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.

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