Mankind is now well aware of the meaning of these “special tasks,” the execution of which was exclusively entrusted to the SS generals and officers, who made full use of this right to act “independently” and “upon their own responsibility.” It meant unheard of terror, plundering, violence, and killing of prisoners of war and peaceful citizens. Further, this directive, in a very specific way, gave the High Command also such tasks as the plundering and predatory exploitation of the areas occupied by the German troops. The directive is signed by the Defendant Keitel.
In another instruction, issued in June 1941 as a supplement to the Plan Barbarossa, orders are issued which, in the guise of propaganda directives, prescribe the ruthless treatment of all those who oppose the German aggressors. As to actual propaganda, the directives frankly mention the usual Hitlerite methods of dirty calumny, lies, and provocation, which were to be used by the so-called “propaganda companies.”
Finally one cannot overlook another instruction, known under the name of “Orders Concerning Military Jurisdiction in the Barbarossa Area and Special Measures To Be Taken by the Troops.” These orders, while sanctioning arbitrary action on the part of the German authorities and troops in regard to the civilian population in the territories seized by the German armed forces, begin with an invitation addressed to the German troops to “protect” themselves ruthlessly against hostile actions of the civilian population. In the order prescribing the adoption of Draconian measures against peaceful populations and partisans, we find indications as to the brutal punishment to be imposed upon persons defined in those orders as “suspected elements.”
With the permission of the Tribunal, I will read only two subparagraphs of these orders—Subparagraphs 4 and 5:
“4. In those places where it is too late to adopt these measures or where it had not been possible to do so immediately, suspected elements must be handed over to an officer without delay; he will decide whether or not they should be shot.
“5. It is absolutely prohibited to hold these suspects for trial by courts which at a later date will be instituted for the local population.”
Thus, according to these so-called orders, the fate and life of every apprehended person depended exclusively on an officer, and it was prohibited, as the order cynically stressed, “to hold the suspects for trial.” In other words, it was a definite order to exterminate the “suspects.” Moreover, in the case of attacks against the German Armed Forces, the order prescribed “mass measures of repression,” that is to say, the wholesale extermination of absolutely innocent people.
What heights of cynicism were reached by the German High Command in the application of sanguinary terror can be seen from the fact that this order freed the German soldiers, officers, and officials of any responsibility for the commission of crimes against the peaceful Soviet population. According to these orders, the German troop commanders were entitled to confirm only those sentences which, as the said document states, were in accordance with the “political objectives of the leaders.” Consequently, long before 22 June 1941 the Hitlerite Government and the German High Command, whose representatives are now in the dock, planned and prepared in detail those war crimes which were subsequently committed in the territory of the U.S.S.R. These plans inexorably disclose that the defendants premeditated the monstrous crimes which were organized by them.
On 22 June 1941 the Hitlerite conspirators, having perfidiously violated the pact of non-aggression between the U.S.S.R. and Germany without any declaration of war, started an attack against Soviet territory, initiating thereby an aggressive war against the U.S.S.R. without the slightest provocation on the part of the Soviet Union. Enormous masses of German troops, secretly concentrated on the borders beforehand, were thrown against the U.S.S.R. As planned, Finnish troops took part in the attack on the U.S.S.R. in the north, and Hungarian and Romanian troops in the south. In order to create panic and confusion, the German Air Force immediately began the bombing of peaceful towns, thereby subjecting them to destruction.
Less than a month after the perpetration of this perfidious act Hitler called a conference, which was attended by Rosenberg, Göring, Bormann, Lammers, and Keitel. At this conference Hitler instructed those present not to disclose to the outside world the true aims of the war begun by the Hitlerites. Referring to their activities in regard to Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, Hitler stressed the necessity of continuing this line of action, that is, to conceal by all possible means the real intentions of the conspirators: