THE PRESIDENT: I have an announcement to make which concerns the defendants' counsel. The Tribunal win sit in open session on Saturday morning from 10 o'clock to hear the application of the defendants' counsel for an adjournment.
They will hear one counsel on either side, that is to say, one counsel for the Prosecution and one counsel for the Defense, for 15 minutes each, and after that open session the Tribunal will adjourn into closed session upon procedural matters.
COL.POKROVSKY: Yesterday, in the course of my representation, I referred to four photographs in our possession, two of which were submitted to the Tribunal there and then. These photographs have been made by the Germans and they show the prisoner-of-war camp at Oman. I must apologize that yesterday, for technical reasons, we were unable to produce the remaining two at the proper time. The first of these photographs shows the distribution of food to the prisoners; the second, hungry Soviet prisoners searching for and eating oil cakes intended as cattle food. I now submit the originals of these two photographs (Document Numbers USSR-358 and 359) as Exhibit Numbers USSR-358 and
USSR-359.
An autopsy of the exhumed bodies, performed during the investigation of fascist crimes in the so-called "Lager," Slavuta, confirms that:
"The headquarters command and the camp guards repeatedly resorted to refined forms of torture. Among the bodies exhumed on which autopsies were performed, the medico-legal examination established that the corpses of four prisoners of war, murdered with cold steel, had received bayonet wounds penetrating the cavity of the skull."
You will find this passage, Your Honors, on Page 153 of the document book.
"The Hitlerites compelled sick and wounded prisoners, despite their extreme weakness and acute state of exhaustion, to carry out work which was entirely beyond their strength. The prisoners had to carry heavy burdens, were forced to
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shoulder the bodies of murdered Soviet citizens and carry them out of the camp. Exhausted prisoners who fell by the way were shot on the spot. The road to and from work, according to a report of the Roman Catholic priest at Slavuta, was marked, as by milestones, with small grave mounds."
The fascist fanatics did not always have the patience to wait for the actual death of one or another prisoner of war, and they buried persons who were still alive. I quote from a document which I have previously submitted to the Tribunal. You will find this quotation once again on Page 153 of your document book:
"As a result of the discovery of a considerable quantity of grains of sand in the lower respiratory tracts of the corpses of four prisoners, grains which penetrated right down to the very smallest bronchial tube, and which could not have penetrated thus far unless propelled by the respiratory movements of persons smothered by sand, the medico-legal experts found that at the 'Gross-Lazarett' the guards of the commander had buried the Soviet citizens alive. This was done with the connivance of the German doctors."
Prisoner-of-war Pankin, a former inmate of the "Gross-Lazarett," knew of one case where, in February 1943, an unconscious patient was brought to the morgue. There he recovered consciousness, but when it was reported to the officer in charge of barracks that a live man had been taken to the morgue, he ordered him to be left there: The sick man was buried.
Some prisoners, spurred by the intolerable regime, ignored the immense risks attached to the venture and attempted to escape, either singly or in groups. Such martyrs who succeeded in getting out of the "hospital" hell sought refuge with the local population of Slavuta and the surrounding hamlets. The Hitlerite brutes mercilessly shot anybody who had rendered any kind of assistance to a fugitive.
The town of Slavuta lies in the Shepetov district. On 15 January 1942, the District Commissioner of Shepetov, Dr. Worbs, issued a special order to the effect that if those directly responsible for helping escaped prisoners were not found, 10 hostages would be shot in every case. Father Dhynkovsky reported that 26 peaceloving citizens were arrested and shot for helping prisoners of war flee.
A medical examination of the 525 prisoners liberated from the "Gross-Lazarett" revealed that 435 suffered from extreme exhaustion, 59 from complications following untended, infected wounds, and that 31 suffered from neuro-psychiatric disturbances.
The commission notes, and I quote-with the permission of the Tribunal-the last and the penultimate paragraphs of the left
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column, on Page 5 of our document. In your file this quotation is on Page 154 of the document book:
"During the 2 years of Slavuta's occupation, the Hitlerites, with the connivance of the German doctors Borbe, Sturm, and other medical personnel in the 'Gross-Lazarett,' exterminated about 150,000 Red Army officers and men."
The German fascist executioners, perfectly aware of the unbounded bestiality of their crimes, attempted to conceal by all possible means the traces of the atrocities committed. They especially endeavored to camouflage the burial sites of the Soviet prisoners of war. Thus, for instance, on the cross of Grave Number 623, only eight surnames of persons buried were indicated, whereas upon excavation 32 bodies were actually found in that grave. Such, too, was the case when Grave Number 624 was opened up. In other graves, layers of earth were placed between several rows of corpses. For instance, 10 bodies were found in Grave Number 625. When a layer of earth, 30 centimeters thick, had been removed, two further rows of corpses were found in the same grave; the same occurred at the excavation of Graves Number 627 and 628.
Numerous graves were camouflaged by flower-beds, trees, plants, paths, et cetera, but no disguise can ever hide the bloody crimes committed by the Hitlerite evildoers.
If I am not mistaken, there was a case when one of the participants in these trials, evidently forgetting where he was and under what circumstances, expressed a wish to follow the procedure laid down by German law. The Tribunal immediately made the necessary inquiries, and the intention of operating in accordance with the standards of German law was, of course, promptly rejected. At present I am fully able to submit to the Tribunal documents which, in my opinion, are of importance in our case, although they are compiled in complete accordance with the rules laid down by German law.
Among the numerous documents found in the police archives of the town of Zhitomir, Red Army troops seized a certain piece of correspondence. This is a police inquiry. The authors of this document could not foretell that it would be read into the record al a session of the International Tribunal for the punishment of the major war criminals. The documents constituting this correspondence were intended exclusively for the chiefs of police, and they were compiled in accordance with all the customary requirements of German law and of the police investigations of fascist Germany. From this point of view, those who would 1lke to examine the documentation in question can be well satisfied.
At the same time this correspondence is useful to us. So much has been said in the comparatively small number of pages that
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I should have to analyze the documentation section by section in order that you could appreciate it fully and from every angle. I submit this correspondence to you both in the German photostats and in the Russian translation. I repeat-this is a police inquiry. The document is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-311 (Document Number USSR-311); and we have, in accordance with the wishes of the Tribunal, asked for the original copy which we may possibly receive from Moscow this very day.
On 24 December 1942, 78 prisoners of war from the Berditchev section of the Educational Labor Camp were to be subjected to "special treatment." All the 78 prisoners were Soviet citizens. There is, in the correspondence, a report addressed to the authorities by SS Obersturmfuehrer Kuntze, of 27 December 1942. You will find it on Page 170 of your document book. At the end of the first paragraph there is one sentence which, for greater clarity, has been marked with a red pencil. It says:
"There is no proof that these prisoners of war had ever participated in any communistic activities during the time of the Soviet regime."
Kuntze's next sentence fully elucidates the question of how and why these prisoners of war entered the Educational Labor Camp. He states:
"It seems that the Wehrmacht had, at the time, placed these prisoners of war at the disposal of our local authorities for special treatment...."
We became convinced that they had been directed to this camp by the military authorities. The specialist-in this case undoubtedly Obersturmfuehrer Kuntze-states that they were sent here especially to be subjected to the treatment of the "special regime."
In an attempt to shorten, if ever so slightly, this very abundant documentation which forms the correspondence, I shall tell you, in my own words, that the 78 people in question were all that remained of a far larger group. Sturmscharfuehrer SS Fritz Knop reports-Page 163 of your document book:
". . . some of the prisoners at that time were transported in a truck, to some place in the neighborhood and unloaded. Later on further unloadings of prisoners of war were suspended, following objections raised by the Army."
A little later I shall be more explicit when dealing with the nature of these transfers and the objections raised by the Army. Please permit me now to pass over to a brief summary of the gist of the matter. It appears to me more useful to describe it in the words of one of the documents. I quote:
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"Commander of the Security Police and SD in Zhitomir; Berditchev, 24 December 1942.
"When summoned to appear, SS Sturmscharfuehrer and Chief Secretary of the Kripo, Fritz Knop, complied. He was born on 18 February 1897, at Neuklinz, in the district of Koslin. Fritz Knop testified as follows:
" 'As from the middle of august I was head of the Berditchev field office of the commander of the Security Police and SD in the town of Zhitomir. On 23 December 1942 the Deputy Commander, Hauptsturmfuehrer of the SS-Kallbach, inspected the local office and also the Educational Labor Camp which was supervised by my of lice. In this Educational Labor Camp, as from the end of October or the beginning of November, there were 78 former prisoners of war who had been dismissed from the permanent camp (Stalag) in Zhitomir as being unfit for work. A considerable number of prisoners of war had, in the past, been handed over and placed at the disposal of the Commander of the Security Police and SD."
I think there is no necessity to explain in detail that the transfer of the prisoners of war and the placing of them at the disposal of the Security Police had been provided for by special directives of the SS and the SD, especially referring to persons condemned to physical extermination. I quote further, on the same page of your document book, 163:
"In Zhitomir a few of them, who up to a certain point were fit for work, had been set aside. The remaining 78 persons were transferred to the local Educational Labor Camp."
I omit two more extracts.
"The 78 prisoners of war in the local camp were, one and all, severely wounded men. Some had lost both legs; others both arms; others again had lost one or the other of their limbs. Only a few of them had all their arms and legs, although they were so mutilated by other kinds of wounds that they were totally unfit for work. The latter had to nurse the former.
"At the time he was inspecting the Educational Labor Camp on 23 December 1942, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Kallbach issued an order to the effect that the surviving 68 or 70 prisoners of war, the others having died in the meantime, should this very day be subjected to 'special treatment.' For this purpose he assigned a motor truck, driven by SS man Schafer from the command division, who arrived here today at 1130 hours. I entrusted the preparations for the execution early this morning to my colleagues in the local administration,
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SS Unterscharfuehrer Paal, SS Rottenfuehrer Hesselbach, and SS Sturmmann Vollprecht."
I shall, with your permission, omit a further part of the quotation which, in any case, already figures in your files. I think I may safely do so in order to save time. It is a description of the technical preparations for the execution. One passage, however, does appear to me to be of interest; and I quote:
"Usually the execution of the Jews was carried out in the precincts of the labor camp which could not be seen from the outside. For this particular execution I issued orders to choose a site outside on a terrain behind the permanent camp. Concerning the three above-mentioned persons whom I entrusted with the shooting of the prisoners of war, I knew that they had, in Kiev, participated in the mass executions of many thousands of persons and that they had before, that is during my time of service, been entrusted by the local administration with the shooting of many hundreds of victims."
I should like to invite your attention to another instance which again shows the meaning which the Hitlerites usually attached to the words "execution" and "treatment by special regime." Here, in one sentence alone, the words `'mass execution" and "shooting" are definitely used as synonymous terms, while a little higher up it is made quite clear to us what "transporting by trucks to some place in the neighborhood" and "treatment by special regime" mean. Unquestionably, these four terms have an identical significance.
After this digression I continue my quotation. Having made a few more omissions from the passage already printed in your document book, I proceed to the following paragraph, your Page 165, if only to maintain the sense of the statement:
"They were armed with a German submachine gun, a Russian automatic rifle, an 0.8 pistol, and a carbine. I would point out that I had intended to give these three persons, as an assistant, SS Hauptscharfuehrer Wenzel, but SS Sturmmann Vollprecht declined, remarking that three men were perfectly able to execute this order.
"Concerning the indictment: It never entered my head, to ensure the smooth procedure of an ordinary execution, to send a larger detachment' since the execution ground was hidden from public view and the captives were..."
THE PRESIDENT These words "Concerning the indictment," are they in the original document?
COL. POKROVSKY: It is the text of the explanation of the evidence which the signatory of the document handed to his police
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chief. I, with the permission of the Tribunal, shall quote the original German documents of the inquiry. The persons responsible for carrying out the execution were accused of provoking, by their indiscretion and carelessness, that which they called an "incident" and they produced an explanation of the cause of this indictment.
"Concerning the charge: It never entered my head, to ensure the smooth procedure of an ordinary execution, to send a larger detachment, since the execution ground was hidden from public view and the captives were unable to escape by reason of their physical infirmities.
"At about 1500 hours I received a telephone call from the camp to the effect that one of the co-workers in my department, in charge of this special task, had been wounded and that one man had run away. I promptly sent SS Hauptscharfuehrer Wenzel and SS Oberscharfuehrer Fritsch to the execution ground in a horse cart. Some time later I received another telephone call from the camp, informing me that the co-workers of my department had been killed."
I think it useless to read into the record details of a purely technical nature. I shall omit at this point a considerable part of those references which I had previously intended to quote, and I shall proceed to that part of Knop's evidence which he had handed to his police chief. You will find the passage in question on Page 166:
"I wish to point out that the incident I have described took place during the second execution. It had been preceded by the shooting of approximately twenty prisoners of war which had passed without any incident at all. As soon as I returned, I informed the command headquarters at Zhitomir accordingly.
"I cannot give any further evidence. I declare that my evidence is absolutely true and I am aware that any false evidence on my part would result in punishment and in exclusion from the SS.
"Signed: Fritz Knop, SS Sturmscharfuehrer; certified: Kuntze, SS Obersturmfuehrer."
Next to be interrogated was the executioner. We have at our disposal a document on this subject. You will find the extract in question on Page 166 of your document book. I quote the minutes of the inquiry:
"SS Rottenfuehrer of the Waffen-SS, Hesselbach, Friederich, born 24 January 1909 in Freudingen, district of Wittgenstein (Westphalia), was then summoned and testified as follows:
" 'I have been informed concerning the subject of the forthcoming interrogation. It has been pointed out to me that any
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false statements on my part will result in punishment and expulsion from the SS."'
After this routine part of the investigation-where he was warned of the penalties awaiting him-Hesselbach gave the following testimony on the matter:
"Yesterday evening I was told by SS Unterscharfuehrer Paal that I would have to take part in the execution of prisoners of war. Later on I received a corresponding order from Hauptscharfuehrer Wenzel, in the presence of SS Sturmscharfuehrer Knop. This morning, at 0800 hours, SS Hauptscharfuehrer Berger, SS Unterscharfuehrer Paal, SS Sturmmann Vollprecht, and myself, drove in a truck lent us by the tannery and driven by a Ukrainian driver, to a place situated approximately one and a half kilometers behind the camp, in order to dig a pit, with eight inmates of our prison."
Later he describes the digging of the pit. I think that we can skip that part. Then they returned.
"At the entrance to the camp, Vollprecht, acting on Paal's instructions, left the car. By these instructions Peal intended not to betray our intentions to the prisoners by the presence of a large number of SS men. Therefore, only I, Paal, and a few militia men loaded the prisoners onto the truck. On Paal's order, the whole first group consisted almost exclusively of the prisoners who had lost their legs."
I omit a few extracts which are of no interest to the Tribunal and I quote from Page 6 of the Russian translation, the underlined passages, printed on Page 168 of your document book:
"After having executed the first three prisoners I suddenly heard shouting beyond the pit. Since the fourth prisoner was already next in line, I shot him on the spot, and looking up, I noticed a terrific disturbance near the truck. A moment before already I had heard some shots being fired and I now saw the prisoners running away in all directions. I cannot give any precise particulars as to what actually happened near the truck, since I was about 40 to 50 meters away from the place and everything was very confusing. I can only say that I saw two of my comrades lying on the ground, and two prisoners shooting at me and the driver with the firearms they had seized. When I realized what was happening, I fired the four remaining cartridges in my magazine at the prisoners shooting at us, put in a new clip, and suddenly noticed that a bullet had struck the ground near me. I had the feeling that I had been hit, but realized later that I was wrong. I now ascribe this sensation to nervous shock. Anyway, I was shooting at the fugitives with the cartridges from
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my second clip, though I cannot tell whether I hit any of them."
I would inform you that the last part of Hesselbach's testimony deals with the subject of organizing the search for the scattered cripples, a search which yielded no results.
Finally, I would like to quote a few excerpts from the last document in the correspondence. This is a report of SS Obersturmfuehrer Kuntze. It concludes with the statement that the funeral of the SS men killed took place at 1400 hours at the Police and SS Heroes' Cemetery in Hegewalde. It seems to me that this detail is of a certain interest. I shall now quote the opening part of the above-mentioned report. I shall omit the first report already appearing in your document book, in order to shorten the time taken by my work. He reports that 78 people were supposed to have been killed after the inspection of the camp by Kallbach. Because of their inability to work, these prisoners of war were a burden to the camp.
"For this reason, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Kallbach ordered the execution of the former prisoners of war, and that on 24 December. Neither in the local nor in the regional offices could anybody discover why the former commandant had taken charge of these crippled prisoners and sent them to the Educational Labor Camp. In this case there did not exist any data whatsoever concerning communistic activities of the prisoners in question during the entire period of the Soviet regime. Evidently the military authorities have, in their own time, placed these prisoners at the disposal of the local branch in order to submit them to the 'special regime,' since owing to their physical condition, they could not be made to work.
"So SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Kallbach ordered the execution for
24 December. On 24 December at about 1700 hours, the head of the Berditchev regional office, SS Sturmscharfuehrer Knop, telephoned that during the execution of the 'special regime' operation, the two officials of the branch, SS Unterscharfuehrer Paal and SS Sturmmann Vollprecht, were assaulted by the prisoners and killed with their own firearms."
I shall now omit a considerable part of SS Obersturmfuehrer Kuntze's idle talk and shall quote only three more paragraphs. You will find them on Pages 172 and 173:
"Thus, of the 28 prisoners, 4 were shot in the pit and 2 while trying to escape; the remaining 22 managed to get away.
"The efforts to recapture the fugitives, promptly undertaken by SS Rottenfuehrer Hesselbach with the help of the guards
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from the neighboring camp, were expedient though unsuccessful. The head of the Berditchev Department ordered an immediate search for the fugitives and instructed all the police and military agencies to this effect. However, the names of the fugitives are unknown and this fact alone would render the search more difficult. The records merely contained the names of all the prisoners subjected to the 'special regime' and it was therefore necessary to declare as escapees even those who had already been shot.
"On 25 December, on the same spot, a 'special regime' execution of the 20 surviving prisoners of war was carried out under my direction. As I feared that the fugitives might already have established contact with some partisan unit, I again had the camp send a detachment of 20 men, armed with light submachine guns and carbines, in order to guard the surrounding territory. The execution went off without any trouble."
It is enough to imagine these 20 unfortunate men, without arms, without legs, being escorted to their death by a strong contingent of SS men and soldiers, soldiers armed with submachine guns. I continue:
"As a measure of reprisal I ordered the military police to check up on all released prisoners of war in the adjoining regions to ascertain their political activities during the entire period of Soviet rule, so as to arrest and submit to the 'special regime' 20 activists and members of the Communist Party."
To conclude the presentation of the evidence pertaining to this monstrous crime of the Hitlerites, I should like to invite the Tribunal's attention to certain facts.
I would, first of all, like to refer to the "objections raised by the Army," reported by the member of the SS, Knop. Knop said-you will find the passage quoted on Page 163:
"In the future all evacuations of prisoners of war will be suspended due to objections raised by the Army. I do not wish my words to be misunderstood. The Army did not so much object to such evacuations, rather it expressed the wish that the prisoners of war, once they had been released and sent elsewhere, should be given some kind of shelter."
It is not difficult to guess what "shelter" he was referring to. It was the "shelter" provided when, in the words of Knop, they were "transported in a truck to a place in the neighborhood."
The second fact which, to me, appears of importance, is the scale of the outrages committed. Referring to the executioners, Paal, Hesselbach, and Vollprecht, Knop writes:
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To
"With reference to the three above-mentioned persons whom I entrusted with the shooting of prisoners of war, I knew that they had, in Kiev, participated in the mass executions of many thousands of persons and that they had already before, that is, during my period of service, been entrusted by the local administration with the shooting of many hundreds of victims."
In reference to Hesselbach, I should like to note two not very important but extremely characteristic traits. The first is his terminology. Here are his words:
"After having executed the first three prisoners I suddenly heard shouting beyond the pit; since the fourth prisoner was
already next in line, I shot him on the spot."
Any bandit, any habitual murderer would, naturally, use such language in speaking of the destruction of a human being. For the fascist executioners the murder of a soldier who had honestly fought for his country and become an invalid, the brief expression "shot on the spot" is good enough; when occupied in killing, the executioners do not even consider it necessary to find out whom they really are murdering. Thanks to this, shame and confusion cover the police. They order a search both for those who had escaped and for those who were shot.
Secondly, the very sound of a bullet passing nearby gives him a sensation of being wounded, and people of this type are then called "heroes" by their superiors.
It would be an omission on my part not to emphasize the exceptional brutality displayed by Kuntze-this typical representative of the SS. Twenty persons captured at random, captured anyhow, without any fault on their part, must be murdered. What for? Only because 22 armless and legless invalids had succeeded in escaping from death.
The Tribunal, of course, is quite aware of the fact that by all the laws of God and man these 22 invalids should not have perished by the hand of the executioner, but should have been placed unaided the protection of the German Government as prisoners of war.
The confession of Kuntze, concerning the motives for which the military authorities directed invalids to the camp for treatment by "special regime," is of particular value. He frankly states that the cause of it was their physical condition which had rendered them unfit for any kind of work. In this connection I submit a series of documents to the Tribunal. They show that only from the angle of possibility of obtaining slaves were the representatives of the German Command and the German authorities occasionally interested in the prisoners of war. You have in your possession a circular of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces to the effect
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that Soviet prisoners of war should be branded and that this branding would not be considered as a medical measure. I am submitting to you another equally shameful document. It bears the following identifying marks: Az. 2,24.82h, Commander of Camps for Prisoners of War, Number 3142/42; Berlin-Schoneberg; 20.7.1942; 51, Badensche Strasse. This document is Exhibit Number USSR-343 (Document Number USSR-343). I shall not read it into the record. It resembles identically those which I have already read into the record. But it is characteristic of the extent to which the Hitlerite conspirators had abandoned the thesis that "a state can do everything which is necessary to hold prisoners of war in their own safekeeping, but it cannot do anything more."
A regime based on hard labor, on an unending stream of insult and torture, drove Soviet people to manifestations of stark despair, such as attacks on camp guards who were armed to the teeth. We know of such truly heroic deeds. Testimonies of eyewitnesses are in our hands. I am submitting to you, as Exhibit Number USSR-314 (Document Number USSR-314), the personally written testimony of the witness, Lampe-you interrogated him a few days ago in this court-together with the testimony of the witness, Ribol-our Exhibit Number USSR-315 (Document Number USSR-315). I shall read out such passages of the testimony as appear on Page 348 of your document book. These witnesses reported that in the beginning of February 1945, in the extermination camp of Mauthausen, 800 Red Army prisoners of war who were interned there, had broken out of the fascist hell after first disarming the guards and piercing the electrified barbed wire. Lampe testifies how brutally the SS treated those whom they were able to recapture. I am quoting a few lines:
"All those who returned to the camp were savagely tortured and then shot. I myself saw the escaped prisoners, who were being brought back to Block Number 20."-I wish to interpolate that Block 20 was the death block.-"They were beaten and the head of one of them was badly bleeding. They were followed by 10 SS men, among whom were three or four of ricers. They carried whips and were laughing loudly, giving the impression of pleasurably anticipating the tortures they were going to inflict upon the three unfortunate prisoners. The courage of the insurgents and the cruelty of the repression have left an undying impression on all the internees of Mauthausen."
The fascist conspirators behaved with equal hatred toward all Soviet citizens. If any altercations ever arose among them, they would only be in connection with the methods of destruction to be inflicted on their victims. Some strove to kill off the prisoners
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immediately; others deemed it wiser to exploit their prisoners' blood and strength in the mills, factories, military workshops, and in the construction of military undertakings.
Any long war is responsible for labor shortage in industry and agriculture. Fascist Germany solved this problem by importing white male and female slaves. The greatest number of them were prisoners of war. They were sent to heavy labor where masses perished from exhaustion, overwork, hunger, and savage treatment by the guards.
I submit to the Tribunal Document Number 744-PS, and quote the following three paragraphs:
"To carry out the augmented iron-steel industry program, the Fuehrer ordered on 7 July that a sufficient coal supply be guaranteed and that prisoners of war be utilized for this purpose."
I am omitting several sentence from the documents dealing with the technicalities of this question and quote Point 2 of this directive:
"2. All Soviet prisoners of war, captured since 5 July 1943, are to be sent to the OKW camps and from there directly, or by way of labor exchange, put at the disposal of the Plenipotentiary for the Allocation of Labor, for use in the coal mining industry."
The fourth point is of special interest. It contains a definite directive on how to convert all men between the ages of 16 and 55 into prisoners of war. I quote Point 4:
"4. All male prisoners between the ages of 16 and 55, captured in battles with the partisans in the operational area of the Army, of the eastern commissariats, of the Government General, and of the Balkans, are to be regarded in the future as prisoners of war. The same applies to men in newly conquered districts of the East. They must be sent to the prisoner-of-war camps and then to work in Germany."
The second document, Number 744-PS, issued by the Chief of the OKW on 8 July 1943, duplicates this directive. The document is signed by Keitel. There is a postscript to the text of the document which was signed by Keitel. It is addressed to all the higher authorities of the SS and is signed by Himmler. The text has already been read into the record on 20 December 1945; I shall therefore refer only to the contents. It concerns the transportation of children, old people, and of young women. Himmler indicates how and by what methods they should be sent to Germany through Sauckel's organization. In this case, too, Himmler, Keitel, and Sauckel act in perfect agreement, almost as a single entity.
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I consider Exhibit Number USSR-354 (Document Number USSR-354) to be of primary importance. It is a report on the prison camp in Minsk. The report was compiled in Rosenberg's office on 10 July 1941.
THE PRESIDENT: Has it been put in already?
GOL. POKROVSKY: This document has not yet been read into the record. Permit me, Your Honor, to read a few excerpts. I quote Page 183:
"The prison camp in Minsk, covering a space about the size of the Wilhelmsplatz, accommodates about one hundred
thousand prisoners of ever and forty thousand civilian prisoners. The prisoners, crowded together in this small space, can hardly move, and are therefore forced to relieve nature at the very place where they happen to be. The camp is guarded by a detail of soldiers on active duty, of company strength. Due to the small strength of the guard detail, the watch over the camp can only be accomplished by the application of brute force."
I omit a paragraph and turn to the page which continues the original idea: "
"The only possible language for a small guard, which remains on duty both day and night without being relieved, is the firearm, of which ruthless use is made."
Next, the authors of this document complain about the impossibility of carrying out the selection of prisoners according to physical and racial classification for various forms of hard labor:
"On the second day this selection of civilian prisoners was forbidden to the O.T., referring to an order of General Field Marshal Kluge, according to which he alone had the right to release civilian prisoners."
I shall read into the record two documents demonstrating how the Hitlerites, in their hatred of the Soviet people, considered the regime of bestial cruelty and systematic insults which they had set up for the Soviet prisoners of war as being too mild, and demanded that it be made still more severe.
On 29 January 1943 an order was issued on the "Rights of self-defense against the Prisoners of War," under the signature of the Chief of the OKH. This order bears the number 3868/42, and is registered by the United States Delegation as Document Number 696-PS. We submit it to the Tribunal as ExhibitNumberUSSR-355, since it has not been read into the record. I shall read a few short extracts from this document. You will find the passage quoted on Page 185 of your document book. It starts as follows:
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"The military organizations and the organizations of the National Socialist Party have, on numerous occasions, raised the question of the treatment of the prisoners of war, and they are of the opinion that the punishments provided for by the 1929 Agreement (H. Dv. 38/2) are inadequate."
His document explains that the previous agreement regarding the treatment of all prisoners of war, with the exception of Soviet nationals, remains in force. The Order Number 389/42-S issued by the OKW Section for Prisoners-of-War Affairs, determines the treatment of the latter. This order was issued on 24 March 1942.
me second document is the circular of the Nazi Party bureau, submitted as Order Number 12/43-S. This circular, signed by Bormann, was Issued by the chief of the Party bureau, at the Fuehrer's main headquarters on 12 February 1943. me circular was sent out by the Reichsfuehrer to the Gauleiter and to the commanding officers of military units. It speaks of Secret Order Number 3868/42-S of the Chief of the General Staff It is therefore proved once more, and proved beyond any manner of doubt, that the leaders of the Nazi Party and the military command bear equal responsibility for the atrocities perpetrated on the Soviet prisoners of war.
The Navy regulations regarding prisoners of war remain in force for all but Soviet prisoners, and where the Soviet prisoners were concerned the "regulations of the OKW" which I have already mentioned, "remain in force."
Thus, absolute criminal agreement between the Party leaders and the OKW can be considered as existing as I already have shown to the Tribunal. I stress the circumstance and PI would remind you that all this happened in the country whose representative had declared as far back as 1902:
"The only purpose in capturing prisoners of war is to prevent their further participation in the war. Although prisoners of war lose their freedom, they do not lose their rights. In other words, captivity is not an act of mercy on the part of the conqueror. It is the right of the disarmed soldier."
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, we have had that document read to us more than once.
COL. POKROVSKY: I am not rereading it. I am merely recalling its contents.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you must give the Tribunal credit for some recollection. As I say, that document has been read more than once before.
COL.POKROVSKY: We have at our disposal an official note signed by Lammers. His document is registered under Document
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Number 073-PS. We submit it to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-361-it has not yet been read into the record. The document states-you will find this excerpt on Page 191 of your document book:
"1. Prisoners of war are foreigners. Influencing them is the task. . . of foreign propaganda and therefore the task of the Foreign Office."
I omit a few sentences.
"Excepted from this ruling are the Soviet prisoners who are placed under the control of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Territories of the East because the Geneva Convention is not valid for them and because they have a special political status."
In this connection, I wish to submit to you as Exhibit Number USSR-356 (Document Number USSR-356), another German document. It consists of notes composed at the headquarters of the Foreign Counterintelligence Office on the 15 November 1941 for the "OKW Chief of Staff." I shall read into the record a few extracts, of which you will find the opening lines on Page 192 of your document book:
"The Geneva Convention regarding prisoners of war is not valid between Germany and the U.S.S.R. Therefore, the only rules in force are the principles of general international law regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, which since the 18th century have so developed that war captivity represented neither revenge nor punishment, but a security measure, the sole Object of which was to prevent prisoners from further participating in the war. This principle developed in connection with the prevalent opinion that, from a military standpoint, the killing or wounding of prisoners was inadmissible. In addition, it is to the interest of each belligerent to be assured against ill treatment of its soldiers in case of their capture. Appendix I states the directives, based on different premises as can be seen at the beginning of this paragraph, concerning the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war."
To save time I shall omit several sentences and shall read the end of the paragraph into the record:
". . . and, in addition, eliminated much which from past experience was considered not only as useful from a military viewpoint but as indispensable to the maintenance of discipline and high striking power.
"The orders are drawn up in very general terms. But, if we bear in mind the ruling basic tendency, then the 'measures'
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permitted by these orders are bound to result in wanton and unpunished murder, even though officially the law of violence has been abolished.
"This is obvious from the directive regarding the use of weapons against recalcitrance. The guards and their commanding officers, who often do not understand the language of the prisoner of war, will not be able to know whether the prisoners' disobedience was due to recalcitrance or to a misunderstanding of the orders. The principle that use of weapons against Soviet prisoners of war is, as a rule, justified absolves the guards from any duty of making reflections about their actions."
Omitting two paragraphs not directly relating to this matter, I quote as follows:
"The organization of camp police equipped with clubs, whips, and similar weapons, even in camps where all labor is done by the prisoners, is against military rule and tradition. In addition the military authorities thus give into other hands the means for applying punishment without providing adequate control as to how these means are employed."
I wish to quote one more sentence taken from Paragraph 5 of these notes-you will find it on Page-194:
"Appendix 2 contains a translation of the Russian decree regarding prisoners of war which is in accord with the basic principles of international law as well as with the rules of the Geneva Convention."
I shall refrain from quoting the rest of the document as it is of little interest. This document is signed by the Chief of the Foreign Counterintelligence Service, Admiral Canaris. It includes directives containing instructions relating to the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, dwelling in detail on such sections which Canaris considered as violations of the basic principles of international law and of the Geneva Convention.
I should like to supplement this document with a few excerpts from the minutes of the interrogation by Dr. Wengler, a former counselor of the Foreign Counterintelligence Service of the OKW. This document is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-129 (Document Number USSR-129). Wengler was questioned by me on 19 December 1945, and his testimony is important for purposes of evaluating the line of conduct both of the OKW and Keitel himself.
DR.NELTE: Mr. President, I ask that the document, Exhibit Number USSR-129, which the Russian Prosecutor intends to read, should not be read, but that the witness mentioned in this document,
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Dr. Wengler, be called personally to testify in Court, if the Soviet Prosecution is willing.
This document, USSR-129, is a record of an interrogation of Dr. Wengler, who was active in Counterintelligence Service in the OKW. It is a question of determining whether the nonapplication of the Geneva Convention as regards Russia is due to the fault of the German Government, the OKW, and the Defendant Keitel. I do not need to state that the clarification of this question is of the utmost significance in judging the responsible persons, not only because of the Counts in the Indictment, but because of the terrible guilt in face of the German people, if the testimony given by this witness should be true. The witness was interrogated in Nuremberg on 19 December 1945. Whether he is still here or in Berlin-he gave his address at the time of the inquiry-I cannot say. But I do believe that the basic decisions of the Tribunal concerning the interpretation of Article 21 of the Charter will justify my request in this respect since, firstly, the summoning of the witness from Berlin does not entail great difficulties, secondly we are concerned with a question of such tremendous significance, even in this setting, that the personal testimony and interrogation by this Tribunal should not be replaced by the mere lecture of the minutes of an inquiry.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you anything you wish to say in answer to that objection?
COL. POHROVSKY: With your permission I should like first of all, in order to clarify the matter, to ask where the witness actually is at the present moment? He is not in Nuremberg. He was brought here especially for this interrogation under the greatest technical difficulties.. The interrogation was conducted according to all the rules of our judicial proceedings, so that this document could be submitted to the Tribunal and accepted as evidence, if the Tribunal so judges, according to Article 19 of the Charter.
All the problems concerning this subject, which were of interest to the Soviet Prosecution, are already sufficiently clear from the Document Number USSR-129, which we submit to you, and I see no possibility of having this witness brought here in the near future. Maybe the representatives of the Defense Counsel imagine that it is very easy to produce him, but I do not see any technical possibility of bringing him here a second time. And I repeat that, if the Tribunal does not consider it feasible to accept this document in the suitable manner in which we have formulated it, then we would even agree to refrain from submitting it as evidence and to replace it by other evidence-even though we believe it to be incorrect. But we consider it easier than to bring the witness here a second time. That is all I have to say in reply to this request.
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THE PRESIDENT: Did you say that you could not bring the witness here, and that as you could not bring him here you would not press the introduction of the document?
COL.POKROVSKY: No, I put it differently. I said that we insist that this document be admitted, since the Tribunal has the right, according to Article 19 of the Charter, to accept this document as evidence. But if we were to choose between two possibilities, either by adding this evidence to the record or by summoning the witness a second time, the technical obstacles which prevent us from so doing would compel us, by preference, to accept the exclusion of this document from the record, in order to avoid any repetition of the difficulties already experienced. We consider that the document is quite correctly compiled, in accordance with all the rules of the Charter, and that the Tribunal should receive it as evidence according to Article 19 of the Charter.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know first of all, why is it difficult or impossible to bring the witness to Nuremberg in the same way that he was brought to Nuremberg in December 1945; and secondly, has Dr. Nelte and have the other defendants' counsel got full copies in German of the document?
COL. POKROV5KY: Dr. Wengler was interrogated in his native German tongue. The original of his record, of his interrogation, has been submitted to the Tribunal in an adequate number of copies, which are at the disposal of the Defense Counsel.
As regards the technical difficulties, I cannot, at present, undertake to give the Tribunal a precise description of all the technical difficulties reported to me by my collaborators, since I can no longer remember them. But I do know that, when they were working on this matter, establishing the existence of the witness, searching for him, bringing him here, they-my collaborators-declared that they could do this once but that they would not be able to do it a second time. Consequently, Dr. Wengler, a free agent, was here in Nuremberg, not for 1 day, but for many days, precisely for the time needed adequately to clear up all the questions which were of interest to us and to interrogate him, since we foresaw the impossibility of summoning him a second time.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know where the deponent, the witness, was brought from when he was brought to Nuremberg.
COL. POKROVSKY: From Berlin. He was brought the last time from Berlin.
THE PRESIDENT: Then is he now in Berlin?
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COL. POKROVSKY: I do not undertake to answer this question now without making further inquiries. He is not interned.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, Dr. Nelte, do you want to say anything?
DR. NELTE: I should just like to refer to the last page of the minutes, where the address is given: Dr. Wilhelm Wengler, Berlin-Hermsdorf, Ringstrasse Number 32. We are simply concerned with the question: Which technical difficulties are involved to bring this witness from Berlin to Nuremberg a second time? Of course, I do not know whether the witness is in Berlin, but I assume that he is there.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.
[A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will allow the deposition to be put in evidence, should the Soviet Prosecutor decide to do so. If the document is put in evidence, the Tribunal will desire that the Prosecutor should secure the attendance of the deponent as a witness for cross-examination. If the Prosecution is unable to secure the attendance of the deponent as a witness, then the Tribunal will itself attempt to secure the attendance of the deponent as a witness, for cross-examination.
COL. POKROVSKY: I can report to the Tribunal that I attempted to employ the time spent by the Tribunal in deliberating this problem in discovering if we could bring this witness back again and that I did not receive a conclusive reply from my organization. According to the wish of the Tribunal, I shall omit the topic of his cross-examination and shall only refer to it again if I am informed by my collaborators that we can once more bring the witness before the Tribunal. This would seem to me in accordance with the wishes of the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, I am not quite sure that you appreciated quite what I said. What I said was that you are at liberty to put in the document now, if you wish to do so. That is one thing. But, if you do so, you must attempt to secure the attendance of the witness, and should you fail to do so, the Tribunal will attempt to secure the attendance of the witness; but the document will still be in evidence and will not be struck out, although' of course, it will be open to the criticism that it is only a deposition or an affidavit and that the witness has not been produced for cross-examination and therefore the weight that attaches to the testimony will not be so great as it would be if the witness had been produced for cross-examination.
Is that clear?
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COL. POKROVSKY: Wengler was interrogated by me . . .
THE PRESIDENT: I fear I used inaccurately the word "affidavit." It is only an interrogation. It is not made upon oath and that, of course, will be taken into consideration. But the point is that you can put in the document now if you decide to do so. That is a matter for your discretion. If you do so, you must attempt to secure the attendance of the witness for cross-examination. If you are unable to get him, then the Tribunal will attempt to get him here for cross-examination.
COL. POKROVSKY: When reporting to the Tribunal on the measures we had adopted, I started from the point of view that the Tribunal desired that each witness, whose testimony had been read into the record, could, if necessary, be summoned to appear before the Tribunal for a supplementary cross-examination. That is why I have already attempted to find out whether we can call up this witness now, and since I have not yet received any definite answer from our organization, I wish to invite the attention of the Tribunal to the possibility that we will simply abstain from mentioning these minutes now, as we only need them for the confirmation of one point, already confirmed by a document whim has just been presented to the Tribunal. This is the report signed by Canaris. What is the meaning of Wengler's interrogation? The meaning of Wengler's interrogation is that it shows that the OKW knew of the treatment meted out to the Soviet prisoners. Canaris said the same.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you must decide, Colonel Pokrovsky, whether you wish to put in the document or not. If-you wish to put in the document, you may do so, but I do not think it is right for you to state the contents of the document and at the same time not to put it in. If you wish to put it in, then you must try to secure the attendance of the witness, and if you cannot secure the attendance, the Tribunal will try to secure it.
COL. POKROVSKY: I consider that Wengler's testimony is not important enough for us to pay so very much attention to it. If we can find this witness, we shall examine him at a later date.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
COL. POKROVSKY: In the light of the documents read into the record, and also in view of the protest of the German prisoners of war in Camp 78, which shows how humanely the Soviet authorities treated German military prisoners of the German Army, the sentence from Appendix I of Operations Order Number 14 of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, concerning the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, is nothing less than a brazen insult. This sentence can be found on Page 7 of the document submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-3 (Document
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Number USSR-3). You will find it on Page 204 of your document book:
"Thus the Bolshevik soldier has lost his right to be treated as an honest soldier and in accordance with the rules of the Geneva Convention."
I beg the Tribunal to recollect that the following directive, dated 7 November 1941, appears in Appendix II of Order Number 11 of the General Staff of the OKW. I quote from Exhibit Number USSR-3, extracts from which appear on Page 233 of your document book-last paragraph in the right column.
"The work of the Special Squad, by license of the rear area commander (officer in charge of prisoner-of-war affairs of the district) must be done in such a way that the selecting and sorting out is practically unnoticeable. Executions must be carried out without delay, and at sufficient distance from the camp and from habitations to keep them secret from the other prisoners and the population."
These are the transfers of prisoners "to some place in the neighborhood" that Kuntze, the expert executioner, had in mind when he reported to his chiefs on the incidents which occurred during the execution of the 28 crippled prisoners of war.
Among the documents submitted to the Tribunal by the Soviet Delegation are data regarding the shooting, on 7 April 1945, at the Seelhorst Cemetery in Hanover, of 150 Soviet prisoners of war and civilians. We submit this data as Exhibit Number USSR-112 (Document Number USSR-112). You will find the data in question on Page 207 of your document book. They have been placed at our disposal by the American investigation authorities. They consist of a number of testimonies, including that of Peter Paluikov, a Red Army officer who had fortuitously escaped the execution. You will find the minutes to which I refer on the same page, 207 of your document book. We also have the testimonies of other members of the local population who had been questioned under oath by the American investigation authorities. Their evidence is corroborated by medical reports on bodies exhumed from the graves al Seelhorst Cemetery. In addition, we submit duly certified photographs.
I shall not read all these documents into the record but shall merely point out that the 167 corpses thus exhumed were specially noted in the concluding report of the commission, as enabling the commission to judge, from their appearance, of the "pronounced degree of insufficient nourishment."
This circumstance must be stressed so that the Tribunal may have a perfectly clear picture of the food situation prevalent among Soviet prisoners of war in the various camps. Regardless of the
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territory in which the camp was located, all Soviet prisoners of war were exposed to a regime of hunger with the same sustained and systematic cruelty.
While I am thus reporting on the Hitlerian atrocities perpetrated on the prisoners, I find that we now have at our disposal several court verdicts pronounced on the fascist criminals who committed their crimes in the temporarily occupied territories. In accordance with Article 21 of the Charter, I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-87 (Document Number USSR-87) the verdict of a district military tribunal. You will find the entire verdict on Page 214 up to Page 221. It was pronounced in Smolensk, on 19 December 1945. The Tribunal inflicted penalties varying from 12 years hard labor to death by hanging, on 10 Hitlerites directly guilty of the numerous crimes committed in the city and region of Smolensk.
I shall not quote the document, but shall merely mention that on Pages 4, 5, and 6 of the verdict, in passages marked in your copies-these pages, that is, 4, 5, and 6 of the verdict, are to be found in your document book on Pages 218, 219, and 222-information is contained how, as a result of pseudo-scientific experiments on prisoners of war by persons who, to the undying shame of German medicine, were known in Germany as professors and doctors, tortured and murdered the prisoners by blood poisoning. The sentence presents further evidence that, as a result of savage ill-treatment by the German escort conveying Soviet prisoners of war, some 10,000 exhausted, half-dead captives perished between Vyasma and Smolensk.
It is precisely this passage, this information, which you will find in Subparagraph 3 of the verdict. It appears on Page 218 of your document book. The verdict reflects the systematic mass shooting of prisoners of war in Camp 126, in the city of Smolensk-'`in Transit Camp 126 South"-during the transfer of the prisoners to the camp and to the hospital. The verdict particularly emphasizes the fact that prisoners of war, too exhausted to work, were shot.
I should now like to turn to the brutalities committed by the Hitlerites towards members of the Czechoslovakian, Polish, and Yugoslavian Armies. We find, in the Indictment, that one of the most important criminal acts for which the major war criminals are responsible was the mass execution of Polish prisoners of war, shot in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk by the German fascist invaders.
I submit to the Tribunal, as a proof of this crone, official documents of the special commission for the establishment and the investigation of the circumstances which attended the executions. The commission acted in accordance with a directive of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union. In addition to
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members of the Extraordinary State Commission-namely Academicians Burdenko, Alexis Tolstoy, and the Metropolitan Nicolas- this commission was composed of the President of the Pan-Slavonia Committee, Lieutenant General Gundorov; the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Union of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Kolesnikov; of the People's Commissar for Education in the R.S.S.F.R., Academician Potemkin; the Supreme Chief of the Medical Department of the Red Army, General Smirnov; and the Chairman of the District Executive Committee of Smolensk, Melnikov. The commission also included several of the best known medicolegal experts.
It would take too long to read into the record that precise and detailed document which I now submit to you as Exhibit Number USSR-54 (Document Number USSR-54), which is a result of the investigation. I shall read into the record only a few comparatively short excerpts. On Page 2 of the document, which is Page 223 in your document book, we read-this passage is marked in your file:
"According to the estimates of medico-legal experts, the total number of bodies amounts to over 11,000. The medico-legal experts carried out a thorough examination of the bodies exhumed, and of the documents and material evidence found on the bodies and in the graves. During the exhumation and examination of the corpses, the commission questioned many witnesses among the local inhabitants. Their testimony permitted the determination of the exact time and circumstances of the crimes committed by the German invaders."
I believe that I need not quote everything that the Extraordinary Commission ascertained during its investigation about the crimes of the Germans. I only read into the record the general conclusions, which. summarize the work of the commission. You will find the lines read into the record on Page 43 of Exhibit Number USSR-54 if you turn to the original document, or on Page. 264 of your document book:
"General conclusions:
"On perusal of all the material at the disposal of the special communion, that is, the depositions of over 100 witnesses questioned, the data of the medico-legal experts, the documents and the material evidence and belongings taken from the graves in Katyn Forest, we can arrive at the following definite conclusions:
"1. The Polish prisoners of war imprisoned in the three camps west of Smolensk and engaged in railway construction before the war, remained there after the occupation of Smolensk by the Germans, right up to September 1941.
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"2. In the autumn of 1941, in Katyn Forest, the German occupational authorities carried out mass shootings of the Polish prisoners of war from the above-mentioned camps.
"3. Mass shootings of Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest were carried out by German military organizations disguised under the specific name, 'Staff 537, Engineer Construction Battalion,' commanded by Oberleutnant Arnes and his colleagues, Oberleutnant Rex and Leutnant Hott.
"4. In connection with the deterioration, for Germany, of the general military and political machinery at the beginning of 1943, the German occupational authorities, with a view to provoking incidents, undertook a whole series of measures to ascribe their own misdeeds to organizations of the Soviet authorities, in order to make mischief between the Russians and the Poles.
"5. For these purposes:
"a. The German fascist invaders, by persuasion, attempts at bribery, threats, and by barbarous tortures, endeavored to find 'witnesses' among the Soviet citizens from whom they obtained false testimony, alleging that the Polish prisoners of war had been shot by organizations of the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1940.
"b. The German occupational authorities, in the spring of 1943, brought from other places the bodies of Polish prisoners of war whom they had shot, and laid them in the turned up graves of Katyn Forest with the dual purpose of covering up the traces of their Own atrocities and of increasing the numbers of 'victims of Bolshevist atrocities' in Katyn Forest. "c. While preparing their provocative measures, the German occupational authorities employed up to 500 Russian prisoners of war for the task of digging up the graves in Katyn Forest. Once the graves had been dug, the Russian prisoners of war were shot by the Germans in order to destroy thus all proof and material evidence on the matter.
"6. The date of the legal and medical examination determined, without any shadow of doubt:
"a. That the time of shooting was autumn 1941.
"b. The application by the German executioners, when shooting Polish prisoners of war, of the identical method-a pistol shot in the nape of the neck-as used by them in the mass murders of the Soviet citizens in other towns, especially in Orel, Voronetz, Krasnodar and in Smolensk itself."
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess.
[The Tribunal recessed until 1400 Hours.]
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Afternoon Session
COL.POKROVSKY: Point 7 of the general conclusions of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, on which I reported in the preceding session, states:
"The conclusions reached, after studying the affidavits and medico-legal examinations concerning the shooting of Polish military prisoners of war by Germans in the autumn of 1941, fully confirmed the material evidence and documents discovered in the Katyn graves.
"8. By shooting the Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest, the German fascist invaders consistently realized their policy for the physical extermination of the Slav peoples."
Here follow the signatures of all the members of the Commission.
The Katyn massacres did not exhaust the Hitler crimes against the soldiers of the Polish Army. In the report of the Polish Government, submitted by me to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-93 (Document Number USSR-93), we find a series of proofs confirming the breach by the Hitlerite conspirators of the elementary rules of international law governing the customs and laws of war; on Page 36 of this report by the Polish Government-it is on Page 285 of your document book-we find, as an outstanding part of the material collected, the ill-treatment of prisoners of war and their extermination. It is said in the report-and I quote:
"As and when the Polish officers and other ranks returned from German prisoner-of-war camps, we learn further details concerning conditions prevailing in the German camps. All these details undeniably prove the existence of a line of policy, instructions, and orders concerning the Polish prisoners of war. Ill-treatment, hardship, and inhuman conditions were of common occurrence. Murders and grievous bodily injuries were frequently encountered. A few examples confirmed by witnesses under oath are submitted later on."
I take the liberty of reading into the record some of the examples quoted in the Polish report. As a first example, I shall quote the description of an incident which occurred in a temporary prisoner-of-war camp in the city of Belsk. This material figures on Page 285 of your document book:
"On 10 October 1939 the camp commandant assembled all the prisoners and ordered those who had joined the Polish Army as volunteers to raise their hands. Three prisoners obeyed his order. They were immediately led out of the rank and placed at a distance of 25 meters from a detachment of German soldiers armed with machine guns. The commandant gave the
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order to open fire" He then spoke to the remaining prisoners and told them that the three volunteers had been shot as an example to the others."
In this case we are not faced with the simple murder of three unarmed soldiers of the Polish Army. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel, you forgive my interrupting you, but you remember that I have interrupted all the other prosecutors to point out to them that one opening speech had been made on behalf of their delegation, and that really their function was to present the documents.
Now, you have just presented a document white States that three volunteers were shot. I think that any comment upon that is really unnecessary.
COL. POKROVSKY: I now proceed to the quotation of the second excerpt on Page 37, Subparagraph d-Page 226 of your document book:
"In the autumn of 1939 Camp (Stalag) VIII-S was established in Kounau, near Sagan on the River Bober, a tributary of the Oder. Depositions from this camp read as follows:
"The camp in Kounau was an open space surrounded by
barbed wire, with large tents, each holding 180 or 200 persons. In spite of very cold weather (the temperature was below 25 degrees centigrade) there was, in December 1939, no heating appliance whatsoever in the camp. Consequently, some of the internees suffered from frozen hands, feet, and ears. Since the prisoners had no blankets and since their uniforms were too worn out to protect them from the cold, disease broke out, while malnutrition resulted in extreme debility. Moreover, the guards constantly ill-treated the prisoners. They were beaten on the slightest pretext. TWO men were especially noted for their brutality, Lieutenant Schinke and Sergeant Major Grau. They hit the prisoners in the face and beat them, broke their ribs and arms, and gouged out their eyes. Such inhuman treatment resulted in several cases of suicide and insanity among the soldiers."
I think we can now pass on at once to the general conclusions and to read into the Record to this end Subparagraph g on Page 39-
Page 287 of the document book:
"The above-mentioned treatment of Polish prisoners of war. by individuals as well as by the German military authorities, flagrantly violated the articles of the Geneva Convention of 1929, Articles 2, 3, 9,.10, 11, 29, 30, 50, and 54. The convention in question had been ratified by Germany on 21 February 1934."
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Soldiers of the Yugoslav Army, captured by the German troops, were subjected to unbridled ill-treatment by the fascist invaders. Ill-treatment, torture, and torment, together with mass executions were introduced as a part of the system. Here, too, the Hitler criminals were perfectly aware of what they were doing. To whitewash themselves, if only a little, in the eyes of the world, they referred in all documents concerning the destruction of Yugoslav prisoners of war, to the officers and men of the Yugoslav Army as "bandits."
The second paragraph from the bottom of Page 23 of the official Yugoslav report with regard to the above matter reads as follows- I quote Page 23 of Document Number USSR-305. This quotation begins on Page 326 of your document book:
" . . . everywhere where the Germans used the so-called actions against 'bands and bandits' as a pretext for the annihilation of the civilian population (women, children, and old people), units of the Yugoslav National Army of Liberation and partisan units had actually been involved....
"Being under military command and wearing recognizable military emblems and insignia, they conducted an armed struggle against the fascist occupational forces and, moreover, they were fully recognized by all the Allies. Besides, we will see later on that on some of its documents, the German Command itself unmistakably recognized this fact; but in its attitude towards the Yugoslav warriors it continued unrestrainedly to violate the principles of the international laws of war."
As an additional confirmation of the report, the form of which is in accordance with the requirements of Article 21 of the Charter concerning the admissibility of evidence, I also submit to the Tribunal Document Number USSR-305. This is an excerpt from the report by the Yugoslav State Commission concerning the determination of crimes committed by the occupational forces and their accomplices. The State Commission reports that there is at its disposal a secret report by Lieutenant General Hoesslin, the officer in command of the 188th Mountain Infantry Reserve Division, numbered 9070/44. The report is of great importance because of the following considerations which I will explain to the Tribunal in the terms of Document Number USSR-305. I quote:
"Although the report refers to our divisions, brigades, and artillery battalions under their proper names and proper numbers-in cases of military engagements-all our army is called in this report by the general name of 'bandits,' and for the very simple reason that by so doing they are attempting to divest us of the rights of belligerents, they themselves
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assuming the right to shoot prisoners of war, to kill the wounded, and to have a pretext for employing repressive measures against the peaceful non-combatant population, allegedly because of their assistance to the 'bandits.' Lieutenant General Hoesslin admits that the combat group of Colonel Christel after 'a night engagement with weak bandit forces'- these are the precise words of the report-'burnt down Laskovitz, Lazna, and Cepovan, and destroyed a hospital.'
"In General Hoesslin's report it is further stated that the division, together with the 3rd Brandenburg Regiment and other. German army and police units, participated in 'a freefor-a31 manhunt for bandits in the neighborhood of Klana' (Operation Ernst)...."
I submit to the Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-132 (Document Number USSR-132), Page 363 of your document book. This represents an excerpt from the directives issued by Major General Kubler concerning the conduct of troops in action, an extract which was certified by the Yugoslav State Commission. I read these excerpts into the Record:
"Secret; 118th Jager Division; Abt Ic; Br. B. No. 1418/43 secret; Div. Hqs., 12. 5. 1943.
"Directives for the Conduct of Troops in Action.
"2. Prisoners:
"Anyone having participated openly in the fight against the German Armed Forces and having been taken prisoner is to be shot after interrogation."
I further submit to the Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-304 (Document Number USSR-304). This number has been given to the excerpt from Memorandum Number 6 of the Yugoslav State Commission for the determination of the crimes committed by the occupational forces and by their accomplices. In the last paragraph of Exhibit Number USSR-304-Page 2 of the Russian text-is stated as follows-your Page 365 of the document book:
"On 3 May 1945 the Germans brought from one of the partisan hospitals 35 manacled patients and hospital orderlies. Ten of the patients who were unable to walk were stood against the wall and shot. Their bodies were piled in a heap, covered with wood and set on fire."
