The Tribunal will recall that Finger testified that the entire action was carried out by German troops, members of the 999th Infantry Division, and not by Greek units at all.
Felmy's professed ignorance of the execution of the 200 hostages in Athens as part of the same reprisal action is, of course, entirely understandable. Either Felmy or his colleague, General Speidel, Military Commander of Greece at the time, arranged that detail.
When there are no Italians or Greek quislings around on which to place responsibility for the crimes mentioned in the German reports, Felmy makes the old standby, the SS, the recipient of responsibility. But when it comes to liability for the activities of SS units in Greece, Felmy and Speidel have to be very careful, for in that regard theirs is a narrow gauntlet indeed. Felmy unwarily admitted early in his examination that the Higher SS and Police Leader for Greece was "officially and in the service regulations" subordinate to Speidel, and that the 18th SS Police Regiment received orders for its tactical commitment against the bands from Speidel.
Aware of Speidel's reaction to this and anticipating his own testimony to the effect that even though the 18th SS Police Regiment was operating within his corps area, it was not subordinate or responsible to him for tactical purposes, Felmy stated that reprisal measures had nothing to do with, and formed no part of, tactical operations. In the face of Felber's testimony that reprisal measures could not be divorced from tactical considerations, this unbelievable. Moreover, it is irreconcilable with the Loehr order of 10 August 1943 which expressly states that reprisal measures were matters of tactics.
Finally, General Speidel said flatly that reprisal measures did involve questions of tactics and that orders to take or not to take reprisal measures were no less tactical than orders to attack a given objective or withdraw from a named position.
Felmy and Speidel did, however, effect a compromise of their testimonial feud by throwing the blame for the SS reprisal measures on Army Group E, which has no representative here. We will not get entangled in the intricate web which they spun in order to reach this happy solution. It is plain that the SS regiment got its commitment orders from Speidel and among those orders were instructions concerning reprisal measures. The regiment itself, when it was committed within the corps area of the LXVIIIth Army Corps, was tactically subordinate to Felmy. At any time, he could have ordered the regiment not to take reprisal measures and could have punished the regimental commander for disobeying him. Felmy and Speidel are both responsible for the reprisal excesses which the 18th SS Regiment took during its assignment in Boetia and later on the Peloponnesus.
Only a few of those excesses need be mentioned here, On 1 April 1944, in retaliation for a raid by Greek "bandits" southeast of Levadia in which the regiment suffered 2 wounded, 10 hostages were executed. On 25 April 1944, in retaliation for an attack on a motor convoy, in which 2 officers were killed, and 1 officer and 4 men were missing, 50 communists were shot. On 28 April 1944, 60 additional communists, and on 10 May 100 more communists were shot in retaliation for the very same attack. In all a total of 210 hostages had been executed in reprisal for 7 German losses, a reprisal quota of 30:1.
The Distomen and Klissura incidents throw additional light, not only upon German reprisal excesses, but also upon the much discussed Army-SS disciplinary relationship. In what the German account itself characterized as the "blood bath of Klissura", 217 completely guiltless Greeks were killed and 27 wounded. Though Felmy was serving as Loehr's deputy in command of Army Group E at the time, 5 April 1944, he claims he never even heard of the Klissura affair. Minister Neubacher, however, heard about it and wrote to Weichs that it was "a most serious infraction of an order of reprisal measures issued by the Commander-inChief Southeast with my agreement", a reference to the already referred to Loehr order of 22 December 1943.
Felmy advances the unconvincing explanation that Neubacher heard of the incident from Greek sources while his own sole source of information was the series of official reports which he received from the 7th SS Regiment which committed the crime.
In a parallel incident which occurred two months after Klissura, and which also involved the same 7th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment, 250 to 300 Greek inhabitants of all ages were killed in the village of Distomon. Distomon, along with Kalavritha and Klissura is the third excess to which Felmy has confessed. But it was not because Distomon was an "excess" that General Felmy became concerned. It was because the SS unit had given a false combat report on the affair, stating that the Greek dead had been killed in a combat rather than in a reprisal action.
After Felmy's corps judge had concluded all of his investigations and it was proved beyond doubt that the SS company commander had violated not only every law of humanity but had gone beyond even the harsh Germany Army orders, the SS regimental commander requested of Felmy "that the matter rest with the disciplinary punishment of the case" and that "further measures" not be "directed". Felmy agreed to the suggested procedure. Now if Felmy had no disciplinary jurisdiction at all over an SS unit, just why was his "permission" asked in the first place? And if he could take no steps whatever against an SS leader, why was he asked not to "direct further measures"? Apparently the SS commander was under the impression that Felmy had complete authority in the premises. If Felmy was as outraged by the actions of the SS as he now claims to have been, why did he consent to mere "disciplinary punishment?"
If he had no jurisdiction to act, why was he requested not to do so? Felmy admits that his hand-written note agreeing to the regimental proposal was "illogical" and that, strictly speaking, he should have written that he had no authority to act. Felmy's only explanation for his "illogical" action is that "sometimes one makes mistakes". But the same so-called mistake was made by Field Marshal von Weichs, who in his turn agreed to let the matter rest.
What is even more significant is that the protests of Minister Neubacher against the Distomon outrage were addressed not to Himmler, but to the Army Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal von Weichs. Not only was the SS regimental commander, who certainly ought to have known better, misled concerning the matter of his subordination to the Army, but Minister Neubacher was similarly deceived. The immunity of SS troops from disciplinary measures imposed by the Army seems to be much clearer here in Nurnberg than it was in Greece three years ago.
Felmy is also implicated in the execution of the Commando Order. Though he cannot recall ever having received it -- under oath one must be certain of one's testimony, he points out -- he learned of it, because "one always learns about such things." Incidentally, we recall that List, the fifth ranking Field Marshall in the German Army, testified that he had never heard of the Commissar Order until he came to Nurnberg. Felmy did receive the Commando Order. An entry in the war diary of Army Group E for 15 March 1944 indicates that teletype instructions were sent to the LXVIIIth Army Corps emphasizing the importance of capturing and obtaining information from British commandos and of disposing of them in accordance with the Hitler order. On 18 July 1944, Army Group E reported to the Commander-in-Chief Southeast that one of the commandos wounded during a British Commando operation against the island of Calina, a Sergeant John Dryden, had been flown to Athens on 5 July to be handed over to the SD in accordance with the Fuehrer order. Ever since Speidel's departure from Athens in May 1944, Felmy was in complete charge of all German agencies stationed and operating in that city.
Can there be any doubt that this British sergeant was turned over to the SD through General Felmy's headquarters? Felmy, unlike his fellow defendants, was brash enough to say that he considered the Commando Order perfectly lawful.
Felmy also assisted in the work of the peculiarly-Nazi agencies of the Third Reich. His relationship to the Rosenberg detachment, which was subordinate to him for economic and disciplinary purposes when he was Commander Southern Greece in 1941, has already been touched upon. He believed that the Rosenberg units were simply confiscating subversive political literature, an activity in which he saw no harm. The fact that art treasures were also being looted and that literature written by Jews was the particular object of confiscation had apparently no significance at all in his appraisal of the lawfulness of the activity of Rosenberg's agents.
Only one reference to Felmy's slave labor activities need be mentioned. On 31 October 1943 the 1st Panzer Division reported to the LXVIIIth Corps that it had arrested about 3,000 persons who were going to be sent to the Reich for forced labor. Felmy, of course, pretends to have heard nothing at all about that action though he admits that he sent on to his subordinate units every order concerning deportation which he ever received from higher agencies. He blandly admits that he did not waste time on considerations of the legality or the illegality of orders which he received from his superiors.
Felmy relies in effect upon military necessity in defense of the reprisal measures which he ordered and which were executed by his units. But even his own affiants state that Felmy always made difficulties concerning reprisal measures because in his opinion "they cost more lives of German soldiers". His witness, Dr. Gunther Altenburg, stated that he, Altenburg, considered the German reprisal measures taken in Greece to be criminal, and that they were the motivating cause for his application to Ribbentrop to be transferred from his post as representative of the Foreign Office in Greece.
More than 1400 innocent Greeks were killed at Kalavritha, more than 200 at Klissura, and nearly 300 at Distomon. Three hundred and twenty-five hostages were killed in retaliation for the death of General Krech and several hundred more in the course of retaliations for German wounded in November and December 1943 and the first two months of 1944. Professor Stadtmueller's estimate of the quantum of Felmy's crime leaves no doubt of the diligence and industry with which he worked.
COURT NO. V, CASE NO. VII.
BY MR. FENSTERMACHER:
Mr. Rapp will continue with the Prosecution's closing argument concerning General Speidel.
BY MR. RAPP:
General Wilhelm Speidel described himself as a man set apart from his German colleagues in Greece by his interest and respect for the ancient culture of Attica. He was constantly torn, he says, by a conflict between his own ideals and those of Nazism. There is little doubt, however, where Speidel's true political faiths lay. As early as 15 March 1939, even before the outbreak of war, he was characterized by his then superior in the Luftwaffe, Albert Kesselring, as an officer "who incorporates in himself the ideals of National Socialism".
Speidel was in Greece continuously for almost two years. He served as Commander South Greece from September 1942 until August 1943 when, following the reorganization of the Southeast Command, he was named Military Commander Greece, a capacity in which he served until the end of May 1944.
He was not in Greece long before he executed his first batch of hostages. On 10 July 1943 he reported to the Commander-in-Chief Southeast that he had executed 15 hostages in Athens and 3 on the island of Salamis in reprisal for several sabotage attacks on the island's search light post. On the witness stand his excuse for this was that these attacks were all part of a centrally directed conspiracy against the Germans. The report itself, however, indicates that the attempts were sporadic and unsuccessful and constituted no planned threat to German security.
Speidel had no idea who the hostages were, how they had been chosen, or from whence they had been seized.
Although he vividly remembered their execution, he could not say whether the hostages were from Athens or from the island of Salamis. Speidel of course denied that these particular victims were chosen from a hostage camp. At the time of the hostage executions the actual perpetrators of the attacks were still undiscovered. For all Speidel knew the unsuccessful saboteurs might have been British commandos. He admitted that the hostages had not been seized beforehand; that their names and addresses had not been published; and that no announcement to the population that the named individuals were being held as security against attacks upon a German installation at Salamis had been made. Speidel thus even violated the requirements prescribed by even those few German commentators on international law who say that hostages may lawfully be executed.
Speidel confessed to a second hostage execution while he was Commander Southern Greece. On 5 July 1943, he reported the execution of 10 hostages on the part of the Germans and 9 by the Italians, in reprisal for the explosion of a magnetic mine fastened to the bow of the Italian steamer "Citta di Savona" in the harbor of Pireaeus. The only casualties from the explosion were 69 horses, but General Speidel did not feel that the execution of 19 guiltless individuals was an excessive or disproportionate retaliation. These hostages were executed even while investigations to ascertain the true culprits were still under way. The report mentioned that the mine might have been attached to the ship while it was at Patras. Neither Speidel nor anyone else can explain how the execution of hostages from Athens could possibly be expected to prevent sabotage actions several hundred kilometers away. In this case, too, he admitted that the hostages had been seized only after the attack had occurred.
One of the activities which took up part of Speidel's time was strike-breaking. In a move tantamount to pick out every tenth worker and threatening him with execution, Speidel forced the Greeks to remain at their jobs by taking hostages from their number. Following the execution of the 19 hostages in retaliation for the incident involving the "Citta di Savona", Greek labor staged a sit-down strike. Speidel dealt with that action by issuing a severe antistrike decree, dated 27 June 1943, which threatened harsh reprisals, including the execution of hostages, if there were any additional strikes in the future.
The report of the Military Commander Greece, dated 13 March 1944, seated that partial strikes on railroads and in several plants at the beginning of that month were "suppressed by energetic military measures - 50 communists were shot immediately, while others who were arrested are awaiting their sentences." Speidel pointed out that at the time the 50 communists were actually shot, he was on leave in Germany. That is of no importance. When his deputy, General Pflugradt, ordered the executions, he was merely carrying our Speidel's prior decree, with which he was thoroughly familiar. Speidel himself admitted having sent all of his anti-strike directives to Pflugradt who as Commander of Administrative Sub-Area Headquarters 395 at Saloniki was directly subordinate to him.
Speidel has a peculiar theory of responsibility for acts ordered while his deputy, rather than he, was physically present at headquarters. He maintains that even if his deputy was effectuating Speidel's own orders, the deputy was acting upon his own.
Speidel's credibility is indicated by his entire disclaimer of knowledge of this incident, though the report was dated the day after he returned to his office.
Apparently, the execution of 50 miserable "communists" was not of sufficient importance for him to have discussed it with his chief of staff or for it to have aroused his attention when he saw it mentioned in his own report.
From September 1943 until May 1944 General Speidel, as Military Commander, was given the task of maintaining peace, order and security in Greece. He assigned an area of security to the 18th SS Police Mountain Regiment and served as the channel through which tactical orders for the combatting of the bands in that area were given. Speidel pointed out on direct examination that since the Higher Police and SS Leader in Greece had the right to commit Evzone detachments in combat or for police raids, he had the right to order reprisals for losses suffered by the Evzones in such operations. On his own theory, Speidel is responsible for the reprisal excesses which the 18th SS Police Mountain Regiment committed.
It is for the reprisal measures which were committed by units subordinate to Speidel in the sphere of police functions, as opposed to tactical or combat tasks, however, that the Prosecution's case against General Speidel is largely based. The Higher Police and SS Leader for Greece, General Schimana, was in charge of the organization and training of the Greek police forces but it was Speidel who supervised their establishment, limited their size and was responsible in the last analysis for their performance. It is for the reprisal measures which Schimana took to avenge losses of German and Greek police throughout Greece, and to combat individual acts of sabotage in and around the city of Athens, that we hold Speidel liable. That severe measures of retaliation were taken is clearly evident from Speidel's own war diary.
An entry for 30 November states that 19 communist hostages were shot for the murdering and wounding of Greek police and gendarmes; on 18 December 20 hostages were shot as a reprisal measure for Evzones murdered and wounded by communists; on 7 January 1944, 30 communists were shot in reprisal for the murder of one Evzone and 3 Gendarmes and for 36 attacks on Greek police since 16 December 1943; on 10 January 1944, 50 communists were shot as a reprisal measure for murdering 2 German police; on 11 January 1944, 10 hostages were shot in reprisal for attacks on two Evzones.
Speidel denies responsibility for these and the literally dozens of other measures taken by the Higher SS and Police Leader. He denies that Schimana was subordinate to him. But the standard order of procedure for the Higher SS and Police Leader in Greece states very clearly that that office was "subordinate to the Military Commander Greece for the period of its employment in Greece". According to that basic regulation Schimana's duties embraced "all duties which are encumbent on the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich", a provision which Speidel maintains is a denial of Schimana's subordination to him but which the Prosecution asserts is simply descriptive of the type of functions which Schimana was assigned to fulfill. Were its meaning otherwise, the section making the Higher SS and Police Leader subordinate to the Military Commander would be meaningless.
Under that same regulation, Speidel was authorized to issue to Schimana such directives as were "necessary to avoid interference with Wehrmacht operations and duties", as well as directives which would "take precedence over any other directives". Schimana, of course, was to receive certain instructions from the Chief of the German Police concerning the execution of his duties, instructions which Bach-Zelewski has testified were simply of a technical nature concerning such purely internal matters as promotions, awards, salaries and the like.
Bach-Zelewski, who was Higher SS and Police Leader for central Russia, subordinate at the time to the Army Commander in whose area he acted, knows whereof he speaks when he says that the regulations issued to Schimana were the standard set issued to all Higher SS and Police Leaders.
Speidel insists that Schimana was responsible only to Himmler in police matters. That contention is not only at variance with the order of procedure issued to Schimana by Himmler, but as expressly contradicted by the standard order of procedure for the Military Commander Greece which Speidel himself received from the Military Commander Southeast, his superior General Felber. That directive provides for Schimana's subordination by making the Higher SS and Police Leader a member of the staff of the Military Commander Greece. General Felber who, as Speidel's superior, ought to know, stated that the regulations covering the relationship of the Military Commander Greece to the Higher SS and Police Leader for Greece were identical with those covering the relationship between himself as Military Commander Southeast and Meyssner, who was Higher SS and Police Leader for Serbia. The service instructions for the Military Commander Southeast indicate that his staff was identical in composition with the staff of the Military Commander Greece.
Meyssner, as a member of the staff of the Military Commander Southeast was, of course, subordinate to General Felber.
There is no doubt that Felber could and did give him orders for the carrying out of reprisal measures. To give just one example: On 23 October 1943, Felber ordered the execution of 400 reprisal prisoners in retaliation for an attack in which 8 German and Bulgarian Wehrmacht and police members were killed and from which 2 German military police were missing. The Higher SS and Police Leader for Serbia was charged with carrying out the execution. If there was any question as to Meyssner's subordination to Felber, it was completely dispelled by the recent testimony of General Felber himself. He admitted that he gave orders to Meyssner for the retaliation of losses of German and Serbian police. If Felber, whose regulations were identical with those of Speidel, was able to give orders to Meyssner, then certainly Speidel was able to deal likewise with Schimana.
Schimana, of course, as Speidel well knows and indeed admitted, considered himself subordinate to Speidel. In fact, Speidel himself related that in October 1943 Schimana had asked and received permission from him to shoot 10 hostages. Why did Schimana go to Speidel if he was subordinate only to Himmler?
Dr. Gunther Altenberg, who asked Speidel on at least one occasion to stop a hostage execution, also testified that Schimana was subordinate to Speidel. Indeed, Speidel's own affiant General winter, testified that Schimana was "personally subordinate" to Speidel, an expression for which Speidel had no explanation.
Even Speidel himself admitted that on at least one other occasion he had stated that in all questions concerning the use of police troops to maintain peace and order, particularly questions involving taking of retaliation measures for the death of German and Greek police, Schimana was subordinate to him.
By virtue of the Loehr order of 22 December 1943, territorial commanders - and Speidel had territorial and executive power in all of Greece - were permitted to order "reprisal measures for losses in. the Air Corps, Navy, Police and the Organization Todt". Of course, Speidel ordered and approved the taking of retaliation measures for the death of German and Greek police. He himself testified to having been approached on numerous occasions by various Greek officials to prevent the execution of hostages. Why did such indigenous delegations come if they had not been told that Speidel had power and jurisdiction over such matters?
Altenburg testified that Schimana was an "approachable and understanding man" and even Speidel admitted that he was "reasonable" and "not the fanatic type of SS leader", both additional indications, if more were needed, that Schimana, junior by one rank to Speidel, was subordinate to the Military Commander Greece.
Speidel also had seven administrative sub-area headquarters, stationed in the large cities of Greece, subordinate to him. He feigned ignorance of reprisal measures which had been carried out by any of those agencies, but the documents arc sprinckled profusely with examples. On 23 February 1944 Administrative Sub-Area Headquarters Tripolis reported that "50 hostages from the hostage camp Tripolis were shot to death on 23 February in reprisal for the murder of an interpreter; on 4 April 1944, Administrative Sub-Area Headquarters Larissa reported that for railroad sabotage, 10 kilometers south of Larissa, 65 'communists' had been shot to death at the scene of the incident; on 4 May 1944, the same headquarters reported that 25 Greeks had been hanged in reprisal for an attack on the railroad near Dexara; on 13 May 1944, Administrative SubArea Headquarters Corinth reported that 10 communists had been hanged in Patras in reprisal for an attack."
In spite of Speidel's disclaimer of knowledge, his seven administrative sub-area headquarters were the hub of the entire Greek reprisal wheel. Those units ran the hostage camps. On 18 December 1943, Speidel reported having to discontinue the erection of new camps for lack of the requisite number of security forces. Speidel's own war diary of March 1944 contains an entry for the 10th of March, 1944 which states that in reprisal for an attack on an express train near Larissa, "100 active communists from the Saloniki and Larissa hostage camps were shot."
The much-quoted Loehr order of 22 December 1943 makes the relationship between the administrative sub-area headquarters and the troop units with respect to reprisal measures most clear. Before reprisal measures could be taken by troop units, the consent of the competent administrative sub-area headquarters had to be given. If no agreement could be reached, then the competent territorial commander who, for Greece, was General Speidel, had to decide. Loehr's order was nothing now. General Stettner, who was subordinate to General Lanz as Commander of the 1st Mountain Division, stated quite clearly in his 50:1 order of 25 October 1941 that application for the execution of reprisal measures had to "be made through the Military Commander Greece who represents the executive power."
Apparently, however, troop units and administrative sub-area headquarters did, on occasion, have trouble because of over-lapping jurisdiction in the matter of reprisal measures. One such dispute is apparent from the activity report of LeSuire's 117th Light Infantry Division for the month of November 1943.
The division reported that the execution of effective reprisal measures had come to naught because Administrative Sub-Area Headquarters 1042 had claimed, on the basis of a Speidel decree, that it had authority to execute such measures. The division was annoyed because, though the administrative sub-area headquarters insisted upon its jurisdiction in the matter, it did not have sufficient forces available to carry out reprisal executions in behalf of the Division. After rather extended negotiations, however - the report continued the administrative sub-area headquarters "was persuaded to transfer to the division their obligations and duties regarding reprisal measures."
It was apparently this rivalry and competition for jurisdiction that prompted Speidel himself to issue his order of 29 November 1943 to his subordinate administrative sub-area headquarters, Speidel there ordered that if a troop unit had issued orders contrary to those which he had issued, representations were to be made to the troop immediately and, if the latter further insisted on carrying out its orders, then the administrative sub-area headquarters was to submit a report to him on the matter.
Under the arrangement set forth under the Loehr order, the administrative sub-area headquarters would furnish the neighboring troop unit with the requisite number of hostages the troop needed for its reprisal executions. Correspondingly, if the administrative headquarters needed firing squads to carry out its retaliatory actions, the troop operating in the vicinity were to oblige. As was also pointed out in the Loehr order, the organs of the Higher SS and Police Leader, along with SD detachments, were "likewise to participate in the selecting of reprisal prisoners and hostages."
Speidel tries to place the blame for the reprisal executions which were reported by his administrative sub-area headquarters on the troop and the SS units operating in the vicinity. The hand in glove relation ship, however, is too obvious for that explanation to suffice.
And on cross-examination, several reprisal incidents were brought up which even the astute General Speidel could not attribute to the tactical troops or SS detachments. On the 3rd of April 1944, an entry in his own war diary states that in reprisal for an attack on the head of a Greek labor office in Trikkata, 4 communists were shot. On 10 December 1943, another entry noted the execution of 10 hostages in reprisal for the murder of Frau Mayer, the wife of a German civilian official. Even Speidel assumed that one of his administrative sub-area headquarters was involved when he came across that incident in the Prosecution's documents.
But then "by chance" an affiant wrote to him and reminded him that he had refused to permit reprisals to be taken in that instance. After having received the "chance" affidavit, Speidel presumed that units of the tactical troops and of the SS had arranged to carry out the reprisal. But in the entry in his own war diary for 7 December 1943, with which he apparently first became acquainted when it was submitted to him on cross-examination-- though the diary was among the documents sent from Washington - it is expressly stated that reprisal measures were "being initiated in retaliation for that attack." Throughout Speidel's war diary when reprisal measures were taken or ordered by the Higher SS and Police Leader that fact is always specifically stated. If a Schimana or a troop unit had anything whatever to do with the shooting of these 10 hostages, the entry in Speidel's own war diary would have said so. It was not only Speidel who perjured himself on this incident; his "chance" affiant did so too.
Speidel further tries to disassociate his administrative subarea headquarters from reprisal measures by asserting that their staffs were so small that they would have been unable to carry out such measures. But it was precisely for that reason that they were entitled to demand the assistance of troop units stationed nearby. Moreover, if what Speidel says about the physical incapacity of his administrative subarea headquarters were true, why, then, was he so concerned about passing on to them the 50:
1 order which he testified he received from Felber sometime in October 1943. If his subordinate units were not able to carry out reprisal measures, why send them any reprisal orders at all. Speidel testified that before he passed on the Felber 50:1 order he added all reprisal executions carried out under it be first cleared with him. Speidel claims he modified the Felber order in this manner because he had "misgivings" about the order and because he felt that it was psychologically unwise as to technique for pacifying the Greeks. This particular Felber order, with Speidel's alleged limitations, has, strangely enough, never been found, Speidel's testimony concerning it, however, is just one further admission that such orders, rather than being militarily necessary, constituted military masochism.
Speidel further lent a willing hand to the slave labor program of the Third Reich. His attitude on the question of the deportation of Greek civilians was particularly interesting. He said there were no forced deportations; but that if there were, it was not his concern; but if there were and they were his concern, then they were not forced but voluntary. The Tribunal will, of course, draw its own conclusions from such equivocating testimony. But in order to give one further example of Speidel's credibility in this regard, brief reference should be made to his own report to the Military Commander Southeast. The report, dated 14 April 1944, stated:
"In March and up until 6 April 1944, a total of 1424 workers were sent to Germany. In the first quarter of 1944 a total of 2499 new workers were conscripted for the German armament industries."
Speidel attempted to translate his way out of the difficulty; he suggested that the word "conscription" should really be translated as "contracted". The Tribunal's interpreters, however, rejected Speidel's proffer of liquistic expertness.
If you believe his testimony, Speidel did his best to make the lot of the Greek Jew much easier.
An example of his good works in this regard was his confiscation of the fortunes of those Greek Jews who failed to comply with a directive of the Higher SS and Police Leader to report to their respective Jewish communities for deportation to the East. Speidel gives as his reason for the transference of those monies to the Greek "puppet" government his belief that the Jews would some day return to Greece whereupon the State would disgorge what it had held as trustee. Speidel's naivte regarding the German Government's attitude towards the Jews borders on the boundless. Though he was in Greece constantly from September 1942 until May 1944, he did not hear about the deportation of Jews from Salonika in the spring of 1943, nor did he know until his own report of 14 April 1944 was shown to him on crossexamination that during the period 23-25 March 1944, the sudden arrest of all Jews in Athens had been carried out by offices of the SD. Speidel maintained that he had no power or authority to intervene of the actions against the Jews of Greece though, of course, he, like all the other defendants supposedly abhorred such un-German conduct. Speidel's Pontius Pilate-like attitude, however, did not prevent him from interferring when it was a question of what he called "saving" the fortunes, rather than the lives, of the Greek Jews.
Speidel's defense is a conglomeration of military necessity and sentimentally. He apparently does not pleas superior orders because he denied having refused to disobey orders out of fear of a court martial. What is even more abject and cynical is his statement that he received the orders of his superiors as a matter of course and "in no instance" ever considered them "contrary to law or international law."
For all of his interest in philosophy, the arts, and the pursuit of the good, the true and the beautiful, Speidel read but failed to really understand the meaning of Goethe's words:
"He only earns his freedom and existence, who daily conquers them anew."
Though he likened himself to Bryon and professed the instincts of a Winckelmann; he behaved like a satrap of Darius.
