“In view of the above reason, consideration should be given to
the immediate erection of such camps in a large number of cities
which appear to be endangered by air attacks. As the discussions
with the city of Frankfurt . . . have shown, the towns will
support and speed up the construction of the camps by all
available means.”
The last paragraph:
“So far, there are in Germany about 8,000 prisoners of war of
the British and American Air Forces (without counting those in
hospitals). By evacuating the camps actually in existence, which
might be used to house bombed-out people, we should immediately
have at our disposal prisoners of war for a fairly large number
of such camps.”
This refers to the camps set up in bombed areas and areas which were
particularly exposed.
On Page 10 the Tribunal will find a document issued by the Führer’s
headquarters, dated 3 September 1943, dealing with the establishment of
these new prisoner-of-war camps for British and American airmen. We
submit this document as Exhibit Number RF-339 (Document Number 823-PS):
“1) The Commander-in-Chief, Air General Staff, is planning the
erection of further camps for air force prisoners, as the number
of new prisoners is mounting to more than 1,000 a month, and the
space available at the moment is insufficient. The Supreme
Commander of the Luftwaffe proposes to establish these camps
within residential quarters of cities, which would constitute at
the same time a protection for the populations of the town and,
in addition, to transfer all the existing camps, containing
about 8,000 British and American Air Force prisoners, to larger
towns threatened by enemy air attack. . . .
“2) The Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, Chief of War
Prisoners, has approved this project in principle.”
On Page 12 of the document book which the Tribunal has before it is a
document, Number F-551, which we shall submit as Exhibit Number RF-360.
It deals with the sentencing of prisoners of war in violation of Article
60 and the following articles of the Geneva Convention. The Geneva
Convention provides that the protecting power shall be advised of
judicial prosecutions that are made against prisoners of war and will
have the right to be represented at the trial. The document which we
submit as Exhibit Number RF-360 shows that these provisions were
violated:
“In practice, the application of Articles 60 and 66,
particularly Paragraph 2 of Article 66 of the Convention of
1929, concerning the treatment of prisoners of war causes
considerable difficulties. For the application of severe penal
jurisdiction, it is intolerable that precisely for the most
serious offenses, as for instance, attacks on the guards, the
death sentence cannot be carried out until 3 months after its
notification to the protecting power. The discipline of
prisoners of war is bound to suffer from this.”