saidthat he had many fights with Max Amann, who was chief of newspaper publishers. Fritzsche called Amann a brutal businessman who persecuted many people and destroyed many existences. Fritzsche said that he often brought into his own department people who had been persecuted by Amann.
April 6, 1946
Fritzsche was very glad to see Mr. Triest and myself again this week. He said that he had been feeling depressed because of a lack of news from his wife and child, and that his wife was still living in a garret room earning about a mark a day doing some knitting or sewing, and unable to practice dentistry because she had the misfortune to be married to him. He smiled as he said this, as if awaiting some reassurance that he wasn’t such a bad fellow after all.
He said that he had been thinking over his future defense, which he figured would come in early June, and that he was torn between two conflicting ideas. First, he wanted to reveal to the court clearly that he was a tool of the Nazis, that he had been deceived by Hitler and Goebbels, and that he personally had no conscious part in the evils of the Nazi regime and the “terrible racial madness” which ensued. Second, he wanted to point out to the court clearly in his defense that the guilt lay not only with the Germans, but also with the Allies. He said that none of the defendants thus far had stressed this point sufficiently, because they had been so preoccupied with proving their own innocence. He said that in most cases the defendants, unlike himself, were not innocent but, like Kaltenbrunner, were creating a fiction in the courtroom. He felt that he alone was most notably an unconscious tool of the Nazis and that therefore he could devote less time to his personal proclamation of innocence and more time to showing how Allied propaganda should share, to an extent, in the guilt of the horrors of war. “I see the defendants justify themselves, but they cannot justify the Nazi movement. I have the feeling during this year of internment and half a year of trial that I have endured a spiritual suffering and depression more terrible than any death could be.
“I became guilty of the death of 5 million people — innocently; in any event, I participated in the guilt of this tragedy coming over the world. The role I played doesn’t matter — but I did play a part in it. I have spoken with Dr. Gilbert about my suffering, but although he is personallyvery humane and nice, on the whole his attitude is one of hatred — I am very open with you, and he cannot understand or do anything because one must be objective in understanding me or the part I play in the Nazi movement. I feel that you are objective. I can talk to you and feel that you understand. Without being objective, my words would not serve the Germans or the Allies or the world.
“What I would like to express and which I cannot express in court is the following: I worked for ten years on German propaganda. I was not the only leader but I was one of the most important leaders. However, even ten years ago I made the remark that to make propaganda is the first step to hell. Propaganda is always done by bringing the attention of the people to one side and taking the attention from the other side. Thus, propaganda is always one-sided, be it for good or for bad. Now during the past year and a half I have been thinking of the propaganda I broadcasted. I can say that I did not try to bring the attention of people to something bad, but to something one-sided — and I did that during all those ten years of my activity. I painted only in black-and-white — no in-between colors. Your country and the other Allies did the same thing.”
At this point, Fritzsche showed me a folder of matches on which was inscribed the slogan “Crush the Axis,” with caricature drawings of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. Fritzsche smiled and said, “This, for example, is a tiny instance of the propaganda of hatred such as we never even dared
April 6, 1946
Fritzsche was very glad to see Mr. Triest and myself again this week. He said that he had been feeling depressed because of a lack of news from his wife and child, and that his wife was still living in a garret room earning about a mark a day doing some knitting or sewing, and unable to practice dentistry because she had the misfortune to be married to him. He smiled as he said this, as if awaiting some reassurance that he wasn’t such a bad fellow after all.
He said that he had been thinking over his future defense, which he figured would come in early June, and that he was torn between two conflicting ideas. First, he wanted to reveal to the court clearly that he was a tool of the Nazis, that he had been deceived by Hitler and Goebbels, and that he personally had no conscious part in the evils of the Nazi regime and the “terrible racial madness” which ensued. Second, he wanted to point out to the court clearly in his defense that the guilt lay not only with the Germans, but also with the Allies. He said that none of the defendants thus far had stressed this point sufficiently, because they had been so preoccupied with proving their own innocence. He said that in most cases the defendants, unlike himself, were not innocent but, like Kaltenbrunner, were creating a fiction in the courtroom. He felt that he alone was most notably an unconscious tool of the Nazis and that therefore he could devote less time to his personal proclamation of innocence and more time to showing how Allied propaganda should share, to an extent, in the guilt of the horrors of war. “I see the defendants justify themselves, but they cannot justify the Nazi movement. I have the feeling during this year of internment and half a year of trial that I have endured a spiritual suffering and depression more terrible than any death could be.
“I became guilty of the death of 5 million people — innocently; in any event, I participated in the guilt of this tragedy coming over the world. The role I played doesn’t matter — but I did play a part in it. I have spoken with Dr. Gilbert about my suffering, but although he is personallyvery humane and nice, on the whole his attitude is one of hatred — I am very open with you, and he cannot understand or do anything because one must be objective in understanding me or the part I play in the Nazi movement. I feel that you are objective. I can talk to you and feel that you understand. Without being objective, my words would not serve the Germans or the Allies or the world.
“What I would like to express and which I cannot express in court is the following: I worked for ten years on German propaganda. I was not the only leader but I was one of the most important leaders. However, even ten years ago I made the remark that to make propaganda is the first step to hell. Propaganda is always done by bringing the attention of the people to one side and taking the attention from the other side. Thus, propaganda is always one-sided, be it for good or for bad. Now during the past year and a half I have been thinking of the propaganda I broadcasted. I can say that I did not try to bring the attention of people to something bad, but to something one-sided — and I did that during all those ten years of my activity. I painted only in black-and-white — no in-between colors. Your country and the other Allies did the same thing.”
At this point, Fritzsche showed me a folder of matches on which was inscribed the slogan “Crush the Axis,” with caricature drawings of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. Fritzsche smiled and said, “This, for example, is a tiny instance of the propaganda of hatred such as we never even dared
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