dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
M. DUBOST: "The list has been drawn up in agreement with the High Command West, the Chief of the Security Police, and the General of the Air Force in Paris." I shall not read these new names of high-ranking French officers who were to be arrested but will go on further where the Tribunal will see that the German authorities contemplated causing officers already arrested by the French Government and under the surveillance of the French authorities to undergo the same fate as General De Lattre de Tassigny, General Laure, and General Fornel de la Laurencie. These generals were to be literally torn away from the French authorities to be deported. "In view of the present general situation and the contemplated security measures, all the authorities here consider it undesirable for these generals to remain in French custody, as the possibility must be considered that either through negligence or by intentional acts of the guard personnel, they might escape and regain their liberty." Finally, Page 7, under Roman numeral IX, concerning reprisals against families: "General Warlimont had asked the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front to raise the question of reprisal measures against the relatives of persons who had joined the resistance and to submit any proposals. "President Laval declared himself ready, not long ago, to take measures of this kind on behalf of the French Government; but to limit himself to the families of some particularly distinguished persons." I refer to the paragraph before the last of the telegraphic report Number 3,486 of 29 May 1943: "We must wait and see whether Laval is really willing to apply reprisal measures in a practical way. "All those present at the meetings were in agreement that such measures should be taken in any event, as rapidly as possible, against families of well-known personages who had become resistants. (For example, members of the families of Generals Giraud, Juin, Georges, the former Minister of the Interior, Pucheu, the Inspector of Finance Couve De Murville, Leroy-Beaulieu, and others.
M. DUBOST: "The measures may also be carried out by the German authorities, since the persons who have become resistants are to be considered as foreigners belonging to an enemy power and the members of their families are also to be considered as such. "In the opinion of those present, the members of these families should be interned; the practical carrying-out of this measure and its technical possibilities must be carefully examined .... "We might also study the question of whether these families should be interned in regions particularly exposed to air attacks, for instance, in the vicinity of dams, or in industrial regions which are often bombed. "A list of families who are considered liable for internment will be compiled in collaboration with the Embassy." In this premeditation of criminal arrests we find the Defendant Ribbentrop, the Defendant Goering, and the Defendant Keitel involved; for it is their departments who made these proposals, and we know that these proposals were agreed to-Document Number 720-PS, submitted as Exhibit Number RF-296, the second in your document book. It is a fact that these arrests were carried out. Members of the family of General Giraud were deported. General Frere was deported and died in a concentration camp. The orders were therefore carried out. They were approved before being carried out, and the approval inculpates the defendants whose names I have mentioned. The arrests did not only affect high-ranking officers but were much more extensive, and a great number of Frenchmen were arrested. We have no exact statistics.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, did you produce any evidence for your last statement?
M. DUBOST: I shall bring you the proof of the arrest of General Frere and his death in the concentration camp when I deal with the concentration camps. With regard to the arrest and death of several French generals in the concentration camps in Dachau, the Tribunal still remembers the testimony of Blaha. So far as the family of General Giraud is concerned, I shall endeavor to bring proofs, but I did not believe it was necessary; it is a well known fact that the daughter of General Giraud was deported.
THE PRESIDENT: I am not sure that we can take judicial notice of all facts which may be public knowledge in France.
M. DUBOST: I shall submit to the Tribunal the supplementary proof concerning the generals who died while deported when I deal with the question of the camps.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
M. DUBOST: General Frere died in Struthof Camp and we shall explain the circumstances under which he was assassinated. In addition, there exists in your document book a document numbered F-417, Exhibit Number RF-297, which was captured among the archives of the German Armistice Commission, which establishes that the German authorities refused to free French generals who were prisoners of war and whose state of health-and advanced age made it imperative that they should be released. I quote: "As far as this question is concerned the Fuehrer has always adopted an attitude of refusal, not only from the point of view of their release but also with regard to their hospitalization in neutral countries. "Release or hospitalization today is more out of question than ever, since the Fuehrer has only recently ordered the transfer to Germany of all French generals living in France." It is signed by Warlimont, and in handwriting it is noted: "No reply to be given to the French." Please retain as evidence only this last sentence: "-since the Fuehrer has only recently ordered the transfer to Germany of all French generals living in France." As I explained, however, these arrests infinitely exceeded the relatively limited number of generals or families of well-known persons envisaged by the document which I have just read to the Tribunal: "Very many Frenchmen will be arrested...." We have no statistics; but we have an idea of the number, which is considerable according to the figures given for Frenchmen who died in French prisons alone, prisons which had been placed under German command and were supervised by German personnel during the occupation. We know that 40,000 Frenchmen died in the French prisons, alone, in France, according to the official figures given by the Ministry of Prisoners and Deportees. In the prison registry "Schutzhaft" (protective custody) is written. My American colleagues explained to the Tribunal what this protective custody meant when they read Document Number 1723-PS, submitted under Number USA-206.
M. DUBOST: It is useless to return to this document. It is sufficient to remind the Tribunal that imprisonment and protective custody were considered by the German authorities as the strongest measure of forceful education for any foreigners who would deliberately neglect their duty towards the German community or compromise the security of the German State; they had to act in accordance with the general interests and adapt themselves to the discipline of the State. This protective custody was, as the Tribunal will remember, a purely arbitrary detention. Those who were interned in protective custody enjoyed no rights and could not vindicate themselves. There were no tribunals at their disposal before which they could plead their cause. We know now through official documents which were submitted to us, particularly by Luxembourg, that protective custody was carried out on a very large scale. The Tribunal will read in Document Number F-229, already submitted as Exhibit Number USA-243, Document L-215, a list of 25 persons arrested and placed in different concentration camps under protective custody. The Tribunal will recall that our colleagues drew its attention to the 'reason for the arrest of Ludwig, who was merely strongly suspected of having aided deserters. Evidence of the application of protective custody in France is given in our Document Number F-278, submitted as Exhibit Number RF-300: "Copy attached to VAAP-7236 (g)--Secret. Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Berlin, 18 September 1941. "Subject: Report of August 30, of this year. "The explanations of the Military Commander in France, of 1 August of this year, are considered in general to be satisfactory as a reply to the French note. "Here, also, we consider there is every reason to avoid any further discussion with the French concerning preventive arrest, as this would only lead to fixing definite limits to the exercise of these powers by the occupying power, which would not be desirable in the interests of the liberty of action of the military authorities.
M. DUBOST: By order, signed (illegible)." "To the Representative of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs at the German Armistice Commission at Wiesbaden. "The Representative of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs - VAAP 7236(g), Secret, dated Wiesbaden, 23 September 1941. Copy. "...the Representative of the Ministry requests that he be informed at an opportune time of the reply made to the French note." The Ministry for Foreign Affairs was still involved in this question of protective custody. The grounds for this custody were, as the Ministry for Foreign Affairs admits and according to the testimony of this document, very weak; nevertheless, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs does not forbid it. The arrests were carried out under multiple pretexts, but all these pretexts may be summarized under two general ideas: Arrests were made either for motives of a political nature or for racial reasons.' The arrests were individual or collective in both cases. Pretexts of a political nature: From 1941 the French observed that there was a synchronism between the evolution of political events and the rhythm of arrests. The French Document Number F-274(i) (Exhibit Number RP-301), which is at the end of your document book, will show this. A description is given by the Ministry of Prisoners and Deportees of the conditions under which these arrests took place, beginning in 1941-a critical period in the German history of the war, since it was from 1941 that Germany was at war with the Soviet Union: "The synchronism between the evolution of political events and the rhythm of arrests is evident. The suppression of the line of demarcation, the establishment of resistance groups, the formation of the Maquis resulting from forced labor, the landings in North Africa and in Normandy, all had immediate repercussions on the figures for arrests, of which the maximum curve is reached for the period of May to August 1944, especially in the southern zone and particularly in the region of Lyons.
