Chapter III (2)

In Czechoslovakia as a result of torture, beating, hanging, and shootings, there were annihilated in Gestapo prisons in Brno, Seim and other places over 20,000 persons. Moreover many thousands of internees were subjected to criminal treatment, beatings and torture.

Both before the war, as well as during the war, thousands of Czech patriots, in particular catholics and protestants, lawyers, doctors, teachers, etc., were arrested as hostages and imprisoned. A large number of these hostages were killed by the Germans.

In Greece in October, 1941, the male populations between 16 and 60 years of age of the Greek villages Amelofito, Kliston, Kizonia Mesovunos, Selli, Ano-Kerzilion and Kato-Kerzilion were shot—in all 416 persons.

In Yugoslavia many thousands of civilians were murdered. Other examples are given under paragraph (_D_), “Killing of Hostages”, below.

(_B_) DEPORTATION FOR SLAVE LABOUR AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES OF THE
CIVILIAN POPULATIONS OF AND IN OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

During the whole period of the occupation by Germany of both the Western and the Eastern Countries it was the policy of the German Government and of the German High Command to deport able bodied citizens from such occupied countries to Germany and to other occupied countries for the purpose of slave labour upon defence works, in factories and in other tasks connected with the German War effort.

In pursuance of such policy there were mass deportations from all the Western and Eastern countries for such purposes during the whole period of the occupation.

Such deportations were contrary to international Conventions, in particular to Article 46 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and to Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.

Particulars of deportations, by way of example only and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases are as follows:

1. From the Western Countries:

From France the following deportations of persons for political and racial reasons took place—each of which consisted of from 1,500-2,500 deportees:

1940 3 Transports
1941 14 Transports
1942 104 Transports
1943 257 Transports
1944 326 Transports

Such deportees were subjected to the most barbarous conditions of overcrowding; they were provided with wholly insufficient clothing and were given little or no food for several days.

The conditions of transport were such that many deportees died in the course of the voyage, for example:

In one of the wagons of the train which left Compiegne for Buchenwald, on the 17th September, 1943, 80 men died out of 130;

On 4th June, 1944, 484 bodies were taken out of the train at Sarrebourg;

In a train which left Compiegne on the 2nd July, 1944, for Dachau, more than 600 dead were found on arrival, i.e., one-third of the total number;

In a train which left Compiegne on the 16th January, 1944, for Buchenwald more than 100 men were confined in each wagon, the dead and the wounded being heaped in the last wagon during the voyage;

In April, 1945, of 12,000 internees evacuated from Buchenwald, 4,000 only were still alive when the marching column arrived near Regensburg.

During the German occupation of Denmark, 5,200 Danish subjects were deported to Germany and there imprisoned in concentration camps and other places.

In 1942 and thereafter 6,000 nationals of Luxembourg were departed from their country under deplorable conditions as a result of which many of them perished.

From Belgium between 1940 and 1941 at least 190,000 civilians were deported to Germany and used as slave labour. Such deportees were subjected to ill-treatment and many of them were compelled to work in armament factories.

From Holland, between 1940 and 1944 nearly half a million civilians were deported to Germany and to other occupied countries.

2. From the Eastern Countries:

The German occupying authorities deported from the Soviet Union to slavery about 4,978,000 Soviet citizens.

750,000 Czechoslovakian citizens were taken away for forced labor outside the Czechoslovak frontiers in the interior of the German war machine.

On June 4, 1941, in the city of Zagreb (Yugoslavia) a meeting of German representatives was called with the Councillor Von Troll presiding. The purpose was to set up the means of deporting the Yugoslav population from Slovenia. Tens of thousands of persons were deported in carrying out this plan.

(_C_) MURDER AND ILL-TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR, AND OF OTHER MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE COUNTRIES WITH WHOM GERMANY WAS AT WAR, AND OF PERSONS ON THE HIGH SEAS

The Defendants murdered and ill-treated prisoners of war by denying them adequate food, shelter, clothing and medical care and attention; by forcing them to labor in inhumane conditions; by torturing them and subjecting them to inhuman indignities and by killing them. The German Government and the German High Command imprisoned prisoners of war in various concentration camps, where they were killed and subjected to inhuman treatment by the various methods set forth in paragraph VIII (_A_). Members of the armed forces of the countries with whom Germany was at war were frequently murdered while in the act of surrendering. These murders and ill-treatment were contrary to International Conventions, particularly Articles 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, and to Articles 2, 3, 4 and 6 of the Prisoners of War Convention (Geneva 1929) the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and to Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.

Particulars by way of examples and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases, are as follows:

1. In the Western Countries:

French officers who escaped from Oflag X C were handed over to the Gestapo and disappeared; others were murdered by their guards; others sent to concentration camps and exterminated. Among others, the men of Stalag VI C were sent to Buchenwald.

Frequently prisoners captured on the Western Front were obliged to march to the camps until they completely collapsed. Some of them walked more than 600 kilometers with hardly any food; they marched on for 48 hours running, without being fed; among them a certain number died of exhaustion or of hunger; stragglers were systematically murdered.

The same crimes have been committed in 1943, 1944 and 1945 when the occupants of the camps were withdrawn before the Allied advance; particularly during the withdrawal of the prisoners of Sagan on February 8th, 1945.

Bodily punishments were inflicted upon non-commissioned officers and cadets who refused to work. On December 24th, 1943, three French N.C.O’s were murdered for that motive in Stalag IV A. Many ill-treatments were inflicted without motive on other ranks: stabbing with bayonets, striking with rifle-butts and whipping; in Stalag XX B the sick themselves were beaten many times by sentries; in Stalag III B and Stalag III C, worn-out prisoners were murdered or grievously wounded. In military gaols in Graudenz for instance, in reprisal camps as in Rava-Ruska, the food was so insufficient that the men lost more than 15 kilograms in a few weeks. In May, 1942, 1 loaf of bread only was distributed in Rava-Ruska to each group of 35 men.

Orders were given to transfer French officers in chains to the camp of Mauthausen after they had tried to escape. At their arrival in camp they were murdered, either by shooting, or by gas and their bodies destroyed in the crematorium.

American prisoners, officers and men, were murdered in Normandy during the summer of 1944 and in the Ardennes in December, 1944. American prisoners were starved, beaten and otherwise mistreated in numerous Stalag in Germany and in the occupied countries, particularly in 1943, 1944 and 1945.

2. In the Eastern Countries:

At Orel prisoners of war were exterminated by starvation, shooting, exposure, and poisoning.

Soviet prisoners of war were murdered en masse on orders from the High Command and the Headquarters of the SIPO and SD. Tens of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war were tortured and murdered at the “Gross Lazaret” at Slavuta.

In addition, many thousands of the persons referred to in paragraph VIII (A) 2, above, were Soviet prisoners of war.

Prisoners of war who escaped and were recaptured were handed over to SIPO and SD for shooting.

Frenchmen fighting with the Soviet Army who were captured were handed over to the Vichy Government for “proceedings”.

In March, 1944, 50 R.A.F. officers who escaped from Stalag Luft III at Sagan, when recaptured, were murdered.

In September, 1941, 11,000 Polish officers, who were prisoners of war were killed in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk.

In Yugoslavia the German Command and the occupying authorities in the person of the chief officials of the Police, the SS troops (Police Lieutenant General Rosener) and the Divisional Group Command (General Kuebler and others) in the period 1941-43 ordered the shooting of prisoners of war.

(_D_) KILLING OF HOSTAGES

Throughout the territories occupied by the German armed forces in the course of waging aggressive wars, the defendants adopted and put into effect on a wide scale the practice of taking, and of killing, hostages from the civilian population. These acts were contrary to International Conventions, particularly Article 50 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and to Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.

Particulars by way of example and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases, are as follows:

1. In the Western Countries:

In France hostages were executed either individually or collectively; these executions took place in all the big cities of France, among others in Paris, Bordeaux and Nantes, as well as at Chateabriant.

In Holland many hundreds of hostages were shot at the following among other places—Rotterdam, Apeldoorn, Amsterdam, Benschop and Haarlem.

In Belgium many hundreds of hostages were shot during the period 1940 to 1944.

2. In the Eastern Countries:

At Kragnevatz in Yugoslavia 2,300 hostages were shot in October, 1941.

At Kralevo in Yugoslavia 5,000 hostages were shot.

(_E_) PLUNDER OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROPERTY

The defendants ruthlessly exploited the people and the material resources of the countries they occupied, in order to strengthen the Nazi war machine, to depopulate and impoverish the rest of Europe, to enrich themselves and their adherents, and to promote German economic supremacy over Europe.

The Defendants engaged in the following acts and practices, among others:

1. They degraded the standard of life of the people of occupied countries and caused starvation, by stripping occupied countries of foodstuffs for removal to Germany.

2. They seized raw materials and industrial machinery in all of the occupied countries, removed them to Germany and used them in the interest of the German war effort and the German economy.

3. In all the occupied countries, in varying degrees, they confiscated businesses, plants and other property.

4. In an attempt to give color of legality to illegal acquisitions of property, they forced owners of property to go through the forms of “voluntary” and “legal” transfers.

5. They established comprehensive controls over the economies of all of the occupied countries and directed their resources, their production and their labor in the interests of the German war economy, depriving the local populations of the products of essential industries.

6. By a variety of financial mechanisms, they despoiled all of the occupied countries of essential commodities and accumulated wealth, debased the local currency systems and disrupted the local economies. They financed extensive purchases in occupied countries through clearing arrangements by which they exacted loans from the occupied countries. They imposed occupation levies, exacted financial contributions, and issued occupation currency, far in excess of occupation costs. They used these excess funds to finance the purchase of business properties and supplies in the occupied countries.

7. They abrogated the rights of the local populations in the occupied portions of the USSR and in Poland and in other countries to develop or manage agricultural and industrial properties, and reserved this area for exclusive settlement, development, and ownership by Germans and their so-called racial brethren.

8. In further development of their plan of criminal exploitation, they destroyed industrial cities, cultural monuments, scientific institutions, and property of all types in the occupied territories to eliminate the possibility of competition with Germany.

9. From their program of terror, slavery, spoliation and organized outrage, the Nazi conspirators created an instrument for the personal profit and aggrandizement of themselves and their adherents. They secured for themselves and their adherents

(_a_) Positions in administration of business involving power,
influence and lucrative perquisites.

(_b_) The use of cheap forced labor.

(_c_) The acquisition on advantageous terms of foreign properties,
business interests, and raw materials.

(_d_) The basis for the industrial supremacy of Germany.

These acts were contrary to International Conventions, particularly Articles 46 to 56 inclusive of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and to Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.

Particulars (by way of example and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases) are as follows:

1. Western Countries:

There was plundered from the Western Countries from 1940 to 1944, works of art, artistic objects, pictures, plastics, furniture, textiles, antique pieces and similar articles of enormous value to the number of 21,903.

In France statistics show the following:

_Removal of Raw Materials_
Coal 63,000,000 tons
Electric energy 20,976 Mkwh
Petrol and fuel 1,943,750 tons
Iron ore 74,848,000 tons
Siderurgical products 3,822,000 tons
Bauxite 1,211,800 tons
Cement 5,984,000 tons
Lime 1,888,000 tons
Quarry products 25,872,000 tons

and various other products to a total value of 79,961,423,000 francs.

_Removal of Industrial Equipment_

Total: 9,759,861,000 Francs, of which 2,626,479,000 Francs of Machine Tools.

_Removal of Agricultural Produce_

Total: 126,655,852,000 francs, i.e., for the principal

Products:
Wheat 2,947,337 tons
Oats 2,354,080 tons
Milk 790,000 hectolitres
Milk (concentrated 460,000 hectolitres
and in powder)
Butter 76,000 tons
Cheese 49,000 tons
Potatoes 725,975 tons
Various vegetables 575,000 tons
Wine 7,647,000 hectolitres
Champagne 87,000,000 bottles
Beer 3,821,520 hectolitres
Various kinds of 1,830,000 hectolitres
alcohol

_Removal of Manufactured Products_

to a total of 184,640,000 francs.

_Plundering_

Francs: 257,020,024,000 from private enterprise.

Francs: 55,000,100,000 from the State.

_Financial Exploitation_

From June 1940 to September 1944 the French Treasury was compelled to pay to Germany 631,866,000,000 francs.

_Looting and Destruction of Works of Art_

The museums of Nantes, Nancy, Old-Marseilles were looted.

Private collections of great value were stolen. In this way Raphaels, Vermeers, Van Dycks and works of Rubens, Holbein, Rembrandt, Watteau, Boucher disappeared. Germany compelled France to deliver up “The Mystic Lamb” by Van Eyck, which Belgium had entrusted to her.

In Norway and other occupied countries decrees were made by which the property of many civilians, societies, etc., was confiscated. An immense amount of property of every kind was plundered from France, Belgium, Norway, Holland and Luxembourg.

As a result of the economic plundering of Belgium between 1940 and 1944 the damage suffered amounted to 175 billions of Belgian francs.

2. Eastern Countries:

During the occupation of the Eastern Countries the German Government and the German High Command carried out, as a systematic policy, a continuous course of plunder and destruction including:—

On the territory of the Soviet Union the Nazi conspirators destroyed or severely damaged 1,710 cities and more than 70,000 villages and hamlets, more than 6,000,000 buildings and made homeless about 25,000,000 persons.

Among the cities which suffered most destruction are Stalingrad, Sevastopol, Kiev, Minsk, Odessa, Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, Orel, Kharkov, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Stalino and Leningrad.

As is evident from an official memorandum of the German command, the Nazi conspirators planned the complete annihilation of entire Soviet cities. In completely secret order of the Chief of the Naval Staff (Staff Ia No. 1601/41, dated 29, IX, 1941), addressed only to Staff officers, it was said:

“The Fuehrer has decided to erase from the face of the earth St. Petersburgh. The existence of this large city will have no further interest after Soviet Russia is destroyed. Finland has also said that the existence of this city on her new border is not desirable from her point of view. The original request of the Navy that docks, harbor, etc. necessary for the fleet be preserved—is known to the Supreme Commander of the Military Forces, but the basic principles of carrying out operations against St. Petersburgh do not make it possible to satisfy this request.

It is proposed to approach near to the city and to destroy it with the aid of an artillery barrage from weapons of different calibres and with long air attacks.

The problem of the life of the population and the provisioning of them is a problem which cannot and must not be decided by us.

In this war * * * we are not interested in preserving even a part of the population of this large city.”

The Germans destroyed 427 museums, among them the wealthy museums of Leningrad, Smolensk, Stalingrad, Novgorod, Poltava and others.

In Pyatigorsk the art objects brought there from the Rostov museum were seized.

The losses suffered by the coal mining industry alone in the Stalin Region amount to 2,000,000,000 rubles. There was colossal destruction of industrial establishments in Makerevka, Carlovka, Yenakievo, Konstantinovka, Mariupol, from which most of the machinery and factories were removed.

Stealing of huge dimensions and the destruction of industrial, cultural and other property was typified in Kiev. More than 4,000,000 books, magazines and manuscripts (many of which were very valuable and even unique) and a large number of artistic productions and valuables of different kinds were stolen and carried away.

Many valuable art productions were taken away from Riga.

The extent of the plunder of cultural valuables is evidenced by the fact that 100,000 valuable volumes and 70 cases of ancient periodicals and precious monographs were carried away by Rosenberg’s staff alone.

Among further examples of these crimes are:

Wanton devastation of the city of Novgorod and of many historical and artistic monuments there. Wanton devastation and plunder of the city of Rovno and of its province. The destruction of the industrial, cultural and other property in Odessa. The destruction of cities and villages in Soviet Karelia. The destruction in Estonia of cultural, industrial and other buildings.

The destruction of medical and prophylactic institutes, the destruction of agriculture and industry in Lithuania, the destruction of cities in Latvia.

The Germans approached monuments of culture, dear to the Soviet people, with special hatred. They broke up the estate of the poet Pushkin in Mikhailovskoye, desecrating his grave, and destroying the neighboring villages and the Svyatogor monastery.

They destroyed the estate and museum of Lev Tolstoy, “Yasnaya Polyana” and desecrated the grave of the great writer. They destroyed in Klin the museum of Tsaikovsky and in Penaty, the museum of the painter Repin and many others.

The Nazi conspirators destroyed 1,670 Greek Orthodox Churches, 237 Roman Catholic Churches, 67 Chapels, 532 Synagogues, etc.

They broke up, desecrated and senselessly destroyed also the most valuable monuments of the Christian Church, such as Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra, Novy Jerusalem in the Istrin region, and the most ancient monasteries and churches.

Destruction in Esthonia of cultural industrial and other premises: burning down of many thousands of residential buildings: removal of 10,000 works of art: destruction of medical and prophylactic institutions. Plunder and removal to Germany of immense quantities of agricultural stock including horses, cows, pigs, poultry, beehives and agricultural machines of all kinds.

Destruction of agriculture, enslavement of peasants and looting of stock and produce in Lithuania.

In the Latvian Republic destruction of the agriculture by the looting of all stock, machinery and produce.

The result of this policy of plunder and destruction was to lay waste the land and cause utter desolation.

The overall value of the material loss which the U.S.S.R. has borne, is computed to be 679,000,000,000 rubles, in state prices of 1941.

Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939 the defendants seized and stole large stocks of raw materials, copper, tin, iron, cotton, and food; caused to be taken to Germany large amounts of railway rolling stock, and many engines, carriages, steam vessels and trolley buses; plundered libraries, laboratories, and art museums of books, pictures, objects of art, scientific apparatus and furniture; stole all gold reserves and foreign exchange of Czechoslovakia, including 23,000 kilograms of gold of a nominal value of £5,265,000; fraudulently acquired control and thereafter looted the Czech banks and many Czech industrial enterprises; and otherwise stole, looted and misappropriated Czechoslovak public and private property. The total sum of defendants’ economic spoliation of Czechoslovakia from 1938 to 1945 is estimated at 200,000,000,000 Czechoslovak crowns.

(_F_) THE EXACTION OF COLLECTIVE PENALTIES

The Germans pursued a systematic policy of inflicting, in all the occupied countries, collective penalties, pecuniary and otherwise, upon the population for acts of individuals for which it could not be regarded as collectively responsible; this was done at many places, including Oslo, Stavanger, Trondheim and Rogaland.

Similar instances occurred in France, among others in Dijon, Nantes and as regards the Jewish population in the occupied territories. The total amount of fines imposed on French communities add up to 1,157,179,484 francs made up as follows—

A fine on the Jewish population 1,000,000,000
Various fines 157,179,484

These acts violated Article 50, Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.

(_G_) WANTON DESTRUCTION OF CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES AND DEVASTATION
NOT JUSTIFIED BY MILITARY NECESSITY

The Defendants wantonly destroyed cities, towns and villages and committed other acts of devastation without military justification or necessity. These acts violated Articles 46 and 50 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.

Particulars by way of example only and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases are as follows:

1. Western Countries:

In March, 1941, part of Lofoten in Norway was destroyed.

In April, 1942, the town of Telerag in Norway was destroyed.

Entire villages were destroyed in France, among others Oradour-sur-Glane, Saint-Nizier and, in the Vercors, La Mure, Vassieux, La Chapelle en Vercors. The town of Saint Dié was burnt down and destroyed. The Old Port District of Marseilles was dynamited in the beginning of 1943 and resorts along the Atlantic and the Mediterranean coasts, particularly the town of Sanary, were demolished.

In Holland there was most widespread and extensive destruction, not justified by military necessity, including the destruction of harbours, locks, dykes and bridges: immense devastation was also caused by inundations which equally were not justified by military necessity.

2. Eastern Countries:

In the Eastern Countries the Defendants pursued a policy of wanton destruction and devastation: some particulars of this (without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases) are set out above under the heading—“Plunder of Public and Private Property”.

In Greece in 1941, the villages of Amelofito, Kliston, Kizonia, Messovunos, Selli, Ano-Kerzilion and Kato-Kerzilion were utterly destroyed.

In Yugoslavia on 15 August, 1941, the German military command officially announced that the village of Skela was burned to the ground and the inhabitants killed on the order of the command.

On the order of the Field Commander Hoersterberg a punitive expedition from the SS troops and the field police destroyed the villages of Machkovats, and Kriva Reka in Serbia and all the inhabitants were killed.

General Fritz Neidhold (369 Infantry Division) on 11 September, 1944, gave an order to destroy the villages of Zagniezde and Udora, hanging all the men and driving away all the women and children.

In Czechoslovakia the Nazi conspirators also practised the senseless destruction of populated places. Lezaky and Lidice were burned to the ground and the inhabitants killed.

(_H_) CONSCRIPTION OF CIVILIAN LABOUR

Throughout the occupied territories the defendants conscripted and forced the inhabitants to labour and requisitioned their services for purposes other than meeting the needs of the armies of occupation and to an extent far out of proportion to the resources of the countries involved. All the civilians so conscripted were forced to work for the German war effort. Civilians were required to register and many of those who registered were forced to join the Todt Organization and the Speer Legion, both of which were semi-military organizations involving some military training. These acts violated Articles 46 and 52 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.

Particulars, by way of example only and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases, are as follows:

1. Western Countries:

In France, from 1942 to 1944, 963,813 persons were compelled to work in Germany and 737,000 to work in France for the German Army.

In Luxembourg in 1944 alone, 2,500 men and 500 girls were conscripted for forced labor.

2. Eastern Countries:

Of the large number of citizens of the Soviet Union and of Czechoslovakia referred to under Count Three VIII (_B_) 2 above many were so conscripted for forced labor.

(_I_) FORCING CIVILIANS OF OCCUPIED TERRITORIES TO SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO A
HOSTILE POWER

Civilians who joined the Speer Legion, as set forth in paragraph (_H_) above, were required under threat of depriving them of food, money and identity papers, to swear a solemn oath acknowledging unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuehrer of Germany, which was to them a hostile power.

In Lorraine, Civil Servants were obliged, in order to retain their positions, to sign a declaration by which they acknowledged the “return of their Country to the Reich”, pledged themselves to obey without reservation the orders of their Chiefs and put themselves “at the active service of the Fuehrer and the Great National Socialist Germany”.

A similar pledge was imposed on Alsatian Civil Servants by threat of deportation or internment.

These acts violated Article 45 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of international law and Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.

(_J_) GERMANIZATION OF OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

In certain occupied territories purportedly annexed to Germany the defendants methodically and pursuant to plan endeavoured to assimilate those territories politically, culturally, socially and economically into the German Reich. The defendants endeavoured to obliterate the former national character of these territories. In pursuance of these plans and endeavours, the defendants forcibly deported inhabitants who were predominantly non-German and introduced thousands of German colonists.

This plan included economic domination, physical conquest, installation of puppet Governments, purported de jure annexation and enforced conscription into the German Armed Forces.

This was carried out in most of the Occupied Countries including: Norway, France (particularly in the departments of Upper Rhine, Lower Rhine, Moselle, Ardennes, Aisne, Nord, Meurthe and Moselle), Luxembourg, the Soviet Union, Denmark, Belgium, Holland.

In France in the Departments of the Aisne, the Nord, the Meurthe and Moselle, and especially in that of the Ardennes, rural properties were seized by a German state organization which tried to have them exploited under German direction; the landowners of these exploitations were dispossessed and turned into agricultural labourers.

In the Department of the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine and the Moselle, the methods of Germanization were those of annexation followed by conscription.

1. From the month of August, 1940, officials who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Reich were expelled. On September 21st expulsions and deportation of populations began and on November 22nd, 1940, more than 70,000 Lorrainers or Alsacians were driven into the South zone of France. From July 31, 1941, onwards, more than 100,000 persons were deported into the Eastern regions of the Reich or to Poland. All the property of the deportees or expelled persons was confiscated. At the same time, 80,000 Germans coming from the Saar or from Westphalia, were installed in Lorraine and 2,000 farms belonging to French people were transferred to Germans.

2. From 2nd January, 1942, all the young people of the Departments of the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine, aged from 10 to 18 years, were incorporated in the Hitler Youth. The same thing was done in the Moselle from 4th August, 1942. From 1940 all the French schools were closed, their staffs expelled, and the German school system was introduced in the three departments.

3. On the 28th September, 1940, an order applicable to the Department of the Moselle ordained the Germanization of all the surnames and christian names which were French in form. The same thing was done from the 15th January, 1943, in the Departments of the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine.

4. Two orders from the 23rd to 24th August, 1942, imposed by force German nationality on French citizens.

5. On the 8th May, 1941, for the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine, the 23rd April, 1941, for the Moselle, orders were promulgated enforcing compulsory labour service on all French citizens of either sex aged from 17 to 25 years. From the 1st January, 1942, for young men and from the 26th January, 1942, for young girls, national labour service was effectively organized in the Moselle. It was from the 27th August, 1942, in the Upper-Rhine and in the Lower Rhine for young men only. The classes 1940, 1941, 1942 were called up.

6. These classes were retained in the Wehrmacht on the expiration of their time and labour service. On the 19th August, 1942, an order instituted compulsory military service in the Moselle. On the 25th August, 1942, the classes 1940-44 were called up in three Departments. Conscription was enforced by the German authorities in conformity with the provisions of German legislation. The first revision boards took place from the 3rd September, 1942. Later in the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine new levies were effected everywhere on classes 1928 to 1939 inclusive. The French people who refused to obey these laws were considered as deserters and their families were deported, while their property was confiscated.

These acts violated Articles 43, 46, 55 and 56 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (_b_) of the Charter.

IX. Individual, group and organization responsibility for the offense
stated in Count Three

Reference is hereby made to Appendix A of this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the individual defendants for the offense set forth in this Count Three of the Indictment. Reference is hereby made to Appendix B of this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the groups, and organizations named herein as criminal groups and organizations for the offense set forth in this Count Three of the Indictment.

COUNT FOUR—CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

(Charter, Article 6, especially 6 (_c_).)
X. Statement of the Offense

All the defendants committed Crimes against Humanity during a period of years preceding 8th May, 1945 in Germany and in all those countries and territories occupied by the German armed forces since 1st September, 1939 and in Austria and Czechoslovakia and in Italy and on the High Seas.

All the defendants, acting in concert with others, formulated and executed a common plan or conspiracy to commit Crimes against Humanity as defined in Article 6(_c_) of the Charter. This plan involved, among other things, the murder and persecution of all who were or who were suspected of being hostile to the Nazi Party and all who were or who were suspected of being opposed to the common plan alleged in Count One.

The said Crimes against Humanity were committed by the defendants and by other persons for whose acts the defendants are responsible (under Article 6 of the Charter) as such other persons, when committing the said War Crimes, performed their acts in execution of a common plan and conspiracy to commit the said War Crimes, in the formulation and execution of which plan and conspiracy all the defendants participated as leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices.

These methods and crimes constituted violations of international conventions, of internal penal laws, of the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal law of all civilized nations and were involved in and part of a systematic course of conduct. The said acts were contrary to Article 6 of the Charter.

The prosecution will rely upon the facts pleaded under Count Three as also constituting Crimes against Humanity.

(_A_) MURDER, EXTERMINATION, ENSLAVEMENT, DEPORTATION AND OTHER INHUMANE ACTS COMMITTED AGAINST CIVILIAN POPULATIONS BEFORE AND DURING THE WAR

For the purposes set out above, the defendants adopted a policy of persecution, repression, and extermination of all civilians in Germany who were, or who were believed to, or who were believed likely to become, hostile to the Nazi Government and the common plan or conspiracy described in Count One. They imprisoned such persons without judicial process, holding them in “protective custody” and concentration camps, and subjected them to persecution, degradation, despoilment, enslavement, torture and murder.

Special courts were established to carry out the will of the conspirators; favoured branches or agencies of the State and Party were permitted to operate outside the range even of nazified law and to crush all tendencies and elements which were considered “undesirable”. The various concentration camps included Buchenwald, which was established in 1933 and Dachau, which was established in 1934. At these and other camps the civilians were put to slave labour, and murdered and ill-treated by divers means, including those set out in Count Three above, and these acts and policies were continued and extended to the occupied countries after the 1st September, 1939, and until 8th May, 1945.

(_B_) PERSECUTION ON POLITICAL, RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS GROUNDS IN
EXECUTION OF AND IN CONNECTION WITH THE COMMON PLAN MENTIONED IN COUNT
ONE

As above stated, in execution of and in connection with the common plan mentioned in Count One, opponents of the German Government were exterminated and persecuted. These persecutions were directed against Jews. They were also directed against persons whose political belief or spiritual aspirations were deemed to be in conflict with the aims of the Nazis.

Jews were systematically persecuted since 1933; they were deprived of their liberty, thrown into concentration camps where they were murdered and ill-treated. Their property was confiscated. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were so treated before the 1st September, 1939.

Since the 1st September, 1939, the persecution of the Jews was redoubled: millions of Jews from Germany and from the occupied Western Countries were sent to the Eastern Countries for extermination.

Particulars by way of example and without prejudice to the production of evidence of other cases are as follows:

The Nazis murdered amongst others Chancellor Dollfuss, the Social Democrat Breitscheid and the Communist Thaelmann. They imprisoned in concentration camps numerous political and religious personages, for example Chancellor Schuschnigg and Pastor Niemoeller.

In November, 1938 by orders of the Chief of the Gestapo, anti-Jewish demonstrations all over Germany took place. Jewish property was destroyed, 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps and their property confiscated.

Under paragraph VIII (_A_), above, millions of the persons there mentioned as having been murdered and ill-treated were Jews.

Among other mass murders of Jews were the following:

At Kislovdosk all Jews were made to give up their property: 2,000 were shot in an anti-tank ditch at Mineraliye Vodi: 4,300 other Jews were shot in the same ditch.

60,000 Jews were shot on an island on the Dvina
near Riga.
20,000 Jews were shot at Lutsk.
32,000 Jews were shot at Sarny.
60,000 Jews were shot at Kiev and
Dniepropetrovsk.

Thousands of Jews were gassed weekly by means of gas-wagons which broke down from overwork.

As the Germans retreated before the Soviet Army they exterminated Jews rather than allow them to be liberated. Many concentration camps and ghettos were set up in which Jews were incarcerated and tortured, starved, subjected to merciless atrocities and finally exterminated.

About 70,000 Jews were exterminated in Yugoslavia.

XI. Individual, group and organization responsibility for the offense
stated in Count Four

Reference is hereby made to Appendix A of this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the individual defendants for the offense set forth in this Count Four of the Indictment. Reference is hereby made to Appendix B of this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the groups and organizations named herein as criminal groups and organizations for the offense set forth in this Count Four of the Indictment.

Wherefore, this Indictment is lodged with the Tribunal in English, French and Russian, each text having equal authenticity, and the charges herein made against the above-named defendants are hereby presented to the Tribunal.

ROBERT H. JACKSON.
_Acting on Behalf of the United States of America._
FRANCOIS DE MENTHON.
_Acting on Behalf of the French Republic._
HARTLEY SHAWCROSS.
_Acting on Behalf of the United Kingdom of Great_
_Britain and Northern Ireland._
R. RUDENKO.
_Acting on Behalf of the Union of Soviet Socialist_
_Republics._

_Berlin, 6th October, 1945._

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