order as my superior by putting it on record; in other words, he silently approved. Colonel General Hoeppner, with whom another commanding general, Reinhardt, has also raised objections, promised that he would object against the order by approaching the OKH, but he was unsuccessful.
case with your conception of the military duty to obey? ditional, but at all times there were cases during wars where higher military leaders did not obey an order or carried it out differently. That is contained in the higher military leader is burdened. No army leader can be expected to join a battle when he knows that he is bound to lose. tions, there is in practice some sort of right which, however, must be confirmed by success, the right to deviate from orders which have been given. In the German army particularly, that independence of lower ranking leaders has always been particularly emphasized. which deal with actions on the part of all soldiers. In such cases, disobedience on the port of a small man may be compensated in its consequences by means of punishment. If the higher leader, however, disobeyed orders in such cases, then he would shake not only his own authority but the discipline altogether, and he would thus endanger the military success. In such cases, therefore, the higher leader is more duty-bound than the soldier and the lower ranking loader, because he, the higher man, should be an example. dermine discipline? troop corresponded to my thoughts. In other words, the feelings which we had inoculated into our troops opposed, in this case, the political will imposed upon them by Hitler. Apart from that, we were able to refer them to the order issued by the such Commander of the Army, to the effect that the maintenance of manly discipline would take preference over everything else.
army in accordance with the order from the supreme commanders of the army that discipline was to be observed strictly? to the conception which we had because of our training, in other words, lawful and right and according to a decent soldier's life. death sentences with which I had to deal were imposed at the beginning of the Russian campaign against two German soldiers in my corps because of the rape of Russian women, and it was the same everywhere. say about the treatment of prisoners of war? as far as it came under our jurisdiction, I shall have to first of all say in principal that we as soldiers respected every brave opponent, and secondly that we know very well from the first World War that everything one might do to enemy prisoners of war would finally have repercussions upon one's own soldiers. As a matter of principle, therefore, we treated prisoners of war in the manner which we had been taught as soldiers, and which we had to adopt, that is to say, in accordance with the international regulations. have you stopped any such violations yourself? of prisoner of war transports, and when they were on their way, I never saw a prisoner of war who had been shot. Upon one occasion, when I was the supreme commander of the army group, I saw a German soldier hitting a prisoner with a club in order to clear the way for my motor car which was trying to pass the column. I stopped at once and took the man's name, and on the following day I had his commander appear be fore me and gave him an order to punish the men, and I told him myself that the next time he would face a court martial if any such excesses were permitted amongst his troops.
ties amongst Russian prisoners of war during that first winter ? to 150,000 prisoners, and it is of course, always difficult to find the necessary food and accommodations for such large numbers. As far as my army was concerned, we managed to do that. We gave permission to the population, for instance, to bring food into the camps for the prisoners and to make their situation easier that way. in the Army Group Center and near Kiev, where many hundred thousands were concerned, the situation was somewhat different. First of all, the Russian soldiers came from these valleys in which they had defended themselves to the last when they were already half-starved, and then, an army with its transportation space cannot possibly bring along the necessary goods to suddenly food 500,000 prisoners. Then, you can't even accommodate them in central Russia. After all, the same conditions arose in Germany after the capitulation, when hundreds of thousands of soldiers spent weeks in the open and couldn't be fed properly either. sible for prisoners of war ? they were in the area of our armies, that is to soy, until they were handed over to transient camps.
Q So that was an entirely temporary state of affairs? in the army area. the army or armies, how were they treated ?
were required to support the work we had to do, and for that reason they were, of course, decently treated. After all, we had about 100,000--sometimes more--prisoners whom we employed as so-called auxiliary volunteers. Those auxiliary volunteers remained faithful to us even during our retreats, and came along, and that certainly wouldn't have been the case had we treated then badly.
I should like to quote one example. When I was the Supreme Commander of the Army Group South, after Rosch Kask, I had no personnel for guarding, and there for about eight or ten days I had a prisoner in my house to guard me, and after all, had we treated the prisoners badly, they would have bumped me off. Reich. Who was in charge of camp commandants ? districts came under the General for Prisoners of War, and he in turn was under the Commander of the Reserve Army.
Q who was the Commander of the Reserve Army? Colonel General Fromm, and after the 20th of July, it was Heinrich Himmler. der Himmler ?
A Yes, I don't know the exact date, but I do know that the total system of prisoners of war was expressly, emphatically put under Himmler's command. the areas of your army? considerable destruction which we found, however, to a very considerable extent, when we got there in 1941. All railway lines had been destroyed so that in 1943 waterworks were still not capable of working; all communications and telephone exchanges had been destroyed; many industrial plants had been destroyed; the largo dam at Porosche, the works at Kharkov, the large iron works, and the oil industry at Miakov in the Caucasus.
tions went on to the extent they did ? ed destruction known in previous wars is due to the tactics employed in this last war. In 1941, Stalin, quite justified from his point of view, ordered his army to fight for every foot of ground. Hitler adopted that same system, and if you force armies to fight for every foot of ground, you are lost and the villages and the towns are bound to go up in flames in the process. months was used as a fortress, and finally the town itself was defended. Take Stalingrad. For weeks one house after another was fought for. Take Rostov; take Kharkov. we took them twice and the Soviet Army took them twice during heavy battle. Kiev and Rovno were taken once, and Odessa was taken by the Rumanian armies during an attack which lasted for weeks. Of course, all of these towns were destroyed in that fighting. That was unavoidable.
Q And wasn't there planned destruction too? areas by order of Hitler. There was planned destruction to a considerable degree. It had been Hitler's order that the territories at Dnieper should be made useless for the Russians. Those orders went into great detail when they came from him. that question absolutely in the affirmative. The situation was that if we could not bring the Soviet Army to a halt at Dnieper, if they continued to break through and to continue their pressure, the war was lost if Dnieper had not been fortified. The work only just begun. Sufficient troops at the front to hold the Dnieper line were not available. That was further reason for bringing up reserves to the front line especially since the Russian attack did not stop. It was assumed, in the autumn of 1943, that the southern part of the eastern front would be invaded and the war in the east, then, would have ended unfavorably for us. In such cases only the highest leaders could decide on what to achieve when seen operationally. The lower leaders cannot judge in that connection -- he can only see the necessities of his sector and therefore he cannot have the right to turn down such decisions.
Q And then these orders to revert to destruction were carried out?
A Certainly. Nearly every Army leader tried to keep this destruction down as much as possible, particularly in our part of the Ukrainian area where we, the soldiers, had a very excellent relationship with the population. That, after all, is the problem of the individual leader -- whether or not he decides that his goal can be achieved with a minimum of destruction. There was a difference, a difference in attitude toward the destruction of accommodations, of billets. In the winter the possibility of fighting in the east depended to a very considerable extent on the possibility of accommodating the troops during the night. In the winter, therefore, the destruction of billets could be absolutely decisive. In the Summer, of course, it was not quite so important.
monuments preserved. A large portion in the Krimm, the Southern Sector, for instance was already found destroyed, but then, we preserved other monuments such as the Czarist castles very, very carefully. Leningrad in order to prepare an attack Which was not carried out. There saw several castles, Oranienbaum and others. They were destroyed but they were within the range of Russian artillery and I myself was under artillery fire. The castle was burned out but they were not burnt by our troops. Did you gain any knowledge of the fact that the partisan warfare was concerned with the extermination of Jews and Slavs? be taken during the partisan fighting. handing over of a certain person to the SD? such a person and then quit probably, send him to some camp. We also know that German soldiers who were picked up for desertion had to be turned over to the SD because there was a regulation enforced that lengthy penalties during war were not to be carried out unless the people in question, in order to utilize their working capabilities, had to be kept out of prison walls, and these people, these prisoners, were to be sent to concentration camps for the duration of the war. That is to say, that the turning over of a prisoner to the SD for any other purposes was on of the question.
Q Did you know anything about conditions in the concentration camps?
A No. I know as little about that at the time as the German nation, or possibly, even less, because when you were 1,000 kilometers away, in battle, you naturally did not know or hear about things like that. I know from prewar days that there were two concentration camps, Oranienburg and Dachau, and an officer, upon the invitation of the SS visited the camp and told me that it was simply the most wonderful collection of criminal prisoners and political prisoners who, according to what he had seen, were being treated strictly but correctly. which the Prosecution has described as crimes against humanity committed by the German war leaders? shall we say, fought from two points of view. The first was the military conduct of the war which we, the soldiers, were carrying through, and the other was -- incidentally on both sides -- the ideological conduct of the war which we soldiers were not carrying out but which was carried out by the others.
Q You just said 1941? the campaigns in Norway and in the Balkans were still carried out in a purely military manner as long as the fighting was going on. This other part, that is to say, the ideological part of the war, did not start until the campaign against, the Soviet Union started, and it was then, in effect, transferred to the other territories by the elements who conducted the war.
Q But then, who was conducting the ideological part of the war?
A We soldiers did not conduct the ideological part of the war. It was conducted by Hitler, and, in my opinion, by some of his closest collaborators, and also, a limited number of participants.
Q How is it that this war was not conducted by soldiers? "gallant conception of warfare" did not do things like that. He defined his view very clearly in the speech he made after the Polish campaign. From this point of view of his I know that the armed forces would have to be kept out of this sector, out of the ideological part of the war, and everything that was done was removed from our influence or even from our knowledge.
Q And by what means did Hitler remove this part of the war? The bulk of the occupied territories were removed from the influence of the supreme commander, that is, the commissariat, the Reich Commissariat in the East, and the remaining countries. Apart from that he also took away from us the actual spheres of influence on the strength of which this fight went on from the point of view of fate. In fact, we had very little to say. All police measures were put into force by Himmler under his own responsibility as it is contained in the well-known Barbarossa order.
The economic exploitation was a matter for Goering; the obtaining of labor was Sauckel's affair; art treasures were handled by Rosenberg for registration and sorting out; legal matters with reference to the civilians had expressly been taken away from our military court-martials. In other words, all we were left with was the running of the fighting at the front, the military sector, and the creation of a local administration as well as the setting up of agriculture and business.
DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I have a sketch regarding the powers and responsibilities, which I have had prepared, and I should like to submit it to the Tribunal when I submit my documents. It is Mil 3. I should merely like to show this sketch to the witness in order to ask him whether the sketch is accurate and later on I shall explain the sketch and submit it to the Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly. BY DR. LATERNSER:
Q. Fieldmarshal, I am going to have a sketch, Mil 3, brought up to you a I will ask you whether that sketch is accurate and correct.
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, you are showing it to the prosecution no doubt.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes, sir.
THE WITNESS: In my opinion, this sketch is correct. Naturally, deta regarding levels and subordination, regarding the Occupied Territories, which came under military commanders and which changed in the course of the war a at mentioned. BY DR. LATERNSER:
Q But these subjects don't concern the defendant Sauckel's person ?
A. Yes, sir; that is right.
Q. In which spheres was the ideological warfare conducted by others ?
A. There you have to differentiate between two matters; outside the military conduct of the war carried out by us, the soldiers, the war way conduct with economic means; in other words, for the economic exploitation for Occupied Territories for our warfare: that is to say, in the sense of the slogan "total war". That, in my opinion, was a novelty from the point of view of international war but it wasn't a crime. The second, the ideological sphere, as such, is connected with special measures introduced against the population and carried out by other forces which in turn had nothing to do with the economic exploitation as such.
Q. What do you mean "under special methods"?
A. There are means, in the first place or, shall we say, exclusively, the methods, of the so-called "special action groups" -- "Einsatzgruppen" -- all the methods, in other words, due to Himmler's influence.
Q. Wasn't the Commissar Commando order part of that ideological fight in the military sector ?
A. The Commissar order does come under that, in my opinion, but that is the reason why we didn't carry it out. In my opinion, the commando order didn't the commando order was a reprisal, possibly subject to argument -- reprisal against a method of warfare which was new.
Q. Now, let us come to the Einsatzgruppen, special action groups, What did you knew about the tasks given to these groups ?
A. I knew about the tasks of these Einsatzgruppen that they were working to prepare the political administration. They were carrying out the politic investigations of the population in the Occupied Territories of the East and they were acting by special instructions under Himmler's responsibility.
Q. Did you ever know of the intention and the order for the extermination of Jews in other parts of the population ?
A. No, I didn't knew of that: in fact, the witness Ohlendorf said that the order was given orally and by Himmler and directly to the special action groups.
Q. When you took over the command of the 11th Army, were you informed of the existence of the special action group ?
A. When I took over the army at Nikolajev in September 1941, I was only a the army headquarters for two or three days and I then occupied an advance battle station with a small part of my staff. During these two or three day I spent at Nikolajev, the various department chiefs, with the army supreme command, informed me of their tasks. I assumed that on that occasion it was also reported to me that sections of the SD would be carrying out special tasks from Himmler in the operational zone but the organization of the Einsatzgruppen, such as it was explained to me today, certainly did not become clear to that extent at that time and their tasks in no case were certainly not.
Q. Did you personally have dealings with Ohlendorf ?
A. It may be that Ohlendorf may have reported to me on one occasion and his reports always took place towards mid-day and it is quite possible that I invited him to lunch. If he does visit me, then it was certainly only in the presence of my chief of staff, because anyone who didn't belong to the army was only received by me in the presence of my special staff. I want to add that I had already spent several weeks in prison here when one day General Westphal told me that there is Ohlendorf who maintains eh was in the Ukr ne. I asked Westphal to show him to me and I said I may have seen him once but I don't know, I don't remember. That would elucidate the type of contact which I might have had with him.
Q. Witness, Ohlendorf, has said that during the march he had talked with you and your chief of staff.
A. He couldn't have talked to me during the march at all because a supreme commander doesn't join the marches of the troops, where I might have met him. If I changed my command post, then I did do that by airplane or an ordnance officer and I travel by car. We don't march and if I do it then my chief of staff would be there because in the event of such changes, the chief of staff always remains in the old command post until the supreme commander has reach the new command post, so that at the time the leading of the army was interr ted -- it is quite out of the question, practically speaking, therefore, that Ohlendorf could have talked to me and my chief of staff during the march.
Q. Fieldmarshal, how do you explain it, that the murder of ninety thousand Jews could have escaped your attention ?
A. These ninety thousand Jews, which were quoted, were by no means murdered in my zone of command. As Ohlendorf has stated, his zone reached from Schalowitz, that is, the Carpathian Mountains to Rostov; that equals approximately twelve thousand kilometers and the rest of that consists probably from three to four hundred kilometers. In this huge zone, not only the 11th army was operating but in that area, the first armored army, the third and the fourth Roumanian army were operating; that is to say, altogether, four armies and these ninety thousand persons which are supposed to had been murdered in the course of a year, are therefore distributed over an area as large as that, an area only a small portion of which was occupied by the 11th army at the Krimm.
Q. But would have you not have had to hear about it if in the Ukraine for instance, a few hundred Jews re murdered ?
A. No, I did not have to hear of that. In that year I occupied, I think twelve or thirtheen different command posts, always in the fighting zone. When I was at my headquarters at Samalus -- it was a small village about twenty kilometers from the main city, the capitol -- practically speaking only tactical reports reached my command post and there were only one or two occasions every week when the quartermaster and the chief medical officer came to see me in order to report to me the most important matters; it has also got to be considered, that situation for us, that a supreme commander was completely taken up by the worries of battle and that was quite rightly so and only the most important points of other matters were reported to him Point two is, that our troops, nearly to the last man, in the Ukraine particularly, were being used in the battle at the Front; even our clerks were sometimes sent into battle -- for instance, all the rear area was more or less devoid of troops and only the most important supply points were guarded by troops; everything taking place outside the view points in practice never reached the ears of military sources.
Q. Have you ever received a report of the shooting of Jews ?
A. I have not received a report of the shooting of Jews, no. I once heard of the rumors.
Q. And what are we concerned with in that case ?
A. When I took over the army, which took place the day before I left the Ukraine for my command pest, it was said that the SS was out there, without details given, and were supposed to have murdered in Kischilev, In Bessarabia, sometime in the past, a few Jews by shooting them. That was a rumor about one individual case. Since I was leaving the following morning, I gave the orders to my ordnance officer that the leader of the SS was to be told in the area, where I was to be supreme commander, I wouldn't tolerate any such monkey business and since we were only concerned with the rumor and since are order of mine that an investigation should be made did not produce any witnesses who had seen it, the matter was in fact over. I was immediately joining the most serious fighting am since then, I received no further reports about the shooting of Jews.
10 Aug M LJG 5-1 Cumoletti of Jews, and the Armed forces were supposed to have participated in it. Was your Headquarters at Simfropol? I was myself at about 20 kilometers away from Simfropol. That a unit of my Army could have participated in the shooting of Jews, I consider it out of the question. Ohlendorf was perhaps speaking of Army followers, police or others like that. If an Officer of my Army had participated in anything like that, it would have meant his end. the SD, and which were taken from Jews. Do you know about that?
A That I do not know. An Army Quartermaster Officer visited me once and reported that he had obtained a large number of watches from Germany. He showed me a watch which was manufactured in Germany.
Q What was the channel of command for Einsatsgruppen? command tactically, for the purpose of fighting at the front. Or the economic subordination, an organization for the purpose of supplying food, petrol, and like that. Thirdly, subordination from the point of view of discipline, which includes also subordination for training equipment, personnel questions, discipline and legally. The latter subordination was in no case ever granted, not even for the units of the SD. Economically and tactically, subordination was possible. Economically, from the point of view of transportation and supplies, the SD did come under us. From the employment view point, it did not exist at all. It only existed in the case of medical officers for instance. A small medical division might have come under it, but from the point of employment, we were not concerned with that. From the point of view of subordination for marching and supplies, we were concerned with matters only by the Chief 10 Aug M LJG 5-2 Cumoletti Quartermaster.
A Supreme Commander would never bother about marching orders for very small units. commander, according so which, the shooting of Jews, were taking place only 21/2, to according to other testimony, 200 kilometers from the Army Headquarters, is that correct?
A No, and such an order would be complete nonsense. 21/2 kilometers from the army Supreme Command Headquarters C What sense would that mean? It would have to be outside the operational al zone. He has no right to give orders there. Such an order was not given - at least, I never gave it at any rate. Einsatzgruppen?
A Hoeppner was with the Einsatzgruppen. I was in command of a Panzer Corps. This happened during the first month of the Russian Campaign and some times the Corps was stationed 100 kilometers ahead. In my own case, the Infantry Armies which follow they were two retreating Russian armies, in a case like that where the Russians were following us so closely, that a shooting of Jews was occurring, is out of the question,
Q Do you know Colonel General Hoepper?
Q What was his attitude in regard to such actions? minded soldier. That he could have cooperated in such matters, I consider it absolutely out of the question. Apart from that, everything shows he was not taking the side of these people. gruppen, on the part of the Eleventh Army?
A Yes. The SS, SD, or the Police, furnished us as far as possible, a number of auxilliaries for our operations. For example, in the Jaila mountains of the Krimm, there were two small inaccessible parts of the mountains where there were bandit We couldn't get to them. We had no mountain troops. All that 10 Aug M LJG 5-3 Cumoletti was left was to starve these bandits, and they would try to come out and raid a village for food.
There were Tartar villages and armed Tartars. In order to reconnoiter, the SD assisted us.
THE PRESIDENT: This is going into the matter in great detail. Has it not been gone into in his evidence before the Commission?
DR. LATERNSER: Very well, Mr. Presedent. With reference to this subject, I have reached my last question and that question had not been put before the Commission, as far as I can recollect.
A They helped us. We had no personnel who could deal with that task. participated in partisan battles and they were 'decorated for that work?
A That is possible. But those were decorations for work in a battle, but not for the killing of Jews.
Q Now let's come to another point. The Armed Forces has also been accused of looting in the occupied territories, what can you tell us about that? looting, and looters were strictly prosecuted. An individual man was not allowed to requisition, only units. A unit was only allowed to requisition what was needed for feeding of the troops. In 1943 we had cooperated in the return transportation of goods which were especially needed for our warfare. By an executive order of mine that was limited to the Ukraine area, grain and a few other thing, as small quantities of cattle, could be taken. On these occasions we were not concerned and did not loot private property, but were concerned with the necessary needs.
Q Were factories dismantled by the Armed Forces? place by orders from the Economic Staff, EAST, because the exploitation of industry, did not come under the command of the Armies.
10 Aug M LJG 5-4 Cumoletti deportation of workers? of labor. During a conversation with Sauckel, he told me, upon my representations that methods of coercion were being used, that he himself was against methods of force. It had been reported to me that there had been supposedly force used. when I made inquiries of Reich Commissioner Koch, he told me it was not true, that he heard these rumors and locked into it, but that it was a bunch of lies. I had no rebutting evidence agains it. The Plenipotentiary of the Reich presented regulations to me according to which, foreign workers in Germany were to be treated in accordance with the wage scale and food scale allotted to German workers.
Q You contacted Sauckel and Koch. Were those different conversations, or were you visiting all together?
A They were different conferences. Koch once came with Rosenberg. Then I mentioned that I heard these methods of force were being used, and it was denied.
THE PRESIDENT: The conversation that occurred with Rosenberg, when did it occur?
FIELD MARSHAL VON MANNSTEIN : That I cannot remember.
THE PRESIDENT: Not the exact date; approximately?
FIELD MARSHAL VON MANNSTEIN: In 1943 Rosenberg and Koch came to visit me. It must have been, I can't say approximately, but it was around September or October, but I can't to the best of my ability give the exact date. It may have been earlier. permit all those violations of international law and law of humanity? such things. In the ideological warfare and outside my sphere of influence, it was something we did not know about. It was 10 Aug M LJG 5-5 Cumoletti taking piece outside our knowledge, and we had no power or the right to prevent it.
In all its dreadfullness, which has since been discovered, we never know of it. everything, and cooperate with everything? The military duty to obey is no doubt valid and cannot be weakened. The right or duty to disobey, does not exist with the soldier. He must obey. But there may a moral duty there some time. That moral duty would have existed in such a case as the execution of Jews. But of course, that we did not know. supreme commanders, cause Hitler to remove you in a half hour?
A That would not have been. In other cases it would have been a reason to remove us all. Apart from that, an open refusal to obediency, would have been different. At the very moment that he allows such a force to be successful, his dictatorship is ended.
Q Did the possibility exist to raise objections? possibility. He announced his decision in the speeches or means of orders, and a discussion did not exist. It was not possible.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness Las been over this subject already.
Q Did you have military influence on Hitler? listened to me up to a point. On the other hand, we had a continued chain of arguments about those matters, and my written suggestions to him, or to the chief of General Staff to put before Hitler, would fill a volume.
In decisive points of the operational leadership I probably succeeded, generally speaking, to put over my points of view. In other cases, as soon as we left the subject of military leadership, any discussion was turned down by him. On three occasions I tried, during personal talks I had with him, to get him to alter the system of the supreme military command, that is, in other words, not formally speaking but saying that actually he ought to surrender the supreme command of the armed forces.
THE PRESIDENT: What have we got to do with this? What have we got to do with these matters which are matters of strategy? The High Command is not being accused of anything in connection with strategy. BY DR. PELCKMANN: differences of opinion with Hitler? A The number of such differences was no doubt very large indeed. It becomes apparent from the following facts alone. Of 17 Field Marshals who were members of the Army, 10 were sent home during the war and 3 lost their lives in the course of the 20th of July. Only one Field marshal Managed to get through the entire war in his particular position. Of 36 Colonel Generals, 18 were returned and 5 died in the course of the 20th of July or were dishonorably discharged. Only 3 Colonel Generals survived the war in their positions.
Q Out of 36?
A Yes, out of 36. I believe there is no profession which has as many victims of conviction on its records because all these leaders were highly qualified officers, militarily speaking, and they could not have been sent away because they were incapable. They were sent home because Hitler distrusted them and also because he did not think they were hard enough in battle. with you? The witness, Gisevius, has said something about that.
A I did not become aware of that. On one occasion I received a letter from Colonel General Beck. It was in the winter of 1942, and he was discussing the strategical situation on the basis of the experience at Stalingrad. He was saying that it would hardly be possible to bring the war to a victorious end.