Aside from the fact that at this time, I don't believe the entire issue is proper surrebuttal, but if the Court rules that it is admissible then we have to back-track over the whole thing again.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, might I make a short statement in this connection? The Tribunal will remember that when I objected to this document 623, and offered already at that time surrebuttal evidence, the same statements were made by the prosecution then. At that time, I was told - and the prosecution also agreed--that the witness was in the neighborhood of Neustadt.
In the meantime, I have found out that this witness is here in Nurmberg at the disposal of the prosecution and has been here since about two weeks, and has been interrogated by the prosecution and I would like to state, of course, that I don't know whether he is being interrogated for this trial. I have only found out that the interrogations are being carried out by Mr. Fred Kaufman was here in the Courtroom and could certainly tell us where the witness is.
MR. RAPP: Your Honor, as far as the last statement of Dr. Fritsch is concerned, of course we have no objection to that; just to keep the record straight, the affiant is a very wise man indeed and a very handy man. We have used him repeatedly. He had no connection with this case; he is being interrogated about another case which has nothing to do with this Tribunal whatsoever. Mr. Kaufman also works on about eight other cases; but the problem is whether or not this is proper surrebuttal.
Now the defendant Rendulic has said one thing on the stand. We have confronted him in our rebuttal with the document which we believe speaks for itself. The document was addressed to the Second Panzer Army. Whether he was, whether the Brandenburg Division was in the Second Panzer Army or not, I don't think is at the present time of material issue. The fact is that the defendant Rendulic knew that this particular action was to be planned.
Now if Dr. Fritsch is merely to produce the affiant ButtlarBrandenfels to tell us that the Brandenburg Division was not in the Second Panzer Army, that does not rebut the fact that General Rendulic did have knowledge of what the Brandenburg Division planned and that is the reason we put this document in.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, and I would certainly be in agreement with this statement of the prosecution, and then I would say since the prosecution is talking about this knowledge and thinks this is important and maintains that the defendant Rendulic knew about this letter, this document, then I would ask that I be allowed to call the defendant just for a few minutes into the witness stand in order to put five or six questions to him.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Would that obviate the necessity of the use of the affidavit that you have in mind?
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, from the statement of the prosecution, I gathered that the prosecution, too, no longer asserts the subordination relation. If therefore I work on this assumption, then the only important thing would be the knowledge of this document and then I would not necessarily have to submit the affidavit.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: He may take the stand.
MR. RAPP: Your Honor, if I may say something please, we are perfectly willing to stipulate with the defense right now here and then that the defendant Rendulic on the stand will deny it and we can just save that time. In other words, the defendant Rendulic is only going to repeat that to the Tribunal which he already has stated during his direct and cross-examination, and for that point of view we stipulate. We know that he is going to state the same thing, he is going to deny it; and for that reason I don't think anything will be gained.
DR. FRITSCH: Of course, I don't know where Mr. Rapp gets his knowledge about this from, but if he proceeds on this assumptions, then I in his place I would certainly not have submitted this document. In my opinion, the prosecution asserts from this document a knowledge and, therefor, in my position I must be able to introduce surrebuttal evidence. I do not think it is in accordance with the regulations of these Tribunals to accept such statements on the part of the prosecution without proof.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: We have already consumed more time than probably will be required for the witness to give the testimony. It has been the policy of this Tribunal to give each defendant a full opportunity on any matter that he or his counsel deems important in his defense to take the stand and express himself fully. The witness Rendulic will take the stand.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, I have one request. It would save a lot of time if I quite briefly touched at once on Document Exhibit 674, because under certain circumstances there too, one or two questions might be necessary for the defendant -- to be put to the defendant in the witness stand.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Very well.
DR. FRITSCH: Exhibit 673 - excuse me. 674, this document was also presented by the prosecution for the same reasons as 673. This is Document NOKW-1045. It is a teletype to the 15th Mountain Army from the Second Panzer Army.
This teletype bears the date 1st of January 1944, and as the date of receipt the 2nd of January 1944. Since the prosecution here too asserts a knowledge by the defendant of excesses, I am here in a position immediately to present surrebuttal evidence.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: The Tribunal has the document. It is before us. It is unnecessary for you to go into the detail and if you will call the defendant Rendulic, I think it will expedite matters.
(The defendant Rendulic took the witness stand.)
EXAMINATION BY DR. FRITSCH:
Q. General, you know that you are still under oath?
A. Yes.
Q. I now show you Exhibit No. 673.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Dr. Fritsch, if you will confine yourself to matters which are purely on surrebuttal?
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, might I ask -- I think that the submission -- might I assume, Your Honor, that the submission of this exhibit to the witness seems to be necessary in order to make things clear for the record?
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Very well.
EXAMINATION BY DR. FRITSCH: (Continued)
Q. General, you are in possession of Exhibit No. 673. Please state quite briefly what it concerns.
A. Exhibit 636 is a report of the Brandenburg Division to the Second Panzer Army about one operation planned against Tito.
Q. When did you see this document for the first time?
A. I saw this document for the first time in November 1946 when it was shown to me during an interrogation.
Q. Did you have any knowledge of the contents of this document before this period?
A. No, at that time I stated the following. When I came to a situation conference, the Ic reported that the Division Brandenburg which was obviously not under my command at that time, had planned an operation against Tito. He did not mention details. Further, he stated that the Brandenburg Division wanted to fit this operation into a larger operation which the army had planned against Tito's headquarters. When he saw my rather surprised face, not very pleasantly surprised face, he added that the affair actually had no prospects, whereupon I asked him why. At that time I had already declared all this, and then he answered to me "Because the man who is supposed to carry it out is unsuitable."
Upon my further question as to why, he said to me "Because he is always drunk." Thereupon I told him whether he know any other weak points about this man and whether he could find out anything more about him so that we could get rid of this man, because I couldn't give this man any orders because he wasn't subordinate to me. I couldn't turn him out. After about 24 or 48 hours, he reported to me that a large amount of material was in existence against this man for suspicion of fraud, etc. And then I told the Division Brandenburg to release this man at once and get rid of him because -- and all the material which I had against him I had transferred to the proper quarters.
The division could act no other way than to recall this man and this brought the whole matter to a close. This operation was ordered by Hitler. This paper bears the signature of General von Pfualstein and it is in handwriting as I saw on the original copy which was shown to me in November, 1946. General von Pfualstein was also in Nurnberg. Since 1943 I haven't spoken to him. If he had said anything different than what I state here, then that discrepancy would certainly have been noted here. This document was not submitted to me.
The Ic presumably handled this just so casually that this original copy didn't even bear the initials of my chief of staff, not to speak of mine.
And as regards the subordination relation, the Division Brandenburg was set up for those kinds of operations. The divisional staff was in Berlin and was directly subordinate to the OKW. The troops of the division were in Russia in the Balkans and in Italy. They were tactically subordinate but nevertheless not in such a Brandenburg operation. These operations were ordered by the Division and it cannot be assumed that the Army was to act on the orders of a division, and I would like to come back again to the fact that if I had known this document, it would have been no surrebuttal against the assertion which I maintain, that I know of no action contrary to international law carried out by my troops. The Division Brandenburg did not belong to my troops.
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
Q And now just one concluding question in this case. Did the operation actually take place?
A No, the operation was not carried out.
Q General, I now show you Exhibit No. 674; did you ever see this teletype?
A No, I neither saw this teletype nor did I obtain any knowledge of it. This teletype, as has already been mentioned, arrived exactly in the middle of my 22 days' leave, and it was sent during this period. This provision comes within the framework of a larger operation which is set down in full in the original. The Commanding General of the 5th SS Corps was appointed my deputy during my leave.
It would have been incompatible with the whole line which I always followed in my command, for me to order an excess of this kind, or would have approved an order of this kind.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, please allow me, in order to support this statement, and especially with regard to the period of leave, to read the paybook of the defendant, in so far as it concerns the assertion that the defendant was absent from a period from about the 19th of December, 1943, until approximately the 13th of January, 1944, and that he was recuperating in Vienna, and therefore, he could not possibly have gained any knowledge of this teletype.
MR. RAPP: This is not proper sur-rebuttal. The defendant had an opportunity to testify this in his first case. We are merely in rebuttal now. Dr. Fritsch at that time should have put it in his direct case.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: The objection will be sustained.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, I would just like to make a short statement of two sentences for the record. A presentation of evidence in this respect was not made. I certainly could not know then that the most important period at issue would be the leave period from the 19th of December, 1943, until the 13th of January, 1944, and Court No. V, Case No. VII.
therefore I am only now in a position to refute these statements in sur rebuttal.
I would ask that I might be allowed to put one more question to the defendant.
Q General, I submit you your paybook, -
MR. RAPP: Your Honor, I object to this on the same grounds. It is materially no different, how it is being presented to the Tribunal. Dr. Fritsch is putting something into evidence now which he could not get in before. I do not consider that proper sur rebuttal.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, I think there is a difference as to whether I submit this pay book as a document, or whether I question the defendant about a document in the witness stand.
MR. RAPP: On the procedural view, I agree with Dr. Fritsch from a probative point of view of the general issues involved, I object.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: The objection will be sustained. It is mere matter of circumlocution to secure the testimony in this fashion, but go ahead.
DR. FRITSCH: Then, of course, I will not read the entry in the pay book, but I would like to put the question to the witness, where did you spend your leave around the turn of the year 19431944?
A I was on leave from the 21st of December, 1943, until the 11th of January, 1944. In addition there were two days taken up for the journey, so then I must also add another two days. I was back again with the Army on the 13th of January.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Was this matter not covered in the direct case; was this not all covered in your direct case?
DR. FRITSCH: Not in direct examination, no. I cannot remember this question. I could not possible concern myself with this at that time, because it was not brought up by the Prosecution.
Therefore, Your Honor, I have no further questions of the Court No. V, Case No. VII.
witness.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Very well.
MR. RAPP: With your permission, I would like to ask a very few questions of the witness.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Very well.
CROSS EXAMINATION DEFENDANT RENDULIC BY MR. RAPP:
Q Witness, you mentioned that you wanted to make a very definite point here about the fact that the Brandenburg Division was not subordinate to you, and I would like to ask you why.
A Firstly, in order to have no responsibility here for this action, and, secondly, because I, in my testimony about actions contrary to international law, only talked about my own troops.
Q Witness, the defendant Leyser, when in the witness stand, stated rather on these lines, that parts of the Brandenburg Division, - if I remember correctly, the 1st Regiment, -- was subordinate to him as Commander of the 15th Corps, for tactical purposes, occasionally, and during that period the 15th Corps was always subordinate to you. Is that correct?
A Yes, General Leyser testified absolutely correctly; part of the Brandenburg Division was tactically subordinate, as for instance the IInd Regiment, Brandenburg, for purely tactical assignments, but not for the assignment Brandenburg here.
Q We will come back to this in a minute, General. We are splitting hairs here, isn't that right?
A No.
Q The matter of this information comes from the Brandenburg Division which was the Headquarters office of this unit which is composed of various regiments. One of these regiments was occasionally subordinate to you or to the 15th Corps for tactical purposes. Is that correct?
Court No. V, Case No. VII.
A Yes, that is correct, but the Division which gave this order, or this information here, was in Berlin and had nothing at all to do with me, and could give no orders or nothing at all.
Q General, I realize the fact that you are anticipating what I am trying to say, but for the record, at least, you must give me the opportunity to put the question before you answer it.
Now in this letter there is no mention at all of the fact that this action was planned to be carried out at the strength of a division. The letter merely talks about an action, about an operation. These people, for instance, could also come from that regiment which was subordinate to Mr. Leyser; is that correct? And please only answer this question.
A Well, if I answer this question with "Yes", or "No", then it is wrongly answered. As I have already stated, the operation was certainly not carried out by the strength of a division, but if the operation was even only carried out by two people, then it was an operation of the division, and even if these people came from the regiment, which was subordinate to me, then the regiment was still subordinate to the Division, and therefore the Division would have to take these people from the regiment, and the regiment was acting on orders of the Division.
Q Now why did the Division apply to you and not to somebody else? Why did you receive the letter?
A Well, first of all, the Division knew that if it made such an operation in my area, then, of course, I had to be informed of it, and then the Division needed also various things, and the Army had to help them in this respect, not for the operation, but for other things. There was, namely with the 15th Corps, an instruction course for combatting the bands. Some people of the Brandenburg Division was detached to conduct this course.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, I have just been told that the translation was not quite correct. The witness talked about a "few Court No. V, Case No. VII.
people who belonged to the Division" and the Prosecution used the word "Division" twice, as if one Division had been added to the Division.
MR. RAPP: Not the Prosecution; the Prosecution did not do that. The young lady in the interpreter's box did it.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: To err is human. Let's proceed.
A Since the 15th Corps had no direct contact at all with the Brandenburg Division, and could not, because this Division was outside of the Army, therefore, the Division applied to the Army in order to ask the 15th Corps to refrain certain people to them.
Q Witness, in other words, to start from the very beginning of your statement, the Division, first of all, had to get your approval in order to operate at all in this area?
A No, if such an operation had taken place, it was certainly ordered by Hitler. This can also be seen from other documents showing orders issued in this area. Then I am not in any position at all to give an approval, or to reject the whole matter. This document has, as only an informational purpose, but it never applied for an approval.
Q In other words, you saw that also in this case, as in so many others, the Fuehrer was personally in charge of the matter and ordered it?
A Yes, without doubt in this case. Might I say, -
Q Did the Fuehrer also have anything to do with the fact that this English equipment was made available to the Brandenburg Division by the 15th Army Corps?
A No, not directly, but indirectly, in so far as this whole operation was tried out on a basis of an order by Hitler. The 15th Corps had probably captured such things, and then it is quite out of the question that one unit could withhold something from another, but whatever you ask me here then I was never concerned with it, because I never received any knowledge at all of such things.
Q.- Central, whether this concerns you or not, will be determined by the Tribunal; do you know, whether the 15th Corps had packets of bandages which they had to give away.
A.- Well the Brandenburg Division certainly knew that the 15th Corps had captured such things, and therefore they had a right to ask for these things.
Q.- Do you know where the 15th Corps got hold of all of these things.
A.- Well, I don't know. I can only imagine that it was after the fighting on the Island, or the partisans had these things, because it came for the most part, from English sources.
Q.- Now, General, you have told us that you insisted that this drunken man who was there, was to be removed. Doesn't that show a certain influence on the Division, or do you want to express that this was again a sign of the fact that you did everything possible, everywhere; even that people were acting against you? I don't know what you are trying to say.
A.- Well here, I would like to say the following: I was not able to order the Division to remove this man. Therefore I chose another way in order to force this Division to remove the man, by finding out all of his weaknesses, - I got somebody to do this, - so that the Division could do nothing else except to remove this man.
Q.- Now, witness, the fact that you did not read this letter, but that as you say, perhaps your 1-C read it, does that preclude the fact that this operation was planned with the help of the second Panzer Army?
A.- Yes, that definitely precludes it, because the Division informs us here of this plan, with rather a lot of detail as to what they think about it. The planning of the whole matter, had nothing to do with my Army.
Q.- Except for the fact, witness, that your Army was asked to provide specialists, as well as special equipment, for the execution or the success of the operation is that correct or not?
A.- Well, not specialists, insofar as it did concern Brandenburg people who attended courses of the Corps for the purposes of training, and then were reassigned afterwards. So far as the equipment is concerned, then this concerns their uniforms and bandages, etc.
Q.- Of the enemy?
A.- Yes, of the enemy.
This equipment must certainly have been in the possession of the 15th Corps and was asked for by the Division Brandenburg. That is what they are asking for, and these are measures of very subordinate officers who did this amongst themselves.
Q.- The equipment was in the possession of the 2nd Panzer Army, and it was asked that it be made available to the 15th Corps for further disposal?
A.- I would like to answer you where to find this.
Q.- In the letter.
A.- But where?
Q.- We must find it; it is here somewhere.
A.- Yes, I have found it; here it is. It comes after the 6 points which I put down here. Under Point B it states the the Second Army is requested to make these objects, etc., available. They certainly must have been with the Corps.
Q.- They were not with you?
A.- What would we do with such things? And if they had been there for study purposes, I certainly would not have had any knowledge of them, but from the letter one cannot see this, that these things were with the staff of the Army.
Q.- Do you know, incidentally, General, who had to hand over the dead hostages?
A.- No, I do not know anything about that at all.
Q.- They certainly came from Berlin?
A.- I do not know who did that.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION DEFENDANT RENDULIC BY DR. FRITSCH:Q.- General, just one more question to this long interrogation.
The question is, where was the Divisional Staff?
A.- Berlin.
Q.- Were the orders given from Berlin?
A.- Yes.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Haven't we covered that matter quite exhaustively before?
DR. FRITSCH: Then I have no further questions.
DIRECT EXAMINATION DEFENDANT RENDULIC BY DR. TIPP: (Counsel for General von Leyser) Your Honors, during the submission of this Exhibit, I was allowed to present sur rebuttal; with the approval of the Tribunal I wanted to call General von Leyser into the witness stand, but since General Rendulic has been questioned so much by Mr. Rapp about this document, with regard to the 15th Corps, therefore as regards General von Leyser, I would like to ask the Tribunal to allow me a sur rebuttal for General von Leyser, and to put a few questions to General Rendulic.
Only after I have seen what the outcome of these questions is, will I know whether I have to call General von Leyser into the witness stand. I do not know whether General Rendulic will be able to answer from his own knowledge the two questions which I have to put to him.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Make them brief, and make the answers also in the same category.
DR. TIPP: Yes, Your Honor, I will do that.
Q.- General, with regard to this document, only one thing seems to me to be important for General Leyser.
You have stated, if I understood you correctly, that this operation was not carried out, and that you disapproved of the man in charge of the Brandenburg Division, who was supposed to carry out this operation. You stated previously that you wanted the man who was supposed to lead this Brandenburg Division removed, and you did your best to do this.
A.- That is incorrect insofar as I didn't have the man removed but was merely instrumental in securing his eventual removal.
Q.- And now, from this document, there is mention of a few points in which your office was asked to urge the 15th Corps to do such and such a thing. Might I ask you whether these orders which are mentioned here, these instructions, -- this is the last page of the document if you want to look at it, General, -- were these directives actually given from the Army to the 15th Corps?
A.- As an Army order to my knowledge, these directives certainly did not go to the 15th Corps. At the most it may have been request from the 1 C to the 15th Corps asking them to carry out these things, since they were unnecessary things from the point of view of the Army, and from the point of view of the Corps, - bandages and such things as that, certainly then no orders were given.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Hasn't the question been answered?
DR. TIPP: No, unfortunately not.
Q General, I must put one more question to you. You said the 15th Corps was to make available bandages, etc. I assume here you want to refer to page 3.
A No, I am not referring to anything definite but only to general things with regard to providing general things, whether the 15th Corps or another Corps did it I don't know -- I can't tell from the material here.
Q General, excuse me if I correct you here. You said it was immaterial which unit made these objects available but from your point of view it is no doubt immaterial but it is not immaterial from the point of view of General Leyser.
A Yes, I understand this and I regret very much I made a mistake here but the 15th Corps certainly did not come into question with regard to supplying bandages, supplies, etc.
Q Then one more question. You therefore do not know whether these directions which the Brandenburg Division requested went from the army to General von Leyser?
A No, it is quite unknown to me.
DR. TIPP: Thank you very much, then. I have no further questions.
EXAMINATION BY THE COURT QUESTIONS BY PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE:
Q General, this Brandenburg division was a sort of a special divisions, was it not?
A Yes, it was a special formation which was used for such kinds of operations as especially surprise attacks and work behind the enemy's rear, etc. This formation was especially created for these purposes.
Q Some of the operations they carried on didn't receive the approval of the high offices of the Wehrmacht, is that right?
A We disapproved of it. These troops of the division in our area were only used for combat purposes and the divisions also raised objections to OKW, complaining to the OKW that these troops were being used for combat purposes and the troops could only get them with great difficulty for other purposes.
I myself was called up several times by the OKW and was asked to use these forces not so much so the divisions could use them more but I refused to do that because I needed all these forces for combat purposes.
Q I am not talking about the times this division was subordinated to the Wehrmacht units but they were used in operations that the high offices of the Wehrmacht did not approve of -- isn't that right?
A Yes. I did not know a single person who especially approved of these kinds of operations.
Q And that was rather generally known throughout the Wehrmacht, isn't that true?
A Yes.
MR. RAPP: May it please the tribunal I have one question I would like to ask.
CROSS EXAMINATION QUESTIONS BY MR. RAPP:
Q Was the Brandenburg unit a Wehrmacht unit, General Rendulic?
A Yes. The division belonged without doubt to the Wehrmacht.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: I have no further questions.
MR. RAPP: No further questions.
DR. FRITSCH: Your Honor, I will be finished in two or three minutes. I would just like to refer to Exhibit Number 655. First of all when I objected to the submission of this exhibit I made a mistake. It is Exhibit 655 document NOKW 2632 and I would like very much to correct this mistake for the record. When discussing this I stated that these documents were already in the so-called Washington chest. In the meantime I have found out this was not the case and I would like to state the following about this. When the requests to be made to Washington were specified here, I asked for the war diary of the 2nd Panzer Army. These war diaries or rather this war diary was not given to me therefore I had to assume that it was not in Washington or it did not arrive in the hands of the prosecution. Now the prosecution has this exhibit 655 and has submitted parts of the war diary of the 2nd Panzer Army and from this we can see that the document submitted here, if I might express myself in this way, is rather mixed up.
First of all there are excerpts from the war diary of the 2nd Panzer Army followed by excerpts from the war diary of the 21st Corps and then again there are parts from the war diary of the 2nd Panzer army and I am not in a position and I don't want to be in a position to object against this exhibit because I need this exhibit for the defense. I would only like to state here that although this exhibit, that is the war diary of the 2nd Panzer Army is available to the prosecution and this has been withheld from me at the moment I don't want to maintain my rights in this direction but I would just like to state my point of view and show that in my opinion to this extent the rulings of the tribunal have not been adhered to.
MR. RAPP: Your Honors, just to set the record straight and I hope it will be for the last time we have to go through this because we all have been listening to it for a long time, but I feel it is incumbent upon us now. Dr. Fritsch like his colleague Dr. Laternser goes off on a tangent. Yesterday I found a document in Dr. Laternser's document book on Weichs. That document was taken out of the Washington document, it was (To Dr. Laternser) I don't know what you got in the translation, Dr. Laternser, but that document came from Washington sources, as a matter of fact, it was taken out or reproduced from the originals which Washington sent to the Secretary General's office, which were then returned to Washington by the Secretary General's office and when they asked Washington again to send those back to us -- now I am not saying the defense took any originals out of these documents they didn't return, if they did they would have violated the Secretary General's instructions.
I say they merely reproduced it. That particular document I have reference to is contained in the diary of the 21st Mountain Corps and it was included there as part of the diary of the 2nd Panzer Army.
Now, I don't know whether Dr. Fritsch got the diary of the 2nd Panzer Army or not. We have asked for it but it seems to me that the document which I found in Dr. Laternser's document book which by the way is included in Rendulic Book No. 4 it is perfectly obvious they have gotten everything that is due them. Of course, they will continuously and until the end of the world say they did not get what they wanted and I feel we would appreciate it - we of the prosecution - if the court at some time now or later would possibly set the record straight as to whether or not the court feels we abided by the court's ruling.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: There being no official matter before the court you may proceed with the next item.
MR. RAPP: Does your Honor want to have Felber called in or is the defense through with its surrebuttal?
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Is the defense finished with the surrebuttal?
DR. LATERNSER: Your Honor, I don't want to answer to the statement previously made by Mr. Rapp because I know it is not the wish of the tribunal that I do so as I would very much like to object to these statements. I just want to make one statement and that is the following. The photostatic copy of Exhibit 684 I gave to the interpreter, sir, so that the record can be brought into order as regards the excerpts I read this morning. I should now like to ask the Secretary General to please refer the 17 pages of Exhibit 664 to the exhibit file so that this file is complete.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Very well. The tribunal will recess until half past 1:00 this afternoon.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)
AFTERNOON SESSION (The tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours 22 January 1948.)
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: We will continue.
DR. TIPP: If it please the tribunal I would like to ask permission to put General von Leyser again on the stand in the procedure of surrebuttal, as I have announced only concerning Exhibit 603 which was discussed this morning and which incriminates him.
PRESIDING JUDGE BURKE: Very well.
GENERAL Von LEYSER, a defendant took the stand in his own behalf in surrebuttal and testified as follows:
REDIRECT EXAMINATION QUESTIONS BY DR TIPP:
Q General, I have Prosecution Exhibit 673 that is Prosecution document NOKW 069 handed to you. In order to make this clear for the record it is a report by the division Brandenburg dated 12 November 1943 and addressed to the headquarters of the 2nd Panzer Army, General, my first question concerning this document is: Did you receive that communication at that time and did you ever see it then?
A No.
Q You mean you saw this communication here during the trial for the first time?
A Yes.
Q Other than that, did your superior agency inform you to the effect that an operation of that type was to be carried out in that manner at that time?
A No.
Q My last question. On page 4 of that document it is said the 2nd Panzer Army is requested to send to unit Kirchner via 1C of the 15th Mountain Corps all such available information. Was this request of the Brandenburg Division complied with, was such information made available to the unit Kirchner via your 1C?
A Since I did not receive that order I did not send the information.