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.