Goering's testimony in court

1.
Nazi war criminals stood at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal after World War II ended. Hermann Göring, the Nazi's second in command, was one of them. Robert Jackson, a former U.S. Supreme Court justice, asked Göring a number of questions at the time as the trial's chief prosecutor.

Goering's testimony in court on March 18, 1946 illustrates the reality of state management that the Nazis thought. Prosecutor Jackson was questioning why the Nazis wanted a downward-designation system at the top of the organization instead of using the people as the source of sovereignty and bottom-up electing power.

Jackson:
Did Germany adopt this principle of leadership (designated by the upper echelons instead of by the people) because it believed that none of the German people were capable of self-government? Or was it because some of the German people believed that it could, but some did not? Otherwise, was it because they believed that even if there were people in Germany capable of self-government, it should not be allowed?

Goering:
The reason why I think these leadership principles are necessary is because the system that existed before, which we called parliamentaryism or democracy, has brought Germany to the brink of ruin. ... (Obsessed) .... This system has been brought to ruin by mismanagement, and in my opinion, only an organization of strong, clearly defined leadership classes can restore order.

Jackson:
Was the principle of the authoritarian government you established that you would not tolerate party opposition that could neutralize or interfere with Nazi party policy?

Goering:
I saw it correctly. At that time, we had been with the opposition for a long time and had enough. The opposition completely ruined us. It was time to finish it all and get back on our feet.

Jackson:
Did you think it was necessary to oppress all opposition parties to stay in power after coming to power?

Goering:
Yes, I thought it was necessary not to allow the opposition anymore.

Jackson:
And did you think you should suppress all individual opposition so that you don't develop into an opposition party?

Goering:
As long as opposition seriously hinders our reconstruction work, opposition from such individuals was of course not tolerated.

2.
At the trial on March 30, 1946, Herman Goering tried to dryly describe discrimination and punishment against Jews from the perspective of administrative affairs. He spoke about the reason for the creation of the German Empire Act in 1939 that discriminated against Jews in a way that Jews in Germany violated the rights and economic interests of the German people.

This attitude also led to objections when questioning the circumstances of stealing Jewish property. For example, he insisted that his order to bring stolen jewelry in the event of a Jewish store raid was not extortion. Göring said that the lost and found were stolen and should be attributed to the state, not a private instruction. There was no such thing as a common-sense principle of returning them to the Jews.

Hermann Göring was originally charismatic and eloquent as a fat man. But he was slightly addicted to drugs and alcohol while he was Nazi No. 2. As a result, other key Nazi figures were bored of Göring being unruly. Although he was Nazi No. 2, he was Nuremberg's final statement claimed to be Nuremberg's second-in-command

"I want to condemn this terrible genocide to the fullest extent and make it clear that I cannot understand it one bit. I want to be clear before the High Court. I have never declared the murder of an individual in any case, nor have I declared or tolerated it, even though I had the power and knowledge to prevent it."

He denied his actions, which everyone else knows about.

3.
Most of the other Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trial made similar claims. Ernst Kalden-Burner argued that even if the document with his signature appeared as evidence, he did not know anything.

He insisted that 'I will say that I have never seen or signed a protective custody order in my life'. Over the span of more than two years, tens of thousands of documents claimed to have been forged by Müller, the chief of the Gestapo. He refused to the end.

Commander Auschwitz Rudolf Hess argued in his testimony on April 15, 1946, that there was no violence in the camps until the development of the war in 1939. At the same time, the president blamed individual responsibility for violence and abuse in the camps, saying that the goal was not to kill many people or destroy prisoners.

Most of the other war criminals were similar.

4.
Meanwhile, January 20, 1942, a few years before the German defeat.
Senior Nazi German executives gathered at Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, for a meeting. Reinhard Heidrich, the head of the SS, a Nazi SS unit, hosted the meeting.

The anti-Japanese meeting discussed the Holocaust, called the 'final solution'. At the time, the Nazis tried to 'sweep' Jews east as part of their work, attempting to expand the Germanic living base called Levensraum. This was the final plan aimed at ethnic cleansing.

The meeting was attended by vice ministers of various organizations, including the Nazi Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Polish Government-General, as well as high-ranking Nazi intelligence organizations, including the Imperial Security Agency (RSHA) and the Gestapo. A total of 15 people attended.

They discussed how to move, imprison, and kill the Jews. In the second half of the meeting, he is known to have spoken more directly and harshly about various terrible issues, including how to kill, because it was with alcohol.

5.
Adolf Eichmann, who was famous for "Eichmann of Jerusalem" written by Hannah Arendt, was among those who attended the anti-Japanese meeting. Eichmann was in charge of the Jewish people in Gestapo. Eichmann did not stand in the Nuremberg trial. After the end of the war, he underwent plastic surgery and ran away for a considerable time. He was kidnapped by Mossad, an Israeli intelligence agency, in 1960.

At the trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann pleaded that he was merely performing his official duties. At the time, Eichmann tried to use proper and sophisticated idiomatic expressions or propaganda in the court, but it didn't work out. Eventually, it stuck