Although admitting his responsibility for many anti-Jewish decrees issued by the Nazis, Herman Goering today told the International Military Tribunal that he had protested against the pogroms which swept Germany in Nov., 1938, following the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, German diplomat in Paris.
His explanation that he had requested the Security Police not to act against the participants in the pogroms, because he wanted to present the matter to Hitler personally, was challenged by U.S. Prosecutor Justice Robert Jackson, who said; “You know that is not true. I put it to you squarely.”
Goering admitted that he had ordered Nazi Party courts to remove from penal court jurisdiction the cases of Nazis charged with excesses against Jews. He also conceded that these courts were instructed to conceal the fact that party members were ordered to start actions against Jews and that minor punishments were imposed for murdering Jews.
The former Reichsmarshal charged that Heinrich Himmler and Josef Goebbels were more radical on the Jewish question than he, as was Julius Streicher. He added, however, that Streicher, since he was not a member of the Government, had little influence.
(In a confession made public yesterday by British occupation authorities, Rudolf Hoses, commandant of the Oswiecim camp, admitted that he had personally supervised the gassing of more than 2,000,000 persons, most of them Jews from Poland and Hungary and some from Holland and Belgium.)
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
