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and
the movement of Jews was restricted by
regulations to certain specified districts and
hours. The creation of ghettos was carried out
on an extensive scale, and by an order of the
Security Police Jews were compelled to wear a
yellow star to be worn on the breast and back.
It was contended for the Prosecution
that certain aspects of this anti-Semitic policy
were connected with the plans for aggressive
war. The violent measures taken against the Jews
in November 1938 were nominally in retaliation
for the killing of an official of the German
Embassy in Paris. But the decision to seize
Austria and Czechoslovakia had been made a year
before. The imposition of a fine of one billion
marks was made, and the confiscation of the
financial holdings of the Jews was decreed, at a
time when German armament expenditure had put
the German treasury in difficulties, and when
the reduction of expenditure on armaments was
being considered. These steps were taken,
moreover, with the approval of the Defendant Göring,
who had been given responsibility for economic
matters of this kind, and who was the strongest
advocate of an extensive rearmament program
notwithstanding the financial difficulties.
It was further said that the
connection of the anti-Semitic policy with
aggressive war was not limited to economic
matters. The German Foreign Office circular, in
an article of 25 January 1939, entitled "Jewish
Question as a Factor in German Foreign Policy in
the Year 1938", described the new phase in
the Nazi anti-Semitic policy in these words:
"It
is certainly no coincidence that the
fateful year 1938 has brought nearer the
solution of the Jewish question
simultaneously with the realization of
the idea of Greater Germany, since the
Jewish policy was both the basis and
consequence of the year 1938. The
advance made by Jewish influence and the
destructive Jewish spirit in politics,
economy, and culture, paralyzed the
power and the will of the German People
to rise again, more perhaps even than
the power policy opposition of the
former enemy Allied Powers of the first
World War. The healing of this sickness
among the people was therefore certainly
one of the most important requirements
for exerting the force which, in the
year 1938, resulted in the joining
together of Greater Germany in defiance
of the world." The
Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany before the
war, severe and repressive as it was, cannot
compare, however, with the policy pursued during
the war in the occupied territories. Originally
the policy was similar to that which had been in
force inside Germany. Jews were required to
register, were forced to live in ghettos, to
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