Стенограмма Нюрнбергского процесса. Том IX.
EIGHTY-EIGHTH DAY
Friday, 22 March 1946
THE PRESIDENT: … Defense Counsel are advised that the Tribunal will not ordinarily regard as competent evidence, extracts from books or articles expressing the opinions of particular authors on matters of ethics, history, or particular events.
…
DR. STAHMER: Mr. President, I shall refer to the trial brief, Page 5. … At the beginning of my presentation from this book I pointed out that Germany had renounced the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact, and that this renunciation as such was justified. After this renunciation had taken place, Germany could proceed to rearm and also to reintroduce general conscription.
Moreover, rearmament and the reintroduction of military conscription were ordered by Hitler only after he had previously and repeatedly submitted, without success, offers of disarmament to the powers concerned. Therefore the conclusion cannot be drawn from that fact alone that at that time the intention existed to prepare or to plan German wars of aggression. In this connection I draw your attention to the fact that also in foreign countries rearmament took place to a considerable degree from 1936 on, and as evidence for this fact I have submitted the speeches and essays which are contained in Churchill's book Step by Step. The individual excerpts have been designated by me. …
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Stahrner, you must offer these things in evidence as a matter of formality.
DR. STAHMER: … "On 18 June the Anglo-German Naval Treaty was signed, which released Germany from the Versailles naval restrictions. That meant in effect condonation of the breach of the military clauses."
On Page 35:
"The Air Force is in the process of being almost,trebled. This is a colossal expansion which is making the most prodigious demands on our production potentialities. But quite apart from these immediate needs, there is the far greater task of so organizing England's home industries that they will be ready to direct the whole of their enormous and elastic capacity into the channels of war production as soon as a serious necessity for that should arise."
From the article "In the Waters of the Mediterranean" dated 13 November 1936, I quote, on Page 86, where it says literally: "But it is no longer thus. England has begun to rearm on a large scale. Her wealth and her credit, the solidarity of her organization, her vast resources and connections, all contribute to this revival. The British fleet is still by far the mightiest in Europe. Enormous yearly expenditure on it is under consideration for the future."
...And from another speech of 26 March 1938, which is also quoted from Hermann Goring's Speeches and Compositions, Document Book Number 1, Page 41, Document Number 16, I quote the first and the second sentences:
"We do not wish to annihilate any Church, nor to destroy any belief or religion. All we want is to bring about a clear separation. The Church has its definite, very important and very necessary tasks, and the State and the Movement have other, just as important and just as decisive, tasks."
...The affidavit from Gauleiter Dr. Uiberreither, dated 27 February 1946, deals with the question which I mentioned earlier and which is contained in Document Book Number 1, Page 31. It, under Figure 2, deals with the events of the night of 9 to 10 November 1938 and the knowledge thereof, as follows:
"A few weeks after the action against the Jews on the night of 9 to 10 November 1938 - towards the end of November or the beginning of December 1938 - Field Marshal Goring again called all the Gauleiter to Berlin. During this meeting he criticized the action in harsh words and stated that it had not been in keeping with the dignity of the nation. Moreover, it had also seriously lowered our prestige abroad. If the murder of Legation Counsellor Von Rath was regarded as an attack by Jewry against the Reich, then the German Reich had other means of countering such an attack than appealing to the baser instincts. In an orderly state no irregular mob action ought to take place under any circumstances."
And in the last paragraph, under Number 2, it says:
"In conclusion, he asked the Gauleiter to use their entire influence to see to it that such incidents, which were detrimental to Germany, would not recur in the future."