Occasionally, pro-abortionists who are either ignorant of history or who are just plain lying make three allegations;
(1)
That Adolf Hitler was a "good Catholic." This ploy is meant to tear down the credibility of the Catholic Church, the single most powerful opponent of abortion. In reality, Hitler killed thousands of priests and shut down the Catholic Church in every territory he conquered. The Nazis considered the Catholic Church to be their most dangerous enemy.
(2)
That Pope Pius XII did nothing to speak out against the Nazi menace and to rescue Jews. Once again, this is a lie designed specifically to destroy the credibility of the Church.
(3)
That Adolf Hitler was "anti-choice" because he banned abortion. The truth is that Hitler instituted widespread programs of abortion, contraception and sterilization on all races he considered "inferior" — exactly what population controllers are doing today. In fact, it is striking to read the hideous tortures inflicted upon small children by the Gestapo and the SS and reflect upon how similar these are to the tortures suffered by preborn and newborn children at the hands of the pro-abortionists today.
       The evidence against the pro-abortionists is contained in the transcripts of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. These are located on the World Wide Web at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/imt.htm.
       The following quotes are from the War Crimes Trials transcripts, Volumes I through XV. You can check these quotes for yourself.
       If any pro-abortionist makes the above claims, demand documentation. Your job is to aggressively expose their lies and destroy their credibility!

"2. The Battle against the Churches: "The Nazi Party always was predominantly anti-Christian in its ideology. But we who believe in freedom of conscience and of religion base no charge of criminality on anybody's ideology. It is not because the Nazi themselves were irreligious or pagan, but because they persecuted others of the Christian faith that they become guilty of crime, and it is because the persecution was a step in the preparation for aggressive warfare that the offense becomes one of international consequence. To remove every moderating influence among the German people and to put its population on a total war footing, the conspirators devised and carried out a systematic and relentless repression of all Christian sects and churches.
       "A most intense drive was directed against the Roman Catholic Church. After a strategic concordat with the Holy See, signed in July 1933 in Rome, which never was observed by the Nazi Party, a long and persistent persecution of the Catholic Church, its priesthood, and its members, was carried out. Church schools and educational institutions were suppressed or subjected to requirements of Nazi teaching inconsistent with the Christian faith. The property of the Church was confiscated and inspired vandalism directed against Church property was led unpunished. Religious instruction was impeded and the exercise of religion made difficult. Priests and bishops were laid upon, riots were stimulated to harass them, and many were sent to concentration camps.
       "After occupation of foreign soil, these persecutions went on with greater vigor than ever. We will present to you from the files of the Vatican the earnest protests made by the Vatican to Ribbentrop summarizing the persecutions to which the priesthood and the Church had been subjected in this twentieth century under the Nazi regime. Ribbentrop never answered them. He could not deny. He dared not justify."
—
Opening presentation by Mr. Justice Robert H. Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution, United States of America. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume II, 21 November 1945, pages 115 to 117.

       "(2) The Nazi conspirators, by promoting beliefs and practices incompatible with Christian teaching, sought to subvert the influence of the churches over the people and in particular over the youth of Germany. They avowed their aim to eliminate the Christian churches in Germany and sought to substitute therefore Nazi institutions and Nazi beliefs and pursued a program of persecution of priests, clergy, and members of monastic orders whom they deemed opposed to their purposes, and confiscated church property."
—
Sir Sidney S. Alderman, Associate Trial Counsel for the United States, reading from Count One ["The Common Plan or Conspiracy"] lodged against the leading Nazi defendants. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume II, 20 November 1945, page 35.

       "7,780 priests died of exhaustion at Mauthausen."
—
Monsieur Pierre Mounier, Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic, reading from Count Three ["War Crimes"] lodged against the leading Nazi defendants. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume II, 20 November 1945, page 47.

       "Accordingly, the Nazi conspirators, seeking to subvert the influence of the churches over the people of Germany, proceeded to attempt to eliminate these churches:
1.
By promoting beliefs and practices incompatible with Christian teachings.
2.
By persecuting priests, clergy, and members of monastic orders. This persecution, as the documentary evidence will show, ran the gauntlet of insults and indignities, physical assault, confinement in concentration camps, and murder.
3.
By the confiscation of church properties.
4.
By suppressing religious publications.
5.
By the suppression of religious organizations. In addition, they also suppressed religious education. This is illustrated by the secret decree of the Party Chancellery which I just referred to in Document D-75, when the Defendant Bormann stated: "No human being would know anything of Christianity if it had not been drilled into him in his childhood by his pastors. The so-called "dear God" in no wise gives knowledge of His existence to young people in advance, but in an astonishing manner, in spite of His omnipotence, leaves this to the efforts of the pastors. If, therefore, in the future our youth learns nothing more of this Christianity, whose doctrines are far below ours, Christianity will disappear by itself."
—
Major Major Frank B. Wallis, Assistant Trial Counsel. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume II, 22 November 1945, page 199.

