Q He confirmed to you that Italy had, in fact, capitulated. Did he also tell you that he had received orders from Badoglio not to ** surrender to the Germans?
A No, he was not so tactless as to refer to the capitulation on that particular evening. On request of Mr. Rapp I described in the preliminary investigation to this trial, in great detail, that we had been invited for 8:30 in the evening; Germans were there, the Commander of the Division Piermonte was also there as a guest. As is customary, we had some cocktails before we started to dine. Just around that time, outside in the street -- the house was situated rather away from the town--heavy shooting started. Now we knew that Italians were apt to shoot at every opportunity, whether it made sense or not, but that went a bit too far even for the Italian Divisional Commander, and he took up the telephone and alerted his guard companies or one might say his "raid companies". Then we started dinner and about half an hour later the shooting had somewhat subsided. During the meal, immediately after the first famous course which was always served at the admiral's house, namely curry rice, I was called to the telephone and the German liaison officer in Patras who was stationed with the Piermonte Division, informed me that Italy had collapsed and had asked the Allies for an armistice. However, this news was not yet authentic, he had only heard it on the radio. I told him that that might well be a trap - one of the many propaganda tricks particularly used during war time, to loose balloons, but I told him to be on his guard and keep his eyes open because it was not quite impossible that such an event might take place. I also told him that I would soon return to my own quarters and cut the evening short. After me, other gentlemen were called to the telephone, also the Italian Divisional Commander, and I assume that they received the same information as I had. It was really not suitable to deal during the meal with this subject, which was not very praiseworthy in Italian history, and so the evening ended in friendship and we separated.
Q Would you look at your document book V, General Felmy, on page 52?
This is your announcement of 9 September 1943 regarding the Italian surrender and you give, as an alternative to the Italian units, the opportunity to "cease the fight and to return peacefully to your homeland." You knew that the Italians who surrendered would not be returned home to Italy, didn't you?
A No, we had to transport them there. How could they have got to Italy if we didn't send them there?
Q Didn't you know that in the Keitel Order of 9 September 1943 the Italian troops who surrendered were going to be used for construction work on the German East Wall and that they were not going to be sent home to Italy at all?
A What date did the Keitel Order bear, please?
Q 9 September 1943.
A Yes, this decree was much earlier. I said on direct examination that we suspected something like that might happen and that we wanted to be prepared for the event. When the code word Axis was announced, or even before that, I was supposed to go to Athens and negotiate with General Vicchiaelli, which was afterwards done by General Lanz. In actual fact the code word of the O.K.W. reached me too late, but in expectation of things to come I prepared this announcement to the Italians, had it printed and handed over to the garrison commanders in Patras, in Sparta, in Amalias, Argos and in Corinthia. In all these places this proclamation lay in a sealed envelope in their desks and was only to be opened when the code word Axis came. The contents of this proclamation was composed from my own opinion and attitude. I did not think it at all impossible that the Italians would be dismissed and seat home, as were the Greeks. During that time, in September, the fighting was going on far south of Rome.
Q General Felmy, did you seriously believe that several hundreds of thousands of Italians were going to be sent back to the Italian Mainlard - to a mainland which had been occupied then by your enemy, the Allied troops?
A Yes. The invasion had only just started in the South - it had only been nibbled at, so to speak. That was at the very beginning, when the Allied offensive against the Italians had been started. We are talking now about September 1943 - and Rome, as far as I remember, fell in the spring of 1944, I believe, around Easter.
Q General Lanz had told us that there was a severe German shipping shortage along about that time; and that in fact, the British and American Navies dominated the Mediterranean. Where did you anticipate all the ships were going to come from to transport the Italian troops?
A By rail, as we actually did. They all left Athens and went by rail.
Q You mean you would have transported them from Athens through Greece and Yugoslavia to Italy?
A Why not?
Q I thought the railroads were being severely sabotaged throughout Yugoslavia during that period.
A Of course there were occasional sabotage acts, as there were in Greece too in Northern Greece more than in Southern Greece where there were hardly any surprise attacks at that time. One bridge, the Komotopos Bridge, was blown up in November 1942; such sabotage acts happened occasionally. They happened in Serbia more frequently than they happened in our area, but in spite of this the supply and traffic continued. These Italians from the Athens area, I believe there were roughly 160,000, according to Italian information, and a division on Crete,-all these men were transported by rail in actual fact and arrived where they were supposed to arrive.
Q Now, General, a few questions regarding the sources of information that were available to you as a Corps Commander. You have testified that the War Diaries and the various situation reports of Divisions never got into your hands. Isn't it true that the important events which were laid down in the War Diaries were also made a part of the reports which the division sent on to you at the Corps Headquarters?
A The Corps used to get daily reports from the divisions. These reports were passed on to the Army Group, twice, once as the morning report and once as the evening report. Furthermore, the Corps transmitted to the Army Group all those events which occurred in its area other than those reported, irrespective of whether or not units subordinate to the Corps were involved, or other troops.
Q Isn't it true that even though you did not actually have physical possession of the War Diaries of the Divisions subordinate to you, you did, in fact, have knowledge of all the important events which were written down in the War Diaries?
A Whether all events were treated in this way I do not know. That depended on what the division reported and that would be laid down in the reports of the Corps Headquarters. All the more important events, I believe, were actually reported to us by the division. I was in no position to make a counter-check, when I had the total information - war diaries as well as activity reports of the division.
Q You have no doubt do you, General Felmy, that you had knowledge, when you were Commander of the 68th Corps, of all the important events which had transpired within that corps area do you?
A Whether I personally gained knowledge of them I cannot state with certainty. That depended on what was orally reported or submitted to me. The Chief of Staff had certain duties and was in between myself and the subordinate units; every military commander is only too grateful not to be swamped with papers of a minor importance. All more important events in some channel or other would reach my knowledge.
Q You had a duty to know everything that happened in your Corps, didn't you?
A Well, if it was submitted or orally reported to me. After all, I could not be like a terrier and follow the trace of a hare and be here and there and everywhere, to see whether anything happened in this or that area.
That is not how the activities of a commanding general actually are.
A Would the OKW have taken as an excuse, General Felmy, that you did not know about an incident because the chief might not have reported it to you or because you yourself did not physically see the report -would that have been acceptable to the OKW do you believe?
A Probably not. Those people were well known because of their ruthlessness and inconsideration and quite frequently did not see reasons when reasonable objections were made.
THE PRESIDENT: Pardon me. We will take our afternoon recess at this time.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY MR. FENSTERMACHER:
Q General Felmy, you mentioned during your direct examination that there was a possibility in reading the reports of your corps of holding your corps responsible for certain things committed in your area, but which were committed by other units not subordinate to you simply within that area?
A Yes, I said something like this. By operation we of course mean a combat action of some scale and in this case we were particularly concerned with band fighting.
Q When your reports, General Felmy, talk about the execution of hostages and that mention is made under the LXVIII 77th Infantry Corps, can there be any doubt that those hostages were executed by units subordinate to your command?
A There cannot be any doubt if the unit concerned is named, for instance, "by the 117th division" or "by the SS Police Regiment 18," if this is included, but where it is not mentioned, doubts are entirely possible.
Q Do you take responsibility for every mention of reprisal measures mentioned by Police Regiment 18 within your corps area?
A Would I take the responsibility? In no case, I could not give orders to Police Regiment 18.
Q As a matter of fact, General Felmy, in all of your reports it is mentioned when a regiment or a unit not subordinate to you committed certain actions; isn't that so? Look for example at document book 17 on page 66 in the German and page 88 in the English. There under the LXVIII Infantry Corps there is mention of the reprisal action in Calavrita, there is also mention of the burning down of the village by the Police Regiment 18.
A There are two sentences. Under LXVIII Infantry Corps, It says: during the course of reprisal actions in the area of Calavrita one village and two monasteries destroyed.
There is no doubt that the first sentence concerns the 117th Division because the cause for the Calavrita action was the murder of the 78 German soldiers of the 5th Company of that Regiment. Then it goes on to say after the period "during local operations in the area of Levandeia by the Police Regiment 18 after contact with the enemy in the area of Evandelistra, the village was burned down." There again it is quite clear that the burning down of Evandelistra was done by Police Regiment 18, which was not subordinate to me, although it served in the area of the LXVIII Corps.
Q That is exactly what I mean, General Felmy, anyone reading your reports would know precisely which unit committed which act, so that there could be no confusion when your lists, the lists of activities committed in your Corps area, when even an action is is committed by a unit that is not subordinate to you that unit is specifically mentioned just as in this case, is it not?
A Well, as far as I can remember we also had different examples. I recall the famous Island of Santhorin, where the wireless station of the Navy was eliminated and this was also reported under the heading LXVIII Army Corps." I am sure there are individual reports, which are not quite clear because the unit is not named, which may well happen because these reports are usually compiled rather hastily, after all they are not a thesis and mistakes are often possible.
Q Now, General Felmy, in document book No. 20 on page 58 in the German and page 81 in the English, there under the report of the 24th December, 1943 for the LXVIII Corps, it is noted that the SS arrested one bandit leader and 10 bands in Levadia. Isn't it true whenever a unit not subordinate to you carried out a particular action in your Corps area you specifically mentioned that fact?
A Well, it is probably mentioned quite correctly for the reason that it was not subordinate to us, that was to be emphasized.
Q So that when actions are reported within your Corps area and there is no specific mention of a unit involved one can assume that it was committed by a unit in fact subordinate to you?
A I would not say that 100%. It depends entirely on the individual case and only the men who really know the local conditions geographically speaking can decide this. Frequently things were reported under the LXVIII Army Corps, which did not occur in the area of the Corps. I remember for instance Voles Katherini and Florina and such examples generally. Therefore I cannot answer this question with you in general.
Q Look, General Felmy, in document book 18 on page 54 of the German and page 50 of the English. These are reports of General Speidell as military commander of Greece and you will note there is specific mention of the activities of the XVIII Mountain Police Jeager Regiment. Didn't you also carry out the same procedure in making your reports as General Speidell, that is by noting which unit committed which act so that the OKW would not be confused?
A First of all, I did not draw up the reports, that was done by the Ic, and of course he reported as precisely as he could, but he had to rely on the information and documents, which he received, which he checked on by telephone calls, but if he was not in a position to do that then our reports were less complete or shall we say perhaps less clear. In the case of the higher agencies the position was not that they could not differentiate between the LXVII Corps and the Navy, but what I tried to explain before was this, the maps concerning the situation were with the higher agencies at a one to one million standard, because after all we had many theaters of war unfortunately, and if you take a map at the standard of one to one million this tiny bit of Southern Greece is not very large on it and then if you find a little flad with "LXVIII Corps" on it not much space is left for entries for other command agencies.
Moreover in the event of an Allied landing, that is to say if war should really break out down there, we were to be the commanding agencies for technical and operational masters. In that event we would have received the command power of those particular units which were then stationed in the area without actually being subordinate to them.
Q Now, General Felmy, do you have any serious doubt that the hostages that are mentioned in these various documents as being executed in the reports of the LXVIII Corps were in fact executed by units subordinate to you?
A If units of the LXVIII Corps arc specifically mentioned as having shot hostages in reprisal, then it must have been our men who did it.
Q Otherwise, if it is not mentioned in the reports you assume they were not executed by units subordinate to you?
A Yes, such as in the example of the naval commandant who reported on one occasion and as did the Higher SS and Police Leader.
Q When the SS and police leader executed hostages you mentioned that fact in your report such as the one we looked at in Document Book XX, and when the naval commander takes reprisal measures it was mentioned that "naval commander reports such and such." Wasn't that the usual procedure adopted in making up your reports?
A Yes, but nevertheless it happened that the unit would not be mentioned in that particular report of the agency which had caused the particular reprisal measure to be taken.
Q How many hostages do you believe were executed by units subordinate to your command while you were in command of the 68th Corps?
A Well, we don't keep books on these things.
Q Can't you hazard a guess?
A No. I know that in Calavrita 696 were reported and that the General told me that he did not observe the rate of 1 to 100: The General later told me because, as I have said before, 78 soldiers of the company had been murdered and in the final report by the division 696 Greeks shot to death are mentioned.
Q General Felmy, you have testified on direct that you went through the war diary and other documents available to you and ascertained that there were about 90 sabotage actions over a certain period and in only 60 cases were reprisal measures mentioned and again you testified that there was an average of, I believe, 55 sabotage acts committed per month within your corps area. Did you not count up the number of hostages with the number of villages that would be burned in reprisal over the same period?
A No, I did not count them because the documents are incomplete. The 91 acts be sabotage, 60 of which were reprisal measures being taken for, referred to the period of time between July 1943 and December 1943.
The 55 acts of sabotage per month concerned on the average the period of time between January and June 1944; nor were they all sabotage acts. Fifty-five times a month they were either sabotage acts or engagements with the bands. I remember from my examination that in these first six months of 1944 as an average we engaged the enemy bands 29 times a month where we actually exchanged shots. That was the figure I mentioned.
Q You have no recollection whatever, General Felmy, about how many hostages were executed within your corps area by units subordinate to you?
A No.
Q You believe hostages were executed every day, perhaps?
A We did not execute hostages every day, Mr. Fenstermacher. Hostages were executed and reprisal measures were taken if and when a particularly regretable cause existed. It was not our daily occupation during the period of time when we were in Greece nor were we in Greece to execute hostages. Those reprisal measures had to be taken sometimes if and when the population gave us reason to do so.
Q Even though you were down there from May 1943 until October 1944, you can't hazard a guess as to whether there were 100 hostages executed or 5,000 or 1,000 within your corps area by your units?
A I must say this chapter is too serious for me to hazard a guess. I am quite sure there are more than a hundred because I said before that in the case of Calavrita a total of 696 hostages were shot; nor can I state how many German soldiers were murdered by the bands because, rather strikingly, in the documents which were were, given by the prosecution all compilations concerning German losses are omitted and they were not on a small case of scale. In some cases I could reconstruct them from the war diaries, but total figures I could not give you because I do not have the information at my disposal.
Q You said, General, that you didn't take retaliation measures in the case of every act of sabotage. As a matter of fact, you had a duty to take reprisal measures in every case, didn't you?
A We did not take reprisal measures when we could not establish the connection of the reprisal hostages and the perpetuated act.
Q Would you look, General Felmy, at Document Book XII on page 94 of the German and page 112 of tho English? This is General Loehr's order of 10 August 1943 which we have looked in before. On the second page of the order which is page 95 of your book, page 113 of the English, you will note the paragraph which states:
"Surprise attacks on German soldiers, damage to German property must be retaliated in every case with shooting or hanging of hostages, destruction of the surrounding localities, etc. Only then will the population announce to the German offices the collections of the bandits in order to remain protected from reprisal measures."
Did you mean you did not carry out this order when you say you didn't carry out reprisal measures for every act of sabotage upon members of the German Wehrmacht?
A Yes, I assert that reprisal measures wore not taken for every case of sabotage, I have attempted to explain in one case why I did not in that particular case resort to reprisal measures and what the success was thereof.
Q General, did General Loehr ever ask you whether you carried out his order of 10 August 1943 to the letter?
A No, he never asked me that. Why should he ask me that?
Q Wasn't General Loehr interested in having his orders obeyed?
A Of course, he was interested as any officer would be, but concerning the hostage order, the retaliation order, he did not discuss the details with me. I think he granted me a certain amount of latitude because, after all, I was not a high school boy. I was fully aware of the responsibility I held.
Q What orders for the execution of hostages did you pass on to your subordinate units, General Felmy?
A How can I know that in detail? There were many similar orders, orders which contradicted each other, in some cases there were orders which cancelled some of the earlier orders.
Q You don't recall whether you passed on an order for 50 to 1?
A The 50 to 1 order was issued in September 1941. September 1941 I was Commander in Chief Southern Greece and at my disposal I had a force of three local defense battalions who were mainly on guard duty. I am sure I didn't pass it on to those. I think before the recess we mentioned that the order was probably passed on by me to Crete.
In 1943 when I returned to Greece again I had a completely different unit under me. I did not know the 1st Panzer Division before nor did I knew the 117th Infantry Division and I did not roam about the world with the retaliation order of 1941 in my waistcoat pocket. It rested with the files of the Military Commander Southern Greece and I didn't take it out of there. It didn't occur to me when I returned to Greece.
Q Do you say you never got any orders for hostage quotas between May 1943 and October 1944?
A We mentioned just now the order of September 1941, Mr. Fenstermacher. I admit I said before, and I mentioned this on direct examination, that orders which reached my agency in 1943 were passed on as was ordered and if it became necessary, but individual orders from among these 15 months cannot be mentioned now under oath. It is quite impossible for me.
Q Do you recall any new 50 to 1 order that was issued between May 1943 and October 1944 to units subordinate to you?
A In the order of December 1943, which is known as the Loehr order because he issued it -- he signed it rather as the deputy of Field Marshal Weichs -- the ratio was rescinded. I remember that very well. Whether before that time, in the summer of 1943 there was in one of the many orders mention of a reprisal quota or rather a higher agency referred to such a thing -- namely, to an earlier order -- I could not tell you offhand from my memory; I couldn't possibly; but if you show me an order which I can read, then perhaps my memory would be refreshed and then, at least, I would be in a position to say "it may be assumed that I received and passed on that order at the time." That is what I said on direct examination when when I mentioned that the order by the Army Group -- I believe dated.
July 1943 -- which was to come in to force in the event of an Allied landing providing certain measures -- that we passed that one on; but it did not come into effect because the Allied did not land.
Q You don't recall any fifty-to-one or ten-to-one order which you passed on within the period May 1943, October 1944?
A If it were submitted to me I could answer that question, which has just been sketched, otherwise not.
Q Without the document you don't know?
A No, I don't know. At least, not with certainty -- which is required under oath.
Q General Felmy, you talked about executions carried out by this Greek volunteer corps under a certain Colonel Papagondonas. Why was he called "Colonel"? In whose army was he a colonel?
A He was a colonel of the old Greek army. Would you want us to have taken a Bulgarian, or a Chinese, officer? -- quite apart from the fact that he himself volunteered, and he must have had his reasons for that.
Q He took the initiative? It was not taken by the German army, to draft him for the military service?
A He approached us for the first time in July or August of 1943. He approached the 117th Division when the staff of that Division was still stationed in Tripolis, and he offered at that time to establish volunteer formations. Around that period of time the Edes formation already existed in the Peleponnes. I recall Captain, or "Rittmeister" Poetaccos -- apart from the Elas bands. At that time he imposed a sort of condition in connection with this proposal, which was that the Italians must not be told about this, which was quite impossible to do anyway, because you can't keep a matter like that a secret, and the Italians would have been very angry; and at that time we did not have the desire to later come back to the offer because relatively little was done against the German soldiers in the Peleponnes -- I think I discovered three ambushes in the documents, or perhaps four.
Q Now, you talked about a Greek government, too, General Felmy. Do you consider that was an independent government, or a puppet government?
A It certainly was not a government in exile, anyway, because the government, in exile did not even have any authority in the country which could issue orders. It was miles away, and played a somewhat, different part, shall we say, -- some times also they are puppets.
Q I am afraid I didn't ask you that, General Felmy. I asked you whether you considered the Greek government in Athens to be a puppet government of the Germans. Would you care to answer that question?
A It was not a puppet government of the Germans. That was not the impression which Premier Rallis made on me when I became closer acquainted with him the last year. He had entirely independent ideas, and was not always in agreement with what the Germans ordered, or with what happened by forced measures, and he was also in contact with Cairo.
Q Do you suppose this non-puppet Greek government formed an army volunteer movement without first procuring German approval to the mission?
A The Greek government did not arm these units, because they did not have any arms. The Greek volunteers -- they uniformed the volunteers with Greek uniforms. I supplied weapons. But another much more important matter was that the Greek government passed a law for the establishment of these volunteer formations, so that these people would be backed by something.
Q Is it true that that was taken by the German occupation force, do you know, or was it taken on the initiative of the Greek government, and without the permission of the Germans, of course?
A No; of course, we had discussed it before. The establishment of the volunteer units can much better be described by the witness Professor Stadtmueller, whom we hope to hear here. He personally was in change of the negotiations. He sneaks Greek, and he negotiated with officials of the extreme right to the decidedly left of center.
Q How many members of these Greek volunteer units were there?
A You mean how large was their number? The number of soldiers -"members" is usually only used for a club -- in the Peleponnes we had 5,000 men -- to give a rough figure.
On direct examination I stated that we could have had twice that number if I had had the arms for them, which I did not have to spare: particularly, we were very short of signal installations, equipment, and all other equipment which are needed for a modern war, particularly in a mountaineous area such as we had to cope with in the Peleponnes, where, without radio installations I couldn't do any thing.
Q Who gave orders to these units? Who told them what to attack, and where to go, and when to go?
A These units either attached themselves to our operations which was agreed upon before-hand, or on their own initiative they would carry out operations. Usually on a small scale, it is true.
Q Suppose a member of one of the Greek volunteer units had been killed by a bandit. Would the Greek volunteer unit have executed hostages without express permission of the commander in which the unit was operating?
AA highly hypothetical case -- and I don't know what the consequences would be like. I really don't know.
Q Well, suppose a member of the German forces was killed by a bandit, would the Greek volunteer units carry out reprisal measures, such as the shooting of hostages, in retaliation for that murder, on their own initiative, and without first securing the permission of the German troop commander?
A They did that only once, in the case of General Krech and his escort. There were special reasons, I suppose. Otherwise, they did not carry out any reprisal measures for losses suffered in surprise attacks on German troops.
Q You worked hand-in-glove, then, with these volunteer units, alone -- that is, when you wanted Greek hostages you went to the colonel to secure other Greeks to be executed, and he procured them. Is that the way it worked?
A No; on the contrary. We had hostages on the basis of the information which we had gathered, and they became reprisal prisoners, and those hostages were checked up on by Colonel Papagondonas and his staff; and only if and when he was certain that in his own judgment they were really band suspects would they be shot.
Q You mean the Germans rounded up certain persons that they considered suspects, and then they asked the colonel to check quite clearly that those suspected persons were, in fact, really bandits or bandit helpers?
A That is how it was handled when we worked down in the Peleponnes. According to our information gathered by the secret field police, and other information gathered by the troops, according to statements by confidential agents and other people -- let me recall the case of Patras, where the mayor helped to have Communists apprehended... he knew his people better than we did, and that was how hostages were selected; and then Papagondonas was the final screening agency.
Q Do you consider this Greek colonel a German puppet, General Felmy?
A No, I think he would have been highly indignant at this suggestion had you told him that. Colonel Papagondonas, a man of about -- well, at least five or six years my senior, if not more at the time in other words, he was in his sixties at the time -- he came from the Peleponnes. I describe him as an officer of the old school, who loved monarchy, and were the royal crown on his shoulder, and admitted that he would not fight the British - only because he was worried about his homeland, and because he was worried for my area, would subject himself to that task, and a number of people thought likewise, because otherwise we would never have established our volunteer formations.
Q This Greek colonel, General Felmy, if he was a monarchist, didn't he owe a duty to the Greek monarchy who was at that time in Athens -- I beg your pardon, -- who was at that time with the Greek government in exile, as its chief in Cairo, and later in London?
A Well, I think it was his opinion that King George in exile had nothing to say in the country, and was no longer familiar with internal conditions.
Q. Now, General, I call your attention to Document Book No. 20, page 100 of the German Book and page 139 o.f the English. These are entries in the war diary of your 68th Corps, and you will note under the entry of 11 March 1944, under paragraph 4, which is perhaps on page 101 of your volume, "shooting to death of 200 hostages and Communists from the entire hostage camps". What was meant by "The entire hostage camps". Was there more than one, or did you take these two-hundred, some from one camp and some from another camp?
A. Originally I only knew that there was a hostage camp in Tripolis. I have revised my memory, and I see here and found that there was one in Sparta and at Corinth; that I think is the reason for the expression, "From all hostage camps."
Q. What do you suppose was the goal that they were taken from, taken from several camps rather than from one camp?
A. I could not tell you.
Q. General Felmy, you say that Colonel Papagondonas says that executions should be carried out by Greek volunteer units under German supervision , and approval will be given. Is it true that if any execution was carried out by a Greek volunteer unit, they first had to be approved by the German and the actual execution itself supervised by the German?
A. No. I don't even think that Greek volunteer units actually carried this out. A short time afterwards we went to Tripolis and this matter was mentioned in a discussion, and I found out that the executions had not yet been carried out, and in actual fact from this report in this book, it may be seen that they were carried out a week later, where it says, "So and so , many hostages shot in Tripolis, and 59 granted pardons, so and so many shot in Sparta," that is part of the war diary. I got it from there. It was changed again, to the effect that nowhere the Greek volunteers should carry out those reprisal measures, because they were not immediately connected with it, since German soldiers had been killed. Whether the Greeks had in the first place volunteered to do this, I don't know.