On 7 October 1942 a communiqué of the OKW, disseminated by the press and
radio, announced the decision taken by the High Command to execute
saboteurs. On Page 26 the Tribunal will find in the document book
extracts from the _Völkischer Beobachter_ of 8 October 1942 (Document
Number RF-364):
“In future all terrorist and sabotage units of the British and
their accomplices, who do not behave as soldiers but as bandits,
will be treated as such by the German troops and shot on the
spot without mercy, wherever it may be.”
Under the Exhibit Number RF-365 (Document 1263-PS), we submit the
minutes of a meeting of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht, dated 14
October 1942. Paragraph 3:
“During the era of total warfare sabotage has become one of the
most important elements in the conduct of war. It is sufficient
to state our attitude to this question. The enemy will find
evidence of it in the reports of our own propaganda
units. . . .”
Page 29, the end of Paragraph 3:
“Sabotage is an essential element . . . we ourselves have
strongly developed this means of combat.”
Then the sixth paragraph.
“We have already announced by radio our intention of
liquidating, in future, all groups of terrorists and saboteurs
acting like bandits. Therefore the WFSt has only to issue
regulations to the troops how to deal with terrorist and
sabotage groups.”
Page 30. The Tribunal will see what orders were given concerning the
treatment of what the German General Staff called groups of terrorists
and British saboteurs. It is certain that the German General Staff never
called their own commandos groups of terrorists and saboteurs.
Paragraph A refers to groups of the British Army without uniform or in
German uniform. I quote:
“In combat or in flight they are to be killed without mercy.”
Paragraph B:
“Members of terrorist and sabotage groups of the British Army
wearing uniform, who in the opinion of our troops are guilty of
acting dishonorably or in any manner contrary to the law of
nations, are to be kept in separate custody after capture. . . .
“Instructions concerning the treatment to be inflicted upon them
will be given by the WFSt in agreement with the Army legal
service and the Counter-Intelligence Department, Foreign Section
(Amt Ausland Abwehr).”
Finally, Page 31, Paragraph 2:
“Violation of the laws of war by terrorist or sabotage troops is
in the future always to be assumed when individual assailants as
saboteurs or agents, regardless of whether they were soldiers or
whatever their uniform might be, place themselves outside the
laws of war by committing surprise attacks or brutalities which
in the judgment of our troops “are inconsistent with the
fundamental rules of war.”
Paragraph 3:
“In such cases the assailants will be killed without mercy to
the last man, in combat or in flight.”
Paragraph 4:
“Confinement in prisoner-of-war camps, even temporarily, is
forbidden.”
Thus in carrying out these orders, if British soldiers, even in uniform,
were captured during a commando operation, the German troops were to
judge whether they had acted according to the laws of war or not; and
without any appeal, subordinates could annihilate them to the last man,
even when they were not engaged in active fighting. These orders were
applied to British commandos.
We shall now quote Document Number 498-PS, which was submitted by our
American colleagues under Exhibit Number USA-501 and which confirms the
information which we have just given to the Tribunal by the reading of
the preceding documents. It seems useless to read this document.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, there are two points to which I wish to draw
your attention. In the first place, it is said that you are not offering
these documents in evidence, you are simply reading them, and they must
be offered in evidence so that the document itself may be put in
evidence. You have not offered in evidence any of these documents; you
have just been reading from them or have given them numbers.
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, I have submitted them all—absolutely
all—except those which were already submitted by our colleagues; and
all were filed with a number, and can be handed to you immediately. I
shall ask the French secretary to hand them to you with the exhibit
numbers which I read out.
THE PRESIDENT: They have all been put in evidence already?
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, some have been put in evidence and I quoted
them with their exhibit numbers; but those which have not been
submitted, I shall give French numbers when submitting.
THE PRESIDENT: You are saying, “have been put in evidence by some other
member of the Prosecution”; is that right?
M. DUBOST: That is correct, Mr. President. When I quote them I give the
number under which they were filed by my American colleagues.
THE PRESIDENT: That was filed by the American Prosecution, was it not:
498?
M. DUBOST: 498-PS on Page 32 has already been filed by my American
colleagues under the Number USA-501, as I said before, sir. I shall not
read it. I shall merely comment on it briefly.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. With reference to the document which preceded
it on Pages 27, 29, 30, and 31 . . .
M. DUBOST: I shall ask the French secretary to give them to you with the
numbers under which they were filed.
THE PRESIDENT: Have they been filed by the American prosecutor too?
M. DUBOST: Not all, Mr. President. Some were filed by the American
Prosecution, others were filed by me.
THE PRESIDENT: What the Tribunal wants you to do is, when you put in a
document, if it has not already been put in, give it a number and
announce the exhibit number so that the record may be complete. Is that
clear?
M. DUBOST: It is clear, Mr. President, but I believe that I have done so
from the beginning, since the French secretary has just given you the
file.
THE PRESIDENT: You may have put numbers on the documents, but you have
not announced them in some cases.
There is another matter which I wish to state and it is this: When I
spoke before, what I asked you to do was to confine yourself to any new
points, and you are now giving us evidence about commandos and about
British commandos, all of which has been already gone into in previous
stages of the Trial, and that appears to us to be unnecessary.
M. DUBOST: The Tribunal will pardon me, but I have not read any of the
documents already mentioned. The documents I read were documents not
cited before. I had just reached a document which had been mentioned
before, and I asked the Tribunal to excuse me from even commenting on
it, since I thought the document was already well known to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have had a good deal of evidence already about
the treatment of commandos and sabotage groups, evidence, if I remember
right, which attempted to draw some distinction between troops which
were dropped from the air, for instance, close up to the battle zone and
troops that were dropped at a distance behind the battle zone. You had
quite a lot of evidence upon that subject. If there is anything which is
of special interest to the case of France we would be most willing to
hear it, but we do not desire to hear cumulative evidence upon subjects
which we have already heard.
M. DUBOST: I did not think that I had brought cumulative proof to the
Tribunal in reading documents which had not previously been read; but
since that is so, I shall continue, but not without emphasizing that, in
our view, the responsibility of Keitel is seriously involved by the
orders which were given and by the execution of these orders.
Document Number 510-PS, Page 48, has not been read. We submit it as
Exhibit Number RF-367, and we ask the Tribunal to take judicial notice
of it. It concerns the carrying out of the orders which were given
concerning the landing of British detachments at Patmos.
A memorandum from the General Staff to the commander of the different
units, Document Number 532-PS, which is the appendix to the Tribunal’s
document book, repeats and specifies the instructions which the Tribunal
knows and does not bring anything new to the case. We submit this
document as Exhibit Number RF-368, and we ask the Tribunal to take
judicial notice of it.
We shall now deal with the execution of Allied airmen who were captured.
From the statement which was made on this question, the Tribunal has
learned that a certain number of air operations were considered as
criminal acts by the German Government, which indirectly encouraged the
lynching of the airmen by the population or their immediate
extermination by the action “Sonderbehandlung” (special treatment); and
need not be discussed again. This was the subject of Document Number
USA-333, which has already been cited, and Document Number USA-334.
Within the scope of these instructions, orders were given by the letter
of 4 June 1944 to the Minister of Justice to forbid any prosecution of
German civilians in connection with the murder of Allied airmen. This is
the subject of Document Number 635-PS, which you will find in the
appendix to the document book. This document will become Exhibit Number
RF-370.
“The Reich Minister and Head of the Reich Chancellery, 4 June
1944.
“To the Reich Minister of Justice, Doctor Thierack.
“Subject: Lynch law for Anglo-American murderers.
“My dear Dr. Thierack:
“The Chief of the Party Chancellery has informed me of his
secret memorandum, a copy of which is enclosed, and has asked me
to make it known to you also. I am complying with this, and ask
you to consider to what extent you wish to inform the tribunals
and the public prosecutors.”
On 6 June, two important conferences were held between Kaltenbrunner,
Ribbentrop, Göring (all three defendants), Himmler, Von Brauchitsch,
officers of the Luftwaffe, and members of the SS. They decided to draw
up a definite list of air operations which would be considered as acts
of terrorism.
The original transcript, drawn up by Warlimont and bearing written notes
by Jodl and Keitel, is Document Number 735-PS, which I submit as Exhibit
Number RF-371. It was decided during this conference that lynching would
be the ideal punishment to stop certain types of air operations directed
against the civilian population. Kaltenbrunner, for his part, promised
the active collaboration of the SD.
THE PRESIDENT: Was it already read?