Archive/File: imt/tgmwc/tgmwc-07/tgmwc-07-61.06
Last-Modified: 1999/11/11


Permit me to make a further statement. In the first part of
my accusation I spoke of the German mass terror and
particularly of the massacre of the children. Terrorist
methods applied to children are characteristic features of
fascist cruelty.

Will you now permit me to submit further documentary
evidence?

In the first part of my presentation I dealt with German
mass terrorism, and spoke specifically about the
extermination of children and the infamous methods used by
the Germans with regard to them, since terror, applied to
children, terror most savage, most brutal, is one of the
characteristic features of fascist bestiality.

I now present to the Tribunal evidence of mass extermination
of the population in various parts of Eastern Europe. I
submit to the Tribunal brief excerpts from the report of the
Polish Government, which your Honours will find on Page 127
of the Document Book in the second paragraph of the text. It
describes the so-called Anin massacre. I quote:-

   "At the end of December, 1939, a German policeman was
   shot in the vicinity of Warsaw by a bandit. Subsequent
   investigations showed that the murderer was in a
   restaurant in Vaver, near Warsaw. When the police
   entered the restaurant he opened fire, killing one
   policeman and wounding another.
   
   In reply the German authorities, on 26 December, 1939,
   ordered mass reprisals, and a punitive expedition made
   its appearance in the village.
   
   A detachment of 'Landesschutz,' under the command of an
   officer, was dispatched to Vaver and to the summer
   resort of Anin. Both of these localities were surrounded
   by a cordon of soldiers. The proprietor of the
   restaurant where the event had occurred was immediately
   hanged, and his body left hanging in front of his house
   for three days. At the same time men were dragged out
   from every house. Having thus rounded up about 170
   persons, the Germans made them stand in the railway
   station, facing the wall and with their hands held above
   their heads, for several hours. Afterwards their
   documents were checked and a few were dismissed, but the
   vast majority were informed that they would be executed.
   They were then taken to a field, split up into groups of
   ten to fourteen, and executed by volleys from machine
   guns.
   
   The number of individual graves discovered on the
   execution ground amounted to 107. Among those executed
   were: two doctors, thirty youths under sixteen years of
   age and twelve men over sixty. One was an American
   citizen of Polish origin. He was shot together with his
   son."

I shall omit the next paragraph of the report of the Polish
Government dealing with the massacre in Piastoshyn and I
quote only an announcement from a German paper, the
"Weichseler Zeitung," of 23 October, 1939. This announcement
was quoted in the Polish report.

                                                  [Page 102]

   
   " In the Tuchel district, the farm of a Reich citizen,
   Fritze, in the vicinity of Pretzin, was burned, in the
   night of 21-22 October, by Polish bandits. The result
   was that citizen Fritze had a heart attack. By order of
   the Chief of the Civil Administration a punitive
   expedition was despatched to this locality in order to
   teach the guilty bandits a lesson which would show them
   that acts of this kind would be severely punished. As a
   reprisal, ten Poles, known for their hostile attitude
   towards Germany, were shot. In addition, an order was
   given to the Polish inhabitants of this locality to
   rebuild the burned buildings and to pay for the damage
   done."

I shall omit half of the following page, and I quote briefly
the circumstances of the Jozefew massacre in Poland. Your
Honours will find this quotation on page 128, paragraph 2,
of the document book:-

   "In the middle of January, 1940, a family of German
   colonists in the village of Jozefew was robbed and
   murdered by bandits, as the Germans themselves stated in
   the newspapers at a later date. A punitive expedition
   set out for Jozefew."

I omit the next paragraph, and then I continue:-

   " All the men who were caught in Jozefew and the
   vicinity, even young boys, were arrested and shot on the
   spot. Altogether 300 people were murdered."

Mass extermination of the peaceful population in Yugoslavia
were of an exceptionally cruel nature.

I quote the part of the report of the Yugoslav Government
entitled "Mass Murder of the Civilian Population and the
Destruction of Villages."

I beg the Tribunal to accept as evidence a photostat of the
order of Lieutenant-General Neidholt, which is presented as
exhibit USSR 188. I cite this order which was quoted in the
report of the Yugoslav Government:-

   "The settlements of Zagnizde and Udora must be
   destroyed, the male population of these settlements
   hanged and the women and children taken to Stoliac."

I omit the next page of the text and begin the quotation
regarding the atrocities of the German fascist criminals in
Kragujevac.

In confirmation of this report of the Yugoslav Government,
we submit to the Tribunal a certified photostat copy of a
communication from the German commander of the garrison at
Kragujevac, in which he admitted the shooting of 2,300
people. This document is being submitted to the Tribunal,
and I ask you to accept this as evidence under Exhibit USSR
74. I quote from the report of the Yugoslav Government on
the mass murder in Kragujevac.

  "This was mass murder committed on 21 October, 1941, in
  Kragujevac, by a German punitive expedition under the
  command of Major Konig. Besides Konig, the regional
  commander, Bischofshausen, and the commandant of the
  settlement, Dr. Zimmermann, participated in the
  organisation and execution of this crime.
  
  Ten to fifteen days before the perpetration of the crime
  in Kragujevac, one battalion arrived to reinforce the
  German garrison. First of all the following villages were
  destroyed in the vicinity of Kragujevac: Mechkovac,
  Marsic and Groshnic. In Mechkovac the punitive expedition
  murdered 66 people; in Marsic 101, and in Groshnic 100.
  All the victims were peaceful citizens of the villages in
  question.
  
  When, after the perpetration of these crimes, the
  punitive expedition arrived in Kragujevac, they began
  carrying out their plan to exterminate the citizens of
  Kragujevac, especially the Serbian intelligentsia. As
  early as the beginning of October the district
  commandant, Dr. Zimmermann,
  
                                                  [Page 103]
  
  demanded of the headmasters in Kragujevac the regular
  attendance of the school children; otherwise they would
  be considered saboteurs and shot. After such a threat all
  the pupils attended school regularly. On 18 October,
  1941, in conformity with a previously prepared list, all
  male Jews were arrested, as well as all persons who were
  considered communists. They were imprisoned in the
  barracks of the former Yugoslav Auto-Transport
  Kommandatur in Stanovlensko Field. They were kept without
  any food until 20 October and all were shot at about six
  o'clock in the evening; approximately 60 persons were
  killed.
  
  The same day, i.e., 20 October they began to round up the
  entire male population of Kragujevac. After every exit
  from the city had been blocked, the Germans went into
  every public building and drove out all the employees.
  After that all the professors, and pupils from the fifth
  grade upward, together with the teachers, were taken from
  the high schools and seminaries."

I omit the next two sentences and continue:-

  "Together with the others, all the prisoners from the
  Kragujevac prison were taken off to the barracks. Then
  the order was given to them to go into the courtyard of
  the barracks. Here all their personal belongings were
  taken from them. The first to be shot were those
  originally incarcerated in the prison - approximately
  fifty persons. The rest were locked up in barracks. The
  next day, 21 October, as from seven o'clock in the
  morning, they were taken off in batches to Stanovlensko
  Field and there shot down with machine-gun fire. Those
  who did not die at once were finished off by the Germans
  with automatic pistols."

I conclude this quotation and continue after the next three
paragraphs.

  "The relatives of the victims of this mass slaughter were
  forbidden to visit the place of execution until the
  burial of the victims had been completed and all traces
  of the crime eliminated. They were also forbidden to hold
  any requiem masses or religious services for the victims.
  In the obituary notices in the papers it was forbidden to
  mention that the victims had met their death in the mass
  execution."

I omit the next five paragraphs and invite the attention of
the Tribunal to a short part of the report of the Yugoslav
Government dealing with the so-called "death march" or
"march of blood," that march of dire fame to the camp of
Yarak. I quote that particular part which deals with this
atrocious crime of the Hitlerites.

  "In the beginning of September, 1941, a large German
  punitive expedition rounded up all the male population
  between the ages of fourteen and seventy years and drove
  them from Shabatka across the Sava River into the
  settlement of Yarak in Sirinya. That was the so-called
  'death march'. About 5,000 men had to run a distance of
  twenty-three kilometres and back again. Those who could
  not stand the pace and fell by the way were ruthlessly
  shot on the spot. Because many were old and weak, the
  number of victims was great, especially while crossing
  the bridge over the Sava."

I conclude this and I continue with the next paragraph:-

  "On the way back they met another group of 800 peasants
  who had to cover the same distance, but the treatment of
  this group was still more brutal. They had to run with
  their arms raised over their heads. They were
  systematically murdered on the way. Only 300 men of the
  group reached Yarak alive."

I interrupt the quotation here, I omit this page and the
next and concluding my presentation of the mass murders of
the civilian population in Yugoslavia, I would ask the
Tribunal to accept in evidence the public announcement of
the Chief of the German Armed Forces in Serbia. This
document is presented to the Tribunal

                                                  [Page 104]

as Exhibit USSR 200. Without making any comment at all, I
simply quote this document, using the original text
incorporated in the report of the Yugoslav Government. In
the report the Commander-in-Chief in Serbia quotes the
following facts:-

   "In the village of Skela, a communist detachment opened
   fire at a German military truck. It was established that
   several of the inhabitants had been watching and saw the
   preparations for this attack. It was further established
   that these inhabitants could have warned the nearest
   station of the Serbian gendarmerie. It was also
   established that they could have secretly warned the
   German military trucks against the imminent attempt. The
   inhabitants did not profit by the opportunity and had
   thus placed themselves on the side of the criminals. The
   village of Skela was burned to the ground. Supplies of
   ammunition exploded in several houses during, the fire
   and this was accepted as a proof of complicity on the
   part of the inhabitants. All the male inhabitants of the
   village whose participation in the attack had been
   proved were shot, and 50 communists were hanged on the
   spot."

I now omit five pages of my presentation and I invite the
attention of the Tribunal to the brief excerpts from the
report of the Greek Government, on Pages 39 and 40 of the
Russian text of this report, from which we can see that the
same inhuman and criminal methods of mass shootings were
used by the Hitler criminals in the temporarily occupied
territory of Greece. I begin my quotation:-

   "As soon as the island of Crete was occupied by the
   Germans, the Hitler Supreme Command proclaimed that,
   wherever German soldiers were attacked, all the villages
   would be burned down and all the inhabitants punished by
   death. In compliance with this announcement the first
   reprisals were made and several people, most of them
   absolutely innocent, were shot, and the villages of
   Skiki, Prassi and Kandanes" - and perhaps I am stressing
   the wrong syllables since I do not know how these words
   should be pronounced in Greek - "all these villages were
   burned down as a reprisal for an attack by partisans
   during the invasion of Crete. On the sites where these
   villages formerly existed, posts were erected with
   inscriptions in Greek and in German: 'Destroyed as a
   reprisal for the brutal murder of a detachment of
   paratroopers and half a platoon of sappers by armed men
   and women in the rear'.
   
   Measures of reprisal, which at first were of a temporary
   nature, later grew in intensity, especially after the
   resistance begun by organised partisan detachments
   throughout  the country in the beginning of 1943. The
   technique was always the same. The day after an act of
   sabotage or any other action committed by the partisans
   near a village, the German troops would appear in this
   village. The inhabitants would be rounded up in the
   central square or some other place suitable for the
   occasion, to listen to a public announcement, but in
   reality to be killed on the spot by machine-gun fire.
   After this the Germans either burned the village or
   else, in some cases, they would first plunder a village
   and then open fire on it. The inhabitants were killed
   openly in the streets, houses and fields, regardless of
   age and sex. There were cases when only the male
   population of the age of sixteen years and over, were
   executed. In other cases, when the men succeeded in
   hiding in the mountains, the Germans would execute the
   old men, women and children who had remained in the
   villages, hoping that their age and their sex would
   protect them. The villages of Arachoea, Kalovryta,
   Gestamon, Klissoura, Kommeno and Lissovouni, may be
   considered as typical examples. Some villages were
   destroyed for the sole reason that they were located in
   a region where partisans had been active."

I omit the next sentence since it has a direct bearing on
another subject of the report. I continue my quotation:

                                                  [Page 105]

   "The number of people murdered amounts to nearly
   30,000."

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