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Volume VI · Page 32
| The crimes charged against these defendants
are, in short, the same crimes that other more notorious agents and ministers
of the Third Reich committed. Throughout the Nuernberg proceedings the United
States has taken the position that, deep as is the responsibility of Germany as
a whole for the crimes of the Third Reich, we do not seek to incriminate the
entire population. But it is a gross misconception to picture the Third Reich
as the tyranny of Hitler and his close Party henchmen alone. A dictatorship is
successful, not because everybody opposes it, but because powerful groups
support it. The Nazi dictatorship was no exception to this principle. In fact,
it was not a dictatorship of the Nazis alone, and while at least one of the men
in the dock is an ardent Nazi, this circumstance is coincident rather than
significant. Hitler was. to be sure, the focus of ultimate authority, but
Hitler derived his power from the support of other influential men and groups
who agreed with his basic ideas and objectives. The defendants in this case are leading representatives of one of the two principal concentrations of power in Germany. In the final analysis, Germany's capacity for conquest derived from its heavy industry and attendant scientific techniques, and from its millions of able-bodied men, obedient, amenable to discipline, and overly susceptible to panoply and fanfare. Krupp, Flick, Thyssen, and a few others swayed the industrial group; Beck, Fritsch, Rundstedt, and other martial exemplars ruled the military clique. On the shoulders of these groups Hitler rode to power, and from power to conquest. If anyone questions this analysis, let him look at the fate of the various professions and occupations under Hitler. The press and radio Hitler tore up by the roots and absorbed into Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment. The learned professions were utterly dishonored; books were burned, scholarships were muzzled, and German science and culture were stultified and retarded by decades. For tactical reasons, Hitler's attack on religion was flanking rather than frontal, but every effort was made to discredit and stifle the church. Politics became a Nazi monopoly. The trade unions were stamped out. But, unless Jewish, the business man and the officer lived comfortably and flourished under Hitler. Some inconveniences arose, to be sure; industry was increasingly regimented, and venerable military traditions were shattered by the Hitler salute. But these were trifling annoyances compared to the scourges that the Third Reich laid on other men. The Third Reich dictatorship was based on this unholy trinity of nazism, militarism, and economic imperialism. To industry Hitler held out the prospect of a "stable" government, freedom from |
