What Nazi Leaders Said about Mass Gassing of Jews

One of the accusations most often hurled at Holocaust revisionists is that even the Nazi leaders acknowledged the mass murder of Jews, claiming that they were just following orders.

Here is what was actually said by those Nuremberg defendants who addressed the charges of genocide. (Not all the defendants addressed this issue, but here is what was said by those who did.) Note that virtually all of the defendants accepted the fact that mass exterminations of Jews had occurred.

Two Hundred and Sixteenth Day, Saturday, 31 August 1946

[Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal. Volume XXII. Proceedings: August 31, 1946. pp. 366-394.]

THE PRESIDENT: Article 24 D (j) provides that each defendant may make a statement to the Tribunal. I therefore now call upon the defendants who wish — whether they wish — to make statements. Defendant Hermann Wilhelm Göring.

HERMANN WILHELM GÖRING (Defendant): … Repeatedly we have heard here how the worst crimes were veiled with the most secrecy. I wish to state expressly that I condemn these terrible mass murders to the utmost, and cannot understand them in the least. But I should like to state clearly once more before the High Tribunal, that I have never decreed the murder of a single individual at any time, and neither did I decree any other atrocities or tolerate them, while I had the power and the knowledge to prevent them.

The new allegation presented by Mr. Dodd in his final speech, that I had ordered Heydrich to kill the Jews, lacks every proof and is not true either. There is not a single order signed by me or signed in my behalf that enemy fliers should be shot or turned over to the SD. And not a single case has been established where units of my Luftwaffe carried out things like that…

THE PRESIDENT: I call on the Defendant Rudolf Hess.

RUDOLF HESS (Defendant): … it is of the utmost importance that what I am saying be said under oath. Therefore I now declare once more: I swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth, that I shall leave out nothing and add nothing. I ask the High Tribunal, therefore to consider everything which I shall say from now on as under oath. Concerning my oath, I should also like to say that I am not a churchgoer; I have no spiritual relationship with the Church, but I am deeply religious person. I am convinced that my belief in God is stronger than that of most other people. I ask the High Tribunal to give all the more weight to everything which I declare under oath, expressly calling God as my witness…

I was permitted to work for many years of my life under the greatest son whom my people has brought forth in its thousand year history. Even if I could, I would not want to erase this period of time from my existence. I am happy to know that I have done my duty to my people, my duty as a German, as a National Socialist, as a loyal follower of my Führer. I do not regret anything.

If I were to begin all over again, I would act just as I have acted, even if I knew that in the end I should meet a fiery death at the stake. No matter what human beings may do, I shall some day stand before the judgment seat of the Eternal. I shall answer to Him, and I know He will judge me innocent…

THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

ERNST KALTENBRUNNER (Defendant): The Prosecution holds me responsible for the concentration camps, for the destruction of Jewish life, for Einsatzgruppen and other things. All of this is neither in accord with the evidence nor with the truth. The accusers as well as the accused are exposed to the dangers of a summary proceeding…

In the Jewish question I was just as much deceived as other high officials. I never approved or tolerated the biological extermination of Jewry. The anti-Semitism found in Party and State laws was still to be considered in time of war as an emergency defense measure. The anti-Semitism of Hitler, as we understand it today, was barbarism. I did not participate in either of these forms and maintain, as I shall show, that the discontinuance of the extermination of the Jews is to be traced to my influence on Hitler.

After the presentation of evidence several photographs were submitted which allegedly show my knowledge of crimes in concentration camps, the camp at Mauthausen, and my knowledge of the criminal tools which were used there. I never set foot in Camp Mauthausen, only that part of the labor camps where the stone quarry was located, where hardened criminals were employed according to law, but no Jews or political prisoners. The pictures show an administration building and nothing else. Affidavit USA-909, pictures 894 to 897-F, are therefore factually impossible and wrong. The picture with Hitler shows the visit to a building site in Linz, 35 kilometers away from Camp Mauthausen…

Does not the Prosecution even now see any discrepancy in the fact that Amt V of the RSHA exposed the crimes of Amt IV of the RSHA and the secret criminal clique? In this I see the proof of the fact that I never knew what was really going on, and at the moment when I realized what was taking place, I protested in my own office…

… The speed and excitement of the cross-examination did not permit me to recall that at the time when the commission of Amt V had long been active in the camps, I could no longer believe that there was any danger to Jewish life. My credibility has been doubted ever since then, but it would have been restored immediately if an enquiry had been made by the Prosecution with the International Red Cross at Geneva in proceedings which were not so summary…

THE PRESIDENT: I call on the Defendant Alfred Rosenberg.

ALFRED ROSENBERG (Defendant): … The thought of a physical annihilation of Slavs and Jews, that is to say, the actual murder of entire peoples, has never entered my mind and I most certainly did not advocate it in any way. I was of the opinion that the existing Jewish question would have to be solved by the creation of a minority right, by emigration, or by settling the Jews in a national territory over a ten-year period of time. The White Paper of the British Government of 24 July 1946 shows how historical developments can bring about measures which were never previously planned…

I frankly welcome the idea that a crime of genocide is to be outlawed by international agreement and placed under the severest penalties, with the natural provision that neither now nor in the future shall genocide be permitted in any way against the German people either…

THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Hans Frank.

HANS FRANK (Defendant): Your Honors:…

There is still one statement of mine which I must rectify. On the witness stand I said that a thousand years would not suffice to erase the guilt brought upon our people because of Hitler’s conduct in this war. Every possible guilt incurred by our nation has already been completely wiped out today, not only by the conduct of our war-time enemies toward our nation and its soldiers, which has been carefully kept out of this Trial, but also by the tremendous mass crimes of the most frightful sort which — as I have now learned — have been and still are being committed against Germans by Russians, Poles, and Czechs, especially in East Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania, and Sudetenland. Who shall ever judge these crimes against the German people?…

THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Wilhelm Frick.

WILHELM FRICK (Defendant): I have a clear conscience with respect to the Indictment. My entire life was spent in the service of my people and my fatherland. To them I have devoted the best of my strength in the loyal fulfillment of my duty…

THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Julius Streicher.

JULIUS STREICHER (Defendant): Your Honors:

At the beginning of this Trial I was asked by the President whether I pleaded guilty in the sense of the Indictment. I answered that question in the negative.

The completed proceedings and the evidence presented have confirmed the correctness of the statement I gave at that time.

It has been established that:

(1) Mass killings were carried out exclusively upon orders by the Head of the State. Adolf Hitler, without other influence.

(2) The mass killings were carried out without the knowledge of the German people and in complete secrecy by the Reichsführer SS, Heinrich Himmler.

The Prosecution had asserted that mass killings would not have been possible without Streicher and his Stuermer. The Prosecution neither offered nor submitted any proof of this assertion.

It is clearly established that on the occasion of the Anti-Jewish Boycott Day in 1933, which I was ordered to lead, and on the occasion of the demonstration of 1938 ordered by Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels, I, in my capacity as Gauleiter, neither ordered, demanded, nor participated in any acts of violence against Jews.

It is further established that in many articles in my weekly paper, the Stuermer, I advocated the Zionist demand for the creation of a Jewish state as the natural solution of the Jewish problem.

These facts prove that I did not want the Jewish problem to be solved by violence.

If I or other authors mentioned a destruction or extermination of Jewry in some article of my weekly paper, the Stuermer, then these were strong statements in reply to provoking expressions of opinion by Jewish authors in which the extermination of the German people was demanded. According to his last testament the mass killings ordered by the leader of the State, Adolf Hitler, were supposed to be a reprisal which was only brought about by the course of the war, then recognized as becoming unfavorable.

These actions of the leader of the State against the Jews can be explained by his attitude toward the Jewish question, which was thoroughly different from mine. Hitler wanted to punish the Jews because he held them responsible for unleashing the war and for the bombing of the German civilian population.

It is deeply regrettable that the mass killings, which can be traced back to the personal decision of the leader of the State, Adolf Hitler, have led to a treatment of the German people which must also be considered as not humane. I repudiate the mass killings which were carried out, in the same way as they are repudiated by every decent German.

Your Honors! Neither in my capacity as Gauleiter nor as political author have I committed a crime, and I therefore look forward to your judgment with a good conscience…

THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Walter Funk.

WALTER FUNK (Defendant): … Now, horrible crimes have become known here, in which the offices under my direction were partly involved.

I learned this here in court for the first time. I did not know of these crimes, and I could not have known them.

These criminal deeds fill me, like every German, with deep shame. I have examined my conscience and memory with the utmost care, and I have told the Court frankly and honestly everything that I knew and have concealed nothing. As far as the deposits of the SS in the Reichsbank are concerned, I only acted in performance of the official duties incumbent on me as President of the Reichsbank. According to law, the acceptance of gold and foreign currency was one of the business tasks of the Reichsbank. The fact that the confiscation of these assets was taking place through the SS agencies subordinate to Himmler could not arouse any suspicion in me. The entire police system, the border control, and especially the search for foreign currency in the Reich and in all occupied areas were under Himmler, but I was equally deceived and imposed upon by Himmler.

Until the time of this Trial, I did not know and did not suspect that among the assets delivered to the Reichsbank there were enormous quantities of pearls, precious stones, jewelry, gold objects, and even spectacle frames, and — horrible to say — gold teeth. That was never reported to me, and I never noticed it either. I never saw these things. But until this Trial I also knew nothing of the fact that millions of Jews were murdered in concentration camps or by the Einsatzkommandos in the East. Never did a single person say even one word to me about these things.

The existence of extermination camps of this kind was totally unknown to me. I did not know a single one of these names. I have never set foot in a concentration camp either.

I, too, assumed that some of the gold and foreign currency which was deposited in the Reichsbank came from concentration camps and I frankly stated this fact from the beginning in all of my interrogations. But according to German law everyone was obliged to deliver these assets.

Apart from that, the kind and quantity of these shipments from the SS were never made known to me. But how was I even to suspect that the SS had acquired these assets by desecrating corpses?

If I had known of these horrible circumstances, my Reichsbank would never have accepted these assets for storage and conversion into money. I would have refused, even risking the danger that it might have cost me my head. If I had known of these crimes, Your Honors, I would not be sitting in the defendant’s dock today, you may be convinced of that. In that case the grave would have been better for me than this tormented life, this life full of suspicions, slanders, and vulgar accusations.

Not a single human being has ever lost his life because of any measures decreed by me. I have always respected the property of others. I have always tried to help people in need and, as far as it lay within my power, to bring happiness and joy into their lives And for that, many will be grateful to me and remain grateful…

I, too, have made many mistakes; I, too, have let myself be deceived in many things and frankly acknowledge, I admit, that I have let myself be deceived all too easily, and in many ways have been too unconcerned and too gullible. Therein I see my guilt. but I consider myself free from any criminal guilt which I am supposed to have incurred in discharging my official duties. In that respect. my conscience is just as clear today as on the day when I entered this courtroom 10 months ago for the first time.

THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Hjalmar Schacht.

HJALMAR SCHACHT (Defendant): … Justice Jackson has raised a new accusation against me in his final speech, which has not been discussed at all in the Trial until now. I am said to have planned to release Jews from Germany in exchange for a ransom in foreign currency. This, too, is untrue. Disgusted by the Jewish pogrom of November 1938, I managed to obtain Hitler’s approval to a plan which was to facilitate emigration for the Jews. I intended to place 1.5 billion Reichsmarks taken from confiscated Jewish property under the administration of an international committee, and Germany was to undertake the obligation to repay this amount to the committee in 20 yearly installments and in foreign currency, which is the exact opposite of what Justice Jackson asserted here.

I discussed this plan in December 1938 in London with Lord Bearsted of Samuel and Samuel, with Lord Winterton, and with the American representative, Mr. Rublee. They were all sympathetically disposed towards the plan. But since I was removed from the Reichsbank shortly afterwards by Hitler, the matter was dropped. Had it been carried through, not a single German Jew would have lost his life…

THE PRESIDENT: I call upon the Defendant Erich Raeder.

ERICH RAEDER (Defendant): This Trial, now that the evidence has been concluded, has had a beneficial result for the German nation; but an unexpected one for the Prosecution. Unimpeachable testimony has cleared the German people and with them all the persons in the same situation as myself of the most serious charge, the charge that they had known of the killing of millions of Jews and other people, if they had not actually participated in it. The attempt of the Prosecution, who through earlier interrogations had known the truth for a long time, and who nevertheless continued and repeated their accusations — with the raised finger of the preacher of morals — in the trial briefs and during cross-examinations, this attempt to defame the entire people has collapsed upon itself…

Nazi use of atomic weapons to kill Jews at Auschwitz

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal. Nuremberg: IMT, 1947.

21 Jun. 46

“Mr. Justice Jackson:
And certain experiments were also conducted and certain researches conducted in atomic energy, were they not?
“[Albert] Speer:
We had not got as far as that, unfortunately, because the finest experts we had in atomic research had emigrated to America …
“Mr. Justice Jackson:
Now, I have certain information, which was placed in my hands, of an experiment which was carried out near Auschwitz. The purpose of the experiment was to find a quick and complete way of destroying people without the delay and trouble of shooting and gassing and burning, as it had been carried out, and this is the experiment, as I am advised. A village, a small village, was provisionally erected, with temporary structures, and in it approximately 20,000 Jews were put. By means of this newly invented weapon of destruction, these 20,000 people were eradicated almost instantaneously, and in such a way that there was no trace …”

Albert Speer on Poison Gases

Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal. Volume XVI. Proceedings June 21, 1946. pp. 524-528.

Note that the gases Speer refers to here are extremely fast-acting and deadly. Compare these descriptions to the known physical properties of Zyklon-B, the insecticide said to have been used by the Third Reich to murder millions of Jews and others. Then ask yourself, why would the Germans have used a slow-acting insecticide rather than a fast-acting poison gas, of which they had huge stockpiles?

[…]

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Leaving the question of your personal participation in these matters and coming to the questions dealt with in the second part of your examination, I want to ask you about your testimony concerning the proposal to denounce the Geneva Convention.

You testified yesterday that it was proposed to withdraw from the Geneva Convention. Will you tell us who made those proposals?

SPEER: This proposal, as I already testified yesterday, came from Dr. Goebbels. It was made after the air attack on Dresden, but before this, from the autumn of 1944 on, Goebbels and Ley had often talked about intensifying the war effort in every possible way, so that I had the impression that Goebbels was using the attack on Dresden and the excitement it created merely as an excuse to renounce the Geneva Convention.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, was the proposal made at that time to resort to poison gas warfare?

SPEER: I was not able to make out from my own direct observations whether gas warfare was to be started, but I knew from various associates of Ley’s and Goebbels’ that they were discussing the question of using our two new combat gases, Tabun and Sarin. They believed that these gases would be of particular efficacy, and they did in fact produce the most frightful results. We made these observations as early as the autumn of 1944, when the situation had become critical and many people were seriously worried about it.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, will you tell us about these two gases and about their production and their effects, their qualities, and the preparations that were made for gas warfare?

SPEER: I cannot tell you that in detail. I am not enough of an expert. All I know is that these two gases both had a quite extraordinary effect, and that there was no respirator, and no protection against them that we knew of. So the soldiers would have been unable to protect themselves against this gas in any way. For the manufacture of this gas we had about three factories, all of which were undamaged and which until November 1944 were working at full speed. When rumors reached us that gas might be used, I stopped its production in November 1944. I stopped it by the following means. I blocked the so-called preliminary production, that is, the chemical supplies for the making of gas, so that the gas production, as the Allied authorities themselves ascertained, after the end of December or the beginning of January, actually slowed down and finally came to a standstill. Beginning with a letter which is still in existence and which I wrote to Hitler in October 1944, I tried through legal methods to obtain his permission to have these gas factories stop their production. The reason I gave him was that on account of air raids the preliminary products, primarily cyanide, were needed urgently for other purposes. Hitler informed me that the gas production would have to continue whatever happened, but I gave instructions for the preliminary products not to be supplied any more.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Can you identify others of the group that were advocating gas warfare?

SPEER: In military circles there was certainly no one in favor of gas warfare. All sensible Army people turned gas warfare down as being utterly insane since, in view of your superiority in the air, it would not be long before it would bring the most terrible catastrophe upon German cities, which were completely unprotected.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: The group that did advocate it, however, consisted of the political group around Hitler, didn’t it?

SPEER: A certain circle of political people, certainly very limited. It was mostly Ley, Goebbels and Bormann, always the same three, who by every possible means wanted to increase the war effort; and a man like Fegelein certainly belonged to a group like that too. Of Himmler I would not be too sure, for at that time Himmler was a little out of favor with Hitler because he allowed himself the luxury of directing an army group without being qualified.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, one of these gases was the gas which you proposed to use on those who were proposing to use it on others, and I suppose your motive was …

SPEER: I must say quite frankly that my reason for these plans was the fear that under certain circumstances gas might be used, and the association of ideas in using it myself led me to make the whole plan.

MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: And your reasons, I take it, were the same as the military’s, that is to say, it was certain Germany would get the worst of it if Germany started that kind of warfare: That is what was worrying the military, wasn’t it?

SPEER: No, not only that. It was because at that stage of the war it was perfectly clear that under no circumstances should any international crimes be committed which could be held against the German people after they had lost the war. That was what decided the issue.

Magically efficient crematorymobiles

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal. Volume VII. Nuremberg: IMT, 1947. pp. 586.

19 Feb. 46

[…]

MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Yes, Mr. President, they were also addressed to the SS units. The first letter, addressed to the administration of the Auschwitz Camp was from the firm Topf and Sons.

I shall now present to the Tribunal evidence of the fact that besides the stationary crematoria, there existed also movable crematoria. The Tribunal already knows about the movable gas chambers. These were “murder vans.” There were also created transportable crematoria. An SS member, Paul Waldmann, testifies to their existence. He was one of the participants in the crime perpetrated by the German fascists when 840,000 Russian prisoners of war in Sachsenhausen were annihilated at one time. The Exhibit Number USSR-52 (Document Number USSR-52) on Auschwitz has already been presented to the Court. I quote that particular extract from the testimony of an SS member, Waldmann, which mentions the mass execution in Sachsenhausen:

“The war prisoners murdered in this way were cremated in four movable crematoria, which were transported on car trailers.”

586


Webmaster note: This no doubt gave rise to Homer Simpson’s idea for the electric blanketmobile.

Mass electrocutions at Belsen

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal. Volume VII. Nuremberg: IMT, 1947. pp. 575-577.

19 Feb. 46

[…] The fascist technique

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of extermination was once again in full swing. It created murder vans, gas chambers in the concentration camps, special electrical appliances for the mass murder of the doomed, crematoria, and also “Zyklon” banks.

[…]

I […] call the attention of the Tribunal to Page 136 on the reverse side of the document book; this is from a report of the Polish Government, which shows that the Camp Sobibur was founded during the first and second liquidation of the Jewish ghetto. But the extermination on a large scale in this camp really started at the beginning of 1943. In this same report, in the last paragraph on Page 136 of the document book, we may read that Camp Belsen was founded in 1940; but it was in 1942 that the special electrical appliances were built in for mass extermination of people. Under the pretext that the people were being led to the

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bath-house, the doomed were undressed and then driven to the building where the floor was electrified in a special way; there they were killed.

577

Extermination by pruning at Syretzk

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal. Volume VII. Nuremberg: IMT, 1947. pp. 582.

19 Feb. 46

I refer further to the report of the State Extraordinary Commission relative to the crimes in the city of Kiev. This report describes murders in the camps which will be also shown in the films today. I quote only one quotation from this report, which shows the methods of extermination of people in the Syretzk Camp. I quote Page 289 Paragraph 3, of the Russian text:

“Radomsky and Rieder used all kinds of devices for the extermination of Soviet citizens. For instance, they invented the following method of murder: Several Soviet prisoners would be forced to climb a tree and others had to saw it down. The prisoners would fall together with the tree and be killed.”

582

More bone grinders (and other make-believe atrocities)

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal. Volume VII. Nuremberg: IMT, 1947. pp. 549-550.

18 Feb. 46

[…]

(10) In Yanov Camp the executions are carried out to the strains of the “Death Tango” played by an orchestra conducted by Professor Striks, an internee in the camp, together with his bandmaster, Mundt. I request Your Honors to observe two points of interest m this snapshot. To the right we see the camp commander, Obergruppenfuehrer Gebauer, in white uniform, and behind him his dog, Rex, known to us through many interrogations as having been trained to harass living persons and to tear them to pieces. It is evident that Gebauer is leading the orchestra to the execution ground.

(11) One of the gallows used by the German fascists in their endeavor to establish a regime of terror in the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The snapshot was found in the files of the Yanov Gestapo. A woman of sorts is seen laughing at the foot of the gallows.

(12) A second gallows erected in the same market place, at Lvov, also taken from the archives of the Gestapo.

(13) I am showing Your Honors the snapshot of an entire street festooned with bodies of Soviet citizens. This is a street in the city of Lvov, and I beg to remind the Tribunal that according to the records of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs the same hangings also occurred in Kharkov.

(14) The same street in Lvov. The snapshot was taken from the archives of the Lvov Gestapo.

(15) The gallows were not the only means of execution. The guillotine, too, was used on a vast scale. In this snapshot you see the heads of victims guillotined in the prison of Danzig The snapshot was taken in the Anatomic Institute in Danzig, where the bodies of the victims were brought after execution.

(16) I shall not show you too many snapshots of tortures inflicted. I only wish to show a few typical examples. This snapshot was taken from a dead Gestapo soldier. It shows a young girl being flogged. Later you will see what next they did to her.

(17) It is not quite clear whether the girl is being strung up by the hair or hanged by the neck. Judging by the convulsive movement of her hands, I think that a noose has just been placed round her neck. Observe the bestial face of the scoundrel who is hanging her.

(18) Here is a snapshot taken from a dead Gestapo soldier. I wish to emphasize the manner in which the German fascists mocked the chastity of the Russian women. They had just forced these Ukrainian women to run naked before the German brutes.

(19) This snapshot will help you to understand subsequent events. It represents a machine for grinding human bones. Next to the

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machine stands the prisoner of war who feeds the machine. It can grind the bones of 200 persons at a time. As has been proved to the commission, it has a constant yield of 200 cubic meters of bone flour.

That is all. Photographs are identified as Exhibits USSR-100, 101 102, 212, 385, 388, 389, 390, 391.

[…]

550


Webmaster note: These photographs have all since disappeared, as have claims of German bone-grinding, guillotining, etc. Only the magical gas chambers remain.

Portable bone-grinding machines — the epitome of German scientific achievement

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal. Volume VII. Nuremberg: IMT, 1947. pp. 438-439

14 Feb. 46

[…]

All these monstrous crimes had a definite

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system of their own. There was uniformity in the murder methods: One and the same system prevailed in the construction of the gas chambers, in the mass production of the round tins containing the poisonous substances “Cyclone A” or “Cyclone B,” the ovens of the crematories are all built on the same typical lines, and one was the plan extending over all the camps of destruction. There was uniformity in the construction of the evil-smelling death machines, which the Germans referred to as “gaswagen” but which our people called the “soul destroyers”; and there was the same technical elaboration in the construction of mobile mills for grinding human bones. All this indicates one sole and evil will uniting all the individual assassins and executioners.

It became obvious that German thermo-technicians and chemists, architects, toxicologists, mechanics, and physicians were engaged in this rationalization of mass murder on instructions received from Hitler’s government and from the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces. It was also evident that the “death factories” brought into existence an entire series of auxiliary industries.

But the unity of this will-to-evil was not only apparent there, where a special technique had been evolved to serve the purpose of very evil murder. The unity of this will-to-evil was also apparent from the similarity of the methods employed by the murderers, from the uniformity of type in the murder technique evolved as well as from the fact that, in cases where no special technique was employed, use was made of ordinary weapons of the German Armed Forces.

From the evidence which I shall submit later on you will see that the sites where the Germans buried their victims were opened up by Soviet legal doctors in the north and south of the country. These sites were separated from each other by thousands of kilometers, and it is quite evident that the crimes were perpetrated by perfectly different people; but the methods employed were absolutely identical. The wounds were invariably inflicted on the same parts of the body. And identical, too, were the preparations for camouflaging the gigantic graves as antitank ditches and trenches. Everywhere the unarmed and defenseless people, on their arrival at the execution ground, were ordered, in practically the same terms, to undress and lie face downwards in previously prepared pits. As soon as the first batch was shot, whether in the swamps of Bielorussia or the foothills of the Caucasus, the row was covered with quicklime and the second batch of unarmed and defenseless people, of people about to die, were again ordered by the murderers to undress and lie down on that corrosive, blood-soaked mass which covered the first batch of victims.

[…]

439

Tormenting prisoners in Norway

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal. Volume VII. Nuremberg: IMT, 1947. pp. 433-435.

14 February 46

[…]

A certain number of prisoners of war who had escaped immediate annihilation were moved into special camps where they were gradually killed off by hunger and by exhausting heavy labor. I will now read into the Record the last paragraph on Page 37 of the report of the Yugoslav Government, which was previously mentioned by me and offered in evidence as Exhibit Number USSR-36 …

“One such camp was established in 1942 at Boten, near Rognan … During their work the prisoners were beaten incessantly and in the camp, itself, were exposed to terrible ill-treatment.

“Thus, for example, in August 1942 the prisoners were ordered by the German staff of the camp to have all their hair removed from their armpits and around their genitals, as otherwise they would be shot. Not one prisoner received a razor from the Germans, though the Germans knew well that they had none. The prisoners spent the whole of the night plucking out their hair with their hands and assisting one another. However, in the morning the guards killed four prisoners and wounded three by rifle fire.

“… Throughout the winter many prisoners were killed in the following manner: They would be buried up to their waist in the snow, and water poured over them, so that they formed statues of ice …”

… I will now skip two paragraphs and pass to the last paragraph of the same report:

“On June 22, 1943, a transport containing 900 Yugoslav prisoners arrived in Norway. Most of them were intellectuals, workers and peasants, and prisoners from the ranks of the former Yugoslav Army or else captured partisans or men seized as so-called ‘politically suspicious elements.’ Some of them — about 400 — were placed in the still unfinished camp at Korgen, while the other group of about 500 was sent 10-20 kilometers further on to Osen. The commandant of both camps, from June 1942 until the end of March 1943, was the SS Sturmbannführer Dolps …

“… The prisoners in the camp at Osen used to sleep in their shirts without any underpants, without any cover whatsoever, on the bare boards. Dolps personally visited the huts and carried out inspections. The prisoners who were caught sleeping in their underpants were killed on the spot by Dolps with his submachine gun. In the same manner he killed all those who appeared on parade, which he reviewed personally, in soiled underwear …”

Shooting orchestra members

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal. Volume V. Nuremberg: IMT, 1947. pp. 450.

[…]

I will not make any comment on this document, although I do beg the Tribunal to take note of a certain Obersturmfuehrer Willhaus mentioned in this document.

The Tribunal will find the excerpt which I shall now read into the Record on Page 58 of the document book — on the reverse side of the page, Column 1 of the text. I quote:

“SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Gebauer established a savage system of murder in Yanov Camp, which, after his transfer to another post, was perfected by the camp commandant, SS Obersturmfuehrer Gustav Willhaus and SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Franz Wartzok.

“A former inmate of the camp told the commission:

“‘I have seen with my own eyes how SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Fritz Gebauer strangled women and children and froze men to death in barrels filled with water. The hands and feet of the victims were shackled before they were lowered into the water. Those doomed to die remained in the barrels until they froze to death.’

“According to the testimonies of numerous Soviet prisoners of war and also of French citizens held in German camps, it was established that the German thugs invented the most vicious methods for exterminating human beings, a fact which they considered as particularly praiseworthy and in which they were encouraged both by the higher military command and y the government.

“SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Franz Wartzok, for instance, loved to hang internees by both feet on posts and leave them in this position until they died; Obersturmfuehrer 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, Obersturmfuehrer 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

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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, Obersturmfuehrer 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 communique 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 communique on Page 63 of the document book. I quote

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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.

[…]

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