. NMT03-T0569
Volume III · Page 569
| PARTIAL
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NG-149 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 110 |
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| VARIOUS
MEMORANDUMS FROM THE FILES OF THE HIGH COMMAND OF THE ARMED FORCES, 6 JUNE — 5 JULY 1944, CONCERNING THE TREATMENT OF "TERROR FLIERS" |
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| I. Memorandum of General Warlimont, 6 June 1944¹ | |
| Matter for Chiefs! — (only through officers) | |
| Deputy Chief of the Operations
Staff of the Armed Forces, No. 771793/44 Top Secret Chief matter |
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| Field Headquarters, 6 June 1944 | |
| Top Secret | |
| 3 copies — 1st copy | |
| Subject: Treatment of enemy terrorist airmen | |
| Notes on a report | |
| 1. In the afternoon of 6 June,
SS Obergruppenfuehrer Kaltenbrunner² informed the Deputy Chief of the
Operations Staff of the Armed Forces, in Klessheim, that this question had been
discussed a short time previously between the Reich Marshal, the Reich Minister
for Foreign Affairs, and the Reich Leader SS. In the course of this conference,
and in opposition to the original suggestion of the Reich Minister for Foreign
Affairs, who wanted to include any kind of terror attack against our own
civilian population — thus bomb attacks on cities too — an agreement
was reached, according to which only machine-gun attacks directly aimed
at the civilian population and its property, should be considered as
constituting criminal acts in this sense. Lynch justice should be
considered as being the rule. Sentencing by court martial and transfer
to the police, on the contrary, had not been discussed. 2. The Deputy Chief of Armed Forces Operations Staff set forth — a. In pursuance of the broad outlines sketched by Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels and various press reports which point in the same direction the main task now consists in making public a case of this kind which has been unexceptionally confirmed stating the name and the unit of the concerned airman, the place where it happened, and other details in order to establish accordingly the seriousness of the German intentions in the face of incredulous |
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¹ General Warlimont was convicted for his participation in the "Terror Flier" program in the High Command Case, United States vs. Wilhelm von Leeb, et al. Case 12, volumes X and XI. Extracts from his testimony on this question are reproduced in section VII C 5 volume X, this section.
² Kaltenbrunner was appointed chief of the Security Police and SD and head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) on 30 January 1943. He was sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal. See Trial of the Major War Criminals, op. cit, volume I, page 365.
