God protect Germany. God have mercy on my soul. My final wish is that Germany should recover her unity and that, for the sake of peace, there should be an understanding between East and West. I wish peace to the world.

[W]e are all learning fast that we have to respect each other's basic beliefs and institutions, however much we must dislike them. If there is one lesson to this war, it is that the attempt to impose one's own system on the world, such as was made by both the Germans and the Japanese, must end not only in total world-wide conflict, but in the defeat and destruction of the country that makes the attempt.

The German hope is that if the frontiers can be unshakeably maintained for another year, a peace can be obtained which will relieve Germany from the consequences of the hideous catastrophe in which she has plunged the world, and leave her free to scheme and prepare a decisive stroke in another generation. Unless Germany is beaten in a manner which leaves no room for doubt or dispute, unless she is convinced by the terrible logic of events that the glory of her people can never be achieved by violent means, unless her war-making capacity after the war is sensibly diminished, a renewal of the conflict, after an uneasy and malevolent truce, seems unavoidable.

I am convinced that Germany has drawn conclusions [from World War II] and Europe has drawn conclusions as well. And I can say an unpopular thing. If once again Germany should risk destabilizing Europe, then there would be no division of Germany — it would simply be blown off the map of Europe. With the kind of technology that exists, with the kind of experiences we have had, there can be no other way — and the Germans know it.

I feel that I am obligated to my people - that is not pessimism. If I tried to prove that I was innocent, it would be the same as trying to prove that the German people are guilty. Only one innocent man sits in that dock - and that man is the symbol of the German people. An epoch with such happenings as the murder of 5 million Jews, the projective extermination of millions of Slavs - such an epoch must close up definitely once and for all. It cannot go dragging on and on. Those of us who are guilty must pay the price and set the German people free, no longer to be blamed for our stupidity.

Before history we have accepted the responsibility of never again permitting war to begin on German soil. That is how we act. We do not want peace only for our and your generations. We want peace for your children and your children’s children. We want peace for all times, for ever!

I don't mean that it is important whether a few of us like Goering, myself, or the others are sentenced to death or hard labor or whatever, but to the German people we will always remain their leaders, right or wrong, and in a few years even you Americans and the rest of the world will see this trial as a mistake. The German people will learn to hate the Americans, distrust the British and French, and unfortunately, perhaps be taken in by the Russians. That will be the worst calamity of all. I hate to think of Moscow ruling Germany or Germany becoming a territorial possession of the Soviet Union. The Allies should take the attitude, now that the war is over, that mistakes have been made on both sides, that those of us here on trial are German patriots, and that though we may have been misled and gone too far with Hitler, we did it in good faith and as German citizens. Furthermore, the German people will always regard our condemnation by a foreign court as unjust and will consider us martyrs.

We Germans have learned from history. We are a peace-loving, freedom-loving people. For us, love of our native country, love of freedom, and the spirit of being a good neighbor always belong together.

They all hoped the peace which was to be presented to Germany...would be based upon Germany's responsibility for the war, that it would indeed make her repair the frightful ravages she had made by land, sea, and air, that it would make her responsible for the cost of the war, and that it would insist upon such territorial, military, and other conditions as would make another war by Germany impossible for ever. (Cheers.) That is what the people of the world expected and demanded.

Words freeze on the lips, the imagination refuses to picture the excesses with which the history of our days is filled. Without being resigned, one can only stand open-mouthed, as if struck by thunder. Nevertheless, in spite of all the countless misfortunes that accompany universal war, my heart, all bruised though it is, does not foresee a bad end for humanity. I have great hope that the minds as well as the hearts of our world will be purified and enlightened, after passing through such sinister trials. Already for many years the wisest and noblest voices have declared against all wars between the nations, and have foretold that militarism, when it has attained its highest point, must end by annihilating itself. And the sentiment of indignation which is invading all minds against the insolence of Germany proves that the people are for culture and not for destruction. The evil is horrible, for its depth as well as its intensity; but better days will come. (1914 letter, p281)

Prosperity can come through peace alone. The German people are in favor of all possible means to make war impossible. I have seen three wars. A man who has seen three wars never will wish another war. He must be a friend of peace. But I am not a pacifist. All my impressions of war are so bad that I could be for it only under the sternest necessity — the necessity of fighting Bolshevism or of defending one's country.

Weighing the sacrifices of the last war, we want to be true friends of a peace which will at last heal the wounds from which all have suffered.

Instead, it will increasingly strive to realize, in the service of the national interest everywhere, a true Volksgemeinschaft as the highest ideal. All the more so after the war, the German National Socialist state, which pursued this goal from the beginning, will tirelessly work for the realization of a program that will ultimately lead to a complete elimination of class differences and to the creation of a true socialist community. Thus, the five hundred forty-two thousand dead that this Second World War has up to now claimed will not have fallen in vain. Instead, they will live on eternally in our ranks as the undying heroes and pioneers of a better age. May the Almighty, who has not denied us His blessings throughout these trials and Who has thereby reinforced our inherent strength, also grant us His assistance in the fulfillment of what we must do for our Volk, what we owe it, until the victory. We again bow reverently before our dead comrades, their family members in mourning, the murdered men, women, and children in the homeland, and all the sacrifices of our allies.

It is my purpose, as one who lived and acted in these days, first to show how easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented; how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous...