A Documentary Expose
By Keith
Stimely
Published: 1984-04-01
"This is Purim Fest 1946!" was Julius Streicher's apt comment
before he was sucked down into death via a gallows trap-door in the Nuremberg
Prison gymnasium on 16 October 1946. He was the seventh of ten International
Military Tribunal defendants hanged that day in fulfillment of the sentences
imposed. (Hermann Göring had cheated the hangman the night before with a
cyanide capsule, a final gesture of contempt.) It was certainly a travesty that
any of the 22 original defendants should have been put on "trial"
before, let alone condemned by, such a collection of raving Western idiots and
cynical Soviet criminals as constituted the IMT. But the case of Julius
Streicher, former National Socialist Gauleiter of Franconia, editor and
publisher of Der Stürmer, was especially ludicrous. He was unique among
the convicted defendants in that he was tried not for anything he was alleged
to have done, or ordered, or acquiesced in, but for what he had thought and
written. In his case the Allied prosecutors made few bones about it – there was
no attempt to dress up the indictment by accusing him of actual participation
in or even knowledge of any "crimes against peace" or "war
crimes." (They knew that this would have been rather difficult, given that
Streicher had held no official post since February 1940, and had been out of
favor and devoid of official influence since long before that time.) He was
charged under Counts One and Four of the Indictment: "common plan or
conspiracy to wage aggressive war, " and "crimes against
humanity." No real attempt was made to nail him on the first count, and he
was acquitted. On the other count he was convicted and condemned to death. As
Germany's world-famed Jew-baiter numero uno, Streicher was to be made an
example of on this Point – essentially on the point of being a vociferous
anti-semite. The tribunal's final judgement was that
…Streicher's incitement of murder and extermination at the time when Jews
in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly
constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war
crimes as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a crime against humanity.
The attempts made during the proceedings to prove that Streicher has at
least known about the alleged extermination program were not very
successful, based as they were on the issue whether Streicher had read claims
of extermination in foreign Jewish newspapers; Streicher did admit this – he
was aware of foreign allegations. (It is instructive that the
prosecution had to base its claim of Streicher's "knowing" on such a
thing, rather than on anything coming to him from the Reich government itself,
or from anywhere within the Reich.) In the event, the final judgment against
Streicher was not on the question of such "knowledge" of murder but
purely on the question of alleged incitement to murder, via his pre-war
speeches and his writings throughout the years in Der Stürmer. Not
Göring, not Ribbentrop, not Rosenberg, nor Sauckel, Frank, Jodi, Keitel – not
any of the other convicted defendants[*] were put on
trial for merely their dissemination of views on a social-political issue. They
were all in the dock because of things they had allegedly done or been directly
involved in which the IMT determined to have been violations of its
interpretation, as codified in its charter, of "International Law."
Streicher joined them in the dock and on the gallows because of what he
thought, and because he said publicly what he thought. There was not even any
real attempt to obscure this fact within legal mumbo-jumbo. Nor was the IMT concerned
with the fact that Streicher's "incitement" happened to violate no
law – not in Germany nor, for that matter, in any of the Allied countries. This
was some trial.
But Streicher's case was unique in another way also. He was the only IMT
defendant to have been systematically, physically tortured while under Allied
custody awaiting trial. Some of the other defendants did have complaints about
various aspects of their treatment since arrest (Hans Frank mentioned being
beaten up once by American negroes), in particular the humiliating,
pettily-harassing conditions of their cell-life – but none made a claim to
having been treated as horrendously as Streicher described. These were after
all the "Major War Criminals," the "first string" Nazis
upon whom the spotlight of world attention was to glare at Nuremberg; claims of
torture would have been most embarrassing to the Allies, who were bragging
about how just and fair and legally high-minded they were behaving toward their
captives. When Streicher brought up during the IMT proceedings his claim of
having been tortured, it was clear that the prosecution was surprised and at
something of a loss. The claim was stricken from the official record; otherwise
an investigation would have been required.
What Streicher had vainly tried to relate on the record were his
experiences shortly after his arrest, before he had been brought to Mondorf in
Luxembourg, the "holding center" for the IMT defendants before the
trial began. His torture was not sanctioned by the IMT or, apparently, any high
authorities. His reputation had preceded him: it was a simple case of low-level
revenge and sadism.
Streicher and his wife were arrested on 22 May 1945 in the village of
Weidring (Waidring), just southwest of Berchtesgaden. He was first taken to
Berchiesgaden, then passed through Salzburg and Munich before winding up at
Freising, northwest of Munich, where he stayed three days before being
transferred to Wiesbaden. After one day there he was taken to Mondorf, where he
remained until finally being taken to Nuremberg in late August.[**]
It was between Berchtesgaden and Wiesbaden, particularly in Freising, that
Streicher was tortured in direct violation of the Geneva Convention. (At this
time he was not even indicted or accused of a crime.) Historian Werner Maser
devoted two pages to this in his 1977 book Nuremberg: Tribunal der Sieger
(the 1979 American edition of which suffered a strange, toned-down
metamorphosis in title: Nuremberg: A Nation on Trial). Maser's source,
which he quoted chillingly in full, was a manuscript account by Streicher
describing the most unspeakable tortures and degradations inflicted upon him by
U.S. Army negroes and Jews. The manuscript was written for Streicher's lawyer,
Dr. Hanns Marx, and is now in Maser's possession. Maser accepted the truth of
this account, commenting that
… For two decades Streicher had reviled, slandered and insulted world
Jewry, had offered them up to racial fanatics as vermin; so. eighteen months
before his execution by hanging, he found himself with a personal account to
square; the "holy wrath" of his victims led them to apply the Old
Testament law of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
Streicher's biographer William P. Varga, in his 1981 book The Number One
Nazi Jew-Baiter (actually a fairly serious work, despite the comic-book
title) mentions the allegation of torture at Freising:
[U.S. Army Intelligence Captain John) Dolibois later related that Streicher
complained bitterly of his treatment at the hands of American soldiers before
his transfer to Mondorf. Evidently his notoriety as a fanatic racial persecutor
was known to the troops at Freising. Streicher claimed that he and his wife
were forced by some black American soldiers to walk in public stripped of their
clothes. These soldiers allegedly spat on them and extinguished cigarettes on
their bare skin. At Mondorf, an unconfirmed report was circulated stating that
some soldiers had taken photographs that showed Streicher dressed only in an
open coat, with swollen testicles and a crown of thorns on his head with a sign
draped over his neck with the words "Julius Streicher, King of the
Jews."
However, Varga goes on to describe "most of Streicher's
complaints" of such treatment as "extremely questionable"; they
were "apparently fabricated." The only basis he presents for this
skepticism is a letter written by Streicher at Mondorf in June 1945 to former
Stürmer colleagues, in which are mentioned "only" his uncomfortable
handcuffs, and his having been forced to stamp out cigarettes with bare feet.
For biographer Varga, this constitutes evidence that Streicher
"fabricated" other stories. He does not seem to have considered that
in writing this particular letter, Streicher may have suffered under
constraints as mundane as time or as special as censorship. His argument
against Streicher's veracity here is rather obviously a grasp at the only straw
– and a very thin one – available. Varga in 1981 was apparently unaware of the
lengthy, detailed Streicher statement published by Maser in 1977. (Maser's book
is not listed in his bibliography.) That Streicher made a point in this
statement of mentioning who had treated him well in addition to who had
treated him badly, delineating clearly between these types and their
actions with details as to time, place, and names where he knew them, would
seem to auger the truth of what it contains.
The acceptance of the statement as a genuine, honest record by Werner Maser
– a respected historian hardly partial to National Socialism, much less to the
Julius Streicher variety – is unquestionably well-founded.
It is not the only piece of evidence extant. In the Fall of 1982 another
document surfaced which sheds more light on the torture of Julius Streicher. It
is a seven-page, handwritten statement given by Streicher at Mondorf to an
American officer, who requested it after hearing Streicher's verbal complaints.
In that officer's hands for 37 years, never published or cited, the document
was sold at auction by the Charles Hamilton Autograph Gallery in New York City
in October 1982, for the price of $1,200. The Journal of Historical Review
was able to obtain a copy of this historically significant document. It is
published on the following pages for the first time, in English translation and
followed by photographs of the handwritten original. Also reproduced is a
letter from the officer to the auctioneer describing the circumstances under which
he obtained the document.
A comparison of this document with that presented by Maser in his book
shows the consistency in events described. Its publication at last adds to our
knowledge of a particularly shameful postwar episode.
– Keith Stimely
Translation
On 22 May [1945) I was arrested in Waidring (Tirol) and was brought into
the jail at Salzburg. There my hands were put into handcuffs by a Jewish
police-officer.
On 23 May, I was brought to Freising, via Toelz and Munich. During the 200
Kilometer trip in considerable cold, I was only dressed with shirt and pants,
since my jacket was not given to me. My bands were handcuffed.
In Freising I was put in a cell, where there was no possibility of sitting
or lying down. The window was removed and the cell was cold. During my three
days stay in there (23 May afternoon to 26 May afternoon) I was subjected to
the following treatment:
1) After being stripped of my clothes, two Negroes tore my shirt into two
pieces. Dressed only with my underpants, and barefoot, I spent three days in
the cold room. During the night and during a few hours in daytime, I was handed
an old military coat. It was taken away immediately, whenever I tried to resist
the tortures.
2) Two or three times daily I had to stand against a wall, with my
handcuffed hands held above the head, whereupon a Negro or the police-officer
kept hitting me on my genitalia, with a leather whip up to a minute long.
Whenever I made a resisting move with my handcuffed hands, I received a hit
with the foot in my testicles. My testicles and genitalia were badly swollen.
3) Two or three times daily I had to open my mouth, whereupon the white
police-officer or the Negroes spat into it. If I kept my mouth closed, it was
forcefully opened with a wooden stick.
4) When I refused to drink from the piss-bowl in the toilet, I was hit with
the whip.
5) On each of his visits to my cell, the white police-officer pulled hair
from my nipples and eyebrows.
6) During the three days I received no nourishment, and only once I was
allowed to drink water in the toilet. When I refused to take and to eat
partially decayed leftovers from a cardboard box, I was pushed to the ground, a
heavy iron chain was put on my back and I was forced to kiss the feet of the
Negroes.
7) At the end of each torture, I had to put out with my bare feet burning
cigarette butts, thrown on the ground.
8) I was repeatedly photographed by people of the press, while wearing
underpants and my genitalia were visible. The photographers were Jews.
9) On the last day, two hours before being transported to Wiesbaden, a
Negro said: now comes "kill, kill" and made the corresponding gesture
at the throat. He asked me what I wanted to eat or drink, I may wish. I asked
for paper in order to write a letter to my wife.
10) Before being transported, a Negro called me into the toilet, then threw
my civilian clothes in and ordered me to get dressed. This I had to do with
handcuffed hands.
On 26 May, I was brought to Wiesbaden in handcuffs, where I arrived in the
early hours of 27 May. Only in Wiesbaden, the handcuffs which I had on since 22
May (five days) day and night were removed from my greatly swollen hands and
infected joints. Since then I am under medical care. The officer in charge of
the jail in Wiesbaden (he said he was a Jew) acted correctly.
[signed]
Julius Streicher
16.6.45
16.6.45
Notes
[*] Hans Fritzsche, the National Socialist radio personality stuck into the
Nuremberg proceedings as a poor man's substitute for Joseph Goebbels, who was a
corpse, was like Streicher basically accused of "incitement" to
crimes. He was acquitted.
[**] It was at Mondorf that Streicher composed his autobiographical political
testament, a manuscript of some 15,000 words. It was published as 'Das
Politische Testament," edited and with a foreword by Jay. W. Baird, in Vierteljahrshefte
fuer Zeitgeschichte (April 1978).
No comments:
Post a Comment