HELD GUILTY IN FULL

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 July 1946, Page 6

HELD GUILTY IN FULL

NAZI LEADERS DENOUNCED AT NUREMBERG

FINAL BRITISH ADDRESS NUREMBERG, July 27. “Who can. doubt that every man in the dock knew the way in which the German armed forces were being taught to murder men, women, and children throughout Europe?” asked Sir Hartley Shawcross, continuing his final speech for the British prosecution before the War Crimes Tribunal. , “To establish a ‘thousand-year Reich’ they planned and tried to accomplish the extermination or permanent weakening of Europe’s racial and national groups. The details of Poland’s martyrdom are indescrib-able—one-third of the people murdered and millions left impoverished, sick, maimed, and helpless. Liberation came just in time to save this ancient people from a terrible fulfilment of 'the programme which the defendants plotted.”' Sir Hartley Shawcross, referring to the anti-Jewish programme, described the slaughter, of Jews in ghettoes, in their homes, and. in concentration camps. He said this was not only the work of Himmler and members of the S.S. It had been carried out with the co-operation of the army commanders and with the full knowledge of Keitel, Jodi, and also almost every member of the Government. The German generals wel--. tered in the blood of hundreds of thousands of helpless men, women, and children.

The mass murder of Jews at extermination centres became a State industry, with many by-products—-bundles of victims’ hair were sent back to Germany for chair stuffings; gold from victims’ teeth ’ went, to Funk’s Reichsbank; and even bodies were used to make good the wartime soap shortage. “What Right to Mercy?” “Twelve million were murdered in cold blood,” said Sir Hartley Shawcross. “What right has any man to mercy who played a part, however indirectly, in such a crime?” He said that it became clearer that no defendant in the dock could be ignorant of the murder of non-Ger-mans when they were responsible for the so-called “mercy killings” of 25,000 Germans who were not of productive value to the war machine. Each defendant was guilty of horrors to which history showed no parallel, He closed Ins speech by saying to the judges: “You are asked to believe that these 21 men are not responsible. What mitigation is it that some took less part than others, or that some were principals and others accessories?

“The fate of these men in one way means little, for their personal power for evil lies for ever broken. They have convicted and discredited each other and have destroyed the legend created round Hitler; but great issues still depend on their fate, because the ways of truth and righteousness timong nations and the hope for future international co-operation hi administering law and justice are in your hands.” Demeanour of Accused.

“Goering snarled asides at Ribbentrop as Sir Hartley Shawcross completed his ‘murderers’ indictment,’ ” reports Reuter’s correspondent. “Ribbentrop slumped forward as if about 1.0 collapse. When Sir Hartley Shawcross called him ‘just a common murderer,’ Ribbentrop moaned faintly and shook his head despairingly. “Keitel openly wept. Von Papan buried his head in his hands. Kaltenbrunner alone appeared unmoved and retained the half-smile with which he listened throughout to the prosecutors’ arguments. Frank at one stage leaned over the dock and scowled at Sir Hartley Shawcross. In the earlier portion of his address Sir Hartley Shawcross said that the accused had used 7,000,000 people as slave labourers. They had flouted treaties, launched total war on the world, laid waste whole countries, and devastated great cities from Stalingrad to Coventry. They had left behind an aftermath of hunger, starvation, and disease. He contended that the Pact of Paris and other international treaties established that the deeds which the accused persons in the dock planned and carried out were crimes. The charter under which the tribunal was set up was long overdue to carry out the law.

12.000,000 Murders. Sir Hartley Shawcross denounced the accused as responsible for 12,000,000 murders. “Two-thirds of the Jews in Europe were exterminated, more than 6,000,000 of them on the killers’ own figures,” he said. “The murder was conducted like some mass-production industry in the gas chambers and ovens of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka; Buchenwald, Mauthausen, IVlaidenek, and Oranienburg. . “The defendants participated m and are morally guilty of crimes so frightful that the imagination reels at their very contemplation. Let the words' o£ the defendant Frank be well remembered: ‘Thousands of years will pass and this guilt of Germany will not be erased.’ "The evidence from this trial Will reach out tar beyond the punishment o 1 a score or so of guilty men. The issues at stake here are far greater than their fate, although on their fate those issues depend. Within a year evidence far exceeding that presented to any previous tribunal in history has been collected, sifted, and placed before you. This evidence has not been refuted, and it will remain lor ever to confront those who may hereafter seek to excuse or mitigate what has been done.” Crime Against Peace, Dealing with the conspiracy charge, Sir Hartley Shawcross said: “In years and in a world in which war itself had been declared a crime, the German State organised for war. These men fostered the Hitler . legend, helped to build up the Nazi power and ideology, and direct its activities. LikS an octopus, it spread its slime over Europe and extended its tentacles throughout the world. These men participated in' a Government which was conducted regardless of human decency or established law. Not one has bloodless hands.” Dealing with the next count—the crime against peace—Sir Hartley Shawcross said _ that superficial thinkers, questioning the court’s validity, made much of the argument that there was no such crime. “But let it be said plainly that these defendants are charged also as common murderers,” he said., “It is the crime of war which is at once the object and parent of the other crimes, which were responsible for the deaths of 10,000,000 in battle and for bringing to the edge of ruin the whole moral

and material structure of our civilisation. “The Nazi method followed - the sequence of treachery, intimidation, and murder in every case of aggression. The victim at first was deceived by open promises, and then, while assurances of friendship were redoubled, military preparations were hastened until at last a cause for starting the war was devised/’