JUNA Pressestelle des Schweiz. Israel Gemeindebundes – Typewritten Report issued by the Press Office of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Switzerland. Zurich, 29 September 1948 – Detailed documentation from the courtroom interrogations during the trial of Nazi war criminals who were sentenced at that time as part of the “Subsequent Nuremberg Trials” before the American Military Tribunal. Typewritten. Extremely rare. German.
At the opening of the report are remarks from the testimony of Ernst Bohle, former head of the Nazi Socialist Foreign Organization and State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry, in response to his attorney’s question whether he had any reservations about the anti-Jewish measures of the “Third Reich” (see previous item), in which he describes the atmosphere in Germany in 1933: “After 1933, after the rise of Nazism and Adolf Hitler to power, we, the younger generation, who may have had certain reservations during the first three, four or five years, saw that older statesmen of all kinds in the Reich, diplomats who looked back on decades of experience in German and world politics, renowned scholars, composers, poets, philosophers – in fact almost all prominent figures in every field of life – appreciated Adolf Hitler and praised him as the savior of the homeland… I believe it is quite natural that the example set by these individuals was enough to dispel any doubts held by the younger political generation.”
Also in the report, under the heading “The Foreign Ministry and the Deportation of the Jews, ” it is stated that the documents presented to the court by the prosecution leave no doubt that the Reich Main Security Office, which operated under Heydrich and received instructions from Göring to implement the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question, ” worked hand in hand with the German Foreign Ministry, and it was proven that the ministry had direct involvement in the extermination of the Jews. The prosecution revealed a document from State Secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker dated 28 December 1942, in which it is explicitly written: “Not only have many Jews been evacuated from the Western German-occupied territories (France, Bolzano, the Netherlands), but the government has also made contact with the surrounding region… All Jews must be subjected to organized military measures, including registration and evacuation.” Additional documents were presented containing instructions for the deportation of Swiss Jews to the camps.
Further on, under the heading: “The Foreign Ministry Prevents the Rescue of Jewish Children, ” it is reported that German documents presented to the court reveal that when the German Foreign Ministry learned that Romania was allowing the immigration of Jewish children to Eretz Israel, it sent a telegram to the German Embassy in Bulgaria stating that “permission cannot be granted for the departure of Jews from countries affiliated with Germany” and instructed the embassy “to offer every possible objection to the transfer of these Jewish transports, ” thereby directly preventing the rescue of 7,000 Jewish children who were scheduled to leave Bulgaria in the coming months. The letter served as legal evidence that representatives of the Foreign Ministry were committed to preventing the rescue of the Jewish people.
The German Foreign Ministry also cooperated with the Mufti Amin al-Husseini by providing funds used as bribes, aimed at persuading the British Mandate authorities to prevent the entry of Jewish children into Eretz Israel. Also reported here are the unfathomable extents of Jewish property that was looted and acquired by the Krupp company, an ally of the Nazi Party, which, for a sum of 1,669,769.25 Reichsmarks since 1933, received Jewish property on a permanent basis through emergency contracts. Some members of the Krupp family were on trial at the time and described how they systematically looted the assets of the Jewish doctor Dr. Richard Hossberg, among others. The Krupp company negotiated the purchase of looted Jewish property at systematically low prices at the expense of Jews during the war years, and the methods by which this was done were revealed in court proceedings and are detailed here in the report.
“Subsequent Nuremberg Trials” – a series of twelve trials conducted before United States military tribunals, in which military personnel, statesmen, industrialists, and professionals of Nazi Germany were prosecuted for war crimes. The trials were held after the end of World War II, from 1946 to 1949, at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, following the conclusion of the main war criminals’ trial before the International Military Tribunal.
See also item 142.
7 leaves. Stapled. Very good condition.
