The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

The Trial of German Major War Criminals

Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
7th January to 19th January, 1946

Thirty-First Day: Thursday, January 10th, 1946
(Part 7 of 10)


[LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BALDWIN continues]

[Page 162]

The following document in the document book is the report of Streicher's speech on the 10th November, the day of the demonstration. I will quote from two paragraphs on that page, or rather, starting in the middle of the first paragraph:
"From the cradle, the Jew is not being taught, like we are, such texts as, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' or 'If you are smitten on the left cheek, offer then your right one.' No, he is told: 'With the non-Jew you can do whatever you like.' He is even taught that the slaughtering of a non-Jew is an act pleasing to God. For 20 years we have been writing about this in 'Der Sturmer,' for 20 years we have been preaching it throughout the world and we have made millions recognise the truth."
I go to the last paragraph:
"The Jew slaughtered in one night 75,000 people; when he emigrated from Egypt he killed all the firstborn, i.e., a whole future generation of Egyptians. What would have happened if the Jew had succeeded in driving

[Page 163]

the nations into war against us, and if we had lost the war? The Jew, protected by foreign bayonets, would have fallen on us and would have slaughtered and murdered us. Never forget what history has taught us."
My Lord, after the November demonstrations, irregularities occurred in the Gau of Franconia in connection with the organised Aryanisation of Jewish property. Aryanisation of Jewish property was, of course, regulated by the State, and under a decree it had been laid down that the proceeds, or any proceeds that there might be, from taking over Jewish properties and giving them to Aryans, were to go to the State. What apparently happened in Franconia was that a good deal of the proceeds never found their way as far as the State, and as a result Goering set up a commission to investigate what had taken place. We have the report of that commission, and I would refer the Tribunal to certain short passages in it. On Page 45, we see from that report exactly what had been taking place in this defendant Streicher's Gau. I quote from the paragraph where it says "Page 13":

DR. HANS MARX (Counsel for defendant Streicher): The prosecutor intends to refer, as proof of the irregularities which occurred in connection with the Aryanisation of shops in Nuremberg after the 9th November, to a report which the Deputy Gauleiter Holz has given to the examining prosecutor. I would like to protest against the wording of this report. Between Streicher and his Deputy Gauleiter Holz there existed a considerable difference of opinion, if not enmity. His Deputy Gauleiter Holz was the person definitely responsible for the measures taken. It is not at all proven that Streicher had agreed to these measures. It is rather to be assumed that Holz, in order to cover himself, has made statements here which he himself could never stand for if he appeared on the witness stand to-day. Therefore, this report represents the statements of a man who was involved in this matter, of a man who participated in these deeds, of a man who was an enemy of the defendant Streicher. Holz incriminated Streicher on account of the fact that Streicher did not shield him from the Commission and the previous Minister, President Goering. Therefore, I do not think that this report should be used.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you said what you wished to say?

DR. MARX: Yes, Sir.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal considers that this document, being an official document, is admissible under Article XXI, and that the objections which you have made to it are not objections which go to its admissibility as evidence, but go to its weight; and as to that, you will have an opportunity to develop your objections at a later stage when you come to speak. The Tribunal rules that the document is admissible.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, I read from the centre of that Page 45 of the document book:

"Following upon the November demonstrations, the Deputy Gauleiter Holz took up the Jewish questions. His reasons can be given here in detail on the basis of his statement of 25th March, 1939:

The 9th and 10th November, 1938.

In the night of the 9th to the 10th of November and on the 10th November, 1938, events took place throughout Germany which I" - and I emphasise that that is Holz speaking - "considered to be the signal for a completely different treatment of the Jewish question in Germany. Synagogues and Jewish schools were burnt down and Jewish property was smashed both in shops and in private houses. Besides this, a large number of selected Jews were taken to concentration camps by the police. Towards midday we discussed these events in the Gauleiter's house. All of us were of the opinion that we now faced a completely new state of affairs on the Jewish question. By the great action against the Jews, carried out in the

[Page 164]

night and morning of the 10th November, all guiding principles and all laws on this subject had been made illusory. We were of the opinion (particularly myself) that we should now act on our own initiative in this respect. I proposed to the Gauleiter that, in view of the great existing lack of housing, the best thing would be to put the Jews into a kind of internment camp. Then the houses would become free in a twinkling, and the housing shortage would be relieved, at least in part. Besides that, we would have the Jews under control and supervision. I added 'The same thing happened to our prisoners of war and war internees.' The Gauleiter said that this suggestion was for the time being impossible to carry out. Thereupon I made a new proposal to him. I said that I considered it unthinkable that, after the Jews had had their property smashed, they should continue to be able to own houses and land. I proposed that these houses and this land ought to be taken away from them, and declared myself ready to carry through such an action. I declared that by the Aryanisation of Jewish land and houses a large sum could accrue to the Gau out of the proceeds. I named some millions of marks. I stated that, in my opinion, this Aryanisation could be carried out as legally as the Aryanisation of shops. The Gauleiter's answer was something to this effect: 'If you think you can carry this out, do so. The sum gained will then be used to build a Gau school.'"
I go down now to where it says "Page 18":
"The Aryanisation was accomplished by the alienation of properties, the surrender of claims, especially mortgage claims, and reductions in buying price.

