against the Soviet Union testified as to the methods
employed in the extermination of the Jews. He said that he employed
firing squads to shoot the victims in order to lessen the sense of
individual guilt on the part of his men; and the 90,000 men, women,
and children who were murdered in one year by his particular group
were mostly Jews.
When the witness Bach Zelewski was asked how Ohlendorf could
admit the murder of 90,000 people, he replied: "I am of the
opinion that when, for years, for decades, the doctrine is preached
that the Slav race is an inferior race, and Jews not even human, then
such an outcome is inevitable."
But the Defendant Frank spoke the final words of this chapter of
Nazi history when he testified in this Court:
"We have fought against Jewry we
have fought against it for years: and we have allowed ourselves to
make utterances and my own diary has become a witness against me in
this connection — utterances which are terrible . . . . A
thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be
erased. "
The anti-Jewish policy was formulated in Point 4 of
the Party Program which declared "Only a member of the race can
be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German
blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently, no Jew can be a
member of the race." Other points of the program declared that
Jews should be treated as foreigners, that they should not be
permitted to hold public office, that they should be expelled from
the Reich if it were impossible to nourish the entire population of
the State, that they should be denied any further immigration into
Germany, and that they should be prohibited from publishing German
newspapers. The Nazi Party preached these doctrines throughout its
history. Der Stürmer and other publications were allowed
to disseminate hatred of the Jews, and in the speeches and public
declarations of the Nazi leaders, the Jews were held up to public
ridicule and contempt.
With the seizure of power, the persecution of the Jews was
intensified. A series of discriminatory laws was passed, which
limited the offices and professions permitted to Jews; and
restrictions were placed on their family life and their rights of
citizenship. By the autumn of 1938, the Nazi policy towards the Jews
had reached the stage where it was directed towards the complete
exclusion of Jews from German life. Pogroms were organized, which
included the burning and demolishing of synagogues, the looting of
Jewish businesses, and the arrest of prominent Jewish business men. A
collective fine of 1 billion marks was imposed on the Jews, the
seizure of Jewish assets was authorized,