Fifty-Eighth Day: Wednesday, February 13, 1946
[Page 307]
It seems to me that this note vividly discloses the
arguments that were going on over establishing a norm. Not
by accident does it speak here of the wide discrepancy in
the estimates concerning necessary caloric requirements of
the experts of the Reich Health Administration and the Army
Medical Inspectorate.
As the Tribunal will remember, the witness Blaha testified,
in reply to my questions that almost all prisoners of war
who died of starvation in the Dachau Camp were men of the
Red Army. I shall submit evidence showing that the Dachau
Camp was not an exception in that respect.
On 27th April, 1942 the People's Commissar for Foreign
Affairs of the U.S.S.R. was forced to submit a new note. I
present this note as Exhibit USSR 51. You will find the
place I am referring to on Page 13 in your document book,
where it is marked in red pencil for your convenience.
It has been incontrovertibly established that the
German Command, desiring to take revenge for the
defeats inflicted on its army in the last few months,
has everywhere introduced the practice of physical
extermination of Soviet prisoners of war.
Along the entire length of the front, from the Arctic
to the Black Sea, bodies of slain Soviet war prisoners
and tortured war prisoners have been discovered. In
almost every case these corpses bear traces of the
horrible torture which precedes murder. In dugouts from
which Red Army troops have driven the Germans, in
fortifications, and also in populated centers, bodies
of Soviet prisoners are found who have been murdered
after savage torture. Facts like the following,
recorded in affidavits signed by eye-witnesses, are
being uncovered with increasing frequency. On 2nd and
6th March, 1942, on the Crimean front, in the hilly
region near the village of Jantora, the bodies of nine
Red Army men who had been taken prisoner were found so
brutally tortured by the Fascists that only two of the
corpses could be identified. The nails had been drawn
from the fingers of the tortured prisoners of war,
their eyes had been gouged out and the right breast of
one corpse had been completely cut out; there were
traces of torture by fire, numerous knife wounds, and
broken jaws.
In Theodosia scores of bodies of tortured Azerbaijanian
Red Army men were found. Among them were Ismail-Zadch
Jafarov, whose eyes had been gouged out and ears
slashed off by the Hitlerites; Kuli-Zadch Alibekov,
whose arms had been dislocated by the Hitlerites, after
which he had been bayoneted; Corporal Ali Ogly Islom-
Mahmed, whose stomach had been ripped open by the
Hitlerites; Mustafa Ogly Asherov, who had been bound to
a post with wire and died of his wounds in this
position." [Page 308]
In the village of Kuleshovka, the Germans captured 16
severely wounded men and officers, stripped the
prisoners, tore the dressings from their wounds,
tormented them with hunger, stabbed them with bayonets,
broke their arms, tore open their wounds, and subjected
them to other tortures, after which those who were
still alive were locked up in a house, which was then
set on fire.
In the village of Strenevo of the Kalinin region, the
Germans locked 50 wounded captive Red Army men in a
school building and burnt them to death.
In the town of Volokolamsk the invaders forbade Red
Army men who had been locked on the fifth floor of
house Number 316 Proleterskaja Street to leave the
house when a fire broke out. Those who attempted to
leave or to jump from the windows were shot. Sixty
prisoners perished in the flames or were killed by
bullets.
In the village of Popovka (Tula region), the Germans
drove 140 captive Red Army men into a barn and set fire
to it. Ninety-five perished in the flames. Six
kilometers from Pegostye Station, in the Leningrad
region, the Germans, in the course of their retreat
under pressure of the Red Army troops, used explosive
bullets to kill over 150 Soviet war prisoners after
frightful beatings and savage torture. On most of the
bodies the ears had been slashed off, the eyes gouged
out, and the fingers chopped off, while several had had
one or both hands hacked off and their tongues torn
out. Stars had been cut out on the backs of three Red
Army men. Not long before the liberation of the town of
Kondrovo, Smolensk region, by units of the Red Army in
December, 1941, the Germans executed over 200 Red Army
prisoners of war whom they had taken through the city,
naked and barefoot, to the outskirts, shooting on the
spot those who were exhausted and unable to walk any
further, as well as those local citizens who gave them
bread on their way through the city."
(A recess was taken.)
COLONEL POKROVSKY: In their desire to exterminate as many
Soviet prisoners of war as possible, the Nazi conspirators
excelled themselves by inventing newer and ever newer
methods of extermination. The note states:
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(Part 6 of 19)
[COLONEL POKROVSKY continues] "It is requested to follow up the matter of the rations
because State Secretary Backe is, apparently, beginning
to lose his nerve."
The signature is illegible.
"The Soviet Government now has at its disposal many
hundreds of new documents confirming the nefarious
crimes committed against Soviet prisoners of war, dealt
with in the note of the Government of the U.S.S.R.
dated 25th November, 1941.
And then, in the same note, is cited:
"In the village of Krasnaperovo (Smolensk region),
attacking units of the Red Army found 29 dead and 2
naked bodies of captured Red Army men and officers,
none of whom had a single bullet wound. All the
prisoners had been knifed to death. In the same
district, in the village of Babaevo, the Hitlerites
placed 58 captive Red Army men and 2 women ambulance-
workers in a haystack and then set fire to the hay.
When the
people who had been doomed to death attempted to escape
from the flames, the Germans shot them.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now for 10 minutes.
"Of late a number of new cases have been established in
which the German Command made use of Soviet war
prisoners for clearing mine fields and for other
hazardous work. Thus, in the district of the villages
of Bolshaja and Malaja Vloya, for 4 days the Germans
drove scores of prisoners lined up in close ranks, back
and forth over a mine-field. Every day several
prisoners were blown to pieces by mines. Provision is
made for this method of killing prisoners in the orders
of the German Command."