Nuremberg. Nuremberg trials Nuremberg trials protocols of interrogation of the main war criminals
THE NUREMBERG TRIAL COLLECTION OF MATERIALS
Third edition, corrected and expanded
State Publishing House of LEGAL LITERATURE
MOSCOW. 1955
A collection of materials from the Nuremberg trials of the main German war criminals in two volumes, prepared under the editorship of K.P. Gorshenina (editor-in-chief), R.A. Rudenko and I.T. Nikitchenko.
FROM THE PUBLISHER OF THE ELECTRONIC VERSION
The material in this edition contains a large number of citations from documents, so whenever possible, citations have been replaced by complete or more complete versions of documents. Sources of material are indicated in footnotes.
PREFACE
Taking into account the wishes of a wide circle of readers who show great interest in the Nuremberg trials of the main German war criminals, the State Publishing House of Legal Literature is releasing the third edition of the Collection of materials from the Nuremberg trials.
As in the first two editions of the Collection of materials of the Nuremberg trial of the main German war criminals, published in 1952 and 1954, this edition publishes only the most important materials of the trial and only official documents that were considered by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg (introductory and final speeches of the main prosecutors from the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France, excerpts from the presented documentary evidence, testimony of witnesses, Charter, regulations, indictment and verdict of the Tribunal, dissenting opinion of a member of the Tribunal from the USSR, etc.).
The third edition of the Collection includes all the materials from the trial contained in the second edition, including official materials related to the criminal role of the German monopolies and Hitler’s generals in the preparation, unleashing and waging of aggressive wars; transcripts of interrogations of the defendants Goering, Ribbentrop, Papen, Neurath, Keitel, Raeder, Doenitz, Jodl, Schacht, Speer, Sauckel, Funk, Rosenberg, Frank, Schirach, Fritzsche; materials about criminal organizations of the Hitler regime.
The third edition is published in two volumes, the material is arranged in the same way as in the second edition. This edition clarifies the transcription of a number of terms and foreign words. To facilitate the use of the collection, a chronicle of the organization and activities of the International Military Tribunal and “Explanations of individual words and abbreviations found in the text” are included.
The first volume of the Collection is published under the supervision of editor E.M. Vorozheikina
Tech. editor A.N. Makarova
Delivered to set 28/V 1955
Signed for publication on 19/VIII 1954.
Volume: physical oven l. 62.88 (including 3.38 inserts);
conditional oven l. 84.94; accounting-ed. l. 74.17.
Circulation 20000. A-04255. Price 19 rub. 40 k.
State Publishing House: Moscow, Zh-4, Tovarishchesky lane, 19.
Order No. 127. Typolitography "Young Guard", Leningrad, trans. Dzhambula, 13.
DECLARATIONS AND STATEMENTS ABOUT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE HITLERISTS FOR THE ATROCITIES COMMITTED
STATEMENT OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT ON THE RESPONSIBILITY OF HITLER'S INVADERS AND THEIR ACCELERATES FOR THE ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY THEM IN THE OCCUPIED COUNTRIES OF EUROPE
The Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Minister of the Czechoslovak Republic, Mr. Fierlinger, and the representative of the French National Committee, Mr. Garro, transferred through the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, I.V. Stalin, a collective note from the governments of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Norway, Greece, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg and the French National Committee, signed on January 13 of this year. "Declaration on the Punishment of Crimes Committed During the War." This note expresses the wish that the Soviet Union issue a warning about responsibility for the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the countries they occupied.
October 14, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.M. Molotov, on instructions from the Soviet Government, sent the following statement to Mr. Fierlinger and Mr. Garro:
“Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR I.V. Stalin, having familiarized himself with the appeal addressed to him by representatives of the countries. temporarily occupied by Nazi Germany, to issue a solemn warning of responsibility for the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the territories they captured, instructed the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs to bring to the attention of the governments of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Norway, Greece, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg and the French National Committee the following statement Soviet Government:
The Soviet Government and the entire Soviet people have a feeling of fraternal solidarity and deep sympathy for the suffering and liberation struggle of the peoples of the countries of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany. The disasters, humiliation and torment inflicted on these peoples by Hitler's tyranny are all the more understandable to the peoples of the Soviet Union because the Nazi invaders in the Soviet regions they temporarily occupied are committing their atrocious crimes on a monstrous scale - mass murder of civilians, destruction of cities and villages, robbery and ruin of the population , brutal violence against women, children and the elderly, the enslavement of hundreds of thousands of people.
The information reported to the Soviet Government in the collective appeal it received about the atrocities of the Nazi occupiers and their accomplices again confirms the widespread and premeditated nature of their bloody crimes, indicating that the Nazi government and its accomplices, seeking to enslave the peoples of the occupied countries, destroy their culture and humiliate national dignity, also set themselves the goal of direct physical extermination of a significant part of the population in the occupied territory.
At the same time, the Soviet Government states that the German fascists failed neither by methods of intimidation and bribery, nor by inciting racial hatred, nor by robbery and famine, nor
On November 20, 1945 at 10.00 in the small German town of Nuremberg, an international trial opened in the case of the main Nazi war criminals of the European countries of the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis. This city was not chosen by chance: for many years it was a citadel of fascism, an involuntary witness to the congresses of the National Socialist Party and parades of its assault troops. The Nuremberg trials were carried out by the International Military Tribunal (IMT), created on the basis of the London Agreement of August 8, 1945 between the governments of the leading allied states - the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France, which was joined by 19 other countries - members of the Anti-Hitler coalition. The basis of the agreement was the provisions of the Moscow Declaration of October 30, 1943 on the responsibility of the Nazis for the atrocities committed, which was signed by the leaders of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain.
The building of the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, where the Nuremberg trials took place
The establishment of a military tribunal with international status became possible largely thanks to the creation at a conference in San Francisco (April-June 1945) of the United Nations - a world security organization that united all peace-loving states, which together put up a worthy rebuff to fascist aggression. The Tribunal was established in the interests of all member countries of the United Nations, which, after the end of the bloodiest of wars, set as their main goal “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war: and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person.” This is stated in the UN Charter. At that historical stage, immediately after the end of the Second World War, for these purposes it was extremely necessary to publicly recognize the Nazi regime and its main leaders as guilty of unleashing an aggressive war against almost all of humanity, which brought it monstrous grief and untold suffering. To officially condemn Nazism and outlaw it meant putting an end to one of the threats that could potentially lead to a new world war in the future. In his opening speech at the first sitting of the court, the presiding judge, Lord Justice J. Lawrence (IMT member for the UK), emphasized the uniqueness of the process and its “social significance for millions of people around the globe.” That is why the members of the international court had a huge responsibility. They were to "discharge their duties honestly and conscientiously, without any connivance, in accordance with the sacred principles of law and justice."
The organization and jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal were determined by its Charter, which formed an integral part of the London Agreement of 1945. According to the Charter, the tribunal had the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries individually or as members of an organization, committed crimes against peace, military crimes and crimes against humanity. The IMT included judges - representatives from the four founding states (one from each country), their deputies and chief prosecutors. The following were appointed to the Committee of Chief Prosecutors: from the USSR - R.A. Rudenko, from the USA - Robert H. Jackson, from Great Britain - H. Shawcross, from France - F. de Menton, and then C. de Ribes. The Committee was entrusted with the investigation of the main Nazi criminals and their prosecution. The process was built on a combination of procedural orders of all states represented in the tribunal. Decisions were made by majority vote.
In the courtroom
Almost the entire ruling elite of the Third Reich was in the dock - senior military and government officials, diplomats, major bankers and industrialists: G. Goering, R. Hess, J. von Ribbentrop, W. Keitel, E. Kaltenbrunner, A. Rosenberg, H. Frank, W. Frick, J. Streicher, W. Funk, C. Dönitz, E. Raeder, B. von Schirach, F. Sauckel, A. Jodl, A. Seys-Inquart, A. Speer, K. von Neurath , H. Fritsche, J. Schacht, R. Ley (hanged himself in his cell before the start of the trial), G. Krupp (was declared terminally ill, his case was suspended), M. Bormann (tried in absentia, because he disappeared and did not was found) and F. von Papen. The only people missing from the courtroom were the most senior leaders of Nazism - Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler, who committed suicide during the storming of Berlin by the Red Army. The accused were participants in all major domestic and foreign political, as well as military events since Hitler came to power. Therefore, according to the French publicist R. Cartier, who was present at the trial and wrote the book “Secrets of War. Based on the materials of the Nuremberg trials,” “their trial was a trial of the regime as a whole, of an entire era, of the entire country.”
The main prosecutor from the USSR at the Nuremberg trials R.A. Rudenko
The International Military Tribunal also considered the issue of recognizing as criminal the leadership of the National Socialist Party (NSDAP), its assault (SA) and security detachments (SS), the security service (SD) and the state secret police (Gestapo), as well as the government cabinet, the General Staff and the High Command (OKW) of Nazi Germany. All crimes committed by the Nazis during the war were divided in accordance with the Charter of the International Military Tribunal into crimes:
Against peace (planning, preparing, initiating or waging a war of aggression or war in violation of international treaties);
War crimes (violations of the laws or customs of war: murder, torture or enslavement of civilians; murder or torture of prisoners of war; robbery of state, public or private property; destruction or looting of cultural property; wanton destruction of cities or villages);
Crimes against humanity (destruction of Slavic and other peoples; creation of secret points for the destruction of civilians; killing of the mentally ill).
The International Military Tribunal, which sat for almost a year, did a colossal job. During the trial, 403 open court hearings were held, 116 witnesses were questioned, over 300 thousand written testimonies and about 3 thousand documents were considered, including photo and film accusations (mainly official documents of German ministries and departments, the Wehrmacht High Command, the General Staff, military concerns and banks, materials from personal archives). If Germany had won the war, or if the end of the war had not been so swift and crushing, then all of these documents (many classified as “Top Secret”) would most likely have been destroyed or hidden forever from the world community. Numerous witnesses who testified during the trial, according to R. Cartier, were not limited to just facts, but covered and commented on them in detail, “bringing new shades, colors and the spirit of the era itself.” In the hands of judges and prosecutors there was indisputable evidence of the criminal intentions and bloody atrocities of the Nazis. Wide publicity and openness became one of the main principles of the international process: more than 60 thousand passes were issued to be present in the courtroom, sessions were conducted simultaneously in four languages, the press and radio were represented by about 250 journalists from different countries.
