to do in Germany. Now I can see, to my great disappointment, that in this trial, also, only a black-and-white painting is taking place. It may be necessary from a legal standpoint so that the trials should not take too long. A verdict of guilty does not matter. But I should like to see that this trial would advance humanity. Humanity must be advanced after the death of 5 million innocent people.
“And if this should be the case, Justice Jackson should not step up after Streicher said he was mistreated in Oberursel, and say emotionally that the Allies have tried to conduct the war within the limits of humanity. Those were exactly the feelings I had during the war. So the history of the world tends to repeat itself.”
I told Fritzsche that I was in England consulting with some British psychiatrists at the time Streicher made the statement in court about having to kiss the feet of Negroes and other instances of his maltreatment when he was first taken prisoner. Just what was Fritzsche’s reactionto Streicher’s testimony? “Justice Jackson said that this should be removed from the official court record because it was not part of the trial. But I could give much larger examples of maltreatment and atrocities by the Russians. But I don’t want to make propaganda here in prison and I shall desist. In short, I can see everything being painted in black-and-white all over again. This is just another step to hell. I can say honestly the following: After what I know today, the German people and myself were lied to and betrayed by Hitler, and Hitler did it in such a fashion that the German people believed it with an assurance stronger than any oath.
“During the last thousand years in Europe, many wars were fought for which the victors paid by sacrificing their own blood. That was the strongest assurance which Hitler could give to the people that he was against war, because the German people themselves were not for war. Every normal man is against war as much as he is opposed to tuberculosis. A few individual exceptions don’t change that generalization.
“So if despite that, Hitler prepared war, he perpetrated the greatest lie and betrayal in the world. This trial clearly shows that Hitler did just that. I have no hesitation to state very clearly that Hitler was a liar and a betrayer on a mammoth scale. Even without the death of the 5 million extermination camp victims, Hitler would still go down in history as the greatest villain that ever lived.” But the great decisive question here at this trial is how Hitler could keep up a betrayal like that. How could he manage to delude the people when hundreds of Allied radio stations were saying the truth or pretty close to the truth?
“Speaking for myself, I did not believe what the Allies said, though I had opportunity to always listen to Allied stations. The reasons for my not believing it was that it had been drummed into us that the Allies were telling lies in the form of propaganda. The tragedy of it all is that what these Allied broadcasting stations said was literally true. I must have said at least a hundred times during the war, whenever the Allied broadcasting stations talked about cruelties and atrocities, that the same type of Allied propaganda went on in the last war. I would say to my friends that in the last war the Allies talked about Germans chopping off the hands of Belgian children and that after the First World War it was admitted by the Allies that such allegations were false and merely propagandistic. I will say even today, that at the beginning of this war, hundreds of lies about Nazism were spread over the Allied stations. Theyeven broadcast things about me personally — things that could be proven false. Therefore, that is what I mean by saying that the guilt lies on both sides, because propaganda, whether it be evil or good, tends to make one doubt it. If one refers to the many false statements made by Allied broadcasters at the beginning of the war,
“And if this should be the case, Justice Jackson should not step up after Streicher said he was mistreated in Oberursel, and say emotionally that the Allies have tried to conduct the war within the limits of humanity. Those were exactly the feelings I had during the war. So the history of the world tends to repeat itself.”
I told Fritzsche that I was in England consulting with some British psychiatrists at the time Streicher made the statement in court about having to kiss the feet of Negroes and other instances of his maltreatment when he was first taken prisoner. Just what was Fritzsche’s reactionto Streicher’s testimony? “Justice Jackson said that this should be removed from the official court record because it was not part of the trial. But I could give much larger examples of maltreatment and atrocities by the Russians. But I don’t want to make propaganda here in prison and I shall desist. In short, I can see everything being painted in black-and-white all over again. This is just another step to hell. I can say honestly the following: After what I know today, the German people and myself were lied to and betrayed by Hitler, and Hitler did it in such a fashion that the German people believed it with an assurance stronger than any oath.
“During the last thousand years in Europe, many wars were fought for which the victors paid by sacrificing their own blood. That was the strongest assurance which Hitler could give to the people that he was against war, because the German people themselves were not for war. Every normal man is against war as much as he is opposed to tuberculosis. A few individual exceptions don’t change that generalization.
“So if despite that, Hitler prepared war, he perpetrated the greatest lie and betrayal in the world. This trial clearly shows that Hitler did just that. I have no hesitation to state very clearly that Hitler was a liar and a betrayer on a mammoth scale. Even without the death of the 5 million extermination camp victims, Hitler would still go down in history as the greatest villain that ever lived.” But the great decisive question here at this trial is how Hitler could keep up a betrayal like that. How could he manage to delude the people when hundreds of Allied radio stations were saying the truth or pretty close to the truth?
“Speaking for myself, I did not believe what the Allies said, though I had opportunity to always listen to Allied stations. The reasons for my not believing it was that it had been drummed into us that the Allies were telling lies in the form of propaganda. The tragedy of it all is that what these Allied broadcasting stations said was literally true. I must have said at least a hundred times during the war, whenever the Allied broadcasting stations talked about cruelties and atrocities, that the same type of Allied propaganda went on in the last war. I would say to my friends that in the last war the Allies talked about Germans chopping off the hands of Belgian children and that after the First World War it was admitted by the Allies that such allegations were false and merely propagandistic. I will say even today, that at the beginning of this war, hundreds of lies about Nazism were spread over the Allied stations. Theyeven broadcast things about me personally — things that could be proven false. Therefore, that is what I mean by saying that the guilt lies on both sides, because propaganda, whether it be evil or good, tends to make one doubt it. If one refers to the many false statements made by Allied broadcasters at the beginning of the war,
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