Have you anything to say with regard to this, Witness?
A This document also bears a date prior to my time and, therefore, the same applies as I have said before.
Q And, now, during the further course of this examination we will come to other documents which the Prosecution has presented, and they are supplements in the Document Book. These are Exhibits numbered 552-1 through 552-8, and I think they are contained behind Document Book XXIV, at the back. I think they were to be inserted there. All these documents are photographs of all kinds of alleged prisoners, and here the Prosecution thought they could prove that these were regular and standard uniformed troops.
Can you tell us anything special about these documents, General?
A Here, again, I can only say that this was all prior to my time-1942 and 1943.
Q You only saw these documents for the first time here in the trial?
A Yes.
Q And in the same connection are Documents 551-1 through 551-7, which belong here. These documents were also submitted by the Prosecution and inserted in the same place in the Document Book, and the photographs show individual prisoners obviously members of bands. I think that these photographs, too, are supposed to prove the same as the former ones. I would like to give you these documents, General. Perhaps you can say something about them also.
(Dr. Tipp hands the documents in question to the witness)
A Yes, in regard to these documents I would like to say principally that nothing else can be seen from them except the fact that they are indigenous prisoners. And I think it is quite out of the question that they are German PW's or prisoners captured by the German Wehrmacht because it is not usual that one photographs prisoners with all their arms Court No. V, Case No. VII.
and equipment. In addition Photographs 551-3 and 551-6 show the people with all their weapons and all their munition and munition belts and everything possible. And for this rest the photographs show quite clearly that this is not a standard uniform as worn by a regular army or as has to be worn by a regular army. The people here wear pieces of uniforms and some of them are wearing civilian clothing. I think I can say quite briefly that these pictures actually show that this is not the uniform as worn by a regular army, but it is one makeshift uniform which they have probably taken from wounded and dead soldiers and from which they have made a kind of uniform; but in these pictures one can certainly not see any kind of standard uniform. In addition, as I can see from the pictures here, these people sometimes wore on their caps a Soviet star, and not even all of them did so. This Soviet star is again so small that one really cannot regard it as a badge of regular troops which can be recognized from a distance. In conclusion I would like to say that all these pictures, as I have already said, are rather more proof for the fact that these troops were not regular uniformed troops.
Q I think, General, the question of uniform is now sufficiently portrayed. Would you please now state something about the general methods of fighting of the bands, because this is also very important.
A If one talks about band fighting, then, in my opinion, one must differentiate between the fighting against the large bands and the defense and sabotage acts of the small bands. In addition, there in the Croatian area there were regular robber bands, which are not feasible in the Balkans. These latter people mostly robbed and plundered and murdered and any kind of political tendencies amongst these people were non-existent. Their activity and the defense against it, in my opinion, has nothing at all to do with war or fighting or anything like that. The acts of sabotage and the raids were, however, carried out by the small bands, while the members of the large bands--I describe only the conditions as they were in my sector; I cannot judge the other Court No. V, Case No. VII.
sectors--were mostly formed into so-called brigades and regiments, as they called themselves, and hid themselves in woods and the mountains, the small bands remained in their own villages. The perpetrators of such acts of sabotage and raids antrocities, as they occurred, were vary difficult to get hold of, sine a the members of such small bands appeared after the raid as harmless peasants and shepherds. They hid their weapons and could not be distinguished at all from the peaceful citizens. And as a deterrent against these kinds of sabotage acts, there was often nothing else to do except to threaten and to carry out reprisal measures. I have already stated that there was no kind of organizational unity between the small bands at all. These small bands also did not carry their weapons openly. Of course they had no conspicuous distinguishing badges and, above all, it was their manner of fighting which placed them out side any kind of law. Sabotage acts on bridges, roads, railroads, etc. all took on their agenda. Individual soldiers and small units and vehicle columns were attacked by them, and the wounded and killed were entirely plundered. I would like to say that one of their principles was to slaughter the wounded, one could say, and were mutilated in the most horrible manner. Evan in the ethnic fighting these kinds of things took place again and again down there, and this sort of thing has never occurred anywhere else and was never to be seen in any other place.
Q General, you have now described to us the methods of fighting of the small bands. What about the large bands?
A The position was rather different with respect to the large bands. The large bands also described themselves as "brigades" and "divisions" and "regiments" ate. But here also there can be no mention of regular troops or a regular militia as recognized by International Law, of course, up until 1945. It was always the case here, one can say of guerrila fighting, when fighting these bands one had to be quite clear as to how one could eliminate them militarily. In the conditions there, this could only be dona by applying their own tactics.
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
Q And an interim question: General, you told us the manner in which the small bands fought, and you said that they were outside the laws of humanity. I would like to ask you here what the position of the large bands was in this connection. Did they also observe the laws of war, that is, as regards the wounded and the prisoners who fell into their hands?
A The method of fighting of the large bands was in no way different from that of the small bands. The large bands were also incredibly cruel and especially so against the wounded. Prisoners were, on principle, not taken. If they took prisoners then these prisoners were, first of all, plundered, and their clothes and uniforms were taken away. The bands, of course, wore the clothes later on as a socalled regular army and the prisoners were given rags, and they had to walk around in them. But the large bands also never in any way adhered to the provisions of the Geneva Convention.
Q And a military question with regard to this problem, General: Can you, by reason of your general experience, tell us anything about the positions which the large bands built and consolidated for themselves, and the system of defense which they had built up?
A One of course cannot speak at all about regular positions with regard to the large bands. There was also no proper front. As I have already said, the bands partly hid in isolated woods and built their own bases and strong points there, and there they set up wooden huts, and these were developed, more or less with small trenches into some kind of defense position, but, above all, these bands used houses as positions. Because they could hide themselves from the heavy weapons which we used and they were here also afforded protection by the terrain. So that the fighting against these large bands, I must say, consisted mainly of house to house fighting because the bands hid in these houses. And in my opinion this can also be seen again and again from the documents. The fact that the depots and such were always found in houses is proof of this. When these depots were destroyed, of course, the houses Court No. V, Case No. VII.
were destroyed.
Q And now before I continue with my questioning, Your Honor, I would like to refer to the fighting of the bands as seen from the documents. The first document of this kind is to be found in my Document Book No. I on Page 42. This is Document No. 15, and I would like to offer it as Leyser Exhibit No. 16--one, six, which is on page 42 of Document Book I. This is an affidavit by Gerhard Volkert, which was certified and sworn before me on the 18th of September 1947 in Nurnberg. And in this connection, Your Honor, I would like to say (and perhaps this rules out the objection the Prosecution has in mind) that at this time Herr Volkert was visiting Nurnberg when I took this affidavit and, therefore, his address at that time in Nurnberg is stated in the affidavit. Usually Herr Volkert lives outside Nurnberg. I haven't his present address at the moment, but, of course, I can inform the Court of it. So therefore it would be difficult to get Herr Volkert here as a witness. I hope that the affidavit will be admitted for this reason. He is not a "Nurnberger", if I might put it like that, but just a man who happened to have been in Nurnberg at that time.
MR. FULKERSEN: I withdraw my unuttered objection.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Very well.
DR. TIPP: I would like to quote a few brief points from this affidavit. The affidavit describes, first of all, his military career under Figure 1. He says that in April, 1943, he was assigned to the staff of the Commander of the German Forces in Croatia, later the XVth Mountain Army Corps, as Air Corps Liaison officer. And then he goes on to say that he was used as an aide-de-camp and deputized for the first aide-de-camp in the drawing up and evaluation of the Daily Reports and, therefore, he knows about the situation in the Southeast and the work of Corps Staff and can make some statements on it. Figure 2 deals with the question of uniforms. I quote:
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
I know from daily reports from the divisions and reports of the Ustasha units that the bands used German and Italian uniforms and parts of uniforms for reasons of stratagem and camouflage; women and children were used for reconnoitering and were sent ahead in raids in order to prevent the German Wehrmacht from shooting. Forcible recruitings, reprisals, violent measures against mayors, police and the clergy on the part of the insurgents were a daily occurrence, often field hospitals and hospital trains were attacked, ambulance cars shot at, German soldiers as well as Croats killed in action or wounded were stripped of their uniforms and personal objects and maimed by cutting off their ears, noses, fingers or sex organs. I saw also pictures of these things. As an eye-witness I am in a position to report in this connection the following facts:
In Spring 1943 a truck was attacked in the neighborhood of Lucke (near Zagreb) by a band, destroyed and the occupants were killed. A short time after I had the opportunity to inspect the scene of the crime. At the side of the destroyed and plundered truck the bodies of three killed German soldiers were lying, stripped of their uniforms and equipment. Two of the bodies showed stabbing wounds and mutilations in the faces, one had half of the nose cut off, one ear completely severed, the second had the eyes gouged out, the ring fingers of the third was missing, obviously because he had worn a ring that could not be taken off, besides, the sex organs had been cut off.
On the occasion of a Courier flight from Serayevo to Tuzla in summer 1943 I made another observation. When flying in low altitude in a German sport plane, I saw a peasant in the usual costume of this region occupied with mowing. When the peasant recognized me, probably also my national insignia, he put the scythe down and took up a rifle which had been hidden in the grass, aimed at me and shot several times. After landing I ascertained a number of hits in the fuselage and the wings. That shows that the peasant must not only have possessed a modern military rifle, but had also been trained in shooting at aeroplanes.
Apart from this, I received regular reports of that sort of incidents from the crew members of the reconnaissance squadron, namely, that civilians in town and on the fields, at the sight of German planes, took up arms which so far had been hidden and opened fire. Even the two ambulance planes of the type Fi 156 which were painted white and were marked with a plainly visible red cross wore continuously attacked by rifle fire when flying on duty with wounded soldiers over the partisan districts.
Under figure 4, the affiant deals with how the sabotage acts of the bands were of disadvantage to the population and that for security reasons the grain fields had to be cut down and that this of course reduced the food of the population, and at the end he states: "The main sufferers from those kinds of sabotage acts were the civilian population."
Under figure 5, the affiant talks about the last mentioned question concerning the positions of the bands. I quote:
"Since in the capacity of an Air-Corps Liaison Officer I received continuous requests from the commander to obtain photographic material of enemy positions, I have made the following observation with regard to the system of positions used by the bands: I have never seen any regular system of positions, which was generally characteristic for the guerilla fight in Croatia, and the direct-and photographic air observation could hardly show any useful results at all.
The partisans dug small fox-holes, however, they favored to take positions in houses and in farm-buildings. Churches, monasteries and mosques were used for storage purposes. This could in several cases be determined through air reconnaissance."
The next document in this connection which I would like to offer is contained in the same document book and it is on page 46. This is Leyser Document No. 16. It is the next document in the document book. I offer this as Leyser Exhibit No. 17. This is an affidavit dated-
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: I think that Exhibit Number is 17.
DR. TIPP: The Volkert document which I have just offered is Document No. 15 and Exhibit No. 16.
The next document is Document No.16 and is Exhibit No. 17. This, as I said, is an affidavit by Hans Siegfried Persch, Regierungsbaurat (retired) from Duisburg, and the affidavit was sworn before a notary on the 19th of September, 1947, in Duisburg. Persch, according to figure 1 in his affidavit, was Oberbauleiter in the Todt Einsatzstab in Belgrade and he states in this figure that he became familiar with the entire Balkan countries including the Coratian territory, and therefore he can make a number of statements about this which will be of importance for General Leyser.
At the moment, I would only like to read from figure 5 in this document because it is pertinent. I would perhaps like to come back to the other figure in the document later on. I quote from figure 5 on page 2 of the document on page 49.
5.) The partisan's method of warfare included all conceivable possibilities of doing harm to the German Wehrmacht and its organizations with all conceivable means at their disposal and with no regard for their own people. Firing from houses which were marked with red crosses, burning of entire towns for the purpose of making the houses uninhabitable, disguising themselves as civilians - as in most cases they preferred to do - use of German and Italian uniforms, are acts which I myself have observed during my official activity on the Narenta river, from Place to Serajevo and Zagreb.
From June til November 1942 and subsequently in regular intervals I was in the more or less close neighborhood of Mostar where I was enabled to make precise observations of the terror employed by the insurgents against the civilian population. Villages where the inhabitants put up resistance were levelled to the ground and the resisting men killed. A Cetnik showed me captured shapshots in which the murderers of those victims had taken a photograph together with the dead men whom they had just "liquidated" in the most insulting manner and indecent position.
Eye witnesses have shown me a rock in a side valley of the Narenta-valley which was protruding into the river and was covered with large traces of blood; here, men and women who refused to line up with the bands were shot or stabbed to death in order to be thrown immediately into the rapidly flowing river, I remember that the well known Franciscan Monastery in Siroki Brijeg was looted when the partisans entered the town and was eventually set afire.
Those monks who had not previously escaped were killed.
The acts committed by the insurgents which are in open violation of the International Law are so numerous that I can only state here those which I myself have witnessed or determined or of which I received precise information by eye witnesses.
Around September/ October 1941 our OT-physician Dr. K u e h n e, from Vienna was riding in a convoy on the highway Kragujevac Jagodina. Dr. Kuehne was wearing civilian clothes and was on a trip to one of our work projects riding in a Red Cross car which was unmistakably marked as such. The partisans stopped the convoy, killed the driver and kidnapped Dr. Kuehne. He was put to work giving medical care to the partisans, in spite of this, however, he was later shot to death by a woman partisan leader. His body was later found there unburied, only covered with rocks and completely mutilated. It is to be assumed that, after his execution, stones were thrown at his body until it was almost unrecognizable.
In 1944 the German OT dentist Werner was captured by partisans in the Dor sector while driving in his dental-laboratory car to the camps housing the indigenous workers and Italians. He himself was chained and on the way to the partisan camp he was repeatedly forced to kneel and bend his neck during which motions were made indicating that he was to be shot in the neck. The car used on this trip was a Red Cross car.
The head of the medical station in Vladicin Han, Theimer, was hanged with barbed wire in 1944 by partisans evacuating the town, although he could clearly be identified as a medical-corps man.
In 1944 men of the medical-corps in Mostar were captured and kidnapped, although they too were wearing the Red Cross brassard and carried proper identification papers.
One day our Italian physician in Jagodina was snatched by partisans and was killed in front of the hospital by a shot into the abdomen.
Moreover I know that the slow flying Red-Cross planes of the "Storch" type were frequently shot down. After I was wounded I happened by chance to evade transportation on such a Red Cross plane which was shot down.
And I will not quote any more from this document at this moment. I will come back to the other points in it later.
The next document in this connection which I would like to submit is also in Document Book I. It is on page 74 and is Leyser Document No. 25. I offer this as Leyser Exhibit No. 18. This is an affidavit by the Catholic Chaplain Alois Krauss from Kronach dated the 19th of September, 1947, and on the 20th of September it was sworn before the Mayer of Kronach.
Witness Krauss describes first of all the facts on which his knowledge of the Balkans rests. From February 1943 until May 1944 he was first of all Catholic Garrison Minister at the Field Command Zagreb/ Croatia - later on Catholic chaplain with the 42nd Infantry Division in the Croatian area(later on the 42nd Rifle Division).
During this time, he says, "I was charged with the spiritual care of the military hospitals and of the troops ready for combat within the area." I won't read the names here. "From July until September 1944 I was employed within the Nis-Serbia district."
In figure 1, the witness deals with the methods of fighting of the bands, and I quote:
My statistical records (for instance obituary-reports among others) as well as my collection of photos as Burial Officer of the 187th Reserve Infantry Division, resp. 42 Light Infantry Division, I lost towards the end of the war in the course of military action; therefore I can base my statements only on recollection, but cannot produce documents.
I always felt that we were not faced by a fair opponent in our Section of military operations. Particularly in my capacity as minister for hospitals and as Burial officer I had the opportunity to note that the mutilation of German soldiers by the enemy was not unusual. I recall that on several occasions in the summer of 1943 I buried mutilated German dead. I also still remember clearly two photo pictures which were once given to me by the unit of two dead soldiers as a piece of evidence in the Breke/ Serbia sector. According to these photos both dead were found stark naked; the one showed besides the shotwound a complete splitting of his skull, presumably executed with an axe, while the other had his whole abdomen cut open. Yet another case is fresh in my memory: In the summer of 1943 as garrison priest I buried 2 German flyers of the airbase Zagreb in the military cemetery in Zagreb. They had been ambushed and shot down, defenseless and without weapons while they were bathing in a lake near the airdrome.
Figure 2 of the document deals with the Commando Order, and I would like to come back to this figure later on in another connection.
The next document which has reference here, 2nd which I would like to offer, comes from Document Book II, page 122. It is Leyser Document No. 43, and this receives the Exhibit No. Leyser 19. This document is an affidavit by Brigadier General George Reinicke living near Munich, and the affidavit was duly sworn to before a notary in Munich on the 22nd of September 1947. This affiant also states a number of facts which are of interest for the various counts in this trial, and here I am concerned with figure 2 of this affidavit.
First of all, I would like to draw the attention of the Tribunal to figure 1. Under this figure, the affiant describes why he is able to give information about General Leyser and the Croatian area. He states that he had contact with him as Army Engineer officer of the 2nd Panzer Army and that from January, 1945, General Leyser was the immediate superior of the affiant when he was Commander of the 369th Infantry Division.
In figure 1, General Reinicke states further facts about General von Leyser's personality, his chivalrous attitude towards the troops and the civilian population, and I would like to draw this to the attention of the Tribunal without quoting from it.
Figure 2 describes the methods of fighting in the Croatian area and I would like to quote:
2. "As to the methods of battle in the Croatian area in the time under discussion I can say the following: Only in the year 1945 did I meet regular enemy units in the Croatian area, who had come from the coastal area. Previously the enemy was so to speak, invisible, he changed into harmless peasants, lived right among the population and in the inaccessible forest and mountainous districts. In small numbers, he ambushed lone cars and leave trains; looted transports, destroyed rail tracks, bridges, telephone wires; the enemy were typical guerillas. He would not meet regular troops; if one was with them, that was safest. The individual incidents became so numerous, that they were part of the daily news. Two incidents, personally witnessed, might throw a light on the methods used by these bands. On a journey from the billets to the Army via Visegrad to Sarajevo a grenade was thrown at my car from an ambush in a lonely spot and one of the officers accompanying me, was wounded. On another journey, from Skutari towards Kotor, I met a German lorry, which had been ambushed and which lay on the road, burned out. The occupants of the lorry had been killed by a hand grenade. Behind the ledge of a rock, there lay a dead civilian, next to him there were still some unexploded grenades and the rifle was hidden behind the rock. This attack had taken place shortly before my arrival and a soldier who had got away by a timely jump off the car confirmed my conclusions drawn on the spot, namely that this was the case of a treacherous attack in a road which was otherwise quite safe. The perpetrators were in no way recognizable as soldiers, as was confirmed by the appearance of the body left behind.
"In this area there raged a battle of each against everyone else. For instance in Visegrad the Serbs had murdered all Moslems with their wives and children. During the time of my predecessor, the Croats in my division had refused to fight with the Cetniks against the partisan bands, as they considered the Cetniks their enemies. During the period of my command, the Ustasha burned down a village near Mostar and killed the population.
The German Commander could in no way influence these happenings. These old quarrels were fought out, without anyone knowing anything about it, until afterwards."
I would like to come back to the other passages in this document again later on.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q General, now we will continue with the discussion about the fighting down there, and I would like to ask you what was your impression of the aims of the bands when you were first with the 15th Army Corps.
A Through the capitulation of the Italian army, the bands obtained large stocks of weapons, ammunition and food; therefore, in the isolated mountain districts where they had their camps, large depots were set up. And during the first months when I was there for this reason, they were able to carry out attacks against larger localities. Mostly these were localities which were occupied by Croatian troops, and they even had some partial success here which, however, was made up for later on. They evaded the fighting with regular German troops because they were not equal to the German troops. Therefore after they had suffered very serious losses everywhere, they preferred to retire into their hiding places into the band quarters in the mountains in order to re-organize and to retrain themselves there, since they realized that with this bad leadership and with these badly trained troops they could never carry out a successful fight, against the German troops. They did this primarily so that when the invasion took place they would be ready and prepared to attack the Germans from the rear. Above all, then it would be most important the to occupy the supply lines to the coastal defense positions and prevent supplies reaching these positions.
Q Witness, then you said that these band centers would be chiefly a danger if these troops attacked the fighting German troops at the coast from the rear when the allied landing took place. I asked which measures then did the German leadership plan to take this danger?
A This was part of my commission which I had received from the army.
The aim was that this organization and the training and development of the so-called troops or army or whatever they called it, should be destroyed before the allied landing, and their depots and camps were to be destroyed so that they would have no kind of reserves.
In addition, of course, the bandit territories had to be cleared of the bands. Principally those territories which were near the coast or near the defense positions.
Q And was this aim achieved, General? This aim you have just described.
A One can say yes, but of course, this is only important when -- I would like to say yes, in that respect when I went, there were of course only six months available and first of all there were bandits all over the territory and this territory had first of all to be cleared, but I can really say that afterwards this territory was so cleared, but I can really say that afterwards this territory was so cleared of the large bands that the communication between the large towns which I described in sketch I was so created and also the real area from the coast to the foothills that there communication between the troops existed.
In addition, through these operations, which we took against these bands, it was shown that on principle there where we had advanced right into the centers, the depots of the bands an act of sabotage or shall we say larger attacks by the bands did not take place.
Q And If I understood you correctly, General, you want to say that the centers of the bands were actually destroyed?
A Yes.
Q And the fighting of the bands, witness, when you came to the Balkans was rather new to you; but on the other hand, it was nothing new for the fighting in the Balkans, as such. In this trial here, as you know, the reprisal measures taken against members of the bands or at least which were connected with this fighting of the bands, play a very important part. Now, we must come to this chapter of the reprisal measures and I would like to ask you, first of all, to tell us what was your first impression about these things. First of all, why were these measures necessary?
AAs I said, the bands and principally the small bands carried out sabotage acts on railroads, roads, and communication lines. In addition, these bands attacked trains, individual soldiers, small troop units, vehicle columns, and principally wounded transports. These were daily occurrences. The troops tried with all the means at their disposal to guard against this, mainly through the security service, by informing the population through pamphlets, and by installing confidence agents and finally the population was told that those kinds of happenings could only contribute to their own disadvantage. Then if all these measures were without success, then in the end, in the interests of the troops, reprisal measures had to be taken. As such, there came into the question the taking of hostages, the destruction of the band quarters where these people gathered together to commit these acts of sabotage, and in the most extreme case of emergency the shooting of hostages.
Q. The whole system, General, was already in progress when you arrived in the Balkans in October/November 1943, and I would like to ask you what the situation was when you arrived, who was responsible then for the carrying out of reprisal measures.
A. At that time this was of course regulated fundamentally by Fuehrer Orders. The carrying out of reprisal measures was given over to the divisional commanders on their own responsibility, and, in agreement with the Croatian liaison authorities these commanders had to carry out these reprisal measures if they occurred at all, but in any case first of all this was how the position was when I took over the corps.
Q. During the course of the proceedings the reprisal measures and the orders for carrying out these reprisal measures have played a very important part. You know what a large number of orders were the subject for discussion here. When you took over the corps were any fundamental orders of this kind submitted to you?
A. Yes, but if I had been given all the fundamental orders which had been issued before my time and if I had had to read them all, then I would never have gotten rid of all this mountain of paper. For me the most important thing was thoroughly to learn to know my troops and the terrain there. For after all I was a soldier and I had to carry out tactical tasks. But of course, I was told about the fundamental valid and important orders by my expert, so that I knew about them.
Q. General, I would like to save time for the Tribunal, and for all, and therefore I don't want to talk about all the basic orders here. But there is one order which we can't get away from and this is the order of the 2nd Panzer Army dated the 15 of September 1943, which General Rendulic already discussed extensively here a few days ago. This order was submitted by the prosecution in Document Book 14, English page 15, German page 11, and it is Exhibit 340, the Document number is NOKW 509. General, do you need this order, or do you know the outlines of it?
A. Yes.
Q. Might I ask you, General, if this order as set down in the document book was known to you at that time?
A. Yes, it was certainly submitted to me in fundamental outlines, but whether it was contained amongst the many documents or whether I read it at that time, I don't know, but at any rate I knew about it.
Q. General, perhaps it might seem rather strange that you can't remember this kind of important order; this order is a compilation of all the orders issued on these lines. Can you perhaps explain your gaps of memory?
A. It is perhaps understandable, if I say, that during the first November days when I arrived many things were submitted and reported to me, and as I have already stated, first of all I wanted to know all about my troops and the area and then in November the preparations began for the first large operation. At the beginning of December the operation itself, the Panther operations took place, and then this order was already rescinded. A new order came, and therefore that is perhaps why I can't remember this order exactly. Of course it was only valid for a short time, while I was there.
Q. Now, a fundamental question which is not confined to this order. Witness, you know that the shooting of hostages was mainly not in agreement with International Law, as asserted by the prosecution, because the reprisal ratios, in individual cases were much too high. You know also that the famous ratio of one to 100 played an important part. General Rendulic, a few days ago, during this case stated that reprisal measures of this kind was never carried out in his sphere of command. Now to bear out this testimony, might I ask you whether in the sphere of the 15th Army Corps during your time any kind of extremely high reprisal ratio was ever carried out? I don't want to bind you to any figures, I just mean extremely high ratios?
A. No, in my sector such incidents never occurred. I think that all the documents which have been submitted by the prosecution show this quite clearly.
Q. We will talk about all these documents later on, witness. Now quite generally another question; were reprisal measures carried out for every raid and for every sabotage act?
A. No, and the documents show this too; not for every case, and if it occurred at all, it occurred very rarely and only when absolutely necessary.
Q. And now as we are talking about the order, General, I would like to ask you a fundamental question. It is the standard question, which has frequently been put here, namely as to the carrying out of issued orders, might I ask your opinion about this?
A. My opinion is the same as every soldier in the World. Issued orders have to be carried out. That is a matter of principle. But of course it is natural that within the scope of the order given the local and other possibilities have to come into the question.
Q. And now lets get back again to the order of 15 September 1943. I would like to ask you whether this order was carried out in accordance with the principles you have just made?
A. Yes, and it was just in the case of reprisal measures that the circumstances of the individual case and the local and factual considerations played a very important part for every judgment of the question whether and to what extent reprisal measures were to be carried out.
Q. I think that is sufficient for this point, and now another question. You arrived newly in the area and you had to form some kind of opinion; what was your personal opinion of reprisal measures, quite generally speaking?
A. I was confronted with this question for the first time in Croatia. Band warfare was a completely new territory for me. With regard to the reprisal measures themselves I would like to say that no soldier likes carrying out reprisal measures. They are quite alien to a soldier's nature, but reprisal measures, in view of the attitude and the conditions in the Balkans, I think I can say were unfortunately unavoidable.
They had become necessary through the attitude of the civilian population and the bands. And we weren't actually the reason why reprisal measures were ordered and had to be ordered, but exclusively the otherside. Croatia was an independent state, and the maintenance of peace and order in this area was an affair of the Croatian state, and if in the territory of this state the population carried out sabotage acts and raids, then this was an action against their own state, against their own government, and against those members of the Allied German troops. The security of the troops and the peace and order in the country demanded for security and intimidation reasons the carrying out of reprisal measures, and my troops were also of the same opinion, but as the last resort such reprisal measures were necessary because of the attitude of the population and of the bands. We could not decide whether we were to carry out reprisal measures or not, this was exclusively an affair of the attitude of the other side. If raids and sabotage acts were carried out inspite of all warnings threats to the population, then, in order to maintain the security of the troops energetic measures were necessary. The provisions of the Hague Land Warfare Convention, against which we are supposed to have committed violations, are after all not set down to protect the bands or the guerrillas, but to protect the peace loving population and to protect the soldier who had to do his duty in the foreign country. And I would like to say that the attacks on the railroads, on the supply lines, etc. hit the peaceful population as well as the German troops. For all these reasons reprisal measures, as were carried within the sphere of my corps, could not be avoided. They were militarily necessary.
JUDGE BURKE: We will take our afternoon recess.
THE MARSHAL: Court will be in recess until 1515 hours.
(Thereupon a 15-minute recess was taken.)