Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume IIVarious
Philosophy
Trials of war criminals before the Nuernberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, volume II
Various
Nuremberg Trial of Major German War Criminals, Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946; War crime trials -- Germany -- Nuremberg
“In 1941 Koch, the camp commander, called all the important SS
officials of the camp together and informed them that he had
received a secret order from Himmler that all mentally and
physically deficient inmates should be killed, including Jews.
300 to 400 Jewish prisoners of different nationalities were sent
to the ‘euthanasia station’ at Bernburg for extermination. I was
ordered to issue falsified statements of the death of these
Jews, and obeyed the order. This action was known as ‘14 f 13’.”
When the defendant Hoven took the stand in his own defense, he attempted
to discredit the effects of the statements contained in his affidavit by
testifying that the affidavit was taken as a result of interrogations
propounded to him by the prosecution in English, and that he was not
sufficiently familiar with the language to be fully aware of the
inculpatory nature of the statements he was making.
The Tribunal is not impressed with these assertions. The evidence shows
that prior to the war the defendant had lived for several years in the
United States, where he had acquired at least an average understanding
and comprehension of the English language. When he was on the witness
stand, the Tribunal questioned him at length in order to ascertain the
extent of his knowledge of English, and in particular, of his
understanding of the meaning of the words used by him in his affidavit.
As a result of this questioning the Tribunal is convinced that no undue
or improper advantage was taken of the defendant in procuring the
affidavit, and that at the time of his interrogation by the prosecution,
Hoven knew and understood perfectly well the nature of the statements he
was making.
The facts contained in the Hoven affidavit were convincingly
substantiated by other evidence in the record, the only real difference
being that the evidence shows the defendant to have been guilty of even
many hundreds more murders than are admitted by him in his affidavit. As
stated, in essence, by one of the prosecution witnesses in connection
with the subject, Hoven personally killed inmates in the hospital
barracks by injection. These people were mostly suffering from
malnutrition and exhaustion. Hoven must have killed 1,000 of every
nationality. These inmates were killed on the initiative of Hoven with
no requests from the illegal camp administration or the political
prisoners.
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