Q. How did it come about that Himmler had more and more influence in military spheres?
A. That can be explained as follows: that the Fuehrer had the feeling -which perhaps on the whole was true -- that a large part of the Officer Corps rejected his ideas. He saw in this attitude not only an inner political danger but he saw it in as well a danger to civtory and he believed that the war was to be won only through ruthless means and methods.
Q. And what practical results came about through this?
A. The practical results were that the SS units were multiplied tremendous ly, that the police received authority which extended into the operational sphere of the Army, and later that the Higher SS and Police Leaders were established; the Intelligence Service was transferred to the SS and the service was organized before; that the Replacement Army was put under the jurisdiction of Himmler and, in the end, also the entire prisoner of war system.
Q. In your Diary you said about the appointment of General von Brauchitsch as the commander in Chief of the Army, that this appointment was made by the Fuehrer and that you were glad about this appointment. At that time there was a choice between him and von Reichenau. Why were you glad that Brauchitsch came in?
A. General von Reichenau was known as a truly political general and I was afraid that perhaps he might be willing to sacrifice the good old traditions of the Army to the new regime and do this without any scruples.
Q. I should like to refer to the Diary of Jodl, Document 1780-PS, page 6, first volume, with the entry of the 2nd of February, 1938, second paragraph, and again to the entry of the 3rd of February, to be found on Page 7: "The Chief of the Wehrmacht informs me that the battle has been won. The Fuehrer has decided that General von Brauchitsch would be appointed --"
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think you need read this. It simply says that he is in favor of von Brauchitsch.
DR. EXNER: I was just pointing that out to Your Honor.
BY DR. EXNER:
Q. The consequences for the generals concerned, you thought about that in connection with the appointment of von Reichenau, is that true?
A. Yes. There was no doubt that the older generals, such as von Runstedt, Bock, Adam, List, Halder, and so on, would never have subordinated themselves to von Reichenau.
Q. Then, after this introduction, let us turn to the crimes against the laws of war and humanity, charges which have been levelled against you. There is very little time left today. Therefore, I should like to clarify your participation in the Commissar Decrees. A draft on the treatment of Soviet commissars was submitted to the Leadership Staff of the Wehrmacht, and you put a notation in the margin of this draft.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the number of the document?
DR. EXNER: The number of the document is PS-884, R Exhibit 351, page 152, second volume of my document book. BY DR. EXNER:
Q. The document is a report noted by you, and perhaps you can tell us first of all what connection you had with this matter; that is, the treatment of commissars.
A. I did not participate in the drafting of this report. I was not concerned with prisoners of war nor with the legal questions of war at that time. I was not concerned with either one of these matters, but the draft was submitted to me before it was transmitted to Field Marshal Keitel.
Q. All right. Now, you added, "We must count on retaliation against German fliers. It is safe, therefore, to brand the entire action as retaliation That is a supplement that you made. What did you mean by that statement?
A. The intention on the part of the Fuehrer, which was set forth in this draft of an order, was rejected unanimously by all soldiers. Very excited discussions took place about this; also with the Commander in Chief of the Army. This resistance also ended with the characteristic sentence by the Fuehrer, "I can not expect that my generals will understand my orders, but I do demand that they follow them." Field Marshal Keitel, a new way through which one could possibly circumvent this order or decree which had been demanded by the Fuehrer.
Q. This order, as you probably remember, is used by the Prosecution to accuse the German military, for it was drafted before the beginning of the war, on 12 May 1941. That is the date of this, and now you are telling us that "It is best to brand the entire action as retaliation."
what do you mean by that?
A. It is correct that, because of his ideological opposition to Bolshevi the Fuehrer counted on the participation of the Commissars as a certainty and that he wanted to meet this. He was confirmed in this belief and gave reasons by saying: "I carried on the war against Communism for 20 years. I know it, but you do not know it." Those were his words, and I must add that we, as well, were under a certain influence of that which the literature of the entire world, beginning with 1917, had written about Bolshevism, and we had had some experiences dating from the communist republic in Munich. whether in actual fact and in practice the commissars would actually act as the Fuehrer expected them to act, and that if the Fuehrer's suspicions were confirmed, we could make use of reprisals, and that was the sense and intention of my notation in the margin.
Q. First of all, you wanted to wait until the beginning of the war; then you wanted to wait until you had had experiences in this war, and then you wanted to propose measures which, if necessary, could be used as reprisals against tie conduct of the war as carried out by the enemy, measures which would have to be used then, and those were your thoughts, and that was what you meant when you said, It is best, therefore, to brand the entire action as retaliation
Q. What do you mean by "Man zieht auf" -- "It is branded--"? These words were translated by the Prosecution -
MR. ROBERTS, K.C. My Lord, in the examination of my learned friend, Dr. Exner, he has for several minutes now been asking the defendant very long leading questions as to what was the meaning of the passage in that letter. In my submission, that is not evidence at all by the witness; it is a speech by Dr. Exner and I would ask him not to make another one now.
DR. EXNER I am almost of the belief that it is necessary for me to determine just what the defendant thought while he was writing these words.
THE PRESIDENT: You have heard me say on several occasions that when Counsel ask leading questions, which put the answer into the mouth of the witness it carries very little weight with the Tribunal.
It is perfectly obvious that, if your wanted to ask what the witness meant by his note, he could have answered and that is the proper way to put the question, and not to suggest the answer to him.
DR. EXNER: First of all, I put the question, and then I believe I was giving a resume of what the witness had said. point out. The expression "aufziehen" is translated as "It is best therefore to brand --" in English and in French as "stigmatiser". It seems to me as though this were not quite correct and as though one should say, "It is best to handle it as a reprisal", and in French to say "traiter". BY DR. EXNER:
Q. Then what happened?
A. I believe I must explain the German word "aufziehen". It was said that that was a remark typical of the defendant Jodl. That was a typical remark or military expression current in this time That does not mean, as is assumed by the Prosecution that I said I believed we must make this operation appear different. That meant to handle it differently. If we said that we would handle the showing of new weapons in a different way, we would arrange it differently It would be in another order. I meant another way. Among us soldiers "aufziehen" meant to handle or to arrange it, but it did not mean to deceive
Q. Then it does not have a deceptive connotation?
A. No.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 4 June 1946, 1000 hours.)
BY DR. EXNER: Can you hear me? And I should like to put a few preliminary questions to you. What position and what tasks were yours during the time of the war? operational conduct of the war. Then, subordinate to me, was the Military Propaganda Division, and this division had the duty of cooperating with the press. And my third task was that I was the head of an office which, on a broad scope, had to distribute reports and information to the various branches of the Wehrmacht, the various branches of the armed forces. And this entire sphere of tasks took up my time to such an extent that night after night I worked until three o'clock in the morning. And that was the order of the day, every day. To concern myself with other things I had no time to do that at all. My collaboration with the press, the press which had to be advised daily, that task I had to delegate to my personal General Staff officer. with your work and with your office, and that was in connection with the Wehrmacht operational staff, whose chief you were? ment, was the operational department, and that was your influence. The Prosecution is calling you the Staff Chief of the Field Marshal Keitel. What can you say in that regard? organization which was presented when Field Marshal Keitel's case was dealt with. There is a great difference as a chief of staff if I had been an auxiliary of Keitel's and of his duties, but on the other hand I was only the chief of one of the many offices or agencies which were subordinated to the Field Marshal.
Beginning with the year 1941 it was the custom or had become the custom, rather, that I, together with my operational departments, would report to the Fuehrer direct all matters concerning operations. Whereas, Field Marshal Keitel in availing himself of my Quartermaster Division and using this division as a sort of personal working staff, took over all other tasks. authority to issue commands?
A No. Or to say it more explicitly, only about my working staff. I was subordinate to Field Marshal Keitel, but even Keitel himself was not a "Befehlshaber," one who could give commands, he was only the chief of a staff. But of course during this war I decided many operational details, and signed them as well. There was never any conflict of any sort about these matters, conflict with my commanders in chief, for I had their confidence and worked on the very best possible understanding with them. though you had no authority to issue commands and orders, there are many orders available here which are signed by you, and signed in many ways,sometimes with the entire signature, sometimes, with the initial "J", the beginning letter of your name. Can you explain these various signatures and ways of signatures?
A One has to discriminate. The decrees which the Fuehrer himself signed, if they were of an operational nature, then with these orders, at the end and the lower right, there is my initial. And that means that I was active in the formulation of this order. Then there were orders which also originated from the Fuehrer but they were not signed by the Fuehrer personally but on the order of Jodl. But thenif that was the case they always carried the opening sentence: "The Fuehrer has decreed" or the sentence was found somewhere in the course of the order. And there wan a preamble to this order, usually reasons for the order, and then: "The Fuehrer therefore decrees."
Q And what was the difference between these two groups of orders? Why was one group of orders signed by the Fuehrer actually, and the other not signed by the Fuehrer, but rather by you alone? less significance.
Q Now, there were other orders which did not open with "the Fuehrer has decreed", but they were signed by you, nevertheless. How about these?
A In these orders, the signature said "The Chief of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht, by Order of Jodl". These were orders which emanate fromme. By that I mean that I formulated these orders, or my staff did. The Fuehrer himself and Field Marshal Keitel perhaps might have been informed of these orders, but not in every case. upper right hand corner there is my initial. Those were orders given out by other offices. My initial "J" on the first page meant solely and alone that it was an office notice, to show that this decree, or order, had been submitted to me. But it was not a proof of the fact that I had read it; for, if on examining the first page, I saw that this decree dealt with a matter which did not touch my sphere of work, then I initialed the order and put it aside, because, after all, I had to save time. which are being held against you, which are not actually orders but rather report notices. Can you comment on that, please? level and applied to people who did not have time to go through enormous volumes and files. Therefore, a report notice contained in a very brief form the picture of any certain incident or occurrence, frequently the attitude taken by other offices; and sometimes it contained a proposal as well. But the decisive factor was the fact that it was not an order, it was not a draft for an order, but rather it served as a basis for an order, and supplied the data. report notice dealing with the commissars which we dealt withyesterday. You set this as a case in point. This is 884 PS, Exhibit R-351. We touched on this matter yesterday, already.
It is Volume 2 of my document book, Page 152. Tribunal to an error in translation. On Page 152, under I, it says, "OKH presents a statement for the instruction of directives regarding the treatment of commissars has been submitted."
In the English translation, it says, "The Army high Command presents a statement"; and it obviously should be "presents a draft for a statement", for it was a draft. I cannot quite follow all the French, but it should be "Projet" instead of "Confirmation".
The German original says, "OKH (the Army High Command) presents a draft for a statement of the instructions concerning the high military functionaries end in the instructions which were issued on the 31st of March, 1941, this deals with the Commissars".
This is a report notice. Please tell us what the significance is.
A This document is a typical example. First of all, it contains a draft by another office of the Army High Command, the OKH, not word for word, but rather in a brief, abbreviated, form. Then under Figure II, on Page 153, the attitude and opinion of Reichsleiter Rosenberg is set forth. Then further it contains a proposal of my staff itself, under Figure II.
The entire matter, therefore, is not an order, but far from it; rather i was to become an order. And as far as this report note is concerned, I made many, many marginal annotations. A few words were to serve for the further treatment and for the discussion, or the carrying out, of the entire procedure. Therefore, you cannot apply the same criteria, that you could apply to the well thought out words which are contained in the actual order itself.
Q All right. That takes care of the report note and your remarks on that subject. Now, let us turn to the very difficult topic of Commando Order. This matter has been dealt with by the Court on various occasions, and it is really going beyond the matters at hand in this court. order. We have already seen that this Order 493 PS, U.S.A. 150. I did not include this order in my document book, but I asked the General Secretary to have this order put at the disposal of the High Tribunal in the various languages. I am not sure whether it has been done, but I certainly hope so.
Then a supplementary decree was added to this original. This is PS 503, U.S.A. Exhibit 542.
MR. ROBERTS: It is 498 PS. It is in the Keitel and Jodl Document Book No. 7, Page 34. BY DR. ETHER:
Q It is a clarification addressed to the commanders-in-chief. I repeat, the first order was addressed to the troops, and the second, the supplementary order, was addressed, to the commanders-in-chief. The first decree is addressed to foreign soldiers and threatens them with destruction in the event of bandit-like activity; and it refers to a Wehrmacht report. Order and the Wehrmacht report of 7-10-42? I may enlarge upon this matter in greater detail. Very much is at stake in this order, not from my own standpoint, not with respect to one person, for one person actually plays no part in this very important law proceeding here. Here we are concerned with the honor of the German soldiers and of the German officers, this honor which I am representing here in my person. 7th of October, 1942, in the Wehrmacht report. The two orders are very closely connected; for this Commando Order was the executive order for this announcement in the Wehrmacht report.
Q. And who gave this announcement in the Wehrmacht report? who compiled it, who is responsible for it?
A. This Wehrmacht report of the 7th of October, which is really a supplementary order, in the main emanated from me. It deals with the refutation of a report by the English Ministry of War, a matter upon which I do not wish to dwell for it is a rather difficult and delivate point and the prosecution does not wish me to touch on it.
Q. And how about this supplementary order-
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, we don't know at least I haven't seen the document of the 7th of October, 1942, and the prosecution has made no objection be any answer to any English documents as far as we know.
DR. EXNER: I wished to present this document, to submit it rather, but it was objected to.
THE PRESIDENT: What does the defendant mean by saying that the prosecution does not wish him to present it or to answer it?
DR. EXNER: That means, most probably, that this Wehrmacht report was not to be submitted, but perhaps the defendant can give us the contents of this report briefly.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it may be a question of translation, but if he means simply that no evidence has been given by the prosecution on the subject, of course there is no objection to his saying that; but when he says that the prosecution does not want him to put forward or does not want him to answer the document, that is a most improper statement to make.
DR. EXNER: Yes, Mr. President. BY DR. EXNER:
Q. Perhaps you can tell us briefly what the contents of this Wehrmacht report is, this Wehrmacht report started on the 7th of October. I believe you will find this report in your own document book.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, that is not quite what I mean. What the defendant has said was that the prosecution does not want him to deal with this subject:
DR. EXNER: Yes,
THE PRESIDENT: Now, if that is the remark that is made, that is an improper remark to make. The prosecution have got no communication with the defense upon this subject, presumably, except that they have put forward in evidence in this case. BY DR. EXNER:
Q. Did you follow him? You are not to assert that you can not touch upon this subject. Can you perhaps give us an explanation of what you really meant?
A. It is in direct connection with this Commando Order, and the last paragraph of the Wehrmacht report is really important, something which was compiled by the Fuehrer himself, as Field Marshal Keitel has testified already, and which Professor Jahrreis read before the High Tribunal here. That is the sentence which reads: "In the future all terror and sabotage troops of the British, and their assistants and helpers who do not act like soldiers but rather like bandits, will be considered as such by the German troops and treated accordingly, and wherever they appear they will be ruthlessly eliminated in battle." This supplement originated, word for word, with the Fuehrer personally
Q. And now it was demanded of you -
THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute, Dr. Exner. Wait a minute.
Defendant, what the Tribunal wants to know is this: You said that the Commando Order appeared originally in a Wehrmacht report of the 7th of October, 1942, which, in the main, emanated from you, and that that report refuted an English statement by the Ministry of War which the prosecution did not want you to deal with. What do you mean by that?
THE WITNESS: By that I meant that my defense had the intention of using the entire Wehrmacht report of the 7th of October, and submitting it as evidence, but my defense dispensed with that when the prosecution objected to this document.
SIR DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE: My Lord, I have certainly never objected to this document. I have asked Mr. Roberts and he tells me that he has never objected to it and, as far as we know, no one on behalf of the prosecution has ever objected to it. I certainly have no objection to it at all myself; as a member of the English government at the time when this matter was issued, I have never heard anything about it before, but I have no objection to it at all.
DR. EXNER: May I just make one remark, please.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes.
DR. EXNER: In case there should be an error, it is all the more pleasing to us and we shall submit this Wehrmacht report either this morning or this afternoon. I should like to clarify one more point regarding the question which Mr. President put to the Defendant. The Defendant said that the Wehrmacht report, in the main, originated from him. The supplement originated with the Fuehrer and the -
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Exner, if you want to correct anything that I have said you must do it through the witness and not through yourself. You are not entitled to give evidence. You only give evidence through the witness.
DR. EXNER:: Yes. Very well. BY DR. EXNER:
Q. Please declare once more and tell us which part came from you and which part came from the Fuehrer and what the contents of the Fuehrer's supplement was.
A. The entire first part of this Wehrmacht report has nothing whatever to do with Commando troops but, rather, it concerns itself with the famous affair of the shackling of German prisoners of war at the beach of Dieppe. I shall refer to this point once more later.
THE PRESIDENT: Then you were correct in saying that in the main it emanated from you?