As Exhibit Number USSR-307 (Document Number USSR-307) I submit another extract from statement Number 6 of the same State Commission. This statement is found on Page 85 to 115 of the first book entitled "Memoranda on Crimes Committed by the Occupation Forces and their Accomplices." I shall now proceed to quote a part of this extract:
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"On 5 June 1944 Hitler's criminals captured two soldiers of the Yugoslav Liberation Army and the Slovene Partisan Detachments. They brought them to Razori, where they cut off their noses and ears with bayonets, gouged out their eyes and then asked them if they could see their Comrade Tito. Thereupon they assembled the peasants and beheaded the two victims in their presence.... They then placed both the heads on a table."
In accordance with their usual practice of photographing the bodies of their victims, the fascists then took photographs, and, as is further stated in the extract quoted by me:
"Later, in the course of the fighting, the photographs were found on a fallen German. From this it can be seen that they confirm the above described incident at Razori."
These pictures will be submitted to the Tribunal together with other Yugoslav photographic evidence.
Under Document USSR-65(a) I submit to the Tribunal all announcement signed by the Commander of the SS and police detachments of the 18th Military District, SS Gruppenfuehrer and Lieutenant General of Police, Rosener. I shall now proceed to read into the Record a part of this announcement. You will thus be able to see that the warriors of the Yugoslav Armed Forces who were taken prisoner were either hanged or shot. This document is on Page 367 of your document book, "In connection with the various clashes between police detachments and Yugoslav units. . . "
I skip several sentences of this document concerning a description of the encounters between detachments of Polish and Yugoslav units.
"Eighteen bandits were recently killed in action and a considerable number taken prisoner.
"The following bandits, who were among the prisoners, were publicly hanged at Stein on 30 June 1942.... "
This statement is followed by the names of eight Yugoslav soldiers between the ages of 21 and 40 years. I will not read this list into the Record.
On Page 36 of our Exhibit Number USSR-36 (Document Number USSR-36)-your Page 339-the first paragraph from the bottom reads, "We can find the identical evidence in a collection of official notes on the staff conferences of Gauleiter Uiberreiter." Thus, for example, it is stated in the minutes of the conference held on 23 March 1942, "Fifteen bandits were executed in Maribor today." I omit some sentences from the minutes of the conference held on 27 July 1942, "Many bandits have been shot recently "
The minutes of the conference of 21 December 1941 contain a passage:
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"Since the bandits started their activities in July 1941, 164 bandits have been shot by the uniformed police and 1,043 by special procedure (Sonderverfahren)." The minutes of 25 January 1943 state: "The number of guerilla troops liquidated on 8 January 1942 by the Security Police and the uniformed branch is 86, including wounded and prisoners, 77 of whom were killed."
Such notes can be found in almost every one of the minutes of these conferences held by Uiberreiter.
A certain number of prisoners of war who had escaped immediate annihilation were moved into special camps where they Were gradually killed off by hunger and by exhausting heavy labor. I will now read into the Record the last paragraph on Page 37 of the report of the Yugoslav Government, which was previously mentioned by me and offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USSR-36. It is On Page 340 of the document book:
"One such camp was established in 1942 at Boten, near Rognan. Nearly 1,000 Yugoslav prisoners of war were brought into this camp; and in the course of a few months all of them, to the last man, died of illness, hunger, physical torture, or execution by shooting. They were forced every day to do the very hardest work on a road and some dams. Their working hours lasted from dawn until 1800 hours, under the worst possible climatic conditions in this far northern part of Norway. During their work the prisoners. were beaten incessantly and in the camp, itself, were exposed to terrible ill-treatment.
"Thus, for example, in August 1942 the prisoners were ordered by the German staff of the camp to have all their hair removed from their armpits and around their genitals, as otherwise they would be shot. Not one prisoner received a razor from the Germans, though the Germans knew well that they had none. The prisoners spent the whole of the night plucking out their hair with their hands and assisting one another. However, in the morning the guards killed four prisoners and wounded three by rifle fire.
"On 26 November 1943, German soldiers, in the middle of the night, broke into the hospital and dragged out into the courtyard 80 sick prisoners; after they had been forced to strip in the bitter cold, they were all shot. On 26 January 1943, 50 more prisoners died in torment from the beatings received. Throughout the winter many prisoners were killed in the following manner: They would be buried up to their waist in the snow, and water poured over them, so that they formed statues of ice. It was established that 880 Yugoslav prisoners
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of war were killed in the above-mentioned camp in various ways." '
Further, on Page 38, Exhibit Number USSR-36 (Document Number USSR-36), information is contained of the shooting of Yugoslav prisoners of war in the camp at Bajsfjord, Norway. After 10 July 1942, when an epidemic of spotted fever broke out in the camp and spread to six others, the Germans found no other way of fighting this epidemic than by shooting all the patients. This was done on 17 July 1942. On the same page, 38, there is a reference to a Norwegian report of 22 January 1942, compiled on a basis of statements made by Norwegian guards of this camp who had fled. It is stated in this report that of 900 Yugoslav prisoners of war, 320 were shot, while the remainder, with a view to isolating them, were transferred to another camp, Bjerfjel. I will read into the Record Page 38 of Exhibit Number USSR-36, beginning with the fifth paragraph from the bottom, Page 341 of your document book:
"When an epidemic of spotted fever broke out in the new camp, an average of 12 men a day were shot in the course of the following 5 to 6 weeks. By the end of August 1942 only 350 of these prisoners were returned to Bajsfjord, where German SS troops continued to exterminate them. In the end only 200 men remained alive and were transferred to camp Osen."
I will now skip two paragraphs and pass to the last paragraph of the same report:
"On 22 June 1943 a transport containing 900 Yugoslav prisoners arrived in Norway. Most of them were intellectuals, workers and peasants, and prisoners from the ranks of the former Yugoslav Army or else captured partisans or men seized as so-called 'politically suspicious elements.' Some of them-about 400-were placed in the still unfinished camp at Korgen, while the other group of about 500 was sent 10 to 20 kilometers further on to Osen. The commandant of both camps, from June 1942 until the end of March 1943, was the SS Sturmbannfuehrer Dolps....
"Men were constantly dying of hunger. Forty-five were placed in a hut which normally accommodated six men only.... There was no medicine.... They worked under most
difficult conditions on road building, in the bitter cold, without clothing and caps, in the wind and rain, 12 hours a day.
"The prisoners in the camp at Osen used to sleep in their shirts without any underpants, without any cover whatsoever, on the bare boards. Dolps personally visited the huts and carried out inspections. The prisoners who were caught sleeping in their underpants were killed on the spot by Dolps
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with his submachine gun. In the same manner he killed all those who appeared on parade, which he reviewed personally, in soiled underwear.... By the end of 1942 only 90 still remained alive of the first group of 400 in Korgen. Out of about 500 prisoners who were taken to the camp of Osen by the end of June 1942, there were, in March 1943, only 30 men left alive."
I will read into the record an excerpt from Page 39, Exhibit Number USSR-36 beginning with the third paragraph from the bottom, Page 342 of your document book:
"Besides this terrible treatment of the captured soldiers of the Yugoslav National Army of Liberation and the Partisan Detachments, the Germans also treated prisoners of war from the ranks of the old Yugoslav Army in complete contravention of international law and contrary to the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of 1929. In April 1941, immediately after the occupation of the Yugoslav territory, the Germans drove into captivity in Germany about 300,000 noncommissioned officers end men. The Yugoslav State Commission has at its disposal much evidence of the unlawful ill-treatment of these prisoners. We shall give here a few examples only.
"On 14 July 1943 in the officers' SS camp at Osnabruck, 740 captured Yugoslav officers were separated from the remainder and placed in a special penitentiary camp called Camp D. Here they were all crowded together in four huts; all contact with the rest of the camp was prohibited. The treatment of these officers directly contravened the provisions of the Geneva Convention even more so than the treatment of the other prisoners. In this penitentiary camp were placed all those whom the Germans considered as supporters of the National Liberation movement and against whom they very frequently applied measures of mass punishments.
"The Germans gambled with the lives of the prisoners and frequently shot them from sheer caprice. Thus, for instance, at the aforesaid camp at Osnabruck, on 11 January 1942, a German guard fired at a group of prisoners, severely wounding Captain Peter Nozinic. On 22 July 1942 a guard fired on a group of officers. On 2 September 1942, a guard fired on the Yugoslav lieutenant, Vladislav Vajs, who was incapacitated by a wound he had received some time before. On 22 September 1942, a guard from the prison tower again fired on a group of officers. On 18 December 1942 the guard fired on a group of officers because, from their huts, they were watching some English prisoners passing by. On
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20 February 1943 a guard fired on an officer merely because this officer was smoking. On 11 March 1943 a guard opened fire on the doors of a hut and killed General Dimitri Pavlovic. On 21 June 1943 a guard fired at the Yugoslav lieutenant colonel, Branko-Popanic. On 26 April 1944 a German noncommissioned officer, Richards, fired on Lieutenant Vladislav Gaider, who subsequently died of his wounds.
"On 26 June 1944 the German captain, Kuntze, fired on two Yugoslav officers, severely wounding Lieutenant Djorjevic.
"All these shootings were carried out without any serious reasons or pretext and only as a result of brutal orders issued by the German camp commandants, who threatened that firearms would be used even in the case of the most insignificant offenses.
"All these incidents occurred in one single camp. But this was the treatment applied in all the remaining camps for Yugoslav officers and soldiers-captives in the hands of the Germans."
A certain incident is described in the Czechoslovak Government report which I should like to mention here. Its importance lies not in the fact that it throws a new light on the methods employed in fascist crimes but that it took place at the time when the Hitlerites clearly realized that their days were numbered. This incident is described in Appendix 4 to the Czechoslovak Government's report, and I shall describe it briefly and in my own words.
There was an airfield at Gavlichkov Brod at which various military installations were located, while the former lunatic asylum was used as an SS hospital. When the question arose regarding the formalities for the surrender of the German military units at
· the airfield-in 1945-Staff Captain Sula with one of his fellow officers as official representative of the Czechoslovak Army took himself to the airfield. Neither of them ever came back. Later the airfield and the hospital were occupied by the Czech national units and an investigation was carried out. It showed that the negotiators, together with six other persons who had previously disappeared at Gavlichkov Brod, were taken by the Germans to the SS hospital where they were subjected to cruel tortures. In the case of Captain Sula the Germans cut out his tongue, gouged out his eyes, and cut his chest open. The others suffered similar treatment. Most of them had been castrated. I am in possession of photographic evidence in support of this fact which I am submitting to the Tribunal.
My presentation has lasted several hours. But surely, neither time nor any word of living human speech will ever suffice to describe even a thousandth part of the sufferings borne by the soldiers of my fatherland and of the other democratic countries who
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had the misfortune of falling- into the hands of the fascist executioners.
I have only been able to show the Tribunal, in a very condensed form, the manner in which the monstrous fascist directives regarding the ill-treatment of prisoners of war and their mass extermination were carried out, an ill-treatment before which the horrors of the Middle Ages pale.
We shall here attempt, if only quite briefly, to fill in the gaps. In tens of thousands the witnesses will pass before your eyes. They have been called before the Tribunal to testify in this case. I cannot summon them by name, no oath will you ever administer to them and yet their evidence will never be denied-for the dead do not lie. Most of the films pertaining to German atrocities which will be presented by the Soviet Prosecution pertain to crimes against prisoners of war. The silent testimony of the helpless prisoners burned alive in hospitals, of prisoners mutilated beyond all recognition, of prisoners tortured and starved to death will, I am certain, be far more eloquent than any word of mine.
Blood drips from the hands of the accused-the blood of the victims of Rostov and Kharkov, the martyrs of Auschwitz and all the extermination camps created by the Hitlerites. Treacherously the enemy attacked our country. The people rose in arms to defend their mother country, her freedom, and her independence, the honor and lives of their families. They joined the ranks of the fighting men. They fell into the hands of the enemy. Now see how the enemy dishonored them when they stood helpless and unarmed.
So may these major criminals, who bear the main responsibility for the evil deeds of the fascists, be forced to answer to the martyrs to the full extent of the law of international justice for the indescribable atrocities which you will see with your own eyes, and for the many other crimes which will forever remain unknown.
Allow me to present to the Tribunal Chief Counsellor L. N. Smirnov, Assistant Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R., who will submit to the Tribunal the documentation pertaining to the crimes committed against the civilian population of the U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.
CHIEF COUNSELLOR OF JUSTICE L. N. SMIRNOV (Assistant Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): Your Honors, my problem today consists of presenting to you the written documents and other judicial evidence testifying to the very grievous crimes committed by the Hitlerian conspirators against the peaceful population in the territories of the U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia when under temporary occupation.
The number of such depositions at the disposal of the Soviet Prosecution is unusually great. Suffice it to say that in the reports
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of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union for the determination and investigation of the atrocities of the German fascist invaders and the accomplices, there are 54,784 reports of the crimes by the Hitlerian criminals, directed against the peaceful citizens of the Soviet Union.
But even these documents do not, by a long way, cover all the crimes perpetrated by these war criminals against the peaceful population. The Soviet Prosecution asserts and I submit to the Tribunal evidence to this effect, that along the entire length of the far-Bung front, from the Barents to the Black Sea, and throughout the entire depths of the infiltration of the German hordes into my mother country, wherever the German soldier or the men of the SS set foot, crimes of unspeakable cruelty were committed and the victims of these crimes were the women, the children, and the old.
The crimes of the German fascist criminals became apparent as and when the Red Army units moved west. The reports on these Hitlerite crimes against the peaceful population were made by officers of the advance units of the Red Army, by local authorities, and public organizations.
The Soviet people did not, in the first moment, learn of the crimes of the German fascist invaders from circulars of the German Command, from the notices posted up by the Reich, leaders, or from the directives issued by the SS Obergruppenfuehrers both in incoming and outgoing bulletins of the competent German chancelleries, although such documents were captured in very large quantities by the advance units of the Red Army and are currently in the possession of the Soviet Prosecution. Far different were the sources of their information. Returning to their native haunts the soldiers of the Army of Liberation saw the many villages, towns, and cities which had been reduced to so much wasteland.
At the foot of the communal graves where rest the bodies of the Soviet people murdered by '`typical German methods"-I shall, later on, present to the Tribunal evidence of these methods and of the regularity of their application-at the foot of the gallows where the feet of the adolescents danced on the air, at the ovens of the gigantic crematories where the murdered internees from the extermination camps were burned, at the sight of the dead women and girls, victims of some sadistic whim of the fascist bandits, at the sight of children, who had been torn in half-by all this evidence did the Soviet people recognize the mighty chain of crime extending, as the Chief Prosecutor of the U.S.S.R. so aptly said, "from the ministerial armchair to the hands of the executioner."
All these monstrous crimes had a definite system of their own. There was uniformity in the murder methods: One and the same
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system prevailed in the construction of the gas chambers, in the mass production of the round tins containing the poisonous substances "Cyclone A" or "Cyclone B." the ovens of the crematories are all built on the same typical lines, and one was the plan extending over all the camps of destruction. There was uniformity in the construction of the evil-smelling death machines, which the Germans referred to as "gaswagen" but which our people called the "soul destroyers"; and there was the same technical elaboration in the construction of mobile mills for grinding human bones. All this indicates one sole and evil will uniting all the individual assassins and executioners.
It became obvious that German thermo-technicians and chemists, architects, toxicologists, mechanics, and physicians were engaged in this rationalization of mass murder on instructions received from Hitler's government and from the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces. It was also evident that the "death factories" brought into existence an entire series of auxiliary industries.
But the unity of this will-to-evil was not only apparent there, where a special technique had been evolved to serve the purpose of very evil murder. The unity of this will-to-evil was also apparent from the similarity of the methods employed by the murderers, from the uniformity of type in the murder technique evolved as well as from the fact that, in cases where no special technique was employed, use was made of ordinary weapons of the German Armed Forces.
From the evidence which I shall submit later on you will see that the sites where the Germans buried their victims were opened up by Soviet legal doctors in the north and south of the country. These sites were separated from each other by thousands of kilometers, and it is quite evident that the crimes were perpetrated by perfectly different people; but the methods employed were absolutely identical. The wounds were invariably inflicted on the same parts of the body. And identical, too, were the preparations for camouflaging the gigantic graves as antitank ditches and trenches. Everywhere the unarmed and defenseless people, on their arrival at the execution ground, were ordered, in practically the same terms, to undress and lie face downwards in previously prepared pits. As soon as the first batch was shot, whether in the swamps of Bielorussia or the foothills of the Caucasus, the row was covered with quicklime and the second batch of unarmed and defenseless people, of people about to die, were again ordered by the murderers to undress and lie down on that corrosive, blood-soaked mass which covered the first batch of victims.
This is testified to not only by the uniformity of instructions and orders received from high commands. So similar were the methods
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employed that it became clear that execution squads were being trained in special schools which had systematized beforehand and provided for every eventuality, from the order to undress prior to the shooting right down to the shooting proper. These assumptions, based on an analysis of assembled facts, were later confirmed by documents captured by the Red Army and by the testimony of prisoners of war.
From the very first months of the war it became clear to the Soviet Government that the innumerable crimes of the German fascist aggressors against the peaceful citizens of my mother country represented, not the excesses of undisciplined military units or the isolated crimes of individual officers and soldiers, but that they represented a system prepared in advance, not merely sanctioned by the criminal Hitler Government, but consciously planned and encouraged by this government.
I submit to the Tribunal in evidence according to Article 21 of the Charter, one of the official notes of V. M. Molotov, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the U.S.S.R., dated as early as 6 January 1942. This document is registered as Exhibit Number USSR-51 (Document Number USSR-51). It is on the first page of your document book, beginning at the third paragraph after the heading:
"As and when the Red Army, in the course of its continued and victorious counter-offensive, liberated numerous cities and rural committees which had, for a certain time, been in the hands of the German invader, an incredible picture emerged more clearly with every passing day-a picture of the looting which took place in every community, of general devastation, of revolting acts of rape, ill-treatment, and mass murder-all committed against peaceful citizens by the fascist German occupational forces during their advance, during the occupation, and during their withdrawal. The great amount of documentary material which the Soviet Government has at its disposal witnesses to the plundering and despoiling of the population, accompanied by bestial acts of violence and mass murders, carried out in all territories which came under the heels of the German invaders. Unquestionable facts prove that the regimes of robbery and of bloody terror inflicted on the peaceful population of the occupied villages and cities did not consist of certain excesses of individual undisciplined military units or individual German officers and soldiers. Rather does it point to a definite system, planned far in advance and encouraged by the German Government and the German Army Command, a system which intentionally unleashed within their army the lowest animal instincts among the officers and men.
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"Every step of the German fascist army and its allies in the invaded Soviet territories of the Ukraine and Moldavia, of Bielorussia and Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, in the Karelian-Finnish lands, in the Russian zones and regions, led to annihilation and to the destruction of priceless material and cultural treasures-the property of the nation; for the civilian population it led to the loss of hard-won property, slave labor, famine, and bloody massacre before whose horror the most savage crimes in history have paled.
"The Soviet Government and its organizations record all these infamous crimes of the Hitler army for which the indignant Soviet people justifiably demand and will obtain retribution. "The Soviet Government considers it a duty to bring to the notice of all civilized humanity, of honest men all the world over, its declaration concerning the monstrous crimes perpetrated against the peaceful people of all occupied territories of the Soviet Union by the Hitlerite armies."
I now proceed to read into the record Paragraphs 2, 4, and a of the concluding statement of this note.. Your Honors will find the place in question on the reverse side of Page 4 of the document quoted, Paragraph 5, Column 1 of the text:
"The Hitlerite Government in Germany which had so treacherously attacked the Soviet Union pays no heed, in warfare, to any standards of international law or to any of the moral requirements. It wages war primarily against the peaceful and unarmed populations, against women, children, and old men, thereby revealing its own essential vileness. This government of robbers, which only recognizes violence and rapine, must be crushed by the all-powerful strength of the freedomloving peoples, in whose ranks the Soviet nation will carry out its mighty task of liberation to the end.
"In bringing all the atrocities committed by the German invaders to the knowledge of all the governments with which the Soviet Union maintains diplomatic relations, the Soviet Government announces that it holds Germany's criminal Hitlerite Government responsible for all the inhuman and rapacious acts perpetrated by the German Armed Forces.
"At the same time the Government of the Soviet Union declares with unshakable conviction that the Soviet Union's fight for liberation is a fight for the rights and liberty not only of the peoples of the Soviet Union, but also for the rights and liberty of all freedom-loving peoples of the world and that this war can only end with the complete destruction of the Hitler armies and with complete victory over the Hitler tyranny."
.
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The large quantity of the materials and facts which I have to submit to the Tribunal renders necessary the adherence to a very strict systematization of the materials in question.
Evidence will be submitted to the Tribunal successively.
Firstly, with regard to the deliberate encouragement by the major war criminals of the lowest instincts of German officers, men, and officials detailed to the Eastern areas where they were incited to murder the civilian population and to indulge in every form of violence against it. They also created that atmosphere of impunity which surrounded the murderers and legalized the regime of terror Secondly, with regard to the special training and selection of units designated to put into effect both the mass murders and the regime of terror inflicted on the civilian population. Thirdly, with regard to the extent of the crime, the ubiquity and the immense degree of the German fascist atrocities. Fourthly, with regard to the gradual development and perfection of methods for the realization of the monstrous crimes, from the first shootings to the creation of the special extermination camps. Fifthly, with regard to attempts to conceal all traces of the crimes and the special measures taken for that purpose by order of the higher authorities.
I shall now submit documents to prove the first two of the points just mentioned.
The Tribunal has already received evidence that the actual orders, circulars, and the so-called laws, promulgated by the Hitlerian criminals for the legalization of terror directed against the peaceful population and for the justification of rape and murder, are directly connected with the inhuman theories of fascism. The Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R. has twice quoted from a book by the former president of the Danzig Senate, at one time a very close friend of Hitler's, Hermann Rauschning, published in 1940 in New York under the tine of The Voice of Destruction. The same book (Document Number USSR-378) was published in various other countries under different tines, such as, What Hitler Told Me, or Conversations with Hitler, and so on.
Two quotations were made from Rauschning's book, which I have submitted to the Tribunal, in the speech of the Chief Prosecutor of the U.S.S.R. The first is on Page 225 of the original. Your Honors will find it in the last paragraph of Page 14. The contents of this quotation can be summarized as follows: Hitler told Rauschning that he was freeing mankind from the humiliating restrictions imposed by the "chimera of conscience and morality." The second quotation is also extremely important. I will endeavor to prove by a series of concrete facts the apparently abstract contents of this quotation. You will find it on Pages 137-138. It concerns a conversation between Hitler and Rauschning on the subject of a special technique of
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depopulation essential for the physical extermination of entire nations and about the right of the victor to exterminate entire populations.
And indeed, in order to murder millions of innocent and defenseless people, it was necessary not only to develop the technical formula of "Cyclone A," to construct gas chambers and the crematory ovens, nor yet to elaborate an elaborate procedure for mass shootings. It was also essential to educate many thousands who would carry out these policies "not in the letter, but in the spirit"-as stated by Himmler in one of his speeches. It was necessary to train persons deprived both of heart and conscience, perverted creatures who had deliberately cut themselves off from the basic conceptions of morality and law. It was necessary to legalize and theoretically establish the conformity to law of the substitution of the concept of "guilt" by the concept of "preventive purge of undesirable elements for political purposes," of the concept of "justice" by the concept of "the right of the master," and of the concept of "law" by an apologia of arbitrary administration and police terror.
It was necessary, by orders, regulations, and decrees, to instill in the minds of hundreds of thousands of human beings, trained as the bloodhound is trained, to carry out the premeditated atrocities of the major criminals, that they were in no way responsible for the crimes committed. That is why Hitler freed them from the "chimera called conscience."
But the theoretical foundations laid down for the purpose still did not constitute official instructions, nor did they introduce definite retaliatory measures against those who were unduly mild and those who did not fully recognize the "joys of cruelty." This is why, even before the beginning of the war with the Soviet Union, the German fascist criminals issued a number of so-called handbooks, sermons, and similar documents to the Germans who were being sent East. I submit one of these documents to the Tribunal. Of all the documents in my possession I have deliberately selected this small document, and I dwell on it because it is not intended for me SS or police. It is intended for the so-called agricultural leaders. This document is entitled, "The Twelve Commandments for the Behavior of Germans in the East and for Their Treatment of the Russians."
I submit this document to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-89 (Document Number USSR-89), and Your Honors will find it on Page 17 of the document book. From these "Twelve Commandments" I shall quote just one, the sixth, which has a direct bearing on my present theme...
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, the words "Twelve Commandments for the Behavior of the Germans in the East and for Their Treatment" have been written on Document Number USSR-89. That is
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all that is in my copy. This document has no heading and no signature. As the question of responsibility is involved, it would surely be desirable for the Prosecution to name the author of these "Twelve Commandments." So I respectfully ask the Tribunal to decide whether this document is admissible as evidence in its present form.
THE PRESIDENT: Can you inform us what the source of the document is?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This document is included in the documentation of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union for the investigation and determination of German fascist atrocities. It was received from the following sources-I must interrupt my further presentation.
The Counsel for the Defense has pointed out that this document bears no signature. If Your Honor will turn to the original of this document, which I have submitted to you, you will find the signature of a certain Backe. Unfortunately I cannot say who this Backe was, but I discovered this signature on a whole series of German, or rather of German fascist documents which, in rather peculiar juxtaposition, usually discussed two subjects-cattle breeding and the Russian soul. Evidently the author of this document was considered equally competent to deal with both questions. But what his official position was I really cannot say.
I repeat, this document was captured by field units of our army, in the region of Rossoshy, handed to the Extraordinary State Commission and the original of this document is now being submitted to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: I have the original before me now. It is dated Berlin, the 1st of June 1941, and has a signature which looks like B-a-c-k-e. Perhaps Counsel for the Defense would like to see the original document. It is, as I understand from the prosecuting counsel, made a part of the Soviet Government report; and if so, we must take notice of it.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: That is so. I have information concerning Backe's official position. He was Minister of Food and Agriculture. I did not know that before, because in practice I did not have the occasion to come across this branch of German fascist life.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I believe I can identify the signature as "Backe." Backe was in the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, was indeed State Secretary at the time.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps this would be a convenient time to break.
[A recess was taken.]
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MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, have I your permission to proceed?
I now quote the sixth commandment of the twelve which have just been submitted to the Tribunal. This sixth commandment, which is on Page 17 of the document book of the Tribunal, reads as follows:
"6. The areas just opened up must be permanently acquired for Germany and Europe. Everything will depend upon your behavior. You must realize that you are the representatives of Greater Germany and the standard-bearers of the National Socialist Revolution and of the New Europe for centuries to come. You must, therefore, carry out with dignity even the hardest and most ruthless measures required by the necessities of the state. Weakness on the part of an individual win, on principle, be considered as just cause for his recall. Anyone who has been recalled for this reason will no longer be eligible for a responsible position in the Reich either." For what "hardest and most ruthless" measures the criminal Hitlerite Government was preparing those whom it named "the standard-bearers of the National Socialist Revolution," and what crimes were committed by them, we shall show later on.
In this manner the theoretical, abstract discussions were followed up by official orders quite definite and allowing of no ambiguity. Execution squads were trained in special educational institutions. The network of these institutions extended almost to the lowest ranks.
I shall submit to the Tribunal the indictment drawn up for the Prosecutor of the U.S.S.R. by the examining magistrate of most important affairs on the subject of German fascist atrocities in the city and region of Kharkov. This document has already been fully confirmed by the verdict of the military tribunal which has also been submitted to the TribunaL The Tribunal will find this verdict on Page 20 of your document book. The indictment and sentence are submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-32 (Document Number USSR-32).
There is on the first page of the indictment an extract from the testimony of the Defendant Retzlav. It is on Page 24 of the document book of the Tribunal, last paragraph. I quote an excerpt from the testimony:
"The accused senior corporal of the German Army, Reinhard Retzlav, who received his training in the special battalion 'Altenburg,' testified in the course of his interrogatory:
"The course of training even included several lectures by leading officials of the GAP"-Secret Field Police-"who definitely declared that the peoples of the Soviet Union, especially those of Russian nationality, were subhuman and
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should be destroyed in an overwhelming majority, although an appreciable number was to be employed by the German landowners as slaves. These directives were the result of the policy of the German Government toward the peoples of the occupied territories; and, it must be confessed, were put into practice by every member of the Armed Forces, myself included."
Such. were the courses dedicated to the training and education of junior police officials.
But the fascist training school for murderers acknowledged other forms of education as well, forms specially dedicated to the technique of destroying all traces of the crimes committed. The Tribunal has already received the document registered as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c) (8) (Document Number USSR-6(c) (8). This document is one of the appendices to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on German atrocities perpetrated on the territory of the region of Lvov. The document is the testimony of the witness, Manusevitch, interrogated by the senior assistant to the prosecutor of the Lvov region, by the special request of the Extraordinary State Commission. The minutes of the interrogatory are recorded in conformity with the legal code of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Tribunal will find these minutes on Page 48 of the document book.
Manusevitch was imprisoned by the Germans in Yanov Camp, where he worked in the prisoners' squad for burning corpses of murdered Soviet citizens. After the 40,000 corpses murdered in Yanov Camp were burned, the squad was transferred for similar purposes to the camp in Lissenitzky Wood.
I now quote from the record of the interrogation, which the Tribunal will find on Page 52 of the document book, Paragraph 2 from the top, Line 26. I begin:
"In the death factory of this camp special 10-day courses on corpse burning were organized, on which 12 men were employed. Pupils attending these courses came from the camps of Lublin, Warsaw, and others whose names escape me.. I do not know the surnames of the pupils, but they were officers from colonels to sergeant majors, not soldiers from the rank and file. The instructor at these courses was the officer in command of crematories, Colonel Schallok. On the site where the bodies were exhumed and burned he explained the practical manner of their burning and how to set up the machinery for bone crushing."
Later on, photographs of this machine will be submitted to the Tribunal together with a description, or rather, I should say, technical directions.
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"Schallock further explained the manner in which the pit was levelled over, the earth sifted, and trees planted over it, and how the ashes of the human corpses were scattered and concealed. Courses of this nature continued for a considerable period. During my sojourn, that is, during the 5 1/2 months that I worked in the camps of Yanov and Lissenitzky, 10 groups of military students graduated successfully."
For the education of adolescents, the German fascists created a special organization, the so-called Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend). The Defendant Baldur von Schirach was for quite a long time the head of this organization.
What kind of methods were used for the education of German youth by the fascist criminals is described by a French subject, Ida Vasso, the directress of a hostel for aged Frenchmen in Lvov. During the German occupation of Lvov, she had an opportunity of visiting the Lvov ghetto. In her statement to the Extraordinary State Commission, Vasso described the local system for the extermination of human beings.
From Vasso's statement it is obvious that the Germans educated the Hitler Youth by training these young fascists to shoot at living targets-at children specially handed over to the Hitler Youth to serve as targets.
Vasso's statement was checked by the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union and fully confirmed. In confirmation of this evidence I win submit to the Court Exhibit Number USSR-6 (Document Number USSR-6), which is a report by the Extraordinary State Commission, entitled, "German Atrocities Perpetrated in the Territory of the Lvov Region."
I now quote from Vasso's statement in this connection. It is included in the text of the report as a certified document, on Page 6-c of the document book. The Tribunal win find Vasso's statement on the reverse side of Page 59, Paragraph 5, beginning from Line 14 from the beginning of the paragraph:
". . . the little children were martyrs. They were handed over to the Hitler Youth who used them as living targets while learning how to shoot. No mercy for others, all for themselves- this was the motto of the Germans. The whole world must learn of their methods. We, who were the helpless witnesses of these revolting scenes, must speak of those horrors in order that everybody should know of them and, what is more important, should never forget them since no vengeance will ever bring the minions of dead back to life again."
Your Honors can turn to the same Page 59 of the document book, Line 10 from the beginning of the second paragraph. Here the Tribunal will find the official confirmation of Vasso's statement. The
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Extraordinary State Commission established that, in Lvov, the Germans:
"Spared neither men, women, or children. The adults were simply killed on the spot; the children were given to the Hitler Youth for target practice."
In this manner were created, educated, and trained the amoral monstrosities who were called upon to materialize the program of the major war criminals for the actual destruction of the population in the Eastern European countries. The fascist government had no need to fear that the "Standard Bearers of the National Socialist Revolution" in the East would show any traces of humanity at all.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, I hope you will forgive my interrupting you; but as I had to point out to Colonel Pokrovsky just now, we really don't want any comment upon each one of these documents. The passage you have just read to us now is nothing but comment upon the frightful document which you have just read. It all takes time. If you could find your way to cut out the comment after these documents and simply to present us with the documents, it will save time.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I will now quote an excerpt from the testimony of the witness Manusevitch, previously submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-6(c) (8), the passage where he speaks of the activities of the Yanov Camp administration. He was a witness of these activities when working in a special squad of prisoners employed for burning the corpses of people murdered in this camp- Page 3 of the minutes of the interrogatory. The Tribunal will find this document on Page 50 of the document book, Line 25 from the top. I quote this passage as an illustration of the execution squads created by the Hitlerites and of some of the atrocities perpetrated by them:
"Apart from the shootings in Yanov Camp various forms of torture were practiced, namely, in winter a barrel would be filled with water and a man, with hands and feet tied, would be thrown into the barrel, where he froze to death. Yanov Camp was surrounded by a barbed wire entanglement consisting of two rows of barbed wire, 120 centimeters apart. A man would be thrown in and left there for several days on end. He could not extricate himself from the wire and he eventually perished from hunger and thirst. But prior to being thrown into the barbed wire, he would nearly have been beaten to death. A man would be strung up by the neck, hands, and feet. Dogs would be set on him and the dogs would tear him to pieces. Human beings were used as targets for shooting practice. This was mostly done by the
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following members of the Gestapo: Heine, Muller, Blum, Camp Commandant Willhaus, and others whose names escape me. People would be beaten till they nearly died, dogs would then be set on them who tore the victims to pieces. A man was given a glass to hold and was then stood up to serve as a target in shooting practice; if the glass was hit, the man was spared, but if he was shot in the hand he was immediately killed after being told that he was no longer fit for work. Men would be taken by the legs and torn in two. Infants from 1 month to 3 years old were thrown into buckets of water and left to drown. A man would be tied to a post facing the sun and kept there till he died of sunstroke. In addition, before men were sent to work, they were subjected to a so-called examination for physical fitness. The men were made to run a "There was also the following case: a Gestapo man, Heine, made a young lad stand up and cut pieces of flesh from his body. Another man was wounded 28 times in the shoulders with a knife. The wounds healed and he worked in a death brigade. He was subsequently shot. Near the kitchen, during the distribution of coffee, the executioner Heine, whenever he was on duty, would go up to the first man in the line and ask, 'Why are you standing in front of the others?' and shoot him dead. In this way he shot quite a lot of people. He would then go to the end of the queue and ask, 'Why are you the last in the line?' and shoot him as well. I personally witnessed these atrocities during my imprisonment in Yanov Camp ...." The testimony of the witness Manusevitch, which I have read into the record, was fully confirmed by the official report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union entitled, "German Atrocities Perpetrated in the Lvov Region." Further on Manusevitch speaks mainly about the activities of officials in the lower and middle rank of the camp administration. It is evident from the official report of the Extraordinary State Commission that a system of the vilest ill-treatment practiced upon the helpless people was initiated and organized by the upper ranks of the camp 449 14 Feb. 46 administration, who invariably set their subordinates personal examples of inhuman behavior. I will not make any comment on this document, although I do beg the Tribunal to take note of a certain Obersturmfuehrer Willhaus mentioned in this document. The Tribunal will find the excerpt which I shall now read into the Record on Page 58 of the document book-on the reverse side of the page, Column 1 of the text. I quote: , "SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Gebauer established a savage, system of murder in Yanov Camp, which, after his transfer to another post, was perfected by the camp commandant, SS Obersturmfuehrer Gustav Willhaus and SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Franz Wartzok. "A former inmate of the camp told the commission: "'I have seen with my own eyes how SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Fritz Gebauer strangled women and children and froze men to death in barrels filled with water. The hands and feet of the victims were shackled before they were lowered into the water. Those doomed to die remained in the barrels until they froze to death.' "According to the testimonies of numerous Soviet prisoners of war and also of French citizens held in German camps, it was established that the German thugs invented the most vicious methods for exterminating human beings, a fact which they considered as particularly praiseworthy and in which they were encouraged both by the higher military command and by the government. "SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Franz Wartzok, for instance, loved to hang internees by both feet on posts and leave them in this position until they died; Obersturmfuehrer Rokita personally slashed open the bellies of the prisoners. The chairman of the investigation section of the Yanov Camp, Heine, pierced the bodies of internees with sticks or a piece of iron; he would tear out the finger nails of women with pliers, Ben he would strip his victims, hang them up by their hair, swing them out and shoot at the 'moving targets.' "The commandant of the Yanov Camp, Obersturmfuehrer Willhaus, systematically shot with an automatic rifle from the balcony of his office room the prisoners employed in the workshops, partly for sheer love of sport and partly to amuse his wife and daughters. Me would then hand his rifle to his wife and she too had a shot at the prisoners. Sometimes, to please his 9-year-old daughter, he had children between the 450 14 Feb. 46 ages of 2 and 4 years tossed in the air and then took pot shots at them, while his daughter applauded and shrieked, 'Papa, do it again; do it again, Papa!' And he did it again. "The internees of this camp were exterminated for no reason at all, often as a result of a bet. A woman witness, Kirschner, informed the Investigating Commission that a Gestapo Commissar, Wepke, bet the other camp executioners that he could cut a boy in half with one stroke of the axe. They did not believe him. So he caught a 10-year-old boy on the road, made him kneel down, told him to hide his face in the folded palms of his hands, made one test stroke, placed the child's head in a more convenient position and with one single stroke cut the boy in half. The Hitlerites heartily congratulated Wepke, shaking him warmly by the hand. "In 1943, for Hitler's birthday-his 54th-the commandant of the Yanov Camp, Obersturmfuehrer Willhaus, picked out, 54 prisoners of war and shot them himself. "A special hospital for prisoners was organized in the camp. The German hangmen Brambauer and Birman checked up the patients on the 1st and 15th day of each month; and, if they discovered that among the patients there were some who had been in the hospital for over 14 days, they shot them on the spot. Six or seven people were killed during each investigation. "The Germans executed their tortures, ill-treatments, and shooting to the accompaniment of music. For this purpose they created a special orchestra selected from among the prisoners. They forced Professor Stricks and the famous conductor Mund to conduct this orchestra. They requested the composers to write a special tune, to be called the 'Tango of Death.' Shortly before dissolving the cams the Germans shot every member of the orchestra." Later on I will present to the Tribunal, as a photo-document, photographs of this "orchestra of death." What took place in Yanov Camp was in no way exceptional. In exactly the same manner the German fascist administration behaved in all concentration camps in the occupied area of the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, and other Eastern European countries. I submit to the International Military Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-29 (Document Number USSR-29). It is a communiqué of the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary State Commission for the investigation of the crimes perpetrated by the Germans in the extermination camp of Maidanek in the city of Lublin. The Tribunal will find this communiqué on Page 63 of the document book. I quote 451 14 Feb. 46 Section 3 of this document, "Tortures and Murder in the Extermination Camp"-Page 64 reverse side of the document book, beginning with the last paragraph of the first column of the text: "The forms of torture were extremely varied. Some of them were in the nature of so-called jokes which frequently ended in death. They included mock-shooting when the victim was rendered insensible by a blow over the head with a blunt instrument, and mock drownings in the pond of the camp which often ended in actual drowning. "Among the German executioners were specialists in particular methods of torture. Prisoners were killed by a blow with a stick on the back of the head, by a kick in the stomach, in the groin, et cetera. "The SS torturers drowned their victims in the dirty water Solving from the bathhouse through a narrow ditch. The head of the victim was plunged into the dirty water and kept under by the boot of an SS man until he died. A favorite method of the Hitler SS was to hang prisoners with their hands bound behind their back. The Frenchman, De Courantin, who suffered the torture in question, stated that a man hanged in this manner lost consciousness very rapidly, whereupon the hanging would be interrupted. He was hanged again as soon as consciousness was recovered and the process was repeated several times. "For the smallest offense, particularly for any suspicion of escape, the camp internees were hanged by the German fiends. In the middle of each field stood a post with a cross beam 2 meters above ground, from which the victims were hanged. 