The Nuremberg Trial

161

The Pittsburgh Press (January 20, 1946)

Enslavement plot by Nazis charged

Four million saved by Allied landings

NUERNBERG (UP, Jan. 19) – Nazi Germany plotted the enslavement of all men between 16 and 60 and all women between 18 and 45 years of age in occupied countries. Early in 1944, the Nazis set a quota of four million additional slave laborers from occupied countries above those already furnished, French prosecutors at the war crimes trials said today.

French prosecutor Jacques Herzog said that Germany intended to press all able-bodied men and women into forced battalions.

Labor czar accused

He accused Nazi slave labor czar Fritz Sauckel of being the prime mover in the proposed expansion of the labor program, outlined at a meeting at Hitler’s headquarters in January 1944.

There, he said, Sauckel and Nazi leaders worked out additional quotas of 1,500,000 for Italy; France, one million; Belgium, 250,000, and the Netherlands, 250,000. He did not break down the quotas for Eastern Europe.

Only the Allied landings in Europe halted Sauckel’s plans for mass deportations of slave labor, Herzog said.

Organized black markets

Prosecutor Charles Gerthoffer of France charged that the Germans in Western Europe deliberately organized black markets and issued invasion currency whenever they felt like it.

German technicians following on the heels of their conquering armies methodically stripped occupied countries of their best machinery, thereby “enslaving production,” he charged.

162

The Evening Star (January 20, 1946)

Systematic pillage of France laid to Nazis at Nuernberg

NUERNBERG (AP, Jan. 19) – The French prosecution, opening the second phase of its case against Nazi war leaders, charged today that occupied countries were subjected to a systematic pillage which extended through all phases of their economic life.

The economic case, which also will deal with charges of widespread looting of art works, was opened by Charles Gerthoffer, chief of the French prosecution’s economic section. It began after Prosecutor Jacques Bernard Herzog asserted the German chieftains had adopted a policy of “utilization of living forces and extermination of the unproductive” in occupied countries.

Mr. Gerthoffer will elaborate on the economic phase of the French case when the International Military Tribunal reconvenes Monday.

Sauckel chief target

Accusing all 22 defendants with “functional responsibility” for the slave labor program in Western Europe, Mr. Herzog asked conviction on this count “to restore the dignity of human labor which the defendants attempted to degrade.”

Fritz Sauckel, czar of the Nazi forced labor program, was Mr. Herzog’s chief target. He also singled out for particular responsibility Reichsmarshal Herman Goering, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Economics Minister Walther Funk and Munitions Minister Albert Speer. Mr. Herzog said, however, that the French held all the defendants equally guilty.

He presented to the court a steady stream of decrees and other documents. All detailed methods the Germans employed to bring millions of foreign workers into the Reich to bolster Germany’s strained war economy with what Mr. Herzog said was an unconcealed intent to deplete for generations the able-bodied manpower of neighbor nations.

Excessive taxes, heavy fines

Only the swift Allied advance during the latter days of the war kept the Nazis from carrying out new schemes for mass deportation of all able-bodied men and women into Reich munitions plants, Mr. Herzog charged.

The prosecutor said foreign workers were forced to work 11 to 13 hours daily. Although they were paid the same wages as Germans, he continued, they were subjected to excessive taxes and frequent heavy fines.

Mr. Herzog submitted an estimate from Prof. Henri Dessaile, medical inspector general, which said that at least 25,000 French workers died in Germany after their deportation. Some workers deemed recalcitrant were thrown into reprisal camps or disappeared in political concentration camps, Mr. Herzog asserted.

Sought to hang mayor

Mr. Herzog also charged that Arthur Seyss-Inquart, as gauleiter for the Netherlands, issued decrees which left the Nazis free to impose virtually any penalty they chose on youths who tried to evade forced labor.

Sauckel, Mr. Herzog said, sought to hang the mayor or prefect of one French town, merely to convince Frenchmen they could not evade forced toil. This proposal was made when Sauckel became irritated with continued resistance of the French to labor deportation, the prosecutor said.

Today’s was the first Saturday session since the Christmas holiday.

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Day 39

164

The Pittsburgh Press (January 21, 1946)

Editorial: Nazi conscience

The history of the Nazis, as disclosed at the Nuernberg trial, becomes ever more sickening. Now an SS general, one Bach-Zelewski, has confirmed the authenticity of Himmler’s order that 30 million Slavs in eastern Europe should be eliminated, and all Jews exterminated.

A Nazi and SS member since 1930, Bach-Zelewski stated that he was prompted by his conscience to testify. There are those who intimate that Bach-Zelewski, slated for a war criminal trial himself, was merely trying to gain a milder sentence by buck-passing testimony.

We are inclined to give the SS officer the benefit of the doubt. He has a small conscience, obviously.

Since the human conscience is somewhat older than Adolf Hitler’s teachings, it seems possible that even a confirmed Nazi can feel a touch of remorse. The great wonder is that more contrition has not been evident.

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Day 40

166

L’Aube (January 22, 1946)

francenuremberg
COMMENT les Allemands drainèrent nos milliards

(De notre envoyé spécial Jean RICHARD)

POURSUIVANT son exposé, commencé samedi matin, sur le pillage économique, M. Gerthoffer établit la responsabilité de l’Allemagne et montre sa mainmise sur toutes les entreprises importantes françaises.

Le système des achats individuels fut une des méthodes employées par les nazis pour vider notre pays de ses richesses. C’est ainsi que chaque permissionnaire emportait avec lui, à son retour d’Allemagne, 50 marks qu’on lui échangeait contre des francs. À ce titre, les versements en francs français atteignaient environ cinq milliards par mois. Soit une moyenne de deux cent quarante milliards pour la durée de l’occupation. Somme à laquelle il convient d’ajouter les soldes payées à l’armée d’occupation qui, pour la France seulement, étaient de l’ordre de cent milliards.

167

The Evening Star (January 22, 1946)

French truce in 1940 was ‘scrap of paper’ to Nazis, court told

NUERNBERG (AP) – The French-German armistice of 1940 was just another “scrap of paper” to the Nazis when their occupying forces set out to control France’s wealth and economic resources, the French prosecution charged today before the International Military Tribunal.

Prosecutor Henri Gerthoffer told the tribunal the Germans deliberately distorted the terms of the armistice to gain control of French industry and put the nation’s production at the disposal of the Nazi war machine.

Earlier the prosecution presented a report showing that the Germans seized the bulk of Belgium’s huge textile output after the occupation and then purchased the machinery at forced sales and bargain rates.

Meanwhile, 30 Nazi doctors were being sought by Allied authorities to answer charges that they slaughtered 600,000 “unproductive people” and “useless eaters” from 1940 to 1945 for the sake of the German war effort.

The authorities, acting on information contained in confiscated papers in the hands of American prosecutors in the trial, said they were seeking the full identification and capture of the German medical men who masked scientific murder operations beneath the guise of asylum care.

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Day 41

169

The Pittsburgh Press (January 23, 1946)

War crimes defendant has heart attack

Streicher ordered to bed at Nuernberg

NUERNBERG (UP) – Julius Streicher, a major defendant in the Nazi war crimes trial, suffered a heart attack today and was ordered to bed for emergency treatment.

Allied prison authorities announced that the Jew-baiting Nazi leader showed symptoms of a violent quickening of the heartbeat which lasted for about 15 minutes.

He was given a sedative.

Prison doctors indicated Streicher was in no immediate danger. But his condition was regarded as sufficiently serious to prevent his return to the trial for several days.

Hess wants to defend self

The war crimes tribunal, meanwhile, went ahead with the hearing of Streicher’s fellow-defendants and took under advisement a request by Rudolf Hess that he be permitted to conduct his own defense for the duration of the trial.

Capt. Drexel A. Sprecher of Independence, Wisconsin, presented the case against Hans Fritzsche, Nazi propagandist. He charged that many Germans would not have participated in Nazi activity or tolerated Nazi atrocities had it not been for Fritzsche’s propaganda.

Affidavit shown

Capt. Sprecher presented an affidavit in which Fritzsche admitted that the German public began to question the reliability of the German press at the time of the Czech crisis.

Maj. J. H. Barrington, assistant British prosecutor, presented the case against Franz von Papen. Von Papen glared as Barrington called him “an unscrupulous opportunist willing to fall in with the conspirators.”

170

The Evening Star (January 23, 1946)

Streicher stricken with heart attack at Nuernberg trial

NUERNBERG (AP) – Julius Streicher, one of the defendants in the Nuernberg trials, suffered a heart attack during the noon recess today and was put to bed.

An official statement from Palace of Justice military authorities said it was too early to determine whether the notorious Jew baiter’s heart attack was due “to an organic condition or to mental strain he had been under.”

The official statement said he had “symptoms suggestive of paroxysmal tachycardia (convulsive and rapid heart action) which persisted about 15 minutes, replaced by an irregular heartbeat.”

The bull-necked Streicher is the second of the 22 defendants to break in health since the start of the Nuernberg trials. Ernst Kaltenbrunner has been hospitalized during most of the trial because of two cranial hemorrhages.

Papen assailed as opportunist

In the trial itself the British prosecution told the tribunal that Franz von Papen sold Germany into the hands of the Nazis in a cold-blooded effort to “further his own diplomatic career.”

Outlining the story of the miscalculations of Von Papen, who blundered badly as head of the German spy and sabotage ring in the United States in the World War, the prosecution described the elderly diplomat as “not a typical Nazi, but an unscrupulous political opportunist.”

He is one of 22 on trial for war crimes.

Hans Fritzsche, the Nazi radio propaganda boss, admitted that Germany’s claim that the Nazi attack on Russia in 1941 was a “preventative war for defense of the fatherland” was false.

Fritzsche, who broadcast weekly assailing Jews, the Soviet Union and “plutocrats” of the western democracies, said a brief experience as a soldier on the Eastern Front in 1942 convinced him of the complete falsehoods he had broadcast at the behest of Joachim von Ribbentrop, then foreign minister.

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172

Neues Österreich (January 24, 1946)

Rudolf Heß landet in England

Sein abenteuerlicher Flug vor de Nürnberger Gericht

Nürnberg, 23. Jänner - Vor dem Nürnberger Gericht begann gestern die Einzelanklage gegen Rudolf Heß, mußte aber unterbrochen und verschoben werden, da sein Anwalt im Gerichtsgebäude stürzte und sich dabei den Fuß brach.

Heß hat um die Erlaubnis gebeten, sich für den Rest der Verhandlung selbst verteidigen zu dürfen, doch ist eine Entscheidung darüber noch nicht getroffen worden.

Als erstes Dokument wurde ein Bericht über die Unterredung des Herzogs von Hamilton mit Heß am 11. Mai 1941 vorgelegt. Der Bericht stellt fest, daß Hamilton sich im Operationsabschnitt Turnhouse im Dienst befand, als ein feindliches Flugzeug auf der Höhe von Northumberland um 22,08 Uhr am 10. Mai 1941 gemeldet wurde. Das Flugzeug wurde als eine „Me 110“ festgestellt, und ein englischer Jäger nahm die Verfolgung auf.

Der Führer des deutschen Flugzeuges, der mit Fallschirm absprang und gefangengenommen wurde, gab seinen Namen mit Alfred Horn an und erklärte, er habe den Herzog von Hamilton in einem Sonderauftrag zu sprechen.

Nachdem der Herzog davon unterrichtet worden war, habe er sich mit dem Vernehmungsoffizier zu dem Gefangenen begeben.

‚Ich bin Rudolf Heß‘

„Ich betrat zusammen mit dem Vernehmungsoffizier und dem Wachhabenden das Zimmer“, fährt der Bericht des Herzogs fort, „in dem sich der Gefangene befand. Der Gefangene verlangte sofort mit mir allein zu sprechen. Ich ersuchte die anderen Offiziere, sich zurückzuziehen, worauf der Deutsche erklärte:

Ich weiß nicht, ob Sie sich meiner erinnern; ich bin Rudolf Heß.

Er erklärte weiter, daß er in einer Mission der Menschlichkeit gekommen sei und daß der Führer nicht wünsche, England zu schlagen, wohl aber den Kampf einzustellen.

Sein Freund Albrecht Haushofer habe ihm gesagt, ich sei ein Engländer, der, wie er glaube, seinen, Heß, Standpunkt verstehen werde. Er habe daher versucht, eine Zusammenkunft in Lissabon zu arrangieren.

Heß erklärte weiter, daß dies bereits der vierte Versuch sei, den er unternommen habe. Dreimal habe er wegen Schlechtwetters umkehren müssen.

