dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
LT. LAMBERT: Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir. The attention of the Tribunal is invited to Document 656-PS, previously put in as Exhibit USA-339. The Tribunal will recall that this is a secret Bormann circular transmitting instructions of the Nazi High Command of 29 January 1943, providing for the enforcement of labor demands on' Allied prisoners of war through the use of weapons and corporal punishment. I quote a brief excerpt from these instructions, beginning with the third sentence of the third numbered paragraph of Page 2 of the English translation of Document 656-PS, which reads as follows; and I quote: "Should the prisoner of war not fulfill his order, then he has"-that is the guard unit, the guard personnel-"then he has, in the case of very exceptional need and extreme danger, the right to force obedience with weapons, if he has no other means. He may use the weapon insofar as this is necessary to attain his goal. If the assistant guard is not armed, then he is authorized in forcing obedience by other appropriate means." The Tribunal knows that, under the Geneva Prisoners-of-War Convention of 1929, when prisoners of war prove derelict and refuse to carry out proper orders of the captive power or its forces, such prisoners of war are subject to court-martial and military proceedings as if they were serving under their own forces. Here is a decree which, on its face, authorizes or attempts to authorize guard personnel to use the rifle or other suitable means of violence; and of course Your Lordship will understand it was this type of document we had in mind when we suggested that the decree of Bormann should be considered in the light of his other orders relating to the treatment of prisoners of war. THE PRESIDENT-. The Tribunal will adjourn now. [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.] Afternoon Session
LT. LAMBERT: The Tribunal will recall that at the close of the morning session I had been putting in a series of decrees of the Defendant Bormann in which he called for increasingly harsh and severe treatment of Allied prisoners of war. These instructions issued by the Defendant Bormann culminated in his decree of 30 September 1944. The attention of the Tribunal is invited to Document 058-PS, previously put in as Exhibit Number USA-456. The Tribunal will recall that this decree of the Defendant Bormann removed jurisdiction over all prisoners of war from the Nazi High Command and transferred it to Himmler. The decree also provided that all P. camp commanders should be under the orders of the local SS commanders. By virtue of this order of the Defendant Bormann, Hitler was enabled to proceed with his program of inhuman treatment and even extermination of Allied prisoners of war. We now proceed to put in what the Prosecution conceive to be extremely important and extremely incriminating evidence against Bormann and the co-conspirators, that is, the responsibility of the Defendant Bormann for the organized lynching of Allied airmen. I offer in evidence Document 062-PS, Exhibit Number USA-696; and I very respectfully request the Tribunal to turn to this document. On its face it is an order dated 13 March 1940 from the Defendant Hess addressed to Reichsleiter, Gauleiter, and other Nazi officials and organizations. In this order these Party officials are instructed by the Defendant Hess to instruct the German civil population to arrest or liquidate all bailed-out Allied fliers. I call the attention of the Tribunal to the third paragraph on the first page of the English translation of Document 062-PS.
LT. LAMBERT: In the third paragraph Hess directs that these instructions, which I shall soon read, are to be passed out only orally to all-will the Tribunal please mark that district leaders or Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppenleiter, cell leaders, and even the block leaders; that is to say, this order must be passed out by all the officials of the Leadership Corps to the Hoheitstrager ranging from Reichsleiter down to, and including, the Blockleiter. Now turn to Document 062-PS, and the Tribunal will find the instructions which Hess demanded be disseminated by the Leadership Corps orally: The lynching of Allied fliers. These directions are headed: "About behavior in case of landings of enemy planes or parachutists." The first three instructions I omit as not material to the basic point now being made. Instruction 4 reads, and I quote: "Likewise enemy parachutists are immediately to be arrested or liquidated." It speaks for itself and requires no further comment from the Prosecution. Now, in order to insure the success of this scheme ordered by the Defendant Hess, Bormann issued a secret letter, dated 30 May 1944, to the officials, if the Tribunal will please mark, of the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, prohibiting any police measures or criminal proceedings against German civilians who had lynched or murdered Allied airmen. This document, our 057-PS, has been previously put in and received by the Tribunal in connection with the Prosecution's case against the alleged criminal organization, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. Now, may it please the Tribunal, that such lynches, organized, authorized, and consented to by Defendant Bormann, actually took place has since been fully and indisputably demonstrated by trials by American military commissions which have resulted in the conviction of German civilians for the murder of Allied fliers. I request the Tribunal to take judicial notice of Military Commission Order Number 2, Headquarters 15th U. S. Army, dated 23 June 1945. This order is our Document 2559-PS.
LT. LAMBERT: This order imposed the sentence of death upon a German civilian for violation of the laws and usages of war in murdering an American airman who had bailed out and landed without any means of defense. The Tribunal will note from that order of the American Military Commission the 15th of August 1944 as date of crime; Bormann's order was dated May 1944. I request the Tribunal to notice judicially Military Commission Order Number 5, Headquarters 3rd U. S. Army and Eastern Military District, dated 18 October 1945. This order is set forth in Document 2560-PS. This order imposed a sentence of death upon a German national for violating the laws and usages of war by murdering, on or about 12 December 1944, an American airman who landed in German territory. We could cite further orders of American and other Allied military commissions sentencing German civilians to death for the lynching and murdering of Allied airmen who had bailed out and landed without means of defense on German territory. We think our point is made by taking the time of the Tribunal to cite those two orders. As previously mentioned in the trial address, on 20 October 1944, when Nazi defeat in the war had become certain, Bormann assumed political and organizational command of the newly-formed Volkssturm, the people's army. By virtue of ordering the continued resistance by the Volkssturm, Bormann bears some responsibility for the resistance which prolonged the aggressive war for months. I come now, if it please the Tribunal, to present the proofs showing that Bormann authorized, directed, and participated in a wide variety of Crimes against Humanity in aid of the conspiracy. Bormann played an important role in the administration of the forced labor program. I offer in evidence Document D-226, Exhibit Number USA-697. This is a Speer circular, a circular of the Defendant Speer of 10 November 1944, transmitting Himmler's instructions that the Party and the Gestapo should co-operate in securing a larger productivity from the millions of impressed foreign workers in Germany.
LT. LAMBERT: I quote the second numbered paragraph of Page 2 of the English translation of Document D-226, which reads as follows. I quote: "All men and women of the NSDAP, its subsidiaries and affiliated bodies in the works" - meaning of course factories"will, in accordance with instructions from their Kreisleiter, be warned by their local group leaders" - we intrude to say that means Ortsgruppenleiter--"and be put under obligation to play their part in keeping foreigners under the most careful observation. They will report the least suspicion to the works foreman, which he will pass on to the defense deputy or, where such a deputy has not been appointed, to the police department concerned, while at the same time reporting to the works manager and the local group leader" - the Ortsgruppenleiter-will exert untiringly and continuously their influence on foreigners, both in word and deed, in regard to the certainty of German victory and the German will to resist, thus producing a further increase of output in the works. "Party members, both men and women, and members of Party organizations and affiliated bodies must be expected more than ever before to conduct themselves in an exemplary manner." Now, in a word, the significance of that decree: It is true it is a circular of Speer's reciting an arrangement between himself and Himmler, but the effect of the arrangement is to impose the onus and the continuous task of supplying foreign workers on Party members, a Party which, as the Tribunal knows, Bormann headed as executive chief. Under the decree of 24 January 1942 no such directive could have been issued without the participation of Bormann, both in its preparation and its enactment. I now offer in evidence Document 025-PS as Exhibit Number USA-698. This is a conference report dated 4 September 1942 which states that the recruitment, importation, mobilization, and processing of 500,000 female domestic workers from the east would be handled exclusively by the Defendant Sauckel, Himmler, and the Defendant Bormann.
LT. LAMBERT: I quote the first two sentences of the third paragraph of the English translation of Document 025-PS, which reads as follows: I "The Fuehrer has ordered the immediate importation of 400,000 to 500,000 female domestic eastern workers from the Ukraine between the ages of 15 and 35 and has charged the Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor with the execution of this action which is to end in about 3 months. In connection with this-this is also approved by Reichsleiter Bormann-the illegal bringing of female housekeepers into the Reich by members of the Armed Forces, or various other agencies is to be allowed subsequently and, furthermore, irrespective of the official recruiting, is not to be prevented." And I now quote from the first sentence of the last paragraph on Page 4 of the English translation of Document Number 025-PS, and this is the part that hooks in the Defendant Bormann with the scheme: "Generally one gathered from this conference that the questions concerning the recruitment and mobilization, as well as the treatment of female domestic workers from the east, are being handled by the Plenipotentiary for Allocation of Labor, the Reichsfuehrer SS, and the Chief of the German Police and the Party Chancellery, and that the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories is in these questions considered as having no, or only limited, competence." The Party Chancellery is here mentioned in terms, and Bormann was the leader of the Party Chancellery, as the Tribunal knows. Now the defendant imposed his will on the administration of the German-occupied areas and insisted on the ruthless exploitation of the inhabitants of the occupied East. The attention of the Tribunal is respectfully invited to Document R-36, previously put in as Exhibit Number USA-344.
LT. LAMBERT: The Tribunal is well acquainted with this document, for it has been referred to several times in these proceedings, and knows that this is an official memorandum of the Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories, dated 19 August 1942, which states that the repressive views of the Defendant Bormann with respect to the inhabitants of the Eastern areas actually determined German occupational policies in the East. The Tribunal recalls the now almost notorious quotation from this Document R- 36, which purports to paraphrase and constitute the essence of Bormann's views with respect to German occupational policy in the East. So often has it been quoted that I shall resist the temptation to repeat it, but in essence it comes to this. Bormann in effect says: "The Slavs are to work for us. In so far as we don't need them, they may die. They should not receive the benefits of the German public health system. We do not care about their fertility. They may practice abortion and use contraceptives; the more the better. We don't want them educated; it is enough if they can count up to 100. Such stooges will be the more useful to us. Religion we leave to them as a diversion. As to food, they will not get any more than is absolutely necessary. We are the masters; we come first." We respectfully submit this as an accurate paraphrase and summary of the text of that document, Document R-36. The attention of the Tribunal is next respectfully invited to Document 654-PS, previously put in as Exhibit Number USA-218. The Tribunal will recall that this is a conference report, dated 18 November 1942, embodying an agreement between the Minister of Justice and Himmler entered into by Bormann's suggestion under which all inhabitants of the Eastern occupied areas are subjected to a brutal police regime in the place of an ordinary judicial system. And the agreement refers all disputes between the Party, Reich Minister for Justice, and Himmler to Bormann for settlement.
LT. LAMBERT: Now, because Bormann issued these and related orders, we submit that he bears a large share of the responsibility for the discriminatory treatment and the extermination of great numbers of persons in German-occupied areas of the East. With the indulgence of the Tribunal, I put the substance of what I have been privileged to present in a few words. We have shown that Bormann, only 45 years old at the time of Germany's defeat, contributed his entire adult life to the furtherance of the conspiracy. His crucial contribution to the conspiracy lay in his direction of the vast powers of the Nazi Party in advancing the multiple objectives of the conspiracy. First, as Chief of Staff to the Defendant Hess and then, as leader, in his own name, of the Party Chancellery, subject only to Hitler's supreme authority, he applied and directed the total power of the Party and its agencies to carry into execution the plans of the conspirators. He used his great powers to persecute the Christian Church and clergy and was an unrepentant foe of the fundamentals of the Christianity with which he warred. He actively authorized and participated in measures designed to persecute the Jews, and his was a strong hand in pressing down the crown of thorns of misery on the brow of the Jewish people, both in Germany and in German-occupied Europe. As Chief of the Party Chancellery and secretary to the Fuehrer, Bormann authorized, directed, and participated in a wide variety of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, including, without limitation, the lynching of Allied airmen, the enslavement and inhuman treatment of the inhabitants of German-occupied Europe, the cruelty of impressed labor, the breaking up of homes contrary to the clear provisions of the Hague regulations, and the planned persecution and extermination of the civil population of Eastern Europe. May it please this Tribunal, every schoolboy knows that Hitler was an evil man.
LT. LAMBERT: The point we respectfully emphasize is that without chieftains like Bormann, Hitler would never have been able to seize and consolidate total power in Germany, but he would have been left to walk the wilderness alone. He was, in truth, an evil archangel to the Lucifer of Hitler; and, although he may remain a fugitive from the justice of this Tribunal, with an empty chair in the dock, Bormann cannot escape responsibility for his illegal conduct. And we close with what seems to us an extremely important point. Bormann may not be here, but under the last sentence of Article VI of the, Charter every defendant in this dock shown in our evidence to have been a leader, an organizer, an inciter, and an accomplice of this conspiracy is responsible for the acts of all persons in furtherance of the general scope of the conspiracy. And resting squarely on this proposition we submit, even though Bormann is not here, that every man in the dock shares responsibility for his criminal acts. And with this we close. The name of Bormann is not "written in water," but will be remembered as long as the Record of Your Honors' Tribunal is preserved. I now have the privilege of introducing Lieutenant Henry Atherton, who will present the case for the Prosecution against the individual Defendant Seyss-Inquart.
LIEUTENANT HENRY K. ATHERTON (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution has prepared a trial brief for the convenience of the Tribunal Showing the individual responsibility of the Defendant Seyss- Inquart. Copies of this brief are now being handed to the Tribunal. At the same time the document books which bear the letters "KK" and which contain translations of the evidence referred to in the brief, or to be introduced in evidence at this time, are also being handed to the Tribunal. At the outset I wish to make clear my intention to deal at this time only with the individual responsibility of, Seyss-Inquart for the crimes charged in Counts One and Two of the Indictment. Evidence to show his guilt as charged under Counts Three and Four of the Indictment, that is, evidence specifically directed thereunto, is to be introduced later by the prosecutors of the French Republic and the Soviet Union. Seyss-Inquart has agreed that he held the following positions in State and Party, and I am referring now to Document 2910-PS, Which is Exhibit Number USA-17. He was State Councillor of Austria from May 1937 to 12 February 1938. He was Minister of Interior and Security of Austria from 16 February 1938, to 11 March 1938; Chancellor of Austria from 11 March to 15 March 1938; Reich Governor of Austria from 15 March 1938 to 1 May 1939; Reich Minister without Portfolio from 1 May 1939 until September of that year; member of the Reich Cabinet from I May 1939 until the end of the war; Chief of the Civil Administration of South Poland from the early part of September 1939 until 12 October 1939; Deputy Governor General of Poland under the Defendant Frank from 12 October 1939 until May 1940; and, finally, Reich Commissioner of the Occupied Territories of the Netherlands from 29 May 1940 until the end of the war. He has also agreed that he became a member of the National Socialist Party on 13 March 1938 and that he was appointed a general in the SS 2 days later.
LIEUTENANT HENRY K. ATHERTON (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): Now this list of positions which Seyss-Inquart has agreed that he held, if the Tribunal please, shows the place which he held in the Nazi Common Plan or Conspiracy. It shows his steady rise to greater influence and power, and especially it emphasizes his particular talent, his skill in effecting the enslavement of the smaller nations surrounding Germany for the benefit -of what he called the Greater German Reich. Now the Defendant Seyss-Inquart first became a member of the Nazi conspiracy in connection with the Nazi assault on Austria. Mr. Alderman has shown how the Nazis implemented their diplomatic and military preparations for this event by intensive political preparations within Austria. The ultimate purpose of these preparations was to secure the appointment of Nazis, or persons known to be sympathetic to them, to key positions in the Austrian Government, particularly that of Minister of the Interior and Security, which controlled the police, thus permitting quick suppression of all opposition to the Nazis when the time came. For this purpose Seyss-Inquart was a most effective tool, the first of the so-called Quislings or traitors used by the Nazis to further their aggressions and to fasten their hold on their victims. Seyss-Inquart has admitted his membership in the Party only from 13 March 1938, but I want to show that he was closely affiliated with them at a much earlier time. For this purpose I now offer in evidence Document 3271-PS as Exhibit Number USA-700. Reading from Page 9 of the translation, he says in this letter, which is a letter to Himmler, dated 19 August 1939: "As far as my membership in the Party is concerned, I state that I was never asked to join the Party but had asked Dr. Kier in December 1931 to clarify my relationship with the Party, since I regarded the Party as the basis for the solution of the Austrian problem ... I paid my membership fees and, as I believe, directly to the Gau Vienna. These contributions also took place after the period of suppression.
LIEUTENANT HENRY K. ATHERTON (Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States): Later on I had direct contact with the Ortsgruppe in Dombach. My wife paid these fees, but the Blockwart"-and I believe that is another word for Blockleiter--"was never in doubt, considering that this amount, 40 shillings per month, was a share for my wife and myself, and I was in every respect treated as a Party member." Seyss-Inquart, in the last sentence of the paragraph says: "In every way, therefore, I felt as a Party member, considered myself a Party member, thus, as stated, as far back as December 1931." Now, if the Tribunal please, and before I leave this letter, I want just/to refer to one or two sentences which the Tribunal win find in the third paragraph on Page 7 of the translation. Referring to a meeting which he had had with Hitler, Seyss-Inquart says: "I left this discussion a very upright man with the unspeakably happy feeling of being permitted to be a tool of the Fuehrer." The truth of the matter is that Seyss-Inquart was an active supporter of the Nazis at all times after 1931. But after the Nazi Party in Austria was declared illegal in July 1934, he avoided too notorious a connection with the Nazi organization, in order to safeguard what the Nazis called his good legal position. By this device he was better able to use his connections with Catholics and others in his work of infiltration for his Nazi superiors. The Tribunal will remember, as Document 2219-PS, Exhibit Number USA-62, a letter from Seyss-Inquart to Goering of 14 July 1939, in which Seyss-Inquart makes this clear. It was in this letter also that he said: "Yet, I know that I cling with unconquerable tenacity to the goal in which I believe; that is Greater Germany and the Fuehrer." The evidence which Mr. Alderman introduced told in detail the manner in which the Nazi conspirators carried out their assault on Austria. I do not intend to attempt to review any part of this evidence. I merely wish to refer the Tribunal to two documents which are particularly important in showing the part played by this defendant.