From France the following “deportations” of persons for political and
racial reasons took place—each of which consisted of from 1,500 to
2,500 deportees:
1940, 3 transports; 1941, 14 transports; 1942, 104 transports; 1943, 257
transports; 1944, 326 transports.
These deportees were subjected to the most barbarous conditions of
overcrowding; they were provided with wholly insufficient clothing and
were given little or no food for several days.
The conditions of transport were such that many deportees died in the
course of the voyage, for example:
In one of the wagons of the train which left Compiègne for Buchenwald,
on the 17th of September 1943, 80 men died out of 130.
On 4 June 1944, 484 bodies were taken out of a train at Sarrebourg.
In a train which left Compiègne on 2 July 1944 for Dachau, more than 600
dead were found on arrival, i.e. one-third of the total number.
In a train which left Compiègne on 16th of January 1944 for Buchenwald,
more than 100 persons were confined in each wagon, the dead and the
wounded being heaped in the last wagon during the voyage.
In April 1945, of 12,000 internees evacuated from Buchenwald 4,000 only
were still alive when the marching column arrived near Regensburg.
During the German occupation of Denmark, 5,200 Danish subjects were
deported to Germany and there imprisoned in concentration camps and
other places.
In 1942 and thereafter, 6,000 nationals of Luxembourg were deported from
their country under deplorable conditions and many of them perished.
From Belgium, between 1940 and 1944, at least 190,000 civilians were
deported to Germany and used as slave labor. Such deportees were
subjected to ill-treatment and many of them were compelled to work in
armament factories.
From Holland, between 1940 and 1944, nearly half a million civilians
were deported to Germany and to other occupied countries.
(C) Murder and ill-treatment of prisoners of war, and of other members
of the armed forces of the countries with whom Germany was at war, and
of persons on the High Seas.
The defendants ill-treated and murdered prisoners of war by denying them
suitable food, shelter, clothing, and medical care and other attention;
by forcing them to labor in inhumane conditions; by humiliating them,
torturing them, and by killing them. The German Government and the
German High Command imprisoned prisoners of war in various concentration
camps, where they were killed or subjected to inhuman treatment by the
various methods set forth in Paragraph VIII (A).
Members of the armed forces of the countries with whom Germany was at
war were frequently murdered while in the act of surrendering.
These murders and ill-treatment were contrary to international
conventions, particularly Articles 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the Hague
Regulations, 1907, and to Articles 2, 3, 4, and 6 of the Prisoners of
War Convention, Geneva, 1929, the laws and customs of war, the general
principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all
civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which
such crimes were committed, and to Article 6 (b) of the Charter.
Particulars by way of example and without prejudice to the production of
evidence of other cases, are as follows:
In the Western Countries:
French officers who escaped from Oflag X C were handed over to the
Gestapo and disappeared; others were murdered by their guards; others
sent to concentration camps and exterminated. Among others, the men of
Stalag VI C were sent to Buchenwald.
Frequently prisoners captured on the Western Front were obliged to march
to the camps until they completely collapsed. Some of them walked more
than 600 kilometers with hardly any food; they marched on for 48 hours
running, without being fed; among them a certain number died of
exhaustion or of hunger; stragglers were systematically murdered.
The same crimes were committed in 1943, 1944, and 1945, when the
occupants of the camps were withdrawn before the Allied advance,
particularly during the withdrawal of the prisoners from Sagan on
February 8th, 1945.
Bodily punishments were inflicted upon non-commissioned officers and
cadets who refused to work. On December 24th, 1943, three French
non-commissioned officers were murdered for that motive in Stalag IV A.
Much ill-treatment was inflicted without motive on other ranks; stabbing
with bayonets, striking with rifle-butts, and whipping; in Stalag XX B
the sick themselves were beaten many times by sentries; in Stalag III B
and Stalag III C worn-out prisoners were murdered or grievously wounded.
In military jails, in Graudenz for instance, in reprisal camps, as in
Rava-Ruska, the food was so insufficient that the men lost more than 15
kilograms in a few weeks. In May 1942, one loaf of bread only was
distributed in Rava-Ruska to each group of 35 men.
Orders were given to transfer French officers in chains to the camp of
Mauthausen after they had tried to escape. At their arrival in camp they
were murdered, either by shooting or by gas, and their bodies destroyed
in the crematorium.
American prisoners, officers and men, were murdered in Normandy during
the summer of 1944 and in the Ardennes in December 1944. American
prisoners were starved, beaten, and mutilated in various ways in
numerous Stalags in Germany or in the occupied countries, particularly
in 1943, 1944, and 1945.
(D) Killing of hostages.
Throughout the territories occupied by the German Armed Forces in the
course of waging their aggressive wars, the defendants adopted and put
into effect on a wide scale the practice of taking and killing hostages
from the civilian population. These acts were contrary to international
conventions, particularly Article 50 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the
laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as
derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal
penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and to
Article 6 (b) of the Charter.
Particulars, by way of example and without prejudice to the production
of evidence of other cases, are as follows:
In the Western Countries:
In France hostages were executed either individually or collectively;
these executions took place in all the big cities of France, among
others in Paris, Bordeaux, and Nantes, as well as at Chateaubriant.
In Holland many hundreds of hostages were shot at the following among
other places: Rotterdam, Apeldoorn, Amsterdam, Benshop, and Haarlem.
In Belgium many hundreds of hostages were shot during the period 1940 to
1944.
M. CHARLES GERTHOFFER (Assistant Prosecutor for the French Republic)
[_Continuing the reading of the Indictment_]:
(E) Plunder of public and private property.
The defendants ruthlessly exploited the people and the material
resources of the countries they occupied, in order to strengthen the
Nazi war machine, to depopulate and impoverish the rest of Europe, to
enrich themselves and their adherents, and to promote German economic
supremacy over Europe.
The defendants engaged in the following acts and practices, among
others:
1. They degraded the standard of life of the people of occupied
countries and caused starvation by stripping occupied countries of
foodstuffs for removal to Germany.
2. They seized raw materials and industrial machinery in all of the
occupied countries, removed them to Germany and used them in the
interest of the German war effort and the German economy.
3. In all the occupied countries, in varying degrees, they confiscated
businesses, plants, and other property.
4. In an attempt to give color of legality to illegal acquisitions of
property, they forced owners of property to go through the forms of
“voluntary” and “legal” transfers.
5. They established comprehensive controls over the economies of all of
the occupied countries and directed their resources, their production,
and their labor in the interests of the German war economy, depriving
the local populations of the products of essential industries.
6. By a variety of financial mechanisms, they despoiled all of the
occupied countries of essential commodities and accumulated wealth,
debased the local currency systems and disrupted the local economies.
They financed extensive purchases in occupied countries through clearing
arrangements by which they exacted loans from the occupied countries.
They imposed occupation levies, exacted financial contributions, and
issued occupation currency, far in excess of occupation costs. They used
these excess funds to finance the purchase of business properties and
supplies in the occupied countries.
7. They abrogated the rights of the local populations in the occupied
portions of the U.S.S.R. and in Poland and in other countries to develop
or manage agricultural and industrial properties, and reserved this area
for exclusive settlement, development, and ownership by Germans and
their so-called racial brethren.
8. In further development of their plan of criminal exploitation, they
destroyed industrial cities, cultural monuments, scientific
institutions, and property of all types in the occupied territories to
eliminate the possibility of competition with Germany.
9. From their program of terror, slavery, spoliation, and organized
outrage, the Nazi conspirators created an instrument for the personal
profit and aggrandizement of themselves and their adherents. They
secured for themselves and their adherents:
(a) Positions in administration of business involving power, influence,
and lucrative prerequisites;
(b) The use of cheap forced labor;
(c) The acquisition on advantageous terms of foreign properties, raw
materials, and business interests;
(d) The basis for the industrial supremacy of Germany.
These acts were contrary to international conventions, particularly
Articles 46 to 56 inclusive of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and
customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from
the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of
the countries in which such crimes were committed, and to Article 6 (b)
of the Charter.
Particulars, by way of example and without prejudice to the production
of evidence of other cases, are as follows: