NUREMBERG TRIALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26114, 29 March 1946, Page 5

NUREMBERG TRIALS

RIBBENTROP’S DEFENCE OPPOSED PERSECUTION OF JEWS NUREMBERG, Mar. 28. At the War Crimes Tribunal the German Foreign Office Secretary, Steengracht, said that he and Ribbentrop were opposed to the persecution of the Jews. Confronted with a letter bearing his own signature, dated April 28, 1944, outlining plans for.anti-Jewish action abroad, Steengracht said that he was still opposed to anti-semitic measures. What happened in Germany occurred under secrecy. Jews just disappeared. Confronted with another letter disclosing an agreement between the German Foreign Office and Rumania for the liquidation of over 100,000 Jews, Steengracht said he did not know whether Ribbentrop was aware of that. Ribbentrop would not have committed any such cruelties. Asked to specify typical Nazis. Steengracht said Goering was a personality on his own. He was not coniparable with other Nazis. Typical Nazis were Rosenberg, Franck, Hess, Sauckel, von Schirach, and Streicher. Steengracht verified that Ribbentrop agreed with Himmler in October, 1943. for an eastward evacuation of foreign Jews in German-occupied countries. The eastward evacuation was a synonym for gas-chamber extinction. Steengracht admitted that it was possible that during an earlier interrogation he had said: “ Ribbentrop lacks any notion of decency and truth. Such a conception does not exist for him. Ribbentrop’s counsel, Dr Horn, said he wished to submit as part of Ribbentrop’s defence documents and speeches connected with Lord Runciman’s preMunich misson to Prague and Mr Chamberlain’s flights to Germany.