THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q. General, the last thing you told us was the attitude you took toward reprisal measures, you said that they were a military necessity to the extent that they were taken in your area; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. A few more single questions about this point. I ask you, General, in the event of an act of sabotage or a surprise attack did the troops report what reprisal measures they intended to carry out in that particular case?
A. No, this was entirely up to the divisional commanders and the decision was arrived at in agreement with the Croatian Plenipotentiary and that was what the order ordered. If the troops reported at all that they intended to carry out reprisal measures, then they would report in a very general way, but never the details.
Q. If I have understood you correctly, General, your answer amounts to the fact that you in your capacity as a Commanding General were never informed beforehand what measures were taken by the individual troop units under your command; is that correct?
A. Yes, that is quite correct.
Q. Witness, as a matter of principle were there any inquiries made before a reprisal was carried out, whether and to what extent reprisal measures were to be carried out?
A. No, the decision as I have explained, was with the divisional commander in connection with the Croatian Plenipotentiary.
Q. Did you yourself ever order the carrying out of a reprisal measure in an individual case?
A. No, never at all.
Q. Did you within the area of your Corps issue any basic orders concerning reprisals?
A. No.
Q. Witness, let us leave the question of reprisal measures for a bit and come to the field of tasks which you had, I mean your military tasks; what was your idea as to how the coast would be defended against enemy landings, how the lines of communication were to be safeguarded because you told us that you took reprisal measures only as the ultimate method to achieve your aims?
A. The situation, which I found, I have already described when I explained Sketch No. 1. That is why I first of all had to get hold of the area which was necessary for me if I wanted to carry out my order, i.e., the area along the coast and in some cases the rear areas were also of high importance for the safeguarding of a smooth run of supplies.
Q. What were your plans, General, as to the carrying out of your tasks?
A. Well, one could be of a different opinion about them. After I had been there for some time and had become acquainted with the operation "panther", about which more later on, I sent a report to the 2nd Panzer Army. The Army was not entirely happy with what I told them, but that is not unusual in military life and as a soldier, I was used to comply with orders. Moreover the reasons, which motivated me to send that report became obsolete by the fact that the Army did not have the forces which I needed for my purposes. They had been taken a way from there and I had to be content with the lesser forces and I had to see to it that I would still carry out the order which I had been given.
Q. As we are here concerned with tactical problems, General, which are not really pertinent for this trial, it seems to me that this should be sufficient.
May I draw attention to the fact that the report which you mentioned, the one to the 2nd Panzer Army, has not been submitted by the Prosecution, but what they have submitted is the reply by the Army. This is contained in Document Book 25, where it is Exhibit 570, on page 53 of the English, and page 42 of the German book, it is document NOKW 1772, but I don't think that from this document we can see anything that is of relevance to these proceedings.
Let me ask you in what manner was the occupation of the coast and the pacifying of the inner land actually carried out in the ensuing period of time?
A. As I did not have sufficient forces at my disposal, any large scale operations such as had taken place before were no longer carried out , or rather, they could not be carried out anymore. Instead of that operations in the strength of battalions and regiments were carried out with the distinct order to reach the depots and band centers in order to, as I said before, establish a basis to disperse the bands and destroy their places by depriving them of their depots where they had stored arms, supplies, food, etc. This was to deprive the bands of the possibility of becoming an active factor in the area.
Q. If I understood you correctly, Witness, you said already in reply to another question that this aim on the whole was achieved?
A. Yes.
Q. After this, General, let us please go on in the chronological order of things. When we discussed the reprisal orders we left the chronological order for a bit -- You said before that the order of 15 September 1943 was substituted shortly after you took over by another basic order of that kind; what order did you mean by that?
A. I mean the order by the Commander in Chief Southeast of 22 December 1943, signed by General Loehr.
Q. That order has been introduced by the Prosecution, Witness. It is contained in Document Book 16, page 47 of the English, 98 of the German version, it is prosecution document NOKW 172 offered as Exhibit 397. This basic order has been discussed before I do not think that we need to discuss it once more with you. I would merely like to ask you a few important questions in this connection, which were important to you as the Commanding General of the Corps. Who, according to this order, was responsible and/or authorized to order and carry out reprisal measures?
A. What this order says is "Divisional Commanders in agreement with the sub-area headquarters concerned", therefore the Corps had nothing to do with it directly.
Q As far as the area of the 15th Corps, i.e. Croatia, was concerned were there any special regulations in this order?
A Yes, the carrying out of reprisal measures has been regulated in this order, it says there under the paragraph, "Who is permitted to carry out reprisal measures." I think it reads something like that, "In Croatia representatives of the Croatian Government and of the German agencies entrusted with all decisions concerning reprisal measures," that is to say reprisal measures were carried out after an agreement had been established between the Divisional Commander and the representative of the Croatian Government. The decision about this was with the Croatian liaison officer.
Q Now, were there with your divisions such representatives of the Croatian Government, whom as you say were charged with the decisions on reprisal measures.
A Yes, with every divisional staff there was a representative of the Croatian Government.
Q Can you, on the basis of this order, tell us something about the purpose of these reprisal measures; would you like to see the order, General?
A Yes, please, I don't know it offhand.
Q What I asked you last was what do you see in the order about the purpose of the reprisal measures?
A There again the order is very informative. By inflicting reprisal measures future surprise attacks were to be avoided and the order states this unequivocally in the introductionary remarks.
Q Did you yourself issue any basic directives connected with this order, what I mean is not any obvious formal additional remarks, I mean something like basic additions?
A Well the order was so clear in itself that no additional remarks were necessary. I always informed my divisional Commanders and other officers when I visited their units that they must never carry out reprisal measures independently. They should always remain within the scope of given orders.
Q Did you yourself make sure that reprisal measures were only carried out if and when there was a necessity and only to the extent which was necessary from the point of view of the purpose which you have just mentioned?
A Yes, as I said before I enlightened my commanders on the fact that reprisal measures must be in a reasonable proportion to the act which calls for retaliation. I also pointed out to them that needless to say there must not be an act of reprisal for every small act of sabotage, but that reprisal measures were the last resort and should remain the last resort and the purpose should be achieved with the smallest means. This task was made easy for me by my Divisional Commanders, because both the commanders and the troops were not in favour of reprisal measures. They thought it would be a much better idea to apprehend the perpetrators to cleanse the districts where there was much band activity by means of own operations because they thought the bandits were the perpetrators, but in only a few cases which were of so obvious a nature were reprisal measures reported. This I think, is also born out by the document concerning my Corps.
Q Did you ever have an opportunity, General, to make sure that these principles were observed in individual cases?
AAs far as I had the opportunity, I checked up on them and found out what the facts were, but when I checked up I could never find out that my men had acted arbitrarily or cruelly. For the rest, I was their tactical commander and my hands were so full with my operational assignments that I need hardly say it was not possible for me to bother about every small report and every small detail. As for the carrying out of reprisal measures, this was, as I said before, entirely in the hands of the divisions and my Divisional commanders, whose attitude I have touched upon just now, were experienced troop officers on whom I could rely and I felt that I could rely on them without reservations. In the final analysis we were concerned little with reprisal measures in the Croatian area.
They were measures taken by the Croatian State against its own nationals as the decision lay with the representatives of the Croatian Government. What I could do and had to do in order to supervise all these things, I am quite sure I did do.
Q Now, as far as that question is concerned, were there any difficulties with the Croatian authorities, were there complaints on the part of the Croatian authorities concerning those measures.
A Complaints of that sort did occur on occasion, yes. They were investigated of course, but it was usually shown that the Croatian complaints were without foundation and in most cases the Croatians apologized afterwards when they saw themselves that the complaint had not been justified.
Q General, to this point i.e. complaints by Croatian agencies, a few documents have been submitted. They are included in Document Book 15 of the Prosecution. On page 61 of the English text, Exhibit 371. This is document NOKW 1419. Now within the scope of that document the Prosecution has submitted a letter which is on page 63 of the English Document Book and on page 90 of the German. This is a letter by the German Plenipotentiary General in Croatia of 6 December 1943, it is addressed to the 15th Mountain Corps. The contents of the document show that on 12 December 1943 the letter was passed on to two subordinate divisions, which were the 264th Division and the 114th Rifle Division. General, do you remember that document?
A I do.
Q Well, let us discuss two points which I take from this document. First there is a complaint by the representative of the Civilian Administration of Dalmatia concerning the distribution of the booty of war. The Croatian Plenipotentiary complains about the fact that the Wehrmacht has considered too much of the captured material, booty of war; what can you tell us about that?
