“The war prisoners, Kommando 274 of Stalag II B, complain, December 1944, of being employed on Sundays in the construction of antitank trenches.
“On 2 February 1945 the prisoners of Stalag II D, evacuated on account of the advance of the Russian Army, worked, as soon as they arrived at Sassnitz, at fortification works and antitank works, in particular around the city.
“After falling back from Stalag III B, the war prisoners were engaged until the end of April in earthworks, digging trenches, and in transporting aviation bombs.
“Kommando 553 at Lebus was obliged to carry out work in the front lines under the fire of Russian artillery. Numerous comrades, drawn back to Fürstenwalde, were employed in loading bombs on German bombers. In spite of their protests to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and to the colonel commanding Stalag III B, about billeting in barns, very bad hygiene, and insufficient food, the latter answered that he was obeying superior orders of the OKW, ordering the prisoners to dig trenches.”
The National Socialist leaders, for that matter, admitted that they used French and British prisoners of war for military work on airdromes exposed to Allied bombardment.
I offer in proof two notes, the first addressed by the OKH to the War Prisoners Section of the Wehrmacht, and the second by “Wilhelmstrasse” to the German representative of the Reich Foreign Office at the Wiesbaden Armistice Commission.
The memorandum of the OKH, dated 7 October 1940, constitutes Document F-549; I submit it to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-47, and I read it in full: