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| Opening Speech for
the Prosecution |
| |
| Colonel
Backhouse (cont.) |
the
well-being of the prisoners interned there, in violation of the law and usages
of war they were together concerned as parties to the ill-treatment of certain
of the persons interned in the camp, and by that ill-treatment they caused the
death of some and they caused physical suffering to others.
As it is
the first case of this kind to be tried I shall put before the Court the
grounds on which we claim jurisdiction to try these charges We base that claim
on International Law as set out in the Laws and Usages of War in the Manual of
Military Law. Chapter 14, paragraph 449, says that by the Laws and Usages of
War any person committing or alleged to have committed a war crime may properly
be dealt with by a Military Court or such Court as the belligerent may
determine.
His Majesty the King has given a Royal Warrant¹ which
is to be found in Army Order 81 of 1945, setting out : “Whereas We deem it
expedient to make provisions for the trial and punishment of violation of the
laws and usages of war committed during any war in which we have been or may be
engaged at any time after the 2nd day of September, 1939, Our will and pleasure
is that the custody, trial and punishment of persons charged with such
violations of the laws and usages of war as aforesaid shall be governed by the
Regulations attached to this Our Warrant.” Regulation 2 of that Warrant
provides: “The following persons shall have power to convene Military
Courts for the trial of persons charged with having committed war crimes,”
and includes inter alia any officer authorized so to do under the Warrant,
which are set out in the previous paragraph. The Royal Warrant has been
directed to the Commander-in-Chief, British Army of the Rhine, and he in turn
has given a delegated Warrant to the General Officer Commanding 30 Corps, and
it is by this Warrant that the Court is convened to-day.
The
Prosecution say that the acts set out in the charges are undoubtedly war
crimes, if they are proved, because the persons interned both at Auschwitz and
Belsen were, amongst others — we are not, of course, concerned in this
trial with atrocities by Germans against Germans — Allied nationals. You
will hear that there were a great number of Allied nationals in those camps;
they were either prisoners of war or persons who had been deported from
occupied countries or persons who had been interned in the ordinary way. They
were all persons who had been placed there without a trial, either because of
their religion, or their nationality, or their refusal to work for the enemy,
or merely because they were prisoners of war who it was thought might
conveniently be used in such places or exterminated in such places.
The
Laws and Usages of War provide for the proper, treatment not only of prisoners
of war but of civilian citizens of the nations which are |
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¹ See Appendix I. |
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| Page 15 |
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