Opening address for the United States for Prosecution of Axis Criminality/Part 3.3

Crimes Against the Jews

The most savage and numerous crimes planned and committed by the Nazis were those against the Jews. These in Germany, in 1933, numbered about 500,000. In the aggregate, they had made for themselves positions which excited envy, and had accumulated properties which excited the avarice of the Nazis. They were few enough to be helpless and numerous enough to be held up as a menace.

Let there be no misunderstanding about the charge of persecuting Jews. What we charge against these defendants is not those arrogances and pretensions which frequently accompany the intermingling of different peoples and which are likely despite the honest efforts of government, to produce regrettable crimes and convulsions. It is my purpose to show a plan and design, to which all Nazis were fanatically committed, to annihilate all Jewish people. These crimes were organized and promoted by the Party Leadership, executed and protected by the Nazi officials, as we shall convince you by written orders of the Secret State Police itself.

The persecution of the Jews was a continuous and deliberate policy. It was a policy directed against other nations as well as against the Jews themselves. Anti-Semitism was promoted to divide and embitter the democratic peoples and to soften their resistance to the Nazi aggression. As Robert Ley declared in Der Angriff on 14 May 1944, "The second German secret weapon is Anti-Semitism because if it is constantly pursued by Germany, it will become a universal problem which all nations will be forced to consider."

Anti-Semitism also has been aptly credited with being a "spearhead of terror." The ghetto was the laboratory for testing repressive measures. Jewish property was the first to be expropriated, but the custom grew and included similar measures against Anti-Nazi Germans, Poles, Czechs, Frenchmen, and Belgians. Extermination of the Jews enabled the Nazis to bring a practiced hand to similar measures against Poles, Serbs, and Greeks. The plight of the Jew was a constant threat to opposition or discontent among other elements of Europe's population -- pacifists, conservatives, communists, Catholics, Protestants, socialist. It was, in fact, a threat to every dissenting opinion and to every non-Nazi's life.

The persecution policy against the Jews commenced with non-violent measures, such as disfranchisement and discriminations against their religion, and the placing of impediments in the way of success in economic life. It moved rapidly to organized mass violence against them, physical isolation in ghettos, deportation, forced labor, mass starvation, and extermination. The Government, the Party formation indicated before you as criminal organizations, the Secret State Police, the Army, private and semi-public associations, and "spontaneous" mobs that were carefully inspired from official sources, were all agencies concerned in this persecution. Nor was it directed against individual Jews for personal bad citizenship or unpopularity. The avowed purpose was the destruction of the Jewish people as a whole, as an end in itself, as a measure of preparation for war, and as a discipline of conquered peoples.

The conspiracy or common plan to exterminate the Jew was so methodically and thoroughly pursued that despite the German defeat and Nazi prostration, this Nazi aim largely has succeeded. Only remnants of the European Jewish population remain in Germany, in the countries which Germany occupied, and in those which were her satellites or collaborators. Of the 9,600,000 Jews who lived in Nazi dominated Europe, 60 percent are authoritatively estimated to have perished. 5,700,000 Jews are missing from the countries in which they formerly lived, and over 4,500,000 cannot be accounted for by the normal death rate nor by immigration; nor are they included among displaced persons. History does not record a crime ever perpetrated against so many victims or one ever carried out with such calculated cruelty.

You will have difficulty, as I have, to look into the faces of these defendants and believe that in this 20th century human beings could inflict such sufferings as will be proved here on their own countrymen as well as upon their so-called "inferior" enemies. Particular crimes, and the responsibility of defendants for them, are to be dealt with by the Soviet Government's Counsel, when committed in the East, and by Counsel for the Republic of France when committed in the West. I advert to them only to show their magnitude as evidence of a purpose and a knowledge common to all defendants, of an official plan rather than of a capricious policy of some individual commander, and to show such a continuity of Jewish persecution from the rise of the Nazi conspiracy to its collapse as forbids us to believe that any person [page 136] could be identified with any part of Nazi action without approving this most conspicuous item of its program.

The Indictment itself recites many evidences of the anti-Semitic persecutions. The defendant Streicher led the Nazis in anti-Semitic bitterness and extremism. In an article appearing in Der Stuermer on 19 March, 1942 he complained that Christian teachings have stood in the way of "radical solution of the Jewish question in Europe," and quoted enthusiastically as the Twentieth Century solution the Fuehrer's proclamation of February 24, 1942 that "the Jew will be exterminated." And on November 4, 1943, Streicher declared in Der Stuermer that the Jews "have disappeared from Europe and that the Jewish 'Reservoir of the East' from which the Jewish plague has for centuries beset the people of Europe, has ceased to exist." Streicher now has the effrontery to tell us he is "only a Zionist – he says he wants only to return the Jews to Palestine. But on May 7, 1942 his newspaper, Der Stuermer, had this to say:

It is also not only an European problem! The Jewish question is a world question! Not only is Germany not safe in the face of the Jews as long as one Jew lives in Europe, but also the Jewish question is hardly solved in Europe so long as Jews live in the rest of the world.

And the defendant Hans Frank, a lawyer by profession I say with shame, summarized in his Diary in 1944 the Nazi policy thus: "The Jews are a race which has to be eliminated; when- ever we catch one, it is his end." (Frank Diary, 4 March 1944, p. 26). And earlier, speaking of his function as Governor General of Poland, he confided to his diary this sentiment: "Of course I cannot eliminate all lice and Jews in only a year's time." (2233-C-PS) I could multiply endlessly this kind of Nazi ranting but I will leave it to the evidence and turn to the fruit of 'this perverted thinking.

The most serious of the actions against Jews were outside of any law, but the law itself was employed to some extent. -There were the infamous Nurnberg decrees of September 15, 1935 (Reichsgesetzblatt 1935, Part I, p. 1146). The Jews were segregated into ghettos and put into forced labor; they were expelled from their professions; their property was expropriated; all cultural life, the press, the theatre, and schools were prohibited them; and the SD was made responsible for them (212-PS, 069-PS). This was an ominous guardianship, as the following order for "The Handling of the Jewish Question" shows:[page 137] The competency of the Chief of the Security Service, who is charged with the mission of solving the European Jewish question, extends even to the occupied eastern provinces. * * * An eventual act by the civilian population against the Jews is not to be prevented as long as this is compatible with the maintenance of order and security in the rear of the fighting troops * * * The first main goal of the German measures must be strict segregation of Jewry from the rest of the population. In the execution of this, first of all is the seizing of the Jewish populace by the introduction of a registration order and similar appropriate measures * * * Then immediately, the wearing of the recognition sign consisting of a yellow Jewish star is to be brought about and all rights of freedom for Jews are to be withdrawn. They are to be placed in Ghettos and at the same time are to be separated according to sexes. The presence of many more or less closed Jewish settlements in White Ruthenia and in the Ukraine makes this mission easier. Moreover, places are to be chosen which make possible the full use of the Jewish manpower in case labor needs are present * * * The entire Jewish property is to be seized and confiscated with exception of that which is necessary for a bare existence. As far as the economical situation permits, the power of disposal of their property is to be taken from the Jews as soon as possible through orders and other measures given by the commissariate, so that the moving of property will quickly cease. Any cultural activity will be completely forbidden, to the Jew. This includes the outlawing of the Jewish press, the Jewish theatres and schools. The slaughtering of animals according to Jewish rites is also to be prohibited. * * * (212-PS). The anti-Jewish campaign became furious in Germany following the assassination in Paris of the German Legation Councillor von Rath. Heydrich, Gestapo head, sent a teletype to all Gestapo and SD offices with directions for handling "spontaneous" uprising anticipated for the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938, so as to aid in destruction of Jewish-owned property and protect only that of Germans (37.4-PS; 765-PS). No more cynical document ever came into evidence. Then there is a report by an SS Brigade Leader, Dr. Stahlecher, to Himmler, which recites that: [page 138] Similarly, native anti-Semitic forces were induced to start pogroms against Jews during the first hours after capture, though this inducement proved to be very difficult. Following out orders, the Security Police was determined to solve the Jewish question with all possible means and most decisively. But it was desirable that the Security Police should not put in an immediate appearance, at least in the beginning, since the extraordinarily harsh measures were apt to stir even German circles. It had to be shown to the world that the native population itself took the first action by way of natural reaction against the suppression by Jews during several decades and against the terror exercised by the Communists during the preceding period. In view of the extension of the area of operations and the great number of duties which had to be performed by the Security Police, it was intended from the very beginning to obtain the co-operation of the reliable population for the fight against vermin-that is mainly the Jews and Communists. Beyond our directing of the first spontaneous actions of self-cleansing, which will be reported elsewhere, care had to be taken that reliable people should be put to the cleansing job and that they were appointed auxiliary members of the Security Police. "Kowno * * * To our surprise it was not easy at first to set in motion an extensive pogrom against Jews. KLIMATIS, the leader of the partisan unit, mentioned above, who was used for this purpose primarily, succeeded in starting a pogrom on the basis of advice given to him by a small advanced detachment acting in Kowno, and in such a way that no German order or German instigation was noticed from the outside. During the first pogrom in the night from 25. to 26.6 the Lithuanian partisans did away with more than 1,500 Jews, set fire to several synagogues or destroyed them by other means and burned down a Jewish dwelling district consisting of about 60 houses. During the following nights about 2,300 Jews were made harmless in a similar way. In other parts of Lithuania similar actions followed the example of Kowno, though smaller and extending to the Communists who had been left behind. . "These self-cleansing actions went smoothly because the Army authorities who had been informed showed understand- [page 139] ing for this procedure. From the beginning it was obvious that only the first days after the occupation would offer the opportunity for carrying out pogroms. After the disarmament of the partisans the self-cleansing actions ceased necessarily. It proved much more difficult to set in motion similar cleansing actions in Latvia.

From the beginning it was to be expected that the Jew-ish problem in the East could not be solved by pogroms alone. In accordance with the basic orders received, however, the cleansing activities of the Security Police had to aim at a complete annihilation of 'the Jews * * * "The sum total of the Jews liquidated in Lithuania amounts to 71,105. (L-180).

Of course, it is self-evident that these "uprisings" were managed by the government and the Nazi Party. If we were in doubt, we could resort to Streicher's memorandum of April 14, 1939, which says, "The anti-Jewish action of November, 1938 did not arise spontaneously from the people. * * * Part of the party formation have been charged with the execution of the anti-Jewish action." (406-PS). Jews as a whole were fined a billion Reichsmarks. They were excluded from all businesses, and claims against insurance companies for their burned properties were confiscated, all by decree of the defendant Goering (Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938, Part I, Pp. 1579-1582).

Synagogues were the objects of a special vengeance. On November 10,1938, the following order was given: "By order of the Group Commander, all Jewish Synagogues in the area of Brigade 50 have to be blown up or set afire. * * * The operation will be carried out in civilian clothing. * * .* Execution of the order will be reported * * *." (1721-PS). Some 40 teletype messages from various police headquarters will tell the fury with which all Jews were pursued in Germany on those awful November nights. The SS troops were turned loose and the Gestapo supervised. Jewish owned property was authorized to be destroyed. The Gestapo ordered twenty to thirty thousand "well-to-do Jews" to be arrested. Concentration camps were to receive them. Healthy Jews, fit for labor, were to be taken (3051-PS).

As the German frontiers were expanded by war, so the campaign against the Jews expanded. The Nazi plan never was limited to extermination in Germany; always it contemplated extinguishing the Jew in Europe and often in the world. In the west, the Jews were killed and their property taken over. But the campaign achieved its zenith of savagery in the East. The Eastern Jew has suffered as no people ever suffered. Their sufferings were carefully reported to the Nazi authorities to show faithful adherence to the Nazi design. I shall refer only to enough of the evidence of these to show the extent of the Nazi design for killing Jews.

If I should recite these horrors in words of my own, you would think me intemperate and unreliable. Fortunately, we need not take the word of any witness but the Germans themselves. I invite you now to look at a few of the vast number of captured German orders and reports that will be offered in evidence, lo see what a Nazi invasion meant. We will present such evidence as the report of Einsatzgruppe (Action Group) A of October 15, 1941, which boasts that in overrunning the Baltic States, "Native Anti-Semitic forces were induced to start pogroms against the Jews during the first hours after occupation ?: * "." The report continues:

From the beginning it was to be expected that the Jewish problem in the East could not be solved by pogroms alone. In accordance with the basic orders received, however, the cleansing activities of the Security Police had to aim at a complete annihilation of the Jews. Special detachments reinforced by selected units – in Lithuania partisan detachments, in Latvia units of the Latvian auxiliary police – therefore performed extensive executions both in the towns and in rural areas. The actions of the execution detachments were performed smoothly.

The sum total of the Jews liquidated in Lithuania amounts to 71,105. During the pogroms in Kowno 3,800 Jews were eliminated, in the smaller towns about 1,200 Jews.

In Latvia, up to now a total of 30,000 Jews were executed. 500 were eliminated by pogroms in Riga. (L-180)

This is a captured report from the Commissioner of Sluck on October 30, 1941, which describes the scene in more detail. It says:

The first lieutenant explained that the police battalion had received the assignment to effect the liquidation of all Jews here in the town of Sluck, within two days. Then I requested him to postpone the action one day. However, he rejected this with the remark that he had to carry out this action everywhere and in all towns and that only two days [page 141] were allotted for Sluck. Within these two days, the town of Sluck had to be cleared of Jews by all means. * " * All Jews without exception were taken out of the factories and shops and deported in spite of our agreement. It is true that part of the Jews was moved by way of the ghetto where many of them were processed and still segregated by me, but a large part was loaded directly on trucks and liquidated without further delay outside of the town. * * * For the rest, as regards the execution of the action. I must point out to my deepest regret that the latter bordered already on sadism. The town itself offered a picture of horror during the action. With indescribable brutality on the part of both the German police officers and particularly the Lithuanian partisans, the Jewish people, but also among them White Ruthenians, were taken out of their dwellings and herded together. Everywhere in the town shots were to be heard and in different streets the corpses of shot Jews accumulated. The White Ruthenians were in greatest distress to free themselves from the encirclement. Regardless of the fact that the Jewish people, among whom were also tradesmen, were mistreated in a terribly barbarous way in the face of the White Ruthenian people, the White Ruthenians them- selves were also worked over with rubber clubs and rifle butts. There was no question of an action against the Jews any more. It rather looked like a revolution. * * * (1104-PS).

There are reports which merely tabulate the numbers slaughtered. An example is an account of the work of Einsatzgruppen of Sipo and SD in the East, which relates that -- In Estonia, all Jews were arrested immediately upon the arrival of the Wehrmacht. Jewish men and women above the age of 16 and capable of work were drafted for forced labor. Jews were subjected to all sorts of restrictions and all Jewish property was confiscated. All Jewish males above the age of 16 were executed, with the exception of doctors and elders. Only 500 of an original 4,500 Jews remained. 37,180 persons have been liquidated by the Sipo and SD in White Ruthenia during October. In one town, 337 Jewish women were executed for demonstrating a "provocative attitude." In another, 380 Jews were shot for spreading vicious propaganda.

[page 142] And so the report continues, listing town after town, where hundreds upon hundreds of Jews were murdered.

In Witebsk 3,000 Jews were liquidated because of the danger of epidemics. In Kiew, 33,771 Jews were executed on September 29 and 30 in retaliation for some fires which were set off there. In Shitomir, 3,145 Jews "had to be shot" because, judging from experience they had to be considered as the carriers of Bolshevik propaganda. In Cherson, 410 Jews were executed in reprisal against acts of sabotage. In the territory east of the Djnepr, the Jewish problem was "solved" by the liquidation of 4,891 Jews and by putting the remainder into labor battalions of up to 1,000 persons (R-202).

Other accounts tell not of the slaughter so much as of the depths of degradation to which the tormentors stooped. For example, we will show the reports made to defendant Rosenberg about the army and the SS in the area under Rosenberg's jurisdiction, which recited the following: Details: In presence of SS man, a Jewish dentist has to break all gold teeth and fillings out of mouth of German and Russian Jews before they are executed. Men, women and children are locked into barns and burned alive. Peasants, women and children are shot on pretext that they are suspected of belonging to bands (R-135). We of the Western World heard of Gas Wagons in which Jews and political opponents were asphyxiated. We could not believe it. But here we have the report of May 16, 1942 from the German SS officer, Becker, to his supervisor in Berlin which tells this story: Gas vans in C. group can be driven to execution spot, which is generally stationed 10 to 15 kms. from main road only in dry weather. Since those to be executed become frantic if conducted to this place, such vans become im- mobilized in wet weather. Gas vans in D group camouflaged as cabin trailers, but vehicles well known to authorities and civilian population which calls them "Death Vans". [page 142] Writer of letter (Becker) ordered all men to keep as far away as possible during gassing. Unloading van has "atrocious spiritual and physical effect" on men and they should be ordered not to participate in such work (501-PS).

I shall not dwell on this subject longer than to quote one more sickening document which evidences the planned and systematic character of the Jewish persecutions. I hold a report written with Teutonic devotion to detail, illustrated with photographs to authenticate its almost incredible text, and beautifully bound in leather with the loving care bestowed on a proud work. It is the original report of the SS Brigadier General Stroop in charge of the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and its title page carries the inscription, "The Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw no longer exists." It is characteristic that one of the captions explains that the photograph concerned shows the driving out of Jewish "bandits"; those whom the photograph shows being driven out are almost entirely women and little children. It contains a day-by-day account of the killings mainly carried out by the SS organization, too long to relate, but let me quote General Stroop's summary:

The resistance put up by the Jews and bandits could only be suppressed by energetic actions of our troops day and night. The Reichsfuehrer SS ordered, therefore on 23 April 1943 the cleaning out of the ghetto with utter ruthlessness and merciless tenacity. I, therefore, decided to destroy and burn down the entire ghetto without regard to the armament factories. These factories were systematically dis- mantled and then burned. Jews usually left their hideouts, but frequently remained in the burning buildings and jumped out of the windows only when the heat became unbearable. They then tried to crawl with broken bones across the street into buildings which were not afire. Sometimes they changed their hideouts during the night into the ruins of burned buildings. Life in the sewers was not pleasant after the first week. Many times we could hear loud voices in the sewers. SS .men or policemen climbed bravely through the manholes to capture these Jews. Sometimes they stumbled over Jewish corpses; sometimes they were shot at. Tear gas bombs were thrown into the manholes and the Jews driven out of the sewers and captured. Countless numbers of Jews were liquidated in sewers ind bunkers through blasting. The longer the resistance continued the tougher became [page 144] members of the Waffen SS police and Wehrmacht who always discharged their duties in an exemplary manner. Frequently Jews who tried to replenish their food supplies during the night or to communicate with neighboring groups were exterminated. (1061-PS)

This action eliminated, says the SS commander, "a proved total of 56,065. To that we have to add to the number of those killed though blasting, fire, etc., which cannot be counted."

We charge that all atrocities against Jews were the manifestations and culmination of the Nazi plan to which every defendant here was a party. I know very well that some of these men did take steps to spare some particular Jew for some personal reason from the horrors that awaited the unrescued Jew. Some protested that particular atrocities were excessive, and discredited the general policy. While a few defendants may show efforts to make specific exemptions to the policy of Jewish extermination, I have found no instance in which any defendant opposed the policy itself or sought to revoke or even modify it.

Determination to destroy the Jews was a binding force which at all times cemented the elements of this conspiracy. On many internal policies there were differences among the defendants. But there is not one of them who has not echoed the rallying cry of Nazism – DEUTSCHLAND ERWACHE, JUDA VERRECKE! (GERMANY AWAKE, JEWRY PERISH!)