Afternoon Session
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: In accordance with your instructions, Mr. President, I omit the following documents to which I wished to refer and which have already been submitted to the Tribunal—Document 654-PS, for instance.
I now proceed to the next document, which was submitted to the Tribunal yesterday by my colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, as Exhibit Number USSR-3. It is the report of the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union, entitled, “Directives and Orders of the Hitlerite Government and the German Military Command Regarding the Extermination of the Soviet People.”
My colleague read into the record yesterday a short excerpt from the fourth part of this document concerning the carrying out of mass executions, the so-called executions in camps, where both peaceful citizens and prisoners of war were interned. As this section has already been read into the record, I omit it and proceed to other sections of this report, dealing with the organization by the German fascist criminals, from the very first days of the war with the Soviet Union, of the so-called Sonderkommandos (special task forces).
The document which I am quoting refers to the organization of Sonderkommandos in the camps where prisoners of war and peaceful citizens were interned. I quote this excerpt because the term “Sonderkommando” acquired in the early days of the war a terrible meaning among the civilian population of the temporarily occupied territories of the Soviet Union. It was one of the most cruel and most brutal organizations ever created by the German fascists for the wholesale slaughter of human beings.
I request the Tribunal to revert to Page 207 of the document book, Column 1 of the text. I begin the quotation:
“It is evident, from the documents discovered, that even before the attack on the U.S.S.R. Hitler’s butchers had compiled lists and index files and collected the necessary information about such leading Soviet workers as their bloodthirsty plans had doomed to extermination. In this manner they prepared the following: ‘Special Index Files for the U.S.S.R.,’ ‘The German Index File,’ ‘Lists for Establishing Domiciles,’ and other index files and lists of the same kind which would facilitate the work of the Hitlerite murderers in the extermination of progressive circles within the population of the U.S.S.R.
“However, the document entitled, ‘Appendix Number 2 to Operational Order Number 8 of the Chief of the Sipo and the SD, Berlin,’ dated 17 July 1941 and signed by Heydrich, who was at that time acting as Himmler’s deputy, emphasizes the lack of such lists and index files and stresses the importance of not hampering the initiative of those who perpetrated the murders. The document states:
“ ‘There is no possibility of lending any assistance to the Kommandos for the realization of your plans. The “German Index File,” “Lists for Establishing Domiciles,” and “Special Index Files for the U.S.S.R.” will only prove useful in a few cases. The “Special Index Files for the U.S.S.R.” are therefore insufficient, as only an insignificant number of Soviet Russian nationals, considered as dangerous, have been entered in these files.’ ”
I omit one paragraph and continue:
“For the realization of their criminal plans the German invaders created Sonderkommandos, both in the transient and permanent camps for prisoners of war, on German territory, in the so-called Polish Government General, and in the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union.”
I further omit seven paragraphs and continue the quotation on Page 207 of the document book, Paragraph 6, Column 2 of the text:
“The procedure in the formation of the Sonderkommando is described in Appendix Number 1 to Operational Order Number 14 of the Chief of the Sipo and SD, marked state top secret, Copy Number 15, dated Berlin, 29 October 1941.
“The formation of the Sonderkommandos of the Sipo and SD is carried out in accordance with the agreement of 7 October 1941, reached between the Chief of the Sipo and the SD on the one hand and the OKW on the other hand.
“By virtue of special powers the Kommandos will act independently in conformity with general directives, within the scope of the camp regulations. The Kommandos, of course, maintain close contact with the camp commandants and the officers of the Intelligence Service.”
I omit the following text and continue the quotation from Page 208 of the document book, Paragraph 1. The Tribunal will observe how much the Reich leadership extended the installation of these highly dangerous police organizations. The Sonderkommandos were organized all the way from the town of Krasnogvardeisk—a suburb of Leningrad—to the town of Nikolaiev on the Black Sea. I now continue with my quotation:
“The order of the Chief of the Sipo and SD of 29 October 1941, regarding the organization of the Sonderkommandos, was sent to the operational groups in Krasnogvardeisk, Smolensk, Kiev, and Nikolaiev, and for information to Riga, Moghilev, and Krivoy Rog.”
I would also point out that during their attack on Moscow the Hitlerites organized in Smolensk a special Sonderkommando Moscow, entrusted with the task of mass-murdering the Moscow citizens.
Mention has previously been made of the wide range of authoritative power granted to the Sonderkommando. In the document which I am quoting it is said:
“The tasks of the Sonderkommandos are outlined in the operational directives attached to Decree Number 8 of the Chief of the Sipo and SD, dated Berlin, 17 July 1941, which, under the pretext of a screening of civilians and suspected prisoners of war captured in the Eastern campaign indicate that:
“The special nature of the Eastern campaign calls for special measures, to be carried out on personal responsibility beyond the range of any bureaucratic influences.”
I omit the next extract from this document, since it is merely a repetition of the basic rules which I have already read into the record.
Having launched their criminal war, the Hitlerites directed it towards a mass extermination of the peaceful citizens of the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe. I have already read into the record several documents depicting the character of the Hitlerite murderers and the nature of their crimes. The latter consisted in the formation of large criminal units, specially trained by the leaders of the Hitlerite gang. It will, however, be clear to any criminologist that it is not sufficient to create these foul and criminal gangs—it is essential that once the crime has been perpetrated the criminal should feel that he has acted with complete impunity. In order that the crimes envisaged by the major criminals be fulfilled in their monstrous entirety, it became necessary to create for the minor criminals an atmosphere of complete impunity. In accordance with your wishes, Mr. President, I shall not quote the document previously read into the record as Number C-50 by the United States Prosecution, entitled, “Instructions Governing the Application of Martial Law and Special Measures To Be Adopted by the Army in the Barbarossa Area.” But it appears to me that the contents of this document should be firmly borne in mind, for unless the meaning of this document is clearly understood it is quite impossible to envisage the series of wholesale crimes perpetrated by the Hitlerite criminals on the territory of the Soviet Union.
This order, signed by Keitel, though issued in Hitler’s name, was accepted by all the soldiers and all the officers of the fascist army as a personal order from Hitler. What conclusions the German soldiery drew from this order of Keitel’s is confirmed by a communication of the Extraordinary State Commission, to which I shall now refer. It deals with the atrocities committed in the city of Minsk by the German fascist invaders.
I submit this document to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-38 (Document Number USSR-38). It contains an excerpt from the testimony of the president of the military tribunal of the 267th German Rifle Division, Captain Julius Reichhof. I would ask the Tribunal to turn to Page 215 of the document book, to Column 1 of the text. I quote from the communication of the Extraordinary State Commission on the subject of Julius Reichhof’s testimony:
“According to an order issued by Hitler, German soldiers could not be committed to trial by court-martial for acts committed against Soviet citizens. The soldier could be punished only by the commander of his own unit, should the latter deem the punishment necessary. By the same order Hitler granted even more extensive rights to all German Army officers. They could destroy the Russian population according to their own discretion.
“The commander had full right to apply punitive measures to the peaceful population: He was allowed to burn down, in toto, villages and towns, rob the population of supplies and livestock, and, on his own responsibility, deport Soviet citizens to Germany for slave labor. Hitler’s order was brought to the attention of every single soldier of the German Army on the eve of the attack on the Soviet Union. In accordance with Hitler’s order, the German soldiers, under the leadership of their officers, committed all sorts of atrocities.”
But even this appeared insufficient to the Hitlerite leaders. In 1942 they considered it necessary to reconfirm, by a sharp directive brooking no exception, that any crime perpetrated by the German fascist soldiery against the peaceful citizens of the Soviet Union should go completely unpunished. The Reich and military leaders particularly emphasized the fact that atrocities committed should so remain unpunished, even if the victims of these atrocities happened to be women and children.
THE PRESIDENT: What was the reference to what you called “sharp directive”?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I will at once submit to the Tribunal this directive as Exhibit Number USSR-16 (Document Number USSR-16). It is a photostatic copy of the document certified by the Extraordinary State Commission. The Tribunal will find the text of this directive on Page 219 of the document book. This directive is signed by Keitel and entitled “The Combating of Guerrillas.” The document is dated 16 December 1942. I will quote this document practically in full, starting with the title.
“Subject: The Combating of Guerillas; top secret.
“The Führer has been informed that certain members of the Wehrmacht who took part in the struggle against the guerilla bandits were later called to account for their behavior while fighting.”
My colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, Mr. President, explained to the Tribunal yesterday that any resistance movement on the part of the peaceful population was termed “banditry.” I will therefore not detain the Tribunal’s attention any longer in an attempt to decode this German fascist term.
“In this connection the Führer ordered. . . .”
I omit one paragraph and continue the quotation, Page 219 of the document book:
“If the repression of the guerillas in the East, as well as in the Balkans, is not pursued with the most brutal means, it will not be long before the forces at our disposal will prove insufficient to exterminate this plague.
“The troops therefore have the right and the duty to use, in this struggle, any and unlimited means, even against women and children, if only conducive to success.”
I emphasize that the directive mentions all possible means of retribution against women and children. I continue to quote:
“Scruples of any sort whatsoever are a crime against the German people and against the front-line soldier who bears the consequences of attacks by guerillas and who has no comprehension for any regard shown to the guerillas or their associates.
“These principles must serve as a basis for using the ‘Directive for Combating Guerillas in the East.’
“2. No German participating in combat action against guerillas or their associates is to be held responsible for acts of violence either from a disciplinary or a judicial point of view.
“Commanders of troops engaged in combat action against the bands are obliged to see to it that all officers of units under their command be immediately and thoroughly notified of this order, that their legal advisers be immediately acquainted therewith, and that no judgments be passed which are in contradiction to this order.
“Signed, Keitel.”
I hereby conclude the presentation of the documents referring to the first two sections of the list read into the record at the opening of the report. The materials which I have hitherto submitted to the Tribunal were to prove three facts:
1. Direct instigation, by the major criminals, to the perpetration of appalling crimes against wide circles of the peaceful population, by the German Armed Forces.
2. Special education by the Hitler leadership of mass criminal units for the practical realization of its plans for the extermination of peoples.
3. General unleashing of the criminals’ basest instincts in an atmosphere of complete impunity for the perpetrators of the crimes.
These purposes were fully achieved by the major war criminals. The Hitlerites committed crimes against the peaceful populations in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and in the Eastern occupied countries which, in their extent, in the cruelty of the methods applied, as well as in the cynicism and brutality of purpose of the organizers and perpetrators of the crimes, are without precedent in the history of the world.
I should like to submit evidence which characterizes the extent and the methods of these crimes of the German fascists. I should like to show exactly what Keitel’s order for the “pacification” of the occupied territories meant in the lives of the peaceful population.
The introduction of this regime of terror was the first sign of the arrival of the fascist authorities, whether military or civilian, in the territory of the U.S.S.R. or of other Eastern European countries. Moreover, this regime of terror was not exclusively confined to more savage forms of brutality. It also assumed the form of shameless outrages perpetrated against the honor and dignity of the victims of the German fascists. At the same time the terrorists primarily vented their misdeeds on the heads of such citizens whom they considered politically active and most capable of resisting them.
In confirmation of this fact I refer to a document which I have previously presented to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-6 (Document Number USSR-6), which is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on “Crimes Committed by the Germans in the Territory of the Lvov Region.” The Tribunal will find the passage to which I am referring on Page 58 of the document book, in the first column of the text, in the last paragraph. I begin the quotation:
“Even before the seizure of Lvov the Gestapo detachments had at their disposal, pursuant to an order by the German Government, lists of the most prominent representatives of the Intelligentsia doomed a priori to annihilation. Mass arrests and executions began immediately after the seizure of Lvov. The Gestapo arrested a member of the Union of Soviet Authors, an author of numerous literary works, Professor Thaddeus Boi-Dhelensky, a professor of the Medical Institute; Roman Renzky, the principal of the University; Vladimir Seradsky, Professor of Forensic Medicine; Roman Longchamp de Berrier, Doctor of Juridical Science, together with his three sons, Professor Thaddeus Ostrovsky, Professor Jan Grek, and Professor of Surgery Heinrich Gilyarovich. . . .”
There follows a long list containing 31 names of outstanding intellectuals of the city of Lvov. I omit the enumeration of their names and continue quoting from the next paragraph:
“Groer, a professor of the Medical Institute at Lvov, who fortuitously escaped death, has told the Commission what follows:
“ ‘When I was arrested at midnight of 3 July 1941 and placed in a truck, I met Professors Grek, Boi-Dhelensky, and others. We were taken to the hostel of the Abragamovitch Theological College. While we were led along the corridor the members of the Gestapo jeered at us, hitting us with rifle butts, pulling our hair, and hitting us over the head. . . . Later on I saw, from the hostel of the Abragamovitch Theological College, the Germans leading five professors under escort, four of whom were carrying the blood-bespattered body of the son of the famous surgeon Rouff, murdered by the Germans during his interrogation. Young Rouff, too, had been a specialist. The entire group of professors were taken under escort to the Kadetsky Heights, and 15 to 20 minutes later I heard rifle fire from the direction in which the professors were taken.’ ”
In order to humiliate dignity, the Germans resorted to the most refined methods of torture and then shot their victims. Goldsman, an inhabitant of Lvov, has testified before the special commission that he personally saw how, in July 1941:
“Twenty people, including four professors, lawyers, and physicians, were brought by the SS into the courtyard of House Number 8, on Artishevsky Street. One of them I know by name, Doctor of Juridical Science Krebs. Among them were five or six women. The SS forced them to wash the stairs leading from the seven entrances to the four-story house, with their tongues and lips. After those stairways were washed, the same people were forced to collect garbage in the courtyard with their lips. All garbage had to be transferred to one place in the courtyard. . . .”
I omit the end of this paragraph and continue from the next paragraph:
“The fascist invaders carefully concealed the extermination of the intelligentsia. To repeated requests of relatives and friends concerning the fate of these men of science, the Germans replied, ‘Nothing is known.’
“In the autumn of 1943, on the order of Reich Minister Himmler, the Gestapo men burned the bodies of the murdered professors. Mandel and Korn, former internees of the Yanovsky Camp, who dealt with the exhumation of the bodies, have told the Commission the following:
“ ‘During the night of 5 October 1943, acting on orders from the Gestapo, we opened a pit between Kadetskaya and Bouletskaya streets by the light of searchlights and took from it 35 bodies. We burned all these corpses.
“ ‘While lifting the corpses from the pit we found the documents of Professor Ostrovsky, of Otoshek, Doctor of Natural Science, and of Kasimir Bartel, Professor of the Polytechnical Institute.’
“The investigation established that during the first few months of the occupation the Germans arrested or killed more than 70 of the most prominent scientists, technologists, and artists in the city of Lvov.”
What I have just said does not in any way infer that the leaders of local organizations and representatives of the intelligentsia alone were victims of the fascist terror. I only wanted to make it clear that the fascist terror was directed in the first instance against these people.
But one of the characteristic features of Hitlerite terrorism was the fact that it was decreed by the German fascist leaders and materialized by the executioners as a general reign of terror.
To confirm this I refer to a document previously submitted to the Tribunal but not read into the record. It is Document Number USSR-63, which is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission for the investigation of German atrocities in the town of Kerch.
Kerch is a comparatively small town. It is separated from Lvov by many hundred of kilometers. Although the German invaders arrived in Lvov in the beginning of July 1941, they only reached Kerch in November. In January 1942 they had already been driven out by Red Army units.
Thus, the entire period of the first occupation of the city of Kerch—the city of Kerch has been occupied two times—by the Germans was short-lived and did not last more than 2 months. But here are the crimes perpetrated by the German fascists in this town. I begin the quotation. The Tribunal will find the passage in question on Page 227 of the document book, Column 2, Paragraph 5:
“After capturing the city in November 1941, the Hitlerites immediately issued an order to the following effect:
“The inhabitants of Kerch are ordered to deliver all family food stocks to the German Kommandos. Owners of undelivered and detected supplies will be shot.
“By the next order, Number 2, the town council ordered the inhabitants to register immediately all hens, roosters, ducks, chickens, turkeys, geese, sheep, cows, calves, and cattle. Poultry owners were strictly prohibited from using fowl and cattle for their own needs without special permission of the German commandant. After the publication of these orders a wholesale search of all apartments and houses began.
“The members of the Gestapo behaved outrageously. For each kilogram of beans or flour discovered in excess, the head of the family was shot.
“The Germans initiated their monstrous atrocities by poisoning 245 children of school age.”
Later on you will see the small bodies of these children in our documentary film. The infants’ bodies were thrown into the city moat.
“According to instructions issued by the German commandant, all the school children were ordered to appear at the school at a given time. On arrival, the 245 children, school books in hand, were sent to a factory school outside the town, allegedly for a walk. There the cold and hungry infants were offered coffee and poisoned pies. Since there was not enough coffee to go round, those who did not get any were sent to the infirmary where a German orderly smeared their lips with a quick-acting poison. In a few minutes all the children were dead. School children of the higher grades were carried off in trucks and shot down by machine gun fire 8 kilometers outside of the town. The bodies of the first batch of murdered children were brought to the same spot—a very large, very long, antitank trench.”
I continue the quotation:
“On the evening of 28 November 1941 an order, Number 4, of the Gestapo was posted in the town. In compliance with this order the inhabitants who had been previously registered with the Gestapo were to present themselves on 29 November between 0800 and 1200 hours at the Sennaya Square, with a 3 days’ supply of food. All the men and women were to appear, regardless of their age or state of health. Those who did not present themselves were threatened with public execution. Those who arrived at the square on 29 November were persuaded that they had been summoned in order to be sent to work. At noon over 7,000 people assembled in the square. There were young boys, young girls, children of all ages, very old men, and pregnant women. All were transferred to the city prison by the men of the Gestapo. This monstrous extermination of the peaceful population in the prison was carried out by the Germans according to a previously formulated plan of the Gestapo. First of all, the prisoners were asked to hand over the keys of their apartments and to give their exact addresses to the prison commandant. Then all the valuables were taken from the arrested people, including watches, rings, and ornaments. In spite of the cold, boots, felt-boots, shoes, costumes, and coats were removed from all the persons incarcerated. Many women and girls in their teens were separated from the rest of the internees by the fascist blackguards and locked in separate cells, where the unfortunate creatures were subjected to particularly outrageous forms of torture. They were raped, their breasts cut off, their stomachs ripped open, their feet and hands cut off, and their eyes gouged out.
“After the Germans had been thrown out of Kerch, on 30 December 1941, Red Army soldiers discovered, in the prison yard, a formless mass of bodies of young girls, naked, mutilated, and unrecognizable, who had been savagely and cynically tortured to death by the fascists.
“As a site for the mass execution, the Hitlerites selected an antitank ditch near the village of Baguerovsko where for 3 days on end autobuses brought entire families which had been condemned to death.
“When the Red Army entered Kerch, in January 1942, the Baguerovsko trench was investigated. It was discovered that this trench—1 kilometer in length, 4 meters in width, and 2 meters in depth—was filled to overflowing with bodies of women, children, old men, and boys and girls in their teens. Near the trench were frozen pools of blood. Children’s caps, toys, ribbons, torn-off buttons, gloves, milk bottles, and rubber comforters, small shoes, galoshes, together with torn-off hands, feet, and other parts of human bodies were lying nearby. Everything was spattered with blood and brains.
“The fascist savages shot down the defenseless population with dum-dum bullets. Near the edge of the trench lay the mutilated body of a young woman. In her arms was a baby carefully wrapped up in a white lace cover. Next to this woman lay an 8-year-old girl and a boy of 5, killed with dum-dum bullets. Their hands still gripped the mother’s dress.”
The circumstances of the executions are confirmed by the statements of numerous witnesses who were lucky enough to escape unharmed from the open grave. I am going to quote two statements. Twenty-year-old Anatol Ignatievich Bondarenko, now a soldier in the Red Army, states:
“When we were brought up to the antitank trench and lined up alongside this fearful grave, we still believed that we had been fetched in order to fill in the trench with earth or to dig new ones. We did not think we had been brought there to be shot, but when we heard the first shots from the automatic guns trained on us, I realized we were about to be murdered. I immediately hurled myself into the trench and hid between two corpses. Thus, unharmed and half fainting, I lay nearly until the evening. While lying in the trench I heard several of the wounded call to the gendarmes shooting them, ‘Finish me off, blackguard!’ ‘You missed me, scoundrel! Shoot again!’ Then, when the Germans went off to dinner, an inhabitant of my village called out from the trench, ‘Get up, those of you who are still alive.’ I got up and the two of us began to drag out the living from underneath the corpses. I was covered with blood. A light mist hung over the trench—steam arising from the rapidly-congealing mass of dead bodies, from the pools of blood, and from the last breath of the dying. We dragged out Theodor Naoumenko and my father, but my father had been killed outright by a dum-dum bullet in the heart. Late at night I reached the house of some friends in the Village of Baguerovsko and stayed with them until the arrival of the Red Army.”
Witness A. Kamenev stated:
“The chauffeur stopped the car behind the airdrome, and we saw Germans shooting people near the trench. We were dragged out of the car and pushed toward the trench in batches of 10. My son and I were among the first 10. We reached the trench. We were lined up facing it, and the Germans began their preparations to shoot us in the nape of the neck. My son turned to them and shouted, ‘Why are you shooting the peaceful population?’ But the shots rang out and my son instantly jumped into the trench. I threw myself in after him. Dead bodies began to fall upon me in the trench. About 3 p.m. an 11-year-old boy stood up from among the pile of corpses and began to call, ‘Little fathers, those of you who are still alive, get up. The Germans have gone.’ I was afraid to do so, since I thought that the boy was shouting by order of the policeman. The boy called out a second time, and then my son answered him. He stood up and asked, ‘Dad, are you alive?’ I could not say anything and merely nodded. My son and the other boy dragged me out from under the bodies. We saw some others who were still alive and who were shouting, ‘Help us.’ Some were wounded. All the time, while I had been lying in the trench, under the bodies of the dead, I could hear the shrieks and wails of the women and children. The Germans had started shooting old men, women, and children after shooting us.”
I interrupt the quotation here. Although the subsequent text does deal with many other appalling atrocities committed by the Germans, it is, in substance, analogous to the passages which I have already read into the record, relating to crimes perpetrated by the Germans in the town of Kerch. I would, however, invite the Tribunal’s attention to the part referring to the ill-treatment of children. On the whole, these crimes are highly characteristic of the German fascist terror. I quote:
“The German barbarians, in their atrocious ill-treatment of the Soviet people, did not even spare the children. A school teacher, M. N. Kolessnikova, stated that the Germans killed a 13-year-old boy for taking an old car tire and trying to swim in it while bathing in the sea.
“The following incident happened, according to the testimony of E. N. Sapelnikova:
“Maria Bondarenko, who lived in the village of Adjimushkaya, in an attempt to save her three children from starvation, appealed to some Germans working in the kitchen, for a little food. They poured some thin gruel into a small bowl. The Bondarenko family ate it greedily. A few hours later the mother and all three children were dead. The fascist henchmen had poisoned them.
“It has been ascertained from the testimony of N. H. Shoumilova that in July a German officer shot a 6-year-old boy merely because he was singing a Soviet song in the streets of the town.
“Practically all summer long the dead body of a 9-year-old boy dangled in the ‘Sacco and Vanzetti’ garden; the child had been hanged for plucking some apricots from a tree.”
Here I end my quotation from the report on the town of Kerch.
In my statement I have dwelt on the example of Kerch not because the atrocities committed by the Hitlerites in this town were on a particularly large scale or because they stood out, by reason of their cruelty, among the other crimes perpetrated by the Germans—the documents relevant to these latter crimes are at our disposal. Certainly not. On the contrary, I have quoted the report of the Extraordinary State Commission only because it gives a detailed and objective record of Hitlerite military crimes committed against peaceful citizens of one of the many towns which, as a result of a monstrous war unleashed by the German fascist criminals, were doomed to become the victims of a terrorist regime. Such atrocities were perpetrated by the Hitlerites in all the temporarily occupied cities of the Soviet Union.
In confirmation of this statement I now turn to a document of a general nature, which has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-51 (Document Number USSR-51) but parts of which have not yet been read into the record. I am referring to the note of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, V. M. Molotov, of 27 April 1942. In their introduction to this note, the Soviet Government made the following statement—I start my quotation from Paragraph 2 of the reverse side of the Russian text, Paragraph 3 after the heading of the document book. There you will find the following remarks:
“Fresh information and documents are being submitted to the Soviet Government to the effect that the Hitlerite invaders are carrying on a wholesale looting of the Soviet population and do not shrink from any crimes and acts of cruelty or violence on the territories which they temporarily occupied or which they still continue to occupy. The Soviet Government have already declared that these atrocities do not represent accidental excesses perpetrated by single undisciplined military units or by individual German officers or men. The Soviet Government are now in possession of documents recently seized in the staffs of routed German formations, which prove that the carnage and atrocities committed by the fascist German Army were perpetrated in accordance with carefully elaborated plans issued by the German Government, in pursuance of orders from the German High Command.”
I omit the subsequent parts and continue with Section V of the note. The Tribunal will find the passage which I am about to quote on Page 8 of the document book, Column 1 of the text, Paragraph 5.
I should like to add a few introductory words to the quotation. It is quite evident from the text of this note how the orders of the Reich leadership concerning the establishment of a regime of terror were executed, in the occupied territories, by the various commissioners of the occupied territories, by the Gauleiter, and by the commanders of German military units. I quote the beginning of Section V of this note—Page 8 of your document book, Column 1, Paragraph 5:
“The inhuman cruelty which the Hitlerite clique—begotten in violence and against the will of the German people—displayed against the inhabitants of the European countries temporarily occupied by the German Army was multiplied a hundredfold by the enemy forces after their invasion of the Soviet Union.
“The carnage to which the Hitlerites exposed the peaceful population of the Soviet Union has far overshadowed the most bloodstained pages of the annals of mankind, as well as of the current world war, and fully reveals the bloodthirsty and criminal plans of the fascists, aimed at the extermination of the Russian, Ukrainian, Bielorussian, and other nationals of the Soviet Union.
“These monstrous fascist plans inspired the orders and instructions of the German High Command for the extermination of the peaceful Soviet citizens.
“Thus, for instance, the instructions of the German Supreme Command, entitled, ‘Treatment of the Civilian Population and of Enemy Prisoners of War,’ reads to the effect that officers are responsible that the treatment of the civilian population be absolutely merciless, and commands that ‘force be used against the entire mass of the population.’ The instructions issued by the German High Command as a directive for the occupational authorities on Bielorussian territory read as follows:
“ ‘All hostile behavior on the part of the population toward the German Armed Forces and their organizations will be punished by death. Whosoever shelters Red Army soldiers or partisans will be punished by death. If the partisan cannot be found, hostages must be taken from among the population.’ ”
THE PRESIDENT: What is the exhibit number of what you are reading now? What is the U.S.S.R. number of what you are reading now?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: This document was submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-51. It is one of the notes of the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Molotov, dated 27 April 1942. All together, four notes have been submitted to the Tribunal under this number. The beginning of the note which I am now quoting is on Page 4 of your document book. The quotation which I am now reading into the record is on Page 8 of your document book.
THE PRESIDENT: It is thought that this is part of the document you read yesterday. Are you sure that it is not?
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: No, Mr. President. Yesterday I read into the record a note dated 6 January 1942, and the note which I am quoting now is dated 27 April.
Have I your permission to continue?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: “ ‘These hostages must be hanged if the guilty parties or their accomplices are not found within 24 hours. During the following 24 hours, double the number of hostages will be hanged on the same spot.’
“Point 7 of Order Number 431/41 of the German commandant of the town of Feodosia, Captain Eberhard, states:
“ ‘During an alarm every citizen appearing on the street must be shot. Groups of citizens who appear must be surrounded and mercilessly shot. Leaders and inciters are to be publicly hanged.’
“In a directive addressed to the 260th German Infantry Division, concerning the treatment of the civilian population, it is pointed out to the individual officers that ‘sufficient severity is not being applied everywhere.’
“Orders posted by the occupants in the Soviet towns and villages announce the death penalty for the most varied reasons: For being on the streets after 1700 hours; for offering lodging for the night to strangers; for not handing over Red Army soldiers to the authorities; for failing to hand over property; for attempting to put out a fire in an inhabited spot intended to be burned down; for travelling from one inhabited spot to another; for refusing to do forced labor; and so on.”
I continue this quotation on Page 8, reverse side of the second column of the text, Paragraph 2:
“The German fascist High Command not only tolerates but actually orders the murder of women and children. Organized infanticide in some of the orders is presented as a means for fighting the partisan movement. Thus, an order of the commander of the 254th German Division, Lieutenant General Von Beschnitz, dated 2 December 1941, considers the fact that ‘old people, women, and children of all ages’ move about behind the German lines as proof of ‘careless good nature,’ and orders the shooting without warning of ‘every civilian person regardless of age or sex approaching our front lines.’ It also orders that the ‘mayors be made responsible for reporting immediately the appearance of any unknown persons, and especially of children, to the local Kommandantur’ and to ‘shoot immediately any person suspected of espionage.’ ”
Some data regarding the directives received from the Reich authorities by the fascist authorities in the temporarily occupied territories are also contained in the note. I quote from Page 9 of your document book, Paragraph 3, Column 1 of the text:
“Some of the crimes of the German occupiers committed by them during the very first weeks of their piratical attack on the U.S.S.R., and their savage extermination of the civilian population of Bielorussia, the Ukraine, and the Baltic Soviet republics, have only now been documentarily established. Thus, when units of the Red Army in the district of the town of Toropetz, in January 1942, smashed a German SS cavalry brigade, among the documents captured was found a report of the 1st Cavalry Regiment of this brigade concerning the ‘pacification’ by this unit of the Starobinsk district in Bielorussia. The commander of the regiment reports that besides taking 239 prisoners a detachment of his regiment has also shot 6,504 peaceful civilians. The report further states that the detachment acted in pursuance of Order Number 42 issued to the regiment, dated 27 July 1941. The commander of the 2d Regiment of this brigade, Von Magill, states, in his ‘Report Concerning the Execution of Repressive Operations on the River Pripet between 27 July and 11 August 1941,’ the following:
“ ‘We drove the women and children into the swamp, but that did not produce the desired result, since the swamp was not deep enough for them to drown. One can usually feel bottom (possibly sand) at a depth of 1 meter.’
“In the same headquarters a telegram, Number 37, was found, sent by the commander of the SS Cavalry Brigade.”
THE PRESIDENT: Shall we adjourn now for 10 minutes?
[A recess was taken.]
MARSHAL: May it please the Court, regarding the Defendant Hess, he will be absent until further notice on account of illness.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I continue the quotation:
“In the same headquarters there was discovered a telegram, Number 37, from the commander of the Cavalry Brigade, an SS-Standartenführer, to a cavalry unit of the above-mentioned 2d Cavalry Regiment, dated 2 August 1941. It mentioned that the Reichsführer of the SS and the Police, Himmler, considers the number of the exterminated peaceful civilians far too insignificant; and it points out that ‘it is necessary to take radical measures’ and ‘the unit commanders conduct the operations too mildly.’ He also orders to report every day on the number of people shot.”
In this connection we cannot abstain from mentioning the criminal activities of the Defendant Rosenberg in carrying out the general instructions of the Reich leadership for establishing a regime of terror in the Occupied Eastern Territories or rather, if we wish to be more accurate, for issuing, in his capacity as chief author of these instructions, a series of laws in Ostland—this, as we know, was the name given to the occupied regions of the Baltic States—while similar orders and instructions of a terroristic nature were also issued by high-ranking officials of the fascist administration set up by Rosenberg.
I submit to the Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-39 (Document Number USSR-39), the report of the Extraordinary Commission on the atrocities of the German fascist invaders in the territory of the Estonian S.S.R. I quote an excerpt which Your Honors will find on Page 232 of the document book in the first column of the text, Paragraph 3. It begins as follows:
“On 17 July 1941 Hitler issued a decree turning over the legislative powers of the territory of Estonia to Reich Minister Rosenberg, who later turned over this legislative power to the German district authorities.
“Despotism was introduced into Estonia and the peaceful population subjected to brutal terrorism. Reich Minister Rosenberg, the Reich Commissioner for the Baltic regions, Lose, and the Commissioner General of Estonia, Litzmann, completely deprived the Estonian people of all political rights. On the basis of Hitler’s decree of 17 July 1941, Reich Minister Rosenberg promulgated, on 17 February 1942, a special law for people of non-Germanic nationality, providing capital punishment for the slightest resistance against Germanization and for any act of violence against people of German nationality.
“For workers and employees of Estonian origin the occupants introduced corporal punishment. On 20 February 1942 an official of the railroad administration in Riga, Walk, sent the following telegram to the administration of the Estonian railroads:
“ ‘Every violation of discipline on the part of a native employee, especially absenteeism, being late for work, coming drunk to work, disobeying orders, and so forth, shall from now on be punished with the utmost severity: (a) For the first offense, 15 strokes with a lash on the bare body; (b) if the offense is repeated, 20 strokes with a lash on the bare body.’
“On 12 January 1942 Reich Minister Rosenberg established ‘special courts,’ consisting of a police officer, as president, and two subordinate policemen. The procedural rules were determined by this court at its own discretion. These ‘courts’ pronounced death sentences with confiscation of property. No other penalty was ever decreed. No appeal against the sentences was admitted. In addition to the ‘courts’ established by Rosenberg, death sentences were pronounced by the German political police, and these sentences were carried out on the very same day.
“For the examination of criminal and civilian cases, Commissioner General Litzmann introduced local courts. Judges, prosecutors, investigating magistrates, notary publics [notaries public], and lawyers—all, without exception, were personally appointed by Litzmann.”
I end the quotation.
I further submit to the Tribunal, as our Exhibit Number USSR-18 (Document Number USSR-18), a photostat of a plain-spoken terroristic order of the German military authorities, and I beg Your Honors to accept this document as a relevant part of the evidence. This is an order of the German town commander of the city of Pskov. The Tribunal will find the text of this order on Page 235 of the document book. It is evident from this document that the peaceful civilian population was even forbidden to appear on the highways of their own locality. Any peaceful citizens seen there by the German soldiers were to be shot. I quote the text of the document, beginning with Paragraph 3:
“Therefore, I order:
“1. All members of the civilian population, regardless of age or sex, seen on or in the vicinity of railroad tracks are to be considered as bandits and shot as such. Excepted, of course, are the labor units under guard.
“2. All people mentioned in the first paragraph who cross the fields are to be shot.
“3. All persons mentioned in Paragraph 1 who are found on the roads at night or at dawn are to be shot.
“4. Persons mentioned in Paragraph 1, if found on the roads during the daytime, are subject to arrest and the most detailed examination.”
Such were the terroristic decrees and orders based upon the so-called Leadership Principle that were issued by high-ranking officials and representatives of the military authorities of the fascist German Government. But the right of relentless reprisals against the peaceful populations was not confined to them only; any local Kommandantur, any commander of a small unit, and, finally, any soldier of Hitler’s army acquired the right of reprisal against the peaceful population of the occupied regions.
I shall now submit to the Tribunal several documents which will reveal how the Hitlerite criminals invariably made the most of this right, introducing into the crimes perpetrated against the Soviet people the cruel devices of base and evil creatures who had been granted the right of mocking and murdering with impunity. I submit to the Tribunal, as Exhibit Number USSR-9 (Document Number USSR-9), a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the atrocities perpetrated by the German fascist occupiers in the city of Kiev. The Tribunal will find the passage in question on Page 238 of the document file, Paragraph 5 of Column 1 of the text. I quote:
“The German executioners, from the very first days of their occupation of Kiev, carried out a wholesale slaughter of the population by torture, shooting, hanging, and poisoning by gas in the murder vans. People were seized in the streets and shot either in large batches or singly. Announcements of the shootings were posted in order to intimidate the population.”
I shall interrupt my quotation at this point, and I ask the Tribunal to accept in evidence photostats of several of these posters. Partial mention has already been made of them in the report of the Extraordinary State Commission. From among their number, I would request the Tribunal to accept in evidence the photostat of one such poster, which I submit as Exhibit Number USSR-290 (Document Number USSR-290). The text reads as follows—I ask the Tribunal to excuse me if the translation is, perhaps, slightly incorrect, since the original text is in Ukrainian. I am a Russian, I understand the meaning of the Ukrainian text, but the translation might possibly not be quite correct in every detail. A translation will be made. Here is the text:
“As a reprisal for an act of sabotage, 100 inhabitants of the city of Kiev were shot this day. Let this be a warning.
“Every inhabitant of Kiev is co-responsible for every act of sabotage.
“Kiev, 22 October 1941; The Town Commandant.”
Under Exhibit Number USSR-291 (Document Number USSR-291)—the Tribunal will find the text on Page 243 of the document book—I submit a photostat of the following poster, signed by the commandant of the city of Kiev. I quote the text:
“Means of communication—telephone and telegraph wires—have been damaged in Kiev. Since the saboteurs could not be found, 400 men have been shot in the city.
“This should serve as a warning to the population, and once again I demand that all suspects be immediately reported to the German troops or the German police in order that the criminals may be adequately punished.
“Signed: Eberhard, Major General and City Commandant, Kiev; 29 November 1941.”
As Exhibit Number USSR-333 (Document Number USSR-333), I submit a photostat of the third and last poster in Kiev. The Tribunal will find the text of this poster on Page 242 of the document book at the disposal of the Tribunal. I quote:
“Repeated cases of arson and sabotage in Kiev force me to resort to extreme measures. Consequently, 300 inhabitants of Kiev will be shot today. For every new case of arson or sabotage, several times this number will be shot. Every inhabitant of Kiev is obliged to report any suspects to the German police. I shall maintain order and calm in Kiev by all measures at my disposal and under any circumstances.
“Kiev, 2 November 1941; Eberhard, Major General and City Commandant.”
I refer to another document which has not even been partially read into the record. I refer to Exhibit Number USSR-63 (Document Number USSR-63) of the Commissar of the Djerjinski District Council of the city of Stalingrad. I invite the Tribunal’s attention to the fact that this official act, which was drawn up by the members of the local Soviet authorities and the community of the Djerjinski District of Stalingrad, was approved by the Extraordinary State Commission under the signature of a member of the commission, Academician Trainin, and of other persons. The members of the Tribunal will find the act in question on Page 222 of the document book, Column 1 of the text.
I shall begin the quotation of the report of the commission, which investigated the territory of the Djerjinski District of Stalingrad after the rout of the Germans at Stalingrad. This report contains information regarding the announcements posted in the streets of Stalingrad by the German Kommandantur and concerning the results of these posters. I begin my quotation on Page 222 of the document book in the possession of the members of the Tribunal, in Column 1 of the text, last paragraph:
“. . . the military Kommandantur sowed death everywhere. It posted announcements in the streets, threatening death by shooting at every step. For instance, the following announcement was posted up in Aral Street: ‘Death to him who passes here.’ On the corner of Nevskaya and Medveditzkaya Streets: ‘Right of way forbidden to Russians; for violation of this order—death.’
“As a matter of fact, the Germans shot the citizens at every step: Hundreds of graves along the streets of the Djerjinski District of the city of Stalingrad bear witness to the shooting. The bodies of those who were tortured, shot, or hanged in the Kommandantur proper were at first thrown into a pit near the building of the Kommandantur. After the invaders had been thrown out, there were found 31 corpses in this pit. When the pit was full, the corpses were brought to the cemetery 2 kilometers away from the Kommandantur. At the cemetery there was another pit, 6 meters deep, 40 meters long, and 12 meters wide.
“After the invaders had been thrown out, 516 corpses of Soviet citizens were found in this grave, including the bodies of 50 children who had been tortured to death, shot, or hanged in the building of the Kommandantur and in other places. An examination of the bodies on 25 March 1943 established that the Hitlerites had savagely tortured the Soviet people before murdering them. In addition to the bodies of the children, the corpses of 323 women, 69 old men, and 74 younger men were discovered. One hundred and forty-one corpses bore traces of wounds inflicted by firearms in the head and on the chests; 92 corpses had marks on their necks which showed that they had been hanged. All the other bodies were mutilated and bore traces of torture. One hundred and thirty victims, women and girls, had their arms twisted behind their backs and tied with wire, and 18 of the corpses had their breasts cut off, some had their ears, fingers, and toes chopped off, and the majority showed traces of burns on their bodies.
“An examination of these corpses revealed that 21 women died of torture and wounds and that the remainder had been first tortured and then shot.
“Even the corpses of children were mutilated. Some had their small fingers cut off, their buttocks chopped up, their eyes gouged out.”
I now cease to quote from this document, and, in compliance with the wishes of the Tribunal to the effect that not details but instances testifying to some new data in the system of the Hitler terror be reported, I omit three pages of the report and turn to the following section on the presentation of evidence: “On Tortures Inflicted by the Hitlerites in the Course of Interrogation.”
In general, tortures were officially provided for and sanctioned by the Hitlerites. I present to the Tribunal, as Exhibit Number USSR-11 (Document Number USSR-11), one of the documents testifying to the fact that tortures were sanctioned officially. This document is an official guide for concentration camps, “The Concentration Camp Statutes,” published in Berlin in 1941. You will find the excerpt I am quoting on Page 244 of the document book in your possession. Section 3 of the instructions, for instance, entitled, “Corporal Punishment,” states:
“Between 5 and 25 strokes are permitted on the loins and buttocks. The number of strokes is to be determined by the camp commandant and is to be entered in the corresponding space in the directives governing punishment.”
I should have liked to refer to one more document, but, as it already has been presented to the Tribunal, in compliance with the Tribunal’s instructions, I will omit this document—it was presented as Document L-89—and continue.
Official formulas to be used in “especially severe interrogations” or, rather, interrogations with application of torture, were issued by the corresponding German police departments. I submit it to the Tribunal and would request them to accept in evidence an original formula of such an “especially severe interrogation.” I submit it as Exhibit Number USSR-254 (Document Number USSR-254). It represents an appendix to the report of the Yugoslav Government. This form, as is evident from the certificate attached to it, was seized from the German archives by units of the Yugoslav Army. I shall not describe this form in my own words but shall quote the report of the Yugoslav Government on Page 21 of the document, from the last paragraph at the bottom of the page. The Tribunal will find this passage on Page 256 of the document book, in the last paragraph. I begin the quotation:
“In order to give a clearer description of the savage cruelty in carrying out this plan of extermination, we submit to the Tribunal another original document which was seized in the German archives in Yugoslavia. It is a blank form for the so-called ‘especially severe interrogations’ of the victims of the Nazi criminals. Such interrogations were conducted in Slovenia by the Security Police and the SD.
“On the first page of the form the police office suggests submitting one particular person to an ‘especially severe interrogation.’ On the second page the competent officer of the SS agrees to such an interrogation. The answer to the question—what this special ‘severe interrogation’ consisted of—is found in the following instructions of this form:
“The especially severe interrogation should consist of. . . . Minutes of the interrogation should be kept. A doctor may (or may not) be asked to be present.
“The mention of the doctor and of his presence at the interrogation leaves no doubt at all that the person interrogated was to be physically tortured. The fact that printed instructions existed for these interrogations obviously suggests a wholesale resort to such criminal methods.”
The Reichsführer SS clearly foresaw cases of attempted suicide by persons under suspicion. The SS leader therefore not only permitted but even ordered the prisoners to be tied hand and foot or shackled in chains. I submit to the Tribunal, as Exhibit Number USSR-298 (Document Number USSR-298), a photostat of a directive of the Chief of the German Police, Number 202/43, of 1 June 1943. The document is certified by the Extraordinary State Commission, and I quote the text of the document. The document is dated 1 June 1943. I quote only the text:
“Subject: Prevention of Escape during Interrogations.
“In order to prevent escape during interrogations in all cases where, owing to circumstances or the importance of the prisoner, there exists an increased possibility of escape or of an attempt to commit suicide, I order the hands and feet of the arrested person to be bound in such a way that escape is impossible. Rings and chains should be used if available.”
I have not submitted the official directives of the German central police authorities to the Tribunal merely to prove that the German officials provided for the application of torture and torment during interrogations. This fact is well known and calls for no special evidence. But I am submitting a document, in the possession of the Soviet Prosecution, which will show how far tortures to which arrested persons were subjected in the police cells exceeded even the instructions issued by the criminals and the officially sanctioned forms of torture.
I submit to the Tribunal Exhibit Number USSR-1 (Document Number USSR-1), which is a report of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes of the German fascist aggressors in the region of Stavropol. The investigation of these crimes was conducted under the leadership of the eminent academician and Russian author, the late Alexei Nikolaievitch Tolstoy. The Tribunal will find this document on Page 272 of the document book. I begin my quotation from the first paragraph. Academician A. N. Tolstoy, as the Tribunal will doubtless remember, was a member of the Extraordinary State Commission. I begin the quotation:
“Tortures and torments, exceptional in their cruelty, were applied to the Soviet citizens on the premises of the Gestapo. Thus, for instance, Citizen Phillip Akimovitch Kovalchuk, born in 1891 and an inhabitant of the town of Pyatigorsk, was arrested on 27 October 1942 in his own apartment, beaten unconscious, taken to the Gestapo, and thrown into one of the cells. Twenty-four hours later the Gestapo began to torture him; he was interrogated and beaten at night only. For the interrogation he was put in a separate torture chamber equipped with special devices for torture, such as chains with handcuffs for shackling both hands and feet. These chains were fastened to the cement floor of the chamber. To begin with, the prisoners were stripped to the skin and laid on the floor. Then their hands and feet were shackled. Citizen Kovalchuk was subjected to this form of torture. When in chains, he was completely unable to move. He lay on his stomach and in this position was lashed with rubber truncheons for 16 days.
“Apart from these inhuman forms of torture, the Gestapo also resorted to the following: A wide board was placed on the back of the shackled prisoner, and blows were struck on this board with heavy dumbbells. As a result of these blows, the prisoner bled from the nose, mouth, and ears and lost consciousness.
“The torture chamber of the Gestapo was so constructed that while one prisoner was being tortured the prisoners awaiting their turn in the neighboring cell could watch the torture and ill-treatment.
“After the torture, the unconscious prisoner would be thrown on one side, while the next victim of the Gestapo would be forcibly dragged in from the neighboring cell, shackled, and tortured in the same fashion.
“The torture chambers were always covered with blood. The board placed on the back of the prisoners was also soaked in it. The rubber cudgels used for beating the prisoners were red with blood.
“The arrested Soviet people, doomed to be shot after unspeakable torture and beatings, were dragged into trucks, driven out of town, and there shot.”
I omit two paragraphs and continue my quotation:
“Witness Barbara Ivanovna Tchaika, born in 1912, domiciled in Number 31, Djerjinskaya Street (Apartment Number 3), states that during her incarceration in the prison of the Gestapo she had been subjected to incredible torture by the Chief of the Gestapo, Captain Wintz. Witness B. I. Tchaika said on this subject:
“ ‘I was subjected to ill-treatment and torture by the Chief of the Gestapo, the German, Captain Wintz. He summoned me to the torture chamber once for an interrogation. There were four tables in the cell, wooden grills on the floor, and two basins of water in which leather thongs had been placed. Two rings were attached to the ceiling, with ropes drawn through them, from which the prisoners were suspended during the time of their torment. By order of Captain Wintz I was laid on the table by the Gestapo men, stripped, and beaten severely with leather thongs. I was beaten twice. In all I received 75 strokes of the lash; my kidneys were almost torn out and I lost eight of my teeth.’ ”
What occurred in the torture chambers of Stavropol was no exception at all. The same misdeeds were perpetrated everywhere. In confirmation I will refer to the report of the Extraordinary State Commission regarding the depredations and atrocities committed by the German fascist aggressors in the city of Kiev. That is Exhibit USSR-9 (Document Number USSR-9). The Tribunal will find this document on Page 238 of the document book, Paragraph 2 from the top, Column 2. I begin the quotation:
“Murders were often preceded by sadistic torture. The Archimandrite Valerian testified that the fascists beat sick and feeble people till they were half-dead, poured water over them when the temperature was below zero, and finally shot them in the torture chamber of the German police, established in the Kievo-Petchersk Abbey.”
I invite the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the Kievo-Petchersk Abbey is one of the most ancient architectural monuments in the Soviet Union. It is a specially cherished cultural treasure, very dear to the heart of the Soviet citizens as a tangible memory of the far distant past. The torture chamber of the police had been purposely established in the Abbey. The Tribunal will learn of its eventual fate from the subsequent reports of my colleagues.
When the city of Odessa was under the rule of the fascist invaders, interrogations were accompanied by tortures of an exceptionally cruel nature. I refer to a testimony contained in the report of the Extraordinary State Commission, entitled, “On the Atrocities Committed by the German and Romanian Invaders in the City of Odessa and in the Territory of the Odessa Regions.”
I submit this document to the Tribunal as Exhibit Number USSR-47 (Document Number USSR-47) and request that it be accepted as irrefutable evidence in accordance with Article 21 of the Charter. I shall quote this document, which is on Page 282 of your document book, Paragraph 4, Line 10. It contains the testimony of Paul Krapyvny, producer of news reels. I quote this passage from the report of the Extraordinary State Commission, Page 282:
“The interrogator had a voltage control switch on the table, and whenever the person interrogated did not answer the question as the examiner wished, the dial of the voltage control would be mercilessly turned to increase the voltage; the body of the person interrogated would begin to tremble and his eyes to protrude from their sockets.
“The person interrogated, with his hands tied behind his back, would be hoisted up to the ceiling . . . where he would be spun round and round. After having been rotated 200 times in one direction, the victim, still suspended on the cord, would begin to turn at an insane speed in the opposite direction. At that particular moment the executioners would beat him on both sides with rubber truncheons. The man became unconscious both from the insane speed of the rotation and from the beating.”
I refer to the document already presented by my colleague, Colonel Pokrovsky, Exhibit Number USSR-41 (Document Number USSR-41), which is a communication of the Extraordinary State Commission on the crimes committed by the German fascist invaders in the territory of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. I shall quote from this document, beginning on Page 286 on the reverse side of the document book, Paragraph 2, Column 2 of the text. I begin the quotation:
“In the camps and prisons the German executioners subjected prisoners to ill-treatment, torture, and shooting. In the central prison the internees were beaten and tortured. Day and night shrieks and groans were heard in the torture chambers. Every day from 30 to 35 people died as a result of the tortures. Whoever survived the ill-treatment and torture would return to his cell absolutely unrecognizable, burned to the bone, with parts of his body torn to pieces. No medical aid was given to the tortured.”
The Hitlerites subjected Soviet citizens to ill-treatment and torture in every town of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Your Honors will find analogous statements in the text of every communication of the Extraordinary State Commission. I shall not delay the Tribunal by quoting any further excerpts, I consider the evidence already presented as sufficient.
I shall now proceed to the next section of my report: murder of hostages.
I shall make a few introductory remarks.
One of the most shameful crimes perpetrated by the Hitlerites in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia was the use everywhere by the German fascists of the bestial system of taking hostages. This system was introduced by the Hitlerites into all the countries that fell as victims of their aggression. The German criminals resorted to particularly ruthless methods when murdering hostages in Eastern Europe. In introducing the hostage-seizing system the Hitlerites violated every law and custom of warfare.
However, it is difficult to speak of the murder of hostages where the Soviet Union is concerned, since the crimes committed by the Hitlerites everywhere in the temporarily occupied territories of the U.S.S.R. go beyond even this criminal practice of taking hostages. To a great extent the same remarks apply to Poland and particularly to Yugoslavia. Here the Hitlerites, under the pretext of the hostage-seizing system, were really perpetrating immeasurably greater war crimes, whose ultimate aim was the extermination of entire nations.
I shall now present some brief data from documents concerning the different countries of Eastern Europe.
I submit an extract from the report of the Government of the Polish Republic. The Tribunal will find the passage quoted on Page 128 of the document book, Paragraph 6. I begin the quotation:
“a) One of the most disgraceful features of the Hitlerite occupation of Poland was the introduction of the hostage-seizing system. Collective responsibility, payment of collective fines, and the bartering of human life were considered to be the best methods for enslaving the Polish people.
“b) Here are some typical cases of mass reprisals; they illustrate the methods employed by the German occupants.
“c) In November 1939 an unknown person set fire to a barn filled with grain on the outskirts of Nove Miasto Lubavske. The barn was the property of a German. As a result of this action, a certain SS-Standartenführer, Sperling, received an order from the higher authorities to resort to reprisals. A number of Poles from among the most prominent citizens were arrested. Out of those, 15 were selected and publicly shot by SS soldiers. Among the victims were the two brothers Jankovsky, one a lawyer, the other a priest, the tailor Malkovsky, the blacksmith Zemny, Major of the Army Reserve Vona, the son of an innkeeper, the publisher of a newspaper, and a priest, Bronislav Dembenovsky.
“d) In October 1939 the German authorities captured a certain number of Poles in the city of Inovrozlav and imprisoned them as hostages. They were brought to the prison courtyard, where they were unmercifully flogged and shot, one by one. Altogether, 70 men were killed, including the city mayor and his deputy. Among the victims were the most prominent citizens of the town.”
I omit the next sentence. I quote further:
“e) On 7 March 1941 the film star, Igo Sym, who considered himself as being of German nationality and who was in charge of the German theaters in Warsaw, was murdered in his own apartment. Although the murderers were never found, the Governor of Warsaw, Fischer, said that Sym was murdered by the Poles and ordered the arrest of a large number of hostages. He also closed the theaters and imposed a curfew on the Polish population. The hostages were taken in order to secure the arrest of the murderers. About 200 people were arrested, including teachers, priests, physicians, lawyers, and actors. The population of Warsaw was given 3 days to find Sym’s murderers. After the expiration of the 3 days, the killers still remaining unknown, 17 hostages were executed, among them Professor Kopetz, his son, and Professor Zakrzhevsky.”
I conclude this quotation from the report of the Polish Government and ask the Tribunal’s permission to refer to a short excerpt from the report of the Czechoslovakian Government. There is one part I would like to read into the record. Your Honors will find it on Page 141 of the document book. I begin the quotation:
“Even before the beginning of the war, thousands of Czech patriots and especially Catholic and Protestant clergymen, lawyers, doctors, teachers, and so on, were arrested. Furthermore, in every district lists were drawn up of persons who were subject to arrest as hostages at the first sign of any breach of ‘public order and security.’ At first these were only threats. In 1940 Karl Frank announced, in a speech to the leaders of the Movement of National Unity, that 2,000 Czech hostages, interned in concentration camps, would be shot if prominent Czech statesmen refused to sign the declaration of loyalty. Sometime after the attempt on Heydrich’s life, many of these hostages were executed.
“Threats of reprisals against directors of factories in case of some hitch in the work at the factory were a typical method of Nazi terrorism. Thus, in 1939 the Gestapo summoned all the directors as well as the managers of warehouses belonging to various industrial firms and informed them that they would be shot in case of a strike. On leaving they had to sign the following declaration: I am aware of the fact that I would be shot immediately should my factory cease working without a justifiable reason.’
“In the same way, school teachers were held responsible for the loyal behavior of their pupils. Many teachers were arrested only because the pupils in their schools were caught writing anti-German slogans or reading forbidden books.”
I now interrupt the quotation from the report of the Government of the Czechoslovakian Republic, and I begin to read the section recording the killings of hostages in Yugoslavia.
I shall just say a few words by way of introduction. These criminal murders of the peaceful population developed on their own particular lines in Yugoslavia. As a matter of fact, it is impossible at this point to speak of the execution of hostages, although the Hitlerites constantly make use of this term in their official documents, which will be presented to the Tribunal at a later date.
Truth to tell, under the alleged killing of hostages, the Hitlerite criminals were realizing, on an enormous scale, the regime of terroristic extermination of the peaceful citizens not only for crimes which somebody or other had committed, but also for crimes which, to Hitler’s way of thinking, might be committed.
I submit the document that confirms this fact. It contains excerpts from the report of the Yugoslav Government, which Your Honors will find on Page 259 in the document book in their possession, Paragraph 1. I begin the quotation:
“The murder of hostages was one of those methods which were used by military authorities and the Reich Government on an incredible scale for the mass extermination of the Yugoslav population.
“The Yugoslav State Commission for the investigation of War Crimes has at its disposal an innumerable quantity of concrete details and original evidence taken from the German archives. We submit only a very limited number of such details and evidence, which are, however, sufficient proof that the killing of hostages was merely an item in the common plan in the systematic Nazi crime.”
Further, the report of the Yugoslav Government quotes an order of the commander of the so-called Group West, General Brauner. I quote the following excerpt:
“In regions captured by partisans, the seizure of hostages from all strata of the population remains in force as the only really successful means of intimidation.”
To confirm the vast scale of the crimes of the Hitlerites in connection with the murder of hostages, the Yugoslav Government presents to the Tribunal six documents, which I now submit to Your Honors, and I ask for them to be incorporated into the record as evidence. I submit the following documents to the Tribunal:
Firstly, under Exhibit Number USSR-261 (Document Number USSR-261), a certified photostat of a poster of the commanding general and Commander-in-Chief of Serbia, dated 25 December 1942, in which he announces the shooting of 50 hostages. Secondly, as Exhibit Number USSR-319 (Document Number USSR-319), a certified photostat of a poster of the same commanding general, dated 19 February 1943, in which he announces the shooting of 400 hostages, which was carried out in Belgrade on the same date. Thirdly, as Exhibit Number USSR-320 (Document Number USSR-320), a certified photostat of a poster of the regional Kommandantur in Pozarevatz, dated 3 April 1943, announcing the shooting of 75 hostages. Fourthly, as Exhibit Number USSR-321 (Document Number USSR-321), a certified photostat of a poster of the same regional Kommandantur of Pozarevatz, dated 16 April 1943, announcing the shooting of 30 hostages. Fifthly, a certified copy of a poster of the military commandant of Belgrade, dated 14 October 1943, in which he announces the shooting of 100 hostages. I submit this document as Exhibit Number USSR-322 (Document Number USSR-322).
I continue my quotation from the report of the Yugoslav Government:
“Planned and systematic murder of hostages is revealed by the following testimonies, collected by the Yugoslav State Commission for the investigation of war crimes on the basis of confiscated German archives and data found in the archives. The testimonies refer to Serbia only:
“Four hundred and fifty hostages were shot on 3 October 1941 in Belgrade; 200 hostages were shot on 17 October 1941, in Belgrade; 50 hostages were shot on 27 October 1941, in Belgrade; 100 hostages were shot on 3 November 1941, in Belgrade.
“Further testimonies show the terrible increasing number of these crimes at that time:
“Ten hostages shot on 12 December 1942, in Kraguevatz; 10 hostages shot on 12 December 1942, in Krusevatz; 30 hostages shot on 15 December 1942, in Brush; 50 hostages shot on 17 December 1942, in Petrovatz; 10 hostages shot on 20 December 1942, in Brush; 50 hostages shot on 25 December 1942, in Petrovatz; 10 hostages shot on 26 December 1942, in Brush; 250 hostages shot on 26 December 1942, in Petrovatz; 25 hostages shot on 27 December 1942, in Krusevatz.”
One really could, I think, agree with the statement of the Yugoslav Government that such figures could be cited ad infinitum. I continue my quotation:
“The shooting of hostages was, as a rule, conducted in a most barbaric fashion. The victims were mostly forced to stand one behind the other in batches, waiting their turn and witnessing the execution of the preceding batch. In this manner the batches were one after another exterminated.”
I shall submit further to the Tribunal, as Exhibit Number USSR-205 (Document Number USSR-205), the report of the police administration of the quisling administration of Milan Nedich. It mentions the shooting, on 11 December 1941 in Leskovatz, of 310 hostages, of whom 293 were Gypsies. I continue to quote the report of the Yugoslav Government:
“By an examination of the site and an interrogation of the Gypsies by the regional administration investigating war crimes in Leskovatz, the methods were established by which this shooting was carried out.”
Before reading the excerpt, I submit to the Tribunal the document which was referred to by the Government of the Yugoslav Republic, as Exhibit Number USSR-226 (Document Number USSR-226), and request it be incorporated as evidence. In the report of the Yugoslav Government, the following lines of this document are quoted:
“On 11 December 1941, from 0600 hours to 1600 hours, the Germans transported the arrested hostages in their trucks in batches of about 20 persons each. All of them had their hands bound. They were taken to the foot of the Mountain of Hisar. From there they were driven on foot across the mountain . . . and then made to stand in ranks near recently dug graves, were shot, and then thrown into the graves.”
THE PRESIDENT: I think this will be a good time to break off.
Colonel Smirnov, the Tribunal appreciates the efforts that you have made to leave out unnecessary detail and to cut down the length of your address, and it hopes that during the adjournment you will continue your efforts in that direction.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Certainly, Mr. President.