West Germany’s soldiers–when and if Chancellor Adenauer’s new army comes into being–will be protected against war crimes charges in clauses built into the army law as drafted and as it will be debated later this month in the Bundestag.
The law provides that a soldier must carry out all commands “fully, completely, conscientiously, without delay and with all his strength.” An order “need not be carried out if it involves commission of a crime,” the law declares, but it provides this loophole: “If a soldier does obey such an order, his guilt is excluded if he did not know that a crime was thereby being committed, or if this is not clearly apparent to him under the circumstances.”
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