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tries.
He took part in the discussions which led to the
removal of 60,000 Jews from Vienna to Poland in
cooperation with the SS and the Gestapo. He
signed the decree of 31 May 1941 extending the
Nuremberg Laws to the annexed Eastern
territories. In an order of 9 October 1942 he
declared that the permanent elimination of Jews
in Greater German territory could no longer be
solved by emigration, but only by applying "ruthless
force" in the special camps in the East. On
1 July 1943 he signed an ordinance withdrawing
Jews from the protection of the law courts and
placing them under the exclusive jurisdiction of
Himmler's Gestapo.
Bormann was
prominent in the slave labor program. The Party
leaders supervised slave labor matters in the
respective Gaue, including employment,
conditions of work, feeding, and housing. By his
circular of 5 May 1943 to the Leadership Corps,
distributed down to the level of
Ortsgruppenleiter, he issued directions
regulating the treatment of foreign workers,
pointing out they were subject to SS control on
security problems, and ordered the previous
mistreatment to cease. A report of 4 September
1942 relating to the transfer of 500,000 female
domestic workers from the East to Germany showed
that control was to be exercised by Sauckel,
Himmler, and Bormann. Sauckel by decree of 8
September directed the Kreisleiter to supervise
the distribution and assignment of these female
laborers.
Bormann also issued a series
of orders to the Party leaders dealing with the
treatment of prisoners of war. On 5 November
1941 he prohibited decent burials for Russian
prisoners of war. On 25 November 1943 he
directed Gauleiter to report cases of lenient
treatment of prisoners of war. And on 13
September 1944 he ordered liaison between. the
Kreisleiter with the camp commandants in
determining the use to be made of prisoners of
war for forced labor. On 29 January 1943 he
transmitted to his leaders OKW instructions
allowing the use of firearms, and corporal
punishment on recalcitrant prisoners of war,
contrary to the Rules of Land Warfare. On 30
September 1944 he signed a decree taking from
the OKW jurisdiction over prisoners of war and
handing them over to Himmler and the SS.
Bormann
is responsible for the lynching of Allied
airmen. On 30 May 1944 he prohibited any police
action or criminal proceedings against persons
who had taken part in the lynching of Allied
fliers. This was accompanied by a Goebbels'
propaganda campaign inciting the German people
to take action of this nature, and the
conference of 6 June 1944, where regulations for
the application of lynching were discussed.
His Counsel, who has labored under
difficulties, was unable to refute this
evidence. In the face of these documents, which
bear Bormann's signature, it is difficult to see
how he could do so even were the defendant
present. Counsel has argued that Bormann is
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