The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: imt//tgmwc/tgmwc-01/tgmwc-01-01.07


Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-01/tgmwc-01-01.07
Last-Modified: 1999/08/16


In the Latvian Republic destruction of the agriculture by
the looting of all stock, machinery and produce.

Carrying away by Rosenberg's Headquarters of 100,000
valuable volumes and seventy cases of ancient periodicals
and precious monographs; wanton destruction of libraries and
other cultural buildings; destruction of the agriculture of
the Latvian Republic by the looting of all stock, machinery
and produce.

The result of this policy of plunder and destruction was to
lay waste the land and cause utter desolation.

The overall value of the material loss which the U.S.S.R.
has borne, is computed to be 679,000,000,000 roubles, in
State prices of 1941.

Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15th
March, I939, the defendants seized and stole large stocks of
raw materials, copper, tin, iron, cotton, and food; caused
to
be taken to Germany large amounts of railway rolling stock,
and many engines, carriages, steam vessels and trolley
buses; robbed libraries, laboratories, and art museums of
books, pictures, objects of art, scientific apparatus and
furniture; stole all gold reserves and foreign exchange of
Czechoslovakia, including 23,000 kilograms of gold, of a
nominal value of 5,265,000 pounds; fraudulently acquired
control and thereafter looted the Czech banks and many Czech
industrial enterprises; and otherwise stole, looted and
misappropriated Czechoslovak public and private property.
The total sum of defendants' economic spoliation of
Czechoslovakia from 1938 to 1945 is estimated at
200,000,000,000 Czechoslovak crowns.

(G) WANTON DESTRUCTION OF CITIES, TOWNS AND VILLAGES, AND
DEVASTATION NOT JUSTIFIED BY MILITARY NECESSITY

The defendants wantonly destroyed cities...

THE PRESIDENT : Will you go to paragraph 2 of (G) ? The
French read the first paragraph.  Do you want to go to
paragraph 2 of (G)?

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL OZOL: I have begun

THE PRESIDENT: I thought we had read paragraph 1. We might
take up at paragraph 2, beginning "In the Eastern Countries
the defendants pursued...

                                                   [Page 28]

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL OZOL:

2. Eastern Countries :

In the Eastern Countries the defendants pursued a policy of
wanton destruction and devastation: some particulars of this
(without prejudice to the production of evidence of other
cases) are set out above under the heading "Plunder of
Public and Private Property."

In Greece in 1941, the villages of Amelofito, Kliston,
Kizonia, Messovunos, Selli, Ano-Kerzilion and Kato-Kerzilion
were utterly destroyed.

In Yugoslavia on 15th August, 1941, the German military
command officially announced that the village of Skela was
burned to the ground and the inhabitants killed on the order
of the command.

On the order of the Field Commander Hoersterberg a punitive
expedition from the SS troops and the field police destroyed
the villages of Machkovats, and Kriva Reka in Serbia and all
the inhabitants were killed.

General Fritz Neidbold (369 Infantry Division) on 11th
September, 1944, gave an order to destroy the villages of
Zagnlezde and Udora, hanging all the men and driving away
all the women and children.

In Czechoslovakia the Nazi conspirators also practised the
senseless destruction of populated places. Lezaky and Lidice
were burned to the ground and the inhabitants killed.

(H) CONSCRIPTION OF CIVILIAN LABOUR

Throughout the occupied territories the defendants
conscripted and forced the inhabitants to
labour and requisitioned their services-

THE PRESIDENT: I think paragraph (H) has been read, the
first paragraph of it. There only remains for you to read
paragraph 2 of (H).

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL OZOL:

2. Eastern Countries :

Of the large number of citizens of the Soviet Union and of
Czechoslovakia referred to under Count Three Vlll (B) 2
above many were so conscripted for forced labour.

IX.  Individual, Group and Organisation Responsibility for
the Offence stated in Count
Three

Reference is hereby made to Appendix A of this Indictment
for a statement of the responsibility of the individual
defendants for the offence set forth in this Count Three of
the Indictment. Reference is hereby made to Appendix B of
this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the
groups and organisations named herein as criminal groups and
organisations for the offence set forth in this Count Three
of the Indictment.


COUNT FOUR-CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
(Charter, Article 6, especially 6 (c))

X. Statement of the Offence

All the defendants committed Crimes against Humanity during
a period of years preceding 8th May, 1945, in Germany and in
all those countries and territories occupied by the German
armed forces since 1st September, 1939, and in Austria and
Czechoslovakia and in Italy and on the High Seas.

All the defendants, acting in concert with others,
formulated and executed a Common Plan or Conspiracy to
commit Crimes against Humanity as defined in Article 6 (c)
of the Charter. This plan involved, among other things, the
murder and persecution of all who were, or who were
suspected of being, hostile to the Nazi Party and all who
were, or who were suspected of being, opposed to the common
plan alleged in Count One.

The said Crimes against humanity were committed by the
defendants, and by other persons for whose acts the
defendants are responsible (under Article 6 of the

                                                   [Page 29]

Charter) as such other persons, when committing the said War
Crimes, performed their acts in execution of a Common Plan
or Conspiracy to commit the said War Crimes, in the
formulation and execution of which plan and conspiracy all
the defendants participated as leaders, organisers,
instigators and accomplices.

These methods and crimes constituted violations of
international conventions, of internal penal laws, of the
general principles of criminal law as derived from the
criminal law of all civilised nations and were involved in
and part of a systematic course of conduct.  The said acts
were contrary to Article 6 of the Charter.

The prosecution will rely upon the facts pleaded under Count
Three as also constituting Crimes against Humanity.

(A) MURDER, EXTERMINATION, ENSLAVEMENT, DEPORTATION AND
OTHER INHUMANE ACTS COMMITTED AGAINST CIVILIAN POPULATIONS
BEFORE AND DURING THE WAR

For the purposes set out above, the defendants adopted a
policy of persecution, repression, and extermination of all
civilians in Germany who were, or who were believed to be,
or who were believed likely to become, hostile to the Nazi
Government and the Common Plan or Conspiracy described in
Count One. They imprisoned such persons without judicial
process, holding them in "protective custody" and
concentration camps, and subjected them to persecution,
degradation, despoilment, enslavement, torture and murder.

Special courts were established to carry out the will of the
conspirators; favoured branches or agencies of the State and
Party were permitted to operate outside the range even of
Nazified law and to crush all tendencies and elements which
were considered "undesirable." The various concentration
camps included Buchenwald, which was established in 1933 and
Dachau, which was established in 1934. At these and other
camps the civilians were put to slave labour and murdered
and ill-treated by divers means, including those set out in
Count Three above, and these acts and policies were
continued and extended to the occupied countries after the
1st September, 1939, and until 8th May, 1945.

(B) PERSECUTION ON POLITICAL, RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS GROUNDS
IN EXECUTION OF AND IN CONNECTION WITH THE COMMON PLAN
MENTIONED IN COUNT ONE

As above stated, in execution of and in connection with the
common plan mentioned in Count One, opponents of the German
Government were exterminated and persecuted.  These
persecutions were directed against Jews. They were also
directed against persons whose political belief or spiritual
aspirations were deemed to be in conflict with the aims of
the Nazis.

Jews were systematically persecuted since 1933; they were
deprived of liberty, thrown into concentration camps where
they were murdered and ill-treated. Their property was
confiscated.  Hundreds of thousands of Jews were so treated
before the 1st September, 1939.

Since the 1st September, 1939, the persecution of the Jews
was redoubled; millions of Jews from Germany and from the
occupied Western Countries were sent to the Eastern
Countries for extermination.

Particulars by way of example and without prejudice to the
production of evidence of other cases are as follows:

The Nazis murdered amongst others Chancellor Dollfuss, the
Social Democrat Breitscheid and the Communist Thaelmann.
They imprisoned in concentration camps numerous political
and religious personages, for example, Chancellor
Schuschnigg and Pastor Nieimoller.

In November, 1938, by orders of the Chief of the Gestapo,
anti-Jewish demonstrations all over Germany took place.
Jewish property was destroyed, 30,000 Jews were arrested and
sent to concentration camps and their property confiscated.

Under paragraph VIII (A), above, millions of the persons
there mentioned as having been murdered and ill-treated were
Jews.

                                                   [Page 30]

Among other mass murders of Jews were the following:

At Kislovdosk all Jews were made to give up their property;
2,000 were shot in an anti-tank ditch at Mineralniye Vodi;
4,300 other Jews were shot in the same ditch.

60,000 Jews were shot on an island on the Dvina near Riga.

20,000 Jews were shot at Lutsk.

32,000 Jews were shot at Sarny.

60,000 Jews were shot at Kiev and Dniepropetrovsk.

Thousands of Jews were gassed weekly by means of gas-wagons
which broke down from overwork.

As the Germans retreated before the Soviet Army they
exterminated Jews rather than allow them to be liberated.
Many concentration camps and ghettos were set up in which
Jews were incarcerated and tortured, starved, subjected to
merciless atrocities and finally exterminated.

About 70 000 Jews were exterminated in Yugoslavia.

XI.  Individual, Group and Organisation Responsibility for
the Offence stated in Count Four

Reference is hereby made to Appendix A of this Indictment
for a statement of the responsibility of the individual
defendants for the offence set forth in this Count Four of
the Indictment. Reference is hereby made to Appendix B of
this Indictment for a statement of the responsibility of the
groups and organisations named herein as criminal groups and
organisations for the offence set forth in the Count Four of
the Indictment.

Wherefore, this Indictment is lodged with the Tribunal in
English, French and Russian, each text having equal
authenticity, and the charges herein made against the above-
named defendants are hereby presented to the Tribunal.

                                           HARTLEY SHAWCROSS
 Acting on Behalf of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
                                           Northern Ireland.
                                                            
                                           ROBERT H. JACKSON
           Acting on Behalf of the United States of America.
                                                            
                                        FRANCOIS DE MENTHON.
                    Acting on Behalf of the French Republic.
                                                            
                                                 R. RUDENKO.
Acting on Behalf of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
                                                            
                                   Berlin, 6th October, 1945

THE PRESIDENT: Has anybody been designated to read the
appendices?

MR. ALDERMAN: May it please the Tribunal, I shall read
Appendix A and Appendix B,
and the British delegation will read Appendix C. One word of
explanation as to Appendix
A. The Court will have observed that the defendants are
seated in the dock in the same
order in which they are named in the Indictment. By a
mechanical slip-up they are not
named in Appendix A in exactly the same order. I think it
would be too much difficulty for
the interpreters or for me to arrange them in the same
order, and if the Court will permit I
will read Appendix A as it is printed -

APPENDIX A

STATEMENT OF INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR CRIMES SET OUT IN
COUNTS ONE, TWO, THREE AND FOUR

The statements hereinafter set forth following the name of
each individual

                                                   [Page 31]

defendant constitute matters upon which the prosecution will
rely inter alia as establishing
the individual responsibility of the defendant

Goering:

The defendant Goering between 1932-1945 was: a member of the
Nazi Party, Supreme
Leader of the S.A., General in the S.S., a member and
President of the Reichstag, Minister
of the Interior of Prussia, Chief of the Prussian Police and
Prussian Secret State Police,
Chief of the Prussian State Council, Trustee of the Four-
Year Plan, Reich Minister for Air,
Commander in Chief of the Air Force, President of the
Council of Ministers for the
Defence of the Reich, member of the Secret Cabinet Council,
head of the Hermann Goering
Industrial Combine, and Successor Designate to Hitler. The
defendant Goering used the
foregoing positions, his personal influence, and his
intimate connection with the Fuehrer in
such a manner that: he promoted the accession to power of
the Nazi conspirators and the
consolidation of their control over Germany set forth in
Count One of the Indictment; he
promoted the military and economic preparation for war set
forth in Count One of the
Indictment; he participated in the planning and preparation
of the Nazi conspirators for
Wars of Aggression and Wars in Violation of International
Treaties, Agreements and
Assurances set forth in Counts One and Two of the
Indictment; and he authorised, directed
and participated in the War Crimes set forth in Count Three
of the Indictment, and the
Crimes against Humanity set forth in Count Four of the
Indictment, including a wide
variety of crimes against persons and property.

Ribbentrop:

The defendant Ribbentrop between 1932-1945 was: a member of
the Nazi Party, a member
of the Nazi Reichstag, Adviser to the Fuehrer on matters of
foreign policy, representative
of the Nazi Party for matters of foreign policy, special
German delegate for disarmament
questions, Ambassador Extraordinary, Ambassador in London,
organiser and director of
Dienststelle Ribbentrop, Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs,
member of the Secret Cabinet
Council, member of the Fuehrer's political staff at general
headquarters, and General in the
S.S. The defendant Ribbentrop used the foregoing positions,
his personal influence, and
his intimate connection with the Fuehrer in such a manner
that: he promoted the accession
to power of the Nazi conspirators as set forth in Count One
of the Indictment he promoted
the preparations for war set forth in Count One of the
Indictment he participated in the
political planning and preparation of the Nazi conspirators
for Wars of Aggression and
Wars in Violation of International Treaties, Agreements and
Assurances as set forth in
Counts One and Two of the Indictment in accordance with the
Fuehrer Principle he
executed and assumed responsibility for the execution of the
foreign policy plans of the
Nazi conspirators set forth in Count One of the Indictment;
and he authorised, directed and
participated in the War Crimes set forth in Count Three of
the indictment and the Crimes
against Humanity set forth in Count Four of the Indictment,
including more particularly the
crimes against persons and property in occupied territories.


Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.