Q. Isn't it a matter of fact though, General, that on many occasions reprisal measures were taken within your corps area for just that very thing, failure on the part of the inhabitants to warn the troops of the nearness of partisans?
A. In that case I would like to ask you to deliver the proof of that.
Q. You don't believe that occurred?
A. No. One thing is very obvious, that if a reconnaissance patrol which assists the troops comes into a village and asks an inhabitant, "Is the enemy here?" But that's all, the people can only give me information if he really is in the same locality and not somewhere in the vicinity.
Q. Do I understand you then to say that you disapprove of reprisal measures which are taken only because partisans were in the vicinity of a particular village?
A. Well, that depends on what conduct they show and whether they shot, for instance - whether they shot at us, for instance, or not.
Q. Suppose the partisans were about five kilometers away from the village, and from that five kilometers distance fired upon German troops who were also within their range but not within the vicinity of the village either. Would you then take reprisal against the village?
A. Well, that again is an artificial reconstruction now, because the partisans could not possibly shoot with rifles, at that distance. They would have to shoot with artillery. The new mortars fire that way, particularly so the Russian mortars.
Q. You testified, General, that while you had tactical jurisdiction over SS units, you did not have any disciplinary jurisdiction over them. What do you mean by tactical jurisdiction?
A. That is correct. I said that I only had tactical jurisdiction or tactical authority, but no justification to take disciplinary measures. By tactics or by tactical orders one means that I could give directives for combat actions. For instance, a certain regiment secures a certain sector between a certain river and a certain mountain or in an area between the villages of Lamia-Levadia or Distomon. A regiment, a certain regiment secures the area against band attacks or similar orders, an order purely meant for attack for instance. The regiment advances via a certain line and attacks a certain village.
Q. Now, suppose you gave orders to a regiment or battalion or division to take reprisal measures, would that be considered a tactical order?
A. No, reprisal measures never constituted a tactical order. It is possible that from tactical combat actions such reprisal measures can result as General Lanz, I believe, described in great detail. One reconnoiters a certain locality; one is fired upon; one employs heavy weapons in order to diminish one's own losses, Mortar fire or whatever artillery is at one's disposal; and under fire one approaches such a village, storms it, eventually conquers it, and finds out who of the inhabitants had remained in the village, whether they participated in the fighting, that's now such an incident can develop.
Q. General, if reprisal measures are carried, out, not with tactical considerations, if they are concerned with security, why are they not also tactical orders, that is orders to take reprisal measures?
A. Because there is a basic difference. I just described to you a case how it could, possibly take place, and before that I gave you a few examples of tactical orders which I could give to a regiment.
Q. Do you consider reprisal measures matters which concern combat and security?
A. Well, I just said that that would make an exception.
Q. Now, would you look, General Felmy, in Document Book 12, at Page 94 in the German and Page 112 in the English. This is General Loehr's order of 10 August, 1943, when he was your commander. In Paragraph I he states that the execution of retaliation measures and evacuations are not matters of administration but rather measures of combat, and are of combat preparation and of security. Do I understand that you disagree with General Loehr in this regard?
A. I believe that General Foertsch has explained this situation here on direct examination or on cross-examination. I remember that he referred to this passage and said we wanted to get reprisal measures away from the bands of police officers and administrative officials, and in that sense he regarded it as a kind of combat measure. I believe that is why this particular word was used here.
Q. And if General Loehr had meant that retaliation measures were in fact measures of combat without exception, I take it you would disagree with him?
A. One would have to discuss that. In a brief passage of an order you cannot possibly express everything which one person means or interprets.
Q. Do you recall General Felber's testimony, General Felmy, to the effect that reprisal measures could not be distinguished between matters of tactics and matters of administration?
A. I believe that had some connection with the question of executive power, those commanders who held executive power were authorized to order reprisal measures.
Q. General Felmy, if a commander was subordinate to you for tactical purposes and you gave him an order, for example, to attack a given position, and he failed to carry out that attack, what could you do with him; could you arrest him; could you court martial him; could you relieve him of his command, perhaps?
A. Well, first of all that would depend whether I have disciplinary that is judicial authority over him. Let's assume he had been an officer, and then I would have to report the incident to the Army Group because I had no judicial authority over officers. I would have had the right to relieve the officer in question of his duty until a decision from the higher agency had been made.
Q. Let's consider the case of General LeSuire of the 117th Infantry Division. Suppose you had given him an order and he had failed to carry it out. You could have relieved him of his command, but the ultimate decision would have awaited the opinion of the Army Group, is that what you say?
A. Yes, but that again is a hypothetical case. General von LeSuire would have attacked if I had ordered him to do that
Q. General Felmy, what do you mean by disciplinary authority. If you have it, what can you do to a subordinate?
A. Well, there are any number of provisions which deal with questions of furlough, at certain times how the commanding general can grant furlough for soldiers. Then certain punishments have been laid down and according to them how the men under him could be punished. An officer could have fourteen days confinement to barracks. How long I could grant furlough to an officer, I do not oven recall by heart. The complex has something to do with promotions, with decorations, awards, etc. Under certain conditions I could award the Iron Cross to soldiers belonging to units tactically and disciplinary subordinate to me, but I could not award it to a member of my staff.
Q. General, if I might interrupt you, is disciplinary authority an important authority, or is it a relatively unimportant one?
A. No, it is an important one because it is connected with authority.
Q. Does it include the power to court martial?
A. Yes, I can court martial a subordinate. With certain ranks of officers I have to request such a court martial. I mean, I have to request that a court martial procedure be started against the officer concerned.
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
Q. Would you look now, General Felmy, at Document Book II, Page 137 in the English, Page 105 in the German. In this order General Felmy, you are given disciplinary authority over the Detachment Rosenberg, and I believe when you testified on direct you were asked what that meant, and you said it meant your jurisdiction to ask members of Rosenberg Detachment to salute properly and to wear their uniforms properly, and all of that. Did you mention the power to court martial at the time you discussed this document, do you recall?
A. Yes, the Rosenberg Detachment, as far as they were soldiers were concerned. What else was about there in that Rosenberg Detachment I can't tell you. With Lt. von Ingram there were five or six or even ten people who appeared in uniform. They were real soldiers.
Q. If any of the members of the Detachment Rosenberg had looted libraries and tried to find Jewish material in the libraries and archives you would have had power to court martial them if you disagreed with that activity by virtue of this power, would you not?
A. If that had been reported to me they would have been punished. If it is a more difficult and serious case to that it cannot be punished with disciplinary action, they would have had to be court martialed, because they were soldiers, and as long as they committed offenses of a more serious nature, crimes, they had to be, as soldiers, punished in a military manner.
Q. You never heard of the Detachment Rosenberg committing anything unseemly?
A. No.
Q. General Felmy, as I understand your testimony on direct, you ordered an investigation of the Distomon incident for two reasons, one because there was a false combat report made by the unit involved, in that they reported certain persons in Distomon were executed in the course of a combat action when in fact they had been executed in the course of a reprisal action, and secondly, you ordered the report because the unit involved had reported that twelve prisoners had been executed in the course of flight when in fact they had been executed in reprisal and contrary to Hitler's order to turn all captured partisans back to Germany for forced labor.
Have I summarized your testimony correctly?
A. On direct examination we did not discuss those details. The Distomon incident had two aspects where I was concerned. One was the unjustified reprisal measure. I reported this to the Army Group, and the Army Group reported it higher up. The second aspect was the false report, that the people had, so to speak, lied to me, which I discovered through the investigation.
Q. The Distomon incident occurred on the 10th of June, General Felmy. Do you recall when you ordered the investigation to be made?
A. On 10 June, I believe, according to the war diary, we received the false report which was later found out, about the Distomon events, when the report came in which was made by N.C.O. Koch of the General police. I believe that was the 12th of June. Subsequently a report was made to the Army Group, that was, which, so to speak, canceled our first report, the combat report, and instead established that on the basis of observations made by N.C.O. Koch the event took a different course. That is what I called excess. As a consequence the Army Group commissioned me to investigate the incident, which I did, in due course.
Q. You didn't order the investigation because of the reprisal measures which had been taken in Distomon, did you, you simply ordered it because there had been a false combat report?
A. Yes. After we had found out that the actual facts had been dressed up in a false report, it had become quite clear and obvious that the regiment had ordered reprisal measures which it was not entitled to order. Thy otherwise would they have falsified the report only to cover up for what they did? And as we can see from the files, they had succeeded in doing that once before. Otherwise the Army Group would not have accepted one of my reports with the remark, "This is parallel to the Klissura case".
Q. The Klissura incident by the same unit, the same regiment, General Felmy, occurred in April?
A. Yes, as can be seen from the files, that took place in April.
Q You testified that you never heard of that incident, the Klissura incident.
A. No, and I didn't hear about it.
Q. Where were your headquarters when you were commander of the Sixty-Eighth Corps, in Athens?
A. In June or April, 1944, in October, 1944, we left the Peloponnese and came to Sychico, near Athens. Sychico is a suburb of Athens, possibly about ten minutes distant by car. It is situated along a read leading to the east.
Q. In April -
DR. MUELLER-TORGOW: General, I believe you said 1943.
THE WITNESS: 1944 when we came from the Peloponnese.
Q. (By Mr. Fenstermacher) In April, 1944, at the time of the Klissura incident, then your headquarters were not in Athens?
A. Sychico is very near Athens. It is a suburb. It is quite close to Athens. One could almost call it Athens. I only wanted to make it quite clear, and that is why I mentioned this suburb, Sychico.
Q. There were General Loehr's headquarters at that time?
A. In Salonika. I myself was in Salonika around that time. I deputized for General Loehr from about the 21st of March, 1944, until the 30th of April, 1944, because General Loehr was, during this time, deputizing for Field Marshal von Weichs, as Field Marshal von Weichs at that time had gone to Hungary.
Q. And then you were General Loehr's deputy at the very time when the Klissura incident occurred?
A. Yes.
Q. And yet you never heard of it?
A. No. That can also be seen from the documents, that only after the objection raised by Minister Neubacher, who somehow through some channel heard about it, these investigations were started.
Q. General Felmy, the Klissura incident occurred on the 5th of April, 1944?
A. Yes.
Q. At the time when you were deputy to General Loehr as commander of Army Group E?
A. Yes.
Q. The SS Grenadier Regiment 7 which committed the deeds in Distomon was subordinate to an SS division, which in turn was subordinate to Army Group E, is that not correct?
A. Yes, it is correct. There was an SS unit which served reserve purposes and was subordinate to the Army Group and was located somewhere in the area of Salonika. I really don't know just where.
Q. Even though the incident occurred by a division under your command as deputy to Loehr you never heard of it?
A. No, for the reason that the report which the division of the regiment submitted was incorporated into a combat report and sounded like a combat report, and therefore, one had no suspicion. Only after Envoy Neubacher's interference, who heard about it through different channels, the Army Group's attention was directed to this incident, and then an investigation was ordered.
I believed this investigation was carried out in May and June, 1944. I believe that that must be quite clear from the files because General Tucher who was commander of Salonika -- Aegean, and to him the division was subordinated for tactical purposes, was in charge of the investigation, and he was taken in by the false report. That is why at that time in April it happened nobody suspected anything. It was just a combat report like all other combat reports. At that time it had not yet become obvious what the regiment had actually done. That only was found out much later.
Q. Would you look now, General Felmy, at page 16 and 17 in your document book, page 24 of the English, Your Honors, still on the Distomon incident. Page 17 of Document Book 21 in the German. You will note there, General Felmy, that Lautenbach's commander writes to you: "I request to be permitted to punish him by disciplinary action."
A. Yes.
Q. If you had no authority over the SS division, why is the SS commander requesting you to be permitted to punish a subordinate of the SS commander?
A. I can't tell you that.
Q. Will you look now on page 17, at the bottom, of your book, page 26 of Your Honors' document book, where the SS regimental commander says again:
"I request that the matter rest with the disciplinary punishment of the case and not to direct further measures."
Did you have the authority to direct further measures for the disciplining of the company commander involved?
A. No, I didn't have that, in no case.
Q. If you had no authority, why did you deign to agree to the procedure suggested by the regimental commander? Why did you not simply say: "I have no authority. You may do as you like?"
A. Yesterday I tried to make that clear on direct examination I said the note which I wrote under the text here is illogical. Logically, I ought to have said: "I am not competent to give authority in this case," and I also said at the moment I do not know why I did it at that time. Sometimes one is apt to make mistakes.
Q. Will you look, General Felmy; at page 42 of your bookpage 55 of Your Honors' document book. Here is a communication from the C in C South East Field Marshal von Weichs, to the OKW, and Field Marshal von Weichs writes that the commander asked you for permission Courts 5, Case 7 to limit investigation in the case to disciplinary punishment."
That would imply, General Felmy, that disciplinary punishment is not particularly severe, is that the case?
A. Court martials are, of course, more severe than disciplinary punishments. I don't know why Field marshal von Weichs wrote these words. He makes the same logical mistake as I did. Really, all he ought to have written is: "That has nothing to do with General Felmy. He is not competent in this case."
Q. Von Weichs writes that you have agreed to a disciplinary procedure. Could it be assumed that von Weichs thought that you had the power to disagree?
A. I don't know what von Weichs thought. One thing is certain, he knew that those people were not subordinated to me in a disciplinary way.
Q. He made the same mistake, so far as clarity is concerned, that you did?
A. Yes. That happens quite frequently that a mistake goes on from one channel to another. That can happen.
Q. General Felmy, throughout this whole incident of Distomon, and the Klesura incident as well, there were protests on the part of Minister Neubacher and those protests are addressed to OKW and to Field Marshal von Weichs, but there is not one single mention of the protest addressed to Himmler, who was the Reichsfuehrer SS, and I take it from your testimony, the ultimate commander of the SS unit involved here. Does that strike you as particularly peculiar?
A. First of all, I don't know what Envoy Neubacher wrote to Field Marshal von Weichs who was the Armed Forces Commander, South East. I don't know what discussions they had. I believe both of them were together in Belgrade. At least, for sometime. Furthermore, I don't know what steps the Army Group took on their own. I wasn't informed of that. They didn't inform me, so that I do not know what steps were taken in the matter higher up than my own agency and I was in no position to know it.
Q. Was it customary for SS units under your tactical jurisdiction to make requests of you regarding the disciplining of their subordinates ?
A. There was only this one case which I experienced. That was the only time when SS units were tactically subordinated to me in Greece.
Q. Do you know what happened to SS Standartenfuehrer Lautenbach, who was responsible for the Distomon incident?
A. I can't tell you that because, at the end of July, the regiment was withdrawn from that area and committed somewhere else. Police Regiment 18 left the Peloponnes and returned to its old area of Commitment near Levadia.
Q. You never inquired what the SS had done by way of disciplining Lautenbach?
A. Whom should I have asked at the SS?
Q. Well, I'm sure I don't know, General Felmy, but weren't you particularly interested in view of the terrible atrocities and exe excesses that had happened to the person responsible for that?
A. I said that the incident Distomon had two aspects where I was concerned. What I was interested in was to uncover the false report. The excesses, as such, had been reputed to higher agencies and were dealt with and pursued by higher agencies. Furthermore, the events of the war took such a course that something else happened four or six weeks later and one could not pursue one individual case. Above all, the unit did not even remain in my own area and so I did not follow up the incident.
Q. If you had wanted to, General Felmy, could you have asked the SS to court martial and relieve of his command the Standartenfuehrer Lautenbach?
A. I didn't have that idea at all because, as I said, the SS unit did not remain in the area and until an investigations starts which has been reported to higher headquarters, always takes some time.
Q. The SS and the Wehrmacht were very competitive. They were great rivals, were they not, General Felmy?
A. Competitive is perhaps not quite the right expression. We didn't have any inferiority complexes, but it was apparent that the SS was privileged where awards, promotions, and decorations and other things were concerned. That made our soldiers and officers rather angry at times. we old soldiers, did not stoop to those things.
Q. You weren't jealous of the SS's favor with the Inner Circle?
A. Jealousy! No, Mr. Fenstermacher. I did not love them. One is only jealous of a person who one at least likes.
Q. You wouldn't be trying to push any responsibility off on the SS here, would you, General Felmy?
A. How do you mean, push any responsibility over to the SS? I don't know what you mean.
Q. Do you recall, General Felmy, that in the report of the regimental commander on the Distomon incident, he states that he was convinced that higher authorities would have ordered reprisals in the case of the Distomon attack"
A. Please, on what page is that?
Q. I believe that's on your page 16 - page 23 of Your Honors' document, book.
"The regiment - in complete accordance with SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Lautenbach - is convinced that the competent authorities would have ordered reprisal measures against Distomon. This would have meant renewed enemy resistance and attacks and it would have meant a high fuel consumption because of the required large amount of troops."
Would you have ordered reprisal measures in this case, General Felmy?
A. There was no reason to take such measures.
Q. You disagree with the regimental commander's observations here?
A. That seems a bit far-fetched, what he says.
Q. Will you look now, General Felmy, at page 32 of your book page 43 of Your Honors'? You state there:
"The shooting to death of prisoners is a transgression against the order of the Fuehrer who has determined that all prisoners of war are to be sent to Germany for labor employment."
A. Yes.
Q. Do you consider that order a tactical order?
A. You mean the Fuehrer Order?
Q. Yes.
A. Generally speaking, the OKW did not issue any tactical orders. The OKW gave operational directives and sometimes, where it intervened more strongly, it gave an operational order, but a high agency like that does not give tactical orders. That is a matter of subordinate agencies.
Q. You go on to say that you no longer have any lever to take steps against the District Chief of Levadia. What did you mean by that?
A. What page is that, please?
Q. On page 32 of your document book and page 43 of the English.
A. Yes, I've got the passage you mean. It says here:
"Through the conduct of the SS Sturmbannfuehrer and battalion commander Rickartz, not only the counter-propaganda is rendered invalid which has been started by the general command. Therefore, I have no longer any lever to take measures against the District Chief of Levadia."
If I had discovered that the report of the regiment had not been falsified and that the events had actually taken place in the way they were reported by the regiment, then I would have put the district chief of Levadia before a court because of slander.
Q. Who was the District Chief of Levadia?
A. I don't know that.
Q. Was he subordinate to you?
A. No, he was subordinated to the military commander and I would have approached him. We quite often felt the effects of this exaggerated propaganda and that is why I say the counter-propaganda started by the general command has been rendered invalid because it was now senseless. Obviously, we could not just lie in any way we pleased, because what had happened was against us. But at first it did not look like this. Therefore, it doesn't speak against me that I rather believed a report submitted to me than I believed Greek propaganda. I believe that's fairly obvious. After I had learned the true facts, and after I had established the fact that the regiment had actually lied to me, this prerequisite no longer existed for me.
Q. You say that the area of Levadia was within the jurisdiction of General Speidell as Military Commander of Greece?
A. Yes, the whole area was under the jurisdiction, except for the time when the Peleponnes was declared a combat zone, but Levadia the whole area up to Salonika was under the jurisdiction of the Military Co Commander of Greece in accordance with the order of October, 1943, when the Italians left the German alliance and the part that, up to then, had been occupied by the Italians was now occupied by the Germans.
Q. The 18th Police Regiment, which you testified on direct examination was operating in the area of Levadia, was also subordinate to the Military Commander of Greece?
A. Yes, it was subordinated to the Military Commander of Greece but, to the best of my information, it had special instructions for the band combatting from Himmler, but I believe that General Speidell will be better informed about this than I am. Officially, and in accordance with the service regulation as I have seen it here, the high SS and police were subordinate to the military commander.
Q. General Felmy, if you had jurisdiction over combat matters in the area, did you not have jurisdiction over the 18th Police Regiment that was conducting warfare against the bands also in the Levadia area?
A. No, that was the strange part of it. I myself was surprised that Regiment 18, which was normally subordinated to the Military Commander, and the SS Regiment which was newly transferred into the area, was not subordinated to the military commander for that time but to the 68th Corps instead. That was one of the many measures which appeared illogical at the time, but I am afraid, in some cases, things did not always take a logical course.
Q. On these pages, General, from 30 to page 32 in your book and page 41 to 44 in the English document book, you order the SS Division to conduct an investigation regarding the events at Distortion.
A. Yes.
Q. How did you have power to order an investigation if you had no control over this unit?
A. Because this also refers to the tactical subordination as far as it was ordered by the Army Group to me.
Q. You simply had the power to order an investigation but, once you learned that atrocities had been committed, you had no power to go any further?
A. Personally, no.
Q. Did the Army group?
A. No, the Army group had to report it to higher up, and only the OKW and Himmler could clear the problem up between them. Even Field Marshal von Weichs, Army Group F, which was the official channel at the time, could not have done anything officially against the SS.
Q. The Army was simply a fact-finding agency?
A. Yes, and it had to report them.
Q. In this communication of yours, General Felmy, can you point out perhaps the passage where you protest because on the excess had been committed? You go on to report that the report is false. Will you perhaps indicate where you have protested because a substantive atrocity has been committed?
A. I don't say it in that report at all. Here I am only proving that the report is false.
Q. Did you ever protest to Army Group E, General Felmy, that you were outraged because an atrocity had been committed within your area?
A. To the best of my knowledge, as soon as I received information from NCO Koch, I reported to the Army Group about the incident. I cannot tell you now by heart the actual wording of this report.
Q. But did you demand an investigation?
A. The Army Group ordered me to be in charge of such an investigation.
Q. Did you request the Army Group to give you permission to conduct the investigation?
A. The Army group ordered me to do this. Following my report, the Army Group ordered that I conduct such an investigation in order to establish whether the report of NCO Koch, member of the Secret Field Police, was actually correct in actual fact.
That had to be made sure of.
Q. I am wondering whether you yourself took the initiative in demanding the right to conduct an investigation.
A. That was not necessary because simultaneously with my report the order arrived and the problem was also discussed over the telephone. I remember distinctly that the then Chief of the General Staff of Army Group E, General Schmidt-Richter, spoke to me about this on the telephone.
Q. Would you look, General Felmy, at your own document book 3 at page 38? The affiant Hammer says here, at the bottom of page 38:
"Also, however, as far as I can recall, the Fourth SS Armored Police Division was, in the meantime, no longer stationed within the area of command of the Army Group. The whole matter was transferred for further action to OKW."
If the division had remained within the area of the Army Group and of your corps, would the matter have had to be transferred to OKW or could you have done certain things yourself?
A. In any case it would have to be referred to the OKW because the OKW would have had to clear up the problem with Himmler. The OKW had to cause Himmler to have an investigation started on the basis of this report because an SS division, subordinate, in the final analysis, to him, was concerned. The OKW, as such, had no right to order the SS to do anything.
Q. The transfer of the division out of the corps area then is an unimportant incident so far as the power which the Army had to discipline the SS unit commander here involved?
A. I could not follow that trend of thought quite. A connection between the Distomon incident and the fact that the SS division was withdrawn from the area, is that what you mean?
Q. I mean, General Felmy, the fact that the division was transferred out of your area is of no importance in this connection?
A. No, I do not believe that is so in this case. It is possible, but I don't know.
Q. You returned to Greece for the second time, General Felmy, I believe in May, 1943?
A. Towards the end of May, 1943. That is quite correct.
Q. And in July, the change of government between Mussolini and Badoglio took place, and on the 8th of September Italy capitulated to the Allies?
I believe you said that on the 9th of September, 1943, you were in Patras dining with an Italian commander?
A. Yes, I dined with him on the evening the capitulation or the collapse of Italy was announced. That was in Patras, that is correct. That was on the occasion of one of the usual Pelopponesus inspection trips which I undertook. We had to take great interest in the Italian bases because, in our opinion, old fashioned kind of tactics were pursued there. That is how it happened that by pure chance, on the 7th and 8th, I believe, or on the 8th I was in the Patras area and in the evening I was the guest of the Italian admiral who was stationed in Patras. I don't know his rank. He was a kind of Naval commandant such as we established later on.