The conduct of a trial aiming at a true and just verdict ought strongly to disapprove of this most peculiar way of quotation used in the afore-cited passages of the "Prosecution Brief of Law", which is apt to give the reader a false and misleading picture of the service position of the Defendant V. Geitner - as though V. Geitner had formerly been Military Commander in Serbia. That has never been the case; V. Geitner was only Chief of Staff, and nothing else. He was not in command of any division or of any Commander, he was not in a position to give any orders to the troops or to their chiefs, he could not order any judicial proceedings, this was the exclusive prerogative of the Commanding General that is Bader and Felber.
It is just because of the peculiar way of presenting evidence on the part of the Prosecution that it is necessary to point again and again emphatically to the results of the evidence taken: it has not been proved in a single case that Geitner has caused, drafted, carried on or forwarded any allegedly unlawful order in person, that is on his own free volition. Not a single order and not a single report are in existence which have originated from Geitner's person. On the contrary, he has been indicted exclusively for acts which were the acts of his commanders.
The American Chief Prosecution has already referred in his Opening Speech to the severe criticism often directed, even in America and England, in the press and in Parliament, by civilians and soldiers particularly, against lawsuits of the kind brought against German soldiers because they carried out official orders of their superiors in purely military matters. This criticism was given rise to in particular by the verdict affecting Fieldmarshal--Kesselring, General Jodl (Chief of the Wehrmacht Operational Staff) and Fieldmarshal Keitel. It will not be possible to avoid paying close attention to this criticism, and the Tribunal called upon to decide will have to investigate whether and to what extent this criticism is well-founded. The armed Forces of a country is a weapon of the policy determined by the Government. The Armed Forces must subordinate themselves to the policy of the State. The soldier, regardless of his position and rank, must obey in all states in the world. The soldier has on principle nothing to do with politics. In Germany he never had political electoral franchise.
In how far soldiers, those at least holding the highest office, are entitled to influence policy or have even a right to be a contributory determinant in questions of state control, differs in different states. This influence has been purposely kept at a minimum in Germany since earliest times. There could be no question in Germany of a right to be a contributory determinant even in the case of the highest Generals. No doubt exists now at all that the causes of all evil in the Balkans are rooted in the political mistakes of the supreme Reich agencies. It was the soldiers accused here then who had to iron out the political idiocies of the Reich Leadership Authorities, with military means. The trial has shown sufficiently the difficult position of selfdefense they got into and how they tried without exception to master those positions to the best of their knowledge and belief. That it was not done without severe measures in view of the involved Balkan policy of the Reich Leadership and the unscrupulousness of the fanatical enemy is not their faulty Again and again, they referred to the fact that pacification of the Balkans with the measures ordered and the political methods of the supreme Reich Authorities was not possible.
What else could they do? What soldier will leave the post assigned to him in wartime? Today, however, these soldiers are supposed to atone for the faults that the responsible politicians were responsible for. False policy cannot be corrected by the soldier.
In so far as it is a question in this trial of violation of International Law and the conceptions of "crimes against humanity" and "War Crimes" codified in the Control Council Law, it seems absolutely correct that the International Law of the future makes responsible for such offenses not only the states as such but also the leading statesmen. However, a line must be drawn somewhere limiting this responsibility, If in future, every state sovereignty is not to disintegrate in impotence and disobedience, the boundary line must be situated where the individual has no direct influence on the legislative power and the management of the executive of the state. It is more difficult to draw this line in the case of the soldier -- especially if it is a question of events of war -- because this profession and its functions are established more than any other on the obligation to obedience of the subordinate. The question here is: Of what soldiers can one demand in justice that they offer resistance and no longer obey in the case of obvious or at least possible violation of International Law on the part of their Government or in the case of political errors, and of which soldiers may one no longer demand such resistance and disobedience, because one would otherwise disrupt the nature and character of all armed forces -- Discipline and obedience -- or because the latter can no longer judge whether orders are contrary to international law or not. That one calls to account soldiers holding highest authority like Keitel and Jodl because they were mixed up in the criminal policy of Hitler's government in central offices although they had the necessary general view to arrive at a correct decision, seems logical.
The same may hold for Raeder and Doenitz as Commanders in Chief of the Navy. These highest soldiers representing the head of the German Armed Forces were the direct collaborators of Hitler; they had personal access to him, they were informed by him in person, they worked out the war plans according to his directives, they could at least try to influence his decisions and direct them into the paths of a fair conduct of war. It was certainly also one of their tasks to supervise the conformity of their conduct of war with International Law and have checked it by their legal offices.
On the other hand it already seems questionable whether the Commanders in Chief of the Army Groups can be considered as sharing the responsibility especially if they, as in the case in question, repeatedly exerted themselves demonstrably to the end that the strict orders issued to them by the highest authorities, were made less severe and if frequently on their own responsibility they tempered these orders. They did not have the view from a central position that the above-named men had and we know that they too under Hitler might only learn whatever they had to know to carry out their orders and that only to the minimum extent. In their case a military authority had already been interposed between Hitler and them on which responsibility and scrutiny was incumbent and they normally had no direct influence on Hitler and the supreme Reich authorities.
It has indeed been established long since in the trials before the IMT that even the so-called conferences which Hitler held from time to time with his military leaders were in truth only "ceremonies for receiving orders" in which not even Fieldmarshals spoke but were limited to accepting the instructions and directives of Hitler as from the War Lord. Their eyes were fixed on the enemy in the first place and it is clear that for them whose tasks were purely military, in the circumstances, the conception of obedience was inevitably essentially more strict than for those occupying the central supreme positions.
The very discontent of many high military leaders with the line of policy pursued by the Reich Government and the realization that the Generals did not possess the necessary influence to bring about changes in it, may have contributed to the fact that the Generals limited themselves to their purely military tasks, in order not to incriminate themselves with the appearance of political responsibility. The further down one looks at the military ladder all the more clearly must obedience be demanded from the soldier in the first place and all the less can soldiers be made responsible for a share in violation of international law, if the latter originated in the orders of the head of the state and the military heads. What one can demand of these soldiers is that they interpret and carry out the orders given from above in such a way that these orders are robbed, insofar as possible, of their severity and injustices which are felt to be excessive. It is certain that there is not one of these defendants who did not do that to the greatest extent imaginable. Downright insubordination in war however is inconceivable for a soldier. That this is not the case in the German Armed Forces only but also in the American Armed Forces, the defendants conclude, for example, from the numerous attacks of Allied bomber squadrons on open German cities and from the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is no doubt whatsoever that shelling of open cities is forbidden in the Hague Convention, that shelling of an open city consequently represents a serious violation of international law. Article 25a of the Agreement concerning laws and practices of land warfare dated 18 October 1907 and I quote: "It is forbidden to attack or shell undefended cities, villages, dwellings or buildings, whatever medium is employed".
Even if no express mention is made in the Hague Convention of bombarding of open cities by planes -- simply because at the time the Hague Convention was formulated, squadrons of aeroplanes were still not known, yet this internationally recognized law must be applied today, according to its meaning, to aerial warfare too, if it is still intended to apply at all.
The sense of the above provision of the Hague Convention is doubtless that open cities and their inhabitants not taking part in the war are to be spared from annihilation, in connection with which it is a matter of indifference in the end whether this annihilation is effected by artillery shells or aircraft bombs, for, in the long run an aircraft bomb is nothing but an artillery shell aimed by a plane and the final effect of destruction and death is the same in both cases.
Now it is not known to the defendants whether Allied officers who took part in one form or another in such bombardment of open cities or in the dropping of atom bombs started investigations at the time when they got these orders as to whether carrying out of these orders constituted violation of the Hague Convention or not. Insofar as this happened, the result must inevitably have been the same from a rational point of view as was found and ascertained above. What is certain however is that the Allied officers did not refuse to carry out these orders; for that these orders were carried out, there are witnesses enough of the fact in Germany and Japan.
The fact that bombing attacks on the civilian population of open cities were started by the Germans first can only play an insignificant part here. The opinion was often expressed just by the Allied side that two wrongs do not make a right. There exists however no doubt whatsoever that compared with number and effect of these German attacks the number and effect of Allied bombs on German and Japanese cities was actually monstrous. The retaliation surpassed the offense here to an extent not yet to be realized today.
