Testimony of Hans Fritzsche, Ministerialdirektor in the Third Reich’s Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda.
Hans began his broadcasting career in 1932, and a year later his agency was incorporated into the Propaganda Ministry headed by Joseph Goebbels, at which time he also became a member of the NSDAP (Nazi) Party. He became head of the ministry's Press Division in 1938, and head of the Radio Division in 1942. He was the preeminent German broadcaster of his time, as part of efforts to present a more popular and entertaining side of the NSDAP government, and his voice was recognised by the majority of Germans.
… Fritzsche was present in the Berlin Führerbunker during the last days of Adolf Hitler. After Hitler's death, he surrendered to the Red Army. He was indicted for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials before the International Military Tribunal but was acquitted of all charges. Yet in January 1947, a German ’denazification’ court sentenced him to nine years of hard labour.
He was finally released under an amnesty in 1950 but died three years later.
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DR. FRITZ: Herr Fritzsche, I should like to put two more general questions to you on this topic. During the last period of the war, did you not try to find out something about the final fate of the Jews?
FRITZSCHE: Yes. I made the most of an opportunity to which I will refer briefly later on. I asked a colleague of Obergruppenfuehrer Glucks, in Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen, about the Jews. Briefly summarized, his answer was as follows: The Jews were under the special protection of the Reichsführer-SS who wished to make a political deal with them. He looked upon them as a kind of hostages and he did not wish a single hair from their heads to be harmed.
DR. FRITZ: Some of the Prosecution's witnesses have asserted during this Trial that the German public knew about these murders. Now I just want to ask you, as a journalist who worked in the National Socialist State, what was, as far as you know, the attitude of the broad mass of the German people to the Jews? Did the people know about the murder of the Jews? Please be brief.
FRITZSCHE: Leaving out all those matters which have already been mentioned at this Trial, I should like to mention only a few observations which to me seem important. I shall omit the period shortly after the first World War, which has already been described, during which certain anti-Semitic feelings were popular in Germany. I should like to state only that in 1933 at the time of the Jewish boycott, which was organised by the NSDAP, the sympathies of the German people clearly turned again in favour of the Jews. For a number of years the Party tried hard to prevent the public from buying in Jewish stores. Finally they even had to resort to threats. A profound and decisive factor in this development was the promulgating of the Nuremberg Laws. As a result of these the fight against the Jews was taken for the first time out of the sphere of pure agitation, that is, the kind of agitation from which one could remain aloof, and, shifted to the field of State Police.
At that time a deep feeling of fear ran through the German people, for now dissension spread even to individual families. At that time many human tragedies resulted, tragedies which were obvious to many, probably to everyone, and there was only one justification for these racial laws. There was only one excuse for them and one explanation; that was the assertion and the hope: ‘
Well, now that the separation of the two peoples is being carried out, although painfully, there will at last be an end to the wild and unbridled agitation; and due to this separation there will be peace where formerly only unrest reigned’.
When the Jews were forced to wear the emblem of a star and when, for instance, in Berlin they were prohibited from occupying seats on streetcars, the German people openly took sides with the Jews and it happened again and again that Jews were ostentatiously offered seats. In this connection I heard several declarations by Dr. Goebbels, who was extremely bitter about this undesired effect of the marking of the Jews.
I, as a journalist who worked during that period, am firmly convinced that the German people were unaware of the mass murders of the Jews and assertions to that effect were considered rumours; and reports which reached the German people from outside were officially denied again and again. As these documents are not in my possession, I cannot quote from memory individual cases of denial; but one case I do remember with particular clearness. That was the moment when the Russians, after they recaptured Kharkov, started legal proceedings during which
killing by gas was mentioned for the first time.
I ran to Dr. Goebbels with these reports and asked him about the facts. He stated he would have the matter investigated and would discuss it with Himmler and with Hitler.
The next day he sent me notice of denial. This denial was not made public; and the reason stated was that in German legal proceedings it is necessary to state in a much plainer manner matters that need clarification. However,
Dr. Goebbels explicitly informed me that the gas vans mentioned in the Russian legal proceeding were pure invention and that there was no actual proof to support it.
DR. FRITZ: Did you know anything about the conditions in the concentration camps? Did you speak to anyone who had ever been in a concentration camp?
FRITZSCHE: Yes. Even as early as 1933 or 1934 I spoke to a journalist who had been interned for a few weeks in the Oranienburg concentration camp, which was the old Oranienburg camp. He informed me that he himself had not been tortured but that he had seen and heard how others had been beaten and how their fingers had deliberately been squeezed in a door.
DR. FRITZ: Did you just accept these reports and do nothing about them? ~
FRITZSCHE: Quite the contrary! I made quite a row. This journalist — I believe his name was Stolzenberg, as far as I remember — did not wish to have his name mentioned. I wrote three letters, one to Dr. Goebbels (and he informed me that he would look into the matter), another letter to Frick as Minister of the Interior, and one to Göring as Prussian Prime Minister.
Senior officials from both these offices rang me up and told me that an investigation was being carried out. A short time afterwards, I heard that this old camp Oranienburg had been dissolved and that the commander had been sentenced to death. This was a report given to me by a Herr Von Lutzow, who was press reporter for Diels or Diehl, who at that time was chief of the State Police.
DR. FRITZ: After this first successful protest against ill-treatment, did you receive any further reports about atrocities in concentration camps? '
FRITZSCHE: No. I received no further reports about ill-treatment. On the contrary, I frequently made individual inquiries of members of the Gestapo or of the press section of the Reichsfuehrer SS. All of the individuals whom I asked declared the following: beastliness in the concentration camps only occurred in 1933 or at the beginning of 1934 at the time when these camps were guarded by members of the SA, who had no profession… that is to say, by those members of the SA who had the whole day at their disposal, and some of them were far from being the best type of men. In this connection I was told further that the 30th of June signified that a purge had taken place. The 30th of June had removed those Gauleiter and those SA leaders who had abused their power. They declared finally that the concentration camps were now being guarded by the SS, who had engaged professional guards, professional administrators and officials expert in dealing with criminal matters, and prison control officials. I was told that this would be a guarantee against abuses.
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Pages 179-182 | Friday 28th June 1946 | morning session | Nuremburg | ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIXTH DAY