DR. FRITSCH: If the Tribunal please, might I suggest that this would be a good moment to make the recess?
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: I will agree with you. We will recess until one-thirty.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is in recess until 1330 hours.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 29 October 1947)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
PRESIDING JUDGE CARTER: You may proceed.
LOTHAR RENDULIC - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. FRITSCH (Counsel for Defendant Rendulic):Q.- General, we were discussing the order of the 15th of September and in particular we spoke of its origin and we had been speaking of details to show that the order was a summary of former orders.
We had already discussed some points and now I want to ask you to look at paragraph 3 of numeral 5.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honors, I am speaking of Document Volume XIV. The exhibit number is 340. It is on page 10 in the German book and on page 13 in the English book.
Q.- Have you found it?
A.- Yes, I have.
Q.- Would you look at the third paragraph of numeral 5, please? Are the rules contained in it taken from a previous order and if so which?
A.- The very nature of the order reveals that it represents a summary of previous orders. It has been impossible for me among the documents to find an order for the Croat area which would be in accordance with paragraph 2, but I have found that this paragraph 3 in the last sentence of the paragraph is entirely identical with Exhibit 263 in Volume X, page 77 in the German and page 101 in the English text. This is an order from the Commander of the German troops in Serbia issued in the Spring of 1943. There must have been an identical order for Croatia for otherwise I don't know how that passage in the order of the 15th of September could have been reproduced verbatim.
Q.- Please don't go into further detail concerning these matters but would you now have a look at numeral 6 of the order and would you tell us, please, with what previous order it is identical?
A.- Numeral 6 was taken verbatim from Exhibit No. 295 in Volume XII, page 53; that is page 60 in the English text, i.e. from numeral 7 of that order. The second paragraph of numeral 6 has been verbatim from numeral 4 of the order which I have just mentioned from the Commander of the German troops in Croatia.
Q.- We now come to numeral 7 of the order dated 15 September. Would you please take a look at Volume XII and would you open the book, please, on page 95. In the English text, it is page 113. The exhibit number is 306. The document has the number NOKW-155. Please have a look at numeral 4 and please compare it with numeral 7 of the order of the 15th of September. This concerns the evacuation of areas infested with partisans and the concentration of evacuated people in labor camps. General, would you tell us, please, whether in this case, too, we are concerned with a former order, an earlier order?
A.- I can say that numeral 7 of this order is entirely identical with numeral 4 of the Army group order contained in Volume VII and which we have just looked at, but there are two exceptions which I have found. In the first paragraph of numeral 7 of the army order it says that the evacuated people are to be concentrated in labor camps while in the order which was used it says further, "and as far as they are able to work they are to be moved to the Reich." That ruling was not incorporated in the Army order.
Q.- For what reason was that provision not included in the army order?
A.- The army was against transferring any manpower to the Reich. We did not know at all that in Germany labor might be regarded as slave labor. That was not the reason, therefore; but the reason was that in Croatia for the Croat government as well as for military purposes there was not enough manpower available.
Q.- You said that you needed manpower for military purposes. Do you know the provisions from the Hague Land Warfare Convention and did you know it at the time, according to which the employment of the civilian population for military purposes is not admissible?
A.- Naturally, I know and I do know now the provisions of the Hague Land Warfare Convention in this sphere but those provisions could not possibly be applied to the population of Croatia. Croatia was a state which was friendly to us and which was allied to us. The enemies of Croatia were our enemies, too, and vice versa. If, therefore, the Croat civilian population was used for work for military purposes it meant that they worked for the defense of their own country against the common enemy and work of that type cannot be regarded as inadmissable within the meaning of the Hague Land Warfare Convention.
Q.- Would you turn to the second paragraph of numerals 4 and 7, please? The first paragraph we have just discussed. Are these identical?
A.- They are entirely identical with the exception of the order concerning the areas to be evacuated where it says in the Army Group Order that strips along the Coast are also to be evacuated. That clause was not incorporated in the Army order and it was not incorporated for tho reason that we were faced with the immediate task of erecting defenses along the coastline and the evacuations which were connected with that defense work were such a complicated affair that it could not be settled in a few words, but a separate order was required.
Q.- General, were any changes made later on in this order?
A.- Yes, there were, In January of 1944 the directives were rescinded the directives concerning reprisals ratios.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honors, in connection herewith may I refer you to an entry in the Diary of the LXIIXth Corps? This document has been submitted as Exhibit 377. It is contained in Document Book XVI. In the German text the page number is 95; and in the English text it is 43. The English page is 95. In this order it says, and I quote: "The reprisal ratio orderd in the Army order of 15 September is revoked with immediate effect." It was Document Book XVI, Your Honors, the page number is 43.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. General, would there have been an changes in the situation if that order of the 15th of September had not been issued by the Army?
A. If that order had not been issued the situation would not have been changed, as that order did not contain a single novel ruling. At the utmost the ameliorations mentioned in the order would not have put into effect. For the troops the order amounted to a simplification, and that simplification showed itself even here in this Courtroom. I am convinced that Generals Leyser and Dehner in just figuring and explaining happenings in their areas will invoke that order and will have to invoke that order. For them, too, it is simpler to invoke merely that one rather than a large number of orders.
Q. I'm reverting once again to that question of transferring manpower to the Reich. You have given us a reason as to why you were against the transfer of man-power to the Reich. Will you now please turn to Document Book XIV again, and will you open it on page 15, please? In the English text it is Page 21; the Exhibit No. is 340, and the document No. is NOKW-509.
General, would you please tell me in connection with this document to what extent your ideas concerning that transfer of man-power to the Reich were meant to be expressed?
A. This document is an order from the LXIXth Corps, dated the 6th of October 1943. In paragraph 1, that is in the last sentence of that paragraph, it is stated expressly that the Army has ordered that captured members of bands, hostages, and evacuees, until further notice, are not to be transferred.
That order was not part of the Army order of 15th of September. Therefore, there must have been another order in this connection, and it is regreatable that order is not to be found among the documents. I would point out in particular that the Army itself ordered, contrary to the OKW order of 7 June 1943, not to transfer captured members of bands. In paragraph 2 i.e. in the third paragraph of this numeral 2, it becomes quite evident that the evacuees who were given work were regarded as free workers. From that, one has to conclude that even though evacuees were employed as workers their work was not considered compulsory labor in the bad moaning of the word.
Q. Would you now please take Document Book XVI and would you open it please to Page 143? In the English text it is Page 97; it is Exhibit No. 394. The document No. is NOKW-1418. Isn't it true that this document shows that branches of the Army did transfer man-power?
A. Yes, this document shows that captured members of bands were transferred, and that this according to the meaning of the OKW order probably took place in some cases. But the XVth Corps was against that are prohibited any further transfers in accordance with the ideas which the Army also upheld in the same respect. The date is noticeable--the date of this order. It was issued on the 20th of June 1944. That is to say, it was issued three days before I left the Balkans. And if we take a look at the order of the 6th of October, the order of the LXIXth Corps, the time when I arrived in the Balkans, those orders cover almost the whole time of my stay in the Balkans, and they show that all the time I adhered to my policy of not transferring man-power to the Reich.
Q. I now want to turn to a specific case. That is the operation which has been called the "Panther Operation," P-A-N-T-H-E-R. It is mentioned under Count 4 of the Indictment, numeral 14-f. Would you please turn to Document. Book XIV and would you please first open it to Page 109? The English page number is 137. This is part of the Exhibit No. 361.
Tho document number is NOKW-1258. In the lower half of the page you find a teletype message. How did that operation come about?
A. The XVth Corps had made a request to carry out an operation to smash the bands, to destroy their supply bases, and to deport these people who were able to bear arms. The area concerned was the so-called Samarica. That was an area notorious for band activities which for sometime had not been entered by German troops. The most important place was Glina.
Q. General, in the same Document Book would you please turn to Page 114? The English page is 142. This is part of Exhibit 363. The document No. is NOKW-074. It refers to the report from the Corps about the smashing of bands?
A. Yes, in Paragraph 2, under numeral I as a further purpose of the operation it says that it was intended to establish greater security for Zagreb, Sisak, and Novska, the main railroad line.
Q. General, what interests me is whether the corps needed permission to carry out their operations.
A. In principle, no. As a rule the corps just reported what they intended to do and then reported their results; otherwise, everybody had to be independent. But in this case the forces of the corps were not adequate, and the last document indicates that it was intended that troops should participate in this operation which did not belong to the corps, as, for instance, the Cossack and the 37th Division, which was there temporarily.
Q. Did the Army agree with the operation, and if not why not?
A. Naturally the Army agreed with the operation. It agreed with the intentions. The reasons were the following: The Samarica area was an area which had caused insurmountable difficulties because of the fact that it was infested with bands and for a relatively long period it had not been entered. In that area there were large supply stores, there were work-shops. Furthermore, it was known that the partisans had recruited men from among the population who were able to bear arms. And when these men didn't come voluntarily reprisals were applied.
Furthermore, frequent surprise attacks were made from that area on the roads, and particularly on the railroad, and at that time it was very difficult to surmount these conditions. For that reason, one definitely had to approve of the operation.
Q. And what about the evacuation of the population that was able to carry arms?
A. That, too, was an exigency, for it was necessary to take away from the partisans their reserves of recruits and the evacuation of the population from the areas which were infested with bands was in accordance with the existing orders. All I can say here is that these orders were carried out only in very cases because, as you will see here, in the "Panther Operation" the actual carrying out of such measures was raced with insurmountable difficulties.
Q. I would now like to turn to the letter from the Second Panther Army to the General Plenipotentiary in Croatia. That is contained in Document Book XIV, Exhibit No. 362. The document No. is NOKW-022. The Page No. is 112 in the German text and in the English text it is 139. What was the purpose of that letter? And why did you have to contact the German General Plenipotentiary?
A The purpose of the letter was to inform the German Plenipotentiary General in Croatia concerning the operation that was planned. The most important part refers to evacuation, for the evacuation was purely a matter for the Territorial Commanders to deal with and for the Croatian authorities. In that sphere the Army could merely make applications, and this letter does not even constitute an application, but it is merely a suggestion. And you find that in the last sentence of the letter. The last sentence says. "The evacuation of the ablebodied population for forced labor," and there is an addition there, "to Germany is considered advisable." That is merely a suggestion. As to why that suggestion was added there, that I cannot explain to myself. After all, the previous statements show that the Army had always been against transferring man-power to the Reich. In trying to look for an explanation I can only imagine that the population in that notorious Samaritc area probably was working hand in hand with partisans, because that area, during the last eighteen months, prior to this period, has been cleaned up three times, and three times it had been quickly reorganized as a partisan area. And that would have been impossible without the help of the population. Perhaps that was the reason why one wanted to evacuate those people, just as the Greek Government finds it much easier today. Their unreliable elements are simply sent away to an island. We couldn't do anything of that kind at the time, but the last sentence, concerning the transfer of people intended to be put to work, is just a theory. Well, if that sentence had not been there, I mean it that sentence had not been added to this letter, that would not have changed the over-all situation in any way.
Q. General, under Numeral 2 of that teletype, the Plenipotentiary General is asked to keep the matter secret from the Croat authorities. Would you please tell us the reason for that?
A It was known that all Croat agencies, right up to the entourage of the Poglavnik, were infiltrated with Tito's followers. It was proved that what was imparted to the Croat authorities reached the partisans in no time. In that way the aim of many of those operations was frustrated, and, furthermore, those operations, as soon as the partisans had been warned, were always connected with mounting losses.
Q Do you mean to say by that that request to keep matters secret did not refer to the evacuation as such?
A Noo that was not the sole reason, but it referred to the operation as such. The evacuation was included. It was one of the purposes of the operation as such.
Q Have you had any proof to show that the Croat agencies did not keep matters secret?
A We had proofs for leakages for such a long time, until we established the principle not to notify the Croate agency of any matters that had to be kept secret at a time at which it might have resulted in danger.
Q General, would you now please turn to Document Book XV, Exhibit 371, Page 87 in the German text, and Page 61 in the English text.
A Yes, a teletype message from the XVth Corps, to the 2nd Panzer Army which says, "The search operation ordered for the 20th of January in the city area of Banja-Luka has had no particular result on account of a premature spreading of the news through the Croat authorities.
Q In this connection may I also refer to Exhibit 391, NOKW790, in Document Book XVI? The English page is No. 89; the German page is No. 139. The text refers to a similar matter as the one with which we have just dealt with. That is to say, matters of the same kind become known prematurely. General, would you please take Document Book XIV? We are talking of the "Panther Operation." It is Page 141 of the English and Page 112 of the German. The Exhibit No. is 363, NOKW-074. The Page No. is 141 in the English text. This is the reply from the General Plenipotentiary in Croatia to the teletype message which we have just discussed concerning the affair of evacuating able-bodied men. There are figures here. What was it that interested the Army?
A Well, what interested them was the number of able-bodied men giver here, because the figure was considerable higher than the estimate of the Army. Also, in the reply the General Plenipotentiary suggested that not all should be evacuated but only a small group of suspected people who did not belong to the local population. Furthermore, there is an application that the population should be screened and that some SD groups should be employed on the jobs of screening.
Q General, before we continue here I want to just discuss briefly the question of the SD and the relations with the Army from your point of view. I only want to touch briefly on it. For one thing, was the SD subordinated to the Army?
A No, it wasn't. The Army did not have the SD at its disposal. In Croatia the SD was subordinated to the Plenipotentiary of the Reich fuehrer SS. And he in turn was subordinated immediately to Himmler; however, the SD had instructions by its superior agencies to comply with the requests of Army formations if it was a matter of screening population that was under suspicion of being in touch with the bands. The troops did not have a properly trained staff at their disposal for such screening. I want to emphasize that the SD, at the time, seemed to us to be a Reich agency, which had its own separate sphere of activity and that we could take no steps against them. All those things which we have come to learn during recent trials concerning certain branches of the SD were naturally not known to us at the time.
Q: Did the SD have any other importance for the troops and for the army than is revealed here?
A: Apart from screening the population, it was the task of the SD to carry out political intelligence work. The SD had instructions to report to the military agencies on the results of their intelligence activity. In that way, we received many a report which was of interest to us.
Q: Did the army or the troops entertain any other relations with the SD?
A: No. I can't imagine what relations there might have been. In my area they only cooperated in screening and in supplying us with intelligence, and we could not have had the slightest misgivings about those two tasks of the SD.
THE PRESIDENT: What was the size of the SD organization?
A: I don't know. I never saw an SD man. About the SD, I only knew what it says in documents of this kind.
Q: There apparently was a conflict of authority between the army and the SD in some respects, and these various other organizations. Is that not correct?
A: Not in my area. I know nothing about that. The SD there led a life which was entirely isolated from the Wehrmacht and only in cases such as this -- that is the screening of population -- did we request the SD agency in question to cooperate.
Q: They were of a police nature, were they not? Am I correct in that?
A: The SD you mean?
Q: Yes.
A: I am really not in a position to give authentic information concerning the tasks of the SD.
Q: Very well.
BY DR. FRITSCH: Would you now please turn to Book 16, Exhibit 376, NOKW-657, page 92, in the English text it is page 40.
This is an order from the 69th Reserve Corps dated the 24th of December, 1943. It contains the principles for the work of the SD, for the troops. General, would you please read out paragraph II?
A. Paragraph II: If in the course of an operation. "Civilians are arrested who are suspected of band activity and if the troops and the staffs do not have at their disposal the necessary properly trained personnel to interrogate these suspected persons and to screen then, then there is nothing against asking for the cooperation of the SD. But the civilians remain prisoners of the Wehrmacht and according to the result of the interrogation, they are to be treated as the civilians under Section I. The SD is requested to comply with the requests from the Commanders of the Security Sections and/ or the Divisions for interrogations, etc. and to pass on the results of their investigations to the respective commander of the Security Sector. A transfer of the persons who have been arrested as being suspicious of band activity to the SD is not allowed."
Q. And now I am coming to Exhibit 378 on page 97, in the same book. It is page 45 in the English book. This too is a letter from the 69th Reserve Corps. By the way, the document number is NOKW-705. General, would you please read out the first sentence.
A. "The 32 hostages arrested in Golobinci on the 12th of December 1943, were released after they had been thoroughly interrogated by the SD at Ruma on the 15th of December, 1943, since there was no evidence for a friendly attitude towards the bands."
Q. May I use this opportunity to point out that Exhibit 295 in Book XII, German page 58 and English page 67, under V, contains similar statements. I am referring to a document introduced by the prosecution NOKW-1439. General, I am now coming to the end of my discussion of the Panther operation but before I finish, would you please take Book 14 and would you open it on page 102, please? In the English text, the page number is 129. That is an order from the Second Panther Army b which that army gives its consent for the Panther operation and informs the 15th Panzer Corps of that approval.
That term approval "Zustimmung"--is that of any significance?
A. Yes, it is. The first sentence of the order says "agree to proposal to carry out operation panther." The fact that I agreed with that proposal and informed the subordinate agency accordingly, that amounts to an order to carry out the operation. By that order, I assumed complete and exclusive responsibility for everything connected with the operation Panther. The Commanding General von Leyser is herewith relieved of all responsibility. That is the way one should understand this order. For the rest, the order indicates that that the army accepted the suggestion of the Plenipotentiary General in Zagreb for a reduction in the number of people to be evacuated.
Q. General, were people evacuated on that reduced scale?
A. Yes.
Q. I am now going to show you a document purely for the purpose of identifying it, and provisionally I am giving it the Number 3-A. This is my document Rendulic I, No. 28. Under I, it says "882 dead were counted. Many wounded people were taken along. 191 prisoners were taken. There were 21 deserters, 96 evacuated people. This document is a teletype message to the Panzer A.O.K. 2 and has the heading "Final report on the Panther." Will you please say something, particularly in regard to that figure--96 evacuees?
A. Well, it is very difficult to state my view. All one can tell from that figure is that the figure of 6,000 which was the estimate of the German General in Zagreb, finally was reduced to 96, and naturally one cannot be certain whether those 96 were actually taken to Germany, in connection with the suggestion made in the order. I remember that we had a great surprise in this matter. When we evacuated the area, when our troops evacuated it, large numbers of the people there came along with our troops voluntarily and did not want to wait for the partisans to come back. It was difficult for us to accommodate those people.
Q. May I now ask you to take Book 15, Exhibit 369, the Document Number is NOKW-1425, page 53. I cannot give you the English page number because that document has been handed to the Secretary General, but it has not been incorporated in the English Document book. I am referring to that passage which I have marked, - have you found it?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. May I point out that the English Document Book concerning the 6-1/2 pages report of the Cossack Division with which we are concerned here only contains a page-and-a-half. As I have already said the passage which the witness will witness will now read out is not contained in the English text. May I also point out that Glina, the small town which is mentioned here, was the biggest place in the partisan area? May I now ask you to read out the passage?
A. "As during the night of the 9th to the 10th the enemy tried again to take possession of a place between Glina and Gora, Glina was evacuated on the 11th according to plan." The word "Evacuated" seems wrong to me. One shouldn't say "Evacuate." One should say "abandon." "It was abandoned according to plan. Twothirds of the population of Glina (2,000) left the place, together with the Cossacks and are being accommodated in Petrinia."
Q. We will now turn to another matter. That is to say, we are now going to deal with the charge which has been made against you in the indictment under count 15-E. The prosecution maintains that approximately on the 30th of November, 1943, troops of the 100th Jaeger Division under the command and jurisdiction of the Second Panther Army, were ordered to arrest all Communists in the Albanian cities of Durazzo and Shijak and to take then into the concentration camp Semlin.
Please, General, would you take Book 13? Please, General, would you turn to page 102, the English page is 132. The Exhibit Number is 134. The document Number is being NOKW-951. This is an extract from the War Diary of the 21st Army Corps General, would you please comment on the last paragraph?
A Intentions, plans of the 21st Mountain Corps are being discussed here. There had been a discussion between the Ia of the Corps and a Regimental Commander of the 297th Division. This diary I have never seen because such diaries of subordinates units did not come to our knowledge. But on the basis of my general knowledge of conditions, I can only say that in the ports along the Mediterranean Coast there were a particularly large number of unsafe elements, and I can say that those unreliable, unsafe elements constituted a particular danger and were bound to constitute a particular danger just in places where one had to make the coast ready for defense, and it was impossible that they should stay within the operational area. Later on. the OKW ordered the evacuation of the entire coastline, in order to improve opportunities for defense; that the unreliable elements were removed from that area is, I think, a matter of course. And it was never regarded as anything else.
Q Did the corps ask the Army for approval of that measure?
A No, it didn't. The 21st Corps was stationed in Albania and the whole of Albania was within the area. That evacuation or that removal of unreliable elements was purely a matter for the Corps to deal with. If the Corps, however, has requested permission and if it had believed that it required such a permission, I would not have hesitated for one moment to grant such permission.
Q Did you know that some of the people who had been arrested were taken to the concentration camp at Semlin?
A No, I couldn't know that. That was an entry concerning a discussion within the corps of which the army was never informed.
Nor did I know anything of a concentration camp at Semlin. On the basis of my present knowledge of the situation, I must say that that cannot have been a concentration camp in the bad meaning of the word but it was merely a transit camp of the police and the troops, a transit camp as the police and sometimes the troops have to establish them one of those camps the inventor of which was Lord Kitchener in the Boer War.
Q By that you want to say that riesing the matter from a theoretical angle you would have had nothing against those people being taken to that so-called concentration camp:
A No. I would not have had anything against it, nor could I have had anything against it, for those people had to be removed from Albania. Perhaps they could have been distributed among the various places. There were only a few of such places in the mountain zone. That plane in Albania almost the whole of that plane was within the operational area, but all those places were terrorized by Communist bands and naturally were they much against the Communists. If those evacuees, those unreliable elements had been distributed among those places, in view of the customs of the Albanians with which I am familiar, they would have been murdered in no time at all.
If I may say this, the concentration camps which are admissible according to the literature on international law, the purpose of those concentration camps is described as two-fold: first to seclude unreliable elements from the rest of the world, and secondly to protect people from a worsefate. Those two purposes, those two recognized purposes of concentration camps apply fully to those Albanian Communists.
Q May I now ask you once again to turn to Book 13 and will you open it on page 22 in the German text? This is page 32 in the English text. The exhibit Number is 318, your Honor. May I draw your attention to a slight translation error? Under II, the last paragraph, it says in the German text, "Gross-Kazzier'- large scale operation; in the English, it says "Gross-Razzio" - Razzia" is a German word which means an operation, but of course you might think here that a place called "Gross-Razzio", is meant.
What it means in fact is a large -scale operation. What we are referring to here is an operation on a large scale.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Did they mistake it for geographical area.
DR. FRITSCH: Yes, your Honor. To clear up this matter, may I read out that one passage in the first line of page 32 of the English text? In the course of large-scale operation Durazzo and Shijak, so far 300 Communists and 50 Italian soldiers arrested."
That is the text as it should be.
BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q General, would you continue?
A We can also see that a Communist Printers' Plade and Arms Depot were found. There is no doubt as we can see here that that operation was justified. This daily report, however, was the only information which the army obtained about the whole affair.
Q That clean-up of the coast concerning unsafe elements -was that also carried out in Dalmatia?
A Yes, it was but it was mainly the Croatian police who did it.
Q Would you please turn now to Book 16? I am referring to Exhibit 384, the page number is 112 in the German text, and in the English text it is page 65. The Document Number is NOKW-1339. This is part of the report on the activities of the Secret Field Group Police. It is a statistical report. I want to ask you whether that Group was subordinate to the Army?
A. Whether that group was subordinate to the Army, I don't remember, but at any rate part of the German Secret Field Police was subordinate to the Army.
Q. Did you hear of the screenings which are mentioned in the report or was that report submitted to you directly?
A. This report and all reports from the Secret Field Police, as far as they did not deal with military matters, I never say. The Secret Field Police Group, or whatever the unit was, I don't know, was subordinate to Ic/AO. It received its instructions through the routine channels, just as the Ic/AO got his instructions from certain sectors of the intelligence service or the reconnaissance service of the Intelligence Department of OKW. Those reports of the Secret Field Police which dealt with members of the Wehrmacht, and that was one of the tasks of the Secret Field Police to investigate charges against members of the Armed Forces, etc. All those reports did reach me, and I read them through very carefully.
Q. General, just to clarify the matter would you tell us what that addition to Ic, that is "AO" means?
A. That is a sub-section of Section Ic. A sub-section which deals with reconnaissance matters, and with preventing enemy espionage. "AO" is the abbreviation for counter-intelligence officer (Abrochreffizier).
Q. Before you mentioned of the various channels of command, in particular in connection with these matters may I ask you in place of abstract explanations to tell me here what you told me before as an example?
A. Well, I will give you an example for the complicated situations in which an individual might find himself on account of the parallel situation in subordination. At the place where my Hq. was located in Serbia, in Voljacka-Banja, if occasionally I had the time I used to go for a walk by myself and I noticed a non-commissioned officer of the field gendarme and he was always close to me, and it was always the same noncommissioned officer, and one day I asked the man, "have you nothing to do? What are you doing here?" and he replied, "The Chief of the Secret Field Police has ordered me to escort you, son that nothing happens to you."
I ordered the head of the Secret Field Police to stop this. It was only later that I understood the way he looked at me. He looked at me and then went away. A few days later I noticed the same civilian was always close to me, and finally in my broken Serbian I asked him, "What do you want? What are you doing here?" and in German he replied, "I am the non-commissioned officer so and so, Wachtmeister so and so, and have been ordered to protect you so nothing happens to you." I said, "Who ordered you to escort me?" He said, "It was the Chief of the Secret Field Police. I was somewhat furious, and when I got back called the man to me and said, "What am I to do with you, you don't imagine I will tolerate it if you disobey my orders?" and the man said, "General, what can I do, I have orders from the Chief of the Army Field Police to take care of your safety If anything happens to you I would be shot for disobedience, and on the other hand you firbid me to have you guarded. I don't know what I am supposed to do." To get rid of that shadow I had to contact the chief of the Army Field Police, and get him to tell that little man who was my subordinate, and order him or rather withdraw the order which he had previously given him. Perhaps that example will serve to explain the complicated parallel situation in command.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, concerning relations with the Secret Field Police, I would like to call your attention to the fact that in Book 12, Exhibit 295, German page 60, the English page 69, there is a communication dated July 1943, that is to say prior to the time when the Second Panzer Army came to the Balkans. The report is worded in a manner very similar to the report which we have just discussed, and you will note that that concerns the method which we chose sometime ago.
Q. General, I now want to go over to another problem, that is the so-called Commando Order. In Count III, numeral 128, in that count the Prosecution charges you with having passed on the so-called Commando Order to your troops and having carried it out; would you please say something concerning that charge?