Military Considerations Sample Clauses

Military Considerations. The second cluster of excuses focused on the military context in which a defendant committed a particular crime. The High Command tribunal identified three such factors. First, it held that although tu quoque was not a defense to a crime, it could be considered in mitigation. It thus reduced ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇’▇ sentence for forcing POWs to engage in work connected to the war because it was convinced that the Allies had used German POWs in a similar manner.101 Second, it suggested that ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ was entitled to some degree of mitigation for forcing POWs to work in dangerous conditions because the “difficult and deplorable condition” in which his army found itself during its retreat from Russia had made such danger nearly impossible to avoid.102 Third, it reduced ▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇’▇ sentence for the crimes committed by his subordinates pursuant to the Barbarossa Jurisdiction Order on the ground that no field commander “engaged in a stupendous campaign with responsibility for hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and a large indigenous population spread over a vast area,” could ever completely prevent the commission of war crimes.103