PROTOCOLS FROM THE NUREMBERG TRIALS

Editor's Note: This rather peculiar book has long time disappeared from the shelves of libraries in Bulgaria. It refers to the Public Tribunal held in the period from October 1945 to August 1947 by the Allied forces in the german town of Nürnberg. A total of 29 high and military officials were sentenced to death and many more to imprisonment with different duration. Some of the accused were acquitted. As a whole, these proceedings were recorded on tens of thousands written materials and as much footage on camera film. The german journalist H. Teuplitz has tried to adapt a portable reader from this bulk of information and present it to the public in a manageable format. This original book was re-edited with notes and subsequently translated from russian journalist M. Roginski. The bulgarian source is a translation from the second compound edition, ditto.

(P.S., It appears from the pages of the book, that the infamous trials were being dragged even to a period 10 years later from the starting point. At that moment, on January 1959 and some news-breaking reportages have appeared at the British television - viz., it refer to interviews from Hitler's half-sister Paula Wolf, his personal valet Julius Schaub and his personal chauffeur Erich Kempke. All of them pleaded for rehabilitation of the Führer).

The whole book - which, comprises some 800 pages - unequivocally, represents a valuable material for future research. Much more, it is profusely documented with photographs and plates that are difficult to obtain from elsewhere. Since no embodiment of the Third Reich have been ethically tolerated by the end of WWII and we preclude this book as an original source. Three short excerpts have been added to our short review and in order to augment the material within reach.

Paragraph 1: "Interessen Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft" or shortened for IG Farben, represented in reality a monopoly or cartel of Dye Industries. The full name was deceptive, for dyestuffs were only a part of IG's chemical production and chemicals were only a part of the corporation's total production.

IG Farben was the most powerful combine of the Third Reich. During World War II it controlled some 900 chemical factories inside Germany and in the occupied territories, supplied the Wehrmacht with 85 % of its explosives, and produced almost all the synthetic fires that kept the Nazi war machine rolling. It presented to the government an annual bill of at least 1 billion deutsche marks. IG Farben had at its command an army of scientists, industrialists, statesmen, spies, saboteurs and conspirators. It was highly experienced in the art of controlling corporations and accumulating stocks of raw materials.

During the late days of the Hitler regime, IG Farben used the the extermination camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, etc. as a site for its synthetic oil and rubber production, which it found suitable especially because of the supply of cheap labor. Its officers were held later accountable for this according to Section 12 of the Potsdam agreement.

Industrial disarmament of Germany was described as prerequisite to the peace and security of the postwar world. Because IG Farben had been implicated in activities at concentration camps, its directors were brought to trial for willfully engaging in questionable practices that had been deemed indispensable to Germany's war effort. This was the first such indictment against businessmen in history.

Zeal for decartelization lessened sometime later, when there was a growing realization that the economic potential of Germany must be utilized as a means of halting a future Russian expansion. The prosecution of IG Farben officials was allowed to lapse. Executives of the firm were released from prison ...

Paragraph 2: The so called "Doctors' Trial" was held in Nuremberg before American Military Tribunal № 1. The indictment specified charges in conspiracy, war crimes, crimes against humanity and membership in criminal organizations. Accusations were classified as following: i./ experiments involving high altitude; ii./ experiments with low temperature; iii./ experiments with drinking of seawater; iv./ experiments with inoculation of typhus and infectious jaundice bacillus; v./ trials with sulfa drugs, bone grafting and mustard gas; vi./ collection of skulls of Jews; vii./ euthanasia of undesirable racial groups; viii./ mass sterilization, etc.

The judgment found sixteen of the defendants guilty and seven not guilty. Amongst those sentenced to death were the personal physician of Hitler, the Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation, the Chief for Ministry of the Interior and others. No one from the trial get paroled in the long term ...

Paragraph 3: "Euthanasia Program" was promulgated with the Law for Protection of Hereditary Health from 14 July 1933. The culmination of the program was an enforced mercy death for the incurably insane and prospective plans for exterminating people said to be biologically inferior - such as, Jews, Poles, Russians and Gypsies.

Hitler's program for Sonderbehandlung (special treatment) was to serve as stimulus to "national health" and that "in the general upheaval of war the open resistance to be anticipated on the part of the Church would not play the role that might be expected".

In the course of World War II, the Nazi leadership began to show less and less restraint to the destruction of captured peoples in the concentration camps. Sterilization was induced by medication, x-ray and intrauterine devices. At the same time there were experiments involving high altitude, low temperature and drinking of seawater, as well as experiments with typhus, infectious jaundice, bone grafting and mustard gas ...

Pictures 1 & 2: Sexual harassment was everyday practice in the concentration camps.

(1) Women were violated as good as anywhere in the streets.

(2) Sometimes the victims were mutilated beyond recognition.

Addendum: We have tried to corroborate the material in this book from sources published elsewhere and have found an interesting site with the same data & photographs as those published in the bulgarian work. However, we are not aware of any public archive or similar database from the original matter under surveillance. Here is an access,