. NMT02-T0379
Volume II · Page 379
which he wanted to prevent the doom of the German cities. Perhaps, one day, the necessity for this doom will be judged differently. I shall prove that he condemned the attack against Soviet Russia as folly, and that he tried to prevent it. I shall show that in the spring of 1943 he submitted to Hitler detailed proposals for an immediate termination of the war and that he told him without reserve that the war was lost.
If it is true that from that moment onward he made efforts again and again to strengthen the fighter force, and that he took part in the creation of the Jaegerstab, who can reproach him with the intention to prolong the war if it will be proved that he knew that the enemy air forces would make a desert of Germany? Was it inhuman that he tried to prevent this total destruction even if the war was lost? He alone could not end the war. But he could try to prevent the inferno in Germany from becoming full reality. What true lover of his own country in any part of the world would not make the same attempt? Never can he be considered guilty on account of that, and even less so because of the fact that in other countries also voices have arisen and still arise which say that during the destruction of Germany many a thing happened which was not always compatible with military necessity.
Despite the pains he took, his superiors mistrusted him so much that both Goering and Hitler contemplated to have him put out of the way.
I shall show that he never endorsed the theory of the superman and of the master race; that he always remained humane and that he intervened on behalf of friends with disregard for his own security. He never was cruel. It may be that some of the minutes carry wild speeches about him which must strike your Honors who come from a different world and are used to different customs as terrible and incomprehensible. I shall prove to you that in the barracks yards, which made the first impress on the sensitive mind of young Milch, wild expressions were quite common and that in German barracks yards bombastic expressions were considered normal and truly militaristic style. Nobody in Germany did at any time take these expressions at face value. For this human element in particular, the old saying holds true that dogs which bark do not bite.
This man, however, was all the more inclined to use these shocking expressions due to the fact that in a number of accidents he had suffered severe concussions of the brain as a result of which he was more susceptible to fits of anger than other people; all the more so since he was overburdened with work and always frantic because time was too short. But witnesses will
841584 — 49 — 25
