. NMT04-T0560
Volume IV · Page 560
| 15 March in order to avoid responsibility for the executions enumerated in Report No. 194. |
"In the area of the Einsatzgruppe, during the period from 6 until 30 March 1942, the following were specially treated: |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
through SK 7b: 82 persons, 19 among them for collaborating with partisans, 22 for engaging in Communist propaganda and for proved membership of the Communist Party, 14 for making incendiary remarks, 27 Jews." |
| In view of the fact that Ott arrived in
Bryansk on 19 February for the specific purpose of taking over control of
Sonderkommando 7b, it is not clear why he should have waited until 15 March to
assume leadership of the unit. But even if this unexplained delay in the
technical assumption of command were a fact, this would not of itself exculpate
Ott from responsibility for the operation involved. Under Control Council Law
No. 10 one may be convicted for taking a "consenting part in the perpetration
of crimes" and it would be difficult to maintain that Ott, while actually with
the Kommando, did not (even though technically not its commanding officer)
consent to these executions. In addition, it is to be observed that the report declared that the 82 persons enumerated therein were killed between 6 March and 30 March. Thus, if arguendo Ott's authority over the Kommando was delayed until 15 March, there is still the responsibility on his part for the executions which occurred between 15 March and 30 March. However, so far as guilt is concerned, this speculation as to the number killed before 15 March and the number executed after 15 March is academic, because the evidence is conclusive that, during the at least ten-month period that Ott commanded Sonderkommando 7b, great numbers of people were killed in violation of international law. The Tribunal has pointed out that it is not necessary, in the individual judgments, to enumerate and discuss all the executions charged against the defendants by the prosecution if it is once established that the defendant is guilty under counts one and two of the indictment. In this respect, Ott, himself, removed every possible scintilla of doubt when he said — |
"I told my sub-Kommando leaders that Jews, after they are seized and do not belong to a partisan movement or sabotage organization, must be shot on the basis of the Fuehrer Order." |
| After this statement in Court, he was asked — |
"Did I understand you, witness, to say that you instructed your sub-Kommando leaders that, if they found Jews, they were to seize them and shoot them in accordance with the |
