 |
“The following reasons for
the transfer of the 18th Army and its subordinate units to the east from the
west will be announced to the troops:
“1. Protection of the newly
acquired living space in the East.
“2. Demonstration of our
military strength to the Poles.
“ 3. Preparation for the
establishment of peacetime garrisons in the Eastern Territory for army units.
[2] I should like to stress the necessity for ensuring that every soldier of
the army, particularly every officer, refrains from criticizing the ethnical
struggle being carried out in the Government General [that is Poland], the
treatment of the Polish minorities, and of the Jews, and the handling of church
matters. The final ethnical solution of the ethnical struggle which has been
raging on the eastern border for centuries calls for measures of such harshness
and directness that one application of them will suffice.
“Certain
agencies of the Party and the State have been charged with the conduct of this
ethnical struggle in the East.
“Soldiers must, therefore, remain
aloof from these matters, which are the concern of other agencies. Neither are
they to involve themselves in such matters by criticism.”
|
| Many facts of this case are reflected in these few paragraphs –
the proud mention of “living space,” which had been acquired by the
sword; the scornful references to Poles and Jews; the indoctrination of the
troops to accept the most brutal treatment of these “inferior”
peoples. Already the seeds are being sown in preparation for the savagery which
would be demanded of the German soldier the next year; already the language is
not of mere war but of “ethnical struggles,” which are “raging
on the eastern border.” This is not a soldier’s order. It is a
vicious, foul effort to brutalize the troops. It points as accusingly as ever a
document can to where the deepest guilt lies for the crimes that we have
rehearsed today. And so it comes to pass that the only way in which the
behavior of the German troops in the recent war can be made comprehensible as
the behavior of human beings, is by a full exposure of the criminal doctrines
and orders which were pressed upon them from above, by these defendants and
others. In that exposure, the German people themselves have the greatest stake.
|
| |
| |
| B. Opening Statement for the Defendant von Leeb* |
| |
DR. LATERNSER: May it please the Tribunal.
In view of
Germany’s plight today, a plight brought about by proper to proceed on the
assumption that only history will render |
| —————————— |
* Tr. pp. 1757-1814, 12 April
1948.
155 |
. 
