Historic Nuremberg Trial Enters Third Day

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 277, 23 November 1945, Page 5

Historic Nuremberg Trial Enters Third Day

Plea That Streicher Insane Rejected by Court

Chief Prosecutor Says Accused Will Be Tried On Their Own Documents

United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Friday, 1.15 a.m. NUREMBERG, Nov. 22. When the War Crimes Tribunal entered on its third day, defence counsel pleaded that Julius Streicher, the notorious Jewbaiter, was insane. The Court rejected the plea, as it also did a request that the trial of Martin Bormann, Hitler’s deputy, who is still at large, should be postponed. A member of the United States prosecuting staff told the Tribunal that the U.S. had brought 2500 captured German documents to the Court and that more than 200 would be put in as evidence.

“I had the feeling that Goerlng, who was obviously playing to the gallery as a stout, good fellow, would have been glad to shake hands with those of ns occupying the Press box if the guards had permitted,” says tne Evening News correspondent at the trial. “It may disconcert him inwardly, though it does not alter his pink, good-natured, healthy face, that Ribbentrop treats him with faint, grey politeness, Keitel stares at him in a cold, harsh military way, and Hess hardly seems to know that he is there. Goering is not rebuffed. He is photogenic in an ample, light grey suit and knows it. He is aware that his appearance and his bluff good humodr is offset by the cadaverous figure of Hess beside him. Goering throws a kindly; word to Hess and then looks casually round for our admiration. He has scores of artful gestures and tries any-: thing to catch our eyes and win our sympathies. He leans wearily forward and puts his head on his arms like a nice pink, fat boy. He wriggles on his j seat to show how hard it is.”

conduct which brings them to this Bar. ’ ’ Although Germany taught the world the horrors of modern war, the ruin from the Rhine to the Danube showed the Allies had not been dull pupils, but the Nazi nightmare had given the Germans and the name of Germany a significance that would retard Germany for a century. AGGRESSIVE WARFARE ILLEGAL Judge Jackson said the United Nations' Tribunal took the position that whatever grievances a nation might have, and however objectionable it might find the status quo, aggressive warfare was an illegal means for settling grievances or altering conditions. “The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against peace has imposed a grave responsibility,’* he added. “The wrongs we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating that civilisation cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.” He intended to try to convict the Nazi leaders by their own meticulously kept records instead of by the testimony of their foes, Judge Jackson added. “There is no count if the indictment cannot be proved by book record. These defendants had their share in the Teutonic passion for thoroughness in putting things on paper. What makes this inquest significant is that the prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to the dust. We shall be obliged to leave to the historians the full development of our case against the evils they represent.” Judge Jackson quoted from a number of documents including a memorandum from Hitler to his staff on May 23, 1939. This memorandum said: “It is a question of expanding our living space to the east and securing food and supplies. German exploitation will enormously increase the surplus food available there. Therefore, there is no question of sparing Poland. We are left with the decision to attack at the first suitable opportunity. We cannot expect a repetition of the Czech affair. There will be war.” Judge Jackson said the case would generally disclose that all the defendants united at some time with the Nazi Party in the plan which all well knew could be accomplished only by an outbreak of war in Europe. The Nazi Party had contemplated war since the plan's inception. CRIMES AGAINST JEWS Judge Jackson devoted nine pages of his speech to crimes against the Jews, “at is my purpose to show that the plan to which all the Nazis were ianatically committed was the annihilation of all the Jewish people. Despite tne German defeat and the Nazi prostration this aim largely succeeded. Of tne 9,509,000 Jews who lived under Nazi domination in Europe 60 per cent, are estimated to have perished. History records that no crime was ever perpetrated against so many victims or carried out witn such calculated cruelty.” After quoting a number of Stretcher's utterances, Judge Jackson added: “He now has the effrontery to tell us he is a Zionist who only wants the jews sent to Palestine. The determination to . destroy the Jews was a binding force which at all times cemented tne elements of this conspiracy.' There were differences Detween the accused on internal policy, but there was no one who did not echo the rallying cry, ‘Germany awake! Perish Jewry!’ ” Alter outlining the growth of the concentration camps and other horrors with which the Nazis instituted their reign of terror, preparing the way for the war, Judge Jackson said a further story would he unfolded from the documents, including those of the German

Most of yesterday was occupied with the address by America’s chief prosecutor (Judge Jackson). Dr. Stahmar complained that counsel were not allowed to talk with the accused in the Courtroom and requested permission. The President ruled that, on the grounds of security, consultations in the Courtroom were permissible only in writing. Dr. Thoma, for Rosenberg, protested that he had not had time during the night or morning to consult his client and could not plead until consultation was permitted. Lord Justice Lawrence pointed out that counsel had had week 3 in which to consult his client, but he offered a quarter of an hour’ adjournment.

Hess was apparently suffering another attack of abdominal cramp and was led from the Court an hour and three-quarters after the trial reopened. He returned six minutes later and sat down with bowed head. ALL PEEAD NOT GUILTY When Lord Justice Lawrence called on the accused to plead, Goering was called first. He began: ‘‘Before 1 answer ” Lord Justice Lawrence interrupted and called for the pleas. Goering: I declare myself in a sense wholly not guilty. Rosenberg: I declare’myself in the sense of the indictment not guilty. Von Schirach: I am not guilty in the eyes of God. Jodi: Before God and my people, I have a clear concience. When Hess was called on to plead, he shouted: “No!” Lord Justice Lawrence said this would be entered as a plea of not guilty. The remaining accused all pleaded not guilty. Lord Justice Lawrence said Kaltenbrunner’s plea would be taken later. The accused, sitting unmoved in the dock, were named by Judge Jackson as “living symbols of racial hatred, of terrorism and violence and of arrogance and cruelty.” Judge Jackson’s 20,000 word opening address had been submitted to President Truman for approval before it was delivered. He said the accused could base their only hope on whether international law was so laggard as to be far behind mankind’s moral sense. “In the dock sit broken men reproached by the humiliation of those they led almost as bitterly as by the desolation of those they attacked,” said Judge Jackson. “Their personal capacity for evil is forever past. It is hard now to perceive in these miserable men the power by which as Nazi leaders they once dominated much of the world and terrified most of it. Merely as individuals their fate is of little consequence to the world. Any

tenderness towards them will be a victory encouraging all the evils attached to their names. Accused created despotism equalled only by the dynasties of the ancient East. Their bestiality and bad faith reached such an excess that they aroused the strength of imperilled civilisation.

When Judge Jackson was one-third of the way through his speech the Court adjourned lor 90 minutes for luncheon. While he was speaking, the defendants leaned forward and listened closely. This was in marked contrast to their attitude during the reading of the indictment the previous day. Hess and Rosenberg declined to use the earphones. « Judge Jackson wore a black morning coat. His voice seldom rose, but he never lacked force. When he said that defendants would be tried on their own documents, Prank laughed, but all the others remained serious. Goering started forward and listened intently when Judge Jackson referred to the Reichstag fire.

BATHED WORLD IN BLOOD. “The German war machine was ground to fragments, but the struggle left Europe a liberated yet prostrated land, where demoralised society struggles to survive. Defendants bathed the world in blood and set it back a century.

* * Civilisation is the real complaining party behind the Tribunal. The Nazi leaders subjected their European neighbours to every outrage and torture, every spoliation and depredation that insolence, greed and cruelty could inflict. They brought their own people to the lowest pitch of wretchedness from which they can entertain no hope of early deliverance. They stirred hatred and incited violence on every continent. ’ ’

“The world-wide scope of the aggression carried out by these men left few neutrals. The victors must judge or leave the defeated to judge themselves. After the Pirst World War we learned the futility of the latter course. We must never forget that the record on which we judge defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. We have no intention of incriminating the whole German people. We know that the Nazi Party was not put into power by a majority vote. If the German populace had wittingly accepted the Nazi programme Storm Troopers, the Gestapo, and concentration camps would have been unnecessary. The German people should know that the people of the United States do not hold them in fear and hate. We charge the guilt on those who planned and intended to conduct that which involves a moral as well as a legal wrong. It is not because they yielded to human frailities that we accuse them, jt is their abnormal inhuman j