dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. DE MENTHON: Crimes against the physical person-arbitrary imprisonment, ill-treatment, deportations, murder committed by the Germans in the occupied countries-reached proportions beyond imagination, even in the course of a world conflict, and took the most odious forms. These crimes spring directly from the Nazi doctrine and testify to the Reich leaders' absolute disregard for the human individual, to the abolition of any sense of justice or even of pity, to a total subordination of any and all human consideration on the part of the German community. All these crimes are linked to a policy of terrorism. Such a policy permits the subjugation of occupied countries without involving a large deployment of troops and their submission to anything that might be demanded of them. Many of these crimes are moreover tied up with the will to exterminate. We shall examine in succession executions of hostages, police crimes, deportations, crimes involving prisoners of war, terroristic activities against the Resistance, and the massacre of civilian populations. A. The execution of hostages constitutes in all countries the first act of terrorism on the part of German occupation troops. From 1940 on, the German command, notably in France, carried out numerous executions as reprisals for any crime against the German Army. These practices, contrary to Article 50 of the Hague Convention which forbids collective sanctions, awaken everywhere a feeling of horror and frequently produce a result contrary to the one sought, by arousing the populations against the occupant. The occupying authorities then endeavored to legalize such criminal practices, thus seeking to have them recognized by the populations as "the right" of the occupying power. Veritable "codes for hostages" were promulgated by the German military authorities. Following the general order issued by the Defendant Keitel or. 16 September 1941, Stulpnagel published in France his ordinance of 30 September 1941.
M. DE MENTHON: According to the terms of this ordinance all Frenchmen held by German authorities for any reason whatsoever were to be considered as hostages, as well as all Frenchmen who were in the custody of the French authorities or behalf of German organizations. The ordinance of Stulpnagel specifies: "At the time of the burial of the bodies, burial in a common grave of a rather large number of persons in a particular cemetery must be avoided, since this would create a shrine for pilgrims which now or later might become a center for the stimulation of anti-German propaganda." In carrying out this ordinance the most infamous executions of hostages were committed. Following the murder of two German officers, one in Nantes on 2 October. 1941 and the other at Bordeaux a few days thereafter, the German authorities had 27 hostages shot at Chateaubriant and 21 at Nantes. On 15 August 1942, 96 hostages were shot at Mon-Valerien. In September 1942 an assault had been committed against German soldiers in the Rex motion picture house in Paris. One hundred sixteen hostages were shot. Forty-six hostages were taken from the hostage depot of the Fortress at Romainville and 70 from Bordeaux. In reprisal for the murder of a German official of the labor front 50 hostages were shot in Paris at the end of September 1943. Threats of reprisals on the families of the patriots of the Resistance are related to the same odious policy of hostages. The Kommandantur published the following notice in the Pariser Zeitung of 16 July 1942: "Near male relatives, brothers-in-law, and cousins of the 'agitators' above the age of 18 years will be shot. "All female family members of the same degree of relationship shall be condemned to forced labor. "Children less than 18 years of age of all above-mentioned persons shall be sent to a house of correction." The executions of hostages continued everywhere until the liberation, but in the last period they were no more than one additional feature in the methods of German terrorism, then grown more sweeping. B.
M. DE MENTHON: Among the crimes against persons of which the civilian populations of the occupied countries of the West were victims, those committed by the Nazi police organizations are the most revolting. The intervention of the German police who, in spite of certain appearances, did not belong to the armies of occupation, is in itself contrary to international law. Their crimes, particularly hateful in the complete disregard for human dignity that they imply, were multiplied during 4 years throughout all the territories of the West occupied by the German forces. True, no definite order, no detailed directive emanating directly from one of the defendants or from one of their immediate sub ordinates and valid for all the German police or for the police of the occupied territories of the West, has been found. But these crimes were committed by a police that was a direct expression of the National Socialist ideology and the undeniable instrument of National Socialist policy for which all the defendants carry the fall and entire responsibility. Before the considerable mass of acts, their similarity, their simultaneousness, their generalization in time and place, no one would be able to deny that these acts are not only the individual responsibility of those who committed them here or there, but constitute as well the execution of orders from above. The arrests took place without any of the elementary guarantees recognized in all civilized countries. On a simple, unverified denunciation, without previous investigation, and often on charges brought by persons not qualified to bring them, masses of arbitrary arrests took place in every occupied country. During the first period of the occupation, the Germans nevertheless simulated a scrupulous respect for "legality" in the matter of arrests. This legality was that introduced by Nazism in the interior of Germany and did not respect any of the traditional guarantees to which the individuals in civilized countries are entitled.
M. DE MENTHON: But, rapidly, even this pseudo-legality itself was abandoned and the arrests became absolutely arbitrary. The worst treatments were applied to arrested persons even before the guilt of the accused had been examined. The use of torture in the interrogations was almost a general rule. The tortures usually applied were beating, whipping, chaining for several days without a moment of rest for nourishment or hygienic care, immersion in ice water, drowning in a bathtub, charging the bathwater with electricity, electrification of the most sensitive parts of the body, burns at certain places on the body, and the pulling out of fingernails. But, in addition, those who carried out these measures had every latitude for unleashing their instinct of cruelty and of sadism towards their victims. All those facts, which were of public knowledge in the occupied countries, never led to any punishment whatsoever of their authors on the part of the responsible authorities. It even seems that the torture was more severe when an officer was present. It is undeniable that the actions of the German police towards the prisoners were part and parcel of a long premeditated system of criminality, ordered by the chiefs of the regime and executed by the most faithful members of the National Socialist organizations. Aside from the general use of torture on prisoners, the German police perpetrated a considerable number of murders. It is impossible to know the conditions under which many of these murders were carried out, Nevertheless, we have enough information to Permit us to discover in them a new expression of the general policy of the National Socialists in the occupied countries. Often the deaths were only the result of the tortures inflicted on the prisoners, but often the murder was deliberately desired and carried out. C. The crime which will undoubtedly be remembered as the most horrible among those committed by the Germans against the civilian populations of the occupied countries was that of deportation and internment in the concentration camps of Germany.
M. DE MENTHON: These deportations had a double aim: To secure additional labor for the benefit of the German war machine; to eliminate from the occupied countries and progressively exterminate the elements most opposed to Germanism. They served likewise to empty prisons overcrowded with patriots and to remove the latter for all time. The deportations and the methods employed in the concentration camps were a stupefying revelation for the civilized world. Nevertheless, they also are only a natural consequence of the National Socialist doctrine, according to which man, of himself, has no value except when he is of service to the German race. It is not possible to give exact figures. It is probable that one would make an understatement when speaking of 250,000, for France; 6,000 for Luxembourg; 5,200 for Denmark; 5,400 for Norway; 120,000 for Holland; and 37,000 for Belgium. The arrests are founded, now under a pretext of a political nature, now on a pretext of a racial nature. In the beginning they were individual; subsequently they took on a collective character, particularly in France since the end of 1941. Sometimes the deportation did not come until after long months of prison, but more often the arrest was made directly with a view to deportation under the system of "protective custody." Everywhere imprisonment in the country of origin was accompanied by brutality, often by tortures. Before being sent to Germany, the deportees were, in general, concentrated in an assembly camp. The formation of a convoy was often the first stage of extermination. The deportees travelled in cattle cars, 80 to 120 per car, no matter what the season. There were few convoys where no deaths occurred. In certain transports the proportion of deaths was more than 25 percent. The deportees were sent to Germany, almost always to concentration camps, but sometimes also to prisons. Admitted to the prisons were those deportees who had been condemned or were awaiting trial. The prisoners there were crowded together under inhumane conditions.
M. DE MENTHON: Nevertheless, the prison regime was generally less severe than conditions in the camps. The work there was less out of proportion to the strength of the prisoners, and the prison wardens were more humane than the SS in the concentration camps. It appears to have been the plan, followed by the Nazis in the concentration camps, gradually to do away with the prisoners; but only after their working strength -had been used to the advantage of the German war effort. The Tribunal has been told of the almost inconceivable treatment inflicted by the SS on the prisoners. We shall take the liberty of going into still further detail during the course of the statement of the French Prosecution, for it must be fully known to what extent of horrors the Germans, inspired by National Socialist doctrine, could stoop. The most terrible aspect was perhaps the desire to create moral degradation and debasement in the prisoner until he lost, if possible, all semblance of a human individual. The usual living conditions imposed on the deportees in the camps were sufficient to ensure slow extermination through inadequate feeding, bad sanitation, cruelty of the guards, severity of discipline, strain of work out of proportion to the strength of the prisoner, and haphazard medical service. Moreover, you already know that many did not die a natural death, but were put to death by injections, gas chambers, or inoculations of fatal diseases. But more speedy extermination was often the case; it was often brought about by ill-treatment: Communal ice-cold showers in winter in the open air, prisoners left naked in the snow, cudgelling, dog bites, hanging by the wrists. Some figures will illustrate the result of these various methods of extermination. At Buchenwald, during the first 3 months of 1945, there were 13,000 deaths out of 40,000 internees. At Dachau, 13,000 to 15,000 died in the 3 months preceding the liberation. At Auschwitz, a camp of systematic extermination, the number of murdered persons came to several millions.
M. DE MENTHON: As to the total number of those deported from France, the official figure is as follows: Of 250,000 deported only 35,000 returned. The deportees served as guinea pigs for numerous medical, surgical, or other experiments which generally led to their death. At Auschwitz, at Struthof, in the prison at Cologne, at Ravensbruck, at Neuengamme, numerous men, women, and children were sterilized. At Auschwitz the most beautiful women were set apart, artificially fertilized, and then gassed. At Struthof a special barrack, isolated from the others by barbed wire, was used to inoculate men in groups of 40 with fatal illnesses. In the same camp women were gassed while German doctors observed their reactions through a peephole arranged for this purpose. Extermination was often directly effected by means of individual or collective executions. These were carried out by shooting, by hanging, by injections, by gas vans, or gas chamber. I should not wish to stress further the facts, already so numerous, submitted to Your High Tribunal during the preceding days by the American Prosecution, but the representative of France, so many of his people having died in these camps after horrible sufferings, could not pass in silence over this tragic example of complete inhumanity. This would have been inconceivable in the 20th century, if a doctrine of return to barbarism had not been established in the very heart of Europe. D. Crimes committed against prisoners of war, although less known, bear ample testimony to the degree of inhumanity which Nazi Germany had attained. To begin with, the violations of international conventions committed against prisoners of war are numerous. Many were forced to travel on foot, almost without food, for very long distances. Many camps had no respect for even the most elementary rules of hygiene.
M. DE MENTHON: Food was very often insufficient; thus a report from the WFSt of the OKW dated 11 April 1945 -and annotated by the Defendant Keitel, shows that 82,000 prisoners of war interned in Norway received the food strictly indispensable to the maintenance of life on the assumption that they were not working, whereas 30,000 of them were really employed on heavy work. In agreement with the Defendant Keitel, acting at the request of the Defendant Goering, camps for prisoners belonging to the British and American Air Forces were established in towns which were-exposed to air raids. In violation of the text of the Geneva Convention, it was decided, at a conference held at the Fuehrer's headquarters on 27 January 1945, in the presence of the Defendant Goering, to punish by death all attempts to escape made by prisoners of war when in convoy. Besides all these violations of the Geneva Convention, numerous crimes were committed by the German authorities against prisoners of war: Execution of captured allied airmen, murder of commando troops, collective extermination of certain prisoners of war for no reason whatsoever-for example the matter of 120 American soldiers at Malmedy on 27 January 1945. Parallel with "Nacht und Nebel," an expression for the inhumane treatment inflicted on civilians, can be put down the "Sonderbehandlung," a .,special treatment" of prisoners of war, in which these disappeared in great numbers. E. The same barbarism is found in the terroristic activity carried out by the German Army and Police against the Resistance. The order of the Defendant Keitel of 16 September 1941, which may be considered as a basic document, certainly has as a purpose the fight against the Communist movements; but it anticipates that resistance to the army of occupation can come from other than Communist sources and decides that every case of resistance is to be interpreted as having a Communist origin.
M. DE MENTHON: As a matter of fact, in carrying out this general order to annihilate the Resistance by every possible means, the Germans arrested, tortured, and massacred men of all ranks and all classes. To be sure, the members of the Resistance rarely complied with the conditions laid down by the Hague Conventions, which would qualify them to be considered as regular combat forces; they could be sentenced to death as francs-tireurs and executed. But they were assassinated without trial in most cases, often after having been terribly tortured. After the liberation, numerous charnel-houses were discovered and the bodies examined by doctors: They bore obvious traces of extreme brutal treatment, cranial tissue was pulled out, the spinal column had been dislocated, the ribs had been so badly fractured that the chest had been entirely crushed and the lungs perforated, hair and nails had been pulled out., It is impossible to determine the total number of the victims of German atrocities in the fight against the Resistance. It is certainly very high. In the department of the Rhone alone, for example, the bodies of 713 victims were discovered after the liberation. An order of 3 February 1944 of the Commander-in-Chief of the forces in the West, signed "By order General Sperrle," laid down for the fight against the terrorists immediate reply by fire-arms and the immediate burning down of all houses from which shots had come: "It is of little importance"-the text adds-"that innocent people should suffer. It will be the fault of the terrorists. All commanders of troops who show weakness in repressing the terrorists will be severely punished. On the other hand, those who go beyond the orders received and are too severe will incur no penalty." The war diary of Von Brodowski, commanding Liaison Headquarters Number 588, at Clermont-Ferrand, gives irrefutable examples of the barbarous forms which the Germans gave to the struggle against the Resistance. The resisters caught were almost all shot on the spot.
