Judge
SENTENCE
This Tribunal takes no pleasures in performing the duty which confronts it, but the deliberate enslavement of millions must not go unexpiated. The barbarous acts which have been revealed here originated in the lust and ambition of comparatively few men, but all Germans are paying and will pay for the degradation of their souls and the debasement of the German honor, caused by following the false prophets who led them to disaster.
It would be a travesty on justice to permit those false leaders, including this defendant, to escape responsibility for the deception and betrayal of their people. It would be even a greater injustice to view with complacence the mass graves of millions of men, women, and children whose only crime was that they stood in Hitler’s way. Retribution for such crimes against humanity must be swift and certain. Future would-be dictators and their subservient satellites must know what follows their defilement of international law and of every type of decency and fair dealing with their fellow men. Civilization will be satisfied with nothing less.
It is the sentence of this Tribunal that the defendant Erhard Milch be confined to the Rebdorf Prison for the remainder of his natural life.
[157] Concurring opinions were filed by Judge Musmanno, see pp. 797-859, and by Judge Phillips, see pp. 860-878.
[158] Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol. I, pp. 243-47, Nuremberg, 1947.
[159] Ibid., pp. 381-83.