"One variety of mass torture in the hospital consisted in locking the sick and wounded in an unheated cell. The cell had a concrete floor. and many died there. For the purpose of still further exhausting the Prisoners, the Hitlerites forced the sick and debilitated captives to run round the "hospital" building; those who could not run were then beaten to death. It was by no means uncommon for the German guards to murder the prisoners just for the fun of the thing.
"A former prisoner of War, Buchtichyuk, tells us that the Germans threw dead horses on the barbed wire protecting the interior of the camp and when the Prisoners of War, maddened with hunger ran up to the barbed wire, the guard opened fire on them with machine guns. The witness, Kirsanov, saw one Prisoner of War bayonetted to death for picking up a potato tuber. A former Prisoner of War, Shatalov, was art eyewitness when the escort shot a Prisoner of War who had tried to obtain a second helping of 'Balanda'.
"In February, 1942, Shatalov saw a sentry wounding one of the prisoners who was searching the garbage heap for remnants left over from the German kitchen of the service personnel; the wounded man was immediately brought to the pit, undressed and shot." THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now. (The Tribunal adjourned until 14 February, 1946, at 1000 hours.)
Defendants Counsel. The Tribunal will sit in open session on Saturday morning at 10 o'clock to hear the application of the Defendants Counsel for an adjournment. They will hear one counsel on either side, that is to say, one counsel for the Prosecution and one counsel for the Defense, for 15 minutes. After that open session the Tribunal will adjourn into closed session upon procedural matters.
COLONEL POKROVSKY: Yesterday I referred to four photographs which were submitted to the Tribunal. These photographs showed the camp of prisoners of war. I beg to excuse myself that we could not show the other photographs to the Tribunal, one of which shows the distribution of food and the second how hungry Soviet prisoners of war search and eat fodder for cattle. I now submit these original photographs as USSR Exhibit 358 and 359.
An examination of exhumed bodies confirmed that in the "Gross-Lazaret" of Slavouta the commandant and guards of the camp repeatedly applied refined forms of torture. Amongst the bodies on whom autopsies had been performed and those which had been exhumed, the medical-legal examination discovered four bodies of prisoners of war who had been murdered with cold steel weapons, with bayonet head wounds penetrating the region of the skull. You will find this part on page 159 of the document. debility and exhaustion, to carry out physical work entirely beyond their strength. The exhausted and fallen prisoners of war were killed on the spot by the military escort. According to Milevsky, the Catholic priest of the town of Slavouta, the road along which the prisoners went to work and back again came to be marked by little grave mounds, as by milestones.
actual death of some one or other prisoner of war, and they buried persons alive. page 153 of your file of documents:
"A considerable quantity of grains of sand was found in the respiratory tracts of the corpses of four prisoners, reaching to the smallest bronchial tubes, and since the sand could have penetrated so far only if respiration took place underground, under the sand, the legal-medical experts stablished that at "Gross-Lazaret" the guards of the Kommandantur, with the knowledge of the German doctors, buried the Soviet citizens alive."
Prisoners of war Pankin, one of the former inmates of the "Gross-Lazaret", knew of a case when in February 1943 an unconscious patient was brought to the morgue. He recovered consciousness in the morgue, but when it was reported to the Barrack Chief that a live man had been taken to the morgue, he ordered him to be left there, and the sick man was buried alive. of enormous risk tried to organize escapes both individually and in groups. in the local population of Slavouta and the surrounding villages. The Hitler blackguards mercilessly shot anyone who gave any kind of assistance to a fugitive.
The town of Slavouta was part of the Shepotov province. On the 15th of January, 1942, the Shepotov Gebiets-Kommissar, Dr. Worbs, issued a special order. This order specified that if the people directly responsible for helping the escaped prisoners were not found, ten hostages would be shot in each case. Father Zhukovsky reported that 26 peaceful citizens were arrested and shot for helping the prisoners of war to escape. The medical examination of the 525 prisoners liberated from the "Gross-Lazaret" revealed that 435 suffered from extreme infection, 59 had secondary infected wounds, while 31 were the victims of neuro psychiatric disturbances. column on page 5 of the document. In your file it is on page 154 of your file of documents?
"During the two years that Slavouta was occupied, the Hitlerites, with the participation of the German doctors Borbe, Schtur and other medical assistants, exterminated about 150,000 Red Army officers and men." crimes and wished to conceal all traces of the atrocities committed. They especially endeavored to camouflage the burial sites of the Soviet prisoners of war. For instance, on the cross of Grave No. 623, 8 names only of persons buried were indicated, whereas 32 bodies were actually found upon the excavation of that grave. Such was also the case upon the excavation of Grave No. 624 In other grave, layers of earth were placed between several rows of corpses. Fir instance, ten bodies were found in Grave No. 625. When a layer of earth 10 centimeters thick had been removed, two further rows of corpses were found on the same grave, and such was the case at the excavation of Grave No. 627 and 628.
Numerous graves were camouflaged with flowers, trees, plants, paths, etc., but no disguise exists which can ever hide the bloody crimes committed by the Hitlerite miscreants. trial, evidently forgetting where and in what circumstances he was placed, wished to keep within the limits of the German law was, of course, rejected. At the present I am fully able to submit to the Tribunal documents which, in my opinion, are of imprtance in our case, although they are compiled in complete accordance with the rules laid down by the German law. of Djitomir, Red Army troops seized a certain piece of correspondence. This is a policy inquiry. The authors of this document could not foretell that it would be read into the record at the session of the International Military Tribunal for punishment of the manor war criminals. for the ciefs of police, and they were compiled in accordance with all the requirements of German law and of the police investigations of fascist Germany. be quite satisfied.
At the same time, this correspondence is useful to us as well. So much is said in the comparatively small quantity of pages that I should have to analyze the documentation in several sections, in order that you could appreciate it fully and from every angle. I submit this correspondence to you both in the German photostat and in the Russian translation. I repeat -this is a police inquiry. This document is submitted to the Tribunal as USSR Exhibit 311, and we have asked for the original copy, which we may receive from Moscow today, in accordance with the wish of the Tribunal. Educational Labor Camp were to be subjected to special treatment. All the 78 prisoners were Soviet citizens. In the correspondence there is a report to the authorities by the Obersturmfuehrer Kunze, of 27 December 1942. You will find this on page 170. At the end of the first abstract there is a sentence which has been marked with a red pencil to facilitate your reading. It says:
"In this particular case there has been no evidence regarding any communistic activity of these war prisoners during the existence of the Soviet Government." Kunze's next sentence makes perfectly clear the question of how and why these war prisoners got into the educational labor camp. He states:
"It seems that the military authorities have left the prisoners of war at the disposal of the local section in order to submit them to the special-regime treatment." authorities. The specialist, who in this case was doubtlessly Obersturmfuehrer SS Kunze, states that they were sent here specially so that they could become objects of the special regime treatment. more than that 78 people were the remnants of a large group. Sturmscharfuehrer SS Fried Knopp reports --this is at page 163 of the document book:
"Some of the prisoners of war were sent away on a lorry somewhere nearby." objections coming from the army. Somewhat later I shall be more explicit concerning the nature of these transfers and objections raised by the army.
Permit me now to pass over to a circumstantial description of the core of the matter. It appears to be more useful to describe it in the words of one of the documents. I quote:
"Commander of the Security Police and SD in Djitomir:
"When called upon to appear SS Sturmbannfuehrer and Kripo Obersekretaer Friederich Knopp replied: He was born on the 18th of January, 1897, in Neuklints, district of Kessling. Friederich Knopp testified as follows:
"As from the middle of August I was the leader of the Berdichov Section of the Security Police Command and SD in the town of Djitomir. On the 23rd of December, 1942, the Deputy Commander, Hauptsturmbannfuehrer of the SS Kallbach, surveyed the local section of the educational labor camp of the department entrusted to my supervision. In this educational labor camp, from the end of October or the beginning of November there were 78 former prisoners of war who, in their time, had been transferred from the permanent camp in Djitomir as being incapable of work. A considerable number of prisoner of war in the past had been handed over and placed at the disposal of the Commander of the Security Police and SD." of the prisoners of war and placing them at the disposal of the Security police had been provided for by special SS directives and of the SD, especially in connection with persons condemned to physical annihilation.
I quote further; same page --163:
"Of their number in Djitomir, a few had been set aside who, to a certain point, were capable of working. The remaining 78 persons were transferred to the local aducational labor camp."
"The 78 prisoners of war in the local camp were exclusively severely wounded prisoners. Some lacked both legs; others had lost both their hands; others again had lost one or the other of their limbs. Only a few of them were not wounded in the limbs, but they were so mutilated by other kinds of wounds that they were auite unable to work. The latter had to assist the former.
"During the survey of the educational labor camp by SS Hauptsturmbannfuehrer Kallbach on the 23rd of December, 1942, the latter gave the order that those who had survived the death of the 68 or 70 prisoners of war should this very day be subjected to special treatment. For this purpose he handed over a motor truck with an SS chauffeur from the command administration, who arrived here today 11:30 a.m. The prepation for the execution I entrusted early this morning to my colleague in the local administration, SS Unterscharfuehrer Vollbrecht." the statement. They describe how the execution was prepared. One point if of importance, however: Usually the execution was don in the precincts of the camp.
"For this execution I have orders to choose a spot outside the camp. Of the three above-mentioned persons, whom I have entrusted with the shooting of prisoners of war, I knew that when they were in Kiev they had taken part in mass exeuctions of many thousands of persons, and that in the local administration during my sojourn there they had already keen entrusted with the shooting of many hundreds of victims."
again the meaning the Hitlerites usually put on the words "execution" and "special regime" treatment. Here, in only one sentence, the terms "mass execution" and "shooting" are used as precisely equal, and a little above it became clear what "transportation by trucks somewhere nearby" and "special regime treatment" mean, Without any doubt, these four terms have an identical meaning.
After this interruption, I continue my quotation:
"They were armed" -- I am speaking of the German executioners -"with German sub-machine guns, Russian automatic gun CD, a pistol and a carbine. I must point out that I intended to give these three persons, as a help, SS Hauptscharfuehrer Wensel, but SS Sturmann Vollbrecht weclined, remarking that three of them were quite able to carry out this order."
"Concerning the Indictment:
"I did not think it wasnecessary to send a larger detachment to do the work of a usual execution, as the place of execution was hidden from outside glances, and the prisoners were -
THE PRESIDENT: These words "concerning the Indictment", are they in the original document?
COL. POKROVSKY: It is a text of explanation of this evidence which is given by the signatory of this report. I am quoting original German documents. The persons responsible for the execution were accused of having revoked an incident, and that is how they are explaining this incident:
"Concerning the Indictment:
"I did not think it was necessary to send a larger detachment to do the work of a usual execution, as the place of execution was hidden from outside glances, and the prisoners were unable to escape on account of their physical shortcomings.
"Around 15 o'clock, I was telephoned from the permanent camp that one of my co-workers was injured and that another had run away. Frich to the place of execution in a horse-cart. After a certain time they telephoned me again from the permanent camp to tell me that two co-workers of my section were killed." tails, and I skip here a few sentences, even these extracts which I wanted to quotepreviously, and I skip to the last part of the statement. You will find that part on page 166:
"I would like to point out that the above-mentioned incident took place during the second execution. The shooting of about 20 prisoners that took place earlier was carried out without any incident. As soon as I came back, I reported this incident by telephone to the commaning officer in Djitomir.
"It is all I can testify. I declare that my testim ny is entirely true and I know that for false testimony I will be punished and expelled from the SS.
"Signed: Fritz Knapp, SS Schturmanscharfuehrer.
"Countersigned: Kunze, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer."
The hangman was interrogated next. On this matter we have at our disposal the following document. You will find, that extract on page 166 of your file of documents. I quote the minutes of the inquest:
"Then we summoned the SS Rettenfuehrer Gosselbach Friedrich, born 24 January 1909, a native of Feidingen, district Vitgenstein (Westphalia, and gave the following testimony:
"I was informed about the subject of the forthcoming interrogation. a punishment and expelled from SS." the penalities expecting him, -- Gesselbach gave on the subject the following testimony:
"Yesterday evening I was told by SS Scharfuehrer Paal that today I have to take part in the execution of prisoners of war. Lateren, I re ceived also a corresponding order concerning the matter from Hauptscharfuehrer Venzel in the presence of SS Sturmscharfuehrer Knopp.
This morning at 8 A.M., SS Hauptscharfuehrer Berger, SS Unterscharfuehrer Paal, SS Sturmbannfuehrer Vollbrech and myself, together with 8 inmates from our prison, arrived in a car taken from the tannery and driven by a Ukrainian driver, to a place situated, approximately one and onehalf kilometers behind the camp, in order to dig a grave."
He describes later how they dug the grave. I think that we can skip that part. Then they returned to the entrance of the camp. Vollbrecht, upon the order of Paal, left the car.
"When giving this order Paal had in view to conceal ourintentions from the prisoners and not to arouse any suspicions by the presence of a large number of SS men in the camp. That is why only Paal, myself, and a few militia men were leading the prisoners on the car. Upon Paal's order, the whale first group consisted, almost without any exception, of the prisoners who had no legs or feet." I quote the sixth page of the Russian translation, which is marked on page 168 of your file of documents:
"After having executed the first three prisoners I suddenly heard shouting from above. As the fourth prisoner was already on the spot I quickly killed him, and looking upwards, saw that there was a great confusionnear the truck. Even before I had heard some shooting and now I saw the prisoners running away in all directions. I cannot give any details as to what actually happened because I was at the distance of about 40-50 meters from the place. I can say only that I saw two of my comrades lying on the ground, andtwo prisoners shooting at me and the driver with weapons they got hold of. When I realized what was happening, I fired a fourth cartridge left in my magazine at the prisoners when were shooting, at us, put in a new clip, and noticed suddenly that a bullet hit right next to me. I had the feeling as if I was hit, but afterwards I realized that I had been wrong. I explain that now as a nervous shock. Anyhow, I was firing out the cartridges of my second clip, shooting after the fugitives, though I cannot tell whether I hit any of them or not."
I can inform you that the last part of Gesselbach's testimony concerns the subject of organizing the search for the dispersed cripples, which gave no results. last one in the correspondence. This is a latter-report of Obersturmfuehrur SS Kunze. It concludes with the statement that the funeral of the killed SS men took place at the police and SS heroes' cemetery in Hegewalde at 2 p.m. It seems to me that this detail is of some interest.
I will quote new the first part of the mentioned report. I will skip the first report, which is already printed in your file, in order to shorten the duration of my statement. He reports that 78 people were supposed to be killed after the inspection of the camp.
"Because of their inability to work these prisoners of war were a considerable burden to the camp. For this reason, the SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Kalbach ordered the execution of the former prisoners of war on 24 December.
"Neither in the central office nor in the branch office could one ascertain the reasons for which the former commandant accepted these crippled prisoners and sent them to the reformatory labor camp. In this case there did not exist any information concerning the communistic activity of mentioned prisoners during the whole period of the Soviet regime. Evidently the military authorities put these prisoners of war at the disposal of the local branch in order to submit them to a special regime, because, our to their physical condition, they could not be used for any work.
"Thus, the SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Kalbach ordered the execution for 24 December at 14 hours. The Chief of the Bordichev's branch, the SS Sturmscharfuehrer Knopp, informed by 'phone that, while carrying out the appointed special-regime operation, the two officials of the branch, SS Unterscharfuehrer Paal and the SS Sturmann Folbrecht, were assaulted by the prisoners and killed with their own arms." Kuntze's chatter and will quote only three more paragraphs. You will find them on pages 172 and 173 of your file:
"In this way, of the twenty eight prisoners, four were shot in the grave, two while escaping, and the remaining twenty-two managed to escape. The measures for the capture of the fugitives, which were immediately undertaken by the SS Rotenfuehrer Hesselbach, with the help of the guards from the neighboring Stalag, were opportune but unsuccessful. The Chief of the Berdichev's department ordered an immediate search for the fugitives, and informed all the police and military agencies. However, the names of the fugitives are unknown and this fact will make the search difficult. The recores have the names of all prisoners who are under special regime, and so it was necessary to declare as escaped even those who were already shot.
"On 25 December, on the same spot, a special-regime (execution of the 20 remaining former prisoners) was carried but under my direction. Because of the possibility that the fugitives had already established contact with some partisan unit, I ordered that the Stalag was to send once more a detachment of 20 men, armed with light machine guns, and carbines, for the guarding of the approaches. The execution was carried out without any incidents.
escorted by guards--men armed with light machine guns and weapons--were driven to their death. I continue.
"As a reprisal I ordered the gendarmerie to check up on all prison party so that they would be subjected to the most severe regime."
crime of the Hitlerties, I wish to draw the attention of the Tribunal to several facts.
First of all I want to refer to the "objections of the army, which were reported by the SS man Knopp. Knopp said: -- you will find that on Page 163 "In future there will be no further shipments of prisoners of war, in compliance with the objections of the Army.
I don't want to have my words misunderstood.
The Army did not so much object to such shipments; it rather expressed the wish that the prisoners destination, should immediately receive some shelter."
What "shelter" he is talking about is not hard to guess. That is the "shelter" to which, in the words of Knopp, "they were transported in trucks some place near." of the outrages. Referring to the executioners -- Paal, Hesselbach, and Folbrecht, Knopp writes:
"In reference to the three above-mentioned persons to whom I thousands of people.
And in the local administration, at the time hundreds of people."
important, but very characteristic features. The first is his terminology. Here are his words:
"I suddenly heard shouts from above after I have shot the first three prisoners.
As it was the turn of the fourth, I bumped him off quick."
ing about destroying a man. For the Fascist executioners, the murder of a soldier who fought honestly for his country and became an invalid, the short word "bump off" is good enough; the executioners do not consider it necessary even to find out who they are really murdering. Thanks to this, occurs a scandalous confusion among the police. They order to search both for those who were shot and those who escaped. sensation of being wounded, and people of this type are called by their superiors, 'heroes.'
"It would be an omission on my part not to underline the exceptional brutality shown by Kuntze, -- this typical representative of SS. Twenty persons captured at random and without any fault on their part were to be murdered. What for? Only because twenty two armless and legless invalids escaped death." God and man these twenty two invalids should not perish in the hands of the executioners, but should be under the protective guard of the German Government as war prisoners. authorities directed invalids to the camp for the "special regime treatment," is of special value. He states frankly that the cause of it was their physical condition, which made it impossible to use them for any work.
In this connection I submit to the Tribunal several documents. They will show that only from the angle of receiving slaves the representatives of German Command and German authorities were interested sometimes about war prisoners. You have in your possession a circular of the High Command of the Armed Forces that the Soviet war prisoners must be branded, and that this branding is not considered a medical measure. I am submitting to you another such shameful document. It bears the following identifying marks: "AS2F 2 482 N Commander of war prisoners camps. # 3142#42 Berlin, Schoeneberg, 20.7.1942, 51, Badensche Strasse." This document is USSR Exhibit 343. I will not read it in full. It resembles those which I have already read into the record.
recognized by the German General Staff that: "A state can do everything which might be necessary to hold the war prisoners, but nothing more." forced Soviet people to such manifestation of despair, as attacks on camp guards armed to the teeth. We know about such really heroic acts. The testimonies of eye witnesses are in our hands. I am submitting to you personal testimony of the witness Lamp as USSR Exhibit 315. Some parts of these testimonies are mentioned in your report. These witnesses reported that in the beginning of February 1945, in the extermination camp of Mauthausen, eight hundred war prisoners of the Red Army interned there escaped from the Fascist hell after disarming the guards and breaking the barbed wire, through which there passed electric current. Lamp testifies how brutally the SS were treating those whom they could catch. I am quoting several lines:
"All those who returned to the camp were brutally tortured. Then we we saw the escaped prisoners, who were being brought back to block No. 20.
(I wish to interpolate that Block 20 was the death block.) They had been beaten, and one was covered with blood.
They were followed by ten SS, amidst whom were three or four officers.
They carried whips and were they were going to inflict upon the three unfortunates.
The courage of the remembered by all the Mathausen inmates."
The slightest discussions arising amongst them were always a method of anihilating their victims. Some strove to kill off prisoners immediately; others considered it wise to use up their blood and strength in industrial plants, factories, military work shops, so on. agriculture. Fascist-Germany solved this problem by importing white female and male slaves. The greatest number of them were war prisoners. They were sent to heavy labor, where perished masses from exhaustion, overwork, hunger, and brutal treatment.
I submit to the Tribunal Document No. 1117-PS, and quote the following three paragraphs:
"In order to fulfill the iron-steel industry program, and to assure 7th of July to utilize the war prisoners to this end."
I am skipping several sentences from this document and quote point two:
"2. All Soviet war prisoners taken since the 5th of July 1943 should be sent the coal mining industry."
The fourth point is of special interest. It contains a directive on how to convert all men between the ages of 16 and 55 into prisoners of war.
I quote point four:
"4. All those between the ages of 16 and 55, captured in battles with garded as prisoners of war.
The same applies to men in the newly occupied districts of the East.
They must be sent to the prisoners of war camps and thence to work in Germany."
The second document is No. 744-PS, issued by the Chief of the OKW on the 8th of July 1943, repeats this directive. The document is signed by Keitel. In the text of the document signed by Keitel there is a post script. It is addressed to all the higher authorities of the SS and is signed by Himmler. The text was already read into the record on the 20th of December 1945, therefore I shall here refer only to the contents. It concerned transportation of children, of the aged, and of the young women. Himmler indicates how and by what methods they should be sent to Germany through Saukel's organization. In this case also, Himmler, Keitel, and Saukel act in perfect agreement, almost as one person.
I consider the document No. 022-PS to be of primary importance. It is a report on the prison camp in Minsk. The report was compiled in Rosenberg's office on the 10th of July 1941.
THE PRESIDENT: Has it been put in already?
COLONEL POKROVSKY: This document was not yet read into the record. I quote page 183.
"The prison camp in Minsk accommodates about 100,000 prisoners of of the Wilhelmplatz.
The prisoners who are crowded together in this selves at the very place where they stand.
The camp is guarded by a detail of soldiers on active duty, of company strength.
Due to the be accomplished by applying brutal force."
I skip a paragraph and turn to the page which expounds the same idea:
"The only possible language for the small guard detail, which is ruthless use is being made". accomplish the selection of prisoners in physical and racial respects for various hard labor tasks.
On the second day after the beginning of such selection, this measure was forbidden.
"Reference being made to an order of General Field Marshal Kluge, prisoners."
hate of the Soviet People, considered the regime of beastial cruelty and systematic insults which they established for the Soviet prisoners of war to be too mild, and demanded that it he made still more severe.
On the 29th of January 1943 an order was issued on the "Rights of Self-Defense Against the Prisoners of War," under the signature of the Chief of the OKH. This document bears the number 3868/42, and is registered by the USA Delegation as Exhibit No. 696-PS. We submit it to the Tribunal under No. 355, and it has not been read into the record.
I shall read a few short extracts from this document. It is on page 145 in your document file. It starts as follows:
"The military authorities and the authorities of the National-Socialist Party have on numerous occasions raised the question of the treatment of the prisoners of war, and they are of the opinion that the punishments made possible by the 1929 Agreement are inadequate", of all prisoners of war remains in force, but not to those of Soviet nationality. The order issued by the OKW Section for the Prisoner-of-War Affairs determines the treatment of these latter. This order was issued on the 24th of March 1942. as No. 12/43s. This circular was issued by the Chief of the Party Bureau, at the Fuehrer's main headquarters, on the 12th of December 1943. the Commanding Officers of Military Units. It speaks of the secret order No. 3368/42s of the Chief of the General Staff, and thus it is once more proved, and proved without any doubt, that the leaders of the Nazi Party and the Military Command bear equal responsibility for the ill-treatment of the Soviet prisoners of war. for all but the Soviet prisoners.
"The regulations of the OKW Section for Prisoners of War #389/42-c of 24-111-1942 are in force". of the Party and the OKW. country whose representatives already in 1902 declared:
"That the only purpose in taking prisoners of war is to prevent their taking further part in the war. Although prisoners of war lose their freedom, they do not lose their rights.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, we had that order read to us more than once.
COLONEL POKROVSKY: I am not repeating this document; I am only recalling the contents of this document.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you must give the Tribunal credit for some recollection. As I say, that document has been read more than once before.
We have at our disposal an official note signed by Lammers. This document is registered under No. 073-PS. We submit it to the Tribunal as USSR Exhibit--it has not yet been read into the record. The document states-you will find this extract on page 119 of your file.
"Prisoners of war are foreigners. The influencing of them is, therefore, the task of the field of Foreign politics and of foreign propaganda. The exception to this rule is the Soviet prisoners who are put under or subordinated to the Reichs Minister for Occupied Regions in the East, because the Geneva Convention is not valid for them, and they are in a special political position.
another document. These are the notes composed at the Headquarters of the Foreign Counter-espionage Office on the 15th of November 1941 for the "OKW" Chief-of-Staff." I will quote a few extracts, which you will find on page 192 of your file of documents.
"The Geneva Convention, regarding prisoners of war, does not apply to Germany and the USSR.
Therefore, the only rules in force are the of war.
In the 18th century these latter tended to state that military war further participating in the war.
This basic assumption was inadmissible.
Besides, each commanding officer is interested in "The document including Appendix I of the order concerning the assumptions."
paragraph.
"This extends to several other features which previously were are obligatory in order to maintain the military discipline in one's own troops."
The orders are stated in very general words. However, in view of the assumed basic orientation, it is clear that the measures permitted by these orders were bound to result in wanton murder even though officially wanton behaviour was prohibited.