I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for thepurpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become thedangerouslystructured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the whitemoderate wouldunderstand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transitionfrom anobnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to asubstantiveand positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of humanpersonality. Actually,we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bringto thesurface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where itcan be seen anddealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must beopened with allits ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, withall the tension itsexposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion beforeit can becured.
The Party formations, including the Leadership Corps of the Party, the SD, the SS, the SA, and the infamous Secret State Police, or Gestapo,-all these stand accused before you as criminal organizations; organizations which, as we will prove from their own documents, were recruited only from recklessly devoted Nazis, ready in conviction and temperament to do the most violent of deeds to advance the common program. They terrorized and silenced democratic opposition and were able at length to combine with political opportunists, militarists, industrialists, monarchists, and political reactionaries.
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Through the police formations that are before you accused as criminal organizations, the Nazi Party leaders, aided at some point in their basic and notorious purpose by each of the individual defendants, instituted a reign of terror. These espionage and police organizations were utilized to hunt down every form of opposition and to penalize every nonconformity. These organizations early founded and administered concentration camps-Buchenwald in 1933, Dachau in 1934. But these notorious names were not alone. Concentration camps came to dot the German map and to number scores. At first they met with resistance from some Germans. We have a captured letter from Minister of Justice Gürtner to Hitler which is revealing. A Gestapo official had been prosecuted for crimes committed in the camp at Hohnstein, and the Nazi Governor of Saxony had promptly asked that the proceeding be quashed. The Minister of Justice in June of 1935 protested because, as he said:
We have also accused as criminal organizations the High Command and the General Staff of the German Armed Forces. We recognize that to plan warfare is the business of professional soldiers in all countries. But it is one thing to plan strategic moves in the event war comes, and it is another thing to plot and intrigue to bring on that war. We will prove the leaders of the German General Staff and of the High Command to have been guilty of just that. Military men are not before you because they served their country. They are here because they mastered it, long with these others, and drove it to war. They are not here because they lost the war, but because they started it. Politicians may have thought of them as soldiers, but soldiers know they were politicians. We ask that the General Staff and the High Command, as defined in the Indictment, be condemned as a criminal group whose existence and tradition constitute a standing menace to the peace of the world.
As he said this he led the way across the ice; I followed. My heart was full,and I did not answer him, but as I proceeded, I weighed the various argumentsthat he had used and determined at least to listen to his tale. I was partlyurged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my resolution. I had hithertosupposed him to be the murderer of my brother, and I eagerly sought aconfirmation or denial of this opinion. For the first time, also, I felt whatthe duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to renderhim happy before I complained of his wickedness. These motives urged me tocomply with his demand. We crossed the ice, therefore, and ascended theopposite rock. The air was cold, and the rain again began to descend; weentered the hut, the fiend with an air of exultation, I with a heavy heart anddepressed spirits. But I consented to listen, and seating myself by the firewhich my odious companion had lighted, he thus began his tale.
And now, with the world before me, whither should I bend my steps? I resolvedto fly far from the scene of my misfortunes; but to me, hated and despised,every country must be equally horrible. At length the thought of you crossed mymind. I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; and towhom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life? Amongthe lessons that Felix had bestowed upon Safie, geography had not been omitted;I had learned from these the relative situations of the different countries ofthe earth. You had mentioned Geneva as the name of your native town, andtowards this place I resolved to proceed. 2ff7e9595c
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