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.
Q Witness, what was the judgment reached higher up as to General Felmy's conduct?
AAt the supreme authority General Felmy's conduct was regarded as soft and the destructions as inadequate, that was the final verdict reached about General Felmy. He had to leave the LXVIII corps which he had been in charge of for sometime and take over the XXXIV corps for special tasks, which had been a loss tenacious corps. The reason for this was that technically speaking, he had been correct, prudent, responsible and human.
Q What was the tactical success of this soft conduct, as it was called, on the part of General Felmy?
A The Russians intended in their operations to cross the Danube and push forward to Zagreb, thus to cut off all the elements there in the southeast and that had been frustrated. The Russian offensive was always intercepted and it was halted at the southeast corner of the Platten Lake and our own front was not broken through at that point.
Q A final question, witness, what is your explanation why you still remember all these things so clearly?
AAt that time I was chief of the general staff of the corps and of course I had to think quite a lot about these matters. I often discussed them with General Felmy and as a rule we agreed about the measures, which were about to be taken down there.
Q Thank you very much, I have no further questions.
JUDGE CARTER: Any other questions for the defense? You may cross examine.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. RAPP:
Q Witness, from what period on did the allies commence to reenforce by air or otherwise the partisans with uniforms, weapons and the like?
AAs far as I can remember in the winter of 1943 to 1944.
Q And from that time on the appearance of more uniforms amongst the partisan soldiers was apparent, is that right?
A That is correct up to a point. The most important thing which the partisans needed for their battles were not the uniforms, but ammunition, arms and food. These things in relatively small quantities reached them by air and this was easier than to supply them with uniforms. I don't think that uniforms -- or at least I think that uniforms, which the bands received by air, came in very slowly, and I do not think this changed the appearance of the partisans.
Q Witness, during the time that you were operations officer down there with General Rendulic, what kind or type of warfare was down there; I mean by that usually speaking how far were the troops apart from the enemy, the distance approximately when they had contact when the fire fight commenced?
A well when the firing commenced and if one succeeded in committing the hands to a battle in order to disperse them, what as a rule happened was that one man could see the whites of the eyes of the other man.
Q Could you give us an approximate distance, Colonel?
A He would step across the other man, there would be close combat fighting and one of them would survive.
Q During this period that the partisans were reenforced with uniforms and ammunitions, etc., did they also get automatic weapons from the Allies?
A Certainly.
Q What kind of automatic weapons do you mean?
A By that I mean light automatic weapons such as Temmie guns and machine guns. We ourselves sometimes captured things like that.
Q Colonel, can you carry machine guns or machine pistols under your coats?
AA machine pistol I could hide under a wide coat. As far as a machine gun is concerned, it is more difficult at least if it were all put together and already to be used, then I don*t think it would be practical.
Q In any event, it is a little cumbersome to walk around with these things hanging around your neck, isn't it?
A Yes, it is not very pleasant.
Q And when you talk about machine pistols, you of course mean a German Schmeiser version, you are not talking about the British Sten gun or American Thompson gun, which are a little larger, do you?
A No, as far as I remember the British machine pistols are not much bigger than the German.
A November-M-IL-4-1-Meehan (Int.Kurtz)
Q The American ones you don't know; is that right?
A No, I don't know the details of the American ones.
Q Witness, will you tell us who executed the hostages in the area of the 2nd Panzer Army once they were selected to be executed?
A I could not say that under oath, I was not present, therefore I do not know.
Q There was never any talk about it at your headquarters who possibly could carry out these executions?
A Of course it was discussed occasionally perhaps, but I cannot recall it.
Q Could you take a guess?
A I could guess of course, but not under oath.
Q Who selected the hostages, witness?
A The hostages were selected on the whole in collaboration and on the suggestion of the Croatian authorities.
Q Now let's first understand each other that I am not only talking about Croatia but the entire area which the 2nd Panzer Army occupied, so please do not confine your answers only about Croatians but the entire area of the 2nd Panzer Army.
A Yes, I realize that. I mention Croatia because it was by far the biggest area held by the Panzer Army. In Albania it was the Albanians and not the Croatian authorities.
Q Now I am understanding you right to say that the German occupation forces, that is the 2nd Panzer Army, would go to the Croatian Government or the office that was charged in the Croatian Government and say we need 17 hostages, let's have them and then they would go to their jail and pick out 17 or round up 17 and give them to you; is that the way it worked or just how did it work?
A November-M-IL-4-2-Meehan (Int.Kurtz)
A No, you must have misunderstood me. I am sorry if I have not been clear. That was not the method chosen at all, what was done was entirely local. The local commander, who needed the hostages for some reason or other, contacted the local authorities, the local Croatian authorities competent in these things and that was how hostages were named and apprehended. I cannot recall a single case and I think it is out of the question, at least as far as my agency, the operational department, was concerned, that on a single occasion ever we would make requests for hostages to Croatian, Montenegran or Albanian agencies.
Q Witness, do you consider the entire reprisal measure a tactical necessity.
A Yes, I consider that.
Q Now, you were the operations officer of the 2nd Panzer Army; is that right?
A No. I was the first officer on the general staff of the 2nd Panzer Army and in charge of the operational department.
Q Well, there is some liberal translation. When I talk about military operations I of course mean I-A, I am perfectly aware what that is. Now, since these reprisal measures as you stated were a tactical necessity within the area of the 2nd Panzer Army, then it must have fit into your field; is that right?
A No, I had nothing to do with reprisal measures. The one who worked on this was I-G, who was under me in the operational section, but in his capacity as a counter intelligence officer.
Q Witness, I am somewhat confused, if you were in charge of tactics and operations and you say that reprisal measures were part of the tactical necessity, I don't see how you can pass them on to somebody else.
Now, either they have been a tactical necessity, then they must fall within your domain, I don't care who actually did. it within your shop, or they are not a tactical necessity and then you don't have anything to do with them. Will you explain that to me, please?
A Well, that is a very complex question in your formulation and I would be grateful if you would specify what you want me to explain. Of course, I was responsible for everything that left the operational department, as such I was responsible for the men who worked on the reprisal measures in I-G inasmuch as the tactical side of reprisal measures was concerned. That is to say I was responsible as to whether or not reprisal measures were necessary or not, but not for the actual carrying out of adequate measures which was up to the I-G.
Q Well, you have answered the question already. Yes, that is what I wanted to know. Now then who was responsible that these measures were actually carried out; I understand that was the responsibility of the Ic/A.O?
A No.
Q Ic/AO?
A No, if you will put the question about the responsibility for the carrying out of reprisal measures, all I can say it was the local commander on the spot.
Q I did not mean that, witness. I mean that they were carried out once they were ordered by the local commander, who was responsible to see to it that the order was actually carried out, that the hostages were physically executed; whose responsibility was that?
A The local commander of the troops, as I said.
Q In other words the local troop commander, as I understand you, was both responsible as to the ordering of the reprisal measure as well as the execution of this order.
A I believe we are talking at cross purposes. The general order for the whole processing of reprisal problems came from above and that order was binding for the local commander. The necessity to order a reprisal measure in an individual case did not come from the army, nor even from the corps in many cases, but by the local troop commander and he was the man who within the scope of the orders, which had reached him from above, ordered reprisal measures which he deemed necessary.
Q Thank you witness, now will you clear up the last point for me; to whom did this local troop commander go to have these people actually executed?
A Well, that is the core of the problem which we mentioned before. I am not able to say anything about that. I was not present, I do not have the details, I cannot say anything under oath, I can guess or estimate but that would be just a guess.
Q. I do not want that. That troops did this local troop commander usually command, only his own?
A. Yes.
Q. Did he have command over police units or SD units or other units?
A. Not as a rule.
Q. Witness, did any of the units within the 2nd Panzer Army at any time maintain their own hostage camps? Now that may sound as a very big word, "Geisellager." It may have only been a shack with two dozen people in there but did they in any event keep such installations no matter what its size?
A. I don't know. I never say any.
Q. Have you ever seen any references in letters or daily reports?
A. I think it is possible but I can't remember for certain. You must understand that these things go gar back.
Q. Witness, do you know if within the 2nd Panzer Army hostages were ever taken because people refused to give the whereabouts of their relatives in connection with partisan warfare?
A. I don't know of any such special case.
Q. Or because they even could not give the information because they simply didn't know and were still taken hostage?
A. I can't tell you anything about that. That might have been a local occurrence. One would have to ask the local commander. I was not present.
Q. Let's look at Document Book XIV. I am putting to you now the same document which Dr. Fritsch showed you yesterday, the very same one, and you will find it on page 15.
MR. RAPP: It is on page 21 in English, your Honors, in Document Book XIV, NOKW-509, Exhibit 340. Did your Honors follow that -- Document Book XIV, Exhibit 340, page 21 in the English?
Q. Now, you have seen this report before, have you not, witness?
A. Yes, quite.
Q. You say it yesterday, as a matter of fact here in court?
A. I think so, yes.
Q. Now, do you notice that it says down there way at the bottom of Paragraph II: "As ordered previously only such persons as are political suspect or whose relatives are proved to have joined the bands or those who cannot or do not wish to give any information as to where their relatives are, are to be taken as hostages." Did you follow me in that citation, witness?
A. Yes, I have the text in front of me. The translations was not quite literally the same but on the whole I followed it.
MR. RAPP: Well, did the interpreters have the German document book? It is on page 21 in the English, on page 15 in the German. It is Paragraph II at the bottom. It starts out: "As ordered previously," in English. I will read it again. You have the German document book before you.
Is it all right, your Honors, if I read it again to be sure there is no misunderstanding?
"As ordered previously only such persons as are political suspect or whose relatives are proved to have joined the bands or those who cannot or do not wish to give any information as to where their relatives are, are to be taken as hostages."
Q. Now have you seen this letter before, you said, and it is quite apparent from this that there were no hostages taken from people who either could not or would not give any information as to the whereabouts of their relatives. Is that right?
A. No. It is not apparent that it happened. All we can see here is that an order to that effect exists, an order by the LXIX Reserve Corps.
Q. All right. Thank you, Witness, You told us yesterday that the war diaries were usually kept by young officers who did not receive special training for this particular task and who sometimes were over enthusiastic and embroidered, so to speak, on the facts they reported. Did you make such a statement?
A. Yes, roughly, that.
Q. I want to ask you now, witness, whether you meant to say by that statement that these diaries were inaccurate and, therefore, one cannot or could not rely on them. Is that what you wanted to say?
A. What I wanted to say was that those diaries cannot claim complete historic objectivity.
Q. Would you say that they are generally true?
A. I am sure they contain many correct things.
Q. During the time that you were Ia of the 2nd Panzer Army did anybody -- that is General Grolman, your Chief of Staff, or the defendant Rendulic -- any time complain because these diaries were kept in a, shall I call it, "sloppy" way?
A. Between General von Grolman and myself it was always regarded as a sad event when I submitted to him these piles of War Diaries and had to tell him that I did not have the time to check them. Other few copies of that sort were already on his desk.
Q. Did your staff nevertheless rely on the contents of these war diaries during the conduct of the war?
A. We did not have the opportunity to look back on our war diaries. We had so much to do with current and future affairs that we were longing for the moment when we could file away into the archives our war diaries.
Q. has the historical value to be derived from these war diaries the only value or were there other reasons why a war diary was kept?
A. Needless to say, apart from the historic value, other necessities could make us look up things in the war diaries.
Q. Colonel, could you mention a few or one?
A. It might happen, for instance, that a certain occurrence would be of importance for certain political or other reasons and would have been gone into again. Therefore, for that purpose one had reference to the war diaries. After all, these war diaries, apart from their actual text, consisted mainly of a number of appendixes, documents, and so forth, such as is well known to the prosecution. From those documents one could reconstruct certain situations quite easily.