The same book was as "What Hitler Told Me," or "Conversations with Hitler," and so on.
From this book of Rauschning's which I submit to the Tribunal, there are two quotations which I present.
The first is on page 225.
Your Honors will find it on page 14, last paragraph. The contents can be resumed.
Hitler told Rauschning that he was freeing mankind from the "phantom call of conscience and morality."
The second quotation is found on pages 137 and 138.
It is very important, concrete fact.
It concerns a conversation between Hitler and Rauschning on the subject of the "special technique for depopulating and about the victor's right to exterminate whole peoples."
of Cyclone "A" or constructing gas chambers and crematoria, or the carry out these policies, "not as a matter of form, but also in spirit"-as stated by Himmler in one of his speeches.
It was necessary of both morals and ethics.
It was necessary to legalize "a theoretical foundation" for substituting the concept of "guilt" for the concept of "suspicion;" for the concept of "punishment," the concept of "preventative purge of undesirable elements for political purposes;"for the concept of "justice," the concept of the "master's right;"for the concept of jurisprudence, the concept of "administrative tyranny and police terror."
are responsible for nothing. This is why Hitler freed humanity from the "phantom called conscience."
However, the theoretical foundations laid for the purpose still did not constitute official instructions;"the joys of cruelty."
"reminders," "sermons" and similar documents to the Germans who were being sent east.
I must say that out of all the documents in my this one.
This is not an order to the SS or police. It is intended for the agricultural leaders.
It is called, "The Twelve Commandments the Russians."
I submit this as document USSR-89, and your Honors will find it on page 17 of the document book.
This book begins with the "Twelve Commands" of which I have just spoken.
It is a book strictly for the agricultural leaders.
From these "Twelve Command ments" I shall quote just one, that is the sixth, which has a direct
DR. OTTO NELTE (Counsel for Defendant Keitel): Mr. President, this document, USSR-389, concerning the "Twelve Commandments" heading.
That is the end of the quotation. It has no signature.
author of these "Twelve Commands" is. So I respectfully ask for a
THE PRESIDENT: Can you inform us what the source of the document is?
COLONEL SMINOV: I will. This document is included in the Investigation of Criminals.
It was received from the following (An interruption).source.
If he will turn to the original of this document, he will that signature on a series of German Fascist documents.
By a strange coincidence it spoke on two subjects, either upon the Russian soul-- ;both subjects.
I cannot quote the source of this document. I repeat,
THE PRESIDENT: I have the original before me. It is dated, H-W-A-C-K-E. Perhaps Counsel for the Defense would like to see the original document.
It is, as I understand from the Prosecuting
COLONEL SMINOV: That is so, my Lord. I have an indication concerning the function of Backe.
He was Minister of Foods and Food Products.
I did not know that before. Forgive me. I did not
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I believe the signature is Backe, and I believe that I can identify the signature; Backe was in the
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps this would be a convenient time to (A recess was taken.)
COLONEL L.N. SMINOV: I now quote the Sixth Commandment out of the twelve which have just been submitted to the Tribunal. This Sixth Commandment, which is on Page 17 of the book of documents of the Tribunal, reads as follows:
"Since the newly opened-up areas must be lastingly acquired for Germany and Europe, a great deal 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 that are required on account of the state necessities. Lack of character on the part of an individual will be considered without doubt as a cause for his removal. Anyone who has been recalled on such ground will no longer be eligible for a responsible position in the Reich either."
For what "cruel and merciless" measures the criminal Hitler movement was preparing those whom it called "the vanguard of the National Socialist Revolution" and what crimes were committed by this vanguard, we shall show in a minute. by official orders which were definite and which had no ambiguity. institutions. The network of these institutions extended even to the lowest officials. I shall submit to the Tribunal the indictment presented by the Prosecutor for the Most Important Affairs in the USSR on the subject of the German Fascist crimes in the city and district of Kharkov. This document has already been confirmed fully by the verdict of the military tribunal, which has also been submitted to your Honors. states that all documentation concerning preliminary examinations were confirmed by the investigation. The indictment and the verdict are submitted to the Tribunal as USSR Exhibit 32.
of the defendant Razlev. Page 24 of the document file, last paragraph:
"The senior corporal of the German Army, Reinhard Retzlaff, who received his training in the special battalion 'Altenburg', testified at the trial:
"'The semester included several lectures of the leading officials of the GFP -- Secret Field Police -- who pointed out in a direct manner that the peoples of the Soviet Union, and especially those of Russian nationality, were inferior and that they would have to be destroyed in their overwhelming majority, but that they were to be used as slaves to a minor extent by the German estate owners. These directives originated the policy of the German government toward the peoples of occupied territories and were, it must be confessed, executed by every member of the armed forces in actual life, amongs them also myself.'" the junior police officials. other forms of education and concentrated or developing various special processor for destroying people. The Tribunal has already received the document registered as USSR Exhibit 6 B. This document is one of the appendic to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes committed in the territory of the Lvov district. It is the testimony of the witness Manuseviof, questioned by the Senior Assistant Prosecutor of the Lvov district at the special request of the Extraordinary State Commission. The protocol of the questioning are formulated in accordance with the legal procedure of the code of the Ukrainian USSR. worked as a member of the prisoners squad for the burning of corpses of assassinated Soviet citizens. After having finished the burning of 40,000 corpses murdered in the Yanov Camp, the squad was transferred for similar purposes to the camp located in the Lisenitz Woods.
will find on Page 62, paragraph 2, beginning from the top, line 26.
"In this camp, that is to say, in the death-factory, special ten day courses on the burning of corpses were organized. Twelve men were employed there. Persons attending the courses came from the camps of Lublin, Warsaw and others. I do not know their family names, but they were officers, not enlisted men, from the rank of colonel to sergeant. The instructor at these courses were the commandant of the camp, Colonel Schallok. He explained at the scene where bodies were exhumed abd burned the practical way of doing it, how the machinery for crashing the bones was set up, and how the pits should be levelled over and trees planted on the spot, and how the ashes of the human corpses should be scattered and concealed. Such courses existed over a considerable period of time. During my stay -- that is, in the course of five and one half months of my work in the Yanov and Lisenitz Camps -there were ten groups attending these courses." organization, the so-called Hitler Youth. Baldur von Schirach. by the Fascist criminals is described by a French citizen, Ida Vasso, the directress of a pension for aged Frenchmen in Lvov. During the occupation of Lvov by Germans, she had an opportunity to visit the Lvov Ghetto. described the system for the extermination of people there. From the statement of Vasso, you can see that German educated Hitler youth by means of training these young Fascists to shoot at living targets, namely at children who were specially given to the Hitler Youth as targets for the shooting. The statement by Vasso was verified by the Extraordinary State Commission and fully confirmed. Exhibit 6, a report by the Extraordinary State Commission entitled "Concerning the Crimes of Germans in the Territory of the Lvov Region."
text of the report as certified documentation, on page 6, second column of the text, paragraph 5, beginning at page 14, at the beginning of the paragraph. The Tribunal will find this evidence on page 59.
"The little children were martyrs. They were given as presents to the Hitler Youth, which used them as living targets for their target practice. 'No mercy for others, all for themselves' -- that was the motto of the Germans. The whole world must learn about their methods. We who were helpless witnesses of these terrible scenes, must report their atrocities so that all should know, and what is more important, that nobody should forget, as vengeance will not bring back life to these people." the Tribunal will find the confirmation of the Vasso statement. The Extraordinary State Commission established that at Lvov:
"Neither men, women nor children were spared. The adults were killed in a primitive way; the children were given to the Hitler Youth to be used for target practice." who were called upon to execute the program of the main criminals for the physical destruction of the population of the countries of Eastern Europe. the National Socialist Revolution in the East would show any traces of humanity.
THE PRESIDENT: I hope you will forgive my interrupting you, but I had to point out Colonel Prokrovsky just now that we really don't want any comment upon each one of these documents.
The passage frightful document which you have just read.
It all takes time.
COLONEL SMINOV: I will follow your indications, your Honor, and namely, the part where he speaks of the activities of the administration of the Yanov Camp. He was a witness of these activities when he worked in a special unit of prisoners used for burning the corpses of people killed in this camp. I quote frompage 3 of the report of the interrogation, beginning at line 25, counting from the top. The Tribunal will find this document on page 50 of the document file, line 25. I quote this extract as an illustration of those conditions created by the Hitlerites and of some crimes perpetrated by these people:
"Aside from the shooting in the Yanov Camp, various tortures were practiced. In the wintertime, for example, a person with bound hands and feet was placed into a barrel full of water in which he froze. There were two rows of barbed wire, 120 meters distant from each other, around the Yanov Camp. People were brought there, who perished from cold and hunger. They were never able to save themselves from that place, and died. However, several days before one was brought there, people were soundly thrashed. They were hung up by the neck, by the hands, or by the feet, and then dogs were set upon them and tore them to pieces.
"Human beings were used for target practice. This was done mostly by the Gestapo people Heine, Ziller, Blum, the head of the camp, Willjaus, and others whose names I do not remember. They gave a man a glass and shot at it. If the glass was hit, he continued to live. If, however, he was struck on the hand, he was then shot. It was said in this connection that he was incapable of working and, consequently, should bt shot. People were taken by the legs and torn in two. Children one month to three years old were drowned in barrels filled with water. Several people were also tied to a post, and they stood there until they died of sunstroke.
"Besides, before sending people to work, they were examined, subjected to a medical examination. During the examination, the men were forced to run 50 kilometers, and if the person ran this distance quickly, without stumbling, he remained alive; and the remainder were shot.
"In the camp there was a place grown over with grass, over which one also had to run. If anyone stumbled on the grass and fell, he was shot immediately. The grass was higher than a person's hips. The women were hung up by their hair; they were stripped, shaken about, and then they hung until they died.
"The following occurred: The Gestapo man, Heine, cut pieces of flesh out of the body of a young boy. Twenty-eight wounds were inflicted upon another. He was cured and worked later in the Death Brigade and was secretly shot.
"Near the kitchen, while lining up for coffee, the hangman, Heine, appeared and asked the first one in the line why he was the first in the line, and he shot him on the spot. In this manner he shot several people, and then he approached those standing further back and asked why is he standing in the last of the line, and shot him also. I saw personally all of these bestialities while staying in the Yanov Camp." by the official report of the Extraordinary State Commission, entitled "Concerning the Crimes Perpetrated by Germans on the Territory of the Lvov District."
and middle rank officials of the camp administration. of most objectionable insults was perpetrated upon helpless people, which was initiated and organized by the upper ranks of the camp administration, who constantly gave to their subordinates personal examples of extreme brutality. I will not read this document in full, although I beg the Tribunal to pay attention. already been submitted to the Court under the No. USSR-6. The Tribunal will find this extract on page 58 of the document file on the next side of the page.
I quote: destruction in the Janovsky Camp. After his appointment to another position his system was completed by the camp commander SS Obersturmfuehrer Gustav Wilhaus and SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Frank Warzok. A former inmate of the camp told the commission: "I have seen with my own eyes how Captain Fritz Gebauer strangled women and children to death, and froze men in barrels filled with water and the victims hands and feet chained and then they were put in the water. Those condemned to death remained in the barrels until they froze to death." On the basis of testimonies of numerous Soviet war prisoners and also of French citizens, who were hold prisoners in German camps, the fact was established that the German bandits invented the most cunning methods for the annihilation of human beings. They considered initiative as something especially praiseworthy; they were incited by the highest military command office and the German Government. war by both feet on sticks and to leave them in this position until they died. Obersturmfuehrer Rokita personally slashed the bellies of prisoners of war. The chairman of the investigation section of the Janovsky camp, Heine, pierced the bodies of war prisoners with sticks or an iron rod; he used to tear out the finger nails of women with pliers, then he stripped his victims, hung them by their hair and let them swing. Then he took shots at the moving targets. shoot frequently with an automatic rifle from the balcony of his office room at the prisoners of war who were employed at the working shops.
Sometimes he gave his rifle to his wife, she shot too. This he did partially as a sport, partially for fan. Sometimes in order to give pleasure to his nine-year old daughter he ordered two four-year-old children to be thrown up into the air and then he took pot shots at them, during which time the daughter applauded and yelled, "Papa, papa, do this again. Do this again," and he did it again. bet. The witness Kirschner informed the investigating commission that Wepke, a Gestapo commissioner, boasted in presence of other camp executioners that he could cut in two a boy with one stroke of an axe. They did not believe him. him to hide his face in his hands, made one test stroke, put the head of the child in the fitting position, and with one single stroke cut the boy in two. The Hitlerites heartily congratulated Wepke and shook his hand warmly.
In 1943, for Hitler's birthday -- he was 53 years old -- the Commandant of the Janovsky camp, Obersturmfuehrer Wilhaus picked out 54 prisoners of war and shot them himself.
There was a special hospital for prisoners in the camp. The German hangmen Brambauer and Birman looked the patients over on the 1st and 15th day of each month, and if they found patients who were in the hospital already longer than 14 days, they shot them on the spot. Each time during such an investigation, 6 or 7 people were killed. by music. For this purpose they created a special orchestra of prisoners. They forced Professor Stricks and the well-known conductor Mund to conduct this orchestra. They demanded of composers to write a special tune, which they called the "Tango of Death". Shortly before dissolving the camp the Germans shot all members of the orchestra. of this orchestra. Exactly in the same way the German fascist administration acted in all concentration camps.
I submit to the International Military Tribunal document No. USSR 29. It is the report of the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission for the investigation of the crimes perpetrated by the Germans in the extermination camp of Miami in the City of Lublin.
This document is on page 63 of the document file. I quote from Section 3: "Tortures and merciless butchery in the extermination camp." (Page beginning with the last paragraph of the first column of the text).
"The torture methods varied greatly. Some of them were so-called "jokes" which frequently ended with death. Among those were mock-shooting connected with making the victim insensible by hitting him over the head with a large and blunt object, and mock-drownings in the pond of the camp which often ended in actual drowning. Among the German executioners were specialists for particular torture methods. Prisoners were killed by a blow with a rifle butt on the back of the head, by a kick in the stomach or in the groin, or in another manner.
"The SS torturers drowned their victims in the dirty water which was coming from the bathhouse and was flowing in the narrow ditch. The head of the victim was dipped into the dirty water and kept under by the boot of a SS man until death soon came. A favorite method of the Hitler SS was to hang prisoners with their hands bound together behind their back. The Frenchman, Lo de Corautin, who suffered this punishment stated that a man hanged in this manner loses consciousness very soon, whereupon the hanging was interrupted, as soon as consciousness had come back he was hanged again, and this procedure was repeated many times.
"For the smallest offense, particularly because of suspicion of escape, inmates of the camp were hanged by the German devils. In the middle of each section stood a beam with a cross beam 2 meters above the floor, on which the people were hanged. 'I saw from my barrack' said witness Domashev, former camp inmate and Soviet prisoner of war, 'how people were hanged on the beam in the middle of the section.'
"Close to the laundry, in the space between the first and second section, was a special shed with beans on the ceilings where prisoners were hanged in masses.
"These particular atrocities were committed by the female SS personnel, the female chief-guard, Erich, and the female guards Braunstein, Ani David, Weber, Knoblic, Ellert and Radli. The commission established many facts which showed the absolutely unrivalled atrocities committed by the female executioners.
"At the presentation of the committed, Heinz Stalbe stated that he had seen with his own eyes how the director of the crematory, Oberscharfuehrer Mussfield, tied the hands and legs of a women, a Polish woman, and threw her alive into the crematory furnace.
The witnesses Jelinski and Oleh, who had been working in the camp, also talked out the burning alive of prisoners in the crematory furnaces.
"The witness Atrokhov gave evidence that a child was torn from the breast of its mother and killed in front of her by crushing it against the walls of the barracks. The witness Atrokhov stated how children were taken from their mothers and killed before their eyes when one stood on one leg and tore off the other one.
"The deputy commandant of the camp, SS Oberstrumfuehrer Tumann was particularly hated. He made whole groups of prisoners kneel down and killed them through blows on the head with a rifle-butt. Then he incited Alsation dogs after the prisoners. He participated in all executions and killings of the prisoners.
"Thus hunger, unbearable work, torture, torment, humiliation and murder were used with unheard of sadism as means of mass extermination of the camp inmates." typical not only for the SS or the special police units, but that state of profound moral deprivation was applied to vast strata of personnel of the armed forces, I will now turn to the contents of the Soviet Foreign Commissars note. I turn to the contents of Foreign Commissar, USSR, V. M. Molotov's note of the 6th of January 1942, which has already been submitted to the Tribunal as USSR Exhibit No. 51. The quotation which I will now read is on the back side of page 3 of the fourth paragraph of the first column of the text. population and in the Red Army by the innumerable heinous acts of violence, the foul outrages against woman's honor and the mass killings of Soviet citizens, men and women, perpetrated by the German-Fascist officers and soldiers, Wherever the rule of the German bayonet beings to hold sway, an intolerable regime of bloody terror, agonizing torture and brutal murder is instituted. The robberies everywhere committed by the German officers and soldiers are invariably accompanie by the beating up or murder of tremendous numbers of guiltless people. For failure to deliver up food provisions to the last crumb and of all clothing to the last shirt, the Germans torture and hang old and young, women and children. They beat up and shoot those who do not perform in full the set quota, of work at forced labor.
next day they started a massacre under the slogan "Kill the Jews and -the Poles." After hundred had been put to death the Hitler bandits held an "exhibition" of the victims in an arcade. The mutilated bodies, mostly those of women, were lined up along the house walls. In a conspicuous place of this ghastly "exhibition" they laid the corpse of a woman whose baby had been pinned to her by a bayonet. the war. Wallowing in the blood of the innocent, the Hitlerite ghouls are continuing their dastardly crimes. 2nd, the German-fascist blackguards assembled all the local inhabitants between the ages of fifteen and sixteen, 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 eight days without food or drink. 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 torturous ordeal. practice targets by the Hitlerites. drunken German soldiers put up on the porch of one of the houses as a target twelve-year-old Volodia Tkachev and opened fire on the boy with an automatic rifle. His whole body was riddled with bullets. After that the gangsters began to fire random shots at the windows of houses. They stopped a collective farm woman, I. Mossolova, who was passing by in the street with her three children, and shot her and her children dead right then and there. Hitlerties used a three-year-old boy as their target, firing at him with their machine-guns.
Germans stayed for a space of four hours, a German officer killed the two-year-old son of a woman named Boikova by hitting the child's head against a wall because it was crying. killed the two-year-old child of a collective farmer, Kratovs', because his crying disturbed their sleep. the arms of Olga Tikhonova, twenty-five 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 this outrage the Germans cut her throat, stabbed her in both breasts and sadistically bored them out. In the same village the Germans shot a boy of thirteen and cut out a five-pointed star on his forehead. to visit relatives in the Village of Burashevo, near Kalinin, together with her thirteen-year-old son Leonid. When they left the town they were noticed by some Hitlerites, who began shooting at them from a distance of sixty metres, killing the boy. 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 eight 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.
The next victim of the Fascist will be shown in our film. I continue. I pray the Tribunal to pay attention to this picture. In Rostov-on-Don, fifteen year old Vita Cherevichny, a trade school pupil, was playing in the courtyard with his pigeons, Some German soldiers who were passing wanted to take away the birds. The boy protested. The Germans led him away and at the corner of 27th Line and 2nd Maisky-Street shot him for refusing to give up his pigeons. With the heels of their boots the Hitlerites mutilated his face past recognition. by our troops early in September, presented a picture of utter ruin, and devastation after the German occupation.
On the very first day they arrived, the Fascist butchers drove into the fields over 200 schoolboys and girls who had come to the village to help in the harvesting. They surrounded them and fiendishly shot then all. They abducted to the rear a large group of schoolgirls "for their officers." gallows on which the German executioners hang the first civilians they 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 street of the towns and villages, leaving the bodies to lie about for days on end. people from the windows of a large house in the center of the city. Furthermore offering more, on November 16th, nineteen persons, one of whom was a woman, were hanged there from the balconies of a number of houses. Onemoment, Judge. The fiendish acts of violence committed upon women -Document file. I quote:
"Women and young girls are vilely outraged in all the occupied areas. In the Ukrainian village of Borodayevka, Dniepropetrovsk Region, the Fascists violated every one of the women and girls. In the village of Berezovka, Smolensk Region, drunken German soldiers assaulted and carried off with them all women and girls between the ages of sixteen and thirty. officers in one of the hotels, driving hundreds of women and girls into it, dragging them over the pavement mercilessly by their arms and by their hair. women and girls before the very eyes of their kinfolk and children, jeering at the women they have assaulted, and brutally murdering their victims. In the city of Lvow, 32 women working; in a garment factory were attacked, and then murdered by German Storm Troopers. Drunken German soldiers dragged the girls and young women of Lvow into Kosciuszko Park, where they brutally 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 stabbed him to death with their bayonets.
"Near the town of Borissov, in Byelorussia, 75 women and girls who tried to flee at the approach of the German troops fell into their hands. The Germans first raped and then fiendishly 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. Sometime later some other women who had also been dragged into the forest saw the dying Melchukova pinned to the boards by bayonets near some trees. The Germans cut off her breasts in the presence of these women, among whom were V.I. Alperako, and V.H. Bereznikova. On retreating from the Village of Borovki, Zvenigored District, Moscow Region, the Fascists forcibly abducted several women, tearing, them away from their little children in spite of their prayers and entreaties.
"In the town of Tikhvin, Leningrad Region, a fifteen year old girl named H. Kolodetskaya, who had been wounded by shell splinters, was taken to a hospital, a former monastery, where there were wounded German soldiers. Despite her injuries, a group of German soldiers raped the girl, who died as a result of the assault. continue.
"However, 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 massacres of Soviet citizens which usually accompany the temporary seizure of Soviet towns, villages and other inhabited centers by the Germans. entire villages by the Germans. In Yaskino, a village of the Smolensk Region, the Hitlerites shot all the old men and adolescent boys, and burnt the houses to the ground. In the Village of Pochinok of the sane 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, Zhitomir Region, the Germans locked 68 people into a small hut, and sealed the doors and windows, causing everybody inside to die of asphyxiation.
In the village of Yershovo, Zvenigored District, Moscow Region, now liberated by our troops, the Germans before withdrawing drove about 100 civilians and wounded Red Army men into the church, locked them in and blew up the building. In the village of Agrajenovka, Rostov Region, on November 16, the Fascists arrested the whole male population between the ages of 16 and 70 and shot one out of every three. In the following part of the note we find the pogroms were carried, on in Kiev. I will draw attention of the Tribunal that the data and numbers mentioned here aren't here as to actual facts. According to the information supplied to the Extraordinary State Commission, the number of people actually shot was far greater than, those mentioned in the report of the State Commission.
I continue on page 4 of the document book, third paragraph:
"Horrible massacres and pogroms were carried out by the German invaders in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine. 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 anyway displayed their loyalty to the Soviet power. Soviet citizens who succeeded in escaping from Kiev give a blood-curdling 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 boat then. The first group they marked for execution they made lie down at the bottom of a ditch, face downward, after which they shot them with automatic rifles; then the Germans sprinkled some earth over the dead bodies, made the next batch lie down in a row over the first and shot then in the same way."
I skip a paragraph and continue the quotation. This side of the Nazi crimes will be cited in detail in another part of this statement.
"The bloodthirsty deeds of the Nazis in the town of Rostov have become widely known. During their ten days' stay in Rostov the Germans not only wreaked vengeance on separate individuals and families, but in their blood lust annihilated tens and hundreds of inhabitants, especially in the workingclass districts of the city.
Near the premises of the Railway Board, German machine-gunners shot 48 people in broad daylight. Sixty people were shot by the Hitlerite assassins on the sidewalks of the main street of Rostov. In the Armenian cemetery 200 people were murdered. Sven after being expelled from Rostov by our troops, the German generals and officers publicly boasted that they would return to Rostov expressly to settle accounts with the inhabitants, who had actively helped to drive the accursed enemy from their native city." and formations of the German-Fascist armies, the advancing and retreating movements of their troops were often covered by peaceful citizens and preferably by women, old men and children. only people who had blasphemed and profaned all the laws and usages of war, and were fully accepted in place of the celebrated directive of Keitel to the effect that "Human life in the cast is worth exactly nothing."
I quote further extracts from the following Commissars memorandum; page 7 of the document:
"In addition to all that has been stated here, the Soviet Government has in its possession documentary material bearing on the systematically repeated atrocities of the German fascist Command such as the use of Soviet civilians to cover German troops during battle with the Red Army.
"On August 28, 1941, German-fascist troops attempted to force the river Ipput. Powerless to overcome the stubborn resistance put up by the Red Army units, they called together the population of the Byelo-Russian town of Dobrush, Gomel Region, and threatening; to shoot those who refused drove women, children and old people before then, using them as a shield as they went into theattack 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 and also in the district of Yelna, Smolensk Region. The Fascist blackguards continue to resort to this brutal and cowardly artifice right up to the present day.