ments refuted the Indictment. That is not a convincing statement for the proceedings and thesis of evidence.

The Prosecution uses the fact that I was the second man in the State as a proof that I should have known everything that happened. But it does not present any documentary or other convincing proof that there, under my oath, I refuted the contents of this knowledge, and therefore, it is only an assertion and an assumption when the Prosecution says, "Who should have known that if not Goering who was the successor of the Fuehrer?"

Repeatedly we have heard here how the most awful crimes were veiled with the most secrecy. But I condemned these terrible mass murders to the utmost, and to show that I am not lacking any misunderstanding in this connection, I wish to state emphatically the following comments once more, quite clearly, before the High Tribunal. Never did I ever decree a murder upon a single individual in any period of any time, but neither did I decree any cruelties at any time while I had the power and the knowledge to prevent them.

The new statements presented by Mr. Dodd in his final statement that I had ordered Heydrich to kill the Jews lacks every proof, and that statement is not true. There is not a single order signed by me or signed in my behalf that enemy fliers should be shot or should be turned over to the SD. And not a single case has been established where units of my airforce have carried out things like that.

The Prosecution has in part submitted documents repeatedly which contain alleged statements, and written down by third and fourth parties without my having seen these statements, in order to correct erroneous statements contained therein and to preclude misunderstanding.

How easy it is, when third parties set down reports, that the sense may be distorted. This fact may be proved also by the stenographic records taken in these proceedings which, in many cases, need correction when they are checked.

The prosecution quotes a period of 25 years and quotes singular statements which were made under completely different circumstances and without any conclusions arising at the time. These statements were made, and now they are used to prove intent and guilt. Sometimes statements can easily be made because of the commitment of the moment and because of the atmosphere that obtains. There is hardly one leading personality on the other side. of whom we could not say the same in the course of a quarter of a century, about whom something similar was not set down in word or in writing.

Out of all the happenings of those 25 years, conferences, speeches, laws, and decisions, the prosecution seizes at the consequences and makes a connection according to which everything had been intended and wished that way from the beginning. This is a statement or an opinion which is erroneous and which is entirely devoid of logic, an opinion which will be rectified some day by history, after the proceedings here will arrive at the erroneousness of this assertion.

Mr. Jackson in his final speech referred to the fact that the signatory states are still in a state of war with Germany and, because of unconditional surrender, a state of truce is obtaining

now.

However, international law is uniform. The same has to apply for both sides. Therefore, if everything which is happening in Germany because of the occupying powers, that is, if everything is admissible under international law, then before that time, as far as France, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Yugoslavia, and Greece are concerned, Germany found herself in the same position. If today the Geneva Convention, so far as the Germans are concerned, does not have any validity any longer, of today in all parts of Germany industry is being dismantled and other great assets in all spheres can be brought to the other states, if today the monies of millions of Germans are being confiscated and other serious interventions in freedom are taking place, then measures like that taken by Germany in the countries mentioned above cannot have been criminal on the part of Germany as far as other countries are concerned.

Mr. Jackson stated further that you cannot accuse and punish a state but rather, that you have to hold the leaders responsible. One seems to forget that Germany was a sovereign state, that Germany had a sovereign right, and that her legislation for the German people was not subject to the jurisdiction of foreign countries. No state ever, through a notification, called the attention of the Reich in time to the fact that the activity towards National Socialism would be made subject to punishment and persecution. To the contrary, if now individual persons, first of all—we, the fuehrers are being called to account and are to be sentenced, very well. But, at the same time, you cannot punish the German people as well. The German people confided their trust in the Fuehrer and, in his authoritarian government, had no influence on happenings. Without knowledge of the grave crimes which we have learned of today, the people, loyal, ready to sacrifice, courageously endured the struggle for existence, the struggle to the death.

The German people are free of guilt.

I did not want a war, nor did I bring it about. I have done

everything to prevent it through negotiations. After it had broken out, I did everything to assure victory. Since the three greatest powers on earth, together with other nations, fought against us, finally we were conquered by tremendous enemy superiority.

I am standing back of the things that I have done, but I condemn most emphatically and reject most emphatically that my actions were dictated by the will to subjugate foreign peoples through wars, to murder them, to rob them, or to enslave them, or to commit cruelties or crimes.

The only motive which guided me was my ardent love for my people, its fortunes, its freedom, and its life. And for this I call on the Almighty and my German people as a witness.

1. FINAL ARGUMENT by Dr. Alfred Seidl, Defense Counsel

Mr. President, Honorable Judges! When the German people, having lost the first world war, set out in 1919 to rebuild their existence according to Democratic principles, they found themselves facing difficulties which were caused not merely by the war itself and the material loss resulting therefrom. The defendant Rudolph Hess was among the first comrades in arms around Hitler who time and again reminded the German people of the great dangers which would of necessity arise for Germany's domestic and world economy because of the reparations policy of the victor states of 1919. The consequences of that policy were bound to be all the more devastating for Germany when in 1923 France proceeded to military occupation of the Ruhr territory, the center of Germany's economic power. At that time of economic collapse and complete disarmament of Germany, Hitler made the first attempt through the revolution of 9 November 1923 to seize the power of the State. The defendant Rudolph Hess also took part in the march on the Feldherrn Hall in Munich. Together with Adolph Hitler after conviction by the People's Court, he underwent imprisonment at Landsberg Fortress where Hitler wrote his book "Mein Kampf."

When in 1925 the Party was being established again, Rudolph Hess again was one of the first to resume with Adolph Hitler the struggle for national rebirth of the German people. During the first years after its reestablishment the Party was to begin its very slow climb. Germany's domestic economy had recovered from the worst effects of the Ruhr invasion. The currency had been established and due to very extensive foreign credits it had even been possible to bring about an economic boom.

Very soon, however, it was to be revealed that the economic progress of the years 1927/1928/1929 in reality was but illusory prosperity for which in Germany, at any rate, there was no foundation of a sound and well-balanced national economy. It is true that the economic crisis which began in 1930 was a general crisis in world economy and that the decline which Germany experienced at that time was but a part of the general disintegration in world economy. It is just as certain, however, that this was not a question here simply of a seasonal decline within the capitalist economy, such as had been experienced repeatedly before by individual national economies of countries and by world-commerce, but a case in this instance of structural changes at work which may differ in causes but one of the most important of which undoubtedly was the disturbance in the exchange of products and legal tender caused by the unreasonable reparations policy.

It is just as certain that the consequences of the crisis of the world economy were so devastating in Germany, finally finding expression in an unemployment figure of almost 7 million because the changes brought about in the national economy as a result of reparations payments were particularly far reaching, a fact not of negligible importance. If, consequently, the National Socialist Party won a major electoral victory in the Reichstag elections of 14 September 1930 and entered the new Reichstag with no less than 107 delegates, it is not to be attributed in the last place to the then prevailing economic crisis, to the great unemployment and, indirectly to the economic absurdity of the reparation payments and the refusal of the victorious states to consent to a new deal despite the most urgent warnings. True, the reparation payments stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles and the mode of settlement were amended by the Dawes and Young plans. It is, however, just as true that these amendments came too late and continued to demand payments from Germany to an extent and under conditions which were bound to, and did in fact, lead to an economic catastrophe. In this connection, I must point to the following fact: The Prosecution has produced an extensive amount of documentary evidence in reference to the rise of the NSDAP until its seizure of power. A comparison of the Reichstag mandates in the years ranging from 1930 to 1932 with the unemployment figures for the same period would disclose that the progression of these figures was approximately parallel. The more hopeless the social consequences of unemployment became-and in 1932, no less than 25 million people, including family members, may be estimated to have been hit by the consequences of unemployment-the more impressive became the electoral successes of the National Socialists. I hardly believe that the proof of the existence of a casual relation between the consequences of the reparation policy of the victorious powers of 1919 and the rise of National Socialism can be more convincingly demonstrated. The casual relation may be summed up in a short formula: No Versailles Treaty, no reparations; no reparations, no economic collapse with its particularly catastrophic effects upon Germany, resulting in an unemployment figure of nearly 7 millions; and without this collapse, no seizure of power by the National Socialists. The political and historical responsibility of the authoritative statesmen of the opposite side as resulting from this causal origin is so crystal-clear that further demonstrations of it are superfluous in the framework of this trial.

This formula may appear constructed and could be carried. further to prove that it was not the economic emergency and the high unemployment figure alone which induced millions of Ger