A This is a report of the 164th Infantry Division, of the 7th of February, 1941, and it concerns a mopping up action of the 433rd Infantry Regiment, at the end of September, and the beginning of October, in the area-
MR. FENSTERMACHER: If your Honor please, I don't think we should have any questions as of a document which is not in our possession, and which has not been translated into English.
DR. MENZEL: That is right, it has not been translated into English yet. It belongs to the material which we received from Washington, and we here state that as shown by this example, that in the part of the document which the prosecution has not submitted, very important parts are contained, which for judgment, regarding the specific points in question, are of great importance.
If the Court wishes us first to discuss this document after it has been translated, that can, of course, be done. I would then only have the possibility to do this later on.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: I think he is entitled to use it on redirect; if at a later time, after translation, you find anything in it, we will give you an opportunity to point it out to the Tribunal.
DR. MENZEL: Thank you. I am now discontinuing -
JUDGE CARTER: You misunderstand the ruling. The ruling is that you may proceed to use it at the present time.
DR. MENZEL: I see. I am sorry.
Will you please read it.
(THE WITNESS:
AAs I said before, this is a mopping-up action of the infantry division for the 433rd, at the end of September, and beginning of October, in the area of Edessa, I will spell that, E-d-e-s-s-a. Such information successfully carried out these searches; resulted in three Greeks being shot after summary court martial, and 13 persons were arrested; arrestees are going to be given a hearing.
Q I refer to page 2 of the same report.
I have just heard that in the translation which has just been given an error has been made, -- a mistake has been made as translated, in saying that the arrestees were going to be heard, or examined. In the document it says that the arrestees were looking forward to their trial.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: If your Honors please, I think that we are going to have numerous errors of this kind when the interpreters do not have anything to go by. I should think it might be more efficient if we had the examination on documents which have come from Washington, after they have been submitted by the defendants in this document book, and after all parties concerned have translations of them.
JUDGE BURKE: It might have been more efficient, - Pardon me, Judge Carter, - If they were of any materiality, that they were included in the original exhibit.
JUDGE CARTER: If it goes in answer to the cross examination he is entitled to show it now; otherwise it loses much of its importance, if it is not brought in at the very time, so I think the objection should be overruled.
JUDGE BURKE: Would you indicate to the Tribunal at what portion of Exhibit 111 the insert to which you are referring applies.
DR. MENZEL: Exhibit 111, as Document No. 1,073, in Volume 3, and in the German Document Book it is page 96.
JUDGE CARTER: What is the paragraph from which you are reading?
DR. MENZEL: Here in the messages only part has been reproduced, and it is the report, -- it is a situation report No. 1 of the 164th Infantry Division. These parts which have just been read, and other parts as well, which are of great importance, are not reproduced in the document book.
JUDGE CARTER: We know that. But what page or what paragraph of Exhibit 111, or Document NOKW 1073, are they found.
DR. MENZEL: In the original document of the 7th of October, 1941, it is on page 2, at the bottom of page 2.
JUDGE CARTER: Is it paragraph 2, or paragraph 3, or are there any paragraphs?
DR. MENZEL: It is paragraph 2, little "c", - I am sorry, it is so difficult to read, I cannot guarantee what I am saying now, I can hardly read the figures.
JUDGE CARTER: Now that you have it -
DR. MENZEL: It may be on page 4.
JUDGE CARTER: If you have it identified so we may find it, in the record, you may proceed with the examination. Would you please, also, when you read something, give us the exact report, the date and the figure and the page. The bottom or the top, so that it can be entered in the record as accurately as possible, and so that it can be found later on.
I am now talking of the report of the 7th of October, 1941.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: I think we could simplify this if you would mark what you would offer in evidence and have it read into the record. Just mark what you want; mark it and have the translators read it into the record.
DR. MENZEL: Give it to the Interpreters?
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: Yes, just mark the part that you want read into the record and have the Interpreters translate it into the record.
