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.
On December 8 the Hitlerites made use of the local civil population to cover their retreat from the village of Yamnoye, Tula Region. On December 12, in that same district, they assembled 120 persons -- old people and children -- and made them go in front of their troops during engagements with the advancing units of the Red Army. In the fighting for the liberation of the city of Kalinin units of the German 303rd Regiment, 162nd Division, attempting to launch a counter-attack, assembled the women of one of the suburban villages, placed them in front of the troops and thus went into action. Fortunately the Soviet troops succeeded in driving a wedge between the Hitlerites and their victims in boating off the attack, thus saving the lives of the women." violation of all international conventions, the criminals clothed in the uniform of Hitlerites field officers utilized the civil population for especially dangerous work, such as clearing the mine fields. the Tribunal will find on page 2 of the document book, 4th paragraph. I quote:
"Wherever German troops and German authorities have made their appearance on Soviet territory, a regime of brutal exploitation, tyranny and arbitrary rule has immediately been established over the defenceless civil population."
I skip a sentence and continue:
"Disregarding age or state of health, and compel then, under threat of torture shooting or death by starvation, to perform gratuitously various kinds of arduous labour, including work of a military nature, In a number of cases, civilians employed on one or another job of a military nature have been summarily shot to ensure secrecy.
"Thus, for instance, in the village of Kolpino, Smolensk Region, the invaders drove all the farmers to work on building bridges and dugouts for German units. Upon the completion of the fortifications, all these farmers were shot.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps that would be a good time to break off:
(The Tribunal adjourned until 15 February, 1946, at 1000 hours.)
THE PRESIDENT: There are certain matters of a procedural nature which the Tribunal desire to consider before they consider the question of an adjournment. According, they will not sit tomorrow in open session for consideration of the question of an adjournment, but they will sit tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock in closed session for the consideration of these matters of a procedural character, and they will sit on Monday morning at 10 o'clock for half an hour to hear argument in open session on the question of an adjournment, one counsel being heard on each side and only for 15 minutes.
COLONEL SMINOV (Counsel for the USSR): I interrupted the quotation of a document on page 3 of the document file, second paragraph, first column of the text. I consider it possible to skip many items of this document, as these facts simply confirm further the general conclusions which were expressed in the beginning of the document, and which were already confirmed by many facts read into the record by me yesterday. I only beg the Tribunal to allow me to draw its attention to the conclusion of the note, which the Tribunal will find on page 3 of the document, second paragraph, first column of the text. It states that the civilian inhabitants were sent forcefully to concentration camps, artificially and illegally increasing the number of prisoners of war, and supporting the inhuman regime which was established by the German fascist authorities as regards prisoners of war. court-martial of a military tribunal of the 374th Liroban Infantry Division, held on 29 October 1944. This document is submitted as USSR Exhibit 162. The Tribunal will find this document on page 67 of the document file.
DR. KAUFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): I would like to make two motions with regard to the present question: The first motion is that I would like to ask, with reference to Article 21, to prohibit the reading of documents, inasmuch as these documents do not contain definite information about the source for the information therein contained.
Second: The reading of statements, written statements, which are only summary information, without own experience, and to permit the rending of such statements only if the cross examination of the author as a witness is possible.
May I say the following: Article 19 of the Charter permits every proof which has probative value. Article 21 leaves the Court the responsibility to ask for proof and for documents of so-called "investigation committees." Since the purpose of both articles, however, is to facilitate the submission of proof, the admission of written statements of various kinds leads to the danger that such statements would discriminate against an entire people and entire nation. Then the demand of the Defense seems to be justified to admit only such proof, such documents, where this danger has been eliminated as far as possible. excerpts from committee reports, have had no probative value; but, furthermore, since they cannot be checked--their contents cannot be checked--they design to give a wrong impression about historical events.
THE PRESIDENT: Why doesn't it come within the last two lines of Article 21: "The records and findings of military or other tribunals of any of the United Nations"?
DR. KAUFMANN: The Defense is of the opinion that Article 21 permits an interpretation. Article 21 permits the reading of such documents and such reports, but doesn't say anything about the fact to what extent it has to be possible for the Defendants' Counsel to check the sources upon which these reports are based. We are of the opinion that the witnesses who have been questioned, for reasons of compassion, have not been in a position to describe the events objectively. As jurists we know that it is exceedingly difficult to describe even simple events truthfully. Therefore, we have the duty and the responsibility for the German people to try to check these sources and to help thereby to explain and clarify the course of events, which we see somewhat differently.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendants' Counsel will have the opportunity at the proper time of criticizing any evidence which is offered by the Prosecution They will be able to point out whether it is probable that certain evidence was given out of sympathy; they will be able to criticize the evidence which is given in any way they choose at the proper time.
But this is not the proper time. judicial notice of the various documents which are there set out, and expressly refers to the records and findings of military or other tribunals of any of the United Nations. This is a record and finding of a military tribunal of a Soviet court. Therefore, the Tribunal is directed in express terms by Article 21 to take judicial notice of it. That doesn't prevent Defendants' Counsel, when they make their speeches in defense, from criticizing the evidence upon which that record and findings proceed, but to say it ought not to be admitted appears to me, at any rate, and I think to the other members of the Tribunal, to be really entirely unfounded as an objection.
COLONEL SMINOV: May I continue? Thus, the document which has been submitted to the Tribunal will be found on page 67 of the document file. I will allow myself to repeat in my own words the biographical data concerning the defendant LeCourt, who was brought to trial. He was born and lived before the war in the town of Strafgardt; was owner of a movie theater, and was later mobilized in the army, where he served in the 1st Company of the 4th Airborne Division. I begin to quote the statements in evidence given by LeCourt, beginning with paragraph 2. The Tribunal will find this placein the document book on page 68, fifth paragraph. LeCourt stated:
"Prior to my capture by Red Army soldiers, that is, before the 4th of February, 1944 I served as laboratory assistant in the Bicycle Company of the 2nd Regiment of the 4th Air Force Infantry Division in the Headquarters of Air Field Service E 33/XI.
"In addition to the photographs, I handled other work when not on duty, that is to say, I spent my free time to satisfy my own interest by shooting Red Army prisoners of war and peaceful citizens and soldiers. I used to jot down in a special book the number of prisoners of war I had shot and peaceful citizens I had shot." LeCourt, and continue the quotation.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Sminov, the passage that you read a moment ago about jotting down the numbers in his book doesn't occur in the translation which is before me.
I don't know whether it is in your original. I suppose it is. Are you sure it is in the original?
COLONEL SMINOV: I will again verify in the book of documents this extract which I am quoting. It is exactly corresponding to the text.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. I only wanted to be certain that it was in the original, as it does not occur in the translation before me. You can continue.
COLONEL SMINOV: I interpreted the quotation on page 58, and skip three paragraphs. Thus, I have reached page 69. That is why the President of the Tribunal did not perhaps find the sentence I mentioned. I continue the quotation:
"Besides the shooting of prisoners of war, I also shot partisans, peaceful citizens, and burned houses, together with their inhabitants.
"In November 1942 I participated in the shooting of 92 Soviet citizens.
"From April to December 1942, while a member of the Air Force Infantry Regiment, I participated in the shooting of 55 Soviet citizens. I took care of the actual shooting."
I skip a paragraph and continue:
"In addition I participated in punitive expeditions and put the torch to houses.
"Altogether more than 30 houses in various villages were burned down by me, I arrived in the village with the punitive expedition, entered the houses and warned the population that no one was to leave the houses, as we would burn the houses. I set fire to one house, and if anybody tried to save himself--nobody was allowed to leave--I drove him back to the houses or shot him. In that way I burned more than 30 houses and 70 peaceful citizens, mainly aged men, women, and children.
"Altogether I have personally shot 1,200 persons."
I skip six paragraphs and quote further. You will find this on page 70 of the document book:
"The German High Command promoted in every way the shooting and killing of Soviet citizens. In recognition of good work and service in the German Army, which found expression in the shooting by me of prisoners of war and Soviet citizens, I was promoted, before my promotion was due, on 1 November to the rank of senior corporal.
This promotion should have come about the 1st of November 1942, and I was awarded the East Medal." now refer briefly to the verdict of the trial held in the town of Smolensk by the district military tribunal against a group of former members of the German Army who werebrought to justice for committing atrocities against peaceful citizens and prisoners of war in the town of Smolensk. This document was submitted to the Tribunal by my colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, as USSR Exhibit 87, and joined to the record of the present trial. The Tribunal will find tins document on page 71 of the document book. draw the attention of the Tribunal to that part of the verdict which is in the ninth paragraph on page 71 of the document book, which says that in only 80 graves which were disinterred and examined by legal-medical experts in the town of Smolensk and in the district of Smolensk, over 135,000 corpses of Soviet citizens, women, children, and men of various ages, were discovered. which gives a characterization of the criminal deeds of individual defendants brought to trial under these charges. I will not quote all ten defendants, but only tyro or three of then. I begin with Hirschfeld. This is the sixth paragraph of the text. I quote:
"Hirschfeld was interpreter for the Germany Military Command in the District Kommandatur. He personally flogged and seized for treason quite innocent Soviet citizens, without consideration for sex and age and forced them to false statements. On receiving these false statements, the arrested persons were shot by the Kommandatur troops. Hirschfeld participated personally in the annihilation of Soviet citizens in Smolensk in May 1943 by means of asphyxiation through carbon monoxide in gas vents. partisans and against peaceful Soviet citizens in the district of NewelUswjati. While he was commanding the German punitive unit, he committed, together with his soldiers, acts of violence against the peaceful populations."
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Sminov, in the Tribunal's translation in English, we have missing pages from 34 to 45. Do you think that those pages could be found? On our pages--I think your pagination is different-but the document that you are now referring to, USSR 87, begins on page 34 of our translation, and the translation then skips to page 45.
COLONEL SMINOV: Mr. President, I am not quoting the numbers of pages of the translation, but the pages of the document book.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I follow that, but I was only wondering whether, by a slip possibly, that these pages had been translated and perhaps hadn't got into our copy of the documents, and Whether they could be found.
