8 Jan. 46
Those extracts are set out in the order in which I
shall, with the Tribunal's permission, refer to them.
Now these quotations fall into two main categories. The first category
is that of general expression of Hitler's belief in the necessity of
force as the means of solving international problems. The second
category is that of Hitler's more explicit declarations on the policy
which Germany must pursue.
Most of the quotations in the second category come from the last three
Chapters, 13, 14, and 15 of Part II of Mein Kampf, in which
Hitler's views on foreign policy were expounded. The significance of
that fact will be realized if the Tribunal looks at the German edition
of Mein Kampf. The Tribunal will observe that Part II of Mein
Kampf was first published in 1927, that is to say, less than 2 years
after the Locarno Pact and within a few months of Germany's entry into
the League of Nations. The date of the publication of these passages,
therefore, brands them as a repudiation of the policy of international
co-operation embarked upon by Stresemann and as a deliberate defiance of
the attempt to establish, through the League of Nations, the rule of law
in international affairs.
First I place before the Tribunal some quotations showing the general
views held by Hitler and accepted and propagated by the defendants about
war and aggression generally. The first quotation, from Page 556 of Mein
Kampf reads:
"The soil on which we now live was
not a gift bestowed by Heaven on our forefathers. But they had to
conquer it by risking their lives. So also in the future our people
will not obtain territory and therewith the means of existence as a
favor from any other people, but will have to win it by the power of a
triumphant sword."
On Page
145 Hitler revealed his own personal attitude to war. Of the years of
peace before 1914 he wrote:
"Thus I used to think it an
ill-deserved stroke of bad luck that I had arrived too late on this
terrestrial globe, and I felt chagrined at the idea that my life would
have to run its course along peaceful and orderly lines. As a boy I
was anything but a pacifist and all attempts to make me so proved
futile." Generally, Hitler wrote of war in this way. On Page 162
we find:
"In regard to the part played by humane feeling, Moltke stated
that in time of war the essential thing is to get a decision as
quickly as possible and that the most ruthless methods of fighting are
at the same time the most humane. When people attempt to answer this
reasoning by 'highfalutin' talk about aesthetics, et cetera, only one
answer can be given. It is that the vital questions involved in the
struggle of a nation