DR. NELTE: Yes, but I have not received it back.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. The Exhibit Number 1, would you explain a little bit more what Number 1 is going to be? It appears to be the opinion of an expert witness on the meaning of the Führer precept. Is that what you intend?
DR. NELTE: Yes. It is an article in the field of constitutional law on the structure and significance of what is known as the Leader State (Führerstaat).
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Yes, Colonel Smirnov.
CHIEF COUNSELLOR OF JUSTICE L. N. SMIRNOV (Assistant Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): May it please Your Honors, it is my duty to submit to the Tribunal evidence on the last count of the Indictment. “Crimes against Humanity” are dealt with in Count Four of the Indictment, and by Article 6, and particularly Subparagraph C of Article 6, of the Charter.
I shall submit evidence of crimes which the Hitlerites committed on the territories of the temporarily occupied areas of the Soviet Union, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Greece.
The Crimes against Humanity—just as the other crimes of the German fascists for which evidence has been submitted to the Tribunal by my colleagues—originated in the criminal nature of fascism, in its endeavors to dominate the world by predatory seizure of whole states in the East and in the West, and by enslavement and mass extermination of people. These crimes were put into effect by adoption of the cannibalistic theories of German fascism.
Elements forming the concept of Crimes against Humanity are to be found in nearly all the criminal acts of the Hitlerites. For instance, a considerable amount of probative facts in corroboration of the gravity of the crimes committed by the German fascists has already been submitted to the Tribunal during the presentation of the Count concerning War Crimes against the civilian population.
The criminal violation by the Hitlerites of the laws and customs of war, as well as the mass extermination of prisoners of war, are some of the gravest Crimes against Humanity. At the same time, the concept Crimes against Humanity is considerably broader in scope than any definition of German fascist crimes, of which proofs have been hitherto submitted to the Tribunal.
Together with the arrival of German forces and the appearance of the swastika on official buildings, life of the inhabitants of the temporarily occupied eastern European countries seemed to stop. The merciless fascist machine tried to force them to be deprived of all that which, as a result of centuries of human development, had become an integral part of humanity.