He mentioned that the mayor of Crete had been slain and, in retaliation persons sharing in the guilt and a number of hostages were shot.
Kuntze left his post as Armed Forces Commander Southeast on 8 August 1942, but before leaving he knew that there had been more than 45,000 people killed by the Germans in Serbia and Croatia during the period September, 1941, through July, 1942. He knew that people were being deported to labor in the German war economy, both in the Reich and in Norway. He knew that he had done his work well and faithfully in the service of Hitler.
Mr. Fenstermacher will take up the opening statement at this time, Your Honors.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: May it please the Tribunal, we take up now the occupational period, August 1942 until August 1943.
By the 8th of August, 1942, when Generaloberst Alexander Loehr replaced Kuntze as Commander-in-Chief of the 12th Army and Armed Forces Commander Southeast, the German reprisal machinery was completely set up and functioning. It remained only to keep the existing machinery running and, if possible, to increase the efficiency with which the retaliation measures were carried out.
The defendant Foertsch, who had served as Chief of Staff under both List and Kuntze, remained in the same capacity throughout the twelve months period of Loehr's supreme command in the southeast. General Bader, the Commanding General in Serbia under Kuntze, also stayed on. A few weeks before Loehr arrived in the southeast, the defendant Geitner arrived in Serbia as Chief of Staff to Bader.
To pacify the civilian inhabitants, Bader and Geitner divided Serbia into various field headquarters areas which corresponded in the main to the larger cities and important strategical points throughout the country. The field headquarters areas were in turn sub-divided into smaller territorial units known as district commands. This was the organizational machinery which General Bader utilized for the security of Serbia.
When a telephone line was cut or railroad tracks torn up or a mine blown shut or shipping on the Danube mined -- whether by partisan units in the course of legitimately planned actions, or by unknown persons -the reprisal machinery swung into action. The discrit command notified field headquarters of the incident and field headquarters in turn notified Geitnwr, Bader's Chief of Staff in Belgrade, suggesting that certain stated reprisal measures be taken in retaliation. Geitner and Bader would either approve the proposals of field headquarters or issue new orders to cover the case. In either event, the district command was notified, orders were issued and carried out, and reports were sent back up through the established channels. The reprisal orders were almost invariably the same. To insure the consistent execution of the German program and to prevent delay, as well as to avoid the confusion that might ensue from the exercise of individual decision by the German mind, a retaliation code was established for the guidance of all concerned. An arithmetical table was so easy to follow -- even t he slowest and dullest Battalion or Company Commander could comprehend its ready meaning. What did it matter that the ratio of Serbs to Germans seemed high or that innocent people would necessarily suffer for the deeds of persons whom the Germans were unable, or did not even try, to apprehend? Weren't the Germans a superior race, and wasn't it better that 99 innocent men -- either hostages or so-called reprisal prisoners -- should die than that one guilty person go free?
With the precedents that Weichs, List, Boehme, Kuntze and Foertsch had established before them, Bader and Geitner on 28 February, 1943, devised a more detailed table of retaliation quotas to take care of an increased number of factual possibilities which new conditions had brought to the fore:
For one German, or one Bulgarian Occupational Corps member, killed -- 50 hostages are to be executed.
For one German, or one Bulgarian Occupational Corps member, wounded -- 25 hostages are to be executed.
For the killing of a person in the service of the occupying power, regardless of his nationality, or a member of the Serbian Government, High Serbian Official (district supervisor or mayor), official of the Serbian State Guard, or member of the Serbian Volunteer Corps -- 10 hostages are to be executed.
For the wounding of any person in the previous categories -- 5 hostages are to be executed.
For an attack against important war installations, up to 100 hostages are to be shot to death, according to the seriousness of the case.
That these retaliation quotas were no idle German boast or mere paper threat is made quite clear by the literally dozens and dozens of both orders and reports that poured in to, and went out from, Geitner's own hands:
15 December 1942 -- "5 D.M. followers shot in retaliation for the German sergeant shot to death near Zlotovo."
25 January 1943 -- "Since the Organization Todt drive Braun had not returned as of 1 January 1943, a total of 50 followers of Draja Mihailovic and communists were shot to death," 10 February 1943, near Gr. Milanovac -- "25 Communists arrested, 10 shot to death in reprisal for murder of mayor."
On 14 May 1943 the War Diary of the 104th Jaeger Division contained this entry:
"The Division applies to the Commanding General and Commander in Serbia for the shooting to death of 125 communist hostages and the evacuation of the villages of Kamendo and Dubona in reprisal for the attack on the railroad patrol Drazanj."
7 August 1943--"As retaliation for the surprise attacks in the Runjkovao-Leskovac District, on 16 and 28 July 1943, in which two members of the German customs border guard were killed and two were wounded, 150 communist reprisal prisoners were shot."
15 August 1943--"15 Communist reprisal prisoners shot in retaliation for murder of a mayor and the burning of threshing machines."
16 August 1943--"In retaliation for the killing of the leader of a mixed harvesting crew on 7 August 1943, 50 communist reprisal prisoners were shot".
On occasion they even returned to the earlier and higher quota of 100:1 for each German soldier killed. A proclamation by Bader of 19 February 1943 stated:
In the forenoon of 15 February 1943 a passenger car of the German Wehrmacht was attacked by partisans on the road Petrovan-Pozarevac near Topanica. The four passengers, two officers, one non-commissioned officer and one enlisted man were murdered and robbed. The vehicle was set on fire.
As a reprisal measure 400 communists have been shot to death today in Belgrade. The village of Toponica was partly burned down. Several hundred persons arrested, who were seized in the district area Pozarevac will not return to their villages but will be given worthwhile employment elsewhere.
The perpetrators of the attacks for which reprisal measures were instituted were frequently unknown to the Germans. Sometimes, however, the attacker was caught in the act or his identify became known. But even knowledge or apprehension of the guilty offender did not rule out or prevent the application of the retaliation table--the hostages had to shot anyway in order to set an example. The following entry for 24 December, 1942, in the War Diary of the 704th Infantry Division , a unit subordinate to Bader, makes this last fact very clear:
Lieutenant Koenig, Executive Officer, II Battalion, 724th Grenadier Regiment and 2nd Lieutenant, Dr. Engelhardt, Battalion physician of the II Battalion, 724th Grenadier Regiment, were fired on in Mladenovac at 1413 hours by a 20 year old woman who was assumed to be a communist.
They were severely wounded (shot through lung and stomach) and immediately transferred to the military hospital in Belgrade. A former Chetnik leader was also shot to death by the woman while trying to arrest her. Later she shot herself. The 724th Grenadier Regiment ordered the encirclement and search of Mladenovac. 72 men and 52 women were arrested. A part of the population fled immediately after the attack on the officers. Local police and Serbian State guards participated in the military measures without causing trouble. 3 pistols were found.
The Division applies for authorization to shoot in reprisal 50 hostages and/or all people detained as retaliation prisoners.
The reply of Bader and Geitner to the division's incredible application is apparent from the entry in the division's War Diary on the following day:
49 men and one woman shot to death in Mladenovac for the attack on two officers of the II Battalion, 724th Grenadier Regiment. 2nd Lieutenant Dr. Engelhardt died in the military hospital in Belgrade. The Division applies for authorization to shoot an additional 25 hostages and/or all people detained as retaliation prisoners from the district of Mladenovac. The execution will be carried out by the SD in Belgrade.
At least 75 innocent persons, perhaps more if the division's request to shoot all retaliation prisoners held in the Mladenovac district was honored, were killed in spite of the fact that the guilty party was known. This was German justice in Serbia on Christmas Day, 1942. Can any doubt remain that German policy in the Southeast, as in Poland and the East, was designed and calculated to decimate the native populations for generations and generations?
But if the saboteur or attacker was really unknown--that is, if even the easily convinced Germans were too baffled to hazard a guess as to the "culprit's" political affiliation--then an equal number of both Draja Mihailevic followers (D.M.'s as they were called) and Partisans would be shot. The German reports are full of examples of such arbitrary and indiscriminate executions. On 27 June 1943, Bader ordered:
15 communist and 15 D.M. hostages are to be shot to death in reprisal for the attack and destruction of mines near Aleksi-nac on 8 June 1943.
Another order of the Commanding General and Commander in Serbia, this time of 13 August 1943, stated:
In retaliation for the murder of two and the wounding of two German soldiers by insurgents on the highway at Pozarevac, 9 August 1943, 150 reprisal prisoners are to be shot.
Since the political origin of the perpetrators cannot be definitely established, 75 D.M. and 75 communist reprisal prisoners are to be executed.
To cope with the gigantic problem of hostage supply posed by this wholesale reprisal program, the district commands turned for assistance to their well-trained and widely-experienced co-workers in mass crime, the SD. With the help of native collaborators the SD had prepared lists of "suspects"-- relatives of men who were absent from a village or immigrants without valid reason from another village, "persons of a hostile altitude", and the like -- the definition was uncertain and ambiguous and no one quite knew how his name got on or remained off the lists. One thing, however, was sure -- there was no investigation and no trial and no appeal from the German judgment of inclusion. From time to time, as the available supply of hostages dwindled in the face of an astounding number of mass executions, troops of the districts commands and SD detachments would stage "special actions" to round up additional victims. Large hostage camps were constructed at various strategic places -- their locations were changed from time to time to make for more efficient administration and quicker executions -- and when the orders came, the hostages would be shot, Either at the hostage camp itself or on the site of the attack. In general, retaliation victims were supposed to be residents of the village in or near which the attack allegedly occurred. But if a sufficient supply of hostages or retaliation prisoners was not on hand in a particular district camp, then the balance of persons necessary to satisfy the hostage quotas would be shot from the central camp in Belgrade. With a macabre fascination for mathematics and a consuming passion for everything smacking of rote, the Germans enforced the code firmly, precisely, exactly -- no matter where the hostages were from.
Two examples will suffice. On 28 May 1943, Bader issued the following order to Field Area Headquarters 610:
A total of 100 D.M. hostages is to be shot to death in retaliation for the murder of three members of the Russian Protective Corps near Konarevo, wounding a member of the Russian Protective Corps near Ivanjica on 11 May and for the murder of two members of the Serbian Volunteer Corps near Vezania.
Since D.M. Hostages are not available at the present time in the camp of Field Area Headquarters 610, they are to be made available from other camps by the Commander of the Security Police.
On the same day, 28 May 1943, Bader signed and Geitner distributed a similar order to Field Area Headquarters 809:
150 communist hostages are to be shot to death in retaliation for the murder of three members of the German customs border guard near Vucje on 15 May 1943.
Since there are no communist hostages available at present in the camp of Field Area Headquarters Nisch, they are to be made available from other camps by the Commander of the Security Police.
Nor was there ever any jurisdictional conflict between the district commands and the SD over the sheer physical task of executing these thousands of retaliation victims. Generally losses of the military were avenged by the military themselves. Police units usually furnished the execution squads in reprisal actions for their own losses, as well as for attacks on other soldiers and installations under German protection. Both groups were ready and willing to participate in the mass massacres. If a particular hostage camp was administered by the SD rather than by a temporarily under--manned district command, then its personnel would supply the trigger men. There was no set rule; both organizations cooperated to do the job at hand. Tho orders for the actual executions, however, invariably came down through the military Bader-Geitner chain of command. The SD did not exorcise a concurrent jurisdiction. In those matters it was subordinate to, and took orders, from the Wehrmacht commander in whose fields area headquarters or district area it was stationed and operating. An entry in the War Diary of the 104th Jaeger Division for 4 April 1943 states;
By order of the Commanding General and Commander in Serbia, in reprisal for the murder of the Organization Todt man shot to death by communists 8 km.
south of Pozarevac, 78 hostages wore shot to death in Pozarevac by the SD.
While Geitner was having conferences with SD leaders and the subordinate troop commanders on such diverse subjects as conditions at the Semlin concentration camp where "up to 100 persons were dying daily", on "the execution of invalids, sick or pregnant women, or people over 60, male or female", if they took part in combat, "with or without weapons", against the Germans, on the deportation of the male population of whole areas for labor in Germany, and kindred subjects, Foertsch at Supreme Headquarters also kept occupied with current business. To him and to Loehr came the daily, weekly and monthly reports from their vast Southeastern empire -- from Bader and Geitner in Serbia, from General Lueters, the German Commander in Croatia, from General Brauer on the island of Crete, and from various other commanders on the Peloponnese peninsula.
Croatia by this time was in an uprear. Tito's Partisans were growing stronger by the minute. By the end of 1942 they could boast of having called a Congress, of a government of their own which exercised control in an area 250 km by 100 km., of a regular civil and military administration within that area, and of an armed force numbering almost 100,000 men skillfully organized into brigades, battalions and companies. Lueters was completely unable to cope with the problem. He gave the usual orders for the execution of hostages, the burning of villages, and the arrest of "suspects" and relatives of "bandits", but to no avail. As the practical-minded Lueters himself pointed out, the existing techniques and methods were wrong since "in any case, cleaning-up or retaliatory action against the civilian population the innocent are seized, the guilty having earlier taken to the woods". Nor should captured partisans be shot as a matter of course, pleaded Lueters. Perhaps if they were given fair treatment many of them would desert -at least that now approach ought to be tried."
But Lueters' complaints fell on deaf ears at headquarters. Orders continued to come through Foertsch from Loehr that they would assume responsibility for what their subordinate commanders did, that no one would be held responsible for having employed harsh methods, that "individual soldiers should not be prosecuted for being too severe with the native inhabitants", and that commanders who failed to take retaliatory measures for reasons of negligence or softness would be held responsible. In spite of the fact that the German intelligence service reported the presence of partisan troop units, with the names of their leaders, the various insignia of rank worn, the size of their battalions and companies, their weapons, and other details, captured partisans continued to be executed after a brief interrogation. The reports are full of references to "temporary prisoners", as the partisans captured-but-not-yet-executed were called:
3 August 1942-- "In mopping-up, 39 temporarily arrested persons shot."
5 August 1942-- "In west Bosnia another temporarily arrested. 8 persons shot."
17 August 1942-- "In Syrmia, 90 persons shot in reprisal, 65 temporarily arrested."
29 August 1942-- "In Samarica, 262 persons temporarily arrested, of this number 20 shot immediately.
There was no trial, hearing or court martial for these men who fought as honorable and patriotic soldiers for their nation. The orders distributed to the lowest of units were unmistakably clear Lueter's directive to his troops of 7 January 1943 is representative: "Execute and hang partisans, suspects and civilians found with weapons. No formal proceedings are necessary". No wonder that Foertsch could report to OKH in Berlin that up to 24 August 1942, 49,724 and up to 8 September 52,362 "insurrectionists" had been shot in battle or by way of reprisals.
Just as it was in Serbia, the German directives in Croatia were by now the old familiar ones -- comb whole areas, seize the entire male population capable of bearing arms for deportation to Germany for la ber, choose "unreliables" as hostages to be executed in case of attacks on convoys or communication lines, enter into negotiations with the enemy for the exchange of wounded, the better treatment of prisoners, or recognition of their belligerent status.
Instead treat captured partisans as criminals to be hanged after all possible information had been drained from them, with or without torture. In Croatia, just as in Serbia, the revolt continued to gain momentum. By the middle of 1943, with the Allies advancing in the Mediterraen Theater, the German Commanders realized that what was going on in the Balkans was really a war.
During the period of General Loehr's supremo command, on 1 January 1943, the 12th Army went out of existence, or more accurately from a practical standpoint, it changed its name. Loehr's headquarters was redesignated Amy Group "E", and until August, 1943 it remained the supremo headquarters for the southeast theater. The change, however, was of little practical significance; Loehr continued to command and Foertsch continued as his Chief of Staff. In Serbia, Bader and Geitner were still subordinated to Loehr.
The structure of Army Group "E" is shown on Chart "C" of the prosecution's pamphlet. To almost every rule there is an exception, and the Court will note that here we have an army group to which no army was subordinated; instead, this army group commanded a heterogeneous col lection of corps, Military Commanders, "fortress" commanders, and others.
The tide of war was soon to bring about still another departure from orthodox German military structure. The German terror had not brought peace and order in southeastern Europe; Serbia was as restless as ever, and the partisan forces in Croatia and Greece were growing stronger all the time. On the 10th of July, 1943 the Allies landed in Sicily, and it became apparent that soon they would be on the Italian mainland, and in a. much better position to bring material assistance to the national armies of liberation in Greece and Yugoslavia. Faced with these new and unfavorable developments, in August 1943 the Germans reorganized the entire command structure in southeastern Europe. New faces appeared and a familiar face reappeared. We will now turn to the story of this last and most important occupational period.
THE OCCUPATION: VON WEICHS AND RENDULIC (After August, 1943) The year 1943 was known to the American public as the "end of the beginning". To the German Army, reeling under the heavy blows of Allied military might, it was indeed the " beginning of the end". The invasion of North Africa and Montgomery's advance from Egypt in November, 1942 were followed by the crushing surrender of von Paulus' crack Sixth Army before Stalingrad.
Rommel's retreat and defeat in Libya and Tunisia was followed by the invasion and rapid conquest of Sicily. Finally it was Italy's turn. With the invasion of the Italian mainland, the long-despised and very tired Italian accomplice collapsed in thankful relief.
A. Reorganization of the Southeast Command.
Reorganization of the command structure was the first step taken towards meeting the new challenge in southeastern Europe. From the Russian front where, as commander of an army group he had won promotion to the rank of Fieldmarshal, Hitler called Maximilian von Weichs.
A new army group headquarters - Army Group "F" -- was established in Belgrade, as the vehicle for von Weichs' supreme command over southeastern Europe. The defendant Foertsch, the veteran of service as Chief of Staff under List, Kuntze and Loehr, now came to Serbia as Chief of Staff to von Weichs.
The new command structure which von Weichs headed is shown in the chart on the wall. Loehr remained in Greece, and his headquarters continued to be called Army Group "E", thus creating the double anomaly of an army group with no "army" beneath it, and which was itself subordinated to another army group. From this time on, Loehr's headquarters concerned itself exclusively with Greece and the Aegean Islands, and Loehr reported to von Weichs. The two corps commanders under Loehr were the defendant Felmy, who had returned to Greece in July, and the defendant Lanzz, who had been a divisional commander during the original invasion of southern Yugoslavia, and who arrived in Greece in August.
Although von Weichs maintained his headquarters in Belgrade, so far as military operations against the partisans were concerned, the center of gravity was shifting toward Croatia. To cope with Tito's partisans and to protect the long Dalmatian coastline, exposed as it was to an Allied invasion or raids from nearby Italy, the headquarters of the Second Panzer Army, which had been engaged on the Russian front, was moved to Croatia. To command this army, and to carry out the difficult mission of re-establishing order in Croatia and safeguarding it against enemy attacks, the German High Command selected the defendant Lothar Rendulic. An Austrian, whose mother was Croatian, Rendulic had learned much about the Balkans by the sheer process of growing up under the Hapsburgs and living in the center of their sprawling empire. He had joined the Austrian Nazi Party in the early thirties at a time when it had been declared illegal, and was regarded on all sides as a "Nazi General."
In 1938, he was the Austrian Military Attache at Paris, in which his rise was phenomanally rapid. At the outbreak of the war in 1939. he held the rank of Colonel. He participated in the Polish campaign as chief of staff of an infantry corps, and thereafter was given command of a division during the campaign against the Low Countries and France. He commanded another infantry division in Russia, and in 1942 he was given command of a corps; in the same year, he reached the rank of General der Infanterie (equivalent to a Lieutenant General in the American Army). His outstanding combat record, which had won him the highest German decorations, brought him to Hitler's attention and undoubtedly lead to his appointment as Commander of the Second Panzer Army. In the spring of 1944 he was promoted to Generaloberst. Two more of the defendants, Leyser and Dehner, now appear for the first time in this case as corps commanders under Rendulic.
In Serbia another new face was introduced. General Hans Felber had led troops in battle and seen occupation duty in France. Weichs and Rendulic thought Bader too old and routine--minded for the requirements of the new situation; he was relieved as Military Commander of Serbia and replaced by Felber. The defendant Geitner, however, carried on as Felber's Chief of Staff.
Felber's jurisdiction, however, was broader than that which had been exercized by Bader. Just as von Weichs, as commander of all the armed forces in the southeast was the superior of Loehr in Greece and. Rendulic in Croatia, so Felber, with the title of Military Commander Southeast, was now made the superior of the German Military Commanders in Greece and Montenegro and. of the "Plenipotentiary Generals" in Croatia and Albania. The Military Commanders in Greece, beginning in August 1943, was the defendant Speidel. Accordingly, in this final phase of the case, all of the defendants except two (List and Kuntze) are involved.
Von Weichs, of course, had supreme authority over the entire organization - over Rendulic and Loehr as tactical commanders, and over Felber and his subordinate "Military Commanders". Geographically speaking his responsibilities were far greater than those which had been borne by List, Kuntze, and Loehr before him. He had barely arrived in the Balkans when the Italian capitulation occurred, and he was immediately confronted with the task of disarming and rendering harmless the Italian forces in Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece. At the same time, he had to take over occupational responsibility for the areas which the Italians had theretofore controlled.
B. The Italian Surrender.
The new leadership was on the defensive from the start. Sicily had been invaded by the combined British and American forces in July. A fortnight later Mussolini was deposed and the King appointed Marshal Badoglio to conduct the war as new head of the Italian Government. But in six more weeks, on September 8, 1943, the Italian armed forces surrendered unconditionally. Under the terms of the armistice all of the Italian armed forces were to cease hostilities of any kind against the forces of the United Nations and to withdraw to Italy immediately from all areas in which they were currently engaged.
The German High Command was not caught unawares by this development. Italy's defection had been anticipated, and when it actually occurred, the Germans proceeded with synchronized swiftness to attack and disarm their one-time colleague. The orders from Berlin were clear and precise. Italian soldiers who wished to continue fighting on the German side were to retain their arms, to be accorded treatment "completely consistent with their honor", and to receive rations " based on those of the Germans". Indeed, they even were to receive 50% of the German pay corresponding to their ranks.
German gratitude and generosity to the "faithful" was boundless. Those Italians who did not wish to continue fighting for the Germans were to be disarmed and made prisoners-of-war. They, however, would not have to endure the long, boring days of waiting in the barbed-wire enclosures that is the legal fate of prisoners-of-war. Instead they were to be turned over to the Plenipotentiary for Labor Employment and the Reichsminister for War Production and Armament, so that their strength and skill might be fully utilized in the German war production.
For those Italian soldiers who dared to obey the orders of their own Supreme Commander and resisted German forces either actively or passively, a mere select fate was in store - the officers of all Italian troop units who let their arms fall into the hands of insurgents or in any way made common cause with insurgents were to be shot to death after summary court martial; the non-commissioned officers and men of such units were to be taken away for labor employment.
The Fuehrer's order was put into savage execution. In a matter of hours von Weichs had ordered its distribution to all tactical commanders in the theater. In some cases the order was passed on in expanded form. Rendulic, for example, gave more detailed instructions to his troops: Should an incorrigible Italian division destroy its arms and supplies, besides the individual "culprits", one officer of the Divisional Staff and 50 men of the division should be shot to death; any individual Italian soldier selling or giving away his arms to civilians or destroying them without explicit orders would be shot to death; any Italian soldier arriving at his embarkation station without his weapon was to be shot to death together with his responsible unit leader; for every motorized vehicle made useless, one officer and 10 men would be executed.
In a matter of days, fiftyone hesitant Italian divisions had been totally disarmed by but seventeen German divisions. However, at least two whole Italian divisions resisted, while thousands of individual Italian soldiers, noting the treatment meted out by the Germans to resisters and surrendered alike, took to the hills to join the partisans.
The reports poured in - from the division to the corps, the corps to the army, the army to the army group, and the army group to OKW in Berlin:
On 27 Sept. 1943, from Split on the Dalmatian coast: "city and port occupied, 3 generals, 300 officers, 9,000 men of the Italian "Bergamo " Division taken prisoners; officers to be shot to death according to the Fuehrer order."
30 Sept. and 1 Oct. 1943: "3 generals shot in Split after summary court martial; 45 more guilty Italian officers shot in Split."
From the 7th SS Division on the 29th Sept. 1943: "The Italian General Fulgowi has been convicted for delivering arms to the partisans and sentenced to death."
From the XXIst Mtn. Corps on the 9th Oct. 1943: "Operations against the Italian 'Taurinesse' Division concluded in the main, reprisal measures carried out against 18 officers."
From the XXIInd Mtn. Corps on the 23rd Sept. 1943: "Gen. Gandini and all his staff captured, special treatment according to Fuehrer order. The following day "Gen. Gandini and all officers have been shot."
From the 100th Inf. Div. on the 1st Nov. 1943: "Reprisal measures are being taken against the 2 Italian colonels (the Ia and IIa of the 9th Italian Army) captured near '505'".
On 13 Oct. 1943, from Von Weichs the Supreme Commander Southeast: "Execution of general Roncaglis, Commander of the Italian XVth Army Corps, ordered in case of further opposition".
This calculated slaughter of captured or surrendered Italian Officers is one of the most lawless and dishonorable actions in the long history of armed combat. For these men were fully uniformed. They bore their arms openly and followed the rules and customs of war.
They were led by responsible leaders who in repelling attack were obeying the orders of Marshal Badoglio, their Military Commander in Chief and the duly authorized political head of their nation. They were regular soldiers entitled to respect, humane consideration, and chivalrous treatment.
C. Croatia With the disarming and liquidation of the Italians complete, the Southeast Command returned to the continued prosecution of its principal mission of pacification.
In Croatia the task of defeating the guerrillas was alone a big order. To do that and quiet the civilian population in addition was far more difficult.
To begin with, the puppet Croatian Government of Ante Pavelic was of no help whatever. Its inefficient and poorly organized national militia, led by Kvaternik, was unable to maintain order within the country, let alone protect the vital German supply lines running from the Reich through Croatia to Serbia and Greece. Even for the German troops of the Second Panzer Army, it was a full-time job to keep the supply and communication routes open. In an earlier period, the enemy had waged guerrilla warfare; it was the only way he could fight, and the way which suited him, his resources, and the topography of the country best. He staged surprise raids on lonely German outposts or under-manned garrisons, he mined bridges, derailed trains, cut telegraph wires, fired supply depots, and exploded ammunition dumps. That sufficed in an earlier time. Now after two years in the hills he was experienced and well trained; the Allies were on the offensive and had supplied him with weapons, ammunition, food and clothing; he was expertly led and efficiently organized. Now he was a real enemy, a belligerent of major proportions, and a foe to be reckoned with in terms of largescale operations and overall strategy.
To meet the challenge of the big and the new, the Germans had only the small and the old. From the day in 1941 when the campaigns against Greece and Yugoslavia had been declared ended and the front line troops redeployed to the East, the Southeastern commanders had begged for replacements and reinforcements. The Southeast theater was continuously under strength throughout the war. Yet always the same answer came -additional troops cannot be spared from the decisive Russian front. But not only were the troops in the Southeast too few; they were also of inferior quality.
They included many reserve troops who were over-age and jaded. Insufficient and inferior troops had been the German problem from the beginning. In 1941 and 1942 they had met it the only way the heavy-handed Germans knew how to meet any resistance -- by terror. In 1943 and 1944, as unimaginative and blindly cruel as ever, they would meet it in the same way.
The practice of seizing scores of hostages in each village in which German troops were stationed or in the vicinity of which German troops were operating was continued. In 1941 the Germans had taken democrats, nationalists, and Jews as their hostage victims. Now that most of those had been liquidated they were choosing "communists", "bandit suspects", "bandid helpers", or relatives of "bandits" as security pawns against attacks. How did one distinguish a "communist" from the rest of the population? Only the SD, the Croatian police, or the village quislings could answer that. If men thereby were victimized by spiteful and gossiping neighbors, it was just unfortunate.
The pattern of terror and intimidation was simple. After the Germans had entered a village, all of the inhabitants -- old men, women and young children alike -- were summoned to the central square or market place. From a sound truck a German officer would announce to the assemblage that there were partisan bands operating in the vicinity. The Germans wanted information concerning the size, location and leadership of those bands, the number of men missing from the village, and the names of strangers presently living in the village. Unless the inhabitants came forward voluntarily with the desired information, other and mere drastic steps would be taken to procure it. When there were no volunteers, priests, school teachers, small shopkeepers or farmers -sometimes just every third, fifth or tenth man -- were called out of ranks and loaded in lorries for shipment to the division's hostage camp at some distant central collecting point. Whether to save one's husband, father or son by revealing that a neighbor's brother had joined the bands or was absent from the village was a difficult choice for those who remained.
Sometimes men or women weakened. More often they just stood there -- some passive, others weeping, all hating.
The basic pattern cf burning homes and villages was also continued. Partisan bands moved from village to village, changing their bases of supply and operations as the Germans advanced or retreated. As the Germans advanced on a village there might be an exchange of fire, perhaps a few shots by retreating guerrillas. That the villagers had not asked the partisans to come, had given them food and supplies only under protest, or were powerless to resist their intrusion was of no moment to the Germans. The inhabitants would be evaluated, on foot to the rear. Some of the aged would die en route; cf the others some would be executed as "bandit suspects" or "bandit helpers" after screening by the SD; the remainder would be sent to the Reich for labor; the village would be reduced to rubble and ashes.
These severe retaliation measures served only to defeat the Germans' own purpose. Glasie-Herstenau in Croatia knew it, the defendants know or should have known it. After a few months in the Balkans anyone with the slightest objectivity would have known it. Those measures were military suicide, not military necessity. In spite of the hangings and burnings -- indeed because cf them -- the resistance continued. With his home and village destroyed, his means cf livelihood cut off, his family and friends executed, in concentration or hostage camps, or slaving in Germany, there was little else for a man to do but take to the woods. Completely without roots, immunized, against fear and nursing a bitter hate, he was excellent material for the partisan forces.
By mid-1943, after the influx of thousands of lonely, angry, and displaced men, the guerrillas numbered in the tens cf thousands. His attention drawn to the tremendous labor needs cf the Reich, Hitler, on 27 July 1943, issued a new order finally recognizing the magnitude, importance and regular military nature of the warfare in the Southeast. In order that more human material might be imported into the Reich to insure the necessary supply of coal, all "bandits" captured in combat were no longer to be executed.