Chapter XXIV: Section 1: of this Frick decree reads as follows (3)

True, no definite order, no detailed directive emanating directly from one of the defendants or from one of their immediate subordinates and valid for all the German police or for the police of the occupied territories of the West, has been found. But these crimes were committed by a police that was a direct expression of the National Socialist ideology and the undeniable instrument of National Socialist policy for which all the defendants carry the full and entire responsibility.

Before the considerable mass of acts, their similarity, their simultaneousness, their generalization in time and place, no one would be able to deny that these acts are not only the individual responsibility of those who committed them here or there, but constitute as well the execution of orders from above.

The arrests took place without any of the elementary guarantees recognized in all civilized countries. On a simple, unverified denunciation, without previous investigation, and often on charges brought by persons not qualified to bring them, masses of arbitrary arrests took place in every occupied country.

During the first period of the occupation, the Germans nevertheless simulated a scrupulous respect for “legality” in the matter of arrests. This legality was that introduced by Nazism in the interior of Germany and did not respect any of the traditional guarantees to which the individuals in civilized countries are entitled. But, rapidly, even this pseudo-legality itself was abandoned and the arrests became absolutely arbitrary.

The worst treatments were applied to arrested persons even before the guilt of the accused had been examined. The use of torture in the interrogations was almost a general rule. The tortures usually applied were beating, whipping, chaining for several days without a moment of rest for nourishment or hygienic care, immersion in ice water, drowning in a bathtub, charging the bathwater with electricity, electrification of the most sensitive parts of the body, burns at certain places on the body, and the pulling out of fingernails. But, in addition, those who carried out these measures had every latitude for unleashing their instinct of cruelty and of sadism towards their victims. All those facts, which were of public knowledge in the occupied countries, never led to any punishment whatsoever of their authors on the part of the responsible authorities. It even seems that the torture was more severe when an officer was present.

It is undeniable that the actions of the German police towards the prisoners were part and parcel of a long premeditated system of criminality, ordered by the chiefs of the regime and executed by the most faithful members of the National Socialist organizations.

Aside from the general use of torture on prisoners, the German police perpetrated a considerable number of murders. It is impossible to know the conditions under which many of these murders were carried out. Nevertheless, we have enough information to permit us to discover in them a new expression of the general policy of the National Socialists in the occupied countries. Often the deaths were only the result of the tortures inflicted on the prisoners, but often the murder was deliberately desired and carried out.

C. The crime which will undoubtedly be remembered as the most horrible among those committed by the Germans against the civilian populations of the occupied countries was that of deportation and internment in the concentration camps of Germany.

These deportations had a double aim: To secure additional labor for the benefit of the German war machine; to eliminate from the occupied countries and progressively exterminate the elements most opposed to Germanism. They served likewise to empty prisons overcrowded with patriots and to remove the latter for all time.

The deportations and the methods employed in the concentration camps were a stupefying revelation for the civilized world. Nevertheless, they also are only a natural consequence of the National Socialist doctrine, according to which man, of himself, has no value except when he is of service to the German race.

It is not possible to give exact figures. It is probable that one would make an understatement when speaking of 250,000 for France; 6,000 for Luxembourg; 5,200 for Denmark; 5,400 for Norway; 120,000 for Holland; and 37,000 for Belgium.

The arrests are founded, now under a pretext of a political nature, now on a pretext of a racial nature. In the beginning they were individual; subsequently they took on a collective character, particularly in France since the end of 1941. Sometimes the deportation did not come until after long months of prison, but more often the arrest was made directly with a view to deportation under the system of “protective custody.” Everywhere imprisonment in the country of origin was accompanied by brutality, often by tortures. Before being sent to Germany, the deportees were, in general, concentrated in an assembly camp. The formation of a convoy was often the first stage of extermination. The deportees travelled in cattle cars, 80 to 120 per car, no matter what the season. There were few convoys where no deaths occurred. In certain transports the proportion of deaths was more than 25 percent.

The deportees were sent to Germany, almost always to concentration camps, but sometimes also to prisons.

Admitted to the prisons were those deportees who had been condemned or were awaiting trial. The prisoners there were crowded together under inhumane conditions. Nevertheless, the prison regime was generally less severe than conditions in the camps. The work there was less out of proportion to the strength of the prisoners, and the prison wardens were more humane than the SS in the concentration camps.

It appears to have been the plan, followed by the Nazis in the concentration camps, gradually to do away with the prisoners; but only after their working strength had been used to the advantage of the German war effort.

The Tribunal has been told of the almost inconceivable treatment inflicted by the SS on the prisoners. We shall take the liberty of going into still further detail during the course of the statement of the French Prosecution, for it must be fully known to what extent of horrors the Germans, inspired by National Socialist doctrine, could stoop.

The most terrible aspect was perhaps the desire to create moral degradation and debasement in the prisoner until he lost, if possible, all semblance of a human individual.

The usual living conditions imposed on the deportees in the camps were sufficient to ensure slow extermination through inadequate feeding, bad sanitation, cruelty of the guards, severity of discipline, strain of work out of proportion to the strength of the prisoner, and haphazard medical service. Moreover, you already know that many did not die a natural death, but were put to death by injections, gas chambers, or inoculations of fatal diseases. But more speedy extermination was often the case; it was often brought about by ill-treatment: communal ice-cold showers in winter in the open air, prisoners left naked in the snow, cudgelling, dog bites, hanging by the wrists.

Some figures will illustrate the result of these various methods of extermination. At Buchenwald, during the first 3 months of 1945, there were 13,000 deaths out of 40,000 internees. At Dachau, 13,000 to 15,000 died in the 3 months preceding the liberation. At Auschwitz, a camp of systematic extermination, the number of murdered persons came to several millions.

As to the total number of those deported from France, the official figure is as follows: Of 250,000 deported only 35,000 returned.

The deportees served as guinea pigs for numerous medical, surgical, or other experiments which generally led to their death. At Auschwitz, at Struthof, in the prison at Cologne, at Ravensbrück, at Neuengamme, numerous men, women, and children were sterilized. At Auschwitz the most beautiful women were set apart, artificially fertilized, and then gassed. At Struthof a special barrack, isolated from the others by barbed wire, was used to inoculate men in groups of 40 with fatal illnesses. In the same camp women were gassed while German doctors observed their reactions through a peephole arranged for this purpose. Extermination was often directly effected by means of individual or collective executions. These were carried out by shooting, by hanging, by injections, by gas vans, or gas chamber.

I should not wish to stress further the facts, already so numerous, submitted to Your High Tribunal during the preceding days by the American Prosecution, but the representative of France, so many of his people having died in these camps after horrible sufferings, could not pass in silence over this tragic example of complete inhumanity. This would have been inconceivable in the 20th century, if a doctrine of return to barbarism had not been established in the very heart of Europe.

D. Crimes committed against prisoners of war, although less known, bear ample testimony to the degree of inhumanity which Nazi Germany had attained.

To begin with, the violations of international conventions committed against prisoners of war are numerous. Many were forced to travel on foot, almost without food, for very long distances. Many camps had no respect for even the most elementary rules of hygiene. Food was very often insufficient; thus a report from the WFSt of the OKW dated 11 April 1945 and annotated by the Defendant Keitel, shows that 82,000 prisoners of war interned in Norway received the food strictly indispensable to the maintenance of life on the assumption that they were not working, whereas 30,000 of them were really employed on heavy work.

In agreement with the Defendant Keitel, acting at the request of the Defendant Göring, camps for prisoners belonging to the British and American Air Forces were established in towns which were exposed to air raids.

In violation of the text of the Geneva Convention, it was decided, at a conference held at the Führer’s headquarters on 27 January 1945, in the presence of the Defendant Göring, to punish by death all attempts to escape made by prisoners of war when in convoy.

Besides all these violations of the Geneva Convention, numerous crimes were committed by the German authorities against prisoners of war: Execution of captured allied airmen, murder of commando troops, collective extermination of certain prisoners of war for no reason whatsoever—for example the matter of 120 American soldiers at Malmédy on 27 January 1945. Parallel with “Nacht und Nebel,” an expression for the inhumane treatment inflicted on civilians, can be put down the “Sonderbehandlung,” a “special treatment” of prisoners of war, in which these disappeared in great numbers.

E. The same barbarism is found in the terroristic activity carried out by the German Army and Police against the Resistance.

The order of the Defendant Keitel of 16 September 1941, which may be considered as a basic document, certainly has as a purpose the fight against the Communist movements; but it anticipates that resistance to the army of occupation can come from other than Communist sources and decides that every case of resistance is to be interpreted as having a Communist origin.

As a matter of fact, in carrying out this general order to annihilate the Resistance by every possible means, the Germans arrested, tortured, and massacred men of all ranks and all classes. To be sure, the members of the Resistance rarely complied with the conditions laid down by the Hague Conventions, which would qualify them to be considered as regular combat forces; they could be sentenced to death as _francs-tireurs_ and executed. But they were assassinated without trial in most cases, often after having been terribly tortured.

After the liberation, numerous charnel-houses were discovered and the bodies examined by doctors: They bore obvious traces of extreme brutal treatment, cranial tissue was pulled out, the spinal column had been dislocated, the ribs had been so badly fractured that the chest had been entirely crushed and the lungs perforated, hair and nails had been pulled out. It is impossible to determine the total number of the victims of German atrocities in the fight against the Resistance. It is certainly very high. In the department of the Rhône alone, for example, the bodies of 713 victims were discovered after the liberation.

An order of 3 February 1944 of the Commander-in-Chief of the forces in the West, signed “By order General Sperrle,” laid down for the fight against the terrorists immediate reply by fire-arms and the immediate burning down of all houses from which shots had come:

“It is of little importance”—the text adds—“that innocent
people should suffer. It will be the fault of the terrorists.
All commanders of troops who show weakness in repressing the
terrorists will be severely punished. On the other hand, those
who go beyond the orders received and are too severe will incur
no penalty.”

The war diary of Von Brodowski, commanding Liaison Headquarters Number 588, at Clermont-Ferrand, gives irrefutable examples of the barbarous forms which the Germans gave to the struggle against the Resistance. The resisters caught were almost all shot on the spot. Others were turned over to the SD or the Gestapo to be subjected first to torture. The diary of Brodowski mentions “the cleaning up of a hospital” or “liquidation of an infirmary.”

The struggle against the Resistance had the same atrocious character in all the occupied territories of the West.

F. The last months of the German occupation were characterized in France by a strengthening of the policy of terrorism which multiplied the crimes against the civilian population. The crimes which we are going to consider were not isolated acts committed from time to time in this or that locality, but were acts perpetrated in the course of extensive operations, the high number of which can be explained only by general orders.

The perpetrators of these crimes were frequently members of the SS, but the military command shares responsibility for them. In a directive entitled “Fight against the Partisan Bands,” dated 6 May 1944, the Defendant Jodl states that:

“. . . the collective measures to be taken against the
inhabitants of entire villages (including the burning down of
these villages) are to be ordered exclusively by the division
commanders or the heads of the SS and of the police.”

The war diary of Von Brodowski mentions the following: “It is understood that the leadership of the Sipo and of the SD shall be subordinate to me.”

These operations are supposedly measures of reprisal which were caused by the action of the Resistance. But the necessities of war have never justified the plundering and heedless burning down of towns and villages nor the blind massacres of innocent people. The Germans killed, plundered, burned down, very often without any reason whatsoever, whether in Ain, in Savoie, Lot, or Tarn-and-Garonne, in Vercors, Corréze, in Dordogne. Entire villages were burned down at a time when the nearest armed groups of the Resistance were tens of kilometers away and the population of these villages had not made a single hostile gesture towards the German troops.

The two most typical examples are those of Maillé (in Indre-et-Loire) where on 25 August 1944, 52 buildings out of 60 were destroyed and 124 people were killed; and that of Oradour-sur-Glane (in the Haute-Vienne). The war diary of Von Brodowski makes mention of the latter act in the following manner:

“All the male population of Oradour was shot. The women and
children took refuge in the church. The church caught fire.
Explosives were stored in the church. (This assertion has been
shown to be false.) Also women and children perished.”

In the scale of criminal undertakings, perpetrated in the course of the war by the leaders of National Socialist Germany, we finally meet a category which we have called crimes against human status (_la condition humaine_).

First of all it is important that I should define clearly for the Tribunal the meaning of this term. This classical French expression belongs both to the technical vocabulary of law and to the language of philosophy. It signifies all those faculties, the exercising and developing of which rightly constitute the meaning of human life. Each of these faculties finds its corresponding expression in the order of man’s existence in society. His belonging to at least two social groups—the nearest and the most extensive—is translated by the right to family life and to nationality. His relations with the powers constitute a system of obligations and guarantees. His material life, as producer and consumer of goods, is expressed by the right to work in the widest meaning of this term. Its spiritual aspect implies a combination of possibilities to give out and to receive the expressions of thought, whether in assemblies or associations, in religious practice, in teachings given or received, by the many means which progress has put at the disposal for the dissemination of intellectual value: Books, press, radio, cinema. This is the right of spiritual liberty.

Against this human status, against the status of public and civil rights of the human beings in occupied territories, the German Nazis directed a systematic policy of corruption and demoralization. We shall treat this question last because it is this undertaking which presents a character of the utmost gravity and which has assumed the most widespread prevalence. Man is more attached to his physical integrity and to life than to his property. But in all high conceptions of life, man is even less attached to life than to that which makes for his dignity and quality, according to the great Latin maxim, “_Et propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas_.” On the other hand, if, in the territories occupied by them, the Germans did not, in spite of the importance and extent of their crimes, plunder all the property and goods and if they did not kill all the people, there remains not a single man whose essential rights they did not change or abolish and whose condition as a human being they did not violate in some way.

We can even say that in the entire world and as regards all people, even those to whom they reserved the privileges belonging to the superior race and even as regards themselves, their agents, and accomplices, the Nazi leaders committed a major offense against the conscience which mankind has today evolved from his status as a human being. The execution of the enterprise was preceded by its plan. This is manifest in the entire Nazi doctrine and we shall content ourselves by recalling a few of its dominant features. The human status expresses itself, we say, in major statutes, every one of which comprises a complex apparatus of very different provisions. But these statutes are inspired in the laws of civilized countries by a conception essential to the nature of man. This conception is defined in two complementary ideas: The dignity of the human being considered in each and every person individually, on the one hand; and on the other hand, the permanence of the human being considered within the whole of humanity. Every juridical organization of the human being in a state of civilization proceeds from this essential, two-fold conception of the individual, in each and in all, the individual and the universal.

Without doubt, to Occidentals this conception usually appears connected with the Christian doctrine; but, if it is exact that Christianity is bound up with its affirmation and diffusion, it would be a mistake to see in it only the teachings of one or even of certain religions. It is a general conception which imposes itself quite naturally on the spirit; It was professed since ancient pre-Christian times; and, in more recent times, the great German philosopher Kant expressed it in one of his most forceful formulas, by saying that a human being should always be considered as an end and never a means.

The role, as we have already exposed, of the zealots of the Hitlerian myth was to protest against the spontaneous affirmation of the genius of mankind and to pretend to break at this point the continuous progress of moral intelligence. The Tribunal is already acquainted with the abundant literature of this sect. Without a doubt, nobody expressed himself more clearly than the Defendant Rosenberg when he declared in the _Myth of the 20th Century_, Page 539:

“Peoples whose health is dependent on their blood do not know
individualism as a criterion of values any more than they
recognize universalism. Individualism and universalism in the
absolute sense and historically speaking, are the ideological
concepts of decadence.”

Nazism professes, moreover, that:

“The distance between the lowest human being still worthy of
this name, and our higher races, is greater than that between
the lowest type of mankind and the best educated monkey.” (_Die
Reden Hitlers_, Reichsparteitag 1933, Page 33).

Thus, it is not only a question of abolishing the truly divine conception which religion sets forth as regards man, but even of setting aside all purely human conceptions and substituting for it an animalistic conception.

As a consequence of such a doctrine, the upsetting of the human status appears not only to be a means to which one has recourse in the presence of temporary opportunities, such as those arising from war, but also as an aim both necessary and desirable. The Nazis propose to classify mankind in three main categories: That of their adversaries, or persons whom they consider inadaptable to their peculiar constructions—this category can be bullied in all sorts of ways and even destroyed; that of superior men which they claim is distinguishable by their blood or by some arbitrary means; that of inferior men, who do not deserve destruction and whose vital power should be used in a regime of slavery for the well-being of the “overlords.”

The Nazi leaders proposed to apply this conception everywhere they could in territories more and more extended, to populations ever more numerous; and in addition they demonstrated the frightful ambition to succeed in imposing it on intelligent people, to convince their victims and to demand from them, in addition to so many sacrifices, an act of faith. The Nazi war is a war of fanatic religion in which one can exterminate infidels and equally as well impose conversion upon them. It should further be noted that the Nazis aggravated the excesses of those horrible times, for in a religious war converted adversaries were received like brothers, whereas the Nazis never gave their pitiable victims the chance of saving themselves, even by the most complete recantation.

It is by virtue of these conceptions that the Germans undertook the Germanization of occupied territories and had, without doubt, the intention of undertaking to germanize the whole world. This Germanization can be distinguished from the ancient theories of Pan-Germanism insofar as it is both a Nazification and an actual return to barbarism.

Racialism classifies occupied nations into two main categories; Germanization means for some a National Socialist assimilation, and for others disappearance or slavery. For human beings of the so-called “higher race,” the favored condition assigned to them comprises the falling-in with the new concepts of the Germanic community. For human beings of the so-called “inferior race” it was proposed either to abolish all rights while waiting or preparing their physical destruction, or to assign them to servitude. For both, racialism means acceptance of the Nazi myths.

This two-fold program of absolute Germanization was not carried out in its entirety nor in all the occupied countries. The Germans had conceived it as a lengthy piece of work which they intended to carry out gradually, by a series of successive measures. This progressive approach is always characteristic of the Nazi method. It fits in, apparently, with the variety of obstacles encountered, with the hypocritical desire of sparing public opinion, and with a horrid lust for experimenting and scientific ostentation.

When the countries were liberated, the state of the Germanization varied a great deal according to the different countries, and in each country according to such and such category of the population. At times the method was driven on to its extreme consequences; elsewhere, one only discovers signs of preparatory arrangements. But it is easy to note everywhere the trend of the same evil, interrupted at different moments in its development, but everywhere directed by the same inexorable movement.

As regards national status, the Germans proceeded to an annexation, pure and simple, in Luxembourg, in the Belgian cantons of Eupen and of Malmédy, and in the French departments of Alsace and of Lorraine. Here the criminal undertaking consisted both in the abolition of the sovereignty of the state, natural protector of its nationals, and in the abolition for those nationals of the status they had as citizens of this state, a status recognized by domestic and international law.

The inhabitants of these territories thereby lost their original nationality, ceasing to be Luxembourgers, Belgians, or French. They did not acquire, however, full German nationality; they were admitted only gradually to this singular favor, on the further condition that they furnish certain justifications therefor.

The Germans sought to efface in them even the memory of their former country. In Alsace and in Moselle the French language was banned; names of places and of people were germanized.

New citizens or mere subjects were equally subjected to the obligations relating to the Nazi regime: To forced labor, as a matter of course, and soon to military conscription. In case of resistance to these unjust and abominable orders, since it was a matter of arming the French against their allies and in reality against their own country, sanctions were brought to bear, not only against the parties concerned, but even against the members of their families, following the theses of Nazi law, which brush aside the fundamental principles of law against repression.

Persons who appeared recalcitrant to Nazification, or even those who seemed of little use to Nazi enterprises, became victims of large-scale expulsions, driven from their homes in a few short hours with their most scanty baggage, and despoiled of their property.

Yet this inhuman evacuation of entire populations, which will remain one of the horrors of our century, appears as favorable treatment when compared to the deportations which were to fill the concentration camps, in particular the Struthof Camp in Alsace.

At the same time that they oppressed the population by force and in contravention of all law, the Nazis undertook, according to their method, to convince the people of the excellence of their regime. The young people especially were to be educated in the spirit of National Socialism.

The Germans did not proceed to the annexation, properly speaking, of other areas than those we have named. It is beyond doubt, however, and confirmed by numerous indications, that they proposed to annex territories much more important by applying to them the same regime, if the war had ended in a German victory. But everywhere they prepared for the abolition or the weakening of the national status by debarring or damaging the sovereignty of the state involved and by forcing the destruction of patriotic feelings.

In all the occupied countries, whether or not there existed an apparent governmental authority, the Germans systematically disregarded the laws of occupation. They legislated, regulated, administered. Besides the territories annexed outright, the other occupied territories also were in a state that might be defined as a state of pre-annexation.

This leads to a second aspect which is the attack on spiritual security. Everywhere, although with variation in time and space, the Germans applied themselves to abolishing the public freedoms, notably the freedom of association, the freedom of the press; and they endeavored to trammel the essential freedoms of the spirit.

The German authorities subordinated the press to the strictest censorship, even in matters devoid of military character; a press, many of whose representatives, moreover, were inspired by them. Manifold restrictions were imposed on industry and on the moving picture business. Numerous works altogether without political character were banned, even textbooks. Religious authorities themselves saw their clerical realm invaded and words of truth could not be heard. After having curtailed freedom of expression even beyond the degree that a state of war and occupation justified, the Germans developed their National Socialist propaganda systematically through the press, radio, films, meetings, books, and posters. All these efforts achieved so little result that one might attempt today to minimize their importance. Nevertheless, the propaganda conducted by means most contrary to the respect due human intelligence and on behalf of a criminal doctrine, must go down in history as one of the disgraces of the National Socialist regime.

No less did the Germanization program compromise human rights in the other broad aspects that we have defined: Right of the family, right of professional and economic activity, juridical guarantees. These rights were attacked; these guarantees were curtailed. The forced labor and the deportations infringed the rights of the family, as well as the rights of labor. The arbitrary arrests suppressed the most elementary legal guarantees. In addition, the Germans tried to impose their own methods on the administrative authorities of the occupied countries and sometimes unfortunately succeeded in their attempts.

It is also known that racial discriminations were provoked against citizens of the occupied countries who were catalogued as Jews, measures particularly hateful, damaging to their personal rights and to their human dignity.

All these criminal acts were committed in violation of the rules of international law, and in particular the Hague Convention, which limits the rights of armies occupying a territory.

The fight of the Nazis against the human status completes the tragic and monstrous totality of war criminality of Nazi Germany, by placing her under the banner of the abasement of man, deliberately brought about by the National Socialist doctrine. This gives it its true character of a systematic undertaking of a return to barbarism.

Such are the crimes which National Socialist Germany committed while waging the war of aggression that she launched. The martyred peoples appeal to the justice of civilized nations and request Your High Tribunal to condemn the National Socialist Reich in the person of its surviving chiefs.

Let the defendants not be astonished at the charges brought against them and let them not dispute at all this principle of retroactivity, the permanence of which was guaranteed, against their wishes, by democratic legislation. War Crimes are defined by international law and by the national law of all modern civilizations. The defendants knew that acts of violence against the persons and property and human status of enemy nationals were crimes for which they would have to answer before international justice.

The Governments of the United Nations have addressed many a warning to them since the beginning of the hostilities.

On 25 October 1941 Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, announced that the war criminals would not escape just punishment:

“The massacres of France”—said Churchill—“are an example of
what Hitler’s Nazis are doing in many other countries under
their yoke. The atrocities committed in Poland, Yugoslavia,
Norway, Holland, Belgium, and particularly behind the German
front in Russia, exceed anything that has been known since the
darkest and most bestial ages of humanity. The punishment of
these crimes should now be counted among the major goals of the
war.”

During autumn 1941 the representatives of the governments of the occupied countries met in London upon the initiative of the Polish and Czech Governments. They worked out an inter-Allied declaration which was signed on 13 January 1942. May I remind the Tribunal of its terms:

“The undersigned, representing the Governments of Belgium, of
Czechoslovakia, the National Committee of Free France, the
Governments of Greece, of Luxembourg, of the Netherlands, of
Poland, and of Yugoslavia,

“Whereas Germany, from the beginning of the present conflict,
which was provoked by her policy of aggression, set up in the
occupied countries a regime of terror characterized, among other
things, by imprisonment, mass expulsions, massacres, and
execution of hostages;

“Whereas these acts of violence are committed equally by the
allies and associates of the Reich, and in certain countries by
citizens collaborating with the occupying power;

“Whereas international solidarity is necessary in order to
prevent these deeds of violence from giving rise to acts of
individual or collective violence, and finally in order to
satisfy the spirit of justice in the civilized world;

“Recalling to mind that international law and, in particular,
the Hague Convention signed in 1907, concerning the laws and
customs of land warfare, do not permit belligerents to commit
acts of violence against civilians in occupied countries, or to
violate laws which are in force or to overthrow national
institutions;

“1. Affirming that acts of violence thus committed against
civilian populations have nothing in common with the conceptions
of an act of war or a political crime as this is understood by
civilized nations;

“2. Taking note of the declarations made in this respect on 25
October 1941, by the President of the United States of America
and the British Prime Minister;

“3. Placing among their chief war aims, the punishment by means
of organized justice of those guilty of, or responsible for,
these crimes, whether they ordered, perpetrated, or shared in
them;

“4. Having decided to see to it in a spirit of international
solidarity that: a) Those guilty or responsible, whatever their
responsibility, shall be sought out, brought to justice, and be
judged; b) that the sentences pronounced shall be executed.

“In faith whereof, the undersigned, being duly authorized, to
this effect have signed this declaration.”

The leaders of National Socialist Germany received other warnings. I refer to the speech of General De Gaulle of 13 January 1942; that of Churchill of 8 September 1942; the note of Molotov, Commissar of the People for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, of 14 October 1942; and the second inter-Allied declaration of 17 December 1942. The latter was made simultaneously in London, Moscow, and Washington after receipt of information according to which the German authorities were engaged in exterminating the Jewish minorities in Europe. In this declaration, the Governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and the French National Committee which represented the continuation of France, solemnly reaffirmed their will to punish the war criminals who are responsible for this extermination.

THE PRESIDENT: Would this be a convenient time to break off for 10 minutes?

[_A recess was taken._]

M. DE MENTHON: The premises for a just punishment are thus fulfilled. The defendants, at the time when they committed their crimes, knew the will of the United Nations to bring about their punishment. The warnings which were given to them contain a definition which precedes the punishment.

The defendants, moreover, could not be ignorant of the criminal nature of their activities. The warnings of these Allied governments in effect translated in a political form the fundamental principles of international and of national law which permit the punishment of war criminals to be established on positive precedents and positive rules.

The founders of international law had a presentiment of the concept of war crime, particularly Grotius who elucidated the criminal character of needless acts of war. The Hague Conventions, after the lapse of several centuries, established the first generally binding standards for laws of war. They regulated the conduct of hostilities and occupation procedures; they formulated positive rules in order to limit recourse to force and to bring the necessities of war into agreement with the requirements of human conscience. War Crimes thus received the first definition under which they may be considered; they became a violation of laws and customs of war as codified by the Hague Convention.

Then came the war of 1914. Imperial Germany waged the first World War with a brutality perhaps less systematic and frenzied than that of the National Socialist Reich, but just as deliberate. The deportation of workers, looting of public and private property, the taking and killing of hostages, the demoralization of the occupied territories constituted, in 1914 as in 1939, the political methods of German warfare.

The Treaty of Versailles was based on the Hague Convention in order to establish the suppression of War Crimes. Under the title “Sanctions”