Nuremberg Trials
Opening Address for the United States
Robert Jackson
This document was retrieved from the archives of Nizkor. Source: Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Volume I, Chapter VII, Office of the United States Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1946.
The Nazi conspiracy, as we shall show, always contemplated not merely
overcoming current opposition but exterminating elements which could not
be reconciled with its philosophy of the state. It not only sought to
establish the Nazi "new order" but to secure its sway, as Hitler
predicted, "for a thousand years." Nazis were never in doubt or
disagreement as to what these dissident elements were. They were
concisely described by one of them, Col. General von Fritsch, on
December 11, 1938, in these words:
"Shortly after the first war I came to the conclusion that we should
have to be victorious in three battles if Germany were to become
powerful again: 1. The battle against the working class Hitler has won
this. 2. Against the Catholic Church, perhaps better expressed against
Ultramontanism. 3. Against the Jews." (1947-PS).
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The warfare against these elements was continuous. The battle in Germany
was but a practice skirmish for the worldwide drive against them. We
have in point of geography and of time two groups of crimes against
humanity -- one within Germany before and during the war, the other in
occupied territory during the war. But the two are not separated in Nazi
planning. They are a continuous unfolding of the Nazi plan to
exterminate peoples and institutions which might serve as a focus or
instrument for overturning their "new world order" at any time. We
consider these Crimes against Humanity in this address a manifestations
of the one Nazi plan and discuss them according to General von Fritch's
classification.
1. The Battle Against the Working Class
When Hitler came to power, there were in Germany three groups of trade
unions. The General German Trade Union Confederation (ADGB) with
twenty-eight affiliated unions, and the General Independent Employees
Confederation (AFA) with thirteen federated unions together numbered
more than 4,500,000 members. The Christian Trade Union had over
1,250,000 members.
The working people of Germany, like the working people of other nations,
had little to gain personally by war. While labor is usually brought
around to the support of the nation at war, labor by and large is a
pacific, though by no means a pacifist force in the world. The working
people of Germany had not forgotten in 1933 how heavy the yoke of the
war lord can be. It was the workingmen who had joined the sailors and
soldiers in the revolt of 1918 to end the First World War. The Nazis had
neither forgiven nor forgotten. The Nazi program required that this part
of the German population not only be stripped of power to resist
diversion of its scanty comforts to armament, but also be wheedled or
whipped into new and unheard of sacrifices as part of the Nazi war preparation. Labor must be cowed, and that meant its organizations and
means of cohesion and defense must be destroyed.
The purpose to regiment labor for the Nazi Party was avowed by Ley in a
speech to workers on 2 May 1933, as follows:
"You may say what else do you want, you have the absolute power. True we
have the power, but we do not have the whole people, we do not have you
workers 100%, and it is
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you whom we want; we will not let you be until you stand with us in
complete, genuine acknowledgment." (614-PS).
The first Nazi attack was upon the two larger unions. On April 21, 1933
an order not even in the name of the Government, but of the Nazi Party
was issued by the conspirator Robert Ley as "Chief of Staff of the
political organization of the NSDAP," applicable to the Trade Union
Confederation and the Independent Employees Confederation. It directed
seizure of their properties and arrest of their principal leaders. The
party order directed party organs which we here denounce as criminal
associations, the SA and SS "to be employed for the occupation of the
trade union properties, and for the taking into custody of personalities
who come into question." And it directed the taking into "protective
custody" of all chairmen and district secretaries of such unions and b
ranch directors of the labor bank (392-PS).
These orders were carried out on May 2, 1933. All funds of the labor
unions, including pension and benefit funds, were seized. Union leaders
were sent to concentration camps. A few days later, on May 10, 1933,
Hitler appointed Ley leader of the German Labor Front (DEUTSCHE
ARBEITSFRONT), which succeeded to the confiscated union funds. The
German Labor Front, a Nazi controlled labor bureau, was set up under Ley
to teach the Nazi philosophy to German workers and to weed out from
industrial employment all who were backward in their lessons (1940-PS).
"Factory Troops" were organized as an "ideological shock squad within
the factory" (1817-PS). The Party order provided that "outside of the
German Labor Front, no other organization (whether of workers or of
employees) is to exist." On June 24, 1933 the remaining Christian Trade
Unions were seized pursuant to an order of the Nazi Party signed by Ley.
On May 19, 1933, this time by government decree, it was provided that
"trustees" of labor, appointed by Hitler, should regulate the conditions
of all labor contracts, replacing the former process of collective
bargaining (405- PS). On January 20, 1934 a decree "regulating national
labor" introduced the fuehrer-principle into industrial relations. It
provided that the owners of enterprises should be the "fuehrers" and the
workers should be the followers. The enterpriser-fuehrers should "make
decisions for employees and laborers in all matters concerning the
enterprise" (1861- PS). It was by such bait that the great German
industrialists were induced to support the Nazi cause, to their own
ultimate ruin.
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Not only did the Nazis dominate and regiment German labor, but they
forced the youth into the ranks of the laboring people they had thus led
into chains. Under a compulsory labor service decree on June 26, 1935,
young men and women between the ages of 18 and 25 were conscripted for
labor (see 1654-PS). Thus was the purpose to subjugate German labor
accomplished. In the words of Ley, this accomplishment consisted "in
eliminating the association character of the trade union and employees'
associations, and in its place we have substituted the conception
'soldiers of work'." The productive manpower of the German nation was in
Nazi control. By these steps the defendants won the battle to liquidate
labor unions as potential opposition and were enabled to impose upon the
working class the burdens of preparing for aggressive warfare.
Robert Ley, the field marshal of the battle against labor, answered our
indictment with suicide. Apparently he knew no better answer.
A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
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