dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
SIR. SIDNEY S. ALDERMAN (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): By a law of the same date Austria was annexed to Germany. (c) The execution of the plan to invade Czechoslovakia: April 1938 to March 1939. (1) Simultaneously with their annexation of Austria, the Nazi conspirators gave false assurances to the Czechoslovak Government that they would not attack that country. But within a month they met to plan specific ways and means of attacking Czechoslovakia, and to revise, in the light of the acquisition of Austria, the previous plans for aggression against Czechoslovakia. (2) On 21 April 1938 the Nazi conspirators met and prepared to launch an attack on Czechoslovakia not later than 1 October 1938. They planned to create an "incident" to "justify" the attack. They decided to launch a military attack only after a period of diplomatic squabbling which, growing more serious, would lead to an excuse for war, or, in the alternative, to unleash a lightning attack as a result of an "incident" of their own creation. Consideration was given to assassinating the German Ambassador at Prague to create the requisite incident. From and after 21 April 1938, the Nazi conspirators caused to be prepared detailed and precise military plans designed to carry out such an attack at any opportune moment and calculated to overthrow all Czech resistance within 4 days, thus presenting the world with a fait accompli , and so forestalling outside resistance. Throughout the months of May, June, July, August, and September, these plans were made more specific and detailed, and by 3 September 1938 it was decided that all troops were to be ready for action on 28 September 1938. (3) Throughout this same period, the Nazi conspirators were agitating the minorities question in Czechoslovakia, and particularly in the Sudetenland, leading to a diplomatic crisis in August and September 1938. After the Nazi conspirators threatened war, the United Kingdom and France concluded a pact with Germany and Italy at Munich on 29 September 1938 , involving the cession of the Sudetenland by Czechoslovakia to Germany.
SIR. SIDNEY S. ALDERMAN (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): Czechoslovakia was required to acquiesce. On 1 October 1938 German troops occupied the Sudetenland. (4) On 15 March 1939, contrary to the provisions of the Munich Pact itself, the Nazi conspirators caused the completion of their plan by seizing and occupying the major part of Czechoslovakia, i.e. Bohemia and Moravia, not ceded to Germany by the Munich Pact. 4. Formulation of the plan to attack Poland: preparation and initiation of aggressive war: March 1839 to September 1939. (a) With these aggressions successfully consummated, the conspirators had obtained much desired resources and bases and were ready to undertake further aggressions by means of war. Following the assurances to the world of peaceful intentions, an influential group of the conspirators met on 23 May 1939 to consider the further implementation of their plan. The situation was reviewed, and it was observed that "the past six years have been put to good use and all measures have been taken in correct sequence and in accordance with our aims," that the national-political unity of the Germans had been substantially achieved, and that further successes could not be achieved without war and bloodshed. It was decided nevertheless next to attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity. It was admitted that the questions concerning Danzig which they had agitated with Poland were not true questions, but rather that the question was one of aggressive expansion for food and "Lebensraum." It was recognized that Poland would fight if attacked and that a repetition of the Nazi success against Czechoslovakia without war could not be expected. Accordingly, it was determined that the problem was to isolate Poland and, if possible, prevent a simultaneous conflict with the Western Powers. Nevertheless, it was agreed that England was an enemy to their aspirations, and that war with England and her ally France must eventually result, and therefore that in that war every attempt must be made to overwhelm England with a "Blitzkrieg", or lightning war.
SIR. SIDNEY S. ALDERMAN (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): It was thereupon determined immediately to prepare detailed plans for an attack on Poland at the first suitable opportunity and thereafter for an attack on England and France, together with plans for the simultaneous occupation by armed force of air bases in the Netherlands and Belgium. (b) Accordingly, after having denounced the German-Polish Pact of 1934 on false grounds, the Nazi conspirators proceeded to stir up the Danzig issue, to prepare frontier "incidents" to "justify" the attack, and to make demands for the cession of Polish territory. Upon refusal by Poland to yield, they caused German Armed Forces to invade Poland on 1 September 1939, thus precipitating war also with the United Kingdom and France. 5. Expansion of the war into a general war of aggression: planning and execution of attacks on Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, and Greece: 1939 to April 1941. Thus the aggressive war prepared for by the Nazi conspirators through their attacks on Austria and Czechoslovakia was actively launched by their attack on Poland, in violation of the terms of the Briand-Kellogg Pact, 1928 . After the total defeat of Poland, in order to facilitate the carrying out of their military operations against France and the United Kingdom, the Nazi conspirators made active preparations for an extension of the war in Europe. In accordance with these plans, they caused the German Armed Forces to invade Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940; Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on 10 May 1940; Yugoslavia and Greece on 6 April 1941. All these invasions had been specifically planned in advance. 6. German invasion on 22 June 1941 of the U.S.S.R. territory in violation of the Non-Aggression Pact of 23 August 1939 . On 22 June 1941 the Nazi conspirators deceitfully denounced the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the U.S.S.R. and without any declaration of war invaded Soviet territory, thereby beginning a war of aggression against the U.S.S.R.
SIR. SIDNEY S. ALDERMAN (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): From the first day of launching their attack on Soviet territory the Nazi conspirators, in accordance with their detailed plans, began to carry out the destruction of cities, towns, and villages, the demolition of factories, collective farms, electric stations, and railroads, the robbery and barbaric devastation of the natural cultural institutions of the peoples of the U.S.S.R., the devastation of museums, churches, historic monuments, the mass deportation of the Soviet citizens for slave labor to Germany, as well as the annihilation of old people, women, and children, especially Bielorussians and Ukrainians. The extermination of Jews was committed throughout the territory of the Soviet Union. The above-mentioned criminal offenses were perpetrated by the German troops in accordance with the orders of the Nazi Government and the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces. 7. Collaboration with Italy and Japan and aggressive war against the United States: November 1936 to December 1941. After the initiation of the Nazi wars of aggression the Nazi conspirators brought about a German-Italian-Japanese 10-year military-economic alliance signed at Berlin on 27 September 1940 . This agreement, representing a strengthening of the bonds among those three nations established by the earlier but more limited pact of 25 November 1936 , stated: "The Governments of Germany, Italy, and Japan, considering it as a condition precedent of any lasting peace that all nations of the world be given each its own proper place, have decided to stand by and co-operate with one another in regard of their efforts in Greater East Asia and regions of Europe respectively wherein it is their prime purpose to establish and maintain a new order of things calculated to promote the mutual prosperity and welfare of the peoples concerned." The Nazi conspirators conceived that Japanese aggression would weaken and handicap those nations with which they were at war, and those with whom they contemplated war.
SIR. SIDNEY S. ALDERMAN (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): Accordingly, the Nazi conspirators exhorted Japan to seek "a new order of things." Taking advantage of the wars of aggression then being waged by the Nazi conspirators, Japan commenced an attack on 7 December 1941 against the United States of America at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, and against the British Commonwealth of Nations, French Indo-China, and the Netherlands in the Southwest Pacific. Germany declared war against the United States on 11 December 1941. (G) War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity committed In the course of executing the conspiracy for which the conspirators are responsible 1. Beginning with the initiation of the aggressive war on 1 September 1939, and throughout its extension into wars involving almost the entire world, the Nazi conspirators carried out their Common Plan or Conspiracy to wage war in ruthless and complete disregard and violation of the laws and customs of war. In the course of executing the Common Plan or Conspiracy, there were committed the War Crimes detailed hereinafter in Count Three of this Indictment . 2. Beginning with the initiation of their plan to seize and retain total control of the German State, and thereafter throughout their utilization of that control for foreign aggression, the Nazi conspirators carried out their Common Plan or Conspiracy in ruthless and complete disregard and violation of the laws of humanity. In the course of executing the Common Plan or Conspiracy there were committed the Crimes against Humanity detailed hereinafter in Count Four of this Indictment. 3. By reason of all the foregoing, the defendants with divers other persons are guilty of a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of Crimes against Peace; of a conspiracy to commit Crimes against Humanity in the course of preparation for war and in the course of prosecution of war, and of a conspiracy to commit War Crimes not only against the armed forces of their enemies but also against non-belligerent civilian populations. (H) Individual, group and organization responsibility for the.
SIR. SIDNEY S. ALDERMAN (Associate Trial Counsel for the United States): Offense stated in Count One . Reference is hereby made to Appendix A of this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the individual defendants for the offense set forth in this Count One of the Indictment . Reference is hereby made to Appendix B of this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the groups and organizations named herein as criminal groups and organizations for the offenses set forth in this Count One of the Indictment . If the Tribunal please, that ends Count One , which is America's responsibility. Great Britain will present Count Two.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If your Lordships please: COUNT TWO - CRIMES AGAINST PEACE . Charter, Article 6 (a) . V. Statement of the Offense. All the defendants with divers other persons, during a period of years preceding 8 May 1945, participated in the planning, prep aration, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances. VI. Particulars of the Wars Planned, Prepared, Initiated, and Waged. (A) The wars referred to in the statement of offense in this Count Two of the Indictment and the dates of their initiation were the following: against Poland, 1 September 1939; against the United Kingdom and France, 3 September 1939; against Denmark and Norway, 9 April 1940; against Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, 10 May 1940; against Yugoslavia and Greece, 6 April 1941; against the U.S.S.R., 22 June 1941; and against the United States of America, 11 December 1941. (B) Reference is hereby made to Count One of the Indictment for the allegations charging that these wars were wars of aggression on the part of the defendants. (C) Reference is hereby made to Appendix C annexed to this Indictment for a statement of particulars of the charges of violations of international treaties, agreements, and assurances caused by the defendants in the course of planning, preparing, and initiating these wars. VII. Individual, Group and Organization Responsibility for the Offense Stated in Count Two. Reference is hereby made to Appendix A of this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the individual defendants for the offense set forth in this Count Two of the Indictment. Reference is hereby made to Appendix B of this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the groups and organizations named herein as criminal groups and organizations for the offense set forth in this Count Two of the Indictment. That finishes, Mr. President, Count Two of the Indictment.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now adjourn for 15 minutes.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: If your Lordship pleases, the reading will be resumed by a representative of the French Republic. [A recess was taken.]
