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planning
and waging of war against Poland; and,
successively, against 10 other countries.
The
Prosecution says, in effect, that any
significant participation in the affairs of the
Nazi Party or Government is evidence of a
participation in a conspiracy that is in itself
criminal. Conspiracy is not defined in the
Charter. But in the opinion of the Tribunal the
conspiracy must be clearly outlined in its
criminal purpose. It must not be too far removed
from the time of decision and of action. The
planning, to be criminal, must not rest merely
on the declarations of a party program, such as
are found in the 25 points of the Nazi Party,
announced in 1920, or the political affirmations
expressed in Mein Kampf in later years.
The Tribunal must examine whether a concrete
plan to wage war existed, and determine the
participants in that concrete plan.
It
is not necessary to decide whether a single
master conspiracy between the defendants has
been established by the evidence. The seizure of
power by the Nazi Party, and the subsequent
domination by the Nazi State of all spheres of
economic and social life must of course be
remembered when the later plans for waging war
are examined. That plans were made to wage war,
as early as 5 November 1937, and probably before
that, is apparent. And thereafter, such
preparations continued in many directions, and
against the peace of many countries. Indeed the
threat of war — and war itself if necessary
— was an integral part of the Nazi policy.
But the evidence establishes with certainty the
existence of many separate plans rather than a
single conspiracy embracing them all. That
Germany was rapidly moving to complete
dictatorship from the moment that the Nazis
seized power, and progressively in the direction
of war, has been overwhelmingly shown in the
ordered sequence of aggressive acts and wars
already set out in this Judgment.
In
the opinion of the Tribunal, the evidence
establishes the common planning to prepare and
wage war by certain of the defendants. It is
immaterial to consider whether a single
conspiracy to the extent and over the time set
out in the Indictment has been conclusively
proved. Continued planning. with aggressive war
as the objective, has been established beyond
doubt. The truth of the situation was well
stated by Paul Schmidt, official interpreter of
the German Foreign Office, as follows:
"The
general objectives of the Nazi
leadership were apparent from the start,
namely the domination of the European
Con- tinent, to be achieved first by the
incorporation of all German speaking
groups in the Reich, and secondly, by
territorial expansion under the slogan "Lebensraum".
The execution of these basic objectives,
however, seemed to be characterized
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