In this letter the headquarters was invited to examine the measures suggested and report to the Commanding General about the matter. A decision would then be reached by the Commanding General. It is a letter written by me by order of the Commanding General in order to examine this whole matter.
Q Then on the basis of these suggestions which came in a new order was issued by General Bader to which you referred yesterday. Did this new order by General Bader intensify or mitigate matters?
A Do you mean the order, Doctor, of 3 April 1943?
Q I mean that order about burning the houses?
A I don't think that this order is in any way connected with the previous matter, but General Bader felt obliged to re-arrange the whole matter, and he issued this order 3 April 1943. In this order it is expressed that the burning down of buildings during combat actions would only be done by orders of an officer, but that the burning down of houses after the event, after combat, was a retaliation measures, and therefore needed the approval of the officer in command of the Serbian Headquarters. This regulation meant, as compared to the regulation covering guerrilla warfare, in force at the time without doubt a modification, because according to the band warfare regulation as far as I know any Captain was authorized even after the event, as a retaliation, you might say, to have a house burned down.
Prior to that this order contained orders how to proceed in a case like this with the population.
Q What was the rank of the man in charge of the sub-area headquarters concerned with this matter?
AAs a rule Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel, or General. In other words a higher rank or older man.
Q Then there is another order concerning the shooting of women and children which is contained in Document Book 24, page 95 and on page 136 of the English. It is Document 1668, Exhibit 534. And it is alleged that the Commander of Infantry Regiment 721 of the 714th Division, a man called Lt. Col.
von Wedel, gave the order to the officer in charge of a company that they are to shoot women and children. Were you connected with this event at all, are you in any way responsible for that.
A I heard of this business in a letter by the Armed Forces Commander Southeast, which apparently was written because OKW had made inquiries. This matter was passed on to the 714th Infantry Division, to whom at that time or at least at the time the incident is alleged to have occurred the company of the Brandenburg Regiment was subordinated to.
Q What about the company in the Brandenburg Regiment, did this Regiment belong to the area of the Commander of Serbia?
A This division belonged to the fighting unit of West Bosnia, General Stuhl, and the unit West Bosnia was subordinated to General Bader. General Stuhl reported after he had seen the Regimental Commander, who was alleged to have given the order to shoot women and children and was alleged to have given the order to shoot anybody who was still there. He interrogated the Regimental Commander and reported that this Regimental Commander neither in writing nor orally had issued any such order. It was true that on one occasion when his attention had been drawn to the fact, that among the fighting partisans there were women, he had said, "we cannot save these Amazones". (Flintenreiter) . Nothing was said about children. I remembered, the matter afterwards. General Bader ordered me to pass on this, reporting to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast. He emphasized, you should, pass it on to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast only 1-C had signed, so the master was passed on. It came back in order to be once more examined, whereupon General Bader and General Stuhl talked about this particular case personally. The result was that General Bader, as can be seen from the document dated November 17, wrote back that having conferred orally with the Commander of the 714th Division, he maintained his attitude fully, as had been expressed in the letter of 23 September.
In this letter it says the person of Lt. Col. von Wedel guarantees that an order given to the 7th Regiment Brandenburg, had not been given in fact.
DR. SAUTER: If the Tribunal, please, this puts me to the end of those documents which I wanted to discuss with Herr von Geitner, which it seems to him were the most important ones. Now, the prosecution has connected defendant von Geitner with a number of other documents, and have expressed that he was responsible for matters contained in these other documents. Were I to discuss all these further documents with the defendant this would take perhaps two or three days. The result which we would arrive at would, in my opinion, be out of all proportion to the time that is employed. On the other hand the defendant wants to give is comments on all the documents with which the Prosecution alleges he is co-responsible. In order to arrive at a compromise I suggest to the Tribunal and the Prosecution that the defendant, as far as these other documents are concerned, has expressed his comments in two affidavits about every single document, and it is my intention to include them into a later document book, Book IV perhaps, perhaps as Documents 109 and 110 and present them to the Tribunal and the Prosecution. In this way the defendant would have the opportunity to give his responsible comments on each document, and we would save much time. Should the Prosecution wish to define its attitude towards the two affidavits by the defendant it would become possible by recalling the defendant von Geitner to the witness stand. This procedure, in order to save time, was used for instance in the IMT trial, and I believe it might be a good idea to follow it here as well. Should the Prosecution agree and the Tribunal be agreeable I would only have one or two questions to put to the defendant, and then will submit such documents as I have still to submit.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have any comment to make concerning the suggestion made?
MR. RAPP: Your Honor, I am certainly in favor to expedite these proceedings, hut this is something rather unconventional and a kind of a surprise to me. I wish to ask the Tribunal, in view of this, to make any comments possibly after the recess.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. We will take our noon recess at this time.
(Thereupon the noon recess was taken.)
AFTERNOON SESSION
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Courtroom will please take their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Your Honor, the Secretary General informs me that it would be preferable from the standpoint of his records if we cleared up the problem of having two exhibits under the same Exhibit No. 594 by actually changing the exhibit number on one of the documents. I suggest if it meets with the approval of the Tribunal that we change the document number NOKW-1779 which was offered during the cross-examination of the defendant Kuntze from Exhibit 594 to Exhibit 593-B. That particular document has been referred to on no other occasion than on the occasion of its actually being offered into evidence. One other document problem, your Honors will recall that at the time we offered NOKW-076 as Exhibit 338, upon objection by defense counsel, that document was not immediately admitted into evidence. It was then given the Number 338-A for identification and subsequently on the 27th of August, the Tribunal granted the motion of the prosecution to re-examine the question of the admissibility of the document and it was on that occasion admitted into evidence as Exhibit 336. We did not actually hand the document to the Secretary General as an exhibit at that time but I will do so sometime this afternoon, if that is agreeable to the Tribunal. That will simply clear up the matter of 338, remove the 338-A and change the document to Exhibit 338.
THE PRESIDENT: The suggested changes may be made with the approval of the Tribunal.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Thank you, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed, Dr. Sauter.
DR. SAUTER: I think that, first of all, Mr. Rapp wants to make a statement.
MR. RAPP: Your Honor, the question as to whether or not the affidavits of the defendant Geitner contained in defense Document Book No. IV should be admitted in lieu of all testimony by the defendant Geitner or witness Geitner, I would like to answer for the prosecution as follows.
Firstly, up to now we have not received an English edition of Document Book IV. I was handed this morning a German copy. It is true that I speak German but there are other members on the staff who have to examine these document books and we are still waiting to get them, which means that unless we know what is contained in these affidavits, we have no way of including in our present cross-examination anything we may like to ask the witness.
If there is anything in these affidavits which is worthwhile for us to go over again, we would then have to call the witness back. Consequently I don't see at the present time any time-saving. I think, furthermore, Dr. Sauter had two days to examine this witness and this is a very reasonable time in which some of this testimony could have been included if Dr. Sauter felt that it was important enough to be heard; so before the prosecution can say whether or not it agrees to this procedure, as suggested by Dr. Sauter, we must first examine the affidavits, possibly by tomorrow morning if I can get the translation of the document book, and then see whether or not it will actually be a time-saving factor. I may also like to call to the Tribunal's attention that the splitting up of a cross-examination in this case for the convenience of defense counsel puts us possibly in a very dangerous position.
I may ask the witness on the basis of the information I have now certain questions to which the witness will make certain answers. Then these answers may not correspond with the answers he has given in these affidavits and I would have to go over that same ground and I am sure defense counsel would object to that and I would have to say why I would have to go over that same ground. Therefore, I think this procedure leaves a lot to be said. In any event, before I have examined these affidavits, I am in no position to stipulate at this time.
THE PRESIDENT: I think, Mr. Rapp, that what Dr. Sauter had in mind was to avoid the witness being interrogated about a number of exhibits which he has not previously mentioned or to which he has not given attention and concerning which the witness has not been examined.
MR. RAPP: I understand that, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it was to avoid some of these other documents that he had in mind and you referred to as being accepted in lieu of all of his testimony, if I understood you, and I think he only referred to portions of the document.
MR. RAPP: That is right, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Under the circumstances, I suppose the only thing to do would be to wait until morning until you have a chance to check into it further.
MR. RAPP: That is correct, your Honor, and I would like to ask Dr. Sauter when we could expect these missing document books. There are still some document books. I have received a letter which I think was addressed to the Tribunal. It talks of Document No. IV, probably until the 27th of October, probably Document Book No. V to the 31st of October, Document Book No. VI the 8th of November. All these document books pertain to the defendant Geitner.
THE PRESIDENT: May I inquire as to whether or not all the material in these books refers to matters which were included in the material sent from Washington?
DR. SAUTER: About half of the document books which have not yet been been translated contain material from the Washington war diaries. In the last weeks we have been going through this very extensive material and we have made the necessary excerpts so that the Tribunal and the prosecution may know what the defense wants to use from this material. Because of the large extent of material, it was very difficult to complete these document books and was not possible to do so earlier. During the past weeks, one of my assistants has worked on these books the whole day every day, and of course I would not be in a position to go through all this material with the defendant and I am ready to do this but I don't think that this would be very expedient because the Tribunal has not yet got these new document books in translation and therefore cannot follow as well as if they had these document books in front of them in English; and for the second reason that the prosecution has not yet been able to go through these document books.
For this reason, I have suggested that the statements made by Geitner to these document books should be submitted in the form of two affidavits and that the prosecution should have the right-- that is what I said already this morning--that the prosecution should have the right to later on examine the defendant Geitner about these document books if they want to charge him with anything in them. This proceeding is also expedient for another reasons. As far as I know, the prosecution will go through this Washington material in the next few days, and I assume in advance that the prosecution will find many things in this Washington material which they will probably charge against the defendant Geitner, and as defense counsel I don't want to oppose this but I welcome it. I will welcome that everything is charged against the defendant which can possibly be charged against him, and also from the prosecution point of view this is also only possible if the material is correspondingly prepared. The fact that through this procedure we will gain two or three days and that it would also not be a disadvantage I have already mentioned this morning.
MR. RAPP: Your Honor, you have asked defense counsel -- I believe so how many documents in these missing document books pertain to the documents which came from Washington. If Document Book No. IV which I have not received as yet officially is any indication, I will state that Document Book IV contains three affidavits which could have been submitted in Document Book I or in any other document book, but there is certainly no excuse that they should not be in our hands by now.
I don't know whether or not all the other document books will only contain documents from Washington. I understood Dr. Sauter to say only about half. Be that as it may, certainly there is no excuse that these should not be in our hands. The prosecution has rested its case against the defendant Geitner. I doubt very seriously that we will use any other documents against this defendant which have come from Washington, possibly a few during rebuttal or as surprise documents, but I think that the procedure is not knowing the defense's case, while the defendant Geitner is still on the stand, is to some degree hampering our plan of crossexamination.
THE PRESIDENT: May I suggest that we proceed with the documents that we have at hand and in the meantime if you can check over it so you can advise us Monday, Mr. Rapp, perhaps that will clarify that situation.
MR. RAPP: Very well.
THE PRESIDENT: Now I want to make this further statement. The defense began the presentation of their evidence on September 15, I believe. I have, I believe, with all courtesy and yet with a reasonable amount of firmness been inquiring from time to time as to when the defense documents would be in and so they could be translated and brought to the attention of the Tribunal. I do not want to do anything other than be courteous, but there will come a time apparently when I will have to take on a more different attitude apparently if we are going to get results. It seems to me we must ask and insist and the Tribunal is entitled to it, and out of the proper presentation of the case on behalf of the defendants it is incumbent upon counsel to see that these documents are ready.
Now that is all I want to say now, but I think that is saying it sufficiently. I don't think the interest of the respective clients should be jeopardized by having these documents come in late and the Tribunal will have to receive them in a haphazard sort of a way. We have tried to cooperate. I am certain it is the attitude of the Tribunal that if we can't get that cooperation, we will have to take some more stringent action.
You may proceed with the presentation of your evidence.
Judge Carter would like to ask a question.
JUDGE CARTER: Dr. Sauter, these exhibits that you have listed in your affidavits, I assume are those that you consider less important and you are merely setting out in the affidavits the reasons why they don't apply to the defendant Geitner.
If that is true, it seems to me that we would be wasting a lot of time here if it was just merely a group that he wants to dispose of by saying that he wasn't present or he didn't sign them or something of that kind. I would hate to take the time of the Tribunal to go through a whole list of documents like that when that was all you were trying to establish. If that is the nature of the affidavits and the documents contained in it, couldn't you cross-examine on them just as well from the affidavit as well as after going through all that ceremony?
MR. RAPP: I quite agree but, your Honor, since the cross-examination is not going to be acute this afternoon, Dr. Sauter told me that he would put in the three document books. It won't come up before Monday morning if the statement of Dr. Sauter is actually that that is all these affidavits amount to. Obviously there is no delay.
JUDGE CARTER: Well, I merely thought that it would be useless -taking a lot of useless time, wasted time, if that was the nature of the affidavits.
MR. RAPP: That is correct, your Honor.
JUDGE CARTER: Of course, the affidavits can't be admitted except by stipulation, I quite agree with that, but it seems to me if that is the nature of them -
MR. RAPP: If that is the nature of the affidavit, your Honor, then there will be no delay on our part.
JUDGE CARTER: Very well.
DR. SAUTER: Your Honor, may I just say something else about the whole matter? Mr. Rapp just stated that these affidavits and excerpts which are contained in Geitner document book 4 could have been submitted weeks ago. That is of course quite wrong, if that would have been possible then I would certainly have submitted them weeks ago. The whole of document book 4 deals exclusively with excerpts from the war diaries, which came from Washington and I really cannot see how I could take these documents and submit them to the Tribunal before they even came from Washington. Even as defense counsel I could not do that and the prosecution cannot do it either.
The second point is about the two affidavits of the defendant Geitner, which I added to this document book as documents 109 and 110. They are comments and opinions of the defendant Geitner with regard to these war diaries which came from Washington and he too, as a defendant, could not possibly have said anything about these books before they were war diaries were here and before he looked through them.
Then with regard to the other documents in document book No. 5, those are documents which have nothing to do with the war diaries, but they are affidavits. These affidavits did not reach here earlier for the securing of the affidavits was very difficult for the defense counsel all because of the censorship problem and because of the prolongation due to this. I can prove, Your Honors, many times daily nine-tenths of our mail had been checked by the postal censorship. This means that for every letter there is a postponement of not only days, but also weeks. This also had a very great effect in other respects because many witnesses, who were supposed to give affidavit, were very hesitant to do this as every letter arrived with the sinister words "Censored". If every witness knows that every word is censored which he writes to me or which I write to him, then this presents complications, Your Honors, which I can only hint at here. They are complications about which the Tribunal perhaps does not think if the Tribunal wants to have an idea as to whether the defense did its duty or not.
This indeed presents very great difficulties for us.
JUDGE CARTER: Dr. Sauter, some of my mail has been censored too, I don't like but don't know what we can do about it. I don't like it any better than you do.
DR. SAUTER: I did not understand.
JUDGE CARTER: I said, Dr. Sauter that some of my mail has been censored too and I don't like it any more than you do, but I don't know how to avoid it. If I knew a way, I certainly would.
DR. SAUTER: There is only one difference. We have to get the affidavits and we have to work on them, that is the duty of the defense and that is very difficult.
JUDGE BURKE: I would have to admit, as a member of the Tribunal, that there may be a slight distinction involved in that situation.
BY DR. SAUTER:
Q Witness, first of all, I would like to ask you one concluding question. During the prosecution's case you heard that the defendants and also you are changed with having participated in a criminal plan to disentrigate the Serbian people or even to exterminate them, to clip off Serbian economy; in brief to destroy Serbia. In conclusion, would you perhaps like to state quite briefly anything in regard to this charge as far as it concerns yourself. This is the last question I have to put to you at the moment.
A I was chief of staff, chief of the general staff and as such I was the first cooperator of my commander. I did all the donkey work and my commander was the man who had to have time and his head free in order to make the necessary decisions of the commander. When I came to Serbia the system was already in operation, the system about which the prosecution speaks. I neither wanted this system not did I make this system, but I had to work under this system and the same applies to the system of the Higher SS and Police leader.
Relative to talk about an extermination plan, then the only reason for this is that there was either a tremendous hatred for political or religious reasons or it was a cold reckoning for political or economic reasons.
If one looks at the war diaries exactly as they came from Washington, then one would be able to see from them the kind of statements or documents something concerning this hatred. Now there is no mention at all of anything of this kind, neither with the military commander Serbia or anywhere else.
My commanders found themselves forced to take severe measures, these severe measures arose from the military necessity and rested on the military necessity and even whether or not I too at the end was in agreement with this, did not play any part. I was the chief of staff and I had to follow the orders of my commander.
These measures, however, also had as their purpose the maintenance of economic life in Serbia and they were also directed against the attacks of special sabotage commandoes, who were directed against the industry, against the mines and against communications. If it is asserted in the indictment that the economic and industrial potentialities of Serbia was damaged in this connection, I would like to remind the Tribunal of an affidavit in my document book 3, written by Dr. Keyser. It is document 77, page 84.
Q Witness, in this connection, could you perhaps quite briefly tell what positive things you did in order to achieve something for Serbia perhaps to improve the situation in the country, tell us quite briefly, no details.
A Obstacles with regard to any activities in the country were threefold. First of all there was the insufficient strength of the occupation, that is the insufficient quantity and quality of the occupation forces, which was equally sufficient in the beginning and then went down. The organization of the administration, which we always had to fight. Then we cannot forget the secret police of the Higher SS and police Leader who spied on my commanders and denounced them and always influenced the commander to take more severe measures and never even informed him about their own measures.
If one reads through the war diaries, then one realizes what an enormous amount of work was done for the Serbian population in the supplying of food, the transporting of food, the protection of the Serbian administration, the welfare for the refugees, the welfare for the workers in the large industries and factories and in the medical and hygienic welfare field and in the attempts to intervene in the Ustasha murders in Croatia. Now one can then speak about an extermination program or a program of destruction, that I really cannot say.
As the very last thing, I would just like to say that if anyone wants to get an idea of my political situation at that time, then he should read the affidavit Cartellieri, which is also contained in document book 3, it is document 59, page 21.
Q. Witness and that brings me to the end of my examination about your activities in Belgrade, I would just like to ask you one personal question: you are now under arrest; since when?
A. Since the 9th of May 1945.
Q. And in which zone is your property, your factory, your house, etc.?
A. In the Russian zone.
Q. Were you able to save anything at all, or have you lost everything?
A. I could save nothing at all.
Q. You lost everything?
A. Yes everything except a few pieces which I managed to save, but I lost almost everything.
Q. And one last question, you write your name Curt Ritter von Geitner; why do you have the right to write Ritter von Geitner, that is the title of a nobleman to your name?
A. I received this right as the owner of the Bavarian Max-Joseph order.
Q. The Bavarian Max-Joseph order was bestowed upon you during the first World War?
A. Yes.
Q. As a captain?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that the highest Bavarian decoration for bravery?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you know approximately how many officers during the first World war received the Bavarian Max Joseph order?
A. About 200.
Q. And you were one of these 200 and therefore you have this title?
A. Yes.
Q. Your Honors, I have no further questions to put to the defendant Ritter von Seitner. I would suggest that the three remaining document books should be submitted to you now. It will probably be expedient if the defendant von Geitner would return to the dock and then he could be recalled again to the witness stand for cross-examination.
THE PRESIDENT: Whatever your pleasure may be, Dr. Sauter.
DR. SAUTER: Herr von Geitner, you can return to your place.
(The witness returns to the dock.)
DR. SAUTER: Well, then I take document book von Geitner No. 1. This contains the documents 1 to 30, inclusive. Document No. 1 on page 1 I will not read, we already know about the contents.
Documents 2, 3 and 4 have already been read, they are von Seitner exhibits 1, 2 and 3.
The next document, document No. 5, is an affidavit by Dr. Hans Schreiber, dated 14 April 1947 and it is regularly sworn to and certified. It is document No. 5 and it receives exhibit von Geitner No. 8. The affiant states.....
JUDGE CARTER: Do you mean that document No. 5 is to be exhibit No. 8, document No. 5?
DR. SAUTER: Yes, document No. 5, exhibit No.8. The affiant Dr. Schreiber was Oberaret and adjutant of the chief medical corp officer in France where the defendant von Seitner was stationed at that time. I would ask that the whole contents of the affidavit be noted and in the third paragraph he talks about von Geitner's political attitude. I will just read the last paragraph in which he states:
"He was no militarist in the meaning of giving preference to military aims in his personal actions towards the soldiers or in the great questions of economics, politics or ethics, since his way of acting and living was guided by Christian lofty principles which prevail beyond the limits of a single nation."
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
The next document is Document No. 6 which has already been submitted to the Tribunal as Exhibit No. 4 and then follows Document No. 7 to which I give Exhibit No. 9, Geitner No. 9. This is an excerpt from the manual of the General Staff Service in the war. This has already been mentioned several times, from the so-called "Red Donkey." I would ask that the whole document be noted here. I will just read the "Basic Principles" under Figure 1 on page 13 in the English:
"The Supreme Leader bears the only responsibility for the sphere of his command."
And then follows the provisions which apply in our case. That is, to the defendant von Geitner.
Then I will go on to the next document, Document No. 8, and this has already received Exhibit Number 6. This is an affidavit by General Halder. This has already been offered to the Tribunal.
And then Document No. 9, this is an affidavit by the same Chief of General Staff Halder about another point. This already received yesterday exhibit number "Geitner 7" and a further affidavit in Document No. 10 has already received exhibit number 5.
And then I come to Document No. 11. This has not yet been read and this will receive exhibit number 10. Document No. 11, Exhibit No, 10, on page 25. This is an affidavit of Friedrich Ferdinand Prinzsu Schleswig-HolsteinGluecksburg, born in 1913, living in Gluecksburg -- and he is a German citizen. The affidavit is regularly sworn to and certified by the defense counsel in whose presence the signature was made. From figure II it can be seen that the knowledge of the affiant rests on the fact that he was Auxiliary Officer in Department I-a of the Commanding General and Commander in Serbia and he was officer for organi zational matters in Department I-a during the period of the 12th of July 1942 until January 1943.
Under figure "1", the affiant describes his personal acquaintance with the defendant von Geitner. He says amongst other things here -- I quote -- on page 2:
"Educated in the school of the old Bavarian army, he was an upright and straight thinking man who refused and did not tolerate in his staff any irregularities, uncleanness and encroachments."
And in the next paragraph but one the affiant describes the correct reserved and modest direction of his office by the defendant Geitner as Chief of Staff. It is not necessary to read all this. I would just like to refer to the contents.
The bottom paragraph on page 26:
"So he always say to it that General Bader as the responsible commander put his signature under all important and fundamental orders. He himself only signed decrees, the distribution of which was ordered from above and to which nothing of importance had to be added. If during the absence of the commander he signed orders he did that only if he had before him corresponding instructions from the commander or his deputy. So for instance did he instruct me within my field of work, to present all letters that he (von Geitner) had signed during a possible absence of the commander to the commander for subsequent approval."
In the next paragraph, figure "2", the affiant talks about the attitude of the defendant von Geitner towards the question of National Socialism and the difficulties he had with other plenipotentiaries who were in Belgrade, the General Plenipotentiary for Economy, the Police Leader Meissner, and I would like these statements also to be noted. These are completely in line with the picture which we have received up until now from the whole thing.
Figure 3 on page 28 of the English, the affiant, Prinz Holstein, talks about the attitude of the defendant von Geitner toward the Serbian people. He quotes various statements, for instance "a" on page 26:
"The Serbians are the most valuable nation of the Balkans, besides the Bulgarians."
And then under "b":
"The Serbians are a healthy people, closely bound to nature; their collaboration in the pacification of the Balkans is indispensable. The German administration of the occupied territory of Serbia therefore must be an amicable administration."
And then in the last part of this paragraph the affiant by chance talks about the matter discussed by the defendant last of all on the witness stand and he confirms that there was no plan of exterminating the Serbian people or decimating them.
And then -- I won't read figure "4". This describes the efforts of the defendant Geitner with regard to Serbian culture and it gives a number of details.
And figure "5", on page 31 of the English -- the affiant, Prinz Holstein, talks about the other side and he states -- I quote -- it is paragraph "5":
"Certainly, Herr von Geitner rejected the mean and cruel way of fighting used by the National, as well as the Communist Serbs; a large number of German soldiers, as well as of peaceful and loyal Serbs, in particular Serbian administrative officials, buromasters and farmers were the victims of that way of fighting. The losses, for instance, which the German troops sustained through the partisans in the Serbian area during the time after the armistice, that is from the capitulation up to the end of 1942, were by far greater than the total losses during the campaigns in the individual countries in the Balkans until the conclusion of the individual armistices."