Q. You told us then that the German leadership in that area expected an allied landing. What were the measures taken as a possible defense against such a landing?
A. To begin with, it was ordered at that time that all the islands along the coast were to be occupied. Along the Adriatic Coast there are numerous small and larger islands which, of course, could become quite important in the event of a landing. As a consequence, it was part of the task of the division which was committed along the coast that they would gain possession of these islands, some of which were occupied by the bands.
Q. You are telling us, then, about the building up of the coastal defense and of the occupation of the islands along the coast. Were there any other measures which were carried out or which were planned, which were intended to serve as a defense against a possible landing?
A. Apart from everything else there was, of course, the evacuation, which served as a preparatory measure for the building up of the defense strongholds. By this I mean the evacuation of the civilian population to the extent to which it was necessary, for military reasons.
Q. If we come to the chapter of evacuation now, General, there is an enormous number of documents which have been submitted by the prosecution in this connection. Before I shall go into any discussion of these individual documents, I would like to hear your personal opinion. For this reason I would like to ask you what was your fundamental attitude towards such evacuation measures, generally and in particular?
A. I considered evacuations in areas which either are a combat area or in a short while might become a combat area, absolutely justifiable from the point of view of International Law. In this connection we have to consider the fact that such evacuations arc not only carried out in the interests of the own troops but also serve as a protective measure for the civilian population, Every individual who has experienced , as a soldier, the hardships and sufferings to which the civilian population is exposed in a combat area, will understand this point-ofview, in my opinion.
Of course an evacuation always means hardship but it entails even more hardship for a civilian to remain and live in a combat area is quite obvious, I think, and I do not have to mention it particularly. To support my point of view, I would like to point out that, for instance, on the occasion of the French campaign, the French evacuated completely their Northern provinces. In the same way, to the best of my knowledge, the British, after the French campaign, evacuated their Southern coast, because they were afraid that we might carry out a landing there. All these tings show that an evacuation is , or might be, an absolute military necessity. Apart from all this, down there we had to take into consideration the fact that there were many people amongst the population who were opposed to us. These were people who either would carry out sabotage acts again and again, as was shown quite clearly, or who would spy on us and find out our positions and give this information to the enemy or something else , - that those people, in the event of a possible enemy landing, would even fight against us. All these factors, in my opinion, show that an evacuation was a tactical and military necessity.
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
Q To become a little more concrete, General, did you consider it necessary, because of the situation as you have described it now, to evacuate the whole population or was the evacuation to restrict itself to certain parts of the population?
A I would like to answer your question as follows. Seen from a military point of view, it is, of course, easiest to evacuate the whole civilian population from the combat area. This means considerable hardship for the civilian population concerned. We down there carried it out in this way that, to begin with, we only evacuated those people who might be of immediate danger to us. Besides, the evacuation of the whole population living along the coast on the islands would have been very hard for the population and, on the other hand, it was extremely difficult to accommodate such a large number of people anywhere else, tor that reason, as I said, to begin with, we restricted our measures to the so-called band suspects.
Q This term "band suspects", General, crops up again and again during these proceedings. Would you like to tell us what you mean and meant by a "band suspect"?
A By "band suspect", one meant those people whom one would suspect of having participated in combat actions or whom one would suspect at least of sympathizing with the landing enemies.
In my opinion, as I have already stressed, it is absolutely justifiable from the military point of view to evacuate such people. To the best of my knowledge, for instance, in the Japanese war, the Americans evacuated the Japanese population along the west coast of the States and transferred them to the interior of the country for reasons of military necessity. I also believe that for America the danger of a landing on the part of the Japanese was of not such an immediate danger and not so closely anticipated as a possible Allied landing along the Adriatic Coast in Croatia.
Q One additional question, General: was this planning of the evacuation and also of the execution of this evacuation carried out against Court No. V, Case No. VII.
the will and wish of the Croatian population or was it done with their consent or was it possibly even done at their request?
AAll evacuations which were at all carried out in that area were all carried out only in connection and with the consent of the Croatian authorities.
Q You have told us before when you described the sphere of tasks of your two coastal divisions that these two divisions had the order to occupy the islands. The occupation of these islands was a prerequisite for their evacuation. In this connection I would like to ask you were actually all islands which are very numerous along the Croatian coast occupied?
A We had the most varying reports about this fact as I have previously said.
Q. Forgive me if I interrupt you. You said you received reports?
A No, orders. We had the most varying orders about this fact. At one time we were told all islands were to be occupied and then again we were told only some islands were to be occupied and in the end it happened that only those islands were occupied which were of special tactical importance.
Q You said, General, that the corps received a great number of orders. May I ask you to clarify who was the ultimate agency which issued those various orders? I mean who was the ultimate agency which issued those orders? I mean who was ultimately the author or orders concerning evacuations, et cetera?
A In the final analysis, these orders came from the OKW. By this I mean the orders which islands and whether any islands at all were to be occupied.
Q Why was the occupation and the securing of these islands of such vital importance, General, that even the OKW apparently with individual orders dealt with this problem?
A To judge this one has to know the local conditions. These islands were so numerous and they were along the coast so that they could Court No. V, Case No. VII.
have become of a vital importance for a possible enemy landing. Besides, on these island there was a large number of band members and from these islands, with the help of the bands, there was a very active smuggling of arms from the islands to the mainland. This alone established one reason why one should at least mop up all those islands and clear them of bands and another reason was that the islands which had tactical importance would all the time be occupied in order to control all those islands and in order to prevent the smuggling of arms which took place all the time.
DR. TIPP: May it please the Tribunal, in this connection I would like to refer to one document which I have already offered as an exhibit. This is Leyser Document No. 16 in Document Book I on page 46. I have offered it as Leyser Exhibit 46; I beg your pardon -- Leyser Exhibit 17. This is an affidavit of a Regierungsbaurat Person who, as I have said when I introduced this document, deals with a number of items to which I shall refer back during the course of the examination. To the problem of evacuation, I would like to state the document to which I am referring. It is Document Book I, page 46, and the numeral to which I am having reference is numeral 4. In this document book it is contained on page 48. The affiant here deals with the evacuation of the islands and he says here - and I quote:
"The plan for the evacuation of the Islands along the war important coast was an obvious matter, at a time when these islands developed into increasingly efficient bases for the bands. These bands, becoming stronger and stronger, concentrated on the archipelage which was difficult to be kept under control; they interrupted the German sea supply lines, fired at motor vehicle convoys moving along the coastal highway and terrorized the population from their hideouts.
"I remember a case from own observation when an Italian seagoing tug, sailing under the German flag, ran aground on a reef south of Lussinpiccolo (January 1944) and was shot to pieces and blown up by heavily armed civilian bands. The crew consisting of Italian civilians Court No. V, Case No. VII.
and 5 German sailors were killed, except one who succeeded in hiding. Subsequently we rescued him.
"The islands were used by the Allied powers as bases for their special details and sabotage teams. Here exchanges and discussions with leading enemy commands took place according to reports I received from natives on the island of Asinelle where I was stranded for several hours after weathering a storm."
Q General, we will now refer back to the question which I had put, and to begin with I would like you to answer the question in whose hands the carrying out of these measures seen on a large scale was. By this I do not only mean the area of your corps but the whole coast which was threatened by a possible landing.
A The order for the execution of this measure was given by the army because it was a tactical measure. The execution was a matter of the difficulty in collaboration with the Croatian authorities and with the Croatian agencies. The corps within the scope of its tactical task issued the orders in this respect. The occupation of the islands was, for instance, the task of the 15th Mountain Corps. This task had been transferred to this corps and the corps then issued the orders to subordinate units. The operations themselves were then carried out by the divisions.
Q Regarding the problem of the occupation of the islands, we have comparatively little material in these documents. Therefore, I can at the moment only show you one document. I would like you to turn up in document Book page 48 of your document book which is page 63 of the English document book. Here you will find prosecution exhibit 570 which is Document NOKW-1772. We have submitted here a report on an operation to the 15th Mountain Corps by the 264th Artillery Regiment dated the 3rd of February 1944. The Prosecution has from this report, which is signed by a Lieutenant Frank dated the 3rd of February 1944, included in its document books the following excerpt: "By order of the 891st Infantry Regiment, all men capable of bearing arms were arrested and evacuated to Court No. V, Case No. VII.
the mainland. According to statements by the population, the bandits evacuated Prestko in the same night."
I would like to give you, General von Leyser, Document Book II of the Defense for this purpose, please. You have here Leyser Document Book No. XXXVII. It has already been offered as Leyser Exhibit 24. On page 108, General, you will find the complete report about this evacuation of the islands. Would you briefly give us your comments? I want to correct myself. I made a mistake. I did not offer this document as Leyser Exhibit 24 but as Exhibit 31. The page is correct--page 108, Document Book XX.
q. Looking at the total report we can clarify the operation. A unit of Regiment 891st received the order to mop up and occupy the island Ulinn? This mopping up was carried out, The bands which had before occupied the place Prestko on the island, had, when the German troops approached, evacuated Prestko. There was no fighting contact between the German troops and the bands. The transfer to the mainland of men who were capable of bearing arms was necessary because on the island itself there were to be left only comparatively small German forces. Therefore, the danger existed that this small German occupation force might be exposed to oppositions from this population which was opposed to them. Apart from that it was well known that the bands would recruit all those men on the islands who were capable of bearing arms. For this reason the evacuation of these islands was absolutely necessary for purely military reasons.
Q. Well, we will not deal with the focal point of the problem, General. By this I mean the order which was given for the evacuation. And we will also deal with those measures which were actually taken in this direction. First of all, a preliminary question, which I think of the greatest interest to the Tribunal; On the occasion of the evacuation of the islands and the evacuation of the coastal area, were necessary measures actually carried out or weren't they?
A. As I have already said, this question was greatly discussed, and there were many orders about this problem, but comparatively little actually happened.
Q. If I understand you correctly, witness, the evacuation measures were only carried out to a comparatively small extent. May I ask you why this was the case and why one deviated from the original plan? Whey weren't the evacuations carried out in the same manner as had been originally ordered?
A. Seen from a purely military point of view, it would of course, have been most expedient, as I said initially, to evacuate everybody. However, this was not done because it would have represented a considerable hardship for the civilian population. In the course of the occupation and mopping up of the islands we discovered that such a large number of civilian population was involved that we wouldn't know where to accommodate this large number of people. In the documents we have a short remark where the Corps reports that roughly 250,000 people are involved.
Q. One question: Do you mean that 250,000 people were involved who were to have been evacuated according to the original plan, or were there 250,000 people who were actually evacuated?
A. I mean there were 250,000 people who were to be evacuated, I must have expressed myself unclearly. And these two reasons make it clear why the order could not be carried out in such a harsh manner and that subsequently it was ordered that only those islands should be evacuated which were of a vital military importance, to begin with, only the band suspects were evacuated and everybody else was only supposed to have been evacuated in the event of an actual landing.
Q. May it please the Tribunal, I would like to submit a document to further clarify this point. This document is contained in Document Book I of the Leyser Defense on Page 55. This is Leyser Document No. 18, which I am offering under Leyser Exhibit No. 44. This document is an affidavit by Eberhard Hans Artur Einbeck, dated the 30th of August 1947. The affidant is Eberhard Hans Artur Einbeck, residing in Hamburg. The affidavit was sworn to before a notary in Hamburg on the same date.
Under numeral 1 the affidant describes his military career. In this connection it is only of interest what the Witness says in his last entry: "From 1 June 1944 to the end of the war I was Chief of Staff with the XVth Mountain Army Corps, of which General von Leyser was the Commander until the end of July, 1944." Under Numeral 2 the affidant deals with the evacuation of the Adriatic Coast, and the affiant says the following:
"Ideas about the evacuation of the Adriatic coast were exchanged between army and corps before my time, for when I took up my post it was clear to the commanders that put of humanity for the civilian population they could not be responsible for evacuating the coast. The evacuation of the Adriatic coast would have been absolutely necessary for tactical reasons. The fact that it was not carried out enabled the population to obtain a fairly accurate survey of the extension of our coastal bases in spite of preventive measures placing these areas off limits. The work of the enemy intelligence service was thereby rendered substantially easier. This disadvantage was deliberately accepted by our commanders because it was clear to them that out of consideration for these people a complete evacuation of the population in the coastal bases could under no circumstances be considered, It is quite possible that untrustworthy elements were evacuated in individual cases; I cannot give any details about this. It is a fact that the greater part of the Adriatic coast was not evacuated.
3.) Evacuations of individual persons who were suspected of being in contact with the enemy were all carried out in conjunction with the Croatian authorities. It was a territorial matter for the execution of which not the corps but rather the authorized German general in Agram, Glaise von Hortenau was responsible.
In my time General Tomasevic was assigned to the corps headquarters by the Croatian government and he had to handle these territorial matters in conjunction with the authorized German general in Agram."
Number 4 deals with the evacuation of certain sections of the Coast in October 1944. This is a period of time when General von Leyser was no longer present in that area. Therefore, I do not have to read that particular passage into the record. In the same way, Numeral 5 deals with the period of October and November, 1944, which also is a time period which is of no concern to General Leyser.
General, did I understand you correctly before to the effect that you said that the evacuations to the whole extent were militarily necessary, but that for humane considerations one restricted oneself to only evacuating the band suspects and only evacuating in those areas which were of vital military importance? Is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. General, we will now deal with the main document in this connection, which at least is theoretically the most important document. This is Exhibit 381 of the Prosecution, contained in Document Book XVI. It is on Page 55 of the English text of that Document Book and Page 104 of the German text of that Document Book. It is Document NOKW-674of the Prosecution. We have here the order by the Second Panzer Army, dated the 13th of February 1944. The reference says, "Evacuation of the Island and of the Coast in the event of an enemy landing." According to the distribution list this order also reached the XVth Mountain Corps. May I ask you in this connection, Witness, to give us your brief comments on the contents of this order?
A. A few days ago the Army leader discussed this order in detail, and I believe I have only here to refer to those parts which for me, as a tactical leader, are of a tactical importance. The first point which is important is No. 1, in accordance with which the entire male population capable of bearing arms on the islands along the Adriatic Coast is to be seized and transferred to the mainland immediately. The reasons why this was necessary from a military point of view I have described before. Also, I have said that necessary measures were only carried out to a comparatively small extent. Where the XVth Mountain Corps was concerned the situation was that this order represented an absolute military necessity. All that remained to be done was to regulate the manner in which this order was to be carried out or rather the extent to which this was to be carried out.
Q. Here, again, we face the problem, General, that something seemed to be of a military necessity which eventually was not carried out in just that extent. Am I to understand your testimony to the effect that you are trying to say that the German leadership conscientiously accepted military disadvantages for reasons of humanity? Is that correct?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. This order, General, which we have discussed, was it passed on to the competent divisions?
A. Yes, it was passed on to the two coastal divisions on the basis of the Army order.
Q. We will now turn to a further discussion of those evacuation matters, and in this connection we will deal with documents contained in Document Book XVI. Would you turn to Page 145 in your document Book, which is Page 100 of the English Document Book?
I have reference to that particular passage which you will find here repeatedly mentioned by the Prosecution Document No. NOKW-1445, which is Prosecution Exhibit 385. This is the War Diary of the XVth Corps, which contains a number of entries concerning the evacuation. First of all, I would like to point out that the passing on of the evacuation order was included in this War Diary on the 17th of February 1944.
General, we will now deal with the actual execution of these measures. To what extent were these measures carried out?
A Only to a very limited extent. In the War Diary which you have just mentioned and which I have in front of me, which is Exhibit 395, there are a number of reports about these facts. First of all, there is the report of the 24th of February, 1944. It says here and I quote: "In the area of the 264th Division, evacuation ordered for islands close to the coast is proceeding." This is being reported to the Second Panzer Army.
The next sentence is of importance and it reads there, I quote: "In order to evacuate the islands Molat, Dugietek, Kornat and Zirje, the islands have first to be liberated by fighting." I may at this point stress that these islands which are mentioned here represent the larger islands. "They were, to begin with, in the possession of the bands and the liberating by fighting was dependent as far as the time factor was concerned on shipping space. Simultaneously we had to contact the navy in that area so that it rendered sufficient protection for this purpose. The Italians, of course, when they capitulated, had destroyed quite a large amount of shipping space and sunk a number of ships. Also the bands which retreated to the islands had taken with them a part of the available ships so that we found ourselves rather short of shipping space. This made the mopping up of the islands pretty difficult."
Q General, I now would like you to refer back to Exhibit 381 which is an order of the Second Panzer Army dated the 13th of February. We briefly touched on this document before; it is contained on page 55 of the English text of Document Book XVI and on page 104 of the German text. I would like to ask you one question concerning this document. According to this document, it had been provided that the evacuated people would be used further and it says here that in this connection collaboration was intended with the German territorial agencies. By this I mean the German Plenipotentiary General in Albania and Croatia, the administrative and local headquarters as well as the indigenous authorities.
To clarify this problem, I would like to ask you, were you as Commanding General of the XV Corps, in charge of these territorial agencies mentioned here? Were they subordinate to you?
A No, the territorial agencies were never subordinate to me.
Q The order further states any number of details, General, concerning the further fate of the evacuees which is, for the moment, a theoretical intention. May I ask you whether these plans and intentions were ever realized? Were they ever carried out in the way as they are laid down here in this order?
A Since evacuation in actual fact was more or less an evacuation on paper, the use which was provided here for the evacuees was also not realized. There is some talk here about the labor service for the evacuees and no such thing was carried out by the XV Corps.
Q We don't want to stay very long with theoretical considerations of orders which were later amended, and which therefore only have a very small influence on the actual happenings but there is one more document which I would like to show you and which might be of importance in this connection. Would you please turn up in Document Book XVI, page 109 which is page 61 in the English Document Book? Here you will find Exhibit 382 which is Document NOKW-671. It is an order dated the 21st of February, 1944, and the subject again is the evacuation of the islands and of the coast in the event of an enemy landing. The subject is the same as the one in the previously mentioned order. Will you please give us a few comments on this particular order?
A This order dated the 21st of February, 1944, is an additional order to the basic order of the 15th of February, 1944. It says here that pursuant to the order of the army group, the report of completion of mission, in accordance with number three of the order mentioned in the reference, is to include the results of the measures ordered. It states further here what data the reports have to include.
Since, however, the evacuation, as I have already said, was hardly carried out, this particular order did not play any part whatsoever.
Q I believe I understood you correctly, General, if I assume that this is not a new basic order but merely an additional order which deals with the formal side of an order previously given?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q But there is one passage contained in this order which I would like to discuss with you. It says here, and I quote: "Report of completion of mission must therefore include the following daga: 2-I-d. How many were contracted for work in the Reich?"
This commitment in the Reich General, plays quite a considerable part in the presentation of the Prosecution and this passage might lead to the conclusion that the troops, which means indirectly you, were the responsible authority for a forced transfer of the evacuees for work in the Reich. What can you tell us about these things?
A Such an impression would be quite a wrong one. As I have repeatedly stated, the troops had nothing to do with the commitments of laborers in the Reich. This can be seen from the basic order of the 13th of February, 1944.
Q May I interrupt you briefly, General! You are having reference to, if I understood you correctly, to page 106 of the German text which is page 57 of the English Document Book. Will you now please continue?
A It says here: "The Military Commander Southeast is requested to point out to the labor authorities the possibility of recruiting labor for the Reich." These labor authorities which are responsible therefore for the recruitment of labor for the Reich were by no means subordinate to me or to the XV Corps. The additional order of the 21st of February 1944 is, as can be seen by its contents, a collective order which was not only passed on to one troop unit but also to the Military Commander Southeast, who was to point out to the employment authorities the possibility of a recruitment.
Only through this channel could a report about a labor commitment in the Reich reach the Second Army, tut not via the troops who had nothing to do with this.
Q In order to clarify this point completely, General, I would like to ask you one more question. There is some talk about commitment to the Reich and you said that the employment offices were to be pointed out the responsibilities for the recruitment for the Reich. Does, therefore, the word "commitment" -- does that mean that these people entered a contract on the basis of this recruitment or what do you mean?
A. It means a contract which these people entered.
Q We then have one more document to discuss, General, which again deals with the forced transfer of people into the Reich which has been so frequently discussed. This document again is contained in Document Book XVI, Will you, in your document book, turn up page 143 which is page 97 of the English text? There you will find this entry. This is Document NOKW-1418 of the Prosecution, which was submitted by the Prosecution as Exhibit 394. On the page mentioned, there are submitted a number of special instructions for the 20th fountain Army Crops concerning the supply, dated the 20th of June 1944. Under numeral 4, it says here: "Transfer of arrested indigenous personnel, band suspects, and deserters to employment in the Reich." I would like to briefly sketch the contents. In accordance with this communication, the Croatian government complained about the compulsory transfer in opposition to treaty regulation of members of the population into the Reich. In this order No. 91, it says: "Such measures were to be prevented. The recruiting and collecting of persons ready to work for the Reich may only be carried out through the offices of the Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year-Plan and this office is to work in collaboration with the Croatian offices." From this particular instruction, one might conclude.
General, that units subordinate to you had carried out compulsory transfers into the Reich before this order was issued. Would you like to clear up this point?
A The corps had no possibility whatsoever to carry out transfers into the Reich. The corps tried neither via camps nor via the competent offices to do this. If in this special instruction which you quote here, there is such a provision, that does not mean that from now on --- that before that such incidents had actually taken place and that the corps was concerned. The special instructions were merely a compilation of instructions issued by the army and this particular passage was included here as an information measure in order to instruct the troops concerning the legal situation.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned to 13 November 1947 at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Wilhelm List, et al., defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 13 November 1947, 0930, Justice Wennerstrum presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the court room will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal V. Military Tribunal V is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court room.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal you will ascertain as to whether or not all defendants are present in the court room.
THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all defendants are present in the court room except the defendant Lanz who has been excused in order to prepare his case.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed, Dr. Tipp.
ERNST VON LEYSER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. TIPP:
Q General, yesterday when we finished we discussed Exhibit 394, which were the special instructions of the 15th Mountain Corps for the supply No. 91 dated 20 June 1944. This document can be found in Document Book XVI of the Prosecution on page 97 of the English text and on page 143 of the German text. Maybe you would like to briefly tell the Tribunal what basically such an instruction for the supply meant for the German troops.
A These special instructions were issued by the Quartermaster General. They were based on directives which were issued by higher agencies such as the Army for instance. This particular instruction deals with the fact that somewhere on the part of the Croatian government complaints had been raised about some agency who was recruiting Croatians for labor commitment in Germany. These instructions which are contained in this order are intended to point out to the troops that such things mustn't happen; that instruction does not mean that this had already occurred in my sector of any where else. It was a kind of precautionary measure to point out to the troops that such a compulsory recruitment to Germany was not proper.
Q I would like to refer back in this connection to a document which I have already offered. This is Leyser Document No. 54 contained in my document book III on page 164. I have offered this document as Leyser Exhibit 24. With regard to this special joint I would like to refer back to numeral 4 of this affidavit and I would like to read a part of this affidavit into the record. Numeral 4 is on page 166 of the document book. The first passage of this numeral 4 which deals with prisoners has already been quoted by me and to this point which I am concerned with I would like to quote the second passage of numeral 4 on page 166 of Document Book III.
"The Corps neither possessed nor exerted any influence on the deportation of prisoners of war, or inhabitants of the country, for labor service in the Reich. If in the document submitted to me, Exhibit 394, mention is made in the special orders for supply, No. 91 of the 15th Mountain Army Corps of 20.6.1994, that the Croatian government complains that in violation of agreements inhabitants of the country captured in the partisan fighting, men suspected of being partisans, or deserters, are being deported to the Reich, then this does not mean that such cases occurred within the area of the Corps. If it had occurred, then I would remember it. This order was taken from a teletype or from special regulations of the Army and added to the existing regulations of the Corps as a precautionary measure. The Corps would have had no facilities for sending such people to the rear. Nor did the Corps exert any influence whatsoever on the deportation of evacuees to the Reich in the spring of 1944, when the coast and islands were evacuated. This was exclusively the duty of the agencies of the territorial power, in collaboration with Croatian government offices."
I would like to point out that the affiant, Freiherr von Tucher, according to numeral 1 of his affidavit, was Quartermaster on the Staff of the XV Mountain Corps. He was, therefore, the very man who would have to work on those special instructions within the staff of the corps. We can now continue, General, and I would like to ask you to tell the Tribunal what was the actual extent of the evacuating of the islands?