Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 2, p. 105
		21 Nov. 45 fendants were men of a station and rank which does not soil its own hands with blood. They were men who knew how to use lesser folk as tools. We want to reach the planners and designers the inciters and leaders without whose evil architecture the world would not have been for so long scourged with the violence and lawlessness, and wracked with the agonies and convulsions, of this terrible war. The Lawless Road to Power: The chief instrumentality of cohesion in plan and action was the National Socialist German Workers Party, known as the Nazi Party Some of the defendants were with it from the beginning. Others joined only after success seemed to have validated its lawlessness or power had invested it with immunity from the processes of the law. Adolf Hitler became its supreme leader or "Führer" in 1921. On the 24th of February 1920, at Munich, it publicly had proclaimed its program (1708-PS). Some of its purposes would commend themselves to many good citizens, such as the demands for "profit-sharing in the great industries," "generous development of provision for old age," "creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class," "a land reform suitable to our national requirements," and "raising the standard of health." -It also made a strong appeal to that sort of nationalism which in ourselves we call patriotism and in our rivals chauvinism. It demanded "equality of rights for the German people in its dealing with other nations and the abolition of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain." It demanded the "union of all Germans on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples to form a Great Germany." It demanded "land and territory (colonies) for the enrichment of our people and the settlement of our surplus population." All of these, of course, were legitimate objectives if they were to be attained without resort to aggressive warfare. The Nazi Party from its inception, however, contemplated war. It demanded the "abolition of mercenary troops and the formation of a national army." It proclaimed that: "In view of the enormous sacrifice of life and property demanded of a nation by very war, personal enrichment through war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand, herefore, ruthless confiscation of all war profits." I do not criticize this policy. Indeed, I wish it were universal. I merely wish to point out that in a time of peace, war was a preoccupation of the Party, and it started the work of making war less offensive to the masses of the people. With this it combined a program of physical training and sports for youth that became as we shall see, the cloak for a secret program of military training. 105
		Text: English     International Military Tribunal "Blue Series," Vol. 2, p. 105     Last modified: January 2, 1999 Copyright © 1998 The Mazal Library and The Holocaust History Project. All rights reserved. Technical/administrative contact: webmaster@holocaust-history.org Find a typo? Let us know.