(F) THE EXACTION OF COLLECTIVE PENALTIES

The Germans pursued a systematic policy of inflicting, in all the occupied countries, collective penalties, pecuniary and otherwise, upon the population for acts of individuals for which it could not be regarded as collectively responsible; this was done at many places, including Oslo, Stavanger, Trondheim and Rogaland.

Similar instances occurred in France, among others in Dijon, Nantes and as regards the Jewish population in the occupied territories. The total amount of fines imposed on French communities add up to 1,157,179,484 francs made up as follows:

A fine on the Jewish population........1,000,000,000
Various fines........................................... 157,179,484

These acts violated Article 50, Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws

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of all civilised nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

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

The defendants wantonly destroyed cities, towns, and villages and committed other acts of devastation without military justification or necessity. These acts violated Articles 46 and So of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilised nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

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

1. Western Countries:

In March, 1941, part of Lofoten in Norway was destroyed.

In April, 1942, the town of Telerag in Norway was destroyed.

Entire villages were destroyed in France, among others, Oradour-sur-Glane, Saint-Nizier in Gascogne, La Mure, Vassieu, La Chappelle en Vercors. The town of Saint Die was burnt down and destroyed. The Old Port District of Marseilles was dynamited in the beginning of 1943 and resorts along the Atlantic and the Mediterranean coasts, particularly the town of Sanary, were demolished.

In Holland there was most widespread and extensive destruction, not justified by military necessity, including the destruction of harbours, locks, dykes and bridges; immense devastation was also caused by inundations which equally were not justified by military necessity.

(H) CONSCRIPTION OF CIVILIAN LABOUR

Throughout the occupied territories the defendants conscripted and forced the inhabitants to labour and requisitioned their services for purposes other than meeting the needs of the armies of occupation and to an extent far out of proportion to the resources of the countries involved. All the civilians so conscripted, were forced to work for the German war effort. Civilians were required to register and many of those who registered were forced to join the Todt Organisation and the Speer Legion, both of which were semi-military organisations involving some military training. These acts violated Articles 46 and 52 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilised nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

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

1. Western Countries:

In France, from 1942 to 1944, 963,813 persons were compelled to work in Germany and 737,000 to work in France for the German Army.

In Luxembourg in 1944 alone, 2,500 men and 500 girls were conscripted for forced labour.

(I) FORCING CIVILIANS OF OCCUPIED TERRITORIES TO SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO A HOSTILE POWER

Civilians who joined the Speer Legion, as set forth in paragraph (H) were required, under threat of depriving them of food, money and identity papers, to swear a solemn oath acknowledging unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuehrer of Germany, which was to them a hostile power.

(A recess was taken until 14.00 hours.)

THE PRESIDENT: Will the Chief Prosecutor for the French Republic continue the reading of the indictment.

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(I) FORCING CIVILIANS OF OCCUPIED TERRITORIES TO SWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO A HOSTILE POWER

Civilians who joined the Speer Legion, as set forth in paragraph (H) were required, under threat of depriving them of food, money and identity papers, to swear a solemn oath acknowledging unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Fuehrer of Germany, which was to them a hostile power.

In Lorraine, civil servants were obliged, in order to retain their positions, to sign a declaration by which they acknowledged the "return of their country to the Reich," pledged themselves to obey - without reservation the orders of their chiefs and put themselves "at the active service of the Fuehrer and the Great National Socialist Germany."

A similar pledge was imposed on Alsatian civil servants by threat of deportation or internment.

These acts violated Article 45 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of International Law and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

(J) GERMANISATION OF OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

In certain occupied territories purportedly annexed to Germany the defendants methodically and pursuant to plan endeavoured to assimilate those territories politically, culturally, socially and economically into the German Reich. The defendants endeavoured to obliterate the former national character of these territories. In pursuance of these plans and endeavours, the defendants forcibly deported inhabitants who were predominantly non-German and introduced thousands of German colonists.

This plan included economic domination, physical conquest, installation of puppet Governments, purported de jure annexation and enforced conscription into the German Armed Forces.

This was carried out in most of the Occupied Countries including: Norway, France (particularly in the departments of Upper Rhine, Lower Rhine, Moselle, Ardennes, Aisne, Nord, and Meurthe), Luxembourg, the Soviet Union, Denmark, Belgium, Holland.

In France in the Departments of the Aisne, the Nord, the Meurthe and Moselle, and especially in that of the Ardennes, rural properties were seized by a German State Organisation which tried to have them exploited under German direction; the landowners of these exploitations were dispossessed and turned into agricultural labourers.

In the Department of the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine and the Moselle, the methods of Germanisation were those of annexation followed by conscription.

From the month of August, 1940, officials who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Reich were expelled. On 21st September expulsions and deportation of populations began and on 22nd November, 1940, more than 70,000 Lorrainers or Alsatians were driven into the South zone of France. From 31st July, 1941, onwards, more than 100,000 persons were deported into the Eastern regions of the Reich or to Poland. All the property of the deportees or expelled persons was confiscated. At the same time, 80,000 Germans coming from the Saar or from Westphalia were installed in Lorraine and 2,000 farms belonging to French people were transferred to Germans.

From 2nd January, 1942, all the young people of the Departments of the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine, aged from 10 to 18 years, were incorporated in the Hitler Youth. The same thing was done in the Moselle from 4th August, 1942. From 1940 all the French schools were closed, their staffs expelled, and the German school system was introduced in the three departments.

On 28th September, 1940, an order applicable to the Department of the Moselle ordained the Germanisation of all the surnames and Christian names

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which were French in form. The same thing was done from 15th January, 1943, in the Departments of the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine.

Two orders from 23rd to 24th August, 1942, imposed by force German nationality on French citizens.

On 8th May, 1941, for the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine, 23rd April, 1941, for the Moselle, orders were promulgated enforcing compulsory labour service on all French citizens of either sex aged from 17 to 25 years. From 1st January, 1942, for young men and from 26th January, 1942, for young girls, national labour service was effectively organised in the Moselle. It was from 27th August, 1942, in the Upper Rhine and in the Lower Rhine for young men only. The classes 1940, 1941, 1942 were called up.

These classes were retained in the Wehrmacht on the expiration of their time and labour service. On 19th August, 1942, an order instituted compulsory military service in the Moselle. On 25th August, 1942, the classes 1940-1944 were called up in three departments. Conscription was enforced by the German authorities in conformity with the provisions of German legislation. The first revision boards took place from 3rd September, 1942. Later in the Upper Rhine and the Lower Rhine new levies were effected everywhere on classes 1928 to 1939 inclusive. The French people who refused to obey these laws were considered as deserters and their families were deported, while their property was confiscated.

These acts violated Articles 43, 46, 55 and 56 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilised nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed and Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

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.

THE PRESIDENT: I will now call upon the Chief Prosecutor for the Soviet Union.

CAPTAIN V. V. KUCHIN:

COUNT THREE-WAR CRIMES

All the defendants committed War Crimes between 1st September, 1939 and 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, Czechoslovakia, Italy, and on the High Seas.

All the defendants, acting in concert with others, formulated and executed a common plan or conspiracy to commit War Crimes as (refined in Article 6 (b) of the Charter.. This plan involved, among other things, the practice of "total war" including methods of combat and of military occupation in direct conflict with the laws and customs of war, and the commission of crimes perpetrated on the field of battle during encounters with enemy armies, and against prisoners of war, and in occupied territories against the civilian population of such territories.

The said War Crimes were committed by the defendants and by other persons for whose acts the defendants are responsible (under Article 6 of the Charter) as such other persons when committing the said War Crimes performed their acts in execution of a common plan and 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 and of the general principles of criminal law as derived

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(A) MURDER AND ILL-TREATMENT OF CIVILIAN POPULATIONS OF OR IN OCCUPIED TERRITORY AND ON THE HIGH SEAS.

Throughout the period of their occupation of territories overrun by their armed forces the defendants, for the purpose of systematically terrorising the inhabitants, murdered and tortured civilians, and ill-treated them, and imprisoned them without legal process.

The murders and ill-treatment were carried out by divers means, including shooting, hanging, gassing, starvation, gross overcrowding, systematic under-nutrition, systematic imposition of labour tasks beyond the strength of those ordered to carry them out, inadequate provision of surgical and medical services, kickings, beatings, brutality and torture of all kinds, including the use of hot irons and pulling out of fingernails and the performance of experiments by means of operations and otherwise on living human subjects. In some occupied territories the defendants interfered with religious services, persecuted members of the clergy and monastic orders, and expropriated church property. They conducted deliberate and systematic genocide, viz., the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles and Gypsies and others.

Civilians were systematically subjected to tortures of all kinds, with the object of obtaining information.

Civilians of occupied countries were subjected systematically to "protective arrests" whereby they were arrested and imprisoned without any trial and any of the ordinary protections of the law, and they were imprisoned under the most unhealthy and inhumane conditions.

In the concentration camps were many prisoners who were classified "Nacht und Nebel." These were entirely cut off from the world and were allowed neither to receive nor to send letters. They disappeared without trace and no announcement of their fate was ever made by the German authorities.

Such murders and ill-treatment were contrary to International Conventions, in particular to Article 46 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilised nations, the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and to Article 6 (b) of the Charter.

The following particulars and all the particulars appearing later in this count are set out herein by way of example only, are not exclusive of other particular cases, and are stated without prejudice to the right of the prosecution to adduce evidence of other cases of murder and ill-treatment of civilians.

2. In the U.S.S.R., i.e., in the Byelo-Russian, Ukrainian, Esthonia , Latvian, Lithuanian, Karelo-Finnish and Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republics, in nineteen regions of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, and in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, and the Balkans (hereinafter called "the Eastern Countries").

From 1st September, 1939, when the German armed forces invaded Poland, and from 22nd June, 1941, when they invaded the U.S.S.R., the German Government and the German High Command adopted a systematic policy of murder and ill- treatment of the civilian populations of and in the Eastern Countries as they were successively occupied by the German armed forces. These murders and ill-treatments were carried on continuously until the German armed forces were driven out of the said countries.

Such murders and ill-treatments included:

Murders and ill-treatments at concentration camps and similar establishments set up by the Germans in the Eastern Countries and in Eastern Germany including those set up at Maidanek and Auschwitz.

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The said murders and ill-treatments were carried out by divers means including all those set out above, as follows :

About 1,500,000 persons were exterminated in Maidanek and about 4,000,000 persons were exterminated in Auschwitz, among whom were citizens of Poland, the U.S.S.R., the United States of America, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, France and other countries.

In the Lwow region and in the city of Lwow the Germans exterminated about 700,000 Soviet people, including seventy persons in the field of the arts, science and technology, and also citizens of the U.S.A., Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Holland, brought to this region from other concentration camps.

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