THE PRESIDENT: Speaking for myself, I don’t see anything particularly wrong in that communication.
LT. LAMBERT: On that point, Sir, we submit that if you take a document which says, “We wish to utilize all the labor power of prisoners of war in our control possible and to get this result by suitable means,” probably it tends to appear unexceptional. But viewing this document in relation to the other evidence in, and to be presented, which show a concerted and settled policy by Bormann and his co-conspirators to. . .
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it isn’t necessary to argue it.
LT. LAMBERT: Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.
The attention of the Tribunal is invited to Document 656-PS, previously put in as Exhibit USA-339. The Tribunal will recall that this is a secret Bormann circular transmitting instructions of the Nazi High Command of 29 January 1943, providing for the enforcement of labor demands on Allied prisoners of war through the use of weapons and corporal punishment. I quote a brief excerpt from these instructions, beginning with the third sentence of the third numbered paragraph of Page 2 of the English translation of Document 656-PS, which reads as follows; and I quote:
“Should the prisoner of war not fulfill his order, then he has”—that is the guard unit, the guard personnel—“then he has, in the case of very exceptional need and extreme danger, the right to force obedience with weapons, if he has no other means. He may use the weapon insofar as this is necessary to attain his goal. If the assistant guard is not armed, then he is authorized in forcing obedience by other appropriate means.”
The Tribunal knows that, under the Geneva Prisoners-of-War Convention of 1929, when prisoners of war prove derelict and refuse to carry out proper orders of the captive power or its forces, such prisoners of war are subject to court-martial and military proceedings as if they were serving under their own forces. Here is a decree which, on its face, authorizes or attempts to authorize guard personnel to use the rifle or other suitable means of violence; and of course Your Lordship will understand it was this type of document we had in mind when we suggested that the decree of Bormann should be considered in the light of his other orders relating to the treatment of prisoners of war.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now.