. NMT05-T0026
Volume V · Page 26
| 7. RESPONSIBILITY OF
SUBORDINATES FOR ACTS CARRIED OUT UPON SUPERIOR ORDERS |
| a. Selection from the
Argumentation of the Defense |
| EXTRACTS FROM THE CLOSING
STATEMENT FOR DEFENDANT HOFMANN* |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
| The principle that the Hague Land Warfare Convention, as such, is binding on states only, follows from the fifth paragraph of the preamble of this Convention — |
"According to the views of the High Contracting Parties, these provisions, the wording of which has been inspired by the desire to diminish the evils of war, as far as military requirements permit, are intended to serve as a general rule of conduct for the belligerents in their mutual relations and in their relations with the inhabitants." |
| From Article I of the Hague Land Warfare Convention I quote: |
"The Contracting Powers shall issue instructions to their armed land forces which shall be in conformity with the Regulations respecting the Law and Customs of War on Land, annexed to the present Convention." |
| In any case, it was an established conception in Germany and on the continent that political or material claims based on international law could be addressed to states only, because the international law then existing affected only states. This principle has been set aside by Article VII of the Charter of the IMT, which reads, and I quote: |
"The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government Departments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment." |
| Now, it follows from the nature of a modern state that it sets up a large and efficient administrative machinery. As usual in a totalitarian state, this machinery was much larger in the National Socialist State than it is in the western democracies. Practically everything was organized and even over-organized. It is obvious that an enlarged organization also implies a higher degree of division of labor and at the same time a division of responsibility. On the one side stands the dictator who took upon himself the over-all responsibility, with a few other leaders in whom comprehensive |
* Complete closing statement is recorded in mimeographed transcript, 17 February 1948, pp. 5077-5112.
