. NMT04-T0555
Volume IV · Page 555
| crimes against humanity has been clearly and
conclusively established. From all the evidence in the case the Tribunal finds
the defendant guilty under counts one and two of the indictment. The tribunal also finds that the defendant was a member of the criminal organizations SS and SD under the conditions defined by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal and is, therefore, guilty under count three of the indictment. |
| GUSTAV NOSSKE |
| SS Lieutenant Colonel Nosske studied banking,
economics, and law, passed his examinations as assessor in 1934, and entered
the Administration of Justice at Halle. In June 1935 he became employed in the
National Ministry of the Interior at Aachen and then transferred to the
Gestapo. From 19 June 1941 until March 1942 he served as commander of
Einsatzkommando 12. He testified that he morally opposed the Fuehrer Order but did not put it into effect because it was his good fortune never to have been in a position where he had to execute the order. When he was asked if he had been called upon to shoot 500 Jews under the Fuehrer Order whether he would have done so, he replied |
"If I had been in a situation where the Einsatzgruppe chief would have been in a position to reprimand me for disobeying the Hitler Order, and had stressed it, then probably I would have done it." |
| Later, he said that if he were confronted with such a situation he would take the matter up with his conscience. |
"Q. * * * you are before 500 innocent people, men, women, and children — Jews — and you are presented with this order to kill them. Now, are you going to confer with your conscience and, if so, what is going to be your conclusion? |
| But he did face situations which were not
hypothetical. Report No. 61, referring to Einsatzkommando 12, says — |
" * * * only in Babchinzy resistance was partially shown toward an orderly harvesting caused at the instigation of Jewish inhabitants and such Jews who had only come to this territory a few months ago. By spying on the population, those Jews had already created a basis for numerous deportations to Siberia. As a countermeasure, 94 Jews were executed." |
| The defendant on the witness stand admitted that this execution was carried out by one of his detachments, but declared that the execution was legal because the executees had sabotaged farm |
