"Finnish hostages are to be taken along as the situation requires."
Rendulic denied that any Finnish hostages had ever been taken. The documents introduced in the course of his cross-examination completely disprove this. Apparently they were seized as so-called security hostages to be shot in case the Finnish troops interfered with the German destruction of bridges and other installations, including the machinery of the nickel mines.
The line of the German march from northern Finland and westward into the Norwegian province of Finnmark. The Russians had closed in during the latter part of September, but advanced rather slowly. It took them almost two weeks to advance the last 100 kilometers before they got to the banks of the Tana River, some 50 miles west of the Norwegian-Finnish border. The German rear guard patrols lost contact with the Russians at that point because the Russians never attempted to penetrate any further into Norway. In other words, the main body of the Russians halted on approximately the 21st of October.
On 28 October the OKW issued a second order to Rendulic. It provided that since the population of northern Norway had displayed an unwillingness to evacuate their homeland, Hitler had agreed to Terboven's suggestion that the evacuation be made compulsory and that all habitable dwellings be burned down or destroyed. The next day Rendulic passed down a similar order, practically incorporating Jodi's language, to his subordinate units. It contains a remark, "Pity for the civilian population is out of place."
Now since Rendulic seeks to justify the issuance of this order on the ground of military necessity, a few points should be considered.
First, at the time it was given, none of his troops had seen a Russian for more than a week. Second, Rendulic knew that the Russians had made no attempt to cross the Tana and that they probably would make none. He knew this for a number of reasons. Also, by following the Germans as far as they did, the Russians had dangerously extended their lines of supply and for them to have made an expedition into Norway would have necessitated the establishment of a major supply base in northern Finland which they had not attempted to do. The number of troops which the Russians had committed in northern Finland was insufficient to carry out an invasion of Norway. Rendulic knew this not only through reports of his spies and agents but also through his aerial reconnaissance. It is true that the weather was not favorable for flying during this period but, General Dahl testified that during part of the day reconnaissance flying was possible and, we know that Rendulic had reconnaissance planes at his disposal. Even if he did not, he had other sources of information about the number and movements of the Russian troops. The area over which the Russians were advancing had been occupied by the Germans for a long time and had only recently been evacuated by them. It is safe to assume that it had been liberally sprinkled with German spies and agents who remained behind for this specific purpose of furnishing intelligence about the Russians. The Germans intercepted Russian radio messages and had also interrogated Russian prisoners of war.
General Ferdinand Jodl who was one of the corps commanders in the 20th Mountain Army at that time testified that the order to evacuate Finnmark and to apply the scorched earth policy to it was so plainly unnecessary from the point of view of military necessity that if he were given the order to do it again, he would resign his commission before carrying it out.
At any rate, it was carried out with the thoroughness which the German Army has always displayed in such actions. Everything was laid waste -- fishermen's huts, earthen dugouts of the Laplanders, churches, schools, power plants, telephone and telegraph lines, boats and roads. In the darkness and cold of the Artic winter, tens of thousands were driven from their homes. The able-bodied were marched off and the old, the sick, and the children were transported by ship. "Pity for the population is out of place," Rendulic had said. All this Rendulic seeks to justify on the ground of military necessity. The only reason for this vandalism which could possibly be related to military necessity is the destruction of roads and communications. There was only one highway, however, which ran from north to south. Yet the Germans acting under this specific order of Rendulic not only destroyed every dwelling place, barn and other evidence of civilization in the vicinity of the highway out throughout an area 40 miles on either side of the highway. The destruction began in October, and was continued until the German surrender to the Allies.
In some instances, a general who puts forward a plea of military necessity to charges of wanton devastation makes his accuser appear to be substituting afterthought. It is perhaps rare for a case of devastation to be so completely unjustifiable as this one. Military necessity has been used more than any other excuse to defend the causing of misery to non-combatants. In this instance it obviously had no application. Were we to explore the inner recesses of a mind brutal capable of ordering this senseless waste, we would be leaving the realm of law and entering that of psychiatry.
It is enough for us to show that the action was futile, vicious and unreasonable.
Part of the clue to this callousness toward his fellow creatures may be found in his political credo. We have refrained from dwelling on the political and ideological tenets of these defendants to any extent. But with Rendulic, to pass over these things is to ignore the very pulse of the machine. For politics, and particularly Nazi politics, have played quite as important a role in his life as has the pursuit of his profession as a soldier.
Rendulic was attracted by Nazi doctrine from the beginning. He joined the Party in 1932 and belonged to it until it was made illegal by the Austrian government. Immediately after the Anschluss, he was re-baptized and soon became one of its outstanding advocates within the ranks of the professional soldiers. He enjoyed Hitler's confidence and friendship to an extent that was almost unique. So securely entrenched did he feel himself to be in the affections of Hitler that he did not hesitate upon occasion to disagree with or even insult one of the other royal favorites. He snarled at Kasche, lectured Terboven, screamed at Koch and berated Eigruber with impunity.
He constantly urged that the troops be saturated with Nazi concepts. On the witness stand he cynically explained that troops who believed in ideology fought better than troops who did not, and that it made no difference to him what ideology was used so long as it had the desired effect. To discuss all the philosophical implications of that remark would require another address the length of this one.
Rendulic was eminently successful in convincing the Nazi Party leaders of the sincerity of his devotion to their cause.
It is probably no accident that he, the most active and articulate Nazi in the dock, also is by far the most decorated defendant. He was even awarded the coveted Golden Party Badge, which was not a military honor at all but merely a recognition of usefulness to the Party.
We are not trying Rendulic for his political affiliations. They are significant here only in that if we seek an explanation for the spoor of blood and ashes which he left behind him, the only possible answer seems to be in the obscene mantlings of the master-philosophers to whose faith he was so active a servant.
LANZ After General Hubert Lanz refused to carry out a Hitler order to attack when in February 1943 he commanded what amounted to an army in Russia, he was relieved of his command and sent home.
Significantly enough, General Lanz, who almost more than any other defendant made superior orders a part of his defense, admitted that other than being relieved of his command nothing disastrous happened to him as a result of his disobedience. He was not discharged from the Army, his pension was not cut off, he was not court martialed nor were any recriminatory measures taken against his family. After resticating at home for four or five months, Lanz applied for another assignment and on 25 August 1943, was named Commanding General of the XXII Mountain Corps in Greece. Such was the disastrous result of his defiance of a Fuehrerbefehl.
On the 9th of September 1943, Lanz flew to Joannina and took charge of the XXIInd Mountain Corps with its subordinate 1st Mountain and 104th Light Infantry Divisions. Immediately, Lanz faced the task of disarming the Italian units within his corps area.
General Vecchiarelli, commander of the 11th Italian Army, agreed to the German demands, but the leaders of the Italian garrisons on the islands of Cephalonia and Corfu refused to be bound by his compant. Lanz himself flew to Cehpalonia on the 12th of September 1943, and talked with Gandin, the Italian commander there, who stated that he could not surrender because his orders were "unclear". Lanz says that he could see no excuse for Gandin's recalcitrance, because since Gandin was subordinate to Vecchiarelli, he was plainly bound by the latter's capitulation agreement.
In order to justify his own attitude, Lanz has to pretend that he had no knowledge of the terms of the ItalianAllied armistice of 8 September, though those terms were announced to the German government by Badoglio himself and were published in all German newspapers on the 12th of September. As we have just seen, Badoglio's proclamation was known to Rendulic and his staff on the same night that it was delivered. Lanz could scarcely have been less informed than another segment of the same Army Group F. Gandin, in stating that his orders were "unclear", could only have meant that he had already received orders from Marshal Badaglio, which contradicted the orders which Gandin had received from Vecchiarelli. Knowing full well that Vecchiarelli had also received orders from Badoglio not to surrender, so that the capitulation agreement was void for lack of authority, Gandin did the only thing possible - he obeyed the orders of his commander-in-chief and the head of his government. Gandin was regarded as pro-German, which indicates that he would have been inclined to surrender, had his sinse of duty not overridden his personal predilictions.
Lanz maintains that following their talk on the 12th of September 1943, Gandin promised, in return for an "order" from Lanz, to surrender his troops and arms, and that in later refusing to do so he broke his pledge. We have only Lanz's testimony with respect to Gandin's alleged "promise", but what we do know is that Lanz himself on both the 14th and the 17th of September acted in bad faith towards Gandin. On both of those days, Lanz had leaflets dropped to the Italian troops on Cephalonia stating that if they surrendered, the Germans would transport all of them back to their homeland. Such procedure was, of course, entirely out of the question and Lanz knew it. We have already mentioned the Keitel orders of 9 and 15 September which provided for the shipment of Italian soldiers to the East. If there was, therefore, any violation of an agreement on Gandin's part, Lanz is hardly the one to complain.
Fighting broke out between the German and Italian units on Cephalonia and after bringing up reinforcements, the Germans eventually defeated the Italian Detachment.
On 23 September Gandin was captured with all his staff, and on 24 September Lanz's own corps report related that Gandin and his entire staff had been given "special treatment according to the Fuehrer order". Lanz asserts that those Italian officers -- their precise numberhe cannot of course recall -- were shot only after court martial procedure. His report mentions no such procedure. Further, it is evident from merely a casual inspection of the documents concerning the Italian surrender that a court martial, when it was held, was only a hasty formality with a predetermined result.
The German losses in fighting for Cephalonia were between 80 and 100 soldiers, while the corresponding Italian losses were, according to Lan'z own report, "600 killed or shot." Lanz maintains that the language "killed or shot" is of no particular significance: that all the Italian losses were the result of the combat action. This explanation is of course patently untrue. Certain of those 600 persons -in addition to General Gandin and his entire staff -- were shot after their capture.
The history of what happened to the Italian garrison on Corfu is much the same. Again, the commander refused to abide by Vecchiarelli's surrender agreement, and fighting broke out, with disastrous consequences for the Italians. Lanz estimated German losses during that action at about 250 and Italian losses at about 1000 men. His own reports, however, indicate that not only were all Italian soldiers on Corfu executed upon capture, but that 4000 other Italians were "killed or shot." Again, the small German and huge Italian losses make it quite clear that the greater part of the Italian losses were suffered after their capture, and not during the course of the fighting. Lanz himself remembered and admitted that the island's Italian commandant had been executed in the same way and for the same reasons as General Gandin. But though the 1st Mountain Division was primarily employed in the action against Corfu, the Ic officer of that division, Colonel Rothfuchs, had the temerity to state in an Affidavit that he knew nothing at all about the execution of Italian officers on Corfu.
The failure of Rothfuchs to appear for cross-examination by the Prosecution is understandable.
Lanz's excuses for his conduct toward his former Italian allies are as numerous as they are illogical and confused. He contends that if it had not been for his stand in the matter, more Italian officers would have been executed. To support this, he mentions having received a Hitler order instructing him to execute all of the Italian members of the Gandin division. He flatly refused, he claims, to even consider executing the Italian troops and, with an extra burst of magnanimity, even refused to execute any but the "guilty" officers responsible for the revolt. But this is not borne out by the facts. There is not a single notation in any of the reports or way diaries of Army Group E, the XXII Corps or any of its subordinate units to confirm Lanz's references to this imaginary Hitler order. The fact is that even the OKW order of 15 September 1943 limited punishment to those Italian officers who were "responsible" for fomenting the Italian resistance against disarmament.
Lanz also argues that Gandin had a duty to obey Vecchiarelli's orders to surrender. It has already been pointed out that Vecchiarelli's capitulation agreement was the product of bad faith on the part of the Germans, who knew that he had no authority to make it. When Gandin knew that his immediate superior was guilty of treason, he was not bound to tar himself with the same brush.
Lanz further maintains that Gandin's actions were criminal because he fought, although there had been no declaration of war by Italy against Germany. It is difficult to see what is criminal about selfdefense. These isolated groups of Italians committed no hostile act against the Germans. So far as the evidence shows, they were willing to spend the rest of the war vacationing on the isles of Greece.
They had shown no disposition to start a private war with the Wehrmacht. Every shot that they fired was to defend themselves against the German attack. This contention of Lanz is completely illogical. He is saying that if the Italians had initiated an offensive against the Germans after a declaration of war, he would have treated them better than he did when they waited for the Germans to attack them. In other words, he is saying that they should be penalized for their pacific behavior.
Then Lanz maintains that Gandin's actions were analogous to the actions of a prisoner of war who mutinied against his captor. This contention, obviously, is expost facto rationalization. The concept of mutiny never entered the picture at all. The OKW orders never mentioned the word but talked only of shooting the Italian officers who resisted "as francs-tireur". Rendulic's own reports indicate that his treatment of Rencaglia was based upon the theory that Roncaglia's actions made him a franc-tireur.
Moreover, if execution after capture was the usual way of dealing with a mutineer, why did Lanz's reports mention that Gandin and his staff were being given "special treatment"?
There must be a relationship of superior and inferior before there can be an insubordination which leads to mutiny can take place. The Italian resistors were, of course, not subordinate to the German troops. If it be argued that Gandin had been guilty of mutiny towards Vecchiarelli, then naturally one asks why the Germans had authority to punish such mutiny and why no representatives of Vecchiarelli sat on the court martials which passed sentence upon Gandin and his staff.
Certain sections of German law were cited in support of the contention that the executed officers were mutineers. Those sections on their face are inapplicable to the Italian situation. They relate to acts of foreign civilians, not foreign military personnel. Moreover, if those sections do have the meaning ascribed to them, they are flatly in contravention of the Hague Rules of Land Warfare regarding the criteria prerequisite for belligerent status.
But even if it is accurate to describe the Italian officers who resisted disarmament as prisoners of war who had mutinied, the German treatment of them was contrary to the treatment prescribed in the Geneva Convention. Every prisoner of war who commits a crime after he has been made a prisoner of war has a right to trial by his peers which, of course, was not the case with Gandin. Moreover, notice of his trial must be sent by the detaining power to the protecting power. Finally, no death sentence against such a prisoner of war may be executed until three months after notice of sentence is given to the protecting power. None of these conditions were fulfilled.
An addition 58 Italian officers were executed upon capture at Sarande for being instrumental in allying the units with the partisans. As to these men, Lanz admits that they were shot on the theory that they were francs-tireur. But, of course, they were not. Even Lanz conceded that they fulfilled all of the requirements of Article 1 of the Hague Rules for belligerent status. They were in full uniform, they were commanded by their own officers, they bore their arms openly and they obeyed the rules of war. Lanz now maintains that those 58 officers were shot by the 1st Mountain Division in violation of his own orders to the contrary. But even forgetting Lanz's previous treatment of Italian officers captured on Cephalonia and Corfu, and assuming that what he says is true, why was the commander of the 1st Mountain Division not punished for what was in this case unquestionable insubordination?
Lanz finally contends that his actions against the Italians were militarily necessary. It might be conceded that there were compelling military reasons for wishing to disarm the Italians. But how could there possibly be any military necessity for shooting those who resisted after their capture and after their capacity for doing further damage to German security had been removed?
The true explanation for these killings was given by the highest judge at OKW headquarters, Dr. Lehmann, who instructed his subordinate judicial officers on 30 September 1943, that the execution of captured Italian officers on the basis of the Keitel directive of 16 September should be considered "a political measure without judicial competence."
Before leaving the Italian complex, we should mention that Lanz's corps headquarters issued an order not to take prisoners during operation "Verrat" (Treason) the code name for the German action on Cephalonia and Corfu, and that one company of the Brandenburg Regiment was to participate in the attack wearing Italian uniforms. Even Lanz had no doubt of the unlawfulness of that tactic. He now claims that the Brandenburg unit never actually got into action. If so, Lanz can claim no credit. He never lifted a finger to prevent the scheme from being carried out. Of course, he also says now that the "no prisoner" order was issued by a member of his staff without his knowledge and that he himself never knew until he got to Nuremberg of the intentions of the Brandenburg detachment. On other occasions, when it suited his purposes better, Lanz insisted that he was always alert to punish offenses of every nature within his area of command. Is it likely that a man so concerned with maintaining discipline within his corps would have no knowledge of an act of gross insubordination on the part of a staff officer and of the intended violation of international law by a unit attached for special purposes to his command?
Lanz, like the rest of his colleagues, says that he was violently opposed to the whole Nazi regime. He says that he was severely criticized by his superiors for the way he conducted the initial surrender negotiations with Cecchiarelli, as well as for his attitude towards the Italian resisters on Cephalonia and Corfu. But several months after the Italian affair, on 1 March 1944, General Doehr -- then Commander of Army Group E -- described Lanz as a "National Socialist leader personality" and stated that his annihilation of the Italian occupation forces on Cephalonia and Corfu were "frequently superior". In spite of the "difficulties" which Lanz was supposed to have made for his superiors during the Italian actions, Loehr stated that he was "above average" and "should be retained in his present assignment".Lanz has the blood of an indefinite number, at the very least more than a hundred, innocent Italian officers and men on has hands.
His actions during September and October 1943 were flagrant violations of fundamental revisions of international law which will always be remembered as one of the most shameful and unchivalrous chapters in the whole history of professional soldiery.
Mr. Fenstermacher will continue with the Prosecutions closing statement
THE PRESIDENT: We will take our afternoon recess at this time, a recess of ten minutes.
(A recess was taken.)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
MR. FENSTERMACHER: After dealing with the Italians, Lanz turned to his primary mission of defeating the partisans and maintaining order and security in the Epirus section of Greece. In the light of his prior performance, one could not expect his methods of keeping order among the Greek populace to be remarkable for their gentleness and forebearance. He resorted to the usual Greek technique of the mailed fist and the spiked club -- the execution of hostages and the wholesale burning of villages.
Lanz maintains that he opposed the whole idea of taking hostages and shooting men in retaliation for acts which were committed by others. He was careful not to say that he considered such methods unlawful but only that he objected to them for "purely humane reasons." His opposition was apparently not very articulate. On the 13th of September 1943 the subordinate 1st Mountain Division issued an order providing that "for every German soldier wounded or killed by insurgents or civilians, ten Greeks from all classes of the population are to be shot to death", and that this ratio was to "be carried out consistently in order to achieve a deterring effect." Lanz says he never heard of that order prior to seeing it for the first time here in Nueremberg. At the time that the order was issued, the headquarters of the XXIInd Mountain Corps and the 1st Mountain Division were in the very same city. Lanz and General Stettner, the Division commander, lived and worked not more than two kilometers from each other in the Epirus capital of Joannina. If you believe Lanz, he and Stattner never even discussed the matter of hostages.
Slightly more than a fortnight after tho 10:1 order of the 1st Mountain Division, Lanz himself ordered that "30 distinguished citizens (Greeks) from Arta", and "10 distinguished citizens (Greeks) from Filipias", be arrested and kept as hostages because of repeated cable sabotage in the area of Arta.
The order stated that "for every further act of cable sabotage ten of the forty hostages would be shot to death." When it was pointed out to General Lanz on cross examination that he himself was adopting a 10:1 hostage ratio just a short time after the 10:1 ratio was announced by one of his subordinate divisions, he was most surprised. Could it have been coincidence or is this an indication that the 1st Mountain Division's order is based on a previous order issued by Lanz?
On 25 October 1943, the 1st Mountain Division issued another hostage order of which Lanz also claims to have been uninformed. In that later order, the hostage ratio was raised to 50:1 in the case of German losses and 10:1 "in case of a murder of a pro-German Greek or a Greek working for the Germans." Application for the actual carrying out of all such executions had to be cleared by the Division's Ic officer through General Speidel who, as Military Commander of Greece represented the executive power. Although the 50:1 ratio was decreed even in the event of losses suffered by the Germans during band combat, Lanz has no recollection whatever of having issued, discussed or heard about this act of obvious illegality on the part of the divisional commander whose headquarters were in the same town with his own.
On direct examination Lanz insisted that he himself had issued but one hostage order, the one dated 3 October. Could he have intentionally forgotten the proclamation that he, as Commander of the German troops in Epirus, issued on 24 May 1944 for the seizure of hostages in Pogonion and their transport to Joannina, 40 kilometers away?
Lanz, of course, was reluctant to even hazard a guess at the number of hostages that were executed within the jurisdiction of his XXII Mountain Corps. Even the numerous documents were unable to refresh his recollection sufficiently for him to give a rough approximation. The situation report of the 1st Mountain Division to the XXII Corps, dated 24 October 1943, states that 58 hostages were executed for a surprise attack on German soldiers in the area near Paramythia. General Lanz felt that this particular report was confused with a report stating that 50 Greeks had been executed in retaliation for an attack upon German troops. But it was General Lanz rather than the Prosecution who was confused. An additional report shows that the 50 Greeks were executed on the 29th of September for an attack which occurred on the 20th of that month. From one of General Lanz's own file notes, dated 18 October 1943, more than three weeks after the "50 Greeks" incident, it appears that the 58 hostages were shot as a reprisal measure for six German soldiers. Again one notices, strikingly enough, an adherence to the 10:1 ratio which the 1st Mountain Division had decreed on the 13th of September and which Lanz himself had observed on the 3rd of October 1943.
Whether or not General Lanz now recalls it, his own corps reported to Army Group E on the 12th of December 1943, the execution of five hostages in retaliation for the killing of a "nationalist leader" in Korea. Earlier, on the 8th of November 1943, Battalion 79 reported to the 1st Mountain Division that eight hostages had been hanged in retaliation for the death of the interpreter Walter Jennewin.
That General Lanz had personal acquaintance with the execution of hostages is readily seen from the reports sent out in connection with the attack upon his own convoy at the time of the Salminger funeral.
On the 3rd of October, 1943, the 1st Mountain Division reported that in retaliation for a partisan attack on the convoy making the trip from Joannina to Prevesa "4 hostages were immediately shot as reprisal" and that immediate counter-measures were being carried out. The same day the 1st Mountain Division reported "counter-measures in progress; up to now 4 civilians shot to death". Fascinated by the magical similarity of the figure four here involved, Lanz argues that hostages were not shot at all but that the persons killed were simply Greek partisans dressed as civilians who were killed in the course of the attack. A more reasonable explanation, however, is that immediately after the attack four innocent hostages were executed, and that later on four additional persons were shot as a countermeasure.
Though possessing no real knowledge of the execution of "security" hostages, Lanz has a slight familiarity with the use of "danger" hostages within his corps area. Though his 1st Mountain Division issued orders that hostages accompanying German lorries should be taken only from the central collection point, and though Lanz himself saw Greek civilians patrolling German roads under the threat of being executed in the event of attacks on German vehicles using those roads, he saw nothing unlawful about the practice, though he did feel that it was not a particularly good idea from a purely military point of view.
Lanz faced both ELAS and EDES partisans during the course of his stay in Epirus. He admitted that the testimony of the Greek witness Triandaphyllidis, General Zervas' ADC, was accurate when the latter testified that all EDES units were insignia, that after March 1943, they all wore uniforms and that they were not guilty of any violations of the laws of war. Perhaps because no member of the ELAS units had testified, General Lanz felt safe in contending that those units fulfilled none of the prerequisites of article 1 of the Hague Rules.
The many reports which mentioned the military organization of the EIAS forces, the names of their leaders, their armament and equipment, and their insignia, are authentic written testimony to the contrary.
But in spite of the fact that both of Lanz's opponents were entitled to full belligerent status, Lanz instructed his units to take severe reprisal measures in the event of attacks by those opponents against German troops and installations. The most significant order in that regard is Lanz's own order of the day issued after the death of Lt. Colonel Salminger, who was killed by a partisan road-trap, a method of warfare which outraged Lanz's own high standards of chivalrous warfare. In his order of 1 October 1943, he said that he expected that the 1st Mountain Division would "avenge this nefarious bandit murder... by a ruthless reprisal action with a circumference of 20 kilometers of the place where the murder occurred." On the stand Lanz insisted that by that order he was simply instructing the 1st Mountain Division to seek out and defeat the partisans in armed combat. Again one notices the resort to euphemism which has been so commonplace throughout this proceeding. That the troops read the same meaning in to the order as did the Prosecution is evident from the reports which came back to the corps two days later. Though it was not likely that Salminger's attackers would loiter very long in the neighborhood, the division invaded and burned village after village.
Though there was not a single German loss at Akmotopok, the entire village was burned down and all its inhabitants shot. Lanz argues that when a report states "all inhabitants shot to death", it really means that all of the peaceful inhabitants had left the village prior to the entry of the German troops and that the persons actually shot down were not inhabitants of the village at all but simply partisans dressed as civilians.
One further example of the apparent unintelligibility of the language of the reports which came to General Lanz concerns the reprisal action carried out against the village of Korea. Though the report records that "all men capable of bearing arms were shot", Lanz claims that what really happened was that the civilian inhabitants of the village had taken up arms and were killed in the course of the fighting for the village.
Another example of this method of documentary interpretation can be found in an explanation given in a Lanz affidavit of a report which stated that "in the area southeast of Arta the 2nd Company of the 54th Artillery Battalion burned down two villages as reprisal for the activities of bands during the last few days." The affiant said that not two villages but only two houses were really burned. Is it the affiant or the report which is erroneous? The Court will recall the Lanz affiant who had General Lanz himself accompanying Lt. Colonel Salminger at the time the latter was killed. Even General Lanz had to admit that his affiant there had "made a mistake."
Lanz also was a faithful supplier of Greek labor for the war industries manned by Sauckel's slaves. A file note of the Commanding General of the XXII Corps for 18 October 1943, already alluded to in another connection, mentions that 160 persons had by then been deported for labor employment in Germany. The reason - they were "suspected of being members of bands and unable to show place of work."
Lanz admitted that Greek civilians were mobilized to do forced labor on Greek roads, but that, he argued, was beneficial not only to the Germans but to the civilian population as well. He denied, however, that any Greeks were used to construct fortifications. When he was shown on cross-examination a report, dated 1 March 1944, from the Steyrer Division to his Corps - a report which was received at corps headquarters on 2 March 1944 - stating that the evacuation of Sarande was in progress but that the male population would remain in Sarande for the time being and would be "brought up to work on fortifications", Lanz had a unique seizure of speechlessness.
He also did his bit towards the "final solution" of the Jewish question. Though Corfu, following the Italian surrender, was entirely within his jurisdiction and control, he permitted a small SS detachment to forcibly evacuate almost 1800 of that island's Jewish inhabitants. Lanz admitted not only that there was no military necessity for such an action but, as he pointed out to Army Group E, that there was actually great danger that such a measure would hamper military defense preparations against an Allied attack. Though Lanz contended that he also opposed the measure for "reasons of humanity" no word of opposition on that ground appears in any of the communications which he had with Army Group E on the subject. Lanz conceded, at one point, that it was entirely within his power to keep the SS off the island, but at another stage of his testimony he said that he was wholly unable to prevent the measure and that the only thing he was able to do was to order his staff and his men to render no assistance whatever to the visiting SS men. But his men did assist the SS in carrying out the operation. As appears from the report which the German island commander sent to the XXII Corps, the army troops did the rounding up of the Jews and set aside barracks space in which they could be temporarily housed pending the arrival of ships taking them to their eventual destination. Such was the extent of Lanz's intervention against and his opposition to the fulfillment of the "purging of Europe".
Even prior to his arrival in Greece, Lanz had a record which was sufficiently black. When he received the Commissar Order as Commander of the 1st Mountain Division, he passed it on with the qualification that commissars would only be shot in combat. From that day forward he heard no more about commissars and he was sure none was ever executed by any of the units within his division. He had forgotten about the former proclamation which the XXXXIX Mountain Corps had sent to the division on 29 July 1941. That proclamation, addressed to the Ukrainian population, talked about the liberation "from the despotism of Jewish-Bolshevist elements" which the German troops had brought, and went on to say that "political commissars and members of the Red Army cut off from their units" were to be arrested without delay by the local mayors and delivered to the nearest German commander.