Number 26—finally propaganda attains the level of the conflict of political doctrines, “Socialism against Bolshevism or a free Europe.”
Number 27—religious doctrine. This is a Norwegian poster which makes fun of the Anglo-Russian alliance. It is entitled, “A Blessed Meeting.” An Anglican bishop, armed with a phosphorous bomb, presents a cross symbolizing Finland to Pope Stalin. Stalin accepts it with eyes lifted to heaven and a machine gun in his arms. A placard says, “Christianity is introduced into the country of the Soviets,” and the motto says, “My dear brother, we wish to strengthen your faith with these beautiful crosses.”
Number 28—“Anti-Christ: Communism, the scourge of civilization. Bolshevism against Europe. International Exhibition, 12 July to 15 August 1941.” The Nazis pose as the defenders of Christianity.
Number 29—and to conclude, this is what the defenders of Christianity did to the Church of Oradour-sur-Glane.
We have now finished showing the films. We have taken the liberty to submit to the Tribunal a few pictures forming concrete illustrations of a tendency whose spiritual character makes it perhaps more difficult of recognition but whose importance is considerable. In treating an emotionally subtle theme of this kind, we have used pictures in preference to words, since pictures can make clear in an instant something which it takes time to put into words. In this way we hope we have contributed towards making plain the truth.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn until 10 minutes past 2.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1410 hours.]
Afternoon Session
MARSHAL: May it please the Court, I desire to announce that the Defendant Kaltenbrunner will be absent until further notice, on account of illness.
M. FAURE: Mr. President, I shall now take up the last chapter of my brief, which is devoted to the organization of criminal activities. I shall begin this last chapter by quoting a few words spoken by Monseigneur Piguet, Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand, in the course of a pontifical Mass on Whit Sunday, 20 May 1945. Monseigneur Piguet had just been liberated from the concentration camp to which he had been sent by the Nazis. He said:
“The criminal institutions of which we have been witness and victim bear within themselves all the scourges of barbarism and old-time servitude systematized and applied by a new method capable of increasing human misery by the whole range of modern scientific possibilities.”
The evidence that I intend to present to the Tribunal with regard to the occupied countries of the West bears upon this aspect of the systematizing of German criminal enterprises. We have said that Germanization did not consist in the particular fact of the imposition of German nationality or of German law, but in the general imposition of the standards established by the Nazi regime, and in a general way, of its philosophy. This aspect of Germanization implies criminal activity at once as a means and as an end—as a means, because the criminal means is very often highly effective, and we know that Nazism professes indifference in regard to the immorality of the means; as an end, on the other hand, since the final organization of Nazi society postulates the elimination of elements hostile to it or which it regards as undesirable. Under these conditions the criminal activities therefore do not appear as accidents or regrettable incidents of war and of occupation. They must not be ascribed to un-coordinated action on the part of subordinates due to overzealousness or lack of discipline.
As the elimination of adversaries is recommended in principle, it will be carried out in fact by the normal and regular functioning of the administrative apparatus. If Nazism has a philosophy of criminal action, it also has, properly speaking, a bureaucracy of criminal activity.
The will which inspires this action is transmitted from one to another of the chief and secondary centers of the state organism. Each of the misdeeds or series of misdeeds of which we have told you already or shall do so again, assumes the existence of a whole series of transmissions: orders passed by superiors to inferiors, requests for orders or reports passed by inferiors to superiors, and finally the relations maintained between corresponding echelons of different services. This administrative organization of criminal activity appears to us a very important datum for the determination of responsibility and the proving of the charges formulated in the Indictment against the higher leaders and against the group organization.
The responsibility of any one of these superior leaders in regard to a determined criminal activity does not, indeed, require that an exhibit or a document signed by the person himself be produced or that it should involve him by name. The existence or non-existence of such a document is a matter of chance.
The responsibility of the higher leader is directly established by the fact that a criminal activity has been carried out administratively by a service at whose head we find this leader.
This is all the more true in the case of a criminal activity pursued over a long period of time, affecting a considerable number of persons and whose development has given rise to a series of complications, of consultations, and of solutions. There is in every graded state service a continuous circuit of authority which is at the same time a continuous circuit of responsibility. Moreover, concerning charges made against organizations described as criminal organizations, their criminal nature springs from the very fact that their activity produces criminal results without there being any lack of knowledge or modification of the normal rules of competence and of functioning of their different organisms.
The collaboration which develops with a view to such an end between a series of agents belonging to the organization both vertically between the upper and lower grades and horizontally between the different specialist departments implies no less forcibly the existence of a collective criminal intent.
I shall speak first of the persecution of persons qualified as Jews by the German code. The Tribunal already knows from other evidence the Nazi doctrine on the subject of Jews. The historians of the future will perhaps be able to determine how much of this doctrine was the result of sincere fanaticism and how much was the result of premeditated intent to deceive and mislead public opinion.
It is certain that the Nazis found the theories which led them to undertake the extermination of the Jews extremely convenient.
In the first place, anti-Semitism was an ever accessible means of averting public criticism and anger. Moreover, it was a method of psychological seduction that was very cleverly calculated to appeal to simple minds. It made it possible to give a certain amount of satisfaction to the most needy and underprivileged person by convincing him that he was nevertheless of a superior quality and that he could despise and bully a whole category of his fellow men. Finally, the Nazis obtained for themselves by this means the possibility of whipping up the fanaticism of their members by awakening and encouraging in them the criminal instincts which are always latent to a certain extent in the souls of men.
Indeed, it is a German scientist, Feuerbach, who developed the theory that disposition to crime does not necessarily proceed from long preparation. The criminal instinct present may spring to life in an instant. The Nazis gave to the elite of their servants the possibility of giving free rein to any inclination they might possess for murder, looting, the most atrocious actions, and the most hideous spectacles. In this way they fully assured themselves of their obedience and of their zeal.
In order to avoid repetition, I shall not speak in detail of the great sufferings endured by the persons qualified as Jews in France and in the other countries of western Europe. I should like simply to indicate here that it also caused great suffering to all the other inhabitants of these countries to witness the abominable treatment inflicted upon the Jews. Every Frenchman felt a deep affliction at seeing the persecution of other Frenchmen, many of whom had earned the gratitude of the fatherland. There is no one in Paris who did not feel deeply ashamed to learn that the dying Bergson had to be carried to the police commission to satisfy the census requirements.