occupied countries may be obliged to assume the burden of theexpenses caused by the maintenance of an army of occupation. But the amounts that were exacted under this by the Germans were far removed from the actual costs of occupation. which operated practically for the exclusive profit of Germany. Imports from Germany were almost non-existent; the goods exported to Germany were subject to no regulation. purchasing power, the Germans endeavoured everywhere to achieve the stabilization of prices and imposed a severe rationing system. This rationing system, which left for the population a quantity of goods which was less than the minimum indispensable for their existence, afforded the additional advantage of preserving for the benefit of the Germans the greatest possible portion of the production. production, as a result of operations which had the appearance of legality (requisitions, purchases made with German priority coupons, individual purchase. These transactions were completed by other operations of a clandestine character, which were carried out in violation of the official, regulations imposed frequently by the Germans themselves. Thus, the Germans had created a whole organization for black market purchases. For example, one may read in a report of the German Foreign Ministry of 4 September 1942 that the Defendant Goering had ordered that purchases on the black Market should thenceforth extend to goods which until then had not been included, such as household goods, and he prescribed further that all goods which could be useful to Germany should be collected, even if as a result certain systems of inflations appeared in the occupied countries. every description, after requisitioning without payment or by paying with bills which they had irregularly obtained by a simple entry in the clearing account, the Nazi leaders were at the same time endeavouring to impose the resumption of activity in industry for the benefit of Germany's war.
amongst themselves the enterprises in the occupied areas which had engaged in a production similar to their own. While forcing them to fill out orders, these industrialists were required to place such industries in occupied countries firmly under their control by means of different types of financial combinations. ways hide the fact that the economic looting was systematically organized, contrary to the stipulations of the International Convention of the Hague. If, according to the stipulations of this Convention, Germany had the right to seize whatever was indispensable for the maintenance of the troops necessary for the occupation, all seizures in excess of these requirements undoubtedly constitute a war crime, which brought about the economic ruin of the occupied countries, a long-range weakening of their economic potential and of their means of subsistence, as well as the general undernourishment of the populations. Exact estimates of German transactions in the economic field cannot be formulated at this time. It would be necessary for this purpose to study the details of the economic activities of several countries over a period of more than four years. minimum estimates of German spolitations with respect to the different occupied countries. the value of German seizures was nearly 9,000,000,000 crowns. In Norway, Germany's spoliations exceed a total value of 20,000,000,000 crowns. although Holland is one of the richest countries in the world in relation to its population, it is today almost completely ruined and the financial charges imposed by the occupant exceed 20,000,000,000 florins. indemnity and clearing, the Germans seized far more than 30,000,000,000 francs of payment balances. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg also suffered important losses as a result of the action of the occupying power.
745,000,000,000 francs. In this sum we have not included the 74,000,000,000 francs, which represents the maximum figure which Germany could legally demand for the maintenance of her army of occupation. (Moreover, the seizure of 9,500,000,000 in gold was calculated according to the rate of 1939.) payment which had not been forcibly seized from these countries, enormous quantities of goods of every character were purely and simply requisitioned without any indemnity, seized without any explanation, or else stolen. The occupying authorities took not only all raw materials and manufactured goods which could be useful to their war efforts, but they extended their seizures to everything that might help to procure them a credit balance in neutral countries, such as real estate, jewels, luxury goods and objects. Finally, the artistic treasures of the countries of western Europe were likewise looted in the most shameful manner. power contrary toall the principles of International Law, without providing any counterpart, enabled her to carry out, with the appearance of legality, the economic looting of France and of the other countries of western Europe. The consequence for these countries, from the economic viewpoint, is a loss of their strength which will take many years to repair. itself. For more than four years, the people of the occupied countries were exposed to a regime of slow starvation, which resulted in an increase in the death rate, a breaking down of the physical stamina of the population and, above all, an alarming deficiency in the growth of children and adolescents. leaders, contrary to International Law and specifically contrary to the Hague Convention, as well as contrary to the general principles of criminal law in force in all civilized nations, constitute war crimes for which they must answer before this High Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you think this is a good time to break off?
(Wereupon at 1245 hours the Tribunal adjourned to reconvene at 1400 hours of the same day). Military Tribunal, in the matter of:
The
M. FRANCOIS de MENTHON: Crimes against the physical person. Arbitrary imprisonment, ill treatment, deportations, murder even, committed by the Germans in the occupied countries reached proportions beyond what could be imagined even in the course of a world conflict. These crimes took the most odious forms. the leaders of the Reich to an absolute scorn for the human individual, to the abolition of any sense of justice or even of pity, to a total subordination of any human consideration unless it be to the interest of German collectivity.
All these crimes are related to a policy of terrorism. Such a policy permits the subjugation of occupied countries without involving a large deployment of troops submissive to anything that might be demanded of them. Many of these crimes are moreover related to the will to exterminate. We shall examine in succession executions of hostages, police crimes, deportations, crimes involving prisoners of war, terroristic activities against the Resistance and the massacre of civilian population. acts of terrorism on the part of German occupation troops. As early as 1940, the German High Command in France notably, carried out numerous executions as reprisals for any crime against the German Army. forbids collective sanctions, awaken everywhere a feeling of horror and frequently produce a result contrary to the one sought, by arousing the populations against the occupant. practices thus seeking to have them recognized by the populations as "the right of the occupying power." Veritable "codes for hostages" are promulgated by the German military authorities.
Following the general order issued by the defendant, Keitel, on the 16th of December 1941, Stuelpnagel published in France his ordinance of 30 September 1941.
According to the terms of this ordinance, 411 Frenchmen held by German authorities for any reason whatsoever will be considered as hostages, as well as all Frenchmen who are in the custody of the French authorities on behalf of German organizations. The ordinance of Stuelpnagel specifies: "at the time of the burial of the bodies, burial in a common grave of a rather large number of persons in a particular cemetery must be avoided since this would create a shrine for pilgrims which now or later might become a center for the stimulation of anti-German propaganda." of hostages were carried out. 1941, and the other at Bordeaux a few days thereafter, the German authorities had 27 hostages shot at Chateaubriant, and 21 at Nantes. diers in the Rex moving picture house in Paris. 116 hostages were shot. 46 hostages were taken from the hostage depot of the Fortress at Romainville and 70 from Bordeaux. 50 hostages were shot in Paris at the end of September 1943. ance is allied to the same hateful policy of hostages. The commanding officer published the following notice in the Pariser-Zeitung of 16 July 1942: "near male relatives, brothers-in-law and cousins of the agitators above the age of 13 years will be shot.
"All female relatives of the same degree shall be condemned to forced labor.
"Children less than 13 years of all the above-designated persons shall be sent to a house of correction." but in the last period they were no more than one additional feature in the methods of German terrorism, then grown more sweeping.
the occupied countries of the west were victims, those committed by the Nazi police organizations are among the most revolting. ances, did not belong to the armies of occupation, is in itself contrary to international law. dignity that they imply, were multiplied during four years throughout all the territories of the Vest occupied by the German forces. one of the defendants or from one of their immediate subordinates and valid for all the German police or for the police of the occupied territories of the West, has been found. But these crimes were committed by a police that was a direct expression of the National Socialist ideology and the undeniable instrument of National Socialist policy for which all the defendants carry the full and entire responsibility. eity, their generalization in time and place, no one would be able to deny that these acts are not only the individual responsibility of those who committed them here or there, but constitute as well the execution of orders from above. nized in all civilized countries. On a simple unverified denunciation, and without previous investigation, and often without the perssons who brought the charges being qualified to bring them, masses of arbitrary arrests took place in every occupied country. ulated a scrupulous respect for "legality" in the matter of arrests. This legality was that introduced by Naziism in the interior of Germany and did not respect any of the traditional guarantees to which the individuals in civilized countries are entitled. But rapidly even this pseudo-legality was abandoned and the arrests became absolutely arbitrary. guilt of the accused had been examined. The use of torture in the interroga tions was almost a general rule.
The tortures usually applied are beating, whipping, chaining for several days without a moment of rest for nourishment or hygienic care.
Immersion in ice water, drowning in a bathtub, charging the bathwater with electricity, electrification of the most sensitive parts of the body, burns at certain places on the body, tearing out of finger-nails. But, moreover, those who carried out these measures had every latitude for unleasing their instinct of cruelty and of sadism toward their victims. All those facts which were of public knowledge in the occupied countries never gave rise to any penalty whatsoever against their authors on the part of the responsible authorities. It even seems that the torture was more severe when an officer waspresent. prisoners were part and parcel of a premeditated system of criminality ordered by the chief of the regime and executed by the most faithful members of the National Socialist organizations. perpetrated a considerable number of murders. It is impossible to know the conditions under which many of these murders were carried out. Nevertheless we have enough information to permit us to discover in them a new expression of the general policy of the National Socialists in the occupied countries. Often the deaths were only the result of the tortures inflicted on the prisoners, but often the murder was deliberately decided upon and executed. among those committed by the Germans against the civilian populations of the occupied countries was that of deportation and internment in the concentration camps of Germany.
These deportations had a double aim: to assure supplementary work for the benefit of the German war machine, to eliminate from the occupied countries and progressively exterminate the elements most opposed to Germanism. They served likewise to empty prisons overcrowded with patriots and to remove the latter for good. were a stupefying revelation for the civilized world. Nevertheless they also are only a natural consequence.
of the National Socialist doctrine, for which man has no value in himself when he is not in the service of the German race.
It is not possible yet to give exact figures. It is probable that one would remain under the truth in speaking of 250,000 for France, 6000 for Luxembourg, 5,200 for Denmark, 5,400 for Norway, 120,000 for Holland, 37,000 for Belgium.
The arrests are founded now in a pretext of a political nature; now on a pretext of a racial order. In the beginning they were individual; subsequently they took on a collective character, particularly in France from the beginning of 1941 on. Sometimes the deportation did not come until after long months of prison, but more often the arrest was made directly with a view to deportation under the regime of "protective custody". Everywhere imprisonment in the country of origin was accompied by brutality, often by torture. Before being sent to Germany, the deportees were in general concentrated at an assembly camp. The formation of a convoy was often the first stage of extermination. The deportees traveled in cattle cars, 80 to 120 per car, no matter what the season. There were few convoys where no deaths occurred. In certain transports the proportion of deaths was more than 25%. Camps but sometimes also to prisons. awaiting trial. The prisoners there were crowded together under inhumane conditions. Nevertheless the way the prisons were run was generally less severe than was the case with the camps. The work there was less out of proporition to the strength of the prisoners and the prison wardens were less hard than the SS in the concentration camps. concentration camps gradually to do away with the prisoners, but only after their working strength had been used to the advantage of the German war effort. inflicted by the SS on the prisoners. We shall take the liberty of going into still further detail during the course of the statement of the French Public Prosecution for it should be fully known to what extent the Germans inspired by National-Socialist doctrine could stoop to dishonour.
degradation and debasement in the prisoner until he lost, if possible, all semblance of a human individual. sufficient to ensure slow extermination through inadequate feeding, bad sanitation, the cruelty of the guards, the severity of the discipline, the strain of work out of proportion to the strength of the prisoner, and the haphazard medical service. Moreover you already know that many did not die a natural death, but were put to death by injections, the gas chambers, or from being inoculated with fatal diseases. about by ill treatment: communal ice-cold showers in winter in the open air, prisoners left naked in the snow, cudgelling, dog bites, hanging by the writs. Some figures will illustrate the result of these various methods of extermination. At Buchenwald, during the first period of 1945 there were 13,000 deaths out of 40,000 internees. At Dachau 13 to 15,000 died in the 3 months preceding the liberation. At Auschwitz, a camp of systematic extermination, the number of murdered persons came to several million. figure is as follows: other experiments which generally led to their death. At Auschwitz, at Stuthoff in the prison at Cologne, at Ravensbruck, at Neurngeamme, numerous men, women and children were sterilized. At Auschwitz the most beautiful women were set apart, artificially fertilized and then gassed. At Stuthoff a special barrack, isolated from the others, by barbed wire, was used to inoculate men in groups of 40 with fatal illnesses. In the same camp women were gassed whilst German doctors observed their reactions through a peephole arranged for this purpose. collective executions. These were carried out by shooting, by hanging, by injections, by gas lorry or gas chamber.
submitted to your High Tribunal during the preceding days by the American Prosecution, but the representative of France, so many of them have died in these camps after horrible sufferings, could not pass in silence this tragic example of complete inhumanity. This would have been inconceivable in the 20th century, if a doctrine of return to barbarism had not been established in the very heart of Europe. ample testimony to the degree of inhumanity which Nazi Germany had attained. To begin with the violations of international conventions committed against prisoners of war are numerous. Many were forced to travel on foot, almost without food for very long distances. Many camps had no respect for even the most elementary rules of hygiene. Food was very often insufficient; thus a report from the OKW of the WFSP dated 11 April 1945 and annotated by the defendant Keitel, shows that 82,000 prisoners of war interned in Norway received the food strictly indispensable to the maintenance of life on the assumption that they were not working, whereas 30,000 of them were really employed on heavy work. defendant Goering, camps for prisoners belonging to the British and American Air Forces were established in towns which were exposed to air raids. a conference held at the Fuehrer's Headquarters on the 27 January 1945, in the presence of the defendant Goering, to pass the sentence of death on all attemps to escape made by a prisoner of war when In convoy. were committed by the German authorities against prisoners of war: execution of captured prisoners of war for no reason whatsoever, e.g. the matter of 120 American soldiers at Malmedy on 27 January 1945. Parallel with "Nacht und Nebel", an expression for the inhumane treatment inflicted on civilians, can be put down the "Sonderhandlung" a "special treatment" of prisoners of war in which these disappeared in great numbers. out by the German Army and police against the Resistance. may be considered as a basic document, certainly has as a purpose the fight against the Communist moverment but it provides that resistance to the army of occupation can come from other than Communist sources and decides that every case of resistance is to be interpreted as having a Communist origin.
the Resistance by every possible means, the Germans arrested, tortured and massacred men of all conditions and of all social classes. conditions laid down by the Hague Conventions, which would qualify them to be considered as regular combat forces. They could be sentenced to death as francs-tirours and executed; but they were assassinated without trial in most cases, often after having been terribly tortured. bodies examined by doctors. They bore obvious traces of extreme brutal treatment. The skin and flesh had been tern from their skulls, the spinal column had been dislocated, the ribs had been so badly fractured that the chest had been entirely crushed and the lungs perforated, hair and nails had been pulled out. atrocities in the struggle for the Resistance. The number is certainly very high. In the department of the Rhone alone, for example, the bodies of 713 victims were discovered after the Liberation. Forces, signed P.O. General Sperrle, laid down for the struggle against the terrorists the immediate reply by fire-arms and the immediate burning down of all houses from which shots had come. "It is of little importance" the text adds, "that innocent people should suffer. It will be the fault of the terrorists. All commanders of troops who show weakness in repressing the terrorists will be severely punished. On the other hand those who go beyond the orders received and are too severe, will incur no penalty." No. 588, at Clermont--Ferrand, gives irrefutable examples of the barbarous forms which the Germans gave to the struggle against the Resistance. The resisters caught were almost all shot in the spot. Others were turned ever to the SD or to the Gestapo to be first subjected to torture. The Diary of Brodowski mentions "The cleaning up of a hospital" or "Liquidation of an infirmary."
in all the occupied territories of the West. by strengthening of the policy of terrorism which multiplied the crimes against the civilian populations. The crimes which we are going to consider were not isolated acts committed from time to time in this or that locality, but were acts perpetrated in the course of extensive operations; the high number of which can only be explained by general orders. the military command shares responsibility for them. In a directive entitled "Fight Against the Partisan Bands," dated 6 May 1944, the defendant Jodl states that "the collective measures to be taken against the inhabitants of entire villages (including the burning down of these villages) are to be ordered exclusively by the division commanders or the heads of the SS troops and of the police."
The War Diary of von Brodowski mentions the following: "It is an understood thing that the leadership of the S.I.P.O. and of the S.V. shall remain subordinate to me." caused by the action of the Resistance; but the necessities of war have never justified the plundering and heedless burning down of towns and villages or the blind massacres of innocent people. The Germans killed, plundered, burned down, very often without any reason whatsoever, whether in the regions and departments of the Ain, in Savoy, Let, Tarn-and-Garonne, in Vorcors, Correze or Dordogne. Entire villages were burned down when at the time the nearest armed groups of the Resistance were tens of kilometres away and the population of these villages had not made a single hostile gesture towards the German troops.
The two most typical examples are those of Maillo (in Indre and Loire) where on 25 August 1944, 52 buildings out of 60 were destroyed and 124 people were killed; and that of Oradour-Sur-Glane (in the Hante-Vienne). The War Diary of von Brodowski makes mention of the latter act in the following manner:
"All the male population of Oradour was shot. The women and children took refuge in the church. The church caught fire. Explosives were stored in the church.
(This assertion has been shown to be flase.) All the women and all the children perished." war by the leaders of National Socialist Germany, we finally meet a category which we have called: Crimes against humanity. Tribunal the meaning of this term. This classical French expression belongs both to the technical vocabulary of law and to the language of philosophy. It designates all of those faculties, the exercising and developing of which rightly constitute the meaning of human life. Each of these faculties finds its corresponding expression in the regulation of the existence of mankind in society. Its belonging to at least two social groups--the nearest and the most extensive--is translated by the right to family life and to nationality. Its relations with the powers constitute a system of obligations and guarantees. Its material life as producer and consumer of goods is expressed by the right to work in the widest meaning of this term. Its spiritual aspect implies a combination of possibilities to give out and to receive the expressions of thought, whether in assemblies or associations, in religious practice, in teachings given or received, by the many means which progress has put at the disposal of intellectual propaganda books, the press, radio, cinema. This is the right of spiritual liberty (la condition humaine). concerning human beings in occupied territories, the German Nazis directed a systematic policy of corruption and perversion. We shall treat this question last because it is the encroachment which presents a character of the utmost gravity and which has assumed the character of the most extensive generality.
Man is more attached to his physical integrity and to life than to his property.
But in all high conceptions off life, man is even less attached to life than to that which makes for his dignity and quality, according to the great Latin maxim: "Et propter vitam vitandi perdere causas." On the other hand, if in the territories occupied by them, the Germans did not, in spite of the importance and extent of their crimes, plunder all the property and goods and if they did not kill all the people, there remains not a single man whose essential rights they did not change or abolish and whose condition as a human being they did not violate in some way. We can even say that in the entire world and as regards all people, even those to whom they reserved the privileges belonging to the superior race and even as regards themselves, their agents and accomplices, the Nazi leaders committed a major offense against the conscience which mankind has evolved today from his condition as a human being.
The execution of the enterprise was preceded by its plan. This is manifest in the entire Nazi doctrine and we shall content ourselves by recalling a few of its dominant traits. Humanity, the human condition, expresses itself, we say, in major statutes, every one of which comprises a complex apparatus of various provisions. But these statutes are inspired in the laws of civilized countries by an essential conception of the nature of mankind. This conception is defined in two complementary ideas: The dignity of the human person considered in each and every person individually on one hand, and on the other hand, the permanancy of the human person considered within the whole of humanity. zation proceeds from this essential twofold conception of the individual, in each and in all, the individual and the universal. Without doubt, to Occidentals this conception usually appears as bound up with the Christian doctrine; but if it is exact that Christianity asserted and spread this conception, it would be a mistake to see in it only the more teachings of one or even of certain religions. It is a general conception which comes quite naturally to one's mind. It was professed in ancient pre-Christian times and, in more recent times, the great Germanic philospher Kant expressed it in one of his most forceful formulas "The human being must always be it in one of his most forceful formulas "The human being must always be considered as an end and never as a means". faith was to protest against spontaneous affirmation of the genius of manking and to claim breaking at this point the continuous progress of moral intelligence.
The tribunal is already acquainted with the abundant literature of thes sect. Without a doubt nobody expressed himself more clearly than the defendant Rosenberg when he declared in the "Myth of the 20th Century", page 539: "Peoples whose health is dependent on their blood do not know individualism as a criterion of values, any more than they recognize universalism. Individualism and universalism in the absolute sense and historically speaking are the most metaphysics of decadence". Nazism professes, moreover, that "The distance between the lowest human being still worthy of this name and our higher races is greater than that between the lowest type of mankind and the best educated monkey". Thus it is not only a question of abolishing the truly divine conception which religion sets forth as regards man, but even of setting aside all purely human conceptions and substituting for it an animalistic conception. does not only appear to be a means to which one has recourse in the presence of contrary opportunities such as those arising from war, but also it appears as an aim both necessary and desirable. The Nazi propose to classify mankind into 3 main categories. That of their adversaries or persons whom they consider inadaptable to their strange constructions: this category can be bullied in all sorts of ways and even destroyed. That of higher mankind which they claim is distinguishable by its blood or by some arbitrary means. That of inferior mankind, which does not deserve destruction and whose vital power should be used in a regime of slavery for the well-being of the "overlords", the masters. The Nazi leaders proposed to apply this conception everywhere where they could do so to territories more and more expansive; to populations becoming ever greater; and in addition they demonstrated the frightful ambition of succeeding in imposing it on intelligent people, of convincing their victims and of demanding from them, in addition to so many sacrifices, an act of faith.
The Nazi war is a war of fanatical religion in which one can exterminate infidels and equally well force them to conversion.
It should further be noted that the Nazis aggravated the excesses of those horrible times, for in a religious war converted adversaries were received like brothers, whereas the Nazis never gave their pitiable victims the chance of saving themselves even by the most complete recanting. germanization of occupied territories, and had without doubt the intention of undertaking to germanize the whole world. This germanization can be distinguished from the ancient theories of pan-germanism in as far as it is both a Nazification and an actual return to barbarism.
Racialism classifies occupied nations into two main categories; germanization means for some a national socialist assimilisation and for the others disappearance or slavery. For human beings classified as of higher races the most favoured condition assigned to them comprises the fallingin with the new concepts of the Germanic community. For human beings of the so-called "inferior race" it was proposed either to abolish all rights whilst awaiting and preparing their physical classification, or to assign them to servitude. totality not in all the occupied countries. The Germans had conceived it as a lengthy piece of labor, which they intended to carry out gradually, by a series of successive measures. This progressive approach is always characteristic of the Nazi method. It fits in, apparently, both with the variety of obstacles encountered, the hypocritical desire of sparing public opinion, and with a horrid lust for experimenting and scientific ostentation. a great deal according to the different countries, and in each country according to such and such a category of the population. At times the method was forced on to its extreme consequences; elsewhere one only discovers the appearance of preparatory arrangements.
at different moments in its development, but everywhere directed by the same inexorable movement. annexation basis in Luxembourg, in the Belgian cantons of Eupen and of Malmedy, and in the French departments of Alsace and of Lorraine. Here the criminal undertaking consisted in both the abolition of the sovereignty of the State, natural protector of its nationals, and the abolition for those nationals of the status they had as citizens of this State, a status recognized by domestic and international law. nationality, ceasing to be Luxembourgers, Belgians, or French. They did not acquire, however, full German nationality; they were admitted only gradually to this singular favor, on the further condition that they furnish certain justifications therefor. country. In Alsace and in Moselle the French language was banned, names of places and of people were Germanized. relating to the Nazi regime; to forced labor naturally, and soon to military conscription. In case of resistance to these orders -- unjust and abominable though they were, since it was a matter of arming the French against their allies and in reality against their own country -- sanctions were brought to bear, not only against the parties concerned, but even against the members of their families, following the theses of Nazi law, which brushes aside the fundamental principles of the law against repression. seemed of little use to Nazi enterprises, became the victims of large-scale expulsions, driven from their homes in a few short hours with their most scanty baggage, and despoiled of their property. one of the horrors of our century, appears as favor able treatment when compared to the deportations which were to fill the concentration camps, in particular the Stuthof camp in Alsace.
travention of all law, the Nazis undertook, according to their method, to convince the people of the excellence of their regime. The young people especially were to be educated in the spirit of National Socialism. areas than those we have named; it is beyond doubt, however, and confirmed by numerous indications, that they proposed to annex territories much more important by applying to them the same regime if the war had ended in victory. al position by debarring or damaging the sovereignty of the state involved, and by forcing the destructiion of patriotic feeling. governmental authority, the Germans systematically disregarded the laws of occupation. They legislated, regulated, administered. Besides the territories actually annexed, the other occupied territories also found themselves in a state that might be defined as a state of pre-annexation. Everywhere, although with variation in time and space, the Germans applied themselves to abolishing the public freedoms, notably the freedom of association, the freedom of the press; and they endeavored to trammel the essential freedoms of the spirit. matters devoid of military character, a press, many of whose representatives, moreover, were inspired by them. Manifold restrictions were imposed on the moving picture industry and commerce. Numerous works altogether without political character were banned, even textbooks. Religious authorities themselves saw their clerical province invaded and words of truth could not be heard. a state of war and of occupation could have justified, the Germans developed their National Socialist propaganda systematically through the press, radio, film, meeting, book, poster.
day to minimize their importance. Nevertheless, the propaganda conducted by means most contrary to the respect due human intelligence, and on behalf of a criminal doctrine, must go down in history as one of the shames of the National Socialist regime. other broad areas that we have defined: right of the family, right of professional and economic activity, juridical guarantees. These rights were attacked, these guarantees were curtailed. as well as the rights of lablr. The arbitrary arrests suppressed the most elementary legal guarantees. In addition, the Germans tried to impose their own methods on the administrative authorities of the occupied countries and sometimes unfortunately succeeded in their attempts. citizens of the occupied countries who were catalogued as Jews, measures particularly hateful, damaging to their personal rights, and to their human dignity. national law, and of the Hague Convention in particular, which limits the rights of armies occupying a territory. monstrous picture of the war criminality of Nazi Germany, which advanced under the banner of the abasement of man -- a deliberate requirement of the National Socialist doctrine. This gives it its true character of a systematic attempt to return to barbarism. waging the war of aggression that she launched. The martyred peoples appeal to the justice of civilized nations and request your high Tribunal to condemn the National Socialist Reich in the person of its surviving chiefs. let them not dispute at all this principle of retroactivity, the permanence of which was guaranteed, against their wishes, by democratic legislation.
War crimes are defined by international law and by the national law of all modern civilizations. The accused knew that acts of violence against the persons and property and human rights of enemy nationals were crimes for which they would have to answer before international justice. them since the beginning of the hostilities. America, and Winston CHURCHILL, Prime Minister of Great Britain, announced that the war criminals would not escape just punishment. "The massacres of France", said Churchill, "are an example of what Hitler's Nazis are doing in many other countries under their yoke. The atrocities committed in Poland, Yugoslavia, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and particularly behind the German front in Russia, exceed anything that has been known since the darkest and most bestial ages of humanity. The punishment of these crimes should now be counted among the major goals of the war." countries met at London upon the initiative of the Polish and Czech governments. They worked out an inter-allied declaration which was signed the 13th of January 1942. May I remind the Tribunal of its terms.
"The undersigned, representing the Governments of Belgium, of Czechoslovakia, the National Committee of Free France, the Governments of Greece, of Luxembourg, of the Netherlands, of Poland and of Yugoslavia, "Whereas Germany, from the beginning of the present conflict, which was provoked by her policy of aggression, set up in the occupied countries a regime of terror characterized, among other things, by imprisonment, mass deportations, massacres, and execution of hostages;"Whereas these acts of violence are committed equally by the allies and and associates of the Reich, and in certain countries by citizens collaborating with the occupying power;"Whereas international solidarity is necessary in order to prevent these deeds of violence from giving rise to acts of individual or collective violence, and finally in order to satisfy the spirit of justice in the civilized world; "Recalling to mind that international law and, in particular, the Hague Convention signed in 1907, concerning the laws and customs of land war, do not permit belligerents to commit acts of violence against civilians in occupied countries, or to violate laws which are in force or to overthrow national institutions;