dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Amongst other evidence submitted to the Tribunal, there is a letter from Himmler to Kaltenbrunner dated 24 April 1943, in which he speaks of "the order of the enrolment of the Sipo officials (Security Police) into SS membership" in cases where "the applicant is eligible both racially and ideologically, if he can provide guarantees as - to the number of children, the health of all his kinsfolk, and proof that he is personally in good health and is not a degenerate." To this dishonorable "Black Corps" of German Fascism was given a special role in the realization of the Fascist criminal plans. These degenerates dressed in the SS uniform and devoid of any idea of human morality were not only assured of impunity for their crimes, but they were daily indoctrinated with the idea that they were the "most valuable racial class, which would form the foundation of the future great German Empire." They were repeatedly told this by Himmler and by the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter who had been raised by Himmler to high ranks in the SS and promoted up the ladder of the SS hierarchy, dependent on the value placed on their activities by the Reichsfuehrer SS. As an SS member, Ribbentrop, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Fascist Germany, was not at all ashamed of being compared as a member of the SS to the murderer Pohl, or plunderer and executioner Globocznik; on the contrary, he was exceedingly proud of it. "I shall always consider it a special honor to belong to this proud Fuehrer corps, the corps which is of decisive importance to the future of our great German empire," wrote Ribbentrop in his letter to Himmler, when he was promoted from Gruppenfuehrer to Obergruppenfuehrer of the SS. Thus one and the same SS system united the commandant of Treblinka, Unterscharfuehrer Kurt Franz, the inventor of the "deathvans," Untersturnifuehrer Becker, the SS experimenter on live persons, Dr. Rascher, and the Reich Minister and SS Obergruppenfuehrer, Ribbentrop.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): At a conference of the SS Gruppenfuehrer in Poznan, in his speech on the unity of the SS and the Police, Himmler stated: "I am always doing something towards this end, a cord is being constantly drawn around these separate sections so that they may grow into one. Alas, if these bonds were ever loosened, then everything--you may be sure of this--would sink back into the old unimportance in one generation, and in a short space of time.... I think that we owe it to Germany, for the German Reich needs the SS organization. She needs it at least for the next few centuries." In concluding his speech, he said: "When the war is won--then, as I have already told you, our work will start. "... that as a result of this order the greatest increase in the population will result through this careful breeding of the Germanic people. In 20 to 30 years we really must be able to present the whole of Europe with its leading class. If the SS, together with the farmers-we together with our friend Backe--then organize the colony in the East on a grand scale, without any restraint, without any question about any kind of tradition, but with nerve and revolutionary impetus, we shall in 20 years push the national boundary 500 kilometers eastward.... "... we shall impose our laws on the East. We will forge ahead, pushing our way forward little by little to the Urals." It is impossible to enumerate in a short statement all the grave crimes committed by the members of the SS. Nor is it necessary, since the evidence submitted to, the Tribunal is too recent and vivid in our minds. I shall dwell briefly upon some questions which refer to the responsibility of separate SS groups, in connection with the objections which have been raised by counsel. No matter to which of the special SS organizations an SS member belonged, first and foremost he was a member of the General SS. His expulsion from such membership signified loss of his position and of all the privileges connected with it.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): In this connection I shall read one of the documents submitted by the Soviet Prosecution on - the subject of the criminal acts committed by the Hitlerites against Soviet prisoners of war. In this case we have documents of the investigations conducted by the SS officials in relation to an "incident," as it is called in these documents, which occurred during the execution of a "special treatment" operation. The significance of this last term is well known to the Tribunal. In this particular case, a certain SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Kallbach, who investigated the so-called "corrective labor camp" for Soviet prisoners of war in Berdichev, decided to put to death 78 Soviet prisoners whose condition is described in the records of the interrogation by the commander of the camp as very seriously wounded. Some were without legs, some without arms and others had lost at least one of their limbs, only a few had no injured limbs, but these were so crippled as a result of other kinds of wounds that they were unable to work. The fact that the Soviet prisoners of war could not be utilized for work was the only reason for their murder. The execution of the sentence was entrusted to three SS men, SS-Unterscharfuehrer Paal, SS-Rottenfuehrer Hesselbach and SSMann Vollprecht. These three SS men are characterized in the evidence as follows: "I know that the three above-mentioned persons, whom I assigned to shoot the prisoners of war, had participated in mass executions of many thousands of persons in Kiev. The local authorities, even since my arrival, had given them the task of shooting many hundreds of persons." However, it so happened that, when 28 of the prisoners were being transported to the place of execution, they put up a heroic resistance against their executioners, killed two of them and managed to escape. It was in connection with this that the investigation was ordered. The commander of the SS detachment in Berdichev was prosecuted, not for his orders to murder 78 sick innocent people, but for allowing, the possibility of escape.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): I have quoted this document not simply to remind you of one of the countless episodes of SS brutalities in the territory temporarily occupied by the SS, but to read a quotation in which a typical warning of responsibility for perjury is given by the investigating SS men prior to the interrogation. It states: "...I have been notified of the substance of the forthcoming interrogation. It has been pointed out to me that the giving of false evidence on my part will result in punishment and expulsion from the SS." Upon admission into the General SS, the future member of this criminal organization takes an oath, which includes the following words: "...I take an oath to you, Adolf Hitler, Fuehrer and Reichskanzler, to obey you unto death and all those whom you have appointed to command, me." And no matter where the SS man was serving, whether he was murdering people in Treblinka and Auschwitz, or torturing them during the interrogations in the torture chambers of the Gestapo, he always remained what he was-a stupid, ruthless member of the General SS who knew only two duties: blind obedience to the "Fuehrer and Reichskanzler," and unconditional execution of every criminal order. The organization of the Waffen-SS originated from the so-called Leibstandarte, Hitler's bodyguard, and the "Death's Head" Division, which was set up mostly in concentration camps. In wartime the Waffen-SS were augmented, in addition to police divisions and units, by other units and formations, the so-called "camp commands," which carried out directly the extermination of millions of people and instituted the system of torturing prisoners before killing them. This simple enumeration of the units composing the Waffen-SS fully proves their criminal character.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): The Soviet Prosecution has submitted as evidence the sentence of the Military Tribunal of the Fourth Ukrainian Front and a report of the Extraordinary State Commission concerning the atrocities of the German Fascist invaders in Kharkov and in the Kharkov area, from which it is evident that the units of the SS, particularly the SS Adolf Hitler Division under the command of Obergruppenfuehrer Dietrich and the SS "Death's Head" Division under the command of Obergruppenfuehrer Simon, are responsible for the extermination of more than 20,000 peaceful citizens of Kharkov and for the shooting and burning alive of prisoners of war. In Kiev alone, during the period of the German occupation, there were more than 195,000 peaceful citizens tortured to death, shot, and poisoned in the "death-vans," most of them exterminated by SS units; for which, according to the reports of the Extraordinary State Commission, the former chief of the Waffen-SS in Southern Russia and in the Ukraine, Major General Troenfeld, together with SS Lieutenant General Huettner and other commanders of the Waffen-SS are responsible. In the town of Rovno and the Rovno district, the Germans exterminated 102,000 persons. Among many others, a soldier, Adolf Mitzke, belonging to the fourth squadron of the 17th SS Cavalry Division, testified how the SS men carried out these crimes; on the order of his regimental commander, Adolf Mitzke, together with the other soldiers of his regiment, carried out the shooting of peaceful citizens, among them women, and set villages on fire. In the official note of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., V.M. Molotov, dated 27 April 1942 and presented to the Tribunal under USSR-51, a description of atrocities committed by the SS Cavalry Brigade in the region of Toropetz is reported.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): I quote from the report: "In January 1942, when Red Army troops smashed the German SS Cavalry Brigade in the district of Toropetz, among the captured documents was found ' the report of the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the above-mentioned brigade on the 'pacification' of the Starobinsk district in Bielorussia. "The regimental commander reports that in addition to the 239 war prisoners shot by a detachment of his regiment, 6,504 peaceful inhabitants were executed. The report states that the detachment operated in accordance with Regimental Order Number 42 of 17 July 1941. The commander of the 2d regiment of the same brigade, Von Mahill, states in his 'Report on the conduct of the pacification operations in the District of the Pripet Marshes from 24 July to 11 August 1941': 'We drove the women and children into a swamp, but this did not have the desired effect as the swamp was not deep enough for them to drown. At a depth of one meter it was possible in most cases to reach firm ground (possibly sand).' In the same headquarters, Telegram Number 37 was found, sent by the Standartenfuehrer and commander of the SS Cavalry Brigade to a mounted detachment of the above-mentioned 2d Cavalry Regiment, dated 2 August 1941, which announces that the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of Police, Himmler, considers the number of peaceful inhabitants who are being exterminated as 'too negligible,' points out that 'it is necessary to act radically,' that 'the commanders of the formations are too lenient in their conduct of operations,' and orders that the number of persons shot be reported daily." The whole criminal activities of the SS units in the territory of Yugoslavia, Poland, and other temporarily occupied countries of Eastern Europe followed the same pattern. I wish to bring to the attention of the Tribunal the numerous documents presented to the Tribunal by the Soviet and British Prosecution, in which the crimes committed in the territory of Yugoslavia by the SS division "Prince Eugen" are illustrated.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): In particular I wish to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the Report Number 29, issued by the Yugoslav State Commission regarding the atrocities committed by the aforesaid SS division. This communication describes how the SS soldiers, members of the Waffen-SS, who called themselves "the German Guards," burned alive the entire population of villages, including women and children. I will remind you as well of the deposition given by the SS Major General August Schmidthuber, describing how, on the order of the commander of the 1st SS Battalion, Kaaserer, peaceful citizens were locked up in a church in Krivaya Reka, and then the church building was blown up. I refer the Tribunal to the wellknown statement of the officers of that same division concerning the mass shooting of hostages and murdering of prisoners of war. A secret directive of Himmler's was read before the Tribunal, by which it was shown that SS units were instructed to annihilate thousands of inhabited localities, towns, and villages in the temporarily occupied regions of the Soviet Union. In this directive Himmler wrote as follows: "The aim to be achieved is that when areas in the Ukraine are evacuated, not a human being, not a single head of cattle, not a hundredweight of cereals, and not a railway line remains behind; that not a house remains standing, not a mine exists which is not 6astroyed for years to come, that there is not a well left unpoisoned. The enemy must really find a land completely burnt and destroyed." In carrying out the criminal orders of the Reichsfuehrer SS (Himmler's order of 10 June 1943), the Waffen-SS deported into German slavery the populations of entire regions, driving the Ukrainian and Russian children into special concentration camps. The so-called Waffen-SS were the specially selected SS units, composed in the main of volunteers as well as of members of the General SS, called upon to carry out the criminal plans of Hitler and his clique.
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): The attempts of the Defense and of the defendants themselves to declare the SS a kind of "German Guards" having nothing to do with any kind of police function and whose hands are unstained with the blood of innocent people, are in full contradiction with the ruthless and irrefutable facts. Nevertheless, we do not deny that among the soldiers of the Waffen-SS were some who were compelled to serve. However, the question of the degree of responsibility of any particular person is a question for competence of the national tribunals. Nevertheless, the Waffen-SS as a whole are an essential part of the system, and the SS organization is therefore undoubtedly criminal.
THE PRESIDENT: Shall we adjourn now? [A recess was taken.]
MR. DODD: Mr. President, I am prepared to make a report on the attitude of the Prosecution concerning the application of the Defendant Seyss-Inquart to submit an affidavit. We are all in agreement in opposing the affidavit of Seyss-Inquart. It is really argumentative, as we read it. We have had it translated, and it does not raise anything new; it does express the defendant's attitude toward a number of documents that were in evidence, some as early as last January, and there are various comments in tt about evidence and so on. But it seems improper to us that at this stage of the Trial the defendants should make such an offer. His counsel made his argument, and indeed he will have another opportunity himself to address the Tribunal. None of these matters, in our judgment, in our opinion, are proper, nor should they be admitted by the Tribunal at this time. Now there is one matter raised in, this affidavit, the matter of two documents, 3640-PS and 3645-PS, of which the Defendant Seyss-Inquart says they were not introduced in evidence, although they were referred to by the French Prosecutor, M. Dubost; and that is so. And of course, M. Dubost and M. de Ribes and those other gentlemen of the French Prosecution with us agree that it was inadvertent, and that they should not have been there. And we have no objection to so stating to the Court--we wanted to state--we want the Court to understand that these two documents are not--were not actually admitted in evidence; and, of course, we should not have referred to them in our argument. But other than that one matter which is raised, we see nothing that would be helpful to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it in German?
MR. DODD: Yes, yes, Your Honor, it is in German. Our translation is not complete. It was done by one of our people hurriedly and is in outline form and for my own information. I can go through it paragraph by paragraph if the Tribunal would cafe to have me.
THE PRESIDENT: Very long?
MR. DODD: It is-no, it is not. My outline is one page and a little more than a half. The affidavit itself is six pages. Our analysis of it is a page and a half.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, if the only objection to the affidavit is that it is argumentative, is that really a very serious objection when there are so many documents?
MR. DODD: Well no, Sir, I expect it is not. Our -objection is just what I have stated, and no more than that. I do not want to press it too much. If the Tribunal feels it would be better to have it in and have it translated, there is nothing in the affidavit that we need make any reply to. I feel perfectly sure of that, and I do not think it is worth pressing, really.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Tribunal thinks that in the circumstances it will be better to allow the affidavit to be offered in evidence. And the Tribunal notes that 3640-PS and 3645-PS have not been offered in evidence. And therefore we should ...
MR. DODD: Yes, Mr. President, 3640-PS and 3645-PS were not offered in evidence.
THE PRESIDENT: And we shall therefore disregard any reference to them.
MR. DODD: Yes, Sir. As well I would like to inform the Tribunal concerning our attitude about the letter of Dr. Laternser's; we have no objection to this letter at all. We are all in agreement about it.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Mr. Dodd said they had no objection to the letter. It will be...
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, there is a small paragraph in this letter that I should like very much to read into the record; two sentences of it.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if the letter is in evidence, it is not necessary to take up time by reading it into the record. The Prosecution have agreed that the letter may be treated as part of the evidence of the record.
DR. LATERNSER: But since the witness Schreiber has given his testimony, I nevertheless consider it important that one very brief paragraph consisting of two sentences should be read into the record if possible.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, wait a minute. No, Dr. Laternser, the letter will be admitted as part of the evidence of the record. We do not desire that further time should be taken up on the matter.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, with reference to this subject I today received another exhibit during the recess, but of course I do not know if the Tribunal is willing to accept it in evidence, and in order to complete this subject of the evidence, may I beg the Tribunal to allow me to present it. It concerns a document from which it can be seen that in the case of one of the Allied Nations bacteria warfare as a defensive and offensive weapon had equally been developed, and that 4,000 people were occupied with it. I should merely like to present it for that one reason so as to be able to submit a fact to the Tribunal which would be of importance for the proper judgment of this particular subject.
THE PRESIDENT: No, that falls within the principle, which we have decided over and over again, that such evidence is not admissible.
DR. LATERNSER: But since we are here concerned with a new subject, Mr. President ...
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser: the Tribunal is perfectly well aware of the argument which you have presented to us that any investigations which were taken in bacterial warfare were done solely for defensive purposes. That argument is perfectly clear, and any other argument based upon allegations as to what the Allied Nations may have done is irrelevant.
GEN. RUDENKO: On 4 October 1943, in his speech addressed to the SS Gruppenfuehrer in Poznan, Himmler stated: "We want a complete unity with the Party and all its organizations. It is very fortunate that we are completely united with the 'SA.' "The new Chief of Staff Schepmann considers his most essential task that of creating peace and accord among the old Party groups." Thus the creator of those SS who in 1934 liquidated the heads of the SA Putsch, in 1943 confirmed the full unity of the SS with the SA and emphasized the importance of this Hitlerite criminal organization in the general conspiracy. During the whole process of the growth of the Hitlerite Party and of the Hitlerite State, the SA was the criminal organization to which the ringleaders of German Fascism attached special importance, considering it one of the main weapons for terrorizing and fooling their own nation and for preparing the ground for aggression against other nations. It is no use to argue with counsel for the SA about the part played by this criminal organization in the common plan of the Fascist conspiracy. Essentially, the plea of Herr Boehm was, generally speaking, devoid of any legal argument that would render it worthy of attention. It was a statement made from the viewpoint of a convinced Nazi, repeating, in a number of cases, the worst instances of Hitlerite propaganda, which counsel had carefully extracted from the SA Press.
DR. MARTIN LOEFFLER (Counsel for the SA): Mr. President, may I be allowed to make a brief objection to this very severe personal attack? Unfortunately Dr. Boehm has been prevented from appearing at today's session, but during the recess I have been able to ascertain from the General Secretary's list--which is also available to the Russian Delegation--that attorney Dr. Boehm has never been a member of the National Socialist Party. The reproach that in his pleading he wished to spread National Socialist propaganda, is therefore entirely without foundation. In the whole of Germany there would not be a single normal person who, having kept aloof from joining the Party for the years during the Nazi regime, would now advocate Nazi propaganda at this Trial. One more point, Mr. President....
THE PRESIDENT: But we are not considering whether Defense Counsel belonged to the Party or not, and this observation of the Soviet Prosecutor does not say that Dr. Boehm was a member of the Party. It may be rather strongly expressed, but What he says is, this is the statement made from the viewpoint of the convinced Nazi. It is a perfectly different thing from saying that Dr. Boehm was a Nazi.
DR. LOEFFLER: Air. President, I have nothing to add to the statement except that I am asking the Tribunal to take cognizance of the very difficult position in which the Defense find themselves, and to consider that it is impossible to represent the organizations of the Party without representing also the attitude, the point of view, of the Party. That is all I had to say, but if the Russian Prosecutor fails to find any legal argument in Dr. Boehm's final plea, in that case these are presented in great detail in the excellent memorandum of my colleague Dr. Klefisch, and we were told that there would be a reply to that final plea. This reply has so far not been received.
THE PRESIDENT: General Rudenko, the translation which we have got of your statements is possibly ambiguous, and therefore the Tribunal would like to be assured that what I said about it was accurate and that you were not suggesting that...
GEN.RUDENKO: Quite right, Mr. President. You have said precisely what I am asserting here, that the speech was simply made from the Nazi point of view, but I have no confirmation of the fact that Boehm himself did belong to the Party, and I think that such polemics are admissible.
THE PRESIDENT: I think perhaps, General Rudenko, that it would be proper for you to withdraw any suggestion that Dr. Boehm himself was a convinced Nazi.
GEN. RUDENKO: But I never did, assert that Dr. Boehm was a convinced Nazi. I am simply asserting that, judging by his speech, he might possibly have the Nazi point of view.