A three-man American military tribunal trying 21 top Gestapo leaders of a special force charged with murdering more than a million Jews and other “racially undesirable” persons during the war today ruled that any soldier who murders innocent civilians is as guilty as those who order him to do so.
In effect, the ruling stripped the defendants of their chief argument. Another portion of the 260-page judgment found that the slayings had been proved by Gestapo documents. Today’s ruling foreshadows individual convictions on the general charge. Sentence will be passed either tomorrow or Saturday.
The court, headed by Judge Michael A. Musmano, declared that this was the greatest murder case in history and that it was “beyond the experience of normal man.” The court based its findings in part on the 100-year-old Prussian military ruling which recognized that a subordinate must not obey an order “obviously aimed at a crime.” It also pointed out that if the defendants’ premise were accepted, there would be no war criminals responsible for their acts in Germany except Hitler.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
