AFTERNOON SESSION The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Courtroom will please find their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: You may proceed.
DR. SAUTER: We had last discussed before the recess Document No. 102 on page 4 of the Geitner Document Book IV which was offered under Exhibit No. 87. In this document, there is of importance the entry under 10 February 1944. That is on page 48 of Geitner Document Book IV and the excerpt reads: "Attacks by partisans on an ambulance train carried out under violation of international law regulations. Consultation with the deputy chief of staff for the improvement of the situation of civilian population that is under the 11th of February 1944."
The balance of the contents is concerned with difficulties which existed concerning the Bulgarians and fierce ethnic fights between the Bulgarian inhabitants. I don't want to read all that in detail; I will instead turn to Document No. 103 Geitner 103 that is on page 51 of Geitner Document Book IV and it will be offered under Geitner Exhibit No. 88.
Under the date 13 March 1944 we have an example for conferences concerning provisions for the civilian population, the putting at the disposal of the population of vehicles for this purpose. Under the date of the 17th of March, we hear about conferences concerning the relations with the Highest SS and Police Leader in Albania, and it is said that this relationship was intolerable.
Now I would like to deal with Document 104; that is on page 53 of Geitner Document Book IV and it will be offered under Geitner Exhibit No. 89. This dates from April 1944 and here again we have entries dealing with the welfare measures for the population. I would like to stress that these are documents which we received from Washington. That is, they are not documents which were produced now for this trial.
Now I would like to turn to Document 105 which will become Geitner Exhibit 90. It is on page 55 of Geitner Document Book IV. Here again we have entries which show the welfare measures taken for the population. One can be seen from the entry dated 16 May 1944. It is further mentioned that care is taken for the maintenance of the food level for the civilian population for the disposal of transport space for this purpose. This is stated under the date of 19 May 1944. The entry of 25 May 1944 on page 56 of Geitner Document Book IV shows the anti-Serbian attitude of Hitler. This made it very hard for the German generals to cope with the situation in the Balkans. These then are the excerpts from the War Diary and they were contained in Documents 82 through 105 in Geitner Document Book IV.
The following documents 106, 107 and 108, on page 57 through 59 also came from Washington. They show -- and that is why the defendant von Geitner is submitting them -- that the Commanders in Serbia carefully examined every incident that might give cause for a reprisal measure and by no means saw in every such incident an occasion to order reprisal measures.
Document Geitner 106 on page 57 on Geitner Document Book IV will be offered under Geitner Exhibit No. 91. This document indicates the following. Here it says "with the reprisal action of 20 August 1943, the attack has been expiated. The shooting of further 50 Communist hostages is refused."
It is signed:
"The Military Commander Serbia" and the signature is "Ia" which was not the defendant von Geitner. Then we have initial "B", handwritten, and below that "G", also handwritten. From other documents, we know that the initial "B" apparently means First Lieutenant Bode who is the one who was responsible for this and the initial "G" is the initial of the defendant who had to initial all these documents. This is a reprisal order which was given on order by General Longschar.
Geitner Document 107, on page 58 of Document Book IV, will be offered under Exhibit Number 92. This moves along similar lines. Here we have an order by General Felber, who was the second commander of the defendant von Geitner, and it says in the document that "Threats of reprisals and retaliation measures for the members of the SS.-Pol. Panzer Inf. Rgt. 2 who disappeared during action against the village Grnajka are out of the question according to..." and then follow some figures. The order is signed by Felber, and then we find the initial "G", which is the defendant Geitner's initial. This again is an order which shows that the second commander also did not see in every incident an occasion to issue reprisal measures.
The next document, which is Geitner Document No. 108, on page 59 of Geitner Document Book IV, will be offered under Exhibit Number 93. The contents of this document is of no great importance. It deals with the compensation for damages occurred through bombing.
This brings me to Geitner Document Number 109, on page 60 of Geitner Document Book IV, and the following pages. This document Till be offered as Geitner Exhibit 94. During the examination of the defendant von Geitner I have announced that the defendant had the desire to make some comments on a number of documents about which I could ask him during his examination. These are documents which, in my opinion, have no particular importance, but in the list of documents the Prosecution has charged the defendant von Geitner with a certain responsibility concerning these documents without, however, indicating of what this responsibility consisted in detail and from what facts it was supposed to be deducted. In the interests of preserving time and in order not to deal for a whole day on things which are of no particular importance, I have included General von Geitner's statements concerning these matters in the affidavit which I am offering as Geitner Document Number 109, Geitner Exhibit 94, on page 60 of Geitner Document Book IV. The document covers pages 60 through 71.
And there will be also Document Number 110, which I shall offer under Exhibit Number 95. In this document the defendant Geitner makes statements in a similar manner concerning the excerpts from the War Diaries which have been submitted. In this affidavit the defendant von Geitner deals with the individual documents.
MR. FULKERSON: If your Honors please, I object to the presentation of this document. The defendant was on the stand and he had an opportunity to ask him about all these matters. There appears to be nothing mentioned in this affidavit which was not known to the defendant at the time that he was on the stand. If, as Dr. Sauter has indicated, he didn't ask the defendant questions about these matters because he considered they were of not sufficient importance to be gone into then, it seems to me to be pointless to go into it if it has no probative value and is of no value. If, on the other hand, it does, then Prosecution should certainly have an opportunity to cross-examine the defendant about these matters.
DR. SAUTER: If your Honors please, as defense counsel in such a case one always seems to be in a predicament. The Prosecution had at the time presented long lists where on the right side it was stated which defendant was in detail allegedly charged with what particular document. That is what happened to the defendant von Geitner also. He was, for instance, charged with all individual reports which came to the Commander of Serbia or were sent out from the command of Serbia to higher agencies. All those reports were used as incriminating material against the defendant von Geitner. It is my own personal opinion that one can hardly think it possible that the defendant von Geitner can be responsible for every detail that the reports contain from his agency or directed to his agency. This is why I myself did not deem it necessary to ask the defendant von Geitner when he was on the witness stand questions about six, twelve, or 50 documents, but I can quite understand that defendant von Geitner feels that he wants to make comments about every one of these documents since the Prosecution has assorted, without giving any detailed reason, that these documents contain an incrimination for the defendant von Geitner.
My suggestion to accept one or two affidavits which contain comments which in my opinion are not of particular importance was merely made in the interest of preservation of time. If I was to ask the defendant von Geitner on the stand about those matters that would take one full day. I am ready to do that, if the Prosecution wishes it to be handled that way -- we can do that -- but I don't think that it is correct that we waste time in this way.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARGER: The Tribunal will receive the exhibit with the understanding that the defendant can be cross examined on any points therein raised that seem important to the Prosecution.
DR. SAUTER: Thank you, your Honor.
From these two documents, Geitner 109 and 110, which are Geitner Exhibits 94 and 95, I shall not read anything in detail. There are in these affidavits comments about every document which we did not discuss on the direct examination. If the court, during their preparation of their judgment, should encounter any document in connection with which the court wishes any comments of the defendant von Geitner, they will find such statements in these two affidavits. These two affidavits were duly sworn to and properly certified. That was the last document contained in Geitner Document Book IV.
This brings me to Geitner Document Book V. This Document Book contains Geitner Documents 111 through 144. These documents consist in a number of affidavits concerning the method of warfare of the Partisans and concerning the question whether or not the Partisans are to be regarded a regular belligerent army. A number of the documents contained in this Document Book deals with Geitner's service in this territory and describes the difficulties which he encountered there. These affidavits also relate the attitude which von Geitner showed as a German general towards the civilian population.
If your Honors please, concerning all these subjects with which these affidavits deal, we have had a number of documents at various times. If we were to read everything contained in this Document Book we would repeat a great many things, and that is why I- shall be comparatively brief when reading from these documents, but I would be obliged if the Tribunal takes judicial notice of the contents of the whole of the Document Book, even where it is not read.
The first three documents, Numbers 111, 112, and 113, have been mentioned at an earlier date and have been presented to the court at an earlier time and have been accepted at such time. Those are Documents Geitner 111, which was given Geitner Exhibit Number 28, Document 112, which was given Geitner Exhibit Number 29, and Document 113, which was given Geitner Exhibit Number 30. These are three documents which merely contain the formula of oath for throe affidavits submitted earlier. Your Honors will recall that some time ago I presented three affidavits where through an error the formula of oath was missing; so that these affidavits have the properly required form, we have now added the formulas of oath as separate documents and presented at the time when we dealt with the affidavits proper.
I shall now turn to the next document in this Document Book, which is Document Geitner 114, contained in Geitner Document Book V, contained on page 4 of this Document Book, and this will be offered under Geitner Exhibit Number 96.
This is an affidavit executed by one Werner Welsch who states that he was ADC with the Commander-in-Chief Southeast, which is the High Command of Army Group F, during the period from 1 August 1944 to 1 March 1945. That is the agency which was the superior agency of the Military Commander for Serbia. In this affidavit the affiant relates a particularly striking occurrence which violated the regulations of international law. It was a cunning attack by partisans directed against a motor column of the German Ambassador and his staff. This is a flagrant violation of international law and the extraterritorial status of the Ambassador. I recommend the contents of this document to the judicial notice of the Tribunal. I shall merely read from page 5 a sentence which is underlined towards the end of figure b). That is page 5, the last sentence of paragraph b):
"Since 15 October in the morning bandit formations and insurgents, partly in German Army and Police uniforms, above all in the northern part of the city, joined in the battle, red flags hoisted at various points."
From paragraph c) we can read that:
"According to information received up till now our own losses in the battle for Knin are 4,488 men, of which, 1,058 are wounded and safe, 700 wounded captured by the enemy. 2,730 are dead or missing."
Then we find the statement that of the 700 wounded many were found slain or shot dead by the bandits. Some of them were mutilated as to not be recognizable anymore and were later found dead. This statement is duly sworn to and properly certified. This affidavit is a contribution to the chapter of band warfare.
MR. FULKERSON: May I ask Dr. Sauter from what documents these two extracts were taken? We have two quotations here which purport to be from the Daily Report of the Supreme Commander Southeast.
Where are those documents that those two extracts are taken from?
DR. SAUTER: One moment. The answer can be found towards the beginning of paragraph b) on the bottom of page 4. It says there: "The following is a verbatim extract from the Daily Report of the Commander-in-Chief Southeast to the OKW operational department." It is dated 15 October 1944, and then we find the report which I read in excerpt just now. The reports themselves, if the Prosecution are interested in this, can be found among the documents which we received from Washington. They can be found among the war diaries for the Commander-in-Chief Southeast. We studied these war diaries and checked up on the correctness of these statements.
MR. FULKERSON: Very sell; I have no objection.
DR. SAUTER: This brings me to the next document which is offered as Geitner Exhibit No. 97. It is an affidavit executed by one Karl Gierhardt. The affiant describes in paragraph a) an attack of partisans committed against an anti-tank company during which the company commander and one officer as well as forty men were killed. In paragraph b) the affiant describes the appearance of Serbian partisans in Italian uniforms, so that the German troops could not recognize whether they were confronted by foe or friend. This is clearly a violation of international law. In paragraph c) the affiant again relates an attack which contradicted the provisions of international law during which the German soldiers were captured by the partisans, disappeared and were never seen again. They never returned to their troop unit and were never seen or heard of again. Obviously they were murdered during captivity. In paragraph d) the affiant relates an incident concerning a German noncommissioned officer whom he found lying in the road with his throat cut.
He was lying in a pool of blood. This again constitutes a conduct which is in flagrant violation of all regulations of international law.
In paragraph III on the bottom of the page the affiant describes in several examples how fanatic and fierce the Ethnic struggle was. He reminds how local residents told that the destructions connected with atrocities of all kinds were the result of the fights between Moslems and Chetniks on the one hand and both of these groups against the partisans on the other hand.
In paragraph b) the affiant talks about plundering, looting, arrests, deportations carried out by the partisans against each other. In paragraph c) the affiant talks of villages which the partisans had looted of all their livestock and food supplies. In paragraph d) we have a description of the way in which the Serbs confronted those Croats who were not Catholic on the Save Bridge either to convert their faith or be thrown into the river -- where many drowned. I don't want to deal with details here because it would only be a repetition of what we have heard from many witnesses before. I would merely like to stress that the affiant Gierhardt makes these statements from his own observations because he was active down there. In the Balkans he was the commander of an artillery detachment from May, 1943, up to the end of the War. This he states in the introductory notes of his affidavit.
In document -- just a minute. I shall not offer Document 116. It is not material for this case, but Document 117 which is on page 11 of Geitner Document Book No. 5 will be offered under Geitner Exhibit No. 98. This affidavit describes from the lips of an affiant, Hans Knorr, who was 1st Lieutenant and chief of an air force signal construction company from 1943 to 1944 -- and in Serbia in this capacity-
his observations of partisan surprise attacks. He describes the cruelty of the partisans, the mutilated corpses of Serbian inhabitants, the use of German airforce uniforms by Serbian partisans, etc. All these are matters which are in defendant von Geitner's opinion in no way related to international law, and, therefore, which put these partisans beyond the provisions and regulations of international law.
In Document 118 on page 19 which is Exhibit 99 we find an affidavit executed by one Karl Scherbauer in Bad Reichenhall who was a telephone operator with the Radio Communications Regiment Southeast from 1 October 1941 to 31 August 1944. That is for three years. I don't want to read this affidavit because it deals mainly with the situation in Greece. There is only one point which might be of interest. He towards the end relates an instance where a group of women, several hundred, attacked a German motor column and slaughtered the crew of the motor column cruelly. The affiant relates this on page 14 towards the end of paragraph d). The affiant says, if I may read just one sentence: "The corpses showed gruesome mutilations, for instance both eyes gouged."
This brings me to the next document 119, which will become Geitner exhibit 100. This is on page 16 of Geitner document book 5. It is an affidavit executed by one Bernhard Gruber, who according to his statements was squadron leader of the 2nd Reconnaissance detachment 116 during the period from 1 May 1943 to 1 September 1944. In his affidavit he makes reference to the Kalavrita incident, which is an incident that has been discussed frequently in a different context. His detachment took part in this incident. On page 16 toward the last third of this page, he says:
"Upon further search for the prisoners, they were finally found as corpses by the Battalion under our Command. The prisoners had been driven into the Chelmos up to a ravine, about 30 meters deep which extended at that point in to a small basin. This spot is located about 8 km southeast of the village Masi, close below the tree boundary. Here the prisoners were chained together by ten and placed upon a rock near the ravine. Then they were shot at and thrown down the rock. Only one escaped and was found by our detachment with a shot - wound and broken arms and ribs."
I don't have to read the balance of this document, the affiant merely states that he saw on the spot either 78 or 76 dead personally and he himself interrogated the one soldier who escaped.
This affidavit also has been duly sworn to and the signature is properly certified.
This brings me to the next document, which is Geitner document No. 120, on pages 18 to 20 and which will be offered under Geitner exhibit 101. It is an affidavit executed by a battalion commander Hermann Wissmann. He was a battalion commander during the period from March, 1944 until spring, 1945. I don't want to read this statement in detail. In paragraph 1 on pages 18 and 19 the affiant describes the cunning and deceptive method of warfare used by the partisans and the terror acts committed against the railway lines.
In paragraph 11 on page 19 the affiant describes sabotage acts committed against railway lines. He mentions for instance on page 19 that the insurgents during one night alone had blown up the railway line at 52 places between Sunja and Kostajniza. That is not only on one isolated spot, but on 52 different places.
In paragraph 111 on page 20 it is stated that civilians also participated in the fighting of the partisans against the German troops. The affiant goes on to say that the civilians threw away their arms just before they were captured so that they appeared as harmless peasants or shepherds.
In paragraph IV on page 20 the affiant relates a particularly flagrant incident and he says on page 20, paragraph IV:
"I was encircled together with other units in Zajecar (Serbia) from 3 to 7 October 1944. In the morning of the 8 October I made a sortie westward. Thereby more than 300 severely wounded men were placed on 20 trucks, These left the town behind the attack group. I myself took over the rear cover and followed behind the seriously wounded men. By heavy enemy fire on the point where the sortie was made several trucks were hit and blocked the road forming an obstacle for the following trucks. These met with a hard fate; because a gap opened behind the advance party which the enemy immediately broke into. The fog concealed these occurrences, Until I came to the spot half an hour later, the enemy had acted cruelly towards the seriously wounded men. One German soldier for instance lay in a truck, stripped naked and withhis hands fastened with nails to the planks on the bottom of the truck. He had already been severely wounded and probably died in consequence of this ill-treatment.
In consequence of the battle I could not state further details. However, several soldiers reported to me that day similar cruelties." Thus for my quotation from paragraph IV, which proves the atrocious manner in which individual partisan groups behaved toward severely wounded men.
In paragraph V the affiant relates welfare measures taken for the population and he does the same in paragraphs VI and VII. I recommend these paragraphs to the judicial notice of the Tribunal.
The next affidavit, which is document No. 121, which is in Geitner document book 4 will be offered as exhibit 102. This is an affidavit of Otto Lips, who according to his statements, at the end of his affidavit was a non-commissioned officer in Serbia. He describes in paragraph 1 an incident where his agency was attacked and one man only succeeded in escaping. Later on, on the spot where the surprise attack had taken place were found four German soldiers whose throats were cut and there eyes were put out. Other soldiers were missing and never returned. This seems again to be a case where they were murdered.
In paragraph 11 the affiant goes on to relate a surprise attack, which he observed as an eye witness. During this surprise attack were found 20 corpses of German soldiers near Belgrade, who were lying side by side in one line alongside the road, completely stripped, without identification tags and they had obviously been slain from the front. Skulls and faces were smashed. The corpses could not be identified. The affiant goes on to say toward the and of paragraph 11 on page 23, toward the end of the page:
"Nearly all atrocities by partisans, of whom there existed different groups, were committed by partisans who wore the Soviet Star and who wrote upon the wall of all houses and ruins in Jugoslavia "Zivio drug Tito -- Zivio drug Stalina."
This affidavit executed by the non-commissioned officer Lips has been duly sworn to and properly certified.
Let me now turn to Geitner document No. 122, which will be offered as Geitner exhibit 103. This is on page 25 of Geitner document book 5. That is exhibit No. 103 and it is an affidavit executed by one Dr. Heinz Reuter.
He was a doctor and a member of the Board of Health. He was an army physician and as such acted in Serbia during the war. His affidavit deals mainly with the constant attacks from the partisans and directed against the Red Cross, which was ignored regularly. These attacks were directed against transports of wounded, first aid stations and hospitals. The affiant says for instance on page 25 in paragraph 1:
"Horrors and outrages were part of the picture of war in the Balkans. No attention was paid to the sign of the Red Cross on the part of the Communists, namely."
That is the end of my quotation and then the affiant goes on to cite a number of individual instances. He describes for instance toward the end of Paragraph 1 that the partisans fired upon funerals of German soldiers on the way from the village to the nearby grave yard. He mentions in paragraph II that the hospital trains were regularly fired on. Then in paragraph 11 on page 2, he says:
"Our ambulance trains were regularly fired on. Then there were the outrages on railways as a result of mines which were now the order of the day and which endangered civilian travel to a great extent."
In paragraph 3, the affiant goes on to relate a flagrant individual incident, and in paragraph 5 on page 27 he describes the cruelties of the individual partisan groups shown against each other, and he says that they were just as cruel against each other as they behaved against the German troops, that is, whenever they got hold of the German troops.
In paragraph 8 on page 29, the affiant relates some atrocious cruelties committed by the Ustascha. He reports that most corpses were thrown into the River Drina by the perpetrators immediately after they had been murdered. The affiant who was a doctor, as he relates on page 29, was shown a place where the ground was absolutely saturated with blood. There were corpses of people who had been killed by the partisans. He goes on to describe a number of details which I don't want to mention here because they only repeat and confirm what we have learned from numerous documents concerning the method of warfare of the partisans.
This will bring me to Geitner Document 123 on page 32 of Geitner Document Book 5, and this will be offered as Geitner Exhibit Number 104. Here again we have an affidavit executed by a doctor. This is the Affiant Dr. Deubner who was Corps Physician, and in his affidavit he deals with atrocious illtreatment meted out to German soldiers. On page 32 towards the bottom he describes in paragraph 1 a particularly terrible case. He says:
"When it became known, in summer 1942, that the chief of police of Banja Luka had maltreated ethnic German women so badly that they had to be taken to a hospital, I examined these women (2 or 3), personally, in the hospital in conjunction with the doctors handling the case. Their behind was so beaten that it had swollen into a ball shaped mass of blood, so that the women had to lie on their stomachs. According to the reports and investigation, the chief of police had had these women tied by the knees to a board and raised to the ceiling by means of a chain, so that they hung head down, and whipped their behinds with a spring steel whip and a leather whip, because they presumably would not say what he wanted to hear.
Besides that, he stuck writing pens under their finger nails. The blood traces from this were clearly visible. When I forwarded this report to Commanding General v. Lueters, he was indignant and reported the incident to the German headquarters in Zagreb."
In that paragraph 1 of 233, if Your Honors please in the German version, it says on page 33, "the commanding General von Leyser". I don't know what it says in the English translation. It should read "Lueters". If it says "von Leyser" there also, would you be kind enough to correct this? It whould read "Lueters", who was commanding general, and he has nothing to do with it. He is not identical with General von Leyser who is present here in the court room. I wanted to correct it in case it was wrong in the English version also. It is toward the end of paragraph 1 on page 33.
In his further statements, the affiant reports further cruelties and I shall continue now with Document Geitner Number 124 which will be offered as Geitner Exhibit Number 105. This Geitner Document Number 124 is contained on page 35 of Geitner Book 4. This is not an affidavit, it is an excerpt from the service regulation for the military commander southeast. The date is 7 October 1943. This is Document NOKW-1471, Exhibit 423, a part of which has been presented by the Prosecution under the before-mentioned exhibit number.
This exhibit 423, however, only contains a part of the whole document and just that part which is of no interest to us; whereas, that part which is of importance is missing in the document presented by the Prosecution. That is the reason why I have incorporated this service regulation into my document book Geitner 5 in its full version, and that is why I am offering it under Geitner Exhibit Number 105. In this way the Tribunal will be in a position to see what the service regulation for the military commander southeast contains in acutal fact, at least, as far as the military commander there and his chief of staff Geitner is concerned.
Of interest here is paragraph 7 on page 36 and paragraph 8 on the same page. Paragraph 7 shows that the military commander southeast as territorial commander had military and territorial tasks in the area subordinate to him which included security measures inasmuch as they were invested in him by the commander and chief of staff southeast.
Paragraph 8, states that the military commander receives his instructions, apart from the Quartermaster, also in "a) the Commander in Chief southeast, in such matters that arc closely bound up with combat and security tasks. In case of emergency the Commander in chief Southeast can invest this authority in the Commanders in chief subordinate to him and thereby authorize them to issue similar orders to the competent territorial commanders."
In paragraph b, it is stated he receives directives "from the administrator of the Four Year Plan and the competent highest Reich authorities and offices of the O.K.W."
That is the end of my quotation from paragraph 7 and 8, and in this way the Tribunal will be in a position to evaluate these spheres of competency in that area.
On page 37, 38, and 39, which I don't want to read in detail, are statements dealing with the competencies in the area and with the activities of the Economic Staff, the Administration Staff, the highest SS and Police Leader, and the sub-area administrative headquarters. I recommend these regulations for competency to the judicial notice of the Tribunal because these in turn show the responsibility of one or the other offices concerned. This is the end of Exhibit 105, and it brings me to Exhibit 106 which is Geitner Document Number 125 on page 39 in Geitner Document Book 5. This document shows that the bands were no regular belligerents in the meaning of the Hague Provi sions of Land Warfare.
This document has a certain connection with the record of this Trial of 23 October 1937, page 4806. I shall repeat, record of 23 October 1947, on page 4806 where the questions dealt with here are discussed. I shall now deal with this next document which is Geitner Document 126 -- correction 125 on page 39, which will be offered as Geitner Exhibit Number 107. I beg your pardon -no, it is correct. It is Document Number 125, page 39, and it will be offered as Geitner Exhibit Number 107. It is an affidavit of one Guenthor Roth who was third ADC in the staff of the Commanding General for Serbia, during the period from July 1941 until January 1944.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: Just a moment, Dr. Sauter. I think we have some difficulty in your exhibit numbering here.
DR. SAUTER: Document Number 124 on page 35 was Exhibit number 105, if I am not wrong there. Document Geitner Number 124 on page 35 was Geitner Exhibit Number 105, and now Geitner Number 125 on page 39 will be Exhibit 106. Then, I believe I an straightened out.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: Very well.
DR. SAUTER: All right. I now deal with Document 125 on page 39 of Geitner Document Book V and this is Geitner Exhibit 106. It is an affidavit executed by one Guenther Roth, and ADC, as we have just heard, in the staff of the Commanding General. The affiant confirms from his own observations that bands appeared in civilian clothes without any insignia whatsoever and that only the leader had Italian arms equipment. None of the other men carried his arms openly. I recommend this document to the notice of the Tribunal.
The next document with which I shall deal is Geitner Document No. 126 on page 141 of Geitner Document Book V and this will be offered as Geitner Exhibit No. 107. This is an affidavit executed by one Rudolph Hug.
MR. FULKERSON: Is the affiant still in Nurnberg?
DR. SAUTER: Just a moment, I will just have a look. No, this witness lives in Ellwangen in Wuerteemberg. That can be seen from the introduction in paragraph 1 where the affiant says under oath:
"My name is Rudolf Hug, born on 21 October 1885 in Pommertsweiler, district of Aachen, and I am residing in Ellwangen."
The affiant came to Nurnberg in September 1947 merely to be heard here as a witness and for his signature to be certified.
The affiant was, because of the 20th of July 1944 and the plot against Hitler carried out at that date, discharged from the army and at that time he was forbidden to be a member of either the armed forces or the party or to be employed by the state.
Before that, as the witness states, he was Sector Commander in the Northwest of Serbia during the period from Sommer 1943 to September 1944. I shall read from paragraph 3 on page 42?
"Moreover, again and again I received calls for help from the inhabitants of the villages on the Drina river who asked for protection against attacks by bands from the Croation area. In spite of the fact that guards had been placed along the banks of the Drina river in order to prevent such attacks, we did not succeed in stopping them completely because our own available forces were too weak and the terrain was too obstructed (mountains).""During the above mentioned period I have repeatedly met with members of Chetnik units, however, only for the first time in the summer of 1944 did I notice that they were insignias indentifying them as members of a unit."
Under paragraph 5 he states:
"In agreement with General V. Geitner it was an order in my sector that Chetniks would be fired on only, if they themselves had opened fire first. This order was submitted to the Chetniks by mediators."
In paragraph 6 the affiant says:
"People of the peace loving Serbian population have repeatedly expressed to me that they hoped the German troops would remain until tranquillity was established in the country. They feared increased unrest and blooshed in case the German troops were removed too soon.
This affidavit has been duly sworn to.
The next document to offer will be Geitner Document 128: I beg your pardon -- 129, which is to be found on page 49 of Geitner Document Book V. I repeat Geitner Document 129 on page 49 of Geitner Document Book V and this document will be offered as Geitner Exhibit 108. This document is an affidavit and it refers to the record of this trial of 24 October, page 4842. The affiant describes the defendant von Geitner in a similar favorable way as have numerous witnesses before him. He said that he was a conscientious soldier and a man of warm feelings. He was an opponent of Hitler methods and Hitler policy and the affiant confirms that Geitner was no trouble maker and goes on to make statements about the Serbian labor service.
The next document to offer will be Geitner Document No. 131 on page 53 of Geitner Document Book V. I repeat Geitner Document 131 on page 53 of Geitner Document Book V and this will be offered as Geitner Exhibit 109. It is an affidavit executed by Sigismund von Schlichtung.