M. HERZOG: Mr. President, Your Honors. From 1941, the Germans exercised direct pressure on noncommissioned officers to force them to engage in productive work for the Reich war economy. This pressure, after the failure of propaganda methods, took the form of reprisals. Insubordinate noncommissioned officers were subjected to ill-treatment; they were sent to special camps, such as Coberczyn, where they were put under a disciplinary regime. Some incurred penal sentences because of their refusal to work. I submit, as proof, the report of the Ministry of Prisoners, Deportees, and Refugees of the French Government, Document UK-78(2), which is, in my document book, Exhibit Number RF-46. The document is in a white file. I shall read from the bottom of Page 19 in the French original, Page 10 of the German translation:
“Work of noncommissioned officers.
“On this subject the Geneva Convention was explicit: Noncommissioned officers who are war prisoners can be subjected to work only as supervisors, unless they make an express request for a remunerative occupation.
“In conformity with this article a certain number of noncommissioned officers refused to work from the beginning of their captivity. The number of imprisoned noncommissioned officers was, at the end of 1940, about 130,000 and represented later a very important source of labor for the Reich. Therefore, the German authorities strove by every means to induce the greatest possible number of objectors to work. To this effect, during the last months of 1941, the noncommissioned officers who did not volunteer for the work were, in most camps, subjected to an alternating regime. For a few days they had to undergo punishments such as the reduction of food rations, doing without beds, compulsory physical exercises for a number of hours, and particularly the pelote (punishment drill). During another period they were promised work according to their liking, and other material advantages, for example, special regulations for insurance, an extra number of letters, and higher wages. These methods led a certain number of noncommissioned officers to accept work. The noncommissioned officers who persisted in their refusal to work were subjected to a very severe disciplinary regime and to arduous physical exercises.”
The National Socialist military authorities utilized the prisoners of war for dangerous work. The French, British, Belgian, and Dutch prisoners were used to transport munitions, to load bombs on planes, to repair aviation camps, and to construct fortifications. The proof of the use of prisoners of war for the transport of munitions and for the loading of bombs on planes is furnished by the affidavits of repatriated French prisoners of war. These affidavits have been assembled in the report of the Ministry of Prisoners, which I have just quoted and which I shall quote again.
I now quote Page 27 of the French document, Page 14 of the German translation. It is the same document from which I have just quoted, Exhibit Number RF-46, Page 27:
“(b) The requisition of prisoners for the construction of fortifications and for the transport of munitions, very often in the close vicinity of the firing line.