With all this however new accusations are not to be made, although one must admit from an objective point of view that one could institute new and just as telling accusations as those submitted in this trial.
This example is only to show with what difficulty the questions of military obedience can be brought into conformity with the provisions of International Law in the case of subsequent legal checking, especially if the international law provisions are out of date, and that is what they are as regards partisan warfare as waged in the Balkans and as it must be carried on again today in Greece, or at least just as much as with reference to aerial warfare.
A further important point in this connection: One of the fundamental principles of law reads:
"Voluntas punitur, non exitus!"
in German "The will (to crime) is to be punished, not the result."
Who, however, after all the material submitted here in evidence, will still bring forward the assertion that those defendants had acted from criminal disposition, criminal motives or criminal intent? Not once could they have had the conviction that they were committing deeds in violation of international law or even crimes: for, firstly, the orders they received were already checked several times by competent legal authority and found to be correct when they reached them. The further the recipient was down the scale the more he must assume that his superiors had been aware of their responsibility in passing on these orders. Secondly, they were soldiers at the front whose task it could not be to check, from a legal standpoint, orders received from above. They had to act under the pressure of events and their vindication and often have recourse to severe measures, for -- to quote the wording of Par. 358 of the "Rules of Land Warfare" --- and unscrupulous enemy left no other possibility for reply to his barbaric abominations and the security of the troops demanded immediate drastic measures", what one now wants to construe, at a later day with months of work on the part of first rate jurists, and alluding to all possible provisions and theories and having recourse to Control Council Law No. 10 (of which incidentally no one could have any idea then) as acts violating international law, as crimes against humanity and warcrimes, were, when all is said and done, self-defense measures taken by these military leaders who were placed in most difficult positions, but never conscious or even intended crimes.
Had they been criminals, had they had the will to commit crimes, they would have carried out the orders from above one hundred per cent and not always in a less drastic form, changed, altered and in part not at all, they would not repeatedly have made available considerable resources for the care of the civilian population, for sanitary measures of a most extravagant nature, for the Red Cross and its Relief. They tried to steer a middle course between military duty to the fatherland engaged in the grimmest of struggles, their own conscience, the embarrassing situation in which they were placed, as a result of the unprincipled conduct of war on the part of the rebels. In so doing, one or another nay have tripped up here or there but never to the extent of committing a conscious or intended crime. That they could not produce in the Balkans the ideal condition that seems to be in the mind of the Prosecution is rooted only to a very small degree in the human insufficiency of the defendants, certainly not at all in any criminal tendency present. Furthermore, not until this day has the Prosecution been able to say, what the defendants should have done actually, and the latter do not believe either that it can divulge to us a recipe of the kind, apart from the one piece of advice, to withdraw and in this way evade responsibility -- council which the soldier with a sense of responsibility will as a rule consider as cowardice, as breaking of the military oath, as faithlessness to people and fatherland. -- However, to return to the case of the defendant Geitner, who as a mere chief of Staff was free according to German law and German interpretation from responsibility for orders given by his commander. The legal position explained as regards the position and authority of the Chief of Staff is valid to an even greater extent for orders by which reprisals were prescribed. For the ordering of reprisals was always a part of the executive power and this was always in the hands of the Military Judiciary Authority personally, that is of the commander.
Conception and meaning of the executive power is defined in the Reich Defense Law dated 4 September 1938. I quote: "The Commanders in Chief exercising executive power can, with effect for the sphere of operations, issue legal decrees, constitute special courts and can give instructions to authorities and offices competent for the area of operations (with exception of the supreme Reich authorities, the supreme political State Authorities and the Reichsleitung (Reich Directorate) of the NSDAP.)" With this "executive power" Brigadier General von Geitner had as Chief of the General Staff nothing to do in principle.
This principle was put in practice so consistently and universally in German military law that No. 72 of the "Handbook for Service with General Staff in War Time" laid down that the Head of Dept. III (that is the jurist of the Army Corps) was to be the unique adviser of the Commander in all legal questions; I quote: no influence is due to the Chief of General Staff on what is submitted by III to the Military Judiciary Authority"; he was to receive through the legal official merely a communication concerning events such as come to the knowledge of the legal official", which "concern spirit of the troops or persons in special positions." Reprisals and such like however were undisputably the affair of jurisdiction and the Chief of Staff was consequently excluded on principle. competencies to a reserve officer who had so far never had any dealings with matters of this kind, coming from entirely different surrounding.
Possibly in the mind of both of the Commander's in Chief the tought may have played its part - unexpressed - that they themselves had to carry heavy enough under this load of responsibility for such exceptionally stringent measures, and that they did not want to burden even partially a co-worker with this responsibility whom they knew and esteemed as an anxiously correct man, directly embodying in his person the love of justice. But first of all both Commanders were aware of the fact that they took a great responsibility upon themselves with these reprisal measures, that they thereby decided over life and death of possibly quite innocent persons, or that they deprived whole villages of their property and homes; it is obvious that a general conscious of his responsibility reserved such far reaching decisions only to his own decision; for he and only he had to take over the responsibility for this and he was only able to do so, if such measures had been ordered by himself. It is therefore nothing remarkable, but was only natural, that General Bader well as General Felber did not transfer the decision in such important questions even to their Chief of Staff.
In paragraph 3 I deal with the sithature of the defendant von Geitner, which appears on various reprisal orders of his commanders and which he rad to sign according to instructions, but which in spite of this represent orders by his military commanders. I don't want to read these statements in detail, but I recommend them to the judicial notice of the tribunal, particularly so because I believe defense counsel for General Foertsch will deal in more detail with this matter. I continue reading now on page 49.
Chief of Staff von Geitner acted in such cases not by any own initiating and not in the execution of any own authority to command and personal responsibility, but merely as the subordinate organ of execution who in the legal role of a clerk, and according to the dictation of the Command in Chief, writes his orders down on paper and dispatches them to the branch office. He occupied legally in this case no other position as that of a Court clerk for instance, who initialed a copy of the sentence issued at that time by the IMT and dispatched same then to the authorities executing the sentence.
No one would honestly think of making this Court clerk responsible for the sentence, if later on such a sentence should be considered as a miscarriage of justice. The court clerk is certainly not obliged to examine the formally correct sentence as to its correctness and as to its concurrence with international law; this would not even be possible for him. The same applies to a staff member, the Chief of Staff or any other member of Staff, if he dispatches an order recognizable as a personal decision of the Commander in Chief, and which is based solely on the authority of the Commander in Chief, to the proper authorities.
One could go still further and inquire in this respect:
Is the public prosecutor, in charge of meting out punishment, in any way obliged or is he even authorized to examine the death sentence passed on to him by tho court for execution as to its material correctness or as to its concurrence with international law? This question is not only of a theoretical importance, but might also very well become practical. The IMT has for instance answered the question of conspiracy in the affirmative, and based its sentence of 1 October 1946 thereon. The American Military Tribunals later on rejected this construction. Now if the executing attorney would have had the death sentence carried out, which might possibly have been imposed on the basis of conspiracy only, would he be criminally liable today because he had the death sentence carried out, if same would later on be recognized as wrong?
Could the future, rejecting this sentence, charge the public attorney with murder? To pose this question is to answer same in the negative, despite the fact that one must demand of the public Prosecutor in this position the fullest knowledge of law. But one intends to make the layman Geitner responsible for the fact that he did not know international law better as for instance tho legal department of the OKW.
It would naturally be also absolutely wrong to take the attitude that Geitner should have recognized the illegality of such reprisal orders according to Article 47 of the Military Penal Code, and that he should therefore have been in duty bound to refrain from even the mere signing and dispatching of reprisal orders of this kind which the Commander had issued, but could not sign personally for some reason or other. For Geitner had, as already mentioned, found this practice and usage as an established custom in the Balkans when he took up his post there, and it could not possibly occur to him that the Supreme Commander, the High Command of the Army, the Armed Forces High Command and his own Army Group Commander in Chief had for years on end been committing crimes against international law. von Geitner had besides been able to convince himself time and again by own observation that severe reprisal measures could simply not be dispensed with in the Serbian territory, even though he never identified himself with the kind of reprisal measures which were carried out.(An urgent military necessity existed for them, and in a case like this the Prosecution has also acknowledged such measures as absolutely admissible. These reprisal measures were inevitable, as only by draconic counter measures the obstinacy of the population could be broken. The Balkan people's fighting method has always been very cruel and malicious. Thus it was during the time of the Turks, and that is the way it came down to the time of the Austrian occupation, that is how it remained during the time of the German occupation in the second world war, and that is the way down there today where Greek troops and the Greek national government have to continue to fight with all means possible if tho partisans are to be forced to act in a legal manner. Any court which today has to decide about the admissibility of reprisal measures has to be aware of the fact, that the principles today advocated and applied against tho then active functionaries of the German administration in the Balkans, might possibly be applied tomorrow to the troops of those States now sitting in judgment over German Generals.
And it would be a peculiar development of international law, if treaties concluded by the community of nations for the protection of the legal army would in practice finally bring it about that the regular troops of an occupying force were more or less defenselessly subjected to the cruelty and maliciousness of franc-tireurs. One should ask oneself how the present occupying forces in Germany would react if day after day hundreds of serious acts of terror and dangerous acts of sabotage were reported, and due to the civilian population's attitude it would almost never be possible to ascertain and punish the guilty ones.
In any case, to deter the civilian population from dangerous acts of terror, assassination, incendiary and plundering in the Balkans it was necessary, according to the personal impressions of von Geitner, to employ such reprisal measures as proved themselves the only reliable means by which peace and order could be maintained in this area. That is why reprisal measures of this kind were regularly threatened in advance and their execution publicly announced, and the method of executing the death sentence was for the same reason carried out in a manner, which according to the customs of the population promised probably the best deterrent. But measures obviously intended only to safeguard German troops, measures to guarantee the civilian population's life and work and safeguard the country from complete chaos, from a war of all against all, could by no means appear to the defendant von Geitner as acts which all of his highest superiors, up to the highest judicial authorities and Chief of State, effected only for the one reason to commit "crimes" thereby, as section 47 of the German Military Penal Code demands if the military order issued should not be carried out any longer. Even if Geitner should have done more and had for instance asked some jurists whether reprisal measures of that kind were legal under international law -- which he did in fact -- then he would have surely received the answer under conditions in existence in Germany, that such orders were not to be questioned. One might possible have pointed out to him that reprisal measures of that kind were also recognized as legal in the rules of warfare abroad, and one might have informed him that the hard necessities of warfare under the exceptionally difficult conditions of the Balkan war did not condone any other choice. Just to Balkan warfare applies, as not so easily to any other case, Section 358 cipher b of the Rules of Land Warfare: "Commanders must take the responsibility for reprisal measures if an enemy without scruples does not permit any other possibility to counter his barbaric atrocities. American law goes as far as to waive 'a careful investigation about the actual occurrence', if 'the safety of the troops demands immediate drastic measures'". Geitner could and had to consider the measures ordered by his Commanders under those circumstances as legal.
There existed for him no legal hindrance to sign and dispatch the orders given to him by his Commanders. Anything expressly permitted to an Allied officer by the Rules of Land Warfare cannot become a criminal act because a German officer is concerned, an officer who anted in his mental conflict unconsciously in the way permitted by American law.
I skip the next paragraph which describes in more detail the conditions in the Balkans, and I recommend the omitted parts to the attention of the Tribunal, and I shall continue on page 56.
These were the actual facts for v. Geitner, under which he as a fair soldier suffered in the same manner as did his commanders. How could he then have hit upon the idea, which would have seemed to him to be downright absurd, namely, that his commanders committed by their orders one serious crime after the other. How the conditions in the Balkans actually were, and in what situation the German South-East Generals actually were placed is probably best illustrated by the order issued by tho OKW on 8 February 1942. In this order the OKW most strictly criticizes the indulgent attitude of the German Generals in the SouthEast, states that the number of prisoners was strikingly high -- probably all of them should have been ordered shot -- and that the number of dead was by far too low. It was attributed to the leniency of the Generals "that one had not succeeded hitherto in breaking the backbone of the insurgents." General Kuntze who was of the same opinion as the other Generals, did not pass on the order at all, he "forgot" it, and in the following time he managed to get along with "camouflaged" reports on reprisal measures, in order to "satisfy" the OKW. At that date most rigorous reproaches were made to the German Generals, they were blamed of incapability, negligence, irresponsibility; today they are accused because of the same attitude of inhumanity and cruelty, and they are put to trial as they had deserved in the opinion of the OKW during the war already, of course in the contrary sense.
Certainly v. Geitner repeatedly asked himself whether it would not be better if he or his commander tried to get away from this difficult post. He and his commander could perhaps have attained their recall, be it only with the result to be brought then before a court-martial or to be committed to a concentration camp. But what would this have benefited the Serbian population or the Partisans? The Commander would have disappeared, but the order would have remained, and Berlin would have sent a new commander on whom Hitler could rely, who would have gone to Belgrade with most strict orders and previously established directives, of whom one would have previously made sure that he would comply with Hitler's orders in exactly that sense in which they were issued. Again and again the name of the Higher SS and Police Leader Meyszner appears in the documents; he was that SS officer against whom v. Geitner and his commander were in incessant opposition during the whole year. This SS General Meyszner hated the Serbian people; he was one of those who wanted to govern only through bloodshed, terrorism and oppression. What would have happened if for instance, this Meyszner had taken the place of General Felber, and if he had brought with him a Chief of Staff from among his SS officers who had not been so pro-Serbian and had. not officiated in such a just and conciliatory way as it proved that Geitner did.
One has to take all these things into consideration. Then one will understand why a v. Geitner, a Felber and other conscientious Generals remained at their difficult posts: With this they made a sacrifice not only to their troops and their country but also to the Serbian people, whom they saved from great distress by this.
Of course, it was at that time already clear for the defendant v. Geitner that it would have been much simpler, more comfortable and less burdened with responsibility to leave the service, to go back to his factory and to lead a quiet life at his native Schneeberg.
If he did not do this, but held out at his post, he certainly did not do it for the purpose of committing crimes or participating in crimes of others, but because of his sense of responsibility and humane feeling.
4.) The legal situation in the case of the defendant v. Geitner thus is doubtlessly so that according to German law and German conceptions he bears by no means any responsibility for orders of his commander, even in those cases in which he signed an order issued by his General because of the absence of his commander, as it was incumbent on him and was his duty in his position as Chief of Staff.
Any responsibility, or even participation in the responsibility only, by the Chief of Staff for a reprisal order could of course not be founded on the fact that the Chief of Staff on his part initialed a reprisal order issued and signed by the commander, that means that he signed with his initials a copy or carbon copy of the order, which was made out in the orderly room. The former Chief of the General Staff, General (Generaloberst) Halder, rightly stated that this initialing of the reprisal order of the commander by the Chief of Staff regardless whether it was done before or after the signature by the commander and before or after the dispatching of the order, always had only the legal meaning that he wanted to express with this: "this fair copy of the reprisal order actually corresponds to the order given by the commander, and is thus a correct rendering of the will expressed by the commander." Legally, from the viewpoint of responsibility, this initialing thus cannot be evaluated otherwise than for instance the certification of a verdict by the Secretary General of the Tribunal, as already mentioned in another connection. By this certification the latter indeed does not assume the responsibility for the correctness of the sentence passed by the Tribunal either, but he only confirms that the present copy of the verdict is fully concordant with the decision taken by the Tribunal, sad thus renders the verdict in formal correctness. Nobody would think of calling the Secretary General to account, if by an examination of the sentence a higher court it would be found that the decision taken by the verdict constitutes a violation of International Law or a crime against humanity.
I shall not road Paragraph 5 on page 59. It deals with the question of reports, and it states that the fact that these reports were used do not constitute responsibility for the Chief of Staff. More details about this will be given by Defense Counsel for General Foertsch.
I shall begin with paragraph 6 on page 59.
6.) Of course, it is true, and it was never denied by Geitner, that he regularly received knowledge of reprisal measures which were ordered by his commander. However the mere knowledge of a crime -- supposing that it really was a crime -- generally does not constitute a responsibility within the meaning of criminal law. An exception from this principle could only be assumed with respect to such a person who has the jurisdiction to prevent a crime, and also actually has the possibility to do this in the individual case. These preconditions were however lacking in the case of a Chief of General Staff of a Commander. As already set forth, the ordering of reprisal measures came on principle not within his jurisdiction, and, even if he received knowledge of a reprisal order before its execution, he had no legal or actual possibility of any kind to prevent the carrying through. He was a subordinate of the Commander, he was obliged to obey him and it would have been unthinkable that a Chief of Staff could have annulledan order of his General arbitrarily, on his own initiative and under assumption of the rights of another. No Chief of Staff is in a position to do this, likewise not in other Armies.
The only thing a Chief of Staff could do in such a case was to exert an advisory influence on his Commander, and to try in this way to attain perhaps a mitigation. Whether or not the Commander is amenable to such attempts of his Chief of Staff to exert an influence, and whether he even gives his Chief of Staff the possibility to express himself in a critizising or disapproving sense about orders of his Commander, depends of course exclusively on the personality of the Commander and on the question whether he concedes to his Chief of Staff an influence of any kind.
It can well be supposed, and it is properly a matter of course, that the Commander occasionally conferred with his Chief of Staff about reprisal measures. However, this of course does not constitute a responsibility within the meaning of criminal law for the Chief of Staff, who on the contrary took advantage of such opportunities to recommend to his Commander moderation and indulgence, or to avoid as far as possible hardships and injustices in some other way. Among other things, v. Geitner, for instance, recommended to his Commander in spring 1943 to grant an amnesty to Serbians, and by order of his General he successfully strove for this with the Commander in Chief South-East.
During the proceeding of this trial lasting for months not one single proof was produced, nor was it attempted, showing that v. Geitner had exerted any unfavorable influence on his Commander. However, it is proven that v. Geitner was extremely correct subordinates who never exceeded his rights and authorities; he did not endeavor to exert an influence which was not due him as Chief of Staff; he always respected the rights and authorities of his Commanders and contented himself with the spheres of activity he was charged with, which culminated in giving advice to his Commanders concerning the fighting of the insurgents with military means, i.e. military operations of larger or smaller extent, as for instance, enumerated by General Felber in his memorial in Doc. Book 17 of the Prosecution, NOKW 1735, Exh. 409a, page 35.
Geitner was never ambitious to advance -- this was for him as reserve officer of absolutely secondary importance, but to comply with his duty, to do good wherever he had the opportunity, and to serve thus to his country and to help his follow men. This impression is also confirmed by his former Commander Felber, by his superior Chief of Staff with the Army Group, General Foertsch and by his qualifications entered in his personal file.
Therefore, it is still today absolutely unintelligible for the defendant v. Geitner for what reasons he of all people, he who had nothing to do with reprisal measures, who always particularly advocated the laws of humanity also in this field, was indicted here, while there was a great many of officers and civil servants - I am not going to mention any names -- who were actually competent for reprisal measures and indeed ordered such, or who co-operated the Hitler's and Keitel's draconic measures, and part of whom were even extremists and willing tools in the Army; several of those persons were certainly to blame for the conflict of conscience of the Commanders or other executive authorities, in which no other choice was left to them than either to comply with the orders from above or to rebel, and so to do something that would have been a most serious crime in the opinion prevailing at that time in Germany. All these persons who really could be held more or less responsible, were not indicted. v. Geitner, of all people, who perhaps had deserved it least, was placed in the deck. As can well be understood, he again and again asks himself for what reasons he of all people, and only he who was mere Chief of Staff, is called to account, while this is not the case with several responsible commanders; and furthermore, for what reasons the external executive officials who were under highest pressure are supposed to be responsible, while Hitler's advisors and co-operators in the central offices bear a by far greater moral responsibility, if, in their devotion to Hitler, they indeed lent themselves to the issuing of orders, the nature of which was - allegedly -- contrary to International Law and could much more easily be recognized by them than by a reserve officer standing on an isolated post in the Balkans.
At all events it is a fact and proved by innumerable affidavits, v. Geitner was that Chief of Staff of a Corps Headquarters who perhaps was the most correct of all, the most reserved, the least influential and in spite of this he is apart from Foertsch - the only Chief of Staff who was indicted.