government's criminal orders of which he heard for the first time here in Court. And here again, Fritzsche has told the International Military Tribunal a lie. He was compelled to admit that he had knowledge of the criminal Nazi orders regarding the extermination of Jews and the shooting of Soviet commissars as early as 1942. And yet he continued thereafter to remain at his post and to spread mendacious propaganda.

In his broadcasts on 16 June and 1 July 1944, Fritzsche made a great case of the utilization of new weapons, doing his best to whip up the army and the people to further senseless resistance. (USSR-496).

And even on the eve of the crash of Nazi Germany, specifically on 7 April 1945, Fritzsche broadcast an appeal to the German people to continue to resist the allied armies and to participate in the Werwolf-movement.

Thus, the defendant Fritzsche remained true to the last to the criminal Nazi regime. He gave his entire self to the task of realizing the Nazi conspiracy and of perpetrating all the crimes which were conceived and carried out in view of putting that conspiracy into effect.

As an active participant of all the Nazi crimes, he must bear the fullest responsibility for them.

Your Honours, All the defendants have passed before youmen without honour or conscience; men, who hurled the world into an abyss of misery and suffering and brought enormous calamities upon their own people.

Political adventurers, who stopped before no evil deed in order to achieve their criminal designs; cheap demagogues, who concealed their predatory plans behind a veil of mendacious ideas; henchmen, who murdered millions of innocent people, these men joined in a gang of conspirators, seizing power and transforming the German state machinery into an instrument of their crimes.

Now, the hour of reckoning has come. For the past nine months, we have been observing the former rulers of Fascist Germany. In the dock, before this Court, they have suddenly become meek and humble. Some of them, even, actually condemned Hitler. But they blame Hitler, not for the launching of a war, not for the extermination of peoples, and the plundering of states; the only thing they cannot forgive him is Defeat. Together with Hitler, they were ready to exterminate millions of human beings, to enslave the elite of mankind in order to achieve their criminal aim of world domination.

But History judged otherwise; victory did not follow upon

Truth triumphed, and we are proud to say that the justice which is meted out by the International Military Tribunal will be the justice of the right cause of peace-loving nations.

The defense spoke about humaneness. We know that the concepts of civilization and humaneness, democracy and humaneness, peace and humaneness are inseparable. But we, the defenders of civilization, democracy and peace-we categorically reject insensible humaneness which is considerate of the murderers and indifferent to their victims. Counsel for Kaltenbrunner also spoke here of love for one's fellow-men. Connected with Kaltenbrunner's name and actions, all mention of love for one's fellow man sounds like blasphemy.

My Lord, Your Honours, My statement concludes the case for the Prosecution. Speaking here on behalf of the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I consider all the charges against the defendants as fully proven.

And in the name of the sincere love of mankind which inspires the peoples who consented to the greatest sacrifices in order to save the world, freedom, and culture, in memory of the millions of innocent human beings slaughtered by a gang of murderers, who are now before the Court of a progressive mankind, in the name of the happiness and the peaceful labor of future generations, I appeal to the Tribunal to sentence all the defendants, without exception, to the supreme penalty. Such a verdict will be greeted with satisfaction by all of progressive mankind.

CLOSING STATEMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ON THE INDICTED ORGANIZATIONS (Reich Cabinet; Political Leadership Corps; S.S.; S.D.; Gestapo; S.A.)

MR. PRESIDENT:

by

THOMAS J. DODD

Executive Trial Counsel

For Mr. Justice Robert H. Jackson

Since the 20th day of November 1945, this International Military Tribunal has been in almost continual session. In these many months, a record of more than 15,000 pages has been compiled. Over 300,000 affidavits have been submitted, about 3,000 documents have been offered, and oral testimony has been heard from some 200 witnesses.

This great mass of evidence, oral and written, almost exclusively of German origin, has established beyond question the commission of the crimes of criminal conspiracy, aggressive war, mass murder, slave labor, racial and religious persecutions, and brutal mistreatment of millions of innocent people. The four prosecuting powers have indicted and held responsible for these frightful crimes as individuals the twenty-two defendants named in the Indictment.

But the four prosecuting powers recognizing that the twentytwo individual defendants could not by themselves alone accomplish the execution of these enormous crimes have also named in the Indictment the Nazi organizations, as the principal media, by and through which these transgressions were effected. These organizations some Nazi-created, some Nazi-perverted-were the agencies upon which the defendants relied and through which they operated for the accomplishment of their criminal purposes over the complacent people of Germany and over the conquered peoples of Europe.

The named organizations fall into two classes. In the first class are those which are peculiarly Nazi creations, having no counterpart outside the Nazi regime and which had no intrinsically legitimate purpose. This group includes the Politische Leiter, the SA, and the SS. In the second class are those which existed in one form or another before the Nazi regime but which were corrupted by the Nazis. This group includes the Reich

As to this second class, it is not our contention that the Institutions themselves were basically criminal, but rather that they became criminal under Nazi domination. Although, by its very nature as a secret political police system, the Gestapo was the most easily adapted to criminal purposes and became the most effective of all instruments of Nazi criminality.

It would be a mistake to consider these organizations named in the Indictment as isolated, independently functioning aggregations of persons, each pursuing separate tasks and objectives. They were all a part of, and essential to, the police state planned by Hitler and perfected by his clique into the most absolute tyranny of modern times. That police state was the political Frankenstein of our era, which brought terror and fear to Germany and spread horror and death throughout the world. The Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party was its body, the Reich Cabinet its head, its powerful arms were the Gestapo and the SA, and when it strode over Europe its legs were the armed forces and the SS. It was Hitler and his cohorts who created this police-statemonster, and it brought Germany to shame and the nations of Europe to ruin.

It would likewise be erroneous to view the structure of this police system as something casual or its growth and development as normal political phenomena. For it was planned from the earliest days by the conspirators. The Nazi "old fighters" had a design for despotism. They built the SA at the outset as a private band of strong-arm men to wield the club against the political opponent and the whip against the Jew. They established the SS as the dread guard of the Fuehrer and of themselves. When they seized power they abolished police protection and substituted police persecution as the mission of the Gestapo. They wiped out all semblance of free government and set themselves up in the Reich Cabinet with plenary powers. They depraved the highest traditions of military ethics and substituted "willing tools" for ranking men at arms. They obliterated all other political parties and fastened on the German people a political straight jacket in the form of the Leadership Corps.

Deprive the Nazi conspirators of these organizations and they could never have accomplished their criminal aims. Take away the SA and they would have lost the mastery of the streets; take away the SS and they would have had no concentration camp system; take away the Gestapo and they would have had no means of illegal arrest and unlimited detention; take away the Reich Cabinet and they would have had no subservient law-making body; take away the truckling military men and they could

their wars.

The provisions of the Charter empowering the Tribunal to declare a group or organization criminal, and the functions of the Tribunal under those provisions, have been dealt with in the legal arguments and memoranda previously submitted to the Tribunal by the Chief Prosecutors. At that time,1 in response to the request of the Tribunal, Mr. Justice Jackson stated the grounds which, in our view, warrant declaring a group or organization criminal.

Before now undertaking to summarize the evidence, it may be well to restate those tests:

1. It must be a "group" or "organization" within the meaning of Article IX of the Charter, i.e., it must be an aggregation of persons, associated in some identifiable relationship, having a collective general purpose, or pursuing a common plan of action.

2. Membership in the organization must have been basically voluntary, i.e., the membership of the organization as a whole, irrespective of particular cases of compulsion against individuals or groups of individuals within the organization, must not have been due to legal compulsion.

3. It must have participated directly and effectively in the accomplishment of the criminal aims of the conspiracy, and it must have committed crimes against the peace or war crimes or crimes against humanity, as charged in the Indictment.

4. The criminal aims or methods of the organization must have been of such character that its membership in general may properly be charged with knowledge of them.

5. Under the Charter the Prosecution must also establish that at least one of the defendants in the dock who is a member of the organization is guilty of some act on the basis of which the organization may also be declared criminal.

These are the tests of criminality which the American Prosecution has conceded must be met with respect to each organization before a declaration of criminality as to that organization is warranted. My distinguished colleague, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, has discussed in his address the evidence against most of the organizations; and the Russian and French Prosecutors will review specific crimes committed by these groups. I shall not discuss the High Command since it is to be the subject of a special argument by a member of the American staff. I shall, with the consent of the Tribunal, address my remarks to the general proposition of whether the Prosecution has sustained the burden of proving by competent evidence that each of the named organizations is criminal under all of the principles stated.

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