dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
THE PRESIDENT: I am afraid I really don't understand you. What I have got in the translation before me is this, "The units of the Red Army captured a copy of the German decree which mentioned Keitel's order on forced labor in the combat zone," and continues further that those persons refusing to work shall be apprehended as saboteurs. This document is submitted as Exhibit USSR something or other. It may be useful to read a few excerpts of it, "By order of the Chief of the General Staff of the Military Command, of 6 February 1943, concerning the compulsory labor service. . . in the combat zone" -- and then it goes on to deal with persons who don't present themselves being considered saboteurs. Well, I thought you were saying that the Chief of the General Staff of the Military Command was Keitel. He was the Chief of the OKW. Are you still saying that he was the Chief of the Military Command?
GEL. ZORYA: I quote only that which is in the document: "In accordance with the regulations of the Chief of the General Staff of the Military Command." That is in the document, and I do not wish to add anything.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think it is worth taking any more time over it.
GEN. ZORYA: I will now go back to that document which was submitted to the Tribunal by the United States Prosecution and which was entitled, "Memo for the Treatment of Foreign Civilian Laborers in the Reich." I will not quote this document in detail; I would like to stress only that it established a special regime for Eastern Workers. They lived in camps surrounded by guards and under supervision of a camp commander. The latter forbade a normal life for workers from the East. They were thus forbidden to visit churches or public places and they were obliged to wear special insignia -- a rectangle with pale blue edges, and in the middle the word "Ost" in white letters on the dark blue background. In the memorandum to housewives regarding the employment of women from the East in town and rural households it was stated that -- Page 131 of the document book: "Every foreigner judges the standard of our entire people by the personal and political conduct of the individual. The foreign workers must see in the housewife and the members of her family worthy representatives of the German people." I proceed further: "If, in exceptional cases, German and eastern female domestic workers are employed in the same household, the German domestic workers must be given mainly tasks of serving the family and must also be given the supervision of the Eastern woman worker. The German living in the household must always have precedence." General conditions of work did not apply to the women workers from the East. Their labor was regulated only by the discretion of their masters. This was expressed in Paragraph 4 of the same memorandum. I quote: "Eastern women workers are employed in the households in a special labor relation. German regulations on working conditions and on labor protection refer to them only insofar as this is specifically decreed." The character of these special instructions can be seen in Paragraph 9, Section B of the memorandum, which states quite openly: "No claim to leisure time is given.
GEN. ZORYA: Eastern women domestic workers may leave the household only when on duty connected with the needs of the household.... Visiting the theaters, restaurants, cinemas, and similar . . . institutions is forbidden." Paragraph 10 of the memorandum states: "Eastern female domestic workers are enlisted for indefinite time." Paragraph 12 of the memorandum states that: "Germans may not share a room with the Eastern woman worker." Paragraph 14 states that: "Clothing as a rule cannot be supplied." These two documents just mentioned by me, "Memo on the Treatment of Foreign Civilian Laborers" and "Memorandum for Housewives on the Employment of Eastern Female Workers," reflect the inhuman conditions of work for the forcibly mobilized Soviet citizens. The Soviet Prosecution has at its disposal numerous documents, the testimonies of persons who themselves experienced the terror of fascist slavery. The enumeration of all these documents would take too much time. The Soviet Government had at its disposal, already in the early phases of the war against fascist Germany, many proofs of the crimes of the fascist conspirators in this field. The first document of this kind published by the Soviet Government is the note of the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Molotov, dated 6 January 1942, which was presented to the Tribunal by the Soviet Prosecution as Exhibit Number USSR-51(2), (Document USSR-51(2)) and this note stated that: "The peaceful citizens forcibly deported for compulsory labor were proclaimed 'prisoners of war' by the German authorities and treated as such as far as their maintenance is concerned. It has been established by reports of Staffs of the German Army that peasants and other peaceful citizens seized by the Germans and deported for compulsory labor were automatically put on the list as prisoners of war. Thus the number of prisoners of war was artificially and unlawfully decreased.
GEN. ZORYA: "In the vicinity of the town of Plavsk, in the region of Tula, a camp was established where Soviet war prisoners and the civilian population from neighboring villages were interned at the same time. The Soviet citizens were there subjected to inhuman tortures and sufferings. There were young boys and girls, women, and old men among them. Their only food consisted of two potatoes and some barley grits each day. The death rate reached 25 to 30 persons daily. "After the occupation of Kiev, the Germans drove into slave labor all the civilian population from 11 to 60 years of age, irrespective of their profession, their sex, state of health, or nationality. "People who were too ill to stand on their feet were fined by the Germans for every day of work they missed. "In Kharkov the German invaders decided to make the local Ukrainian intellectuals an object of their mockery. On 5 November 1941 all actors were ordered to appear at the Shevtshenko Theater for registration. When they had gathered, they were surrounded by German soldiers who harnessed them to carts and drove them along the most frequented streets to the river for water." The second document of the Soviet Government was the Foreign Commissar's note, dated 27 April 1942. This note is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR-51 (Document Number USSR-51). Section 3 of this note is entitled, "Installation of a Regime of Slavery and Bondage in the Occupied Territories of the Soviet Union and Deportation of Civilian Population as Prisoners of War." This note states that: "In the Ukraine and Bielorussia the Germans introduced a 14- or 16-hour workday, in most cases without any compensation and in some cases with ridiculously low wages.
GEN. ZORYA: "In the secret instructions entitled, 'On Current Tasks in the Eastern Regions,' captured by Red Army troops at the beginning of March 1942, the chief of the Military Economic Inspectorate Central Front, Lieutenant General Weigang, admits that: " 'It has proved impossible to maintain industrial production with the labor of semi-starved and semi-clad people,' that 'the devaluation of money and the commodity crisis coincide with a dangerous lack of confidence in the German authorities on the part of the local population,' and that 'this constitutes a danger to the peace in the occupied regions which cannot be permitted in the rear of the combat troops.' The German general in this document presumes to call these occupied regions 'our new eastern colonial possession.' "Acknowledging that the complete collapse of industrial production in the occupied districts has led to mass unemployment, the German General Weigang issued the following orders for speeding up the forcible dispatch of the Russian, Ukrainian, Bielorussian, and other workers to Germany. " 'Only the shipping to Germany of some millions of Russian workers and only the inexhaustible reserves of healthy and strong people in the Occupied Eastern Territories. . . can solve the urgent problem of manpower shortage and therewith meet the lack of labor in Germany.' "In an order . . . seized by units of the Red Army, recruiting the entire civilian population of the occupied districts for all kinds of heavy labor was ordered; and it was stated that this forced labor was not to be paid for; and it was insolently declared that by this unpaid labor the population would atone for its guilt for the acts of sabotage already committed as well as for the acts of sabotage which might be committed by them in the future. "In Kaluga, on 20 November 1941, an announcement was posted, signed by the German commandant, Major Portatius, which ran as follows: " '1. Citizens who do poor work or do not work the specified number of hours will be subject to a monetary fine.
GEN. ZORYA: In the event of non-payment, delinquents will be subjected to corporal punishment. " '2. Citizens who have received a work assignment and who have not reported for work will be subject to corporal punishment and will receive no food rations from the municipality. " '3. Citizens evading work in general will, in addition, be expelled from Kaluga. Citizens shirking work will be attached to labor detachments and columns, and billeted in barracks. They will be used for heavy labor.' " This note indicated also that land would be transferred to German landowners. This was established by a land law which was promulgated at the end of April 1942 by the Hitlerite Gauleiter Alfred Rosenberg. I pass on to the next note of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov which was published a year after the note dated 27 April 1942. On 11 May 1943 the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Molotov, sent to all Ambassadors and Ministers of all the countries with which the U.S.S.R. had diplomatic relations a note, "Concerning the Wholesale Forcible Deportation of Peaceful Soviet Citizens to German Fascist Slavery and Concerning the Responsibility Borne for this Crime by German Authorities and Individuals." This note is submitted to the Tribunal as evidence as Exhibit Number USSR-51(4) (Document Number USSR-51(4)). I consider it necessary to read a few quotations from this note. On Page 165 of the document book there is a reference to a declaration of Goering of 7 November 1941, which has already been mentioned by me. I will not again repeat all that Goering said at that conference. I will only stress that Goering issued a blood-thirsty order "not to spare the Soviet people deported into Germany and to handle them in the most cruel manner under any excuse." This order is included in section IV-A7 of the above-mentioned note. It reads as follows: "In applying measures for the maintenance of order, the main principle must be swiftness and severity.
GEN. ZORYA: Only the following forms of punishment must be employed, without intermediary grades: deprivation of food and death by sentence of field court-martial." On 31 March 1942 Sauckel issued the following order by telegraph: "The enlistment, for which you are responsible, must be speeded up by every available means, including the stern application of the principle of labor service." The Soviet Government is in possession of the complete text of a report by the Chief of the Political Police and Security Service with the Chief of the SS in Kharkov, headed, "The Situation in the City of Kharkov from 23 July to 9 September 1942." "The recruiting of labor power" -- states this document -- "is causing the competent bodies disquietude, for the population is displaying extreme reluctance to go to work in Germany. The situation at present is that everybody does his utmost to evade enlistment. Voluntary departure to Germany has long been entirely out of the question." Your Honors, I must stress that the Defendant Sauckel, as Plenipotentiary for the Allocation of Labor, actively pursued criminal activity, as it is pointed out in the note of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, which I just presented. On 31 March 1942 Sauckel sent to his subordinate departments a telegraphic instruction regarding the utilization of Russians and the work of the enlistment committee. I submit this telegram of Sauckel to the Tribunal as evidence, Exhibit Number USSR-382 (Document Number USSR-382). In this telegram Sauckel writes: "The rate of mobilization must be increased immediately and under all circumstances to insure, in the shortest possible time, that is to say, by April, that a three-fold increase in the number of dispatched workers is achieved." Sauckel's efforts were appreciated by the Defendant Goering at the time when he was Delegate for the Four Year Plan. I refer now to the conference which Goering held on 6 August 1942. This protocol has been submitted by the Soviet Prosecution to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-170 (Document Number USSR-170).
GEN. ZORYA: I beg you to refer to Pages 12 and 13 of this document, Page 184 of the document book. Goering came forth with the following words, "I have to say one thing to this. I do not wish to praise the Gauleiter Sauckel; he does not need it."
THE PRESIDENT: All this was read the other day. The actual words were read yesterday.
GEN. ZORYA: I am quite sure, Mr. President, that my colleague, who read into the record this document, did not read this particular passage.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but I still think that he read this excerpt which you have got set out in your document, "I do not wish to praise Gauleiter Sauckel; he does not need it." He certainly referred to the excerpt which you have just summarized about Lohse.
GEN. ZORYA: I do not wish to argue but I had the information that this excerpt had not been read into the record. If you like, I will not read this passage into the record.
THE PRESIDENT: Maybe you are right. I don't know.
GEN. ZORYA: Then, I will read it into the record very briefly: "I do not wish to praise Gauleiter Sauckel; he does not need it. But what he has done in such a short time to collect workers so quickly from the whole of Europe and supply them to our undertakings is a unique achievement. I must tell that to all these gentlemen; if each of them used in their sphere of activity a tenth of the energy used by Gauleiter Sauckel, the tasks laid upon them would indeed easily be carried out. This is my sincere conviction and in no way fine words." I return again to the note of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, V. M. Molotov, dated 11 May 1943. This note further gives data concerning the number of Soviet people who were deported to Germany. This note states that the deportation of Soviet people to German slavery was accompanied nearly everywhere by bloody repressive measures against Soviet citizens seeking refuge from slave merchants who were hunting for them. It has been established that in Gjatsk 75 peaceful inhabitants of the town were shot and that in Poltava 65 railroad men were hanged. The same thing in other towns also -- executions, shootings, and hangings were carried out on the same scale.
THE PRESIDENT: I understood from you at the beginning of your speech that you were going to finish this afternoon your presentation. It is now 5 minutes past 5. Is there any chance of your finishing today?
GEN. ZORYA: If I had not been interrupted by Defense Counsel for 10 minutes in connection with a discussion about the order of the German occupational authorities, I would have finished my statement.
THE PRESIDENT: How long do you think will it take you now?
GEN. ZORYA: A maximum of 10 minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
GEN. ZORYA: The note states that the Soviet citizens in the territories captured by the Germans are, with growing frequency and organization, offering courageous resistance to the slave owners. The growth of the partisan movement in connection with the resistance the Soviet citizens are offering to forcible transportation into German slavery is admitted with alarm in a number of secret reports from German army and police administrations. This note quotes further a number of testimonies of Soviet people who had escaped German slavery. I will only quote one of these testimonies of Kolkhoz member Varvara Bakhtina of the village of Nikolayevka, Kursk region, who stated: "In Kursk we were pushed into cattle wagons, 50 to 60 persons in each wagon. Nobody was permitted to leave. Every now and then the German sentry hustled and punched us. In Lgov we had to get out and be examined by a special commission there. In the presence of the soldiers we were compelled to undress quite naked and have our bodies examined. The nearer we got to Germany, the fewer were the people left in the train. From Kursk they took 3,000 persons but at nearly every station the sick and those dying from hunger were thrown out. In Germany we were put into a camp with Soviet prisoners of war. This was in a forest section surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence. Four days later we were taken to different places. I, my sister Valentina, and 13 other girls were sent to an armament factory." The third section of this report describes further the treatment under which the Soviet workers lived in German slavery. This part of the report also mentions the statement made by Goering concerning Russian workers. Goering states in the above-mentioned directives: "The Russian is not fastidious and, therefore, it is easy to feed him without affecting our food stocks to any appreciable degree.
GEN. ZORYA: He must not be spoiled or allowed to get accustomed to German food." Finally the note quotes a number of letters from home to the German soldiers on the Eastern Front, which describe the humiliation to which the Soviet workers were subjected. I will quote a passage from one of such letters. A letter from his mother in Chemnitz was found on the body of Wilhelm Bock, killed German private, of the 221st German Infantry Division. This letter reads: "Many Russian women and girls are working at the Astra Works. They are compelled to work 14 and more hours a day. Of course, they receive no pay whatever. They go to and from the factory under escort. The Russians literally drop from exhaustion. The guards often whip them. They have no right to complain about the bad food or ill-treatment. The other day my neighbor obtained a servant. She paid some money at an office and was given the opportunity to choose any woman she pleased from a number here from Russia." Letters also mention mass suicides of Russian women and men. The note ends with a declaration of the Soviet Government, which states that it places responsibility for atrocities in this domain on the leading Hitlerite clique and the High Command of the German fascist Army: "The Soviet Government also places full responsibility for the above enumerated crimes upon the Hitlerite officials who are engaged in recruiting, abducting, transporting in camps, selling into slavery, and inhumanly exploiting peaceful Soviet civilians who have been forcibly transported from their native land to Germany.... The Soviet Government holds that stern responsibility should be borne by such already exposed criminals as... Fritz Sauckel and...
GEN. ZORYA: Alfred Rosenberg." And finally the note points out: "The Soviet Government expresses the conviction that all the Governments concerned are unanimous on the point that the Hitler Government and its agents must bear full responsibility and receive stern punishment for the monstrous crimes they have committed, for the privation and suffering they have inflicted upon millions of peaceful citizens who have been forcibly deported into German fascist slavery." This is the end of People's Commissar Molotov's note. Kindly allow me to close my statement also with these words.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now adjourn. [The Tribunal adjourned until 23 February 1946 at 1000 hours.]
THE PRESIDENT: Before we deal with the applications, I am going to read the Tribunal's order upon Dr. Stahmer's memorandum of 4 February 1946 and the Prosecution's motion of the 11th of February 1946. This is the order: The Tribunal makes no order with regard to Paragraphs 2 to 5 of the Prosecution's motion as to the evidence of the defendants, dated the 11th of February 1946. With regard to Paragraphs 2 and 7 of Dr. Stahmer's memorandum on defense procedure, dated the 4th of February 1946, the Tribunal makes the following order: 1. The defendants' cases will be heard in the order in which the defendants' names appear in the Indictment. 2. (a) During the presentation of a defendant's case, defendant's counsel will read documents, will question witnesses, and will make such brief comments on the evidence as are necessary to insure a proper understanding of it. (b) The defendant's counsel may be assisted in the courtroom by his associate counsel or by another defendant's counsel. Such other counsel may help the defendant's counsel in handling documents, et cetera , but shall not address the Tribunal or examine witnesses. 3. Documentary evidence. (a) Defendant's counsel will hand to the General Secretary the original of any document which he offers in evidence if the original is in his possession. If the original is in the possession of the Prosecution, counsel will request the Prosecution to make the original of the document available for introduction in evidence. If the Prosecution declines to make the original available, the matter shall be referred to the Tribunal. (b) Should the original of any such document be in the possession of the Tribunal, defendant's counsel will hand to the General Secretary a copy of the whole or relevant part of such document, together with a statement of the document number and the date upon which it was received in evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: (c) Should counsel wish to offer in evidence a document, the original of which is not in his possession or otherwise available to the Tribunal, he will hand to the General Secretary a copy of the whole or relevant part of such document, together with an explanation as to where and in whose possession the originally located and the reason why it cannot be produced. Such copy shall be certified as being correct by an appropriate certificate. 4. Each defendant's counsel will compile copies of the documents or parts of documents which he intends to offer in evidence into a document book, and six copies of such document book will be submitted to the General Secretary 2 weeks, if possible, before the date on which the presentation of the defendant's case is likely to begin. The General Secretary will arrange for the translation of the document book into the English, French, and Russian languages, and the defendant's counsel will be entitled to receive one copy of each of these translations. 5. (a) Defendant's counsel will request the General Secretary to have the witnesses named by him and approved by the Tribunal available in Nuremberg; such request being made, if possible, at least 3 weeks before the date on which the presentation of a defendant's case is likely to begin. The General Secretary will, as far as possible, have the witnesses brought to Nuremberg 1 week before this date. (b) Defendant's counsel will notify the General Secretary not later than noon on the day before he wishes to call each witness. 6. (a) A defendant who does not wish to testify cannot be compelled to do so, but may be interrogated by the Tribunal at any time under Articles 17(b) and 24(f) of the Charter. (b) A defendant can only testify once. (c) A defendant who wishes to testify on his own behalf shall do so during the presentation of his own defense. The right of Defense Counsel and of the Prosecution under Article 24(g) of the Charter to interrogate and cross-examine a defendant who gives testimony shall be exercised at that time.