German soldiers in Russia were told that they were facing tasks “which exceed ordinary routine soldiering” and, therefore, “must have full understanding of the necessity for severe but just revenge on sub-human Jewry,” in a memorandum issued in 1941 by Field Marshal von Reichenau, it was disclosed today as American prosecutors continued presentation of their case before the Allied war crimes tribunal.
Col. Telford Taylor, U.S. prosecutor, also produced an affidavit by Walter Schellenberg, head of the German Department of Foreign Intelligence, revealing an agreement between the Nazi Party’s security police and the German High Command to cooperate in the mass execution of Jews, Communists and other resistance elements. An affidavit by Gen. Roettiger, chief of staff of the German Fourth Army said that his troops had received orders to use “harshest methods.” In accordance with these orders, he said, Jews and other sections of the population were delivered to the security police for execution.
Another Nazi military leader, Gen. Heusinger, chief of operations of the Army High Command, testified, in an affidavit, that he believed that the methods of warfare ordered in Russia were designed by the “highest military and political leaders” with the aim of “carrying out their plans for the systematic extermination of Slavs and Jewry.”
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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.
