Chapter XV: Part 15

STREICHER: About my life: I was born on 12 February 1885 in a small village in Bavaria Swabia. I was the youngest of nine children. My father was an elementary school teacher. I too became a teacher at an elementary school. In 1909, after I had taught for several years in my native district, I was called to the municipal school in Nuremberg. Here I had the opportunity of contact with the families of the working-class children in the suburbs and of observing social contrasts. This experience led to my decision in 1911 to go into politics. I became a member of the Democratic Party. As a young democratic speaker, I spoke at the Reichstag election in 1912. The car put at my disposal was paid for by the banking firm of Kohn. I stress this point because at that time I had occasion to associate a good deal with Jews, even in the Democratic Party. I must therefore have been fated to become later on a writer and speaker on racial politics.

The World War came and I, too, went into the army as a lance corporal in an infantry regiment. Then I became an officer in a machine-gun unit. I returned home with both Iron Crosses, with the Bavarian Order, and the rare Austrian Cross of Merit attached to the Ribbon for Gallantry. When I had returned home, I had no desire to go into politics again. I intended only to stay in private life and devote myself to my profession. Then I saw the blood-red posters of revolution in Germany and for the first time I joined the raging masses of that time. At a meeting, when the speaker had finished, I asked to be heard as an unknown person. An inner voice sent me onto the platform and I spoke. I joined in the debate and I spoke on recent happenings in Germany. In the November revolution of 1918 the Jews and their friends had seized the political power in Germany. Jews were in the Reich Cabinet and in all the provincial governments. In my native Bavaria the Minister President was a Polish Jew called Eisner-Kosmanowsky. The reaction among the middle classes in Germany manifested itself in the form of an organization known as Schutz und Trutzbund (Society for Protective and Offensive Action). Local branches of this organization were formed in all the large cities in Germany; and fate willed that after I had again spoken at a gathering, a man came up to me and asked me to come to the Kulturverein (Cultural Society) in the Golden Hall and hear what they had to say there.

In this way, Gentlemen of the Tribunal, I became involved in what brings me here today. Destiny made of me what international propaganda thought it had made. I was called a bloodhound—a blood czar of Franconia; my honor was attacked, a criminal was paid 300 marks to swear in this very hall that he had seen me, as an officer in France during the war, rape a Madame Duquesne, a teacher’s wife in Atis, near Peronne. It was 2 years before someone betrayed him and the truth came out.

Gentlemen, the receipt for 300 marks was produced here in this court. With 300 marks they tried to deprive me of my honor.

I mention this case only because my case is a special case; and if it is to be judged with justice, then I must be allowed to make such a remark in passing. In this connection, I may say that it is no coincidence that the first question asked me by the Soviet Russian officer who interrogated me was whether I was a sex criminal.

Gentlemen, I told you how I was fated to be drawn into the Schutz und Trutzbund. I told you what conditions were like in Germany at the time, and it was therefore quite a natural development that I no longer visited the centers of revolution to join in debate. I felt myself impelled to call meetings of my own and so I spoke for perhaps 15 years almost every Friday before about 5,000 to 6,000 people. I admit quite frankly that I went on making speeches over a period of 20 years in the largest cities of Germany, sometimes at meetings on sport fields and on public squares, to audiences of 150,000 to 200,000 people. I did that for 20 years, and I state here that I was not paid by the Party. The Prosecution will never succeed, not even through a public appeal, in getting anybody into this room who could testify that I had ever been paid. I still had a small salary which continued after I was relieved of my position in 1924. Nonetheless, I remained the one and only unpaid Gauleiter in the Movement. It goes without saying that my writing supported myself and my assistants later on.

And so, Gentlemen, in the year 1921—I return now to that period—I went to Munich. I was curious because someone had said to me, “You must hear Adolf Hitler some time.” And now destiny again takes a hand. This tragedy can only be grasped by those whose vision is not limited to the material, but who can perceive those higher vibrations which even today have not had their full outcome.

I went to the Munich Bürgerbräukeller. Adolf Hitler was speaking there. I had only heard his name. I had never seen the man before. And there I sat, an unknown among unknowns. I saw this man shortly before midnight, after he had spoken for 3 hours, drenched in perspiration, radiant. My neighbor said he thought he saw a halo around his head; and I, Gentlemen, experienced something which transcended the commonplace. When he finished his speech, an inner voice bade me get up. I went to the platform. When Adolf Hitler came down, I approached him and told him my name.

The Prosecution has submitted a document to the Tribunal which recalls that moment. Adolf Hitler wrote in his book, _Mein Kampf_, that it must have cost me a great effort to hand over to him the movement which I had created in Nuremberg.

I mention this because the Prosecution thought that these things in Hitler’s book, _Mein Kampf_, should be submitted and used against me. Yes, I am proud of it; I forced myself to hand over to Hitler the movement which I had created in Franconia. This Franconian movement gave the movement which Adolf Hitler had created in Munich and southern Bavaria a bridge to northern Germany. That was my doing.

In 1923 I took part in the first National Socialist revolution or, rather, attempted revolution. It will go down in history as the Hitler Putsch. Adolf Hitler had asked me to come to Munich for it. I went to Munich and took part in the meeting in which Adolf Hitler came to a solemn agreement with representatives of the middle classes to go to northern Germany and put an end to the chaos.

I marched with them up to the Feldherrnhalle. Then I was arrested and, like Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, and others, was taken to Landsberg on the Lech. After a few months I was put up as candidate for the Bavarian Parliament by the Völkischer Block and was elected in the year 1924.

In 1925 after the Movement had been permitted again and Adolf Hitler had been released from jail, I was made Gauleiter of Franconia. In 1933 I became a deputy to the Reichstag. In 1933 or 1934 the honorary title of SA Gruppenführer was bestowed on me.

In February 1940 I was given leave of absence. I lived for 5 years, until the end of the war, on my estate. At the end of April I went to southern Bavaria, to the Tyrol. I wanted to commit suicide. Then something happened which I do not care to relate. But I can say one thing: I said to friends, “I have proclaimed my views to the world for 20 years. I do not want to end my life by suicide. I will go my way whatever happens as a fanatic in the cause of truth until the very end, a fanatic in the cause of truth.”

I might mention here that I deliberately gave my fighting paper, _Der Stürmer_, the subtitle, _A Weekly for the Fight for Truth_. I was quite conscious that I could not be in possession of the entire truth, but I also know that 80 or 90 percent of what I proclaim with conviction was the truth.

DR. MARX: Witness, why were you dismissed from the teaching profession? Did you ever commit any punishable or immoral act?

STREICHER: Actually I have answered this question already. Everybody knows that I could not have been active publicly in this profession if I had committed a crime. That is not true. I was dismissed from my profession because the majority of the parties in the Bavarian Parliament in the fall of 1923, after the Hitler Putsch, demanded my dismissal. That, Gentlemen, was my crime of indecent behavior.

DR. MARX: You know that two charges are made against you. First, you are accused that you were a party to the conspiracy which had the aim of launching a war, or wars, of aggression generally, of breaking treaties and by so doing, or even at an earlier stage, of committing Crimes against Humanity.

Secondly, you are accused of Crimes against Humanity as such. I should like to ask various questions on the first point now. Did you ever have discussions with Adolf Hitler or other leading men of the State or the Party at which the question of a war of aggression was discussed?

STREICHER: I can answer that with “no” right away, but I should like to be permitted to make a short statement.

In 1921, as I have already said, I went to Munich; and before the public on the platform I handed over my movement to the Führer. I also wrote him a letter in this connection later. No other conference took place with Adolf Hitler or any other person. I returned to Nuremberg and went on making speeches. When the Party program was proclaimed I was not present. That announcement, too, was made in public; the conspiracy was so public that political opponents could make attempts at terrorization.

To sum up: At none of the secret meetings was any oath taken or anything agreed upon which the public could not have known. The program stood; it had been submitted to the Police; on the basis of the law governing organizations the Party, like other parties, was entered in the register of organizations. So that at that time there was no conspiracy.

DR. MARX: Witness, one of the most important points of the Party program was the demand, “Freedom from Versailles.” What were your ideas as to the possibility of some day getting rid of the Versailles Treaty?

STREICHER: I think I can state that very shortly. I believe the Tribunal has known this for some time. Of course you will sometimes find one traitor in a people—like the one who was sitting here today; and you will also find unlimited numbers of decent people. And after the last war these decent people themselves took up the slogan, “Freedom from Versailles.”

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: If Your Honor pleases, I think I must object to this sort of procedure. This witness has no right to call another witness a traitor. He has not been asked any question to which that is a response, and I ask that the Tribunal admonish him in no uncertain terms and that he confine himself to answering the questions here and that we may have an orderly proceeding.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, you will observe that injunction.

STREICHER: I ask the Tribunal to excuse me. It was a slip of the tongue.

THE PRESIDENT: The observation that you apparently made I did not catch myself, but it was made with reference to a witness who has just given evidence here and you had no right at all to call him a traitor or to make any comment upon his evidence.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, you will please refrain from making such remarks. Adolf Hitler always spoke on the anniversary days of the Party about a sworn fellowship. What do you say about that?

STREICHER: Sworn fellowship—that meant that he, Hitler, was of the conviction that his old supporters were one with him in thought, in heart, and in political loyalty—a sworn fellowship sharing the same views and united in their hearts.

DR. MARX: Would not that mean that a conspiracy existed?

STREICHER: Then he would have said we were a fellowship of conspirators.

DR. MARX: Was there any kind of close relationship between you and the other defendants which could be termed a conspiracy, and were you better acquainted or did you have especially close relations with any one of these defendants?

STREICHER: Inasmuch as they were old members of the Party we were one community of people with the same convictions. We met at Gauleiter meetings; or when one of us spoke in the other’s Gaustadt, we saw one another. But I had the honor of getting to know the Reich Ministers and the gentlemen from the Army only here. A political group therefore—an active group—certainly did not exist.

