I would not have on my own ordered this to a subordinate unit of mine. If anybody else did it, it is none of my business.
Q. Well, what was this Regiment Brandenburg? I mean I don't understand that yet if it was not what this indicates to us, what was it?
A. I don't know. My knowledge of the Brandenburg Regiment is confined to a short period of time when it was serving under me, I think two battalions of it, and at that time it was under me as a purely tactical soldierly unit, otherwise I know nothing about the Regiment.
Q. You never heard that the personnel of the Regiment Brandenburg was especially selected for their linguistic aptitude and for their ability to impersonate the population of Croatia and to be used for espionage purposes; you never heard of that? Although this Regiment was subordinate to you for a time or at least elements of it were?
A. Those things were mentioned sometime, yes, but what was mentioned I really don't remember.
Q. And it was also mentioned that members of this unit were put in British and Italian uniforms and sent among the partisans to cooperate ostensibly with them?
A. I did not hear any such things about that, any such details are unknown to me.
Q. General, you explained to us the other day that there were I believe you said around 3,000 to 4,000 men in a German Regiment; didn't you?
A. 2,500 to 3,000 is what I said.
Q. And in this Regiment Brandenburg of over 2,500 men was down there in your corps area under your command for awhile, and you have testified to that and said you..... ......you never heard exactly what they were doing while they were down there; is that what you mean to say?
A. As far as I was concerned, the Branderburg Regiment when it was under me for a short time, was purely subordinate as a tactical and military unit, and any special operations or any special assignments given to it are unknown to me.
Q. What was that particular tactical assignment when it was under you; where was it located and what was it supposed to be doing?
A. As far as I can remember, the Brandenburg Regiment was put at my disposal for a time after the 114th Rifle Division, which as I said on direct examination, had been sent away.
Then the 264th Division had the task of moppingup the rear area. Then, as I said on direct examination, at that time for a while the army loaned troops to me so that I could comb out this rear area and eliminate the bands, and for that purpose the Brandenburg Regiment temporarily subordinate to me at the time.
Q. Well, General, where was the Regiment Brandenburg attached? Was it attached to some other corps permanently and just lent from them to you, or exactly what was the situation?
A. The Brandenburg Regiment, as I see it, belonged to a division which was under the O.K.W. direct, and the divisional commander with the O.K.W. would then issue his orders to his regiment direct. This is what I know about the Brandenburg Regiment.
Q. And that is all you can recall, all you recall about the specific task that it was given, that it was used to comb out the rear area or somewhere in the corps area, for a while. You don't remember what particular area, what particular task it had?
A. I cannot remember it now.
Q. Now, let's turn to your explanation for the destruction of a hospital. I believe in the first place you said that when these various daily reports stated that a hospital had been destroyed, that didn't really mean that a hospital had been destroyed; is that correct?
A. I don't think I put it that way. What I said was, first, the documents submitted never furnished any proof and secondly, I said that they could hardly be described as hospitals in the sense you speak of, hospitals as a rule, but that in those depots there were some old huts where there were wooden bunks, which were then used for the ill or wounded.
That is what I said. Moreover I said that they were usually in a filthy condition, full of vermin and where contagious diseases would spread, and while these operations went on, they had to be destroyed just as much as the other depots in the rear area of the partisans.
Q. Well, it would have to be a fairly large hut would it not to accommodate 500 beds?
A. I don't think the documents ever said there were 500 beds in one hut, it must have been different huts that the document meant, it does not say one hut with 500 beds. Perhaps if I could glance at the document again.
Q. I don't have the document before me General right now, but I don't recall the word hut was used in connection with any of the hospitals. I think the word hut crept into this when you started explaining what a hospital was. But, let me ask you this: in conducting a combat operation, is it not customary for the commanding general to attempt to establish a proportion between the number of wounded and the number killed on the side of the enemy? That is to say......
A. Do you mean the commanding general should establish this? I did not understand you.
Q. No, I mean is it not the custom for example, after an operation had been concluded for the General to say, "Very well, we have counted 200 enemy dead here, therefore we can assume there are 200 enemy wounded or 400 enemy wounded, or what the proportion happens to be." Do you not attempt to establish such a proportion in order to establish what the total enemy losses are?
A. I would not compile suck a list.
Q. No, I don't mean you compiled such a list. I mean that you simply attempt to establish a ratio between the number killed and wounded; isn't that customary?
A. One would assume such things are.
Q. And isn't it further true, General, that from a standpoint or weakening the enemy, I am now simply looking at this from that standpoint, leaving all other considerations aside, if your only idea is to weaken the enemy, it is better for him to have 200 wounded from your point of view than to have 200 dead; is that not true?
A. As far as I, as the technical leader, was concerned my duty was to destroy the enemy, to render him innocuous. Now here we are talking about the hospital or medical huts, I conquered that area and once they are in my hands they are not at the disposal of the enemy, he therefore cannot use them for his wounded.
Q. Well, the medical situation among the partisans was pretty bad anyway, you described that the care they must have gotten in these places must have been fairly primitive; isn't that true?
A. Well, the partisans did not have to attack us, they didn't have to do anything. If they had remained quiet all would have been well.
Q. That is right, but since they persisted in obstinate resistance of theirs, which it was your duty to crush, as you see it, from your point of view in attempting to crush the enemy, wasn't it true that one of the most efficient ways of doing it was to remove any possibility of an efficient medical treatment?
A. Those of the enemy whom we had captured wounded were treated quite normally in our hospitals as any other German soldier would have been; that was a matter of course to us.
Q. That is true, but if on the other hand one of the partisans was wounded and he was not in your hospital, but in his own hospital and received good medical treatment, he was likely to be in a position where he would have to be put in a hospital again fairly soon if he had hospitals in which to be treated?
A. I don't quite understand your question. Of course, if they were wounded they were treated by their people.
Q. Well then, with the conditions that existed in the southeast, these primitive conditions that you have described in these remote districts where the partisans lived, wasn't a very effective way of crushing resistance to see to it that these people could have no adequate medical attention?
A. It was not up to me whether they were well looked after medically, that was entirely up to the people themselves. After a combat action I picked up the wounded and sent them to be treated the same as everyone else. I am not able to tell you what happened to the wounded they took along. I am not informed about that. Anyway as I had conquered that particular area, including these medical establishments, I was the only one that could use them and not the enemy, or what was called the enemy.
Q. Well, General, if it was not considered important to destroy these hospitals, why is it that from time to time in the daily reports it is reported there to the corps, 1 bandit hospital destroyed, 100 beds or 1 hospital destroyed, 50 beds. If that was not of any interest to you, except from the point of delousing the district, why was it that this was always included in these daily reports?
A. Everything which had been conquered was reported, even every single rifle, every hut which fell into our hands was reported, every car was included in the report which the troops passed on so it could be seen what was done.
Q. Now General, you said the other day, if I understood you correctly, that you never did give any order concerning these reprisal measures either generally or specifically the whole time you were in the southeast; is that correct?
A. I, myself, did not issue an order as I said concerning a reprisal measure because they never occurred. Reprisal measures were ordered by the divisions in agreement with the representative of the Government, that is what I have said frequently.
Q. But, as far as you personally are concerned, you never had any occasion to take part in this matter at all?
A. I never had the opportunity to issue a direct order in that connection.
Q. Now, the other day, General, you talked about the activities of the SD during the "Panther" operation in determining who were band suspects; how did you go about determining who a band suspect was? What measures did you use, what criterion?
A. I don't know much about the police aspect of that, I mean the police part. I think the reason we had these experts was because through their training they would know roughly who might come under that category, also on the basis of their study of local conditions.
Q. Well, but you never took any interest in this business, you never tried to lay down any criterion as to how a person should be classified as a band suspect or not?
A. No, that was not directly my task. That was entirely up to the special experts, that is the reason why they are policemen, and in connection with the local police that is why they find these things out.
Q I want to hand you Document NOKW-963 which I want to introduce as Prosecution Exhibit 14. Will you look at paragraph "d" on page 2 of the original there and please read the first two sentences from that excerpt aloud and explain that to us -- paragraph "d" for "dog."
A What paragraph did you mean?
Q "D."
A "d) In case of repeated attacks in a certain road sector, Communist hostages are to be taken from the villages of the immediate vicinity who are to be sentenced in case of new attacks. A connection between these Communists and the bandits may be assumed to exist in every case. Sentencing of the hostages according to Corps Headquarters XXIst Mountain Corps, Ic No. 628/44 secret, re punitive measures (secret)."
This is an indication to the troops, as it says at the end, according to the order from the High Command Southeast, for the security of the roads. I should perhaps read the whole order. In that area, in other words, there had been frequent attacks and acts of sabotage, I suppose, and in order to prevent, them it is ordered here that if they do not discontinue these sabotage attacks hostages will be seized in order to safeguard the troops. That, as I see it, is purely justifiable.
Q Yes, and not only to be seized but, in case of repeated attacks, they are to be sentenced?
A. Yes. Well, that is, what has been ordered, was announced beforehand to the population and if it still does not cease, one has to do something about it.
Q General, I know you had your trouble down there. I know that goes without saying but what I asked you was not whether you had your troubles or whether such a thing would be justifiable. What I asked you was whether you had over issued an order for a directive that had to do with reprisal measures and you said, "No."
A Well, after all, I don't remember every single order which I issued years ago. That I gave an order or directive was my duty. I must tell the people what they have to do and in all probability the course here was that there were these repeated acts of sabotage, in all probability because, after all, the 10th of August -- yes, it is the 10th of August-that is, in other words, ten days after I took over my command of the 21st Corps, and this is merely an indication to the troops as to how they are to conduct themselves if these things occur.
Q Now, you say that Communist hostages are to be taken and that a connection maybe assumed to exist between them and the persons who actually committed the attacks on the roads?
A On direct examination, when I was asked about conditions in Albania I then talked about the various types of bands existing there. It was in Albania in particular that we had Nationalist bands and Communist bands, and I said they were the bands who were loyal to Tito, and in that neighborhood there were those Communists who coordinated their movements with Tito's because, after all, the whole Tito movement, as has been proved, meanwhile so clearly was being directly by Moscow.
Q But the effect of this order is to dispense with the necessity of proof of guilt so far as these hostages are concerned, you say that a connection between the hostages and the persons who commit the attacks may be assumed. Now, in other words, the only chance that a person had to prevent this sort of fate from befalling him was to keep from being classified as a Communist in the first place. Is that not true?
A No, Communists are those who were suspects from the beginning, which was the reason why, if these measures had been taken at all, these people would be seized first, but it didn't occur at all on the basis of this order.
Q In other words, though, if a man were arrested by the Germans and classified as a Communist, that was all the proof that was needed so far as he was concerned. Then, if any more attacks occurred he was automatically to be shot. There was to be no more investigation, according to this order. Is that not true?
A Well, that is not what this order says at all. It doesn't include this at all.
Q Well, what does the statement -- what does it mean "that a connection may be assumed to exist"?
A These are reprisal hostages. The other people are somehow or other suspect of having connection with the people who had committed the sabotage.
Q What do you mean by other people, General? I don't understand.
A If I seize hostages at all unless I can apprehend the actual perpetrator, I will have to take those people who somehow or other are connected with the whole event.
Q Then the purpose of this order was to establish that connection without your having to do it by actual proof.
A Well, that depended on various cases. It had to be proved, of course. It does not become clear from this order alone.
Q Well, how did you go about determining whether somebody was a Communist?
A I think the local police agencies were aware of that.
Q So that after an attack on one of your roads the German troops would go into a village and would seize those persons whom the local police pointed out to them as Communists?
A I know nothing of any such order, of any such actions. You assume that. Or does it say that in the order?
Q I am trying to find out what happened, General -- what this order meant. It must have meant something. I mean, -
A It is a preventative measure. We wanted to prevent more acts of sabotage occurring.
Q Well, how many times was this order carried out?
A I don't know.
Q That was up to the divisional commander? They would be the only ones that would know that? Is that your explanation?
A Well, I am sure they wouldn't know that today any more.
Q No, but at the time they were the ones who would have known.
A If it had become necessary in their sector they perhaps would have acted on the basis of this order.
Q Well, now, General, what was the -- what did this order add to what the divisional commanders already knew? As I say, I want to know what the purpose of it was. It must have had some purpose.
AAll I can say is that at that time there must have been frequent acts of sabotage, and now the troops were once again reminded of the order which is quoted in this document.
Q This was just a reminder, nothing more?
A That is how I see it.
Q General, I would like to ask you a few more questions about this document NOKW-1426 which is Exhibit 613. It has already been introduced here. I would like for you to turn to the entry for March 9, 1944. It is on page 4 of the German mimeographed copy, page 5 of the English, and I believe it is page 9 of the photostat.
A 9th of March, you mean? Shall I read it aloud?
Q No, I just want you to notice that passage there where it says: "332 able bodied men in custody; 450 civilians evacuated."
In the first place, what is this operation Bergwiese that they talk about here?
A That must have been one of the routine operations carried out by the 264th Division, and they apprehended these people at first and reported this fact. The report by itself does not give me enough information about the matter. I would have to see more documents about it.
Q. Well, you say it was a routine operation. What was the significance of this distinguishing between 332 able bodied men and 450 civilians? What's the significance of that?
A. They must have been civilians. It says 332 able bodied men and 450 civilians.
Q. Excuse me, General, I didn't hear that last remark.
A. What we are concerned with here must be the district of the bands against which the operation was directed and on that occasion these people were arrested in order to screen them first of all, to see whether there was any suspicion or not, and this included a certain number of able bodied men; and the remaining civilians who in all probability were no longer fit for military service, but who otherwise were sympathizers with the bands -- that had to be gone into and investigated. I do no longer remember where the operation "Bergwiese" took place.
Q. And over and again in documents they make that same distinction. Now, look at the daily report of March 7. Have you found it?
A. Yes, I am looking at it now.
Q. It says: "2,000 to 3,000 civilians were removed; 200 able bodied men taken into custody." The distinction is made between civilians.
THE PRESIDENT: May I suggest to both the witness and the counsel that when the lights fade out that you stop immediately so we will not have anything lost from the sound track?
A. May I continue? I see from these reports on the basis of these names of which I am reminded now that we are concerned with the coastal areas and the islands and that this particular report, in all probability, was dealing with the evacuation orders along the coast. I said this on direct examination; namely, that this evacuation had to be ordered for military reasons and in the course of time it became clear that it would involve a great many people, -- two hundred thousand are mentioned in one case, -- and it became, therefore, clear that all this would not be feasible, which is the reason why things were carried out only at the tactically important places, but I should imagine that these must have been people who had been evacuated; and I also said the other day that in those cases many of those people came back and were sent away again.
I imagine, therefore, that here we are concerned with these evacuation measures and therefore, the distinction is made between able bodied men fit for military service and civilians, because it had been stated that able bodied men should as all the other evacuees, be put at the disposal of the Croatian authorities and the able bodied men were to be inducted into the Croatian Wehrmacht, if possible. A commission consisting of Croatian authorities was to decide on this, and I think the people mentioned here are those under the evacuation measures because at the period of time these orders had been issued. This is the reason why the distinction is made in the reports between able bodied men fit for military service and civilians.
Q. Well, now, if that's the explanation for the distinction between able bodied men and civilians, I suppose that there must be some equality plausible reason for making the distinction between a hundred arrestees and 25 Jews which I find in the report of March 24. It's on pages 7 and 8 of the German mimeographed copy and page 15 of the photostat and page 9 of the English.
A. Page 8, you mean?
Q. No, it is page 15 of the photostat.
A. Yes, it says there: "100 arrestees and 25 Jews were deported to Fiume." Those people were, as I see, involved in the operation Rab. This Rab operation concerned one of the bigger islands not very far from the town of Zara, and the fact that these people should be sent to Fiume to Italy, it seems to me, as far as I am able to reconstruct this matter from memory, that it was caused by the fact that the ships which we had at our disposal for the occupation of the islands came from Fiume along the sea route, and that at that time from Zara, which before the war had already been Italian territory, a large part after the Italian capi tulation had escaped to the islands, and this is how the Jews had taken advantage of this opportunity when the people went back to Fiume to go back to Italy.
If these 25 people were among the arrestees it could have been reported probably: "125 people arrested including 25 Jews"; but what it says there is that they are being listed separately as being transported back to Fiume.
I can still remember that from Zara, which was almost entirely destroyed by air raids, the Italian prefects would send people almost permanently to Italy on a steamer which had been given by the Italian authorities. But a ship like that would be at his disposal only infrequently and those people who had lost their homes and everything else in the areas, were in every single case only too glad to avail themselves of the opportunity to go to Italy because they were Italian citizens.
Q. In other words, your explanation for the transport of these 25 Jews is that they originally came from Italy anyway?
A. That is what I assume.
Q. And you think the hundred arrestees were -
A. They availed themselves of this opportunity in the middle of the operation to use the ships to go back to Fiume, because they came from Fiume.
Q. And you think that the other hundred arrestees mentioned here
A. That they were prisoners.
Q. That is right. They were the people who were taken by this mixed commission of German and Croatian officers that you mentioned a while ago.
A. I think all this must have occurred during the operation Rab when the islands were occupied. I think it was the operation Rab that was at the back of it.
Q. But who were these hundred arrestees?
A. They were arrested during the occupation. After all, this was a tactical operation. They were the so-called enemy forces.
Q. Well, now look at the entry of March 20th which is on page 12 of the photostat -- 392nd Division.
A. Page 12 you mean?
Q. That's on Page 7 of the English. Now, you see that entry?
A. This must be the same thing. These 100 able-bodied men. I don't know whether they were the same ones or not. They may be the same ones,- but they were also given space on the ships in order to send them to Fiume, because if one knows the conditions there, there was only the road along the coast which one could use to go back.
Q. Well, just one thing. Here's what I don't understand. Were there -- you say that these men who were arrested during this operation were turned over to the Croatians either for service in the Croatian Wehrmacht, or for such service as the Croatian Government wanted to use them for?
A. Yes.
Q. Well, why were they shipping them to Fiume? Why were they shipping them to Italy if they were being arrested for the Coratian Government?
A. That doesn't meant that they remained in Fiume. That doesn't become clear from the report. I only assume that because these ships came from Fiume and were at their disposal there. This is clearly a matter of transportation because these people had the opportunity of being transported away on these ships. That is how I imagine it, but I can't construct precise details; otherwise, they would have had to use extra different types of transportation. But as we had these ships at our disposal from the islands where in any case men had to go by sea. They could use this more comfortable route, and from there ran one main road.
Q. General, one last question: You are still positive, in spite of that Daily Report that we saw yesterday, which was made by the 269th Infantry Division, while you were in Russia: are you still positive that your division, while it was under your command, never did carry out this Commissar Order?
A. I am definitely of the opinion that it was not carried out as it was ordered.
Q. Well, I want to hand you two documents here now, NOKW-1569and NOKW-2290, which I want to introduce as Exhibits No. 615 and 616 respectively.
THE PRESIDENT: Which will be No. 615 and which will be No. 616.
MR. FULKERSEN: No. NOKW-2290, Your Honor, will be Exhibit No. 615 and No. NOKW-1569 will be Exhibit No. 616.
BY MR. FULKERSEN:
Q. Let's take NOKW-2290 first. Please turn to the Morning Report of the 20th of November about the 269th Artillery Regiment.
Did you find it, Sir?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, there again.....
A. This is a report by the Artillery Regiment to the effect that "two Russian prisoners of the 1st Battery were shot upon the order of the Battalion Commander. These were one Commissar and one Russian high-ranking officer."
Q. Thank you. That's it.
A. There must have been a special reason why they were shot, but that I can't construct from this report here.
Q. Well,-----
A. These people must have done something, and the Battalion Commander, therefore, gave the order on the spot. What had happened I cannot see from this report.
Q. In other words, this is the second Daily Report of that division in which it's mentioned that a political Commissar is shot, without any explanations being given?
A. I said before that things were kept very brief in these reports, and on direct examination I said that there were Commissars who resisted and in some cases called on people to resist, and perhaps it was one of these people.
Q. All right. Now, what is your explanation for this telegram, which is Document NOKW-1569? First, I'd like to ask you if you know what a "Politruk" is.
A. A "Politruk" was the designation for a political Commissar. I believe that is the designation we used at the time.
Q. Now, what's the explanation for that telegram?
A. Which one do you mean? Do you mean the one for the 20th of November? I cannot recall that message. There is no signature of mine or anything else.
Q. Well, let's look and see from whom it comes and to whom it's addressed.
A. It's directed to the 41st Army Corps, the Reinhardt Corps, and it says somewhere there 269th Division, without signature or anything, or any initials. I can't recall this matter at all.
Q. Do you mean to tell me that you can't tell who sent this telegram by looking at that?
A. I can't see that from here. There's no signature or anything else.
Q. But on the right-hand side where it says "advanced," isn't that fairly clear to you that the 269th Infantry Division is meant?
A. Well, there's no signature or anything, and if it's that, then there must have been some reason.
Q. For shooting the 34 Politruks?
A. I don't know whether it actually happened. This is not a document signed by anybody. Whether this occurred in my sector, I don't know. It's simply a note.
Q. But it's a note that apparently comes from the 269th Infantry Division, and it was perhaps submitted through the 269th Signal Battalion wasn't it?
A. But there's no signature. This is not a document which one can identify at once. This could be any note, any piece of paper. I had no knowledge of this matter.
Otherwise I would have initialed it somewhere.
Q. And you simply have no recollection at any time, the whole time you were with this division that any Commissars were ever masscared?
A. No, as I said before.
Q. I want to look at one more document, General. That's NOKW-1135 which is in Document Book XVI. Page 124 of the English and Page 164 of the German. I would like to direct your attention to the last paragraph.
A. Yes.
Q. The first two sentences.
A. The first two sentences you mean?
Q. Yes, after the heading "Employment."
A. "In this connection it may have been assumed that it means of the SS organization, SS Mountain Division "Skanderbeg". was the cause of the increased furnishing of arms and medical equipment by the Anglo-Americans to the partisans in the Albanian and Montenegran border area."
"This assumption is based on the experience gained during the first commitment where the enemy no longer consisted of bandits in the usual sense but of regular troops disciplined, uniformly equipped with British uniforms, and excellently armed, and their very good and flexible leadership of superior strength."
Q. Now, General, there seems to be a slight discrepancy between the description given there and the description that you have given us of the equipment and organization etc. of the partisan units. How do you account for that?
A. All I can imagine here, and I said that before, is that now and then a few small elements of the partisan on some occasions were equipped with uniforms, and that in this case these elements of that division on some combat operation encountered a troop of that sort which happened to have been wearing uniforms and also were led by British officers.
That is a sign of the fact that they were led by the British and they were good officers, whereas otherwise their leaders were rather bad.
Q. Well when he says here, "experience gained during the first commitment?" Does he mean the first commitment of the "Skanderbeg" Division?
A. The SS "Skanderbeg" Division, as I explained the other day, was in my opinion not entirely established, nor did I receive that particular report, because at that period of time I was not present, and I had to be present for this. It may well be that elements which were ready were undertaking a combat operation in contact with such enemy elements. That is entirely possible of course.
Q. Well, how many elements were already in being at this time? Do you recall that? How many elements of the SS "Skanderbeg" Division were in being and organized?
A. I'm not able to tell you that precisely because I did not interest myself too closely in the establishment of the "Skanderbeg" Division, on orders by Field Marshal von Weichs.
Q. Well, were there as many as two regiments?
A. I don't know.
Q. You just have no recollection of what condition the division was in at that time?
A. I have to make my statements on oath; therefore, I cannot give approximate figures. I simply don't know.
Q. If Your Honors, please, I believe I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further examination by any counsel of the Defense?
DR. TIPP: Dr. Tipp for the Defendant von Leyser. If the Tribunal please, I have a few questions on re-direct examination.