radical suggestions for the destruction of the German nation—also, no doubt, due to the existing war psychosis.

The Defendant Streicher—and this cannot be denied and shall not be defended—continually wrote articles in _Der Stürmer_ and also made speeches in public which were strongly anti-Jewish and at least aimed at the elimination of Jewish influence in Germany. During the first years Streicher found a comparatively favorable soil for his anti-Jewish tendencies. The first World War ended with Germany’s defeat, but wide circles did not wish to admit the fact of a military victory of Germany’s opponents of that time. They attributed this defeat exclusively to a breakdown of national defense and resistance from within and depicted Jewry as being the main culprit for this inner undermining. In doing this they intentionally overlooked the mistakes which had been committed by the Government of that time before and during the war with respect to domestic and foreign policy, as well as the errors of strategy. A scapegoat was sought on which to lay the blame for the loss of the war, and it was thought to have been found in the Jews. Jealousy, envy, and also disregard of personal shortcomings accomplished the rest in influencing feelings unfavorably toward the Jewish population. In addition to that came the inflation and in the following years the economic depression with its steadily increasing misery which, as experience shows, makes any nation ripe for any form of radicalism.

On this ground and in this setting _Der Stürmer_ developed. For these reasons it first met with a certain amount of interest and attracted a considerable number of readers. But even in the last years before the seizure of power it did not have great influence; its distribution hardly went beyond Nuremberg and its close vicinity. By means of attacks on persons known locally in Nuremberg and in other places, it managed to arouse in these localities, from time to time, a certain amount of interest and thereby to extend its circle of readers. Certain parts of the population were interested in the propagation of such scandal and for that reason subscribed to _Der Stürmer_.

But criminal action can only be seen here—and this is presumably the opinion of the Prosecution also—if this type of literary and oral activity led to criminal results. Now, was the German nation really filled with hatred for the Jews by _Der Stürmer_ and by Streicher’s speeches in the sense and to the extent asserted by the Prosecution?

The Prosecution submitted the evidence on this point in a very brief manner. It draws conclusions, but it has not produced actual proof. It alleges the existence of results, but cannot produce evidence for that assumption. The prosecutor has maintained that without Streicher’s incitements over a number of years the German people would not have sanctioned the persecution of the Jews and that Himmler would not have found among the German people anyone to carry out the measures for the extermination of the Jews. If, however, the Defendant Streicher is to be made legally responsible for this, then not only must it be proved that the incitement as such was actually carried through and results achieved in this direction; but—and this is the decisive point—conclusive proof must be produced that the deeds which were done can be traced back to that incitement. It is not the question of the result obtained which must primarily and irrefutably be proved but the causative connection between incitement and result. Now, how is the influence of _Der Stürmer_ upon the German people to be estimated, and what picture unfolds in the handling of the Jewish problem during the years between 1920 and 1944?

It is easy to recognize here three stages of development. The first period comprises the time of the defendant’s activity between 1922 and 1933; the second that between 1933 and 1 September 1939, or February 1940; the third, the time from 1940 to the collapse.

With regard to the first period, it would show a considerable lack of appreciation of the tendencies which had already existed in Germany for a long time and thereby a completely groundless exaggeration of Streicher’s influence, if no mention were made of the fact that long before Streicher there was already a certain amount of anti-Semitism in Germany. For instance a certain Theodor Fritsch had touched on the Jewish question in his journal _Der Hammer_ long before Streicher’s time, referring especially to the alleged menace offered by the immigration of Jewish elements from the East, which might overflow the country and acquire too much control in it.

Immediately after the end of the first World War the so-called “German National Protective and Defensive League” (Deutsch-Völkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund) appeared on the scene, which in contrast to _Der Stürmer_ and the Movement brought into being by Streicher, extended over the whole of Germany, setting as its aim the repression of Jewish influence. Anti-Semitic groups existed in the South as well as in the North long before Streicher. In comparison with these large-scale efforts, _Der Stürmer_ could only have a regional importance. This alone explains why its influence was never at any time or in any place of great importance.

It is a decisive fact, however, that the German nation in its totality did not let itself be influenced by all these groups either in its business relations or in its attitude towards Jewry and that even during the last years before the NSDAP came to power no violent actions against the Jews were committed anywhere by the people. However, when towards the end of the second decade after the first World War a considerable increase of the NSDAP became noticeable, this was not due to anti-Semitic reasons but to the fact that the prevailing confusion in the various parties had been unable to point to a way out of the ever-increasing economic misery. The call for a strong man became ever more urgent. The conviction became more and more firmly rooted among the broad masses that only a personality who was not dependent on the change of majorities would be able to master the situation.

The NSDAP knew how to exploit this general trend for its own ends and to win over the nation, sunk in despair, by making promises in all directions. But never did the masses think, when electing the NSDAP at that time, that its program would produce developments as we have witnessed.

With the seizure of power by the NSDAP in 1933, the second epoch was introduced. The power of the State was exclusively in the hands of the Party and nobody could have prevented the use of violence against the Jewish population. Now would have been just the right moment for the Defendant Streicher to put into effect the baiting the Prosecution has alleged. If by that time wide circles of the population, or at least the veteran members of the NSDAP, had been trained to be radical Jew haters, as stated by the Prosecution, acts of violence against the Jewish population would necessarily have taken place on a greater scale due to that feeling of hatred. Pogroms on the largest scale would have been the natural result of a truly anti-Semitic attitude of the people. But nothing like that happened. Apart from some minor incidents, evidently caused by local or personal conditions, no attacks on Jews or their property took place anywhere. It is quite clear that a feeling of hatred for the Jewish people did not prevail anywhere at least up to 1933, and the charge brought by the Prosecution against the defendant that ever since the very outset of his fight he successfully educated the German people to hate the Jews can thus be dropped.

The year of the seizure of power by the NSDAP also put _Der Stürmer_ to a decisive test. Had _Der Stürmer_ been considered by the broad masses of the German people as the authoritative champion against the Jews and therefore indispensable for that fight, an unusually large increase in the circulation would have followed. No such interest was, however, shown. On the contrary, even in Party circles demands were made that _Der Stürmer_ should be discontinued entirely; or at least that its illustrations, style, and tone should be altered. It became more and more clear that the already small interest in Streicher’s Jewish policy was steadily declining. It must be added that with the seizure of power by the Party the total press apparatus came under the control of the Party, which immediately undertook to co-ordinate the press, that is, to direct it from a central office in the spirit of the National Socialist policy and ideology. This was done through the Minister of Propaganda and the Reich Press Chief via the official “National Socialist Correspondence.” Particularly Dr. Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, described by various witnesses such as Göring, Schirach, Neurath, and others as the most bitter advocate of the anti-Semitic trend in the Government, is said to have given each week to the entire German press several anti-Jewish leaders, which were printed by more than 3,000 dailies and illustrated papers. If in addition we take into account that Dr. Goebbels was making broadcasts of an anti-Semitic nature, we need no further explanations for the fact that the interest in a one-sided anti-Semitic journal should diminish and that is what actually happened.

It is particularly significant that at that time it had been repeatedly suggested that _Der Stürmer_ should be suppressed altogether. This is brought out clearly in the testimony given by Fritzsche, on 27 June 1946, who stated in addition that neither Streicher nor _Der Stürmer_ had any influence in the Ministry of Propaganda and that he was considered so to speak as nonexistent. It may have been for the same reason that _Der Stürmer_ was not even declared a press organ of the NSDAP and was not even entitled to show the Party symbol. It was looked upon by the Party and State administration, in contrast to all papers which were considered to be of any importance, as a private paper belonging to a private writer.

The firm which published _Der Stürmer_, and which belonged at that time to a certain Härdel, was not inclined, however, to accept so quietly the dwindling of its circle of readers, for it was now aided by the fact that Streicher had become the highest leader in Franconia; and it knew how to make the most of this circumstance. Already at that time pressure was exerted on many sections of the population to prove their loyal political attitude and trustworthiness by subscribing to _Der Stürmer_. The witness Fritzsche also has alluded to this circumstance, stating that many Germans only decided to subscribe to _Der Stürmer_ because they thought it would be a means of paving the way for their intended membership in the Party.

So as not to give a false impression of the circulation figures of _Der Stürmer_ during the years between 1923 and 1933, the following analysis will show the different stages of its development.

In the years 1923 to 1933 _Der Stürmer_ was able to increase its circulation from some 3,000 to some 10,000 copies, and this in turn went up to some 20,000 shortly before the seizure of power. On the average, however, between 1923 and 1931 the circulation was only some 6,000 copies. Following the seizure of power, by the end of 1934 it had reached an average of some 28,000 copies. It was not until 1935 that _Der Stürmer_ became the property of the Defendant Streicher who, according to his statement, bought it from the widow of the previous owner for 40,000 RM—a not very considerable sum. From 1935 on the management of the business was taken over by an expert, who succeeded by clever canvassing in increasing the circulation to well over 200,000 copies; and this figure was later increased still further until it more than doubled. The relatively low circulation figures for _Der Stürmer_ up to the beginning of 1935 show that, despite the Party’s rise to power, popular interest in _Der Stürmer_ existed only to a small extent. The extraordinary increase in the circulation which began in 1935 is to be traced to the adroit canvassing methods already mentioned which were carried out by the new director Fink. The use of the Labor Front, as explained by the proclamation of Dr. Ley in Number 36 of _Der Stürmer_, 1935—which copy, Mr. President, I have taken the liberty of submitting as an exhibit—and the acquisition thereby of many thousands of forced subscribers must be ascribed to the personal relations of the manager Fink with Dr. Ley.

In that connection I further refer to a quotation from the _Pariser Tageblatt_ of 29 March 1935 reproduced in _Der Stürmer_ of May 1935. Here, too, it is stated that the increase of _Der Stürmer’s_ circulation cannot be ascribed to the desire of the German people for such kind of spiritual food. It is neither presumable nor probable in any way that the compulsory subscription to _Der Stürmer_, forced on the members of the Labor Front in such a manner, could have actually turned subscribers into readers of _Der Stürmer_ and followers of its line of thought. On the contrary, it is known that bundles of _Der Stürmer_ in their original wrappings were stored in cellars and attics and that they were brought to light again only when the paper shortage became more acute.

When, therefore, the Defendant Streicher wrote in his paper in 1935—Document Number GB-169—that the 15 years’ work of enlightenment of _Der Stürmer_ had already attracted to National Socialism an army of a million of “enlightened” members, he claimed a success for which there was no foundation whatsoever. The men and women who joined the Party after 1933 did not apply for membership as a result of the so-called enlightenment work of _Der Stürmer_ but either because they believed the Party’s promises and hoped to derive advantages from it or because by belonging to the Party they wanted, as the witness Severing expressed it, to insure for themselves immunity from political persecution. The sympathy for the Party and its leadership very soon decreased in the most marked manner. Thus the Defendant Streicher, too, lost authority and influence to an ever-increasing extent even in his own district of Franconia, at least from 1937 on. The reasons for this are sufficiently known.

Toward the end of 1938 he saw himself deprived of practically all political influence, even in his own district. The controversy between him and Göring ended with the victory of the latter. Hitler, when pressed to do so by the Defendant Göring, had dropped Streicher completely, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe at that time was naturally more important and far more influential than the Gauleiter, Streicher. The defendant even had to submit to Aryanization as carried out in the district of Franconia with its correctness being checked by a special commission sent by Göring. In the course of the year 1939 Streicher was completely pushed aside and was even forbidden to speak in public. At the outbreak of the war, in contrast to all other Gauleiter, he was not even appointed to the position of Wehrkreiskommissar of his own district.

During the last phase, in the war years, the Defendant Streicher had no political influence whatsoever. As from February 1940 he was relieved of his position as a Gauleiter and lived on his estate in Pleikershof, cut off from all connections. Even Party members were forbidden to visit him. Since the end of 1938 he had no connections whatsoever with Hitler, by whom he had been completely cast off from that time on.

In what way now did _Der Stürmer_ exert any influence during the war period? It can be said that during the war _Der Stürmer_ no longer attracted any attention worth mentioning. The gravity of the times, the anxiety for relatives on the battlefield, the battles at the front, and finally the heavy air attacks completely diverted the German people’s interest from questions dealt with in _Der Stürmer_. The people were weary of the continuous repetition of the same assertions. The best proof of how little _Der Stürmer_ was desired as reading matter can be seen in the fact that in restaurants and cafés _Der Stürmer_ was always available for perusal, whereas other papers and magazines were permanently being read. The circulation figures decreased steadily and unceasingly in those years. Certainly the influence of _Der Stürmer_ in the political sphere no longer amounted to anything.

During the periods mentioned _Der Stürmer_ was rejected by large circles of the population from the very outset. Its crude style, its often objectionable illustrations, and its one-sidedness aroused widespread displeasure. There can be no question of any influence being exercised by _Der Stürmer_ upon the German people or even the Party. Although the German people for years had been deluged with Nazi propaganda, or rather because of that very fact, a journal such as _Der Stürmer_ could exert no influence upon its inner attitude. Had the German people—as maintained by the Prosecution—actually been saturated with the spirit of fanatical racial hatred, other factors certainly would have been far more responsible for it than _Der Stürmer_ and would have contributed far more essentially to a hostile attitude towards the Jews.

But nothing of such nature can be established. The general attitude of the German people was not anti-Semitic, at any rate, not in such a way or to such a degree that they would have desired, or approved of, the physical extermination of the Jews. Even official Party propaganda with regard to the Jewish problem had exerted no influence upon the broad masses of the German people, neither had it educated them in the direction desired by the State leadership.

This is shown by the fact that it was necessary to issue a number of legal decrees in order to segregate the German population from the Jewish. The first example of this is the so-called Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor of September 1935, by the provisions of which any racial intermingling of German people with the Jewish population was subject to the death penalty. The passing of such laws would not have been necessary if the German people had been predisposed to an anti-Semitic attitude, for they would then of their own accord have segregated themselves from the Jews.

The law for the elimination of the Jews from German economic life, promulgated in November 1938, was along the same lines. In a people hostile towards the Jews, any trade with Jewish circles would have necessarily ceased and their business would have automatically come to a standstill. Yet in fact the intervention of the State was needed to eliminate Jewry from economic life.

The same conclusion can be drawn from the reaction of the greater part of the German populace to the demonstrations carried out against the Jews during the night of 9-10 November 1938. It is proved that these acts of violence were not committed spontaneously by the German people but that they were organized and executed with the aid of the State and Party apparatus upon instructions of Dr. Goebbels in Berlin. The result and the effect of these State-directed demonstrations—which in a cynical way were depicted for their effect abroad as an expression of the indignation of the German people at the assassination of the Secretary of the Embassy in Paris, Vom Rath—were different from that visualized by the instigators of this demonstration.

These acts of violence and excesses based upon the lowest instincts found unanimous condemnation, even in the circles of the Party and its leadership. Instead of creating hostility towards the Jewish population they roused pity and compassion for their fate. Hardly any other measure taken by the NSDAP was ever rejected so generally. The effect upon the public was so marked that the Defendant Streicher in his capacity as Gauleiter found it necessary in an address in Nuremberg to give a warning against exaggerated sympathy for the Jews. According to his statement he did not do this because he approved of these measures but only in order to strengthen by his influence the impaired prestige of the Party.

Previously, as appears from the testimony of the witness Fritz Herrwerth examined here, he refused SA Obergruppenführer Von Obernitz’s request to take part personally in the demonstration planned and called it useless and prejudicial. He publicly expressed this point of view later also, during a meeting of the League of Jurists at Nuremberg. In doing so he risked placing himself in open opposition to the official policy of the State.

All these facts show that despite the anti-Jewish propaganda carried on by the Government, actual hostility against the Jewish population did not exist among the people themselves. Thus it is as good as proved that neither Streicher’s publications in _Der Stürmer_ nor his speeches incited the German people in the sense maintained by the Prosecution. Therefore the general attitude of the German nation provides no proof of incitement to hatred of the Jews having been successfully carried out by the Defendant Streicher and leading to criminal results. The Prosecution, however, has further supported its accusation by the specific assertion that only a nation educated to absolute hatred of Jews by men like the defendant could approve of such measures as the mass extermination of Jews. Thereby the charge is made against the whole of the German people that they knew about the extermination of the Jews and approved of it; the severity and consequences of such a charge on the whole future of the German nation is impossible to estimate.

But did the German nation really approve of these measures? A fact can only be approved of if it is known. Therefore should this assertion of the Prosecution be considered as proved, then logically it must also be considered as proved that the German nation actually had knowledge of these occurrences. However, evidence in this respect has shown that Reichsführer SS Himmler, who was entrusted by Hitler with the mass assassinations, and his close collaborators shrouded all these events in a veil of deepest secrecy. By threatening with the most severe punishments any violations of the rule of absolute silence which was imposed, they managed to lower before the events in the East and in the extermination camps an iron curtain which hermetically sealed off those facts from the public.

Hitler and Himmler prevented even the corps of the highest leaders of the Party and State from gaining any insight and information. Hitler did not hesitate to give false information to even his closest collaborators, like Reich Minister Dr. Lammers, who was heard here as a witness, and to make him believe that the removal of the European Jews to the East meant their settlement in the Eastern Territories but by no means their extermination. However much the statements of the defendants may diverge on many points, in this connection they all agree so completely with one another and with the statements of other witnesses that the veracity of their testimonies simply cannot be questioned. If it was not possible for even the Defendant Frank in his capacity as Governor General of Poland to get through to Auschwitz, because without Hitler’s special consent even he was denied entrance, then this fact speaks for itself.

If even the leading personalities of the Third Reich, with the exception of a very small circle, were not informed and if even they had at best very vague information, then how could the general public have known about it? Under these circumstances the possibilities for finding out what was going on in the camps were extremely slight.

For the majority of the people, foreign news did not exist as a source of information. Listening to foreign radio stations was punishable with the heaviest penalties and therefore did not take place. And if it did, the news broadcast by foreign radio stations concerning events in the East, although, or rather because, it corresponded to facts, was so crass, so horrible beyond any human understanding, that it was bound to appear to any normal individual, as in fact it did, as intentional propaganda. Germany could only gain factual knowledge of the extermination measures against the Jews from people who either were working in the camps themselves or came in contact with the camps or their inmates or from former concentration camp inmates.