2:43:01
is guilty.
2:43:06
Herr Rolfe...
2:43:10
further asserts that the defendant Janning...
2:43:14
was an extraordinary jurist...
2:43:17
and acted in what he thought
was the best interest of his country.
2:43:20
There is truth in this also.
2:43:24
Janning, to be sure...
2:43:27
is a tragic figure.
2:43:29
We believe he loathed the evil he did.
2:43:33
But compassion
for the present torture of his soul...
2:43:36
must not beget forgetfulness...
2:43:38
of the torture and the death of millions
by the government of which he was a part.
2:43:45
Janning's record and his fate...
2:43:47
illuminate the most shattering truth
that has emerged from this trial.
2:43:51
If he and all of the other defendants
had been degraded perverts...
2:43:56
if all of the leaders of the Third Reich...
2:43:58
had been sadistic monsters and maniacs...
2:44:02
then these events
would have no more moral significance...
2:44:06
than an earthquake,
or any other natural catastrophe.
2:44:10
But this trial has shown...
2:44:13
that under a national crisis...
2:44:16
ordinary, even able and extraordinary men...
2:44:21
can delude themselves
into the commission of crimes...
2:44:25
so vast and heinous
that they beggar the imagination.
2:44:28
No one who has sat through the trial
can ever forget them.
2:44:32
Men sterilized because of political belief.
2:44:36
A mockery made of friendship and faith.
2:44:39
The murder of children.
2:44:42
How easily it can happen.
2:44:46
There are those in our own country, too...
2:44:48
who today speak
of the protection of country...
2:44:51
of survival.
2:44:53
A decision must be made
in the life of every nation...
2:44:56
at the very moment
when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat.