Not alone the railways, but also a large part of the ships which had been used for the coastal traffic had been destroyed when the English retreated.
Q. By whom were they destroyed?
A. By the English.
Q. Which part of Greece was occupied by Germany and which part of Greece was occupied by the Italians?
A. The part of Greece which was occupied by the Germans was only Thessaly, apart from that part which was ceded to Bulgaria, and the region of the Italian occupation.
Q. What about the Harbor area of Piraeus and the airdromes?
A. The Piraeus had remained German, because it was the starting point of the traffic to Crete, I leave already talked about the importance of Crete as an aircraft carrier for the German airforce in the Mediterranean.
Q. Who was liaison officer for the Greek Government?
A. That was the Minister Altenburg.
Q. What was his official designation?
A. He was the German Minister in Athens.
Q. Who had the executive power in the German occupation area?
A. The commanders had the executive power, that is in Serbia the plenipotentiary, commanding general, in Northern Greece, as far as it was occupied by German troops, the Commander Salonika, in the Harbor area of Piraeus, the Commander Southern Greece, and on the Island of Crete the commandant.
Q. Was there any subordination of Italian troops under the German troops?
A. No, there was no subordination of Italian troops under any German command.
Q. Now, what about Crete?
A. No, I have to correct myself. On Crete there was one Italian Division in the eastern part of the island which was practi cally subordinated to the commandant of Crete.
Q. Also as far as discipline was concerned?
A. No.
Q. To whom were the units of the airforce subordinated?
A. To the Commander in Chief of the Airforce.
Q. What was the food situation on Crete like?
A. The food situation on Crete was, thanks to considerable production of oil, better as compared with Greece.
Q. Did the irrigation installations play a roll there?
A. They played a big roll. We had therefore a great number of irrigation systems installed by the troops, and we proved that apparently barren ground can yield a lot of products.
Q Could you utilize these measures or did the picture change?
A The same measures were taken in Greece originally and to my knowledge on a large estate which could supply the whole of Athens. This whole estate was put to order again. Unfortunately it later had to be transferred to the Italians.
Q Was there unrest in Greece when you arrived there?
A No, completely quiet reigned there.
Q And how about Croatia?
A The situation in Croatia at that time until the end of October can be described as generally quiet. At that time there were already cases of sabotage, especially on railway lines; fights had already started between several ethnic groups. Unrest, uprisings, only appeared when considerable part of the insurgents succeeded to escape from an encirclement near Uzice which had not been successful and to take root in Croatia.
Q When you assumed office in the Balkans for what period of time did you expect stay?
A I have already stated that I had been told that I would have to deputize from four to about six weeks.
Q Did you think you were justified as deputy for such a short time to change orders of basic importance or to take any decisive measures at all.
A That is a question of tact. Of course according to the letter I was justified to make alterations but in general it is not usual to carry out any measures in such a limited period of time which would mean radical changes or alterations. Apart from that there was no reason for doing that.
Q What orders regarding the chain of command did you find there?
A I found the Fuehrer directive 31 and then the order regarding the chain of command in the Southeastern area, dated 16 September, I believe. This order was superseded by an order issued in the first days of November.
That had become necessary for purely formal reasons. So far as I remember in the first order, the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia had not been named while in the second order the Plenipotentiary Commanding General Serbia had been named as the possessor of the executive power and as being responsible for quiet and order in Serbia.
Q I shall now submit a document to you, that is Exhibit 153, Volume VI, pages 55 of the German and 70 of the English Document Books.
A That is the new order which I have mentioned previously. It is not given here literally but is taken from the activity report of the Armed Forces Commander Southeast of the 13 of November.
Q Can you tell us something about this order, something which seems of particular importance to you?
A Yes, figure 2 is important, that is, the subordination of the Armed Forces Commander Southeast to Hitler and then figure 6 which states that the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia and the Commander in Greece who have been mentioned previously in Number 5 as Commanders Salonika-Tegacis and the Commanders Southern Greece, are responsible for the coordination of the defense in their areas and for the security against interior disturbances . They have the authority of territorial commanders, they possess executive power and directly supervise the administration.
Q Now, did you intervene as far as independence of these offices were concerned or not?
A No, the same way as Field Marshal List, I left all these commanders their independence because the conditions were different in every area, I was deputy Armed Forces Commander Southeast interferred only when an order of the OKW made this absolutely necessary.
Q Was the fact that you were only deputy Armed Forces Commander of any importance in that connection?
A No.
Q When these four to six weeks had elapsed for which you had been originally appointed were you not told by the Army Personnel Office that you had been appointed for a longer term or were you left in the dark so that you must reckon with the end of your term almost any day?
A I was left in the dark and not in accordance with my personal attitude to direct an inquiry to the Army personnel office.
Q Did you read all the orders for the fighting of the insurgents issued by General Field Marshal List, before you took over the Command?
A That was not possible in view of the great amount of work which I had to deal with every day. Only in the course of time I could study the orders which had been issued before my time.
Q When did you first meet with certain reprisal ratios?
AAs far as I remember I only found certain reprisal ratios. Very late, probably in connection with the Boehme order. I have already stated it must have been around December.
Q Did you agree with these ratios?
A I traced these things and it became clear to me that this Boehme order must be based on the Keitel order of the 16 of September and I must say that these high ratios were contrary to my whole attitude.
Q Did you at that time do anything in order to decrease or lower these ratios?
A Yes after the fights or during the fights near Uzice I went to Belgrade in order to discuss the situation which in my opinion had changed, at the spot. At this discussions the following were present as far as I remember: General Boehme, and General Bader, who as I knew for certain at that time was to be appointed successor to Boehme. And as far as I remember I tried to influence Bader to the effect that the reprisal ratios had to be lowered and that the reprisal measures should be carried out in a tolerable way.
Q Were you successful in your efforts?
A Yes, first of all, as is also shown by the documents, the retaliation ratios were not high in November and December and Bader ordered on his part that the retaliation ratio was to be "lowered" and here, this is a very important point, Bader ordered that only he himself and no other office in Serbia could order retaliation measures.
Q. Are you referring to the Bader order of the 22 of December?
A. As far as I remember the order was issued at the end of December.
Q. I shall now submit to you document, volume IV, page 77 in the German and 95 in the English, Document 342.
A. Document 342 reproduces the order of the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia of 22 December. This order is an extract from an order of 20 December 1941, since I have gone through the files I know that it is a basic order for the measures to be taken by troops subordinate to Baker and by the commands during the winter and this order from Bader, which contains no distribution list, at least not in the copy before me, reduces the retaliation ratio by 50 per cent.
Q. Did you have any reason why you yourself did not order a reduction of the retaliation ratio but rather let General Bader do it.
A. I did not do it in view of the fact that the first order had also been issued by the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia.
Q. Did you then want the change made by the same office.
A. Yes, that was the reason.
Q. Was perhaps, apart from this, the retaliation matter a territorial matter?
A. I think to make it already clear in my answers, as the basis order had been issued by Boehme, I thought it was only fit for the same office to issue the amendment.
Q. Did you later take any steps with the OKW?
A. Yes, I did do that.
Q. I will refer to that later. Now what about the shooting of hostages in Kraljevo and Kragujevac. Do you have any knowledge of this?
A. I have already stated that I have heard for the first time here of these shooting of hostages.
Q. Did the Armed Forces Commander Southeast get any information oh principle about the orders issued by subordinate offices?
A. No, it was not usual in the German Army that subordinate officers submitted orders they gave to their superior offices.
That only happened in very exceptional cases, when it had been ordered from above. I may quote here an example from the first World War. When, for instance, during the extraordinary difficult position warfare in the West an attack of considerable extent was to be order, it had become usual I can only say unfortunately that the subordinate officers had to submit the orders for such an attack previously. That of course limits the independence and as a consequence the self confidence of the subordinate leaders and for that reason this procedure was only followed in very exceptional cases later on.
Q. Can it be investigated and tested now, whether in an exceptional case a subordinate office submitted such an order to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast.
A. This can be established beyond any doubt. The fact that in such a case the respective office must be named in the distribution list of the order and the order will also show how it is being handled when it was received. It is usual that everybody who has taken notice of an order or of a report initials this report or this order, that is signs them with his initials.
Q. Can you quote any orders by which you are incriminated which, however, were not sent on to the Commanding General Southeast?
A. There are quite a number of such orders. For instance from all the officers subordinate to the Commanding General in Serbia. The orders issued from the divisions and the regiments were not sent on to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast and that is also true of the reports. Occasionally it may happen in the case of a particular important report, some person thought it was important to add something to a report but in general the reports of the regiments to the division were not handed on from the divisions to the plenipotentiary Commanding General in the Southeast.
Q. Which reports did you take note of?
A. I took note of all those orders of the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia and then the reports from the armed Forces Commander Southeast to the OKH as far as they were tactically important.
Q. If I have understood you correctly numerous orders and reports with which you were formerly incriminated have not come to you knowledge at all. This is also true of activity reports and war diaries.
A. Keeping our war diary and activity report which is also a form of a war diary I may add here that activity reports were kept at higher headquarters where special tasks had to be separated. For instance the Armed Forces Commander Southeast--------
(The interpreter asks the witness to repeat)
A. -----The incidents are laid down in war diaries and activity reports. Activity reports may be look upon as war dairies as it is merely another expression for the same thing. Activity reports were issued from the various departments of the higher staffs. In order to record the incidents in their sphere of activity which was of quite a separate nature, for instance Department I-A Southeast is purely of a tactical nature of a Quartermaster General and they were purely of an administrative nature and they were completely different from each other. Apart from that the Armed Forces Commander Southeast kept a war diary the result of which you find is reproduced in the work of the Archives of counsellor Wisshaupt.
Q. Apart from these reports that did not reach you what was the general situation when something reached the Commander Southeast?
A. The document passed through various department and was dealt with there; especially important messages or reports were submitted at once to the Chief of Staff who reported them to the Commanding General.
Q. Was it like this that everything else received the Armed Forces Commander were not submitted to you at all that you only gained knowledge of them by way of report?
A. In the case of the staff it is like this: The Commander South east has such a large sphere of tasks and it is very difficult and it would also be wrong to read everything that was received.
The chief task of the Commander in Chief whose task is not in the staff but rather to lead the troops and it would be an unnecessary burden for the Chief of Staff if he read everything that arrived.
I may add here that there is no regulation anywhere, where the work in the staff is properly described. It is after all, the responsibility for the chief of staff.
Q. Now you have worked through these documents. Has it struck you here that reports of the same incidents appear not only once, but are repeated in a number of documents?
A. Yes, I was struck by that, and that is quite natural, because almost every report is reproduced. First of all in the report from the division to the corps; from the corps to the Plenipotentiary Commanding General; from the Plenipotentiary Commanding General to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast; from the Armed Forces Commander Southeast to the OKW.
It may also happen that we have to add to this, reports of the Battalion to a regiment, and from some regiment to a division, and then all of these reports are also reproduced in the 10-day reports which are issued by the Plenipotentiary Commanding General to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast, and which are sent on to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast, to the OKW, not every 10 days, but approximately every 10 days.
Then we find them again in the war diaries and activity reports.
Q. Can you, for instance, recollect in this connection, the reprisal case Kraljevo?
A. Yes, I was very much interested in this case of Kraljevo. Although this had already been ordered before my time, I took an interest in this case and traced it, and I established and found that this case had been mentioned 8 times, and that it can be proved by means of a 10-day report of that time that the order which was originally ordered by the Chief of the Commanding General could never have been carried out. All of the reports which I have mentioned before, and it is difficult to establish, because the retaliation order had been carried out by a troop unit of the 164th Division, were the 9th company of the 433 Infantry Regiment, which was subordinate to the Guard Regiment in Belgrade, the Regiment 734, and accordingly are subordinate to the 704th Division, and from all of these reports it is quite clear by comparing the diary numbers that the 101 hostages were shot.
Q. I shall submit two documents to you in this connection, Document 1157 Exhibit 124, volume 4, page 80 in the German edition, 132 in the English book.
I must revert to this later on. I am now coming to another question.
How did the situation develop in November 1941?
A. In November, 1941, the 113th division was employed and arrived in northwest Serbia; the area around Valjeva and Losnica was mopped up by the 342nd Division, the 113th Division and the 104th Division, and then Uzice was attacked.
Through the attack on Uzice, the bulk of the insurgents were disperced; parts of them succeeded in escaping into the Slaviber Mountains and other parts to southeast Croatia.
Q. Does anything further from the archives of the Counsellor Wisshaupt appear?
A. Yes, Wisshaupt described the events in detail, and I recall it so that I can reproduce it here.
Q. Yes, please do.
A. Wisshaupt said, approximately this:
"The fight was difficult because the territory near Uzice and in Serbia generally, was exceedingly suitable for the manner of fighting of the partisans, because of the terrain and crevices, and because of the very mountainous nature of the area, which is partly thickly wooded. Where there were any valleys a lot of corn was grown, and the stalks were very tall, and there was a lot of undergrowth which offered great possibilities for sudden popping up and disappearing.
We must not imagine in this fight that the insurgents were stationed in some definite position around Uzice, and were expecting the attack of the Germans.
They kept themselves before the attack started, and in general, well informed, and of course they knew quite well what was going to happen by their information sources before the attack started and they dispersed, and avoided a fight with the closed ranks of the enemy, and the point of their fight was to fight against the rear of the army, and they attacked the signal corps, etc., and everything in the rear of the German army, and it happened also that people only dug themselves in somewhere, and left their positions when they were shot at by artillery. They hid in the undergrowth and then shot at the troops after the troops had already passed, so that especially an combing out this territory, there were heavy losses on the German part.
He emphasizes how difficult it was to differentiate between peaceful peasants and between insurgents.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: At this point we will adjourn until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.
(In recess until nine-thirty o'clock, September 25, 1937)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of American against Wilhelm List et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 26 September 1947, 0930, Justice presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Courtroom please find their seats quickly so I can make an announcement.
Due to the absence of one of the judges, Court will be in recess until 13:30.
Court will now recess until 1330 hours this afternoon.
( A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Courtroom will please find their seats.
The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal V.
Military Tribunal V is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain if all the defendants are present in the Courtroom?
"THE MARSHAL: May it please your Honor, all the defendants are present in the Courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed, Mr. Counsel, with examination.
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. MENZEL:
Q Your Honors, when we stopped yesterday we were talking about the work of the man in charge of the Army Archives, Councillor Wisshaupt. I should like to continue here.
Witness, in the work which has just been mentioned, the opponents of Mihajlovic are given different designations. Sometimes they are called Communist bands, other times partisans, and finally communist groups. Did that mean the same or did that mean to make certain differences?
A These various designations mean the something. The designation Communists, or partisans can also be found in the orders and it is clearly recognizable that the partisans are meant.
Q I will now submit to you document Exhibit 139 contained in Document Book 6, page 21 of the English text and page 16 of the German text. Therein is contained a situation report of the Armed Forces commander Southeast dated the 2nd of November 1941. Was that an order or what is the meaning of this document?
AAs I stated already this situation report as the name indicates constitutes no order but is merely informative.
Q And what about the remarks contained in this situation report regarding the treatment of prisoners and the treatment of the population?
AAs I have already said, this cannot be considered an order. It merely contains a communication and an information about the manner of treatment used up till now and ordered previously.
Q When you say now as had been ordered previously, can you refer to one fixed order?
A These remarks are partly based on an order of the 4th of October dealing with the treatment of those partisans which are designated as suspects.
Q This expression "suspects" was that later changed in any way into some other designation?
A No, it has never been changed.
Q Wasn't it later so that there were only guilty persons and not guilty persons?
A In my opinion, that is something else. In these directives here, the situation is described in such a way that those suspects are to be examined and investigated, that is by a summary court martial, and that as a result of that, the guilty persons are to be shot, whereas the persons of whom one was not certain whether they were quickly or not were retained as reprisal hostages. That was changed later on to the effect that only persons who were really guilty could be retained whereas everybody else, those who were not guilty, were to be released.
Q Now in this connection I will show you a few other documents. Amongst others, Exhibit 175 contained in Document Book 7, page 39 of the German text and page 48 of the English text. Can you tell us something more from this to the problem we are dealing with?
A This document reproduces an order issued by the 714th Division and that order was issued on the basis of an order by the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia dated the 8th of February, 1942. And this order says under figure 3, "Persons who are encountered in combat terrain during the fighting are to to arrested and to be investigated (to be interrogated). According to the result of the interrogation, they are to be released or to be transferred to the competent district headquarters as prisoners for reprisal measures."
In connection with this, I will show you another document, Exhibit 188 contained in the same document book on page 86 of the English text and page 72 of the German text.
A This document is an order of the Commanding General and Commander in Serbia dated the 25th of March, 1942. This order according to the distribution list was issued to all divisions, all home guard battalions, all local administrative sub-area headquarters, senior SS and Police leader, Bulgarian liaison officer, and the administrative staff.
The order says under paragraph 3. "A. Insurgents not captured in combat.
"B. Insurgents having surrendered and given up their arms.
"C. Persons under arrest because they are suspected of having supported or collaborated with the insurgents, are not to be shot to death but are to be sent to a concentration camp."
Q If in reports, especially in November 1941, there is talk about hostages, were those reprisal hostages or at least the bulk of them band members?
A The reports of November show that only a few cases could have been reprisal hostages. The bulk of the prisoners were captured partisans who had been through a summary court martial.
Q Now a question concerning another sphere--did you have any reason to interfere with General Boehme?
A I had no reason to take any action against General Boehme.
Q Were excesses by any of General Boehme's offices known to you?
A I have already testified that the events of Kragujevac were not reported to me.
Q Did you frequently undertake official trips?
A I made official trips frequently.
Q Were you in also Belgrade?
A I was in Belgrade as of the end of November until the beginning of December 1941.
Q Has anything been said in writing about this trip to Belgrade?
A This trip as well as all later trips was put down in writing.
Q In connection with this I will show you a document, it is Exhibit 156, contained in Volume VI, page 65 of the German text and page 82 of the English text. Is that such a written report?
A This document is a written report made by the escort officer. The purpose was to inform the Staff offices concerned and on the basis of the notes to make suggestions for orders which might be necessary to be issued, so that all departments of the staff could be informed, and that can also be seen from the distribution list.
Q Was that an order?
A No, it was not an order, but as I have already said it was only meant to inform the various departments of the staff,--I meant to inform them of those things that had struck me as particularly interesting, all those things that I intended to discuss, so that possibly on the basis of these notes some orders might be issued.
Q What is the meaning of the remarks about the transferring of parts of the population to the Banat?
A I must say that now I am surprised at all this. The remark shows how little I was informed at that time, because the situation was that a resettlement to the extent as mentioned here, that is evacuation of the wives and children of the insurgents, and the unreliable elements, was not possible, since the Banat, first of all, couldn't even have taken all those people, and secondly because the economy in Serbia would, have been damaged to a considerable extent.
The remark remained merely a remark, and was never changed into the form of an order or instruction.
Q What is your attitude to the further remark about the transfer of Jews and Gypsies into the camp near Semlin?
A This remark, too, shows that at that time I was only very little informed, and it shows that about 16,000 people had to be transferred. It states that the reason for this measure is that these Jews and Gypsies were proved to be carriers of the communication system of the insurgents.
Q You said yesterday that you tried to influence Bader regarding mitigation of the reprisla measures, and thus the order of 22 December followed: was it known to you that this order by Bader, dated 23 December, was in contradiction to the orders of the OKW according to which those stringent measures were to be applied?
AAt that time certainly.
Q Now, the Prosecution has submitted a certain number of reports and communications in which comparatively high reprisal figures are mentioned. Can you tell us something in connection with this? From which thime do these high reprisal figures date?
A. These figures still dated from your time.
Q And from which month, -- that is just what I wanted to ask you, whether these reprisal figures, as far as you recollect, were actually named during your time or not?
A Yes, such reprisal figures were mentioned. As far as I remember in a few isolated documents, high figures appear for the months of January and February, but that has a special reason.
Q And what about the time subsequent to that?
A Perhaps I may quite briefly add something. These reprisal figures, which were at that time reported to the OKW, were not actually carried out.
In the subsequent period reprisal ratios diminished quite considerably.
Q Was it so then that between the figure which would theoretically have been the right reprisal figure, and the reprisal figure which was actually carried out there was a considerable difference?
A Yes, there was a considerable difference.
Q I will now show you a document, and that is contained in Document Book VII, Exhibit 170, at page 53 and page 34 in the German text and in the English text pages 37 to 39. Looking at such a document, can you give us an example for your previous assertion?
A The document, NOKW 1256 contains excerpts from 10-Day reports which the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia sent to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast in January, and these 10-day reports say on the first page, under Roman Numeral IV, "Own and Enemy Osses for the period of 6 January to the 15 of January." "Own losses: 9 dead and 48 wounded. Enemy losses: 191 dead, and of those 185 by reprisal measures." On page 2 there is a 10-day report of the 30th January, and under Roman Numeral V "Losses and Booty for the period 16 to 25 January," we find under "Own losses, 40 dead, 160 wounded; enemy losses 761 dead," and out of these 25 shot as reprisal." "33 wounded, 1471 prisoners."
Q How high would have been the theoretical reprisal ratio?
A In accordance with the order which was to be applied the ratio would have been one to 50.