A similar order was issued during the first war with Germany by the President of the United States of America when the American Expeditionary Forces entered the Rhineland in November 1918. (General Order No. 218, 28 November 1918.) At the conclusion of this occupancy, the German Government expressed its appreciation of the conduct of the American occupying forces.
But Germany soon forgot these humane standards of warfare, as is shown by the undisputed evidence. The general policy of the Nazi regime was to terrorize and in some instances to exterminate the civilian populations of occupied territories.
Pertinent here is the finding of the IMT that:
“In an order issued by the defendant Keitel on 23 July 1941, and drafted by the defendant Jodl, it was stated that:
“‘In view of the vast size of the occupied areas in the East, the forces available for establishing security in these areas will be sufficient only if all resistance is punished, not by legal prosecution of the guilty, but by the spreading of such terror by the armed forces as is alone appropriate to eradicate every inclination to resist among the population * * *. Commanders must find the means of keeping order by applying suitable Draconian measures’.”[657]
Both Keitel and Jodl were sentenced to death by the IMT and later executed. It was the same Keitel who had issued, over his own signature, the Hitler NN decree which provided that (NG 669-PS, Pros. Ex. 305):
“Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures by which the relatives of the criminal and the population do not know the fate of the criminal. This aim is achieved when the criminal is transferred to Germany.”
Beyond dispute the foregoing decrees were inspired by the same thought and purpose and represent the general policy of the Nazi regime in the prosecution of its aggressive war. This general policy was to terrorize, torture, and in some occupied areas to exterminate the civilian population. The undisputed evidence in this case shows that Germany violated during the recent war every principle of the law of military occupation. Not only under NN proceedings but in all occupations she immediately, upon occupation of invaded areas and territories, set aside the laws and courts of the occupied territories. She abolished the courts of the occupied lands and set up courts manned by members of the Nazi totalitarian regime and system. These laws of occupation were cruel and extreme beyond belief and were enforced by the Nazi courts in a cruel and ruthless manner against the inhabitants of the occupied territories, resulting in grave outrages against humanity, against human rights and morality and religion, and against international law, and against the law as declared by C. C. Law 10, by authority of which this Court exercises its jurisdiction in the instant case. The evidence adduced herein provides undeniable and positive proof of the ill-treatment of the subjugated people by the Nazi Ministry of Justice and prosecutors to such an extent that jurists as well as civilians of civilized nations who respect human rights and human personality and dignity can hardly believe that the Nazi judicial system could possibly have been so cruel and ruthless in their treatment of the population of occupied areas and territories.
The foregoing procedure under the NN decree was clearly in violation of the following provisions sanctioned by the Hague Regulations:
“Article 5.—Prisoners of war * * * cannot be confined except as an indispensable measure of safety and only while the circumstances which necessitate the measure continue to exist.