relationship you had to the German political prisoners. Belgians, Luxembourgers formed within the camp shock battalions that were secret, which took the weapons at the last minute and collaborated in the liberation of the camp. These weapons were concealed. These weapons came from the gun manufacturers which were close to the camp. These weapons were stolen by the workers who worked in this factory, and each day they would bring either a butt hidden intheir clothes or a barrel or a trigger secretly. With immense difficulties these guns were put together with the different pieces, and then we hid these guns. These guns are the ones that we used in the last days.
DR. BABEL: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any other German counsel wish to ask questions? Have you any questions, M. Dubost?
M. DUBOST: I have no further questions. length the reading of documents, since it seems in the eyes of the Tribunal that it seems to be accepted that in all the camps the crimes which have been described to you by witnesses were repeated identically, and they have this way proved a superior determination within the government itself, a systematic will to exterminate and to create terror throughout Europe, which the whole of Europe, suffered from. We shall now submit briefly the documents that we have gathered together without reading them to you, further limiting ourselves to a very brief analysis when they may bring you -
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, you understand, of course, that the Tribunal is satisfied with the evidence which it has heard to date, but, of course, it is expecting to hear evidence or possibly may hear evidence from the defendants, and it naturally will suspend its judgment until it has heard that evidence and, as I pointed out to you yesterday, I think under Article 24-E of the Charter you will have the opportunity of applying to the Tribunal if you think it right to call rebuttal evidence in answer to any evidence which the defendants may call. All I mean to indicate to you now is, the Tribunal is not making up its mind at the present moment. It will wait until it has heard the evidence for the defense.
M. DUBOST: I understand you, Mr. President, but I think that the testimony that we have given you during these two days constitutes one of the essential elements of our accusation, and this will allow us to abbreviate the presentation of our documents. We shall simply present them to you by analysis or very brief extracts.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
M. DUBOST: We had described the transportation of prisoners, the conditions under which these were made at the time when we were beginning the hearing of witnesses. In order to establish which among these defendants are the ones especially responsible for these transportations, I present Document UK-56, signed "Yodl", and organizing the deportation of Jews from Denmark. This appears among our documents under No. 335.
M. DUBOST: They were handed to you on Saturday. They were supplied on Saturday. when the sessions were suspended at noon. "Secret Document." It is the 8th in your first book. Paragraph 2. Second page. There is the number, 1969, at the bottom of the page -- second page that is. Perhaps our secretary-interpreter can help the Tribunal to find the document.
"(Reading) The deportation of Jews must be undertaken by the Reichsfuehrer SS who to this effect will send two battalions to Denmark. Authorization signed: Jodl." or at least by a chief belonging to a military organization of the German General Staff. This charge therefore affects Jodl and the General Staff.
We have submitted under No.324 in the Saturday afternoon session an extract from the document of the Dutch Government. The Tribunal will find in this report a passage which relates to the transport of Dutch Jews transported from a Dutch town to Auschwitz. On the first page, second paragraph -
THE PRESIDENT: Is that the same book? And what number?
M. DUBOST:F-224, which has become 224. 3 -- paragraphs 2 and 3:
"All Dutch Jews seized by the Germans were assembled at the camp of Westerburg" -- this is paragraph 3 -- "and little by little all prisoners of Westerburg were deported to Poland." witnesses. Do they need to be recalled, when three witnesses have come to tell you that each time the cars were opened numerous corpses were first taken out and a few survivors were found behind them? also will be found in your first document book. It is No. 115 in your first book. Page 6. Professor Richet repeats what our witnesses have said, that there were 75 to 100 deportees per car, that in each transport men died, 25 per cent of the men at least had succumbed in coming from Compiegne in the course of a 70- hour trip.
This testimony agrees with that of Blaha, with that of Madame Vaillant Coutourier, with that of Professor Dupont.
Blaha's testimony appears in your document book under No. D6-3249 It is the second declaration -- statement -- of Blaha. It is the second document in your book. We have heard Blaha. I don't think that it is necessary to re-read what he has already stated to us in your presence. August and September, 1944, when numerous convoys which had left France generally from the camps in Brittany arrived in this camp with four to five hundred dead out of about two thousand men per train. This information has . been given us in Document S-40, which is in your first document book. the first page of this document indicates -- and I quote so. that I will not have to return to it again -- in the fourth paragraph which has to do with Auschwitz, that "About seven million persons died in this camp." Document 406. It is not necessary to submit this, after the testimony that was given today which simply repeats the conditions under which the transports were made.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that 716 -
M. DUBOST: That is this book of documents. This document indicates -page 16 -- that in the convoy of the 2nd of July, 1944, which left from Compiegne, terrific scenes occurred -- scenes of violence; that more than 600 of these people died between Compiegne and Dachau, in this convoy. This is discussed in the following document: F-83, which we submit under 337, and which indicates in the minutes of Dr. Bouvier, 10 February 1943, page 3 of Document F-83, in the first document book, which indicates that these prisoners - it is T-24 in your first document book -- by the time they reached Rheims -- 4th paragraph of the 5th page -- were already half dead of thirst by the time they reached Reims -- second page of this document. 2nd paragraph -- eight dying, one of whom was a priest. He had already been taken out of the train by the time they reached Rheims.
This convoy was going as far as Dachau. A few kilometers from Compiegne there were already numerous deaths.
Document RF-321, page 21: In this book, submitted Saturday and placed before you as official document, under No.321, pages 21 to 24, you will find numerous examples of the atrocious conditions under which our compatriots were transported to the concentration camps in Germany. Page 21, at the top of the page: "At the station of Rheims water was refused us by the German Red Cross." In the second paragraph: "We were dead of hunger in Breslau. The prisoners again begged the nurses of the German Red Cross to give us a little water. They remained adamant to our pleas."
natural dealings of modesty, the deportees were obliged to strip themselves of all their clothes, and thus they travelled for many hours entirely naked from France to Germany. A testimony to this effect is given by our official document already submitted under No. 214, page 17 of the French text, second paragraph to -
THE PRESENT: What paragraph, 174?
M. DUBOST: I beg your pardon, 274, page 17, second paragraph, one: The means they used to prevent escape, or reprisals for them, was to unclothe the prisoners completely, and they offered this arrangement also which was meant to bring about a moral degradation of the individuals. The most authoritative testimony reports are these piles of naked men barely having room to breathe, which was a condition of horror. When escapes occurred in spite of the precaution, hostages were taken in the camps, and they were shot. Testimony to this effect is provided by the same document, page 18. At the top of page 6 deportees were executed. Thus, near Omerancy five deportees from a train were executed, were shot by officers of the Wehrmacht, shot with pistols. It is necessary to add to this quotation that all other official documents, including 320, which we have already submitted, page 20, which was already read, and page 11 of the German Text.
THE PRESIDENT: What document?
M. DUBOST: Page 20 of document 321, page 11, of the German Text. Those people were rapidly chosen the moment they reached the trench. These policemen would seize one of the prisoners, push him against the wall of the trench, and fire a pistol shot into the hack of his neck. It was the same rule that prevailed in the deportation of prisoners from Denmark. The Danish Jews were particularly badly treated, for a certain number of them had been able to escape and to help the Danish compatriots, and unfortunately eight to nine persons were apprehended by Germans and deported. It is estimated that 415 of them were transported by boat and truck under inhuman conditions, and arrived more dead than alive at the original stop. This is from Danish document submitted under No. 666, The Tribunal will find it in the first volume of this document book, and the quotation which I have just made is on page two of this document.
That is the sixteenth document in the first document book. It is the one before the last. For this country it is necessary to make known to the Tribunal of the deportation of the frontier guards, page 3, the third paragraph, and of the police, of the last paragraph. In most places the police men were sent back immediately after havint been unarmed; only in Copenhagen and at provincial towns they were held and sent by truck to the south of Germany, and for the frontier guards the following paragraph:
THE PRESIDENT: Pare five is that?
M. DUBOST: Page 3, document 666.
THE PRESIDENT: Which paragraph?
M. DUBOST: The third paragraph now. Second for the police, and third for the frontier guards. The fourth line, or the end of the line, the police led the guards to Buchenwald concentration camp, and they were right there in an indescribable sanitary condition, and a very large portion of them fell ill and about one hundred police members and frontier guards died, and several still bear traces of their death. At the end of this deportation all the citizens of the subjected countries of the West of Europe find themselves in the company of their comrades of unfortunates in the concentration camps of Germany. These camps are means of realization of the policy of extermination which Germany pursued from the time it seized power -- from the time the National Socialists seized power. This policy of extermination lent itself and seemed to be the only policy that Hitlers 225,000,000 Germans, and over the territories adjoining Germany, seemed to constitute in the vital spaces of Germany. The police of the Germany Army no longer dare to shoot their hostage They were transported at a faster and faster pace from 1943 to German concentration camps. Everything is done to make them disappear from the extenuating labor to the death chambers. The figures which we have gathered in France do not enable us to estimate, but they were more than 250,000 deportees among the French and only 5,000 returned. Document 417 under No 339, which is the third in the first document book, indicates that.
We had 600,000 arrests with which the Germans proceeded in France. Out of these arrests 350,000 were carried out with a view of internment in France or in Germany. This document is, as the Tribunal, -
THE PRESIDENT: Where is this document 417.
M. DUBOST: In the first document book, the third, it is No. 497.
THE PRESIDENT: It is 417.
M. DUBOST: It was the fifth document, fourth paragraph. The total number deported 250,000, and the deportee number returned 35,000, Following are a few persons deported of prominence: M. Bussieres, and M. Bonnefoy, who disappeared, de Lestraing, who was executed at Dachau. M. Job executed at Auschwitz. M. Frere died at Strutthof. M. Bardi de Fourtou, died at Neuengamme. Colonel Roger Masse, died at Auschwitz. The high officials: Marquis de Moustier, died at Neuengamme. Inspector General Boulloche, inspector of bridges and roads, died at Buchenwald. His wife died at Ravensburck. His son died as a deportee, and his other son returned from Flossenburg. Jean Deveze engineer of bridges and roads, died at Aushchwitz. Mmme Getting, founder of the social service in France, disappeared at Auschwitz. One of the University professors of the College of France died at Buchenwald. Georges Bruhat, director of the l'Ecole Normale Superierue, died at Oranienburg. Professor Vielle died at Buckenwald. I can not quote every one, I can not read the names of all the intellectuals who died in concentration camps. Among the doctors, we should point out the director of the Hospital Rothschild, Dr. Zadoc-Kahn, director, murdered at Auschwitz.
As concerns Holland, one hundred ten Dutch citizens were arrested. Of the Jewish religion, only five thousand returned; sixteen thousand compatriots were arrested, only six thousand returned. Total out of 126,000 deported, 11,000 returned to their native land after liberation. ing the war prisoners. In Luxembourg, 7,000 deportees plus seven hundred Jews, Four thousand Luxembourgers of this number approximately died. These are from documents S-681, S-231, S-659, which we submit under Nos. 340, 341 and 342. were interned and more than five hundred died. Germany, most of the camps, served simply for the selecting of prisoners, and I have already spoken to you of this. Certain functions like those in Germany Vesterborg and Holland have been pointed out.
This is dealt with in S-222, now submitted under No. 324, which is the report of the Netherland Government, of Camp No. 4, in Document No. 6670.
No. 344; this is the eleventh document in your first document book, There is also the camps still in Holland and in Norway.
There is the camp of Falstad, the one of Ulven and of Espekand.
These were Government, document No. 240, which is the second in your document book No. 1, on which we have already submitted facts.
The Tribunal 11, which has continuous pages in this document No. 1063-PS, which we submit under RS-346, page 11 of your second document book.
We concentration camps according to the personality of the prisoners' degree of danger which they represent to Germany.
Secondly, the Category 1: for the prisoners guilty of minor crimes.
Category 1-A: for old prisoners according to their Category 2: (page 12, second document book) Category 3: for all prisoners whose charges are particularly this question with geographical maps.
The organization and the
THE PRESIDENT: Will your address take much longer, because we are going to adjourn unless you are going to close in a few moments?
M. DUBOST: It will be five minutes and I can finish the First, according to document No. 285, which is on page 14 of cost.
We shall not read this. On page 14 in your second document importance.
This is under date 17 December 1942 and coincides with concentration camps.
Paragraph 2, the following measures, which read thus.
"The number from then on until 11 May 1943--all the as possible; arbitrary internment with a view to getting at the least and which in general could limit or hinder the Nazi expansion.
The submitted under No. RS-347, which is a telegram from the Chief of Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS and received at 2.10, 16 December 1942 from Berlin.
The paragraph from the last is given. "In regard to the way as concerns the deportees.
First, total number 45, second, transport, 31 January 1943, composition third.
The most important of age.
In order to take advantage of, or reduce the number of internees, which have reached the.
number of 48,000, which is excessive for the Ghetto, I ask for special power to attend to this."
apprehended 10,000 to 15,000 prisoners capable of work. (This is underlined in the text.)
of Mme. Vaillant Coutourier, and the various other testimony on the (Whereupon at 17.
20 hours the hearing of the Tribunal adjourned, to reconvene at 10.
00 hours, 30 January 1946.)
Military Tribunal, in the matter of: The
MARSHAL OF THE COURT: May it please the Court, I desire to announce that defendants Kaltenbrunner and Seyss-Inquart will be absent from this morning's session on account of illness.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Babel, I understand that you do not wish to cross examine that French witness.
DR. BABEL: That is correct.
THE PRESIDENT: Then the French witness can go home.
M. DUBOST: Thank you, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, there is one reason that possibly that French witness ought not to go. I think I saw she was moving out of Court. Could you stop her, please? I am afraid she must stay for today.
M. Dubost, are you going to deal with documents this morning?
M. DUBOST: Yes, Mr. President; there will be no witnesses this morning.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you be so good as to give us carefully and slowly the number of the document first, because we have a good deal of difficulty in finding them.
M. DUBOST: Yes, quite, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: And specify, also, so far as you can the book in which they are to be found.
M. DUBOST: With the permission of the Tribunal, we shall continue the exposition of the organization and the way in which the camp functioned. to make up for lack of labor and to exterminate. R-91, which I submitted yesterday, page 14, of the second document book. Pardon me, 20 and 21 of the second document book. Document RF-285, pages 14, 17, 18 and 19 of the second document book. This document is submitted under number RF-348.
THE PRESIDENT: I am afraid you are going too fast. I had just got as far as R-91 in Document Book 2, pages 20 and 21.
which is on Pages 14, 17, 18 and 19 in your document book.
M. DUBOST: We sto pped at that document, after which we read RF-285,
THE PRESIDENT: RF-285.
M. DUBOST: This document is dated the 17th of December 1942. The result of the document which we read to you yesterday--first paragraph: "For important military reasons, which must not be specified, the Reichsfuehrer SS, the Chief of the German Police -
THE PRESIDENT: (Interposing) You read that yesterday.
M. DUBOST: That is correct, Mr. President.
Page 18, sixth paragraph, on the top of the page:
"Poles who are susceptible of becoming Germans, and prisoners for whom special provisions are made will not be handed over."
Last paragraph, Page 18: "Other explanations will not be required." and they considered this labor to be so important that they didn't even bother to register it.
Now, we will show how this labor was utilized. Men were placed, as Balachowsky said yesterday in factories in Dora, in subterranean caves, and they were there under very unhygienic conditions. The prisoners constructed camps, munitions camps, to supply provisions for Ellrich, Dora and the salt mines of Falstad. page: "Ravensbruck supplied the Siemens Factories, those of Czechoslovakia, and the work shops in Hanover." secret the manufacture of certain war weapons, such as the V-1 and V-2. Mr. Balachowsky talked to us of the deportees having no contact with the outside world. The labor of deportees permitted them to obtain an output which they could not have obtained from foreign workmen. 348, which the Tribunal will find at Page 22 of the second document book. The second paragraph of this document deals with the management of concentration camps: "All economic exploitation which comes within the province of this organization depends on the commander of the camp."
Fifth paragraph: "The commander of the camp is the only one responsible for the work carried out by the workmen. This work "--We underline these words--"this work must, in the true sense of the word, be exhausting so that we can attain the maximum of labor output."
Two paragraphs lower on the page, Number 51 "The duration of the work is not limited. The duration depends on the activity of the camp and the work to be done, and is determined by the camp commander alone."
Last paragraph, page 23 of this book, the four last lines: "The commander must have a technical knowledge in the economic and military domain for a wise and well-advised management over groups of men whom he must obtain to get a maximum potential of labor output."
This document is signed by Pohl, P-o-h-l. It is dated Berlin, 30th of April 1942. already quoted in relation to the camp of Dora, and which was submitted under the Number RF-140. document book. It is the sixth document in your appended document book, the book appended to Book 2. The document will become Document 349 in the French documentation.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, wait a minute. You say the sixth document, but it is very difficult to find.
Which is the sixth document? 1584, is it?
M. DUBOST: Yes, 1584-PS. This document -
THE PRESIDENT: (Interposing) Wait, M. Dubost, wait.
M. DUBOST: The document is signed by Goering and is addressed to Himmler. The second paragraph establishes in a definite way the responsibility of Goering in the criminal utilization of this deportee labor. We read the second paragraph of the second page:
"Dear Himmler:
"I ask you to keep at my disposal for the aviation armament the greatest number of prisoners possible, K.Z." This is the intials of the concentration camp prisoners, K.Z. "The experiments made up to the present show that this labor can be used. The situation of the air war makes necessary the transferral of this air industry to a subterranean work shop. On this point the question of work and billeting is particularly devised for prisoners K.Z." the deportees of Dora had. This responsible person is on the defendant's bench.
THE PRESIDENT: You didn't give us the date of that, did you?
M. DUBOST: I didn't see on this document the date.
THE PRESIDENT: Is that the 19th of February, 1944?
M. DUBOST: On the first page you see the date, the 19th of February, 1944. A letter was addressed to Dr. Braut, referring to a teletype which is annexed or appended and which comes from the Fieldmarshall.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it the second letter, the letter that you read? Is the date of that 19-2-44?
M. DUBOST: It is the 15th of April, 1944.
THE PRESIDENT: And could you tell us what K.Z. means, the two letters, K.Z.?
M. DUBOST: 1584 on the original.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am not talking about that now.
M. DUBOST: K. Z. refers to concentration camps, camps of concentra-
tion.
THE PRESIDENT: For the accuracy of the record, it appears that the letter on the second page is not the 15th of April 1944, but the 14th of February. Is that not so?
M. DUBOST: Yes. It is the 14th of February, 2030 hours. It is a teletype, which was registered the 15th of April, 1944. That was the cause of my error.
THE PRESIDENT: But, M. Dubost, were you submitting or suggesting that this letter showed that the defendant Goering was a party to the experiments which took place, or only to the fact that these prisoners were used for work?
M. DUBOST: We didn't speak of experiments. We spoke of the internment in subterranean camps, as in the camp of Dora, of which Balachowsky spoke yesterday in the first part of his deposition.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
M. DUBOST: As far as this will to exterminate of which we have been speaking from early this morning, we would like to establish first by the text of the Document R-91, which we read from yesterday evening at the end of the session. Also, we should like to establish it through statements made by the witnesses who brought you the proof that in all camps the same methods of extermination through work were carried out. the registers and the figures of gases, the quantity of gas to be sent to Auschwitz, which we submit to the Tribunal under the Number RF-350. The Tribunal will find translations at Page 27 of the second document book, document 1553-PS. accounts -- and this must be done to be accurate, if not absolutely faithful to the German text. We shall not read in the fifth line the word "extermination" but the words "to make more healthy". gases were used for the destruction of lice and other parasites and were also used to annihilate human beings.
And the quantity of gas which was sent and the frequency with which it was sent, as you can see from the great number of bills of lading, proved that the gas was used for a double purpose.
of the 8th of March, of the 13th of March, the 20th of March, the 11th of April, the 27th of April, the 12th of May, the 26th of May, and the 31st of May, which are all submitted as Document Number 350.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you putting in evidence the originals of these other bills to which you refer on this document?
M. DUBOST: I request the court clerk to hand them over to your Honor, and I take advantage of the circumstance to request the Tribunal to examine tentatively this bill. They will observe the quantities of toxic crystals which were sent to Oranienburg and Auschwitz. The quantities of these crystals were considerable.
The bill of 1844, 832 kilograms; also 276, 25 kilos. These toxic crystals were sent, giving a net weight of 555 Kilos or kilograms.
THE PRESIDENT: What is this document that you have just put in?
M. DUBOST: The 30th of April, 1944.
THE PRESIDENT: I am not asking the date. What I want to know is what is the authority for this document. It comes, does it not, from one of the committees set up by the French Republic?
M. DUBOST: No, Mr. President. The document is the American document which wasin the American Archives, under the number 1564-PS.
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, this note at the bottom of Document 1553-PS was not on the original put-in by the United States, was it?
M. DUBOST: No, Mr. President, but you have under your eyes all the originals which the clerk of the court has just handed you.
THE PRESIDENT: Unless you have an affidavit identifying these originals the originals don't prove themselves. You have got to prove these documents which you have just handed up to us either by a witness or by an affidavit. The documents are documents, but they don't prove themselves.
M. DUBOST: These documents were gathered by the American Army and filed in the Archives for the Nurnberg trial. I got them in the archives or records of the American delegation, and I consider them to be as authentic as all the other documents which were filed by my American colleagues in their records and archives. It was captured unquestionably by the American Army.
THE PRESIDENT: There are two points, M. Dubost. The first is that in the case of the original exhibit, 1553-PS, it was certified, we imagine, by an officer of the United States. These documents which you have now drawn our attention to are not so certified by anyone as far as we have been able to see. Certainly we can't take judicial notice of these documents, which are private documents, and therefore, unless they are read in court they cannot be put in evidence. That can all be rectified very simply by such a certificate or by an affidavit annexing these documents and showing that they are analogous to the document which is the United States exhibit.
M. DUBOST: They are all documents of the United States, and they are all filed in the Archives of the United States in the American delegation under the number 1553.
THE PRESIDENT: The American exhibit 1553-PS has not yet been submitted to the Tribunal and the Tribunal is of the opinion that they cannot take judicial notice of this exhibit without any further certification, and they think that some short affidavit identifying the document must be made.
M. DUBOST: We will request our American colleagues, the American prosecution, to furnish this affidavit. We believed, of course, that this document, which was classified in the archives, would naturally be established.