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Volume IV · Page 465
| Mass Killings for Ideological Reasons |
| Dr. Reinhard Maurach, Professor Criminal Law and Eastern European Law, was called by the defendant Ohlendorf to expound the international law underlying the position of the various defendants maintaining Ohlendorf's view. Some sections of his treatise, submitted as Ohlendorf Document 38, supported the prosecution rather than the defense. On three occasions he condemned mass killings for ideological reasons. |
"This is the place to say with special emphasis that the shooting of entire groups of a population is not justified by any 'collective suspicion', of any group, no matter how great. |
| However, in the end the expert arrived at an
opposite conclusion. First, he stated that a state of war as such does
not vindicate extraordinary actions, but then in a superb demonstration of
legal acrobatics he declared that if the war aims of one of the opponents are
total, then the opponent is vindicated in claiming self-defense and state of
necessity, and, therefore, may introduce the mass killings he had previously
condemned. For the purpose of considering this argument we will ignore the fact that Germany waged an undeclared war against Russia, that Germany was the invader and Russia the invaded, and look only to the evidence adduced to support the theme that, after being invaded, Russia's actions were such as to call for the executions of which the prosecution complains. In behalf of the defendants many so-called Russian exhibits were introduced. Among them were documents on the Soviet foreign policy, statements emanating from the Kremlin, articles from the Russian encyclopedia, and speeches made by Stalin. All these exhibits are strictly irrelevant and might well be regarded as a red herring drawn across the trail. But the Tribunal's policy throughout the trial has been to admit everything which might conceivably elucidate the reasoning of the defense. Thus, the excerpt from Stalin's speech of 3 July 1941, quoted in Ohlendorf's document book, will be cited here. |
"In the areas occupied by the enemy, cavalry and infantry partisan detachments must be formed and diversion groups created for fighting the units of the enemy army, for kindling |
