dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
DR. NELTE: I said, in that report other witnesses are also mentioned but, as far as I know, they did not make a statement on the question of whether or not Keitel issued an order to shoot the fliers. Westhoff was the only one among the witnesses listed who could and did make a statement on that question.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you wish to say anything further in argument upon the admissibility of the document?
DR. NELTE: No.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: It appears to me, Mr. President, that that part of the document which refers to Major General Westhoff occupies merely one paragraph, namely, Paragraph 7, of the document in question. This part deals with the initial stage of the perpetration of the crime, namely, with the stage of the conception, the stage of the planning of the crime. The document also speaks of other stages in the commission of this crime. Moreover, it is an official document, presented according to Article 21 of the Charter. It seems to me that I have thereby said all that is necessary, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you wish to say anything further, Dr. Nelte?
DR. NELTE: No, thank you. I merely ask the Court to decide; in that case I should have to request that General Westhoff be admitted as a witness to testify that the conclusion drawn in this report does not correspond with what he said.
DR. EGON KUBUSCHOK (Counsel for Defendant Von Papen and for the Reich Cabinet): May I make a few legal remarks, a few generally legal remarks regarding Article 21 of the Charter? In all criminal procedure of every country we find the primary principle of oral court proceedings. Only if this cannot be carried out are part of the proceedings, so to say, transferred outside the court. In most codes of criminal procedure of the various countries we have a provision similar to that of Article 21 of the Charter that previous decisions of a court should not be re-examined in new proceedings, but that such decisions should be binding. In this Trial the Charter extends this provision further to cases which obviously, because of their scope, should not be further discussed here. Therefore the decision that government reports should be considered as evidence is clearly taken up in Paragraph 21. It is clear to every jurist that this provision in itself is to an extent a flaw in proceedings because through it certain rights are lost to the defendants. On the other hand one cannot, of course, ignore the argument that there is subject matter which, because of its extent, cannot be practically discussed in a trial in which the time is limited. Paragraph 21 of the Charter therefore gave the Tribunal the possibility of accepting such reports as valid evidence. But this provision is not compulsory for the Tribunal. So far as I can see from the German text before me it is provided that the Tribunal should accept these reports, but it does not say that the Tribunal must do so. Therefore it is in every case left to the discretion of the Tribunal whether the nature of the report makes it advisable to accept such a report in evidence. We now have here a rather striking case which, in my opinion, clearly shows that the Tribunal can make use of its discretion and reject this document. The Defense have taken the position that this subject of evidence could be taken care of by a witness. The examination of the witness would have provided the Defense with the right of cross-examination.
DR. EGON KUBUSCHOK (Counsel for Defendant Von Papen and for the Reich Cabinet): Since, for tactical reasons inherent in the nature of the Trial, the witness will not be called, the subsequent transfer of his evidence into a government report means curtailing the right of the defendant to cross-examination, and is thus contrary to the corresponding article of the Charter.
DR. STAHMER: It was not until today that the accusation was made that Goering knew of or ordered the execution of these fliers. I could not take this act into consideration when I recently offered my evidence, because I did not know of it; and I must, therefore, reserve the right to call additional witnesses on this question.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: May I say a few words, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: On the question of the admissibility?
MR. COUNSELLORSMIRNOV: Yes, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I consider the arguments put forward by the second Defense Counsel as entirely incomprehensible from a legal point of view since he introduces certain numerical and quantitative criteria into the legal nature of the evidence. According to this Counsel, Article 21 of the Charter deals only with evidence of crimes committed on an enormous scale, but cannot touch crimes of a smaller caliber. To me, viewing the matter from a legal point of view, this argumentation appears rotten from the root upwards and I consider that Article 21 of the Charter applies, in toto, to any crime committed by the Hitlerites, regardless of the fact if they be committed on a very large or on a slightly smaller scale. That is all I wish to say, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn. [A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Roberts, the Tribunal would like to know where these appendices which are referred to in Paragraph 9 of the report are.
MR. ROBERTS: I think they are in the Tribunal now, in the charge of the Officer of the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: They are in the court now? You can undertake, I suppose, to produce them all if they are not any of them there?
MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, most certainly. I understood the whole of the material is not necessary -- the original, of course -- but I understood the whole of the material to be there, all in the original, of course.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Then the Tribunal decides that the document will be admitted, and the Tribunal will summon, if he is available -- and we think he is -- General Westhoff; and that will be, in effect, granting the defendants' application to call General Westhoff, and also to call the officer mentioned in Paragraph 3(b) of the appendix, whose surname appears to be Wielen. I do not know whether you know where he is.
MR.ROBERTS: I will make inquiries and I can assure the Tribunal that we will do everything in our power to get the witnesses that are required for the defense, namely, General Westhoff, who is in Nuremberg, I understand, and General Wielen. I am not certain where he is, but I will find out.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
PROFESSOR DR. HERBERT KRAUS (Counsel for Defendant Schacht): Mr. President, you made a remark during the session with which the Defense Counsel are very much concerned. If we understood this remark, it was said that private affidavits would not be accepted by the Tribunal. Considering the fact that we must offer our evidence now, this question of affidavits is very urgent. That is why I am forced to clarify that question. The Defense Counsel has . . .
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Kraus, I do not think I said that affidavits could not be admitted. What I said was, it might be that affidavits would not be admitted, if the witness was available to give direct evidence. That is the rule which we have enforced throughout the Trial.
DR.KRAUS: Yes, I understand you, Mr. President, to say that in principle we may offer affidavits, whether certified by notary public or by a lawyer or whether bearing only the signature of the person who makes the statement. These are the three forms we have: The simple letter written with the statement, "I declare under oath." The second type is that in which the signature has been certified by a lawyer; and the third type is the one which has been declared before and certified by a notary public. We have procured many documents of that kind, in order to expedite matters, and we would like to know whether or not we may expect to present them as evidence in order to avoid the calling of witnesses.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that in all probability the matter will be considered when you present the applications for giving evidence by affidavit. We have, today, in dealing with the first four defendants, allowed, in a variety of instances, interrogatories to be administered to various witnesses where it appeared appropriate that that should be done in order to save time. No doubt the same rule will apply when you come to submit your applications.
DR. KRAUS: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, would it be more convenient to you to go on with your presentation now on this document which we have admitted, or do you wish to present a film?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I would like to finish the presentation of this proof, that is, to read into the record the passages from the document I have quoted.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well; but the Tribunal, I think, desire that these two witnesses, Major General Westhoff and Wielen, whatever his rank may be, should be produced for examination as soon as possible afterwards. I don't mean this afternoon, because that would not be possible, but, if possible, tomorrow.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: If you will allow me, I shall request the representative of the British Delegation to reply to this question.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Roberts, Colonel Smirnov was saying he would ask you to answer, because I was saying that the Tribunal would like to have the witnesses called as soon as possible after the report was read.
MR. ROBERTS: Westhoff we know about, so I heard, Sir, and I am trying to make inquiries now where Wielen is. If Your Lordship will give me a few minutes I will try to find out where Wielen can be located.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR.ROBERTS: But I shall have to leave the Court, then, My Lord.
THE PRESIDENT: One minute, please. Colonel Snurnov, would not it be equally convenient to go on with the film now in order that the report, when it is presented, can be presented as close as possible to the evidence of the witnesses? Otherwise, supposing Mr. Roberts is unable to locate Wielen this afternoon, it might be that if you read the report now, there might be a week possibly -- or even more -- between the reading of the report and the evidence of the witness. Is it possible to go on with the film now?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: What we are showing the Tribunal cannot be called a film in the full sense of the word. It is a series of photographic evidence, of photographs taken by the Germans themselves on the site where the crimes were committed, which were then rephotographed and transferred to a reel. It is not a film -- it is a photo-document. We are presenting these photodocuments as Exhibit Number USSR-442 (Document Number USSR-442), and we are presenting only one part of these photodocuments. The fact of the matter is that the Government of Yugoslavia presented photo-documents for every section of the report. We have excluded the part dealing with the other sections and show only that part which deals with Crimes against Humanity. Thus, only a section of the documents is being shown to the Tribunal. May I show these photo-documents? [The photographic document was then projected on the screen.]
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: May I continue with the presentation of the documentary evidence?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, in order to allow the British Prosecution to settle the question as to when the two witnesses will be summoned before the Tribunal, I take the liberty of passing to the next part of my statement. Have I your permission to do so?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I pass on to that part which deals with the persecution of the Jews, Page 37 of the text. The excessive anti-Semitism of the Hitlerite criminals, which assumed a perfectly zoological aspect, is only too well known. I shall not quote from the so-called theoretical works of the major war criminals --  from Himmler and Goering to Papen and Streicher. In the Eastern European countries all the anti-Semitism of the Hitlerites was put into full effect and mostly in one way only -- in the physical extermination of innocent people. The United States Prosecution, in its own time, submitted to the Tribunal one of the reports of a special German fascist organization, the so- called Einsatzgruppe A, which was submitted as Exhibit USA-276 (Document Number L-180). Our American colleagues submitted this particular report which covered the period up to 15 October 1941. The Soviet Prosecution submits another report of this criminal German fascist organization, covering a further period of time and which might almost be considered as a continuation of the first document, namely the report on Einsatzgruppe A, from 10 October 1941 to 31 January 1942. I submit to the Tribunal a photostatic copy of this report as Exhibit Number USSR-57 (Document Number USSR-57). I request the permission of the Tribunal to read into the record a very brief excerpt from Chapter 3 of the report of Einsatzgruppe A, entitled "The Jews," and I would invite the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the data presented in this report refer exclusively to one organization -- Einsatzgruppe A. I quote one paragraph from Page 170 of the document book: "The systematic task of purging the East was, according to fundamental orders, the liquidation of the Jews to the fullest possible extent. This objective has been practically realized, with the exception of Bielorussia, by the execution of 229,052 Jews....
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: The surviving Jews in the Baltic provinces are urgently needed for work, and have been quartered in ghettos." I interrupt the quotation and read two further excerpts from a subparagraph, "Estonia," on Page 2 of the Russian text, which corresponds to Page 171, Paragraph 2 of your document book. I begin the quotation: "The execution of the Jews, insofar as they were not indispensable for working purposes, was carried out gradually by forces of the Sipo and the SD. At present there are no Jews left in Estonia." I quote a few brief excerpts from the subparagraphs entitled "Latvia." I quote one line from the last paragraph on the second page of the Russian text, Page 171, Paragraph 5 of the document book. I begin: "When the German troops entered Latvia, there were still 70,000 Jews left there." I break off the quotation and read one line on Page 3, Paragraph 2 of the Russian text, Page 171, last paragraph of the document book: "By October 1941 the Sonderkommandos had executed about 30,000 Jews." I again break off and continue with the following paragraph: "Further executions were later carried out. Thus, for instance, 11,034 Jews were executed on 9 November 1941 in Dunaburg. In the beginning of December 1941, as a result of an operation carried out in Riga and following the order of the Higher Chief of the SS and Police, 27,800 persons were executed, and in mid-December 1941, in Libau, 2,350 Jews were executed. At present there are in ghettos, besides the Jews from Germany, about 2,500 Latvian Jews in Riga, about 950 in Dunaburg, and about 300 in Libau."
THE PRESIDENT: Can you tell me where these figures come from? Are they in an official report, or are they German figures?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: These are the data published by the Germans themselves. This particular document was discovered in the Gestapo archives. It was brought out of Latvia by troops of the Red Army. I request Your Honors to take note that this document covers only the period between 16 October 1941 and 31 January 1942. This is therefore not conclusive data but merely data connected with one German operational group during this particular period of time. Have I your permission to proceed, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I quote one line only from the subparagraph entitled "Lithuania," which is on Page 173 of the document book, Paragraph 3: "In numerous individual operations, 136,421 persons were liquidated all told." I request the Tribunal to allow me to quote in greater detail from the next subparagraph of the "A" group report, entitled "White Ruthenia." I quote the last paragraph on Page 5 of the Russian text; Page 174, last paragraph, of the document book: "The final and definite liquidation of the Jews remaining in the territory of White Ruthenia, after the arrival of the Germans, presented certain difficulties. As a matter of fact, it is precisely in this territory that the Jews constitute a high percentage of specialists and are indispensable for lack of other reserves. Moreover, Einsatzgruppe A took over the territory only after the hard frosts had set in, a fact which hampered the carrying out of the mass executions very seriously indeed. A further difficulty consists in the circumstance that the Jews are scattered all over the territory. Bearing in mind the fact that distances are vast, road conditions bad, transportation and petrol lacking, and the forces of the Security Police and SD insignificant, the executions could be carried out only by a maximum effort. Nevertheless, 41,000 Jews have already been shot. This figure does not include the persons executed by former Einsatzkommandos." I interrupt once more and proceed to read from the following paragraph -- this corresponds to Page 175, Paragraph 2 of the document book. I begin the quotation: "The Chief of Police in White Ruthenia, despite the difficult situation, has been given orders to solve the Jewish question as soon as possible. All the same, this calls for about two months' time, according to the weather.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: "The distribution of the remaining Jews in special ghettos of White Ruthenia is nearing its end." In order to show how mass executions of the Jews by the German criminals were carried out, I present to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-ll9(a) (Document Number USSR-ll9(a)) a photostatic copy, certified by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union of an original German document. This is the conclusive report of the commander of one of the companies of the 12th Regiment of Police, which carried out the mass extermination of the Jews assembled in the ghetto of the town of Pinsk. On 29 and 30 October 1942, the criminal elements from the 15th Regiment of Police murdered 26,200 Jews in Pinsk. This is how Company Commander Sauer described the crime. I shall not quote the document in toto since it is rather long, but I shall quote a few excerpts. The passage I am about to read -- and I ask the Tribunal's permission to read it into the record -- is on Page 177 of your document book, Paragraph 3. I begin the quotation: "The ordered encirclement of the districts was accomplished at 0430 hours; owing to the personal investigations made by the commanders and to the manner in which the secret was kept, the encirclement was carried out in the shortest time imaginable and it was impossible for the Jews to flee. "The combing of the ghetto was to begin at 0600 hours, but owing to the darkness it was postponed for another half-hour. The Jews had noticed the proceedings and began to assemble voluntarily in all the streets. With the aid of two Wachtmeister (Staff Sergeants) it was possible to bring several thousand Jews to the assembly point within the very first hour. When the remaining Jews realized what was coming, they too joined this column, so that the screening planned by the SD at the assembly point could not be carried out in view of the enormous multitude which had gathered. (For the first day of the comb-out only one to two thousand persons had been counted on.) The first comb-out ended at 1700 hours without any incident.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: About 10,000 persons were executed on this first day. That night the company was standing by, ready for action, in a soldiers' club. "On 30 October 1942 the ghetto was combed a second time. On 31 October it was combed for the third time and on 1 November for the fourth time. About 15,000 Jews were rounded up, all told. Sick Jews and children left behind in the houses were executed on the spot in the yard of the ghetto. About 1,200 Jews were executed in the ghetto." I request the permission of the Tribunal to allow me to continue quoting the second page of the document which corresponds to Page 178 of the document book, Paragraph 6. I quote two points from the section "Experiences." I begin to quote: "3) Where there are no cellars and a considerable number of persons are huddled together in the small space between the floor and the ground, these places must be broken into from the outside, or else police dogs sent in (one police dog, Asta, put up a remarkably good performance in Pinsk), otherwise a hand grenade should be thrown in, after which the Jews invariably come out into the open." I further quote Point 5: "We recommend persuading half-grown persons to disclose these hiding places by promising to spare their lives. This method has fully justified its application." This example of this police regiment, which I have just read into the record, is typical of the methods applied for the extermination of Jews who had been rounded up in the ghetto. But the German fascist invaders did not always apply this method when proceeding to the extermination of the peaceful Jewish population. Another, similarly criminal device was the assembling of Jews in a given spot under the pretext of transferring them to some other locality. The assembled Jews would then be shot. I submit to the Tribunal an original poster which had been put up in the town of Kislovodsk by Kommandantur Number 12. Your Honors will find the text (Document Number USSR-434) quoted on Page 180. I shall quote some extracts from this poster which is a comparatively long one.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I start with the first part: "To all Jews! For the purpose of colonizing sparsely populated districts of the Ukraine, all Jews residing in Kislovodsk and all Jews who have no permanent abode are ordered to present themselves on Wednesday, 9 September 1942, at 5 a. m. Berlin time (6 a. m. Moscow time), at the goods' station in Kislovodsk; the transport will take off at 6 a. m. (7 a. m. Moscow time). "Every Jew is to bring luggage not exceeding 20 kilograms in weight, including food for a minimum of 2 days. Further food will be supplied by the German authorities at the railway stations." I omit the next paragraph and only quote one line: "Also subjected to transfer are the Jews who have been baptized." I break off the quotation at this point. In order to ascertain what happened to the Jewish population in the town of Kislovodsk -- the same happened to the Jews in many other towns -- I would request the Tribunal to refer to the contents of a document which has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-1 (Document Number USSR-1). It is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Stavropol region. The part which I wish to read, in brief, is on Page 187 of your document book. It states there that the 2,000 Jews who had assembled at the Kislovodsk station were sent to the station of Mineralniye Vody and shot in an antitank trench 2 1/2 kilometers distant from the town. Here too, thousands of Jews, transferred from the towns of Essentuki and Piabigorsk, were shot on the same site. In order to show the extent of the criminal extermination of the peaceful Jewish population in Eastern Europe, I now refer to the contents of reports received from the governments of the respective Eastern European countries, which have already been submitted to the Tribunal. I quote a report of the Polish Government, on Page 136 of the Russian text of this document. I begin the quotation: "The official statistical yearbook of Poland, in 1931, estimates the number of Jews at 3,115,000.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: "According to unofficial figures collected in 1939 there were in Poland 3,500,000 Jews. "After the liberation of Poland the Jews in that country numbered less than 100,000, and 200,000 Polish Jews are still in the U.S.S.R. "Thus, about 3 million Jews perished in Poland." In Czechoslovakia, as seen from the data published on Pages 82-83 of the Russian text of the report, the Jews numbered 118,000. At present, in the entire country, they number only 6,000 all told. Of the total number of 15,000 Jewish children, only 28 have returned.
THE PRESIDENT: Can we leave off here? [The Tribunal adjourned until 27 February 1946 at 1000 hours.]