GEN. RUDENKO: I should like you to answer my question. What was the German High Command’s attitude to this kind of employment? Do you consider that by this employment the regulations of international law were being violated?
MILCH: That is a moot point which even now is not clear to me. I only know that orders were given to employ them, and to use these men, as well as women, in the struggle for our existence.
GEN. RUDENKO: Do you consider this to be a legitimate order?
MILCH: I cannot judge that; that depends upon conditions and, as I said, upon reciprocity.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I ask to have this question and answer stricken from the record. The witness has been asked to give a legal opinion, and it is not for him to do so; since the question is not admissible, the answer too should be stricken.
THE PRESIDENT: General Rudenko?
GEN. RUDENKO: I should like to say I did not realize that the witness did not know whether or not this was a violation of international law. I had every reason to believe that the witness was competent to answer this question, the more so as at the beginning of his statement today, and on Friday, he mentioned the ten rules of the soldier, which he said must not be broken as they were based on international law. I thought, therefore, the witness to be competent to answer the question concerning the use of prisoners of war by the Luftwaffe against their own country. If the Tribunal considers this question to be inadmissible, I will of course withdraw it.
THE PRESIDENT: The question might have been framed differently, as to whether it was not a breach of the rules set out in the soldiers’ pay book. However, as to international law, that is one of the matters which the Tribunal has got to decide, and upon that, of course, we do not wish the evidence of witnesses.
GEN. RUDENKO: Yes. I still have two questions to put to this witness.
THE PRESIDENT: We wanted to rise at half-past 4. If it is your intention to ask some more questions, perhaps we had better rise now, or, have you finished?