dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, have I your permission to proceed? I now quote the sixth commandment of the twelve which have just been submitted to the Tribunal. This sixth commandment, which is on Page 17 of the document book of the Tribunal, reads as follows: "6. The areas just opened up must be permanently acquired for Germany and Europe. Everything will depend upon your behavior. You must realize that you are the representatives of Greater Germany and the standard-bearers of the National Socialist Revolution and of the New Europe for centuries to come. You must, therefore, carry out with dignity even the hardest and most ruthless measures required by the necessities of the state. Weakness on the part of an individual win, on principle, be considered as just cause for his recall. Anyone who has been recalled for this reason will no longer be eligible for a responsible position in the Reich either." For what "hardest and most ruthless" measures the criminal Hitlerite Government was preparing those whom it named "the standard-bearers of the National Socialist Revolution," and what crimes were committed by them, we shall show later on. In this manner the theoretical, abstract discussions were followed up by official orders quite definite and allowing of no ambiguity. Execution squads were trained in special educational institutions. The network of these institutions extended almost to the lowest ranks. I shall submit to the Tribunal the indictment drawn up for the Prosecutor of the U.S.S.R. by the examining magistrate of most important affairs on the subject of German fascist atrocities in the city and region of Kharkov. This document has already been fully confirmed by the verdict of the military tribunal which has also been submitted to the TribunaL The Tribunal will find this verdict on Page 20 of your document book. The indictment and sentence are submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-32 (Document Number USSR-32). There is on the first page of the indictment an extract from the testimony of the Defendant Retzlav.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: It is on Page 24 of the document book of the Tribunal, last paragraph. I quote an excerpt from the testimony: "The accused senior corporal of the German Army, Reinhard Retzlav, who received his training in the special battalion 'Altenburg,' testified in the course of his interrogatory: "The course of training even included several lectures by leading officials of the GAP"-Secret Field Police-"who definitely declared that the peoples of the Soviet Union, especially those of Russian nationality, were subhuman and 14 Feb. 46 . should be destroyed in an overwhelming majority, although an appreciable number was to be employed by the German landowners as slaves. These directives were the result of the policy of the German Government toward the peoples of the occupied territories; and, it must be confessed, were put into practice by every member of the Armed Forces, myself included." Such. were the courses dedicated to the training and education of junior police officials. But the fascist training school for murderers acknowledged other forms of education as well, forms specially dedicated to the technique of destroying all traces of the crimes committed. The Tribunal has already received the document registered as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c) (8) (Document Number USSR-6(c) (8). This document is one of the appendices to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on German atrocities perpetrated on the territory of the region of Lvov. The document is the testimony of the witness, Manusevitch, interrogated by the senior assistant to the prosecutor of the Lvov region, by the special request of the Extraordinary State Commission. The minutes of the interrogatory are recorded in conformity with the legal code of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Tribunal will find these minutes on Page 48 of the document book. Manusevitch was imprisoned by the Germans in Yanov Camp, where he worked in the prisoners' squad for burning corpses of murdered Soviet citizens.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: After the 40,000 corpses murdered in Yanov Camp were burned, the squad was transferred for similar purposes to the camp in Lissenitzky Wood. I now quote from the record of the interrogation, which the Tribunal will find on Page 52 of the document book, Paragraph 2 from the top, Line 26. I begin: "In the death factory of this camp special 10-day courses on corpse burning were organized, on which 12 men were employed. Pupils attending these courses came from the camps of Lublin, Warsaw, and others whose names escape me.. I do not know the surnames of the pupils, but they were officers from colonels to sergeant majors, not soldiers from the rank and file. The instructor at these courses was the officer in command of crematories, Colonel Schallok. On the site where the bodies were exhumed and burned he explained the practical manner of their burning and how to set up the machinery for bone crushing." Later on, photographs of this machine will be submitted to the Tribunal together with a description, or rather, I should say, technical directions. "Schallock further explained the manner in which the pit was levelled over, the earth sifted, and trees planted over it, and how the ashes of the human corpses were scattered and concealed. Courses of this nature continued for a considerable period. During my sojourn, that is, during the 5 1/2 months that I worked in the camps of Yanov and Lissenitzky, 10 groups of military students graduated successfully." For the education of adolescents, the German fascists created a special organization, the so-called Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend). The Defendant Baldur von Schirach was for quite a long time the head of this organization. What kind of methods were used for the education of German youth by the fascist criminals is described by a French subject, Ida Vasso, the directress of a hostel for aged Frenchmen in Lvov. During the German occupation of Lvov, she had an opportunity of visiting the Lvov ghetto.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: In her statement to the Extraordinary State Commission, Vasso described the local system for the extermination of human beings. From Vasso's statement it is obvious that the Germans educated the Hitler Youth by training these young fascists to shoot at living targets-at children specially handed over to the Hitler Youth to serve as targets. Vasso's statement was checked by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union and fully confirmed. In confirmation of this evidence I win submit to the Court Exhibit Number USSR-6 (Document Number USSR-6), which is a report by the Extraordinary State Commission, entitled, "German Atrocities Perpetrated in the Territory of the Lvov Region." I now quote from Vasso's statement in this connection. It is included in the text of the report as a certified document, on Page 6-c of the document book. The Tribunal win find Vasso's statement on the reverse side of Page 59, Paragraph 5, beginning from Line 14 from the beginning of the paragraph: ". . . the little children were martyrs. They were handed over to the Hitler Youth who used them as living targets while learning how to shoot. No mercy for others, all for themselves- this was the motto of the Germans. The whole world must learn of their methods. We, who were the helpless witnesses of these revolting scenes, must speak of those horrors in order that everybody should know of them and, what is more important, should never forget them since no vengeance will ever bring the minions of dead back to life again." Your Honors can turn to the same Page 59 of the document book, Line 10 from the beginning of the second paragraph. Here the Tribunal will find the official confirmation of Vasso's statement. The Extraordinary State Commission established that, in Lvov, the Germans: "Spared neither men, women, or children.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The adults were simply killed on the spot; the children were given to the Hitler Youth for target practice." In this manner were created, educated, and trained the amoral monstrosities who were called upon to materialize the program of the major war criminals for the actual destruction of the population in the Eastern European countries. The fascist government had no need to fear that the "Standard Bearers of the National Socialist Revolution" in the East would show any traces of humanity at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, I hope you will forgive my interrupting you; but as I had to point out to Colonel Pokrovsky just now, we really don't want any comment upon each one of these documents. The passage you have just read to us now is nothing but comment upon the frightful document which you have just read. It all takes time. If you could find your way to cut out the comment after these documents and simply to present us with the documents, it will save time.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I will now quote an excerpt from the testimony of the witness Manusevitch, previously submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c) (8), the passage where he speaks of the activities of the Yanov Camp administration. He was a witness of these activities when working in a special squad of prisoners employed for burning the corpses of people murdered in this camp- Page 3 of the minutes of the interrogatory. The Tribunal will find this document on Page 50 of the document book, Line 25 from the top. I quote this passage as an illustration of the execution squads created by the Hitlerites and of some of the atrocities perpetrated by them: "Apart from the shootings in Yanov Camp various forms of torture were practiced, namely, in winter a barrel would be filled with water and a man, with hands and feet tied, would be thrown into the barrel, where he froze to death. Yanov Camp was surrounded by a barbed wire entanglement consisting of two rows of barbed wire, 120 centimeters apart. A man would be thrown in and left there for several days on end. He could not extricate himself from the wire and he eventually perished from hunger and thirst. But prior to being thrown into the barbed wire, he would nearly have been beaten to death. A man would be strung up by the neck, hands, and feet. Dogs would be set on him and the dogs would tear him to pieces. Human beings were used as targets for shooting practice. This was mostly done by the following members of the Gestapo: Heine, Muller, Blum, Camp Commandant Willhaus, and others whose names escape me. People would be beaten till they nearly died, dogs would then be set on them who tore the victims to pieces. A man was given a glass to hold and was then stood up to serve as a target in shooting practice; if the glass was hit, the man was spared, but if he was shot in the hand he was immediately killed after being told that he was no longer fit for work. Men would be taken by the legs and torn in two. Infants from 1 month to 3 years old were thrown into buckets of water and left to drown.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: A man would be tied to a post facing the sun and kept there till he died of sunstroke. In addition, before men were sent to work, they were subjected to a so-called examination for physical fitness. The men were made to run a "There was also the following case: a Gestapo man, Heine, made a young lad stand up and cut pieces of flesh from his body. Another man was wounded 28 times in the shoulders with a knife. The wounds healed and he worked in a death brigade. He was subsequently shot. Near the kitchen, during the distribution of coffee, the executioner Heine, whenever he was on duty, would go up to the first man in the line and ask, 'Why are you standing in front of the others?' and shoot him dead. In this way he shot quite a lot of people. He would then go to the end of the queue and ask, 'Why are you the last in the line?' and shoot him as well. I personally witnessed these atrocities during my imprisonment in Yanov Camp ...." The testimony of the witness Manusevitch, which I have read into the record, was fully confirmed by the official report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union entitled, "German Atrocities Perpetrated in the Lvov Region." Further on Manusevitch speaks mainly about the activities of officials in the lower and middle rank of the camp administration. It is evident from the official report of the Extraordinary State Commission that a system of the vilest ill-treatment practiced upon the helpless people was initiated and organized by the upper ranks of the camp 449 14 Feb. 46 administration, who invariably set their subordinates personal examples of inhuman behavior. I will not make any comment on this document, although I do beg the Tribunal to take note of a certain Obersturmfuehrer Willhaus mentioned in this document. The Tribunal will find the excerpt which I shall now read into the Record on Page 58 of the document book-on the reverse side of the page, Column 1 of the text.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I quote: , "SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Gebauer established a savage, system of murder in Yanov Camp, which, after his transfer to another post, was perfected by the camp commandant, SS Obersturmfuehrer Gustav Willhaus and SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Franz Wartzok. "A former inmate of the camp told the commission: "'I have seen with my own eyes how SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Fritz Gebauer strangled women and children and froze men to death in barrels filled with water. The hands and feet of the victims were shackled before they were lowered into the water. Those doomed to die remained in the barrels until they froze to death.' "According to the testimonies of numerous Soviet prisoners of war and also of French citizens held in German camps, it was established that the German thugs invented the most vicious methods for exterminating human beings, a fact which they considered as particularly praiseworthy and in which they were encouraged both by the higher military command and by the government. "SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Franz Wartzok, for instance, loved to hang internees by both feet on posts and leave them in this position until they died; Obersturmfuehrer Rokita personally slashed open the bellies of the prisoners. The chairman of the investigation section of the Yanov Camp, Heine, pierced the bodies of internees with sticks or a piece of iron; he would tear out the finger nails of women with pliers, Ben he would strip his victims, hang them up by their hair, swing them out and shoot at the 'moving targets.' "The commandant of the Yanov Camp, Obersturmfuehrer Willhaus, systematically shot with an automatic rifle from the balcony of his office room the prisoners employed in the workshops, partly for sheer love of sport and partly to amuse his wife and daughters. Me would then hand his rifle to his wife and she too had a shot at the prisoners. Sometimes, to please his 9-year-old daughter, he had children between the 450 14 Feb.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: 46 ages of 2 and 4 years tossed in the air and then took pot shots at them, while his daughter applauded and shrieked, 'Papa, do it again; do it again, Papa!' And he did it again. "The internees of this camp were exterminated for no reason at all, often as a result of a bet. A woman witness, Kirschner, informed the Investigating Commission that a Gestapo Commissar, Wepke, bet the other camp executioners that he could cut a boy in half with one stroke of the axe. They did not believe him. So he caught a 10-year-old boy on the road, made him kneel down, told him to hide his face in the folded palms of his hands, made one test stroke, placed the child's head in a more convenient position and with one single stroke cut the boy in half. The Hitlerites heartily congratulated Wepke, shaking him warmly by the hand. "In 1943, for Hitler's birthday-his 54th-the commandant of the Yanov Camp, Obersturmfuehrer Willhaus, picked out, 54 prisoners of war and shot them himself. "A special hospital for prisoners was organized in the camp. The German hangmen Brambauer and Birman checked up the patients on the 1st and 15th day of each month; and, if they discovered that among the patients there were some who had been in the hospital for over 14 days, they shot them on the spot. Six or seven people were killed during each investigation. "The Germans executed their tortures, ill-treatments, and shooting to the accompaniment of music. For this purpose they created a special orchestra selected from among the prisoners. They forced Professor Stricks and the famous conductor Mund to conduct this orchestra. They requested the composers to write a special tune, to be called the 'Tango of Death.' Shortly before dissolving the cams the Germans shot every member of the orchestra." Later on I will present to the Tribunal, as a photo-document, photographs of this "orchestra of death." What took place in Yanov Camp was in no way exceptional.