You said that the bands devasted the town and you gave us a few examples which you still remember. Is there anything else which you can ascertain in this connection from the documents of the prosecution?
A Yes, there is. In prosecution document 1425, there are some statements about the occurrences during the fighting for Banja-Luka.
Q Document NOKW-1425, may it please the Tribunal, has been submitted by the prosecution as Exhibit 369. It is contained in Document Book SV on page 46 on the English text and page 50 of the German text. This is a report concerning details of the fighting for Banja-Luka. In the document book of the prosecution, NOKW-1425 page 46 of the English document book. In the document books of the prosecution, only one passage is contained of this document which comprises seven in all, and this is passage number four. In order to clarify this, I would like to read the missing passages from the original into the record.
May I first of all point out that this report has been submitted by the 373rd Croatian Infantry Division to the headquarters of the XV Corps and it says here, "As an enclosure, the division submits a report of the fighting of the Croatian Rifle Brigade concerning the defense of Banja-Luka dated the 31st of December, 1944, to the second of January 1943, for information."
In the cover letter which I have just read, six enclosures are mentioned. However, in the document book we only have one enclosure. And I would like to read the missing parts of this one enclosure, briefly, into the record. The headline reads "details".
"After conquering the black house (prison), the Communists have released all prisoners and taken them along." One comment to that, General. These prison inmates -- were they political prisoners or who were they? What kind of prison was this which is talked about here?
A It is quite possible that political prisoners were also there. The whole prison was a Croatian prison and I don't know exactly what people were confined there. To say the least, I am sure that a large number of criminals were there too.
Q. I shall then continue reading the document.
"Lieutenant Matulic, the man in charge of the prison, had allegedly shot two.........amongst other persons, the Minister Hilminja Beslicic and his brother were kidnapped."
"3) The Catholic Bishop of Banja-Luka was wounded."
Numeral 4 we have here in the document of the prosecution and, therefore, I do not have to read that passage. I then turn to numeral 5.
"The following buildings were burned down: the prison, the Chancellory of Minister Benac, the German Supply Depot, a number of buildings in the town and the old and new monastery in Trappistri."
General, what kind of a monastery was this? Was it the monastery of the well-known Trappist Order?
A. Yes, that was the one.
Q. And do you know how the monks were treated?
A. I am afraid I cannot give you any details. A short time later I went out to the monastery and saw there that it had been destroyed and burned down to a great extent. At that time I was not able to talk to any of the monks.
Q. I would then like to ask you to give us your comments on numeral 4 of this document. This particular passage is contained in the document books of the prosecution. It is on page 46 of the English text, and on page 50 of the German text.
A. We are concerned here with the fact that opposite the building of the brigade staff, that is the Croatian Brigade Staff, which was accommodated in a building next to my headquarters, in this building civilians were shot because of the suspicion that shots had been fired from this house.
I myself watched the incident. When the bands attacked there was suddenly quite a number of people who came running back, and the Ustasha who were accommodated in these brigade staff buildings were of the opinion that these people must be bandits; therefore, these people were shot and killed.
This was merely an error and there was no intention to shoot these people. This is quite possible in street fighting as anybody who knows anything about street fighting can imagine, and that is all I can say about it.
Q. General, we can now leave this particular document. I now would like to know from you which were the measures you took in order to cope with the attacks from outside and also to maintain law and order within the area of the town.
A. Since Banja-Luka had become a fighting area through being attacked by the bands, I made use of the authority which had been invested in me by the Croatian Government on the occasions of my visit to this government, to declare a state of emergency in Banja-Luka with the consent of the Croatian authorities. This was absolutely necessary for one reason in order to gather together all available forces for the defense, and it was also necessary in order to maintain law and order within the boundaries of the town after the attack had been defeated.
Q. You said it was necessary for the maintenance of law and order to do this. Was there any particular unrest in BanjaLuka itself, General?
A. Yes, there was unrest in Banja-Luka and this unrest was mainly caused by the Ustasha. These men had even, during the fighting, arrested several people whom they suspected of being band members, and on order of the Gauleiter four or five of these men were hanged by them in the city park.
Q. Was there opportunity, General, to take any steps against the Ustasha because of these incidents?
A. There was really no such possibility for me to take steps against the Ustasha because these men were not subordinate to me; but since I had declared a state of emergency, the executive power had been transferred to my person, and in this capacity, of course, I had the possibility to take steps against the excesses of the Ustasha and I did this.
When I gained knowledge of the excesses of the Ustasha, I went to see the Gauleiter and asked him to withdraw immediately his Ustasha who were making searches in the town at that time.
Since I was not quite sure that he would comply with this request, I sent a German company into town with the assignment to disarm the Ustasha located there. This was carried out and law and order was for the moment maintained solely by the German forces in Banja-Luka; but, of course, that was only during that state of emergency.
If I may continue, the Gauleiter made it difficult for us when on the occasion of a conference which I had called and where I discussed with the ministers of the Croatian Government and with the police authorities how long the emergency state was to last, et cetera, he said that he thought it was a great pity that not more people had been killed in Banja-Luka.
Of course, I countered this comment very sharply and told him that it was rather the duty of a Gauleiter to be interested in the welfare of the population than to act in the opposite manner. Because I thought this man was quite impossible, I made representations to the Croatian Government via the Minister Benac and I requested that this particular Gauleiter be replaced and that was done later.
Q. You were talking about placing a state of emergency over the city, General. Were you in a position to rescind immediately this measure when the fighting was concluded?
A. No, that is just what was not possible because after the actual fightings in Banja-Luka had been concluded, there were still small shootings and incidents in Banja-Luka mainly at night time. Therefore, I ordered a search of the whole area and particularly of those areas where the shootings had occurred, and on through these searches two people were arrested who were found with munition and arms.
There is one thing which I have to add in this connection, and this is that when the state of emergency was announced by posters it was stated that every person who was found with ammunition and arms would be shot. Here, then, were two people who had been arrested; they had been found with arms and ammunition.
Q. Was the threat mentioned on the poster carried out in actual fact?
A. No, of course, court proceedings were started and, since the excitement amongst the population and also amongst our own soldiers because of the occurrences during the fighting for BanjaLuka was rather considerable, I especially ordered, in order to ensure a quite neutral verdict by the court, that the president of this Court should not be an officer of the troops fighting there, but that instead an older staff officer from another locality was appointed by me to preside over this court.
The verdict of this court was the following:
One of the men was acquitted because it had been found out during the search that the ammunition which had been found on him was no longer usable. It was old. The other man received a prison sentence because, as I was informed by the president of the court, the circumstances were such that a death sentence would have been too harsh a sentence.
I quite clearly realized that this particular punishment would not have a deterrent effect on the population but, since the president of that court had informed me of the reasons for his mild sentence, I agreed with this sentence and confirmed it.
Here again I have to say that it was my capacity here to be the judicial authority which under other circumstances I would not be as Commanding General; but, since I had declared a state of emergency and since I was the holder of the executive power, I was also the judicial authority.
Q. During this time were there any other court proceedings General?
A. Not to the best of my information, and I believe this is also contained in the document. There was one more court sentence in this instance in which plunderers were put before a court, and one of these men was sentenced to death and four other men were acquitted.
Q In this connection may I point out that the last mentioned summary court martial is contained in Leyser Document 28 Leyser, Exhibit 28 which is on page 82 of Leyser Document Book II. Here under the 21st of January 1944 we have an entry and the second passage reads as follows:
"Summary court martial in Banja-Luka pronounces one death sentence because of plunder and four for acquittal."
When were you in a position to rescind this state of emergency, General?
A I saw in the document now, that on the 14th of January I called Minister Benac and representatives of the Croatian authorities and police to a conference in order to tell them that it was not the task of the German Armed Forces to take police measures in the area of Banja-Luka to maintain law and order. Minister Benac requested me to leave the state of emergency in existence for a few more days because the population had asked for it and the population felt most secure under the protection of the German Armed Forces.
As I have previously mentioned, the Gauleiter made a few rather harsh comments during this conference. I gave in to Minister Benac and I told him then: "All right, then; for a few more days I will use my troops in order to maintain law and order in Banja-Luka but this cannot go on for any length of time."
As far as I remember, this is also contained in the document, and we can see from the documents that on the 19th of January I rescinded this state of emergency and then the executive powers were again transferred to the competent Croatian authorities.
Q In the subsequent period was law and order secured in BanjaLuka ?
A It had, of course, become a lot quieter but now and again, especially at night time, small incidents, shootings, et cetera, took place. That also was the reason why the German police stationed there repeatedly carried out searched.
Q The searched which I have just mentioned are contained in a document by the prosecution in document book on page 61 of the English text and page 89 of the German text. This is exhibit 371 which is Document NOKW-1419. In this exhibit 371 we have a report by the Plenipotentiary for the Reichsfuehrer SS in Croatia who is the police leader of the area Banja-Luka. This report is dated the 8th of January 1944 and is addressed to the 15th Corps.
What are your comments on this document, General?
AAfter the state cf emergency had been rescinded it was no longer my task to maintain law and order in Banja-Luka. This task had again been transferred to the competent police authorities. Therefore, this search which is mentioned here in the document cannot have been ordered by me, but I suppose it was ordered by the responsible police authority. I myself had nothing to do with this search operation.
Q According to this report, 230 persons were arrested who had no identification and 12 persons who were found in apartments which were not their own. These people were transferred to the SD. Can you tell us why these people were transferred to the SD?
A I am not informed of the channels of command amongst the police authorities and this particular indident was not my concern. All I can say is that, in my opinion, nothing wrong happened when the police carried out search operations and on the occasion of these people did not have the proper identification.
To the best of my recollection that time it had been ordered that every individual civilian had to carry an identification card. In addition it had been ordered that people were not allowed to stay overnight in apartments which did not belong to the people.
Therefore, I cannot see anything unlawful in this arrest. I believe that the same can happen today in Germany, that people are arrested by the police if they don't have the proper identification.
Q And what happened to these people later, General?
A Of course, I don't know that exactly. I would assume that for the moment they were arrested, they were screened, and then if anything could be found against them or not they would either be detained or released.
Q We can then finally leave the 373rd Division with which we have dealt for such a long time and we shall now deal with an entirely different chapter.
Initially, you have described to us the tactical task of your corps and you said that the main task of your corps was t build up the defenses the coast and to secure the supply lines to the coast To the extent to which we have discussed the documents up to now, we could only deal with latter part of your task. Which units of your forces were actual concerned with the defenses along the coast?
A When I took ever the corps at the time, as can be seen from Sketch 1, only the left sector of my corps actually reached the coast and even there at first only the three main ports, Zara, Sibenik and Split were occupied. These three ports were occupied by the 114th Rifle Division. This 114th Rifle Division had already been placed by the 264th Infantry Division, when I arrived and took over the corps In the right sector of the corps which, to begin with, had not reached the coast, later on the 392nd Division advanced, but this division was only put at the disposal of the corps in the month of September.
Q We will then for the moment remain with the 114th Rifle Division. What was the task of this particular division?
A It was the assignment of the 114th Rifle Division to occupy the coast, to build up the defense installations along the coast, and simultaneous to occupy the islands along the coast and to build up further the second main line of defense. However, this second task was no longer carried cut by the 114th Rifle Division because, as I have mentioned previously, already at the time when I took over the command, the 264th Division had replaced the 114th Rifle Division.
The 114th Rifle Division which was the one to occupy the three ports which I had mentioned before, consisted of two regiments only. Of these two regiments each had occupied Zara and Sibenik. The port Split was not occupied by any troops of the 114th Rifle Division but instead by an SS regiment of the Division Prinz Eugen. This is why in Split, which is part of the corps sector, during the first days of my taking over command still harbored an SS regiment and this SS regiment was subordinate to the division; but during the first days of November this regiment was replaced by the 264th Division. The task of the 114th Rifle Division, as I have previously stated, was mainly the securing of these three ports.
Q What was the task of the division after it had been replaced by the 264th Infantry Division?
AAfter the division had been replaced by the 264th Infantry Division, it was first of all concentrated in the area around Knin, by which I mean just behind the coast and was put at the disposal of the army because it was to be taken to Italy quite soon. During the time, however, when it was still stationed in that area it was under assignment, to mop up and occupy the islands along the coast and to mop up the area in between the three main ports which I have previously mentioned. All these areas were to be cleared of band activities. In addition, I believe in December large parts of the division were committed in an operation and subordinated to an SS division.
Q Can you still tell me what was the occasion of this subordination and what was the purpose?
A To the best of my recollection, this was an operation of the 5th SS Corps under the name "Ziethen" where large parts of the division were put at the disposal of the corps. This operation took place in the area around Livno.
Q When was it that the 114th Rifle Division started its march to Italy, General? And how was this march carried out?
A The march of this Division to Italy started at the Beginning of January. It was carried out under the code name "Nibelungenfahrt." One part of the Division marched along the coast roads Obrovac, Senj, Novi, and Fiumi, and another part of the Division marched along a parallel route which wound through the mountains. This march, on the occasion of which the Division was no longer subordinate to the Corps, was also used for various mopping up operations in this area because, as I have mentioned initially, this area, after the capitulation of the Italians, was still infested by bands. These marching columns which moved slowly towards Italy were quite frequently attacked, by bands. One of these surprise attacks in the area of Senj is especially well recollected by me in which there were considerable losses on both sides and where, at the time, the bands or a pant of these bands were clothes in Italian uniforms, which is a sign that after the capitulation they had received these uniforms from the Italians.
Q General, I believe this is sufficient to illustrate these tactical problems. These are only of interest to us inasmuch as it is necessary to discuss the Prosecution documents in this connection and therefore to understand them. In the course of the examination I believe we can restrict ourselves to the Prosecution material. For this reason I would now like to start discussing these Prosecution documents with you which the Prosecution has submitted against you, originating from the 114 Rifle Division. Here, again, I shall follow my old procedure of discussing them in chronological sequence. The first of the reports we find in the Prosecution is a Daily Report of the 15th of December 1943, made by the XVth Corps. This report is contained in Document Book XV, Exhibit 367, which we have repeatedly mentioned here. This particular part is contained on Page 16 of both the English and the German texts. It is Prosecution Document NOKW-1331. From this lengthy report I would like to discuss with you the fact that 14 bandits are reported by the 114th Rifle Division as shot after a Summary Court Martial.
Can you, from your own recollection or from knowledge gained from the documents, tell us anything about this, General?
A It says here that 14 bandits were shot to death after sentence by a Summary Court Martial. The shooting of bandits after a Summary Court Martial, is my opinion, in accordance with International Law. From the total report I can see here that there were several small actions carried out by the Division. One of them was in the area of Errenic, Knin and Omis. In these areas these 14 bandits were shot after a Summary Court Martial. By this I mean they must have committed some sort of an act which entailed court martial proceedings, and that this summary court martial had pronounced this particular sentence. The report also shows the total losses of the enemy. There were 44 dead; 23 prisoners; and 1 deserter. This, in my opinion, also proves that the Division did not arbitrarily shoot prisoners, but that proper court martial proceedings had taken place.
Q I would like you to leave open this page of the Exhibit which you have General. There is one more incident which I would like you to comment on and this is in the same Exhibit on Page 21 of both the German and the English texts. This is supplement to the Daily Report of the 15th of December 1943, made by the XVth Mountain Corps. The same incident has again been submitted by the Prosecution in the same book. This incident deals with the destruction of villages friendly towards the bands, northwest of Knin. Can you give us your comments on this, General?
AAs I have stated previously the 114th Rifle Division was no longer subordinate to the Corps. Where the operation "Ziethen" is concerned large parts of this Division had been subordinated to the Vth SS Corps, and a part of the Division remained in the quarters of that Corps, and a part of the Division remained in the quarters and kept carrying out mopping up operation on a smaller scale, which were mainly intended to secure the supply lines.
This document here must concern a mopping up operation of this kind carried out by a unit of the 114th Rifle Division. This can be seen from the contents of the report. The Division mentions here the capture of a camp with considerable amounts of ammunition. The Division further talks about a number of enemy losses which shows that fighting must have been taking place here, and that these villages were destroyed in the course of this fighting. There is no talk whatsoever in this report of any reprisal or similar measures. It is, therefore, merely a report which concerns combat actions.
Q When did the Division finally leave the area of the Corps, General?
A In January, 1944 the Division started its march to Italy. I believe it was towards the end of January that this march was concluded.
Q From this period there are no documents submitted against you by the Prosecution and which might concern the 114th Rifle Division; therefore, I don't think that we have to deal with any further details here. Just one last question: From other documents which are of no particular importance for the Prosecution, it can be seen that the 114th Rifle Division reported to the XVth Corps during its march to Italy. You told us that this march took place during the month of January, and before that you had said that the 114th Rifle Division was no longer subordinate to you as of November of the previous year. Can you tell us in a few brief sentences, General, why in spite of this the Division kept reporting to your Corps?
A That is quite simple to explain. At the beginning of my examination here I commented on this fact. The Division was still stationed in the area of my Corps, and it was quite obvious that the Corps had to be informed about everything that went on in the area. This is why this 114th Rifle Division, as long as it remained in the Corps area, reported to the Corps. Furthermore there was one more reason for it still reporting to the Corps and not direct to the Army, and that was that the radio instruments of the Division were not strong enough to reach the Army with its reports.
Therefore, the 114th Rifle Division, as long as it was still located in the Corps area, kept reporting via my Corps, and we were the people who passed on these reports to the Army.
Q This, then, concludes the reports from the area of the 114th Rifle Division. I would now like to turn to the Submission of a few documents which were made out by members of the 114th Rifle Division.
I would like to suggest that I start after the recess with this submission.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn for our noon recess at this time, until 1:30.
(The Tribunal adjourned at 1215 to resume at 1330.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 12 November 1947)
THE MARSHALL: The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: It seems that due to an inspection that has to take place on this coming Saturday that it will be impossible for this Tribunal to hold Court on that day; so we are announcing now that there will be no Court sessions this coming Saturday as we had previously announced.
You may proceed, Dr. Tipp.
DR. TIPP: If the Tribunal please, before continuing my examination of defendant von Leyser I would like to give the names of the witnesses to the Tribunal and the Prosecution whom I intend to call on behalf of General von Leyser. All witnesses have been approved by the Tribunal. The first one will be Dr. Hans Joachim von Besser - to spell the last name - B-E-S-S-E-R. He used to be the personal ADC of General von Leyser on the staff of the XVth and the XXIst Army Corps in Croatia, I shall examine him concerning General von Leyser's personal attitude, particularly towards political matters, about his relations with the troops, and his attitude towards the civilian population.
The next witness will be Herr Kobe - K-O-B-E. Kobe was Ia of the 392nd Croatian Infantry Division, which was subordinate to the XVth Corps in Croatia. Kobe will testify as to the battle conditions in Croatia and general conditions in the area of the Division.
WITNESS ERNST von LEYSER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. TIPP:Now, to continue with my evidence on behalf of General.
von Leyser, I shall offer some documents which are concerned with the fighting done by the 114th Light Infantry Division, which I have just discussed with General von Leyser.
The first document offered in this connection is Leyser Document No. 12, which is contained in Leyser Document Book I, on page 25. It is offered as Leyser Exhibit 38. It is an affidavit, dated the 20th of September 1947, given by Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Gottfried Annuss, which was sworn to on the 20th of September 1947 before a notary public at Ueberlingen.
Under Paragraph 1 this affiant describes his military career, and inasmuch as it touches on matters here, he says that after June , 1943, he was Ia on the staff of the 114th Light Infantry Division, and in that capacity he was, from November , 1943 until January 1944, under the command of General von Leyser.
In paragraph 2 he deals with General von Leyser's personality. To read one paragraph therefrom, which is roughly in the middle of Paragraph 2, the affiant says as follows:
"In spite of the difficulties and the danger, which were connected with personally obtaining information on the spot, General von Leyser traveled frequently within his area of command and did not only visit the Division Headquarters, but also the troops, so that I gained the impression of a special conscientiousness with which General von Leyser intended to form for himself personally a picture of the real conditions of the area under his command by personal observation."
In the next paragraph General von Leyser's relations to the troops are described, to which I should like to draw attention. Paragraph 3 deals with the means of communication in Croatia. This affiant also confirms that lines of communication were highly difficult, for which reason news did not always come in at the proper time and date. Then, he continues to say in the middle of Paragraph 3:
In the daily reports of the Division to the Corps, insignificant occurrences were not mentioned. For example, mining of streets, where no damage resulted, or similar smaller incidents were only reported when they became more frequent and gave evidence of new , livelier Activity of bands in certain territories. Otherwise they were occasionally reported by telephone to the Corps.
Regarding reprisals I can say the following: An order regarding shooting of hostages in a certain proportion is unknown to me, it has also never been executed.
During the time in question I can not recall any shooting of hostages.
Real retaliatory measures were only provided for cases where sudden attacks, sabotage of railways, etc. took place within the territory occupied directly by German troops, the offenders therefore were to be found in all probability among the population living among us. Besides reprisal measures were only taken after repeated incidents in the same territory. Therefore reprisal measures, referring apparently to relatively minor sabotage, may be mentioned in the daily reports. But, in order to judge correctly, one has to consider the incidents of a certain time, which necessitated these measures to protect the troops from further sudden attacks.
Meanwhile the population had been warned. If such raids took place in territories, not continuously occupied by German troops (supply routes to more distant strong points, etc.) reprisal measures were out of question, because it could be assumed that the acts were committed by groups of bands which intended to disturb the territory systematically. In such cases, so-called mopping-up operations were ordered with the goal of driving away the bands. When such operations took place, houses were certainly destroyed occasionally, which the bands had built for them to take up positions and to harrass our channels of communication. It seems to me absolutely possible, that the reports regarding such operations were also communicated falsely as reprisal measures.
In paragraph 5 the affiant deals with the enemy of the Division, the witness says:
Our enemy in Croatia could not be called a military troop, but really only a band. As they did wear a specific badge, visible from the distance, and carried no arms openly, there were no clear fronts. Their way of fighting was treacherous, as a rule they did not fight an open battle. As generally the positions and the location of the bands were not clear, and they could not be distinguished from the civilian population, they had as a rule, the first shot. Their terror was much feared by the population of the territories, which had to be vacated by the Germans after a lengthy occupation.
At the beginning of September 1943, when we started our operation to mop-up the Lika, a sudden attack was made on a telephone construction crew of our Division in the sector SO Bihac, during which the dead bodies of our fallen soldiers were mutilated horribly. The next day during the change of position of the Division Headquarters, I saw these victims myself.
In the next paragraph, the affiant deals with the Cetniks again:
The Cetniks were the deadly enemies of the Communist bands. For this reason they joined us occasionally in our divisional area in the fight against Communist bands, while they also carried out operations independently. As we did not have enough security forces, the Cetniks were also used for security tasks in our area.
In Paragraph 6 the witness deals with the liaison with the Croatian Government Department:
The connection with the Croatian Government Offices was guaranteed by the temporary presence of the Croatian Minister Frkovic at the Division Headquarters, otherwise, through the collaboration of the competent prefects, mayors, etc. This connection was particularly valued by the commander of the division, General Eglseer, a former Austrian officer who knew the Balkans particularly well. The abbot of the monastery in Banja Luka and the Bishop of Sibenik could doubtlessly testify as to our good relations to the civilian population.
The next document I beg to offer in this connection is Leyser Document No. 17 in Document Book I on page 52. I offer it as Leyser Exhibit 39. It is an affidavit by the former First Lieutenant, Adolf Schmitzhuebsch given on the 22nd September 1947 and sworn to before the Bourgemeister of the parish of Oberelvenich. He says at first:
During the years of 1943 and 1944 I was a First Lieutenant and company commander in the Light Infantry Regiment 721 which was part of the 114th Light Infantry Division. In this capacity I was subordinated till January 1944 to the 15th Mountain Army Corps which at that time was under the command of General von Leyser.
General von Leyser, in all his orders which reached me, was greatly concerned not only about the physical well being, but also about the spiritual welfare of the troops. During several inspections of units in my regiment he convinced himself of the conditions prevailing in these companies.
He scourged every discrepancy in his orders and demanded that ruthless disciplinary action be taken. From my own experience I can make the following statement about the method of fighting of our opponents: The methods of fighting applied by the bands was in every case a treacherous one. I have never seen them come out for open combat not even if they had a numerical superiority. Disguised as harmless civilians, they employed every conceivable means in order to attain their goal. Due to the fact that they promptly sacked every dead or captured German or Italian soldier and deprived them of their uniforms, many of them wore these uniforms with the rank insignias, etc. and in this manner they frequently succeeded in deceiving us. During attacks in the Kozara I have repeatedly seen that the bands sent woman and children ahead of their advance since they obviously knew the orders preventing us from doing harm to women and children in any case. A great number of able-bodied civilians were, constantly following our division fearing compulsory recruitment which was always carried out by the partians. The people, asking us for help again and again, spoke of threats and the most severe reprisals. The peasants were prevented from bringing their crops to the towns, and the fields, for the greater part, could not be cultivated. Railroad workers and other state employees were constantly in danger of persecution for exercising their duties. During my temporary assignment as burial-officer of the Regiment I gained an insight into the inhuman methods of fighting of the bands. During this assignment I have seen the bodies of at least 30 German soldiers who, evidently prior to their murder, were mutilated in the most atrocious way (cut off oars, gouged out eyes, killing through slow burning, burying them alive, driving of sharpened stakes into the abdomen or porteriors, etc.)