Forgotten Trials of the Holocaust. Michael J. Bazyler

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СКАЧАТЬ a system.”²⁵

      Stevens described his observation of Langheld’s testimony:

      When the prosecutor asked Langheld whether the German High Command ever punished its soldiers or officers for ill treatment of civilians, he pondered a moment, rocking slightly back and forth on his toes and heels, and then answered, in the same quiet, measured voice in which his entire testimony had been delivered, that on the contrary such treatment was deliberately encouraged and rewarded. At each conclusion of his testimony, Langheld saluted smartly, turned on his heels, and strode back to his seat in the prisoners’ box. ²⁶

      The next defendant to take the stand was Second Lieutenant Hans Ritz, who testified that the functions fulfilled by SS troops included “shooting, forcible evacuations of villages, [as well as] the transportation and guarding of arrested persons.”²⁷ Like Langheld, Ritz also indicated his awareness of “the extermination of civilian citizens in Kharkov”²⁸ and his involvement in such killings. Prosecutor Dunayev sought out Ritz’s mindset for his murderous acts:

      PROSECUTOR: You, Ritz, are a person of higher legal education and apparently consider yourself a man of culture. How could you not only watch people being beaten, but even take an active part in it, and shoot perfectly innocent people, not only under compulsion but of your own free will?

      RITZ: I had to obey orders, otherwise I would have been court-martialed and certainly sentenced to death.

      PROSECUTOR: This is not quite so, because you yourself expressed a desire to be present when people were loaded on to the gas vans and nobody specially invited you to be there.

      RITZ: Yes, that is true. I myself expressed a desire to be present, but I beg you to take into consideration that I was then still a newcomer on the Eastern Front and wanted to convince myself as to whether it was true that these lorries of which I had heard were used on the Eastern Front. Therefore, I expressed my desire to be present when people were loaded on them.

      PROSECUTOR: But you took a direct part in the shooting of innocent Soviet citizens?

      RITZ: As I have testified earlier, during the shooting at Podvorki, Major Hanebitter said to me: “Show us what you are made of,” and, not wanting to get into trouble, I took an automatic rifle from one of the SS men and started firing.

      PROSECUTOR: Consequently, of your own free will you entered upon this vile course of shooting completely innocent people, as nobody had forced you to do it.

      RITZ: Yes, I must admit that.

      Ritz also acknowledged that German policy was not to recognize the laws of warfare on the Eastern Front:

      PROSECUTOR: Now, Ritz, you are a man with some knowledge of law. Tell us, were the standards of international law observed to any extent by the German Army on the Eastern Front?

      RITZ: I must say that on the Eastern Front there was no question of international or any other law.

      PROSECUTOR: Tell us, Ritz, on whose orders did all this take place? Why was this system of complete lawlessness and monstrous slaughter of perfectly innocent people instituted?

      RITZ: This lawlessness had its deep seated reasons. It was instituted on the instructions of Hitler and his collaborators, instructions which are capable of detailed analysis.²⁹

      The third defendant to take the stand was Corporal Reinhard Retzlaff. His testimony included a description of how he participated in the murder of Soviet civilians.³⁰

      PROSECUTOR: Tell the Court how you exterminated Soviet citizens.

      RETZLAFF: Every person detained by the military authorities and sent to the Secret Field Police for examination, was first of all beaten up. If a prisoner gave the evidence we needed, the beatings were discontinued, while those who refused to give evidence were further beaten, and this frequently resulted in their death.

      PROSECUTOR: This means that if a person did not confess, he was murdered. And if he did—he was shot. Is that correct?

      RETZLAFF: Yes, that was so on most occasions.

      PROSECUTOR: Was there any occasion when cases were trumped up and evidence was faked?

      RETZLAFF: Yes, all this happened and rather frequently. One may say that this was quite normal procedure.

      The final defendant to take the stand was Bulanov, who described the transport of medical patients from a hospital to shooting sites. Bulanov acknowledged that on four occasions he drove a three-ton truck with a total of about 150 patients from the Kharkov hospital to a shooting site:

      BULANOV: When I arrived at the hospital I was told to drive up to one of the hospital blocks. At this moment Gestapo men began to lead out patients dressed only in their underwear, and load them into the trucks. After loading, I drove the truck to the shooting site under German escort. This place was approximately four kilometers from the city. When we arrived at the shooting site, screams and sobs of patients who were already being shot filled the air. The Germans shot them in front of the other patients. Some begged for mercy and fell down naked in the cold mud, but the Germans pushed them into the pits and then shot them.³¹

      Bulanov also discussed a similar trip from a children’s hospital to transport children aged six through twelve for extermination.³²

      Once examination of the defendants was concluded, the court and counsel proceeded to interrogate percipient witnesses. These included both Kharkov residents (including hospital personnel) who witnessed the atrocities as well as captured German soldiers. None testified directly about the defendants on the dock. Rather, their testimony served as background, adding to the overall picture of the horror that had taken place in the Kharkov region: mass shootings, gas van descriptions, discussions of the plunder of agricultural products, instructions from superiors in command (to implicate those higher-ranked officials), the disgraceful prison camp conditions, and murder of hospital patients.³³

      As part of the prosecution case, forensic experts from the Commission of Medico-Legal Experts also testified and presented a report based upon their examination of the various mass graves found at the Drobitsky Yar gully and other places in the Kharkov region. The expert report confirmed by forensic evidence that the methods of murder by the German forces of local civilians and POWs consisted of shooting the victims and gassing them through the use of carbon monoxide.

      The medico-legal experts examined in Kharkov and neighbouring localities the scenes of the crimes of the German fascist invaders—the places where they carried out the extermination of the Soviet citizens. These included the burned-out block of the army hospital, where they shot and burned war prisoners—severely wounded personnel of the Red Army; the place of the mass shooting of the healthy and sick, of small children, juveniles, young people, old men and women in the forest park of Sokolniki, near the village of Podvorki, in the Drobitsky gully, and in the therapeutic colony of Strelechye. At these sites the medico-legal experts examined the grave-pits and exhumed bodies of Soviet citizens shot, poisoned, burned or otherwise brutally exterminated.

      The medico-legal experts examined the places where the German fascist invaders burnt bodies to destroy evidence of their crimes—the poisoning with carbon monoxide. This is the site of the conflagration on the territory of the barracks of the Kharkov tractor plant. Examination of territories on which bodies were burnt or buried, examination of the grave-pits and positions of bodies in them and comparison of material thus obtained with data of the Court proceedings, provide grounds for considering that the number of bodies of murdered Soviet citizens in Kharkov СКАЧАТЬ