The numerous crimes of the Nazis and their accomplices, revealed and made public during the Nuremberg trials, are truly amazing. Everything that could be invented that was beyond cruel, inhumane and inhumane was included in the arsenal of the fascists. Here we should mention barbaric methods of warfare, cruel treatment of prisoners of war, grossly violating all international conventions previously adopted in these areas, the enslavement of the population of occupied territories, the deliberate destruction of entire cities and villages from the face of the earth, and sophisticated technologies of mass destruction. . The world was shocked by the facts voiced during the trial about savage experiments on people, about the massive use of special killing drugs “Cyclone A” and “Cyclone B”, about the so-called gas gas vans, gas “baths”, powerful cremation furnaces working non-stop day and night. Nazi subhumans, cynically considering themselves the only chosen nation that has the right to decide the destinies of other peoples, created an entire “industry of death.” The death camp at Auschwitz, for example, was designed to exterminate 30 thousand people per day, Treblinka - 25 thousand, Sobibur - 22 thousand, etc. In total, 18 million people passed through the system of concentration and death camps, about 11 million of whom were brutally exterminated.
Nazi criminals in the dock
Accusations of the incompetence of the Nuremberg trials, which arose years after its end among Western revisionist historians, some lawyers and neo-Nazis and boiled down to the fact that it was allegedly not a fair trial, but a “quick execution” and “revenge” of the victors, at least insolvent. All defendants were handed an Indictment on October 18, 1945, that is, more than a month before the start of the trial, so that they could prepare for their defense. Thus, the fundamental rights of the accused were respected. The world press, commenting on the Indictment, noted that this document was drawn up on behalf of the “offended conscience of humanity”, that this is not “an act of revenge, but a triumph of justice”; not only the leaders of Nazi Germany, but also the entire system of fascism will appear before the court. It was an extremely fair trial of the peoples of the world.
J. von Ribbentrop, B. von Schirach, W. Keitel, F. Sauckel in the dock
The defendants were given a wide opportunity to defend themselves against the charges brought against them: they all had lawyers, they were provided with copies of all documentary evidence in German, assistance was provided in finding and obtaining the necessary documents, and delivering witnesses whom the defense considered necessary to call. However, the accused and their lawyers from the very beginning of the trial set out to prove the legal inconsistency of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal. In an effort to avoid inevitable punishment, they tried to shift all responsibility for the crimes committed exclusively to Adolf Hitler, the SS and the Gestapo, and made counter-accusations against the founding states of the tribunal. It is characteristic and significant that not one of them had the slightest doubt about their complete innocence.
G. Goering and R. Hess in the dock
After painstaking and scrupulous work that lasted almost a year, on September 30 - October 1, 1946, the verdict of the international court was announced. It analyzed the basic principles of international law violated by Nazi Germany, the arguments of the parties, and gave a picture of the criminal activities of the fascist state for more than 12 years of its existence. The International Military Tribunal found all the defendants (with the exception of Schacht, Fritsche and von Papen) guilty of conspiracy to prepare and wage aggressive wars, as well as of committing countless war crimes and the worst atrocities against humanity. 12 Nazi criminals were sentenced to death by hanging: Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streichel, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann (in absentia). The rest received various prison sentences: Hess, Funk, Raeder - for life, Schirach and Speer - 20 years, Neurath - 15 years, Doenitz - 10 years.
The representative of the prosecution from France speaks
The Tribunal also found the leadership of the National Socialist Party, SS, SD and Gestapo criminal. Thus, even the verdict, according to which only 11 of the 21 defendants were sentenced to death, and three were acquitted, clearly showed that justice was not formal and nothing was predetermined. At the same time, a member of the international court from the USSR - the country that suffered the most at the hands of Nazi criminals, Major General of Justice I.T. Nikitchenko, in a Dissenting Opinion, stated the disagreement of the Soviet side of the court with the acquittal of the three defendants. He spoke out for the death penalty against R. Hess, and also expressed disagreement with the decision not to recognize the Nazi government, the High Command, the General Staff and the SA as criminal organizations.
The convicts' petitions for clemency were rejected by the Control Council for Germany, and on the night of October 16, 1946, the death penalty was carried out (shortly before this, Goering committed suicide).
Following the largest and longest international trial in history in Nuremberg, 12 more trials took place in the city until 1949, which examined the crimes of more than 180 Nazi leaders. Most of them also suffered a well-deserved punishment. Military tribunals, which took place after the end of World War II in Europe and in other cities and countries, convicted a total of more than 30 thousand Nazi criminals. However, many Nazis responsible for committing brutal crimes unfortunately managed to escape justice. But their search did not stop, but continued: the UN made an important decision not to take into account the statute of limitations for Nazi criminals. Thus, in the 1960s and 1970s alone, dozens and hundreds of Nazis were found, arrested and convicted. Based on the materials of the Nuremberg trials, E. Koch (in Poland) and A. Eichmann (in Israel) were brought to trial and sentenced to death in 1959.
It is important to emphasize that the goal of the international process in Nuremberg was to condemn the Nazi leaders - the main ideological inspirers and leaders of unjustifiably cruel actions and bloody atrocities, and not the entire German people. In this regard, the British representative at the trial stated in his closing speech: “I repeat again that we do not seek to blame the people of Germany. Our goal is to protect him and give him the opportunity to rehabilitate himself and win the respect and friendship of the whole world. But how can this be done if we leave in his midst unpunished and unconvicted these elements of Nazism, who are mainly responsible for tyranny and crimes and who, as the tribunal can believe, cannot be converted to the path of freedom and justice? As for the military leaders, in the opinion of some, who were simply fulfilling their military duty, unquestioningly following the orders of the political leadership of Germany, it is necessary to emphasize here that the tribunal condemned not just “disciplined warriors,” but people who considered “war a form of existence” and who never learned “lessons from the experience of defeat in one of them.”
To the question asked by the accused at the very beginning of the Nuremberg trials: “Do you plead guilty?”, all the accused, as one, answered in the negative. But even after almost a year - time quite sufficient to rethink and reassess their actions - they have not changed their opinion.
“I do not recognize the decision of this court: I continue to be faithful to our Fuhrer,” Goering said in his last word at the trial. “We’ll wait twenty years. Germany will rise again. Whatever sentence this court may give me, I will be found innocent before the face of Christ. I am ready to repeat everything again, even if it means that I will be burned alive,” these words belong to R. Hess. A minute before the execution, Streichel exclaimed: “Heil Hitler! With God blessing!". Jodl echoed him: “I salute you, my Germany!”
During the trial, militant German militarism, which was “the core of the Nazi party as well as the core of the armed forces,” was also condemned. Moreover, it is important to understand that the concept of “militarism” is by no means connected with the military profession. This is a phenomenon that, with the Nazis coming to power, permeated the entire German society, all spheres of its activity - political, military, social, economic. Militarist-minded German leaders preached and practiced the dictatorship of armed force. They themselves enjoyed the war and sought to instill the same attitude in their “flock.” Moreover, the need to counteract evil, also with the help of weapons, on the part of the peoples who became the target of aggression, could ricochet back at them.
In his closing speech at the trial, the US representative stated: “Militarism inevitably leads to a cynical and evil disregard for the rights of others, the foundations of civilization. Militarism destroys the morals of the people who practice it, and since it can only be defeated by the force of its own weapons, it undermines the morals of the peoples who are forced to engage in battle with it.” To confirm the idea of the corrupting effect of Nazism on the minds and morals of ordinary Germans, soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht, one, but very characteristic, example can be given. In document No. 162, presented to the International Court of the USSR, the captured German chief corporal Lecourt admitted in his testimony that he personally shot and tortured 1,200 Soviet prisoners of war and civilians in the period from September 1941 to October 1942 alone. , for which he received another title ahead of schedule and was awarded the “Eastern Medal”. The worst thing is that he committed these atrocities not on the orders of higher commanders, but, in his own words, “in his free time from work, for the sake of interest,” “for the sake of his pleasure.” Isn’t this the best proof of the guilt of the Nazi leaders before their people!
American soldier, professional executioner John Woods prepares a noose for criminals
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NUREMBERG TRIALS
Today, 70 years after the start of the Nuremberg Trials (next fall will mark 70 years since its end), it is clearly visible what a huge role it played in historical, legal and socio-political terms. The Nuremberg trials became a historical event, first of all, as the triumph of Law over Nazi lawlessness. He exposed the misanthropic essence of German Nazism, its plans for the destruction of entire states and peoples, its extreme inhumanity and cruelty, absolute immorality, the true extent and depth of the atrocities of the Nazi executioners and the extreme danger of Nazism and fascism for all humanity. The entire totalitarian system of Nazism as a whole was subjected to moral condemnation. This created a moral barrier to the revival of Nazism in the future, or at least to its universal condemnation.
We must not forget that the entire civilized world, which had just gotten rid of the “brown plague,” applauded the verdict of the International Military Tribunal. It is unfortunate that now in some European countries there is a revival of Nazism in one form or another, and in the Baltic states and Ukraine there is an active process of glorification and glorification of members of the Waffen-SS detachments, which during the Nuremberg trials were recognized as criminal along with German security detachments SS. It is important that these phenomena of today be sharply condemned by all peace-loving peoples and such authoritative international and regional security organizations as the UN, OSCE and the European Union. I would not like to believe that we are witnessing what one of the Nazi criminals, G. Fritsche, predicted in his speech at the Nuremberg trials: “If you believe that this is the end, then you are mistaken. We are present at the birth of the Hitler legend."
It is important to know and remember that the decisions of the Nuremberg Tribunal have not been canceled! It seems completely unacceptable to radically revise its decisions and, in general, its historical significance, as well as the main results and lessons of the Second World War, which, unfortunately, some Western historians, legal scholars and politicians are trying to do today. It is important to note that the materials of the Nuremberg trials are one of the most important sources for studying the history of the Second World War and creating a holistic and objective picture of the atrocities of the Nazi leaders, as well as for obtaining a clear answer to the question of who is to blame for the outbreak of this monstrous war. In Nuremberg, it was Nazi Germany, its political, party and military leaders who were recognized as the main and only culprits of international aggression. Therefore, the attempts of some modern historians to divide this blame equally between Germany and the USSR are completely untenable.
From the point of view of legal significance, the Nuremberg trials became an important milestone in the development of international law. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal and the verdict pronounced almost 70 years ago became “one of the cornerstones of modern international law, one of its basic principles,” wrote the famous domestic researcher of various issues and aspects of the Nuremberg trials, Professor A.I. Poltorak in his work “The Nuremberg Trials. Main legal problems". His point of view is of particular importance also because he was the secretary of the USSR delegation at this trial.
It should be admitted that among some lawyers there is an opinion that in the organization and conduct of the Nuremberg trials, not everything was smooth from the point of view of legal norms, but it must be taken into account that it was the first international court of its kind. However, not the most strict lawyer who understands this will ever argue that Nuremberg did not do anything progressive and significant for the development of international law. And it is completely unacceptable for politicians to take on the interpretation of the legal subtleties of the process, while claiming to express the ultimate truth.
The Nuremberg trials were the first event of this kind and significance in history. He defined new types of international crimes, which then became firmly established in international law and the national legislation of many states. In addition to the fact that at Nuremberg aggression was recognized as a crime against peace (for the first time in history!), it was also the first time that officials responsible for planning, preparing and unleashing wars of aggression were held criminally liable. For the first time, it was recognized that the position of the head of state, department or army, as well as the execution of government orders or a criminal order do not exempt from criminal liability. The Nuremberg decisions led to the creation of a special branch in international law - international criminal law.
The Nuremberg Trials were followed by the Tokyo Trials, the trial of major Japanese war criminals, which took place in Tokyo from May 3, 1946 to November 12, 1948 at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The demand for the trial of Japanese war criminals was formulated in the Potsdam Declaration of July 26, 1945. The Japanese Instrument of Surrender of September 2, 1945, pledged to “fairly implement the terms of the Potsdam Declaration,” including the punishment of war criminals.
The Nuremberg principles, approved by the UN General Assembly (resolutions of December 11, 1946 and November 27, 1947), have become generally accepted norms of international law. They serve as a basis for refusal to carry out a criminal order and warn of the responsibility of those leaders of states who are ready to commit crimes against peace and humanity. Subsequently, genocide, racism and racial discrimination, apartheid, the use of nuclear weapons, and colonialism were classified as crimes against humanity. The principles and norms formulated by the Nuremberg Trials formed the basis of all post-war international legal documents aimed at preventing aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity (for example, the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the 1949 Geneva Convention “On the Protection of Victims of War”, 1968 Convention “On the Inapplicability of the Statute of Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity”, 1998 Rome Statute “On the Establishment of the International Criminal Court”).
The Nuremberg trials set a legal precedent for the establishment of similar international tribunals. In the 1990s, the Nuremberg Military Tribunal became the prototype for the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, established by the UN Security Council. True, as it turned out, they do not always pursue fair goals and are not always completely impartial and objective. This was especially evident in the work of the tribunal for Yugoslavia.
In 2002, at the request of the President of Sierra Leone, Ahmed Kabba, who addressed the UN Secretary-General, a Special Court for Sierra Leone was created under the auspices of this authoritative organization. It was to conduct an international trial of those responsible for the most serious crimes (mainly military and against humanity) during the internal armed conflict in Sierra Leone.
Unfortunately, when establishing (or, conversely, deliberately not establishing) international tribunals like Nuremberg, “double standards” often operate these days and the decisive factor is not the desire to find the true culprits of crimes against peace and humanity, but in a certain way to demonstrate one’s political influence on the international stage, to show “who is who.” This, for example, happened during the work of the International Tribunal for Yugoslavia. To prevent this from happening in the future, political will and unity of UN member states is required.
The political significance of the Nuremberg trials is also obvious. He marked the beginning of the process of demilitarization and denazification of Germany, i.e. implementation of the most important decisions adopted in 1945 at the Yalta (Crimean) and Potsdam conferences. As is known, in order to eradicate fascism, destroy the Nazi statehood, eliminate the German armed forces and military industry, Berlin and the country's territory were divided into occupation zones, administrative power in which was exercised by the victorious states. We note with regret that our Western allies, disregarding the agreed decisions, were the first to take steps towards the revival of the defense industry, the armed forces and the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in their zone of occupation, and with the emergence of the military-political NATO bloc and the admission of West Germany into it.
But, assessing the post-war socio-political significance of Nuremberg, we emphasize that never before had a trial united all the progressive forces of the world, who sought once and for all to condemn not only specific war criminals, but also the very idea of achieving foreign policy and economic goals through aggression against other countries and peoples. Supporters of peace and democracy regarded it as an important step towards the practical implementation of the Yalta agreements of 1945 to establish a new post-war order in Europe and throughout the world, which was to be based, on the one hand, on the complete and general rejection of aggressive military force methods in international politics, and on the other hand, on mutual understanding and friendly all-round cooperation and collective efforts of all peace-loving countries, regardless of their socio-political and economic structure. The possibility of such cooperation and its fruitfulness was clearly proven during the Second World War, when most of the world's states, realizing the mortal danger of the “brown plague,” united into the Anti-Hitler Coalition and jointly defeated it. The creation in 1945 of the world security organization - the UN - served as further proof of this. Unfortunately, with the beginning of the Cold War, the development of this progressive process - the rapprochement and cooperation of states with different socio-political systems - turned out to be significantly difficult and did not go as expected at the end of the Second World War.
It is important that the Nuremberg Trials always stand as a barrier to the revival of Nazism and aggression as state policy in our days and in the future. Its results and historical lessons, which are not subject to oblivion, much less revision and reassessment, should serve as a warning to all who see themselves as the chosen “arbiters of the destinies” of states and peoples. This requires only the desire and will to unite the efforts of all the freedom-loving, democratic forces of the world, their union, such as the states of the Anti-Hitler coalition managed to create during the Second World War.
Shepova N.Ya.,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor, Senior Researcher
Research Institute (military history)
Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces
Erich Koch is a prominent figure in the NSDAP and the Third Reich. Gauleiter (October 1, 1928 - May 8, 1945) and Chief President (September 1933 - May 8, 1945) of East Prussia, Head of the Civil Administration of the Bialystok District (August 1, 1941-1945), Reich Commissioner of Ukraine (1 September 1941 - November 10, 1944), SA Obergruppenführer (1938), war criminal.
Adolf Eichmann was a German Gestapo officer directly responsible for the mass extermination of Jews during World War II. By order of Reinhard Heydrich, he took part in the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, at which measures for the “final solution of the Jewish question” - the extermination of several million Jews - were discussed. As a secretary, he kept minutes of the meeting. Eichmann proposed to immediately resolve the issue of deporting Jews to Eastern Europe. Direct leadership of this operation was entrusted to him.
He was in a privileged position in the Gestapo, often receiving orders directly from Himmler, bypassing the immediate superiors of G. Müller and E. Kaltenbrunner. In March 1944, he headed the Sonderkommando, which organized the dispatch of transport with Hungarian Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz. In August 1944, he presented a report to Himmler, in which he reported on the extermination of 4 million Jews.
Rudenko ( R. A. Rudenko - Chief prosecutor from the USSR at the Nuremberg trials.): Did I understand you correctly, Defendant Goering, that all the main decisions in the field of foreign policy, military strategy in their final form were made by Hitler independently?
Goering: Yes, right. This is why he was the Fuhrer.
Rudenko: Should this be understood to mean that Hitler made decisions without listening to the opinions of experts, without studying the issue, without analyzing the various materials that these experts could present?
Goering: This happened in various ways. In some cases, he, naturally, ordered the provision of relevant materials to him, but the experts could not guess exactly why this was being done. On other occasions he expressed to the experts what he intended to do. In these cases, he received relevant materials and conclusions from them. But as the supreme leader, he himself decided.
Rudenko: In this case, do I understand you correctly that in resolving serious issues Hitler relied to one degree or another on materials or analyzes presented to him by his closest collaborators who worked and advised him in relevant fields?
Goering: Partly these were his close employees. When presenting information, these were less close employees from the relevant departments.
Rudenko: Will you then tell me who was Hitler's closest collaborator in the field of the air force?
Goering: Needless to say, I am.
Rudenko: In matters of economics?
Goering: On economic issues, it was also me.
Rudenko: On foreign policy issues?
Goering: Things were different here. It depended on the issue being decided and the extent to which the Führer intended to involve anyone in discussing the issue or clarifying it.
Rudenko: Which of these closest collaborators can you personally name?
Goering: The Fuhrer's closest collaborator was, as I already said, first and foremost me. Then the closest collaborator, this word is not quite correct, was Dr. Goebbels; he just talked more to him than to the others. You also have to distinguish the time to which this refers, because over the course of twenty years the picture has changed. In the end, Bormann was closest to him. Then in 1933-1934. and almost until the very end - Himmler, but only on certain issues. If the Fuhrer was faced with resolving any special issues that concerned any department, then it goes without saying that he attracted the one who was best versed in these issues, as is customary in other governments. He demanded the appropriate materials from them.
Rudenko: Name who was Hitler's closest collaborator in the field of foreign policy?
Goering: As for foreign policy, one can only talk about close cooperation with the Fuhrer when the technical side of the issue is implied. He usually thought through the most important and significant decisions in the field of foreign policy himself, after which he reported the results of these thoughts to his closest employees and trusted persons from his circle. Only on rare occasions did he allow certain issues to be discussed. So, for example, this happened with me. But the technical implementation of his decisions on foreign policy issues, which were expressed in notes or in anything else, was entrusted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Rudenko: Defendant Ribbentrop?
Goering: Of course, he was just that minister. However, he did not make foreign policy.
Rudenko: Who advised Hitler on military strategic issues?
Goering: It was a row of people. On the basis of a purely departmental procedure, the three commanders-in-chief of the armed forces and their chiefs of staff were involved in the discussion of strategic issues. Partially - also the headquarters of the operational leadership, which was directly subordinate to the Fuhrer.
Rudenko: Which of the defendants can you name as such consultants?
Goering: In the case when the Fuhrer requested, the adviser on strategic issues was Colonel General Jodl, the chief of staff of the operational leadership, on military organizational issues - three commanders-in-chief, including myself and Grand Admiral Raeder, and later Grand Admiral Doenitz . The last two are on maritime issues.
Rudenko: All these advisers could not stand aside; did they exert their influence with their advice and consultations on Hitler’s decisions?
Goering: They were not on the sidelines, but they had influence only to the extent that their point of view coincided with the point of view of the Fuhrer.
Rudenko: Clear. Let's move on to the next group of questions.
When exactly did you start developing a plan of action for German aviation against the Soviet Union in connection with the Barbarossa option?
Goering: The plan for the strategic concentration and deployment of air forces in connection with the Barbarossa option was developed by my General Staff after the first indication of the Fuehrer regarding the possible outbreak of a conflict, that is, after the November instruction.
Rudenko: 1940?
Goering: In 1940. But in my area, before that time, I had already thought through preparations in case of a possible conflict with all those states that were not at war with us, including against Russia. In my field, I thought this through while being completely independent.
Rudenko: Thus, back in November 1940, that is, more than six months before Germany attacked the Soviet Union, a plan for this attack had already been developed with your participation?
Goering: I recently spoke in great detail about the fact that by this time a plan had already been developed in case of a possible change in the political situation.
Rudenko: I ask you to answer this question briefly: “yes” or “no.” I repeat once again: in November 1940, more than six months before the attack on the Soviet Union, was a plan for this attack developed with your participation? Can you briefly answer this question?
Goering: Yes, but not in the sense in which you want to present it.
Rudenko: It seems to me that I have posed the question to you quite clearly, and there is no double meaning in it. How long did Plan Barbarossa take to develop?
Goering: Which area are you talking about: aviation, navy or ground forces?
Rudenko: If you are knowledgeable in all areas: aviation, navy, and ground forces, I would like you to answer in all areas.
Goering: In general, I can say about the Air Force, where things moved relatively quickly.
Rudenko: Please. How long did Plan Barbarossa take to develop?
Goering: I can't give an exact date for any of the material, but the Air Force strategic concentration and deployment plan was developed relatively quickly. In the field of ground forces, this obviously took longer.
Rudenko: Thus, you acknowledge that the attack on the Soviet Union was a foregone conclusion several months before its implementation and that you, as commander of the German air force and Reichsmarshal, took a direct part in the preparation of this attack.
Goering: Let me share the abundance of questions you asked me. Firstly, not in a few months...
Rudenko: There aren't a lot of questions here. Here's one question. You admitted that in November you developed the Barbarossa variant for the Air Force. In this regard, I pose a question to you: have you accepted the fact that this attack was predetermined several months before it was carried out?
Goering: This is right.
Rudenko: You answered the first part of the question. Now the last part of the question. Do you admit that, as commander of the Air Force and Reichsmarschall, you took part in preparing the attack on the Soviet Union?
Goering: I emphasize once again - I have made preparations... I would like to emphasize that my position as Reichsmarshal does not play any role in this case. It's just a title, a rank.
Rudenko: You do not deny that this plan was developed back in November 1940?
Goering: Yes.
Rudenko: Do you admit that the goals of the war against the Soviet Union were the seizure of Soviet territories up to the Urals, the annexation of the Baltic states, Crimea, the Caucasus, the Volga regions to the empire, the subjugation of Ukraine, Belarus and other regions to Germany? Do you admit it?
Goering: I do not admit this to any extent.
Rudenko: Don’t you remember that at a meeting with Hitler on July 16, 1941, at which you, Bormann, Keitel, Rosenberg and others were present, Hitler defined the goals of the war against the USSR exactly as I stated in the previous question? This document was presented to the Tribunal, it is quite well known, and you obviously remember it. Do you remember this meeting?
Goering: I definitely remember this document and roughly remember this meeting. I immediately said that this document drawn up by Mr. Bormann seems to me to be infinitely exaggerated in relation to these requirements. In any case, at the beginning of the war and even earlier this issue was not discussed.
Rudenko: But do you admit that such a protocol record exists?
Goering: I admit this because I saw her. This document was compiled by Bormann.
Rudenko: Do you acknowledge that, according to this minutes, you were also a participant in this meeting?
Goering: I was present at this meeting, and for this reason I doubted the accuracy of this recording.
Rudenko: Do you remember that the minutes of the meeting formulated the tasks that were set in connection with the current situation? I will remind you of some passages from this protocol.
Goering: May I have a copy of this protocol?
Rudenko: Please. On the second page of this document, second paragraph, paragraph 2 regarding Crimea it says:
“Crimea must be liberated from all strangers and populated by Germans. In the same way, Austrian Galicia should become a region of the German Empire."
Do you find this place?
Goering: Yes.
“The Fuehrer emphasizes that the entire Baltic region must become an area of the empire. In the same way, Crimea with the surrounding areas, or rather, the region of Crimea, should become a region of the empire. There should be as many of these adjacent areas as possible.”
“The Fuhrer emphasizes that the Volga regions should become a region of the empire, just as the Baku region should become a German concession, a military colony.
The Finns want to get Eastern Karelia. However, due to large nickel production, the Kola Peninsula should go to Germany. The accession of Finland as a union state must be prepared with the utmost care. The Finns claim the Leningrad region. The Fuhrer wants to raze Leningrad to the ground, so that he can then give it to the Finns.”
Have you found this place?
Goering: Yes.
Rudenko: This is a recording of a meeting you attended on July 16, 1941, three weeks after Germany attacked the Soviet Union. You don't deny that such a record exists? Is that right, what kind of meeting was there?
Goering: This is right. I emphasized this all the time. But the protocol is wrong.
Rudenko: Who recorded this protocol?
Goering: Borman.
Rudenko: What was the point of Bormann keeping an incorrect record of this meeting?
Goering: Bormann exaggerated something in the protocol.
Rudenko: A lot of?
Goering: For example, there was no mention of the Volga regions at all. As for Crimea, it is correct that the Fuhrer... wanted to have Crimea.
Rudenko: Since the Fuhrer wanted...
Goering: But this was the goal before the war.
Rudenko: Still, I want to clarify. Are you saying that in relation to Crimea there was really talk about making Crimea a region of the empire?
Goering: Yes, this was discussed at this meeting.
Rudenko: Was this also discussed in relation to the Baltic states?
Goering: Yes, also, but it was never said that the Caucasus was supposed to become German. In this regard, there was only talk about exerting strong economic influence on the part of Germany.
Rudenko: That is, for the Caucasus to become a German concession?
Goering: To what extent - this could only be determined after the victorious conclusion of peace. You can see from the record that it is madness to talk about such things a few days after the start of the war. It is impossible to talk about such things that Bormann sets out here at all, since it is still unknown what the outcome of the war will be, what the prospects are.
Rudenko: So, the exaggeration boils down to the fact that the Volga colonies were not discussed, is it?
Goering: The exaggeration lies in the fact that at that moment things were discussed that practically could not be discussed at all. At best, it was possible to talk about the areas that were occupied, as well as their management.
Rudenko: We are now establishing the fact that there was a conversation about these things, these questions were raised at the meeting, and they were posed as a task, and you don’t deny this?
Goering: They were discussed in part, but not in the way described here.
Rudenko: I just want to draw one conclusion that this meeting confirms the basic plan for the seizure of the territories of the Soviet Union by Germany, is this correct?
Goering: This is right. But I must once again emphasize, allow me to do so, that I, as noted in the protocol, did not share these boundless assumptions. The following is said here verbatim: “In response to this, that is, in response to a long discussion of these issues, the Reich Marshal emphasized the most important points that could be decisive for us at the moment, namely, the provision of food to the extent that necessary for the economy, as well as ensuring the safety of communication routes.” I wanted to boil all this talk down to really practical things.
Rudenko: You, in fact, are correct in saying that you objected, but on such grounds that first of all you should provide yourself with food, and everything else, as recorded, could come much later. That's what it says. Therefore, you did not object in essence, and the question was only about the timing; First of all, capture food, and then territory.
Goering: No, it is written as I read it. It's not a matter of timing. There are no secrets regarding this.
Rudenko: I ask you to repeat how you read it. What are the differences in our translation?
Goering:“In response to a lengthy discussion regarding individuals and these issues, that is, the question of accession, the Reichsmarshal emphasized the most important points that can be decisive factors for us: providing food, ensuring the necessary economy, as well as ensuring the safety of roads and other means of communication " I was talking then about railways, etc.; this means that I wanted to reduce this immense discussion, which took place during the first period of intoxication with victory, to purely practical questions that had to be resolved. All this can be explained by the impact of the first victories.
Rudenko: Obviously, there was an influence here, and a huge one, but, in any case, from your explanations it does not at all follow that you objected to the annexation of Crimea to the empire. This is true?
Goering: If you spoke German, then you would understand the whole meaning of this speech from the sentence: “In response to this, the Reichsmarshal emphasized...” - this means that I did not say then that I was protesting against the annexation of Crimea or against the annexation of the Baltic countries I had no reason for this. If we had won...
Rudenko: Would you do this?
Goering:...then after the end of the war this would have followed one way or another, regardless of whether we used annexation or not. But at that moment we had not yet finished the war and had not yet won. As a result, I personally limited myself to only practical things.
Rudenko: Do you acknowledge that, as Commissioner of the Four Year Plan, you directly supervised the preparation and development of plans for the economic exploitation of all occupied territories, as well as the implementation of these plans?
Goering: I have already admitted by stating that I am responsible for the economy of the occupied countries in accordance with the directives that I gave for the use and management of these countries.
Rudenko: Can you say how many millions of tons of grain and other products were exported from the Soviet Union to Germany during the war?
Goering: I can't tell you the total number.
Rudenko: At the meeting on August 6, 1942 of all Reich Commissioners of the occupied regions and representatives of the military command, you spoke. I would like to remind you of some passages from these speeches.
Goering: Give me the protocol, please.
Rudenko: Please. Please pay attention to page 111 of the transcript. You said the following:
“Gentlemen, the Fuhrer has granted me general powers in an amount that he has not yet granted in the four-year plan...
He gave me additional powers that relate to any economic area of our structure, no matter whether within the state, the party or the armed forces...”
I end with this quote. I ask, have you really been given such exclusive authority in these matters?
Goering: After developing the four-year plan, I was given emergency powers. For the first time in the field of economics, unlimited powers were granted to give directives and instructions to all the highest imperial authorities, all party authorities, and the armed forces. These powers, after the outbreak of war, were also extended to the economic structure of the occupied areas; they were not expanded, but widespread.
Rudenko: So, did I quote “your speech” correctly?
Goering: Absolutely correct, although it was incorrectly translated into German.
Rudenko: The following is related to this. Considering your special powers with which you were vested, were your instructions, instructions and requirements binding on the participants in the meeting at which you spoke?
Goering: Yes.
Rudenko: Therefore, if in your speeches you find such expressions as “squeezing out” and “shaking out” everything that is possible from the occupied territories, was this a mandatory directive?
Goering: These directives were, of course, put into appropriate form. In this case we are talking about a statement in direct speech, in an oral presentation. Of course, these words are not particularly distinguished by salon sophistication, but later...
Rudenko: That's right, straight forward - I agree with that.
Goering: Do you mean the place (let me repeat) where it says: “You were sent here not to work for the good of the peoples entrusted to you, but in order to...”?
Rudenko: Right.
I draw your attention to the following quote. Here, on page 113, your instructions are recorded there:
“I will do one thing, I will force you to fulfill the deliveries that I entrust to you, and if you cannot do this, then I will put on your feet the organs that, under all circumstances, will shake it out of you, regardless of whether you like it or not " Is this correct? Is there such a place in your speech?
Goering: This passage was translated by the translator differently from what is said in the original. The translator who translates your words into German uses some superlatives that are not present here.
Rudenko: Did you have any reason not to trust the Reichskommissars of the occupied territories, whom you threatened with special bodies?
Goering: There were imperial commissars present not only from the eastern regions, but from all regions in general. It was about regulating food supplies from individual regions, about regulating the entire food issue in the regions of Europe we occupied. Shortly before the meeting, I was told that, of course, everyone tries to hold onto food supplies in order to force the other to give more supplies. To be brief, I state: I did not want to be deceived by these gentlemen. And after I found out that they were only offering me half, I demanded 100 percent to agree to half.
Rudenko: I ask you: these instructions that you gave to the participants of the meeting, were these instructions nothing more than a demand to mercilessly plunder the occupied territories?
Goering: No. First of all, at this meeting it was discussed that it was necessary to have more food.
Rudenko: I'm talking about robbery. Robbery may also consist of plundering food from occupied territories.
Goering: I just said that I was responsible for supplying food to almost all areas. One area had too much food, another did not have enough. A balance had to be established. This was mostly (90 percent) discussed at this meeting; it was necessary to establish the supplies that this or that imperial commissioner was supposed to give. I do not at all dispute that in response to these demands, speaking at the meeting very lively and temperamentally, I was very harsh in my expressions. Subsequently, the appropriate quantities of what was to be supplied were established. This was the result of this meeting.
Rudenko: I draw your attention to page 118 of the same transcript. Have you found this place?
Goering: Yes.
Rudenko: It says: “Before, it still seemed to me that the matter was relatively simpler. Back then it was called robbery. This corresponded to the FORMULA of what was conquered. Now the forms have become more humane. Despite this, I intend to rob and effectively.” Did you find this quote?
Goering: Yes, I found it. That’s exactly what I said at this meeting, and I emphasize it again.
Rudenko: I just wanted to establish that this is exactly what you said at this meeting.
I draw your attention to page 118. Addressing the meeting participants and developing the idea expressed earlier, you said: “You must be like gun dogs. Where there is something else that the German people may need, it must be taken out of the warehouses with lightning speed and delivered here.” Have you found this place?
Goering: Yes, I found it.
Rudenko: Is that what you said?
Goering: I can assume that I said it.
Rudenko: So, you do not deny that the above quotes from the speech on August 6, 1942 belong to you?
Goering: I don't deny this in any way.
Rudenko: Let's move on to the next question. Do you admit that, as Commissioner of the Four Year Plan, you supervised the forced enslavement of many millions of citizens of the occupied countries and that the defendant Sauckel was directly subordinate to you in his activities?
Goering: Formally, he reported to me, but in fact, he reported directly to the Fuhrer. But I have already said that I am responsible for this to the extent that I was knowledgeable in this area.
Rudenko: I draw your attention to your speech at this same meeting. This is page 141 and continues on page 142.
Have you found this place?
Goering: I found.
Rudenko: It says the following: “I do not want to praise Gauleiter Sauckel - he does not need it, but what he has done in this short period of time in order to quickly gather workers from all over Europe and deliver them to our factories is unique in an achievement of sorts."
“Koch, it’s not just Ukrainians. Your 500 thousand is simply ridiculous. How much did he deliver? Almost two million."
Have you found this place?
Goering: Yes. But that’s not exactly how it’s written here.
Rudenko: Please clarify.
Goering: The point is that Koch was going to claim that he himself gave all these people to Sauckel. To this I objected to him that Sauckel’s entire program covered two million workers and that he could make such statements only in relation to 500 thousand. Koch wanted to present the case in such a way that he got all these workers.
Rudenko: Did you think that 500 thousand from Ukraine is not enough?
Goering: No, that's not true. I have already explained that out of these two million, which in total were supplied by Sauckel over the past time, only 500 thousand fell to the share of Ukraine. Koch's claim that he himself supplied all these workers is incorrect. This is the meaning of this quote.
Rudenko: But you don’t deny another basic meaning, that we are talking about millions forcibly deported to Germany for slave labor?
Goering: I do not dispute that we were talking here about two million called up workers. But I can’t say now whether they were all delivered to Germany. In any case, they were used in the interests of the German economy.
Rudenko: You don't deny that it was slavery?
Goering. I deny slavery. Forced labor, of course, was partly used.
Rudenko: You heard, Defendant Goering, that a number of German documents were read out here, from which it is clear that citizens of the occupied territories were sent to Germany by force. They were collected by raids on the streets, in the cinema, and were sent in trains under military guard. For refusing to go to Germany, for attempting to evade this mobilization, the civilian population was shot and subjected to all kinds of torture. Have you heard these documents that were read out here in court?
Goering: Yes, but I ask that they let me look at these documents. They show that there were no recruitment orders, that registration for forced labor was regulated not through orders, but in a different way. If I could be given an absolute guarantee, particularly in the East, that all these people are completely peaceful and will not carry out any acts of sabotage, then I would use most of them in field work. It was security interests that, both in the East and in the West, forced us to send these workers to Germany, especially the young contingent of former conscripts.
Rudenko: Were they taken away only in the interests of safety?
Goering: There were two reasons for this. I recently spoke about them in detail. Firstly, for reasons of safety and, secondly, due to the need for manpower.
Rudenko: And for this reason... let's say, let's take the second reason - out of necessity, people were forcibly driven away from their countries to Germany for slave labor, right?
Goering: They were brought to Germany not for slavery, but for work.
Rudenko:...In 1941, the OKW developed a number of directives and orders on the conduct of troops in the East and on the treatment of the Soviet population, in particular, the directive on military jurisdiction in the Barbarossa region, which gave German officers the right to shoot any person without trial , suspected of hostility towards the Germans. This directive declared impunity for German soldiers for crimes committed against the local population. Was this kind of directive supposed to be reported to you?
Goering: This document was not directly sent to me. The assignment reads: "Headquarters, Air Force Operations Command, Chief Quartermaster." I gave my troops very strict instructions regarding the behavior of the soldiers. For this reason, I applied for the Chief Judge of the Air Force to be called as a witness and sent him a questionnaire regarding these people.
Rudenko: Did you know this order?
Goering: I saw this order here, after which I petitioned to call this person as a witness, since this order was not sent directly to the commander-in-chief, but to the service authorities that I mentioned here. If these authorities acted in this way, that is, in accordance with this order, then I bear, of course, formal responsibility for these actions. In this case, we are dealing with an order from the Fuhrer and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, which the troops could not discuss.
Rudenko: But do you agree that in terms of significance you should have known this document?
Goering: No, because otherwise this order would have been sent directly to me, the Commander-in-Chief, and not to the Air Force operational headquarters and the Quartermaster General. It depended on these authorities whether they considered this document so important that they should also receive personal orders and directives from me regarding this document. But in this case this did not happen, since this document did not concern us to the same extent as the ground forces.
Rudenko: But was this document sent to the Air Force?
Goering: I just talked about this - it was sent to two authorities.
Rudenko: Should you have been informed about this document?
Goering: No, they shouldn't have reported him to me. I have already said that if I had been reported about every order and every directive that passed through separate authorities and did not require my intervention, then I would have drowned in this sea of papers. Therefore, I was informed and reported only about the most important things. Now I cannot say under oath whether this document was mentioned orally during the report or not. It's possible. Formally, here too I am responsible for the actions of my official authorities.
Rudenko: I would like to clarify this. You say the most important things should have been reported to you? Right?
Goering: This is right.
Rudenko: I ask you to pay attention - the document in front of you - to paragraphs 3 and 4 of this order or this order. Paragraph 3 states: “All other attacks by hostile civilians on the armed forces, their members and supporting personnel must also be suppressed by troops on the spot, using the most extreme measures to destroy the attackers.”
Goering: Then comes paragraph 4. If I understand you correctly, it says: “Where measures of this kind have not been or cannot be taken, the suspected persons should be immediately brought before some officer. The latter decides whether they should be shot or not.” Is this what you meant?
Rudenko: That's exactly what I meant. Do you think this is an important document from the point of view that it should have been reported to you by your official authorities?
Goering: This in itself is an important document, but it should not necessarily have been reported, since it was already formulated quite clearly by the Fuhrer in the order, so that the Fuhrer’s assistant, even the commander-in-chief of a separate part of the armed forces, cannot change anything in this so clear and precise order.
Rudenko: I draw your attention to the date of this document: It states: "Führer Headquarters, May 13, 1941."
Goering: Yes.
Rudenko: This, therefore, was more than a month before Germany attacked the Soviet Union? Even then, a decree on the use of military jurisdiction in the Barbarossa region was developed and you did not know about this document?
Goering: When a mobilization plan is drawn up, it is necessary to determine, if there are special reasons for this, what should be done. Based on experience, the Fuehrer believed that a special threat would immediately arise in the East. Therefore, the measures that must be taken if resistance is offered or if an attack from the rear takes place are prescribed here. This is a preliminary order in case such events occur.
Rudenko: And the officer is given the right to shoot without trial?
Goering: He could convene a special court (Standgericht) on the spot. Based on this paragraph, he could also, if he considered it necessary and had all the evidence that the criminal participated in the attack from the rear, shoot such a person.
Rudenko: Do you think the officer could have created a court on the spot?
Goering: In military conditions, it is provided that an officer who has a separate independent military unit can at any time create a special court (Standgericht).
Rudenko: But do you agree that this does not say about any court, that it says that the officer alone decides the issue?
Goering: He could decide for himself with the help of this court on the spot. He had to call two more people and in two to five minutes he could decide on the elements of the crime.
Rudenko: Shoot in five or two minutes?
Goering: If I catch a man in the act of shooting from a house in the back of my troops, then a special court (Standgericht) can establish the crime in the shortest possible time.
Rudenko: The next document that I would like to present here and about which I wanted to ask you in essence is the document dated September 16, 1941.
It states here that “for the life of a German soldier, as a rule, fifty to one hundred communists are subject to the death penalty. The method of execution must increase the degree of deterrence." Did you not know about this document either?
Goering: I didn't like this document. This document was sent to some official authority. The Air Force generally had little to do with this kind of thing.
Rudenko: And the official authority did not report to you about this kind of document?
Goering: I know only in general terms about this event, which was intended to retaliate, but I am not aware of them to that extent. I learned about this later, but still during the war, that is, before the trial. I knew that this order originally indicated five to ten people: the Fuhrer personally made fifty to one hundred people out of this number.
Rudenko: I ask you: did the official authority report to you about this document?
Goering: No. But I later heard about this document.
Rudenko: When later?
Goering: I can't say that now. During the war I heard about it in connection with the fact that the Fuehrer personally changed the number, which originally meant five to ten people, to fifty to one hundred people. I have heard about this fact.
Rudenko: For one German?
Goering: At first there were five to ten people standing there, and then the Fuhrer himself changed this number by adding zero. This fact was discussed, and at that time I learned about this document.
Rudenko: Are you aware of the OKW directives “On the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war”?
Goering: I would have to look them over first.
Rudenko: Please. (The document is handed over to Goering.) Pay attention to paragraph “A”, paragraph 3, which states the basic provision that the use of weapons against Soviet prisoners of war is, as a rule, considered lawful and relieves the guards of any responsibility to understand this.
I still want to remind you of one place. This is from the order on the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. It says here: “Escaped prisoners of war should be shot without a warning.” This is also stated in the memo on the protection of Soviet prisoners of war.
Goering: This points out the difficulties that lie in ignorance and misunderstanding of the language. Therefore, the guards must immediately use weapons when trying to escape. That's roughly the point. It is clear that misunderstandings may arise in this case.
Rudenko: I ask: did you know about this document?
Goering: Here we are talking about a document concerning the treatment of prisoners of war. It was sent directly to my authorities. I didn't know about this document.
Rudenko: You didn't know about this document? Fine. Another document. I mean document 854-PS, which has already been presented, about the unconditional destruction of political instructors and other political workers.
Goering: I would like to emphasize for clarification that the Air Force did not have any camps in which Soviet prisoners of war were kept. They had only six camps in which prisoners of war from other powers were kept. The Air Force did not have camps for Soviet prisoners of war.
Rudenko: I raised this question and presented these documents because you, in your position as the second person in Germany, could not fail to know such fundamental instructions.
Goering: Precisely because my position was so high, I had little to do with orders regarding the treatment of prisoners of war, which were orders of a purely departmental nature and did not have the greatest political or military significance.
Rudenko: Please note the date of this document: “Führer Headquarters, May 12, 1941.”
Goering: Yes.
Rudenko: Please note paragraph 3 of this document:
“Political leaders in the troops are not considered prisoners and must be destroyed, at the latest, in transit camps. They are not evacuating to the rear.” Did you know about this directive?
Goering: Let me draw your attention to the fact that in this case we do not have some kind of instruction, but a “record for the report” signed by Warlimont. The mailing list for the document does not indicate any official authority other than the country's defense department. This document therefore constitutes a record for the report.
Rudenko: So you didn't know about this document?
Goering: This report entry is a note from the OKW Operations Headquarters. This is not a directive or an order. This is just a recording for the report.
Chairman: This is not an answer to the question. Did you know about this directive or not?
Goering: No, I didn't know about her.
Goering: If they came from the Fuhrer, then yes. If they came from me, then yes too.
Rudenko: Do you recall your directives on the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war?
Goering: No.
Rudenko: Most of these criminal orders and directives of the OKW were issued even before the start of the war against the Soviet Union, in preparation for the war with the Soviet Union. Doesn't this prove that the German government and the OKW had a premeditated plan to exterminate the Soviet population?
Goering: No, this in no way proves that. This only proves that we regarded the struggle with the Soviet Union as an extremely cruel struggle and that this struggle was conducted on the basis of different principles, since there were no conventions on this matter.
Rudenko: Tell me, do you know about Himmler’s instructions, which he gave in 1941 about the extermination of 30 million Slavs? You also heard about this here, at the trial, from the witness Bach-Zelewski. Do you remember these readings?
Goering: Yes, but it was not an order, but just a speech.
Rudenko: Tell me, did the German totalitarian state have a single leadership center - Hitler and his inner circle, including you as his deputy?
The same guidelines should have been for Himmler and Keitel. Could Himmler himself give orders for the extermination of 30 million Slavs, without having Hitler’s or yours’ instructions on this issue?
Goering: Himmler did not issue any order regarding the extermination of 30 million Slavs. Himmler made a speech in the spirit that 30 million Slavs should be exterminated. If Himmler had really issued an order of this kind, he should have, if he adhered to the regulations, asked the Fuehrer about it, but not me.
Rudenko: I didn't talk about the order, I said about Himmler's instructions. And do you admit that Himmler could have given these instructions without the consent of Hitler?
Goering: I do not know anything about such an instruction or order.
Rudenko: I repeat the question once again: are not the orders and directives of the OKW on the treatment of the population and prisoners of war similar? occupied Soviet territories and the implementation of the general directive on the extermination of the Slavs?
Goering: There has never been a directive issued by the Fuhrer or any other known authority regarding the extermination of the Slavs.
Rudenko: You must have known about the mass extermination of Soviet citizens in occupied Soviet territory with the help of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD. Was the activity of the Einsatzgruppen the result of the implementation of a pre-developed plan for the extermination of Jews, Slavs and other civilians?
Goering: No, the activities of the Einsatzgruppen were top secret.
Rudenko: Defendant Goering, in your testimony did you say that the attack on Poland was carried out after the bloody events in the city of Bydgoszcz?
Goering: I showed that the deadline for the speech was accelerated due to those bloody events, among which Bloody Sunday in Bydgoszcz should also be noted.
Goering: I may have been mistaken regarding the date of the events in Bydgoszcz - I do not have the relevant materials.
Rudenko: It's clear. The attack was carried out on September 1, and the events in Bydgoszcz, which you stated to the Tribunal, took place on September 3, 1939. I submit to the Tribunal a document-evidence emanating from the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Atrocities in Poland, duly certified in accordance with Article 21 of the Charter.
Chairman: General Rudenko, would you please read this document now?
Rudenko: Yes please.
"Certificate. Based on research carried out by the Polish judicial authorities, the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Atrocities in Poland certifies that the so-called Bloody Sunday in the city of Bydgoszcz took place on September 3, 1939, that is, three days after Poland was attacked by the Germans. On September 3, 1939, at 10:15 am, German saboteurs attacked Polish troops retreating from the city of Bydgoszcz. During the defensive battle of the retreating Polish troops, 238 Polish soldiers and 23 people of the German “fifth column” were killed. In connection with the incident, after the entry of German troops into the city of Bydgoszcz, mass executions, arrests and exiles to “concentration camps” of Polish residents began, which were carried out by the German authorities, ... the SS and the Gestapo, as a result of which 10,500 were killed and 13,000 were destroyed in the camp. This certificate is an official document of the Polish government offered to the International Military Tribunal, according to Article 21 of the Charter of August 8, 1945."
With this document I wanted to certify the fact that the events to which the defendant Goering testified here occurred after Germany’s attack on Poland.
Goering: I don’t know if you and I are talking about the same events now.
Rudenko: I'm talking about the events in Bydgoszcz. You also talked about them.
Goering: Perhaps two different events took place in Bydgoszcz?
Rudenko: Very possible.
I move on to the next question. Are you aware of the OKW order on branding Soviet prisoners of war?
Goering: This order is unknown to me. As I see from the documents, not a single representative from the Air Force was present at this meeting.
Rudenko: I am interested in the fact, are you aware of this order?
Goering: No.
Rudenko: Do you know that the German command ordered the use of Soviet prisoners of war and civilians for work on clearing mines and carrying unexploded shells, etc.? Do you know this?
Goering: I know that captured Russian sappers were used to clear minefields. To what extent the civilian population was used for this, I do not know, but it is possible that this was the case.
Rudenko: Do you know the order to destroy Leningrad, Moscow and other cities of the Soviet Union?
Goering: In my presence, the destruction of Leningrad was only mentioned in the document mentioned, and in the sense that if the Finns get Leningrad, then they will not need such a big city. I know nothing about the destruction of Moscow.
Rudenko: Do you remember the minutes of the meeting? You were presented with a document-minute record dated July 16, 1941. You were present at this meeting.
Goering: I did not receive an order to destroy Moscow.
Rudenko: Only “important things” were reported to you. And about the destruction of cities, the murder of millions of people - all this took place through the so-called “official authorities”?
Goering: If any city were to be destroyed as a result of bomber raids, such an order would be given directly by me.
Rudenko: On March 8, here in court, your witness Bodenschatz stated that you told him in March 1945 that many Jews had been killed and that there would be a heavy price to pay for it. Do you remember this testimony of your witness?
Goering: Witness Bodenschatz did not say so.
Rudenko: Do you remember what witness Bodenschatz said?
Goering: He said that if the war is lost, it will cost us very dearly.
Rudenko: Why? For the murders you committed?
Goering: Not at all. And we saw it ourselves.
Rudenko: I have a few final questions for you. First of all, about the so-called theory of the “superior” race. In this regard, I pose just one question to you and ask you to answer it directly. Did you agree with this theory of the “superior” race and the education of the German people in its spirit or did you disagree?
Goering: No, I have already shown that I have never used this expression either in my articles or in my speeches. I certainly recognize the differences between races.
Rudenko: But do you disagree with this theory? Do I understand you?
Goering: I have never stated that I value one race as a master race over another. I was only pointing out the differences between the races.
Rudenko: But can you answer my question: do you disagree with this theory?
Goering: I personally don't think it's correct.
Rudenko: Next question. You stated at the trial that you allegedly disagreed with Hitler on the issues of the seizure of Czechoslovakia, on the Jewish question, on the issue of the war with the Soviet Union, on the assessment of the theories of the “superior” race, on the issue of the execution of British prisoners of war pilots. How can you explain that in the presence of such serious differences you considered it possible to cooperate with Hitler and carry out his policies?
Goering: Here it is necessary to distinguish different periods of time. During the attack on Russia, it was not about fundamental differences, but about differences on the issue of time.
Rudenko: You already said that. I ask you to answer my question.
Goering: I can disagree with my Supreme Commander, I can clearly express my opinion to him. But if the commander-in-chief insists on his own, and I gave him the oath, the discussion will thereby be over.
Rudenko: You are not a simple soldier, as you said here, did you imagine yourself here as a statesman?
Goering: I am not only a simple soldier, and precisely because I am not a simple soldier, but held such a large post, I had to set an example for ordinary soldiers in terms of fulfilling the oath.
Rudenko: In other words, did you consider it possible, given these disagreements, to cooperate with Hitler?
Goering: I emphasized this and I think it’s correct..
Rudenko: If you considered it possible for yourself to collaborate with Hitler, do you consider yourself, as the second person in Germany, responsible for the state-organized murders of millions of innocent people, even regardless of knowledge of these facts? Answer briefly: “yes” or “no.”
Goering: No, because I knew nothing about them and did not order them to be carried out.
Rudenko: I emphasize again - even regardless of awareness of these facts?
Goering: If I really don't know about them, I can't answer for them.
Rudenko: Should you have known these facts?
Goering: In what sense am I obliged: either I know the facts, or I don’t know them. You can at best ask me if I was careless for not trying to find out anything about them.
Rudenko: You know yourself better. Millions of Germans knew about the crimes that were happening, but you did not know.
You stated at the trial that Hitler's government led Germany to prosperity. Are you still sure that this is so?
Goering: The catastrophe came only after the lost war.
Rudenko: As a result, you led Germany to military and political defeat. I have no more questions.
Chairman: Does the French prosecutor wish to ask questions? (A representative of the French prosecution approaches the microphone.)
French prosecutor: I request the Tribunal to allow me to make a very brief statement.
In order to respond to the desire expressed by the Tribunal and to, as far as possible, shorten the present trial, the French prosecution agreed with the American prosecutor, Judge Jackson, and with the English prosecutor, Sir Fife, to ask the defendant Goering the following questions: relevant to the case. These questions have been asked. We heard the defendant's answers to these questions. I believe that the defense cannot complain that its rights were infringed. She made full use of them during twelve sessions and was not able to raise any doubts in the indisputable evidence of the prosecution, without convincing anyone, in particular, that the second person in the German Empire did not bear any responsibility for the outbreak of war, and in that he knew nothing of the atrocities committed by the people he so proudly led.
The French prosecution believes that the indisputable accusations that we put forward have not been shaken in the slightest degree. Therefore, I have no new questions that I would like to ask the defendant.
F. Gaus, I. Ribbentrop, I. Stalin, V. Molotov 08/23/1939 at the signing of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty
In the publication “Gaus’s first affidavit,” we focused on the fact that the International Military Tribunal added Gaus’s first affidavit dated March 15, 1946 to the case materials, but refused to consider the issue of a secret protocol, due to the court’s lack of the text of the protocol itself. However, Dr. Seidl was “lucky.”
I will quote the following excerpts from Seidl’s book verbatim:
At the beginning of April, after the interrogation of Reich Minister von Ribbentrop, the following happened: I was sitting alone on a bench in the courtroom foyer during a break in the proceedings. Suddenly a man of about thirty-five came up to me and sat down next to me on the bench. He began the conversation with the following words: “Mr. Dr. Seidl, we are watching with great interest your attempts to introduce into the trial as evidence the secret additional protocol to the German-Soviet non-aggression treaty of August 23, 1939.” At the same time, he handed me an unsealed envelope containing two documents. I took out both documents and began to read. When I finished, to my amazement I had to admit that my interlocutor had disappeared again. One of the two typewritten documents had the following content: “Secret additional protocol to the German-Soviet non-aggression treaty of August 23, 1939.”
Next, Dr. Seidl gives the text of the secret protocol of 08/23/1939.
The second document was the “Secret Additional Protocol to the German-Soviet Border and Friendship Treaty of September 28, 1939.”
The following is the text of this protocol.
The contents of both of these documents fully correspond to the text of documents published by the US State Department in 1948 under the title "Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941". They fully correspond to the text of the photocopies that were ordered for me in the same year on behalf of the secretariat of military tribunal No. 4 - the Wilhelmstrasse Trial.
I still don’t know who gave me both documents during a break in the court hearings in Nuremberg. However, a lot speaks for the fact that they played along with me from the American side, namely from the US prosecution or the American secret service. However, both texts reprinted from the “secret additional protocols” themselves, of course, could not yet be used as evidence. These were neither photocopies of the originals, nor two typewritten papers certified by government agencies or a notary.
With these new documents, on April 8, 1946, lawyer Seidl again went to prison to see Friedrich Gaus and on April 11 received from him a second affidavit written in his own hand with the following content (translated by the author from German from Seidl’s book):
SWEARING
Having received an explanation of the penalty of perjury, I make the following assurance, amounting to an oath, for the purpose of presentation to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, at the request of the lawyer, Mr. Dr. Alfred Seidl, who directed me - just as before my affidavit of March 15, 1946 - to the fact that, in accordance with the procedural rules of this military tribunal, I am obliged as a witness to give such an oath, as well as oral testimony.
I. Regarding personality: My name is Friedrich Gaus, born on February 26, 1881 in Malum, district of Handersheim, I belong to the Evangelical Lutheran confession, Doctor of Laws, until the end of the war, legal consultant at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, in particular in the last For a time he served as “ambassador-at-large.”
II. Regarding the matter. The lawyer, Dr. Alfred Seidl, provided me with the attached two documents for review on April 8, 1946, which were copies of the secret additional protocols to the German-Soviet treaties of August 23 and September 28, 1939. He asked me at the same time whether these documents referred to copies of the documents mentioned by me in the sworn statement of March 15, 1946, regarding the secret political agreements between Germany and the Soviet Union in August and September 1939.
I have hand-noted both documents presented with my signature to serve as an attachment to my affidavit today, and in response to the question posed, I can state the following:
The content of the above-mentioned texts essentially corresponds in the main points to the provisions that I tried to convey in my sworn statement of March 15, 1946, according to my then recollections regarding the content of the secret political agreements in August and September 1939 between the Reich government and the USSR government. I find only one significant difference is that in the text of August 23, 1939, paragraph 3 does not mention the Balkan states in general, but only Bessarabia, and also that it does not express Germany’s economic interest in a positive sense, but emphasizes it in a negative sense sense of lack of political interest in Germany.
I believe that this difference can be explained by the fact that what remained in my memory was not the content of this document from the then negotiations in Moscow, but instead I remembered the statements of the Reich Foreign Minister, which he probably expressed during the negotiations regarding this point.
As regards the manner of presentation of both texts, they are written entirely in the style usually used in political agreements of this kind in which Germany was involved as a party to the treaty.
Therefore, I have almost no doubt that in the case of both of the above texts we are really talking about copies of German texts of German-Soviet documents, which was the question, which were compiled in German and Russian languages. Of course, after more than 6 years, I cannot confirm with absolute certainty that both documents fully correspond to the German text of the original documents.
On April 13, defense attorney Seidl, this time observing all procedural rules, submitted Gaus's second affidavit to the Tribunal's office. On April 17, at a tribunal meeting, Alfred Seidl asked that Gaus's second affidavit and copies of the two secret protocols themselves be attached to the case. The court accepted the application, but later rejected this request due to the incomprehensible appearance of the documents, the lack of confirmation of the presence of their originals, and also as not being related to the Hess case.
In this regard, the excerpt from the following document of the International Military Tribunal is indicative:
Translation from English
GENERAL SECRETARIAT
INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL
Memorandum to the Tribunal
The Tribunal's decision must be made in relation to the following additional requests to call witnesses and obtain documents:
GESS requests:
1. On the presentation as documentary evidence numbered Rudolf Hess - document No. 17 of the following documents:
a) An affidavit sworn by Ambassador Dr. Friedrich Gaus, dated April 11, 1946.
b) Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of August 23, 1939.
c) Secret additional protocol to the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR of August 23, 1939.
e) German-Soviet Pact on Borders and Friendship of September 28, 1939.
f) Secret additional protocol to the German-Soviet Pact on Borders and Friendship of September 28, 1939.
These documents were translated and handed over to the Prosecution in accordance with the order of the Tribunal dated 17 April 1946.
The prosecution objects on the grounds that "all of these documents are irrelevant to Hess's defense. Dr. Seidl, Hess's defense attorney, has never indicated in what respect he considers these documents to be relevant."
The document specified in § "e" and articles 1, 3 and 6 of the document specified in § "b" are included in von Ribbentrop's document book under RI documents No. 284 and 279.
Handwritten notes in the margins - near Hess's petition:
“By the decision of 11.5.46, the petition was granted. On 13.5.46, it was revised. The inclusion of a copy was refused. It is allowed to quote the written testimony of Gauss. Nikitchenko.”
GA RF. F. R-7445. Op.1. D. 2619. L. 19-25. Copy.
Thus, from the documents reviewed it is clear that:
1. The first affidavit of Gaus dated March 15, 1946 contained general memories of the events of 1939 and was attached to the documents of the International Military Tribunal;
2. The second affidavit of Gaus dated 04/11/1946 “certified the authenticity” of copies of secret protocols received by Seidl from the Americans, was rejected from inclusion in the materials of the Tribunal, but the text of the affidavit was allowed to be quoted during the hearings;
3. Copies of secret protocols obtained by defense counsel Seidl from an American serviceman were rejected from inclusion in the Tribunal's records.
I would like to especially draw the attention of historians and everyone interested in the topic of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg to a number of points:
1. The originals of Gaus's affidavits were handwritten documents;
2. At the Nuremberg trials, Seidl’s defense attorney had only typewritten texts of two secret additional protocols to the treaties of 08/23/1939 and 09/28/1939, and not photocopies of documents, as is often stated in various media;
3. The “Non-Aggression Treaty between Germany and the USSR” of 08/23/1939 and the “German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Border” of 09/28/1939 were open documents officially used during the International Military Tribunal.
In view of the refusal of the International Military Tribunal to attach Gaus's second affidavit to the case materials, this could be an end to the affidavits. But it turned out that it was too early.
F. Gaus (left) at the signing of the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty 08/23/1939
To be continued...
Literature:
1. Alfred Seidl, Der Fall Rudolf Hess 1941-1984. Documentation des Verteidigers / 1984 by Universitas Verlag, München.
2. Gerhard Stuby, Vom "Kronjuristen" zum "Kronzeugen". Friedrich Wilhelm Gaus: ein Leben im Auswärtigen Amt der Wilhelmstraße / VSA: Verlag Hamburg 2008.
3. Official website of the German full-text library http://www.zeno.org/Geschichte/M/Der+N%C3%BCrnberger+Proze%C3%9F.
4. USSR and the Nuremberg trials. Unknown and little-known pages of history: Sat. documents / Scientific. editor and compiler N.S. Lebedeva. M.: MFD, 2012. - 624 p. - (Russia. 20th century. Documents).
History has never seen such a trial. The leaders of the defeated country were not killed, they were not treated as honorable prisoners, and they were not given asylum by any neutral state. The leadership of Nazi Germany, almost in its entirety, was detained, arrested and put in the dock. They did the same with Japanese war criminals, holding the Tokyo People's Court, but this happened a little later. The Nuremberg trials provided a criminal and ideological assessment of the actions of government officials with whom, up to and including 1939, world leaders negotiated, concluded pacts and trade agreements. Then they were received, visited, and generally treated with respect. Now they sat in the dock, silent or answering the questions asked. Then, accustomed to honor and luxury, they were taken to cells.
Retribution
US Army Sergeant J. Wood was an experienced professional executioner with extensive pre-war experience. In his hometown of San Antonio (Texas), he personally executed almost three and a half hundred notorious scoundrels, most of whom were serial killers. But this was the first time he had to work with such “material.”
The permanent leader of the Nazi youth organization "Hitler Youth" Streicher resisted and had to be dragged to the gallows by force. Then John strangled him manually. Keitel, Jodl and Ribbentrop suffered for a long time with their airways already clamped in a noose; for several minutes they could not die.
At the last moment, realizing that they could not pity the executioner, many of the condemned still found the strength to accept death for granted. Von Ribbentrop said words that have not lost their relevance today, wishing Germany unity and mutual understanding between East and West. Keitel, who signed the surrender and, in general, did not participate in the planning of aggressive campaigns (except for the never carried out attack on India), paid tribute to the fallen German soldiers by remembering them. Yodel gave a final greeting to his native country. And so on.
Ribbentrop was the first to ascend the scaffold. Then it was Kaltenbrunner's turn, who suddenly remembered God. His last prayer was not denied.
The execution continued for a long time, and in order to speed up the process, the convicts began to be brought into the gym where it took place, without waiting for the end of the agony of the previous victim. Ten were hanged, two more (Goering and Ley) were able to avoid shameful execution by committing suicide.
After several examinations, the corpses were burned and the ashes scattered.
Preparation of the process
The Nuremberg trials began in the late autumn of 1945, on November 20. It was preceded by an investigation that lasted six months. In total, 27 kilometers of tape film were used, thirty thousand photographic prints were made, and a huge number of newsreels (mostly captured ones) were viewed. Based on these figures, unprecedented in 1945, one can judge the titanic work of the investigators who prepared the Nuremberg trials. Transcripts and other documents took up about two hundred tons of writing paper (fifty million sheets).
To make a decision, the court needed to hold more than four hundred meetings.
Charges were brought against 24 officials who held various positions in Nazi Germany. It was based on the principles of the Charter adopted for a new court called the International Military Tribunal. For the first time, the legal concept of a crime against humanity was introduced. The list of persons subject to prosecution under the articles of this document was published on August 29, 1945, after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Criminal plans and plans
Aggression against Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the USSR and, as the document says, “the whole world,” was blamed on the German leadership. The conclusion of cooperation agreements with fascist Italy and militaristic Japan was also called criminal acts. One of the charges was an attack on the United States. In addition to specific actions, the former German government was accused of aggressive plans.
But that was not the main thing. Whatever insidious plans Hitler’s elite had, they were judged not for their thoughts about conquering India, Africa, Ukraine and Russia, but for what the Nazis did in their own country and beyond.
Crimes against peoples
The hundreds of thousands of pages that occupy the materials of the Nuremberg trials irrefutably prove the inhumane treatment of civilians of the occupied territories, prisoners of war and the crews of ships, military and merchant, who sank the ships of the German Navy. There were also large-scale ethnic cleansings carried out along national lines. The civilian population was transported to the Reich to be used as labor resources. Death factories were built and operated at full capacity, in which the process of exterminating people took on an industrial character, for which unique technological techniques invented by the Nazis were used.
Information about the progress of the investigation and some materials from the Nuremberg trials have been published, although not all.
Humanity shuddered.
From unpublished
Already at the stage of formation of the International Military Tribunal, some delicate situations arose. The Soviet delegation brought with it to London, where preliminary consultations on the organization of the future court took place, a list of issues the consideration of which was considered undesirable for the leadership of the USSR. The Western allies agreed not to discuss topics relating to the circumstances of the conclusion of the mutual non-aggression treaty between the USSR and Germany in 1939, and especially the secret protocol attached to it.
There were other secrets of the Nuremberg trials that were not made public due to the far from ideal behavior of the leadership of the victorious countries in the pre-war situation and during the fighting at the fronts. It was they who could shake the balance that had developed in the world and Europe thanks to the decisions of the Tehran and Potsdam conferences. The boundaries of both states and spheres of influence, agreed upon by the Big Three, were established by 1945, and, according to their authors, were not subject to revision.
What is fascism?
Almost all documents of the Nuremberg trials have now become publicly available. It was this fact that in a certain sense cooled interest in them. They are appealed to during ideological discussions. An example is the attitude towards Stepan Bandera, who is often called Hitler’s henchman. Is it so?
German Nazism, also called fascism and recognized by the international court as a criminal ideological base, is essentially an exaggerated form of nationalism. Giving advantages to an ethnic group may well lead to the idea that members of other peoples living within the territory of a nation-state can either be forced to abandon their own culture, language or religious beliefs, or forced to emigrate. In case of non-compliance, the option of forced expulsion or even physical destruction is possible. There are more than enough examples in history.
About Bandera
In connection with the latest events in Ukraine, such an odious personality as Bandera deserves special attention. The Nuremberg trials did not directly examine the activities of the UPA. There were references to this organization in the court materials, but they concerned the relations between the occupying German troops and representatives of Ukrainian nationalists, and these did not always work out well. Thus, according to document No. 192-PS, which is a report from the Reichskommissar of Ukraine to Alfred Rosneberg (written in Rovno on March 16, 1943), the author of the document complains about the hostility of the Melnik and Bandera organizations towards the German authorities (p. 25). There, on the following pages, mention is made of “political impudence” expressed in demands to grant Ukraine state independence.
This is precisely the goal that Stepan Bandera set for the OUN. The Nuremberg trials did not consider the crimes committed by the UPA in Volyn against the Polish population, and other numerous atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists, perhaps because this topic was among the “undesirable” for the Soviet leadership. At the time when the International Military Tribunal was taking place, pockets of resistance in Lvov, Ivano-Frankivsk and other western regions had not yet been suppressed by MGB forces. And it was not the Ukrainian nationalists who were involved in the Nuremberg trials. Bandera Stepan Andreevich tried to take advantage of the German invasion to realize his own idea of national independence. He failed. He soon found himself in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, however, as a privileged prisoner. For the time being...
Documentary
A cinematic documentary chronicle of the Nuremberg trials in 1946 has become more than just accessible. The Germans were forced to watch it, and if they refused, they were deprived of food rations. This order was in effect in all four occupation zones. It was hard for people who had been consuming Nazi propaganda for twelve years to see the humiliation suffered by those whom they had only recently believed. But it was necessary, otherwise it would hardly have been possible to get rid of the past so quickly.
The film “The Judgment of Nations” was shown on a wide screen both in the USSR and in other countries, but it evoked completely different feelings among the citizens of the victorious countries. Pride in their people, who made a decisive contribution to the victory over the personification of absolute evil, filled the hearts of Russians and Ukrainians, Kazakhs and Tajiks, Georgians and Armenians, Jews and Azerbaijanis, in general, all Soviet people, regardless of nationality. The Americans, French, and British also rejoiced, this was their victory. “The Nuremberg trials gave justice to the warmongers,” thought everyone who watched this documentary.
"Little" Nurembergs
The Nuremberg trials ended, some war criminals were hanged, others were sent to Spandau prison, and others managed to avoid just retribution by taking poison or making a homemade noose. Some even ran away and lived the rest of their lives in fear of discovery. Others were found decades later, and it was not clear whether punishment awaited them, or deliverance.
In 1946-1948, in the same Nuremberg (there was already a prepared room there, a certain symbolism also played a role in the choice of place) trials of Nazi criminals of the “second echelon” took place. The very good American film “The Nuremberg Trials” of 1961 tells about one of them. The picture was shot on black and white film, although in the early 60s Hollywood could afford the brightest Technicolor. The cast includes stars of the first magnitude (Marlene Dietrich, Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy and many other wonderful artists). The plot is quite real, Nazi judges are being tried, handing down terrible sentences under the absurd articles that filled the codes of the Third Reich. The main theme is repentance, which not everyone can come to.
This was also the Nuremberg trial. The trial stretched out over time, it involved everyone: those who carried out the sentences, and those who just wrote papers, and those who simply wanted to survive and sat on the sidelines, hoping to survive. Meanwhile, young men were executed “for disrespect for great Germany,” men who some considered inferior were forcibly sterilized, and girls were thrown into prison on charges of having relations with “subhumans.”
Decades later
With each passing decade, the events of the Second World War seem more and more academic and historical, losing their vitality in the eyes of new generations. Quite a bit more time will pass, and they will begin to seem something like Suvorov’s campaigns or the Crimean campaign. There are fewer and fewer living witnesses, and this process, unfortunately, is irreversible. The Nuremberg trials are perceived today in a completely different way than by contemporaries. The collection of materials, available to readers, reveals many legal gaps, shortcomings in the investigation, and contradictions in the testimony of witnesses and accused. The international situation in the mid-forties was not at all conducive to the objectivity of judges, and the restrictions initially established for the International Tribunal sometimes dictated political expediency to the detriment of justice. Field Marshal Keitel, who had nothing to do with the Barbarossa plan, was executed, and his “colleague” Paulus, who took an active part in the development of the aggressive doctrines of the Third Reich, testified as a witness. At the same time, both surrendered. The behavior of Hermann Goering is also of interest, as he clearly explained to his accusers that the actions of the allied countries were sometimes also criminal, both in war and in domestic life. Nobody, however, listened to him.
Humanity in 1945 was outraged, it thirsted for revenge. There was little time, but there were a lot of events to evaluate. The war has become an invaluable treasure trove of stories, human tragedies and destinies for thousands of novelists and film directors. Future historians have yet to evaluate Nuremberg.
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- The connection of the first and second Western armies in Smolensk In 1812, the Western army was commanded by
- As soon as one gets dirty, it becomes weak and is eaten
- Nuremberg trials Nuremberg trials protocols of interrogation of the main war criminals