A. I myself saw no Soviet arm bands or Soviet stars amongst the prisoners.
Q. How were those prisoners treated ? Were they shot?
A. These prisoners were transported away to Kalamata, or to Sparta. That is as much as I know about their fate. I assume they were treated as all of the partisan prisoners were.
Q. Do you think the whole approach of the Germans to the pacification of Greece and Yugoslavia, by resorting to reprisal measures was a mistake or not? I mean taking into account what you have described as the uniqueness of the Balkan peoples?
A. This question cannot be answered generally, with a Yes or No. The fact is that during the course of history, all governments down there were forced to take similar measures, and the facts on which an objective judgment must be based cannot be disputed. Firstly, actions contrary to International Law were not started by the German troops, but by the civilian population, and, secondly, the German troops only very hesitantly , after much consideration, and many warnings, did take more severe measures.
I have shown this for the Corps area quoting the Dara incident. The first attack took place without resulting in reprisal measures.
Q. Professor, in the course of your historical studies, did you ever come across an order for the execution of hostages at a ratio of 100 to 1 in Serbia on or about the 27th of April , 1941?
A. In direct examination I have already testified about this, -about the fact that I knew that an order of this kind -- I don't know whether the ratio was 1 to 50 or 1 to 100, -- that such an order existed, that it was supposed to be of a very early date -- and it was never carried out in the Corps area.
Q. Do you know who issued that order?
A. I assume if it was dated the 27th of April, 1941, then it could possibly only have been issued by Hitler personally, or by the Commander -in-Chief in the Southeastern territory.
I don't know, if this order actually did exist.
Q. You never came across an order bearing Field Marshal Weichs' name, and the 100 to 1 quota about the 27th of April, 1941?
A. No, the old orders were not in the files which were available to me.
Q. Isn't it true that reprisal measures which the Germans took actually forced the Greeks and the Yugoslavs to go into the hands of the bands, when you burned down the villages they had no place to go; if you executed their relatives or their friends in the course of reprisal measures, they were bound to have hate and wish to fight the German occupation troops?
A. That is a psychological consideration. One could oppose this with examples from British colonial history. The British at least used as a method, the burning down of villages in the colonies, as a method of pacification.
Q. Would you limit yourself to a consideration of the German occupation of Greece and Yugoslavia in this regard?
A The question of whether these methods are sensible or not, and whether they promise any success, depends on the individual case, and can only be decided on the spot. The fact that these measures had a good military effect, has been confirmed by the American Military McNeil in his well known book, "The "Crock Dilemma".
Q I am afraid that you have not quite given me your opinion yet, Professor?
A I have stated my own opinion very clearly. I said that if I were a responsible troop commander, in an isolated countryside, and could see all of the details there, that I would be in a position to decide then what measures were to be taken. From the point of view of moral justification as well as from the point of view of military necessity. One cannot generalize about this, seated at a writing table.
Q From your perspective as a historian, are you not able to comment as to whether or not the German theory of reprisals was a practical and wise one for the pacification of Greece and Yugoslavia?
A In this war, because I have thought about this question quite a lot, I think that at the very beginning, an attempt could have been made to take another course. Whether this attempt would have been successful, is very questionable, and these attempts would have meant to employ the bandleaders, according to the British example, for the purposes of the occupation authorities.
Q You mentioned, Professor, that the German soldier in the Balkans was always very well disciplined.
A I said that the individual German soldier was above average in discipline, and this has been confirmed to me repeatedly by the Greeks, especially as regard the attitude of the German soldiers towards women. The Greek women were never molested by German soldiers.
Q Do you consider the German soldiers at Distomon, at Kissura, at Kalavrita, at Kraljevo, at Kragujevac and at Topola to have been well disciplined?
A I can only judge here the events in the Corps area, and here I must say first of ail that I was not an eye and ear witness to this, I did not see these things, and furthermore. I would like to point out that Distomon and Klissura, so far as I know, fell down on the reckoning of the SS, and that I was the first to learn from the Greek side about the excesses in Distomon and Klissura, and I reported to General Felmy about them. Of course, I was also myself indignant about them.
Q Do you consider the SS, German soldiers?
A I have previously used the term, "German soldiers". I could have perhaps been more precise, and should have said, "soldiers of the German Army".
Q Now as an export, Professor, with full knowledge of Balkan history and customs. I may ask you this hypothetical question. Would you have been a partisan if you had been a Greek or a Yugoslav, and your country had been invaded?
A No, because at that moment when an occupation power occupies a country according to my limited knowledge of International Law, it receives the right to maintain order, and because I, as a civilian, do not have the right to act upon my own initiative and to fight, I would never have become a partisan.
Q If you would have been a Greek or a Yugoslav with the unique characteristics which you attribute to those two peoples, and your country and your friends and your relatives had been subjected to reprisal measures on the part of the German occupation authorities, would you then have become a partisan?
A I would have thought it my duty to trace the problem down to its roots and to fight against those things through which the reprisal measures were provocated, against the disloyalty of the civilian population which was contrary to International Law.
Q When you say that you would have traced the problem back to its roots, you mean that you would have traced it back prior to the invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia?
A By then the problem did not exist, because there was no occupation power there.
Q You wouldn't have considered the German occupation authorities in your country unlawfully?
A That is a question. I do not know whether Internation Law recognizes a difference between legal and illegal occupation.
Q Professor, I am not asking for your comments upon International law, but I am asking you to consider yourself a Greek and a Yugoslav with the various characteristics which you said a Greek and a Yugoslav possesses, and I am then asking you whether you would have considered the question of the German occupation authorities being in your country, unlawful?
A If I am a Greek Nationalist, full of intellect, and conscious of my responsibility, then I must regard every occupation that stands for law and order in the country as legal.
Q Would you name very briefly a few of the cultural contributions of these peoples who have the unique characteristics which you have attributed to them? That is, you are an expert on Balkan history, not only from the standpoint of politics and economics and their psychology and their vendettas, and their cruelty to each other, but I assume that you are also an expert regarding cultural, literature, music, and art in the Balkans. Will you highlight, in a few sentences, the contribution of the Balkans in that respect?
AAmong the Balkan peoples there is only a single one that gave great culture to the World, and that was the Greek people of ancient times and in the middle ages before the Turks came: As to Serbian, Bulgarian or Albanian contributions to world culture, there is nothing at all of this kind. They are quite nice people, they have quite nice peoples' music, which is not of a very high standard, at least in my opinion.
As regards a contribution to European culture I can only name the Greeks of ancient times, 2000 years ago.
Q Otherwise the Balkan's contribution to culture is rather negligible in your opinion?
A In a cultural respect it could not do that.
Q You mentioned, Professor, that you considered the present a continuation of the past. Do I understand you correctly?
A Yes, of course that applies to every Nation and to the present.
Q Then you consider the present day Greeks, the heirs of Aristotle and Plato and Aristophanes, and Euripedes, and Perikles and Herodot, the historian?
A We tried to respect the present day Greeks as the inheritors of these great men, but then we saw that they could not be very much distinguished from their ancestors in the mountains.
Q Do you know of the nation which gave birth to the political concept of Democracy?
A Of course, the Greeks.
Q Have you made the same study of German characteristics and German culture that you have made of Balkan peoples.
A Of course I have studied the Balkans more intensely than Germany because I was born here in Germany and grew up here.
Q Do you consider Germans to have peculiar and unique characteristics, as well as the Balkans, -- perhaps of a different nature, but still unique?
A Yes. I am of this opinion and I have thought a lot about it.
Q Do you remember Bismarks' phrase, "The whole Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian Grenadier".
A Yes, I know it very well, and I know the circumstances from which this sentence arose.
Q And when he used the term"Pomerainian Grenadier," he meant the "German Soldier" didn't he?
A Yes, he meant the good type of a German soldier.
Q Do you also recall Bismarck's "Drang nach Osten"theory? If Your Honors Please, I'm told that it means "drive towards the East."
A I personally don't know about any Bismarck theory of a "drive towards the East" as Bismarck made it the guiding principle of the German foreign policy not to drive towards the East but to work together, i.e, to collaborate with Russia.
Q It had nothing to do with the drive from Berlin to Constantinopel via the Balkans?
A In Bismarck's time, about which we are now speaking, such a drive, if it later on, could not be determined then.
Q Now, when you talk about the uniqueness of the Balkan peoples, you're not suggesting, are you, that the life of a Greek or a Yugoslav is less valuable than the life of a German or a Frenchman are you?
A In no case--in no way.
Q They should be evaluated equally?
A Yes, of course, from the human point of view and from the point of view of natural law and Christian moral feeling, yes.
AAre you familiar with the historical works of the Nazi historian Rosenberg?
A Yes, I read them very thoroughly.
Q Were you sympathetic with his theory of superiority and inferiority of races?
A This theory was absolutely silly and could only have been represented by a man with too much imagination and no knowledge of real facts.
Q Were you a member of the Nazi Party?
A In 1937 I joined the Party.
Q Did you accept the Party's theory on races?
A It seemed to me, if I may put it like this, a rather infantile, premature sickness which every political movement experiences. I hoped that a certain purge would eliminate these things.
Q Did I understand you to say that you considered history a science, Professor?
A In that sense in which one can talk about science at all, apart from natural science, history is, of course, a science.
Q Except that you can't control the various factors in a laboratory like you can in other sciences?
A Yes.
Q I have one final question for you, Professor. As a student of the Balkans and a historian did you consider the German invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia to have been a blessing for those countries?
A This question is perhaps, if I may put it like this, rather difficultly put. I think it is unavoidable that every military occupation brings the troubles of wartime over the occupied people and this also applies to the German occupation.
Q You mean that it was not a blessing?
A In this general sense, not as I pointed out with respect to every occupations however one must keep in mind that every occupation can attribute something fruitful in order to give the occupied people more information and a new orientation towards things.
Q I don't quite understand. Did you consider the German invasion and occupation of those countries to have been a blessing for those countries?
A I have already given you the answer to this-that no occupation can be a blessing--not even the German occupation.
Q Not even the German?
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: You may continue, Dr. Mueller-Torgow.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER-TORGOW:
Q Professor, you mentioned, during the discussion about reprisal measures in cross-examination, the so-called "Klissura" Operation.
You mentioned it together with "Kalavrita" and "Distomon." Was Kilissura in the Corps area of the LXVIIth Corps?
A I can't give any exact statement about Klissura because this incident took place while I was on leave--from about the 13th of March until about the 20th of April 1944 I was on leave.
Q Do you know a place "Klissura" in Greece?
A Yes, in Greece I once looked it up. There are about seven or eight places called "Klissura." It is a very frequent place-name.
Q You then said that the members of the SS were soldiers of the German Army.
A No, no, that must have been a misunderstanding. I made that statement about the discipline of the German soldiers so that it should apply to the soldiers of the German Army, so as to make a gradual difference between the soldiers of the German Army and the SS troops.
Q Professor, did General Felmy, after the murder of General Krech, order the reprisal measures which were carried out in Athens?
AAs far as I remember, General Felmy, as I have said, in no single case, ordered reprisal measures by himself on his own initiative, and that applies also to this case.
Q Professor, do you consider the fighting of the bands in Greece a German success? What would have happened if one had not defended oneself against the bands?
A Greece, the territory of Greece as well as the capital of Athens would as of late autumn 1943, have become a Soviet State.
Q We talked about the supply of the bands through the British. Was there a general political influence on the bands from outside Greece?
A I have already indicated that British liaison officers were stationed with various band groups, and that they tried to unite the Communist and the Nationalist groups in order to fight against the Germans. I have already said that this attempt was unsuccessful and that the DAM and ELAS groups made their own politics and their own warring independently of the directives of the Allied Headquarters Middle East, so that finally there came the armed clash between the EAM and the ELAS against the British occupation troops, after the German retreat.
Q Professor, you were asked about the cultural contributions of Greece, and you said in cross-examination that the ancient Hellas had made excellent cultural contributions.
A I am convinced that from all the European peoples the Greek has done the most for European culture. That is antique Hellenism.
Q I would now like to ask you what was General Felmy's attitude towards this ancient culture of Greece?
A General Felmy was amazed at it, and on his inspection trips we made little excursions by the way to the places of culture etc. where I had to give him historical explanations about them. In Athens my task was, when guests came to the Staff from the Army Group or from the OKW, to take these gentlemen up to tho Akropolis or into the Olympic temple, and to point out and explain to them the archaeological features.
Q Did the Corps staff, under the protection of General Felmy, publish a book?
AAt General Felmy's instigation some scientific experts of the Corps staff jointly published a book about the Peloponnes. This book was published in 1944, in Athens, and it is the only joint work about geology, history, and archaeology of the Peloponees. It is amazing that there is nothing of this kind in modern Greek.
Q Has it been translated?
AA learned Greek after our evacuation I don't know.
Q How was this book judged by the Greeks?
A Of course it had a rather happy reception because it contained no propaganda.
Q I have no further questions.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: An unusual book.
Are there further questions? Mr. Fenstermacher?
MR. FENSTERMACHER: I have nothing further, Your Honor.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Judge Carter? Judge Wennerstrum?
You may be excused? Dr. Stadtmueller.
(Witness Stadtmueller was execused from the witness stand.)
PRESIDING JUICE BURKE: You may proceed, Dr. MuellerTorgow.
DR. MUELLER-TORGOW: Your Honor, I actually intended, after the examination of the witness, to submit further documents, but in spite of all my efforts, especially on the part of the Defense Information Center, we have not succeeded in getting my document book -- Felmy Document Book VI in time. Since I have further affidavits and documents which I would like to submit, which have arrived in the meantime, I would like to present all the documents which I have together at a later time. Now, with this reservation I would like to bring my case-in-chief temporarily to an end.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: May I inquire when you delivered it to the proper authorities for translation and reproduction?
DR. MUELLER-TORGOW: I don't know the exact date, Your Honor. In any case it was sometime last week. Then I was told that the Translation Department, as well as the Mimeographing Section, was very busy at the moment, and that the Mimeographing Section had a lot to do for the Prosecution, on behalf of General Taylor. But I certainly hoped that it would be available for me to submit today.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: It is unfortunate, but-- and the, -
DR. MUELLER-TORGOW: They are affidavits, Your Honor, which I have received during the course of the case. Of course I could only set them up when I got them. After this book was compiled even more affidavits came.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal has no desire - I don't wish to intrude - to limit you, tut this is just an example of not getting things in as promptly as the Tribunal would like to have you get it in. It takes a reasonably amount of time to got this through the various departments, and you must keep that in mind in connection with all the material that is to be submitted to the Tribunal.
You may announce a ruling on that.
DR. MUELLER-TORGOW: Your Honor, might I say something about that? If I had had the possibility to submit this book today, then from a technical point of view that would have been extremely quickly done. I think that in this case the departments cannot be blamed for this. I, for my part, couldn't have handed them the book any earlier because I hadn't yet even received the affidavits. Some of them came from Greece and from South Africa, and from goodness knows where.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: I have been handed a note by the Deputy Secretary General stating that this particular Document Book will be ready tomorrow morning. At least that's the report that was given to the Deputy Secretary General, At that time I assume we will be prepared to proceed on that Document Book VI. Will there be any question about the twenty-four hour rule or some other possible technicality?
MR. FENSTERMACHER: None whatever. Your Honor.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Very well. We'll now proceed; subject to your right to submit this Document Book later, I take it you're now resting your case.
DR. MUELLER--TORGOW: Your Honor, may I ask if you wish me to present this Document Book, together with the other documents tomorrow or perhaps with any other documents which might come in even later?
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: We will advise you after the afternoon session. You will be given the opportunity to present the documents sometime, but we will advise you when we want you to present them after the recess.
DR. WEISGERBER: Dr. Weisgerber for the Defendant General Speidel.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: You may proceed Dr. Weisgerber.
DR. WEISGERBER: Your Honor, first of all, after talking to my colleague, Dr. Sauter, I would like to state the following: Dr. Sauter has indicated to the Tribunal that following the presentation of the case for General Felmy he wanted to present his additional documents for the case of the Defendant Geitner. On the basis of my arrangement with Dr. Sauter I would like to start with the presentation of evidence for my client, the Defendant Speidel. My colleague, Dr. Sauter, will then, at some later time, continue with his presentation of evidence for General Geitner.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: You may proceed.
DR. WEISGERBER: May it please the Tribunal, before starting with the presentation of evidence for my client, General Speidel, I would like to say the following: First of all I intended to examine my client as a witness in his own behalf, and I would ask the Tribunal's permission for this; and, secondly, I would like to submit the documentary evidence for the most part, during the examination of my client.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Very well; you may take whatever course you desire in the matter.
DR. WEISGERBER: Therefore, with the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to call my client into the witness stand.
WILHEIM SPEIDEL, a witness took the stand and testified as follows:
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: You will raise your right hand please and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(THE WITNESS REPEATED THE OATH.)
You may be seated.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. WEISGERBER:
Q General, in order to determine your personal data I would like to ask you whether it is correct that your name is Wilhelm Speidel, and that you were born on the 8th of July 1895, in Metzingen in Wuerttemberg?
A Yes, that is correct.
Q You have already set down your carper in an affidavit, which is Exhibit No. 409, in prosecution Document Book XVII, page 1 of both the German and English texts. Is this affidavit still up to date, and is it correct?
A Yes.
Q Therefore, I can limit myself to quoting a few particular dates which have some connection with your activity as a professional officer and arc of some importance. What caused you to become an officer? Did you perhaps come from an officer's family?
A No, I do not come from an officer's family. My family has a century-old academic tradition and a marked consciousness of South German culture. I was brought up on the clear basis of Christian ideology and humanistic education I grow up in an atmosphere of ancient culture. When in 1913, before the First World War, that is, I was faced with the question of choosing a profession, I chose the profession of an officer. The reasons for this were not perhaps any excellent material advantages, because the profession of a German officer was always known as a poor profession; but it seemed to me that the profession of an officer was the most ideal profession there could possibly be because it had no material aims, but an idea, the idea of State, People, and Nation.
I was enticed by the educational tasks. My aim was not to become a militarist, but a thinking soldier.
Q. General, you want through the First World War exclusively as an officer at the front. You were wounded four times. Is that correct?
A. Yes, correct.
Q. And what caused you after the 1913 collapse to remain loyal to the profession which you had chosen?
A. The 1918 revolution ended a lost war and brought about the collapse of the Reich. My profession seemed at that time to be hopeless and with no prospects. To give up my profession in this situation would nevertheless have seemed to me to be desertion. I remained loyal to my self-chosen mission in order to help in the reconstruction of the nation, because the service of a soldier is bound to no form of state and is bound to no person but only to the nation and to the people.
Behind these tasks at that time, all personal or material reasons had to give way. From such thoughts at that time, I joined the Reichswehr.
Q. In the years 1919 to 1933, you had many foreign assignments to the East and to the West. Would you please state these very briefly?
A. First of all, in 1928, I was committed abroad. In this year, for five months, I was detailed to the Red Air Fleet in Russia, and I received there my flying experience, flying training. In the course of the next years until 1933, I was in addition almost every year for some longer period of time in Soviet Russia with the Red Air Fleet. 1929 and 1930 I was detailed to the army air fleet of the United States, and there for one year I was attached to various units of the American Air Force.
In 1931, I was detailed to the British Air Force in order to see the training of the British Air Force. In 1932, I was detailed to the Italian Air Force with the same task. Those were my assignments abroad.
Q. What task was connected with your detachment to America?
A. At the beginning of 1929, the then democratic Reichswehr Minister Goroner asked me to come to see him, and he told me that he had picked me out as the first German officer after the First world war to take up military-political relations with the Army of the United States and that for this purpose I was to go to the United States for one year.
He described my task as a good ill mission. I said of course, that I was willing to do this and asked for further instructions. He then told me, "Your task is a three-quarter political one and one-quarter military one. This means you have to see whether you as a commissioner of goodwill can join together the relations which had been torn apart between the two nations through the war. How you do that---that is your own affair. The task is at the most one-quarter of a military kind and that means whether you can learn anything in your own expert sphere, then all the better."
And so I went to the United States and took up negotiations with the War Department and was received very friendly by the officers and I had the possibility of serving in the United States Air Force.
Q. General, because of your repeated employments abroad, you certainly had a lot to do with the officers of those states and you came into close contact with them. Did you have an opportunity to determine whether these officers had the same professional ethos as you, yourself had it and which had been determining you to take the profession of an officer?
A. I have learned to know many soldiers of other nations and most of them well known personalities, and at the same time with all of them there was a basis for confidence and trust. Why? Because the professional ethos was the same to all of them, no matter what uniform they wore. I arrived at the conviction that there is a large international of decent soldiers. In them the idea of professional idealism is stronger than the idea of war which they have to wage against each other when the politicians have failed.
Q. General, in the period until 1933, did you make any more trips abroad?
A. Yes. In the period preceding 1933, I used every opportunity to undertake private trips to almost every foreign country from Gibraltar, to Stockholm, from London to Budapest.
Mainly, these trips served to study cultural history and history of arts. I longed to got away from the confinements of the narrow national sphere in order to learn about the whole world and to learn that we are only a small branch of a very large community.
Q. And what military employment did you receive in the year 1933?
A. At the beginning of 1933, I was a captain in the General Staff of the Reichswehr Ministry and there I dealt with organizational questions of foreign air forces. In the same year, about the end of the year, with a number of other officers from the Reichswehr Ministry I was transferred into the newly founded Air Ministry and there I took over the organization of our air force.
Q. And until this date, did you have any kind of contact with National Socialism?
A. In 1922 in Munich, I was commanded to Munich for a training course of general staff officers. Here I met the new National Socialist movement. In this extremely revolutionary period this new movement exercised great influence on us young officers, not only through their national program points, because for us officers they were a matter of course, but through their social aims, because experiences at the front during the First World War had brought the great social problems very near to us young officers and without the solution of these problems, a new construction of the Reich was quite impossible. In the most idealistic sense, we returned, from this war as Socialists.
The young National Socialist movement which I met in 1922 in Munich was now in our eyes no political party in the sense of the usual political parties, but it seemed to us at that time a spiritual resurrection movement which seemed to be in agreement with our aims and our ideals, and so together with many other officers in Munich at that time, I joined the party; I was however, only a member for six months. At that time, when I had a closer insight into the whole thing, I received certain doubts about it even though I still went on believing in the idealistic aims.
Q. In the period which followed did your attitude towards National Socialism change?
A. Yes, fundamentally. My radical turning away followed after the revolt of the 9th of November, 1923, which unveiled the true aims to me and from this I drew the personal consequences. In the years which followed, my personal political, interests went completely into the back ground as compared to my professional task. I became the traditional unpolitical soldier of the Reichswehr and for the rest I turned to the spiritual problems which always have been in the foreground of my life.
Q. Then in the period which followed, you were used in the newly created German Air Force, in the staffs and as troop commander, and on the 1st of October 1937, you became a colonel?
A. Yes, it is correct
Q. In 1933, you became Chief-of-Staff of Air Fleet I, is that correct?
A. Yes, that is correct.
Q. The newly created Air Force was according to general interpretation a part of the Wehrmacht?
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKER: We will discontinue at this point for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken)