“II. The Reich Marshal approves the definition of terror flyer
communicated by the OKW, as well as the procedure which is
proposed.”
This document is submitted as Exhibit Number RF-375. I have not
submitted to the Tribunal a regular formal order; but I have brought
three documents which, in my opinion, are equivalent to a formal order
because, with the visa of Keitel, we have this note, signed by
Warlimont, which states: “The Reich Marshal approves the definition of
terror flyer communicated by the OKW, as well as the procedure which is
proposed.” This document bears the visa of Keitel.
We shall now submit a document, Number L-154, which has already been
submitted by our American colleagues under Exhibit Number USA-335. My
colleague has read this text _in extenso_. I will merely refer to three
lines, in order not to delay the proceedings, “In principle, no
fighter-bomber pilots brought down are to be saved from the fury of the
people.” That text comes from the offices of Albert Hoffmann, Gauleiter
and Commissioner for the Defense of the Reich, of the Gau South
Westphalia.
Under Exhibit Number RF-376 we shall submit Document Number F-686, on
Page 82 of our document book. This is the record of an interrogation of
Hugo Grüner on 29 December 1945. He was subordinate to Robert Wagner,
Gauleiter of Baden and Alsace. In the last lines of this document, Page
82, Grüner states:
“Wagner gave a formal order to kill all Allied airmen we could
capture. In this connection Gauleiter Wagner explained to us
that Allied airmen were causing great ravages on German
territory, that he considered it was an inhuman war, and that
therefore, under the circumstances, any airmen captured should
not be considered as prisoners of war and deserved no mercy.”
Page 83, at the top of the page:
“He stated that Kreisleiter, if the occasion offered, should not
fail to capture and shoot the Allied airmen themselves. As I
have told you, Röhm was assistant to Wagner, but Wagner himself
did not speak. I can state that SS General Hoffmann, who was SS
chief of the police for the Southwest Region, was present when
the order was given to us by Wagner to kill Allied airmen.”
This witness, Hugo Grüner, confesses that he participated in the
execution of Allied airmen in October or November 1944.
Passing through Rheinweiler, he (Grüner) noticed that some English or
American airmen had been taken out of the Rhine by soldiers. The four
airmen were wearing khaki uniforms, were bareheaded, and were of average
height. He could not speak to them because he did not know the English
language. The Wehrmacht refused to take charge of them.
That is the third paragraph at the bottom of the page and the witness
declares—I am reading:
“I told the gendarmes that I had received orders from Wagner to
execute any Allied airman taken prisoner. The gendarmes replied
that it was the only thing to be done. I then decided to execute
the four Allied prisoners and one of the gendarmes present
advised the banks of the Rhine as the place of execution.”
On Page 84, Paragraph 1, Grüner describes how he proceeded to
assassinate these airmen and admits that he killed them with machine gun
shots in the back. In the third paragraph he gives the name of one of
his accomplices, Erich Meissner, who was a Gestapo agent from Lorrach,
and then he denounces Meissner for having himself killed an airman as he
was getting out of his car and was walking toward the Rhine. I read:
“He killed them by firing a machine gun salvo at each of them in
the back, after which each airman was dragged by the feet and
thrown into the Rhine.”
This affidavit was received by the Police Magistrate of Strasbourg. The
document which we shall submit was signed by the magistrate’s clerk of
the court as a certified copy. This is how the orders given by the
leaders of the German Government were carried out by the German people.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, I see that it is 5 o’clock now, and perhaps
you would be able to tell us what your program would be for tomorrow.
M. DUBOST: Tomorrow we shall complete the presentation of the question
of prisoners of war. We shall present to you in an abridged form
documents which seem to us to be indispensable, in spite of the hearing
of witnesses concerning the camps. There are only a few documents, but
they all directly inculpate one or other of the defendants. Then we
shall show how the orders given by the leaders of the German Army led
subordinates to commit acts of terrorism and banditry in France against
the innocent population, and also against patriots who were not treated
as francs-tireurs but as ordinary criminals.
We expect to finish tomorrow morning. In the afternoon, my colleague, M.
Faure, could begin the presentation of this last part of the French
charges concerning crimes against humanity.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you not able to give us any estimate of the length of
the whole of the French Prosecution?
M. DUBOST: I believe that three days will be sufficient for M. Faure.
The individual charges will be summarized in one-half day by our
colleague, M. Mounier, and that will be the end.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.
[_The Tribunal adjourned until 31 January 1946 at 1000 hours._]
FORTY-SEVENTH DAY
Thursday, 31 January 1946
_Morning Session_
MARSHAL: May it please the Court, I desire to announce that the
Defendants Kaltenbrunner and Seyss-Inquart will be absent from this
morning’s session on account of illness.
M. DUBOST: Before finishing, Gentlemen, I must read you a few more
documents concerning war prisoners.
First of all, it will be Document Number L-166, which we present as
Exhibit Number RF-377, Page 65 in your document book. It concerns a note
which summarizes an interview with the Reich Marshal, on 15 and 16 May
1944, on the subject of pursuit planes. Page 8, Paragraph Number 20:
“The Reich Marshal will propose to the Führer that American and
English crews who fire indiscriminately on towns, on civilian
trains in motion, or on soldiers dropping by parachute, shall be
shot immediately on the spot.”
The importance of this document need not be emphasized. It shows the
guilt of the Defendant Göring in reprisals against Allied airmen brought
down in Germany.
We shall now read Document R-117, which we submit as Exhibit Number
RF-378. Two Liberators, brought down on 21 June 1944 in the District of
Mecklenburg, came to earth with their crews intact, 15 men all told. All
were shot on the pretext of attempting to escape. The document was found
in the files of the headquarters of the 11th Luftgaukommando, and states
that nine members of one crew were handed over to the local police. In
the next to the last paragraph, third line, we read that they were made
prisoners and handed over to the police in Waren. Lieutenants Helton and
Ludka were handed over on 21 June 1944 by the protective police to SS
Untersturmführer Stempel, of the Security Police, and former
Commissioner of the Criminal Police, at Fürstenberg:
“These seven prisoners were shot _en route_ while attempting to
escape.
“Lieutenants Helton and Ludka were also shot on the same day
while attempting to escape.”
Regarding the second Liberator, at Page 91 we read:
“Subject: Crash of a Liberator on 21 June 1944, at 11:30 a.m.
. . . six members of the crew shot while attempting to escape;
one, seriously wounded, brought to the garrison hospital at
Schwerin.”
We now submit as Exhibit Number RF-379, Document F-553, which the
Tribunal will find on Page 101 of the document book. This document
concerns the internment in concentration camps and extermination camps
of prisoners of war. Among the escaped prisoners a discrimination was
made. If they were privates and noncommissioned officers who had agreed
to work, they were generally sent back to the camp and punished in
conformity with Articles 47, and following, of the Geneva Convention. If
it was a question of officers or noncommissioned officers—this is a
comment I am making on the document which I shall read to the
Tribunal—if it was a question of officers or noncommissioned officers
who had refused to work, they were handed over to the police and
generally murdered without trial.
One can understand the aim of this discrimination. Those French
noncommissioned officers who, in spite of the pressure of the German
authorities, refused to work in the German war industry had a very high
conception of their patriotic duty. Their attempt to escape, therefore,
created against them a kind of presumption of inadaptability to the Nazi
order, and they had to be eliminated. Extermination of these elite
assumed a systematic character from the beginning of 1944; and the
responsibility of Keitel is unquestionably involved in this
extermination, which he approved if he did not specifically order.
The document which the Tribunal has before it is a letter of protest by
General Bérard, head of the French Delegation to the German Armistice
Commission, addressed to the German General Vogl, the president of the
said commission. It deals specifically with information reaching France
concerning the extermination of escaped prisoners.
First paragraph, fourth line:
“This note reveals the existence of a German organization,
independent of the Army, under whose authority escaped prisoners
would come.”
This note was addressed on 29 April 1944 by the commandant of Oflag X-C.
I read from Page 102:
“Captain Lussus”—declares General Bérard to the German
Armistice Commission—“of Oflag X-C, and Lieutenant Girot, of
the same Oflag, who had made an attempt to escape on 27 April
1944, were recaptured in the immediate vicinity by the camp
guard.
“On 23 June 1944 the French senior officer of Oflag X-C received
two funeral urns containing the ashes of these two
officers. . . .”
No particulars could be given to this French officer as to the cause of
the deaths of Captain Lussus and Lieutenant Girot. General Bérard
pointed out at the same time to the German Armistice Commission that the
note—which the Tribunal will find on Page 104—had been communicated by
the commandant of Oflag X-C to the French senior officer at that Oflag:
“You will bring to the attention of your comrades the fact that
there exists, for the control of people moving about unlawfully,
a German organization whose field of action extends over regions
in a state of war from Poland to the Spanish frontier. Each
escaped prisoner who is recaptured and found in possession of
civilian clothes, false papers and identification cards, and
false photographs, falls under the authority of this
organization. What becomes of him then, I cannot tell you. Warn
your comrades that this matter is particularly serious.”
The last two lines of this note assumed their full significance when the
urns containing the ashes of the two escaped French officers were handed
to the senior officer of the camp.
Our Soviet colleagues of the Prosecution will present the conditions
under which the escapes of the officers from the Sagan Camp were
repressed.
THE PRESIDENT: Was there any answer to this complaint? What you have
just been reading, as I understand it, is a complaint made by the French
general, Bérard, to the German head of the Armistice Commission, is that
right?
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, I do not know if there was an answer. I know
only that the archives in Vichy at the time of the liberation were
partly pillaged and partly destroyed through military action. If there
was an answer we would have had it in the Vichy archives, for the
documents we present now are the documents from the German archives of
the German Armistice Commission. As to the French archives, I do not
know what has become of them. In any case it is possible they may have
disappeared as a result of military action.
I was about to inform the Tribunal that my Soviet colleagues would set
forth the conditions under which repressive measures were carried out at
the camp of Sagan for attempts to escape.
We submit as Exhibit Number RF-380, Document Number F-672, which the
Tribunal will find on Page 115 of its document book. This is a report
from the Service for War Prisoners and Deportees, dated 9 January 1946,
which relates to the deportation to Buchenwald of 20 French prisoners of
war. This report must be considered as an authentic document, as well as
the reports of war prisoners which are annexed thereto. On Page 116 is
the report of Claude Petit, former prisoners’ representative in Stalag
VI-G.
“In September 1943 the French civilian workers in Germany and
the French prisoners of war who had been converted”—that means
converted into workers—“were deprived of all spiritual help,
there being no priest among them. Lieutenant Piard, head
chaplain of Stalag VI-G, after having spoken with the
prisoners-of-war chaplain, Abbé Rodhain, decided to turn into
workers six prisoner-of-war priests who volunteered to exercise
their ministerial functions among the French civilians.
“This change in classification of priests was difficult to
accomplish, as the Gestapo did not authorize the presence of
chaplains among civilian workers. . . .”
These priests and a few scouts organized a scout group, and a group of
Catholic Action.
On Page 117:
“From the beginning of 1944 the priests felt themselves being
watched by the Gestapo in their various activities. . . .
“At the end of July 1944, the six priests were arrested almost
simultaneously and taken to the prison of Brauweiler, near
Cologne. . . .”
Page 118, the same happened to the scouts. I quote:
“Against this flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention I took
numerous steps and made several protests; for the prisoners of
war arrested by the Gestapo I even asked the reason for their
arrest. . . .
“Owing to the rapid advance of the allies, who were approaching
Aachen, all the prisoners of Brauweiler were taken to
Cologne. . . .”
[_Dr. Stahmer approached the lectern._]
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, before allowing the Defense Counsel to
interrupt, permit me to finish reading this document.
THE PRESIDENT: Continue.
M. DUBOST: Thank you, Mr. President. With the end of this paragraph the
Tribunal learns that the German military authorities themselves took
steps in order to learn the fate of these prisoners:
“The military authorities having no knowledge thereof,
immediately undertook correspondence with Buchenwald,
correspondence which remained without answer.”
And again:
“At the beginning of March, Major Bramkamp, chief of the Abwehr
group, had to go personally to Buchenwald. . . .”
On Pages 120-121 the Tribunal will find the list of the prisoners who
thus disappeared.
On Page 122 there is a confirmation of this testimony by M. Souche,
prisoners’ representative at Kommando 624, who writes:
“. . . certain war prisoners, converted into workers, and French
civilian workers had organized in Cologne a Catholic Action
group under the direction of the re-classified war-prisoner
priests, Pannier and Cleton. . . .”
Finally, Page 123:
“. . . the arrests began with members of the Catholic
Action”—and the accusations were—“anti-German
maneuvers. . . .”
THE PRESIDENT: I do not know what Dr. Stahmer’s objection is.
DR. OTTO STAHMER (Counsel for Defendant Göring): We are not in a
position to follow the exposé of the French Prosecutor. First of all,
the translation is not very good. Some sentences are left out.
Especially, wrong numbers are mentioned. For instance, 612 has been
mentioned. I have it here. It is quite a different document. We have not
the document books and therefore we cannot follow the page citations.
Also my colleagues complain that they are not in a position to follow
the proceedings under this manner of presentation.
THE PRESIDENT: May I see your document?
[_The document was handed to the President._]
DR. STAHMER: This number was just mentioned, as can be confirmed by the
other gentlemen.
THE PRESIDENT: The document which M. Dubost was reading was 672. The
Document you have got there is a different number.
DR. STAHMER: But this was the number that came through to us, 612, and
not only I, but the other gentlemen heard the same number. And not only
this number, but all the numbers have been given incorrectly.
Another difficulty is that we have not the document book. Page 118 had
been referred to, but the number of the page does not mean anything to
us. We cannot follow at this rate.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, I think the trouble really arises from the
fact that you give the numbers too fast and the numbers are very often
wrongly translated, not only into German, but sometimes into English. It
is very difficult for the interpreters to pick up all these numbers.
First of all, you are giving the number of the document, then the number
of the exhibit, then the page of the document book—and that means that
the interpreters have got to translate many numbers spoken very quickly.
It is essential that the defendants should be able to follow the
document; and as I understand it, they have not got the document books
in the same shape we have. It is the only way we can follow. But we have
them now in this particular document book by page, and therefore it is
absolutely essential that you go slowly.
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, the document books, all the documents, have
been handed to the Defense.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you telling us that document books have been handed
to the Defense in the same shape they are handed to us, let us say, with
pages on them? Speaking for myself, that is the only way I am able to
follow the document. You mentioned Page 115 and that does show me where
the document is. If I have not got that page, I should not be able to
find the document.
M. DUBOST: Mr. President, I announced at the same time RF-380, which is
the number of the exhibit. F-672 is the classification number. All our
documents bear a classification number. It was not possible to hand to
the Defense a document book paginated like the one the Tribunal has, for
it is not submitted in the same language. It is submitted in German and
the pages are not in the same place. There is not an absolute identity
of pagination between the German document book and yours.
THE PRESIDENT: I am telling you the difficulties under which the
defendants’ counsel are working, and if we had simply a number of
documents without the pagination we should be under a similar
difficulty. And it is a very great difficulty. Therefore you must go
very slowly in giving the identification of the document.