dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
VON MANSTEIN: One morning, and quite to my surprise, I was summoned to the Fi1hrer, together with General Beck, the Chief of the General Staff. It was, I think, about 11 o'clock. The Commander-in-Chief of the Army was not in Berlin. Hitler revealed to us that he had decided that the Austrian question was to be settled in view of the intentions announced by Schuschnigg the day before. He demanded our suggestions for a march into Austria, should this be necessary. The Chief of the General Staff thereupon suggested explained that we should have to mobilize the corps required for this, namely the Bavarian Corps VII and XIII and a Panzer division, but that such a mobilization, in fact such a measure was in no way prepared, since the political leaders had never given us even so much as a hint of such instructions. It would be necessary, therefore, to improvise everything. First of all, the Fuehrer did not want to agree to this mobilization, but then he realized that if he wanted to march in at all, troops would have to be mobile, and he agreed, saying that he would have to march in the following Saturday-the day before the intended plebiscite-if he wanted to march in at all. The result of it was that the order for the mobilization of these corps had to be given that very day, if the mobilization and concentration of the forces on the border were to be completed in time. The conference started about 11 o'clock and went on until about 1 o'clock and the orders would have to be ready to go out that afternoon at 6 o'clock. They went out 20 minutes late; I had to draft the orders for this concentration myself, so that I had 4 or 5 hours altogether to do it in. Before that, no thought whatever had been given to such a thing. The so-called Case "Otto" had nothing at all to do with this entire affair.
DR. LATERNSER: So that, as the man responsible for the working out of this order, you had just a few hours from the moment when you knew nothing until the moment the order was ready to be issued?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, that is right-about 4 or 5 hours.
DR. ILATERNSER: Did you, as the responsible Oberquartiermeister I (Deputy Chief of General Staff, Operations), responsible for war plans, know anything at all about the conference which Hitler held on 5 November 1937?
VON MANSTEIN: No, I knew nothing about it.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you participate in the conference of 10 August 1938?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser-Witness, the Tribunal would Eke to know what you say the plan "Otto" was for. What was the plan made for?
VON MANSTEIN: We in the Army did not have a completed plan called "Otto." I only know that that was a code word for some measures or other of the High Command of the Armed Forces, for the event of a restoration attempt on the part of the Hapsburgs in Austria, in connection with Italy. That possibility was always pending, and I want to supplement my statement by saying that at the time when Hitler gave us the orders for Austria his chief worry was not so much that there might be interference on the part of the Western Powers, but his only, worry was as to how Italy would behave, because it appeared that Italy always stuck together with Austria and the Hapsburgs.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, are you telling the Tribunal that you do not know whether the plan "Otto" was a plan for the German Army or part of it to march into Austria?
VON MANSTEIN: No, the plan "Otto" only came to my mind and became clear to me when I read the interrogation record of Jodl. In any case, a plan for a march into Austria did not exist in the High Command of the Army, because I had to prepare these orders within a few hours after the conference with Hitler.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but if the plan "Otto" was not a plan for the marching into Austria, what was it for?
VON MANSTEIN: That I cannot say because I only know that it was some sort of plan on the part of the High Command of the Armed Forces connected with an attempted restoration of the Hapsburgs in Austria, but we ourselves did not introduce any measures, as far as I can remember, nor do I know whether I myself had anything at all to do with this code name at the time; it may be so, but I do not know now.
DR. LATERNSER: Meld Marshal, you participated in the conference on 10 August 1938. What was the purpose of that conference? What was said there?
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
VON MANSTEIN: That conference was something quite unusual. The Fuehrer had ordered to appear before him at the Berghof the chiefs of the General Staff of those armies which, in the event of a march into Czechoslovakia, would have to take up their positions on the border; but he did not summon the commanders-in-chief to appear as would have been natural, but only, I might say, the younger generation of chiefs. He must have known from the memorandum of General Beck and its submission by General Von Brauchitsch that the commanders-in-chief and commanding generals opposed any policy which might lead to a war and that was why he summoned us in order to convince us of the necessity and the correctness of his decision. This was the only and last time, at a meeting of that kind, that he permitted questions and a sort of discussion afterwards. He was mistaken in this, inasmuch as even the chiefs of the General Staff raised objections regarding the possibility of an interference on the part of the Western Powers, and generally regarding the danger of a war that might ensue. This led to a very serious and most unpleasant clash between the Fuehrer and General Von Wietersheim with reference to these questions. After that, whenever such meetings took place, there was not a single occasion when any questions at all, or discussions, were permitted by him.
DR. LATERNSER: , Were the operations in Austria and the Sudetenland to be considered military rehearsals for a war?
VON MANSTEIN: No, that they certainly were not, because not only were our troops not fully mobilized, but the mobilization of the corps on the occasion of the march into Austria also demonstrated to us in any case that matters had not yet reached the stage where a reasonably satisfactory mobilization could be effected. If a war had broken out, neither our Western border nor our Polish frontier could really have been effectively defended by us, and there is no doubt whatsoever that had Czechoslovakia defended herself, we would have been held up by her fortifications, for we did not have the means to break through. It cannot therefore be , called a military rehearsal. But it was a matter of testing the political nervous system.
DR.LATERNSER: When you were informed of the military preparations against Poland, did you have the impression that an aggressive war was intended?
VON MANSTEIN: I was chosen for the position of chief of the General Staff of Army Group South in the mobilization plan for the Polish campaign. When I received the plans for the concentration, I realized that it was really a strategic concentration for an attack, but there were various very essential points which militated against any aggressive gesture. 9 Aug. 46, The first one was that in the spring of - 1939 and, by order of the Fuehrer, a sudden start was made with the erection of the strongest; fortifications along all the Eastern border. Not only thousands of workers, but entire divisions were employed there to build these fortifications, and the entire material from the Czech fortification was transported there and built in. A broad strip of the most fertile land in Silesia was taken up by these fortifications, and that, of course, would indicate anything but an aggressive intention. The second point which was against it was the fact that training continued on an entirely peacetime basis. I myself-I was a divisional commander in peacetime-remained with my division at the training camp in Lusatia, far away, therefore, from that part of the country where my division would have to be drawn up. Besides, we knew of Chamberlain's speech in the House of Commons, in which he assured the Poles of Britain's assistance, and since Hitler on every occasion during the time I was in the High Command of the Army repeated the statement that he would never enter into a war on two fronts, one could not possibly think that, in view of that promise, he would indulge in such an adventurous policy. On the other hand, however, we had the most reliable information-which was confirmed by subsequent facts-that the Poles were proposing to concentrate their troops in Poznania for an offensive towards Berlin. We completely failed to, understand this gesture in view of the entire situation, but in fact that was the way the Poles drew up their troops at a later stage.
VON MANSTEIN: The eventuality of war might well be envisaged, therefore, and it was most likely, since the Poles could look to Britain for assistance; and if the political negotiations should teach a crisis, the Poles might on their part be reckless enough to attack, since they were already forming-up offensively, and then, of course, a war would have been inevitable. Considering all these signs, one could hardly assume that Hitler would, so to speak, pick a quarrel with Poland to unleash an aggressive war against her. The conference at Obersalzberg, for instance, on 22 August, did not give me the impression either that war was bound to come, an impression that was neither mine nor that of Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Von Rundstedt until the night from 31 August to I September, since an order to march in had been withdrawn on the 25th.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now. [The Tribunal adjourned until 10 August 1946 at 1000 hours.]
DR. I ATERNSER: Field Marshal, how did you judge the intention to attack in the West?
VON MANSTEIN: In my opinion, since a political agreement with the Western Powers by peaceful means was no longer possible, there was no other way out than to launch an offensive in the West and thus end the war.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you participate in the preparations against Nor*ay, Greece, and Yugoslavia?
VON MANSTEIN: No. I learned about these campaigns, or that they had started, only over the radio.
DR. LATERNSER: How did you, as a military leader, regard the war against Russia?
VON MANSTEIN: I considered the war against Russia to be a preventive war on our part. In my opinion, there was for Hitler no other way out of the situation into which he had brought Germany, after he had not dared to risk the, invasion of England in the autumn of 1940. In my opinion, we were forced to acknowledge that the Soviet Union was a very great threat in 1940 and 1941-a threat which would become real as soon as we finally tied up our forces in the fight against England. The only chance of extricating ourselves from that situation would have been a landing in England in the autumn of 1940, but that was a risk which Hitler did not take.
DR. LATERNSER: How is it possible that the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the Chief of the General Staff of the Army, in the most important military decisions, such as for instance a war against the Soviet Union, were bypassed by Hitler?
VON MANSTEIN: In my opinion that can be explained as follows: Politically we generals had not had any say for a long time, because the political objections raised by the generals, for instance on the occasion of the occupation of the Rhineland and the march into Czechoslovakia, had turned out to be without substance. Hitler had carried his point. He no longer concerned himself with political objections but only with military questions. With regard to military matters, I was personally of the opinion, as I have just said, that the offensive in the West, from the point of view of the soldier, was an imperative necessity. The High Command of the Army was of a different opinion, and in this, to my thinking, they advocated the wrong military course. There again the results proved Hitler to be right, and it became apparent from his whole behavior that after that he thought that he knew more than the soldiers, so that on the decisive questions of the fight against the Soviet Union he carried his point and would no longer listen to the High, Command of the Army.
DR. LATERNSER: You received the Commissar Order, did you not?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: What attitude did you adopt with reference to that order?
VON MANSTEIN: It was the first time I found myself involved in a conflict between my soldierly conceptions and my duty to obey. Actually I ought to have obeyed, but I said to myself that as a soldier I could not possibly co-operate in a thing like that, and I told the commander of the army group under which I came at the time, as well as the commander of the armored group, that I would not carry out such an order, which was against the honor of a soldier. In practice, the order was not carried out. My divisional commanders, who had already received the order independently from me in the Reich, shared my view and, apart from that, the commissars, as good fighters, defended themselves to the last and in many cases shot themselves before being taken prisoner, or they removed their insignia of rank and could not be identified by the troops. The troops, who inwardly disliked the order intensely, certainly did not look for commissars amongst the prisoners.
DR. LATERNSER: You have just mentioned the commander of your army group and the commander of the armored group. Who were these generals?
VON MANSTEIN: The commander of the army group was Field Marshal Von Leeb, and commanding the armored group was Generaloberst Hoeppner.
DR. LATERNSER: And what was their attitude to this order?
VON MANSTEIN: Field Marshal Von Leeb, as my superior, took cognizance of my report that I would not carry out the order, in other words, he tacitly approved. Generaloberst Hoeppner who, with another general commanding an armored group, called Reinhardt, also raised objection, promised that he would transmit the objections to the High Command of the Army. However, he was not successful.
DR. LATERNSER: How did you reconcile your disobedience in this case with your conception of the military duty to obey?
VON MANSTEIN: In itself military obedience is, of course, unconditional, indivisible, but during wars there have always been cases where higher military leaders did not obey an order or carried it out differently. That is part of the higher responsibility which a high military leader bears. No army leader can be expected to join a battle when he knows he is bound to lose. In these questions, that is to say, operational questions, there is in practice in the final analysis a certain right to deviate from orders given, which, however, must be confirmed by success. In the German Army particularly that independence of lower-ranking leaders has always been strongly emphasized. The situation is quite different in the case of orders which deal with actions on the part of all soldiers. In such cases, disobedience on the part of a small man can be dealt with by means of punishment. If the higher leader, however, has disobeyed orders in such cases, then he undermines not only his own authority but discipline as a whole, and thereby endangers military success. In such cases it is more binding on the higher leader than it is on the soldier and the lower-ranking leader, because he, the higher man, should be an example.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you not undermine discipline by this disobedience of yours?
VON MANSTEIN: No, not in that case, because the troops felt the same as I did. In other words, the soldierly feelings which we had instilled into our troops opposed the political will imposed upon them by Hitler. Apart from that, we were able to refer to the order issued by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army to the effect that the maintenance of the discipline of the men should take preference over everything else.
DR. LATERNSER: How was the military jurisdiction exercised on the basis of the order from the Commander-in-Chief of the Army according to which discipline was to be strictly observed?
VON MANSTEIN: We exercised military jurisdiction as we had to do according to our training, in other words, according to right and law and as decent soldiers. I should like to quote as an example that the first two death sentences with which I had to deal were imposed at the beginning of the Russian campaign on two German soldiers in my corps for the rape of Russian women, and it was the same everywhere.
DR. LATERNSER: Now let us turn to another chapter. What can you say about the treatment of prisoners of war?
VON MANSTEIN: With reference to the treatment of prisoners of war, as far as it came under our jurisdiction, I must say first of all that basically we as soldiers respected every brave enemy, and secondly, that we knew very well from the first World War that any maltreatment of enemy prisoners of war would finally have repercussions upon our own soldiers. As a matter of principle, therefore, we treated prisoners of war in the manner which we had been taught as soldiers, and as we were bound to do in accordance with the laws of warfare.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you yourself ever have knowledge of a violation, and did you ever take any action against wrong treatment?
VON MANSTEIN: Let me say first of all that I have seen many prisoner-oil-war columns on the march. In these columns I have never seen a prisoner of war who had been shot. But on one occasion, when I was commander-in-chief of the army group, I saw a German soldier hitting a prisoner with a stick in order to clear the way for my motor car which was trying to pass the column. I at once stopped and took the man's name, and on the following day I had his commanding officer appear before me and ordered him to punish the man, and I told him personally that the next time he himself would face a court-martial if he permitted such excesses amongst his troops.
DR. LATERNSER: Can you give any explanation for the mass casualties amongst Russian prisoners of war during that first winter?
VON MANSTEIN: My army too had huge numbers of prisoners later on, up to 150,000, and it is of course always difficult to provide suddenly the necessary food and accommodation 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 thus ease the situation. During the large battles of encirclement in 1941 which took place within the Army Group Center and near Kiev, where the prisoners ran into many hundreds of thousands, the situation was different. When the Russian soldiers came out of the encircled areas in which they had held out to the last, they were already half-starved, and in this case, an army with its transportation space cannot possibly bring with it the means to feed 500,000 prisoners at once, and 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 could not be fed properly either.
DR. LATERNSER: To what extent were the commanders-in-chief responsible for prisoners of war?
VON MANSTEIN: We were responsible for prisoners of war as long as they were in the area of our armies, that is to say, until they were handed over to transit camps.
DR. LATERNSER: So that was an entirely temporary state of affairs?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, unless prisoners of war were employed in our army area.
DR. LATERNSER: In cases where the prisoners remained with the army, how were they treated?
VON MANSTEIN: Those prisoners whom we retained in our army areas were required to help in the work we had to do, and for that reason they were, of course, decently treated. After all, every division had about 1,000-sometimes more-prisoners whom we employed as so-called auxiliary volunteers, that is, voluntary helpers. These auxiliary volunteers remained faithful to us and even came along during our retreats, and that certainly would not have been the case if we had treated them badly. I should like to quote another example. When I became Commander-in-Chief of Army Group South I was accompanied only by my own personal staff and had no guard, and for about 8 or 10 days I had only Cossack guards in my house. If we had treated the prisoners badly, they would certainly have killed me.
DR. LATERNSER: Now, in regard to prisoners of war in the Reich, to whom were the camp commanders responsible?
VON MANSTEIN: As far as I know, the camp commanders within the army districts came under a general for prisoners of war, and he in turn was under the Commander of the Reserve Army.
DR. LATERNSER: Who was the Commander of the Reserve Army?
VON MANSTEIN: The Commander of the Reserve Army was, until 1944, Generaloberst Fromm, and after 20 July, it was Himmler.
DR. LATERNSER: Did not the Prisoners of War Organization come under Himmler in 1944?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, I do not know the exact date, but I do know that all prisoners of war were expressly put under Himmler.
DR. LATERNSER: Was large-scale destruction carried out within the areas of your army or army group?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, in the Ukraine particularly, there were very considerable destructions, but we encountered these already when we got there in 1941. All railways had been destroyed, so that in 1943 the waterworks, for instance, were not yet working at full capacity. All communication installations and offices had been destroyed; many industrial plants had been destroyed; for instance, the large dam of Saporoshe, the cement works at Kharkov, the large iron works at Kerch and Mariupol, and the oil industry at Maikop in the Caucasus.
DR. LATERNSER: Were there any special reasons why the devastation in the last war was so great? To what must that be attributed?
VON MANSTEIN: The reason why destruction in the last war was far greater than destruction in previous wars is due to the tactics employed in this last war. In 1941 Stalin, quite lightly from his point of view, ordered his army to fight for every foot of ground. Hitler adopted the same system, and if you force armies to fight to the last for every foot of ground, the villages and the towns are bound to go up in flames and become heaps of rubble. Take, as an example, Sevastopol, which was used as a fortress for 8 months, and finally the town itself was defended. Take Stalingrad, where for weeks one house after another was fought for. Rostov and Kharkov were taken twice by our armies and twice by the Soviet armies during heavy battle. Kiev and Rovno were taken once, and Odessa was taken by the Romanian armies during a battle which lasted for weeks. It was inevitable that these towns should be half destroyed in that fighting.
DR. LATERNSER: And was there not planned destruction too?
VON MANSTEIN: In 1943, during the retreat beyond the Dnieper, I myself saw that planned destruction to a, considerable extent had been carried out by order of Hitler. Hitler had ordered that the territories east of the Dnieper should be made useless for the Russians. There were several detailed orders from him to this effect.
DR. LATERNSER: Was this destruction necessary for the carrying on of the war?
VON MANSTEIN: As far as this retreat beyond the Dnieper is concerned I have to answer that question absolutely in the affirmative. The situation was such that if we could not bring the Soviet armies to a halt at the Dnieper and if they were able to continue their break-through and their advance, the war was lost. The Dnieper had not been fortified. Hitler had forbidden it when we had proposed it earlier. The work had only just begun. There were not sufficient troops to hold the Dnieper line against a heavy attack. If, therefore, the Russian attack could not be halted on account of disrupted Russian lines of supply, it could be assumed that in the autumn of 1943 the fighting in the southern part of the Eastern Front would be decided, and the war in the East would end unfavorably for us. In such cases only the highest leaders could in the last analysis decide what would be achieved operationally by military necessity. The lower leader lacks the ability to judge; he can only see the necessities of his sector and therefore he cannot have the right to reject such decisions.