DR. WEISGERBER: In this connection, Mr. President, I would like to submit the provisional service regulation for the area headquarters 295, and others, as it is contained in document book Speidel No. 3. This is Speidel document No. 50 on page 39 of document book 3. I would like to submit this document as Speidel exhibit No. 16. I do not intend to read this temporary service regulation, and I would like to recommend it to the judicial notice of the Court.
Further, I have attempted to show the organization of the military command Greece in a sketch, and I should like to refer to document volume Speidel No. 2, the document Speidel No. 16 on page 8. I should like to submit that as Speidel exhibit No. 17. This is a chart. It is headed "Militaerbefehlshaber Griechenland", Military Commander Greece, page 8 of document book number 2. Mr. President, I don't know whether you have this chart at hand.
THE PRESIDENT: I have a chart in my book which has been marked page 8 which comes between pages 7 and 9. Apparently my associates do not have the same type of a chart that I have, though. Do you have smaller ones? I think it is the same thing. It is a small matter.
DR. WEISGERBER: Yes, Mr. President, it is the same.
Q. (By Dr, Weisgerber) General, on the basis of this chart, would you once again give a detailed account of the whole organization?
A. Up on top, as the supreme command, we have the Military Commander of Greece; immediately subordinate to him, lower down, is the Military Commander Greece. Then from the flag of the Military Commander lower down to the right we have the sub-area commander 395 who is at the same time military commander of Salonika, Then, reading from the right to the left, the seven field sub-area commands follow. Below that we see the security battalion 596 which I have just mentioned.
Towards the left we see the Higher SS and Police Leader and the SS and police regiment number 18 which is subordinate to him. Between these two complexes there is one line going farther towards the bottom. There you see the three command flags; that is, Army Air Force, and Navy which are only territorially subordinate. At the outside you can see the other various authorities of the OKW and the OKH which were not in Greece.
Now, only a few short remarks concerning the channels of command. They are designated by lines. The Higher SS Police Fuehrer is subordinate to the military commander Greece according to the service regulation as mentioned. Then, tactical directives from the Army Group E, and finally the subordination concerning distribution as well as police questions to the Reichsfuehrer-SS. And now, I would like you to look at the flag of the Army Group E. We must establish the communications line going from the Army Group E to the right bottom to the commander of Salonika in his capacity as tachical leader, finally, the lines that lead from the military commander directly to the right, designate cooperation with the Greek government and also cooperation with the German Special Plenipotentiary for economic questions, Minister Neubacher, who, at the same time, issued all the directives concerning the economic field. These mainfold conditions of subordination we tried to explain in this sketch, in a very primitive way.
DR. WEISGERBER: For the simplification of the tasks of the military commander of Greece I have added to the document Speidel number 17, a concentrated summary of this subordination procedure, and I would like to submit this summary as Speidel exhibit No. 18. I do not intend to read this document and would like to recommend it to the judicial notice of the Court.
Q. (By Dr. Weisgerber) General, will you please give us in two or three sentences a short summary of your own tasks?
A. In short there were three fields of tasks: Those concerned, with troops on the one hand though they were the smallest part, territorial tasks, and third, they were administrative and executives tasks. The summary just submitted is not a theory but is a summary of the real tasks as they were practiced.
Q. General, when you mentioned that you are almost ashamed to mention that you commanded only one security battalion, one local defense battalion, I imagine your position as military commander in Greece as follows. It was a big facade and no foundation which could hold up this representative building. Is this a correct interpretation?
A. When the first witness here was sitting in my place, General Felber, he said that the military commander of Greece was only a torso. In cross-examination, he used another definition, which I do not remember now, which I have, however, noted down and which I would like to be permitted to read. It is quite short. He said the following: "A great name and lovely titles for the tasks, and something big should be done which, in actuality, could not be expected to live." I must say that this definition is not bad because in practice that is just how it was. The troops were taken away from me by the army Group E. Secondly, the Higher SS & Police Leader was subordinated to me to the extent which was shown today on the basis of the service regulations and my more detailed statements. Third, the administrative tasks, which really should take the foreground, kept me very busy, but they did not give me the authority to make any decisions because in this area of economy, finance, and administration, I was dependent exclusively on the Special Spenipotentiary of the Reich, Minister Neubacher, who, first of all, was a Special Plenipotentiary for Economic Tasks, and also the German Minister. He was a diplomat. I talked of the troops; I talked of the Higher SS & Police Leader; I spoke of economics. And, fourth, the tasks of the executive power-that is to say--was restricted and decreased in direct proportion to the increase of the combat activities. And the so-called pacified area became smaller.
After all, in the combat area, of course, the troops were supreme.
Q. To conclude this chapter, I should like to give the Tribunal a short explanation of the confusion with regard to subordination in the Greek area. We have heard from witness Berghofer, who a few days ago was on the witness stand for General Felmy, that he was probably the only one who could have known how many authorities there were in Athens. In order to give the Tribunal the possibility to know something about this question, I have made a chart of the organization or rather disorganization of the channels of command in the Greek area. I have included this in Document Book No. 2, and that is as Speidel Document 18, on page 17 of this document book, and I would like to give this document Exhibit No. 19.
Furthermore, I have included explanatory remarks to this chart on the following pages 18 and 19, and would like to request permission to submit this document 19 as Speidel Exhibit No. 20.
General, would you please explain to us this chart?
A. This organizational chart was designed by me. In the center of this chart is the Military Commander Greece, but in order to avoid misunderstandings, I would emphasize that the Military Commander Greece is in the center only in this chart, for actually at this time he was not the center of activity. In the numerous little squares around him are all the command authorities, official authorities, and civil authorities with which the military commander had to deal in any way whatsoever; be it that they gave orders or that they attempted to give orders: be it that they made demands on him or that they had to take instructions from him.
The lines that connect the little squares and the numbers can only be understood if one looks at the explanations which were mentioned by Dr. Weisgerber. Every connecting line has a number and that number designates the way of subordination and coordination in general. I should like to be very brief and mention only the essentials. The double lines are the definite directions of subordination. All the other lines are compromise symbols--of double subordination, triple subordination, and so forth. In order not to confuse the picture too much, I have only shown essentials. For instance, I left out the 68th Mountain Corps, the 22nd Corps and others, even though they were not essential factors; but I have put them together with the Army Group E. If we look at this, we first see a very confusing picture, and I only want to emphasize two factors: first, on the left is the Special Plenipotentiary for Economics, Minister Neubacher, who got his directives from the Foreign Office, as well as from the Reich Economic Ministry, and who, on the one side, was giving me orders in the economic field, but on the other side also to the Greek government. Let us now turn to the picture to the right.
The Greek government was influenced by the Higher SS & Police Leader, and it is characteristic for him to be dependent from three various command areas for orders, and he himself gives his orders to three different organizations. These few words might suffice to give you a picture of the confusing situation which could result from such a disorganization--and actually did result from it. The superior authorities of the military commander were not in the area; that is, they could not possibly judge the conditions in this particular area.
Q. In this connection, Mr. President, I would like to refer to the affidavit of Hermann Boedecker, as contained in Document Book 2, Speidel, page 27 and the following. I have already submitted this affidavit as Speidel Exhibit No. 12, and would like to refer to page 31 German and English versions. The affiant talks about the complex that General Speidel has just discussed, and says the following:
"In view of the parallel operations of so many German agencies, it really could not have been always easy for the Greek Government, at that time headed by Prime Ministery Rhallys, to know with which German agency it actually had to negotiate in a responsible manner. In this respect too, I have frequently experienced as an eye-witness that General Speidel again and again endeavored to act in mediating and settling of differences. I know that the then Prime Ministery Rhallys was extremely thankful to General Speidel."
The affiant continues: "Under these circumstances, only tasks of representation were left to General Speidel which found their visible expression in conventional association with the diplomatic representatives of other countries, troop parades, etc. But this very activity of representation helped in completely deceiving the Greek public with regard to General Speidel's responsibility, and the public was blaming him for matters which he had not caused and which he, on the other hand, could not settle, as, for instance, the measures carried out by the SS. Thus the minor importance of his position in Greece did not come to the attention of the public. He just knew how to hide his insignificant position from the outside world."
"I am convinced of the fact that the activity of General of the Air Force Speidel did not decisively affect the development and conditions prevailing in Greece at that time, but that General Speidel, as a result of the incompetence of the Nazi bosses in Berlin, was maneuvered into an almost impossible position.
General Speidel frequently expressed to me his indignation about this fact."
Now, General, after we have discussed the organization of the military command in Greece, I would like to come back to several concrete cases which are put to your charge by the Prosecution. I regard the chart of your position as Military Commander Greece, as necessary to explain your competency clearly.
I would like to start with the strikes in Athens at the end of August 1943 as are contained in exhibit 410 of the prosecution, document book 17, page 52 of the English and 38 of the German version, volume 17, page 52 of the English and page 38 of the German. According to this document, the shooting of 50 hostages because of sabotage was threatened in Kallithea, could you please in short describe this incident?
A The incident was the following, a general flareup of strikes with political background and in the course of this strike movement, there were incidents the last of which was the following: large scale street fighting, burning of Kallithea by arsony and the buildings destroyed up to about 50%. Everything burned that of course should have been an internal matter for the Greeks, but with this act of sabotage extremely important defense economic effects resulted. That is to say great numbers of workers that were employed in Wehrmacht works did not or could no longer get to work. Beyond that strikes as well as sabotage acts were threatened with heavy punishment. For this reason, I would like to say that I fired a blind shot and I ordered the shooting of 50 workers of this works with the hope that the real perpetrators could be captured.
Q And what happened?
A Of course every possible means of investigation were used and the frightened Greek population in Athens took part extensively so that the actual perpetrators were captured by the Greek population and were submitted to us. The results speak for themselves.
Q Were the hostages actually captured?
A No, that they were not shot can be seen from another document. In the same volume we will see that on page 64 of the German version, I don't know the English page number, we can read there.
Q Book 17, exhibit 418, page 84 in the English version.
A We can see in the daily report of 4 September 1943, "Several culprits participating in sabotage Kallithes (see daily report) arrested. 50 hostages kept under arrest until conclusion of the investigation."
I will furthermore be in a position to present an exhibit which will be proof that these hostages were released after a short time after as well as a confirmation from Athens, which Dr. Weisgerber will submit now.
Q In this connection I would like to submit from document book Speidel 3 document 59 of that document volume, on page 85, I would like to submit this document as Speidel exhibit 21. This is an affidavit by Konstantin Logothetopulos, a university professor and former Minister President of Athens. As far as the person of this witness is concerned, Professor Logothetopulos is a recognized gynecologist known at least in the scientific world, and he states the following concerning my client and this matter under discussion.
General von Speidel's attitude toward the Greek people was always benevolent. Again and again he pardoned condemned persons whereever he could. I know from my own experiences with him that he regretted those executions which, on account of the nature of the deed - espionage or sabotage - he was unable to prevent.
Through my own contact with him I know that he was greatly in sympathy with Greece. My view was confirmed when I listened to a lecture on Greece which he delivered in Deggendorf concentration camp ...........
Finally, as regards the 50 hostages of whose shooting General Speidel is accused, I declare that this shooting did not take place. It is, thanks to the same general that this bloodbath was not perpetrated, and that it remained a mere threat.
I must admit generally, that General Speidel was a reasonable and mild soldier, easy to get on with, and one who, as a gormer classical scholar, had an understanding for the soul of the Greek people.
Athens, 5 November 1947. Correctly signed and notorized.
Will you please now turn to the prosecution document exhibit 418, volume 17, page 83 in the English and page 62 in the German. This is a report that the 5th company of SS Mountain Jaeger Regiment 18 was surrounded near Abrachova by partisan troops, what do you know about this incident?
A This incident I remember very well. This happened within the framework of the assignment of this regiment for the security of Boeotia, that was a task which was still my responsibility. At that occasion this company, because of its tasks concerning security, got into combat and had great losses, the extent of which I could see from the war diary. The losses were 8 dead, 33 wounded and 55 missing. No reprisal measures were taken.
Q Did surprise attacks of that sort happen frequently?
A Yes, they did. It was just in connection with the security tasks of the regiment that such attacks frequently occurred. I myself was a witness to such an attack once when I inspected the security positions at the mountain pass. According to my custom, I visited the various posts on the road leading to the pass to the west of the mountain. The company at one point there was attacked and in the ensuing combat had some losses. I myself saw one dead and nine wounded.
Q Could you ascertain whether these Guerrilla bands were in uniform or had any sort of insignia?
A I myself inspected the captured and dead bandits, they all were in disorderly civilian clothes without any insignia whatever, not even the Soviet Star, which was mentioned so often. They were civilians and had rifles which they fired.
Q And for the murder of those policemen, did you order reprisal measures for that?
A No, these were losses which occurred in combat.
Q The prosecution referred to exhibit 280 in volume 11, page 67 of the English text and page 52 of the German text. This is a regulation by tho O.K.R. concerning the designation of Band--Formations dated 13 June 1943. Do you remember having received this order?
A I do not remember ever having seen this order. I also do not think it likely that I did see it for it is an order which was brought out by the OKH, and as can he seen from the warding it only refers to the eastern theater of war.
From the supplement it is also quite clear, for I who speak Russian, I can judge that only Russian designations are used for examples and it is not to he assumed that I got this order or knew it. It is of no importance whether I saw it or not, for I had nothing to do with guerrilla fighting in the actual sense.
Q Mr. President, I would like to turn to a new chapter now and I would like to make the suggestion to start the afternoon recess at this time.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, we will have our afternoon recess at this time.
(A recess was taken.)
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
THE MARSHAL: Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.
The Tribunal is again in session.
BY DR. WEISGERBER:
Q. General, I think we will now deal with a few basic points about the position of the territorial commander so that your tasks, your position and your responsibilities may be correctly understood. You were in Greece as territorial commander after the reorganization or after your appointment as military commander and as such you held executive powers. Is that correct?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. In this courtroom the term "executive power" has been discussed and commented on on several occasions. In spite of this, I think you should also discuss this term and give us your comments on the responsibilities of a territorial commander. Are both those terms identical?
A. No, by no means; those two terms are entirely different although in most cases they are mixed up and misunderstood. One can also hold executive powers without being a territorial commander.
Q. Will you then please define your conception of those two terms?
A. "Territorial commander" is a military concept. "Executive power" is a conception of the state and of international law.
Q. And what explanations would you give for the term "territorial commander?"
A. A territorial commander has tasks primarily towards his own forces; by this I mean in a certain territory, which again means within his area he has to solve those tasks which need a common regulation for all parts of the armed forces concerned and which are conditioned by the special conditions in the territory involved.
Q. What tasks are these actually, General?
A. The tasks of a territorial commander have been clearly defined and established although at the moment I cannot tell you where. They comprise, to the best of my recollection, as main points: (1) securing of the country, (2) organization of the communications and transports, (3) securing of communications, (4) organization and securing of signal and communication installations, (5) accommodation and supply of the armed forces, (6) all those economic problems which can be solved in this territory for all armed forces concerned uniformly, (7) administrative tasks of all kinds, (8) making use of the country for purposes of the armed forces, (9) medical care and, finally, (10) the material and above all spiritual care for the armed forces, what we in those days called taking care of the spiritual needs of the soldiers. Those are, briefly put, the most important points, or rather the theoretical tasks.
Now, in order to turn to the case of Greece, the first four points did not apply for practical purposes. I shall repeat these four first points. They were: (1) securing of the country, (2) organization and securing of means of communications, (3) organization and securing of signal and communication installations and (4) -
Q. I believe you mentioned railroad communication lines.
A. Yes, that's right. Those four tasks were not part of the tasks of the Military Commander for Greece because they were in the hands of the Army Group or other agencies.
Q. Now, let us turn to the concept of executive power.
A. Executive power -- for this concept of state and international law, cannot, of course, give you a legal definition but I can tell you that to me it meant authorities and duties towards the population.
I said before a territorial commander has tasks towards his own armed forces and executive power means rights and duties towards the population of the occupied country; that is it means holding executive as well as legislative power in the area occupied.
Q. Let's start with legislative power. How did you execute this power in Greece?
A. Legislative authority -- I was for practical purposes not in a position to execute and this for the following reasons: (1) a government existed in the country; (2) the administrative machinery was still intact and working inasmuch as it was not disrupted by the bands; and (3) -- and this is the decisive factor -- this government which I mentioned received all decisive instructions on political, administrative, legislative, and economic spheres from the frequently mentioned special plenipotentiary of the Reich.
Q. Who was this special plenipotentiary of the Reich?
A. That was Minister Neubacher.
Q. He was not subordinated to you?
A. No, on the contrary.
Q. If I understand you correctly, you could not do any positive work in the sphere of legislative authority.
A. No positive work; but, if I may put it this way, I could act in a negative manner. By this I mean I had the so-called authority of veto. All laws and decrees which the Greek government intended to issue had, before they were made public, to be submitted to me and I had to examine them as to whether they were in any way contrary to the interests of the German Armed Forces. I was only to take care of the interests of the German Armed Armed Forces. This right of veto, to the best of my recollection -- I may be mistaken but I believe I am correct -- I used only at one time and this veto I withdrew later when the government gave me an explanation which satisfied me.
Q. General, you will remember that a few days ago the opinion was voiced here that the Greek government had possibly been only a puppet government dependent on the German occupation force. After all, you worked together with this Greek government for many months and, therefore, I believe that your statements in connection with this question can be of great importance. How would you characterize the Greek government, the Greek governments with which you had contact?
A. To answer this question one has to be clear about two conceptions and these are the following: (1) what does one expect from a government of an occupied country which has to work in accordance with directives from the occupation power and (2) what is a puppet government altogether? If for instance, one regards the South German governments of today as puppet governments because they work in accordance with directives by the American Military Government, then I must say that the Greek government of those days was also a puppet government because it was bound to the directives of the occupation force.
I had at that time never once the idea that this was a puppet government. The endeavor of German politics seemed from a political, as well as from a military point of view to give this government as much independence as ever possible, to support it and to find in it an ally in the struggle against Communism.
If I am to answer your question in more detail yet, I believe you asked me about the various governments which existed; one brief word about the personalities involved. I worked together with three prime ministers. The first one was General Zolacoglu. I worked with him only for a very short while so that I am in no position to voice an opinion about him.
After that I worked for about six months with his successor who was Prime Minister Logothetopoulos, an affidavit of whom was read here before the recess. This man was a scientist rather than a politician and took over his difficult post with the idea of serving his people and his country. He proved to be too weak in order to stand his ground against the party political intrigues.
The next person with whom I worked together was Prime Minister Rhallis. This prime minister Rhallis, who I believe was also mentioned yesterday by Professor Stadtmueller, was a man in whose character it was not at all to be a puppet. I held him in particularly high esteem because he worked with energy, with conviction and with a great frankness in the interests of his country. I had fullest understanding for the fact that he represented them in this way because I showed him the same frankness and honestly and represented in this way the interests of my armed forces.
On this basis of mutual esteem and frankness we worked together in an excellent manner. I understood his problems, his national attitude, his national ambitions and he understood mine. I cannot remember one single incident where our deviating opinion could not be bridged by a human and gentlemanly manner and clarifying action.
To summarize it briefly, he was not a puppet; he was a man.
Q Now to talk about executive powers, what did this mean? What authorities did it comprise?
A Even if I have to repeat what I said before, I must first of all state that I had not the forces at my disposal to carry out executive powers because I had no troops. That is, the forces of the Higher SS and Police Leader were not at my disposal either because they were either committed in the band combat areas or, according to instructions by the Reichfuehrer SS, they were committed for police tasks. The last factor which remained was the frequently mentioned subarea administrative headquarters which had at their disposal the following forces: one gendar merie platoon of exactly 16 men and these gendarmerie platoons only arrived towards the end of December 1943 or beginning January 1944, as I gathered from the war diaries.
Q. Could you, with these forces at your disposal which you mentioned just now, maintain law and order in Greece?
A. No.
Q. Then, for you there existed an unsoluble problem. Was this discrepancy between the task which you had and the possibility of its solution the result of the reorganization and of the multitude of channels of command?
A. Yes, owing to the complicated dualistic conduct of operation in the Greek area, the following sub-divisions of power and authority existed: On the one side there was the troop leader--the tactical leader--namely, the Commander in Chief of Army Group E, with the corps and divisions subordinated to him; and on the other side there was the Military Commander without troops, who had a command post in an entire area subordinated to him, and, thirdly, there was the higher SS and Police Leader, with his frequently described spheres of work; so the duplism mentioned by me was really a triple system.
Q. How did that dualism or triplicity affect the actual conditions?
A. The development continued to be one of increasing unrest in the country. Band activities became more frequent and extensive and, simultaneously in the same area, the activities and commitments of the troops became more extensive. In the same measure, as the activities of the troops increased, the possibilities of the Military Commander to exert influence decreased, so that eventually it had to be restricted to the small pacified areas which, in the final analysis, were the seats of the Sub-area Administrative Headquarters and the vicinity of these agencies. Only these very small districts could be designated as "pacified areas."
Q. You, as holder of executive power, had, for all practical purposes, no powers, because the focal point moved more and more to tactical leadership?
A. Yes, that is correct. That was a necessary consequences of the development of the band movement and of the unclear and contradictory orders and channels of command.
Q. We had started from the concept of executive powers. Now, did you regard reprisal measures as a part of executive powers?
A. Executive powers is the pre-requisite for the ordering of reprisal measures.
Q. Is that the only pre-requisite?
A. In theory, yes; in practice the situation was this: Executive power could only he used to the extent that my own power allowed me to do that. That is in the small pacified areas, which I mentioned before, and over which I had jurisdiction.
Q. And what happened to the other areas? Who carried out reprisal measures there?
A. In the other areas -- those were combat areas -- the troops carried out independently their own reprisal measures.
Q. In order to clarify this contrast I would like to ask you whether your conceptions--that the troops had the right to take independent reprisal measures and actually carried out such--was supported by orders of higher agencies.
A. Yes, the most important proof which I can mention in this connection is the frequently quoted Exhibit No. 306 of the Prosecution. It is an order of Army Group E, concerning reprisal measures, of which only the first sentence is of interest in this connection. It says: Reprisal measures are not administrative tasks, but combat measures."
Q. You refer, General, to Exhibit No. 306, submitted by the Prosecution?
A. Yes, I do.