M. DUBOST: "We repeat that these arrests were carried out by the members of all categories of the German repressive system: the Gestapo in uniform or in plain clothes, the SD, the Gendarmerie, particularly at the demarcation line, the Wehrmacht and the SS.... "The arrests took on the characteristics of collective operations. In Paris, as a result of an attempted assassination, the 18th Arrondissement was surrounded by the Feldgendarmerie. Its inhabitants, men, women, and children could not return to their homes and spent the night where they could find shelter. A round-up was carried out in the arrondissement." I do not think that it is necessary to read the following paragraph, which deals with the arrests at the University of Clermont- Ferrand, which the Tribunal will certainly remember, and also the arrests in Brittany in 1944, at the time of the landing. The last paragraph, at the bottom of Page 11: ". . on the pretext of conspiracy or attempted assassinations, whole families were made to suffer. The Germans resorted to round- ups when compulsory labor no longer furnished them sufficient workers. "Round-up in Grenoble, 24 December 1943, Christmas Eve. "Round-up in Cluny, Saone-et-Loire, in March 1944. "Round-up in Figeac in May 1944." The last paragraph, at the bottom of Page 11: "Most Frenchmen who were rounded up in this way were in reality not used for work in Germany but were deported, to be interned in concentration camps." We might multiply the examples of these arbitrary arrests by delving into official documents which have been submitted by Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium. These round-ups were never legally justified, they were never even represented as an action taken in accordance with the pseudo-law of hostages to which we have already referred. They were always arbitrary and carried out without any apparent reason, or at any rate, without its being possible for any act of a Frenchman having motivated them even as a reprisal. Other collective arrests were made for racial reasons.
M. DUBOST: They were of the same odious nature as the arrests made for political reasons. On Page 5 of the official document of the Ministry of Prisoners and Deportees, the Tribunal may read a few odious details connected with these racial arrests. "Certain German policemen were especially entrusted to pick out Jewish persons, according to their physiognomy. They called this group. 'The Brigade of Physiognomists.' This verification sometimes took place in public as far as men were concerned. (At the railway station at Nice, some were unclothed at the point of a revolver. "The Parisians remember these round-ups, quarter by quarter. Large police buses transported old men, women, and children pell- mell and crowded them into the Velodrome d'Hiver under dreadful sanitary conditions before taking them to Drancy, where deportation awaited them. The round-up of the month of August 1941 has gained sad renown. All the exits of the subway of the 11th Arrondissement were closed and all the Jews in that district were arrested and imprisoned. The round-up of December 1941 was particularly aimed at intellectual circles. Then there were the round-ups of July 1942. "All the cities in the southern zone, particularly Lyons, Grenoble, Cannes, and Nice, where many Jews had taken refuge, experienced these round-ups after the total occupation of France. "The Germans sought out all Jewish children who had found refuge with private citizens or with institutions. In May 1944 they proceeded to take into custody the children of the Colony of Eyzieux, and to arrest children who had sought refuge in the colonies of the U.G.I.F. in June and July 1944." I do not believe that these children were enemies of the German people, nor that they represented a danger of any kind to the German Army in France.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps, M. Dubost, we had better break off now. [The Tribunal adjourned until 25 January 1946 at 1000 hours.]
MARSHAL: Your Honors, Defendants Kaltenbrunner and Streicher will be absent from this morning's session.
M. DUBOST: Your Honors, yesterday I was reading from an official French document, which appears in your document book under the title "Report of the Ministry for Prisoners of War and Deportees." It concerned the seizure by the Germans of Jewish children in France, who were taken from private houses or public institutions where they had been placed. With your permission I will come back to a statement which I had previously made concerning the execution of orders, given by the German General Staff with the approval of the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, to arrest all French generals and, in reprisal, to arrest, as well, all the families of these generals who might be resistants, in other words, who were on the side of our Allies. In accordance with Article 21 of the Charter the Tribunal will not require facts of public knowledge to be proved. In the enormous amount of facts which we submit to you there are many .which are known but are not of public knowledge. There are a few, but nevertheless certain, facts which are both known and are also of public knowledge in all countries. There is the famous case of the deportation of the family of General Giraud, and I shall allow myself to recall to the Tribunal the six principal points concerning this affair. First: We all remember having learned through the Allied radio that Madame Giraud, wife of General Giraud ...
THE PRESIDENT: What is it that you are -going to ask us to take judicial knowledge of with reference to the deportation of General Giraud's family?
M. DUBOST: I have to ask the Tribunal, Mr. President, to apply, as far as these facts are concerned, Article 21 of the Charter ; namely, the provision specifying that the Tribunal will not require facts to be proved which are of public knowledge. Secondly, I request the Tribunal to hear my statement of these facts which we consider to be of public knowledge for they are known not only in France but in America, since the American Army participated in these events.
THE PRESIDENT: The words of Article 21 are not "of public knowledge" but "of common knowledge." It is not quite the same thing.
M. DUBOST: Before me now I have the French translation of the Charter . I am interpreting according to the French translation: "The Tribunal will not require that facts of public knowledge (''notoriete publique") be proved." We interpret these words thus: it is not necessary to bring documentary or testifying proof of facts universally known.
THE PRESIDENT: You say "facts universally known!'; but supposing, for instance, the members of the Tribunal did not know the facts? How could it then be taken that they were of common knowledge? The members of the Tribunal may be ignorant of the facts. At the same time it is difficult for them to take cognizance of the facts if they do not know them.
M. DUBOST: It is a question of fact which will be decided by the Tribunal. The Tribunal will say whether it does or does not know that these six points which I shall recall to it are correct.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will retire. [A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal is of opinion that the facts with reference to General Giraud's deportation and the deportation of his family, although they are matters of common knowledge or of public knowledge within France, cannot be said to be of common knowledge or of public knowledge within the meaning of Article 21 , which applies generally to the world . Of course, if the French Prosecutors have governmental documents or reports from France which state the facts with reference to the deportation of General Giraud, the question assumes a different aspect and if there are such documents the Tribunal will, of course, consider them.
M. DUBOST: I must bring proof that the crimes committed individually by the leaders of the German police in each city and in each region of the occupied countries of the West, were committed in execution of the will of a central authority, the will of the German Government, which permits us to charge all the defendants one by one. I shall not be able to prove this by submitting German documents. That you may consider it a fact, it is necessary that you accept as valid the evidence which I am about to read. This evidence was collected by the American and French armies and the French Office for Inquiry into War Crimes. The Tribunal will excuse me if I am obliged to read numerous documents. This systematic will can only be proved by showing that everywhere and in every case the German policy used the same methods concerning patriots whom they interned or detained. Internment or imprisonment in France was in civilian prisons which the Germans had seized, or in certain sections of French prisons which the Germans had requisitioned, which they occupied, and which all French officials were forbidden to enter. The prisoners in all these prisons were subject to the same regime. We shall prove this by reading to you depositions of prisoners from each of these German penal institutions in France or the western occupied countries. This regime was absolutely inhuman. It just allowed the prisoners to survive under the most precarious conditions. In Lyons, at Fort Montluc, the women received as their only food a cup of herb tea at 7 o'clock in the morning and a ladle of soup with a small piece of bread at 5 o'clock in the evening. This is confirmed by Document Number F-555, which you will find the eleventh in your document book, which we submit as Exhibit Number RF-302. The first page of this document, second paragraph, is an analysis of the depositions which were received. It is sufficient to refer to this analysis. I shall take a few lines from the following deposition. The witness declares: "...
M. DUBOST: on their arrival at Fort Montluc, the prisoners who were taken in the round-up by the Gestapo on 20 September 1943 were stripped of all their belongings. The prisoners were treated in a brutal fashion. The food rations were quite inadequate. The women's sense of decency was not respected." This testimony was received at Saint Gingolph, 9 October 1944. It refers to the arrests made at Saint Gingolph,' which were carried out in the month of September 1943. The witness relates: "The young men returned from the interrogation with their toes burned by means of cotton-wool pads which had been dipped in gasoline; others had had their calves burned by the flames of a blow torch; others were bitten by police dogs...."
DR. RUDOLF MERKEL (Counsel for the Gestapo): The French Prosecution submits here documents which do not represent sworn affidavits. They are statements which do not show who took them. As a matter of principle I formally protest against these mere testimonies of persons who were not on oath. They cannot be admitted as proof at this Trial.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that all, you have to say?
DR. MERKEL: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: We will hear M. Dubost answer.
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, the Charter , which goes so far as to admit evidence of public knowledge, has not fixed any rules as to the manner in which this evidence, being submitted to you as proof, shall be presented. The Charter leaves the Tribunal to decide on this or that document. The Charter leaves the Tribunal free to decide whether such or such method of investigation is acceptable. The way in which these investigations have been carried out is regular according to the customs and usages of my country. As a matter of fact, it is usual for all official records of the police and gendarmerie to be accepted without the witnesses being under oath. Moreover, according to the stipulations of the Charter , all investigations made to disclose war crimes should be held as authentic proof. Article 21 says: "The Tribunal shall not require proof of facts of common knowledge but shall take judicial notice thereof. It shall also take judicial notice of official governmental documents and reports of the United Nations, including the acts and documents of the committees set up in the various Allied countries for the investigation of war crimes, and the records and findings of military or other Tribunal of any of the United Nations."
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, is the document that you are reading to us either an official government document or a report, or is it an act or document of a committee set up in France?