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: In exactly the same manner the German fascist administration behaved in all concentration camps in the occupied area of the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, and other Eastern European countries. I submit to the International Military Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-29 (Document Number USSR-29). It is a communiqué of the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary State Commission for the investigation of the crimes perpetrated by the Germans in the extermination camp of Maidanek in the city of Lublin. The Tribunal will find this communiqué on Page 63 of the document book. I quote 451 14 Feb. 46 Section 3 of this document, "Tortures and Murder in the Extermination Camp"-Page 64 reverse side of the document book, beginning with the last paragraph of the first column of the text: "The forms of torture were extremely varied. Some of them were in the nature of so-called jokes which frequently ended in death. They included mock-shooting when the victim was rendered insensible by a blow over the head with a blunt instrument, and mock drownings in the pond of the camp which often ended in actual drowning. "Among the German executioners were specialists in particular methods of torture. Prisoners were killed by a blow with a stick on the back of the head, by a kick in the stomach, in the groin, et cetera. "The SS torturers drowned their victims in the dirty water Solving from the bathhouse through a narrow ditch. The head of the victim was plunged into the dirty water and kept under by the boot of an SS man until he died. A favorite method of the Hitler SS was to hang prisoners with their hands bound behind their back. The Frenchman, De Courantin, who suffered the torture in question, stated that a man hanged in this manner lost consciousness very rapidly, whereupon the hanging would be interrupted. He was hanged again as soon as consciousness was recovered and the process was repeated several times. "For the smallest offense, particularly for any suspicion of escape, the camp internees were hanged by the German fiends.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: In the middle of each field stood a post with a cross beam 2 meters above ground, from which the victims were hanged. 'I saw from my barracks,' said witness Demashev, former camp internee and Soviet prisoner of war, 'how people were hanged from the beam in the middle of the field.' "Close to the laundry, in the entresol between the first and second floor, was a special shed with beams from the ceilings where prisoners were hanged in whole groups." The women interned in the camp were subjected to the same ill-treatment and torture; they suffered the same forms of control, of work beyond their strength, of beating, and ill-treatment. The greatest cruelty was exercised by the female personnel of the SS. The worst were the chief woman supervisor Erich, and the supervisors Braunstein, Anni David, Weber, Knoblick, Ellert, and Radli. The Commission has established many facts of unparalleled brutality perpetrated by the German executioners in the camp. The German, Heinz Stalbe, chief of the camp police, at a plenary meeting stated that he had seen with his own eyes how 452 14 Feb. 46 the director of the crematory, Oberscharfuehrer Mussfeld, tied the arms and legs of a Polish woman and threw her into the furnace alive. The witnesses Yelinski and Olech-workers in the camp-also stated that internees had been burned alive in the crematory ovens: "An infant was snatched from its mother's breast and dashed before her eyes against the wall of the barrack"-stated witness Atrochov-"I saw for myself how infants were taken from their mothers and murdered before their eyes: One small leg would be seized by a hand, the executioner would stand on the other and the infant would be torn in half"- stated witness Edward Baran. "The deputy camp commandant, SS-Obersturmfuehrer Tumann was particularly noted for his sadistic tendencies. He forced groups of internees to kneel in a row and then killed them by blows on the head with a stick. He set Alsatian dogs on the internees. He participated actively and energetically in all executions and killings of the prisoners.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: "Thus hunger, work beyond their strength, torture, torment, ill-treatment, and murder accompanied by unheard-of sadism were employed for the mass extermination of the captives in the camp." To prove that these sophisticated and sadistic crimes were not exclusively characteristic of the SS or the special police units, but that the major war criminals had deliberately plunged whole strata of the personnel of the German Armed Forces into the very depths of moral degradation, I turn to the contents of a note by the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., V. M. Molotov, dated 6 January 1942, which was submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-51. Your Honors will find the passage I am about to quote on the reverse side of the document book, Paragraph 4, Column 1 of the text. I begin the quotation: "There are no bounds to the wrath and indignation aroused among the Soviet population and in the Red Army by the innumerable and despicable acts of violence, the foul outrages perpetrated against the honor of the women and the mass murders of Soviet citizens, both men and women, carried out by the German fascist officers and men. Wherever the rule of the German bayonet begins to hold sway, an unbearable regime of bloody terror, agonizing torture, and savage murder is introduced. The robberies committed everywhere by the German officers and men are invariably accompanied by the beating and murder of immense numbers of entirely innocent people. For failure to deliver up food supplies to the very last crumb, and all clothing, down to the very last shirt, the occupants torture and hang old and young, women and 453 14 Feb. 96 children. At forced labor they beat up and shoot for all defective execution of the established quota of work. "On 30 June Hitler's thugs entered the city of Lvov, and on the very next day they started a massacre under the slogan, 'Kill the Jews and the Poles.' After hundreds had been put to death the Hitler gangsters arranged an 'exhibition' of the murdered citizens by building an arcade.