       "The Nazi conspirators destroyed 1,670 Greek Orthodox churches, 237 Roman Catholic churches, 67 chapels, 532 synagogues, et cetera. They also broke up, desecrated and senselessly destroyed the most valuable monuments of the Christian Church, such as the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra, Novy Jerusalem in the Istrin region, and the most ancient monasteries and churches."
—
Testimony on research conducted by Captain V.V. Kuchin, Assistant Prosecutor for the USSR. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume II, 20 November 1945, page 67.

       "During the wave of terroristic acts in May and June 1934, I had already assumed my duties as American Minister in Vienna. The bomb outrages during this period were directed primarily at railways, tourist centers, and the Catholic Church, which latter, in the eyes of the Nazis, was one of the strongest organizations opposing them."
—
Statement of George S. Messersmith, Consul General of the United States of America in Berlin from 1930 to late spring of 1934, in an affidavit marked as Document 1760-PS. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume II, 28 November 1945, page 354.

       "In a letter from Reichsleiter Bormann to Reichsleiter Rosenberg dated 22 February 1940, Document 098-PS, Exhibit Number USA-350, which I offer in evidence, Bormann declares to Rosenberg that the Christian religion and National Socialism are incompatible.
       "[Martin] Bormann's letter cites as examples the hostile divergence between Nazism and the churches, the attitude of the latter on the racial question, celibacy of the priests, monasteries and nunneries. Bormann further declares that the churches could not be subjugated through compromise but only through a new philosophy of life as prophesied in Rosenberg's writings. Bormann proposes the creation of a National Socialist catechism in order to give that part of the German youth which declines to practice confessional religion a moral foundation and to lay a moral basis for National Socialist doctrines, which are gradually to supplant the Christian religions. Bormann suggests that some of the Ten Commandments could be merged with the National Socialist catechism and states that a few new commandments should be added, such as: "Thou shalt be courageous; Thou shalt not be cowardly; Thou shalt believe in God's presence in the living nature, animals, and plants; Thou shalt keep thy blood pure;" et cetera. He concludes that he considers the problem so important that it should be discussed with the members of the Reich directorate as soon as possible.
       "And now one quotation from the fifth paragraph on the first page of that translation. I would like to quote Paragraph 5 of the first page: "Christianity and National Socialism are phenomena which originated from entirely different basic causes. Both differ fundamentally so strongly that it will not be possible to construct a Christian teaching which would be completely compatible with the point of view of the National Socialist ideology; just as the communities of Christian faith would never be able to stand by the ideology of National Socialism in its entirety ...""
—
Testimony of Colonel Robert G, Storey, Executive Trial Counsel. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume IV, 17 December 1945, pages 59 and 60.