'I saw from my barracks,' said witness Demashev, former camp internee and Soviet prisoner of war, 'how people were hanged from the beam in the middle of the field.' "Close to the laundry, in the entresol between the first and second floor, was a special shed with beams from the ceilings where prisoners were hanged in whole groups." The women interned in the camp were subjected to the same ill-treatment and torture; they suffered the same forms of control, of work beyond their strength, of beating, and ill-treatment. The greatest cruelty was exercised by the female personnel of the SS. The worst were the chief woman supervisor Erich, and the supervisors Braunstein, Anni David, Weber, Knoblick, Ellert, and Radli. The Commission has established many facts of unparalleled brutality perpetrated by the German executioners in the camp. The German, Heinz Stalbe, chief of the camp police, at a plenary meeting stated that he had seen with his own eyes how 452 14 Feb. 46 the director of the crematory, Oberscharfuehrer Mussfeld, tied the arms and legs of a Polish woman and threw her into the furnace alive. The witnesses Yelinski and Olech-workers in the camp-also stated that internees had been burned alive in the crematory ovens: "An infant was snatched from its mother's breast and dashed before her eyes against the wall of the barrack"-stated witness Atrochov-"I saw for myself how infants were taken from their mothers and murdered before their eyes: One small leg would be seized by a hand, the executioner would stand on the other and the infant would be torn in half"- stated witness Edward Baran. "The deputy camp commandant, SS-Obersturmfuehrer Tumann was particularly noted for his sadistic tendencies. He forced groups of internees to kneel in a row and then killed them by blows on the head with a stick. He set Alsatian dogs on the internees. He participated actively and energetically in all executions and killings of the prisoners. "Thus hunger, work beyond their strength, torture, torment, ill-treatment, and murder accompanied by unheard-of sadism were employed for the mass extermination of the captives in the camp." To prove that these sophisticated and sadistic crimes were not exclusively characteristic of the SS or the special police units, but that the major war criminals had deliberately plunged whole strata of the personnel of the German Armed Forces into the very depths of moral degradation, I turn to the contents of a note by the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., V. M. Molotov, dated 6 January 1942, which was submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-51. Your Honors will find the passage I am about to quote on the reverse side of the document book, Paragraph 4, Column 1 of the text. I begin the quotation: "There are no bounds to the wrath and indignation aroused among the Soviet population and in the Red Army by the innumerable and despicable acts of violence, the foul outrages perpetrated against the honor of the women and the mass murders of Soviet citizens, both men and women, carried out by the German fascist officers and men. Wherever the rule of the German bayonet begins to hold sway, an unbearable regime of bloody terror, agonizing torture, and savage murder is introduced. The robberies committed everywhere by the German officers and men are invariably accompanied by the beating and murder of immense numbers of entirely innocent people. For failure to deliver up food supplies to the very last crumb, and all clothing, down to the very last shirt, the occupants torture and hang old and young, women and 453 14 Feb. 96 children. At forced labor they beat up and shoot for all defective execution of the established quota of work. "On 30 June Hitler's thugs entered the city of Lvov, and on the very next day they started a massacre under the slogan, 'Kill the Jews and the Poles.' After hundreds had been put to death the Hitler gangsters arranged an 'exhibition' of the murdered citizens by building an arcade. The mutilated bodies, mostly of women, were laid out along the walls of the houses. The place of honor in this ghastly 'exhibition' was occupied , by the corpse of a woman whose baby had been pinned to her with a bayonet. "Such were the monstrous atrocities of the fascists from the very outbreak of the war. Wallowing in innocent blood, the Hitlerite blackguards are still continuing their dastardly crimes. "In the hamlet of Krasnaya Polyana near Moscow, on 2 December, the German fascist dastards assembled all the local inhabitants between the ages of 15 and 16, locked them up in the icy premises of the district executive committee building in which all the window panes had been knocked out, and kept them there for 8 days without food or water. The infant children of the women workers of the Krasnaya Polyana factory, A. Zaitseva, T. Gudkina, O. Naletkina, and M. Mikhailova, died in the arms of their mothers during this ordeal. "Numerous instances are on record of Soviet children having been used as practice targets by the Hitlerites. "In the village of Bely Rast, in the Krasnaya Polyana district, a gang of drunken German soldiers put 12-year-old Volodia Tkachev up on the porch of one of the houses as a target and opened fire on the boy with an automatic rifle. The boy was riddled with bullets. After that the thugs began to fire random shots at the windows of houses. They stopped a collective farm woman, I. Mossolova, who was passing in the street with her three children, and there and then shot her and the children dead. "In the village of Voskressenskoye of the Dubinin District, the Hitlerites used a 3-year-old boy as their target, firing at him with their machine guns. "In the regional center of Volovo in the Region of Kursk, where the Germans stayed for a space of 4 hours, a German officer killed the 2-year-old son of a woman named Boikova by dashing the child's head against a wall merely because it was crying. , 454 14 Feb. 46 "In the village soviet of Zlobin, in the district of Orel, the fascists killed the 2-year-old child of a collective farmer, Kratov, because his crying disturbed their sleep. "In the village of Semenovskoe, in the region of Kalinin, the Germans bound with twine the arms of Olga Tikhonova, the 25-year-old wife of a Red Army man and mother of three children, who was in the last stage of pregnancy, and raped her. After violating her the Germans cut her throat, stabbed her through both breasts, and sadistically bored them out. In the same village the occupants shot a boy of 13 and cut out a five-pointed star on his forehead. "In November the telegraph operator of the town of Kalinin, Ivanova, went to visit relatives in the village of Burashevo, near Kalinin, together with her 13-year-old son Leonid. When they left the town they were noticed by some Hitlerites, who began shooting at them from a distance of 60 meters; as a result the boy was killed. The mother made several attempts to carry away the child's body, but whenever she tried to do so the Germans opened fire and she had to leave the body there. For 8 days the German soldiers would not let her remove the body. It was only removed and buried by the mother when the place was occupied by our troops." Mention is made, further on in the note, of another child victim of the fascists. The Tribunal will see this murdered boy in our filmed documentary evidence. I would ask the Tribunal to pay attention to the further words of the "note" which I shall read into the Record: "In Rostov-on-Don a pupil of the commercial school, 15-year old Vitya Cherevichny, was playing in the yard with his pigeons. Some passing German soldiers began to steal the birds. The boy protested. The Germans took him away and shot him, at the corner of 27th Line and 2d Maisky Street for refusing to surrender his pigeons. With the heels of their boots the Hitlerites trampled his face out of all recognition. "The village of Bassmanova, in the Glinka district of the Smolensk region, liberated by our troops early in September was one mass of ashes after the German occupation. On the very first day of their arrival, the fascist fiends drove into the fields over 200 schoolboys and girls who had come to the village to help in the harvesting. There they surrounded them and savagely shot them all. A large group of schoolgirls was abducted to the rear 'for their lordships, the officers.' "The seizure of towns or villages usually begins with the erection of a gallows on which the German executioners hang the first civilians they can lay their hands on. Moreover, 455 14 Feb. 46 they leave the bodies hanging on the gallows for days and even weeks. They do the same with the people they shoot in the streets of the towns and villages, leaving the bodies untended for days on end. "After the seizure of Kharkov, the German thugs hanged several people from the windows of a large house in the center of the city. Furthermore, in the same city of Kharkov on 16 November 19 persons, including one woman, were hanged from the balconies of a number of houses." The bestial acts of violence perpetrated against the women everywhere testify to the profound moral corruption of the criminals. I shall quote from that passage in the note which Your Honors will find on Page 4, Paragraph 4, of the document book: "Women and young girls are vilely outraged in all the occupied areas. "In the Ukrainian village of Borodayevka, in the Dniepropetrovsk region, the fascists violated every one of the women and girls. "In the village of Berezovka, in the region of Smolensk, drunken German soldiers assaulted and carried off all the women and girls between the ages of 16 and 30. "In the city of Smolensk the German Command opened a brothel for officers in one of the hotels into which hundreds of women and girls were driven; they were mercilessly dragged down the street by their arms and hair: "Everywhere the lust-maddened German gangsters break into the houses, they rape the women and girls under the very eyes of their kinfolk and children, jeer at the women they have violated, and then brutally murder their victims. "In the city of Lvov, 32 women working in a garment factory were first violated and then murdered by German storm troopers. Drunken German soldiers dragged the girls and young women of Lvov into Kesciuszko Park, where they savagely raped them. An old priest, V. I. Pomamew, who, cross in hand, tried to prevent these outrages, was beaten up by the fascists. They tore off his cassock, singed his beard, and bayonetted him to death. "Near the town of Borissov in Bielorussia, 75 women and girls attempting to flee at the approach of the German troops, fell into their hands. The Germans first raped and then savagely murdered 36 of their number. By order of a German officer named Hummer, the soldiers marched L. I. Melchukova, a 16-year-old girl, into the forest, where they raped her. A little later some other women who had also been dragged 456 14 Feb. 46 into the forest saw some boards near the trees and the dying Melchukova nailed to the boards. The Germans had cut off her breasts in the presence of these women, among whom were V. I. Alperenko, and V. H. Bereznikova. "On retreating from the village of Borovka, in the Zvenigorod district of the Moscow region, the fascists forcibly abducted several women, tearing them away from their lithe children in spite of their protests and prayers. "In the town of Tikhvin in the Leningrad region, a 15-yearold girl named H. Koledetskaya, who had been wounded by shell splinters, was taken to a hospital (a former monastery) where there were wounded German soldiers. Despite her injuries the girl was raped by a group of German soldiers and died as a result of the assault." I omit one paragraph and continue: "But, the Hitlerites do not stop at the murder of individual Soviet citizens. Among the most appalling atrocities in the history of Hitlerite lawlessness and terrorism on German occupied Soviet territory are the nightmare mass murders of Soviet citizens which usually accompany the temporary seizure by the Germans of Soviet towns, villages, and other inhabited centers. "Here are a few instances of wholesale bloody murders carried out by the Germans against entire villages. In Yaskino, a village in the region of Smolensk, the Hitlerites shot all the old men and adolescents, and burnt the houses down to the ground. In the village of Pochinok of the same region, the Germans drove all the old men, old women, and children into the collective farm office, locked the doors and burnt them all alive. In the Ukrainian village of Yomelchino in the region of Zhitomir, the Germans locked 68 people into a small hut, sealed the doors and windows and asphyxiated to death everybody inside. In the village of Yershevo, of the Zvenigorod district in the Moscow region now liberated by our troops, the Germans prior to their withdrawal drove about 100 peaceful citizens and wounded Red Army men into a church, locked them in, and blew up the building. In the village of Agrafenovka of the Rostov region, on 16 November, the fascists arrested the entire male population between the ages of 16 and 70 and shot one man of every three." The subsequent part of the note deals with the mass German crimes known as "actions" and particularly to the "actions" in Kiev. I invite the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the figure of those murdered in Babye Yar-as mentioned in this note- is an understatement. After the liberation of Kiev it was established 457 14 Feb. 46 that the extent of the atrocities perpetrated by the German fascist invaders far exceeds the German crimes as stated in the first instance. From further information submitted to the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, in connection with the city of Kiev, it is evident that during the monstrous so-called German mass "action" in Babye-Yar not 52,000 but 100,000 were shot. I now continue to quote from Page 4, of the document book, Paragraph 3: "Terrible massacres and pogroms were carried out by the German invaders in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. In the course of a few days the German bandits tortured and murdered 52,000 men and women, aged people and children, ruthlessly doing to death all Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews who in any way displayed their loyalty to the power of the Soviet. Soviet citizens who succeeded in escaping from Kiev give a shattering picture of one of these mass executions: A large number of Jews, including women and children of all ages, were assembled in the Jewish cemetery. Before shooting them the, Germans stripped them naked and then beat them. The first group marked for execution was forced to lie, face downwards at the bottom of a ditch, where the Jews were shot with automatic rifles. The Germans then lightly sprinkled some earth over the dead bodies, made the next batch lie down in a row over the first and shot them in the same way." I skip a paragraph and continue with the quotation. You will have the opportunity of seeing the Hitlerite crimes mentioned in the note. The German atrocities in Rostov are shown in great detail in the filmed documentary evidence. "The Nazi blood-thirstiness towards the citizens of Rostov has become well known. During their 10 days' sojourn in Rostov the Germans not only wreaked vengeance on separate individuals and families, but In their blood-lust they annihilated tens and hundreds of inhabitants, especially in the working-class districts of the city. Near the premises of the Railway Board, German machinegunners shot 48 people in broad daylight. Sixty people were shot by the Hitlerite assassins on the sidewalks of the main street of Rostov. Two hundred people were murdered in the Armenian cemetery. Even after their expulsion from Rostov by our troops, German generals and officers publicly boasted that they would return to Rostov purposely to vent bloody retribution on the inhabitants, who had actively helped to drive their mortal enemy from their native city." 458 14 Feb. 46 On the immediate initiative of the command and officers of the units and formations of the German fascist armies, the advancing and retreating movements of their troops were often protected by the peaceful citizens, preferably by women,, old men, and children. I make no comment but I do consider it necessary to stress the fact that only those people acted like that who had perfectly understood Keitel's directive-so well known to the Tribunal-that human life "in the countries to which the directive refers, is worth exactly nothing at all." I quote further from the note of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Page 7 of the document book, the last paragraph: "In addition to all that has already been stated, the Soviet Government have in their possession documentation bearing on the systematically repeated monstrous atrocities of the German fascist command, such as the use of Soviet civilians to cover German troops during battle with the Red Army. "On 28 August 1941 German fascist troops attempted to force the River Ipput. Powerless to overcome the stubborn resistance of the Red Army units, they assembled the population of the Bielorussian town of Dobrush in the Gomel region, and by threatening to shoot those who refused, drove women, children, and old people before them, using them as a shield when they attacked in battle formation. "The same dastardly crime against the civilian population was repeated by the German Command in the Vybori Collective Farm Sector of the Leningrad region as well as in the district of Yelna, in the region of Smolensk. The fascist thugs continue to resort to this brutal and cowardly method right up to the present day. On 8 December the Hitlerites made use of the local civil population to cover their retreat from the village of Yamnoye, in the region of Tula. On 12 December, in the same region, they assembled 120 persons-old people and children-and made them march in the vanguard of their troops during engagements with the advancing units of the Red Army. In the fight by our troops for the liberation of the city of Kalinin, units of the German 303rd Regiment, 162d Division, attempting to launch a counter-attack, assembled the women of one of the suburban villages, placed them in the vanguard of their troops, and then went into action. Fortunately the Soviet troops succeeded, when beating off the attack, in driving a wedge between the Hitlerites and their victims thereby saving the lives of the women." In order to satisfy the needs of the German fascist armies and in violation of all international conventions, the criminals employed the civil population for particularly dangerous work, especially for 459 14 Feb. 46 clearing the mine fields. I will quote an extract from the second part of this note, which the Tribunal will find on Page 2 of the document book, Paragraph 4. I quote: "Wherever German troops and German authorities made their appearance on Soviet territory, a regime of brutal exploitation, tyranny, and arbitrary rule was immediately established as far as the defenseless civil population was concerned. With a complete disregard for age or conditions of health, and after having taken or destroyed the houses of the Soviet citizens, a great number of these were brought to concentration camps by the Hitlerites and were compelled, under threat of torture, shooting, or death by starvation, to perform, gratuitously, various kinds of heavy labor, including work of a military nature. In a number of cases, civilians employed on one or another fob of a military nature were summarily shot to ensure secrecy. "Thus, for instance, in the village of Kolpino, in the region of Smolensk, the invaders drove all the farmers off to work on building bridges and dugouts for German units. Upon the completion of the construction of these fortifications, all these farmers were shot." THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps this would be a good time to break off. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, sir. [The Tribunal adjourned until 15 February 1946 at 1000 hours.] 460
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