We have 11 pages missing. I am told that -
COLONEL SMINOV: Mr. President, I have not yet seen the translation. If the President will allow me, I will verify the translation, and will bring the translation file to order.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on in the meantime.
COLONEL SMINOV: Allow me to continue.
"While commanding a German punitive unit, together with his soldiers, he committed acts of violence against the peaceful population, and together with his subordinates, burned nine Soviet villages and hamlets. They completely robbed peaceful Soviet citizens, who had come out of the woods to the places of their burned-down homes in order to search for food products. He participated in the deportation of Soviet citizens into German slavery." defendant named Modisch who was an assistant in the German MilitaryHospital Number 551. The Tribunal will find this part on page 73 of the document book, the last paragraph:
"Modisch was a sanitary assistant in the 551 German Military Hospital in the city of Smolensk from September 1941 until April 1943. He was an eye witness and immediate participant in the killing of prisoners of war, wounded soldiers and officers of the Red Army, upon whom the German professors and doctors, Schema, Getto, Meuller, Ott, Stefan. Wagner and others carried out, under the pretext of a cure, various experiments with previously unknown biological and chemical medicines. After that, the wounded prisoners of war were infected with blood poisoning and killed."
I quote further:
"Modisch himself killed by means of injections of great quantities of Strophantin and arsenic no less than twenty-four prisoners of -war, both Red Army men and officers of the Red Army. In addition, he used, in order to cure German military personnel, the blood of Soviet children, ranging in age from six to eight years, by taking great quantities of blood from them, after which the children died. He extracted from Russian prisoners of war the spinal fluid, whereupon they suffered paralysis of the arms and legs. He participated also in the plundering of Soviet medical institutions in the city of Smolensk".I skip another page in the document.
The Tribunal can convince itself that every one of these ten defendants brought to trial committed such a long series of crimes that, according to the laws of any civilized country, they would be condmened to death. I quote as an example one of the charges proved during this trial regarding the defendant Gaudian. This is the last paragraph of page 74 and then on page 75 of the document bock. I draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that Gaudian raped seven young girls and then killed them.
I conclude this part by quoting only three lines. We read at the part of the verdict which concerns Gaudian:
"In the month of July 1943 with his participation, sixty inhabitants of the district of Osipowitschi were burned in a stable." on page 75 of the document file from that part of the verdict which concerns Mueller, a lance corporal in the 335th Guard Battalions:
"On various occasions, the defendant Mueller killed 96 Soviet citizens, among them old men, women andbabies. Mueller raped 32 Soviet women, of whom six were killed after having been raped. Among the women raped, some where fourteen or fifteen year old girls.
I will not continue this quotation. I believe that the nature of these criminals, seven cut of ten of whom ended their lives on the gallows, has been made clear to the Tribunal, but in order to characterize, not those who committed the crimes, but those who were actually responsible for the lives of the population of the occupied territory in the East. I beg the Tribunal to allow me to turn to the diary of the defendant. Hans Frank, which has already been submitted to theTribunal by our American colleagues as US Exhibit 2233-PS. We quote certain extracts from this diary as USSR Exhibit 223. The Tribunal will find these excerpts on page 78 of the document bock. I quote that part of the excerpt which the Tribunal will find on page 86 of the document book, third paragraph, the first column of the text. Beobachter correspondent, Kleiss. I quote this interviews:
"Interview given by the Governor General to the Voelkischer Beobachter correspondent, Kleiss, on 6 February 1940, page 3:
"Kleiss: It might be interesting to develop the thesis which distinguishes a protectorate from a government general.
"The Governor General: I might, for example, state the following: In Prague, for instance, there were hung up red posters announcing that seven Czechs had been shot that day. I then said to myself; If I wished to order that one should hang up posters about every seven Poles shot, there would not be enough forests in Poland with which to make the paper for these posters. Indeed, we must act cruelly'." diverted the attention of world public opinion from the crimes committed under the personal direction of Frank, and permitted Frank to have several thousand representatives of the Polish intelligenzia condemned to death by courtmartial and physically exterminated.
I quote Frank's statement at the police conference held on 30 May 1940, where this crime was finally decided upon. I begin this quotation on Page 86 of the document book, sixth paragraph, first column of the text:
"On the 10th of May began the offensive in the West, and on that day, the whole world last interest in the events which are taking place here. It would be quite indifferent to me whether all that which the awful propaganda and slander throughout the world alleges the National Socialist authorities to be doing in these districts was worrying the Americans, the French, the Jews, or the Pope in Rome. However, it is awful for me and for every one of you to hear unceasingly in the course of all these months from the Ministry of Propaganda, from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from the Ministry of the Interior, and even from the Army, that we are establishing; a regime of murder, that we are to cease these crimes, and so forth.
"It is evident, of course, that we had to proclaim that we would no longer to this. It was also evident that as long as these districts were under the cross fire of the whole world, we were deprived of the possibility of undertaking something similar on a vast scale.