Any bandit, any habitual murderer would, naturally, use such language in speaking of the destruction of a human being. For the fascist executioners the murder of a soldier who had honestly fought for his country and become an invalid, the brief expression “shot on the spot” is good enough; when occupied in killing, the executioners do not even consider it necessary to find out whom they really are murdering. Thanks to this, shame and confusion cover the police. They order a search both for those who had escaped and for those who were shot.
Secondly, the very sound of a bullet passing nearby gives him a sensation of being wounded, and people of this type are then called “heroes” by their superiors.
It would be an omission on my part not to emphasize the exceptional brutality displayed by Kuntze—this typical representative of the SS. Twenty persons captured at random, captured anyhow, without any fault on their part, must be murdered. What for? Only because 22 armless and legless invalids had succeeded in escaping from death.
The Tribunal, of course, is quite aware of the fact that by all the laws of God and man these 22 invalids should not have perished by the hand of the executioner, but should have been placed under the protection of the German Government as prisoners of war.
The confession of Kuntze, concerning the motives for which the military authorities directed invalids to the camp for treatment by “special regime,” is of particular value. He frankly states that the cause of it was their physical condition which had rendered them unfit for any kind of work. In this connection I submit a series of documents to the Tribunal. They show that only from the angle of possibility of obtaining slaves were the representatives of the German Command and the German authorities occasionally interested in the prisoners of war. You have in your possession a circular of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces to the effect that Soviet prisoners of war should be branded and that this branding would not be considered as a medical measure. I am submitting to you another equally shameful document. It bears the following identifying marks: Az. 2,24.82h, Commander of Camps for Prisoners of War, Number 3142/42; Berlin-Schöneberg; 20.7.1942; 51, Badensche Strasse. This document is Exhibit Number USSR-343 (Document Number USSR-343). I shall not read it into the record. It resembles identically those which I have already read into the record. But it is characteristic of the extent to which the Hitlerite conspirators had abandoned the thesis that “a state can do everything which is necessary to hold prisoners of war in their own safekeeping, but it cannot do anything more.”
A regime based on hard labor, on an unending stream of insult and torture, drove Soviet people to manifestations of stark despair, such as attacks on camp guards who were armed to the teeth. We know of such truly heroic deeds. Testimonies of eyewitnesses are in our hands. I am submitting to you, as Exhibit Number USSR-314 (Document Number USSR-314), the personally written testimony of the witness, Lampe—you interrogated him a few days ago in this court—together with the testimony of the witness, Ribol—our Exhibit Number USSR-315 (Document Number USSR-315). I shall read out such passages of the testimony as appear on Page 348 of your document book. These witnesses reported that in the beginning of February 1945, in the extermination camp of Mauthausen, 800 Red Army prisoners of war who were interned there, had broken out of the fascist hell after first disarming the guards and piercing the electrified barbed wire. Lampe testifies how brutally the SS treated those whom they were able to recapture. I am quoting a few lines:
“All those who returned to the camp were savagely tortured and then shot. I myself saw the escaped prisoners, who were being brought back to Block Number 20.”—I wish to interpolate that Block 20 was the death block.—“They were beaten and the head of one of them was badly bleeding. They were followed by 10 SS men, among whom were three or four officers. They carried whips and were laughing loudly, giving the impression of pleasurably anticipating the tortures they were going to inflict upon the three unfortunate prisoners. The courage of the insurgents and the cruelty of the repression have left an undying impression on all the internees of Mauthausen.”
The fascist conspirators behaved with equal hatred toward all Soviet citizens. If any altercations ever arose among them, they would only be in connection with the methods of destruction to be inflicted on their victims. Some strove to kill off the prisoners immediately; others deemed it wiser to exploit their prisoners’ blood and strength in the mills, factories, military workshops, and in the construction of military undertakings.
Any long war is responsible for labor shortage in industry and agriculture. Fascist Germany solved this problem by importing white male and female slaves. The greatest number of them were prisoners of war. They were sent to heavy labor where masses perished from exhaustion, overwork, hunger, and savage treatment by the guards.
I submit to the Tribunal Document Number 744-PS, and quote the following three paragraphs: