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| X. FINAL STATEMENTS OF THE DEFENDANTS* |
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JUDGE DALY, Presiding: Under Military Government Ordinance No. 17
there is a provision that each defendant may make a statement to the Tribunal.
That opportunity is now afforded to each defendant in this case. Those
defendants who desire to make statements may make them now.
DEFENDANT
LOESER: Mr. President, Your Honors. “Once liberty is lost it is too
late.” These were the final words of the message that Secretary of State
Stettinius delivered before the Congress of the United States on the occasion
of the introduction of the United Nations Organization Security Council bill.
We in Germany have had bitter experience of the truth of this warning.
“Once liberty is lost it is too late,” is written in black letters at
the head of that chapter of German history which begins in 1933.
The
terrible thing at that time was that the vast majority of the German people did
not realize what was happening and how they were being cheated. It was only
1934, after the so-called Roehm-Putsch that one person or another was startled
and awakened as it were from the intoxication inflicted on the people by the
falsely glittering speeches, parades, and popular festivals of the men in
brown. But it was too late.
In August the old Marshal and President von
Hindenburg died. From that moment on Germany had one man who was at the same
time leader of the only legal party, chief of state, supreme commander of the
armed forces, chief of the government, law maker, and supreme judge, thus
embodying in this person the most gigantic power that can possibly be imagined.
From now on the people and the national economy became the victims of
this Hitler, who abused the power of State for his own purpose and held in
contempt the ethical dignity of men, in that he destroyed the personality with
its own sense of responsibility and coerced it into his governmental machine.
The evil that emanated from the head of the State asserted its will throughout
the country with a power that was all embracing. The foundations of law and
morals were shaken.
There was no means of opposing this, such as is
available to the citizens of free societies, no right of opposition, no freedom
of the individual or of conscience, not even the technical assistance of a
brake on the state machine. There was no room for the |
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* Only the defendants
Loeser and Alfried Krupp elected to make a statement to the Tribunal. However,
the defendant Krupp in beginning his statement said, “My codefendants have
asked me when speaking the final words in this trial to do so on their behalf
as well.”
Final statements of defendants are recorded in
mimeographed transcript. 30 June 1948. pp. 13215-13220.
1323 |
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