dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
GEN. RUDENKO: As to actual propaganda, the directives frankly mention the usual Hitlerite methods of dirty calumny, lies, and provocation, which were to be used by the so-called "propaganda companies." Finally one cannot overlook another instruction, known under the name of "Orders Concerning Military Jurisdiction in the Barbarossa Area and Special Measures To Be Taken by the Troops." These orders, while sanctioning arbitrary action on the part of the German authorities and troops in regard to the civilian population in the territories seized by the German armed forces, begin with an invitation addressed to the German troops to "protect" themselves ruthlessly against hostile actions of the civilian population. In the order prescribing the adoption of Draconian measures against peaceful populations and partisans, we find indications as to the brutal punishment to be imposed upon persons defined in those orders as "suspected elements." With the permission of the Tribunal, I will read only two subparagraphs of these orders-Subparagraphs 4 and 5: "4. In those places where it is too late to adopt these measures or where it had not been possible to do so immediately, suspected elements must be handed over to an officer without delay; he will decide whether or not they should be shot. "5. It is absolutely prohibited to hold these suspects for trial by courts which at a later date will be instituted for the local population." Thus, according to these so-called orders, the fate and life of every apprehended person depended exclusively on an officer, and it was prohibited, as the order cynically stressed, "to hold the suspects for trial." In other words; it was a definite order to exterminate the "suspects." Moreover, in the case of attacks against the German Armed Forces, the order prescribed "mass measures of repression," that is to say, the wholesale extermination of absolutely innocent people.
GEN. RUDENKO: What heights of cynicism were reached by the German High Command in the application of sanguinary terror can be seen from the fact that this order freed the German soldiers, officers, and officials of any responsibility for the commission of crimes against the peaceful Soviet population. According to these orders, the German troop commanders were entitled to confirm only those sentences which, as the said document states, were in accordance with the "political objectives of the leaders." Consequently, long before 22 June 1941 the Hitlerite Government and the German High Command, whose representatives are now in the dock, planned and prepared in detail those war crimes which were subsequently committed in the territory of the U.S.S.R. These plans inexorably disclose that the defendants premeditated the monstrous crimes which were organized by them. On 22 June 1941 the Hitlerite conspirators, having perfidiously violated the pact of non-aggression between the U.S.S.R. and Germany without any declaration of war, started an attack against Soviet territory, initiating thereby an aggressive war against the U.S.S.R. without the slightest provocation on the part of the Soviet Unions Enormous masses of German troops, secretly concentrated on the borders beforehand, were thrown against the U.S.S.R. As planned, Finnish troops took part in the attack on the U.S.S.R. in the north, and Hungarian and Romanian troops in the south. In order to create panic and confusion, the German Air Force immediately began the bombing of peaceful towns, thereby subjecting them to destruction. Less than a month after the perpetration of this perfidious act Hitler called a conference, which was attended by Rosenberg, Goering, Bormann, Lammers, and Keitel At this conference Hitler instructed those present not to disclose to the outside world the true aims of the war begun by the Hitlerites.
GEN. RUDENKO: Referring to their activities in regard to Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, Hitler stressed the necessity of continuing this line of action, that is, to conceal by all possible means the real intentions of the conspirators: "Therefore"-said Hitler-"we shall emphasize again that we were compelled to occupy a region to establish order and security there. . . our method of regulation is the natural outcome of this. Thus it must not be revealed that this may bring about a final solution. However, despite and notwithstanding this, we shall take all necessary measures such as mass shootings, deportation, et cetera." Any kind of violence against the peaceful population, deportation into German slavery, shooting, and looting were called "regulation" in the words of Hitler and his accomplices. At this conference the conspirators defined the ulterior aims of the Hitlerite Government in respect of the Soviet Union as follows: "In the main, the problem amounts to this . . . first, to conquer it, secondly, to rule it and thirdly, to exploit it.... "The basic idea: The creation of a military power west of the Urals must never occur again, even if, in order to prevent it, we have to fight for a hundred years. All the adherents of the Fuehrer must know this. The Reich will only be secure if no foreign military force exists west of the Urals. "The iron law must be: None but the Germans shall be permitted to bear arms . . . only a German has the right to carry a weapon; no Slav, no Czech, no Cossack, no Ukrainian. "Hitler continued: The Baltic countries must become a province of the Reich. The Crimea and a considerable area to the north must likewise become a province of the Reich. These areas must be as extensive as possible... The Volga colony must become a territory of the Reich, the Baku region a German concession (military colony). "The Finns want East Karelia. However, because of its great nickel production, the Kola peninsula must go to Germany.... "The Finns claim the Leningrad region.
GEN. RUDENKO: Level Leningrad to the ground, then give it to the Finns." The rapacious aims of the war launched by Germany against the U.S.S.R. are frankly set forth in an article by the director of the fascist propaganda, the notorious Goebbels, under the title "What For?" Goebbels wrote: "This war is not a war for a throne nor an altar; this is a war for grain and bread, a war for a well-laden breakfast, dinner, and supper table . . . a war for raw materials, for rubber, iron, and ore." (Goebbels, Joseph, Das eherne Here, Zentralverlag der NSDAP , Munich, 1943, Pages 334-336.) Goering in his turn in an address at the Harvest Festival in the Berlin Sports Palace, 5 October 1942, published in the Volkischer Beobachter of 6 October 1942, exclaimed greedily: "Don't forget we have taken away from the Russians their best regions....Eggs, butter, and flour are there in such quantities as you can hardly imagine.... We will have to see that everything is properly collected and properly processed on the spot.... " The Defendant Rosenberg worked feverishly at inventing new names for Soviet cities, such as "Gotenburg" for Simferopol and "Theodorichshafen" for Sevastopol. This occupation Rosenberg combined with the leadership of a special staff concerned with the collection from the Caucasus. All that shows very clearly the real predatory plans and schemes of the Hitlerite aggressors against the Soviet Union. Above all, those criminal designs aimed at plundering the Soviet Union and the enslavement and exploitation of the Soviet people. At the same time these were all steps on the road to establishing Hitlerite domination in Europe and in the whole world. It was precisely for this reason that, in a document submitted in the case, published by the High Command of the Navy, dealing with the plans for an invasion of North Africa, Gibraltar, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, the Hitlerite Government stated that the realization of the above plan would depend entirely on the results of the war against the Soviet Union.
GEN. RUDENKO: In its attempt to conceal its imperialistic aims the Hitlerite clique hysterically shrieked, as usual, about a danger alleged to be forthcoming from the U.S.S.R. and proclaimed that the predatory war which it started against the Soviet Union with aggressive purposes was a "preventive" war. A pitiful effort! What "preventive" war can we speak of, when documents prove that long in advance Germany worked out and prepared a plan for an attack on the U.S.S.R., formulated the predatory aims of this attack, earmarked the territories of the Soviet Union which she intended to seize, established the methods for pillaging of these territories and for the extermination of their population, mobilized her army in good time, and moved to the borders of the U.S.S.R. 170 fully equipped divisions only waiting for the signal to advance? The fact of aggression committed by fascist Germany against the U.S.S.R., as well as the original documents of the Hitlerite Government which now have been made public, definitely show to the whole world and to history how untrue and laughable was the assertion of the Hitlerite propaganda about the "preventive" character of the war against the U.S.S.R. Much as the fascist wolf might disguise himself in a sheep's skin, he cannot hide his teeth! Having committed the perfidious attack on the U.S.S.R., the Hitlerite Government calculated that lengthy preparation for this attack, the concentration of all the armed forces of Germany for this thrust, the participation of Romanian and Finnish armies, as well as of Italian and Hungarian units in this operation, and, finally, the advantage of surprise would assure a rapid defeat of the U.S.S.R. However, all these calculations of the aggressors were frustrated by the heroic resistance of the Red Army, which with self-denial defended the honor and the independence of its country. The German plans .of attack were broken up. one after another.
GEN. RUDENKO: I shall not describe all the phases of the patriotic war of the Soviet People against the German fascist invaders and the great and courageous struggle of the Red Army with German, Romanian, Finnish, and other armies that invaded the soil of the Soviet. The whole world watched this struggle with admiration, and it will never be forgotten by history. The Soviet people, in battles the scale and ferocity of which were unmatched in history, steadfastly defended and saved the freedom and independence of their country and, together with the Allied armies, liberated the freedom-loving nations throughout the whole world from the terrible menace of Nazi enslavement. Having prepared and carried out the perfidious assault against the freedom-loving nations, fascist Germany turned the war into a system of militarized banditry. The murder of war prisoners, extermination of civilian populations, plunder of occupied territories, and other war crimes were committed as part of a totalitarian lightning wear program projected by the fascists. In particular the terrorism practiced by the fascists on the temporarily occupied Soviet territories reached fabulous proportions and was carried out with an outspoken cruelty. "We shall"-said Hitler to Rauschning-"have to develop a technique of systematic depopulation. If you ask me what I mean by 'depopulation,' I mean removal of entire racial units. And that is what I intend to carry out-that, roughly, is my task. Nature is cruel; therefore we, too, may be cruel.
GEN. RUDENKO: If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war without the smallest pity for the spilling of precious German blood, then surely I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin!" (Rauschning, Hermann, The Voice of Destruction, New York, 1940, Pages 137, 138.) The Soviet Prosecution has at its disposal numerous documents, collected by the Extraordinary State Commission for the Soviet Union for the prosecution and investigation of crimes committed by the German fascist aggressors and their accomplices, which constitute irrefutable evidence of countless crimes perpetrated by German authorities. We have at our disposal a document, known as the "Appendix Number 2 to the Operational Order Number 8 of the Chief of the Sipo and SD," dated Berlin, 17 June 1941, and signed by Heydrich, who at that time held the office of Himmler's deputy. This document was worked out in collaboration with the High Command of the German Armed Forces. The appendices to Order Number 8, as well as Orders Number 9 and 14 and the appendices thereto, make it evident that the systematic extermination of Soviet people in fascist concentration camps in the territories of U.S.S.R. and other countries occupied by the fascist aggressors was carried out under the form of "filtration," "cleansing measures," "purges," "extraordinary measures," "special treatment," "liquidation," "execution," end so on. The perpetration of these crimes was entrusted to the Sonderkommandos especially formed for this purpose by agreement between the Chief of Police and the SD and the High Command of the German Armed Forces. The Appendix Number 1 to Order Number 14 shows that these Sonderkommandos acted independently "on the basis of their special powers and in accordance with general directives given to them within the scope of camp regulations," maintaining close contact with the camp commanders and counterintelligence officers.
GEN. RUDENKO: It is to be noted that during the German offensive aimed at Moscow the fascists created a special Sonderkommando Moscow, which was supposed to carry out the mass killings of the inhabitants of Moscow. Hitler's Government and the German Military Command were afraid that these monstrous Orders Number 8 and Number 14 might fall into the hands of the Red Army and the Soviet Government, and they took all possible measures to keep these orders completely secret. In Order Number 14, Heydrich declared: "I especially emphasize that Operational Orders Number 8 and Number 14, as well as the regulations pertaining thereto, must be immediately destroyed in case of imminent danger. Their destruction is to be reported to me." Besides the above-mentioned orders containing the program and plan for the fascist annihilation of the Soviet population, numerous orders and regulations were issued to the civil administration, as well as to the German military authorities, prescribing mass extermination and far-reaching application of the death penalty against the Soviet people. Keitel's order of 12 December 1941 reads as follows: "In the Fuehrer's opinion the punishment by imprisonment or even by hard labor for life would be considered a sign of weakness. Effective and lasting determent can be realized only by capital punishment or measures which would leave the population in complete ignorance of the criminal's fate. This latter aim is reached through the deportation of criminals into Germany. The attached instructions for the prosecution of criminals are in accordance with this opinion of the Fuehrer's. It is approved by him."-Signed-"Keitel." Among the means employed by the Hitlerites for the extermination of Soviet citizens were also intentional infection with spotted typhus and murdering by poison gas in gas vans which were called the "murderess" in Russian, et alla.
GEN. RUDENKO: Upon investigations by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, it was found that at the front, behind their main line of defense, the Hitlerites had systematically constructed special concentration camps where they kept tens of thousands of children, women who were unfit for work, and old men. The approaches to these camps were mined. No buildings or shelters of any kind existed within the areas of the camps, not even any barracks, and the internees had to camp on the bare ground. The internees were punished with death for the slightest attempt to infringe upon the established ruthless camp regulations. Many thousands of typhus patients were found in these camps. The population forcibly brought there from the surrounding villages was systematically infected there with this disease. The document which will be presented by the Soviet Prosecution describes in detail these heinous crimes perpetrated by the Germano-fascist occupants. The Prosecution possesses a document signed by Untersturmfuehrer Becker, dated 16 May 1942. This document is a report to his superiors concerning the use of gas vans. This is what one reads in this monstrous document: "The place of execution is located at about 10 to 15 kilometers off a thoroughfare and is difficult to reach because of its location. In wet or damp weather it is entirely inaccessible. Whether the people to be executed are led or brought in vehicles to this spot, they immediately realize what awaits them and become restless; this should be avoided by loading them into trucks at an assembly point, and driving them to the place of execution. "I gave orders for the trucks of group D to be camouflaged as trailers and that a window be inserted on each side of the smaller vehicles, and in the larger trucks, two windows, all of the country peasant cottage type. However, these machines became so well known that not only the officials but even the population called them the "death vans" as soon as they saw them. In my opinion it is impossible to camouflage and keep them secret for any length of time.
GEN. RUDENKO: I also gave orders that during asphyxiation by gas the operating personnel should keep away from the machine so that their health would not be impaired by escaping gas. In this connection I would like to call attention to the following: In certain units men are ordered to unload the machines after gassing. I have drawn the attention of the commanders of the corresponding Sonderkommandos to the immense physical and moral injury this kind of work could cause the men, if not immediately, then later. The men complained of headaches after every unloading. Nevertheless they do not want to change the procedure, for they are afraid that prisoners entrusted with the work may use this favorable moment to escape. To protect the men from this injury, I would ask that appropriate orders be issued. "The procedure of poisoning by gas is not always carried out in a correct manner. So as to end the business as quickly as possible, the drivers always open the throttle wide. As a consequence of this measure the condemned die of asphyxiation rather than falling asleep as had been originally intended. As a result of my orders death follows more rapidly, if the lever is set correctly, and in addition, the condemned people drop off peacefully to sleep. Distorted faces and defecations, two symptoms which formerly had been noticed, were no longer observed. "Today I will proceed to Group B. whence I shall send a further report. "Dr. Becker, Untersturmfuehrer." The names have already been mentioned here of the camps of Maidanek and Auschwitz with their gas-chambers, in which over 5,500,000 completely innocent people, citizens of Poland, Czechoslovakia, U.S.S.R., U.S.A., Great Britain, France, and other democratic countries were killed.
GEN. RUDENKO: I must name the concentration camps of Smolensk, Stavropol, Kharkov, Kiev, Lvov, Poltava, Novgorod, Orel, Rovno, Dniepropetrovsk, Odessa, Kamenetz-Podolsk, Gomel, Kerch, of the Stalingrad region, of Kaunas, Riga, Mariampol (Lithuanian) of Kloga (Estonian) and many others, in which hundreds of thousands of Soviet nationals belonging to the civilian population, as well as soldiers and officers of the Red Army, were tortured to death by the Hitlerites. The Germans also carried out mass shootings of Soviet citizens in the Lisenitz forest, which is on the outskirts of Lvov in the direction of Tarnopol. It was to this forest that the Germans daily drove, or brought in motor vehicles, large parties of Soviet prisoners of war from the Citadel camp, internees from the Yanov camp and from the Lvov prison, as well as peaceful Soviet citizens who had been seized on the squares and streets of Lvov in the course of numerous roundups. Investigations made by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union established the fact that the Germans shot over 200,000 people in the Lisenitz forest. These mass murders, this regime of tyranny and terror, were fully approved by the Defendant Rosenberg who declared in his speech at the meeting of the German Labor Front in November 1942: "Apparently, if we are to subjugate all these peoples"-that is, peoples inhabiting the territory of the U.S.S.R.-"then arbitrary rule and tyranny will be an extremely suitable form of government." Later, when the Red Army began to clear out the Germano-fascist hordes from the Soviet Union territory they had temporarily occupied and when the Soviet authorities began to discover the abominable crimes perpetrated by the fascist monsters and to find numerous graves of Soviet citizens, soldiers, and officers tortured to death by the fascists, the German Command took urgent measures to conceal and destroy all traces of their grimes. For this purpose, the German Command organized everywhere exhumations of corpses from their graves and their cremation.
GEN. RUDENKO: A special order of an Obersturmfuehrer, dated "Rovno, 3 August 1943-IUAI No.35/43c," addressed to the Regional Commander of Gendarmerie in Kamen-Kashirsk, ordered him immediately to supply information concerning location and number of common graves of persons to whom special repressive measures had been applied in the district. Among the documents discovered in the Gestapo building of the Rovno district has been found a report concerning the execution of the above-mentioned order, with the enumeration of about 200 localities, where such graves were registered. One can see from this list that the Germano-fascist henchmen primarily chose inaccessible and isolated spots for the interment of their victims. At the end of the list we read, "The list includes all the graves, including those of the commandos who worked here previously." I will now quote an extract of the appeal to the public opinion of the world from the representatives of several thousand former internees at Auschwitz: "The gassing of unbelievable numbers of people took place upon the arrival of transports from various countries: France, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, the U.S.S.R., Norway, and others. The new arrivals had to pass before an SS doctor or else before the SS commandant of the camp. The latter pointed his finger to the right or left. The left meant death by gas. Out of a transport of 1,500, an average of 1,200 to 1,300 were immediately to be gassed. Rarely the quota of people sent into the camp was a little higher. It often occurred that the SS doctors Mengele and Thilo performed this selection while whistling a lively tune. The people destined to be gassed were obliged to strip in front of the gas-chambers, after which they were driven with whips into the gas-chambers. Then the door of the underground gas-chamber was closed, and the people were gassed. Death occurred approximately 4 minutes later.