. NMT04-T0356
Volume IV · Page 356
| and economic conventions, which in their consequences cause the execution of acts of violence against and misery for millions of people, have done anything better morally only because the conscious consequences were not expressly made known to the population. I believe, therefore, that when history has come to an end, that this conflict will not have started in 1941, but with the victory of bolshevism in Russia, that then only can the judgment of history be made which will inform about various phases of this conflict. |
| CROSS-EXAMINATION |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
| MR. HEATH: Mr. Ohlendorf, what happened to
the Jewish children, the gypsy children? DEFENDANT OHLENDORF: According to orders they were to be killed just like their parents. Q. Did you kill them just like their parents? A. I did not get any other reports. Q. I don't understand your answer. Did your reports show the killing of children or did they show that children had been spared? A. They also revealed the executions of children. Q. Will you explain to the Tribunal what conceivable threat to the security of the Wehrmacht a child constituted in your judgment? A. I believe I cannot add anything to your previous question. I did not have to determine the danger but the order contained that all Jews including the children were considered to constitute a danger for the security of this area. Q. Will you agree that there was absolutely no rational basis for killing children except genocide and the killing of races? A. I believe that it is very simple to explain if one starts from the fact that this order did not only try to achieve security, but also permanent security because the children would grow up and surely, being the children of parents who had been killed, they would constitute a danger no smaller than that of the parents. Q. That is the master race exactly, is it not, the decimation of whole races in order to remove a real or fancied threat to the German people? A. Mr. Prosecutor, I did not see the execution of children myself although I attended three mass executions. Q. Are you saying they didn't kill children now? A. I did not say that. May I finish? I attended three mass executions and did not see any children and no command ever searched for children, but I have seen very many children killed in this war through air attacks, for the security of other nations, |
