“(b) The fact that any person acted pursuant to the order of his Government or of a superior does not free him from responsibility for a crime, but may be considered in mitigation.
“5. In any trial or prosecution for a crime herein referred to, the accused shall not be entitled to the benefits of any statute of limitation in respect of the period from 30 January 1933 to 1 July 1945, nor shall any immunity, pardon, or amnesty granted under the Nazi regime be admitted as a bar to trial or punishment.”
The defendant stands indicted for the violation particularly of the provisions of section b, which defines war crimes, and for the violation of the provisions of section c, which defines crimes against humanity, and for the violations of certain provisions of international conventions, particularly of Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, 46, and 52 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, and of Articles 2, 3, 4, 6, and 31 of the Prisoner-of-War Convention, Geneva, 1929, the laws and customs of war, the general provisions of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and further as particularly defined in Article II of the Control Council Law No. 10.
The first count in the bill of indictment has been designated by the prosecution as “Slave Labor,” the second count as “Medical Experiments” and the third count as “Slave Labor and Medical Experiments upon German Nationals.” The pertinent rules of law that are applicable in this case will now be considered, and we shall consider briefly some salient precepts and prohibitions of international law up to and including the provisions of Control Council Law No. 10.
The prosecution has offered evidence which tended to show that much of the labor which supplied Germany with the tools of absolute and total war was extracted from people who had been uprooted from their homes in occupied territories and imported to Germany against their will and often under the most trying and difficult circumstances. Displacement of groups of persons from one country to another is the proper concern of international law in as far as it affects the community of nations. International law has enunciated certain conditions under which the fact of deportation of civilians from one nation to another during times of war becomes a crime. If the transfer is carried out without a legal title, as in the case where people are deported from a country occupied by an invader while the occupied enemy still has an army in the field and is still resisting, the deportation is contrary to international law. The rationale of this rule lies in the supposition that the occupying power has temporarily prevented the rightful sovereign from exercising its power over its citizens. Articles 43, 46, 49, 52, 55, and 56, Hague Regulations, which limit the rights of the belligerent occupant, do not expressly specify as crime the deportation of civilians from an occupied territory. Article 52 states the following provisions and conditions under which services may be demanded from the inhabitants of occupied countries:
1. They must be for the needs of the army of occupation.
2. They must be in proportion to the resources of the country.
3. They must be of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation to take part in military operations against their own country.
Insofar as this section limits the conscription of labor to that required for the needs of the army of occupation, it is manifestly clear that the use of labor from occupied territories outside of the area of occupation is forbidden by the Hague Regulations.
The second condition under which deportation becomes a crime occurs when the purpose of the displacement is illegal, such as deportation for the purpose of compelling the deportees to manufacture weapons for use against their homeland or to be assimilated in the working economy of the occupying country. The defense as contained in this case is that persons were deported from France into Germany legally and for a lawful purpose by contending that such deportations were authorized by agreements and contracts between Nazi and Vichy French authorities. The Tribunal holds that this defense is both technically and substantially deficient. The Tribunal takes judicial notice of the fact that after the capitulation of France and the subsequent occupation of French territory by the German army, a puppet government was established in France and located at Vichy. This government was established at the instance of the German Army and was controlled by its officials according to the dictates and demands of the occupying army and a contract made by the German Reich with such a government as was established in France amounted to in truth and in fact a contract that on its face was null and void. The Vichy Government, until the Allies regained control of the French Republic, amounted to no more than a tool of the German Reich. It will be borne in mind that at no time during the Vichy regime a peace treaty had been signed between the French Republic and the German Reich but merely a cessation of hostilities and an armistice prevailed, and that French resistance had at no time ceased and that France at all times still had an army in the field resisting the German Reich.