But even if it is accurate to describe the Italian officers who resisted disarmament as prisoners of war who had mutinied, the German treatment of them was contrary to the treatment prescribed in the Geneva Convention. Every prisoner of war who commits a crime after he has been made a prisoner of war has a right to trial by his peers which, of course, was not the case with Gandin. Moreover, notice of his trial must be sent by the detaining power to the protecting power. Finally, no death sentence against such a prisoner of war may be executed until three months after notice of sentence is given to the protecting power. None of these conditions were fulfilled.
An addition 58 Italian officers were executed upon capture at Sarande for being instrumental in allying the units with the partisans. As to these men, Lanz admits that they were shot on the theory that they were francs-tireur. But, of course, they were not. Even Lanz conceded that they fulfilled all of the requirements of Article 1 of the Hague Rules for belligerent status. They were in full uniform, they were commanded by their own officers, they bore their arms openly and they obeyed the rules of war. Lanz now maintains that those 58 officers were shot by the 1st Mountain Division in violation of his own orders to the contrary. But even forgetting Lanz's previous treatment of Italian officers captured on Cephalonia and Corfu, and assuming that what he says is true, why was the commander of the 1st Mountain Division not punished for what was in this case unquestionable insubordination?
Lanz finally contends that his actions against the Italians were militarily necessary. It might be conceded that there were compelling military reasons for wishing to disarm the Italians. But how could there possibly be any military necessity for shooting those who resisted after their capture and after their capacity for doing further damage to German security had been removed?
The true explanation for these killings was given by the highest judge at OKW headquarters, Dr. Lehmann, who instructed his subordinate judicial officers on 30 September 1943, that the execution of captured Italian officers on the basis of the Keitel directive of 16 September should be considered "a political measure without judicial competence."
Before leaving the Italian complex, we should mention that Lanz's corps headquarters issued an order not to take prisoners during operation "Verrat" (Treason) the code name for the German action on Cephalonia and Corfu, and that one company of the Brandenburg Regiment was to participate in the attack wearing Italian uniforms. Even Lanz had no doubt of the unlawfulness of that tactic. He now claims that the Brandenburg unit never actually got into action. If so, Lanz can claim no credit. He never lifted a finger to prevent the scheme from being carried out. Of course, he also says now that the "no prisoner" order was issued by a member of his staff without his knowledge and that he himself never knew until he got to Nuremberg of the intentions of the Brandenburg detachment. On other occasions, when it suited his purposes better, Lanz insisted that he was always alert to punish offenses of every nature within his area of command. Is it likely that a man so concerned with maintaining discipline within his corps would have no knowledge of an act of gross insubordination on the part of a staff officer and of the intended violation of international law by a unit attached for special purposes to his command?
Lanz, like the rest of his colleagues, says that he was violently opposed to the whole Nazi regime. He says that he was severely criticized by his superiors for the way he conducted the initial surrender negotiations with Cecchiarelli, as well as for his attitude towards the Italian resisters on Cephalonia and Corfu. But several months after the Italian affair, on 1 March 1944, General Doehr -- then Commander of Army Group E -- described Lanz as a "National Socialist leader personality" and stated that his annihilation of the Italian occupation forces on Cephalonia and Corfu were "frequently superior". In spite of the "difficulties" which Lanz was supposed to have made for his superiors during the Italian actions, Loehr stated that he was "above average" and "should be retained in his present assignment".Lanz has the blood of an indefinite number, at the very least more than a hundred, innocent Italian officers and men on has hands.
His actions during September and October 1943 were flagrant violations of fundamental revisions of international law which will always be remembered as one of the most shameful and unchivalrous chapters in the whole history of professional soldiery.
Mr. Fenstermacher will continue with the Prosecutions closing statement
THE PRESIDENT: We will take our afternoon recess at this time, a recess of ten minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: After dealing with the Italians, Lanz turned to his primary mission of defeating the partisans and maintaining order and security in the Epirus section of Greece. In the light of his prior performance, one could not expect his methods of keeping order among the Greek populace to be remarkable for their gentleness and forebearance. He resorted to the usual Greek technique of the mailed fist and the spiked club -- the execution of hostages and the wholesale burning of villages.
Lanz maintains that he opposed the whole idea of taking hostages and shooting men in retaliation for acts which were committed by others. He was careful not to say that he considered such methods unlawful but only that he objected to them for "purely humane reasons." His opposition was apparently not very articulate. On the 13th of September 1943 the subordinate 1st Mountain Division issued an order providing that "for every German soldier wounded or killed by insurgents or civilians, ten Greeks from all classes of the population are to be shot to death", and that this ratio was to "be carried out consistently in order to achieve a deterring effect." Lanz says he never heard of that order prior to seeing it for the first time here in Nueremberg. At the time that the order was issued, the headquarters of the XXIInd Mountain Corps and the 1st Mountain Division were in the very same city. Lanz and General Stettner, the Division commander, lived and worked not more than two kilometers from each other in the Epirus capital of Joannina. If you believe Lanz, he and Stattner never even discussed the matter of hostages.
Slightly more than a fortnight after tho 10:1 order of the 1st Mountain Division, Lanz himself ordered that "30 distinguished citizens (Greeks) from Arta", and "10 distinguished citizens (Greeks) from Filipias", be arrested and kept as hostages because of repeated cable sabotage in the area of Arta.
The order stated that "for every further act of cable sabotage ten of the forty hostages would be shot to death." When it was pointed out to General Lanz on cross examination that he himself was adopting a 10:1 hostage ratio just a short time after the 10:1 ratio was announced by one of his subordinate divisions, he was most surprised. Could it have been coincidence or is this an indication that the 1st Mountain Division's order is based on a previous order issued by Lanz?
On 25 October 1943, the 1st Mountain Division issued another hostage order of which Lanz also claims to have been uninformed. In that later order, the hostage ratio was raised to 50:1 in the case of German losses and 10:1 "in case of a murder of a pro-German Greek or a Greek working for the Germans." Application for the actual carrying out of all such executions had to be cleared by the Division's Ic officer through General Speidel who, as Military Commander of Greece represented the executive power. Although the 50:1 ratio was decreed even in the event of losses suffered by the Germans during band combat, Lanz has no recollection whatever of having issued, discussed or heard about this act of obvious illegality on the part of the divisional commander whose headquarters were in the same town with his own.
On direct examination Lanz insisted that he himself had issued but one hostage order, the one dated 3 October. Could he have intentionally forgotten the proclamation that he, as Commander of the German troops in Epirus, issued on 24 May 1944 for the seizure of hostages in Pogonion and their transport to Joannina, 40 kilometers away?
Lanz, of course, was reluctant to even hazard a guess at the number of hostages that were executed within the jurisdiction of his XXII Mountain Corps. Even the numerous documents were unable to refresh his recollection sufficiently for him to give a rough approximation. The situation report of the 1st Mountain Division to the XXII Corps, dated 24 October 1943, states that 58 hostages were executed for a surprise attack on German soldiers in the area near Paramythia. General Lanz felt that this particular report was confused with a report stating that 50 Greeks had been executed in retaliation for an attack upon German troops. But it was General Lanz rather than the Prosecution who was confused. An additional report shows that the 50 Greeks were executed on the 29th of September for an attack which occurred on the 20th of that month. From one of General Lanz's own file notes, dated 18 October 1943, more than three weeks after the "50 Greeks" incident, it appears that the 58 hostages were shot as a reprisal measure for six German soldiers. Again one notices, strikingly enough, an adherence to the 10:1 ratio which the 1st Mountain Division had decreed on the 13th of September and which Lanz himself had observed on the 3rd of October 1943.
Whether or not General Lanz now recalls it, his own corps reported to Army Group E on the 12th of December 1943, the execution of five hostages in retaliation for the killing of a "nationalist leader" in Korea. Earlier, on the 8th of November 1943, Battalion 79 reported to the 1st Mountain Division that eight hostages had been hanged in retaliation for the death of the interpreter Walter Jennewin.
That General Lanz had personal acquaintance with the execution of hostages is readily seen from the reports sent out in connection with the attack upon his own convoy at the time of the Salminger funeral.
On the 3rd of October, 1943, the 1st Mountain Division reported that in retaliation for a partisan attack on the convoy making the trip from Joannina to Prevesa "4 hostages were immediately shot as reprisal" and that immediate counter-measures were being carried out. The same day the 1st Mountain Division reported "counter-measures in progress; up to now 4 civilians shot to death". Fascinated by the magical similarity of the figure four here involved, Lanz argues that hostages were not shot at all but that the persons killed were simply Greek partisans dressed as civilians who were killed in the course of the attack. A more reasonable explanation, however, is that immediately after the attack four innocent hostages were executed, and that later on four additional persons were shot as a countermeasure.
Though possessing no real knowledge of the execution of "security" hostages, Lanz has a slight familiarity with the use of "danger" hostages within his corps area. Though his 1st Mountain Division issued orders that hostages accompanying German lorries should be taken only from the central collection point, and though Lanz himself saw Greek civilians patrolling German roads under the threat of being executed in the event of attacks on German vehicles using those roads, he saw nothing unlawful about the practice, though he did feel that it was not a particularly good idea from a purely military point of view.
Lanz faced both ELAS and EDES partisans during the course of his stay in Epirus. He admitted that the testimony of the Greek witness Triandaphyllidis, General Zervas' ADC, was accurate when the latter testified that all EDES units were insignia, that after March 1943, they all wore uniforms and that they were not guilty of any violations of the laws of war. Perhaps because no member of the ELAS units had testified, General Lanz felt safe in contending that those units fulfilled none of the prerequisites of article 1 of the Hague Rules.
The many reports which mentioned the military organization of the EIAS forces, the names of their leaders, their armament and equipment, and their insignia, are authentic written testimony to the contrary.
But in spite of the fact that both of Lanz's opponents were entitled to full belligerent status, Lanz instructed his units to take severe reprisal measures in the event of attacks by those opponents against German troops and installations. The most significant order in that regard is Lanz's own order of the day issued after the death of Lt. Colonel Salminger, who was killed by a partisan road-trap, a method of warfare which outraged Lanz's own high standards of chivalrous warfare. In his order of 1 October 1943, he said that he expected that the 1st Mountain Division would "avenge this nefarious bandit murder... by a ruthless reprisal action with a circumference of 20 kilometers of the place where the murder occurred." On the stand Lanz insisted that by that order he was simply instructing the 1st Mountain Division to seek out and defeat the partisans in armed combat. Again one notices the resort to euphemism which has been so commonplace throughout this proceeding. That the troops read the same meaning in to the order as did the Prosecution is evident from the reports which came back to the corps two days later. Though it was not likely that Salminger's attackers would loiter very long in the neighborhood, the division invaded and burned village after village.
Though there was not a single German loss at Akmotopok, the entire village was burned down and all its inhabitants shot. Lanz argues that when a report states "all inhabitants shot to death", it really means that all of the peaceful inhabitants had left the village prior to the entry of the German troops and that the persons actually shot down were not inhabitants of the village at all but simply partisans dressed as civilians.
One further example of the apparent unintelligibility of the language of the reports which came to General Lanz concerns the reprisal action carried out against the village of Korea. Though the report records that "all men capable of bearing arms were shot", Lanz claims that what really happened was that the civilian inhabitants of the village had taken up arms and were killed in the course of the fighting for the village.
Another example of this method of documentary interpretation can be found in an explanation given in a Lanz affidavit of a report which stated that "in the area southeast of Arta the 2nd Company of the 54th Artillery Battalion burned down two villages as reprisal for the activities of bands during the last few days." The affiant said that not two villages but only two houses were really burned. Is it the affiant or the report which is erroneous? The Court will recall the Lanz affiant who had General Lanz himself accompanying Lt. Colonel Salminger at the time the latter was killed. Even General Lanz had to admit that his affiant there had "made a mistake."
Lanz also was a faithful supplier of Greek labor for the war industries manned by Sauckel's slaves. A file note of the Commanding General of the XXII Corps for 18 October 1943, already alluded to in another connection, mentions that 160 persons had by then been deported for labor employment in Germany. The reason - they were "suspected of being members of bands and unable to show place of work."
Lanz admitted that Greek civilians were mobilized to do forced labor on Greek roads, but that, he argued, was beneficial not only to the Germans but to the civilian population as well. He denied, however, that any Greeks were used to construct fortifications. When he was shown on cross-examination a report, dated 1 March 1944, from the Steyrer Division to his Corps - a report which was received at corps headquarters on 2 March 1944 - stating that the evacuation of Sarande was in progress but that the male population would remain in Sarande for the time being and would be "brought up to work on fortifications", Lanz had a unique seizure of speechlessness.
He also did his bit towards the "final solution" of the Jewish question. Though Corfu, following the Italian surrender, was entirely within his jurisdiction and control, he permitted a small SS detachment to forcibly evacuate almost 1800 of that island's Jewish inhabitants. Lanz admitted not only that there was no military necessity for such an action but, as he pointed out to Army Group E, that there was actually great danger that such a measure would hamper military defense preparations against an Allied attack. Though Lanz contended that he also opposed the measure for "reasons of humanity" no word of opposition on that ground appears in any of the communications which he had with Army Group E on the subject. Lanz conceded, at one point, that it was entirely within his power to keep the SS off the island, but at another stage of his testimony he said that he was wholly unable to prevent the measure and that the only thing he was able to do was to order his staff and his men to render no assistance whatever to the visiting SS men. But his men did assist the SS in carrying out the operation. As appears from the report which the German island commander sent to the XXII Corps, the army troops did the rounding up of the Jews and set aside barracks space in which they could be temporarily housed pending the arrival of ships taking them to their eventual destination. Such was the extent of Lanz's intervention against and his opposition to the fulfillment of the "purging of Europe".
Even prior to his arrival in Greece, Lanz had a record which was sufficiently black. When he received the Commissar Order as Commander of the 1st Mountain Division, he passed it on with the qualification that commissars would only be shot in combat. From that day forward he heard no more about commissars and he was sure none was ever executed by any of the units within his division. He had forgotten about the former proclamation which the XXXXIX Mountain Corps had sent to the division on 29 July 1941. That proclamation, addressed to the Ukrainian population, talked about the liberation "from the despotism of Jewish-Bolshevist elements" which the German troops had brought, and went on to say that "political commissars and members of the Red Army cut off from their units" were to be arrested without delay by the local mayors and delivered to the nearest German commander.
Lanz pretended to have heard "for the first time here in Nurnberg" about such a distinction between political commissars and other members of the Russian Army.
He was even more astounded when he was shown an enclosure, dated 12 August 1941, to the Ic activity report of his very division. That enclosure was a graphic description of the capture of 18,000 Russian prisoners. The Court will recall the dramatic exposition of the singling out of a political commissar from the rest of the prisoners and his subsequent three-hour interrogation. Then, according to the account, he was "taken aside to a place from whence only the crack of the report" came back, "not, however, the faint cry."
General Lanz believed that account was an entirely fictitious product of some war correspondent's imagination. He went so far as to suggest that the story was wholly inaccurate, a figment of a scriptwriter's brain intended for consumption on the homefront. Lanz could not explain how the correspondent knew such details as the insignia of the commissars, and their well-advised tactic of discarding it after capture in chance protection from the prescribed fate.
Lanz even went so far as to intimate that political commissars were not entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention because they oftentimes shot their own troops to prevent desertion. What relevance this completely unsupported accusation has to international law is beyond our comprehension.
Nothing whatever can be said in mitigation of Lanz's shameful record. His Baedeker of crime is as complete as that of any of his colleagues.
General Helmuth Felmy is no stranger to a method of thinking which holds military commanders responsible for the acts of their subordinates. In January 1940, one of his lesser officers in the air corps was forced down just inside the western boundary of Holland and Germany. The pilot had with him plans for the invasion of the Low Countries which was in fact to occur four months later. The plans were, of course, confiscated by the Dutsch authorities. Felmy, in spite of his exalted rank and his great reputation as a builder of the German Luftwaffe was held negligent and dismissed from his high post in the Luftwaffe.
Felmy returned to his home in Brunswick and, with plenty of time to ruminate both about his fate and the destiny of western civilization, decided in September of that year to join the Nazi Party. A few months thereafter he returned to active service, but he denies that his membership in the party had anything to do with his reinstatement. If Felmy was not, as he asserts, being an opportunist, he must have joined the party because he believed in its principles and the practical application of its ideology.
After heading what proved to be a still-born political-military commission in Irak, an assignment on which he was sent by Hitler and Ribbentrop personally, Felmy, in June 1941, was appointed Commander Southern Greece subordinate to Field Marshal List as Commander-in-Chief of the Twelfth Army and Armed Forces Commander Southeast.
When List went on leave during July and August 1941, Felmy, as the senior ranking commander in the Southeast, was named his deputy. The practice of appointing the senior officer as acting commander-in-Chief during the latter's absence was standard and customary procedure in the German Wehrmacht and Felmy is not at all reluctant to concede that was the motivating cause for his appointment on the first occasion of List's absence.
If it is suggested that Felmy was also named List's deputy during the interregnum between List's retirement to the hospital and Kuntze's arrival, when the two mass executions at Kraljevo and Kragujevac took place, Felmy is against at the idea.
There is nothing in the documents naming Felmy as List's deputy at any time, and it therefore seems reasonable to assume that if Felmy, as senior ranking commander, automatically became acting commander-in-chief of the 12th Army in July and August, the same thing happened in October 1941. Felmy insists, however, that he was specifically named to the post of deputy in July 1941, and urges Foertsch's testimony as confirmation. This is an interesting testimonial interchange. Felmy tries to extract Foertsch from his embarrassment by saying that the leadership of the 12th Army from October 16 until October 27 rested with the individual commander, and not with the Chief of Staff. The quid pro quo is that Foertsch must give Felmy a hand by testifying that no specific appointment of Felmy had been made. The very fact that Felmy denies any knowledge of either of the three Serbian massacres which occurred in October 1941 is most indicative of his general credibility.
Shortly after he took over as List's deputy, Felmy issued, on 29 July 1941, an order stating that death sentences for sabotage were to be carried out by hanging and that, additionally, "all means of intimidation which are customary with the residents of the country be employed". Felmy, understandably enough, could not explain what he meant by "all other means of intimidation" - but in the light of such evidence, would it be too much to assume that he meant concentration camps, deportations, and the rest of the gamut of crimes which have been discussed so often in this proceeding? On the same day, Felmy received a report that 100 Jews had been shot to death in Belgrade in reprisal for the throwing of a bottle of gasoline on a German motor vehicle four days earlier. Felmy, of course, has no recollection whatever of the incident, though he admits that Foertsch, as a competent and dutiful Chief of Staff, must have informed him about it. On the 15th of August 1941, it was reported to the office of the Armed Forces Commander Southeast that the village of Skela had been burned and 50 "communists" hanged in retaliation for an attack upon a police car on the previous day.
Of such type were the incidents which occurred during the period General Felmy acted in Field Marshal List's stead.
After serving as Commander Southern Greece from June 1941 until August 1942, Felmy left Greece for a brief interlude in North Africa. He returned in June 1943 as Commander of the LXVIIIth Corps, a post he held until the evacuation of Greece in October 1944. Felmy's major task, of course, was the combatting of the Greek partisans. Whereas the EDES partisans operated for the most part in General Lanz's territory, Felmy's major opponents were the ELAS units, the so-called "communist" group of Andartes. As early as 5 July 1943, the Military Commander of Southern Greece, then General Speidel, wrote a very comprehensive report on the nature and size and leadership of the ELAS organization. It was reported to be 40,000 strong, with all manner of weapons, an efficient general staff, and a centralized direction in the hands of English officers subordinate to the Allied Middle East Command with headquarters in Cairo. As might be expected from such a large organization, uniforms were worn by practically all and readily identifiable insignia by everyone. Though the last factor is extremely difficult for Felmy to accept, even his own Ic officer, Colonel Kleykamp, admitted that the Soviet star was uniformly worn.
Of course, Felmy gave the same lurid testimony regarding partisan violations of the rules of war as the rest of the defendants. In his case such testimony is particularly untrue. The war diary of his subordinate 1st Panzer Division shown that on the 2nd of October 1943 twelve hostages were seized and threatened with execution if missing German soldiers were not returned by the bands. The entry in the war diary for the following day states that the soldiers were in fact turned over. As if this example were not enough to support the Prosecution's contention that the partisans did not violate the Geneva Convention, there is not a single entry in the entirely translated war diary of Felmy's LXVIIIth Corps for the period January - June 1944 which mentions or even hints at the killing and mutilating of German prisoners by the partisans. If such practices were usual.
and as widespread as Felmy and his affiants have asserted, why is there not one indication in the whole war diary to that effect?
Felmy's partisan opponent was particularly powerful on the Peloponnesus peninsula, so powerful in fact that the German occupation there was utterly ineffective. In repeated requests to higher headquarters for additional troops, vernings appear that the northwest part of the Peloponnesus was entirely dominated by the bands "except for the coastal areas dominated by the Germans" and that "only a few coastal sections and the ports of Tripolis and Sparta remain in German hands." The partisans controlled more of the Peloponnesus than the Germans during 1943 and 1944.
To meet the challenge of the partisans, Felmy resorted to the firingsquad technique which had been characteristic of the German occupation since April 1941. "Danger" hostages were a common-place. The entry in the war diary for 5 June 1944 states that as a counter-measure for sabotage the railroad line Athens-Lamia, hostage coaches would be used. Two months later, on 5 August 1944, it was reported that during an attack on the railroad Corinth-Tripolis, cars were derailed and the "18 hostages taken along" shot to death.
But even more widespread then "danger" hostages was the taking and eventual execution of "security" hostages. In the use of the latter type, Felmy was an old and experienced master hand. When he was still Commander of Southern Greece, he reported that on 5 June 1942, "in reprisal for murders committed in the Messara region, 12 hostages were shot on 3 June 1942." The report also mentioned that in reprisal for a plot against the railroad track Liessia-Athens a German firing squad had that morning shot 8, and an Italian squad 2, hostages. Though more than one of these defendant had tried to place the blame on the Italians for reprisal measures carried out in Greece prior to Italy's surrender in September 1943, one of Felmy's own witnesses, the representative of the German Foreign Office in Greece, Dr. Gunther Altenburg, stated flatly that the railroad lines in and about Athens were completely in the hands of the Germans.
Felmy refused to even hazard a guess as to the number of hostages executed by units of the LXVIIIth Corps while it was under his command. All Felmy would say was that reprisal measures were not carried out for every hostile attack upon the German occupation power. When it was pointed out that the Loehr order of 10 August 1943 demanded that each attack or act of sabotage be retaliated for by hanging hostages and burning villages, Felmy seemed insulted; he said that he was "not a high school boy" and had not been treated as such by General Loehr. He insisted that he had not been allowed a good deal of latitude by General Loehr in carrying out all orders. That was rather an unusual, not to say inconsistent, statement for one who makes superior orders an important aspect of his defense to advance.
Although Felmy refused to estimate the number of hostages his corps executed, his witness, the Balkan "authority" Professor Stadtmueller, was not so laconic. A radical in matters historical but a conservative in things mathematical, he opined that between 1500 and 2000 hostages had been killed by the LXVIII Corps, a figure which he himself volunteered did not include the Greek lives lost in the Klissura and Distomon blood baths.
There were so many, repetitious and even contradictory, hostage orders that it was impossible for him to recall them individually, Felmy said. He did remember receiving, through List, the Keitel directive of 16 September 1941, a copy of which he passed on to the Commander of Crete who was at that time subordinate to him in his capacity as Commander Southern Greece. Felmy, always content to assume the lawfulness of orders emanating from his superior officers, saw nothing criminal about the hostage figures mentioned in the Keitel directive, and went so far as to assert that the directive was "necessary" at the time. For one who repeatedly insisted, following a party line which List and Kuntze had established, that Greece was quiet and peaceful until late 1943, Felmy's assertion that the Keitel directive was a military necessity seems peculiarly incomprehensible.
General Felmy, like General Winter, was unable to recall any orders mentioning individual hostage figures which he might have issued to his subordinate units. But the Tribunal will remember that on 9 December 1943, Winter, as Chief of Staff of Army Group E, addressed a conference of chiefs of staff in which he specifically stated that the minimum hostage ratio had become the maximum, namely, "1:50 if there are dead, 1:10 if there are wounded". Is it credible that Felmy's Chief of Staff was not at Winter's lecture or that a corps commander of Felmy's importance was not schooled on reprisal quotas? Felmy's remarkable memory having been previously demonstrated in his direct examination, it is not easy to believe that he could have forgotten such figures.
Felmy denies having himself issued a single hostage order, a statement which the testimony of the witness Willy Finger flatly contradicted. Shortly after the death of the German General Krech, Finger said that he saw posters, signed by Felmy, which mentioned 100:1 and 50:1 retaliation ratios.
The hostage incidents which occurred within the area of the LXVIIIth Corps are so numerous that in total number of hostages executed, Felmy's record puts him in fifth place behind List, Kuntze, Foertsch and Geitner. On 22 August 1943 the 1st Panzer Division reported that ten hostages had been seized in retaliation for the beating up of a corporal. The division asked and received the express permission of the corps to execute those hostages. A short time later, on 12 September 1943, Army Group South Greece which Felmy then commanded, reported that ten Greeks had been hanged in retaliation for the death of a German soldier.
The number of hostage executions which took place in the three-week period between 25 November and 16 December 1943 is representative of the entire period during which time Felmy commanded the LXVIIIth Corps. On November 20, "20 communists were shot to death in retaliation for an attack at Aighion"; on the 29th of that month 100 hostages were hanged in retaliation for an attack on the road Tripolis-Sparta; on 5 December the corps reported that 50 hostages had been shot at Aighion; on 6 December 50 hostages were shot in retaliation for an attack on the railroad South of Tripolis; and on 8 December, in retaliation for an attack southwest of Gythion, 25 hostages were executed.
During that short span of time 245 hostages were killed - 245 murders for which Felmy must answer.
It is difficult to single out for particular attention any one of the several atrocities which occurred during Felmy's tenure as commander of the LXVIIIth Corps. But in total number of persons killed, the butcheries and devastation which took place during "Operation Kalavritha" takes first place. Twenty-four villages were totally destroyed and more than 1400 persons killed before German vengeance had run its course. Even Felmy admit that Kalavritha was a German "excess", and "excess" which, oddly enough, the Army does not even try to attribute to the SS. But it was an "excess," according to Felmy, not because of the ratio of Greek to German dead but simply because the devastation and murder involved was so indiscriminate. It was because Kalavritha was allegedly a nest of bands, and because 78 German prisoners had supposedly been murdered by those bands that General Felmy gave permission to General LeSuire, Commander of the 117th Light Infantry Division, to stage the whole reprisal action. Since the operation had previously been cleared with Felmy, it is no surprise that, even though now Felmy condemns the result, he did not reprimand LeSuire when the undertaking had been completed. Felmy tries to excuse his failure to dismiss LeSuire or even to instigate his court martial by admitting that the OKW would just not have countenanced such an action.
But a few days after the Kalavritha enterprise, Loehr's order of 22 December 1943 effectuated radical change in German reprisal policy. In recognition of the unfavorable impact of reprisal measures upon the Southeastern political situation, fixed reprisal quotas were rescinded and Minister Neubacher was charged with German political leadership in the entire area. Since actions like LeSuire's were precisely the kind which were intended to be prevented in the future, it is more than likely that Neubacher would not have opposed any application on the part of Felmy, and his superiors, General Loehr and Field Marshal von Weichs, to have LeSuire replaced. But Felmy did not try to replace LeSuire: he recommended him for promotion to leadership of a corps, and in due course the promotion was made.
The severe reprisal measures taken by the LXVIIIth Corps continued unabated throughout the year 1944. It has been constantly emphasized throughout this case that the Prosecution's excerpts were one-sided and give a distorted picture of events as they occurred in Southeast. Felmy's completely translated war diary proves that suggestion to be unfounded. Even looking at all of the tactical details contained in the war diary, the reprisal measures stand out in full focus. On 17 January 1944, 20 communists were executed in retaliation for an attack upon an officer; on 7 February 1944, 3 villages and 100 communists were executed in retaliation for an attack upon an officer; on 7 February 1944, 3 villages and 100 communists were executed in retaliation for an attack near Skala, on 23 February 200 hostages were ordered executed in retaliation for 2 attacks. With respect to the last incident, General Felmy was eager to point out that from the war diary the number of German dead from those two attacks - 24 dead, 19 wounded and 3 missing -- could be ascertained. Felmy seemed proud of the restraint displayed by his troops in this instance. On 11 March 1944 the war diary shows that in retaliation for an attack upon a convoy German losses were 18 dead and 44 wounded.
Two hundred people from the hostage camps at Tripolis, Sparta and Corinth were ordered executed in reprisal. Felmy admits that LeSuire asked and that he gave permission for the carrying out of that action, though he hastens to add that, "from what I have been able to gather from the Prosecution documents" not 200 but only 141 hostages were actually executed. According to the entry in the corps war diary, the executions themselves were to be carried out "by members of the Greek Volunteer Units under German supervision", an observation which will become particularly significant in the light of General Felmy's testimony regarding the executions carried out in retaliation for the subsequent death of General Krech.
On 27 April 1944, a German convoy was attacked. General Krech, Commander of the 41st Fortress Division and three others were killed, five German soldiers were wounded and two vehicles destroyed. The entry in the war diary of 1 May announced that in retaliation, "335 communists and suspected guerillas were shot", an apparent application of a 50:1 ratio for the persons killed and a 25:1 ratio for those wounded, plus 10 extra hostages shot for good measure. Felmy shifts the blame for this execution to the leader of a Greek "Volunteer" unit, a mythical Colonel Popagondinos, who, he claims, rounded up and shot 100 hostages. Felmy himself claims no knowledge whatever of the execution of an additional 200 hostages which were reported as having been executed in Athens in retaliation for the same attack.
In view of what has already been said concerning the relation of indigenous forces to the Whermacht, no extended statement need be made here on General Felmy's testimony, especially since the documents explicitly state that the executions by Greek volunteer units were done under German supervision. Moreover, the witness Finger completely exploded Felmy's explanation of this particular reprisal. Finger himself participated in the arresting of the 100 hostages executed on the Peloponnesus in retaliation for the Krech attack, and himself drove one of the trucks which transported the hostages to the central hostage camp at Patras.