Do you know this order?
A Yes, I know this order. I signed it myself as a deputy.
Q From the contents of this order it can be seen that you wanted to strengthen the defense of the islands. Which were the measures you considered necessary for this purpose? In your opinion was there an absolute necessity for these measures?
A There was an absolute necessity for these measures. The Army ordered the Corps concerned, which were stationed near the coast: 1) that the entire maleable-bodied population of the Adriatic islands were to be transferred to the mainland immediately and 2) in the event of a landing the evacuation of the territory immediate adjacent to the coast was to be prepared, this territory was to be cleared of all the population.
Q Was this a matter purely for the Army to decide?
A No, the consent of the Croatian Government had to be secured for these measures, and it is quite obvious that in this case the Croatian Government had consented. The Second Panzer Army had here, as in all other similar cases, to let the Croatian agencies participate in its measures.
Q And how were the Croatian agencies contacted?
A They were contacted as ordered through official channels by the Plenipotentiary German General in Croatia. He contacted the Criatian ministeries concerned.
In this case I suppose it was the Croatina Ministry for Armed Power which he contacted. And may be one or two other mysteries.
Q Colonel, the evacuation order dated the 13th of February 1944 which you talked about before was this order actually carried out at all--at any time?
A No, the order was not carried out in this form, because at the conclusion of my activity in the Balkans, which was the fall of 1944, there were able-bodied men in the Dalmation Islands.
The order for the evacuation was something of an ideal solution which never was achieved in actual fact. This aim was attempted in the endeavor to achieve as much security as possible in the coastal areas.
The second Panzer Army fully realized that this attempted optimum could never be fully achieved if alone for technical reasons.
Q Which are the technical reasons you mean?
A There was above all the transport situation. We did not have sufficient shipping space, nor did we have the necessary number of trucks and gasoline, etc. Besides, the airplane situation was already very unfavorable for us in those days. It was not possible to carry out large scale movements of ships or of motor vehicles by day at that time.
Q And how was this order actually carried out?
A Only part of the able bodied male population was evacuated from the Dalmation Islands. As I have already stated, I know that as late as the fall of 1944, able-bodied male population remained in these islands. To the best of my recollection, only a small part of the population to be evacuated, so that the bulk of the population remained in the islands. As far as able bodied male population was evacuated, it worked later on under Croatian organizations.
Q Colonel, you still have Document Book 16 of the Prosecution in front of you, haven't you? Please look at page 146 which is page 101 of the English text. This is document NOKW 1445. It is Exhibit 395. This is an entry into the war diary, made by the 15th Corps and you can see from this entry that 5,000 men, fit for military service, have to be evacuated from the Split. Is this entry known to you and what made this measure necessary? Just in Split.
A Split was a particularly endangered locality near the Coratian coast. Because of its terrain, it almost invited an enemy landing. Split is one of the few Dalmation ports which is suitable for larger vessels. The population of Split contained, according to our information, a large number of band members or of men fit for military service whose attitude was friendly towards the Allies. In the event of sudden Allied landing which was to be expected at any time these men would mean a considerable danger for countering the enemy landings. Therefore, it was an absolute military necessity to evacuate Split of these elements.
Q And what was the extent of the evacuations that actually took place?
A The evacuations could only be carried out to a small extent because the screening of the population with respect to band members band suspects, etc., of course, took a long time. I consider it improbable that more than about two thousand men were evacuated from Split, if even this number was achieved.
Q Colonel, now to deal with some other questions. Is the socalled Commissar Order known to you?
A Yes.
Q In your opinion, did the Commissar Order apply to the theater of war in the Balkans?
A No, I don't believe it was for this theater. Apart from that, the time when I came to the Balkans, which was at the same time when the Second Panzer Army got to the Balkans, it had already been rescinded.
Q Please, have another look at Document Book 16. Will you turn to Page 112 in this document book, which is page 65 of the English text. This is document NOKW 1339, Exhibit 384 of the prosecution. Will you briefly tell us, first of all, what this document is?
A This is a page taken from an activity report of a Group of the Secret Field Police. The report is made out for the month of February, 1944.
Q And what was the purpose of these activity reports?
A The paper which I have hear is not actually an activity report. It is just part of such an activity report. On the whole activity reports were to give account of the activity of one agency for a certain period of time.
Q Colonel, we are then here concerned with a statistic survey. How was the Army interested in this activity report?
A From my point of view, it couldn't be interested in it at all and it also could have no influence on these things. As far as the activity reports of the Secret Field Police were concerned, I was only interested in the passages concerning the atmosphere among the troops which could for instance, be seen from the censorship of the letters written by the soldiers, and of a survey of the criminal acts committed by the troops. Of course, I was also interested in the enemy situation as far as it could be reported by the Secret Field Police. In respect to police measures that were taken by the Secret Field Police, on their own initiative, this could not be influenced in any way by the Army and this seems to be such a summary of police measures. I would like to point out here that the Secret Field Police had two channels of command, one of which, the factual and police channel was completely independent of the Army.
Q Colonel, I have a few more questions of a general nature to put to you. Are you familiar with the entries into the war diaries?
A Yes, I am.
Q Can you tell us briefly how these war diaries were drawn up?
A The war diary was kept by the ADC (aide do camps). This was one of the many tasks which the ADC had. Usually a younger reserve officer was in charge of this war diary. For this purpose, he had all kinds of notes concerning conferences, long distance telephone conversations, etc., and thus he complied a draft for a war diary in the little time his other activities left him. These drafts for war diaries as, for instance, the draft by the operational department, were then submitted to me as the Ia. Unfortunately, they accumulated to a great extent before I found the time to even given them a cursory glance, on the whole, I approved them en masse. The Chief of Staff found himself in the very same position because the war diaries of several departments of the Army High Command accumulated on his desk.
It was quite impossible for him to work thoroughly through all of them and he could not do it if his staff had to cope with much work.
Q Colonel, my question actually is driving at the following had these ADC's (aide de camps), who were actually in charge of these war diaries, undergone a particular training?
A No. They were in no way particularly trained.
Q Can you tell us anything with respect to the objectiveness of these war diary entries?
A I am sure that the ADC's tried to be objective. However, their youthful exuberance and their endeavor to emphasize the achievements of their own troops and to describe as drastically as possible the difficulties of their own theater of war, as well as their insufficient training, influenced the war diaries with regard to the objectiveness. In my opinion, this influence was an unfavorable one in many instances.
Q And now, one more question. What was approximately the extent of the mail received daily with the second Panzer Army?
A There might have been about six hundred to eight hundred documents that were received daily.
Q And about how many pages roughly?
A Something like two thousand pages.
Q There are no further questions which I want to put at the moment to this witness on direct examination.
THE PRESIDENT: You may examine the witness, Dr. Laternser.
BY DR. LATERNSER:
Q. May it please the Tribunal, there are only a few questions that I want to put to the witness, on behalf of Field Marshal von Weichs. Colonel, in connection with the last point which you discussed with my colleague Dr. Fritsch, the point concerning the war diaries, there is one further question I want to put to you. Do you mean to say then that the contents of the war diary actually represent the opinion of the Aide de Camps or did it occur at the time that the Chief of Staff or the Ia or even the Commander in Chief dictated ..........
MR. RAPP: Your Honor, I object to this line of questioning; Dr. Laternser is asking the witness leading questions so that the witness may definitely pick any answer he like to.
DR. LATERNSER: May it please the Tribunal, I have included so many possibilities in this question that no one can say it is a leading question.
THE PRESIDENT: Objection will be overruled.
BY DR. LATERNSER:
Q. Colonel, I will now ask you then to please answer this question.
A. There was of course the possibility that the Ia or the Chief of Staff or a Commander in Chief could personally take an interest in the war diaries. I testified only to my own personal experiences and of course I have no insight as to what happened in other agencies where I did not work.
Q. Did you at any time experience the case that a Chief of Staff or even a Commander in Chief interested himself personally in the keeping of the war diaries and their content?
A. As I have said previously I have not experienced any such instances.
Q. Colonel, in your area were there any Commando operations?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you give us examples for these operations?
A. There were on the Island of Lissa in the Adriatic Sea, British Commando troops. These troops carried out constantly or at least frequently, Commando Operations against our bases on the Dalmatian Coast.
Q. Do you remember one specific example in this connection?
A. Yes, I remember one outstanding example where we succeeded in capturing a close relative of the then British Prime Minister Churchill. I remember this incident because I happened to gain possession of a photostat where the then First Lieutenant Churchill expresses his thanks for the very decent treatment which he had received.
Q. Lt. Colonel Churchill; not First Lieutenant.
A. Yes.
Q. Do you still have a photostat of this communication?
A. No, unfortunately I do not have it anymore because it was taken away from me when I was taken prisoner together with all my other documents.
Q. Do you know of any case where on the occasion of a Commando operation when prisoners were made members of this Commando were shot?
A. I don't remember one single case of that nature. But I do remember that we had considerable difficulties in camouflaging these British prisoners we made and which were all members of Commandos. We found it very difficult to camouflage their capture with respect to reports to Higher Headquarters in order to avoid inquiries.
Q. This leads me to one other point, Colonel. Do you know the expression "camouflaged reports"?
A. Yes.
Q. What did this term mean?
A. "Camouflaged reports" were reports which tried to circumvent the issue, an issue which could not be stated openly.
Q. Did these "camouflaged reports" occur frequently or not so very frequently?
A. In the Balkans they were unfortunately quite a frequent occurrence.
Q. And what was the reason for these camouflaged reports one preliminary question, though, Colonel. What did these camouflaged reports have reference to?
A. They referred to certain questions where the troops did not want to express anything definite to Higher Headquarters.
Q. Do you know of instances where these camouflaged reports referred to reprisal measures?
A. I cannot remember any details but I think it is quite probable that such reports were made, but I am not in a position to say anything in this connection.
Q. With your agency then, if I understand you correctly, it was well know that such camouflaged reports were sent from lower units to Higher Headquarters?
A. Yes.
Q. Was anything done against it?
A. No.
Q. Why not?
A. Because we saw ourselves forced to pass on such camouflaged reports to Higher Headquarters and therefore we were grateful when we received them from lower units already in this camouflaged form.
Q. Now one last point. Are any incidents know to you which took place in the Spring of the year 1944 which were allegedly caused by members of the SS Division Prinz Eugen?
A. Yes, I remember that the Croatian Government made representations to the Army because on the occasion of such an operation which took place on the West of the Narenta excesses had taken place on the part of the SS Division Prinz Eugen.
Q. Why do you use the term "excess"? What kind of incidents were concerned?
A. At that time it was said that inhabitants had been killed and villages burned down.
Q. Who received these reports?
A. The Army Headquarters received them.
Q. And what measures were taken as the result of these reports?
A. The Commander in Chief of the 2nd Panzer Army who in this respect was not the superior of the SS Division, approached the Commanding General of the Vth SS Corps, Obergruppenfuehrer Phelps; he asked him to conduct court martial investigation of these incidents.
Q. Why did he want investigations to be made; had the SS Division gone too far?
A. Yes, that had to be assumed by the Army on the basis of reports which the Army had received.
Q. The Army then assumed that the SS Division had gone too far?
A. Yes.
Q. And who was it that ordered the court martial procedure, rather I would like to put it this way, what was it that the Army ordered?
A. As I have said before the Commander in Chief of the Army approached the Commander in Chief of the Vth Corps and asked him to straighten out the matter by way of a court martial procedure.
Q. And what was the result of this request to the SS?
A. First of all the result was a negative one. What I mean is that the Commanding General of the Vth SS Corps informed the Army that it had been proved that none of the participants were guilty.
In the meantime, however, they Army had received some new material and rather incriminating material from the Croatian Government so that the Commanding General of the Vth SS Corps was again asked to make a court martial investigation. This was done and the result was that we actually found that some people were guilty and these people were punished.
Q. I have no further questions to put to the witness.
DR. WEISGERBER: Your Honor, I have no questions to put to the witness but I would like to make use of the time which we have before the adjournment, in order to ask you to excuse my client from being present at tomorrow morning's session. I would like to prepare his defense with him and I would like to ask you to also excuse him from Thursday's session of next week.
THE PRESIDENT: Do you have reference to the defendant you represent?
DR. WEISGERBER: Yes, that is correct, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: The request will be granted.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor I know there are some questions to be put by the Prosecution under cross-examination but in agreement with my colleagues who at the moment are in the Pohl case where the sentence is being read, I would like to ask you to finish one minute earlier today because at 4:30 they start reading the sentence in the Pohl case.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn at this time until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal recessed until 0930 hours tomorrow morning.)
Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Wilhelm List, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 4 November 1947, 0930. Judge Carter, 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 Courtroom.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain as to whether or not 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 Speidel, who is excused and the defendant von Weichs, who is in the hospital.
THE PRESIDENT: Judge Carter will preside at this session.
JUDGE CARTER: Is there any further examination by defense counsel?
DR. GAWLIK: (for General Dehner) ULRICH von VARNBUELER DIRECT EXAMINATION (continued) BY DR. GAWLIK:
Q Colonel, were Croatian elements under German command at all?
A Some of the Domobrans were for tactical purposes subordinate to German troops. The Ustasha was immediately under the Poglavnik.
Q What significance was there attached to the tactical subordination concerning possible excesses committed by the Croatian troops against the population?
A The German Commanders had no judicial authority over the Croatian troops. Therefore, they were not in a position to punish possible excesses by the Croats themselves. What they could do was to bring them to the notice of the Croatian military authorities in charge, and in the last analysis to the notice of the Croatian Ministry of Defense.
Q Were there any police units subordinate to the LXIX Corps?
A No, not that I remember.
Q Were the police units in Croatia at all under the German agencies?
A No.
Q Was Kammerhofer subordinate to an agency of the Army?
A No, Kammerhofer, as far as I know, was immediately under the Reichsfuehrer SS.
Q Were the police officials in charge of areas subordinate to the agencies of the Army?
A No.
Q Colonal, I want to show you a document from Document Book XVI. It is on page 16 of the German book. I am afraid I have not been able to trace the English page. This is Exhibit 375 and Document NOKW 658. In that document is under Roman numeral II-a mention of an Operation Kammerhofer. Was Kammerhofer in charge of that operation on orders and by the responsibility of the Amy?
A No, I think that is highly improbable. One can see form there that it was an operation on the initiative of Kammerhofer.
Q What was the reason why the operation Kammerhofer was made part of the daily report?
A It was the task of the corps to report all special occurrences in their area including those which had been carried out not by their own troops. This included without doubt this Operation Kammerhofer. On a number of occasions Kammerhofier carried out operations which would not have been brought to the notice of the Army without these reports by the troops.
Q Did the reports by the troops also include reprisal measures carried out by units which were not under the Corps?
A I am almost certain they were included. As I said before the Corps had to report all special occurrences which of course included reprisal measures. That means they had to report such reprisal measures as were carried out by police units which were not subordinate to them.
Q What was the significance of the railway line Zagreb-Belgrade?
A The Zagreb-Belgrade line was as it were the vital artery of Croatia.
The two lines leading to the Southern part towards the coast were dependent on it. Any disruption of the main line entailed as long as it lasted that all traffic and commerce along the line arrested and interrupted military transport. The consequence of these interruptions were above all that the economic life was badly interrupted, supply for the population, etc. At the same time, it made military measures more difficult though we could always use trucks to help out with an emergency.
Q Were there any sabotage acts committed against that railway line?
A Yes, frequently.
Q What do you know about the extent of these acts and their frequency?
A One might say they were nightly occurrences at all sorts of places of the railway line.
Q What can you tell us about the reports made by Croatinas concerning the attacks made by the cossacks?
A These Croatian reports were brought up on the principle that if you exaggerate you drive your point home.
Q What measures were taken against the Cossacks who were found guilty?
A Extremely harsh sentences were imposed.
Q Who caused the Cossacks to be punished?
A First the Divisional Commander. In special cases the Commanding General and the Army would step in. Anyway, these superior agencies such as Corps and the Army devoted special attention to these matters.
Q Did the Commanding General of the LXIX Corps make the application that the Cossacks would be taken away from the Balkans?
A I know that that application was made frequently.
Q Did the Army carry out labor assignment of Croatians in the Reich?
A No.
Q Did the units under the LXIX Reserve Corps carry out this labor assignment?
A No.
Q Did the LXIX Reserve Corps take any measures for sending labor forces to Germany?
A I cannot recall any such measure.
Q Now, I want to show you a document from Document Book 14, on page 13 of the German Book and Exhibit 340, NOKW 509, and I draw your special attention to paragraph VII in that document. This is what paragraph VII says:
"Male inhabitants aged from 15 to 60 years are to be evacuated from those band infested areas which are particularly important for the conduct of the war. At first they are to be collected in work camps under guard. The Army will order further employment for labor. The evacuations are to be executed by surprise action in order to avoid a previous flight of the population. Areas to be evacuated are: the country neighboring on important heights of passes and roads of passes, sectors along railroad tracks which are particularly in danger, etc." Let me ask you this, witness. Was this labor allocation to take place in Germany?
A No.
Q Was that labor allocation entailed by Army Military operations?
A No.
Q Did the Army carry out the order concerned in Para. VII concerning further labor allocation, or did the Army issue the order?
A I couldn't tell you that. That order must have come from the quarter master general.
Q Do you know anything about the fact an order of that kind was issued?
A No, I don't, because it was a matter entirely up to the quartermaster general.
Q What was the purpose of the evacuation as ordered in paragraph VII of this document?
AAs the second paragraph of the paragraph VII shows the areas to be evacuated were decided by military necessity for security reasons. The partisans, and especially what we call the House Partisans, used villages near such areas of military importance. They frequently deployed such villages for preparation of an operation and there they would cover up their retreat after an operation.
Q Was there in the area of the LXIX Corps my evacuation ever carried out?
A I cannot answer your question in that form conclusively, All I can say is that as is stated here, important parts, roads and heights or passes, did not exist within the area of the 69th Corps. What we were concerned with would have been an evacuation along particularly endangered railroad lines, particularly as far as the importance of the ZagrebBelgrade line is concerned I have stated my view, and it was that very railway line in particular of which I know from my own observation that in the autumn of 1944 the sector between Belgrade and Novska, which as I remember it, amounts to about four-fifths of the entire length of the line, had not been evacuated. There were inhabitants in the villages who still had all their goods and belongings.
DR. GAWLIK: Thank you very much. No further questions.
DR. MEULLER-TORGOW: (for General Felmy)
Q Witness, how did you know General Felmy?
A Since November 1944 I was Chief of the General Staff of the LXIX Corps, the Commanding General of which was General Felmy at that time.
Q Where was the LXIX Corps serving at the time?
A The LXIX Corps in November 1944 was serving in Eastern Syrmia between the mouth of the Drina and the Save and the Danube. Eastern Serbia is the Northeastern tip of Croatia. That area for about 200 years had been mainly populated by Germans.
Q What were the tasks of the LXVIII Corps during that period of time?
A The most important factor for the LXVIII Corps was to take action against a Russian attack which was expected in that part of Croatia, to intercept that attack and at the same time to protect the German elements living there against a possible Russian attack, also anti-Russian, Serbian and Croatian elements as far as they wished to do so themselves were to be evacuated. This was done at the insistance of the Croatian Government. Moreover, the economic evacuation of Eastern Serbia had been ordered in order to make it more difficult for the Russian advance to feed itself.
Q What was General Felmy's attitude towards that operation?
A General Felmy devoted his entire personality to this military task which he had been given. He equally devoted his energy to the fact that the evacuation of the population, which any soldier would dislike, and equally the economic evacuation, should be carried out without any unnecessary harshness. He therefore decided first that only the German population was to be lead back with their possessions. The non-German part of the population were only to be included as far as they wanted to be included themselves. In their own fighting zone only an area of five kilometers was to be evacuated altogether. That was a definite military necessity and it was also to serve the protection of the civilian population against the fighting conditions which in that area were particularly stringetn.
Q Was that evacuation then carried out?
A I am afraid I could not tell you that. Not at the time when I was with the Corps anyway. It was also ordered that the population that would remain behind were to be left with food supplies and such things, so that they could last out until the next harvest, and finally the local Croats and Serbo-Croatian authorities were to be used in order to avoid special hardships as much as possible. I do not think that any military commander in that position in which the Commanding General of the LXVIII Corps found himself at the time would have done more to make the fate of the population hit by the military situation as mild as possible.
Q Did General Felmy later on when his corps served in Hungary have the same point of view?
A Yes. The same applied at the time when the Corps was serving in Hungary. The only difference there is the evacuation measures when the corps reached Hungary were already under way.
Q Was it an easy talk to carry out all those measures, which you mentioned before, witness, if you bear in mind the situation of the time, or was the contrary the case?
AAll I can say is that the contrary was the case. It needed special efforts in that critical situation, when both command and troops were overworked, to carry out these measures in the same way I have described them. I would like to say that you needed a very special type of man for this.
The whole manner in which General Felmy carried out these things and directed them, his humanity which showed through all his actions always impressed us deeply.
Q Witness, what were the reasons which caused in December of 1944 the transfer of General Foley from the LXVIII to the XXXIV Corps?
A Differences existed between General Felmy and the superior agency. In the course of the fighting in Hungary, the LXVIII corps, which General Felmy commanded at that time, hold the Danube front from the convergence of the Drave and the Danube and that sector went along the Danube about 100 kilometers to the north. The Russians had established two bridge-heads, which could not longer be eliminated by the corps itself. On the contrary the Russians attacked the corps with far superior forces from these bridge-heads. In that situation General Felmy thought his own troops would be sacrificed uselessly and also in order to avoid that an unfillable gap would be drawn between the Army Southeast in the Balkans and the Army Group South in Hungary, he could do nothing but to intercept the Russian troops in mobile warfare. This is what he suggested to the 2nd Panzer Army, to his superiors, but they turned it down. Then there was the commanding general of the 2nd Panzer Army, who suddenly A November-M-IL-3-2-Meehan (Int.
Kurtz) appeared on the scene, who was General d'Angelis at that time, and he insisted that not an inch must be yielded, although he had been familiarized with the situation by myself and despite the consequences, which I saw would arise from the situation.
In the evening General Felmy returned from his visit to the troops, he decided in a conflict, between his obedience as a soldier and his responsibility as a leader, to take up mobile warfare. The reasons which moved him to do so I have explained. I drew General Felmy's attention to the fact that in all probability he would face a court martial next morning, he nevertheless persisted. He persisted even when in the further course of the operations, he kept receiving orders to hold out in certain fortified points as they were called, such as churches, etc. Apart from all these technical considerations, he was mainly influenced by his wish not to have one man of the German and Croatian and Hungarian troops under him sacrificed uselessly.
Q Did General Felmy carry out the economic destructions, which he had been orderee to do?
A These economic destructions were reduced to an absolute minimum, moreover there were no long lasting destructions, but merely brief interruptions were ordered. For instance the mines in the area of Fuenfkirchen were left sufficiently intact that after a short period of time it could be used by those who made a living from working in the mines. The mines, for instance in that area, could again employ from five to ten thousand workers. Of course, vital installations, like hospitals, electric and gas works, large bakeries, etc. were left completely intact.
As far as the excesses of the troops were concerned or of the population in every case, which became known, measures were immediately taken.