14 Dec. 45

obtain definite information as to the meaning of "WB" but it has been suggested to me that it might mean Westbund or Western Ally because it is used in connection with the capture — the destruction of all prisoners before capture by either the WB or the Red Armies, and I presume that it may mean Westbund.

The slaughter of the Jews in Europe cannot be expressed in figures alone, for the impact of this slaughter is even more tragic to the future of the Jewish people and mankind. Ancient Jewish communities with their own rich spiritual, cultural, and economic life, bound up for centuries with the life of the nations in which they flourished, have been completely obliterated. The contribution of the Jewish people to civilization, the arts, the sciences, industry, and culture, need not, I am sure, be elaborated upon before this Tribunal. Their destruction, carried out continuously, deliberately, intentionally, and methodically by the Nazis, represents a loss to civilization of special qualities and abilities that cannot possibly be recouped.

I have not attempted to recount the multitudinous and diabolical crimes committed against the Jewish people by the state which these defendants ruled, because, with sober regard for contemporary and historical truth, a detailed description of some of these crimes would transcend the utmost reaches of the human faculty of expression. The mind already recoils and shrinks from the acceptance of the incredible facts already related. Rather, it is my purpose to elucidate the pattern, the successful and successive stages, the sequence and concurrence of the crimes committed, the pre-determined means to a pre-ordained end.

Yet, these cold, stark, brutal facts and figures, drawn largely from the defendants' own sources and submitted in evidence before this Tribunal, defy rebuttal.

From conception to execution, from the Party program of 1920 to the gloating declarations of Himmler and the Defendant Frank in 1943 and 1944, the annihilation of the Jewish people in Europe was man-made — made by the very men, sitting in the defendants' box, brought to judgment before this Tribunal.

Before closing may I acknowledge with appreciation the untiring services of the group of the staff of the United States' Prosecution, through whose painstaking search, analysis, and study, this presentation of evidence was made possible: Captain Seymour Krieger, Lieutenant Brady Bryson, Lieutenant Frederick Felton, Sergeant Isaac Stone, and Mr. Hans Nathan.

COL. STOREY: If the Tribunal please, the next presentation, concerning Germanization and spoliation in occupied countries, will be presented by Captain Sam Harris.