“Only”—I do not read the first few paragraphs—“Only in the event of the civil population’s putting up a resistance or behaving rebelliously can the following decisions be carried out:
“1) If the civilian population offers resistance or if attacks are to be feared, the arrest of hostages should, on principle, be resorted to. Hostages should only be arrested on orders of the commander of a regiment or a commander of equivalent rank.
“When accommodating and feeding hostages it should be borne in mind that they are not imprisoned because of crimes. Hostages and population are to be informed that the hostages will be shot at any sign of hostile action. Previous sanction of the shooting by the divisional commander must be obtained....”
Then:
“Armed resistance by the civilian population is to be crushed by force of arms.”
The last sentence on that page:
“The death penalty will be imposed for violence of any kind against the German Armed Forces. Immediate trials will be held by a field court martial. The regimental commander can appoint the summary court, composed of one captain, one sergeant, one corporal, hear witnesses, draw up the sentence in writing. The verdict will be the death penalty if guilty, otherwise acquittal. The sentence will be executed immediately after confirmation by the regimental commander.
“The following are to be considered as acts of violence: Sabotage, destruction of our lines of communications, cutting of telephone wires, demolitions, et cetera.” (Document Number Jodl-37, Exhibit Number AJ-14.)
A little drastic, that, was it not? Only the death penalty?
JODL: These instructions are, word for word, in complete accord with our directives which, in times of peace, were laid down by the group of experts on international law in co-operation with the Foreign Office and with German professors of international law. It would have been well, if only these, our military precepts, our military court procedure laid down before we went to war, had been followed consistently everywhere. Our official directives laid down the question of hostages from the point of view of international law, and there is no doubt that under international law as applicable in the year 1939, the taking of hostages was admissible.