Q Now, who interrogated you?
A This was Mr. Rapp.
Q Mr. Rapp of the Prosecution Staff, or was he apparently of the Prosecution Staff?
A Yes, he represented the Prosecution. What he was at the time I didn't see.
AAll right; proceed. Go ahead with your story, General.
DR. TIPP: His Honor asked you to continue.
A Then I was interrogated by Mr. Rapp, but I was not told what was happening to me. I was told in the office downstairs that I was to be heard as a witness here, and in Garmisch I was told that I would be back again in about eight days. During the interrogation itself there were two ladies present. One listened, and the other one took notes. In addition there was a guard who stood behind me, and then I was interrogated. During this interrogation, as I said, I was asked about everything under the sun, but the reason whether I was to be charged or not was not told to me. This interrogation lasted from about one to one and a half hours. Thereupon I made another application as to why I was being interrogated. I was still in solitary confinement, and I couldn't speak to anybody. Nothing was spoken about a defense counsel. Then, after about two months, I was interrogated for the second time. During this second interrogation by another gentleman....
Q Who interrogated you the second time?
A This was Mr. Kralsheim. And after a ....
Q Do you know how his name is spelled?
A (Spelling) K-R-I-L-S-H-E-I-M, I think that that is probably how it is, but I'm not sure. But before this interrogation, on about the 8th or the 9th of January I think, several generals were called to a joint discussion with Mr. Rapp. And then two questions were discussed about which they probably wanted to get some clarification. Then, as I said before, about two months later I was interrogated by Mr. Krailsheim, after we had previously been told that we should write a life's history.
This I did, and it is amongst the files there. Thereupon I was interrogated about several questions which are of issue here, but still I was not told what was going on. After another four weeks I was again interrogated.
Q Just a moment, at all these conferences was there a short hand report made of these conferences that you had?
A Yes, there was a lady there who always wrote all the time, but the first time, as well as the second time, the lady told me frequently that she couldn't understand me and asked that I please speak more slowly and rather more clearly. I was very difficult to follow, so she couldn't keep up with me.
Q Did you receive a copy of any of the transcripts of these proceedings?
A No, I didn't receive a copy at all, and I also didn't sign anything and I also didn't swear to anything, with the exception of my life's history. Then, I was told that I had to swear to this on oath, and this I did. The other minutes of the interrogations I never saw, and I don't know what was written down in them at all. And then, as I said, after another four weeks I was interrogated for the third time by Mr. Rapp, and on this occasion I was told that I now had time perhaps to consider all of this, and if I had other views, then I should express them then. But I couldn't have any other views, and so I adhered to my testimony. Then many documents were submitted to me. Thereupon I was told that we generals were all to be charged, and that we would be allowed to have a defense counsel. Thereupon I was released, and then about four weeks later I received the Indictment.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. What do you mean you were released? Were you released from the prison?
A. No, from the room there, and then I was taken back to the cell.
Q. Go ahead.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q. In order to clarify a few things, might I ask you a few questions, General?
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Pardon me, had you completed your statement concerning this situation, General Leyser?
A. Then, as I said, I was given the indictment and since that date I have been here in Nurnberg.
Q. You were in Nurnberg all the time from December 18, 1946 as I understand it?
A. Yes, since the 18th of December last year I have been here in custody in Nurnberg.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed with the examination, Dr. Tipp.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q. General, after this interpolation, the question which I had already put but which you hadn't answered - it is whether after your return to the corps which you have told us was about the middle of November, 1944, and before you went into the hospital at the end of April, 1944, whether troops under your command carried out any kind of reprisal measures?
A. No, as I have already said, after we were in the area of Sarajeve and then went on further into the direction of Zagreb, in the meantime, our enemies were the Russians as well as the deserted Bulgarians, and also partly Tito's men. Reprisals were not carried out at all during that time by my troops but also during this time there was very heavy ethnic fighting between the Ustasha and the Cetniks, for instance, in which I often had to intervene and to put matters to order with the Croatian authorities.
Q. With regard to this point, your Honor, I would like to refer to two documents which I have already submitted in their entirety and have partially quoted.
The first document is to be found in Leyser Document Book No. II on page 122. It is Leyser Document 43 which I have submitted as Leyser Exhibit No. 19. This is an affidavit by Brigadier General Reinicke, and here I would like to refer to figure five in this affidavit which is to be found on page 126 of the document book. Brigadier General Reinicke states here under numeral 5 on page 126 of the document book:
"The hanging of hostages by the Ustasha in Sarajevo had caused extreme excitement, so that I was informed of it immediately, though my staff HQ, was quite a distance from this town. It was reported, that the bodies had first had a scrap of paper fastened around their neck, stating that the Wehrmacht had been responsible, too. This paper had been smeared over, after a couple of hours, and the German Wehrmacht was no longer mentioned. This, I was told, had happened, after the energetic protest of the Commanding General, who would have nothing in common with any such measures. Shortly afterwards, Gen. von LEYSER visited me and described the whole matter to me, at the same time voicing his indignation at such brutal measures."
And if one regards this statement alone, General, it is rather difficult to explain. Could you tell us, General, which case General Reinicke is referring to?
A. When we were in Sarajevo, one morning I received a report -I must add that my corps staff was not directly in Sarajevo but outside Sarajevo -- that during the night the Ustasha had hanged fifty people on lamp posts in the town. These fifty people who were hanged had a poster hung around their necks on which it stated that they had worked against the state or something like that and that they had also carried our sabotage against the German Armed Forces. Since I didn't know anything about this, I drove at once into Sarajevo to the Minister Korlovic there and told him why I came and that I didn't know anything about these things but that people were hanged because they had committed offenses against the German Armed Forces.
I demanded from him that the posters should be removed. We had nothing to do with this hanging, and I asked that the responsible people should be brought to account by the Croatian government, and the Minister agreed to this. The posters were removed, and then the man responsible was supposed to have been transferred or something like that but I don't know anything exact about it. That is probably what General Reinicke is talking about there in his testimony.
Q. With regard to the ethnic fighting in the neighborhood of Sarajevo, I would like to offer one document, your Honor, which has not yet been introduced. This is in Leyser Document Book No. II on page 137. It is Leyser Document 47 and I would like to submit it as Leyser Exhibit 57. This is an affidavit by Dr. Thomas Traub, sworn on the 16th of September, 1947, before the Mayer in Strassberg. The affiant describes first of all, in figure 1 his professional and military career. He states that at the end of August, 1943, he came to the Corps Signal Division 421 with the XXI Mountain Army as physician, that he was in Albania with this division and also took part in the retreat there.
Under figure two he states that he had known General Leyser since about the beginning of August, 1944, as Commanding General of the XXI Mountain Army. He describes a few points about General von Leyser's character which I would like to make a reference to here and figure three runs, and I quote:
"The following incident, however, shows, how severely he could act against any violation of duty as on the part of his troop: At the beginning of 1945 a train, in which also wounded Germans and Cetniks were transported to SaraJevo under German cover, was searched by Ustascha for suspected bandits. In spite of the protest of the numerically small escort, the wounded Cetniks were led off. Later on it became known, the Corps issued a strict order, to the effect that an investigation of the German guard was to be convicted, and that, in future, any guard who did not protest the wounded with his life, was to be brought before a military court."
Figure four also refers to the ethnic fighting.
"I can give another example from my own experience of the manner in which the Ustascha used to treat its own countrymen. While my division and other parts of the Corps were stationed in Kasindol near Sarajevo from about the 2 January until the 4 March 1945, 2 Cetniks came into the area of the Corps staff. They had been in action in the mountains. One had a pistol bullet in the side of his neck. He had been shot at by a partisan. Since the bullet could only be removed by an operation, I had to send the Cetnik into the hospital in Sarajevo, for, as troop physician, I did not have the necessary means for this at my disposal. But he resisted being sent there with his last strength, giving as a reason that the Ustasha were in Sarajevo, and if he was sent there, he would soon be dead. He only consented to go after some higher officers of the Corps staff, who also had to go to Sarajevo, declared themselves willing to take him along in their car and bring him into the German hospital. Thus he got specialist treatment."
General, this brings us to the end of the prosecution material. I have shown you all the documents which the prosecution submitted against you and you have been able to give your comments on the individual documents, but in order to hear your complete opinion, I would like to ask you a few concluding questions with regard to the whole matter.
Count one of the indictment charges you with having had hostage shootings and reprisal measures carried out as collective punishments with the aim of terrorizing the population and of decimating later generations. This count of the indictment further charges you with the fact that such collective measures can in no way be justified with military necessity and that they were flagrant violations of customs of war and laws of war. Since we have discussed the individual documents, General, I would like to ask you to give your entire opinion about this count of the indictment.
A The discussion of the Prosecution material showed, in my opinion, that under my leadership in the 15th and 21st Mountain Armed reprisal measures were only carried out if the security of the troops made them absolutely necessary and the German leadership and I do not want to make one German soldier guilty in any way for this.
With the 15th Army Corps, according to the Prosecution documents, only in one case of hostages was someone shot and in this case one certainly can't talk about a terrorization of the population neither of an extermination. And with the 21st Army Corps, amongst those parts of the troops for which I was responsible, not one single reprisal measure was carried out.
Q Count 2 of the indictment charges you with having carried out senseless destructions which were not absolutely military necessary and the count further charges you with having plundered the civilian population. What have you to say with regard to this count of the indictment?
AA discussion of the material submitted here has drastically shown that the greater part of the destruction took place during fighting and as an immediate and unavoidable result of the fighting -
MR. FULKERSEN: If your Honor please, I don't like to stand on technical objections, but what is done here is that the witness is being asked to make an argument about all the evidence that he's already discussed piece by piece and what he is now saying properly finds itself in an argument, not in testimony.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant is on trial here on a very serious charge, the final results of which could be very serious to him. I feel, and I am sure it is the attitude of the Tribunal, that he should have every opportunity to express himself on the specific charges made against him. The objection will be overruled.
BY DR. TIPP:
Q Please continue, General.
A Therefore, reprisal measures destroying buildings which were carried out in my sector were absolutely necessary and were only carried out against band quarters or band hiding places, but these measures were also absolutely militarily necessary and if here I am charged with the fact that through my troops the civilian population had been plundered, then I can say to this that the Prosecution has not submitted one single document which shows that this is correct.
Merely war material, and arms and other stocks of the bands, were confiscated. No material has been submitted at all here about the plundering of the civilian population.
Q In Count 3 of the indictment you are charged with having issued illegal orders, passed them on to your subordinate troops and having them carried out. We have discussed a few orders about this. What can you say to this in conclusion, General?
A I think that I have proved here in my testimony that I issued no illegal orders, that I did not pass on any illegal orders and that my soldiers did not carry out any illegal orders.
Q Count 4 of the indictment charges you with having used indigenous personnel for forced labor and with also having ordered their deportation for forced labor in the Reich. You are further charged with having illegally and without military necessity, thrown indigenous personnel into concentration camps. Might I ask you to give a concluding comment on this?
A With regard to the employment of civilian population the 15th Mountain Corps, as a tactical operational staff, had nothing at all to do with this. This was in the sphere of other authorities who were not subordinate to me, but as far as indigenous personnel in Croatia were used for labor, they were set to this work by their own agencies. The work was to fortify their own fatherland against the common enemy and with the alleged forced deportation of workers into the Reich, my staff was also not commissioned. No single document shows that in Croatia or Albania I ordered anybody to be sent to a concentration camp.
Concentration camps did not exist at all in my area. No prisoner's camps were under my command and I think I have proven that.
Q And now the last question, General: If you survey your service career as commanding general of the 15th and 21st Army Corps and also regard the Prosecution documents which are submitted against you from this period, what have you to say about your command?
A Of course, I have often thought about this a lot. Even if I had known that I would once have to give account before an Allied Tribunal because of the so-called Control Council Law No. 10, then according to the conditions which existed at that time, I could not have acted any differently. In my conviction I have done my duty according to my best of knowledge and belief for my soldiers, for my people and for my fatherland.
DR. TIPP: I have no further questions to this witness, your Honor.
And to conclude my presentation of evidence I would like to make one technical comment. All the documents which I have offered, all those documents, which I wanted to submit for General von Leyser on direct examination will be withdrawn by me. I want to name not them here so that the Tribunal has the opportunity to change the documents books accordingly.
The first document which I don't want to present and which I withdraw is Leyser Document No. 14. This is in Document Book No. 1 page 39.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Tipp, you have not offered these particular documents that you are apparently starting out to mention. So I see no necessity of your withdrawing them. The tribunal will not give consideration to any documents which are not offered or received in evidence. So there is no necessity for you to withdraw these documents that you are starting out to mention.
DR. TIPP: There are only four, your Honor, but if the Tribunal will not take notice of them in any case, I will not bother to enumerate them.
I have two or three affidavits remaining which I could not include in Document Book 3. I would like to reserve the right to submit a supplementary book when the occasion arises.
THE PRESIDENT: You will be granted that privilege.
DR. TIPP: And at the moment I have no further questions to General von Leyser.
THE PRESIDENT: General von Leyser, may I inquire of you and may I give you the opportunity to state to this Tribunal your contention as to your status before this Tribunal?
THE WITNESS: I did not understand you, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: I was trying not to state a leading question. What do you claim as to your position before this Tribunal?
THE WITNESS: I am a defendant before the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: That is true, but is it your contention that this Tribunal does not have any jurisdiction to hear your case?
THE WITNESS: According to the provisions of the Geneva Convention Generals and officers, are to be placed before a military Court, of the same state and the judges must have the same rank as the defendants, that is, they must be placed before a military court. That is what the provisions are.
THE PRESIDENT: In other words, it is your contention that this Tribunal had no jurisdiction to try you?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I didn't talk about capabilities but I only wanted to state-
THE PRESIDENT: You misunderstood me, General. The question is as to whether or not this Tribunal has a right. It is your thought that this Tribunal does not have a right, under the Geneva Convention to try you?
Is that your contention?
THE WITNESS: Yes, according to the Geneva Convention.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. And just one other question.
It is your further contention and claim that you have never been released from a prisoner of war status, is that correct?
THE WITNESS: Yes, that is my opinion.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. The Tribunal will recess at this time until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 14 November 1947 at 0930 hours.)
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 14 November 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Wennerstrem presiding.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the court room 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 court room.
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Marshal you will ascertain as to whether or not all defendants are present in the court room.
THE MARSHAL: May it please you Honor, all defendants are present in the court room except the defendant von Weichs who is in the hospital.
THE PRESIDENT: Judge Burke will preside at this session.
JUDGE BURKE: Do any other defense counsel desire to cross-examine the witness?
Do you have something further, Dr. Tipp, which you wish to present?
DR. TIPP: No, Your Honor.
BY DR. GAWLIK: (Counsel for the defendant General Dehner.)
Q. General, from document book 15 of the prosecution I submit to you document NOKW 1430, exhibit No. 370, page 50 of the English and page 84 of the German text. This document contains reports about the operation "Brandfakel." (Torch) The document has been submitted also as evidence against General Debner and I now ask you by which corps was the operation "Brandfackel" carried out?
A. The operation "Brandfackel" (torch) was carried out by the XV Corps.
Q. Was the LXIX Corps involved in this at all?
A. The LXIX Corps did not participate in this.
Q. At that time to whom was the 1st Cossack division subordinate?
ate to the XV Corps.
Q. For which reasons were the teletypes dated 27 January, 28 January and 29 January sent to the LXIX Corp, I would like to draw your attention to page 84 and following of the German text and page 50 of the English.
A. The reason is possible the fact that the Cossack Division was stationed in the area of Zagreb and was therefore reporting to the LXIX Corps about this because this was stationed in the neighborhood. There was no subordination at this time to the LXIX Corps and the report was sent only for information.
Q. Did the LXIX Reserve Corps have any kind of command or jurisdiction over the SV Corps or the units which were subordinated to this Corps?
A. The XV Corps was never subordinated to the LXIX Corps. If at some time parts, for instance during the operation "Schach", units were subordinate to the LXIX Corps then it was only for this operation.
Q. Thank you, I have no further question.
JUDGE BURKE: Are there any further questions by defense counsel? If not, the prosecution may proceed.
MR. FULKERSEN: Your Honors, please, before I commence the crossexamination, I would like to call attention to the fact that the pagination has gone awry on the transcript of the English.
JUDGE BURKE: That is an unusual situation, what document do you refer to?
MR. FULKERSEN: I mean the actual court transcript, if you please, for the 6th of November. The right page given there is 5753 at the end of the session on November 6th and on the 7th of November the pagination begins 5154, it obviously should begin 5754 and that has been carried on all through the transcript for the 7th and presumably for the following days.
We have notified Major Granzin's office about this and presumably they will make the changes hereafter, but it may be that in refer ring to the transcript hereafter there may be some confusion and that is why I call your attention to it.
JUDGE BURKE: Thank you very much. You may proceed.
CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. FULKERSEN:
Q. For convenience sake I will follow approximately the same order that Dr. Tipp did, first let us discuss the Commissar order, you will recall the order generally don't you?
A. Yes.
Q. I believe you said that you first heard about this order at a conference with the members of General Reinhardt's Corps sometime before the beginning of the Russian campaign; is that right?
A. No, I said something rather different. I heard about it for the first time with the 18th Army and I said that shortly before the beginning of the Russian campaign I came to the Panzer Corps Reinhardt and there General Reinhardt told this to me.
Q In other words, you -- but where did you hear about it for the first time, General, I mean was that at a conference of the various officers of the 18th Army?
A. I said that there was a conference with the 18th Army, at which the commanding generals and the division commanders were present. They were ordered to this tactical conference during which we were told that war with Russia would come and that it was also mentioned that an order of the Fuehrer would be issued, according to which political commissars were to be shot. That was the first time I heard about this so called Commissar order.
Q. Well, did you see a copy of the order at that time?
A. No, we were told it orally.
Q. And later you say, when you transferred to General Reinhardt' s Corps that he again mentioned this order?
A. Yes.
Q. Did he show you a copy of it then?
A. No.
Q. But he gave you the general contents of the order?
A. Yes, this Commissar order was generally known and everyone was talking about it. As a result this matter cropped up and as I have recently said, it was during a discussion with General Hoeppner of the Panzer Army, that objections were made against it. These objections were turned down. General Reinhardt as commanding general mentioned this order to his commanding generals, of whom I was one, and said that this order was in existence, but he also said approximately that this order did not come into the question at all for us, but that everyone should be treated as a Prisoner of War.
Q. And I believe you said that you yourself personally had several objections to the order, one of which was that you anticipated that the advance through Russia would be about as fast as the advance through France and that you did not think there would be time to screen those prisoners and separate the political commissars from the others; is that correct?
A. No, I did not say that. In my opinion that is contained in the affidavit of General Reinhardt. I did not say it.
Q. You had no objections along that line yourself?
A. Well, I don't know how to take that, how do you mean objections in that connection? At that time with the 18th Army? I saidthat we divisional commanders raised objections at that time and it was not in accordance with our soldierly feelings. General Reinhardt mentioned it, in his affidavit. It did not say this during my examination.
Q. In other words you never did,--your only objection to it was that it was not in accordance with your ideas of soldierly conduct?
A. Yes.
Q. You didn't object to it because you thought it was impracticable?
A. Yes, because it was impracticable.
Q. For the reason that General Reinhardt gave?
A. We are talking about two things here. I said that the first time with the 18th Army, we Generals,--it was a conference for the commanding generals and the divisional commanders,--expressed the opinion that this order was against the soldierly feeling and conduct. Then there came the second time when we heard about it through General Reinhardt, my commanding general. At that time he said that he, at the conference with his army commanders brought the question up that this order must be rescinded, because he was also of the opinion that this order was a violation of soldierly conduct and this view was turned down because the order was not rescinded.
Thereupon General Reinhardt told us division commanders his opinion, that he had raised this question, that this order was not correct according to soldierly feeling, but he had to pass on the order but he also ordered that all prisoners, all captured soldiers, should be treated as prisoners of war and he added that, as a panzer unit, we would certainly not have any time or opportunity to sort out among the prisoners the commissars or something like that.
Q Well, was the task of separating the commissars so difficult?
A Yes, why difficult; I don't understand the question.
Q Well you say that General Reinhardt said there wouldn't be time to do it, that there would not be time to separate the commissars; was that a difficult job?
A One must realize how a Panzer formation works. For the most time the men are sitting inside the tanks, then when the battle starts there are hundreds of thousands of prisoners. One cannot get the men out of the tanks and then from these thousands of prisoners one cannot sort out the commissars. But he meant that in this tank attack, which of course is what a tank formation does, there would be no time to screen and sort out all the many prisoners. That is what he meant.
Q Well, when you captured a group of prisoners, I am speaking now of a particular German division, when it captured a group of prisoners how long was it before it separated the officers from the men among the prisoners?
A Well, I really cannot say this. I have never ordered that myself. During the battle as divisional commander I had quite different tasks than to sort out the prisoners. The prisoners were transported away and they were given escorts, then there was a collection center, this was ordered and then they were collected together, from there they were sent to the Corps to the Army itself back to the rear. As divisional commander myself, as officer of the troops in action I had nothing at all to do with the sorting of the prisoners and collecting them together.
Q I understand that General, but was it not the task of your 1-C among other things to interrogate prisoners and try to get information from them about the strength, position, arms, etc.
, of the enemy?
A Yes, that was of course the task of the 1-C to get this information from the prisoners, but this 1-C was not stationed with me, but you must imagine it like this, the battle position was something different from where the 1-C was from sitting behind his desk and working on the prisoners. I didn't have anything to do with that, but if I was on the battle field.
Q I understand that, General, I don't imagine that you were sitting back and interrogating the prisoners yourself, but now when the 1-C interrogated the prisoners as a general rule wouldn't you expect to get more information from an officer than you did from an enlisted man?
A Yes, of course we expected to get more from an officer, but whether he did get more or would get more that is rather questionable because it is quite clear that Prisoners of War are not supposed to say anything and from an officer one should expect that he says less than an ordinary soldier.
Q I am not talking about individual cases, General, but as a general rule that is true is it not that you expect to get more information out of the officers because they have more information?
A Well, I don't think that one expects that because one expects that an officer does not say anything he knows.
Q And your 1-C then was not interested for the purpose of interrogating the prisoners and having them separated into the enlisted men and officers?
A He may have done it, but how he did it actually in detail I really don't know.
Q Well now in the Russian army at the beginning of the war, what was the general position taken by the Russians to the political commissars; were they enlisted men or were they officers?
A I don't know exactly, in my opinion they were sort of middle things or intermediate, neither officers nor enlisted men. They were just political commissars and their task was to transmit ideological ideas to the soldiers and to influence them ideologically.
Q And as a matter of fact they had a distinctive insignia, a red star on the sleeve with the hammer and sickle interwoven in it?
A Yes, that was announced that the commissars had an extra insignia, a red star.
Q And yet after these prisoners were moved back into the compound where they were kept until your 1-C interrogated them, you say that there was not time to separate the commissars from the rest of the prisoners?
A During this advance, there cannot be any mention at all about prisoner camps, because we did not have prisoners camps. They were just transported off, in fact they were collected together and the 1-C checked out one or the other for interrogation purposes. If there were four or five thousand people, of course the 1-C did not interrogate all the four or five thousand, but the divisional 1-C had to do the best he could and as quickly as possible in our interests, but no detailed interrogations, etc., would be done until later on.
Q As I remember, General, the Russian campaign opened on June 21st, 1941; is that correct to the best of your recollection?
A On the 20th, I think.
Q Now, how long was it before your division reached the outer peripheria of the defenses of Leningrad?
A That would have been about the beginning of October.
Q And you stayed with the division until the following January, I believe?
A No, I stayed much longer with the division.
Q Well, how long did you stay, General, I am sorry I made that mistake?
A With the division?
Q Yes.
A Until August of 1942.