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22 Nov.
45
Afternoon Session
COL. STOREY: If the
Tribunal please, Major Frank Wallis will now present the briefs and
documents supporting the briefs in behalf of the phase of the case known
as the Common Plan or Conspiracy, up through 1939.
Major
Wallis.
MAJOR FRANK B. WALLIS (Assistant Trial Counsel for the
United States): Mr. President, members of the Tribunal: It will be my
purpose to establish most of the material allegations of the Indictment
running from Paragraph IV on Page 3, to Subparagraph E on Page 6. The
subjects involved are:
The aims of the Nazi Party, their
doctrinal techniques, their rise to power, and the consolidation of
control over Germany between 1933 and 1939 in preparation for aggressive
war.
This story has already been sketched by the American
Chief Prosecutor. Moreover, it is history, beyond challenge by the
defendants. For the most part, we rely upon the Tribunal to take
judicial notice of it. What we offer is merely illustrative
material-including statements by the defendants and other Nazi
leaders-laws, decrees, and the like. We do not need to rest upon
captured documents or other special sources, although some have been
used.
For the convenience of the court and Defense counsel,
the illustrative material has been put together in document books, and
the arguments derived from them have been set out in trial briefs.
I
intend only to comment briefly on some of the materials and to summarize
the main lines of the briefs.
What is the charge in Count One?
The charge in Count One is that the defendants, with divers
other persons, participated in the formulation or execution of a Common
Plan or Conspiracy to commit, or which involved the commission of Crimes
against Humanity (both within and without Germany), War Crimes, and
Crimes against Peace.
The charge is, further, that the
instrument of cohesion among the defendants, as well as an instrument
for the execution of the purposes of the conspiracy, was the Nazi Party,
of which each defendant was a member or to which he became an adherent.
The scope of the proof which I shall offer is:
First,
that the Nazi Party set for itself certain aims and objectives,
involving basically the acquisition of "Lebensraum", or living
space, for all "racial" Germans.
Second, that it was
committed to the use of any methods whether or not legal, in attaining
these objectives, and that it did in fact use illegal methods.
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