Foertsch had a duty to inform Kuntze. If he failed to inform Kuntze of the various reprisal orders and of various reports which came in from Boehme's headquarters, then it could only be because he did not want Kuntze to know about such things. If Kuntze's testimony is true, then Foertsch is criminally responsible.
In the closing argument on behalf of Foertsch (and the same applies also to Geitner), the principal stress was laid upon the fact that they were chiefs of staff, not commanders. Many of the arguments drawn from this circumstance seem to be based on the assumption that the only way in which one can be guilty of a war crime is to give an order as commander in chief. Of course, this is not the case under international law, any more than under any known system of domestic law. All well developed legal systems have evolved a variety of tests to determine the degree of connection with a crime which is necessary in order to attribute guilt to an individual. The principles by which this question is settled are, on the whole, very similar in all legal systems. The fact that Foertsch and Geitner were chiefs of staff does not automatically exculpate them any more than the fact that the other defendants were commanders in chief automatically renders them guilty. The only question is whether Foertsch or Geitner or any other defendants were connected with the crimes charged in the indictment within the meaning of Paragraph 2 of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, which is, in essence, nothing more than a statement of recognized legal principles relating to the degree of guilty connection with the crime.
With the question of Foertsch's and Geitner's status as chiefs of staff thus put in its proper setting, it is abundantly apparent that their defense is very weak. Both were constantly involved in active participation in the crimes charged in this indictment.
Foertsch claims that in his role of chief advisor to the various commanders-in-chief Southeast he only gave operational and tactical advice. Even if this were so, it would be no excuse since reprisal measures, as General Loehr has specifically stated, concerned matters of tactics.
But in fact Foertsch gave more than just operational and tactical advice. His own final plea contains references to two memoranda of a political nature which Foertsch wrote. In one he recommended the replacement of Pavelic by the Croat leader Macek and the recall of the German ambassador to Croatia, Kasche. In the other, his situation report on the Balkans dated 2 November 1941, Foertsch dealt not only with matters relating to strategy and tactics, but with the government, administration and economy of the occupied Southeast. Foertsch's sphere was illimitable.
He contends that the presence of his initials under the orders is unimportant on the question of his criminal responsibility. But the IMT, in discussing Keitel's guilt, mentioned that his initials appeared on "Case Otto," which concerned the aggression against Austria; on Hitler's directive for the attack on Czechoslovakia, and on "Case Barbarrosa", the directive for the invasion of Russia. And in dealing with the guilt of General Jodl, the IMT pointed out that he had initialed Hitler's order for the invasion of Austria and Hitler's directive to prepare plans against Russia. Jodl too signed the covering memorandum which forwarded the Commando Order.
Foertsch, moreover, denies having any outstanding personal influence or control over events which transpired during his period of service in the Southeast. But List had sufficient confidence in him to send him to confer with Keitel and Halder, though he was then only a Colonel. And is there any doubt, after observing both men on the witness stand, that it was Foertsch who dominated the office of Armed Forces Commander Southeast during the time Kuntze occupied that position? Foertsch was better informed at the time Kuntze took over, and the latter has already testified that he was kept ignorant of the most important events which transpired during the first month and a half after he assumed his office. If you believe Kuntze, then Foertsch must have deliberately have kept him in the dark so that he, Foertsch, might rule in the Southeast.
Foertsch admits that even the OKW accepted his advice. One example will suffice. After some urging, the OKW finally agreed to Foertsch's proposal to treat captured partisans as prisoners of war. It is almost inconceivable to believe that a man of Foertsch's energy, intelligence and willa man who, after serving as Chief of Staff in the Southeast, was made in fast succession a divisional, corps and finally Army commander - did not influence the policy adopted by his respective commanders-in-chief.
But if there was any lingering doubt as to the prominence of Foertsch's role, it was completely dispelled by the testimony of his own affiant and subordinate, Colonel von Harling. Von Harling is, of course, an incorrigible liar. On the witness stand he attempted to protect his old superior, but even he stated that Foertsch was the most important single military personality in the entire Southeast.
Foertsch and Geitner did have the power to influence their commanders in-Chief. Geitner, though recently addicted to modesty, admits that on tactical matters his commanders generally followed his advice. The device of the so-called "fictitious executions" was Geitner's very own brain child which he succeeded in selling to his commanders. For Foertsch to say now that he would have been courtmartialed if he had counseled his commanders to disobey orders which they had received from OKW is to give a picture of List and Kuntze which neither of them wished to give of themselves. If you believe List and Kuntze, they and Foertsch operated as a team, consulting each other and exchanging advice freely. If what Foertsch says is true, that List and Kuntze brooked no counsel of moderation from their chief advisor, then they are even more guilty than would at first seem apparent.
Actually, however, Foertsch himself confirmed that he never had any disagreement with his commanders, and no such dissension is mentioned or even hinted at in Foertsch's letters to his wife.
The IMT in its decision against Field Marshal Keitel expressly stated that the OKW was Hitler's military staff and that Keitel had no command function over the three branches of the Wehrmacht.
Keitel's orders were always begun by the words "the Fuehrer has ordered," which is to say that Keitel signed on behalf of Hitler in the very same way that Foertsch or Geitner signed on behalf of their commanders-in-chief. Like Foertsch, Keitel had command only over his own staff at the OKW. In drawing an analogy between the functions of Keitel and Foertsch, we do not mean to imply that Foertsch was as important a personality in the direction of the entire war as was Keitel, but we do mean to say that the IMT in its decision against Keitel completely repudiated the "no command function" defense to criminal responsibility for war crimes.
Geitner also maintains that he is being tried as a substitute for General Bader and General Felber. It is rather unusual for an accomplice to murder to defend on the ground that the man who pulled the trigger or the man who conceived and planned the crime had escape d apprehension. It is no coincidence that for the extended period of more than two years Geitner remained as Chief of Staff to two of the bloodiest butchers that Serbia, throughout its centuries of oppression, ever saw.
Foertsch and Geitner aided and abetted and counseled and influenced in favor of the execution of measures which were criminal in nature. The man on a gun team who calibrates the figures necessary for the effective firing of the weapon is as responsible for the result of the firing as is the man who actually gave the order to fire.
A few theories advanced in the course of the final argument on behalf of Rendulic should be briefly noted. Dr. Fritsch argues that the capitulation agreement which Rendulic made was valid despite the fact that General Rossi, the Commander of the Italian Group East, refused to be a party to it and in fact was kidnapped and removed from his command by Rendulic because of his refusal. Dr. Fritsch says that it was sufficient for General Rossi's subordinate, General D'Almazzo, who commanded the 9th Italian Army, to agree to the German terms. If this had been true, then we might well have asked why General Rendulic went to all the trouble of personally conducting an expedition to capture General Rossi in order to install a more compliant Italian in his place.
But the legal theory which Dr. Fritsch urges is based on a complete and false premise as General Rendulic knew at the time. He knew that elements of both the 9th Italian Army and the 18th Italian Army were within the area of the German 2nd Panzer Army, and that General Rossi, as commander of the 9th Italian Army, had no authority whatever to conclude a surrender agreement for troops not under his command. He knew further that General D'Almazzo under the circumstances was not even competent to conclude a capitulation agreement with respect to his own troops, because in doing so he was acting in conflict with the orders of his direct superior officer, General Rossi. The law governing the authority of a commander in this respect is clearly defined by Lauterpacht in his treatise on international law as follows:
"The competence to conclude capitulations is vested in the commanders of the forces opposing each other." 1 Rendulic knew that the commander of the Italian forces was General Rossi and that no one else was authorized to make such an agreement as the German proposed.
Lauterpacht goes on to say:
"Capitulations entered into by unauthorized subordinate officers may, therefore, be disowned by the Commander without breach of faith." 2 This is why it was necessary for Rendulic to kidnap and depose Rossi and to install D'Almazzo in his place.
Rendulic knew that any surrender agreement which he concluded with d'Almazzo would be repudiated by Rossi. Rossi was, therefore, an obstacle who had to be removed.
We stated before that the destruction of Northern Norway could not be justified by any appeals to the doctrine of military necessity. Dr. Fritsch's remarks have borne us out. In that part of his plea in which he 1 - Lauterpacht, "Oppenheim's International Law," Vol.
II, p. 432.
2 - Ibid.
sought to use this justification, he blandly ignored the testimony of Jodl to the effect that by 28 October, the date that the order for the devastation was given, the Germans knew for certain that the bulk of the Russian troops had been transferred to the East and that from the middle of October it was evident that the Russian pursuit had come to an end.
The systematic destruction of Hammerfest began only around the end of November. Furthermore, it was obvious that this town could not have been used to cut off the German retreat because the German troops were already far to the west and south of that town.
If one follows that part of Dr. Fritsch's argument which is based on military necessity, he will see that what it boils down to is this: no one is competent to judge whether a given devastation was military necessity except the general who ordered it to be done. In other words, only the man who is accused of wanton devastation is qualified to judge the matter. This is merely another way of denying the existence of law: not merely international law, but all law.
Dr. Fritsch realized the impossibility of justifying the devastation on the grounds of military necessity and accordingly, he falls back on a political justification. He says that Rendulic was in no position to refute Hitler's argument that it was necessary to prevent the formation of an exile government in the evacuated part of Norway, because such a government would have repercussions on the whole country and on the German occupation forces.
The advancement of this argument constitutes an assault on morality. What Dr. Fritsch is saying is that any time a retreating any anticipates that a political situation which displeases it may develop in the areas over which it is retreating, then it was the right to reduce that area to a desert. No more barbarous and ridiculous a theory has even been urged upon any court.
We pass now from arguments chiefly important with respect to particu lar defendants to those more general contentions by the defense which affect the case as a whole.
Most of these were set forth in Dr. Laternser's main argument - a few were put forward in the pleas by other counsel. Here counsel have stressed again and again that the trial of this case is being conducted by a Tribunal constituted by authority of the powers occupying Germany - the victorious powers. This, of course, is not a new note. Defense counsel before the first International Military Tribunal raised it at the very outset in their initial motion on 12 November 1945. It has been raised and answered on many occasions since that time, and we would not feel disposed to say anything more about it now but for the insistency and, one might add, the belligerency with which it was put forward last week. In this connection we do not think it is possible to improve on what Mr. Justice Jackson said over two years ago in his opening statement in the international case:1 "Unfortunately, the nature of these crimes is such that both prosecution and judgment must be by victor nations vanquished foes.
The world wide scope of the aggressions carried out by these men has left but few real neutrals. Either the victors must judge the vanquished or we must leave the defeated to judge themselves. After the first World War, we learned the futility of the latter course. The former high station of these defendants, the notoriety of their acts, and the adaptability of their conduct to provoke retaliation make it hard to distinguish between the demand for a just and measured retribution, and the unthinking cry for vengeance which arises from the anguish of war. It is our task, so far as humanly possible, to draw the line between the two. We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well. We must summon such detachment and intellectual inte 1 - Vol.
II, Trial of the Major War Criminals, pp. 101, 102.
grity to our task that this Trial will commend itself to posterity an fulfilling humanity's aspirations to do justice."
* * * * * * "If these men are the first war leaders of a defeated nation to be prosecuted in the name of the law, they are also the first to be given a chance to plead for their lives in the name of the law.
Realistically, the Charter of this Tribunal, which gives them a hearing, is also the source of their only hope. It may be that these men of troubled conscience, whose only wish is that the world forget them, do not regard a trial as a favor. But they do have a fair opportunity to defend themselves - a favor which these men, when in power, rarely extended to their fellow country-man. Despite the fact that public opinion already condemns their acts, we agree that here they must be given a presumption of innocence, and we accept the burden of proving criminal acts and the responsibility of these defendants for their commission."
In apparent realization that the evidence overwhelmingly establishes that the slaughter charged in the indictment did occur and that these defendants ordered and otherwise caused it; and aware, likewise, that this wanton slaughter was clearly in violation of the laws of war and the Hague Conventions, defense counsel as a last resort wish this Tribunal to declare that the laws of war are not laws at all, and that no one can be held judicially answerable for such murderous conduct.
One technique the defendants have used is to suggest that Allied aerial warfare is also a violation of the laws of war. The bombing of various German cities, particularly Dresden, and the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima have been cited. In both cases the gratuitous and entirely false statement was made that these aerial attacks occurred at a time when the Allied leaders knew that victory would be achieved without them, If our learned opponents had such knowledge at that time, they were singularly blessed with prescience. It is true that both raids occurred at a time when ultimate victory appeared probable, but that probability could be based only on the assumption that the fighting would continue until Allied superiority in arms had made itself overwhelmingly felt. Certainly neither Germany nor Japan, at the time of these attacks, had manifested any intention of surrendering.
As to the atomic bomb, it is unfortunately all too true, as the defendant Rendulic pointed out in his testimony, that War always tends to produce bigger guns and faster airplanes and more lethal explosives. The laws of war have never attempted to prohibit such development, nor did the Hague Conventions ever undertake to lay any limitations in this regard.
We are constrained to say that the suggestion that the dropping of bombs, whether ordinary bombs or atomic bombs, on large cities is criminal, comes with singular gracelessness from defense counsel here. It is sad but true that the destruction of an enemy's economic potential by air attack against urban industrial centers has become an accepted part of modern warfare, and tho defendants have only themselves to thank.
The first cities to undergo the terror of modern airraids suffered under German bombs, not English or American or French or Russian bombs. By the end of 1940 there was still hardly a scratch on a city in Germany, but already Warsaw and Rotterdam lay flattened, and London and many other cities in England were badly mauled. In all these matters, the memories of Defense counsel appear to be scandalously short.
And now the Tribunal is asked to help make the future world a better world by abolishing the laws of war entirely. Incomplete as they are, the Hague Conventions contain very important principles with respect to the treatment of prisoners of war, the preservation of neutrality, the protection of populations of occupied countries, and other similar matters. The observance of these rules during the recent war - partial as it was on the part of the Germans - saved millions of lives. The Tribunal is now asked to overthrow the binding character of these salutary rules, so necessary for the preservation of even a part of our civilization. The suggestion is put forward by defense counsel, none to subtly, that some day the United States may again find itself involved in a war with another country, and that we will be indeed foolish to recognize the binding character of the laws of war, which might hamper us in such a future conflict. So we are invited to tread in the path beaten ahead of us by these very defendants. The invitation is an insulting and a degrading one.
Indeed, of the many things about this case which are hard to understand, there is one which we find the most baffling. One might expect these defendants, brought up in the German profession of arms, which openly preaches in its military manual that attempts to give the laws of war binding character are derived from "sentimentality and flabby emotion," might remain quite unimpressed by the accusation that they have violated the Geneva Conventions. One might be prepared to find in such men a lack of respect for the binding character of international law. But one thing these men do respect, and that is victory. It does seem quite beyond belief that it has never entered the heads of these defendants that there is a profound connection between their behavior and the defeat they suffered.
The lesson has been so plainly taught - from the violation of Belgium's neutrality in 1914 to the wanton execution of hostages in 1940. Such contemptuous flouting of the laws of nations always tends to rally nations of the world to put down the country that is setting the law at naught. This very attitude on the part of the defendants is one of the most important reasons why Germany has twice gone crashing to defeat. Thus it is no surprise to find that German generals have no respect for international law, but sometime it must dawn on them that other people do, and that this is a factor which they must take into account in their planning.
Dr. Laternser's charge, that the conviction of these defendants will mean that wars in the future will be directed by lawyers, is absurd. Of course, every important commander-in-chief has a judge advocate to advise him on legal matters - this has been so for a long time. What Dr. Laternser's argument really means is that a commander-in-chief shouldn't have to worry about law at all, which is just another aspect of the basic defense argument that there is no such thing as international law or the law of war. What he is in fact asking the Tribunal to do is to re-enact the "Barbarossa, Jurisdiction Order" which preceded the campaign in the Soviet Union and which exempted German soldiers from prosecution for crimes committed by them against the civilian populations of the East.
In conclusion, we must say a final word about the doctrine of "German racial superiority," and the part it has played in this case and in the arguments made last week. These arrogant and prideful racial myths are like mustard gas, which hangs in the hollows of the ground and may last for months through many changes of weather ready to burn the unwary intruder. So it is disheartening, but not entirely a surprise, that these loathsome doctrines put in an appearance again last week, in the arguments that what these defendants did was justified because of something they called "Balkan mentality" -- a phrase which can mean nothing more nor less than Balkan inferiority.
We have just said that the recrudescence of these racial doctrines is disheartening, and I fear we must apply a stronger word. Some few things are only too well known to everyone in this room. If we scan the map of Europe to locate the country that for 12 long years had the cruelest, most oppressive government in the world, we do not find it in the Balkans. If we study the origin and development of concentration camps and the numberless tortures and atrocities committed therein, we do not find that the founders or the managers of the concentration camps were persons with "Balkan mentality." If we wish to discover why there are some 6,000,000 fewer Jews in Europe than there were ten years ago, it is not in Belgrade or in Zagreb or in Athens that we will find the answer. These matters are beyond question and should not be pushed too far to the back of the mind. And with these things in mind, to hear the mass murders committed by these defendants justified on the grounds that the victims were cruel and inferior people, is worse than disheartening, it is sickening.
We do not believe that defense counsel have done their clients any service -- either before this Tribunal or at the bar of history in putting forward such an argument. German national self-respect will never be reconstituted on such a basis. That such views are urged upon these Tribunals -- which have been constituted to render judgment under law and in accordance with the dictates of humanity -- can only awaken suspicion and fear, and obstruct and delay the readmission of Germany into the society of nations and the brotherhood of man.
DR. SAUTER: Your Honors, may I have the floor, please? I would like to make a personal statement.
JUDGE CARTER: About what, Dr. Sauter?
DR. SAUTER: I want to make a personal declaration for the protection of our honor.
JUDGE CARTER: The arguments are closed. We can't engage in a forensic combat here about things that may take place in argument. The Court, I am sure, will pick out that which is material and disregard that which may be considered inflammatory.
It is the ruling of the Tribunal that the arguments are closed.
The Tribunal will be in recess until one-thirty.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION:
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
DR. LATERNSER: May it please the Tribunal, in the name of all Defense Counsel I move that the reply of the Prosecution will be stricken from the record, to the extent to which it contains insults against Defense Counsel. I assume that Defense Counsel should receive protection against such unfounded insults which they reject most emphatically.
Furthermore, I should like to inform the Tribunal of the fact that Field Marshal List will make a final statement in the name of all the defendants.
JUDGE CARTER: (Presiding) In regard to the motion made, the Tribunal realizes that there are certain prerogatives on the part of the Defense and the Prosecution Counsel. Far be it from us to try to make the limits too close. However, in the consideration of these arguments the Tribunal will consider only the facts and the law and the reason and logic behind them. Insofar as inflammatory remarks and remarks that impugn the character of these defendants and Defense Counsel, or anyone else unjustly, the Tribunal does not approve and has no intention to give the impression that we approve of it. It is hardly possible for us to say that we should assume the prerogative of striking it from the record. We can merely say that portion of the argument is not approved by the Tribunal and it will be given the effect only that we have here indicated. It is not the purpose, I am sure, of the Prosecution or the Defense or the Tribunal or anyone else to unfairly impugn the character or honor of anybody.
I think with that statement I have expressed the views of the Tribunal unless one of the other members cares to make some other statements. With that the motion will be overruled.
We will hear Field Marshal List at this time.
I think it would be proper that you approach the microphone in the center of the room, Field Marshal, if you care to.
I might say also that if Field Marshal List is to be the only representative of the defendants who speaks that we will not hold him to any 1-minute period of time.
You may proceed.
DEFENDANT FIELD MARSHAL LIST:
Your Honors, may it please the Tribunal.
In my capacity as Field Marshal and as senior of the Generals active in the Southeast indicated before this Tribunal. I render the following declaration on behalf of these generals and on my own.
In the opening session on 8 July 1947, we answered your question as to whether we pleaded guilty with a definite "no". We repeat this "no" today after the termination of this trial which lasted for seven months. We are not guilty. We did not want this war, nor are we responsible for starting the fights in the Balkans and in their ensuing effects both were forced on us.
We acted in defense and for the protection of the soldiers entrusted to us, for the protection of the whole German fighting front. We did not serve the Party. We did our duty as soldiers for our Fatherland, for Germany, as we had done for decades.
And we were compelled to do our duty even during a battle which bore all the marks of a band warfare, in a combat which every soldier, and above all the German soldier, detests.
If harsh measures entrailed and were bound to entail, it is the guilt of those who caused and sponsored this fight. The fault rests with those who waged this battle from the very beginning cunningly and cruelly in the Balkan manner. We only had one aim, to pacify the country.
We never thought of terrorization, decimation, or even extermination. Such a plan has never existed. We absolutely refute any such unfounded allegation. In this gigantic struggle which affected and shook the whole World, during which the incidents on the Balkan Front formed but a small part, we did nothing except what we considered militarily expedient and justified.
We acted under the harshness of the conditions which can only be judged rightly on the spot and in consideration of the conditions prevailing then and there.
We therefore maintain:
We are not criminals; we refute any such accusation most emphatically, just as emphatically as we refute the insults raised by the Prosecution during this trial, insults against our Nation, against our profession, against us personally and against the soldiers entrusted to our care.
I am fully convinced that the American Army, as well as the American people, in whose name the charges have been made, do not approve of such procedure. Just further demands that we are credited the same bona fide faith as those commanders of the Allied Forces are, whose military measures caused the heaviest losses of innocent people, the greatest misery and irreparably destroyed, irreplaceable cultural monuments belonging to the whole of mankind.
To arrive at a just appreciation it is furthermore imperative, to take due consideration of the inherent circumstances, under which we were compelled to serve. We were pledged by our oath and duty of obedience. We were living under the coercion of a dictatorship which grew ever more and more demonic and chaotic, a dictatorship where nevertheless strong tendencies and counter-tendencies were predominant, wherein, however, the individual had but little freedom of action; a dictatorship unconceivable by any outsider, least so by a free citizen of a free democracy. These conditions, as a whole, cannot be grasped without an insight into the background of all that happened in these days. Against us stood more or less the same powers who have established today in the Balkans a regime of terror, and plan to do the same in Europe, powers who keep the World in tension, today opposed by the whole Western hemisphere. May a kind fate spare the Nation which now tholds trial on us to fight a battle as we were forced to fight.
Calmly we await the verdict of the Tribunal.
If sentences should be passed, we will bear them as soldiers for the former German Wehrmacht, as generals for our brave and gallant soldiers, as Germans for our nation.
JUDGE CARTER: Do I understand that this is the only defendant who cares to address the Tribunal? This being true this portion of the trial has come to an end.
The Tribunal will stand adjourned until the further call of the Tribunal. We ask that both the Prosecution and the Defense Counsel keep in touch with the Tribunal so that they will be available when the Tribunal is ready to meet and render its decision.
The Tribunal will recess until that time.
THE MARSHAL: Court will recess until further notice.
(Thereupon at 1345 p.m. a recess was taken until further call of the court.)
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 19 February, 1948, 0930-1630, Justice Wennerstrum, presiding.
THE MARSHAL: All persons in the Courtroom 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.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, you will ascertain whether all defendants are present in the Courtroom.
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present in the Courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: This Tribunal has convened at this time for the presentation of its opinion and judgment. The original will be filed in the office of the Secretary-General. If there is any variation from this original in the reading of this opinion or in the mimeographed copies the original shall constitute the official record of this Tribunal. Judge Carter will read the first portion of the Opinion.
BY JUDGE CARTER:
In this case, the United States of America prosecutes each of the defendants on one or more of four counts of an indictment charging that each and all of said defendants unlawfully, wilfully and knowingly committed war crimes and crimes against humanity as such crimes are defined in Article II of Control Council Law No. 10. They are charged with being principals in and accessories to the murder of thousands of persons from the civilian population of Greece, Yugoslavia, Norway and Albania between September 1939 and May 1945 by the use of troops of the German Armed Forces under the command of and acting pursuant to orders issued, distributed and executed by the defendants at bar. It is further charged that these defendants participated in a deliberate scheme of terrorism and intimidation wholly unwarranted and unjustified by military necessity by the murder, ill-treatment and deportation to slave labor of prisoners of war and members of the civilian populations in territories occupied by the German Armed Forces, by plundering and pillaging public and private property, and wantonly destroying cities, towns and villages for which there was no military necessity.
Upon these charges, each of the defendants except the defendant Boehme has been formally arraigned and a plea of not guilty accepted.
The Indictment alleges that the defendants committed the acts charged while occupying the positions hereafter shown during the periods of time indicated:
The defendant, Wilhelm List, was a General Feldmarschall (General of the Army) of the German Armed Forces, serving as Commander-in-Chief Twelfth Army from April 1941 to October 1941; Armed Forces Commander Southeast from June 1941 to October 1941; and as Commander-in-Chief Army Group A from July 1942 to September 1942.
The defendant, Maximilian von Weichs, was a General Feldmarschall (General of the Army) of the German Armed Forces, serving as Commanderin-Chief Second Army from April 1941 to July 1942; Commander-inArmy Group B from July 1942 to February 1943; and Commander-in-Chief Army Group F and Supreme Commander Southeast from August 1943 to March 1945.
The defendant, Lothar Rendulic was a Generaloberst (General) in the German Armed Forces, serving as Commander-in-Chief Second Panzer Army from August 1943 to June 1944; Commander-in-Chief Twentieth Mountain Army from July 1944 to January 1945; Armed Forces Commander North from December 1944 to January 1945; Commander-in-Chief Army Group North from January 1945 to March 1945; Commander-in-Chief Army Group Courland from March 1945 to April 1945; and Commander-in-Chief Army Group South from April 1945 to May 1945.
The defendant, Walter Kuntze, was a General der Pioniere (Lieutenant General, Engineers) in the German Armed Forces, serving as Acting Commander-in-Chief Twelfth Army from October 1941 to August 1942 and Deputy Armed Forces Commander Southeast during the same period.
The defendant Hermann Foertsch, was a General der Infanterie (lieutenant General, Infantry) in the German Armed Forces, serving as Chief of Staff Twelfth Army from May 1941 to August 1942; Chief of Staff Army Group E from August 1942 to August 1943; and Chief of Staff Army Group F from August 1943 to March 1944.
The defendant Franz Boehme, was a General der Gebirgstruppen (Lieutenant General, Mountain Troops) in the German Armed Forces, serving as Commander XVIII Mountain Army Corps from April 1941 to December 1941; Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia from September 1941 to December 1941; and Commander-in-Chief Second Panzer Army from June 1944 to July 1944.
The defendant Helmuth Felmy was a General der Flieger (Lieutenant General, Air Force) in the German Armed Forces, serving as Commander Southern Greece from June 1941 to August 1942; and Commander LXVIII Army Corps from June 1943 to October 1944.
The defendant Hubert Lanz, was a General der Gebirgstruppen (lieutenant General, Mountain Troops) in the German Armed Forces, serving as Commander I Mountain Division from October 1940 to January 1943; and Commander XXII Mountain Army Corps from August 1943 to October 1944.
The defendant Ernst Dehner, was a General der Infanterie (Lieutenant General, Infantry) in the German Armed Forces, serving as Commander LXIX Army Reserve Corps from August 1943 to March 1944.
The defendant Ernst von Leyser, was a General der Infanterie (Lieutenant General, Infantry) in the German Armed Forces, serving as Commander XV Mountain Army Corps from November 1943 to July 1944; and Commander XXI Mountain Army Corps from July 1944 to April 1945.
The defendant Wilhelm Speidel, was a General der Flieger (Lieutenant General, Air Force) in the German Armed Forces, serving as Commander Southern Greece from October 1942 to September 1943; and Military Commander Greece from September 1943 to June 1944.