13 Dec.
45
line marks the boundary of Germany after the Anschluss,
and we call the Tribunal's attention to the fact that the majority of
the camps shown on the chart are located within the territorial limits
of Germany itself. They are the red spots, of course, on the map. In the
center of Germany there is the Buchenwald camp located near the city of
Weimar, and at the extreme bottom of the chart there is Dachau, several
miles outside of Munich. At the top of the chart are Neuengamme and
Bergen-Belsen, located near Hamburg. To the left is the Niederhagen camp
in the Ruhr Valley. In the upper right there are a number of camps near
Berlin, one named Sachsenhausen (formerly Oranienburg, which was one of
the first camps established after the Nazis came into power). Near to
that is the camp of Ravensbrück which was used exclusively for
women. Some of the most notorious camps were located indeed outside of
Germany. Mauthausen was in Austria. In Poland was the infamous
Auschwitz; and to the left of the chart is a camp called Hertogenbosch
and this one was located in Holland, as the chart shows; and below it is
Natzweiler, located in France.
The camps were established in networks; and it may be observed that
surrounding each of the major camps the larger red dots is
a group of satellite camps; and the names of the principal camps, the
most notorious camps, at least, are above the map and below it on the
chart; and those names, for most people, symbolize the Nazi system of
concentration camps as they have become known to the world since May or
a little later in 1945.
I should like to direct your attention briefly to the treatment which
was meted out in these camps. The motion picture to which I have made
reference a short time ago and which was shown to the members of this
High Tribunal has disclosed the terrible and savage treatment which was
inflicted upon these Allied nationals, prisoners of war, and other
victims of Nazi terror. Because the moving picture has so well shown the
situation, as of the time of its taking at least, I shall confine myself
to a very brief discussion of the subject.
The conditions which existed inside these camps were, of course, we
say, directly related to the objectives which these Nazi conspirators
sought to achieve outside of the camps through their employment of
terror.
It is truly remarkable, it seems to us, how easily the words "concentration
camps" rolled off the lips of these men. How simple all problems
became when they could turn to the terror institution of the
concentration camps. I refer to Document Number R-124, which is already
before the Tribunal as Exhibit USA-179. It is again that document
covering the minutes of the Central Planning Committee on which the
Defendant Speer sat and where the high strategy of the high Nazi
armament production was formulated.