M. DE MENTHON: Others were turned over to the SD or the Gestapo to be subjected first to torture. The diary of Brodowski mentions "the cleaning up of a hospital" or "liquidation of an infirmary." The struggle against the Resistance had the same atrocious character in all the occupied territories of the West. F. The last months of the German occupation were characterized in France by a strengthening of the policy of terrorism which multiplied the crimes against the civilian population. The crimes which we are going to consider were not isolated acts committed from time to time in this or that locality, but were acts perpetrated in the course of extensive operations, the high number of which can be explained only by general orders. The perpetrators of these crimes were frequently members of the SS, but the military command shares responsibility for them. In a directive entitled "Fight against the Partisan Bands," dated 6 May 1944, the Defendant Jodl states that: "...the collective measures to be taken against the inhabitants of entire villages (including the burning down of these villages) are to be ordered exclusively by the division commanders or the heads of the SS and of the police." The war diary of Von Brodowski mentions the following: "It is understood that the leadership of the Sipo and of the SD shall be subordinate to me." These operations are supposedly measures of reprisal which were caused by the action of the Resistance. But the necessities of war have never justified the plundering and heedless burning down of towns and villages nor the blind massacres of innocent people. The Germans killed, plundered, burned down, very often without any reason whatsoever, whether in Ain, in Savoie, Lot, or Tarn-and- Garonne, in Vercors, Correze, in Dordogne. Entire villages were burned down at a time when the nearest armed groups of the Resistance were tens of kilometers away and the population of these villages had not made a single hostile gesture towards the German troops.
M. DE MENTHON: The two most typical examples are those of Maille (in Indreet-Loire) where on 25 August 1944, 52 buildings out of 60 were destroyed and 124 people were killed; and that of Oradout-sur-Glane (in the Haute-Vieinne). The war diary of Von Brodowski makes mention of the latter act in the following manner: "All the male population of Oradour was shot. The women and children took refuge in the church. The church caught fare. Explosives were stored in. the church. (This assertion has been shown to be false.) Also women and children perished." In the scale of criminal undertakings, perpetrated in the course of the war by the leaders of National Socialist Germany, we finally meet a category which we have called crimes against human status (la condition humaine). First of all it is important that I should define clearly for the Tribunal the meaning of this term. This classical French expression belongs both to the technical vocabulary of law and to the language of philosophy. It signifies an those faculties, the exercising and developing of which rightly constitute the meaning of human life. Each of these faculties finds its corresponding expression in the order of man's existence in society. His belonging to at least two social groups-the nearest and the most extensive-is translated by the right to family life and, to nationality. His relations with the powers constitute a- system of obligations and guarantees. His material life, as producer and consumer of goods, is expressed by the right to work in the widest meaning of this term. Its spiritual aspect implies a combination of possibilities to give out and to receive the expressions of thought, whether in assemblies or associations, in religious practice, in teachings given or received, by the many means which progress has put at the disposal for the dissemination of intellectual value- Books, press, radio, cinema. This is the right of spiritual liberty.
M. DE MENTHON: Against this human status, against the status of public and civil rights of the human beings in occupied territories, the German Nazis directed a systematic policy of corruption and demoralization. We shall treat this question last because it is this undertaking which presents a character of the utmost gravity and which has assumed the most. widespread prevalence. Man is more attached to his physical integrity and to life than to his property. But in all high conceptions of life, man is even less attached to life than to that which makes for his dignity and quality, according to the great Latin maxim, "Et propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas.'' On the other hand, if, in the territories occupied by them, the Germans did not, in spite of the importance and extent of their crimes, plunder all the property and goods and if they did not kill all the people, there remains not a single mein whose essential rights they did not change or abolish and whose condition as a human being they did not violate in some way. We can even say that in the entire world and as regards all people, even those to whom they reserved the privileges belonging to the superior race and even as regards themselves, their agents, and accomplices, the Nazi leaders committed a major offense against the conscience which mankind has today evolved from his status as a human being.. The execution of the enterprise was preceded by its plan. This is manifest in the entire Nazi doctrine and we shall content ourselves by recalling a few of its dominant features. The human status expresses itself, we say, in major statutes, every one of which comprises a complex apparatus of very different provisions. But these statutes are inspired in the laws of civilized countries by a conception essential to the nature of man. This conception is defined in two complementary ideas: The dignity of the human being considered in each and every person individually, on the one hand; and on the other hand, the permanence of the human being considered within: the whole of humanity.