The Nuremberg Trials (Vol.7). International Military Tribunal

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ document sent to us. It is 1334 which was rejected by the Tribunal.

      THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but what is Document FA-20 or Document FA-21, what does it mean?

      M. GERTHOFFER: FA-20 is the serial number which had been given to this document in the series of documents which we received. It is of no importance.

      THE PRESIDENT: You mean that it is only a number given by you or that it is a number given by the Economic Section of the. . . ?

      M. GERTHOFFER: It is a number given to it by the Economic Section.

      THE PRESIDENT: Well, then if that is so, if it is the number given to this document by the Economic Section, it does identify the document as a document of a public nature.

      M. GERTHOFFER: We had likewise given to the document which I quoted a short time ago, a number which was 1333 for Document FA-21.

      THE PRESIDENT: Document FA-21, 1333.

      M. GERTHOFFER: We likewise gave it a number.

      THE PRESIDENT: I see, the Economic Section is merely a section of the French Prosecution.

      M. GERTHOFFER: Yes, it is a section of the French Prosecution.

      THE PRESIDENT: M. Mounier.

      M. PIERRE MOUNIER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): Mr. President, your Honors, Gentlemen of the High International Military Tribunal, we have the honor of appearing before your high jurisdiction in order to submit the conclusions of the French Prosecution in connection with the responsibilities individually incurred by the defendants brought before this bar of justice. In pursuance of the allotment of the various tasks incumbent on each of the four nations, resulting both from the Indictment presented in compliance with the Charter of 8 August 1945 and the agreements reached between the four Delegations, the French Prosecution, in its presentation, has particularly applied itself to the study of the war crimes under the third Count of the Indictment, that is, the crimes committed by the defendants in France and in the countries of western Europe during hostilities and during the German occupation. It arises quite naturally that, in the explanations about to follow, the case of some of the defendants will be set aside, although their responsibility will already have been established by the other delegations who are, if I may say so, more interested in the crimes committed by the defendants and which correspond to the first, second, and fourth Counts of the Indictment. The French Prosecution, nevertheless, intends to join in the accusations raised by the other delegations against such of the defendants as concern them directly, especially against the Defendants Von Neurath and Von Ribbentrop. The French Delegation associates itself with the statement presented against them by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe. The same holds good as far as the Defendants Hess, Kaltenbrunner, Frank, Bormann, Funk, Schacht, Von Papen, Baldur von Schirach, Streicher, Raeder, Dönitz, and Fritzsche are concerned.

      On the other hand, Mr. President, your Honors, we should like, in this brief presentation, slightly to deviate from the order of priority in which the defendants appear, both in the Indictment and in the dock, so as to elucidate matters. As a matter of fact it would appear desirable, when presenting some of the chiefs of the National Socialist conspiracy, as viewed from the angle of crimes committed in the West, to show how they materialized their philosophical, political, economic, diplomatic, and finally their military conceptions. Consequently, this order will determine the order in which we shall present the case of these defendants.

      On the other hand the defendants, in pursuance of the rule adopted by the Tribunal for governing the proceedings which it intends to follow in this Trial, have not yet given their oral explanations before the Court; and the hearing of the majority of the witnesses, or at least of the more important witnesses, has not yet taken place.

      That is why the French Prosecution, with the permission of the Tribunal, reserves the right of completing at a later date its statement regarding the defendants taken individually on the one hand, and the groups accused—according to the expression used by my eminent friend, Prosecutor Boissarie—of “international indignity,” on the other hand.

      Needless to say, the final impeachment would be carried out with the utmost sobriety, since the French Delegation is anxious to avoid, as far as possible, any unnecessary prolongation of the proceedings.

      An imposing number of documents has been submitted to the Tribunal. Their reading, presented in the first instance for the information of the Tribunal, then for the information of the Defense, and finally, be it said, for that of universal public opinion, has already taken up a very considerable time. That is why, with the permission of the Tribunal, we shall abstain, as far as possible, from presenting the Tribunal with still more copious documents. Sufficient written evidence has already been furnished by the American, British, and French Prosecutions which, when added to those still to be submitted by the Prosecution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, will assure the Tribunal of the defendants’ guilt.

      We shall therefore content ourselves, in general, with quoting documents already produced, in order to correlate the facts which we shall bring forward with the evidence already supplied. I should like, however, Mr. President, before approaching the case of the defendants whom I wish to accuse individually, to make a statement of a very general nature. It would be idle to pretend that a certain part of this public opinion—and not the least enlightened part at that—in the Old as well as in the New World, has evinced surprise in seeing this Indictment, which is the foundation of the present proceedings, collectively denounce the criminal character of certain organizations of the Reichsregierung, the Leadership Corps of the National Socialist Party, the SS including the SD, the Gestapo, the SA, the General Staff, and the High Command.

      In this connection the Tribunal has been good enough to invite the various prosecutions to present written memoranda in order to establish the validity of the imputations contained in the Indictment. But may I be allowed, before a more complete memorandum is handed to your high jurisdiction, to present to the Tribunal a few ideas which appear to me necessary to be recalled. It appears, as a matter of fact, that this concept of a collective responsibility of the various groups goes hand in hand with the concept of conspiracy constituting the other governing ideas of the Indictment. There is no doubt, as far as this idea of a conspiracy is concerned as featured in the Indictment, that one finds, in the first instance, in the acts of the defendants that mystery which generally accompanies any conspiracy, whatever its nature, and that the various documents already supplied to the Tribunal are sufficient to confirm the existence of all the elements which render it possible for me to state that the defendants, their co-authors, and their accomplices had, in fact, conceived and realized the fraudulent agreement which was to enable them to make an attempt on the peace of the world by means contrary to the laws of war, to international law, and to international morality.

      There is no doubt that the Nazi leaders had invested all their meetings with a guise of secrecy, whether these meetings were regular and administrative in nature or whether they were of a casual or of an informal variety. This fact in itself would be normal if one could isolate it from all the others; but added to all the other elements in the case, it clearly shows the guilty intent of the conspirators, for this absolute secrecy alone could imply the use of the criminal means which we shall have to emphasize.

      I shall moreover remind the Tribunal that very often, where the orders transmitted were concerned, very often it happened that certain paragraphs had been erased so that no traces could remain. The Defendant Hermann Göring admitted this in the course of the interrogations. Consequently this fact proves the intent not only to act in the greatest secrecy, but also the intent of doing away with every trace of what had happened.

      If I were permitted to transpose an expression used during the War of 1914-18, an expression applied to the sinking of certain ships of friendly СКАЧАТЬ