The United States Prosecution has submitted to the Tribunal a document of the Soviet Prosecution, Exhibit Number USSR-381 (Document Number USSR-381), entitled, “Memo on the Treatment of Foreign Civilian Workers in the Reich.”
I do not wish to quote this document again, but consider it necessary only to show. . .
DR. OTTO NELTE (Counsel for Defendant Keitel): The President has just now asked about the Document Number USSR-407 and the prosecutor has presented it here as a document of Keitel. I have only just now found this document. If it is a question of the same document that I have marked as USSR-407, then it is signed by a local commander and by a chief of the labor office.
Is this document the same as that presented to you as USSR-407?
THE PRESIDENT: I have already pointed out, have I not, that it was not by Keitel?
DR. NELTE: Yes, Sir. But the Prosecutor has thereupon repeatedly said that this Document 407 represents an order by Keitel. That is why I wanted to clarify it.
GEN. ZORYA: Perhaps the Tribunal will allow me to clarify this matter. Apparently a misunderstanding arose through faulty translation. I said that troops of the Red Army had seized a German order, and added that the order had been issued by the German occupational authorities—you can verify this by looking up the stenographic record—which referred to an order of Keitel regarding forced labor in the combat zones. This order begins with the following words, “In accordance with the regulations of the Chief of the OKW, dated 6 February 1943, transfer for labor in the combat zone,” and so forth. I shall not quote any further.
If I may beg the Tribunal to consider once more a document which I have already submitted previously, that is, the document of the High Command of the Army, Number II/3210/42, it is because this order refers to corresponding orders of the General Staff of the Army on questions of allocation of labor in the East. This order of the occupational authorities, which I submitted as Exhibit Number USSR-407, refers to one of these orders. It states quite clearly, “In accordance with the regulations of the Chief of the OKW.” That is why I submitted this document.
THE PRESIDENT: I am afraid I really don’t understand you. What I have got in the translation before me is this, “The units of the Red Army captured a copy of the German decree which mentioned Keitel’s order on forced labor in the combat zone,” and continues further that those persons refusing to work shall be apprehended as saboteurs. This document is submitted as Exhibit USSR something or other.