Adolf Hitler: Hirohito: On Trials 5h6v3u

ADOLF HITLER

HIROHITO

ON TRIALS

JEAN SÉNAT FLEURY

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The literary inventory concerning Hirohito is not very voluminous, unlike that on Adolf Hitler, where the research done on the Führer does not fail to report the heinous crimes of the Nazis against a well-defined category of men, the Jews. Here, it is not a question of conducting any debate on the two main figures of the Second World War. They were two monsters. The only difference is that there are a lot of writings on Hitler, while very few books have been published on Hirohito.

History has always presented Hitler as a monster, a fierce dictator, responsible for the deaths of millions of soldiers and civilians during the Second World War. On the other hand, we have long been forced to believe in a false speech, namely, that Hirohito has no responsibility for the war crimes committed by the Japanese imperial forces between 1937 and 1945 in the Pacific. Having his power totally limited by ministers and the military, it is therefore normal that the emperor be absolved of the war crimes of the Japanese Imperial Army and the Japanese Imperial Navy during the Shōwa era. The Meiji Constitution of February 11, 1889, certainly gives him the authority to choose the prime minister and the of the High Staff of the Army. However, the emperor in Japan has symbolic power. Before the new constitution of 1946, he was a living god, and therefore he should not interfere in political matters.

Our opinion on the matter is very different. In our eyes, Hitler was a sadistic criminal, one of the most bloodthirsty in human history. Hirohito, for his part, was a cunning and perverse monarch. Hidden in the shadows, he directed the actions of Japanese troops who occupied, during the Second World War, almost all of the territories in the Pacific and in the Southeast Asia.

Never having faced each other in their existence, the two men ― Hitler and Hirohito ― have gone down in history as two evil political partners. German ideology and Japanese ideology are somewhat different, but the principles are the same: conquer territories in order to have raw materials while accentuating if necessary, a territorial enlargement. German and Japanese expansionist desires are at the origin of the alliance between the two countries. The ambition to dominate Europe led Hitler to invade the majority of European countries (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Greece, Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Denmark, , Norway, Russia) in the name of the superiority of the German race over other peoples.

Hitler realized his plans to conquer Europe by annexing Austria in March 1938: it is the Anschluss. After a provocation operation known as the Gleiwitz incident, German troops invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. On September 3, 1939, and the United Kingdom declared war on under a treaty of February 1921, which bound them to Poland. Thus, the Second World War broke out in Europe. On May 10, 1940, seven months after the declaration of war of and England to , Hitler broke the Western front. He launched his armies on the Netherlands, Belgium, and . The war had really begun. On June 22, 1941, Nazi troops entered Russia without any declaration of war.

For their part, dissatisfied with the treatment accorded to the Japanese empire by the Western powers during the Treaty of Versailles and the naval treaties of Washington and London, Japanese politicians developed an ideology based on the superiority of the Japanese race and its rights to dominate Asia. Japan, sidelined by Western democracies for having attacked Manchuria in 1931, followed by the rest of China in 1937, signed on September 27, 1940, the tripartite pact with and Italy. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor. The next day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan. On December 11, Hitler, under a treaty with Japan, declared war on the United States. The Second World War broke out in Asia.

Classified as the two main figures who broke out the Second World War, alongside Mussolini, Hitler and Hirohito remain in the eyes of several experts and historians as war criminals. This is the reason why I invented a fictitious trial against the two belligerents. I tried Hitler as a war criminal in my book, Adolf Hitler: Trial in Absentia in Nuremberg, and I did the same against Hirohito in the book, The Trial of the Emperor, Hirohito, Guilty or Innocent. The Führer was sentenced by default by a group of four judges during a fictitious trial in Nuremberg, and the Japanese monarch was tried by the Permanent People’s Court and posthumously was condemned during a public hearing in Paris.

The reason for the combination of the two trials is as follows: if Hitler and Hirohito had decided to forces to share the world, then would occupy Europe and America, Japan would have established its hegemony on the Asian continent and the Pacific, and finally Italy would extend its domination over Africa and the Middle East; why not compile the two trials, I told myself, one devoted to Hitler, and the other to Hirohito, and thus publish a new book under the title, Adolf Hitler and Hirohito: On Trials.

In the series of major missed trials in history, I tried Napoleon Bonaparte and several other dignitaries of the French monarchy and empire in my book Toussaint Louverture: The Trial of the Slave Trafficking. I prosecuted Osama bin Laden in the book, The Trial of Osama Bin Laden, where I invented the fictitious trial of the leader of al-Qaida. Now, I am happy to offer this compilation, Adolf Hitler and Hirohito: On Trials, to the general public.

Jean Sénat Fleury

Copyright © 2020 by Jean Sénat Fleury.

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-7960-7981-4 Softcover 978-1-7960-7980-7 eBook 978-1-7960-7979-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Rev. date: 12/26/2019

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ADOLF HITLER TRIAL IN ABSENTIA IN NUREMBERG

JEAN SÉNAT FLEURY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Prologue

PART A: THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

CHAPTER I: REFLECTION ON THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

CHAPTER II: THE ROAD TO POWER

CHAPTER III: THE ROAD TO WAR

CHAPTER IV: THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

CHAPTER V: THE DECLINE

CHAPTER VI: REPORT ON THE SECOND WORLD WAR

1) The Consequences

CHAPTER VII: A HISTORY OF THE HOLOCAUST

CHAPTER VIII: THE NUREMBERG INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL

1) Creation

2) Minutes of the Nuremberg Trial

CHAPTER IX: ACTORS IN THE TRIAL

1) The Judges

2) The Assessors

3) The Prosecutors

4) The Lawyers

5) The Accused

6) Criminal Activities in Czechoslovakia

7) Crimes against Peace

8) War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity

9) War Crimes

10) Crimes against Peace

11) War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity

CHAPTER X: SOME ELEMENTS OF THE TRIAL

CHAPTER XI: THE BENEFITS OF THE TRIAL

CHAPTER XII: OVERVIEW OF THE TRIAL

PART B: ANALYSIS OF THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

CHAPTER XIII: THE CONTEXT OF THE TRIAL

CHAPTER XIV: RELATION BETWEEN THE RED CROSS AND THE NAZIS

CHAPTER XV: RELATION BETWEEN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE NAZIS

CHAPTER XVI: CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT, AND STALIN

CHAPTER XVII: CRITICS OF THE TRIAL

PART C: THE TR IAL

CHAPTER XVIII: OPENING STATEMENT AT THE HEARING

CHAPTER XIX: FIRST STATEMENT FOR THE PROSECUTION

CHAPTER XX: NAZI TERRORS IN THE CONQUERED LANDS

CHAPTER XXI: THE FINAL SOLUTION

CHAPTER XXII: THE CAPITULATION

CHAPTER XXIII: THE RESUMPTION OF THE HEARING

CHAPTER XXIV: SECOND STATEMENTS FOR THE PROSECUTION

1) Hitler Was Not a Leader

CHAPTER XXV: COLLECTIVES SANCTIONS

1) Treatment of Prisoners of War

CHAPTER XXVI: THE VERDICT

1) Aggression and Crimes against Peace

2) Attack Plan against Austria

3) Attack Plan against Czechoslovakia

4) Attack Plan against Poland

5) Attack Plan against Yugoslavia and Greece

6) Attack Plan against Belgium and

7) Attack Plan against Russia

8) Attack Plan outside the European Territory

9) On the Use of Doctrine in the Service of the Comprehensive or Complete Plan

10) Crimes against the Economic Domain

11) Crimes against Humanity

12) On The Consequences of the War

13) Hitler’s Complicity to the Nazi Criminals Sentenced and Condemned in Nuremberg

PART D: ANNEXE

CHAPTER XXVII: OPENING STATEMENT BEFORE THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL

1) The Lawless Road to Power:

2) The Consolidation of Nazi Power:

• 1. The Battle against the Working Class:

• 2. The Battle against the Churches:

• 3. Crimes against the Jews:

3) Terrorism and Preparation for War:

4) Experiments in Aggression:

5) War of Aggression:

6) Conspiracy with Japan:

7) “Crimes in the Conduct of War”.

8) The Law of the Case:

9) The Crime against Peace:

10) The Law of Individual Responsibility:

11) Even the German Military Code provides that:

12) The Political, Police, and Military Organizations:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DEDICATION

I write this book in memory of the victims of the Second World War with the hope that the narrative will open the eyes of the present and future generations on the atrocities of war and raise awareness of our leaders to value peace in the world. To a well-known rescuer, Oskar Schindler, and to Princess Alice of Battenberg in Greece, who was the wife of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, mother of Prince Philip, duke of Edinburgh, and mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Princess Alice stayed in occupied Athens during the Second World War, sheltering Jewish refugees, for which she is recognized as “righteous among the nations” at Yad Vashem. To various organizations that attempted to facilitate the emigration of the Jews and non-Jews persecuted as Jews in Europe. Among the most active were the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the American Jewish t Distribution Committee, HICEM, the Central British Fund for German Jewry, the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (Reich Representation of German Jews), which represented German Jewry, and other non-Jewish groups such as the League of Nations High Commission for Refugees (Jewish and Other) coming from and the American Friends Service Committee. Finally, in memory of the 26,973 men and women– righteous among the nations from fifty-one countries– who have been recognized as rescuers by Yad Vashem’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Israel. This book is also dedicated to all men and women who served in the liberation army during the Second World War and who carried with courage and determination the cause to liberate the world from the clutches of Hitler.

“Revisiting history: it is not the privilege of a few or a negotiable right poorly granted or questioned by the State. It is, first of all, a necessity. It is also the inescapable current brought by the evolutionary points of view of the successive generations. It is, at the same time, an indispensable step if one wants to keep alive the memory of the Peoples.”

• The Trial of Marshal Petain

“As for the people I am accusing, I do not know them, I have never seen them, and I have no rancor or hatred against them. They are for me only entities, spirits of social malfeasance. And the act I am doing here is only a revolutionary way to hasten the explosion of truth and justice.” “I have only one ion, that of light, in the name of humanity that has suffered so much and who has the right to happiness. My fiery protest is only the cry of my soul. So let’s dare translate me into the Assize Court and let the investigation take place! I wait.”

• “I accuse”, Émile Zola

A thousand years will , and the guilt of will not be erased. Hans Frank, governor general of Poland, before he was hanged at Nuremberg.

Those who do not the past are condemned to relive it.

George Santayana

“I and my wife choose death to escape the shame of the deposition or surrender. Our desire is to be burned immediately on the places where I have provided most of my daily work during the twelve years spent in the service of my people.”

–Excerpt from Adolf Hitler’s private will

FOREWORD

W hen I had received the new manuscript of M. Jean Sénat Fleury, I was far from expecting to be in a different universe than the one to which he has already accustomed us. Of course, it had already been a matter of trial in his books. However, I must it that in this book, I really did not expect to be faced with the controversial character of Adolf Hitler. Whether he took his life or fled after the fall of the Third Reich, no matter, and we can always speculate on his fate; the fact remains that the world has not yet fully recovered from the Second World War and all the atrocities that were committed at that time. It is also really inconceivable that it was not quoted at trial earlier, as was his colleagues at the famous Nuremberg trial. I was astonished and, at the same time, delighted to see that Hitler was finally to be judged for all the heinous crimes that were committed under his power. What an excellent idea had M. Fleury following the writing of his latest work. I sincerely wish to congratulate the author for the work done and for his contribution so that the collective memory does not forget but especially that it realizes and becomes aware.

Guy Jacques September 10, 2018

COMMENT

T he book, “ Adolf Hitler: Trial in Absentia in Nuremberg”, that my good friend Jean Sénat Fleury is publishing, is a classic in law and international justice. The flagrant violation of human rights and the disregard for individual freedom were damaged between 1933 and 1945 with the madness of the German dictator Adolf Hitler who had claimed to be superior to other peoples on the principle of race. Although the real reasons for wars are only known by their authors, what can we learn from the Second World War? Long before, I must that the fallout of the First World War favored the polarization of geopolitics with the emergence of U.S. military supremacy in the West and the creation of the Soviet Union with the Bolshevik Revolution in the East. Here, following the arguments put forward, some may say that this war had enabled the United States to become the world’s first military power. The same is true of the Second World War, which, in term of benefits, allowed the United States to become the world’s leading economic power. Along the way, we can say that the issue of wars is an investment project that is at the defensive and oppressive level. That is to say, in making war, the nations defend themselves in relation to their future just as they oppress in the same order of ideas. Since none of us do have access to the Temple of Themis, it would be difficult to know the real reasons of the Second World War. However, we have seen the systematic persecution of an ethnic group, in this case, the Jews. Now, with regard to the Nuremberg judgment, it was not realized with the intention of achieving social justice for the minorities persecuted by Hitler, but rather to close the chapter of the Second World War. The message through this suspicious trial was in the sense that the Führer’s mission was coming to an end. As the other would say, make me crazy or wise, how was a regime that had built on the principle of deprivation of psychological, ideological, and social enjoyment could be in the Nuremberg trial represented by only twenty-four accused? It must be understood that the act of war is the final action or the execution of the war project. The war project is multidimensional; it is a whole mechanism encoming the contribution of several areas of expertise just as she must have financial contributions. As the author rightly pointed out, the Nuremberg trial was so biased that it was more of a political

response than social justice. In reading Mr. Fleury’s book, I noticed how much the author had analyzed the facts to plead the case. By inventing Hitler’s judgment in absentia before a criminal court in Nuremberg, he foiled the plan of those who had plotted behind the curtains and wanted Hitler to be a victim or winner of the Second World War. Indeed, if the investigation leading to the judgment of the twenty-four senior Nazi officers had not been accentuated on the need to proceed to judgment in absentia of Hitler since his legal death was not confirmed, there is, instead of advancing the idea that it was something wanted. As a result, the Nuremberg judges made Hitler the big winner of this war. And those who are in favor of conspiracy theories share with me the idea that it was very plausible that the Führer might be present in the room to sit at the place of one of the court’s attorneys. But fortunately, the plotters could not mislead the author, who put Hitler in his place, deciding to try him for the crimes and atrocities of the Nazis during the Second World War. Since Adolf Hitler did not respond within the time allotted by the court, he was therefore considered to be absent and sentenced in absentia. To all those who will have the opportunity to read this book, I hope they will find even symbolic justice in this trial against Adolf Hitler, a decision condemning the dictator that was omitted at the Nuremberg trial.

Jacques A. Démézier, Sociologist

PROLOGUE

S ince my book Toussaint Louverture: The Trial of the Slave Trafficking was published, I have continued with a series of great fictitious trials with the character of notorious criminals who escaped justice. There were several in my list: John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, Jesse James, Lee Harvey Oswald, Joseph Bonanno, Al Capone, Ted Bundy, John Dillinger, Jack the Ripper, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Osama Ben Laden, Benito Mussolini, Mobutu Sese Seko, Hirohito, Saloth Sar said Pol Pot, and Attila, king of the Huns, the said “the scourge of God.” After reviewing the list, I stopped my choice on Adolf Hitler, the dictator who ruled from 1933 to 1945 and unleashed the Second World War. Judging the great criminals of history who have escaped justice, this is the purpose of mounting a series of fictitious trials in which the contradictory debates are opened before an invented tribunal and everything is played as if the hearing is real. I began this process by judging Napoleon Bonaparte and several other dignitaries of the monarchy and the French empire in the book entitled Toussaint Louverture: The Trial of the Slave Trafficking. I continued the series with the book Adolf Hitler: Trial in absentia in Nuremberg. Written at a time when efforts are being made to bring to justice all those who have been implicated in one way or another in the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War, the book Adolf Hitler: The trial in Absentia in Nuremberg, is a timely opportunity to question the justice efforts to condemn former Nazis and to raise awareness among governments like those of Ukraine, Norway, and Sweden who have no rules to judge former war criminals and to legislation to allow the prosecution of those who collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination camps. These laws would also facilitate the judgment of those who participated indirectly in the killing of innocent people, offering new opportunities to try suspects despite their advanced age. Thousands of genocide perpetrators have fallen through the cracks of justice an effect favored by the Cold War. A dozen former Nazi criminals still free have been identified in 2016 by the Simon-Wiesenthal center. This organization,

which had specialized in the hunt for the latest Nazi criminals had been operating since 2002 in a “Last Chance Operation” with a view to having them condemned by the courts. The trial of Adolf Eichmann, which took place in 1961 in Israel, and Reinhold Hanning who took place in 2016 in , were the last two ones that advanced somewhat the awareness of the importance of genocide and demonic actions of Nazis criminals. Inventing Hitler’s trial is a way of honoring the memory of the millions of victims who died under the orders of the German dictator in the extermination camps (including 1 million at Auschwitz-Birkenau). At least 800,000 were killed following conditions of material and psychological misery, to which they had been subjected in particular ghettos, and finally, 1.3 million were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen and their accomplices, intervention groups that accompanied the German army in the occupied territories. Inventing Hitler’s trial is finally a way to honor the memory of the tens of millions of civilian and military victims who perished during the war. The judgment in absentia of Adolf Hitler, considered as one of the greatest criminals in history, is a step to condemn war, and also a decision to correct a serious error committed by the Nuremberg tribunal, which was not to judge Hitler in absentia during the trial. This book is a book of information and training; a reference book that should be read as an educational tool on the history of the Second World War, while allowing a better understand of the atrocities of the Nazi regime in the years from 1933-1945. Through the play of fiction, I hide behind the judge who takes sat in Nuremberg to lead the debates on Adolf Hitler’s judgment in absentia and condemn the German dictator, one of the greatest political monsters the planet has ever known.

THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

IN CONTEXT

CHAPTER I

REFLECTION ON THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

W ith the g of the Treaty of Versailles, we lived in the illusion of a world of peace where the thought of another world war seemed to want to fade from the collective memory for at least a hundred centuries. Yet, twenty years after the peace agreement signed in Paris, the world would witness the deadliest war in history with a count of more than sixty million deaths added to the hundreds of millions of homeless people and cities devastated on the European and Asian continents. Although it is not surprising that the signatory countries of the Versailles Treaty were part of the Second World War, it is surprising, however, that the victors of the Second World War would once again be playing with a trial, as if the twenty-four senior Nazi regime judges tried by the international military tribunal at Nuremberg were the only ones guilty of the crimes and atrocities of the Second World War. The eagerness with which this trial took place is misleading; one may wonder why this judgment could be held without any consideration to judge the leader of the Nazi regime, in this case Adolf Hitler? It is also valid to denounce the quota of the accused (twenty-four), initially tried by the international military tribunal Nuremberg, and a hundred others judged by the Americans, still in Nuremberg and before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East united to try crimes committed on the Pacific front, a number that seems insignificant, when we know that Nazism (1933-1945) had several ramifications, be it at the political, economic or social level. All in all, the omission of the name of the Führer in the Nuremberg trial, without being convinced that he had committed suicide shows how the verdict was not intended to do justice to the millions of victims of Hitler’s tyranny and advocates the predominance of his race to the detriment of other races in the world. The start of this trial was solely in the Allied plan to have a legal document dedicating the victory of the winners over the losers and find a legal way to share the cake. It is with a view to denouncing social injustice in the Nuremberg trial that this

book describes why it was necessary at the time to judge Hitler in absentia at Nuremberg. Considering that during the trial the Führer might still be alive, and that there was no scientific proof of his suicide to attest to his legal death; not judging him in absentia seems like something wanted: a decision that has been taken from a political agreement among the powers that had their representatives in the composition of the international military tribunal at Nuremberg. To judge Hitler in absentia before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal at the same time as the twenty-four other Nazi defendants, what would be the advantages of this trial? The disappearance of Adolf Hitler on the world political scene, did not bury the ideology of the German dictator who still remains a myth to the eyes of hundreds of thousands of his followers so far operating in the world. For proof, more than 80 million copies of the book in which Hitler published his political message, “Mein Kampf” were sold on the market. No less than 70 million copies were sold after the end of the Nazi regime and ’s defeat in 1945. The publisher has already foreseen since 2016 to publish a critical version of the book of Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf,” accompanied by comments from researchers to put in perspective and demonstrate the arguments of this apology of violence and racism a commendable initiative, of course, but we can guess the purpose of this approach, to earn millions with the Hitler brand. “The publication of this central book in the history of the twentieth century will be accompanied by a critical apparatus, established by a scientific committee of historians,” stressed the news release of Fayard Editions in 2016. The last French edition of “Mein Kampf” dates back to 1934, before the Second World War. According to the estimates of the GfK Institute, nearly twenty-five thousand copies of this book were sold in 2015. The group Land Bavaria owned the rights of the book until December 2015. A critical edition of “Mein Kampf” is being published in . It is the first edition in German since the end of the Second World War. The Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IZT) was responsible for this critical edition. The original “Mein Kampf” was published in 1925 in . A completed version was published in 1926. The book remains for the time being, banned for marketing in and the Netherlands. Judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg would have given the legal right to not

only seize all the dictator’s assets but also prevent commercial groups from collecting millions through Hitler’s work, especially the book “Mein Kampf”, which has returned since 2015 to the public domain. It is an insult to the victims of the Second World War that more than 60 million people died, especially for the Jews who suffered Hitler’s humiliation and terror, to witness the spread of the ideology of the Nazi dictator as in the years 19331945, conveyed through the book “Mein Kampf”. Judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg would have opened a public debate on senior officials and businessmen of the occupied territories who had participated and cooperated with the Nazis. In addition, a verdict recognizing Hitler’s guilt would have allowed the Allies to having a legal document to confiscate the assets of officials and corporations who had collaborated with the Nazis and to use the seized property to repay the humanity of the losses of the war. And most importantly, judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg would have motivated much more research to apprehend a higher number of Nazi criminals who fled after the war and maybe would prevent Hitler from being seen as a hero by racist ers, followers of the Nazi ideology, who swarm today in the world: fanatics of the far right who represent a real danger for minorities, mainly blacks and Jews. Judging Hitler would avoid all the mysteries on Hitler’s death by forcing Stalin to share the information kept secret by the Soviet Intelligence. Finally, Hitler put on trial in Nuremberg would offer an extraordinary opportunity for the Allied to bury the Nazis in the wake of the Second World War. In the process of denazification, this would be a final act to show the world the true face of Adolf Hitler, and this trial would allow the prosecution to publicly expose the documentation on the names of some secret organizations that used the German dictator as a puppet to carry the mission to eliminate the Jews during the Second World War. This book aims to correct the deficiencies committed in Nuremberg where the name of Hitler does not appear in the list of the accused. Thus, in carrying out Hitler’s fictitious judgment in absentia, the aim is to show how the initial Nuremberg judgment prevented humanity from knowing the whole truth about the material and intellectual authors of the Second World War, a plot fomented by the economic, political, religious, and financial powers hidden behind Hitler, who used his charisma, and his demonic nature, to start the war and lead humanity to disaster. Thus, since the immediate fallout of the Nuremberg trial was to impose the victors’law on the vanquished, and not to repair the social

injustices and the damage done to humanity by the Nazi madness, we open the first chapter of the book on a contextualization of this trial by conveying the benefits of a trial in absentia of Adolf Hitler, which would have seized the assets of the dictator and also pursued his accomplices. To do this, we will proceed to the historicity of the Nazi regime by developing the march into the political power of Hitler to lead to its advance to the war.

CHAPTER II

THE ROAD TO POWER

I n the summer of 1931, a young German Jewish lawyer named Hans Litten forced Hitler to testify at the Berlin court. In cross-examination, Hitler was forced for three hours, in front of a public hearing, to defend his beliefs, his ambitions, his methods, and the very essence of Nazism. Litten declared at the time that Hitler was a monster and that if he came to power in , he would impose a bloody ferocious dictatorship, and the whole world would suffer from his actions. But Litten’s warnings had not been taken seriously. Once the Nazis came to power, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp, where he finally committed suicide. Beyond Litten’s suicide, the other important fact to is his prediction made on Hitler. As he had predicted during the hearing in Berlin, with Hitler as Chancellor in , a monster was created. On January 30, 1933, in Berlin, German ideologist and statesman Adolf Hitler took power. Founder and central figure of Nazism, Hitler established an imperialist and racist totalitarian dictatorship known as the Third Reich. In the 1920s, in a climate of political violence, Hitler became the head of the National Socialist Party of German Workers (NSDAP, the Nazi Party), and tried in 1923 a failed coup. Placed in prison, he wrote in his cell the book Mein Kampf, in which he exposed his racist and ultranationalist conceptions. With Hitler out of prison, and after the elections of July 31, 1932, in the Reichstag, which resulted in a considerable increase in the power of the Nazi Party, von Papen offered the post of vice-chancellor to Hitler, who refused, and demanded the post of chancellor. After Hitler’s refusal on November 16, Von Papen resigned and was replaced by general Von Schleicher, but he continued his efforts to bring Hitler to power. On January 4, 1932, von Papen had a meeting with Hitler at the home of a Cologne banker von Schröder and Göring attended, with a few other leaders, this meeting on January 22 at Von Ribbentrop’s house. On January 9, 1932, Von Papen also met with president von

Hindenburg and, from January 22, officially he discussed with him the formation of a cabinet with Hitler as chancellor. In November 1932, a number of industrial and financial figures signed and petitioned president von Hindenburg to entrust Hitler with the post of chancellor. Schacht actively contributed to the signatures at the bottom of this petition. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of the Reich by president von Hindenburg. Under his rule, there was a fierce and brutal dictatorship, millions of people were taken prisoner and sent to extermination camps for religious, political, and ethnic differences (including socialists, communists, Blacks, Jews, homosexuals, handicapped people, Jehovah Witnesses, and trade unionists). In August 1934, Hitler was elected the head of state. Then he bore the double title of führer and chancellor of the Reich. Very quickly, under his power, became a hegemonic power dominated by a revanchist and warlike anti-Semitic Pan-Germanist policy. Hitler adopted anti-Jewish legislation in 1935, and the Nazis took control of German society (workers, youth, media and cinema, industry, science, etc.). Soon, the regime would lead to trigger World War II.

CHAPTER III

THE ROAD TO WAR

O n the political front Hitler since 1935 had organized economy for a relatively high production of ready armament. His goal was to produce armaments quickly by increasing ’s armament-producing plan. On early April 1933, he created the Reich Defense Council to work on a new and secret rearmament program. On July 20, 1933, the chancellor promulgated a new Army Law, abolishing the jurisdiction of the civil courts over the military while declaring that, “the Army had to guarantee the protection of the nation against the world beyond ours frontiers.” He repeated that, the task of the S.A. is to secure the victory of the National Socialist Revolution and the existence of the National Socialist State.” In a speech on September 23, 1934, at Nuremberg, he renewed almost the same message given by Roehn, the chief of the S.A., on November 5, 1933, in front of fifteen thousand officers in the Sportpalast in Berlin: “On this day we should particularly the part played by our army, for we all know that if, in the days of our revolution, the army had not stood on our side, then we should not be standing here today. We can ensure the army that we shall never forget this, that we see in them the bearers of the tradition of our glorious old army, and that with all our heart, and all our powers, we will the spirit of this army.” In 1935, Hitler reintroduced conscription and approved the first of several large military parades. The following year he unveiled his Four-Year Plan: ostensibly an economic program to achieve German self-sufficient; in reality this was a program to prepare ’s military for war. By the beginning of 1939, ’s armed forces counted more than 90,000 soldiers, 8,000 aircraft, and 95 warships. “Who fights with poison,” Hitler threatened his enemies during a speech at the

opera house in Berlin on August 1939. “Will be fought with poison. Who disregards the rules of human warfare can only expect us to take the same steps. I will carry on this fight, no matter against whom, until the safety of the Reich and its rights are secured! … From this moment, my whole life shall belong more than ever to my people. I now want to be nothing but the first soldier of the German Reich. Therefore, I have once again put on that uniform which was always no sacred to and dear to me. I shall not take it off until after the victory or I shall not live to see the end!” wanted more land and invaded Poland. Due to the alliance between Great Britain and Poland, the United Kingdom declared war on . The alliance between Australia and Britain meant that she was also at war. The Second World War had started. The ambition to dominate Europe first and then the rest of the world led Hitler to occupy most Europe countries (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Denmark, , Norway, Russia etc.). After the occupation of Austria in March 1938, following the occupation of Czechoslovakia on March 12, 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Then successively, he invaded Denmark and Norway (April 9, 1940), Luxembourg, Holland, and Belgium (May 10, 1940), (MayJune 1940), Yugoslavia (April 1941), Greece (April-May 1941), and Russia (June 1941).

CHAPTER IV

THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR

T he First World War ended with the surrender of , which accepted the conditions set out in the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. The United Kingdom, , Belgium, Japan, the United States divided the former colonies and the victorious countries, particularly , obtained the right to high reparations allowances. , moreover, obtained the reintegration of Alsace and the Moselle, annexed by Bismarck after the war of 1870. Russia, after the Bolshevik Revolution and the Counter-Revolution, became the Soviet Union, while new States (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Baltic States) were created in Central Europe, in the name of the principle nationalities, in particular because of the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The borders of the USSR are also displaced for the benefit of Poland. In , the Treaty of Versailles was denounced, imposing heavy war indemnities and the loss of “German lands” such as Upper Silesia. In Italy resentment was as strong as in . Italy did not obtain the allocation of the provinces of Istria, Dalmatia and Trentino which the country wished. During the 1920s and 1930s, and the United Kingdom did not agree on the compensation payable by , and the reconstruction or dismantling of German industrial structures. This conflict led to the occupation of the industrial region of the Ruhr, rich in coal, iron and metallurgical industry, by Belgian and French troops from 1923 to 1925. This occupation quickly led to a crisis in the German economy, a significant devaluation. Mark and a reinforcement of the policies of the extreme right nationalist and the extreme left communist. The Dawes Plan of 1924 put an end to this occupation. Five years later (1929) the world entered the most serious economic crisis in history. The economic crisis of 1929 affected all the economies of the world, and had serious consequences for the fragile economies of the European countries just

out of the war, especially , causing in this country heavily hit by the aftermath of the World War I, unemployment and recession. The repatriation of large American investments in plunged the German economy into a serious crisis. In and Italy, economic crises made it easier for the National Socialists to take power. In the Third Reich, the Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, came to power in 1933. Hitler increased his popularity by denouncing the Treaty of Versailles, which is the general demand of all Germans, even the opponents of National Socialism, the Nazi party. Hitler and his fanatical partisans who wanted to conquer “lands” ed forces with other fascist powers (Italy, Japan, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania). Led by Benito Mussolini, Italy withdrew from the League of Nations and moved closer to Nazi . Italy soon became a dictatorship where all opponents were exiled or murdered. In 1939, Italy invaded Albania, of which she made an Italian protectorate. In , Adolf Hitler took the power on January 30, 1933. Very quickly, he restored in the generalized military service, prohibited by the treaty of Versailles, remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936 and implemented an aggressive foreign policy. This policy aims to bring together the German-speaking populations of Central Europe within the same state. Hitler realized his plans to conquer Europe by annexing Austria in March 1938: it is the Anschluss. After a provocation operation known as the Gleiwitz incident, German troops invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. On September 3, 1939, and the United Kingdom declared war on under a treaty of February 1921, which bound them to Poland. On September 17, 1939, in application of the secret clauses of the German-Soviet Pact, the Soviet Union in turn invaded Poland from the east. Thus, the Second World War broke out. Europe occupied by the Nazis is delivered to terror and looting. Between 1938 and 1941, after the occupation of territories of the main countries of the European continent, the only enemy of Nazi remained the United Kingdom, ed by the Commonwealth. Unable to bend the English and after the debacle in Moscow, where the German army lost 700,000 men (killed, wounded, or prisoners), or a quarter of the troops dispatched to Russia, Hitler began to see the decline of his regime. The declaration of war with the United States on December 11, 1941, shortly after Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, further complicated the situation. On the night of June 5 to 6, 1944, more than 150,000 Allied soldiers, under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, landed in Normandy. Called code named “Overlord” (suzerain in

French), this naval aviation operation remains the most gigantic in history. In Europe, the armed conflict ends on May 8, 1945 with the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich. As far as the Asian continent and the world are concerned, the Second World War ended on September 2, 1945, with the unconditional surrender of Japan’s empire, the latter being the last Axis nation to be defeated.

CHAPTER V

THE DECLINE

O n February 18, 1943, German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels at the Berlin Sportpalast delivered a speech to a large but carefully selected audience. He called for a total war at the time when it was clear that the Second World War was turning against Nazi and its Axis allies. The speech was the first public ission by the Nazi leadership that faced serious dangers. Goebbels exhorted the German people to continue the war even though it would be long and difficult. “, in any case, has no intention of bowing to this Jewish threat, but rather one of confronting it in due time, if need be in of complete and most radical suppression of Judaism.” While Goebbels referred to Soviet mobilization nationwide as “devilish”, he explained that “we cannot overcome the Bolshevist danger unless we use equivalent, though not identical, methods [in a] total war.” He attempted to counter reports in the Allied press that German civilians had lost faith in victory by asking the audience a number of questions at the end, such as: “Do you believe with the Führer and us in the final victory of the German people? Are you and the German people willing to work, if the Führer orders, 10, 12, and if necessary 14 hours a day and to give everything for victory? I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even yet imagine.” He explained then the threat posed by International Jewry: “The goal of Bolshevism is Jewish world revolution. They want to bring chaos to the Reich and Europe, using the resulting hopelessness and desperation to establish their international, Bolshevist-concealed capitalist tyranny… intends to take the most radical measures, if necessary, in good time.”

In the spring of 1945, feeling the approach of defeat, Hitler not only planned his suicide but also ordered the destruction of his country, saying that the Allied troops, after invading , would leave behind only “burn earth.” In a directive dated March 20, 1945, addressed to all commanders of the Wehrmacht and the NSDAP’s senior istration, Hitler wrote, “All the military, transport, information, industrial, and supplies as well as material goods within the territory of the Reich, which the enemy could use in any way to fight immediately or in the near future, must be destroyed.” Albert Speer convinced Hitler not to implement this plan. On March 30, Hitler, already entrenched in his bunker, reluctantly “paralyzed” the industry instead of resorting to “burnt land” tactics. The last days of the German dictator took place in Berlin, at the Führerbunker, where he had taken up his quarters on January 16, 1945. There, he watched helplessly as the Soviet forces seized the capital. On April 30, 1945, he shot himself in the right temple while his wife, Eva Braun was poisoned with cyanide.

CHAPTER VI

REPORT ON THE SECOND WORLD WAR

THE CONSEQUENCES A bout 45 million civilians died, including 13 to 20 million war-related illnesses or famine. Military casualties are estimated at between 22 and 25 million, including 5 million prisoners of war who died in captivity. In total 50 million to 60 million people perished in the war.

Total

1. Human balance Total

Soviet Union

20,000,000

Republic of China

16,200,000

Indonesia

4,000,000

German Reich

7,000,000

Poland

6,000,000

Netherlands East Indies

4,000,000

Japan

3,000,000

India

1,800,000

British India

1,500,000

French Indochina

1,500,000

Kingdom of Romania

600,000

Kingdom of Hungary

580,000



580,000

Kingdom of Greece

574, 000

United Kingdom

500,000

Italy

450,000

United States of America

450,000

Korea (under Japanese control) 450,000 Czechoslovakia

400,000

Lithuania

350,000

Greece

320,000

Romania

300,000

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

300,000

Burma

270,000

Latvia

230,000

Morocco

190,000

Netherlands

150,000

Austria

120,000

Ethiopia

100,000

Malaysia

100,000

Finland

97,000

Belgium

76,000

Estonia

50,000

Canada

45,400

Australia

40,500

Albania

30,000

Bulgaria

25,000

Spain

15,000

New Zealand

12,000

South Africa

11,000

Norway

10,262

Luxembourg

5,000

Denmark

3,500

Brazil

2,000

Iraq

500

Iran

200

Ireland

200

Iceland

200

2. Extermination Camps • Nazi extermination camps: According to the Polish National Memory Institute 2, 830,000 Jews were killed in the Nazi camps:

Auschwitz-Birkeneau:

1,100,000 dead

Southern Poland

Treblinka:

850,000 dead

North-east of Warsaw in Poland

Belzec:

500,000 dead

Poland’s borders

Sobibór:

150,000 dead

Poland

Chelmno:

150,000 dead

Poland

Majdanek:

80,000 dead

Poland

• The total number of victims of the Holocaust is between 11 and 17 million. • English sources estimate that 10 to 11 million Soviet civilians were victims of Nazi ethnic cleansing and war. A report of the Russian Academy of Sciences published in 1995 estimates that 13.7 million civilians were killed during the German occupation.

3. Prisoners of War

• Russians: A total of 3.1 million soldiers died in German prison camps during the war, including 2.6 to 3 million Soviet prisoners of war. This represents about 55 percent of all Soviet soldiers captured by the German army. • Polish: Between 1.8 and 1.9 million Polish civilians died during the German occupation. • Serbs: Yad Vashem’s memorial estimates 500,000 killed, 250,000 expelled, and 200,000 forcibly converted to Catholicism. • According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Croatian authorities killed between 320,000 and 340,000 Serbs living in Croatia and Bosnia during the war. Of this number, between 45,000 and 52,000 were murdered at the Jasenovac extermination camp. • Roma: Estimates of the number of Roma victims range from 130,000 to 500,000. • Disabled: Between 200,000 and 250,000 people with physical and mental disabilities were killed under the AktionT4 program. A 2003 report of the German Federal Archives advances the total number of 200,000. • Homosexuals: Between 10,000 and 15,000 homosexuals perished in Nazi concentration camps.

• Between 1,000 and 2,000 Catholic clerics, about 1,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses and an unknown number of Freemasons were killed. • The Japanese massacred up to 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians, and Burmese. • In 1945, many areas were destroyed in Europe and several million people died or were injured. The fighting of the Second World War spared only the neutral countries. The human toll is dramatic: between 50 and 60 million dead, several million wounded, and 30 million Europeans displaced because of border changes, especially in Eastern Europe. This conflict was the most costly in human lives in the history of mankind. About 45 million civilians died in the fighting and bombing, and the number of civilian casualties is greater than that of the military victims.

Entire peoples were almost decimated (there were 7 million Jews in Europe before the war and only 1 million after) and people were destroyed. Poland had lost about 15 percent of its population. About 11 million people were reportedly executed directly on the orders of Adolf Hitler.

4. Military Losses

In total, an estimated 17,877,000 soldiers died on European battlefields, including 10,774,000 on the Allied side and 7,103,000 on the Axis side. The Red Army killed 53 percent of the total known military losses in Europe, those of the Wehrmacht 31 percent and the United Kingdom 1,8 percent, those of 1,4 percent and those of the North America 1.3 percent. The Soviet Union’s military losses for 88 percent of Allied losses in Europe (the United Kingdom 3 percent, 2.3 percent and United States 2.2 percent). The total military losses alone of and the Soviet Union

together for 84 percent of all military casualties suffered in Europe. The military losses of the German-Russian conflict alone are 13,876,400 or 78 percent of the total military casualties suffered in Europe.

5. Balance Sheet

The Nazi and Allied bombings caused extensive material damage in the cities, Berlin and Warsaw were almost completely destroyed. The bombardment of Dresden on February 13, 1945 caused about 135,000 deaths. Several districts of London and Rotterdam were to be rebuilt. Millions of civilians were out of housing and there were millions of homeless people. Other martyrdom cities, include Hamburg, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Sevastopol, Kiev, Kharkov, and Budapest. For , the cost of reconstruction amounted to 4,900,000, francs. Three hundred thousand residential buildings were completely destroyed in . The cities of Brest, Caen, Le Havre, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, Cherbourg, Evreux, Saint-Malo, and Rouen were notably destroyed in whole or in part. Transport and production infrastructure was also damaged; the decommissioning of thousands of roads, bridges, railways, and harbors was causing the isolation of many villages. Regarding Europe, the looting of resources organized by the Nazis in the occupied countries, combined with the disorganization of the means of production, led to serious shortages; rationing was maintained after the German capitulation of May 8, 1945 (in , 200 g of bread per day and less than 200 g of meat per week). The post-war period was marked by the Dutch famine of 1944. The harsh winter of 1946-1947 accentuated the difficulties of supply and made everyday life in North-west Europe even more difficult. The lack of coal was hard to feel because it represented the main means for heating.

6. Psychological Report

All the families of the victims are still shocked by this very deadly war. In addition, people who have survived the concentration camps have great difficulty living “as before.” The memories that haunt them day and night were traumatic.

7. Economic Situation

In 1947, production levels remained lower than pre-war levels: agricultural production reached 83 percent of that of 1938, industrial production 88 percent and exports 59 percent. This situation was explained by the lack of manpower, by the low productivity of work because of under nutrition, and by the looting, bombing, and sabotage that affected the production apparatus. In general, the economies of the countries of Eastern Europe were more affected than those of the Western countries, because the Nazi occupation there was harder and the tactic of scorched earth was applied in the USSR. After 1945, governments and contractors would convert war plants back to the needs of consumption and equipment. In , the lack of coal paralyzed the iron and steel industry. In , the lack of raw materials, labor, and national istration and the limit of transport caused a dramatic situation. Overcrowding and the black market threatened the country’s balance. To finance the war effort, European governments had become indebted. The United States had lent $ 4.33 billion to Britain in 1945 while Canada had allocated US $ 1.19 billion in 1946, with an annual interest rate of 2 percent. had to pay $20 billion to the USSR as compensation. Trade was restricted because of bombing and the destruction of merchant shipping. The trade balance of many European countries was deficient, and unemployment and rationing drove workers to strike. A difficult social context took hold, favorable to the agitation and progress of communism. Because of the shortages affecting Europe, it depended on imports, particularly from the United States.

Everywhere, inflation was weakening European currencies. In , the Vichy regime had put in place an enormous money supply with no counterpart in production. This dragged the country into an endless spiral of inflation. The pound lost its importance against the U.S. dollar. In , the American blonde cigarette was a monetary standard. The Potsdam Conference (July-August 1945) regulated the separation of into four distinct areas under the surveillance of the occupying powers: the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and . The German territory was greatly amputated; it decreased by 24 percent compared to 1937. It covered only 357 000 km². Germans often refer to the year 1945 as “Stunde Null” (the zero hour) to describe the collapse of their country. There are several major consequences of the Second World War. Europe was in ruins as a result of the war. The end of the war marked the beginning of the Cold war between the USA and the Soviet Union. The borders were redrawn for several countries. was forced to hand over a lot of eastern territories to Poland and the USSR, as well as being divided into western and eastern occupation zones, controlled by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. Romania lost all of its north-eastern lands (current day Republic of Moldova), as they were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Finland ceded parts of Finnish Karelia, part of Salla, and Islands in the Gulf of Finland to the USSR. All three Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) became of the USSR. Japan lost the Sakhalin and Kuril islands which were annexed by the Soviet Union. The division of Europe into Western and Eastern spheres of influence, by drawing maps with “iron border” became a sad reality. This expanded the USSR by installing pro-soviet governments in Bulgaria, Poland, East , Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Korea, which had been under Japanese rule, was divided and occupied by the US in the south and the USSR in the north, between 1945-1948. As a result, separate republics emerged in 1948. This led to the Korean war. The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 started the escalation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. With Europe’s infrastructure, military, and economy destroyed, many Europeans colonies saw an opportunity to gain their independence such as the separation of India and Pakistan from Britain.

As a consequence of the war, the United Nation was created by the Allies in October 1945, with the USA, Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, and being permanent for its security Council. Rapidly, the world would enter at the beginning of the Cold war, between the United States-led Nato Alliance, and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The Cold war had introduced an unprecedented escalation of the arms race between the two super powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Having mobilized more than 100 million fighters from 61 nations and killed an estimated 60 million people, the Second World War remains the deadliest armed conflict humanity has ever seen. It dedicated Allied victory to and the Axis powers: Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. In addition, it led to the g of the London agreement establishing the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal with the task of trying the Nazis.

CHAPTER VII

A HISTORY OF THE HOLOCAUST

O n February 27, 1933, the Reichstag (German parliament) burned down. Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch anarchist, was accused by the Nazis of executing a communist plot to set fire. The burning of the Reichstag gave the Nazis a pretext to arrest communist leaders and communist Reichstag deputies. On February 28, president von Hindenburg issued a decree, “for the protection of the People and the State”, suspending the constitutional guarantees of personal liberty, the right of free expression of opinion -including freedom of the press- and the rights of assembly and association. The privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communication was no longer guaranteed, and warrants for house searches, and orders for confiscations of, as well as, restrictions on property were also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.” To eliminate the opposition, the Nazis called for new elections on March 5, 1933. Using the burning of the Reichstag as a pretext, they denied the Communist Party inclusion on the ballot. Of 647 seats, the Nazis gained 288. With the of right wingers, Hitler took the “Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich,” the so called “Enabling Act,” on March 23, which removed to power of legislation from the Reichstag and gave it to the Nazicontrolled government. On July 14, 1933 a law was enacted declaring the Nazi Party (NSDAP) the only legal party in . On December 1, 1933, the “unity of Party and the State” was officially decreed. The power was concentrated in the hands of one man: Adolf Hitler. After Hindenburg’s death on August 3, 1934, Hitler combined the presidency and the office of the chancellor (Reichskanzler), and assumed the title of Führer and Reichskanzler. In June 1934, after the assassinations of many leaders in the Nazi Party who

ed an anti-aristocratic, populist version of Nazi doctrine, particularly SA leader Ernst Röhm, the SS (Schutzstaffel, the Defense Corps), a special elite corps under AS stewardship, became independent. Control of the concentration camps was also in SS hands. Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS since 1929, gained complete control of the police by 1936 and became Reich Leader (Reichsführer) of both the SS and the Police. The SD (Sicherheitsdient), the Intelligence branch of the SS), were established in 1931 with Reinhardt Heydrich at its head. Reich Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels directed the press, literature, arts, and science in accordance with Nazi though. Books written by Jews and those considered as dangerous to Nazi ideology were removed from public libraries. In May 1933, millions of books were publicly burned in Berlin and other places in . Special emphasis was placed on the “education” of youth. The Hitler youth (Hitlerjugend, HJ) for boys and the League of German Girls (Bund deutscher Mädel, BdM) were blind obedience and loyalty to Hitler. The 1935 Naval Agreement with Great Britain allowed to build up a fleet equal to 35 percent of the British fleet’s tonnage, a program that soon turned into a major naval power. In March 1936, with the rearmament program almost completed, Hitler started to extend his power in Europe. The Rhine province, a demilitarized zone according to the Versailles treaty, was occupied by the German army. A few months later, in his search for Allies, Hitler concluded a binding agreement with Italy, which has become isolated following its aggression and conquest of Ethiopia in 1936. The Berlin-Rome Axis became a strong alliance in the European power game. In March 1938, using a combination of threats and propaganda, the Nazis forced the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria. The same year, Hitler obtained after difficult negotiations with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the annexation of the Sudetenland to , in an agreement signed in late September 1938 at Munich by , , and Italy. This position had dismantled the Czechoslovak republic, and giving the Nazis a predominant position in Central Europe. On March 15, 1939, Hitler repudiated the Munich agreement by occupying the Czech lands of Bohemia and Moravia. Declaring them a German protectorate, he forced the Slovak fascists to declare the independence of the Slovak state. With the tension created between and Great Britain after the

repudiation of the Munich agreement, Stalin agreed to Hitler’s camp. On August 23, 1939, he signed a neutrality pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) with the Germans. The agreement guaranteed the Germans the import of essential raw materials from the Soviet Union and effectively an agreement between Stalin and Hitler to invade Poland. In a secret protocol attached to the pact, the Germans agreed to another partition of Poland, in which Eastern Poland would be annexed by the Soviets, and Latvia and Estonia (and by a later addition Lithuania as well) would come under their so-called “sphere of influence.” Once the Nazis began to consolidate their power, the SA and the SS began their campaign of terrorism against the Jews. Apartments, offices, and stores were invaded in order to arrest Jews, in particular lawyers, doctors, and other professional persons. The Nazis announced an economic boycott of the Jews to start on April 1, 1933. Goebbels, Julius Streicher, and others directed the boycott. They viewed it as an opportunity to rid the German economy of the Jews altogether. On April 7, 1933, the Law for the Re-establishment of the professional Civil Service, which provided for the dismissal of “non-Aryans”, was promulgated. A series of laws and istrative orders were promulgated and issued between April and October 1933. Jews were excluded from such occupations as assessors, jurors, and commercial judges; a numerus clausus law limiting Jewish students in institutions of higher learning to 1,5 percent of new ission was promulgated on April 25. In the professional sphere, the establishment of a Reich Chamber of Culture (September 29, 1933) provided a means for excluding Jews from entertainment enterprises (art, literature, theatre, movies). The National Press Law (October 4, 1933) excluded Jews from the press. Jewish ritual slaughter was forbidden; Jews could no longer farm land, and on July 14, 1934, the Law on the Revocation of Naturalization and Annulment of German Citizenship deprived relatively recent Jewish immigrants, especially those of East European background, of German citizenship. On May 21, 1935, Jews were excluded from the armed forces. From a direct order by Hitler on September 13, two laws were promulgated at the Reichstag in Nuremberg on September 15, 1935, and the first decree to the Reich citizenship law on September 14. The Reich citizenship law of September 15 says this:

“1. A subject is anyone who enjoys the protection of the German Reich and for this reason is specially obligated to it. 2. Nationality is acquired according to the provisions of the Reich and state nationality law. 2. (1) A Reich citizen is only that subject of German or kindred blood who proves by his conduct that he is willing and suited loyally to serve the German people and the Reich. 2. (2) Reich citizenship is acquired through the conferment of a certificate of Reich citizenship. 2. (3) The Reich citizen is the sole bearer of full political rights as provided by the laws.”

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, ed on the same day, says in part: “Imbued with the insight that the purity of German blood is a prerequisite for the continued existence of the German people and inspired by the inflexible will to ensure the existence of the German nation for all times, the Reichstag has unanimously adopted the following law, which is hereby promulgated:

1. (1) “Marriages between Jews and subjects of German or kindred blood are forbidden. Marriages nevertheless concluded are invalid, even if concluded abroad to circumvent this law. (2) Only the State Attorney may initiate the annulment suit. 2. Extramarital intercourse between Jews and subjects of German or kindred blood is forbidden. 3. Jews must not employ in their households female subjects of German or kindred blood who are under 45 years old.

4. (1) Jews are forbidden to fly the Reich or national flag and to display the Reich colors. (2) They are, on the other hand, allowed to display the Jewish colors. The exercise of this right enjoys the protection of the state.”

On October 14, 1937, the SS journal Das Schwarze Korps stated that Jewish businesses should “disappear”, that is, be confiscated. In February 1938, Economic Affairs Minister Hjalmar Schacht, who had objected to anti-Jewish measures out of economic considerations, was replaced by Walther Funk. One of Funk’s priorities was to remove the Jews from the German economy. In , the legal campaign against the Jews continued. On April 22, 1938, a law against “hiding” the identity of Jewish businesses was promulgated. On April 26 an order was issued requiring the registration of all Jewish worth more than 5,000 marks. On March 28, 1938, the German Jewish communities were deprived of the right to act as legal personalities (i.e. own property, etc.). September 30, 1938 a memorandum from the German minister of Health said that Jewish doctors could no longer treat Aryans. On August 17 a law was issued requiring that all male Jews assume the name of Israel and all females, the name of Sarah by January 1, 1939. On October 5, a law was issued requiring all Jewish ports to be marked with the letter “J” (for “Jude,” Jew). On June 9, 1938, the synagogue in Munich was set on fire. On August 10, Julius Streicher caused the destruction of the Nuremberg synagogue. By September 1938, 4,000 Austrian Jews had been sent to concentration camps. Of the 98,747 non-German Jews in in 1933, 56,480 were Polish nationals. On October 6, 1938, the Polish government declared that citizenship would be denied to those whose ports were not renewed by October 29. On October 26 the German Foreign Office requested the Gestapo to deport all the Polish Jews living in . On the night of October 27-28, some 18,000 Jews were put on special trains and sent to the Polish border. In accordance with Heydrich’s order to abolish Jewish communities with fewer than five hundred inhabitants, thousands of Jews were concentrated in ghettoes or larger communities. The first ghetto in Poland was established on October 1939, in Piotrkow Tribunalski; the second was set up in the industrial center of Lódz. In October 1940, the SD decided to establish a ghetto in Warsaw. On November 16,

at least ten thousand Jews among one hundred eighty-three thousands who lived in other parts of Warsaw were moved into it by force. After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazi regime set up ghettos to segregate Jews. Over 42,000 camps, ghettos, and other detention sites were established. Discussing by senior Nazi-officials at the Wannsee Conference, in Berlin, in January 1942, the deportation of Jews to the ghettos were included in the policy of extermination the Nazis called the “Final Solution to the Jewish Questions.” Paramilitary death squads called Einsatzgruppen in cooperation with Wehrmacht police battalions and local collaborators murdered around 1.3 million Jews. Between the first deportation transport in March 1942 and the last in July 1944, a total of 77,911 non-French Jews were sent to Poland from Drancy. Fewer than 3,000 returned. The agreement between the Nazis and the Vichy government, led by Prime Minister Pierre Laval, accepted the deportation of non-French Jews in the concentration camps. In August and September 1944, the Nazis were permitted by the French to deport more than 10,000 Jews from French concentration camps. Beginning on May 29, 1942, in northern , a yellow star inscribed Juif (Jew) had to be worn on the left breast of all Jews over age six. On April 14, 1944, Helmut Knochen and his deputy, Brunner, signed an order to arrest Jews with French citizenship as well, except for persons in mixed marriages. The Germans set up six extermination camps in Poland: Auschwitz-Birkenau (established October 1941); Majdanek (October 1941); Chelmno (December 1941); and in 1942 the three Operation Reinhardt camps at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Over 200,000 people are estimated to have been Holocaust perpetrators. At least 7,000 prisoners were subjected to experiments; most died as a result, during the experiments or later. Experiments took place at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Natzweiler, Mavensbrück, Sachsen hausen. The most notorious physician of the experiments program was Josef Mengele, a SS officer who became the Auschwitz camp doctor on May 30, 1943. Mengele’s experiments included placing prisoners in pressure chambers, testing drugs on them, freezing them, attempting to change their eyes color by injecting chemicals into children’s eyes, and amputations and other surgeries. The Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah, was the genocide of around twothirds of the Jewish population of Europe, between 1941 and 1945. Jews were

targeted for extermination as part of other groups, including the Roma and “incurably sick”, as well as ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens, Soviet prisoners of war, gay men, Black people, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. In total, 17 million were killed during the Holocaust.

CHAPTER VIII

THE NUREMBERG INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL

CREATION I n the winter of 1942, the governments of the Allied powers announced their intent to punish Nazi war criminals. In October 1943, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin signed the Moscow Declaration. The declaration stated that at the time of an armistice, persons deemed responsible for war crimes would be sent back to those countries in which the crimes had been committed and would be judged according to the laws of the nation concerned. Major war criminals, whose crimes could be assigned no particular geographic location, would be punished by t decisions of the Allied governments. On August 8, 1945, after the war was over, the United States, the United Kingdom, the USSR, and the Provisional Government of the French Republic signed a treaty creating and fixing the statute of the international military tribunal “competent to try and punish all persons who, acting on behalf of the European countries of the Axis, will have committed, individually or as of organizations, any of the following crimes”: crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It is on the basis of this treaty that in Nuremberg from November 20, 1945, to October 1, 1946, a lawsuit was brought by the Allied powers against twenty-four of the leading political and military leaders of the Third Reich and against seven Nazi organizations (including elite SS unit and the Gestapo). The charges against the defendants were: conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. US chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson, in his introduction at Nuremberg, has well defined the importance of the trial. “The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.”

MINUTES OF THE NUREMBERG TRIAL The minutes of this trial were published between 1947 and 1949 by the secretariat of the international military tribunal under the jurisdiction of the Allied Control Authorities for . The official text has been published in French, English, and Russian. In addition to numerous documents and annexes, the text establishes in 21 volumes the precise record of each of the 218 trial hearing days, as well as the preliminary hearings of November 14, 15, and 17, 1945. This large documentary mass forms a corpus of about 6 million words.

CHAPTER IX

ACTORS IN THE TRIAL

THE JUDGES T he court was composed of the following judges and prosecutors:

1. Henri Donnedieu de Vabres (French) 2. Francis Biddle (American) 3. Lord Justice Lawrence Geoffrey (English) 4. Major-Gen. Iona Nikitchenko (Soviet)

THE ASSESSORS 1. André Falco (French) 2. John Parker (American) 3. Sir Norman Birket (English) 4. Col. Alexander Volchkov (Soviet)

THE PROSECUTORS 1. François de Menthon and Champetier de Ribes (French) 2. Robert Jackson (American) 3. Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe and Sir Hartley Shawcross (English) 4. Gen. Roman Rudenko (Soviet)

THE LAWYERS Each accused has chosen a lawyer from a list where, in principle, there is no Nazi. Criminal organizations had assigned lawyers. Some names: Dr. Alfred Seidl was the lawyer for Rudolf Hess and Hans Frank. Bormann’s lawyer was Dr. Bergold, and Dr. Marx was Streicher’s lawyer. The defense attorney for S.S. was Dr. Babel. Some were prominent lawyers such as Schacht’s lawyer, Dr. Rudolf Dix, former president of Berlin, or Otto Stahmer, a prominent Hamburg lawyer who defended Göring and Hermann Jahrreis, professor of international law.

THE ACCUSED Three important absentees:

• Adolf Hitler, the “Führer”. • Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS. • Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda.

A total of twenty-four accused and eight organizations were tried by the court. German industrialist Gustav Krupp was included in the original indictment, but he was elderly and in failing health. It was decided in preliminary hearings to exclude him from the proceedings. Nazi Party secretary Martin Bormann was tried and convicted in absentia. Head of the German Labor Front Robert Ley committed suicide on the eve of the trial. The IMT indicted the Nazi organizations deemed to be criminal. These were the Reich Cabinet, the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the SS, the Security Service (SD), the Secret State Police (Gestapo), the Storm troopers (SA), and the General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces.

Hermann Göring

“Göring was the most prominent man in the Nazi regime. He had been elected president of the Reichstag, the German parliament in 1932. After Hitler was named chancellor of in 1933, Göring was appointed minister of interior for Prussia, where he created the Gestapo and established the first concentration camps. In 1935, Göring became chief of the Luftwaffe, the German air force, and two years later, he was made commissioner of the Four Year Plan, an economic program designed to make self-sufficient in

preparation for the ensuing Nazi blitzkrieg. After ’s invasion of Finland in 1939, Göring was elevated to reichsmarschall, the highest military rank in , and designated as Hitler’s successor in the event of Hitler’s death.” “Göring was one the five important leaders present at the Hossbach Conference of November 5, 1937, and attended other important conferences. In the Austrian Anschluss, he was indeed the central figure. He said in court: “I must take 100 per cent responsibility…I even overruled objections by the Führer and brought everything to its final development.” The night before the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the absorption of Bohemia and Moravia, at a conference with Hitler and President Hácha, he threatened to bomb Prague if Hácha did not submit. He attended the Reich Chancellery meeting of May 23, 1939, when Hitler told his military leaders. “There is, therefore, no question of sparing Poland,” and was present at the Obersalzberg briefing of August 22, 1939. He commanded the Luftwaffe in the attack on Poland and throughout the aggressive wars that followed.” “Göring had helped plan and direct the invasions of Poland and Austria. He had ordered the Luftwaffe to destroy a business district in Rotterdam, Netherlands, even though the city had already surrendered. Göring was also implicated in the extermination of Polish intelligentsia, nobility, and clergy, the execution of British prisoners of war, the deportation of foreign laborers to , the theft of art from French museums, and the suppression of domestic political opposition. Additionally, Göring itted on cross-examination that he was responsible for promulgating laws that had facilitated the persecution of Jews throughout Europe. As plenipotentiary he was the active authority in the spoliation of conquered territory. Two months prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler gave him the overall direction for the economic istration in the territory. He set up an economic staff for his work. As reichsmarschall of the Greater German Reich, “the orders of the reichsmarschall cover all economic fields, including nutrition and agriculture.” “Göring persecuted the Jews, particularly after the November, 1938, riots, and not only in where he raised the billion-mark fine as stated elsewhere but in the conquered as well. As these countries fell before the German army, he extended the Reich’s anti-Jewish laws to them. The Reichsgesetzblatt for 1939, 1940, and 1941 contains several Anti-Jewish decrees signed by Göring. By decree of July 31, 1941, he directed Himmler and Heydrich to “bring about a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in

Europe.”

Rudolph Hess

“He ed the Nazi Party in 1920 and took part in the Munich putsch of November 9, 1923. He was imprisoned with Hitler in Landsberg Fortress in 1924, and became his most intimate personal confidant. On April 21, 1933, he was appointed representative of the Führer and, on December 1, minister of the Reich without a portfolio. On February 4, 1938, he became a member of the secret cabinet council, and on August 30, 1938, Hitler officially appointed him as his successor after Göring. On May 10, 1941, he left by plane and went to Scotland.” “Representative of the Führer, Hess was the highest man of the Nazi Party. He was allowed to make decisions on behalf of Hitler. It had the power to approve, before they came into force, all the legislative acts proposed by the various ministers. In these various ways, he took an active part in the preparation of the war. His signature appears at the bottom of the law of March 16, 1935, which instituted compulsory military service. He participated in the German aggression against Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. He coordinated the activities of the illegal Nazi Party in Austria and gave them instructions throughout the period between the assassination of Dollfuss and the Anchluss. He was in Vienna on March 12, 1938, when German troops entered. On March 13 he signed the law that incorporated Austria into the German Reich. A law of June 10, 1939, provided for its participation in the istration of Austria. On July 24, 1938, in a speech he delivered in commemoration of the coup attempt of the national socialists, four years earlier, he had celebrated the steps that led to the Anschluss and justified the occupation of Austria by .” “In the summer of 1938, he received regular reports from Henlein, leader of the Sudeten German party in Czechoslovakia. On September 27, 1938, at the time of the Munich crisis, he and Keitel agreed to execute Hitler’s instructions to operate the Nazi Party mechanism for secret mobilization. On April 14, 1939, he signed a decree incorporating the Sudetenland into the Reich, and an order of June 10, 1939, providing for his participation in the istration of that territory. On

June 7, 1938, he had ed Henlein’s party in the German Nazi Party, and had declared in a speech that Hitler would not have hesitated to seize the Sudetenland by force, if circumstances had demanded. On August 27, 1939, the attack on Poland having been temporarily postponed in the hope of persuading Great Britain to abandon the guarantee given by it to that country, he publicly praised ‘“the magnanimous offer”’ of Hitler to Poland, and accused the latter of bellicose agitation, an attitude of which England, according to him, was responsible. After the invasion of Poland he signed the decrees that incorporated into the Danzig Reich and certain Polish territories and created the general government.” “Only ten days after Hitler set June 22, 1941, as the date of the attack on the Soviet Union, he set out for England with certain peace proposals that, he thought, Hitler considered acceptable. In the conversations he had after his arrival in Britain, he ardently ed all the acts of aggression committed up to that time and tried to justify the attitude of , vis-à-vis Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. He accused England and of being responsible for the war.”

Alfred Rosenberg

Rosenberg ed the Nazi Party in 1919. He took part in the Munich putsch on November 9, 1923, and tried to keep the Nazi Party, which had become illegal, while Hitler was in prison. Recognized as the ideologue of the party, he developed and spread the Nazi doctrines in the newspapers Völkischer Beobachter and N.S. Monatshefte, of which he was the publisher of many works. His book The Myth of the Twentieth Century was printed in over a million copies. In 1940, he was elected to the Reichstag and became the Party’s representative in the foreign ministry. In April 1933, he was appointed reichsleiter and director of the party’s foreign affairs service (APA). In January 1934, Hitler made him his deputy for the control of all spiritual and ideological education of the party.” “As director of the APA, he was in charge of an organization whose agents were involved in Nazi intrigues in all parts of the world. APA, for example, played an

important role in Romania’s accession to the Axis. As director of the APA, he took a large part in the material and strategic preparation of the attack against Norway. He was with Raeder, at the origin of the plan of attack, which he had been interested in since the interview he had had with Quisling, in June 1939. Quisling had stressed the importance of the Norwegian coast to the case of a conflict between and England and expressed the fear that Britain would be helped by the Norwegians. As a result of this conference, Rosenberg arranged for Quisling to work closely with the Nazis and to gain political .” “Rosenberg is one of the main people responsible for the development and execution of the measures that were adopted in the occupied territories of the east. On April 2, 1941, he was informed by Hitler of the imminence of the attack on the Soviet Union and agreed to cooperate as a political adviser. On April 20, 1941, he was appointed commissioner for central control of Eastern European affairs. During the preparation of the occupation plans, he had numerous conferences with Keitel, Raeder, Göring, Funk, Von Ribbentrop, and other important personalities of the Reich. In April and May 1941, he drew up several draft regulations for the organization of the istration of the occupied territories of the east. On June 20, 1941, two days before the outbreak of the attack on the USSR, he made a speech to his deputies about the problems posed by the occupation and the measures to be considered. On July 16, 1941, he attended Hitler’s lecture, during which methods of istration and occupation were examined. On July 17, 1941, Hitler appointed Rosenberg reichs-minister for the occupied eastern territories and officially entrusted him with the responsibility of the civil istration.” “Rosenberg is responsible for the systematic looting of public and private property that was practiced in all the invaded countries of Europe. Acting on the orders of Hitler, in January 1940, to found the “Hohe Schule”, he organized and directed the “Einsatzstab Rosenberg”, which looted museums and libraries, confiscated works of art and collections, and ransacked private homes. During “Action M” [Möbel], which was launched in December 1941 at the suggestion of Hitler, 69,000 Jewish homes were looted in the west, including 38,000 in Paris only, and it took 26,984 railroad cars to transport the confiscated furniture to . As of July 14, 1944, 21,903 works of art, including famous paintings and museum pieces, had already been seized in the West by the Einsatztab.”

“Appointed on July 17, 1941, by Hitler, reichsminister for the occupied territories of the east, he was invested with the supreme authority for these regions. He helped shape the policy of Germanization, exploitation, forced labor, and the extermination of Jews and opponents of Nazism, and organized the istration that carried out this policy. He took part in the conference of July 16, 1941, during which Hitler had declared, ‘“We have now the task of sharing the big cake according to our needs, to be able to, first dominate it, [and], then to ister it and finally the exploit. Hitler added that it was necessary to act pitilessly. Rosenberg took office the next day. Its directories provided for the sidelining of Jews and sending them to ghettos. His consent to the “Heu aktion” is indicated by the signature he affixed to the order of June 14, 1944 concerning the arrest of forty to fifty thousand children, aged between ten and fourteen, for sending them to . In December 1941, he suggested to Hitler that the hundred hostages to be shot in should be chosen only among the Jews.”’

Hans Frank

“He was appointed head of the civil istration of the occupied Polish territories, and on October 12, 1939, on the express order of Hitler, he became governor-general. On October 3, 1939, he described the policy he intended to adopt in the following : ‘“Poland will be treated as a colony. The Poles will be the slaves of the Greatest German Reich.”’ This occupation policy resulted in the total destruction of Poland as a national entity by the ruthless exploitation of its human and economic resources for the German war effort. All resistance was crushed with extreme severity. A regime of terror was instituted, reinforced by summary courts that ordered, for example, public executions of groups of twenty to two hundred Poles or mass executions of hostages. The concentration camp system was introduced in the country. The famous Treblinka and Maidanek camps were established.” “As early as February 6, 1940, Frank himself revealed this regime of terror, commenting cynically during a report the poster where Von Neurath announced the execution of the Czech students. ‘“If I ordered posters to be stuck to the walls every time seven Poles were shot, the forests of Poland would not be enough to make the necessary paper.”’ On May 30, 1940, Frank told a police

meeting that he was taking advantage of the Western European offensive, which was diverting Poland from the world’s attention, to liquidate the thousands of Poles likely to oppose German rule, including ‘“the main representatives of the Polish intellectual elite.”’ Under a decree that he had signed with Hitler’s agreement on October 2, 1943, he declared: ‘“Any individual of non-German nationality who sabotages the work done on behalf of the Reich in the general government would be tried by summary courts of the security police and the SD and sentenced to death.”’ “From the beginning of his istration, Frank inaugurated the deportation of workers for forced labor in . On January 25, 1940, he expressed his intention of deporting 1 million workers and, on May 10, 1940, said that this figure was to be reached by police raids. On August 18, 1942, Frank announced that he had already supplied 800,000 workers to the Reich and that he expected to be able to deliver another 40,000 by the end of the year. The persecutions of the Jews began immediately. Originally, the territory contained 2,5-3.5 million Jews. They were all forced to live in the ghettos, subject to exceptional laws, deprived of the necessary food for their substance, finally systematically and brutally exterminated. On December 16, 1941, Frank told his cabinet : ‘“We must exterminate the Jews, or find them wherever possible, to maintain the structure and cohesion of the Reich. By January 25, 1944, Frank estimated that there were only 100,000 Jews left in Europe. He voluntarily and knowingly participated in the measures of terror in Poland, in the economic exploitation of that country, which led to the famine and death of a large number of people, and in the deportation for forced labor in , of more than one million Poles. He participated in the program that led to the murder of more than 3 million Jews.”

Wilhelm Frick

“A recognized specialist in istrative matters, Frick became part of Hitler’s first cabinet, which appointed him minister of the interior of the Reich. As German minister of interior, he had signed decrees sanctioning the execution of Jews and other persons held in ‘“protective custody”’ at the concentration camps and had given Himmler a blank check to take any ‘“security measures”’

necessary to ensure the German foothold in the occupied territories. He held this important position until August 1943, when he was appointed protector of the Reich for Bohemia-Moravia. Frick exercised supreme authority over Bohemia and Moravia and was responsible for implementing Hitler’s policies of enslavement, deportation, torture, and extermination in these territories.” “Thanks to these functions that placed him at the center of all the internal istration of the country, he became minister of the interior of Prussia, director of Reich elections, general plenipotentiary to the istration, and member of the defense council of the Reich, the Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich, and the Council of Three. When various countries that were to be incorporated into the Reich were invaded, Frick was placed at the head of the central services of these incorporations. Although Frick officially ed the Nazi Party in 1925, he had already, during the Munich putsch and, while he was an official of the police department of that city, sided with Hitler and the national socialist cause. Elected a member of the Reichstag in 1924, he became reichsleiter, in his capacity as leader of the national socialist group of this house.” “Frick, an ambitious Nazi, actively contributed to putting under the absolute domination of the National-Socialist Party. As soon as Hitler became chancellor of the Reich, as minister of the interior, Frick began to group the regional governments under the sovereignty of the Reich. Many laws he had drafted, signed and enforced had the effect of suppressing all opposition parties and also opened the way for the Gestapo to annihilate any individual opposition. He was the main and ruthless author of legislation aimed at eliminating trade unions, churches and Jews. Six months after the annexation of Austria, by a decree of Hitler, Frick became, under the law of defense of the Reich of September 4, 1938, plenipotentiary general to the istration of the Reich. It was further provided that, in the event that Hitler proclaimed the ‘“state of defense,”’ Frick would be in charge of the war istration, except for the military and economic sector. The ministries of justice, education, and cults were, as well as the office of space affairs, placed under his authority. In carrying out the task entrusted to him, Frick set up an istrative organization that was adapted to the conditions of war and that, according to his own statements, came into play when had decided to adopt a recourse policy to the force.” “Frick signed the law of March 13, 1938, which united Austria to the Reich and

he was charged with its execution. He established a German istration in Austria and took legislative measures that introduced into the country the laws of the Reich, including the Nuremberg decrees and the law on military service. He confided the police questions to Himmler. It was Frick again who had signed on Hitler’s orders the laws incorporating in the Reich the Sudeten countries, Memel, Danzig, and the eastern territories (West Prussia and Ponamie) as well as those of Eupen and Malmedy and Moresnet. He was charged with the effective execution of these incorporations and the establishment of a German istration in these territories. He signed the law establishing the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. As head of the central services for Bohemia and Moravia, for the general government, and for Norway, he had the task of creating close co-operation between the German s of these territories and the supreme authorities of the Reich. In all the occupied countries, he appointed the istrative staff and informed Rosenberg of the designations made in the eastern territories. Finally, he signed the laws that appointed Terboven commissioner of the Reich in Norway, and Seyss-Inquart commissioner of the Reich in Holland.” “A fanatical anti-Semite, he prepared, signed, and enforced with Hitler’s agreement a large number of laws designed to eliminate Jews from German life and economy. His legislative work was the basis of the Nuremberg decrees, which he actively pursued. After banning the Jews from practicing certain professions and confiscating their fortune, he finally signed in 1943, after the massive exterminations of Jews operated in the east, a decree that placed them as ‘“outlawed”’ and put their fate in their hands of the Gestapo. These measures, which paved the way for the “Final Solution,” were extended by Frick to the incorporated territories as well as to some of the occupied territories. During the period when he was Protector of the Reich for Bohemia and Moravia, thousands of Jews were transferred from the Terezin ghetto in Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz, where they were killed. He instituted by decree an exceptional criminal procedure applicable to the Jews and Poles of the general government. Euthanasia was practiced during the war in sanatoriums, hospitals and asylums under the authority of Frick.”

Wilhelm Keitel

“Appointed head of the OKW by the decision of Hitler, Keitel exerted pressure on Austria, emitting broadcast messages and false rumors by organizing movements of troops. Keitel directed all these maneuvers, and Jodl noted in his diary that ‘“the effect was swift and energetic.”’ When Schuschnigg had decided to organize a plebiscite, Keitel, the same night, informed Hitler and his generals; and Hitler published the ‘“Otto Case”’ that Keitel had issued. On April 21, 1938, Hitler and Keitel discussed how to use an ‘“incident”’- such as the assassination of the German minister in Prague- as a pretext for the attack on Czechoslovakia. Keitel signed many directives and memorandums concerning the ‘“Green Case”’ and, among other things, the May 30 instruction which contained the following statement by Hitler: ‘“It is my irrevocable decision to crush Czechoslovakia by military action in the very near future.”’ “After Munich, he initialed Hitler’s order for the attack on Czechoslovakia and added two supplements. The second stated that the attack should appear abroad as an ‘“act of simple pacification”’ and not as a bellicose enterprise. He also attended the negotiations between Hitler and Hácha, after which the latter finally yielded. He was still present on May 23, 1939, when Hitler announced his decision to attack Poland on the first favorable occasion. He had signed the order ening the Wehrmacht to submit for the 1st of May to the OKW the schedule of operations of the “White Case.” On December 12, 1939, he studied with Hitler, Jodl, and Raeder the question of the invasion of Norway and Denmark, and an instruction of January 27, 1940, from Hitler himself, gave him the ‘“personal direction”’ and ‘“immediate plans”’ concerning Norway. Hitler declared, on May 23, 1939, that he would take no of the neutrality of Belgium and the Netherlands. Keitel signed the orders of attack on October 15, and 20, and November 28, 1939. Thereafter, seventeen orders pushing the date of the attack until the spring of 1940 were all signed by Keitel and Jodl.” “As for the invasion of the Soviet Union, Keitel declared that he had opposed both for military reasons and because it would constitute a violation of the nonaggression pact. In spite of this, he put his initials on the “Barbarossa Case” signed by Hitler on December 18, 1940, and attended the meeting of February 3, 1941, between Hitler and the representatives of the OKW. On March 13, 1941, he added an addendum to settle the relations between the military leaders and the political leaders. He also established the schedule of the invasion operations on June 6 and attended the conference on June 14, 1941, during which the generals made their final reports before the attack. He appointed Jodl and Warlimont to represent the OKW, with Rosenberg on matters pertaining to the eastern

territories. On June 16, 1941, he ordered all units in the army to apply the economic guidelines that Göring had given in the “Green Record” for the use of food products and raw materials supplied by the Russian territory.” “After the OKW published, on September 8, 1941, ruthless rules for the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, Canaris wrote to Keitel that the SD, in dealing with this issue, violated the rules of international law. On this memorandum, Keitel, on September 23, wrote with his hand and signed the following note: ‘“We raise objections inspired by a chivalrous conception of war, but here, it is a question of destroying an ideology. Therefore, I approve and these measures.”’ On August 4, 1942, Keitel, following Hitler’s instructions, issued a directive that the paratroopers were to be delivered to the SD. On October 18, 1942, Hitler published the commando order that was applied on many occasions. After landing in Normandy, Keitel reiterated this order and then extended it to Allied units fighting alongside the resistance groups. He itted that the order was illegal, but claimed he could not prevent Hitler from promulgating it.” “Keitel, still under Hitler’s instructions, ordered the military authorities to cooperate with the “Einsatzstab Rosenberg” for the looting of cultural property in the occupied territories. Lahousen stated that Keitel had told him on September 12, 1939, in Hitler’s special train, that the intellectual class, the nobility, and the Jews of Poland had to be suppressed. On September 16, 1941, following Hitler’s instructions, he ordered the attacks on German soldiers in the east by the killing of fifty to one hundred communists for a German soldier, adding that” in the east, a human life was less than nothing. On October 1, he ordered the military leaders to detain permanently hostages ready for execution in case German soldiers were attacked. Josef Terboven, Reich commissioner for Norway, wrote to Hitler that Keitel’s proposal to hold the workers’ parents able for the acts committed by the latter could only be applied if the use of platoons was allowed. Keitel wrote in the margin of this memorandum: “Yes, that’s the best.” “On May 12, 1941, five weeks before the invasion of the Soviet Union, the OKW urged Hitler to approve an OKH directive, ordering the army to ‘“liquidate”’ the political commissars. On May 13, after instructions from Hitler, Keitel signed an order that civilians suspected of committing crimes against the troops should be executed without trial. On July 24, Keitel signed another order calling legal punishments inadequate, saying that the troops had to use terrorist

methods. On December 7, 1941, he signed the decree “Nacht und Nebel” which provided that civilians would be prosecuted in the occupied territories only if a death sentence was probable. In other cases, they had to be surrendered to the Gestapo to be taken away in . He also ordered that Soviet prisoners of war should be employed in the German war industry. On September 8, 1942, he ordered the assignment of French, Dutch and Belgian citizens to the construction of the ‘“Atlantic Wall.”’ Finally, he was present when, on January 4, 1944, Hitler gave Sauckel the order to recruit four million new workers into the occupied territories.”

Joachim von Ribbentrop

“Ribbentrop ed the Nazi Party in 1932. The next year, he became Hitler’s advisor and representative of the Nazi Party in foreign affairs. In 1934, Hitler appointed him delegate for disarmament and, in 1935, minister plenipotentiary without portfolio. It was in this last capacity that he had negotiated the AngloGerman Naval Agreement in 1935 and the ‘“Anti-Comintern”’ Pact in 1936. On August 11, 1936, he was sent as ambassador to England. On February 4, 1938, he succeeded Von Neurath as minister of foreign affairs of the Reich. On January 2, 1938, when he was still ambassador to England, he sent a memorandum to Hitler stating that, in his opinion, a favorable amendment to of the status quo in the east could only be obtained by force and proposing ways to prevent England and from intervening in a European war for this purpose. When he became foreign minister, Hitler told him that still had four problems to solve: Austria, the Sudeten territories, Memel and Danzig, and mentioned the possibility of “slaughtering his game” and resorting to a “military settlement” to solve them.” “On February 12, 1938, he attended the interview in which Hitler forced Schuschnigg, through threats of invasion, to make a series of concessions to strengthen the position of the Nazis in Austria, including the appointment of Seyss-Inquart as minister of security and the interior, with the control of the police. He was in London when the occupation of Austria was carried out, and thanks to the information provided by Göring he informed the British government that had not presented an ultimatum to Austria, but

intervened only to prevent a civil war. On March 13, 1938, he signed the law incorporating Austria into the German Reich. He participated in plans of aggression against Czechoslovakia.” “As early as March 1938, he maintained close with the Sudeten German party and gave them instructions aimed at continuing to make the Sudeten question a burning question, capable of serving as an excuse for the planned attack on the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia. In August 1938, he took part in a conference whose object was to obtain the of the Hungarians in the event of war with Czechoslovakia. After the Munich Pact, on Hitler’s instructions, he continued to exert diplomatic pressure to occupy the rest of the country. He helped encourage Slovaks to demand their independence. He attended the conference of March 14 and 15, 1939, during which Hitler, under threat of invasion, forced President Hácha to consent to the occupation of Czechoslovakia by . After the entrance of the German troops, he signed the law establishing a protectorate on Bohemia and Moravia.” “He played a particularly important role in the diplomatic activity that led to the aggression against Poland. On October 24, 1938, less than a month after the Munich Pact, he had a dinner with the Polish ambassador to Berlin, Józef Lipski, at the Grand Hotel in Berchtesgaden. During the meal he informed him of Hitler’s proposal. ‘“The time has come,”’ he said, “for an understanding between Poland and over Danzig. The Führer is looking to build a large motorway to connect to East Prussia. This highway must go through the Danzig corridor. That is why he asks the Polish government to consider granting this age to .” Second, “the Führer wants Poland to side with the Axis in the event of a war with Russia. In return, will extend the non-aggression treaty signed with Marshal Pilsudski for a period of twenty years. Ribbentrop advised Lipski to verbally and confidentially, make these suggestions to Colonel Beck to avoid any leakage of information, especially to the press. Lipski promised to report Hitler’s request to his government, knowing in advance that the answer would be negative. On November 19, 1938, Ribbentrop received Lipski at his office, and the ambassador told him Beck’s answer. “Poland refuses all concessions concerning Danzig. Any decision by to seek to incorporate Danzig into its territory will lead to a conflict.” Five days after the meeting between Ribbentrop and Lipski on November 24, 1938, Hitler asked the commander of his army to prepare secret plans to occupy the Danzig.”

“Ribbentrop took part, on August 12, 1939, in a conference whose aim was to obtain Italy’s for the attack leading to a general war in Europe. In the period between August 25 and August 30, 1939, he exposed Hitler’s demands for Danzig and the Polish corridor to the British ambassador. He knew, however, that the attack on Poland had only been temporarily postponed for to encourage the English to disengage themselves from the guarantee they had given to this country. Hitler informed him in advance of the attacks that were to be made against Norway and Denmark, on the one hand, the Netherlands, on the other, he prepared the official memorandum of the ministry of foreign affairs which tried to justify these acts of aggression. He attended the conference on January 20, 1941, during which Hitler and Mussolini had considered the attack on Greece, and at the conference of the same month that allowed Hitler to obtain from Antonescu that German troops were allowed to cross Romania to carry out this attack. When, on March 25, 1941, Yugoslavia adhered to the Tripartite Pact, it had received from Von Ribbentrop the assurance that would respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity. On March 27, 1941, following the Yugoslav coup against the Axis, he attended a meeting at which plans were made to realize Hitler’s intention to destroy Yugoslavia.” “In May 1941, he attended a conference between Hitler and Antonescu, about the Romanian participation in the attack against the Soviet Union. He also spoke with Rosenberg about the establishment of a pre-military plan for the political exploitation of the Soviet territories. In July 1941, after the outbreak of the war against the Soviet Union, he urged Japan to attack that country. He participated in a meeting on June 6, 1944, during which the systematic lynching of Allied airmen conducting low-level attacks was decided. In December 1944, Von Ribbentrop, in his capacity as minister of foreign affairs, was made aware of the plans for the assassination of a French general, a prisoner of war, and he invited his subordinates to ensure that the details of this operation were executed in such a way as to prevent its discovery by the Allied powers.” “He is also responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity because of his activity with regard to the occupied countries and the satellites of the Axis. The most important German official in Denmark and in Vichy was its representative at the ministry of foreign affairs, and Von Ribbentrop is therefore responsible for the economic and political measures applied during the occupation of these countries. He urged Italians to adopt ruthless methods in Yugoslavia and Greece. He played an important role in the ‘“Final Solution”’ of the Jewish question. In September 1942, on Hitler’s instructions, he ordered

German diplomatic representatives accredited to certain Axis satellites to accelerate the deportation of Jews to the east. In June 1942, his ambassador to asked Laval to deliver fifty thousand Jews to deport them to the east. On February 25, 1943, he protested to Mussolini against the slowness of the Italians to deport Jews from the Italian occupation zone to . On April 17, 1943, he attended an interview between Hitler and Horthy about the deportation of the Jews from Hungary and made known to the regent of that country that the “Jews had to be exterminated, put into concentration camps. At the conference, Hitler equated the Jews with “tubercle bacilli” and said that if they did not work, they had to be shot.” “Von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s faithful disciple, participated in all Nazi aggression, from the occupation of Austria to the invasion of the Soviet Union. He was personally involved in the diplomatic preparation of these acts, and Hitler ordered Göring to execute the military phase of the attacks. In the istration of territories had unjustly seized, he participated in the application of criminal methods including, in particular, those that led to the extermination of the Jews.”

Julius Streicher

“A member of the Nazi Party, Streicher was a convinced follower of Hitler’s policy. Having, for twenty-five years, preached, by word and pen, hatred of the Jews, he was universally known as their most bitter enemy. In his weekly or monthly speeches and articles, he showed the virus of anti-Semitism in the German spirit and pushed the people to engage in hostile actions against the Jews. Each issue of the Stürmer, which, in 1935, had a print run of six hundred thousand copies, was filled with such articles, often even licentious and abject. The circulation of Streicher’s racist newspaper had fueled the Nazis’ maniacal hatred of Jews and fomented an atmosphere in which genocide was acceptable and desirable. In an article Streicher had published during 1942, he described Jewish procreation as a curse of God that could only be lifted through a process of political and ethnic emasculation.” “He was in charge of the boycott of Jewish enterprises that began on April 1,

1933. He took part in the Nuremberg decrees of 1935. He was responsible for the fire of the Nuremberg synagogue of August 10, 1938, and on November 10, he publicly advocated the pogrom that took place on that date. From 1938, he began to demand the annihilation of the Jewish race. Hundreds of thousands of articles in the Stürrmer written between 1938 and 1941, dealt with the question of ‘“eliminating”’ Jews as a solution to world problems.” “An editorial, published in September 1938, called the Jew a ‘“bacillus,”’ a scourge, declared that he was not a human being and accused him of being ‘“a parasite,”’ a nuisance, a criminal, and a criminal propagator of diseases, that must be destroyed in the interest of humanity. Other articles proclaimed that the Jewish problem could only be solved when the ‘“international Jewry”’ had been destroyed and predicted that within fifty years, the Jewish graves “would testify that this people of killers and criminals have found the lot he deserved.”

Albert Speer

“In 1932, Speer ed the Nazi Party. In 1934, he was chosen as an architect by Hitler and became his personal adviser. Shortly after, he was appointed head of the labor front service, and was officially responsible for all matters relating to construction in the führer delegate’s headquarters. He held these positions until 1941. On February 15, 1942, after the death of Fritz Todt, Speer was called to head the organization and was appointed minister of armaments and munitions of the Reich, [Armaments and War Production after September 2, 1943]. In addition to these positions, he was appointed following these appointments in March and April 1942 as the plenipotentiary general for armaments and a member of the Central Planning Committee, both of which depended on Four years Plan. Speer was a Reichstag deputy from 1941 until the end of the war.” “As reichsminister for armaments and ammunition and as general plenipotentiary to armaments under the Four Year Plan, Speer exercised extensive powers over production. At first, he was in charge of the construction and weapons production for the OKW. His authority was gradually extended to naval armaments, to civilian production, and finally, on August 1, 1944, to aeronautical armament. It occupied a predominant position in the Central

Planning Committee, which enjoyed supreme authority over the German economy, as well as the distribution of raw materials and the increase of their production. The attitude adopted by Speer consisted in asserting that the plan had the power, for the industries under its control, to give Sauckel instructions concerning the recruitment of the workers. Despite Speer’s objections, Speer succeeded in making his point of view prevail. In practice, Speer indicated to Sauckel the approximate number of workers needed; Sauckel obtained the labor and divided it among the different industries according to the instructions given by Speer.” “When Speer addressed his demands to Sauckel, he knew he would be provided with foreign workers recruited by force. He took part in conferences where an extension of the compulsory work program was envisaged to satisfy his requests. From August 10 to 12, 1942, he attended a conference with Hitler and Sauckel during which it was agreed that the workers of the occupied territories would be forcibly sent by Sauckel where it was necessary for the industries placed under Speer’s control. Speer also attended a conference held at Hitler’s headquarters on January 4, 1944, during which it was decided that Sauckel should obtain “at least 4 million new workers from the occupied territories” to provide the work required by Speer, while Sauckel claimed he could only do so with the help of Himmler.” “Sauckel constantly informed Speer and his delegates that foreign workers were being recruited by force. On March 1, 1944, Speer’s representative strongly criticized Sauckel for not being able to send 4 million workers to the occupied territories to be supplied. In some cases, Speer demanded that workers be sent from specific foreign countries. Thus, at the conference held from August 10 to 12 1942, Sauckel received an order from Hitler to provide Speer with ‘“1 million Russian workers for the German arms industry by the end of October 1942.”’ At a meeting of the Central Planning Committee on April 22, 1943, Speer examined plans to supply Russian workers for coal mines and categorically rejected the proposal to fill the gap in by German workers.” “Speer had advocated a reorganization of the labor force to increase the use of German workers in war production in and to use the labor of the occupied territories for the local production of foodstuffs previously manufactured in . Speer took steps in this direction by establishing in the occupied territories what were called ‘“locked industries”’ which produced goods for subsequent shipment to . The workers in these industries

were exempted from deportation for forced labor, and all workers who had been ordered to leave for the Reich could avoid deportation by working in the ‘“blocked industries.”’ This system, which was a little less inhumane than deportation to , was, however, illegal. Moreover, the blocked industries played only a minor role in the general program of forced labor. Nevertheless, Speer wanted to coordinate their use with the execution of this program, the methods of application of which he was perfectly familiar. Officially, he was the main beneficiary and constantly asked for extension.” “In his capacity as head of the Todt Organization, Speer was also directly involved in the use of forced laborers. The Todt Organization operated mainly in the occupied territories for work such as the construction of the “Atlantic Wall” and strategic roads; Speer acknowledged that he had relied on mandatory service to maintain sufficient staff in this organization. He also used the labor of concentration camps to use it in the industries under his control. In the beginning, he used this source of labor only for small isolated factories, and later, fearing Himmler would interfere in his field, he tried to employ as few as concentration-camp workers as possible.” “Speer was also involved in the employment of prisoners of war in the arms industries, mainly employing Soviet prisoners of war in industries covered by the Geneva Convention. At a meeting of the Central Planning Committee on October 30, 1942, Speer expressed his opinion that many of the forced laborers being ill were only simulators and he said, ‘“There is nothing to be said for the SS and police who take rigorous measures and put those who are known as idle in concentration camps.”’

Arthur Seyss-Inquart

“An Austrian lawyer, Seyss-Inquart was appointed state councilor in Austria in May 1937, following German pressure. Since 1931 he had collaborated with the Austrian Nazi Party with which he had many difficulties. He did not actually the Nazi Party until March 13, 1938. He was appointed minister of security and the interior of Austria and invested with powers over the police. It was one of the conditions that Hitler had imposed on Schuschnigg at the Berchtesgaden

conference of February 12, 1938. “Seyss-Inquart participated in the last phase of the negotiations, which preceded the occupation of Austria by and was appointed chancellor of Austria following threats of invasion by the German troops made to that country. On March 12, 1938, Seyss-Inquart met Hitler in Linz and gave a speech welcoming the German forces and advocating the meeting of and Austria. On March 13, he obtained the promulgation of a law according to which Austria became a province of and he succeeded Miklas in the office of president of the republic when the latter preferred to resign rather than to sign the law. The title of Seyss-Inquart was changed to that of governor of Austria for the Reich on March 15, 1938, and the same day he received the rank of SS general. He was appointed minister of the Reich without portfolio on May 1939.” “On March 11, 1939, he went to Bratislava, where he had met the of the Slovak cabinet, which led him to declare the independence of the country. This declaration was made in close co-ordination with Hitler’s offensive against Czechoslovakia. As governor of Austria, Seyss-Inquart instituted a program of confiscation of Jewish property. While in power, the Jews were forced to emigrate, were interned in concentration camps, and were victims of pogroms. Finally he cooperated with the security police and the SD in the deportation of Jews from Austria to the east. While he was governor of Austria, political opponents of the Nazis were sent to concentration camps by the Gestapo, mistreated, and often killed.” “As Reich commissioner for the Netherlands, Seyss-Inquart immediately began sending forced laborers to . Until 1942, the labor service was voluntary in principle, but, in fact, made compulsory by the strong economic and governmental pressure that was exerted. In 1942, Seyss-Inquart formally decreed the compulsory labor service and used the security police and the SD to prevent evasion of his order. During the occupation, more than five hundred thousand people were sent from the Netherlands to the Reich as workers, and only a very small proportion was really voluntary.” “In September 1939, Seyss-Inquart was appointed head of the civil istration of the southern part of Poland. On October 12, 1939, he became deputy to Frank, governor general of Poland. On May 18, 1940, he was appointed commissioner of the Reich for the Netherlands. In these three

functions, he istered occupied territories following wars of aggression. This role was of paramount importance for the other wars unleashed by .” “In his capacity as deputy governor general for the general government of Poland, Seyss-Inquart approved the methods used during the occupation of that country. In November 1939, during an inspection trip, Seyss-Inquart declared that the istration of Poland should result in the exploitation of its economic resources for the benefit of . He also advocated the persecution of the Jews; he was also aware of the beginning of the ‘“AB Action”’, which led to the assassination of a large number of Polish intellectuals.” “Seyss-Inquart ruthlessly applied terror measures to suppress any opposition to the German occupation, a program which, he said, was intended to “annihilate” his opponents. In collaboration with local SS and police chiefs, he played a role in the execution of hostages carried out in connection with crimes committed against the occupation authorities, and in sending to concentration camps all those who were suspected of opposition to the occupation policy, including priests and teachers. Under the threat of reprisals against their families, many Dutch police officers were forced to take part in the execution of this program. The Dutch courts also had to participate, but when they showed their reluctance to pronounce prison sentences that most often led to the murder of the prisoner, the use of the emergency courts was generalized.” “From an economic point of view, Seyss-Inquart istered the Netherlands in defiance of the rules laid down by the Hague Convention, which it considered out of date. Moreover, a policy of maximum exploitation of the country’s economic potential was adopted and applied with little or no regard for the repercussions it might have on its inhabitants. A widespread looting of public and private property was carried out by Seyss-Inquart, which gave him by his orders a semblance of legality, and which made financial manipulations to facilitate this looting.” “One of the first measures of Seyss-Inquart as Reich commissioner for the Netherlands was to enact a series of exceptional economic laws targeting Jews. Then came decrees demanding that the Jews be enumerated, Hitler forced them to live in ghettos and to wear the Star of David. They were also arrested periodically and held in concentration camps, and finally, at the suggestion of Heydrich, deported en masse. Nearly 120,000 Jews out of 400,000 who lived in

Holland were sent to Auschwitz for the “Final Solution.”

Konstantin Von Neurath

“A career diplomat, he served as German ambassador to Great Britain from 1930 to 1932. On June 2, 1932, he was appointed minister of foreign affairs in Von Papen’s cabinet, and he held that position in the cabinets of Von Schleicher and Hitler. On February 4, 1938, Von Neurath resigned as minister of foreign affairs and became Reichsminister without portfolio, chairman of the secret cabinet council, and member of the Reich defense council. From March 18, 1939 to September 27, 1941, he was the protector of Bohemia and Moravia. He had the rank of obergruppenführer honorary in the SS.” “As minister of foreign affairs, Von Neurath assisted Hitler with his advice on the withdrawal of from the Conference on Disarmament and the League of Nations on October 14, 1933, the decision to rearm, the promulgation of the law on compulsory military service on March 16, 1935 and the secret law on the defense of the Reich on the twenty-first. He was chiefly the leader of the negotiations for the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of June 18, 1935. He played an important role with Hitler when he decided to reoccupy the Rhineland, on March 7, 1936, and he predicted that the occupation could be carried out without the French reacting. On May 18, 1936, he declared to the U.S. ambassador to that the foreign policy of the German Government was confined to not moving until ‘“the Rhineland was digested”’ and that once the fortifications of the Rhineland countries were finished, the countries of Central Europe, realizing that could not enter as it pleased, “will consider their foreign policy in a totally different way, and that new spheres of influence may then be established.” “Von Neurath took part in the “Hossbach Conference” of November 5, 1937. He testified that Hitler’s statements so impressed him that he had had a heart attack. Shortly after, he offered his resignation, which was accepted on February 4, 1938, at the very time when Von Fritsch and Von Bloomberg were dismissed. While aware of Hitler’s plans for aggression, he retained an official connection with the Nazi regime in his capacity as reichsminister without portfolio, as

chairman of the secret cabinet council, and as a member of the Reich defense council. He assumed the direction of the ministry of foreign affairs at the time of the occupation of Austria and assured the British ambassador that this occupation was not due to a German ultimatum. He declared at that time to the Czechoslovak minister that intended to respect its arbitration agreement with that country. Von Neurath took part in the negotiations that preceded the Munich Agreement.”

CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA “On March 18, 1939, Von Neurath was appointed protector of BohemiaMoravia, which was occupied by armed force. The consent of Hácha obtained by force cannot suffice to justify this occupation. A protectorate was established on this country by Hitler’s decree of March 16, 1939, which further declared that this new territory ‘“would henceforth belong to the German Reich,”’ which implied that the Czechoslovak Republic had ceased to exist. But the status of Bohemia-Moravia, as defined by this proclamation, was also inspired by the thesis that these countries retained their sovereignty to the extent that the interests of represented by the protectorate were not contrary. The occupation of Bohemia and Moravia is therefore to be regarded as a military occupation subject to the laws of war. Although Czechoslovakia did not accede to the 1907 Hague Convention, the land-based war laws set forth in this Convention constitute the expression of international law as it existed at the time, and are therefore applicable in this case.” “In his capacity as protector of the Reich, Von Neurath instituted in BohemiaMoravia a regulation similar to that of . The free press, political parties, and trade unions were abolished. All groups that could be used by the opposition were banned. Czech industry was incorporated as part of German war production and exploited for the benefit of the war effort. The policy of anti-Semitism was also introduced into the legislation. Jews were excluded from important positions in government and business.” “In August 1939, Von Neurath issued a proclamation warning the public against sabotage, stating that “the responsibility for any act of sabotage would not rest solely with its perpetrators, but with the entire Czech population. When the war broke out on September 1st, 1939, the security police arrested eight thousand notable Czechs and put them in preventive detention. Many of them died in concentration camps as a result of their abuse. In October and November 1939, Czech students organized a series of demonstrations. As a result of the latter, by Hitler’s order, all the universities were closed. Twelve hundred students were thrown into prison and the nine leaders of the demonstration were shot by the security police and the SD. Von Neurath was notified in advance of this action, which was then the subject of a proclamation bearing his signature and posted throughout the protectorate.”

“On August 31, 1940, Von Neurath gave Lammers a memorandum he had written on the future of the protectorate, and another on the same question, written by Karl Hermann Frank, which he had approved. Both of them dealt with the problem of Germanization and proposed that the majority of Czechs should be assimilated to the German race. Both of them recommended the elimination of the ‘“Czech intelligencia”’ and other groups that might be hostile to Germanization; Von Neurath, meanwhile, advocated expulsion and Frank expulsion or “special treatment.” “Von Neurath claimed that the repressive measures were, in fact, carried out by the security police and the SD, who were placed under the orders of his secretary of state, Karl Hermann Frank. The latter had been appointed on Himmler’s proposal and reported directly to him on his activities as SS and police chief. Von Neurath further alleged that the anti-Semitic measures and those that permitted the economic exploitation of the country were put into effect in the protectorate as a result of decisions taken by the Reich government. The accused was the main senior German official in the protectorate at a time when it was important that this territory be istered in conjunction with the conduct of ’s wars of aggression in the east. And Von Neurath was not unaware that at that time, war crimes and crimes against humanity were covered by his authority.”

Alfred Jodl

“From 1935 to 1938, Jodl was chief of the national defense section in the High Command of the Armed Forces. After a year spent in a unit, he became, in August 1939, chief of staff of operations of the High Command of the Armed Forces. Although he had Keitel as immediate superior, he was in direct with Hitler for all matters of military operations. From a strictly military point of view, Jodl was the real instigator of the war and one of the main leaders of the strategy and the conduct of operations.”

CRIMES AGAINST PEACE “According to Jodl’s diary, dated February 13 and 14, 1938, Hitler gave him and Keitel the order to maintain the armed pressure that, at the conference with Schuschnigg, had begun to exercise against Austria, by simulating military measures that, moreover, attained their object. When Hitler decided to ‘“not tolerate”’ the plebiscite of Schuschnigg, Jodl produced, during the conference, the ‘“old project,”’ that is, the plan as conceived by the general staff. His paper shows, on March 10, that Hitler then ordered the preparation of the ‘“Otto Case”’ by a directive that Jodl had countersigned.” “Jodl issued further instructions on March 11 and initialed Hitler’s invasion order for the same day. According to Schmundt’s notes, Jodl was very active in the preparations for attacking Czechoslovakia. He initialed Articles 14, 17, 24, 36, and 37 of these notes. Jodl acknowledges that he agreed with the OKH that the ‘“incident.”’ that was intended to provide a pretext for ’s intervention would occur no later than 14:00 hours on day X-1, the day before the attack; and he its, moreover, to have specified that the time fixed for this incident must be such that the weather conditions were conducive to theft. With propaganda specialists, he spoke of ‘“imminent common tasks”’ resulting in particular from ’s violations of international law, their exploitation by the enemy and their refutation by the Germans, ‘“tasks”’ that Jodl considered ‘“particularly important.”’ “After Munich, Jodl wrote, “Czechoslovakia has disappeared as a power. The Führer’s genius and his determination not to retreat, even in the face of a world war, once again made it possible to win, without resorting to force. We remain hopeful that the unbelieving, the weak, and the hesitant are now converted and will remain so.” “Shortly after the occupation of the Sudetenland, Jodl was detached to a unit. He did not become chief of the operations staff of the OKW until the end of August 1939.” “On December 12, 1939, Jodl discussed the invasion of Norway with Hitler, Keitel, and Raeder. His diary is filled with later notes on the role he had played in the preparations for this attack. Jodl explains that his comment that Hitler was

still seeking an ““excuse”” for action meant that he was awaiting credible information about the British’s plan, and he justified the invasion as a necessary operation to prevent the execution of these plans. His testimony shows that since October 1939, Hitler planned to attack western nations through Belgium, but did not think he could invade Holland before mid-November. On February 8, 1940, Jodl, his representative Warlimont, and Jeschonnek, in charge of strategic air issues, discussed the ‘“new idea”’ of attacking Norway, Denmark, and Holland, while guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium. Most of the seventeen orders that, for various reasons, notably because of atmospheric conditions, handed over in May 1940, the attack to the west, were signed by Jodl.” “He was actively involved in the preparations for the attack on Greece and Yugoslavia and initialed the order to intervene in Albania, which Hitler had given on January 11, 1941. On January 20, four months before the attack, Hitler, at a meeting of German and Italian generals, at which Jodl was present, declared that the German troops assembled in Romania should be used against Greece. On March 18, Jodl was still present when Hitler told Raeder that all Greece must be occupied before a solution could come. It was also in his presence that on March 27, Hitler declared to the high command that Yugoslavia had to be wiped out with ‘“ruthless rigor”’ and that Belgrade should be bombarded without a declaration of war.” “As early as July 29, 1940, Jodl invited Warlimont to make plans, telling him that Hitler had decided to attack. Later, Hitler told Warlimont that he had made this decision as early as August 1940, but that he had delayed its execution for military reasons. Jodl initialed Hitler’s directive of November 12, 1940, according to which verbally ordered preparations were to be pursued, and, on December 18, also signed the ‘“Barbarossa Case.”’ On February 3, 1941, Jodl discussed with Hitler and Keitel the invasion and, on June 14, he was present when the last reports on the ‘“Barbarossa Case”’ were made.”

WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY “On October 18, 1942, Hitler issued the order on the commandos and, the next day, made an additional explanatory note for the officers only. The memorandum accompanying this order was signed by Jodl, and the preliminary drafts had been drawn up by his services and in agreement with him. He signed the OKW memorandum of June 25, 1944, which maintained order after the landings of Normandy. The ‘“Barbarossa Case”’ directive contained a plan for the elimination of Soviet commissioners, according to which they could be executed without trial, on the sole decision of an officer. One project, containing a handwritten note from Jodl, suggested that such measures should be presented as retaliatory measures.” “When Hitler, in 1945, considered denouncing the Geneva Convention, Jodl pointed out that it would result in more inconveniences than benefits. On February 21, he declared that the fact of having signed the convention did not interfere with the conduct of the war and quoted, as an example, the case of an English hospital ship sunk in retaliation, which he described as ‘error. He claimed to have adopted this attitude, because it was the only one that Hitler could take into consideration and that the moral or legal arguments were useless. He claims to have prevented Hitler from denouncing the convention.” “There was little evidence that Jodl was actively involved in the compulsory work program. He had, indeed, to absorb himself in his strategic preparations. However, in his speech to the gauleiter on November 7, 1943, he affirmed the need to force, with ruthless vigor and resolution, the workers of Denmark, , and the Netherlands to build the “Atlantic Wall.” “By a teletype of October 28, 1944, Jodl ordered the evacuation of all the inhabitants of Northern Norway and the burning of their houses to prevent them from helping the Russians. Jodl asserts that he was opposed to these measures but that they were ordered by Hitler and were not fully executed. A document from the Norwegian government, however, states that this evacuation of Northern Norway had taken place and that thirty thousand houses had been damaged.” “On October 7, 1941, Jodl signed an order communicating Hitler’s decision not

to accept the surrender of Leningrad or Moscow, which, moreover, were never offered. On the contrary, the emphasis was on the necessity of shaving these cities. Jodl claims that this decision was dictated by the fear that they would be undermined by the Russians as was Kiev.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner

“In 1932, he ed the Austrian Nazi Party and the SS. In 1935, he became chief of the SS for Austria. After the Anschluss, Hitler appointed him secretary of state for security in Austria and, then, when this post was abolished, in 1941, chief of police and SS. On January 30, 1943, he became chief of the Security Police and the SD and head of the RSHA, a post that had been occupied by Heydrich until his assassination in June 1942. He had the rank of Obergruppenführer in the SS. As leader of the SS in Austria, he played an active role in the plot against the Schuschnigg government. On the night of March 11, 1938, after Göring, under Hitler’s instructions, had ordered the Austrian national socialists to seize the government, five hundred SS, under the command of Kaltenbrunner, encircled the Federal Chancellery. A special detachment entered it under the direction of his deputy, while Seyss-Inquart negotiated with President Miklas.” “On January 30, 1943, Hitler appointed him chief of the security police and SD and head of the RSHA. He took charge of an organization that included the main services of the Gestapo, the SD, and the criminal police. As head of the RSHA, he had the authority either to order ‘“protective custody”’ in concentration camps or to release interns. The orders in this area always bore his signature. He was aware of the conditions of life in the concentration camps. During a visit to Mauthausen, he saw prisoners executed as a demonstration, by various methods: hanging, shot in the neck, and gas asphyxiation. He personally ordered executions of internees and his service was used to transmit to the concentration camps the execution orders emanating from Himmler’s office. The RSHA under Kaltenbrunner was used to carry out a vast program of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prisoners of war were mistreated and murdered.” “As chief of the RSHA, he gave orders to the Gestapo and the SD to mistreat

and exterminate the population in the occupied territories and, to use methods such as torture and internment in concentration camps. The Gestapo, under his control, was responsible for enforcing rigid discipline to which the forced laborers were subjected and a series of reprisals were created for this purpose by Kaltenbrunner. The RSHA played a vital role in achieving the ‘“Final Solution”’ of the Jewish question, which was nothing but the extermination of the Jews. A special section under the authority of Amendment IV of the RSHA was created to execute this program. Under his leadership, about 6 million Jews were killed, including 2 million by the Einsatzgruppen and other units of the security police.” “The RSHA, under the direction of Kaltenbrunner, controlled the execution of this part of the program; Special groups traveled through the occupied territories and satellite countries of the Axis to search for Jews and deport them to the places where they were exterminated. In a letter written by him on June 30, 1944, he described to Hitler the embarkation of twelve thousand Jews for Vienna, and he ordered that ‘“all those who were unable to work be kept ready for a special action,”’ which meant their extermination.”

Erich Raeder

“In 1928, Raeder became chief of the marine branch and, in 1935, commanderin-chief of the navy [OKM]. In 1939, Hitler made him grand iral. He was a member of the Reich defense council. On January 30, 1943, at his request, he was replaced by Dönitz and received the honorary title of iral inspector of the navy. During the fifteen years of his command, Raeder rebuilt the German fleet and led it to battle; he accepted full responsibility until his retirement in 1943. He acknowledged that the Navy had violated the Treaty of Versailles, but said that ‘“every man would have put his point of honor.”’ He alleges, moreover, that most of these violations were minimal and that the shipbuilding industry in had remained below the legal limit. These violations, as well as those of the 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement, were analyzed during his judgment.” “Raeder received from Werner von Blomberg the directives of June 24, 1937, which ordered special preparations for the war against Austria. He was one of

five personalities present at the Hossbach Conference. He claims at this meeting, Hitler only wanted to stimulate the army to obtain faster rearmament. Raeder also asserts that he personally believed the questions of Austria and Czechoslovakia would be settled peacefully with regard to the naval agreement that had just been signed at that time. He received no instructions to speed up the construction of the submarines and concluded that Hitler was not planning a war.” “Raeder received instructions on the ‘“Green Case”’ and the ‘“White Case”’ from April 3, 1939. The first ordered the navy to assist the army with naval intervention. Raeder was one of the military leaders present at the meeting of May 23, 1939, and, on August 22, took part in the Obersalzberg meeting, in which general instructions were given.” “It was on Raeder’s advice that Hitler had made the decision to invade Norway. Despite the desire expressed by Hitler in his directive of October 1939 to maintain the neutrality of Scandinavia, the navy at that time considered the advantage that would result from the establishment of naval bases in these areas. iral Karls, first of all, pointed out to Raeder the interest of bases located in Norway. A questionnaire, dated October 3, 1939, was distributed to the directorate of naval operations to collect information on the usefulness of these bases. On October 10, Raeder discussed these questions with Hitler. He notes at this date in his war diary that Hitler intended to take the matter into consideration. A few months later, he spoke with Raeder, Quisling, Keitel, and Jodl. At the same time that the OKW had begun to draw up plans, the naval staff worked in liaison with the OKW’s staff officers. On January 27, 1940, Raeder received Keitel’s order concerning Norway and, on March 1, the order that Hitler gave afterward. In a letter to the navy, Raeder said, ‘“Naval operations related to the occupation of Norway will forever remain the great contribution the Navy made to this war.”’ “Raeder received orders and numerous counter-orders concerning the attack on the west. On March 18, 1941, at a meeting attended by Hitler, he urged to occupy all of Greece. He claims that, on the one hand, he made this recommendation only after the British had landed and Hitler had ordered the attack and, on the other hand, the navy itself was not interested in Greece. He also received Hitler’s order concerning Yugoslavia.” On November 14, he advised to activate the war against England, the ‘“main

enemy,”’ and claimed that the construction of the submarine fleet and naval aviation should be continued. According to the notes of the German naval headquarters, he raised ‘“serious objections”’ to a Russian campaign undertaken before the defeat of England. He asserts that his objections were based on the desire not to violate the non-Aggression pact, as well as on strategic considerations. But once the decision had been made, he gave permission six days before the invasion of the Soviet Union to attack Russian submarines in the Baltic Sea, within the limits of a given area. He excuses this attitude by alleging that these submarines were engaged in reconnaissance operations. It follows that Raeder participated in the preparation and conduct of wars of aggression.”

WAR CRIMES “Raeder, in carrying out Hitler’s policy, is also accused of war crimes committed on the high seas. The Athenia, an unarmed British liner, was sunk on September 3, 1939, during her voyage to America. Two months later, the Germans claimed that Mr. Churchill had deliberately sunk the Athenia to excite American hostility toward . In fact, this ship was torpedoed by the German U-30 submarine. Raeder claims that an inexperienced submarine commander sank him by mistake, believing he was dealing with an armed merchant ship, and that the truth came out only when he had returned from the U-30 several weeks after the German denial was given. Hitler then ordered the navy and the foreign office to continue to deny the fact. Raeder claims that he was not aware of the propaganda campaign against Mr. Churchill.” “The most serious charge against Raeder is that of conducting a total underwater war, including the torpedoing of unarmed and neutral disarmed merchant ships, the abandonment of the survivors, and their strafing, in violation of the London Protocol of 1936. At the same time that the German economy was preparing for war, the army was organizing itself to rebuild ’s military power.” “The navy was particularly active in this regard. Nazi official historians, Assmann and Gladisch, it that the Treaty of Versailles was in force only a few months ago when it was violated, notably by the construction of a new submarine force.” “The publications of Captain Schuessler and Colonel Scherff, both sponsored by Raeder, showed the German people the nature of the navy’s effort to rearm in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles.” “The documents dealing with the details of this rearmament were filed as evidence. On May 12, 1934, Raeder published a plan entitled: ‘“The Third Phase of Armament.”’ It reads, “All theoretical and practical preparations must be continued so that we are ready to go to war without any warning period.” “A month later, Raeder had a new conversation with Hitler during which he had ordered him to keep secret the construction, then underway, of submarines and warships, exceeding the limit of ten thousand tons. On November 2, Raeder had a new interview with Hitler and Göring. Hitler declared that it was considered

vital that the German fleet ‘“should be developed according to established plans, no war can be waged unless the navy were able to protect the import of ore from Scandinavia.”’ “In accordance with this statement, Raeder had taken all steps to strengthen the capacity of the German navy. In the case of liners, for example, tonnage figures were falsified and decreased by 20 per-cent.” “As for the submarines, the historians of the German navy, Assmann and Gladisch, wrote about them: “It is probable that it was precisely in the field of submarine construction that paid the least attention to the restrictions of the Anglo-German Treaty.” In fact, in the year 1940, Raeder wrote: ““Until the last moment, the Führer hoped to be able to retreat until 1944-1945, the date of the Anglo-German conflict that threatened [them]. At that time, the navy would have had a powerful submarine superiority and a much more favorable balance of power with respect to all other types of ships, especially those destined for high seas warfare.”’

Fritz Sauckel

“On March 21, 1942, Hitler appointed Sauckel general plenipotentiary for the use of labor, with the power to co-ordinate the use of all available labor, including the employment of workers recruited from abroad and prisoners of war. Sauckel was to act within the framework of the Four Year Plan, and on March 27, 1942, Göring, in his capacity as commissioner for that plan, promulgated a decree by which his manpower services were transferred to Sauckel. On September 30, 1942, Hitler gave Sauckel authority to appoint commissioners in the various occupied territories and to take all necessary measures for the execution of the decree of March 21, 1942. Thanks to the powers thus conferred on him, Sauckel established a program of mobilization of all the labor resources available to the Reich.” “One of the main aspects of this mobilization was the systematic exploitation, by force, of the labor potential of the occupied territories. Shortly after Sauckel took office, he had promulgated by the government authorities of the various invaded

territories decrees establishing compulsory labor service in . By virtue of these decrees the commissioners of Sauckel, ed by the police authorities of the occupied regions, recruited and sent to the number of workers necessary to reach the quotas fixed by Sauckel. The so-called “voluntary” recruitment system was described by him during a conference as being implemented by a gang of agents of both sexes who operated according to methods used in Shanghai, as in the good old days.” “Sauckel’s statement of March 1, 1944, that out of the 5 million foreign workers in there were not even two hundred thousand volunteers, shows that truly voluntary recruitment was exceptional. Although he now claims that this statement is inaccurate, the circumstances in which it was made, as well as the evidence adduced in the proceedings, make it possible to say without a doubt that it was, as a whole, in keeping with the truth.” “It has already been described how those who were unfortunately forced into compulsory labor were collected and transported to and their fate. Sauckel claims that he is not responsible for the excesses committed during the execution of the program. He explained that the total number of workers to be recruited was based on the needs of agriculture and industry, that the occupation authorities needed to find the necessary workers, and that the German railways had the burden of forwarding them to ; upon their arrival in the Reich, they were placed under the control of the ministries of labor and agriculture, the German labor front, and the various industries concerned. He stated before the tribunal that, to the extent that he had some power, he constantly demanded a humane treatment for the workers.” “It is none the less true that Sauckel undoubtedly had a general responsibility throughout the compulsory work program. At the time, he was certainly in control of the areas he now claims others were in charge of. The regulations it enacted gave its commissioners the power to recruit labor; and he constantly applied himself to watch the measures taken. He was aware of the ruthless methods employed for recruitment and fully ed these methods on the basis of what was needed to meet the quotas.” “It follows from Sauckel’s instructions that he was responsible for the transportation of the workers to , their distribution among the employers, their housing and subsistence, and that all the agencies dealing with these matters were subordinate to him. He knew the defective conditions in

which the workers lived. It does not appear that he was, in principle, in favor of brutal methods of extermination by labor, as Himmler was. His attitude is expressed in a regulation: ‘“All men must be fed, housed, and treated to obtain the maximum return with the minimum of expenses.”’ “It has been shown that Sauckel was in charge of a program involving more than 5 million human beings deporting for compulsory labor and that for many of them, this deportation was carried out under cruel conditions.”

Martin Bormann

“Supreme command of the SA from 1928 to 1930, Bormann was in charge of the party relief fund and served as reichsleiter from 1933 to 1945. From 1933 to 1941, he was chief of staff to the führer delegate and, on May 12, 1941, after Hess’s flight to England; he was made head of the party chancellery. On April 12, 1943, he became secretary of the Führer. He was political and technical leader of the ‘“Volkssturm”’ and general of the SS.”

CRIMES AGAINST PEACE “Bormann, who at first had a rather inferior rank in the party, gradually rose to a leadership position and, particularly toward the end of the regime, exerted a great influence on Hitler. He took an active part in the accession of the ruling party and an even more active part in the consolidation of this power. He devoted much of his activity to the persecution of churches and Jews in . In its efforts to combat the influence of the Christian churches, whose doctrines were radically opposed to those of the national socialist philosophy, the Nazi government proceeded slowly. It never radically forbids the practice of the Christian religion, but from year to year endeavored to limit the influence it could exert on the German people.” Bormann wrote to Rosenberg: ‘“The Christian religion and the national socialist doctrine are incompatible.”’ In June 1941, the same Bormann secretly issued a decree regulating the relations of the Christian religion with national-socialist. It was stated there: “The Führer is aware of having in his hands an absolute power, as the history of has never known. By creating the party, the units that compose it, and those attached to it, it has forged for itself and also for the leaders of the German Reich an instrument that makes it independent of the treaty … More and more, the people must be removed from the churches and their representatives, the pastors … We must never let the churches influence the people’s government. This influence must be completely and definitively destroyed. Only the government of the Reich and, in accordance with its instructions, the party, its constituent units and those attached to it, have the right to rule the people. As Chief of the party chancellery in 1941 and secretary of the Führer in 1943, Bormann attended most of Hitler’s lectures.”

WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY “By virtue of the decree of May 29, 1941, Bormann succeeded Hess in the positions he held and inherited his powers. By decree of January 24, 1942, these were extended to allow him to control all the laws and directives emanating from Hitler. He bore the responsibility for the laws and orders promulgated after that date. On December 1, 1942, all the gaues became ‘“defense districts”’ of the Reich, and the gauleiter of the party, responsible to Bormann, were appointed commissioners for the defense of the Reich, which amounted to submit to their istration all the effort of population war. Their role extended not only to , but also to the territories conquered and incorporated in the Reich.” “Thanks to this system, Bormann directed the ruthless exploitation of the population under his command. His order of August 12, 1942, made all the party agencies available to Himmler for the execution, by force, of his program of colonization and ‘“denationalization”’ of the inhabitants of the occupied countries. Three weeks after the invasion of the Soviet Union, he attended the conference of July 16, 1941, which took place at Hitler’s headquarters and was also attended by Göring, Rosenberg and Keitel. Bormann’s report shows that detailed plans were made to enslave and exterminate the population of these territories. On May 8, 1942, he discussed with Hitler and Rosenberg the transfer to Latvia of Dutch nationals, the program of extermination of the Soviet populations and the economic exploitation of the eastern territories. He was also involved in the confiscation of works of art and other property. By a letter of January 11, 1944 he asked for the creation of a large organization to take in the occupied territories what could be useful to the Germans who were victims of the bombings.” “Bormann, on Hitler’s leadership, played an active role in the persecution of Jews, both in and in the occupied countries. He took part in the discussions that led to the transfer to Poland of sixty thousand Jews from Vienna, with the help of the SS and the Gestapo. He signed the decree of May 31, 1941 which extended the application of the Nuremberg laws to the annexed territories of the East. In an order dated October 9, 1942, he declared that the permanent elimination of Jews from the territories of Greater could no longer be effected by emigration, but only by the use of a ‘“merciless force”’ in the special camps of the East. On July 1, 1943, he signed an ordinance that deprived the

Jews of the protection of ordinary courts and placed them under the exclusive jurisdiction of Himmler’s Gestapo.” “Bormann played a leading role in the forced labor program. Party leaders controlled their respective issues, including hiring, working conditions, food and housing. By his circular of May 5, 1943, addressed to the corps of party political leaders and even transmitted to the ortsgruppenleiter, Bormann gave instructions for the treatment of foreign workers, stressing that they should be placed under the direction of the SS, as to the questions and ordered that the ill-treatment inflicted on them be stopped until that moment. A report of September 4, 1942, concerning the transfer of five hundred thousand workers from the east to shows that the direction of these operations belonged to Sauckel, Himmler and Bormann. Sauckel, by a decree dated September 8, ordered the kreisleiters to control the distribution and assignment of these workers.” “Following Hitler’s requests Bormann also sent the party leaders a series of orders relating to the treatment to be inflicted on prisoners of war. On November 5, 1941, he banned the decent burial of Russian prisoners of war. On November 25, 1943, he ordered the gauleiter to report to him the cases in which the prisoners of war were treated with softness. On September 13, 1944, he ordered the kreisleiters to the camp commanders to determine how it was possible to use prisoners of war as part of the forced labor program. On January 29, 1943, he transmitted to the subordinate chiefs the OKW’s instructions authorizing corporal punishment and the use of firearms against recalcitrant prisoners of war, which was contrary to wartime regulations. On September 30, 1944, he signed a decree transferring from OKW to Himmler and the SS jurisdiction over matters relating to prisoners of war.” “Bormann is responsible for the lynching of Allied airmen. On May 30, 1944, he prohibited the taking of police measures or criminal prosecution of those who had participated in the lynching of these airmen. At the same time, Goebbels continued his propaganda of excitement to incite the German people to act in this way against the airmen. A conference was held on June 6, 1944, during which rules on the application of lynching were discussed.”

CHAPTER X

SOME ELEMENTS OF THE TRIAL

N uremberg in numbers:

• 3000 tons of documents • 400 journalists from around the world attend the opening of the trial • 94 witnesses are heard during the trial (61 for the defense and 33 for the prosecution) • 42 volumes contain all the acts of the trial • 24 accused are tried. Three will not appear: the German industrialist Gustav Krupp very old is dismissed because of his state of health; Martin Bormann, who died at the time of the Battle of Berlin, and Robert Ley, head of the German Labor Front, who committed suicide in prison on 25 October 1945. • 8 organizations are condemned • 8 judges make up the Tribunal • 4 official languages for the debates (English, French, Russian and German) • 4-hour film, entitled “The Nazi Plan”, is screened during the trial • 12 death sentences by hanging (including 1 in absentia) • 7 convictions to prison • 3 acknowledgments

• 4 organizations are declared criminal (the NSDAP, the Gestapo, the SS and the SD)

CHAPTER XI

THE BENEFITS OF THE TRIAL

I n addition to the notions of war crimes and crimes against peace, the tribunal defines a new charge: crimes against humanity. There was only one international military tribunal held under the London statute, and there was only one trial: the Nuremberg trial. At the end of the ten months of hearing during which none of the twenty-one defendants pleaded guilty, eleven are nevertheless sentenced to death and three acquitted. The others are sentenced to life imprisonment ranging from ten years to life. The Jewish genocide, yet evoked throughout the trial, is diluted in the mass of Nazi crimes. On December 20, 1945, the Allied Control Council ed Law no. 10, which allowed trials to be held in each Allied control zone on the basis of the London Statute and created in a uniform legal basis for prosecution against war criminals other than those tried by the IMT. Only Americans use this opportunity. From December 9, 1946 to April 14, 1949, twelve trials were heard and brought before an American tribunal by Gen. Telford Taylor in the premises of the Nuremberg courthouse. These lawsuits are known as “the Nuremberg trials.” The doctors’ trial (first trial), the Einsatzgruppen trial, and the IG Farben trial attracted particular attention in the media. On April 10, 1948, he sentenced fourteen of the twenty-four defendants to death (only 4 of them were executed: Ohlendorf, Naumann, Blobel, Braune). The trial of Nazi doctors gives birth to the definition of a medical ethics through the Nuremberg Code. Law no. 10 is also applied for German courts in the FRG, which are relatively lenient. The lawsuit of Tokyo (November 12, 1946 November 12, 1948) is instituted according to the statute of London. He is brought against the main Japanese war criminals by an international tribunal dominated by the Americans; his judgment confirms and develops the Nuremberg law. On May 11, 1960, the Israeli secret service captured Adolf Eichmann in

Argentina. The Eichmann trial opened in Jerusalem for a period of eight months. This is the first time since the Nuremberg international military tribunal in 1946 that an important Nazi cadre had been brought before the judges. It was especially the first time that a Nazi dignitary was tried, in Israel, a very young state born thirteen years earlier in 1948. The trial was the first almost entirely filmed and the second large trial where cameras were authorized in a courtroom after Nuremberg. Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death on December 15, 1961, the only death sentence in Israel, and hanged on June 1, 1962. The war and the Nuremberg law give rise to the hope of creating an international law. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations on December 9, 1948. The United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948.

CHAPTER XII

OVERVIEW OF THE TRIAL

• November 20, 1945: Start of the trials. • November 21, 1945: Judge Robert H. Jackson opens for the prosecution with a speech lasting several hours, leaving an impression on both the court and the public. • November 26, 1945: The Hossbach Memorandum (of a conference in which Hitler explained his war plans) is presented. • November 29, 1945: The film “Nazi Concentration Camps” is screened. • November 30, 1945: Witness Erwin von Lahousen testifies that Keitel and Von Ribbentrop gave orders for the murder of Poles, Jews, and Russian prisoners of war. • December 11, 1945: The film The Nazi Plan is screened, showing long-term planning and preparations for war by the Nazis. • January 3, 1946: Witness Otto Ohlendorf, former head of Einsatzgruppe D, its to the murder of around ninety thousand Jews. • January 3, 1946: Witness Dieter Wisliceny describes the organization of RSHA Department IV-B-4, in charge of the Final Solution. • January 7, 1946: Witness and former SS-obergruppenführer Erich Von BachZelewski its to the organized mass murder of Jews and other groups in the Soviet Union. • January 28, 1946: Witness Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, member of the French resistance and concentration camp survivor, testifies on the Holocaust,

becoming the first Holocaust survivor to do so. • February 11-12, 1946: Witness and former field marshal Friedrich Paulus, who had been secretly brought to Nuremberg, testifies on the question of waging a war of aggression. • February 14, 1946: The Soviet prosecutors try to blame the Katyn massacre on the Germans. • February 19, 1946: The film Cruelties of the German-Fascist Intruders, detailing the atrocities that took place in the extermination camps, is screened. • February 27, 1946: Witness Abraham Sutzkever testifies on the murder of almost eighty thousand Jews in Vilnius by the Germans occupying the city. • March 8, 1946: The first witness for the defense testifies – former general Karl Bodenschatz. • March 13-22, 1946: Herman Göring takes the stand. • April 15, 1946: Witness Rudolph Höss, former commandant of Auschwitz, confirms that Kaltenbrunner had never been there, but its to having carried out mass murder. • May 1946: Witness Ernst Von Weizsäcker explains the German-Soviet nonaggression pact of 1939, including its secret protocol detailing the division of Eastern Europe between and the Soviet Union. • June 20, 1946: Albert Speer takes the stand. He is the only defendant to take personal responsibility for his actions. • June 29, 1946: The defense for Martin Bormann testifies. • July 1-2, 1946: The court hears six witnesses testifying on the Katyn massacre; the Soviets fail to pin the blame for the event on . • July 2, 1946: . Chester W. Nimitz provides written testimony regarding attacks on merchant vessels without warning, itting that was not alone in these attacks, as the Unites States has done the same.

• July 4, 1946: Final statements for the defense. • July 26, 1946: Final statements for the prosecution. • July 30, 1946: Start of the trial of the “criminal organizations.” • August 31, 1946: Last statements by the defendants. • September 1, 1946: The court adjourns. • September 30 October 1, 1946: The sentencing occurs, taking two days, with the individual sentences read out on the afternoon of October 1, 1945. • The accs were successful in unveiling the background of developments leading to the outbreak of World War II, which cost a fortune in Europe alone, as well as the extent of the atrocities committed in the name of the Hitler regime. Twelve of the accused were sentenced to death, seven received prison sentences (ranging from ten years to life in prison), three were acquitted, and two were not charged.

ANALYSIS OF THE NUREMBERG TRIAL

CHAPTER XIII

THE CONTEXT OF THE TRIAL

A ll ers of the Nazi regime present at the Führerbunker, on the evening of April 30, 1945, agree that the remains of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun are taken to the garden of the Chancellery, sprinkled with essences and incinerated. To question Hitler’s suicide is not the subject of debate in this book. This book is also not about revealing the secrecy of what was going on behind the facade of the Third Reich: Hitler’s accession to power, the Reichstag fire, the Nazi Blood Purge, the Anschluss with Austria, the surrender of Chamberlain at Munich, the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the attacks on Poland, Scandinavia, the West, the Balkans and Russia, the horrors of the Nazi occupation and of the concentration camps, and the liquidation of the Jews. This is not a book about the Holocaust, the Final Solution, the decisions secretly made, the intrigues, the treachery, the motives and aberrations that led up to them, the parts played by the principal actors behind the scenes, the extent of the terror they exercised, and their technique of organizing it. This book is not also about analyzing or criticizing Hitler’s speeches – “ needs peace and desires peace,” “we recognize Poland as the home of a great and nationally conscious people,” and “ neither intends nor wishes to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to conclude an Anschluss.” This is not a book to criticize the stringent American immigration policy and the positions of countries during the conference in Evian, (1938), and Bermuda (1943). In fact, tens of thousands of Jewish sought to enter the United States, but they were barred from doing so by the stringent American immigration policy. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, the United States was struggling to survive the greatest economic depression the country had ever seen. Many Americans feared that needy immigrants would take precious jobs or place an added strain on an already burdened economy. America’s immigration laws have already placed quotas on the number of people allowed to enter the United States from other countries. For example, in 1939,

the quota allowed for 27,370 German citizens to immigrate to the United States. In 1938, more than 300,000 Germans, mostly Jewish refugees, had applied for U.S. visas. A total of 20,000 applications were approved. Despite pleas by American human-rights organizations, the U.S. State Department refused to increase the German quota any further. Under the strict national quotas, the United States openly denied visas to any immigrant “likely to become a public charge.” Shortly after she was appointed to the cabinet, s Perkins, President Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, proposed an executive order regarding refugees and immigration. Perkins suggested that the state department should give priority to immigrants seeking refuge from racial or religious persecution. The state department objected to this order because it would antagonize relations with and alienate jobless American citizens. Conferences held in Evian, (1938) and Bermuda (1943) to solve the refugee problem did not contribute to a solution. The countries invited by the United States and Great Britain were told that no country would be asked to change its immigration laws. At Bermuda, the delegates did not deal with the fate of those still in the Nazis’ hands, but rather with those who had already escaped to neutral hands. Many countries closed their doors to prospective immigrants from the Third Reich. Other countries, particularly those in Latin America, adopted immigration policies that were similar in the United States or even more restrictive. To say the truth, this is not a book on history. This is a non-fiction novel with historical facts based on the analysis of a jurist and a legal expert with a long career as a prosecutor and an investigating magistrate who believe there was much merit to judge Hitler in absentia at Nuremberg because you did not have all the elements, at the opening of the trial, on November 20, 1945, showing Hitler was legally dead. By “legal death” I mean recognition under the law of a particular jurisdiction that a person is no longer alive. A person who has been missing for a sufficiently long period (typically at least several years) may be presumed or declared legally dead, usually by a court. When a person dies, the death must be ed in a civil registry; a death certificate may be issued. I assert as a lawyer, coupled with my experience as a career judge, to say that the investigation at the crimes committed by the Nazis during the Nuremberg trial which resulted in the judgment of twenty-four senior Nazi officers before the

military tribunal of Nuremberg, did not meet all elements of evidence of Hitler’s death. Even in the case of a little doubt in the death of the German dictator, we had enough at the time of the trial, I believe that Hitler should be tried in absentia at Nuremberg. This book is not intended to cover the military actions during the Second World War and to pose the responsibility of the Western powers in the Shoah. The goal is to ask questions about some of the important decisions made during and after the war. Also, I want to question some of the aspects connected with the war. For example, where are the assets of the criminal Nazis? Who controls the fortune of the Nazis? What was the president of Argentina Juan Peron’s role and that of his agents in Italy who had helped the criminal Nazis enter Argentina? I also wonder about the form of the trial. Why the trial relied almost exclusively on istrative documents, treaties, declarations, written testimonies, newspapers, etc. Few testimonies, apart from the accused, let alone from the victims. This shortcoming prevented the early detection of the ethnic extermination policy, the so-called “Final Solution,” and the definition of crimes against humanity maintains Jewish persecution prior to 1939 and after May 8, 1945 outside the trial. How do we justify the acquittals of:

• Von Papen, chancellor in 1932, vice-chancellor and then ambassador of Hitler first government. • Schacht, minister of the economy, president of the Reichsbank, and • Fritzche, head of information at the propaganda ministry.

What was the role of the Red Cross on the “escape route”? How did the ICRC issue travel documents in Italy to facilitate the escape of the concentration camp commandants? Why did the officials in the Red Cross try to protect some criminal Nazis during the trial in Nuremberg? What was the relation between the Nazis and the Catholic Church?

CHAPTER XIV

RELATION BETWEEN THE RED CROSS AND THE NAZIS

D uring the course of World War II, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) did very little to aid the Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. Its activities can be divided into three periods:

1. September 1939–June 1941

The ICRC, through the German Red Cross confined its activities to sending food packages to those in distress in Nazi-occupied Europe. But those in ghettos and camps, were not allowed to receive aid from the ICRC. The ICRC complied with the German contention that those in ghettos and camps constituted a threat to the security of the Reich.

2. June 1941–Summer 1944

The ICRC was requested by Jewish organizations to intervene on their behalf. But the Red Cross refused to publicly protest the mass annihilation of Jews and non-Jews in the camps. It maintained that any public action on behalf of the detainees under Nazi rule would ultimately prove detrimental to their welfare.

3. Summer 1944–May 1945

After intervention by such prominent figures as Pres. Franklin Roosevelt and the king of Sweden, the ICRC appealed to Miklós Horthy, regent of Hungary, to stop the deportation of Hungarian Jews. During and after the war, the relation between the Red Cross and the Nazis was very suspicious. As Jean-Claude Favez, who was rector of the University of Geneva, had questioned in his book: The Red Cross and the Holocaust, was the ICRC aware of the sufferings of the victims of the concentration camps? How much did it know about the deportation and extermination of the Jews in Europe? Did it try to protect the persecuted Jews? In what ways could it have helped them, given the neutrality that was the basis of its foundation? These questions have remained unanswered for more than seventy years. Now with more information that had come out, it appears that the Red Cross, under the leadership of his Pres. Carl Jacob Burckhardt (1945-1948), and Max Huber, the long-time president of the ICRC (1928-1944), an experienced lawyer and devoted Christian, was not following the policy of strict neutrality in international disputes, which led to the ICRC refusing to officially condemn the Nazis for their crimes committed during World War II. Burckhardt’s long-held anti-Communism view led to him considering Nazism the lesser evil. Built on the Geneva Convention of 1864, revised in 1906, the ICRC was founded to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and violence and to provide them with assistance. But the ICRC led by Huber and Burckhardt at a difficult moment of the war was not able to fulfill entirely its mission. Ernst Kaltenbrunner claimed during the trial in Nuremberg that Carl Jacob Burkhardt, the president of the Red Cross, had had meetings not only with Ribbentrop but also with Hitler during the war, which Burckhardt insistently denied: “I never even saw the chancellor of the Reich during the war years.” Rudolph Hess revealed that Burckhardt had secretly attempted to broker a peace between the Germans and British. Burckhardt, of course, denied any connection with Hess’s mission. The accusation nevertheless affected the ICRC’s relationship with the Soviets. During the trial in Nuremberg, former German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop requested a number of prominent witnesses; Burckhardt was among them. In a letter dated March 15, 1946, Max Huber, then president of the Red

Cross, asked Burckhardt about his intentions regarding Nuremberg. On March 18, 1946, Burckhardt informed Max that he might be called to testify in Nuremberg by Ernst Kaltenbrunner as well as Ribbentrop. Burckhardt declared himself willing to take the stand in the case of Kaltenbrunner, Himmler’s subordinate and mass murderer. He wrote to Huber, “As of today, I was not approached by the authorities with an official request. Personally, I am of the opinion that one should provide testimony whenever possible, especially if human lives are at stake.” In the case of Ribbentrop, Burckhardt stated that a statement in great danger deserved help. Given his view in a correspondence with Swiss Foreign Minister Max Petitpierre, Burckhardt was fundamentally opposed to the Nuremberg trials. The Germans, he said, need to be treated “fairly”, and even after German’s defect, he continued to warm against both Soviet plans and the fallout from harshly punishing the Germans. During the trial of Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker in Nuremberg, one of the highest officials in the Nazi German Foreign Office and later German ambassador to Vietnam, many efforts had been made by the Swiss authorities and the officials of the ICRC to defend Weizsäcker. Dr. Hans Frölicher, Swiss ambassador in Berlin during the Nazi years, showed great interest in the trial. In a report to his successor he expressed strong hostility toward the court in general and the American prosecutor Robert Kempner in particular. He wrote to colleagues to say that because the Swiss could not appear in court, he would write a statement on behalf of Weizsäcker. Frölicher considered Weizsäcker a friend of Switzerland. In October 1947, just two months before the trial began several Swiss politicians also argued that Swiss honor would be damaged if Switzerland did not make at least a limited effort to defend Weizsäcker. In March 1948, Huber sent an affidavit for the defense of Weizsäcker, but as a private individual, not in his capacity as former ICRC president, as he had made very clear at the end of his letter. The letter itself was all about his work as ICRC president and his cooperation with the German Foreign Office at that time. At the end of the fourpage letter, Huber stated that he couldn’t comment on Weizsäcker’s role in the foreign office, but was convinced that it was beneficial for the Red Cross. Huber and Burckhardt were not the only Red Cross representatives coming to the aid of Weizsäcker. Walther Georg Hartmann, the former high-ranking

German Red Cross official, also provided an affidavit in Weizsäcker’s defense. Walther was the most important between Geneva and Berlin. He had been a member of the Nazi Party since 1933. Hartmann wrote at the beginning of his statement that the SS wanted to cut off all ties with an American-run organization. It was only thanks to foreign office officials like Weizsäcker that the German Red Cross had maintained its s with the league. Johannes Schwarzenberg, who had worked for the ICRC during the war and was Austrian ambassador to Italy, also sympathized with Weizsäcker. He wrote of Weizsäcker that he could be accused of “cognizance but not of complicity.” SS General Ernst-Robert Grawitz was also a fervent er of Weizsäcker and pleaded for his release in Nuremberg. In 1937, Grawitz was appointed leader of the German Red Cross. Grawitz was a fanatical Nazi and close follower of SS leader Heinrich Himmler, who himself was deeply implicated in the euthanasia murders of handicapped people and medical “experiments” in concentration camps. The presence of Grawitz at the head of the German Red Cross was to make sure that the actions of the organization were in line with the policies of the Nazi philosophy. Among those providing the affidavits for Weizsäcker figured Pope Pius XII, and also Karl Wolff (himself a prisoner in Nuremberg), who was general in the German’s army. Weizsäcker was convicted in 1949 and sentenced to seven years in jail. In response to Weizsäcker’s conviction, in August 1949, Burckhardt and Huber sent a letter to U.S. Pres. Harry S. Truman, asking him to nullify or suspend Weizsäcker’s conviction because he had aided the ICRC on several occasions during the war. Burckhardt sent the letter via the U.S. Embassy in Paris and sent a similar communication to U.S. High Commissioner John J. McCloy; both letters spoke in favor of clemency for Wiezsäcker, as U.S. ambassador David Bruce reported. At the time this letter was written, Burckhardt was the Swiss ambassador to . It was clear that the Swiss government had ed Huber and Burckhardt’s intervention near Truman in favor of leniency for Weizsäcker, because Burckhardt, as an ex-president of the ICRC, was using diplomatic channels to forward this letter. Weizsäcker’s time behind bars was not too long. He was released from Landsberg Prison after serving only eighteen months of his sentence.

CHAPTER XV

RELATION BETWEEN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE NAZIS

W hat was the attitude of the Catholic Church vis-à-vis the persecution of the Jews by Hitler? The relation between the Catholic Church and the Nazis during and after the war was very mysterious. The head of the Catholic Church at the time of the Nazi rise to power was Pope Pius XI. Although he had stated that the myths of “race” and “blood” were contrary to Christian teaching (in a papal encyclical, March, 1937), he neither mentioned nor criticized anti-Semitism. His successor, Pope Pius XII (Cardinal Pacelli), was a friend of von Papen, who had maintained his neutrality throughout the course of World War II. Although as early as 1942, the Vatican had received detailed information on the murder of Jews in concentration camps, the pope confined his public statements to expressions of sympathy for the victims of injustice and to call for a more humane conduct of the war. In , the Catholic Church did not oppose the Nazis’ anti-Semitic campaign. Church records were supplied to state authorities who had conducted the detention of people of Jewish origin, and efforts to aid the persecuted from Catholic priests and, bishops were almost nonexistent. While Catholic clergymen protested the Nazi euthanasia program, few, with the exception of Bernhard Lichtenberg, spoke out on the murder of Jews. Dr. Jozef Tiso, the head of state of Slovakia and a Catholic priest, actively cooperated with the Germans, as had many other Catholic priests. Several questions need to be answered. For example, how much help did the Vatican give to the criminal Nazis to escape the clutches of Allied justice? It is a fact that the deliverance of ex-Nazis, SS men, and known war criminals was repeated hundreds of times by Catholic prelates and priests, with no blame from Vatican and Pope Pius XII. It is a fact that a strong relation had always existed between Hitler and the Vatican. In 1932, von Papen was made chancellor of . And when Hitler took

over as the leader of in 1933, he made Papen the vice-chancellor. In August 1944, Hitler awarded Papen the Knight’s Cross of the Military Merit Order. On April 8, 1933, von Papen traveled to the Vatican to offer the “Reichskonkordat” which defined the German’s state relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. Von Papen secured Vatican religious freedom in Nazi. He was made a papal chamberlain by Pope Pius XI. But when this pope died in 1939, war-time Pope Pius XII did not renew his honorary title. Von Papen was one of the defendants at the main Nuremberg war crimes trial. The court acquitted him, stating that he had, in the court’s view, committed a number of “political immoralities,” but that these actions were not punishable under the “conspiracy to commit crimes against peace” charged in von Papen’s indictment. How do you explain this decision when the investigation has shown that Von Papen was the one who had helped Hitler become chancellor of and was lobbied for dictator near the Vatican. He was one of the most influential politicians operating with Hitler. Judge Robert H. Jackson, attorney general of the United States in Nuremberg, said it was a mistake that the court had acquitted Schacht, Fritzche, and von Papen; and that he did not declare the high staff and the chief command of the Wehrmacht a criminal. Von Papen was later sentenced to eight years in prison by a West German denazification court, but was released on appeal in 1949. Pope John XXIII restored von Papen’s title of papal chamberlain on July 24, 1959. Von Papen was also made a Knight of Malta, and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order of Pius IX. The main question is: why did the Roman Catholic Church honor Hitler’s vicechancellor, who had been rewarded by Hitler in 1944, at the height of the Holocaust? How must we interpret the position of the head of the Slovak state under the leadership of Jozef Tiso, a Roman Catholic priest, who had governed the Slovak Republic from 1939 to 1945? When the Nazis seized Czechoslovakia in 1938, the German authorities founded the Slovak Republic out of Czechoslovakia, while the Czech portion became the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Bishop Tiso became the republic’s president in 1939. Tiso collaborated with in deporting many Slovak Jews to extermination and concentration camps in , while many Jews in Slovakia had been executed by him. After the war, he was convicted for war crimes against humanity, and then executed by hanging in 1947 and buried in Bratislava.

In December 1944, Max Huber, president of the ICRC, wrote a letter to the head of the Slovak state Pres. Tiso to complain about the material assistance given by his government to . This is a very interesting read, this exchange between the two officials.

Your Excellency,

The International Committee of the Red Cross is in receipt of queries and protests from many quarters concerning the coercive measures taken against the Jews in Slovakia, in particular a large number of deportations. What we have been told runs so counter to the Christian principles of the Slovak people that we find the information impossible to believe. In the name of the International Committee of the Red Cross, I would like to ask that Your Excellency should give instructions which would enable us to refute these rumors and accusations. In particular, we would like to hear that deportations out of the country have now ceased, should any in fact have taken place. I would especially like to know whether the International Committee of the Red Cross should make public this appeal, or whether you would prefer it to be treated in confidence. This was the reply of Pres. Tiso to Max Huber:

Bratislava, January 10, 1945 Professor Max Huber President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Dear Professor Huber,

On 2 January 1945 Mr. Georges Dunand, the delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, handed me your letter, in which you ask me to state my position on the Jewish question in Slovakia. I am happy to respond to your request; there are quite a number of points I should like to make. The solution of the Jewish question in Slovakia, which manifested itself in the removal of economic and social rights from the Jewish element, was a correction of the disproportionately large influence which the Jews had in this respect as an advantaged element under both the Hungarian and Czech governments, to the disadvantage of the native Slovak population. Their influence seems to have arisen from the imbalance between the prosperity of the Jews and that of the Slovaks. Because a Jewish minority of 80,000 had 38 per cent of the national income, the 2.5 million Slovaks, together with people of other nationalities, were forced to make do with the remainder. Thus, the Jews in Slovakia were a privileged social class, and when the Slovakian people took over the government of their country, they saw no reason to protect the rights and positions the Jews had acquired. In this context, it is important not to forget the political role played by the Jews in Slovakia as ers of government policy –until 1918, that of the Magyars, and then after 1918 and until 1939, that of the Czechs– which was directed against the Slovakian people. In general, it would be true to say that or the Czechs and the Germans, than the Slovaks, both in census and vote. Thus, they indicated that it was their choice to remain a foreign element among the Slovak people. This fact puts the Jewish question in Slovakia in a particular local and political perspective. After 1939 the Slovak state, for obvious reasons, put a stop to the stream of Slovakian émigrés, which has amounted to 70 per cent of all Czechoslovakian emigration during the existence of the Czechoslovak Republic, and guaranteed every one of its people the essential conditions of their existence, even if this had to happen at the expense of the Jewish element. The exclusion of the Jewish element from Slovak life manifested itself in numerous ways. Above all, the Slovak government allowed some Jews to leave Slovakia of their own free will. Others were made expatriates and were evacuated. The government regarded these measures as justified because many

of the Jews had entered Slovakia only a few years before from a number of different European countries from Poland particularly during the First World War and from Hungary after the defeat of the communist revolution of Béla Kun by Horthy in 1920. There was a further large influx of Jews into Slovakia in the years 1933-1939 from . Of those Jews who remained Slovakian citizens, many were allowed to stay in their normal jobs, while others were legally restricted as to the occupations they could carry out. These latter were concentrated according to the relevant laws, and they were given the opportunity to do non-professional jobs in factories they ran themselves. I gave concessions to many Jews, some with the effect that they would not be regarded by the law as Jews and others which allowed them to stay in their posts and professions, some of them even as civil servants and in other public offices. There was a big change in the Jewish question in Slovakia as a result of the partisan uprising in the months of August, September and October 1944. The majority of free Jews left their workplaces, and those who were in concentration camps left their camps and ed the partisans. Thus, they ed the enemies of the Slovak state. And thus, during the battles against the partisans, there were several interventions by the German army, who for security reasons did not want any enemies –whether actual or potential– to remain and, for this reason, deported not only a large number of Jews from Slovakia but also Slovaks, both military and civilian persons. The Slovak government protested but, until now, has not been able to obtain the return of all these people from . In view of the fact that Slovakia has become a zone of operations, the deciding factor in whether such regrettable attacks occur in the future is simply the question of whether a particular sector holds the position of ally or enemy. Finally, it must be itted that the solution of the Jewish question in Slovakia did, in certain cases, cause tangible invasions of individual liberty. It was the honest intention of the Slovak government to prevent or to alleviate the effects of such occurrences. But it must be understood that they resulted from the war, which always gives rise to much harsher social, political, and economic problems both between and within nations that would arise in a time of peace.

But the plain truth of the matter is that we tried to be as humane as circumstances permitted in the solution to the Jewish question. I would ask you to regard the contents of this letter as confidential. My very best wishes to the ICRC for its work and to you yourself as its president. A community of interest between the Catholic Church and the Nazi has been developed during the long period of the war. The Nazi opposition to the National Bolshevism and the National Communism was shared with the church. In July 1933, Nazi signed a Concordat with the Vatican, under Pope Pius XI, that guaranteed the freedom of Catholicism. In return, the Catholics, in effect, abandoned political activity in and dissolved their political organizations. The Catholic leaders opposed the Nazi position only as it conflicted to church matters and interests. If the German bishops meeting in 1934 at Fulda () condemned Alfred Rosenberg’s Myth of the “Twentieth Century”, a Nazi ideological tract based on racism, blood, soil, and Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Münster defended the church against the totalitarian pretentions of Nazism and especially euthanasia. They were hundred-thousand loyal Catholics priests and bishops who ed Hitler and his totalitarian regime. For example, Bishop von Galen considered it his duty to advocate the defense of against the Western Allies, and conducted a mass for Hitler, after the latter’s suicide, three days before the war ended. As a Bishop, von Galen was a strong German nationalist, who considered the Treaty of Versailles unjust and viewed Bolshevism as a threat to and the Church. Same he condemned the Nazi worship of race in a pastoral letter on January 29, 1934 his selective opposition to elements of National Socialism did not amount to solidarity with excluded groups such as the Jews. He was silent on the issues of roundups, deportations, and mass murder of Jews. Von Galen believed was the last bulwark against the spread of godless Bolshevism. Parts of a sermon he gave in 1943 were used by the Nazis to aid in the enlistment of Dutch men to voluntary the SS. In 1937, Pope Pius XI had issued an encyclical, “Mit brennender Sorge” (With burning concern), which condemned the racial myth, but while the Vatican tried to protect Jewish converts to Catholicism, it did not oppose Nazi anti-Semitic policy. A proposal for a papal encyclical against racial anti-Semitism was

rejected by Pius XII. During the Nazi rule terror, 4,000 priests from all over Europe were murdered. At Dachau alone there were 2,771 priests who had being arrested because defending their beliefs against Hitler. 129 German Catholic priests and 2 Protestants pastors were sentenced to death. No official condemnation to those persecutions from the Vatican. There were 30 million Catholic in . Although Jews were helped clandestinely, the Vatican never publicly recognized that the defense of the Jews was a Christian duty. A book published by Austrian scholar Gerald Steinacher, Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice, lays out in powerful detail how and why the Catholic Church, through its personal, financing, and aid from institutions, committees, and priests, protected Nazi war criminals and helped them escape Allies’ justice. David Cymet, in his book History vs. Apologetics: The Holocaust, The Third Reich, and the Catholic Church, explains that the archbishop of Genoa, Cardinal Giuseppe Siri (1906-1989) with the help of the bishop Alois Hudal and a Croatian priest named Krumoslav Stjepan Draganovic, aided in establishing the escape of many criminal Nazis in his own diocese. Siri also established the “National Committee for Emigration to Argentina,” which would become the main heaven for Axis criminals and operatives. Franz Stangl, who was the commandant of the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps during Operation Reinhard, and made his way to South America as the Red Army approached, was among the Nazis to be ed by Catholics priests. Stangl worked for Volkswagen do Brasil and was arrested in Brazil in 1967, extradited to West , and tried for the mass murder of nine hundred thousand people. In 1970, he was found guilty and sentenced to the maximum penalty, life imprisonment. He died of heart failure six months later. Among the others who had escaped Allies’ justice by the of powerful organization was Dr. Josef Mengele, named the Angel of Death. Mengele ed the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II and, then transferred to the Nazi concentration-camps service in early 1943 and was assigned to Auschwitz. He performed deadly human experiments on prisoners and was a member of the team of doctors who had selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers. After the war, he fled to South America, where he evaded justice for the rest of his life. He died February 7, 1979, at Bertioga, Sao Paulo, Brazil (aged sixty-seven). There were also Erich Priebke, who had led the massacre at the Ardeatine Caves

in August 24 1944, in which hundreds of Romans were slaughtered; Gerhard Bohne, who had led the Nazi euthanasia program; and Klaus Barbie, the “butcher of Lyon.” Steinacher, in another book, Humanitarians at War: The Red Cross in the Shadow of the Holocaust, provides the story of how the Nazis had escaped justice. Steinacher notably reveals how Nazi war criminals escaped from Allies’ justice at the end of the Second World War, fleeing through the Tyrolean Alps to Italian seaports. The author also highlights the key roles played by the Red Cross, the Vatican, and the Secret Services of the Nazi power. The Red Cross made it possible for thousands of Nazis, war criminals, and collaborators including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele to slip through the hands of justice and to find refuge in North and South America, and Spain. The book revealed how the Counter Intelligence Corps (the predecessor to the CIA) recruited former SS men to advice U.S. intelligence agencies and fled them out of Sovietoccupied areas of Austria and Eastern Europe into Italy and on to South America. A long age is also related to the collaboration among officials, governments, and businessmen in the territories occupied by the Nazis. Then, we understand why it was not a good decision for many to judge Adolf Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg, particularly Stalin.

CHAPTER XVI

CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT, AND STALIN

I t was evident by accelerating the trial in Nuremberg that the Allies wanted to create a sense of international unity among the four countries that won the war. The whole truth was that while Roosevelt and Churchill had not committed mass murder, it was not the case for Stalin, who was responsible for the horrific actions of murder, starvation, torture and exile during the Stalin era. Opening Hitler’s trial in absentia in Nuremberg could lead to a true debate on the hidden Soviet actions during the Second World War. Some questions about the gulags and the murder of the 15,000 Polish Jews certainly will come out. After the war, it was discovered that in 1939 and 1940 after Russia had occupied Eastern Poland, 15,000 Polish officers under Russian control had disappeared. The Russian NKVD (the Russian secret police) was in control of these prisoners. After the war, at Katyn in Poland, over 4,400 bodies of these men were discovered. Their hands were wired behind their back, and they had been shot on the back of the head. Stalin’s government denied any part of this, but later, a Russian official (Yeltsin) turned over documents that the NKVD had executed these Polish officers under direct orders from Stalin. Judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg was not in the best interests of the Russians, particularly of Stalin, who wanted the dossier quickly to be closed. In fact, Stalin had ed Hitler in several crimes of mass murder for example, the killing centers in the East, a huge area that embraced Poland, the Baltic States, and vast Russian territories. It was divided into four istrative units: Warthegau, consisting of the Polish western regions annexed to the Reich, under Arthur Karl Greiser; the Baltic States, including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the rather indefinite area of White Russia, with Riga at the seat of the occupation authorities; the general government of Central Poland, under Hans Frank; and Ukraine, under Alfred Rosenberg’s Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. The East was the central scene of Jewish suffering, the terminal of all deportations, the place from which there was hardly ever any escape and where

the number of survivors rarely reached more than 5 per-cent. The East had been the center of the prewar Jewish population in Europe; more than 3 million Jews had lived in Poland, 260,000 in the Baltic States, and more than half of the estimated 3 million Russia Jews in White Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea. Hadn’t Stalin attacked Finland and divided Poland in 1939 with complete impunity? According to official documents, Stalin is responsible for the murder of millions of opponents during his regime of absolute personal dictatorship. Was it not with the complicity of Russia on September 1, 1939, that the Germans had invaded Poland? This attack triggered World War II. It is also recognized that the German-Soviet pact, officially treated as non-aggression between and the Soviet Union, provoked the Polish invasion. A set of diplomatic and military agreements signed on August 23, 1939, in Moscow by the German foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and the Soviet Union’s Vyacheslav Molotov in the presence of Joseph Stalin resulted in the strengthening of Hitler’s power, and at the same time, these accords encouraged to invade several countries in Europe. In addition to a commitment of neutrality in the event of a conflict between one of the two parties and the Western Powers, the German-Soviet pact contained a secret protocol that divided between and the USSR a number of countries and territories to be annexed: Finland, Poland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia. This pact ended June 22, 1941, because of the unilateral decision of Hitler to attack the USSR by triggering Operation Barbarossa. Hitler had long ired Stalin, regarding him as “one of the extraordinary figures in world history,” and once surprised a group of friends declaring that he and the Soviet leader had much in common since both had risen from the lower classes, and when one listener protested accusing Stalin as a former bank robber, Hitler replied: “If Stalin did commit a bank robbery, it was not to fill his own pockets but to help his party and movement. You cannot consider that bank robbery.” Although Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were all fighting the same enemy; Churchill and Roosevelt had very little in common with Stalin, particularly with regard to human values. Many German officers captured at Stalingrad had been executed by Stalin. During a meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill at Teheran on November 28, 1943, when the subject turned to what to do to prevent the

German military from causing another war in the future, Stalin spoke up that perhaps it would be the best to shoot 50,000 of the German top officers. Stalin’s remark about executing 50,000 German officers may have been related to the Katyn massacre. Was it not under Stalin’s regime that Russian submarine Shch-213, on February 24, 1942, had torpedoed the ship Struma, carrying Jewish refugees from Romania to Palestine? A total of 768 refugees and 10 crew perished in the shipwreck that was considered the greatest sea disaster during the Second World War. Only one person was saved in the tragedy: the young David Stoliar aged 19 at the time. The Nuremberg trials have also been criticized as “incomplete justice.” The Allied nations that tried and convicted the leading Nazis at Nuremberg did not come to the table with clean hands. The Soviet Union as I said had participated in ’s invasion and occupation of Poland and had been implicated in the massacre of several thousand Poles in the Katyn forest. Judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg was also not in the best interests of the United States, Great Britain, and many other leaders in Europe. Yet while aware of many involved flagrant violations of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), as well as other international agreements, most leaders in Europe took no strong action against . Those leaders had adopted a soft line on the Hitler regime, ignoring or encouraging his actions. The Munich Agreement was a good example of that attitude. With Hitler menacing Czechoslovakia, British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, had met the German dictator three times on September 1938. At the first of these meetings, on September 15, Chamberlain agreed to Hitler’s demands:” Britain urged Czechoslovakia to concede the Sudetenland to . The two leaders met again a week later and Hitler’s position had hardened. He demanded German forces be granted immediate access to the Sudetenland region. On September 29, Hitler (), Chamberlain (Great Britain), Mussolini (Italy), and Daladier (French) met in Munich. Their leaders signed an agreement approving the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland, provided Hitler proceed no further into Czechoslovakia. German troops invaded the Sudetenland two days later. In December 1938, elections there gave a 97.3 per cent vote for the Nazi Party.

Leaders in Europe preferred to make concessions to rather than risking another devastating war. This approach has become known as appeasement. The Versailles treaty for example prohibited from stationing any military forces in the region surrounding the Rhine river that was a buffer zone between and her western neighbors: , Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland. On March 1936, Hitler ordered German troops back into the Rhineland, in defiance the treaty. Neither London, Paris, Brussels, Moscow, or Amsterdam, had opposed the re-militarization of the Rhineland. Judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg could bring also many other embarrassing questions to the British and the American governments. In fact, bombing raids conducted by the United States and the Great Britain during World War II left thousands of civilians dead in cities like Dresden (), 80,000 people were killed in Nagasaki, and 66,000 at Hiroshima (Japan). President Roosevelt had implemented a relocation program for more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese descent that confined them to concentration camps around the United States.

CHAPTER XVII

CRITICS OF THE TRIAL

D uring interviews with the Soviets, in the interviews given to newspapers, radio, and television channels, the man who had first discovered the corpses of Hitler and Eva Braun, Heinz Linge, the faithful servant of the dictator, said: “When I entered, on my left, I saw Hitler. He was in the right corner of the couch … Hitler’s head was slightly tilted forward. On his right temple, there was a hole about the size of a ten-cent coin.” While many historians have agreed on the German dictator’s suicide version, many still question it. H. D. Baumann and Ron T. Hansig, the authors of Hitler’s Escape, are among those who question the thesis of suicide, a thesis also previously refuted by Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, who was convinced of Hitler’s escape to Spain in April 1945. In the spring of 1945, Heinrich Himmler, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Hans Krebs, and Joseph Goebbels committed suicide to escape arrest. From November 20, 1945, to October 1, 1946, initiated by the Allied Forces, twenty-four senior Nazi officials were judged in the Nuremberg trial. Twentyone of them were present in person to attend the debates. This historic trial is under the authority of the international military tribunal established by the London agreements of August 8, 1945, and composed of four judges, four prosecutors, and four Soviet, French, American, and British assessors. For more than ten months, the accused appeared for conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. More than four hundred journalists were present to cover the event. The accused were the following: Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim Von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Martin Bormann, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Walther Funk, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Gustav Krupp Von Bohlen, Robert Ley, Fritzche Hans, Alfred Rosenberg, Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur Von Schirach, Frantz Von Papen, Hjalmar Schacht, Konstantin Von Neurath, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Albert Speer, Julius Streicher, Fritz Sauckel, and Alfred Jodl.

Despite the Nuremberg verdict, hundreds or even thousands of Nazis were still at large. These former ers of the German dictator, suspected of war crimes, were still numerous to have not been brought to justice. Since 2001, 104 former Nazis have been convicted for their participation in the Holocaust, where about 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices. This book raises the question of how it is relevant to know if there had been no irrefutable evidence about the suicide of Adolf Hitler at the time of the judgment of the Nazi criminals in Nuremberg in November 1945, if there was not a legal document attesting the death of the German dictator, and, finally, if we did not collect all the necessary evidence on the most controversial issue, namely, whether Hitler was alive or gone. Why did the military tribunal in Nuremberg not judge Adolf Hitler in absentia? The mere statement of German Gestapo leader Heinrich Muller revealing to U.S. interrogators, the U.S. CIC, that he arranged the escape of Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun to Barcelona, Spain, on April 22, 1945, was an element of sufficient doubt to consider Hitler as disappeared at the time and the necessity to judge him in Nuremberg. Why had Stalin spread the story in 1945 that Hitler had escaped when he knew the body had been found? We have a lot to say about Alexander Iljitsch Besymenski’s explanation: “First, it was resolved not to publish the results of the forensic medical report but to hold it in reserve in case someone might try to slip into the role of the Führer saved by a miracle.” Second, “it was resolved to continue the investigations to exclude any possibility of error or deliberate deception.” It was only in 1972 that Dr. Reidar Fauske Sognnaes, a dental forensic expert from UCLA, had discovered that the teeth pictures of the corpse’s dentures kept on file matched exactly those in the X-ray head plates of Hitler taken in 1943. This hard evidence, Dr. Sognnaes told the Sixth International Meeting of Forensic Sciences at Edinburgh, proved beyond doubt that Hitler was dead and the Soviets had autopsied the right body. The question is why the Soviets who had autopsied the body of Hitler hid the results? It may be imagined that the analysis of the calcined remains took place after the trial; this is another element that confirms that it was unknown in November 1945, the date of the opening of the trial, that the rest of the body found was that of Hitler. The second question is why, between the g of the London agreements on August 8, 1945, and the official opening of the trial on October 18, 1945, the four delegations that met to establish the final list of the accused decided to remove the name of Adolf Hitler from the list while eight new names were

added to it? Indeed, at the time of the meeting between the American and British delegations, the latter proposed a list of ten names, all stopped by the British and the Americans and who were charged, with the exception of Julius Streicher, as high dignitaries in the Nazi regime. The British then completed this first proposal by adding seven additional names, including that of Adolf Hitler, whose death was not yet proven. The Americans accepted the list. So who influenced the decision to remove Hitler’s name? Why did American, English, French, and Russian legal experts, who agreed on the rules of the international military tribunal and who defined the charges, not decide to judge Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg? The creation of the international military tribunal dates from August 8, 1945, and the trial opened in the autumn of the same year, it is obvious that we did not yet have all the justifying evidence to prove Hitler’s death. Surely, there was a lack of the results of the Russian experts on the analysis of the calcined remains presented as those of the dictator at the moment when the investigation of the case began only a few months after the taking of Berlin. To end the Second World War by setting up a tribunal in Nuremberg and opening a judicial procedure to try the German Nazis is a decision that is certainly more political than legal. About my critics on the Nuremberg trial, other questions need to be asked. For example, a surprising number of Hitler’s family and many of his associates have not been brought to justice and have not been interrogated by the prosecution: the four secretaries; his two favorite architects, Speer and Giesler; his pilot, Baur; his chauffeur, Kempka; his valet, Linge; Heim and Koeppen, who copied down his table conversations; the best friend of his wife, Frau Schneider; his two favorite fighters, Otto Skorzeny and Hans Ulrich Rudel; and the three women he particularly ired: Leni Riefenstahl, Gerdy Troost, and Helene Hanfstaengl. A number of his adjutants and close friends officers not only had not been interrogated during the investigation but also talked freely of their experiences a few years after the verdict: Puttkamer, Engel, Winsche, Schulze and, Günsche. With the Russians completely encircling Berlin, to the point that even a fly could not leave the capital so well controlled, how to explain that Martin Bormann who was until the last moment in the company of Hitler, refugee in the bunker, could had been escaped of the capital without there ever being any trace of his person until date? Bormann was sentenced in absentia by the Nuremberg military tribunal. How to explain the judgment of acquittal of von Papen who not only gave the power to Hitler but played an active role in the implantation of

Nazism in ? How can one also explain the acquittals of Baldur Von Schirach and Hans Fritzche, who were close collaborators of Hitler? To end a war by setting up a court and opening a judicial procedure to try the leaders of the defeated belligerent power is a decision that is certainly more political than legal. From this we understand the political decision not to judge Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg. Accepting the confirmation of the death of the German dictator even before the found remains are authenticated means politically the end of the Second World War. On the other hand, my point of view as a lawyer, coupled with my experience as a former judge who has had a long career investigating criminal cases, the most popular of which is the Raboteau affair placed in annex of this book, goes beyond the political process aimed at pursuing Nazi criminals in Nuremberg, particularly the absence of Hitler’s name as accused. For the jurist, even in the case of crippled doubt about the death of Hitler, the latter is considered by law to be disappeared, and even before the full outcome of the investigation to confirm his death, Adolf Hitler should be tried in absentia in Nuremberg. We must accept that judging Hitler, even in absentia at the time, was not to the advantage of Stalin who was in the camp of the Allies. Judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg would have opened a public debate on senior officials and businessmen of the occupied territories who had participated and cooperated with the dictator. In addition, a verdict recognizing Hitler’s guilt at the time, would had allowed the Allies to have a legal document to confiscate legally the assets of officials who had collaborated with the Nazis, and force them to repay humanity for all the losses caused by the war. This book comes from my will to prevent Hitler from achieving his ultimate goal: to disappear without having to report to justice. This is a fictitious judgment, but the important thing is to create this tribunal and even symbolically condemn Adolf Hitler.

THE TRIAL

CHAPTER XVIII

OPENING STATEMENT AT THE HEARING

O n September 30, 1946, the four judges representing the four victorious countries of the Second World War –the United States, USSR, Great Britain, and – opened the last act of the Nuremberg trial. On October 1, at 1:50 pm, twenty-four senior German leaders accused of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, as well as eight organizations of Nazi , awaited the verdict. Each of them stood in the courtroom, listening in silence to the reading of the sentence, and then he was brought back to his cell, while the next accused came to take his place in the box. Twelve of them were sentenced by hanging: Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Julius Streicher, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jold, and Seyss-Inquart. Martin Bormann was sentenced in absentia. Rudolf Hess, Walther Funk and Erich Raeder were sentenced to life in prison; Konstantin von Neurath, Karl Dönitz, and Albert Speer to several years of detention. Finally, Baldur von Schirach, Frantz von Papen, and Hans Fritzche were acquitted. Those sentenced to death were hanged on October 16, 1946, except for Hermann Göring, who had poisoned himself the day before in his cell. The curtain that had closed on Tuesday, October 1, 1946, rose on Monday at 10:00 a.m., October 21, with the special hearing of the judgment in absentia of Adolf Hitler. A larger crowd than the one awaiting the judgment of the twentyfour Nazi criminals, hurried to follow the course of the trial. This crowd of journalists, military officials, historians, representatives of human rights organizations, and activists, took place in the early hours of the day inside the court to follow the trial in absentia of the German dictator considered missing because of the absence of a legal record to confirm his suicide. Inside, it was like the effervescence of the big days. Armored cars and light tanks were placed near the Palace of Justice, where all entrances were guarded by large detachments of MP. There were soldiers everywhere in the hallway, dressed in olive green; they held weapons of war in their hands to intimidate the newcomers. Uniformed or

plainclothes policemen (with earpieces and handguns clearly visible in the armpit or belt) guarded every door. They examined the papers of all those who had come to attend the hearing and searched their pockets and other parts of the body thoroughly. Snipers were placed on the roof of the tribunal and on the roofs of other neighboring buildings. Severe control was exercised inside the large building. Those who left the courtroom had to have special permission to return to the courtroom.

It was in the presence of a large crowd that the president had declared the hearing open. There were eight, four incumbents, who alone had the right to vote and four alternates whose role was advisory. The English judge, Geoffrey Lawrence, chaired the proceedings in Nuremberg. He was assisted by Norman Birkett. Francis Briddle, former minister of justice, and John J. Parker, judge at the Federal Court of Appeal, represent the United States. Major General I. T. Nikitchenko and Lt. Col. A. F. Volchkov, only to sit in uniform, represented the USSR. The French judge, Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, who had already represented during the negotiation of the London agreement, and his deputy, Robert Falco, established the Nuremberg military tribunal, which decided against the twenty-four senior Nazi officials, on October 1, 1946. Judge Taylor, a retreated general in the Australian army, replaced Judge Lawrence in Adolf Hitler’s impeachment and judgment in absentia. He gave the floor to the public prosecution. “Mr. Prosecutor, you have the floor for your indictment.” The attorney general of the criminal chamber in Toronto, Mr. Telford Parker, spoke. He replaced the chief attorney general for the United States, Robert Jackson, who had sat a few days ago at the Nuremberg trial.

CHAPTER XIX

FIRST STATEMENT FOR THE PROSECUTION

“H onorable President, with four great victorious nations to agree to define a legal framework of procedure to judge the Nazis is a victory; not only a victory for the victims, but also a victory for humanity. When now others nations that not had satisfied of the verdict had given you this great responsibility of judging Adolf Hitler, an unparalleled privilege. The crimes committed by this evil creature were so barbarous and so harmful to society that the death penalty, if demanded by the public accusation, would be too light. Therefore, we demand the death penalty by guillotine against Adolf Hitler. Before beginning with the details of the indictment, it is important that we develop our arguments that would show why Hitler should be judged in absentia.” “On October 1, 1946, the court issued a verdict against the twenty-four senior German leaders accused of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The proceedings lasted more than ten months and each defendant had the chance to defend himself on the alleged facts. In the end, some were sentenced, while others were acquitted. These Nazi criminals have implemented a macabre and devilish plan to exterminate more than 5 million Jews, blacks, homosexuals and mentally ill people in gas chambers, who were illegally arrested by the German secret services and sent to gas chambers.” “Honorable president, judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg would open the question on the crimes committed by the dictator and on the “collaboration” of many governments, officials, and businessmen with the Nazis. More than a dozen nations were occupied by the Third Reich. Another half dozen other countries, allied to , collaborated to varying degrees in the Final Solution, formulated by the Nazis between Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933 and the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, with the heroic exceptions of Finland and Bulgaria which refused to hand over the Jews for extermination. Many of the occupied nations that have established governments-in-exile, usually in London, except the Greek exiles, who were based in Alexandria,

Egypt did not take strong actions to protect their Jewish community during World War II. The installation of a centralized, rational, and planned war economy would not be possible without the consent of political and economic elite in the territories occupied. This collaboration was clearly in the mutual interests of both occupier and occupied in the summer of 1940. Participating in, cooperating with, and helping the operations of German wartime, were the only option for officials and businessmen in the occupied territories.” “Marshall Philippe Pétain, chief of the French State from 1940 to 1944, encouraged an intensification of ’s economic collaboration with the Germans in 1943-1944 at the very time when the final defeat of the Axis powers appeared to be in sight. The authoritarian government led by Pétain participated in Jewish expulsions and turned into a puppet country. Vichy’s government was a regime tied to the Nazis. Conducting a horrible civil war against the French resistance, the regime implemented numerous anti-Jewish laws, and sent tens of thousands of Jews to the death camps. Within six months, sixty thousand non-French citizens had been interned in thirty concentration camps in . In November 1942, French troops fighting under the Vichy flag fought British and American forces in Morocco. Pétain and his government collaborated with and even produced a legion of volunteers to fight in Russia. , under Hitler’s rules, had accepted the government’s creation of a collaboration armed militia, the Milice, under the command of Joseph Darnand, who, along with German forces, led a campaign of repression against the French resistance [Marquis]. General de Gaulle himself never once mentioned the plight of French Jews in any of his wartime broadcasts.” “Many Dutch people actively collaborated with the Nazi regime. Many Dutch citizens simply stood by while Jewish men, women, and children were taken from their homes and rounded up on the streets, while some pinned yellow pieces of cloth to their clothing to express their sympathy for those who were forced to wear the Stars of David. It is clear that Nazis and officials in occupied territories were active participants in the horrifying events that had unfolded during the Holocaust.” “In the public sphere, the Dutch press generally ed or tolerated the Nazis as a means to keep their businesses in existence. The central registration office of the Netherlands gave the Nazis complete lists of the Jews who had been ed with them. The Dutch police are most often implicated in collaboration with the Nazis. The reichskommissar tried to model the police

units force like the SS in . ‘“…instructed by German and Dutch SS and police leaders and subjected to a mixture of Prussian barrack drills, Nazi ideology, and practical training in the struggle against organized resistance.’” [Hirschfeld, p. 168]. After the war, of the resistance were active in the arrests of Dutch collaborators. It has been estimated that in Holland, between 120,000 and 150,000 persons were arrested in connection with charges of collaboration.” “The case of collaborating with the Nazis in Belgium and Poland was not different. Many of the Jews living in Belgium, when it was occupied in 1940 were refugees from other places. Since these people were not citizens, the Belgian government felt no special responsibility toward them, but did make special efforts to protect only the Jews who ran the economically important diamond trade in Antwerp. With a total population of about 35 million, Poland had 3.2 million Jews, by far the largest Jewish community in 1939 Europe.” “Italy, with Mussolini, was the country in Europe that had collaborated more openly with the Nazis. A German-Italian agreement was reached between December 1943 and January 1944, with the provision issued for the confiscation of already seized Jewish property on January 4, 1944. That measure was followed by one for the dissolution of Jewish communities and confiscation of their holdings on January 28, 1944. The Third Reich and the RSI had come to an agreement between December 14, 1943, and February 6, 1944, over the delivery to the Germans and the subsequent deportation (and murder) of the Jews arrested by the Italians. The overwhelming majority of arrests made by the Germans, including the notorious roundup of October 16, 1943, in Rome, received organizational from the Italians. Without this , it would not have been possible for the Germans to obtain the essential lists of the names of Jews living in every city and town. Frequently, such involved the physical presence and direct collaboration or action of Italian forces working along-side the German military. As it has been established, the Italian police was in charge of tracking down Jews and, their arrest and internment at Fossoli, and the Germans were responsible for their deportation.” “On October 16, 1943, a thousand Roman Jews were arrested in Rome based on the lists of names supplied by Demorazza, the office for racial affairs of the Italian ministry of the interior) and the Roman Fascist Federation. On November 5 and 6, 1943, in Montecatini, Italy, twenty-one Jews were arrested by Italians under German supervision. In Sienna, as in Florence, the arrests of Jews began

the same two days under German direction by Theodor Dannecker. SS Captain Dannecker was personally responsible for coordinating the arrests of Italian Jews in the fall of 1943, beginning with the Roman roundup of October 16, for which he had received logistical from Rome’s police headquarters. He was in charge of roundups in Florence, Siena, Bologna, and Montecatini. He supervised the first deportation transport, which left Milan for Auschwitz on December 6, 1943. His previous experiences were in , where he was in charge of organizing the arrest and deportation of the Jews in the French capital between 1940 and 1942.” “In mid-December 1943, German foreign minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop asked Ambassador Rudolf Rahn, the Reich’s political and diplomatic representative in Italy, to inform Mussolini, who had taken the initiative and given the order for the arrest of the Jews, of the ‘“German government’s satisfaction with the [Italian government’s] recognition of the need based on security reasons to intern all of Italy’s Jews in concentration camps.”” Rahn must invite the Italians to intensify this procedure “’in the interests,”’ claimed the note, “’of protecting the area of operations [in north-central Italy] from undesirables.”’ The prefect of Grosseto, Alceo Ercolani, encouraged by Ribbentrop’s compliments, made an announcement to the directorate general of public security, stating that ‘“all Italian Jews of the Province of Grosseto, even if they have been exonerated, will be interned.”’ He specified that a ‘“concentration camp”’ at Roccatederighi, a small town near Grosseto, would begin operations on November 28. A few weeks later, a German report expressed satisfaction with Ercolani’s order for the internment of the Jews, praising the prefect of both Grosseto and Pisa as “’energetic and dynamic”’ and for their ‘“lively desire for loyal collaboration.”’ “As the professor Antony Polonsky, expert on Polish Jewish history, notes, ‘“Without a widespread consensus that it was desirable to be rid of most Jews, the Nazi extermination program would have been far less successful.”’ “Honorable President, officials in the occupied territories and European businessmen collaborated with the Nazis to protect their interests. However, it must be honestly itted that the governments of , Belgium, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Denmark in exile have sometimes expressed their dissatisfaction with the officials of their countries who collaborated with Hitler. The Belgian government-in-exile invoked article 115 of the Penal Code, which threatened severe penalties for certain kinds of

collaboration. The Dutch government in exile, known as the London Cabinet, headed by Queen Wilhelmina, condemned any collaboration with Arthur SeyssInquart, who controlled the work force in the Netherlands. Early in 1943, the Dutch intelligence service in London was reorganized, and in 1944, a new organization called the SOE was created. In August 1944, the SOE was able to drop thirty thousand hand weapons into Holland, where most were quickly hidden by of the Dutch Resistance. The Nazis were able to detect fifteen thousand of the weapons, but the remaining arms helped the Dutch forces of the interior provide substantial help to the liberating armies in the eastern and northern parts of the country.” “The same is also true of several resistance organizations in the occupied territories that have used all their resources to fight the Germans. In 1943, the Dutch underground press began to publish resistance newspapers. By the end of the war, there were over one thousand papers in existence. During the war, only 15 percent of Dutch university students signed the loyalty statement. Many Dutch students actively rebelled by refusing to sign the statement, while knowing the consequences of their actions. of trade unions and employee organizations, including farmers, artists, and especially writers and sculptors, and most of the medical profession resisted the formation of new organizations for their professions. The Dutch government in exile revised its 1937 guidelines in May 1943 to strengthen the original injunction against officials and businessmen who had collaborated with the Nazis. The 1943 guidelines specifically criticized the collaboration of higher officials, those ‘“who should have been an example, and who have not been consciously aware of their duty,”’ those who have failed to demonstrate the correct attitude by example and leadership.” “Judging Hitler in absentia in Nuremberg would open a public debate on top officials, governments, and businessmen in the occupied territories who have participated and cooperated with Hitler. Also, a verdict in Hitler’s guilt by contumacy would allow the assets of those officials and corporations to be confiscated to reimburse the cost of the war.” More importantly, it would allow the public to have a better understand of the history of the Holocaust, “Final Solution”, and Nazis terror in the conquered lands.”

CHAPTER XX

NAZI TERRORS IN THE CONQUERED LANDS

“H onorable President, Adolf Hitler is guilty of coordinating and authorizing as führer the actions of the principal defendants at the Nuremberg military tribunal; crimes reported in the judgment of October 1, 1946, and particularly the persecutions of Jews in the occupied territories.” “The persecution of European Jewry in the conquered lands must be divided into two periods. The measures taken by the Nazis prior to the ‘“Final Solution”’ in , Austria, and Czechoslovakia were all taken publicly. Once the war began, obtaining information became more difficult. By Hitler’s decision, the rules in the conquered lands were a hundred hostages shot for every German killed. In all, 29,660 French hostages were executed by the German during the war; 40,000 died in French prisons. The number for Poland was 8,000 and for Holland 2,000. On Hitler’s express orders, reprisals for the killing of Germans in Denmark were to be carried out in secret ‘“on the proportion of five to one.”’ Denmark has become known as a system of ‘“cleaning murders”’ substituted for the publicly proclaimed shooting of hostages in , Belgium, Holland, Norway, Poland, and Russia.” “On October 22, 1941, a French newspaper Le Phare, published the following notice: ‘“Cowardly criminals in the pay of England and Moscow killed the feldkom-mandant of Nantes on the morning of October 20. Up to now the assassins have not been arrested.”’ As expiration for this crime I have ordered that fifty hostages be shot, to begin with … Fifty more hostages will be shot in case the guilty should not be arrested between now and October 23 by midnight.” “Dozens of secret orders signed by General Keitel were produced at Nuremberg ordering the taking and shooting of hostages. ‘“It is important,”’ Keitel decreed on October 1, 1941, ‘“that these should include well-known leading personalities or of their families,”’ and General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, the

German commander in , in 1942, said, ‘“The better known the hostages to be shot the greater will be the deterrent effect on the perpetrators.”’ Of all the war crimes that he claimed he had to commit on the orders of Hitler, that was ‘“the worst of all,”’ Keitel said on the stand at Nuremberg.” “On December 12, 1941, Keitel issued a directive explaining the Führer’s orders. In principle, he said, ‘“The punishment for offenses committed against the German state is the death penalty.”’ “Lt.-Cdr. Whitney R. Harris of the U.S. Attorney’s Office questioned Otto Ohlendorf, appointed by Hitler, head of Einsatzgruppe D, in his wartime activities. The Einsatz groups had first been organized by Himmler and Heydrich to follow the German armies into Poland in 1939 and there round up the Jews and place them in ghettos. At the beginning of the Russian campaign in 1941, in agreement with the German Army, they were ordered to follow the combat troops and to carry out phase one of the “Final Solution.” Four Einsatzgruppen were formed for this purpose, Groups A, B, C, D. Ohlendorf commanded Einsatzgruppe D between June 1941 and June 1942, and the group was assigned the southernmost sector in the Ukraine and attached to the Eleventh Army.” “During the year, you were chief of Einsatzgruppe D, said Harris to Ohlendorf, how many men, women, and children did your group kill?” “Without hesitation, the accused answered: ‘“Ninety thousand.”’ Asked on the stand by Col. Jhon Harlan Amen what instructions his group had received, Ohlendorf answered, ‘“The instructions were that the Jews and the Soviet political commissars were to be liquidated.”’ ‘“And when you say “liquidated”, do you mean ‘“killed?”’ Amen asked. ‘“Yes, I mean killed,”’ Ohlendorf answered, explaining that this took in the women and children as well as the men. ‘“For what reason were the children massacred?”’ the Russian judge, Gen. I.T. Nikitchenko, asked. “Ohlendorf answered, ‘The order was the Jewish population should be totally exterminated.’

‘“Including the children?”’ ‘“Yes.”’ ‘“Were all the Jewish Children murdered?”’ ‘“Yes.”’ Ohlendorf, in response to further questioning by Amen, described how a typical killing took place: ‘“The Einsatz unit would enter a village or town and order the prominent Jewish citizens to call together all Jews for the purpose of “resettlement.” They were requested to hand over their valuables and, shortly before execution, to surrender their outer clothing. They were transported to the place of executions, usually an antitank ditch, in trucks – always only as many as could be executed immediately. In this way it was attempted to keep the span of time from the moment in which the victims knew what was about to happen to them until the time of their actual execution as short as possible.” ‘“Then they were shot, kneeling or standing, by firing squads in a military manner and the corpses thrown into the ditch. I never permitted the shooting by individuals, but ordered that several of the men should shoot at the same time to avoid direct personal responsibility. Other group leaders demanded that the victims lie down flat on the ground to be shot through the nape of the neck. I did not approve of these methods.”’ ‘“Why?”’ asked Amen. ‘“Because,”’ replied Ohlendorf, ‘“both for the victims and for those who carried out the executions, it was, psychologically, an immense burden to bear.”’ “In the spring of 1942, Ohlendorf declared, an order came from Himmler to change the method of execution of the women and children. They were to be dispatched in ‘“gas vans”’ specially constructed for the purpose by two Berlin firms. He described how these vehicles of death worked.” ‘“They looked like close trucks and were so constructed that at the start of the motor, the gas [exhaust] was conducted into the van causing death in ten to fifteen minutes.”’

“Amen asked, “How were the victims induced to enter the vans?” Ohlendorf replied: “They were told they were to be transported to another locality.” “At Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, in just two days, September 29 and 30, 1941 an official Einsatz report stated 33,771 persons, mostly Jews, were executed. The chief British prosecutor, Sir Hartley Shawcross, read at the Nuremberg courtroom a sworn affidavit by Hermann Friedrich Graebe, the manager and engineer of a branch office in Ukraine of a German construction firm. On October 5, 1942, Graebe said, he had witnessed the Einsatz commandos, ed by Ukrainian militia, in action at the execution pits at Dubno in Ukraine. The commandos had liquidated the town’s 5,000 Jews.” “How many Jews and Russian communists were massacred by the Einsatzgruppen in Russia? Himmler answered, ‘Ohlendorf’s Einsatzgruppen D liquidated 90,000 victims.’ Group A reported its commander, Frantz Walter Stahlecker, had executed 229,052 Jews in the Baltic region and in White Russia. Its mission was to hunt down and murder the Jews, gypsies, communists, and other ‘“undesirables.”’ In a report dated October 15, 1941, Stahlecker wrote, ‘“Considering that the population of the Baltic countries had suffered very heavily under the government of Bolshevism and Jewry while they were incorporated in the USSR, it was being expected that after the liberation from that foreign government, they would render harmless most of the enemies left behind after the retreat of the Red Army. It was the duty of the security police to set in motion these self-cleansing movements, and to direct them into the correct channels to accomplish the purpose of the cleansing operations as quickly as possible. It was no less important, in view of the future, to establish the unshakeable and provable fact that the liberated populations themselves took the most severe measures against the Bolshevist and Jewish enemy quite on their own, so that the direction by German authorities could not be found out. In Lithuania this was achieved for the first time by partisan activities in Kowno… During the first pogrom on the night of June 25-26, the Lithuanian partisans did away with more than 1,500 Jews, set fire to several synagogues or destroyed them by other means, and burned down a Jewish dwelling district consisting of about 60 houses. During the following nights, about 2,300 Jews were made harmless in a similar way.”’

“In November 1942, Himmler reported to Hitler that 363, 211 Jews had been killed in Russia from August through October. According to Karl Eichmann, the head of the Jewish office of the Gestapo, 2 million persons, almost all Jews, were killed by the Einsatzgruppen in the east. Dr. Richard Korherr, reported to his chief on March 23, 1943, that a total of 633,300 Jews in Russia had been killed.”

CHAPTER XXI

THE FINAL SOLUTION

M r. Telford, who had the role of presenting the facts of the accusation against Hitler, continued: “Honorable President, one of the main means used to terrorize the population of the occupied countries was the use of concentration camps. These had been created by the German government at the time of the seizure of power. Their original purpose was to imprison, without trial, all those who had opposed the government, or whose activity was detrimental to the Nazi authorities. With the of a secret police force, this method spread more and more, and the concentration camps eventually became places of organized and methodical extermination, in which millions of internees were murdered.” “In the istration of the occupied territories, the concentration camps served to destroy all the opposition groups. This is where the people arrested by the Gestapo were usually interned. Very often, they were sent there in convoy, without any care being taken of them. Many died on the way. The deportees who had arrived at the camp were subjected to treatment of a systematic cruelty. They were forced to do exhausting physical work. The food, the clothes, the lodging, everything was insufficient; they were, on a continuous basis, the victims of a rigorous and stupefying regime, as well as the caprices of their guardians. The report of the military justice service of the Third U.S. Army (War Crimes Section), dated June 21, 1945, describes the living conditions in the Flossenbürg concentration camp. It contains this age: The best description that can be given of the Flossenbürg camp is that of a death factory. Although the main purpose of this camp was the organization of forced labor, it served mainly through the methods used against prisoners, to kill lives. Famine rations, sadistic mistreatment, inadequate clothing, lack of medical care, sickness, beatings, hangings, cold death, forced suicides, executions, etc., played a role to achieve this result. Prisoners were murdered without reason. The killing

of Jews by hatred was commonplace. Poison injections and shootings at the back of the neck were daily occurrences. Epidemics of typhoid and typhus, which spread freely, were used as a means of eliminating prisoners. Human life no longer represented anything in this camp. Murder had become an ordinary thing, so ordinary that all those unfortunate people wanted a quick death.” “A number of concentration camps had gas chambers for the mass execution of prisoners, whose bodies were then burned in crematoria. These camps were, in fact, used for the “Final Solution” of the Jewish problem by extermination. As for the non-Jewish prisoners, they were almost all compelled to work, but the conditions in which it was carried out made the words labor and death synonyms. Detainees who were ill or unable to work were either killed in the gas chambers or sent to special infirmaries where they received no medical care. They received even worse food than the prisoners who had worked and been left to die.” “Hitler used these camps to apply his secret plan known by the code name ‘“Final Solution”’ to exterminate the Jews. The “Final Solution” [Endlösung], Honorable President, refers to ’s plan to murder all the Jews in Europe. The term was used at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, on January 20, 1942, where German officials discussed its implementation. The systematic murder of Jews began with the German’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The massacre continued during the twenty-five months of war leading to the attempt at ‘“murdering every last Jew in the German territories.”’ Across all of Germanoccupied Europe, the Jewish victims were sent on death extermination camps built for the purpose of systematic implementation of the Final Solution. There were more than forty-two thousand camps, which were death camps and millions of tortured, starved inmates perished in them. The six principal extermination camps were located in Poland: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka.” “On March 3, 1941, Wehrmacht t Operations Staff Chief Alfred Jodl repeated Hitler’s declaration that the ‘“Jewish-Bolshevik intelligentsia would have to be eliminated”’ and that the forthcoming war would be a confrontation between two completely opposing cultures. Himmler assembled a force of about three thousand men from security police, Gestapo, Kripo, SD, and the WalfenSS, as the so-called ‘“special commandos of the security forces”’ known as the Einsatzgruppen, to eliminate both communists and Jews in occupied territories. These forces were ed by twenty-one battalions of Orpo reserve police

under Kurt Max Frantz Daluege, adding up to eleven thousand men. Major Weiss explained to his officers that Barbarossa is a war of annihilation against Bolshevism, and that the battalions would proceed ruthlessly against all Jews, regardless of age or sex.” “Himmler, in his address to the SS generals at Posen on October 4, 1943, said, ‘“… I also want to talk to you quite frankly on a very grave matter. Among ourselves, it should be mentioned quite frankly, and yet we will never speak of it publicly… I mean… the extermination of the Jewish race…Most of you must know what it means when one hundred corpses are lying side by side, or five hundred, or one thousand. To have stuck it out and, at the same time, –apart from exceptions caused by human weakness, –to have remained decent fellows,-, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written…”’ “An order, prepared by Jodl and given by Keitel on July 23, 1941, carried the following, “Given the extent of the occupied eastern territories, the forces available to provide security in these territories will be sufficient only if all resistance is punished, not by legal prosecution of the guilty party, but by measures of terror sufficient to remove the population that wants to resist. Unit commanders must be able to maintain order by applying the appropriate draconian measures.” “The document, sent in 1943 by the Reich commissioner for the eastern occupied states at Rosenberg, gives a good idea of the measures actually applied. It must be possible to avoid atrocities and to bury those who have been exterminated. The method of locking men, women and children into barns and then burning down these buildings does not seem to be effective in the fight against the partisans, even if it is desirable for the extermination of the population. This method is not worthy of the German cause and seriously damages our reputation.” “The “Final Solution”, in its later stages, was not carried out by shooting, but in the gas factories, which, from beginning to end, were closely connected with the ‘“euthanasia program”’ ordered by Hitler in the first weeks of the war and applied to the Jews, the blacks, the homosexuals, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the mentally sick in the occupied territories. The total number of Jewish victim’s is estimated to have reached about 6 million as the result of Hitler’s order for the physical extermination of the whole Jewish people. This started from an earlier

order that Hitler gave Himmler in March 1941 to prepare the SS and the police “to carry out special duties in Russia and in other places in Europe.” “We shall have to finish the Jews, one way or another.” ‘“We have to annihilate the Jews wherever we find them and wherever it is all possible,”’ Hitler said. ‘“There are actually 3.5 million Jews in the general government alone. We can’t shoot these 3.5 million Jews. We can’t poison them, but we can take steps which, one way or another will lead to an annihilation success. The general government will have to become just as free of Jews as the Reich itself. When and how this is going to happen in the task for the agencies which we will have to create and establish here? And I am going to tell you how they will work when the time comes.” “Honorable President, the international military tribunal at Nuremberg, which sentenced on October 1, 1946, the twenty-four senior German officers, was informed of the written testimony of Hermann Graebe, dated November 10, 1945, describing two assassinations in mass he had attended. From September 1941 to January 1944, he was technical director at Spoldunow, Ukraine of the Joseph Jung branch in Solingen. He first describes the attack on the Rowno ghetto.” “The electric lights, which had been mounted all around the ghetto, were then lit. The SS and the militia, in groups of four to six, penetrated, or at least tried to enter the houses. When the doors and windows were closed and the inhabitants did not open in response to the beatings, the SS and the militia broke the windows, broke the doors with beams and levers and entered the dwelling. The owners were taken to the street, in the outfits they wore, without any attention given to whether they were dressed or getting out of bed … The cars were filled one after the other. The cries of women and children, the cracking of whips and the rifle shots dominated the whole thing.” “Graebe then describes the mass execution of Dubno on October 5, 1942: “Then we heard a rapid succession of shots fired from behind one of the mounds of earth. The people who had come down from the trucks, men, women and children of all ages, had to undress on the orders of SS with whips or dog whips. Without the slightest cry or crying, these people were undressed, gathered in families, embraced one another, said goodbye, and waited for the orders of another SS man who was standing by the hole, with a whip in his hand too. At

that moment, the first SS shouted something to his comrade. The latter counted about twenty people, put them aside and told them to stand behind the mound. I myself went there and found myself in front of a horrible pit. The bodies were tight against one another and stacked so that their heads alone were visible. The hole was already two-thirds full. According to me, it contained a thousand corpses. Already, the next group was approaching, descended into the hole, lay down on the previous victims and was shot.” “These crimes against the civilian population are already appalling, but, furthermore, the evidence shows that in the east, cruelties and mass executions were not all done only to suppress opposition and resistance to German occupation forces. In the territories of Poland and the Soviet Union, destined for German colonization, these crimes were part of a plan designed to get rid of the whole indigenous population by expulsion or extermination. Hitler spoke about it in Mein Kampf, and this plan became clear when Himmler wrote in July 1942, “It is not our task to Germanize the east, by giving the word “Germanize” its old meaning, which is to teach people German language and law, but we must ensure that in the east, there are only pure Germanic people.” “In August 1942, the policy introduced by Bormann for the eastern territories was summarized by one of Rosenberg’s subordinates as follows: “The Slavs have to work for us. As long as they are useless, they can die. This is why compulsory vaccination and German medical services are superfluous. It is not desirable for Slavs to reproduce.” And it is still Himmler who says, in October 1943: “The fate of a Russian or a Czech does not interest me in the least. We will take what these people can offer us in pure blood of our race. If necessary, we will do it by tearing the children out of their country and taking them here with us. The idea of some countries living in prosperity or dying of hunger interests me only to the extent that we need them to serve as slaves for our “kultur.” Otherwise, I lose interest.” “Rudolf Hess, one of the camp’s commanders who was deposed at Nuremberg on the superiority of the gas he had employed during the Final Solution said: “The Final Solution of the Jewish question meant the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe. I was ordered to establish extermination facilities at Auschwitz in June 1941. At that time, there were already in the general government of Poland three other extermination camps: Belzec, Treblinka, and Wolsek…”

“I visited Treblinka to find out how they carried out their extermination. The camp commandant at Treblinka told me that he had liquidated eighty thousand in the course of half a year. He was principally concerned with liquidating all the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto.” “He used monoxide gas, and I did not think that his methods were very efficient. So when I set up the extermination building at Auschwitz, I used Zyklon B, which was a crystallized prussic acid that we dropped into the death chamber from a small opening. It took three to fifteen minutes to kill the people in the death chamber, depending upon climatic conditions.” “We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited about a half hour before we opened the doors and removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed, our special commandos took off the rings and extracted the gold from the teeth of the corpses.” “Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we had built our gas chambers to accommodate two thousand people at one time, whereas at Treblinka, their ten gas chambers only accommodated two hundred people each.” “Then Hess continued: ‘“We had two S.S. doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners. These would be watched by one of the doctors, who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit to work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since, by reason of their youth, they were unable to work.” “Did the Jews in Europe have knowledge of the ‘“Final Solution?,”’ asked one the prosecutors. “Hess answered categorically: ‘“First at all, Hitler did not publicize the “Final Solution,” nor did the commandants ever openly speak about it. At Auschwitz, every attempt was made to fool the victims and, thereby, prevent or minimize resistance. Thus, deportees were always told that they were going to be resettled. Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated, while at Auschwitz, we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions, and we

sometimes had riots and difficulties. Very frequently, women would hide their children under their clothes, but of course, when we found them, we would send the children in to be exterminated.” “We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy, but of course, the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area, and all the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz.” “Special prisoners,” apparently Russian prisoners of war, were simply killed by injections of benzine. Our doctors had orders to write ordinary death certificates and could put down any reason at all for the cause of death.” The prosecutor observed a short pause to look at his notes and then continued: “Honorable President, Hitler was not only responsible for all the war crimes that had committed in Europe during the Second World War, but he had also participated or encouraged the Axis Allies, particularly Hirohito, Mussolini, and Tizo in numerous disgust and hatred crimes during the war.” “The Japanese emperor, one of his allied in Asia, had reigned in Japan from Dec. 25, 1926 until this day. On September 27, 1940, under Hirohito’s leadership, Japan was a contracting partner of the Tripartite Pact with and Italy forming the Axis Powers. On November 5, 1941, Hirohito approved in imperial conference the operations plan for a war against the Occident. On the following weeks, November 26, 1941, US secretary of State Cordell Hull presented the Japanese ambassador an official note from the American government, in which the United States demanded the complete withdrawal of all Japanese troops from French Indochina and China. Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo said to his cabinet, “this is an ultimatum term.” On December 1, an imperial conference sanctioned the war against the United States, United Kingdom, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.” On December 8, 1941, in simultaneous attacks, Japanese forces struck at the Hong Kong Garrison, the US Fleet in Pearl Harbor, and in the Philippines, and began the invasion of Malaya.” “On February 9, March 19, and May 29, Hirohito ordered the chief of staff of the Army, general Hajime Sugiyama, to examine the possibilities for an attack on Chungking, which led to a list of known Japanese operations planned, executed during the Second World War:

• Operation FU 1940 –Japanese invasion of French Indo-China. • Operation B 1941 –Japanese invasion of British Borneo and Dutch Borneo. • Operation E 1941 –Japanese invasion of China and Northeast British Malaya. • Operation M 1941 –Japanese invasion of the Philippine Islands. • Operation Al 1941 –Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, United States. • Operation AL 1942 –Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, United States. • Operation B 1942 –Japanese invasion of Burma. • Operation C 1942 –Japanese reconnaissance and raid operations in the Indian Ocean. • Operation D 1942 –Japanese invasion of the Andaman Islands. • Operation H 1942 –Japanese invasion of Celebes, Ambon, and Timor. • Operation J 1942 –Japanese invasion of Java, Netherlands East Indies.

• Operation K 1942 –Japanese reconnaissance and air raid on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, United S

• Operation Ka 1942 –Japanese plan to destroy the American fleet and recapture Guadalcanal • Operation L 1942 –Japanese landing operation in Palembang, Sumatra. • Operation MI 1942 –Aborted Japanese invasion of Midway Island. • Operation MO 1942 –Aborted Japanese invasion of Port Moresby, New Guinea. • Operation R 1942 –Japanese invasion of Rabaul, New Britain, and Kavieng, New Ireland. • Operation SR 1942 –Japanese invasion of Lae and Salamaua, New Guinea. • Operation T 1942 –Japanese invasion of northern Sumatra. • Operation U 1942 –Japanese invasion of Burma.

• Operation I 1943 –Japanese air raid against Allied advances on New Guinea and Guadalcan • Operation RY 1942 –Japanese invasion of Nauru and Ocean Islands. • Operation Ta 1943 –Japanese attack on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. • Operation A-Go 1944 –Japanese attack of the American fleet off Saipan, Mariana islands.

• Operation Dan-Go 1944 –Japanese operation after the failed operation U-Go offensive in In • Operation FS 1944 –Japanese cancelled plan to isolate Australia by Fiji. • Operation Fu-Go 1944 –Japanese aerial bombing of the United States via balloons.

• Operation Ha-Go 1944 –Japanese action to isolate and destroy Anglo-Indian forces at Araka

• Operation Ichi-Go 1944 –Japanese attack in Eastern China to link up Northern China and In

• Operation Sho I 1944 –Japanese attack of the American fleet off Leyte, Philippine islands; p

• Operation TA 1944 –Japanese attack on American forces at Cape Torokina, Bougainville, S • Operation U-Go 1944 –Japanese assault on Imphal and Kohima, India.

• Operation Yu/Operation Tatsumaki 1944 –Japanese surprise attack raid on American shippin • Operation Arashi 1945 –Japanese air raid on Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands.

• Operation Kikusui 1945 –Japanese special attack against American ships off Okinawa, Japa

• Operation Tan 2 1945 –Japanese attack mission against the Allied anchorage at Ulithi, Caro

“On September 1942, Emperor Hirohito signed an imperial prescript condemning to death American fliers Lieutenants Dean E. Hall Mark and William G. Farrow, and Corporal Harold A. Spatz, and commuting to life sentences Lieutenants Robert J. Meder, Chase Nelsen, Robert L. Hite, and George Barr, and Corporal Jacob Deshazer. All had participated in the Doolittle Raid and had been captured. When on the morning of December 7, 1941, the imperial Japanese Navy Air services had attacked the United States naval base at Pearl-Harbor, Hawaii territory, this attack had been one of the most criminal actions committed by Hirohito with the moral and maybe financial of Hitler. The base was attacked by 353 imperial Japanese aircraft. All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged with four sunk. The Japanese also sunk or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship; and one minelayer. One hundred eighty-eight U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed, and 1,178 others were wounded. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan, and several days later, on December 11, German and Italy each declared war on the U.S.” “As the Second World War had developed, Japan under Hirohito’s rule had forced hundreds of thousands of Korean women into life as “comfort women” sexual slaves who served in military brothels. From the invasion of China in 1937 to the end of the war, in 1945, the Japanese military regime murdered near 6 million to over 8 million people, most probably in China, Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Indochina…, including Western prisoners of war.” The prosecutor observed another pause to drink some water and continued: “Honorable President, Hitler had also openly ed all the war crimes committed by Mussolini in Italy. At the beginning of the deportations, the antiSemitic ideologist Gino Sottochiesa, famous for his campaigns since the late 1930s, a follower of Hitler’s doctrine, had urged anyone with doubts about the presence of Jews in his community to not hesitate to take actions. “We have to hunt them down without pity and without pause, because they represent the most serious threat of the present time, in which the Fatherland must wipe out all of its enemies.” “From 1943 to 1945, 8,869 Jews living on Italian soil were deported. That number amounts to about 19 percent of the 47,000 Jews recorded in the racist

census of 1936. An official Italian order to arrest Jews was issued at the end of November 1943. The Germans army and police in Italy had being involved in the arrests and deportations by Department IV-B4 of the Security Police (SiPo), headed in Berlin by Adolf Eichmann and represented in Verona, Italy, initially by SS captain Theodor Dannecker, an SS Hauptsturmführer, and an associate of Eichmann, followed by Friedrich Bosshammer from the end of January 1944. As a Judenberater, Dannecker was one of those who orchestrated the “Final Solution” in several countries during the Holocaust. With his troops, Dannecker were in charge of roundups in Florence, Sienna, Bologna, and Montecatini. He organized the first deportation transport, which left Milan for Auschwitz on December 6, 1943.” “In mid-December 1943, German foreign minister Ribbentrop asked ambassador Rudolf Rahn, the Reich’s political and diplomatic representative in Italy, to inform Mussolini of the “German government’s satisfaction with the [Italian government’s] recognition of the need based on security reasons to intern all Italy’s Jews in concentration camps.” From February 1944, German operations for the “Final Solution” in Italy were coordinated by Bosshammer from Verona headquarters. The German army commissariats stationed in the main towns in north-central Italy. From the Fossoli camp, Jewish prisoners were periodically deported to Auschwitz via Vienna, by ing into German hands.” “From September 1943 to the end of the war, the Operational zones of the Adriatic Littoral (Adriatisches Küstenland from Udine to Ljubjana) and of the Alpine Foothills (Alpenvorland: from Bolzans to Belluno) were occupied and istered directly by , through two Gauleiter (high Commissioners) answering to Hitler. The Adriatisches Küstenland which was the only concentration and extermination camp on Italian soil had operated by the Germans with local Italian . At the beginning of the civil war in the fall of 1943, Jews were killed by German soldiers in several massacres in northern Italy, and during the final months of the RSI (1945), large groups of Jews were murdered on Italian soil by Germans with Italian help. Italy had a pre-war Jewish population of 50,000 living in the country before September 1943, some 8,000 died during the Holocaust.”

CHAPTER XXII

THE CAPITULATION

“A t 1:30 a.m. on May 7, 1945, Doenitz was informed by Jodl of Eisenhower’s demands, ‘“General Smith, please inform General Jodl that unless they instantly ceased all pretense and delay, I would close the entire Allied front and would, by force, prevent any more German refugees from entering our lines. I would accept no further delay,”’ radioed the German general from his new headquarters at Flensburg on the Danish frontier full powers to sign the document of unconditional surrender. In a little schoolhouse at Reims, where Eisenhower had made his headquarters, surrendered unconditionally at 2:41 a.m. on May 7, 1945. The capitulation was signed for the Allies by Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, with Gen. Ivan Susloparov affixing his signature as witness for Russia and Gen. François Sevez for . iral Friedeburg and General Jodl signed for . The “Final Solution” ended at the capitulation of . “Now the question is, Honorable President, how many Jews were killed in the “Final Solution” by Hitler?” “According to Karl Eichmann, chief of the Jewish office of the Gestapo, who carried out the “Final Solution” under the supervision of its originator, Reinhard Heydrich, between 5 and 6 million. “The great dilemma, Honorable President, is that the principal perpetrator, Adolf Hitler, was not prosecuted or convicted during the Nuremberg judgment. Relevant information confirms that he committed suicide by shooting a bullet in his right temple to escape justice. His body, along with his wife Eva Braun’s, were carried outside and placed on the ground in the immediate vicinity of the entrance to the bunker to be burned, according to Hitler’s orders. Martin Bormann, his secretary, Otto Günsche, his personal aide-de-camp, and Heinz Linge, his valet, attended the cremation of the body. They poured about two

hundred liters of gasoline on both bodies before firing.” “However, no legal minutes have been signed to confirm the suicide. More than that, the body was not found, and it was through the German witnesses that we had details about the death. The most reliable came from Heinz Linge, the faithful servant of the dictator, who said, “When I entered, on my left, I saw Hitler. He was in the right corner of the couch. Hitler’s head was slightly tilted forward. On his right temple, there was a hole about the size of a ten-cent coin.” “But how can this simple statement, Honorable President, coming from a Hitler’s servant, be sufficient to legally declare that the accused is dead? The simple statement of German Gestapo leader Heinrich Muller revealing to the U.S. CIC that he had arranged the escape of Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun, to Barcelona, Spain, on April 22, 1945, is an element of doubt sufficient to consider Hitler as disappeared and allow his trial in front of your court.” “Stalin himself had spread the history in 1945 that Hitler had escaped. He told Harry Hopkins that Hitler’s end struck him as “dubious.” Hitler had surely escaped and was in hiding along with Bormann, Stalin said. This is why the death of the dictator remained controversial and mysterious. Even as his body smoldered, a rumor spread in the bunker that Axmann, the youth leader, had put some of Hitler’s ashes in a box with instructions to secret it outside of Berlin. News of his suicide was received with disbelief by some Germans. The parents of Fegelein, for instance, assured an American counterintelligence agent that a courier had brought a message from their son that he and Hitler were “safe and well in Argentina.” “Magistrate, Hitler is a criminal, one of the most devilish dictators known in the history of mankind. He must be tried and sentenced in absentia even if he is absent at the hearing. That is why the prosecution asks the tribunal to consider Adolf Hitler as disappeared or a fugitive so far and agrees to open the debates on the judgment in absentia of the accused.” Mr. Taylor said, “Thank you, Mr. Prosecutor. The hearing is suspended and will be resumed in the afternoon at two o’clock with the decision of the tribunal to accept whether or not there are enough elements to debate on the judgment in absentia of Adolf Hitler.”

CHAPTER XXIII

THE RESUMPTION OF THE HEARING

M r. Taylor opened the audience by the lecture of the decision of the court. Adolf Hitler, founder and central figure of Nazism, took power in in 1933 and established an imperialist and racist totalitarian dictatorship known as the Third Reich. In the 1920s, in a climate of political violence, he imposed himself at the head of the National Socialist Party of German Workers, NSDAP, the Nazi Party. “Whereas the activities of the Nazi Party since its founding in 1920, started with the attacks on the democratic structure of the Weimar Republic, the negotiations that led Field Marshal Hindenburg to appoint Hitler to the post of chancellor of the Reich on January 30, 1933, the rearmament of , were in contravention of the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and the Briand-KelloggPact of 1928, by which all the signatories, including the United States, , Great Britain and , refrain from using force to resolve a dispute among them.” “Whereas at the end of the summer of 1940, after training Hungary, Romania, and Finland in the attack he was preparing; prepared the invasion of Russia. The Reich attacked Russia without a declaration of war. Under these conditions, the invasion of Russia constitutes an act of aggression pure and simple and, as such, is a crime.” “Hitler was an all-powerful dictator. From him came all the orders. His Nazi conceptions of total war with cold calculation, and the international treaties violated by , constitute the perfect qualification of crimes against humanity.” “The aggressions of Hitler against a set of countries in Europe are qualified of war crimes. The court cites, for example, the invasion of Austria on March 1938,

Czechoslovakia on March 1939, Poland on September 1939, Denmark on April 1940, Norway on April-May 1940, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium on May 1940, on May-June 1940, Yugoslavia on April 1941, Greece on April-May 1941 and finally, Russia on June 1941.” “One considers from 1933 to 1945, millions and millions of Jewish, Black, disabled, and homosexual victims, died in extermination camps. In the USSR, for example, the mistreatment of the civilian population has claimed millions of lives. Among the 27 million victims of the Second World War on Soviet territory, there are about 3 million Jews systematically murdered, or executed because they were suspected of being resistants or communists. The same is true in Poland, and various other European countries.” “Given the scale of the crime and the magnitude of the disaster, and all the information gathered during the investigation, the judgment of the twenty-four Nazi criminals took place, a few days ago, before the Nuremberg military tribunal.” “According to relevant but not fully verified statements, on April 30, 1945, Hitler shot himself in the right temple, and his corpse was later burned by ers. The suicide thesis is confirmed by the man who first discovered the corpses of Hitler and Eva Braun: Heinz Linge. Indeed, the faithful servant of the dictator said, “When I entered, on my left, I saw Hitler. He was in the right corner of the couch … Hitler’s head was slightly tilted forward. On his right temple, there was a hole about the size of a ten-cent coin.” “Given the absence of a report of the statement, this simple statement is not sufficient to declare that Hitler has legally died. He is regarded until now by law as absent or disappeared. The absent person is said to be “not present” and is not considered as already deceased.” “No record of a judicial authority found that Hitler actually decided; and no certificate of the death of the accused was placed on the record of the investigation. In the case of Hitler, his death was not mentioned in any of the deaths at any place on the earth. It must be considered until now as disappeared; which allows taking any legal prosecution against his person. By these causes and reasons, the tribunal granted the prosecution’s motion and declared open the trial of Adolf Hitler’s judgment in absentia.”

At this stage, the prosecution asked for the floor. Mr. Taylor replied, “You have it.” The prosecutor took a moment to consult his notes before adding: “Honorable President, in the name of fairness, and in the context of a fair and contradictory trial, the prosecution asks the court to call Hitler’s name, who is to appear at the bar in person to respond to accusations of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.” Judge Taylor, addressing the clerk of the audience said, “Clerk, call the accused, Adolf Hitler.” The accused, summoned three times, did not answer. Then the prosecutor asked for the floor again.

CHAPTER XXIV

SECOND STATEMENTS FOR THE PROSECUTION

“H onorable President, the Second World War was caused by one man: Adolf Hitler. This devil creature brought death and destruction over most of the world. No one can conceive of a human being killing 6 million people just because he did not like their race and their religion. Hitler did it. Hitler had no remorse. He is a maniacal killer who organizes crime on a massive scale. He is a brutal animal with an obsession to kill all the Jews. He was a poor man’s philosophy that could only succeed with audacity. What a terrible person who started the Second World War with the consequences of the death of over 60 million soldiers and civilians, and the destruction of so many countries in Europe. It is important to say that the Second World War caused by Hitler combined with the First World War ed for more deaths than all the previous wars in history put together. “Hitler had no respect to keep his words and his promises. They say, in many ways, he is a very smart, resourceful man. It is true that he did what no one else would consider doing and got away with it but for a very short time, about twelve years of power in from 1933 to 1945. He is not as smart and resourceful as Churchill or Roosevelt or Stalin. That is why he lost the war. Hitler’s talent was his ability to convince the German people to believe in his doctrine detailed in Mein Kampf. What can one say about Hitler other than he is everything bad and evil combined into one man?” “This corrupt killer has caused World War II by convincing the Germans that they were a master race and that other races were inferior. This is the central point of his philosophy. With his oratorical genius he convinced millions of followers in the Nazi Party to discriminate Jews, Blacks, homosexuals and handicapped persons. On his assuming power in 1933, one of the first things Hitler did was to take over the education system of . Through this system, he inculcated his heinous beliefs into young Germans who believed effectively they were the master race. Jews and Blacks were sub-humans. The

Hitler Youth, under Baldur von Schirach was created. In 1938, it had over 7,7 million youths enrolled.” “Hitler used his ideas in Mein Kampf to hold over the German Youth. The more fanatical they were, the more immune they became to the people’s suffering. As an opportunist and a liar he believed he could use this type of spirit to conquer Europe and the rest of the world. To accomplish his goals, he convinced some allies: Mussolini, Hiro Hito, and Franco to help him to realize his plan. He corrupted many generals in the army and also many civilians in ’s society and many others from other countries occupied by promoting them and allowing them to play such important roles in his istration. I cite Goebbels, Bormann, Naumann, Himmler, Dónitz, Arthur Axmann, head of the Hitler Youth, General Weidling, General Burgdolf, Göring, etc. Hitler is a psycho killer, and no crime is too monstrous for him to commit. He taught millions of followers how to commit heinous crimes.” “If one thinks that someone is a criminal even before his birth, it is Adolf Hitler. The personality of this dictator is particularly characterized by egocentrism, aggression, the need for domination, intolerance to frustration, and indifference to victims or the weakness of the moral sense. It is in this personality that the explanation of the author’s thought, formulated in his book, Mein Kampf, resides. First, he chooses his enemies: the Jews, the Blacks, the mentally ill, the weak, and the homosexuals. Studies that suggest the existence of criminal behavior come up against the fact that one is rarely criminal all one’s life. The opposite happened with Hitler. He is the type of criminal born who will remain throughout his life a psychopath, a delinquent, with a deviant personality determined by a mental pathology already constituted in the very matrix of his mother, a personality that has evolved throughout the life of the dictator to the point that he becomes the greatest criminal in history.” “Hitler is a pervert, a racist, a bloodthirsty, and a monster. If there is an individual on earth who is the very portrait of Lucifer, his name is Adolf Hitler. Psychiatrist-oriented physicians will say that the accused is a man. No, Magistrate. Hitler is not crazy. He is a self-determined criminal who acts with the full knowledge of his actions. He is someone who tried to provoke a nuclear holocaust and then create a disaster in the world. He is a cartoon doll who talks like a devil and prays for hours on end but whose madness and prayers are nevertheless devoted to the end of the planet. As Sigmund Freud says, “He is an immature and selfish dreamer who fails to overcome his childlike narcissism.

Because of his lack of adaptation to reality, he was exposed to humiliations that he had attempted to conquer through destruction. The evidence of this desire to destroy was so scandalous that it must be assumed that Hitler not only had acted destructively but also was driven by a “naturally destructive character.” “This character must be sought in the very family context in which Hitler grew up. Not only was the dictator’s childhood dominated by an authoritarian and often brutal father, Alois Hitler, but also, the way of life in the family could be described as a “prototype” of a totalitarian regime. Hitler’s hateful and destructive personality, which killed millions and millions of people during the Second World War, was the result of the father’s humiliating and degrading treatment and the beatings he had received from him when he was a child. His mother, whose first three children died in infancy, could not devote time to developing a warm relationship with her son. As a result, Hitler quickly identified with his violent and selfish father and then transferred the trauma of his childhood to . Ultimately, it can be said that the dictator obsessed with hatred of not only the Jews but also his own person. He did not tolerate having a difficult childhood because of a father who had abused him, this father, whom, he thought, was of Jewish origin.”

HITLER WAS NOT A LEADER “On the decisive day of the war, June 6, 1944, both Hitler and Rommel failed. They both knew the importance of defeating the invasion, but their lack of action at a central time was evidence of their immaturity. While, the Allies had a single, coherent plan, a straight-line command structure under Eisenhower, the Germans had no single plan and had three people in charge –Hitler, Rommel, and Von Rundstedt–. Also, Hitler’s lack of leadership was evident during the last months of the war. In delaying Rundstedt’s request for the three panzer divisions and doing nothing with the Fifteenth Army, he had lost whatever chance he had of defeating the invasion. Hitler was not a leader. He was a selfish politician. His selfishness was the first cause of his defeat. In the command structure of the German’s army, he was the absolute decision maker. Where was he in the morning of June 6? He was asleep, and no one had enough courage to wake him up and to present to him Rundstedt’s request for the panzer divisions to be deployed including the units of the Fifteenth Army, to Calais. Hitler is a demagogue, a monster. His strength was about his rhetoric and not about his action.” “Honorable President, the criminal actions committed by Hitler were so many that it is impossible to enumerate all of them. However, the accusation will take a few minutes to enumerate some of them. What were Adolf Hitler’s crimes?” “In 1933, Hitler, along with others, conspired to seize power in the Weimar Republic, abolish its legal constitution, and establish an authoritarian totalitarian regime. As chancellor of , Hitler ordered the suppression of free speech, the elimination of opposition political parties, and a revocation of basic civil rights of the German population.” “With premeditation, Hitler broke many international laws and, ordered the armed forces of German to invade several countries, many of them had signed either peace or non-aggression treaties with .” “He ordered the German armed forces under the command of Heinrich Himmler to commit systematic and premeditated acts of brutality against the civilian population in Europe. Through the instrument of the paramilitary SS, he ordered the deaths of millions of victims in extermination and concentration camps. This

included the opening of almost fifty centers to systematically eradicate the Jews of Europe.” “In 1933, new German laws forced Jews out of their civil service jobs, university and law-court positions, and other areas of public life. In April 1933, laws proclaimed in Nuremberg made Jews second-class citizens. These laws defined Jews, not by their religion or by how they wanted to identify themselves, but by the religious affiliation of their parents. Between 1938 and 1939, new antiJewish regulations segregated Jews further and made daily life very difficult for them. Jews could not attend public schools, go to theaters, cinemas, or vacation resorts; or reside or even walk in certain sections of German cities.” “A 1938 Nazi law forced Jews to their wealth. The new law came a few weeks after the Anschluss, Nazi ’s annexation of Austria. On April 26, 1938, the ‘“Decree for the Reporting of Jewish-Owned Property”’ issued by Hitler’s government, took effect, requiring all Jews in both and Austria to any property or assets valued at more than 5,000 Reich marks (around US $2,000 of the period, or $34,000 today). By July 31, 1938, German finance officials had collected paperwork for some seven hundred thousand Jewish citizens for an estimated 7 billion Reich marks. Following the April 1938 property registry, Jewish citizens faced an increasing number of economic laws that affected their livelihood. They lost allowances and exemptions for having children, and were forced into the highest tax bracket regardless of their income. Many Jewish-owned firms were falsely charged with tax evasion going back to the 1920s, on which they were forced to pay arrears.” “The Jews who wanted to leave must pay 50 percent of their monetary assets, and then exchange the rest of the remaining Reich marks for the currency of whatever country should be the final destination. By late 1938, Hitler’s government was allowing Jews to keep only 8 percent of what their Reich marks were worth in the foreign country. When the Nazis arrested a family of Jews, one of the first things they would do was distribute all the property to the locals. This was a way of winning popular . In 1941, Nazi-Jewish policy became more radical. Jews were marked with a Star of David badge. In September 1941, a decree prohibited Jews from using public transportation. In the same month came the horrific edict requiring Jews over the age of six to wear the yellow Jewish star, Magen David on their outermost garment.” “Laws ed between 1933 and 1935 by Hitler aimed to reduce the future

number of genetic ‘“inferiors”’ through involuntary sterilization programs: 320,000-350,000 individuals judged physically or mentally handicapped were subjected to surgical or radiation procedures so they could not have children. About 500 children of mixed African-German backgrounds were also sterilized. Some 10,000- 15,000 homosexuals were imprisoned in concentration camps; under the 1935 Nazi revised criminal code. About 25,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned as an organization as early as April 1933, because the beliefs of this religious group prohibited them from swearing any oath to the state or serving in the German military. Their properties were confiscated, and they lost their jobs and, unemployment benefits. Thousands of witnesses were sent to prisons and concentration camps, and their children were sent to juvenile detention homes and orphanages.” “Two days after the invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 24, 1941, Reinhard Heydrich, the man responsible for the deportation of Jews, wrote a letter, complaining in writing that this was no answer to the Jewish problem. The last day of July, Heydrich received a cryptic order, signed by Göring upon instructions from the Führer instructing him ‘“to make all necessary preparations regarding organizations and financial matters to bring about a complete solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe.”’ “Three weeks earlier, Hitler had explained to Walther Hewel a diplomat before and during World War II, an early active member of the Nazi Party, and one of his few personal friends, what he intended to do: ‘“I feel like a Robert Koch in politics,”’ he said during a long, late-night discussion in his bunker. “He found the bacillus and, with it, showed medical science a new way. I discovered the Jew as a bacillus and the ferment of all social decomposition… and one thing I have proven is that a state can live without Jews; that economy, art, culture, etc., can exist even better without Jews, which is the worst blow I could give the Jews.”’ “This worst blow was the preparation for the “Final Solution.” Hitler confirmed that he was indeed the architect of the Final Solution. “One must act radically,” he said at lunch on January 23, 1942, in the presence of Himmler. When one pulls out a tooth, one does it with a single tug, and the pain quickly goes away. The Jew must clear out of Europe. It’s the Jew who prevents everything. When I think about it, I realize that I’m extraordinarily humane. At the time of the rules of the popes, the Jews were mistreated in Rome. Until 1830, eight Jews mounted on donkeys were led once a year through the streets of Rome. For my part, I

restrict myself to telling them they must go away. If they break their pipes on the journey, I can’t do anything about it. But if they refuse to go voluntarily I see no other solution but extermination. On January 27, Hitler demanded the disappearance of all Jews from Europe.” “A few days later, in a long speech at the Berlin Sportpalast on the ninth anniversary of national socialism’s rise to power January 30, 1942, he exposed his idea on the current war: ‘“Lord God, give us the strength that we may retain our liberty for our children and our children’s children, not only for ourselves but also for the other peoples of Europe, for this is a war which we all wage, this time, not for our German people alone. It is a war for all of Europe and with it, in the long run, for all of mankind.”’ He added, ‘“I will demand that the German patriots at home work and produce munitions, and, manufacture weapons.”’ Addressing the Jews, he said in the same speech, ‘“The war will not end as the Jews imagine it will, namely, with the uprooting of the Aryans, but the result of this war will be the complete annihilation of the Jews. Now for the first time the old Jewish law of “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” will be applied. And the farther this war spreads, the farther will spread this fight against the world of the [Jews]…and they will be used as food for every prison camp, and … in every family, which will have explained to it why…and the hour will come when the enemy of all time, or at least of the last thousand years, will have played his part to the end.”’ “The entire book, –Mein Kampf, – in which Hitler exposed his ideological thoughts, is a work on history, psychology, racist biology, and political subjects. The book is full of popular quotations from Goethe and Schiller, and largely had shown how Hitler’s view of the world is highly personal. As Ralph Manhein said in the translator’s note on Mein Kampf “The logic is purely psychological. Hitler is fighting his persecutors, magnifying his person, creating a dream-world in which he can be an important figure.” Here are two quotations from the book. “The political testament of the German nation to govern its outward activity for all time should and must be [the following]: Never suffer the rise of two continental powers in Europe. Regard any attempt to organize a second military power on the German frontiers, even if only in the form of creating a state capable of military strength, as an attack on , and in it, see not only the right, but also the duty, to employ all means up to armed force to prevent the rise of such a state, or, if one has already risen, to smash it again. – See to it the strength of our nation is founded, not on colonies, but on the soil of our

European homeland. Never regard the Reich as secure unless for centuries to come it can give every scion of our people his own parcel of soil. Never forget that the most sacred right on this earth is a man’s right to have earth to till with his own hands and the most sacred sacrifices the blood that a man sheds for this earth.” (page 664). “For , consequently, the only possibility for carrying out a healthy territorial policy lies in the acquisition of new land in Europe itself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose unless they seem in large part suited for settlement by Europeans. But in the nineteenth century, such colonial territories were no longer obtainable by peaceful means. Consequently, such a colonial policy could only have been carried out by means of a hard struggle which, however, would have been carried on to much better purpose, not for territories outside of Europe, but for land on the home continent itself.” (page 139). “Honorable President, those remarks are perfect examples to show for Hitler, the extermination of Jews was as important as destroying peace in the world. He had turned the fight against Jews and other minorities into ideological warfare and his actions for the disappearance of these groups from Europe could only be understood in this context. Finally, those quotations represent the truth that not only had declared the war in Europe, but also, this country, under the leadership of Hitler, wanted a war totally and completely touching the five continents.” “On September 3, 1939, a few hours after England’s declaration of war on , the German U-30 submarine commanded by Lt. Fritz Lemp sank the Scottish flag-ship SS Athenia, owned by the Donaldson Atlantic Line Company with 1,417 engers on board. Fortunately, 1,305 people were saved after this tragic disaster while 117 others were killed, including 28 Americans. By this attack, Hitler began “The Sea War.” Carrying his navy to America, Hitler ordered German submarines to attack all the merchant ships crossing the area. The German cruiser iral Graf Spee commanded by Capt. Hans Langsdorff sank between September and December 1939, a total of nine merchant ships before being confronted on December 13, 1939, by three warships in a battle called the “Battle of the River Plate.” The English ships: the Exeter, the Achilles, and the Ajax received a lot of damages. The Exeter, the largest ship in the fleet, was so damaged that it was removed from service by the Royal Navy.” “On Sunday, December 17, 1939, on the orders of Hitler, a German major detonated the damaged iral Graff Spee, which was parked off in the port of Uruguay.

On December 20, Captain Langsdorff, annoyed and humiliated by the Führer’s behavior, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.” “Hitler ordered the commander of the German warship Bismarck, which was patrolling the North Atlantic Coast in the company of another German warship Prince Engen to attack all the ships that crossed on his age. The Bismarck attacked and destroyed several English warships. The commander of the group, iral Lutjens, and the captain of the Bismarck Lindmann, were merciless to the ships engaged in the camp of the Allies. Among the damage committed by the Bismarck figured the attack on the English warships Prince of Wales and the Hood near the coast of Greenland. The explosion of the Hood caused the death of 1,400 people out of a total of 1,403 engers. Only three crew were saved after the attack. The British Army had to use huge resources, especially its aviation, to destroy the Bismarck, which sank on May 27, 1941, at 10:40 a.m.” “The use of “the U-Boat” was another effective weapon in the German arsenal to attack and destroy ships in the Allied fleet. This threat posed a real challenge especially for the British and merchant ships. In 1942, the Germans had a total of 801 submarines in operational condition. In the first months of 1942, the German “U-boat” sank 585 ships. In the early months of 1943, they sank 96 ships in 20 days a success delighted by the commander of the German Navy . Karl Dönitz. We must wait until the end of the war to finally see the Allies, through the development of technology, particularly the use of sophisticated radars, defeat the “U-boat.” A total of 783 ships have been destroyed during the last months of the war.” “On November 26, 1941, the Japanese fleet, which was assembled at Hitokappu Bay in complicity with Hitler, secretly prepared an attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, commanded by . Husband Kimmel for the navy and Gen. Walter Short for the army and air force. The objective was to destroy the American fleet in a surprise attack. iral Nagumo was in command of this attack. The Japanese fleet included six carriers. With the American fleet destroyed, Japan would have a free hand in the whole Pacific, and Hitler would pressure the United States to stay out of the war. Although American intelligence services had detected naval movements by the Japanese, they believed Japanese were prepared to attack Malaya and the Dutch East Indies.” “On November 1941, during the time the Japanese carrier task force sailed for

Pearl Harbor, Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, in a conversation with the Japanese ambassador in Berlin Baron Hiroshi Ōshima, was arguing with the Japanese to go to war against the United States as well as Britain and promising the backing of the Third Reich. ‘“If Japan hesitates…all the military might of Britain and the United States will be concentrated against Japan.”’ Ribbentrop added: ‘“As Hitler said today, there are fundamental differences in the very right to exist between and Japan and the United States. We have received advice to the effect than there is practically no hope of the Japanese-U.S. negotiations being concluded successfully because the United States is putting up a stiff front. If this is indeed the fact of the case, and if Japan reaches a decision to fight Britain and the United States, I am confident that this would not only be in the interest of and Japan tly, but also brings about favorable results for Japan herself.” “On Sunday, December 7, 1941, over 180 planes took off from the 6 carriers, torpedo bombers, dive bombers, and their fighter escort. They arrived with complete surprise at 8:00 a.m. over Hawaii and began their attack. A second wave of 170 Japanese planes arrived at Pearl Harbor at 8:40 a.m. The Americans, unprepared for the attack, were completely exceeded by the event: 4 battleships were sunk and 4 damaged; in all, 18 ships were either sunk or damaged; 29 Japanese planes were lost. The American army reported 2,403 killed and 1,178 wounded, mostly naval personnel. The USS Arizona ed for many of these casualties.” “While Japan had attacked America and Roosevelt had declared war on Japan, on December 11, 1941, declared war on the United States. Hitler pointed out that under the treaty with Japan was obligated to go to war if Japan were attacked. This is the real truth that Hitler was behind the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. He was looking for a pretext to declare war on the United States. He said that because of America’s naval actions in the Atlantic and the United S. supplying England and Russia, he was already at war with America. This is a lie. Hitler was at war with the United States before he had taken power in . He always believed the fact that America was made up of so many nationalities and races this country did not fit in his plan of having a pure race with no blood mixture, the Aryan race, the so-called genius-race.” “Honorable President, the battle of the seas has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, through the fault of one man: Adolf Hitler, considered the greatest criminal in history. It is only after the war that the world discovers with horror

the reality: 6 million Jews exterminated in the gas chambers, by the only fact of their birth, as well as Blacks, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals. Can we accept that the principal perpetrator of such atrocities, Adolf Hitler, even in absentia, is not tried and convicted by a criminal court?” “Nuremberg was chosen for the trial of the twenty-four Nazi dignitaries who responded for months to the charges of war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. The choice of the place of their judgment is symbolic: Nuremberg is the former “holy city” that hosted all the Nazi parades. This is the ideal place to judge the high-ranking National Socialist Party and the Wehrmacht leaders. This is the ideal place now to judge Adolf Hitler, the führer, the chancellor of , the leader of the “Final Solution.” This monster is the main culprit of the Second World War with all its consequences.” “The accusations are numerous, Honorable President, against the German dictator:

• crimes against peace, • war crimes such as violations of the laws and customs of war, that is to say, murder, ill-treatment of war, execution of hostages, looting of public or private property, wanton destruction of towns and villages, etc., and • crimes against humanity, that is, any inhumane acts committed against the civilian population, any persecution for political, racial, or religious reasons.”

“Honorable President, in 1918, many French generals and politicians had wanted to establish a tribunal to try William II and the German military leaders for crimes committed during the First World War. But this trial did not take place. Here we are, in 1945, at a difficult but historic moment, with the chance to present before the world, the actions of this diabolical head of state of who had destroyed not only his country but also the whole of Europe with a balance sheet of 60 million people killed during the war.” “We are talking about the actions of Himmler, Göring, Goebbels, Kaltenbrunner, Bormann, Mengele, Krebs, Burgdorf, Jodl, Keitel, Sauckel, Speer, Frank,

Streicher, Frick, Hess, Ribbentrop, Eichmann and Dönitz … I would like to emphasize to the tribunal that most if not all orders came from Hitler, who, day by day, oversaw the actions of the war and had to approve all the orders of the commanders before their execution. As proof, he was the only one able to deploy the three panzer divisions to counter the landing of the Allies in Normandy. All the executive functions of the concentration camp istration and all related matters were concentrated in Himmler’s hands. The latter, every night, must inform Hitler, who will tell him the next step of his plan.” “This plan as well explained Commander Walsh, one of the witnesses in Nuremberg, leads to the supreme goal of the Nazi Party under the control of Hitler. This goal is the extermination of the Jews. The propaganda, the decrees, the infamous laws of the Reich, the boycott, the establishment of s, and the maintenance of the ghettos, were the initiatory measures of this very detailed program, published in Mein Kampf. The methods used to achieve this goal are multiple. First, I quote the slow death by hunger: a policy traced and followed to deprive the Jews of the most basic necessities of life. The accused Hans Frank, then governor-general of Poland, wrote in his diary that famine rations were allocated to the Warsaw ghetto and spoke of the new diet of August 1942. He noted harshly, perhaps by chance, that these dietary restrictions have effectively sentenced more than 1 million Jews to death.” “By way of justification, I present as proof this part of the document PS-2233 (e), Hans Frank’s diary, volume of conferences of August 24, 1942, USA-283 and I quote: “That we condemn 1.2 million Jews to starve should be noted only in the margins. Of course, if the Jews do not die of hunger, we will hopefully see an increase in anti-Jewish measures.” “Frank’s diary is a guide that tells us about Hitler’s deliberate policy of destroying Jews by starvation. I file document PS-1138 as Exhibit USA-284 and I refer the tribunal to page 4 of the translation marked roman numeral V, paragraphs a and b. The document is titled, “Interim Guidelines for the Treatment of Jews.” And it comes from the Reichskommissar of the eastern territories, named directly by Hitler.” “I read : ‘“Jews must disappear from the country. They must be expelled from all businesses and especially from agricultural and food products stores. Jews were excluded from trade in basic food items such as flour, meat, eggs and milk.”

“I submit as Exhibit PS-1347, Exhibit USA-285, and I quote paragraph 2 of the first page of the translation. It is a decree dated September 18, 1942, from the ministry of agriculture. I quote: “The Jews will no longer receive the following foods from October 19, 1942: meat, meat products, eggs, flour products [such as] cakes, white bread, rolls, wheat flour, etc., fresh skim milk, [and] food distributed outside the food cards and issued uniformly throughout the Reich but with certificates of common or by special warning from the nutrition office or on special coupons of food cards.” “Jewish children and young people over ten years old will receive the normal ration of bread. The sick, the elderly and the pregnant women are not entitled to the special regime granted to non-Jews. Shipments from abroad for Jews will be seized and Jewish food cards will be marked with the word “Jew” in color on the cover so that traders can quickly identify them and thus discriminate.” “The Czechoslovak government published in 1943 an official document entitled “Czechoslovakia Responds,” and I deposit this book as evidence (Document PS1689, USA-286). On page 10, we see that Jews could not do food purchases only in a certain area, at specified days and times. By special ordinance number 44 of the eastern occupied territories, dated November 4, 1941, a ration was given to the Jews, of which about half of the lowest ration was provided as a base, and the minister of agriculture received the power to exclude Jews totally or partially from food rationing, thus reducing the Jewish community to death by starvation.” “I submit Exhibit L-165. This is a press release from the Polish ministry of information dated November 15, 1942. The Polish minister concludes that the special rations and the amount of food given to the Jews in the ghettos of Warsaw and Cracow were calculated with the intention of producing slow death by famine. I quote, “With regard to food rations, they are calculated according to a quite distinct system whose obvious purpose is to deprive the Jews of the most basic necessities of life.” “I now submit to the tribunal the document PS-1061, entitled “The Warsaw ghetto is no more”’ and which bears the USA 275 rating. In this document, we find the almost unbelievable of the actions of the general major of the police, Stroop, a document he had signed with his own hand. In this report, he pays tribute to the bravery and heroism of the German forces involved in the ruthless action against a group of helpless Jews, with exactly 56,065 people,

including, of course, women and children. In this document, he recounts the dayto-day of the final fulfillment of his mission, which was personally entrusted to him by Hitler: “’destroy and erase from the map the Warsaw ghetto.”’ The ghetto counted in November 1940, about 400,000 Jews. Some 320,000 had been exterminated before the end of the war.” “Honorable President, I would point out that PS-1061 is a report that is about seventy-five pages long, and the prosecution thinks that its content is so important that it has to read certain ages.” The president replied, “The tribunal accepts as long as you select the most important paragraphs.” “Yes, Mr. Chairman. Can I continue?” “You can.” “From page 6 of the translation of PS-1061, I would like to read the of this military action inside the Warsaw ghetto: “The resistance opposed by the Jews and the bandits can only be broken by the tireless employment day and night, all our shock troops. On April 23, 1943, the SS reichsführer ordered the SS and eastern police chiefs in Krakow to cleanse the ghetto with the utmost severity and tenacity. That’s why I decided to completely destroy the Jewish houses, setting fire to every block of houses, including the blocks near the weapons factories, systematically evacuated and burned all the buildings, one after the other. The Jews came out of their shelters, [they] were everywhere. It was not uncommon for Jews to stay in burning buildings until the heat and fear of being burned made them jump off the upper floors after throwing mattresses and other repurchased items into the street [containimg] the burned buildings. Despite their broken limbs, they were still trying to crawl down the street to reach blocks of houses that had not been hit by flames or were only partially burned.” “Often the Jews changed their hiding place overnight, sneaking through the ruins of burned buildings, or hiding until they were caught by the patrols. Some of them try to seek refuge in the sewers. Thus, the Wafflen-SS, the men of the police or those of the corps of [engineering] will courageously descend into the mouths of the sewers to bring out the Jews. Quite frequently, they stumbled over Jews already dead, or they shot the living on the spot. It was always necessary to

use smoke bombs to get them out of hiding …” “It was only through the uninterrupted and tireless work of combined forces that we had managed to catch 56,065 Jews and liquidate them.” “Jews had been systematically persecuted since 1933; they were deprived of their liberty and, thrown into the concentration camps where they were mistreated and murdered. Their property was confiscated. Hundreds of thousands of Jews suffered this fate before September 1, 1939. The Nazis assassinated, among others, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss, social democrat Breitscheid, and Communist Thälmann. They interned in the concentration camps many political and religious figures, for example Chancellor Schuschnigg and Pastor Niemöller. Other mass executions of Jews include the following: “In Kislovodsk, all Jews were forced to give up their property; 2,000 were shot in an antitank ditch at Mineral; at Vodi 4,300 Jews were shot in an antitank ditch. 60,000 Jews were shot on an island in Dvina near Riga; 20,000 Jews were shot in Lutsk; 32,000 were shot at Sarny; 60,000 were shot in Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk, about 70,000 Jews were exterminated in Yugoslavia.” “In 1940, the Jewish population in Korets ed for 70 to 80 percent of the total population. Before the Second World War, 6,000 Jews lived in the city. In May 1942, 2,200 Jews were murdered and the survivors were locked up in a ghetto. The ghetto was liquidated in September 1942 and 1,500 Jews are killed.” “About 76,000 Jews and others had been deported from to death at Auschwitz and other concentration camps. A record rate of 75 percent of French Jews were saved during the Shoah. , of all the countries under Nazi occupation, had, by far, the highest percentage of Jews saved. According to statistics, in 1940, there were some 340,000 Jews in , of whom about 150,000 were foreigners. Some 76,000, including 25,000 French Jews were deported. Requested by the Nazi regime, the French Railway Company (SNCF) transported 76,000 Jews across to the extermination camps by train between 1942 and 1944.” “Honorable President, these atrocities are only the result of the policy inaugurated by Hitler as soon as he arrived at the head of as chancellor in 1933. It does not matter that it can be proved that high-ranking Nazis participated in the execution of this diabolical plan: to eliminate all the Jews in

Europe. The architect of this plan is Hitler himself, who, from 1933 to 1945, led the Reich with the full power to do everything and undo. He taught Himmler the methods to use to arrive at the “Final Solution.” The massacres of Rovno and Dubno came from his orders, as did the systematic extermination of the Jews of the European territories occupied by .” “Rudolf Höss, who was commander at Auschwitz, from May 1, 1940 to December 1, 1943, declared during his istration that, 2.5 million people were exterminated and 500,000 others died of disease or hunger. The beatings, the famine regime, the tortures and the executions were the rule. The detainees were subjected to cruel experiences. In Dachau, in August 1942, some were immersed in cold water until the temperature of their bodies dropped to 281 degrees and death occurred. Under the supervision of Dr. Mengele, various experiments were carried out concerning high altitudes, the duration during which human beings can live in icy water, and the effects of poisoned bullets and certain contagious diseases. The sterilization of men and women was also experimented with X-rays and other methods.” “In Auschwitz, Mengele used the deportees for his medical experiments. He had twins put in separate barracks. He examined them, measured them, and killed them to dissect their corpses. Its purpose was to facilitate the reproduction of socalled “superior beings” who would be “Aryans”, the Germans. The experiments of sterilization by means of rays were the work of Professor Schumann, a flying lieutenant of the Wehrmacht. Many women vomited after such experiences. Many died soon after. As for men, only one testicle was exposed to sunstroke. After this operation, they returned to the barracks and, after a rest of one day only, they were returned to work. Many of them succumbed to the first experience. Those who had survived were, after a month, castrated by the same Schumann, who collected the cut testicles, and sent them to Hitler. Clauberg, a German gynecologist, was another great experimenter on living human beings.” “Himmler’s ion for scientific or rather pseudo-scientist experiments, especially in the field of racial research, led him to create in 1933 the Ahnenerbe Society - or Heritage of the Ancestors - whose seat was installed along 16, Pücklerstrasse in Berlin-Dalhem, which was commissioned from 1935 to study everything related to the spirit, acts, traditions, characteristics and heritage of the so-called Nordic-Indo-German race. On January 1, 1942, the society became part of Himmler’s personal staff and became an SS organization. It was the Ahnenerbe that, on Himmler’s instructions, organized and financed most of the

experiments in the camps.” “The extermination in the concentration camps continued with ill-treatment under the pretext of pseudo-scientific experiments (sterilization of women at Auschwitz and Ravensbrück, study of the evolution of uterine cancer at Auschwitz, typhus at Buchenwald atomic research at Natzweiler, heart punctures at Buchenwald, bone grafts and muscle ablations at Ravensbrück, etc., and by sending them to gas chambers, gas wagons and crematoria.” “Allow me now, Honorable President, to read certain ages from the voluminous document of the trial of the twenty-four high-ranking Nazis at Nuremberg.” “Continue.” “In the eastern countries, particularly Russia, Honorable President, the situation was even more dramatic. During the occupation of the eastern parts, the German high commander under Hitler’s order proceeded to the systematic application of looting and destruction. On the Soviet territory, Nazi soldiers destroyed and damaged 1,710 towns, more than 70,000 villages and hamlets, more than 6 million buildings, and left 25 million homeless. Among the cities that have suffered most from the destruction are Stalingrad, Sevastopol, Kiev, Minsk, Odessa, Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, Orel, Krakow, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Stalino and Leningrad. In a very secret order of the chief of the naval staff number 1601/41, dated September 29, 1941, and addressed only to the staff officers, it says: The Führer has decided to erase from the surface of the land St. Petersburg. The existence of this great city will have no further interest after the destruction of Soviet Russia. We must invade this city and destroy it with the help of artillery barrages, with guns of all calibers, as well as by prolonged aerial bombardments…” “The Germans destroyed 427 museums. Among them are the museums of Leningrad, Smolensk, Stalingrad, Novgorod, Poltava and others. Works of art from the Rostov Museum, which had been transported to Piatygorsk, were seized. The losses suffered by the mining industry in the Stalino region alone amount to 2 billion rubles. There was colossal destruction of industrial establishments in Makeevka, Carlovka, Yenakievo, Konstantinovka, and Mariupol, from which most of the machinery and factories were removed.”

“On January 29, 1940, Rosenberg was appointed by Hitler as head of the “Center for Research for National Socialist Ideology and Education”. Subsequently the body known as “Einsatzstab Rosenberg” began to execute large-scale operations. Destined, first of all, to create a research library, it later turned into a business of capturing all the cultural treasures. On March 1, 1942, Hitler promulgated another decree authorizing Rosenberg to search libraries, Masonic lodges and intellectual institutions. He was to seize interesting documents and, valuables belonging to or in possession of Jews, as well as those who had no owner or whose origin could not be clearly established.” “This decree required the co-operation of the high command and stated that Rosenberg’s work in the west should be led by him as reichsleiter and, in the east, as reichsminister. Thus, Rosenberg’s activities extended to the occupied territories. Robert Scholz, head of the special service responsible for the works of art declared in his report: During the period from March 1941 to July 1944, the special service for works of art directed to 29 large convoys comprising 137 freight cars and 4,174 cases containing art objects.” “Scholz’s report speaks of twenty-five albums of engravings of the most important art collections seized in the west, which were offered to the Führer. Thirty-nine volumes, bound in leather and prepared by the Einsatztab, contained photographs of paintings, fabrics, furniture, candlesticks, and many other works of art, and showed the value and importance of the raids carried out. In many occupied territories, private collections were confiscated; libraries and private homes were dried up.” “Museums, palaces and libraries were systematically looted in Russia. Rosenberg’s Einsatzstab, von Ribbentrop’s special battalion, Reich commissioners, and of military commands seized objects of cultural and historical value belonging to the people of the Soviet Union, and sent them to . The Reich commissioner for Ukraine thus removed paintings and art objects from Kiev and Karkov and sent them to East Prussia. Rare volumes [255] and works of art from the palaces of Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovks were taken to . In the letter he had sent to Rosenberg on October 3, 1941, the Reich Kube commissioner said that the value of the objects of art taken in Belarus amounted to millions of rubles. A letter sent by Rosenberg’s services to Von Milde-Schreden stated that in the month of October 1943 alone, about forty wagons full of works of art were sent to the Reich, which shows the extent of this looting.”

“On December 1, 1939, Himmler, in his capacity as Reich commissioner for the ‘“strengthening of Germanism,”’ issued a decree addressed to the regional officers of the secret police in the annexed territories of the east and to the heads of the security service of Radom, Warsaw, and Lublin. This decree contained istrative guidelines for the execution of the program for the seizure of works of art, as stated in its first article: “’To consolidate Germanism, all the objects mentioned in paragraph 2 of the decree are now confiscated … They are confiscated for the good of the German Reich, and are at the disposal of the Reich commissioner for the consolidation of Germanism.”’ “Honorable President, the prosecution points out that the purpose of seizing these objects was not to shelter them, but to enrich . The proof again results in this age from an undated report of Dr. Hans Posse, director of the National Gallery of Dresden. “’I had the opportunity to gain some knowledge of public and private collections as well as church properties in Krakow and Warsaw. It is true that we cannot count too much enriching ourselves by the acquisition of great works of art, -paintings and sculptures- with the exception, however, of the altar of Veit Stoss and the s of Hans von Kulmbach in the Church of Our Lady in Krakow … and several other works of the National Museum of Warsaw.” “Kiev presents a typical case of large-scale theft and the destruction of industrial, cultural and other assets. More than 4 million books, periodicals and manuscripts, many of which were extremely valuable and even unique, as well as a large number of works of art of all kinds, were stolen and taken away.” “Many valuable works of art were removed from Riga.” “The extent of looting in the cultural field is evidenced by the fact that one hundred thousand valuable volumes and seventy cases of old periodicals and precious monographs were removed by Rosenberg’s staff.” Examples of these crimes include: “The unprovoked devastation of the city of Novgorod and many historical and artistic monuments; the reasonless devastation and looting of the city of Rovno and its province; the destruction of industrial, cultural and other goods in Odessa; the destruction of towns and villages in Soviet Karelia; and the destruction of cultural, industrial, and other buildings in Estonia.”

“The Germans attacked with particular hatred the cultural monuments dear to the Soviet people. They broke up the domain of the poet Pushkin at Mikhailovskoye, defiling his grave and destroying the villages and the monastery of Svyatogor. They destroyed the property and museum of Leo Tolstoy “Yasnaya Polyana” and profaned the tomb of the great writer. They destroyed in Klin the Tchaikovsky Museum and, in Penaty, the Repin painter’s museum and many others. The Nazis destroyed 1,670 Orthodox churches, 137 Catholic churches, 67 chapels, 532 synagogues, etc.” “They desecrated and destroyed for no reason the most precious monuments of the Christian church, such as Kievo, Pecherskaya, Lavra, Novi-Jerusalem in the region of Istrine and the oldest monasteries and churches. There were responsible for the destruction of cultural, industrial and other establishments in Estonia, the burning of several thousand houses, the removal of 10,000 works of art, the destruction of medical and prophylactic institutes, and the looting and transfer to of immense quantities of agricultural resources, including horses, cows, pigs, poultry, hives and agricultural machinery of all kinds.” “This policy of looting and destruction led to the devastation of the Soviet territory and its complete ruin. The total value of the material losses that the USSR suffered is estimated at 679 billion rubles, according to official prices in 1941.” “After the occupation of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, the Germans seized and stole a huge quantity of raw materials: copper, tin, iron, cotton, and food-stuffs, transported a large stock of rolling stock, many locomotives to wagons, steamboats, and trolleybuses, and searched libraries, laboratories, museums of art for books, paintings, scientific apparatuses, and furniture. They stole all the gold reserves and foreign currencies of Czechoslovakia, including 23,000 kilograms of gold, with a nominal value of £ 5,265 million, and fraudulently acquired control of the Czech banks and many industrial enterprises that they looted then. They stole and diverted Czechoslovak public and private property. The sum total of Czechoslovak economic spoliation, from 1938 to 1945, by the Nazis, is estimated at 200 billion Czechoslovak crowns.”

CHAPTER XXV

COLLECTIVES SANCTIONS

“I n all the occupied countries, the Germans systematically inflicted collective or pecuniary or other sanctions on the population to repress individual acts that could not be considered as collectively responsible. This happened in many places, including Oslo, Stavanger, Trondheim, and Rogaland. The same facts occur in , especially in Dijon, Nantes, and throughout the occupied territory, with regard to the Jewish population.” “The total amount of fines imposed on French communities is 1,157 - 179,484 francs and breaks down as follows: Fines to the Jewish population: 1 billion francs. Miscellaneous fines: 157,179, 484 francs.” “These acts violated Article 50 of the 1907 Hague regulations, the laws and customs of war, the general principles of criminal law as they derive from the criminal law of all civilized nations, the domestic criminal law of which crimes were committed, and Article 6 (b) of the statute.”

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS OF WAR “According to Hitler’s instructions, prisoners of war should be treated with rigor. On November 5, 1941, Bormann sent an order to the chiefs to the rank of Kreisleiter, instructing them to have the army enforce the Führer’s recent instructions that Soviet prisoners of war should be buried in a secluded place wrapped in tarred paper, without ceremony or decoration on their grave. On November 25, 1943, Bormann sent a circular ordering the gauleiter to report all cases where prisoners of war were treated gently. On September 13, 1944, again according to Hitler’s instructions, Bormann ordered the chiefs to the rank of kreisleiter, to establish a liaison between the kreisleiter and the guards of the prisoners of war to adapt the assignment of prisoners of war to “political and economic needs. On October 17, 1944, a Hitler directive through the OKW ordered the prisoner of war officer to confer with the kreisleiter on the performance of the labor force. The employment of prisoners of war as workers, particularly those of eastern countries, had been accompanied by constant violations of the laws of war on land. These facts make it possible to establish that the of the corps of chiefs, down to the kreisleiter, have, on Hitler’s direct orders, participated in the illegal treatment of prisoners of war.” “Also, Honorable President, I say that the greatest justice to be given to all these victims is not the judgment of only the high dignitaries of the Nazi regime Himmler, Göring, Goebbels, Dönitz, Ribbentrop, Sauckel, Keitel, Frank, Streicher, Von Papen, Scratch, Kaltenbrunner- who are all criminals, but who remain subordinates. The main accused to be tried is Adolf Hitler, the architect of the “Final Solution.” If Hitler is not judged in absentia, the victims or their parents will not have a legal document to prosecute the Nazi leader and his accomplices civilly. We will lose that resolve to pursue hundreds of thousands of fugitive Nazi criminals in the United States, Canada, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Africa, etc., and solidarity among the four powers that sat at the Nuremberg trial, will suffer and will soon disappear. The world, for its misfortune will enter a black phase of its history, the Cold War.” “To judge Hitler in absentia at Nuremberg is imperative. We do not doubt that there would be much discussion among jurists, historians, journalists, politicians, and even the public about this decision. However, the role of the tribunal is to analyze the facts and decide on the legality of the claim. In light of the last point

mentioned -evidence of suicide- no official document has been submitted or communicated to formally declare that Hitler is dead. The Russians, who according to unconfirmed information, have found the charred remains of the accused, have not revealed the results of the analysis to date. The Americans, the English, and the French are still skeptical, refusing to confirm the version of suicide.” “The tribunal is not a political forum. The judge is a slave to the law, and he is bound only to his conscience. It must base its decision on facts and points of law and not with regard to political negotiations. If the Russians want to hide the truth to make Hitler a card to play in future negotiations with the Western countries and to show that it is they who won the war and not the Americans, it is a political battle between two world powers, and the court should not be part of the game. Honorable Speaker, I do not that Hitler is still alive and that information about his suicide is false. I submit that the tribunal does not have the evidence to prove his legal death, and therefore, under the law, he is a missing person.” “The facts are thus established. On April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide, together with Eva Braun, in his bunker dug under the Chancellery. Then their bodies were burned. The Soviets, who were alone in Berlin during the last days of the Reich, quickly knew….” “Yet Stalin chose to keep the secret on this discovery. Better still, the Soviet press maintained the confusion, evoking a possible flight of the Führer. Hitler advanced before the Red Army’s penetration into his bunker, had left in a tunnel for Argentina, or had fled aboard a submarine for Japan. Nobody was confided in the discovery of the corpse. The senior officers of the Russian army were themselves kept in the dark.” “It must be pointed out, Honorable President, if Hitler’s death is suspect, it is because of Stalin. This story goes back to the Potsdam Conference. On July 1945, the Allied leaders met to fix the fate of Europe, one month before the creation of the international military tribunal set up by the London agreements of August 8, 1945. And between two meetings, Churchill said to Stalin: “It seems that your troops found Hitler’s remains? Stalin replied, “No, we did not find him. I think he’s alive, and he’s hiding somewhere in Argentina or Japan.” “In view of all these unsolved facts, Honorable President, how do we legally

accept the death of the dictator and deprive the world of a historic judgment, that of seeing Hitler judged publicly and condemned in absentia in Nuremberg? We must demystify Hitler, and the best way to do it is by his judgment. It is necessary at all costs to prevent that the greatest criminal of history for a victim, even a hero. One must pronounce his sentence.” “This is why we say: the jurisdiction of the Nuremberg tribunal is defined in article 6 of the statute of the London agreement, and Article 5 of the agreement provides that all United Nations governments may accede to it. The following governments have made their accession to the agreement: Greece, Haiti, Denmark, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Ethiopia, Australia, Honduras, Norway, Panama, Luxembourg, New Zealand, India, Venezuela, Uruguay, and Paraguay.” “Article 6 of the agreement provides that the court is competent to prosecute and punish all persons who, acting on behalf of the European Axis countries, have committed, individually or as of organizations, any of the crimes following:

a) Crimes against peace, that is, the direction, preparation, initiation, or continuation of a war of aggression, or war in violation of international treaties, insurance, or agreements, or participation in a concerted plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing acts; b) war crimes, that is, violations of the laws and customs of war, that include, but are not limited to murder, ill-treatment or deportation for forced labor, or for any other purpose, of civilian populations in the occupied territories, the killing or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons at sea, execution hostages, the looting of public or private property, the unreasonable destruction of towns and villages, or the devastation that military requirements do not justify; and c) crimes against humanity, that is, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and any other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds where such acts or persecutions, whether or not they constituted a violation of the domestic law of the country in which they were perpetrated, were committed as a result of any crime falling within the

jurisdiction of the court, or in connection with that crime.”

“The accused, Adolf Hitler, during World War II, controlled the German war machine that seemed unbeatable. He started the war with the German invasion of Poland with one of the main goals of exterminating the Jewish people. He succeeded in exterminating three quarters of the Jews of Europe, nearly 6 million of which 1.5 million children were killed because they were born Jewish. He not only exterminated the Jews in the Polish ghettos and other territories occupied by the Nazis and the massive Einsatzgruppen shootings on the Eastern front; but also he killed millions of them in the concentration camps. In most ghettos, the people faced hunger, forced labor, mistreatment and summary executions. There were millions of Jews who had died in the gas chambers. People who could not work in the concentration camp, such as women, children, and the elderly, were sent directly to the gas chambers. A third of the deaths in the concentration camps were made in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was the largest concentration camp.” “The Second World War was the result of the expansionist and hegemonic ambitions of the three main Axis nations, which are Nazi , fascist Italy, and the empire of Japan. However, , under Hitler’s leadership, has created almost all the conflicts.” “Ultimately, Hitler is guilty of all the crimes mentioned in Article 6 of the London statute.” “Honorable President, since the accused, Adolf Hitler, called in three times, did not answer, he must be considered as absent. Declare that he would be tried and sentenced in absentia for all crimes committed during the period of his dictatorship. Hitler should be condemned to death by guillotine, his corpse should be burned, and the ashes should be thrown to the wind. All the property of the dictator should be considered as vacant, and by this fact, they should be seized and put at the service of the international community for actions of peace in the world.” The prosecutor closed his notes, and added: “Thank you, Honorable President.”

The president replied: “You’re welcome,” and quickly concluded: The hearing is suspended and will resume tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. with the lecture of the verdict against Adolf Hitler.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE VERDICT

T he president, while adjusting his glasses, opened the binder to read the verdict. The prosecutor then asked for the floor. The president, astonished, declared: “You have it.” Mr. Telford said, “Honorable President, for the last time, I am speaking in this court about Adolf Hitler. We did not expose our request during our indictment because we did not want to disturb the procedure in absentia. Now that the court has decided, we believe it is necessary to declare that, according to unconfirmed news, on April 30, 1945, Hitler was killing himself in his Berlin bunker, while the Soviets were carrying out the final assault on the city.” “SS Sergeant Rochus Mish, his bodyguard, said that when he had entered the living room, he saw Hitler collapse on a table, his cheek covered with blood flowing from the wound he had inflicted on himself a bullet to the head. “I saw Hitler lying on the table. Beside him was the body of his mistress, Eva Braun, whom he had married on the night of April 28-29. She had taken cyanide. She was lying on the couch, her head turned toward him,” said the bodyguard. “The remains of Hitler and Eva Braun were then taken to a small garden outside to be sprinkled with gasoline and cremated. Berlin fell on May 2, 1945, a prelude to ’s surrender six days later. According to information, the cremation of Hitler’s corpse only partially succeeded, and his remains were recovered by the Soviets.” “Honorable President, on the side of the inquiry as in the public, we continue to ask questions: Did Hitler die in his bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945? Since death by suicide was not confirmed, this was the reason why the accusation initiated the procedure in absentia.”

“However, a judicious investigation continues with the Russian scientific doctors who are analyzing the preserved teeth with old X-rays of the jaw of Hitler. Doctors also are analyzing the bullet hole in Hitler’s head. Thus, the investigation into the disappearance of Hitler continues with a request of the indictment chamber presented to the Soviet officials to access the secret archives gathering the interrogations of the witnesses of the last days of the accused, the original reports of the Soviet secret services, and the human remains, fragments of the skull and jaw. For about four months, scientific examinations have been carried out on the remains of Hitler to confirm that the charred remains found are actually those of the dictator.” “In such a case where the result of the investigation into the disappearance of Hitler is disclosed, and it is undeniably proven that the calcined remains are those of the accused, the prosecution asks the court to include in the judgment this motion, “that the death sentence of Adolf Hitler pronounced in the judgment in absentia be annulled. However, the property of the deceased will always be inventoried and seized in accordance to the decision of that court.” The president replied, “The tribunal acknowledges the accusation’s request and will decide whether or not to include this motion in the judgment in absentia.” It was in a tribunal that was shaken by a great deal of emotion that the president read his verdict against Adolf Hitler. Mr. Taylor said, “At the original request to try and convict Adolf Hitler in absentia, the tribunal states the following:

AGGRESSION AND CRIMES AGAINST PEACE “Consider that by the middle of 1933 Hitler had gained governmental control over , he was in a position to draw up more detailed plans for foreign policy. Its purpose was to rearm, reoccupy, and fortify the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and other treaties, so as to acquire military power and the possibility of political bargaining with other nations. He decided that, to carry out his plans, the Treaty of Versailles should be definitively repealed, and he drew up appropriate plans he put into effect on March 7, 1936. These plans prepared the future aggressive attacks listed below. During the execution of this phase of the plot, his ers performed the following acts:

a) They dragged into a secret rearmament policy from 1933 to March 1935. This policy included the training of military personnel, the production of war ammunition, and the creation of an air force; b) On October 14, 1933, they provoked the withdrawal of from the International Conference on Disarmament and the League of Nations; c) On March 10, 1935, Göring announced that was creating a military air force; d) On March 16, 1935, Hitler promulgated a law establishing compulsory military service. He specified in this law that the strength of the German army in time of peace would be fixed at five hundred thousand men; e) On May 21, 1935, he declared to the world, to deceive them and to lull their fears over his intentions of aggression, that he would respect the territorial limits laid down by the Treaty of Versailles and abide by the stipulations of the Locarno Pact; f) On March 7, 1936, the German troops reoccupied and fortified the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Rhine Pact of October 16, 1925, and Hitler announced fallaciously to the world, “We have no territorial demands to present in Europe.”

g) By his desire for revenge to erase the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, and to appease his hatred and madness of a Nazi reigning over the world, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. On September 3, 1939, at 11:00 a.m., England declared war on , did the same at 5:00 p.m. the same day. This is the beginning of a conflict that will become global very quickly and will not end until 1945.”

ATTACK PLAN AGAINST AUSTRIA “Consider that it was from a planned decision Hitler invaded several European territories. It all started with plans for the conquest of Austria and Czechoslovakia. Realizing that it would be necessary for military reasons to seize Austria before attacking Czechoslovakia on May 21, 1935, in a speech to the Reichstag, Hitler declared: ‘“ has neither the intention nor the desire to interfere in the internal affairs of Austria, to annex Austria, or to realize the Anschluss.’ “On May 1, 1936, two months after the reoccupation of the Rhineland, Hitler declared, ‘“The lie spreads again that , tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, will fall on Austria or on Czechoslovakia.”’ On July 11, 1936, he signed a treaty between and Austria, and Article 1 stipulated, ‘“The German government recognizes the full sovereignty of the Austrian federal state in the spirit of the declarations made on May 21, 1935, by the Führer and German chancellor.”’ “On February 8, 1938, Hitler summoned Chancellor Schuschnigg to a conference in Berchtesgaden. At their meeting on February 12, 1938, under the threat of invasion, Schuschnigg had to resolve to promise an amnesty for the benefit of all imprisoned Nazis and to appoint Nazis as ministers. He undertook to observe the silence until Hitler’s speech of February 20, during which Austria’s independence was to be reaffirmed. But Hitler, in his speech, instead of asserting the independence of Austria, proclaimed himself protector of all the Germans. On March 9, 1938, Schuschnigg announced for the following Sunday a plebiscite on the question of Austrian independence. On March 11, Hitler demanded by an ultimatum that the plebiscite be abolished. Otherwise, would invade Austria. Later that day, a second ultimatum was a threat of invasion if Schuschnigg did not resign within three hours. Schuschnigg resigned.” “Seyss-Inquart, one of the Nazi conspirators, was appointed chancellor. He immediately invited Hitler to send troops to Austria to ‘“maintain order.”’ The invasion began on March 12, 1938. On March 13, Hitler, in a proclamation, assumed the post of Austrian head of state and took command of his armed forces. By a law of the same date, Austria was annexed to .”

ATTACK PLAN AGAINST CZECHOSLOVAKIA “On August 31, 1938, Hitler approved a memorandum of Jodl dated August 24 concerning the date of invasion of Czechoslovakia and the question of defensive measures. This memorandum included the following sentence: “The Green Case” “will be triggered by means of an “incident” in Czechoslovakia that will allow to use a provocation to justify its military intervention. the fixing of the precise moment at which this incident will be created is of utmost importance.” “These facts demonstrate that the occupation of Czechoslovakia was carefully prepared well before the Munich conference. Conferences and talks with the military leaders continued in September 1938. Because of the critical nature of the situation, British Prime Minister Chamberlain flew to Munich and went to see Hitler in Berchtesgaden. On September 22 he met him at Bad Godesberg and had new interviews with him. On September 26, 1938, in a speech in Berlin, Hitler declared about these conversations: “I have given him the assurance, which I repeat here, that once this problem has been solved, there will no longer be any question of territorial questions for in Europe.” I have also given him the assurance that once Czechoslovakia has found a solution to the other difficulties it encounters - that is, when the Czechs have found a peaceful settlement and do not include the oppression of other minorities-. I will not take care of the Czech state anymore, and, as far as I am concerned, I have given it my guarantee. We do not want Czechs.” “Throughout this period, Hitler ordered his followers to campaign around the question of minorities in Czechoslovakia, especially in the Sudetenland. This campaign led to a diplomatic crisis. After threatening to resort to war, the United Kingdom and reached an agreement with Hitler, which implied Czechoslovakia’s cession of the Sudetenland to . On September 29, 1938, following a conference among Hitler, Mussolini, and the British and French prime ministers, the Munich Agreement, which called on Czechoslovakia to consent to surrender the territory of the Sudetenland to , was signed. Czechoslovakia was put on notice to acquiesce. On October 1, 1938, the German forces occupied the Sudetenland.”

“The document that the British prime minister reported to London and that bore his signature as well as that of Hitler, expressed the hope that England and could live, in the future, without making war. The fact that, shortly afterward, Hitler inquired of Keitel about the military force that he considered necessary to break any Czech resistance in Bohemia-Moravia, showed that he had never intended to abide by the Munich Agreement, Keitel sent him his opinion on October 11, 1938 and, ten days later, Hitler assigned the army its future tasks. One of these directives contained the following sentence: ‘“We must be able to crush the rest of Czechoslovakia at any time if his policy becomes hostile to .”’ “On March 6, 1939, President Hàcha, because of the independent Slovak and Ruthenian fomentations fomented by and Hungary, declared the dissolution of the Ruthenian self-government and, on the night of March 9-10, that of the Slovak autonomous government. He arrested the Slovak leaders Magistrate Tiso prime minister, Vojtech Tuka, and Ferdinand Ďurčansky4.” “On March 14, 1939, Czech President Hácha and his foreign minister, Chvalkovsky, went to Berlin at the request of Hitler and attended a meeting attended by Von Ribbentrop, Göring and Keitel, among others. It was proposed to Hácha to consent by an agreement to the immediate incorporation of the Czech population into that of the German Reich and thereby save BohemiaMoravia from destruction. He was informed of the order that the German troops had already been ordered to set out and break all resistance by force. Göring also threatened to bomb the city of Prague and destroy it entirely. Faced with this cruel alternative, Hácha and his foreign minister, at 4:30 a.m., signed the agreement that was demanded of them, Hitler and Ribbentrop signed for .” “Under Nazi pressure and under the leadership of Bishop Tiso, the independence of Slovakia was proclaimed on March 14, 1939. On March 15, German troops occupied Bohemia-Moravia, and on March 16, the country was incorporated into the Reich as that protectorate by a decree at the bottom of which Von Ribbentrop and Frick affixed their signatures to . Pres. Emil Hácha resigned.”

ATTACK PLAN AGAINST POLAND “Always in his folly of a Nazi reigning over the world, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, a week after the g of the MolotovRibbentrop Pact, the German-Soviet Pact of non-aggression. The military operation launched by was undertaken with the of the free city of Danzig, a Slovak contingent, and the Soviet Union. German forces invaded Poland from the north, south and west immediately after the Gleiwitz incident, which served as a pretext. On September 17, 1939, the Red Army invaded Eastern Poland, which capitulated on September 28. That same day, Stalin and Hitler confirmed their agreements by the German-Russian border friendship pact, signed at Brest-Litovsk, where a first German-Soviet treaty had already been signed on March 13, 1918. recovered the Danzig corridor and, the western parts of Poland, with Lubin and Warsaw. The Russians seized the Baltic States and Eastern Poland with the promise of supplying with gas and cereals. The campaign ended on October 6 with the partition and annexation of Polish territory by and the Soviet Union, according to the of the German-Soviet treaty of friendship, cooperation and demarcation. The occupation of Poland caused Britain and to go to war against and to turn Europe into World War II.” “From the first day of the invasion of Poland, the Nazis, in accordance with the orders received from Hitler, began a massive deportation of the Jewish people: Men, women, and children were placed in the concentration camps to be exterminated. Himmler and Heydrich were assigned by Hitler to liquidate the Jews in Poland. Frank’s job, besides squeezing food and supplies and forced labor out of Poland, was to liquidate the intelligentsia. Addressing to his police aides, Frank said: “I pray you gentlemen to take the most rigorous measures possible to help us in this task. These were the Führer’s orders.” “Hitler, he said, had expressed it this way: The men capable of leadership in Poland must be liquidated. Those following them … must be eliminated in their turn. There is no need to burden the Reich with this…no need to send these elements to Reich concentration camps.” “Frank noted in his journal a progress report from the chief of the security police. The report said that about 2,000 men and several hundred women had

been apprehended at the beginning of the “extraordinary pacification action.” Most of them already had been “summarily sentenced,” a Nazi euphemism for liquidation. A second batch of intellectuals was now being rounded up “for summary sentence.” Altogether “about 3,500 persons,” the most dangerous of the Polish intelligentsia, would thus be taken care of.” “On October 7, 1940, his journal records a speech he had made that day to a Nazi assembly in Poland summing up his first year of effort.” “My dear comrades… I could not eliminate all lice and Jews in only one year. But in the course of time, and if you help me, this end will be attained.” “The following year, Frank closed a cabinet session at Cracow, his headquarters, by saying: “As far as the Jews are concerned, I want to tell you quite frankly that they must be done away with one way or another… Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourself of all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews. It was difficult, he itted, to “shoot or poison the three and a half million Jews in the general government, but we shall be able to take measures which will lead, somehow, to their annihilation.” “On October 7, the day after his peace speech in the Reichstag, Hitler appointed Himmler to be the head of a new organization, the Reich Commissariat for the Strengthening of German Nationhood, or R.K.F.D.V. It was to carry out the deportation of Poles and Jews first from the Polish provinces annexed outright by and replace them with Germans and Volksdeutsche. On October 9, two days after, Himmler decreed that 500,000 of the 650,000 Jews living in the annexed Polish provinces, together with all Poles not fit for “assimilation”, should be moved into the territory of the general government, east of the Vistula River. Within a year 1,2 million Poles and 300,000 Jews had been rooted and driven to the east. That means about three Poles and Jews expelled to one German settled in their stead. Addressing the SS Leibstandarte, the following summer after the fall of , Himmler drew a comparison between the deportations that his men were beginning to carry out in the west with what had been accomplished in the east.” “It happened in Poland in weather forty degrees below zero, where we had to haul away thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, where we had to

have the toughness –you should hear this, but also forget it immediately– to shoot thousands of leading Poles… Gentlemen, it is much easier in many cases to go into combat with a company than to suppress an obstructive population of low cultural level, or to carry out executions or to haul away people or to evict crying and hysterical women.”

ATTACK PLAN AGAINST YUGOSLAVIA AND GREECE “Aggression against Yugoslavia and Greece is another perfect example of the criminal behavior of the accused. On August 12, 1939, Hitler, in an exchange of views with Ciano and Von Ribbentrop in Obersalzberg, declared: “From a general point of view, the best thing would be to liquidate the neutrals one after the other. But we could do it more easily if, each time, one of the Axis partners protected the other while dealing with the undecided neutral. Italy should consider Yugoslavia as a neutral of this species.” “Consider that this remark was made only two months after the assurances that Hitler had given to Yugoslavia, according to which he had considered the frontiers of this country as definitive and inviolable. On the occasion of prince regent of Yugoslavia’s visit to on June 1, 1939, Hitler had publicly declared, ‘“The relations of trust, which have finally been established between and Yugoslavia since historical events have made us neighbors and have given us a common border fixed forever, will not only guarantee a lasting peace between our two peoples, but also represent an element of calm on our tormented continent. This peace is the goal of all those who are willing to do a truly constructive job.”’ “On October 6, 1939, renewed these assurances after Hitler and von Ribbentrop failed in their efforts to persuade Italy to go to war with , attacking Yugoslavia. On October 28, 1940, Italy invaded Greece. In November, Hitler, writing to Mussolini about this invasion of the extension of the war in the Balkans, pointed out to him that military operations could not be undertaken in these regions until March of the following year that Yugoslavia should therefore, if possible, be invaded.”

ATTACK PLAN AGAINST BELGIUM AND “On May 10, 1940, seven months after the declaration of war of and England to , it broke the Western front. Hitler launched his armies on the Netherlands, Belgium and . The Germans attacked with ferocity those three countries. The war had really begun. That same day, he had invaded Belgium. In England Neville Chamberlain was forced out of office as prime minister. He had been replaced by Winston Churchill as prime minister of England. Chamberlain had lost the confidence of his own party and also the confidence of the British people for his incompetence. The choice to replace Chamberlain was between Lord Halifax and Winston Churchill. Chamberlain preferred Halifax. The Labor party chose Churchill.” “Intelligent, sincere, and endowed with boundless imagination, he is one of the four leaders, alongside Roosevelt, de Gaulle, and Stalin, who saved Europe, or even the world, facing Hitler’s infernal machine. The British prime minister is one of the most important figures of the twentieth century. A combative politician, a brilliant speaker, a cigar lover, and an exceptional drinker, he has an extraordinarily meticulous character, but at the same time, he has an extremely developed sense of humor. He is an artist and a humanist. His work capacity is gigantic, his memory staggering. And like General de Gaulle, he has a very longterm vision.” “In Paris, May 19, distraught by the extent of the debacle, the president of the council, Paul Reynaud, urgently recalled the general Maxime Weygand, seventythree years, stationed in Syria, and entrusted to him as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He took the place of General Gamelin. On May 24, the Germans took Bologna, encircled Calais, and were only 35 kilometers from Dunkirk. In the evening, Hitler ordered his troops to stop their progress, with the hope that the English at bay would begin negotiations. Contrary to his expectations, the English took the opportunity to consolidate their defenses around the Dunkirk pocket. After a week of procrastination, the British prime minister decided to re-embark his troops at Dunkirk. This was the operation “Dynamo”: three hundred thousand English and French soldiers were evacuated on the port of Dunkirk to England, to prepare for the counter-offensive, four years later.”

“On June 5, Hitler ordered his troops to resume their advance, but this order had arrived too late to prevent Dunkirk from evacuating the British and French troops to England. On June 14, the Germans entered Paris, which declared itself an ‘“open city”’ after the government’s flight to Tours and Bordeaux. Marshal Petain, who had become president of the council instead of Paul Reynaud, negotiated the armistice with the invader. lost sixty thousand soldiers, while on the German side, there were thirty thousand dead.”

ATTACK PLAN AGAINST RUSSIA Consider that in preparation for the attack on Poland, had concluded on August 23, 1939, a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. This agreement was only intended to save time. On June 22, 1941, Nazi troops, according to plans that had long matured, entered Russia without any declaration of war. From the very first day of their attack on the Soviet territory, the Nazis, in accordance with the orders received from Hitler, began the destruction of cities, towns, and villages, the demolition of factories, power stations and railways, the looting and barbaric devastation of the national cultural institutions of the peoples of the USSR; the massive deportation to of Soviet citizens for forced labor, the annihilation of populations: adults, old men, women, and children, especially Russians, Russian-whites, and Ukrainians and, finally, the extermination of the Jews. These crimes were committed all over the invaded Soviet territory.” “Early in March 1941, Hitler convoked the chiefs of the three armed services and the key army field commanders and laid down this law: “The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of the ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful, and unrelenting harshness. All officers will have to rid themselves of obsolete ideologies. I know that the necessity for such means of waging war is beyond the comprehension of you generals, but…I insist absolutely that my orders be executed without contradiction. The commissars are the bearers of ideologies directly opposed to national socialism. Therefore, the commissars will be liquidated. German soldiers guilty of breaking international law… will be excused. Russia has not participated in the Hague Convention and therefore has no rights under it.” “On September 18, 1941, Hitler issued the following orders: “A capitulation of Leningrad or Moscow is not to be accepted, even if offered.” What was to happen to them he made clear to his commanders in a directive of September 29: The Führer has decided to have St. Petersburg [Leningrad] wiped of the face off the earth. The further existence of this large city is of no interest once Soviet Russia is overthrown… The intention is to close in on the city and raze it to the ground by artillery and by continuous air attack…Requests that the city be taken over will be turned down, for the problem of the survival of the population and

of supplying it with food is one which cannot and should not be solved by us. In this war for existence, we have no interest in keeping even part of this great city’s population.” “The day after, during tea with his secretaries and aides in the Wolfsschanze casino, Hitler shared his thoughts on the attack on Russia: “In several weeks we will be in Moscow”, he said, fixing a large map on the wall. “There is no doubt of it. I will raze that damned city, and I will construct in its place an artificial lake with central lighting. The name of Moscow will disappear forever.” “The same week, on October 3, Hitler returned to Berlin and in an address to the German people, proclaimed the collapse of the Soviet Union. “I declare today, and I declare it without any reservation,” he said, “that the enemy in the East has been struck down and will never rise again…Behind our troops. there already lies a territory twice the size of the German Reich when I came to power in 1933.” “The same prediction had been made by Göring, who declared: “This year [1941], between 20 and 30 million persons will die of hunger in Russia. Perhaps it is well that it should be so, for certain nations must be decimated. But even if it were not, nothing can be done about it. It is obvious that if humanity is condemned to die of hunger, the last to die will be our two peoples… In the camps for Russian prisoners, they have begun to eat each other.” “Here, this is important to say that there was food enough in Russia to provide them. However, in the majority of cases, the camp commanders had forbidden food to be put at the disposal of the prisoners. They had rather let them starve to death. Even on the march to the camps, the civilian population was not allowed to give the prisoners food. In many cases when the prisoners could no longer keep up on the march because of hunger and exhaustion, they were shot before the eyes of the horrified civilian population and the corpses were left. In numerous camps no shelter for the prisoners was provided at all. They lay under the open sky during rain or snow. Sometimes the Russian captives were so exhausted that they could not even walk to their execution. As Heinrich Mueller, the chief of the Gestapo, had reported to Himmler: “The commanders of the concentration camps are complaining that 5-10 percent of the Soviet Russians destined for execution are arriving in the camps dead or half dead… It was particularly noted that when marching, for example, from the

railroad station to the camp, a rather large number of prisoners collapsed on the way from exhaustion, either dead or half dead, and had to be picked up by a truck following the convoy.”

ATTACK PLAN OUTSIDE THE EUROPEAN TERRITORY Relation between Hitler and Mussolini

“Consider that in 1922, Benito-Mussolini, at the head of the Italian fascist party, marched on Rome and seized power. It turned democracy into a fascist state. For Hitler, Mussolini was a model to follow. He had organized his Nazi Party on the Italian model. In 1923, he also tried to march on Berlin to seize power. He suffered a failure. He would have to wait for the elections of 1933, to accede to the office of chancellor. The first meeting between the two dictators took place in Rome in 1934. The main subject lay in the Austrian question protected by Mussolini, which he considered as a buffer zone against . The murder of chancellor Dollfuss on July 25, 1934, was an opportunity to divide and bring the two heads of state closer together. In September 1937, Hitler invited Mussolini to Berlin. In 1938, Hitler returned to Italy. He conceded Tyrol to Italy. In exchange, Mussolini ed Hitler at the Munich Conference. This allowed Hitler to take possession of the Sudetenland.” “The two men were getting closer and closer. They had the same dreams of greatness, and they both hated democratic regimes. Their countries were put on the bench of the League of Nations. The two states were embarking on territorial conquests. could annex Austria, while Italy conquered Ethiopia. In 1939, the two men signed a military alliance. Hitler invaded ; Mussolini claimed Corsica, as well as part of the Alps and the Mediterranean Coast. He invaded Albania, and then attacked Greece. His troops were kept in check. Hitler sent reinforcements, delaying the start of Operation Barbarossa. Once Greece was defeated, Italy ed during the invasion of the Soviet Union.” “In 1944, Mussolini was tried by the Great Fascist Council. He was dismissed and imprisoned on the island of Ponza. Hitler decided to invade Italy, but the Allies were ahead of him. On September 12, 1944, German commandos liberated Mussolini, who was transferred to the Alps. Hitler wanted to put his friend back in power and reshape Italy. Mussolini installed his government in Salo. The last meeting between the two men took place on July 20, 1944. On April 28, 1945, Mussolini, disguised as a German soldier, tried to flee in front of

the partisans. He was shot by machine-gun fire. His body was brought to Milan and exhibited in the public square, while Hitler locked himself in his bunker in Berlin” “It is obvious that a personal relationship developed between the two dictators throughout their career in power. The two men, despite their differences, associated themselves in crimes and conquests and remained two monsters in history.”

Relation between Hitler and Franco

“Consider that at the beginning of the Nazi regime, close collaboration developed between Adolf Hitler, from , and Francisco Franco, from Spain. During the Spanish Civil War, had sent help to Franco. About fifteen thousand Germans fought on Franco’s side and several hundred were killed. Financial aid from Berlin to the dictator of Spain rose to several million pounds in 1939. Victorious in the war against his enemies, Franco came to power and gave the German Reich six mines against 480 million marks. In a letter dated February 1941 to Hitler, Franco stated that the three men (Hitler, Mussolini, and himself) were bound by history, although in July 1940, he had declared that his country was not neutral but simply not belligerent. It did, however, provide with submarine bases and information during the Second World War. His only encounter with Hitler in Hendaya in 1940 reveals the behavior of two men even though they do not have close friendships, but are ired because they are two ferocious and unscrupulous dictators.”

Relation between Hitler and Hirohito

“Consider that the desire for Japanese expansionism was at the origin of the alliance between and Japan. Unhappy with the treatment accorded to the Japanese empire by the Western powers during the Treaty of Versailles and the naval treaties of Washington and London, Japanese politicians set up an

ideology based on the supremacy of the Japanese race and its right to dominate Asia. This racist ideology presented Japan as the center of the world and sat on the imperial institution of the emperor, being divine and a descendant of the goddess Amaterasu Omikani. It gives rise to an attempt to restore Shôwa.” “The German and Japanese ideologies were somewhat different, but the means were the same, conquer territories to have raw materials while accentuating the need for territorial expansion. Japan invaded Manchuria, a province of China, and Korea. The ultimate dream of the Japanese was to seize Australia. But Australia was a member of the Commonwealth, led by the United Kingdom, itself an ally of the Americans. The Japanese decide to ally with the Germans, enemies of the English and Americans, their own enemies. They applied the saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my ally. For example, Japan, set in motion by Western democracies for attacking Manchuria in 1931, followed by the rest of China in 1937, and French Indochina in 1941, had a choice: to make an alliance with the enemy of these countries Western democracies, namely Nazi and fascist Italy. Hirohito was counting on German to recapture the Pacific and attack Pearl Harbor: the main reason of his alliance with Hitler.” “Consider that on September 27, 1940, Hitler concluded a military and economic agreement with Italy and Japan, according to which these powers had committed themselves to close cooperation in the Far East and in the European countries, where the German dictator had intended to establish a new order. Encouraged by Hitler, on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked cowardly and without declaring war the American base at Pearl Harbor. Those attacks on the Philippines, the British empire, French Indochina, and the Dutch possessions in the South-west Pacific gradually followed.”

ON THE USE OF DOCTRINE IN THE SERVICE OF THE COMPREHENSIVE OR COMPLETE PLAN “Consider that to induce others to the concerted plan or conspiracy and to ensure the Nazi conspirators maximum control over the German community, the Nazis created, disseminated, and exploited certain doctrines, among which are the following:

1. The people of so-called “German blood” as defined by the Nazi conspirators constitute “a race of lords” and are, therefore, entitled to subjugate, dominate, or exterminate others races and peoples; 2. The German people must be governed by the “Führerprinzip” [chief principle], according to which the power is in the hands of a “Führer” whose subordinates must draw their authority in hierarchical order, each of them obedient without condition to his immediate superior, but being invested with absolute power in his own jurisdiction. The power of leaders must be unlimited and extend to all aspects of public and private life; 3. War constitutes for a noble and necessary activity; 4. The upper management of the Nazi Party, the sole depository of the doctrines of the above-mentioned party or others, has the right to shape the structure, politics, and acts of the German state and all the institutions connected with it, to direct or supervise the actions of all individuals within the state, and destroy all opponents.”

“Consider that this ideological doctrine of the Nazi Party is conveyed in the book of Adolf Hitler written in prison “Mein Kampf.” Indeed, a whole discriminatory and racist discourse is developed in this book.” “… It is for this reason that is, and remains, the enemy we have the most to fear. These people, who are falling more and more at the level of the Negroes, are putting themselves in danger by the they give to the Jews to achieve

their goal of universal domination, the existence of the white race in Europe. Because the contamination caused by the influx of blood born on the Rhine, in the heart of Europe, responds as well to the thirst for vengeance sadistic and perverse of this hereditary enemy of our people that the cold calculation of the Jew, who sees in it the means of starting the miscegenation of the European continent at its center and, infecting the white race with the blood of a low humanity, to lay the foundations of its own domination. The role that , goaded by its thirst for revenge and systematically guided by the Jews, plays today in Europe, is a sin against the existence of the white humanity and will one day unleash against this people all the avenging spirits of “a generation which will have recognized in race pollution the hereditary sin of humanity …” Excerpt from Mein Kampf, page 621, French version, edited by Nouvelles Éditions Latines in 1934. “… We must still consider the United States [and], Russia and China, as giant states. These are territorial formations which, in part, are more than ten times larger than the current German empire. itself must be counted among these states. Not only because it completes its army, in an ever increasing proportion, thanks to the resources of the colored populations of its gigantic empire, but also because its invasion by the Negroes makes progress so fast that we can really speak of the birth of an African state on the soil of Europe. The colonial policy of today’s is not to be compared with that of in the past. If the evolution of continued three hundred years in its current style, the last remains of free blood would disappear in the mulatto AfricanEuropean state which is being constituted: an immense territory of autonomous settlement extending from the Rhine to the Congo, filled with the inferior race, which is slowly formed under the influence of prolonged interbreeding. This is what distinguishes French colonial policy from the old German colonial policy.” Excerpt from Mein Kampf, pages 642-643 French version, edited by Nouvelles Éditions Latines in 1934. “… The knowledge we have of history provides innumerable proofs of this law. History establishes with appalling evidence that when the Aryan mixed his blood with that of inferior peoples, the result of this miscegenation was the ruin of the civilizing people. North America, whose population is composed, in the great majority, of Germanic elements, which have not very much mingled with inferior races belonging to races of color, presents humanity and an entirely

different civilization than Central and South America, where immigrants, mostly of Latin origin, have sometimes mixed strongly with natives.” “This one example already makes it possible to clearly recognize the effect produced by the mixture of races. The German, remained of pure and unmixed race, became the master of the American continent. It will remain so as long as it does not sacrifice, too, to an incestuous contamination. In summary, the result of any breed cross is always the following:

a) Lowering the level of the superior race. Physical and intellectual regression and, consequently, the appearance of a kind of consumption whose progress is slow but inevitable. Bringing such a process is nothing but fishing against the eternal, our creator. But this act receives the sanction deserved by the sin. In attempting to rebel against the inflexible logic of nature, man comes into conflict with the principles to which he must exist as a man. Thus, by acting against the vow of nature, he prepares his own ruin. Here comes, it is true, the specifically Jewish objection, as comical as it is silly, of the modern pacifist: b) “Man must precisely defeat nature!” Millions of men think this absurdity of Jewish origin without thinking, and end up imagining that they embody a sort of victory over nature; but they bring as an argument only a vain idea, and, moreover, so absurd that, to tell the truth, no conception of the world can be drawn from it.”

“In reality, man has not yet conquered nature in any respect. He has, at most, grasped and sought to lift up a little corner of the enormous, gigantic veil, of which it covers its mysteries and eternal secrets. He never invented anything, but only discovered all he knows. He does not dominate nature. He has only succeeded, thanks to the knowledge of some isolated laws and natural mysteries, to become the master of living beings to which this knowledge is lacking…” “Excerpt from Mein Kampf, pages 285-286, French version edited by Nouvelles Editions Latines in 1934.” “Consider that to protect his power against all attacks and to sow terror in the hearts of the German people, Hitler established and extended a system of terror

against those who opposed the Nazi regime and those whom he had suspected of opposing it. He imprisoned his opponents without judicial proceedings, placing them in ‘“protective custody”’ and in concentration camps. He subjected them to persecution by degrading, robbing, enslaving, torturing and murdering them.” “These concentration camps, created in early 1933, under Hitler’s command given to Göring, became a permanent feature of the defendant’s terrorist policy. He used it to commit the crimes against humanity, that are imputed to him. Among the five main bodies used by the accused for the commission of these crimes against humanity, are the SS and the Gestapo, who, with other services or privileged bodies of the state and the party, were authorized to operate, without any legal control. Hitler thought that, apart from the suppression of a political opposition properly so called, it was necessary to suppress or exterminate certain other movements or groups that he regarded as obstacles to the continuous exercise of his total control in and to the designs aggressive plot outside .” “Consequently, under his orders, the Nazi conspirators destroyed the free-trade unions in by confiscating their property, movable and immovable, pursuing their leaders, prohibiting their activity, and supplanting them by organizations d with the party. The chief principle was introduced in industrial relations, with the head of the enterprise becoming the Führer, who supervised the workers. Thus, any resistance from the workers was stifled, and all the productive work capacity of the German nation was put under the effective control of one man: Adolf Hitler. The father of the ideology Nazism, a corpus of ideas ‘“quite convincing”’, which functioned as a mass culture, penetrated all aspects of life and action [dixit Johann Chapoutot].” “His followers, by encouraging beliefs and practices incompatible with Christian teaching, tried to undermine the influence of the churches on the people and especially on the youth of . They avowed their plans to eliminate the Christian churches in and to attempt to substitute Nazi institutions and beliefs, and they pursued a program of persecution of priests, clergy, and of the monastic orders, which they considered as opposed to their plans. They confiscated ecclesiastical goods. The persecution by Hitler’s ers of pacifist groups, including pacifist religious movements, was particularly implacable and cruel. Putting into practice their ‘“race of lords”’ policy, Hitler’s followers executed a program of implacable persecution of the Jews in common, to exterminate them.”

“The annihilation of the Jews became an official policy carried out both by legal measures and by the call to riot and individual violence. Hitler, through the Nazi conspirators openly avowed his purpose. Exterminate all Jews on the planet. Accused Rosenberg said, ‘“Anti-Semitism is the unifying element of German reconstruction.”’ On another occasion, he had also declared, ‘“ will consider the Jewish question as resolved when the last of the Jews [have] left the living space of the Greater … Europe will solve the Jewish question only the day the last Jew will have left the continent.”’ Accused Ley declared, ‘“We swear that we will not give up the fight until the last Jew in Europe has been exterminated and is dead. It is not enough to isolate the Jewish enemy from the rest of humanity. We must exterminate the Jew.”’ On another occasion, he had declared again, “The second secret German weapon is anti-Semitism. Indeed, if continues this policy steadily, anti-Semitism will become a universal problem that all nations will be forced to take into .”’ A accused Streicher declared, “The sun will not shine on the nations of the world until the last Jew is dead.” “The program of action against the Jews included the loss of the right to vote, blacklisting, the denial of civil rights, the exercise of violence against their persons and property, deportation, enslavement, forced labor, famine, murder, and mass extermination. Of the 9,6 million Jews living in the European regions under Nazi rule, moderate estimates indicate that 5,7 million have disappeared, most of which were deliberately put to death by Hitler.” “To make his people accept his will, and to prepare him psychologically for the war, under the orders of Hitler, his followers gave a new form to the system of education and particularly to the training and training of the German youth. The chief principle was introduced in schools. The party and the d organizations received wide powers of control over education. ers of the dictator imposed a surveillance of all cultural activities and, controlled both the dissemination of information and the expression of opinion inside , as well as the exchange of news of all kinds from and to . They created huge propaganda instruments. Hitler gradually monitored a considerable number of the organizations in which he controlled for their rapid transformation and their use as an instrument of war if necessary.”

CRIMES AGAINST THE ECONOMIC DOMAIN “As the absolute power-holder in , Hitler organized the German economy so as to realize his political aims:

1. To eliminate the possibility of economic resistance, he removed from the workers the right of free professional and political association; 2. He employed German commercial organizations as instruments of economic mobilization for the war; 3. He directed the German economy toward the preparation and equipment of the war machine. It was to this end that he had directed finance, investment of capital, and foreign trade; 4. Aided by industrialists, partisans of the Nazi Party, he undertook the realization of a very vast program of rearmament and began to organize and develop the production of enormous quantities of war material so as to create a powerful military potential. 5. To complete the preparation for the war, he created a series of agencies and istrative authorities. In 1936, for example, he created for this purpose, under the general direction of Göring, the organization of the Four-Year Plan, which was vested with absolute control over the entire German economy. Moreover, on August 28, 1939, immediately before his order to invade Poland, he appointed Funk as delegate to the economy. On August 30, 1939, he created the Council of Ministers for the Reich Defense, called to act as a cabinet of war.”

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY “Hitler played a role in the extermination of the millions of mainly Jewish victims in extermination camps, the largest of which were located in the part of Poland occupied by the Germans, including Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. It has been estimated that between 15 and 20 million people were imprisoned in a total of twenty thousand concentration camps in and the occupied territories. The Nazi Party’s statement also urged its to pursue an anti-Semitic program. No Jew or non-German citizen could be a member of the nation. They had to be deprived of their rights and incapacitated for clerical work. They had to be subject to other laws and to be entitled to food only after the German population had been supplied with food. All those who had entered after August 2, 1914, were to be summoned forthwith, and all non-German immigration was to be prohibited.” “Once in power, Hitler submitted the “law of full powers” to the Reichstag that, under the threat of more forceful measures in case they were not adopted, interacted on March 24, 1933. The Nazi Party, having thus seized power, continued to extend its influence over all aspects of German life. Political parties were persecuted, their belongings confiscated and many of their placed in concentration camps. On April 26, 1933, Göring created a secret police force in Prussia, that took the name “Geheime Staatspolize” or “Gestapo,” and told the latter’s deputy chief that the main task of this organization was to eliminate the political opponents of the government and those who were against Hitler and national socialism. On July 14, 1933, a law made the Nazi Party the only political party authorized and declared criminal the maintenance of an existing group or the formation of a new one.” “To place complete control of the governmental mechanism in the hands of the Nazi rulers, a series of laws and decrees were promulgated that reduced the power of regional and local governments throughout , transforming them into divisions subordinate to the Reich government. The assemblies of the provincial representatives were abolished and, with them, all the local elections. The government then undertook to secure control of the istration. He achieved this through a system of centralization and thorough cleaning of all istrative services. The law of April 7, 1933, provided for the retirement of civil servants “who are not of Aryan descent” and also stipulated that “civil

servants ‘“who, as a result of their previous political activity, do not offer the guarantee that they will act without reserve in the interest of the Nazi state, will be revoked. The law of April 11 ordered the dismissal of ‘“all the officials belonging to the Communist Party.”’ “Similarly, justice was subject to control. Judges were removed from office for political or racial reasons. They were being spied on and put in front of the alternative of ing the party or being let loose. When the Supreme Court acquitted three of the four defendants accused of complicity in the Reichstag fire, its jurisdiction over treason was withdrawn and given to a newly created “people’s court,” composed of two judges and five occupying persons a position in the Party. Special tribunals, composed entirely of party , were instituted to try political crimes. People who were arrested by the SS on charges of this nature were detained in prisons and concentration camps, and the judges had no power over these internments. of the party who were sentenced by the courts were generally grieved, even when the sentence was for proven offenses. Thus, in 1935, several Hohenstein concentration-camp officials were found guilty of brutal treatment of internees. High Nazi figures tried to influence the court and, after the officials were found guilty, Hitler graced them all. In 1942, “letters to the judges” were sent by the government to all German magistrates, giving them instructions on the “general lines of conduct” they were to adopt.” “Resolved in suppressing all sources of opposition, party leaders turned their attention to unions, churches, and Jews. In April 1933, Hitler ordered Ley, then chief of staff of the Nazi Party’s political organization, to “take over the unions.” Most of these were united into two broad federations, the “free-trade unions” and the “Christian unions.” Trade unions that were not included in these two major federations ed for only 15 percent of all unionized workers.” “On April 21, 1933, Ley published a Nazi Party circular, announcing a “coordination action” on May 2 against the free trade unions. The circular ordered that men from the SA and SS should be used to carry out the project, “occupying the buildings of the trade unions and placing in protective custody certain personalities.” After this operation, the official news agency of the party announced that the national socialist organization of the industrial co-operatives had “eliminated the former leaders of the free trade unions” and had taken over the leadership of these unions. On May 3, 1933, the same agency announced that Christian unions had “unconditionally submitted to the will of Adolf Hitler.”

Instead of trade unions, the Nazi government established the Party-controlled “Deutsche Arbeits front” [DAF], to which all workers in were forced to . The union presidents were all incarcerated and abused from assault to murder.” “The medical care received by these innocents was clearly precarious. If a barrack was reserved in principle, in the infirmary of the camp, there existed in practice, no medicine. The doctors appointed among the internees were often beaten so, that they could exercise their profession only under the supervision of guards and kapos who limited the number of patients hospitalized or exempted from work, taking into not the imperious medical condition, but their desire to make maximum use of the workforce.” “On July 19, 1944, the commander of SIPO and the SD, in the Radom district of Poland, promulgated an order that was transmitted through the heads of the SS and the police. In all cases of assassination or attempts to assassinate Germans, or destruction of important facilities by saboteurs, were to be shot, not only the guilty individual, but also his male relatives. As for his female relatives over sixteen, they were to be interned in a concentration camp.” “During the summer of 1944, the einsatzkommandos of the SIPO and the SD of Luxemburg sent a number of people to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp accused of being related to deserters and of “endangering their interests.” of the Reich, if they remained at liberty.” “On September 16, 1941, Keitel gave an order according to which the life of a single German should correspond to that of fifty or a hundred inhabitants of the occupied territories. This order made it necessary to that very often a human life counts for nothing in countries not yet pacified and that a preventive effect could only be obtained by the use of an extraordinary severity.” “Among the many groups that had become the subject of Nazi racial politics, those who were usually at the center of the discussions were Jews, Roma and Sinti, or Gypsies, and the disabled and those with genetic diseases that have been subject to German law on sterilization and mass murders in hospitals as part of a program called “T-4.” There was also a recognition of a group of Afro-Germans who were negatively named “bastards of the Rhineland”, bi-racial births that had occurred during the twelve years of the French occupation of the Rhineland by the French. These “half-breed” Germans were sterilized after the Nazis came to

power and many died in concentration camps.” “The bare corpses remained several days exposed behind the barracks. They were then crammed into crates or pulled on the ground to the mass grave; and the gold teeth were systematically torn off and recovered.” Consider that the worst treatment was reserved for prisoners of war by German soldiers despite an international status to which had acceded. This law included the treatment of prisoners of war. In of authentic documents, it appeared that these laws had been violated, that prisoners of war had been brutally treated, and that they had often been murdered. On June 1, 1944, the Nazis decreed that British and American airmen would no longer be considered prisoners of war. They should be treated as criminals, and the army was ordered not to remove them from the population if it tried to lynch them. [Documents nos. R153, R13, R19, R10, R117, R118, R119]. The elements of the investigation prove that this secret order emanated from Hitler himself, who had incited civilians to stop or kill enemy parachutists [Document no. 062-PS]. Added to this is another charge at the base of Hitler’s secret order that captured soldiers should be killed (Document no. 498 PS).” “In a letter dated September 1, 1939, Hitler gave his country doctor, Dr. Karl Brandt, and Reichleiter Philipp Boudhler of the Führer Chancellery, power to carry out the so-called “euthanasia” project. The Kriminaltechnische Institut [KTI] of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt [RSHA] was commissioned to experiment with killing methods appropriate to the situation. He came to the conclusion that it was CO poisoning that was best.” “Consider that a gassing test was first carried out at the old Brandenburg-on-theHavel prison at the beginning of January 1940. In a hermetically sealed room, mental patients were killed by pure CO, and then this process was used in all “euthanasia anstalten” [establishment where “Euthanasia” was practiced]. Sources and testimonies tell us that Saurer trucks were converted into gas trucks. These were 5-ton trucks, with a superstructure of 5.8 meters long and 1.7 meters high, carrying up to 100 people.” “Consider the statement by Rudolf Walter Richard Hess, one of those sentenced to life imprisonment last week at the Nuremberg trial. Hess filed in these : “I, Rudolf Hess, after taking an oath in accordance with the law,” said the

following: I am forty-six years old and a member of the German National Socialist Party since 1922, member of the S.S. since 1934, member of the Waffen-S.S. since 1938. Since December 1934, I [have been] a member of the training called S.S.Tête-de-mort.” “Since 1934, I have worked continuously in the istration of the concentration camps, and I held a position at Dachau, until 1938, [and] then as camp assistant in Sachsenhausen from 1938 to May 1, 1940, when I was appointed commander at Auschwitz. I headed Auschwitz until December 1, 1943, and estimate that at least 2.5 million victims were executed and exterminated by the gases and then incinerated. At least half a million died of hunger or sickness. A minimum total figure of 3 million deaths represent approximately 70-80 percent of all deportees sent to Auschwitz. The others were selected and employed in forced labor in the camp-dependent industries. Among the gassed and incinerated were about 20,000 Russian prisoners of war who had previously been extracted from the prisoners camps by the Gestapo. They had been delivered to Auschwitz by army trucks commanded by officers of the Wehrmacht. The rest of the victims included about 100,000 German Jews and a very large number of inhabitants, mostly Jews, from Holland, , Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Greece or other countries. In the only summer of 1944, about 400,000 Hungarian Jews were executed in Auschwitz.” “Mass executions by gas began in the summer of 1941 and extended until the fall of 1944. All the gas executions took place on the direct orders, the supervision, and the responsibility of the R-S-H-A I received directly from the R-S-H-A the instructions necessary for the mass executions.” “Consider that Hitler’s essential goal was the complete extermination of the Jewish people and all those who oppose his macabre regime. The plan of extermination of the Jews was applied with such a method that after the war in the countries occupied by , about 60 percent of the Jews were exterminated. More than forty-five thousand are missing.”

ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR “World War II is the deadliest military conflict in history. More than 60 million people were killed, representing more than 2.5 percent of the world’s population. Of the victims, 6 million Jews died in concentration and extermination camps. Many regions were destroyed in Europe, and this war left several million people injured or disabled. More than 30 million Europeans were displaced because of border changes, especially in Eastern Europe. The Nazi and Allied bombings caused extensive material damage in the cities. Berlin and Warsaw were almost completely destroyed. Several districts of London and Rotterdam were to be rebuilt. Millions of civilians no longer had housing, and homeless people touched the number of millions.” “Indeed, the list of martyr cities is long: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Manila, Hamburg, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Sevastopol, Kiev, Kharkov, Budapest. Several cities in are destroyed in whole or in part: Brest, Caen, Le Havre, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Lo, Evreux, Saint-Malo, Rouen. The decommissioning of thousands of roads, bridges, railways, and harbors causing the isolation of many villages. The USSR remains the most affected by material damage. Nearly 1,710 cities and more than 70,000 villages, 320,000 industrial enterprises, 100,000 collective, and state farms, 4,7 houses, and 127,000 schools, universities and public libraries were destroyed. Throughout Europe, the looting of resources organized by the Nazis in the occupied countries, combined with the disorganization of the means of production, leading to serious shortages.” “In , the war has destroyed part of the metropolitan territory: seventy-four metropolitan departments out of ninety have suffered major damage and more than 20 percent of the capital has been destroyed, nearly 1 million households are homeless, entire cities are razed (Caen, Brest, Le Havre etc.). 2,100 million buildings are damaged in metropolitan during the war, of which 462,000 totally destroyed; 20 percent of the destruction occurred during the Battle of in May-June 1944. Dunkerque and Calais are destroyed for the most part during these few weeks of Blitzkrieg); 15 percent of the destruction took place from June 1940 to June 1944 (bombing of the Allies on the port, railway and industrial centers of occupied ); 65 percent of the destruction took place during the liberation of from June 1944 to May 1945.”

“There were 68 Japanese cities bombed, and all had been partially or completely destroyed. An estimated 1.7 million people were homeless, 300,000 were killed, and 750,000 were injured. , itself, had become a field of ruins, with carcasses of calcined buildings and a hungry and dazed population in search of its daily food in garbage cans. On the side of the United States of America, there were 292,000 dead during the fighting during the war.” “On the last day of October 1941, by Hitler’s decision, the US destroyer Reuben James, escorting a convoy six hundred miles west of Iceland, was torpedoed. It sank with 101 Americans aboard.”

HITLER’S COMPLICITY TO THE NAZI CRIMINALS SENTENCED AND CONDEMNED IN NUREMBERG “Consider that the accused, Adolf Hitler, is guilty of the crimes covered by the four counts of the indictment. This was because of his political and military decisions as chancellor of the Reich during the years of the war, 1933-1945 and the fact of coordinating and authorizing as führer the actions of the principal defendants at the Nuremberg military tribunal; crimes reported in the judgment of October 1, 1946.

The Absence of the Accused

“The accused, Adolf Hitler, called in three times, did not answer. He must be considered a fugitive. “Consider that no signed statement of the Russian soldier who discovered the two charred bodies, purported to be those of Hitler and Eva, and the corpses of a German shepherd and a puppy during a new excavation of the gardens of the Chancllery on, May 5, 1945, was not itted.” “Consider that Pravda, on May 2, 1945, affirmed, probably with the agreement of Joseph Stalin, or even on his own initiative, that the announcement of the death of Hitler is only a fascist trick. This revealed a doubt even from the Kremlin on the death of the German dictator. Stalin declared, at the end of May 1945, to an American delegation, led by William Inverell Harriman, that Hitler was not dead but hid in an unknown place with Bormann and General Krebs. Later he declared that the Führer fled to Japan by submarine, Argentina, or Spain.” “Consider that on June 9, 1945, Marshal Zhukov, one of the senior officers of the Russian army, addressing the press, declared, “We have not identified the Führer’s body. I cannot say anything definitive about his fate. He may have flown to Berlin at the last moment.”

“Consider that the five Red Army law clerks who examined the remains of Hitler and Eva Braun on May 8, 1945, did this work clandestinely. Just as clandestinely, the SMERSH buried the bodies at Finow, near Berlin, and in the same hiding place the bodies were reburied, on June 3, 1945, in Rathenow in a military site of a city in East , Magdeburg.” “Consider that no evidence has been provided to the tribunal to the death of Hitler and that no analytical results made by experts have been filed to prove that the calcined remains found in the bunker are indeed those of the accused. No death certificate is presented, and no legal document of the corpse is submitted in the investigation file. Nothing, therefore, can justify until that date, 100 percent, the death of Hitler. Under the law, he is a missing person and for this tribunal the accused is a fugitive.” “Unconfirmed information claimed that Hitler was dead; but as this death has not been conclusively proved, the tribunal, as it has been said, decides to try Hitler in absentia under the right provided for by Article 12 of the statute, which allows proceedings in absentia against any accused absent at the hearing. In the event that Hitler is still alive and comes to be arrested, the Control Council for may, under Article 29 of the statute, review and vary the judgment if it deems it appropriate.”

For These Causes and Reasons

“The tribunal finds Adolf Hitler guilty of crimes of aggression and crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The court condemns Hitler to the death penalty. All the goods of the German dictator would be considered as vacant, and by this fact, they would be seized and put at the service of the international community to finance actions of peace in the world. The Nazi Party is forever banned from political and other activities. All party property and will be confiscated. Give one month to all persons or organizations managing Hitler’s property or assets of the of his party to report them to the registry of that court. Otherwise, they will be prosecuted as accomplices of the dictator and punished according to the law.” “Decide to include in the judgment in absentia the final motion of the

prosecution. In case of confirmation of the death of Hitler by an official document signed by the signatory countries of the London agreement or only by the four powers who sat on the Nuremberg military tribunal, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, , and the Soviet Union, the sentence of death of Adolf Hitler pronounced and written in the judgment in absentia would be annulled. However, the property of the convicted person will always be inventoried and seized in accordance with the decision. Declare finally that this order is executory on a minute and will be posted at the door of this court.” Given on November 18, 1946, at Nuremberg Gen. Taylor Telford, President

ANNEXE

CHAPTER XXVII

OPENING STATEMENT BEFORE THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL

M ay it please Your Honors: The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason. This Tribunal, while it is novel and experimental, is not the product of abstract speculations nor is it created to vindicate legalistic theories. This inquest represents the practical effort of four of the most mighty of nations, with the of 17 more, to utilize international law to meet the greatest menace of our times-aggressive war. The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which. leave no home in the world untouched. It is a cause of that magnitude that the United Nations will lay before Your Honors. In the prisoners’ dock sit twenty-odd broken men. Reproached by the humiliation of those they have led almost as bitterly as by the desolation of those they have attacked, their personal capacity for evil is forever past. It is hard now to perceive in these men as captives the power by which as Nazi leaders they once dominated much of the world and terrified most of it. Merely as individuals their fate is of little consequence to the world. What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister

influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust. We will show them to be living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. They are symbols of fierce nationalisms and of militarism, of intrigue and war-making which have embroiled Europe generation after generation, crushing its manhood, destroying its homes, and impoverishing its life. They have so identified themselves with the philosophies they conceived and with the forces they directed that any tenderness to them is a victory and an encouragement to all the evils which are attached to their names. Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive. What these men stand for we will patiently and temperately disclose. We will give you undeniable proofs of incredible events. The catalog of crimes will omit nothing that could be conceived by a pathological pride, cruelty, and lust for power. These men created in , under the “Führerprinzip”, a National Socialist despotism equaled only by the dynasties of the ancient East. They took from the German people all those dignities and freedoms that we hold natural and inalienable rights in every human being. The people were compensated by inflaming and gratifying hatreds towards those who were marked as “scapegoats”. Against their opponents, including Jews, Catholics, and free labor, the Nazis directed such a campaign of arrogance, brutality, and annihilation as the world has not witnessed since the pre-Christian ages. They excited the German ambition to be a “master race”, which of course implies serfdom for others. They led their people on a mad gamble for domination. They diverted social energies and resources to the creation of what they thought to be an invincible war machine. They overran their neighbors. To sustain the “master race” in its war-making, they enslaved millions of human beings and brought them into , where these hapless creatures now wander as “displaced persons”. At length bestiality and bad faith reached such excess that they aroused the sleeping strength of imperiled Civilization. Its united efforts have ground the German war machine to fragments. But the struggle has left Europe a liberated yet prostrate land where a demoralized society struggles to survive. These are the fruits of the sinister forces that sit with these defendants in the prisoners’ dock. In justice to the nations and the men associated in this prosecution, I must remind you of certain difficulties which may leave their mark on this case. Never before in legal history has an effort been made to bring within the scope of a

single litigation the developments of a decade, covering a whole continent, and involving a score of nations, countless individuals, and innumerable events. Despite the magnitude of the task, the world has demanded immediate action. This demand has had to be met, though perhaps at the cost of finished craftsmanship. To my country, established courts, following familiar procedures, applying well-thumbed precedents, and dealing with the legal consequences of local and limited events seldom commence a trial within a year of the event in litigation. Yet less than 8 months ago today the courtroom in which you sit was an enemy fortress in the hands of German SS troops. Less than 8 months ago nearly all our witnesses and documents were in enemy hands. The law had not been codified, no procedures had been established, no tribunal was in existence, no usable courthouse stood here, none of the hundreds of tons of official German documents had been examined, no prosecuting staff had been assembled, nearly all of the present defendants were at large, and the four prosecuting powers had not yet ed in common cause to try them. I should be the last to deny that the case may well suffer from incomplete researches and quite likely will not be the example of professional work which any of the prosecuting nations would normally wish to sponsor. It is, however, a completely adequate case to the judgment we shall ask you to render, and its full development we shall be obliged to leave to historians. Before I discuss particulars of evidence, some general considerations which may affect the credit of this trial in the eyes of the world should be candidly faced. There is a dramatic disparity between the circumstances of the accs and of the accused that might discredit our work if we should falter, in even minor matters, in being fair and temperate. Unfortunately, the nature of these crimes is such that both prosecution and judgment must be by victor nations over vanquished foes. The worldwide scope of the aggressions carried out by these men has left but few real neutrals. Either the victors must judge the vanquished or we must leave the defeated to judge themselves. After the first World War, we learned the futility of the latter course. The former high station of these defendants, the notoriety of their acts, and the adaptability of their conduct to provoke retaliation make it hard to distinguish between the demand for a just and measured retribution, and the unthinking cry for vengeance which arises from the anguish of war. It is our task, so far as humanly possible, to, draw the line between the two. We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To these defendants a poisoned chalice is to

put it to our own lips as well. We must summon such detachment and intellectual integrity to our task that this Trial will commend itself to posterity as fulfilling humanity’s aspirations to do justice. At the very outset, let us dispose of the contention that to put these men to trial is to do them an injustice entitling them to some special consideration. These defendants may be hard pressed but they are not ill used. Let us see what alternative they would have to being tried. More than a majority of these prisoners surrendered to or were tracked down by the forces of the United States. Could they expect us to make American custody a shelter for our enemies against the just wrath of our Allies? Did we spend American lives to capture them only to save them from punishment? Under the principles of the Moscow Declaration, those suspected war criminals who are not to be tried internationally must be turned over to individual governments for trial at the scene of their outrages. Many less responsible and less culpable American-held prisoners have been and will continue to be turned over to other United Nations for local trial. If these defendants should succeed, for any reason, in escaping the condemnation of this Tribunal, or if they obstruct or abort this trial, those who are American-held prisoners will be delivered up to our continental Allies. For these defendants, however, we have set up an International Tribunal and have undertaken the burden of participating in a complicated effort to give them fair and disionate hearings. That is the bestknown protection to any man with a defense worthy of being heard. If these men are the first war leaders of a defeated nation to be prosecuted in the name of the law, they are also the first to be given a chance to plead for their lives in the name of the law. Realistically, the Charter of this Tribunal, which gives them a hearing, is also the source of their only hope. It may be that these men of troubled conscience, whose only wish is that the world forget them, do not regard a trial as a favor. But they do have a fair opportunity to defend themselves-a favor which these men, when in power, rarely extended to their fellow countrymen. Despite the fact that public opinion already condemns their acts, we agree that here they must be given a presumption of innocence, and we accept the burden of proving criminal acts and the responsibility of these defendants for their commission. When I say that we do not ask for convictions unless we prove crime, I do not mean mere technical or incidental transgression of international conventions. We

charge guilt on planned and intended conduct that involves moral as well as legal wrong. And we do not mean conduct that is a natural and human, even if illegal, cutting of corners, such as many of us might well have committed had we been in the defendants’ positions. It is not because they yielded to the normal frailties of human beings that we accuse them. It is their abnormal and inhuman conduct which brings them to this bar. We will not ask you to convict these men on the testimony of their foes. There is no count in the Indictment that cannot be proved by books and records. The Germans were always meticulous record keepers, and these defendants had their share of the Teutonic ion for thoroughness in putting things on paper. Nor were they without vanity. They arranged frequently to be photographed in action. We will show you their own films. You will see their own conduct and hear their own voices as these defendants re-enact for you, from the screen, some of the events in the course of the conspiracy. We would also make clear that we have no purpose to incriminate the whole German people. We know that the Nazi Party was not put in power by a majority of the German vote. We know it came to power by an evil alliance between the most extreme of the Nazi revolutionists, the most unrestrained of the German reactionaries, and the most aggressive of the German militarists. If the German populace had willingly accepted the Nazi program, no Storm-troopers would have been needed in the early days of the Party and there would have been no need for concentration camps or the Gestapo, both of which institutions were inaugurated as soon as the Nazis gained control of the German State. Only after these lawless innovations proved successful at home were they taken abroad. The German people should know by now that the people of the United States hold them in no fear, and in no hate. It is true that the Germans have taught us the horrors of modern warfare, but the ruin that lies from the Rhine to the Danube shows that we, like our Allies, have not been dull pupils. If we are not awed by German fortitude and proficiency in war, and if we are not persuaded of their political maturity, we do respect their skill in the arts of peace, their technical competence, and the sober, industrious, and self-disciplined character of the masses of the German people. In 1933 we saw the German people recovering prestige in the commercial, industrial, and artistic world after the setback of the last war. We beheld their progress neither with envy nor malice. The Nazi regime interrupted this advance. The recoil of the Nazi aggression has left in ruins. The Nazi readiness to pledge the German word without

hesitation and to break it without shame has fastened upon German diplomacy a reputation for duplicity that will handicap it for years. Nazi arrogance has made the boast of the “master race” a taunt that will be thrown at Germans the world over for generations. The Nazi nightmare has given the German name a new and sinister significance throughout the world which will retard a century. The German, no less than the non-German world, has s to settle with these defendants. The fact of the war and the course of the war, which is the central theme of our case, is history. From September 1st, 1939, when the German armies crossed the Polish frontier, until September 1942, when they met epic resistance at Stalingrad, German arms seemed invincible. Denmark and Norway, the Netherlands and , Belgium and Luxembourg, the Balkans and Africa, Poland and the Baltic States, and parts of Russia, all had been overrun and conquered by swift, powerful, well-aimed blows. That attack on the peace of the world is the crime against international society which brings into international cognizance crimes in its aid and preparation which otherwise might be only internal concerns. It was aggressive war, which the nations of the world had renounced. It was war in violation of treaties, by which the peace of the world was sought to be safe-guarded. This war did not just happen-it was planned and prepared for over a long period of time and with no small skill and cunning. The world has perhaps never seen such a concentration and stimulation of the energies of any people as that which enabled 20 years after it was defeated, disarmed, and dismembered to come so near carrying out its plan to dominate Europe. Whatever else we may say of those who were the authors of this war, they did achieve a stupendous work in organization, and our first task is to examine the means by which these defendants and their fellow conspirators prepared and incited to go to war. In general, our case will disclose these defendants all uniting at some time with the Nazi Party in a plan which they well knew could be accomplished only by an outbreak of war in Europe. Their seizure of the German State, their subjugation of the German people, their terrorism and extermination of dissident elements, their planning and waging of war, their calculated and planned ruthlessness in the conduct of warfare, their deliberate and planned criminality toward conquered peoples,-all these are ends for which they acted in concert; and all these are phases of the conspiracy, a conspiracy which reached one goal only to

set out for another and more ambitious one. We shall also trace for you the intricate web of organizations which these men formed and utilized to accomplish these ends. We will show how the entire structure of offices and officials was dedicated to the criminal purposes and committed to the use of the criminal methods planned by these defendants and their co-conspirators, many of whom war and suicide have put beyond reach. It is my purpose to open the case, particularly under Count One of the Indictment, and to deal with the Common Plan or Conspiracy to achieve ends possible only by resort to Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity. My emphasis will not be on individual barbarities and perversions which may have occurred independently of any central plan. One of the dangers ever present is that this Trial may be protracted by details of particular wrongs and that we will become lost in a “wilderness of single instances”. Nor will I now dwell on the activity of individual defendants except as it may contribute to exposition of the common plan. The case as presented by the United States will be concerned with the brains and authority back of all the crimes. These defendants were men of a station and rank which does not soil its own hands with blood. They were men who knew how to use lesser folk as tools. We want to reach the planners and designers, the inciters and leaders without whose evil architecture the world would not have been for so long scourged with the violence and lawlessness, and wracked with the agonies and convulsions, of this terrible war.

THE LAWLESS ROAD TO POWER: The chief instrumentality of cohesion in plan and action was the National Socialist German Workers Party, known as the Nazi Party. Some of the defendants were with it from the beginning. Others ed only after success seemed to have validated its lawlessness or power had invested it with immunity from the processes of the law. Adolf Hitler became its supreme leader or “Führer” in 1921. On the 24th of February 1920, at Munich, it publicly had proclaimed its program (1708-PS). Some of its purposes would commend themselves to many good citizens, such as the demands for “profit-sharing in the great industries,” “generous development of provision for old age,” “creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class,” “a land reform suitable to our national requirements,” and “raising the standard of health.” It also made a strong appeal to that sort of nationalism which in ourselves we call patriotism and in our rivals chauvinism. It demanded “equality of rights for the German people in its dealing with other nations, and the abolition of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.” It demanded the “union of all Germans on the basis of the right of selfdetermination of peoples to form a Great .” It demanded ‘land and territory (colonies) for the enrichment of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.” All of these, of course, were legitimate objectives if they were to be attained without resort to aggressive warfare. The Nazi Party from its inception, however, contemplated war. It demanded the “abolition of mercenary troops and the formation of a national army.” It proclaimed that: “In view of the enormous sacrifice of life and property demanded of a nation by every war, personal enrichment through war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand, therefore, ruthless confiscation of all war profits.” I do not criticize this policy. Indeed, I wish it were universal. I merely wish to point out that in a time of peace, war was a preoccupation of the Party, and it started the work of making war less offensive to the masses of the people. With this it combined a program of physical training and sports for youth that became, as we shall see, the cloak for a secret program of military training.

The Nazi Party declaration also committed its to an anti-Semitic program. It declared that no Jew or any person of non-German blood could be a member of the nation. Such persons to be disfranchised, disqualified for office, subject to the alien laws, and entitled to nourishment only after the German population had first been provided for. All who had entered after August 2, 1914 were to be required forthwith to depart, and all non-German immigration was to be prohibited. The Party also avowed, even in those early days, an authoritarian and totalitarian program for . It demanded creation of a strong central power with unconditional authority, nationalization of all businesses which had been “amalgamated,” and a “reconstruction” of the national system of education white “must aim at teaching the pupil to understand the idea of the State (state sociology).” Its hostility to civil liberties and freedom of the press was distinctly announced in these words: “It must be forbidden to publish newspapers which do not conduce to the national welfare. We demand the legal prosecution of all tendencies in art or literature of a kind likely to disintegrate our life as a nation and the suppression of institutions which might militate against the above requirements.” The forecast of religious persecution was clothed in the language of religious liberty, for the Nazi program stated, “We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State.” But, it continues with the limitation, “so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the morality and moral sense of the German race.” The Party program foreshadowed the campaign of terrorism. It announced, “We demand ruthless war upon those whose activities are injurious to the common interests”, and it demanded that such offenses be punished with death. It is significant that the leaders of this Party interpreted this program as a belligerent one, certain to precipitate convict. The Party platform concluded, “The leaders of the Party swear to proceed regardless of consequences-if necessary, at the sacrifice of their lives-toward the fulfillment of the foregoing points.” It is this Leadership Corps of the Party, not its entire hip, that stands accused before you as a criminal organization. Let us now see how the leaders of the Party fulfilled their pledge to proceed

regardless of consequences. Obviously, their foreign objectives, which were nothing less than to undo international treaties and to wrest territory from foreign control, as well as most of their internal program, could be accomplished only by possession of the machinery of the German State. The first effort, accordingly, was to subvert the Weimar Republic by violent revolution. An abortive putsch at Munich in 1923 landed many of them in jail. A period of meditation which followed produced Mein Kampf, henceforth the source of law for the Party workers and a source of considerable revenue to its supreme leader. The Nazi plans for the violent overthrow of the feeble Republic then turned to plans for its capture. No greater mistake could be made than to think of the Nazi Party in of the loose organizations which we of the western world call “political parties”. In discipline, structure, and method the Nazi Party was not adapted to the democratic process of persuasion. It was an instrument of conspiracy and of coercion. The Party was not organized to take over power in the German State by winning of a majority of the German people; it was organized to seize power in defiance of the will of the people. The Nazi Party, under the “Führerprinzip,” was bound by an iron discipline into a pyramid, with the Führer, Adolf Hitler, at the top and broadening into a numerous Leadership Corps, composed of overlords of a very extensive Party hip at the base. By no means all of those who may have ed the movement in one way or another were actual Party . The hip took the Party oath which in effect amounted to an abdication of personal intelligence and moral responsibility. This was the oath: “I vow inviolable fidelity to Adolf Hitler; I vow absolute obedience to him and to the leaders he designates for me.” The hip in daily practice followed its leaders with an idolatry and self-surrender more Oriental than Western. We will not be obliged to guess as to the motives or goal of the Nazi Party. The immediate aim was to undermine the Weimar Republic. The order to all Party to work to that end was given in a letter from Hitler of August 24, 1931 to Rosenberg, of which we will produce the original Hitler wrote: “I am just reading in the Volkischer Beobachter, edition 235/236, page 1, an article entitled “Does Wirth Intend To Come over?” The tendency of the article is to prevent on our part a crumbling away from the present form of government. I myself am travailing all over to achieve exactly the opposite. May I

therefore ask that my own paper will not stab me in the back with tactically unwise articles….” (047-PS) Captured film enables us to present the Defendant Alfred Rosenberg, who from the screen will himself tell you the story. The SA practiced violent interference with elections. We have the reports of the SD describing in detail how its later violated the secrecy of elections in order to identify those who opposed them. One of the reports makes this explanation: “….The control was effected in the following way: some of the election committee marked all the ballot papers with numbers. During the ballot itself, a voters’ list was made up. The ballot-papers were handed out in numerical order, therefore it was possible afterwards with the aid of this list to find out the persons who cast ‘No’-votes or invalid votes. One sample of these marked ballot-papers is enclosed. The marking was done on the back of the ballot-papers with skimmed milk….” (R-142) The Party activity, in addition to all the familiar forms of political contest, took on the aspect of a rehearsal for warfare. It utilized a Party formation, “Die Sturmabteilungen”, commonly known as the SA. This was a voluntary organization of youthful and fanatical Nazis trained for the use of violence under semi-military discipline. Its began by acting as bodyguards for the Nazi leaders and rapidly expanded from defensive to offensive tactics. They became disciplined ruffians for the breaking up of opposition meetings and the terrorization of adversaries. They boasted that their task was to make the Nazi Party “master of the streets”. The SA was the parent organization of a number of others. Its offspring include “Die Schutzstaffeln”, commonly known as the SS, formed in 1925 and distinguished for the fanaticism and cruelty of its ; “Der Sicherheitsdienst”, known as the SD; and “Die Geheime Staatspolizei”, the Secret State Police, the infamous Gestapo formed in 1934 after Nazi accession to power. A glance at a chart of the Party organization is enough to show how completely it differed from the political parties we know. It had its own source of law in the Führer and sub-Führer. It had its own courts and its own police. The conspirators set up a government within the Party to exercise outside the law every sanction that any legitimate state could exercise and many that it could not. Its chain of command was military, and its formations were martial in name as well as in function. They were composed of battalions set up to bear arms under military

discipline, motorized corps, flying corps, and the infamous “Death Head Corps”, which was not misnamed. The Party had its own secret police, its security units, its intelligence and espionage division, its raiding forces, and its youth forces. It established elaborate istrative mechanisms to identify and liquidate spies and informers, to manage concentration camps, to operate death vans, and to finance the whole movement. Through concentric circles of authority, the Nazi Party, as its leadership later boasted, eventually organized and dominated every phase of German life-but not until they had waged a bitter internal struggle characterized by brutal criminality we charge here. In preparation for this phase of their struggle, they created a Party police system. This became the pattern and the instrument of the police state, which was the first goal in their plan. The Party formations, including the Leadership Corps of the Party, the SD, the SS, the SA, and the infamous Secret State Police, or Gestapo,-all these stand accused before you as criminal organizations; organizations which, as we will prove from their own documents, were recruited only from recklessly devoted Nazis, ready in conviction and temperament to do the most violent of deeds to advance the common program. They terrorized and silenced democratic opposition and were able at length to combine with political opportunists, militarists, industrialists, monarchists, and political reactionaries. On January 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the German Republic. An evil combination, represented in the prisoners’ dock by its most eminent survivors, had succeeded in possessing itself of the machinery of the German Government, a facade behind which they thenceforth would operate to make a reality of the war of conquest they so long had plotted. The conspiracy had ed into its second phase.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF NAZI POWER: We shall now consider the steps, which embraced the most hideous of Crimes against Humanity, to which the conspirators resorted in perfecting control of the German State and in preparing for the aggressive war indispensable to their ends. The Germans of the 1920’s were a frustrated and baffled people as a result of defeat and the disintegration of their traditional government. The democratic elements, which were trying to govern through the new and feeble machinery of the Weimar Republic, got inadequate from the democratic forces of the rest of the world, including my country. It is not to be denied that , when worldwide depression was added to her other problems, was faced with urgent and intricate pressures in her economic and political life which necessitated bold measures. The internal measures by which a nation attempts to solve its problems are ordinarily of no concern to other nations. But the Nazi program from the first was recognized as a desperate program for a people still suffering the effects of an unsuccessful war. The Nazi policy embraced ends recognized as attainable only by a renewal and a more successful outcome of war, in Europe. The conspirators’ answer to ’s problems was nothing less than to plot the regaining of territories lost in the First World War and the acquisition of other fertile lands of Central Europe by dispossessing or exterminating those who inhabited them. They also contemplated destroying or permanently weakening all other neighboring peoples so as to win virtual domination over Europe and probably of the world. The precise limits of their ambition we need not define for it was and is as illegal to wage aggressive war for small stakes as for large ones. We find at this period two governments in -the real and the ostensible. The forms of the German Republic were maintained for a time, and it was the outward and visible government. But the real authority in the State was outside and above the law and rested in the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party. On February 27, 1933, less than a month after Hitler became Chancellor, the Reichstag building was set on fire. The burning of this symbol of free parliamentary government was so providential for the Nazis that it was believed they staged the fire themselves. Certainly when we contemplate their known

crimes, we cannot believe they would shrink from mere arson. It is not necessary, however, to resolve the controversy as to who set the fire. The significant point is in the use that was made of the fire and of the state of public mind it produced. The Nazis immediately accused the Communist Party of instigating and committing the crime, and turned every effort to portray this single act of arson as the beginning of a communist revolution. Then, taking advantage of the hysteria, the Nazis met this phantom revolution with a real one. In the following December the German Supreme Court with commendable courage and independence acquitted the accused Communists, but it was too late to influence the tragic course of events which the Nazi conspirators had set rushing forward. Hitler, on the morning after the fire, obtained from the aged and ailing President Von Hindenburg a presidential decree suspending the extensive guarantees of individual liberty contained in the constitution of the Weimar Republic. The decree provided that: “Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. Thus, restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications, and warrants for house-searches, orders for, confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.” (1390-PS) The extent of the restriction on personal liberty under the decree of February 28,1933 may be understood by reference to the rights under the Weimar constitution which were suspended: “Article 114. The freedom of the person is inviolable. Curtailment or deprivation of personal freedom by a public authority is only permissible on a legal basis. “Persons who have been deprived of their freedom must be informed at the latest on the following day by whose authority and for what reasons the deprivation of freedom was ordered; opportunity shall be afforded them without delay of submitting objections to their deprivation of freedom. “Article 115. Every German’s home is his sanctuary and is inviolable. Exceptions may only be made as provided by law.

“Article 117. The secrecy of letters and all postal, telegraphic, and telephone communications is inviolable. Exceptions are inissible except by Reich law. “Article 118. Every German has the right, within the limits of the general laws, to express his opinions freely in speech, in writing, in print, in picture form, or in any other way. No conditions of work or employment may detract from this right and no disadvantage may accrue to him from any person for making use of this right…. “Article 123. All Germans have the right to assemble peacefully and unarmed without giving notice and without special permission. “A Reich law may make previous notification obligatory for assemblies in the open air, and may prohibit them in case of immediate danger to the public safety. “Article 124. All the Germans have the right to form associations or societies for purposes not contrary to criminal law. This right may not be curtailed by preventive measures. The same provisions apply to religious associations and societies. “Every association may become incorporated (Erwerb der Rechtsfähigkeit) according to the provisions of the civil law. The right may not be refused to any association on the grounds that its aims are political, social-political, or religious. “Article 153. Property is guaranteed by the Constitution. Its content and limits are defined by the laws. “Expropriation can only take place for the public benefit and on a legal basis. Adequate compensation shall be granted, unless a Reich law orders otherwise. In the case of dispute concerning the amount of compensation, it shall be possible to submit the matter to the ordinary civil courts, unless Reich laws determine otherwise. Compensation must be paid if the Reich expropriates property belonging to the Lands, Communes, or public utility associations. “Property carries obligations. Its use shall also serve the common good.” (2050PS) It must be said in fairness to Von Hindenburg that the constitution itself authorized him temporarily to suspend these fundamental rights “if the public safety and order in the German Reich are considerably disturbed or endangered.”

It must also be acknowledged that President Ebert previously had invoked this power. But the National Socialist coup was made possible because the of the Hitler-Hindenburg decree departed from all previous ones in which the power of suspension had been invoked. Whenever Ebert had suspended constitutional guarantees of individual rights, his decree had expressly revived the Protective Custody Act adopted by the Reichstag in 1916 during the previous war. This act guaranteed a judicial hearing within 24 hours of arrest, gave a right to have counsel and to inspect all relevant records, provided for appeal, and authorized compensation from Treasury funds for erroneous arrests. The Hitler-Hindenburg decree of February 28, 1933 contained no such safeguards. The omission may not have been noted by Von Hindenburg. Certainly he did not appreciate its effect. It left the Nazi police and party formations, already existing and functioning under Hitler, completely unrestrained and irresponsible. Secret arrest and indefinite detention, without charges, without evidence, without hearing, without counsel, became the method of inflicting inhuman punishment on any whom the Nazi police suspected or disliked. No court could issue an injunction, or writ of habeas corpus, or certiorari. The German people were in the hands of the police, the police were in the hands of the Nazi Party, and the Party was in the hands of a ring of evil men, of whom the defendants here before you are surviving and representative leaders. The Nazi conspiracy, as we shall show, always contemplated not merely overcoming current opposition but exterminating elements which could not be reconciled with its philosophy of the state. It not only sought to establish the Nazi “new order” but to secure its sway, as Hitler predicted, “for a thousand years.” Nazis were never in doubt or disagreement as to what these dissident elements were. They were concisely described by one of them, Colonel General Von Fritsch, on December 11, 1938 in these words: “Shortly after the first war I came to the conclusion that we should have to be victorious in three battles if were to become powerful again: 1. The battle against the working class - Hitler has won this. 2. Against the Catholic Church, perhaps better expressed against Ultramontanism. 3. Against the Jews.” (1947-PS)

The warfare against these elements was continuous. The battle in was but a practice skirmish for the worldwide drive against them. We have in point of geography and of time two groups of Crimes against Humanity - one within before and during the war, the other in occupied territory during the war. But the two are not separated in Nazi planning. They are a continuous unfolding of the Nazi plan to exterminate peoples and institutions which might serve as a focus or instrument for overturning their “new world order” at any time. We consider these crimes against humanity in this address as manifestations of the one Nazi plan and discuss them according to General Von Fritsch’s classification.

1. The Battle against the Working Class:

When Hitler came to power, there were in three groups of trade unions. The General German Trade Union Confederation (ADGB) with 28 d unions, and the General Independent Employees Confederation (AFA) with 13 federated unions together numbered more than 4,500,000 . The Christian Trade Union had over 1,250,000 . The working people of , like the working people of other nations, had little to gain personally by war. While labor is usually brought around to the of the nation at war, labor by and large is a pacific, though by no means a pacifist force in the world. The working people of had not forgotten in 1933 how heavy the yoke of the war lord can be. It was the workingmen who had ed the sailors and soldiers in the revolt of 1918 to end the First World War. The Nazis had neither forgiven nor forgotten. The Nazi program required that this part of the German population not only be stripped of power to resist diversion of its scanty comforts to armament, but also be wheedled or whipped into new and unheard of sacrifices as a part of the Nazi war preparation. Labor must be cowed, and that meant its organizations and means of cohesion and defense must be destroyed. The purpose to regiment labor for the Nazi Party was avowed by Ley in a speech to workers on May 2, 1933 as follows: “You may say what else do you want, you have the absolute power. True we have the power, but we do not have the whole people, we do not have you workers 100 per cent, and it is you whom we want; we will not let you be until you stand with us in complete, genuine acknowledgment.” (614-PS) The first Nazi attack was upon the two larger unions. On April 21, 1933 an order not even in the name of the Government, but of the Nazi Party was issued by the conspirator Robert Ley as “Chief of Staff of the political organization of the NSDAP,” applicable to the Trade Union Confederation and the Independent Employees Confederation. It directed seizure of their properties and arrest of their principal leaders. The Party order directed Party organs which we here denounce as criminal associations, the SA and SS “to be employed for the occupation of the trade union properties, and for the taking into custody of personalities who come into question.” And it directed the taking into

“protective custody” of all chairmen and district secretaries of such unions and branch directors of the labor bank. (392-PS) These orders were carried out on May 2, 1933. All funds of the labor unions, including pension and benefit funds, were seized. Union leaders were sent to concentration camps. A few days later, on May 10, 1933, Hitler appointed Ley leader of the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) which succeeded to the confiscated union funds. The German Labor Front, a Nazi controlled labor. bureau, was set up under Ley to teach the Nazi philosophy to German workers and to weed out from industrial employment all who were backward in their lessons. (1940-PS) “Factory troops” were organized as an “ideological shock squad within the factory” (1817-PS). The Party order provided that “outside of the German Labor front, no other Organization (whether of workers or of employees) is to exist.” On June 24, 1933 the remaining Christian Trade Unions were seized, pursuant to an order of the Nazi Party signed by Ley. On May 19, 1933, this time by a government decree, it was provided that “trustees” of labor appointed by Hitler, should regulate the conditions of all labor contracts, replacing the former process of collective bargaining (405-PS). On November 30, 1934 a decree “regulating national labor” introduced the Führer Principle into industrial relations. It provided that the owners of enterprises should be the “Führer” and the workers should be the followers. The “enterpriseFührer” should “make decisions for employees and laborers in all matters concerning the enterprise” (1861-PS). It was by such bait that the great German industrialists were induced to the Nazi cause, to their own ultimate ruin. Not only did the Nazis dominate and regiment German labor, but they forced the youth into the ranks of the laboring people they had thus led into chains. Under a compulsory labor service decree on 26 June 1935 young men and women between the ages of 18 and 25 were conscripted for labor (1654-PS). Thus was the purpose to subjugate German labor accomplished. In the words of Ley, this accomplishment consisted “in eliminating the association character of the trade union and employees’ associations, and in its place we have substituted the conception ‘soldiers of work’.” The productive manpower of the German nation was in Nazi control. By these steps the defendants won the battle to liquidate labor unions as potential opposition and were enabled to impose upon the working class the burdens of preparing for aggressive warfare. Robert Ley, the field marshal of the battle against labor, answered our Indictment

with suicide. Apparently he knew no better answer.

2. The Battle against the Churches:

The Nazi Party always was predominantly anti-Christian in its ideology. But we who believe in freedom of conscience and of religion base no charge of criminality on anybody’s ideology. It is not because the Nazi themselves were irreligious or pagan, but because they persecuted others of the Christian faith that they become guilty of crime, and it is because the persecution was a step in the preparation for aggressive warfare that the offense becomes one of international consequence. To remove every moderating influence among the German people and to put its population on a total war footing, the conspirators devised and carried out a systematic and relentless repression of all Christian sects and churches. We will ask you to convict the Nazis on their own evidence. Martin Bormann, in June 1941, issued a secret decree on the relation of Christianity and National Socialism. The decree provided: “For the first time in German history the Führer consciously and completely has the leadership of the people in his own hand. With the Party, its components, and attached units the Führer has created for himself and thereby the German Reich leadership an instrument which makes him independent of the church. All influences which might impair or damage the leadership of the people exercised by the Führer with help of the NSDAP, must “be eliminated. More and more the people must be separated from the churches and their organs, the pastors. Of course, the churches must and will, seen from their viewpoint, defend themselves against this loss of power. But never again must an influence on leadership of the people be yielded to the churches. This (influence) must be broken completely and finally. “Only the Reich Government and by its direction the Party, its components, and attached units have a right to leadership of the people. Just as the deleterious Sequences of astrologers, seers, and other fakers are estimated and suppressed by the Estate, so must the possibility of church influence also be totally removed. Not until this has happened; does the State leadership have influence on the individual citizens. Not until then are people and Reich secure in their existence for all the future.” (D-75)

And how the Party had been securing the Reich from Christian influence, will be proved by such items as this teletype from the Gestapo, Berlin, to the Gestapo, Nuremberg, on July 24, 1938. Let us hear their own of events in Rottenburg. “The Party on 23 July 1939 from 2100 on carried out the third demonstration against Bishop Sproll. Participants about 2500-3000 were brought in from outside by bus, etc. The Rottenburg populace again did not participate in the demonstration. This town took rather a hostile attitude to the demonstrations. The action got completely out of hand of the Party member responsible for it. The demonstrators stormed the palace, beat in the gates and doors. About 150 to 200 people forced their way into the palace, searched the rooms, threw files out of the windows and rummaged through the beds in the rooms of the palace. One bed was ignited. Before the fire got to the other objects of equipment in the rooms and the palace, the flaming bed could be thrown from the window and the fire extinguished. The Bishop was with Archbishop Groeber of Freiburg and the ladies and gentlemen of his menage in the chapel at prayer. About 25 to 30 people pressed into this chapel and molested those present. Bishop Groeber was taken for Bishop Sproll. He was grabbed by the robe and dragged back and forth. Finally the intruders realized that Bishop Groeber is not the one they are seeking. They could then be persuaded to leave the building. After the evacuation of the palace by the demonstrators I had an interview with Archbishop Groeber who left Rottenburg in the night. Groeber wants to turn to the Führer and Reich Minister of the Interior, Dr. Frick, anew. On the course of the action, the damage done as well as the homage of the Rottenburg populace beginning today for the Bishop I shall immediately hand in a full report, after I am in the act of suppressing counter mass meetings…. “In case the Führer has instructions to give in this matter, I request that these be transmitted most quickly….” (848-PS) Later, Defendant Rosenberg wrote to Bormann reviewing the proposal of Kerrl as Church Minister to place the Protestant Church under State tutelage and proclaim Hitler its supreme head. Rosenberg was opposed, hinting that nazism was to suppress the Christian Church completely after the war (See also 098PS). The persecution of all pacifist and dissenting sects, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Pentecostal Association, was peculiarly relentless and cruel The policy

toward the Evangelical Churches, however, was to use their influence for the Nazis’ own purposes. In September 1933 Mueller was appointed the Führer’s representative with power to deal with the “affairs of the Evangelical Church” in its relations to the State. Eventually, steps were taken to create a Reich Bishop vested with power to control this Church. A long conflict followed, Pastor Niemöller was sent to concentration camp, and extended interference with the internal discipline and istration of the churches occurred. A most intense drive was directed against the Roman Catholic Church. After a strategic concordat with the Holy See, signed in July 1933 in Rome, which never was observed by the Nazi Party, a long and persistent persecution of the Catholic Church, its priesthood, and its , was carried out. Church schools and educational institutions were suppressed or subjected to requirements of Nazi teaching inconsistent with the Christian faith. The property of the Church was confiscated and inspired vandalism directed against Church property was left unpunished. Religious instruction was impeded and the exercise of religion made difficult. Priests and bishops were laid upon, riots were stimulated to harass them, and many were sent to concentration camps. After occupation of foreign soil, these persecutions went on with greater vigor than ever. We will present to you from the files of the Vatican the earnest protests made by the Vatican to Ribbentrop summarizing the persecutions to which the priesthood and the Church had been subjected in this twentieth century under the Nazi regime. Ribbentrop never answered them. He could not deny. He dared not justify. I now come to “Crimes against the Jews.”

3. Crimes against the Jews:

The most savage and numerous crimes planned and committed by the Nazis were those against the Jews. Those in in l933 numbered about 500,000. In the aggregate, they had made for themselves positions which excited envy, and had accumulated properties which excited the avarice of the Nazis. They were few enough to be helpless and numerous enough to be held up as a menace. Let there be no misunderstanding about the charge of persecuting Jews. What we charge against these defendants is not those arrogances and pretensions which frequently accompany the intermingling of different peoples and which are likely, despite the honest efforts of government, to produce regrettable crimes and convulsions. It is my purpose to show a plan and design, to which all Nazis were fanatically committed, to annihilate all Jewish people. These crimes were organized and promoted by the Party leadership, executed and protected by the Nazi officials, as we shall convince you by written orders of the Secret State Police itself. The persecution of the Jews was a continuous and deliberate policy. It was a policy directed against other nations as well as against the Jews themselves. Anti-Semitism was promoted to divide and embitter the democratic peoples and to soften their resistance to the Nazi aggression. As Robert Ley declared in Der Angriff on 14 May 1944: “The second German secret weapon is Anti-Semitism because if it is constantly pursued by , it will become a universal problem which all nations will be forced to consider.” Anti-Semitism also has been aptly credited with being a “spearhead of terror.” The ghetto was the laboratory for testing repressive measures. Jewish property was the first to be expropriated, but the custom grew and included similar measures against anti-Nazi Germans, Poles, Czechs, Frenchmen, and Belgians. Extermination of the Jews enabled the Nazis to bring a practiced hand to similar measures against Poles, Serbs, and Greeks. The plight of the Jew was a constant threat to opposition or discontent among other elements of Europe’s populationpacifists, conservatives, Communists, Catholics, Protestants, and Socialists. It was in fact, a threat to every dissenting opinion and to every non-Nazi’s life.

The persecution policy against the Jews commenced with nonviolent measures, such as disfranchisement and discriminations against their religion, and the placing of impediments in the way of success in economic life. It moved rapidly to organize mass violence against them, physical isolation in ghettos, deportation, forced labor, mass starvation, and extermination. The Government, the Party formations indicted before you as criminal organizations, the Secret State Police, the Army, private and semi-public associations, and “spontaneous” mobs that were carefully inspired from official sources, as well as all agencies that were concerned in this persecution. Nor was it directed against individual Jews for personal bad citizenship or unpopularity. The avowed purpose was the destruction of the Jewish people as a whole, as an end in itself, as a measure of preparation for war, and as a discipline of conquered peoples. The conspiracy or common plan to exterminate the Jew was so methodically and thoroughly pursued, that despite the German defeat and Nazi prostration this Nazi aim largely has succeeded. Only remnants of the European Jewish population remain in , in the countries which occupied, and in those which were her satellites or collaborators. Of the 9,600,000 Jews who lived in Nazi-dominated Europe, 60 percent are authoritatively estimated to have perished. Five million seven hundred thousand Jews are missing from the countries in which they formerly lived, and over 4,500,000 cannot be ed for by the normal death rate nor by immigration; nor are they included among displaced persons. History does not record a crime ever perpetrated against so many victims or one ever carried out with such calculated cruelty. You will have difficulty, as I have, to look into the faces of these defendants and believe that in this twentieth century human beings could indict such sufferings as will be proved here on their own countrymen as well as upon their so-called “inferior” enemies. Particular crimes, and the responsibility of defendants for them, are to be dealt with by the Soviet Government’s counsel, when committed in the East and by counsel for the Republic of when committed in the West. I advert to them only to show their magnitude as evidence of a purpose and a knowledge common to an defendants, of an official plan rather than of a capricious policy of some individual commander, and to show such a continuity of Jewish persecution from the rise of the Nazi conspiracy to its collapse as forbids us to believe that any person could be identified with any part of Nazi action without approving this most conspicuous item in their program. The Indictment itself recites many evidences of the anti-Semitic persecutions.

The Defendant Streicher led the Nazis in anti-Semitic bitterness and extremism. In an article appearing in Der Stürmer on 19 March 1942 he complained that Christian teachings have stood in the way of “racial solution of the Jewish question in Europe”, and quoted enthusiastically as the twentieth century solution the Führer’s proclamation of February 24, 1942 that “the Jew will be exterminated.” And on November 4, 1943 Streicher declared in Der Stürmer that the Jews “have disappeared from Europe and that the Jewish ‘Reservoir of the East’ from which the Jewish plague has for centuries beset the people of Europe, has ceased to exist.” Streicher now has the effrontery to tell us he is “only a Zionist”-he says he wants only to return the Jews to Palestine. But on May 7, 1942 his newspaper, Der Stürmer, had this to say: “It is also not only a European problem! The Jewish question is a world question! Not only is not safe in the face of the Jews as long as one Jew lives in Europe, but a so the Jewish question is hardly solved in Europe so long as Jews live in the rest of the world.” And the Defendant Hans Frank, a lawyer by profession, I say with shame, summarized in his diary in 1944 the Nazi policy thus: “The Jews are a race which has to be eliminated; whenever we catch one, it is his end” (2233-PS, 4 March 1944, P. 26). And earlier, speaking of his function as Governor General of Poland, he confided to his diary this sentiment: “Of course I cannot eliminate all lice and Jews in only a year’s time” (2233 PS, Vol. IV, 1940, P. 1158). 1 could multiply endlessly this kind of Nazi ranting but I wil1 leave it to the evidence and turn to the fruit of this perverted thinking. The most serious of the actions against Jews were outside of any law, but the law itself was employed to some extent. There were the infamous Nuremberg decrees of September 15, 1935 (Reichsgesetzblatt 1935, Part. I, P. 1146). The Jews were segregated into ghettos and put into forced labor; they were expelled from their professions; their property was expropriated; all cultural life, the press, the theater, and schools were prohibited them; and the SD was made responsible for them (212-PS, 069-PS). This was an ominous guardianship, as the following order for “The Handling of the Jewish Question” shows: “The competency of the Chief of the Security Police and Security Service, who is charged with the mission of solving the European Jewish question, extends even to the Occupied Eastern Provinces ….

“An eventual act by the civilian population against the Jews is not to be prevented as long as this is compatible with the maintenance of order and security in the rear of the fighting troops …. “The first main goal of the German measures must be strict segregation of Jewry from the rest of the population. In the execution of this, first of all is the seizing of the Jewish populace by the introduction of a registration order and similar appropriate measures. “Then immediately, the wearing of the recognition sign consisting of a yellow Jewish star is to be brought about and all rights of freedom for Jews are to be withdrawn. They are to be placed in ghettos and at the same time are to be separated according to sexes. The presence of many more or less closed Jewish settlements in White Ruthenia and in the Ukraine makes this mission easier. Moreover, places are to be chosen which make possible the full use of the Jewish manpower in case labor needs are present. “The entire Jewish property is to be seized and confiscated with exception of that which is necessary for a bare existence. As far as the economical situation permits, the power of disposal of their property is to be taken from the Jews as soon as possible through orders and other measures given by the commissariat, so that the moving of property will quickly cease. “Any cultural activity will be completely forbidden, to the Jew. This includes the outlawing of the Jewish press, the Jewish theaters, and schools. “The slaughtering of animals according to Jewish rites is also to be prohibited ….” (212-PS) The anti-Jewish campaign became furious in following the assassination in Paris of the German Legation Councillor Von Rath. Heydrich, Gestapo head, sent a teletype to all Gestapo and SD offices with directions for handling “spontaneous” uprising anticipated for the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938 so as to aid in destruction of Jewish-owned property and protect only that of Germans. No more cynical document ever came into evidence. Then there is a report by an SS brigade leader, Dr. Stahleckker, to Himmler, which recites that: “… Similarly, native anti-Semitic forces were induced to start pogroms against Jews during the first hours after capture, though this inducement proved to be

very difficult. Following out orders, the Security Police was determined to solve the dervish question with a possible means and most decisively. But it was desirable that the Security Police should not put in an immediate appearance, at least in the beginning, since the extraordinarily harsh measures were apt to stir even German circles. It had to be shown to the world that the native population itself took the first action by way of natural reaction against the suppression by Jews during several decades and against the terror exercised by the Communists during the preceding period ….” “… In view of the extension of the area of operations and the great number of duties which had to be performed by the Security Police, it was intended from the very beginning to obtain the co-operation of the reliable population for the fight against vermin-that is mainly the Jews and Communists. Beyond our directing of the first spontaneous actions of self-cleansing, which will be reported elsewhere, care had to be taken that reliable people should be put to the cleansing job and that they were appointed auxiliary of the Security Police ….” “… Kovno. To our surprise it was not easy at first to set in motion an extensive pogrom against Jews. Klimatis, the leader of the partisan unit, mentioned above, who was used for this purpose primarily, succeeded in starting a pogrom on the basis of advice given to him by small advanced detachment acting in Kovno, and in such a way that no German order or German instigation was noticed from the outside. During the first pogrom in the night from 25 to 26 June the Lithuanian partisans did away with more than 1,500 Jews, set fire to several synagogues or destroyed them by other means and burned down a Jewish dwelling district consisting of about 60 houses. During the following nights about 2,300 Jews were made harmless in a similar way. In other parts of Lithuania similar actions followed the example of Kovno, though smaller and extending to the Communists vow had been left behind. “These self-cleansing actions went smoothly because the army authorities who had been informed showed understanding for this procedure. From the beginning it was obvious that only the first days after the occupation would offer the opportunity for carrying out pogroms: After the disarmament of the partisans the self-cleansing actions ceased necessarily. “It proved much more difficult to set in motion similar cleansing actions in Latvia….” (L-180)

Of course, it is self-evident that these “uprisings” were managed by the Government and the Nazi Party. If we were in doubt, we could resort to Streicher’s memorandum of April 14, 1939 which says: “The anti-Jewish action of November 1938 did not arise spontaneously from the people…. Part of the Party formation have been charged with the execution of the anti-Jewish action.” (406-PS) Jews as a whole were fined a billion Reichsmarks. They were excluded from all businesses and claims against insurance companies for their burned properties were confiscated, all by decree of the Defendant Goering. (Reichsgesetzblatt, 1938, Part I, Pp. 1579-82) Synagogues were the objects of a special vengeance. On November 10, 1938 the following order was given: “By order of the Group Commander: All Jewish synagogues in the area of Brigade 50 have to be blown up or set afire. The operation will be carried out in civilian clothing. Execution of the order will be reported.” (1721-PS) Some 40 teletype messages from various police headquarters will tell the fury with which all Jews were pursued in on those awful November nights. The SS troops were turned loose and the Gestapo supervised. Jewish-owned property was authorized to be destroyed. The Gestapo ordered twenty to thirty thousand “well-to-do-Jews” to be arrested. Concentration camps were to receive them. Healthy Jews, fit for labor, were to be taken. (3051-PS) As the German frontiers were expanded by war so the campaign against the Jews was expanded. The Nazi plan never was limited to extermination in ; always it contemplated extinguishing the Jew in Europe and often in the world. In the West, the Jews were killed and their property taken over. But the campaign achieved its zenith of savagery in the East. The eastern Jew has suffered as no people ever suffered. Their sufferings were carefully reported to the Nazi authorities to show faithful adherence to the Nazi design. I shall refer only to enough of the evidence of these to show the extent of the Nazi design for killing Jews. If I should recite these horrors in words of my own, you would think me intemperate and unreliable. Fortunately, we need not take the word of any witness but the Germans themselves. I invite you now to look at a few of the

vast number of captured German orders and reports that will be offered in evidence, to see what a Nazi invasion meant. We will present such evidence as the report of “Einsatzgruppe (Action Group) A” of October 15, 1941 which boasts that in overrunning the Baltic States, “Native anti-Semitic forces revere induced to start pogroms against the Jews during the first hours after occupation” The report continues: “From the beginning it was to be expected that the Jewish problem in the East could not be solved by pogroms alone. In accordance with the basic orders received, however, the cleansing activities of the Security Police had to aim at a complete annihilation of the Jews. Special detachments reinforced by selected units-in Lithuania partisan detachments, in Latvia units of the Latvian auxiliary police-therefore performed extensive executions both in the towns and in rural areas. The actions of the execution detachments were performed smoothly.” “The sum total of the Jews liquidated in Lithuania amounts to 71,105. During the pogroms in Kovno 3,800 Jews were eliminated, in the smaller towns about 1,200 Jews.” “In Latvia, up to now a total of 30,000 Jews were executed. Five hundred were eliminated by pogroms in Riga.” (L-180) This is a captured report from the Commissioner of Sluzk on October 30, 1941 which describes the scene in more detail. It says: “… The first lieutenant explained that the police battalion had received the assignment to effect the liquidation of all Jews here in the town of Sluzk, within two days. Then I requested him to postpone the action one day. However, he rejected this with the remark that he had to carry out this action everywhere and in all towns and that only two days were allotted for Sluzk. Within these two days, the town of Sluzk had to be cleared of Jews by all means…. All Jews without exception were taken out of the factories and shops and deported in spite of our agreement. It is true that part of the Jews was moved by way of the ghetto where many of them were processed and still segregated by me, but a large part was loaded directly on trucks and liquidated without further delay outside of the town. For the rest, as regards the execution of the action, I must point out to my deepest regret that the latter bordered already on sadism. The town itself offered a picture of horror during the action. With indescribable brutality on the part of German police officers and particularly Lithuanian partisans, the Jewish people,

but also among them White Ruthenians, were taken out of their dwellings and herded together. Everywhere in the town shots were to be heard and in different streets the corpses of shot Jews accumulated. The White Ruthenians were in greatest distress to free themselves from the encirclement. Regardless of the fact that the Jewish people, among whom were also tradesmen, were mistreated in a terribly barbarous way in the face of the White Ruthenian people, the White Ruthenians themselves were also worked over with rubber clubs and rifle butts. There was no question of an action against the Jews more. It rather looked like a revolution ….” There are reports which merely tabulate the numbers slaughtered. An example is an of the work of Einsatzgruppen of SIPO and SD in the East, which relates that: In Estonia, all Jews were arrested immediately upon the arrival of the Wehrmacht. Jewish men and women above the age of 16 and capable of work were drafted for forced labor. Jews were subjected to all sorts of restrictions and all Jewish property was confiscated. All Jewish males above the age of 16 were executed, with the exception of doctors and elders. Only 500 of an original 4,500 Jews remained. Thirty-seven thousand, one hundred eighty persons have been liquidated by the SIPO and SD in White Ruthenia during October. In one town, 337 Jewish women were executed for demonstrating a ‘provocative attitude.’ In another, 380 Jews were shot for spreading vicious propaganda. And so the report continues, listing town after town, where hundreds of Jews were murdered: In Vitebsk 3,000 Jews were liquidated because of the danger of epidemics. In Kiev 33,771 Jews were executed on September 29 and 30 in retaliation for some fires which were set off there. In Shitomir 3,145 Jews ‘had to be shot’ because, judging from experience they had to be considered as the carriers of Bolshevik propaganda. In Cherson 410 Jews were executed in reprisal against acts of sabotage. In the territory east of the Dnieper, the Jewish problem was ‘solved’ by the liquidation of 4,891 Jews and by putting the remainder into labor battalions of up to 1,000 persons. (R-102) Other s tell not of the slaughter so much as of the depths of degradation to which the tormentors stooped. For example, we win show the report made to Defendant Rosenberg about the army and the SS in the area under Rosenberg

jurisdiction, which recited the Wowing: “Details: In presence of SS man, a Jewish dentist has to break all gold teeth and fillings out of mouth of German and Russian Jews before they are executed.” Men, women and children are locked into barns and burned alive. Peasants, women and children are shot on the pretext that they are suspected of belonging to bands. (R-135) We of the Western World heard of gas wagons in which Jews and political opponents were asphyxiated. We could not believe it. But here we have the report of May 16, 1942 from the German SS Officer Becker to his supervisor in Berlin which tells this story: Gas vans in C group can be driven to spot, which is generally stationed 10 to 15 kms. from main road, only in dry weather. Since those to be executed become frantic if conducted to this place, such vans become immobilized in wet weather. Gas vans in D group were camouflaged as cabin trailers, but vehicles wellknown to authorities and civilian population which calls them ‘death vans’. Writer of letter (Becker) ordered all men to keep as far away as possible during gassing. Unloading van has ‘atrocious spiritual and physical effect’ on men and they should be ordered not to participate in such work. (501-PS) I shall not dwell on this subject longer than to quote one more sickening document which evidences the planned and systematic character of the Jewish persecutions. I hold a report written with Teutonic devotion to detail, illustrated with photographs to authenticate its almost incredible text, and beautifully bound in leather with the loving care bestowed on a proud work. It is the original report of the SS Brigadier General Stroop in charge of the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and its title page carries the inscription, “The Jewish ghetto in Warsaw no longer exists.” It is characteristic that one of the captions explains that the photograph concerned shows the driving out of Jewish “bandits”; those whom the photograph shows being driven out are almost entirely women and little children. It contains a day-by-day of the killings mainly carried out by the SS organization, too long to relate, but let me quote General Stroop’s summary:

“The resistance put up by the Jews and bandits could only be suppressed by energetic actions of our troops day and night. The Reichsführer SS ordered, therefore, on 23 April 1948, the clearing out of the ghetto with utter ruthlessness and merciless tenacity. I, therefore, decided to destroy and burn down the entire ghetto without regard to the armament factories. These factories were systematically dismantled and then burned. Jews usually left their hideouts, but frequently remained in the burning buildings and jumped out of the windows only when the heat became unbearable. They then tried to crawl with broken bones across the street into buildings which were not afire. Sometimes they changed their hideouts during the night into the ruins of burned buildings. Life in the sewers was not pleasant after the first week. Many times we could hear loud voices in the sewers. SS men or policemen climbed bravely through the manholes to capture these Jews. Sometimes they stumbled over Jewish corpses; sometimes they were shot at. Tear gas bombs were thrown into the manholes and the Jews driven out of the sewers and captured. Countless numbers of Jews were liquidated in sewers and bunkers through blasting. The longer the resistance continued the tougher became the of the Waffen-SS, Police and Wehrmacht who always discharged their duties in an exemplary manner. Frequently Jews who tried to replenish their food supplies during the night or to communicate with neighboring groups were exterminated. “This action eliminated,” says the SS commander, “a proved total of 56,065. To that, we haste to add the number killed through blasting, fire, etc., which cannot be counted.” (1061-PS) We charge that all atrocities against Jews were the manifestation and culmination of the Nazi plan to which every defendant here was a party. I know very well that some of these men did take steps to spare some particular Jew for some personal reason from the horrors that awaited the unrescued Jew. Some protested that particular atrocities were excessive, and discredited the general policy. While a few defendants may show efforts to make specific exceptions to the policy of Jewish extermination, I have found no instance in which any defendant opposed the policy itself or sought to revoke or even modify it. Determination to destroy the Jews was a binding force which at all times cemented the elements of this conspiracy. On many internal policies there were differences among the defendants. But there is not one of them who has not echoed the rallying cry of Nazism: “Deutschland erwache, Juda verrecke!” ( awake, Jewry perish!).

TERRORISM AND PREPARATION FOR WAR: How a government treats its own inhabitants generally is thought to be no concern of other governments or of international society. Certainly few oppressions or cruelties would warrant the intervention of foreign powers. But the German mistreatment of Germans is now known to in magnitude and savagery any limits of what is tolerable by modern civilization. Other nations, by silence, would take a consenting part in such crimes. These Nazi persecutions, moreover, take character as international crimes because of the purpose for which they were undertaken. The purpose, as we have seen, of getting rid of the influence of free labor, the churches, and the Jews was to clear their obstruction to the precipitation of aggressive war. If aggressive warfare in violation of treaty obligation is a matter of international cognizance the preparations for it must also be of concern to the international community. Terrorism was the chief instrument for securing the cohesion of the German people in war purposes. Moreover, these cruelties in served as atrocity practice to discipline the hip of the criminal organization to follow the pattern later in occupied countries. Through the police formations that are before you accused as criminal organizations, the Nazi Party leaders, aided at some point in their basic and notorious purpose by each of the individual defendants, instituted a reign of terror. These espionage and police organizations were utilized to hunt down every form of opposition and to penalize every nonconformity. These organizations early founded and istered concentration camps-Buchenwald in 1933, Dachau in 1934. But these notorious names were not alone. Concentration camps came to dot the German map and to number scores. At first they met with resistance from some Germans. We have a captured letter from Minister of Justice Gürtner to Hitler which is revealing. A Gestapo official had been prosecuted for crimes committed in the camp at Hohnstein, and the Nazi Governor of Saxony had promptly asked that the proceeding be quashed. The Minister of Justice in June of 1935 protested because, as he said: “In this camp unusually grave mistreatments of prisoners have occurred at least since summer 1933. The prisoners not only were beaten with whips without cause, similarly as in the Concentration Camp Bredow near Stettin till they lost

consciousness, but they were also tortured in other manners, e.g. with the help of a dripping apparatus constructed exclusively for this purpose, under which prisoners had to stand until they were suffering from serious purulent wounds of the scalp ….” (787-PS) I shall not take time to detail the ghastly proceedings in these concentration camps. Beatings, starvings, tortures, and killings were routine-so routine that the tormenters became blasé and careless. We have a report of discovery that in Plötzensee one night, 186 persons were executed while there were orders for only 180. Another report describes how the family of one victim received two urns of ashes by mistake. Inmates were compelled to execute each other. In 1942 they were paid five Reichsmarks per execution, but on June 27, 1942 SS General Glücks ordered commandants of all concentration camps to reduce this honorarium to three cigarettes. In 1943 the Reich leader of the SS and Chief of German Police ordered the corporal punishments on Russian women to be applied by Polish women and vice versa, but the price was not frozen. He said that as reward, a few cigarettes was authorized. Under the Nazis, human life had been progressively devalued, until it finally became worth less than a handful of tobacco-ersatz tobacco. There were, however, some traces of the milk of human kindness. On August 11, 1942 an order went from Himmler to the commanders of 14 concentration camps that only German prisoners are allowed to beat other German prisoners (2189-PS). Mystery and suspense was added to cruelty in order to spread torture from the inmate to his family and friends. Men and women disappeared from their homes or business or from the streets, and no word came of them. The omission of notice was not due to overworked staff; it was due to policy. The Chief of the SD and SIPO reported that in accordance with orders from the Führer anxiety should be created in the minds of the family of the arrested person. (668-PS) Deportations and secret arrests were labeled, with a Nazi wit which seems a little ghoulish, “Nacht und Nebel” (Night and Fog) (L-90, 833-PS). One of the many orders for these actions gave this explanation: “The decree carries a basic innovation. The Führer and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces commands that crimes of the specified sort committed by civilians of the occupied territories are to be punished by the pertinent courtsmartial in the occupied territories only when (a) the sentence calls for the death

penalty, and (b) the sentence is pronounced within eight days after the arrest. “Only when both conditions are met does the Führer and Commanders Chief of the Armed Forces hope for the desired deterrent effect from the conduct of punitive proceedings in the occupied territories. “In other cases, in the future, the accused are to be secretly brought to , and the further conduct of the trial carried on here. The deterrent effect of these measures lies (a) In allowing the disappearance of the accused without a trace, (b) therein that no information whatsoever may be given about their whereabouts and their fate.” (833-PS) To clumsy cruelty, scientific skill was added. “Undesirables” were exterminated by infection of drugs into the bloodstream, by asphyxiation in gas chambers. They were shot with poison bullets, to study the effects. (L-103) Then, to cruel experiments the Nazi added obscene ones. These were not the work of underling-degenerates but of master-minds high in the Nazi conspiracy. On May 20, 1942 General Field Marshal Milch authorized SS General Wolff to go ahead at Dachau Camp with so-called “cold experiments”; and four female gypsies were supplied for the purpose. Himmler gave permission to carry or these “experiments” also in other camps. (1617-PS) At Dachau, the reports of the “doctor” in charge show that victims were immersed in cold water until their body temperature was reduced to 28 degrees centigrade (82.4 degrees Farenheit), when they all died immediately (1618-PS). This was in August 1942. But the “doctor’s” technique improved. By February 1943 he was able to report that 30 persons were chilled to 21 to 29 degrees, their hands and feet frozen white, and their bodies “rewarmed” by a hot bath. But the Nazi scientific triumph was “rewarming with animal heat.” The victim, all but frozen to death, was surrounded with bodies of living women until he revived and responded to his environment by having sexual intercourse. (1616-PS) Here Nazi degeneracy reached its nadir. I dislike encumbering the record with such morbid tales, but we are in the grim business of trying men as criminals, and these are the things that their own agents say happened. We will show you these concentration camps in motion pictures, just as the Allied armies found them when they arrived, and the measures General Eisenhower had to take to clean them up. Our proof will be disgusting and you will say I have robbed you of your sleep. But these are the

things which have turned the stomach of the world and set every civilized hand against Nazi . became one vast torture chamber. Cries of its victims were heard round the world and brought shudders to civilized people everywhere. I am one who received during this war most atrocity tales with suspicion and skepticism. But the proof here will be so overwhelming that I venture to predict not one word I have spoken will be denied. These defendants will only deny personal responsibility or knowledge. Those which were decent but weak were intimidated. Open resistance, which had never been more than feeble and irresolute, disappeared. But resistance, I am happy to say, always remained, although it was manifest in only some events as the abortive effort to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944. With resistance driven underground, the Nazi had the German State in his own hands. But the Nazis not only silenced discordant voices. They created positive controls as effective as their negative ones. Propaganda organs, on a scale never before known, stimulated the Party and Party formation with a permanent enthusiasm and abandon such as we, democratic people, can work up only for a few days before a general election. They inculcated and practiced the Führerprinzip which centralized control of the Party and of the Party controlled State over the lives and thought of the German people, who are accustomed to look upon the German State, by whomever controlled, with a mysticism that is incomprehensible to my people. All these controls from their inception were exerted with unparalleled energy and single-mindedness to put on a war footing. We will show from the Nazis’ own documents their secret training of military personnel, their secret creation of a military air force. Finally, a conscript army was brought into being. Financiers, economists, industrialists ed in the plan and promoted elaborate alterations in industry and finance to an unprecedented concentration of resources and energies upon preparations for war. rearmament so outstripped the strength of her neighbors that in about a year she was able to crush the whole military force of continental Europe, exclusive of that of Soviet Russia, and then to push the Russian armies back to the Volga. These preparations were of a magnitude which sured all need of defense, and every defendant, and every intelligent German, well understood them to be for aggressive purposes.

EXPERIMENTS IN AGGRESSION: Before resorting to open aggressive warfare, the Nazis undertook some rather cautious experiments to test the spirit of resistance of those who lay across their path. They advanced, but only as others yielded, and kept in a position to draw back if they found a temperament that made persistence dangerous. On 7 March 1936 the Nazis reoccupied the Rhineland and then proceeded to fortify it in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the Pact of Locarno. Their encountered no substantial resistance and were emboldened to take the next step, which was the acquisition of Austria. Despite repeated assurances that had no designs on Austria, invasion was perfected. Threat of attack forced Schuschnigg to resign as Chancellor of Austria and put the Nazi Defendant Seyss-Inquart in his place. The latter immediately opened the frontier and invited Hitler to invade Austria “to preserve order”. On March 12th invasion began. The next day, Hitler proclaimed himself Chief of the Austrian State, took command of its armed forces and a law was enacted annexing Austria to . Threats of aggression had succeeded without arousing resistance. Fears nevertheless had been stirred. They were lulled by an assurance to the Czechoslovak Government that there would be no attack on that country. We will show that the Nazi Government already had detailed plans for the attack. We will lay before you the documents in which these conspirators planned to create an incident to justify their attack. They even gave consideration to assassinating their own Ambassador at Prague in order to create a sufficiently dramatic incident. They did precipitate a diplomatic crisis which endured throughout the summer. Hitler set September 30th as the day when troops should be ready for action. Under the threat of immediate war, the United Kingdom and concluded a pact with and Italy at Munich on September 29, 1938, which required Czechoslovakia to acquiesce in the session of the Sudetenland to . It was consummated by German occupation on October 1, 1938. The Munich Pact pledged no further aggression against Czechoslovakia, but the Nazi pledge was lightly given and quickly broken. On the 15th of March 1939, in defiance of the treaty of Munich itself, the Nazis seized and occupied Bohemia and Moravia, which constituted the major part of Czechoslovakia not

already ceded to . Once again the West stood aghast, but it dreaded war, it saw no remedy except war, and it hoped against hope that the Nazi fever for expansion had run its course. But the Nazi world was intoxicated by these unresisted successes in open alliance with Mussolini and in covert alliance with Franco. Then, having made a deceitful, delaying peace with Russia, the conspirators entered upon the final phase of the plan to renew war.

WAR OF AGGRESSION: I will not prolong this address by detailing the steps leading to the war of aggression which began with the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The further story will be unfolded to you from documents including those of the German High Command itself. The plans had been laid long in advance. As early as 1935 Hitler appointed the Defendant Schacht to the position of General Deputy for the War Economy (2261-PS). We have the diary of General Jodl (1780-PS); the “Plan Otto,” Hitler’s own order for attack on Austria in case trickery failed (C-102); the “Plan Green” which was the blueprint for attack on Czechoslovakia (388-PS); plans for the war in the West (375-PS, 376-PS); Funk’s letter to Hitler dated August 25, 1939 detailing the long course of economic preparation (699-PS); Keitel’s top-secret mobilization order for 193940 prescribing secret steps to be taken during a “period of tension” during which no” ‘state of war’ will be publicly declared even if open war measures against the foreign enemy will be taken.” This letter order (1639A-PS) is in our possession despite a secret order issued on May 16, 1945, when Allied troops were advancing into the heart of , to burn these plans. We have also Hitler’s directive, dated December 18, 1940, for the “Barbarossa Contingency” outlining the strategy of the attack upon Russia (446-PS). That plan in the original bears the initials of the Defendants Keitel and Jodl. They were planning the attack and planning it long in advance of the declaration of war. We have detailed information concerning “Case White,” the plan for attack on Poland (C120). That attack began the war. The plan was issued by Keitel on April 3rd, 1939. The attack did not come until September. Steps in preparation for the attack were taken by subordinate commanders, one of whom issued an order on June 14, providing that: “The Commander-in-Chief of the Army has ordered the working out of a plan of deployment against Poland which takes in the demands of the political leadership for the opening of war by surprise and for quick success…. “I declare it the duty of the commanding generals, the divisional commanders, and the commandants to limit as much as possible the number of persons who will be informed, and to limit the extent of the information, and ask that all suitable measures be taken to prevent persons not concerned from getting information….

“The operation, in order to forestall an orderly Polish mobilization and concentration, is to be opened by surprise with forces which are for the most part armored and motorized, placed on alert in the neighborhood of the border. The initial superiority over the Polish frontier guards and surprise that; can be expected with certainty are to be maintained by quickly bringing up other parts of the Army as well to counteract the marching up of the Polish Army…. “If the development of the political situation should show that a surprise at the beginning of the war is out of question, because of well-advanced defense preparations on the part of the Polish Army, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army will order the opening of the hostilities only after the assembling of sufficient additional forces. The basis of all preparations will be to surprise the enemy….” (2327-PS) We have also the order for the invasion of England, signed by Hitler and initialed by Keitel and Jodl. It is interesting that it commences with a recognition that although the British military position is “hopeless,” they show not the slightest sign of giving in. (442-PS) Not the least incriminating are the minutes of Hitler’s meeting with his high advisers. As early as November 5, 1937 Hitler told Defendants Goering, Raeder, and Neurath, among others, that German rearmament was practically accomplished and that he had decided to secure by force, starting with a lightning attack on Czechoslovakia and Austria, greater living space for Germans in Europe no later than 1943-45 and perhaps as early as 1938 (386-PS). On the 23rd of May, 1939 the Führer advised his staff that: “It is a question of expanding our living space in the East and of securing our food supplies…. Over and above the natural fertility, thorough-going German exploitation will enormously increase the surplus. “There is therefore no question of sparing Poland, and we are left. with the decision: To attack Poland at the first suitable opportunity. We cannot expect a repetition of the Czech affair. There will be war.” (L-79) On August 22nd, 1939 Hitler again addressed of the High Command, telling them when the start of military operations would be ordered. He disclosed that for propaganda purposes, he would provocate a good reason. “It will make no difference,” he announced, “whether this reason will sound convincing or not.

After all, the victor will not be asked whether he talked the truth or not. We have to proceed brutally. The stronger is always right.” (1014-PS) On 23 November 1939, after the Germans had invaded Poland, Hitler made this explanation: “… For the first time in history we have to fight on only one front, the other front is at present free. But no one can know how long that will remain so. I have doubted for a long time whether I should strike in the East and then in the West. Basically I did not organize the armed forces in order not to strike. The decision to strike was always in me. Earlier or later I wanted to solve the problem. Under pressure it was decided that the East was to be attacked first ….” (789-PS) We know the bloody sequel. Frontier incidents were staged. Demands were made for cession of territory. When Poland refused, the German forces invaded on September 1st, 1939. Warsaw was destroyed; Poland fell. The Nazis, in accordance with plan, moved swiftly to extend their aggression throughout Europe and to gain the advantage of surprise over their unprepared neighbors. Despite repeated and solemn assurances of peaceful intentions, they invaded Denmark and Norway on 9th April 1940; Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg on 10th May 1940; Yugoslavia and Greece on 6th April 1941. As part of the Nazi preparation for aggression against Poland and her allies, , on 23rd August 1939, had entered into a non-aggression pact with Soviet Russia. It was only a delaying treaty intended to be kept no longer than necessary to prepare for its violation. On June 22, 1941, pursuant to longmatured plans, the Nazis hurled troops into Soviet territory without any declaration of war. The entire European world was aflame.

CONSPIRACY WITH JAPAN: The Nazi plans of aggression called for use of Asiatic allies and they found among the Japanese men of kindred mind and purpose. They were brothers, under the skin. Himmler records a conversation he had on January 31, 1939 with General Oshima, Japanese Ambassador at Berlin. He wrote: “Furthermore, he (Oshima) had succeeded up to now to send 10 Russians with bombs across the Caucasian frontier. These Russians had the mission to kill Stalin. A number of additional Russians, whom he had also sent across, had been shot at the frontier.” (2195-PS) On September 27th, 1940 the Nazis concluded a German-Italian-Japanese 10year military and economic alliance by which those powers agreed “to stand by and cooperate with one another in regard to their efforts in Greater East Asia and regions of Europe respectively wherein it is their prime purpose to establish and maintain a new order of things.” On March 5, 1941 a top-secret directive was issued by Defendant Keitel. It stated that the Führer had ordered instigation of Japan’s active participation in the war and directed that Japan’s military power has to be strengthened by the disclosure of German war experiences and of a military, economic, and technical nature has to be given. The aim was stated to be to crush England quickly thereby keeping the United States out of the war. (C-75) On March 29, 1941 Ribbentrop told Matsuoka, the Japanese Foreign Minister, that the German Army was ready to strike against Russia. Matsuoka reassured Ribbentrop about the Far East. Japan, he reported, was acting at the moment as though she had no interest whatever in Singapore, but intends to strike when the right moment comes. (1877-PS) On April 5, 1941 Ribbentrop urged Matsuoka that entry of Japan into the war would “hasten the victory” and would be more in the interest of Japan than of since it would give Japan a unique chance to fulfill her national aims and to play a leading part in Eastern Asia (1882-PS).

The proofs in this case will also show that the leaders of were planning war against the United States from its Atlantic as well as instigating it from its Pacific approaches. A captured memorandum from the Führer’s headquarters, dated October 29, 1940, asks certain information as to air bases and supply and reports further that: “The Führer is at present occupied with the question of the occupation of the Atlantic islands with a view to the prosecution of war against America at a later date. Deliberations on this subject are being embarked upon here.” (376-PS) On December 7th, 1941, a day which the late President Roosevelt declared “will live in infamy,” victory for German aggression seemed certain. The Wehrmacht was at the gates of Moscow. Taking advantage of the situation, and while her plenipotentiaries were creating a diplomatic diversion in Washington, Japan without declaration of war treacherously attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. Attacks followed swiftly on the British Commonwealth, and The Netherlands in the Southwest Pacific. These aggressions were met in the only way that they could be met, with instant declarations of war and with armed resistance which mounted slowly through many long months of reverses until finally the Axis was crushed to earth and deliverance for its victims was won.

“CRIMES IN THE CONDUCT OF WAR”. Even the most warlike of peoples have recognized in the name of humanity some limitations on the savagery of warfare. Rules to that end have been embodied in international conventions to which became a party. This code had prescribed certain restraints as to the treatment of belligerents. The enemy was entitled to surrender and to receive quarter and good treatment as a prisoner of war. We will show by German documents that these rights were denied, that prisoners of war were given brutal treatment and often murdered. This was particularly true in the case of captured airmen, often my countrymen. It was ordered that captured English and American airmen should no longer be granted the status of prisoners of war. They were to be treated as criminals and the Army was ordered to refrain from protecting them against lynching by the populace. (R-118) The Nazi Government, through its police and propaganda agencies, took pains to incite the civilian population to attack and kill airmen who crash-landed. The order, given by the Reichsführer SS Himmler on 10 August 1943, directed that: “It is not the task of the police to interfere in clashes between German and English and American flyers who have bailed out”. This order was transmitted on the same day by SS Obersturmbannfiihrer Brand of Mmmler’s personal staff to all senior executive SS and Police officers, with these directions: “I am sending you the enclosed order with the request that the Chief of the Regular Police and of the Security Police be informed. They are to make this instruction known to their subordinate officers verbally.” (R-110) Similarly, we will show Hitler’s top secret order, dated 18 October 1942, that Commandos, regardless of condition, were “to be slaughtered to the last man” after capture (498-PS). We will show the circulation of secret orders, one of which was signed by Hess, to be ed orally to civilians, that enemy fliers or parachutists were to be arrested or liquidated (062-PS). By such means were murders incited and directed. This Nazi campaign of ruthless treatment of enemy forces assumed its greatest proportions in the fight against Russia. Eventually all prisoners of war were taken out of control of the Army and put in the hands of Himmler and the SS

(058-PS). In the East, the German fury spent itself. Russian prisoners were ordered to be branded. They were starved. I shall quote ages from a letter written February 28, 1942 by Defendant Rosenberg to Defendant Keitel: “The fate of the Soviet prisoners of war in is on the contrary a tragedy of the greatest extent. Of 3,600,000 prisoners of war, only several hundred thousand are still able to work fully. A large part of them has starved, or died, because of the hazards of the weather. Thousands also died from spotted fever …. “The camp commanders have forbidden the civilian population to put food at the disposal of the prisoners, and they have rather let them starve to death …. “In many cases, when prisoners of war could no longer keep up on the march because of hunger and exhaustion, they were shot before the eyes of the horrified population, and the corpses were left. “In numerous camps, no shelter for the prisoners of war was provided at all. They lay under the open sky during rain or snow. Even tools were not made available to dig holes or caves ….” Finally, the shooting of prisoners of war must be mentioned; for instance, in various camps, all the ‘Asiatics’ were shot”. (081-PS) Civilized usage and conventions to which was a party had prescribed certain immunities for civilian populations unfortunate enough to dwell in lands overrun by hostile armies. The German occupation forces, controlled or commanded by men on trial before you, committed a long series of outrages against the inhabitants of occupied territory that would be incredible except for captured orders and captured reports which show the fidelity with which those orders were executed. We deal here with a phase of common criminality designed by the conspirators as part of the common plan. We can appreciate why these crimes against their European enemies were not of a casual character but were planned and disciplined crimes when we get at the reason for them. Hitler told his officers on August 22, 1939 that: “The main objective in Poland is the destruction of the enemy and not the reaching of a certain geographical line” (1014-PS). The project of deporting promising youth from occupied territories was approved by Rosenberg on the theory that “a desired weakening of the biological force” of the

conquered people is being achieved (031-PS). To Germanize or to destroy was the program. Himmler announced, “Either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves and give it a place in our people or, gentlemen-you may call this cruel, but nature is cruel, -we destroy this blood.” As to “racially good types” Himmler further advised, “Therefore, I think that it is our duty to take their children with us, to remove them from their environment, if necessary by robbing or stealing them” (L-70). He urged deportation of Slavic children to deprive potential enemies of future soldiers. The Nazi purpose was to leave ’s neighbors so weakened that even if she should eventually lose the war, she would still be the most powerful nation in Europe. Against this background, we must view the plan for ruthless warfare, which means a plan for the commission of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. Hostages in large numbers were demanded and killed. Mass punishments were inflicted, so savage that whole communities were extinguished. Rosenberg was advised of the annihilation of three unidentified villages in Slovakia. (970-PS) In May of 1943 another village of about 40 farms and 220 inhabitants was ordered wiped out. The entire population was ordered shot, the cattle and property impounded, and the order required that “the village will be destroyed totally by fire.” (163 PS) A secret report from Rosenberg’s Reich Ministry of Eastern Territory reveals that: “Food rations allowed the Russian population are so low that they fail to secure their existence and provide only for minimum subsistence of limited duration. The population does not know if they will still live tomorrow. They are faced with death by starvation…. “The roads are clogged by hundreds of thousands of people, sometimes as many as one million according to the estimate of experts, who wander around in search of nourishment …. “Sauckel’s action has caused unrest among the civilians …. Russian girls were deloused by men, nude photos in forced positions were taken, women doctors were locked into freight cars for the pleasure of the transport commanders, women in night shirts were fettered and forced through the Russian towns to the railroad station, etc. All this material has been sent to the OKH.” (1381-PS)

Perhaps the deportation to slave labor was the most horrible and extensive slaving operation in history. On few other subjects is our evidence so abundant or so damaging. In a speech made on January 25, 1944 the Defendant Frank, Governor General of Poland, boasted, “I have sent 1,300,000 Polish workers into the Reich” (05.9-PS, P. 2). The Defendant Sauckel reported that “out of the 5 million foreign workers who arrived in not even 200,000 came voluntarily.” This fact was reported to the Fuhrer and Defendants Speer, Goring, and Keitel. (R-24) Children of 10 to 14 years were impressed into service by telegraphic order of Rosenberg’s Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories: “The Command is further charged with the transferring of worthwhile Russian youth between 10-14 years of age, to the Reich. The authority is not affected by the changes connected with the evacuation and transportation to the reception camps of Bialystok, Krajewo, and, Olitei The Fuhrer wishes that this activity be increased even more.” (200-PS) When enough labor was not forthcoming, prisoners of war were forced into war work in flagrant violation of international conventions (016-PS). Slave labor came from , Belgium, Holland, Italy, and the East. Methods of recruitment were violent (R-324, 018 PS, 204-PS). The treatment of these slave laborers was stated in general , not difficult to translate into concrete deprivations, in a letter to the Defendant Rosenberg from the Defendant Sauckel, which stated: “All prisoners of war, from the territories of the West as well as of the East, actually in , must be completely incorporated into the German armament and munitions industries. Their production must be brought to the highest possible level …. “The complete employment of all prisoners of war as well as the use of a gigantic number of new foreign civilian workers, men and women, has become an indisputable necessity for the solution of the mobilization of labor program in this war. “All the men must be fed, sheltered, and treated in such a way as to exploit them to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degrees of expenditure ….” (016-PS) In pursuance of the Nazi plan permanently to reduce the living standards of their

neighbors and to weaken them physically and economically, a long series of crimes were committed. There was extensive destruction, serving no military purpose, of the property of civilians. Dikes were thrown open in Holland almost at the close of the war not to achieve military ends but to destroy the resources and retard the economy of the thrifty Netherlanders. There was carefully planned economic siphoning off of the assets of occupied countries. An example of the planning is shown by a report on dated December 7, 1942 made by the Economic Research Department of the Reichsbank. The question arose whether French occupation costs should be increased from 15 million Reichsmarks per day to 25 million Reichsmarks per day. The Reichsbank analyzed French economy to determine whether it could bear the burden. It pointed out that the armistice had burdened to that date to the extent of 18 1/2 billion Reichsmarks, equaling 370 billion francs. It pointed out that the burden of-these payments within 2 1/2 years equaled the aggregate French national income in the year 1940, and that the amount of payments handed over to in the first 6 months of 1942 corresponded to the estimate for the total French revenue for that whole year. The report concluded: “In any case, the conclusion is inescapable that relatively heavier tributes have been imposed on since the armistice in June 1940 than upon after the World War. In this connection, it must be noted that the economic powers of never equaled those of the German Reich and that the vanquished could not draw on foreign economic and financial resources in the same degree as after the last World War.” The Defendant Funk was the Reich Minister of Economics and President of the Reichsbank; the Defendant Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister; the Defendant Goering was Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan; and all of them participated in the exchange of views of which this captured document is a part. (2149 PS) Notwithstanding this analysis by the Reichsbank, they proceeded to increase the imposition on from 15 million Reichsmarks daily to 25 million per day. It is small wonder that the bottom has been knocked out of French economy. The plan and purpose of the thing appears in a letter from General Stulpnagel, head of the German Armistice Commission, to the Defendant Jodl as early as 14 September 1940 when he wrote, “The slogan ‘Systematic weakening of ’ has been already sured by far in reality” (1756-PS).

Not only was there a purpose to debilitate and demoralize the economy of ’s neighbors for the purpose of destroying their competitive position, but there was looting and pilfering on an unprecedented scale. We need not be hypocritical about this business of looting. I recognize that no army moves through occupied territory without some pilfering as it goes. Usually the amount of pilfering increases as discipline wanes. If the evidence in this case showed no looting except of that sort, I certainly would ask no conviction of these defendants for it. But we will show you that looting was not due to the lack of discipline or to the ordinary weaknesses of human nature. The German organized plundering, planned it, disciplined it, and made it official just as he organized everything else, and then he compiled the most meticulous records to show that he had done the best job of looting that was possible under the circumstances. And we have those records. The Defendant Rosenberg was put in charge of a systematic plundering of the art objects of Europe by direct order of Hitler dated 29 January 1940 (136-PS). On the 16th of April 1943 Rosenberg reported that up to the 7th of April, 92 railway cars with 2,775 cases containing art objects had been sent to ; and that 53 pieces of art had been shipped to Hitler direct, and 594 to the Defendant Goering. The report mentioned something like 20,000 pieces of seized art and the main locations where they were stored. (015-PS) Moreover this looting was glorified by Rosenberg. Here we have 39 leatherbound tabulated volumes of his inventory, which in due time we will offer in evidence. One cannot but ire the artistry of this Rosenberg report. The Nazi taste was cosmopolitan. Of the 9,455 articles inventoried, there were included 5,255 paintings, 297 sculptures, 1,372 pieces of antique furniture, 307 textiles, and 2,224 small objects of art. Rosenberg observed that there were approximately 10,000 more objects still to be inventoried. (015-PS) Rosenberg himself estimated that the values involved would come close to a billion dollars (090-PS). I shall not go into further details of the War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity committed by the gangster ring whose leaders are before you. It is not the purpose in my part of this case to deal with the individual crimes. I am dealing with the Common Plan or design for crime and will not dwell upon individual offenses. My task is to show the scale on which these crimes

occurred, and to show that these are the men who were in the responsible positions and who conceived the plan and design which renders them answerable, regardless of the fact that the plan was actually executed by others. At length, this reckless and lawless course outraged the world. It recovered from the demoralization of surprise attack, assembled its forces and stopped these men in their tracks. Once success deserted their banners, one by one the Nazi satellites fell away. Sawdust Caesar collapsed. Resistance forces in every occupied country arose to harry the invader. Even at home, Germans saw that was being led to ruin by these mad men, and the attempt on July 20, 1944 to assassinate Hitler, an attempt fostered by men of highest station, was a desperate effort by internal forces in to stop short of ruin. Quarrels broke out among the failing conspirators, and the decline of the Nazi power was more swift than its ascendancy. German Armed Forces surrendered, its Government disintegrated, its leaders committed suicide by the dozen, and by the fortunes of war these defendants fell into our hands. Although they are not, by any means, all the guilty ones, they are survivors among the most responsible. Their names appear over and over in the documents and their faces grace the photographic evidence. We have here the surviving top politicians, militarists, financiers, diplomats, s, and propagandists, of the Nazi movement. Who was responsible for these crimes if they were not?

THE LAW OF THE CASE: The end of the war and capture of these prisoners presented the victorious Allies with the question whether there is any legal responsibility on high-ranking men for acts which I have described. Must such wrongs either be ignored or redressed in hot blood? Is there no standard in the law for a deliberate and reasoned judgment on such conduct? The Charter of this Tribunal evidences a faith that the law is not only to govern the conduct of little men, but that even rulers are, as Lord Chief Justice Coke put it to King James, “under God and the law.” The United States believed that the law long has afforded standards by which a juridical hearing could be conducted to make sure that we punish only the right men and for the right reasons. Following the instructions of the late President Roosevelt and the decision of the Yalta conference President Truman directed representatives of the United States to formulate a proposed International Agreement, which was submitted during the San Francisco Conference to Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the Provisional Government of . With many modifications, that proposal has become the Charter of this Tribunal. But the Agreement which sets up the standards by which these prisoners are to be judged does not express the views of the signatory nations alone. Other nations with diverse but highly respected systems of jurisprudence also have signified adherence to it. These are Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg, Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Australia, Haiti, Honduras, Panama, New Zealand, Venezuela, and India. You judge, therefore, under an organic act which represents the wisdom, the sense of justice, and the will of 21 governments, representing an overwhelming majority of all civilized people. The Charter by which this Tribunal has its being, embodies certain legal concepts which are inseparable from its jurisdiction and which must govern its decision. These, as I have said, also are conditions attached to the grant of any hearing to defendants. The validity of the provisions of the Charter is conclusive upon us all, whether they have accepted the duty of judging or of prosecuting under it, as well as upon the defendants, who can point to no other law which gives them a right to be heard at all. My able and experienced colleagues

believe, as do I, that it will contribute to the expedition and clarity of this Trial if I expound briefly the application of the legal philosophy of the Charter to the facts I have recited. While this declaration of the law by the Charter is final, it may be contended that the prisoners on trial are entitled to have it applied to their conduct only most charitably if at all. It may be said that this is new law, not authoritatively declared at the time they did the acts it condemns, and that this declaration of the law has taken them by surprise. I cannot, of course, deny that these men are surprised that this is the law; they really are surprised that there is any such thing as law. These defendants did not rely on any law at all. Their program ignored and defied all law. That this is so will appear from many acts and statements, of which I cite but a few. In the Führer’s speech to all military commanders on November 23, 1939 he reminded them that at the moment had a pact with Russia, but declared: “Agreements are to be kept only as long as they serve a certain purpose.” Later in the same speech he announced: “A violation of the neutrality of Holland and Belgium will be of no importance” (789 PS). A top secret document, entitled “Warfare as a Problem of Organization,” dispatched by the Chief of the High Command to all commanders on April 19, 1938 declared that “the normal rules of war towards neutrals may be considered to apply on the basis whether operation of rules will create greater advantages or disadvantages for the belligerents” (L-2U). And from the files of the German Navy Staff, we have a “Memorandum on Intensified Naval War,” dated October 15, 1939, which begins by stating a desire to comply with International Law. “However,” it continues, “if decisive successes are expected from any measure considered as a war necessity, it must be carried through even if it is not in agreement with international law.” (L-184) International law, natural law, German law, any law at all was to these men simply a propaganda device to be invoked when it helped and to be ignored when it would condemn what they wanted to do. That men may be protected in relying upon the law at the time they act is the reason we find laws of retrospective operations unjust. But these men cannot bring themselves within the reason of the rule which in some systems of jurisprudence prohibits ex post facto laws. They cannot show that they ever relied upon international law in any state or paid it the slightest regard. The third Count of the Indictment is based on the definition of War Crimes

contained in the Charter. I have outlined to you the systematic course of conduct toward civilian populations and combat forces which violates international conventions to which was a party. Of the criminal nature of these acts at least, the defendants had, as we shall show, clear knowledge. Accordingly, they took pains to conceal their violations. It will appear that the Defendants Keitel and Jodl were informed by official legal advisors that the orders to brand Russian prisoners of war, to shackle British prisoners of war, and to execute commando prisoners were clear violations of international law. Nevertheless, these orders were put into effect. The same is true of orders issued for the assassination of General Giraud and General Weygand, which failed to be executed only because of a ruse on the part of iral Canaris, who was himself later executed for his part in the plot to take Hitler’s life on July 24, 1944. The fourth Count of the indictment is based on Crimes against Humanity. Chief among these are mass killings of countless human beings in cold blood. Does it take these men by surprise that murder is treated as a crime? The first and second Counts of the Indictment add to these crimes the crime of plotting and waging wars of aggression and wars in violation of nine treaties to which was a party. There was a time, in fact, I think the time of the first World War, when it could not have been said that war-inciting or war making was a crime in law, however reprehensible in morals. Of course, it was, under the law of all civilized peoples, a crime for one man with his bare knuckles to assault another. How did it come that multiplying this crime by a million, and adding fire arms to bare knuckles, made it a legally innocent act? The doctrine was that one could not be regarded as criminal for committing the usual violent acts in. the conduct of legitimate warfare. The age of imperialistic expansion during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries added the foul doctrine, contrary to the teachings of early Christian and international law scholars such as Grotius, that all wars are to be regarded as legitimate wars. The sum of these two doctrines was to give war-making a complete immunity from ability to law. This was intolerable for an age that called itself civilized. Plain people with their earthy common sense, revolted at such fictions and legalisms so contrary to ethical principles and demanded checks on war immunities. Statesmen and international lawyers at first cautiously responded by adopting rules of warfare designed to make the conduct of war more civilized. The effort was to set legal

limits to the violence that could be done to civilian populations and to combatants as well. The common sense of men after the first World War demanded, however, that the law’s condemnation of war reach deeper, and that the law condemn not merely uncivilized ways of waging war, but also the waging in any way of uncivilized wars-wars of aggression. The world’s statesmen again went only as far as they were forced to go. Their efforts were timid and cautious and often less explicit than we might have hoped. But the 1920’s did outlaw aggressive war. The re-establishment of the principle that there are unjust wars and that unjust wars are illegal is traceable in many steps. One of the most significant is the Briand-Kellogg Pact of 1928, by which , Italy, and Japan, in common with practically all nations of the world, renounced war as an instrument of national policy, bound themselves to seek the settlement of disputes only by pacific means, and condemned recourse to war for the solution of international controversies. This pact altered the legal status of a war of aggression. As Mr. Stimson, the United States Secretary of State put it in 1932, such a war: “… is no longer to be the source and subject of rights. It is no longer to be the principle around which the duties, the conduct, and the rights of nations revolve. It is an illegal thing …. By that very act, we have made obsolete many legal precedents and have given the legal profession the task of re-examining many of its codes and treaties.” The Geneva Protocol of 1924 for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, signed by the representatives of 48 governments, declared that “a war of aggression constitutes … an international crime.” The Eighth Assembly of the League of Nations in 1927, on unanimous resolution of the representatives of 48 member nations, including , declared that a war of aggression constitutes an international crime. At the Sixth Pan-American Conference of 1928, the 21 American Republics unanimously adopted a resolution stating that “war of aggression constitutes an international crime against the human species.” A failure of these Nazis to heed, or to understand the force and meaning of this evolution in the legal thought of the world, is not a defense or a mitigation. If anything, it aggravates their offense and makes it the more mandatory that the law they have flouted be vindicated by juridical application to their lawless

conduct. Indeed, by their own law-had they heeded any law-these principles were binding on these defendants. Article 4 of the Weimar constitution provided that: “The generally accepted rules of international law are to be considered as binding integral parts of the law of the German Reich” (2050-PS). Can there be any doubt that the outlawry of aggressive war was one of the “generally accepted rules -of international law” in 1939? Any resort to war-to any kind of a war-is a resort to means that are inherently criminal. War inevitably is a course of killings, assaults, deprivations of liberty, and destruction of property. An honestly defensive war is, of course, legal and saves those lawfully conducting it from criminality. But inherently criminal acts cannot be defended by showing that those who committed them were engaged in a war, when war itself is illegal. The very minimum legal consequence of the treaties making aggressive wars illegal is to strip those who incite or wage them of every defense the law ever gave, and to leave war-makers subject to judgment by the usually accepted principles of the law of crimes. But if it be thought that the Charter, whose declarations concededly bind us all, does contain. new law I still do not shrink from demanding its strict application by this Tribunal. The rule of law in the world, flouted by the lawlessness incited by these defendants, had to be restored at the cost to my country of over a million casualties, not to mention those of other nations. I cannot subscribe to the perverted reasoning that society may advance and strengthen the rule of law by the expenditure of morally innocent lives but that progress in the law may never be made at the price of morally guilty lives. It is true of course, that we have no judicial precedent for the Charter. But international law is more than a scholarly collection of abstract and immutable principles. Ii is an outgrowth of treaties and agreements between nations and of accepted customs. Yet every custom has its origin in some single act, and every agreement has to be initiated by the action of some state. Unless we are prepared to abandon every principle of growth for international law, we cannot deny that our own day has the right to institute customs and to conclude agreements that will themselves become sources of a newer and strengthened international law. International law is not capable of development by the normal processes of legislation, for there is no continuing international legislative authority. Innovations and revisions in international law are brought about by the action of governments such as those I have cited, designed to meet a change in circumstances. It grows, as did the common law, through decisions reached from

time to time in adapting settled principles to new situations. The fact is that when the law evolves by the case method, as did the common law and as international law must do if it is to advance at all, it advances at the expense of those who wrongly guessed the law and learned too late their error. The law, so far as international law can be decreed, had been clearly pronounced when these acts took place. Hence, I am not disturbed by the lack of judicial precedent for the inquiry it is proposed to conduct. The events I have earlier recited clearly fall within the standards of crimes, set out in the Charter, whose perpetrators this Tribunal is convened to judge and punish fittingly. The standards for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity are too familiar to need comment. There are, however, certain novel problems in applying other precepts of the Charter which I should call to your attention.

THE CRIME AGAINST PEACE: A basic provision of the Charter is that to plan, prepare, initiate, or wage a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances, or to conspire or participate in a common plan to do so, is a crime. It is perhaps a weakness in this Charter that it fails itself to define a war of aggression. Abstractly, the subject is full of difficulty and all kinds of troublesome hypothetical cases can be conjured up. It is a subject which, if the defense should be permitted to go afield beyond the very narrow charge in the Indictment, would prolong the Trial and involve the Tribunal in insoluble political issues. But so far as the question can properly be involved in this case, the issue is one of no novelty and is one on which legal opinion has well crystallized. One of the most authoritative sources of international law on this subject is the Convention for the Definition of Aggression signed at London on July 3, 1933 by Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Turkey, the Soviet Union, Persia, and Afghanistan. The subject has also been considered by international committees and by commentators whose views are entitled to the greatest respect. It had been little discussed prior to the first World War but has received much attention as international law has evolved its outlawry of aggressive war. In the light of these materials of international law, and so far as relevant to the evidence in this case, I suggest that an “aggressor” is generally held to be that state which is the first to commit any of the following actions:

1) Declaration of war upon another state; 2) Invasion by its armed forces, with or without a declaration of war, of the territory of another state; 3) Attack by its land, naval, or air forces, with or without a declaration of war, on the territory, vessels or aircraft of another state; and 4) Provision of to armed bands formed in the territory of another state, or refusal, notwithstanding the request of the invaded state, to take in its own

territory, all the measures in its power to deprive those bands of all assistance or protection.

And I further suggest that it is the general view that no political, military, economic, or other considerations shall serve as an excuse or justification for such actions; but exercise of the right of legitimate self-defense, that is to say, resistance to an act of aggression, or action to assist a state which has been subjected to aggression, shall not constitute a war of aggression. It is upon such an understanding of the law that our evidence of a conspiracy to provoke and wage an aggressive war is prepared and presented. By this test each of the series of wars begun by these Nazi leaders was unambiguously aggressive. It is important to the duration and scope of this Trial that we bear in mind the difference between our charge that this war was one of aggression and a position that had no grievances. We are not inquiring into the conditions which contributed to causing this war. They are for history to unravel. It is no part of our task to vindicate the European status quo as of 1933, or as of any other date. The United States does not desire to enter into discussion of the complicated prewar currents of European politics, and it hopes this trial will not be protracted by their consideration. The remote causations avowed are too insincere and inconsistent, too complicated and doctrinaire to be the subject of profitable inquiry in this trial. A familiar example is to be found in the “Lebensraum” slogan, which summarized the contention that needed more living space as a justification for expansion. At the same time that the Nazis were demanding more space for the German people, they were demanding more German people to occupy space. Every known means to increase the birth rate, legitimate and illegitimate, was utilized. “Lebensraum” represented a vicious circle of demand from neighbors more space, and from Germans more progeny. We do not need to investigate the verity of doctrines which led to constantly expanding circles of aggression. It is the plot and the act of aggression which we charge to be crimes. Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions. It may be that the of the 1920’s and 1930’s faced desperate problems, problems that

would have warranted the boldest measures short of war. All other methodspersuasion, propaganda, economic competition, diplomacy-were open to an aggrieved country, but aggressive warfare was outlawed. These defendants did make aggressive war, a war in violation of treaties. They did attack and invade their neighbors in order to effectuate a foreign policy which they knew could not be accomplished by measures short of war. And that is as far as we accuse or propose to inquire.

THE LAW OF INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY: The Charter also recognizes individual responsibility on the part of those who commit acts defined as crimes, or who incite others to do so, or who a common. plan with other persons, groups or organizations to bring about their commission. The principle of individual responsibility for piracy and brigandage, which have long been recognized as crimes punishable under international law, is old and well established. That is what illegal warfare is. This principle of personal liability is a necessary as well as logical one if international law is to render real help to the maintenance of peace. An international law which operates only on states can be enforced only by war because the most practicable method of coercing a state is warfare. Those familiar with American history know that one of the compelling reasons for adoption of our constitution was that the laws of the Confederation, which operated only on constituent states, were found ineffective to maintain order among them. The only answer to recalcitrance was impotence or war. Only sanctions which reach individuals can peacefully and effectively be enforced. Hence, the principle of the criminality of aggressive war is implemented by the Charter with the principle of personal responsibility. Of course, the idea that a state, any more than a corporation, commits crimes, is a fiction. Crimes always are committed only by persons. While it is quite proper to employ the fiction of responsibility of a state or corporation for the purpose of imposing a collective liability, it is quite intolerable to let such a legalism become the basis of personal immunity. The Charter recognizes that one who has committed criminal acts may not take refuge in superior orders nor in the doctrine that his crimes were acts of states. These twin principles working together have heretofore resulted in immunity for practically everyone concerned in the really great crimes against peace and mankind. Those in lower ranks were protected against liability by the orders of their superiors. The superiors were protected because their orders were called acts of state. Under the Charter, no defense based on either of these doctrines can be entertained. Modern civilization puts unlimited weapons of destruction in the hands of men. It cannot tolerate so vast an area of legal irresponsibility.

EVEN THE GERMAN MILITARY CODE PROVIDES THAT: “If the execution of a military order in the course of duty violates the criminal law, then the superior officer giving the order will bear the sole responsibility therefore. However, the obeying subordinate will share the punishment of the participant: (1) if he has exceeded the order given to him, or (2) if it was within his knowledge that the order of his superior officer concerned an act by which it was intended to commit a civil or military crime or transgression” (Reichsesetzblatt, 1926 No. 37, P. 278, Art. 47) Of course, we do not argue that the circumstances under which one commits an act should be disregarded in judging its legal effect. A conscripted private on a firing squad cannot expect to hold an inquest on the validity of the execution. The Charter implies common sense limits to liability just as it places common sense limits upon immunity. But none of these men before you acted in minor parts. Each of them was entrusted with broad discretion and exercised great power. Their responsibility is correspondingly great and may not be shifted to that fictional being, “the State”, which cannot be produced for trial, cannot testify, and cannot be sentenced. The Charter also recognizes a vicarious liability, which responsibility is recognized by most modern systems of law, for acts committed by others in carrying out a common plan or conspiracy to which a defendant has become a party. I need not discuss the familiar principles of such liability. Every day in the courts of countries associated in this prosecution, men are convicted for acts that they did not personally commit, but for which they were held responsible because of hip in illegal combinations or plans or conspiracies.

THE POLITICAL, POLICE, AND MILITARY ORGANIZATIONS: Accused before this Tribunal as criminal organizations are certain political and police organizations which the evidence will show to have been instruments of cohesion in planning and executing the crimes I have detailed. Perhaps the worst of the movement were the Leadership Corps of the NSDAP, the Schutzstaffeln or “SS”, and the Sturmabteilungen or “SA”, and the subsidiary formations which these include. These were the Nazi Party leadership, espionage, and policing groups. They were the real government, above and outside of any law. Also accused as organizations are the Reich Cabinet and the Secret Police, or Gestapo, which were fixtures of the Government but animated solely by the Party. Except for a late period when some compulsory recruiting was done in the SS, hip in all these militarized organizations was voluntary. The police organizations were recruited from ardent partisans who enlisted blindly to do the dirty work the leaders planned. The Reich Cabinet was the governmental facade for Nazi Party Government and in its legal, as well as actual responsibility was vested for the entire program. Collectively they were responsible for the program in general, individually they were especially responsible for segments of it. The finding which we ask you to make, that these are criminal organizations, will subject to punishment to be hereafter determined by appropriate tribunals, unless some personal defense-such as becoming a member under threat to person, to family, or inducement by false representation, or the like-be established. Every member will have a chance to be heard in the subsequent forum on his personal relation to the organization, but your finding in this trial will conclusively establish the criminal character of the organization as a whole. We have also accused as criminal organizations the High Command and the General Staff of the German Armed Forces. We recognize that to plan warfare is the business of professional soldiers in all countries. But it is one thing to plan strategic moves in the event war comes, and it is another thing to plot and intrigue to bring on that war. We will prove the leaders of the German General Staff and of the High Command to have been guilty of just that. Military men are not before you because they served their country. They are here because they mastered it, along with these others, and drove it to war. They are not here

because they lost the war, but because they started it. Politicians may have thought of them as soldiers, but soldiers know they were politicians. We ask that the General Staff and the High Command, as defined in the Indictment, be condemned as a criminal group whose existence and tradition constitute a standing menace to the peace of the world. These individual defendants did not stand alone in crime and will not stand alone in punishment. Your verdict of “guilty” against these organizations will render prima facie guilty, as nearly as we can learn, thousands upon thousands of now in custody of United States forces and of other armies.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THIS TRIBUNAL: To apply the sanctions of the law to those whose conduct is found criminal by the standards I have outlined, is the responsibility committed to this Tribunal. It is the first court ever to undertake the difficult task of overcoming the confusion of many tongues and the conflicting concepts of just procedure among divers systems of law, so as to reach a common judgment. The tasks of all of us are such as to make heavy demands on patience and good will. Although the need for prompt action has ittedly resulted in imperfect work on the part of the Prosecution, four great nations bring you their hurriedly assembled contributions of evidence. What remains undiscovered we can only guess. We could, with witnesses’ testimony, prolong the recitals of crime for years-but to what avail. We shall rest the case when we have offered what seems convincing and adequate proof of the crimes charged without unnecessary accumulation of evidence. We doubt very much whether it will be seriously denied that the crimes I have outlined took place. The effort will undoubtedly be to mitigate or escape personal responsibility. Among the nations which unite in accusing these defendants the United States is perhaps in a position to be the most disionate, for, having sustained the least injury, it is perhaps the least animated by vengeance. Our American cities have not been bombed by day and by night, by humans, and by robots. It is not our temples that had been laid in ruins. Our countrymen have not had their homes destroyed over their heads. The menace of Nazi aggression, except to those in actual service, has seemed less personal and immediate to us than to European peoples. But while the United States is not first in rancor, it is not second in

determination that the forces of law and order be made equal to the task of dealing with such international lawlessness as I have recited here. Twice in my lifetime, the United States has sent its young manhood across the Atlantic, drained its resources, and burdened itself with debt to help defeat . But the real hope and faith that has sustained the American people in these great efforts was that victory for ourselves and our Allies would lay the basis for an ordered international relationship in Europe and would end the centuries of strife on this embattled continent. Twice we have held back in the early stages of European conflict in the belief that it might be confined to a purely European affair. In the United States, we have tried to build an economy without armament, a system of government without militarism, and a society where men are not regimented for war. This purpose, we know now, can never be realized if the world periodically is to be embroiled in war. The United States cannot, generation after generation, throw its youth or its resources on to the battlefields of Europe to redress the lack of balance between ’s strength and that of her enemies, and to keep the battles from our shores. The American dream of a peace-and-plenty economy, as well as the hopes of other nations, can never be fulfilled if those nations are involved in a war every generation so vast and devastating as to crush the generation that fights and burden the generation that follows. But experience has shown that wars are no longer local. All modern wars become world wars eventually. And none of the big nations at least can stay out. If we cannot stay out of wars, our only hope is to prevent wars. I am too well aware of the weaknesses of juridical action alone to contend that in itself your decision under this Charter can prevent future wars. Judicial action always comes after the event. Wars are started only on the theory and in the confidence that they can be won. Personal punishment, to be suffered only in the event the war is lost, will probably not be a sufficient deterrent to prevent a war where the war makers feel the chances of defeat to be negligible. But the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any

other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment. We are able to do away with domestic tyranny and violence and aggression by those in power against the rights of their own people only when we make all men answerable to the law. This trial represents mankind’s desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world’s peace and to commit aggressions against the rights of their neighbors. The usefulness of this effort to do justice is not to be measured by considering the law or your judgment in isolation. This trial is part of the great effort to make the peace more secure. One step in this direction is the United Nations organization, which may take t political action to prevent war if possible, and t military action to insure that any nation which starts a war will lose it. This Charter and this Trial, implementing the Kellogg-Briand Pact, constitute another step in the same direction and juridical action of a kind to ensure that those who start a war will pay for it personally. While the defendants and the prosecutors stand before you as individuals, it is not the triumph of either group alone that is committed to your judgment Above all personalities there are anonymous and impersonal forces whose conflict makes up much of human history. It is yours to throw the strength of the law back of either the one or the other of these forces for at least another generation. What are the real forces that are contending before you? No charity can disguise the fact that the forces which these defendants represent, the forces that would advantage and delight in their acquittal, are the darkest and most sinister forces in society-dictatorship and oppression, malevolence and ion, militarism and lawlessness. By their fruits we best know them. Their acts have bathed the world in blood and set civilization back a century. They have subjected their European neighbors to every outrage and torture, every spoliation and deprivation that insolence, cruelty, and greed could inflict. They have brought the German people to the lowest pitch of wretchedness, from which they can entertain no hope of early deliverance. They have stirred hatreds and incited domestic violence on every continent. These are the things that stand in the dock shoulder to shoulder with these prisoners. The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. In all our countries it is still a struggling and imperfect thing. It does not plead that the United States, or any other country, has been blameless of the conditions which made the German

people easy victims to the blandishments and intimidations of the Nazi conspirators. But it points to the dreadful sequence of aggressions and crimes I have recited, it points to the weariness of flesh, the exhaustion of resources, and the destruction of all that was beautiful or useful in so much of the world, and to greater potentialities for destruction in the days to come. It is not necessary among the ruins of this ancient and beautiful city with untold of its civilian inhabitants still buried in its rubble, to argue the proposition that to start or wage an aggressive war has the moral qualities of the worst of crimes. The refuge of the defendants can be only their hope that international law will lag so far behind the moral sense of mankind that conduct which is crime in the moral sense must be regarded as innocent in law. Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance. It does not expect that you can make war impossible. It does expect that your juridical action will put the forces of international law, its precepts, its prohibitions and, most of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace, so that men and women of good will, in all countries, may have “leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the law.”¹

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T his book is first an ethical and political analysis intended to direct the attention of public opinion, historians, and jurists to the necessity, after the Second World War, to judge Adolf Hitler in absentia before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal at the same time as the twenty-four other Nazi defendants. Consider that during the trial there was no scientific proof of Hitler’s disparition to attest to his legal death. This is why I believe that Hitler should be judged in absentia during the trial in Nuremberg. I wish to thank my friend Guy Jacques for his time to correct the French version of this book and in accepting to write the preface. I am also grateful to my long-time friend Jacques Arnaud Démézier who advised me when I was doing the research and more than that who was accepting to write a commentary in this book. I would like to thank my wife, Joanna Gleason, who encouraged me to write the history. I would also like to thank my daughter, Jennifer Fleury, for her helpful suggestions on reading the manuscript. For the publication of this book, I would like to thank the staff of Xlibris in bringing the manuscript to completion.

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HIROHITO

THE TRIAL OF THE EMPEROR

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I: THE SECOND WORLD WAR: POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT

1) Japan: The Road to War

2) Report on the Second World War

3) The Consequences of the War

CHAPTER II: THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL FOR THE FAR EAST

1) The Establishment of the Tribunal

2) The Composition of the Court

3) Preparing for Trial

4) The Verdict

5) Trial Timeline

6) The Condemned

CHAPTER III: REFLECTION ON THE TOKYO TRIAL

CHAPTER IV: THE PERMANENT PEOPLES’ TRIBUNAL SPECIAL SESSION TO TRIAL HIROHITO

1) President’s Speech

2) The Rapporteur

3) Potsdam’s Statement

4) War Crimes

5) Bataan’s Death March

6) Crimes Against Humanity

7) The Use Of Women As Sex Slaves

8) The Drug Trafficking

9) The Great Absent

10) Situation Postwar

CHAPTER V: THE VERDICT

APPENDICES

1) Potsdam Declaration

2) Japan Empire Capitulation Speech

3) Japan Capitulations Acts

4) Nuremberg Trial and Tokyo Trial

BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Revisiting history: it is not the privilege of a few or a negotiable right poorly granted or questioned by the State. It is, first of all, a necessity. It is also the inescapable current brought by the evolutionary points of view of the successive generations. It is, at the same time, an indispensable step if one wants to keep alive the memory of the People.” — Jules Roy, The Trial of Marshal Pétain

“As for the people I am accusing, I do not know them, I have never seen them, I have no rancor or hatred against them. They are for me only entities, spirits of social malfeasance. And the act I am doing here is only a revolutionary way to hasten the explosion of truth and justice.” “I have only one ion, that of light, in the name of humanity that has suffered so much and who has the right to happiness. My fiery protest is only the cry of my soul. So, let’s dare translate me into the Assize Court and let the investigation take place! I wait.” — Emile Zola, I accuse!

In memory of several million people, soldiers, and civilians, that the troops of the Japanese Army had murdered during the first period of the twentieth century, especially during the Nanking Massacre, where about 250,000 people were killed by the Japanese Imperial Army and the Japanese Imperial Navy. In memory of the victims of Unit 731, Pearl Harbor, the death march of Bataan, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, I write this book, with the hope that the story will open the eyes of the present generation on the atrocities of war and make our leaders aware of the value of peace in the world.

FOREWORD

O n January 7, 1989, Hirohito’s death marked the end of his sixty-three-year reign, the longest and most controversial reign in Japan’s history after a period of turmoil and major change. The emperor’s death also fueled a long and controversial debate about his role and responsibility, real or perceived, in Japan’s wars in the Pacific between 1868 and 1945. The literature portrays Hirohito’s image as that of a constitutional monarch who ively endorsed the entry into war in order not to go against the majority opinion, in favor of wars within his government. The subject is still sensitive in Japan, even if today’s youth deliberately prefer to participate keenly in the “Reiwa” Era initiated in 2019, a hopeful era with the promise of harmony among all beings. In fact, the really expected response to the controversy is “Why, after the Second World War, did the emperor escape the lawsuit brought by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East against the Japanese warlords?” But then, what was he guilty of? No clear answer emerges, as the analyses differ among historians, intellectuals, and the official press, including those of the Imperial Household Agency. In his book, Hirohito: The Trial of the Emperor, Jean Sénat Fleury invites the reader to the fictitious trial of the fallen emperor, a trial claimed without success by most Western nations after the war. However, in order to fully understand the contours of Hirohito’s history and personality, a contextual reminder is required. A Look Back at History On the death of his father in 1926, Hirohito became, at the age of twenty-five, the 124th emperor of Japan, a direct descendant of Amaterasu, the sun goddess. His accession to the throne marked Japan’s entry into the Shōwa Era, meaning “Radiant Peace.” In fact, in his coronation speech in 1928, the emperor effectively announced his intention to cultivate the friendship of all nations for the maintenance of world peace. That same day, Hirohito leaves the world of the living. And according to a thousand-year-old tradition, he became a monarch of divine essence, whose article 3 of the Constitution of February 11, 1889, enshrines the “sacred and inviolable” character of his person.

According to the imperial custom, the young prince was not brought up to court. It is entrusted to the family of iral Count Kawamura. From an early age, the illustrious warrior of military history, Gen. Nogi Maresuke, a hero of the SinoJapanese War, and the war with Russia, was one of his tutors. In fact, this military education fits very well with the context. Indeed, the conquering Japan won a series of military victories. First against China (1894–1895), Russia (1904–1905), and Korea, which Japan colonized in 1895 before annexing it permanently in 1910. At the age of eleven, during the Meiji Era, Hirohito was crown prince upon the death of his grandfather, then symbolically elevated to the ranks of second army lieutenant and marine teacher in 1912. Educated from an early age to military principles, Shintoism, and respect for the divine character of its imperial condition, the Daigensui, Hirohito, at the head of an increasingly powerful Japanese army drove his country to war and expansionism. As a legacy of his military training, it is better understood that his closest advisers, were mainly from the military background: Makino Nobuaki (1861–1949), Saionji Kinmochi (1849–1940), and Kido Kōichi (1889–1977). These officials all belong to the executive Branch, which includes, among others, the army and navy, which could, independently, enter into treaties with foreign nations, declare war, or recruit military and civilian officials.

THE EMPEROR’S RESPONSIBILITY

The institutional characteristic of imperial Japan makes it a monarchical constitution headed by an emperor, having to act as a constitutional monarch whose decision is guided by his advisers. In addition to being the ruler of a state and the commander-in-chief of the Japanese Imperial Forces, his divine status made him, and will make him until his death, the symbol of the state, cultural identity, and unity of the Japanese people. The events that marked Japan’s entry into World War II began in 1931 with the conquest of China and culminated in 1941 when Japan’s surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. The question of the emperor’s responsibility in Japan’s war engagement is not

historically decided, although he is the supreme commander of the army and navy under the Meiji Constitution. For some historians, although reluctant to see Japan enter World War II, Hirohito seems to have rejoiced at the success of the Pearl Harbor offensive in December 1941 and the victories that followed in Southeast Asia. Conversely, another stream of thought claimed that the emperor was extremely involved in the preparation of this attack. In order to definitively absolve Hirohito of any possibility of trial, some constitutionalists have advanced the idea that the emperor be legally absolved of liability because of his divine essence, so he could not be prosecuted in the sense of article 3 of the 1928 constitution. Finally, still others have speculated that it may have been manipulated by politicians and the military during this period. However, this assumption seems to be contradicted by Hirohito’s long eight-hour radio monologue in 1945. During this broadcast, the emperor recalled the events that took place since the assassination of Chang Zolin, the Manchurian War in 1928 until the end of the Pacific War on August 1945, thus confirming his knowledge of the decisions taken by the decision-makers in national strategies. In of this hypothesis, former ambassadors explained that although he was recognized as an allpowerful sacred being, the emperor’s power was, in fact, limited by ministers and the military.

JAPAN’S OVERWHELMING HUMILIATION

In response to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Tokyo was bombed by the U.S. Army on March 1945. Then it was the turn of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be completely destroyed on August 6 and 9 of the same year. The unimaginable, advocated by the Bushido ethic becomes inescapable. The defeat of the Japanese army is already in effect. A sacrifice is required. The emperor resigned himself to peace by asking his

people to “accept the unacceptable” by announcing his desire to end the war. It is not a question of capitulation, mentally and officially. However, Japan’s best interests impose that they accept the unacceptable humiliation, any shame in the eyes of the world. We must try to imagine the inner torments of this High Monarch in the certainty of his deity, his absolute authority, in the face of a dramatic reality with catastrophic long-term consequences, both internally and internationally. After the surrender of Japan, the emperor publicly renounced his divine essence. The country, on the other hand, has renounced war and militarization. The American occupier drafted a new constitution in 1946 and, under article 9, the emperor owes his duties to the will of the people in whom sovereign power resides. With no political future at the national level, Hirohito turned to international politics. It would seem that the dramatic consequences of the war in Japan have long haunted him, and that he has also long sought to redeem himself in the eyes of his people. Three times he unsuccessfully offered to abdicate. His travels abroad to promote Japan seem to have been an opportunity for him to redeem himself, to express his personal regrets, if not to explain himself.

RED SCARE

The 1940s, it should be ed, were also in the United States, the germination years of McCarthyism, the “Red Scare.” They fear more than any of the expansion of Communism, not only on their territory, but also, in the rest of the world over which they intend to exercise their supremacy. After Japan renounced the war, the Americans resisted international pressure and refused to bring Hirohito before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. The emperor is kept at the head of the country where he will be most useful to prevent the expansion of Communism in the area, and to guarantee the unity of the people and the stability of an occupied Japan.

CONCLUSION

The structure of the Meiji Constitution and the de facto divine status inherited by birth placed Hirohito at the top of the state. He is the supreme commander of the army and navy, who reports to the executive branch of power, which has the broadest autonomy. Although he has to worry about politics, the emperor does not always control the final decisions made on his behalf. When its approval is sought, it respects only the constitutional formalism imposed, and its refusal, generally expressed by silence, is considered in certain circumstances as an implicit approval. However, although some enjoy autonomy, including the executive branch, all branches of government, including the Diet and the cabinet, had to refer it first to the emperor. The army and navy, under crucial circumstances, have taken its lack of response for implicit approval of the strategies at work. So, what was Hirohito guilty of having earned him a trial? Historians have given us to see a being with an ambiguous personality, full of contradictions. No doubt the result of the intimate combination among his military education, his divine essence, the weight of Shintoism, and the ethics of the Bushido. Has he escaped the International Military Tribunal for the Far East? Geopolitics or realpolitik. This fictitious trial attempts to answer this question.

Charley G. Granvorka, August 2019

PROLOGUE

F amous or notorious, several criminals in the history who have escaped justice ed judgment in my books. This is my goal when I write fictitious trials in which conflicting proceedings are opened in an invented court and the whole thing is played as if the hearing is real. I opened the series in Toussaint Louverture: The Trial of the Slave Trafficking. I tried Napoleon Bonaparte and several other dignitaries of the French monarchy. I wrote several months later two historical novels: Adolf Hitler: Trial in Absentia in Nuremberg and The Trial of Osama bin Laden. In this new book, Hirohito: The Trial of the Emperor , I prosecute Hirohito, the emperor of Japan who had a large part of responsibility in the Pacific War during the Second World War. Inventing the trial of Hirohito, the emperor who had evaded justice for war crimes committed under his empire during the period of Japanese imperialism mainly during the first part of the Shōwa Era, is a way to honor the memory of several million people, soldiers, and civilians, that the military of the Japanese army had murdered during the Second World War. Why a trial…? Crown prince of his father, Taishō Yoshihito, Hirohito ascended the throne in 1926 after five years in the regency. Emperor with a “divine” power, according to article 1 of the Imperial Constitution, he chose the name Shōwa to call his regime. During the first part of his reign, he gave unconditional to the expansionist policy of the military clan, and gave his approval to the conquest of Manchuria (1931), the military intervention in China (1932), and the withdrawal of Japan from the League of Nations (1933). As head of the Imperial Army, he led Japan into war in 1941. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Declaration of War by the Soviet Union against Japan, Hirohito ended the war by accepting the Potsdam Proclamation of July 26, 1945. The surrender of Japan was announced by Hirohito on August 15, and formally signed on September 2, 1945. The expansionist policy practiced by Japan during the first part of the Shōwa regime (1931-1945) led to the alliance with . Dissatisfied with the

treatment of the Japanese empire by the Western powers during the Treaty of Versailles, Japan left the SDN in 1933. Japanese politicians had established an ideology based on the supremacy of the Japanese race and its right to dominate Asia. This racist ideology presented Japan as the center of the world and sat on the imperial institution of the emperor, being divine and descended from the goddess Amaterasu Omikani. To establish the dictatorship and turn Japan toward a policy of expansionism, urgent measures were adopted. On November 27, 1929, Hirohito approved . Katō Kanji’s report for the construction of a navy with the capacity to compete with the U.S. Army Navy in the Pacific. On February 25, 1933, the Japanese began the Jehol campaign and occupied all of the provinces of Manchuria. They continued to advance in Hopei in April, and negotiated in May the creation of a demilitarized zone in the North of this region. Japanese forces then took control of the Great Wall, while maintaining garrisons around Tien-Tsin. On December 29, 1934, Japan denounced the London agreements on the reduction of naval armaments. On January 15, 1936, Japan left the Naval Disarmament Conference held in London because its interlocutors refused it parity with the United States. As head of the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy, Hirohito engaged Japan in the Second World war in 1941. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Soviet Union’s declaration of war against its empire, on August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered. On September 2, 1945, aboard the Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Gen. Yoshijirō Umezu signed capitulation to Gen. Douglas MacArthur by unconditionally accepting the Potsdam Proclamation of July 26, 1945. Despite increasingly concordant information that confirmed Hirohito’s active role during the war, the question of his responsibility for the crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific continued to the subject until today of great debates among historians. What role did Hirohito play during the Second World War? For some scholars and historians, the emperor reigned over Japan in accordance with Article 1 of the 1889 Constitution. He was certainly, according to the Meiji Constitution, the supreme commander of the Army and Navy, but manipulated by the military, did he not exercise power? For others, on the other hand, Hirohito carefully and thoughtfully supervised the affairs of the state? He was deeply involved in the governance of the country, and in the strategic plans of the army.

Japanese historian Awaya Kentaro answered this question very well. According to him, Hirohito not only gave advice in all important decisions of the government and the army, but he closely supervised his orders to be sure they have been respected. He favored the coming to power of trusted men, Kido, Konoe and Tōjō, and he followed daily through the emissaries – Kawai, Makino, Chichibu, Chinda, Ichiki – diplomatic, political, and military affairs. His intervention to end the war despite threats of rebellion from a group of fascists in the military, such as, Kosono, Ugaki, Hatanaka, Haga, Mori, Anami, Shiizaki, Ida, Takeshida, Toyoda, Onishi, Arao, Koga, Ishihara, Mizutani, suggested that he could have changed the course of events sooner if he had the will, and he could have avoided the destruction of several Japanese cities, including Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, by the American Air Force. In writings and memoirs that cover his degree of maturity as commander-inChief of the Army, the emperor’s closest advisers namely, Baron Harada Kumao, Prince Konoe Fumimaro, and Marquis Kōichi Kido, in contrast to the opinion of the venerable Saionji Kinmochi, said they ired the will of the young monarch who decided to play an important role in the political life of the Japanese empire, especially in the control of the army. Unlike his father, Yoshihito Taishō, known as an erased monarch, Hirohito gave the last words in the major political decisions that engaged Japan. The emergence of documents long buried in the personal papers of one of his assistants, Terasaki Hidenari, published in 1990 by his daughter under the title The Monologues of the Emperor, confirmed with more veracity the important role that Hirohito played during the war. In these documents, we found the answers that he made in 1946 to the questions of his five closest advisers who prepared him in case that he was summoned as a witness by the International Tribunal for the Judgment of Japanese War Criminals in Tokyo. This plan would help him to reject any personal responsibility in the war against China and in the attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor. Hirohito, contrary to what was said, was not a puppet. In the Meiji Constitution of 1889, the emperor is sovereign and he is at the center of the legitimacy of the state. During the first part of the Shōwa era, according to the Meiji Constitution, Hirohito exercised the “Supreme Command of the Army and Navy” (Article 11). He was legally supreme commander of the imperial headquarters, and since 1937, he participated in all military decisions

that were made. According to the “Sugiyama memo,” the diaries of Fumimaro Konoe, and Kōichi Kido, during the Second World War, Hirohito had many informal meetings with his chief of staff and his ministers. These documents showed that he was kept informed of all military operations and frequently he asked senior management several questions about the deployment of troops, and sometimes, he gave his opinion on how to conduct the war. For example, in July 1937, he signed the imperial decree that allowed Japan to go to war against China. On September 27, 1940, he approved the agreement of the Japanese government with Rome and Berlin, the Tripartite Pact. Immediately after, with his consent, Japan invaded Indochina in September 1940. US Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who has pursued a dual policy since 1939, issued an embargo on oil deliveries to Tokyo. Hirohito, sulking the American threats that demanded of Japan the withdrawal of its troops in China, and other occupied territories in South-East Asia and the Pacific, signed on behalf of the Japanese people, a neutrality agreement with the Soviet Union on April 13, 1941, Hirohito endorsed then the decision of the High Staff of the Army and Navy for the invasion of Malaysia and the Philippines. On October 17, 1941, Hideki Tōjō replaced Fumimaro Konoe as Prime Minister. Two months after the new government took office, the Pearl Harbor attack was planned. It was approved by Hirohito and executed to destroy the US fleet in the Pacific. The day after the attack, on December 8, 1941, Roosevelt declared war on Japan. Three days later, Hitler, in of the Japanese empire, declared war against the United States. According to historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi, professor of modern Japanese history at Chuo University in Tokyo, and Seiya Matsuno, the editor of a report published in the Japanese press in July 2019, Hirohito authorized by specific orders, forwarded to the head of state-Major of the army, Prince Kan’in Kotohito and Gen. Hajime Sugiyama, the use of chemical weapons against civilians and Chinese soldiers. He approved the use of toxic gases several times during the Wuhan invasion in 1938. The use of the same weapons was also allowed during the Changde invasion. According to historians, Akira Fujiwara and Akira Yamada, Hirohito has made direct interventions in several military operations. For example, he pressed Sugiyama several times, from January to February 1942, to increase the number

of Japanese troops in the Philippines. During the same period, he ordered the general to launch an attack on Bataan. In August 1943, he expressed his anger at Sugiyama who was unable to stop the American advance on the Solomon Islands, and asked him to consider other places to attack. Most of Hirohito’s imperial interventions were made by direct orders, such as the crushing of the rebellion during the February 26 incident. The Japanese archives, updated since the nineties, demonstrated that indeed, each order to use chemical weapons must receive the express approval of the emperor. They also showed that the decision to suspend the international rights of civilians was indeed authorized by a specific Hirohito directive to Prince Kan’in in August 1937. Hirohito: An ambiguous character Hirohito, under the name the war was fought, was preserved from the indictment, and the royal family, such as Prince Chichibu, Prince Asaka, Prince Takeda, and Prince Higashikuni, was exonerated in the proceedings. Only Prince Konoe and the guard of the Seals Kido, were arrested during the trial. The issue has been the subject of much debate to date. What was Hirohito’s exact role in Japan’s war in the Pacific and Southeast Asia? Was the emperor only the providential monarch who put an end to hostilities during the Second World War, that is, a monarch who could not violate the recommendations of the high command of the Japanese army and government, or a devious manipulator who has been the architect of successive plots since the 1930s, facilitating the emergence of fascism, and engaging Japan in the path of militarism and expansionism like and Italy? For some, Hirohito was a convinced Pacifist who suffered in his soul because of his limited power to put an end to the suffering and ill-treatment endured by civilians and prisoners during the war. Held by the dignity of his “divine emperor” status, he could not intervene openly in public affairs. For other observers, often foreigners, Hirohito was a fierce dictator in the lineage of Hitler, who had the ambition to occupy the territories of all the countries in the Pacific and Southeast Asia to spread Japan’s hegemony in the region, and, to get there, he directed the generals in the Army in the great decisions to be taken in the conduct of the war. In fact, during 1928, Hirohito made several tours and visits to the army and navy

academies, and many times he participated in graduation ceremonies. From 1928 to the start of World War II, as supreme commander (daigensui), he made about four to six trips annually in connection with special military reviews and exercises. The goal of each tour was to mobilize the nation and, at the same time, to highlight his divine and militaristic emperor images. To protect and welcome his visits, local officials ordered the most careful advance preparation. They formed special committees, and mobilized all resources, laid out red carpets for the emperor to walk on, swept and decorated the streets along which his motorcade would , and disinfected and purified the limousine in which he would ride. In his presence, all eyes had to be looking down. On the road of the war, naval officers presented him the plan on how to meet the navy’s national defense requirements. . Katō Kanji, the leading opponent of the Washington Naval Treaty, began to pressure him to enlarge the geographic sphere of national defense. Katō advised him that “the safety of the empire’s homeland required confronting American naval forces deployed in the Western Pacific rather than in waters closer to home as specified in the 1923 policy.” Hirohito approved Katō’s report delivered to him on November 27, 1929. He accepted the idea to build a big navy with the capacity to win any decisive naval battle against the United States. In July 1929, under the influence of the palace staff, he fired prime minister Gen. Tanaka Giichi and his Seiyūkai government, and nominated in his place prime minister Hamaguchi Yūkō. Giving full to his naval chief of staff and vice chief of staff, . Katō and Vice . Suetsugu, he denounced the treaty signed at the Washington conference limiting the naval tonnage of the Japanese navy. Katō and the navy general staff had pushed the emperor to refuse “any limit on the navy’s heavy cruiser tonnage of less than 70 percent of the individual cruiser strengths of the American and British fleets.” Marxist historians, namely, Kamei Katsuichirō, Takeyama Michio, Matsuda Michio, Inoue Kiyoshi, Tōyama Shigeki, Toma Seita, Minzoku Ishiri, Suzuki Shirō, Eguchi Bokuro, Matsumoto Shinpachiro, and Ishimoda Shō, have traced the inherently “criminogenic” character of the imperial system. These Marxists made the ruling class in Japan responsible for the war, and they called for a reappraisal of the importance of the “spirit” of the time, its psychological context, and its influence on decisions. For these Marxists, “the historical narrative must serve to anchor a true democratic consciousness among the majority of the Japanese, and this justifies that we insist on the historical

reconstruction of the Shōwa era, and on the responsibility of the dominant layers of society in the world.” Other Japanese intellectuals, such as Maruyama Masao, folklorist Wakamori Tarō, Shinohara Hajime, philosopher Matsuzawa Hiroaki, and Nezu Masashi, were also at the center of the debates of the historical consciousness of post-war Japan. Many of them have written about the demonic personality of Hirohito, who did not hesitate between January and December 1941 to launch his country into war while recognizing the stakes and risks to which Japan was exposed in taking this direction. According to historians and experts of the war – Herbert Bix, John W. Dower, Awaya Kentaro, Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Yoshida Yutaka, Tokushi Kasahara, Saburō Ienaga, and Onuma Yoshiaki – and some revelations from people close to the Imperial Palace, it emerges that Hirohito was not the toy of the unscrupulous military. He had great influence in the decisions taken by the government and the high commander of the Imperial Army. Personally, he gave the green-light to the plan to attack the Soviet Union after its invasion by Hitler on June 1941. He decided to violate the Japanese-Soviet neutrality treaty signed on April 13, 1941. A few years earlier, with its endorsement, the Second Sino-Japanese War was launched. This conflict began following Japan’s invasion of eastern China in 1937, and lasted until 1945. Commander-in-chief of the Japanese Imperial Army and the Japanese Imperial Navy, Hirohito put no obstacle to the militarization of Japan in the 1930s and its ultranationalist excesses. On July 7, 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge incident had provided the Japanese empire with the pretext for opening hostilities against China, and on July 28, war was officially declared. The cities, Beijing and Tianjin, were taken in early August 1937. The same month, Hirohito authorized the suspension of international conventions on the protection of prisoners of war. This decision allowed the Japanese troops to advance without having to worry about putting in place measures to take care of prisoners and civilians wounded during the war. The war between Japan and the Chinese Revolutionary Forces lasted ninetyseven months and three days. The Japanese lost a million hundred thousand people, including those seriously injured and missing. The Chinese had many more casualties, with a total of 3,229,000 soldiers and at least nine million civilians killed. Of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers taken prisoner during the war, only sixty-eight were released alive in 1945. The work published

in 2002 by a t committee of historians, –Mitsuyoshi Himeta, Zhifen Ju, Toru Kubo, and Mark Peattie – shows that more than ten million citizens were forcibly recruited by the Koa-in (Imperial Development Agency of Asia [East]) for work in the mines and factories of Manchukuo, an independent territory in northeastern China controlled by Japan. The analysis of the Japanese archives including documents written by Gen. Hajime Sugiyama, Prince Fumimaro Konoe, three times Prime Minister, Prince Nobuhito Takamatsu, Hirohito’s younger brother, and finally, the seal keeper, Marquis Kōichi Kido, confirmed the active role played by Hirohito during the war. According to the monumental work published in five volumes between 1973 and 1974, under the title Daihon’ei senshi, Hirohito proved by his attitudes and actions to be the supreme commander of the Imperial Army. He led the war in the Pacific that claimed the lives of nearly twenty million people in Asia, three million Japanese, and sixty thousand Allied soldiers. The emperor presided over all important High-Staff meetings and controlled the activities of troops on the ground. For example, on September 30, 1943, a conference of the Imperial Headquarters was scheduled in Hirohito’s presence. Privy Council President asked on his behalf to Tōjō, Sugiyama, Nagano, the president of the Planning Bureau, and the minister of commerce and industry several questions in connection with the war. Tōjō’s verbal answer revealed that although the government had planned “to produce forty thousand aircraft” during 1944, only “seventeen thousand to eighteen thousand planes” will be produced. When Hara asked Nagano if he was “confident of securing the absolute defense perimeter” with forty thousand aircraft, the navy chief of staff replied: “I cannot assure the future of the war situation.” At the end of the conference, both chiefs of staff assured the emperor to prevent further depletion of men and materiel by establishing the “absolute defense perimeter,” and to rebuild, regroup, and redeploy to meet the coming Allied general offensive. Here is the policy document adopted that day:

“…we shall establish a strategic posture to cope with the American-British offensive, making mid-1944 our approximate target for full readiness. Whenever the occasion presents, we shall capture and destroy the enemy’s offensive forces. To carry out the Empire’s war, the strategic area in the Pacific and Indian Oceans that must absolutely be secured is a perimeter that includes the Kurile Islands,

Ogasawara, the inner South Pacific (the central and western parts), the western part of New Guinea, the Sunda Strait, and Burma.”

Hirohito, very skeptical, replied, “Being ready to defend isn’t enough. We have to do the attacking.” When on November 1, 1943, Nagano reported good results in the second air battle off Bougainville, the emperor, according to the diary of naval aide Jō, “seemed satisfied and ed toasts with his aides-de-camp in their duty office.” One month later, in late December, Hirohito was very frustrated, when the Japanese navy withdrew from the Solomons. In fact, Japanese troops lost control of the Vitiaz and Dampier Straits – the body of water between the island of New Britain and the north coast of New Guinea, forcing Gen. Isoroku Yamamoto to abandon the islands. Approximately 50,000 troops of the Second Army in western New Guinea, and another fifty thousand of the Eighteenth Army in the eastern part of the island, were isolated, and went down to defeat. Meanwhile, 11,300 Americans were killed or wounded. The Japanese occupied these locations and began the construction of several naval and air bases with the goals of protecting the flank of the Japanese offensive in New Guinea, establishing a security barrier for the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain, and providing bases for interdicting supply lines between the Allied powers of the United States and Australia and New Zealand. On January 7, 1944, Hirohito sanctioned an offensive from Burma into Assam Province, India, to prevent an Allied drive to recover Burma and possibly bring to power a group of Indian nationalists against British rule. With the failure of the attempt, on July, 5, Hirohito accepted Tōjō’s recommendation and ordered the end of the disastrous campaign. By then, approximately seventy-two thousand Japanese troops had been killed or wounded. Between July 22, 1944, and April 5, 1945, Japan was increasingly losing the war, and the Japanese people were forced to make more and more sacrifices. On July 24, 1944, Hirohito sanctioned plans for showdown battles in the Philippines, Taiwan, the southwest Islands, the Ryukyus, and the Japanese home islands, with the exception of Hokkaido and the Kuriles. On July 26, he told Koiso to not leave the capital and control whether the Imperial Headquarters should be moved to the continent or not. Shortly afterward, on August 4, with Hirohito’s approval, the Koiso cabinet decided to arm virtually the entire nation

and have all subjects begin military training (with bamboo spears) in workplaces and schools throughout the country. Two weeks later, Hirohito confirmed the new preparations for defense against the forthcoming enemy offensives at his imperial conference. The decision of Imperial Headquarters, on October 18, to fight the decisive battle on Leyte and to abandon the defense of Luzon was approved by Hirohito. On New Year’s Day 1945, when the United States began retaking Luzon, and the self-destruction of kamikaze pilots and “human torpedoes” increased, the emperor and empress inspected the special last-meal rations being provided to the departing of the suicide units. These examples justify Hirohito direct responsibility in the war and suggest why he should have been tried in Tokyo. Abroad, particularly in China and Korea, the two governments severely criticized Hirohito for his annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. The question is, why, after the defeat of 1945, even when Yasukuni Shrine was forced to adopt the status of private religious association, independent of the state, Hirohito, as a symbol of the nation, had continued to visit this shrine where the souls of some two million five hundred thousand soldiers killed in the war are honored, among them seven Japanese dignitaries executed in the context of the Tokyo trial. Tōjō and the six other principals, such as Iwane Matsui, who organized the Rape of Nanking, and Heitaro Kimura, who brutalized Allied prisoners of war. It was only in 1975, at the end of his life, after an eighth and last visit to Yasukuni, that the emperor stopped going there. The notes of Tomita Tomohiko, director of the imperial affairs office, informed that Hirohito had stopped his visits to the Yasukuni because he felt uncomfortable with the idea that class “A” criminals are worshiped there. In Japan many survivors criticized Hirohito for their suffering, and in their view, he was responsible for the atrocities of the war. Among them, a majority of people in Okinawa who had paid a heavy price in recent times of conflict – more than two hundred thousand civilian and military deaths – sometimes forced into mass suicides. During the Nanking Massacre, which took place in December 1937, according to the investigation led by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the Japanese army had massacred at least two hundred thousand civilians and prisoners of war. Herbert P. Bix, citing the work of Himeta Mitsuyoshi and Akira Fujiwara, believed that the three-everything policy, “kills everything, burns everything, plunders everything,” a strategy of the burned earth used by the Japanese in

China between 1942 and 1945 and approved by Hirohito, was responsible for the deaths of at least 2.7 million Chinese civilians. War crimes in China include also the Changjiao massacre in Hunan. Between May, 9 and 12, 1943, more than thirty thousand people were massacred in this Chinese region by a Japanese expeditionary force led by Gen. Shunroku Hata. Like other indirect victims of Japanese expansionist politics under Hirohito’s leadership, we mention the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who witnessed the devastation of these two cities totally ravaged by atomic bombs released by the Americans on August 6 and August 9, 1945. Japan’s persistence in continuing the war despite the capitulation of these two Allies in the Axis, and Italy, forced the Americans to bomb the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The mayor of Nagasaki, Mr. Hitoshi Motoshima, nearly succumbed on January 1990 to an attack after publicly mentioning Hirohito’s responsibility during the war. Critics have often compared the Japanese army to the army of the Third Reich during the period of 1933-1945. Historian Chalmers Johnson writes, “To establish which of the two Axis aggressors, or Japan, was the most brutal to the peoples they martyred during the Second World War is meaningless. The Germans had killed six million Jews and twenty million Russians; the Japanese massacred as many as thirty million Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians, Taiwanese, and Burmese, of whom at least twenty-three million were ethnically Chinese. These two countries had plundered the territories they conquered on a monumental scale, although Japan stole more, and over a longer period, than the Nazis. The two conquerors had enslaved millions of people and exploited them as forced labor and, in the case of the Japanese, as prostitutes (by force) for the troops of the front. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war in the hands of the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia), your chances of not surviving the war were 4 percent; in comparison, the death rate for Japanesehand prisoners of war was close to 30 percent.” According to R.J. Rummel, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, the Japanese had killed between 1937 and 1945 several million people. This “democide,” in his words, was due to a political and military strategy, moral bankruptcy, and military habits and culture. Rummel argued that, in China alone, from the direct consequences of the invasion, between 1937 and 1945, approximately 3.9 million Chinese soldiers were killed by the policies of the

Shōwa regime, and 10.2 million civilians perished from the causes directly related to the invasion of this country. Hirohito had planned the attack in Northern China because of “the fact that the Chinese party perpetrated a deliberate aggression against Japan.” The government’s communiqué approved by the emperor said, “As our Empire’s primary concern is to maintain peace in Asia, we have not given up hope that peaceful negotiations can further limit the expansion of the conflict.” This communiqué was followed by an imperial directive ordering “to punish the Chinese army in the Beijing-Tianjin area and to bring stability to strategic locations in the region.” This brutal and deadly war against China ended with Japan’s surrender in 1945 after its defeat in World War II. Despite repeated threats from the United States to impose an embargo on Japan in case the government of Hiranuma did not withdraw its troops in Northern China, not once had Hirohito intervened to order the army and navy High Staff, Prince Kan’in Kotohito, and . Nagano to end the war with Chiang Kai-shek’s troops. Hirohito realized the consequences of a war with the United States. However, ’s victories in Europe, and Hitler’s guarantee had encouraged him to continue attacking not only China but a whole set of countries in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Under the leadership of his new Minister of the Army, Hata Shunroku, a professional soldier who retained his trust, and . Nomura Kichisaburo, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, the emperor continued his policy of invading neighboring countries. A policy that he skillfully maneuvered through the successive governments of several prime ministers such as, Hiranuma, Abe, and Yonai. In August 1945, Gen. Bonner Fellers, ordered by Gen. MacArthur to make a list of those to prosecute, had to decide whether Hirohito was a war criminal or not. Fellers noted that the Imperial Army had committed a number of millions of crimes, and, Hirohito, in his role as commander-in-chief, could not completely ignore them. In fact, upon his arrival at the head of the empire, like Hitler in , Hirohito had used military parades to formalize the militarization of Japan and prepare the Imperial army in its vast plan to occupy the neighboring territories in the Pacific and in the Southeast Asia. The guilt of the emperor was evident, but Bonner feared that Japan, as devastated it was, could fall into the orbit of Communism. “Japan’s destiny is at stake. We must maintain the imperial regime,” Bonner concluded.

The question is, why wasn’t Hirohito, a class A war criminal, tried during the Tokyo trial when knowing that he had controlled behind the scenes all the operations of the Japanese Imperial Army during the war? Fellers, acknowledged that “as emperor and acknowledged head of state, Hirohito cannot sidestep war guilt. He is part of, and must be considered an instigator of the Pacific War.” An internal report by the office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) noted in July 1944, “the desirability of eliminating the present emperor is questionable; it is probable that he inclines personally toward the more moderate faction and might prove a useful influence later.” The O.S.S. and other intelligence agencies believed that the emperor held the key not only to surrender but also a postwar change. In his memoirs, Yoshida Shigeru praised MacArthur as the “great benefactor of his country.” Yoshida praised the commander for the preservation of the throne and protection of its august occupant in a time of unprecedented peril. On December 2, 1928, two weeks after his inauguration as “divine emperor,” Hirohito went to the Yoyogi Parade to review the largest deployment of air and military power in Japanese history. For hours he watched from the imperial grandstand, marching through the streets of Tokyo, more than thirty-five thousand soldiers, including four thousand five hundred of the cavalry corps. Two days later, he went to Yokohama for a major fleet review. A total of 39 submarines and 208 ships, including the giant aircraft carriers Kaga and Akagi, and approximately forty-five thousand crew took part in the event. Twenty-five thousand of the Imperial Reservists Association and thousands of dignitaries also participated in the parade. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Japanese made up the crowd in Yokohama. Millions of people had listened on the radio the comments summarizing the size of the event and how the supreme commander had examined the fleet: 130 naval aircraft flew at low –altitude over the harbor in slow and tight formation. In the writings and memoirs that cover his maturity as commander-in-chief of the army, the emperor’s closest advisers, Makino, Kawai, Nara, and Okabe, recognized the important role that Hirohito had played in the political life of the nation, and the control of the army. Unlike his father, Yoshihito Taishō, an obliterated monarch, Hirohito gave the last words in the great political decisions that engaged his country. As Francis Pike explained, “it was the war of his Empire, fought under its divine name, and with its approval. As supreme commander, he sanctioned the

decisions of the High Staff, built a war room under his palace and advised his generals on troop movements in China, where several million people had died.” U.S. Secretaries of State Dean Gooderham Acheson and Cordell Hull were among those who encouraged Hirohito to be charged with war crimes. The two diplomats said that “liquidating the imperial system was the ultimate way to democratize Japan.” In a lengthy report to President Truman in 1946, George Atcheson Jr., the secretary of state’s representative in Tokyo, declared that Hirohito is “a war criminal and that the imperial system must disappear in order to the country to become a democratic state.” As one reviewing the history of the Shōwa era, Hirohito was a monster who had played an effective role in the crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Army and the Navy during World War II. For his role in the war, he should have been tried and convicted at the Tokyo trials. His judgment would have been seen as a move to condemn crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The decision made by Gen. MacArthur, who led Japan’s post-conflict occupation istration, had helped Hirohito to escape justice. In fact, the general, using his power, had played all the cards to remove Hirohito’s name from the list of defendants. As a basic rule, the American occupants observed a wartime policy of not provoking the enemy by attacking the emperor. The general U.S. war policy had opposed attacks against imperial sites or even condemned any verbal denigration of Emperor Hirohito. Given the intense campaign by MacArthur to present Hirohito as a champion of peace, the highlevel evocation of his war responsibility during the Tokyo trials was starling. All of the defendants accused of “Class A” war crimes had meticulously avoided saying anything that might seem to implicate their sovereign. MacArthur told his staff that Hirohito “was emperor by birth, but at this moment I know that I had in front of me the first great Lord of Japan by right.” He also confided to a relative that at first “I arrived here with the intention of treating the emperor more harshly, but this was not necessary. He is a sincere, authentic, and he is a liberal man.” According to Kido’s newspaper, MacArthur said that “Hirohito is best placed to know the important men of his country’s political universe. So, I’d like to hear his opinion on different topics.” Western leaders, led by the United States for political reasons, did not try Hirohito before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. However, there is no doubt to the emperor’s responsibility in the war. Reluctant at the

beginning to the prospect of Japan entering World War II, he welcomed the success of the Japanese offensive on Pearl Harbor and the victories that followed in Southeast Asia. Based on archives and historical records, Hirohito was a war criminal who must stand trial in Tokyo. On November 13, 1948, Sir William Webb, the president of the tribunal, declared, “This immunity of the emperor is contrasted with the part he played in launching the war in the Pacific, is, I think, a matter which the tribunal should take into consideration in imposing the sentences.” This trial that did not take place at that time is mounted in this book. This is a book of information and training, a reference document that should be read as an educational tool on the history of the war in the Pacific and the Southeast Asia during the Second World War. It allows the reader to better comprehend the atrocities of the Japanese army that had massacred as many as twenty million Filipinos, Malaysians, Koreans, Chinese, Thais, New Zealanders, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Burmese, and citizens of other nations. Through the game of fiction, an International Opinion Tribunal is formed with a of five judges from different countries to lead the proceedings, which resulted symbolically to the condemnation of Hirohito as war criminal and the approval of the request of 180 Chinese victims of Unit 731. Those complainants had their actions dismissed by the Tokyo District Court in August 2002 and the Tokyo Court of Appeal in April 2005.

CHAPTER I

THE SECOND WORLD WAR: POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT

T he First World War ended with the surrender of , which accepted the set out in the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. The United Kingdom, , Belgium, Japan, and the United States shared the former German colonies, and the victorious countries, especially , obtained the right to large reparations allowances. , in addition, obtained the reintegration of Alsace and Moselle, annexed by Bismarck after the war of 1870. Following the Treaty of Versailles, Japan was granted certain German possessions in the Pacific, such as the Mariana Islands, the Carolinas, and Marshall Islands. Russia, after the Bolshevik revolution and the Counter-revolution, became the Soviet Union, while new states (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Baltic States) were created in Central Europe, in the name of the principle of nationalities, in particular because of the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The borders of the USSR are also displaced for the benefit of Poland. In , the Treaty of Versailles was denounced, for imposing heavy war indemnities and the loss of German lands such as Upper Silesia. In Italy resentment was as strong as in . Italy did not obtain the allocation of the provinces of Istria, Dalmatia, and Trentino, which the country wished. During the 1920s and 1930s, and the United Kingdom did not agree on the compensation payable by , and the reconstruction or dismantling of German industrial structures. This conflict led to the occupation of the industrial region of the Ruhr, rich in coal, iron and metallurgical industry, by Belgian and French troops from 1923 to 1925. This occupation quickly led to a crisis in the German economy, a significant devaluation of the mark and a reinforcement of the policies of the extreme Right Nationalist and the extreme Left Communist. The Dawes Plan of 1924 put an end to this occupation. Five years later (1929), the world entered the most serious economic crisis in history.

The economic crisis of 1929 affected all the economies of the world, and had serious consequences for the fragile economies of European countries just out of the war, especially , causing in this country heavily hit by the aftermath of the World War I, unemployment and recession. The repatriation of large American investments to plunged the German economy into a serious crisis. In and Italy, economic crises made it easier for the National Socialists to take power. In the Third Reich, the Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, came to power in 1933. Hitler increased his popularity by denouncing the Treaty of Versailles, which was the general demand of all Germans, even the opponents of National Socialism, the Nazi party. Hitler and his fanatical partisans who wanted to conquer “land” ed forces with other Fascist powers (Italy, Japan, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania). Led by Benito Mussolini, Italy on December 11, 1937, withdrew from the League of Nations and moved closer to Nazi . Italy soon became a dictatorship where all opponents were exiled or murdered. In 1939, Italy invaded Albania, of which it made an Italian protectorate. In , Adolf Hitler took the power on January 30, 1933. Very quickly, he restored the generalized military service, prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles, remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, and implemented an aggressive foreign policy. This policy aims to bring together the German-speaking populations of Central Europe within the same state. Hitler realized his plans to conquer Europe by annexing Austria in March 1938, it is the Anschluss. After a provocative operation known as the Gleiwitz incident, German troops invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. On September 3, 1939, and the United Kingdom declared war on under a Treaty of February 1921, which bound them to Poland. On September 17, 1939, in application of the secret clauses of the German-Soviet Pact, the Soviet Union in turn invaded Poland from the east. Thus, the Second World War broke out. This war took place in Europe with and Italy who faced the Allies (, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States), while in Asia the war raged after the Japanese army invaded the territories of Korea, China, Vietnam, and other countries in the Pacific. Europe, occupied by the Nazis, is delivered to terror and looting. Between 1938 and 1941, after the occupation of territories of the main countries of the European continent, the only enemy of Nazi remained the United Kingdom, ed by the Commonwealth. Unable to bend the English and

after the debacle in Moscow, where the German army lost seven hundred thousand men (killed, wounded, or prisoners), or a quarter of the troops dispatched to Russia, Hitler began to see the decline of his regime. The declaration of war with the United States on December 7, further complicated the situation. On the night of June 5 to 6, 1944, more than 150,000 Allied soldiers, under the command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, landed in Normandy. Called code name “Overlord” (suzerain in French), this naval aviation operation remains the most gigantic in history. In Europe, the armed conflict ended on May 8, 1945, with the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich. As far as the Asian continent and the world are concerned, the Second World War ended on September 2, 1945, with the unconditional surrender of Japan’s empire, the latter being the last Axis nation to be defeated.

JAPAN: THE ROAD TO WAR The Korean Occupation

Korea was forcibly annexed by Japan on August 29, 1910. Terauchi Masatake, a former Japanese general based in Seoul, became the first governor-general. Soon, the new governor took drastic measures to break any resistance of the Korean population. It forbade any association and meeting of Koreans, and the “insubordinates” were severely oppressed by the gendarmes in order to counter popular uprisings. In order to create a colonial economy at the service of the Japanese economy, Terauchi proclaimed a decree on societies. The aim was to crush Korean capital and turn Korea into a market of Japanese capitalism. He undertook land investigation set to determine land ownership. Upon investigation, the general government appropriated the lands belonging to the former royal court and abandoned lands, and these lands were distributed to Japanese settlers or spread to the Koreans through the Eastern colonization. Thousands of dispossessed Koreans immigrated to Manchuria. Japan’s occupation of Korea began following the Sino-Japanese War (1894– 1895) concluded by the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) concluded by the Treaty of Portsmouth. In 1910, Korea became a Japanese protectorate. The 1910 annexation treaty, while making Korea an integral part of the Japanese empire, would subject the de facto peninsula to ruthless colonial rule. This period of occupation provides irrefutable evidence of the atrocities of the Japanese army against the Korean population and further opens the debate on Hirohito’s responsibility in the last decade of the conflict and his deserved criminal indictment. war time. André Fabre in his book History of Korea, Editions l’Asiathèque, thus notes that “once fully mastered Korea, the Japanese made every effort to exploit it to the fullest, deprive it of its soul and make it a loyal province Of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan.” In 1911, all Korean forests were under the control of the Japanese general government, which undertook a policy of massive deforestation to increase the agricultural area. In 1912, the Japanese authorities took control of the Korean fisheries and Japanese fishermen were now able to exploit Korean waters. In the

early 1930s, under Hirohito’s rule, Japan took 40 percent of the Korean land. The Japanese authorities were developing a policy to increase the production of rice for export to the Japanese empire. Land expropriations in the countryside led Korean peasants to rural exodus or immigration to Manchuria or Siberia, sometimes to Japan where their status as migrant workers forced them to work in ruthless conditions. In the industrial sector, the share of capital invested by the Japanese in 1929 was ten times greater than that provided by the Koreans. Despite new activities developed by the occupiers in the country, in general, the Japanese occupation corresponded to an impoverishment of the Korean population, both in the countryside and in the city. Korea was called upon to supply rice or raw materials, such as wool and cotton to limit the cost of Japan’s imports into third countries, at the same time, the low cost of Korean labor encouraged Japanese entrepreneurs to settle on the peninsula without giving any benefit to the inhabitants. In 1939, the Japanese authorities imposed a compulsory labor service on Koreans for more than four million people in 1945, including 1,260,000 employed in Japan as unskilled labor. In 1941, with the Japanese occupation relying on sixty thousand police officers ed by 180,000 auxiliaries, the situation of Koreans worsened, especially that of peasants (70 percent of the population) who now saw two- thirds of their rice crops exported to Japan. In 1943, Koreans were mobilized in the Japanese army. At the same time, tens of thousands of young Korean women were being snatched from their families to serve as “comfort girls” in pleasure homes reserved for the Japanese military throughout occupied Asia. Under the military law put in place by the Japanese government, the Korean must be blind, deaf, dumb, and defenseless. Blind, he was forbidden to read uncensored Japanese newspapers; deaf, he must not listen to the stories of the recent resurrection of Poland; dumb, he must not express his own aspirations; and defenseless, the nation remained powerless in front of the garrison of the soldiers who possess it. No Korean can leave his territory. His correspondence was censored in the mails. His person was searched on trains and in the streets. With the Korean territory annexed, Japanese troops invaded China in their sights of occupying the countries of South-east Asia and the Pacific.

War in the Pacific

In March 1933, after the Lytton Report unequivocally condemned the Japanese push in Manchuria, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations, despite the rather vague reservations expressed by the emperor. As Kido noted in his diary, “Hirohito urged his government to note that despite its forced but inevitable and truly “very regrettable” withdrawal, Japan would continue its policy of cooperation and intimate international relations with others powers.” As a promise on its word contrary to the expansionist policies pursued by the various governments that succeeded Japan from 1930 to 1945 (Inukai Tsuyoshi governments (December 13, 1931–May 16, 1932), Makoto Saita (May 26, 1932–July 8, 1934), Keisuke Okada (July 8, 1934–March 9, 1936), Koki Hirota (March 9, 1936–February 2, 1937), Senzher Hayashi (February 2, 1937–June 4, 1937), Fumi Komaro (June 4, 1937–January 5, 1939), Hirama Kiichirō (January 5, 1939–August 30, 1939), Nobuyuki Abe (August 30, 1939–January 16, 1940), Mitsumasa Yonai (January 16, 1940–July 22, 1940), Fumimaro Konoe (July 22, 1940–July 18, 1941), Hideki Tōjō (October 18, 1944–July 22, 1944), and Kuniaki Koiso (July 22, 1944–April 7, 1945). These periods were marked by the development of Japanese nationalism. Japan, adopting the Nazi model in Europe, pursued an aggressive foreign policy with a series of attacks on neighboring countries. Shortly after his withdrawal from the League of Nations in Geneva, his troops invaded the province of Jehol after an initial failed attempt. Then came the Loukouchiao incident near Beijing on July 7, 1937. The Japanese, who had increased the guard of their embassy from two thousand to twenty thousand, agreed by the boxing protocol in 1901, took the opportunity to occupy, with their armies descended from Manchuria, the Chinese provinces of Hopeih, Shanxi, and Shantung. As early as August 1937, the incidents in Shanghai, caused by the Japanese navy, forced the Japanese troops to descend much further. Progressing along major roads, roads, rivers, or railways, Japanese detachments seized Nanjing and ransacked the city in atrocious conditions (December 1937). In 1938, in Taierzhuang, two Japanese divisions were surrounded for nearly twenty-four hours by a Chinese army commanded by Gen. Li-Tsung-Jen. They were able to escape, and Gen. Doïhara, who commanded them, narrowly escaped death. The active period of the Imperial Japanese Army’s operations against the

Chinese regular army ended with the general attack of the Japanese army on the heights surrounding Hankou, some one hundred kilometers to the north and east, from September to December 1938, and by the landing of a Japanese army at Bias Bay and the capture of Canton in October 1938. The Chinese were now cut off from the sea. In January 1939, the Japanese occupied Hainan, overseeing Hong Kong and Tonkin, and began the total and effective blockade of all Chinese ports. In a final resistance effort, General Chiang Kai-shek decided to withdraw with the Kuomintang government of Hankou in Tchoung-King in Central China, where Chinese government bodies resumed operation in late 1939. Chiang Kai-shek managed to maintain his government as the only legal government and, in full agreement with representatives of the foreign powers and the Kuo-min-tang government, to keep around him the great Chinese military leaders, while that a “puppet” government, entirely submissive to the Japanese, was settling in Nanjing, in the occupied area, under the presidency of Wang Ching-wei. The year 1939 was marked by the extension of Japanese occupation south of Shanghai and north of Kiangsi (capture of Nanchang in April). In September 1939, a Japanese army landed at Pakhoi and Nanning was captured at the gates of Indochina. In 1940, the Japanese continued to bomb Choung-King and turned the city into a head of rubble. In June, they seized Itchang and crossed the ditch marked by the Blue River. The year 1941 marked a turning point in the history of the Pacific conflict and the Chinese resistance. Disappointed by the Moscow negotiations in April 1941 (the Stalin-Matsuoka agreement), the Chinese protested in the summer of 1941 against conversations in Tokyo between American and Japanese officials about gas supplies. They succeeded in attracting more and more American opinion, and finally, they found the of Washington, which, between October and November 1941, was scrambling with Japan. The occupations of the Chinese territories were increasingly denounced by Western nations, especially the United States, which ultimately decided to impose a fuel embargo on Japan. As a result, the Japanese were engaged day after day in international complications, which would later lead to a widespread conflict against China. Faced with the isolation of his empire, which became total, Hirohito had no choice but to get close to the two Axis powers: and Italy. On November 1, 1936, a week after Hitler for and Mussolini for Italy

signed a treaty of friendship, the two dictators announced a Rome-Berlin Axis showing their common interest in destabilizing the European order. Less than a month later, on November 25, 1936, Nazi and Imperial Japan signed the “Anti-Comin tern Pact” against the Soviet Union. Italy ed the AntiComin tern Pact on November 6, 1937. On May 22, 1939, and Italy signed the “Steel Pact” formalizing the Axis alliance with military provisions. Finally, on September 27, 1940, , Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, known as the Axis Alliance. The Japanese empire, which saw the alliance between Stalin and Hitler exposed during the German-Soviet pact of August 1939, signed a treaty of neutrality with the USSR in April 1941, in order to have free hands in Asia. The Axis forces brought together three main partners: , Italy, and Japan. These three countries recognized German domination over almost all continental Europe, Italian domination over the Mediterranean Sea, and Japanese domination over Eastern Asia and the Pacific.

Japan and

German ideology and Japanese ideology are somewhat different, but the means are the same: conquer territories in order to have raw materials while increasing the need for territorial expansion. Korea was forcibly annexed by Japan on August 29, 1910. Twenty years later, Japan invaded Manchuria on September 19, 1931, and on February 18, 1932, the Japanese formed a puppet state, called Manchukuo, which was entirely subjugated to them and lasted until August 1945, the date of the Soviet invasion of the Manchuria. In 1935, the Chinese province of Jehol was invaded. The ultimate dream of the Japanese was to take over Australia. Australia was a member of the Commonwealth, led by the United Kingdom, itself an ally of the Americans. The Japanese decided to ally themselves with the Germans, enemies of the English and Americans, their own enemies. They applied the adage “the enemy of my enemy is my ally” to wage war more effectively in the Pacific. The Japanese war in the Pacific included campaigns in the Asia-Pacific region from 1941 as part of the clash between the Allies and the Empire of Japan. It

encomes all military operations on the East Asian and Pacific fronts. The g of the Tripartite Pact confirmed Japanese imperialism in an Asia that he increasingly saw as his great domain. The conflict resumed first with China, but at the same time, Japan negotiated with some countries in the region, such as independent Thailand (Siam). The two countries (Siam and Japan) came together in 1938. At the same time, and in connection with Japanese–Thai relations, Japan annexed French Indochina, which it considered a key to being able to cut off supplies to China. The Japanese takeover of French Indochina in 1940, and the threat over Burma and Dutch Indochina, worried the United States, which would try to curb Japanese expansion in the Pacific Ocean. On December 7, 1941, the U.S. Naval Air Force Base at Pearl Harbor was the surprise attack. In December 8, Japan attacked Hong Kong, which surrendered on December 26; in the same December 8, it was the attack by the Japanese Army on Malaysia and Singapore. Japanese aircraft were bombing the Philippines at the same time. Despite resistance led by Gen. MacArthur, on December 10, Japanese troops landed in the country. On January 2, 1942, Manila fell, and MacArthur left Corregidor on March 11, 1942. The desires for Japanese expansionism were at the origin of the alliance between and Japan. Dissatisfied with the treatment of the Japanese empire by the Western powers during the Treaty of Versailles and the naval treaties of Washington and London, Japanese politicians set up an ideology based on the supremacy of the Japanese race and its right to dominate Asia. This racist ideology presented Japan as the center of the world and took a seat on the imperial institution of the emperor, being divine and descended from the goddess Amaterasu Omikani. It gave rise to an attempt to restore the Shōwa Era. The Imperial Japanese Army then continued its conquests. Japan, benched by Western democracies for attacking Manchuria in 1931, followed by the rest of China in 1937, signed the Tripartite Pact with and Italy on September 27, 1940. Through this pact, the three countries committed themselves to assisting and ingesting one another against any attack by another nation that was not already engaged in war. Hirohito then received Hitler’s to attack Pearl Harbor.

The Attack on Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack by the Japanese Air Force on December 7, 1941, on the U.S. naval base on the island of Oahu, in the U.S. territory of Hawaii. Attacks on the Philippines, French Indochina, and Dutch possessions in the south-west Pacific gradually followed. Authorized by Hirohito, the attack on Pearl Harbor came in response to the U.S. oil embargo on Japan. It was also a response to the economic sanctions taken by Washington in July 1941 after the invasion of China and French Indochina by the Japanese army. This attack led to the entry of the United States into World War II. On November 26, 1941, the Japanese fleet assembled at Hitokappu Bay, aided by the German spy service, secretly prepared the attack on Pearl Harbor against the American fleet commanded by . Husband E. Kimmel for the navy and Gen. Walter Short set for the U.S. Air Force. The objective was to destroy the American fleet in a surprise attack by the Japanese air force. . Chūichi Nagumo led the mission. The attack, led by Gen. Hideki Tōjō, was launched on Sunday, December 7, 1941, at 7:48 a.m., by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the U.S. Pacific Fleet. On Sunday, more than 180 aircraft took off from six carriers, torpedo boats, dive bombers, and their fighter escorts. They arrived, creating a complete surprise, at 8:00 a.m. over Hawaii and began their attack. A second wave of 170 Japanese aircraft arrived at Pearl Harbor at 8:40 a.m. About 2,403 American soldiers were killed and 1,178 wounded. Four battleships were sunk and four were damaged, while 188 US aircraft were destroyed. The damaged ships also included three cruisers and four destroyers. The Japanese lost sixtyfour men, twenty-nine aircraft, and five pocket submarines; a sailor was captured. Your Honor, it has been said that Hirohito ignored the attack on the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, and that Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō was the only person responsible for the crimes. The true is, at the time of Pearl Harbor, Hirohito was forty and had been emperor for almost fifteen years. Tōjō had only been the prime minister for weeks. However, as a veteran in the army and involving for many decades in politics, Tōjō would have sought the emperor’s approval for any attack on the U.S. If the emperor had declined to give his approval, Tōjō would have canceled the plan to proceed.

As Takahisa Furukawa, a historian professor at Nihon University, said, “Tōjō is a bureaucrat who was incapable of making own decisions, so he turned to the emperor as his supervisor. That is why he had to report everything for the emperor to decide. If the emperor didn’t say no, then he would proceed.” According to a memo published by the daily Yomiuri, in July 2018, Hirohito ed the attack that sparked the war in the Pacific against the Americans. “The emperor seemed comfortable and unwavering after making the decision,” the report says, echoing the words of prime minister, Hideki Tōjō. This revelation denied other elements that previously suggested that Hirohito considered an attack on the United States to be “self-destructive.” Of course, there is a truth that Hirohito, unlike Hitler, had not always interfered directly in the conduct of the Japanese army’s military operations, but on the other hand, he focused on the realization of his three obsessions: collaboration then, when the war turned to Japan’s disadvantage after the midways’ setback in June 1942, he endorsed the initiation of a large-scale attack operation against Allied troops, on an even greater scale than the surprise attack by the Japanese army on the American base at Pearl Harbor. The main objective of this plan of attacks was to force the Allies to negotiate less drastic of surrender for Japan. A strategy that prolonged hostilities, but ultimately paid off. The emperor, despite the defeat of his country, was able to obtain official guarantees as to the survival of the imperial institution that the Allies refused to provide at the beginning of the talks.

The Japanese Advance in the Pacific

In the six months following Pearl Harbor, nothing seems to stop Japan’s advance in the Pacific. Imperial troops landed in Borneo on December 15, 1941. A few months later, Guam and Wake Island fell into their hands, followed in the first six months of 1942 by the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Burma. The picture of events is thus drawn: in early January 1942, the islands Sumatra and Timor fell under Japanese control. Java capitulated two months later. On March 8, Rangoon fell, causing a very painful British retreat, and in June 1942, Japanese control was total.

The turning point of the Pacific War came in mid-1942 when Australian and New Zealand forces in New Guinea and British forces in India began to halt the Japanese advance in the region. Thus, an attempted attack on India, through Ceylon, in April 1942, failed. Tokyo was first bombed on April 18, 1942 by Doolittle’s planes. Japan’s defeat continued with the American naval victory at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The Japanese fleet suffered heavy losses and was repelled. In August 1942, American forces attacked the Japanese in the Solomon Islands and forced them, at great cost, to withdraw from the island of Guadalcanal in February 1943. Beginning in 1944, the Allies gradually possessed air and naval supremacy in the Pacific and methodically conquered the islands one after the other, in often particularly deadly battles. First, U.S. forces liberated the Philippines and launched massive air strikes against Japan. British forces retook Burma. In early 1945, the United States suffered heavy losses during the invasion of Iwo Jima (February) and Okinawa. Despite these losses and the Japanese suicide air strike – known as suicide bomber attacks – American forces conquered Okinawa in mid-June 1945. While the Imperial Japanese Army continued to occupy territories in the Pacific, on the European continent war continued to rage. Nazi-occupied Europe was left to terror and looting. Between 1938 and 1941, after the occupation of territories in the main countries of the European continent, the only adversary of Nazi remained the United Kingdom, ed by the Commonwealth. Unable to bend the British and after the debacle in Moscow where the German army lost seven hundred thousand men (killed, wounded, or prisoners), or a quarter of the number set to Russia, Hitler began to see the decline of his regime. The declaration of war with the United States on December 11, 1941, shortly after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, further complicated the situation. On the night of June 5-6, 1944, more than one hundred fifty thousand Allied soldiers, under the command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, landed in Normandy. Codenamed “Overlord,” this naval operation remains the largest in history. In Europe, the armed conflict ended on May 8, 1945, with the unconditional surrender of . Japan, on the other hand, did not seem to want to stop the war. The United States also launched two atomic bombs on Japanese territory (Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945). Hirohito ordered the surrender of his country, which took place on September 2, 1945, three weeks after the speech of capitulation broadcast that he read personally on August 15.

REPORT ON THE SECOND WORLD WAR

About forty-five million civilians died in Europe, including thirteen to twenty million war-related illness or famine. Military casualties are estimated at between twenty-two and twenty-five million, including five million prisoners of war who died in captivity. In total fifty million to sixty million people perished in the war.

1. Human Balance Total

Soviet Union

20,000,000

Republic of China

16,200,000

German Reich

7,000,000

Poland

6,000,000

Indonesia

4,000,000

Dutch East Indies

4,000,000

Japan

3,000,000

India

1,800,000

French Indochina

1,500,000

Kingdom of Romania

600,000

Kingdom of Hungary

580,000



580,000

Kingdom of Greece

574,000

United Kingdom

500,000

Korea (Under Japanese control) 450,000 United States

450,000

Italy

450,000

Czechoslovakia

400,000

Kingdom of Italy

400,000

Lithuania

350,000

Greece

320,000

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

300,000

Romania

300,000

Burma

270,000

Latvia

230,000

Morocco

190,000

Netherlands

150,000

Austria

120,000

Ethiopia

100,000

Malaysia

100,000

Finland

97,000

Belgium

76,000

Estonia

50,000

Canada

45,400

Australia

40,500

Albania

30,000

Bulgaria

25,000

Spain

15,000

New Zealand

12,000

South Africa

11,000

Norway

10,000

Luxembourg

5,000

Denmark

3,500

Brazil

2,000

Iraq

500

Iran

200

Ireland

200

Iceland

200

2. Extermination Camps

• Nazi extermination camps: According to the Polish National Memory Institute 2, 830, 000 Jews were killed in the Nazi camps:

1. Auschwitz-Birkenau: 1,100,000 dead 2. Treblinka:

850,000 dead

3. Belzec:

500,000 dead

4. Sobibor:

150,000 dead

5. Chelmno:

150,000 dead

6. Majdanek:

80,000 dead

• The total number of victims of the Holocaust is between eleven and seventeen million. • English sources estimate that ten million to eleven million Soviet civilians were victims of Nazi ethnic cleansing and war. A report of the Russian Academy of Sciences published in 1995 estimates that 13.7 million civilians were killed during the German occupation.

3. Prisoners of War

• Russians: A total of 3.1 million soldiers died in German prison camps during the war, including 2.6 to three million Soviet prisoners of war. This represents about 55 percent of all Soviet soldiers captured by the German army; • Polish: Between 1.8 and 1.9 million Polish civilians died during the German occupation; • Serbs: Yad Vashem’s memorial estimates 500,000 killed, 250,000 expelled, and 200,000 forcibly converted to Catholicism; • According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Croatian authorities killed between 320,000 and 340,000 Serbs living in Croatia and Bosnia during the war. Of this number, between 45,000 and 52,000 were murdered at the Jasenovac extermination camp; • Roma: Estimates of the number of Roma victims range from 130,000 to 500,000. • Disabled: Between 200,000 and 250,000 people with physical and mental disabilities were killed under the Aktion-T4 program. A 2003 report of the German Federal Archives advances the total number of 200,000; • Homosexuals: Between 10,000 and 15,000 homosexuals perished in Nazi concentration camps;

• Between 1,000 and 2,000 Catholic clerics, about 1,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses, and an unknown number of Freemasons were killed; • The Japanese massacred up to thirty million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians, and Burmese; and • In 1945, many areas were destroyed in Europe and several million people died or were injured. The fighting of the Second World War spared only the neutral countries. The human toll is dramatic: between sixty and seventy million dead, several million wounded, and 30 million Europeans displaced because of border changes, especially in Eastern Europe. This conflict was the costliest in human lives in the history of mankind. About forty-five million civilians died in the fighting and bombing, and the number of civilian casualties is greater than that of the military victims.

Entire peoples were almost decimated (there were seven million Jews in Europe before the war and only one million after) and people were destroyed. Poland had lost about 15 percent of its population. About eleven million people were reportedly executed directly on the orders of Adolf Hitler.

4. Military Losses

In total, an estimated 17,877,000 soldiers died on European battlefields, including 10,774,000 on the Allied side and 7,103,000 on the Axis side. The Red Army killed 53 percent of the total known military losses in Europe, those of the Wehrmacht, 31 percent, the United Kingdom, 1.8 percent, those of , 1.4 percent, and those of the North America, 1.3 percent. The Soviet Union’s military losses for 88 percent of Allied losses in Europe (the United Kingdom, 3 percent, , 2.3 percent, and United States, 2.2 percent). The total military losses alone of and the Soviet Union

together 84 percent of all military casualties suffered in Europe. The military losses of the German-Russian conflict alone are 13,876,400 or 78 percent of the total military casualties suffered in Europe.

5. Balance Sheet

The Nazi and Allied bombings caused extensive material damage in the cities, Berlin and Warsaw were almost completely destroyed. The bombardment of Dresden on February 13, 1945, caused about 135,000 deaths. Several districts of London and Rotterdam were to be rebuilt. Millions of civilians were out of housing, and there were millions of homeless people. Other martyrdom cities, include Hamburg, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Sevastopol, Kiev, Kharkov, and Budapest. For , the cost of reconstruction amounted to 4,900,000 francs. Three hundred thousand residential buildings were completely destroyed in . The cities of Brest, Caen, Le Havre, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, Rouen, Cherbourg, Évreux, and Saint-Malo, were notably destroyed in whole or in part. Transport and production infrastructure were also damaged; the decommissioning of thousands of roads, bridges, railways, and harbors was causing the isolation of many villages. Regarding Europe, the looting of resources organized by the Nazis in the occupied countries, combined with the disorganization of the means of production, led to serious shortages; rationing was maintained after the German capitulation of May 8, 1945 (in , two hundred grams of bread per day and less than two hundred grams of meat per week). The post-war period was marked by the Dutch famine of 1944. The harsh winter of 1946–1947 accentuated the difficulties of supply and made everyday life in North-west Europe even more difficult. The lack of coal was hard to feel because it represented the main means for heating.

6. Psychological Report

All the families of the victims are still shocked by this very deadly war. In addition, people who have survived the concentration camps have great difficulty living “as before.” The memories that haunt them day and night were traumatic.

7. Economic Situation

In 1947, production levels remained lower than pre-war levels: agricultural production reached 83 percent, industrial production, 88 percent, and exports, 59 percent. This situation was explained by the lack of manpower, by the low productivity of work because of under nutrition, and by the looting, bombing, and sabotage that affected the production apparatus. In general, the economies of the countries of Eastern Europe were more affected than those of the Western countries, because the Nazi occupation there was harder and the tactic of scorched earth was applied in the USSR. After 1945, governments and contractors would convert war plants back to the needs of consumption and equipment. In , the lack of coal paralyzed the iron and steel industry. In , the lack of raw materials, labor, and national istration and the limit of transport caused a dramatic situation. Overcrowding and the black market threatened the country’s balance. To finance the war effort, European governments had become indebted. The United States had lent $4.33 billion to Britain in 1945, while Canada had allocated US $1.19 billion in 1946, with an annual interest rate of 2 percent. had to pay $20 billion to the USSR as compensation. Trade was restricted because of bombing and the destruction of merchant shipping. The trade balance of many European countries was deficient, and unemployment and rationing drove workers to strike. A difficult social context took hold, favorable to the agitation and progress of Communism. Because of the shortages affecting Europe, it depended on imports, particularly from the United States. Everywhere, inflation was weakening European currencies. In , the Vichy

regime had put in place an enormous money supply with no counterpart in production. This dragged the country into an endless spiral of inflation. The pound lost its importance against the U.S. dollar. In , the American blonde cigarette was a monetary standard. The Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945) regulated the separation of into four distinct areas under the surveillance of the occupying powers: The Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and . The German territory was greatly amputated; it decreased by 24 percent compared to 1937. It covered only 357,000 square kilometers.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR

The Second World War was the deadliest military conflict in history. More than seventy million people have been killed, representing more than 2.5 percent of the world’s population. Of the victims, six million Jews died in concentration and extermination camps. Many areas were destroyed in Europe, and this war left millions of people injured or disabled. More than thirty million Europeans have been displaced as a result of border changes, mainly in Eastern Europe. The Nazi and Allied bombings caused extensive material damage in the cities: Berlin and Warsaw were almost completely destroyed. Several neighborhoods in London and Rotterdam are to be rebuilt. Millions of civilians were homeless, and the homeless numbered in the millions. Indeed, the list of martyred cities is long: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Manila, Hamburg, Stalingrad, Leningrad, Sevastopol, Kiev, Kharkov, Budapest. Several cities in are destroyed in whole or in part: Brest, Caen, Le Havre, Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Lô, Évreux, Saint-Malo, Rouen. The decommissioning of thousands of roads, bridges, railways and ports has led to the isolation of many villages. The USSR remains the most affected by property damage. Nearly 1,710 cities and more than 70,000 villages; 320,000 industrial enterprises; 100,000 collective and state farms; 4,700,000 houses; 127,000 schools, universities and public libraries, are destroyed. Across Europe, the plundering of resources organized by the Nazis in the occupied countries, combined with the disorganization of the means of production, led to major shortages. In , the war did not spare any part of the metropolitan area. About seventy-four out of ninety metropolitan departments suffered significant damage, and more than 20 percent of the capital was destroyed. Nearly one million households were homeless, entire cities were razed (Caen, Brest, Le Havre, etc.). Around 2,100,000 buildings were damaged in metropolitan during the war, of which 462,000 were completely destroyed. About 20 percent of the destruction took place during the Battle of in May–June 1944. Dunkirk and Calais were mostly destroyed during those few weeks of Blitzkrieg; 15 percent of the destruction took place from June 1940 to June 1944 (Allied bombing swings on the port, railway, and industrial centers of occupied );

65 percent of the destruction took place during the liberation of from June 1944 to May 1945. On the U.S. side, there were 292,000 people killed in the war. On the Asian continent, the war in the Pacific had important and lasting consequences. The first was the destruction of Japan’s military and economic power. In 1945, the defeated Japan fell completely into disrepair. Sixty-eight Japanese cities were bombed, and all were partially or completely destroyed. Japan became a field of ruins with cities like Nagasaki and Hiroshima completely buried under rubble. Two million dead or 3 percent of its pre-war population. The country was militarily occupied and placed under guardianship. Douglas MacArthur became military governor of Japan. The Imperial Japanese Army was dissolved and a new constitution was established in 1947. In China, the end of the war ended the truce between Nationalists and Communists. A fierce and bloody war broke out between the two groups. Backed by the Soviet Union, the Communists led by Chiang Kai-shek achieved several successes. In 1948, they seized Beijing and made rapid progress in the center of the country. On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China while the Nationalists took refuge on the island of Taiwan. At the same time, the Soviet Union, from Manchuria, invaded Korea, a Japanese colony since 1910, resulting in the division of the country into two zones of influence, Soviet in the north and American in the south. The ensuing Korean War killed three million people and divided the peninsula between South and North Korea. Having mobilized more than one hundred million fighters from sixty-one nations and killed an estimated sixty million people, the Second World War remains the deadliest armed conflict humanity has ever seen. It dedicated Allied victory to and the Axis powers: Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. In addition, it led to the g of the London agreement establishing the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal with the task of trying the Nazis; and the Potsdam Proclamation of July 26, 1945, establishing the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, with the task of trying the Japanese war criminal.

CHAPTER II

THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL FOR THE FAR EAST

T he trial of the twenty-eight senior Japanese officers before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, known as the “ Tokyo trial ” after the Nuremberg trial, is the second attempt at an international response to the crimes committed by the Germans and the Japanese during the Second World War. As early as 1942, by the St. James’ Palace Declaration, the representatives of the eighteen nations that formed the Allied group had affirmed their willingness to prosecute war criminals in international jurisdiction. But this declaration, in principle, had in mind only the crimes committed by Nazi troops on the European continent. On October 30, 1943, the Moscow Declaration was signed by the foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union. It established the jurisdiction under which persons who committed crimes during the war will be tried. It stipulated if whether the abuses were perpetrated in a single country, they will be tried in it; if, on the other hand, the acts took place in several territories, they will be condemned by a t decision of the Allies. U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill, at the Tehran conference in 1943, wanted the Nazi and Japanese defendants to be executed without appearing before a court, but Joseph Stalin, the president of the Soviet Union, refused the proposal. The idea of an international trial was then decided, in which Charles de Gaulle, the French president, was in favor. However, the crimes perpetrated by the Japanese armies were not taken into . A United Nations war crimes commission was set up at that time to list war crimes in Asia; but it was not until the spring of 1944 that the commission, specially dedicated to the Far East and the Pacific, began to draw up the list of suspects. Finally, in the proclamation of Potsdam of July 26, 1945, the representatives of the United States, Great Britain, and China specifically announced their intention to bring Japanese war criminals to justice. The Soviet Union, still bound to Japan by a non-aggression treaty, had refrained from taking part in this decision.

On August 6, it was the bombing of Hiroshima, August 9, Nagasaki and the entry into the war of the Soviet Union against Japan. On August 10, Japan announced that it accepted the of the Potsdam Declaration with the exception of the provisions that would target the emperor. On the fourteenth, Japan announced its full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration; the fifteenth is the emperor’s address. On August 25, 1945, the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC) published its recommendations on the prosecution of Japanese war criminals in a document entitled “Draft Summary of Recommendations on Japanese War Crimes and Atrocities.” Within the UNWCC, a subcommittee on the prosecution of Japanese war criminals was established in May 1944. This subcommittee was established in Chungking/Chongqing on October 11, 1944, and in Nanjing. The subcommittee drew up a list of suspects covering a total of 3,147 World War II suspects in Asia and the Pacific. While the first contingents of American forces gained a foothold in Japan, on August 29, 1945, the State War Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC) discusses the prosecution of war criminals in a document defining general policy of U.S. to Japan. This document –SWNCC150/4 – will be approved by Truman on September 6 and made public in September 22, twenty days after the Japanese surrender signed in September 2 on the USS Missouri (BB-63). In the act of surrender, the issue of war crimes was found.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TRIBUNAL

On September 11, 1945, the Supreme Allied commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, ordered the dissolution of Japanese Army Headquarters. On the same day, he arrested thirty-nine suspects, including Gen. Hideki Tōjō. On October 6, 1945, the Interarms Committee called on MacArthur to put in place the means to try the most important war criminals, i.e., those suspected of planning the war, violating treaties, or participating in a conspiracy. aimed at carrying out these same crimes. The directive specified that the facts examined for the trial could go back to the date of the assassination of Chang Zolin, the president of the Republic of China, killed on June 4, 1928, in Shenyang. On November 12 and 14, 1945, the War Crimes Commission compiled a list of suspects. On November 19, MacArthur ordered a series of arrests. On November 30, 1945, Joseph Keenan was appointed chief prosecutor by President Truman. He arrived in Tokyo in December 6, accompanied by thirty-nine employees. He quickly collected documents and testimony, and developed the Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. On December 5, 1945, Keenan published the rules governing the trial of those accused of war crimes. Two days after was a third wave of arrests by MacArthur, including of the Imperial Court. On December 27, 1945, a statement by the foreign ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the USSR recognized SCAP’s full authority to carry out the provisions of the surrender. On January 19, 1946, the charter was promulgated by the Supreme Allied Command. “I, Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander, under the powers vested in me to apply the of the surrender that calls for harsh justice for war criminals, order that a Tribunal be established for the Far East for the trial of individuals prosecuted, individually or as of organizations, for crimes that will include crimes against peace.” Like the one in Nuremberg, the charter contains procedural rules designed to guarantee the rights of the defense: the trial will take place in English and Japanese. A full and precise indictment will be established. The accused will be entitled to a personal lawyer and, failing that, a court-appointed lawyer, who will

receive disclosure of all the exhibits of the trial. It also regulates precisely the powers of the court and the rules of evidence before it. The trial will take place in Tokyo and will take place as follows. The charter states: reading of the indictment, asking of each accused to plead or not guilty, prior statements of the prosecution and defense, presentation of evidence and prosecution and defense witnesses, cross-examination of the defense, defense arguments, prosecution requisitions, and court judgment with the authority to pronounce the death penalty. Created on January 19, 1946, on MacArthur’s orders to try crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed by Japanese leaders between January 1, 1928, and September 1, 1945, and inaugurated in accordance with point 10 of the Potsdam’s request of July 26, 1945, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East indicted the great Japanese war criminals of the Second World War. It is made up of eleven countries, one for each victorious country of Japan. The charter specifies, in article 8, that all nations at war with Japan have the ability to design an assistant prosecutor. Thirty-nine Americans are in the group of prosecutors known as the International Prosecution Section and a multinational group of five hundred people (lawyers, stenographers, and employees combined). MacArthur asked each member of the Far East Commission to propose the name of a judge and an assistant prosecutor before January 5, 1947. The International College of Judges includes Australia, the Netherlands, China, the Soviet Union, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Great Britain, , the Philippines and India. The presiding judge is Australian Judge William Webb. The chief prosecutor is the American lawyer Joseph Keenan. These judges’ rule by majority, with the president having a casting vote in the event of a split (articles 2 and 3). Staged by the Americans, like the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, the Tokyo Tribunal will try three categories of crimes:

1. Crimes against Peace – acts planned and directed by political and military power; 2. War crimes – the destruction of towns and villages, unjustified devastation;

and 3. Crimes against Humanity – deportations, massacres, exterminations, persecutions.

THE COMPOSITION OF THE COURT

On February 15, 1946, the nine signatories to the surrender proposed the names of the judges they communicated to MacArthur. The court is made up of the following judges and prosecutors:

THE JUDGES

1. Sir William Webb, president of the Supreme Court of Queensland, represents Australia. He was appointed on February 20, 1946, as president of the tribunal; 2. Born in 1899, Judge Henri Bernard represents . He was a colonial magistrate since the age of twenty-eight. Bernard had spent his entire career in French-speaking Africa and was, at the time of his appointment, general counsel in Bangui. A former colonel, he was a government commissioner in Beirut in 1944. He replaced Henri Reimburger, legal adviser to the French Ministry overseas. Reimburger was the first appointed by the French authorities, but he resigned for personal reasons before leaving for Tokyo. As he was appointed to replace Reimburger, no one was suspicious of the fact that Bernard had been sentenced to death in absentia in July 1941 by the military court of Gannat for his participation in the insurrection of August 28, 1940, against the Vichy istration, for free in Brazzaville; 3. The youngest of all the judges was the thirty-nine-year-old Prof. Bert Röling. He represents the Netherlands. The Dutch government had appointed him because of his knowledge of Indonesian criminal law, which he had taught at the University of Utrecht; 4. The Chinese Nationalist authorities had appointed Gen. Shih Mei Ho, chairman of the Japanese war crimes tribunal in China. Too concerned about the preparation of the trial of two thousand Japanese who were about to be tried, he

had been replaced by Mei Ju ao, a prominent lawyer and member of the Legislative Assembly where he chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee; 5. Major Gen. Ivan Mikhailovich Zarayanov, appointed by Stalin, represents the Soviet Union. In 1935, he sentenced to death three white Russians hired by the Japanese as secret agents in Manchuria; 6. Harvey Northcroft, a member of the Supreme Court who had served as general counsel of the armed forces during the war against Japan, represents New Zealand. He was the one who replaced President Webb in case of absence; 7. William Donald Patrick, Lord Patrick, was the representative of Great Britain. He was considered one of the best lawyers in the court; 8. John Higgins, president of the Massachusetts Court of Appeals, was selected by the Truman istration to represent the United States. He was replaced by Major Gen. Myron Cramer, general counsel at the military court. Cramer had conducted an official investigation, at Truman’s request, into the events at Pearl Harbor. He was, along with Zarayanov, the only officer of the court; 9. Stuart McDougall, an expert in labor law, represents Canada; and 10. Radhabinod Pal represents India, and Delfín Jaranilla represents the Philippines. A graduate of the University of Calcutta, Pal was an adviser to the City Court of Appeal. Jaranilla was a justice to the Supreme Court of the Philippines and a professor of law at the university. During the war, he had been a prisoner of the Japanese and had participated in the abominable Bataan March. It was agreed from the outset that neither India nor the Philippines were an independent state during the war, and, therefore, these two countries could not have their representatives in court. The Indian and Philippine governments had protested against the decision. MacArthur, on April 6, 1945, issued an amendment to the charter providing for the appointment of eleven judges instead of the original nine. As a result of this late appointment, these two new judges will not arrive in Tokyo until May 17 for Pal and June 13 for Jaranilla, while the trial has been ongoing since May 8.

THE PROSECUTORS

Joseph B. Keenan has been appointed by President Truman as chief prosecutor in charge of carrying out the charges against the Japanese authorities. Born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on January 1, 1888, Keenan was a graduate of Brown University (1910) and the Harvard Law School (1913). He had served with the 137th Field Artillery during World War I and later with the Judge Advocate General’s Department. Usually wearing his trademark extra-large bow tie, he was known for his courtroom theatrics and unique facial expressions. He was assisted by several assistant prosecutors. Every nation that had been at war with Japan had the right to appoint an assistant prosecutor. The group of prosecutors, known as the International Prosecution Section, originally composed of thirtynine U.S. prosecutors, became a multinational group of five hundred people with lawyers, translators, and stenographers.

PREPARING FOR TRIAL

Officially, the trial began on May 3, 1946, under the chairmanship of the Australian, Sir William Webb, after the indictment of twenty-eight Japanese personalities.

• Four prime ministers: Kiichirō Hiranuma, Koki Hirota, Kuniaki Koiso, and Gen. Hideki Tōjō; • Three foreign ministers: Yōsuke Matsuoka, Mamoru Shigemitsu, and Shigenori Tōgō; • Four ministers of war: Sadao Araki, Shunroku Hata, Shieshiro Itagaki, and Jiro Minami; • Two ministers of the navy: Osami Nagano and Shigerato Shimada; • Six generals: Kenji Doїhara, Heitaro Kimura, Iwane Matsui, Akira Muto, Kenryo Sato, and Yoshijirō Umezu; • Two ambassadors: Hiroshi Oshima and Toshio Shiratori; and • Three businessmen: Okinori Kaya, Naoki Hoshino, and Teiichi Suzuki.

The emperor’s adviser, Marquis Kōichi Kido, . Takasumi Oka, ideologue Shūmei Ōkawa, Col. Tatakeyama Hikoichi, and Col. Kingore Hashimoto, were also charged. The tribunal targets three different categories of persons: senior officials, military officers, and lower-ranking officers. The accused are entitled to a personal lawyer and, failing that, to a lawyer appointed by the court. The defense receives disclosure of all the exhibits of the trial. The trial is held in English and

Japanese, and the judgment is based on procedural rules modeled on those of Nuremberg and intended to guarantee the rights of the defense. The trial takes place as follows: reading of the indictment, asking of each accused to plead guilty or not, pre-statements of the prosecution and the defense, presentation of evidence and witnesses of the prosecution and defense, cross-examination of the defense, defense arguments, requisition of the charge, and court judgment. On June 3, 1946, the U.S. attorney general, Joseph Keenan, issued the introductory indictment that opened the trial on the merits. “Mr. President, Mr. of the International Military Tribunal, ” exclaimed the prosecutor, “it could be that the eleven nations represented by this tribunal and which themselves represent nations containing more than half of the inhabitants of Earth, and who have suffered, as a result of the aggression they have suffered, the loss of a significant part of their resources, and a considerable amount of blood, are not able to prosecute and condemn those responsible for these calamities.” His advocacy spans seventeen years of Japan’s turbulent political and military history from 1928 to 1945. In his lengthy introductory indictment, Keenan responded to the defense’s reproaches about the composition of the tribunal. According to him, this trial is a historical fact “episode of a battle of civilization designed to preserve the whole world from its destruction.” This threat, he said, “is the result of the concerted efforts of individuals, either alone or in groups, to plunge the world into war in the name of their ambition to dominate the world.” And turning to the accused, after a dramatic pause, he added, “They have declared war on civilization! It is not a matter for this court to exercise the revenge of the victors, but to apply the recognized rule that individuals who have organized a war of aggression are common criminals and deserve … the reserved punishment … universally to murderers, robbers, pirates, and looters.”

THE VERDICT

The logistical resources deployed to carry out the trial were considerable. Eleven judges, twenty-eight defendants, eleven prosecutors, more than one hundred American and Japanese lawyers, not counting translators, clerks, and assistants. Att. Gen. Joseph Keenan issued the final indictment on April 16, 1948. After 818 sessions, 48,500 pages of minutes, and more than 4,000 exhibits, the court delivered its verdict on November 12, 1948. In total, it will take more than six months for judges to draft the 1,200 pages of the decision read publicly by President Webb during eight hearings. In addition to Shūmei Ōkawa, two other defendants escaped conviction: Yōsuke Matsuoka, a former foreign minister, and . Osami Nagano, who died from tuberculosis during the proceedings. Twenty-five defendants heard the court’s decision. The seven-month deliberation judgment does not find the unanimous consent of the magistrates. Knowing in advance that there will be colleagues to speak out against the decision, the judges formed a “majority drafting committee” that prepared a draft judgment submitted for minority approval. This majority committee is chaired by U.S. judge Cramer and includes representatives from Great Britain, the USSR, China, the Philippines, Canada, and New Zealand. The representatives of Australia, India, Holland, and were excluded from this committee because the disagreement of these four judges with their colleagues was visible. Minority judges only had the opportunity to make written submissions on the text submitted for approval. However, the final drafting of the judgment had never been the subject of collective deliberation.

TRIAL TIMELINE

May 3, 1946: Preliminary hearing. Reading of the indictment. May 6, 1946: Findings of defense incidents. May 17, 1946: Judgment of reference to the substance of the incidents. June 3, 1946: Introductory indictment. June 13, 1946 – January 24, 1947: Requisitions of prosecutors (fifteen phases):

1. Description of the Japanese government system: the emperor, the cabinet, and the councils; 2. The takeover by the government army and the indoctrination of the population; 3. Aggression against Manchuria and the rest of China; 4. The policy of domination of the Chinese mainland and the testimonies gathered; 5. The use of drugs as a means of domination of China; 6. China’s domination and economic exploitation; 7. The military alliance with and Italy; 8. Japan’s preparation for wars of aggression – the war economy; 9. Attack plans against the United States, Singapore, and the USSR; 10. The aggression against ;

11. Aggression against the United States and the Commonwealth; 12. Aggression against Holland; 13. Atrocities against the civilian population and prisoners of war; 14. Individual responsibilities.

January 27, 1947: Defense incidents concluded. January 30, 1947: Replica of the charge on the incidents. February 3, 1947: Judgment of reference to the substance of the incidents. February 24, 1947–January 12, 1948: Defense Intervention:

1. Preliminary presentation; 2. General party; 3. Manchuria; 4. China; 5. The USSR; 6. The Pacific; 7. Western powers; 8. War crimes and crimes against humanity; 9. Individual defenses; 10. Personal appearance of sixteen accused; 11. Cross-examination of comparing defendants;

12. Pleas.

January 19, 1948: Replicas of the charge. March 2, 1948: Defense duplicates. April 6, 1948: Debate closes. November 4-12, 1948: Judgment reading. November 21, 1948: Defense appeal to Gen. MacArthur. November 24, 1948: Gen. MacArthur’s confirmation of judgment. December 20, 1948: Dismissal of the U.S. Supreme Court’s appeal by defendants. December 23, 1948: Execution of death-row inmates.

THE CONDEMNED

A total of twenty-eight defendants were tried by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Seven of them were sentenced to death:

1) Hideki Tōjō, general of the Imperial Japanese Army. He was chief of staff from 1937 to 1938. He was prime minister and minister of the War of Japan from 1941 to 1944. Appointed prime minister to replace Fumimaro Konoe, he openly advocated a negotiated peace with China and the continuation of negotiations with the United States. He was the mastermind that led Japanese troops’ attacks on China in 1937. Tōjō attempted suicide on November 11, 1945 before his arrest by American troops. After pleading guilty at trial, he was sentenced to death on November 12, 1948 and executed by hanging in December 23 of the same year. 2) Kōki Hirota was a career diplomat and former prime minister of Japan from 1936 to 1937. Before becoming prime minister, Hirota was minister of foreign affairs at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which atrocities in Nanking occurred. He opposed the plans of the high commander of the imperial army, particularly the military escalation following the Marco Polo Bridge incident, as it contradicted his plans for an alliance between Japan, Manchuria, and China against Soviet Union. In 1945 he unsuccessfully led negotiations to maintain peace with the USSR. Convicted of war crimes at his trial, he was executed by hanging on December 23, 1948. 3) Seishirō Itagaki, general of the Imperial Japanese Army and minister of war between 1938 and 1939. He was strongly linked to the Kwantung Army, in which he served as chief of intelligence in 1931. He played a key role in the Mukden incident before becoming a military adviser to the Manchurian government from 1932 to 1934. Minister of War, he helped develop the so-called Hakkō ichiu expansion doctrine to establish a new order in Asia under the leadership of Japan. He was convicted of war crimes by the court, including his role in the Mukden incident, the escalation of military and diplomatic tensions with the Allies, and the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war during his time

as commander of Japanese forces in Southeast Asia in 1945. He was executed on December 23 by hanging. 4) Iwane Matsui, general of the Imperial Japanese Army. He was the commander of Japanese forces sent to China at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. He was a strong advocate of Pan- Asianism. Retired in 1935, he was recalled to service in August 1937 in the context of the military escalation with China. Under his command, the Japanese won the Battle of Shanghai at the end of November 1937 and took Nanjing a few days later. He encouraged his troops to loot the city and undertake the massacre of at least two hundred thousand inhabitants, a horrific fact that was ed as the Nanjing Massacre. He left the army again in 1938. He was arrested in 1945 and tried in Tokyo for his decisive role in the atrocities committed in Nanjing. 5) Kenji Doїhara, general of the Imperial Japanese Army and head of the Manchukuo Secret Service. An officer in the Kwantung Army, he was one of the strategists of the invasion of Manchuria in 1931. He was named “Lawrence of Manchuria.” He was accused of deliberately organizing the destruction of the traditional Chinese structure in Manchuria in order to lessen the resistance of the local population to the colonization of their country by the Japanese. He was convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged on December 23, 1948. 6) Heitaro Kimura, general of the Imperial Japanese Army. He was chief of staff in the Kwantung Army from 1940 to 1941. He was deputy minister of war in 1941 in the Tōjō government, assisting the Prime Minister in planning military campaigns in China and the Pacific. From 1943 to 1944, he was a member of the Supreme War Council (Japan’s highest authority during the war). From the end of 1944, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Japanese forces in Burma. In 1945, he was charged with war crimes for his role in planning military attacks in China and the Pacific and for violating the rights of prisoners of war in Burma. He was sentenced to death and executed on December 23, 1948. 7) Akira Muto, general of the Imperial Japanese Army. Linked to the Kwantung Army, he was serving there as head of the intelligence bureau at the time of the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937. He served in China during the first months of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and his troops participated in the atrocities during the Nanjing Massacre. In 1939, he was appointed major general and served in the planning office of the Ministry of War. He then served in Singapore in 1941, then in Sumatra in June 1944, before being posted to the Philippines in

October 1944, where he was appointed chief of staff of the fourteenth Regional Army under Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita. Accused of massacres on the Philippine population, as well as on prisoners of war, he was convicted and executed on December 23, 1948.

Sixteen other defendants were sentenced to life in prison. Three of them died in detention: Kuniaki Koiso, Toshio Shiratori, and Yoshijirō Umezu. Other convicts received lighter sentences, such as Shigenori Tōgō, who was sentenced to twenty years in prison and died in prison in 1949. Mamoru Shigemitsu was sentenced to seven years. Two defendants died before the end of the trial: Osami Nagano and Yasuke Matsuoka. Another accused, Shūmei Ōkawa, who was found to be mentally unfit (because of syphilis), was not convicted. Although the war was fought in his name, Emperor Hirohito was not prosecuted at the trial. A U.S. military document titled “Execution of Prisoners” mentioned how the sentences should be conducted. The executions were to occur soon after midnight, be “private” with no photographs or motion pictures, and those in attendance were expected to offer no unseemly conduct of any kind.

CHAPTER III

REFLECTION ON THE TOKYO TRIAL

T he Allied victory in the Pacific led to the indictment and trial of twenty-eight senior Japanese dignitaries responsible for the deaths of around twenty million people during World War II. These high dignitaries, charged with crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, were tried by the International Military Tribunal for The Far East. The Tokyo Tribunal, established on April 29, 1946, is made up of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied commander in Japan. He was charged with trying Japanese war criminals in the same way that German war criminals had been tried in Nuremberg. The investigation opened in May 1946, and the court examined the roles assumed by the accused during the operations of the Imperial Japanese Army in Korea, Burma, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Indochina, and China. In China, and particularly in the city of Nanjing, there was the brutal massacre of civilians and the rape of tens of thousands of women and children by Japanese soldiers at the end of 1937. According to official Chinese figures, at least 250,000 people died in the carnage, and survivors summoned to court spoke of thousands of civilians buried alive, bayoneted, or beheaded with swords. On November 12, 1948, the president of the court, Australian William Webb, declared the death sentence by hanging of seven defendants, including two former prime ministers, Hideki Tōjō and Kōki Hirota, as well as a former minister of war and four generals. Many historians have criticized Tokyo’s judgment as biased because Hirohito, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Army, was exonerated of all liability. Allied prosecutors mounted an important case against him that demonstrated the emperor’s direct involvement in the planning and conduct of the war. However, Hirohito, who received unwavering from MacArthur, was not worried. It is repeated that the American general and commander of the occupying forces, did not want to destabilize the country by touching its national symbol.

In the eyes of many observers, the trial has the appearance of revenge of Allied countries over Japan, especially the United States, which does not forgive the surprise attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. The winners of World War II also want Japan, which has signed a pact of understanding with and Italy, to annex other territories in Asia. Japanese leaders took the opportunity to massacre millions of people, both military and civilian, to establish their hegemony. On June 18, 1946, U.S. Att. Gen. Joseph Berry Keenan, in charge of the prosecution, indicated that Hirohito would not be tried. This policy of “saving the emperor’s head so as not to undermine the monarchical institution” seriously undermines the legitimacy of the trial. The French representative in court, Judge Henri Bernard, criticized the decision as not in accordance with the rules of impartiality that characterize the criminal trial, because of Hirohito’s absence from the bench. How, in such a case, can we credit the organization of a trial with the absence of the main protagonist? This is the question posed by many experts who wonder why the question of the emperor’s impeachment was not addressed during the preparations for the “Tokyo trial” in the spring of 1946. The first arrest orders issued in the autumn of 1945 against Prince Nashimoto, a member of the imperial family, Fumiraro Konoe, former prime minister at the time of the “Chinese incident” (1937), and Kōichi Kido, keeper of the private seal and as such the closest collaborator of the emperor. Kido suggested that an indictment of the emperor was inevitable. But while public opinion in the United States and other countries is calling for his war crimes indictment, such as Joseph Grew, former U.S. ambassador to Tokyo between 1931 and 1941; Douglas MacArthur, the general in charge of occupation policy on behalf of the Allies, and former US president Herbert Hoover, all are active behind the scenes to absolve the emperor of any responsibility for political reasons, namely, the Japanese’s attachment to the maintenance of the monarchy, fear of anarchy opening the flank to a Communist revolution, the need to drive the policy of occupation through the political and istrative structures in place, and U.S. economic and strategic interests at the beginning of the Cold War. Japan is in Asia, a necessary bulwark against Communism, in general, and Soviet territorial ambitions, in particular, they say. Therefore, a policy paper sent from Washington on September 12, 1945, and a t Chiefs order based on it of October 6, authorized MacArthur not only to draft a charter for an international court and to establish a unified prosecution

organ (the IPS), but the policy document (SWNCC 57/3) detailed what the IPS could do and reserved to MacArthur alone “the power to reduce, approve, or… alter” any punishments meted out. Its last paragraph, no. 17, instructed him to take no action against the emperor as a war criminal” without an explicit directive from Washington. MacArthur played a dual role. As the Supreme Commander, he was to operate under orders from the president of the United States, and at the same time, he was a civil servant, the representative of those Allied Powers who had signed the instrument of surrender. In this position, MacArthur with the help of the American chief prosecutor Joseph B. Keenan, had to organize the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMFTE) and the International Prosecution Section (IPS), two groups in which have been included judges and prosecutors from eleven nations. According to the deputy head of MacArthur’s “Japanese Affairs” section, Col. C.L. Kades, the commander-in-chief of the occupying forces believed that Hirohito has atoned for all his mistakes by his unconditional for the occupation. Gen. Courtney Whitney, MacArthur’s first aide-de-camp, told the press of his commander’s thoughts on Hirohito, “I would have the impression of grossly breaching our commitments if the emperor were to go on trial as a criminal of war after all the service he rendered to the Allies.” In the early days of August 1937, Hirohito met with the army chief of staff, Prince Kan’in Kotohito, and the chief of the imperial navy staff, Fushimi Hiroyasu. He asked them to avoid the extensive deployment of troops and concentrate forces at a few strategic points. The emperor received a plan proposing bombing and occupation of strategic points such as Shanghai and Nanjing, as well as the naval blockade of the coasts. It validates this strategy. On August 13, 1937, the Japanese army invaded Shanghai. On September 4, Hirohito issued a statement to parliament, “While we are constantly concerned about ensuring peace in Asia by cooperating with China, but China does not really understand the real intentions of our Empire. To our deep regret, the Chinese caused constant difficulties and problems that led to the current incident. Our troops, demonstrating loyalty and bravery, endure trials only in order to quickly establish peace in East Asia and to get China to reflect on its actions.” The Tokyo trial has been criticized, both in Japan and outside the country. Initially, there are profound differences of opinion among judges who sit on the court. Indeed, on the very day of the judgment, no less than five judges –out of

eleven– expressed separate judgments. Indian judge Radhabinod Pal said all defendants should be acquitted. In a thousand-page brief, which he will publish on his return to India, he states that no member of the accused group is guilty of war crimes. According to him, the acts of aggression alleged against the Japanese are justified by those committed against their country by the imperialist powers of the West. For this, he refuses to put his signature on the judgment, unlike all his colleagues. The French judge, Henri Bernard, the Dutch judge, Bert Röling, the Filipino judge, Delfín Jaranilla, and the presiding judge, William Webb, had different opinions on the trial. The Australian judge, Webb, who was leading the proceedings, decried questions that would have led the accused to provide an explanation of the policies they were aware of. The French judge, Henri Bernard, who shows remarkable independence in drafting one of the three dissenting judgments on purely legal grounds, explains, “Considering that the defendants had already been sorted by the MacArthur’s government, the presiding judge in advance held them guilty. He was only looking for the degrees that would weigh the verdicts. For example, he restricted interrogations to the evidence of innocence.” For the French judge, procedural irregularities made the judgment unfair. “A verdict rendered by a court after an irregular procedure cannot be valid.” Judge Röling dissociated himself from the convictions of Hirota, who he said had opposed the expansionist will of the Japanese military as best he could and should have been acquitted. Other defendants, he said, were sentenced too harshly, with no death penalty to punish crimes against peace. Between the beginning of the trial in 1946 and the end of the American occupation in 1952, after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and the Korean War in 1950, Japan’s relationship with the United States evolved into increasing collaboration strong in the fight against Communism. Japan became a decisive ally of the Americans in their quest to counter the Marxist ideology that was spreading rapidly on the Asian continent. At the turn of the 1950s, the Japanese government set up by the Americans, waged a fierce struggle against the influence of Communism in the country. We are witnessing the phenomenon of “red purges,” dismissals aimed at redacting the Japanese istration of all employees with a “Communist” tendency, a policy operated by the re-establishment of a repressive army and the creation of self-defense forces. The Pacifist Constitution adopted in 1946 is theoretically put on hold. Several convicts who were released on parole at the Tokyo trials

quickly returned to office at the highest level. For example, Mamoru Shigemitsu, who was released in 1950, and four years later became minister of affairs in the government of Ichirō Hatoyama. On February 1, 1946, the Soviets called on the United States and its allies to establish an exceptional court to try Hirohito and four Japanese generals, including Gen. Shirō Ishii, the commander of Unit 731, as a crime against humanity. The Soviet Union, through its Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, is conducting an increased diplomatic campaign in favor of prosecuting the emperor and the leaders of the zaibatsu (financial cartels). Russia is ed in this battle by the Australian government, and both countries solemnly propose that Hirohito be brought to justice. Australian government seeks indictment of the Japanese emperor for closing his eyes to summary executions of Australian prisoners of war, as well as systematic ill-treatment of tens of thousands of prisoners in defiance of the Geneva Conventions. New Zealand later ed the Soviet Union, China, and Australia in this battle. But the request was rejected by Washington after a tacit agreement between the Japanese ruling class and the U.S. istration. A refusal signed by MacArthur, on behalf of President Truman, was notified to the Russians and Australians in a press release on February 3, 1946. “The role of the emperor is most important and underscores the intelligence of the thinking embodied in the Potsdam Declaration,” MacArthur said. Retaining the emperor, he concluded, “was one of the wisest decisions the Allies could have made.” The benefits of that decision involved “the very cooperation of the Japanese people,” he added, and it was time to “move on.” By deciding to not prosecute Hirohito, the Americans had a well-calculated political objective: to protect the emperor as an ally to make Japan a bastion of anti-Communism in Asia. To do so, there is an agreement between the prosecutor and the defense that his name will not be mentioned during the hearings. When Gen. Tōjō inadvertently challenged him, saying, “No one would have dared to go against his will,” U.S. Att. Gen. Joseph Keenan suspended the meeting. In the aftermath of the surrender, the first Japanese governments considered holding special courts to try the leaders responsible for the war, but the Americans banned the initiative. The Treaty of San Francisco (1951), by which Japan regained its sovereignty, was conditional on the proposal to accept the verdict of the Tokyo court. But it also had the condition of granting a “nosuit” to those who did not appear before this court, diverting the country from a

critical examination of its past by encouraging the impunity that continues to denounce the victims and their families who have endured so much directly or indirectly during the persecutions during the war years. Beyond the total exemption granted to Hirohito, the decision to release those arrested for war crimes after a few years is criticized. This led to the rebirth of a right that would soon return to power. According to the American historian Herbert P. Bix, MacArthur’s truly extraordinary steps to save Hirohito from trial as a war criminal had a persistent and profoundly distorting impact on the Japanese understanding of the lost war. For his part, historian John W. Dower said, “Even Japanese activists who endorsed the Nuremberg and Tokyo charters and worked to document and publicize the atrocities of the Shōwa regime cannot defend the American decision to exonerate the emperor’s responsibility for the war and then, at the height of the Cold War, free and then link to far-right war criminals defendants like the future Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi.” In an article published by Le Monde on May 5, 2006, Philippe Pons said, “The Tokyo Tribunal has not remained in the annals of international justice as an ideal of fairness, and the judgment of December 1948 [death sentence of 7 of the 28 accused, among which Gen. Hideki Tōjō, a er of the excessive struggle against the United States] is fraught with ambiguities. Arbitrary charges, insufficient evidence, and lack of respect for the rights of the defense have made this trial a denial of justice. Henri Bernard, the French judge, criticized the verdict, following a flawed procedure. Radhabinod Pal, the Indian judge said, ‘“If crimes against humanity were judged, we also had to rule on those perpetrated by the United States against civilians, starting with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”’ According to Awaya Kentaro, professor of modern history at Rikkyo University, the Tokyo trial, where twenty-eight senior Japanese dignitaries were tried from May 3, 1946, to November 12, 1948, contains serious flaws. In a paper published in Le Monde on September 26, 2005, Kentaro stated, “At the Tokyo court, the prosecution detailed, with ing evidence and witnesses, the conduct of the Japanese invasions, from the Manchurian incident to the Pacific War to the Sino-Japanese conflict. In the expectations of the judgment, the court essentially took up the prosecution’s arguments. However, as soon as his work is analyzed in detail, it is clear that another process, leading to immunity, was closely involved in the proceedings of the indictment. Compared

to Nuremberg, many military leaders escaped prosecution. Some crimes were not even examined. Of course, the conditions of the period made careful verification difficult. But the reason is mainly because several cases were deliberately overlooked by the judges. In Tokyo, the United States took the lead role: the majority of the prosecutors were Americans. The Supreme Allied Commander, Gen. MacArthur, had absolute decision-making power over the issues being dealt with, and if we sometimes preferred to turn a blind eye, we must see the effect of American political will.” The biological and chemical experiments conducted by the Japanese troops were not discussed during the trial, for example, those conducted by Unit 731. Another major problem, which came under severe criticism at the Tokyo trial, was the overly flexible procedure used to receive evidence in court. The question of issibility of evidence is one of the foundations of the U.S. criminal proceedings. No hearsay evidence, no documents or witnesses who cannot be cross-examined. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East has ruled out the application of these principles, leaving it to the court to assess sovereignly the “probative value” of the elements produced by the parties (article 13). The charter specifies that certificates, diaries, and documents not received under oath would be considered issible. The court accepts that the prosecution uses press clippings, conversations with deceased people, and citizen letters about the abuses and crimes of Japanese soldiers during the war in Tokyo. These documents submitted by the prosecution are accepted as evidence without cross-examination., a principle contrary to the American criminal procedure. The principle of non-retroactivity of the law was one of the reproaches made by the defense that the facts alleged against the accused took place before January 19, 1946, when the charter to try Japanese war criminals was promulgated by the Supreme Allied Command. This argument of non-retroactivity of the law is opposed by prosecutor Keenan who stated that the charges against the accused were considered criminal well before the period of the charge. Indeed, the Hague Conventions of 1907, the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, signed by Japan, made the war of aggression an international crime. Invading the territories of other neighboring countries, by starting a war of aggression, is not only a crime, but the main war crimes. Defense counsel also pointed to the inissibility of the charges against their

clients. For example, for defense, the battles of Lake Khasan and Nomonhan were simple border incidents that had been the subject of negotiated agreements on June 9 and August 19, 1940, and had led to the 1941 Non-Aggression Treaty. How could the Tokyo court take over incidents that the parties themselves had permanently terminated? The Indian judge considered that these were mere border incidents, but the court concluded otherwise. He decided that these operations constituted a war of aggression by Japan against the Soviet Union and Mongolia. For the agreements negotiated between the two countries, defense lawyers stressed that they had not provided any immunity, and that there had been no question of liability, whether criminal or otherwise. The court’s view is that these agreements do not constitute a defense to the criminal charge before it. The judges stated on page 841 of the judgment, “It would be for the court contrary to the public interest to consider that there may have been a pardon of crimes, formally or by implication.” Listing the various crimes against peace committed by Japanese leaders, especially the surprise and deadly attack of the Imperial Japanese Army against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Nanking Massacre, the Bataan Death March, the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway, and the abuses of Japanese troops committed on the civilian populations of the occupied territories, the prosecutor said, “All these excesses were by no means isolated acts resulting from the misbehavior but were planned in the execution of a deliberate policy for which the accused are personally responsible.” The Tokyo trial has also been criticized as “incomplete justice” by many experts. The Tribunal was criticized not only by the physical absence of the emperor, but also by the absence of testimony by him. The defendants agreed from the moment of their incarceration to protect the emperor – “for the future of the Japanese race,” as Shigemitsu Mamoru noted. When Keenan announced on June 18, 1946, that Hirohito would not be brought to trial, Shigemitsu, the former diplomat, wrote a celebratory poem to the effect that, because his lord was a god, he was untouchable by the enemy. As one said: “Like Nuremberg, the Tokyo trial was law, politics, and theater all in one.” Unlike Nuremberg, it “was very much an American performance,” Justice Röling said many years later: “It was like a huge-scale theatrical production,” the Dutch jurist added: “I didn’t see that at the time, and I didn’t see that there were more ‘Hollywoodesque’ things around than there should have been.” Other facts, Allied nations that have

judged and condemned Japan’s top leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity have not come to the table with their own hands. The Soviet Union participated in the invasion and occupation of Poland by , and was involved in the massacre of thousands of Poles in the Katyn Forest. Bombings by the United States and Britain during World War II killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in cities such as Dresden, and Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan. President Roosevelt had set up a resettlement program for more than one hundred thousand Japanese Americans by confining them to concentration camps in the United States. Judging Hirohito for war crimes before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East would perhaps have a negative impact on Japan, which could fall into serious political and institutional instability, or could even trigger a bloody popular uprising against the American occupying forces in the country. However, such a trial would have made history and would have served as an example to apprentice dictators who would think of using the weapon of war in the future as a strategy to invade other territories and spread their power outside their border. It was quite normal for the emperor to be tried at the Tokyo trial. However, he was not persecuted or convicted. The trial, which did not take place, is mounted in this book. Through the game of fiction, I hide behind the president of the court who took sit in Sorbonne, Paris, to lead the proceedings and to convict Hirohito as a war criminal.

CHAPTER IV

THE PERMANENT PEOPLES’ TRIBUNAL SPECIAL SESSION TO TRIAL HIROHITO

Founder: LELIO BASSO (Italy) Chair: Franco Ippolito (Italy) Vice presidents: Luiza Erundina de Sousa (Brazil) Javier Giraldo Moreno (Chile) Helen Jarvis (Australia) Philippe Texier () Secretary-General: Gianni Tognoni (Italy)

PROGRAMMED

Tuesday, November 5, 2016

8:30 a.m.: Home and coffee 9:30 a.m.: Jury entry and presentation of (Jury chair: François F. Delpla)

10:00 a.m.: Presentation of the of the court responsible for hearing the case. (The court is presided over by the Honorable Judge Gustavo Alandez, former president of the Supreme Court of Brazil) 10:30 a.m.: Summary and analysis of the trial of Japanese war criminals by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. 11:30 a.m.: Presentation of the charge by the special rapporteur (Dr. Dolgopol). 2h:00 p.m.: Break 3h:00 p.m.: Expert presentation André A. Bix (writer) Dower M. John (writer) Hodges Stuart (general) Fuji Bank (writer) Charley G. Granvorka (Sociologist) Chiang Iris (writer) Yue Fei (general) Sun Tzu (general) Jay Kim (politologist)

November 6, 2016

8:00 a.m.: Home and coffee 8:30 a.m.: Debate on Japan’s invasion of Korea (hosted by Gen. Yue Fei).

9:30 a.m.: Debate on the invasion of Manchuria (hosted by Gen. Sun Tzu). 10:30 a.m.: Debate on Unit 731 (hosted by writer John Dower). 11:30 a.m.: Debate on comfort houses (hosted by Charley Granvorka). 12:30 p.m.: Debate on the attack on Pearl Harbor (hosted by writer Fuji Bank). 1:30 p.m.: Break 2:30 p.m.: Debate on the consequences of the war in the Pacific (hosted by Gen. Hodges Stuart). 3:30 p.m.: Debate on the American occupation of Japan and the era of Gen. Douglas MacArthur (hosted by writer Francis Bix). 4:30 p.m.: Debate on the role of oil in the Pacific War (hosted by writer André Pike). 5:30 p.m.: Debate on post-war Japan (moderated by political scientist Jay Kim). 6:30 p.m.: Hirohito: A war criminal or puppet “ive hostage in the hands of the military.” (Debate moderated by Charley Granvorka). 7:30 p.m.: End of the day

November 7, 2016

8:00 a.m.: Home and coffee 9:30 a.m.: Jury deliberation 10:30 a.m.: Reading of the decision Noon: Lunch break (buffet) 2:00 p.m.: Analysis and notes

3:00 p.m.: Closing

THE OPEN SESSION

The president of the court sets the opening of the session to November 5, 2016, in Paris. In accordance with the court’s statutes, the locations, dates, and contents of the application were communicated in April 2016 to the Japanese government via its Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo, inviting it to exercise its right of defense. No response was received from the Japanese leadership, and no representatives of the Japanese authorities were present during the session. It is in a serious tone that the president opens the debate.

PRESIDENT’S SPEECH

Honorable Judges of the Tribunal Mr. Special Rapporteur Honorable of the jury Ladies and gentlemen,

I n opening this session of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (TPP), in my capacity as president, I thank all those who have made possible by their work, their dedication, their moral or material assistance, the holding of this hearing. First of all, I thank its founder, the Italian senator and theorist Lelio Basso, who was the inspiration, and all the other who make it up. Created in Bologna on June 1979 to respond to the demands of communities and peoples whose rights have been violated, the TPP relies on the Universal Declaration of Peoples’ Rights (Algiers, 1976) and on all instruments of international law. It is also based on the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Universal Declaration of the Collective Rights of Peoples adopted in Barcelona by the General Assembly of the Conference of Nations without a State of Europe (CONSEU). “The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal has recently tried crimes against humanity committed by transnational companies in Latin America, violations of human rights in Algeria, and the right to asylum in Europe. The legitimacy of the TPP is in its very existence with the function of denunciation, documentation, resistance to omission, and silence in the face of the reality of violations of fundamental rights. The reputation of the TPP is very strong both nationally and internationally. The session of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal held from November 5 to November 12, 2015, in Turin, at the headquarters of the Gruppo Abele association, in “La Fabbrica delle E,” for public hearings, and in Almese, at the Teatro Magnetto, for the reading of the sentence, represents the conclusion of a long-preparation work that has rigorously complied with the TPP statutes.

The court is currently preparing the session to try Turkish state attacks on civilians in Kurdish cities. “The purpose of the TPP hearings is to ‘“restore the authority of peoples when states and international organizations have failed to protect the rights of peoples.”’ It is made by the observation that in many circumstances the law and justice cannot be entrusted to the state and its bodies, or to international bodies where diplomatic obligations would come into play. Thus, the court is made up of private individuals, judges, and juries from all over the world, which guarantees its independence. It is responsible, in particular, to rule on any international crime, on any violation of the fundamental rights of peoples and minorities and the freedoms of individuals. “Indeed, a few months ago, a group of associations acting on behalf of 180 Chinese, victims of the atrocities of Unit 731, petitioned the TPP to demand Hirohito’s posthumous conviction for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. Those defendants claimed damages from Japan for the atrocities suffered by them in the cells of Unit 731 during World War II. At the request of this group, this international opinion tribunal takes its seat in order to do a work of remembrance so that the facts are removed from oblivion. “This tribunal, as we have already pointed out, is a tribunal of opinion, which has no other ambition than to contribute, however little, to the fight against the injustices that are inflicted on the peoples to whom they are denied damage in order to right the wrongs caused to them by executioners. These peoples are victims of injustices, who, after a number of years have ed, are forgotten by the media and are not mentioned in major international debates. However, these unjust facts are nonetheless loaded with serious consequences compared to other tragedies that stir public opinion. The word “tribunal” evokes the idea of justice. And justice evokes punishment but also memory. The TPP has no sanctions at its disposal. The only sanction it can advocate is a moral sanction that appeals to the most basic feelings of humanity, to this ethic-emotional substrate common to every human being beyond the differences of civilization, and which makes one feel like unbearable certain attacks on the dignity of the person, regardless of the culture, traditions, history of each. “It is on this deposit that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is based. “This session, like many other hearings before this court, has above all the

ambition to remove from oblivion the suffering of millions of people, soldiers and civilians, in the countries occupied by the Japanese army during the Pacific War, especially during the Second World War. It is dedicated to the Chinese, Korean, and other nations on the Asian continent, which suffered Japanese occupation in the late nineteen century until 1945. Above all, it wants to make the government of Japan feel that on the international side, human rights violations, even those perpetrated during wars, are not tolerated because they are reprehensible in the name of the principle of peoples’ rights to live free and safe. It condemns the occupation and annexation of the territories of independent countries by force of arms. During this session, the court will therefore look at the war crimes committed by the Japanese army through attacks that killed more than thirty million people during the Second World War, in particular, it will look at the crimes of Unit 731. “Between 1894 and 1945, the Imperial Japanese Army participated in two SinoJapanese wars, the Russo-Japanese War, the colonization of Korea, the First World War, and finally the campaigns of Asia and the Pacific. Japanese expansion in Eastern Asia began in 1931 with the invasion of Manchuria, a Chinese province, and continued in 1937 with a brutal attack on China. On September 27, 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with and Italy, and thus ed the military alliance known as the Axis. In an effort to curb Japanese aggression and force its troops to leave Manchuria and China, the United States had imposed a series of economic sanctions against Japan. Faced with the effects of the embargo on oil and other raw materials, and motivated by the desire to replace the United States as the dominant power in the Pacific, Japan decided to attack American and British forces in Asia and take over the region’s resources. “On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Navy unexpectedly attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and severely damaged several U.S. warships and warplanes, preventing the United States, at least, in the short term, from interfering with the Japanese military operations. In response to Pearl Harbor, the Americans declared war against Japan. Then a few days later, it was the United States and that declared war. The Second World War, which was spreading all over the European continent, took hold in the Pacific. “During World War II, the Japanese army fought in the Dutch East India campaign and several other battles, including Bataan. With a strength of 12,000 soldiers in 1870, it reached a total of 376,000 military personnel and two million

reservists in thirty-one divisions in 1940. In 1941, the total number of military personnel in forty-one divisions was numbered 460,000. During the last months of the war in 1945, the Japanese armed forces counted 6,983,000 soldiers, including 5,552,000 in the army, not counting militias and civilian personnel. The five million military personnel and reservists are divided into 154 divisions and 136 brigades to which must be added, for the defense of the Japanese archipelago, a large militia, the corps fighting patriotic citizens called Kokumin Giy-Sent-tai. “The Japanese relied on the superiority of their armies (land, sea, and air) to occupy territories in Asia and reduce their population to slavery-like conditions. The first victims of the Japanese attacks are the Koreans. Korea became a Japanese colony in 1910. The war against China was Japan’s second decisive step on the road to conquering territories in Southeast Asia. Japan then invaded Northern China in 1937. On August 13, 1937, the Japanese army invaded Shanghai. When Shanghai had fallen, the Imperial Japanese Army advanced on Nanjing and occupied it on December 13, 1937. From the beginning of the war to the end of the conflict in 1945, Japan went to war with forty-two states. A total of thirty million people died in the clashes. It was on the basis of these crimes and violations of law that a request was made to the TPP, to try to convict Hirohito as a war criminal, and to demand reparations from Japan for the 180 Chinese victims of Unit 731. At this stage, the court turns the floor over to Dr. Dolgopol, professor of international law at the University of Sydney (Australia), special rapporteurdesignate, charged with presenting the evidence of the prosecution.

THE RAPPORTEUR

“Your Honor, I am extremely honored and flattered both by the mission entrusted to me to report on the war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Japan during the Shōwa Era. These heinous crimes were committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Navy from the end of the nineteenth century until 1945, mainly during World War II. Before we mention the atrocities committed by Japanese troops on soldiers and civilians in the occupied territories, we will first try to put the facts in context.”

I. Facts and Context

“On Tuesday, July 19, 2005, the Tokyo Court of Appeal rejected for a second consecutive time a claim for compensation from victims of the atrocities of Japan’s 731 Bacteriological Weapons Research Unit during World War II. “While the court recognized that Japan had practiced bacteriological warfare against its enemies during the war, the judges rejected the request on the grounds that the Japanese government was unaware of possible atrocities and for this reason rejected the demands for compensation. “The case was brought before the court by 180 Chinese who said they were survivors or relatives of Chinese victims of bacteriological attacks in Zhejiang and Hunan provinces from 1940 to 1942. “In August 2002, in accordance with local jurisprudence, the Tokyo District Court had dismissed the application. The complainants sought an apology and damages of ten million yen (74,188 euros) each from the Japanese state for the atrocities they blamed on Unit 731, including the bombing of cities with the bubonic plague bacillus or the germs of other diseases. In April 2005, the Tokyo Court of Appeal rejected the application of the same Chinese victims of Unit 731; while itting that the Japanese army had practiced bacteriological

warfare. “Ten years later, faced with Japan’s refusal to recognize the crimes committed by Unit 731 during the war, the case was brought before the Permanent Peoples’ Court. In a letter dated on January 6, 2016, the Justice Committee for the Victims of War in the Pacific, had submitted a petition for the purpose of referral to this international court on human rights violations committed by the Imperial Army and the Japanese Imperial Navy in China, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Indochina, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Brunei, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, mainly the atrocities of Unit 731. “This request is ed by the following human rights organizations: The International Committee for Democratic Freedoms in South Korea (CILD); the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN); the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA); Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); International Labor Organization (ILO); Human Rights Watch; Reporters Without Borders (RSF); Amnesty International; World Organization Against Torture (OMCT); Association for Human Rights for All (ADHT); S.O.S. missing; and International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH). “In of his request, the Justice Committee for Asian Peoples Tortured Under Japanese Occupation provided the court with a first set of documents, reports, and references compiled by well-known historians and international organizations. There are pieces of evidence of serious human rights violations in China and other Asian countries (Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Burma, Indochina, Hong Kong, Malaysia) perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during the Second World War. “The committee first asks the court to reopen the case of the investigation by the attorney general of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Mr. Joseph Keenan, and then to allow Hirohito to be tried posthumously for massive violations of human rights committed during his empire as a divine emperor in Japan. “All the associations that signed the petition also asked the court to extend the investigation to the political, economic, and social situation in Japan during the first part of the Shōwa reign (1933–1945) while taking into the history of the countries to put massive human rights violations in context and to better understand the role of Japan’s intellectual elite and possibly the participation of

different actors in the conflict. The rapporteur communicates to the court a set of files prepared by him, reports, documents and testimony relating to the purpose of the session. First, the rapporteur asks the court to rule in favor of the issibility of the application on the basis of articles 1, 2, and 3 of its statutes.”

Documents Release

– The study of the documentation developed and provided by the Justice Against Japan Committee; and – Testimonies from victims and expert interventions during the sessions that took place on October 16 and 18, 2016.

Reference Legal Texts

International Texts

Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in resolution 217 A (III) of December 10, 1948. Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Wartime on August 12, 1949, adopted by the Diplomatic Conference for the Development of International Conventions to Protect the Victims of War. Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, on the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts (protocol II), adopted on June 8, 1977, by the Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of Law international humanitarian aid applicable in armed conflicts.

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (resolution 2200 A [XXI] of 16 December 1966); – • Convention on the Imprescriptible of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity (resolution 2391 [XXIII] of November 26, 1968); – • Convention against Torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment or treatment (resolution 39/46 of December 10, 1984); – • Fundamental principles on judicial independence adopted by the seventh UN Congress for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, held in Milan from August 26 to September 6, 1985, and confirmed by the assembly resolutions 40/32 of November 29, 1985 and 40/146 of December 13, 1985; – • The Hague Convention no. IV of 1907; this convention attempted for the first time to establish the laws and customs of war in international armed conflicts; – • The 1929 Geneva Convention established rules for the treatment of prisoners of war; – • The 1929 Red Cross Convention addressed the treatment of the sick and wounded during armed conflict; – • The 1928 Kellogg–Briand Pact signed by Japan; – • The Japanese–Soviet neutrality treaty signed between Japan and Russia on April 13, 1941; – and • The Cairo Declaration signed on November 27, 1943, by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jiang Jieshi, and Winston Churchill. This statement outlines the strategic objectives of the war against Japan. The text says: “The purpose [of the three great Allies] is for Japan to be dispossessed of all the Pacific islands it had conquered or occupied since the beginning of World War I on 1914, and all the territories it stole from the Chinese, like Manchuria, Formosa [Taiwan] and the Pescadores. These territories must be returned to the Republic of China. Similarly, Japan will be driven out of all other territories it has taken by force and greed. The three great powers mentioned above, concerned about the state of slavery of the Korean people, are determined that, in the long run, Korea will

become free and independent.”

POTSDAM’S STATEMENT

“The text, signed by the United States, Britain, and China in the German city of Potsdam on July 26, 1945, states that the alliance between the Allies is ‘“on the verge of giving Japan the coup de grace”’ and that it will ‘“continue the war against Japan until that it ceases to resist.”’ This declaration calls for Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allies at the end of World War II. “One of the important legal documents signed at the end of the war, the Potsdam Declaration played a key role in safeguarding peace, stability, and prevention of the resurrection of militarism in the Asia-Pacific region during the latter decades. “It describes the conditions of Japan’s unconditional surrender through the following:

1) First, ‘“the authority and influence of those who fooled the people of Japan into a conquest of the world must be eliminated forever.”’ 2) The Allies will designate areas of Japanese territory to be occupied to ensure the achievement of the basic objectives set by the American, Chinese, and British leaders, i.e., the establishment of a new order and the destruction of the Japan’s belligerent power; 3) Japan’s sovereignty under the of the 1943 Cairo Declaration should be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, and the minor islands chosen by Allied leaders; and 4) Strict justice should be applied to war criminals, including those who have committed acts of cruelty to American, Korean, Chinese, and other prisoners of war.”

The rapporteur took a brief pause and continued:

“In addition to the documents mentioned above, Your Honor, we file before the court the testimony of several historians, human rights defenders, archivists, victims, and witnesses. We filed thousands of articles in newspapers about Japan during the Shōwa Era. “Finally, we file to detain thousands of report sheets and direct testimony gathered during the trial of the twenty-eight Japanese prisoners of war held in Tokyo, from May 3, 1946 to November 12, 1948. These include, in particular, statements on serious human rights violations committed by the Japanese army on civilians and military personnel in countries occupied during the war. We begin our presentation by detailing war crimes.”

WAR CRIMES

A war crime is an act that constitutes a serious violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility. Examples of war crimes include intentionally killing civilians or prisoners, torturing, destroying civilian property, taking hostages, performing a perfidy, raping, using child soldiers, pillaging, declaring that no quarter will be given, and seriously violating the principles of distinction and proportionality, and military necessity. “Did Hirohito know about Japanese military operations in Asia and the Pacific during World War II, and did the emperor be considered as a war criminal? “With the Japanese army and navy chiefs of staff, and also the main advisers, Hirohito participated regularly in the liaison conference which had been formed in November 1937 to prepare for the war. Guidelines for the conduct of the war have been drafted by key figures of the high command structure, and by new agencies that were organized to deal with such matters as intelligence, transportation, science, technology, deployment of troops, etc. “The of the liaison conference had the authority for deciding national policies and guidelines for policies. Between September 27, 1940, and July 30, 1944, there were a hundred liaison conference meetings, those continued until August 1944, when the liaison conference was replaced by the Supreme War leadership Council. Hirohito led almost all the meetings and approved the final decisions of the liaison conference or the Supreme War leadership Council. Whenever the army and navy chiefs made formal reports to the war, and if Hirohito was not convinced by the arguments, he would reject them. As the head of the empire, the emperor wanted to be sure that he understood how the policy deliberation process worked. His chief aide-de-camp’s office in the palace was connected by hot-line telephone to the offices of the most important bureau, department, and section chiefs of the Army, Navy, and Foreign Ministries. He knew the names and careers of each person who was in charge with the development of operations plans and troops deployment; such as who commanded the First Department of the Twentieth Group (grand strategy planning) and the Second Section (operations).

“He followed closely the step-by-step bureaucratic procedures that led directly to the drafting of the ‘“national policy”’ documents at the liaison conference. Detailed question-and-answer materials were compiled by staff officers in the Operations Sections, and war situation reports reached his desk sometimes twice or three times every day. Battle reports and situation reports were delivered to the palace daily. These included information on combat losses and their causes, places where Japanese troops were doing well or not so well. Hirohito ed his instructions from his palace to his commanders via the offices of the Army and Navy Operations Sections and their First Department, so that war plans could change if it was necessary. Monthly and annual state-of-the-war evaluations were compiled for his awareness; and, as historian Yamada Akira documented, ‘“Hirohito routinely received drafts developing war plans and full explanations of operations, accompanied by detailed maps, informing him why an operation should be mounted and the units that would be carrying it out.”’ “Before the war broke out, at the start of the new year, 1931, Justice Ministry bureaucrat and Privy Council Vice President Hiranuma Kiichirō, a right-wing Japanese politician who became Prime Minister of Japan in 1939, was the one who carried out the message of the Shōwa emperor. Hiranuma declared that if Japan was to pursue its ideals, it would have to build up its military power. Today the Great Powers openly emphasize the League of Nations while behind the scenes they steadily expand their military armaments. We cannot simply dismiss as the foolish talk of idiots those who predict the outbreak, after 1936, of a second world war. Our nation must be prepared to serve bravely in the event of an emergency. If other people [i.e., Europeans and Americans] obstruct world peace and the welfare of mankind, we must be prepared to display our nationalism in a grand way, based on the spirit of the founding of the state. “Hiranuma went on to declare: The depression in the business world is reaching its height. Unemployment is increasing daily. The family is breaking up. Starving people fill the streets. Do you think people are satisfied with this situation? This is the responsibility of statesmen who govern under the auspices of the emperor’s will. To ignore this situation is to ignore the emperor’s will. Therefore, at the start of this new year to hide the reality and pretend that everything is peaceful would be the height of disloyalty. Because I firmly believe that one who respects the imperial house and loves the fatherland would not embellish the situation, I am clarifying here the

essence of nationalism. “At that time, military spending was already 29 percent of the annual budget, or 3.03 percent of GNP. By the summer of 1931, an open political dispute started between the military and the Minseitō government of Wakatsuki Reijirō, Hamaguchi’s successor. On June 13, 1931, Kawai recorded in his diary that The highest leaders of the army are conducting a united, organized campaign against arms reduction, saying that only the military may decide, as a matter of command, the size of the armed forces. The genrō [Prince Saionji] says that we should not slight the argument for dispatching troops in the event that a great disturbance erupts in Manchuria. “In early August 1931, Army Minister Minami Jirō disclosed to the press a speech he had given to a special meeting of regional and division commanders. In his speech, Gen. Minami denounced arms reduction proposals as ‘“a sell-out”’ and urged his fellow officers to protest military cutbacks. One month before Minami’s speech the crisis on the Asian continent has begun. In July 1931, fighting erupted between Chinese and Korean farmers at Wamposhan, in the border area between Manchuria and Korea. The fighting led to anti-Chinese rioting and attacks on Chinese residents throughout the Korean Peninsula. Some 127 Chinese died at the hands of Koreans with the complicity of the Japanese colonial authorities who failed to prevent the loss. The Chinese responded with a boycott of Japanese goods. The boycott was a calculated plot by the Nationalist government in Nanking and the regime of Chang Hsueh-liang in Mukden to destroy Japan’s strategic and economic interests in China. “In response, senior officers of the Army General Staff had informed the heads of the Navy General Staff of their plan to seize Manchuria by force, and had asked for the navy’s cooperation. On September 15, 1931, Foreign Minister Shidehara received a top-secret telegram from his consul general in Mukden, informing him that the Kwantung Army was about to launch a large-scale offensive action. Other reports kept Shidehara fully informed of the Kwantung Army’s plan. General Minami who was, however, in on the Kwantung Army’s secret plans to bring Manchuria and Inner Mongolia under Japanese control, received an order from the emperor asking him to postpone action and not to defy the cabinet conducting a diplomacy’s action to defuse the Manchurian Incident. Minami sent a letter to the newly appointed Kwantung Army commander, General Honjō, via Gen. Tatekawa Yoshitsugu, chief of the General

Staff’s Intelligence Section, asking him to postpone the planned hostilities. “Informing on Tatekawa’s mission, iral Shintarō Hashimoto sent a telegram to Col. Itagaki Seishirō, the senior staff officer of the Kwantung Army at Mudken, and instructed him to act quickly: ‘“Plot discovered. Tatekawa coming; strike first to avoid implicating him. If Tatekawa arrives, take action before receiving his message.”’ Three days later, Lt. Colonel Ishiwara Kanji and Colonel Seishirō Itagaki put their plans into effect. “Your Honor, on the eve of the Mukden Incident many influential people in the government and close advisers of the emperor have been aware that the Kwantung Army was about to conquer Manchuria to start the Second SinoJapanese War that would emphasize the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in July 7, 1937. On the night of July 16, 1931, the senior editors of the Tokyo Asabi and of the Osaka Mainichi newspaper chains, Ogata Taketora and Takaishi Shingorō, had attended a meeting in Tokyo at the residence of Baron Harada Kumao where, in the company of Foreign Ministry officials, they had heard the Military Affairs Bureau chief, Major-General Koiso Kuniaki, advocate the ‘“independence of Manchuria”’ and say that if the army starts a war Japanese people will it. That to understand Hirohito and his top palace advisers – Makino, Suzuki, Sekiya, Kido, and Nara – knew that the Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Col. Ishiwara and Col. Itagaki would invade Manchuria. They failed to stop this intervention because they naturally ed the army’s mission in Manchuria.” The rapporteur took a pause to see his notes and continued: “In the fall of 1941, as Japan faced the consequences of the U.S. embargo on petroleum products for its refusal to withdraw from China, Hirohito called for a series of imperial conferences to discuss the possibility to find a solution to the issue. “On September 4, 1941, the Japanese cabinet met and concluded: ‘“Our Empire, in order to defend itself and to preserve itself, will prepare for war… [and is] … resolved to go to war with the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, if necessary. At the same time, our empire will undertake all possible diplomatic initiatives vis-à-vis the United States and Great Britain and will thus strive to achieve its objectives. In the event that these

diplomatic negotiations do not leave any hope that our demands will be met before the first ten days of October, we will decide on the immediate outbreak of hostilities against the United States, Great Britain, and Netherlands.”’ “In the months leading up to Pearl Harbor, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe made every effort to organize a summit between himself and Roosevelt in an effort to reduce tension between the United States and Japan. The proposal presented to Hirohito was rejected, and in September 6, a new Gozen Kaigi irrevocably engaged Japan on the road to war. In October 16, Prince Konoe resigned. It would have been enough, he said, for Hirohito to reject his proposal to give peace a chance. The emperor soon accepted his resignation and then appointed Gen. Tōjō Hideki as prime minister. During his years in the Army, Tōjō presided over the conquest of much of the West’s territories in Asia and the Pacific until the defeat of Japanese forces at Midway and Guadalcanal. However, he was among the most outspoken proponents for preventive war against the United States during deliberations leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. His new government kept the negotiations between Japan and the United States going as long as possible. “On November 5, 1941, the emperor approved in an imperial conference the plans of war against the West prepared by the imperial headquarters. On November 26, Hull issued a final ultimatum to Japan, after U.S. soldiers abroad were put on high alert. The same day, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull presented the Japanese ambassador with an official U.S. government memo, in which the United States demanded the complete withdrawal of all Japanese troops in Indochina and China. Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō told his cabinet, ‘“This is an ultimatum.”’ “On December 1, at a final Gozen Kaigi, it was decided that on December 8, 1941, Japan would officially declare war with the United States. On December 6, the fourteen part coded text of the memorandum, which ended with a declaration of war against the United States, arrived at the Japanese Embassy in Washington. At the same time, the Imperial Japanese Army attacked British and Dutch troops in the Pacific without a declaration of war. “On December 8, 1941, during simultaneous attacks, Japanese forces attacked the Hong Kong garrison, the American fleet at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, and began the invasion of Malaysia.

“On February 9, March 19, and May 29, 1941, Hirohito ordered the chief of the army staff, Gen. Hajime Sugiyama, to examine the possibility of an attack on Chungking, leading to a list of known planned Japanese operations carried out during the World War II:

• Operation FU 1940 [Japanese invasion of French Indochina]; • Operation B 1941 [Japanese invasion of British Borneo and Dutch Borneo]; • Operation E 1941 [Japanese invasion of China and northeastern British Malaysia]; • Operation M 1941 [Japanese invasion of the Philippine stakes]; • Operation Al 1941 [Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii]; • Operation AL 1942 [Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska]; • Operation B 1942 [Japanese invasion of Burma]; • Operation C 1942 [Japanese reconnaissance and raid operations in the Indian Ocean]; • Operation D 1942 [Japanese invasion of the Andaman Islands]; • Operation H 1942 [Japanese invasion of Celebes, Ambon, and Timor]; • Operation J 1942 [Japanese invasion of Java, Dutch East Indies]; • Operation K 1942 [Japanese reconnaissance and air raid at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, United States]; • Operation Ka 1942 [Japan plans to destroy the U.S. fleet and recapture Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands]; • Operation L 1942 [Japan landing operation in Palembang, Sumatra]; • Operation MI 1942 [Japanese invasion of Midway Island by Japan];

• Operation MO 1942 [Japanese invasion of Port Moresby, New Guinea]; • Operation R 1942 [Japanese invasion of Rabaul, New Britain, and Kavieng, New Ireland]; • Operation SR 1942 [Japanese invasion of Salamaua-Lae]; • Operation T 1942 [Japanese invasion of North Sumatra]; • Operation U 1942 [Japanese invasion of Burma]; • Operation I 1943 [Japanese air raid against Allied advances in New Guinea and Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands]; • Operation 1942 [Japanese invasion of the Nauru and Ocean Islands]; • Operation Ta 1943 [Japanese attack on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands]; • Operation A-Go 1944 [Japanese attack by the U.S. fleet off Saipan, Mariana Islands]; • Operation Dan-Go 1944 [Japanese operation after the failure of Operation UGo in India]; • Operation FS 1944 [Japan has canceled Fiji’s project to isolate Australia]; • Operation Fu-Go 1944 [U.S. aerial bombardment by Japanese balloons]; • Operation Ha-Go 1944 [Japanese action to isolate and destroy Anglo-Indian forces in Arakan, Burma; precursor to Operation U-Go]; • Operation Ichi-Go 1944 [Japanese attack in eastern China to link Northern China with Indochina]; • Operation Sho I 1944 [Japanese attack by the U.S. fleet off Leyte, Philippine islands; part of Operation Sho-Go]; • Operation TA 1944 [Japanese attack on U.S. forces at Cape Torokina, Bougainville, Solomon Islands]; • Operation U-Go 1944 [Japanese assault on Imphal and Kohima, India];

• Operation Yu / Operation Tatsumaki 1944 [Japanese Navy surprise raid against the U.S. Navy in Majuro, Marshall Islands]; • Operation Arashi 1945 [Japanese air raid on Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands]; • Operation Kikusui 1945 [Japanese special attack on American ships off Okinawa, Japan]; and • Operation Tan 2 1945 [Japanese mission against the anchorage allied to Ulithi, Carolinas];

The rapporteur observed a pause and then continued, “As tensions rose between Japan and the United States, the Japanese army had decided to invade several islands looking to take control of their natural resources. Japanese forces would quickly occupy the island of the Philippines, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, British Malaya, Sarawak, Burma, and British, and Dutch Borneo. Prisoners who had been captured during these invasions would be put to work as slave-labor: building infrastructure, harvesting on plantations, and digging in the mines. “At the end, the Empire of Japan occupied nearly all of East Asia, from Manchuria in the north, to the Salomon islands in the South Pacific – an expanse encoming more than 500 million people –. Over the course of the Imperial Japanese Army’s conquest of Asia, between 1937 and 1945, over twenty million people were killed. The rapporteur observed another pause, “Your Honor, Hirohito did nothing to stop his generals and irals to attack the countries in the Pacific. Fighting in the name of Hakkō ichiu, a belief that all of Asia must be united under one emperor, Japanese troops occupied almost 80 percent of the territories in Asia during the Second World War. The emperor personally supervised the battle of the Philippine island of Leyte, which he had ordered Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita to hold at all costs. He declared himself, deeply satisfied of the issue of this battle, and then added to the prime minister, the former army intelligence officer, Kuniaki Koiso, that Leyte was Japan’s greatest military victory since the Battle of Yamazaki in 1582.

“The war crimes committed by the Japanese army in the Pacific are appalling. The evidence shows that in Manchuria, Nanking, and Chiangjiao, the cruelties and mass executions were committed not only on soldiers engaged in combat, but also on civilians who are foreign to the conflict. In the Chinese and Korean territories, and in other occupied countries, these crimes are part of a plan designed to get rid of all forces opposing the occupation through imprisonment and extermination. “At this stage, we present a list of massacres in the occupied territories and Japanese units responsible for the atrocities:

• Alexandra Hospital Massacre – Unit 100 ; • Banka Island Massacre – Unit 516 ; • Changjiao massacre – Unit 543 ; • Kalagong massacre – Unit 731 ; • Laha massacre – Unit 1644 ; • Manila massacre – Unit 1855 ; • Nanjing Massacre – Unit 8604 ; • Palawan massacre – Unit 9420 ; • Pantingan River Massacre ; • Sulong Massacre Parit ; • Sook Ching Massacre ; • Tol Plantation Massacre; and • Wake Island Massacre.

“Among the main charges concerning war crimes, we call on the court to hold, among other things, the invasion of China by Japan in 1937 to conquer Manchuria, and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. These actions of the Imperial Japanese Army are the most documented to illustrate the war crimes alleged against Japan. The Nanking Massacre, in particular, is a perfect example of the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during the war in the Pacific. “Japan invaded Northern China in 1937. When Shanghai fell, the Imperial Japanese Army advanced on Nanking and occupied it on December 13, 1937. Arriving in Nanking, the former imperial capital, the Japanese army, under the command of Gen. Iwane Matsui, engaged in a general massacre, killing between 200,000 and 250,000 civilians. People were executed in atrocious conditions (raped women, strangled men, children buried alive). The city was ransacked and burned. “Here is an excerpt from a report on the tragic events in Nanking: “The Japanese army returned to Nanking on December 13, 1937. On the city’s main thoroughfare, Zhongshan Avenue, 7,000 bodies lie, while at the same time, the 8,000 Chinese soldiers who surrendered to the Japanese troops were shot. Japanese soldiers entered each house in search of outbreaks of resistance and, at the same time, separate men and women. The men were lined up, tied up, and then murdered either by machine gun or by beheading with the Japanese sword. Most of the women were raped and mutilated only to end up inflicted with bayonets and gutted. Finally, after three days of siege, the city fell to the Japanese on December 16, 1937. During this tragic battle, an estimated 20,000 soldiers died in action and tens of thousands of civilians were executed by Japanese soldiers. “According to Chinese historians, during the six-week massacre, hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians and soldiers were murdered, and between 70,000 and 80,000 women, and children were raped by the Japanese military. Once raped, women were killed, often bayoneted, after being subjected to explicit mutilation or other acts of barbarism. On December 19, 1937, the Reverend James M. McCallum wrote in his diary: ‘“I don’t know when it’s going to end. I have never heard or read so much brutality. Violation! Violation! Violation! We estimate at least 100,000 cases per night on many days. In case of resistance or anything that looks like a

disapproval, there is a bayonet blow or a bullet. People are hysterical. The women are taken away every morning, afternoon and evening. The whole Japanese army seems free to come and go as it pleases and do what it likes.”’ “On March 7, 1938, Robert O. Wilson, a surgeon at the U.S. University Hospital in the Security Zone, wrote in a letter to his family, ‘“A conservative estimate of people shot in cold blood is about 100,000, including thousands of soldiers who had laid down their arms.”’ “Here are two excerpts from his letters of December 15 and 18, 1937, to his family: ‘“The massacre of civilians is appalling. I could write pages of almost incredible rape and brutality cases. Two bayonet eddies are the only survivors of seven sweepers who were sitting in their seats when Japanese soldiers arrived without warning and unreasonably killed five of them and wounded the two who managed to find their way to the hospital.”’ ‘“Let me tell you about some of the cases that have taken place over the last two days. Last night, the house of one of the Chinese university staff was destroyed and two of the women, who are related to him, were raped. Two girls aged about 16 were raped to death in a refugee camp. In the University, where 8,000 people are located, the Japanese came ten times in the night, ing over the wall, to steal food, clothes, and rape to the point of satisfaction. They gave five bayonet blows to an eight-year-old boy, one of which was in the stomach, part of his epiploon, ending up outside his abdomen. I think he’s going to live.”’ “In his diary, which he kept during the attack and occupation of the city, John Rabe reports on Japanese atrocities. On December 1, 1937, he wrote: ‘“Two Japanese soldiers climbed the garden wall and were about to enter our house. When I saw them, they pretended to have seen Chinese soldiers climbing the wall. When I showed them my party badge, they left by the same path. In one of the houses on the narrow street that es behind the wall of my garden, a woman was raped and then shot with a bayonet in her neck. I managed to find an ambulance to take him to Kulo Hospital. Last night, nearly 1,000 women and girls said they had been raped, including about 100 at ginling Girls’ College. You hear nothing but rape. If the husbands or brothers intervene, they are shot. All you hear and see is brutality and bestiality of Japanese soldiers.”’

“On December 13, 1937, Rabe wrote in his diary: ‘“It is only when you visit the city that you learn the extent of the destruction. We encounter dead bodies every 100 to 200 meters. The bodies of the civilians I examined had bullet holes in their backs. These people were likely on the run and were killed from behind. The Japanese marched through the city in groups of ten to twenty soldiers and looted the shops. I saw them with my own eyes as they looted the coffee of a German baker in the name of Herr Kiessling. The Hempel Hotel was broken, like almost every shop on Chung Chang and Taiping streets.”’ “On February 10, 1938, the legation secretary of the German embassy, Georg Rosen, wrote to his Ministry of Foreign Affairs about a film shot in December by the Reverend John Magee. The letter is kept in the political archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. ‘“During the reign of Japanese terror in Nanjing, which in any case continues to this day in incredible proportions, the Reverend John Magee, a member of the mission of the American Episcopal Church who has been there for nearly twenty-five years, filmed images which are an eloquent testimony to the atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese. We will now wait and see if the Japanese officers will succeed, as they promised, in stopping the activities of their troops, which continue to this day.”’ “John Magee continued: ‘“On December 13, about 30 soldiers came to the Chinese house at 5 Hsing Lu Koo Street in the southeast district of Nanjing and asked to enter. The door was opened by the owner, a Muslim called Ha. They immediately killed him with a revolver and also Mrs. Ha, who knelt before them after her husband’s death, begging them not to kill anyone else. Mrs. Ha asked them why they killed her husband and in response she had been shot also. Ms. Hsia was dragged from under a table into the guest room where she tried to hide with her one-year-old baby. After being stripped naked and raped by one or more men, she was bayoneted in the chest and a bottle was then inserted into her vagina. The baby was killed with a bayonet. Some soldiers then went to the next room, where Ms. Hsia’s parents, aged 76 and 74, and her two daughters, aged 16 and 14, were staying. The grandmother tried to protect the two girls from the rape of the soldiers. They killed her with a revolver. The grandfather seized his wife’s body

and was killed. The two girls were then stripped naked, the oldest raped by two or three men. The oldest girl was stabbed and a stick was inserted into her vagina. The youngest was bayoneted but was spared the horrific treatment of her sister and mother. The soldiers then bayoneted another 7-8-year-old sister who was also in the room. The latest murders in this house are those of the two Ha children, aged 4 and 2, respectively. The oldest was killed with a bayonet and the youngest with a sword.”’ “Tang Kunshan, survivor and witness of one of the systematic massacres of the Japanese army, testifies: ‘“The seventh and final person in the first row was a pregnant woman. The soldier thought he might as well rape her before killing her, so he pulled her out of the group at a place about 10 yards away. While he was trying to rape her, the woman resisted with vigor. The soldier violently stabbed her in the stomach with a bayonet. She took a final look when her intestines came out. The soldier then stabbed the fetus, with its umbilical cord clearly visible, and threw it next to it.”’ “According to navy veteran Sho Mitani, the army used a trumpet that meant ‘“Kill all the Chinese who run away.”’ Thousands were taken away and executed en masse in an excavation known as the Ten Thousand Body Ditch, a trench measuring about three hundred meters long and five meters wide. Researchers and historians estimate that there have been more than twelve thousand. An estimate of victims buried in this ditch range from twenty thousand to thirty thousand. “F. Tillman Durdin and Archibald Steele, two American journalists, report seeing bodies of Chinese soldiers forming mountains nearly two meters high at Yijiang Gate to the north. Pat Robinson, who works for the New York Times as a correspondent during the war, said, ‘“I hear machine gun fire and see Japanese soldiers executing nearly 200 Chinese in ten minutes.”’ “In an article in the New York Times, Durdin said the streets are littered with civilian corpses, including women and children. “According to reports, Japanese soldiers forced the families to commit acts of incest. Sons were forced to rape their mothers, and fathers raped their daughters. A pregnant woman who was raped by several Japanese gave birth to her baby a few hours later. Monks who have taken vows of celibacy are also forced to rape

women.” The rapporteur took a moment to consult his notes and then continued, “Your Honor, those who defended Hirohito declared that the emperor did not participate in the preparation of the Nanking massacre. This is not true. On November 20, 1937, more than three weeks before the fall of Nanking (December 1937- January 1938), and the day his new Imperial Headquarters was established, Hirohito signed an imperial rescript to congratulate the commander of the China Area Fleet, . Hasegawa Kiyoshi. He applauded the officers and men of the fleet for cooperating with the army, controlling China’s coasts, and interdicting its lines of marine transportation. ‘“We still have a long way to go before we achieve our goal,”’ he said in the rescript. Four days later, while attending his first Imperial Headquarters Conference, on November 24, Hirohito gave ‘“green-light”’ to the decision of Gen. Masui’s Central China Area to attack and occupy Nanking, the capital of China. He took this decision after being briefed by the head of the Operation Department of the Army General Staff who had explained to him the plan of the attack, ‘“that both the transportation corps and the artillery units of the army in Central China were still lagging far behind the foremost units on the first lines, and that while the army regrouped, the air forces of the army and navy, will bomb Nanking and its strategic areas.”’ “Hirohito greatly satisfied, approved the plans to bomb Nanking and its environs. He ratified the removal of all restrictions on the army’s perimeter of operations; and on December 1, he gave the final order for Gen. Matsui to attack, “The commander of the Central China Area Army acting tly with the navy, will capture and occupy the enemy capital of Nanking (Imperial Headquarters Army Order Number 8). On December 14, 1937, the day after Nanking fell, Hirohito conferred an imperial message on his Chiefs of Staff expressing his pleasure at the news of the city’s capture and occupation. of the Imperial family had commanded the attack on Nanking. We mention, Hirohito’s fifty-year-old grand uncle, Prince Asaka, who was the ranking officer in the city; forty-nine-year-old General Prince Higashikuni, chief of the Army air force and an uncle of Empress Nagako; and seventy-year-old uncle Prince Kan’in, chief of the Army General Staff. All knew of the massacres and had informed Hirohito on the details.” The rapporteur continued,

BATAAN’S DEATH MARCH

“Your Honor, who hasn’t heard of Bataan’s Death March? In the Philippines, on the Bataan Peninsula, American and Filipino troops, led by Gen. MacArthur, fought a fierce battle against Japanese troops led by Gen. Masaharu Homma. After three months of violent clashes, the U.S. army surrendered on April 10, 1942. Homma has a serious logistical problem: it has to manage more than seventy thousand prisoners, most of them sick and wounded. He referred the case to the army High Staff in Tokyo. The chief of staff, Hajime Sugiyama, by an order transmitted via Col. Masanobu Tsuji, ordered him to fend for himself and apply ‘“natural selection”’ among the prisoners. It is therefore decided to transfer them on foot, without food or drink, to a camp located ninety-eight kilometers away. “The march took place in the Philippines from April 9 to May 1, 1942. They departed from Cabcaben, on the Bataan Peninsula, to the O’Donnell internment camp. It was one of the most heinous war crimes of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. For prisoners, this ordeal consists of a near-permanent march, day and night, without food, and with very little water, physical violence, murder, and other acts of savagery or sadism perpetrated by Japanese soldiers, throughout the journey. Any prisoner who stopped or complained was executed (slaughtered or throat slit). According to the testimonies of the survivors, Japanese trucks use the prisoner’s road and drive systematically on anyone who has fallen to the ground. The official U.S. military report puts the death toll at about 23,500, including 22,000 Filipinos. Some post-war Allied reports indicate that only 54,000 of the 72,000 prisoners reached their destination. “Sentenced to death on January 11, 1946, as the main perpetrator of the massacre, Gen. Homma was shot on April 3, 1946, in Los Banos prison with his colleague Tomoyuki Yamashita.” The rapporteur observed another pause. He glanced quickly through his notes and continued, “Your Honor, we are now continuing our relationship with suicide bombers used as guinea pigs under the influence of drugs.

“Japanese martyr soldiers known as ‘“suicide bombers,”’ were drugged to stand up during their attacks on American warships stationed in the Pacific. To help them in their suicide mission, doctors issued them Pervitin tablets that were supposed to allow them to maintain their energy tone. Today, this drug is called methamphetamine. It was first synthesized in Japan in 1893 by the chemist Nagai Nagayoshi, and then in crystalline form in 1919 by the chemist Akira Ogata. “During World War II, millions of doses of methamphetamine were distributed to give energy, confidence, and above all, aggressive Japanese soldiers. This war drug is said to have played a major part in the effectiveness of the suicide bombers’ attacks on the American fleet in the Pacific. “The battles of the Philippine Sea in June 1944 and the Gulf of Leyte in October of the same year were catastrophic for the Empire of Japan. Two-thirds of the air force involved is lost. In addition to the material losses, hundreds of excellent pilots trained since the beginning of the war against China in 1937 have died, gone missing, or taken prisoner by the enemy. Thus, the Japanese general staff had one unique choice, the use of suicide attacks with suicide bombers. “The strategy was simple. Volunteers were used for their sole mission and placed at the controls of devices ready for reform, usually old ‘“Zero”’ packed with explosives. The tanks were only filled for a one-way ticket, as the return was not an option, which, at the same time, doubled the range of the aircraft. Thus, young pilots or recruits, often presented as ‘“volunteers,”’ accept or are forced to fly these planes destined to crash on U.S. Navy ships, with the promise of being then considered dead martyrs for the homeland. Before they left, the suicide bombers were invited to a small ceremony where they were offered a glass of farewell sake, then flew away to try to hit their target, usually the elevator of an aircraft carrier. “The Japanese, with some elements of German technology, developed a device specially designed for suicide missions: the Yokosuka MXY-8. The official name of this flying craft was ‘“Jinrai”’ (God’s Thunder), but the pilots named it ‘“Ohka.”’ (Cherry Blossom). “On October 25, 1944, Vice-. Takijiro Onishi created the first corps of ‘“special attack forces,”’ known as suicide bombers (divine wind), during the

Battle of the Philippines to slow down Allied victory in the Pacific. The use of suicide bombers really began with the Battle of Leyte, Philippines (November 1944), and reached its climax at the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in April 1945. These two islands are part of the Japanese archipelago, and the Americans intended to use them as bases for their B-29s, which could then easily bomb the entire Japan. In Okinawa alone, there were no fewer than 1,900 suicide attacks on U.S. Navy ships. “The Japanese developed other suicide weapons: the kaiten, human torpedoes launched from a submarine. About 120 kaiten were prepared. They sank two tankers. Also used were ‘“Shinyo”’ suicide stars and even suicide submarines. In November 1944, the Marine Chrysanthemum Unit, in reference to the flower symbol of the Imperial House, was the first unit of suicide submarines. In January 1945, suicide bomber attacks became a national policy. The Japanese people must behave like ‘“martyrs”’ and sacrifice themselves for the country, says the emperor. “On July 29, 1945, at midnight, less than two months before the g of the surrender, the American warship USS Indianapolis, after a delivery of ‘“Little Boy”’ equipment, was attacked by the Japanese submarine I-58. Of the 1,196 sailors who made up the crew, only 318 were saved. The others were eaten by sharks. The invasion of Iwo Jima, authorized on October 3, 1944, by Maj.-Gen. Schmidt, commander of the Fifth Division of the U.S. Navy’s Amphibious V Corps, killed 600 U.S. soldiers on the first day of operations and 2,000 soldiers were wounded. After the first five days, 1,600 American soldiers lost their lives and 4,500 were wounded. An attempted counter-attack by a thousand Japanese troops led by Capt. Samaji Inouye on the afternoon of March 8, took the lives of ninety American soldiers while the number of wounded rose to 347. A total of 6,000 American soldiers died in the Battle of Iwo Jima and 25,000 Americans were wounded. The Japanese army lost 784 men of the 1,000 soldiers engaged in the last battle by Samaji to defend Iwo Jima. “The attack on the USS Nashville by a Japanese suicide bomber on the eve of the American troops’ attack on Luzon claimed the lives of 131 American soldiers, including Col. Bruce Hill, . Arthur Dewey Struble, and Capt. Abdill. One hundred and ninety-two U.S. Navy soldiers were wounded during the operation, including Brig.-Gen. William Dunckel. During the battle for The Leste Island on the American side, the number of wounded was hundreds of thousands. Maj.-Gen. Yoshiharu Tomochika, commander of the Thirty-Fifth

Army in the Philippines, announced as he left the island on March 17, 1945, about 49,790 American soldiers from his garrison perished.” The rapporteur took a short break the time to drink some water and then continued, “Your Honor, we are talking about the massacres that took place in Nanjing, Manchuria, Java, Singapore, Manila, etc. But in the aftermath of the Asia-Pacific war, there was not enough information to establish the extent of atrocities committed by Japanese troops in the occupied territories. The evidence was almost inaccessible knowing that much of Japan’s military archives had been destroyed between the surrender and the arrival of the American occupying forces in Japan. For this reason, in the early years following the Allied victory over Japan, establishing the truth of the facts – war crimes – was an extremely difficult task, because the war in the Pacific during the Second World War had attracted much less attention from historians than the European wars of the twentieth century. Over the past thirty years, many works by political scientists, journalists, and historians had led to the violence of the wars of the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy in their time, especially during the Second World War. Beyond that, we discover that Nanking was not the only place where the atrocities were committed by the Japanese during the war. Everywhere between Manchuria, Java, Xinxiang, Zhenjiang, and Shenyang, Japanese troops committed such abominable crimes, what sometimes overcame the atrocities of the Nazis on the Jews in concentration camps. Murder, rape, looting, fire, forced labor, forced prostitution, daily humiliation, and starvation, were the various forms of abuse of power that the Japanese had used to destroy the sense of rebellion of citizens treated as subhuman in the occupied territories. Tens of thousands of political detainees, prisoners of war, as well as Chinese, Russian, and Korean civilians were abducted and interned in research camps and subjected to medical, bacteriological, and chemical experiments such as guinea pigs. “Your Honor, the most damning war crimes committed by the Japanese during the war were the acts of vivisection and cannibalism. In Khandok, according to a witness, a prisoner of war was tied to a tree. After tearing his fingernails off his hands, a Japanese doctor who was present had opened his chest to remove his heart in order to examine the organ. In Guadalcanal, two prisoners who had tried to escape into the jungle were dissected alive and their livers exposed. The horror of ‘“prison ships”’ was another form of torture, which, in the Tokyo trials,

the judges had carefully detailed in concluding their judgment (p. 1069): ‘“On the prison ships, a large number of prisoners of war were locked up during their transfer to the shipyards where they were forced to work as slaves. Due to the lack of space on these cargo ships, wooden cages of two meters by two were set up for fifteen people on temporary overlay bridges. Detainees were forced to sit cross-legged throughout the trip. To save space, no sanitary facilities existed. Seals had come down at the end of the rope and reassembled as well, letting some of their contents escape. Many inmates suffered from dysentery and their excrement fell on their comrades through the cracks in the partitions. In the absence of kitchens, the food was served without being cooked and the water distributed sparingly. No one was allowed to go out on deck. Under current rules, prisoners disobeying orders, those displaying signs of opposition, those who spoke without permission, those who moved without permission or attempted to climb ladders, were punished to death.”’ “On March 9, 1945, the Japanese ambassador to Indochina called for the immediate surrender of French forces to the territory. To show the seriousness of his order, a few days later, civilians and officers were tortured, executed, and/or beheaded. An estimated between 1.5 and two million people had died in the Indo-Chinese population.” The rapporteur consulted his notes and continued, “Your Honor, even though Hirohito publicly let his military leaders conduct the war, the emperor played a key role in the decision made by the high commander of the Japanese Imperial Army to conquer the territories of several countries in the Pacific. “In December 1936, he ratified the Anti-Comin tern Pact. For several years the Empire of Japan was at war with most countries in the Pacific. Among the most famous battles, we mention: Attack on Pearl Harbor, Battle of Midway, Guadalcanal campaign, Battle of the Coral Sea, Battle of Iwo Jima, Battle of the Philippine Sea, Battle of Peleilu, Battle of West Hunan, Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign, Battle of Singapore, Operation Ichi-Go, New Guinea campaign, Battle of Wake Island, Battles of Khalkhin Gol, Battle of the Java Sea, Battle of Guam, Solomon Islands campaign, Dutch East indies campaign, Battle of Sagami Bay, Battle of Mutanchiang, Japanese invasion of Malaya, Battle of Nanking, Battle of Lake Khasan, Operation Tiderace, Battle of Borneo, Battle of

Zaoyang-Yichang, Battle of Suixian-Zaoyang, Marshalls Gilberts raids, Operation U-Go, Japanese invasion of French Indochina, Battle of Christmas island, Battle of Guilin-Liuzhou, Battle of Tachiao, Battle of Lanfeng, Battle of Beiping-Tianjin, USS Panay incident, Battle of Germas, Battle of Muar, Battle of Tsushima, Battle of Okinawa, etc. “Under Anami’s leadership, Japanese troops fought until death during the battle of Okinawa. The battle had raged for eighty-two days. More than 20,000 Americans were dead. Of the half-million Americans who came ashore, onethird had either been killed or wounded. The battle was finally won on June 23, 1945, a few months before the Battle of Iwo Jima would end with a total of 6,820 Americans who died. Almost twenty-one thousand Japanese soldiers also died or were missing in action. “Nine Japanese divisions, a little more than five hundred thousand men, were deployed to defend the invasion beaches against the American troops. Almost all were stationed at Kyushu’s southern beaches. American forces captured Japanese codebooks during the battles for Iwo Jima and Okinawa, allowing intelligence units based in Pearl Harbor to read top-secret enemy documents. The acquisition of the codebooks had facilitated the Allied forces to control with less casualties until the end of the war the other territories occupied by Japan. “After the United States had taken the key islands of Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and Formosa; and were ready to invade Tokyo, Hirohito approved the decision from the government to arm every citizen of Japan. Military training was mandatory in all schools and places of employment. Following a decree issued by the government of Prime Minister Suzuki Kantarō, all the schools in Japan were closed. The children were put to work producing foods or munitions. Some were even taught how to operate anti-aircraft guns. “Throughout the Pacific, soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army were motivated by the message of their leaders who exhort them to ‘“crush the enemy.”’ This statement only served to confuse the troops and the Japanese civilians on the issue of the war.” The rapporteur observed a new pause, he consulted his notes and continued, “On the morning of March 10, 1945, American B-29 bombers dropped 2,000 tons of M-69 napalm bombs on Tokyo. One ton of M-69 could destroy the entire

area of a big city. “The goal was that Tokyo be ‘“burned down and wiped off the map to shorten the war in order to force Japan to capitulate.”’ “Almost sixteen square miles of Tokyo was completely destroyed when B-29s swept low over the city and dropping hundred tons of incendiary bombs toward the streets of one of the most populated regions in the world. Over 250,000 buildings had crumbled under flames which had reached an intensity of 2,000 degrees. The entire geisha district: hospitals, homes, temples, trains stations, theaters, hotels, schools, and convents were destroyed. The civilian population was dying in ever-increasing numbers. Gen. LeMay had continued to send hundreds of B-29s up the long path from far to the South of the Home Islands paralyzing sixty-six metropolitans’ centers in Japan. Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya, and many other vital centers of Japanese industrial areas were destroyed, as M-47 and M-69 canisters fell out the fuselages of B-29s depicting their targets by radar. This firebombing of Tokyo, known as Operation Meetinghouse, was the most horrific bombing in history, far deadlier than any other bombing during the Second World War. “What was Hirohito’s attitude? “The emperor, instead of adopting an expression of sorrow and regret to Tokyo citizens, had shown no comion for his subjects trapped inside walls of flame that throw off unimaginably high temperatures. “On March 18, 1945, Hirohito toured the burned-out portions of Tokyo. His caravan of vehicles and his own maroon Rolls-Royce ed slowly through rubble sometimes as high as five feet. Despite the sufferings among Tokyo’s citizens, he kept the same position: the Japanese will not surrender, and not even when Gen. Curtis LeMay had repeatedly dropped thousands of firebombs on Nagoya, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, and Kawasaki. Relying more on the help of the Russians, Hirohito refused to end the war. “To negotiate with the Russians, the emperor sent the sixty-seven-year-old Kōki Hirota to meet with the Soviet ambassador to Japan, Yakov Alexandrovich Malik. Hirota was prime minister of Japan in 1937 shortly before the Second Sino-Japanese War began in July of that year. “The meeting between Kōki Hirota and Yakov Malik was scheduled at the Gora

Hotel located fifty miles southwest of Tokyo in the town of Hakone. The fall of Okinawa made the Japanese government desperate to find a way to convince Stalin to help Japan seek peace. Malik, a lifelong diplomat, skilled with thirtynine-year-old foreign affairs officer, knew that the Japanese were dealing from a position of great weakness. The Soviet ambassador was categoric to Hirota’s request. ‘“Russia will not renew its 1941 non-aggression pact with Japan on the grounds that the Nippon alliance with makes them an enemy of the Soviet Union.”’ “Hirohito himself authorized a second round of discussion just hours later. Hirohito, during this second meeting, adopted a new strategy offering to enter into a trade agreement with the Soviets: Japanese rubber from its conquered territories in Southeast Asia in exchange for Soviet oil. ‘“Russia has no oil to spare,”’ Malik replied. “A few days before this meeting, Gen. LeMay’s pilots dropped five million M69s on Japan. The ‘“operation bombing”’ Tokyo was a complete success for the Americans who began to hurt enormously Japan’s capacity to continue the war. B-29’ aircrafts were at this point the unconditional threat to Japan’s officials refusing to surrender and choosing to fight until destruction. “The B-29 Superfortress was an efficient weapon, capable of nearly twice the performance of the time-tested B-17 Flying Fortress being used in Europe. Build by Boeing, the silver-painted four-engine aircraft was ninety-nine feet long, twenty-seven feet nine inches high, with a wing-span of slightly over 141 feet. Its armament included twelve fifty caliber machine guns and a twenty-millimeter cannon in the tail. The B-29 could operate at 38,000 feet and cruise at over 350 miles per hour. It could fly 3,500 miles with four tons of bombs. The Superfortress was designed for high-altitude strategic bombing but also excelled in low-attitude night incendiary bombing, and in dropping naval mines to blockade Japan. One of the largest aircraft of World War II, the B-29’s advanced design included a pressurized cabin, and an analog computer-controlled firecontrol system that allowed one gunner and a fire-control officer to direct four remote machine gun turrets. “The Americans, successively on August 6 and August 9, dropped a massive

atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite a massive and mounting death toll, Hirohito, who was considered a deity by his subjects, refused to surrender. Knowing that only unconditional surrender would save Japan from complete destruction; and knowing also unconditional surrender would mean the end of the 2,500-year-old imperial dynasty, the emperor persisted to stay in power. “Even as the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet made surrender inevitable, Hirohito continued to consider capitulation as an option that was not acceptable. Instead of surrendering, he ed the military and civilian leaders who welcomed a final battle on Japanese soil. War Minister Korechika Anami believed, ‘“Japan could at least for a time repulse the enemy and might thereafter somehow find life out death.”’ “The Japanese air forces based in Korea, China, and northern Japan, had allowed them to launch Kamikaze aircraft against the Allied fleet. In addition, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Twelfth Flotilla based on Kyushu was deployed with a total of nine hundred hidden planes that will be utilized for suicide flights. Vintage wooden biplanes invisible to American radar was put in place for nighttime suicide attacks. “Hirohito had one hope left. Under the leadership of Gen. Korechika Anami, the Japanese troops might bleed the Americans so badly on the beaches of Kyushu and Honshu that Japan could extract better peace from the Allies.” The rapporteur took a pause and said, “Your Honor, as commander in chief of the Imperial Army, Hirohito was personally involved in developing the nation’s air defense network which was upgraded to prevent attack by American bombers. He did everything to prevent the Americans from conquering and defeating Japan. “Close to defeat, he approved the launching of thousands hydrogen balloons carrying incendiary bombs which would travel five thousand miles across the Pacific to America. The so-called fire balloons would detonate in cities and towns to inflict serious damages to the American public.” The rapporteur continued, “Your Honor, with the war crimes mentioned, we are now developing the crimes

against humanity committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Navy during the Second World War.”

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

“The finding of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East established that, from the beginning of the war in China to Japan’s surrender in August 1945, torture, murder, rape, and other most inhumane and barbaric atrocities were freely practiced by the Japanese army and navy on prisoners of war and civilians in the occupied territories. “Crimes against humanity” was the appellation of these crimes. The term had first emerged in World War I in connection with Turkish atrocities against Armenians. It was defined as in the four-nation London Charter on which the IMT at Nuremberg was based as “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed before or during the war, or persecutions on political or racial grounds. These crimes, mainly against the civilian population, ‘“were punishable under international law only insofar”’ as they were committed in connection with war crimes. At Tokyo the prosecutors, following the fifty-five-count indictment, defined the notion of crimes against humanity ‘“as resulting from illegal warfare confined to aggressive attacks or in violation of treaties when the nations attacked were at peace with Japan.”’ “Japan ratified the 1907 Hague Convention IV, but did not ratify the 1929 Geneva Convention. However, the fact remains that, under customary rules of war as recognized by all civilized nations, all prisoners of war and civilian interns must be treated humanely. The Tokyo court made this principle clear in its judgment: ‘“It is the grossly inhumane treatment by the Japanese military that is particularly reprehensible and criminal. A person guilty of such treatment cannot escape punishment on the grounds that he or his or her government is not bound by any convention. The general principles of the law exist independently of those conventions. These conventions merely reaffirm the general principles of the pre-existing law and provide for the general rules of their application.”’ “Your Honor, among the crimes against humanity at the expense of the Japanese leadership, those committed against the civilian population in the occupied territories occupy a prominent place. In 1937, Hirohito gave his approval to the decision of the Japanese army to conquer Nanking, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians in this Chinese city.

“In the final months of the war, the forces of the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Navy bombed civilian populations in major cities such as Shanghai, Soochow, Nanking, Hsuchow, Chongqing, and Changsha in China, as well as Manila in the Philippines, Myitkyina (Burma), Dimi (Timor). These cities had no defense. It can be assumed that the Japanese air raids were only intended to terrorize and massacre the civilian population since there were no manufacturing facilities in these settlements. “While Asian peoples were the main victims of these crimes against humanity, Western prisoners of war received similar or even worse treatment. According to the Bushido code, surrender is the ultimate disgrace. As a result, Western prisoners of war lost all right to proper treatment. More than ten thousand Americans died during the Bataan Death March in the Philippines as well as 100,000 men, including 16,000 Commonwealth soldiers during the construction of Burma’s death line. The hell ships used by the Japanese to move prisoners in appalling conditions had no reports and were attacked by submarines or Allied aviation. Cases of anthropophagy were reported, the ultimate step in the dehumanization of the adversary. It was discovered after the war that several hundred thousand prisoners or civilians had died. These prisoners were used as guinea pigs for research or other experiments. “As the judgment of the Japanese dignitaries at the Tokyo trial states, ‘“the merciless execution of prisoners, by shooting, beheading, drowning, and other means, the death marches during which even sick prisoners were forced to travelling long distances in conditions that even well-trained troops would not have endured, many of those who failed being executed or bayoneted by the guards, forced labor in unprotected tropical heat against the sun, the total lack of housing and medical supplies resulting in thousands of deaths from illness, beatings and torture of any kind to obtain information and confessions or for minor crimes, execution without trial prisoners captured for escape or attempted escape, execution without trial of captured airmen and even cannibalism, these are some of the atrocities the court has gathered.”’ “And the judgment continued, ‘“The comparison of the number of prisoners of war who died due to the lack of food and medical supplies in the European theatre and in the Pacific shows the extent of these atrocities. In Europe, out of the 235,473 British and American soldiers captured by the Nazis; 9,438 or 4 percent died in captivity. In the Pacific theatre, of the 132, 134 Americans and British taken prisoner by the Japanese, 35,756, or 27 percent died in captivity.”’

JAPANESE ATROCITIES: UNIT 731

“Established in 1925 by imperial mandate, Unit 731 was a military bacteriological research unit of the Imperial Japanese Army. Under the leadership of Gen. Shirō Ishii, this special army unit conducted bacteriological warfare experiments and vivisections of death-row inmates and prisoners of war near Harbin, Manchuria. These experiments, such as vivisections, were carried out on human guinea pigs without anesthesia for research on various diseases such as plague, typhus, and cholera, with a view to using them as bacteriological weapons during the Second World War. “Bacteriological weapons produced by this unit were used against the Soviets in 1939 and especially against the Chinese from 1940 to 1945. Operated on orders from the Chief of the Army Staff, Prince Kan’in Kotohito or Generals Hajime Sugiyama and Yoshijirō Umezu, the unit’s activities were known at the highest level of the government. Takahito Mikasa, Hirohito’s younger brother, refers to it in his personal diary. Prince Tsuneyoshi Takeda, cousin of the emperor, visited the facilities as an officer of the Guandong Army. “Located in Beiyinhe in 1931, Wuchang Municipality, and from 1936 in Pingfang, two towns near the city of Harbin in Manchuria, this unit carried out its experiments on prisoners, mostly Korean, Chinese, and Russian, including women and children provided by the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police. As the empire’s expansion campaign expanded, more units were added to conquer cities such as Nanjing (Unit 1664), Beijing (Unit 1855), Qiqihar (Unit 516), Xinjing, Canton (Unit 8604), and Singapore (Unit 9420). “Shirō Ishii and his team began their experiments on humans in 1932. The first guinea pigs were prisoners sentenced to death and held in Harbin prison or resistance fighters captured by the Kempeitai. The victims were also Chinese soldiers, Communist Russians held in the Hogoin camp, intellectuals, workers guilty of agitation, or simply individuals suspected of disloyalty. With the relocation of the unit to Pingfang, beginning in 1936, the experiments extended to the women and children held at the Mukden camp.

“It was a question of testing the limits of the human body on prisoners. For example, atrocities committed by the infamous Japanese Army Unit 731, a bacteriological warfare unit stationed in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang Province, have been revealed in recent historical documents discovered. “These documents, written by Japanese soldiers enlisted in Unit 731, provided an accurate description of how the experiments were performed on human guinea pigs: ‘“Disease strains are implanted in a patient to see what reactions his body will adopt. The plague is injected into his body, and if by some miracle he survives, we will inject leprosy, then cholera, until death comes to deliver him.”’ ‘“The testimony indicated that the atrocious acts against humanity committed by the Japanese invaders constitute an organized crime and, moreover, a state crime,”’ said Jin Shicheng, a researcher at the Museum of Unit 731. “Yoshio Shinozuka, a former member of Unit 731, was one of the very few repentants who testified about the horrors committed by the Japanese army in China. In 1995, during an interview with the correspondent of Libération, Frédérique Amaoua, he said: ‘“At the age of sixteen, in April 1939, I ed the Imperial Army and enrolled in the Young Soldiers Unit. I was assigned to the Army Medical School, located in Toyama, Shinjuku district of Tokyo. At the time of its destruction in 1989, bones of a hundred bodies, many of which bore traces of abuse, were discovered.”’ ‘“The laboratory specializing in bacteriological research and disease prevention was led by a leading bacteriologist, Shirō Ishii. He was the same scientist who created Unit 731 in 1935. He recruited mostly young people between sixteen and eighteen years old. I was almost immediately transferred to Harbin, Manchuria, where the headquarters of the very secret unit 731 was located. At the time, it was not called that way. Officially, it was the department specializing in the prevention of epidemics and the water supply of Japanese troops. Later, it will be called Ishii Unit, Kamo Unit, and finally Unit 731.”’ ‘“I didn’t know at first what this unit was all about. When we arrived, we were told that this place was a special military department, that even Japanese planes were not allowed to fly over it. The instruction, a true internal regulation, could not be clearer: Don’t look, don’t talk or ask for anything. We were also warned against any attempt to escape. It was assured execution.”’

‘“I learned a little later what was going on inside the buildings of Unit 731. Within the camp, there were several departments. The two buildings where bacteriological experiments were carried out on prisoners were very protected. Not many people had access to it. In reality, we could not guess their existence from the outside. In May 1939, as the conflict raged between the Soviet and Japanese armies, there was the Battle of Nomonhan, near the border between Mongolia, Manchuria, and Russia. At that time, my job was to put preparations in test tubes and then put them in a large box. I later found out that these solutions contained bacteria such as typhus, cholera, or dysentery.”’ ‘“In 1940, I was decorated, along with the of the Ikari Unit, with the name of special detachment responsible for the delivery of preparations to the battlefields. Ishii, for his part, obtained the highest distinction of the Ministry of War outsourced to his rank, for the success of his research. By the fall of 1940, the unit was expanding. Five branches were established in northeastern China. In July 1941, I was itted to the virus growing team. We had to test the reactions on the animals and practice vivisections. Then, in 1942, I was provided with the to enter the famous buildings 7 and 8, where the prisoners were being held. We subjected them to the same experiments as animals by exposing them to projectiles laden with bacteria. We analyzed reactions and tested all kinds of vaccines.”’ “Historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Awaya Kentaro, Seiya Matsuno, and Yuki Tanaka found in their research that Hirohito authorized the use of chemical weapons in China by imperial order. During the invasion of Wuhan from August to October 1938, the emperor authorized the use of toxic gases 375 times, in violation of article 171 of the Treaty of Versailles, particularly Article V of the Treaty on the use of submarines and gases asphyxiating in times of war; a resolution adopted by the League of Nations on May 14 condemning Japan’s use of toxic gases. “According to documents found in 2004 by Yoshimi and Yuki Tanaka in the Australian National Archives, toxic gases were tested on Australian and Dutch prisoners in November 1944 in the Kai Islands. “Twenty-four documents written by key of Unit 731, in which information on the experimental work was detailed, were collected in Japan. According to Yang Yanjun, an associate researcher at the Center for Studies on Unit 731 of the Academy of Social Sciences in Harbin, experiments on already known-prisoners often went much further: living people were mummified, they

were injected with horse blood, an arm was torn off so that an animal member could be grafted into it. Sometimes it was vivisection without anesthesia, prolonged exposure to X-rays or atmospheric overpressures, or even boiling while alive or centrifugation of the patient. “In 2006, a Japanese military doctor, Akira Makino, eighty-four, itted to carrying out amputations and vivisections on Filipino prisoners, including children, while stationed in Mindanao, between December 1944 and February 1945. ‘“I would have been executed if I had refused to obey orders. That was the rule at the time,” confessed the veteran of Imperial Navy Unit 33. ‘“We must not repeat these horrors. I have a responsibility to reveal the truth about the war.”’ “According to Makino, vivisections could last between ten minutes and three hours. The limbs were first cut off, then, the organs were removed one by one. Operations were conducted every three days and ceased when American soldiers landed at the end of the war. In 2007, Ken Yuasa, a Japanese doctor who performed vivisections at a military hospital in Shanxi from 1942 to 1945, claimed that at least one thousand Japanese, including doctors, participated in vivisections in China. “According to work published in 2002 by the International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare, the number of people who had died in China as a result of the experiments and use of bacteriological weapons by the Imperial Japanese Army amounts to many thousands. According to historians, about three thousand people used as guinea pigs perished from the research of Unit 731. “On March 26, 1945, Allied troops landed on Tokashiki-jima Island, marking the beginning of the invasion of Okinawa. Japanese civilians were ordered by the General Staff to kill themselves in order to avoid torture by American troops. Two days later, the death toll rose to 329. In the same month, 1,200 children (aged eleven to fourteen) were incorporated into the ‘“Japanese army”’ defense battalions. These minors were all killed by the enemy or by suicide. Okinawa residents who communicated in local dialect and not in standard Japanese were also executed as spies. At the end of the conflict, an estimated one-third of the local population died (between 150,000 and 160,000 people). “On August 9, 1945, the Japanese Army Staff had ordered the destruction of the Pingfan bacteriological research center. More than 400 prisoners died as a result of poisoning their cyanide food or were shot so that no survivors could allow to

testify. The bodies were burned to erase all traces. Cyanide was distributed to the remaining personnel (estimated at 120 people) with the order to commit suicide to avoid being captured by Soviet troops. “On August 9, and 10, 1945, after the invasion of Manchuria and Korea by the Soviet Army, the Japanese army of Kwantung, on the orders of its commander, Sadayoshi Yamada, destroyed the archives of Unit 731. All detainees were killed and six hundred local Chinese workers were executed with machine guns. “Shirō Ishii gave direct orders to destroy all the buildings before the arrival of the Russians. A brigade of sappers blew up Pingfang’s headquarters in order to erase the evidence of the experiments. Pingfang staff were evacuated to Korea, south of Seoul. Each had received a dose of poison, so that they could commit suicide in case of capture by the Soviets. A plague epidemic after the departure of the Japanese resulted in the death of about 20,000 Chinese. In total, about 500,000 people were killed as a result of anthrax, cholera, or plague germs that Unit 731 had spread over nearby villages. “Due to a 1946 pact between Gen. MacArthur and Hirohito, the officers of Unit 731 did not appear in court in Tokyo. In exchange, the United States received from Shirō Ishii all the results of the tests conducted at Unit 731 for total impunity. However, of the unit were convicted by the Soviets at a trial in Khabarovsk in 1949.” A total silence filled the courtroom. Emotion reached its height when the rapporteur touched on another chapter in the report on the use of women as sex slaves during the war.

THE USE OF WOMEN AS SEX SLAVES

Your Honor, the use of women as sex slaves is another sad page in the history of Japan’s war against neighboring countries in the Pacific. A total of 200,000 Asians, mostly Korean and Chinese, were used in Japanese military brothels between 1930 and 1945. These sex slaves, often minors, were victims of a vast network of kidnappings organized across Asia by the Japanese Imperial Army and the Navy. The aim was therefore to ensure the permanent availability of a sufficient number of prostitutes in the service of Japanese soldiers. “As soon the war ended, the world was shocked to discover that the Japanese leadership had also sanctioned the use of those women in conquered territories as prostitutes for the gratification of Japanese troops. “These women were forced into sexual slavery and some 200,000 of those victims had been abducted or sold to brothels favored by Japanese troops. Women from Taiwan, the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia, Burma, and Holland had been taken captive and repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers. ‘“Sometimes twelve soldiers would force me to have sex with them, and then they would allow me to rest for a while, then about twelve soldiers would have sex with me again,”’ a Filipino woman said. ‘“You cannot say no as they will definitely kill you. During the morning, you have a guard. You are free to roam around the garrison, but you cannot get out,”’ confessed the same woman. “Under the orders of Hajime Sugiyama, minister of the army, and Prince Kan’in Kotohito, chief of staff and great-uncle of Hirohito, the army set up houses in occupied areas known as “relaxing centers” or “comfort houses,” similar to those established in 1932 during the Shanghai campaign by Gen. Yasuji Okamura. Lieut.-Gen. Yasuji Okamura called for the creation in Shanghai of the first ‘“comfort station”’ for naval troops, an initiative immediately taken over by the Imperial Army. These brothels run either by the army or navy, or by local governments or private individuals, were officially named comfort stations where about ten or fifteen women engaged in forced prostitution. Often barracks, these brothels were between 1,500 and 2,000, spread throughout occupied Asia, including the Pacific Islands.

“The military police (Kempeitai) ensured recruitment by generally forcing village chiefs in the occupied territories to group all young women and prosecuted those designated volunteers who escaped. The women recruited were generally single and often minors. They came from Japan, Philippines, Indochina, Burma, Netherlands Indies, Singapore, Korea, and China. With conditions of life akin to slavery, women were often beaten, tortured, or even mutilated by soldiers. Some of them were even executed because the soldier was not satisfied. Others who tried to escape were murdered. “We will never know the exact numbers from the Rape of Nanking. However, it is certain that tens of thousands of Chinese women were raped, and an estimate of 300,000 persons had been killed. “On November 29, 1937, Japanese army doctor Hosaka Akira wrote in his pocket journal, ‘“As soon as we cleaned out the enemy in Chang Chou, at noon, we entered the town,”’ Akira added: ‘“An order was received to kill the residents and eighty of them, men and women of all ages, were shot to death. I hope this will be the last time I’ll never witness such a scene. The people were all gathered in one place. They were all praying, crying, and begging for help. I just couldn’t bear watching such a pitiful spectacle. Soon the heavy machine guns opened fire and the sight of those people screaming and falling to the ground is one I could not face even if I had the heart of a monster.”’ “The work of Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a professor at the University of Cho, established that from 1938 to 1945, the Japanese army had constituted about 2,000 comfort houses, including one thousand women’s lament centers in Guangdong, for an army of 100,000 men. A directive of March 4, 1938, issued by the warrant officer of the Chiefs of Staff of the Army of North China and the Expeditionary Force of China on the recruitment of women for military comfort houses, states that ‘“the armies on the ground will control women.”’ “The executives received a share of the price of the es. Quite often women received nothing, although remuneration was provided for by the regulations of the Japanese army. These regulations also prohibited weapons and alcohol. Japanese leaders set operating rules, such as opening hours from 9:00 a.m. to midnight, daily, days off (two days a month during menstruation).

“In his book The Emperor’s Army: Violence and Crimes of Japan at War 1937– 1945, the French historian Jean-Louis Margolin describes the activities in a comfort house: ‘“It was the lines of soldiers waiting their turn, pants already down, the mattresses filthy slaughter in the mobile stations of the front, lack of privacy, military condoms of the brand ‘“Attack!”’ repeated venereal diseases [some soldiers refused the condom, despite the regulations], sometimes abortions, the beatings and threats of some soldiers and, more systematically, brothel bosses…”’ “Kim Bok-dong was among the young women hired as sex slaves. She was collecting tickets donated by the soldiers. She described the situation in which she found herself as a forced prostitute: ‘“We promised to improve our conditions once Japan won the war, but we received no wages. We were just sometimes provided with clothes, cosmetics, and food. On weekdays, we served an average of fifteen Japanese soldiers a day. On Saturday, they began to line up from noon. And it lasted until 8:00 p.m. On Sundays, it was from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., again, a long line. I didn’t get a chance to count them. My vagina was so painful and swollen that they had to put cream on the condom.”’ “Jean-Louis Margolin asks the question: would comfort women be ‘“forced workers among many others,”’ communes, prostitutes, or even venal women as the Japanese Nationalists protest? Historian Pierre-François Souyri speaks of a ‘“state slavery.”’ The rapporteur casted a brief glance at the jury and then continued, “Your Honor, the facts were certainly known at the time of the Tokyo trial, but the case was largely ignored, as this sexual violence against women was not recognized as war crimes in its own right. Women of ‘“comfort”’ were considered Japanese subjects. The Tokyo court and other courts established to try Japanese war criminals ignored their enslavement by Japanese soldiers. The Tokyo trials considered sexual violence to be ordinary war crimes in the same way as murders and kidnappings. It was not until the mobilization of Korean survivors under the leadership of Kim Hak-soon and those of other Asian countries during the 1990s that an International Opinion Tribunal opened in Tokyo from December 8 to December 12, 2000, VAWW-NET (Violence Against Women in War Network) initiative to try those responsible and consider reparations. The Japanese chapter of VAWW-NET came up with the idea of creating this tribunal at the end of the international conference ‘“Violence

Against Women in War”’ (VAWW) which brought together in Tokyo in 1997 about forty women from twenty countries around the world. The conference was the result of lively debates on atrocities committed against women in armed conflict and the eradication of such crimes, echoing international awareness of such violence following the events of Yugoslavia. “The 1997 conference recognized that the absence of repression of sexual violence in times of war was one of the main causes of their repetition, and that it was therefore essential to put an end to the vicious cycle generated by the denial of these crimes. Already, on February 7, 1994, Kang Duk-kyung and other Korean victims filed a criminal complaint in the Tokyo District Court. The prosecutor, however, refused to treat her. This fact motivated the creation in 1998 of the association VAWW-NET, which, thanks to the determination of its leader Kang Duk-kyung, proposed the establishment of an International Opinion Tribunal. The rapporteur observed another pause and continued, “The international community, aware of the verdict of this International Opinion Tribunal, particularly recognized that the problem of ‘“comfort women”’ was a serious violation of human rights and became aware of the importance of victims to have their dignity restored. In 1993, the final report presented by Theo Van Boven, special rapporteur of the Subcommittee on Combating Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, provided an essential starting point for citizens’ movements in Asia in search for solutions to the ‘“comfort women”’ issue. This report specifies that: ‘“Each state has an obligation to reparation for the victims of gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The aim of reparation and compensation for victims is to alleviate their suffering, to do them justice by eliminating and correcting as much as possible the consequences of these violations, to prevent and eradicate these violations. Reparations must meet the needs and wishes of victims and must include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and assurance that these violations will not recur. Reparations for certain gross human rights violations are subject to international laws that propose sanctions. The report then provides guidance on reparations for victims, specifying the content of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, and victim satisfaction, in proportion to the severity of the damage suffered.”’

“The World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna in 1993, recognized that violations of women’s human rights in situations of armed conflict violated the founding principles of human rights and humanitarian law. In 1995, the action plan adopted at the Beijing World Conference on Women specified that violence against women in armed conflict constitutes war crimes, and urged the countries concerned to carry out full investigations for compensate victims and apologize properly, and ensure that criminals are prosecuted. “On August 4, 1993, the statement by Kōno Yōhei, secretary-general of the Japanese Prime Minister’s Office, caused a bombshell in Japan and the rest of the world. Kōno said, ‘“Although the Japanese government had repeatedly denied responsibility for the Imperial Army, it is time for Japan to accept that the army had been involved in recruiting these women against their will and in the need of the center comfort.”’ He therefore made his ‘“sincere apologies”’ and ‘“regrets.”’ The rapporteur continued, “In 1995, two years after Kōno’s Declaration, the Japanese government created the “National Fund for Asian Women” to compensate victims from private funds. Many Korean and Taiwanese victims refused the money, saying the private fund was clearing the Japanese state of its legal responsibility for the forced prostitution system. This government fund was dissolved in 2007, however voices continued to call for justice for the victims. “In 1998, Miss Gay J. McDougall, special rapporteur of a Working Group on Systematic Rape and Sexual Slavery under the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Protection of Minorities of the Commission on the Rights of Women presented his ‘“Latest Report on Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery, and Similar Practices in Times of Armed Conflict.”’ The report stressed the need to break the vicious cycle generated by the lack of repression of sexual violence committed in wartime. And in the appendix, the report noted the Japanese government’s legal responsibility to ‘“comfort women.”’ The report urged the authorities to punish those responsible and compensate the victims. “Your Honor, as Miss Gay said, to explain the ‘“reasons for being”’ of an International Opinion Tribunal on legal responsibility for the system of forced prostitution set up by the Japanese army during the war in the Pacific, this

‘“International Tribunal of Opinion on War Crimes Against Women”’ has important significance for victims. First, it responds to the wishes of many survivors to be judged by those responsible for the comfort center system. For survivors, meeting this demand is an essential step in restoring the dignity of victims, and, in order to achieve this goal, the comfort center system must be formally and legally recognized as criminal activities. The complainants themselves told the court, ‘“We are neither women of shame or women without honor. We are victims of sexual violence. And we want those who forced us into slavery to be judged.”’ ‘“We came to tell the truth. We came here to get justice!”’ The rapporteur continued, “Your Honor, apart from the use of women as sex slaves, drug trafficking was another large-scale crime committed by the Japanese authorities during the war.”

THE DRUG TRAFFICKING

“Drug trafficking was another weapon used by Japan during the war. Indeed, the Japanese organized an opium trade throughout Asia to weaken China and other occupied territories. There is tangible evidence that the high dignitaries of the Imperial Court took control of the drug trade and used it as a means of ‘“dumbing down”’ enemy forces. Indeed, the large-scale opium trade was one of the charges against the accused at the Tokyo trial. Chinese deputy prosecutor, Hsiang Che-chun, in his indictment, developed the opium monopoly controlled by the Japanese army in Manchuria. In China, the Japanese empire had established a monopoly on the sale of opium, which it encouraged the production, and consumption of, with the dual objective of financing the occupation and weakening the resilience of Chinese people. Hsiang showed how farmers in Mongolia had been encouraged to grow poppy fields for Japanese services whose profits were intended to finance the Asia Development Board. According to the prosecutor, as early as December 1932, the Bank of Japan had launched a large loan secured by the profits of the opium monopoly. To encourage this trafficking, Mitsui and Mitsubishi imported large quantities of opium from Korea and even Iran. “In mainland China, according to the court’s ruling, two hundred processing plants were operating in T’ien-Tsin, under Japanese occupation. The Tokyo judgment reveals that in 1939, 90 percent of the heroin consumed in the world was of Japanese origin. This drug trafficking was in contravention of international commitments to combat drug abuse. “Your Honor, the crimes committed by Hirohito and his army during the Second World War could not be counted because of the destruction of the archives by Japanese soldiers. Unlike the crimes committed by the Nazis on the European continent to terrorize the population of the annexed countries, we cite the use of concentration camps, the use of gas chambers, and famine, these criminal actions were long time detailed details at the Nuremberg trial. On the other hand, the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in Asian countries are not well documented and it is as the archives begin to reveal the extent of the crimes committed by Japanese troops in the territories busy. In addition to the

massacres, are the beheading shall beheaded captured airmen, the death marches, the construction of the Burma-Siam Railway, the torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and civilian internees (vivisection, inhumane conditions of transport by sea, excessive and illegal punishments, humiliations), and the murder of survivors of ships sunk by submarines. “One of the main means used by the Japanese to terrorize the population of the occupied countries was the use of camps where prisoners were interned until their death. These camps were set up by the Japanese army with the agreement of the government. In these detention centers, all persons who had opposed the empire or who carried out activities detrimental to the Japanese authorities were imprisoned without trial. With the of a secret police force, the internment camps eventually became places of organized and methodical extermination, in which millions of internees were murdered. “In the istration of the occupied territories, the camps were used to destroy all opposition groups. It was where those arrested by the army military police, known as Kempeitai, were usually interned. In many cases, these arbitrarily detained persons were sent there in convoy, without any care being taken of. Many died on the way. Deportees who reached the camp were subjected to treatment of systematic cruelty. They were forced to do exhausting physical work, food, clothes, housing, everything was insufficient. They were, on an ongoing basis, the victims of a rigorous and mind-numbing regime, as well as the whims of their guards. “The primary purpose of these camps was the organization of forced labor. They were mainly used, through the methods used with regard to prisoners, to suppress human lives. Famine rations, sadistic ill-treatment, inadequate clothing, lack of medical care, illness, beatings, hangings, cold death, forced suicides, executions, etc., played a significant role in achieving this result. Prisoners were murdered for no reason, murders of prisoners out of hatred were frequent, poison injections and executions in the neck were daily. Epidemics of typhoid and typhus, which spread freely, were used as a means of eliminating prisoners. Human life meant nothing in these camps. Murder had become an ordinary thing, so ordinary that all these unfortunates wished a quick death. Chinese or Korean prisoners, in particular, were all forced to work in inhuman and degrading conditions. Sick or unable to work inmates were either killed or sent to special infirmaries where they were not receiving medical care, they received food even worse than that of the prisoners who worked and were allowed to die

there. “The Tokyo court judgment describes with careful precision the various forms of torture inflicted on prisoners of war and civilian internees in Japan in the occupied territories. Page 1062 of the judgment reads. ‘“It ranges from the torment of water to electric burns and shocks, from kneeling on sharp objects, to tearing nails. The whip was the most common cruelty inflicted on prisoners of war and internees in labor camps, Kempeitai centers, and prison ships. Special instruments were used such as sticks the size of baseball bats. On some occasions, prisoners have been forced to beat their fellow inmates under the supervision of the guards. The prisoners suffered internal injuries, fractures and lacerations. On several occasions, the victims were beaten to the point of unconsciousness and revived and beaten again to death.”’ “These crimes against prisoners of war are already appalling, but further evidence shows in the southeast of the Asian continent, notably in China, Korea, Vietnam, Indochina, and Burma cruelties and mass executions were committed on the innocent civilian population to suppress opposition and resistance to Japanese forces. In the occupied territories, these crimes were part of a plan designed to impose Japanese hegemony through expulsion or extermination. An order prepared by the Imperial Japanese Army High Staff stated: ‘“Given the extent of the territories occupied by Japan in the Pacific and the Asian continent, the forces available to ensure security in these territories will only suffice if any resistance is punished, not by legal prosecutions of the guilty, but by sufficient measures of terror to take away from the population any desire to resist. Unit commanders must be able to maintain order by applying appropriate draconian measures.”’ “The Imperial Japanese Army had widely used torture against its prisoners. A former Japanese officer who served in China, Uno Sintaro, said: ‘“One of the essential means of obtaining information was the interrogation of prisoners. Torture was an inevitable necessity. Killing the victims and burying them is a natural consequence. You do it because you don’t want it to be discovered. I believed and acted that way because I was convinced of what I was doing. We were doing our duty as we had been taught. We have done so for the sake of our country. Because of our subsidiary obligations to our ancestors. On

the battlefield, we never considered the Chinese to be human beings. When you are the winner, the losers seem really miserable. We concluded that the Yamato (i.e. Japanese) ethnic group was superior.”’ The rapporteur added, “In September 1942, Hirohito signed an imperial ordinance sentencing American lieutenants Dean E. Mark and William G. Farrow, as well as soldiers Harold A. Spatz and L. Hite to death. All these soldiers took part in the Doolittle raid. George Barr and captured corporal Jacob Daniel DeShazer were sentenced to life imprisonment. On the morning of December 7, 1941, Imperial Japanese Navy forces attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This attack was one of Hirohito’s most criminal acts. The Japanese sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship and an anti-mine vessel. They destroyed 180 American aircraft. During the attacks, 2,403 American soldiers were killed, while another 1,178 were wounded. “Between the invasion of China in 1937 and the end of World War II in 1945, the Japanese military regime murdered nearly thirty million people, in China, Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, Burma, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Indochina, including Western prisoners of war.” The rapporteur took a pause to look at the audience and then continued, “Your Honor, it is regrettable, that the atrocities committed by the Japanese, particularly the serious human rights violations of Unit 731, were not detailed at the Tokyo trial. It had been the same for the crimes of cannibalism. “The Australian corporal Bill Hedges who was among the first into an abandoned camp in New Guinea revealed: ‘“The Japanese had cannibalized our wounded and dead soldiers. We found them with meat stripped off their legs and half-cooked meat in the Japanese dishes. It was heartily disgusted and disappointed to see my good friend lying there, with the flesh stripped off his arms and legs; his uniform torn off him. We found dumps with rice and a lot timed food. So, they weren’t starving and having to eat flesh because they were hungry.”’ “Historian Chalmers Johnson wrote that: ‘“Establishing which of the two Axis aggressors, or Japan, was the most brutal of the peoples they martyred during the Second World War is

meaningless. The Germans killed six million Jews and twenty million Russians (i.e., Soviet citizens); the Japanese massacred as many as thirty million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians, and Burmese, of whom at least twenty-three million were ethnically Chinese. These two countries plundered the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, even if Japan stole more, and over a longer period, than the Nazis. The two conquerors enslaved millions of people and exploited them as forced labor and, in the case of the Japanese, as prostitutes (by force) for the front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war in the hands of the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada (but not Russia), your chances of not surviving the war were 4 percent; in comparison, the death rate for Japanese-hand prisoners of war was close to 30 percent.”’ “According to the historian, between 1937 and 1945, the Japanese ‘“killed between three million and ten million people, presumably six million Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Indo-Chinese among others, including prisoners of war Western.”’ This ‘“democide”’ was due to a political and military strategy in moral bankruptcy, and it was also military habits as well as military culture. Rummel argued that, in China alone, the direct consequences of the invasion were that between 1937 and 1945 approximately 3.9 million Chinese, mostly civilians, were directly exterminated by the policies of the Shōwa regime and 10.2 million of civilians died from indirect causes of the invasion.” The rapporteur consulted his notes again and added, “Your Honor, allow us for a moment to compare the war crimes committed by the Nazis in Europe with those committed by the Japanese in Asia. In Nuremberg, the systematic policy of looting and destruction of the Germans in the annexed territories was recounted in detail. In Tokyo, in order to protect Hirohito, we hid the details. Yet there is a huge similarity in the practice adopted by the Germans in Europe and the war technique adopted by the Japanese in Asia. The two countries, and Japan, used almost the same formula to plunder the resources of the countries occupied during the Second World War. We have seen the exact repetition of the same scenes of abuse and violence in the territories occupied by the two countries, or even worse actions on the part of the Japanese. “In eastern countries, particularly in Russia, the situation was dramatic.

“During the occupation of the eastern regions, the German High Command under Hitler’s orders systematically applied looting and destruction. On Soviet territory, Nazi soldiers destroyed and damaged 1,710 towns and more than 70,000 villages and hamlets, more than 6,000,000 buildings and left 25,000,000 people homeless. Among the cities that suffered the most from the destruction are Stalingrad, Sevastopol, Kiev, Minsk, Odessa, Smolensk, Novgorod, Pskov, Orel, Krakow, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Stalino and Leningrad. In a highly secret order from the Chief of the Naval Staff No. 1601/41, on September 29, 1941, and addressed only to staff officers, it says, ‘“Hitler decided to erase St. Petersburg from the surface of the earth, the existence of this great city will no longer have any interest after the destruction of Soviet Russia. We must invade this city and destroy it with artillery barrages, with cannons of all calibers, as well as by prolonged aerial bombardments.”’ “The Germans destroyed 427 museums. Among them are the museums of Leningrad, Smolensk, Stalingrad, Novgorod, Poltava and others. Works of art from the Rostov Museum, which had been transported to Pyatigorsk, were seized. Losses suffered by the mining industry in the Stalino region in the region of Stalino in the region are estimated at two billion rubles. There were colossal destructions of industrial establishments in Makeevka, Carlovka, Yenakiieve, Konstantinovka, Marioupol, from where most of the machinery and factories were removed.” “On January 29, 1940, Rosenberg was appointed by Hitler as director of the National Socialist Research Center for Ideology and Education.” Subsequently, the organization known as the “Einsatzstab Rosenberg” began to carry out largescale operations. Initially intended to create a research library, it later became a company for the seizure of all cultural treasures. On March 1, 1942, Hitler issued another decree authorizing Rosenberg to search libraries, Masonic lodges and intellectual institutions. The director had to seize interesting documents, valuables belonging to or in the possession of Jews, as well as those that did not have an owner or whose origin could not be clearly established.” “This decree required the cooperation of the Military High Command and specified that Rosenberg’s work to the west should be carried out by him as Reichsleiter, and, to the east, as Reichsminister. Thus, Rosenberg’s activities extended to the occupied territories, and Robert Scholz, Head of the Special Service for Works of Art, stated in his report. During the period from March 1941 to July 1944, the Special Service for Works of Art led twenty-nine large

convoys to comprising a hundred and thirty-seven freight cars and 474 crates containing art objects.” “Scholz’s report refers to twenty-five albums of engravings from the most important art collections captured in the west, which were offered to the Führer. Thirty-nine volumes, bound in leather and prepared by the Einssatztab, contained photographs of paintings, fabrics, furniture, candlesticks and many other art objects, and showed the value and importance of the raids. In many occupied territories, private collections were confiscated, libraries and private homes completely stripped.” “Museums, palaces and libraries were systematically looted in Russia. Rosenberg’s Einsatzstab, von Ribbentrop’s special “battalion,” the Reich commissioners and of military commands, seized objects of cultural and historical value belonging to the population of the Soviet Union, and then sent to . The Reich Commissioner for Ukraine removed paintings and art from Kiev and Kharkov and sent them to East Prussia. Rare volumes and art objects from the palaces of Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk were taken to . In his letter to Rosenberg on October 3, 1941, Reich Kube Commissioner said that the value of the art objects abducted in Belarus amounted to millions of rubles. A letter from Rosenberg’s services to von MildeSchreden said that in October 1943 alone, about forty cars full of art were directed to the Reich, which shows the extent of this plunder.” “On December 1, 1939, Himmler, in his capacity as commissioner of the Reich for the “strengthening of Germanism,” issued a decree addressed to the regional officers of the secret police in the eastern annexed territories and to the heads of the Radom Security Service, Warsaw and Lublin. This decree contained istrative guidelines for the implementation of the art seizure program, and its first article reads.” “To strengthen Germanism, all the objects mentioned in paragraph 2 of the decree are now confiscated… They are confiscated for the good of the German Reich and are at the disposal of the Commissioner of the Reich for the strengthening of Germanism.” “Later, the Nuremberg prosecution stated: “The aim of the seizure of these objects was not to shelter them, but to enrich

. The evidence still results in this age from an undated report by Dr. Hans Posse, director of the National Gallery of Dresden.” “I had the opportunity to gain some knowledge of the public and private collections, as well as the Church’s properties, which are located in Krakow and Warsaw. It is true that we cannot expect to enrich ourselves too much by acquiring great works of art - paintings and sculptures - with the exception of the altar of Viet Stoss and s by Hans von Kulmbach in the Church of Our Lady in Krakow… and several other works from the National Museum in Warsaw.” “Kiev presents a typical case of large-scale theft and destruction of industrial, cultural and other property. More than four million books, periodicals and manuscripts (many of which were extremely valuable and even unique), as well as a large number of works of art of all kinds of values were stolen and taken away.” “Many valuable works of art were removed from Riga.” “The extent of looting in the cultural field is attested by the fact that a hundred thousand volumes of value and seventy cases of ancient periodicals and precious monographs were removed by Rosenberg’s staff.” “Examples of these crimes include the unreasoned devastation of the city of Novgorod and numerous historical and artistic monuments. The unreasoned devastation and looting of the city of Rovno and its province. The destruction of industrial, cultural and other property in Odessa, the destruction of towns and villages in Soviet Karelia, the destruction of cultural, industrial and other buildings in Estonia.” “The Germans attacked with particular hatred the cultural monuments dear to the Soviet people. They divided the estate of the poet Pushkin in Mikhaylovskoe, desecrating his tomb and destroying the villages as well as the monastery of Svyatogor.” “They destroyed the property and museum of Leo Tolstoy, “Yasnaya Polyana” and desecrated the tomb of the great writer. They destroyed the Tchaikovsky Museum in Klin and the Repine Museum of the Painter Penalty and many other art centers. The Nazis destroyed 1,670 Orthodox churches, 137 Catholic churches, sixty-seven chapels and 532 synagogues.”

“They unreasonably desecrated and destroyed the most valuable monuments of the Christian Church, such as Kiev, Pecherskaya, Lavra, Novi-Jerusalem in the Istrine region, and the oldest monasteries and churches. Destruction in Estonia of cultural, industrial, and other institutions, the burning of several thousand residential homes, the theft of 10,000 works of art, the destruction of medical and prophylactic institutes. Looting and transferring huge quantities of agricultural resources to , including horses, cows, pigs, poultry, hives and agricultural machinery of all kinds.” “This policy of looting and destruction led to the devastation of Soviet territory and its complete ruin.” “The total value of the material losses suffered by the USSR is estimated at 679 billion rubles according to official calculations in 1941.” “After the occupation of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, the Germans seized and stole a huge quantity of raw materials: copper, tin, iron, cotton, and food products, transported a large stock of rolling stock, numerous locomotives, wagons, steamboats, and trolleybuses, stripped libraries, laboratories and museums of art, books, paintings, art, scientific equipment, and furniture. They stole all of Czechoslovakia’s gold reserves and foreign exchange, including 23,000 kilograms of gold with a face value of 5,265,000 pounds, and fraudulently acquired control of Czech banks and many companies which they then plundered. They stole and diverted Czechoslovakian public and private property. The total amount of economic plunder carried out in Czechoslovakia, from 1938 to 1945, by the Nazis, is estimated at 200 billion Czechoslovakian crowns.” The rapporteur took a time to get his mind in order and then continued, “Your Honor, we have detailed extensively the abuses of the Nazis in the annexed territories, particularly in the Soviet and Czech territories. The question is why we made this opening. We did this in order to compare the atrocities committed by the Germans on the European continent and the war crimes committed by the Japanese on the Asian continent. Indeed, unlike the Nazis, the criminal actions committed by Japanese troops were so numerous that it is impossible to list them all. We decide to list some of them. “Confessions of Japanese war criminals published online by the National

Archives Office of China to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War II, reveal that Japanese soldiers tortured civilians, for pleasure, during the World War II. The Chinese Archives istration published fortyfive confessions of Japanese war criminals during World War II. Lt. Gen. Nosuke Sasaki arrived in China in September 1932, he confessed to committing horrific crimes and killing countless Chinese soldiers and civilians. “In his confession written in March 1945, Sasaki confessed to committing immense crimes in China. He said his men had killed 3,500 Chinese soldiers during the Battle of Xiangfan, Hubei. He also ordered the massacre of 200 Chinese civilians, and authorized the rape of fifty Chinese women, and the burning of 200 houses. Sasaki also ordered the artillery to send gas-laden shells against the Chongqing army. “Advanced teams were particularly cruel and killed a lot of people. Many Chinese have been reduced to forced labor. They were abused and beaten. It was not uncommon for Japanese soldiers to rape Chinese women. As soon as the Japanese soldiers arrived, they plundered the grain like locusts. The arable land was seized, nothing was left to the villagers. It was the result of Japanese politics: ‘“burn everything, kill everything, plunder everything.”’ “Gen. Sasaki’s troops also published newspapers and established Japanese schools in Hubei Province. Japanese soldiers spread rumors that Japan would triumph over China, and only those who ed the Nanjing government would gain happiness. ‘“It was a fisherman, a cultural invasion. The Propaganda team of the Infantry Regiment created a propaganda of total deception. The Japanese military physically mistreated the Chinese people and killed thousands of people. I confess to ordering them to commit these crimes.”’ “In his written confession, Sasaki confessed in October 1940 to the execution of about 600 prisoners of war of the Chongqing army in Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province. Forty were also seriously injured. Sasaki also confessed to enslaving Chinese women into sexual slavery while stationed in Dangyang, Hubei Province. Sasaki was arrested by the Soviet Army on August 23, 1945 and tried by a special military court in China. “Soichi Nakajima, who participated in the 1932 Japanese Invasion of China War

in China’s Heilongjiang Province, said in writing that he had tortured a Russian woman, and, in his ission, he its to having found pleasure in doing so. “During the prisoner’s interrogation, he tied her to a bench and forced her to drink the dirty water from her bath until the woman’s stomach was swollen. He then pressed her belly so that she vomited. This is how he repeated his torture. ‘“I even went to her cell, watched her hold her swollen belly and found pleasure in it,”’ Sasaki wrote in his confessions. “Another time, when a captured Chinese man was beheaded, Soichi Nakajima took the victim’s brain and burned him, before eating it as a medicine for a venereal disease.” The rapporteur observed a pause to drink a sip of water and continued. “Your Honor, Hirohito is guilty of coordinating and authorizing as emperor the actions of the principals convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, crimes reported in the judgment of November 12, 1948, and particularly mass crimes against the Chinese and Korean population during the Second World War. “From the comfort women in Unit 731 to the Nanjing Massacre, we mention several million people who were victims of the Imperial Japanese Army. On the verge of losing the war in the early months of 1945, the Japanese army simply lost the map and became out of control. This behavior has long been adopted by the Japanese military but has worsened as the war continues. The mass execution of prisoners of war and civilians was an integral part of operations and planning. The Tenth Army used gas during the Nanjing invasion and the whole thing was planned as an integral part of the operation. Many Chinese are burned alive during the siege of the city. In Nakajima’s diary, between December 11 and 13, 1937, he had to coordinate the obtaining of several trucks to transport the prisoners to graves capable of accommodating seven or eight thousand corpses. “For example, in December 15 of the same year, Japanese troops from the SixtyFifth Regiment identified several divisions fleeing the city of Nanjing. They were pursued to Mufushan and taken to the T’sao-hsieh-hsia waterfront area where they were massacred between December 17, and 18. A Japanese soldier reports that his unit killed 13,500 men but that his conversations with the other units lead him to believe that about 70,000 men were massacred on the Yangtze.

“On the Chinese front, in November and December 1943, during the battle for the capture of Changde, Hunan Province, the Japanese army had used extensively the toxic gases supplied by Unit 516, after spreading the plague within a radius of thirty-six miles with bacteriological bombs. The Japanese dropped aerial bombs filled with sawdust and plague infected fleas over population centers. This was partly a test of the weapon’s effectiveness. “When the bomb casings split open in the air, the fleas fell unharmed to the ground and began biting people, infecting their blood with a strain of yersinia pestis that had been bred for greater virulence by being ed through multiple generations of Chinese and Korean prisoners.” “The Chinese government now estimates that this one attack may have killed nearly 60,000 people in the weeks following the drop. “More than 8,000 Chinese soldiers died in clashes between Japanese forces commanded by Isamu Yokoyama and Chinese troops commanded by Yu Chengwan. According to Witold Urbanowicz, a Polish airman engaged in the fighting, a total of 300,000 civilians and soldiers lost their lives during the Battle of Changde. “The invasion of Chongqing (China), in accordance to a directive from Hirohito in 1938, is further evidence of the atrocities of the Imperial Japanese Army against Chinese soldiers and the civilian population. A strategic bombing campaign was conducted by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service against the industrial and commercial facilities in Chongqing, which became the provisional capital of the Republic of China after the capture of Nanjing. The bombardment lasted from February 18, 1938, to August 23, 1943, during which time more than 3,000 tons of bombs were dropped on the city. According to Chinese government estimates, troops from Japan’s empire carried out about 5,000 raids and dropped 11,500 bombs on the city, mostly using incendiary bombs. “On June 5, 1941, the Japanese carried out more than twenty air sorties, bombing the city for three hours. About 4,000 civilians, who had taken refuge in a tunnel, died of asphyxiation. A year earlier, in May 1939, Japanese raids on Chongqing killed some 5,000 Chinese civilians. “The plight of Chinese prisoners of war is a huge tragedy. Many of them died of starvation or physical abuse. Several thousand died from typhus or other

contagious diseases. The camp commanders have banned prisoners from medical visits. On several occasions, prisoners of war who, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, could no longer walk, were shot and their bodies abandoned on the spot. “In many prisons, prisoners of war had no cells. They slept outdoors in the rain or snow. They weren’t given blankets. Some of them were subjected to particularly cruel and inhumane medical experiments.” The rapporteur observed a new pause. He glanced quickly through his notes and continued. “Your Honor, although every step has been made to hide the war crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Army and the Japanese Imperial Navy during World War II, Hirohito’s guilt is not difficult to detect. During the short interval between his decision to capitulate and the arrival of the American occupying forces, he ordered that all confidential documents be burned. In accordance with an ordinance signed by the emperor, the minister of the imperial household ordered the destruction of all the ‘“delicate”’ papers of the palace shortly before the surrender, and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Army, and Navy, as well as the chiefs of the army and navy staff, did the same. “When Hirohito first met MacArthur at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo on September 27, 1945, did Hirohito himself acknowledge responsibility for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity? Answering a question from Gen. MacArthur, ““How was it that a sovereign powerful enough to end the war would not have been able to prevent it?”” Hirohito replied: ‘“It was not clear to me that our policy was unjustified. Even today, I am not sure to whom historians will attribute responsibility for this war. Then, he told Gen. MacArthur, ‘“I came to offer myself to the judgment of the powers you represent, as solely responsible for all political and military decisions taken and for all the actions taken by my people in the conduct of the war.”’ “It is likely, as Kido points out in his diary, that the emperor went to war on tiptoe against the United States, but he nevertheless did so with full knowledge of the facts. Several months before Pearl Harbor, he had in his possession a detailed schedule of the order of battles, and the questions he asked his chiefs of staff showed that he was fully aware of the operation. As the war developed on the ground, he actively looked at every detail. He is not granted any moral

scruple, no remorse for the victims, the suffering and personal sacrifices imposed on his people. “On September 5, 1942, on the advice of Prime Minister Konoe, Hirohito summoned the chiefs of staff and they were subjected to close interrogation, the most direct the emperor has ever had with subordinates: “Hirohito: Did the Chiefs of Staff believe they could do the South in the way they set out in their plans for operations? “Sugiyama: The plans have been studied very closely, and we think everything will go according to plan. “Hirohito: Are you sure everything will work according to your plans? That is never quite the case. You say it will all be over in five months. But you said we would get rid of Chiang Kai-shek within a year and he’s still there. Shouldn’t we take into all that can happen unexpectedly? “Then the emperor went on: “Hirohito: Do you really think the landing will be so fragile? “Sugiyama: I don’t know if it will be easy, but I think it’s very doable. “Hirohito: During the simulated invasion exercises off Kyreshu Island, many ships were “sunk” by enemy aircraft. If the same thing happens for real, what will you do? “Sugiyama: The fleet had acted before its air cover was ready. The error would never happen again. “Hirohito: What would happen if the weather was bad? “Sugiyama: That would complicate the operations, but not compromise them. Hirohito: How could you be so confident? When you were Minister of War, you said that the China incident would be resolved in five months and it is still not. “Sugiyama: The fault was the special circumstances in China.

“The general then said: “Your Honor, I cannot guarantee you a 100 percent victory, but I would argue that we have a good chance of winning. “Hirohito: I understand.” The rapporteur looked up down into his notes, and then continued. “Your Honor, starting in 1927, naval officers around Hirohito presented him on how best to meet the navy’s national defense requirements. . Katō Kanji, the leading opponent of the Washington Naval Treaty, began to pressure him to enlarge the geographic sphere of national defense. Katō wanted a big navy and believed in the doctrine of winning a war by fighting a decisive naval battle. Katō’s view was, the safety of the empire’s homeland required confronting American naval forces deployed in the western Pacific, rather than in waters closer to home as specified in the 1923 policy. Quickly, Hirohito approved Katō’s request delivered to him on November 27, 1927, and appointed Gen. Tanaka Giichi as prime minister. Tanaka replaced Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijirō, who was forced to resign during the Shōwa financial crisis. “After taking full control of the government, the Navy General Staff, the Seiyūkai Party leaders, and of privy council, strongly started to against the London Naval Treaty of 1930, which Japan would sign later with Britain and the United States on April 22. The treaty set limits for the first time on the number of cruisers and other auxiliary ships that each nation could build, and at the same time, it restricted the number of capital ships of each signatory. With an army and a cabinet both partisans of war, Hirohito decided to set up his plans for the future of the empire. On March 24, 1927, soldiers of China’s Nationalist Revolutionary Army pillaged the Japanese Consulate in Nanking and assaulted the consul. On May 28, Hirohito gave his consent to the army’s dispatch of troops to China’s Shantung Province in order to protect Japanese residents from assaults by Kuomintang soldiers on their way north toward Pekin. “After the incident in Nanking, less than a year later, on April 19, 1928, with the strong advice of Chief aide-de-camp Baron Takeji Nara, Hirohito consented to another deployment: 5,000 troops of the Sixth Division, under Lt.-Gen. Fukuda Hikosuke, were deployed to the port of Tsingtao, Shantung, a Japanese

protectorate. On May 8, Hirohito approved the dispatch of reinforcements to Tsinan of 17,000 Japanese troops to protect some 2,000 Japanese civilians. Less than a month after, he had sanctioned a fourth deployment of troops to Shantung Province, led by Col. Kōmoto Daisaku, who his staff officers of Japan’s Kwantung Army, assassinated the Chinese warlord and territorial sovereign, Zhang Zuolin (June 4, 1928). “Instead to Prime Minister Tanaka who told him in a formal report on December 24, 1928, that he intended to court-martial the criminals – Colonel Kōmoto and Kwantung Army commander-in-chief Muraoka Chōtarō – Hirohito after he had accepted the army’s intention to lie to the public about the incident and to give istrative punishments to those involved, a few weeks later, when the prime minister told him that he wanted to settle the Chang Tso-lin assassination by ‘“hushing it up,”’ the emperor pressed Tanaka to give his resignation. By firing Tanaka, Hirohito had signaled to the political community that a cabinet led by the head of the Seiyūkai Party was not qualified to govern under his rule. Then he had nominated on July, 2, 1929, Hamaguchi Osachi, nicknamed the “Lion Prime Minister” (Raion Saishō), a member of the Rikken Minseitō Party, as prime minister. A few months after his nomination, Hamaguchi, with the full of his cabinet, overrode the report of the naval chief of staff and vice chief of staff, . Kanji Katō and Vice . Nobumasa Suetugu. “Although Washington and London had announced they might form a naval alliance against Japan if it did not comply with the warship ratios worked out at the Washington Conference, Katō and his ers on the Navy General Staff continued to work against the final compromise negotiated at London. The group refused to accept any limit on the navy’s heavy cruiser tonnage of less than 70 percent of the individual cruiser strengths of the American and British fleets. In conflict with Kato’s position, Hamaguchi accepted the compromise cruiser tonnage ratios. “After accepting the conditions established at the Washington Conference, Hamaguchi has been publicly attacked by the Seiyūkai leaders. The group – Katō, Suetsugu, and Tōgō – accused Hamaguchi and his entourage of having signed the treaty without the of the Navy General Staff, thereby infringing on the emperor’s ‘“right of supreme command.”’ The Seiyūkai leaders accused Hamaguchi and the advisers around the throne – Makino, Suzuki, and Kawai – of relying on arms limitation treaties to gain the “cooperation” of

Britain and the United States on the dossier in China. Katō and consorts believed that Grand Chamberlain Suzuki had blocked the formal report to the emperor of the chief of the Navy General Staff, and that the government was pursuing a dangerous defense policy. “Two months after the ratification of the London Naval treaty, on November 14, 1930, Sagoya Tomeo, a member to the Aikokusha, an organization ed by the Seiyūkai politician Ogawa Heikichi, mortally shot Prime Minister Hamaguchi at Tokyo station. Sagoya was enraged over the alleged usurpation of the emperor’s prerogative of supreme command. So, the Cabinet participated in the fifty-ninth session sans Hamaguchi, with Foreign Minister Baron Kijūrō Shidehara chosen as acting Prime Minister. The Seiyūkai condemned the Government on the grounds that Prime Minister Hamaguchi was absent from Diet proceedings and that Shidehara who will become Prime Minister of Japan from 1945 to 1946 was not in fact a party member. Hamaguchi devastated by the Seiyūkai politicians plans that contributed to create an atmosphere that fostered extremism, resigned his post on April 14, 1931. Four months later, on August 26, he died from his bullet wounds at age sixty-one. “After Hamaguchi’s departure, Emperor Hirohito nominated a number of prime ministers with favorable views to war such as, Wakatsuki Reijirō, Inukai Tsuyoshi, Takahashi Korekiyo, Saitō Makoto, Ichiki Kitokurō, Yuasa Kurahei, Kōichi Kido, Hisanori Fujita, Nobuyuki Abe, Mitsumasa Yonai, Fumimaro Konoe, Hideki Tōjō, Kuniaki Koiso, Kantarō Suzuki, and Naruhiko Higashikuni.” The rapporteur took a pause and turned his head to the president and then continued. “Your Honor, there is no doubt about Hirohito’s responsibility in the Second World War. He oversaw all troop movements and military promotions, knowing that it is certain that he was fully informed in advance of what the commanders of his army were planning. On February, 24, 1933, the Japanese delegation, defying world opinion, withdrew from the League of Nations Assembly after the assembly had adopted a report blaming Japan for events in Manchuria. On March 1933, the emperor signed the imperial decree of Japan’s withdrawal from the Society of Nations. In 1934, Hirohito condoned an attack by his followers on Dr. Minobe, a law professor. Minobe was attacked for challenging the “sacred and inviolable” character of the “imperial will” on the constitution. Minobe was

forced to resign from his position in the House of Peers in September 1935. He was later the victim of two attacks. “The action of personally taking command of the division of the Imperial Guards to quell the revolt on the night of February 26, 1937, reveals the emperor’s hold on the troops. Indeed, on the night of February 26, with the assent of Prince Chichibu, two units of the First Division of the Imperial Guard in Tokyo, which were to be transferred to Manchuria, revolted and launched an assault on several ministers – executing several of them – and the metropolitan police station, as well as the offices of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. On February 18, Hirohito issued a decree ordering the rebels to “withdraw as soon as possible” from the occupied areas. On February 29, he issued an ultimatum. With the help of tanks and planes, he put an end to the rebellion. On July 17, 1937, nineteen rebel officers were sentenced to death. “On July 7, 1937, with the help of Prince Konoe as the new prime minister, the emperor created the “incident” of the Marco-Polo Bridge, which degenerated into war with China. Beijing was invaded, and the Japanese army headed for Shanghai. Hirohito’s goal was to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and replace him with Japanese puppets. Following the defeat of in June 1940, Japan seized the opportunity to invade French Indochina. On September 24, at the Imperial Palace, Hirohito organized a Shinto ritual to celebrate the tripartite alliance among Japan, , and Italy. On January 23, 1941, he discussed with his military advisers the occupation of Dutch Indochina, Laos, Cambodia, and the invasion of Burma by negotiating a treaty with Thailand. “The sixty-five Navy Minister, . Mitsumasa Yonai, was appointed Prime Minister of Japan on January 6, 1940. Called pro-American, he was an ardent critic of war with the United States. Therefore, he had many rivals among the military staff, who resented his “pacifist” attitude. As Prime Minister, Yonai continued the strong pro-British, pro-American stance he held as Navy Minister and continued his strong opposition to the Tripartite Pact with Nazi and fascist Italy. Following the German occupation of the Low Countries and in May-June 1940, the Imperial Japanese Army began to criticize his anti-German policy. The disagreement became apparent in early July 1940 as Minister of War Shunroku Hata began to criticize the Prime Minister openly. When Hata resigned, Yonai was forced to resign on Juy 21, 1940. Prince Fumimaro Konoe had been appointed for a second time Prime Minister.

“Konoe, one of his first actions, launched the League of Diet ing the Prosecution of the Holy War to counter opposition from politicians, such as deputy Saitō Takao who had spoken against the Second SinoJapanese War in the Diet on February 2. Against the advice of his political allies, he appointed Yōsuke Matsuoka as his foreign minister. Matsuoka, having established himself as the man who led Japan out of the League of Nations in 1933, was very popular with the Army and the Japanese public. Konoe and Matsuoka based their foreign policy on a document that had been drawn up by the Army. As a result of this policy, it was agreed that Japan would try to secure its position in China, defuse the conflict with the Soviet Union, move troops into Indochina, and prepare for a military response from Britain and the United States. To reinforce this position, Konoe and Matsuoka pushed Japan to sign with and Italy the Tripartite Pact on September 27, 1940. “In 1941, Japan celebrated with great pomp the feast of the 1600th year anniversary of the reign of Jimmu, the first and mythical emperor of Japan. Hirohito took the opportunity to raise Nationalist sentiment even higher in the population by using the Japanese press. He sought to influence the ongoing negotiations between Japan and the United States. On July 2, 1941, he chaired a meeting of Gozen Kaigi, which was to set Japan’s policy in the coming months. This involved the preparation of a war between Britain and America. ‘“The emperor was pleased,”’ Sugiyama noted, ‘“gave his assent on all points.”’ “In the months leading up to Pearl Harbor, Konoe made every effort to organize a summit between himself and Roosevelt in an effort to reduce tension between America and Japan. The proposal presented to Hirohito was rejected. On September 6, a new Gozen Kaigi irrevocably engaged Japan on the road to war. On October 16, Prince Konoe resigned. It would have been enough for Hirohito to reject Konoe’s departure to give peace a chance. On the contrary, the emperor accepted the resignation and appointed Gen. Hideki Tōjō as prime minister. The new government kept the negotiations going as long as possible. On November 26, Hull issued a final ultimatum to Japan, after U.S. soldiers abroad were put on high alert. “On December 1, 1941, at a final Gozen Kaigi, it was decided that in December 8, Japan would officially declare war with the United States. On December 6, the fourteen-part coded text of the memorandum, which ended with a declaration of war against the United States, arrived at the Japanese embassy in Washington. At the same time, the Imperial Japanese Army attacked British and Dutch troops in

the Pacific without a declaration of war. “Hirohito continually criticized his generals, whom he accused of not winning the war quickly enough. For him, it was a matter of unleashing the lightning of the imperial army throughout the Asian continent to annihilate the growing influence of the Communists in the region, especially in China. In December 1936, he ratified the Anti-Comin tern Pact, an agreement concluded first between and Japan (Nov. 25, 1936) and then between Italy, , and Japan (Nov. 6, 1937) directed against the Communist International (Comin tern) but, by implication, specifically against the Soviet Union. In November and December 1937, the “Nanking Rape” occurred. Indeed, after the bitter battle of Shanghai, the Japanese entered Nanjing then capital of China. The massacres will last three months in which 300,000 Chinese are killed in particularly shocking conditions. When the three all policy is implemented (‘“Kill everything, burn everything, plunder everything”’), 2.7 million civilians lose their lives. More than 200,000 women, referred to as ‘“comfort women,”’ are forced into prostitution. “Numerous reports were written to denounce these atrocities, and it is inconceivable that Hirohito was not aware of the crimes of his army on the civilian population and prisoners of war in the occupied territories. It is also difficult to imagine that Hirohito was not aware of the existence of the terrible “Unit 731,” which caused between 5,000 and then thousand civilian and military casualties. The emperor’s younger brother, Mikasa, personally visited Unit 731, as did his first cousin, Prince Takeda, Prince Chichibu attended a secret conference in 1939 by Ishii, the head of this unit. “According to historian Akira Fujiwara, Hirohito personally ratified the decision to ignore the constraints of international law (the Hague Conventions) for the treatment of Chinese prisoners of war in a directive of August 5, 1937. The Imperial Japanese Army, with the of its supreme leader, has widely used torture against prisoners. “Your Honor, how can we imagine, that the Japanese have relied on the concept of race superiority to occupy many territories of the Asian continent and reduce their population to conditions similar to slavery? The reasons for such arrogance are to be sought in Japanese history and culture. According to the Hakkō ichiu doctrine, the Japanese race is superior to the others and therefore Japan has the right to dominate Asia. The adoption of state Shintoism that the emperor of

Japan is of divine ancestry helps to establish the superiority of the Japanese nation over the other nations of the world. “The first victims of this ideology were Koreans whose country became a Japanese colony in 1910. The Japanese are doing everything they can to destroy Korean culture by deporting more than 400,000 Koreans to Japan as forced labor. The Chinese territory of the name “Manchukuo” suffers the same fate and must undergo a brutal occupation. Nearly ten million Chinese are exploited in the country’s various industries under often dramatic conditions. Japanese propaganda portrays the Chinese as “inferior beings,” or beasts. The atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Sino-Japanese War are concrete examples that show how much Japanese hatred for the Chinese was particularly keen. “Your Honor, feeling guilty about war crimes is a feeling that greatly distressed Hirohito in the last years of his life. This was revealed by the newspapers of his chamberlain, Shinobu Kobayashi, made public on August 23, 2018 by the Kyōdō news agency. ‘“Living longer by reducing my activities makes no sense. This can only increase the risk of seeing or hearing unpleasant things,”’ he said on April 7, 1987, adding, ‘“I was told about my responsibility for war.”’ Indeed, during his rare trips abroad, as in Europe in September 1971, and then during the state visit of his successor Akihito to Britain in May 1998, the associations of veterans and interned civilians never missed an opportunity to “Hiro-Hitler” and demand official apologies and compensation for the suffering and ill-treatment endured by Allied civilians and prisoners of war. “As Edward Behr stated in his book Hirohito: The ambiguous Emperor, ‘“the emperor in his shy appearance was not a saint. We had at work a shrewd and skillful manipulator, perfectly aware of what was going on. He had demonstrated his ability to act decisively and ruthlessly on February 26, 1936, when he almost single-onset a serious uprising of the army, which was on the verge of overthrowing his regime.”’ “This coup attempt, which took place in Japan from February 26 to 29, 1936, was organized by the ultra-nationalist faction of the Imperial Japanese Army, the ers of the imperial route, inspired by the idea of the restoration of Shōwa. For three days-Central Tokyo fell into the hands of the insurgents who murdered several politicians. Finance Minister Korekiyo Takahashi, Seal Guard Saitō Makoto, and Inspector Gen. for Military Education, Gen. Jōtarō Watanabe, were

all killed. A group of officers stormed the Prime Minister’s residence and tried to kill his incumbent Keisuke Okada. The latter narrowly escaped when the rebels mistakenly killed his brother-in-law, as well as his personal secretary, Col. DenzMatsuo. The residence of the great chamberlain, . Kantar Suzuki, was also targeted and he was seriously injured. The insurgents, after their attacks on the homes of the previous Seal Guard, Naboku, and the politician Saionji Kinmochi, tried to take the Imperial Palace but had to resolve to withdraw in the face of resistance from the Imperial Guards. “Many high-ranking officials shared the rebels’ views and ed their claims similar to those expressed by the Blood League assassins behind the May 15, 1932, incident: restoring the imperial omnipotence, traditions, and Japan’s independence from abroad. The Tokyo garrison, in particular, ed the coup attempt. However, the Imperial Navy sided with the government and, in accordance with the order of the minister of the army, Yoshiyuki Kawashima, deployed its ships to the Tokyo base and threatened the rebels with their artillery. “Hirohito, outraged by the murder of his close advisers, intervened directly to place orders to severely quell the rebellion. When his chief aide-Gen. Shigeru Honjō (a time known as a er of Sadao Araki, the leader of the Kodha), informed him of the revolt, the emperor immediately ordered that it be subdued and called the insurgents ‘“rebels”’ (bôto). In Honjō, who was defending them, the emperor replied: ‘“Without our orders, troops were mobilized. No matter what they are called, they are no longer our troops.”’ He then ordered the minister of the army, Kawashima, to suppress the rebellion within an hour and asked him to go through Honjō to report to him every half hour. “On February 27, 1936, martial law was declared in Tokyo, and troops were called in as reinforcements. On February 28, 1936, the emperor signed the order ordering the army and navy to quell the revolt and expel the rebels from their positions. On February 29, 1936, exhausted rebel officers decided to surrender. The blow had failed. Nineteen plotters were sentenced to death by the Japanese court-martial, among them the far-Right philosopher Kita Ikki and his disciple Mitsugi Nishida. They were executed on August 19, 1937. Seventy other prisoners were sentenced to prison .” The rapporteur took a moment to consult his notes then continued. “Your Honor, in August 1945, it was Hirohito who decided to end the war.

“When we know full well that the conflict was conducted in his name, the question is, ‘“why was the emperor not prosecuted for war crimes like other Japanese leaders during the Tokyo trial?”’ To say that the Marquis Kōichi Kido, who became his close adviser in the 1940s, was tried and condemned. Last deceased of the leaders of the Axis powers, after Hitler’s suicide on April 30, 1945, and the summary execution of Mussolini, on April 28, Hirohito crossed the twentieth century without ever having been worried about war crimes committed under his reign. In 1970, he traveled to Europe after agreeing to Satō’s suggestion. It was for the first time a reigning Japanese Emperor and Empress had traveled abroad. In the seven countries Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako visited: the Netherlands, West , Britain, , Denmark, Belgium, and Switzerland, angry demonstrators hurled objects and insults at his motorcade. Those people did not see him as a symbol of peace but as a war criminal. “In September 1975, after Japan 2,631-year history, Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako paid their first visit in America by traveling to the United States. A few days before the departure, Hirohito gave an exclusive interview to Newsweek journalist Bernard Krisher. One of Krisher’s eleven questions was, it is well known that at the time of the ending of the war you took an important role. How then do you answer those who claim that you participated also in the policy process leading to the decision to open hostilities?” Hirohito replied: ‘“Yes, I myself made the decision to end the war. The prime minister sought my opinion because he couldn’t unify the views of the cabinet. But at the time of opening hostilities, the cabinet made the decision, and I was unable to overturn it. I believe my action was in agreement with the articles of the constitution of Japan.”’ “On September 22, Hirohito accepted to answer more questions from foreign journalists who resided in Tokyo. One of the questions was, ‘“Many Americans expect your majesty to say something about the Japan-U.S. war of the 1940s. How do you intend to answer this question?”’ Hirohito replied, ‘“I am examining this question. Right now, I prefer not to express my views.”’ Further into the interview, he was asked, ‘“Your Majesty, do you think the values of the Japanese people have changed over the past thirty years?”’ Hirohito replied, ‘“I know various people have stated many different views since the end of the war, but seen broadly, I don’t think there has been any change of values from prewar to postwar.”’ At the end of this interview, Hirohito was asked again about his role

in starting and ending the war. ‘“You said that you had acted in accord with the stipulations of the [Meiji] constitution. That statement seems to imply that you did not oppose the military at that time. Consequently, I would like to ask your majesty whether you, personally, ever felt Japan’s military leaders led it into a fruitless and wrong adventure?”’ Hirohito answered, ‘“The facts may have been as you have stated, but as the people involved are still living, if I comment now, I will be criticizing persons who were leaders of that time. I do not care to do so.”’ “A few weeks after this series of interviews, while on his first formal state visit to Washington, Hirohito expressed his “profound sadness” over World War II to President Gerald Ford, who had visited Japan on November 18, of 1974. Ford’s trip in Japan was his first one abroad as President since replacing Richard Nixon earlier that year. Dwight Eisenhower had planned to over a decade before, but that trip had been canceled due to unrest by Japanese leftists over the continued military presence of the U.S. in the country. “On returning to Tokyo, Hirohito was interviewed on television (October 31). At the beginning of this interview, Hirohito was asked about the war responsibility issue he expressed during his conversation with the foreign press corps and his remark to President Ford. A Japanese newsman asked him the “improper” and embarrassing question, ‘“Your majesty, at your White House banquet you said, “‘I deeply deplore that unfortunate war.’” Does your majesty feel responsibility for the war itself, including the opening of hostilities [that is, not just for the defeat]? Also, what does your majesty think about so-called war responsibility?”’ “Hirohito was offended by this unattended question, and was short in replying, ‘“I can’t answer that kind of question because I haven’t thoroughly studied the literature in this field, and so don’t really appreciate the nuances of your words.”’ When asked about the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, he said, ‘“It’s very regrettable that nuclear bombs were dropped, and I feel sorry for the citizens of Hiroshima. But it couldn’t be helped because that happened in wartime.”’ “Hirohito, guilty or innocent, a hostage or a war criminal? Several questions deserve an answer. For example, should the emperor be seen as a puppet who was just good at counterg orders from the high commander of the army, or should he be taken as the main leader who led behind-the-scenes military operations? Was he a puppet monarch, kept out of decisions, a prisoner of the generals of the army high staff, or on the contrary, as the writer Edward Behr

explained in his book: Hirohito, The ambiguous Emperor, Hirohito was the supreme leader who ed the orders, and, by this, is considered an active witness to all the events that began with the capture of Manchuria during the invasion of China in 1937, the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the subsequent conduct of operations? “It is said that Hirohito was not aware of the highly complex operation known as the ‘“Mukden Incident”’ which took place on September 18, 1931. The rarely asked question is why, if he was truly hostile to the operation, the emperor did not use his discretionary powers to stop military maneuvers or even punish Col. Ishiwara, who had taken several years to prepare for the ‘“incident”’ a wellplanned action carried out with the help of several of the ‘“Cherry Blossom Society?”’ “Japanese forces captured Changchun north of Mukden on September 19, 1931, and Kirin on September 21. Japanese planes based in Korea were used from September 19 to bomb Chinese troops. On September 22, a Japanese brigade, based in Korea, returned to southern Manchuria. Col. Kanji Ishiwara knew that he was acting with the tacit consent of Hirohito, who was already realizing the benefits of such an operation. The project involved seizing southern Manchuria from the interior, through the Changchun Army, a ‘“fifth column,”’ and Japanese railway guards already stationed in the area, under an old agreement with the China. If necessary, Ishiwara could call in reinforcement troops based in Korea. “The other advantage of the project was the fact that it was a military operation, it was part of a relatively unblood “revolution” designed to establish a puppet government that was favorable – and subservient to Japan – an effective policy that the Japanese government was adopting everywhere to be able to manage its vast empire. “The version that indicates that Hirohito was not aware of the “Mukden incident” is unfounded. It is possible, though unlikely, that Honjō, Tatekawa, and the commander of Japanese troops in Korea had acted without the express order of the government and even the High Staff. However, not only was Hirohito not indignant by their behavior, but he also rewarded them for their actions. He honored or promoted a total of 3,000 military and civilian officials for their deserved services during the occupation of Manchuria and the capture of Shanghai. Ishiwara was promoted to general.

“He called Honjō to his side in 1933, making him his first aide-de-camp, (this position, Honjō became one of the most powerful officers of the Imperial Army). Col. Itagaki Seishirō was promoted to the rank of general and became minister of war in 1939. Shortly after the “Mukden Incident,” the commander of the Japanese troops in Korea, Gen. Hayashi Senjūrō, first became minister of war and then, briefly, prime minister. Shigeru Honjō, respectively, commander of the army in Chantung, minister of the army, minister of the navy, and was elevated to the rank of Baron by an imperial order. “The ‘“Mukden Incident”’ was called for duplicity not only by the three colonels who were the instigators, but also by Hirohito himself, who hid in the background to command the operations. Indeed, the conspiracy was mounted on such a colossal scale, mobilizing such resources, that it proved impossible that it took place without the consent of the authorities at the highest level in Tokyo, including the Imperial Palace. As Richard Storry noted, it was likely that an imperial proclamation ‘“aimed at restraining the army in Manchuria or later china would have been obeyed by the vast majority of officers.”’ This imperial proclamation never fell within the emperor’s plan for a rotten situation.” The rapporteur paused a moment, swallowed, and then added. “It is often said of Hirohito’s intention to normalize Japan’s relations with China. It was a complete lie. After the October 1931 plot in which Prince Chichibu was involved, the conspirators plotted a “coup” on the model of the “March Conspiracy,” but much more deadly. The military involved in the coup not only intended to dissolve parliament and force the government to accept a military government, but also consider assassinating all the ministers in place. Dr. Ōkawa and Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, very active of the Cherry Blossom Society, were arrested and briefly detained by the Japanese military police on October 17, 1931, but both were almost immediately released. Hirohito forced this decision because he knew that his brother, Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu, was among the conspirators. Yasuhito sought to remove the former iral Tōgō Heihachirō (Russian-Japanese war hero, then tutor of the emperor) from his retirement to become prime minister. Failed in this mission, he then sided with the conspirators. “Hirohito immediately dismissed his brother’s idea to replace the government of the day whose prestige was greatly damaged by the blame of the League of Nations after the seizure of power in Manchuria and the march and October

plots. On Saionji’s advice, Hirohito summoned Seiykai’s leader, seventy-fiveyear-old Inukai Tsuyoshi, to whom he proposed the post of prime minister. As Inukai was an old friend of Chiang Kai-shek, his presence as prime minister, according to the emperor’s calculation, could put an end to the scramble between China and Japan after the ‘“Mukden Incident.”’ Hirohito formally instructed Tsuyoshi to establish a lasting peace with China and restrict the power of the military. ‘“The military’s interference in domestic and foreign policy,”’ he told Inukai, ‘“is a state of affairs that we must consider with concern, for the good of the nation.”’ “Deep down, Hirohito had no intention of crushing the activists and normalizing relations with China. In secret, he torpedoed the peace negotiations initiated by his prime minister with Chiang Kai-shek. Thanks to pro-army trainers in the government, including Prince Kan’in, his great-uncle, ‘“a member of the Fushimi clan,”’ he made sure to thwart any peace project with China and encouraged another reverse movement to damage the prime minister’s efforts for moderation. He left the activists of the Cherry Blossom Society free to conspire at their ease. Worse still, any tendency to reach an agreement with China collapsed in March 1932, with the “Shanghai incident” still being engineered by the Japanese with the of the imperial house. “The Shanghai affair was modeled on Mukden’s. It was the basis of a deliberate provocation against the Chinese by Japanese civilians and sailors intended to bring about military intervention. Japanese navy troops attacked Kuomintang’s armies on the outskirts of Shanghai. For several weeks, fierce fighting took place, pitting the two armies face-to-face. Japanese planes bombed Chinese civilians, killing several thousand people. “It all started when, on January 8, 1932, a Korean separatist threw a bomb at what he believed to be the emperor’s carriage, while Hirohito was on his way to a military magazine. The Korean unfortunately attacked the wrong carriage. In the territories occupied by the Japanese on Chinese territory, Japanese troops, in a sign of revenge ed their rage on the civilian population. “What was Hirohito’s response to this outpouring of violence by Japanese troops on the Chinese population? Not only he did not condemn these attacks, but he also continued to the hard wing of the government and the army’s high staff. Dr. Ōkawa, who always encouraged extremist movements, and who provided the “brother” Inoue with pistols and ammunition to undertake criminal

actions in the secret society known as “Ketsumeidan” (Blood Brotherhood), was protected by Toyama, the head of the Black Dragon Society. The “Blood Brotherhood” gained considerable , notably from army and naval officers advocating the “Shōwa Restoration,” that is, a military dictatorship under the supreme command of Hirohito. In the clan’s ranks, the “Blood Brotherhood” included the great personalities of the Japanese establishment in the fields of industry and banking, of the government, of Hirohito’s relatives, even of of the imperial family. “For the American historian Herbert Bix, ‘“Hirohito was at the center of the political, military, and spiritual life of his country in the broadest and deepest sense, exercising his authority in directions that proved disastrous for his people and for the countries that were invaded.”’ From 1937, Bix declared, ‘“Hirohito gradually became a true warlord, influencing the planning, strategy, and conduct of operations in China.”’ A few months before the attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō, addressing the emperor, said: ‘“As soon as Your Majesty had decided to open hostilities, we will endeavor to fulfill our ‘“must.”’ According to the historian, ‘“Having taken this position, Hirohito devoted himself entirely to governing, and leading the war to victory at all costs.”’ In his book, Edward Behr referred to Hirohito as a ‘“manipulator”’ capable of decisive and ruthless actions. “For example, addressing the Imperial Army Staff, following the setbacks suffered by Japanese troops during the battles of Atta on June 8, 1943, the emperor declared: ‘“I wonder if the Army and Navy are really cooperating. You give me all kinds of excuses, such as thick fog and so on, but it should have been thought of beforehand. I would like to know whether the Army and the Navy have any dialogue together. We cannot win with a lack of cooperation. If we continue to fight in this way, we will only delight the Chinese, disturb neutral countries, sorry our allies, and weaken the sphere of co-ownership. Is there no way, then, somewhere, in any way, to identify American forces and destroy them?”’ “A few weeks later, he sent Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō to the Solomon Islands theatre of operations, carrying a message to his commanders on the ground. Hirohito’s reproaches to Tōjō are direct and sharp. ‘“You keep repeating that the imperial army is invincible, but every time the

enemy lands, you lose the battle. You have never been able to repel enemy landings. If we don’t arrest them somewhere, or will it all end, I ask you.”’ “Two months later, Hirohito gathered the high staff at the Imperial Palace, and during the exchanges, he bitterly declared to the generals in the room, ‘“When are you going to start striking the enemy on all fronts? Could we not win even one spectacular success against the United States? We cannot continue to retreat in this way.”’ “His concern over the limitation of naval weapons and the setbacks of the German and Italian troops who make up the three Axis powers with Japan were another example that clearly showed that Hirohito was not only acting in the war in the Pacific, but also closely follows the course of the fighting on the European continent. “At the very beginning of his reign, when the conflict broke out between “moderates”, the liberal minority (embodied by Prince Saionji Kinmochi); who was resolutely hostile to war and was determined to extend Japan’s traditional friendship with the America and Western countries. On the other side, the ers of fascism, those who believed in the success of an immediate war, Hirohito did not decide. Far from following the advice of some in his circle who believed that ‘“war was a long-term goal, Japan had every interest in abstaining from fighting for a few years, in order to build a much more overwhelming power,”’ rather, the emperor was tempted by the idea of setting in motion as soon as possible the advanced military machine he had in his hands to carry out his expansionist plan. Thus, in his blind ambition to conquer the world, he began the annexation of the territories of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. “Beginning in 1937, he ed right-wing extremists and militarists convinced that Japan must play the role to which it was predestined, according to the notion of Hakko Ishiu (“the eight corners of the world under one roof”). “To establish his war effort, Hirohito adopted the return to the custom of having all ministers of the army and navy selected from the ranks of active-duty officers. This measure has increased the power of the military hierarchy by giving it a veto over all government actions. Thus, the most important positions in the army and navy were held by of the imperial family, and the emperor placed his trusted men in key positions of government.

“Your Honor, Hitler controlled the war on the European continent by placing men loyal to the Nazism ideology at the head of the German government and army: Himmler, Goebbels, and Goering. Hirohito, for his part, controlled the war on the Asian continent by placing at the head of the Japanese army close relatives, of the imperial court, such as Prince Asaka Yasuhiko, Prince Chichibu Yasuhito, Prince Higashikuni Morihito, Prince Kan’in Kotohito, Prince Mikasa Takahito, Prince Takamatsu Nobuhito, and Prince Takeda Tsynayoshi.”

THE IMPERIAL FAMILY

• Asaka, Yasuhiko, prince, uncle of Hirohito, half-brother of Naruhiko Higashikuni, commander of the Imperial Guard, commander of the Expeditionary Force of China during the conquest of Nanking, special adviser to the Central China Army; • Asaka, Takahito, prince and son of Yasuhiko, head of Operation Golden Lily; • Chichibu, Yasuhito, prince and brother of Hirohito, commander of Operation Golden Lily; • Fushimi, Hiroyasu, prince, cousin of Hirohito, chief of the navy staff from 1932 to 1940; • Higashikuni, Morihiro, prince, husband of Hirohito’s older sister, major and then captain in the Japanese army; • Kani’n, Kotohito, prince, great-uncle of Hirohito, chief of the army staff from 1931 to 1940; • Mikasa, Takahito, prince and brother of Hirohito, member of the Central China Army Staff; • Takamatsu, Nobuhito, prince and brother of Hirohito, a member of the naval staff; and • Takeda, Tsuneyoshi, prince, cousin of Hirohito, liaison officer of the army of

Kantō and Kempeitai, commander of Operation Golden Lily.

OFFICERS AND DIGNITARIES

• Anami, Korechika, commander of the Eleventh Army of Central China in 1941, Minister of the Army in 1945, member of the Supreme Council for the Conduct of War; • Araki, Sadao, Minister of the Army from 1931 to 1934, Minister of Education from 1938 to 1939, one of the leading theorists of the Shōwa regime; • Doïhara, Kenji, Commander of the Fifth Army in Mansh-koku from 1938 to 1940. Inspector General of Aviation (1941 – 1945), Inspector General of Military Training in 1945; • Fujita, Hisanori, iral until 1937, Great Chamberlain of the emperor from 1944 to 1945, Guard of the Seals from 1945 to 1946; • Hara, Yoshimichi, President of the Imperial Privy Council from 1940 to 1944; • Hasunuma, Shigeru, Chief Camp Aide of the emperor; • Hata, Shunroku, Commander of the Central China Army, emperor’s aide-decamp, Minister of War, Commander of the Chinese Army Group (1940–1944), Commander of the Second General Army (1945); • Hiranuma, Kiichirō, President of the Privy Council (1936–1939) and 1945), Prime Minister in 1939, Minister of the Interior (1940-1941); • Hirota, Koki, Minister of Foreign Affairs (1933-1934), 1936-1938), Prime Minister (1936–1937); • Homma, Masaharu, Yasuhito’s Camp Aide from 1936 to 1937, Commander of the invasion of the Philippines from 1941 to 1942; • Honjō, Shigeru, commander Kantō Army Group from 1931 to 1932, chief aide

de camp of the emperor from 1933 to 1936; • Inukai, Tsuyochi, Prime Minister assassinated in 1932; • Irie, Sukemasa, chamberlain of the emperor from 1934 to 1968, Great Chamberlain from 1969 to 1985; • Shirō, Ishii, commander of the Bacteriological Research Unit from 1932 to 1945; • Itagaki, Seishirō, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Kantō Army Group (1934), Chief of Staff of the Kanto Army Group (1936–1937), Minister of War (1938– 1939), Chief of Staff of the Army Group of China (1939–1941), Commander of the Army of China (1939 –1941), commander of the Army of China Korea (1941–1945), commander of the Seventh Regional Army in Singapore (1945); • Jo, Eiichiro, lieutenant commander, Naval Camp Aide to the emperor from 1940 to 1945; • Kawashima, Yoshiyuki, Minister of the Army from 1935 to 1936; • Kido, Kōichi, Chief Secretary of the Seal Guard (1930–1936), Minister of Education in 1937, Minister of Welfare (1938), Minister of the Interior in 1939, Guard of Seals (1940–1945); • Kinoshita, Michio, chamberlain of the emperor from 1924 to 1945, Vice-Great Chamberlain from 1945 to 1946; • Koiso, Kuniaki, Chief of Staff of the Kantō Army Group from 1932 to 1934, Commander of the Korean Army (1935–1936), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1939–1940), Governor of Korea (1942–1944), Prime Minister from 1944 to 1945, Supreme Council member (1939–1940) for the conduct of war; • Konoe, Fumimaro, Prince of the Fujiwara clan, Prime Minister from 1937 to 1939 and from 1940 to 1941; • Nakino, Nobuaki, Minister of the Imperial House from 1921 to 1925, Guard of Seals from 1925 to 1935; • Matsui, Iwane, commander of the Central China Army (1937–1938), President

of the Development Society of Greater East Asia in 1944; • Matsumoto, Jōji, Minister of Industry and Trade in 1934, Minister of State from 1945 to 1946; • Matsuoka, Yōsuke, president of Mantetsu (a railway company from Southern Manchuria) from 1935 to 1939, minister of foreign affairs (1940–1941); • Muto, Akira, member of the general staff of the Central China Army from 1937 to 1938, Head of the Military Affairs Office of the Ministry of the Army from 1939 to 1942, commander of the Second Guard Division in Sumatra in 1943, Chief of Staff of the Fourteenth Regional Army Philippines from 1944 to 1945; • Nagano, Osami, Minister of the Navy (1936 Keisuke–1937), combined fleet commander 1937, Chief of the Navy Staff from 1941 to 1944; • Keisuke, Okada, Prime Minister from 1934 to 1936; • Okamura, Yasuji, commander of the North China Army, Operation Sankō (kills everything, plunders everything, burns everything) and Operation Ichi-Go from 1940 to 1944, Commander of the China Expeditionary Force from 1944 to 1945; • Saionji, Kinmochi, Prime Minister from 1906 to 1908 and from 1911 to 1912, Head of delegation at Versailles, from 1913; • Saitō Makoto, Prime Minister from 1932 to 1934, Guard of Seals from 1935 to 1936, murdered in the 2-2-6 incident; • Kijūrō, Shidehara, Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1924 to 1931, Prime Minister from 1945 to 1946; and • Shimada, Shigetaro, commander of the China Fleet, Minister of the Navy from 1941 to 1944, chief of the navy staff in 1944.

The rapporteur consulted his notes, looked at the audience, and then continued. “Your Honor, the war against China was Japan’s first decisive step on the road to conquering territories in Southeast Asia. Japanese troops in Northern China, as a

limited occupying force, deliberately clashed with Chinese soldiers during what was known as the “Marco Polo Bridge Incident” north of Beijing on July 7, 1937. This incident, which began as a mere skirmish, quickly degenerated into an excessive war. With Hirohito’s consent, Japanese soldiers to reinforce the “Kwangtung Army” invaded northern China. They quickly occupied Beijing and marched south toward Shanghai. The emperor was very much in favor of such maneuvers aimed at overthrowing Chiang Kai-shek and replacing him with a pro-Japanese puppet government. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Navy unexpectedly attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and after that attack, Japan won a series of military victories. In December 1941, Guam and Wake Island fell into his hands, followed in the first six months of 1942 by the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Burma. “As part of Japanese military operations against China and other territories on the Asian continent, Hirohito himself controlled the displacement of Japanese troops. To this end, he established a permanent headquarters in Kyuden, whereby he planned to monitor war operations on the continent. For example, less than three months after the seizure of power in Manchuria, Col. Itagaki himself showed up at the Imperial Palace to meet him. Marquis Kido, who mentioned the colonel’s visit in his diary (dated January 11, 1932), noted that he and people close to the emperor listened to Itagaki describe to him the new state of affairs in Manchuria: the imminent arrival of the new puppet ruler, Pu Yi, Japan’s formal commitment to “defend Manchuria from its enemies,” and the means of controlling the new government without violating international law. “Hirohito received daily plans of attacks, reports on casualties in men and armaments, as well as reports on the morale of the troops. He personally dictated the plan to force the Chinese to acknowledge defeat. He was convinced that only the capture of the Chinese capital could force the Nationalist leader Chiang Kaishek to conclude an armistice. In this case, he pushed the Imperial Army to invade Nanking despite the fatal losses in the ranks of its soldiers. The latest figures at headquarters indicated that almost one million Japanese had been killed in order to control Shanghai and its surroundings; for their part, the Chinese lost more than 250,000 men. Japanese soldiers, who responded to the general staff’s directive, systematically massacred the inhabitants of the villages they had looted, and raped women and adolescents in the occupied areas by the thousands.

“Despite some setbacks such as those endured during the Battle of Pingxingguan (won in September 1937 by the Communists) and the Battle of Taierzhuang (won in April 1938 by the nationalists), Japanese troops eventually conquered the northern part of Shanxi after a stunning victory in Taiyuan. In November 1938, the Imperial Japanese Army completely occupied Shanghai after an intensive bombing campaign that killed thousands of civilians. Japan decided to take Nanjing, the capital of the republic, where 200,000 Japanese soldiers crushed tired and poorly organized after the fighting in Shanghai. Between 200,000 and 250,000 Chinese civilians and military personnel were killed in Nanking. “On May 22, 1939, along with of the government and the army high staff, Hirohito attended the parade of twenty-two thousand cadets in military uniform. The parade was part of a tour of the Imperial House to mobilize and raise awareness among young people in the preparations for the war against China. In an imperial communiqué, the emperor called on youth to play an active role in the war, to fulfill their civic obligations and to make sacrifices in honor of the nation. “In 1942, Hirohito in white navy uniform visited the Kasumigaura naval base. This visit took place in the middle of the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Pacific codenamed “Operation Watchtower” between American troops led by Generals Robert L. Ghormley, William F. Halsey, Jr., Richmond K. Turner, Frank J. Fletcher, (for the U.S. Navy); Alexander A. Vandegrift, Merritt A. Edson, (for the U.S. Marine Corps); Alexander M. Patch (for the U.S. Army); Russell R. Waesche (for U.S. Coast Guard); and Japanese troops led by Isoroku Yamamoto, Hiroaki Abe, Nobutake Kondo, Nishizo Tsukahara, Takeo Kurita, Junichi Kusaka, Shiji Nishimura, Gunichi Mikawa, Raiz-Tanaka, (for the Imperial Japanese Navy); and Hitoshi Imamura and Harukichi Hyakutake, (for the Imperial Japanese Army). During a conversation with Japanese commanders and leaders in Ibaragi Prefecture, Hirohito showed interest in strengthening Japanese air force strikes in the Southwest Pacific. The rapporteur continued: “Your Honor, the true is, the emperor was the heart and soul of the country. Every soldier went to battle carrying in his pocket the booklet “Senjinkun” or Field Service Code, whose sharing sentence was this: “The battlefield is where the Imperial Army, acting under the Imperial command, displays its true

character, conquering whenever it attacks, winning whenever it engages in combat, in order to spread the Imperial Way far and wide so that the enemy may look up in awe to the august virtues of His Majesty.” Four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the government’s ideologues sent out a tract with this message: “The way of the subject is to be loyal to the emperor in disregard of self, thereby ing the Imperial Throne coextensive with the Heavens and with the Earth. The rapporteur added: “One of the greatest atrocities of the Japanese army during the Second World War was the use of chemical weapons. On July 1937, Hirohito authorized the use of poison gas against Chinese soldiers and civilians during the invasion of Wuhan (1938), then in 1939 in Guangzhou, and in 1943 at the Battle of Changde. A doctor on the battlefield described the effects of toxic gases dropped by the Japanese army: ‘“The action of toxic gases on soldiers was manifested by the following series of phenomena: intense tingling in the eyes, nasal pits and throat; incessant coughing, respiratory discomfort and oppression; very painful throat and trachea, intrathoracic burn; severe cough, abundant and bloody sputum; and feeling abnormally tired. The soldiers who could not flee in front of the gas wave died, vomiting blood. The others, who managed to drag themselves to the back, were collected exhausted, spitting blood, watery eyes, swollen eyelids, purple lips; their quintal cough was very painful, and they felt very painful side points.”’ The League of Nations’ Far East Advisory Committee for the Bombing of Nanjing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou adopted a resolution of blame against Japan. “According to Mr. Kobayashi’s diaries, in 1980 the emperor wanted to convey to Beijing his regrets for the Sino-Japanese War. The imperial house agency would have opposed it for fear of the reactions of the Nationalist movements. On the public broadcaster NHK, Takahisa Furukawa, a specialist in contemporary Japanese history at Nihon University, sees in the newspapers proof that the emperor, ‘“has long assumed responsibility for the war; as we got older, that feeling became strong.”’ “The interrogation of Kido in 1946 by Col. Sackett provided clear and obvious evidence of Hirohito’s leading role in the war: “Sackett: Isn’t it true that the emperor was not so hostile to the idea of acquiring

bases in French Indochina without worrying about the negative impact this might have on negotiations with the United States? “Kido: Yes, that was his main concern. “Sackett: So, we can say that the emperor was not really opposed to Japanese expansion in the south, provided that it could be accomplished without incurring the wrath and hostility of nations such as Great Britain and the United States? “Kido: Because the military ensured that they could resolve the Chinese incident and the emperor, of course, longed for it to be done as soon as possible; he was in a delicate position. “Sackett: In fact, none of the high-ranking people was opposed to the expansion of Japanese influence to the south, if it could be done without provoking a war against the United States and Great Britain? Exactly? “Kido: Yes. “Sackett: But when it was decided during the imperial conference that Japan would not tolerate any interference by the United States, we already knew that Japan was in danger of sending Japanese troops to French Indochina. Yet, in spite of everything, a foreign policy was chosen that required Japan to fight the United States, if necessary, to respect its program and land its soldiers. “Kido: Yes. “Sackett: On July 26, you are referring to anti-aircraft defenses in the palace park. Why, then, were we emanating the palace with anti-aircraft defenses? From whom could Japan fear air strikes on the palace park? “Kido: As the negotiations between Japan and the United States became critical, the construction of anti-aircraft shelters was discussed with the Emperor. “Sackett: In other words, it was just one of the plans adopted by Japan in anticipation of a possible conflict with the United States. Is that it? “Kido: Yes. “Sackett: Was the emperor disappointed by Nagano’s view that the Navy could

not win a war against the United States? Would he have liked to see him show more enthusiasm for the possibility of actually winning the war? “Kido: Upon hearing the Chief of Staff’s report, the emperor said that the problem needed to be reconsidered. We should not try to go too far. “Sackett: Who did the emperor belong to? The Navy as a whole or Nagano? Who did he believe or who was he inclined to believe? “Kido: Initially, the emperor did not want a war against the United States. He wanted to be better assured of victory, before willingly launching the nation into war. “Sackett: Was the emperor very worried that the navy claimed to be able to win the war, while his chief of staff assured the opposite. Is that correct? “Kido: Since the success of Nagano’s plan was so dubious, the emperor was extremely concerned. “Sackett: In other words, the emperor wanted the navy to take a stand on one side or the other. He didn’t want two diverging opinions on the possibility of defeat? “Kido: Seeing that Nagano presented a plan whose result was to be victory, while professing serious personal doubts about this victory, the emperor was very perplexed. “Sackett: The emperor asked you to inquire about the amount of rubber and tin that the United States had and its sources of supply in Latin America. Why did he want to know all this? “Kido: I think it was as a result of a press article. “Sackett: Why? Was it not for the purpose of whether or not Japan was capable of fighting a victorious war against the United States? “Kido: I don’t think his interest was that deep. Because the emperor is a valuable scientist, he has often made such requests. “Sackett: I suggest to you that the emperor was seeking this information in order

to decide whether Japan could go to war with the United States. It was more like that, wasn’t it? “Kido: Maybe his thought had something to do with this problem. “On February 26, 1946, the following dialogue took place in Sugano prison: “Sackett: The emperor knew in July 1941 that the country had engaged quite clearly through its foreign policy in the path of expansion to the south, using, if necessary, armed force; and he thought it was an inappropriate time to go to war in the north, against the USSR, when you were looking to get war equipment in the south? Is this information consistent? “Kido: Yes. “Sackett: So, it was absolutely necessary to first obtain the emperor’s consent before sending troops to a place such as Indonesia? “Kido: Yes. “Sackett: In other words, the Supreme Command would not have sent troops to French Indochina, without appearing before the emperor before him to obtain his consent? “Kido: No. “Sackett: Japanese aircraft, starting from bases in Cochinchina, sank two British warships, the Repulse and the “Prince of Wales” off the coast of Malaysia, two days after Pearl Harbor; was the emperor aware of this attack? “Kido: Yes. “Your Honor, on December 6, 1941, through his ambassador to Japan, Joseph Clark Grew, President Roosevelt sent Hirohito a personal message, which he wrote: ‘“Almost a century ago, the President of the United States sent the emperor of Japan a message containing an offer of friendship from the people of the United States to that of Japan. This offer was accepted and, during the long period of uninterrupted peace and friendship that followed, our two nations, through the

virtues of their citizens and the wisdom of their leaders, prospered and contributed substantially to the well-being of humanity. It is only in situations of extraordinary importance to our two countries that I feel the need to address your Majesty’s messages on state affairs. I am convinced that I must do so today, because of the deep and widespread crisis that seems to be in construction.”’ ‘“Some of the current events threaten to deprive each of our nations and humanity of the beneficial influence of the long peace between our two countries. Witnessing the concentration of Japanese forces in Indochina, I personally implore you to order the withdrawal of these forces, in order to allay the fears of the peoples of Thailand, the Philippines, the Dutch Indies and Malaysia that the war was threatening. If your Empire follows through on these recommendations, there would be no Western interference in Asia.”’ “What was the response of the Japanese authorities to this remarkable correspondence sent by the American president? On the evening of December 6, the Japanese government sent the text of the fourteen-part memorandum to the U.S. minister of foreign affairs in Washington, D.C., which ended with a declaration of war by the Japanese empire against the United States. On December 7, 1941, at about 8:00 a.m., the Imperial Japanese Army attacked the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. In less than an hour, the huge American war fleet based in the Pacific was wiped out. In two successive raids, Japanese torpedo planes sank eight American battleships, and damaged dozens of cruisers, destroyers, minesweepers and other warships. Half of the U.S. force based in Hawaii was out of action. More than one hundred U.S. aircraft were also destroyed on the ground. Thousands of American soldiers were wounded, and a significant number died in the attack. “In Tokyo, at dawn on December 8, the British and American embassies were surrounded by police, while press correspondents from both countries were taken to police stations where they were subjected for several days to tight interrogations. The question is why the memorandum of war addressed to the Americans by the Japanese government arrived in Washington only after the attack. “During his interrogation at the Tokyo trial, Colonel Sackett asked Kido about this specific point: “Kido: I learned from the emperor himself that it was planned to first transmit

the declaration of war and then to launch the attack. “Sackett: Why did it happen the other way around? “Kido: I don’t know the reason for this setback. “Sackett: Has there been any investigation into the setback? It seems to me that it was quite unusual? “Kido: Not to my knowledge. “In a report provided to TMIEO by the government of Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni, appointed prime minister after the war, (this is document 3245, dated November 10, 1947, clarifying the question. Was the emperor aware of the plan attack on Pearl Harbor?), it says: One, we believe, in the circumstances at the same time, that the Empire was forced to declare war on the great East Asian. Two, that the emperor was overly eager to reach a peaceful conclusion to the negotiations between Japan and the United States. Three, that the emperor, in accordance with the practice established in the application of the constitution did not reject, with regard to the decisions at the beginning of hostilities and the execution of the plans planned for the operations of the cases decided by the headquarters imperial of the Army and Navy, and the government. Four, that in order to make all necessary efforts to avoid launching a surprise attack while negotiations were underway, there was a desperate attempt to communicate the announcement of the interruption of the talks between Japan and America. We have made, in the light of the existing circumstances of economic pressure, etc., imposed on the empire, that exercising our right to selfdefense, we believe that the clauses of the Hague Treaty concerning the start of hostilities can be annulled. Five, that the Imperial Proclamation declaring war was internal in nature and intended primarily for the people of Japan. And six, that we could not treat Britain and the other countries separately, given

the existing relations between the United States and all these countries at the time. “Certainly, all the following details were designed to protect Hirohito from prosecution and minimize his personal liability. Summing up Hirohito’s position more concisely, the document stated that “although the emperor had learned from his army and navy chiefs of staff, prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the outlines of military operations during the stage, however, he did not receive any reports regarding the details of the operation. He understood that when the above plan was implemented, diplomatic measures would be taken with the U.S. government before the use of weapons.” “Kido’s statement to Colonel Sackett during his pre-trial interrogation, which we will read, reveals the opposite. Hirohito personally conceived the Japanese army’s surprise plan of attack on the American base at Pearl Harbor. “Kido: As a rule, the emperor told me everything, but when it came to operations, the emperor was very reserved and sometimes told me certain things. “Sackett: In other words, when the chiefs of staff of the army or the navy raised questions with the emperor about operations, they were so secret that he normally told no one? “Kido: Perhaps the emperor also thought that if he disclosed such matters to the guard of the Imperial Seal, the latter might find the secret too heavy or then have to repent of it. “Sackett: The Chiefs of Staff had to reveal to the emperor the main phases of operations, even if you yourself were not aware of it, were you? “Kido: Sometimes he had to deal with very important problems, indeed. “Sackett: I imagine the emperor had learned from the army and navy, during their private interviews, this plan of attack on Pearl Harbor before it took place? “Kido: I think he was aware of the attack on Pearl Harbor. “Sackett: I have no doubt that the emperor knew about these plans for operations against Pearl Harbor and the decision to actually launch the attack, long in advance?

“Kido: I believe that the emperor had been instructed beforehand, because the General Staff of the Navy directly instructed him the outlines of the plan of attack. “Your Honor, in the list of war crimes alleged against Hirohito, we say that his green-light given to the high staff of the Japanese Army to start the war against Great Britain and against the United States was the most convincing facts attesting the emperor’s guilt. Two major British warships, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales were sunk by a Japanese air attack off Malaya on December 10, 1941. “Indeed, no warning note had been sent by Japan to the governments of the two countries to announce the declaration of war. The document submitted by the Higashikuni Ministry to TMIEO to explain the lack of prior warning to the English government is riddled with lies (“due to the unexpected length of time it takes to decrypt and prepare the notification at the Japanese embassy in the United States, the U.S. government was warned too late), said the document, which also referred to the “right to self-defense,” equating “economic pressure” (driven by Japanese aggression in Indochina) with a kind of political equivalent of Pearl Harbor, which “canceled” the of the Hague Treaty. “Why there was no attempt to communicate with Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, through the Japanese embassy in London? Why decide to go through the corridor of Washington to alert the British government when we even know, a notification addressed to the British ambassador in Washington by Cordell Hull would have taken several minutes and it would have taken several hours for British forces in Malaysia to be informed of the impending attack as radio links were often difficult due to atmospheric conditions, and as coding and decoding operations took time? In Malaysia, it had been known for several days that Japan had intended to go to war with Britain by seeing Japanese soldiers disembarking at Kota Bharu and others arriving by land from the north after crossing Thailand. “The real reason was, as Edward Behr explained in his book Hirohito, The Ambiguous Emperor, ‘“by attacking Malaysia without any prior warning around the time when Japanese planes were beginning to bomb Pearl Harbor, the Japanese commanders were merely carrying out the imperial advice concerning surprise and secrecy which, as Hirohito himself had pointed out, were essential to the success of such a complicated operation taking place simultaneously on

several fronts.”’ “The conviction of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita in the “Manila Bag,” a verdict handed down by the five of the commission set up by MacArthur to try the Japanese general, is another element attesting the accusation of war crimes committed by the military close to the Imperial Palace. On December 7, 1945, Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, commander of the Japanese armed forces in the Philippines, was sentenced to death by a U.S. military commission. He was hanged a few months later, on February 23, 1946, at 3:00 a.m. in Los Banos, fifty kilometers south of Manila. Considered as a military hero in Japan for his victories at the head of the Japanese troops who had conquered Malaysia and Singapore, Yamashita had been appointed on October 7, 1944, by the Japanese High Staff as commander of the Fourteenth Army Philippines. On October 20, two weeks after his arrival in the Philippines, U.S. forces landed in Leyte. Yamashita immediately ordered to evacuate Manila and decided with his troops to take refuge in Baguio in the mountains of the hinterland. Before surrendering to the U.S. Army, on September 3, 1945, Yamashita had encouraged Japanese troops remaining in the capital to massacre the population. “Gen. Yamashita’s plan was not to defend Manila to the end. A number of soldiers had to carry out delays and, above all, the destruction of the port facilities, and the ransacking of the city, at a time when the bulk of the troops were making their way to the Luzon Mountains. It was up to Gen. Akira Muto and . Sanji Iwabuchi to implement Yamashita’s instructions. It was a widespread killing. The largest massacre took place at St. Paul’s College on February 9, 1945. Three hundred and seventy people were shot, or bayoneted, while the doors were blocked by the military. In St. Augustine’s Convent on February 23, war correspondent Henry Keys recorded incredible scenes of horror. In total, a hundred thousand Filipinos had been brutally massacred there in what has been referred to as the “Manila bag.” Arrested on September 25, 1945, Yamashita was brought before a U.S. military commission formed on October 1, 1945, by Gen. MacArthur. “In the notification of the sixty-four counts made to him on October 8, 1945, three weeks before the opening of the trial, by prosecutor Robert Kerr, Yamashita was accused of carrying out a concerted plan by the troops under his control to massacre a large part of the civilian population of Batanga Province where 25,000 men, women, and children died there. ‘“According to the prosecution, Yamashita knew or should have known, and therefore had allowed

the mass crimes committed in the Philippines by the troops under his authority ; in particular, murders, looting, devastation, rape, undernourishment of prisoners of war, and execution without trial of the guerrilla forces, and had not taken the measures required by international law to ensure the discipline of its troops and the conditions existing in the camps of prisoners of war and internees civilians under its control.”’ The rapporteur paused for a moment and turned his head to the president before he continued. “Your Honor, despite his selfless behavior which gave the impression that he was completely unaware of the war plan of the army high staff, there is unassailable evidence that Hirohito was personally ing instructions to Oshima, then Japan’s ambassador to Berlin, to negotiate with the Nazi leadership, to obtain technological assistance from them. Oshima met with German foreign minister Joachim Ribbentrop and told him that his government was interested in missile technology, particularly the V1s and V2s that the Germans used on targets in London and other strategic locations in Europe. “The Japanese ambassador advocated for uranium aid. A few months later, German submarines began transporting tons of advanced equipment and weapons to Japan in the famous U-boats. The last German submarine that attempted the crossing between the Atlantic and Japan was the U-234, a giant vessel of twenty-two thousand tons, whose commander, Johann-Heinrich Fehler, was, despite his young age – thirty-five years old – one of the German sailors the most experienced. On May 25, 1945, U-234 left Kiel, packed with secret devices, mercury (hidden in the form of a seest), the last anti-aircraft projectiles developed by , spare parts for jets and other war equipment. Three weeks later, the submarine wet in Kristiansand harbor in Norway. On April 15, 1945, U-234 left Norway for Japan. On May 10, the submarine commander received . Doenitz’s order to surrender. The war was over in Europe. The commander surrendered to a U.S. Navy crew on the Fourteenth. Two Japanese engineers on-board committed suicide. Among the U-234’s cargo, 560 kilograms of uranium oxide was found.” The rapporteur observed a new pause and continued. “Your Honor, there is certainly no record of a direct order or statement that proves that Hirohito actually encouraged the atrocities that took place in

Malaysia or during the Bataan “Death March.” Nevertheless, in the Sugiyama Memorandum or in Kido’s diary, there are concurring revelations that the emperor followed very closely the campaigns that took place on the Pacific front. He sent aides-de-camp to his entourage on the frontlines of Singapore and the Philippines. One of Gen. Sugiyama’s senior staff officers, Col. Masanobu Tsuji, claimed to be acting on Hirohito’s behalf. He placed orders to slaughter the wounded doctors and nurses and systematically abuse prisoners of war. A serious and flagrant violation of the First Geneva Convention of 1919 and the Second Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949, included in the report. “Article 15: At all times, including after a commitment, Parties to the conflict will take immediate steps to search for and collect the wounded and sick, protect them from looting and ill-treatment, and ensure that they are necessary care, as well as to search for the dead and prevent them from being stripped. “Whenever circumstances permit, an armistice, fire break or local arrangements, will be agreed to allow the removal, exchange, and transport of the wounded and sick from a besieged or encircled area, and for the age of health and religious personnel and sanitary equipment for the area. “Three weeks after the fall of Singapore on March 9, 1942, Kido, who was visiting the emperor, found him “smiling with tears of joy”: ‘“This series of victories is too complete, too fast,”’ he exulted. Kido, you realize that Java has surrendered, that our troops have obtained a total surrender to the Dutch Indies, that Burma is ours, that Rangoon has fallen! The Emperor noted Kido ‘“seemed to radiate satisfaction. I was so moved that I couldn’t find any words to congratulate him.”’ “Similarly, Hirohito celebrated the victories of the Japanese army on the Pacific front, his joy also extended to the victories of the German allies. On June 28, 1942, he told Kido that ‘“the Germans have not only captured Tobruk, they are already well on their way to Egypt after taking Sidi-Barrani en route.”’ He even thought of sending Hitler a telegram to congratulate him on the capture of Tobruk. The dispatch was never dispatched because Tsuneo Matsudaira, the minister of the imperial household, objected on the grounds that Hirohito had not received a congratulatory telegram from Hitler after his victories in Asia. “In March 1942, the Japanese government, in agreement with the Imperial Palace, adopted a series of measures concerning Jews, which included laws in

force in Nazi : the immigration of Jews to China, Manchuria, Japan, and in the territories occupied was forbidden; Jews already living in these areas would not be arrested, but ‘“because of the special racial characteristics of the Jews, the supervision of their residences and professional occupations will be very strict. Eventually, their activities in favor of the enemy will be eliminated and repressed.”’ Jews ‘“who may be useful to the Emperor (including those who may be useful to Axis nations and those who are not hostile to national policy) will be carefully selected and treated appropriately.”’ “Your Honor, it was evident after the successive defeats of the Japanese army at the Battle of Manila (February 23 – March 3, 1945), the Battle of Luzon (February 21–August 21, 1945), the Battle of the Irrawaddy River (March 4 – May 8, 1945), the Battle of Iwo Jima (February 19 – March 26, 1945), and the Battle of Okinawa (June 4 – June 8, 1945), surrender was the ultimate decision by Japan to avoid the total destruction of the Empire. Hirohito, as divine emperor, and commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army, was the only one authorized to order Japanese Army High Staff to stop the war, and then could ask Prime Minister, Kantarō Suzuki, to begin negotiations with the Allies to end the conflict. On the contrary, the emperor, far from making this resolution of wisdom, that would have spared the lives of hundreds of thousands of his subjects, decided to the position of the high staff who wanted at any cost to continue the war. “As a result of this senseless calculation, there were several major attacks by the American air force on Japanese territory, including the air raid on the city of Tokyo on March 10, 1945, the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, followed by Nagasaki, on August 9, and several other deadly American-led air strikes on Japanese territory. For example, attacks on Tokuyama, Iwakuni, Osaka, Kamagaya, and Isekai. During the U.S. airstrike on Tokyo, the damages from the incendiary bombs (496,000 in total) damaged 261,000 homes, leaving 1.15 million people homeless. Thirty-two shopping malls were completely destroyed, and the Japanese government recorded the death rate of 100,000 people. In Hiroshima, about 80,000 people died and about 40,000 people died in Nagasaki. Some figures have put the number of 200,000 people dead as a result of the use of the two atomic bombs. On June 22, 1945, 383 B-29s attacked industrial areas in six different cities in Japan: Kure, Kakamigahara, Himeji, Mizushima, and Akashi, all in southern Honshu. On June 26, saw factories in the same area in the Shikoku Island were attacked by 510 B-29s, accompanied by 148 fighter jets. The use of incendiary bombs affected the following cities:

Hamamatsu, Kagoshima, Omuta, Yokkaichi, Fukuoka, Shizuoka, Toyohashi, Moji, Nobeoka, Okayama, Sasebo, Kumamoto, Kure, Shimonoseki, Ube, Kochi, Takematsu, Tokushima, Akashi, Chifu, Ko Shimizu, Gifu, Sakai, Sendai, Wakayama, Ichinomiya, Tsuruga, Utsunomiya, Uwajima, Hiratsuka, Kuwana, Namazu, Oita, Choschi, Fukui, Hitachi, Okazaki, Matsuyama, Aomori, Ichinomiya, and Tokuyama. “Your Honor, as we said, millions of innocent lives could be saved if the Japanese leaders had accepted without delay the Potsdam Declaration. At the time where Tokyo and many major cities in Japan were being destroyed daily by fire raids from attacks launched by the Americans using hundreds of B-29, rather than make a decision on the declaration, the men in Tokyo most wanted clarified the future status of their emperor. Hirohito and his staff preferred to wait instead of replying to the cable in which the Allies issued a last warning to the Japanese empire. “Tōgō was annoyed at the recommendation of Amb. Sato in Moscow. On July 20, 1945, Sato had wired to Togo: ‘“I recommend acceptance of virtually any term.”’ “In response, Tōgō, from a secret channel cable, sent this message back to Sato:

‘“July 25, 1945 1900hours To: Sato From: Tōgō No. 944 (urgent, ambassador’s code) …Navy Captain Zacharias said on the twenty-first that Japan had two choices: it could either accept a dictated peace after its ruin or surrender unconditionally and enjoy the benefits of the Atlantic Charter. We would be wrong to consider such statements trick propaganda. We must it that they are partly intended to invite us to come to their cause. We, for our part, are desirous to inform the United States through some feasible method that, although we are unable to accept unconditional surrender under any circumstances, we have no objection to the restoration of peace on the basis of the Atlantic Charter.

“On July 27, in the Imperial Palace with Hirohito, the Japanese cabinet sat down to study the declaration that was being drafted in Potsdam, : “Point Six: There must be eliminated for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest. “Point Seven: Points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies shall be occupied to secure the achievement of the basic objectives we are here setting forth. “Point Eight: The of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honsku, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, and such minor islands as we determine. “Point Nine: The Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives. “Point Ten: Stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners. “Point Eleven: The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people, a peacefully inclined and responsible government. “It was several weeks since the Potsdam Declaration had been notified to the Japanese authorities. Hirohito and his staff at the government and at the army instead of recognizing defeat and stopping the casualties in both side from the war, tried to use all political means for avoiding complete defeat or unconditional surrender. “The strategy was to persuade the Soviet Union to continue its neutrality, at the same time to make every effort ‘“to grow discord between the Americans and the British on one side, and the Russians on the other side. As the situation deteriorates still further, Japan may even make a serious attempt to use the Soviet as a mediator in ending the war.”’ “Knowing the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy were

objectively defeated, Hirohito was indifferent to the sufferings that the war was causing on his own citizen, and also on the peoples of Asia, the Pacific, and the West. The wartime empire and his war leaders let several opportunities to end the war. First, Hirohito and his inner war cabinet – the Supreme War Leadership Council – could sue for peace when Prince Konoe and Foreign Minister Shigemitsu, in February 1945, warned the emperor that once the war was ending in Europe, the Soviet Union would not hesitate to not renew the Neutrality Treaty and would decide to intervene military in the Far East to occupy Manchuria and other territories in Japan. According to military intelligence officers, the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan by midsummer. Hirohito, instead of starting the process to end the war, was determined to fight. He ed the position of the far-right extremists in the Army who rejected any act of surrender. “The second opportunity was offered at the beginning of June 1945, when the Japanese troops were defeated by the Allies during the Battle of Okinawa. The invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific theater of World War II. The battle has been referred to as the “typhoon of steel” because the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of Japanese kamikaze attacks, and the numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific, with approximately 210,000 casualties: at least 85,000 Allied and 125,000 Japanese. The Americans suffered over 82,000 casualties, including non-battle casualties (psychiatric, injuries, illnesses), of whom over 12,500 were killed or missing. Battle deaths were 4,907 Navy, 4,675 Army, and 2,938 Marine Corps personnel. The US military estimates that 110,071 Japanese soldiers were killed during the battle. A total of 7,401 Japanese regulars and 3, 400 Okinawan conscripts surrendered or were captured during the battle. Both sides lost considerable numbers of ships and aircraft, including the Japanese battleship Yamato. Of the estimated pre-war 300,000 local population, an estimated 150,000 Okinawans were killed, committed suicide, or went missing. The eighty-two-day battle lasted from April 1 until June 22, 1945. ‘After the defeat, Gen. Umezu indicated that the war effort could continue no longer, and Umezu unveiled the dramatic situation in China. Foreign Minister Milotov had notified Tokyo on April 5, 1945, that the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact would not be extended, and that the German had surrendered unconditionally on May 7 and 8, leaving Japan completely isolated. Hirohito, once again, instead to listen to Gen. Umezu’s advice, had refused the decision

for Japan to surrender in order to allow the imperial structure to survive. The emperor adopted with his war leaders two dangerous measures: preparations for a final battle on the homeland, and efforts to gain Soviet assistance in ending the war by offering Stalin limited territorial concessions. During several weeks, being witness that the home islands had been bombed on a large scale, and knowing also for certain that the bombing of Tokyo and several major cities in Japan would intensify over time, Hirohito approved the decision of the six constituent of the council who agreed to return to the situation that had existed prior to the Russo-Japanese War, while retaining Korea as Japanese territory and making south Manchuria a neutral zone. “The third opportunity came on July 27 and 28, when the Potsdam Declaration was signified to the Suzuki cabinet. The Japanese government obtained the declaration and was informed that if it fulfilled certain unilateral obligations, which the victorious powers would impose after the Japanese government had proclaimed ‘“the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces”’ and furnished ‘“proper and adequate assurance of their good faith in such action.”’ Japan would then be allowed to retain its peace industries and resume participation in world trade on the basis of the principle of equal access to raw materials. ‘“The alternative for Japan,”’ the declaration concluded, ‘“is prompt and utter destruction.”’ Article 12 stated, ‘“The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government.”’ ‘The Japanese government received the declaration on July 27. Suzuki first ordered the press to publish the Dōmei News Service’s edited version. In the newspaper, Suzuki cabinet minimized the significance of the declaration by not commenting on it. The next day, on July 28, Prime Minister Suzuki, Army Minister Anami Korechika, Chief of the Naval General Staff Toyoda Soemu, and others, had a meeting at the Imperial Palace with Hirohito. After that meeting, the Japanese leaders made Japan’s rejection explicit by formally declaring, at an afternoon press conference, that the Potsdam Declaration was no more than a “rehash” (yakinaoshi) of the Cairo Declaration, and that Japan intended to “ignore” it (mokusatsu). Hirohito was still waiting for the Soviet to reply to the renewal’s proposition of the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact. Instead to surrender, the emperor’s ultimate goal was to continue fighting for more favorable .

“Your Honor, why did Japan’s top leaders delay so long before finally accepting to end the war? It was Emperor’s Hirohito tactic to delay the inevitable capitulation in order to cut a deal on the issue of guaranteeing the dynasty. To do so, the emperor requested for Soviet mediation. The Hirota Kōki – Jacob Malik talks – and the secret messages that Foreign Minister Tōgō sent to Amb. Satō Naotake in Moscow, were part of the strategy. The negotiations between Japan and the Soviet Union to gain Soviet assistance in ending the war, which went on through June, July, and early August, could be perceived as a tactic to delay the act of surrender. The future of the throne and the all-important prerogatives of its occupants, by the time of the discussions, would be absolutely guaranteed. “On the morning of August 3, 1945, Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki had a meeting with his Cabinet Advisory Council, composed of the president of Asano Cement, the founder of the Nissan Consortium, the vice president of the Bank of Japan, and other business leaders who had profited greatly from the war. Those from the “zaibatsu” recommended acceptance of the Potsdam on the ground that the United States would allow Japan to retain its military industries and participate in world trade. Suzuki replied to them: For the enemy to say something like that means circumstances have arisen that force them also to end the war. That is why they are talking about unconditional surrender. Precisely at a time like this, if we hold firm, then they will yield before we do. Just because they broadcast their declaration, it is not necessary to stop fighting. You advisers may ask me to reconsider, but I don’t think there is any need to stop the war. “Also, when the moderate senior statesman, Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, was asked by his secretary, Rear . Takeo Takagi, why the prime minister had made such an absurd statement, Yonai replied, ‘“If one is first to issue a statement, he is always at a disadvantage. Churchill has fallen, America is beginning to be isolated. The government therefore will ignore it. There is no need to rush.”’ “On August 6, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On August 9, the Americans dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. That same day, in a nationwide radio report on Potsdam Conference, President Truman explained the legitimacy of the bombing: “Having found the bomb, we have used it. We have used it against those who

attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. “Very concerned about the future of war, Hirohito invited former prime ministers Hiranuma, Hirota, Wakatsuki, Okada, Konoe, and Tōjō to come to the Imperial Palace to gather their views on the war. At the same time, Hirohito met with the six high-ranking dignitaries of the Empire, the so-called “Big Six,” to decide on surrender, namely: Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki, a veteran of the RussoJapanese War, Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō, Minister of the Navy, . Mitsumasa Yonai, Minister of War, Gen. Korechika Anami, Chief of the General Yoshijirō Umezu, and the Chief of Navy Personnel, . Soemu Toyoda. “Three agreed with the position to continue the war and three voted for surrender. Then, Hirohito cut: ‘“I have given a lot of thought to the current situation in the country and outside the territory, I have come to the conclusion that continuing the war would lead to more destruction in the nation and an extension of cruelty and barbarism in the world. Those who want to continue the war have taught me that new battalions will arrive from Kujikurihama in June. Now I realize that these promises cannot be fulfilled even in September. To those who are in favor of one last battle on our own soil, I want to remind them of the difference between their plan presented in the past and the one on the agenda. I don’t want to witness any more suffering from my people. Ending the war is the only way to restore peace in the world and lift the country into the distress it is currently facing.”’ “Your Honor, only after Hiroshima, and Nagasaki had been bombed did Hirohito accept to end the war. Three days after the Nagasaki bombing, he called Kido, on August 9, and told him, to ‘“quickly control the situation”’ because ‘“the Soviet Union has declared war and today began hostilities against us.”’ There was no delay to surrender. Kido immediately communicated with Prime Minister Suzuki to make the final plan for the Imperial Conference held later that night. Chief Cabinet Sec. Hisatsune Sakomizu with the assistance of two Chinese scholars, Kawada Mizuho and Yasuoka Masahiro, drafted the ‘“Imperial Rescript Ending the War.”’ The team worked on the document for over three days before Suzuki had submitted the final version of the rescript to Hirohito on

the night of August 14. That same night, after the emperor signed the document, the Suzuki government notified the United States and other Allied governments that Japan had accepted both the Potsdam Declaration and the Secretary of States Byrnes’ letter of August 11. “Your Honor, for the record, here is the text sent by the United States via its Secretary of State James F. Byrnes to the Japanese authorities: August 11, 1945 SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your note of August 10, and in reply to inform you that the President of the United States has directed me to send to you for transmission by your Government to the Japanese Government the following message on behalf of the Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, and China. “With regard to the Japanese Government’s message accepting the of the Potsdam proclamation but containing the statement, with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler, our position is as follow: “From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender . “The Emperor will be required to authorize and ensure the signature by the Government of Japan and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters of the surrender necessary to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration, and shall issue his commands to all the Japanese military, naval and air authorities and to all the forces under their control wherever located to cease active operations and to surrender their arms, and to issue such other orders at the Supreme Commander may require to give effect to the surrender . “Immediately upon the surrender the Japanese Government shall transport prisoners of war and civilian internees to places of safety, as directed, where they can quickly be placed aboard Allied transports.

“The ultimate form of government of Japan shall, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people. “The armed forces of the Allied Powers will remain in Japan until the purposes set forth in the Potsdam Declaration are achieved.”

JAMES F. BYRNES - Secretary of State MR. MAX GRÄSSLI – Chargé d’Affaires ad interim of Switzerland

“On the night of August 14, advising by Shimomura and Kido, Hirohito accepted to record the final version for broadcast to the nation. At noon on August 15, the Japanese people gathered around their radio speakers and heard for the first time the voice of their emperor telling them: ‘“Our Empire accepts the provisions of their t Declaration.”’ Hirohito never used the word “defeat” but said he was acting to save “human civilization” from “total extinction” by “paving the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come.” Speaking in unique intonation that drops at the end of the sentences, Hirohito ended his war rescript by stating that the aim of the war had been national “existence and selfdefense,” and he also expressed “the deepest sense of regret” to Asian countries that cooperated with Japan to gain “emancipation” from Western colonization. In the imperial rescript, the war in China was not mentioned; aggression was ignored; troops were praised for their loyalty. Hirohito lamented only devastation caused by “a new and most cruel bomb” dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and asked everyone to stay calm while helping to reconstruct the country. In the last paragraph of his speech, he revealed the real goals of his decision to end the war. “Having been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the imperial state, we are always with ye, our good and loyal subjects, relying upon your sincerity and integrity. Beware most strictly of any out-bursts of emotion that can engender needless complications, or any fraternal contention and strife that may create confusion, lead ye astray, and cause ye to lose the confidence of the world. Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith of the imperishability of its divine land, ever mindful of its heavy

burden of responsibilities, and of the long road before it. “To ensure correct understanding of the message, which was written in obscure court style, radio announcer for NHK, from 1934 to 1945, Wada Shinken, reread the entire rescript in ordinary language. Wada, after the lecture of the rescript, made these comments: “We ourselves invited a situation in which we had no choice but to lay down our arms. We could not live up to the great benevolence of the emperor, but he did not even scold us. On the contrary, he said that whatever might happen to himself, “I can no longer bear to see my people die in war.” Before such great benevolence and love, who among us can escape reflecting on his own disloyalty? “Wada ended by explaining the purpose of the imperial message: ‘“Since the situation had developed this way, the nation will unite and, believing in the indestructibility of the divine land, put all of its energies into rebuilding for the future.”’ “A declaration from the Suzuki government followed, condemning the United States for use of the atomic bombs in violation of international law, and the Soviet Union for declaring war against Japan. Three days later, on August 17, Hirohito issued a second “Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors” in all war theaters of Asia and the Pacific, ordering them to cease fire and lay down their arms. “Three years and eight months have elapsed since we declared war on the United States and Britain. During this time our beloved men of the army and navy, sacrificing their lives, have fought valiantly on disease-stricken and barren lands and on tempestuous waters in the blazing sun, and of this we are deeply grateful. Now that the Soviet Union has entered the war against us, to continue the war under the present internal and external conditions at home and abroad would be only to increase needlessly the ravages of war finally to the point of endangering the very foundation of the Empire’s existence. Although the fighting spirit of the Imperial Army and Navy is as high as ever, with a view to maintaining and protecting our noble national policy, we are about to make peace with the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and Chungking. To a large number of loyal and brave officers and men of the imperial forces who have died in battle and from sickness goes our deepest grief. At the same

time, we believe the loyalty and achievements of you, officers and men of the Imperial forces, will, for all time, be the quintessence of our nation. We trust that you, officers and men of the Imperial forces will comply with our intention and will maintain a solid unity and strict discipline in your movements and that you will bear the hardest of all difficulties, bear the unbearable and leave an everlasting foundation of the nation. “Japan surrendered to the Allies on August 15, six days after the Soviet Union’s declaration of war and the bombing of Nagasaki. The Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on September 2 in Tokyo Bay. Between the receipt of the Potsdam Declaration on July 27 and the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, more than two hundred thousand Japanese people died from conventional air raids. At 8:15 A.M. on August 6, a single B-29 destroyed much of the undefended city of Hiroshima, immediately killing an estimated 100,000 to 140,000 people and taking the lives (over the next six years) of another 100,000. “At the center of the explosion, a light appeared 3,000 times brighter than the sun, and a fireball formed, emitting thermal radiation that instantly scorched humans, trees, houses. As the air heated and rushed upward, cold air flowed in to ignite a firestorm. [Hours later] a whirlwind whipped the flames to their peak until more than eight square miles were virtually in cinders. Black, muddy rain, full of radioactive fallout, began to drop. “Another B-29 dropped a plutonium implosion bomb (“Fat Man”) on Nagasaki three days later. The bombs immediately devastated almost the entire city. Over the next two to four months, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed between 70,000 to 80,000 people in Nagasaki. Large numbers of people continued to die for months afterward from the effects of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. “As the historian Herbert Bix said in his book, Hirohito: And the Making of Modern Japan: ‘“From the very start of the Asia-Pacific war, the emperor was a major protagonist of the events going on around him. Before the Battle of Okinawa, he had constantly pressed for a decisive victory. Afterward he accepted the need for an early but not an immediate peace. And then he vacillated, steering Japan

toward continued warfare rather than toward direct negotiations with the Allies. When the final crisis was fully upon him, the only option left was surrender without negotiation. Even then he continued to procrastinate until the bomb was dropped and the Soviets attacked.”’ “Your Honor, Hirohito knew perfectly the consequences for not making promptly a decision on the declaration. By his fault, the inhabitants in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had experienced the first atomic bombs in the history of the world. As supreme commander, he was responsible for the crimes committed by the Japanese army during the war. He was also responsible for the death of millions of soldiers and civilians in the Pacific and the Southeast Asia during and after the war.” The rapporteur observed another pause to catch his breath, with a great emotion in his voice, continued. “Your Honor, after the act of surrender, and the departure of the Suzuki cabinet on August 17, 1945, who Hirohito chose as Prime Minister? Prince General Naruhiko Higashikuni. Who was Higashikuni? When the Second World War started in Asia with the Second Sino-Japanese War, Higashikuni commanded the Army Air Service, in which role he ordered the massive bombing of Chinese cities such as Shanghai, Chongqing, Nanking, and Guangzhou. Between 1938 and 1939, he was assigned to the 2nd Army in China. Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a professor of Japanese modern history at Chuo University in Tokyo, found a memo signed by Prince Higashikuni dated August 16, 1938 authorizing the use of poison gas against Chinese forces. In 1939, he was promoted to the rank of general and was made a member of the Supreme War Council. In 1940, he was awarded the Order of the Golden Kite, 1st Class. He was a part of the conspiracy that toppled Hideki Tojo’s government in July 1944 after the fall of Saipan, Mariana Islands.” The rapporteur consulted his notes, and after a brief pause, continued: “Your Honor, Hirohito is responsible of war crimes, there is no doubt, but after the war, how many young women get swept into the sex industry. On September 29, 1946, the Mainichi newspaper published a letter from a twenty-one-year-old prostitute. The young woman described how she had been repatriated from Manchuria and, without relatives or resources, ended up in the world of prostitution.

‘“I had been repatriated from Manchuria and, without relatives or resources, ended up living in the cavernous reaches of Tokyo’s Ueno station. I slept there and looked for work, but could not find anything, and there were three consecutive days when I went without eating. Then, on the night of the third day, a man I did not know, gave me two rice balls. I devoured them. The following night, he again brought me two rice balls. He then asked me to come to the park because he wanted to talk with me. I followed him. That is when I sank into the despised profession of being a woman of the dark.”’ “In the wake of the surrender rumors spread like wildfire that the American troops will violate women one after the other. Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni, the new prime minister, lost no time to address that question. On August 18, 1945, the government sent a secret wireless message to regional police officials throughout the country instructing them to prepare special and exclusive “comfort facilities” for the occupation army. The preparations were to be made by local chiefs of police, who were to mobilize entrepreneurs and individuals already engaged in providing sexual services. On the following days, police officials in Tokyo met with ‘“entrepreneurs”’ operating in the Tokyo-Yokohama area and promised them 50 million yen in financial help, with the agreement that they should raise a similar amount themselves. On September 6, the official Kangyō Bank advanced upwards of 30 million yen as the presumed first installment on a government loan for these activities. They were quite inexpensive. The price for a short visit with an R.A.A. prostitute was 15 yen, or one dollar. Nevertheless, most of the women who had been recruited by the R.A.A. were sent off without their pay, but only with the words that they had “served the country” and been a ‘“dike of chastity.”’ “Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S. troops. In January 1946, General MacArthur ordered the abolition of all ‘“public”’ prostitution, declaring it undemocratic and in violation of women’s human rights. This decision from occupation authorities was motivated by an alarming rise in veneral disease among the troops. Almost 90 percent of the R.A.A. women were tested positive for infection.” The rapporteur casted a brief glance at the audience, and continued. “On September 27, 1945, Hirohito met Gen. MacArthur at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. During the interview, the American commander asked the emperor why he had not been able to prevent war. Hirohito replied that he ‘“would have been

locked up in a madhouse, or perhaps even murdered.”’ It is easy to understand from this answer that Hirohito was lying. His actions showed that he was no longer a helpless puppet in the hands of soldiers who single-handedly decided the strategy of war, but he was a sovereign leader who commanded and oversaw all the operations of the army during the Second World War. A discreet and timid natural, he encouraged the militarization of the country during his long reign in power and took no steps to combat the ultranationalist excesses of the military, which, with its endorsement, steered the country toward war. “Many figures in China, Korea, and Southeast Asia believed that Hirohito was the main culprit for the atrocities committed in the occupied territories and, as well as the high dignitaries in his Empire, he should have been tried for war crimes. “Contrary to MacArthur’s view, which presented Hirohito as a helpless spectator in the political arena, marginalized by an all-powerful military staff and bellicose politicians, the emperor exercised an effective power in Japan, as he showed during the 1936 push, by ordering forced pensions, refusing promotions, or suggesting assignments to unimportant positions. The Kyōdō News Agency surveyed on December 1975, where among three thousand men and women on the state of the monarchy, more than 80 percent responded. Nearly 57 percent of these respondents believed that the emperor bore war responsibility. “Hirohito’s pretense of ignorance, as if he had been an innocent bystander to the events in his reign, the question is, why did the decision to end the war from him come after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The Meiji constitution had required him to accept the advice of the cabinet when exercising his power of supreme command and his right to declare war and make peace. The Japanese publication of the Kido diaries showed that Hirohito had never blindly followed the will of anyone, either cabinet or military, and the Sugiyama memo had revealed how highly active and interventionist a monarch he had been.” In a letter dated September 9, 1945, to his eleven-year-old son, Crown Prince Akihito, the emperor explained the causes of the defeat: “Our people believed too much in the imperial country and were contemptuous of Britain and the United States. Our military men placed too much weight on spirit and forgot about science. In the time of the Meiji Emperor, there were great commanders like Yamagata, Ōyama, and Yamamoto. But this time, as with in World War I, military men predominated and gave no thought to the larger situation.

They knew how to advance but not how to retreat. If we had continued the war, we would have been unable to protect the three-imperial regalia. Not only that, more of our countrymen would have had to die. Repressing my motions, I tried to save the seed of the nation.” Hirohito wrote again, “Japan had been defeated because of the overwhelming material superiority of Britain and the United States… and the great skillfulness of the American way of fighting. [The Anglo-Americans] were defeated at the start because they were not then adequately prepared. But one they were prepared; they came at us like wild boars. Their methods of attack were very skillful and scientific…Finally they used atomic bombs and killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of Japanese, destroyed towns and factories…In the end we could fight no longer. The cause for this was the inferiority of Japanese national power and scientific power.”

THE GREAT ABSENT

“Your Honor, Hirohito was not present in the dock at the Tokyo trial. On the basis of an agreement between the prosecution and the defense, his name was forbidden to be invoked in the proceedings. But was the emperor unaware of the war crimes committed by Japanese soldiers in the occupied territories? The answer is no. He was commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army and the Imperial Navy. All the prime ministers during the long period of the war were appointed by him after being designated by the National Diet. It is inconceivable that he would take no responsibility for the deaths of millions of civilians and soldiers who perished during the Pacific War. From the imperial house, Hirohito dictated or approved the majority of important orders given by the government or the army’s high staff as to the direction of the war. He ed the Japanese expansionist policy that led to the occupation of Manchuria in 1937, the invasion of French Indochina in 1940, and the outbreak of the Second War between Japan and China, 1937–1945. He secretly fomented the Japanese Navy’s surprise attack on the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. He accepted Japan’s entry into the war alongside Hitler from a political and military alliance between the two countries. “Interviewed on the war by journalist Kase Hideaki from the popular journal Bungei shunjū, Prince Takamatsu, the young brother of Hirohito, implied that he had been a dove, and Hirohito a reckless hawk. He told of the incident on November 30, 1941, when he had spoken to his brother for five minutes, warning him that the navy high command could feel confident only if the war lasted no longer than two years. Takamatsu also recalled warning his brother to end the war right after the Battle of Midway. Four Japanese and three American aircraft carriers participated in the battle. The four Japanese fleet carriers – Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū, part of the six-carrier force that had attacked Pearl Harbor – were sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Mikuma. ‘“After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan’s capacity to replace its losses in material particularly aircraft carriers) and men (especially well-trained pilots and maintenance crewmen rapidly became insufficient to cope with mounting casualties, while the United States’ massive industrial and training capabilities made losses far easier to replace. The Battle of Midway,

along with the Guadalcanal campaign, is widely considered a turning point in the Pacific war.”’ Takamatsu revealed also that he and Prince Konoe had considered asking the emperor to abdicate prior to surrender.” The rapporteur continued, “Your Honor, in his plan to play repentant and avoid being tried and convicted, Hirohito in his Proclamation of the New Year to the Japanese people, three months after his first meeting with MacArthur, officially renounced his ‘“divinity.”’ In a carefully prepared text, which he addressed to the nation, he declared: ‘“The bond between us and you, the people, is constantly reconnected by mutual trust, love and respect. It’s not just mythology and legends that create it. Never has such a connection been based on the chimerical perception that makes the Emperor a living god and which, moreover, considers the Japanese race as superior to all other human races and thus destined to rule the world.”’ “He later sent a photographer dedicated in English to General Bonner Frank Fellers, who had greeted him when he entered the embassy. Empress Nagako, shortly after the interview on September 27, sent Jean MacArthur, the wife of the American general and commander-in-chief of the occupying forces, a gigantic basket of flowers. Hirohito, a second time, sent MacArthur a lacing and gold writing board, dated to the Tokugawa Era, in the nineteenth century. These are calculated actions of the emperor to buy the sympathy of American superior officers in order to escape the justice of the Allies. “A few days after the verdicts were announced, Hirohito wrote a letter to General MacArthur reassuring him that he had no intention of abdicating. A week after, Keenan reaffirmed that the decision for trying the emperor is not on the table because there is no evidence that he had participated in the crimes committed by the army during the war. According to Keenan, Hirohito was not a war criminal. With the emperor very pleased with this opinion, Keenan had been invited to a private lunch with the emperor at the imperial palace.”

SITUATION POSTWAR

“In the desperate final stages of the war, Hirohito and Japan’s top leaders had chosen to fight a brutal and bloody battle in Okinawa with the hope that it would dissuade the Allies particularly the Americans from attempting to invade the home islands. More than ten thousand Americans died in this battle. Over 110,000 Japanese troops and approximately one-third of the civilian population were killed. In the wake of defeat, approximately 6.5 million Japanese were stranded in Asia, Siberia, and the Pacific Ocean area. Some 2.6 million Japanese were in China at war’s end, 1.1 million dispersed through Manchuria. In addition, almost six hundred thousand troops were prisoners in the Kurile Islands and the Darien-Port Arthur enclave in southern Manchuria. Over five hundred thousand Japanese were in Formosa (Taiwan) and nine hundred thousand in Korea. Nine hundred thousand were in Southeast Asia and the Philippines. Hundreds of thousands were dispersed in scattered islands in the Pacific. “American and Japanese authorities estimated that between 1.6 and 1.7 million Japanese were prisoners of the Russians. Of this number, more than three hundred thousand were killed during the Stalinist purges. Scattered in more than a hundred prison camps, the Allied prisoners of war in Japan, called “POWs” were malnourished, some suffered from tuberculosis. A total of 31,617 Americans POWs were freed and processed through Manila by October 31, 1945. Some 1.35 million Koreans who had been conscripted to perform heavy labor were in Japan at the time of surrender. “In July 1946, the Ministry of Health and Welfare estimated that there were approximately 4,000 war orphans throughout the country. A February 1948 report put the number of orphaned and homeless children combined at 123,510. Of this number, 28,248 had lost their parents in air raids; 11, 351 were orphaned or lost with their parents during the repatriation process; 2,640 were identified as “abandoned”; and a total 81,266 were believed to have lost their parents, or simply become separated from them, in the difficult moment that accompanied the end of the war. The rapporteur looked at the jury and added,

“Your Honor, Hirohito is guilty for his role in the war, that is why he should have been tried at the Tokyo trials, but the emperor is also responsible for the sufferings of millions after the war. As professor John W. Dower related in his book, Embracing Defeat – Japan in the Wake of World War II –, the ravages of war can never be accurately quantified. Japan in defeat, the number of deaths usually cited for the armed forces was 1.74 million to the time of surrender. However, we should say that this number is not accurate if you take into consideration civilian deaths in air raids by the Allies. Probably at least 3 million soldiers and civilians died in Japan as a result of the war, roughly 3 to 4 percent of the country’s 1941 population of around 74 million. Approximately 4.5 million servicemen demobilized in 1945 were identified as being injured or ill and eventually some 3 hundred thousand were given disability pensions. “It was estimated that the air raids and the bombings campaign by the Americans against the home islands destroyed one-quarter of the country’s wealth. General MacArthur’s “SCAP” bureaucracy for the Allied powers, placed the overall costs of the war even higher. Early in 1946, Japan had lost one-third of its total wealth and from one-third to one-half of its total potential income. Rural living standards were estimated to have fallen to 65 percent of prewar levels and nonrural living standards to about 35 percent. “Sixty-six major cities, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had been heavily bombed, destroying 40 percent of these rural areas overall and rendering around 30 percent of their population homeless. In Tokyo, the largest metropolis, 65 percent of all residences were destroyed. In Osaka and Nagoya, the country’s second and third largest cities, the figures were 57 and 89 percent. Close to 9 million people in Japan were homeless after the war. In every major city, families were crowded under broken tents, in some cases, they were trying to sleep in hallways, on subway platforms, or on sidewalks. Employees slept in their offices; teachers in their schoolrooms. A severe shortage of food continued for several years. People were walking in the streets with demoralized faces, most of them preoccupied with simply staving off hunger. In the Southeast Asia and Pacific theaters, as the war neared its end, starvation became a major cause of death among civilians and fighting men. Japan itself was heavily dependent on Korea, Formosa, and China for basic foodstuffs. Before Pearl Harbor, imports from these areas ed for 31 percent of Japan’s rice consumption, 92 percent of its sugar, 58 percent of its soy beans, and 45 percent of its salt. Defeat abruptly cut off access to these resources.

“With Japan now cut off from supply coming from the outside and millions of exhausted civilians and demobilized soldiers to nourish, it was imperative that there would be a bumper crop. Instead, due to adverse weather, main power sabotage, insufficient jobs, and a fall-off in fertilizer production, 1945 saw the most disastrous harvest since 1910, a shortfall of almost 40 percent from the normal season. Japanese internal food production declined by approximately 30 percent in the last two years of the war. The different governments during the war had focused the priority on manufacturing equipment to maintain the war effort, instead prioritizing resources, such as fertilizers and tools to develop the agricultural sector. Consequently, farmers had fewer materials with which to produce food. Japan was facing then a general decrease in global food production. ‘“The rations limited the average adult to 1,042 calories per day, which only constituted about 65% of the minimum caloric intake weighted necessary for basic survival. Rations were rarely delivered regularly, contributing to this problem. In some places, including Tokyo and Yokohama, rations were even canceled. The average people living in the capital acquired only 70% of their allocated rations, which provided them with about 775 calories per day for full months in 1946.”’ “The U.S. eventually tried to help Japan during the food crisis. The U.S. authorities upheld sanctions against outdoor food vending and preserved Japan’s wartime food rationing system. Unfortunately, the Japanese and U.S. authorities were unable to properly regulate the trade, production, and allocation of food nationwide. “Okumura Ayao, a Japanese food scholar, recalled the food crisis’ impact in rural areas. He said: ‘“From 1944 on, the athletic grounds of local schools were converted into sweet potato fields. And we ate every part of the sweet potato plant, from the leaf to the tip of the root. For protein, we ate beetles, beetle larvae, and other insects that we found at the roots of the plants we picked, which we roasted or mashed. Even in the countryside, food was scare.”’ “Based on a research report by local army officials, people were encouraged to supplement their meal by introducing such items as acorns, grain husks, peanut shells, and sawdust to their household larder. For minerals, people were

encouraged to introduce used tea leaves and the seeds, blossoms, and leaves of roses to their diet. Protein deficiencies could be remedied by eating silkworm cocoons, worms, grasshoppers, mice, rats, moles, snails, snakes, or a powder made by drying the blood of cows, horses, and pigs. The researchers reported, mice and rats tasted like small birds, but it was important to avoid eating their bones since it had been demonstrated that this caused people to lose weight. “Immediately after the war, prices of consumer goods fell suddenly, but within two months prices were on the rise again. The peace brought a brief upsurge in late 1945 and early 1946, but by the end of 1946, it was over, the result of currency confusion and of inflation. Inflation roared out of hand. Japan basically lost all the territory acquired after 1894. In addition, the Kurile islands were occupied by the Soviet Union, and the Ryukyu islands, including Okinawa, were controlled by the USA. Japan’s armament industries were dismantled. Over 500 military officers committed suicide in the following weeks after Japan surrendered. Over half a million Japanese soldiers were captured in Manchuria by the Soviet Red Army and taken as slave labor in to the USSR. “Morale among Japanese troops after the surrender was very low; over the next three weeks it disintegrated almost totally. Reports forwarded to the office of Privy Seal Kido from prefectural governors and police officials told of unites demanding immediate discharge. The new prime minister Prince Higashikuni also had to deal with the problem of the burgeoning black markets. In fact, police reports in late August and September indicated thousands of examples of government bureaucrats engaging in black-market activities. “To restore order and discipline, Higashikuni appointed, as his second ‘“cabinet counselor,”’ Lt. Gen. Ishiwara Kanji, the leader of a new millenarian movement – the Tō’A renmei (East Asia League) –. He and Itagaki Seishirō were the men primarily responsible for the Mukden incident that took place in Manchuria in 1931. Ishiwara was retired from active duty in 1941, and after the defeat, he accepted the difficult position to help the government to win public for the Kokutai preservation movement. Like Higashikuni, Ishiwara blamed the defeat on the degeneration of the Japanese people’s morale. Ishiwara’s message was focused on three themes: ‘“the gods had willed Japan’s defeat in order to make the nation repent and review its belief in the kokutai; the military, the police, and the bureaucracy, by oppressing the people, bore great responsibility for what had happened; and the nation should surprise the enemy by carrying out reforms before occupation rule even began.”’

“On September 14, 1945, in Marioka, Iwate prefecture, Ishawara called on the entire nation to ‘“repent”’ for having lost the war. He shared with his audience the idea that by the end of the twentieth century, the ‘“final global battle [between the United States and the Soviet Union] will be upon us,”’ and that the principle of the hakkō ichiu (the ‘“eight corners of the world under one roof”’) still lived. “Hirohito behind close door was the one who coordinated Higashikuni and Ishawara’s actions. He received the prime minister in audiences twice from August 16 to September 2. He recommended him to focus on the issue that was really important for the survival of the empire, controlling the people’s reaction to defeat and keeping them obedient and unconcerned with questions of ability. “Other facts, in the weeks and months that followed the end of the war, vast amounts of secret materials connecting to Japanese war crimes and the war responsibility of the nation’s highest leaders went up in smoke in concordance with the August 14 decision of the Suzuki cabinet. Did Hirohito ignore this decision? Three days later, with no sense of decency, the cabinet of Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko, which succeeded Suzuki’s on August 17, presented the emperor to the nation ‘“as the benevolent sage and apolitical ruler who had ended the war.”’ The surrender-broadcast ‘“ritual”’ described Hirohito as the emperor who had saved Japanese people and the rest of the world from further destruction by atomic bombs. “Your Honor, eight years of struggle against Japan during the Second World War have destroyed China’s economic development, and the process of postwar reconstruction was a difficult task for the Chinese government. It is difficult to estimate the total loss due to Japan’s seizure of the richest provinces, the naval and land blockade, and the general disruption of the national economy. However, it is easy to recognize that the war drastically reduced the benefits that China profited economically from the First World War. While the war and the postwar period 1915-1930 saw the establishment of several modern commercial banks in China. For example, Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation and Chinese commercial banks financed almost all export trade. But when the Second World War started in 1941, within months after the outbreak of hostilities, Western businesses and banks were forced to withdraw both personnel and capital from the Chinese market and reallocate it to their home countries. British exports to China dropped by around 60 percent in many sectors over the course of the war,

and those from , Belgium, or the United State fared no better. The only exception to this struggle, was Japan, which managed to expand its business operations and political influence on the Chinese mainland. “Difficult transport conditions and resulting high transport costs hampered the development of industry and commerce during the war and postwar years. China’s transport system was in shambles. The railway system was heavily damaged. Bridges and tracks had been destroyed by Allied bombing toward the end of the war. The war had left China in chaos. Much of the infrastructures were destroyed. The unoccupied cities had been bombed by Japanese planes in the first years of the war, in the last years of the war American planes bombed Japanese-occupied north, east, and south China. Tens of millions of people were refugees, and several parts of China were stalked by famine.” The rapporteur, his voice blocked by emotion, added, “Your Honor, this report on the Pacific war emphasized the crimes resulting from Japanese militarism, including the rapes in Nanking and other outrages committed by the Japanese troops during the Second World War, but also highlighted the attitude of Hirohito who has continued to reject until as ‘“unimaginable”’ the efforts for peace of the Allies.” The rapporteur looked up from his notes, and continued, “Hirohito as supreme commander of the Japanese Imperial Army and the Japanese Imperial Navy had engaged in a criminal ‘“conspiracy to wage wars of aggression”’ that commenced not in the period immediately prior to Pearl Harbor, not even in 1931, when the ‘“Manchurian Incident”’ was used as a pretext for imposing control over Manchuria. The emperor must be charged with having participated in a conspiracy that dated back to January, 1, 1928, when plans to take over the Asian continent allegedly first began to be projected. Then the United States decided a few years later, after December 7, 1941, to stop Japan. “Your Honor, America did not enter the Second World war by choice, but to protect American interests in the Pacific after the tragedy of Pearl Harbor. The Americans fought the war to end Japan’s agenda from committed war crimes, war against peace, and crimes against humanity.” Fixing the of the jury, the rapporteur added, “ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the Empire of Japan has not signed the Geneva Conventions, which since 1945 have been the basis of commonly accepted definitions of war crimes,

however, crimes perpetrated by the Imperial Army. Japanese Navy during World War II fell into other aspects of international and Japanese law. The Japanese empire, for example, violated international agreements signed by Japan, including the Treaty of Versailles such as the ban on chemical weapons. The Japanese government also violated the First Hague Conference in 1899 and the Second Hague Conference in 1907 on the protection of prisoners of war. Japan signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, or Paris Pact, signed by sixty-three countries. The treaty condemned the use of war to settle international disputes. Signed on August 27, 1928, at the Quai d’Orsay, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, the pact came into force on July 24, 1929. Fifteen powers, including , the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, , and Japan, are signatories to the pact for the general renunciation of war. Later these powers were ed by Belgium, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the Soviet Union, Turkey, and Mexico. “The Japanese government had also accepted the of the Potsdam Declaration in 1945 at the end of the war. This statement mentioned in article 10 two types of war crimes, one was a violation of international law, such as the illtreatment of prisoners of war; the other was opposition to democratic tendencies among the Japanese people and civil liberties in Japan. “Your Honor, this International Tribunal on War Crimes committed by the Japanese Army during the Second World War has two important missions. It must first respond to the request of the 180 Chinese complainants who have been calling for years for the leaders of Unit 731 to be found guilty. Although the essential nature of the conviction of Unit 731 officials was often emphasized by the international community, the Japanese government still did not want to take into the criminal activities of this unit, which carried out during the war experiments on prisoners, mostly Korean, Chinese, and Russian, including women and children, provided by the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police. The second task is to see this court order the Japanese government to compensate Chinese victims after their claims were rejected in 2002 and 2005 by the Tokyo District Court and the Tokyo Court of Appeal. “Having said all that, we conclude our report with the following conclusion, “In light of Kido’s testimony during his interrogation before and during the Tokyo trial, and Sugiyama’s memorandum detailing Hirohito’s direct involvement in Japan’s multiple attacks against the Allies, and against the

occupied countries in the Pacific. From the frankness with which Kido acknowledged that the emperor was personally involved in the coordination and chronology of the events that were to follow in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, China, Korea, Malaysia, Burma, Indochina, and the Philippines, not to mention the Japanese army’s attacks on the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor. Taking into all those facts, that is why Hirohito should be tried. “Hirohito’s guilt in war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity during World War II, should be recognized. We ask the court to posthumously convict the accused, although deceased, as a war criminal and have his name removed from the gallery of great men of history. Hirohito must instead be recognized as a devious war criminal and a cunning conqueror eager to dominate the world during World War II. “Your Honor, by the year of 2002, had paid out 102 billion deutschmarks in restitution and compensation to the victims of the Nazi regime. has largely faced up to its legal and moral obligations and itted its guilt, not so Japan. For over seventy years, Japan had denied its abuses of human rights and refused to pay any compensation to its victims, especially the survivors of its 250,000 sex slave’s programs, as well as to survivors or families of those killed in experiments conducted by Japanese doctors particularly those engaged by Unit 731. At the start of the 21st century, Japan had paid to Asian countries a total of 1/40th of the amount paid by as damages of war. “Many historical currents in Japan, clearly revisionist, had denied the extent of the crimes committed by the Japanese empire during the Second World War. Some Japanese historians and intellectuals go so far as to hold the condemned of the Tokyo trials as martyrs. Many Japanese prime ministers, such as Emperor Hirohito, have visited on several occasions, the Yasukuni Shrine, where the memories of the Japanese who gave their lives for the nation are honored, including fourteen war criminals convicted by the judges during the Tokyo trial. In 1985, Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuhiro Nakasone, had visited the shrine. The visit had provoked hostile reactions from Asian countries, particularly among Chinese and Korean leaders. In 2001, Junichiro Koizumi, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, who held the position of prime minister in Japan, from 2001-2006, had visited the shrine. His visit sparked a wave of outrage both inside and outside the country. Faced with the decision of Koizumi, who renewed this pilgrimage every year, until August 15, 2006, Beijing and Seoul had threatened to sever their diplomatic relations with Japan. These two

countries, which have suffered in the past from Japan’s military expansionism, also protested that the Japanese prime minister’s visit took place on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender in 1945. This decision, in their views, was a provocation that confirmed how Japan continued to deny its responsibilities in the war. “On December 26, 2013, Abe, who was appointed prime minister for the second time, visited the Yasukuni Shrine, a pilgrimage that no Japanese head of government in office had dared since 2006. ‘“I have chosen this day to witness, before the souls of the dead, the achievements since the establishment of the government,”’ he said live from the shrine, and ‘“to promise that no one will suffer from war anymore.”’ Abe added that the visit ‘“was not intended to affect the feelings of the Chinese and Koreans.”’ ‘“I look forward to explaining to China and Korea that improving ties is in the national interest.”’ Indignant at the visit, and reacting on behalf of the Korean people, Korean president Park Geunhye refused to attend the summit until Japan ‘“sincerely looked into its past.”’ China’s Foreign Ministry called it an ‘“absolutely unacceptable act for the Chinese people”’ whose consequences Japan will have to ‘“take care of.”’ “Your Honor, if in Japan any apologies for Nazism are punished by law, there is no law prohibiting the glorifying of Japan’s actions in the Asian continent during the Second World War, a war that began in 1937 with the Japanese invasion of China and ended on August 15, 1945 with the surrender of the Japanese empire. Until now, the majority of Japanese believed that while Japan’s actions between 1937 and 1945 are morally reprehensible, they are not legally reprehensible. There is the same tradition of denial of responsibility among Japanese leaders. Japan refuses to it to violating international laws. Some nationalists even argue that Japan had signed the Geneva Convention, but it had not ratified it. Hence, their country could not technically have violated its laws. “More than seventy years after the end of the war, the Japanese authorities have still not officially expressed their regrets about their Asian neighbors, which continue to lead to tensions between Japan and China, and also Japan and South Korea. Despite the fact that millions of people perished during the war, many Japanese continue to ignore the reality of the crimes committed by their armies in China, Korea, and throughout the Asian continent. The majority of them, who followed the policies of their governments, consider themselves victims. They took as an alibi the bombing of Japanese cities and especially the bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to make understand that they are not

executioners, but martyrs. “Amnesia and denial have always been the position of all post-war Japanese governments that have so far refused to acknowledge that apart from war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated mainly between 1937-1945 by Japan, the massacre of sexual slavery or bacteriological testing, the question of deportations arises. Nearly two million Koreans were serving in factories and mines in Japan during the war. How did Japan become the world’s secondlargest economy after the United States 60 years after the war? It is a fact, the Japanese people are a hardworking, courageous, intelligent, and highly disciplined people. However, it must be itted that Japanese wealth was the basis of looting in the territories occupied by Japan during the Second World War. This wealth also comes from the work fruit of millions of Chinese, Koreans, and other nations that the Japanese empire enslaved between 1937 and 1945. “When the Japanese Prime Minister, Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko, on August 28, 1945, called for a repentance of one hundred million individuals, he was not referring to the countries attacked, but to the fact that he had not had sufficient morality to defeat. On February 2, 1973, prime minister Kakuei Tanaka who served in the House of Representatives from 1947-1990, and was Prime Minister of Japan from 1972-1974, was asked by a Communist Diet member whether he taught the Japan-China war had been a war of aggression, Tanaka replied without hesitation : ‘“It is true that Japan once sent troops to the Chinese continent. This is a historical fact. But when you ask me whether that constituted, as you say, a war of aggression, it is very hard for me to answer. This is a question for future historians to evaluate.”’ “Let’s take now the example of Abe Shinzō, the grandson of Kishi Nobusuke, who became prime minister in 1957, after his grandfather was convicted as a class A war criminal. As his grandfather’s political creed, Abe is openly on the side of amnesia denial. On November 1, 2008, Gen. Tomogami Toshio was removed from his position as chief of the Aeronautical Forces Staff, the highest rank in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces Air Force. The general was accused of taking the opposite view of the opinion officially ed by the current government which legitimized the armed conflicts led by Japan, as well as the undertaking of colonization of the countries of the Asian region.” The rapporteur, his voice full of emotion, concluded:

“Your Honor, when the war ended, there are those among us, who advocate slaughter of all Japanese, a virtual extermination of the race because the Asiatic War has brought so much suffering and taken so many lives. But it is right to say, the more Japanese who would be killed by revenge, the more will be the bad feeling of those who survive. After the Japanese was defeated, international justice was the way and light for the peace to be restored. This is why, I say, justice must prevail to avoid revenge. The only question was simply, ‘“was Hirohito not responsible for war crimes as the gangster militarists who provoked the conflict?”’ Fellers at one point acknowledged that ‘“as emperor and acknowledged head of State, Hirohito cannot sidestep war guilt. He is a part of, and must be considered an instigator of the Pacific War.”’ However, in the conclusion to his ‘“Answer to Japan,” Fellers indicated “that the emperor would be indispensable not only for effecting a surrender of the enemy’s fighting forces but also as the spiritual core of a peacefully inclined postwar government that, it was assumed, would be made up of the new elderly conservative elites including titled actions of the high mobility, who had controlled the country before the militarists gained ascendancy.”’ “In March 1946, Nanbara Shigeru, a Christian educator who became president of Tokyo Imperial University, had been chosen to conduct a memorial service for students and staff killed in the war. The text of the service was published by the popular newspaper Bungei Shunjū under the title ‘“A Report to Students Who Fell in Battle.”’ In this memorial’s speech, Nanbara recognized that ‘“Japan had been led into war by ignorant, reckless militarists and ultranationalists; that people, including those from the university, had followed along believing that they were fighting for truth and justice; that unfortunately, truth and justice had been on the side of the United States and Britain.”’ At the end of his speech, Nanbara said, ‘“the dead had been spared from witnessing the day of defeat and the hardship and spiritual pain that had followed. They should know, however, that the grievances the Japanese now felt were not against the wartime enemy, but against themselves.”’ Then the rapporteur added. “Your Honor, considering all these facts, we ask the tribunal to recognize the rights of the victims of the atrocities of Unit 731 to claim damages from the government of Japan for the wrongs caused by this unit, condemn the Japanese government to grant the request for reparations made by 180 Chinese who claim to be victims of Unit 731. It will be justice.”

The president for a last time addressed the rapporteur and declared. - The court thanks you. The hearing is adjourned and will resume on November 7 at 11:00 a.m. with the jury’s deliberation.

CHAPTER V

THE VERDICT

– “Mr. Delpla, did the jury reach a decision?” said the president. – “Yes, Your Honor.” – “In this case read the verdict for the court.”

The chairman of the jury:

– “When asked whether Hirohito is guilty of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, the answer is YES. The question of whether mitigating circumstances should be granted to the emperor, the answer is NO. When asked whether the Japanese government should give compensation to the 180 Chinese complainants who were victims of Unit 731, the answer is YES.” – “The court thanks you. The hearing is adjourned and will be resumed at 3:00 a.m. for the reading of the verdict.”

THE REPRISE OF THE AUDIENCE

T he president, looking grave, his face calm and serene, waved his bell to announce the resumption of the hearing. An interested public was waiting for the decision. In a solemn tone, the president read the judgment:

THE COURT

“At the request to try Hirohito as a war criminal and order Japan to pay damages to the 180 Chinese complainants who claimed to be victims of Unit 731 during World War II, the court declared, “Whereas in August 2002, the Tokyo District Court rejected a request from the victims of Unit 731. The complainants are seeking an apology and damages of 10 million yen, 74,188 euros each for the atrocities they accuse Unit 731, including the “bombing” of cities with the bubonic plague bacillus or germs other diseases. The case was brought to court by Chinese victims who say they are survivors or relatives of Japanese victims of bacteriological attacks in Zhejiang and Hunan provinces from 1940-1942. “Whereas in July 2005, the Tokyo Court of Appeal rejected the victims’ appeal against the decision. While the court recognized that Japan practiced bacteriological warfare against its enemies during the war, the judges rejected claims for compensation on the grounds that the Japanese government was unaware of possible atrocities. “Whereas in the face of Japan’s refusal to recognize the crimes committed by Unit 731 during the war, the case is referred to the Permanent Peoples’ Court. In a letter dated on January 6, 2016, the Justice Committee for the Victims of War in the Pacific sent a request to refer human rights violations committed by the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy to the TPP during World War II, particularly the atrocities of Unit 731. “This request is ed by the following human rights organizations, The International Committee for Democratic Freedoms in South Korea (CILD), Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN), Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), International Labor Organization (ILO), Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Amnesty International, World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), Association of Lomme for All (ADHT), S.O.S. missing, and International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH).

“In of his request, the Justice Committee for Asian Peoples Tortured Under Japanese Occupation provided the court with a first set of documents, reports, and references compiled by well-known historians and international organizations reporting, ing testimony of serious human rights violations in China and other Asian countries, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Burma, Indochina, Malaysia, perpetrated by the Japanese Imperial Army and the Navy before and during the war. “The committee first asked the court to reopen the investigation file in order to posthumously try Hirohito for massive human rights violations committed during his empire as a divine emperor in Japan. “All the associations that signed the petition also asked the court to extend the investigation to the political, economic, and social situation in Japan during the Shōwa reign, particularly during the years (1933–1945), while taking to put massive human rights violations in context and to better understand the role of Japan’s intellectual elite and possibly the participation of different actors in the conflict. “Whereas in of the prosecution, a set of documents and testimony was provided to the court. First, the study of the documentation developed and provided by the Justice Against Japan Committee. Second, the testimonies of victims and expert interventions during the sessions that took place on October 16 and 18, 2016. “Whereas several legal reference texts have also been communicated to the court. “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in resolution 217 A (III) of December 10, 1948. “The Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Wartime on August 12, 1949 adopted by the Diplomatic Conference for the Development of International Conventions to Protect the Victims of War, meeting in Geneva on April 21 to August 12, 1949. “The Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, on the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts (protocol II), adopted on June 8, 1977, by the Diplomatic Conference on the

Reaffirmation and Development of Law international humanitarian aid applicable in armed conflicts. “The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (resolution 2200 A [XXI] of December 16, 1966). “The Convention on the Imprescriptibly of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity (resolution 2391 [XXIII] of November 26, 1968). “The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment or Treatment (resolution 39/46 of December 10, 1984). “The Fundamental Principles on Judicial Independence Adopted by the Seventh UN Congress for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, held in Milan from August 26 to September 6, 1985, and confirmed by the assembly resolutions 40/32 of November 29, 1985 and 40/146 of December 13, 1985. “The Hague Convention No. IV of 1907, this convention attempted for the first time to establish the laws and customs of war in international armed conflicts. “The 1929 Geneva Convention, which established rules for the treatment of prisoners of war. “The 1929 Red Cross Convention, which addressed the treatment of the sick and injured during armed conflict. “The 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact signed by Japan. “The Japan-Soviet Neutrality Treaty signed between Japan and Russia on April 13, 1941. “The Cairo Declaration signed on November 27, 1943 by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jiang Jieshi, and Winston Churchill. This statement outlines the strategic objectives of the war against Japan. The text says, ‘“The purpose [of the three great Allies] is for Japan to be dispossessed of all the Pacific islands it has conquered or occupied since the beginning of World War I in 1914, and all the territories it stole from the Chinese, like Manchuria, Formosa [Taiwan], and the Pescadores are returned to the Republic of

China. Similarly, Japan will be driven out of all the other territories it has taken by force and greed. The three great powers mentioned above, concerned about the state of slavery of the Korean people, are determined that, in the long run, Korea will become free and independent.”’ “Finally, the Potsdam Declaration. This proclamation signed by three of the victorious Allied powers of the Second World War, The United States represented by President Harry Truman, the USSR by secretary general and leader Joseph Stalin, the United Kingdom, through its successive prime ministers Winston Churchill, and Clement Attlee, set the conditions for Japan’s surrender. “Whereas in addition to the above documents, the rapporteur has submitted to the court the testimony of several historians, human rights defenders, archivists, victims and witnesses, and thousands of articles published in the newspapers about Japan during the Shōwa Era. In addition, thousands of report sheets and direct testimony from the trial of the twenty-eight Japanese prisoners of war held in Tokyo from May 3, 1946, to November 12, 1948, are exhibited. These include, in particular, depositions on serious human rights violations committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Navy on civilians and military personnel in countries occupied during the war. “Whereas created in 1979 in Bologna on the model of the Russel Tribunal founded by Bertrand Russel and Jean-Paul Sartre, the Permanent Peoples’ Court was established to try the crimes committed by the Americans in Vietnam. This court is a tribunal of opinion that bases its legitimacy and its action on various statements adopted by the major international institutions concerning the rights of peoples. It judges violations of human rights and the rights of peoples when no other official international judicial body has been set up to try them, or when national and international judicial bodies do not offer guarantees sufficient independence and impartiality, which was proven in the Tokyo Court of Appeal’s decision dismissing the Chinese victims’ claim against Unit 731 without legal cause. “Whereas the TPP is a court of opinion that has no other ambition than to contribute, however little, to the fight against the injustices inflicted on the peoples to whom they are denied damages in order to right wrongs. The word “court” evokes the idea of justice. And justice evokes punishment but also memory. The TPP has no sanctions at its disposal. The only sanction he can advocate is a moral sanction that appeals to the most basic feelings of humanity.

“Whereas the Permanent Peoples’ Court was not set up to discuss a violation of the rights of a particular people. Its vocation – not limited in time and space – is according to article 1 of its statute to rule on ‘“any serious and systematic violation of the rights of peoples, whether committed by States, by authorities other than States, or by groups s or private organizations.”’ “Whereas the court has jurisdiction to issue a sentence on any international crime, including crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, also on any violation of the fundamental rights of peoples and minorities, on the serious and systematic violations of the rights and freedoms of individuals as proclaimed, including in the fundamental instruments of the United Nations and in the Algiers Declaration of July 4, 1976. “These include, in particular, the rights of a people to existence, political selfdetermination, economic rights, rights to culture, environmental rights, and common resources. It is also about respect for the rights of minorities. Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples states, ‘“When people constitute a minority within a state, it has the right to respect for its identity, traditions, language and cultural heritage.”’ “Whereas more generally, as the president of the TPP said in Stockholm on May 5, 1981, at the end of the session on Afghanistan, the court is addressing all those who, in the uncertainty of the present, find one more reason, not to resign themselves, but to fight and hope. All those who share the certainty that reality can be changed by the conscious action of men. To all these, the court asks to work ‘“to grow, every day a little more, the crowd of those who refuse that the fate of man is definitively marked by the fatality of his birth and that the fate of the peoples be decided by superpower relations and the borders of zones of influence.”’ “Whereas the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal aims to guarantee a space of visibility, speech, and judgment on systematic violations of human rights, individual and collective, and the rights of peoples who do not correspond institutional responses of each country or international community. It is to address the weaknesses of international law, which is de facto a largely imperfect system characterized by difficult and controversial development, particularly with regard to the characterization of crimes against human rights, that the TPP was founded.

“Whereas the TPP as it does for each of its hearings submitted the petition of the 180 Chinese victims of the atrocities of Unit 731 to a college of eminent judges, endowed with unquestionable moral and legal authority. The hearing took place between October 16 and October 18, 2016, in Geneva, at the office of the relevant UN headquarters. “Whereas during a preparatory work of the TPP the war crimes of the Imperial Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy were discussed. During the symposium, experts were invited to discuss the international initiatives that could be taken to victims in their efforts to have Japan recognize its responsibility and the obligation to compensate victims Families.” At the request to try Hirohito posthumously as a war criminal, the court declared. “Whereas, in general criminal law it is not possible to criminally prosecute a dead person, let alone his heirs. The principle of personalizing sentences for crimes and misdemeanors prohibits such trials. “Whereas, in the light of this case law, no new judicial investigation for crimes or misdemeanors can be carried out against persons who have died even on the aid of new and damning evidence. But in the case of Hirohito, an exception to the rule should be seen, by the fact that throughout his life the accused has always been given the title of “divine emperor.” The constitution promulgated on February 11, 1889, confirms the divine nature of the emperor, and also grants him a new role by granting him all the powers. “Whereas, even if in fact, a cabinet headed by a prime minister, governs, but in the reality of things, it is therefore up to the emperor to enact the istrative acts that decide the fate of the nation. In Japan, for example, the official term for “heavenly king” is tenna. It is the symbol of the state and the unity of the people. In this scheme, if parliament discusses, approves the budget, makes laws, only the emperor declares war and peace or ratifies the treaties. “Whereas during his lifetime, the emperor was the first priest of Shintoism. He is considered a descendant of the goddess Ama. For the followers of the imperial cult, whose influence was predominant during the expansion of the Shōwa era, Hirohito had a divine status, symbolized by the imperial insignia. This status was questioned during the occupation of the empire by American forces, which

forced Hirohito to officially renounce, in January 1946, his nature of “incarnate deity” akitsumikami, without renouncing his divine ancestry. “Whereas the emperor symbolizes the Japanese nation - the people and their culture - by embodying the ‘“imperial lineage”’ that makes the link, thanks to its constancy between all the eras crossed by this nation. Since the Meiji era, the first leading role of the emperor in Japan is to be the supreme priest of Shintoism, the descendant of Amaterasu, the deity of the sun. Hirohito himself has always been seen by his subjects as the supreme priest of the Shinto personifying divine aspects. “Whereas the role of the emperor became much more predominant during the Shōwa era, and especially during the formation of the imperial headquarters in 1937. Already head of state and “supreme commander of the army and navy” under the constitution, Hirohito became the commander of a military structure independent of the government and the council of ministers and composed mainly of representatives of army and navy. “Whereas commander-in-chief of imperial headquarters from 1937, Hirohito was considered the central pillar of the Hakkō ichiu, the “meeting of the eight corners of the world under one roof.” He used the most notable ers in his regime, including Prince Kan’in Kutohito, chief of staff of the Imperial Japanese Army, and Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso, to develop an expansionist policy until he arrived at the almost complete militarization of the Japanese population. One by one, Hirohito signed the imperial rescripts that dragged Japan into the spiral of war, from the alliance with and Italy to the attack on Pearl Harbor ed by the prime minister, General Hideki Tōjō. “Whereas in March 1942, the Japanese government, in agreement with the Imperial Palace, adopted a series of measures concerning Jews, which included laws in force in Nazi : the immigration of Jews to China, Manchuria, Japan, and in the territories occupied was forbidden; Jews already living in these areas would not be arrested, but ‘“because of the special racial characteristics of the Jews, the supervision of their residences and professional occupations will be very strict. Eventually, their activities in favor of the enemy will be eliminated and repressed.”’ “By these reasons, the court making an exception to the rule of general criminal law which wants –no prosecution against a dead person – decides to try Hirohito

“divine emperor or living god” as responsible for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, following the actions of the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Navy during the Second World War.”

ON THE NOTION OF CRIME AGAINST PEACE

“Whereas the concept of crime against peace was defined by the London Agreement of August 8, 1945, for the international military courts of Nuremberg and Tokyo established after the Second World War. According to these agreements, such a crime is defined as ‘“the direction, preparation, initiation or continuation of a war of aggression, or war in violation of international treaties, assurances or agreements, or participation in a concerted plan or conspiracy to carry out any of the above acts.”’ To this end, the concept of crime against peace is identical to that of crime of aggression. Rather, it consists in practice of triggering, directing, or pursuing a war in violation of world peace. “Whereas on July 7, 1937, Japan opened hostilities against China following the Marco Polo Bridge incident near the city of Lukouchiao, south of Beijing. Japanese soldiers invaded Chinese territory on the pretext that Japanese compatriots had been shot and there were deaths. Declaring their defense against this alleged attack, Japanese troops invaded Chinese territory and seized Beijing, killing hundreds of people. The Imperial Japanese Army then took the opportunity to launch a widespread attack on North China and then Central China in late 1937 and 1938. Documents filed in the Tokyo court showed a total of 124,130 Chinese soldiers reportedly killed and 242,231 wounded in the first year of the war, which claimed a total of more than 3 million Chinese casualties. “Whereas on July 28, 1937, war was officially declared between China and Japan. The cities of Beijing and Tianjin were taken in early August. In August 1937, Hirohito authorized the suspension of international conventions on the protection of prisoners of war. This decision allowed the imperial forces to advance without measures in place to take care of prisoners and civilians. The so-called period is marked mainly by the development of Japanese nationalism. Japan, by adopting the Nazi model in Europe, began an aggressive foreign policy with a series of attacks on neighboring countries.

“Whereas commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army and Imperial Japanese Navy, Hirohito put no obstacle to the militarization of the country and its ultranationalist excesses. Beginning in 1937, he ed right-wing extremists and militarists all convinced like him that Japan must play the role to which it was predestined according to the notion of Hakkō ichiu, ‘“the eight corners of the world under one roof.”’ To establish his war effort, the emperor adopted the return to the old custom that all ministers of the army and navy be selected from the ranks of active-duty officers. This has increased the power of the military hierarchy by giving it a veto over all government actions. Thus, the most important positions in the army and navy were held by of the imperial family. The emperor placed his trusted men in the key positions of government. “Whereas commander-in-chief of all imperial forces, Hirohito was the face of the empire. He was the first character to address or warn of all-important orders relating to the internal and external security of the empire. He could appoint and remove any member of the imperial forces, and was, in fact, at the head of the entire imperial chain of command. He could summon the army high staff, give orders to the generals, and assign them missions. Only him could reverse an order given by the prime minister. “Whereas in the early days of August 1937, Hirohito met with the chief of staff of the imperial army, Prince Kan’in Kotohito and the chief of the imperial navy staff, Fushimi Hiroyasu. He asked them to avoid the extensive deployment of troops and concentrate the forces at a few strategic points. The emperor received a plan proposing bombing and occupation of strategic points such as Shanghai and Nanjing, as well as the naval blockade of the coasts. He validated this strategy. Japan then invaded Northern China in 1937. On August 13, 1937, the Japanese army invaded Shanghai. When Shanghai fell, the Imperial Japanese Army advanced on Nanjing and occupied it on December 13, 1937. Arriving in Nanjing, the former imperial capital, the Japanese army, under the command of General Iwane Matsui, carried out a general massacre killing between 200,000 and 250,000 civilians. The people were executed in atrocious conditions, raped women, strangled men, children buried alive. The city was ransacked and burned. According to Chinese historians, during the six weeks of massacre, hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians and soldiers were murdered and between 70,000 and 80,000 women and children were raped by the Japanese military. Once raped, women are killed, often bayoneted, after being subjected to explicit mutilation or other acts of barbarism.

“This period was marked mainly by the development of Japanese nationalism. Japan, adopting the Nazi model in Europe, pursued an aggressive foreign policy with a series of attacks on neighboring countries. Shortly after his withdrawal from the League of Nations in Geneva, his troops invaded the province of Jehol after an initial failed attempt. Then came the Loukouchiao incident near Beijing on July 7, 1937. The Japanese occupied with their armies descended from Manchuria, the Chinese provinces of Hopei, Shanxi, and Shantoung. In August 1937, Japanese detachments seized Nanjing and ransacked the city in atrocious conditions in December 1937. “Whereas far from stopping this barbaric violence against innocent victims, on September 4, 1937, Hirohito read a statement to parliament, ‘“While we are constantly concerned about ensuring peace in Asia by cooperating with China, but China doesn’t really understand the real intentions of our Empire. To our deep regret, the Chinese caused constant difficulties and problems that led to the current incident. Our troops, demonstrating loyalty and bravery, endure trials only in order to quickly establish peace in East Asia and to get China to reflect on its actions.”’ “Whereas as soon as they entered Manchuria, Japanese troops systematically murdered enemy soldiers and the civilian population supposed to be complicit. The Japanese government had given specific instructions to the chief of staff of the Japanese Expeditionary Force in China, advocating terrorizing enemy forces and civilians in order to promote anti-war and pacifist tendencies. For the Japanese leadership, it was about making the war so brutal and savage that the will of the Chinese people to resist would be broken. Massacres, rapes and looting took place throughout Japan’s military-occupied China. The violence was considered legitimate by Japanese leaders. “Whereas Japan, taking advantage of the Boxer Protocol signed on September 7, 1901, between China and the Allied nations, Austro-Hungary, , , Italy, Japan, Russia, United States, England, Belgium, Spain and Holland, had increased the guard in its embassies from two thousand to twenty thousand. The Japanese empire took the opportunity to occupy, with its army descended from Manchuria, the Chinese provinces of Hopei, Shanxi and Shantoung. As early as August 1937, the incidents in Shanghai, caused by the Japanese navy, forced the Japanese troops to descend much further. Progressing along major roads, rivers or railways, Japanese detachments seized Nanjing and ransacked the city in atrocious conditions in December 1937.

“Whereas such acts were committed in violation of the first Geneva Convention for the Improvement of the Wounded of the Fighting Armies, drafted on August 22, 1864, which laid ‘“the foundations of the rules of international law for the protection of victims of armed conflict.”’ These criminal actions were also committed in violation of the Second Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949.”

ART. 15

“At all times, and especially after a commitment, parties to the conflict will take immediate steps to search for and collect the wounded and sick, protect them from looting and ill-treatment and provide them with care necessary, as well as search for the dead and prevent them from being stripped. “Whenever circumstances permit, an armistice, fire break or local arrangements will be agreed to allow the removal, exchange, and transport of the wounded left on the battlefield. “Similarly, local arrangements may be made between the parties to the conflict for the evacuation or exchange of wounded and illnesses from a besieged or encircled area and for the age of health and religious personnel and medical equipment to their destination. “Whereas Potsdam’s ultimatum to Japan on July 26, 1945, by the heads of government of the United States, China, and the United Kingdom lists, among the conditions of surrender imposed on Japan, the implementation of the conditions set by the declaration of Cairo and the limitation of Japanese sovereignty to the islands of Hondo, Hokkaido, Kouilou, Si Kok, and such other small islands that the Allies will determine. Japan will be completely disarmed and its forces demobilized. The authority of the emperor and the Japanese government would be subordinated to the supreme command of the allied powers. “Whereas at first Japan refused the of the ultimatum and finally accepted them after the Soviet Union declared war on it on August 8, 1945. On August 10, 1945, the Japanese government announced that it was ready to accept the

enumerated in the t declaration issued in Potsdam. On August 14, 1945, Japan accepted the conditions, and Hirohito personally read the surrender order on the radio. On September 2, 1945, Japan’s unconditional surrender was signed in Tokyo Bay. General Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender on behalf of the United States, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, as well as in the interests of other United Nations states at war with Japan. In total, the act of surrender was signed by representatives of the governments of nine states, United States, Republic of China, United Kingdom, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Australia, Canada, Provisional Government of the Republic Netherlands, and New Zealand. “Whereas at the conference of foreign ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR, meeting in Moscow, from December 16 to December 26, 1945, it was decided to create two bodies responsible for Japan’s problems, (1) a “Far East Commission,” including representatives from eleven and then thirteen states (United States, United Kingdom, USSR, China, , Netherlands, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Philippines, Burma, Pakistan) sitting in Washington, but able to meet in other locations, including Tokyo and (2) an “Allied Council for Japan” sitting in Tokyo composed of the Supreme Allied Commander (S.C.A.P.) or his deputy, as president and representative of the United States, a representative of the USSR, a representative of the China, and a fourth member representing the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and India. “The Far East Commission was responsible for formulating the policy and principles by which Japan’s obligations under its surrender could be fulfilled. It could make its decisions by a majority of its , but representatives of the “big four,” the United States, China, the United Kingdom, and the USSR had a veto. “Whereas under a directive dated October 25, 1945, from the Supreme Allied Commander, Japan had to suspend diplomatic and consular relations with all other states. “Whereas during the preparatory work of the San Francisco Peace Treaty on July 11, 1947, the United States government proposed to the eleven countries represented at the Far East Commission the meeting of a preliminary conference on preparation peace treaty with Japan. The Soviet government objected that the preparation of the peace treaty should first be the subject of an agreement of the

‘“big four”’ of the Pacific, i.e., the powers with veto power in the Far East Commission, United States, China, the United Kingdom, and the USSR. “Whereas the Soviet opposition forced the American authorities to postpone the execution of their project. On September 14, 1950, the U.S. government announced its intention to expedite the conclusion of the Japanese treaty, using the diplomatic negotiation procedure, which allowed certain states to be overruled. On October 26, 1950, the State Department issued a brief seven-point memorandum to all member countries of the Far East Commission, laying the groundwork for a reconciliation peace with Japan. John Foster Dulles was quickly appointed President Truman’s special representative with a mission to negotiate the peace treaty. “Whereas a t Anglo-American draft was published on July 12, 1951, after being communicated, from July 2 - 6 to states interested in the Japanese regulation, and on July 9 to all states at war with Japan. Based on the submissions received, the draft was slightly revised and republished on July 20, 1951. On the same day, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom invited fifty governments to meet at a conference on September 4, 1951, in San Francisco to conclude and sign a peace treaty with Japan on the basis of annexed to the convention. On July 30, 1951, subsequent invitations to the associated states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia brought to fifty-five the number of states called to participate in the San Francisco conference, including the United States and Japan. Because of differences of opinion between the United States and Great Britain, it was decided under the proposal of not to invite either of the two Chinese governments. “Whereas after discussions and debates between the inviting powers, on August 13, 1951, a revised version of the Anglo-American draft was forwarded to the invited governments with the exception of Burma, India, and Yugoslavia, which were declining invitation to them. The new text was published on August 15, 1951. “While negotiated and concluded in the midst of the Korean War, the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed on September 8, 1951, by Japan and fortyeight of its former enemies. At the base of this treaty, the Japanese empire had to sign a set of peace treaties with a set of countries. The resumption of these relations led to the negotiation of reparation agreements with neutral countries that made claims for war damages caused by Japanese forces. Reparation

agreements were signed by Japan with Switzerland, Berne, January 21, 1955, Spain, Madrid, January 8, 1957, Sweden, Stockholm, September 20, 1957, and Denmark, Tokyo, May 25, 1959. “Whereas neither the Soviet bloc states nor the neutralist states of Asia, India, Burma wanted to associate with the Treaties of San Francisco. These states have sought to restore peace with Japan through bilateral negotiations that have resulted in separate peace treaties or agreements. “Whereas several economic clauses in the San Francisco peace treaty deal with the economic sanctions to be imposed on Japan after the war. These clauses are of two kinds. Some are aimed at the liquidation of problems arising from the war: reparations, restitutions, resumption of the Japanese foreign borrowing service, and renunciation of Japan’s claims arising from the war. The others concern Japan’s future economic relations with its former enemies. “Whereas some countries that were victims of Japanese aggression were forcefully demanding full reparation for the war damage. At the beginning of the reparation’s negotiations, the Philippines, Burma, Indonesia, and Vietnam sought very large compensation, payable not only in services, but mainly in goods and currencies. However, faced with a trade deficit that had reached a record $2 billion since the surrender, Japan was unable to pay full war damages. “Whereas the intervention of the U.S. government finally made it possible to find a compromise to this situation. This compromise is enshrined in article 14 (a) of the treaty. Under this text, it is recognized that Japan should certainly pay the Allied powers compensation for the damage it caused during the war. Nevertheless, it is also recognized that Japan, facing a catastrophic trade deficit, did not have sufficient resources in the immediate future to ensure the complete repair of all this damage and to meet its other obligations. As a result, Japan agreed to open conciliatory talks with countries whose territories had been occupied by Japanese forces in order to help compensate them for the reparation of the damage caused during the war. To this end, Japan committed itself to making the services of the Japanese people, in the field of production and recovery, available to the Allied powers that wanted them, and in return, these countries had to supply Japan with raw materials. “Whereas another form of reparation has been provided for in article 14 (a) 2 of the treaty which grants each Allied power the right to seize, retain, liquidate or

use all property, rights and interests of Japan and its nationals who, upon entry into the treaty, are under its jurisdiction. “Whereas the provisions of article 14 (a) of the San Francisco Treaty, which provided for only repairs in the form of services and limited to Japan’s ability to pay, greatly displeased the Asian states that had been subject to the Japanese occupation. Burma refused to sign the peace treaty. Indonesia, after g it, refused to ratify it, concluding a bilateral peace treaty in 1958, along with a reparation’s agreement, with Japan. The Philippines postponed ratification of the San Francisco Treaty until an agreement on reparations was reached, which was not signed until May 9, 1956. “Whereas a peace treaty and reparations agreement between Japan and Burma were signed on November 5, 1954, in Rangoon. In the case of Burma, peace with Japan was closely subordinated to the solution of the reparations problem. Also, the most developed of the ten articles that make up the peace treaty between Japan and Burma is the one relating to reparations (art. V). Burma, which unilaterally ended the state of war with Japan in a declaration of April 30, 1952, will receive compensation, (1) Japan will provide Burma with services and products worth a total of 7,200 equivalent to $200 million over ten years, and (2) Japan will make Japanese products or services available to Burma in the form of loans or participation in t-ventures. “Whereas between Japan and the Philippines, there was a reparations agreement. This agreement signed in Manila on May 9, 1956, came into force on July 23, 1956. Under the reparation’s agreement, Japan paid the Philippines $550 million in compensation in twenty annuities. Of the $550 million, $500 million was paid for in capital goods and $50 million in services. Capital goods and services have been allocated to specific Philippine projects. However, $20 million worth of services have been used to manufacture products that Japan exports to the Philippines. The government of Japan facilitated the granting of long-term loans or similar development loans to the Philippines, up to a maximum of $250 million, over twenty years. The of the loans and credits were agreed to for each transaction. “Whereas with Vietnam, Japan signed two agreements, on May 13, 1959. These agreements, signed in Saigon, include a reparations agreement and an agreement on loans, written in Japanese, Vietnamese and French, with the French text valid in case of differences of interpretation. Under the reparation agreement, Japan

has committed to provide Vietnam with $39 million worth of Japanese goods and services over a five-year period from the day the agreement enters into force. An exchange of notes stated that the total value of the products delivered as repairs should not exceed $7.5 million. The products to be supplied by Japan were to be, as a rule, capital goods. The agreement also stipulated that Japan would provide the Republic of Vietnam with intergovernmental loans of up to $7.5 million over a three-year period for the completion of one or more projects to be determined by an agreement signed by the two governments. In addition, an exchange of notes provided that long-term commercial loans or credits of up to $9.1 million would be granted over a five-year period by Japanese private companies to the Vietnamese government or corporations dependent on the latter. “Whereas states such as Ceylon, Pakistan, Laos, India, Cambodia, parties to the San Francisco Treaty, have given up on seeking reparations from Japan. Following India’s example, Pakistan even agreed on March 31, 1953, to return all Japanese assets seized on its territory. Cambodia and Laos informed the Japanese government that they were waiving their rights to reparations. As a sign of its recognition, Japan entered into agreements with these two states, on October 15, 1958, and March 2, 1959, respectively, under which it granted, free of charge, 1,500 million yen to the first and 1 billion yen in the second. “Whereas the g of these various peace treaties and the acceptance of paying damages to its former enemies constitute an ission that crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed by Japanese troops in the Pacific during World War II were recognized by Japan, which accepted responsibility for it. “Whereas in the Cairo Declaration, issued on December 1, 1945, the heads of government of the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, had made known their determination ‘“to remove from Japan all the Pacific islands it has taken or occupied since the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.”’ On November 6, 1946, the president of the United States announced that his country was ready to place the Pacific Islands under Japanese mandate under the tutelage of the United Nations, with the United States as an istering power. These are the Marshall, Carolina and Mariana archipelagos, comprising about 98 islands and groups of islets, with a total area of about 2,160 squares kilometers and a population of about 48,000 inhabitants. These islands were placed under Japanese mandate under a decision dated on December 17, 1920, by the NDS

Council, taken under article 22 of the covenant. “Whereas by the secret agreement on the entry into the war of the USSR against Japan, signed in Yalta on February 11, 1945, the heads of government of the United States and the United Kingdom recognize that the following claims of the USSR must be met after Japan’s defeat: maintaining the status quo in outer Mongolia, restoring Russia’s rights violated by the 1904 Japanese attack, including the return to the Soviet Union of the southern part of Sakhalin and the adjacent transfer of the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union. “Whereas a draft guardianship agreement addressed to the secretary-general of the organization was submitted to the council for approval by letter dated on February 17, 1947. On April 2, 1947, the security council unanimously approved the text of a guardianship agreement proposed by the United States, after rejecting several amendments proposed by the United Kingdom, the USSR, and Poland. The guardianship agreement, approved on April 2, 1947, found in its preamble that ‘“following the Second World War Japan had ceased to exercise any authority over the formerly German islands north of Ecuador, attributes its istration, as a guardianship, in the United States. These islands are designated as a strategic area under Article 83 of the United Nations Charter. The agreement authorizes the United States, as an istering power, to establish naval, military and air bases, to build fortifications, to post and employ armed forces in the territory under tutelage. The istration authority will have full powers of istration, legislation and jurisdiction over the territory, and, subject to the provisions of the agreement, may apply all The Laws of the United States that it deems appropriate for the territory’s situation.”’ “Whereas the unanimous approval of the draft guardianship agreement dated on April 2, 1947, by the United Nations Council is clear evidence that, under the international community, Japan was guilty of crimes against peace, crimes against peace, war, and crimes against humanity during the Pacific War and during the Second World War, and to this end, the Japanese empire deserves to be severely punished.

ON WAR CRIMES

“Whereas the term “war crime” was first defined in 1945 by the Nuremberg Tribunal for the trial of Nazi criminals, “murders, ill-treatment or deportation for forced labor, or for other purposes, civilian populations in the occupied territories, the murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons at sea, the execution of hostages, the looting of public or private property, the unjustified destruction of towns and villages, or the devastation not justified by military requirements.”’ “Whereas war crimes are considered serious violations in the Geneva Convention. First, in the first convention of 1864 and the second convention of August 12, 1949, secondly in the two additional protocols of June 8, 1977, and the 2005 Additional Protocol. These violations are detailed in several articles. Title II entitled ‘“General Protection of POWs,”’ articles 12-16 contains the essential principles that must, at all times and in all places, inspire the treatment of prisoners. These provisions are to ‘“ensure respect for the dignity and value of the human person, by decapitating the rights which are, in essence, attached to him and the freedoms without which he loses his raison d’être.”’ As a result, they mainly prohibit,

a) attacks on the life and bodily integrity of human beings, including torture, and cruel treatment; b) hostage-taking; c) deportations; d) violations of the dignity of persons, including humiliating and degrading treatment and discriminatory treatment based on differences in race, color, nationality, religion or creed, sex, birth, or fortune; and e) convictions and executions carried out without prior judgment by a regularly instituted court, with judicial guarantees recognized as indispensable by “civilized” peoples.

“Title III, articles 17-108, deals with the actual captivity regime and consists of six sections. The first, articles 17 to 20, envisages situations that arise

immediately after capture. The second, articles 21-48, regulates, in eight chapters, the living conditions of prisoners in the camps or in case of transfer: places and modes of internment; housing, food and clothing; hygiene and medical care, etc. The work of prisoners is dealt with in the third section, articles 47-57. The fourth, article 58 to 68, concerns their financial resources. The fifth, article 69-77, regulates everything related to their correspondence and the relief sent to them. Finally, the sixth section, articles 78 to 108, determines, in three chapters, the relationship of prisoners with the authorities who hold them. “Whereas Asian peoples and Western prisoners of war were the main victims of Japanese abuses. According to the Bushido code, surrender is the ultimate disgrace. As a result, Western prisoners of war lost all right to proper treatment. More than 10,000 Americans died during the Bataan Death March in the Philippines as well as 100,000 men, including 16,000 Commonwealth soldiers during the construction of Burma’s death line. The Hell ships used by the Japanese to move prisoners in appalling conditions had no reports and were attacked by submarines or allied aviation. Cases of anthropophagy are reported, the ultimate step in the dehumanization of the adversary. It was discovered after the war that several hundred thousand prisoners or civilians had died. These prisoners are used as guinea pigs for research or other experiments. “Whereas in September 1942 Hirohito signed an imperial ordinance condemning to death American Lieutenants Dean E. Mark, William G. Farrow, as well as soldiers Harold A. Spatz and L. Hite. All these soldiers had taken part in the Doolittle raid. George Barr and Corporal Jacob Daniel DeShazer were also sentenced to life imprisonment. “Whereas between the invasion of China in 1937 and the end of World War II in 1945, the Japanese military regime murdered nearly 30 million people, in China, Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, Burma, Indochina, Singapore and Hong Kong, including Western prisoners of war. Violations of Japanese troops included the summary execution of prisoners of war, the exploitation of private property, torture and deportation of people against their will. Article 147 of the Geneva Convention specifies that these acts are war crimes when they are committed in times of war. “Whereas war crimes as defined in the Statute of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal of August 8, 1945 and confirmed by Resolutions 3 (I) and 95 (I) of the General Assembly of the United Nations, dated on February 13, 1 946

and on December 11, 1946, including the serious offences enumerated in the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, for the protection of victims of war, imprescriptible, regardless of the date they were committed. “Whereas at the beginning of 1930, Hirohito was ready to go to war against several countries in the Pacific and the Southeast Asia in order to get industrial resources from their territories. For example, on August 27, 1928, Japan became a signatory to the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War, known in the West as the Kellogg-Briand or the Pact of Paris. Several countries which have signed and ratified the treaty renounced war ‘“as an instrument of national policy”’ and promised to settle all disputes by peaceful negotiation. The Tanaka cabinet accepted the Pact and sent Privy Councilor Count Uchida Kōsai to Paris to sign it. “By g the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Japanese government accepted that the concept of “aggressive war” was a recognized crime in international law. In the first article of the pact, the signatories pledged ‘“in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.”’ In the second article they agreed to resolve ‘“by pacific means all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin which may arise among them.”’ “However, after g the Kellogg-Briand Pact on August 27, 1928, Hirohito did not hesitate at the beginning of 1937 to launch his country into war. On July 7, 1937, the Marco Polo Bridge incident had provided the Japanese empire with the pretext for opening hostilities against China, and on July 28, war was officially declared. On July 29, 1938, the Japanese army attacked Russian forces near Lake Khasan on the border of Manchukuo. It repeated its aggression on May 11, 1939, in Nomonhan, on the border between Mongolia and Manchuria. “Whereas, as prosecutor Golunski mentioned in his indictment, Japan has shown aggressive intentions toward the Soviet Union since the end of the 1905 war between the two countries. The Anti-Comin tern Pact in November 1936 cemented the alliance among Japan, , and then Italy to strengthen Japan’s aggressive power against its neighbors. “On September 27, 1940, Japanese representatives in Berlin signed the Tripartite Pact with and Italy. The same day, Hirohito issued an imperial rescript.

The rescript declared,

The great principle of the eight corners of the world under one roof is the teaching of Our imperial ancestors. We think about it day and night. Today, however, the world is deeply troubled everywhere and disorder seems endless. As the disasters that humankind may suffer are immeasurable, we sincerely hope to bring about a cessation of hostilities and a restoration of peace, and have therefore ordered the government to ally with and Italy, nations which share the same intentions as ourselves.

“Soon after the Tripartite Pact was signed, on October 4, 1940, Prime Minister Konoe issued a statement at a press conference in Kyoto declaring that, ‘“if the United States does not understand the positions of Japan, , and Italy, and regards our pact as a provocative action directed against it, and if it constantly adopts a confrontational attitude, then the three countries will fight resolutely.”’ “Whereas on September 27, 1940, under Hirohito’s leadership, Japan became a contractual partner of the Tripartite Pact it formed with and Italy. Also, benched by Western democracies for attacking Manchuria in 1931, followed by the rest of China in 1937, Japan signed on September 1940 the Tripartite Pact through which the three countries, , Italy, Japan committed themselves to assist each other against any attack by another nation that was not already engaged in war. “All the documents show that after the g of the Tripartite Pact among Japan, , and Italy, and then the arrival of Tōjō as prime minister, all the measures were taken by the Japanese government to trigger hostilities against the United States, Great Britain, and the Dutch Indies, as envisaged by the Imperial Conference on September 6, 1941. The desires for Japanese expansionism were at the center of this conference. “On November 5, 1941, Hirohito approved at an imperial conference the plan of operations for a war against the West. In the following weeks, on November 26, 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull presented the Japanese ambassador with an official U.S. government memo, in which the United States demanded

the complete withdrawal of all Japanese troops. Indochina and China. Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tōjō told his cabinet, ‘“This is an ultimatum.”’ On December 1, he opened an imperial conference against the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. “On June 1941, Hirohito gave the green light to the plan to attack the Soviet Union after its invasion by Hitler. He decided to violate the Japanese-Soviet neutrality treaty signed on April 13, 1941. Despite the non-aggression treaty that the USSR signed with Japan on April 13, 1941, Japan unexpectedly broke the treaty by triggering border wars against the USSR in Mongolia and Manchuria. “On December 7, 1941, on the U.S. naval base on the island of Oahu, in the U.S. territory of Hawaii, the Japanese launched a surprise attack against the American fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. This attack represents one of Hirohito’s most criminal acts. The Japanese sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship and an anti-mine vessel. They destroyed 180 American aircraft. During the attacks, 2,403 American soldiers were killed, while another 1,178 were wounded. Attacks on the Philippines, French Indochina, and Dutch possessions in the south-west Pacific gradually followed. In the six months following Pearl Harbor, Japanese Imperial troops landed in Borneo on December 15, 1941. A few months later, Guam and Wake Island fell into their hands, followed in the first six months of 1942 by the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Burma. “Whereas on December 8, 1941, during simultaneous attacks, Japanese forces attacked the Hong Kong garrison and began the invasion of Malaysia. On February 9, March 19, and May 29, 1941, Hirohito ordered the chief of the army staff, Gen. Hajime Sugiyama, to examine the possibility of an attack on Chungking, leading to a list of known planned Japanese operations, executed during the World War II. “Whereas the majority of Japanese attacks during World War II, namely, the attack on Manchuria and China, and the bombing of the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, was carried out without any prior justification from the Japanese officials. “Whereas on the very day of the bombing of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, attacks were launched by Japanese forces in Malaysia against Kota Bharu, the Indonesian island of Guam, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and against the Bund district in

Shanghai. These attacks on Britain, the United States, and Holland, on December 7, 1941, were wars of aggression. They were unprovoked attacks motivated by the desire to seize the possessions of these nations. “Whereas the text of the Hague Convention 111 of 1907 requires states in conflict to issue an explicit advance warning before triggering hostilities. “Whereas during World War II, Japan in violation of this text of The Hague Convention was at war with forty-two states signatories to the declaration or charter of the United Nations. These are: Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ecuador, United States, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Norway, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, the Netherlands, Poland, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, San Salvador, Syria, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Uruguay, and Yugoslavia. “Whereas the confession is the queen of evidence and Hirohito during his first meeting with MacArthur, at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, on September 27, 1945, had himself acknowledged his responsibility for war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Responding to a question from MacArthur, ‘“How was it that a sovereign powerful enough to end the war would not have been able to prevent it?”’ Hirohito declared, ‘“It was not clear to me that our policy was unjustified. Even today, I am not sure to whom historians will attribute responsibility for this war.”’ Then he told Gen. MacArthur, ‘“I came to offer myself to the judgment of the powers you represent, as sole responsible for all political and military decisions taken and for all the actions taken by my people in the conduct of the war.”’ “Whereas as Edward Behr said in his book Hirohito: The Ambiguous Emperor, ‘“the Japanese emperor in his shy appearance was not a saint. We had at work a shrewd and skillful manipulator, perfectly aware of what was going on. He had demonstrated his ability to act decisively and ruthlessly on February 26, 1936 when he almost single-onset a serious uprising of the army, which was on the verge of overthrowing his regime.”’ For Herbert Bix, an American historian, ‘“Hirohito was at the center of his country’s political, military and spiritual life in the broadest and deepest sense, exercising his authority in a direction that was disastrous for his people and for the countries that were invaded.”’ Beginning in

1937, Bix punctuated, ‘“Hirohito gradually became a true warlord, influencing the planning, strategy and conduct of operations in China.”’ “Whereas, in 1941, Japan celebrated with great pomp the feast of the thousand six hundred years anniversary of the reign of Jimmu, the first and mythical emperor of Japan. Hirohito took the opportunity to raise nationalist sentiment even higher in the population by using the Japanese press. He sought to influence the ongoing negotiations between Japan and the United States. On July 2, 1941, he chaired a meeting of Gozen Kaigi, which was to set Japan’s policy in the coming months. This involved the preparation of a war between Britain and America. ‘“The emperor was pleased,”’ Sugiyama noted, ‘“gave his assent on all points.”’ “By these causes and motives, accusations of war crimes against Japan, which invaded the territories of neighboring countries on the Asian continent during the Second World War, should be recognized as justified. In view of the emperor’s direct involvement in the enterprises of this war, recognizes Hirohito as a war criminal.

ON THE NOTION OF CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

“Created in 1945 in the statute of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, the crime against humanity is an incrimination established by the Charter of London, article 6, c. It refers to a ‘“deliberate and ignominious violation of the fundamental rights of an individual or group of individuals inspired by political, philosophical, racial or religious motives.”’ “Whereas what distinguishes the crime against humanity from other crimes, it is committed systematically in accordance with an ideology that coerces a group of men’s right to live its difference, whether it is original or acquired, thereby attaining the dignity of each of its and the essence of the human race. Treated without humanity, as in any crime, the victim is increasingly challenged in his human nature and rejected from the community of men. “Whereas crimes against humanity are defined by article 6 of the London

Agreement, ‘“Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and any other inhumane act committed against all civilian populations, before or during the or persecution on political, racial or religious grounds, where such acts or persecutions, whether or not they constituted a violation of the domestic law of the country where they were perpetrated, were committed as a result of any crime that entered the jurisdiction of the court, or in connection with this crime.”’ “Whereas article 7 of the Rome Statute lists common crimes that are crimes against humanity as long as they are committed by order in the context of a widespread or systematic attack on any civilian population: murder, slavery, and deportation. “Whereas the majority of these crimes were committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and the Japanese Navy during World War II, for example, the use of women as sex slaves. Under the orders of Hajime Sugiyama, minister of the army and Prince Kan’in Kotohito, chief of staff and great uncle of Hirohito, the Japanese army set up houses in occupied areas known as “relaxing centers” or “comfort houses,” similar to those set up in 1932 during the Shanghai campaign by Gen. Yasuji Okamura. These brothels, run either by the army or navy, or by local governments or private individuals, were officially named “comfort stations” where about fifteen women engaged in forced prostitution. Often barracks, these brothels were between 1,500 and 2,000, spread throughout occupied Asia, including the Pacific Islands. “The military police, Kempeitai, ensured recruitment by generally forcing village chiefs in the occupied territories to group all young women and prosecuted those designated volunteers who escaped. The women recruited were generally single and often minors. They came from Japan, the Philippines, Indochina, Burma, the Netherlands Indies, Singapore, Korea and China. With conditions of life similar to slavery, women were often beaten, tortured or even mutilated by soldiers. Some of them were even executed because the soldier was not satisfied. Others who tried to escape were murdered. “Although the facts were known at the time of the Tokyo trial, the case was largely ignored, as sexual violence against women was not recognized as war crimes in its own right. Women of “comfort” were considered “Japanese subjects.” The Tokyo court and other courts established to try Japanese war criminals ignored their enslavement by the Japanese army. The Tokyo trial

considered sexual violence to be ordinary war crimes in the same way as murders and kidnappings. “Whereas the final report of the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 acknowledged that violations of women’s human rights in situations of armed conflict violated the founding principles of human rights human rights and humanitarian law. In 1995, the action plan adopted at the Beijing World Conference on Women specified that violence against women in armed conflict constitutes war crimes, and urged the countries concerned to carry out full investigations, compensate victims and apologize worthy of the name, and ensure that criminals are prosecuted. “Whereas at the Tokyo trial, the prosecutors of the Netherlands, China and had then provided written evidence of the violence inflicted on “comfort women” in Indonesia, East Timor, China, and Vietnam. The lawyers had also postponed violence against Guilin’s “comfort women” in China. The violence was condemned in the trials of class B and C war criminals in the Netherlands, China, and Guam.”

THE UTILIZATION OF THE CHEMICAL WEAPONS

“Whereas one of the biggest atrocities of the Japanese army during this war is the use of chemical weapons. In 1936, the emperor authorized by imperial decree the expansion of Shirō Ishii’s bacteriological research unit and its incorporation into the Guangdong army. This “Unit 731” will conduct experiments and vivisections on several thousand Chinese, Korean and Russian prisoners, including women and children. As early as July 1937, Hirohito authorized the use of poison gas against Chinese soldiers and civilians. These authorizations are given through specific imperial directives, rinsanmei transmitted to the generals through the chief of the army staff, Prince Kan’in Kotohito, and then General Hajime Sugiyama from 1940. From September to October 1938, Hirohito authorized the use of toxic gases on hundreds of occasions during the Battle of Wuhan. In March 1939, General Yasuji Okamura was authorized to use fifteen thousand canisters of toxic gas in Shandong.

DRUG TRAFFICKING

“Whereas drug trafficking is another weapon used by Japan during the war. Indeed, the Japanese organized an opium trade throughout Asia to weaken China and other occupied territories. There is tangible evidence that the high dignitaries of the Imperial Japanese Court took control of the drug trade and used it as a means of “dumbing down” enemy forces. “Whereas the large-scale opium trade was one of the charges against the defendants at the Tokyo trial. Chinese deputy prosecutor Hsiang Che-Chun in his indictment developed the opium monopoly controlled by the Japanese army in Manchuria. In China, the Japanese empire had established a monopoly on the sale of opium, which it encouraged the production and consumption of with the dual objective of financing the occupation and weakening the resilience of the Chinese people. According to the prosecutor, as early as December 1932, the Bank of Japan had launched a large loan secured by the profits of the opium monopoly. To encourage this trafficking, Mitsui and Mitsubishi imported large quantities of opium from Korea and even Iran.”

UNIT CRIMES 731

“Whereas the Japanese used prisoners during World War II as human guinea pigs. Between 1936 and 1945, Unit 731 experimented with bacteriological prisoners of war, both Asian and Western. In a center near Hardin, northeastern China, the headquarters of the Japanese army in Manchuria, Unit 731, under the leadership of General Shirō Ishii, sacrificed more than three thousand people, mostly Chinese civilians, victims of vivisections, frozen, or exposed to bacteria. Hundreds of doctors from Japan’s major universities inoculate typhoid, dysentery, tuberculosis, and other viruses into human guinea pigs. Between 1940 and 1942, Unit 731 – under the guise of a water purification office – began researching the Nanjing area by spreading epidemics through wells and springs.

“Whereas bacteriological weapons produced by Unit 731 were used on Hirohito’s orders against the Soviets in 1939 and against the Chinese from 19401945. These orders were transmitted through the chief of the army staff, in this case Prince Kan’in Kotohito, generals Hajime Sugiyama and Yoshijirō Umezu. According to reports, more than 10,000 men, women and children died in the laboratories. According to work published in 2002 by the International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare, the number of people who died in China as a result of the experiments and use of bacteriological weapons by the Imperial Japanese Army amounts to 580,000. “Whereas in 2006, Akira Makino, a Japanese military doctor, itted to having carried out amputations and vivisections on Filipino prisoners, including children, while stationed in Mindanao, between December 1944 and February 1945. In 2007, another Japanese doctor, Ken Yuasa, claimed that he had performed vivisections at a military hospital in Shanxi from 1942 to 1945. It revealed that at least 10,000 Japanese, including doctors, participated in vivisections in China. “Whereas in April 2002, a Japanese judge had dismissed several Chinese victims of Unit 731. The complainants sought an apology and damages of 10 million yen, 74,188 euros each from the Japanese state for the atrocities they accused Unit 731 of, including the “bombing” of cities with the bubonic plague bacillus or germs of other diseases. In August 2002, in accordance with local jurisprudence, the Tokyo District Court rejected the same request while itting that the Japanese army had practiced bacteriological warfare. “Whereas the Tokyo Court of Appeal on Tuesday on July 19, 2005, rejected the request for reparations made by 180 Chinese complainants who claimed to be survivors or relatives of victims of bacteriological attacks by the Japanese in Zhejiang provinces and Hunan from 1940-1942. Dealing with Japan’s refusal to recognize the crimes committed by Unit 731 during the war, the case was referred to the Permanent Peoples’ Court. “Whereas in accordance with the court’s statutes, the locations, dates and contents of the application were communicated in April 2016 to the Japanese government via its Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo, inviting it to exercise its right of defense. No response was received from the Japanese leadership, and no representatives of the Japanese authorities attended the hearing.”

The TRIBUNAL, taking note of the various national and international laws that agree to recognize war – that is, the annexation of the territory of one country by another by force of arms – as a crime against peace, a war crime, and a crime against humanity.

RECOGNIZES

Among the rights of the peoples, the rights of those victims of the atrocities of the Japanese troops during the Second World War, especially the victims of the atrocities of Unit 731, to claim damages to the Japanese government, to say that the main demands by a range of human rights organizations made before this International Opinion Tribunal are fair and well-founded. The tribunal calls on the Japanese state to apologize and pay damages of 100 million yen (740,188 euros) for the atrocities of Unit 731 in which the survivors or relatives of the 180 Chinese complainants were victims, including the bombardment of cities with the bacillus of bubonic plague or the germs of other diseases. In addition, the tribunal declares the moral obligation of the international community through the United Nations to make a resolution recognizing Hirohito as a war criminal, i.e., as the author intellectual of crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, committed by the Japanese Imperial Army and the Japanese Imperial Navy during World War II in the Pacific and the South east Asia. Gustavo Alandez, president of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, November 7, 2016.

APPENDICES

COMFORT WOMEN

Charley G. Granvorka, August 31, 2019

Between 1931 and 1945, the Japanese army forcibly prostituted nearly 200,000 young women. Taiwanese, Filipinos, Indonesians and Koreans all, mostly between the ages of 14 and 18. They were all forced to “sexual service” in houses run by the Japanese army as early as 1932, the date of the first census of “comfort stations,” another modest name for military brothels. In 2015, there were only 46 surviving Korean shoppers who dared to break out of the silence and collective denial of their lives, only to overcoming their shame and self-disgust, to demand reparation from Shinzo Abe’s government. The ianfu tragedy has for decades been Japan’s controversial, if not hidden, counter-history until 2015. Historian Jean-Louis Margolin asks the question of the nature of the “work” of the ianfu. Would they be “forced workers” or, on the contrary, would they all be sex volunteers, venal women or prostitutes as the Japanese authorities always claimed until the beginning of the twenty-first century?

Flashback on “Comfort Stations,” Ianjo

The idea of “comfort stations” was justified by the Japanese authorities in 1932 after 27 percent of the Japanese Army were decimated by venereal diseases

during the Siberian expedition against the Red Army from 1918 to 1922. As adult Japanese women, professional prostitutes, are often contaminated, it was therefore imperative to preserve the hygiene of the troops. It was born the project of filling them in fresh flesh, young, but above all healthy. Hence the idea of scouring the countryside. In 1932, during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, the military authorities recorded 223 cases of gang and individual rape by the Japanese soldier. In order to eradicate the spread of venereal diseases among the troops and channel their sexual energy, the high military command decided to create “comfort stations.” The ministries of the army, interior, and transport worked together to recruit young Korean women from mining areas north of Kyushu, with the promise of a job as a cook or laundress in camps in China. Sent to the “comfort stations,” their reality was quite different; “On weekdays, we served an average of 15 Japanese soldiers a day. On Saturday, they began to line up from noon. And it lasted until 8:00 p.m. On Sundays, it was from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Again, a long line. I didn’t get a chance to count them. My vagina was so painful and swollen that they had to put cream on the condom, ‘“says one of the survivors.”’ In his book The Emperor’s Army: Violence and Crimes of Japan at War 1937– 1945, historian Jean-Louis Margolin completes the grim picture, “These were the lines of soldiers waiting their turn, pants already down, the filthy slaughter mattresses in the mobile stations of the front, the lack of privacy, the military condoms of the brand ‘“Attack!”’ the repeated venereal diseases (some soldiers refused the condom, despite the regulations), sometimes abortions, beatings and threats of some soldiers and, more systematically, brothel bosses…” To accompany Japan’s expansionist plans in China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, the Japanese Army had to create more “comfort stations.” She then ensued the services of professional recruiters who crisscrossed the Korean countryside. The General Mobilization Act of 1938 was most often the shock argument put forward to win the of young girls and their parents. In 1942, a ministerial document reported 400 comfort stations, 280 in China, 100 in Southeast Asia, 10 in the Pacific archipelago, and 10 on Sakhalin Island. The numbers will never cease to grow. The Chinese, Filipino, and Malay campaigns

were in turn covered by squads of recruiters tasked with forcibly taking the girls who fell to them. The same was true in Java, Burma and New Guinea. From the shadows… For reasons specific to Japanese sociology, the ianfu remained hidden in the eyes of the authorities and public opinion for decades before becoming national heroines. “Psychologically destroyed, disoriented, adrift, some followed the retreating Japanese army. Not daring to return home for fear of opprobrium, many had little choice but to survive than to continue prostitution. Others hid, changed their identities. Many were never able to return to a normal life and chose silence.” After the war and on the Allied side, the fate of these girls was not on the agenda. He was not mentioned in any of the lawsuits brought against Japanese war criminals. Moreover, during his surrender, the Japanese government, convinced that the American occupier would rape the women of the country, it set up “comfort stations” with prostitutes and women “volunteers,” “for the good of the nation,” and these “stations,” this time frequented by American soldiers, they made a recipe, reports Pierre François Souyri.

In the light

Between 1947 and 2011, the ianfu tragedy remained virtually inaudible despite a novel published in 19477, a study by the journalist, Senda Kako, in 1973, and the testimony of Kim Hak-sun (1924-1997) in 1991. It was her public speaking that encouraged other women to overcome their shame and dare to tell and denounce how the unspeakable was organized legally. In the name of what else? The national interest, the performance and hygiene of the troops or the superstition that having sex before the war or better still possessing a pubic hair were synonymous with protection and victory? A symbolic tribunal, the International Tribunal for War Crimes Against Women, with the aim of trying the leaders of the Imperial Army was set up in Tokyo in December 2000. Historically, sexual crimes during armed conflict scant as such

since Imperial Lame was introduced in Tokyo in December 2000. Historically, sexual crimes in armed conflict have never been recognized as such, since the cause of “comfort women” has always been ignored by military courts. Finally, after much procrastination, discussion and negotiations with Korea and to close an offensive debate, the government of Japan has acknowledged the responsibility of the state and allocated 7.5 billion euros in compensation to the 46 “women of Korean comfort” still alive.

CONCLUSION

An official apology to the international press is what the ianfu survivors had been waiting for from the Japanese authorities. A barbaric sexual slavery under the pretext of organized and legally planned patriotism in official military brothels in the name of the supreme interest. This is what the lives of thousands of young girls have been rejected into oblivion, the collective denial of their shameful existence. Fifty-five years after the end of the war and despite their compensation in 2015, despite the standardization agreement between Japan and Korea dated on June 22, 1965, the existence of these women is still controversial; why should any credit be given to the voices of rural, poor, illiterate women since there is no official document to attest to the existence of military brothels?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hicks, G. (1996) “The Sexual Slaves of the Japanese Army.” (The Comfort Women, Yen Books, 1995) translated from English by François Thévenod, Paris, Jacques Granger.

Kyung Sik, S. (1999). “Don’t disgrace my mother,” translated from Japanese by Keisuke Kikuchi in Daedalus, No. 9-10, Autumn, Maisonneuve- Larose.

Yoshimi, Y. (2001). “Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II.” M.E. Sharpe Inc.

Yoshimi, Y. (2000). “Comfort Women. Sexual slavery in the Japanese military during World War II.” Columbia University Press.

Schmidt, D, A. (2000). “Ianfu-the Comfort Women of Japanese Imperial Army of the Pacific War.” The Edwin Mellen Press.

HIROHITO, HOSTAGE OR PUPPET?

Charley Granvorka, September 2019

From whom was Hirohito the hostage or the puppet? In the meaning of the Larousse dictionary, the hostage is the “person taken or delivered as a guarantee of the execution of certain military or political conventions, the person who is seized and used as a means of pressure against someone, a State, to induce it to give in to requirements.” In other words, the hostage is the guarantor or the sponsor of the proper execution of the action. The puppet is the person who is easily maneuvered.

If, from the outset, these two conditions suggest to the Boeotian the absence of free will, to a certain degree of abstraction one might be tempted to oppose free will to determinism. However, and more prosaically, in the more complex spheres that are geopolitics and strategy in the etymological sense of the term, the nuance is more subtle and must be considered with a more distant look. The title poses a question that one would be tempted to answer too easily if one refers to the context of the epoch that refers to an emperor with monarchical power de jure but de facto constitutionalist. The choice adopted here is that of questioning the role of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the absence of Hirohito at the trial of the Japanese warlords by the International Tribunal for the Far East. What were his original intentions as a winner of war and occupation, and finally, were there more personal motivations, intuiti personae, provoked by his sociological construction? This is the double analytical angle used here to try to throw a different light on events that still give rise to many divergent studies. The image of America’s “manifest destiny,” its “divine mission,” persuades the United States that they have come to redeem the world by giving it freedom and justice. This religious representation of the “manifest destiny” formulated in the middle of the nineteenth century will, a century later, become a planetary geopolitical dimension, combining with the idea of their mission against communist totalitarianism. But what were the sufficiently crucial and “legitimate” stakes to prevent the emperor’s participation? It is also the Gordian knot of the whole affair.

In the Name of Democracy …

Historically, it was under the high command of General MacArthur that Japan was brought to surrender. It is still the American occupier who drafted Japan’s new constitution, which came into force in 1947 with the assistance of the few Japanese constitutionalists; and it is also General MacArthur who chaired the discussions and negotiations with the Allies and the international community on the possibility of bringing emperor Hirohito to court. During the Second World War, Greater East Asia represented the sphere of

“traditional” geostrategic ambitions of Japan. And since 1945, Tokyo has been a partner in Washington’s “running in the shadows” policy for Southeast Asia. As Japan’s surrender was endorsed by the Potsdam Declaration, four of the Allied committee set about planning the occupation. The goal was dual, to ensure that never again would Japan pose a threat to the peace and security of the world, and to encourage the establishment of a peaceful and democratic government. In parallel, it was also to settle the fate of the emperor. These goals are precisely resolved by this declaration. Parallel to the maintenance of a “reformed” monarchical system, it was finally and reluctantly confirmed by the US Congress that Hirohito would keep his throne and be exempted from any trial as a war criminal. Numerous proposals drafted in various forms in favor of the emperor’s translation before an International Tribunal were presented to the Allied committee, the general having orders to delay before taking any action against the Emperor. Although opposed by the American political opposition, they were finally selected and presented to the American congress in the name of the only possible alternative. The general being at the maneuver. Indeed, MacArthur believed that to persecute the emperor as a war criminal would be bad faith – this decision would be contrary to the Christian values conveyed by Christianity – and would jeopardize the objectives of the occupation and ultimately the American objectives at the end. The emperor was able to publicly acknowledge the defeat of Japan, renounce his deity, and accept the establishment of a democratic regime in the country. On both sides, American and Japanese, the idea was to arrive at an arrangement that was both consistent with American values and practices and with the devotion of the Japanese people to their former imperial institution. Three factors seem to have guided MacArthur permanently; his interpretation of the American policies for Japan, the presentation of the emperor by local politicians as a pacifist wishing to cooperate, and finally, the personal goal of MacArthur which was to establish Christianity in Japan. Indeed, very early at the end of the war, he attributed the defeat of Japan to the absence of Christian theology. In summary, the historically dated facts show a general maneuver to contain the expansion of communism in Asia and promote the expression of democracy in an imperialist Japan with a living God at its head. The emperor having publicly renounced his deity, it was then possible to make him it the conditions of his “survival” although the Japanese authorities would react if the emperor was treated too harshly. It must be believed that MacArthur knew how to

and take care when referring to the many “love letters” sent to him by Japanese citizens. More pragmatically, the context that conditioned the absence of Hirohito to any trial is provided by historical literature. In a well-documented article, Donald L. Robinson explains how, convinced of the role that the emperor could play in the implementation of democracy and possibly the Christianization of Japan, MacArthur was able to defend him before the chiefs of staff common to the Allies, ing his arguments on the model of the new constitution drawn up for Japan always “directed” by Hirohito. Indeed, when Washington signed the Moscow Agreement that granted the Allies control over the political reform in Japan, the latter did not fail to say that the Emperor could be charged.

And maybe Christianity

In addition to defending American ethics, MacArthur’s religious values also seem to have guided him in his obstinacy in sparing the Emperor’s trial. Reality or a simple delaying tactic, he was helped by Kigawa, the special adviser to the imperial palace who persuaded MacArthur and the international press to influence Christianity on Hirohito in his search for new pacified relations with the Americans. In fact, many evangelizers arrived in Japan on a mission of Christianization in the name of the emperor. The rest of the story of this religious thesis has been carefully written by the main actors themselves; MacArthur and Hirohito giving t press conferences, statements from the imperial palace, to this famous picture published in the local and international press on the orders of MacArthur despite the protests of the Japanese people. Taken during their first meeting on September 27, 1945, when Hirohito paid a visit to General MacArthur at the American Embassy in Tokyo, we see a large size General in military uniform, the look and pose assured with this just what it is necessary to relax, dominating a God who has become a man again, of small stature, his arms along his body, as submissive, with a mind still so enigmatic.

Conclusion

Japan’s surrender MacArthur pursued its original goal of protecting Hirohito from any trial as a war criminal despite the recommendations of the Allied committee, American public opinion, and political opposition in congress. Hirohito was to serve his purposes, and therefore those of America against all odds. Because of the fervor felt for him by the Japanese people, he was in MacArthur’s eyes, the only one whose voice was loud enough to be heard to convey the messages and demands of Americans in the name of democracy. In addition, MacArthur’s sociological construction based on his religious education in the values of Christianity also guided him in the realization of his mission. Christian benevolence in the service of strategy, as antinomic as these two notions may be! In other words, an iron hand in a velvet glove. But finally, who was really Hirohito and how far is he to blame for having prepared and trained Japan in the Second World War? Was he a war criminal, an active agent of damaging policies, or was he still the unfortunate victim, the “puppet” of arrogant soldiers and the “hostage” of mediocre politicians?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Lacoste, Y. (2005) “Geopolitics and the Reports of the Army and the Nation” in Herodotus 2005/1. No. 116, pages 5 - 21.

2. Michio, K. (1989). Douglas MacArthur as A Father Figure in Occupied Japan after World War II in International Social Science Review. Flight. 64, No. 1 (WINTER 1989), pp. 20-28 (9 pages). Published by: Pi Gamma Mu, International Honor Society in Social Sciences.

3. Robinson, D. L. (2002) “This Fundamental Problem”: MacArthur Saves Hirohito” in Partners for Democracy: Crafting the New Japanese State Under MacArthur Oxford University Press.

4. Sodei, R. (2006). “Dear General MacArthur Letters from the Japanese during the American Occupation.” Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, July.

5. Sodei Rinjiro is one of the very first biographers of MacArthur. He is a historian, specialist of the period of the occupation, professor emeritus at Hosei University, Tokyo.

6. “This Fundamental Problem: MacArthur Saves Hirohito.”

SEODAEMUN PRISON HISTORY HALL

In August 2018, in preparation for this book, I visited Seodaemun museum in Seoul where I repeated some experiences that were facing the prisoners. The prison was used during the Japanese colonial period to imprison Korean liberation activists. About three thousand liberation activists were imprisoned before the colonization ended in 1945. At Seodaemun Japanese soldiers tortured and later executed Korean Independence Movement followers.

MUSEUM

Of the fifteen buildings in the prison when it closed in 1987, seven have been restored. On February 27, 1988, three jail buildings and the building executions were classified historic site. In 1995, it was decided to reconvert the site into a museum. In 2001 Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the Seodaemun Prison Museum and apologized for the suffering inflicted on the Korean people during the colonial period.

A WILD ARMY

From comfort women in Unit 731 to the Nanking Massacre, millions of people were victims of the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War. The mass execution of prisoners of war and civilians was an integral part of the operations and planning at the highest level of the Japanese istration with the endorsement of Hirohito. Most of the killings took place in Korea and China.

KOREAN OCCUPATION

In the early 1930s, under the authority of Hirohito, Japan appropriated 40% of Korean land. The Japanese authorities are developing a policy aimed at increasing the production of rice for export to the Japanese empire. The expropriation of land in the countryside pushes the Korean peasants to rural exodus or emigration to Manchuria or Siberia, sometimes to Japan where their situation of migrant workers forces them to work in ruthless conditions. In spite of new activities developed by the occupants in the country, in general, the Japanese occupation corresponds to an impoverishment of the Korean population, as well in the countryside as in the city. Korea is expected to supply rice or raw materials such as wool and cotton to limit the cost of imports from Japan from third countries, at the same time the low cost of Korean labor encourages Japanese entrepreneurs to settle in the peninsula without giving any benefit to the inhabitants.

THE ROOM OF ISOLATION

In the night, the cells are lit by a lamp; the prisoner is chained to his place and the only movement he can do is to get up. The door of the cell pierced at the height of the man, a skylight, allows the guard to see at all times what the convict does. In Seodaemun Prison, under Japanese occupation, hundreds of prisoners are held in isolation areas. These inmates suffer from permanent mental injury due to their isolation.

Prisoners are forced to sit, squat, or stand in the same position for hours.

SEODAEMUN: THE PRISON OF HELL

The prison opened on October 21, 1908 during the period of colonization of Korea by Japan. Opponents of Japanese colonization are then locked up, then political opponents to successive South Korean regimes. Famous prisoners include Lee Myung-bak (President of the Republic from 2008 to 2013) who was detained there in 1964. Korean activist Yu Gwan-sun was also imprisoned there. Her death at the age of 17 following the torture of the Japanese authorities made her the «Joan of Arc of Korea».

The prisoner employed in collecting bricks and other forced labor receives no salary.

The prisoner is placed in this position to be executed. He becomes a target for the Japanese soldier.

The chain was watching the prisoner.

TORTURE WITH WATER

During the Second World War, the Japanese army, including the Japanese secret police (Kempetai), often resorted to water torture. The prisoner’s face is covered with a cloth while water is poured, which makes breathing impossible. In order to reinforce the impact of this practice on the respondents, the water contained in the bath has not been modified, so as to increase asphyxiation in the water contaminated by the previous victims.

THE TORTURE ROOM

• The detention is done in a room or cell lit at all times or in total darkness. • Blinding headbands and hoods: When the prisoner is arrested for the first time, he is blinded by a blindfold or hood. The hoods are thick cotton, old bags of rice. It is impossible for the prisoner to identify those who captured or interrogated him. • Rape: The most serious threat that women face is rape. Political prisoners are interrogated and often guarded by male guards who often rape them while in detention.

THE TORTURE ROOM

Thousands of Korean prisoners have died after being tortured in Seodaemun Prison. These prisoners were subjected to physical and psychological torture. These tortures were of different forms: Restrictions of movements: handcuffs, thumbs, ropes and irons. Deprivation of food, water, sleep, light and inability to use the toilet during interrogations and punishments. The prisoners are beaten with fists, feet, slaps and blows with various instruments.

For half an hour, I repeat the experience in the torture chamber.

Under the military law put in place by the Japanese government, the Korean must be blind, deaf, dumb, defenseless. Blind, he is forbidden to read uncensored Japanese newspapers. deaf, he must not listen to the stories of the recent resurrection of Poland; silent, he must not express his own aspirations; defenseless, so that the nation remains helpless before the garrison of the soldiers who possess it. No Korean can leave his territory. his correspondence is censored in the mails, his person is searched in the trains and in the streets. Any Korean who decides to violate his laws is automatically stopped.

THE ROOM OF INDOCILES

This is where the most indomitable prisoners are relegated. An iron gate through the bars whose guards can watch the convicts. These are attached to the rama of the bed by a double chain and can only move in the space that leaves the length of this chain. Any conversation is forbidden between them and the convicts are required to strictly follow the instructions of the director of the prison. It is also in the room of indociles that the director applies the punishment of caning. The blows received must touch the prisoner, especially the back, with a torn cord ending in a knot and about 40 centimeters long. The prisoner lies naked on a wooden bench where he is securely tied up by straps, his hands tied behind his back; and a number of strokes are applied as many times as the order of the pain indicates.

POTSDAM DECLARATION

The Potsdam Declaration was signed on July 26, 1945. Written by Harry Truman and Clement Atlee, it was remotely approved by Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek). The Soviet Union de facto accepted the when it declared war on August 8, 1945, to Japan. At first, the Japanese government rejected the of this declaration, before accepting them two weeks later following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9), and the USSR’s entry into war against the empire Nippon.

THE DECLARATION

1) We, President of the United States, President of the National Government of the Republic of China, and Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing hundreds of millions of our fellow citizens, we are united and, by mutual agreement, believe that Japan must be seen as an opportunity to put an end to this war. 2) The prodigious land, naval and air forces of the United States, the British Empire and China, repeatedly reinforced by their armies and air fleets on the Western Front, are preparing to deal the final blow to Japan. This military power is ed and encouraged by the determination of all allied nations to continue the war against Japan until it ceases to resist. 3) The result of ’s futile and senseless resistance to the standing forces of the free peoples of the world now arises in its terrible clarity to the Japanese people. The forces that are now converging on Japan are immeasurably greater than those that brought, in the face of the resistance of the Nazis, the devastation of the soil, industries and lifestyles of all the German people. The implementation of all our military power, ed by our determination, will involve the complete destruction of the Japanese armies and just as inevitably

the total devastation of Japanese soil. 4) The time has come for Japan to decide whether it wants to continue to be led by these stubborn militaristic advisers whose ill-advised calculations have brought the Empire of Japan to the threshold of annihilation, or whether it will follow the path of reason. 5) Below, the of our . We will not deviate from that. There will be no alternative. We will not suffer any delay. 6) The authority and influence of those who deceived and misgoverned the people of Japan by embarking on the conquest of the world must be eliminated forever, for we insist that a new order of peace, security and justice is impossible as long as irresponsible militarism is not driven out of the world. 7) Pending this new order and until there is proof that the Japanese Warring Power is destroyed, the sites of the Japanese territory designated by the Allies will be occupied in order to achieve the fundamental objectives that the Allies will we establish here. 8) The of the Cairo Declaration will be implemented and Japanese sovereignty will be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, and some small islands that we will determine. 9) Japanese military forces, after being completely disarmed, will be allowed to return to their homes and will be able to lead peaceful and productive lives there. 10) We do not envisage that the Japanese race should be enslaved or that its nation would be destroyed, but rigorous justice must be applied to all war criminals, including those who abused our prisoners. The Japanese government must remove all obstacles to the renewal and strengthening of democratic currents among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, religion, and thought, as well as respect for fundamental human rights, will be instituted.

JAPAN EMPIRE CAPITULATION SPEECH

A few days after the atomic bombs exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the beginning of the Soviet intervention in Manchuria, Emperor Hirohito announced to his people, on August 15, the surrender of Japan. The message is broadcast across the country. The surrender was signed on September 2, 1945, aboard the battleship USS Missouri. “To our good and loyal subjects, After much thought of the general trends prevailing in the world and the conditions that exist today in our empire, we have decided to settle the current situation as an exception. We have directed our Government to let the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union know that our empire accepts the of their t Declaration. To strive to establish the prosperity and happiness of all nations, as well as the security and well-being of our subjects, is the solemn obligation that has been ed on to us by our Imperial Ancestors and which we carry in our hearts. It is also because of our sincere desire to safeguard Japan and stabilize South East Asia that we have declared war on America and Great Britain, because the thought of encroaching on the sovereignty of other nations or to expand our territory was far from us. But the war has been going on for almost four years now. Although everyone has done their best – despite valiant fighting by our military and naval forces, the diligence of our servants, and the dedication of our hundred million subjects – the war has evolved, but not necessarily to the Japan, while general trends around the world have all backfired on its interests. In addition, the enemy has implemented a new bomb of extreme cruelty, whose incalculable capacity for destruction has decimated many innocent lives. If we continued to fight, it would not only lead to the collapse and annihilation of the Japanese nation, but also the total extinction of human civilization. However, how can we save the multitudes of our subjects? How can we atone for ourselves before the spirits of our imperial ancestors? That is why we have ordered the of the t Declaration of Powers to be accepted.

We can only express our deepest regret to our Southeast Asian Allies who have unfailingly cooperated with our Empire to achieve the emancipation of the Asian lands. The thoughts of the officers and soldiers, as well as all the others, who have fallen in the field of honor, of those who died at their posts, of those who have stumbled before the hour and of all their bereaved families, we are heartbroken night and day. The well-being of the wounded and victims of war, and of all those who have lost their homes and livelihoods, is the object of our greatest concern. The evils and sufferings to which our nation will be subjected in the future will certainly be immense. We are fully aware of the most intimate feelings of all of you, our subjects.

11) Japan will be allowed to maintain the industries that allow it to feed its economy and extract just reparations in kind, excluding those that would give it the ability to rearm for war. To this end, access to raw materials – to be distinguished from their control – will be allowed. Japan’s eventual participation in international trade relations will be permitted. 12) The Occupying Forces of the Allies will withdraw from Japan as soon as these objectives have been achieved and a peace-oriented and responsible government has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the people. 13) We call on the Japanese government to immediately declare the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide all guarantees of its good faith in this matter. The alternative for Japan is an imminent and complete destruction.

However, it is in accordance with the decrees of time and fate that we have resolved to pave the way for an era of great peace for all generations to come by enduring what cannot be endured and by enduring the unbearable. Having been able to safeguard and maintain the structure of the imperial state, we are always with you, our good and loyal subjects, relying on your sincerity and integrity. Keep yourself very strictly from any state of emotion that could lead to unnecessary complications, any fratricidal quarrels and struggles that could create disorder, drag you out of the way and make you lose the trust of the world.

May the whole nation be perpetuated as one family, from generation to generation, always firm in its faith in the imperishability of its divine soil, always bearing in mind the heavy burden of its responsibilities and the thought of the long road it remains to be seen. Use your strengths to dedicate them to building the future. Cultivate the paths of righteousness; nurture the nobility of spirit, and work with resolve, so that you can enhance the inherent glory of the imperial state and keep you at the forefront of progress in the world. Hirohito, August 15, 1945.

JAPAN CAPITULATIONS ACTS

Japan’s acts of surrender were signed by representatives of the empire of Japan, the United States, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Australia, Canada, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, Kingdom of the Netherlands and New Zealand on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. They ended the war against China as well as the Pacific War linked to the Second World War. Associated with the date when Emperor Hirohito announced the acceptance on August 15, 1945, of the of the Potsdam Declaration, in a radio address (known as “Gyokuon-has”), this day is known as the Allied victory over the empire of Japan. “We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, hereby accept the provisions set forth in the declaration issued by the heads of the Governments of the United States, China and Great Britain, on July 26, 1945, at Potsdam and subsequently adhered by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which four Powers are hereafter referred to as the Allied Powers.” We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all Japanese-controlled armed forces wherever they are located. We hereby command all Japanese forces, wherever they are, and the Japanese people, to immediately cease hostilities, to preserve and save all ships, aircraft and property, military and civilians, and to comply with all requirements which may be imposed by the Supreme Allied Commander for the Allied Powers; or by agencies of the Japanese Government at his direction. We herein order the Japanese Imperial Headquarters to immediately order commanders of all Japanese forces and all forces under Japanese control, wherever they are, to surrender unconditionally, with all the forces under their command. We hereby command all civil, military and naval officials to obey and enforce all

proclamations, orders and directives deemed by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers to be proper to effectuate this surrender and issued by him or under his authority and we direct all such officials to remain at their posts and to continue to perform their non-combatant duties unless specifically relieved by him or under his authority. We hereby commit ourselves, on behalf of the emperor, the Japanese government and those who will succeed him, to execute in good faith the clauses of the Potsdam Declaration and to give all orders and take all measures that may be required by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers or any other qualified representative of the Allied Powers to ensure its execution. We hereby order the Japanese government and the Japanese Imperial Headquarters to immediately release all Allied prisoners of war and civilian internees currently under Japanese control and to ensure their protection, maintenance and substance and their immediate transport to the premises that will be fixed. In the direction of the State, the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese government will be subordinated to that of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, who will take all measures which he deems to ensure the execution of the conditions of surrender. SIGNED in Tokyo Bay, Japan, at 0904 I on the second day of September 1945. Mamoru Shigemitsu By order and on behalf of the emperor of Japan and the Japanese government Yoshijirō Umezu By order and on behalf of Japan’s Imperial Headquarters Accepted in Tokyo Bay, Japan, at 0908 I on the second day of September 1945 for the United States, the Republic of China, the United Kingdom, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the interest of the other United Nations at war with Japan.

Douglas MacArthur Supreme Commander of allied Powers Chester Nimitz U.S. Representative Hsu Yung Chang Representative of the Republic of China Bruce Fraser UK Representative Derevyanko Kuzma Representative of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics T. A. Blamey Representative of Australia Moore Cosgrave Representative of Canada Philippe Leclerc Representative of the Provisional Government of the French Republic D.E.L. Helfrich Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Leonard M. Isitt, New Zealand Representative

CONVENTIONS

Convention on the Imprescriptibly of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

Adopted and open to signature, ratification and accession by the General Assembly in its resolution 2391 (XXIII) November 26, 1968 Coming into force: November 11, 1970, in accordance with the provisions of Article VIII

preamble

States parties to this Convention,

Recalling United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 3 (I) and 170 (II), dated February 13, 1946 and October 31, 1947, relating to the extradition and punishment of war criminals, and Resolution 95 (I) of December 11, 1946, confirming the principles of international law recognized by the Statute of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal and the judgment of that tribunal, as well as resolutions 2184 (XXI) of December 12, 1966 and 2202 (XXI) of December 16, 1966, by which the General Assembly expressly condemned as crimes against humanity, on the one hand, the violation of the economic and political rights of indigenous peoples and, on the other hand, the policy of apartheid, Recalling Resolutions 1074 D (XXXIX) and 1158 (XLI) of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, dated on July 28, 1965 and August 5, 1966,

concerning the punishment of war criminals and individuals guilty of crimes against humanity, Noting that in none of the solemn declarations, acts and conventions aimed at the prosecution and repression of war crimes and crimes against humanity there were no time limits, Considering that war crimes and crimes against humanity are among the most serious crimes under international law, Convinced that effective repression of war crimes and crimes against humanity is an important element in the prevention of such crimes, the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, which will encourage trust and stimulate cooperation between peoples and to promote international peace and security, Noting that the application of domestic law rules relating to the prescribing of ordinary crimes to war crimes and crimes against humanity is of deep concern to the world’s public opinion as it prevents those responsible for these crimes are prosecuted and punished, Recognizing that it is necessary and timely to affirm in international law, through this Convention, the principle of the imprescriptibly of war crimes and crimes against humanity and to ensure its universal application,

Agreed on: Article one

The following crimes are imprescriptible, regardless of when they were committed:

a) War crimes, as defined in the Statute of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal of August 8, 1945 and confirmed by Resolutions 3 (I) and 95 (I) of the

United Nations General Assembly, dated on February 13, 1946 and December 11, 1946, including the serious offences enumerated in the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 for the protection of victims of war; b) Crimes against humanity, whether committed in times of war or in peace, as defined in the Statute of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal of August 8, 1945 and confirmed by General Assembly Resolutions 3 (I) and 95 (I) February 13, 1946 and December 11, 1946, the expulsion by armed attack or the occupation and inhumane acts arising from the policy of apartheid, as well as the crime of genocide, as defined in the 1948 Convention for the prevention and repression of the crime of genocide, even if these acts do not constitute a violation of the domestic law of the country where they were committed.

Article II

If any of the crimes mentioned in Article 1 are committed, the provisions of this Convention will apply to representatives of the authority of the state and individuals who would participate in it as perpetrators or accomplices, or who would be guilty of direct incitement to the commission of any of these crimes, or who would participate in an agreement to commit it, regardless of its degree of execution, as well as to representatives of the state authority who would tolerate its commission.

Article III

State parties to this Convention undertake to adopt all internal measures, legislative or otherwise, that would be necessary to permit the extradition, in accordance with international law, of persons covered by Article II of the Convention.

Article IV

State parties to this Convention undertake to take, in accordance with their constitutional procedures, any legislative or other measures that would be necessary to ensure the imprescriptibly of the crimes covered by Articles 1 and II Convention, both in of prosecution and sentencing; where a statute of limitations would exist, either by law or otherwise, it will be abolished.

Article V

This Convention will be open until December 31, 1969 for the signature of any Member State of the United Nations or member of any of its specialized institutions or member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, of any State party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice, as well as any other State invited by the General Assembly of the United Nations to become a party to this Convention.

Article VI

This Convention is subject to ratification and the instruments for ratification will be tabled with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Article VII

This Convention will be open to the accession of any Article V state. The accession instruments will be tabled with the Secretary-General of the United

Nations.

Article VIII

1. This Convention will enter into force on the 90th day following the date of the filing with the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the tenth instrument for ratification or accession. 2. For each of the States that will ratify or adhere to this Convention after the tabling of the tenth instrument of ratification or accession, the Convention will enter into force on the 90th day after the date of the filing by that State of its ratification or accession instrument.

Article IX

1. After the expiry of a ten-year period from the date on which this Convention enters into force, a request for revision of the Convention may be made, at any time, by any Contracting Party, by means of written notification SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations. 2. The General Assembly of the United Nations will decide on the measures to be taken, if any, on this request.

Article X

1. This Convention will be tabled with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. 2. The Secretary-General of the United Nations will have a certified copy of this

Convention kept to all Article V States. 3. The Secretary-General of the United Nations will inform all States covered by the Article v: a) Signatures on this Convention and ratification and accession instruments filed in accordance with Articles V, VI and VII; b) From the date on which this Convention will enter into force in accordance with Article VIII; c) Communications received pursuant to Article IX.

Article XI

This Convention, which also bear the English, Chinese, Spanish, French, and Russian texts, will bear the date of November 26, 1968. On the basis of this, the undersigned, duly authorized for this purpose, have signed this Convention.

NUREMBERG TRIAL AND TOKYO TRIAL

(1945-1948) Analysis and Critics of the Two Trials

From November 20, 1945, to October 1, 1946, twenty-four senior Nazi officials were tried in the Nuremberg trial brought by Allied forces. Twenty-one of them were present in person to attend the debates. This historic trial was placed under the authority of the International Military Tribunal established by the London Accords of August 8, 1945. For more than ten months, the accused appeared for conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The accused were: Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Martin Bormann, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Walther Funk, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen, Robert Ley, Hans Fritzsche, Alfred Rosenberg, Karl Donitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Frantz von Papen, Hjalmar Schacht, Konstantin von Neurath, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Albert Speer, Julius Streicher, Fritz Sauckel, and Alfred Jodl. To conduct the debates four official languages, coexist: French, English, German, and Russian. A simultaneous translation system is set up for the first time in a courtroom. The equipment is supplied by the American company IBM. On May 3, 1946, under the presidency of Australian William Webb, the trial of Japanese war criminals opened in Tokyo after the indictment of twenty-eight Japanese personalities. Four prime ministers: Kiichirō Hiranuma, Koki Hirota, Kuniaki Koiso, and General Hideki Tōjō. Three foreign ministers: Yōsuke Matsuoka, Mamoru Shigemitsu, and Shigenori Togo. Four Ministers of War: Sadao Araki, Shunroku Hata, Shieshiro Itagaki, and Jiro Minami. Two Ministers of the Navy: Osami Nagano and Shigerato Shimada. Six generals: Kenji Doïhara, Heitaro Kimura, Iwane Matsui, Akira Muto, Kenryo Sato, and Yoshijirō Umezu. Two ambassadors: Hiroshi Oshima and Toshio Shiratori. Three businessmen: Okinori Kaya, Naoki Hoshino, and Teiichi Suzuki. The

emperor’s adviser: Marquis Kōichi Kido, and also . Takasumi Oka, ideologue Shūmei Ōkawa, Col. Tatakeyama Hikoichi, and Col. Kingore Hashimoto. The Tokyo court targets three different categories of people: senior officials, military officers and finally lower-ranking officers. Analyzing both trials, it is undeniable that the Allied lawsuit against Nazi in Nuremberg and the trial of the high dignitaries of the Japanese empire in Tokyo, marked an important starting point for the establishment of a new international order at the end of the Second World War. However, it is interesting to note that both Nuremberg and Tokyo are not brought with the intention of achieving social justice for victims persecuted by the Nazis in Europe and the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, but rather of closing the chapter of the Second World War. The message through these two suspicious trials was that with the war over, it was necessary to choose a few “heads” and give them all the responsibilities in triggering conflicts. To do this, international tribunals were set up, the two most important of which were the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal to try German war criminals and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East to try Japanese war criminals. As the sociologist Jacques Arnaud Démézier says, “Go mad or wise, how the Nazi regime, which had been built on the principle of deprivation of psychological, ideological and social enjoyments, was represented in Nuremberg by only twenty-four Accused. While in the Tokyo trial, only a group of twenty-eight senior Japanese dignitaries faced justice.” Ending a war by setting up an exceptional court and opening a judicial process to try some leaders of the defeated belligerent power is a political decision than a legal one. It is therefore understandable the political decision not to try Hirohito and of the imperial family at the Tokyo trial, and a few months earlier in Nuremberg, we witnessed the acquittal of von Papen. Von Papen not only gave power to Hitler also played an active role in the establishment of Nazism in , not to mention the acquittals of Baldur von Schirach and Hans Fritzsche who were close collaborators of Hitler? Analyzing the Nuremberg trial, the first criticism is based on the form of the trial. The question is: why did the trial rely almost exclusively on istrative documents, treaties, statements, written testimony, newspapers, but there is little

testimony from the accused and victims? About one hundred witnesses were summoned to appear by the various parties, including fourteen victim witnesses requested by the prosecution. In the end, only three survivors of the genocide gave oral thought. In addition, some revelations were kept out of the trial. This gap prevented the world from knowing the full truth about the policy of extermination of ethnic groups through Hitler’s “Final Solution” policy. How then to justify the acquittals of the following:

Von Papen: chancellor in 1932, vice-chancellor of Hitler’s first government and Ambassador. Schacht: minister of the economy, president of the Reichsbank. Fritzsche: head of information at the ministry of propaganda.

Finally, how can the prosecution so easily accept the version of events about Himmler’s suicide? In Himmler’s Secret War, (London, May 2005), historian Martin Allen asserts that Himmler did not commit suicide. Churchill’s memoirs read: “He was taken to a camp near the headquarters of the 2nd Army and made himself known to the commander. He was placed under guard; he was stripped naked and a doctor searched him to see if he was carrying poison. During the final phase of this examination, he bit a cyanide bulb that he had probably hidden in his mouth for a few hours.” Allen asserts, on the contrary, that a British delegation was sent to kill Himmler because he had made peace proposals on numerous occasions since the beginning of 1943 and that Churchill had remained insensitive to him, he would take him to the grave of the information to show that the British had wasted chances of seriously abbreviating the war. François Delpla, in “Nuremberg Face à L’Histoire,” tried to answer this pertinent question, “Why Wasn’t Himmler in the Box.” The author said, “The decision to

kill Himmler to prevent him from being questioned by the Americans on the one hand, and tried in a trial would it not be a way of saying, ‘“Go for a trial, but without Himmler?”’ In Berlin, groups of young people, acting under the inspiration of the Communist Socialist Party Unity, marched the streets of Berlin’s northern district, shouting, “We demand the death of all war criminals!” All this to prove people’s anger to dispute that the majority of Nazi criminals have escaped justice. An equally relevant point is that the trial also fails to uncover the complicity of certain international organizations with the Nazis. For example, what was the role of the International Red Cross on the “evacuation route?” It is a fact verified that the ICRC has printed travel documents in Italy to facilitate the escape of concentration camp commanders and other Nazi War criminals. Several international organizations have been criticized for their silence on Nazi persecution of minorities among them, the International Red Cross (IRC); this prestigious institution did little to help Jewish victims persecuted during the Second World War. What the Nuremberg trial did not mention. The relationship that developed between the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Nazis during and after the war remains a very intriguing issue. As Jean-Claude Favez, rector of the University of Geneva, in his book, The Red Cross and the Holocaust, asks, Was the International Committee of the Red Cross aware of the suffering of the victims of the concentration camps? How well did he know about the deportation and extermination of Jews in Europe? Did the committee try to protect persecuted Jews? These relevant issues were not raised at trial. Other questions that deserve to be answered have not been asked in Nuremberg. For example, what relationship did exist between the Catholic Church and the Nazis before and after the war? How did the Vatican plan to help Nazi criminals escape the clutches of Allied justice? It is a proven fact that the flight out of European territory of known ex-Nazis, SS and war criminals, was sometimes carried out with the help of prelates and Catholic priests without the reproaches of the Vatican or the pope. In another historical fact, von Papen, a former chancellor, met Hitler at the banker Schroeder’s house on January 4, 1933, to discuss his coming to power. Very introduced in Catholic circles, von Papen allowed the rallying of Ludwig Erhard Zentrum in March 1933. It also led to the

g of a concordat between Hitler and Cardinal Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, who became Pius XII in July 1933. Von Papen was one of the defendants at the Nuremberg trial. Although he was accused of crimes against the peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, the court acquitted him, stating that he had committed a number of political deviations, but that these acts were not punishable by “conspiracy to commit crimes against peace” which he was charged with in the indictment. U.S. Attorney General Robert H. Jackson in the trial expressed regret that the court acquitted Hjalmar Schacht, Hans Fritzsche, and Frantz von Papen and did not declare the high staff, and chief command of the Wehrmacht. Among the other Nazis who escaped Allied justice and whose facts of their absence are not raised in court is Franz Stangl, who became the commander of the euthanasia program in two extermination camps: Sobibor and Treblinka. Stangl was one of the Nazis who, with the help of Catholic priests, fled Europe to South America. An employee of Volkswagen in Brazil, he was arrested in 1967. Extradited by the Brazilian government to West , he was tried for mass crime (nine hundred thousand people). In 1970, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He died of cardiac arrest six months later. Also included are Otto Adolf Eichmann, the commander of Auschwitz, and Dr. Josef Mengele. This doctor was researching dead bodies in Auschwitz. Mengele was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to kill in the gas chambers. If there had been no irrefutable evidence of Hitler’s suicide at the time of the judgment of the Nazi high-ranking officers in Nuremberg in November 1945, and if there had not been a legal document attesting to the death of the German dictator, and finally if it had not been collected yet all the necessary evidence on the controversial question, was Hitler alive or missing, so why didn’t the Military Tribunal in Nuremberg does not try Adolf Hitler in absentia? The mere statement of Gestapo leader Heinrich Muller revealing to US CIC interrogators that he had arranged the flight of Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun to Barcelona, Spain, on April 22, 1945, was sufficient element of doubt to consider Hitler as a disappeared at the time and judge him in absentia at Nuremberg. The second question is, why did Stalin tell Churchill in June 1945 that Hitler had escaped when he knew that the Führer’s body had been found? We have much to

say about Alexander lljitsh Besymenski’s explanation: “First, it was decided not to publish the results of the forensic report, but to keep it in reserve if someone tried to slip into the role of the Führer saved by a miracle.” Second, “it was decided to continue the investigations to rule out any possibility of deliberate error or deception.” It was not until 1972 that Dr. Reidar Fauske Sognnaes, a UCLA dental expert, discovered that the images of the corpse prostheses in the file matched exactly those of the radiographic plates of Hitler’s teeth taken in 1943. Sognnaes said at the Sixth International Meeting of Forensic Sciences in Edinburgh, “This discovery undoubtedly proves that Hitler was dead and that the Soviets had autopsied the right body.” The question is, why did the Soviets who had autopsied Hitler’s body hide the result? One can possibly imagine the analysis of the charred remains took place after the trial. This is another element that confirms that it was not known in November 1945, the date of the opening of the trial, that the skull found was indeed that of Hitler. The third question is, why between the g of the London Accords on August 8, 1945, and the official opening of the trial on October 18, 1945, the four delegations that met to draw up the final list of the accused decided to withdraw Hitler’s name on the list while eight new names have been added? Indeed, at that time of the meeting between the American and British delegations, they proposed a list of ten names, all of which had been decided by the British and the Americans and which had been charged, with the exception of Julius Streicher, with high responsibilities within the Nazi regime. The British then completed this first proposal by adding seven additional names, including that of Adolf Hitler, because Hitler’s death had not yet been proven. The Americans accepted the list. So, who influenced the decision to remove Hitler’s name from the list? Finally, why had the American, English, French, and Russian legal experts, who agreed on the rules of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal and defined the charges, not decided to try Hitler in Nuremberg? The creation of the court dates from August 8, 1945, and the trial begins in the fall of the same year, it is obvious that at that time we did not have all the ing evidence to prove Hitler’s legal death. The results of the Russian experts on the analysis of the charred remains presented as those of the dictator were certainly missing when the investigation of the case began only a few months after the capture of Berlin.

“Hitler is omnipresent in Nuremberg. His name is invoked in every way, but is it wisely invoked? It is regrettable, for history, that the doubts that remained here and there about his death did not lead to judging him, like Bormann, in absentia. The historian’s spite even threatens to become angry when he sees that his own driver, Erich Kempka, who would have had much to say about his personality, but who is there simply because he is the last to have seen Bormann alive!” wrote Delpla in Nuremberg Face à L’Histoire. In the same book, Delpla wrote: “The result would have been very different if Hitler had been among the accused, even in absentia, and if his case had been studied first. Otherwise, the notion of “conspiracy,” which rightly dominated the indictment, turned out to be too loose a garment…” On the subject of the criticisms of the Nuremberg trial, other questions deserve to be asked. For example, of Hitler’s family and many of his associates were not brought to justice and were not questioned by the prosecutor. For example, the four secretaries of the Führer, his two favorite architects, Albert Speer and Hermann Giesler, his drivers Hans Baur and Erich Kempka, his valet, Heinz Linge, Heinrich Heim and Werner Koeppen, who copied his conversations at the table, his wife’s best friend, Frau Schneider, his two favorite fighters, Otto Skorzeny and Hans Ulrich Rudel, and the three women he particularly ired: Leni Riefenstahl, Gerdy Troost, and Helene Hanfstaengl. A number of warrant officers and officers close to Hitler not only were not interviewed during the investigation, but also spoke freely of their experiences sometime after the judgment. There were the following: Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer, Engel, Winsche, Schulze and Otto Gonsche. Finally, with the Russians encircling Berlin entirely, to the point that even a fly could not leave the capital so well controlled, how can we explain that Martin Bormann, who was until the last moment in the company of Hitler, a refugee in the bunker, could escape from the capital without ever having any trace of himself until now? The Nuremberg trial, contrary to what is often said, is far from a perfect trial. However, it remains in the eyes of historians and jurists around the world as the judgment that has the greatest impact in shaping international criminal law and international justice. As François Delpla explained in Nuremberg Face À L’Histoire, “the trial appears to be exemplary in many respects : first, it is obviously associated with the “emotional” satisfaction of seeing criminals tried

and convicted; secondly, it brought together several victim countries to judge the executioners side by side despite the differences that may exist between these great powers. On the other hand, it offers for the first time a certain vision of Nazism and allows the world to discover the extent of the atrocities committed by the Germans on the European continent during the Second World War.” “The usefulness of the trial is not only judgment; it is also the fact of allowing the truth to erupt in a context where it cannot be challenged later.” Robert Jackson, a U.S. Supreme Court justice who was appointed attorney general in May 1945 to prepare the trial, aware of the importance of proving the truth of the facts alleged against the Nazis, said: “Our accusation must be based above all on facts and truth. We must not forget that when the Nazi plans were proclaimed, they were so extravagant that the world refused to take them seriously. If we do not record what this movement was with clarity and precision, we cannot blame future generations if, when peace prevails, the general accusations made during the war seem incredible to them. We need to establish incredible facts through credible evidence.” The U.S. attorney added during a hearing in Nuremberg: “Our task requires that we demonstrate such objectivity and intellectual integrity that this trial imposes itself on posterity as having met the aspirations of justice. Humanity.” The world’s major media that commented on the trial from start to finish –from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946 – devoted entire columns to the Nuremberg verdict. While some editorialists have caused some surprise, the sentence is generally approved. Commentators, for example, pay tribute to the impartiality and fairness shown by the of the tribunal composed exclusively of representatives of the Allies – winners of the war – to the impartiality and fairness of the of the war-winning Allied tribunal. Some newspapers, however, have some reservations about the character of the tribunal. Switzerland in Geneva writes, for example: “The Tribunal has complied with the rules of procedure it has set for itself. History will not grieve him for having judged hastily. But it is questionable whether the other procedure would not have been preferable to give more value to the sentence. If all the charges accumulated in Nuremberg had been produced before neutral judges, the

sentence would probably not have been different, if even it had not been more severe, but it was thus avoided to give the German people the impression of victors judging their vanquished.” Declaring war is a project with multiple dimensions. It is a whole mechanism encoming the contribution of several areas of expertise just as it must have colossal financial contributions. In Nuremberg Trials, German businessmen bankers, shopkeepers, industrialists - who had financed the war and helped Hitler to win power were spared. In return, these industrialists gained huge profits during the course of the war. Yet, while accepting that Hitler was seconded by powerful economic forces in his macabre project to unleash the Second World War; however, in the Nuremberg trial, no charge was been laid against the individuals or firms that had financed the war. Who financed Hitler to come to power and who armed the Nazi leader to unleash the Second World War? The answer to this question was not given in Nuremberg. Hitler was a corporal during the First World War, imprisoned after an attempt to seize power by force on November 8, 1923. He was arrested, and sentenced to five years in prison. He completed only nine months from its term during which he wrote the book “Mein Kampf” (My Combat), which appeared in 1925. Thus, released from the prison of Landsberg, Bavaria, on December 20, 1924, how had Hitler managed to set up, in just a few years, a propaganda apparatus and such a powerful army, to invade and occupy the majority of European countries? As the British historian, Sir Ian Kershaw, explained, “Hitler would probably never have appeared on the German political scene if, in May 1919, a German officer had not been interested in him. Capt. Karl Mayr commanded the intelligence section of the Bavarian army. After the crushing of the “Republic of Councils,” the revolutionary power that for weeks had tried to establish a communist dictatorship in Munich, Mayr was tasked with recruiting security agents. The mission was to “re-educate” the soldiers in an anti-Bolshevik and nationalist line. Corporal “Hitler Adolf” was on the list of first recruits.” After a short training during a week at the University of Munich to follow the first “anti-Bolshevik instruction course,” Hitler became the right arm of Capt. Mayr who was therefore, in the shadows, one of the “birth attendants” of the political career of the next führer. Mayr introduced him to several high-ranking figures who helped him enter the respectable salons of the Bavarian capital.

There, Hitler met the poet Dietrich Eckart, the future all-powerful boss of the SA, and also the officer Ernst Röhm, who would later be part of the number of 32 deputies who were elected in May 1924 in the Reichstag. With all those people , the Nazi party was growing fast. Hitler has managed in a few years to unite his scattered forces which give his party tremendous power. More than 50,000 in 1923 had been enrolled in the party, most of them were from Bavaria. Taking advantage of the political crisis that had caused by the hyper-inflation in 1923, and the occupation of the Ruhr by , Hitler fomented in Munich a coup against the central government. The affair ended on November 9, 1923, with the death of twenty people, including four policemen. Leading politicians were wet. The authorities in were doing everything to limit the damage and, in particular, to bring the putschists’ trial to Munich. It was a masquerade of judgment. Despite the death of four police officers and extensive damage in Munich, the judge sentenced Hitler to only five years in prison. Hitler was released very quickly, at the end of only thirteen months. It was a captivity of the most pleasant during which he could write the first volume of “Mein Kampf.” Hitler then returned to the German political scene. His party, the NS-DAP, won only 2.6 percent of the vote in the 1928 legislative elections. But with the global economic crisis in 1929-1930, and the exponential rise in unemployment in , Hitler’s movement collected 18.3 percent of the votes in the elections in 1930. In early 1932, Hitler was therefore the leader of the largest movement in the Reichstag. On August 13, 1932, during a very tense meeting, President Hindenburg proposed to Hitler a post of minister, but categorically refused to appoint him chancellor. Hindenburg made earlier choice of Gen. Kurt von Schleicher as chancellor. On January 4, 1932, von Papen had a meeting with Hitler at the home of a Cologne banker, von Schröder, and Göring attend, with a few leaders. A few days later, on January 9, 1932, von Papen met with President von Hindenburg and, formally discussed with him the formation of a cabinet with Hitler as chancellor. In November 1932, a number of industrial and financial figures, signed and petitioned president von Hindenburg to entrust Hitler with the post of chancellor. Schacht actively contributed to the signatures at the bottom of this petition. On January 30, 1933, under the pressure of the same German businessmen and occult forces, Hitler was appointed chancellor of the Reich by president von Hindenburg. Under his rule, there was a fierce and brutal dictatorship, millions of people were taken prisoner and sent to extermination camps for religious, political, and ethnic differences (including socialists, communists, blacks, Jews, homosexuals, handicapped people, Jehovah

Witnesses, and trade unionists). Further into the question, what were the names of the 38 great capitalists of who wrote a petition to President Hindenburg and requested Hitler’s appointment as national chancellor? Among those who ed the rise of Hitler one knew the name of the industrialist Friedrich “Fritz” Thyssen, the richest man in , with capital from the steel industry. In 1923, at the invitation of Gen. Erich Ludendorff, Thyssen was waiting for a meeting given by the Nazi leader and was charmed by his speech in which he criticized the Treaty of Versailles. Thyssen played a big role in helping Hitler win power. He was the first businessman to start financing Hitler. He had given the chancellor a hundred thousand golden marks in 1923 to structure the Nazi party and prepare it to conquer power. He had quickly appealed to several other German capitalists inviting them to come and participate in this campaign. In a secret meeting on February 20, 1933, the German businessmen gathered 3 million mark to help the Nazi party win the parliamentary elections of March 1933. The ninth German federal elections of the Weimar republic took place on 5 March 1933. Due to the success of the Nazi party, its leader and chancellor of , Adolf Hitler, was able to resort to the Generator Act, which gave it powers equivalent to those of a dictator. The German Full Powers Act of 1933, also known as the Enabling Act (the law of March 24, 1933, to repair the distress of the people and the Reich), bore the signatures of Hindenburg, Hitler, Frick, Neurath and Krosigk. This law gave Hitler the right to govern by decree, i.e. to take legislation without any parliamentary procedure). The Law of Full Powers was ed on March 23, 1933, by the Reichstag by 144 votes in order and 94 against. All far-right, right-wing, and center-right parties voted in favor; the Socialists voted against it, the communists were banned and therefore could not be present. The law, enacted on March 24, 1933 for a renewable period of four years, remained in force until the fall of the Nazi regime in May 1945. For the British historian, Ian Kershaw, it was the complacency of bourgeois elites wrongly convinced of being able to manipulate Hitler that allowed the Nazis to take power in 1933. In 1999, in a two-volume biography of Hitler entitled “The End,” Kershaw answered the question that has haunted the world for more than three quarters of a century. The historian elaborated on his thoughts in an interview with the newspaper L’Observateur published on July

28, 2013. “How could a failed painter, without fortune and education, a disoriented marginal, unable to maintain a stable human relationship, must be able to take power in one of the most advanced states in the world?” asked Kershaw. The historian added, “At several crucial stages of his ascension, Hitler was protected in high places. That does not explain everything, of course. The humiliating defeat of 1918, the hyper-inflation of 1923, the great economic crisis of 1930, the rejection of the Weimar Republic, Hitler’s oratorical skills, and many other factors, had contributed to this seizure of power. But it was not inevitable. From 1919, when it all began, to 1933, many political, judicial or military leaders could have stopped the career of the future dictator. But most haven’t even tried. Worse, many favored him thinking they could benefit from it.” In Nuremberg, the prosecution did not mention also the names of several American companies that made loans to in order to help it to finance the war project. Before and during World War II, several American industrialists signed contracts with the Nazi regime. ITT and General Motors, for example, had developed business with . The American firm ITT had signed contracts with the Nazis for the manufacture of bombers, while General Motors made military trucks used against Allied troops. Taking advantage of inflation in the mid1920s, which ruined the German economy: a U.S. dollar was worth four million mark, compared to the value of eight marks per dollar, before inflation, American companies, strong of their currency, buy, good market, the entire shares of the German industry: Ford, General Motors, IBM, ITT, General Electric, DuPont de Nemours etc. These companies take stakes in German companies. American bosses ignore the political regime in place, dominated by Hitler’s violence and dictatorship. A cordial relationship had developed throughout the war between ITT and the Nazi regime. The founder of ITT, Sosthenes Behn, met several times Hermann Goering, placed by Hitler at the head of important industrial complexes and also charged by the führer with the execution of the “four-year plan.” In 1938, ITT acquired 28 percent of the capital of FockeWulf, which produces bombers. That same year, the day after the Anschluss, Behn met Hitler again, who gave him

assurances about ITT’s future within the Reich. In 1939, Behn obtained from the German Ministry of Economy that ITT subsidiaries should be granted German citizenship, which was not the case for sequestering foreign property. Behn ended the war with the rank of colonel in the U.S. Army. In 1938, Ford opened a factory in the suburbs of Berlin to assemble troop transport vehicles. With Opel, a company of German origin, but owned by General Motors, Ford would produce nearly 90 percent of the 3-ton half-tracks and 70 percent of the heavy and medium tonnage trucks used by the German army. The complicity of executives of the American company IBM, which facilitated the war effort of the Nazis during the Second World War, was also not mentioned during the Nuremberg trial. In 1937, in a letter from IBM boss Thomas John Watson to Hjalmar Schacht, the Reich’s finance minister, Watson welcomed his relationship with since the end of the First World War and ended the correspondence by adding that the world should give “a sympathetic understanding to the German people and their goals under the leadership of Adolf Hitler.” In 1924, IBM pioneered the operation of the Hollerith calculating machine process, acquiring a German company, Dehomag. Taking advantage of improvements made by German engineers, Watson, over the next ten years, would personally develop the business of its subsidiary, which generated more than half of the turnover of the 70 subsidiaries of the brand. A few weeks after Hitler took power, IBM, which already controls nearly 90 percent of the global market for punch card machines, invested more than 7 million Reichsmarks - more than $1 million - for the development of Dehomag. This development greatly facilitated the statisticsloving Nazi government in its plan to “sort” between Jews and non-Jews in the Reich. The German Statistical Association’s journal, which is coordinated by Dehomag executives, says: “We are currently tackling many major ideological problems. One of them is related to racial politics, and the country is in great need of statistical insight.” Between 1933 and 1941, American oil companies had participated heavily in the German war effort. They were helping the Nazi regime. In 1934, Standard Oil (American company), led by Walter Teagle, Shell (Dutch firm), led by the pro-

Nazi Henri Deterding and BP (English company), formed a cartel. Standard Oil would provide the Germans with the patents for lead tetra-ethyl used in the manufacture of aircraft gasoline. In exchange for this, Standard Oil, eager to start manufacturing synthetic rubber, would the German firm IG Farben. In 1941, a parliamentary commission of inquiry headed by the future president, Harry Truman, had attacked Standard Oil for its links to the Nazis. As Ford did, Coca-Cola would also participate in the Nazi War effort (factories and trucks commandeered, the bottles will also serve as precious containers to enclose sparkling water or medicines. Until the end of 1942, Coca-Cola stocks in were reserved for the Reich military and hospitals to “relieve” the wounded. The Nuremberg trial is therefore a unique judicial event in history. The presiding judge, Geoffrey Lawrence, a British judge, who opened the trial on November 20, 1945, clearly recalled: “The trial that is about to begin is unique in the annals of world law and has extreme importance to millions of people from all over the world. The trial is unique for a variety of reasons. First, the judicial process is new. It is a compromise between the Anglo-Saxon procedure of the Common Law, which is adversarial (the prosecutor’s responsibility to prove the guilt of the accused) and the European system in which judges analyze the evidence and issue the verdict. Secondly, among the new developments, the concept of crime against humanity was introduced in Nuremberg for the first time. It is used to try the massive persecution of the civilian population.” Crimes against humanity are defined by article 6 of the London Agreement: “Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and any other inhumane act committed against all civilian populations, before or during the war, or else persecution on political, racial or religious grounds, where such acts or persecutions, whether or not they constituted a violation of the domestic law of the country where they were perpetrated, were committed as a result of any crime within the jurisdiction of the court, or in connection with this crime.” U.S. Att. Robert Jackson comes to the same conclusion that Nuremberg is a historic trial. His initiative to present images as evidence is a first in the justice system. For him, it is a matter of “establishing incredible facts through credible evidence.” On November 29, 1945, the public attended the presentation of a onehour film about concentration camps. It is mounted from excerpts of tapes filmed by the U.S. military during the liberation of the camps. The prosecution

also features films made from excerpts from tapes shot by the Nazis themselves. The film entitled “The Nazi Plan,” presented in December 1945, is composed of German news footage and tapes filmed by SS guards in concentration camps. Robert Jackson also wants a trial for the History. He therefore introduces the camera into the courtroom and has the proceedings filmed so that the trial becomes a historical archive. He said at a hearing in Nuremberg, “Our task requires that we demonstrate such objectivity and intellectual integrity that this trial imposes itself on posterity as having met the aspirations of justice of humanity.” However, Jackson itted the limited scope of the trial. In one of his last texts on the issue, his speech of September 1, 1949, to the Canadian Lawyers Association, he explained the future scope of this trial: “It is far too early to appreciate the influence of the Nuremberg trial. But I disagree with the idea that alone this trial can be enough to prevent future wars. When the stakes are worth, and the chances of success seem high enough, I suppose there may still be reckless leaders who will plunge their people into war, just as men still resort to murder even though it is punished by law. But I think we have forever ruined in the minds of statesmen the pernicious idea that all wars can be considered legal and just and that if the law assigns personal responsibility to the one who engages in a brawl on the way it exonerates the one that triggers and begins a world war.”

THE TOKYO TRIAL

Was justice served in the Tokyo war crimes trials? This question has been debated since 1948 by many jurists, historians, journalists, and by many other experts who had analyzed the verdict. According to Tim Maga in Judgment at Tokyo: The Japanese War Crimes Trials, “the answers depended upon a variety of factors, most of them political. For some, speed and justice had always been contradictory partners. For others, trial length was considered irrelevant.” The Catholic Church position on the trial was especially surprising. “Japan was in trial” in the IMTFE and the Allies had been too eager to convict a defecting enemy,” said the Vatican in an official statement. Some had criticized Keenan’s

specific methods and tactics that were more connected to political interests than “effective prosecution work.” “They are plain, ordinary murderers,” cried Chief Prosecutor Joseph B. Keenan. As a result, Japanese officers and soldiers who conducted war crimes, engaged in unethical medical experiments, or practiced cannibalism were found guilty of the charge of murder. The verdict effectively shows that good law was practiced at the Japanese war crimes trial in Tokyo. However, many historical works, both in Japan and in the United States, have highlighted procedural weaknesses and political negotiations in the work of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. As historian Awaya Kentaro, professor of modern history at Rikkyo University, one of the world’s leading experts on the issue, pointed out, “Researchers now agree that the US authorities have introduced a number of political objectives in the preparations and conduct of the trial.” The Tokyo Charter, which formalized the jurisdiction of the court, was prepared by the International Prosecution Section, a so-called international body but in reality, at the orders of the American occupying authorities. The other ten participating countries, each of which provided a judge, had arrived very late in the process of preparing the trial and had hardly weighed on its progress. The charge was led by a single team, led by a U.S. attorney, Joseph B. Keenan, who worked closely with the head of the occupation authorities, Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Although Keenan was assisted by ten associate prosecutors, one from each of the other ten countries represented on the tribunal, but the American entirely had controlled the prosecution policy and the strategy for the trials. Eleven justices presided at Tokyo as opposed to four at Nuremberg. The prosecution numbered around one hundred attorneys ed by a staff of over one hundred Allied nationals and almost two hundred Japanese. In 818 court sessions over 417 days, the tribunal heard testimony from 419 witnesses and accepted depositions and affidavits from an additional 779 individuals. Thousands of secret documents were collected under its jurisdiction. Some 4,336 exhibits were itted in evidence, totaling around 30,000 pages. The transcript of the trial, excluding exhibits and judgments, numbered 48,288 pages. Four languages – English, German, French, and Russian – were employed in the

Nuremberg trial. In Tokyo, two languages were used – English and Japanese –, at least six other languages had to be accommodated. Simultaneous interpretation proved extremely difficult in Tokyo. and, as a consequence, statements by witnesses or counsel were stopped at the end of each sentence until translations had been made. The eleven justices in Tokyo contrary to the four presiding judges in Nuremberg had no replacing. This resulted on more than two or three occasions in absenteeism on the bench. For many historians, lawyers, and analysts, the Tokyo trials had a revenge on Japan. In an article published in Le Monde on May 5, 2006, Philippe Pons said, “The Tokyo Tribunal has not remained in the annals of international justice as an ideal of fairness, and the judgment of December 1948 (death sentence of 7 of the 28 accused, among which General Hideki Tōjō, a er of the excessive struggle against the United States) is fraught with ambiguities. Arbitrary charges, insufficient evidence, and lack of respect for the rights of the defense, had made the trials a denial of justice. The French judge, Henri Bernard, had criticized the verdict, he said, following a flawed procedure. The Indian judge, Radhabinod Pal, said, “If crimes against humanity were judged, we also had to rule on those perpetrated by the United States against civilians, starting with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” According to Awaya Kentaro, the Tokyo trials contains serious flaws that he attributes to the opportunist of the victors. In an article published in the newspaper Le Monde, on September 26, 2005, Kentaro stated, “At the Tokyo Tribunal, the prosecution detailed, with ing evidence and witnesses, the conduct of the Japanese invasions, from the Manchuria incident to the Pacific War to the Sino-Japanese conflict. In the expectations of the judgment, the court essentially took up the prosecution’s arguments. However, as soon as his work is analyzed in detail, it is clear that another process, leading to immunity, was closely involved in the proceedings of the indictment.” Biological and chemical experiments conducted by Japanese troops were not discussed during the trial, such as those conducted by Unit 731. It is estimated that at least 3,000 people have been used for human experiments by Unit 731 and more than 300,000 people have been killed in China by Japanese biological weapons. As with the Nuremberg trial, in the Tokyo trial, several questions deserve an

answer. For example, two people convicted of being class A war criminals, Mamoru Shigemitsu and Okinori Kaya, played an important role in post-war Japanese governments. Not only were these two Japanese leaders not charged with war crimes, but no foreign government objected when they took office. The other decision that many historians criticized was the fact that Hirohito and the majority of the imperial family involved in the war were exonerated of criminal prosecution. Indeed, when it came to establishing the list of war criminals, MacArthur recommended to the American government that the emperor should be granted immunity while maintaining the imperial system necessary for the proper functioning of the occupation of Japan. Britain, with a similar monarchical system, approved this decision. According to the British government, prosecuting Hirohito for war crimes, would be a serious political mistake. His presence on the throne could only prevent communist infiltration into Japan. In addition to the total exemption granted to Hirohito, there is criticism of the decision to release only after a few years those sentenced for war crimes. Until now, there are major controversies surrounding the release from prison of several officers and officials condemned during the trial in Tokyo. Those individuals found to be war criminals by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East received early paroles. On March 7, 1950, Douglas MacArthur, the American commander, issued circular 5 Clemency for War Criminals providing for the early release of prisoners who had demonstrated good conduct. Several of the sixteen war criminals given life sentences received early paroles. Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, a propaganda spokesman and a participant in controversial military actions ranging from Muken in Manchuria to the Nanking massacre, received parole in 1954. Field Marshal Shunroku Hata of the Supreme War Council, found guilty of committing atrocities against Chinese civilians, was also paroled in 1954. . Takasumi Oka, who ordered the shooting of both military and civilian survivors of torpedoed Allied ships, was paroled in 1954. Gen. Sadao Araki, a former war minister and education minister who had rebuilt the Japanese education system along strong militarist lines, was paroled in 1955. Naoki Hoshino, the chief cabinet secretary throughout World War II and the former chief of financial affairs in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, won parole in 1955. Okinori Kaya, the minister of finance and an advocate of selling narcotics to Chinese civilians, was paroled in 1955. Kōichi Kido, the guard of the seals and private secretary of Hirohito, was paroled in 1955. Gen. Hiroshi Oshima, the military representative to Berlin who helped Japan to sign the military alliance

with , was paroled in 1955. Gen. Kenryō Satō, chief of the Military Affairs Bureau and former commander of occupied Indochina, won parole in 1956, along with the architect of slave-labor policies in China, Gen. Teiichi Suzuki. Some of those criminals, who had been former influential figures of the Shōwa era, such as Ichirō Hatoyama and Nobusuke Kishi, had returned to power. One defendant, Mamoru Shigemitsu, who had helped sign the surrender document to the Allies in 1945, and who was a former ambassador to China and vice minister of foreign affairs, was sentenced to seven years in prison but was released in 1950. Shigemitsu returned to the diplomacy position and was appointed foreign minister in 1954. On October 17, 1978, the “souls” of fourteen people executed as class A war criminals were “welcomed” to the Yasukuni Shrine. They were enshrined as “Martyrs of Shōwa” because they were on the war dead registry. They were: Hideki Tōjō, Kenji Doïhara, Iwane Matsui, Heitaro Kimura, Koki Hirota, Seishino Itagaki, Akira Muto, Yōsuke Matsuoka, Osami Nagano, Toshio Shiratori, Kiichirō Hiranuma, Kuniaki Koiso, Shigenori Tōgō, and Yoshijirō Umezu. As the Chinese historian Cheng Kai pointed out, the Tokyo trial resolved the conflict between Japan and the United States, but did not carry any prospect of reconciliation with the Asian countries that had suffered the most during the war. The compromise reached reflected the advent of a new international order based on the fight against the Communist enemy represented by China and the Soviet Union. According to Herbert P. Bix, “MacArthur’s truly steps to save Hirohito from trial as a war criminal had a persistent and profoundly distorting impact on the Japanese understanding of lost war.” For his part, historian John W. Dower said, “Even Japanese activists who endorsed the Nuremberg and Tokyo charters, worked to document and publicize the atrocities of the Shōwa Era, cannot defend the American decision to exonerate Hirohito’s responsibility for the war.” Another major problem was severely criticized at the Tokyo trials, the overly flexible procedure used to receive evidence in court. The question of issibility of evidence is one of the foundations of the U.S. criminal proceedings. No hearsay evidence, and no documents or witnesses cannot be

cross-examined. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East had ruled out the application of these principles, leaving it to the court to assess sovereignly the “probative value” of the elements produced by the parties (article 13). The charter specifies that certificates, diaries, and documents that are not received under oath would be considered issible. The court agreed that the prosecution would use press clippings, conversations with deceased people, and citizens’ letters about the abuses and crimes of Japanese soldiers during the war in Tokyo. These documents submitted by the prosecution were accepted as evidence without cross-examination, a principle contrary to the American criminal procedure. The violation of the principle of non-retroactivity of the criminal law is, an essential principle of criminal law: No crimes without a text that prohibits them at the very moment they were committed, was one of the reproaches made by the defense, which considers that the alleged crimes committed by the accused took place during 1931-1945 and the charter to try Japanese war criminals was promulgated by the Supreme Allied Command, on January 19, 1946. It was in the name of the principle of non-retroactivity of the criminal law, as said in Latin: “Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali,” that defense lawyers pointed out that the charges brought against their clients were inissible. Several generals had tried, in their defense, to refer to orders from their superiors, since the charter of the court prevented them from claiming such an excuse. Those officers claimed that they had not been informed of the excesses committed by their orders they had given, and their orders had been carried out contrary to the plan. According to prosecutor Keenan, all defendants are guilty of crimes against peace for contributing to the preparation and inset of wars of aggression against Manchuria, China, the United States, and other Asian countries represented in court. These are by no means retroactively sanctioned crimes, Keenan said. To affirm his arguments, the chief prosecutor mentioned in his introductory indictment, several previous international treaties that sanctioned the war of aggression, the 1907 Hague Conventions, which required states to settle their differences peacefully, the Treaty of Versailles, which had specified as early as 1918, that the war of aggression constituted an international crime, and, finally, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of August 27, 1928, which solemnly condemned the use of war for the settlement of disputes “which will have to be settled peacefully.” Fifteen countries, including Japan, have signed the treaty, to which more than sixty states have ed. According to the U.S. prosecutor,

Japanese leaders are guilty of violating the commitment made in g the pact. As such, they deserve to be condemned without the argument of nonretroactivity of the criminal law being validly accepted. Some historians insist that convictions are too limited. According to them, the trial’s findings should have been broadened to extend guilt to the entire Japanese ruling class, including not only the emperor and his court, but also the military elites, and leading political and economic leaders. Indeed, many military leaders and high-ranking political leaders escaped prosecution. Some crimes were not even examined. For example, the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers throughout the 1930s and early 1940s were rarely mentioned. Several cases were deliberately overlooked by the judges. Japan’s conservative ruling class was never worried about its responsibilities in the war in exchange for its cooperation in the anti-communist policies of the United States. The other question that arises is, why the atrocities committed by the Japanese, particularly the serious human rights violations of Unit 731, were not detailed during the trial. Unlike the trial of the Nazi leaders in Nuremberg, in the Tokyo trials, the court found those guilty of war crimes, but did not specifically sanction crimes against humanity that were not targeted in the verdict. The judges in Tokyo found that the crimes committed by Japanese soldiers in the Far East were nothing like the Holocaust of Jews and Gypsies in Europe. This difference was emphasized by Justice Pal, who declared that “the case of the present accused before us cannot in any way be likened to the case of Hitler.” In Tokyo, there were no organizational counterparts to the Nazi party and its d criminal organs, such as the Gestapo and the SS, which made the charge of conspiracy easier to argue in the German case. Around the end of 1944, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and his aides, had concluded that adding conspiracy to the list of war crimes would expedite prosecution of Nazi leaders as well as lower-level of Nazi organizations. The more technical criticism of the conspiracy charge in the Tokyo trials was that it did not exist in international law prior to 1945. Justice Webb was unambiguous on this particular point. “International law, unlike the national laws of many countries,” he observed, “does not expressly include a crime of naked conspiracy. So too, the laws and customs of war to not make mere naked conspiracy a crime.” By that fact, the tribunal in Tokyo has no authority to create a crime of naked conspiracy based on the Anglo-American concept. However,

three of the fifty-five charges brought by prosecutor Keenan against the accused amounted to war crimes with conspiracy. Charge 54 stated that nineteen defendants had “ordered, authorized or permitted” the commission of war crimes by their subordinates in violation of the laws of war. It was a direct criminal responsibility. Charge 55 showed responsibility for failing to ensure that their subordinates complied with these customary rules. However, ing the war crimes thesis was not an easy task for the prosecutors who did not have documents in their possession to their charges. In the absence of direct evidence, the court relied on witness testimony to convict the accused. In the judgment, we can read, “For several months, the court heard testimony and gathered testimonies from witnesses who reported in detail the atrocities committed in all theatres of war on such a large scale and in a process so similar that only one conclusion is required: these atrocities were secretly ordered or authorized knowingly by the Japanese government or some of its and by the leaders of the armed forces.” The judges in Tokyo had convicted all of the defendants who appeared before them, unlike the Nuremberg judges, who had acquitted three defendants: Hjalmar Schacht, Hans Fritzsche, and Frantz von Papen. Only two defendants in Tokyo were sentenced to temporary prison (Tōgō and Shigemitsu), while all those who were not sentenced to death were sentenced to life imprisonment. Of the twenty-two defendants in Nuremberg, three were acquitted and twelve were sentenced to death (one in absentia). In comparison, there were no acquittals in the Tokyo tribunal, where twenty-three of the twenty-five defendants were found guilty of participating in the “overall conspiracy” against peace (count 1). Tōjō received the death sentence, along with five other generals: Itagaki Seishirō, Kimura Heitarō, Doïhara Kenji, Matsui Iwane, and Mutō Akira. One civil official, former foreign minister and prime minister Hirota Kōki, was also sentenced to die. Of the seven men sentenced to death, two were judged guilty of authorizing or permitting atrocities (count 54) as well as of failing to prevent such breaches of the laws of war (count 55), and three were found guilty of the first but not the second of these atrocity charges. One defendant, the former general Matsui Iwane, was given the death penalty on “negative responsibility” grounds for not preventing atrocities by troops under his command during the Nanking massacre. Hirota Kōki was found guilty of three charges, including overall conspiracy and having failed to prevent atrocities in China. The former prime minister was sentenced to die on the basis of the vote of only six of the eleven judges.

Very little in mind under article 5 of the charter, which stated that for the three crimes under the jurisdiction of the court (crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity), judges should establish “individual responsibilities”; the Tokyo judges ruled that all civilian and military leaders who had helped to start or participate in wars to aggression were considered criminals. It was not necessary for the court to determine the share of responsibility for each of them. The atrocities committed by Japanese troops on prisoners of war and civilians in the occupied territories were certainly abominable; and the majority of the accused had held command functions. However, some defendants, even though they held important positions in the regime, had not personally given orders to massacre, starve, torture, and rape the victims in the occupied territories. It was fair for the court to consider the personal responsibility of each of them, and beyond deciding on the condition necessary for his conviction. That was the view of some of the judges who sat on the court. The issue of the death penalty against almost all the accused was one of the main areas of disagreement among the magistrates. The Australian judge, William Webb, who had led the proceedings as chair, wrote a “concurring opinion” in which he expressed his opposition to the principle of capital punishment, which he considered unjustified when the principal emperor of Japan, had enjoyed immunity. He criticized the fact that “the leader of the crime, though available for trial, had been granted immunity.” He observed that “the emperor’s authority was required for war. If he did not want war, he should have withheld his authority.” Webb went on to discuss the conduct of the trial and the facts of the individual cases. Though the tribunal found the Japanese army guilty of usurping power by intimidation and assassination, it exonerated the Japanese people for the behavior of their armed forces. It also greatly reduced the number of counts in the original indictment that were considered to have been proved. For the French judge, Henri Bernard, it is the entire judgment that he disapproved by considering that “a judgment rendered at the end of an irregular procedure cannot be valid.” He found the proceedings so unfair and technically flawed that it was impossible to any judgment. Bernard believed that the prosecution had been too selective in creating the class A list. He was convinced there was more than enough reason to try Hirohito. “The absence of the emperor struck him as so glaring an inequity that condemning the defendants was impossible.” However, according to his opinion, the IMTFE had a “natural” right to exist, and he was against anyone who attacked the credibility of the court.

In a very long 1,235-page “opinion” that he had published at his own expense upon his return to Bengal, Indian judge Pal was the most vocal in his criticism. In his regard, there is no evidence that the accused were the perpetrators of crimes against peace. It considers that Japanese military operations against China were justified by Chiang Kai-shek’s for the boycott of Japanese trade operations decreed by the Western powers, mainly of the embargo imposed by the United States on Japan’s import of oil. According to Pal, Japanese attacks on neighboring territories were justified to protect the Japanese empire from the aggressive environment it was subjected to by Western powers and some neighboring countries in the area, especially the Soviet Union. These were selfdefense operations that could not be considered criminal. “The real culprits are not before us,” said the Indian magistrate. “Only a lost war is an international crime,” he concluded. Judge Delfín Jaranilla from the Philippines, for his part, considered that the sentence had been too lenient and “was not in proportion to the seriousness of the wrongdoings committed.” The dissenting Dutch judge, for his part, considered that three of the defendants sentenced to life imprisonment should have been sentenced to death and that four other convicts should have been acquitted (Hata, Kido, Shigemitsu, and Tōgō). Chinese judge Mei threatened to commit suicide if the death penalty was not imposed on the guiltiest. Also, when the verdicts were announced on November 12, 1948, the most surprising thing was when the general public learned by the media the entirely unexpected submission of four separate opinions that were in one way or another critical of the tribunal’s conduct and conclusions. Justice Pal had acquitted all defendants, while Justice Röling had found five (including Hirota) not guilty. Two justices, Webb and Bernard, had found the tribunal flawed and compromised by the decision not to bring the emperor to trial. Emperor Hirohito was, in fact, the only person in Japan who had been at the center of power during the entire course of the war. Some of the shortcomings mentioned in the trial were recognized by Att. Gen., Joseph Keenan, who was responsible for presenting the elements of the prosecution on behalf of the war-winning Allied countries. “Such trials are unprecedented,” he said in his introductory indictment. “We are aware of the dangers of such procedures in the absence of precedents, but it is essential to realize that if we waited for such precedents and remained paralyzed by their absence, the result would be serious consequences without no justification.

Today we are faced with brutal realities that somehow call into question the very existence of civilization.” However, for the majority of the judges, the death sentences against the accused were justified when one considers the damning testimony gathered on war crimes and crimes against peace committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and the Japanese Navy during World War II. At the Tokyo court, witnesses described the abuses committed by Japanese soldiers on prisoners of war and also in civilians in Japanese-dominated Asia. They talked about how the fallen airmen were shot or beheaded with swords in retaliation for the bombing of Japanese cities. They recounted cases of excessive punishment, torture, and inhumane treatment, which were inflicted on prisoners of war in contravention of the Geneva Conventions, and in accordance with the instructions of Japanese army commanders who ordered to maintain strict discipline among prisoners of war. They talked about corporal punishment, the torture that was inflicted at the slightest case of insubordination. As noted in the judgment on page 1,089, “Thousands of victims were beaten to death, others exposed to the tropical sun for hours without protection, others still hung by their arms until they disted, or locked in cages or underground cells for weeks without food. Torturing prisoners for information is a serious war crime according to the Geneva Convention; and the Japanese army used this practice throughout the war to annihilate its enemies.” The defense lawyers had sought to highlight the political nature of the Tokyo tribunal. In their appeal to Gen. MacArthur in the aftermath of the judgment, they stated as a means of appealing the judgment, “The death penalty would have been imposed by a vote of six to five in some cases and seven to four in others cases.” MacArthur had dismissed all appeals for a stay of execution that the condemned brought in front of him. After this decision, seven of the defense lawyers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. They declared the Tokyo tribunal was an American court established without the consent of congress, and been conducted entirely on the basis of, President Truman’s executive powers. On December 15, the day before the case was argued at the Supreme Court, the Far Eastern Commission promptly announced that the tribunal “is an international court appointed and acting under international authority.” Five days later, the United States Supreme Court ruled that it had no power or authority to revoke the sentences.

The Tokyo trial was marked by Cold War priorities. In contrast to Nuremberg, the efforts made to bring to justice several of the Japanese officials for war crimes received little attention by the Western press. The judgment at Tokyo is considered by many experts as a justice of the victors and revenge for Pearl Harbor. For traditional critics, the Tokyo trial was the site of a compromise where, as historian Marukawa Tetsushi pointed out in his contribution to the Gendai Shiso case, “the victor was able to enshrine the vanquished in international order dominated by United States, offering him in exchange the Emperor’s decommissioning.” Thus, the Treaty of San Francisco, which restored Japan’s sovereignty, provided for the recognition by the Japanese government of the Tokyo trial, and, at the same time, the security treaty that was signed on that occasion permanently established American bases on its territory. Zaibatsu in Japan In Tokyo, the patrons of “zaibatsu” were not brought to justice. These Japanese industrialists formed the backbone of Japan’s military-industrial complex during the expansion of the empire of Japan during World War II. “Zaibatsu” such as Mitsubishi and Nissan were involved in the manufacture of weapons and military aircraft, as well as in the establishment of factories in the colonies, where they used forced laborers. The main “zaibatsu” were: Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, Yasuda, Nissan, Suzuki, Kuhara, Furukawa, Fujita, Okura, Asano, Toshiba, Marubeni, Itochu, Kanematsu, Nuchimen, and Riken. The bosses of these companies should be held able for their active role in the Second World War. However, far from being worried, the “zaibatsu” pin resisted the dismantling desired by Washington during the American occupation of Japan between 1945 and 1950. All their leaders were exonerated of criminal prosecution following the intervention of the commander-in-chief of the occupy forces, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with the U.S. istration. Forgotten in the indictment prepared by prosecutor Keenan, during the trial of the twenty-eight Japanese dignitaries in Tokyo, the group has taken another structure under the new name of “Keiretsu.”

CONCLUSION

The Nuremberg trial is considered by many critics to be the trial of the victors. The Tokyo trial was the subject of the same reproaches among a majority of jurists and historians. According to the lawyers of the Japanese defendants, the nations before the representatives of which the high-ranking Japanese dignitaries appear are guilty of the same crimes, they accuse the accused. The question is how the attorney general, Joseph B. Keenan, who represents the United States in the trial, can prosecute Japanese defendants for war crimes while the same prosecutor represents the U.S. istration responsible for the incendiary bombings of Tokyo, the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How Soviet judges, chosen by a state that has violated the treaty signed with Japan to militarily invade Manchuria and commit atrocities, can convict Japanese officials for crimes against peace committed on nations’ Pacific and Southeast Asia? The Nuremberg and Tokyo trials are far from perfect works in of the notion of neutral and fair justice. However, despite identified weaknesses and notable shortcomings, both trials have historical successes. They are the result of the formation of the first two international tribunals to establish the responsibility of political leaders who use war as a weapon to oppress their neighbors and conquer their territories. As the judges in Tokyo said, “Individuals are, for the first time in history, brought to justice to personally answer for the crimes they committed in their official capacity as heads of state.” Thus, both trials have unquestionably shaped the birth of international justice with the task of prosecuting in the future warring dictators who will commit crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

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ENDNOTES

1 On May 2, 1945, President Harry S. Truman appointed Associate Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson as chief prosecutor for the United States in the proposed trials of Nazi war criminals.