Since I shall refer to this affidavit at numerous times throughout the presentation, perhaps the members of the Tribunal will wish to place a special marker in their document book.
By referring to Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the affidavit, the Tribunal will note that Fritzsche first became a successful journalist in the service of the Hugenberg Press, the most important chain of newspaper enterprises in pre-Nazi Germany. The Hugenberg concern owned papers of its own, but primarily it was important because it served newspapers which principally supported the so-called “national” parties of the Reich, including the NSDAP.
In Paragraph 5 of his affidavit Fritzsche relates that in September 1932, when the Defendant Von Papen was Reich Chancellor, he was made head of the Wireless News Service, replacing someone who was politically unbearable to the Papen regime. The Wireless News Service, I might say, was a government agency for spreading news by radio.
Fritzsche began making radio broadcasts at about this time with very great success, a success which Goebbels recognized and was later to exploit very efficiently on behalf of these Nazi conspirators.
The Nazis seized power on the 30th of January 1933. From Paragraph 10 of the Fritzsche affidavit we find that that very evening, the 30th of January 1933, two emissaries from Goebbels visited Fritzsche. One of them was Dressler-Andress, head of the Radio Division of the NSDAP; the other was an assistant of Dressler-Andress named Sadila-Mantau. These two emissaries notified Fritzsche that although Goebbels was angry with Fritzsche for writing a critical article concerning Hitler, still Goebbels recognized Fritzsche’s public success on the radio since the previous fall. They stated further that Goebbels desired to retain Fritzsche as head of the Wireless News Service on certain conditions: (1) That Fritzsche discharge all Jews; (2) that he discharge all other personnel who would not join the NSDAP; and (3) that he employ with the Wireless News Service the second Goebbels’ emissary, Sadila-Mantau.
Fritzsche refused all these conditions except the hiring of Sadila-Mantau. This was one of the first ostensible compromises after the seizure of power which Fritzsche made on his road to the Nazi camp.
Fritzsche continued to make radio broadcasts during this period in which he supported the National Socialist coalition government then still existing.
In early 1933 SA troops several times called at the Wireless News Service and Fritzsche prevented them, with some difficulty, from making news broadcasts.
In April 1933 Goebbels called the young Fritzsche to him for a personal audience. At Paragraph 9 of his affidavit, Document Number 3469-PS, Fritzsche has volunteered the following concerning his prior relationships with Dr. Goebbels:
“I was acquainted with Dr. Goebbels since 1928. Apparently he had taken a liking to me, besides the fact that in my press activities I had always treated the National Socialists in a friendly way until 1931.
“Already before 1933 Goebbels, who was the editor of The Attack (Der Angriff), Nazi newspaper, had frequently made flattering remarks about the form and content of my writings, which I did as contributor of many ‘national’ newspapers and periodicals, among which were also some of more reactionary character.”
At the first Goebbels-Fritzsche discussion in early April 1933, Goebbels informed Fritzsche of his decision to place the Wireless News Service within the Propaganda Ministry as of 1 May 1933. He suggested that Fritzsche make certain rearrangements in the personnel which would remove Jews and other persons who did not support the NSDAP. Fritzsche debated with Goebbels concerning some of these steps. It must be said that during this period Fritzsche made some effort to place Jews in other jobs.
In a second conference with Goebbels, shortly thereafter, Fritzsche informed Goebbels about the steps he had taken in reorganizing the Wireless News Service. Goebbels thereupon informed Fritzsche that he would like to have him reorganize and modernize the entire news services of Germany within the control of the Propaganda Ministry.
It will be recalled by the Tribunal that on the 17th of March 1933, approximately two months before this time, the Propaganda Ministry had been formed by decree, 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 104, our Document Number 2029-PS.
Fritzsche was intrigued by the Goebbels offer. He proceeded to conclude the Goebbels-inspired reorganization of the Wireless News Service; and on the 1st of May 1933, together with the remaining members of his staff, he joined the Propaganda Ministry. On this same day he joined the NSDAP and took the customary oath of unconditional loyalty to the Führer. From this time on, whatever reservations Fritzsche may have had, either then or later, to the course of events under the Nazis, Fritzsche was completely within the Nazi camp. For the next 13 years he assisted in creating and in using the principal propaganda devices which the conspirators employed with such telling effect in each of the principal phases of this conspiracy.
From 1933 until 1942 Fritzsche held one or more positions within the German Press Division. For 4 years indeed he headed this Division, during those crucial years 1938 to 1942. That covers the period when the Nazis undertook actual military invasions of neighboring countries. It is, therefore, believed appropriate to spell out in some detail, before this Tribunal, the functions of this German Press Division. These functions will show the important and unique position of the German Press Division as an instrument of the Nazi conspirators not only in dominating the minds and the psychology of Germans through the German Press Division and through the radio but also as an instrument of foreign policy and psychological warfare against other nations.
The already broad jurisdiction of the Propaganda Ministry was extended by a Hitler decree of the 30th of June 1933, found in 1933 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, Page 449. From that decree I wish to quote only one sentence. It is found in Document 2030-PS, your document book Page 3:
“The Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda is competent for all problems concerning the mental moulding of the nation, the propaganda for the State, for culture and economy, and the enlightenment at home and abroad about these questions. Furthermore, he is in charge of the administration of all institutions serving these purposes.”
It is important to underline the stated propaganda objective of “enlightenment at home and abroad.”
For a clear exposition of the general functions of the German Press Division of the Propaganda Ministry, the Tribunal is referred to Document Number 2434-PS, document book Page 5. It is offered in evidence as Exhibit USA-722. This document is an appropriate excerpt from a book by Georg Wilhelm Müller, a Ministerial Director in the Propaganda Ministry, of which the Tribunal is asked to take judicial notice.
Fritzsche’s affidavit, Paragraphs 14, 15, and 16, beginning at Page 22 of your document book, contains an exposition of the functions of the German Press Division, a description which confirms and adds to the exposition in Müller’s book. Concerning the German Press Division, Fritzsche’s affidavit states:
“During the whole period from 1933 to 1945 it was the task of the German Press Division to supervise the entire domestic press and to provide it with directives by which this division became an efficient instrument in the hands of the German State leadership. More than 2,300 German daily newspapers were subject to control.
“The aim of this supervision and control, in the first years following 1933, was to change basically the conditions existing in the press before the seizure of power. That meant the coordination into the New Order of those newspapers and periodicals which had been serving capitalistic individual interests or party politics. While the administrative functions wherever possible were exercised by the professional associations and the Reich Press Chamber, the political direction of the German press was entrusted to the German Press Division.
“The head of the German Press Division held daily press conferences in the Ministry for the representatives of all German newspapers. Thereby all instructions