chief quarter master, and as such he was ordered to concern himself with our reports because the economic commandos were under his command and the agricultural matters were also under his jurisdiction. gasoline equipment had to be given to the group by him? gruppe D, were you not -- it was part of your task to draw supplies through this officer?
A No. This job of supply was the mission of the administrative officer in Einsatzgruppe D who was in charge of the actual administration.
Q Who was this officer? almost daily contacts with the army you know pretty well what was going on so far as it concerned Einsatzgruppe D in Army Headquarters, did you not?
Q Didn't you know generally what was contemplated in the way of assignments for Einsatzgruppe D through these daily contacts? for the liquidation of hostages through these contacts? hostages?
Q No, an order. Your chief has testified that the order for the execution of hostages came from the 11th Army.
Did you know that they were issuing orders for the execution of hostages? whether it was in July or August 1941, I had dinner in the club of the staff and at this occasion I sat together with other officers and the then chief of the army, General von Schobert came to our table in order to discuss matters with the officer sitting at the table or to ask them something. On this occasion I was introduced to him. He asked me immediately, "Are you from Ohlendorf"; I said, "Yes , I belong to the Einsatzgruppe." Then Schobert told me very agitatedly that he had just again received reports according to which German troops during their advance had been shot at from hedgerows and from houses and he had ordered that this was to be retaliated immediately, he would now have those hostages arrested and if something happened, he would have them shot, "please tell this to Mr. Ohlendorf."
Q Did you carry this message back to General Ohlendorf? of the army to the Einsatzgruppe, didn't you?
A No. This was not an order for the Einsatzgruppe, I merely told him that the general was dissatisfied with the situation in this area, and that he had ordered or he was going to order that he would have hostages arrested, and if something happened that he would have them shot. assignments of Einsatzgruppe D come into Einsatzgruppe D headquarters ?
did these orders and requests come? Officer. Army for the chief of Einsatzgruppe D, which was an assignment or a commitment for the commandos of that group and General Ohlendorf was absent from his headquarters, who opened this communication and read it?
Q. Who had the responsibility of transmitting this to the Einsatzkommando leaders concerned if General Ohlendorf was still gone?
A. Ohlendorf was absent, and it was an order by the army, then I would have passed on the order for the information of the commando concerned as an order of the army.
Q. Did you issue any separate orders for the commando leaders based upon this original order.....
A. No..
Q. .....if General Ohlendorf was not there?
A. No, I could not.
Q. You passed the order on in the oritinal form?
A. I may say that I do not remember such a case, for I was almost always with Ohlendorf when he was away, but of course I would have passed it on to the commandos for their information.
Q. Would you address any communication to accompany that letter; for instance, a cover-letter which right say in effect these words: "For your information and compliance" and signed either representing General Ohlendorf or with your own signature?
A. No, I could have only written, if I would have made a cover letter "for your information."
Q. Did any requests or orders for the execution of the insane come through you as liaison officer?
A. No, I did not hear about them, and I got no such orders.
Q. So far as you know, Einsatzgruppe D never received an order to execute an insane person?
A. I recall that it was attempted by some unit of the army to approach the commando concerned in order to evacuate an insane asylum. I remember exactly that this was refused and was not carried out for the army.
Q. Were copies of all orders to the commandos by the 11th Army sent to your headquarters?
A. No, this was not always the case.
Q. How did you obtain knowledge of usch orders or requests?
A. Either through the commando or through the fact that the liaison officer called us up and told us that the Commando 11-A had just received this or that order.
Q. Then would a copy of the order which had been sent to Commando 11-A come to your office?
A. Yes, certainly.
Q. Your headquarters received orders both from General von Schobert and General von Manstein later and at the same they received orders from the RSHA in Berlin, did they not?
A. Yes.
Q. Suppose General Ohlendorf was again absent and there was a definite conflict in the orders of Heydrich in Berlin and General von Schobert's orders which you had right there on your desk, whose responsibility was it to call on General von Schobert and explain to him the conflict between the two sets of orders which were in the headquarters of the Einsatzgruppe D?
A. First of all there were no such conflicts, but even if there had been one, I am of the opinion that an army order in an operational area would have precedence in every case, for the army, that is the commanding general, had the responsibility for the entire security in the area and could give such orders that at any time would be given precedence.
Q. Now, Colonel, it has been repeatedly testified from this stand that orders regarding the tactical situation were army orders and they, of course, were given precedence, but that all other orders involving security measures came from Berlin and they, since they were a police function entirely were given preference over the army orders.
A. I didn't quite get this, pardon me; now I understand. Now, they were not given preference, but the army would have had the possibility at any time to give precedence to its orders, for it was responsible for the area.
Q. Then you could use as an excuse for not carrying out an order from Berlin -- superior orders from the army is that right?
A. If this order had existed, yes, of course.
Q. Did the army ever order you not to execute any one?
A. No, never.
Q. Colonel, did the Einsatzgruppen or its commandos over sentence any one to death for the crime of looting?
A. The staff of the Einsatzgruppen did not, but the commandos Certainly.
Q. Were each one of these looters given a trial by courtsmartial?
A. I don't know. I was not present at such proceedings, but I merely knew in general that for the area Barbarossa, which is Russia, by a decree of the supreme command of the armed forces the jurisdiction was excluded, but how this was carried out, I don't know.
Q. Do you know of your own knowledge whether any executions were performed without any sentence whatsoever?
A. No, I could not say.
Q. Well, in an interrogation which you had here you stated that Jews, communists, people of that nature, who were captured in groups were shot without sentence. Do you wish to take that statement back now?
A. I don't know what the testimony reads like, but I know, of course, that Jews and communist functionaries were shot without investigations taking place, yes.
Q. So you know that of your own knowledge that people were sentenced to be shot without any investigation or trial.
A. Yes, I had to assume that from the Fuehrer Order.
Q. Yes, now coming back to your sources of information for your Reports. These reports gave from time to time totals of executions performed by the commandos, did they not?
A. These reports did not contain any total figures which came from the commandos, but those statements applied to the period of time concerned for which the report was valid.
Q. Well, in the Prosecution documents here, Einsatzgruppe D is credited with a steadily increasing total of executions. Did you send in those totals of executions to Berlin?
A. No, I did not report them to Berlin.
Q. How did they get in those reports which Berlin issued?
A. I can only imagine that the figures were compiled in Berlin.
Q. You are familiar with the activity and situation reports issued by the RSHA in Berlin, which is a part of the Prosecution's case, are you not?
A. Yes, I know them.
Q. Yes, and they are divided into sections corresponding to the Einsatzgruppen are they not?
A. Yes.
Q. And that section devoted to Einsatzgruppe D contains the fact that people were executed, does it not?
A. Yes.
Q. Then occasionally it gives a total of the number of people executed within a given time, don't they?
A. Yes. That can be seen from the documents.
Q. Now, where did the RSHA in Berlin get the information for these figures?
A. Certainly from the Einsatzgruppen.
Q. And since you had the responsibility of making these reports to Berlin, these figures came from you, didn't they?
A. A part of these figures were passed on with these reports by me.
Q. And whore did you get the figures to send on to Berlin?
A. From the reports of the Einsatzkommado leaders.
Q. Yes, that is right; and then the answer to my question that the Einsatzkommando leaders reported their total executions to you from time to time is correct, is it not?
A. That the commandos reported totals?
Q. The total numbers of executions for a period of time to you.
A. That could have happened; I cannot remember any individual case.
Q. I don't want to dwell on this point too long. We are in agreement that the RSHA got the figures of the number of people executed by Einsatzgruppe D from your reports. We agree on that, do we not?
A. The reports which I made out were submitted and were passed on; that is right.
Q. And you also said that your information for making these reports came from the commando leaders or the commandos themselves, did you not?
A. Yes.
Q. So then you would compile the total number of executions for the commandos of Einsatzgruppe D and put it into your regular report to Berlin, would you not?
A. I did not compile them, Mr. Prosecutor. They could only have been compiled in Berlin.
Q. The total number of executions performed by the kommandos of Einsatzgruppe D - who compiled it?
A. There was a man in the orderly room by the name of Fritsch as a signal man and he maintained contact between the orderly room and the signal tower, for these reports were generally sent by radio to Berlin,and this signal man in the orderly room who took care of all the paper work there handed these figures to the signal installations, and they did not appear in the reports.
Q. where did... Was this man Fritsch an officer?
A. No, he was a sergeant. He belonged to the staff as a signal and an orderly.
Q. And as a senior officer in that staff, certainly when the general was away from his headquarters he was under your supervision, was he not?
A. He wasn't subordinated to me in his daily work, but there was an adjutant who was in charge of the orderly room; but, of course, as the highest ranking officer, when Ohlendorf was away, I was in charge of the whole staff.
Q. Did you supply Fritsch with his copy when he sent radio messages to Berlin?
A. Fritsch wrote out those reports.
Q. I thought you said you wrote out the reports that went to Berlin, and now you say an enlisted man wrote them out.
A. No, this is a mistake -- pardon me. He wrote it on the typewriter. Of course, he did not make them out.
Q. Did he submit this copy to you, or to anyone in the Einsatzgruppe staff headquarters, before he transmitted it to Berlin?
A. I do not know how I am to understand this question. Of course, the individual figures were known to me.
Q. And you approved his messages before he sent them on?
A. I had nothing to approve there. It was merely repeating the reports.
Q. How do you know that the kommando leaders did not add their figures, or increase their figures, that you saw from their reports?
A. Mr. Prosecutor, it might have occurred of course that the kommando leaders exaggerated figures. I could not have seen this.
Q. You knew of (General Ohlendorf's orders to his kommando leaders not to increase these figures but to make an actual count, did you not?
A. Yes, I knew.
Q. And it was your responsibility to write reports some time for General Ohlendorf's signature, wasn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. And it was also your responsibility to see that all facts, including totals of executions, were as correct as you could make them, wasn't it?
A. If Ohlendorf gave this order to the kommando leaders, then the kommando leader had the responsibility to see that he would not violate this order.
Q. Now, what steps did you take to see that there was a minimum of this double counting of executed persons?
A. I had no documentary evidence that this happened. and I could not have taken any steps against it.
Q. You could have inspected the files of these kommando leaders when you went out there, couldn't you... didn't you have enough rank and enough authority to do that?
A. No, I did not have the authority. I had the authority for my sphere of work, but not to examine these COURT II CASE IX files or to investigate them.
I would not have been in a position to do so.
Q. You were with the commanding officer of the Gruppe on a great many of these inspection tours, were you not?
A. Yes.
Q. And if General Ohlendorf had wanted those files inspected, but he didn't want to take time to Inspect them himself, who would have inspected the files?
A. Even if he would have done this -- I don't remember it at the moment -- he could make spot checks, but it never happened that he said, "Look at these documents or investigate them". It was always that I had to use the time in order to discuss matters with my three experts and discuss all that had occurred.
Q. If he had ordered you to inspect those files you could have, though, couldn't you?
A. Yes, of course.
Q. Now, from your familiarity with the reports in Einsatzgruppe D, this meant that you had to have excess to the secret files of Einsatzgruppe D, didn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. You could go even to the top secret files of Einsatzgruppe D, and examine them, couldn't you?
A. Yes, Of course.
Q. So that was available to you in those secret files, or top secret files -- the total number of people executed by Einsatzgruppe D, wasn't it?
A. I didn't see any list of total figures.
Q. Was that information contained in those files?
A. I do not know.
Q. I want to submit to you Document Book II-D.
MR, WALTON: May it please the Tribunal, I don't want to COURT II CASE IX waste the time of the Court, but I now wish to question him on a phase concerning five documents, and in my opinion it is a good place to stop.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I would think so, especially if you are going to take up a series of documents.
MR. WALTON: Yes, they are all connected and inter-related.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will be in recess until tomorrow morning at nine-thirty.
(The Tribunal recessed until 0930, 19 November 1947) A. Musmanno,presiding.
THE MARSHAL: The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal II.
Military Tribunal II is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed, Mr. Walton.
CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. WALTON: record of your testimony for the last day and a half and briefly stated it appears to be the following: That you were deputy to General Ohlendorf for economic questions in the staff of Einsatzgruppe D; that you were liaison officer to the 11th Army in your same sphere of economic questions, and that your chief function outside of your sphere of economic matters was the compilation of activity and situation reports gathered from the Kommandos of Einsatzgruppe D for transmission to the RSHA in Berlin. In detail, your sphere dealt with such questions as economics, agriculture, morale of the population in that area of the occupied territory assigned to Einsatzgruppe D. Is this summary a broad outline of your activities in Einsatzgruppe D?
A It is not quite correctly summarized. May I briefly repeat? I was not the economic expert with General Ohlendorf, but I was Chief III and thus the only information officer for the SD work in the area of Einsatzgruppe D. That does not only comprise economics but also the morale of the population for all fields of domestic life. liaison officer was with the Army who was permanently stationed there and who had his office there. In the staff of Einsatzgruppe D I had the job of collaborating with the Army, that is, all the reports which I have already mentioned for the agencies of the Army end the constant contact with these Army agencies.
Mr. Prosecutor, the third thing you mentioned, the activity reports, this was a part of the SD work, 90% of it. It was that part of the work where reports did not have to be copied, but real problems had to be dealt with. Questions arose as, for example, the food situation in a city where I became active as an advisor for the Army agencies, but this is only one small example, and furthermore, I received reports from the Kommandos which were concerned with executions and I incorporated them into summarized situation reports which were then submitted to the chief and which were passed on. sphere of tasks?
A I cannot say exactly, Mr. Prosecutor, for any servicesin the war area brings up daily questions and daily problems so that it might very well happen that the chief gives me some order to do something quickly.
Q I will inquire further. Did you ever make any agreements with the Army involving the future activities of the Kommandos of Einsatzgruppe D?
AAgreements would not be the right expression. At best I could receive directives and orders from the Army for my information. time Einsatzgruppe D would perform, through its Kommandos, certain specific tasks in certain specific localities?
Q Let's take a specific example. I now direct your attention to Document Book III-D, page 39 of the English, page 69 of the German, which is Document NOKW-628 -
THE PRESIDENT: 3, what, Mr. Walton?
MR. WALTON: 3-D, sir.
BY MR. WALTON, continued:
Q -- Prosecution's Exhibit 160. I hand you herewith, Colonel, a photostatic copy of the original document. This is a report of the activity of Einsatzgruppe D from 1 February 1942 to 16 April 1942 and if you will look at the last page you will see that it is signed by you for the Army High Command of the 11th Army. Did you prepare this report?
Q Now, again this report is signed after the abbreviation "IV" which means "In Vertretung", does it not?
Q And "In Vertretung" means the representative or acting for General Ohlendorf at the time you signed this report, does it not? with in the staff I was the constant deputy of the chief and I signed these papers as such.
Q All right. Now, let's see if all these spheres you dealt with are contained in this report. Now, you have testified that a man named Zietzen was appointed the deputy to Ohlendorf, have you not?
Q What other task did Zietzen have?
Q Now, isn't it true that the headquarters of Einsatzgruppe D was usually in the same locality as 11th Army headquarters?
Q Isn't it further true that Zietzen was usually in the field with his Kommando 10-A often many kilometers distant from the group headquarters?
A Yes, that's correct. was a great distance away from headquarters, could he? which I have pointed out, which is seven hundred kilometers away from Simferopol up to Taganrog.
Q All right. Let's consider this document. In the first paragraph of this report when you speak of the operation detachment 12, you speak of the extended activities of this Kommando and you say that they were carried, out in spite of the handicap of weather, What specific activities did you mean?
A Excuse me, Mr. Prosecutor, is this page 1 or nay I ask where this is?
Q Do you see Roman I paragraph which is headed "Activities since February 1942" on the first page? in effect, that Einsatz Kommando 12 had its headquarters in Fedorowka?
Q All right. And it continued to be handicapped by the severe cold of winter?
Q Now, in the third sentence it says that "The sphere of activities could nevertheless" -- which means in spite of the cold weather - "be extended by transferring Teil Kommandos to certain named places" Now my question was what were these extended activities which you mention were performed by Einsatz Kommando 12? to what the Kommando 12 has reported. I did not have any knowledge of my own about this.
I understand extensive to mean that the Kommando was again in a position to send out sub-kommandos from their garrisons.
Q For what purpose, Colonel? leaders. als, did it not?
Q You have answered my question. Now, continuing on toward the bottom of page 1 of the original, it is shown there that in agreement with the intelligence officer of the staff of the 11th Army, part of Sonderkommando 10-B, was employed for the protection of the railway area. Who made this agreement? the liaison officer. I do not know.
Q By the Kommando, do you mean General Ohlendorf? D? read here myself and what the Kommando had reported. I had no approval to give on this. This is a summarization of the report of the Kommando just as I mentioned under 12, so that I cannot say whether, on the basis of this transfer of the sub-kommandos any execution took place.
Q I didn't ask you whether an execution took plane. I was asking you about an agreement. Now, since General Ohlendorf was the group commander would it not be possible for the Army High Command of the 11th Army to agree with him that a Teilkommando of 10-B would be used for a time to guard a certain railway area which would be of benefit both to the 11th Army and to the Einsatzgroup? Could not General Ohlendorf have made the agreement with the Army?
or the first of April he was absent from the group? as the senior officer present in that staff before they took the matter up with the commanding officer of Kommando 10-B? they could only make an agreement with that Kommando leader who in this case represented Ohlendorf in his area. Suppose that you informed the Army High Command that it was not feasible or practical to use this portion of Sonderkommando 10-B. Could you have objected to their use of the Kommando for these duties? and could have given this information, so that during the negotiations with the Kommando Leader this was known. that you had discussed the employment of his forces to guard a railway area and advised him to grant the Army's request? Kommando was active, with what missions, that is, whether it was in combat or what the situation was. Only the Kommando leader himself could take this, because only he could say, "I have this mission to perform at the moment and the Army must take this job away from me if it wants to assign the other mission."
Q All right. Let's continue on down to two-third of the way down page 2 of the original which, Your Honors, is the last paragraph on page 40, and you use a term there, "The Crimea is freed of Jews", which is a quotation. What did you mean by that sentence when you wrote it?
THE PRESIDENT: Mr.Walton, you say "which is a quotation." It doesn't appear as a quotation in our book. It is a statement by him.
MR. WALTON: It is a statement by him which I meant to say I quoted from the document to him to call his attention to those words.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh yes, very well.
Court No. II, Case No. IX.
Q. Colonel, what did you mean by the words the Crimea is freed of Jews?
A. With this I repeated what the commando had reported, and I can only understand by this that no Jews were left on the Crimea.
Q. Is that the conclusion which you, yourself, reached when you had carefully analyzed the reports of the commandos; or, did each commando report definitely and specifically that his area was completely free of Jews?
A. The commando reported that the commando area is free of Jews, and I did not make any analysis or I did not make any countings, or did not draw any of my own conclusions, because they could have been completely wrong.
Q. Didn't you make any check to see that this statement was, could be true before you put it in your report?
A. That was not my task; I did not make any spotchecks, but may I say one thing: If the chief had ordered me to make spot-checks, that is to look through the files of the commando, then I would not nave found any more than the copy of the report which the commando actually sent to the staff of the Einsatzgruppe. It would have been completely impossible to investigate any further, so that the chief had to depend that his commando leaders would carry out orders which they received.
Q. It seems to me that this whole report, after reading it carefully, makes the group show up in a very favorable light. Now, it follows that your reports generally showed the group favorably. Would you pad it with facts which you did not know to be true or false?
A. I could not have put in any facts which I did not see in the reports, or which I did not take from the reports.
Q. But you accepted them as a complete truth, and put them in the report.