17 Dec. 45
membership of the Leadership Corps actively entered
into a wide variety of acts and measures designed to advance the course
of the conspiracy. The evidence will show that such participation by the
Leadership Corps in the conspiracy embraces such measures as
anti-Semitic activities, war crimes committed against members of the
Allied Forces, participation in the forced-labor program, measures to
subvert and undermine the Christian religion and persecute the Christian
clergy, the plundering and spoliation of cultural and other property in
German occupied territories in Europe, participation in plans and
measures leading to the initiation and prosecution of aggressive war,
and in general, the wide variety of measures embracing the Crimes
against the Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity as defined
and denounced by the Charter.
The first item of evidence we have to introduce is in connection with
the participation of the Gauleiter and Kreisleiter in what the Nazis
describe as the "spontaneous uprising of the people" against
the Jews throughout Germany on 9 and 10 November 1938. We do not intend
to introduce, by diverting from the text, any evidence formerly
introduced by Major Walsh on the persecution of the Jews but only to
show the connection of a few of the Party officials in connection with
the assassination of an official of the German Embassy in Paris on the
7th of November.
The evidence relating to these pogroms has been thoroughly presented in
connection with the Prosecution's evidence in other phases of the case,
particularly of the persecution of the Jews. I shall therefore limit
myself to two documents and will request the Tribunal to recall that in
the teletyped directive from SS Gruppenführer Heydrich, issued the
10th of November 1938 to all police headquarters and SD districts, all
chiefs of the State Police were ordered to contact the political leaders
in the Gaue and the Kreise and to arrange with these high officials in
the Leadership Corps the organization of the so-called spontaneous
demonstrations against the Jews.
The evidence previously presented shows that pursuant to this directive
a large number of the Jewish shops and businesses were pillaged and
wrecked, synagogues set on fire, individual Jews beaten UP, and large
numbers taken to concentration camps. This evidence forcibly illustrates
the employment and participation of all the Kreisleiter and Gauleiter in
illegal and inhuman measures designed to further the anti-Semitic
program which was an original and continuous objective of the Leadership
Corps of the Nazi Party. I simply refer again to Document 3051-PS,
Exhibit Number USA-240, and simply call Your Honors' attention to the
different political leaders that were named in that document; and I will
not attempt to read nor refer to it again.