“The decree carries a basic innovation. The Fuehrer and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces commands that crimes of the specified sort committed by civilians of the occupied territories are to be punished by the pertinent courts-martial in the occupied territories only when
a. the sentence calls for the death penalty, and
b. the sentence is pronounced within 8 days after the arrest.
“Only when both conditions are met does the Fuehrer and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces hope for the desired deterrent effect from the conduct of punitive proceedings in the occupied territories.
“In other cases in the future the accused are to be secretly brought to Germany and the further conduct of the trial carried on here. The deterrent effect of those measures lies
a. in allowing the disappearance of the accused without a trace,
b. therein, that no information whatsoever may be given about their whereabouts and their fate.” (833-PS).
To clumsy cruelty, scientific skill was added. “Undesirables” were exterminated by injection of drugs into the bloodstream, by asphyxiation in gas chambers. They were shot with poison bullets, to study the effects (L-103).
Then, to cruel experiments the Nazi added obscene ones. These were not the work of underling degenerates but of master minds high in the Nazi conspiracy. In May 20, 1942, General Field Marshal Milch authorized SS General Wolff to go ahead at Dachau Camp with so-called “cold experiments”; and four female gypsies were supplied for the purpose. Himmler gave permission to carry on these “experiments” also in other camps (1617-PS). At Dachau, the reports of the “doctor” in charge show that victims were immersed in cold water until their body temperature was reduced to 28 degrees centigrade (82.4 degrees Fahrenheit), when they all died immediately (1618-PS). This was in August 1942. But the “doctor’s” technique improved. By February, 1943, he was able to report that thirty persons were chilled to 27 to 29 degrees, their hands and feet frozen white, and their bodies “rewarmed” by a hot bath. But the Nazi scientific triumph was “rewarming with animal heat.” The victim, all but frozen to death, was surrounded with bodies of living women until he revived and responded to his environment by having sexual intercourse (1616-PS). Here Nazi degeneracy reached its nadir.
I dislike to encumber the record with such morbid tales, but we are in the grim business of trying men as criminals, and these are the things their own agents say happened. We will show you these concentration camps in motion pictures, just as the Allied armies found them when they arrived, and the measures General Eisenhower had to take to clean them up. Our proof will be disgusting and you will say I have robbed you of your sleep. But these are the things which have turned the stomach of the world and set every civilized hand against Nazi Germany.