involved in this execution, he related how he divided his unit into shooting squads of 30 men each. Then, the mass graves were prepared -
"Out of the total number of the persons faces turned toward the grave.
At that collected.
Later on this was changed.....
"When the men were ready for the execution shoot.
Since they were kneeling on the "I have always used rather large execution (Genickschusspezialisten). Each squad placed.
The persons which still had to not take part in the executions."
graves, and the executioners were then compelled to exert themselves to complete the job of internment. A method, however, was found to avoid this additional exertion by simply having the victims enter the ditch or grave while still alive. An SS eye-witness explained this procedure:
"The people were executed by a shot in the neck.
The corpses were buried in a large tank ditch.
The candidates for execution ditch.
One group had scarcely been shot on the corpses there."
ment:
"The shootings took place in a sand pit, buried."
to 100 executions, told of one winter execution where the corpses were temporarily buried in the snow.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
business-like procedure, illustrated by Report No. 24, dated 16 July 1941, which succinctly stated:
"The arrested Jewish men are shot without at Duenaburg up to now."
ceremonious. These executioners called off the names of the victims before they were loaded on to the truck which was to take them to their death. This was their whole judicial trial -- the indictment, the evidence, and the sentence -- a roll call of death.
There were different techniques in execution. There were Einsatz commanders who lined up their victims kneeling or standing on the edge of the grave, facing the grave, others who had the executees stand with their backs to the grave, and still others, as indicated, who had their victims stand in the grave itself. One defendant described how the victims lined up at the edge of the ditch and, as they fell, another row stepped into position so that, file after file, the bodies dropped into the pit on to the bleeding corpses beneath.
Hardly ever was a doctor present at the executions. The responsibility of the squad leader to make certain the victims were dead before burying them was simply discharged by a glance to determine whether the bullet-ridden bodies moved or not. Since in most cases the huddled and contorted bodies were strewn and piled in a trench at least six feet deep, only one more horror is added in contemplating the inadequacy of an inspection made from the rim of a ditch as to whether life in the dark ground below was extinct or not. that an executee could only seem to be dead because of shock or temporary unconsciousness. In such case it was inevitable he would be buried alive.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
aimed at the heads of the victims. If, he explains, the victim was not hit, then one member of the firing squad approached with his rifle to a distance of three paces and shot again. The scene of the victim watching the head-hunter approaching with his rifle and shooting at him at three paces represents a horror for which there is no language. lie down on the ground, and they were shot in the back of the neck. But, whatever the method, it was always considered honorable, it was always done in a humane and military manner. Defendant after defendant emphasized before the Tribunal that the requirements of militariness and humaneness were meticulously met in all executions. Of course, occasionally, as one defendant described it, "the manner in which the executions were carried out caused excitement and disobedience among the victims, so that the kommandos were forced to restore order by means of violence", that is to say, the victims were beaten. Undoubtedly always, of course, in a humane and military manner. Commenting on this phase of the executions, one defendant related how some victims, destined to be shot in the back, turned around and bravely faced their executioners but said nothing. Almost invariably they went to their end silently, and some of the defendants commented on this. The silence of the doomed was mysterious, it was frightening. What did the executioners expect the victims to say? Who could find the words to speak to this unspeakable assault on humanity, this monstrous violence upon the dignity of life and being? They were silent. There was nothing to say. not be performed publicly, but should always take place far removed from the centers of population. A wooded area was usually selected Court No. II, Case No. IX.
for this grim business. Sometimes these rules were not observed. Document NOKW-641 relates an execution which took place near houses whose occupants became unwilling witnesses to the macabre scene. The narrative states:
"A heavy supply traffic for the soldiers window of the battalion's office, the be heard, too.
The following morning, quisitive civilians and soldiers.
An immediately."
has left a moving account of a mass execution witnessed by him in October 1942 near Dubno, an account which because of its authoritative description deserves recording in its entirety in this Opinion:
"Moennikes and I went direct to the pits.
Nobody bothered us. Now I heard rifle one of the earth mounds.
The people who "They had to put down their clothes in top clothing and underclothing.
I saw clothing.
Without screaming or weeping "During the 15 minutes that I stood near the pit I heard no complaint or plea for mercy.
I watched a and two grown up daughters of about 20 to 24.
An tickling it.
The child was cooing with delight.
years old and speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears.
The father pointed toward the thing to him.
At that moment the SS-man at the pit shouted something to his comrade.
The latter counted the earth mound.
Among them was the family which I "I well remember a girl, slim and with black hair, who, '23'. I walked around the mound and found myself con fronted by a tremendous grave.
People were closely only their heads were visible.
Nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads.
Some of the people shot were still moving.
Some were lifting were still alive.
The pit was already 2/3 full. I I looked for the man who did the shooting.
He was an SS feet dangling into the pit.
He had a tommy gun on his knees and was amoking a cigarette.
The people, completely them.
They lay down in front of the dead or injured people; some caressed those who were still alive and spoke to them in a low voice.
Then I heard a series of "I looked into the pit and saw that the bodies were of the bodies that lay before them.
Blood was running down their necks.
I was surprised that I was not postmen in uniform nearby.
The next batch was approach ing already.
They went down into the pit, lined them truckload of people which had just arrived.
This time it included sick and infirm persons.
An old, very thin The woman appeared to be paralyzed.
The naked people carried the woman around the mound.
I left with Moennikes "On the morning of the next day, when I again visited the about 30 to 50 meters away from it.
Some of them were still alive; they looked straight in front of them with around.
A girl of about 20 spoke to me and asked me to give her clothes and help her escape.
At that that it was an SS detail.
I moved away to my site.
of the pit. The Jews still alive had been ordered to throw the corpses into the pit; = then they had them selves to lie down in this to be shot in the neck."
The tragecy of this scene is lost entirely on the executioner. He does his job as a job. So many persons are to be killed, just as a carpenter contemplates the construction of a shed. He must consider the material he has on hand, the possibilities of rain, etc. Only by psychologically adjusting oneself to such a state of affairs can one avoid a shock when one comes to a statement in a report very casually written, namely: "Until now, it was very difficult to carry out executions because of weather conditions." the winter of 1941-42, remarks:
"The Commander in White Russia is instructed to liquida the difficult situation.
However, a period of about 2 months is still required - according to the weather."
another report-writer to chronicle simply: "Hostages are taken in each new place, and they are executed on the slightest reason." executed at Grodno and Lida during the first days. He manifests his displeasure and declares: "I gave orders that considerable intensification was to take place there."
JUDGE SPEIGHT: Adolf Ruebe, a former SS-Hauptscharfuerher, declared in an affidavit that now and then there were executioners who devised original methods for killing their victims:
"On the occasion of an exhumation in Minsk, in Novem kommando of Latvians.
They brought eight Jews, men and women, with them.
The Latvians guarded the Jews, their own hands.
The Jews were bound, put on the pile alive, drenched with gasoline and burnt."
children were to be executed with the men so that Jews, Gypsies and so-called asocials would be exterminated for all time. In this respect, the Einsatzgruppen leaders encountered a difficulty they had not anticipated. Many of the enlisted men were husbands and fathers, and they winced as they pulled their triggers on these helpless creatures who reminded them of their own wives and off-spring at home. In this emotional disturbance they often aimed badly and it was necessary for the kommando leaders to go about with a revolver or carbine, firing into the moaning and writhing forms. This was hard on the executioners, personnel experts reported to the RSHA in Berlin, and to relieve their emotional sensitivity, gas vans were sent to the rescue. otherwise externally resembled family trailers. Women and children were lured into them with the announcement that they were to be resettled and that they would meet their husbands and fathers in the new place. Once inside the truck, the doors automatically and hermetically closed, the driver stepped on the accelerator, and monoxide gas from the engine streamed in. By the time the van reached its destination, which was an anti-tank ditch outside the town, the occupants were dead. And here they joined their husbands and fathers who had been killed by rifles and carbines in the hands of the Einsatzkommandos. image of these murder wagons, they were simply articles of equipment so far as the Einsatzgruppen were concerned. Communications went back and forth, correspondence was written about these vans with the casualness which might accompany a discussion on coal trucks. For instance, on May 16, 1942, SS-Untersturmfuehrer Dr. Becker, wrote SSObersturmbannfuehrer Rauff, pointing out that vans could not be driven in rainy weather because of the danger of skidding.
He, therefore, posed the question as to whether executions could not be accomplished with the vans in a stationary position. However, this suggestion offered a problem all its own. If the van was not actually set for mobility the victims would realize what was about to happen to them, and this, Becker said, must be avoided so far as possible. He thus recommended: "There is only one way left. To load them at the collecting point and to drive them to the spot". Becker then complained that members of the kommando should not be required to unload the corpses:
"I brought to the attention of the commanders of those S.K. concerned, the immense psychological injuries and after each unloading."
Becker says:
"The application of gas usually is not undertaken correct ly.
In order to come to an end as fast as possible, the driver presses the accelerator to the fullest extent.
By asleep peacefully."
Service Ostland wrote the RSHA in Berlin as follows:
"Subject: S-Vans "The three S-vans which are there are not sufficient for that purpose.
I request assignment of another S-van (5 tons). At the same time I request the shipment of 20 gas hoses for the three S-vans on hand (2 Diamond, 1 Saurer), since the ones on hand are leady already". that the Einsatz authorities now even set up a school in this new development of the fine art of genocide.
The defendant Biberstein, describing one of these ultra-modern executions, spoke of the driver Sackenreuter of Nuremberg "who had been most carefully instructed about the handling of the gas truck, having been through special training courses". Biberstein was satisfied that this method of killing was very efficient because the faces of the dead people were "in no way distorted"; death having come "without any outward signs of spasms". He added that no physician was present to certify that the people were dead because "this type of gas execution guaranteed certain death". Who it was that guaranteed this was not vouchsafed to history.
power, driven to the field of action. The reports tell of two vans which travelled from Berlin to the Crimea. It would be interesting to know the thoughts of the drivers of these murder-cars as they rolled over half of Europe, through city and country, climbing mountains and penetrating plains, travelling 2,000 kilometers with their gaseous guillotines to kill helpless women and children. One of the drivers was none other than the chauffeur of the arch-murderer Reinhardt Heydrich. a few excerpts and yet there remains the instinct to disbelieve, to question, to doubt. There is less of a mental barrier in accepting the weirdest stories of supernatural phenomena, as, for instance, water running up hill and trees with roots reaching toward the sky, than in taking at face value these narratives which go beyond the frontiers of human cruelty and savagery. Only the fact that the reports from which we have quoted came from the pens of men within the accused organizations can the human mind be assured that all this actually happened. The reports and the statements of the defendants themselves verify what otherwise would be dismissed as the product of a disordered imagination. The record reveals that investigators and evidence analysts have checked and rechecked. Being human they sometimes doubted the correctness of the startling figures appearing in the reports.
Thus, when one of them came across the statement of Stahlecker that Einsatzgruppe A, of which he was chief, had killed 135,000 human beings in four months, the investigator questioned Otto Ohlendorf if this were possible. Ohlendorf read the statement in question and announced:
"I have seen the report of Stahlecker (Document L-180) the first four months of the program.
I know Stahl document is authentic."
How can all this be explained? Even when Germany was retreating on all fronts, many troops sorely needed on the battlefield were diverted on this insane mission of extermination. In defiance of military and economic logic incalculable manpower was killed off, property of every description was destroyed - all remained unconsidered as against this insanity to genocide.
Here and there a protest was raised. The SS-Commissioner General for White Ruthenia objected to the executions in his district - not on the grounds of humanity, but because he believed the unbridled murder program was lowering the prestige of Germany.
"Above all, any act lowering the prestige of the Ruthenia with methods of that sort.
To bury reported to the Fuehrer and Reich Marshal.
The Fuehrer.
These efforts cannot be brought in harmony with the methods described herein."
action. It told of the arrival of a Police Battalion with instructions to liquidate all Jews in the town of Sluzk within two days. The Commissioner for the Territory of Sluzk protested that the liquidation of all Jews, which naturally included the tradesmen, would shut down the economic life of that area.
He asked, at least, for postponement of the executions. The Lieutenant in charge of the battalion refused to wait. The report continues:
"For the rest, as regards the executions of the action, bordered already on sadism.
The town itself offered a picture of horror during the action.
With indescribable out of their dwellings and herded together.
Everywhere the corpses of shot Jews accumulated.
... In conclusion same in those of the White Ruthenians.
Anything of use has been taken away.
On the basis of statements of the "A major of the Finance Department reported that a Jewish rubels to have her father released.
This girl is said to have actually gone everywhere to obtain the money."
tion reach the soldiers holding the fighting frontiers. Yet, many vehicles loaded with ammunition for the armed forces were left standing in the streets of Sluzk because the Jewish drivers, already illegally forced into this service, had been liquidated by the Execution Battalion. Although the very life of the nation depended on the continued operation of every type of food-producing establishment, 15 of the 26 specialists at a cannery were shot. The Commissioner General inquired of the Reich Minister of Occupied Eastern Territories if the liquidation of Jews in the East was to take place without regard to the economic interests of the Wehrmacht and specialists in the armament industry. The Reich Minister replied:
"Clarification of the Jewish question has most likely unconsidered in the settlement of the problem."
investigation into the Jewish Liquidation Program, reported to General of the Infantry, Thomas, Chief of the Industrial Armament Department, that the project was a big mistake from the German point of view. In the Ukraine he found that the Jews represented almost the entire trade and even a substantial part of the manpower.
"The elimination, therefore, necessarily had far D U S T R Y (Production for sypplying the troops)."The report goes on:
"The attitude of the Jewish population was anxious obliging from the beginning.
They tried to avoid tion.
That they hated the German administration and surprising.
However, there is no proof that Jewry acts of sabotage.
Surely, there were some terrorists a danger to the German armed forces.
The output produced German administration."
the executions invariably took place not during the stress and turmoil of fighting or defense action, but after the fighting had ceased:
"The Jewish population remained temporarily unmolested shortly after the fighting.
Only weeks sometimes months executed a planned shooting of Jews.
... The way these children of all ages were carried out was horrible.
The Union.
So far about 150,000 to 200,000 Jews may have to the Reichskommissariat (RK); no consideration was given to the interests of economy."
In a final appeal to reason this German inspector cries out:
"If we shoot the Jews, let the prisoners of war perish, remains unanswered:
W H O I N A L L T H E W O R L D E C O N O M I C V A L U E S H E R E?" No one answered the question of the inspector; Nor did any one answer the question of Humanity as to why those oceans of blood and this burning of a continent.
Reason, with its partner Conscience, had been lost long ago in the jungle of Nazi greed and arrogance, and so Madness ruled, Hate marched, the sky reddened with the flames of destruction and the World wept - and still weeps. treaty for the Renunciation of War, more generally known as the Kellogg-Eriand Pact, wherein sixty-eight nations agreed:
"Article I. The High Contracting Parties solemnly "Article II.
The High Contracting Parties agree that pacific means."
fifth decade of the twentieth century witnessed a conflict at arms of global proportions which wrought such devastation on land and sea and so convulsed organized society that, for many decades yet to come, men, women and children in every land will feel and suffer its consequences. and the United States met in London and entered into an agreement for the trial of war criminals ascertained to be such. Nineteen other nations expressed their adherence to this agreement. by the London Agreement, after a trial which lasted ten months, rendered a decision which proclaimed that Germany had precipitated World War II and, by violating international commitments and obliga tions, had waged aggressive war.
The International Military Tribunal, in addition to rendering judgment against specific individuals, declared certain organizations, which were outstanding instruments of Nazism, to be criminal. representatives of the same four above-mentioned nations and constituting the highest legislative authority for Germany, enacted Law No. 10, concerning "Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes, Crimes Against Peace and Crimes Against Humanity". This Tribunal came into being under the provisions of that Law, but while the Tribunal derives its existence from the authority indicated, its jurisdiction over the subject matter results from International Law valid long prior to World War II. to this case. In view of their representations and the gravity of the case itself, the various phases of the law will be discussed with more detail than perhaps ordinarily the situation might require. and impartial trial, which the Tribunal has endeavored throughout the long proceedings to guarantee to than in every way. The precept that every man is presumed innocent until proved guilty has held and holds true as to each and every defendant. The other equally sanctified rule that the Prosecution has the burden of proof and must prove the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt has been, and is, assured. began on September 29. The Prosecution required but two days to present its case in chief because its evidence was entirely documentary. It introduced in all 253 documents. 136 days transpired in the presentation of evidence in behalf of the defendants, and they introduced, in addition to oral testimony, 731 documents. The trial itself was conducted in both English and German and was recorded steno graphically and in both languages.
The transcript of the oral testimony consists of more than 6,500 pages. An electric recording of all proceedings was also made. Copies of documents introduced by the Prosecution in evidence were served on the defendants in the German language. tely in the latter part of the Opinion, but since many items of defense, especially in argumentation, are common to more than one of the defendants they will be discussed collectively to avoid repitition during the individual treatments. It is to be emphasized that the general discussion and collective description of acts or defenses of defendants need not apply to each and every defendant in the box. Any general reference will necessarily apply to a majority of them but that majority need not always consist of the same persons. As already stated, the individual treatments will appear at the end.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now be in recess until 1:45.
(A recess was taken until 1345 hours.)
(The Tribunal reconvened at 1345 hours.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: Judge Dixon will continue with the reading of the Judgment.
JUDGE DIXON: different headings and will be discussed in that order by the Tribunal: Jurisdiction, Self Defense and Necessity, Superior Orders and Non-Involvement.
The substantive provisions of Control Council Law No. 10 which are pertinent in this case, read as follows:
Art. II, 1. (b) War Crimes. Atrocities or of (c) Crimes against Humanity.
(d) Membership in categories of a 2. Any person without regard to nation of this Article, ifhe was (a) a principle or (b) was an accessory same or (c) took a consenting part therein or (d) was connected with commission or (e) was a member of crime or (f) with reference to paragraph 1 (a), if he held a high political, civil or military (in cluding General Staff) position in such country."
Control Council Law No. 10 was attacked by Defense Counsel at the beginning of the trial, at the end of the trial, and even after all evidence and documentation had been received and arguments closed. In a motion filed February 20, 1948, counsel renewed their representations that this law was inapplicable to the instant case because of the fact that Russia, on August 23, 1939. signed a secret treaty with Germany agreeing to a division of Poland. In the argument supporting their motion, Counsel do not dwell on the fact that in signing the agreement with in Russia, Germany naturally became a party to the very transaction involved. However, in spite of this very definite concurrence by Germany in Russia's acts, insofar as they arose out of the so called secret agreement, Defense Counsel submitted that Russia disqualified herself from membership in the Allied Control Council and that, therefore, any agreement reached with her as one of the signatory powers must necessarily be void. The argument is wholly lacking in merit. was fully considered and decided by the International Military Tribunal in its decision of September 30,1946:
" The Tribunal is fully satisfied by the humanity."
precipiatated, as the International Military Tribunal pointed out, a global war whose effects are visible today throughout the world. The legal consequences drawn from the International Military Tribunal *** *** *** *** may not be altered by the assertion that someone else may also have been at fault.
At the final argument* in the case various Defense counsel spoke of international events which followed the ending of the war. It is intended as no offense to Defense Counsel to say that is would seem they are seeking to fish in troubled waters, or what they assume to be an agitated sea. Nonetheless, the Tribunal must refuse representations and arguments upon that subject. The defendants in this case stand accused of crimes which occured during the war. History's footsteps since the termination of World War II can not obliterate the blood marks of that collossal and tragic conflict. Counsel's representations, as in justice it should not, it does not follow that everything was relevant to the issue in the case. It is only by hearing an argument that one can conclusively determine its materiality or lack of materiality. However, the Tribunal now decides, after hearing and analyzing all the evidence, that discussions in this case on the ante-war relationship between Germany and Russia are Immaterial. It further decide* that representations on the post-war relationship Russia and the rest of the world are equally irrelevant. treaty with Germany prior to the Polish war, the Defense said or presented nothing in the way of evidence to overcome the well considered conclusion of the International Military Tribunal that Germany started an aggressive war against Russia.
On the basis of this finding alone, Russia's participation in the Allied Council which formulated Law No. 10 was legal and correct and in entire accordance with International Law.
Furthermore, Defense Counsel's representations in this respect have no bearing on the charges in this Indictment. They are not defending Germany as a nation in this trial. They are representing individuals accused of specific crimes under Law No. 10, which, like the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, was not an arbitrary exercise of power of the victorious nations but the expression of Internation Law existing at the time of its creation. Control Council Law No. 10 is but the codification and systemization of already existing legal principles, rules and customs. Under the title of Crimes against Humanity, these rules and customs are the common heritage of civilized peoples, and, in so far as War Crimes are concerned, they have been recognized in various International Conventions, to which Germany was a party, and they have been International Law for decades if not centuries. As far back as 1631, Grotius, in his De Jure Belle ac Pacis, wrote:
"But.....far must we be from admitting the all Right ceases in war; nor when under Bounds of Justice and Fidelity."
The German author Schaetzel, in his book "Bestrafungen nach Kriegsgebrauch, published in 1920, stated:
".....The Laws and Customs of Warfare are International Law.
The Imperial Decree (of 1899) speaks ofpunishment 'in accord authorities' (Art.
2). This shows clearly a source of law.
They are binding on in "The customs of war are substantive penal law as good as the State's penal legislation."
Law No. 10 with Latin maxim Nullem crimen sine lege, nulla peona sine lege. It is indeed fundamental in every system of civilized jurisprudence that no one may be punished for an act which was not prohibited at the time of its commission. But it must be understood that the "lex" referred to is not restricted to statutory law. Law does, in fact, come into being as the result of formal written enactment and thus we have codes, treaties, conventions, and the like, but it may also develop effectively through custom and usageand through the application of Common Law. The latter methods are no less binding than the former. The International Military Tribunal, in its decision of September 30, 1946, declared:
"International Law is not the product of a changing world."
a substantial degree and one such subject is the law of Land Warfare which includes the Law of Belligerent Occupation because belligerent occupation is incidental to warfare. The Hague Regulations, for instance, represent such a codification. Article 46 of those Regulations provides with regard to invading and occupying armies that:
"Family honor and rights, the lives of must be respected."
This provision imposed obligations on Germany not only because Germany signed signed the Hague Convention on Land Warfare, but because it had become International Law binding on all nations. before it does not depend alone on this specific pronouncement of International Law. As already indicated, all nations have held themselves bound to the rules or laws of war which came into being through common recognition and acknowledgement.