. NMT04-T0469
Volume IV · Page 469
| "danger to Germany" argument. In two or
three instances an attempt was made to show that the Jews in Russia held a high
percentage of official positions, a percentage disproportionate to the size of
the Jewish population. This was the most common theory utilized in Germany for
the oppression and persecution of the Jews. By adducing the same excuse here
the defendants involved acknowledged they were putting into physical effect in
Russia an antipathy and prejudice already entertained in Germany against the
Jewish race. There was no duty and certainly no right on the part of the
defendants to go into Russia to equalize the official positions according to
the proportion between Jews and non-Jews. Defense counsel Dr. Mayer admitted that the Fuehrer Order violated the recognized laws and customs of war, but urged that Russia was not entitled to protection under international law. Apart from the fact that Russia was a party to the Hague Convention of Land Warfare — in fact, the Hague Conference of 1899 was initiated by Russia — the International Military Tribunal pointed out that the rules of the Hague Regulations have become declaratory of the common law of war. It further disposed of the objection by quoting approvingly from the memorandum issued by the German Admiral Canaris on 15 September 1941, in which he declared that it is contrary to military tradition, regardless of treaty or lack of treaty — |
"To kill or injure helpless people." |
| Dr. Mayer also said, taking the same line as Dr. Maurach — |
"If this war was not an unjustified war of aggression, but a justified preventive war, then, on the basis of my explanations in the trial brief on the subject of the ideology, aims and practice of the U.S.S.R., to which I refer, the question arises, in how far the German Reich found itself, in this war against the U.S.S.R., in a genuine state of national emergency, and whether this justified the orders given by Hitler." |
| If Dr. Mayer means this, he collides head-on with a res judicata. The International Military Tribunal, after studying countless documents and hearing numerous direct witnesses of and participants in the event itself, declared — |
"The plans for the economic exploitation of the U.S.S.R., for the removal of masses of population, for the murder of Commissars and political leaders, were all part of the carefully prepared scheme launched on the 22d June without warning of any kind, and without the shadow of legal excuse. It was plain aggression." |
| The annihilation of the Jews had nothing to do with the defense of Germany, the genocide program was in no way connected with |
