. NMT06-T0159
Volume VI · Page 159
| [Inter…] national Military Tribunal in
its interpretation of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10. The
International Tribunal has declared crimes against humanity punishable only if
the deed was committed after the outbreak of war in the process of an offensive
war (cf., judgment of the International Military Tribunal). That the connection of Control Council Law No. 10 with the Moscow Declaration of 30 October 1943 and the London Agreement of 8 August 1945 was the basis for the decision of the International Military Tribunal, is seen even in the preamble to the Control Council Law No. 10. Accordingly we must start from the fact that Control Council Law No. 10 contains the codification of those legal stipulations which were also the basis for the decision of the International Military Tribunal. A decision deviating from that of the International Military Tribunal appears therefore impossible, and would, in the interpretation of the defense, be in contradiction also to Article X of Ordinance No. 7. I do not wish at this point to discuss in detail the manifold arguments which could easily refute the legal arguments of the prosecution. I shall take the liberty of exposing in my concluding speech for the defense, the legal interpretation of the defense which is opposed to the prosecution, and which rests on the judgment of the International Military Tribunal. In this, I start out from the point of view that this Tribunal, which has permitted the hearing of witnesses by the prosecution on Count Three of the indictment, also desires the hearing of witnesses on Count Three of the indictment on the part of the defense, without having formed a decision as yet concerning this question of law. But let this much be said at this time, that the application of the Prosecution's proposed interpretation of Article II of the Control Council Law No. 10 leads to untenable results. A man like Julius Streicher, who is characterized by the International Military Tribunal,* as "Jew-Batter Number One," by reason of his 25 years of speaking, writing, and preaching of hatred of the Jews, and who was undoubtedly guilty of numberless crimes against humanity in the years before the outbreak of the war, was only punished for those crimes against humanity which were committed by him in the execution of an offensive war, that, is, therefore, after 1 September 1939. There were, moreover, in addition to Streicher, men like Goering and Kaltenbrunner, who were not sentenced for crimes against humanity which they committed before the outbreak of war. |
* Trial of the Major war Criminals, op. cit., volume I, page 302.
