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| BORMANN — Indicted and found not guilty under count one.
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“The evidence does not show
that Bormann knew of Hitler's plans to prepare, initiate, or wage aggressive
wars. He attended none of the important conferences when Hitler revealed piece
by piece those plans for aggression. Nor can knowledge be conclusively inferred
from the positions he held. It was only when he became head of the Party
Chancellory in 1941, and later in 1943 secretary to the Fuehrer when he
attended many of Hitler's conferences, that his positions gave him the
necessary access. Under the view stated elsewhere which the Tribunal has taken
of the conspiracy to wage aggressive war, there is not sufficient evidence to
bring Bormann within the scope of count one.”* |
From the foregoing it appears that the IMT approached a finding
of guilty of any defendant under the charges of participation in a common plan
or conspiracy or planning and waging aggressive war with great caution. It made
findings of guilty under counts one and two only where the evidence of both
knowledge and active participation was conclusive. No defendant was convicted
under the charge of participating in the common plan or conspiracy unless he
was, as was the defendant Hess, in such close relationship with Hitler that he
must have been informed of Hitler’s aggressive plans and took action to
carry them out, or attended at least one of the four secret meetings at which
Hitler disclosed his plans for aggressive war. The IMT judgment lists these
meetings as having taken place on 5 November 1937, 23 May 1939, 22 August 1939,
and 23 November 1939.
It is important to note here that Hitler's public
utterances differed widely from his secret disclosures made at these meetings.
Common Knowledge
During the early stages of the trial,
the prosecution spent considerable time in attempting to establish that, for
some time prior to the outbreak of war, there existed in Germany public or
common knowledge of Hitler’s intention to wage aggressive war. It
introduced in evidence excerpts from the program of the Nazi Party and from
Hitler’s book Mein Kampf.
Prosecution's Exhibit 4 is a
summarization of the program of the NSDAP published in 1941 in the National
Socialistic Year Book. This program was proclaimed on 25 February 1920 and
remained unaltered down to 1941. The summarization consists of twenty-five
points. We quote those dealing with military and foreign
policy. |
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“1. We demand the
unification of all Germans, in the greater Germany on the basis of the right of
self-determination of peoples. |
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* Ibid., p.
339.
1102 |
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