A No, essentially it is the same as far as its contents are concerned.
Q Now let us turn to document book 6 of the prosecution. Please take up these figures again which you have become acquainted with only in this trial here, but nevertheless the prosecution has used as incriminating pieces of evidence. These are exhibits 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157 and 159. How is it that in this document book there are so many documents which did not come to your knowledge earlier?
A Possibly these are all documents which never reached my staff.
Q First of all let us look at exhibit 139, which is on page 16 of the German document book and page 21 of the English document book. It says, the Situation Report by the Wehrmacht Commander Southeast of 2 November 1941. We discussed the term Situation report on Friday and you told us about this; first of all I wish to ask you, is a report of this sort an order?
A No, it is not an order, it is a report of the situation, that is a compilation concerning events which have taken place for the information of a certain circle.
Q The document is signed in the document book "for the Wehrmacht Commander Southeast, the Chief of the General staff, signed Foertsch"; was it signed by you?
A Yes.
Q This document amounts to little more than two pages in the document book, but from the photostatic copy one can see and also from the document book one can see it from the remark above the actual signature, "page 19 of the original" - that the original contains 19 pages.
Before analyzing the contents, let me ask you a few questions about the form in which the document is drawn up. The heading says Wehrmacht Commander Southeast and it is ended with the signature as I have quoted just now; how is it that this document bears your signature and not that of the Wehrmacht Commander?
AAs I said before it is not an order, and above all it is not a fundamental order nor is it a report to a superior agency. It is a situation report addressed to a circle of subordinate agencies. If everything which went out under the heading of the Wehrmacht Commander Southeast had been signed by the Commander in Chief, we would have needed two Commanders in Chief because one of them would have not been able to fill in all the signatures.
Q At the end of the document there is the remark, "Situation Report Distribution list;" was the distribution list uniform once and for all in these cases?
A Yes, at least for a certain period of time.
Q And why was it uniform?
A Because these reports went out frequently.
Q Were they sent out at certain periods?
A That depended.
Q The document also contains the remark, "Secret" above the heading and then another preliminary remark; were any publication or passing on in writing was forbidden; why was this preliminary remark made?
A You can only understand it if you know the whole document.
Q Just a moment, let me give you the photostatic copy of the entire document.
(The document is handed to the witness.)
A The idea was to prevent that an extremely outspoken and frank description of conditions in the Southeast was to reach the wrong address, I mean such people who either by habit or by order would spy on the staff of the Wehrmacht Commander. This whole situation report had bee drawn up in order to show the subordinate agencies and officers of those agencies as objectively as possible the picture of the situation as far as the political, national and economic basis of the various areas in the Southeast were concerned. For that reason things are being dealt with in here which, let us say, would not be written about in tho "Voelkischer Boobachter" or any other daily paper and the whole purpose was to achieve the purpose of giving the officers working and fighting in the area a concise and yet extensive picture of the situation in this area in order to heighten their understanding for these facts.
For instance, if I may just add this one sentence, this becomes clear from the subdivisions, Serbia first 1) for political area, 2) government, 3) administration 4) economy, 5) armed forces, and police - were interesting enough. The first sentence roads: "Serbia, since the Armistice does not have an army." Then under "Serbia" there is a paragraph called the "Insurgents and how to fight them". Food situation and Moral." Same applies to Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece. That is, shall we say in other words, a sort of brief military "Baedeker" or brief military manual guide book, that would be a manual for anyone who is a complete stranger in this area so he can from an impression of what is Serbia, what it looks like and who lives there.
Q Witness, you mentioned before that this report was drawn up in ruthless frankness, which perhaps would not always coincide with views held by the O.K.W. and the Government; can one observe this fact from that part which is contained in the document book?
A No, the extract in the document book deals only with the paragraph "Insurgent Movements" and how to fight them in Serbia and any layman must form the impression that here once again something had been ordered, but actually these extracts are only one tenth of the whole report and deal not with any new orders, but describe briefly and concisely what quite generally has been ordered and had occurred in this area concerning the insurgent movement. For instance, it says here such and such persons will be hanged or shot, if that were an order it would say "are to be shot" or "are to be hanged", but actually here it is only mentioned what has happened and the state of affairs that existed at the time when the report was issued.
THE PRESIDENT: We will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal recessed until 9:30 Hours, 14 October 1947.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the Unites States of America against Wilhelm List et al, defendants sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 14 October 1947, 0930, Chief Justice Wennerstrum, presiding.
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 Honors, all defendants are present in the Courtroom except the defendant von Weichs, who is still in the hospital.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed with the examination.
DEFENDANT HERMANN FOERTSCH DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q Witness, yesterday at the recess we had just discussed Exhibit 139, on page 21, Document Book VI. I have shown you the photostat copy of the entire original of this exhibit. It is a so-called Situation Report in the Balkans, and you signed it. You have already told us that this was a report and not an order. Now, I want to ask you this, in paragraph Roman VI, "Insurgent Movement", some of which is also contained in the document Book II, there are certain passages which might give the impression as though you wanted to get troops to act as vigorously as possible; would that be the correct impression?
A No, on the contrary, as I said before, this report was to give the recipients and objective and sober picture of the factual circumstances so that they would become acquainted with the over-all situation, and so that the population and conditions of the country should be judged by them correctly.
Q Did you by your description want to show the situation in the same manner which would correspond to the orders issued at the time?
A That is correct. If you wanted to describe the conditions in the area, then you could not overlook the fact that there were rebellions, and the way they were being fought.
Q Would it be possible that the formulation of this particular paragraph could be interpreted as an order by those who received the situation report?
A In my opinion this is out of the question, because the formulation shows unequivocally that here we have a description of facts and conditions, and not an order, because it says everywhere it is so, it will be or it shall. It never says it must or it has to.
Q In paragraph VI, the Insurgent Movement, it says under Arabic 4, "Refugees Expelled from Serbia;" who had expelled them?
A Hungary, Croatia and Bulgaria, all those countries which were a part of the old Yugoslav State.
Q Did the armed forces Commander Southeast have any influence on this?
A No. This was a political decision reached immediately after the campaign, and any military agency could not exercise any influence upon it, nor did it have the possibility to do so.
Q Did this refugee movement have any influence on military events?
A Certainly it did, because the contrasts, the ethnical contrasts which we have described before was accentuated by this in a certain way.
Q Under B-3 in Paragraph Roman VI, "Resurrectionist Movement", the Cetniks are referred to. It says that the Cetniks are a free group organized in a military way which have been in existence since the war of liberation against Turkey, and after the first World War received its legal foundation for existence from the Cetnik organization; what does this legal basis of the Cetniks mean?
A One could understand it in the following manner. We ourselves referred to a registered association, an association of Riflemen or a sports group. It would be wrong in any case to conclude from that fact that the bands which now were formed on the basis of this organization would become legal thereby.
Q You stated that when you drew up this situation report you were endeavoring to reach an objective judgment and thereby influence others in the same manner; did you also endeavor to counteract the influence of the propaganda at that time?
A That idea was an obvious one, and perhaps by my former activities in the field of the press and propaganda it was particularly natural to me.
Q Did you yourself attempt in the way you have just indicated to exercise influence on the propaganda in the Southeast?
A Yes.
Q In what way?
A In this field I had been given every latitude as a rule by my commanders. Having once given them the basic ideas and received their agreement for their application, it was perhaps a particularly familiar field for me, because of my former activities. I attempted to counteract the propaganda such as spread by the propaganda ministry in Berlin in a twofold manner. This propaganda was directed into two channels, one to our own troops, and secondly to the population. And at that time the most important thing was to have our own troops familiarized with the basis of decent soldiery, and on the other hand, to occupy their minds in their spare time, not in the sense that they must be tendentiously fed with national socialist ideas of leadership, but rather to occupy their minds with the questions of the geographical area in which they were serving, or rather than talk to them about important subjects, to show them pictures from home and give them a nice girl. And as far as the population was concerned it seems to me more valuable to stress the effects of daily life; and shall we say as an example, rather than give them a treatise on some ideas of the thousand years Reich, to give them an idea of the consequences for their property and life and daily life, the participation in the insurgent movement or spreading of the activities of the bands would have, and that it was in the interest of the Serbian farmers to keep calm and quiet.
That the industrial worker cannot gain anything by having his site of production destroyed. In other words, propaganda directed toward the population should also be part of the plan of appeasement on the grounds it should be typical of that area, and not for a general propaganda into the blue, such as Berlin aimed at
Q What were the effects on the military events which you promised yourself from that propaganda, and particularly in times of dictatorship?
A I believe that propaganda, particularly as it was handled in the past years in Germany was most decisive basis for the failure of dictatorship, because it eliminated any independent thinking and any critical faculties, and because those two points, independent thinking and criticism of facts form a decisive basis if one thinks at all of transforming these dictatorial conditions.
Q Were you of the opinion that this one-sided nature of the Third Reich Propaganda should have been counteracted?
A Yes, of course.
Q Did you show this attitude towards your own colleagues on your staff?
A I did this deliberately, and I believe I was not unsuccessful.
Q What were your relationships with your colleagues, how did you get on with them on the staff?
A It was my individual wish to have my assistants under me not only as a superior officer, but as a comrade, and I also endeavored to awaken in them independent thinking, preserve it, and thereby make them work really productively.
Q Now, if you took up this attitude against the tendencies of National Socialism, why did you not do more to fight the fruits of this system?
A I believe that the individual, particularly if he has a limited scope of tasks, and does not hold a decisive position, could not do much more than speak the truth, describe the things as they really are, to warn, and within his own sphere of power to fight such excesses which he comes across. But that I feel is what the individual can do. Over and above that the effect, the conditions under which we live, is an extremely difficult one. The activity of the individual, such as I try to describe it, might contribute to undermine the pillars on which such a dictatorship rests, but in the final analysis a system of this sort must reach its own inevitable end, or it must, as it happened be eliminated and smashed by force from outside. What the individual can do is and will always be extremely limited.
Q Witness, now let us talk about Exhibit 153, which is on page 55 of the German, and page 70 of the English; Exhibit 153, this is an activity report by the Wehrmacht Commander Southeast, dated 30 November 1941, Activity Report for the period of November 1 until November 30. A new basic order is referred to in this exhibit. Did this order make any essential changes in the regulations of command such as they existed up to that time?
A What this document contained is not the actual order itself, but it is a reproduction of the order in the form of a war diary. As far as I can see from this in complete copy in front of me, in that period of time in November 1941, no basic change was affected, nor do I recollect anything about it.
Q What is an activity report?
AAn activity report is actually the same thing as a war diary. It is in the form of a file. We have a brief compilation of the events, orders, important reports of the department concerned, for whom the report is drawn up.
Q. Who drew up these activity reports?
A. That was the task of a special officer in every case. The activity report of the operational department here was in my opinion made by the man who kept the war diary and the archives.
Q. And who was that?
A. The archives clerk, his name was Wisshaupt.
Q. Were you shown these reports?
A. No.
Q. Why not?
A. I did not have time to read such compilations, moreover every department made its own reports, the operational department for instance, the I-C department, the quartermaster department, etc.
Q. And who signed this activity report we have here now?
A. This was signed by Lt. Col. Macher, who was the I-A at the time he signed for his department.
Q. Would it be possible that there were mistakes contained in such reports?
A. Certainly.
Q. You mentioned just now the name of Wisshaupt, who was in charge of the archives and who kept the war diaries. The prosecution has offered as exhibit 584 outside the document books a large book, which is called "Combatting the Insurgent Movement in the Southeastern Area," the first part from June 1941 to August 1942 edited by Oberheeresardiivrat Ernst. Wisshaupt on behalf of the chief of the General Staff. Could this document also be called an activity report?
A. No, it is a draft for a description which was to form a basis for the official war history later on. It was my idea that one should write these things down as soon as possible after the event without any actual and final formulation, in order to prevent a history being written later on which would depend entirely on how the war would come out, and would therefore be one-sided.
Had everything gone well Hitler would have done everything, and if things had not gone well, then the things we did would have been distorted. In the ordinary manner, this is what I thought to do under the circumstances of the time.
Q. Did you read this compilation at the time?
A. Extracts yes, whether I have read this particular part I do not know, I am inclined to think I did not, because when I read it now I found a number of definite mistakes.
Q. Do you have this report before you?
A. No, but I remember it more or less.
Q. Can you give us a few examples for these mistakes, I mean those which you would have corrected at the time had you read the report?
A. Yes, one example for a formal question is that my rank has been quoted wrong. At the time I was still a colonel and I was promoted to a General's rank. Also there is the description which runs as it the 342nd Infantry Division would have been sent to Serbia. On the basis of my oral report to Keitel. The fact is that this order came out a very short period of time prior to my report to Keitel.
Q. Would you say that the whole report might be contested therefore?
A. No, not at all, on the contrary it should be understood as a draft. It must not be regarded as the final version and it is an over-all picture which shows the events quite correctly as I remember it, but there are mistakes among the details.
Q. Were attempts made to have more of these historical descriptions?
A. No, unless you include the order given to Dr. Ibbeken at the time and to which he referred here on the witness stand.
Q. Did this order have the same purpose?
A. Yes, it had really the sane purpose, but was more extensive and from a higher perspective and there was also the idea which Ibbeken mentioned, to have a sort of manual for officers who were serving in the Southeast.
Q. Why did you take Ibbeken of all people for this?
A. The idea to have a report of this type originated perhaps with me, but I believe my successor Winter exactly the sane share in it. Ibbeken I met on the occasion of a lecture which he gave to officers in the Southeast to which I listened and which impressed me particularly. As he said himself here on the witness stand, he had just been sacked for political reasons and you could kill two birds with one stone on this occasion, you could give a chance to a man who was in disgrace and at the same time perhaps create something valuable.
Q. At that time were you familiar with the basic orders of the Plenipotentiary Commanding General for Serbia for the winter of 20 December 1941? This is exhibit 161 on page 78 of the German and page 96 of the document book 6.
A. Whether or not I read these orders verbatim at the time I do not know, but I was familiar with the contents.
Q. Under paragraph 3, we have "Security and Conduct of Battle." In the fifth paragraph it mentions the so-called directives for the combatting of partisans of 25 October 1941; did you know those directives to combat partisans?
A. Yes, of course.
Q. Did you find the directives in the documents submitted by the Prosecution?
A. No, they are not contained therein.
Q. Can you from your memory tell us something about the essential contents of those directives?
A. I believe I remember that the first main part of the directives is concerned with the combatting of bands and the tactical procedure of combat. It was a sort of training manual for the fighting troops. In the second part I seem also to remember something was said about reprisal measures, etc.
Q. What was said about the latter with respect to details you do not remember?
A. No, I do not remember because that was superseded by another directive.
Q. Were these directives distributed to the troops?
A. Yes, they were issued down to the companies. This fact also becomes clear from one of the documents of the prosecution.
Q. Witness, were you familiar with the last two exhibits in document book 6, 162 and 163? Both are ten day reports by the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia to the Wehrmacht Commander Southeast. They contain the usual reports concerning our losses, losses suffered and by the enemy and the shooting of hostages.
A. I probably knew these reports. I am unable to say so with absolute certainty because I have not seen the original with any initials.
Q. Witness, now let us take up document book 7, At the beginning, I would like you to confirm what documents you did not know at the time in the Southeast, but which nevertheless have been used by the prosecution as incriminating evidence. These are Exhibits 165, 166, 168, 171, 175, 178, 180, 182, 185, 190, and 191; is that correct?
A. Yes, did you also include 167?
Q. No, yes No, 167 I should also include that as part of the list.
A. This as among the documents I did not know at the time and only came across in this trial.
Q. Yes. The first document in document book 7 is exhibit 164 on page 1. It concerns the employment of German Troops against the insurgents in Croatia. This document gives me the opportunity of putting a few questions to you concerning conditions in Croatia. How was it that in Croatia, too, the insurgent movement became so extensive?
A. I believe I have said something about that already. I can give you a brief answer of your questions by pointing to the political decisions, which were reached concerning Croatia and which led to an extenuation of the national and religious contrasts, which also gave the Italians pre-domination in the newly established state of Crotia and which in some cases were to be explained by the system of Government in that country. The dictatorial nature of the Government represented by the Poglavnik and the Ustasha, as the party number one, with their military Chetniks as the combat unit of the Party.
Q. Did the Commander in Chief Southeast have any political influence on the political development in Croatia?
A. No.
Q. Now had the occupation of Croatia been regulated?
A. As has been indicated, what was done there was that on both sides of the Belgrade-Zagreb railway and the territory north of that Railway was occupied by weak German forces, up to what was called the line of demarcation which ran roughly parallel to the Save River and also parallel to the railway following up that line of demarcation that in the far greater part of Croatia, the Italians were in occupation.
Q. And how did the Italians carry out their occupation?
A. They had subdivided their area into three zones, the zone near the coast, a zone which followed the line of demarcation to the German Zone and an area in the middle. In those areas, they as a rule followed the principle to concentrate their forces in a few isolated places and to keep them rather immobile in a sort of central strong points, I would like to call it.
Q. Now, this Italian occupation, was this regarded by the Commander Southeast as an adequate arrangement?
A. Well, we had no influence on this at all because the Italians were entirely independent, but from the point of view of an expert we thought that the manner in which they occupied the country was entirely wrong.
It lacked mobility which was possibly based on a certain amount of fear and gave absolute lea-way to the development of Guerrila warfare, because large areas were practically not constantly occupied.
Q. Witness, in the document a number of groups of bands are being mentioned against whom the German troops in Croatia fought at the beginning of January 1941. This is on page 3 of the copy and it is on page 6 of the original; did you know the organization of the insurgent troops in the fighting area of Croatia?
A. I knew these by and large, yes.
Q. Were these groups under a uniform leadership?
A. No, on the contrary. There were Communistic bands with Serbian tendencies and some with Croatian tendencies, some were Moslems in their tendencies. There were Cetniks, such as the group of the Dangic Cetnicks and there were indenpendant Cetnicks, especially the border area of Bosnia offered itself for a coming and going of bands and that is now the most extraordinary variety of bands with extraordinary varieties of leadership were formed with a number of different aims.
Q. Did they all fight together against the German occupation?
A. Yes and no, the Communistic bands without doubt, as far as the Serbians and Cetniks were concerned, but particularly the Dangic Cetniks fought. Those Croatians who had suppressed their Serbian brothers and mistreated them in some cases in the most are full manner, with the result that these Dangic Cetniks during certain places did not oppose the German occupation, but tried to link with us.
Q. Did they ever contact you?
A. In order to protect their fellow Serbians in the fight against the Croatian suppressors they asked for our support and backing.
Q. Now did the armed forces of the Commander Southeast take up this idea?
A. This was a highly delicate problem, needless to say we made attempts in some cases successfully to have this mutual operation discontinued, but Dangic was in his final demands so extravagant. He demanded for instance that a great part of Croatia should be ceded to Serbia, he demanded we should arm him officially and supply him with ammunition, etc., with the result that we could not comply with these demands because to a large part they were directed against the independent state of Croatia, which was a German allie and whose existance had to be recognized.
Q. Were these bands also regarded and treated as franc-tireurs?
A. Yes, because the same conditions applied as I have described so often before.
Q. As far as Croatia was concerned did the same fighting rules apply as in Serbia?
A. As a matter of principle yes, but it characterized the different type of enemies we faced and the variety of the fighting that for each individual operation special directives and orders had to be issued because conditions were different everytime.
Q. Were these orders to be issued by the armed Commanders Southeast?
A. No, that was not possible because individual conditions could not be judged in that manner in detail. The orders were issued by these commanders who were in charge of carrying out the relevant orders.
Q. And who was that at the time.
A. The head man was the Commanding General in Serbia.
Q. Did the same retaliation measures apply in Croatia?
A. There again special directives were issued in each case because in Croatia the participation of Croatian Government departments was necessary and was always observed. In Croatia there were relatively few occasions when these measures were used.
Q. Who had the executive power in Croatia?
A. The Croatian state in any case not the armed forces Commander Southeast unless in the case of certain areas and certain restricted periods of time when operations were in progress the executive power would be transferred to the most senior officer of the troops operating in that area who then would be given a civilian commissioner of the Croatian government to assist him.
Q. Exhibit 169 on page 27 of the German and page 30 of the document book 7 contains daily reports addressed to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast. These reports again contain shootings of Communists and measures of reprisal; did you know those daily reports?
A. Yes, I think possibly I knew them, excluding the days of course between the 5th and 8th of January when I was on an official trip to Sofia, but these reports I knew on the manner in which they came in, that is to say complete.
Q. And these reports are incomplete in the document book you mean?
A. Yes, here - as I have shown by certain examples only brief and weak extracts are contained.
Q. Did you know those reports, which are contained in exhibit 170, the report by the Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia to the Armed Forces General Southeast, which is on page 36 of the English document book page 32 of the German.
A. I think these reports also I possibly knew.