THE WITNESS: Yes. The first part of this Wehrmacht report, that I formulated, and it contains the refutation of a British radio report given out by the British Ministry of War. This statement which the British War Ministry made was wrong, and the reason it was wrong, that I gathered together and established on the basis of records which we had, photographs which we had, and affidavits which we had. As far as Commandos are concerned and reprisals, this matter was then not all concerned with reprisals. This was brought into this Wehrmacht report through the supplement by the Fuehrer, which begins with the sentence: "The High Command of the Wehrmacht, therefore, considers itself forced to decree the following."
BY DR. EXNER:
Q. It was considered necessary now to have this announcement made known in an Execution Order. Did the Fuehrer demand drafts of an executional order? Did he demand that from you?
A. After the Fuehrer had written this last supplement, he turned to Field Marshal Keitel and to me and demanded an Executional Order, Ausfuehrungsbefehl, in conjunction with this general announcement as found in the Wehrmacht report, and simultaneously he set up the slogan that he did not want any military courts.
Q. Did you make this draft?
A. I had many, many doubts, and when I thought over the Hague warfare rules these doubts could not be overcome. Neither Field Marshal Keitel nor myself compiled any such draft, but my staff, on their own initiative, asked for drafts and asked for opinions from various officers, and in that manner document PS-1263 came into being, a document which I shall deal with later.
THE PRESIDENT: That is Document 1263-PS?
DR. EXNER: 1263-PS, Page 104 of Volume II of my document book; 1263-RF, "R", Richard, "F", Frank, but we shall deal with that later.
THE PRESIDENT: Did you say Page 204.
DR. EXNER: Page 104, Volume II.
BY DR. EXNER:
A My wish was an entirely different one. My intention was to avoid the issuance of an order or decree altogether. I expected really that on the announcement in the Wehrmacht report, an announcement which certainly was not kept secret, but which was broadcast very freely over the air to the entire world,that the British Minister of War, either directly or via Geneva, would approach us again, as had been done previously on several occasions, mad I hoped that in this way the entire matter would be transferres to the sphere of influence of the Foreign Office. However, this did not occur. The British War Ministry remained silent.
In the meantime, ten days had passed and nothing had happened. Then, on the 17th of October, General Schumundt, the Chief Adjutant to the Fuehrer, came to me and said, "The Fuehrer is demanding an executional order." And I gave him the following answer, word for word; "Please give him my best records, but I certainly will not give out an order like that."
Schmundt laughed and said, "Well, of course, I can't tell him that,"And my r reply was, "Very well, than, tell the Fuehrer that I do not know how a decree like that could be justified under international law."
And with that, he left. I hoped that I would be asked to come to the Fuehrer so that at long last after many months I should be able to speak to him personal
Q And this coincided with the Vinizza crisis?
A Yes. And also I wanted the opportunity of telling him about my misgiving and doubts -- either that or be thrown out of his presence. Either eventuality would have helped me. But neither of these things actually did happen. the Fuehrer was going to set up these decress himself. these two orders of the Fuehrer -- the order to the troops, and the reason for this order, directed to the commanders. BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Are you referring to two documents which are before us?
A These are the two documents, 498-PS and 503-Ps.The papers submitted to the High Tribunal as documents are not the originals of the Fuehrer; the originals handed over at Flensburg myself. The documents which are in the hands of the Tribunal are copies of the originals, or a mimeographed version by my staff.
BY DR, EXNER:
Q Now, I should like to interpolate a question. You mentioned that your staff worked on something and you referred to PS-1263, which has been submitted to the High Tribunal page 104 of Volume 2. On the basis of this document, at page 106. you made two remarks. The first item is on page 206, where it says,"no" In the French translation this "no" is lacking, and I am asking you to make that correction, please. On the same page, a little further down, in your own handwriting it says, "that doesn't go either," an - there is your initial "J" standing for Jodl. Please explain what you are referring to here. 104 -- under the first figure -- of themselves asked for proposals, and they asked for proposals from the Amt Ausland Abwehr (Counter Intelligence), for under its jurisdiction the International Law group was centered; and point 2, the Wehrmachts Recht Abeilung (the Wehrmacht Legal Department), which is significant, for after all it was a legal problem that we were concerned with. Absehr (Counter Intelligence) made. And the Ausland Division the foreign division of this office, made this proposal. Under paragraph A the proposal was made by this division: "members of terroristic and sabotage troops who are found without uniform, that is civilian clothing, or found in for an uniforms, and are apprehended, are to be treated as bandits, or if they are apprehended outside combat operations, they are to be interrogated briefly by an officer and then afterward they are to be court-martialed." It was quite impossible, for if you find a soldier in civilian clothing, that is, without his uniform, then no one could be know just with whom they were concerned, it might be a spy; it could be a prisoner of war who had escaped; it could be a hostile aviator who had saved his life by jumping from his plane and now wanted to conceal himself in civilian cloth all of this had to be determined by an experienced interrogating officer and not through a court-martial consisting of a lieutenant and two non-commissioned officers or soldiers. In paragraph B -
Q And for that reason you said no?
A That was the reason I put "no" next to that paragraph. In paragraph it was suggested that if sabotage groups were apprehended wearing uniforms, that was to be reported to the Wehrmacht operational staff and the staff was then to decide what was to be done, and in that way the Wehrmacht Fuehrungs Stab -- the operational staff -- was to have the function of a military Tribunal, which it could never actually be.
As far as I am concerned, on the basis of my wide experience, I have pondered these problems more than some of my subordinates and I have to lay claim to that wider experience. ings about the Fuehrer decreem which you have just said, Now, tell us what objections, what doubts, you actually did have?
A First of all, I had a series of legal doubts. Then this decree was ambiguous and not clear enough for execution in practice. In this case -- especially in this case -- I considered military Tribunals or courts-martial as absolutely necessary. I know full well that courts, either consciously or not, may on occasion be under coercion and may judge not only according to the right, but there is the possibility of a miscarriage of justice.
Q. Therefore, you wanted to instal a legal or tribunal procedure.
What did you mean when you said that the report was ambiguous end unclear?
A. The thought was this; Soldiers who, by their actions, put themselves beyond the law of war can not claim to be treated according to the law of war. This is a basic principle, as shown in international law, for instance, when we would deal with the concept of a spy or Franc Tireur. certain methods of warfare used by the British commando troops, but the order of the Fuehrer went further than that, and it said that all comman do troops had to be eliminated. This was the point which cause me grave trouble.
Q. What legal doubts did you have?
A. I had this doubt -- that on the basis of this order, soldiers would be mowed down.
THE PRESIDENT: Defendant, it is not necessary to speak so slowly, if you can speak a little bit more fast.
A. I was concerned that not only hostile solders would be mowed down, and, to use the Fuehrer's expression, soldiers who actually had acted like bandits, but that decent soldiers as well would be mowed down. that in the very last supplement in document 503-PS, it was ordered that soldiers were to be shot after they had been captured and interrogated. The thing that was toally mysterious to me was the general question or situation in law, whether a solder who had previously acted like a bandit, upon being captured and brought into the legal situation of prisoners of war, whether he would actually enter this legal sphere, or whether, because of his prior actions, he had already placed himself beyond the pale of the law and of justice.
Q. By that you mean the Geneva Conventions.
A. Yes, I mean the Geneva Conventions.
Q. Hostile fighters who had acted in an unsoldierly manner were not to be treated as soldiers, was that, per se, something that you could under-stand?
A. Yes, I could quite understand that, and I was not the only one who understood it. The Fuehrer had received very bitter reports. We had captured all the orders that were with the Canadian landings brgiade at Dieppe and these orders were before ,e in the original. In these orders it was set down that wherever possible, German prisoners were to have their hands shackled. After some time, through the Commander in Chief, Most-
Q. You can speak faster.
A. --I received witnesses' testimony and court records. All of this was documented by photographs, and whose things showed to me, anyway, unambiguously and unequivocally, that numerous people who belonged to the organization Todt --fathers of families, unarmed old people, but people who carried an arm band with a swastika that was part of their insignia -that these people had been shackled so that there was a loop around their necks and the end of the rope was fastened around their thigs in such a way that they had strangled themselves. incidents, which to me seemed to be facts, I kept from the Fuehrer. I concealed these matters from the German people, and therefore I concealed those matters from the Propaganda Ministry as well.
Then through the radio we had the English report, which said: "It is emphatically denied that any soldiers had Icon shackled." island of Sercq. Again we received reports, which had been sworn to, that soldiers had been shackled, and they had been German prisoners. That was the decisive factor with the Fuehrer. I studied this report very, very carefully as well. In this report it was shown through pictures how people could be shackled so that they will kill themselves through this method of shackling, and it was set down in exactly what period of time death would result.
Q. Therefore, the reasons which Hitler gave for his order, decree 498, actually were based on facts. Hitler was referring to prisoners who had been shackled, prisoners who had been killed, and-