responsible for it recognised their guilt, guilt which was perhaps best summarised by the entry in the War Diary of the Naval War Staff with regard to the shooting of the Commandos taken in uniform at Bordeaux; "Something new in International Law". Yet Raeder and his Chief of Staff were prepared to initial that entry. Kaltenbrunner's knowledge is clearly shown by his letter to the Armed Forces Planning Staff of the 23rd January 1945 referring to it in detail and disputing its application to particular categories. men whose only defence was that they obeyed an order from their superiors. I refer to the members of the SD who were executed for the murder of the crew of Motor Torpedo Boat 345 in Norway and General Dostler in Italy. Innumerable instances from their own records have been proved against these defendants. Shall they escape ? You will remember the attitude of the Nazi People's Court, in 1944 to the pea of superior orders. the Nacht and Nebel (Order (Night and Fog Order) of the 7th December 1941. The Hitler directive signed by Keitel, after prescribing the death penalty for offences endangering the security or state of readiness of the occupying powers, orders the removal to Germany of offenders, other than those whose execution could be completed in a very short time, under circumstances which would deny any information with regard to their fate. And Keitel's coverin letter of the 12th December gives the reason :
"Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminals and the population do not know the fate of the criminal. This aim is achieved when the criminal is transferred to Germany." that Germany was winning the war with his evidence before the Tribunal. He said, you will remember :
"Penal servitude would be considered dishonourable by these patriots By going to Germany they would suffer no dishonour."
Commanders of some 18 concentration camps were being reminded of its purpose and how to dispose of the bodies of the "Night and Fog" prisoners without revealing the place of death. The treatment of these prisoners was described by the Norwegian witness, Cappelen, and members of the Tribunal will not have forgotten his account of the transport of between 2500 and 2800 Nacht und Nebel prisoners from one concentration camp to another in 1945 when 1,347 died on the way. We who talk about the dignity of man let us remember this and I quote again (Cappelen speaking):
"Feeble as we were, we could not walk fast enough and when they took their guns, the line of five, the line just before us -they took their runs and smashed in the heads of all five of them and they said :
"If you don't walk in an intelligent way see what will happen to you". But at last after six to eight hours we came to a railway station. It was very cold and we had only such striped prison clothes on and bad boots, naturally but we said, 'Oh, we are glad that we have come to a railway station It is better to stand in a cow truck than to walk in the middle of winter.
It was very cold, ten to twelve degrees I suppose, very cold.
There was a long train with open trucks.
In Norway we call then sand trucks and we were kicked on to those trucks about 80 on each truck.
.In this When it was snowing we made like this (indicating) just to get some water the neighbourhood of Buchenwald.
we came there. They kicked us down from thetrucks, but many were dead.
The man who sat by me, he was dead, but I had no right to get away.
I had to sit with a dead man for the last day, and I didn't see the cyphers myself, naturally, but about half Well, from Dora I don't remember so much, because I was more or less dead.
I have always been a man of good humour and high spirited, to help myself first and my friends, but I had nearly given up.
And then conditions.
Many of my friends are still in hospital inNorway, soon died after coming home."
In July 1944 a yet more drastic order followed the Night and Fog. On the 30th of that month Hitler issued the Terror and Sabotage decree providing that all acts of violence by non-German civilians in occupied territories should be combatted as acts of terrorism and sabotage. Those not overcome on the spot were to be handed over to the SD, women put to work, only children spared. Within a month Keitel extended the order to cover persons endangering security or war preparedness by any means other than acts of terrorism or sabotage, the usual secrecy requirements were laid down, restricting distribution: in writing to a minimum. He then ordered that the Terror and Sabotage decree was to form the subject of regular emphatic instruction to all personnel of the armed forces, SS and Police:
it was to be extended to crimes 27 July M LJG 2-1a affecting Go men interests, but not imperilling the security or war preparedness of the occupying power.
Now regulations could be made by the agreement of particular commanders and higher SS Chiefs. In other words and offense by any person in the occupied territories could be dealt with under this decree. between representatives of the high Command and SS to discuss the relationship of the Night and Fog Order to the Terror and Sabotage decree. It was considered that the Night and Fog order had become superfluous and the meeting wont on to consider the transfer of the 24,000 non-German civilians held under it by the SS to the SD. The meeting discussed the problem of certain neutrals who had been "turned into fog" by mistake. The German word "Vernebelt" justifies the statement of the witness Blaha that the special and technical expressions used in concentration camps can only be said in German and cannot really be translated into any other language. It is perhaps superfluous to remind the Tribunal that when the Luftwaffe General in Holland asked for authority to shoot striking railwaymen, since the procedure of handing over to the SD under the decree was too roundabout, Keitel, in a reply, copies of which were sent both to the Admiralty and to the Air Ministry as well as to the principal commanders in occupied territories, agreed at once that if there was any difficulty in handing over to the SD:
"Other effective measures are to be taken ruthlessly and independently."
waymen if he thought fit. in these days, that it is not easy for anyone who has not had to live in territory occupied by the Germans to realize the suffering and the state of terror and constant apprehension in which the peoples of Europe lived through the long years of subjection. It was Frank, who, writing on the 16th December 1941, said:
"As a matter of principle we shall have pity only for 27 July M LJG 2-2a.the German people - and for no one else in the world."
faithfully these non carried out that principle.
I turn now to the attack on the Partisans. If any doubt remained that the German armed forces were directed not by honourable soldiers but by callous murderers, it must be dissolved by the evidence as to the appalling ruthlessness with which it was sought to put down the Partisans. The witness Ohlenderf said that the direction of anti-Partisan warfare was the subject of a written agreement between the German War Office, the High Command, and the Ss. As a result of that agreement an Einsatz Group was attached to each Army Group H.Q. and directed the work of the Einsatz Commandos, allotted to the group in co-ordination and agreement with the Military authorities. If confirmation of the Army's support, knowledge and approval were needed, one has only got to look at the report of the Einsatz Group A on its activities during the first three months of the campaign.
against the Soviet Union "Our task was to establish hurriedly personal contact with the Commander of the Armies and with the Commander of the Army of the rear area.
It must be stressed from the beginning that cooperation with the armed forces was general good, in some cases.....it was very close, almost cordial." a particular area, "After the failure of purely military activities such as the placing of sentries and combing through the newly occupied territories with whole divisions, even the armed forces had to look out for new methods.
The Action group under took to search for new methods. Soon therefore the armed forces adopted the experiences of the security police and their methods of combating the partisans."
One of these methods is described in the same report in those words:"After a village had been surrounded, all the inhabitants were forcibly shepherded into the main square. The persons suspected on account of confidential information and the other villagers were interrogated and thus it was possible in most cases to find the people who helped the partisans. Those were either shot offhand, or, if further interrogations promised useful information, taken to Headquarters. After the interrogation they were shot. In order to get a deterring effect the houses of those who had helped the partisans were burnt down on several occasions." burning of the whole village, the report adds:
"The tactics to put terror against terror succeeded marvellously."
The Einsatz Commandos were, as Ohlendorf stated, under Kaltanbrunner's command, but the orders under which they were acting cannot have exceeded in severity those which were issued by Keitel. The Fuehrer order issued by him on 16th December 1942 on the combating of partisans states:
"If the fight against the partisans in the east as well as in the Balkans is not waged with the most brutal means, we will shortly reach the point wen the available forces are insufficient to control this area. It is therefore not only justifiable but it is the duty of the troops to use all means without restriction -- even against women and children so long as it ensures success."
site numbers at breakfast that :
"The fuehrer had declared that the Serbian conspirators were to be turned out and that no gentle methods might be used in doing this."
Keitel interjected :
"every village in which partisans were found had to be burnt down." to greater brutality in dealing with the partisans in Croatia:
"The gangs had to be exterminated and that included men women and chil dren as their continued existence imperilled the lives of German and Italian men, women and children." personnel for anti-partisan Work and he is recorded by a Cabinet Councillor on the 24th of September 1942 as stating that he was looking for daring fellows for employment in the East as Special Purpose Units and that he was considering convicts and poachers for the purpose. His idea was :
"in the regions assigned for their operations these bands, whose first task should be to destroy the communications of the partisan groups, could murder burn and ravish. In Germany they would once again come under strict supervision."
A month later he gave the Duce a description of Germany's method in combatting the partisans in the following terms:
"To begin with the entire livestock and all foodstuff is taken away from, the areas concerned so as to deny the partisans all sources of food. Men and women are taken away to Labor camps, children to children's comps and the villages burnt down.. Should attacks occur, then the entire male population of villages would be lined up one side and the women on the other side. The women would be told that all men would be shot unless they (the women) indicated which of the men did not belong to the village. In order to save their men the women always pointed out the stranger."
Those methods were not confined to the East. They were going on throughout the length and breadth of every occupied territory. Wherever the slightest resistance was offered the German answer was to attempt to stamp it out with the utmost brutality. It would not be difficult to rival the events of Lidice and Oradour sur Glane by a hundred other instances. ject of an order by the German High Command on 16th Spetember 1941. Keitel todered:
"It should be inferred in every case of resistance to the German occupying forces no matter what the individual circumstances that it is of Communist origin."
"In order to nip these machinations in the bud the most drastic measures should be taken immediately on the first indication so that the authority of the occupying forces may be maintained and further spreading prevented. In this connection it should be remembered that a human life in unsettled countries frequently counts for nothing and a deterrent effect can be attained only by unusual severity. The death penalty for 50 to 100 Communists should generally be regarded in these cases as suitable atonement for one German soldier's life. The way in which sentence is carried out should still further increase the deterrent effect."
We may compare the wording of the Einsatz Commando Report:
"In the knowledge that the Russian has been accustomed from old to ruthless measures on the part of the authorities, the most severe measures were applied."
There is no difference in outlook between Keitel and Kaltenbrunner: the German soldier was being ordered to emulate the SS.
A. fortnight after issuing that order, Keitel, whose only defence was that he had pressed for 5 to 10 hostages for one German in place of 50 to 100, had had a further idea, and on the 1st October 1941 he suggested that it is advisable that military commanders should always have at their disposal a number of hostages of different political tendencies, Nationalist, democraticbourgeois, or Communist, adding:
"It is important that among them shall be well known leading personalities of members of their families whose names are to be made public, Depending on the membership of the culprit, hostages of the corresponding group are to be shot in case of attacks."
The original document bears the ominous note: "Complied with in France and Belgium." from three instances of the action taken by a local commander.
In Yugoslavia, a month after Keitel's original order a station commander reported that in revenge for the killing of ten German soldiers and the wounding of another twenty six, a total of 2,300 people had been shot, 100 for each killed and 50 for each wounded German soldier. was, in a public poster, threatening to kill 50 men for every member of the German Armed Forces whether military of civilian, who was wounded, and a hundred if a German was killed. In the event of more than one soldier or civilian being killed or wounded, all the men of the district would be shot, the houses set on fire, the women interned, and the cattle confiscated immediate ly. In June of the same year 560 persons, including 250 men, were reported by Kesselring as having been taken into custody under threat of shooting within 48 hours, some German colonel having been captured by bandits. trop, Keitel, Jodl, and Kaltenbrunner, but who can doubt that every man in that dock knew of the orders and of the way in which the German Armed Forces wore being taught to murder men, women and children, and were doing so throughout the length and breadth of Europe?
Raeder, who says he disapproved of this sort of policy in Norway, states that he tried to dissuade Hitler, yet he continued to hold his post and to lend his name to the regime under which these theings were being done. responsible. The conduct of the war at sea reveals exactly the same pattern of utter disregard for law and for decency. There can seldom have been an occasion when the minds of two naval commanders have been so clearly read from their documents as those of the defendants Raeder and Doenitz that can be read in the present case. the Foreign Office, were seeking agreement to a policy of sinking without warning both enemy and neutral merchant ships in disregard of the London Submarine Rules, their own Price Ordinance and of international Law. A series of documents during the following six weeks reveals constant pressure on the Foreign Office by Raeder to consent to this policy. fication of naval war against England. In this document, having proclaimed the "utmost ruthlessness" as necessary and the intention to destroy Britain's fighting spirit within the shortest possible time, Raeder went on to say:
"The principal target is the merchant ship, not only the enemy's but in general every merchant ship which sails the seas in order to supply the enemy's war industry both for imports and exports."
It is that document which contains the infamous passage:
"It is desirable to base all military measures taken on existing intercational law; however measures which are considered necessary from a military point of view, provided a decisive success can be expected from them, will have to be carried out even if they are not covered by existing international law. In principle, therefore, any means of war which is effective in breaking enemy resistance should be used on some legal conception, even if this entails the creation of a new code of naval warfare."
intensification, particularly with regard to neutrals:
"without binding ourselves to any conceptions of warning," and he suggested that as they were going to invade neutral States it really did not matter if they went a little far at sea.
"The intensified measures of the War at sea will in their political effect only play a small part in the general intensification of the war." sea echo the High Command's view on the future war which had been written eiighteen months earlier:
"The normal rules of war towards neutral nations may be considered to apply only on the basis of whether the operation of these rules will create greater advantages or disadvantages for the warring nations."
Was that a mere coincidence: at all events, such was the pattern laid down by Raeder and followed by Doenitz. From the very first the Naval War Staff never had any intention of observing the laws of war at sea. was justified by Allied, measures is as untenable as the suggestion that the sinking at sight of neutral merchant ships was preceded by warning which complied with the requirements of International Law. You have seen the very vague and general warnings given to the neutrals and the memorandum of the Naval War Staff revealing that these were deliberately given in the most general terms because Raeder know that the action he intended against neutrals was utterly illegal. I need not remind you of the document which suggests that orders should be given by word of month and a false entry made in the log book, the very practice followed in the case of the "Athenia," or of the entrie in Raeder's own war diary revealing that carefully selected neutrals should be sunk wherever the use of electric torpedoes might enable the Germans to maintain that the ship had really struck a mine. You have confirmation in the bland denials prepared, by Raeder to answer the protests of the Norwegian and Greek Governments on the sinking of the "Thomas Walton" and "Garufalia" and the reluctant admission in the case of too "Deptford," all throe ships sunk in December 1939 by the same U-boat.
Nothing reveals more of the cynicism on opportunism with which Raeder and Doenitz treated International Law than the contrast between their attitude towards the sinking of a Spanish ship in 1940 and that in September 1942. In 1940 Spain did not matter to Germany; in 1942 she did. course of putting into effect the policy of sink at sight do not require recapitulation but there are two features of the conduct of naval warfare by these two defendants which I emphasize. First, they continued to put out to the world that they were obeying the London Rules and their own Prize Ordinance. The reason for that appears in Raeder's memorandum of the 30th December 1939 where he says:
"A public announcement of intensified measures for the 27 July M LJG 4-1 odium of unrestricted U-beat warfare."
And that, you see, is the cannon plan - the common plan- the very argument put forward by Jodl and Doenitz in February 1945, in favour of simply breaking the regulations of the Geneva Convention rather than announcing Germany's renunciation of it to the world. And here, once again, is the doctrine of military expediency: if it will pay Germany to break a particular law she is entirely justified in breaking it, provided always it can be done in such a way as to avoid detection and the condemnation of world opinion. sink at sight and in disregarding the fules of the war at sea Raeder was any more drastic than Doenitz. In his defense Deonitz made a great effort to explain away his order of 17th September, 1942. I ask the Tribunal to remember its terms:
"No attempt of any kind must be made at rescuing members of ships sunk.
... Rescue runs counter to the rudimentary crows."
His diary entry of the same date, which confirms that order, starts:
"The attention of all C.C's is again drawn to the fact that all efforts to rescue.
.... run counter to the rudimen tary demands of warfare.
...." Well, the defendant denied that this means that crews were to be destroyed or annihilated. But the previous history makes it abundantly clear that this was an invitation to U-boat commanders to destroy the crews of ship-wrecked merchantmen, while preserving an argument for Deonitz to make, should - as has indeed happened - occasion arise. That, after all, was the pattern laid down by Hitler when on the 3rd January 1942, he bold Oshima that "he must give the order that in case foreign seamen could not be taken prisoner.
... U-boats were to surface after torpedoing and shoot up the lifeboats."
for the issue of this order. It is admitted that he demanded it at a meeting with both Doenitz and Raeder on the 14th May and 27 July M LJG 4-2 that he raised the question again on the 5th September.
Doenitz himself referred to pressure by Hitler during the "Laconia" incident. You have confirmation that the order issued on the 17th September was intended to bear the construction put upon it by the Prosecution in the evidence of the witness Heisig and that of Moehle. Is it conceivable that a senior officer would have been allowed to go on from the 17th September 1942 until the end of the war briefing the hundreds of U-boats which set out from Kiel that this was an order to annihilate unless that was what the Naval War Staff intended? You have the evidence that Doenitz himself saw every U-boat commander before and after his cruise, his own admissions with regard to the comments made by his staff officers at the time he drafted the order and his general attitude revealed by the order of October 1939, which he admits was a non-rescue order - an utterly indefensible order in itself in the submission of the prosecution. There is further the coincidence that the very argument which Hitler advanced to Oshima, namely, the importance of preventing the Allies finding the crews for the immense American construction programme, was the argument Doenitz himself admits putting forward on the 14th May, was the argument which Heisig reports hearing, and is the reason given for the subsequent order to give priority in attacking conveys to sinking rescue ships. You have the instances of the "Antonico", the "Noreen Mary", and the "Peleus" whilst the man who expressed horror at the idea that he should issue such an order admittedly saw the log Of the U-boat which sank the "Sheaf Mead" with its brutal entry describing the sufferings of those left in the water. Doenitz' own statement was that "to issue such a directive could only be justified if a decisive military success could be achieved by it." Was it not because, as his own document shows, the percentage of ships being sunk outside conveys in September 1942, was so high that a decisive military success might have been gained that this order was issued, whereas in April 1943, when almost all sink-27 July M LJG 4-3 ings were in convey, it was not necessary to issue a further order yet more explicit in its terms?
defendant Doenitz intended by that order to encourage and procure as many submarine commanders as possible to destroy the crews of torpedoed merchant ships but deliverately couched the order in its present language so thathe could argue the contrary if circumstances required it.
On the evidence of Admiral Wagner that the Naval War Staff approved the order of 17th September 1942 with respect to survivors, Raeder cannot escape responsibility and, indeed, since he was present at the meeting with Hitler in May of thatyear and received the Fuehrer order of the 5th September 1942 to issue instructions to kill survivors, therecan be little doubt that he was fully involved in his subordinate's policy.
U-boats in most areas to risk surfacing at all after they had discharged their torpedo, and the question became one of less importance, it is interesting to notethat when the order against rescue ships was issued on the 7th of October the following year the same phrase "destruction of ship's crews" recurred. real doubt that, briefed by Hoehle, he did what his superior officers intended him to do. Why should it be supposed that a man, who a month later received Hitler's Commando Order without protest, should shrink from ordering the destruction of seamen on rafts or clinging to wreckage, when Hitler had explained its military necessity.
Eck, who obeyed the orders of Raeder and Doenitz, has paid the supreme penalty. Are they to escape with less?
I turn new to yet another war crime - the use of slave labour. Its importance for theGerman war machine had been appreciated by these Defend ants long before the outbreak of war. Hitler hadmentioned it in "Mein Kampf" and emphasized it at the meeting in May 1939. A few weeks later in June the Reich Defense Council, Goering, Frick, Funk and Raeder and representatives of every otherMinistry of State were planning to employ 20,000 concentration camp inmates and hundreds of thousands of workers from the Protectorate in the coming war.
Hitler's plan for Poland, revealed to Schirach and Frank, was as follows:
"The ideal picture is this - a Pole may possess only food.
The money required by him for clothes, etc., he must earn in Germany by work.
The Government General particularly agricultural labour.
The subsistence of the elimination of the Eastern peoples. Sauckel was appointed Plenipotentiary with the task of replacing two million German workers who had been called to service with the Wehrmacht, and he, himself says that after Hitler hademphasized that it was a war necessity he had no scruples and within a month of his appointment he had sent his first labour mobilization programme to Rosenberg.
"Should we not succeed in obtaining the necessary institute conscription of forced labour ....a men and women.
.. an indisputable necessity.
"with every possible pressure and a ruthless of this policy for the recruitment of workers. It issufficientto quote Sauckel again addressing the Central Planning Board in March of 1944:
"Trained male and female agents who shanghaied men for labour in Germany ... Out of five million foreign voluntarily."
brutality and must have been known to every one of these defendants. In April of 1941 Himmler was addressing the officers of the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler:
"Very frequently a member of the Waffen SS thinks about the deportation of this people, here.
