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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
that during the execution of the ‘special regime’ operation, the two
officials of the branch, SS Unterscharführer Paal and SS Sturmmann
Vollprecht, were assaulted by the prisoners and killed with their own
firearms.”
I shall now omit a considerable part of SS Obersturmführer
Kuntze’s idle talk and shall quote only three more paragraphs. You
will find them on Pages 172 and 173:
“Thus, of the 28 prisoners, 4 were shot in the pit and 2 while trying
to escape; the remaining 22 managed to get away.
“The efforts to recapture the fugitives, promptly undertaken by SS
Rottenführer Hesselbach with the help of the guards from the
neighboring camp, were expedient though unsuccessful. The head of
the Berditchev Department ordered an immediate search for the
fugitives and instructed all the police and military agencies to this
effect. However, the names of the fugitives are unknown and this
fact alone would render the search more difficult. The records
merely contained the names of all the prisoners subjected to the
’special regime’ and it was therefore necessary to declare as
escapees even those who had already been shot.
“On 25 December, on the same spot, a ‘special regime’ execution of
the 20 surviving prisoners of war was carried out under my direction.
As I feared that the fugitives might already have established contact
with some partisan unit, I again had the camp send a detachment of
20 men, armed with light submachine guns and carbines, in order to
guard the surrounding territory. The execution went off without any
trouble.”
It is enough to imagine these 20 unfortunate men, without arms,
without legs, being escorted to their death by a strong contingent of
SS men and soldiers, soldiers armed with submachine guns. I
continue:
“As a measure of reprisal I ordered the military police to check up on
all released prisoners of war in the adjoining regions to ascertain
their political activities during the entire period of Soviet rule, so as
to arrest and submit to the ‘special regime’ 20 activists and members
of the Communist Party.”
To conclude the presentation of the evidence pertaining to this
monstrous crime of the Hitlerites, I should like to invite the Tribunal’s
attention to certain facts.
I would, first of all, like to refer to the “objections raised by the
Army,” reported by the member of the SS, Knop. Knop said—you will
find the passage quoted on Page 163:
“In the future all evacuations of prisoners of war will be suspended
due to objections raised by the Army. I do not wish my words to be
misunderstood. The Army did not so much object to such
evacuations, rather it expressed the wish that the prisoners of war,
once they had been released and sent elsewhere, should be given
some kind of shelter.”
It is not difficult to guess what “shelter” he was referring to. It
was the “shelter” provided when, in the words of Knop, they were
“transported in a truck to a place in the neighborhood.”
The second fact which, to me, appears of importance, is the
scale of the outrages committed. Referring to the executioners, Paal,
Hesselbach, and Vollprecht, Knop writes:
“With reference to the three above-mentioned persons whom I
entrusted with the shooting of prisoners of war, I knew that they
had, in Kiev, participated in the mass executions of many thousands
of persons and that they had already before, that is, during my
period of service, been entrusted by the local administration with the
shooting of many hundreds of victims.”
In reference to Hesselbach, I should like to note two not very
important but extremely characteristic traits. The first is his
terminology. Here are his words:
“After having executed the first three prisoners I suddenly heard
shouting beyond the pit; since the fourth prisoner was already next
in line, I shot him on the spot.”
 Any bandit, any habitual murderer would, naturally, use such
language in speaking of the destruction of a human being. For the
fascist executioners the murder of a soldier who had honestly fought
for his country and become an invalid, the brief expression “shot on
the spot” is good enough; when occupied in killing, the executioners
do not even consider it necessary to find out whom they really are
murdering. Thanks to this, shame and confusion cover the police.
They order a search both for those who had escaped and for those
who were shot.
Secondly, the very sound of a bullet passing nearby gives him a
sensation of being wounded, and people of this type are then called
“heroes” by their superiors.
It would be an omission on my part not to emphasize the
exceptional brutality displayed by Kuntze—this typical representative
of the SS. Twenty persons captured at random, captured anyhow,
without any fault on their part, must be murdered. What for? Only
because 22 armless and legless invalids had succeeded in escaping
from death.
The Tribunal, of course, is quite aware of the fact that by all the
laws of God and man these 22 invalids should not have perished by
the hand of the executioner, but should have been placed under the
protection of the German Government as prisoners of war.
The confession of Kuntze, concerning the motives for which the
military authorities directed invalids to the camp for treatment by
“special regime,” is of particular value. He frankly states that the
cause of it was their physical condition which had rendered them
unfit for any kind of work. In this connection I submit a series of
documents to the Tribunal. They show that only from the angle of
possibility of obtaining slaves were the representatives of the
German Command and the German authorities occasionally
interested in the prisoners of war. You have in your possession a
circular of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces to the effect
that Soviet prisoners of war should be branded and that this
branding would not be considered as a medical measure. I am
submitting to you another equally shameful document. It bears the
following identifying marks: Az. 2,24.82h, Commander of Camps for
Prisoners of War, Number 3142/42; Berlin-Schöneberg; 20.7.1942;
51, Badensche Strasse. This document is Exhibit Number USSR-343
(Document Number USSR-343). I shall not read it into the record. It
resembles identically those which I have already read into the
record. But it is characteristic of the extent to which the Hitlerite
conspirators had abandoned the thesis that “a state can do
everything which is necessary to hold prisoners of war in their own
safekeeping, but it cannot do anything more.”
A regime based on hard labor, on an unending stream of insult
and torture, drove Soviet people to manifestations of stark despair,
such as attacks on camp guards who were armed to the teeth. We
know of such truly heroic deeds. Testimonies of eyewitnesses are in
our hands. I am submitting to you, as Exhibit Number USSR-314
(Document Number USSR-314), the personally written testimony of
the witness, Lampe—you interrogated him a few days ago in this
court—together with the testimony of the witness, Ribol—our Exhibit
Number USSR-315 (Document Number USSR-315). I shall read out
such passages of the testimony as appear on Page 348 of your
document book. These witnesses reported that in the beginning of
February 1945, in the extermination camp of Mauthausen, 800 Red
Army prisoners of war who were interned there, had broken out of
the fascist hell after first disarming the guards and piercing the
electrified barbed wire. Lampe testifies how brutally the SS treated
those whom they were able to recapture. I am quoting a few lines:
“All those who returned to the camp were savagely tortured and
then shot. I myself saw the escaped prisoners, who were being
brought back to Block Number 20.”—I wish to interpolate that Block
20 was the death block.—“They were beaten and the head of one of
them was badly bleeding. They were followed by 10 SS men, among
whom were three or four officers. They carried whips and were
laughing loudly, giving the impression of pleasurably anticipating the
tortures they were going to inflict upon the three unfortunate
prisoners. The courage of the insurgents and the cruelty of the
repression have left an undying impression on all the internees of
Mauthausen.”
 The fascist conspirators behaved with equal hatred toward all
Soviet citizens. If any altercations ever arose among them, they
would only be in connection with the methods of destruction to be
inflicted on their victims. Some strove to kill off the prisoners
immediately; others deemed it wiser to exploit their prisoners’ blood
and strength in the mills, factories, military workshops, and in the
construction of military undertakings.
Any long war is responsible for labor shortage in industry and
agriculture. Fascist Germany solved this problem by importing white
male and female slaves. The greatest number of them were
prisoners of war. They were sent to heavy labor where masses
perished from exhaustion, overwork, hunger, and savage treatment
by the guards.
I submit to the Tribunal Document Number 744-PS, and quote
the following three paragraphs:
“To carry out the augmented iron-steel industry program, the Führer
ordered on 7 July that a sufficient coal supply be guaranteed and
that prisoners of war be utilized for this purpose.”
I am omitting several sentence from the documents dealing with
the technicalities of this question and quote Point 2 of this directive:
“2. All Soviet prisoners of war, captured since 5 July 1943, are to be
sent to the OKW camps and from there directly, or by way of labor
exchange, put at the disposal of the Plenipotentiary for the
Allocation of Labor, for use in the coal mining industry.”
The fourth point is of special interest. It contains a definite
directive on how to convert all men between the ages of 16 and 55
into prisoners of war. I quote Point 4:
“4. All male prisoners between the ages of 16 and 55, captured in
battles with the partisans in the operational area of the Army, of the
eastern commissariats, of the Government General, and of the
Balkans, are to be regarded in the future as prisoners of war. The
same applies to men in newly conquered districts of the East. They
must be sent to the prisoner-of-war camps and then to work in
Germany.”
The second document, Number 744-PS, issued by the Chief of
the OKW on 8 July 1943, duplicates this directive. The document is
signed by Keitel. There is a postscript to the text of the document
which was signed by Keitel. It is addressed to all the higher
authorities of the SS and is signed by Himmler. The text has already
been read into the record on 20 December 1945; I shall therefore
refer only to the contents. It concerns the transportation of children,
old people, and of young women. Himmler indicates how and by
what methods they should be sent to Germany through Sauckel’s
organization. In this case, too, Himmler, Keitel, and Sauckel act in
perfect agreement, almost as a single entity.
I consider Exhibit Number USSR-354 (Document Number USSR-
354) to be of primary importance. It is a report on the prison camp
in Minsk. The report was compiled in Rosenberg’s office on 10 July
1941.
THE PRESIDENT: Has it been put in already?
COL. POKROVSKY: This document has not yet been read into the
record. Permit me, Your Honor, to read a few excerpts. I quote Page
183:
“The prison camp in Minsk, covering a space about the size of the
Wilhelmsplatz, accommodates about one hundred thousand
prisoners of war and forty thousand civilian prisoners. The prisoners,
crowded together in this small space, can hardly move, and are
therefore forced to relieve nature at the very place where they
happen to be. The camp is guarded by a detail of soldiers on active
duty, of company strength. Due to the small strength of the guard
detail, the watch over the camp can only be accomplished by the
application of brute force.”
I omit a paragraph and turn to the page which continues the
original idea:
“The only possible language for a small guard, which remains on
duty both day and night without being relieved, is the firearm, of
which ruthless use is made.”
Next, the authors of this document complain about the
impossibility of carrying out the selection of prisoners according to
physical and racial classification for various forms of hard labor:
“On the second day this selection of civilian prisoners was forbidden
to the O.T., referring to an order of General Field Marshal Kluge,
according to which he alone had the right to release civilian
prisoners.”
I shall read into the record two documents demonstrating how
the Hitlerites, in their hatred of the Soviet people, considered the
regime of bestial cruelty and systematic insults which they had set
up for the Soviet prisoners of war as being too mild, and demanded
that it be made still more severe.
On 29 January 1943 an order was issued on the “Rights of Self-
Defense against the Prisoners of War,” under the signature of the
Chief of the OKH. This order bears the number 3868/42, and is
registered by the United States Delegation as Document Number
696-PS. We submit it to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-355,
since it has not been read into the record. I shall read a few short
extracts from this document. You will find the passage quoted on
Page 185 of your document book. It starts as follows:
“The military organizations and the organizations of the National
Socialist Party have, on numerous occasions, raised the question of
the treatment of the prisoners of war, and they are of the opinion
that the punishments provided for by the 1929 Agreement (H. Dv.
38/2) are inadequate.”
This document explains that the previous agreement regarding
the treatment of all prisoners of war, with the exception of Soviet
nationals, remains in force. The Order Number 389/42-S issued by
the OKW Section for Prisoners-of-War Affairs, determines the
treatment of the latter. This order was issued on 24 March 1942.
The second document is the circular of the Nazi Party bureau,
submitted as Order Number 12/43-S. This circular, signed by
Bormann, was issued by the chief of the Party bureau, at the
Führer’s main headquarters on 12 February 1943. The circular was
sent out by the Reichsführer to the Gauleiter and to the
commanding officers of military units. It speaks of Secret Order
Number 3868/42-S of the Chief of the General Staff. It is therefore
proved once more, and proved beyond any manner of doubt, that
the leaders of the Nazi Party and the military command bear equal
responsibility for the atrocities perpetrated on the Soviet prisoners of
war.
The Navy regulations regarding prisoners of war remain in force
for all but Soviet prisoners, and where the Soviet prisoners were
concerned the “regulations of the OKW” which I have already
mentioned, “remain in force.”
Thus, absolute criminal agreement between the Party leaders
and the OKW can be considered as existing as I already have shown
to the Tribunal. I stress the circumstance and I would remind you
that all this happened in the country whose representative had
declared as far back as 1902:
“The only purpose in capturing prisoners of war is to prevent their
further participation in the war. Although prisoners of war lose their
freedom, they do not lose their rights. In other words, captivity is
not an act of mercy on the part of the conqueror. It is the right of
the disarmed soldier.”
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, we have had that document
read to us more than once.
COL. POKROVSKY: I am not rereading it. I am merely recalling its
contents.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you must give the Tribunal credit for
some recollection. As I say, that document has been read more than
once before.
COL. POKROVSKY: We have at our disposal an official note
signed by Lammers. This document is registered under Document
Number 073-PS. We submit it to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number
USSR-361—it has not yet been read into the record. The document
states—you will find this excerpt on Page 191 of your document
book:
“1. Prisoners of war are foreigners. Influencing them is the task . . .
of foreign propaganda and therefore the task of the Foreign Office.”
