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Volume IV · Page 279
| Q. What form did your protest to Streckenbach
take? A. I pointed out that these were missions which could not possibly be accomplished. It is impossible to ask people to carry out such executions Q. Why? A. Well, I believe there is no doubt that there is nothing worse for people spiritually than to have to shoot defenseless populations. Q. If I may be a little facetious in a grim matter, there is nothing worse than to be shot either, when you are defenseless? A. Since this is meant ironically by you, I can imagine worse things, for example, to starve. Q. It is not meant entirely ironically. I have read the whole of your testimony, and I am impressed by the fact that not once did you express any sympathy or regret. PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: Mr. Heath, I don't think that that observation is in place. MR. HEATH: I withdraw it, your Honor. PRESIDING JUDGE MUSMANNO: You are not to comment on the witness. Ask him questions, and he is to answer them. What you think about him is of no consequence. MR. HEATH: I know that, your Honor, and I ask the Court's forgiveness for having put the question. |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
| MR. HEATH: Now I want to say this — you
have told the Court repeatedly that to your knowledge there was absolutely no
purpose to exterminate races. You are charged here, of course, with war crimes
which is one kind of killing, and crimes against humanity which is another kind
of killing. You have told the Court that you have no reason today to believe
that these killings were part of an extermination program. I want to ask you
further, you are aware of this speech which Hitler made in 1933 at the Party
rally in Nuernberg, and I would like to ask you, when I have read you this
quotation, to comment on it. "But long ago man has proceeded in the same way
with his fellowmen. A higher race, at first higher in the sense of possessing a
greater gift for organization, subjects to itself a lower race, and thus
constitutes a relationship which now embraces races of unequal value. There
thus results the subjection of a number of people under the will often of only
a few persons, a subjection based simply on the right of the stronger, a right
which, as we see it in nature, can be regarded as the sole conceivable right
because founded on reason." Do you recall that or any of the similar outgivings
of Adolf Hitler during the period from 1933 on? DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: I have read this remark repeatedly |
