Chapter XXI: Part II: of this case (7)

“Concerning the indictment: It never entered my head, to ensure
the smooth procedure of an ordinary execution, to send a larger
detachment, since the execution ground was hidden from public
view and the captives were. . . .”

THE PRESIDENT These words “Concerning the indictment,” are they in the original document?

COL. POKROVSKY: It is the text of the explanation of the evidence which the signatory of the document handed to his police chief. I, with the permission of the Tribunal, shall quote the original German documents of the inquiry. The persons responsible for carrying out the execution were accused of provoking, by their indiscretion and carelessness, that which they called an “incident” and they produced an explanation of the cause of this indictment.

“Concerning the charge: It never entered my head, to ensure the
smooth procedure of an ordinary execution, to send a larger
detachment, since the execution ground was hidden from public
view and the captives were unable to escape by reason of their
physical infirmities.

“At about 1500 hours I received a telephone call from the camp
to the effect that one of the co-workers in my department, in
charge of this special task, had been wounded and that one man
had run away. I promptly sent SS Hauptscharführer Wenzel and SS
Oberscharführer Fritsch to the execution ground in a horse cart.
Some time later I received another telephone call from the camp,
informing me that the co-workers of my department had been
killed.”

I think it useless to read into the record details of a purely technical nature. I shall omit at this point a considerable part of those references which I had previously intended to quote, and I shall proceed to that part of Knop’s evidence which he had handed to his police chief. You will find the passage in question on Page 166:

“I wish to point out that the incident I have described took
place during the second execution. It had been preceded by the
shooting of approximately twenty prisoners of war which had
passed without any incident at all. As soon as I returned, I
informed the command headquarters at Zhitomir accordingly.

“I cannot give any further evidence. I declare that my evidence
is absolutely true and I am aware that any false evidence on my
part would result in punishment and in exclusion from the SS.

“Signed: Fritz Knop, SS Sturmscharführer; certified: Kuntze, SS
Obersturmführer.”

Next to be interrogated was the executioner. We have at our disposal a document on this subject. You will find the extract in question on Page 166 of your document book. I quote the minutes of the inquiry:

“SS Rottenführer of the Waffen-SS, Hesselbach, Friederich, born
24 January 1909 in Freudingen, district of Wittgenstein
(Westphalia), was then summoned and testified as follows:

“‘I have been informed concerning the subject of the forthcoming
interrogation. It has been pointed out to me that any false
statements on my part will result in punishment and expulsion
from the SS.’”

After this routine part of the investigation—where he was warned of the penalties awaiting him—Hesselbach gave the following testimony on the matter:

“Yesterday evening I was told by SS Unterscharführer Paal that I
would have to take part in the execution of prisoners of war.
Later on I received a corresponding order from Hauptscharführer
Wenzel, in the presence of SS Sturmscharführer Knop. This
morning, at 0800 hours, SS Hauptscharführer Berger, SS
Unterscharführer Paal, SS Sturmmann Vollprecht, and myself,
drove in a truck lent us by the tannery and driven by a
Ukrainian driver, to a place situated approximately one and a
half kilometers behind the camp, in order to dig a pit, with
eight inmates of our prison.”

Later he describes the digging of the pit. I think that we can skip that part. Then they returned.

“At the entrance to the camp, Vollprecht, acting on Paal’s
instructions, left the car. By these instructions Paal intended
not to betray our intentions to the prisoners by the presence of
a large number of SS men. Therefore, only I, Paal, and a few
militia men loaded the prisoners onto the truck. On Paal’s
order, the whole first group consisted almost exclusively of the
prisoners who had lost their legs.”

I omit a few extracts which are of no interest to the Tribunal and I quote from Page 6 of the Russian translation, the underlined passages, printed on Page 168 of your document book:

“After having executed the first three prisoners I suddenly
heard shouting beyond the pit. Since the fourth prisoner was
already next in line, I shot him on the spot, and looking up, I
noticed a terrific disturbance near the truck. A moment before
already I had heard some shots being fired and I now saw the
prisoners running away in all directions. I cannot give any
precise particulars as to what actually happened near the truck,
since I was about 40 to 50 meters away from the place and
everything was very confusing. I can only say that I saw two of
my comrades lying on the ground, and two prisoners shooting at
me and the driver with the firearms they had seized. When I
realized what was happening, I fired the four remaining
cartridges in my magazine at the prisoners shooting at us, put
in a new clip, and suddenly noticed that a bullet had struck the
ground near me. I had the feeling that I had been hit, but
realized later that I was wrong. I now ascribe this sensation to
nervous shock. Anyway, I was shooting at the fugitives with the
cartridges from my second clip, though I cannot tell whether I
hit any of them.”

I would inform you that the last part of Hesselbach’s testimony deals with the subject of organizing the search for the scattered cripples, a search which yielded no results.

Finally, I would like to quote a few excerpts from the last document in the correspondence. This is a report of SS Obersturmführer Kuntze. It concludes with the statement that the funeral of the SS men killed took place at 1400 hours at the Police and SS Heroes’ Cemetery in Hegewalde. It seems to me that this detail is of a certain interest. I shall now quote the opening part of the above-mentioned report. I shall omit the first report already appearing in your document book, in order to shorten the time taken by my work. He reports that 78 people were supposed to have been killed after the inspection of the camp by Kallbach. Because of their inability to work, these prisoners of war were a burden to the camp.

“For this reason, SS Hauptsturmführer Kallbach ordered the
execution of the former prisoners of war, and that on 24
December. Neither in the local nor in the regional offices could
anybody discover why the former commandant had taken charge of
these crippled prisoners and sent them to the Educational Labor
Camp. In this case there did not exist any data whatsoever
concerning communistic activities of the prisoners in question
during the entire period of the Soviet regime. Evidently the
military authorities have, in their own time, placed these
prisoners at the disposal of the local branch in order to submit
them to the ‘special regime,’ since owing to their physical
condition, they could not be made to work.

“So SS Hauptsturmführer Kallbach ordered the execution for 24
December. On 24 December at about 1700 hours, the head of the
Berditchev regional office, SS Sturmscharführer Knop, telephoned
that during the execution of the ‘special regime’ operation, the
two officials of the branch, SS Unterscharführer Paal and SS
Sturmmann Vollprecht, were assaulted by the prisoners and killed
with their own firearms.”

I shall now omit a considerable part of SS Obersturmführer Kuntze’s idle talk and shall quote only three more paragraphs. You will find them on Pages 172 and 173:

“Thus, of the 28 prisoners, 4 were shot in the pit and 2 while
trying to escape; the remaining 22 managed to get away.

“The efforts to recapture the fugitives, promptly undertaken by
SS Rottenführer Hesselbach with the help of the guards from the
neighboring camp, were expedient though unsuccessful. The head
of the Berditchev Department ordered an immediate search for the
fugitives and instructed all the police and military agencies to
this effect. However, the names of the fugitives are unknown and
this fact alone would render the search more difficult. The
records merely contained the names of all the prisoners
subjected to the ’special regime’ and it was therefore necessary
to declare as escapees even those who had already been shot.

“On 25 December, on the same spot, a ‘special regime’ execution
of the 20 surviving prisoners of war was carried out under my
direction. As I feared that the fugitives might already have
established contact with some partisan unit, I again had the
camp send a detachment of 20 men, armed with light submachine
guns and carbines, in order to guard the surrounding territory.
The execution went off without any trouble.”

It is enough to imagine these 20 unfortunate men, without arms, without legs, being escorted to their death by a strong contingent of SS men and soldiers, soldiers armed with submachine guns. I continue:

“As a measure of reprisal I ordered the military police to check
up on all released prisoners of war in the adjoining regions to
ascertain their political activities during the entire period of
Soviet rule, so as to arrest and submit to the ‘special regime’
20 activists and members of the Communist Party.”

To conclude the presentation of the evidence pertaining to this monstrous crime of the Hitlerites, I should like to invite the Tribunal’s attention to certain facts.

I would, first of all, like to refer to the “objections raised by the Army,” reported by the member of the SS, Knop. Knop said—you will find the passage quoted on Page 163:

“In the future all evacuations of prisoners of war will be
suspended due to objections raised by the Army. I do not wish my
words to be misunderstood. The Army did not so much object to
such evacuations, rather it expressed the wish that the
prisoners of war, once they had been released and sent
elsewhere, should be given some kind of shelter.”

It is not difficult to guess what “shelter” he was referring to. It was the “shelter” provided when, in the words of Knop, they were “transported in a truck to a place in the neighborhood.”

The second fact which, to me, appears of importance, is the scale of the outrages committed. Referring to the executioners, Paal, Hesselbach, and Vollprecht, Knop writes:

“With reference to the three above-mentioned persons whom I
entrusted with the shooting of prisoners of war, I knew that
they had, in Kiev, participated in the mass executions of many
thousands of persons and that they had already before, that is,
during my period of service, been entrusted by the local
administration with the shooting of many hundreds of victims.”

In reference to Hesselbach, I should like to note two not very important but extremely characteristic traits. The first is his terminology. Here are his words:

“After having executed the first three prisoners I suddenly
heard shouting beyond the pit; since the fourth prisoner was
already next in line, I shot him on the spot.”

Any bandit, any habitual murderer would, naturally, use such language in speaking of the destruction of a human being. For the fascist executioners the murder of a soldier who had honestly fought for his country and become an invalid, the brief expression “shot on the spot” is good enough; when occupied in killing, the executioners do not even consider it necessary to find out whom they really are murdering. Thanks to this, shame and confusion cover the police. They order a search both for those who had escaped and for those who were shot.

Secondly, the very sound of a bullet passing nearby gives him a sensation of being wounded, and people of this type are then called “heroes” by their superiors.

It would be an omission on my part not to emphasize the exceptional brutality displayed by Kuntze—this typical representative of the SS. Twenty persons captured at random, captured anyhow, without any fault on their part, must be murdered. What for? Only because 22 armless and legless invalids had succeeded in escaping from death.

The Tribunal, of course, is quite aware of the fact that by all the laws of God and man these 22 invalids should not have perished by the hand of the executioner, but should have been placed under the protection of the German Government as prisoners of war.

The confession of Kuntze, concerning the motives for which the military authorities directed invalids to the camp for treatment by “special regime,” is of particular value. He frankly states that the cause of it was their physical condition which had rendered them unfit for any kind of work. In this connection I submit a series of documents to the Tribunal. They show that only from the angle of possibility of obtaining slaves were the representatives of the German Command and the German authorities occasionally interested in the prisoners of war. You have in your possession a circular of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces to the effect that Soviet prisoners of war should be branded and that this branding would not be considered as a medical measure. I am submitting to you another equally shameful document. It bears the following identifying marks: Az. 2,24.82h, Commander of Camps for Prisoners of War, Number 3142/42; Berlin-Schöneberg; 20.7.1942; 51, Badensche Strasse. This document is Exhibit Number USSR-343 (Document Number USSR-343). I shall not read it into the record. It resembles identically those which I have already read into the record. But it is characteristic of the extent to which the Hitlerite conspirators had abandoned the thesis that “a state can do everything which is necessary to hold prisoners of war in their own safekeeping, but it cannot do anything more.”

A regime based on hard labor, on an unending stream of insult and torture, drove Soviet people to manifestations of stark despair, such as attacks on camp guards who were armed to the teeth. We know of such truly heroic deeds. Testimonies of eyewitnesses are in our hands. I am submitting to you, as Exhibit Number USSR-314 (Document Number USSR-314), the personally written testimony of the witness, Lampe—you interrogated him a few days ago in this court—together with the testimony of the witness, Ribol—our Exhibit Number USSR-315 (Document Number USSR-315). I shall read out such passages of the testimony as appear on Page 348 of your document book. These witnesses reported that in the beginning of February 1945, in the extermination camp of Mauthausen, 800 Red Army prisoners of war who were interned there, had broken out of the fascist hell after first disarming the guards and piercing the electrified barbed wire. Lampe testifies how brutally the SS treated those whom they were able to recapture. I am quoting a few lines:

“All those who returned to the camp were savagely tortured and
then shot. I myself saw the escaped prisoners, who were being
brought back to Block Number 20.”—I wish to interpolate that
Block 20 was the death block.—“They were beaten and the head of
one of them was badly bleeding. They were followed by 10 SS men,
among whom were three or four officers. They carried whips and
were laughing loudly, giving the impression of pleasurably
anticipating the tortures they were going to inflict upon the
three unfortunate prisoners. The courage of the insurgents and
the cruelty of the repression have left an undying impression on
all the internees of Mauthausen.”

The fascist conspirators behaved with equal hatred toward all Soviet citizens. If any altercations ever arose among them, they would only be in connection with the methods of destruction to be inflicted on their victims. Some strove to kill off the prisoners immediately; others deemed it wiser to exploit their prisoners’ blood and strength in the mills, factories, military workshops, and in the construction of military undertakings.

Any long war is responsible for labor shortage in industry and agriculture. Fascist Germany solved this problem by importing white male and female slaves. The greatest number of them were prisoners of war. They were sent to heavy labor where masses perished from exhaustion, overwork, hunger, and savage treatment by the guards.

I submit to the Tribunal Document Number 744-PS, and quote the following three paragraphs:

“To carry out the augmented iron-steel industry program, the
Führer ordered on 7 July that a sufficient coal supply be
guaranteed and that prisoners of war be utilized for this
purpose.”

I am omitting several sentence from the documents dealing with the technicalities of this question and quote Point 2 of this directive:

“2. All Soviet prisoners of war, captured since 5 July 1943, are
to be sent to the OKW camps and from there directly, or by way
of labor exchange, put at the disposal of the Plenipotentiary
for the Allocation of Labor, for use in the coal mining
industry.”

The fourth point is of special interest. It contains a definite directive on how to convert all men between the ages of 16 and 55 into prisoners of war. I quote Point 4:

“4. All male prisoners between the ages of 16 and 55, captured
in battles with the partisans in the operational area of the
Army, of the eastern commissariats, of the Government General,
and of the Balkans, are to be regarded in the future as
prisoners of war. The same applies to men in newly conquered
districts of the East. They must be sent to the prisoner-of-war
camps and then to work in Germany.”

The second document, Number 744-PS, issued by the Chief of the OKW on 8 July 1943, duplicates this directive. The document is signed by Keitel. There is a postscript to the text of the document which was signed by Keitel. It is addressed to all the higher authorities of the SS and is signed by Himmler. The text has already been read into the record on 20 December 1945; I shall therefore refer only to the contents. It concerns the transportation of children, old people, and of young women. Himmler indicates how and by what methods they should be sent to Germany through Sauckel’s organization. In this case, too, Himmler, Keitel, and Sauckel act in perfect agreement, almost as a single entity.

I consider Exhibit Number USSR-354 (Document Number USSR-354) to be of primary importance. It is a report on the prison camp in Minsk. The report was compiled in Rosenberg’s office on 10 July 1941.

THE PRESIDENT: Has it been put in already?

COL. POKROVSKY: This document has not yet been read into the record. Permit me, Your Honor, to read a few excerpts. I quote Page 183:

“The prison camp in Minsk, covering a space about the size of
the Wilhelmsplatz, accommodates about one hundred thousand
prisoners of war and forty thousand civilian prisoners. The
prisoners, crowded together in this small space, can hardly
move, and are therefore forced to relieve nature at the very
place where they happen to be. The camp is guarded by a detail
of soldiers on active duty, of company strength. Due to the
small strength of the guard detail, the watch over the camp can
only be accomplished by the application of brute force.”

I omit a paragraph and turn to the page which continues the original idea:

“The only possible language for a small guard, which remains on
duty both day and night without being relieved, is the firearm,
of which ruthless use is made.”

Next, the authors of this document complain about the impossibility of carrying out the selection of prisoners according to physical and racial classification for various forms of hard labor:

“On the second day this selection of civilian prisoners was
forbidden to the O.T., referring to an order of General Field
Marshal Kluge, according to which he alone had the right to
release civilian prisoners.”

I shall read into the record two documents demonstrating how the Hitlerites, in their hatred of the Soviet people, considered the regime of bestial cruelty and systematic insults which they had set up for the Soviet prisoners of war as being too mild, and demanded that it be made still more severe.

On 29 January 1943 an order was issued on the “Rights of Self-Defense against the Prisoners of War,” under the signature of the Chief of the OKH. This order bears the number 3868/42, and is registered by the United States Delegation as Document Number 696-PS. We submit it to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-355, since it has not been read into the record. I shall read a few short extracts from this document. You will find the passage quoted on Page 185 of your document book. It starts as follows:

“The military organizations and the organizations of the
National Socialist Party have, on numerous occasions, raised the
question of the treatment of the prisoners of war, and they are
of the opinion that the punishments provided for by the 1929
Agreement (H. Dv. 38/2) are inadequate.”

This document explains that the previous agreement regarding the treatment of all prisoners of war, with the exception of Soviet nationals, remains in force. The Order Number 389/42-S issued by the OKW Section for Prisoners-of-War Affairs, determines the treatment of the latter. This order was issued on 24 March 1942.

The second document is the circular of the Nazi Party bureau, submitted as Order Number 12/43-S. This circular, signed by Bormann, was issued by the chief of the Party bureau, at the Führer’s main headquarters on 12 February 1943. The circular was sent out by the Reichsführer to the Gauleiter and to the commanding officers of military units. It speaks of Secret Order Number 3868/42-S of the Chief of the General Staff. It is therefore proved once more, and proved beyond any manner of doubt, that the leaders of the Nazi Party and the military command bear equal responsibility for the atrocities perpetrated on the Soviet prisoners of war.

The Navy regulations regarding prisoners of war remain in force for all but Soviet prisoners, and where the Soviet prisoners were concerned the “regulations of the OKW” which I have already mentioned, “remain in force.”

Thus, absolute criminal agreement between the Party leaders and the OKW can be considered as existing as I already have shown to the Tribunal. I stress the circumstance and I would remind you that all this happened in the country whose representative had declared as far back as 1902:

“The only purpose in capturing prisoners of war is to prevent
their further participation in the war. Although prisoners of
war lose their freedom, they do not lose their rights. In other
words, captivity is not an act of mercy on the part of the
conqueror. It is the right of the disarmed soldier.”

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, we have had that document read to us more than once.

COL. POKROVSKY: I am not rereading it. I am merely recalling its contents.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you must give the Tribunal credit for some recollection. As I say, that document has been read more than once before.

COL. POKROVSKY: We have at our disposal an official note signed by Lammers. This document is registered under Document Number 073-PS. We submit it to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-361—it has not yet been read into the record. The document states—you will find this excerpt on Page 191 of your document book:

“1. Prisoners of war are foreigners. Influencing them is the
task . . . of foreign propaganda and therefore the task of the
Foreign Office.”

I omit a few sentences.

“Excepted from this ruling are the Soviet prisoners who are
placed under the control of the Reich Minister for the Occupied
Territories of the East because the Geneva Convention is not
valid for them and because they have a special political
status.”

In this connection, I wish to submit to you as Exhibit Number USSR-356 (Document Number USSR-356), another German document. It consists of notes composed at the headquarters of the Foreign Counterintelligence Office on the 15 November 1941 for the “OKW Chief of Staff.” I shall read into the record a few extracts, of which you will find the opening lines on Page 192 of your document book:

“The Geneva Convention regarding prisoners of war is not valid
between Germany and the U.S.S.R. Therefore, the only rules in
force are the principles of general international law regarding
the treatment of prisoners of war, which since the 18th century
have so developed that war captivity represented neither revenge
nor punishment, but a security measure, the sole object of which
was to prevent prisoners from further participating in the war.
This principle developed in connection with the prevalent
opinion that, from a military standpoint, the killing or
wounding of prisoners was inadmissible. In addition, it is to
the interest of each belligerent to be assured against
ill-treatment of its soldiers in case of their capture. Appendix
I states the directives, based on different premises as can be
seen at the beginning of this paragraph, concerning the
treatment of Soviet prisoners of war.”

To save time I shall omit several sentences and shall read the end of the paragraph into the record:

“. . . and, in addition, eliminated much which from past
experience was considered not only as useful from a military
viewpoint but as indispensable to the maintenance of discipline
and high striking power.

“The orders are drawn up in very general terms. But, if we bear
in mind the ruling basic tendency, then the ‘measures’ permitted
by these orders are bound to result in wanton and unpunished
murder, even though officially the law of violence has been
abolished.

“This is obvious from the directive regarding the use of weapons
against recalcitrance. The guards and their commanding officers,
who often do not understand the language of the prisoner of war,
will not be able to know whether the prisoners’ disobedience was
due to recalcitrance or to a misunderstanding of the orders. The
principle that use of weapons against Soviet prisoners of war
is, as a rule, justified absolves the guards from any duty of
making reflections about their actions.”

Omitting two paragraphs not directly relating to this matter, I quote as follows:

“The organization of camp police equipped with clubs, whips, and
similar weapons, even in camps where all labor is done by the
prisoners, is against military rule and tradition. In addition
the military authorities thus give into other hands the means
for applying punishment without providing adequate control as to
how these means are employed.”

I wish to quote one more sentence taken from Paragraph 5 of these notes—you will find it on Page 194:

“Appendix 2 contains a translation of the Russian decree
regarding prisoners of war which is in accord with the basic
principles of international law as well as with the rules of the
Geneva Convention.”

I shall refrain from quoting the rest of the document as it is of little interest. This document is signed by the Chief of the Foreign Counterintelligence Service, Admiral Canaris. It includes directives containing instructions relating to the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, dwelling in detail on such sections which Canaris considered as violations of the basic principles of international law and of the Geneva Convention.

I should like to supplement this document with a few excerpts from the minutes of the interrogation by Dr. Wengler, a former counsellor of the Foreign Counterintelligence Service of the OKW. This document is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-129 (Document Number USSR-129). Wengler was questioned by me on 19 December 1945, and his testimony is important for purposes of evaluating the line of conduct both of the OKW and Keitel himself.

DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I ask that the document, Exhibit Number USSR-129, which the Russian Prosecutor intends to read, should not be read, but that the witness mentioned in this document, Dr. Wengler, be called personally to testify in Court, if the Soviet Prosecution is willing.

This document, USSR-129, is a record of an interrogation of Dr. Wengler, who was active in Counterintelligence Service in the OKW. It is a question of determining whether the nonapplication of the Geneva Convention as regards Russia is due to the fault of the German Government, the OKW, and the Defendant Keitel. I do not need to state that the clarification of this question is of the utmost significance in judging the responsible persons, not only because of the Counts in the Indictment, but because of the terrible guilt in face of the German people, if the testimony given by this witness should be true. The witness was interrogated in Nuremberg on 19 December 1945. Whether he is still here or in Berlin—he gave his address at the time of the inquiry—I cannot say. But I do believe that the basic decisions of the Tribunal concerning the interpretation of Article 21 of the Charter will justify my request in this respect since, firstly, the summoning of the witness from Berlin does not entail great difficulties, secondly we are concerned with a question of such tremendous significance, even in this setting, that the personal testimony and interrogation by this Tribunal should not be replaced by the mere lecture of the minutes of an inquiry.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you anything you wish to say in answer to that objection?

COL. POKROVSKY: With your permission I should like first of all, in order to clarify the matter, to ask where the witness actually is at the present moment? He is not in Nuremberg. He was brought here especially for this interrogation under the greatest technical difficulties. The interrogation was conducted according to all the rules of our judicial proceedings, so that this document could be submitted to the Tribunal and accepted as evidence, if the Tribunal so judges, according to Article 19 of the Charter.

All the problems concerning this subject, which were of interest to the Soviet Prosecution, are already sufficiently clear from the Document Number USSR-129, which we submit to you, and I see no possibility of having this witness brought here in the near future. Maybe the representatives of the Defense Counsel imagine that it is very easy to produce him, but I do not see any technical possibility of bringing him here a second time. And I repeat that, if the Tribunal does not consider it feasible to accept this document in the suitable manner in which we have formulated it, then we would even agree to refrain from submitting it as evidence and to replace it by other evidence—even though we believe it to be incorrect. But we consider it easier than to bring the witness here a second time. That is all I have to say in reply to this request.

THE PRESIDENT: Did you say that you could not bring the witness here, and that as you could not bring him here you would not press the introduction of the document?

COL. POKROVSKY: No, I put it differently. I said that we insist that this document be admitted, since the Tribunal has the right, according to Article 19 of the Charter, to accept this document as evidence. But if we were to choose between two possibilities, either by adding this evidence to the record or by summoning the witness a second time, the technical obstacles which prevent us from so doing would compel us, by preference, to accept the exclusion of this document from the record, in order to avoid any repetition of the difficulties already experienced. We consider that the document is quite correctly compiled, in accordance with all the rules of the Charter, and that the Tribunal should receive it as evidence according to Article 19 of the Charter.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know first of all, why is it difficult or impossible to bring the witness to Nuremberg in the same way that he was brought to Nuremberg in December 1945; and secondly, has Dr. Nelte and have the other defendants’ counsel got full copies in German of the document?

COL. POKROVSKY: Dr. Wengler was interrogated in his native German tongue. The original of his record, of his interrogation, has been submitted to the Tribunal in an adequate number of copies, which are at the disposal of the Defense Counsel.

As regards the technical difficulties, I cannot, at present, undertake to give the Tribunal a precise description of all the technical difficulties reported to me by my collaborators, since I can no longer remember them. But I do know that, when they were working on this matter, establishing the existence of the witness, searching for him, bringing him here, they—my collaborators—declared that they could do this once but that they would not be able to do it a second time. Consequently, Dr. Wengler, a free agent, was here in Nuremberg, not for 1 day, but for many days, precisely for the time needed adequately to clear up all the questions which were of interest to us and to interrogate him, since we foresaw the impossibility of summoning him a second time.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know where the deponent, the witness, was brought from when he was brought to Nuremberg.

COL. POKROVSKY: From Berlin. He was brought the last time from Berlin.

THE PRESIDENT: Then is he now in Berlin?

COL. POKROVSKY: I do not undertake to answer this question now without making further inquiries. He is not interned.

THE PRESIDENT: Now, Dr. Nelte, do you want to say anything?

DR. NELTE: I should just like to refer to the last page of the minutes, where the address is given: Dr. Wilhelm Wengler, Berlin-Hermsdorf, Ringstrasse Number 32. We are simply concerned with the question: Which technical difficulties are involved to bring this witness from Berlin to Nuremberg a second time? Of course, I do not know whether the witness is in Berlin, but I assume that he is there.

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.

[_A recess was taken._]

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will allow the deposition to be put in evidence, should the Soviet Prosecutor decide to do so. If the document is put in evidence, the Tribunal will desire that the Prosecutor should secure the attendance of the deponent as a witness for cross-examination. If the Prosecution is unable to secure the attendance of the deponent as a witness, then the Tribunal will itself attempt to secure the attendance of the deponent as a witness, for cross-examination.

COL. POKROVSKY: I can report to the Tribunal that I attempted to employ the time spent by the Tribunal in deliberating this problem in discovering if we could bring this witness back again and that I did not receive a conclusive reply from my organization. According to the wish of the Tribunal, I shall omit the topic of his cross-examination and shall only refer to it again if I am informed by my collaborators that we can once more bring the witness before the Tribunal. This would seem to me in accordance with the wishes of the Tribunal.

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, I am not quite sure that you appreciated quite what I said. What I said was that you are at liberty to put in the document now, if you wish to do so. That is one thing. But, if you do so, you must attempt to secure the attendance of the witness, and should you fail to do so, the Tribunal will attempt to secure the attendance of the witness; but the document will still be in evidence and will not be struck out, although, of course, it will be open to the criticism that it is only a deposition or an affidavit and that the witness has not been produced for cross-examination and therefore the weight that attaches to the testimony will not be so great as it would be if the witness had been produced for cross-examination.

Is that clear?

COL. POKROVSKY: Wengler was interrogated by me. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: I fear I used inaccurately the word “affidavit.” It is only an interrogation. It is not made upon oath and that, of course, will be taken into consideration. But the point is that you can put in the document now if you decide to do so. That is a matter for your discretion. If you do so, you must attempt to secure the attendance of the witness for cross-examination. If you are unable to get him, then the Tribunal will attempt to get him here for cross-examination.

COL. POKROVSKY: When reporting to the Tribunal on the measures we had adopted, I started from the point of view that the Tribunal desired that each witness, whose testimony had been read into the record, could, if necessary, be summoned to appear before the Tribunal for a supplementary cross-examination. That is why I have already attempted to find out whether we can call up this witness now, and since I have not yet received any definite answer from our organization, I wish to invite the attention of the Tribunal to the possibility that we will simply abstain from mentioning these minutes now, as we only need them for the confirmation of one point, already confirmed by a document which has just been presented to the Tribunal. This is the report signed by Canaris. What is the meaning of Wengler’s interrogation? The meaning of Wengler’s interrogation is that it shows that the OKW knew of the treatment meted out to the Soviet prisoners. Canaris said the same.

THE PRESIDENT: I think you must decide, Colonel Pokrovsky, whether you wish to put in the document or not. If you wish to put in the document, you may do so, but I do not think it is right for you to state the contents of the document and at the same time not to put it in. If you wish to put it in, then you must try to secure the attendance of the witness, and if you cannot secure the attendance, the Tribunal will try to secure it.

COL. POKROVSKY: I consider that Wengler’s testimony is not important enough for us to pay so very much attention to it. If we can find this witness, we shall examine him at a later date.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well.

COL. POKROVSKY: In the light of the documents read into the record, and also in view of the protest of the German prisoners of war in Camp 78, which shows how humanely the Soviet authorities treated German military prisoners of the German Army, the sentence from Appendix I of Operations Order Number 14 of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, concerning the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, is nothing less than a brazen insult. This sentence can be found on Page 7 of the document submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-3 (Document Number USSR-3). You will find it on Page 204 of your document book:

“Thus the Bolshevik soldier has lost his right to be treated as
an honest soldier and in accordance with the rules of the Geneva
Convention.”

I beg the Tribunal to recollect that the following directive, dated 7 November 1941, appears in Appendix II of Order Number 11 of the General Staff of the OKW. I quote from Exhibit Number USSR-3, extracts from which appear on Page 233 of your document book—last paragraph in the right column.

“The work of the Special Squad, by license of the rear area
commander (officer in charge of prisoner-of-war affairs of the
district) must be done in such a way that the selecting and
sorting out is practically unnoticeable. Executions must be
carried out without delay, and at sufficient distance from the
camp and from habitations to keep them secret from the other
prisoners and the population.”

These are the transfers of prisoners “to some place in the neighborhood” that Kuntze, the expert executioner, had in mind when he reported to his chiefs on the incidents which occurred during the execution of the 28 crippled prisoners of war.

Among the documents submitted to the Tribunal by the Soviet Delegation are data regarding the shooting, on 7 April 1945, at the Seelhorst Cemetery in Hanover, of 150 Soviet prisoners of war and civilians. We submit this data as Exhibit Number USSR-112 (Document Number USSR-112). You will find the data in question on Page 207 of your document book. They have been placed at our disposal by the American investigation authorities. They consist of a number of testimonies, including that of Peter Palnikov, a Red Army officer who had fortuitously escaped the execution. You will find the minutes to which I refer on the same page, 207 of your document book. We also have the testimonies of other members of the local population who had been questioned under oath by the American investigation authorities. Their evidence is corroborated by medical reports on bodies exhumed from the graves at Seelhorst Cemetery. In addition, we submit duly certified photographs.

I shall not read all these documents into the record but shall merely point out that the 167 corpses thus exhumed were specially noted in the concluding report of the commission, as enabling the commission to judge, from their appearance, of the “pronounced degree of insufficient nourishment.”

This circumstance must be stressed so that the Tribunal may have a perfectly clear picture of the food situation prevalent among Soviet prisoners of war in the various camps. Regardless of the territory in which the camp was located, all Soviet prisoners of war were exposed to a regime of hunger with the same sustained and systematic cruelty.

While I am thus reporting on the Hitlerian atrocities perpetrated on the prisoners, I find that we now have at our disposal several court verdicts pronounced on the fascist criminals who committed their crimes in the temporarily occupied territories. In accordance with Article 21 of the Charter, I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-87 (Document Number USSR-87) the verdict of a district military tribunal. You will find the entire verdict on Page 214 up to Page 221. It was pronounced in Smolensk, on 19 December 1945. The Tribunal inflicted penalties varying from 12 years hard labor to death by hanging, on 10 Hitlerites directly guilty of the numerous crimes committed in the city and region of Smolensk.

I shall not quote the document, but shall merely mention that on Pages 4, 5, and 6 of the verdict, in passages marked in your copies—these pages, that is, 4, 5, and 6 of the verdict, are to be found in your document book on Pages 218, 219, and 222—information is contained how, as a result of pseudo-scientific experiments on prisoners of war by persons who, to the undying shame of German medicine, were known in Germany as professors and doctors, tortured and murdered the prisoners by blood poisoning. The sentence presents further evidence that, as a result of savage ill-treatment by the German escort conveying Soviet prisoners of war, some 10,000 exhausted, half-dead captives perished between Vyasma and Smolensk.

It is precisely this passage, this information, which you will find in Subparagraph 3 of the verdict. It appears on Page 218 of your document book. The verdict reflects the systematic mass shooting of prisoners of war in Camp 126, in the city of Smolensk—“in Transit Camp 126 South”—during the transfer of the prisoners to the camp and to the hospital. The verdict particularly emphasizes the fact that prisoners of war, too exhausted to work, were shot.

I should now like to turn to the brutalities committed by the Hitlerites towards members of the Czechoslovakian, Polish, and Yugoslavian Armies. We find, in the Indictment, that one of the most important criminal acts for which the major war criminals are responsible was the mass execution of Polish prisoners of war, shot in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk by the German fascist invaders.

I submit to the Tribunal, as a proof of this crime, official documents of the special commission for the establishment and the investigation of the circumstances which attended the executions. The commission acted in accordance with a directive of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union. In addition to members of the Extraordinary State Commission—namely Academicians Burdenko, Alexis Tolstoy, and the Metropolitan Nicolas—this commission was composed of the President of the Pan-Slavonia Committee, Lieutenant General Gundorov; the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Union of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Kolesnikov; of the People’s Commissar for Education in the R.S.S.F.R., Academician Potemkin; the Supreme Chief of the Medical Department of the Red Army, General Smirnov; and the Chairman of the District Executive Committee of Smolensk, Melnikov. The commission also included several of the best known medico-legal experts.

It would take too long to read into the record that precise and detailed document which I now submit to you as Exhibit Number USSR-54 (Document Number USSR-54), which is a result of the investigation. I shall read into the record only a few comparatively short excerpts. On Page 2 of the document, which is Page 223 in your document book, we read—this passage is marked in your file:

“According to the estimates of medico-legal experts, the total
number of bodies amounts to over 11,000. The medico-legal
experts carried out a thorough examination of the bodies
exhumed, and of the documents and material evidence found on the
bodies and in the graves. During the exhumation and examination
of the corpses, the commission questioned many witnesses among
the local inhabitants. Their testimony permitted the
determination of the exact time and circumstances of the crimes
committed by the German invaders.”

I believe that I need not quote everything that the Extraordinary Commission ascertained during its investigation about the crimes of the Germans. I only read into the record the general conclusions, which summarize the work of the commission. You will find the lines read into the record on Page 43 of Exhibit Number USSR-54 if you turn to the original document, or on Page 264 of your document book:

“General conclusions:

“On perusal of all the material at the disposal of the special
commission, that is, the depositions of over 100 witnesses
questioned, the data of the medico-legal experts, the documents
and the material evidence and belongings taken from the graves
in Katyn Forest, we can arrive at the following definite
conclusions:

“1. The Polish prisoners of war imprisoned in the three camps
west of Smolensk and engaged in railway construction before the
war, remained there after the occupation of Smolensk by the
Germans, right up to September 1941.

“2. In the autumn of 1941, in Katyn Forest, the German
occupational authorities carried out mass shootings of the
Polish prisoners of war from the above-mentioned camps.

“3. Mass shootings of Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest
were carried out by German military organizations disguised
under the specific name, ‘Staff 537, Engineer Construction
Battalion,’ commanded by Oberleutnant Arnes and his colleagues,
Oberleutnant Rex and Leutnant Hott.

“4. In connection with the deterioration, for Germany, of the
general military and political machinery at the beginning of
1943, the German occupational authorities, with a view to
provoking incidents, undertook a whole series of measures to
ascribe their own misdeeds to organizations of the Soviet
authorities, in order to make mischief between the Russians and
the Poles.

“5. For these purposes:

“a. The German fascist invaders, by persuasion, attempts at
bribery, threats, and by barbarous tortures, endeavored to find
‘witnesses’ among the Soviet citizens from whom they obtained
false testimony, alleging that the Polish prisoners of war had
been shot by organizations of the Soviet authorities in the
spring of 1940.

“b. The German occupational authorities, in the spring of 1943,
brought from other places the bodies of Polish prisoners of war
whom they had shot, and laid them in the turned up graves of
Katyn Forest with the dual purpose of covering up the traces of
their own atrocities and of increasing the numbers of ‘victims
of Bolshevist atrocities’ in Katyn Forest,

“c. While preparing their provocative measures, the German
occupational authorities employed up to 500 Russian prisoners of
war for the task of digging up the graves in Katyn Forest. Once
the graves had been dug, the Russian prisoners of war were shot
by the Germans in order to destroy thus all proof and material
evidence on the matter.

“6. The date of the legal and medical examination determined,
without any shadow of doubt:

“a. That the time of shooting was autumn 1941.

“b. The application by the German executioners, when shooting
Polish prisoners of war, of the identical method—a pistol shot
in the nape of the neck—as used by them in the mass murders of
the Soviet citizens in other towns, especially in Orel,
Voronetz, Krasnodar and in Smolensk itself.”

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess.

[_The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours._]

_Afternoon Session_

COL. POKROVSKY: Point 7 of the general conclusions of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, on which I reported in the preceding session, states:

“The conclusions reached, after studying the affidavits and
medico-legal examinations concerning the shooting of Polish
military prisoners of war by Germans in the autumn of 1941,
fully confirmed the material evidence and documents discovered
in the Katyn graves.

“8. By shooting the Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest, the
German fascist invaders consistently realized their policy for
the physical extermination of the Slav peoples.”

Here follow the signatures of all the members of the Commission.

The Katyn massacres did not exhaust the Hitler crimes against the soldiers of the Polish Army. In the report of the Polish Government, submitted by me to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-93 (Document Number USSR-93), we find a series of proofs confirming the breach by the Hitlerite conspirators of the elementary rules of international law governing the customs and laws of war; on Page 36 of this report by the Polish Government—it is on Page 285 of your document book—we find, as an outstanding part of the material collected, the ill-treatment of prisoners of war and their extermination. It is said in the report—and I quote:

“As and when the Polish officers and other ranks returned from
German prisoner-of-war camps, we learn further details
concerning conditions prevailing in the German camps. All these
details undeniably prove the existence of a line of policy,
instructions, and orders concerning the Polish prisoners of war.
Ill-treatment, hardship, and inhuman conditions were of common
occurrence. Murders and grievous bodily injuries were frequently
encountered. A few examples confirmed by witnesses under oath
are submitted later on.”

I take the liberty of reading into the record some of the examples quoted in the Polish report. As a first example, I shall quote the description of an incident which occurred in a temporary prisoner-of-war camp in the city of Belsk. This material figures on Page 285 of your document book:

“On 10 October 1939 the camp commandant assembled all the
prisoners and ordered those who had joined the Polish Army as
volunteers to raise their hands. Three prisoners obeyed his
order. They were immediately led out of the rank and placed at a
distance of 25 meters from a detachment of German soldiers armed
with machine guns. The commandant gave the order to open fire.
He then spoke to the remaining prisoners and told them that the
three volunteers had been shot as an example to the others.”

In this case we are not faced with the simple murder of three unarmed soldiers of the Polish Army. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel, you forgive my interrupting you, but you remember that I have interrupted all the other prosecutors to point out to them that one opening speech had been made on behalf of their delegation, and that really their function was to present the documents.

Now, you have just presented a document which states that three volunteers were shot. I think that any comment upon that is really unnecessary.

COL. POKROVSKY: I now proceed to the quotation of the second excerpt on Page 37, Subparagraph d—Page 226 of your document book:

“In the autumn of 1939 Camp (Stalag) VIII-S was established in
Kounau, near Sagan on the River Bober, a tributary of the Oder.
Depositions from this camp read as follows:

“The camp in Kounau was an open space surrounded by barbed wire,
with large tents, each holding 180 or 200 persons. In spite of
very cold weather (the temperature was below 25 degrees
centigrade) there was, in December 1939, no heating appliance
whatsoever in the camp. Consequently, some of the internees
suffered from frozen hands, feet, and ears. Since the prisoners
had no blankets and since their uniforms were too worn out to
protect them from the cold, disease broke out, while
malnutrition resulted in extreme debility. Moreover, the guards
constantly ill-treated the prisoners. They were beaten on the
slightest pretext. Two men were especially noted for their
brutality, Lieutenant Schinke and Sergeant Major Grau. They hit
the prisoners in the face and beat them, broke their ribs and
arms, and gouged out their eyes. Such inhuman treatment resulted
in several cases of suicide and insanity among the soldiers.”

I think we can now pass on at once to the general conclusions and to read into the Record to this end Subparagraph g on Page 39—Page 287 of the document book: