O. Balke, a former member of the SA, the NSDAP, and the fascist police in Nazi Germany, was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. From 1940 to 1943, he served in a police battalion that was deployed in the territories of occupied Poland. The police played a key role in carrying out and supporting the fascist policies of oppression and extermination in the occupied territories. Balke took part in arbitrary executions by firing squad of the local population, during which he personally murdered at least one person. He was also tasked with providing security for reprisal operations in which entire villages were looted and destroyed. In this capacity, he was involved in the murder of 417 men, women, and children. In late 1942, his battalion was deployed to ransack the Jewish ghetto in Brest and to murder and exterminate its inhabitants. During this brutal massacre, 16,000 Jewish people were shot to death.

Art. 6 lit. b., c. of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Art. 8, 91 VerfDDR, §§ 91 II, 93 III StGB, § 1 VI EG zum STGB u ZPO der DDR, Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity