The Last Words of the Nuremberg Condemned
[Der Weg 1948-11] An original translation of "Schlussworte der in Nürnberg zum Tode Verurteilten"
Title: The Last Words of the Nuremberg Condemned [de: Schlussworte der in Nürnberg zum Tode Verurteilten]
Author: Editorial Staff
“Der Weg” Issue: Year 02, Issue 11 (November 1948)
Page(s): 767-771
Dan Rouse’s Note(s):
Der Weg - El Sendero is a German and Spanish language magazine published by Dürer-Verlag in Buenos-Aires, Argentina by Germans with connections to the defeated Third Reich.
Der Weg ran monthly issues from 1947 to 1957, with official sanction from Juan Perón’s Government until his overthrow in September 1955.
Source Document(s):
[LINK] Scans of 1948 Der Weg Issues (archive.org)
The Last Words of the Nuremberg Condemned
The last words of those sentenced to death by the Nuremberg Tribunal are frequently cited in numerous treatises and writings today. Given their significance as historical documents, we present four of them here.
Hermann Göring
"The prosecution, in its closing arguments, has dismissed the defense and its evidence as entirely worthless. The defendants’ sworn statements were taken as wholly true wherever they could bolster the prosecution’s case, yet in the same breath labeled perjury when they contradicted the charges. This approach is utterly simplistic, hardly a compelling foundation for evidence. The prosecution points to my position as the second man in the state, claiming it proves I must have known all that transpired. Yet they offer no documents or solid proof to counter my sworn denials of such knowledge or intent."
"Mr. Jackson, in his closing speech, notes that the signatory powers remain at war with Germany, bound only by an armistice through unconditional surrender. International law, however, is consistent: it must apply equally to all parties. Thus, if the occupying powers’ actions in Germany today are lawful under international law, then Germany’s prior stance toward France, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Yugoslavia, and Greece was no less justified. If the Geneva Convention no longer holds for Germans, if industries are dismantled across Germany, if vast assets are handed to the victor states, if millions of Germans see their property seized and face grave assaults on freedom and ownership, then Germany’s similar measures in those nations cannot be deemed criminal under international law. How precisely the Allies now honor the Geneva Convention’s terms for prisoners of war and political civilian internees is clear: many Germans lament that those in camps fare better than the civilian populace."
"Mr. Jackson further asserts that a state cannot be indicted or punished—only its leaders can be held to account. Yet it seems overlooked that Germany was a sovereign state, a sovereign Reich, its laws within the German people beyond foreign jurisdiction. No nation ever timely warned the Reich that National Socialist activities would face punishment or persecution."
"So, if individuals—above all, we leaders—are now called to answer and condemned, so be it. But the German people must not be punished alongside us. They placed their trust in the Führer, powerless under his authoritarian rule to shape events. Ignorant of the grave crimes now laid bare, they fought and suffered loyally, sacrificially, bravely, in a struggle for survival thrust upon them against their will. The German people bear no guilt."
"I neither sought nor sparked this war; I strove through negotiations to avert it. When it broke out, I spared no effort to win victory. Facing the three mightiest world powers and many other nations, we finally fell to their overwhelming force. I stand by what I did. But I reject, with utmost resolve, that my actions sprang from a will to subjugate, murder, rob, or enslave foreign peoples through war, or to perpetrate cruelties or crimes. My sole driving force was a deep love for my people—their happiness, their freedom, their life. For this, I summon the Almighty and my German people as witnesses."
JOACHIM VON RIBBENTROP
"This trial was meant to uncover historical truth. From the perspective of German foreign policy, I can only say: This trial will be remembered in history as a textbook case of how one can skirt the central issues of 25 years of humanity’s gravest history by invoking unfamiliar legal formulas and appeals to fairness. If the roots of our troubles lie in Versailles—and they do—was it truly wise to stifle debate about a treaty that even its more perceptive architects labeled a source of future woes, and whose wisest minds foresaw precisely which flaw in Versailles would spark a new world war? For over 20 years, I devoted myself to rooting out this evil, only for foreign ministers who knew the truth to now claim in their affidavits that they didn’t believe me. They should have admitted that, for their countries’ sake, they couldn’t afford to believe me."
"When I deny that German foreign policy planned and prepared an aggressive war, it’s not an excuse. This truth is borne out by the strength we gained during the Second World War compared to how weak we were at its outset. History will trust me when I say we would have prepared far better for an aggressive war if that had been our intent. Our aim was to secure the most basic conditions of our existence—just as England pursued its interests to dominate a fifth of the world, the USA claimed an entire continent, and Russia brought the earth’s largest landmass under its sway."
"The sole difference between those countries’ policies and ours back then was this: we sought to reclaim fragments unjustly torn from us, like Danzig and the Polish Corridor, while those powers think in terms of continents. Before this tribunal’s charter was drawn up, the signatory powers of the London Agreement must have held views on international law and politics quite different from those they profess today."
"When I arrived in Moscow in 1939 to meet Marshal Stalin, he didn’t discuss with me a peaceful resolution to the German-Polish conflict within the bounds of Germany and Poland. Instead, he hinted that if he didn’t get half of Poland, the Baltic states, and Lithuania with the port of Libau, I might as well fly back home at once."
"Waging war clearly wasn’t seen as an international crime against peace there in 1939; otherwise, I couldn’t explain Stalin’s telegram after the Polish campaign concluded, which read: ‘The friendship between Germany and the Soviet Union, forged in blood shed together, has every chance of being lasting and firm.’"
"All that remains of that friendship, for Europe and the world, is the core question: Will Asia dominate Europe, or can the Western powers halt—or even roll back—Soviet influence along the Elbe, the Adriatic coast, and the Dardanelles? Britain and the USA now face much the same dilemma Germany did during my negotiations with Russia. For my country’s sake, I sincerely hope they succeed in the end."
"So what has this trial proven about the criminal nature of German foreign policy? That of over 300 defense documents submitted, 150 were dismissed without solid grounds; that the archives of our adversaries, and even our own, were closed to the defense; that Churchill’s hostile remark to me—that a Germany grown too strong would be destroyed—was deemed irrelevant by this court to judging the motives behind German foreign policy."
"A revolution isn’t made clearer by viewing it as a conspiracy. Fate cast me as a figure in this revolution. I mourn the horrific crimes that stain it. Yet I cannot judge them all by puritanical moral standards—especially not when I’ve seen the opposing side, despite total victory, unable or unwilling to prevent atrocities on the grandest scale. Call the conspiracy theory what you will; to the discerning observer, it’s a flimsy patch. Anyone who played a key role in the Third Reich knows it’s a historical lie. And the creator of this tribunal’s charter, with this invention, merely betrays the world his thinking comes from."
"I could just as easily charge that the signatory powers of this charter conspired to crush the basic needs of a highly developed, capable, and courageous people. Looking back on my actions and aims, I feel guilty of only one thing before my people and this court: that my efforts in foreign policy came to nothing."
KARL DÖNITZ
“I would like to say three things:
You may judge the legality of the German U-boat warfare as your conscience dictates. I consider this warfare justified and have acted according to my conscience. I would have to do the same again. But my subordinates, who followed my orders, acted in trust in me and without even the shadow of a doubt about the necessity and legality of these orders. In my eyes, no subsequent judgment can deny them the good faith in the honor of a fight in which they voluntarily made sacrifice after sacrifice until the last hour.
There has been much talk here of a conspiracy that is supposed to have existed among the defendants. I consider this claim to be a political dogma. As such, it cannot be proven, but only believed or rejected. Large parts of the German people will never believe that such a conspiracy is the cause of their misfortune. Let politicians and jurists argue about it. They will only make it harder for the German people to draw a lesson from this trial that is crucially important for their stance on the past and for shaping their future: the realization that the Führer principle as a political principle is wrong.
The Führer principle has proven itself excellently in the military leadership of all armies in the world. Based on these experiences, I also considered it right for political leadership, especially for a people in the desolate situation of the German people in 1932. The great successes of the new government, an unprecedented feeling of happiness in the entire nation, seemed to justify it.
But if, despite all the idealism, all the decency, and all the dedication of the great mass of the German people, in the end, no other result was achieved with the Führer principle than the misfortune of this people, then this principle must be wrong as such. Wrong because human nature is apparently not capable of using the power of this principle for good without succumbing to the temptations of this power.
My life was dedicated to my profession and thus to the service of the German people. As the last commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine and as the last head of state, I feel responsible to the German people for everything I did and did not do.”
ALFRED JODL
"It is my unshakable belief that a later historiography will arrive at an objective and just judgment of the high military leaders and their aides. For they, and with them the entire German Wehrmacht, faced an insoluble task: to wage a war they did not want, under a Commander-in-Chief whose trust they did not possess and in whom they themselves had only limited trust, using methods that often contradicted their principles of leadership and their traditional and proven views—with troops and police forces not fully under their command and with an intelligence service that partially worked for the enemy. And all this with the clear understanding that the war would decide the existence or non-existence of their beloved fatherland."
"They did not serve hell, nor a criminal, but their people and their fatherland."
"As for me, I believe: No man can act better than by striving for the highest of the goals attainable in his situation. That, and nothing else, has always been the guiding principle of my actions. And therefore, whatever judgment you, my lords of the court, may pass upon me, I shall leave the courtroom with my head held as high as when I entered it many months ago."
"Whoever calls me a traitor to the honorable tradition of the German army, or claims that I remained at my post for personal, selfish reasons, I call him a traitor to the truth."
"In a war such as this, in which hundreds of thousands of women and children were annihilated by carpet bombing, and in which partisans used every means, absolutely every means, that seemed expedient to them, harsh measures—even if they may appear questionable under international law—are no crime before morality and conscience."
"For I believe and confess: Duty to the people and the fatherland stands above all else. To fulfill it was my honor and my highest law."
"May this duty, in a happier future, be replaced by an even higher one: by the duty to humanity."