A German court attempted to prosecute Carlos Porter, the author of Not Guilty at Nuremberg, even while he was living in Belgium. His “offence” was sending a letter to the Mayor of Munich.

Not Guilty at Nuremberg is a uniquely authoritative commentary on the Nuremberg Trials. Porter examines the evidence against Göring, Hess and many of the other military and civilian personnel who were tried in the aftermath of WWII. A summary of the Japanese War Crimes Trials is included: those defendants were convicted of making human soup. Now in its second Heretical Press edition with a new Appendix on Telford Taylor, from which the above quotation of Manstein is taken. Not Guilty at Nuremberg: The German Defence Case by Carlos Porter, 46 pages, ISBN 1-901240-02-9, 1998.

The standard version of events is that the Allies examined 100,000 documents and chose 1,000 which were introduced into evidence, and that the original documents were then deposited in the Peace Palace at The Hague. This is rather inexact.

The documents used in evidence at Nuremberg consisted largely of ‘photocopies’ of ‘copies.’ Many of these original documents were written entirely on plain paper without handwritten markings of any kind, by unknown persons. Occasionally, there is an illegible initial or signature of a more or less unknown person certifying that the document is a ‘true copy.’ Sometimes there are German stamps, sometimes not. Many have been ‘found’ by the Russians, or ‘certified authentic’ by Soviet War Crimes Commissions.

Volume XXXIII, a document volume taken at random, contains 20 interrogations or affidavits, 12 photocopies, 5 unsigned copies, 5 original documents with signatures, 4 copies of printed material, 3 mimeographed copies, 3 teletypes, 1 microfilm copy, 1 copy signed by someone else and 1 unspecified.

The Hague has few, if any, original wartime documents. They have many post-war affidavits (sworn statements), the Tribunal Commission transcripts, and much valuable defence material. They have the ‘human soap,’ which has never been tested, and the ‘original human soap recipe’ which is a forgery; but apparently no original wartime German documents. The Hague has negative photostats of these documents, on very brittle paper which has been stapled. To photocopy the photostats, the staples are removed. When they are re-stapled more holes are made. Most of these documents have not been photocopied very often and officials at The Hague say it is very unusual for anyone to ask to see them.

Staff at the National Archives in Washington claim that the original documents are at The Hague. The Hague claims that the original documents are in the National Archives.

The Stadtsarchiv Nuremberg and Bundesarchiv Koblenz also have no original documents, and both say the originals are in Washington. Since the originals are, in most cases, ‘copies,’ there is often no proof that the documents in question ever existed.

Robert Jackson got the trial off to a good start by quoting the following forged or otherwise worthless documents: 1947-PS; 1721-PS; 1014-PS; 81-PS; 212-PS and many others.

1947-PS is a ‘copy’ of a ‘translation’ of a letter from General Fritsch to the Baroness von Schützbar-Milchling. The Baroness later signed an affidavit stating that she never received the letter. This ‘letter’ was recognized as a falsification during the trial and is not included in the document volumes, where it should appear at XXVIII 44. Jackson was not, however, admonished by the Tribunal. The enthusiastic Americans apparently forged fifteen of these ‘translations,’ after which the original documents all disappeared.

1721-PS is a forgery in which an SA man writes a report to himself about how he is carrying out an order which is quoted verbatim in the report. Handwritten markings on pages 2 and 3 are obvious forgeries of markings on page 1. The National Archives have a positive photostat of 1721-PS and The Hague has a negative photostat. The ‘original’ is a photocopy.

1014-PS is a falsified ‘Hitler Speech’ written on plain paper by an unknown person. The document bears the heading ‘Second Speech’ although it is known that Hitler gave only one speech on that date. There are four versions of this speech, three of them forgeries: 1014-PS, 798-PS, L-3 and an authentic version, Ra-27.

The third forgery, Document L-3, bears an FBI laboratory stamp and was never even accepted into evidence, but 250 copies of it were given to the press as authentic. This document is quoted by A. J. P. Taylor on p. 254 of The Origins of the Second World War giving his source as German Foreign Policy, Series D vii, nos. 192 and 193.

L-3 is the source of many statements attributed to Hitler, particularly ‘Who today remembers the fate of the Armenians?’ and ‘Our enemies are little worms, I saw them at Munich.’ ‘Hitler’ also compares himself to Genghis Khan and says he will exterminate the Poles and kick Chamberlain in the groin in front of photographers. The document appears to have been prepared on the same typewriter as many other versions of the same speech. This typewriter was probably a Martin from the Triumph-Adler Werke, Nuremberg.

81-PS is a ‘certified true copy’ of an unsigned letter on plain paper prepared by an unknown person. If it is authentic, it is the first draft of a letter never sent. This is invariably spoken of as a letter written by Rosenberg, which Rosenberg denied. The document lacks signature, initial, blank journal number (a bureaucratic marking) and was not found among the papers of the person to whom it was addressed. 81-PS is a ‘photocopy’ with a Soviet exhibit number.

212-PS was also prepared by an unknown person, entirely on plain paper, without any handwritten markings, date, address or stamp.

This is, unfortunately, only typical. Document 386-PS, the ‘Hossbach Protokoll,’ Hitler’s supposed speech of 5 November 1938, is a certified photocopy of a microfilm copy of a re-typed ‘certified true copy’ prepared by an American, of a re-typed ‘certified true copy’ prepared by a German, of unauthenticated handwritten notes by Hossbach, of a speech by Hitler written from memory five days afterwards. This is not the worst document, but one of the best, because we know who made one of the copies. The text of 386-PS has been ‘edited.’

Thus ‘trial by document’ works as follows: A, an unknown person, listens to alleged ‘oral statements’ made by B, and takes notes or prepares a document on the basis of those alleged oral statements. The document is then introduced into evidence, not against A, who made the copy, but against B, C, D, E and a host of other people, although there is nothing to connect them with the document or the alleged statements. It is casually stated as fact that ‘B said,’ or ‘C did,’ or ‘D and E knew.’ This is contrary to the rules of evidence of all civilized countries. Nor are the documents identified by witnesses.

The forgery of original documents was rarely resorted to at Nuremberg, because the documents were not brought to court. The ‘original document’ – that is, the original unsigned ‘copy’ – was kept in a safe in the Document Centre.

Then two ‘photocopies’ of the ‘copy,’ or six photocopies, were prepared and brought to court. All other copies were re-typed on a mimeograph using a stencil.

In the transcript, the word ‘original’ is used to mean ‘photocopy’ to distinguish the photocopies from the mimeograph copies. ‘Translations’ of all documents were available from the beginning of the trial but the ‘original’ German texts were not available until at least two months later. This applies not just to the trial briefs and indictments etc. but to all documents. The defence received no documents in German until after 9 January 1946.

Documents which appear to have been prepared on the same typewriter include Document 3803-PS, a letter from Kaltenbrunner to the Mayor of Vienna, and the covering letter from this same Mayor sending Kaltenbrunner’s letter to the Tribunal. This supposed letter from Kaltenbrunner contains a false geographical term.

The transcript of the Nuremberg Commission is now at The Hague where it fills half of one fire-proof floor-to-ceiling vault. The testimony of each witness was typed with a pagination beginning with page 1, then re-typed, with consecutive pagination running to many thousands of pages. The first drafts and clean copy are in folders, together, stapled, on very brittle paper, with rusty staples. It is absolutely certain that, at least at The Hague, no-one has ever read this material.

Summation relating to the testimony of the 102 witnesses appears mostly in the fine print in volumes XXI and XXII in the Nuremberg Trial transcript. The fine print means that the passages were deleted from the final defence summation (otherwise the trial would have been much too long). This material runs to several hundred pages. In the transcript published in the United Kingdom, every word of this material is gone. In the English version, eleven pages in fine print are missing between the first and second paragraphs of page 594 of volume XXI. It appears in the German volumes however. Most of the remaining passages appear to be there. The material covers, for example:

• Total War
• Reparations
• German trade unions
• Gestapo and concentration camps
• Night of the Long Knives
• Crystal Night
• Resettlement
• SD
• Armaments

The 312,022 affidavits are probably on deposit with a German archive. The Judgement of the Tribunal is printed twice, in volumes I and XXII.

It is important to obtain the German volumes and read the Judgement in volume XXII in German. Bad German, mistranslations, etc., written by Americans have been corrected with footnotes added. Mistakes of this kind may be taken as proof of forgeries. Frequent footnotes throughout these volumes alert the reader to mistranslations, missing documents and falsified copies. At XX 205 of the German volumes for example it candidly states that ‘This phrase does not appear in the original document.’ Generally, the German IMT volumes are preferable to the American ones.

The German volumes are available in paperback from Delphin Verlag, Munich. In English the transcripts are available from Oceana Publications, Dobbs Ferry, NY on microfilm and Aristarchus, PO Box 45610, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA on CD-ROM.