SHOOTING OF AIRMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1946, Page 5

SHOOTING OF AIRMEN

' GOERING WAS UPSET OVER ' . MURDERS

CLAIMS BEFORE TRIBUNAL (Rec. 2 p.nfi) NUREMBERG, March'2l.

At the' resumption of the War Crimes Tribunal to-day the British prosecutor, Sir Donald Maxwell Fyfe, returned to the question of the shooting of British airmen at Stalag Luft 111 in March and April, 1944. Goering said Keitel’s prisoners-of-war chief, General Westhof, was wrong when he stated that Keitel had said Goering had reproached him in the presence of Himmler for letting more prisoners-of-war escape.

Relying on Memory. • Sir Donald Maxwell Fyfe: You still say you had not heard of the shooting? .

Goering said he had to rely on his memory of events which occurred many months ago, and t asked the court to make allowance for this. He gave a long answer, when Sir Donald asked: “Are you telling the tribunal you did not know your own officers were selecting which men were to be shot?”

Goering said there was no selection. Shootings were by virtue of the Fuehrer’s decree. He knew of no list of men selected to be shot as leaders of escape attempts. When Sir Donald Maxwell Fyfe described the German Note to Britain on the shootings as “a complete and utter lie,” Goering said: “I myself considered it the worst matter of the whole wax' and expressed myself on the point.”

Heated Denial.

Confronted with affidavits showing that even his subordinate officers in the Air Ministry were informed of what Sir Donald called “this series of foul murders,” Goering maintained he was not told of the matter until too late. He heatedly denied statements of his subordinates that he was present at meetings which received Hitler’s decree that fugitive airmen should be turned over to the police and shot/‘to set examples and check these escapes.” He claimed that the order went to the police and not to the Luftwaffe, and that, therefore, he could not have intervened. Goering added: “I was upset about this incident as a result of which I ordered my general quartermaster to write to the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht that I did not want to run this war-prisoner camp (Stalag Luft III) any longer. I tried to. intervene and prevent Himmler from carrying out the executions, and dissuade the Fuehrer from his decree.”