-
Hjalmar Schacht
"I have full confidence in the judges, and I am not afraid of the outcome. A few of the defendants are not guilty; most of them are sheer criminals." -
Baldur von Schirach
"I had no reason to be anti-Semitic...until someone made me read the American book, The International Jew, at the impressionable age of 17. You have no idea what a great influece this book had on the thinking of German youth...At the age of 18, I met Adolf Hitler. I must admit I was inspired by him...and became one of his staunchest supporters." -
Franz von Papen
"I think [Hitler] wanted the best for Germany at the beginning, but he became an unreasoning evil force with the flattery of his followers--Himmler, Goering, Ribbentrop, etc...I tried to persuade him he was wrong in his anti-Jewish policies many a time. He seemed to listen at first, but later on, I had no influence on him." (10/30/45) -
Alfred Jodl
"The indictment knocked me on the head. First of all, I hand no idea at all about 90 per cent of the accusations in it. The crimes are horrible beyond belief, if they are true. Secondly, I don't see how they can fail to recognize a soldier's obligation to obey orders. That's the code I've live by all my life." -
Julius Streicher
"I am the only one in the world who clearly saw the Jewish menace as an historical problem." -
Hans Fritzche
"I have been tricked and trapped by the Himmler murder machine, even when I tried to put a check on it...Let us explain our position to the world, so that at least we won't die under this awful burden of shame." (11/21/45) -
Hans Frank
"Don't let anybody tell you that they had no idea. Everybody sensed there was something horribly wrong with the system." -
Julius Streicher
"The Jews are making a mistake if they make a martyr out of me; you will see. I didn't create the problem; it existed for thousands of years." -
Wilhelm Keitel
"We all believed so much in him [Hitler]--and we stand to take all the blame--and the shame! He gave us the orders. He kept saying that it was all his responsibility." -
Hermann Goering
"The whole conspiracy idea is cockeyed. We had orders to obey the head of state. We weren't a band of criminals meeting in the woods in the dead of night to plan mass murders...The four real conspirators are missing: The Fuhrer, Himmler, Bormann, and Goebbels." -
Alfred Rosenberg
"I didn't say that the Jews are inferior. I didn't even maintain they are a race. I merely saw that the mixture of different cultures didn't work." -
Albert Speer
"I would like to sit down and write one final blast about the whole damn Nazi mess and mention names and details and let the German people see once and for all what rotten corruption, hypocrisy, and madness the whole system was based on!-I would spare no one, including myself." (2/46) -
Hans Fritzche
"I have the feeling I am drowning in filth....I am choking in it."--(He said this after watching film of atrocities). -
Fritz Sauckel
"I was given this assignment which I could not refuse--and besides, I did everything possible to treat [the foreign slave laborers] well." (2/23/46) -
Joachim von Ribbentrop
"We are only living shadows--the remains of a dead era--an era that died with Hitler. Whether a few of us live another 10 or 20 years, it makes no difference." (3/27/46) -
Ernst Kaltenbrunner
"When I saw the newspaper headline 'GAS CHAMBER EXPERT CAPTURED' and an American lieutenant explained it to me, I was pale in amazement. How can they say such things about me?" (4/11/46 -
Hans Frank
"Hitler has disgraced Germany for all time! He betrayed and disgraced the people that loved him!...I will be the first to admit my guilt." -
Wilhelm Frick
"Hitler didn't want to do things my way. I wanted things done legally. After all, I am a lawyer." -
Erich Raeder
"I have no illusion about this trial. Naturally, I will be hanged or shot. I flatter myself to think that I will be shot; at least I will request it. I have no desire to serve a prison sentence at my age." (5/20/46) -
Karl Doenitz
"Politicians brought the Nazis to power and started the war. They are the ones who brought about these disgusting crimes, and now we have to sit there in the dock with them and share the blame!" -
Walther Funk
"I signed the laws for the aryanization (forced transfer of Jewish businesses to the Germans) of Jewish property. Whether that makes me legally guilty or not, is another matter. But it makes me morally guilty, there is no doubt about that. I should have listened to my wife at the end. She said we'd be better off dropping the whole minister business and moving into a three-bedroom flat."