AAs far as this booty was concerned this was by no means Croatian private property, but Italian Armed Forces property and we captured it after the Italian capitulation. As the document shows these complaints which were made when this letter was written i.e. at the beginning of November 1943, that is to say, a few days before I took over the Corps, these complaints had become obsolete by then because as the report says the situation was now much clearer and therefore the complaint really had no foundation anymore.
Q Then, there is another complaint in this letter. I might say first that the letter is dated 8th of November 1943, that is to say a period of time when the order of 22 December 1943 did not yet apply. The complaint made by the Croatian representative there is that the German troops on some occasions because they were not familiar with conditions would take too strong measures. He suggests a closer cooperation with Croatian Military and civilian agencies. What can you tell us about that complaint?
A There maybe a grain of truth in this. I don't think this applies to the period of time when I was them. As I said I told my commanding officers on frequent occasions that they must cooperate with the Croatian authorities. I cannot recall that any such difficulties arose again later on. As to the request of the Croatian authorities that before any operation the higher Croatian authorities should be informed, that was a request I could not comply with. First of all it is a military principle to treat matters of that sort as secret and not to inform people about them when one does not know what use they will make of it. And it was also well known that with these authorities there were people who sympathized with the bands and therefore might perhaps betray our military plans and matters. That was the reason why I could not possibly comply with that request.
Q Well, after all, General, you passed on this document to the divisions and if I have understood you correctly you said that later on, during your period of time, no further difficulties arose in that respect.
Is that correct?
A Yes, quite, by passing this on to the divisions I wanted to express my hope that no such difficulty would ever arise again.
Q In the same document, NOKW 1419, there is on page 65 of the English version, on page 93 of the German, a report by the Civilian Administration of the independent State of Croatia reporting the alleged burning down of a village by the German troops. The date of that letter is 11 August 1943. On Page 67 of the English and page 95 of the German book there is the reply by the Corps Headquarters of the XV Mountain Corps of 16 September 1943 addressed to Minister Benac. What can you tell us about those two documents?
A In August 1943 my predecessor General Lueters was in charge of the XV Mountain Corps. As far as I remember it was also General Lueters who wrote the reply.
QQuite. The reply letter has been signed by Lueters. Now to conclude discussing this document, one more question. On page 69 of the English version which is page 97 of the German Book there is a letter dated 22 August 1943. It is a letter by the Commander in Chief Southeast directed to the Commanding General of the German Troops in Croatia. This letter concerns collective fines. Perhaps you can give us a brief explanation of that letter.
A This letter which is dated 22 August was of course written before my time. At the most it might have been shown to me when I took over the Corps, but I believe there is a file note included which shows that such an action was never carried out in Croatia, that we desisted from carrying out such a measure in Croatia and that is why I think I haven't seen the letter.
Q I suppose you refer to the file note of 3 September 1943, that is on the third page of this document, it says there that no written orders to the divisions will be issued pursuant to the report by the Chief of Staff. If I have understood you correctly the question of collective fines was of no relevancy at all in your area?
A No.
Q Well, this brings us to the conclusion for the time being of discussing reprisal measures and collecting fines and let us turn now to your tactical tasks. Let me ask you first, General, who were the troops that were subordinate to you at this time?
A When I took over the Corps there were under me the 114th Rifle Division, the 373rd Croatian Division, which, as far as I remember, was in charge, tactically speaking, of a number of militia battalion and also the 264th Infantry Division which was then just arriving in the area. Later on a number of other divisions were also under me. Now and then I had to lend one of my divisions to neighboring independent units for certain purposes.
Q Witness, the troops which were under your command were they suitable for the carrying out of the tasks that had been assigned to you?
AAlthough some of the men in the divisions were of the older classes the troop, in my opinion, was very suitable nevertheless to combat bands. It was the older people who understood much better the cares and worries of the civilian population. As far as the actual fighting is concerned they were first rate and did their duty to the fullest extent. This was particularly difficult for these men as not all of them were trained and well equipped for combat in this difficult mountain terrain.
Q Witness, you talked about the divisions which were under you. May I ask you in this connection whether also units of the SS were under you?
A Possibly, when I took over first, the beginning of November, I believe that then one SS Regiment of the SS Division Prinz Eugen was stationed in Split and was then subordinate to the Corps, but it was soon returned to its division as the 264 Division was approaching and the 114 Rifle Division was relieved.
Q Now, let us talk about the question which we discussed before, namely, the old question of subordination of SS units, General. Can you tell us a few things about that.
AAs a matter of principal SS units were made subordinate to the Army only for tactical purposes. That means, tactically for a certain definite combat purpose they had been attached to us but equally as a matter of principle they were not subordinate to the Army in disciplinary or judicial matters. Should, therefore, during that combat action when they were subordinate to the Corps, any irregularity occur neither the Corps nor the Army Group under whom they then were for tactical purposes could regulate this matter judicially or from a disciplinary point of view.
Q May I perhaps draw attention to the fact that maybe one word has been wrongly translated, as far as I understood, that the German word "Heeresteil" was translated "Army Group". It should be "part of the Army, German-English Interpreter: "part of the Army." Thank you very much. Witness, now the question was also very important how the collaboration with the plenipotentiary of the Reichsfuehrer SS was regulated. Was he subordinate and his agency subordinate to you and the Corps in any sense?
A The plenipotentiary of the Reichsfuehrer SS in Croatia had police tasks assigned to him. Any connection between the Operational Staff of the XV Mountain Corps and him did not exist.
Q If I have understood you correctly, Witness, he certainly was not subordinate to you?
A Certainly not.
Q. What about the SD? How were their channels of command? Were SD units ever under you?
A. No, they were subordinate to the SS and Police Leader Croatia but not to the Wehrmacht. Occasionally, in the event of operations, such as the "Operation Panther", about which we will still have to talk, SD units were detached for certain independent tasks and as such they were attached without this entailing their subordination to the Group.
Q. Witness, the Prosecution have submitted in Document Book XVI, on page 73 of the English version and page 117 of the German version, Exhibit No. 386. This Exhibit concerns an order of the 2nd Panzer Army under the 14th of March 1943 about channeling of orders in the Northern Crotian area. In the Document Book of the Prosecution there are only paragraphs 3 and 8 of this document contained. The fact that they have selected those two paragraphs leads me to the conclusion that the Prosecution wants to establish by this document the intimate connection between the Reich Fuehrer SS and the troops. In order to clear up this point I have included paragraph 1 and 2 of this document in my own Document Book. I offer it as Leyser Exhibit No. 20. May I show the photostatic copy of this document to you, General, and perhaps you can tell the Court what this order actually meant.
(DR. TIPP TAKES THE DOCUMENT TO THE WITNESS.)
A. Paragraph 1 shows that with the beginning of the "Operation Cannae" the General Command LXIXth and the Command of the XXIInd Mountain Corps were to be put under the immediate authority of Army Group F with respect to the course of their participation in the "Operation Cannae". All local operational and tactical tasks were to be left for a while. Paragraph 2 of this order arranges new regulations for the channelizing of command in the Northern Croatian area. May I say here that my own Corps, the XVth Mountain Corps, was not participating in the Northern Croatian area. Therefore, Paragraph 2 only mentions the first Cossack Division, which was to take over the area of the LXIXth Army Corps, and simply the Commander in Chief, Syrmia, but the XVth Corps is not mentioned.
DR. TIPP: My attention has just been drawn to the fact that the document is wrongly numbered in the English Document Book. Leyser Document No. 38 is contained in the English Document Book but not under that number. In the English Document Book it is simply included as the continuance of Document No. 37.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: And what page is it?
DR. TIPP: It is in Document Book II on page 112, if your Honors please. It says in the English Document Book II von Leyser, Leyser Document No. 37, and as the page number it says page 5 up on the top. In other words, it would be the 5th page of Leyser Document Book No. 37. May I perhaps ask that the English Document Book be corrected to the fact that on Page 112 it should be the first page of Leyser Document No. 38.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: I find it on page 108, Leyser Document No. 37, in Document Book II, and it is found on pages 108 and 109.
DR. TIPP: May I say in this connection that Leyser Document No. 37 starts in the English Document Book on page 108 and comprises the pages 100, 109, 110, and 111. On page 111 in the English Document Book there is the certificate which I signed, namely, that it is a true and correct copy, which shows that this is the end of that document. On page 112 the Translation Department, by mistake, continued with Leyser Document No. 37, and they called it page 5 of this document, but page 112 actually is the first page of Leyser Document No. 38, which consists of only one page.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Thirty-eight. Document No. 38 on page 112, Exhibit 20.
DR. TIPP: Yes, and this is the document I have just offered as Leyser Exhibit 20.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Exhibit 20.
DR. DR. TIPP:
Q. General, would you be kind enough to continue?
A. Therefore the 15th Mountain Corps was not included among the commanding agencies under figure 3 in the second paragraph of figure 3 the representative of the Reich Fuehrer SS is asked to contact the commanding agencies, the XVth Mountain Army Corps is not concerned.
Q. To clear up this point, Your Honors, I might say that Paragraph 3 to which General von leyser has just made reference is not included in my document book, but has been included by the Prosecution in their document booK. As I said before, this is Exhibit 366, NOKW-1352, on page 73 of the English Document Book. This order can only be understood, therefore, if one reads paragraphs 1 and 2 in my document book, and paragraph 3, as contained in the Prosecution's Document Book. Then, it becomes quite clear what General von Leyser said just no, namely, that this order did not concern the XVth Mountain Army Corps at all, but it was merely passed on to the XVth Mountain Army Corps for purposes of information.
Q. General, in this connection we should also discuss the next Prosecution Exhibit, which is Exhibit 387, contained in the same Document Book VXI, on page 75 of the English Document Book and page 119 of the German Document Book. It is Document No. NOKW-1353. The passage to which I have reference now is a radio message by the Second Panzer Army, addressed to the XVth Mountain Army Corps, of 17 March 1944. Under Paragraph 2 it says there that the representative of the Reich Fuehrer SS in Croatia is asked to contact the commanding agencies in the Croatian area, including the XVth Mountain Army Corps.
Why was this ordered, General, and for what purpose?
A. The purpose is described in Paragraph 2 of this document. As long as the "Operation Cannae" was to last all troops available in the Croatian area were to be united in order to safeguard vital communication lines to the utmost extent. For that reason, for this limited period of time, cooperation had been ordered with the plenipotentiary of the Reich Fuehrer SS.
Q. Did these orders ever come into effect at all, General?
A. No.
Q. Why not?
A. "Operation Cannae" was never carried out. As far as I have heard this was to be a preventive measure calculated for the event of Hungary's desertion.
Q. And Hungary did not desert, did she?
A. No, she did not. It was merely a matter of camouflage. Again, "Cannae" was a camouflage term.
Q. We discussed the units which were subordinate to you. We discussed the question of channels of command for the SS and the plenipotentiary of the Reich Fuehrer SS. I shall now come to the question of how far the so-called indigenous units were under you.
A. Indigenous formations were subordinate to me only for tactical purposes, if they were subordinate at all. Cooperation was extremely vague. Any incidents could be punished in disciplinary and judicial respect only through Croatian agencies. Indigenous formations could always avoid being used for tactical purposes by quoting orders from their superior agencies. These units were to be regarded as Allied units. What we are concerned with here is the Croatian militia.
Q. In order to make this quite clear, what indigenous units were there under the command of the Armed Forces?
A. What we had were the Domobrans which constituted the only really effective Croatian Armed Forces, but you had also to include the Ustasha units but they were organized in battalions.
Q. Would you please repeat the last part of your answer, General?
A. By indigenous units, we mean the Croatian Domobrans as they were called, which were really the Croatian Armed Forces. Then you have to include the Ustasha. battalions, but not the general Ustashas.
Q. May I ask you an additional question there, General? Is it true if I assume that the Ustashas, as such, were a party organization, whereas the Ustasha units or battalions can be regarded as a sort of SA or SS within that party organization?
A. The best comparison perhaps would be with our SS. The Ustasha. was the Allgemeine SS.
Q. There is in some documents reference to Cetnik units, General. What about them?
A. Cetnik units were units formed by Serbian volunteers in the Croatian area. Following a higher order--I forget who it came from, I believe by the OKW, units were to be disarmed, but for reasons at least reasons in my sector this was quite impossible because, otherwise, you would have exposed the Serba to the Ustashas who were their deadly enemies and there would have been a large scale butchering. For that reason, I at that time, contacted or had my Chief of Staff contact the loader of the Cetniks-only of the Croatian, Cetniks-and the resit of this was that these Cetnik units were in some cases made part of our units protecting the roads. When later on I reported to Fieldmarshal von Weichs, I explained this matter to him, to the effect that as conditions were in my corps area, it was not possible to disarm these Cetnik units. The Fieldmarshal told me thereupon that of course matters had to be adjusted to local conditions. Now, as for these Cetnik units, they were of course in certain cases more or less in contact with Mihajlovic but the leader of the Croatian Cetniks with whom I had to deal hoped, above all, that he would receive protection by the Wehrmacht against the Ustashas and this we achieved by negotiation.
