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{
    "localId": "313171585",
    "label": "Correspondence Between Matthew Connelly and George Messersmith with Attachment",
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    "id": "313171585",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Correspondence Between Matthew Connelly and George Messersmith with Attachment",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/313171585",
    "collections": [
        "Confidential Files (Truman Administration)",
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    "levelOfDescription": "item",
    "productionDates": [
        {
            "logicalDate": "1945-08-01",
            "month": 8,
            "year": 1945
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{
    "seq": 6,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-cf/598863/70657657/70657657-03-006.tif",
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    "ocrText": "-3-\naction by our Government would leave wide deception among\nour people, the significance and full extent of which we\ncannot now foresee.\nSo far as Germany is concerned, the bringing to justice\nand execution of some, and the permanent imprisonment and\nseclusion of other war criminals is essential as a part of\nthe program of making possible a Germany which can eventually\nlive in peace with the rest of the world. The German people\ntoday are aware of the guilt of those principally responsible\nfor the war and they are aware of their individual guilt.\nWe cannot bring to justice all of the Germans who have\ndirect or indirect responsibility for the war and for the\ncrimes, military and other, committed in connection therewith,\nbut we must bring a very considerable number of these to\njustice and mete out punishment in various scales or we will\ncreate a situation in Germany and among the German people\nwhich will bear very bad fruit in the future and which will\nmake more difficult any rehabilitation programs which we must\ncarry through, and may even defeat such programs. Military\ndisarmament, economic disarmament, controls military and civil,\nand re-education during a period of two generations are all\nnecessary and, in many ways, inseparable factors in the problem\nbefore us now and in the years to come, but I am convinced\nthat prompt and adequate punishment of war criminals is an\nE.S. s ARCHIVES \"NATIONAL SERVICE\" RECORDS government TRUMAN AND\nessential"
}