The payment allowed the Jews was basically 10 per cent. of the nominal value or nominal sum of the claim. As a justification for these low prices, Holz claimed, at the Berlin meeting of the 6th February, 1939, that the Jews had mostly bought their property during the inflation period for a tenth of its value. As has been shown by investigating a large number of individual cases selected at random, this claim is not true."

My Lord, I would turn to Page 48 of the document book, which appears in the second part of this report, and that part of the report is really the part containing the findings of the Commission. I quote from the top of the page, Page 48 of the document book.

THE PRESIDENT: Is this still part of the report?

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: This is still part of the report. It is, in fact, the findings of the Commission:

"Gauleiter Streicher likes to beat people with a riding whip but only if he is in the company of several persons assisting him. Usually the beatings are carried out with sadistic brutality.

The best known case is that of Steinruck, whom he beat in the prison cell until the blood came, together with Deputy Gauleiter Holz and S.A. Brigader-General Konig. After returning from this scene to the 'Deutscher Hof' he said: 'Now I am relieved. I needed that again!' Later he also stated several times that he needed another Steinruck case in order to 'relieve' himself.

In August, 1938, he beat Editor Burker at the District House, together with District Office Leader Scholler and his Adjutant, Konig."

To show the authority and power that he held in his Gau, I refer to the last paragraph on that page.
"According to reports of reliable witnesses, Gauleiter Streicher is in the habit of pointing out, on the most varied occasions, that he alone gives orders in the district of Franconia. For instance, at a meeting in the Colosseum in Nuremberg in 1935 he said that nobody could remove him

[Page 165]

from office. In a meeting at Herkules Hall, where he described how he had beaten Professor Steinruck, he emphasised that he would not let himself be beaten by anybody, not even by an Adolf Hitler.

For, this also must be stated here, in Franconia the Gau acts first and then orders the absolutely powerless authorities to approve."

My Lord, both of those volumes of that, report 1757-PS, will become Exhibit GB 175.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is not altogether satisfied that that has any bearing on the case against Streicher.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL GRIFFITH-JONES: My Lord, it is the object of that document to show the kind of treatment and persecution which, the Jews were receiving in the district of Gau over which this defendant ruled; and secondly to show the absolute authority with which this defendant acted in his district. That is the purpose of that document.

As a result, either of that investigation or of some other matter, the defendant was relieved of his position as Gauleiter in February, 1940, but he did not cease from his propaganda or from the control of his newspaper. I would only quote one further short extract from "Der Sturmer," an article written by him on the 4th November, 1943, which appears in the document book on Page 53, is Document 1965- PS, and becomes Exhibit GB 176, and it is an extract of importance:

"It is really the truth that the Jews, so to speak, have disappeared from Europe and that the Jewish reservoir of the East, from which the Jewish plague has for centuries beset the peoples of Europe, has ceased to exist. However, the Fuehrer of the German people at the beginning of the war prophesised what has now come to pass."
My Lord, that article was signed by Streicher, and it is my submission that it shows that he had knowledge of what was going on in the East, of which this Court has had such evidence. That was written November, 1943. In April, 1943, the Tribunal will remember, the Warsaw Ghetto was destroyed. Between April, 1942, and April, 1944, 1,700,000 odd Jews were killed in Auschwitz and Dachau - I quote now from the transcript-and throughout the whole of that period millions of Jews were to die. It is my submission that that article, appearing on the 4th November and signed by him, shows that he knew what was happening, perhaps not the details, but that he knew that the Jews were being exterminated.

I leave "Der Sturmer" and I would draw the attention of the Tribunal quite shortly to a matter which is perhaps as evil as any other aspect of this man's activity, and that is the particular attention that he paid to the instruction, if you can call it that, or the perversion of the children and the youth of Germany. He was not content with inciting the German population. He seized the children as early as he could at their schools, and he started to poison their minds at the earliest possible date. In some of the extracts to which I have already referred, the Tribunal will remember that there are mentions of children and the need for teaching them anti-Semitism. I refer now to Page 54 of the document book, and I would quote four or five lines from the last paragraph, starting in the middle of the last paragraph. It is a report of a speech by Streicher as early as June, 1925, when he says:

"I repeat, we demand the transformation of the school into a national German institution of education. If we let German children be taught by German teachers, then we shall have laid the foundations for the national German school. This national German school must teach racial doctrine."
I now go to the last line of the first paragraph on the following page:
"We demand, therefore, the introduction of racial doctrine into the school."

[Page 166]

That is in a copy of "Der Sturmer," which has already been put in. It is Exhibit GB 165.

The following Document, M-43, is an extract from the "Frankische Tageszeitung" of the 19th March, 1934, when he addressed the pupils at a girls' school at Preisslerstrasse after they had finished their vocational course. He was continually holding children's meetings and attending children's schools. I quote the third paragraph:

"Then Julius Streicher spoke about his life, and told them about a girl who at one time went to his school and who fell for a Jew and was finished for the rest of her life."
I need not read the rest. It is all in the same tone. That becomes GB 177.

Every summer they celebrated in Nuremberg what they called their solstice celebration, some pagan rite where the youth of Nuremberg were rallied, organised, or at least encouraged by the defendant Streicher.

On Page 58 of the document book is a report taken from his paper, "Frankische Tageszeitung," of his speech to the Hitler Youth on what they called the "Holy Mountain" near Nuremberg, on the 22nd June, 1935:

"Boys and girls, look back a little more than ten years ago. A great war - the World War - had whirled over the peoples of the earth and had left in the end a heap of ruins. Only one people remained victorious in this dreadful war, a people of whom Christ said its father is the devil. That people had ruined the German nation in body and soul. Then Adolf Hitler, unknown to anybody, arose from among the people and became the voice which called to a holy war and battle. He cried to the people that everybody should take courage again and rise and give a helping hand to take the devil from the German people, so that the human race might be, free again from these people that have wandered about the world for centuries and millenia, marked with the sign of Cain.

Boys and girls, even if they say that the Jews were once the chosen people, do not believe it, but believe us when we say that the Jews are not a chosen people. Because it cannot be that a chosen people should act among the peoples as the Jews do to-day."

And so on, with similar kind of propaganda. That document will be Exhibit GB 178.

The next Document, M-44, from which I will not read now, becomes GB 179. The Tribunal will see that it was a report of Streicher's address to 2,000 children at Nuremberg at Christmas-time, 1936. Underlined it says: "Do you know who the Devil is?" he asked his breathlessly listening audience. "The Jew, the Jew," resounded from a thousand children's voices.

But he was not content only with writing and talking. He actually issued a book for teachers, a book which he published from his "Der Sturmer " offices, called "The Jewish question and school instruction."

I have not had the whole of that book translated. It is addressed to school teachers. It is intended for their benefit, and it emphasises the necessity of anti-Semitic teaching in schools, and it suggests ways in which the subject can be introduced and handled.

On Page 60 of the document book, M-46, the Tribunal will see a few extracts which have been taken from that book. The preface part of it is as follows:

"The National Socialist State brought fundamental changes into all spheres of life of the German people.

It has also presented the German teacher with some new tasks. The National Socialist State demands that its teachers instruct German children in social questions. As far as the German people is concerned the racial question is a Jewish question. Those who want to teach the child all about the Jew must themselves have a thorough knowledge of the subject."

[Page 167]

I will quote from the paragraph opposite Page 5 in the margin. The whole of the rest of the extracts are really suggestions for teachers as to how to introduce the Jewish subject into their teaching, and at Page 5 of the introduction:
"Racial and Jewish questions are the fundamental problems of the National Socialist ideology. The solution of these problems will secure the existence of National Socialism, and with this the existence of our nation for all time. The enormous significance of the racial question is recognised almost without exception to-day by all the German people. In order to attain this recognition, our people had to travel on a long road of suffering."
DR. MARX(Counsel for defendant Streicher): I would like to point out the following: The prosecutor omitted in his presentation to state that the book he referred to was not written by the defendant Streicher, but by the school inspector Fink. If the prosecutor had read the next sentence the Tribunal would have known about this fact. My client has called my attention to this point. I noticed it myself also because the next sentence reads as follows:
"Schulrat Fritz Fink desires to help the German teachers on the road to wisdom with his book: 'The Jewish Question in the Schools.'"
It is perfectly clear that Fink is the author of the book. It is of importance to know that Fink was the author of this book and not Streicher.


[ Previous | Index | Next ]

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.