(Exh. Kuntze 45). In view of these varying subordinations connected with the Military Police Troops the solution of the question as to which office had issued the order for the shooting of Commissars, is an essential prerequisite for fixing the responsibility for the execution of such an order. I would like to refer here to the notation in Exh. 593 to the effect that the officer of the Military Police Troop had proceeded to army headquarters as a special messenger, and further to the fact that according to the entries dated 25 and 26 September 1941 the execution of the Commissars had some connection with the sabotage-acts. It must be assumed therefore that these measures have been ordered by the Military Police Officer of the Army and that consequently the 61st Division cannot be held responsible. Besides, I would like to refer especially to paragraph 5 of affidavit Kuntze and further affidavit of this witness, Exhibit 47, in which it is said that in the visits that it became clearly evident that he demanded a decent treatment of all prisoners but particularly emphasized that captured commissars be treated as prisoners of war. The 61st Division had voiced his opinion on the question of the treatment of Prisoners of War and captured Commissars in the presence of the Commander of the 61st Division and had demanded a decent treatment of all prisoners, but had particularly emphasized that captured Commissars should be treated also as Prisoners of War.
Finally, the Prosecution has also been unable to prove that the executions (shootings) of Commissars on 26 September and on 8 and 9 October 1941 had been reported to the 61st Division. In any case, on the basis of the statement of the defendant Kuntze in the witness stand and in view of the affidavit Exh. Kuntze 44 - it is established that a shooting of Commissars, carried out by the Feldgendarmerie (Military Police) 161a had not been reported to the Corps Headquarters XXXXII.
I may refer here first of all to the explicitly stated amplification of the witnesses Einbeck and von Woedtke in their affidavits, that they would have to have knowledge of this, in view of their position at the XXXXII Army Corps if such a report had been received at the XXXXII Army Corps.
Neither can Document NOKW 1905 Exh. 647, submitted by the Prosecution in the rebuttal, prove any charge against the defendant Kuntze. General Kuntze never had anything to do with the AOK 2 during the time of his commitment in the East. The Prosecution has neither maintained nor has it been able to prove that General Kuntze at any time has been subordinated to the AOK 2. For this reason the report of the AOK 2, contained in Exh. 647 and directed to the Army Group center, cannot be laid to the charge of defendant Kuntze.
A responsibility of defendant Kuntze for the Commissar order is therefore out of the question.
Order concerning Commandos The order concerning commandos, the Kommando Befehl, which is laid to the charge of defendant Kuntze - Exh.
225 - has been issued, as is evident from the date of the order, only after defendant Kuntze's command as deputy commander-in-chief of the 12th Army and deputy Wehrmacht Commander South-East had been terminated, e.g. must have been decreed only after his term of office with the Wehrmacht Commander South-East. As the defendant has stated in the witness stand and as proved by Exh. Kuntze 47, General Kuntze was not at the front at the time when the order pertaining to the Commandos was issued, but with the reserve-army, namely as chief of training in the reserve army. In this capacity only the armament schools, schools for officers' training, and non-commissioned officers as well, as the preparatory schools for non-commissioned officers of the reserve army with their instruction units were subordinated to General Kuntze, as far as training and discipline was concerned, but not tactically. The schools and their instruction units received orders of commitment from the Chief of the reserve army through the Chief of the General Army Office.
The order concerning Commandos had therefore nothing to do with defendant Kuntze as Chief of Training.
Defendant Kuntze therefore could not have taken part either in the distribution of the order concerning the Commandos as has been stated explicitly by the witness Rittmann.
For that matter the Prosecution has not been able at all to submit the necessary proof for its generally stated accusations, as far as defendant Kuntze is concerned. This defendant Kuntze cannot be held responsible with regard to this count of the prosecution.
Collection Camps.
I omit the first paragraph.
The establishment of camps was a matter with which the territorial commanders had to deal, and in particular their military administration. In all matters which related to the administration or police, they received their respective orders directly from Reich Agencies, from the Reich Fuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police as far as the Police was concerned, and likewise submitted to him directly their informations and reports via the special channels.
The Chief of the Military Administration in Serbia frequently profited from this special position for arbitrary actions and endeavored to maintain it and to go his own ways.
I omit the first sentence of the next paragraph, continuing with the second sentence.
The Higher SS and Police Leader, appointed in Serbia from January 1942 onward, was even fully independent in all matters which related to the police.
All the defendants unanimously stated in the witness stand that concentration camps as understood today, did not exist in the SouthEast at all. They were only the so-called collection or detention camps (Anhaltslager), where captured or apprehended rebels and bandit-helpers, and unreliable elements were collected. The latter were investigated in these camps, sentenced and then either detained or discharge. Apart from such camps there were the so-called "Hostage-Camps", where reprisal hostages were housed as a warning the population.
That such camps sometimes were called "concentration camps" was a fault of the "report language" and can only be explained with the fact that the true meaning of the expression of concentration camp is nothing else than a collection camp. Moreover the meaning of the word of concentration camp was at that time neither known to the defendants nor to the greater part of the German people. This is already proved by the fact that the expressions of concentration camp, collection camps and detention camps are frequently used without discrimination and the one for the other even in reports and orders.
That these camps were not extermination camps as the prosecution has asserted, is proven, above all, by the fact which emerges from the documents of the prosecution, namely that discharges were also effected from these camps, and that courts-martial and field courts cooperated in the investigations and convictions.
I omit the reference and start with the next paragraph....
The fact that "Reprisal hostages" had not to remain in camps for indefinite periods is proven by the order of the Commanding General and Military Commander Serbia dated 21 June 1942 - Exh. 204 VIII 32, 34 -- according to which hostages were to be exchanged and to be released regularly.
The establishment of collection camps for rebels and band-helpers however was no violation of international law or crime against humanity. Incidently, collection camps are not a German invention but are of British origin and for safety reasons are even in the present time considered necessary by victorious countries.
The southeastern collection camps were not introduces by the defendant Kuntze. On the contrary, as defendant Foertsch testified in the witness stand they existed already in Serbia when the commanderin-chief of the 12th Army was appointed Military Commander Southeast.
Above all, it must be stressed again that these camps were not a military affair but purely an affair of the Police, upon which Military Commander Southeast could not exert any influence.
There existed no obligation on the part of the subordinate agencies to inform Military Commander Southeast of the incidents in the Police sector. The administrative report contained in the ten-day-report by the General Plenipotentiary in Serbia to Military Commander Southeast, was merely a formality and must be traced back to the fact that in the form used for the ten-day-report there were provided under sub-section VI reports on administrative matters. That this did not imply compulsory order is shown alone by the fact that already during General Kuntz's term of office, after July 1942, these administrative reports were omitted, the more so as reports concerning police measures were not obtainable.
It must also be categorically denied that in these collection camps with the knowledge of Military Commander Southeast and of the General Plenipotentiary in Serbia methods of treatment were applied, of a nature as designated by the Prosecution. During the time of the defendant's command not a single case came to his knowledge which would substantiate the assertions of the Prosecution. Nor does the documentary evidence supply any incident which might substantiate any charge against the defendant Kuntze in the sense of such an accusation on the part of the Prosecution.
With this any responsibility on the part of the defendant Kuntze must be dropped under this count also.
THE PRESIDENT: Pardon me. I think I should advise you that you have about 7 minutes of your time remaining, so you can decide how you want to make use of it as to the remaining pages.
DR. MENTZEL: Yes, sir.
"Allocation for Labor of Captured Rebels."
The evacuation of captured rebels for labor in German spheres of interest also was a matter of the Police.
I should like to refer to the statements on page 99 following concerning the labor allocations of captured rebels, and which I ask the Court to take into consideration. Here, in my opinion, the fact is important that the captured rebels which could have been shot according to the laws of warfare, stood trial since they were fighting as guerillas, and labor allocation saved them from capital punishment. Besides Prisoners of War in the rear Army area or in other occupied territories may be employed for labor as far as they are not officers.
Page 101 now deals in about the middle, with the statements concerning Jews and Gypsies. I have proved in these statements that the defendant Kuntze and the agency subordinate to him did in no way try to carry out a policy of exterminating Jews and Gypsies, nor did they order such a policy. That Jews and Gypsies were not persecuted and treated in a special way for reasons of their race and religion, but on the contrary that they were subordinate only to those measures that were applicable to members of bands and suspects, and that to a great extent they were allied with these bands, that they supported them and that they therefore had to count on being treated according to the same last. It is well known that the Jewish problem was entirely alien to the Military; that it was definitely a matter of the Party only.
I would like to refer to the detailed statements and comments on this and would like to recommend them to the judicial notice of the Court.
During the defendant Kuntze's period of command, only a temporary evacuation of the population of the Kosara district was carried out in agreement with the Croatian government by the Combat Group West-Bosnia at the beginning of the Kosara-Presara (Croatia) action.
This measure which had become necessary for military reasons was unknown to the Wehrmacht Commander Southeast. For this area was a haunt of the bandits, which emerges from the Exh. 207, VIII 40, 46/47, and the population there worked together with the bandits.
I would like to refer to the other statements in brief, and would like to turn to page 108, at the bottom, where it says:
In conclusion and summarizing I claim that the defendant General Kuntze, neither de facto, nor de jure, has committed any crime which violates the International Law or the Laws of Humanity.
Neither did he initiate any orders himself which could represent a crime, nor were any such orders issued by subordinate commanders upon his instruction or with his knowledge, while he was in office. Orders issued during the defendant Kuntze's term of office were merely the repetition of stringent orders of the Supreme Headquarters of the Wehrmacht, and were due by the condition on the Balkans, which is to say that they were of military necessity.
I shall omit page 109 and page 110 concerning the personality of General Kuntze, as described in detail, and I shall omit also the reference of the exhibits. Furthermore, I would like to bring the Court's attention to the concluding remarks on page 112 and through 114, and I would like to request that the Court will take into consideration in writing its opinion also those parts which have not been read today, but which are in the written version of the plea.
Thank you.
DR. TIPP: Your Honors, the High Tribunal, I believe that in the beginning of my plea I would like to preface with a short technical remark. It is not possible for me to read all the statements in my plea, but I would like to request the Court to consider the whole plea in the writing of the opinion, and to make the complete plea a part of the completed record.
THE PRESIDENT: I think it should be said for the record and for the knowledge and attention of counsel and defendants, that those parts of the plea that are not read will receive the careful attention of the Tribunal. I want to assure you of that fact.
DR. TIPP: May I also say that the concluding statements of the Prosecution lead to me supplementing my plea with various short paragraphs. They are not translated yet. I gave them to the interpreters in German, and shall notify the interpreters whenever I shall read one of these passages. These supplements were submitted for translation already, and I assume that Your Honors will receive them on time.
When the prosecution outlined, in the beginning of the proceedings, the general trend of their arguments, the chief of counsel for the prosecution made the following statement on his evaluation of the evidence to be produced:
Indeed, as this case progresses, I think it will rapidly appear that the evidentiary questions are of secondary importance. That the killings charged in the indictment occurred, that they were carried out by troops under the command of these defendants, and that they were in fact ordered by the defendants will not, I believe, be denied. The naked facts are terribly clear.
This then, Your Honors, was the opinion of the prosecution concerning the facts involved in this case. Based on this opinion, the prosecution did not trouble too much about the furnishing of evidence. Out of the ample material at their disposal, they produced certain reports and orders, in the belief that the guilt of the defendants was proved sufficiently by these exhibits.
In the opinion of the defense, on the other hand, nothing can be less clear then the result of the evidence for we believe that the facts as such do not prove anything whatsoever. They cannot be understood without full knowledge of the circumstances and conditions given at a specific period and in a specific area.
The defense has therefore, in the first instance, tried to explain to the Court the conditions -- with regard both to the period and to the locality involved, - in which the defendants were then forced to act. Your Honors, we have stressed the confusion and obscurity prevailing in the chain of command, the co-existence and overlapping of the various German and indigenous authorities both in the civil and military sectors. We have made it clear by witnesses and by documents that by far not everything that happened was done by order of the defendants, and that the defendants can by no means be burdened with the responsibility for everything that happened in the South Eastern area. Within the framework of this basic part of our argumentation, we have also tried to make it clear both by witnesses and by documents, that serious ethnical and political conflicts between the various national groups had always prevailed in the Balkans, and to point out that the resulting ethnical struggles had a great influence of the events in the Balkans. We have also endeavored to explain that the defendants are, in their capacity of commanders of German army units, in no way responsible for this ethnical struggle and for the atrocities resulting therefrom. Finally, we have submitted that all acts of the defendants were caused by binding orders and decisions of their superior command authorities.
The defense feels that by furnishing evidence of this factual background an essential and indispensable contribution has been made toward the determination of the truth and toward an appropriate evaluation of the responsibility of the defendant.
After this general statement which applies to my client as well as to the other defendants, I shall now discuss the specific charges against General v. Leyser, and I shall in the first instance supplement the consideration submitted above by adding those which are of particular importance in his own case.
A.) It was in the end of October 1943, when General von Leyser como to Croatia for the first time; he then was the commanding general of the XV. Mountain A.K. Of this, the prosecution itself has produced evidence in the form of the war diary of the XV. Corps. By this fact, all documents covering the period prior to this date are automatically eliminated. The prosecution has used a considerable number of documents without regard for this delimitation of the period of issue. I shall deal with this in more detail when discussing the individual counts.
B.) In addition to this delimitation of the period in issue, it is important to determine the scope of the command authority wielded by my client in his capacity as commanding general of the XV. and XXI. corps. In this respect, it seems necessary to deal once more with the operational area of his corps and with the military, political and economic conditions prevailing therein. As explained by General v. Leyser on the stand and as shown by the prosecution exhibits, General v. Leyser was the commanding general of two army corps committed in Croatia and Albania. Thus, General v. Leyser was, in both commands, the commander of a unit engaged in tactical operations within the territories of independent states.
Accordingly, his tasks were military and tactical tasks only. The main operational mission of his corps was to protect tho coast from the allied landings which were expected and, in addition to keep the supply roads leading to the coast clear of interference. In his capacity as commanding general of an army corps, the administration of the country did not come under the jurisdiction of General v. Leyser, nor was it his task to care for the welfare of the civilian population. He was not concerned with the issue of administrative orders, with legislation or with court procedure.
He neither was the superior authority vis-a-vis the territorial authorities such as Feldkommandanturan and Kreiskommandanturas, nor was he entitled or in a position to issue directives to German or indigenous authorities. His own German combat divisions only were subordinated to him.
The term "executive power and the term territorial authority" have been explained and clarified during this trial so frequently, that I can refrain from explaining them once more. I may must state that General v. Leyser was not invested with the executive power and that he was no territorial commander either. All this was outside of the scope of his tasks as a tactical commander of German troops. He was only entrusted with operational task of a purely military character similar to the tasks incumbent on any troop commander in any country.
It appears that the prosecution does not intend to recognize this legal position. This is the only explanation for the fact that the prosecution, when cross-examining General v. Leyser confronted him with the document NOKW 971, trying to prove by this document that he was invested with the executive power and, therefore, authorized to give directives to the Croat military units and to the Croat civil authorities. This document has not been introduced in the case of General v. Leyser, which by itself disqualifies it as a basis of a charge against him. Furthermore, the analysis of the document shows that the considerations resulting from it do not apply to the period in which General v. Leyser was in command nor to the scope of his task.
The document in question is a decree dated 7 January 1943 and issued by General Lueters, the Military Commander (Militaerbefehlshaber) of the German troops in Croatia.
In his capacity as commander of the German troops in Croatia, General Lueters was invested with the executive power, but only in the limited extent pertaining to a German commander within the structure of the independent state of Croatia. When this command authority (the commander of the German troops in Croatia) was merged in the Headquarters of the XV.
Mountain Corps in the course of reorganization- which was done during the period when General v. Leyser was in command of the corps these executive powers were abolished altogether. This has been proved by the deposition of General v. Leyser and in addition by the statements made by the witness Werner Pfafferott, late chief of staff of Generals Lueters and v. Leyser.
Moreover, the fact that General v. Leyser did not wield any executive power in his capacity as commanding general of the XV. A.K., also follows from prosecution exhibit 561.
Therein, it is stated that on 23 October 1943 General v. Leyser had a conference with the German minister and the Croat minister of the interior, when he demanded that the executive power should be transferred to him in case the situation deteriorated further; this was conceded by the Croat minister. This shows unambiguously that the commander of the XV. A.K. was as such not invested with the executive power, but that it could be transferred to him only by special measure provided that the military situation was seriously endangered.
And now here is a supplement paragraph not translated.
Prosecution in their concluding statements has described the leading position in such a way as though it stood at the discretion of General v. Leyser to assume his active powers at any time simply on the basis of this agreement. This interpretation, however, in no way corresponds to the actual wording of the agreement which was written down in the document. General v. Leyser, beyond that has stated that the prerequisite for application of this agreement was the following: That he was not able to contact the Croat Government, only if the military position was such a dangerous one that immediate assignment of all forces available without consideration of the formality of subordination seemed necessary, and that there was no possibility of including the Croat Government. Only then was General v. Leyser able to assume his executive powers on his own initiative.
Only in extreme cases of emergency, as in the case of attack on Banjaluka on the night of New Year's, 1943-1944, he was able to make use of this occasion. In all other cases executive power was a matter to be decided by the Croat Government.
It has, therefore, been established that General v. Leyser was not invested with the executive power. The executive power is the very core of those powers and authorities which constitute, in German opinion, the status of the Military Commander in an occupied territory, corresponding to the status of the Military Governor in a territory occupied by American troops. All matters relating to administration and to political and police tasks where, therefore, outside of the responsibility of my client.
I have clarified the scope of General v. Leyser's tasks both in the affirmative and in the negative sense.
In this connection, I have deliberately refrained from discussing the question how the scope of General v. Leyser's task was influenced by the fact that his troops were committed within the territory of the independent state of Croatia. As far as his tasks were concerned, it did practically not matter where his corps was committed. His responsibility would be the same, if he had been committed in a territory administered by the German armed forces in the frame-work of military occupation in the meaning of the Hague Rules for Land Warfare. Whereas in Croatia the exercise of the sovereign rights, in other words the executive and the legislative powers, was vested in the Croat authorities and under their own jurisdiction, they would in an occupied territory have been vested in the military administration; in neither case would they have been vested in my client. By way of argument, the following may be added: In Croatia, both the Croat armed forces and the Croat administrative authorities were under the direction of their own government. In an occupied territory, they would have been auxiliary agencies of the occupying power and subordinate to the authorities of the military administration.
In other words: Whereas in Croatia the Croat government only was responsible for the actions of its troops and agencies, this responsibility would, in occupied territory, have been incumbent on the departments of the military administration.
A responsibility of General v. Leyser in his capacity as a tactical troop commander, can, therefore, not be established at all.
C. Although the scope of the command authority of my client has thus been established, it is necessary to discuss briefly the status of Croatia in Public International Law. Croatia was an independent state, as explicitly shown by the evidence produced by the defense. Shortly after the capitulation of the Croat armed forces, viz. in April 1941, it was created by the own initiative of the Croat people, who hailed the German troops as their liberators from the intolerable oppression by the Yugoslav state and its rule by force.
During the period of General v. Leyser's command, the Croat state was a fully developed political structure. The supreme authority was vested in the sovereign Croat Government exclusively. In order to fulfill its task, this government used its own armed forces and its own authorities. Both the population and the territory which are necessary criterions of a state, did exist. By the standards of Public International Law, Croatia was a state and at the same time an ally of Germany in the fight against the Allied Powers.
The legal arguments pertaining to this point have been set out exhaustively in the legal statement of the defense counsel of General Dehner. I may, therefore, be allowed to refer to them; for my part, I shall only describe the actual situation as it was in October 1943 when General v. Leyser came to Croatia. In this case, the facts are self explanatory.
If these facts are disregarded by the prosecution throughout, and if the prosecution insists on mentioning the Yugoslav state only, this kind of argumentation cannot do away with the facts. In Public International Law, facts are the strongest argument of all. If this Court, too, were to disregard the facts forcibly militating for General v. Leyser, I should be obliged to consider this in contradiction with the very idea of justice. As a subordinate commander of a tactical unit, as one of the large number of German generals commanding the various army corps of the German armed forces, my client was neither entitled to check the legality of the existence of the Croat state nor had he any possibility to do so.
He was subject to the authority inherent in the facts, and these facts had been brought about by decisions of the highest political and military authorities, made a long time before his appointment. For him, these facts were irrevocable and binding. He had to conform with the actual situation both militarily and politically.
If the prosecution tries to refute this by styling the Croat government a puppet government, I would again like to refer to the arguments of the defense counsel of General Dehner, and add that the agencies of the Croat state were by no means tools on the hand of the German armed forces, devoid of any initiative of their own. They rather upheld the interests of their state with full independence both in the military and in the political field.
The very fact that all sovereign rights in the Croat territory were vested in the Croat government, proves that neither General v. Leyser nor any of the other military commanders were in a position to give orders to the Croat government, its armed forces and the civilian population. The Croat civil authorities were subordinate to the Croat ministry of the interior only, the civilian Ustascha-units were subordinate to the Ustascha-Leaders only, and the Croat armed forces including the armed Ustascha were subordinate to the ministry for the armed forces only.
In the next supplement if the Prosecution, in order to prove the power and authority of General v. Leyser, states that he deposed the Gauleiter of Banjaluka, it must be pointed out in reply that General v. Leyser was not able to give orders on his own initiative but that via the Croatian plenipotentiary at the core, Minister Benak of the Croatian government, he had with the Croatian government to request the release and replacement of the Gauleiter. And I must point out that there were lengthy negotiations before this request was granted.
Here also it is shown that there was no direct influence exerted by him nor was he able to issue orders.
Neither the German division commanders nor General v. Leyser in his capacity as commanding general nor the 2nd Panzer army were in a position of issuing on their own authority direct orders to Croats. The subordinate command authorities such as divisions and army corps were only in a position to report incidents among the Croats to the 2nd Panzer Army to which they were subordinate, and this army could then -- through the German Plenipotentiary General -- ask the Croat Government agencies to redress the matter. Thus, no responsibility at all can be ascribed to the German armed forces and to General v. Leyser for any acts committed by units of the Croat armed forces or -- for that matter -- by Croat inhabitants.
The two preliminary points discussed above -- the fact that General v. Leyser had only tactical tasks, on the one hand, and the independence of the Croat state on the other hand -- had to be dealt with prior to the discussion of the individual charges raised against my client. The real probative value of the individual prosecution exhibits can only be understood if these two facts arc taken into consideration.
D. However, I would like to say one word or two concerning the nature of the material introduced as evidence by the prosecution. As established fully during the evidence proceedings, reports were submitted twice and even three of four times in a large number of instances. This very fact resulted a priori in obscuring the material produced by the prosecution; we feel that this could have been avoided.
The major part of this material consists of daily reports of the divisions and the corps, transmitted by radio or teletype. This way of transmission called for extreme brevity, so that the reports had to be restricted to the bare essentials. This point has been fully developed by the defense during the evidence proceedings. However, another result of this telegram style is that the reports can often not be understood properly when taken at their surface value.
They become clear only if the general conditions prevailing at that time, which were known to both the senders and the recipients of the reports, are taken into consideration.
Thus, the necessity for brevity brought it about that facts considered to be matters of course were not included in the reports and that non-essential points were omitted. Thus, it was not included in a report that the incident in question complied with the ruling given by a basic order. Special mention was only called for if it had been necessary to deviate from the general ruling in an individual case.
This may be made clear by an example. In Croatia and Albania, a standing order provided that reprisal measures were initiated by the representatives of the indigenous government. If, therefore, a unit reported on the carrying out of a reprisal measure, the recipient of the report knew as a matter of course that the measure had been initiated by the indigenous authorities. This was understood an self-evident and not mentioned in the report.
There is another consideration which must be pointed out with regard to the reports. As submitted by the defense in the evidence proceedings, the troops were instructed to report as "special incidents" everything which had been brought to their notice, provided that it could be of interest for the higher command authorities for any reasons whatsoever. Accordingly, not only those incidents were reported which involved the troops as such, but in addition everything that happened in the area, even if the troops were not responsible. Let me again give an example. The divisions reported incidents among the Croats happening within the divisional areas, although they were by no means responsible for them.
It has also been submitted explicitly that the reports did not always correspond to the facts, but that they were deviating from the real facts for a variety of reasons.
II. The character of the enemy forces in the Croat and Albanian areas Your Honors, I shall now proceed to the discussion of the individual counts of the indictment.
A preliminary remark seems, however, indicated: The prosecution has subdivided the charges by four counts. In count III of the indictment, all the defendants including General v. Leyser are charged with the offense that they refused to recognize the irregular forces as belligerents and that they issued the order to treat members of allegedly regular armies as partisans. In count I, the prosecution has submitted that the defendants initiated and carried out reprisal measures as a sanction against legal military operations of such troops.
This issue is, in my opinion, the core of the entire trial. It is this very charge on which the others are based. It is, therefore, necessary to clarify this point at the outset, because the orders given by the defendants, the combat methods and the behavior of the troops can only be understood, if the enemies fighting the German armed forces in Croatia are properly determined and classified according to their real character, viz. as irregular partisans. All kind of reprisals, and the taking and the execution of hostages in particular, can only be judged upon properly, if it has been clarified against whom the German armed forces in Croatia and Albania were defending themselves, which combat methods the enemies of the German armed forces were using in that area, and which was the legal position resulting from these conditions. For this reason, I feel that it is expedient and in the interest of brevity to discuss count III of the indictment first, in as much as it pertains to this issue.
As mentioned above, the prosecution charges General v. Leyser with the illegal treatment of regular troops as bandits. He is furthermore charged with the offense that his troops carried out reprisals against the civilian population as sanctions against legal military operations of such troops. The question to be clarified is, therefore, to determine who committed the acts which were answered by reprisal measures, and which was the nature of those acts.