Video Hermann Göring on the Jewish question in Nuremberg

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Hermann Goering speaks to the Jewish question in Nuremberg. Clarifies that it was about emigration and how Reinhard Heydrich, Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler were. Kaltenbrunner is also mentioned. Total solution and final solution. Nuernberger trial defendants in the witness stand.

GÖRING: I would like to answer the answer with a yes or no, although this question is difficult to answer with yes or no [569]. I assert that the secret Reich Defense Council, which was not published, created from the ministerial meeting of 1933, did not meet, but the council created after 1938 by a new Reich Defense Law; because at that time the military sovereignty was already long explained. The first one, of which the prosecution spoke here as the secret, did not meet; that also proved yesterday’s document.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Would you please look at the document on page 19 and tell me whether it was not one of the points dealt with in this session that was just about lifting the secrecy of the Reich Defense Law?

GÖRING: No, that’s not how it is. It is written in it, I can translate it, the last item on the agenda, conclusions from the repeal of the security of the Reich Defense Law and measures to facilitate business, has been done by letter from the Reich Defense Committee and so on June 26. The consequences of the lifting of the security to facilitate correspondence.

JUSTICE JACKSON: You said that in the Jewish question, some members of the government were more radical than you. Do you want to tell who this is about?

GÖRING: First of all, there was generally only one requirement for the assumption of government: resignation from political posts and resignation from certain other leading state offices. It then came …

JUSTICE JACKSON: After that, I did not ask you.

THE PRESIDENT: That is not a direct answer to the question. They had stated that some German government members were more radical against the Jews than you. Would you tell us which members of the government were more radical than you?

GÖRING: Excuse me, I did not understand the question, whom, but in what. When asked whom, then I emphasize that these were the personalities of Minister Goebbels and Himmler in the main.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Do you also call your co-defendant Streicher more radical than yourself?

GÖRING: Yes, but he was not a member of the government.

JUSTICE JACKSON: He was Gauleiter of the area we are in, is not he?

GÖRING: That is correct, but had little influence on government measures or none at all.

JUSTICE JACKSON: What about Heydrich?

[GÖRING] Heydrich was a subordinate of Himmler. If I said Himmler, then I have to include Heydrich.

JUSTICE JACKSON: So Heydrich’s on the list of the more radical ones you’re referring to?
What about Bormann?

GÖRING: I did not notice the emergence of Bormann in the radical direction until later years. I do not know his starting position.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Let me now briefly discuss with you what the Prosecution describes as public action you have taken in connection with the Jewish question. From the beginning you considered the elimination of Jews from the economic life of Germany as one of the phases of the four-year plan that was under your direction. Is that correct?

GÖRING: Yes, that is partly true. The elimination, as far as the larger companies were concerned, because there continued to be unrest, and it was pointed out that here, too, large companies and armaments companies were still under Jewish directors or shareholders stood; and this always gave rise to some concern for the company from the bottom.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Do you want the Tribunal to believe that you were only interested in the big Jewish companies? Do you mean that?

GÖRING: At first the small shops did not bother me – and that for the four-year plan – not.

JUSTICE JACKSON: When did the little shops start bothering you?

GÖRING: When the translated trade was to be scaled back-the retail trade-it was determined that Jewish business should be used primarily in the cessation of business.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Now let’s go over the laws that you have implemented in connection with the Jewish question. First, did you proclaim the Nuremberg Laws?

GÖRING: As President of the Reichstag, I have already emphasized that.

JUSTICE JACKSON: When was that?

GÖRING: In 1935 I believe here in Nuremberg, in September.

JUSTICE JACKSON: And that was the first legal action against the Jews. Is that correct?

GÖRING: That was a legal measure.

[571] JUSTICE JACKSON: That was the first legal action your government took against the Jews, right?

GÖRING: No, I think the retirement from the civil service is in advance.

JUSTICE JACKSON: When was that?

GÖRING: I do not want to commit myself to the date. But that, I believe, was already in 1933.

JUSTICE JACKSON: On December 1, 1936, you issued a law that would impose the death penalty on Germans who made or left their assets abroad.

GÖRING: That’s right.

JUSTICE JACKSON: In other words, this property of the guilty party fell into the state, and the People’s Court took legal action, did not it?

GÖRING: That’s right, the Foreign Exchange Protection Order, that is, anyone who has an account abroad without the government’s permission.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Your third law was passed on April 22, 1938, and provides for penalties for disguising a Jewish company in the Reich.

GÖRING: Yes.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Then, on July 28, 1939, you, Hermann Göring, issued certain directives on the jurisdiction of the courts in dealing with the cases provided for in the regulation. Is that correct?
GÖRING: I beg you to submit the law. I do not have it in my head.

JUSTICE JACKSON: I do not want to waste any time by reading it. Do you deny that you have enacted the Law on the Jurisdiction of the Courts in Criminal Matters against the Jews published on page 1370 of the Reich Law Gazette 1939? Can you remember that?

GÖRING: I can not remember the law. If it is in the Reich Law Gazette and bears my name, it goes without saying. I just do not know the content now.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Then, on April 26, 1938, as part of the Four-Year Plan, you issued a decree which required that Jewish property be declared, and Jews at home and abroad had to declare their fortunes. Is that correct?

GÖRING: I accept it. I do not remember it, but if you have the decree there, and if the decree bears my signature, there can be no doubt about it.

[572] JUSTICE JACKSON: On April 26, 1938, as part of the Four-Year Plan, you issued a decree requiring that any disposition of Jewish companies be previously approved by the government.

GÖRING: I remember that.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Then on November 12, 1938, as part of the Four-Year Plan, you also issued a decree imposing a fine of one billion marks on all Jews.

GÖRING: I have already stated that I drew all of the laws enacted at the time and bore the responsibility for them.

JUSTICE JACKSON: I ask you if you have signed this particular law. I will ask you some questions later.

GÖRING: Yes.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Then, on November 12, 1938, you signed another decree under the Four-Year Plan, which stipulates that all damages inflicted on the Jews in the 1938 riots must be repaired immediately by the Jews themselves at their own expense, and that their insurance claims are forfeited to the state. Did you personally sign the law?

GÖRING: I have signed a similar law, whether or not it reproduces the same context as you just put it, I do not know.

JUSTICE JACKSON: But you do not deny that, by and large, that was the content of the law?

GÖRING: Yes.

JUSTICE JACKSON: And did you not personally sign a decree on November 12, 1938, even within the framework of the Four-Year Plan, which prohibited Jews from having retail stores, self-employment, or offering goods or services for payment at markets or exhibitions? , or to act as a manager of companies or cooperative members? Do you remember that?

GÖRING: Yes, these were all parts of the decrees for leaving Judaism out of economic life.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Then on February 21, 1939, you signed a decree ordering the Jews to surrender all the valuables and jewels they had purchased to the authorities within two weeks.

[573] GÖRING: I do not remember, but it will undoubtedly be true.
JUSTICE JACKSON: I refer to Volume I of the Reich Law Gazette of 1939, page 282. You can not remember it?

GÖRING: I do not have the Reich Law Gazette before me, but if a decree or law is signed with my name in the Reichsgesetzblatt, then I have signed and issued this law.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Did not you, on March 3, 1939, also sign a decree on the period in which the Jews had to deliver their jewelry? I refer to the Reich Law Gazette, Volume I, 1939, page
387.
GÖRING: I assume that it is the execution order for the aforementioned delivery order. A law sometimes requires implementing regulations and executions in the wake of the law. Together, this is a single action.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Did not you sign the decree ordering seizure of Jewish property in Poland as part of the Four-Year Plan on September 17, 1940?

GÖRING: Yes, I have already said that the other day, in the parts of Poland. I may point out that the old German provinces should be Germanized again.

JUSTICE JACKSON: On November 30, 1940, in your capacity as chairman of the Reich Defense Council, did you sign a decree stating that Jews should not receive compensation for damage caused by enemy action or by German troops? I refer to the Reich Law Gazette , Volume I, 1940, page
1547.
GÖRING: If you have that standing there, that’s right.

JUSTICE JACKSON: You do not remember?

GÖRING: Not all individual laws and decrees are impossible.

JUSTICE JACKSON: Then on July 31, 1941, did you sign a decree summoning Himmler and the Chief of the Security Police, SS Gruppenführer Heydrich, to work out plans for the complete solution of the Jewish question?

GÖRING: No, that is not right, I know this decree exactly.

JUSTICE JACKSON: I will have you submit document 710, US-509.

[574] THE PRESIDENT: That’s 710-PS?

JUSTICE JACKSON: 710-PS, Mr. Chairman.

[The document will be presented to the witness.]

Well, this document bears your signature, is that correct?
GÖRING: That’s right.
JUSTICE JACKSON: And it’s addressed to the head of the Security Police and Security Service, SS Gruppenführer Heydrich?

GÖRING: That’s right.

JUSTICE JACKSON: I do not know if it’s been recorded in the record. But I think that should happen. So that we have no difficulties with the translation; please correct me if my information is incorrect.
“Completing the task entrusted to you on January 24, 1939 …”
GÖRING: There is a mistake in that, that is, in “supplementation,” not “in accomplishing the task entrusted to you.”
JUSTICE JACKSON: Well, I suppose so ,
“… which deals with the thorough, most convenient emigration and evacuation as a solution to the Jewish problem, I hereby authorize you to make any necessary arrangements regarding organization and funding for the final solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe to meet. «
Is that right?
GÖRING: I think that’s not correct in any way.
JUSTICE JACKSON: Please enter your translation.

GÖRING: May I read it exactly, as it stands here?
“In addition to the task already assigned to you by the decree of January 24, 1939,” before the beginning of the war, “of supplying the Jewish question in the form of emigration or evacuation in accordance with the circumstances of the time, I hereby entrust you with all necessary preparations in organizational terms “materially and materially…”
And now comes the decisive word that has been misinterpreted, namely, “for a total solution,” and not “for a final solution,
” for a total solution of the Jewish question in German Influence area in Europe.
[575] If the responsibilities of other central authorities are affected, they must be involved.
I entrust you further to present to me in the near future an overall draft of the organizational, factual, and material preliminary measures for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question. ”
” In addition to the decree of January 24, 1939, “that is, at one time, where no war started or was in prospect.
JUSTICE JACKSON: Are you making a statement now or are you reading the letter?
GÖRING: I have now wanted to give a statement on the quotation of this letter, to draw particular attention to this date.

JUSTICE JACKSON: I just wanted it not to be taken as part of your letter. The last thing in the letter is:
“I entrust you further to present to me in the near future an overall draft of the organizational, factual, and material preliminary measures for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.”
Is not this an essentially accurate translation of your order to Heydrich and Himmler?
GÖRING: To Heydrich and the other central authorities involved. It follows from the first part of the letter, the final sentence.
JUSTICE JACKSON: But we do not want misunderstandings about this translation. The letter went to the chief of the security police and security service, SS Gruppenführer Heydrich. That’s right, right?

GÖRING: That’s right, but I have to make that statement now …

JUSTICE JACKSON: Good.

GÖRING: … make the statement that I therefore wrote the letter to him, because Heydrich had been assigned the task of emigrating Jews by decree of January 24, 1939 or Himmler; as a result, this was the central office, and I had to turn to the place for all the material and economic results which had the central mission.

JUSTICE JACKSON: And you have assigned all other central offices to work with the Security Police and SS in the Final Solution of the Jewish Question?

GÖRING: There is nothing here about the SS, only the Security Police, a government agency. The fact that Heydrich is SS Gruppenfuhrer [576] does not have anything to do with it, because it appeals to the Chief of the Security Police and mentions his rank: SS Gruppenführer Heydrich.

JUSTICE JACKSON: And the mention of his rank in the SS was superfluous and has nothing to do with this matter?

GÖRING: So I have to explain, when I write to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, I write: “To the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Colonel-General or Field Marshal Brauchitsch, for example, and if I write to the chief of the Security Police, then I must to the Chief of the Security Police, SS-Gruppenführer Heydrich, that was his rank and title, judge, but that has nothing to do with a use of the SS.

JUSTICE JACKSON: And when you issued that order at the time, you had already received detailed accounts of the riots of 1938 and Heydrich’s participation in them, did not you?

GÖRING: I had no knowledge of Heydrich’s participation in these riots, not at this time, but only Heydrich’s report on the riots I had requested.