“286. Power to suspend and promulgate laws.—The military occupant may suspend existing laws and promulgate new ones when the exigencies of the military service demand such action.”
Manifestly this Tribunal, created for the sole purpose of trying and punishing war criminals in the broadest sense of that term as used in Control Council Law No. 10, has not by such law been given any jurisdiction to determine matters relating to the far reaching power or authority which the foregoing rules authorize a military occupant to exercise provisionally. In consequence, the lengthy discussion of the far reaching power or authority which the Allied Powers are now exercising in Germany has no material relation to any question before us for determination, and particularly the question of the “source of the authority of Control Council Law No. 10”. Certainly this Tribunal has no jurisdiction to determine whether or not the military or executive authorities have exceeded their authority or whether or not they are exercising in fact the sovereign authority of Germany, or whether by her unconditional surrender Germany has lost all sovereignty. The exercise of such powers has to do with provisional matters of occupation and operates presently and in future. Our jurisdiction extends to the trial of war criminals for crimes committed during the war and before the unconditional surrender of Germany. This jurisdiction is determined by entirely different laws.
Under the foregoing rules of military operation there is no rule which would, because of the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces, transfer the sovereignty of Germany to the Allied occupants, or to either of them, in their respective zones of occupation. It may here be pointed out that the report of 1919 by the Commission on Responsibility of the Authors of War and Enforcement of Penalties lists among other war crimes in violation of international law or of the laws and customs of land warfare,“(10) the usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation.” This rule is incident to military occupation and was clearly intended to protect the inhabitants of any occupied territory against the unnecessary exercise of sovereignty by a military occupant. As concerns this Military Tribunal in the American Zone of Occupation, the problem is dealt with and concluded by the above-quoted rules (285–286), relating to administration of occupied territory.
No attempt has been made by the Allied Powers, or either of them, to exercise the sovereign authority of Germany, except in the limited sense provided for by the foregoing rules of land warfare. On 30 January 1946 the Allied Control Council enacted Law No. 11 which repealed most of the enactments of the Nazi regime and continued in force in all of Germany the great body of criminal law contained in the German Criminal Code of 1871 with amendments thereto. This is in accord with the provisions of the above-quoted rule 285. Thus in the American Zone there has been continued in force the ordinary civil and criminal laws of the German states, each of which has been recognized as a sovereign power. These laws are being administered by German local and state officials as far as can practicably be done, with the avowed intention of the Allied Powers, and each of them, to surrender all powers now exercised as a military occupant, particularly when the all-Nazi militaristic influence in public, private, and cultured life of Germany has been destroyed, and when Nazi war criminals have been punished as they justly deserve to be punished.
Furthermore, as concerns the American Zone of Occupation, the punishment of war leaders or criminals is being and will be carried out by four separate procedures—
(1) Major German war leaders or criminals are tried by this and similar military tribunals set up under Control Council Law No. 10 and Military Government Ordinance No. 7, limited to the crimes or offenses therein defined or recognized.
(2) The trials of Germans for the commission of war crimes against American military personnel and for atrocities or crimes committed in concentration camps in the area captured or occupied by the American armed forces, are tried by special military courts set up at the direction of the zone commander, with the theater judge advocate in charge of the prosecution of the cases.
(3) Germans who are charged with committing crimes against humanity upon other Germans, in violation of German law, are tried by the ordinary German criminal courts.
(4) Other Germans who were actively responsible for the crimes of the Hitler or Nazi regime, or who actively participated in the Nazi plans or schemes, are tried by German tribunals under the Law for Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism of 5 March 1946.
The purpose of the foregoing program is to carry out the objectives of the Potsdam Agreement that “war criminals and those participating in planning or carrying out Nazi enterprises involving or resulting in atrocities or war crimes, shall be arrested and brought to judgment.”