submarine, whose commander professed to hold the belief and was attempting to prove that the vessel carried eight American flight officers; that failing to find in the boats any justification for torpedoing the ship, Commander Patzig with the approval and concurrence of Lieutenants Dithmar and Boldt (who with the Gunner Meissner-now dead-were alone on the deck of the submarine with the commander at the time), deliberately fired on the surviving boats and hit and destroyed two out of the three of them with the consequent loss of life of all the persons who were in them. Commander Patzig required and obtained from the officers, crew and prisoners in the submarine, a pledge to maintain silence as to the incident until the conclusion of the war, and he further concealed all traces of his act by omitting any reference to the incident from the log book and forwarding a falsified chart of the courses of the submarine to the German Admiralty. The court recognized that Commander Patzig, the commander of the submarine, was primarily responsible for this outrage, but held that the plea of superior orders would not avail Lieutenants Dithmar and Boldt in such a case. While relieving them of responsibility for the torpedoing of the ship, the court found that they had taken part and concurred in the firing on the boats and that they could have prevented this action by refusing to pledge themselves to secrecy and declaring their intention of reporting the incident upon their return to port. In his address to the court the Oberreichsanwalt expressed some doubt whether there was direct legal proof that the boats had been hit by the shells fired by the submarine and he asked the court to find that the officers had been guilty of attempted murder, and to award a sentence of four years imprisonment. The court, however, came to the conclusion that the inference that at least two boats had been hit was irresistible and they found as a fact that these two boats had been destroyed by the firing. There is, however, a degree of killing recognized by the German criminal law which is not known to the law of this country. It may be said to come between murder with deliberate intent and manslaughter by negligence without intent, and in the present case the court considered that the prisoners acted without adequate premeditation and they therefore held that they were guilty of the intermediate degree of killing and awarded four years imprisonment with, in the case of Lieutenant Dithmar, dismissal from the service, and of Lieutenant Boldt, who was a retired officer, deprivation of the right to wear uniform. Commander Patzig did not appear at the trial to give evidence in defence of his brother officers and was severely criticised for his failure to do so. SUMMARY Out of the seven persons, whose names were placed by the British Government in the abridged list, four have now been tried with the following results: In addition, arising out of the case of the Llandovery Castle, but not named by the British Government: In all of these cases the sentences were to imprisonment in a prison and not to confinement in a fortress. Official confirmation of the fact that the sentences are being served has been received. A satisfactory feature of these trials has been the admirable way in which the British witnesses have given their evidence before the Supreme Court at Leipzig. They consistently displayed a remarkable degree of intelligence and impartiality, which appeared greatly to impress the President and other members of the court. Translations of the judgments are appended.5 LAW OFFICERS' DEPARTMENT, 8th August, 1921. EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM RELATING TO THE WIESBADEN AGREEMENT OF OCTOBER 6, 1921, BETWEEN FRANCE AND GERMANY1 October 26, 1921 In order to understand the arrangements proposed by the Wiesbaden agreement, it is necessary to bear in mind certain provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, the application of which is affected by it. The treaty itself provides in the reparation chapter, Part VIII, and in some of its annexes, for the partial liquidation of Germany's reparation indebted3 Printed, infra, p. 674. 1 British Parliamentary Paper, 1921, (Cmd. 1547). ness by deliveries in kind. The important passages in this connection are paragraph 19 of Annex II and Annex IV, which together make extensive provision for the delivery, through the Reparation Commission, to the Allied and Associated Powers of machinery, equipment, tools, reconstruction material and, in general, all such material and labor as is necessary to enable any Allied Power to proceed with the restoration or development of its industrial or economic life. Germany's obligation being stated in terms of gold and not in terms of commodities, provision has necessarily been made in all cases for crediting Germany, from time to time, with the fair value, as assessed by the Reparation Commission, of such deliveries. Moreover, since the proportions received by the respective Powers in kind need not necessarily correspond exactly with their respective shares in Germany's reparation payments, as determined by inter-Allied agreement, provision is further necessarily made in the treaty to render each Power accountable not only to Germany, but to the Reparation Commission, for the value of these deliveries. Thus, on the one hand, the treaty stipulates as between the Allies and Germany that the value of services under the annexes shall be credited towards the liquidation of Germany's general obligation, and the schedule of payments assigns the value of annex deliveries to the service of the bonds handed over by Germany as security for her debt. On the other hand, the treaty provides that for the purpose of equitable distribution as between the Allies, the value of Annex deliveries shall be reckoned in the same manner as cash payments effected in the year, and the schedule of payments stipulates that the value of the deliveries received by each Power shall, within one month of the date of delivery, be paid over to the Reparation Commission, either in cash or in current coupons. Further, the treaty imposes upon the Reparation Commission not only the duty of fixing prices, but also of determining the capacity of Germany to deliver goods demanded by any of the Allies, and, by implication, of deciding between the competing demands which are made upon that capacity by the Allies themselves. The Wiesbaden agreement provides for the delivery by a German company to French sinistrés of "all plant and materials compatible with the productive capacity of Germany, her supply of raw materials and her domestic requirements," that is to say, of the articles and materials which can be demanded under Annex IV and paragraph 19 of Annex II, which are, by the terms of the agreement, in so far as France is concerned virtually sus2 The arrangement under which a German private company is to be created to deal directly with the orders without the intervention of the French and German Governments is intended to obviate the delays which experience has shown to be inseparable from the employment of the present machinery. It does not appear to have any important bearing on the general financial situation, since the deliveries will clearly have to be financed by the German Government and will ultimately be paid for by means of a reparation credit in account with the German Government. pended, the obligations of Germany to deliver to France under the other annexes remaining unaffected. Any question as to the capacity of Germany to satisfy the requirement of France, and all questions of price, are to be settled by a commission of three members, one French and one German, and a third selected by common agreement or nominated by the Swiss President. The aggregate value of the deliveries to be made under the agreement, and of the deliveries to be made under Annexes III, V and VI (hereafter, for the sake of brevity, called the "Annex deliveries") in the period expiring on the 1st May 1926 is fixed at a maximum of 7 milliard gold marks. In regard to the Annex deliveries the agreement in no way modifies the treaty provisions under which Germany is credited and France debited forthwith with the value, but special provisions, which are financially the essential part of the agreement, are made for bringing to reparation account the value of the Agreement deliveries. These special provisions are designed to secure that Germany shall only be credited on reparation account at the time of delivery with a certain proportion of them, and that deliveries not thus accounted for, which may be called "excess deliveries," shall be liquidated over a period of years beginning at the earliest on 1st May 1926. The provisions themselves are somewhat intricate, comprising as they do, a series of interacting limitations, and they require some elucidation. (1) In no case is credit to be given to Germany in any one year for Annex and Agreement deliveries together, to an amount exceeding one milliard gold marks. (2) In no case is credit to be given to Germany in any one year for more than 45 per cent. of the value of the Agreement deliveries or for more than 35 per cent. if the value of the Agreement deliveries exceeds one milliard gold marks. The effect of the above is to prescribe that 55 per cent. (or, if the agreement operates successfully, 65 per cent.) of the value of the Agreement deliveries as a minimum will be the object of deferred payment by instalments. If the Agreement deliveries reached really high figures, the operation of the milliard limitation would make the carry forward much more than 65 per cent. The excess deliveries are to be liquidated with interest at 5 per cent. per annum in ten equal annual instalments as from 1st May 1926, subject to certain conditions: (1) France shall in no case be debited in one year for Agreement deliveries with an amount which, when added to the value of her Annex deliveries in that year, would make her responsible for more than her share (52 per cent.) of the total reparation payments made by Germany in that year. (2) Agreement deliveries continue after 1st May 1926, with the same provisions for deferred payment. If in any year between May 1926 and May 1936 the amount (not exceeding 35 or 45 per cent.) of the value of that year's Agreement deliveries to be credited to Germany, together with the annual instalment to repay the debt incurred in respect of the period ending 1st May 1926, exceeds one milliard, the excess is to be carried forward from year to year until a year is reached in which no such excess is created by the payment. But in no case shall the amount credited, even if it is less than one milliard gold marks, exceed the limit laid down by the preceding condition. (3) Any balance with which Germany has not been credited on 1st May 1936 is to be credited to her with compound interest at 5 per cent. in four half-yearly payments on 30th June and 31st December 1936 and 30th June and 31st December 1937. But, again, these half-yearly payments shall not be made if the effect of making them would be to exceed the limit laid down in condition (1) above. (4) Agreement deliveries continue indefinitely after 1st May 1936, with power, however, to Germany to arrest them whenever the execution of them would result in France owing more than 52 per cent. of Germany's annual reparation payment in respect of Annex deliveries, deferred payments already matured, and the 35 or 45 per cent. of current deliveries. From the above it is to be noted that, while there is a limitation for the first five years of the amount of Agreement deliveries which can be demanded, there is, (1) No point at which the right of France to demand these special deliveries automatically terminates; (2) No final limitation upon the value of the deliveries which can be demanded by France during the lifetime of the agreement; (3) No definitely prescribed period within which France's debt to Germany and to the other partners in reparation shall be liquidated. The financial effect of the agreement is perhaps best shown by taking hypothetical examples. Let it be assumed that Germany's annual reparation obligation under the schedule of payments amounts to 3,300,000,000 gold marks, of which France, under existing inter-Allied agreements, is entitled to receive 52 per cent., or, 1,700,000,000 gold marks. Let it be assumed again that France receives annual Annex deliveries to the value of 450,000,000 gold marks. The Annex and Agreement deliveries together in the first five years are not to exceed 7,000,000,000 gold marks. Five years' Annex deliveries, on the above hypothesis, amount to 2,250,000,000 gold marks, leaving a maximum value of 4,750,000,000 gold marks for the Agreement deliveries over the same period. Let it be assumed that the Agreement deliveries are spread equally over the five-year period, with the result that their annual value amounts to 950,000,000 gold marks. In the first year, 1921-22, it is specially provided that not more than 35 per cent. shall be credited to Germany, or 332,500,000 gold marks, leaving payment to be deferred of 617,500,000 gold marks. In the second and subsequent years, up to May 1926, 45 per cent. of the 950,000,000 gold marks, or 427,500,000 gold marks, would be credited, leaving |