       "I now offer in evidence Document 3268-PS, Exhibit Number USA-356, which contains excerpts from the Allocution of His Holiness Pope Pius XII to the Sacred College, June 2d, 1945. In this address His Holiness, after declaring that he had acquired an appreciation of the great qualities of the German people in the course of 12 years of residence in their midst, expressed the hope that Germany could "rise to new dignity and a new life once it has laid the satanic specter raised by National Socialism and the guilty have expiated the crimes they have committed." After referring to repeated violations by the German Government of the Concordat concluded in 1933, His Holiness declared; and I quote from the last paragraph of Page 1 of the English translation of Document 3268-PS: "The struggle against the Church did, in fact, become ever more bitter; there was the dissolution of Catholic organizations; the gradual suppression of the flourishing Catholic schools, both public and private; the enforced weaning of youth from family and Church; the pressure brought to bear on the conscience of citizens, and especially of civil servants; the systematic defamation, by means of a clever, closely organized propaganda, of the Church, the clergy, the faithful, the Church's institutions, teachings, and history; the closing, dissolution, confiscation of religious houses and other ecclesiastical institutions; the complete suppression of the Catholic press and publishing houses ... In the meantime the Holy See itself multiplied its representations and protests to governing authorities in Germany, reminding them, in clear and energetic language, of their duty to respect and fulfill the obligations of the natural law itself that were confirmed by the Concordat. In these critical years, joining the alert vigilance of a pastor to the long suffering patience of a father, our great predecessor, Pius XI, fulfilled his mission as Supreme Pontiff with intrepid courage.
       "But when, after he had tried all means of persuasion in vain, he saw himself clearly faced with deliberate violations of a solemn pact, with a religious persecution masked or open but always rigorously organized, he proclaimed to the world on Passion Sunday 1937 in his Encyclical Mitbrennender Sorge that National Socialism really was: the arrogant apostasy from Jesus Christ, the denial of His doctrine and of His work of redemption, the cult of violence, the idolatry of race and blood, the overthrow of human liberty and dignity ...
       "From the prisons, concentration camps, and fortresses are now pouring out, together with the political prisoners, also 'the crowds of those, whether clergy or laymen, whose only crime was their fidelity to Christ and to the faith of their fathers or the dauntless fulfillment of their duties as priests.' In the forefront, for the number and harshness of the treatment meted out to them, are the Polish priests. From 1940 to 1945, 2,800 Polish ecclesiastics and religious were imprisoned in that camp; among them was the Auxiliary Bishop of Wloclawek, who died there of typhus. In April last there were left only 816, all the others being dead except for two or three transferred to another camp. In the summer of 1942, 480 German-speaking ministers of religion were known to be gathered there; of these, 45 were Protestants, all the others Catholic priests. In spite of the continuous inflow of new internees, especially from dioceses of Bavaria, Rhenania and Westphalia, their number, as a result of the high rate of mortality, at the beginning of this year did not surpass 350. Nor should we pass over in silence those belonging to occupied territories, Holland, Belgium, France (among whom the Bishop of Clermont), Luxembourg, Slovenia, Italy. Many of those priests and laymen endured indescribable sufferings for their faith and for their vocation. In one case the hatred of the impious against Christ reached the point of parodying on the person of an interned priest, with barbed wire, the scourging and the crowning with thorns of our Redeemer."
—
Circular letter dated June 17, 1938, from Reichsleiter and Deputy of the Führer Martin Bormann to all Reichsleiter and Gauleiter (Exhibit USA-351). Quoted in the Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume IV, 17 December 1945, pages 64 and 65.

       "I now turn to acts of suppression in the annexed and occupied territories. In Austria Bishop Rusch of Innsbruck has written an illuminating report on this subject. I offer this sworn statement in evidence, Document 3278-PS, Exhibit Number USA-569. This is a report on the fighting of National Socialism in the Apostolic Administration of Innsbruck-Feldkirch, of Tyrol and Vorarlberg. In this the Bishop declares, and I start on the first page of the English text and of the German translation: "After having seized power, National Socialism immediately showed the tendency to exclude the Church from publicity."
       "The expression "publicity"-this was written in English by the Bishop-evidently means "public activities." I continue with the quote: "At Corpus Christi in 1938 the customary solemn procession was forbidden. In the summer of the same year all ecclesiastical schools and kindergartens were disbanded. Daily newspaper and weekly reviews of Christian thinking were likewise removed. In the same year all kinds of ecclesiastical organizations, especially youth organizations such as Boy Scouts, were disbanded, all activity forbidden. The effect of these prohibitions came soon: The clergy took opposition against them, they could not do otherwise. Then a great wave of priest arrests followed. About a fifth of them were eventually arrested. Reasons for arrests were:
1.
The 'pulpit-paragraph:' When Party actions were mentioned or criticized even in the humblest manner.
2.
The practice of taking care of young people. A specially heavy prohibition was given in November 1939. Children's or youth's mass or services were forbidden. Religion or faith lessons were not allowed to be given in the church except lessons of preparing for first Communion or confirmation. Teaching of religion at school was very often forbidden without any reason.
       "The priest, according to his conscience, could not follow this public proscription and this explained the great number of arrests of priests. Finally, the priests were arrested on account of their 'caritative' work. It was, for instance, forbidden to give anything to foreigners or prisoners. A priest was arrested because he gave a cup of coffee and bread to two hungry Dutchmen. This 'caritative' act was seen to favor elements foreign to the race.
       "In 1939 and 1940 a new activity began. Cloisters and abbeys were seized, disbanded, and many churches belonging to them closed. Among these two convents were disbanded: The cloister of the Dominican Sisters of Bludenz and that of the 1Perpetual Adoration' of Innsbruck. In the latter the Sisters were dragged, one by one, out of the cloister by the Gestapo. In the same way ecclesiastical property such as association houses, parish and youth homes were seized. A list of these closed churches, disbanded cloisters, and ecclesiastical institutions is attached.
       "Despite all these measures the results were not satisfactory. Then priests were not only arrested, but also deported to concentration camps. Eight priests of Tyrol and Vorarlberg have been imprisoned, among them the Provicar Monseigneur Dr. Charles Lampert. One died there on account of the ill-treatment, the others returned. Provicar Lampert was released but required to remain in Stettin, where later he was re-arrested and executed in November 1944, after having been condemned to death by secret proceedings."
       "I offer in evidence Document 3274-PS, Exhibit Number USA-570, received from Cardinal Innitzer of Vienna and authenticated by him. This is the first joint pastoral letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of Austria after liberation, dated October 17, 1945. I quote from Page 1, second paragraph of the English and German texts, which sums up the Nazi conspirators' campaign in Austria: "A war which has raged terribly and horribly, like none other in past epochs of the history of humanity is at an end. ... At an end also is an intellectual battle, the goal of which was the destruction of Christianity and' Church among our people; a campaign of lies and treachery against truth and love, against divine and human rights, and against international law."
       "I quote further from the fourth and following paragraphs: "Direct hostility to the Church was revealed in regulations against orders and monasteries, Catholic schools and institutions, against religious foundations and activities, against the ecclesiastical recreation centers and institutions; without the least rights to defend themselves they were declared enemies of both people and state and their existence destroyed. Religious instruction and education of children and adolescents were purposely limited, frequently entirely prevented. They encouraged in every manner all efforts hostile to religion and the Church and thus sought to rob the children and youth of our people of the most valuable treasure of holy faith and of true morality born of the Spirit of God. Unfortunately the attempt succeeded in innumerable cases to the permanent detriment of young people. Spiritual care of souls in churches and ecclesiastical houses, in hospitals and other institutions was seriously obstructed. It was made ineffectual in the Armed Forces and in the Labor Service, in the transfer of youth to the country and, beyond that, even in individual families and among numerous persons, to say nothing of the prohibition of spiritual ministration to people of another nationality and of other races.
       "How often was the divine service as such, also sermons, missions, Communion days, retreats, processions, pilgrimages, restricted for the most impossible reasons and made entirely impossible! Catholic literature, newspapers, periodicals, church papers, religious writings were stopped, books and libraries destroyed. What an injustice occurred in the dissolution of many Catholic societies, in the destruction of numerous church activities! Individual Catholic and Christian believers, whose religious confession was allegedly free, were spied upon, criticized on account of their belief, scorned on account of their Christian activity. How many religious officials, teachers, public and private employees, laborers, businessmen, and artisans, indeed, even peasants were put under pressure and terror! Many lost their jobs, some were pensioned off, others dismissed without pension, demoted, deprived of their real professional activity. Often enough such people who remained loyal to their convictions were discriminated against, condemned to hunger or tortured in concentration camps. Christianity and the Church were continually scorned and exposed to hatred.
       "The apostasy movement found every assistance. Every opportunity was used to induce many to withdraw from the Church."
—
Testimony of Colonel Leonard Wheeler, Jr., Assistant Trial Counsel. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume IV, 8 January 1946, pages 507 to 510.

       "It describes the maltreatment of [Czech] Catholic priests - 487 of whom were sent to concentration camps as hostages-dissolution of religious orders, suppression of religious instruction in Czech schools, suppression of Catholic weeklies and monthlies, dissolution of the Catholic gymnastic organization of 800,000 members, and seizure of Catholic Church property. It describes the entire prohibition of the Czechoslovak National Church and confiscation of all its property in Slovakia and its crippling in Bohemia."
—
Excerpt from Document 998-PS, Exhibit Number USA-91, "Czech Official Report for the Prosecution and Trial of the German Major War Criminals by the International Military Tribunal Established according to the Agreement of the Four Great Powers, of August 8, 1945." Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume IV, 8 January 1946, page 510.

       "In the territory called the 'Generalgouvernement,' as in the Polish provinces which had been occupied by Soviet troops in the period between September 1939 and June 1941, the religious situation is such as to cause the Holy See lively apprehension and serious preoccupation. Without pausing to describe the treatment meted out in many cases to the clergy (priests imprisoned, deported, and even put to death), the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, the closing of churches, the suppression even of associations and publications of simply and exclusively religious character, the closing of the Catholic secondary and higher schools and of the Catholic University of Lublin, let it suffice to recall two series of specially grave measures: those which affect the seminaries and those which weigh on the Episcopate.
       "When the buildings of the various seminaries had been completely or in part occupied, the intention for some time (November 1940 - February 1941) was to reduce these institutions for the training of priests to two-those of Krakow and Sandomierz; then the others revere permitted to reopen, but only on condition that no new students were admitted, which in practice inevitably means that all these institutions will soon be closed.
       "The treatment of the ecclesiastics interned at Dachau, which, for a certain time in 1941 was in fact somewhat mitigated, worsened again at the end of that year. Particularly sorrowful were the announcements which for many months in 1942 came from that camp of the frequent deaths of priests, even of some young priests among them.
       "Polish Catholics are not allowed to contract marriage in the territory of the Altreich; just as requests for religious instruction or instruction in preparation for confession and Holy Communion for the children of these workers are, in principle, not accepted."
—
Testimony of Colonel Leonard Wheeler, Jr., Assistant Trial Counsel. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume IV, January 1946, pages 515 and 516.

       "General Conditions and Results of the Persecution:
"11.
The general situation of the clergy in the Archdiocese of Poznan in the beginning of April 1940 is summarized in the following words of Cardinal Hlond's second report: "Five priests shot; 27 priests confined in harsh concentration camps at Stutthof and in other camps; 190 priests in prison or in concentration camps at Bruczkow, Chludowo, Goruszki, Kazimierz, Biskupi, Lad, Lubin, and Puszczykowo; 35 priests seriously ill in consequence of ill-treatment; 122 parishes entirely left without priests.
12.
In the Diocese of Chelmno, where about 650 priests were installed before the war, only 3 percent were allowed to stay, the 97 percent of them were imprisoned, executed, or put into concentration camps.
13.
By January 1941 about 700 priests were killed, 3,000 were in prison or concentration camps."
       "The Tribunal will recall, from the previous reading of this document, the imprisonment of 2,800 priests and lay brothers in Dachau alone from 1940 to 1945, of whom all but about 800 were dead by April 1945, including an auxiliary bishop.
—
Testimony of Colonel Leonard Wheeler, Jr., Assistant Trial Counsel. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume IV, January 1946, page 518.

"7.
Phlegmone experiments were conducted by Dr. Schuetz, Dr. Babor, Dr. Kieselwetter and Professor Lauer. Forty healthy men were used at a time, of which twenty were given intramuscular and twenty intravenous injections of pus from diseased persons. All treatment was forbidden for 3 days, by which time serious inflammation and in many cases general blood poisoning had occurred. Then each group was divided again into groups of 10. Half were given chemical treatment with liquid and special pills every 10 minutes for 24 hours.
       The remainder were treated with sulfonamide and surgery. In some cases all the limbs were amputated. My autopsy also showed that the chemical treatment had been harmful and had even caused perforations of the stomach wall. For these experiments Polish, Czech, and Dutch priests were ordinarily used. Pain was intense in such experiments. Most of the 600 to 800 persons who were used finally died. Most of the others became permanent invalids and were later killed."
—
Testimony of Franz Blaha, M.D., former prisoner of the Dachau concentration camp. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume V, 11 January 1946, page 170.

M. DUBOST: "What was the aim of the SS?"

MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: "Sterilization — they did not conceal it. They said that they were trying to find the best method for sterilizing so as to replace the native population in the occupied countries by Germans after one generation, once they had made use of the inhabitants as slaves to work for them."

M. DUBOST: "In the Revier [infirmary] did you see any pregnant women?"

MME. VAILLANT-COUTURIER: "Yes. The Jewish women, when they arrived in the first months of pregnancy, were subjected to abortion. When their pregnancy was near the end, after confinement, the babies were drowned in a bucket of water. I know that because I worked in the Revier and the woman who was in charge of that task was a German midwife, who was imprisoned for having performed illegal operations. After a while another doctor arrived and for 2 months they did not kill the Jewish babies. But one day an order came from Berlin saying that again they had to be done away with. Then the mothers and their babies were called to the infirmary. They were put in a lorry and taken away to the gas chamber."
—
Monsieur Charles Dubost, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the French Republic, examining Marie Claude Vaillant-Couturier, who lived in German concentration camps for more than three years. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VI, 28 January 1946, page 212.

VORRINK: "From the beginning the Germans always tried to get the churches into their power. All the churches, the Catholic as well as the Protestant, protested whenever the Germans violated human rights. The churches protested against the arbitrary arrest of persons, against the mass deportation of our workers, and the church never failed to testify for the Jews. Of course, the church dignitaries, the priests and pastors, had to suffer for that; and hundreds of our pastors and priests were taken to concentration camps, and of the 20 parsons and priests whom I knew in the concentration camp- in Sachsenhausen, only one has returned to Holland."
—
Testimony of Jacobus Vorrink, Senator and President of the Socialist Party of the Netherlands. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VI, 2 February 1946, page 492.

DR. STEINBAUER: "As far as the churches are concerned, apart from deportation, as you say for political reasons, were the Catholics and Protestants ever prevented from practicing their religion?"

VORRINK: "The Germans interfered very much with the right to worship. They put spies in the churches to listen to the sermons with the idea of possibly denouncing the pastors."
—
Testimony of Jacobus Vorrink, Senator and President of the Socialist Party of the Netherlands, under examination by the defense counsel of Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Dr. Gustav Steinbauer. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VI, 2 February 1946, page 496.

       "In Holland, as elsewhere, the accused were struck with sticks. When their backs were completely raw from beating they were sent back to their cells. Sometimes icy water was sprayed on them and sometimes they were exposed to electrical current. At Amersfoort a witness saw with his own eyes a prisoner, who was a priest, beaten to death with a rubber truncheon. The systematic character of such tortures seems to me definitely established."
—
Enumeration of the routine methods of torture employed by the Gestapo by Monsieur Charles Dubost, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the French Republic. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VI, 25 January 1946, page 180.

M. DUBOST: "How were monks, priests, and pastors treated?"

BOIX: "There was no difference between them and ourselves. They died in the same way we did. Sometimes they were sent to the gas chamber, at times they were shot, or plunged in freezing water; any way was good enough. The SS had a particularly harsh method of handling these people, because they knew that they were not able to work as normal laborers. They treated all intellectuals of all countries in this manner."

M. DUBOST: "They were not allowed to exercise their functions?"

BOIX: "No, not at all."

M. DUBOST: "Did the men who died have a chaplain before being executed?"

BOIX: "No, not at all. On the contrary, at times, instead of being consoled, as you say, by anyone of their faith, they received, just before being shot, 25 or 75 lashes with a leather thong even from an SS Obersturmbannfuhrer personally. I noticed especially the cases of a few officers, political commissars, and Russian prisoners of war."
—
Testimony of Francois Boix, a news photographer interned in the Mauthausen concentration camp, under direct examination by Monsieur Charles Dubost, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the French Republic. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VI, 29 January 1946, page 269.

       I submit to the Tribunal and request Your Honors to accept as evidence Exhibit Number USSR-92 (Document Number USSR-92). It is a directive from the Administration of Food and Agriculture, entitled, "Treatment of Pregnant Women of Non-Germanic Origin." I refer this document to the Tribunal because, in their hatred of the Slav race, the German fascist criminals even attempted to murder babes in the womb. The members of the Tribunal will find the document on Page 362, in Volume II of the document book. I shall read two short paragraphs into the record. I quote: "There has recently been a considerable increase in the birth rate among women of non-Germanic origin. Difficulties have arisen in consequence, not only in connection with the use of these people for labor but, to a greater extent, with a danger of a social-political nature, which should not be underestimated. The simplest method for overcoming these difficulties would be to inform, as soon as possible, the institutions which employ them for labor, of the pregnancy of the non-Germanic women. These institutions must attempt to compel the women to get rid of their children by resorting to abortion."
—
"Treatment of Pregnant Women of Non-Germanic Origin." Directive from the Nazi Administration of Food and Agriculture, Exhibit Number USSR-92. Enumeration of Nazi atrocities by Chief Counsellor of Justice L.N. Smirnov, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VII, 18 February 1946, page 547.

       "It will therefore be proper for the Poles to remain Roman Catholics; Polish priests will receive food from us and will, for that very reason, direct their little sheep along the path we favor. The priests will be paid by us and will, in return, preach what we wish them to preach. If any priest acts differently, we shall make short work of him. The task of the priest is to keep the Poles quiet, stupid, and dull-witted. This is entirely in our interests. Should the Poles rise to a higher level of development, they will cease to be that manpower of which we are in need."
—
Conversation between Adolf Hitler and Martin Bormann during an October 2, 1940 dinner in Hitler's apartment, as presented by Colonel Y.V. Pokrovsky, Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VII, February 9, 1946, pages 25 and 226.

       "In the city of Lvov, 32 women working in a garment factory were first violated and then murdered by German storm troopers. Drunken German soldiers dragged the girls and young women of Lvov into Kesciuszko Park, where they savagely raped them. An old priest, V.I. Pomamew, who, cross in hand, tried to prevent these outrages, was beaten up by the fascists. They tore off his cassock, singed his beard, and bayonetted him to death."
—
Enumeration of Nazi atrocities by Chief Counsellor of Justice L.N. Smirnov, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VII, 14 February 1946, page 456.

       "Special hospitals, surgical blocks, histological laboratories, and other departments were set up in the camp. But they were intended not for the treatment but for the extermination of people. Here German professors and doctors carried out mass experiments on men, women, and children who were in perfectly good health. They carried out experiments on sterilization of women, on castration of men, experiments on children, artificial infection with cancer, typhus, and malaria, of masses of people who were afterward subjected to observation. They tested the action of poisonous substances on living persons. I would like to stress that experiments on the sterilization and castration of women and men were carried out on a particularly large scale. Whole blocks in the camp were especially designated for experiments using particularly effective methods of sterilization and castration.
       "Experiments on women were carried out in the hospital blocks of the Oswieczim Camp. Up to four hundred women were detained simultaneously in Block 10 of the camp, and experiments on sterilization were carried out on them by means of X-rays and subsequent removal of the ovaries, experiments in engrafting cancer in the neck of the uterus and forced abortion, and on testing countermeasures against injuries to the uterus by X-ray. In Block 21, mass experiments on castration of men were carried out for the purpose of studying the possibility of sterilization by X-ray. The castration itself was carried out some time later after the X-ray process. These experiments on X-raying and castration were carried out by Professor Schumann and Dr. Dering. It frequently happened that after treatment by X-ray, one or both testicles of the subject were removed for examination."
       "These experiments were carried out on 15 girls of 17 to 18 years of age, including Shimmi Bella, from Salonika (Greece) and Buena Dora, from Salonika (Greece). Only a few of them survived; but unfortunately they are still in the German hands, and we have consequently no objective data on these brutal experiments. However, the following has been established beyond doubt: The girls were placed between two plates within the field of ultra-short waves; one electrode was placed on the abdomen and the other on the buttocks. The focus of the rays was directed on the ovaries which were consequently burned out. As a result of the irregular dosage, serious burns appeared on the abdomen and on the buttocks. One girl died of these terrible sufferings; the other girls were sent to Birkenau to the medical unit or to working Commandos. A month later they were returned to Oswieczim, where they were subjected to two operations for checking the results; one, longitudinal, the other, a horizontal incision. The reproductive organs were removed for study. As a result of the destruction of hormones, the girls completely changed in appearance and resembled old women.
       "Experiments on sterilization of women and castration of men were carried out in Oswieczim on a mass scale beginning in 1942, and some time after the sterilization the men were castrated for a special study of the tissues."
       "Valigura, who was subjected to such experiments, stated: "'A few days after I had been brought to Birkenau, I believe it was in the first days of December 1942, all the young men from 18 to 30 years of age were sterilized by X-raying the scrotum. I myself was among those sterilized. Eleven months later, that is to say, on the 1st of November 1943, I was castrated. Together with me on that same day 200 men were sterilized.' Witness David Sures, from the town of Salonika (Greece), stated the following: 'Toward July 1943 I myself and 10 other Greeks were placed on some kind of list and sent to Birkenau. There we were stripped and subjected to sterilization by X-rays. A month later we were summoned to a central section of the camp where all those sterilized underwent an operation of castration.'"
       [Colonel Smirnov]: "I believe that it was not by accident that the experiments on people began with sterilization and castration. This was a quite natural result of the theories of German fascism, interested in lowering the birthrate of those people whom they considered to be vanquished. It was a part of Hitler's depopulation technique; and in confirmation of this I would now like to quote a very short excerpt from Rauschning's book, The Voice of Destruction, which has already been submitted to the Tribunal. This extract has not yet been read into the record, and the Tribunal will find it on Page 207 of the document book.
       "Hitler said to Rauschning: "And by 'destruction' I do not necessarily mean extermination of these people — I shall simply take systematic measures to prevent their procreation. ... "There are many means by which a systematic and comparatively painless extinction of undesirable races can be attained, at any rate without blood being shed."
       "Sterilization and castration became a criminal practice of the Hitlerites in the occupied territories in Eastern Europe."
—
Excerpt from the Report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union on the Crimes of the German Government in Oswieczim (Exhibit Number USSR-8), as read by Chief Counsellor of Justice L.N. Smirnov, of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VIII, February 27, 1946, pages 309 to 311.

       "According to an official announcement of the German Farmers' Union in Carinthia (Landesbauernschaft Karnten) of 10 August 1944, issued in Klagenfurt, every case of pregnancy of non-German women was to be reported, and in all such cases these women were to be obliged to have their child 'removed by operation in a hospital.' The announcement itself explains that in cases when non-German women give birth to their children this 'creates difficulties for their use in work,' and besides, it is also 'a danger for the population policy.' Furthermore, this announcement states that the Office of Labor Service should try to influence these women to commit an abortion."
—
Testimony by Major General N.D. Zorya, Assistant Prosecutor for the USSR. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VIII, February 22, 1946, page 132.

       "The German fascist invaders completely destroyed or partly damaged 1,670 churches, 69 chapels, 237 Roman Catholic churches, four mosques, 532 synagogues, and 254 other buildings for religious worship. ... Many churches, historical monuments of antiquity, were destroyed by the German invaders in Bielorussia. Thus, in the city of Vitebsk, they destroyed the Church of the Nativity, an interesting monument of Bielorussian architecture of the 12th century. They completely destroyed the wooden Apostle and Saint Nicholas Churches, built in the 18th century. ... Everywhere the Germans plundered Orthodox and Catholic churches, synagogues, mosques, and other buildings of religious worship. The Hitlerite conspirators not only actually plundered, tortured, and murdered, but they also strove to humiliate the believers morally and to rob them of their spiritual treasures."
—
Report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union (Exhibit Number USSR-246). Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VIII, February 21, 1946, page 102.

       "In the territory annexed to Germany after the Munich Pact a number of Czech priests were robbed of their property and expelled. ... Pilgrimages to national shrines were prohibited in 1939. At the outbreak of the war 437 Catholic priests were among the thousands of Czech patriots arrested and sent to concentration camps as hostages. Venerable church dignitaries were dragged to concentration camps in Germany. It was a common thing to see on the road near the concentration camps a priest, dressed in rags, exhausted, pulling a cart, and behind him a youth in the SS uniform, whip in hand.
       "By January 1941 about 700 priests were killed; 3,000 were in prisons or in concentration camps. The day after the occupation of Warsaw the Germans arrested some 330 priests. ... In Krakow the closest collaborators of Archbishop Sapieha were arrested and sent to Germany. The Reverend Canon Czeplicki, 75 years of age, and his assistant were executed in November 1939. The clergy were persecuted very violently. Those who were permitted to stay were subjected to humiliation, were paralyzed in the exercise of their pastoral duties and were stripped of parochial benefices and of all their rights. They were entirely at the mercy of the Gestapo. ... It is like the Apocalyptic vision of the Fides Depopulata.
       "On the territory of the Soviet Union the persecution of religion and clergy took the form of sacrilegious desecration of churches, destruction of shrines connected with the patriotic feelings of the Russian people, and the murder of priests."
—
Testimony of Chief Counsellor of Justice Colonel L.N. Smirnov, Assistant Prosecutor for the USSR. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume VIII, February 27, 1946, page 332.

       "One thing, of course, the Führer and all of us, I, too, stood for was to remove politics from the Church as far as was possible. I did not consider it right, I must frankly say, that on one day the priest in church should humbly concern himself with the spiritual welfare of his flock and then on the following day make a more or less belligerent speech in parliament. A separation was planned by us, that is to say, the clergy were to concentrate on their own sphere and refrain from becoming involved in political matters."
—
Testimony of Reich Marshall Hermann G”ring. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume IX, 14 March 1946, page 269.

       "The Slavs are to work for us. Insofar as we do not need them, they may die. Therefore, compulsory vaccination and German health service are superfluous. The fertility of the Slavs is undesirable. They may use contraceptives or practice abortion, the more the better. Education is dangerous. It is enough if they can count up to 100. At best an education which produces useful coolies for us is admissible. Every educated person is a future enemy. Religion we leave to them as a means of diversion. As for food, they will not get any more than is necessary. We are the masters; we come first."
—
Excerpt from Martin Bormann's August 11, 1942 letter to Adolf Hitler. Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume XI, 17 April, 1946, page 542.
"We are the rollicking Hitler Youth;
  We have no need of Christian truth;
  For Adolf Hitler is our Leader
  And our Interceder.
  No evil old priest these ties can sever;
  We're Hitler's children now and ever."

"Pope and Rabbi shall yield, we want to be pagans again
  We are the black swarms of Geyer, hey, ho;"
  Spear them, spike them, put the red cock on the cloister roof, and
  We will cry to Him on high that we want to kill the priest."

"To the Lord in Heaven we'll surely say
  That we his Priest would gladly slay."
  I am no Christian, no Catholic;
  I follow the SA through thin and thick."

"We don't follow Christ but instead Horst Wessel!"
—
Popular songs from the Hitler Youth songbook Blut und Ehre ["Blood and Honor"], Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume XIV, May 24, 1946, pages 474 to 476. These were quoted during the direct examination of the head of the Hitler Youth, Baldur von Schirach.

"4) In any attempt to influence the attitude of the Poles, importance must be attached to the influence of the Catholic Church which cannot be overestimated. I do not deny that the Catholic Church has always been on the side of the leading fighters for an independent national Poland. Numerous priests also made their influence felt in this direction even after the German occupation. Hundreds of arrests were carried out among them. A number of priests were taken to concentration camps and also shot."
—
19 June 1943 report by Hans Frank, Governor-General of Krakow, Poland, to the Führer (Exhibit Number USA-610). Proceedings of the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, Volume XII, 23 April 1946, page 127.
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This document was updated on January 1, 2008.