[con...] scientious objectors and saboteurs, ought to be punished as crimes against humanity in connection with a crime against peace, if this war is declared to be an aggressive one by the enemy, after it has been lost.

Therefore certain things must be in hand which make the crime obvious and prove the connection. If you were to decide otherwise the well-formulated specifications of the statute would be superfluous, and likewise the protection of the population by the Hague Convention would be set aside in an inadmissible way, as the execution of every ordered war measure can be declared "inhuman". This interpretation of the subsidiary nature of the crime against humanity is confirmed, if one ascertains what the real crime against humanity itself is primarily supposed to be.

In the Flick¹ case the prosecution tried to make a definition from Article 6 (c) of the statute. They referred to the clause "in connection with a crime within the jurisdiction of the court", and interpreted this as follows: That crimes of especially large proportions must be in question, since the International Military Tribunal should only deal with such. Such an interpretation cannot be maintained, as the International Military Tribunal is competent for the most insignificant war crime too, and for every crime against peace, regardless of its dimensions.

It must be admitted that the statute does not contain a definition at all and that characteristics of a crime against humanity are not stipulated. If you want to find such a specification for an independent crime against humanity, which is detached from crimes against peace and war crimes, you can only fall back on the notorious "sound feeling" and you will get lost in the void, because its limits are not fixed, but shift according to the political wish.

Here you can point to the fact that Germany's unrestrained U-boat war during the First World War was then pilloried as a crime against humanity and caused America to enter the war. During World War II, however, the same manner of warfare was used by the USA against Japan; this was cleared up before the International Military Tribunal by an affidavit of Admiral Nimitz.²

The answer to the question as to what the crime against humanity itself consists of can only be given from the examples of the statute and can be supported by the interpretation which the International Military Tribunal has given. According to this the crime against humanity is the aggravation of a war crime or a crime against peace. It differs from these crimes by its dimension, its system,, and the manner of execution. This can be deduced from the wording of the text of the statute where as typical examples are quoted: "extirpation, enslavement, deportation".

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