Chapter XXIII: Part II: of this case (9)

“SS Hauptsturmführer Franz Wartzok, for instance, loved to hang
internees by both feet on posts and leave them in this position
until they died; Obersturmführer Rokita personally slashed open
the bellies of the prisoners. The chairman of the investigation
section of the Yanov Camp, Heine, pierced the bodies of
internees with sticks or a piece of iron; he would tear out the
finger nails of women with pliers, then he would strip his
victims, hang them up by their hair, swing them out and shoot at
the ‘moving targets.’

“The commandant of the Yanov Camp, Obersturmführer Willhaus,
systematically shot with an automatic rifle from the balcony of
his office room the prisoners employed in the workshops, partly
for sheer love of sport and partly to amuse his wife and
daughters. He would then hand his rifle to his wife and she too
had a shot at the prisoners. Sometimes, to please his 9-year-old
daughter, he had children between the ages of 2 and 4 years
tossed in the air and then took pot shots at them, while his
daughter applauded and shrieked, ‘Papa, do it again; do it
again, Papa!’ And he did it again.

“The internees of this camp were exterminated for no reason at
all, often as a result of a bet. A woman witness, Kirschner,
informed the Investigating Commission that a Gestapo Commissar,
Wepke, bet the other camp executioners that he could cut a boy
in half with one stroke of the axe. They did not believe him. So
he caught a 10-year-old boy on the road, made him kneel down,
told him to hide his face in the folded palms of his hands, made
one test stroke, placed the child’s head in a more convenient
position and with one single stroke cut the boy in half. The
Hitlerites heartily congratulated Wepke, shaking him warmly by
the hand.

“In 1943, for Hitler’s birthday—his 54th—the commandant of the
Yanov Camp, Obersturmführer Willhaus, picked out 54 prisoners of
war and shot them himself.

“A special hospital for prisoners was organized in the camp. The
German hangmen Brambauer and Birman checked up the patients on
the 1st and 15th day of each month; and, if they discovered that
among the patients there were some who had been in the hospital
for over 14 days, they shot them on the spot. Six or seven
people were killed during each investigation.

“The Germans executed their tortures, ill-treatments, and
shooting to the accompaniment of music. For this purpose they
created a special orchestra selected from among the prisoners.
They forced Professor Stricks and the famous conductor Mund to
conduct this orchestra. They requested the composers to write a
special tune, to be called the ‘Tango of Death.’ Shortly before
dissolving the camp the Germans shot every member of the
orchestra.”

Later on I will present to the Tribunal, as a photo-document, photographs of this “orchestra of death.”

What took place in Yanov Camp was in no way exceptional. In exactly the same manner the German fascist administration behaved in all concentration camps in the occupied area of the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, and other Eastern European countries.

I submit to the International Military Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-29 (Document Number USSR-29). It is a communiqué of the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary State Commission for the investigation of the crimes perpetrated by the Germans in the extermination camp of Maidanek in the city of Lublin. The Tribunal will find this communiqué on Page 63 of the document book. I quote Section 3 of this document, “Tortures and Murder in the Extermination Camp”—Page 64 reverse side of the document book, beginning with the last paragraph of the first column of the text:

“The forms of torture were extremely varied. Some of them were
in the nature of so-called jokes which frequently ended in
death. They included mock-shooting when the victim was rendered
insensible by a blow over the head with a blunt instrument, and
mock drownings in the pond of the camp which often ended in
actual drowning.

“Among the German executioners were specialists in particular
methods of torture. Prisoners were killed by a blow with a stick
on the back of the head, by a kick in the stomach, in the groin,
_et cetera_.

“The SS torturers drowned their victims in the dirty water
flowing from the bathhouse through a narrow ditch. The head of
the victim was plunged into the dirty water and kept under by
the boot of an SS man until he died. A favorite method of the
Hitler SS was to hang prisoners with their hands bound behind
their back. The Frenchman, De Courantin, who suffered the
torture in question, stated that a man hanged in this manner
lost consciousness very rapidly, whereupon the hanging would be
interrupted. He was hanged again as soon as consciousness was
recovered and the process was repeated several times.

“For the smallest offense, particularly for any suspicion of
escape, the camp internees were hanged by the German fiends. In
the middle of each field stood a post with a cross beam 2 meters
above ground, from which the victims were hanged. ‘I saw from my
barracks,’ said witness Demashev, former camp internee and
Soviet prisoner of war, ‘how people were hanged from the beam in
the middle of the field.’

“Close to the laundry, in the entresol between the first and
second floor, was a special shed with beams from the ceilings
where prisoners were hanged in whole groups.”

The women interned in the camp were subjected to the same ill-treatment and torture; they suffered the same forms of control, of work beyond their strength, of beating, and ill-treatment. The greatest cruelty was exercised by the female personnel of the SS. The worst were the chief woman supervisor Erich, and the supervisors Braunstein, Anni David, Weber, Knoblick, Ellert, and Radli.

The Commission has established many facts of unparalleled brutality perpetrated by the German executioners in the camp.

The German, Heinz Stalbe, chief of the camp police, at a plenary meeting stated that he had seen with his own eyes how the director of the crematory, Oberscharführer Mussfeld, tied the arms and legs of a Polish woman and threw her into the furnace alive. The witnesses Yelinski and Olech—workers in the camp—also stated that internees had been burned alive in the crematory ovens:

“An infant was snatched from its mother’s breast and dashed
before her eyes against the wall of the barrack”—stated witness
Atrochov—“I saw for myself how infants were taken from their
mothers and murdered before their eyes: One small leg would be
seized by a hand, the executioner would stand on the other and
the infant would be torn in half”—stated witness Edward Baran.

