Evening star., 1945-05-06
Editors Report Says
Brutal Master Plan
Governed Nazi CAMPS
Ey the Associated Press.

Ey the Associated Press.
PARIS, May 5.-A commission O
American newspaper editors re-
ported today it had seached the "in
escapable" conclusion after persona
investigation that German politica
prison camps were operated on /:
master plan >. of calculated ant
organized brutality"
The 18 editors signing the repor
declared they had convincing
proof" that "sadistic tortures to-
horrible and too perverted to bs
publicly described" were embraced
in the Nazi system" of operating
these camps. and that murder wa.
commonplace" in the camps.
The report follows in full
This statement is issued by the
editors who came to the European
theater of operations through the
personal invitation of Gen. Eisen-
hover to see for themselves condi-
tions in the German prison camps
overrun by the Allies.
This delegation of newspaper and
magazine editors was brought to
Europe at the suggestion of Gen
Eisenhower to investigate reports of
German atrocities.
Two Camps Inspected.
We have visited and spent con-
siderable time investigating the
prison camps at Buchenwald and
Dachau. We have interviewed re-
cently-freed political prisoners.
slave laborers and civilians of many
nationalities. We have studied a
great mass of documents covering
the German occupation of France
which contained Photographic evi-
dence and testimony taken in many
places and painstakingly authenti-
cateA with the sworn statements of
witnesses and victims.
The conclusion is inescapable that
the Nazis had master plan for
their political prison camps That
plan was based upon policy of
calculated and organized brutality.
The evidence We have seen is not a
mere assembling of local or unasso-
ciated incidents. 1t is convincing
proof that brutality was the basic
Nazi system and method.
This brutality took different forms
in different places and with different
groups. The basic pattern varied
little.
Murder Commonplace.
Actual Nazi methods ran the ga
NUT from deliberate starvation and
routine beatings to sadistict tortures
too horrible and too perverted to be
publicly described. Murder was
commonplace.
Prisoners whose only crime was
that they disagreed or were sus-
pected of dlsagreeing with the Nazi
philosophy were treated with uni
form cruelty. When death came, as
to multiplied thousands of them it
did, it must have been a relief from
worse than death.
BY these tortures most of the Jews
in prison camps had already been
destroyed. After the Jews, the most
cruelty treated victims were the Rus
slams and the Poles.
To the basic policy of brutality
toward political prisoners there
we're, however, no significant eXcep-
lions.
This we believe is the inexorable
of the whole Naxi-Ger-
man philosophy. BY this philosophy
and the cunning and persistence
with which it was propagated the
German mind became contaminated
and diseased.
People to Blame.
For these crimes the German peo-
pie cannot be allowed to escape their
share of the responsibility. Just
must be meted out to
The outstanding party leaders, and
The German general staff, to party
office holders, to all members of the
Gestapo, all members of the SIS.
Simple justice and the future peace
Of the world require that all these, I
oy virtue of their position, be in
iicted as gar criminals.
In Furnishing these crimes the his
toric principle of individual and
personal responsibility must be pre-
served and all those responsible for
.hese atrocities must be punished in
accord with the accepted laws of
nations.
We strongly urge that United Ma
ions policy in regard to war crimi-
lals be speedily agreed to and the
War Crimes Commission speedily /
to put those policies into
action.
AS We witness the collapse of the
Nazis' experiment in ruthlessness
and totalitarianism, we are more
than ever convinced that there can
be no peace on earth until the right
Of the earth's peoples to life, liberty
and the pursuit OF happiness is
recognized and protected under law.
Signed by:
Julius Ochs Adler, New York
Times.
Malcolm Bingay, Detroit Free
Press.
Anon Carter, Fort Worth Star
Telegram.
Norman Chandler, Los Angeles
Times.
William L. Chenery, Golfers.
E. z. Dimitman, Chicago Sun.
John Randolph Hearst, Hearst
Newspapers.
Ben Hibbs, Saturday Evening
Post.
Stanley High. Readers Digest.
Ben McKelway, Washington Eve
ming Star.
William I. Nichols, This Week
L. K. Nicholson, New Orleans
Times-Picayune.
Joseph Pulitzer, st. Louis Post
Gideon Seymour, Minneapolis
Star-Journal.
Duke Shoop, Kansas City Star
Beverly w. Smith, American
Walker Stone, Scripps Howard
Newspaper Alliance
M. E. Walter, Houston Chronicle.
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