“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 officers. 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 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

Führer 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.

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?

COL. 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 war 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 Exhibit Number USSR-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:

“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.”

This 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.

The 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 Führer’s main headquarters on 12

February 1943. The circular was sent out by the Reichsführer 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 I 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. This document is registered under Document 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’ 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 counsellor 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, 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. POKROVSKY: 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.

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. POKROVSKY: 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?

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?

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 which 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

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 Palnikov, 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 at 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 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 crime, 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 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 medico-legal 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

commission, 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.

“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._]

_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 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 which 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.”

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

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 free-for-all

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 Kübler 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 Jäger 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:

“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 an announcement

signed by the Commander of the SS and police detachments of the 18th

Military District, SS Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of Police,

Rösener. 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:

“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 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 Sturmbannführer 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 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 and 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 Osnabrück, 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 Osnabrück, 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 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 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 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-flung 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 Obergruppenführers 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 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 thermotechnicians 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 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.

“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 5 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 freedom-loving

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.”

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 title of _The Voice

of Destruction_. The same book (Document Number USSR-378) was published

in various other countries under different titles, 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 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 the 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 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._]

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 will, 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 GFP”—Secret Field Police—“who

definitely declared that the peoples of the Soviet Union,

especially those of Russian nationality, were subhuman and

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.

“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 5½ 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

will 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 will 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

millions 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 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 following members

of the Gestapo: Heine, Müller, 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

distance of 50 meters and if one of them ran well—that

is—rapidly and without stumbling—he remained alive while the

rest were shot. There was, in the same camp, a small,

grass-covered plot. Here, too, footraces were run and anybody

who stumbled in the grass and fell was promptly shot. The grass

grew higher than a man’s knee. Women were strung up by the hair,

after first having been stripped naked, swung in the air, and

left to hang till they died.

“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 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 Obersturmführer 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 Hauptsturmführer Gebauer established a savage system of

murder in Yanov Camp, which, after his transfer to another post,

was perfected by the camp commandant, SS Obersturmführer Gustav

Willhaus and SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Wartzok.

“A former inmate of the camp told the commission:

“‘I have seen with my own eyes how SS Hauptsturmführer 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 Hauptsturmführer Franz Wartzok, for instance, loved to hang

internees by both feet on posts and leave them in this position

until they died; Obersturmführer 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, then 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, Obersturmführer 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. He 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 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, Obersturmführer 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 camp 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 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

flowing 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 the director of the

crematory, Oberscharführer 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-Obersturmführer 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 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.

“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, 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. Pomaznew, 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 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 little children in

spite of their protests and prayers.

“In the town of Tikhvin in the Leningrad region, a 15-year-old

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 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.”

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

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 job 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._]

SIXTIETH DAY

Friday, 15 February 1946

_Morning Session_

THE PRESIDENT: There are certain matters of a procedural nature which

the Tribunal desire to consider before they consider the question of an

adjournment. Accordingly they will not sit tomorrow in open session for

consideration of the question of an adjournment, but they will sit

tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock in closed session for consideration of

these matters of a procedural character, and they will sit on Monday

morning at 10 o’clock for half an hour to hear argument in open session

on the question of an adjournment, one counsel being heard on each side

and only for 15 minutes.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I interrupted the quotation of a document on

Page 3 of the document file, second paragraph, first column of the text.

I consider it possible to skip many items contained in this document, as

these facts simply confirm further the general conclusions which were

expressed in the beginning of the document and which were already

confirmed by many facts read into the record by me yesterday. I only beg

the Tribunal to allow me to draw their attention to one of the

stipulations in the note which the Tribunal will find on Page 3 of the

book of documents, second paragraph, first column of the text. It states

that the civilian inhabitants were forcibly sent to concentration camps,

thus artificially and illegally increasing the number of prisoners of

war and subjecting the peaceful population to the inhuman regime which

was established by the German fascist authorities for the prisoners of

war.

I submit to the Tribunal further an extract from the minutes of the

court-martial of a military tribunal of the 374th Liuban Infantry

Division, held on 29 October 1944. This document is submitted as Exhibit

Number USSR-162 (Document Number USSR-162). The Tribunal will find this

document on Page 67 of the document file.

DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): I would like

to make two motions regarding the questions relative to the submission

of evidence in this case as well as to the general procedure. The first

motion is that I would like to ask, with reference to Article 21, that

the submission of documents to the investigation commission, as well as

any reference to them, be prohibited inasmuch as these documents do not

contain definite information about the source of the information

discussed here; secondly, that the written statements, which contain

only summary information be read without any personal observations, and

that the reading of such statements be permitted only if the

cross-examination of the author as a witness is possible.

I should like to submit the following reasons: Article 19 of the Charter

permits all evidence which has probative value. Article 21 gives the

Court the right to ask for proof regarding documents submitted to the

so-called “investigation committees.” The purpose of both articles,

however, is to facilitate the submission of proof. The admission of

written statements of various kinds leads to the danger that such

statements would discriminate against an entire people and an entire

nation. Then the demand of the Defense that only such proof, such

documents where this danger has been eliminated, as far as possible, be

admitted, seems to be justified.

Many of the written statements and excerpts from committee reports read

by the Russian Prosecution have had no probative value; but,

furthermore, since they cannot be checked—their contents cannot be

checked—they design to give a wrong impression about historical events.