Hitler vom Endsieg überzeugt

Er habe seine Reise nicht zu einer Zeit unternehmen wollen, da Großbritannien in Libyen siegreich gewesen sei, da er annehmen mußte, daß dann sein Schritt als Schwäche ausgelegt würde. Da nunmehr Deutschland Erfolge in Nordafrika und Griechenland errungen habe, sei ihm der Zeitpunkt als geeignet erschienen.

Der Führer sei überzeugt, daß Deutschland den Krieg gewinnen würden er wünsche ein unnötiges Abschlachten einzustellen, das sonst unweigerlich Platz greifen würde.

Heß fragte mich, ob ich nicht die führenden Mitglieder meiner Partei zusammenrufen könnte, um mit ihnen Friedensvorschläge zu besprechen. Ich antwortete ihm, daß es in diesem Lande jetzt nur eine Partei gebe. Heß antwortete, er könne mir sagen, was Hitlers Friedensbedingungen seien. Vorerst würde er auf einem Abkommen bestehen, wonach unsere zwei Länder nie wieder Krieg führen sollten.

Während der Besprechungen war Heß in der Lage, sich selbst klar und deutlich auszudrücken, verstand aber nicht immer ganz, was ich sagte. Ich schlug daher vor, einen Dolmetsch beizuziehen.

Aus einem weiteren Bericht über drei Besprechungen des Vertreters des britischen Außenministeriums Kirkpatrick mit Heß am 14. und 15. Mai geht hervor, daß

Heß behauptete, er sei ohne Wissen Hitlers gekommen, um die verantwortlichen Personen zu überzeugen, daß, wenn England den Krieg nicht gewinnen könne, es am klügsten sei, jetzt Frieden zu schließen. Auf Grund seiner langen und unmittelbaren Kenntnis Hitlers, könne er sein Ehrenwort geben, daß Hitler gegen das britische Empire nie irgend welche Anschläge erwogen noch nach der Weltherrschaft gestrebt habe.

Deutschlands Interessen seien in Europa, und jede Vergeudung der deutschen Stärke außerhalb Europas würde eine Schwächung bedeuten und den Grund für eine Zerstörung Deutschlands legen Hitler würde einen Zusammenbruch des britischen Empire aufrichtig bedauern. An diesem Punkt versuchte Heß mich gegen Amerika einzunehmen, das dunkle Pläne mit dem Empire habe. Kanada würde sicherlich in die Vereinigten Staaten aufgenommen werden.

Die Lösung, die Heß vorschlug, war, daß England Deutschland freie Hand in Europa und Deutschland England vollständig freie Hand im Empire geben solle, mit dem Vorbehalt, daß Großbritannien Deutschland seine früheren Kolonien zurückgebe, die es als Rohstoffquelle brauche.

Der Angriff auf Rußland

Ich forderte ihn auf, so heißt es in Kirkpatricks Bericht weiter, die Haltung Hitlers gegenüber Rußland darzulegen, ob er Rußland als zu Europa gehörig betrachte oder zu Asien.

Er antwortete: Zu Asien.

Ich entgegnete, daß nach den Bedingungen seines Vorschlages, wonach Deutschland nur freie Hand in Europa wünsche, es nicht ermächtigt sei, Rußland anzugreifen.

Heß antwortete rasch mit der Bemerkung, daß Deutschland gewisse Forderungen an Rußland zu stellen habe, die entweder durch Verhandlung oder als Ergebnis eines Krieges befriedigt werden könnten. Er fügte hinzu, daß die Gerüchte Hitler wolle in Kürze Rußland angreifen, jeder Grundlage entbehrten.

Zu den Ansprüchen Italiens erklärte er, er sie sicher, daß sie nicht übermäßig sein würden. Das Gespräch abschließend, sagte Heß, er habe vergessen zu betonen, daß diese Vorschläge nur unter der Annahme erwogen werden könnten, daß sie mit Deutschland von einer anderen als der gegenwärtigen britischen Regierung beraten würden.

173

Die Machenschaften des Herrn von Papen

Der englische Ankläger Major Barrington schilderte den Anteil des letzten deutschen Gesandten in Wien von Papen an der Naziverschwörung und erklärte, daß Papen klug genug war, der NSDAP formell nicht beizutreten, um wenigstens äußerlich unabhängig zu erscheinen.

Trotzdem war er ein glühendes Mitglied dieser Verschwörung und nicht imstande, ihren Versuchungen zu widerstehen.

Papen sei, sagt Barrington, wohl kein typischer Nazi gewesen, aber doch ein bedenkenloser politischer Opportunist und bereit, mit den Nazi zusammenzuarbeiten, wenn es ihm passend zu sein schien.

Barrington skizzierte die Laufbahn Papens im einzelnen bis zu seiner Ernennung zum Botschafter in der Türkei. Er erklärte, Papen sei

  1. dafür verantwortlich, daß die Nazi überhaupt Fuß fassen konnten,

  2. habe er an der Konsolidierung ihrer Herrschaft über Deutschland mitgewirkt,

  3. habe er der Kriegsvorbereitung Vorschub geleistet,

  4. habe er an der politischen Vorbereitung von Krieg und Angriff durch die Naziverschwörer teilgenommen.

Weiters erklärte Barrington: „Die schlagendsten Beweise gegen Papen umfassen die Zeit vom 1. Juni 1932 bis zur Durchführung des ‚Anschlusses‘ im März 1938.

Im bisherigen Verlauf des Prozesses sind fast nur Beweise hinsichtlich seiner Tätigkeit in Österreich vorgebracht worden.

Obwohl sich die Anklage gegen Papen allein auf Österreich stützt, wird sie doch in der Lage sein, sich mit seiner gemachten Vertrauenswürdigkeit und dem Mäntelchen von Respekt zu befassen, unter dem er seine Machenschaften zu verbergen pflegte.“

174

The Hardin Tribune-Herald (January 24, 1946)

Germans hope to rebuild country out of wreckage

Expect quality of products to restore reputation of lost beauty of cities; seek raw materials for industry
By Baukhage, news analyst and commentator

NUERNBERG, Germany – One German who otherwise gets along very well with the American occupation officials and is thoroughly in sympathy with what is going on in the Nuernberg court house will nevertheless be one of the happiest men in Germany when the trials are over. He is a little black-haired, bespectacled man named Hans Ziegler, Oberbuergermeister of the city. The best translation for his title is plain “mayor” but because all German cities have at least one deputy mayor, some of the American writers who have seen service in London translate “Oberbuergermeister” as “Lord Mayor.”

Herr Ziegler says frankly that his work will be easier when the huge organization required to support the international military tribunal has folded its tents and departed. When he told me this, I was rather surprised since at first blush it might seem that the city would benefit from all this American activity. However, when one considers that what the Americans here buy with the Germans own money (we print it and they have to redeem it) the profits can hardly seem desirable. The central German government, when there is one, will eventually redeem the paper marks but all Germans will have to contribute in the form of taxes. In Nuernberg although as I said, the city budget had been cut 50 percent, the taxes have already been increased 33⅓ percent.

Military tribunal imposes burden

The chief burden which the military tribunal imposes on the town and the one which presses down hard on the mayor, derives from the fact that it takes a lot of tons, volts and manpower to keep the wheels of justice moving.

Coal is Nuernberg’s (as it is Germany’s) chief problem. What the Russians didn’t get out in their zone, the chief coal areas in Germany, the French have taken in theirs. Transportation has broken down. Without fuel to heat their homes or to cook with, Nuernbergers have bought up every sort of electrical heater and cooker and this plus the large amount of power used by the Americans has put a terrific drain not only on the power plants but the cables. It takes coal to make electricity here where there are no tumbling cataracts. As I write the snow is falling in great Christmas card flakes and even the ruined houses are assuming a touch of beauty. But that beauty is of little comfort to people living in cellars or rooms without roofs.

Half of Nuernberg’s houses were destroyed, the mayor told me, a third partly demolished. The rest can be made livable. But alas, the military tribunal took over one-third of the labor available for building and repair and a large stock of materials.

A two-hour walk through the city revealed no shops open except a few food and meat stores. In spite of this almost total eclipse of visible industrial existence I was surprised that the mayor placed first on his list of objectives, a restoration of Nuernberg’s long-established reputation for expert craftsmanship – for goods of high quality. Toys, of course, but also precision instruments, light machinery and pottery.

“We cannot restore Nuernberg’s beauty, its historical buildings which brought so many tourists here,” said Mayor Ziegler, “but we can win back our reputation as hard workers and fine workers. The city has a long-established record for industriousness and expert handicraft as producers of high-quality goods. That reputation goes back to the Middle Ages. Of course we will have to be very patient. We must first rehabilitate our city, then we must wait for good raw materials which we must have to produce high quality products. And of course all this must wait until Germany is once more permitted to trade in world markets.”

But, I interjected at this point, what about the food situation? That wasn’t in the mayor’s province. He took the view which later proved sound enough, that America would not let the Germans starve. If that was our intention, after all, it solved all problems and there was no need to discuss the other questions.

The mayor by no means took for granted that America was an endless source of supplies, that we would forever provide the food which Germany herself never had and never could produce. All he expected was to be tided over until Germany could pay her own way and buy the food for her people and feed for her cattle. That brought this keen-eyed little man right back to his original theme.

“Our small industries must get back on their feet so that we can sell our goods in the world market and obtain exchange for food imports. Remember,” he said, “the Russians have taken over Germany’s bread basket. A great segment of the country has been cut away. And a million and a quarter German food producers, who are also food-consumers, have moved back within the non-food producing area of Germany. The Ruhr and Saar areas never could possibly feed themselves. Now more people are crowded into them, as well as into this area where most of the land is already under cultivation.

“These newcomers cannot raise food but they can work in our factories and produce products who can buy the food from the rest of the world. To do that we must be allowed to get the raw materials and be permitted to trade in the world markets. Otherwise, there will be starvation, riots and chaos which will spread all over Europe.”

European economy out of kilter

Later on I learned more about that “spreading.” In Berlin I sat in the office of American food and agriculture administration. Through that office that morning had passed a Czech, a Belgian and a Hollander.

The Czech came in to beg permits to bring sugar into Germany which has none. The Czech’s best beet fields have not been destroyed. They can’t ship the beet sugar abroad but they could easily push it across the Czech-German border where the Germans are starving for it. And the Germans have great piles of unused salt.

The Hollander said: “The Germans love my fish. They are starving. You are importing food for them. My fish is rotting and there are still enough parts for agricultural machinery in Germany and plenty can be turned out in small factories which we must have if we are to continue our farming.”

The Belgian had the same story. From time immemorial Belgian cheap beef has gone to Luebec and other west German cities to go into German sausage. The Belgians have plenty of scrawny cattle which concocted into German sausage would be received only too gladly by the Germans.

“What shall I do with this cattle? They are no good for anything else. And we could get plenty if manufactured products in Germany to pay for them if you would let only a few shops start manufacturing the things we need.”

In the Russian zone a number of factories are working, supplying the Russians of course, but likewise yielding return enough to keep the Germans alive to make more things the Russians need.

I witnessed striking evidence of this will-to-survive on the part of Nuernberg business men. For the most part it represented the retailer but it is typical of the town. I walked through the nightmare of the Altstadt (the old town) which is within the ancient city wall and was the famous sight-seeing center as well as the location of the main police station and city hall where the SS troops held out to the last man. The destruction is too horrible to dwell upon. It is an exaggerated Coventry. But all along the main streets, now cleared of rubble, were brand new, well painted signs bearing the name of the shop owners who had once done business there with visitors from all the world, and plain to see was the notice of a new address. It gave one a strange feeling to see bright bits of neat board stuck in a dump heap – a neat dump heap. It made you think of the restless hand in the old tale, projecting from the grave.

My most embarrassing moment in Nuernberg: When the guard in the court house came up to the broadcasting booth and said: “Pipe down, the judge can’t hear the lawyers.” Well, I got my commission in the artillery because I could outshout the horses.

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176

Salzburger Nachrichten (January 25, 1946)

Nürnberger Prozeß:
Neuraths Sündenregister

NÜRNBERG, 24. Jänner (AND.) – Zu Beginn der heutigen Verhandlung des Nürnberger Prozesses gab der Vorsitzende bekannt, daß der Zustand Streichers, der gestern erkrankt ist, sich gebessert habe, er der Verhandlung jedoch noch nicht beiwohnen werde. Auf den Antrag des Angeklagten Heß, sich angesichts der Verhinderung seines Anwaltes selbst zu verteidigen, wurde nicht eingegangen, der Präsident des Gerichtshofes teilte bloß mit, daß das Beweisverfahren gegen Heß vertagt werde.

In der heutigen Verhandlung setzte der britische Ankläger Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe die noch am gestrigen Verhandlungstage begonnene Beweisführung gegen den gewesenen Reichsaußenminister und Reichsprotektor von Neurath fort. In seinen Ausführungen zieh der britische Ankläger Neurath einiger Lügen in der Frage des Anschlusses Österreichs und führte dabei einen Brief an, den der Angeklagte an den britischen Botschafter gerichtet hatte. Darin behauptete Neurath, daß Deutschland keine Gewalt gegen Österreich angewandt habe. Die deutschen Truppen seien erst auf dringende Bitten der österreichischen Regierung nach Österreich gesandt worden. Unter Zitierung des Tagebuches des Generals Jodl bezeichnete der Ankläger diese Behauptungen als reine Erfindungen.

Während der Angeklagte, so fuhr der britische Ankläger fort, als Reichsaußenminister an der Vorbereitung der Kriegsverschwörung teilgenommen habe, sei er durch seine Tätigkeit als Reichsprotektor von Böhmen und Mähren mitschuldig an der Verletzung der Kriegsgesetze und Menschenrechte. Diese Anschuldigung wird auch durch ein dem Gericht vorgelegtes Dokument erhärtet, in dem Neurath die Politik dem tschechischen Volk gegenüber folgendermaßen umreißt: Die russisch wertvollen Elemente der tschechischen Bevölkerung sollen durch Arbeitseinsatz im Reich germanisiert werden, die rassisch minderwertigen Elemente und die Intelligenz wären durch rücksichtslose Behandlung auszurotten.

Im weiteren Verlauf der Verhandlung brachte der französische Anklagevertreter Material zu den in Westeuropa begangenen Greueltaten vor und befaßte sich insbesondere mit den Hinrichtungen von Geiseln. In Frankreich allein, so erklärte er, seien erwiesenermaßen mindestens 29.000 Geiseln von den Deutschen erschossen worden, davon allein in Paris 11.000 Geiseln. Im Zuge sogenannter Vergeltungsexpeditionen seien ferner von der deutschen Polizei und SS ganze Dörfer niedergebrannt worden. Weiter behandelte der französische Ankläger auch die Hinrichtungen von Geiseln in Norwegen und Holland.

177

The Evening Star (January 25, 1946)

50 Russians executed as treat for Himmler, trial witness says

NUERNBERG (AP) – Fifty Russian officers and political commissars were executed as a special treat for Gestapo Chieftain Heinrich Himmler at Mauthausen murder camp in September 1944 and 47 American and Dutch flyers were tortured and stoned to death the same month, a former inmate testified today before the International Military Tribunal.

The witness, Maurice Lampe, a Frenchman, telling a particularly graphic story of the beatings and stonings of the fliers, said the Americans and Dutchmen arrived at the camp the morning of September 6.

Barefooted and dressed only in their underwear, the fliers were taken before the SS commandant and told they were condemned to death for trying to escape.

When one of the American officers requested the privilege of dying “like a soldier” he was beaten and then the entire group was led, still barefooted, to the bottom of a stone quarry.

Loaded with stones

“Each man was then loaded with stones and had to go to the top of the quarry – up all 136 steps,” Lampe related.

“That first trip each man carried 25 to 30 kilograms (55 to 65 pounds) of stone. They were beaten all the way. They had to run back down again.

“On the second trip, the loads were heavier still. The blows on them were redoubled and stones were hurled at them. The same process was repeated the whole day.

“That evening the party in which I was working came from the quarry and climbed the steps which were covered with blood. I almost stepped on the jaw of a man.

“Twenty-one bodies were lying there and the 26 others died the following morning.”

Watched Russians go to death

Lampe said he was in the blockhouse opposite Mauthausen’s ill-famed deathhouse and crematorium the day of Himmler’s Roman holiday and watched the assembled Russians kiss one another farewell before they were marched one by one down the steps to the execution chamber.

“The executions went on all afternoon,” he testified. “Each victim was compelled to wait on the steps and hear the shot which killed his predecessor. Every shot reached our ears.”

Lampe’s testimony was part of the French case against the 22 defendants.

Nazis show shame

As the story of savage tortures unfolded, Nazi defendants were unable to conceal shame over the actions of the regime of which they were a part.

Franz von Papen, pale and shaken, ripped the earphones from his head and sat thereafter with his hands covering his face. Hjalmar Schacht and Joachim von Ribbentrop also cast off their headphones. Grand Adm. Karl Doenitz sat woodenly with his chin on his chest as though unable to face the courtroom.

Prison physicians announced that an electrocardiograph test on Julius Streicher, who collapsed from a heart attack in the prisoners’ dock three days ago, revealed no gross abnormalities.

The general condition of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who has missed all but a half dozen sessions of the trial because of a cranial hemorrhage, was said by the physicians to be gradually improving.

178

Salzburger Nachrichten (January 26, 1946)

Nürnberger Prozeß:
Die Greueltaten der Gestapo

NÜRNBERG, 25. Jänner (AND). – In der heutigen Sitzung des Nürnberger Prozesses brachte der französische Ankläger Dubost Einzelheiten über die von der Gestapo gegen Franzosen und Angehörige anderer westeuropäischer Länder angewandten Folter-Methoden zur Sprache. Ein französischer Zeuge, Maurice Lampe, der Insasse des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen war, berichtete, wie im dortigen berüchtigten Steinbruch britische, amerikanische und holländische Offiziere zu Tode gepeinigt worden seien. Es sei wie eine Vision aus Dantes Inferno gewesen: SS-Männer hätten die Opfer bei bitterster Kälte ins Freie getrieben und mit Wasser übergossen. Wenn sie dann nach 18 Stunden noch am Leben waren, seien sie mit der Axt erschlagen worden. Von 10.000 in Mauthausen eingelieferten Franzosen seien nur 3000 mit dem Leben davon gekommen.

Weiter legte der Anklagevertreter Originalberichte der Gestapo über deren Greueltaten in Dänemark, Norwegen, Holland und Belgien vor. So seien in Norwegen 2100 Personen zu Tode gemartert worden. Alle diese Berichte und die Art der Folterungen lassen erkennen, so erklärte der Ankläger, daß sie von höheren Stellen befohlen und geduldet wurden; die deutsche Regierung und alle ihre Mitglieder seien demnach verantwortlich für diese Rückkehr in die dunkelsten Zeiten des Mittelalters.

Im weiteren Verlauf der Verhandlung kam es zu einer Auseinandersetzung zwischen dem Ankläger und dem Gerichtspräsidenten betreffend das Material über die Deportation der Familie des Generals Giraud. Das Gericht entschied schließlich, daß die Anklage zu diesem Punkt französische Regierungsberichte vorzulegen habe.

179

The Evening Star (January 26, 1946)

Hess’ ill attorney continues defense despite dismissal

NUERNBERG (AP) – Rudolf Hess’ attorney, disobeying the written order of his eccentric client, was at work in a hospital ward today preparing a case that might save the former deputy fuehrer’s life.

Thin, scholarly Gunther von Rohrscheidt broke one of his ankles in an accidental fall last Monday and received his “dismissal” by Hess at almost the same time.

As soon as the doctors had set the difficult fracture and informed Von Rohrscheidt that he would be bedfast up to four weeks, the veteran German attorney organized a legal office in the hospital, brought in his two secretaries, sent to the Palace of Justice daily for catalogued documents and pored over the official transcript of each session of the International Military Tribunal he had missed.

The tribunal has withheld a decision on Hess’ later formal request that he be allowed to conduct his defense alone. None of the attorneys defending the 21 other Nazi war criminals, however, considers it likely that the Allied judges will humor Hess to such an extent.

Hess’ note to Von Rohrscheidt asserted in effect: “I do not want any witnesses. I do not want any affidavits or documents. I do not want any lawyer. I do not want any defense.”

Wryly his attorney commented: “He has no apparent fear of execution and seems to be completely thoughtless of his own life. But I believe he would seek if possible to defend his idea of the German people and their political faith.”

Hess’ wife and son, about whom he asks no questions from the American guards, are reported living on charity of friends in one rented furnished room in a mountainous Bavarian village. Hess’ home in Munich was destroyed in the war.

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Day 44