Murder And Ill-Treatment
[Page 47]
The affidavit of Warlimont, Deputy Chief of Staff of the
Wehrmacht, and the testimony of Ohlendorf, former Chief of
Amt III of the RSHA, and of Lahousen, the head of one of the
sections of the Abwehr, the Wehrmacht's Intelligence
Service, all indicate the thoroughness with which this order
was carried out.
The affidavit of Kurt Lindown, a former Gestapo official,
states:
On the 23rd October, 1941, the camp commander of the Gross
Rosen concentration camp reported to Mueller, Chief of the
Gestapo, a list of the Soviet prisoners of war who had been
executed there on the previous day.
An account of the general conditions and treatment of Soviet
prisoners of war during the first eight months after the
German attack upon Russia was given in a letter which the
Defendant Rosenberg sent to the defendant Keitel on 28th
February, 1942:
"The camp commanders have forbidden the civilian
population to put food at the disposal of the
prisoners, and they have rather let them starve to
death.
"In many cases, when prisoners of war could no
longer keep up on the march because of hunger and
exhaustion, they were shot before the eyes of the
horrified population, and the corpses were left.
"In numerous camps, no shelter for the prisoners
of war was provided at all. They lay under the
open sky during rain or snow. Even tools were not
made available to dig holes or caves."
In some cases Soviet prisoners of war were branded with a
special
permanent mark. There was put in evidence the OKW order
dated the 20th July, 1942, which laid down that:
[Page 48]
The carrying out of this order was the responsibility of the
military authorities, though it was widely circulated by the
Chief of the SIPO and the SD to German police officials for
information. Soviet prisoners of war were also made the
subject of medical experiments of the most cruel and inhuman
kind. In July, 1943, experimental work was begun in
preparation for a campaign of bacteriological warfare;
Soviet prisoners of war were used in these medical
experiments, which more often than not proved fatal. In
connection with this campaign for bacteriological warfare,
preparations were also made for the spreading of bacterial
emulsions from planes, with the object of producing
widespread failures of crops and consequent starvation.
These measures were never applied, possibly because of the
rapid deterioration of Germany's military position.
The argument in defense of the charge with regard to the
murder and ill-treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, that
the U.S.S.R. was not a party to the Geneva Convention, is
quite without foundation. On the 15th September,.1941,
Admiral Canaris protested against the regulations for the
treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, signed by General
Reinecke on the 8th September, 1941. He then stated:
This protest, which correctly stated the legal position, was
ignored. The Defendant Keitel made a note on this
memorandum:
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Of Prisoners Of
War
(Part 2 of 2)
" ... There existed in the prisoner of war camps
on the Eastern Front small screening teams
(Einsatz commandos), headed by lower ranking
members of the Secret Police (Gestapo). These
teams were assigned to the camp commanders and had
the job of segregating the prisoners of war who
were candidates for execution according to the
orders that had been given, and to report them to
the office of the Secret Police.'
"The fate of the Soviet prisoners of war in
Germany is on the contrary a tragedy of the
greatest extent .... A large part of them has
starved, or died because of the hazards of the
weather. Thousands also died from spotted fever.
"The brand is to take the shape of an acute angle
of about 45 degrees, with the long side to be 1
cm. in length, pointing upwards and burnt on the
left buttock .... This brand is made with the aid
of a lancet available in any military unit. The
coloring used is Chinese ink."
"The Geneva Convention for the treatment of
prisoners of war is not binding in the
relationship between Germany and the U.S.S.R.
Therefore only the principles of general
international law on the treatment of prisoners of
war apply. Since the 18th century these have
gradually been established along the lines that
war captivity is neither revenge nor punishment,
but solely protective custody, the only purpose of
which is to prevent the prisoners of war from
further participation in the war. This principle
was developed in accordance with the view held by
all armies that it is contrary to military
tradition to kill or injure helpless people ....
The decrees for the treatment of Soviet prisoners
of war enclosed are based on a fundamentally
different view-point."
"The objections arise from the military concept of
chivalrous warfare. This is the destruction of an
ideology. Therefore I approve and back the
measures."
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