The last of the common defenses is to the effect that since the partisans were not entitled to the status of lawful belligerents, the German Army was not bound to follow the rules and customs of war in combatting them. The defendants themselves have skirted the fringes of some of the subsidiary arguments involved here rather cautiously. For example, none of them has been willing to rest his contention that the partisans were unlawful upon any one ground.
In the face of the German intelligence reports concerning the organization, strength, armament, and location of the partisan units, the names of their officers, the elaborate courier, postal, judicial and governmental administrative systems in force in the large areas under their control, it is hardly arguable that the partisans were not a regular and highly effective military-political-economic organization, which is the basic test for determining whether an enemy group is entitled to the status of a belligerent.
The defendants have realized how feeble it is to maintain that the partisans were not military organized and have fallen back on the completely irrelevant complaint that the designations which the partisans gave to their units, such as battalions, regiments and brigades, did not correspond to the German nomenclature. It is perfectly apparent that in Yugoslavia, for instance, the partisans had a perfectly well-defined chain-of-command which went from Tito down to every company and platoon. If from time to time a small unit of partisans was cut off from the main body of troops to which it belonged and was unable to communicate with them, they were no more disorganized for that reason than were segments of the German Army which were frequently in the same situation.
It is unnecessary for us to take up here the other subsidiary contentions which have been made - those to the effect that the partisans were not in uniform, did not carry their arms openly, and systematically violated the laws and customs of war. It is enough to say that the evidence which has been produced to support such arguments smells very strongly of ex post facto justification. Time after time the documents mention that the partisans wore uniforms or readily identifiable insignia. The defendants say that this may have been true, but that the uniforms were not standard; that the distinguishing insignia of the Tito and Mihailovitch partisans in Yugoslavia and the Edes and Elas Andartes in Greece were not identical; that some of them wore parts of German, Italian, British and American uniforms. But what possible factual difference could that have made then, or what legal difference now. The Hague Rules prescribe no standards of sartorial elegance. The object of the rule requiring the use of a uniform is to enable a combatant to recognize his enemy. And in Yugoslavia or Greece it was distinctly understood that any one who wandered around in a uniform had invited himself to become a target, regardless of its cut or color.
The fact of the matter is, of course, that no matter how elegantly the partisans had dressed, they would have been shot upon capture in any event. List made that incontestably clear when he admitted that un-uniformed Kosta Pecanac Chetniks were permitted to collaborate with German troops against the Tito and Mihailovitch partisans and Foertsch was even more forthright when he testified that the German Southeast Command concerned itself only with considerations of military expediency and not the Hague Rules in dealing with the partisan problem.
One word as to the testimony about partisan tactics. One examines the official reports and records of the German Army in vain if his object is to find descriptions of mutilations inflicted by the partisans. Yet the defendants have produced several pounds of affidavits describing these things in detail. We have tried to reconcile the strange silence in the official reports with this endless recital in the affidavits. The simplest and most likely explanation is that the events described in them also have as their factual basis some paper that was lying on General Dehner's or General Kuntze's or General Geitner's desk that the affiant did not read.
This interpretation is bolstered by the disparity between fact and testimony which occurred in the case of the Instruction of the Communist Party in Serbia for the conduct of band warfare. List, Kuntze and Foertsch testified at length that they had read captured copies of these instructions and that the gist of them was to encourage and incite the partisans to mutilate German prisoners and kill German wounded. Then the defense, peculiarly enough, produced these very instructions from the mass of documents which were sent from Washington. There was not a single word in their entire tenodd pages which by any stretch of the imagination could have been construed to mean what the defendants testified they themselves had read in them.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: Just one more paragraph, Your Honors.
So much for the common defenses and explanations, which like a loud yet dissonant chorus, the defendants all chanted together. We turn now to a necessarily incomplete and undetailed review of the main evidence for and against the individual defendants.
THE PRESIDENT: We shall take our morning recess for 10 minutes.
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. RAPP: On 6 April 1941, from Bulgaria, Field Marshal Wilhelm List, Commander in Chief of the Twelfth Army launched the German invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia. The campaign was short-lived. Within a fortnight Greece was prostrate and the Yugoslav Army had been defeated. By the end of May, 1941, the strategic island of Crete had also fallen before Germany's armed might.
From that point on, Yugoslavia meanwhile having been carved up and sections parceled out to Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania and the fictitious State of Croatia, it was List's job to manage the German occupation of Serbia and Greece. He was charged with primary responsibility for its success and to that end was given almost unlimited power over the lives of the civilian population. By virtue of Fuehrer Order #31 he was given the famous executive power which meant that under the guise of maintaining "peace, order and security" he could snuff out the existence of the native citizenry at will. He had full authority over all matters affecting the military administration of the entire German-occupied areas of southeastern Europe. Within an area larger than Germany itself his reign was as absolute as Hitler's and the only person in all of Europe to whom he was subordinate was the Fuehrer himself.
List was a potentate who was jealous of any attempt to infringe upon his dominion. He kept the activities of Dr. Gunther Altenburg, who had been sent to Greece by Ribbentrop's Foreign Office to organize the Greek government, under careful observation and incidentally challenged every move the latter made that tended to reduce his own power. It is positively laughable for List now to assert that his authority as Armed Forces Commander Southeast was restricted or crossed by any German agency.
When on 9 June 1941 List was named Armed Forces Commander Southeast, Greece was relatively quiet. There were, however, vague rumblings of disturbances in Serbia though nothing really alarming as yet. No trouble was anticipated as a result of the withdrawals of the combat troops who were needed for the invasion of Russia, the match which set off the Balkan powderkeg.
The Germans, however, had alreadymade up their minds how to answer individual unrest or local rebellion. Field Marshal von Weichs, who has since disaccepted our invitation to this Balkan reunion, had already given the cue. In April, 1941, von Weichs had issued an order to kill 100 civilians in retaliation for the death of each German soldier and had published posters which proclaimed that it had been carried out. List was not afflicted by originality. He was not too proud to recognize and adopt a good idea when he saw one.
The insurrection in Yugoslavia took shape during July and August, 1941 - by the end of which time, as can be seen from Cartillieri's accurate and detailed account, the Germans had already shot approximately 1,000 Jews and "Communists" in reprisal. List has reiterated that he was home on leave during part of this time. But before he left, he had already received numerous reports of the execution of severe reprisal measures by his troops. Just two days before he left Athens, the death of the German General Lontschar was reported to XII Army headquarters by the Commanding General in Serbia who had ordered 52 "Communists and Jews" to be killed in retaliation. Although List conferred with General Bader just one day after that massacre took place, he now cannot remember having discussed it. The event was evidently considered too trifling to be worth mentioning. List's memory faded out again when he was asked whether at a conference with General Stahl the shooting of captured prisoners by Stahl's Division the day before was on the agenda.
List's troops were overaged, poorly trained and inadequately equipped to do battle with the partisan units which were everywhere harrassing under-manned German garrisons and outposts. He repeatedly asked for reinforcements. When they did not come, he tried to make up with terror what he lacked in military efficiency. On the 1st of September he sent his Chief of Staff, General Foertsch, to Serbia with combat directives for his subordinate commanders. Accurately foreshadowing the tenor of things to come, List ordered "few prisoners to be brought in". (Cartillieri report, p. 24).
Three days later, on September 4, 1941, he issued another of the criminal orders with which he is charged here. The troops were instructed to practice the "use of arms without consideration". The author explains that the term "severest measures" meant that the soldiers should "use those weapons they had at their disposal" and that by "reckless use of weapons" he meant "the employment of all those weapons which were available." This is another example of the re-definition technique which have been already analyzed elsewhere.
Apparently, however, List was not satisfied that the language used in this order was clear enough. So he supplemented it by another order the next day, the famous order of 5 September 1941, which, more than perhaps any other single order, List now wishes he had never issued. In that order he announced that attacks on German troops and installations were being carried out by strong, wellarmed, well-organized and well-led partisan bands. To counterattack their power List demanded "ruthless and immediate measures against the insurgents, against their accomplices and against their families. (Hangings, burning down of villages involved, seizure of more hostages, deportation of relatives, etc. into concentration camps)."
The explanations which he gave on the witness stand for the publication of this contribution to German culture are somewhat muddled and self-contradictory, but they have one characteristic in common: they are all uniformly unbelievable.
Once he admitted that he knew the order was violative of international law. Later he changed his mind and took the position that the order could be justified on the ground of military necessity. This, of course, is inconsistent with his assertion that he never would have issued such an order if it had not been for the very heavy pressure which was being put on him by the OKW.
Another thing that List has never explained is why this order was never rescinded. He knew that his headquarters had placed more than an academic interpretation upon it. It is evident from the reports which he received that excessively severe reprisal executions were taking place even before the much-blamed Keitel directive saw the light of day.
On July 25, 1941, a 16-year-old girl was arrested in Belgrade for throwing a bottle of gasoline at a German vehicle. A hundred Jews were shot to death in reprisal four days later. On August 15, 1941, an Armed Forced Commander Southeast report stated that in retaliation for an attack upon a German police car, the town of Skela was burned down and "two Communists" hanged. On 2 September 1941, twenty "Communists" were shot in retaliation for the three German soldiers killed in an attack on a mine at Rtanj, Serbia, and the following day, 3 September, 50 Serbs were shot in reprisal for the soldiers of the 724th Guard Regiment shot by "Communists". A few days later, on 9 September, 50 more so-called "Communists" were shot in reprisal for the death of a single German soldier.
During the month of September 1941, the growth of the insurrection had become so alarming that it received the personal attention of Hitler and of the OKW. To solve the problem List proposed the sending of one of his corps commanders, General Boehme, to Serbia as Plenipotentiary Commanding General with full power and authority over all German military units, as well as civilian offices stationed there Hitler agreed and sent an order directly to list charging him with the task of quelling the insurgent movement in the Southeast.
Hitler did not give specific directions, but merely counseled in general terms the "application of the most severe means". On the same day, 16 September 1941, Keitel issued his basic directive, the muchdiscussed Prosecution Exhibit 53, which described the revolts in the occupied areas as part of a movement centrally directed from Moscow and suggested that "in general" 50 to 100 Communists should be killed in retaliation for every German soldier who lost his life.
As we have already seen, the notion of reprisal ratios reaching as high as 50:1 was nothing new in List's area of command. His troops had been carrying out such measures for over two months prior to the time the Keitel directive was written.
List had no duty to pass on to his subordinates such a general recommendation unless he wanted to. In view of the immense discretion with which he had been invested by Hitler himself he could have simply filed away this "directive" and kept it in the oblivion it deserved without subjecting himself to criticism from anyone. Nevertheless, he chose to pass this flexible "50 to 100" to 1 proposal of Keitel's on to his subordinates without any qualifications or comments of his own. He could only have expected his subordinates to interpret this act as an expression of approval of the suggestions contained in the Keitel directive and as a command by List that the proposed figures be applied at once.
List now says that he disapproved of Keitel's order "for purely humane reasons". The difficulty is that Field Marshal List's humanity is almost six years too late in finding expression. He told his operations officer, Kuebler, to express his protests to the OKW, Kuebler is dead so there is only List's unilateral version of this private conversation. Nor is there any note or record that Kuebler ever passed on such a protest.
List followed the same procedure when he received the OKW's next brain-child on 28 September suggesting that military commanders keep at their disposal a number of hostages of different political persuasions - nationalist democrats and communists - so that the executions *** could be more selective.
This directive List also passed on to the units under his command.
Meanwhile General Boehme had taken over his new post as Plenipotentiary Commanding General in Serbia. On 4 October List decided to unburden himself of his own thoughts on the subject of reprisal measures. This took the form of an order directed to Boehme in which he directed that all men in the insurgent areas, whether they had taken part in combat or not, were to be seized as hostages in the event of the appearance of bandits or of attacks against the Wehrmacht. Most severe measures of punishment "without further investigation" were prescribed for localities in which or near which such occurrence happened, and particularly against the male population of such villages.
In weighing the credibility of List's protestations here, the Tribunal might put itself in the position of one of his subordinates in the month of October 1941. Such a man would have had received three orders signed by List since the beginning of September which directed that ruthless measures be taken against the civilian population in the event of attacks or sabotage by the partisans. These had been followed by the Keitel 50 to 100 to 1 directive which had been passed on with no limitations whatever by List, and by the OKW order of 28 September. Then on 4 October List issued the pronouncement which has just been described.
What was one of his subordinates to conclude from all this? Is it likely that he was under the impression that List had moral reservations concerning the justice or humanity of executing hostages? We have seen a rather large assortment of German generals in this courtroom and we have heard them say some fairly incredible things but none of them has claimed that it was necessary for him to be psychic in order to interpret the orders of a Field Marshal.
General Boehme seems to have been temperamentally qualified for his job. On 10 October he issued an order changing the elastic "50 to 100 to 1" Keitel ratio to the flat and arbitrary quota of 100 hostages for each German soldier or Volksdeutsche killed and 50 for each one wounded. List was informed of this improved version of the Keitel directive, but again those humane instincts that he had described here fail somehow to make themselves heard. He never uttered a murmur of disapproval of Boehme's action.
Early in October the incident at Grabovac occurred. The partisans had forced certain farmers there to cut down ten telegraph poles. One of the farmers was released after an interrogation by the police. List opinioned to Boehme that the farmer should not have been turned loose and asked what reprisal measures had been taken against the inhabitants of the village for the damage to the telegraph poles. The response came in two installments, the first of which reported that Boehme had ordered every fifth house in the village to be burned down. This was supplemented later by the information that the whole village had been burned and that 73 inhabitants had been shot. List now says that Boehme was harsher than he intended. We submit that Boehme's only fault was that he was literal-minded. In any case, List did not communicate his misgivings about the correctness of the measure to anyone at the time.
Three more of Boehme's actions are worthy of mention. On 2 October, twenty-one members of a German signal regiment were attacked and killed by a detachment of partisans. Two days later, on 4 October, General Boehme ordered that 2100 Serbs be shot. List now says that the communications between Athens and Belgrade were constantly being interrupted and that he did not hear of Boehme's order until after it had already been executed. He was certainly informed about the attack on the German unit and of the number of German losses.
Boehme had already given sufficient proof of the stuff of which not only his dreams but his actions were made to put any sane man on notice that after an incident of this kind steps should be taken to find out what Boehme intended to do next, especially in view of the orders to Boehme which list had previously issued or passed on.
There was ample time for list to make such an investigation. The report shows that the executions did not begin until 9 October and that only 449 people had been shot by the 11th. List had more than a week to inform himself of this impending slaughter and to stop it. He made no effort to do so and he now puts forth the feeble excuse that he did not hear about the order before 8 October and at that time he went to Crete on an inspection tour and did not got back until October 11th. Who could possibly be convinced by such fanciful makebelieve.
Boehme carried out two massacres during October 1941. He ordered 2200 Serbs to be executed in reprisal for German losses totalling ten dead and twenty-four wounded near Topola and 2300 more to be shot at Kragujcvac for German losses totalling nine dead and twenty-six wounded suffered at Gr. Milanovac. The first incident occurred on the 10th and the second on the 20th. List says that he was sick in the hospital at the time these took place. What we have already said about the holiday-sick leave argument in general is sufficient answer to this. Further, Boehme was List's personal representative in Serbia. He received his directives only from, and was answerable only to List. Not a single one of these butcheries would have been ordered by him if list had expressed his disapproval. On the other hand, there is not a single one of these measures which is not fully authorized and justified by the series of orders which Boehme had received from List. Whether List was physically present in a hospital in Athens, or in his headquarters office, or in the mountains of the moon is completely irrelevant. He put the bomb in the mail box before he left.
The same can be said of the manner in which he seeks to avoid guilt for the two mass executions in Greece on 17 October 1941. In the course of these glorious martial enterprises the entire population of two villages, Ano and Keto Kerzilion, was shot. The martyrdom of these people may not have been well publicized as that of the inhabitants of Lidice. When the Germans had finished, they had done just as thorough a job in Greece as they had done in Czechoslovakia. Again List is bold enough to assert that he was in the hospital when all of that happened.
The Prosecution has charged these defendants with having employed the Army to carry out the anti-semetic ideals of the Third Reich. Like a Brahmin among untouchables, List denied that anything of this sort was done by the troops under his command. Nevertheless, the entire Jewish population of Belgrade was incarcerated in a concentration camp in the summer and fall of 1941. Nor was it accidental that so many Jews were exterminated in the reprisal measures of July to October. For example, all of the victims of the carnage ordered by Boehme on 4 October were Jews. List's capacity for contributing to the richness and depth of the German language by giving ordinary words definitions that are almost startling in their novelty has already been pointed out. The documents repeatedly mention the concentration camps at Sabac, Zasaviza and Semlin. List met this by another performance of semantic alchemy; after the word "concentration camp" had bubbled and glowed in his alembic and crucibles, it came out marvelously refined and transmuted to mean "collecting camp".
The connection between List and the Rosenberg detachments may tend to be forgotten, overshadowed as it is by the other enormities which we have mentioned. The object of these units was to comb Europe for rare books and art treasuries besides Jewish and Masonic literature and to haul the former back to Germany and burn the latter before it could "contaminate" further. List's indignation at being associated with this dacoital organization, like his disapproval of the policy of executing hostages, come a little late.
There is in evidence an order of the XII Army dated on 19 April 1941 announcing that a Rosenberg unit had permission to operate in the area. Four days later Rosenberg informed the Nazi Enoch Arden, Martin Bormann, that Field Marshal List had made it possible for his units to be employed in close liaison with the SD at Salonika, one of the largest Jewish centers in Greece. In May, 1941 the commandant of rear army area #560 ordered his subordinate headquarters to cooperate with and support the Rosenberg units in the execution of their tasks. Their tasks were set forth without apparent shame. In October, List's Chief of Staff, the defendant Foertsch, issued an order assigning a Rosenberg detachment to General Felmy for ration, quarters and discipline. It seems a little superfluous even to suggest that the Rosenberg detachments worked hand in glove with the Army because it is obvious that they could not have gone into occupied territory without the Army's permission in the first place. But these examples merely show the extent to which these three specific defendants -- List, Foertsch and Felmy -- were involved in this robbery. Their denials of any such connection are simply one more indication of the weight which should be attached to their testimony.
Finally, List is charged with having carried out the Commissar Order. He was Commander in Chief of Army Group A in Russia from 7 July to 10 September 1942, and he now says that he never even heard of the order, much less of its execution during that time. The improbability of this is shown very clearly by the testimony of General von Leyser who was only a divisional commander in Russia at that time. When he was asked whether he knew about it, his response was, "Yes, this Commissar Order was generally known and everyone was talking about it." If everyone was talking about it and if corps commanders were discussing it at meetings of their subordinates, it seems unlikely that an armygroup commander, who was also the fifth ranking Field Marshal in one entire German Army, could have been successful in isolating himself from reality to the extent that List claims for himself.
What makes it even more unlikely is that we have introduced in evidence here three examples of reports made by units subordinated to List at that time in which the execution of commissars is described. These denials and confessions of ignorance on List's part are so transparent that it is embarrasing to repeat them.
The details as to the exact time when Field Marshal list ceased to be held responsible by OKW for events within this area of command are a little blurred. During rebuttal we introduced an order signed by List on 30 October 1941, a time when he was supposedly too infirm to know, or to be able to rectify if he cared, about excesses within the army. List's annoyance at the resurrection of a decree which he had long believed would never be discovered was matched only by the vociferousness of his counsel's objections to its admissibility. List was embarrassed not only because of the reflections case upon his credibility but also because the basis of his very own theory of military immunity, in addition to his claim of physical and mental incapacity, was brought under serious fire.
List set the tone for the German occupation of Greece and Serbia. He put in motion the machinery that murdered thousands of innocent people There was no one except Hitler who could alter his course and Hitler did not attempt to interfere. List was given a free hand. He used it to wield the Knout (German: Knute) and the bludgeon, to give the signal to the handman and the firing squad. He is the very source and fountainhead of the misery to which these unfortunate people were subjugated during the German soldiery in the Balkans.
By 30 October 1941, however, General Walter Kuntze was already in Athens. On his way there from Berlin he had stopped in Belgrade for a conference with General Boehme whose blood-letting activities were beginning to reach their peak. Kuntze does not recall whether he and Boehme mentioned the three mass executions involving over 6,000 people which had taken place in a three-week period just prior to their meeting.
Even though there were doubtless more important items on the agenda, one would have thought that this matter would have been warranted at least a casual reference.
A word about Kuntze's relation to Liet. Kuntze was sent to Greece as Deputy Armed Forces Commander Southeast and Deputy Chief of Staff of the 12th Army. He arrived in Athens on October 26 and assumed command the following day. List remained physically in Greece until 6 December 1941 and retained his title as Armed Forces Commander Southeast and Commander-in-Chief of 12 Army until August 1942.
To what extent List was consulted by Kuntze during the time that elapsed before List returned to Germany we do not know. It seems inconceivable that Kuntze should not have consulted with his predecessor at least for the purpose of informing himself as to what policies had been followed up till then and particularly since he didn't anticipate remaining long. At any rate, Kuntze does not attempt to lay the responsibility for events which happened during his period on this. And after List left Greece, it is clear that Kuntze though acting as his deputy had every right and power which his predecessor had ever possessed.
Kuntze admits that he was briefed in detail by Foertsch his Chief of Staff, when he arrived in Athens but his recollection of what took place in this meeting is as sketchy as his memory of the subjects discussed between him and Boehme a day or so earlier. He recalls that Foertsch told him about the revolt in Serbia but he does not think he was given any information about the reprisal measures which were taken by the Germans in order to suppress them.
If you believe this testimony, Kuntzehad no knowledge of the Keitel directive of 16 September until some time in December.
Meanwhile the blood-bath was being continued by the worthy Boehme with undiluted energy. As soon as List passed off the stage and Kuntze stepped into his shoes, then he, of course, became Boehme's chief and responsible for Boehme's action to the same extent as List had been.
The citation of just a few of the orders issued by Boehme between the time Kuntze took over and the time Boechme left Serbia on December 6 will suffice to indicate the nature and extent of the kind of activity which Kuntze condoned:
October 30: 800 hostages are to be shot for the murder of eight German prisoners.
October 31: 200 hostages are to be shot in retaliation for the attack on a railway train in which one German soldier was killed and two wounded.
November 19: 250 hostages reported shot in reprisal for losses of the 3rd Battalion of the 697th Inf. Regt.
November 20: 385 hostages are to be shot in retaliation for losses by the same unit.
Nov umber 29: 100 hostages are to be shot in retaliation for the death of Corporal Bernhard Schmidt.
Boehme of course followed the highest ratio mentioned in the Keitel directive: 100:1 in the case of German deaths and 50:1 in the case of German wounded. Kuntze says that this ratio was repugnant to him and he points with pride, as evidence of his own humane attitude, to the fact that Boehme's successor, General Bader, reduced the quotas to a more 50:1 and 25:1. Kuntze claims, but without offering any documentary confirmation, that this innovation was brought about as a result of bis intercession, itself a denial of the independence of the subordinate field commanders that has been vaunted so much throughout this case.
It is difficult to say that the behavior of the German troops after Kuntze's arrival was worse than it had be before because of the inherent difficulty of applying a qualitative measure to brutality. Let us say then that some new practices, intended to make the German reprisal machinery run more efficiently, began to be accepted as part of the normal order of things. Captured partisans were shot on principle. This applied to the wounded as well.
It is hard to tell what Kuntze's defense is to the proof which we have brought of these practices. He seems to say that no apology need by made for shooting captured partisans because their activities were unlawful in the first place, although he does think it regrettable that the wounded were also slaughtered. On the other hand, he said that some of the reports show that the captured partisans were standrechtlich erschossen which he contended meant "shot after a summary court martial", that is, after a full legal hearing. The expression "shot after interrogation" used so often in the reports, was just another way of saying the very same thing, Knutze blandly remarked. If any ambiguity remained on the meaning of this term in actual practice, it was removed by the testimony of Dr. Lattmann, an army judge at OKH headquarters, who said that the phrase conveyed the meaning that no legal proceedings whatever were taken prior to the shooting. Kuntze permitted the basic reprisal orders of list and Boehme to remain outstanding and and acted upon though he was constantly informed of the terrible harvest being reaped in Serbia as a result of them. But Kuntze's actions wore not only negative in nature. He, too, made certain positive contribution to the German campaign of senseless butchery.
In his order of 6 February 1942 he announced:
"The treatment of prisoners in the course of operations requires application of a more severe criterior. Prisoners taken in combat can not be innocent. People who loiter in the combat terrain and are not in their residence, will be mostly considered as having participated in combat and consequently must accordingly be shot to death. The mild conception of the troops is to be combatted most rigorously in view of the same conception during the past summer and the ensuing consequences!"
On 19 March 1942 he issued an even more brutal order which, to insure wide circulation, he distributed in 100 copies. Kuntze urged, the end of indulgence in "false sentimentality", stating that it was preferable that 50 "suspects" be liquidated than that one German soldier lose his life. Other provisions instructed that partisans and civilians be used to clear up mines, and that villages in the neighborhood of which partisan attacks or sabotage actions took place be destroyed, and the inhabitants sent to concentration camps. Finally, he directed that if it were not practicable to apprehend those who participated in the revolt, reprisal measures of a general nature be taken "For instance, the shooting to death of all male inhabitants from the nearest villages according to a definite ratio.
(For instance, one German dead - 100 Serbs, one German wounded 50 Serbs)."
So much for Kuntze's initiative in Serbia. The reports leave no doubt that Kuntze's effort of 19 March was not just baying to the moon.
The picture in Greece was only slightly less gory than that in Serbia. In Kuntze's report of 3 June 1942, it was stated that 50 hostages had been shot to death in Crete in retaliation for sabotage and attacks on the airport at Iraklion. On 10 June a report, signed by Foertsch, said that hostages had been shot in Athens in retaliation for attacks on armored cars and that a number of hostages had been shot in Crete as a reprisal measure for the murder of officials appointed by the German authorities.
To unravel Kuntze's incomprehensible explanations for this sanguine record is a task which we willingly hand over to his defense counsel. It sterns to be a mixture of lack of knowledge, military necessity, superior orders, plus an argument that more of the reprisal victims were captured partisans rather than innocent civilians. All poured together in no particular proportions nor in any special sequence. He says in one breath that he was forced to do various things because of the heavy pressure which was put on him by the OKW, and in the next that he deserves credit for having circumvented and modified the orders of the OKW.