THE PRESENT: The Tribunal understands that the Defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner is temporarily ill. The Trial will continue in his absence. I call upon the Chief Prosecutor for the Provisional Government of the French Republic.
M. PIERRE MOUNIER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): COUNT THREE-WAR CRIMES. Charter, Article 6 , especially 6 (b). VIII. Statement of the Offense. All the defendants committed War Crimes between 1 September 1939 and 8 May 1945, in Germany and in all those countries and territories occupied by the German Armed Forces since 1 September 1939, and in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Italy, and on the High Seas. All the defendants, acting in concert with others, formulated and executed a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit War Crimes as defined in Article 6 (b) of the Charter . This plan involved, among other things, the practice of "total war" including methods of combat and of military occupation in direct conflict with the laws and customs of war, and the perpetration of crimes committed on the field of battle during encounters with enemy armies, against prisoners of war, and in occupied territories against the civilian population of such territories. The said War Crimes were committed by the defendants and by other persons for whose acts the defendants are responsible (under Article 6 of the Charter ) as such other persons when committing the said War Crimes performed their acts in execution of a Common Plan and Conspiracy to commit the said War Crimes, in the formulation and execution of which plan and conspiracy all the defendants participated as leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices. These methods and crimes constituted violations of international conventions, of internal penal laws, and of the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal law of all civilized nations, and were involved in and part of a systematic course of conduct. (A) Murder and ill-treatment of civilian populations of or in occupied territory and on the High Seas. Throughout the period of their occupation of territories overrun by their armed forces, the defendants, for the purpose of systematically terrorizing the inhabitants, ill-treated civilians, imprisoned them without legal process, tortured, and murdered them.
M. PIERRE MOUNIER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): The murders and ill-treatment were carried out by divers means, such as shooting, hanging, gassing, starvation, gross overcrowding, systematic undernutrition, systematic imposition of labor tasks beyond the strength of those ordered to carry them out, inadequate provision of surgical and medical services, kickings, beatings, brutality and torture of all kinds, including the use of hot irons and pulling out of fingernails and the performance of experiments by means of operations and otherwise on living human subjects. In some occupied territories the defendants interfered with religious services, persecuted members of the clergy and monastic orders, and expropriated church property. They conducted deliberate and systematic genocide; viz., the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian population of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people, and national, racial, or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, and Gypsies. Civilians were systematically subjected to tortures of all kinds, with the object of obtaining information. Civilians of occupied countries were subjected systematically to "protective arrests", that is to say they were arrested and imprisoned without any trial and any of the ordinary protections of the law, and they were imprisoned under the most unhealthy and inhumane conditions. In the concentration camps were many prisoners who were classified "Nacht und Nebel". These were entirely cut off from the world and were allowed neither to receive nor to send letters. They disappeared without trace and no announcement of their fate was ever made by the German authorities. Such crimes and ill-treatment are contrary to international conventions, in particular to Article 46 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war , the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and to Article 6 (b) of the Charter .
M. PIERRE MOUNIER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): The following particulars and all the particulars appearing later in this Count are set out herein by way of example only, are not exclusive of other particular cases, and are stated without prejudice to the right of the Prosecution to adduce evidence of other cases of murder and ill-treatment of civilians. 1. In France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Italy, and the Channel Islands, (hereinafter called the "Western Countries"), and in that part of Germany which lies west of a line drawn due north and south through the center of Berlin (hereinafter called "Western Germany"). Such murder and ill-treatment took place in concentration camps and similar establishments set up by the defendants, and particularly in the concentration camps set up at Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Breendonck, Grini, Natzweiler, Ravensbruck, Vught, and Amersfoort, and in numerous cities, towns, and villages, including Oradour sur Glane, Trondheim, and Oslo. Crimes committed in France or against French citizens took the following forms: Arbitrary arrests were carried out under political or racial pretexts; they were either individual or collective; notably in Paris (round-up of the 18th Arrondissement by the Field Gendarmerie, round-up of the Jewish population of the 11th Arrondissement in August 1941, round-up in July 1942); at Clermont-Ferrand (round-up of professors and students of the University of Strasbourg, which had been evacuated to Clermont-Ferrand, on 25 November 1943); at Lyons; at Marseilles (round-up of 40,000 persons in January 1943); at Grenoble (round-up of 24 December 1943); at Cluny (round-up on 24 December 1943); at Figeac (round-up in May 1944); at Saint Pol de Leon (round-up in July 1944); at Locking (round-up on 3 July 1944); at Eysieux (round-up in May 1944); and at Meaux-Moussey (round-up in September 1944).
M. PIERRE MOUNIER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): These arrests were followed by brutal treatment and tortures carried out by the most diverse methods, such as immersion in icy water, asphyxiation, torture of the limbs, and the use of instruments of torture, such as the iron helmet and electric current, and practiced in all the prisons of France, notably in Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Rennes, Metz, Clermont-Ferrand, Toulouse, Nice, Grenoble, Annecy, Arras, Bethune, Lille, Loos, Valenciennes, Nancy, Troyes, and Caen, and in the torture chambers fitted up at the Gestapo centers. In the concentration camps, the health regime and the labor regime were such that the rate of mortality (alleged to be from natural causes) attained enormous proportions, for instance: 1. Out of a convoy of 250 French women deported from Compiegne to Auschwitz in January 1943, 180 had died of exhaustion at the end of 4 months. 2. 143 Frenchmen died of exhaustion between 23 March and 6 May 1943 in Block 8 at Dachau. 3. 1,797 Frenchmen died of exhaustion between 21 November 1943 and 15 March 1945 in the block at Dora. 4. 465 Frenchmen died of general debility in November 1944 at Dora. 5. 22,761 deportees died of exhaustion at Buchenwald between 1 January 1943 and 15 April 1945. 6. 11,560 detainees died of exhaustion at Dachau Camp (most of them in Block 30 reserved for the sick and the infirm) between 1 January and 15 April 1945. 7. 780 priests died of exhaustion at Mauthausen. 8. Out of 2,200 Frenchmen registered at Flossenburg Camp, 1,600 died from supposedly natural causes. Methods used for the work of extermination in concentration camps were: Bad treatment, pseudo-scientific experiments (sterilization of women at Auschwitz and at Ravensbruck, study of the evolution of cancer of the womb at Auschwitz, of typhus at Buchenwald, anatomical research at Natzweiler, heart infections at Buchenwald, bone grafting and muscular excisions at Ravensbruck, et cetera), and by gas chambers, gas wagons, and crematory ovens. Of 228,000 French political and racial deportees in concentration camps, only 28,000 survived.
M. PIERRE MOUNIER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic): In France also systematic extermination was practiced, notably at Asq on 1 April 1944, at Colpo on 22 July 1944, at Buzet sur Tarn on 6 July 1944 and on 17 August 1944, at Pluvignier on 8 July 1944, at Rennes on 8 June 1944, at Grenoble on 8 July 1944, at Saint Flour on 10 June 1944, at Ruisnes on 10 June 1944, at Nimes, at Tulle, and at Nice, where, in July 1944, the victims of torture were exposed to the population, and at Oradour sur Glane where the entire village population was shot or burned alive in the church. The many charnel pits give proof of anonymous massacres. Most notable of these are the charnel pits of Paris (Cascade du Bois de Boulogne), Lyons, Saint Genis-Laval, Besancon, Petit Saint Bernard, Aulnat, Caen, Port Louis, Charleval, Fontainebleau, Bouconne, Gabaudet, Lhermitage Lorges, Morlaas, Bordelongue, Signe. In the course of a premeditated campaign of terrorism, initiated in Denmark by the Germans in the latter part of 1943, 600 Danish subjects were murdered and, in addition, throughout the German occupation of Denmark large numbers of Danish subjects were subjected to torture and ill-treatment of all sorts. In addition, approximately five hundred Danish subjects were murdered, by torture and otherwise, in German prisons and concentration camps. In Belgium, between 1940 and 1944, torture by various means, but identical in each place, was carried out at Brussels, Liege, Moons, Ghent, Namur, Antwerp, Tournai, Arlon, Charleroi, and Dinant. At Vught, in Holland, when the camp was evacuated, about four hundred persons were shot. In Luxembourg, during the German occupation, 500 persons were murdered and, in addition, another 521 were illegally executed, by order of such special tribunals as the so-called "Sondergericht". Many more persons in Luxembourg were subjected to torture and ill-treatment by the Gestapo. At least 4,000 Luxembourg nationals were imprisoned during the period of German occupation, and of these at least 400 were murdered.