DR. MARX: In the early days of the Party what solution was foreseen for the Jewish problem?

STREICHER: Well, in the early days of the Party, the solution of the Jewish problem was never mentioned just as the question of solving the problem of the Versailles Treaty was never mentioned. You must remember the state of chaos that existed at that time in Germany. An Adolf Hitler who said to his members in 1933, “I shall start to promote a war,” would have been dubbed a fool. We had no arms in Germany. Our army of 100,000 men had only a few big guns left. The possibility of making or of prophesying war was out of the question, and to speak of a Jewish problem at a time when, I might say, the public made distinctions with respect to Jews only on the basis of religion, or to speak of the solution of this problem, would have been absurd. Before 1933, therefore, the solution of the Jewish problem was not a topic of discussion. I never heard Adolf Hitler mention it; and there is no one here of whom I could say I ever heard him say one word about it.

DR. MARX: It is assumed that you had particularly close relations with Adolf Hitler and that you had considerable influence on his decisions. I should like to ask you to describe your relations with Adolf Hitler and to clarify them.

STREICHER: Anyone who had occasion to make Adolf Hitler’s acquaintance knows that I am correct in saying that those who imagined they could pave a way to his personal friendship were entirely mistaken. Adolf Hitler was a little eccentric in every respect and I believe I can say that friendship between him and other men did not exist—a friendship that might have been described as intimate friendship. It was not easy to approach Adolf Hitler; and any one who wanted to approach him could do so only by performing some manly deed.

If you ask me now—I know what you mean by that question—I may say that before 1923 Adolf Hitler did not trust me. Although I had handed over my movement to him unreservedly, he sent Göring—who later became Marshal of the Reich—some time later to Nuremberg. Göring was then a young SA leader—I think he was an SA leader—and he came to investigate matters and to determine whether I or those who denounced me were in the right. I do not mean this as an accusation, but merely as a statement of fact. Soon after that he sent a second and then a third person—in short, he did not trust me before 1923.

Then came Munich and the Putsch. After midnight, when most of them had left him, I appeared before him and told him that the public must be told now when the next great day would come. He looked at me intently and said, “Will you do it?” I said, “I will do it.”

Maybe the Prosecution has the document before it. Then, after midnight, he wrote on a piece of paper, “Streicher will be responsible for the entire organization.” That was to be for the following day, 11 November; and on 11 November I publicly conducted the propaganda, until an hour before the march to the Feldherrnhalle. Then I returned and everything was in readiness. Our banner—which was to become a banner of blood—flew in front. I joined the second group and we marched into the city towards the Feldherrnhalle. When I saw rifle after rifle ranged before the Feldherrnhalle and knew that now there would be shooting, I marched up 10 paces in front of the banner and marched straight up to the rifles. Then came the massacre, and we were arrested.

I have almost finished.

At Landsberg—and this is the important part—Hitler declared to me and to the men who were in prison with him, that he would never forget this action of mine. Thus, because I took part in the march to the Feldherrnhalle and marched at the head of the procession, Adolf Hitler may have felt himself drawn to me more than to the others.

That was the friendship born of the deed.

DR. MARX: Have you finished?

STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: Were you consulted by Adolf Hitler on important matters?

STREICHER: I saw Adolf Hitler only at Gauleiter conferences; when he came to Nuremberg for meetings we had meals together, along with five, ten, or more people. I recall having been alone with him only once in the Brown House at Munich, after the completion of the Brown House; and our conversation was not a political one. All the conversations which I had with Adolf Hitler, whether in Nuremberg, Munich, or elsewhere, took place in the presence of Party circle members.

DR. MARX: Now I come to 1933. On 1 April 1933 a boycott day was decreed throughout the entire German Reich against the Jewish population. What can you tell us about that and what part did you play in it?

STREICHER: A few days before 1 April I was summoned to the Brown House in Munich. Adolf Hitler explained to me something that I already knew, namely, that a tremendous propaganda campaign against the new Germany was being carried on by the foreign press. Although he himself had only just become Chancellor, although Hindenburg was still at the head of the Reich, although Parliament existed, a tremendous campaign of hate against Germany had begun in the foreign press.

The Führer told me that even the Reich flag, the emblem of sovereignty, was being subjected to insults abroad and that we would have to tell world Jewry, “Thus far and no farther.” We would have to show them that we would not tolerate it any longer.

Then he told me that a boycott day was to be fixed for 1 April and that I was to organize it. Perhaps it would not be irrelevant to point out the following facts: Adolf Hitler thought that it might be a good thing to use my name in connection with this boycott day; that was not done in the end. So I undertook the organization of the boycott and issued a directive, which I believe is in the hands of the Court. There is no need for me to say much about it. I gave instructions that no attempts should be made on the lives of Jews, that one or more guards should be posted in front of all Jewish premises—that is to say, in front of every Jewish store—and that these guards should be responsible for seeing that no damage was done to property. In short, I organized the proceedings in a way which was perhaps not expected of me; and perhaps not expected by many members of the Party. I frankly admit that.

One thing is certain; except for minor incidents the boycott day passed off perfectly. I believe that there is not even one Jew who can contradict this. The boycott day was a disciplined proceeding and was not “anti” in the sense of an attack on something. It has a purely defensive connotation.

DR. MARX: Was a committee formed at the time consisting of prominent, that is, leading members of the Party and did that committee ever appear?

STREICHER: As to the committee, it was like the Secret Cabinet Council in Berlin, which never met. In fact, I believe that all the members of the Cabinet did not even see each other or get to know each other.

DR. MARX: The committee members?

STREICHER: The boycott committee, that was put in the newspapers in Berlin by Goebbels. That was a newspaper story. I spoke to Goebbels on the telephone once. He asked how things were going in Munich, where I was. I said that everything was going perfectly. Thus no conference ever took place; it was only done for effect, to make it appear a much bigger thing than it was.

DR. MARX: Witness, you made a mistake a few minutes ago, speaking of the Munich affair in 1923. You meant 9 November—or did you not—9 November 1923, and what did you say?

STREICHER: I do not remember.

DR. MARX: It should be 9 November 1923?

STREICHER: 9 November 1923.

DR. MARX: Yes. The so-called “Racial Law” was promulgated at the Reich Party Day in Nuremberg in 1935. Were you consulted about the planning and preparation of the draft of that law; and did you have any part in it, especially in its preparation?

STREICHER: Yes, I believe I had a part in it insofar as for years I have written that any further mixture of German blood with Jewish blood must be avoided. I have written such articles again and again; and in my articles I have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the Jews should serve as an example to every race, for they created a racial law for themselves—the law of Moses, which says, “If you come into a foreign land you shall not take unto yourself foreign women.” And that, Gentlemen, is of tremendous importance in judging the Nuremberg Laws. These laws of the Jews were taken as a model for these laws. When, after centuries, the Jewish lawgiver Ezra discovered that notwithstanding many Jews had married non-Jewish women, these marriages were dissolved. That was the beginning of Jewry which, because it introduced these racial laws, has survived throughout the centuries, while all other races and civilizations have perished.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, this is rather too much of a digression. I asked you whether you took part in planning and working out the draft of the law, or whether you yourself were not taken by surprise when these laws were promulgated.

STREICHER: I was quite honest in saying that I believe I have contributed indirectly to the making of these laws.

DR. MARX: But you were not consulted on the law itself?

STREICHER: No. I will make a statement, as follows:

At the Reich Party Day in Nuremberg in 1935, we were summoned to the hall without knowing what was going to happen—at least I myself had no knowledge of it—and the racial laws were proclaimed. It was only then that I heard of these laws; and I think that with the exception of Herr Hess, _et cetera_, this is true of most of the gentlemen in the dock who attended that Reich Party Day. The first we heard of these decrees was at the Reich Party Day. I did not collaborate directly. I may say frankly that I regarded it as a slight when I was not consulted in the making of these laws.

DR. MARX: It was thought that your assistance was not necessary?

STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: Were you of the opinion that the 1935 legislation represented the final solution of the Jewish question by the State?

STREICHER: With reservations, yes. I was convinced that if the Party program was carried out, the Jewish question would be solved. The Jews became German citizens in 1848. Their rights as citizens were taken from them by these laws. Sexual intercourse was prohibited. For me, this represented the solution of the Jewish problem in Germany. But I believed that another international solution would still be found, and that some day discussions would take place between the various states with regard to the demands made by Zionism. These demands aimed at a Jewish state.

DR. MARX: What can you tell us about the demonstrations against the Jewish population during the night of 9 to 10 November 1938, and what part did you play in it?

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, if you are going into that, it is now 5 o’clock; and I think we had better adjourn now until Monday morning.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 29 April 1946 at 1000 hours._]

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH DAY
Monday, 29 April 1946

_Morning Session_

DR. MARX: Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Tribunal: Before continuing with questions to the Defendant Streicher, may I ask permission to make a statement?

On Friday afternoon, Herr Streicher referred to a case, namely, that press event which concerned me and my professional attitude. I thereupon took the opportunity to refer to this case in my statement as well, and I pointed out that at that time I had had to ask for the protection of the Tribunal against this damaging attack on my work and that this protection was given me very graciously. On that occasion and in that extemporary explanation I used the expression “newspaper writer.” I used it exclusively with reference to the particular journalist who had written the article in question in that Berlin newspaper regarding my person and my activity as a lawyer.

By no means did I express, or mean to express, a reference to the press in general. It was far from my intention in any way to attack the press, the group of press experts, and particularly not the members of the world press who are active here; nor did I wish to injure their professional honor.

The reason for this statement of mine is a statement made on the radio, according to which I, the attorney Marx, had attacked and disparaged the press in general. I am, of course, aware of the significance of the press. I know precisely what the press has to contribute and I should be the last person to fail to recognize fully the extremely difficult work and the responsible task of the press. May I, therefore, quite publicly before this Tribunal ask that this statement be accepted; and may I ask the gentlemen of the press to receive my statement in the spirit in which it is made, namely, that this was merely a special comment on that particular gentleman and not in any way on the entire press. That is what I wanted to say.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, the Tribunal understood your statement the other day in the sense in which you have now explained it.

DR. MARX: Yes. With the permission of the Tribunal, I shall then continue with my examination.

Witness, what aims did you pursue with your speeches and your articles in _Der Stürmer_?

STREICHER: The speeches and articles which I wrote were meant to inform the public on a question which appeared to me one of the most important questions. I did not intend to agitate or inflame but to enlighten.

DR. MARX: Apart from your weekly journal, and particularly after the Party came into power, were there any other publications in Germany which treated the Jewish question in an anti-Semitic way?

STREICHER: Anti-Semitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. A book I had, written by Dr. Martin Luther, was, for instance, confiscated. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants’ dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the Prosecution. In the book _The Jews and Their Lies_, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent’s brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them...

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, that is not my question, I am asking you to answer my question in accordance with the way I put it. Please answer now with “yes” or “no,” whether there were...

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I should like to interpose an objection to this method of answering unresponsively and with speeches here. We are utterly unable in this procedure to make objections when answers are not responsive to questions. We have already got into this case, through Streicher’s volunteered speeches, an attack on the United States which will take considerable evidence to answer if we are to answer it. It seems to me very improper that a witness should do anything but make a responsive answer to a question, so that we may keep these proceedings from getting into issues that have nothing to do with them. It will not help this Tribunal, in deciding Streicher’s guilt or innocence, to go into questions which he has raised here against us—matters that are perfectly capable of explanation, if we take time to do it.

It seems to me that this witness should be admonished, and admonished so that he will understand it, if that is possible, that he is to answer questions and stop, so that we can know and object in time to orations on irrelevant subjects.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, will you try, when you put the questions to the witness, to stop him if he is not answering the questions you put to him?

DR. MARX: Yes, Mr. President. I was just in the process...

THE PRESIDENT: Defendant Streicher, you understand, you have heard what has been said and you will understand that the Tribunal cannot put up with your long speeches which are not answers to questions which we put to you.

DR. MARX: I will now repeat the question and I want you to answer the question first with “yes” or “no” and then to add a brief explanation regarding the question.

Apart from your weekly journal, and particularly after the Party came into power, were there other publications in Germany which dealt with the Jewish question in an anti-Semitic way?

STREICHER: Yes, even before the coming to power there were in every Gau weekly journals that were anti-Semitic and one daily paper called the _Völkischer Beobachter_ in Munich. Apart from that, there were a number of periodicals which were not working directly for the Party. There was also anti-Semitic literature. After the seizure of power, the daily press was co-ordinated, and now the Party found itself in control of some 3,000 daily papers, numerous weekly journals, and all type of periodicals; and orders were given by the Führer that every newspaper should provide enlightening articles on the Jewish question. The anti-Semitic enlightenment was, therefore, after the seizure of power, carried out on a very large scale in the daily press as well as in the weekly journals, periodicals, and books. Consequently, _Der Stürmer_ did not stand alone in its enlightening activity. But I want to state quite openly that I make the claim of having treated the question in the most popular way.

DR. MARX: Were the directives necessary for this issued by a central office, say, for instance, by the National Socialist press service?

STREICHER: Yes. The Propaganda Ministry in Berlin had a National Socialist press service. In this service, in every issue, there were a number of enlightening articles on the Jewish question. During the war the Führer personally gave the order that the press, far more than previously, should publish enlightening articles on the Jewish question.

DR. MARX: The Prosecution accuse you of having contributed indirectly to mass murders by incitation, and according to the minutes of 10 January 1946, the following charge has been made against you: No government in the world could have undertaken a policy of mass extermination, as it was done here, without having behind it a nation which agreed to it; and you are supposed to have brought that about. What have you to say to this?

STREICHER: To that I have the following to say: Incitation means to bring a person into condition of excitement which causes him to perform an irresponsible act. Did the contents of _Der Stürmer_ incite, this is the question? Briefly stated, the question must be answered, “What did _Der Stürmer_ write?” Several volumes of _Der Stürmer_ are available here, but one would have to look at all the issues of 20 years in order to answer that question exhaustively. During those 20 years I published enlightening articles dealing with the race, dealing with what the Jews themselves write in the Old Testament, in their history, what they write in the Talmud. I printed excerpts from Jewish historical works, works for instance, written by a Professor Dr. Graetz and by a Jewish scholar, Gutnot.

In _Der Stürmer_ no editorial appeared written by me or written by anyone of my main co-workers in which I did not include quotations from the ancient history of the Jews, from the Old Testament or from Jewish historical works of recent times.

It is important, and I must emphasize that I pointed out in all articles, that prominent Jews, leading authors themselves, admitted that which during 20 years as author and public speaker I publicly proclaimed.

Allow me to add that it is my conviction that the contents of _Der Stürmer_ as such were not incitation. During the whole 20 years I never wrote in this connection, “Burn Jewish houses down; beat them to death.” Never once did such an incitement appear in _Der Stürmer_.

Now comes the question: Is there any proof to be furnished that any deed was done from the time _Der Stürmer_ first appeared, a deed of which one can say that it was the result of an incitement? As a deed due to an incitement I might mention a pogrom. That is a spontaneous deed when sections of the people suddenly rise up and kill other people. During the 20 years no pogrom took place in Germany, during the 20 years, as far as I know, no Jew was killed. No murder took place, of which one could have said, “This is the result of an incitement which was caused by anti-Semitic authors or public speakers.”

Gentlemen, we are in Nuremberg. In the past there was a saying that nowhere were the Jews in Germany so safe and so unmolested as in Nuremberg.

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, is not this becoming a rather lengthy speech?

DR. MARX: Streicher, you have explained this now sufficiently, so that one can form an opinion—you mean, “I have not incited in such a way that any spontaneous action carried out against the Jews by any group of people or by the masses resulted”?

STREICHER: May I make a remark in this connection? Here we are concerned with the most serious, the most decisive accusation raised against me by the Prosecution, and here I ask the Tribunal to permit me to defend myself against it objectively. Is it not of tremendous significance if I can establish that in Nuremberg, of all places, no murder took place, no single murder and no pogrom either? That is a fact.

THE PRESIDENT: You have already said it. I have just written down, before I intervened, saying that no Jews have been killed not only in Nuremberg but anywhere else as a result of your incitement.

DR. MARX: Witness, we shall make reference to these demonstrations of 9 and 10 November 1938 later.

STREICHER: Yes, but may I continue? The Indictment accuses me of having indirectly contributed by incitation to mass murders, and I ask to be allowed to make a statement on this: Something has been ascertained today about which I myself did not know. I learned of the will left behind by the Führer, and I assume that a few moments before his death the Führer told the world the truth in that will. In it he says that mass killings were carried out by his order; that the mass killings were a reprisal.

Thus it is demonstrated that I, myself, cannot have been a participant in the incredible events which occurred here.

DR. MARX: Finished?

STREICHER: Yes. You said that the Indictment accuses me in saying that these mass killings could never have taken place if behind the Government and behind the leaders of the State there had not been an informed people.

Gentlemen, first of all, the question, “Did the German people really know what was happening during the years of the war?” We know today...

THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, that is a matter of argument and not a matter upon which you can give evidence. You can say what you knew.

STREICHER: I was a part of that nation during the war. During the war I lived alone in the country. For 5 years I never left my farm. I was watched by the Gestapo. From 1939 on I have been forbidden by the Führer to speak.

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, we will certainly come to that later. I have interrogated you now on this question, and I will proceed with my questions. The other will come later.

STREICHER: But I wish to state that I had no opportunity—that is why I said this—to learn what was actually going on.

I first heard of the mass murders and mass killings at Mondorf when I was in prison. But I am stating here that if I had been told that 2 or 3 million people had been killed, then I would not have believed it. I would not have believed that it was technically possible to kill so many people; and on the basis of the entire attitude and psychology of the Führer, as I knew it, I would not have believed that mass killings, to the extent to which they have taken place, could have taken place. Finished.

DR. MARX: The Prosecution also raise the charge against you that it was the task of the educators of the nation to educate the people to murder and to poison them with hatred, that you had devoted yourself particularly to these tasks. What do you want to answer to this charge?

STREICHER: That is an allegation. We educated no murderers. The contents of the articles which I wrote could not have educated murderers. No murders took place, and that is proof that we did not educate murderers. What happened during the war—well, I certainly did not educate the Führer. The Führer issued the order on his own initiative.

DR. MARX: I now continue. The Prosecution further assert that the Himmler-Kaltenbrunner groups and other SS leaders would have had no one to carry out their orders to kill, if you had not made that propaganda and if you had not conducted the education of the German people along these lines. Will you make a statement on that?

STREICHER: I do not believe that the National Socialists mentioned read _Der Stürmer_ every week. I do not believe that those who received the order from the Führer to carry out killings or to pass on the order to kill, were led to do this by my periodical. Hitler’s book, _Mein Kampf_, existed, and the content of that book was the authority, the spiritual authority; nor do I believe that the persons mentioned read that book and carried out the order on the strength of it. Based on my knowledge of what went on in the Movement, I am convinced that if the Führer gave an order everyone acted upon it; and I state here quite openly that maybe fate has been kind to me. If the Führer had ordered me to do such things, I would not have been able to kill; but perhaps today I would face some indictment which it has not been possible to lodge against me. Perhaps because fate has taken a hand in this. But the conditions were thus, that the Führer had such a power of hypnotic suggestion that the entire people believed in him; his way was so unusual that, if one knows this fact, one can understand why everyone who received an order acted. And thus I want to reject as untrue and incorrect what was here thought fit to assert against me.

DR. MARX: What do you know about the general attitude of Adolf Hitler to the Jewish question? And when did Hitler first become hostile to the Jews, according to your knowledge?

STREICHER: Even before Adolf Hitler became publicly known at all I had occupied myself journalistically with anti-Semitic articles. However, on the strength of his book, _Mein Kampf_, I first learned about the historic connections of the Jewish problem. Adolf Hitler wrote his book in the prison in Landsberg. Anyone who knows this book will know that Hitler many years back, either by study of anti-Semitic literature or through other experiences, must have developed this knowledge in himself in order then to be able to write that book in prison in so short a time. In other words, in his book Adolf Hitler stated to the world public that he was anti-Semitic and that he knew the Jewish problem through and through. He himself often said to me personally...

THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Marx, the book _Mein Kampf_ is in evidence, and it speaks for itself.

STREICHER: I will now answer your question, not with reference to the book. You asked me whether Adolf Hitler had discussed the Jewish problem with me. The answer is “yes.” Adolf Hitler always discussed the Jewish problem in connection with Bolshevism. It is perhaps of importance in answering that question to ask whether Adolf Hitler wanted a war with Russia. Did he know long in advance that a war would come, or not? When he was with us Adolf Hitler spoke of Stalin as a man whom he honored as a man of action, but that he was actually surrounded by Jewish leaders, and that Bolshevism...

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, that is going too far again. The question which I put was quite exact, and I am asking you not to go so far afield. You have heard the Tribunal object to it, and in the interest of not delaying the proceedings you must not go into so many details. You must not make speeches.

GEN. RUDENKO: Mr. President, I believe that some time ago Mr. Justice Jackson remarked, quite justly, quite reasonably, that the Defendant Streicher became so intoxicated by his own speeches that he did not answer the questions put to him or the charges made against him. I therefore invite the attention of the Tribunal to this fact and suggest that the defendant abstain from making lengthy speeches and merely give brief replies to the charges brought against him.

THE PRESIDENT: Will you go on, Dr. Marx, and try to keep the witness to an answer to the questions which you have no doubt prepared.

DR. MARX: Very well, Mr. President.

STREICHER: May I, please, as a defendant, say a few words, here? The question was...

THE PRESIDENT: [_Interposing._] No, you may not. You will answer the questions, please.

DR. MARX: Next question. Is there reason for the assumption that Hitler, when he decided to have the Jews in Europe killed in masses, was subject to any influence, or what is to be considered the motive for that dreadful decision?

STREICHER: The Führer could not be influenced. As I know the Führer, if somebody had gone to him and said that Jews should be killed, then he would have turned him down. And if, during the war, somebody had gone to him and said, “I have learned that you are giving the order that mass killings are to be carried out,” then he would have turned that man down too. I therefore answer your question by saying that the Führer could not be influenced.

DR. MARX: In other words, you want to say that the decision in this matter was made entirely on his own initiative.

STREICHER: I have already said that that becomes clear from his will.

DR. MARX: In August 1938 the main synagogue in Nuremberg was demolished. Was this done on your orders?

STREICHER: Yes. In my Gau there were approximately 15 synagogues, in Nuremberg one main synagogue, a somewhat smaller one, and I think several other prayer rooms. The main synagogue stood in the outskirts of the medieval Reichsstadt. Even before 1933, during the so-called period of struggle, when we still had the other government, I stated publicly during a meeting that it was a disgrace that there should be placed in the Old City such an oriental monstrosity of a building. After the seizure of power I told the Lord Mayor that he should have the synagogue torn down, and at the same time the planetarium. I might point out that after the World War, in the middle of the park grounds laid out for the recreation of the citizens, a planetarium had been built, an ugly brick building. I gave the order to tear down that building and said that the main synagogue, too, should be razed. If it had been my intention to deprive the Jews of their synagogue as a church or if I had wanted to give a general signal, then I would have given the order, after the seizure of power, that every synagogue in my Gau should be torn down. Then I would likewise have had all the synagogues in Nuremberg torn down. But it is a fact that in the spring of 1938 only the main synagogue was torn down; the synagogue in the Essenweinstrasse, in the new city, remained untouched. That the order was then given in November of that year to set fire to the synagogues, that is no fault of mine.

DR. MARX: In other words, you want to say that you did not order the tearing down of this building for anti-Semitic reasons but because it did not conform to the architectural style of the city?

STREICHER: For reasons of city architecture. I wanted to submit a picture to the Tribunal on this, but I have not received any.

DR. MARX: Yes, we have a picture.

STREICHER: But you cannot see the synagogue in it. I do not know whether the Tribunal want to see the picture. The picture actually shows only the old houses, but the front of the synagogue facing the Hans-Sachs-Platz is not visible. I do not know whether I may submit the picture to the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly, the photograph can be put in. Let us see the photograph.

DR. MARX: In that case, I will submit it to the Tribunal as evidence and I am asking you to accept it accordingly.

THE PRESIDENT: What will it be, exhibit what?

DR. MARX: I cannot say at the moment, Mr. President. I shall take the liberty of stating the number later and for the moment I confine myself to submitting it. I could not present it any earlier because I had not come into possession of this picture. It was only in the last days...

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, go on.

DR. MARX: In your measure in connection with the main synagogue did you rely on any statements of art experts?

STREICHER: I had frequent opportunities to discuss the subject with architects. Every architect said that there must have been a city council which had no feeling whatsoever for city architecture, that it was impossible to explain it.

These statements were not in any way directed against the synagogue as a Jewish church, but rather against such a building in this part of the city. Strangers, too, whom I guided—for on Party rally days I used to accompany British and American people across the Hans-Sachs-Platz—and I remember only one case where when I said “Do you not notice anything?” that the person did not. But all other strangers said “How could that building get there in the midst of these medieval buildings?” I could also have submitted a book, written in 1877, which is in the prison library, where a Professor Berneis, who was famous, wrote at that time to the author, Uhde, in Switzerland, that he had now seen the Sachs Platz...

DR. MARX: Herr Streicher, that is enough now. In other words, you have indicated that you believed you could rely on the judgment of architects who seemed to you to be authorities?

STREICHER: Yes.

DR. MARX: At the time when the synagogue was demolished, did you make a speech?

STREICHER: Yes, but I want to point out that the Prosecution have submitted an article, a report from the _Tageszeitung_, that was written by a simple young man. I want to state that this article does not contain a true representation of the statements which I made.

DR. MARX: I now come to the demonstrations on the night of 9 to 10 November 1938. What can you say concerning those demonstrations and what role did you play in that connection? Were those demonstrations initiated by the population?

STREICHER: Every year the Gauleiter and SA and SS leaders met the Führer in Munich on the occasion of the historic day of 9 November. We sat down to dinner in the old Town Hall, and it was customary for the Führer to make a short speech after the dinner. On 9 November 1938, I did not feel very well. I participated in the dinner and then I left; I drove back to Nuremberg and went to bed. Toward midnight I was awakened. My chauffeur told me that the SA leader Von Obernitz wanted to talk to the Gauleiter. I received him and he said the following: “Gauleiter, you had left already when the Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Goebbels, took the floor and said”—I can now repeat it only approximately—“said, ‘Legation Counsellor Vom Rath has been murdered in Paris. That is now the second murder abroad of a prominent National Socialist. This murder is not the murder by the Jew, Grünspan; this is rather the execution of a deed which has been desired by all Jewry. Something should now be done.’” I do not know now whether Goebbels said the Führer had ordered it; I remember only that Von Obernitz told me that Goebbels had stated the synagogues were to be set on fire; and I cannot now remember exactly, but I think he told me that the windows of Jewish business houses were to be smashed and that houses were to be demolished.

Then I said to Obernitz—for I was surprised—“Obernitz, I think it is wrong that synagogues be set on fire, and at this moment I think it is wrong that Jewish business houses be demolished; I think these demonstrations are wrong. If people are let loose during the night, deeds can be perpetrated for which one cannot be responsible.” I said to Obernitz that I considered the setting on fire of synagogues particularly wrong because abroad and even among the German people the opinion might arise that National Socialism had now started the fight against religion. Obernitz replied, “I have the order.” I said, “Obernitz, I will not assume any responsibility here.” Obernitz left and the action took place. What I have said under oath here I have previously stated in several interrogations; and my chauffeur will confirm it, for he was witness to this night’s conversation, and shortly afterwards when he went to bed told his wife what he had heard up there in my bedroom.

DR. MARX: Have you finished?

STREICHER: Yes, but you asked another question...

DR. MARX: Yes, whether it was a spontaneous act of force initiated by the masses of the people?

STREICHER: Yes. In the National Socialist press there appeared after this action an article to the same effect, which stated that a spontaneous demonstration of the people had revenged the murder of Herr Vom Rath. It had therefore been deliberately ordered from Berlin that there should be a public statement to the effect that the demonstration of 1938 was spontaneous. That this was not the case I was also able to learn in Nuremberg; and it is remarkable that the indignation at what had happened during those demonstrations expressed itself even here in Nuremberg, even among the Party members.

The Prosecution have submitted an article which is a report on a speech which I made on 10 November; and that is a remarkable piece of evidence of the fact that the people were against this action. I was forced, because of the atmosphere which prevailed in Nuremberg, to make a public speech and say that one should not have so much sympathy for the Jews. Such was the affair of November 1938.

Perhaps it might also be important for you to ask me how I, of all people, happened to oppose the idea of these demonstrations.

DR. MARX: I thought you had explained that already. Very well. Who gave the order then for the burning down of the synagogue still standing on Essenweinstrasse?

STREICHER: I do not know who gave the order; I believe it was SA leader Von Obernitz. I do not know the details.

DR. MARX: A further question: Did you yourself express publicly your disapproval of these brutalities?