A No, I believe in the Summer of 1937 I received a rather unpleasant letter. I believe it was from the Reich Literary Chamber, and they said the following: I was no member and, therefore, I was to join immediately. Otherwise, there would be a veto placed on all my writings. I answered by the same means and then I was no further bothered.
Q I will now come to your next military employment. Where were you commanded to?
A I became Battalion Commander in a small Pomeranian province town in Treptow on the Rega.
Q And for how long?
A Fortunately only for one year.
Q And what came then?
A Then I became an instructor in the War Academy.
Q And what were the subjects you taught?
A I taught tactical subjects. That is, I instructed about the leading of troops.
Q Did you have foreign students there too?
A Yes, at my time there were about 25 to 30 foreign officers present as students at that academy, of approximately 20 different nations And in my own lecture room, during the first year I had the then American Captain--now he is a General--General Hardness, as a student. In the second year I had two Argentine officers, and also at my time, there was the today very well-known American General, General Wedemeyer, as a student of that academy.
Q At that time did you write the book, "The Art of Warfare, Today and Tomorrow"?
A I worked on that book during those years that I spent at the War Academy, and it was published in the Spring of 1939.
Q Was the book also published abroad?
A Yes, it was first of all translated by the Yugoslav Officers' Library, and the latest translation was made during the war and it was made in the United States.
Q Is anything known to you how that book was evaluated abroad?
A I only know of two critics, if they can be called critics. One was an offer of a literary society of the United States which offered me honorable membership. And the second critic I remember is a quotation on the London radio at the beginning of the war, approximately at the conclusion of the Polish campaign, where my opinion concerning the length and strength of modern war was confronted with the then existing opinions on "Blitz" warfare.
Q What was your own attitude and opinion at the outbreak of the Second World War, concerning the length and the manner of the war?
A I was fully aware that a future war would be a very hard struggle, and I personally wished for everything else but a new war because I had participated in one war, lasting for four and a half years, and eventually lost, as a member of the Infantry. And I had sons who could be expected to have to go to the Front during the next war; and one war is enough for one lifetime.
Q During the Second World Mar where were you employed?
AAt the beginning of the Second World Mar I became Chief of Staff in Military District 8, in Breslau.
Q And later?
AAfter the Polish campaign I became Chief of the General Staff of the XXIInd Corps in the West.
Q And what followed that employment?
A In the fall of 1940 I became Commander of the General Staff Training School in Berlin.
Q How long did that assignment last?
A Until the middle of March, 1941.
Q And what assignment did you have after that?
A During the first days of April I was very suddenly called to General Holder and as liaison officer of the OkH I was sent to the XIIth Army, which, at that time, was stationed in Bulgaria.
Q Had you previously been in the Balkans or was that your first assignment to the Balkans?
A In the Summer of 1939 I had a command for twelve days to the Bulgarian War Academy.
Q Did this short assignment have any influence on the fact that later, in 1941, you became liaison officer to the XIIth Army?
A That had no connection whatsoever. The assignment to Bulgaria if I may out it that way, was really a dressed-up leave abroad, and the assignment as liaison officers of the XIIth Army was, I believe--I would say the assignment of the Summer of 1939 to Bulgaria was not known to General Halder at all, as far as I remember.
Q What were your tasks as liaison officer of the OKH to the XIIth Army?
A I was to inform General Halder of the course of the operations and especially I was to point out to him two important operational decisions in case they were to come about.
Q What was General Halder's position in the OKH?
A He was, at that time, Chief of the General Staff of the Army.
Q Were you also instructed politically?
A No, I was merely informed about the possible course of the military operations of the XIIth Army.
Q For how long were you liaison officer to the XIIth Army, and what came after that?
A I was liaison officer up till the 9th of May, and on that day when I requested to be called back because the task that had been put to me had been fulfilled, surprisingly I received the information that I was made Chief of General Staff of the XIIth Army.
Q And what was the date that you started that activity?
A That was on the 10th of May, 1941.
Q And when did you leave that position?
A My last duty as Chief of Staff I made on the 4th of March 1944.
Q And what were you commissioned with after that date?
A I had the commission to work on the marching of German troops into Hungary. Up till about the middle of April I worked as Chief of Staff with General Field Marshal von Weichs, who led the march of these troops and then subsequently I went on leave for four weeks to Bad Gastein, and on the first of June 1944 I was given the command over the XXIst Infantry Division in Kurland.
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
Q. And how long did you remain in that position?
A. I remained Divisional Commander until the end of August, 1944, and then I was made Commanding General of the Xth Corps in the same area.
Q. What position did you have when the war ended?
A. I remained Commanding General of the Xth Corps until the end of December, 1944, and then for about six weeks I had no assignment, and on the 19th of February I was commissioned with the Deputizing Command of the XIXth Army. On the 9th of March I was stationed with the 1st Army in the West, and as Commander in Chief of the 1st Army I concluded the war through the capitulation of Army Group G, for which I had been commissioned to negotiate with the Commander in Chief of the American Army Group. That was General Devers. And that was at the beginning of May, 1945 in Haar near Munich.
Q. We will now return to the beginning of your activity as Chief of Staff of the XIIth Army in the East. How was this Staff divided up?
A. The Staff was a normal staff of an Army Command. The most essential departments were the Operational Department, called I-A; the Department I-C, which was working on eneny positions; Department 2--2-A and 2-B, which worked on personnel matters concerning officers and men; Department 3, with which I had nothing to do as Chief, was the Legal Department and it dealt with all legal matters. Then there was the rather large Quartermaster General's Department, and that dealt with all questions of supply and besides with matters of food supplies, military pay, administration, etc.-- medical measures, veterinarian tasks; and further there was a General in charge of transportation matters; then there was the Army Signal leader, who dealt with technical matters. Then there was the General of the combat engineers, and then there was the General of the fortress engineers, and later there were liaison staffs with the Navy and the Air Force.
Those were the most essential departments.
Q. What then was your sphere of work as Chief of Staff?
A. The Chief of Staff had to be in charge of the whole staff. He was the first assistant advisor of the Commander in Chief, and as such he had to prepare all basic information for decisions and conclusions on the part of the Commander in Chief, and he was also responsible for the whole channel of reports and orders.
Q. Are the authorities of the Chief of Staff laid down in any regulation?
A. These authorities were laid down in the Manual for the General Staff Service. That is a secret Army regulation.
Q. To what extent did you, as Chief of Staff, have the authority to give orders?
A. As Chief of Staff I only had the authority to give orders concerning my own staff.
Q. Did this authority to give orders extend to all members of the Staff?
A. Not to those who ranked me. I was a Colonel at that time and, for instance, the General of the Pioneers was Brigadier General, and he was subordinated personally to the Commander in Chief because he outranked me.
Q. Did you have the authority to give orders to subordinate commanders and units?
A. No, I had, as Chief of General Staff, no authority to give orders to subordinate commanders and units.
Q. What consequence did this fact have for your responsibility?
A. My responsibility concerned merely my Command in Chief, regarding the work of my staff.
Q. Did you have an official supervision and did you have judicial authorities?
A. I had no judicial authorities, not even over my own staff. Of course, I had the official supervision of my own staff, and I had the same disciplinary authorities as a Divisional Commander.
Q. For instance, could you punish members of your staff?
A. Yes, inasmuch as they didn't outrank me.
Q. What about deputizing for the Commander in Chief if he was absent for a short or long period?
A. If the Commander in Chief was absent for a longer period, an especially assigned other military commander deputizied for him. He he was absent for a short period decisions which might be necessary were delayed until the Commander in Chief returned. And I, as Chief, worked on the recalled current matters.
Q. What did you mean by a shorter absence?
A. Shorter absence was understood to mean an absence when the Commander in Chief still remained within reach in some manner. That is, usually absent, but still present in his own area of command so that if sudden decisions became necessary, he could be reached by telephone or teletype and could be asked to make those decisions.
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
Q. And what do you mean by current affairs?
A. Current affairs are affairs which have already have decided on, at least in principle, either through decisions of their own commander-in-chief or by decisions of the superior authority. That is, matters so to speak went on their own.
Q. How did the work in the staff actually take place?
A. The work of such a staff is borne by the orders from above and by the reports and communications from lower commands and also by the events that approach from the outside.
Q. What was the official channeling of the incoming matters?
A. Incoming matters were channeled to the so-called main office, if they didn't bear a personal address by name and this main office, according to their importance either submitted them immediately to me or channeled them to the department which dealt with the questions concerned.
Then these matters, either before or after they had been dealt with, were submitted to me by the department chiefs and when they were essential and important or needed a decision, I submitted them to the Commander-in-Chief; or the officer who worked on them was requested by me to submit them to the Commander-in-Chief himself.
Q. How did the so-called daily reports come about?
A. The daily reports, generally speaking, arrived from lower commends in the afternoon or in the evening. Generally speaking, they comprised the events of the previous day.
Then these reports were combined in an own report by the expert who worked on them and the reports which had come in and the report which was intended to be sent out was reported verbally to the Commander-in-Chief either by me or in my presence by the man who had reported or if they were of special importance the exact wording was reported.
Q. How did the verbal reports with the Commanderin-Chief take their course?
A. That was done according to the requirements, Generally speaking, I or the expert concerned after we had been announced went in to see the Commander-in-Chief if important reports had become necessary and the daily reports were usually reported individually during the evening hours.
Q. I'd now like to put a few questions to you concerning certain concepts which turn up again and again in out documents. To begin with, what is a report?
A. A report is a summary as short as possible of events laid down in the manner in which the reporting person sees them.
Q. And what is an account?
A. An account is a more extensive report and, generally speaking, contains opinions and judgments.
Q. And what do you understand by an account of experiences?
A. An account of experiences is a description of a certain event or events with the conclusions generally drawn from the events. There is therefore certain amount of partiality contained in an account of experiences and it is not binding in its possible conclusions.
Q. What is an order?
A. An order is binding in every respect and comes from a superior authority.
Q. What is a directive?
A. A directive, in contrast to an order, gives the general direction of actions to be taken and it is not necessarily binding in its details.
Q. What do you understand by an instruction?
A. An instruction is an order on a higher level. An instruction, generally speaking, serves a large-scale interest. It is binding in what it says but it leaves leeway in its individual carrying out.
Q. Did you see all incoming matters?
A. No. Occasionally, in order to check and limit the paper war, I looked maybe every two or three months at all incoming matters, only in order to be able to check the extent of the incoming matters. If I had wanted to read incoming matters daily, I am sure during the course of one week I would have only been able to deal with the matters coming in on one day.
Q. What do your initials on some of the documents mean?
A. In this initialing, two things have to be distinguished. The initials on an incoming document mean I have read it on the date concerned. The initials on an outgoing order mean for the Commander-in-Chief or Commander she signs the order that the contents of that order were in accordance with his decision, or the decision of the superior authority respectively, and that the order had formerly been dealt with correctly; that, for instance, the distribution list had bean checked, that the degree of secrecy is in order, that possible references are correctly mentioned, etc.
Q. If now, concerning the facts, you were of a different opinion than your Commander-in-Chief, what happened then?
A. Then I had to succumb.
Q. Didn't you have the possibility to reach the superior authority through your own channel and express your own different opinion?
A. No, that was impossible. Possibly you are mixing this up with a possibility which existed during the First World War where a Chief-of-Staff, if he was of a different opinion, was entitled to make this his different opinion known in the files.
Q. That did not exist in the Second World War any more?
A. No, since the year, I believe, 1938, it was clearly established that this possibility did no longer exist.
Q. How is it that your signature appears under orders?
A. In such a case, an order is concerned which did not contain any fundamental decision and such orders which contained no estimate on the addressee. As Chief, I was entitled to sign those orders which were not of a fundamental nature and which did not contain any estimates.
Q. What did your signature or rather the signature "Chief of General Staff on behalf of" mean?
A. The signature "For the Army High Command, the Chief of the General Staff, on behalf of" was applied in documents which were of a less important meaning and which the expert himself could start going.
Q Was there a direct exchange of opinion between you or the members of your staff with subordinate staffs?
A That was of course possible and it was desired but it is in the nature of the activity of a chief and an expert in such a staff that unfortunately they are far too much tied to their desk and telephone.
Q What was the subject of the so-called chief discussions?
A I had two kinds of chief discussions. One was the so-called Monday chief conference within my staff. Present at this conference were all department chiefs of the staff in order to assure good cooperation between the individual departments, and to be able to direct the work of the whole staff in one direction. In this conference, the situation in the own area during the past week was dealt with apart from the general situation and then directives were meted out for the work of the coming period.
Q Did you intimate that it could be criticized during these conferences that your collaborators could voice their own opinion?
A That was an essential purpose of these conferences. I personally never hid my own opinion, and I have welcomed every open discussion because I wanted to educate my collaborators not to be an automatic thinking but to form their own judgment.
Q What about the -- communications with the OKW?
A I want to supplement -- the second kind of chief conference which I had not yet mentioned. The other kind was a meeting with the chiefs of staff of the subordinate authorities and those officers with which we had to cooperate. Such conferences took place only if there was a special reason for them. For instance, if a fundamentally new regulation of orders had been ordered, these conferences had the purpose to assure the cooperation of the staffs and to regulate it and to clear up any doubts or questions which might have existed.
Q In these chief conferences too, was criticism and utterance of opinion permitted?
A That was what we lived off.
Q And now about the communication with the Commander-in-Chief of the OKW--how did that take place?
A That depended on the technical communication situation. Generally speaking, communication took place by radio, teletype, then there was exchange of messages by courier. There were telephone calls and occasionally there was an oral discussion; respectively we received orders.
Q Whom did you talk to orally?
A I personally usually talked to General Warlimont and to General Butler, the experts talked to the persons concerned within the Armed Forces Operational Department.
Q Was criticism allowed there too?
A That depended quite frequently on the personal relationship I have in my opinion always expressed very clearly and definitely my opinion and the opinion of my assistants but it was not always successful.
Q Were there visits by representatives of the OKW in the Southeast?
A Unfortunately only a few.
Q And what about the other way around? I mean visits by you at the OKW?
A They were more frequent. I mean more frequent than officers came from the OKW to see us.
Q You now are talking of your visits to the OKW, I would say.
A Yes.
Q Did you report to Hitler himself personally?
A No, that was not in accordance with my position.
Q Let us assume you would have been able to make such a personal report. Would you have been in a position to make objections?
A I might have possibly tried it once.
Q And with what result?
A This is merely an assumption but I don't think I would have succeeded a second time.
But I don't know it because I didn't actually report to Hitler personally.
Q Did you frequently report orally to Keitel, the Chief of the OKW?
A I personally only reported twice to Keitel during the Southeastern period.
Q What reports did you have to make to the OKW?
A In the way of regular reports, there were the daily reports; during the first months also the so-called ten-day reports which later on ware dropped and then so-called monthly reports or evaluation of the situation which had to go in at about the beginning of the month.
Q What was the contents of the monthly reports?
A Essentially that was a summary of the development of the situation and an evaluation of that situation.
Q You have already said that you yourself never reported verbally to Hitler; did you at any other time have any occasion to talk to Hitler?
A Once in the year 1937 I talked to Hitler when I reported to him in a lecture room on a lecture trip, and when I introduced the officers to him. That was a talk of about 10 minutes.
Q Did you ever talk to Himmler?
AAs far as I know never.
Q Did you ever talk to Sauckel: He was the Plenipotentiary for the employment of Labor?
A Yes, I had one discussion with Sauckel. That was in April 1945, when he was Gauleiter without a Gau and traveled around in my sphere of command.
Q Did you talk to any other prominent members of the Third Reich, did you talk to Hess, Goebbels, Kaltenbrunner?
A Once I had official dealings with Hess. That was in 1934, or it may have been in 1935. I don't know exactly. Twice I have talked to Goebbels on propaganda questions of the Wehrmacht. That was an official conversation. I had one talk or discussion with Kaltenbrunner. That was in March 1944, before the march into Hungary, and with Ley I had the mere beginning of a conversation, which, however, was not continued because the other party was not in a position to carry on a conversation.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, I shall now start with the presentation of my Document Book I, which contains affidavits and other documents which refer to the proceeding part of the examination. Occasionally I shall have to ask the witness questions in this connection.
First of all I am submitting Document I, which I shall give Exhibit I and this is an affidavit by a Professor of the University in Freiburg, Adolf Lampe. Under Roman Numeral I of this affidavit there is a short explanation of his own person of this witness, which may have a certain importance for the evaluation of this affidavit, and at the same time I point to the annex to this Document I, which shows that the witness Lampe was in connection with the Hitler plot of the 20th of July 1944.
Under Roman. Numeral I it reads:
I.
I make the following statements in regards to my person and my political attitude in order to make a true evaluation of my testimony possible:
I have actively opposed National-socialism since 1922 at every possible opportunity. This opposition of mine ended in my arrest in September 1944 by the Gestapo (German Secret Police) as a collaborator of Dr. GOERDELER, which took me to Berlin for prosecution by the Peoples' Court. Instead of detailed statements, which I am willing to submit on request, I add a certified copy of the "Fuehrer-Order" as proof, by reason of which I was expelled from office in December 1944. Freedom and life I have only regained by the collapse of the political system.
THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute, please, I believe counsel is reading too rapidly, which necessitates the interpreter interpreting or reading too rapidly, and if we could slow down a little bit I think it would be of help to the Tribunal, at least it would to me personally.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: I beg pardon, Your Honor, but I assume since the interpreters have the English document that they can read as fast as I can.
THE PRESIDENT: For my own personal satisfaction, at least, I would prefer it a little slower.
DR. FAUSCHENBACH: The following are the real contents of the affidavit:
"In Ray of the year 1918 I became acquainted with Hermann Foertsch, when I, as a young reserve officer, was transferred to the Sturm-Battalion 7 of the Boehme-Army on the Western front. Despite the fact that I did not serve in his company I became there closely attached to Herr Foertsch and has opportunity to become acquainted with, and value, his exceptional qualities as a leader of men, as well as his very human personality."
Then I shall go over the first passage of the next page and continue in the second passage:
"After my resignation from the unit in September 1919, I at first lost all contact with Hermann Foertsch. This connection was removed again in February 1933, when I read a news item he had written as public relations officer of the Reich Army Ministry. This connection was reestablished by me again by correspondence, and I met Hermann Foertsch for the first time again in Berlin at the beginning of April 1933."
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Your Honor, please, I am not clear as to Dr. Rauschenbach's purposes. I am wondering if he intends to offer this affidavit into evidence or not.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: At the beginning I had already said I am submitting it as Exhibit No. 1, and the purpose is the following: I am offering this affidavit, in order to have a description of the personality of General Foertsch, and have it supplemented by affidavits in tho same way which has come out during the examination. This will have a certain significance for its further development and its activities in the East.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Your Honor, we object to the introduction into evidence of this affidavit, because it does not apply to Rule 21 of the Uniform Rules of Procedure. The affidavit itself is signed on page 6 of the document book by the affiant, but the certificate does not comply with any of the provisions of Rule 21. Rule 21 provides that the witness shall sign the statement before defense counsel or one of them and defense counsel shall have certified thereof, or the witness shall have signed the statement before a Notary and the Notary shall have certified thereto, or Thirdly, tho witness shall have signed a statement before a Burgermeister and the Burgermeister shall have certified thereto. In case neither defense counsel or Notary is readily available without great inconvenience, the witness shall have signed tho statement before a competent Prison Camp authority, and that authority shell have certified thereto in case the witness is incarcerated in a prison camp.
It does not appear that the person certifying to the signature of the affiant in this affidavit is within any of those four provisions, and we ask therefore that the offer be rejected.
DR. FAUSCHENBACH: The certification was made by the Secretary of the University in Freiburg, and such persons are generally in Germany of the same rank as a Burgermeister, and since in accordance with the regulation which has just been mentioned the Tribunal may recognize a different kind of certification if there are no misgivings about it I would ask to have this done. The original is available, and in addition we have the fact that according to German law apart from courts universities are specifically entitled to receive affidavits. So that is the reason why this witness has done it in this way. And it would cause unnecessary written work to send the witness to a Notary just to sign it again. But of course that could be done at any time. I believe all other documents will not be concerned in this matter, with the exception of maybe one case.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: I am not familiar with the provision of German law to which Ur. Rauschenbach refers. It may be true and it may not. I think if that is the case it should be proved in some manner. I would also like to call Your Honors attention to the fact that the Uniform Rules of procedure of the Military Tribunals drafted on 1 April 1947 and-
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Fenstermacher, may I inquire if and when this should be returned and it would be acknowledged before a Notary, you would then have no objections.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: I would have no further objection as regarding this Rule 21. I would have this further objection, this affidavit has no probative value as about the anti-Nazi activities of this defendant which is not in issue here. There is not a word in this indictment that charges the defendant with being a National Socialist. I submit it as irrelevant and immaterial, and has no probative value whatever.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: Your Honor, charges have been raised expressly that all defendants here and, therefore, General Foertsch, too, had pursued a policy of extermination and terror as it was in accordance with such personalities as Sauckel etc, that is to say with National Socialists, and that takes on a certain ideological connection. Besides, may I point out that the Prosecutor has up till now asked every witness and every defendant about his attitude toward the Nurnberg laws. He has asked them about what their attitude was concerning the Jewish question, and all those are questions which refer to National Socialism, and I believe that in order to describe correctly the personality of the defendant and his development and thus his possible inclinations and tendencies towards such terror and extermination measures, one will have to concern oneself with this question; and, therefore, I ask not to be limited in this.
JUDGE CARTER: Mr. Fenstermacher, if you contend that this has no probative value, then why do you object to the formality of not being sworn to when it evidently was sworn before someone with the intention that it was a sworn statement?
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Your Honor will recall that throughout our direct case we wore constantly thwarted because we had not complied with the strictness of Rule 21. Dr. Rauschenbach has been counsel in other cases here and he knows the rules, and he certainly should have complied with them. He has had plenty of time. He was fully informed about them. The Rule 21 is very express, The limitations and the exceptions are specifically noted.
JUDGE CARTER: Well, it appears to me that if we just hold this up until you take it out and have it sworn, to, it is just an unnecessary delay and there is no reason for it at all.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Well, Your Honor, we rely upon the rule, but I have already answered that, if Dr. Rauschenbach can comply with it. We have no objection on that ground. On the technical ground. Then. I refer to my second ground for judgment.