Image ©MAZAL LIBRARY

NMT01-T978


. NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNAL
Volume I · Page 978
Previous Page Home PageArchive
 

carried out by Germany in at least the same manner as it was carried out by the U.S.S.R., and that this becomes quite evident from the contents of the German-Soviet secret treaty of 23 August 1939. Nevertheless the U.S.A. did not hesitate to recognize the territorial claims made by the U.S.S.R. in the area of the former Polish State. This recognition tools place de facto as well as de jure during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 and the Potsdam Conference on 2 August 1945.

The prosecution cannot therefore object today to this state of affairs as far as the legal issues arising from this attack are concerned.

The Ordinance for Combating Acts of Violence in the General Government and the introduction of the courts martial connected with it would, by the way, have been permissible; even if though the former Polish State had not ceased to exist as a subject in the realm of international law. Military occupation of foreign states (occupatio belica), too, gives the occupying power the right to take all the measures necessary for the maintenance of order and safety. It is a generally acknowledged legal conception that in this case the occupying power takes over the power of the conquered state, not as its deputy, but rather by authority of its own laws guaranteed by international law. The right is expressly acknowledged in the third section of the Hague Convention for Land Warfare [Section III, Annex to the Convention]. There can be no doubt that the introduction of courts martial is one of those rights of the occupying power. In fact it seems inconceivable that an occupying power should not be allowed to take measures for the effective combating of a resistance movement, whose sole and openly admitted purpose it was to undermine and destroy the authority of the occupying power and the safety of the occupation troops. The right to do this can be contested even less in our case, since with the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, the territory of the former General Government became the largest military transit area which has ever existed in the history of war. The methods by which the Polish Resistance Movement tried to attain its goals do not need to be examined here in detail. It is sufficient to point out that the Resistance Movement was in a position to interfere to a considerable extent with German-Army reinforcements against the Red Army; this interference tools the form of blasting of bridges, transmission of important military information, etc. The Polish women used for the sulfanilamide experiments were members of this Resistance Movement and they supported it wherever they could. However much we respect the courage and patriotism of these women, we cannot refrain from emphasizing the fact that they violated laws which at that time were binding for them. This violation gave the occupation power the right to impose adequate punishment upon them. It seems unthinkable that the members of a resistance, movement such as the Polish one would not have been sentenced to death during the war for their



978
Next Page NMT Home Page