"Rightful Reprisals"

In Allied countries, during the War, a doctrine was widely accepted that it is rightful to employ any weapon or method of warfare whatsoever against an enemy who adopts atrocious weapons or methods first. This doctrine of "rightful reprisals" was made last week the basis of a five-volume defense of German War practices. Onetime Minister of Justice Dr. Johannes Bell presented the report, entitled "International Law In the World War" to the Reichstag. The five volumes represent seven years of labor by a "nonpartisan" board of German scholars appointed by the Weimar Constitutional Assembly (1919). The Committee concludes that, in nearly all instances, weapons discountenanced by international law were first employed by the Allies and then adopted in "rightful reprisal" by The Central Powers. . . .

Unique Wrong. Although the report postulates German innocence in employing poison gas, submarines, bombing planes, etc., only in "rightful reprisal," yet a minority of the Commission declared Germany blamable in one instance.

The minority report postulates as wrong that 500,000 Belgian workers were deported from their homeland to Germany and, in some instances, were forced to labor there.

A majority of the Commission declared that further study is necessary on this point, stating that the presence of 500,000 able-bodied Belgians in their occupied homeland would have constituted a threat to the German forces of occupation.