These thoughts who help them a great deal.
Exactly the same thing hundreds of thousands."
And again:
"Whether 10,000 Russian females fall down from exhaustion far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished.
...When somebody comes to me and says, 'I can't dig the anti-tank your own blood because if the anti-tank ditch is not of German mothers.
.. We must realize that we have 6-7 million foreigners in Germany .... Perhaps it is even eight million now we have prisoners in Germany.
They measures at the merest trifle."
By August 1943 the need for workers was even greater. Himmler ordered "That all young female persons capable of work are to be Commissioner Sauckel.
Children, old women and men are to be collected and employed in women's and children's camps."
showed the same urgency.
"The activity of the labour Office .... is to be sup ported to the greatest extent possible.
It will not As a rule, no more children will be shot.
...If we limit being, it is only done for the following reason.
The most important thing is the recruitment of workers."
of the way the workers were enrolled and brought to Germany against their will; therewas Kaltenbrunner's letter to his friend Blaschke:
"For special reasons I have in the meantime given orders are pending.
They should reach Vienna within the next few days .... Women unable to work and children of those stay in the guarded camp also during the day."
well - "special treatment", "special action". Murder remains murder by whatever euphemism murderers may seek to describe it. spared the gas chambers so long as they were fit for employment but children were seized and put to work.
So much for their deportation to Germany. What was to be their lot on their arrival? As early as March 1941 instructions had been issued to the Kreis Farmers Association on the treatment Polish farm workers were to receive. They were to have no rights to complain. They were forbidden this religious people, to visit churches: all forms of entertainment, public transport were barred. Their employers were given the right to inflict corporal punishment and were "not to be held accountable in any case by any official agency."
And lastly, it was ordered:
"Farm workers of Polish nationality should if possible be quartered in stables, etc.
No remorse whatever should restrict such action."
The treatment of those employed in industry was even worse. You will rememberthe affidavit of the Polish doctor in Essen who did his best to attend to the Russian prisoners of war:
"The men were thrown together in such a catastrophic manner that no medical treatment was possible.
...It seemed to me in such a position.
... Every day at least ten men were brought for me to give them even a little medical aid.
...It was diffi directed to do heavy work.
.. Dead people often lay for two somewhere.
.... I was a witness during a conversation with in a most bestial manner.
... Beating was the order of the day." were working in the Reich and if we include prisoners of war the total of those working in Germany was at this datejust under 7,000,000. To these must be added the hundreds of thousands brought in during 1944. Millions of men and women taken from their homes by the most brutal methods, transported in all weathers in cattle-trucks from every quarter of Europe, employed on farms and in factories throughtout the Reich, frequently under abominable conditions. Children taken from their parents, many to remain for their lives, orphans, not knowing their identity or true names; taken away before they were old enough to remember the place from which they came. What is themeasure of this crime? No man in that dock can dispute his knowledge or his complicity. The minutesof the Central Planning Board must have been read in every department of the State. You have seen the mass of evidence connecting the military leaders and every otherbranch of the Government with this colossal programme of slavery. None of these men can be acquitted of this crime. None of them can have been ignorant of the scale and brutality with which it was perpetrated.
I pass now to a connected matter, but one even more terrible. The general manner in which the Defendants conducted the belligerent occupation of the territories which they had overrun.
terrorism and spoliation on a scale without precedent in history, in breach of the elementary rules as to belligerent occupation has not really been seriously challenged. These crimes were in no sense sporadic or isolated depending on the sadism of a Koch here or cruelty by a Frank there. They were part and parcel of a deliberate and systematic plan of which their action in regard to slave labour was a lust symptom. In order to establish the "1,000-year Reich", they set out to accomplish the extermination or permanent weakening of the racial and national groups of Europe or of those sections, such as the intelligentsia, on which the survival of those groups must largely depend. ancient nations goes back to the whole Nazi doctrine of total war which rejected war as being merely against States and their armies, as international law provides. Nazi total war was also a war against civilian populations, against whole peoples.
Hitler told Keitel at the end of the Polish campaign: