THE PRESIDENT: One moment. There is only one other thing that I wanted to ask you. You asked at an earlier stage for the evidence from Ambassador Messersmith and Otto Wettberg and in both cases the Tribunal granted you interrogatories. I don't know whether you are withdrawing your application in respect to those cases or whether you have seen the answers to the interrogatories.
DR. NELTE: I have, in accordance with the suggestions of the Tribunal, sent those interrogatories to Ambassador Messersmith and Otto Wettberg. In accordance with what reply I shall receive from those two witnesses, I shall then submit them or not.
THE PRESIDENT: The application for Otto Wettberg?
DR. NELTE: Yes, sir, but I haven't received them back.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
The exhibit No.1, would you explain a little bit more what No.1 is going to be? It appears to be the opinion of an expert witness on the meaning of the Fuehrer precept. Is that what you intend?
DR. NELTE: Yes. It is a legislative article or article on the structure and significance of what is known as Fuehrerstaat (Leadership State).
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
COLONEL SMIRNOV: May it please your Honors, it is my duty to submit to the Tribunal evidence on the last count of the Soviet prosecutor's statements.
"Crimes against Humanity" are foreseen by Count 4 of the Indictment and by Article 6, and in particular in subparagraph "C" of Article 6 of the Charter. the territories of the temporarily occupied districts of the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Greece.
"Crimes against Humanity", just as other crimes of the Fascists which have been submitted to the Tribunal by my colleagues, came from the criminal basis of Fascist mentality by the seizing of considerable districts in the East and in the West and by putting into slavery of the population.
These crimes were put into effect as a result of a cannibalistic theory of the Fascists.
Moreover, the concept of "Crimes against Humanity" is included in nearly all the crimes of the German Fascists. Thus a major part of probative facts which corroborate the commission by the German Fascists of these crimes has already been submitted to the Tribunal as regards war Crimes against the civilian population. practices of war, as well as the mass extermination of the prisoners of war, are also in themselves very grave Crimes against Humanity.
Moreover, the concept "Crimes against Humanity" is considerably wider in its scope than any of the crimes of the German Fascists, the proofs of which have been hitherto submitted to the Tribunal. appearance of the Swastika on official buildings, the inhabitants of the temporarily occupied Eastern European countries were placed, one might say, in the ante-chamber of death. renounce all that which, as a result of centuries of human development, had become an integral part of humanity. forced to pass through numerous and painful phases, insulting to human dignity, which constitute, in their main features, the charge which we entitle "Crimes against Humanity." number or by sewing on their sleeves a particular marking. They were deprived of the right to speak or to read in their own tongue. They were deprived of their home and family and were deprived of their country by transferring them by force to places distant several hundreds of thousands of kilometres.
They were deprived of the right to have children. They were mocked and insulted. Their feelings and beliefs were jeered at and scoffed. And only then were they deprived of their last possession, their lives.
exhaustion of the victims of Fascism. They also noted a profound state of moral depression among those people who, thanks to this or that accidental circumstance, succeeded in escaping the Fascist terror. once again could return to normal conceptions and actions and to the human rules of human society. It is difficult to determine in legal terns this moment of transgression, but in my opinion, it is of the greatest import for the incrimination of the principal war criminals. submitted to the Tribunal as USSR Exhibit No. 93. The quotation which I should like now to refer to is on page 10 of the document book. of the statement of Jacob Vernic, a carpenter from Warsaw, who was interned during a year in the extermination camp of Treblinka. Sometimes in the German documents it is called "Treblinka 2" and "Treblinka 5", but it is the same camp. It was one of the most terrible points of mass extermination of people created by German Fascism. In my statement I will submit to the Tribunal proof connected with the existence of this camp. This is what Vernic said while presenting to the Polish Government a report on Treblinka, which, as he stated, was the only reason for his continuing to live his pitiful life:
"Awake or asleep I see terrible visions of thousands of people calling for help, begging for life and mercy. I have lost my family. I have myself led them to death and I have myself built the death chambers in which they were murdered. I'm afraid of everything. I fear that what I have seen is marked on my face. Old and broken life is a heavy burden but I must carry on and live to tell the world what I have seen of German crimes and barbarism," of death. But were they alone victims of this fate? An analysis of probative facts connected with the crimes of the German Fascists were irrefutable testimony to the fact that the same fate was shared not only by those who were sent to special extermination camps, but all those who became the victims of these criminals in the occupied countries of Eastern Europe.
out of the report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes committed in the Town of Orel and Orel District. In the text of this document there is a special report of a famed Russian scientist, a doctor, and president of the Academy of Medical Science, member of the Extraordinary State Commission, Academic Bourdenko. The tribunal will this report on page 14 of the Document Book, paragraph 6.
"The scenes," says Bourdenko "surpassed the wildest imagination. Our joy at the sight of the delivered people was obscured by the horror of their expression. This led one to reflect - what was the matter? Evidently, the sufferings they had undergone had identified the concept of life and death. I observed these people during throe days; I bandaged them. I evacuated them but their stare of fixity did not change, and something similar could be noticed during the first days on the faces of the doctors."
I will not dwell upon extracts from "Mein Kampf" or the "Myth of the Twentieth Century", which are already known to the Tribunal who are interested in the first place, in the criminal practices of the German Fascist fiends. victims of Fascism. Death could come unexpectedly, together with an appearance at the given point of this for that Sonderkommando, but, simultaneously, death could come for any action according to certain acts which have received the mock title of "German fascist Laws." I and other members of the Soviet Prosecution have already quoted numerous examples of these terroristic laws, directives of the German Fascists. I do not wish to repeat myself, but I wish to beg the permission of the Tribunal to quote one of those documents as it concerns all the temporarily seized eastern territories. The only justification for their publication of this document was for its author, the defendant Rosenberg: the fact that these temporarily, occupied districts were inhabited by "Non-Germans". This document is the characteristic item, the best evidence of the persecution of the people for racial or national or political motives.
I beg the Tribunal to add this document to the record. The document is USSR Exhibit No. 395. This order was issued on the 17th of February 1942 and is the so-called order supplementing the penal directives for the eastern territories. The Tribunal will find this document on pages 19 and 20 of the document book. I will read this document in full, beginning with paragraph 1.
"The death penalty or, in lesser cases, penal servitude would be inflicted upon those who will use violence against the German Empire or against the authority established in the occupied territories. Those who will commit violence against a German subject or person of German nationality for his belonging to this German nationality; against those who use violence against a serviceman of the German Army or Non-military organization, such as the German police, including the auxiliary forces, the labor forces, the labor service of the German authorities or its institutions, the organizations of the NSDAP; against those who appeal or incite to disobedience regarding orders or directives issued by the German authorities or who premeditatively inflicts damage to the enterprises, to German buildings or institutions or things which are utilized by the latter or for public use; against those who are accomplices of anti-Germany tendencies or organizationally helps units prohibited by the German authorities; against those who take part in hostile inciting activity and reveals anti-German views or by his behavior diminishes or inflicts damage to the authority or good of the German people; against those who premeditatively commit larceny--"
THE PRESIDENT: Have you read this before?
COLONEL SMIRNOV: I referred to these telegrams, but I believe that it was not yet read into this record.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
COLONEL SMIRNOV: It may be that similar orders were read. They may be the orders of Frank or other orders because they resemble this order, but I don't think that this one has been read. I do not find it has been read.
" --or thereby inflicts damage to the general German interests or to the possessions of the German or a person of German nationality."
Paragraph 2:
"The death penalty and, in lesser cases, penal servitude is also inflicted to those who agree to commit such an action foraeen by Paragraph 1; who enters into serious negotiations on that subject; who offers his services or accepts a similar proposal, as well as those who possess accurate information on this action or its intention, when it could still be averted, wilfully abstains from warning prematurely the German authorities of this plot on the part of a certain person."
Paragraph 3:
"A death penalty will also punish those crimes that are not for seen by Paragraphs 1 and 2, if, according to the general German Criminal, Laws and to the directives of the German authorities, it does not entail the death penalty but testifies to particular base convictions or as a particular grave offense of other reasons. In these cases, the death penalty is also permissible regarding the children who have committed these grave crimes."
Paragraph 4:
"If there is insufficient justification for the judging by military courts, their verdict will be pronounced by special courts. This does not concern special instructions issued for the armed forces."
This order of Rosenberg's was only one of the links in the chain of crimes committed by the leaders of the German Fascism and directed towards the extermination of the Slav people.
I pass on to the first part of my statement which is entitled "The Extermination of Slav People." In the second port of this statement I will show how this criminal destruction of Slow persons was put into effect. I will quote data from the report of the Yugoslav Government, which is on page 56 of the Russian text or 76 of the document book.
" Apart from the 250,000 Yugoslava who died in battle, the occupants exterminated at least one and a half to two million people, mostly women, children, and aged persons. Out of the fifteen million pre-war Yugoslav population, for a relatively short period of four years, almost fourteen per cent of the entire population was exterminated."
36 and 37 of the Russian text, there is proof of a plan for forceful ecpulsion of all the Czechs and the establishment of Germans in Czechoslovakia, which was planned by the Hitlerite criminals. The report quotes statements of Karl Herma Frank, who admitted the existence of this plan and declared that he, Frank, had compiled a memorandum in which he objected to similar plans. I quote excerpts from the statement of Hermann Frank, which the Tribunal can find on page 37 of this report of the Czechoslovakian Book.
"I consider this plan senseless as, in my opinion, the expense created by these measures would seriously impede the live functions of Czechoslovakia and Moravia for various reasons of geo-political transportation, industrial, and other character, and the immediate filing of this empty space by our German colonists was impossible." by various methods, among which an important part was played by the driving of people to an extreme state of exhaustion by labor and their subsequent extermination through hunger. The criminals quite consciously envisaged the killing of millions of people by hunger, and this can be proved by a number of document which have already been quoted by me or by my colleagues, namely, the diary of Hans Frank. I will quote a few short extracts out of his document. Here is an excerpt concerning the conference held by the Government on the 7th of December 1942 in Krakow.
first column of the text, last paragraph:
"If the new code-plan is put into effect, this means that in Warsaw and in the neighborhood and its surroundings alone, 500,000 people will no longer receive food." conference held on 24 August 1942. That is an excerpt on page 90 of the document book, first paragraph of the text:
"Dr. Frank: With all the difficulties which you find here relative to diseased workers, and the collapse of their union, you must keep in mind it is much better if the Poles collapse than if the Germans collapse. Let it only be mentioned if the Jews do not die of hunger, we shall be condemning one to two million Jews to die of starvation. This is correct. Of course, if the Jews are not to die from starvation, this will hasten activation of anti-Jewish measures." political leaders of the Labor Front of the Government General, on 14 December 1942 this Tribunal will find on page 89 of the document book, 2nd column of the text, second paragraphs:
"We are faced with the following problem: Will we be able to, beginning from the 2nd of February, to deprive the two million persons who live in this district, two million persons of non-German nationality, food-supplies?" speaking of crimes against humanity, referred to notes given by Martin Bormann, and the notes were presented to the Court under Exhibit No. USSR-172 can find on page 97 of the document book, last paragraph:
"Similarly the Fuehrer said again, the last German workman, or the last German peasant, will always stand ten percent in economic level, and must stand higher than any Pole."
How was this actually accepted? I would like to show how these statements of Hitler were put into effect by the defendant Frank in the territory of Poland.
I beg the Tribunal to refer to the original German document. Among the Fascist institutes which carried out the various scientific experiments by the German criminals there was created a special institute which investigated economic life. This institute issued as documentary importance a Polish document for war industry for Upper Silesia. A similar investigation was carried on by this Frank institute for determination of the reason for the ruination of or destruction of Polish workers. We can judge the aims of this investigation by two short excerpts. On page 39 of the original of this document we read -- the Tribunal will find this on page 101 of the document book, second paragraph. I submit this document as USSR Exhibit No.282. This quotation is on page 101 of the document book, third paragraph.
"No humanitarian tendency motivates this investigation." third paragraph, of the document book. It is said:
"We raise our voices not in defense of the Poles but in order to prevent the military production which must supply the Wehrmacht." characterizes this investigation, I would like to quote a few excerpts which show the status of the Polish worker and the practical realization by the defendant Frank of these directives of Hitler's. I quote on page 38 of the original copy of the document, which corresponds with page 101 of the document book:
"Information concerning the condition of the Polish population' and the opinions after the measures which are to be taken there. The measure agrees on one point, which can be summarized as follows: The Poles are starving. Similar information concerning these conclusions was where one of our informers visited a war production plant during the midday meal. The workers are standing apathetically or sitting, and some of them are smoking. By observation the informer states that out of eighty persons only one had a piece of bread for lunch. The others had no food whatever, and they were all working ten to twelve hours a day." 102 of the document book, is this quotations:
"Observation made on the factories prove that the portions received by the village workers will show insignificant; that there is not enough food to take with them to work. In most cases the workers do not even have a piece of bread for lunch during the midday. If some of them bring a lunch with them it consists of a meagre coffee and one or two pieces of dry bread, of raw potatoes, and in more than one time they don't even have this meagre pittance, and are satisfied to contain themselves with raw carrots, which they warm on a stove for their work."
I continue my quotation on page 150 of the same document:
"In this connection one must state that on visiting the mines, it appeared that nearly ten percent of the Polish workers which went down to work underground took with them only dry bread, or dry raw potatoes in slices which they then warmed on a stove." calories which was received by the Poles in Upper Silesia and compiling them with the number of calories received by the German population. I will not state a large excerpt produced from the document, but will only bring a few short ones to your Honors' notice. I start on page 63 of this investigation in the document, and on page 102, last paragraph of the document book:
"Comparison of the number of calories received by the Poles in Upper Silesia, and the number of calories allocated to the German population, proves that the Poles received 24 percent less than the German consumer, this difference reaching 26 percent on those food ration cards which are received by non-working Poles. For young people fourteen to twenty years old, these differences reach a difference between the Germans and the Poles which reaches 33-1/3 percent. This only applies, however, to this difference with the working young people from fourteen years old. This difference still averages more among the children ten to fourteen years of age but less than compared with that received by the German children. The difference here is not less than sixty-five percent. The special aspect of these underfed young people display quite clearly a difference. In a similar way the Polish children younger than ten years receive sixty percent less than the German children. Thus on the other hand the doctors state that the food conditions of the babies are not so unfavorable.
It was only varied while the mother feeds the child, as the child gets everything from her, but the under-feeding reacts not on the child but on the mother. Its strength and health, of course, is diminished by its under-feeding."
I continue on page 178 of the original document. It corresponds to page 107 in the document book:
"In all categories the consumer, the Polish youth in comparison to the German youth is in a most unfavorable position. The difference here reaches sixty percent, and even higher." this investigation, are also subject to investigation by the Tribunal; on page 76, from the excerpt from the report of the German Labor Front, dated 10 October 1941, after one of the mines of the Poles had been visited:
"It was ascertained that in the various villages, the Polish miners fell from exhaustion. The workers are constantly complaining of stomach pains. The doctors were questioned, and the latter answered that the reason for these pains was inadequate feeding." which was then done by the German workers from the district, or in the neighborhood, the excerpt which you will find on page 106 of the document book:
"In management of the factories, which is constantly undermined, it is impossible to incite the working people who are underfed and who are incapable of working except by threats of deportation to concentration camps. There must come a day when weakened bodies can no longer be capable of work."
of the Polish worker during the period of German occupation of Poland. This characteristic is of more value, as was stated previously by the authors in the investigation, that no human tendencies whatever motivated it. I began the quotation on page 127 of the document which corresponds to page 110, second paragraph of the Document Book. Quoting:
"The law does not give a person belonging to the Polish people any right to demand anything in any way.
Everything that is voluntary gift of the German masters."
Poles when they are not present before the law. Criminal jurisdiction is applied to them only from the point of view of obedience. Application of the law is a task of the police, which decides it at their discretion, and in those cases merely on their own initiative, and in some cases they can submit it to court. There is also an order dated 26 August 1942: "The Polish workers were obliged to pay premiums against illness and accidents, and invalids. It is a deduction out of the salary of the Polish worker which were larger than the deduction from the salary of the German. However, the German worker had some use of this insurance. The Poles were deprived of it, of this advantage. Book, which corresponds to page 134 of the original text:
"Insurance against accidents. It is organized by trade unions, and is purposely limited so far as the Poles are concerned.
The Germans.
When a German loses an eye that is considered thirty incapacitated.
Before receiving the premium the Poles must lose 33 1/3 percent of their working capacity."
page 111 of the Document Book:
"The rights of families of Polish workers are greatly limited.
the German; only if she has at least four children to support, or if she is an invalid."
she receives eighty percent of the yearly salary of her husband; that out of the annual amount she receives two thousand marks of the earnings of the premium, which is only 1600 marks a year; but the Pole would not receive anything in a similar case. to the temporary occupied eastern territories, but the latter were followed by their war specialists who were scientists and consultants in the economic problems, and so forth. Some of them were sent to Robbentrop's Office, and some others were sent by Rosenberg's office.
I beg the tribunal to add to the record one of these documents. I speak of USSR No. 218, and the report of the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the 17th Army, Captain Pflaiderer, whose address was "Official of Information Burea, Minister of Foreign Affairs" with von Randzau. The document was discovered by the Red Army in the State of Dirksen in Upper Silesia. While acquainted myself with these documents, I only can say in conclusion, that in 1941-42 Pflaiderer made a trip through the occupied territories of Jroslavl, through Ukrainia, Lvov, Tornopol, Proskurov, Aleksandria, Krirovoglad, and Krementshug. The object of this trip was an investigation of the economic and political conditions in the occupied territories of Ukrainia. The author of this document was also completely free of so-called humanitarian tendencies, which can be seen from the short excerpt from his report dated 28 October 1941, Pflaiderer's rights, the Tribunal will find it is quoted on page 113, second paragraph of the Document Book. I quote only one line; "There is an acute necessity to squeeze the country dry in order to secure the supplying of Germany." End of quote. was evident by the behavior of his compatriots, and I therefore consider it a privilege to draw the attention of the tribunal to the report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in this respect I quote the report of Pflaiderer:
"The conditions guarantee the supply and the confiscation of a the conditions of the population by the end of this October, 1941."
"The frame of mind of the population follows in many cases immediately after occupation of the territory by our troops (what is the reason of this) with objection or inner hatred to this country's occupation, and I speak of arrogance towards these discipline.
We must not vent our discontent among the population.
"to mistakes it could hive easily been prevented of the population with loss of sympathy.
We shot in villages and localities prisoners not be understood by the population.
The troops had received wide Evidently, the supplying of our troops is of most important; how economic point of view; or the killing of the last pig, or the last cow."
I continue my quotation:
"The population is now without leadership. It stands apart, which feels that they look down upon them from above.
That we see sabotage in the tempering of the work.
We do not undertake any attempt to find any way of understanding the population."
A similar document is USSR No. 39, which is a political report of this USSR-PS 303, and was handed over to us. It is political report of a German professor-Doctor Paul Thompson, which was written on a letterhead of the Imperial University Poznan Biological Paleontlog Institute, and which was marked by the author "Not for publication." I quote page 116 of the Document Book. This document also acquaints one with these conditions of complete arbitrary restlessness as regard local population of a temporary occupied district of the Soviet Union, and those conditions were observed by this professor during his voyage through the occupied territories of the Soviet Union from Minsk to Crimea. I quote two short excerpts:
"The absence of humanitarian tendence of the author can be quite noted by source of the German enterprise."
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 26 February 1946, at 1000 hours)
THE PRESIDENT: I wanted to explain the Tribunal's decision with reference to General and General Warlimont.
Would Dr. Nelte kindly come to the Tribunal?
I wanted to ask you, Dr. Nelte, whether you were the only one of the defendants' counsel who wished to call General Halder and General Warlimont,
DR. NELTE (counsel for defendant Keitel): No. Besides myself, so far as I know, Dr. Laternser, Professor Kraus, and Professor Exner would like to call both Halder and Warlimont.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, I understand.
The Tribunal's decision is this. The Tribunal ordered, when the Soviet prosecutor wished to out in the affidavits of these two Generals, that if they were put in, the witnesses must be produced for cross examination. However, in view of the fact that defendants' counsel have asked to call there witnesses themselves, the Tribunal is willing that the defendants' counsel should decide whether they prefer that those two generals should be produced now during the prosecutions' case, for cross examination, or should be called hereafter during the defendants' case for examination by the defendants, in which case, of course, they would be liable to cross examination on behalf of the prosecution. Tribunal made the other day -- either yesterday or the previous day, I forget which it was -- that these witnesses, like other witnesses, can only be called once, and when they are called, each of the defendant's counsel who wishes to put questions to them must do so at that time.
Well, if there were any difference of opinion among defendants' counsel, one defendant's counsel wishing to have the two generals produced now during the prosecution's case for cross examination, and other defendants' counsel wishing to have them called hereafter as witnesses on their behalf during the course of their case, then the Tribunal consider that in view of the order which they have already, made, Generals Halder and Warlimont ought to be produced and called, now.
And the same rule would apply, then. They could only be called once, and any questions which the other defendants' counsel wish to be put to them should be nut to them then. But the decision as to whether they should be called now or whether they should be called during the course of the defendants' case is accorded to defendants' counsel.
Is that clear?
DR. NELTE: Yes. I should like to request permission to give you our decision at the beginning of the afternoon session.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. You Can let us know at the beginning of the afternoon session what the decision of defendants' counsel is.
DR. NELTE: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Colonel Smirnov.
COLONEL SMIRNOV: I am continuing the quotation of the political report of Professor Paul Thompson, which was already submitted yesterday evening to the Tribunal. It is on page 116 of the document book. These are only two short excerpts of this political report.
"Although here in the East only scientific tasks have been entrusted to me, I consider myself obliged to add to my business report a general political report. I must frankly and honestly declare that I return home with very painful impressions.
"In this hour when the fats of our people is being decided, any mistake can have terrible consequences. We can solve the Polish or Czech problems our always, as the biological forces of our people will suffice. Such small nationalities as Estonians or Lithuanians must either adapt themselves to us or perish.
"But the case is quite different as far as the great Russian expanses are concerned. These expanses are so important for us as a basis of raw materials."
"I cannot judge of the economic measures, such as the crossing of the free market at Kiev, which was accepted by the population as a very heavy blow, for I do not know the general situation, but the flogging and the insulting in the streets, the senseless destruction of scientific institutions etc., which are still taking place in Dniepropetrovsk must be stopped and the guilty must be punished.
"Kiev, 19 October 1942. Professor Dr. Paul Thompson." the Tribunal. It stated that not people but territories were Germanized. which they intended committing in Yugoslavia. This crime could not be carried out, as a result of the liberation movement which broke out in Yugoslavia. I quote a short excerpt from the statement of the Yugoslav Government, which is at page 69, the 7th paragraph, of the document book.
"Immediately after the entry of the German troops into Slovenia, the Germans began to put into effect their long-standing plan for the forceful Germanization of the annexed parts of Slovenia. The leading Nazi circles were aware of the fact that a successful Germanization of Slovenia could not be carried out unless at least a greater part of the most nationally end socially conscious elements were previously removed from the country.
"Besides, it was often necessary to comb out the remaining popular masses and to destroy them economically so that their resistance to the German Nazi pressure of the German authorities should be the least possible.
"Part of the German plan for saw the complete purging of the Slovenes in certain parts of Slovenia, and the transferring of the German population into these territories from other parts, as, for instance, from Bessarabia.
"A few days after the occupation of Slovenia was completed, centers for deportation were established, with their staffs, in Maribore and Bled. Simultaneously, on the 22nd of April, 1941, the decree for strengthening Germandom was published, with the aim to confiscate the property of all persons and institutions unfriendly to the Reich, Naturally, such were considered all those Who, in accordance with the aforesaid plan, were to be deported from Slovenia.
"The Hitlerites undertook the practical realization of this plan. to Serbia and Croatia. The treatment of the arrested persons was very cruel. The entire property of arrested persons was confiscated in the interests of the Reich. Humorous assembly points were organized which were turned, in fact, into concentration camps, in Maribore, Zelie, and other localities." statement of the Yugoslav Government reads as follows, and this is on page 69, the fourth paragraph, of the document book:5 "Interned persons were left without food under the most unhygienic conditions and exposed to physical and spiritual torture of every kind at the hands of the camp's staff.
The camp commanders, as well as the entire staff, were recruited from the SS detachment, which included a large proportion of Germans from Carinthia and Styria, filled with hatred for 'everything that was Slovene or Yugoslav.