I heard, to my regret, that the document book is not yet available, but I was promised that it would be available by noon today.
THE PRESIDENT: The Deputy Secretary General is down at the reproduction office now, or at the office of the Secretary General, and is making inquiries concerning it. I have endeavored to express to him the desire of the Tribunal that we must have this book here, and I am certain that he will make every effort to get it here very promptly. As soon as he returns he will give us a report on it.
You may proceed.
BY DR. WEISGRUBER:
With permission of the Tribunal I would like to give these documents which I would like to offer in evidence the exhibit numbers which they are to receive.
The first one is Speidel Document No. 44 contained in Document Book Speidel 3, on page 27. This document will be offered under Exhibit No. 8,- Speidel, Exhibit No. 8.
This is a 10-day report of the Military Commander Southern Greece, dated 1 February, 1943, and paragraph 1 of this report reads, "No new sabotage acts occurred".
A further exhibit in this connection will be Speidel Document No. 55, contained in Speidel Document Book 3, page 64, and this document will receive Exhibit No. Speidel 9. It is a report of the Military Commander Southern Greece addressed to the Commander in Chief Southeast, dated 20 January, 1943.
I do not intend to read this report. The report itself shows that the situation around that period of time became considerably more quiet.
Q General, that then was the first case in which you ordered reprisal measures?
A Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: I am advised by the Deputy Secretary General that the reproduction of this book has been given Priority No. 1 and that as soon as it is ready for delivery, we will be advised.
BY DR. WEISERBER:
Q General, this then, was the first reprisal measure ordered by you?
A Yes.
Q What was, for you, the command basis upon which you ordered the reprisal measures?
A In Athens I had already found a reprisal order which had been issued by the 12th Army, and which had also been published. I remember very clearly the German version as well as the Greek version which was published, and which threatened reprisal measures in case of sabotage acts.
On the basis of this order I was authorized and entitled to order reprisal measures in cases which demanded it. Reprisal ratios to the best of my recollection, were not contained in that order.
Q General, surely you reflected about this order, did you consider it admissible under International Law?
A I would like to state principally that no military leader examines his orders from his superior as to whether or not they are admissible under International Law. That is presupposed as a matter of course. I further do not believe that any military leader in any other army customarily examines the orders of his superior in this direction.
In this case, however, it was slightly different, inasmuch as this had been the very first time that I, during my military career, had to concern myself at all with reprisal questions. Up to that date, this pproblem had been quite outside my sphere of work and my ideas.
It is comprehensible that such a decision, to have to judge over human lives, concerned and moved me deeply, so I asked my Chief Judge for an expert opinion in order to satisfy my own conscience. I asked him to give me an opinion about the admissibility under International Law of reprisal measures.
My Chief Judge confirmed the admissibility of reprisal measures under International Law.
Q Didn't you, beyond that, also try to get information about what your military superiors thought about this problem?
A Yes, I personally telephoned the Commander of Army Group E.
Q Who was he?
A That was at the time, General Loehr.
I described the situation to him and my intentions. I informed him of my decision, and asked him to give me his opinion and his consent. He agreed completely.
Q When you concerned yourself for the first time with the ordering of reprisal measures, you sought for confirmation from three sides concerning the admissibility of your intended measures?
A Yes, I did that.
The basis for me was, (a) the clear cut order, (b) the clear cut legal opinion, and (c) the decided agreement from my superiors.
Q We will now turn to the development of the situation in the first six months of 1943. The Prosecution has submitted the situation reports for May and June, of the Military Commander for Southern Greece from the year 1943, and they are contained in Document Book 24 of the Prosecution as Exhibit 546, an page 212 and subsequent pages in the English version, and German page 161 and subsequent pages.
Will you please, on the basis of these reports, give us very briefly the development of the situation.
A These two monthly reports are very informative in my opinion, because they give for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the development and the situation in Greece as far as I can judge this picture from my rather limited perspective in Southern Greece.
If I may briefly concentrate the sections of the reports, I would like to do it as follows:
We see that during the first months of the year 1943 the situation became considerably more acute. Sabotage acts increased considerably. Strike movements flared up here again again and for the first time large scale strikes occurred which bore a decided military aspect. Demonstrations took place in connection with the restricted, and for the first time at least as far as I was concerned, all of these actions allowed me to realize that they were well planned, and also that they were led uniformly by Communist leaders. It was very obvious that at this point, the EAM as a political organization, together with the ELAS, the fighting organization, had gained the domination over the insurgent movement, and directed it into the Communist direction.
Furthermore, these reports contained for the first time basic information concerning the organization of the bands, in which connection I would like to stress, that these reports have to be taken with a grain of salt. They do not contain any information checked or confirmed by German military agencies, but they contain a compilation of band information taken from a variety of sources. An examination and evaluation would hot be the task of my limited sphere but concern instead the superior agency Army Group E, to whom this information was given as a basis for its evaluation of the situation.
Q If it please Honors at this point I intended to offer in evidence the following document, Speidel Document No. 55 contained in Speidel Document Book 3, page 64. This document will be offered under Exhibit No. Speidel 10.
Your Honors, I beg your pardon. It is Document 56, contained in Speidel Document Book No. 3, page 78.
THE PRESIDENT: May I make an inquiry? The paging you are giving is the German page; you don't know now the English page do you?
DR. WEISGERBER: Your Honor, I do not at the moment know the English pages, but as a rule, the pages in the Document Books, in both the English and the German are identical.
Whether this will be the same in the case of Book 3, as it was with Books 1 and 2, I do not as yet know.
This is Document, Speidel No. 56, contained in Speidel Document Book 33 page 78, which will be offered under Exhibit No. Speidel 10. This is the translation of a proclamation to the Greek Youth and to the whole Greek population and its party organizations.
It is a proclamation as it was published and disseminated at the time by the EAM movement. This document was contained amongst the documents sent to us from Washington. I do not intend to read this document I recommend it to the judicial notice of the Tribunal.
Q General, if in this report as it is contained in Exhibit 546, you turn up page 165, which is page 218 of the English text, you find here a report concerning the fact that an enemy transmitter was seized. I would like to ask you in this connection, was that perhaps isolated case?
A. This was by no means an isolated case. It was only a symptom I remember very well that at that time, inside six months only, in Athens alone, 12 enemy radio transmitters were seized and rendered unusable. Athens had at that time become a decided espionage center and it had 12 radio transmitters as a proof of this fact. In order to anticipate possible misunderstandings, I would like to add at this point that this seizure of enemy radio transmitters in Athens was carried out in conjunction with the Italian occupation authorities. It was, therefore, no independent action on the part of the German military authorities. The Italians had agreed to it.
Q. If you will now look at page 171 in the same document, which is page 229 in the English text, you will find mentioned here a second reprisal measure. It is page 171 in your document book.
A. Yes, I have found it, thank you.
Q. What are your comments on this incident?
A. This again is an incident concerning sabotage on shipping space, concerning the steamer Citta de Savona. This steamer had been used like all the other ships as a Wehrmacht transport and supply vessel and had been damaged very seriously in the harbor of Pyraeus by magnetic mine and could not be used for some time. For the same reasons, which I mentioned before, it seemed to me that in this case it was necessary to take stronger measures. All the more so as in this case too the perpetrators could not be seized in spite of every effort made in this direction. I, therefore, ordered that ten reprisal measures were to be carried out.
Q. May I ask you to tell us from this document when this sabotage act took place and when the reprisal measure was ordered?
A. The sabotage act took place on the 12th of June and the execution of reprisal measures took place on the 17th of June.
Q. In 1943?
A. Yes, in 1943.
Q. Why did you wait from the 12th of June until the 17th of June?
A. Just as I described in the previously mentioned case, I waited for a few days in order to grant a possibility of seizing the real perpetrators. The whole machine of investigation had been started for this purpose because I hoped until the very last minute to be able to seize the actual perpetrators. Above all, I did not want to hasten this measure. I only wanted to carry it out after the normal investigation had not had any result. In addition, I would like to state that the fact that I waited was not approved of at higher agencies because I remember the following incident in this connection. I cannot say for certain whether this was the first or the second case, but in any case on one of these occasions the following happened.
I was en route on an inspection trip between the period of time when the sabotage act took place and the reprisal measure. I was stopped at a telephone center. There I found a teletype from my chief in Athens and this teletype contained about the following: "The Commanderin-Chief just telephoned. He expects that you will finally take stringent and strong measures. Please send orders whether the reprisal measures are to be carried out today."
Q. One interpolation here in order to clarify the issue. Who asked you for an order to carry out the reprisal measures?
A. My Chief-of-Staff. The first sentence referred to a communication from the Commander-in-Chief, - I was finally to take stringent measures, and the second sentence had been added by my Chief-ofStaff who asked me to issue an order to carry out the reprisal measures immediately. My answer was brief and it so happens that I remember the exact wording. I sent off a teletype to my Chief-of-Staff containing the following words: "I am not going to be blackmailed. Wait for my return."
Late at night I returned and had the results--or rather the nonexisting results of the investigation reported to me and after a further five days I decided that the reprisal measure was to be carried out, and left again the next morning.
Q. Did you in this case also obtain the consent of your military superior?
A. I cannot answer this with the same certainty as I could answer it in the first case, but I am fairly certain that also in this case too I got in touch with him over the telephone.
Q. You said that you ordered ten hostages to be shot. In the first incident, as you testified just before, you consulted your Chief Judge. Did you do that in this case also?
A. Yes, I also discussed in this instance the problem in a very detailed manner with my Chief Judge. However, I did not do that in this case in order to clear the basis given by international law because this was quite clear and obvious. I discussed the problem for two other reasons. The first reason concerned the selection of the reprisal hostages which I made together with the Chief Judge. The order provided that reprisal prisoners were to be taken from those circles from which the perpetrators had supposedly come. That is a provision which in my opinion is mainly a theoretical one.
I did not want to detain anybody arbitrarily so instead I ordered that people were to be imprisoned as hostages who fulfilled two conditions: one, they were to be Communist leaders and, two, they would have to be imprisoned under the highest sentences for offenses against the German military forces, for which punishment they had been normally sentenced by court martials.
This selection "as to be made by the Chief Judge and he submitted the cases to me. I examined then and accordingly ordered the ten hostages to be shot. There was another reason why the Chief Judge was consulted and that was the following. There were a number of cases where some time ago a valid court martial death sentence had been pronounced. The execution of these people sentenced to death was combined with the execution of these hostages so that actually not only the ten hostages in the reprisal measure but these ten hostages plus a certain number of other prisoners were shot. Ten were reprisal prisoners and the others were men convicted to death by a valid court martial.
This measure achieved that only ten men were seized who had already been convicted of serious offenses against the German armed forces. Thus, I avoided that a further ten, possibly innocent men, would fall under this reprisal measure.
Q. General, if one looks at the reports of May and June, 1943, as they are contained in Exhibit 546, one finds that around that time quite a number of sabotage acts occurred. The effect of the first reprisal measure, at the beginning of January 1943, which you described, had been the cessation of the surprise attacks and sabotage acts or at least a considerable decrease in them. You did not order any reprisal measures with regard to the surprise attacks and sabotage acts which occurred in May and June, 1943? did you? At least, I could not find any proof that you did that in the documents submitted. Did you order reprisal measures at the time or didn't you?
A. No.
Q. Why did it happen that just in that particular case of sabotage on shipping on the steamer Citta di Savona you deemed a reprisal measure necessary?
A. I think that should have become fairly clear from what I said concerning the first reprisal measure. Therefore, I can at this point only repeat that every ton of shipping space was of a decisive importance for the very reasons which I stated just previously. The African problem, however, no longer had to be considered because of the development of the situation there, but the problem of supplying Crete and the islands still remained exactly the same as before. In other words, the fighting strength and the lives of ten thousands of German soldiers still depended on the functioning of the sea supply route, and for this reason it was an absolute military necessity to take measures in this case.
Q. I don't know whether I have a wrong conception in assuming that the steamer Citta di Savona was an Italian steamer?
A. That is quite correct. As the name shows, it was an Italian steamer.
Q. I am then interested to know why you retaliated after an attack on an Italian steamer. Why did you in this case consider reprisal measures necessary?
A. I did that for two clear and obvious reasons. The German-Italian shipping space represented one operational unit. The Italian ships naturally represented in the Mediterranean the largest part of the available shipping space. Therefore, Italian steamers made their trips in a majority of cases in the interests of German supply. Therefore, it was in this case immaterial whether it was a German or an Italian ship; it was part of our available shipping space for supply.
The second reason which is even more significant is that the sabotage act took place in an area of German sovereignty and I was responsible for that area.
Q. In the report of June, 1943, some paragraphs of which we have discussed, there are contained protest demonstrations in Athens against the shootings of hostages. Did you take any measures against these protest demonstrations?
A. No, I didn't. Athens was Italian area.
Q. Did the Italians do anything against these demonstrations? Did they take any measures?
A. Yes. In this connection I want to recall the Greek film which we saw and which showed this demonstration procession; it is quite surprising that such demonstrations were allowed in an occupied city. I don't believe they would be possible in Germany today. The Italians intervened and these demonstrations took a very bloody end.
I myself saw hew an Italian armored column of 10 or 12 cars passed part of the demonstration procession and shot arbitrarily and wildly with machine guns into the mass of people.
I myself later on counted 40-50 dead and wounded lying in the streets of Athens. It seemed to me interesting that behind the demonstration procession three large ambulance convoys drove which were immediately ready to take care of the wounded. This is a proof for the fact that these demonstrations had been organized according t plan and that one counted on armed clashes.
Q. Did you in your capacity of Military Commander for Southern Greece have occasion and authority to take measures against this behavior of the Italians?
A. No, that was exclusively an Italian concern and I believe that the Italian Commander-in-Chief would have been very astonished indeed if a German commander had come and stated that he did not agree with the measures taken by the Italians in their own area of sovereignty. Vice versa, I would have had the same feelings.
Q. You mean to say, then, that the reprisal measures which you ordered in retaliation for the sabotage act against the steamer Citta di Savona were based on an absolute military necessity?
A. Yes. And that for the tactical reasons which I gave before.
Q. Did this measure have the success you aimed at?
A. Yes, it was a complete success; to the best of my knowledge later on no more sabotage acts on skipping space occurred.
Q. I am certain, General, that in your situation at that time, you reflected how you could stop these sabotage acts and raids.
Didn't you see any possibilities other than the ones you took to achieve that aim, namely the stopping of further sabotage acts and surprise attacks?
A. These surprise attacks and sabotage acts had of course a very close inner connection with the development of the band movement. In order to eliminate or at least to restrict the band movements with all the effects and consequences which it had, there were actually basically only two possibilities. One was a large scale military action to annihilate the bands, and this should have been done through a joint action by the Italian and German occupation troops. The second possibility was to try again to pacify the country through kindness.
Q. And which one of those two possibilities was pursued by you initially?
A. At first, I tried to take the second course but I would like to state expressly that it was not I who took that course. It was my superior agency, Army Group E, together with the Italian High Command and in close conjunction with the Greek government who attempted to do this. At the beginning of May, 1943, a so-called band amnesty on a large scale was pronounced, and was made known all over the country through posters, leaflets, dropping of leaflets, etc. This band amnesty had a deadline dated the 20th of May, 1943, and contained in substance the request that band members were to return to their home villages and to carry out their normal daily work. They were also to deliver their arms to the nearest available authority of the military government. In answer to this, they were to be granted reprieve of all punishment.
Q. That amnesty then had a deadline dated the 20th of May, 1943?
A. Yes.
Q. And what was the result of this band amnesty?
A. The result was exactly the same as the result gained today by the Greek government with the amnesty which the government offered to the guerrillas in Northern Greece. By this I mean no result whatsoever. Therefore, we only had the other solution which I mentioned before, the fighting of bands with military means and force.
Q. General, I would now like to discuss with you another chapter which falls chronologically into the same period of time which was under discussion just now. You are charged by the prosecution with having passed on and applied the so-called Commissar Order and the so-called Kommando Order. I shall first of all discuss with you the Commissar Order. It is the order as contained in Document Book I as Exhibit 13 and 14 on page 49 in the English Document Book and page 34 and subsequent pages in the German Document Book. I assume that you know this so-called Commissar Order. Did you ever receive orally or in writing this Commissar Order from any and of your superior agencies?
A. No.
Q During the years 1941 and 1942 you were in Roumania, as you stated yesterday, as Chief of the German Air Force Mission. Was this order published there?
A No. I was merely a member of the Air Defense in Roumania and had nothing to do with the operations in Russia.
Q In October, 1942, you received your assignment as Military Commander for Southern Greece. Was the Commissar Order made known to you there?
A No, the Commissar Order was only valid and applicable for the East, not for the South-East.
Q It is correct to say then that you never had any contact with the Commissar Order; that you did not receive it and that; therefore, you did not pass it on to your subordinate agencies?
A That is correct.
Q This then brings me to the so-called Commando Order which is contained in Document Book 9, on page 28 and subsequent pages in the English document book, and on page 41 and subsequent pages of the German document book. This was Exhibit 225 of the prosecution.
You know this order from the document book.
A Yes, I do.
Q Did you receive this order?
A Yes, but to put it very clearly, I did not receive the explanations and reasons given by Hitler for the Commando Order as they are contained in the document book. I only received at the time the actual Commando Order which was presented by the prosecution during the cross examination of General Foertsch. That is the Commando Order I know.
Q From whom did you receive this order?
A From Army Group E.
Q And when?
A Well, that must have been around the end of October, beginning of November, 1943.
Q What did you do in accordance with this order? What measures did you take?
A If I remember correctly, I didn't do anything. I did not pass it on.
Q And why didn't you pass on this order?
A I saw no cause to do so in the situation at that time. I had no combat assignment in Southern Greece and, as I testified yesterday on the basis of a sketch, I only had a few local defense battalions and supply units under me and, furthermore, the actual waging of the war was a concern of the Italians.
Q But didn't you actually fell oblige to pass on such an important order?
A I must confess that at the time I was very glad indeed that I had no factual cause to pass on this order. I quite frankly admit that I had considerable misgivings concerning this order which I discussed in great detail with my chief judge, but, as I stated, I had no actual necessity to pass on this order.
Q If I understood you correctly, you saw no factual necessity to pass on this order because at the time you only had a few local defense battalions and a few supply units under you?
A Yes, I had no combat assignment.
Q I see. Now, looking at the organizational sketch yesterday, we found that the 11th Air Force Division was also subordinated to you. Didn't you see any reason to pass on the order to this unit?
A When I received the order, the 11th Air Force Division was not subordinated to me. It only arrived at the end of December or the beginning of January, 1943, in my area. Since it was a newly organized unit, which was not yet ready for combat action, it had to be trained. As I stated yesterday, it was subordinated to me for purposes of training. I did not have to dispose of the committment of this division because in this respect, it was subordinated to Army Group E.
Q My attention had just been drawn to the translation of the word "Landesschuetzenbataillon". I would like to have the translation checked.
THE INTERPRETER: The military dictionary gives the same translation I used for Landesschuetzenbataillon - local defense units. It comes from the military dictionary.
BY DR. WEISGERBER:
Q General, since it is possible that it is not quite clear what Landesschuetzen were on the basis of the translation, will you please explain briefly what they were?
A I can do that quite clearly in one word. At least, one word which signifies the assignment these units had at the time. That is, guard battalions.
Q And of what kind of men did those battalions consist?
A They were old men who were not physically fit for front service. They mere used for guard duties, etc. At least, that was done in my area in Southern Greece. I did not get to know any other such units.
Q General, you did not pass on the Commando Order in October, 1942, when you received it from Army Group E. Did you possibly pass it on during a subsequent period?
A No.
Q If it please the Tribunal, in this connection I would like to offer further in evidence Speidel Document #6 contained in Speidel Document Book 1, page 14, which I shall offer under Speidel Exhibit #11. This is an affidavit executed by the former General of the Air Force, Karl Drum. General Drum was, from the beginning of January until the beginning of November, 1943, Commander of the 11th Air Force Field Division in Greece. General Drum describes in this affidavit his contact with General Speidel and mentions a conference of commanders which General Speidel held during the first few months of his, General Drum's stay in Greece. During this conference, as General Drum states:
"General Speidel discussed, among others, the following questions:
"a. His attitude towards country and people.
"b. His requests to the troops with respect to their conduct towards the population.
"c. His policy in the treatment of the country.
"d. His economic principles.
"e. His moderate opinions with regard to retaliation measures and the question of hostages."
Concerning the Commando Order in particular, the affiant General Drum states on page 15 in the last but one paragraph as follows and I quote:
"The fact is that I never received an order from General Speidel, nor did I hear of any order providing reprisal measures of any kind against the population. As far as I remember, neither the so-called Commissar Oder, which dealt with the treatment of Jewish-Bolshevik Commissars of the Soviet Army, nor the so-called Commando Order, which purported the annihilation of those taking part in the so-called Commando Raids, was forwarded to me by General Speidel as Military Commander of Southern Greece, resp. Greece."
I recommend the balance of this document to the judicial notice of the Tribunal.
In this connection I further have reference to a document already offered as Speidel Exhibit 10, which is Document Speidel #56, contained in Speidel Document Book 3 on page 72. This is a report of the Military Commander Southern Greece, dated 3 May 1943, and here, under Paragraph C, the following is stated:
"In the night of the 30th of April and 1st of May, four Britishers in uniform, a British naval lieutenant, a sergeant and 2 NCOs were captured five miles North-East of the northern tip of the Island of Hydra by members of the naval defence units."
General, do you remember that incident?
A Yes, quite clearly.
Q Did you, on that occasion, act in accordance with the Commando Order and did you order the liquidation of the captured Britishers?
A No, I did not. They were sent to Germany as prisoners of war.
Q I further offer from Speidel Document Book 2 a document which is Document Speidel #22. It is contained on page 27. This is an affidavit executed by one Hermann Boedecker which I am offering as Speidel Exhibit #12. On page 28, under II, this affiant makes the following statements. I might add that this witness was ADC on General Speidel's staff and during March, 1944, he was in charge of the Adjutant's Office. He was ADC on General Speidel's staff as of December, 1943. This affiant makes the following statement. Page 28.
"During my activity on the staff of the military commander I have not experienced that shootings of members of commandos or hostages took place by order of General Speidel."
Finally, I refer to Document #37 in the same document book, which is contained on page 72 of both the German and the English document books. This is an affidavit executed by the former Brigadier General Erich Eisenbach which I am offering under Speidel Exhibit #13. General Eisenbach was subordinated to General Speidel as commander of the sub-area administrative headquarters in Athens. In this connection I am only going to read from paragraph 3 on page 74. It reads as follows:
"The Commissar Order and the Commando Order I neither saw at the Military Administrative Headquarters in Korinth nor in Athens. Also in Greece I never heard of it in Greece either, especially the Military Commander did not speak to me about it during my activity there."
This brings us to the end of the chapter of the Commissar and the Commando Orders, and at this point, because of the connection which exists, I would like to discuss with you Prosecution Exhibit 284 which is contained in Document Book 11 of the prosecution on page 76 of the English text and page 59 of the German text. You are charged by the prosecution with this document. This is an activity report of the 1-A department of the Commander-in-chief South East covering the period from January to June, 1943. Unfortunately I am not able to recognize the significance of this document for your case. Did you gather anything from this document which could load to the conclusion that you were responsible in any of the incidents mentioned?
A I read the document in great detail and, in spite of my best will and diligent search, I could not find anything to incriminate me. This is also hardly possible because it's an activity report of a different department and a different agency.
Q That brings us to the end of the discussion of the first six months of 1943. Now, towards the end of August or beginning of September, 1943, a change took place in the organization of the South Eastern area.
When, how and in what form did you learn about this change?
A In August, 1943, one day I received, to my intense surprise, a teletype which I can still very well picture - ateletype on red paper, which said briefly, in substance:
"1. The Command of Army Group E will be taken over by Field Marshal Rommel as of immediately.
"2. Military Commander Southern Greece will be appointed Military Commander for Greece.
"3. He will receive executive power for Greece.
"4. He will be subordinated to the Military Commander South-East," (an agency up to that point not known to me.)
Q Well, at that time, towards the end of August, 1943, the Italians were the actual occupiers of Greece. How was it possible that you could take over the post of the Military Commander for Greece?
A That is entirely correct. The order was and remained purely a theoretical one. It was never applied or carried out. A change of the situation only occurred when the Italians left the alliance which was the frequently mentioned date, the 8th of September, 1943.
Q You mean to say then that until the 8th of September, 1943, the organization as it existed at the time in Greece did not change for all practical purposes?
A No, it did not change for all practical purposes.
Q How did you experience the capitulation of the Italians yourself? Did you have any connection with capitulation and with the subsequent disarming of the Italians?
AAlthough we had anticipated the capitulation of the Italians for some time previously, the exact date, of course, was not known to us. Therefore, I decided just on the 8th of September, in the morning, to fly to Belgrade in order to report to this Military Commander SouthEast whom I knew up to that time only by name, and in order to ascertain what the situation was and what intentions existed at the time.