A.There was no special reason for that because the shipments, the priority of these shipments, was dealt with by the section of Oberquartiermeister quite independently. I had no interest in them, into what shipments were classified by the Oberquartiermeister as having top priority or having deserved less priority.
Q.What could General Reinhardt himself know about this connection between the SD and the Oberquartiermeister with respect to this question of shipments?
A.The general could not know anything about it because if the Oberquartiermeister did not even inform me about it, then he certainly would not have informed the general himself.
Q.Did you know at the time that the SD killed civilian persons who were subordinate to you?
A.I did not know of it at the time. For the first time I heard about these killings after the end of the war.
Q.Did you know that in Auschwitz and especially in Lublin the SD officer killed band suspects who allegedly came from the area of the Third Panzer Army?
A.During the war I had no idea of the existence of the camps of Auschwitz and Lublin. It was for the first time, I think in the summer of 1945, I heard from an American officer while I happened to be in a prisoner of war camp.
Q.This brings me to the end of this topic of the relations between the Wehrmacht and SD, and I have a few specific questions about the labor question. I refer to Document NOKW-2340, Exhibit 484, of the prosecution, English book VII-A, Page 191, German VII-B, Page 241.
This deals with the draft of the age group of 1925 for labor in the Reich. This order was signed by you in person on the 19th of July, 1943. Why did you sign this order and not General Reinhardt?
A.The general, in June and July, 1943, was on leave for four weeks. There was no deputy commander in chief because we were engaged in static warfare. It was relatively quiet, and that is why I was the deputy commander in chief, and this order in its essentials was only an implementation order of an order of the OKH so I thought that I was authorized to sign this order myself.
Q.Did you report anything to General Reinhardt about this order upon General Reinhardt's return from his leave?
A.Yes, a few days after his return from his leave on the occasion of the conference in which the Ober Quartiermeister as far as I remember an expert of the staff in the Q-2 section of the Ober Quartiermeister reported to him about this order.
Q.And did General Reinhardt agree to this order which you had signed?
A.No, at the time he was very angry not only about my order but also about the substance of the OKH or OKW order. I don't know which it was because for the first time the principle of recruiting labor forces for Germany on a voluntary basis had been broken.
Q.Did the Panzer Army have any interest in maintaining the principle of voluntary recruitment?
A.Yes, they had the greatest interest in that principle because every coercion which we exerted on the population was bound to result in the population running over to the bands and it was our greatest interest especially in the 3rd Panzer Army as we had the biggest area then in the whole Army Group Center, that we did not want even more civilians to run over and help the bands.
Q.Now, what was General Reinhardt's decision when you brought this, your order, to his attention?
A.The General amended this order in a certain manner, as it were. I recall that during this conference, which I previously mentioned, he once again clearly explained his point of view to us and issued a prohibition that any force or any terror was to be used. He prohibited the use of force or terror.
He further ordered that the contingent quarters which had been used, the number of people that had to be shipped to Germany once a week, first of all had to be made up by persons from the age group of those born in 1925, who voluntarily reported for working in Germany. He further ordered that on the part of the Ober Quartiermeister everything was to be done in order to calm down the population and that he said if the quotas imposed on us cannot be filled by volunteers from the age groups of those born in 1925, only people drafted from age groups 25 were to be recruited. He wanted to see to it that the population knew that as far as they did not fall under this 25 Army group they need have no anxiety about their being recruited for transfer to Germany. I recall that on the strength of this conference a report to the Army Group was made in which this principle of the General's and his orders were expounded.
Q.I now put to you Document NOKW 2454, Exhibit 489, English Book 7-A, page 226, German Book 7-C, page 12. This is a report of the Panzer Army dated 26 July 1943 and directed to Army Group Center. Do you mean this document when you mentioned the report which you just referred to. Is it identical?
A.I believe it is the report which I had in mind. At any rate the dates agree. My order was signed on the 19th of July, the conference took place one day thereafter and this report to Army Group Center was dated 26 July. I can also see in cursorily reading the pages, I can see the sentence, "terror measures for the recruitment, etc. to be abolished." So, it is the order probably which I talked about previously.
Q.Now in spite of this was your order dated 19 July 1943, was it still executed in spite of this about the drafting age group 25.
A.The drafting of this age group had been ordered by the OKH, we could hot circumvent it. It was the task of the labor offices. First of all I know that volunteer workers were shipped and I think that in fact one convoy left for Germany and when the drafting of the age group had been finished a new order arrived that the age group was no longer to be sent to Germany but that they were to be used for harvesting in the Army areas.
Q.After this period were members of other age groups forcibly sent to Germany for labor in Germany?
A.No, I previously stated that the General on principle held the view that man power was only to be supplied on a voluntary basis which actually happened. There is only one exception to be mentioned. I believe it was in March or April or even May 1944 when we were forced to do this because owing to the position on the front lines in the area of Witebsk we had to evacuate the population and were confronted by the question either we had the alternative to leave and expose them at the fringe of the band areas where they would have been exposed to the bands or else ship them to the rear. It was ordered that they were to be sent to a camp of the Rear Area of the Army. Another agency decided in the Rear Area as to who among the population were to be sent to the camp and who were to be sent to Germany. That was no longer our concern.
Q.Did you yourself hear about any incident in which nevertheless force was used in order to reach this manpower demand?
A.I can only think of one case, that is the case which I heard from the General himself where he returned from a front line visit and called me and most indignantly told me that he had found out at a local Ortskommandantur that people had been drafted, and had forcibly been made ready for shipment to Germany.
He himself had said that he had intervened immediately and ordered me immediately to tell the Ober Quartiermeister that once again all agencies involved were to be supplied with the order of the Commander-in-Chief, that on principle volunteers only were to be sent to Germany.
Q.This brings me to the end of this topic. This topic of labor of man power in Germany. I now have a few questions about the ill treatment of the population. There are two short documents, about which he personally can testify. They are NOKW 2531, Exhibit 527 of the Prosecution, English Book 7-B, page 93, and I would ask the court to read this in conjunction with defense document 208, Exhibit 17 in Defense Book Reinhardt, Volume 1 on page 28 of the German and the English. Do you know this report, witness?
A.I recall this report very exactly because I know when I read it for the first time I was most indignant about it which is also revealed by my personal entry at the head of this communication which reads QR, that is, Ober Quartiermeister, Q-a to report to me, a, as to what we can do; b, who was the guilty party. It is unusual for me that, a, I ordered the expert concerned to report to me personally, a thing which never happened, and, b, that I put QR on this communication which meant that I myself wanted this communication returned to me in order not to let the whole affair escape my attention.
Q.And what was actually reported to you about this incident?
A.The Q-2, the Quartiermeister 2, I think on the same day, I don't know today what day it was, he called me by telephone and told me that he had initiated the full investigation and that the thing that turned out much more harmless than was actually to be gleaned from the report of the fortress engineer staff.
Q.And in what was was it more innocuous?
A.The Quartiermeister too had found out that I believe it is contained in the document that 15 to 20 sick persons for welfare reasons had been shipped from Witebsk which had been threatened by the enemy. They had been shipped with a convoy in which able bodied population was also carried away and that upon the unloading of this train the sick people had unfortunately been mixed up with the people fit for work and were conducted to their place of work along with the able bodied personnel. At the time I ordered or explained to the Quartiermeister that this case was not settled for me yet. I wanted the matter to be investigated and further reports submitted to me. A few days afterwards, probably the Q-2 again, I don't know who it was, reported to me again. The results which are to be noted in the documents by notes about the report, that is, that we intervened, a, by issuing an additional ration to the working population because in this report the food was objected to, then the corps headquarters received an order that in future when man power was being mobilized more attention and greater care was taken so that such incident as this one did not recur. I further recall that the Army engineer who himself had also initiated an investigation reported to me that the commanding officer of this fortress engineer staff who had made the reports had admitted that it was an isolated incident and he had even conceded that he wanted to express it in that stringent manner because he had been very angry about the fact that the Army called constantly for reports about the working civilian population.
DR. FROHWEIN:I also want to refer to Defense Document Reinhardt 222, Exhibit 18, of Document Book Reinhardt I, on page 30 of the English and of the German text. The last case regards Document NOKW-2352, Exhibit 485, English Document Book VII-A, page 195; and, German Document Book VII-B, page 258. This is a correspondence between the panzer army and the higher police and SS leader stationed in Riga. The Prosecution appears to gather from this document that the 3d Panzer Army shipped all able-bodied men and women for labor to Germany. The Prosecution has merely translated the first sentence in the communication of the higher SS and police leader. I would ask the Court to read in conjunction with this the Defense Document 210, Exhibit 8, contained in Document Book I of the defendant Reinhardt.
Q.Perhaps you can briefly describe this incident and its essentials.
A.This incident which was the basis for this correspondence was as follows: The higher SS and police leader Jaeckeln was in charge of an anti-partisan operation which also over-lapped with our army area. It had been agreed that the band suspects, persons seized in the course of this operation, after the conclusion of the operation, were to be turned over to the 3d Panzer Army. This agreement had not be adhered to by the police leader, but he had the whole population shipped away, not only the band suspects but also the persons who had been completely exonerated. Members of the population now turned to the 3d Panzer Army in order to find out where their relations and next of kin had been transported to. For that reason the panzer army had addressed a communication to the higher SS and police leader, and then we received this insolent reply dated 31st of July in which it is stated among other matters, that is in the second paragraph:
"For the rest these persons come from band infested areas in which a German soldier cannot move without danger of limb and life. For that reason the inquiries on your part are unintelligible and we ask you to desist from submitting such applications because they cannot be dealt with on our part." At that time I submitted this communication to the commander in chief and he refused personally to sign the reply and wanted me to do it because he had been angry, and, it was only a SS Obersturmfuehrer, a lower rank of the SS who had signed the document. I myself replied and said that the inquiries of the panzer army would become more comprehensible if the sober facts were known and could be fully appreciated, that is the position in our local areas and the necessity of a reasonable consistent policy towards the civilian population. This policy consisted in counteracting lawlessness and resistance with ruthlessness and severity, but that justice was to be paramount. On the next page of the reply I stated that the panzer army would not take responsibility for the position if disturbances were fermented from outside. The fact alone that the persons came from band infested areas was no right to brush aside their fate and ignore their condition. At that time I submitted my reply to the general, or rather, I talked to him before I sent it off, and we expressly put the army point of view on paper, that is the point of view which we followed in our policy towards the population coming from the band infested areas.
Q.This brings me to the end of my questions, general. On the 3d of May 1943 you became chief of staff of the 3d Panzer Army. At what time did you leave your service?
A.On the 26th January 1945, together with my commander in chief; we were removed and sent home and the personnel office gave me no new assignment.
Q.Now, in your long collaboration with General Reinhardt, my last question is will you please tell me something about the personality of General Reinhardt; will you give me a brief and concise appraisal of his personality?
A.I may perhaps make a preliminary remark that it is repugnant to me to talk about my commander in chief in his presence, but, I believe that I have to do so before this Tribunal because in the last two years of the war I knew the commander in chief, I got to know him as nobody else did. When in May, 1943, I became chief of the staff of the army, it was known to me that the general had the reputation in the army that he in a very rare manner combined the best soldierly traditions with the highest principles of humanity. War and its many crises and dangers has torn all masks from our faces. I think that everybody got to know the other fellow as he really was. We all knew that the general used all his force; that he derived all his energy from his deep, profound belief in God. His justice and sense of responsibility was based on this deeply religious view of his and this sense of responsibility before the highest being is the essence and decisive factor for all his actions. The general has been an example to us in his irreproachable conduct, in his chivalrous attitude which he displayed towards the enemy and also in his modesty which very often put us to shame. He was devoid of every feeling of vindictiveness towards the enemy, and that is the reason why he was entitled again and again to admonish his soldiers that they were to wage this struggle and particularly the struggle against the partisans as decent soldiers.
We in the headquarters, from the chief of staff down to the youngest enlisted men, we all revered the commander in chief as a father and I know that the front-line soldier who knew his commander in chief through his daily visits which he carried out to the front lines, to the most exposed trenches, they knew and they loved him on account of his profound interest in them and in kindness they revered him in a manner such as I had never before witnessed throughout my twenty-seven years in the service, and I can well say that the Tribunal might ask any officer or even anyone who ever served under the general, they might well call him to the witness stand and he could swear on oath he could not say anything else than what I have said about the commander in chief. In conclusion I may perhaps say that throughout the army there was only once voiced any opinion about the general. That he was one of our very best.
DR. FROHWEIN:I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT:I think that it wouldn't be worth-while to start the cross examination for just three minutes, and, at this time the Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.
(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hours, 12 May 1948).
Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Wilhelm von Leeb, et al.
, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 12 May 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable John C. Young presiding.
THE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal V. Military Tribunal V is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, are all the defendants present?
THE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors all defendants are present except the defendant Sperrle who is in the hospital and defendants Schniew and Warlimont who have been excused for the day's session by your Honors.
THE PRESIDENT:The order heretofore made with respect to these defendants will stand. Dr. Gollnick, if you would have a few minutes at this morning's recess, would you come into chambers. We want to talk with you just a few minutes about the defendant Sperrle, as to when it will be possible for him to come here and it will just take a few minutes. We will now proceed with the examination.
MR. NIEDERMAN:May it please your Honor, I believe that the direct was finished yesterday.
THE PRESIDENT:That was my understanding.
OTTO HEIDKAEMPER -- Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NIEDERMAN:
Q.Now, witness, will you repeat again for what period you were Ch of Staff for the 3rd Panzer Army?
A.On the 3rd of May 1943 until the 31st of August 1944.
Q.Then I assume your testimony covers merely that period of time?
A.Afterwards I was Chief of Staff with General Reinhardt of Army Group Center.
Q.I see. Then your testimony yesterday covers the period after 3 May 1943 until the beginning of 1945?
A.Yes.
Q.Now, I would like to show you your interrogation for 21 November 1947 for a moment. Now, may I call your attention to question 37 of tha interrogation and ask you very briefly to read the question and answer to the court, please.
A. "Question: Did he have time to look at the 1-C and 1-A reports himself or did he merely have excerpts reported to him? Answer: He was to conscientious and saw it every day, when he came back from his trips to the front---"
Q.Will you read a little more, please?
A.When he came back from his trips to the front for almost one and a half hours no one could speak to him because he read the incoming mail. I was the only one who was allowed to see him, because the general was not to be disturbed. If he wanted to have special reports, for instance if a certain man had been a long time away, the chief judge wanted to report to him, then of course one had to. On Sundays he usually didn't go very far away. Mostly he remained at home on Sundays and settled all these internal oral reports.
Q.In other words according to your answer at that time Reinhardt was overly conscientious in that he spent at least an hour and a half ov COURT V CASE XII day in reading incoming despatches and reports.
Now you testified yesterd I believe that those despatches were screened by you before being shown to General Reinhardt. Is that correct?
A.Yes.
Q.Did you at that time normally consider abuses of the rules of important enough to direct them to the attention of the defendant Reinha
A.Yes, in general I submitted them.
Q.Now, you testified that the head of each department used discre in selecting reports and material which he thought necessary to show to you for further transmission. Is that correct?
A.No, I said that a Chief of every department according to the order of business was obliged to submit them either to me in a summarized form or the reports and other incoming mail should be submitted to me so that actually I found out everything that the department chief knew.
Q.Well, that is the point I was trying to clear up. Everything then that happened in your Army came to your attention and knowledge.
A.I meant if everything had come to my attention then all the preliminary reports would have been submitted to me too. In a certain for this was left to General Staff officers to decide whether they would submi the original reports to me or whether they would make a summary from the original reports which they submitted to me orally.
Q.Let's take a hypothetical case. If the 1-C had received a report we will assume, from the Secret Police dealing with a matter which he had handled; if for example, the 1-C had received in his department a report from the Secret Field Police dealing with a matter which he had handled COURT V CASE XII in its entirety, such as an investigation up to that time would it have been necessary for him to have shown that report to you?
A.Partially I personally read the Secret Field Police reports and partially they went direct to the 1-C. If they were very long then he took an excerpt from it and showed this to me.
Q.Now, I would like to discuss with you the order which first provided that convicted partisans were to be sent to concentration camps or Dulags. You recall that, do you?
A.Yes.
Q.That came in approximately July, I think, of 1943, wasn't it?
A.No, the order as far as I know, came from the OKH in March 1943 as I have seen here the Panzer Army and the 1-A, that is, the operational department issued it at the end of March and the implementation orders to the 1-A order were dealt with by the Ober Quartiermester I think on the 14th of April and I only arrived on the 3rd of May with the 3rd Panzer Army.
Q.Then you would have no knowledge, would you, as to the procedure used in the execution or conviction of these partisans prior to the time you came to the Army which was in May of 1943?
A.No, before then I couldn't know anything about it.
Q.Now this order for the sending of Partisans to concentration camps instead of executing them, was that opposed or supported by the defendant Reinhardt?
A.I can't know that because during my time there was no mention it at all. The only order which talks about band suspects is the one whi COURT V CASE XII has already been discussed here quite a lot.
There was an order which was already in existence when I arrived but this order status nothing about a transfer to the SD to the concentration camps so that I really cannot draw the conclusion that those band suspects as far as they were regarded by the SD were transferred to concentration camps. As a result I also could not know how the General regarded this question since we never talked above this case and which we actually did not know at all while I was Chief of Staff.
Q.You presented an affidavit No. 935 to the International Militar Tribunal. I have it before me. I would like to read a bit of it to you. I have only the original affidavit. If you will look under the letter B, last paragraph or two, you will notice you discussed the order for the transfer of partisans to concentration camps and to PW camps and then you say, "as a result of a telephone conversation between Major-General Reinhardt and Field Harshal von Kluge, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Center, on this point in August 1943, this request was refused. Captured bandits were transported to the Reich as before." Now, what I want you to clarify is what was the position of Reinhardt in this telephone conversation which you discussed in your affidavit.
A.You have just mentioned that I stated here a certain paragraph which I have not been able to find that those people were transferred eith to a concentration camp or PW camp. Could you please tell me where it is in the document.
Q.Do you find the small letter B, called Army Orders?
A.Yes.
Q.Drop down to the end of that section.
A.I find the following sentence: "It is also ordered whether written or orally- I don't know any longer-that bandits who are overcome in battle or who are captured are to be treated in exactly the same way as captured soldiers, and according to the Panzer order every captured bandit had to be interrogated before he was handed over. A bandit who the basis of this interrogation was found guilty of the murder of a Germ soldier was according to a sentence by Summary Military Court to be shot at once." I really can't find the word "concentration camp" here.
Q.If you will continue reading here toward the end of that paragraph I am curious about the sentence, "As a result of a telephone conversation," do you find that?
A.A telephone conversation in the next sentence?
Q.To save time, will you read the entire paragraph. It is short.
"Mostly in any case those bandits who had been convicted of murder usually committed suicide. The rest of the captured bandits were sent according to orders, to Germany. This measure was also allowed to be followed by the troops because they didn't understand that bandits who fight insidiously were transferred home, the troop repeatedly asked for these captured bandits to be used for work near the front, for mine clearing, etc. In a telephone conversation about this point between General Reinhardt and Field Marshal von Kluge Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Center in approximately August 1943 this action was rejected and is remained that the captured bandits were sent to the Reich." I must stres again I still find no word about concentration camps but in my opinion COURT V CASE XII this testimony is entirely in agreement with what I stated yesterday.
Q.I agree with you. We have no argument there. The only question I asked you is what was this telephone conversation you referred to between Reinhardt and Kluge. What was Reinhardt's position in that telephone conversation?
A.Perhaps I must again protect myself against the assumption the I said something about concentration camps. I merely told about the sen of the band suspects into the Reich for labor and I think that I can remember that yesterday I already said that the troops were not in agreem with the opinion of the General in regard to the treatment of prisoners an they protested against it. First of all I don't know whether I said it yesterday; First of all they revolted.
Q.May I interrupt you for just a moment, please. In this telephone conversation between Reinhardt and Kluge which you mentioned in your affidavit, what was the position of Reinhardt?
A.I just wanted to come to that. The reason for this telephone conversation was the order dated June 1943 in which it was ordered that in future the bandits were to be regarded as PW's and were to be sent to the Reich for coal mining. When this order was announced to the troops they were indignant because they thought that people who acted in this animal manner as I described yesterday were now to be sent to the Zone of Interior as workers while the troops as such had to go on fighting with the rest of the bandits who hadn't yet been captured and that is why the troops asked for General Reinhardt to intervene in order to get this order rescinded. At that time or principle he discussed this question we COURT V CASE XII Field Marshal von Kluge and on this oocasion thus the Commander-in-Chiefs came to the conclusion that this application had to be rejected on principle I remember that Field Marshal von Kluge expressly stated and pointed out that these misgivings of the troops were to be rejected because coal miner were urgently needed in the Reich.
Q.So Reinhardt's position was that partisans were not to be kill but that they were to be sent to the Reich and his position in this telep conversation, is that what you are saying; can you answer that with yes or no?
A.I understood your question to be that the attitude of General Reinhardt was that he didn't want the bandits to be killed but instead they should rather be sent to the Reich. That was the attitude of General Reinhardt.
Q.Now, I will show you a document and ask you after reading that document whether you don't think Reinhardt had the opposite attitude. I show you document WB 4266 which is not yet in evidence.
DR. FROHWEIN:Your Honor, please excuse me if I protest again. The Prosecution is able to supply the English text for the Tribunal but there is not one single copy available in German for the defense and it is scare possible to follow if I have to keep on standing by the witness. I can scarcely read while he roads and the witness is questioned and questioned and I would really like to ask the Prosecution in a case such as this to at least give the defense a German copy as usual.
MR. NIEDERMAN:Here is a photostat of the document.
THE PRESIDENT:I suppose this comes up on cross examination and COURT V CASE XII there is not time.