people because of their religious or political views or because of their
race or nationality.

Those who have not renounced the Nazi ethos will learn nothing
from reading this work, for it contains nothing that can surprise or injure
them. They would be ready at any time to begin again, and the only
observation they would make is the same one that can be read in the
testimonies of any one of the Nuremberg defendants: "They should
have got rid of all of them while they were at it!"

A French humorist once said: "The idea that people in the hereafter
are happy is nonsense since nobody ever returns from the hereafter."
Well, some did return from the Nazi hereafter. What troubles the
Nazis the most is not the monstrous crimes they committed but the fact
that eyewitnesses lived to tell about them.

So it is that we turn in brotherly love to all well-intentioned Ger-
mans, to those who have experienced the tragedy of Germany and
remained uncorrupted, to those who are willing to cooperate in the
creation of a government worthy of the best of the German tradition.

Traditionally, we have been inclined to think of crimes against
humanity as crimes against common law. It would follow, then, that
the world would have no reason to be alarmed since every nation has its
penal code. If that were so, then Nazi Germany, which also had its
penal code, would not have committed all these crimes. And if that
were the case, then such a limited number of hangmen could never have
executed such an enormous number of victims. If that were really so,
then the German public authority would have been sufficient to end
these shameful deeds without first requiring the invasion of the Allies.

Crimes against humanity are only vaguely related to crimes against
common law. As long as society is subordinate to common law, the
victim always retains the possibility of seeking help from public
authority. In the case of crimes against humanity, those concerned
stand there completely powerless. No one interferes, not the police, not
the mayor, not anybody. Public authorities are no longer able to
provide protection to those who innocently come in conflict with the
penal code.

And that's not the only thing. Because public authorities don't see to
it that common law is respected, they become accomplices in the crimes
against humanity through their participation in the arrest of the
victims.

But it goes even farther than that. The railroad transports the
victims, civil servants execute the laws, the press stirs up hatred in the
people, manufacturers build gas chambers and ovens, doctors exceed
their authority, the pharmaceutical companies test their medications
on prisoners, the financing of the whole nefarious business is assured,

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