. NMT04-T0361
Volume IV · Page 361
[adminis...] tered which should carry convincing proof of our power to destroy the Empire. Such an effective shock would save more lives, both American and Japanese, than it would cost." |
| Transferring these conditions to the war in
the East, Hitler was of the conviction that by such measures he would nip the
partisan war in the bud or suppress it effectively. The welfare of the whole
front was menaced by the unrestricted partisan war. Hitler may have expected a
shock effect from the measure he ordered, which in the end would save the lives
of an infinitely greater number of German soldiers. I have proved that just in
the Esthonian territory the Soviet leadership attached great importance to
partisan movements in the widest sense of the word. It even left the most
important officials back in Esthonia in order to organize as extensive and
effective an underground movement against the Germans as possible. 2. Was the Fuehrer Order to that extent admissible according to international law? The Fuehrer Order had as its first objective the safeguarding of the territory occupied effectively by the German Wehrmacht. Inasmuch as Communist functionaries actually disturbed or threatened the security, as active directors of sabotage or espionage organizations, or by sabotage, incitements, and other hostile acts, murder, espionage, possession and use of weapons, they could be shot according to the law of war (war rebels). Here the same principles would apply as have been developed for the illegal levee en masse in the occupied rear of the troops. So says, i. e., Oppenheim Volume II, paragraph 116, pages 278, 279: |
"What kinds of violent means may be applied for these purposes is in the discretion of the military authorities. But there is no doubt that, if necessary, capital punishment and imprisonment are lawful means for those purposes." |
| Inasmuch as Communist functionaries actually
committed acts of insurrection and resistance or other serious crimes and
inasmuch as such acts were proved against them, they could be shot in
accordance with international law. Obviously the same principles are applied in the struggle on the Greek northern border. These principles correspond also to the American practices of war. The Basic Field Manual [FM 27–10], Rules of Land Warfare states in Article 12 — |
| "Uprising in occupied territory. — If the people of a country, or any portion thereof, already occupied by an army, rise |
