International Military Tribunal - The Nuremberg Trials - Complete Tribunal Proceedings (V. 5)

“Dr. Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Highest Dignitary of the English Church. His ally, a typical example of the Jewish race.”

The last page, Page 18, reproduces a picture called, “St. Simon of Trent, Who Was Tortured to Death.”

My Lord, it is my submission that that document is nothing but an incitement to the people of Germany who read it, an incitement to murder. It is filled with pictures of murder, murder alleged to be against the German people, and is an encouragement to all who read it to revenge themselves, and to revenge themselves in the same way. That document, M-10, becomes Exhibit GB-173.

DR. HANNS MARX (Counsel for Defendant Streicher): The Defendant Julius Streicher has just called my attention to the fact that he has not been given the opportunity to prove from where these pictures, which the Prosecution referred to just now, were taken. It is, in the opinion of the Defense, necessary that the origin of these pictures should be made clear to the Tribunal; otherwise one might think that these pictures had been especially borrowed for Der Stürmer from some obscure source. The Defendant Streicher, however, points out that these pictures came from recognized historical sources. I should therefore like to suggest that the Prosecution make this material also available. I think that the articles of Der Stürmer which have been referred to must show what the sources are from which Streicher was supplied.

THE PRESIDENT: Do the articles show the sources? Do the articles themselves indicate the sources?

DR. MARX: Yes.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: I should have said so. There wasn’t any intention to misrepresent the matter, that these pictures are taken from original pictures. These were not invented by the newspaper, and in some cases the sources are shown in the caption. This is a collection of medieval pictures and frescoes dealing with this matter. In actual fact the papers show in almost all cases where they come from.

DR. MARX: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: You have already given us the dates of them, which indicated they were medieval.

LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: That is so. My Lord, in January 1938—and it will be remembered that in 1938 the persecution of the Jews became more and more severe—in January 1938, for some reason or other, another special issue of Der Stürmer was published. If the Tribunal would look at Page 34 of their document book I will quote a short passage from the leading article in that paper—an article written by the defendant:

“The supreme aim and highest task of the State is therefore to preserve People, Blood, and Race. But if this is the supreme task, any crime against this law must be punished with the supreme penalty. Der Stürmer takes therefore the view that there are only two punishments for the crime of polluting the race: 1. Long-term penal servitude for attempted race pollution. 2. Death for the completed crime.”

And again, indeed if it is now still necessary to show the type of paper this was, if the Tribunal will turn over to the next page they will see the headlines set out for some of the articles that are contained in that edition:

“Jewish Race Polluters at Work.”

“Fifteen-Year-Old Non-Jewess Violated.”

“A Dangerous Race Polluter. He regards German women as fair game for himself.”

“The Jewish Sanatorium. A Jewish institution for the cultivation of race pollution.”

“Rape of a Feeble-Minded Girl.”

“The Jewish Butler. He steals from his Jewish masters and commits race pollution.”

The copy of that paper is already in as Exhibit USA-260.

On the next page of the document book I will quote only the last two lines. It is an article appearing in Der Stürmer; and it is true that it is not an article actually written by the Defendant Streicher but by his then editor, Karl Holz:

“Revenge will break loose one day and will exterminate Jewry from the face of the earth.”

And again on Page 37, in September 1938, Der Stürmer has written an article in which the last two lines read as follows:

“. . . a parasite, a mischief maker, an evil-doer, a disseminator of disease, who must be destroyed in the interest of mankind.”

It is my submission to the Tribunal that this is no longer propaganda for the persecution of the Jews; this is propaganda for the extermination of Jews, for the murder not of one man but of millions.

The next document in the document book, on Page 38, has already been put in evidence and read to the Tribunal. It is Exhibit USA-260. It appears in the document book and was read into the transcript at Page 1438 (Volume III, Page 523). This is a short article appearing in December 1938, Number 50 of Der Stürmer.

I would draw the Tribunal’s attention to the next document which is a picture taken from that same copy. It shows the upper part of a girl’s body being strangled by the arms of a man with his hands around her neck and the shadow of the man’s face is shown against the background, quite obviously with Jewish features. The caption under that picture is as follows:

“Castration for Race Polluters. Only heavy penalties will preserve our womenfolk from a tighter grip from the loathsome Jewish claws. The Jews are our misfortune.”

I pause for the moment from Der Stürmer to a particular incident that occurred, in which the Defendant Streicher took a leading part. It will be remembered that the organized demonstrations against the Jews took place the 9th and 10th of November 1938. All this propaganda, as I say, was becoming fiercer and more ferocious. In the autumn of that year the Defendant Streicher organized the breaking up of the Nuremberg synagogues on the occasion of a meeting of press representatives in Nuremberg. That incident has in fact been referred to previously in this case and the documents in connection with it are 1724-PS, which were put in as Exhibit USA-266 and were referred to and read in the transcript at Page 1443 (Volume III, Page 526).

Gauleiter Julius Streicher was personally to set the crane in motion with which the Jewish symbols were to be torn down from the synagogue. From another document which also was put in, 2711-PS, which became USA-267, and also was read in the transcript at Page 1443 (Volume III, Page 526), I quote two lines:

“. . . the Synagogue is demolished! Julius Streicher himself inaugurates the work by a speech lasting an hour and a half. By his order then—so to speak as a prelude of the demolition—the tremendous Star of David came off the cupola.”

The defendant, of course, took active part in the November demonstrations of that year. I do not suggest that he was responsible for the idea of them. The evidence against him is confined only to the part that he took in his Gau in Franconia.

On Page 43 of the document book, Document M-42 is an account of the Nuremberg demonstrations as they were reported in the Fränkische Tageszeitung, which of course was his paper, on the 11th of November. I quote:

“In Nuremberg and Fürth there were demonstrations by the crowd against the Jewish murderers. These lasted until the early hours of the morning. Long enough had one watched the doings of the Jews in Germany.”

And then I go to the last three lines of that paragraph:

“After midnight the excitement of the populace reached its peak and a large crowd marched to the synagogues in Nuremberg and Fürth and burned these two Jewish buildings where the murder of Germans had been preached.

“The fire brigades, which had been notified immediately, saw to it that the fire was confined to the original outbreak. The windows of the Jewish shopkeepers, who still had not given up hope of selling their rubbish to the stupid Gojim, were smashed. Thanks to the disciplined behaviour of the SA-men and the police, who rushed to the scene, there was no plundering.”