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Volume V · Page 931
| VII. FINAL STATEMENTS OF
THE DEFENDANTS, 22 SEPTEMBER 1947 |
| A. Final Statement of Defendant Pohl* |
| DEFENDANT POHL: Mr. President, your Honors,
when with the end of the First World War the German people laid down its arms,
it did so in the belief in the fourteen points of your President Wilson, and
the hope for a just and reasonable peace. But the peace which was dictated was the one against which President Wilson had so strongly warned. Germany was torn into two parts, and the right of self administration of the peoples was violated in the most blatant manner, which made cause for an everlasting conflict. Thus, the dictate of Versailles sealed Germany's fate. This fate was suffered by every German more from year to year. The ever-increasing misery caused passion and dissent. The community disintegrated into numerous parties which were fighting against each other. This situation forced every responsible German to adopt an attitude, this way or the other, and that applied to me, too. I joined the NSDAP [National Socialist German Labor Party]. I considered that a group of force which seemed to be called to reunite the German people and, in correspondence with its social needs, to lead it towards a future which was worth while. That was the first time that I had to deal with political problems. In the foreground there stood for millions of Germans the worry for mere survival. The securing of that was, therefore, one of the primary demands of the NSDAP, and, in comparison to that, everything else had to move into the background. This applied to the racial problem in general, and the Jewish problem in particular. I had faced both of them with indifference up to then. What I knew about it was not due to experience gathered by myself, but was gathered here and there. I examined such knowledge and extended it, through study, particularly on conceptions heard abroad, particularly those of America. I read Madison Grant and Houston Stoddard regarding the racial problem. I studied publications by Henry Ford, which appeared in 1924 to 1926 in his newspaper, "The Dearborn Independent," and which appeared in book form with the title, "The International Jew," and was widely read in Germany. This attitude of this great practical American, who was not anti-Semitic, impressed me particularly at that time and strengthened my belief that the racial |
* Tr. pp. 8011-8018.
887136 — 50 — 60
