X. Statement of the Offense
All the defendants committed Crimes against Humanity
during a period of years preceding 8 May 1945 in Germany and in all
those countries and territories occupied by the German armed forces
since 1 September 1939 and in Austria and Czechoslovakia and in Italy
and on the High Seas.
All the defendants, acting in concert with others,
formulated and executed a common plan or conspiracy to commit Crimes
against Humanity as defined in Article 6 (c) of the Charter. This plan
involved, among other things, the murder and persecution of all who
were or who were suspected of being hostile to the Nazi Party and all
who were or who were suspected of being opposed to the common plan alleged
in Count One.
The said Crimes against Humanity were committed by
the defendants and by other persons for whose acts the defendants are
responsible (under Article 6 of the Charter) as such other persons,
when committing the said War Crimes, performed their acts in execution
of a common plan and conspiracy to commit the said War Crimes, in the
formulation and execution of which plan and conspiracy all the defendants
participated as leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices.
These methods and crimes constituted violations of
international conventions, of internal penal laws, of the general principles
of criminal law as derived from the criminal law of all civilized nations
and were involved in and part of a systematic course of conduct. The
said acts were contrary to Article 6 of the Charter.
The Prosecution will rely upon the facts pleaded under
Count Three as also constituting Crimes against Humanity.
(A) MURDER, EXTERMINATION, ENSLAVEMENT,
DEPORTATION, AND OTHER INHUMANE ACTS COMMITTED AGAINST CIVILIAN POPULATIONS
BEFORE AND DURING THE WAR
For the purposes set out above, the defendants adopted
a policy of persecution, repression, and extermination of all civilians
in Germany who were, or who were believed to be, or who were believed
likely to become, hostile to the Nazi Government and the common plan
or conspiracy described in Count One. They imprisoned such persons without
judicial process, holding them in "protective custody" and
concentration camps, and subjected them to persecution, degradation,
despoilment, enslavement, torture, and murder.
Special courts were established to carry out the will
of the conspirators; favored branches or agencies of the State and Party
were permitted to operate outside the range even of nazified law and
to crush all tendencies and elements which were considered "undesirable".
The various concentration camps included Buchenwald, which was established
in 1933, and Dachau, which was established in 1934. At these and other
camps the civilians were put to slave labor, and murdered and ill-treated
by divers means, including those set out in Count Three above, and these
acts and policies were continued and extended to the occupied countries
after 1 September 1939, and until 8 May 1945.
(B) PERSECUTION ON POLITICAL,
RACIAL, AND RELIGIOUS GROUNDS IN EXECUTION OF AND IN CONNECTION WITH
THE COMMON PLAN MENTIONED IN COUNT ONE
As above stated, in execution of and in connection
with the common plan mentioned in Count One, opponents of the German
Government were exterminated and persecuted. These persecutions were
directed against Jews. They were also directed against persons whose
political belief or spiritual aspirations were deemed to be in conflict
with the aims of the Nazis.
Jews were systematically persecuted since 1933; they
were deprived of their liberty, thrown into concentration camps where
they were murdered and ill-treated. Their property was confiscated.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews were so treated before 1 September 1939.
Since 1 September 1939, the persecution of the Jews
was redoubled: millions of Jews from Germany and from the occupied Western
Countries were sent to the Eastern Countries for extermination.
Particulars by way of example and without prejudice
to the production of evidence of other cases are as follows:
The Nazis murdered amongst others Chancellor Dollfuss,
the Social Democrat Breitscheid, and the Communist Thalmann. They imprisoned
in concentration camps numerous political and religious personages,
for example Chancellor Schuschnigg and Pastor Niemoeller.
In November 1938, by orders of the Chief of the Gestapo,
anti-Jewish demonstrations all over Germany took place. Jewish property
was destroyed, 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps
and their property confiscated.
Under paragraph VIII (A), above, millions of the persons
there mentioned as having been murdered and ill-treated were Jews.
Among other mass murders of Jews were the following:
At Kislovdosk all Jews were made to give up their property:
2,000 were shot in an anti-tank ditch at Minerallye Vodi: 4,300 other
Jews were shot in the same ditch.
60,000 Jews were shot on an island on the Dvina near
Riga.
20,000 Jews were shot at Lutsk.
32,000 Jews were shot at Sarny.
60,000 Jews were shot at Kiev and.Dniepropetrovsk.
Thousands of Jews were gassed weekly by means of gas-wagons
which broke down from overwork.
As the Germans retreated before the Soviet Army they
exterminated Jews rather than allow them to be liberated Many. concentration
camps and ghettos were set up in which Jews were incarcerated and tortured,
starved, subjected to merciless atrocities, and finally exterminated.
About 70,000 Jews were exterminated in Yugoslavia.
XI. Individual, group and organisation
responsibility for the offence stated in Count Four
Reference is hereby made to Appendix A of this Indictment
for a statement of the responsibility of the individual defendants for
the offense set forth in this Count Four of the Indictment. Reference
is hereby made to Appendix B of this Indictment for a statement of the
responsibility of the groups and organizations named herein as criminal
groups and organizations for the offense set forth in this Count Four
of the Indictment.
Wherefore, this Indictment is lodged with the Tribunal
in English, French, and Russian, each text having equal authenticity,
and the charges herein made against the above named defendants are hereby
presented to the Tribunal.
Robert H. Jackson
Acting on Behalf of the United States of America.
Francois De Menthon
Acting on Behalf of the French Republic.
Hartley Shawcross
Acting on Behalf of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland.
Roman Rudenko
Acting on Behalf of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
- Berlin, 6 October 1945.