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Volume VI · Page 1119
[muni…] tions of any kind, or for transporting material intended for combatant units." [Emphasis supplied.] |
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| From this it is quite clear that prisoners of war may be employed
for the construction of railroad carriages because they are not included in the
conception of "arms and ammunition" and have no relation to actions of war. As
far as railroad carriages are used by the armed forces they constitute a means
of transport for war material. However, the manufacture of means of transport
is not provided for by Article 31 but only the work performed by the prisoners
of war in the transportation itself. With all good intentions to conceive the
train of thought of the prosecution, I really do not know under which
regulation of the Geneva Convention the prosecution is classifying the work of
prisoners of war in the construction of railroad carriages for the Reich
railways. It is true that Linke-Hofmann as well as Busch-Bautzen also carried out other constructions — this has also been proved by the prosecution — for example, armored trains, tank transporters, flatbed trailers, ambulance cars, equipment for dismantling rails, etc. But also in these cases it does not concern "arms" in the sense of Article 31 of the Geneva Convention; these are rather vehicles on rails, that is means of transport, or other vehicles serving the conveyance of material of any kind. If, in spite of this, the prosecution made it a count it can only be for the reason that contrary to the Geneva Convention, the prosecution is of the opinion that prisoners of war are not to be employed in the construction of means of transport. But even if the Geneva Convention should apply to the last named constructions, the prosecution has not proved that prisoners of war were participating in these constructions. In this connection it is important to note that according to the documents of the prosecution the share of Russian prisoners of war at Linke-Hofmann was less than 25 percent while according to my findings in the case of Busch-Bautzen no percentage is mentioned by the Prosecution with the exception that in 1943 apparently all the foreigners amounted to only 17 percent of the total workers,. that is, the prisoners of war being of a still lower percentage. Therefore, it is quite improbable that prisoners of war who had to be employed principally in groups should not have been employed in the construction of railroad carriages although the construction of railroad carriages was the main line of the two firms. Even if all my argumentations should be wrong, yet there could be no cause for assuming a violation of international law by the defendants for the following reasons: a. The defendants would not be found guilty in the sense of Penal law, because they did not participate in labor allocation; |
