Final statement Julius Streicher

THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Julius Streicher.

JULIUS STREICHER (Defendant): Your Honors. At the beginning of this Trial I was asked by the President whether I pleaded guilty in the sense of the Indictment. I answered that question in the negative.
The completed proceedings and the evidence presented have confirmed the correctness of the statement I gave at that time.
It has been established that:
(1) Mass killings were carried out exclusively upon orders by the Head of the State, Adolf Hitler, without other influence.
(2) The mass killings were carried out without the knowledge of the German people and in complete secrecy by the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler.
The Prosecution had asserted that mass killings would not have been possible without Streicher and his Stürmer. The Prosecution neither offered nor submitted any proof of this assertion.
It is clearly established that on the occasion of the Anti-Jewish Boycott Day in 1933, which I was ordered to lead, and on the occasion of the demonstration of 1938 ordered by Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels, I, in my capacity as Gauleiter, neither ordered, demanded, nor participated in any acts of violence against Jews.
It is further established that in many articles in my weekly paper, the Stürmerr, I advocated the Zionist demand for the creation of a Jewish state as the natural solution of the Jewish problem.
These facts prove that I did not want the Jewish problem to be solved by violence.
If I or other authors mentioned a destruction or extermination of Jewry in some article of my weekly paper, the Stürmer, then these were strong statements in reply to provoking expressions of opinion by Jewish authors in which the extermination of the German people was demanded. According to his last testament the mass killings ordered by the leader of the State, Adolf Hitler, were supposed to be a reprisal which was only brought about by the course of the war, then recognized as becoming unfavorable
These actions of the leader of the State against the Jews can be explained by his attitude toward the Jewish question, which was thoroughly different from mine. Hitler wanted to punish the Jews because he held them responsible for unleashing the war and for the bombing of the German civilian population.
It is deeply regrettable that the mass killings, which can be traced back to the personal decision of the leader of the State, Adolf Hitler, have led to a treatment of the German people which must also be considered as not humane. I repudiate the mass killings which were carried out, in the same way as they are repudiated by every decent German.
Your Honors! Neither in my capacity as Gauleiter nor as political author have I committed a crime, and I therefore look forward to your judgment with a good conscience.
I have no request to make for myself. I have one for the German people from whom I come. Your Honors, fate has given you the power to pronounce any judgment. Do not pronounce a judgment, Your Honors, which would imprint the stamp of dishonor upon the forehead of an entire nation.

See also: Verdict Streicher