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Volume V · Page 30
| C. Extracts from the Closing
Statement of the Prosecution* |
| MR. SHILLER : May it please the
Tribunal: Today we approach the end of this proceeding which began on 20
October 1947. Fifty-seven trial days have been consumed, nine hundred and four
exhibits have been introduced by the prosecution and over one thousand by the
defense. Thirty-two witnesses have been heard for the prosecution and
eighty-four for the defendants, and the record comprises 4,780 pages.
This Tribunal was established for the particular purpose of hearing and deciding this one case. It was constituted pursuant to international agreement, and the crimes with which these defendants are charged are crimes under international law. The result of this trial is the concern of all the people of the world, and the judgment in this case will become a part of the body of international law and will be a precedent for the guidance of all the civilized nations of the world for years to come. The crimes with which the defendants are charged include murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, deportations, enslavement, plunder of property, persecutions, and other inhuman acts. But the importance of the issues to be settled here cannot be measured in terms of trial days, exhibits, and witnesses, nor does the mere listing of the crimes, grave and shocking though they are, properly indicate the seriousness of the task which your Honors have here undertaken, or tell why it was considered proper to bring these charges before a specially established tribunal having the jurisdiction and dignity of an international court. The thing that makes this case so important and justifies its being brought before this international Court is the motive which prompted the commission of these criminal acts and the fact that the concerted effort with which they were carried out threatened, and very nearly accomplished, the destruction of entire nations. The motive in this case was what the Nazis termed the "Strengthening of Germanism," which was their way of describing a program that has generally been known as "genocide." These defendants are not charged with the generic crime of genocide as such, but are specifically charged with many criminal acts which had a clear genocidal purpose — that of strengthening |
* Complete closing statement is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 13 February 1949, pp. 4781-4844.
