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?
"A. I had in my Corps area the two reserve divisions, namely the 173rd and 187th, to which reference was made before. I also had the Cossack division and toward the end of 1943, I had the 367th Division to which I also referred on direct examination. Then I had a number of other units, which were attached to the division, such as railway security battalions......"
There is very little else to be said of Dehner. If there had been hostage executions in his area on only a few occasions, it might have been necessary to say more. But during October, November, and December, 1943 -- the period when the Rendulic 50-to-1 order was in force -- reports of these massacres were coming into him almost every day. If these crimes had been committed by one of his divisions, we might be able to accept his explanation that hostage executions were solely the business of the divisional commanders. But each of his subordinate units was as murderous as the next.
His initials and signature on some of these necrologies show that he know what was happening. When he did not read the reports, his Chief of Staff told him what was in them. He testified that he spent half of his time personally visiting his subordinate units for the purpose of finding out what was going on. He was as close to the men who pulled the triggers and tied the hangman's knots as any defendant here. It was a practical impossibility for one of his divisional commanders to be promoted without his approval. Yet Dehner now wishes us to believe that there was nothing he could do by way of restraint.
Dehner has the dubious distinction of having one of the worst records, and the most unconvincing defenses, which have been offered to this Tribunal.
When the war against Russia began, Rendulic was the Commanding General of the 52nd Infantry Division. He denies, of course, that he ever executed the Commissar Order. His testimony is in flat contradiction to the official record kept by his staff officers. On 6 September 1941, the division reported that two commissars had been seized and shot.
On 11 September an order was issued to the, component regiments of the division, stating that "former Red Army men in uniform or civilian clothes loafing around, Jews, persons on whom weapons are found, or those who can be pronounced as partisans, are to be shot immediately."
The attitude of Rendulic toward the Jewish question is reflected clearly in this report. Several time it is reported that Jews were used to clean up the streets, evacuated or drafted into the labor service. Along with the two commissars, one Jewish functionary was shot.
In August, 1943. having meanwhile become a four-star General, Rendulic was transferred to Croatia as Commander of the 2nd Panzer Army. He had an overall supervision of the areas occupied by the troops of Dehner's and Leyser's corps. In addition to these; the V SS Corps and tho XXI Mountain Corps were also subordinate to the 2nd Panzer Army. Rendulic is, therefore, accountable not only for the crimes which have been enumerated in connection with our discussion of Leyser and Dehner but he also bears the joint responsibility for a number of other outrages committed in these other corps areas, plus a number which took place within the area of the XV Corps before Leyser became its commander. For example, the Prinz Eugen Division hanged twenty partisans for an attempt to blow up railroad tracks while this division was subordinate to Lueters. Other reports made during the period of Lueters' command of the XV Corps show that 19 partisans were shot: that hostages have been arrested and that the slightest resistance was to be broken by ruthless terror; that 27 Chetniks were to be hanged as a reprisal measure; that two villages were burned down and eight men hanged in another operation; and the one village was burned and 100 bandits shot in another. From tho V SS Corps it was reported that 24 hostages were shot and one hanged in retaliation for the death of a single German soldier.
In connection with reprisal measures and particularly the execution of hostages carried out in the area of the 2nd Panzer Army, the Rendulic order of 15 September, 1943, plays a very important part.
The explanation for it which Rendulic gave was that he merely was making a current compilation of all previous orders on the subject; summarizing which was made necessary because of numerous supplements to the Keitel directive of two years before. Rendulic even tried to use this order to make himself out to be a humanitarian because it prescribed a ratio of only 50:1, whereas the Keitel directive had allowed for a figure of 100:1.
As in the case of the other defendants, the attempt to exonerate himself by pointing to an OKW order is irreconcilable with what he said in other connections. For instance, he claimed on the witness stand to have disregarded absolutely the Fuehrerbefehl of 25 July, 1943, which provided for the transfer of all captured partisans for work in the mines. He says that since in his judgment the labor shortage was more critical in Croatia than it was in the Reich, he simply kept them in spite of the mandate of his Supreme Commander. We have already pointed out that th says he refused to carry out the Commissar Order. The truth is, the hostage order which Rendulic gave was promulgated and passed down because Rendulic believed that it was the proper way to meet the situation. If he had not thought so, he would have disregarded the Keitel directive with all its supplements just as he disregarded other OKW orders when he disagreed with them.
Leyser and Dehner as well as Rendulic constantly tried to minimize the importance of this 50:1 order by saying that it was rescinded early in December so that it was only in effect some 2 ½ months. That, of course, is no answer. But the significant thing is that during this period most of the hanging and shootings took place. The effect which the issuance of this order had on the troop commanders can be clearly seen from the standing instructions subsequently issued by Fischer and Niedholdt during the month of October. This one order is sufficient in itself to convict a dozen men of murder.
But the long register of crimes ascribable to Rendulic contains an infinite variety. It is not confined simply to the killing of hostages. One spectacular item is the conduct of his troops toward their former Allies directly after the Italian surrender.
Mussolini abdicated on 25 July, 1943. The Germans had been apprehensive that the Italian Army would not much longer continue a struggle for which it had never displayed a sensational enthusiasm and this event confirmed their fears. The OKW began planning what the German troops were to do in the event of an Italian capitulation to the Allies. They knew the location and strength of all the Italian units and in August a series of directives were sent out from Berlin alerting the commanding generals in the Balkans to the possibility of an Italian surrender so as to allow them to make whatever tactical arrangements were necessary in order to disarm the Italians and to take over the occupation tasks of the Italian troops if that became necessary.
On the night of 8 September, the surrender terms having been signed by the representatives of his government, Marshal Badoglio, the Italian Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Italian armed forces, issued an order to all Italian troops in the field, informing them of the terms of the surrender agreement and giving them directions as to what they should do. The gist of these directions was that though they were to take no aggressive action against the Germans, the Italian troops were not to allow themselves to be disarmed. Any such attempt on the part of the Germans was to be interpreted as hostile act which the Italian forces should resist to the fullest extent of their power.
The Italian troops in the Balkans were all part of Army Group Est which was composed of two armies, the 9th stationed in Croatia and Albania and the 11th in Greece. The commander of Army Group Est was General Rossi.
Rendulic, upon learning of the Italian capitulation, acted promptly. On 9 September, the operation "Axis" was begun and the German units moved with synchronized swiftness to their pre-arranged positions. On the 10th, the SS Division "Prinz Eugen" reported that its combat teams had "encountered resistance from Italian units" which had refused to capitulate and that dive-bombing attacks by German planes had been employed to induce a more reasonable frame of mind.
Now it was obviously to the best interests of the Germans to persuade the highest Italian commander to order all his troops to give in and be disarmed by the Germans. The commander of the Italian Army Group Est, General Rossi, was among those who refused to disobey Badoglio's instructions It would not do to have the natural resentment on the part of many of the Italian troops toward being ignominiously disarmed and made prisoners of way by the Germans stiffened by the attitude of the highest Italian commander, so in the very next day, 11 September, a capitulation agreement was signed by the Italian General D'Almazzo, the Commander of the Italian 9th Army.
Meanwhile, the day after the Italian surrender to the Allies, Keitel had issued an order directing what was to be done with Italian soldiers who refused to continue fighting on the German side. After being disarmed, they were to be considered as prisoners of war, the skilled workers among them to be sent to work in the German armament factories, and all the others to be used as slave laborers, on the construction of the so-called East Wall.
On 11 September, the same day that General D'Almazzo signed the capitulation agreement, Rendulic ordered that wherever Italian troops continued to offer resistance they were to be given a short-term ultimatum saying that unless the resistance cessed, the commanders responsible for it would be shot as frames tireurs. The next day he issued another order to General Lueters, providing that in case of destruction of arms, ammunition etc. by the Italians, one officer of the divisional staff and fifty men of the division concerned would be shot to death, in addition to the culprits. The Italian commanders were to remain in charge of their men during the evacuation from the coastal areas to certain surrender points designated by the Germans in the interior of Croatia. Any Italian soldier who arrived at the entraining station without his arms would be shot to death, together with his unit leader, and if any motorized vehicle were destroyed, one officer and ten men would be shot.
Another order the next day provided that if any of the Italian troops refused to do as they were ordered, "severest measures of compulsion, reprisal measures (shootings to death)" were to be applied.
In spite of the order of D'Almazzo, several Italian divisions refused to surrender to the Germans.
One of those was the "Bergamo" Division stationed at Split and another was the Division "Taurinense" in Albania. Various smaller Italian units also refused to lick the German boot.
The SS Division "Prinz Eugen" was dispatched to Split to subdue the "Bergamo Division." Apparently the resistance it encountered was too stiff for the 92nd motorized Regiment was dispatched to help out in quelling the revolt which centered around the Italian General Roncaglio. By 28 September, the XV mountain Corps to which the "Prinz Eugen" Division was subordinated, was able to report that the majority of the Roncaglio Division had been taken prisoner and that 300 of its captured officers would be executed in accordance with the Keitel order of 15 September. The entry in the war diary of the XV Mountain Corps for 27 September reads: "commanding general has called investigation to ascertain guilty officers." The reference apparently is to Rendulic. The next day the XV Corps again instructed the SS Division "Prinz Eugen" to proceed according to previous orders -- "officers to be shot to death by summary court martial, non--commissioned officers and men to be deported East for compulsory labor employment." Accordingly, the division delivered 9,400 Italian prisoners for transport to work camps in the East.
General Roncaglio was flown to Belgrade at the special request of Rendulic. A number of other Italian officers, including 3 generals, were retained for execution. The precise number of Italian officers who were shot by the Germans cannot be seen from the captured documents, and, of course, Rendulic claims he does not know. On 30 September, however, the 3 generals were killed at Split and on the following day the shooting of "45 additional guilty Italian officers" was reported. On 3 October, an "additional 9 officers of the Bergamo Division" were reported shot, and on 12 October, "4 more officers of the Taurinense were shot as reprisal." We need not attempt to catalogue all of the reported executions. They continued, however, until at least 26 November when reprisal measures were reported to have been carried out against 8 more Italian officers.
The facts summarized here are not in dispute. What are the excuses and explanations which General Rendulic offers?
His defense is best fundamentally upon the capitulation agreement which D'Almazzo signed which, he argues, was a bona fide contract that D'Almazzo was authorized to make so far as he, Rendulic, know at the time. Of course, in order to sustain this argument, Rendulic had to deny that he knew anything about Badoglio's surrender proclamation of 8 September and he also had to profess his belief in D'Almazzo's authority.
One document which the prosecution introduced in rebuttal blows all of these contentions sky-high. It shows that in actuality Rendulic knew of Badoglio's surrender on the very day it was announced. On that day, 8 September, at 2150 hours, the 2nd Panzer Army informed its three subordinate corps that "according to the declaration of Marshal Badoglio, the Italians are fighting together with the Allies and refuse any sort of surrender of weapons."
The teletype message went on to say that "according to radio Cairo, Italian troops in the Balkans are subordinate to the American General Wilson." Rendulic, therefore, knew perfectly well that no Italian officer in the Balkans could sign an agreement to surrender to the Germans without directly violating the order of his superior.
But here is the amazing thing which this document discloses: It appears that on 11 September, three days after the Badoglio proclamation, Rendulic personally went to Tirna and Albania, by air with a company of German parachutists and arrested General Rossi and his Chief of Staff. This happened at noon. At two o'clock the diary reveals that General D'Almazzo was installed in Rossi's place "and is to receive his instructions concerning concentration and orderly withdrawal of his units from the Commander-in-Chief of the 2nd Panzer Army." The installation apparently took place at General Bader's headquarters in Belgrade. Rendulic had done a good day's work. He had captured and deposed one Italian commander, flown to Belgrade and installed D'Almazzo in his stead and concluded a surrender agreement all on the same day.
This completely topples the Italian surrender agreement defense behind which Rendulic attempted to hide. It incidentally shows that not an iota of credence can be placed on any of the testimony he made on the witness stand. He knew when he was testifying that this whole story was fiction from start to finish and that this vaunted "agreement" with the Italian Commander-in-Chief was nothing but a shame.
COURT NO. V, CASE NO. VII.
The introduction of this document into evidence eliminates the necessity of a prolonged argument over the law of surrender agreements. It is evident that before an agreement can be binding on anyone, both parties must act in good faith and have authority or at least colorable authority to contract. It would be a simple life indeed if we could merely kidnap everyone who would not accede to our terms and install a ventriloquist's dummy in his stead.
The last action of Rendulic to be noted concerns the devastation of northern Norway. The story here is a simple one. The Finns had gotten their fill of the war and had decided that further resistance against the Russians was stupid. The German troops were given two weeks' notice to evacuate the country. The 20th Mountain Army, under Rendulic, was stationed in northern Finland, primarily to secure the airfields and ports which had served as bases for German air and sea attacks on Allied convoys going to Murmansk and Archangel. Another important task had been the protection of the vital nickel mines at Kolosjoki.
Actually, the Finns did not sign an armistice with Russia until six weeks after they had notified the Germans of their intention, but even this additional time did not enable the latter to retreat in a comfortable and leisurely fashion.
On 4 October, the OKW ordered that Rendulic have his troops in the course of their withdrawal destroy all installations which might be of use to the enemy. This order ended with the instruction that:
"the entire population of Norway capable of bearing arms is to be taken along as far as marches permit and to be turned over to "the Reich commissar Norway for compulsory labor employment.