THE PRESIDENT: (Interposing): You are going too fast. You must try and go a little bit slower.
DR. KEMPNER: I offer into evidence a very short excerpt of an interrogation of Defendant Goering, dated October 13, 1945, our Document 3593-PS, USA Exhibit 712, and I should like to read the following brief portion, beginning on page 4:
My question to Goering: "How could you tell your press agent, one hour after the Reichstag caught fire, that the Communists did it, without investigation?"
Goering's answer: "Did the public relations officer say that I said that?"
My answer: "Yes. He said you said it."
Goering: "It is possible when I came to the Reichstag, the Fuehrer and his gentlemen were there. I was doubtful at the time but it was their opinion that the Communists had started the fire."
My question: "But you were the highest law enforcement official in a certain sense. Daluege was your subordinate. Looking back at it now, and not in the excitement that was there once, wasn't it too early to say without any investigation that the Communists had started the fire?"
Goering: "Yes , that is possible, but the Fuehrer wanted it this way," Question:
"Why did the Fuehrer want to issue at once a statement that the Communists had started the fire?"
Answer: "He was convinced of it."
Question: "It is right when I say he was convinced without having any evidence or any proof of that at this moment?"
Goering: "That is right, but you must take into account that at that time the Communist activity was extremely strong, that our new government as such was not very secure."
THE PRESIDENT : Dr. Kempner, what has that got to do with Frick?
DR. KEMPNER: He signed the decree, as I said before, abolishing civil liberties, on the morning after, pointing out that there was a Communist danger.
On the other side, this Communist danger was a mere subterfuge and was one of the things which finally led to the second World War. but he also became the organizer of the huge police network of the Nazi Reich. Reich Police system; the individual German states had police forces of their own. 1936, signed by Frick and published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1936, page 487. An English translation of this decree is in the document book under the number 2073-PS.
Section 1 of this Frick decree reads as follows:
"For the unification of police duties in the Reich, a Chief of German Police is instituted in the German Ministry of the Interior, to whom is assigned the direction and conduct of all police affairs." Hitler, the signers of the decree, who appointed Himmler as Chief of the German Police. quote, "subordinated individually and directly to the Reich and Prussian Minister of the Interior." And, of course, that is Frick. which has already been introduced into evidence as USA Exhibit 449, clearly shows the position of the Reich Minister of the Interior Frick as the supreme commander of the entire German police system, including the notorious RSHA, of which the Defendant Kaltenbrunner became chief, under Frick, in January 1943. police system for the promotion of the Nazi conspiracy. The Tribunal may take judicial notice of Frick's decree of September 20, 1936, published in the Minsterial Gazette of the Reich-Ministerialblatt des Reichs, und Preussischen Ministerium des Innern, 1936, page 1343, Document 2245-PS.
inspectors of the security police, subordinated them to his district governors, the Oberpraesidenten, and ordered them to have a close cooperation with the Party and the armed forces. in his ordinance of March 18, 1938, concerning the Austrian Anschluss, in which Frick authorized the Reichsfuehrer of the SS and Police, Himmler, to take security measures in Austria without regard to previous legal limitations. This decree is published in the Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938, page 262, and appears in the document book as 1437-PS. activities of the German police, over which the Defendant Frick had supreme authority. I should simply like to refer the Tribunal to the presentations already made on the subject of concentration camps and the Gestapo, two of the police institutions under Frick's jurisdiction. But I should like to show that not only Himmler's subordinate machine but also Frick's ministry itself was familiar with these institutions. Therefore, I now offer into evidence Document 1643-PS, as USA Exhibit 713.
of the Interior and its field offices from November 1942 through August 1943, on the subject of the legal aspects of the confiscation of property by the SS for the enlargement of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. At the bottom of page 1 and top of page 2 of the English translation there appears a synopsis of the minutes of a meeting held on December 17 and 18, 1942, concerning the confiscation of this property. These minutes indicate that a further discussion was to be held on the subject on 21 December, 1942, between the representatives of the Reich Minister of the Interior and the ReichsfuehrerSS. On page 2 there appears also a summary of a teletype letter dated January 22, 1943, from Dr. Hoffman, representing the Reich Minister of the Interior, to the District Governor in Kattwitz.
The summary begins as follows, and I quote:
"The territory of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp will be changed into an independent state"--which means an administrative territory of itself. a concentration camp became known through the testimony of Dr. Blaha, to which I should like to refer the Tribunal, and in which he testified that Frick visited the Dachau Camp in 1943. conspiracy concerns his promotion of racial persecution and racism, involving the wiping out of the Jews. administrative empire covered the entire area of the enactment and administration of racial legislation.
I refer again to Document 3475-PS, "The Maual for German Administrative Officials", previously introduced, and I refer to pages 2 and 4, showing that Frick was administrative and legislative guardian and protector of the German race. drafted by Frick's ministry against the Jews. The presentation concerning persecution of the Jews made by Major Walsh before the Christmas recess listed a number of decrees signed by Frick, including the infamous Nurnberg Laws, and the laws depriving Jews of their property, their rights of citizenship, and stigmatizing them with the Yellow Star.
But the activities of Frick's ministry were not restricted to the commission of such crimes, camouflaged in the form of legislation. The police field offices, subordinate to Frick, participated in the organization of such terroristic activities as the Progrom of November 9, 1938.
I refer to a series of Heydrich's orders and reports concerning the organization of these progroms - or, as they were termed by Heydrich, "spontaneous riots" - Documents 3051-PS and 3058-PS, which are already in evidence as USA Exhibits 240 and 508. Stuckart and his subordinates Heydrich and Daluege, participated in a conference on the Jewish question under the chairmanship of the defendant Goering. At this meeting the vario us measures were discussed which the individual governmental departments should initiate against the Jews. A stenographic record of this meeting, Document 1816-PS, is already in evidence as USA Exhibit 261, May I briefly refer to the bottom of page 23 of the English translation where we find Goering's concluding remarks:
"Also the Ministry of the Interior and the Police will have to think over what measures will have to be taken."
This remark shows that Goering regarded it as Frick's duty to follow up by administrative devices the progrom, organized by Frick's own subordinates. as a member of the conspiracy devised the machinery of the state for Nazism. In the following presentation, we will show that Frick actively supported the preparation of the Nazi State for war. the flagrent violations by Germany of her treaties of non-aggression. This is clearly shown by the affidavit of Ambassador Messersmith, Document 2385-PS, previously introduced as USA Exhibit 68. I shall quote only one sentence from this affidavit, page 4, line 10. It reads as follows:
"High ranking Nazis with whom I had to maintain official contact, Germany's interests to do so."
administration of the Reich, Frick became one of the big three in charge of preparing Germany for war. The other two members of the triumvirate were the Chief of the OKW and the General Plenipotentiary for Economy, at that time the defendant Schacht. Frick has admitted that he held the position of General Plenipotentiary since 21 May 1935, the date of the original secret Reich Defense Law. I refer to his statement of positions, Document 2978-PS, USA Exhibit No. 8. Defense Law of 4 September 1938, which was classified top military secret and appears in our document book as 2194-PS, USA Exhibit 36. Under this law of 1938, paragraph 3, tremendous power was concentrated in the hands of Frick as General Plenipotentiary for Administration. In addition to the offices under his supervision as Minister of the Interior, the law made the following offices subordinate to Frick for the purpose of carrying out the directives of the law: Reich Minister of Justice, Reich Minister of Education, Reich Minister for Religious Matters and the Reich Office for Planning. war as a member of the triumvirate in a speech made on 7 March 1940 at the University of Freiburg. Excerpts appear in the document book as 2608-PS, which I offer in evidence as USA Exhibit 714. I think it would be helpful if the Tribunal would allow me to read two short paragraphs, beginning at the top of page 1 of the English translation:
"... The organ ization of the non-military national defense fits government and administration.
This state of affairs is not Socialist order.
Thus, the conversion of our administration and changes of the entire structure of the State."
"The planned preparation of the administration for the possibility of a war has already been carried out during the peace. For this purpose, the Fuehrer appointed a Plenipotentiary General for the Reich Administration and a Plenipotentiary General for the Economy."
Many of Frick's contributions to the preparation of the German state for war are outlined in detail in the book "Dr. Wilhelm Frick and His Ministry", which is already in evidence (Document 3119-PS) May I quote two short sentences from the top of page 3 of the English translations:
"Besides, the leading cooperation of the Reich Minister of the emphasized.
After all, the Reich Minister of the Interior is the military supervision."
responsible for the administrative policy in occupied and annexed, territories. It was his ministry which introduced the new German order throughout the vast territory of Europe occupied by the German armed forces, and the defendant Frick exercized these powers. I request that the Tribunal take judicial notice of three decrees signed by Frick, introducing German law into Austria, the Sudetenland and the Government General of Poland respectively: Decree of 13 March 1938, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938, I, page 237, Art. 8. (Document 2307-PS): Decree of 1 October 1938, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938, I, page 1331, paragraph 8 (Document 3073-PS): Decree of 12 October 1939, Reichsgesetzblatt, 1939, I, page 2077, paragraph 8(1) (Document 3079-PS).
Frick's ministry also arranged the selection and assignment of hundreds of occupation officials for the Soviet territory even before the invasion. This fact appears in a report by the defendant Rosenberg of April 1941 on preparations for the administration of occupied territory in the East. May I refer to page 2, paragraph 2, of Document 1039-PS, which has previously been introduced as USA Exhibit 146.
One category of Frick's contribution to the planning of and preparation for aggressive war deserves special notice. This is the systematic killing of persons regarded as useless to the German war machine, such as the insane, crippled and aged, and foreign laborers who were no longer able to work. These killings were carried out in nursing homes, hospitals and asylums. The Tribunal will recall that the defendant Frick, in his capacity as Reich Minister of the Interior, had jurisdiction over public health and institutions. May I refer again briefly to the "Manual for German Administrative Officials", Document 3475-PS, this time to pages 3, 4 and 7 of the English partial translation. There, the following are mentioned as Frick's jurisdictional areas: "Health Administration", "Special Hygiene", "Heredity and Racial Welfare", "Reich Plenipotentiary for Sanataria and Nursing Homes."
As proof that Frick's jurisdiction covered the death cases in these institutions, I now offer in evidence Document 621-PS, USA Exhibit 715, which is a letter of 2 October 1940 from the Chief of the Reich Chancellory, Dr. Lammers, to the Reichsminister of Justice, informing the latter that material concerning the death of inmates of nursing homes had been transmitted to the Reichsminister of the Interior for further action.
In fact, the defendant Frick not only had jurisdiction over these establishments, but he was one of the originators of a secret law organizing the murdering.
I now offer Document 1556-PS, USA Exhibit 716. This is an official report dated December 1941 of the Czechoslovak War Crimes Commission, entitled "Detailed Statement on the Murdering of Ill and Aged People in Germany." I should like to quote very brief excerpts from this report. Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 read as follows:
"1) The murdering can be traced back to a secret law which was released "2) Besides the Chief Physician of the Reich, Dr. L. Conti, the introduction of this secret law:
(other names are listed).
"3) As I have already stated, there were - after careful calculation incurable cases - and at least 75,000 aged people."
which were under Frick's jurisdiction and operated under the order of which Frick was a co-author, is the famous Hadamar case. this presentation, because the Chief Prosecutors agreed, as I understood, to start tomorrow morning the case of the French, and I have just ten more minutes.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very well.
DR. KEMPNER: Thank you, your Lordship.
I refer back to the Hadamar case. I now offer in evidence Document No. 615 PS, U.S.A. Exhibit 717.
THE TRIBUNAL (By Mr. Biddle): What is this last report that you spoke about, 1556? Whose is it?
DR. KEMPNER: The Czechoslovak War Crimes Commission report, and after I have shown the general scheme, of which Frick was a part also, I would like to show that Frick's ministry was acquainted with the things that were going on under his organizational authorship, and therefore I am quoting now a letter to show that he was acquainted with these killings and that these killings had even become public knowledge. For this reason I offer in evidence Document 615 PS, U.S.A. Exhibit No. 717. This document is a letter from the Bishop of Limburg of 13 August 1941 to the Reichsminister of Justice. Copies were sent to the Reichsminister of the Interior - this means Frick -and the Reichsminster for Church Affairs. I now quote from this letter:
"About 8 kilometers from Limburg, in the little town of Hadamar, nursing home; this institution was renovated and furnished as a proximately since February 1941.
The fact has become known be home communities."
........ And I quote further:
"Several times a week buses arrive in Hadamar with a considerable number of such victims.
School children of the vicinity know this vehicle and say:
'There comes the murder-box again.' After the "The effect of the principles at work here are:
Children call each other names and say, 'You re crazy; you'll be sent to the baking oven in Hadamar.
' Those who do not want to marry, or find no opportunity, say, 'Marry, never' Bring children into the world so they can be put into the bottling machine]' You hear old folks say, 'Don't send me to a state hospital.
' After the feeble come are the old people.
' .... "The population cannot grasp that systematic actions are carried out which, in accordance with Par.
211 of the German "Officials of the Secret State Police, it is said, are trying to threats.
In the interest of public peace, this may be well intended. \ lation cannot be changed by it; the conviction will be increased with that the actions themselves are not prosecuted under penal law."
I quote the last paragraph of the letter, the postscript:
"I am submitting copies of this letter to the Reich Minister of the Interior and the Reich Minister for Church Affairs.
(Initialled by above)" secret law created by defendant Frick, Himmler and others, continued year after year.
I offer in evidence Document 3592-PS,
THE PRESIDENT: Was any answer made to that letter?
DR KEMPNER: No answer has been found. I say no answer has been found. I have other letters which I am not able to quote here today which have the remark "Don't answer."
THE PRESIDENT: I didn't follow that.
DR KEMPNER: I have other letters which have the remark "Please don't ans wer."
THE PRESIDENT: "Please don't answer?"
DR KEMPNER: That it should be unanswered. the secret law created by defendant Frick, Himmler and others continued year after year. I offer in evidence Document 3592-PS, U.S.A. Exhibit 718, which is a certified copy of the charge, specifications, findings, and sentence of the U.S Military Commission at Wiesbaden, against theindividuals who operated the Hadamar Sanitarium, where many Russians and Poles were murdered. In this particular proceeding seven defendants were charged with the murder in 1944 and 1945 of 400 persons of Polish and Russian nationality, and three of the defendants were sentenced to be hanged; the other four were sentenced to confinement at hard labor. Frick's responsibility, which arises under his position as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia for the period from August 20, 1943, until the end of the war. I think it is not necessary to say anything about the functions of the protector of Bohemia and Moravia; these broad powers are known to the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Before you pass from 3592-PS, is it clear that that trial relates to the killing of Polish and Russian nationalities in nursing homes or institutions of that sort?
DR KEMPNER: Who did the killing?
THE PRESIDENT: Is it clear that the document you just referred us to, 3592, relates to a trial of German nationals for killing Poles and Russians in nursing homes?
DR KEMPNER: It is absolutely clear in this document, the sentence of the Military Commission of Hadamar for Wiesbaden.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you show me where that is?
DR KEMPNER: Document No. 3592-PS. I quote:
"Specification: Alfonso Klein, Adolf Wahlmann, Heinrich Ruoff, Karl Willig, Adolf Merkle, Irmgard Huber, and Phillip Blum, acting jointly and in pursuance of a common intent, and acting for and on behalf of the then German Reich did from or about July 1, 1944, until about April 1, 1945, at Hadamar, Germany, wilfully, deliberately, and wrongfully, cooperate and participate in the Killing of human beings of Polish and Russian nationality; their exact names and number being unknown, but totalling in the aggregate in excess of 400; and they were then confined by the German Reich as an exercise in belligerent control."
THE PRESIDENT: It doesn't show that it came within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior.
DR KEMPNER: Sometime ago I referred to the Manual of "the German administrative Officials. This manual points out clearly that nursing homes, sanitaria, and similar establishments are under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior.
THE COURT: I follow that, but this document does not refer to nursing homes. That is what I was asking you.
DR KEMPNER: Yes, it says only Hadamar. It is in fact the Hadamar nursing home. This portion wasn't given by the Judge Advocate General, but I am willing to give later a more extended document that Hadamar is a common name for the so-called Hadamar killing mill, which is a nursing home.
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a moment, Dr. Kempner. Counsel for the defense wishes to speak. There is a gentlemen standing by your side.
DR. PANNENBECKER (Counsel for Frick): Dr. Pannenbecker, counsel for Defendant Frick. I cannot find that the defendant Frick is connected with the document in any way.
THE PRESIDENT: Surely it is not necessary for you to get up and repeat what I have just said.
DR. PANNENBECKER: I would like to add something else.
THE PRESIDENT: I beg your pardon.
DR. PANNENBECKER: I would like to add that the defendant Frick since August, 1943, was not Minister of the interior, and for that reason this document shouldn't be used against him.
THE PRESIDENT: And it doesn't give the date of the death of those people. At any rate, until Dr. Kempner produces something to show that this was a nursing home and at a time during which the defendant Frick was Minister of the Interior, the Tribunal will not treat it as being evidence which implicates Frick.
DR. KEMPNER: I quoted this killing in Hadamar for two reasons: First, because the Ministry of the Interior has become acquainted, as I said before, with the letter of the Bishop of Limburg, in 1941, when Frick was Minister of the Interion and knew about this facts; and I quoted the military decision for the reason that those killings were still going on in 1944 and 1945 under a law of which the defendant Frick was the cc-author.
The final phase of Prick's responsibility arises under his position as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia for the period from 20 August 1943 until the end of the war. I shall mention one example. I offer in evidence Document No. 3589-PS, U.S.A. Exhibit 721, which is a supplement to an official Czechoslovak report on German crimes against Czechoslovakia. I would like to que only the following brief passage from this report:
"During the tenure of office of defendant Wilhelm Frick as Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia from August 1943 until the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945, many thousands of Czechoslovak Jews were transported from the Terezin ghetto in Czechoslovakia to the concentration camp at Oswiecziem (Auschwitz) in Poland and were there killed in the gas chambers." From the territory over which Frick was Protector to the gas chamber. 1923 until the Allied armies crushed the resistance of the Nazi armed forces. Frick's guilt rests on his own record and on the record of his co-defendants, for whom he is co-responsible under our Charter. in connection with the preparation of this case by my colleagues Mr. Karl Lachmann, Lt. Frederick Felton, and Captain Seymour Krieger.
(At 1720 hours the Tribunal adjourned.)
Official transcript of the International Military Tribunal, in the matter of:
The
THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Counsel for France.
M. FRANCOIS de METHON: The conscience of the peoples who only yesterday were enslaved and tortured both in soul and body calls upon you to judge and to condemn the most monstrous attempt at domination and barbarism of all time, both in the persons of some of those who bear the chief responsibility and in the groups and associations which were the essential instruments of their crimes. which were launched by German imperialism, bore almost alone, in May and June 1940, the weight of armaments accumulated by Nazi Germany over a period of years in a spirit of aggression. Although temporarily crushed by superiority in numbers, material, and preparation, my country never gave up the battle for freedom and was at no time absent from the field. The engagements undertaken and the will for national independence would have sufficed to assure France's support of General de GAULLE in the camp of the democratic nations; but if our fight for freedom slowly took the shape of a popular uprising, at the call of the men of the Resistance belonging to all social classes, to all creeds and to all political parties, it was because, while our soil and our souls were crushed by the Nazi invader, our people refused not only to submit to wretchedness and slavery, but even more, because they refused to accept the Hitlerian dogmas which are in absolute contradiction to their traditions, their aspirations and their human calling.
France, who was systematically plundered and ruined; France, so many of whose sons were tortured and murdered in the jails of the Gestapo or in their concentration camps; France, who was subjected to the still more horrible grip of demoralization and return to barbarism diabolically imposed by Nazi Germany, asks you, above all in the name of the heroic martyrs of the Resistance, who are among the greatest heroes of our national legend, that justice be done.
France, who so often in history has been the spokesman and the champion of human liberty, of human values, of human progress, through my voice today also becomes the interpreter of the martyred peoples of western Europe, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, peoples more than others devoted to peace, peoples who are among the noblest of humanity by their aspirations and their worship of the values of civilization, peoples who have shared our sufferings and have refused, like us, to give up liberty and to sacrifice their souls before the assault of Nazi barbarism.
France here becomes their interpreter to demand that justice be done.
The tortured peoples' craving for justice is the basic foundation of France's call to your High Tribunal. It is not the only one, nor perhaps the most important one. More than toward the past, our eyes are turned toward the future. for humanity which still today is torn asunder, suffering and anguished, except through the cooperation of all peoples and through the progressive establishment of a real international society. There can be no well balanced and enduring nation without a common consent in the essential rules of social living, without a general standard of behavior before the claims of conscience, without the adherence of all citizens to identical concepts of good and of evil; there is no domestic law which in defining and punishing criminal violations is not founded on criteria of a moral order which are accepted by all--in a word, without a common morality. There can be no society of nations tomorrow without an international morality, without a certain community of spiritual civilization, without an identical hierarchy of values; international law will be called upon to recognize and guarantee the punishment of the gravest violations of the universally accepted moral laws. This morality and this international criminal law, indispensable for the final establishment of peaceful cooperation and of progressof lasting foundations, are inconceivable to us today, offer the experience of past centuries and more especially of these last years, after the incredible and awesome sacrifices and the sufferings of men of all races and of all nationalities except as built on the respect of the human person, of every human person whosoever he may be, as well as on the limitation of the sovereignty of states.
society through the free occupation of all peoples, on this morality and on this international law, it is necessary that after having premeditated, prepared and launched a war of aggression which has caused the death of millions of men and the ruin of a great number of nations, after having thereupon piled up the most odious crimes in the course of the war years, Nazi Germany shall be declared guilty and her rulers and those chiefly responsible punished as such. Without this sentence and without this punishment the nations would have no faith in justice. When you have declared that crime is always a crime, whether committed by a national entity against other nations or by one individual against another, you will thereby have affirmed that there is only one morality, which applies to international relations as well as to individual relationships, and that on this morality are built prescriptions of law recognized by the international community, you will then have truly begun to establish an international justice. German people. These people have been for many years intoxicated by Nazism; certain of their eternal and deep seated aspirations, under this regime, have found a monstrous expression, their entire responsibility is involved, not only by their general acceptance but by the effective participation of a great number of them in the crimes committed. Their re-education is indispensable. This represents a difficult enterprise and one of long duration. The efforts which the free peoples will have to make in order to reintegrate Germany in the international community cannot succeed in the end if this re-education is not carried out effectively. The initial condemnation of Nazi Germany by your High Tribunal will be a first lesson for these peoples and will constitute the best starting point for the work of the revision of values and of re-education which must be its great concern during the coming years. as crimes both the war of aggression itself and those acts in violation of the morality and of the laws of all civilized countries which have been committed by Germany in the conduct of the war, to impose the supreme penalty on those who are chiefly responsible, and to declare criminal the members of the various groups and organizations which were the principal perpetrators of the crimes of Nazi Germany.
agreement of 8 August 1945, acting in the interests of all the United Nations, is qualified to mete out to Nazi Germany the justice of the free peoples, the justice of liberated humanity. to judge the crimes committed by those principally responsible in Nazi Germany, is based solidly on the principles and usage of International law. As an eminent British jurist has recently reminded us; the practice and the doctrine of International law have always given to belligerent states the right to punish enemy war criminals who fall into their power. It is an incontestable rule of international law which no author has ever contested. It is not a new doctrine. It was born with the birth of International Law. Francisco de VITTORIA and GROTIUS laid its foundations. The German authors of the 17th and 18th century developed the doctrine. said: "Enemy soldiers who act in violation of International Law, should they fall into the hands of their adversaries, are not to be treated as prisoners of war. They can suffer the same fate as thieves and murderers." The prosecutions which the United States, Great Britain, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and France are today carrying out against the men and the organizations appearing before your high Tribunal under the indictment drawn up in Berlin on October 18, 1945, therefore have an unimpeachable juridical foundation: The right universally recognized by international doctrine of bringing War Criminals before a repressive jurisdiction. even more irrefutable. every State the right to punish crimes committed on its territory. The application of the territorial principles covers the violations of international law in territory subject to military occupation; these violations are the chief source of war crimes.
But the crimes committed by the defend-
ants were not directed against any given state, in any given occupied territory. The National Socialist conspirators, against whom we ask that justice be done, directed the policy of the Third Reich. armed forces have been equally victims both of the illicit war which they launched and of the methods used by them in the conduct of this war. the privilege of trying these criminals. Only an International Tribunal, emanating from the combined United Nations, which were yesterday at war with Germany, can rightly claim this privilege. This is why the declaration as to enemy atrocities made at the end of the Moscow conference in October 1943 had provided that the leaders of Nazi Germany would, after the joint victory of the Allies, be brought before an international jurisdiction. There is, therefore, nothing new from a juridical point of view in the principle of justice which you are called upon to render. Far from being merely a statement of power from the side of the victors, your competence is founded on the recognition by international law of the territorial jurisdiction of soverign states. court constitutes a notable progress in the setting up of an interstate repressive procedure.