We achieved this in such a way that we used them to protect the roads and supply lines against Tito's bands in Serbian villages.
These Cetnik units in some cases helped us in our fight against Tito' s partisans.
Q. Witness, were they a regular troop unit which was subordinate to you in any sense or how would you characterize these Cetnik units?
A. In the case of the Cetnik units, you can't speak of regular units just as little as you can't in the case of the Tito partisans. They were a local defense organization. They were local organizations for self-defense and had organized themselves for the joint battle against Tito bands and communists.
Q. Witness, from what the Prosecution have said here, we know that the Prosecution have taken the view that the Wehrmacht had exploited the battle of the ethical groups for purposes of its own. The Wehrmacht had played up the Serbs against the Croats and the Croats against the Serbs in order thus to decimate the population.
What can you tell us about that theory?
A. The Wehrmacht would be the last organization to follow such tactics. On the contrary, the Wehrmacht had great interest in maintaining law and order in this territory. Any policy of extermination was never our policy. As I explained before, we attempted with all the means at our disposal to stop this ethical battle. We wanted to prevent the Serbs and Croats from cutting their throats all the time. When the large bands were driven away from certain areas, I stationed only the Cetnik units in the Serbian villages and I did not permit that Ustasha units, as somebody intended, should also use these Serbian villages as bases. It was in other words our endeavor not to incite these people against each other.
On the contrary, we wanted to segregate them so that there would not be this mutual battle.
Q. About that point, I want to offer a document in conclusion. It is contained in Leyser Document Book II on page 127. I offer it as Leyser Exhibit 21. It is an affidavit by Hans Klein, a Lieutenant Colonel on the General Staff, the date is 15 September 1947, and the affidavit was sworn to on 15 September 1947 before a British or American officer in the Neustadt camp. This affidavit again contained a number of points connected with the material of this trial and in this connection I would like to read from this affidavit only paragraph 6. May I point out that paragraph 1 shows that Lt. Col. Klein was the Ia of the 369th Infantry Division in the area with which we are concerned and, as such, he was subordinate to General von Leyser.
Now to read from paragraph 6:
Cooperation with Croatian Army authorities: This cooperation was very difficult. The higher ranks may have been well-intentioned, but the troops were undisciplined, poorly trained, armed and clothed. There was no reliance to be placed in promises of Croatian Army authorities. The odd thing was that the Ustasha were the most unreliable element, hardly ever submitting to a law and least of all willing to obey a German order.
Ustasha units were tactically subordinated to the division and therefore, to the corps only for certain operations. The division submitted several reports about the conduct, the fighting qualities, etc. of these units in its command area. As a high ranking Ustasha officer came from Zagreb for an inspection on one occasion, I presume that the corps passed on the suggestions to his superior authority. However, all that did not bring about any basic changes in the conditions. This proves that neither the division nor the corps could assume responsibility for the actions of the Ustasha.
Paragraph 7 deals with the opponents of the Wehrmacht which we have discussed before. I can skip this point and shall now read from paragraph 8. It reads as follows:
"Cetniks: At the beginning of my assignment in Fall 1944 the division collaborated with the Cetniks. There was no doubt, though, that the Cetniks inwardly rejected us as the occupiers of their country, that they were adversaries of the Ustasha in whom they saw the most incompromising exponents of an independent Croatian state, while they wanted a unified Yugoslavia, and that they were no less hostile to the TITO-forces, because, in contrast to the latter, they aspired a unified Yugoslavia. leaning on the Western powers and not on Russia. Later on, when the Cetniks opposed the German forces, and obviously attempted to push to the coast in the Dubrovnik area, thus inviting the Western powers to effect a landing, TiTo concentrated superior forces and defeated then in the Bileja and Trebinje area. They thereupon then withdrew to the North."
I would like to offer this document about which I would like to say more later on as Exhibit No. 21. This, your Honors, brings me to a now chapter and I wonder whether it might be a good idea to have the recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 7 November 1947, at 0930 hours.)