Letter to the military high command on the treatment of French parachute units in British uniforms, who should be treated as commandos (shot when captured, or interrogated and then executed)

MOST SECRET.
The Chief of the Security Police and the SD IV A 2 a - Bk. No. 502/^2 Most Secret
In written communications, please give this reference No., the
date and subject. „ .. in T ****
Berlin SW 11, 17 June 1944
Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8
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2336.
Express Letter Security Section III
Reed: 20 June 1944 No. 20/44 Most Secret rpQ. Annexes: Nil 94
Supreme Command Armed Forces Ops. Staff of the Armed Forces I C III general security
For the attention of Colonel of the General Staff Martini not represented in the department
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1276—PS
Subject: Commando operations.
Berlin W 35, Tirpitzufer 74/76. Fuehrer's order of 18.10.1942
Reference: Communication of Counter Intelligence Bureau Defense Section III 527/2. 44g (C 2) of 21.8.1944.
The C-in-C of the Security Police and the SD in Paris reports the arrest of isolated parachutists of French nationality in English uniform near Plumelec/Morbihan. It is evident from interrogation that members of the De Gaulle Army, after reporting voluntarily to the "Service Air Special," were taking part in a 14-days special training camp, in which were 800 Frenchmen and 300 Englishmen. Apparently only Frenchmen are used for operations in France. The parachute-jump is made in groups of ten, each consisting of:
1 Lieutenant
2 wireless operators 7 sabotage experts.
Armament: each man
1 sub-machine gun 1 pistol 1 carbine
1 stabbing weapon.
Equipment: Sabotage and radio apparatus, including Eureka gear i.e.
D/F beacons. -(therefore arrested by the SD ? [marginal note in pencil] )
The group which was arrested had orders to carry out railway sabotage in the district around Rennes. The acts of sabotage were obviously to be carried out by the group as a body. In addition, the group was to await further orders in some hiding-place.
Apparently they were not ordered to link up with the local resistance organisations. The arrested men had no civilian identity cards on them.
The employment of such groups is for the most part obviously planned for regions where, due to the action of the Security Police, there are no more local resistance or sabotage organisations in existence, or where the enemy knows that sabotage organisations were only counterfeited by tricks of the security police, which had meanwhile been disclosed.
* * * I consider it essential that the necessary orders
should also be given from there, in order that the lesser units of the Armed Forces may not—as has often been the case recently— interpret them wrongly and turn the Commando troops over to
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1276-PS
the Security Police instead of slaughtering them in combat as they retreat. It is only a question of handing them over to the Security Police when members of Commandos of this kind are not captured in battle by the Armed Forces but by other means,
e.g., by being handed over by the native police.
If a few isolated Commando troops are spared at first for interrogation purposes, I consider it necessary for the Security Police authorities to take part in the interrogation. The further treatment of members of Commandos, who are finally to be treated as killed in action [Gefallene], is, however, even in these cases, the responsibility of the Armed Forces.
I request that the measures taken from there be reported to me. By Order
Signed: Mueller