DR. MENZEL: Yes.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Your Honor, may I just make one brief statement in this regard? The excerpt which appears in the English Document Book is taken from Paragraph 2-c of this particular document. The portion which Dr. Menzel is now asking to be read is also part of paragraph 2-C. This particular section which Dr. Menzel is referring to has always been in the hands of defense counsel. It is not an excerpt which has just coma from Washington. It was always in the hands of defense counsel. We did not choose to translate the preceding portion of this case for the same reasons that we have chosen not to translate many other portions of the documents because we haven't felt that they were material.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: There is no part of Paragraph 2 which appears in my document at all.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: I think, if Your Honors please, there is an error on our part. We should have indicated in the excerpt that does appear in the English Document Book at paragraph--and is subparagraph 2. That is our error, but the missing paragraph which Dr. Menzel is now having translated has bean in the hands of the defense all along and is not something new which has just come from Washington.
DR. MENZEL: In the German Document Book it is not; whether it is in the English Document Book I cannot say at this moment.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: Wall, let's proceed with the translation.
COURT INTERPRETER: This is on Page 2--no--yes, it is on Page 2 of the photostat, and it is Paragraph "d", and the last sentence of the first paragraph under "D" reads:
"Those accused were sentenced according to martial law and part of them were shot to death."
The next excerpt is also Paragraph "d" the end of the second paragraph, still on Page 2, the last two sentences at the bottom of Page 2, and it reads: "In the course of these investigations or searches three Greeks were shot while escaping; two Greeks were shot according to summary Court Martial. Altogether 14 persons were arrested and some houses were burned down. Those people who were arrested are looking forward to their trial."
The next excerpt is on Page 2 of a new document, Document called WB-1327/5. Yes, it is on Page 2, under "c"--little "c": "The Engineer Battalion carried out a public Court Martial on the 23rd of October, in the course of which one of the persons arrested was sentenced to death and was shot subsequently while the second accused was acquitted since he was not a member of the bandits."
The next excerpt is at the bottom of this page, the last paragraph: "The appearance of the German summary Court Martial and of the execution Commando in Efkarpia on the 23rd of October was welcomed by the population and by the Greek police. Before the sentence was pronounced the president of the Court Martial gave the reasons for the destruction of the villages Ano-Kerzilion and Kato-Kerzilion which had taken place on the 17th of October. After the reasons for the judgment had been given, the inhabitants of the village expressed their agreement by large shouts and justice."
This should read actually, "The agreement with the sentence." That is the end of this excerpt.
DR. MENZEL: I have now finished my re-direct examination.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: I assume that you will have that part of Exhibit 111 translated and offered in evidence as a part of your redirect examination of the Defendant List?
DR. MENZEL: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: Your Honor, I'm afraid I was a bit precipitous. I don't know whether the Court will have any questions to General Kuntze. I only wanted to continue with my submission of evidence for General List, and I had forgotten that the Court might still want to put questions to General Kuntze.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: Are there any further defense counsel that care to ask any questions of this witness? Any questions by the Tribunal? The Defendant Kuntze will be excused from the stand.
I think this is a convenient time for us to take our afternoon recess. We will recess for fifteen minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Courtroom will please find their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed now, Dr. Laternser.
DR. LATERNSER: Continuing with presentation of evidence - Fieldmarshal List. Your Honor, already in my opening statement, I pointed out that the conditions in the Balkans played a decisive part regarding the measures which were taken and ordered against the insurgents, the situation which confronted the occupation forces, and on which the defense bases its case has to be proved by the defense. For this purpose, I shall now call a historian as a expert witness who during the occupation in the Balkans, dealt with circumstances prevailing there as a matter of his duty. He is Dr. Rudolf Ibbeken, whom I shall now call as expert witness.
THE PRESIDENT: The Marshal will call the witness to the stand.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: I don't quite understand what Dr. Laternser means by stating that this witness is an expert. It is my understanding that there can be no expert witnesses as to facts.
THE PRESIDENT: I assume that if there are any objections, you can make them as the evidence comes in.
The witness will be sworn.
RUDOLF IBBEKEN, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:
BY THE PRESIDENT:
I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath.)
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. LATERNSER:
Q Will you tell the Tribunal your full name?
A Dr. Rudolf Ibbeken.
Q Witness, will you please pause before answering the question until the question has been translated and then I will ask you to talk into the microphone.
Will you please spell you name?
A The full name?
Q Only the surname.
A I-b-b-e-k-e-n.
Q When were you born?
A On the 23rd of July, 1902.
Q And where?
A In Schleswig.
Q What are you by profession?
A Historian.
Q What were you as historian?
AAcedemical lecturer at the University of Berlin for modern and ancient history.
Q And what are you now?
A I am in charge of an institute for t.b. Tuberculosis of Hanover.
Q Why did you change your profession?
AAfter the collapse, I took up connections with the universities of Berlin and Goettingen and connections which today still are in existence, but at the present time I do not want to return to my old professions because the subject of modern and middle history, because of the German collapse, needs a reconsideration and review on the part of a historian.
Q Witness, I ask you to talk a little slower. What were you during the war?
A During the war, I was an officer in the rank of Second and First Lieutenant of the Reserve and I was employed to begin with in France and subsequently in Russia.
Q Up to what time were you employed as officer?
A In Russia until the 20th of April, 1942.
Q And up until what date were you in frontline service?
A Until the date mentioned.
Q And why after that were you no longer at the front?
A On that date, I was wounded by a grenade splinter and I lost the eyesight of the right eye and therefore I was no more fit for front service.
Q You lost the sight of the right eye?
A Yes, my right eye.
Q What did you do then? After you were wounded during the war?
AAfter I had been cured, I was appointed by Military District III, to give lectures to the troops within the frame work of the troop welfare are program.
Q On what subject did you give lectures?
A The lectures were based on the knowledge of history and dealt with the basic features of the German and European history of the 19th and 20th century.
Q How long were you in that job?
A Until the end of the year 1943.
Q And why then did you not continue that activity?
A In summer 1943, I gave a lecture in Bonn on the basis of which a party procedure on the part of the then Reich Organization leader Ley was started against me. It was however stopped by the Wehrmacht and in a second clash at the end of 1943 with the office of Rosenberg there was a sharp difference of opinion on the basis of which I was declared as politically intolerable and unreliable and removed from my office.
Q Who intervened on your behalf?
A The chief of staff in Military District Command III-Berlin. That was Brigadier General von Ross who was informed of my lecturing activity and about my clashed with the party, and I assume that he took my part and placed me under the protection of the Wehrmacht. He contacted the staff of the Commander-in-Chief Southeast, and with the help of the Chiefs of Staff General Foertsch and General Winter, he achieved my transfer to the Balkans.
Q What was then, subsequent to that, your activity during the war?
A Within the staff and by the staff of the Armed Forces Commander Southeast, I was commissioned to develop an objective history of the Military historical conditions in Southeast Europe during the years 1941 till that time. That is 1944.
Q For this purpose, did you go to the Balkans.
A Yes.
Q When did you arrive there?
AAt the beginning of the year 1944.
Q Who did you report to?
A I reported to General Winter and I was closer acquainted with my commission and for this purpose I was sent to the Ic Oberstleutenant (Lt. Col.) von Harling --
Q What was your commission?
A My commission was to describe on the basis of all the files and material available to the 12th Army and army groups E and F, the developments from the year 1941 and, as was planned up to the time of the end of the war and to base this on historical facts in order to enable the responsible military authorities to hold such a description against any distorted descriptions regarding this period based on tendencies.
Q Witness, you must make your sentence shorter because it has to be translated and it has to be translated immediately and such long sentences are very difficult to translate. Was the last part translated?
What was put at your disposal for this activity?
A The files and documents of the 12th Army, of the Army Groups E and F, as far as it was still available with the staff, and as far as it had already been sent to the Army Archives in Liegnitz.
Q You already mentioned previously a purpose of your activity. That is a historical description without tendency. What additional purpose did your commission have?
A The Ic, Lt. Col. von Harling, and during a discussion General Foertsch and General Winter also supported this idea - and they connected with my commission the intention to create a kind of manual and this manual was supposed to serve the commanders who were acting in that area and to give them an insight, I might say, into the completely abnormal conditions in the Balkans which were difficult to see through by a commander, a commander who came from a completely different area to the Balkans.
Q In what manner did you acquaint yourself with the conditions in the Balkans?
A I have gained and collected local knowledge by staying in Crete, in Athens, in Saloniki, in Belgrade, in Zagreb, in the area of Brod and Sarajevo just to mention the most important ones.
Q For this activity did you bring with you historical knowledge of the Balkans?
A My general training as historian of course has already at an earlier date acquainted me with problems prevailing in the Balkans but I do admit that the general book knowledge and the purely scientific knowledge about the Balkans is inadequate in order to gauge what went on in that area and what opposing forces there were in that area.
Q What were your first findings during the course of your work?
A I believe that the first thing I learned was that I found myself before a mix-up of forces which was hard to see through and it took a great amount of studies to see the historical origin of this existing condition.
Q What problems and conflicts were apparent in the Balkans during the occupation time?
A The number of simultaneously existing conflicts in the Balkans is so large that I cannot say for certain that I am really naming all the conflicts in full and I therefore limit myself to the most important tendencies within the area in order to at least consider those factors which confronted the German occupation force. I am asking now to be allowed to proceed geographically; so that, to begin with, I shall just go around the German occupation area and then right diagonally through it.
I shall begin with roughly about Zagreb; round about there we had the first severe political difference - that is Hungary, and at the flank Italy; but we also find the decisive contrast Zagreb, Belgrade - that is Croatia against Serbia. Then we go down along the Dalmatian Coast and we find the century-old problem coming into the present times - that is Italy and the Dalmatian Coast, the nucleus Trieste. Further south, we find Albania which is the fighting area of attempts of Italy to take influence, attempts of Greece and England to take influence; and further south yet towards Greece we have the sphere of influence of England in contrast to Italy. Then we will turn around to Saloniki and we find the complicated sphere of influence of the Bulgarian tendencies -- that is the Russian tendencies backing them.
And in the nucleus itself, I only recall to you the aliveness of Macedonian nationalism and I shall recall to you the border area between a Greek and Bulgarian conflict for the influence in the area Saloniki-Agean; and now we shall close the ring in pointing out the taking of influence of Bulgaria in the Serbian area which again led to a splitting of even the lowest classes of the country because the sympathies of the population here as in all other areas mentioned were unstable and followed whatever influenced on the part of the major powers were prevailing.
If I show you this rough description of the conflicts in the Serbian area in the South-eastern area generally I shall now turn to a picture of the Serb-Croat area; we see there a further mass of conflicts which only make it understandable that down there, it was not a question of one conflict concerning the population, on the one side, and German Armed Forces on the other side; but that instead within that one war, I might almost say, there was an enormous number of individual little wars within the country and I shall now mention these factors -
Q Witness, before you mention these factors, I again have to ask you to make your sentences shorter. Now will you please continue?
A Perhaps the most bloody conflict which existed in the country itself was the one between Serbs and Croats, borne by the two organizations of tie Ustasha on the part of the Croats and the Chetniks on the part of the Serbs. Simultaneously there was the fight of the Chetniks against the Italians. Simultaneously there was the fight of the Chetniks against the Moslems and at the same time a fight by the Albanians against the Montenegro-Serbians. I believe with this figure of the existing conflicts, I have described roughly what forces there were pro and con in that area but I have only shown up those larger groups which bore a name.
It is a significant factor of the conditions in the Serbian area during the tine of the occupation that the so-called partisan activity was by no means bound to any groups and organizations which can be named but it was a typical factor of the partisan activity that they existed independent of organizations, independent of any order, that they were in a position to appear on numerous spots in the country just because there was no organizational leadership and that fact made it nearly impossible for the occupation powers to get hold of them.
Q Witness, you were just talking about the partisan movement. We will later come to certain details. I had just asked you what problems and conflicts prevail in the Balkans. You named first of all the conflict between the Serbs and the Croats.
I now ask you to tell us some more problems and conflicts and after you name them we shall try to come to some details. What further problems were there in the Balkans?
AApart from the natural difference between a country and a foreign occupation force and apart from the natural contrast between the Serbs and the Croats which I have already mentioned, I can further name the conflicts which arose from these spheres of influence of the great powers, but in order to understand conditions in the Balkan area, it is in my opinion of decisive importance that one realizes that all the acute indifferences had a deep historical root.
I am talking about the struggle between the Greek Orthodox sphere of religion and the Roman Catholic one. This area is the sphere of the clash between East and Western Europe, and this clash is not only merely a matter of the intelligentsia but in a rather peculiar manner this clash leads, I might almost say, to the development of the character of the men in the Balkans because to have the Greek Orthodox faith is almost the same as to be a National Serb. The religious belief got completely tied up with the political national conviction and out of this religious root comes into the shole struggle of the Serb Nationalism, the incredibly strong fanatacism.
Quite similar in the case of the Croats who as Roman Catholics also feel politically segregated as well as religiously segregated. These historical causes which have the effect in the individual person in the Balkans had also gained strong political weight through the fact that with the Greek Orthodox faith the feeling of a Pan Slavic connection for centuries had gradually developed like a mass of larvae from Southeast to Northeast and has pushed forward and politically seen developed the difference between Zagreb and Belgrade during the course of the centuries. This extremely increased controversy prevailed just at the moment when the German occupation force was in that area and through the fact that Jugoslavia as a state was defeated and through the fact that the majority of the weight was transferred to Zagreb, the National pride of the Serbs was severely hit. From a certain point of view, historically seen, rightly so, because for centuries the Serb nationalism has shown politically more gifted, than the Croats who did not understand during the course of the last few centuries to create a real state. Now, however, at the time when the German occupation power was in that area through the preference of Zagreb and through the instrument of the Ustasha which was available there, the political-religious contrast to the Serbs was sharpened so much that a defeating or an abolishing of these conflicts - I don't want to make any judgment here, - I am not justified in that - but it constituted a conflict for the Wehrmache.
Q. What National-political problems exist in the Balkans?
A. If the religious-political contrast of the Balkan area at that time had confronted each other in the territorially limited areas then the conflict would not have been so sharp. The danger is to be seen in the fact that the hostile parts of the Serbian population lived mixed up and were forced to live that way. I ask you to allow me to make a comparison. If one took a handful of salt and mixed it with a handful of sugar and then tried to separate the two things again, it is just as impossible to do that, just as impossible it is to disentangle the mixed-up parts of the population on the Serbo-Croation map.
Q. Witness, I had asked you after the developing problems and conflicts and if I have understood you correctly there was the difference on the one hand of the population and on the other hand the occupation powers, then the religious problems, Orthodox and Roman Catholic, the Serbs confronting the Croats, then the different spheres of influence of the great powers which met there and now what could be felt just at that time during the occupation at that time especially.
A. The decisive influences in the whole sector are without question the successes of the Tito organization. Here too one could make a false conclusion if on the first glance one regarded the successes of this organization as the success of a Communist Revolution. Long dealings with and our knowledge of all the notes about the Tito organization must lead to the conviction that here we are probably, firstly, faced with a sentimental love upon the part of the Slav nations to Mother Russia. At the moment it doesn't matter whether it is Communistic or anything else. Decisive was the feeling of common sentiment towards that great Russia that now was also a belligerent power and was able to fill the Slav nations with hopes.
Q. Witness, all the things which you have mentioned here, if I understood you correctly, were the main problems which confronted the occupation forces.
A. I believe that I have named them as completely as possible.
Q. You mentioned first of all the relationship between the population and the occupation forces. How was that relationship in Serbia?
A. I can testify less about the relationship regarding the lower troops in the country because I didn't come to the Balkans until later but from my knowledge of the files I ascertained a very impressive fact, a fact which impressed me deeply at that time - and that is that during the first time there was a kind of expectant and not really hostile attitude on the part of the Serbs towards the occupation force and that as a second phase I might say roughly, about two months after the end of the campaign, the German leadership in the Balkan area suffered almost a shock when suddenly and not recognizable in its connections on numerous isolated spots in the country there seemed to be an insurection and revolutionary movement which, however, in the beginning only found its expression in individual, little enterprises by small bands.
I believe at that time Field Marshal List was the person who as the first in a discussion ascertained that that couldn't possible be an unorganized activity; behind all that had to be a central leadership. Actually such a central leadership, as far as I remember, at the earliest, six months after the end of the campaign was found and more clearly recognizable in the person of Mihajlovic. However, one did see that the numerous individual partisans gradually joined into smaller units although it was not possible to connect all these little organizations to a central leadership. I especially mention in this connection that Mihajlovic did not succeed to the very last day in establishing real discipline amongst his followers. Instead in addition to the many little wars mentioned within the country there were also struggles of the band leaders against their alleged leader. In order to clarify this, my statement, may I emphasize that this bad cooperation between the bands was the consequence of the character of the Balkan people. They are all individualists and they are gifted. All these band leaders are led and guided by the idea, eventually, to be the leader. Everybody has its own policy and it is the great achievement, of Tito, to be the first, to create a real comprehensive organization on the background of this half-Slav half-Communist ideology.
Q. What were the methods of these bands?
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Your Honor please, I object to the question. I don't think this man has been qualified to know what the methods of the bands were. I think he is testifying to certain conclusions which he draws from the documents he has read and not to anything he himself knows personally.
JUDGE CARTER: I suppose he ought to state the basis of his information. 3771 Dr. LATERNSER:
That would have been the next question, your Honor.
Q Witness, I have asked you about the methods of the bands, and will you now, please, name them to the Tribunal, and at the same time tell the Tribunal where you gathered your knowledge?
AAt the beginning of my examination I stated that I had seen a thousand documents of the 12th Army and of Army Corps E and F, and that these documents form the bulk of all the available material in the staffs and Army corps, and that these documents also form the basis of my testimony.
Q Now, on the basis of these files what did you personally ascertain about the methods of the bands?
MR. FENSTERMACHER: I object to the question. I don't believe this man is competent to testify to the questions he is being asked. He is asked to state his conclusions from certain material which he has read.
JUDGE CARTER: I think we had a similar situation when the Greek correspondent testified. He gathered information in the same manner and testified to it here.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: If you please, Your Honor, that man was back and forth and participated in battles, fired guns and was an assistant to the Commander and Chief, and participated in what he testified to. He had personal knowledge of the jump to which he testified.
JUDGE CARTER: I think that is true to part of his testimony but not to the whole of it. I think the testimony will be admitted for what it is worth.
Q Witness, I had asked you about the methods, did you yourself look at any documents which might have shown the methods of the bands, above all did you see pictures, did you read reports; will you tell us something briefly about all this?
A In the documentary material mentioned there are numerous reports about the methods of fighting of the Partisans, in such an abundance that somebody who for a year and a half studies these figures for the period from 1941 to 1944 at least gains a file knowledge of these facts, and beyond that I can only personally state that to land with an airplane an the occupational area Zagreb would generally be in this way.
That as soon as one wanted to alight from the plane there would be machine guns from the partisans all around, and they would shoot until German anti-aircraft guns quieted those guns, and then one would land.
Q Did that happen to yon personally?
A Yes. And from personal knowledge I could personally say that during the time when I was in the Balkans, and repeatedly after I went home to the Reich to work in the archives, it was the regular situation that in each leave train a combat force was formed in order not to be surprised during sleep by partisan attacks. Those were matters of course to us.
Q Witness, did you see pictures, photographs, which shewed mutilated German soldiers?
A The documentary material mentioned contained a considerable number of photographs which showed, mutilations. The photographs which I remember concerned first of all atrocities between the fighting parties of the population, that is Ustasha against the Serbs, and the Serbs against the Moslems. The pictures were submitted so often down there that finally one just pushed them aside, because they are not a very pleasant sight, but there is one detail I want to mention. Amongst the documentary material of the staff of the division stationed in 1942 in Sarajevo there must be pictures which were submitted to the division judge. These pictures showed murdered women, who were murdered in a manner by driving long wooden sticks into their genitals. Then there were numerous other pictures, and I ask not to have to testify about these, because I cannot give their source exactly.
Q Witness, we strayed from the actual subject. I had asked you about the actual relation between the occupation powers in Serbia and the population; what was the attitude of the officers, as far as you knew them, towards the Serbs?