8 Jan. 46
Wartheland or Warthegau, which included particularly
the cities of Poznan and Lodz and the Reich district Danzig-West
Prussia.
The occupied Polish territories which were organized into the
Government General comprised the remainder of Poland, seized by the
German forces in 1939 and extending to the new boundary with the Soviets
formed at that time. This included Warsaw and Kraków. After the
Nazis attacked the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in June 1941, the
parts of old Poland lying farther to the east and then overrun were
included in the so-called Occupied Eastern Territories.
For the purpose of tying the defendants' responsibility for the
persecutions occurring in their respective areas, the Court will bear in
mind that the Defendant Frick was the official chiefly responsible for
the reorganization of the Eastern territories. The Defendant Frank was
head of the Government General from 1939 to 1945. The Defendant
Seyss-Inquart was Deputy Governor General there from 1939 to 1940. And
the Defendant Rosenberg was Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern
Territories from July 17, 1941 to the end.
I now offer in evidence Document Number 3263-PS, Exhibit Number
USA-571, headed, "Memorandum of the Secretariat of State to the
German Embassy regarding the religious situation in the 'Warthegau,'
October 8, 1942." This document bears a certificate of authenticity
from the Vatican signed by the Papal Secretary of Extraordinary
Ecclesiastical Affairs corresponding to that accompanying Document
3261-PS, read in evidence a few minutes ago. Unless the Court requires
otherwise, I suggest that it is not necessary to read each of these
certificates, which are all similar one to another. I quote from
Document 3263-PS, the first paragraph:
"For quite a long time the religious
situation in the region called 'Warthegau' gives cause for very grave
and ever-increasing anxiety. There, in fact, the Episcopate has been
little by little almost completely eliminated; the secular and regular
clergy have been reduced to proportions that are absolutely
inadequate, because they have been in large part deported and exiled;
the education of clerics has been forbidden; the Catholic education of
youth is meeting with the greatest opposition; the nuns have been
dispersed; insurmountable obstacles have been put in the way of
affording people the help of religion; very many churches have been
closed; Catholic intellectual and charitable institutions have been
destroyed; ecclesiastical property has been seized."
On March 2, 1943 the Cardinal Secretary of State addressed to the
Defendant Von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of the Reich, a note setting
forth in detail the persecution of bishops, priests, and