“The deputy camp commandant, SS-Obersturmführer Tumann was
particularly noted for his sadistic tendencies. He forced groups
of internees to kneel in a row and then killed them by blows on
the head with a stick. He set Alsatian dogs on the internees. He
participated actively and energetically in all executions and
killings of the prisoners.

“Thus hunger, work beyond their strength, torture, torment,
ill-treatment, and murder accompanied by unheard-of sadism were
employed for the mass extermination of the captives in the
camp.”

To prove that these sophisticated and sadistic crimes were not exclusively characteristic of the SS or the special police units, but that the major war criminals had deliberately plunged whole strata of the personnel of the German Armed Forces into the very depths of moral degradation, I turn to the contents of a note by the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the U.S.S.R., V. M. Molotov, dated 6 January 1942, which was submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-51. Your Honors will find the passage I am about to quote on the reverse side of the document book, Paragraph 4, Column 1 of the text. I begin the quotation:

“There are no bounds to the wrath and indignation aroused among
the Soviet population and in the Red Army by the innumerable and
despicable acts of violence, the foul outrages perpetrated
against the honor of the women and the mass murders of Soviet
citizens, both men and women, carried out by the German fascist
officers and men. Wherever the rule of the German bayonet begins
to hold sway, an unbearable regime of bloody terror, agonizing
torture, and savage murder is introduced. The robberies
committed everywhere by the German officers and men are
invariably accompanied by the beating and murder of immense
numbers of entirely innocent people. For failure to deliver up
food supplies to the very last crumb, and all clothing, down to
the very last shirt, the occupants torture and hang old and
young, women and children. At forced labor they beat up and
shoot for all defective execution of the established quota of
work.

“On 30 June Hitler’s thugs entered the city of Lvov, and on the
very next day they started a massacre under the slogan, ‘Kill
the Jews and the Poles.’ After hundreds had been put to death
the Hitler gangsters arranged an ‘exhibition’ of the murdered
citizens by building an arcade. The mutilated bodies, mostly of
women, were laid out along the walls of the houses. The place of
honor in this ghastly ‘exhibition’ was occupied by the corpse of
a woman whose baby had been pinned to her with a bayonet.

“Such were the monstrous atrocities of the fascists from the
very outbreak of the war. Wallowing in innocent blood, the
Hitlerite blackguards are still continuing their dastardly
crimes.

“In the hamlet of Krasnaya Polyana near Moscow, on 2 December,
the German fascist dastards assembled all the local inhabitants
between the ages of 15 and 16, locked them up in the icy
premises of the district executive committee building in which
all the window panes had been knocked out, and kept them there
for 8 days without food or water. The infant children of the
women workers of the Krasnaya Polyana factory, A. Zaitseva, T.
Gudkina, O. Naletkina, and M. Mikhailova, died in the arms of
their mothers during this ordeal.

“Numerous instances are on record of Soviet children having been
used as practice targets by the Hitlerites.

“In the village of Bely Rast, in the Krasnaya Polyana district,
a gang of drunken German soldiers put 12-year-old Volodia
Tkachev up on the porch of one of the houses as a target and
opened fire on the boy with an automatic rifle. The boy was
riddled with bullets. After that the thugs began to fire random
shots at the windows of houses. They stopped a collective farm
woman, I. Mossolova, who was passing in the street with her
three children, and there and then shot her and the children
dead.

“In the village of Voskressenskoye of the Dubinin District, the
Hitlerites used a 3-year-old boy as their target, firing at him
with their machine guns.

“In the regional center of Volovo in the Region of Kursk, where
the Germans stayed for a space of 4 hours, a German officer
killed the 2-year-old son of a woman named Boikova by dashing
the child’s head against a wall merely because it was crying.

“In the village soviet of Zlobin, in the district of Orel, the
fascists killed the 2-year-old child of a collective farmer,
Kratov, because his crying disturbed their sleep.

“In the village of Semenovskoe, in the region of Kalinin, the
Germans bound with twine the arms of Olga Tikhonova, the
25-year-old wife of a Red Army man and mother of three children,
who was in the last stage of pregnancy, and raped her. After
violating her the Germans cut her throat, stabbed her through
both breasts, and sadistically bored them out. In the same
village the occupants shot a boy of 13 and cut out a
five-pointed star on his forehead.

“In November the telegraph operator of the town of Kalinin,
Ivanova, went to visit relatives in the village of Burashevo,
near Kalinin, together with her 13-year-old son Leonid. When
they left the town they were noticed by some Hitlerites, who
began shooting at them from a distance of 60 meters; as a result
the boy was killed. The mother made several attempts to carry
away the child’s body, but whenever she tried to do so the
Germans opened fire and she had to leave the body there. For 8
days the German soldiers would not let her remove the body. It
was only removed and buried by the mother when the place was
occupied by our troops.”

Mention is made, further on in the note, of another child victim of the fascists. The Tribunal will see this murdered boy in our filmed documentary evidence. I would ask the Tribunal to pay attention to the further words of the “note” which I shall read into the Record:

“In Rostov-on-Don a pupil of the commercial school, 15-year old
Vitya Cherevichny, was playing in the yard with his pigeons.
Some passing German soldiers began to steal the birds. The boy
protested. The Germans took him away and shot him, at the corner
of 27th Line and 2d Maisky Street for refusing to surrender his
pigeons. With the heels of their boots the Hitlerites trampled
his face out of all recognition.

“The village of Bassmanova, in the Glinka district of the
Smolensk region, liberated by our troops early in September was
one mass of ashes after the German occupation. On the very first
day of their arrival, the fascist fiends drove into the fields
over 200 schoolboys and girls who had come to the village to
help in the harvesting. There they surrounded them and savagely
shot them all. A large group of schoolgirls was abducted to the
rear ‘for their lordships, the officers.’

“The seizure of towns or villages usually begins with the
erection of a gallows on which the German executioners hang the
first civilians they can lay their hands on. Moreover, they
leave the bodies hanging on the gallows for days and even weeks.
They do the same with the people they shoot in the streets of
the towns and villages, leaving the bodies untended for days on
end.

“After the seizure of Kharkov, the German thugs hanged several
people from the windows of a large house in the center of the
city. Furthermore, in the same city of Kharkov on 16 November 19
persons, including one woman, were hanged from the balconies of
a number of houses.”

The bestial acts of violence perpetrated against the women everywhere testify to the profound moral corruption of the criminals. I shall quote from that passage in the note which Your Honors will find on Page 4, Paragraph 4, of the document book:

“Women and young girls are vilely outraged in all the occupied
areas.

“In the Ukrainian village of Borodayevka, in the Dniepropetrovsk
region, the fascists violated every one of the women and girls.

“In the village of Berezovka, in the region of Smolensk, drunken
German soldiers assaulted and carried off all the women and
girls between the ages of 16 and 30.

“In the city of Smolensk the German Command opened a brothel for
officers in one of the hotels into which hundreds of women and
girls were driven; they were mercilessly dragged down the street
by their arms and hair.

“Everywhere the lust-maddened German gangsters break into the
houses, they rape the women and girls under the very eyes of
their kinfolk and children, jeer at the women they have
violated, and then brutally murder their victims.

“In the city of Lvov, 32 women working in a garment factory were
first violated and then murdered by German storm troopers.
Drunken German soldiers dragged the girls and young women of
Lvov into Kesciuszko Park, where they savagely raped them. An
old priest, V. I. Pomaznew, who, cross in hand, tried to prevent
these outrages, was beaten up by the fascists. They tore off his
cassock, singed his beard, and bayonetted him to death.

“Near the town of Borissov in Bielorussia, 75 women and girls
attempting to flee at the approach of the German troops, fell
into their hands. The Germans first raped and then savagely
murdered 36 of their number. By order of a German officer named
Hummer, the soldiers marched L. I. Melchukova, a 16-year-old
girl, into the forest, where they raped her. A little later some
other women who had also been dragged into the forest saw some
boards near the trees and the dying Melchukova nailed to the
boards. The Germans had cut off her breasts in the presence of
these women, among whom were V. I. Alperenko, and V. H.
Bereznikova.

“On retreating from the village of Borovka, in the Zvenigorod
district of the Moscow region, the fascists forcibly abducted
several women, tearing them away from their little children in
spite of their protests and prayers.

“In the town of Tikhvin in the Leningrad region, a 15-year-old
girl named H. Koledetskaya, who had been wounded by shell
splinters, was taken to a hospital (a former monastery) where
there were wounded German soldiers. Despite her injuries the
girl was raped by a group of German soldiers and died as a
result of the assault.”

I omit one paragraph and continue:

“But, the Hitlerites do not stop at the murder of individual
Soviet citizens. Among the most appalling atrocities in the
history of Hitlerite lawlessness and terrorism on German
occupied Soviet territory are the nightmare mass murders of
Soviet citizens which usually accompany the temporary seizure by
the Germans of Soviet towns, villages, and other inhabited
centers.

“Here are a few instances of wholesale bloody murders carried
out by the Germans against entire villages. In Yaskino, a
village in the region of Smolensk, the Hitlerites shot all the
old men and adolescents, and burnt the houses down to the
ground. In the village of Pochinok of the same region, the
Germans drove all the old men, old women, and children into the
collective farm office, locked the doors and burnt them all
alive. In the Ukrainian village of Yomelchino in the region of
Zhitomir, the Germans locked 68 people into a small hut, sealed
the doors and windows and asphyxiated to death everybody inside.
In the village of Yershevo, of the Zvenigorod district in the
Moscow region now liberated by our troops, the Germans prior to
their withdrawal drove about 100 peaceful citizens and wounded
Red Army men into a church, locked them in, and blew up the
building. In the village of Agrafenovka of the Rostov region, on
16 November, the fascists arrested the entire male population
between the ages of 16 and 70 and shot one man of every three.”

The subsequent part of the note deals with the mass German crimes known as “actions” and particularly to the “actions” in Kiev. I invite the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the figure of those murdered in Babye-Yar—as mentioned in this note—is an understatement. After the liberation of Kiev it was established that the extent of the atrocities perpetrated by the German fascist invaders far exceeds the German crimes as stated in the first instance.

From further information submitted to the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, in connection with the city of Kiev, it is evident that during the monstrous so-called German mass “action” in Babye-Yar not 52,000 but 100,000 were shot. I now continue to quote from Page 4, of the document book, Paragraph 3:

“Terrible massacres and pogroms were carried out by the German
invaders in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. In the course of a
few days the German bandits tortured and murdered 52,000 men and
women, aged people and children, ruthlessly doing to death all
Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews who in any way displayed their
loyalty to the power of the Soviet. Soviet citizens who
succeeded in escaping from Kiev give a shattering picture of one
of these mass executions: A large number of Jews, including
women and children of all ages, were assembled in the Jewish
cemetery. Before shooting them the Germans stripped them naked
and then beat them. The first group marked for execution was
forced to lie, face downwards at the bottom of a ditch, where
the Jews were shot with automatic rifles. The Germans then
lightly sprinkled some earth over the dead bodies, made the next
batch lie down in a row over the first and shot them in the same
way.”

I skip a paragraph and continue with the quotation. You will have the opportunity of seeing the Hitlerite crimes mentioned in the note. The German atrocities in Rostov are shown in great detail in the filmed documentary evidence.

“The Nazi blood-thirstiness towards the citizens of Rostov has
become well known. During their 10 days’ sojourn in Rostov the
Germans not only wreaked vengeance on separate individuals and
families, but in their blood-lust they annihilated tens and
hundreds of inhabitants, especially in the working-class
districts of the city. Near the premises of the Railway Board,
German machinegunners shot 48 people in broad daylight. Sixty
people were shot by the Hitlerite assassins on the sidewalks of
the main street of Rostov. Two hundred people were murdered in
the Armenian cemetery. Even after their expulsion from Rostov by
our troops, German generals and officers publicly boasted that
they would return to Rostov purposely to vent bloody retribution
on the inhabitants, who had actively helped to drive their
mortal enemy from their native city.”

On the immediate initiative of the command and officers of the units and formations of the German fascist armies, the advancing and retreating movements of their troops were often protected by the peaceful citizens, preferably by women, old men, and children.

I make no comment but I do consider it necessary to stress the fact that only those people acted like that who had perfectly understood Keitel’s directive—so well known to the Tribunal—that human life “in the countries to which the directive refers, is worth exactly nothing at all.”

I quote further from the note of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Page 7 of the document book, the last paragraph:

“In addition to all that has already been stated, the Soviet
Government have in their possession documentation bearing on the
systematically repeated monstrous atrocities of the German
fascist command, such as the use of Soviet civilians to cover
German troops during battle with the Red Army.

“On 28 August 1941 German fascist troops attempted to force the
River Ipput. Powerless to overcome the stubborn resistance of
the Red Army units, they assembled the population of the
Bielorussian town of Dobrush in the Gomel region, and by
threatening to shoot those who refused, drove women, children,
and old people before them, using them as a shield when they
attacked in battle formation.

“The same dastardly crime against the civilian population was
repeated by the German Command in the Vybori Collective Farm
Sector of the Leningrad region as well as in the district of
Yelna, in the region of Smolensk. The fascist thugs continue to
resort to this brutal and cowardly method right up to the
present day. On 8 December the Hitlerites made use of the local
civil population to cover their retreat from the village of
Yamnoye, in the region of Tula. On 12 December, in the same
region, they assembled 120 persons—old people and children—and
made them march in the vanguard of their troops during
engagements with the advancing units of the Red Army. In the
fight by our troops for the liberation of the city of Kalinin,
units of the German 303rd Regiment, 162d Division, attempting to
launch a counter-attack, assembled the women of one of the
suburban villages, placed them in the vanguard of their troops,
and then went into action. Fortunately the Soviet troops
succeeded, when beating off the attack, in driving a wedge
between the Hitlerites and their victims thereby saving the
lives of the women.”

In order to satisfy the needs of the German fascist armies and in violation of all international conventions, the criminals employed the civil population for particularly dangerous work, especially for clearing the mine fields. I will quote an extract from the second part of this note, which the Tribunal will find on Page 2 of the document book, Paragraph 4. I quote:

“Wherever German troops and German authorities made their
appearance on Soviet territory, a regime of brutal exploitation,
tyranny, and arbitrary rule was immediately established as far
as the defenseless civil population was concerned. With a
complete disregard for age or conditions of health, and after
having taken or destroyed the houses of the Soviet citizens, a
great number of these were brought to concentration camps by the
Hitlerites and were compelled, under threat of torture,
shooting, or death by starvation, to perform, gratuitously,
various kinds of heavy labor, including work of a military
nature. In a number of cases, civilians employed on one or
another job of a military nature were summarily shot to ensure
secrecy.

“Thus, for instance, in the village of Kolpino, in the region of
Smolensk, the invaders drove all the farmers off to work on
building bridges and dugouts for German units. Upon the
completion of the construction of these fortifications, all
these farmers were shot.”

THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps this would be a good time to break: off.

COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, sir.

[_The Tribunal adjourned until 15 February 1946 at 1000 hours._]

SIXTIETH DAY
Friday, 15 February 1946

_Morning Session_

THE PRESIDENT: There are certain matters of a procedural nature which the Tribunal desire to consider before they consider the question of an adjournment. Accordingly they will not sit tomorrow in open session for consideration of the question of an adjournment, but they will sit tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock in closed session for consideration of these matters of a procedural character, and they will sit on Monday morning at 10 o’clock for half an hour to hear argument in open session on the question of an adjournment, one counsel being heard on each side and only for 15 minutes.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I interrupted the quotation of a document on Page 3 of the document file, second paragraph, first column of the text. I consider it possible to skip many items contained in this document, as these facts simply confirm further the general conclusions which were expressed in the beginning of the document and which were already confirmed by many facts read into the record by me yesterday. I only beg the Tribunal to allow me to draw their attention to one of the stipulations in the note which the Tribunal will find on Page 3 of the book of documents, second paragraph, first column of the text. It states that the civilian inhabitants were forcibly sent to concentration camps, thus artificially and illegally increasing the number of prisoners of war and subjecting the peaceful population to the inhuman regime which was established by the German fascist authorities for the prisoners of war.

I submit to the Tribunal further an extract from the minutes of the court-martial of a military tribunal of the 374th Liuban Infantry Division, held on 29 October 1944. This document is submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-162 (Document Number USSR-162). The Tribunal will find this document on Page 67 of the document file.

DR. KURT KAUFFMANN (Counsel for Defendant Kaltenbrunner): I would like to make two motions regarding the questions relative to the submission of evidence in this case as well as to the general procedure. The first motion is that I would like to ask, with reference to Article 21, that the submission of documents to the investigation commission, as well as any reference to them, be prohibited inasmuch as these documents do not contain definite information about the source of the information discussed here; secondly, that the written statements, which contain only summary information be read without any personal observations, and that the reading of such statements be permitted only if the cross-examination of the author as a witness is possible.

I should like to submit the following reasons: Article 19 of the Charter permits all evidence which has probative value. Article 21 gives the Court the right to ask for proof regarding documents submitted to the so-called “investigation committees.” The purpose of both articles, however, is to facilitate the submission of proof. The admission of written statements of various kinds leads to the danger that such statements would discriminate against an entire people and an entire nation. Then the demand of the Defense that only such proof, such documents where this danger has been eliminated, as far as possible, be admitted, seems to be justified.

Many of the written statements and excerpts from committee reports read by the Russian Prosecution have had no probative value; but, furthermore, since they cannot be checked—their contents cannot be checked—they design to give a wrong impression about historical events.

THE PRESIDENT: Why does it not come within the last two lines of Article 21: “The records and findings of military or other tribunals of any of the United Nations?”

DR. KAUFFMANN: Yes, the Defense is of the opinion that Article 21 permits an interpretation. Article 21 permits the reading of such documents and such reports, but does not say anything about the extent to which it has been necessary for the defendants’ counsel to check the sources upon which these reports of the investigating authorities are based. We are of the opinion that the witnesses who have been questioned, for reasons of compassion, of vengeance, _et cetera_, have not been in a position to describe the events objectively. As jurists we know that it is exceedingly difficult to describe even simple events truthfully. Therefore, we have the duty and the responsibility for the German people to try to check these sources and to help thereby to explain and clarify the real course of events, which we see somewhat differently.

THE PRESIDENT: Defendants’ counsel will have the opportunity at the proper time of criticizing any evidence which is offered by the Prosecution. They will be able to point out whether it is possible that certain evidence was given out of sympathy; they will be able to criticize the evidence which is given in any way they choose at the proper time. But this is not the proper time.

Article 21 is perfectly clear, and it directs the Tribunal to take judicial notice of the various documents which are there set out, and expressly refers to the records and findings of military or other tribunals of any of the United Nations. This is a record and finding of a military tribunal of a Soviet court. Therefore, the Tribunal is directed in express terms by Article 21 to take judicial notice of it. That does not prevent defendants’ counsel, when they make their speeches in defense, from criticizing the evidence upon which that record and findings proceed; but to say it ought not to be admitted appears to me, at any rate, and I think to the other members of the Tribunal, to be really entirely unfounded as an objection.

DR. KAUFFMANN: I thank you.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: May I continue, Mr. President. Thus the document which has been submitted to the Tribunal will be found on Page 67 of the document file in their possession. I shall allow myself to repeat in my own words the biographical data concerning the Defendant Le Court, who was brought before a court-martial.

He was not an SS man, but a non-Party senior corporal of the German Army, 27 years old. He was born and lived, before the war, in the town of Stargard; was owner of a cinema, and was later mobilized in the army, where he served in the 1st Company of the 4th Airborne Division. I begin to quote the statements in evidence given by Le Court contained in the section entitled “Judicial Investigation” beginning with Paragraph 2. The Tribunal will find this place in the document book on Page 68, fifth paragraph. Le Court stated:

“Prior to my capture by Red Army soldiers, that is, before
February 1944, I served as laboratory assistant in the 1st
Bicycle Company of the 2d Air Force Infantry Regiment of the 4th
Air Force Infantry Division at the headquarters of Air Field
Service E 33/XI.

“In addition to photographic material, I handled other work when
not on duty, that is to say, I spent my free time for my own
pleasure in shooting Red Army prisoners of war and peaceful
citizens and soldiers. I used to jot down in a special book the
number of prisoners of war and peaceful citizens I had shot.”

I omit three paragraphs describing the shooting of prisoners of war by Le Court, and continue the quotation. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, the passage that you read a moment ago about jotting down the numbers in his book does not occur in the translation which is before me. I do not know whether it is in your original. I suppose it is. Are you sure it is in the original?

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: It is there, Mr. President. Mr. President, I just verified this extract which I am quoting with the original book of documents. It corresponds exactly to the text.

THE PRESIDENT: Very well. I only wanted to be certain that it was in the original, as it did not occur in the translation before me. You can continue.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I interrupted the quotation on Page 68, and omitted three paragraphs. Thus, I came to Page 69. Perhaps this is the reason why the President of the Tribunal could not find the sentence I quoted. I continue the quotation:

“Besides the shooting of prisoners of war, I also shot
guerrillas, peaceful citizens, and burned houses, together with
their inhabitants.

“In November 1942 I participated in the shooting of 92 Soviet
citizens.

“From April to December 1942, while a member of the Air Force
Infantry Regiment, I participated in the shooting of 55 Soviet
citizens. I took care of the actual shooting.”

I omit a paragraph and continue:

“In addition, I participated in punitive expeditions when I
personally set fire to houses.

“Altogether more than 30 houses in various villages were burned
down by me. I arrived in the village with the punitive
expedition, entered the houses and warned the population that no
one was to leave the houses, which were going to be burned. I
set fire to a house, and when anybody tried to save
himself—nobody was allowed to leave—I drove him back into the
house or shot him. In that way I burned more than 30 houses and
70 peaceful citizens, mainly aged men, women, and children.

“Altogether I have personally shot 1,200 persons.”

For the purpose of saving time I omit six paragraphs and quote further. You will find this on Page 70 of the document book:

“The German High Command promoted in every way the shooting and
killing of Soviet citizens. In recognition of good work and
service in the German Army, which found expression in the
shooting by me of prisoners of war and Soviet citizens, I was
promoted before my promotion was due, on 1 November 1941, to the
rank of senior corporal. This promotion should have come about
on the 1st of November 1942; at the same time I was awarded the
East Medal.”

Le Court was in no way an exception, and in confirmation of this I shall now refer briefly to the verdict of the trial held in the town of Smolensk by the district military tribunal against a group of former members of the German Army who were brought to justice for committing atrocities against peaceful citizens and prisoners of war in the town of Smolensk. This document was submitted to the Tribunal by my colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, as Exhibit Number USSR-87 (Document Number USSR-87), and joined to the record of the present Trial. The Tribunal will find this document on Page 71 of the document book.

I omit all the general part of the verdict, and beg to be allowed to draw the attention of the Tribunal to that part of the verdict which is in the ninth paragraph on Page 71 of the document book, which says that in 80 graves alone, which were opened up and examined by legal-medical experts in the town of Smolensk and in the district of Smolensk, over 135,000 corpses of Soviet citizens—women, children, and men of various ages—were discovered.

I skip the second page of the verdict and come to that part of the document which gives a description of the criminal deeds of individual defendants brought to trial under these charges. I shall not quote data regarding all 10 defendants, but only 2 or 3 of them.

The Tribunal will find this part on Page 73 of the document book. This is the sixth paragraph of the text. I quote:

“Hirschfeld was interpreter for the German Military Command in
the District Kommandantur of Smolensk. He personally beat and
seized for treason perfectly innocent Soviet citizens, without
consideration for sex and age, and forced them to make false
statements. On receiving these false statements forced from them
by beatings, the arrested persons were shot by the Kommandantur
troops. Hirschfeld participated personally in the annihilation
of Soviet citizens in Smolensk in May 1943, by means of
asphyxiation through carbon-monoxide in gas vans. In January and
February 1943, he participated in punitive expeditions against
guerrillas and against peaceful Soviet citizens in the district
of Newel-Uswjati. While he was commanding the German punitive
unit, he committed, together with his soldiers, acts of violence
against the peaceful population.”

THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, in the Tribunal’s translation into English, we have missing pages from 34 up to 45. Do you think that those pages could be found? On our pages—I think your pagination is different—but the document that you are now referring to, USSR-87, begins on Page 34 of our translation, and the translation then skips to Page 45.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I am not quoting the numbers of pages of the translation, but the pages of the document book.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I follow that, but I was only wondering whether, by a slip possibly, that these pages had been translated and perhaps had not got into our copy of the documents and whether they could be found. You see, we have all pages missing in the translation.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I have not yet seen the translation. If the President will allow me, during the intermission I shall verify the translation, and shall put the translation file into complete order.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly. Go on in the meantime.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Together with his soldiers, he burned nine Soviet villages and hamlets. He plundered farmers and shot innocent peaceful Soviet citizens who came out of the woods to get to the piles of ashes remaining from their burned-down homes in order to search for food. He participated in the deportation of Soviet citizens into German slavery.

I shall allow myself to quote still another excerpt concerning the defendant named Modisch who was a medical assistant in the German Military Hospital Number 551. The Tribunal will find this part on Page 73 of the document book, in the last paragraph:

2. “Modisch was a medical assistant in the 551st German Military
Hospital in the city of Smolensk from September 1941 until April
1943. He was an eyewitness and immediate participant in the
killing of prisoners of war, wounded soldiers, and officers of
the Red Army, upon whom the German professors and doctors,
Schemm, Gette, Müller, Ott, Stefen, Wagner, and others carried
out, under the pretext of a cure, various experiments with
previously unknown biological and chemical medicines. After
that, the wounded prisoners of war were infected with
septicaemia and killed.”

And what had Modisch personally done? I quote further from the same document:

“Modisch himself killed, by means of injections of great
quantities of strophantin and arsenic, no less than 24 prisoners
of war, both Red Army men and officers of the Red Army. In
addition, he used, for medical treatment of German military
personnel, the blood of Soviet children, ranging in age from 6
to 8 years, by taking great quantities of blood from them, after
which the children died. He extracted from Russian prisoners of
war the spinal fluid, whereupon because of emaciation they
suffered paralysis of the lower extremities. He participated
also in the plundering of Soviet medical institutions in the
city of Smolensk.”

I skip another page in the document. The Tribunal can convince itself that every one of these 10 defendants brought to trial committed such a long series of crimes that, according to the laws of any civilized country, they would be condemned to death. I quote as an example one of the charges proved during this trial regarding the Defendant Kurt Gaudian. The extract referring to him will be found by the Tribunal on Page 74 and on Page 75. I draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that Gaudian raped seven young girls and then killed them.

I conclude this part by quoting only three lines which state:

“In the month of July 1943, with his participation, 60
inhabitants of the district of Osipowitschi were burned in a
stable. The village itself was also burned.”

I skip a part concerning Hentschke and quote only five lines, on Page 75 of the document file from that part of the verdict which concerns Müller, a lance corporal in the 335th Guard Battalion:

“At various times, the Defendant Müller killed 96 Soviet
citizens, among them old men, women, and babies. Müller raped 32
Soviet women, of whom 6 were killed after having been raped.
Among the women raped, several were 14- or 15-year-old girls.”

I do not know whether it is necessary to continue this quotation. I believe that the nature of these criminals, 7 out of 10 of whom already have ended their lives on the gallows, has been made clear to the Tribunal. However, in order to characterize, not the ones who committed the crimes, but those who were actually responsible for the lives of the population of the occupied territory in the East, I beg the Tribunal to allow me to turn to the diary of the Defendant Hans Frank, which has already been submitted to the Tribunal by our American colleagues as Document Number 2233-PS. We quote certain extracts from Frank’s diary as Exhibit Number USSR-223. The Tribunal will find these excerpts on Page 78 of the document book. I quote that part of the excerpt which the Tribunal will find on Page 86 of the document book, third paragraph, the first column of the text.

On 6 February 1940 Frank gave an interview to the _Völkischer Beobachter_ correspondent, Kleiss. I quote that section of the interview which was already pointed out to the Tribunal. I begin the quotation:

“Interview given by the Governor General to the _Völkischer
Beobachter_ correspondent, Kleiss, on 6 February 1940, Page 3:

“Kleiss: ‘It might be interesting to develop the thesis which
distinguishes a Protectorate from a Government General.’

“The Governor General: I might state a striking difference: In
Prague, for instance, there were hung up red posters announcing
that seven Czechs had been shot that day. I then said to myself:

“‘“If I wished to order that one should hang up posters about
every seven Poles shot, there would not be enough forests in
Poland with which to make the paper for these posters. Indeed,
we must act cruelly.”’”

The offensive on the Western Front, which began on 10 May 1940, diverted the attention of world public opinion from the crimes committed under the personal direction of Frank and permitted Frank to have several thousand representatives of the Polish intelligentsia condemned to death by court-martial and physically exterminated.

I quote Frank’s statement at the police conference held on 30 May 1940, where this crime was finally decided upon. I begin this quotation on Page 86 of the document book, sixth paragraph, first column of the text:

“The offensive in the West began on 10 May. On that day the
center of interest shifted from the events taking place here. It
would be a matter of complete indifference to me whether the
deeds attributed by atrocity propaganda and lying reports all
over the world to the National Socialist authorities in these
districts worried the Americans, the French, the Jews, or the
Pope in Rome for that matter. But it was terrible for me and for
all of them to be told unceasingly during all these months by
the Ministry of Propaganda, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the
Ministry of the Interior, and even the Army, that ours was a
regime of murder, that these crimes of ours were to cease and so
forth. And we had to say, of course, we would no longer do it.
It was equally clear that up to that moment, under the
cross-fire of the whole world, we could not do anything of the
kind on a large scale. But since 10 May we are completely
indifferent to this atrocity propaganda. We must use the
opportunity in our hands.”

I skip now two paragraphs and continue with the quotation:

“I frankly admit that it will cost the lives of some thousands
of Poles and that these will be taken mainly from leading
members of the Polish intelligentsia. In these times we, as
National Socialists, are bound to ensure that no further
resistance is offered by the Polish people.”—I draw the
attention of the Tribunal to this sentence particularly:

“I realize the responsibility we are thus assuming.”

I skip one paragraph and continue the quotation, which the Tribunal will find on Page 86 of the document file, fifth paragraph.

“Furthermore, SS-Obergruppenführer Krüger and I have decided
that appeasement measures should be speeded up. I pray you,
gentlemen, to take the most rigorous measures possible to help
us in this task. For my own part, I will do everything in my
power in order to facilitate its execution. I appeal to you as
the champions of National Socialism, and I need surely say
nothing further. We will carry out this measure and I may tell
you in confidence that we shall be acting on the Führer’s
orders. The Führer said to me, ‘The handling of German policy in
the Government General and its establishment on a firm basis is
a matter which devolves personally on the responsible men in the
Government General.’

“He expressed himself in this way: The men capable of leadership
whom we have found to exist in Poland must be liquidated. Those
following men must . . . be eliminated in their turn. There is
no need to burden the Reich and the Reich police organization
with this. There is no need to send these elements to Reich
concentration camps, and by so doing involve ourselves in
disputes and unnecessary correspondence with their relations. We
will liquidate our difficulties in the country itself, and we
will do it in the simplest way possible.”

I conclude this quotation and pass on to Page 87, second paragraph, first column of the text. I think that this quotation is characteristic, for it was precisely Frank, as the diary proves, who first thought about the creation of special concentration camps, later officially known as “Vernichtungslager” (extermination camps).

I quote the same speech of Frank, Page 9, first paragraph:

“As to the concentration camps, we know perfectly well that
concentration camps in the true sense of the word are not going
to be organized in the Government General. Every suspected
person must be immediately liquidated. Internees from the
Government General at present in concentration camps in the
Reich must be handed over to us for ‘Operation AB’ or liquidated
there.”

I quote further from the same speech in the section—further excerpts from the diary of Hans Frank concerning the year 1940. The Tribunal will find this place on Page 94 of the document book, fifth paragraph, first column of the text. I quote:

“We cannot burden the concentration camps in the Reich with our
affairs. We had terrible trouble with the Kraków professors. If
we had done the thing from here, it would have been different.
For this reason I would ask you most urgently not to send any
more people to concentration camps in the Reich but to liquidate
them here or to impose punishment according to regulations. Any
other method is a burden for the Reich and a perpetual source of
trouble. We have an entirely different method of treatment here
and we must adhere to it. I must point out expressly that even
if peace is concluded, this treatment will not be altered. Peace
will mean only that as a world power we should continue more
intensively the same general political operations. . . .”

I deem it opportune to draw the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that all the major extermination camps were indeed located on the territory of the Government General.

There was its own periodicity or cycles in the fascist crimes and in the proportions they assumed, and if in 1940 Frank made a long speech to the policemen justifying the so-called “actions” with regard to several thousand Polish intellectuals, then on 18 March 1944, in his speech at the Reichshof, he stated—I quote from Page 93 of the document file, third paragraph, second column. I begin the quotation:

“18 March 1944, Speech at the Reichshof.

“Dr. Frank: ‘If I had gone to the Führer and said, “My Führer, I
have to report that I have destroyed a further 150,000 Poles,”
he would say, “All right, if it was necessary.”’”

This fascist specialist on legal questions annihilated 3 million Jews in the territory under his jurisdiction which fell only temporarily into the hands of the fascist invaders. On this occasion Frank said—I quote his speech at a business meeting of the NSDAP orators in Kraków on 4 March 1944. The Tribunal will find this excerpt on Page 93 of the document book, second paragraph, second column of the text; I begin the quotation of Dr. Frank:

“If there are any woebegone souls today who bemoan the fate of
the Jews and say with tears in their eyes, ‘Isn’t it awful what
is being done to the Jews,’ we should ask them if they are still
of the same opinion now. If we had there 2 million Jews carrying
on their activities and opposed to them the few German men in
the country today, we would no longer have control of the
situation. . . . Jews are a race which must be eradicated. When
we catch one of them, it is the end of him.”

I pass on to that part of Frank’s diary. . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Shall we adjourn now?

[_A recess was taken._]

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Mr. President, I received information from our staff that the 11 pages which were not incorporated into the English text in your possession were handed to you. Is it true, Sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: May I continue?

THE PRESIDENT: Please do.

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I am quoting now from Frank’s diary at the place which the Tribunal will find on Page 93 of the document file, in the second column of the text, second paragraph below the title, “Meeting of Political Leaders of NSDAP in Kraków, on 15 January 1944.” It begins thus, Dr. Frank, “I did not hesitate to say that for every German killed, up to a hundred Poles would be shot.”

In these dark days the Polish people regarded the victims of Frank and of his henchmen as martyrs. That is the reason it seems to me that, on 16 December 1942, at a government meeting in Kraków, Frank stated—I am quoting excerpts from the diary on Page 92 in the document book, third paragraph after the heading, the first column of the text. I begin the quotation:

“We must consider whether, for practical reasons, executions
should be carried out as far as possible on the spot where the
murder of a German was attempted. It might also be as well to
consider whether special places for execution should be set up,
as it has been established that the Polish population streams to
the places of execution, which are accessible to everyone, for
the purpose of filling vessels with the bloodstained earth, and
taking them to church.”

I brought Frank’s diary to your attention, Your Honors, because he was one of Hitler’s closest associates and because this very well-known “learned” jurist of fascism was actually a positive _alter ego_ of those who cut in two the bodies of children in the Yanov Camp. At the same time he was one of the creators of that part of the legal code of the German fascists which completely negated justice. After all, the whole miserable juridical wisdom of _Mein Kampf_ fundamentally comes down to just one wicked formula, that is, that “might is right.” I studied this book and found no other sense in the text. I quote the 64th edition, Page 740.

Frank was to Hitler that necessary evil gnome of jurisprudence whom Hitler needed to clothe in legal form the inhuman theories of fascism. In support of the fact as to how far the profanation of the basic ideas of justice incorporated in the criminal and civil law of all civilized people went, I submit to the Tribunal the original copy of one of Frank’s directives published in the official bulletin of the Governor General for 1943. It is dated 2 October 1943 and is being presented by the Soviet delegation to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-335 (Document Number USSR-335). The Tribunal will find the document quoted on Page 95 of the document book. I quote the document in full: