Both were convicted and sentenced to be changed. So far we have not Foertsch and Geitner on their own ground. Actually all this legalistic quotation of the "Rote Esel" is completely wide of the mark under the provisions of the Allied control council Law No. 10 as far as a defendant is a, substantial participant in the commission of a crime whether he is -- I shall better start from the Beginning: We can meet Foertsch and Geitner on their own ground so to speak in dealing with their arguments. Actually this legalistic -- do you not have the script. It was handed to you or your colleague. I will go slowly. Actually allot this legalistic refinement, all of this quotation of the "Rote Esel" this argument about the meaning of German Internal is wide of the mark: Under the provision of Control Council Law 10 so long as the defendant is a substantial participant in the commission of a crime, whether he is classified as a principal, an accessory or one who took a consenting part or one connected with plans or enterprises involving commission recognized as a criminal. The close connection of Foertsch and Geitner with those crimes is divided. The crimes were carried out by their orders without their commanders being aware of them. This is the ultimate answer.
So far we have just discussed the argument which is common to the defense of Both of these defendants, but Geitner evolved a theory which was a refinement on every previous description of the function of a German military staff that we have ever heard. According to him, the staff was divided into two parts, one of which was concerned with tactical matters and the other with purely administrative affiars. He contends that he was only chief of the tactical staff. The tasks of the administrative staff were not described. Even if this dichotomy had in fact existed outside of Geitner's agile mind, it is difficult to see what difference it would make since Loehr's orders of 10 August 1943 explicitly stated that the carrying out of reprisal measures are "not matters of administration but rather measures of combat."
But Geitner attempted to complicate matters even more. He refers in his testimony to some un-named lieutenant who was a legal expert and who was solely responsible where reprisal measures were concerned.
This fictional creature was supposed to be a member of Geitner's staff and subordinate to him, but he kept a private pipeline to Bader and Felber for the transmission of affairs concerning hostage executions and the like. This fairy tale is not mentioned because it requires any refutation but because it would be almost unfair to let Geitner's inventive fertility pass unrecognized. It seems perfectly logical to us that General Bader should have used his Chief of Staff merely to correct his spelling errors and sharpen his pencils while he sought out some lieutenant to act as his adviser and collaborator in carrying out reprisal measures throughout Serbia.
THE PRESIDENT: Does that complete a division?
MR. RAPP: No, your Honor, I have one more page.
THE PRESIDENT: You may complete the page.
MR. RAPP: The measure of responsibility which the German army considered a chief of staff for the conduction of his troops could not be better illustrated than by a letter sent by the 15th Mountain Corps to the SS Division Prinz Eugen shortly after the Italian capitulation. This letter was later after the decision had been made to shoot officers of Italian units who refused to allow the Germans to disarm them - this letter passed on a comment made by the 2nd Panzer to the following Army effect: Main culprits and accomplices are to be shot to death. Accomplices generally are: all the commander and general staff officers.
Geitner also developed another explanation which ought not to pass unnoticed. When report after report and order after order concerning the Serbian butcheries all bearing Geitner's signature were produced for his comment, he came forth with the bland explanation that they were false. He said that the German officers in Serbia disapproved of the blood thirsty attitude of the OKW and decided to circumvent its harsh directives by reporting imaginary executions. Aside from pointing out that the Fischer affidavit demonstrates the complete absurdity of this contention; that Geitner was unable to point to a single specific example of a mock execution in all of the reports shown him; aside from the fact that Geitner's testimony was contradicted by General Felber who, one would think, has every reason for clutching at any straw himself; and that one of the conspirators named by Geitner in this scheme was SS-Obersturmfuehrer Dr. Schaeffer who had borrowed a gas van to exterminate the Jews in Belgrade, we are at a loss to know how to answer this defense.
It is impossible to take up all of Geitner's defenses, but his arithmetical explanation should not pass unmentioned. There is in evidence here an affidavit signed by Geitner's counsel, sworn to before himself, containing long lists of numbers compiled by persons unknown from sources only specified generally. The apparent purpose of the affidavit is to show that the retaliation ratios were 1:6 instead of 50:1. The German losses set out in this tabulation included combat losses of the Germans but not of the partisans. What this is intended to show, aside from the fact that someone had a passion for playing with figures, is more than a little difficult to understand. If the ability to spin gossamer fabrics of fantasy could compensate for a procession of murders that would bring blench to the cheek of a Borgia poisoner, then Geitner would have good reason to be hopeful of his fate. Fortunately the law sees through all such irrelevant talents.
THE PRESIDENT: We will take our noon recess and reconvene at 1:30.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened, at 1330 hours, 3 February 1948.)
THE PRESIDENT: The tribunal is again in session.
MR. FULKERSON: General Lothar Rendulic is several defendants rolled into one. As commander of the 2nd Panzer Army he was the superior of Dehner and von Leyser while they were in the Balkans. But in 1944 he was named Commander-in-Chief of the XX Mountain Army and transferred to Norway. The ruination and misery which he left in his wake in that country's province of Finnmark constitutes a separate chapter in itself. To make for a more orderly presentation, therefore, we discuss first the activities of Leyser and Dehmer, to return later to the subject of their mutual superior.
Croatia was, at least during the period under discussion, divided into three parts or corps areas. In the north was General Dehner's LXIX Reserve Corps; in the center and including most of the coast was the area of the SV Mountain Corps successively commanded by Generals Lueters, von Leyser and Fehn, and in the south was the V SS Corps with which we are only incidental concerned.
General von Leyser was practically suckled on Prussian militarism. His father was a Lieutenant General in the German Army. He was put into a military school himself at the ago of ten, eventually became an officer and stayed in the Wehrmacht until it was reduced to 100,000 men in 1920. Then he was transferred to the police, where he languished until 1936 when he was able finally to go back into the German Army. In describing the unrest in Germany before 1933 and the reasons why he joined the Party, he made a statement which was far more significant than he intended when he said:
"I hoped that in a strengthened Germany which the Party had promised I could take up again my old profession as a soldier, as an officer."
In half a sentence, von Leyser summed up one of the strongest appeals which Hitler had to the members of the old officer class and conse quently one of the principal reasons for the world catastrophe of 193945.
By the time of the outbreak of the war with Russia, he had risen to be a Brigadier General and was the commanding officer of the 269th Infantry Division, which was subordinate to the XXXI Panzer Corps under General Reinhardt. This corps was in the northern sector of the front and in October Leyser's division found itself before the defenses of Leningrad, having swept all the way from the old Russo-German frontier. Leyser was promoted to Major General as a result of this achievement. After participating in the attempted encirclement of Leningrad, his division was pulled out and moved to the Wolchow sector on the shores of Lake Ladoga, where it stayed until von Leyser was transferred from it in August 1942.
We now go back to June 1941, just before the outbreak of hostilities with Russia. The court will recall that the "Commissar Order" was issued by the OKW on 6 June -- at least two weeks before Russia was attacked. Von Leyser said that he first heard about it at a conference of the various commanding generals and divisional commanders of the 18th Army, to which his division had been attached before it was transferred to General Reinhardt's corps. He said, that although he was not shown the order, he was apprized of its contents and that "we generals objected to this because it was against our own feelings and because we did not think this order could be carried out".
The Commissar Order was discussed a second time at a conference of the divisional commanders of the XXXXI Panzer Corps. There, General Reinhardt said that the Panzer troops would advance so fast that there would not be time to sort out the commissars from among the other prisoners and that, therefore, the order would not be carried out, but, rather, every Russian soldier captured would be treated as a prisoner of war and sent back in the customary manner to the rear. Thus, von Leyser said, the order was not even passed on to his division, much less carried out.
He added, however, that even though there was no official circulation of the Commissar Order, it was known everywhere, not only to the Germans, but also to the Russians.
General von Leyser said that the order was not carried out by his division for two reasons. The first was that in view of the speed with which the Panzer troops advanced, it was impracticable for the commissars to be sorted from the other prisoners. It is difficult to see how the separation of the commissars could have taken much time, since they were a distinctive insignia on their uniforms.
Further, the break-neck ract across Russia came to an abrupt halt once the division reached the outskirts of Leningrad in October 1941. Thereafter, its daily advance could be measured almost in meters. Von Leyser himself said, "It was more or less a war of position." It should be remembered that von Leyser remained with the 269th Division for nine months after this "war of position" began. So much for his first reason as to why the Commissar Order was not carried out.
The second reason the order was not executed, he said, was that it was contrary to his own personal feelings. We will go into the question of General von Leyser's personal feelings presently: we believe the evidence shows that it has undergone a radical metamorphosis since 1941.
But it is not necessary to discuss the reasons he gave why the Commissar Order ought not to have been executed. There may have been many such reasons, but the fact remains that on at least three different occasions the order was carried out by his troops. At least, if his troops were not aware that they were carrying out the order, on three different occasions they did exactly what they would have done had they been following it to the letter, and they did not wait long before they began. On 9 July 1941, the Signal Battalion of the division sent the following message to tho headquarters of the Reinhardt Corps:
"34 Politruks liquidated."
General von Leyser conceded that a politruk was the designation for a political commissar. On 28 September, the Signal Battalion reported:
"Special occurrences: 1 female commissar shot. 1 woman who was in contact with partisans likewise shot."
On 20 November, the Artillery Regiment reported that:
"2 Russian prisoners of the First Battery were shot upon order of the Battalion Commander. These were 1 commissar and 1 Russian high-ranking officer."
General von Leyser did not recall any of these incidents. He said that he had no recollection that any commissars were ever shot by the troops of the 269th Division. General von Leyser's memory, in common with the memories of the other defendants, has a chronic tendency to fade out completely whenever he is asked an embarrassing question.
We have said that we would go into the question of General von Leyser's personal feelings, since he has made an issue of them in this case. We deal first with his attitude toward the civilian population of the territories occupied by the German troops. There are three separate books of documents submitted on his behalf. More than half of their contents consist of affidavits submitted by his acquaintances and former comrades in arms. Time after time, those affidavits describe how touched von Leyser was by the suffering which war had visited upon the civilian population, and how considerate, forebearing and sympathetic he was toward them. Here are a few samples of these testimonials "consider him incapable of committing an act described as a crime according to the laws of humanity or the penal code.
This applies to him even more as he has the quality of exceptional sympathy toward a stranger's fate, especially pronounced in his whole family according to my knowledge."
********* "I could give still more examples which show the disinterested and completely unquestionable behavior of General von Leyser, especially his sympathy toward the inhabitants and prisoners".******** again:
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"The pacification which General von Leyser had in mind could not be accomplished completely ........because his great and generally recognized kindness of heart interfered."
******** It is difficult to believe that this kind and sensitive being, whose heart was so filled with good will toward his fellowman, could have issued and signed the following order on 8 August 1941.
"Hard and ruthless attack by the responsible leaders. Avery consideration and mercy is weakness and means danger. Ruthless prevention of every threat by the enemy civilian population.
"Favoring or aiding partisans, stragglers, etc. on the part of the civilian population is to be regarded as guerilla warfare. Suspicious elements are to be turned over to the Einsatzgruppen and detachments of the SD."
We will have occasion to refer as we go on to the various orders which were signed by Leyser or at least passed on by him. The more one sees of the sentiments which Leyser expressed while the war was going on, the more puzzling it becomes to reconcile them with the feelings which he now professes to have. For example, a few months after he issued the order to which we have just adverted, he had occasion to deal with the question of the treatment of prisoners of war.
On 3 November, the followint directive was issued from his headquarters:
"Commander-in-Chief of the Army has decided that mines, other than in combat or in case there is danger in detail, are to be detected and cleared only by Russian prisoners in order to spare German blood. This is also valid for German mines."
When he was asked about this order, von Leyser's recollection blacked out again, so we do not have the benefit of his explanation except that he attempted to minimize the order in importance by saying that at the time it was issued there were no mines in the sector of his division.
The section of his cross-examination in which this matter was discussed is a classic of double-talk and evasiveness. Von Leyser followed the battle of attrition concept on the witness stand. In order to get him to admit what time of day it was, it was necessary to specify that he was to answer in terms of mean instead of sidereal time and to furnish him with the latitude and longitude of the Palace of Justice.
Aside from the light which it sheds on General von Leyser's personal feelings", this order that Russian prisoners of war should be used to clear mine fields is interesting in another connection. He says that he did not carry out the Commissar Order because it was contrary to these personal feelings. Hour could it have jolted his sensibilities loss to send untrained Russian prisoners of war out on tasks which were adjudged too dangerous for the German sappers? If he issued the order reluctantly and only because he was afraid not to carry out a directive of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, how was it that he was not haunted by the same fears so far as the Commissar Order was concerned? Is it likely that he would feel obliged to carry out an order issued by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and at the same time feel free to disregard a Fuehrerbefehl? We submit that von Leyser did not disregard the Commissar Order, that these executions were reported by his division to the Army for the purpose of showing that the order was being obeyed.
We now turn to von Leyser's activities in Croatia. He arrived there in October 1943 but did not take over the command of the Corps Headquarters formally until the first of November. During this twoweek period, he wasted no time. On 20 October he had a conference with three men: Kasche, the German ambassador to Croatia, and two of the Croatian ministers. The subject of this discussion was General von Leyser's authority, and the minutes of the meeting record that at the end "General von Leyser demands concise, unilateral, executive authority in case of an increase of tension in the situation which was conferred to him by the ministers."
The term "executive authority" is somewhat ambiguous and General von Leyser was asked to give his understanding of what it meant. He said that ho would explain it by saying that a man who had it was "Lord, over life and death, if I may put it that way"; that it meant a telescoping of all political and military authority and of all governmental functions -- executive, judicial and legislative -- into one.
Despite this document, von Leyser repeatedly denied that he had any executive authority in Croatia. On cross-examination, however, he admitted that he was the person who was to decide whether "an increase in tensi in the situation" existed, which is tantamount to saying that he had this authority when he announced that he had it. The joker which he slipped into this part of the testimony was, however, that he could only exercise this authority in the event that he was not able to get in touch with the Croatian officials. He admitted that this condition was not stated in the documents, but he said that it was "inherent" in them. At any rate we know that von Leyser did exercise executive authority in Croatia for example an instance of its exercise is found in his dismissal of the Gauleiter of Banja Luka.
Leyser lost no time in familiarizing, himself with the technique of reprisals. Two days after the corps was formally put under his command one man and four women were arrested and twelve houses were burned down to atone for a railroad dynamiting. The following day an unspecified number of hostages were hanged on the spot where another railroad blasting occurred. Leyser professes not to be able to understand what this second incident was all about. It is contained in a supplement to a daily report of the Railroad Security Service. Both he and General Dehner attempt to disavow all responsibility for hostage executions committed by this organization on the ground that it was not subordinate to them. What we have already said about the weakness of this defense of non-subordination applies with particular emphasis to the Railroad Security Service whose duties were described as the patrolling and guarding of the railway lines -- duties which were performed jointly with the other army troops. It is fantastic to contend that Leyser and Dehner had no control over an army unit operating in their area whose function -- the safe-guarding of lines of communication -- was described by both men as one of their own heaviest responsibilities.
On 5 December, the 114th Division reported that fourteen partisan, had been standrechtlich erschossen. The meaning of this phrase has already been discussed.
On 27 January, twenty-two additional hostages were hanged on tho site of another railroad blasting. The newt day another unit arrested and transferred 32 persons to the SD. On 7 February a Chetnik reconnaisance detachment captured fifteen prisoners and shot all but three. Leyser testified that those Chetnik units had been armed by the Germans and were used as auxiliaries of the German Army. On 5 June it was reported that Croatian combat groups had destroyed a bandit hospital and that 95 wounded and sick had been killed in addition to the partisan combat losses.
These examples from the reports to the XV Corps are sufficient to demostrate the general trend of events. But it would perhaps give a clearer picture to take a typical operation and trace its origin and development. Leyser's first large-scale undertaking was the "Operation Panther" "which he planned soon after he took over his command. In order to prepare his strategy, Leyser had daily tactical conferences with various members of his staff, especially with hi intelligence officer who, of course, was continually receiving information from the various divisions on one strength, organization, armament, leadership and location of tho partisan groups.
We happen to have one of the divisional intelligence reports for November, 1943 and we also have a compilation or general survey made by the corps intelligence officer on 2 December, so that we are unusually well situated to gauge the information upon which von Leyser based his tactical judgments at that time. We can confine our examination to the "Enemy News Sheet" of 2 December. In it the Corps intelligence officer stated that the partisan units in the area of tho XV Mountain Army Corps were made up of the IX Partisan Corps which was subordinate to tho Main Staff Croatia (Tito's staff ). The IX Partisan Corps was comprised of three divisions : the 7th (Banija Division), the 8th (Kordun Division), and the 13th Partisan Division. The 7th Partisan Division was made up of four brigades and two mountain detachments. The 8th Partisan Division was compose of three brigades one mountain artillery detachment, and three mountain detachments. The names of tin commanders, political commissars and other officers, not only of the divisions but also of the brigades and battalions, are given.
In some instances the prewar professions of these officers is mentioned. This list is so complete that in one case even the name of the battalion veterinarian was included. The number of heavy weapons and the approximate man-power strength of every battalion is set out as well as the approximate locations. The code numbers and locations of the Partisan Army post officers are listed. The insignia of the officers of the 7th Division is described.
In considering this document, one should keep in mind the affidavits submitted on Leyser's behalf which declare in effect that the partisans were merely an unorganized mob of armed hoodlums. "Operation Panther "was classical in its simplicity of concept. The German troops were to enter the regions which the partisan forces occupied. Every chicken, every cow, every horse was to be seized and taken away and every able-bodied man between the ages of 15 and 55 was to be arrested and deported. Leyser sent his proposal to General Rendulic's headquarters on 27 November.
"Corps Headquarters proposes to evacuate the entire able-bodied male population in the area to be mopped up."
This is the part of the text of the proposal which Leyser made three weeks after he had taken over the command of the XV Mountain Army Corps. It is to be noted that the idea originated with him.
Army Headquarters answered by giving its blessing to the project and also by making an improvement on it. Leyser had merely suggested that the male population be evacuated. The Army made this rather ambiguous term more specific. It said that it appeared feasible to ship all these men to Germany for labor. The proposal, as modified by the Army, was sent to the Plenipotentiary General in Zagreb and the XVth Corps was notified that this had been done. Leyser registered no objection to his troops being used for a wholesale shanghaiing expedition.
Leyser self-righteously testified on direct examination that the purpose of the evacuation was to give those able-bodied men an opportunity to serve in tho Croatian Army and fight for their fatherland. On crossexamination he was asked why, if that was the object in wanting to evacuate them, he did not demur when the purpose of the evaluation was changed by the Army to that of kidnapping imprisoned laborers to work for the German Reich.
His response was that it was no affair of his where these people were sent, that he was only concerned with the "tactical" aspects of the operation. Leyser's corps was expected to furnish guards for the internment camps where these men were to be kept until they could be shipped to Germany. It is stretching the meaning of the word "tactical" to the breaking point when it is used to include such an activity as this.
In any event, von Leyser's proposal, as revised by the 2nd Panzer Army, was too strong for even the German Plenipotentiary General. He responded that the political repercussions in Croatia which would follow a wholesale shipment of all the able-bodied men in the area von Leyser intended to comb were too risky, and that the corps should evacuate only band suspects and people found wandering around outside of their villages. It was suggested that detachments of the SD could be sent along with each division for screening purposes and it was estimated that some 6,000 persons would be apprehended and deported under this revised scheme.
The operation began. Three German divisions, together with their satellite detachments of SD, were deployed in their respective positions. The great mopping-up operation was under way. The Germans trudged through the mud and snow, scrambled up the hills and penetrated at length into the very heart of the area. With what result? According to their own figures, they killed some 900 partisans and took almost 200 prisoners, as against a total of 70 German dead and 24 missing. These are the figures for combat losses. And what of the evacuation plan? The alarm had been given: The birds had flown. The report ruefully states that only 96 persons were evacuated, but hastens to explain rather lamely that nonetheless the operation was successful because "a rich booty of cattle was brought back" and "the operational intention of the Croatian Main Staff to make an attack reserve out of the 8th Division has been frustrated by the action."
This operation has been singled out for attention because it seems to be typical of the activities in which Leyser's troops were engaged the whole time he commanded the XV Corps.
The code names of these operations follow each ether with a bewildering rapidity, but whether they were denominated as "Roesselsprung", "Napfkuchen", "Ristow", "Klettersteig", "Druznica", "Bergwiese", or "Renate", their or order was much the same. Villages were burned, livestock was confiscated, Jews were deported, able-bodied men were arrested and hauled off, and the women, children and old people were left to fend for themselves as best they could in the smoking desolation which the Germans left behind. These were the tactical accomplishments of the XV Corps. Even General von Panniwtz, the commander of the 1st Cossack Division, who should have been fairly insensitive to shock, complained that operations such as "Brandfackel" in which whole areas had to be devastated "on orders" had a tendency to demoralize his troops. Leyser's excuses and explanations for these things are so amazing that they need not be gone into in detail. A fair sample can be found in his comments on the use of all the male inhabitants who were evacuated from the Dalmatian coast as forced laborers to build the German fortifications. Leyser said that these men had nothing to complain about, they were allowed to stay in Croatia. A response such as this may be interesting to a psychiatrist but it needs no comment by any lawyer.
There is scarcely a crime mentioned in the indictment which Leyser's troops did not commit. They shot captured partisans, they hanged hostages, they acted as press gangs for the slave labor program and the puppet Croatian army, they deported Jews, they wrecked hospitals, they burned whole villages in reprisal for the wounding of one German, they hired and armed gangs of Chetniks whose tactics were more bestial than the Germans say the Partisans were. They worked hand-in-glove with the SD on expeditions whose original purpose, as proposed by Leyser, even turned that German Plenipotentiary General pale. For variety of crimes the XV Corps under general von Leyser holds its own with the best the German occupation forces in the Balkans could offer.
General Ernst Dehner was appointed commander of the LXIXth Infantry Reserve Corps in August, 1943, immediately after the staff of the 2nd Panzer Army was transferred to the Balkans. The area of the Corps was the northern third of Croatia and its main function was to protect that section of the vital Vienna-Salonika railroad which passed through the corps area between Zagreb and Belgrade.
The troops which Dehner had at his disposal were for the most part slightly superannuated. They were supplemented, therefore, by the young hot blood of about 25,000 Cossacks who were commanded, on paper at least, by General von Pannwitz. Actually, from the reports concerning this 1st Cossack Division, General von Pannwitz must have led a rather full Life during these days. He seems to have spent so much of his time signing death warrants for members of his division who had been court-martialed for lootings, murders, mutilations and rapes that, one wonders when he found an opportunity to at end to tactical matters.
Another source of the corps's strength was the 173rd Infantry Division whose commander, General von Behr, visited here some ten days ago to explain some of the statements in his affidavit which were not entirely clear to us. Finally, there was the 187th Infantry Reserve Division. The other troops attached to the corps, with the exception of the Railway Security Service play only a small part in these events either because they were so small or because they stayed in the area such a short time.
It will be remembered that the Rendulic order prescribing a 50:1 ratio was issued on 15 September 1943. Prior to that time we find no reports of hostage executions in the area of the LXIX Corps, but General Dehner, like General Boehme, was literal minded. Once Rendulic had suggested the desirability of hangings and shootings, Dehner wasted no time. On 20 September, the 187th Reserve Division reported its intention to hang ten hostages and to burn down some villages for an attack on a truck of one of its regiments. The next day it was reported that these people had been hanged. Dehner said that he was on leave at the time this took place and, in addition, that he never had heard of it because this particular report was not cleared through his corps.
In any event, he did not long remain in ignorance of the way the wind was blowing. To go into all of these incidents in detail would take too much time. Even to give the dates and occurrences in tabular form would be monotonous. November 1943 seems to have been an active month. It has the additional advantage in that Dehner admits he was in his corps area during that time. We will, therefore, summarize the executions during this 31-day period.
3 November - three bandits hanged by reconnaissance patrol.
5 November - 100 bandits hanged for attack on the railroad and on a police unit.
6 November - unspecified number of bandits and suspects hanged.
7 November - 19 Communists hanged.
8 November - 21 hostages shot.
12 November - 20 hostages hanged and 20 hostages shot for sabotage of railroad and attack on a patrol.
15 November - 13 hostages hanged for attack on passenger train.
30 November - 15 bandit "suspects" executed after attack on recruit transport.
There appears in the documents a total of at least eighteen such incidents reported by the 173rd and 187th Divisions in Dehner's corps. The total number of persons murdered in the course of these operations is something over 450 people. Arithmetical exactitude is impossible, because in certain instances the number is not given. But the figure 450 is a safe, round estimate.
To go into Dehner's defenses would be even more tedious than to enumerate the crimes which his troops committed. He exhausted the entire arsenal with the exception of the defense of superior orders. Each document was handed to him. Twenty times he was asked; "Herr General, haben Sie dieses Dokument unterschrieben?" Twenty times he answered "Nein". One had the impression of being in a chamber of echoes.
His Counsel omitted this standard question with respect to the document reporting the hanging of bandits and people suspected of being bandits on 6 November, nor was it asked in connection with the report containing the news that 21 hostages had been Shot on 8 November. The reason possibly was that his initials appear on both. Nor was he asked it in connection with another report that four hostages were hanged on 2 December. His signature appears on this one.
The first defense that Dehner makes is that the tacticular incident probably never happened. Next, if it did happen, he never heard of it. Besides that, it was probably not carried out by the Army at all but by the Croats, the SS, or the Police. When the document points its finger unerringly at some army unit, then it just happens that this unit had a very special status in his corps area; it was operating independently of his authority and was not subordinate to him in any way.
The importance Dehner attaches to the presence or absence of his initials on a document was alluded to during the earlier discussion of the defenses common to all of the defendants. It will be remembered that by his own admissions Dehner proved that this fact had absolutely no bearing on whether or not he was actually informed of a given document's contents.
More than any of the other defendants here, Dehner has attempted to push off the responsibility for those hostage executions on to his divisional commanders. More than any of these other defendants, he has needed to resort to this tactic. There are not as many avenues to use as an outlet of probative pressure in Dehner's case as there are in the case of many of the other defendants. He haste push the criminal responsibility either sideways on to the police and the Croations or else thrust it down his chain-of-commands to his divisional commanders. For if he tries to heave it up, it will land squarely in the lap of General Rendulic, an awkward result to say the least.
We have already described the absurdity of Dehner's contention that General Rendulic issued a hostage order and then completely relieved his corps commanders from the responsibility for seeing that it was carried out. Dehner would have us believe that he spent half of his time away from headquarters, visiting his various troop units to familiarize himself with the local situation, and that despite the flood of reports which were coming in to him, as the tabulation we have given illustrates, though he never discussed the matter of hostage executions or reprisal measures with any of his divisional commanders. He tries to disociate himself from this sordid business by saying that he had no judicial authority and that it would have been meddlesome of him, a Lieutenant General, to discuss these affairs with his direct subordinates.
If there is any remaining doubt of Dehner's responsibility for these garrotings and shootings, it should be removed by a consideration of two different remarks which he made in the course of his testimony. He was asked whether in his opinion these reprisal measures were effective; that is, whether they achieved the desired result of establishing peace and quiet. He answered that they did: in fact he previously testified that in his opinion it was impossible to keep order in the Balkans without the use of reprisal measures.
The second remark which is significant as showing who was responsible for carrying out these measures was made in the course of trying to explain away a certain hostage execution. Dehner said that it was probably done by the Croatians. He was asked why he thought so. His response was that the incident which provoked it was an attack on a Croatian unit, so that one would normally expect the retaliatory act to have been committed by the Croatians.
Using General Dehner's own logic which is based, of course, on his knowledge of local customs in his corps area, we can draw some con clusions of our own.
One of his most relied-on arguments is that even though a given mass hanging was reported by the 173rd Infantry Division, it is not clear that the officers of that division ordered the hanging or that the troops of that division fashioned the nooses. We do know, however, both from General Dehner's testimony and from General von Behr's testimony, that one of the principal tasks of this division, and for that matter of the 69th Corps itself, was the guarding and protection of the railroads. Von Behr said that when an attack was made on a railroad in his divisional area, he was held primarily accountable for it. Therefore, we may assume that if the occasion of a given hostage execution was railroad sabotage, as most of then were, the retaliatory measures for this would be carried out be the German Division which was primarily charged with protecting the railroad.
A word about the Railroad Security Service. Both Dehner and Leyser now deny that this organization was subordinate to them. They say that it was directly subordinate to the 2nd Panzer Army. This contention is sufficiently far-fetched in Leyser's case, but in Dehner's it is utterly absurd. He said himself that one of his main duties, the whole time he was in charge of the corps, was the securing of the Zagreb-Belgrade railroad. He said that his troops were used to patrol it. Yet, it is now contended that this Railroad Security Service, which did nothing but guard the railroad, was independent. This contention is obviously an afterthought. General Dehner himself in the course of cross-examination made it quite clear who was in charge of these units, when the following colloquy took place:
"Q. Now then, between that time, between the 20 December and the time they came back in the middle of March, you were left with only two divisions in your area?