But the note of “Wilhelmstrasse,” to which I shall now refer, and which I submit to the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-48 (Document Number F-550), recognizes, on the contrary, that prisoners forced to work on an aviation field incur grave danger because of the military purpose of this work.
I will read to the Tribunal a note of the German Foreign Office dated 14 February 1941, Exhibit Number RF-48 (Document Number F-550):
“Article 87 of the Agreement of 1929 on Prisoners of War provides that, in case of difference of opinion on the subject of the interpretation of the Agreement, the protecting powers shall offer their services to settle the dispute. To accomplish this, any protecting power may propose a meeting of representatives of the belligerent powers. . . . France herself assumes the responsibilities of a protecting power in questions on prisoners of war.”
I shall pass on from this quotation to Paragraph 2 of the same document:
“As to the point in dispute, it is well to call attention to the following:
“The French conception, according to which prisoners of war may not be quartered near airfields and may not be employed in repairing runways, cannot be based on the exact content of Articles 9 and 31; but, on the other hand, it is certain that French prisoners of war quartered and employed under these conditions are in a particularly dangerous situation, because the airfields in occupied territories are used exclusively for German military purposes and thus constitute a special objective for enemy air attacks.
“The American Embassy in Berlin has likewise made a protest against a similar use of British prisoners of war in Germany. So far no answer has been made, because a rejection of this protest might result in German prisoners being employed in similar work in England.”
The utilization of war prisoners for the construction of fortifications is substantiated by Document 828-PS, which I file with the Tribunal under Exhibit Number RF-49. It is a letter of 29 September 1944, addressed by the Chief of the German 1st Army Corps to the OKW, to give an account of work on fortifications accomplished by 80 Belgian prisoners of war. I quote: