and ignore legal principles of long standing, such a manner of unabashed prejudiced jurisprudence is bound to cause particular astonishment if these are made by a scholar whose name belongs to the most renowned members of American jurisprudence.
Terms like "troublesome", "desirable", "question of policy", "realistic" are used in order to make inapplicable legal maxims, hallowed by decades of usage. All those points of view employed by Professor Glueck are such that every jurist must view them with distrust! In note 48 to chapter IX of his book, Professor Glueck refers as further justification of his opinion, to the legislative practice and jurisdiction of Nazi Germany, where such expost facto punishment was customary. It is unnecessary to touch upon this assertion any further, because if such kind of legislature and administration of justice has to be considered as reprehensible, since it is communis opinion of the entire Western civilized world then it ill suits the victors to abuse their own ideals by acting in the same spirit and to sacrifice the idea of right to the point of view of political expediency and practical considerations. as a matter of fact up to now, shall not remain unmentioned. The actions of the defendants would have to be judged pursuant to German law, according to the judicial interpretation of all European States. They were subject to German law and acted under German law; it was the law to which they had to turn for advice in cases of doubt and which decided as to the limits of their authority. Also, this principle of international law hallowed by long years of use is sacrificed by Professor Glueck to considerations of political expediency and practical considerations, by writing about it in the following way:
"Normally in law and in justice, it would have to be that law of the accused, since he could not justly be expected to know the law of the enemy nation that prosecutes him." However, Professor Glueck continues this would give the most lawless nations the possibility to whitewash militarists for the most flagrant violations of the laws of warfare. The Nazi law is so contrary to the most elementary principles of civilized justice tha t it may legitimately be ignored as "pathological". the absolute relinquishing of century old principles of personal liability, unacceptable to every progressive legal system. The Nazi jurisprudence has been charged with having sacrificed the idea of law and justice without hesitation always at a time when it was opportune for the necessities of political considerations. If, therefore those who have made it their bussiness to combat such abuses, now themselves put aside the postulates of progressive and fair legal thinking in order to realize a certain political aim, then one feels deeply disappointed in one's belief and hope of coming of a better world - a world a a world of law and order!
It seems also that the prosecution feels that way. Therefore, it attempts to refer to Article 47 of the German Military Penal Code. Thereto the following must be stated: in the East are regulated and outlined by orders, that is by Fuehrer orders. There is no doubt about it that the orders of Hitler, in his capacity as Chief of State, were of a special nature. All his orders enjoyed a particular obligation to obey them in view of the constitutional legal status of the Third Reich, which was bound by his authority as Chief of the State. Professor Jahrreiss stated in this respect during his questioning in the trial against the jurists, the following:
"In a state in which all power of decision is concentrated in the hands of one man, the orders of this one man are absolutely binding for the members of the hierarchy of officials.
This individual is their sovereign, their legibus solutus". (Truanscript, page 4243). Reich, insofar as it related to the constitutional law of the Greater German Reich, and the defendant Ohlendorf carried on his law studies and all other defendants grew up and lived in the knowledge and application of this literature. I quote verbatim from the book "The constitutional Law of the Greater German Reich" by Ernst Rudolf Huber:
"The Fuehrer combines in himself all sovereign power of the Reich; every public power in the state as well as in the Party is derived from the power of the leadership".
"He is the holder of all political power."
"The leadership authority is extensive and total; it comprises in itself all means of political organization; it extends to all spheres of public life; it includes all compatriets who are bound to loyalty and obedience toward the Fuehrer".
"He is" - thus it goes on "holder of the legislative power" in addition, however, also "holder of judicial sovereignty and power" in a word "supreme holder of all common functions." the years to such an extent that by the resolution of the Reichstag of 26 April 1942 (Reich Law Gazette I, page 247) he was given carte blache of an extent unparalleled in constitutional history, which must be regarded as a mere certification of a situation that had already existed for years. The Fuehrer received the power to issue ordinances on every subject possible having legal force. He received the power "as chief of state and supreme holder of the executive power, as supreme judge and Party leader at any given time - "if necessary to urge, every German -- be he a simple soldier or an officer, minor or high official or judge, directing or subordinate functionary of the Party, worker or employee - to fulfil his duties, with all means he regards as appropriate and in the case of a violation of these duties after conscientious examination, without regard to so-called traditional preregatives, to inflict on him due punishment, especially to remove him from his office rank and position without instituting the "prescribed proceedings". law, beginning about the middle of the 19th century, no member of the German people was entitled to refuse obedience to these announcements of the will of the head of the state, which had legal force.
The principles which Richard Thoma, the liberal democratic teacher of constitutional law had formulated already prior to the seizure of power by National Socialism in his manual of German criminal law, 2nd volume, page 137 applied: not change entirely, "no other principle may be taught than the one that the entire legal system valid in the state by law is placed at the disposal of the state authority or authorities to which the constitution deed transfers the legislative power." "It is conceivable that a legal maxim may seem to me to be simply unjustified, be it, because I am convinced, it was issued for arbitrary reasons (e.g. party hatred), be it that I feel it to be objectionable because of its contents which seems monstrous to me. Even in the case of such a rule I must admit, as long as the state authority regards it as being valid, that in the formal sense of the term it is a legal maxim, although I in foro interno.
.... give it the name of a rule of force or an ordinance of injustice." National Socialist but one of the very first representatives of the liberal -- democratic, political science. His opinion was not an individual opinion but the prevailing doctrine.It was thus the foundation of juridical ideology which OHLENDORF -- like many others among the defendants had been taught at German universities to be valid legal conception. By way of substantiating this, I mention one author who at present teaches at a university in the United States and various times has expressed his opinion with regard to the question of war criminals: Professor Hans KELSEN, the one-time leading authority on Austrian constitutional law. In his "Main Problems of Political Science" 2nd edition, 1923, page 56, he declares literally:
"The legal binding force of an legal maxim is not in the law."
And as late as 1927 the German Supreme Court emphasized:
"The legislator is autocratic and not bound by an in the constitution or in other ordinances."
(Decision of the Decisions of the German Supreme Court in civil law cases) I wish to emphasize once more that those doctrines and legal maxims were expressed with regard to the constitutional law of the Weimer democrary.
There can be no doubt that they had to be valid all the more in the National Socialist state which thereby neither violated the most elementary principles of civilized conception of law nor developed "pathological" law.
by the constitution connected with the duty of absolute obedience, may often appear incomprehensible to a foreigner. Any one being familiar with history will however have to admit that this by no means without precedent. I beg to point out the following: opinion of subordination and obedience in a letter which he sent to the members of the order in 1555 as follows (this being one of the most remarkable documents of world history):
"On the whole, I must not belong to myself by to my creator and mediator; I must permit myself to be led and moved as a little piece of was permits itself to be kneaded;......like he wishes and where he can use me best;.....I must behave like a dead man who has neither will nor insight.
Thus I must always can use me for whatever it wishes mo to do."
(The Spiritual Letters and Instructions of St. Ignatius of Leyola."
Collected and translated into German by Otto KARRER, Society of Jesus, 1922 page 255.
Translation authorized by the Catholic Church). And these principles have by no means been rescinded in our modern times up to the present.
In a singular way this conception of obedience in its formal basic structure is affiliated to that of Calvinism. To the question as to what was to be done if kings and princes spurned the rights of the people, disregarded the laws of morality and acted as tyrants, the reformer gave the unmistakable answer: The sovereigns of this world may claim, the obedience of their subjects, even if they are the most villainous tyrants (nequissimus tyrannus). The sufferings afflicted to the subjects by an undutiful sovereign must be borne in humble patience and the subjectsmust be self-contemplation and a deeper consciousness of built be induced to all the more eager supplications for divine assistance.
The subjects have to do their duty and leave all the rest to God.
With regard to this Josef Behatec: Calvin and the Law (1934) page 135 ff. past two years against Luther's doctrine of the subject's obedience to the state completes the picture of the European religious views with regard to the duty of obedience without my having to go into detail in this respect. nearly half a century -- under the Stuart Kings Charles II and James II -as a dogma which was especially upheld by the Tories and Oxford University. Thomas Babington Macaulay, the great British historian, devoted an extensive elaboration to this remarkable fact in his "History of England since the ascendance of James II to the throne." especially with regard to military orders and obedience, which are under discussion in the present trial, still fully applies, is shown in the well-known speech of the British Field marshal Montgomery concerning Army and Nation of the year 1946 in which he says: "No matter how intelligent the soldier is -- the Army would leave the nation in the lurch, if it were not accustomed to obey commands immediately. It is the soldier's duty unquestioningly to obey all orders given to him by the Army -- that is, by the Nation." obeyed HITLER'S order as an order issued by the German chief of State having the unlimited authority and powers described above, they were not only backed up by all German authorities on constitutional international law in the reign of HITLER but also by themost renowned representatives of jurisprudence of the former democratic Germany and foreign countries, especially of the United States of America, as well as by the incontestable principlesof all armies of the world.
This unquestioned legal situation and the binding force of an order is in no respect changed by Art. 47 of the German Military Penal Code.
They did not act in violation of Art. 47 of the German Military penal Code simply because an order by HITLER had legal force and thus being a newer law had precedence over the earlier Military Penal Code. Above all, Art. 47, according to its context does not intend to, and connot, give the opportunity and require it as one's duty to offer resistance to the legislator himself. Its prerequisite is a military superior of the one who issues the order to whom appeals can be made made. Fuehrer order was known to OHLENDORF and his co-defendants. OHLENDORF was fully aware of it. For to the question of the Presiding Judge as to whether he had deliberated about the questions coming up in connection with the execution of the order (page 686 of the Transcript) and, in addition, as to whether he had ever felt that the Fuehrer decreeswas an unlawful order, OHLENDORF unequivocally answered: "No". As he himself several times assorted, the defendant lacked the consciousness of illegality. As has been shown, he can in this respect place himself on the same level with domestic and foreign jurisprudence. In this connection and corresponding to the Anglo-Saxon conception that the consciousness of the unlawfulness of a deed, the Tribunal tried during OHLENDORF's interrogation to find out his reaction to the Fuehrer decree in a moral respect. OHLENDORF strictly rejected a moral evaluation of the Fuehrer Order. No regarded the order as unwise from a political viewpoint and as wrong because of itspossible consequences from a standpoint of international law and general political aspects. As OHLENDORF declared, he, however, never undertook a moral appraisal since HITLER as German chief of State had issued it with legal binding force and compulsory effect for him as receiver of the order and since HITLER himself had to take the responsibility for the moral side of his order.
The further detailed interrogation by the Tribunal has proved unequivocally that OHLENDORF during the -- execution of the order had no consciousness of moral wrong. one would uphold a legal obligation of investigating the Fuehrer order with regard to its lawfulness and its capability of being uphold from a moral viewpoint, there are further viewpoints which preclude a punishment of the defendant. He justly cites the legal institutions an emergency caused by orders and "Unexpectability" the application of which Central Council Law No. 10 obviously does not preclude.
Thus already the IMT has established (Chapter V at the end): "The actually decisive point, which is to be found in various gradations in the penal code of most nations, is not the existence of such an order, but the question as to whether a corresponding alternative (resistance) to moral law actually was possible." and the Presiding Judge of this Tribunal in the MILCH decision emphasized himself (Tribunal II, Case 2, page 96 German, in the reasons given by Judge Musamnno)" It was never our intention and never has been urged that he (MULCH) should have ever chosen any way which would have resulted in the loss of his life". With regard to the same problem the US military Tribunal states in Case 5 in discussing Art. 4, par. B of Section 11 of the Central Council Law No. 10 (Transcript of session of 22 December 1947, page 18 ff):
"In our opinion these regulations are not meant to deprive which has here been claimed for them.
This legal principle Wharton's "Criminal Law", Vol.
I, Chapter VII, section 126, as substantiation:
"The fact of a state of emergency may be used as protective threatening legal prejudice".In a footnote to sub-section 384 in Chapter XIII of Wharton's "Criminal Law", Vol I the fundamental definition of the protective assertion of a state of emergency isdescribed as follows:
"A state of ermergency is a reason for justification, since The question of unexpectability is closely connected with this question of state of emergency.
Even before 1933, the German Supreme Court and scholars have had to deal with the question of the unexpectability of an action and have repeatedly recognized this unexpectability as a basis for excluding guilt. Unexpectability is present "with reference to the situation as a whole" it may not be expected that "the idea of the criminal result and its injurious social effect becomes a decisive counter-motive, thus motivating the perpetrator to act in accordance with the law." (from Liszt-Schmidt,"Manual of Criminal Law" , 26th ed., p. 283). On this basis, the German Supreme Court also made its decision. Thus in the decision of the 1st chamber of the Reich Court (Justizwesen, 32, p. 2280, No. 14). In this case, a witness, committed perjury in a trial against Communists because he was afraid that if he made a true statement, he would be mistreated by the Communists. In the decision of the 1st. chamber, the Reich Supreme Court argues, among other things, that at the basis of Art. 52 and 54 is the idea that as a basis for exclusion of guilt "an abnormal encroachment upon the free will caused by special external circumstances may also be considered," which in "normal" conduct seem "not to be expected." That is, in other words, that a criminal act committed under such circumstances is still objectively illegal for lack of a basis for justification, but owing to the unusual psychical pressure burdening the perpetrator does not appear subjectively contrary to duty and therefore provides no basis for accusation of guilt. The decision of the Reich Supreme Court (3rd chamber) in the decision 66, p. 98 is similar to this. Corresponding decisions are to be found in decisions 58, p. 97 end p. 226. defendant Ohlendorf found himself from these viewpoints. Ohlendorf has described in the witness stand how he loudly and clearly protested against the order when Streckenbach announced it to the assembled officers in Pretsch. The defendant, Dr. Blume, expressly confirmed this description in his statement of 4 November 1947, p. 1915. The presentation of evidence has, furthermore, clearly brought to light the fact that the protest was immediately silenced by the implication that this was a Fuehrer order against which there could be no further objections.
Under these circumstances, could any one expect from the defendant Ohlendorf that he undertake further steps against the order? For a non-German court, this question will be very difficult to decide in any case, because it presupposes the knowledge and the ability to understand the ideas and conceptions of that time of the Germans, as well as the knowledge of the possibilities which the individual holders of various ranks of the National Socialist officers Corps had of influencing Fuehrer Orders. Ohlendorf knew that his direct superiors Heydrich and Himmler had identified themselves with the Fuehrer Order. He knew that his views would find no support of any sort from those quarters. In spite of this, however, he later made a further attempt in Nikolajew and turned to Himmler. The latter, in an insulting and emphatic manner, did not even grant him an answer. The defendant Seibert reported this scene in detail and in so far confirms Ohlendorf's statement. The Commanders-in-Chief and Generals of the German Army, to whom the Einsatzgruppen were assigned and subordinate, were above Ohlendorf, in his capacity as Chief of an Einsatzgruppe and in his rank at that time as Colonel. Apart from Himmler and the heads of the Ministries only they h ad the possibility of contradicting the Fuehrer and to attempt to have him rescind the order. That possibility obviously had been exhausted unsuccessfully, since that order was in force. In addition the situation was especially difficult for Ohlendorf, because already at that time he had incurred the gravest displeasure on the part of Heydrich and Himmler, and because his transfer to Russia must be considered a punishment (see testimony Ohlendorf and affidavit Dr. Hauschke in Document Book No. I, Doc. No. 8 , Exh. No. 31). Thus there remains merely the question, whether or not Ohlendorf had the possibility on the basis of his position to approach the Fuehrer him self and to insist on the order being changed.
Anyone who knows the conditions with National Socialist Germany will have to answer that question in the negative. In this connection I refer to the affidavit of the former Chief of the Reich Chancellery, Dr. Lammers, contained in Document Book I, Doc. No. 3, Exh. No. 24, p. 12 in the German text, to which I have nothing further to add. Because of its special importance in this decisive question I request that the Court take cognizance of it in its entirety. That there can be no expert witness against this affidavit on this question, despite the objections of the prosecution, is proven by the former position and experience of the witness.
In summarizing the following may be said: Ohlendorf had no means at all to change the course of events. He merely was enabled to carry out the execution of that order in such a way as to spare the unfortunate victims of this order and the troops commissioned with the execution as much of the mental anguish as possible and to prevent any possible outrages. I believe that I do not have to describe to what extent the defendant Ohlendorf fulfilled his duty in that respect. His own and the other defendants' testimony has proven that unequivocally without being disproven by the prosecution. Are there any other aspects or possibilities, the disregarding of which could be considered as a legally tenable charge against the defendant? Above all, could he legally be expected to resist actively the orders or to commit insubordination? It certainly requires no special explanation to show that there exists no legal duty for an open rebellion against an order by the Chief of a State. Because otherwise all the laws of obedience of the State, which govern the special life of human beings would be rendered superfluous and would be dependent only on the arbitrary interpretation of the individual. However,even plain insubordination was completely out of the question in the case of the defendant. Ohlendorf was subject to military law. The order was a military order, given in wartime. The consequences of insubordination would plainly have been a trial before the SS and Police court and a subsequent death sentence (see Blume Document No. I, pages 1-13, German, and transcript of the session of 4 November 1947, pages 1899-1902). Nowhere and at no time however has the duty to become a martyr been decreed as a legal duty quite apart from the fact that thereby the entire situation would not have been changed at all.
Someone else would have stepped into Ohlendorf's place and it would have merely raised the question whether or not the other man would have been prepared to mitigate and ease the consequences of this terrible order both for the victims as well as for the men of the Einsatzkommando in whatever way possible out of the same deep sense of responsibility. During the interrogation of the defendant, the question also arose whether or not Ohlendorf could not have evaded his assignment to the East by feigning sickness. Ohlendorf stated in this connection that he had declined to make such an attempt for reasons of his ethics and character and because it would have helped neither the unfortunate victims affected by the Fuehrer Order nor his comrades. abovementioned laws the simulation of an illness would have been considered as undermining the fighting morale and would have been punished with death. Thus there was no escape for Ohlendorf from this dilemma except for one - certain death, and it would have been too much to expect him to choose that. Neither Ohlendorf nor his fellowdefendants were placed in that position through any fault of their own. After all, they did not volunteer for the assignment to the East in full knowledge of the orders to be expected, but they obeyed governmental compulsion. They were drafted for military service and were assigned there. In the case of Ohlendorf it was done even in the way of a penal measure - though it was not discernible as such on the outside - after he twice unsuccessfully resisted Heydrich's plans by which he was menacingly accused of being a coward.
The question of an emergency caused by orders * of unexpectability cannot be disposed of without showing to what an extent the interpreta tions of International Law had become inconsistent in the Europe of former times already during and after the first world War, as well as through the establishment of the Soviet State.
For the uncertainty of the conceptions valid until then, was undoubtedly eO-decisive for the degree of inner or outer resistance shown or not shown by the individual offices or officials of the Third Reich depending on the position which they held in relation to the Fuehrer at any given time. The situation of International law at that time showed the following picture: During the first World War the Rules of Warfare drawn up by the Hague Conferences had become fluid (gas warfare, hunger blockade). In spite of that it had been neglected in the period following to obviate in any way the dangers to the civilian population inherent in the possibility of a total war. Above all it had been neglected to introduce any kind of limitation for aerial bombardment, even though the experts never grew weary of pointing out these dangerous points. An additional proof for the inconsistency of international law is the fact that a plan could be created during the war on the Allied side, which was - in the words of the American Senator Langer - and I quote: "a plan for the systematic annihilation of the German speaking people" , it was the so-called Morgenthay Plan. Not without reason did Langer formulate his opinion as follows: "No matter how cruel England might have been at any time during its history - and I do not exclude even the Black Hell of Calcutta - there has never been a more savage plan than the one proposed by Mr. Morgenthau". a uniform International Law. It overlooks however, intentionally or unintentionally, the fact that the world has been divided both politically and from the standpoint of law into two parts, and that not just since the beginning of the last war, but de facto already since the creation of the Soviet Union in 1917/18. According to the claims of that state which it put forth itself, the Soviet Union cannot be a loyal partner in the community of nations.
That is made conclusively impossible by its irrevocable aim for world revolution. Beyond that it strives to use International Law and its recognized rules as a weapon against the non-Communist environments, as I shall prove yet. Professor Korovin, the well-known Soviet-Russian expert on Internatio nal Law writes in his Manual of International Law, which he has published under the title "An International Law of the Period of Transition": "The Soviet Union represents the world of tomorrow, it does not fit into a world of yesterday."
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
situation, that acts are being condemned in Nuernberg as a crime, which are quite common for a power, which has signed the basis for the indictment - i.e. the Control Council Law. In this connection a collection of documents deserve a special interest, i.e. "The Land of the Dead", study of the deportations from Eastern Germany, Committee against Mass Expulsions. In that book the slave labor by Germans and their expulsion from their home-country are being publicly exposed, as follows: centage of the missing persons (expelled Eastern Germans was put to death by their tormentors, or have perished because of lack of food and housing. According to the Congressional Report of 5 February 1946, Senator Capehart estimated that no fewer than 3 Million human beings had lost their lives in the course of this "resettlement". held as slave-labor in Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Balkan countries. The January edition of the Review of World Affairs (London) reports that it is a well known fact that thousands of German women are working as slaves in the mines around Sverdlovsk. Tens of thousands of civilian slaves work in the mine of Upper Silesia; Czechoslovakia still retains about 300,000 Sudeten Germans as slave labor." Slav workers by Germany during the war, the book concludes:
"If we substitute the words 'Slav' for 'German' and 'Millions' for 'Thousands', then we have an accurate description of the occurrences in Eastern Europe under Allied blessing. It is unbelievable that the Government "of the United States should be a party to a policy for which the Nazi Leaders have been put on trial and have been hanged under American suspices."
new International Law, the persons responsible for all the misery described above would have to be on trial now. And how many persons will have been connected with the execution of these horrible decrees, who, like these defendants, base their defense on the fact that they had to obey their national laws? Unlike these defendants they do not even receive comfort from the excuse to have obeyed a military order before the enemy. They could have, at any time as civilians given up their work for the government, which asked them to do such things. Until the present time no case has become known, in which an Allied citizen would have declined co-responsibility for the above mentioned horrible events through a pretest, which would have dissolved his relations to the state as the letter's employee. did not act, while conscious of illegality of his acts and of moral injustice. In addition he acted in a personal emergency caused by orders and he did everything in his power to show that he was not satisfied with the protest raised against the proclamation of the Fuehrer Decree and the attempt towards the Reichsfuehrer in Nikolajev, but beyond that, to do at least everything in order to minimize and to limit the effects of Hitler's order. He could not be expected to do more, as I have shown in detail. selves an exceptional and compulsory situation for Germany and insofar refer to the legal institution of national emergency aid and national emergency. It is not certain whether or not the prerequisites were present objectively.
As I shall explain in detail, the defendants at any rate had to assume them to be present subjectively, due to the special situation according to International Law, into which they, as Germans and soldiers, had been placed. basic question whether and to what degree the legal principle of falsely assumed national emergency aid and falsely assumed national emergency may influence the question of guilt in this case. Due to the fundamental importance of that question it is necessary to discuss it thoroughly. sitated the clarification of a few preliminary questions. its conclusion is Control Council Law No. 10. It deviates from all of the known criminal laws of all legal systems insofar as it does not contain a so-called "general section" and apparently is limited solely to the establishment of criminal facts. Every criminal code of all countries however contains -- either in the form of a specific order by law or in the form of customary law systematized by the courts or by the legal profession -- a large number of detailed rules, which determine the general prerequisites of culpability, which are substantially the same for all criminal acts. They include for example -- to name only a few -- the regulations concerning the connection between cause and effect, premeditation and negligence attempts, statute of limitations, responsibility for one's actions and finally also self-defense and state of emergency, including the falsely assumed self-defense and falsely assumed state of emergency.
Thus, Control Council Law No. 10 does not deal with all of these questions of the general section of a criminal code, and is limited to the definition of a few points.
that all the other fundamental principles of the "general section" of a criminal code which are in part mentioned above, should not be applicable to Control Council Law No. 10. The observance of these general criminal regulations is so completely covered in all nations and their application is so selfevident all over the world also by law or customary law, that on the one hand without them a law could not be imagined, and that on the other hand all legal thinking would be considerably impeded. Individual Military Courts have therefore already stated that these fundamental principles would have to be taken into consideration also in the application of Control Council Law No. 10. It remains only to answer the question as to which legal sources can be considered the source of the problems not regulated by Law No. 10. Law No. 10 is not a national specical law. If that were the case the general regulations of that state which has issued that special law would have to be applied. Law No. 10 however is an inter-national agreement concluded by the four signatory powers for the detailed execution of the Moscow declaration of 30 October 1945 and the London Declaration of 8 August 1945. participated in its creation, of which each one has its own national system of criminal law. four states cannot simply be used as legal foundation and the less so since at present no international tribunal is sitting whose judges could represent the peculiarities of the systems of criminal law of their respective countries.