I omit a few sentences.
“Excepted from this ruling are the Soviet prisoners who are placed
under the control of the Reich Minister for the Occupied Territories of
the East because the Geneva Convention is not valid for them and
because they have a special political status.”
In this connection, I wish to submit to you as Exhibit Number
USSR-356 (Document Number USSR-356), another German
document. It consists of notes composed at the headquarters of the
Foreign Counterintelligence Office on the 15 November 1941 for the
“OKW Chief of Staff.” I shall read into the record a few extracts, of
which you will find the opening lines on Page 192 of your document
book:
“The Geneva Convention regarding prisoners of war is not valid
between Germany and the U.S.S.R. Therefore, the only rules in force
are the principles of general international law regarding the
treatment of prisoners of war, which since the 18th century have so
developed that war captivity represented neither revenge nor
punishment, but a security measure, the sole object of which was to
prevent prisoners from further participating in the war. This principle
developed in connection with the prevalent opinion that, from a
military standpoint, the killing or wounding of prisoners was
inadmissible. In addition, it is to the interest of each belligerent to be
assured against ill-treatment of its soldiers in case of their capture.
Appendix I states the directives, based on different premises as can
be seen at the beginning of this paragraph, concerning the
treatment of Soviet prisoners of war.”
To save time I shall omit several sentences and shall read the end of
the paragraph into the record:
“. . . and, in addition, eliminated much which from past experience
was considered not only as useful from a military viewpoint but as
indispensable to the maintenance of discipline and high striking
power.
“The orders are drawn up in very general terms. But, if we bear in
mind the ruling basic tendency, then the ‘measures’ permitted by
these orders are bound to result in wanton and unpunished murder,
even though officially the law of violence has been abolished.
“This is obvious from the directive regarding the use of weapons
against recalcitrance. The guards and their commanding officers,
who often do not understand the language of the prisoner of war,
will not be able to know whether the prisoners’ disobedience was
due to recalcitrance or to a misunderstanding of the orders. The
principle that use of weapons against Soviet prisoners of war is, as a
rule, justified absolves the guards from any duty of making
reflections about their actions.”
 Omitting two paragraphs not directly relating to this matter, I
quote as follows:
“The organization of camp police equipped with clubs, whips, and
similar weapons, even in camps where all labor is done by the
prisoners, is against military rule and tradition. In addition the
military authorities thus give into other hands the means for
applying punishment without providing adequate control as to how
these means are employed.”
I wish to quote one more sentence taken from Paragraph 5 of
these notes—you will find it on Page 194:
“Appendix 2 contains a translation of the Russian decree regarding
prisoners of war which is in accord with the basic principles of
international law as well as with the rules of the Geneva
Convention.”
I shall refrain from quoting the rest of the document as it is of
little interest. This document is signed by the Chief of the Foreign
Counterintelligence Service, Admiral Canaris. It includes directives
containing instructions relating to the treatment of Soviet prisoners
of war, dwelling in detail on such sections which Canaris considered
as violations of the basic principles of international law and of the
Geneva Convention.
I should like to supplement this document with a few excerpts
from the minutes of the interrogation by Dr. Wengler, a former
counsellor of the Foreign Counterintelligence Service of the OKW.
This document is submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-
129 (Document Number USSR-129). Wengler was questioned by me
on 19 December 1945, and his testimony is important for purposes
of evaluating the line of conduct both of the OKW and Keitel himself.
DR. NELTE: Mr. President, I ask that the document, Exhibit
Number USSR-129, which the Russian Prosecutor intends to read,
should not be read, but that the witness mentioned in this
document, Dr. Wengler, be called personally to testify in Court, if the
Soviet Prosecution is willing.
 This document, USSR-129, is a record of an interrogation of Dr.
Wengler, who was active in Counterintelligence Service in the OKW.
It is a question of determining whether the nonapplication of the
Geneva Convention as regards Russia is due to the fault of the
German Government, the OKW, and the Defendant Keitel. I do not
need to state that the clarification of this question is of the utmost
significance in judging the responsible persons, not only because of
the Counts in the Indictment, but because of the terrible guilt in face
of the German people, if the testimony given by this witness should
be true. The witness was interrogated in Nuremberg on 19
December 1945. Whether he is still here or in Berlin—he gave his
address at the time of the inquiry—I cannot say. But I do believe
that the basic decisions of the Tribunal concerning the interpretation
of Article 21 of the Charter will justify my request in this respect
since, firstly, the summoning of the witness from Berlin does not
entail great difficulties, secondly we are concerned with a question
of such tremendous significance, even in this setting, that the
personal testimony and interrogation by this Tribunal should not be
replaced by the mere lecture of the minutes of an inquiry.
THE PRESIDENT: Have you anything you wish to say in answer to
that objection?
COL. POKROVSKY: With your permission I should like first of all,
in order to clarify the matter, to ask where the witness actually is at
the present moment? He is not in Nuremberg. He was brought here
especially for this interrogation under the greatest technical
difficulties. The interrogation was conducted according to all the
rules of our judicial proceedings, so that this document could be
submitted to the Tribunal and accepted as evidence, if the Tribunal
so judges, according to Article 19 of the Charter.
All the problems concerning this subject, which were of interest
to the Soviet Prosecution, are already sufficiently clear from the
Document Number USSR-129, which we submit to you, and I see no
possibility of having this witness brought here in the near future.
Maybe the representatives of the Defense Counsel imagine that it is
very easy to produce him, but I do not see any technical possibility
of bringing him here a second time. And I repeat that, if the Tribunal
does not consider it feasible to accept this document in the suitable
manner in which we have formulated it, then we would even agree
to refrain from submitting it as evidence and to replace it by other
evidence—even though we believe it to be incorrect. But we
consider it easier than to bring the witness here a second time. That
is all I have to say in reply to this request.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say that you could not bring the
witness here, and that as you could not bring him here you would
not press the introduction of the document?
COL. POKROVSKY: No, I put it differently. I said that we insist
that this document be admitted, since the Tribunal has the right,
according to Article 19 of the Charter, to accept this document as
evidence. But if we were to choose between two possibilities, either
by adding this evidence to the record or by summoning the witness
a second time, the technical obstacles which prevent us from so
doing would compel us, by preference, to accept the exclusion of
this document from the record, in order to avoid any repetition of
the difficulties already experienced. We consider that the document
is quite correctly compiled, in accordance with all the rules of the
Charter, and that the Tribunal should receive it as evidence according
to Article 19 of the Charter.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know first of all, why
is it difficult or impossible to bring the witness to Nuremberg in the
same way that he was brought to Nuremberg in December 1945;
and secondly, has Dr. Nelte and have the other defendants’ counsel
got full copies in German of the document?
COL. POKROVSKY: Dr. Wengler was interrogated in his native
German tongue. The original of his record, of his interrogation, has
been submitted to the Tribunal in an adequate number of copies,
which are at the disposal of the Defense Counsel.
As regards the technical difficulties, I cannot, at present,
undertake to give the Tribunal a precise description of all the
technical difficulties reported to me by my collaborators, since I can
no longer remember them. But I do know that, when they were
working on this matter, establishing the existence of the witness,
searching for him, bringing him here, they—my collaborators—
declared that they could do this once but that they would not be
able to do it a second time. Consequently, Dr. Wengler, a free agent,
was here in Nuremberg, not for 1 day, but for many days, precisely
for the time needed adequately to clear up all the questions which
were of interest to us and to interrogate him, since we foresaw the
impossibility of summoning him a second time.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal would like to know where the
deponent, the witness, was brought from when he was brought to
Nuremberg.
COL. POKROVSKY: From Berlin. He was brought the last time
from Berlin.
THE PRESIDENT: Then is he now in Berlin?
COL. POKROVSKY: I do not undertake to answer this question
now without making further inquiries. He is not interned.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, Dr. Nelte, do you want to say anything?
DR. NELTE: I should just like to refer to the last page of the
minutes, where the address is given: Dr. Wilhelm Wengler, Berlin-
Hermsdorf, Ringstrasse Number 32. We are simply concerned with
the question: Which technical difficulties are involved to bring this
witness from Berlin to Nuremberg a second time? Of course, I do
not know whether the witness is in Berlin, but I assume that he is
there.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.
[A recess was taken.]

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will allow the deposition to be put

in evidence, should the Soviet Prosecutor decide to do so. If the
document is put in evidence, the Tribunal will desire that the
Prosecutor should secure the attendance of the deponent as a
witness for cross-examination. If the Prosecution is unable to secure
the attendance of the deponent as a witness, then the Tribunal will
itself attempt to secure the attendance of the deponent as a
witness, for cross-examination.
COL. POKROVSKY: I can report to the Tribunal that I attempted
to employ the time spent by the Tribunal in deliberating this problem
in discovering if we could bring this witness back again and that I
did not receive a conclusive reply from my organization. According to
the wish of the Tribunal, I shall omit the topic of his cross-
examination and shall only refer to it again if I am informed by my
collaborators that we can once more bring the witness before the
Tribunal. This would seem to me in accordance with the wishes of
the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Pokrovsky, I am not quite sure that you
appreciated quite what I said. What I said was that you are at liberty
to put in the document now, if you wish to do so. That is one thing.
But, if you do so, you must attempt to secure the attendance of the
witness, and should you fail to do so, the Tribunal will attempt to
secure the attendance of the witness; but the document will still be
in evidence and will not be struck out, although, of course, it will be
open to the criticism that it is only a deposition or an affidavit and
that the witness has not been produced for cross-examination and
therefore the weight that attaches to the testimony will not be so
great as it would be if the witness had been produced for cross-
examination.
Is that clear?
COL. POKROVSKY: Wengler was interrogated by me. . . .
THE PRESIDENT: I fear I used inaccurately the word “affidavit.” It
is only an interrogation. It is not made upon oath and that, of
course, will be taken into consideration. But the point is that you can
put in the document now if you decide to do so. That is a matter for
your discretion. If you do so, you must attempt to secure the
attendance of the witness for cross-examination. If you are unable
to get him, then the Tribunal will attempt to get him here for cross-
examination.
COL. POKROVSKY: When reporting to the Tribunal on the
measures we had adopted, I started from the point of view that the
Tribunal desired that each witness, whose testimony had been read
into the record, could, if necessary, be summoned to appear before
the Tribunal for a supplementary cross-examination. That is why I
have already attempted to find out whether we can call up this
witness now, and since I have not yet received any definite answer
from our organization, I wish to invite the attention of the Tribunal
to the possibility that we will simply abstain from mentioning these
minutes now, as we only need them for the confirmation of one
point, already confirmed by a document which has just been
presented to the Tribunal. This is the report signed by Canaris. What
is the meaning of Wengler’s interrogation? The meaning of Wengler’s
interrogation is that it shows that the OKW knew of the treatment
meted out to the Soviet prisoners. Canaris said the same.
THE PRESIDENT: I think you must decide, Colonel Pokrovsky,
whether you wish to put in the document or not. If you wish to put
in the document, you may do so, but I do not think it is right for you
to state the contents of the document and at the same time not to
put it in. If you wish to put it in, then you must try to secure the
attendance of the witness, and if you cannot secure the attendance,
the Tribunal will try to secure it.
COL. POKROVSKY: I consider that Wengler’s testimony is not
important enough for us to pay so very much attention to it. If we
can find this witness, we shall examine him at a later date.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well.
COL. POKROVSKY: In the light of the documents read into the
record, and also in view of the protest of the German prisoners of
war in Camp 78, which shows how humanely the Soviet authorities
treated German military prisoners of the German Army, the sentence
from Appendix I of Operations Order Number 14 of the Chief of the
Security Police and the SD, concerning the treatment of Soviet
prisoners of war, is nothing less than a brazen insult. This sentence
can be found on Page 7 of the document submitted to the Tribunal
as Exhibit Number USSR-3 (Document Number USSR-3). You will find
it on Page 204 of your document book:
“Thus the Bolshevik soldier has lost his right to be treated as an
honest soldier and in accordance with the rules of the Geneva
Convention.”
I beg the Tribunal to recollect that the following directive, dated
7 November 1941, appears in Appendix II of Order Number 11 of
the General Staff of the OKW. I quote from Exhibit Number USSR-3,
extracts from which appear on Page 233 of your document book—
last paragraph in the right column.
“The work of the Special Squad, by license of the rear area
commander (officer in charge of prisoner-of-war affairs of the
district) must be done in such a way that the selecting and sorting
out is practically unnoticeable. Executions must be carried out
without delay, and at sufficient distance from the camp and from
habitations to keep them secret from the other prisoners and the
population.”
These are the transfers of prisoners “to some place in the
neighborhood” that Kuntze, the expert executioner, had in mind
when he reported to his chiefs on the incidents which occurred
during the execution of the 28 crippled prisoners of war.
Among the documents submitted to the Tribunal by the Soviet
Delegation are data regarding the shooting, on 7 April 1945, at the
Seelhorst Cemetery in Hanover, of 150 Soviet prisoners of war and
civilians. We submit this data as Exhibit Number USSR-112
(Document Number USSR-112). You will find the data in question on
Page 207 of your document book. They have been placed at our
disposal by the American investigation authorities. They consist of a
number of testimonies, including that of Peter Palnikov, a Red Army
officer who had fortuitously escaped the execution. You will find the
minutes to which I refer on the same page, 207 of your document
book. We also have the testimonies of other members of the local
population who had been questioned under oath by the American
investigation authorities. Their evidence is corroborated by medical
reports on bodies exhumed from the graves at Seelhorst Cemetery.
In addition, we submit duly certified photographs.
I shall not read all these documents into the record but shall
merely point out that the 167 corpses thus exhumed were specially
noted in the concluding report of the commission, as enabling the
commission to judge, from their appearance, of the “pronounced
degree of insufficient nourishment.”
This circumstance must be stressed so that the Tribunal may
have a perfectly clear picture of the food situation prevalent among
Soviet prisoners of war in the various camps. Regardless of the
territory in which the camp was located, all Soviet prisoners of war
were exposed to a regime of hunger with the same sustained and
systematic cruelty.
While I am thus reporting on the Hitlerian atrocities perpetrated
on the prisoners, I find that we now have at our disposal several
court verdicts pronounced on the fascist criminals who committed
their crimes in the temporarily occupied territories. In accordance
with Article 21 of the Charter, I submit to the Tribunal as Exhibit
Number USSR-87 (Document Number USSR-87) the verdict of a
district military tribunal. You will find the entire verdict on Page 214
up to Page 221. It was pronounced in Smolensk, on 19 December
1945. The Tribunal inflicted penalties varying from 12 years hard
labor to death by hanging, on 10 Hitlerites directly guilty of the
numerous crimes committed in the city and region of Smolensk.
I shall not quote the document, but shall merely mention that on
Pages 4, 5, and 6 of the verdict, in passages marked in your copies
—these pages, that is, 4, 5, and 6 of the verdict, are to be found in
your document book on Pages 218, 219, and 222—information is
contained how, as a result of pseudo-scientific experiments on
prisoners of war by persons who, to the undying shame of German
medicine, were known in Germany as professors and doctors,
tortured and murdered the prisoners by blood poisoning. The
sentence presents further evidence that, as a result of savage ill-
treatment by the German escort conveying Soviet prisoners of war,
some 10,000 exhausted, half-dead captives perished between
Vyasma and Smolensk.
It is precisely this passage, this information, which you will find in
Subparagraph 3 of the verdict. It appears on Page 218 of your
document book. The verdict reflects the systematic mass shooting of
prisoners of war in Camp 126, in the city of Smolensk—“in Transit
Camp 126 South”—during the transfer of the prisoners to the camp
and to the hospital. The verdict particularly emphasizes the fact that
prisoners of war, too exhausted to work, were shot.
I should now like to turn to the brutalities committed by the
Hitlerites towards members of the Czechoslovakian, Polish, and
Yugoslavian Armies. We find, in the Indictment, that one of the most
important criminal acts for which the major war criminals are
responsible was the mass execution of Polish prisoners of war, shot
in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk by the German fascist invaders.
I submit to the Tribunal, as a proof of this crime, official
documents of the special commission for the establishment and the
investigation of the circumstances which attended the executions.
The commission acted in accordance with a directive of the
Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union. In addition to
members of the Extraordinary State Commission—namely
Academicians Burdenko, Alexis Tolstoy, and the Metropolitan Nicolas
—this commission was composed of the President of the Pan-
Slavonia Committee, Lieutenant General Gundorov; the chairman of
the Executive Committee of the Union of the Red Cross and Red
Crescent, Kolesnikov; of the People’s Commissar for Education in the
R.S.S.F.R., Academician Potemkin; the Supreme Chief of the Medical
Department of the Red Army, General Smirnov; and the Chairman of
the District Executive Committee of Smolensk, Melnikov. The
commission also included several of the best known medico-legal
experts.
It would take too long to read into the record that precise and
detailed document which I now submit to you as Exhibit Number
USSR-54 (Document Number USSR-54), which is a result of the
investigation. I shall read into the record only a few comparatively
short excerpts. On Page 2 of the document, which is Page 223 in
your document book, we read—this passage is marked in your file:
“According to the estimates of medico-legal experts, the total
number of bodies amounts to over 11,000. The medico-legal experts
carried out a thorough examination of the bodies exhumed, and of
the documents and material evidence found on the bodies and in the
graves. During the exhumation and examination of the corpses, the
commission questioned many witnesses among the local inhabitants.
Their testimony permitted the determination of the exact time and
circumstances of the crimes committed by the German invaders.”
 I believe that I need not quote everything that the Extraordinary
Commission ascertained during its investigation about the crimes of
the Germans. I only read into the record the general conclusions,
which summarize the work of the commission. You will find the lines
read into the record on Page 43 of Exhibit Number USSR-54 if you
turn to the original document, or on Page 264 of your document
book:
“General conclusions:
“On perusal of all the material at the disposal of the special
commission, that is, the depositions of over 100 witnesses
questioned, the data of the medico-legal experts, the documents
and the material evidence and belongings taken from the graves in
Katyn Forest, we can arrive at the following definite conclusions:
“1. The Polish prisoners of war imprisoned in the three camps west
of Smolensk and engaged in railway construction before the war,
remained there after the occupation of Smolensk by the Germans,
right up to September 1941.
“2. In the autumn of 1941, in Katyn Forest, the German occupational
authorities carried out mass shootings of the Polish prisoners of war
from the above-mentioned camps.
“3. Mass shootings of Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest were
carried out by German military organizations disguised under the
specific name, ‘Staff 537, Engineer Construction Battalion,’
commanded by Oberleutnant Arnes and his colleagues, Oberleutnant
Rex and Leutnant Hott.
“4. In connection with the deterioration, for Germany, of the general
military and political machinery at the beginning of 1943, the
German occupational authorities, with a view to provoking incidents,
undertook a whole series of measures to ascribe their own misdeeds
to organizations of the Soviet authorities, in order to make mischief
between the Russians and the Poles.
“5. For these purposes:
“a. The German fascist invaders, by persuasion, attempts at bribery,
threats, and by barbarous tortures, endeavored to find ‘witnesses’
among the Soviet citizens from whom they obtained false testimony,
alleging that the Polish prisoners of war had been shot by
organizations of the Soviet authorities in the spring of 1940.
“b. The German occupational authorities, in the spring of 1943,
brought from other places the bodies of Polish prisoners of war
whom they had shot, and laid them in the turned up graves of Katyn
Forest with the dual purpose of covering up the traces of their own
atrocities and of increasing the numbers of ‘victims of Bolshevist
atrocities’ in Katyn Forest,
“c. While preparing their provocative measures, the German
occupational authorities employed up to 500 Russian prisoners of
war for the task of digging up the graves in Katyn Forest. Once the
graves had been dug, the Russian prisoners of war were shot by the
Germans in order to destroy thus all proof and material evidence on
the matter.
“6. The date of the legal and medical examination determined,
without any shadow of doubt:
“a. That the time of shooting was autumn 1941.
“b. The application by the German executioners, when shooting
Polish prisoners of war, of the identical method—a pistol shot in the
nape of the neck—as used by them in the mass murders of the
Soviet citizens in other towns, especially in Orel, Voronetz, Krasnodar
and in Smolensk itself.”
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will now recess.
 [The Tribunal recessed until 1400 hours.]

Afternoon Session
COL. POKROVSKY: Point 7 of the general conclusions of the
Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, on which I
reported in the preceding session, states:
“The conclusions reached, after studying the affidavits and medico-
legal examinations concerning the shooting of Polish military
prisoners of war by Germans in the autumn of 1941, fully confirmed
the material evidence and documents discovered in the Katyn
graves.
“8. By shooting the Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest, the
German fascist invaders consistently realized their policy for the
physical extermination of the Slav peoples.”
Here follow the signatures of all the members of the Commission.
The Katyn massacres did not exhaust the Hitler crimes against
the soldiers of the Polish Army. In the report of the Polish
Government, submitted by me to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number
USSR-93 (Document Number USSR-93), we find a series of proofs
confirming the breach by the Hitlerite conspirators of the elementary
rules of international law governing the customs and laws of war; on
Page 36 of this report by the Polish Government—it is on Page 285
of your document book—we find, as an outstanding part of the
material collected, the ill-treatment of prisoners of war and their
extermination. It is said in the report—and I quote:
“As and when the Polish officers and other ranks returned from
German prisoner-of-war camps, we learn further details concerning
conditions prevailing in the German camps. All these details
undeniably prove the existence of a line of policy, instructions, and
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