The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945
Page 154
Field Marshal Gens. Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl as members of the General Staff.
Hans Fritzsche, arch-disseminator of German propaganda at home and abroad.
Four defendants—Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who helped to rule Austria; Hans Frank, Governor General of Poland; Robert Ley, leader of the Labor Front, and Martin Bormann, Deputy Fuehrer, still at large—were charged with complicity in the plot to wage aggressive war and with responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but their names were omitted from those who actually led Germany into war in violation of her treaties. Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, former president of the Reichsbank, and Franz von Papen, former Ambassador, were accused of plotting to wage aggressive war and doing so in violation of treaties, but they were not charged with any complicity in the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, former commander in chief of the navy, and his successor, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, who assumed succession to Hitler, were called on to answer all the counts, including responsibility for submarine warfare, but they were not held accountable for the wholesale extermination and enslavement of conquered peoples.
All the defendants will have at least thirty days to prepare their defense.
As the indictment was drawn it places the whole Nazi system, if not totalitarianism itself, on trial.
Prosecutor Robert Jackson’s opening statement at the beginning of the Nuremberg trials, 1945.
OCTOBER 19, 1945
Germans Indicted In Massacre Of 11,000 Poles In Katyn Forest
Special to The New York Times.
BERLIN, Oct. 18—An indictment returned today before the International Tribunal holds the Germans responsible for the slaughter of 11,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest near Smolensk.
This is but one of the many war crimes for which the majority of the German war leaders awaiting trial at Nuremberg will have to answer, but it is likely to prove by far the most controversial issue of the whole trial.
For the Germans have charged that the massacre was perpetrated by the Russians themselves before the German attack on the Soviet Union and the defense can hardly be expected to miss the opportunity to challenge the Russian prosecutors for proof of the charge.
The discovery of the bodies in mass graves in the Katyn Forest and its announcement by Germany marked one of the diplomatic crises of the war. The Polish Government in Exile in London immediately appealed to the International Red Cross to investigate and fix the responsibility. The Russians retorted by declaring this an unfriendly action by an ally and ultimately severed relations with the London Poles.
Later the Russians held a public exhumation of the bodies but the results were inconclusive.
Now for the first time the whole issue is thrown before a legal tribunal bound by the rules or evidence applying to military tribunals. Since it has been agreed that the Russian prosecutor, R. A. Rudenko, shall have charge of the presentation of proof relating to war crimes committed east of a line running north and south through the center of Berlin, it will fall to the lot of the Russians to prove their own charge that the Germans slaughtered the Poles and buried them in the Katyn forest.
It is an issue that the Germans are almost sure to challenge with all the documentation at their disposal.
The fate of these Polish officers was a mystery to Polish leaders for a long time before their bodies were found. It is said that the late former Premier, Gen. Wladislaw Sikorski, on his first visit to Moscow at Christmastime in 1941, asked Premier Stalin about what had happened to them, and at first received satisfactory assurances regarding their safety.
Much of the proof of what really happened in the Katyn forest will devolve upon the date upon which these Polish officers were slaughtered; for if the crime was committed after the date when the Germans overran their last resting place it could not possibly have been committed by the Russians.
The Germans overran the Katyn Forest in July, 1941.
OCTOBER 22, 1945
Atom Bomb And Politics
Despite Our New ‘Bargaining’ Power, Peace Is Seen as a Still Far-Off Goal
By HANSON W. BALDWIN
Eleven weeks have passed since the first atomic bomb in world history was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
They have been weeks in which the history of tomorrow has been shaped to the dangerous pattern of today; they have been weeks in which the world has made little progress toward either international security or international morality. They have been weeks of confusion and divided counsel, of lack of leadership, of claims and contradictions—and all the while the atomic bomb has clouded the skies of tomorrow.
In those weeks so many contradictory statements have been made about the atomic bomb—and incidentally about the technological revolution in war, of which the atomic bomb is only a part—that it is necessary to clear away some of the trees before we can see the woods.
First, in the field of atomic developments and manufacture:
Our monopoly of the “secret” of the atomic bomb is not a laboratory monopoly, not a monopoly in the field of physics. As Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer has put it, “You cannot keep the nature of the world a secret; you cannot keep atoms secret.” The data essential for atomic fission are known to all nations; indeed, our own nation did not originally lead in the laboratory and development race. We were able to manufacture the atomic bomb first, and we hold a head-start now, because of this country’s unequaled industrial facilities, engineering and production “knowhow” and power capacity. That is the real “secret” of the atomic bomb—America’s engineering-industrial capacity.
RUSSIA A POTENTIAL PRODUCER
The present known methods of manufacturing the bomb require an industrial “know-how” so versatile, power resources so tremendous and an investment of plant and capital so great that it is probable that today only the United States is capable of manufacturing the atomic bomb. Until the processes are simplified, which they will be, not even Great Britain (which probably does not know the full secret of manufacture and detonation) has the capacity or the industrial economy to manufacture the bomb. Russia probably is the only other nation in the world, besides the United States, with sufficient potential to make the bomb by the processes now known. Russia must still develop that potential into actual manufacturing capacity. How long that will take no one knows, but it seems probable that non-Soviet physicists have misappraised the engineering problems involved and the present stage of development of Russian industry. But in any case, within two to fifteen years, conceivably less, improbably more, at least Russia, and quite possibly other powers, will be able to manufacture atomic bombs.
And they will have the raw material resources necessary to do it. At present uranium and thorium are the only practicable “atomic bomb” elements; in time, the energy in other elements will be tapped. Deposits of pitchblende or carnotite, from which uranium is derived; are known to exist in Canada, the United States, the Belgian Congo and Europe. At least one of the European sources is within the Russian sphere of influence, and there are believed to be sizable sources, unknown to us, in the Soviet Union.
Our own progress in atomic physics and engineering will not halt, but whether we can maintain our present lead and advance more rapidly than Russia is uncertain. Our best physicists and engineers are going back to civilian laboratories. Dr. Oppenheimer and others like him will be leaving the Government atomic bomb project early next year. The Russians, on the other hand, operating under a totalitarian system, will be able to concentrate just as much energy and capacity as they wish upon their project.
The ruins of Hiroshima two months after the atomic bomb was dropped, October, 1945.
Second, in the political field:
The atomic bomb, it has been said, is giving us a great though admittedly a temporary advantage in our political negotiations with Russia and in settling the problems of the peace.
The past eleven weeks belie this statement. The problems of the peace are a
t stalemate. Moreover, the atomic bomb is of relatively little use to us in political bargaining, for the Russians are realists; they know we would not use the atomic bomb against them unless they used it first, or unless they attacked us suddenly and brutally by other means. In other words, in so far as the atomic bomb is concerned we are not holding an ace; we are bluffing. Moreover, if Russia should say in a year or so, or even tomorrow, “We have made an atomic bomb”—the United States, given its present intelligence service, would not know whether the claim was true or not. Furthermore, put ourselves in the Russian position. If the Russians possessed the bomb and we did not, would we consider its possession conducive to peace; would we be disturbed or placid?
Where, then, is the political advantage to us of the atomic bomb ? It has given us no advantage so far; indeed, it seems to have forced thinking in Washington more strongly than ever before into the glib old pattern of dependence upon national power.
There are too little imagination and breadth of vision in the halls of Congress and the streets of America, and without them the people perish.
OCTOBER 21, 1945
DE GAULLE SCORES THREEFOLD VICTORY IN FRENCH ELECTION
By LANSING WARREN
By Wireless to The New York Times.
PARIS, Monday, Oct. 22—Incomplete returns from more than half the departments of France early today continued to confirm the early indications of a threefold victory for Gen. Charles de Gaulle in yesterday’s national elections.
On the issues of the referendum, an overwhelming vote in favor of framing a new constitution and a lesser yet still unexpectedly strong ballot in favor of giving the Constituent Assembly extended powers were piling up. Almost all the present Ministers—some of whom have been heavily attacked—have been victorious. The final returns are not expected before tomorrow morning, but the parties’ standings on first examination appear to have closely repeated the indications of the cantonal elections.
[The count at 7:30 A.M., Paris time, reported by The United Press showed: 8,552,929 to 290,434 for a new constitution; 5,775,528 to 2,667,984 for the de Gaulle Assembly plan. The Socialists had elected seventy-eight candidates to the Assembly; the Mouvement Republicain Populaire, 64; Communists, 58; Radical Socialists, 17; other parties, 38.]
The Catholic-Socialist Mouvement Republicain Populaire appeared to be making even larger gains than it did then, and the Socialists were holding closely to their previous winnings and had every chance of being the most powerful party in the new Assembly. The Communists, with lesser successes than in the cantonal balloting, were nevertheless heading for a strong place. The Radical Socialists had even greater losses than before.
Government officials professed great satisfaction as the favorable results came in after midnight The official figures then showed the Socialists leading in sixteen departments, the Communists ahead in twelve, the MRP victorious in eleven and the Republican Entente ahead in ten.
Returns from more than half the departments showed 92 per cent of “Yes” replies on the first referendum question and 70 per cent “Yes” on the second suits meant a notable defeat for the Communists, who led a furious campaign for a “No” reply to the second question, and an even more notable one for the Radical-Socialists, who advocated “No” replies to both questions. The success of the Government’s supporters unquestionably exceeded their expectations.
Because of the complicated system of voting and the restrictions against writing names or anything at all on the ballots, many were declared invalid. Abstentions were apparently not so great as in the cantonal elections and were larger in small rural communities than in cities and centers of industry. Some districts in Paris polled almost 90 per cent of the registered voters, but in war-torn centers the vote fell off.
The approval of the first question of the referendum meant that France had rejected the Constitution of 1875 and authorized the new Assembly to write a new constitution. The approval of the second question meant that France recognized the new Assembly as a sovereign body with power to overthrow the Government but limited in tenure to seven months.
At the end of seven months the new constitution must be submitted in another referendum, after which, if it is approved, a new Parliament will be elected under it. If the Assembly fails to complete a new constitution within seven months, as is possible, it will be dissolved and a similar Assembly will be elected to try again.
OCTOBER 22, 1945
Poles Found Cowed by Fear into Submission To Regime
60,000 to 80,000 Prisoners Reported Held—Oswiecim Camp Reopened—Secret Police Watch Homes
By GLADWIN HILL
By Wireless to The New York Times.
WARSAW, Poland, Oct 12. (Delayed; via Berlin)—This is written in Warsaw, but it will not be committed to print until this correspondent is safely out of Poland.
Foreign correspondents at present are being allowed to circulate in Poland under the Potsdam Agreement and none so far has been harmed but a definite hostility toward foreign reporting of unquestionable facts already has been displayed.
There also exists throughout the war-torn country today a condition approaching a subtle reign of terror in which there is no assurance of what may happen to critics of the present regime.
There are, however, too many indications of what may happen. The official line advanced by some Government officers is that there are no more than 1,000 political prisoners in Poland today. However, other Government officials have acknowledged to me that there were between 60,000 and 80,000, with the stipulation that the bulk of them are “Volksdeutsch”—Polish Germans or Germanized Poles.
The belief is widespread in Warsaw that there are 10,000 at Cracow alone and some responsible observers think the total may be nearer 100,000.
The former German concentration camp at Oswiecim, whose name to any Pole is synonymous with horror, is operating again under Polish auspices and its wire fences have been charged with electricity.
The round-up of persons whose only evident offense was suspected opposition to the current Communist-dominated regime was in any case extensive enough to have netted in recent days a number of individuals with claims on American citizenship, most of whom are still locked up under no specific charges and without trial.
One institution in Warsaw and other cities these days is “The Well,” a Gestapo-like operation in which the police keep a guard, for days on end if necessary, at a block, a building or part of a building, seizing indiscriminately anyone who visits the place. This might be excused as an ordinary manhunt except that it happens curiously often, involves the detention of innocent people and has spread such fear that I know of innocent people who have stayed away from home nights on end because they had been told that “The Well” was working in their neighborhood.
I will give other examples of incidents that have contributed to what I have been forced to describe—only after considerable thought and with considerable regret—as a near reign of terror in a country whose regime takes pride in being “democratic.”
On Sept. 16 the Polish Peasants party, principal opposition threat to the present regime, held a rally at Cracow. One of its most prominent regional leaders was a man named Rjeszow Kojder. The day after the rally I was informed authoritatively that four uniformed men had appeared at M. Kojder’s home and had taken him away.
Three days later he was found shot to death.
OFFICIALS FEARFUL AT NIGHT
What is the purpose of this reign of fear? There are two obvious possible answers. One is that the police measures were taken to preserve order. If this be the aim the measures are failing notably.
In Polish cities, with shooting a nightly occurrence, even Government officials are timid about traveling by night.
The conditions are openly admitted in the newly announced installation of units, headed by Russian generals, in each of the country’s dozen regional divisions for the stated purpose of stopping “marauding.”
The other obvious answer is that the p
resent “provisional” regime is going to these extremes to suppress opposition and perpetuate itself. The official attitude is that sweeping measures were necessary against the “reactionary” and “Fascist” elements at large in Poland who jeopardized national unity—an argument curiously as old as authoritarianism itself.
To just what extent the Russians are immediately responsible for the undesirable conditions is debatable. There was fascism in Poland before the war. But the fact that Russian influence in Poland physically—with hundreds of thousands of Russian troops on Polish soil—economically and otherwise and the fact that the present Polish Government is largely a Russian creation cannot be gainsaid.
It is also unquestionable that along with the current situation in Poland there is a concerted effort to hamper the dissemination of details to the outside world. American and British correspondents have been in Poland only a few weeks but already there have been snide attacks on them in the press for their clothes, their dancing and even their cigarettes—as well as on their reporting. Larry Allen’s initial report to the Associated Press that there had been shooting in the streets of Warsaw was indignantly denied by Government officials until they were invited to see it for themselves almost any night from the balcony of the United States Embassy. Then they admitted it.
Charles Arnot of the United Press also has been criticized baselessly for his reports. This correspondent has been attacked in the Polish press for an alleged “report to The New York Times” which he did not write and, so far as he knows, never had been written by anyone.
The intensity of this campaign of defamation, before much really had been written about Poland, makes it look like a preparatory backfire to discredit correspondents’ reports in advance and maintain a shroud of phony propaganda around the Poles, if not around the rest of the world.