dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: And knowing of it, he carried on playing his part in the conspiracy. As to Kaltenbrunner's guilt, the meeting at which Walde was informed of the decision was with Muller and Nebe, Kaltenbrunner's subordinates. Schellenberg's evidence of the discussion between Nebe, Muller, and Kaltenbrunner about this time on the subject of an International Red Cross inquiry about 50 English or American prisoners of war is conclusive. He heard Kaltenbrunner providing his subordinates with the answer to be given to this inconvenient inquiry and one cannot doubt his full knowledge of this matter. The reply sent to the Protecting Power and the International Red Cross by Ribbentrop is now admitted on all hands to have been a pack of lies. Is it to be believed that he also was not a party to the decision? That any of these men would have been prepared to take such a decision themselves or to comply with it if taken by Hitler is, we submit, clear from the correspondence providing for the lynching or shooting of what were called terror-fliers. These documents show that neither Keitel nor Jodl had any scruples in the matter while both Goering and Ribbentrop agreed to the draft order (Documents Number D-777, D-783, D-784). You will remember the meetings which preceded that correspondence-first a meeting between Goering, Ribbentrop, and Himmler at which it was agreed to modify "the original suggestion made by the Reich Foreign Minister who wished to include every type of terror attack on the German civilian population as justifying action" (Document Number 735-PS), and which concluded that "lynch law would have to be the rule." At the subsequent meeting between Warlimont and Kaltenbrunner it was agreed that "those aviators who escaped lynch law would in accordance with a procedure to be devised . . . be handed over to the SD for special treatment." Finally Keitel's note on the file: "I am against legal procedure.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: It does not work out." Similar evidence is provided when we consider the attitude taken up in February 1945, when Hider wished to renounce the Geneva Convention. Doenitz advised that: "It would be better to carry out measures considered necessary without warning and at all costs to save face with the outside world" (Document Number C-158), a decision with which Jodl and Ribbentrop's representative agreed. Their defense that this was merely a technical measure and that they did not in fact intend any concrete action is disposed of by Jodl's memorandum on the whole question (Document Number D-606): "Just as it was wrong in 1914 that we ourselves solemnly declared war on all the states which for a long time had wanted to wage war against us and through this took the whole guilt of the war on our shoulders before the outside world, and just as it was wrong to admit that the necessary passage through Belgium in 1914 was our own fault, so it would be wrong now to repudiate openly the obligations of international law which we accepted and thereby to stand again as the guilty party before the whole world." After this remarkable statement he added that there was nothing to prevent them in fact from sinking an English hospital ship as a reprisal and then expressing regret that it was a mistake...
THE PRESIDENT: Would it be convenient to you to sit at 9:45 in the morning? The Tribunal anticipates in these circumstances we might be able to finish at 1 o'clock or shortly afterward. In any event, we would sit on in order to finish.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: I think I would be very much obliged if the Court would do that. [The Tribunal adjourned until 27 July 1946 at 0945 hours.]
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: May it please the Tribunal: Yesterday when we recessed I had been dealing with the War Crimes in stricto sensu and in particular with the murder of the RAF officers from Stalag Luft III. I want now very shortly to consider the question of the employment of prisoners of war. Under Article 31 of the Geneva Convention it might have been permissible to employ prisoners on certain work in connection with the raw materials of the armament industry. But the statement made by Milch at the Central Planning Board on the 16th of February 1943 in the presence of Speer and Sauckel had no legal justification at all. He said, if you will remember, and I quote: "We have made the request that a certain percentage of men in our ack-ack artillery must tee Russians. 50,000 will be taken altogether, 30,000 are already employed as gunners. This is an amusing thing that Russians must work the guns" (Document Number R-124). That was quite obviously flagrantly illegal. Nobody could have had the faintest doubt about it. The minutes record no protest whatever. It has not been suggested that Goering or any of the others who must have read the minutes and known what was going on, regarded this outrage by the effective head of the German Air Force as being in any way unusual. Himmler's cynical words spoken at Posen on the 4th of October 1943 on the subject of the Russian prisoners captured in the early days of the campaign ought again to be put on record for history. I quote: "At that time we did not value the mass of humanity as we value it today as raw material, as labor. What, after an, thinking in terms of generations, is not to be regretted but is now deplorable by reason of the loss of labor, is that the prisoners died in tens and hundreds of thousands of exhaustion and hunger" (Document Number 1919-PS). I turn now to the murder of the Commandos. The evidence with regard to the Commando Order of the 18th of October 1942 (Document Number 498-PS) directly involves Keitel, Jodl, Doenitz, Raeder, Goering, and Kaltenbrunner.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: By Article 30 of the Hague Rules, and I quote: "A spy taken in the act shall not be punished without previous trial." And even the regulations printed in the book of every German soldier provide, and I quote: "No enemy can be killed who gives up, not even a partisan or a spy. These will be brought to punishment by the courts." These men were not spies; they were soldiers in uniform. It is not suggesting that any man dealt with under the order was ever given a trial before he was shot. Legally there can be no answer to the guilt of any of those defendants who passed on or who applied this wicked order, an order which Jodl admitted to be murder and in respect of which Keitel, confessing his shame, admitted its illegality. Raeder admitted that it was an improper order. Even Doenitz stated that now he knew the true facts he no longer regarded it as correct. The only defenses put forward have been that the individual in question did not personally carry it out, that they regarded the statement in the first paragraph of the order as justifying the action by way of reprisal, that they did their best to minimize its effect and that it was not up to the individual to question the directives of a superior. But no one has seriously disputed that handing over to the SD-in the context here-meant shooting without a trial. The answer to these defenses, insofar as the defenses are not purely dishonest, is that the security precautions provided in the order itself were the plainest indication that the facts stated in the first paragraph did not constitute any justification which would bear the light of day. No higher degree of precaution accompanied the "Kugel Order," "Nacht und Nebel Order," or any other of their brutal orders. That the shackling incident at Dieppe had nothing to do with it appears from Jodl's staff?
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: memorandum of the 14th of October 1942 (Document Number 1266-PS) which states in terms that the Fuehrer's aim was to prevent the Commando method of waging war- by dropping small detachments who did great damage by demolitions, et cetera, and then surrendered. The cancellation of the order in 1945 (Document Number D-649) is further evidence that those responsible for it recognized their guilt, guilt which was perhaps best summarized by the entry in the War Diary of the Naval War Staff with regard to the shooting of the Commandos taken in uniform at Bordeaux: "Something new in international law" (Document Number D-658). Yet Raeder and his Chief of Staff! were prepared to initial that entry. Kaltenbrunner's knowledge is clearly shown by his letter to the Armed Forces planning staff? of the 23d of January 1945 (Document Number 535-PS) referring to it in detail and disputing its application to particular categories. Other men have already been sentenced to death for execution of this order, men whose only defense was that they obeyed an order from their superiors. I refer to the members of the SD who were executed for the murder of the crew of Motor Torpedo Boat 345 in Norway, and General Dostler in Italy. Innumerable instances from their own records have been proved against these defendants. Shall they escape? You will remember the attitude of the Nazi People's Court in 1944 to the plea of superior orders (Document Number 3881-PS). The Commando Order cannot compare in wickedness or brutality with the Nacht und Nebel Order (Night and Fog Decree) of the 7th of December 1941. The Hitler directive signed by Keitel, after prescribing the death penalty for offenses endangering the security or state of readiness of the occupying powers, orders the removal to Germany of offenders, other than those whose execution could be completed in a very short time, under circumstances which would deny any information with regard to their fate.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: And Keitel's covering letter of the 12th of December gives the reason: "Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminals and the population do not know the fate of the criminal. This aim is achieved when the criminal is transferred to Germany" (Document Number L-90). It is interesting to contrast that statement written when Keitel thought that Germany was winning the war with his evidence before the Tribunal. He said, you will remember: "Penal servitude would be considered dishonorable by these patriots. By going to Germany they would suffer no dishonor." This decree was still being enforced in February 1944 when the commanders of some 18 concentration camps were being reminded of its purpose and how to dispose of the bodies of the "Night and Fog" prisoners without revealing the place of death (Document Number D-569). The treatment of these prisoners was described by the Norwegian witness, Cappelen, and members of the Tribunal will not have forgotten his account of the transport of between 2,500 and 2,800 "Nacht und Nebel" prisoners from one concentration camp to another in 1945 when 1,447 died on the way. We who talk about the dignity of man, let us remember this, and I quote it again (Cappelen speaking): "...We could not walk fast enough and, seizing their rifles, they smashed in the heads of five . . . they said in German: 'That is what happens to those who cannot walk properly' . . .After walking for 6 to 8 hours we came to a station, a railway station. It was very cold and we had only striped prison clothes on, and bad boots; but we said, 'Oh, we are glad that we have come to a railway station. It is better to stand in a cow truck than to walk in the middle of winter.' It was very cold, 10 to 12 degrees below zero (Centigrade). It was a long train with open cars. In Norway we call them sand cars and we were kicked on to those cars about 80 on each car.... In this car we sat for about five days without food-cold-and without water.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: When it was snowing we made like this [indicating] just to get some water into the mouth and, after a long, long time-it seemed to me years- we came to a place which I afterward learned was Dora. That is in the neighborhood of Buchenwald. "Well, we arrived there. They kicked us down from the cars, but many were dead. The man who sat next to me was dead, but I had no right to get away. I had to sit with a dead man for the last day. I did not see the figures myself, naturally, but about a third or half of us were dead, getting stiff. And they told us that...-I heard the figure afterward in Dora- that the dead on our train numbered 1,447. "Well, from Dora I do not remember so much because I was more or less dead. I have always been a man of good humor and high spirited, to help myself first and my friends; but I had nearly given up.... I was fortunate because Bernadotte's action came and we were rescued and brought to Neuengamme, near Hamburg; and when we arrived, there were some of my old friends, the student from Norway who had been deported to Germany, other prisoners who came from Sachsenhausen and other camps, and the few, comparatively few, Norwegian 'ON' prisoners who were living, all in very bad conditions. Many of my friends are still in the hospital in Norway. Some died after coming home." In July 1944 a yet more drastic order followed the Night and Fog. On the 30th of that month Hitler issued the "Terror and Sabotage Decree" (Document Number D-762) providing that all acts of violence by non-German civilians in occupied territories should be combated as acts of terrorism and sabotage. These not overcome on the spot were to be handed over to the SD (Document Number D-763), women put to work, only children spared. Within a month Keitel extended the order to cover persons endangering security or war preparedness by any means other than acts of terrorism or sabotage (Document Number D-764), the usual secrecy requirements were laid down, restricting distribution in writing to a minimum.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: He then ordered that the Terror and Sabotage Decree was to form the subject of regular emphatic instruction to all personnel of the Armed Forces, SS and Police. It was to be extended to crimes affecting German interests, but not imperiling the security or war preparedness of the occupying power. New regulations could be made by the agreement of particular commanders and higher SS chiefs. In other words any offense by any person in the occupied territories could be dealt with under this decree. On the 9th of September 1944, a meeting was solemnly held between representatives of the High Command and the SS to discuss the relationship of the Night and Fog Order to the Terror and Sabotage Decree (Document Number D-767). It was considered that the Night and Fog Order had become superfluous and the meeting went on to consider the transfer of the 24,000 non-German civilians held under it by the SS to the SD. The meeting discussed the problem of certain neutrals who had been "turned into fog" by mistake. The German word "vernebelt" justifies the statement of the witness Blaha that the special and technical expressions used in concentration camps can only be said in German and cannot really be translated into any other language. It is perhaps superfluous to remind the Tribunal that when the Luftwaffe general in Holland asked for authority to shoot striking railwaymen (Document Number D-769), since the procedure of handing over to the SD under the decree was too roundabout, Keitel, in a reply, copies of which were sent both to the Admiralty and to the Air Ministry as well as to the principal commanders in occupied territories, agreed at once that if there was any difficulty in handing over to the SD, I quote: ". ..other effective measures are to be taken ruthlessly and independently..." (Document Number D-770). In other words, General Christiansen could shoot the railwaymen if he thought fit.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: Let us not forget when we consider the problems of Europe in these days, that it is not easy for anyone who has not had to live in territory occupied by the Germans to realize the suffering and the state of terror and constant apprehension in which the peoples of Europe lived through those long years of subjection. It was Frank, who, writing on the 16th of December 1941, said: "As a matter of principle we shall have pity only for the German people and for no one else in the world" (Document Number USSR-223). Save that they had no pity even for their own people, how faithfully these men carried out that principle. I turn now to the attack on the partisans. If any doubt remained that the German Armed Forces were directed not by honorable soldiers but by callous murderers, it must be dissolved by the evidence as to the appalling ruthlessness with which it was sought to put down the partisans. The witness Ohlendorf said that the direction of antipartisan warfare was the subject of a written agreement between the German War Office, the High Command, and the SS as a result of that agreement an Einsatz group was attached to each Army Group Headquarters and directed the work of the Einsatzkommandos allotted to the group in co-ordination and agreement with the military authorities. If confirmation of the Army's support, knowledge and approval were needed, one has only got to look at the report of the Einsatz Group A on its activities during the first 3 months of the campaign against the Soviet Union. I quote: "Our task was to establish hurriedly personal contact with the commanding generals of the armies and with the commanding general of the army of the rear area. It must be stressed from the beginning that co-operation with the Armed Forces was generally good, in some cases... it was very close, almost cordial" (Document Number ~180).
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: And again, speaking of the difficulty of dealing with the partisans in a particular area: "After the failure of purely military activities such as the placing of sentries and combing through the newly occupied territories with whole divisions, even the Armed Forces had to look out for new methods. The Einsatzgruppe made it its foremost task to search for new methods. Soon therefore, the Armed Forces adopted the experiences of the Security Police and their methods of combating the partisans." One of these methods is described in the same report in these words: "After a village had been surrounded, all the inhabitants were forcibly shepherded into the main square. The persons suspected on account of confidential information and the other villagers were interrogated and thus it was possible in most cases to find the people who helped the partisans. Those were either shot offhand, or, if further interrogations promised useful information, taken to headquarters. After the interrogation they were shot. "In order to get a deterring effect the houses of those who had helped the partisans were burnt down on several occasions." And then, after stating that villagers were always threatened with the burning of the whole village, the report adds: "The tactics to put terror against terror succeeded marvelously" (Document Number D-735). The Einsatzkommandos were, as Ohlendorf stated, under Kaltenbrunner's command, but the orders under which they were acting cannot have exceeded in severity those which were issued by Keitel. The Fuehrer order issued by him on 16 December 1942 on the combating of partisans states-I quote: "If the fight against the partisans in the East as well as in the Balkans is not waged with the most brutal means, we will shortly reach the point when the available forces are insufficient to master this scourge. "It is therefore not only justifiable but it is the duty of the troops to use all means without restriction-even against women and children-so long as it insures success" (Document Number UK-66).
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: Three days later he and Ribbentrop were informing their Italian opposite numbers at breakfast that: "The Fuehrer had declared that the Serbian conspirators were to be eliminated and that no gentle methods must be used in doing this." Keitel interjected, "Every village in which partisans might be found must be burnt down" (Document Number D-735). Two months later Ribbentrop was urging the Italian Ambassador in Berlin to greater brutality in dealing with the partisans in Croatia. I quote: "The gangs would have to be exterminated, including men, women, and children, as their further existence imperiled the lives of German and Italian men, women, and children" (Document Number D-741). Goering appears to have assisted Himmler in recruiting the necessary personnel for antipartisan work and he is recorded by a cabinet councillor on the 24th of September 1942 as stating that he was looking for daring fellows for employment in the Eastern special purpose units and that he was considering convicts and poachers for the purpose. His idea was: "In the regions assigned for their operations these bands, whose first task should be to destroy the commands of the partisan groups, could murder, burn, and ravish. In Germany they would once again come under strict supervision" (Document Number 638-PS). A month later he gave the Duce a description of Germany's methods in combating the partisans in the following terms: "To begin with, the entire livestock and all foodstuff is taken away from the areas concerned so as to deny partisans all sources of food. Men and women are taken away to labor camps, children to children's camps and the villages burnt down.... "Should attacks occur, then the entire male population of villages would be lined up on one side and the women on the other side. The women would be told that all men would be shot unless they (the women) indicated which of the men did not belong to the village. In order to save their men the women always pointed out the stranger" (Document Number D-729). These methods were not confined to the East.
SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS: They were going on throughout the length and breadth of every occupied territory. Wherever the slightest resistance was offered the German answer was to attempt to stamp it out with the utmost brutality. It would not be difficult to rival the events of Lidice and Oradour-sur-Glane by a hundred other instances. One of the most brutal expedients, the taking of hostages, was the subject of an order by the German High Command on 16 September 1941. Keitel ordered-I quote: "a. It should be inferred in every case of Resistance to the German occupying forces, no matter what the individual circumstances, that it is of Communist origin. ~ "b. In order to nip these machinations in the bud the most drastic measures should be taken immediately on the first indication so that the authority of the occupying forces may be maintained and further spreading prevented. In this connection it should be remembered that a human life in the countries involved frequently counts for nothing and a deterrent effect can be attained only by unusual severity. The death penalty for 50 to 100 Communists should generally be regarded in those cases as suitable atonement for one German soldier's life. The way in which sentence is carried out should still further increase the deterrent effect" (Document Number C-148). ' We may compare the wording of the Einsatzkommando report: "In the knowledge that the Russian has been accustomed from old to ruthless measures on the part of the authorities, the most severe measures were applied" (Document Number L-180). There is no difference in outlook between Keitel and Kaltenbrunner; the German soldier was being ordered to emulate the SS.