GERMAN WAR CRIMINALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25673, 23 October 1944, Page 2

GERMAN WAR CRIMINALS

RETRIBUTION AND ATONEMENT . LONDON, Oct. 20. Following the adoption on Wednesday of the Trades Union Committee’s report stating that the German people Could not be absolved from all responsibility for war crimes, the -Trades Union Congress to-day carried by an overwhelming majority without discussion a more comprehensive emergency resolution embodying the AngloSoviet Committee’s declaration and also bringing in Japan. The resolution declared: "For Germany, no less than for Japan, military defeat or surrender must mean retribution and atonement. War criminals of every rank and status must bear the full penalty of their war crimes.”

The resolution goes on to declare that full restitution must be made to the peoples against whom Germany has waged calculated and pitiless war, including a heavy share of the cost of re-establishing Britain’s trade and industry and rebuilding her destroyed cities and villages. The resolution urges the complete disarmament of Germany and control of German industries which can be converted to war purposes. The resolution also empowered the General Council to develop a policy and programme enabling the British trade union movement to play its full part in the re-establishment of the international working class movement, also to promote the creation of a Trade Union International embracing all the bona fide trades unions.