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Volume IV · Page 416
| perhaps in their own wagons, to the antitank
ditches and there slaughtered with the Jews and the Krimchaks. The insane also were to be killed. Not because they were a threat to the Reich, nor because someone may have believed they were formidable rivals of the Nazi chieftains. No more excuse was offered for sentencing the insane than was advanced for condemning the gypsies and the Krimchaks. However, there was a historical basis for the decrees against the insane. That is, a history going back two years. On 1 September 1939, Hitler had issued his euthanasia decree which ordered the killing of all insane and incurably ill people. It was demonstrated in other trials that this decree was made a convenient excuse for killing off those who were racially undesirable to the Nazis, and who were unable to work. These victims were grouped together under the title of "useless eaters". Since all invaded territories were expected to become Reich territory, the same policies which controlled in Germany itself were apparently introduced and put into effect in the occupied lands. But a very extensive interpretation was given to even this heartless decree. Insane asylums were often emptied and the inmates liquidated because the invaders desired to use the asylum buildings. "Asiatic inferiors" was another category destined for liquidation. This kind of designation allowed a wide discretion in homicide. Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommando leaders were authorized to take executive measures on their own responsibility. There was no one to dispute with them as to the people they branded "Asiatic inferiors". And even less was there a curb on homicidal operations when they were authorized to shoot "Asocial people, politically tainted persons, and racially and mentally inferior elements." And then, all Communist functionaries were to be shot. Again it was never made quite clear how broad was this classification. Thus, in recapitulation, the Fuehrer Order, and throughout this opinion it will be so referred to, called for the summary killing of Jews, gypsies, insane people, Asiatic inferiors, Communist functionaries, and asocials. |
| AUTHENTICITY OF REPORTS |
| The story of the Einsatzgruppen and the Einsatzkommandos is not something pieced together years after their crimson deeds were accomplished. The story was written as the events it narrates occurred, and it was authored by the doers of the deeds. It was written in the terse, exact language which military discipline requires, and which precision of reporting dictates. |
