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.
MR. RAPP: Mr. Fenstermacher will now read the conclusion.
CONCLUSION These then are the wicked men and this the depraved record of their crime in five countries for four years.
Since the various aspects of the legal issues involved in this proceedings have already been stated in the Prosecution's two memoranda, there is no need here to tread that ground again. The defendants would have this Tribunal deny the right of a people to fight back against a temporary conqueror, no matter how flagrant his aggressor or how cruel the regime of his occupation. Such a result would surely encourage some future tyrant to make his bid for world domination. Moreover, it is not for the defendants now to complain of violations of international law which were allegedly committed against them. It was their own violations of international law -- the mass executions, exploitation, destruction -- to say nothing of the initial violation of Greek and Yugoslavia sovereignty -- which gave rise to be resistance which these defendants now contend was beyond the pale.
The rights and privileges of an occupier under international law do not accrue simply because a land is declared conquered and occupied. The occupation must be effectively maintained. It is precisely on that issue that the legal arguments of the defense on the unlawfulness of partisan resistence breaks down. One need not go into all of the details here. But the fact does remain that the initial conquest of Greece and Yugoslavia was not maintained. If what the defendants say is true that they could leave, at any given moment and for any given place, subdued the partisan opposition, one naturally asks why that was not done. They very fact that each of the defendants has testified to having loudly and continuously pleaded for troop reinforcements is in itself a complete admission of the military failure of the German occupation.
After the plenititude of documentary evidence submitted here, it would be supererogation to set forth again all the reasons why the Greek and Yugoslav guerilla forces were entitled to recognition as lawful enemy belligerents.
That they were, that they were recognized by the Allied forces as such, and indeed that these defendants themselves urged similar recognition upon their own government is much too clear to necessitate further argument.
The prosecution has also argued that the execution of hostages is unlawful per se. That fact is recognized not only by the specific statute under which this proceedings is brought, but by pre-existing, international law as well.
The defense has attempted to dispute our contention that Control Council Law No. 10 is a correct statement of existing international law on the hostage by the Allies during the last war. But none of the evidence which has been brought forward proves what it was advanced to prove. The rebuttal witness David Bernstein made the defense testimony regarding an alleged American announcement threatening the execution of hostages at a 200:1 ratio complete perjury, and the affidavit of Franz Karl Maier did likewise with respect to the supposed. -
THE PRESIDENT: Pardon me; it will be necessary to take a brief recess in order to -
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Put in more tape?
THE PRESIDENT: Put in more tape -- mechanical matters. We will take a brief recess.
THE MARSHAL: The Court will be in recess for five minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: The defense has attempted to dispute our contention that Control Council Law No. 1p is a correct statement of existing international law on the hostage question by introducing evidence of alleged executions of hostages by the Allies during the last war; but noe of the evidence which has been brought forward proves what was advanced to prove.
The rebuttal witness David Bernstein made the defense testimony regarding an alleged American announcement threatening the execution of the hostages at a 200:1 ratio complete perjury and the affidavit of Franz Karl Maier did likewise respect to the supposed 5:1 hostage order said to have been publicly posted in Stuttgart by the French occupation authorities.
The evidence indicating that four hostages were executed by French troops in the village of *eutlingen in retaliation for the death of a French soldier is ambiguous and indefinite at best. The placard which was posted following that supposed execution of hostages stated that "those responsible" for the shooting had been apprehended and shot. It is certainly not clear beyond doubt that any hostages were ever executed by the French at all. Moreover, if hostages were really shot on that occasion, it was in flagrant violation of Section 21 of the French Army regulations which provides only for the taking and not for the execution of hostages.
The attempt to prove that the Control Council Law is an inaccurate statement of international law by demonstrating that the American Army considers the execution of hostages not to be unlawful met with a similar lack of success. The entire file of the American 6th Army Group on the question of the American attitude towards the order of the French General LeClerc in Strassbourg which provided for the execution of five hostages for each French soldier killed by snipers in that city is a complete refutation of the defense attempt. The LeClerc proclamation was in effect not more than twenty-four hours at most. As soon as American authorities heard of it, it was rescinded for the very reason that it was in violation of international law.
A supposed execution of hostages in the city of Markdorf was also alluded to. But in that case too the evidence of the defense is on its face irrelevant. One affiant stated that no hostages were executed at Markdorf but rather that German soldiers dressed in civilian clothes had been captured and dealt with obviously as spies.
It is apparent, therefore, that not one single hostage execution was proved to have been carried out by the enemies of Germany during the entire war. But even assuming for the sake of argument that there had been violations of international law on the part of Germany's opponents, that still would not destroy the validity of the law under which we are proceeding. It is a common place to say that two wrongs do not make a right. To assume that the organized planned and governmentally-authorized executions of hostages which the Germans committed can, even if individual, sporadic, unorganized and unauthorized hostages killings were carried out by the Allies, could rescind or make ineffective international law upon the subject is, of course, illogical in the extreme. If international law ceases to be such because cf sporadic violations, there will never be any such law, no legal system could survive such a theory. Under the defense theory of how international law is made the criminal himself could prevent the enactment of the very law which would make his act unlawful. The criminal then, by his negative action, could in fact annual any attempt by the rest of society to make him responsible for his deed.
But even if the execution of a single hostage were not a crime in itself, the evidence of the numbers of hostages killed and the ratios employed which has occupied the attention of this Tribunal for these seven months would sustain convictions against each one of these defendants. The defense here has sought to avoid the application of hostages law to this evidence by advancing the theory that these executions are justifiable under the doctrine of reprisal. But not a single one of the criteria which govern the taking of reprisals was met in the case of these defendants. By their own testimony, the questions of the lawfulness of their measures was completely irrelevant. Every miner German officer was permitted to order reprisals that were not only completely disproportionate, but based solely on revenge as well.
Our interruption of the law with respect to superior orders and military necessity has also been set forth in great detail elsewhere. The number of cases in which the defense of superior orders has been held not to confer immunity from criminal responsibility are legion. And General Winter, a defense witness, gave the lie to the plea of military necessity when he told the conference of chiefs of staff on 9 December 1943 that if reprisal measures were to be made effective, then the "really" guilty had to be sought out, and that the execution of hostages and the levelling of entire innocent villages would merely bring about an increase in the bands. It is precisely because of the military stupidity of the heavy-handed policy that the Germans were eventually forced to withdraw from the Balkans.
There, then are the facts, the law and the men with which we have been concerned over this extended period. How they shall be punished for their ruthless offenses against humanity is to be decided by this Tribunal in its wisdom. It may be true that the defendants did not each commit crime in the same degree or to the same extent.
Murder is murder whether it be committed singly, by tens or by tens of thousands. It is no defense to Leyser that he did not kill on the same scale as List and Kuntze. Each executed commissar is still an oven violation of the most fundamental precept in the soldier's code -- an enemy who has laid down his arms in surrender may not be killed because he wears a particular emplem on his sleeve.
If the Tribunal believes that comparisons between this case and others is instructive, there are many examples and precedents which merit examination. A number of the colleagues and subordinates of these defendants have had to answer for similar crimes or similar charges -- Loehr and Kuebler and Neidholdt in Yugoslavia, Brauer and Mueller and Andrae in Greece, Others have been called to very severe account on charges very much narrower then those which have been brought, and we submit, amply proved in this case. Field Marshal Kesselring and Generals Mackensen and Maeltzer were sentenced to death, and then reprieved to a life sentence, because of a single large hostage execution at a ratio of 10-to-1 in Rome in 1944 and because of certain general orders with respect to the treatment of Italian partisans which were in effect for only a short time and were not nearly as want only brutal as the orders issued and enforced by these defendants. Other generals have been convicted of capital offenses because of their responsibility for the killing of Allied airmen who had been forced down in Germany, and General Anton Doestler has been tried and shot for the execution of American rangers in compliance with the criminal mandate of the Commando Order.
The task of making the punishment fit the crime is the task of this Tribunal not of the prosecution; but the prosecution cannot say that it believes the action taken in these other cases to have been unreasonable or unduly severe, and we suggest that willful participation in a systematic and preconceived program of crime, such as has been proved in this case, is, from the standpoint of world society, a far more serious offense than responsibility for isolated or spasmodic criminal outbursts. Charity and forgiveness are among the divine attributes of man, but they, like all other capacities, must be exercised with intelligence and discrimination or they lose their meaning.
We must not allow false mercy here to insult the hundreds of thousands who lie buried in Greece, Yugoslavia and Norway because of what these men did; Justice must be wise and firm as well as merciful.
One might perhaps have been more moved to feel pity for their fate had any one of them shown the slightest sign of remorse or given the gaintest indication of repentance for what they have done. But in explanation and excuse they have only pointed out the personal, national, and international tragedies which intruded upon their lives. They, all of whom served in the first World War, say that they returned to a milieu of hopelessness and collapse, that they were subjects to political, economic and social forces for crushing impact and titanic magnitude, and that they are the hapless victims and the whipped and unresponsible products of a confused people in a disturbed and bewildered world. It is this philosophy of emotional fatalism which has made their proffered excuses of individual and collective guilt so cowardly and contemptible.
Their fault, like Brutus', lay in themselves and not in their stars. It was their individual response to their own individual situations which marked their failure. It is not because they were soldier, nor because they have lost, but because they were not men, that we ask now that they be permitted to the reap the full harvest of that which they so conscientiously sowed.
These men have disgraced themselves, so shamed their own profession and their country that it will be decades before the world will be able to think again in terms of the Germany of Schiller and Heine and Mendelsohn and Brahms. It is not their individual fates for which we now feel concern. Their power for evil has already been broken. None of them will ever lead the legions of the Wehrmacht again. But if what they have done is not branded as criminal if the mythe they seek so desperately to perpetuate are not clearly labeled as such; if the facade of starched respectability behind which they seek to hide is not disclosed -- then another generation of Germans may rise to revere them, accept their ethics, and say they did no wrong.
The real complainant at this bar is civilisation. Let its plea be granted, lot those who would destroy it be punished, let its laws be upheld.
THE PRESIDENT: I take it that you have concluded your presentation of the argument on behalf of the prosecution?
MR. FENSTERMACHER: That is right, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 4 February 1948, at 0930 hours.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Wilhelm List, et al, defendants sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 4 February, 1948 Justice Wennerstrum presiding.
THE MARSHAL: All persons in the Courtroom will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal V. Military Tribunal V is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the Court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, you will ascertain if all defendants are present in the Courtroom.
THE MARSHAL: May it please Your Honors all defendants are present in the Courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: Judge Carter will preside at today's session.
DR. LATERNSER: If it please the Tribunal, I have a brief preliminary statement to make concerning the English text of the final plea. I received same yesterday in the morning and in the meantime I have been in a position to have parts of the translation checked. The corrections which arose from this check-up have been compiled and I would like to have a copy handed to the Tribunal.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: Very well. You may proceed.
Your Honors, May it please the Tribunal -In the long series of trials which have been held against leading members of the German Officers' Corps, the trial against Field Marshal List is a new, and in many respects, an especially remarkable one.
Once again in a mass trial a number of German generals are called into the lists to face an enemy Tribunal, and sometimes it seems as if the chain of these trials will not be broken until the lists of the highest commanders in American custody are exhausted and they are all condemned.
The only question now is how future generations will judge this new attempt at a penal apprehension of the events of a gigantic world-wide war.
There is no doubt that the methods of warfare during the course of the years have intensified increasingly. This applies, however, to both sides. But the cases in which deviations were made from the ground of international law were completely different. As far as violations of definite fixed rules of international law were concerned, I am the last man to dispute the right to take proceedings against the perpetrators. As far as matters which lack adequately clear fules about which there can be no misconception are concerned, the legal position must be judged in a fundamentally different manner.
The charges against Field Marshal List belong exclusively to the second group. They refer to spheres in which the provisions of International Law are either still entirely undeveloped or are elastic or contradictory. By grouping their trial with the large chain of Nurnberg trials, it falls to the lot of men, who up till now have rejoiced in a blameless name and reputation, to be placed together with the leading exponents of the NSDAP and the SS.
This attempt by the Prosecution to implicate officers with those who bear political responsibility contradicts historical facts.
The German soldier and officer has always enjoyed the highest respect amongst soldiers throughout the world because of their military ability and their generally acknowledged chivalry in waging war. These qualities have also been recognized by the enemy in this war, and in this connection, I should like to refer to Field Marshal Alexander, who confirmed the fair and praiseworthy waging of war in the Italian Theatre.
May it please the Tribunal -
The defendants did not don their uniforms for the first time during the National Socialist period. In fulfilling their duty throughout decades, it was their one desire to uphold the ideals of German soldierdom, its principles of decency and purely objective tasks, and to perform them in the fact of all the new developments of the Hitler regime which were occurring around them and expanding more and more.