Thirty-Fifth Day:
Wednesday, January 16th, 1946
[Page 312]
We could cite further orders of American and other Allied
Military Commissions sentencing German civilians to death
for the lynching and murdering of Allied airmen who had
baled out and landed without means of defence on German
territory, We think our point is made by taking the time of
the Tribunal to cite those two orders.
As previously mentioned in the trial address, on 20th
October 1944, when Nazi defeat in the war had become
certain, Bormann assumed political and organisational
command of the newly-formed Volkssturm, the People's Army.
By virtue of ordering the continued resistance by the
Volkssturm, Bormann bears some responsibility for the
resistance which prolonged the aggressive war for months.
I come now, if it please the Tribunal, to present the proofs
showing that Bormann authorised, directed and participated
in a wide variety of Crimes against Humanity in aid of the
conspiracy. Bormann played an important role in the
administration of the Forced Labour Programme. I offer in
evidence Document D-226, Exhibit USA 697. This is a Speer
circular, a circular of the defendant Speer, of 10th
November, 1944, transmitting Himmler's instructions that the
Party and the Gestapo should co-operate in securing a larger
productivity from the millions of impressed foreign workers
in Germany. I quote the second numbered paragraph of Page 2
of the English translation of Document D-226, which reads as
follows:
[Page 313]
Under the decree of 24th January, 1942, no such directive
could have been issued without the participation of Bormann,
both in its preparation and its enactment.
I now offer in evidence Document 025-PS as Exhibit USA 698.
This is a conference report dated 4th September, 1942, which
states that the recruitment, importation, mobilisation, and
grading of 500,000 female domestic workers. from the East
would be handled exclusively by the defendant Sauckel,
Himmler, and the defendant Bormann. I quote the first two
sentences of the third paragraph of the English translation
of Document 025-PS, which reads as follows:
Now the defendant imposed his will on the administration of
the German-occupied areas, and insisted on the ruthless
exploitation of the inhabitants of the occupied East. The
attention of the Tribunal is respectfully invited to
Document R-36, previously put in as Exhibit USA 344. The
Tribunal is well acquainted with this document, for it has
been referred to several times in these proceedings, and
knows that this is an official memorandum of the Ministry
for Eastern Territories, dated 19th August, 1942, which
states that the repressive views of the defendant Bormann,
with respect to the inhabitants of the Eastern areas,
actually determined German occupational policies in the
East. The Tribunal recalls the now almost notorious
quotation from this Document R-36, which purports to
paraphrase and constitute the essence of Bormann's views
with respect to German occupational policy in the East. So
often has it been
[Page 314]
The attention of the Tribunal is next respectfully invited
to Document 654-PS, previously put in as Exhibit USA 218.
The Tribunal will recall that this is a conference report,
dated 18th November, 1942, embodying an agreement between
the Minister of Justice and Himmler, entered into by
Bormann's suggestions, under which all inhabitants of the
Eastern occupied areas are subjected to a brutal police
regime in the place of an ordinary, judicial system. This
agreement refers all disputes between the Party, Reich
Minister for Justice and Himmler to Bormann for settlement.
Now, because Bormann issued these and related orders, we
submit that he bears a large share of the responsibility for
the discriminatory treatment and the extermination of great
numbers of persons in German-occupied areas of the East.
With the indulgence of the Tribunal, I put the substance of
what I have been privileged to present in a few words. We
have shown that Bormann, only 45 years old at the time of
Germany's defeat, contributed his entire adult life to the
furtherance of the conspiracy. His crucial contribution to
the conspiracy lay in his direction of the vast powers of
the Nazi Party in advancing the multiple objectives of the
conspiracy. First as Chief of Staff to the defendant Hess
and then as leader, in his own name, of the Party Chancery,
subject only to Hitler's supreme authority, he applied and
directed the total power of the Party and its agencies to
carry into execution the plans of the conspirators. He used
his great powers to persecute the Christian Church and
clergy, and was an unrepentant foe of the fundamentals of
the Christianity with which he warred.
He actively authorised and participated in measures designed
to persecute the Jews, and his was a strong hand in pressing
down the crown of thorns of misery on the brow of the Jewish
people, both in Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
As Chief of the Party Chancery and Secretary to the Fuehrer,
Bormann authorised, directed and participated in a wide
variety of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity,
including, without limitation, the lynching of Allied
airmen, the enslavement and inhuman treatment of the
inhabitants of German-occupied Europe, the cruelty of
impressed labour, the breaking up of homes contrary to the
clear provisions of the Hague regulations, and the planned
persecution and extermination of the civil population of
Eastern Europe.
May it please this Tribunal, every schoolboy knows that
Hitler was an evil man. The point we respectfully emphasise
is that, without chieftains like Bormann, Hitler would never
have been able to seize and consolidate total power in
Germany, but would have been left to walk the wilderness
alone.
Bormann was, in truth, an evil archangel to the Lucifer of
Hitler, and, although he may remain a fugitive from the
justice of this Tribunal, with an empty chair in the dock,
he cannot escape responsibility for his illegal conduct.
And we close with what seems to us an extremely important
point. Bormann may not be here, but under the last sentence
of Article 6 of the Charter, every
[Page 315]
I now have the privilege of introducing Lieutenant Henry
Atherton, who will present the case for the prosecution
against the individual defendant Seyss-Inquart.
LIEUTENANT HENRY ATHERTON: May it please the Tribunal, the
prosecution has prepared a trial brief for the convenience
of the Tribunal showing the individual responsibility of the
defendant Seyss-Inquart. Copies of this brief are now being
handed to the Tribunal. At the same time the document books
which bear the letters "KK" and which contain translations
of the evidence referred to in the brief, or to be
introduced in evidence at this time, are also being handed
to the Tribunal. At the outset I wish to make clear my
intention to deal at this time only with the individual
responsibility of Seyss-Inquart for the crimes charged in
Counts 1 and 2 of the Indictment. Evidence to show his guilt
as charged under Counts 3 and 4 of the Indictment, that is,
evidence specifically directed thereunto, is to be
introduced later by the Prosecutors of the French Republic
and the Soviet Union.
Seyss-Inquart has agreed that he held the following
positions in State and Party, and I am referring now to
Document 2910-PS, which is Exhibit USA 17. He was State
Councillor of Austria from May, 1937, to 12th February,
1938. He was Minister of Interior and Security of Austria
from 16th February, 1938, to 11th March, 1938; Chancellor of
Austria from 11th March to 15th March, 1938; Reich Governor
of Austria from 15th March, 1938, to 1st May, 1939; Reich
Minister without Portfolio from 1st May, 1939, until
September of that year; Member of the Reich Cabinet from 1st
May, 1939, until the end of the war; Chief of the Civil
Administration of South Poland from the early part of
September, 1939, until 12th October, 1939; Deputy Governor-
General of Poland under the defendant Frank from 12th
October, 1939, until May, 1940; and, finally, Reich
Commissioner of the Occupied Territories of the Netherlands
from 29th May, 1940, until the end of the war. He has also
agreed that he became a member of the National Socialist
Party on 13th March, 1938, and that he was appointed a
General in the S.S. two days later.
Now this list of positions which Seyss-Inquart has agreed
that he held, if the Tribunal please, shows the place which
he held in the Nazi Common Plan or Conspiracy. It shows his
steady rise to greater influence and power, and especially
it emphasises his particular talent, his skill in effecting
the enslavement of the smaller nations surrounding Germany,
for the benefit of what he called the Greater German Reich.
Now the defendant Seyss-Inquart first became a member of the
Nazi conspiracy in connection with the Nazi assault on
Austria. Mr. Alderman has shown how the Nazis implemented
their diplomatic and military preparations for this event by
intensive political preparations within Austria.
The ultimate purpose of these preparations was to secure the
appointment of Nazis, or persons known to be sympathetic to
them, to key positions in the Austrian Government,
particularly that of Minister of the Interior and Security,
which controlled the police, thus permitting quick
suppression of all opposition to the Nazis when the time
came.
For this purpose Seyss-Inquart was a most effective tool,
the first of the so-called Quislings or traitors used by the
Nazis to further their aggressions and to fasten their hold
on their victims. Seyss-Inquart has admitted his
[Page 316]
Reading from Page 9 of the translation, he says in this
letter, which is a letter to Himmler, dated 19th August,
1939:
The Tribunal will remember, as Document 2219-PS, Exhibit USA
62, a letter from Seyss-Inquart to Goering of 14th July,
1939, in which Seyss-Inquart makes this clear. It was in
this letter also that he said:
Now, in order to supplement this and further to show that
part played by Seyss-Inquart, I wish now to introduce in
evidence the voluntary statement which Seyss-Inquart signed
with advice of his counsel on 10th December, 1945. This is
Document 3425-PS, and I offer it as Exhibit USA 701.
[Page 317] [
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(Part 6 of 11)
[LIEUTENANT THOMAS F. LAMBERT, JR continues]
"All men and women of the N.S.D.A.P., its subsidiaries
and affiliated bodies in the works" - meaning of course
factories - "will, in accordance with instructions from
their Kreisleiters, be warned by their Local Group
Leaders" - we intrude to say that means
Ortsgruppenleiters - "and be put under obligation to play
their part in keeping foreigners under the most careful
observation. They will report the least suspicion to the
works foreman, which he will pass on to the Defence
Deputy or, where such a
Now, in a word, the significance of that decree: It is true,
it is a circular of Speer's, reciting an arrangement between
himself and Himmler, but the effect of the arrangement is to
impose the onus, and the continuous task of supplying
foreign workers, on Party members, a Party which, as the
Tribunal knows, Bormann headed as executive chief.
"The Fuehrer has ordered the immediate importation of
400,000 to 500,000 female domestic Eastern workers from
the Ukraine between the ages of 15 and 35, and has
charged the General Deputy for Labour Mobilisation with
the execution of this action, which is to end in about
three months. In connection with this - this is also
approved by Reichsleiter Bormann - the illegal bringing
of female housekeepers into the Reich by members of the
Armed Forces or various other agencies, is to be allowed
subsequently and, furthermore, irrespective of the
official recruiting, is not to be prevented."
I now quote from the first sentence of the last paragraph on
Page 4 of the English translation of Document 025-PS, and
this is the part that brings in the defendant Bormann with
the scheme:
"Generally one gathered from this conference that the
questions concerning the recruitment and mobilisation, as
well as the treatment of female domestic workers from the
East, are being handled by the General Deputy for Labour
Mobilisation, the Reichsfuehrer S.S., and the Chief, of
the German Police and the Party Chancery, and that the
Reich Ministry for the Occupied Territories of the East
is in these questions considered as having no or only
limited competence."
The Party Chancery is here mentioned in terms, and Bormann
was the leader of the Party Chancery, as the Tribunal knows.
"The Slavs are to work for us. In so far as we do not
need them, they may die. They should not receive the
benefits of the German public health system. We do not
care about their fertility. They may practise abortion
and use contraceptives; the more the better. We do not
want them educated; it is enough if they can count up to
one hundred. Such stooges will be the more useful to us.
Religion we leave to them as a diversion. As to food,
they will not get any more than is absolutely necessary.
We are the masters; we come first."
We respectfully submit this as an accurate paraphrase and
summary of the text of that document, Document R-36.
"As far as my membership in the Party is concerned, I
state that I was never asked to join the Party but had
asked Dr. Kier in December, 1931, to clarify my
relationship with the Party, since I regarded the Party
as the basis for the solution of the Austrian problem....
I paid my membership fees, as I believe, directly to the
'Gau' Vienna. These contributions also took place after
the period of suppression. Later on I had direct contact
with the Ortsgruppe in Dornbach. My wife paid these fees,
but the 'Blockwart'"- and I believe that is another word
for 'Blockleiter'' - was never in doubt, considering that
this amount, forty shillings per month, was a difficult
accomplishment for my wife and myself, and I was in every
respect treated as a Party member."
Seyss-Inquart, in the last sentence of the paragraph says:
"In every way, therefore, I felt as a Party member,
considered myself a Party member, as stated, as far back
as December, 1931."
Now, if the Tribunal please, and before I leave this letter,
I want just to refer to one or two sentences which the
Tribunal will find in the third paragraph on Page 7 of the
translation. Referring to a meeting which he had had with
Hitler, Seyss-Inquart says:
"I left this discussion a very upright man with the
unspeakably happy feeling of being permitted to be a tool
of the Fuehrer."
The truth of the matter is that Seyss-Inquart was an active
supporter of the Nazis at all times after 1931. But after
the Nazi Party in Austria was declared illegal in July,
1934, he avoided too notorious a connection with the Nazi
organisation, in order to safeguard what the Nazis called
his good legal position. By this device he was better able
to use his connections with Catholics and others in his work
of infiltration for his Nazi superiors.
"Yet I know that I cling with unconquerable tenacity to
the goal in which I believe; that is Greater Germany and
the Fuehrer."
The evidence which Mr. Alderman introduced told in detail
the manner in which the Nazi conspirators carried out their
assault on Austria. I do not intend to attempt to review any
part of this evidence. I merely wish to refer the Tribunal
to two documents, which are particularly important in
showing the part played by this defendant. I refer to the
Rainer report to, Gauleiter Burckel, dated 6th July, 1939,
which relates the part played by the Austrian Nazi Party,
the defendant Seyss-Inquart, and others, between July, 1934,
and March, 1938, and the astonishing record of telephone
calls between the defendant Goering, or his agents in
Berlin, and Seyss-Inquart and others in Vienna on 11th
March, 1938. The Rainer report is Document 812-PS, Exhibit
USA 61, and was read into the record beginning at Page 502
of the English version and continuing for a number of pages
thereafter. The transcript of the telephone calls is
Document 2949-PS, Exhibit USA 76, and was introduced first
at Page 566 of the English record.
"In 1918 I became interested in the Anschluss of Austria
with Germany. From that year on I worked, planned and
collaborated with others of a like mind to bring about a
union of Austria with Germany. It was my desire to effect
this union of the two countries in an evolutionary
manner, and by legal means."
Omitting just a sentence or two:
"I supported also the National Socialist Party as long as
it was legal, because it declared itself with particular
determination in favour of the Anschluss. From 1932
onwards I made financial contributions to this party, but
I discontinued financial support when it was declared
illegal in 1934."
Then passing down another couple of sentences:
"From July, 1936, onwards I tried to help the National
Socialists to regain their legal status and, finally, to
participate in the Austrian Government. During this time,
particularly after the Party was forbidden in July, 1934,
I knew that the radical element of the Party was engaged
in terroristic activities, such as attacks on railroads,
bridges, telephone communications, etc. I knew that the
governments of both Chancellors, Dollfuss and
Schuschnigg, although they held in principle the same
total German viewpoint, were opposed to the Anschluss
then, because of the National Socialist regime in the
Reich. I was sympathetic towards the efforts of the
Austrian Nazi Party to gain political power and
corresponding influence, because they were in favour of
the Anschluss."