Q. Now the fact that these teletype letters followed each other so quickly....
A. Excuse me, it is the same one.
Q. The first comes from the O.K.W., the other one of the 7th is simply a copy of that same teletype letter which came as criticism from the O.K.W.
A. These things, if I may say so, are our monthly bread.
Q. They occured frequently you mean?
A. Yes, very frequently.
Q. And how do you explain this uneasiness on the part of the O.K.W. that they admonished you so frequently by mail?
A. In my opinion, it was Hitler's lack of patience and lack of understanding for the situation in our area.
Q. Witness, yesterday you gave brief information about how the Generals stood between you and the O.K.W., now in connection with this teletype letter, I would like to ask you did the officers of the O.K.W. frequently come to the Southeast to inform themselves?
A. No, unhappily they did not.
Q. What do you mean unhappily?
A. Because their understanding of the situation in the area might have been improved. I know that Keitel visited us only once, I think during the end of 1943 when he went to King Boris' funeral and stopped in Belgrade. Field Marshall Von Weiss' request to listen to him, he turned down. Jodl, after the Greek army's surrender, in my time, never visited the Balkans at all.
Q. You also described to me what proposals were taken by the Armed Forces Southeast time and time again to the O.K.W. in order to pacify the country in a peaceful manner. Were there apart from political measures any economic measures in your mind and if so what measures?
A. Yes, we had the idea at all times that what the areas produced in food should be extracted at a low rate only so that there should be a better distribution in the entire area, let us say from Banate to Greece, the harvesting was to be given aid.
Of course the food situation altogether was a very important one.
Q. Now how were all these suggestions by the Armed Forces Comman* der Southeast received by the O.K.W.
A. Political suggestions as a rule were turned down, others were considered, but very little was actually achieved.
Q. Were there no other means taken to have the opinions of the Armed Forces Commander Southeast carried out by the O.K.W.?
A. Yes, we tried other means as well. We sent officers from my area and staff to the O.K.W. so that understanding might be promoted and in some cases officers were transferred there. Among others one of my best young officers in the I-C I handed over, but there were relatively feeble attempts.
Q. And they were not successful, I take it?
A. Not really successful anyway.
Q. Did the attitude taken by the O.K.W. change when you left the Balkans?
A. I am not able to say that exactly because I was not there, but as far as I know neither the attitude nor conditions changes particularly.
Q. Now, as for this teletype letter of 7 February, which is part of document 529 in volume 24, it was reported to the Plenipotentiary General in Serbia and he was asked to make propositions?
A. Yes.
Q. And in the same document there is a letter by the Commanding General of 13 February 1942?
A. Yes.
Q. Is that the reply by the Commanding General?
A. To the request to hand in propositions, this is the reply, yes. It was an answer which had been agreed on, that is how this letter must be understood if one realizes that previously the two agencies had discussed these things because after all the teletype letter of the O.K W. was an extremely harsh reproach also for Serbia.
Q. And that is why the reply from the Plenipotentiary General in Serbia,volume 392, I am referring to page 3 of the document 529, was so strongly worded so that the O.K.W. could form the opinion that very strong measures had been taken?
A. Yes.
Q. Witness, in exhibit 211, from which we started our discussion you find on 10th page of that document, which is on page 92 of the original, a note for what is known as the discussion among the chief. Reference is made there to the fact that prisoners had been taken 1,590 of whom are being sent to Germany, 2,074 to Norway, then there's a full stop and then is says 3,000 women and children; were those 3,000 women and children also sent to Norway or what was some with them?
A. No, there 3,000 women and children were those mentioned in the other document.
Q. You mean exhibit 209?
A. Yes. There it says women and children are to be sent to camps, to prevent epidemics and unrest in other areas.
Q. Do you mean on page 1 of exhibit 209?
A. Yes. During this period of time there was an action in progress in connection with what was known as the Kozara action, the action in the Kozara mountains, and this was discussed at the beginning of the meeting. In Exhibit 209, the text shows: "Good progress in the attack against the groups of insurgents encircled in the area Kozara-Planian." This quotation from the meeting of the chiefs simply amounts to a note which must not be misunderstood.
Q. What is this meeting of chiefs you have mentioned?
A. That was on of the routine meetings held on Mondays by my staff.
Q. Then in this book I want to only ask you question about exhibit 213 on page 97 of the English bock and the following to exhibit, 214 and 215. Did you know at that time the reports which were addressed to the Armed Forces Commander Southeast?
A. Yes, probably I knew then. As for the report of 6 January 1942 which is exhibit 214, it is debatable whether I know it in these days I was in Sofia.
Q. Witness, I shall now come to some questions concerning documents in document book 24. If the Tribunal please, I am now going over to document book 24 as that document book is connected in time with Book 8. Here again I shall ask the witness about the documents with which he has been charged by the prosecution and which he did not know at the time.
According to your list these are exhibits 526, 531, 532, 535, 537, 538, 541, 542, 543, 544, 545, 547, 548, 550, 555.
A. Yes, that is true.
Q. I would like to ask you to look at exhibit 527, which is on page 1 in both the English and German books. These again are the usual teletype letters addressed to the operational department of the Army General Staff; did you know those reports at the time?
A. I think probably I did, with the exception of the time when I was not present.
Q. What about exhibit 528, which is one page 103 of the English document book?
A. That letter I also probably knew.
Q. Then exhibit 530 on page 111 of the English document book. These are notes taken about the conference held by the Commander in Chief in Abazzia with the Italians?
A. I was not present at those conferences, but afterwards of course I was informed what the conversations were about.
Q. Exhibit 533 on page 131 of the English document book?
A. I think probably I knew that one.
Q. Does that also apply to 534, the following one?
A. To that again, yes.
A. Now, I want to talk about exhibit 539, on page 162 of the English document book contains an opinion about the Mihajlovic movement and it is dated 9 February 1943; who drew up this document?
Q Who drew up this document?
A This was a list made by the OKW.
Q Do you know on what evidence and information they based this document?
AAs far as I can recall, this was put together on the basis of the monitoring of broadcasts of the broadcasting station of Mihajlovic which seems to explain that this whole compilation did not tally with the actual facts. In his broadcasts addressed to all sorts of agencies Mihajlovic time and again exaggerated facts for obvious reasons, in order to obtain support by the Allies. In his internal wireless communications also, as far as his subalterns were concerned, he described his own situation much more rosily than it actually was. This report I remember particularly well because when it reached the staff it caused a certain amount of comment as it did not tally with the facts at all.
Q How was it that OKW or OKH compiled this report on the basis of evidence which they did not receive from you, and the Army Commander Southeast? After all, you would have been the expert more than anybody else.
A That is what we asked ourselves at the time. I don't know whether the expert in charge ran the risk that he might lose his job and he wanted to show that he was valuable or that there were other reasons I simply don't know.
Q That is how the movement of the insurgents under Mihajlovic seems a very large one in this report?
A Yes, very exaggeratedly so. Had Mihajlovic been so strong as appears in this report, we wouldn't have been able to remain in Serbia for any length of time.
Q I must confess that if I read this report without prejudice it appears to me that Mihajlovic's movement was really a large and modern army and that, you say, is an exaggeration.
A I would say a complete exaggeration and entirely wrong. That he wanted people to believe that this was so and that in his wireless messages and systems he wanted to build up that impression, of course, goes without saying but that OKH, so to speak, fell for Mihajlovic is quite clear also.
Q Witness, in connection with Exhibit 536, which is on page 158 of the English document book, the prosecution have submitted photographs. Have you seen those photographs?
A Yes, I have got them in front of me.
Q In the text which goes with it, it says that a number of soldiers in the uniform of the Jugoslavian Army of Liberation was being shown. What, from your own knowledge of uniforms, can you say about that?
A It seems to me that this is an extremely interesting picture. The man who is wearing a great coat on one side of the picture is wearing a German great coat. The man standing opposite -- there seems to be something wrong with the negative -- is wearing an Italian coat. The one who is sitting down also wears an Italian uniform which can be seen quite clearly from the cut, and it seems to me that another of the ones sitting down is wearing a Serbian coat. In that much it might be true to say that this was the uniform of the Jugoslav Army of Liberation.
Q Could one call that proper uniform in the sense of a beligerant army?
A Not according to the opinions held at the time and the one I told today.
Q I shall now go over to the documents contained in document book IX of the prosecution. I shall again give you the exhibit numbers first which, according to your lists, concerns the document which you saw here in the trial.
These are exhibits 217, 218, 222, 224, 226, 230, 239 and 241.
A Yes, that is so.
Q First, a question quite generally about that period of time with which we are concerned in this document book. When was General Loehr appointed Armed Forces Commander Southeast?
AAt the beginning of August of 1942.
Q Did you know why he was appointed?
A Not officially but I believe I was justified in assuming that changes of personnel within the Luftwaffe were decisive when Loehr was transferred from his old position because Richthofen was to replace Loehr.
Q What was Loehr's position before then?
A He was chief of an air fleet in the Last, Commander in Chief of an air fleet and General Loehr, because of his origin -- he came from the Austrian Army -- was particularly suitable to serve in the Southeast area. He also was an expert in almost all languages spoken in the Southeast and a special peculiarity of his was that he was the only German officer who was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. His mother was Russian.
Q Did this appointment of General Loehr mean that anything changed in your own work?
AAs far as my official position was concerned nothing changed. As far as my wishes to be used somewhere else, there were changes, because my wish to be used somewhere else was not fulfilled.
Q Why did you want to serve somewhere else?
A I had several reasons. For one thing, I wanted to command a unit as soon as possible and leave the general staff because a general staff officer did not amount to anything in this war.
He was a defeatist, a sceptic or, as we called each other, an intellectual self-analyst. Then I would have liked to leave my position as a chief and would have liked to have been in charge of a unit and, finally, I had enough of these very disturbing conditions in the Southeast, guerilla warfare and so forth, and would have preferred to fight at a more decent and normal front.
Q Did you ask officially to be transferred?
A I did not make an official application in writing because that you could only do for extremely grave personal reasons but with the consent of my Commander in Chief I on several occasions asked the Operational Staff of the OKW orally and I also talked to the personnel expert in the General Staff, Colonel von Ziehberg.
Q Now, when Loehr took over were there important changes in the situation?
A No, that wouldn't have been possible even because conditions in the Southeast area did not depend on the character of the Commander in Chief. They had their own logic both from the outside and inside.
Q What were the factors which influenced the situation in the Southeast at that time?
AAt that time the effect of the events in Africa showed themselves very clearly. Then the war in Russia had reached a turning point toward the end of 1942 or beginning of 1943 -Stalingrad, you know -- and those two events were of great impor tance for the coming period of time in that area.
Q Did that have any influence on your own work?
A Very much so because from then onwards the danger of invasion in this area became more and more acute and I, of course, had to work on that problem more than on anything else.
Q How did this express itself?
A We had to study special problems concerning the best possible places for a landing from the point of view of the enemy. We had to make reconaissance flights and in order to form an impression of the coasts and the places where the enemy could land. Supply questions became increasingly important, the laying-in of stocks and ammunition and food; fortifications had to be extended. Coastal artillery had to be established along the coast itself which was an important problem and in this connection the combating of guerillas played a big part.
Q Was there a new basis established for the combating of guerillas at that time?
A I wouldn't say on a new basis but the manner in which they were combatted militarily assumed more and more the character of large-scale operations for larger areas.
Q What was the effect which these extended tasks had on your own work?
A I had yet more to do and, therefore, one learned less about details.
Q Witness, in order to give a clear picture of the extent of your work, how great was the area of the Commander Southeast?
A I would like to mention here that it was around that period of tine that we drew up what we called a comparative map which was submitted to Hitler. On that map the Southeast area and the area in and around Germany were drawn in in various shades on top of each other. I remember the following matter in this connection. The whole of the Southeastern area from Zagreb to Rhodes was as large as what was known as Greater Germany at that time. The distance from Zagreb to Rhodos, as the crow flies, corresponded to the same distance as from the Rhine to almost the foremost front line in Russia. The length of the coast itself which we had to defend measured by three hundred thousand nap was three tines as long as the whole of the Eastern front iron Leningrad to Odessa, The Pelopones, where one division and a number of battalions were stationed, corresponds roughly to the size of Belgium.
The railway network of Belguim is well known to ever European. The railway system in the Pelopones consisted of a small-track railroad, nothing else. Railway conditions quite generally in the Southeast were represented in the following manner -- that you could draw on the German map a railway from Cologne to Magdeburg, then from Magdeburg to Breslau and from Magdeburg to Stettin. That was all the railways in Germany. Then, in addition to this, there was the fact that the Hessians or the Saxones or the Pommeranians or the Sitesians could interrupt the railway wherever they liked when they thought it was a good idea.
Q. Now, just a moment, witness, so that it can be understood. You mean as in comparison to the Balkans?
A. Yes, as compared to conditions in the Balkans. These are the figures which I still remember.
Q. Now, please look at Exhibit 219 which is on page 18 of the document book. It is on page 14 of the English document book. Did you know that document art the time? It is a letter by the Commanding General in Serbia.
A. No, I did not know that document.
Q. It is mentioned there on the second page that the Commanding General had ordered that from among the captured enemy those who were strangers in the village were to be regarded as partisans and treated as such. What order by the Commanding General are we concerned with here? Did you know it?
A. No, I didn't knew it. He probably issued it when he inspected Serbia, the date of which should be found in one of the activity reports in the prosecution document around this period of time.
Q. What was to be understood by the term "eliminated?"
A. It should mean "committed to a camp" as I have seen from statements in other documents.
Q. Now, let us look at the next exhibit, 220.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Your Honor, in the translation here again Dr. Rauschenbach has talked about persons being eliminated and in the English book it says "to be done away with."
THE PRESIDENT: That can be referred to the interpreters for clarification if counsel desires to have it done.
DR. RAUSCHENBACH: If it please the Tribunal, the translation of the English document book is correct. That means "beseitigen" in German whereas the term "to eliminate" really means that the people concerned were killed. I think the English document book is correct, in my opinion, but the translation just now of the passage which I have read -- that, I think, was not quite correct. I think the translation in the document book is correct and I would like to repeat my question once again.
Q. What did you mean by "doing away with?"
A. I know that "to be done away with" was understood as meaning to commit people to a camp.
Q. Now about Exhibit 220, which is on page 17 of the English document book, this is a file note concerning the conference of the Chiefs on 17 August 1942 and then there are other file notes as well. What type of conferences were these?
A. These are the internal conferences within the staff with my colleagues.
Q. And what purpose were these two conferences to serve?
A. The purpose was to give information about what happened in the past week and also give than directives for the work to be done in the time to come. Work within the staff was to be coordinated.
Q. Were the measures described here ordered by you?
A. No, I said just now that is is a description of past events. The measures therein are simply being described by me as something which happened but not something I had ordered.
Q. In the first file note concerning the conference of 17 august on the second page you report to the members of your staff also about losses of the bands. I am struck by this fact. It is mentioned that the Germans had 24 dead, 32 wounded and 3 missing whereas the allie Croats show 80 dead, 137 wounded and 130 missing -- 136 missing; that is a mistake in the document book.
"In retaliation 677 people have been shot." Now, if you bear in mind the order by the OKW whereby for each German ambushed 100 were to be shot or for each German wounded 50, surely you would arrive at a far larger figure of reprisal measures taken, always provided, of course, that reprisals were taken for those killed in battle.
A. I would like to say about that that, first of all, for those who were killed in operations no reprisals were taken and, secondly, as I have emphasized before, not all operations taken by the other side were taken reprisals for. Moreover, the ratio of the Keitel order, was applied only for a very short time and even then not in all cases.
Q. The conference of 7 December, which is the second file note you mentioned, is about fighting in Serbia. Have your remarks been correctly quoted in this description?
A. No, I don't think so because I see here two logical mistakes. Here we have what is known as the disobedience action, which Mihjlovic had started in order to get the Cetniks loyal to the government, namely the Serbian State Guard and those employed by the occupation, such as the burgermeisters etc. to rebel. That had a temporary success up to a point, but on the whole it was a failure, and this is what I refer to here. In this connection unrealiable elements in the Cetniks or elements which had become unreliable were disarmed and here figures are being put together which are entirely incorrect. It says, for instance, roughly 10,000 fought on our side, half of which had withdrawn to the woods. That should be 5,000, but then it goes on to say a quarter, around 4,000 men were disarmed. Well, that's nonsense. And then it says it leaves about 4,000 men still on our side. So that doesn't make sense does it? And the further conclusions are stated that the whole action started by Mihjlovic for disobedience was completely futile. The threat of retaliation measures alone had a frightening effect. And then it goes on to say shootings of those even suspected only of sabotage show that our methods were right. That's also illogical because it should read even the threat that those suspected of sabotage would be shot as shown, that it was successful and that the method therefore was right, because in that period of time nobody who was suspected of sabotage was shot simply because they were suspected of sabotage. Those suspected of sabotage might have been shot in the scope of a reprisal measure, but not because they had been suspected of sabotage.
Q. In this Exhibit 220 there are notes about telephone conversations. Are these notes by your staff?
A. No. Strangely enough, these are long-distance telephone calls made by the staff of Army Group E at a time when the new organization was already in force. Army Group E was in Saloniki, whereas my staff was in Belgrade.
Q. How do you explain that file notes by different staffs were compiled into one document?
A. I cannot explain it at all. I simply don't understand it.
Q. Now, about Exhibit 221, on Page 21 in the English Document Book. Did you know that teletype letter at the time?
A. I probably knew it.
Q. What about Exhibit 223, which is on Page 24 of the English Document Book?
A. That I also probably knew.
Q. It's on Page 39 in the German Book. In this Exhibit 223, which is on Page 24 of the English Book and Page 31 of the German Book we have a teletype letter showing the total losses of the insurgents forces on Page 2 of the document. Now, what can you tell us about these relatively high figures, bearing in mind that here we are concerned with only about 13 days during the period of time when this report was drawn up?
A. No, that's a mistake. The total figure applies to the whole year.
Q. You mean the total number of insurgents shot in combat or as reprisals up to the 8th of September 1942?
A. That's the total figure between August, 1941, and September, 1942.
Q. You mean the figure of 52,362?
A. Yes.
Q. What I mean are the smaller figures higher up on that page They concern the period of time between the 25th of August and the 8th of September 1942 don't they?
A. Well, there was considerable fighting going on at the time, which cannot be seen from this report, or at least not from the document because only fragments of the whole report are reproduced here.
Q. And here again you have this contract that very few people have been shot in reprisal --only 37.
A. How many?
Q. Thirty-seven.
A. Captured and arrested 3,325.
Q. Finally reference is made in this document to deliveries of grain from Serbia. It says that these grain deliveries were not possible. Who decided that grain should be delivered from Serbia to Greece?
A. What agency in the Reich decided on this I cannot say. It was either the Minister of Food or somebody working on the Four-year Plan, but certainly not the Armed Forces Commander Southeast -- not a military agency.
Q. Were you at least able to have any influence on these things?
A. We have attempted time and again to send food to Greece from our own area, but we had not the power to do so. We had to file applications, and they were decided on according to the situation.
Q. Will you now please look at Exhibit 225, Witness, which is on Page 28 of the English Document Book. The heading is the Fuehrer and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and it deals with the annilation of enemy sabotage troops. Is that what is known as the Commando Order?
A. No, this is not the Commando Order. This is a letter by Hitler to Commanders-in-Chief and Commanding Officers which gives the reasons why the Commando Order was issued.
Q. Who read that letter?
A. I don't know for certain. I assume that my Commanding Officer received it and probably he also showed it to me at the time.
Q. Can you still remember the actual Commando Order?
A. No, not the details, but the Commando Order as such and its essential contents, yes.
Q. Did you see the Commando Order among the documents of the Prosecution?
A. No.
Q. What were the contents of the Commando Order as you remember?
A. The contents were concerned, to put it briefly, with the fact that in the future so-called sabotage and Commando units were to be killed in fighting. These were sabotage and Commando units which had landed from the Sea or had parachuted down from an air-craft.
Q. What was done with these units?
A. They were to be killed in combat. They were not to be taken prisoner.
Q. Was this Commando Order passed on by your Commander in Chief to his subordinates?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you Commanding Officer or you yourself have any misgivings about passing on that order?
A. General Loehr was fully aware of the character of this order, and he discussed this fact with me. It was this order particularly which showed, on the one hand, that in the order something was wrong. The reasons given in this document here were, I must admit, extremely impressive. What the sabotage units did, the way they conducted themselves, using both uniforms and civilian clothes, and therefore appearing as soldires or as civilians, depending upon how the fighting went, was not in order either in our opinion. Now, the Commander in Chief was faced with the problem. On the one hand he had the demand of unconditional obedience, which applies to a soldier at all times anywhere; and, on the other hand, there is no such thing as conditional obedience; he had the feeling that all was not well. On the one hand, the extremely harsh punishment connected with the order that every one who would not act according to those lines laid down in the orders would be treated, as it was ordered for the Commandos.
That is to say, he himself would be shot. And, on the other hand, the clear realization that if the order would not be passed on, there would be in the place of Loehr within two days a man of whom Hitler would have known, "He's going to do what I want him to do." Then from my own point of view, I was not responsible whether or not this order was passed on, but was I to guide Loehr into a strong case of disobedience with all the consequences which were threatening his own person and, as we know, for his family?
THE PRESIDENT: We will take our afternoon recess at this time.
(A recess was taken)
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the Courtroom will find their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed.
DEFENDANT HERMANN FOERTSCH DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. RAUSCHENBACH:
Q. Witness, before recess, we had started discussing the so-called Commando Order and that on the basis of Exhibit 225 on page 41 of the German text and page 28 of the English Document Book. You have already said that this Exhibit 225 does not represent the actual Commando Order but it is a communication by Hitler to the Commandersin-Chief giving the reasons for this Commando Order and you have further described that the then Commander-in-Chief General Loehr and you yourself saw yourselves faced with a certain conflict on the basis of this Commando Order and especially concerning the passing on of this Commando Order. You have told us why this order had to be passed on in spite of these facts and to what extent it was justified according to the reasons which Hitler gave. Now take, for example, if this order had not been passed on at all, what would have happened? Would it have been made known to the subordinate units in any case?
A. Yes, it would have certainly been made known. In Hitler's reasons which are shown here in this document and which are also contained in the order itself, as far as I remember, it was clearly announced that this procedure was to be publicized. The units therefore would have gained knowledge of it in any case.
Q. Before the recess, you have told us, witness, that on the basis of this Commando Order of Hitler, one could maintain different opinions, what I mean is that there were certain justifications for this Commando Order, Do you mean the following passage in Hitler's communication contained in Exhibit 225?