dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
MR. ROBERTS: "The following must be borne in mind regarding the contents of the order: "In cases where captives are temporarily taken into custody for our own purposes, the persons concerned are to be handed over to the SD by Counterintelligence after a thorough examination in which the SD is also to take part. "Not to be lodged in prisoner-of-war camps under any circumstances. "This order is to take effect subsequently with regard to the people from Norway." The people from Norway were some English Commandos who had blown up a power station in Norway; is not that so?
JODL: That is possible, but I do not know. I have never seen this.
MR. ROBERTS: I think I will be able to remind you later about it. The next document I do not read. It is from somebody called "Dr. Hulle," whom I do not know, and I do not think it adds anything to it. Then the next document-the third in Your Lordships bundle- is dated 9 October and is signed "Warlimont." Is it dated 9 October, Witness?
JODL: Yes.
MR. ROBERTS: Signed Warlimont?
JODL: Signed by Warlimont.
MR. ROBERTS: It sets out the first facts in the first two paragraphs that we know: "The Fuehrer wishes an order to be issued laying down the proper behavior of the Armed Forces. "At the instance of the Armed Forces Operations Staff, the Armed Forces Legal Department has drawn up the draft attached hereto. "You are requested to co-operate in a thorough examination, if necessary, calling in the Reichsfuehrer SS. "We refer to the discussion between Chief of Counterintelligence and the Deputy Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff." Then the next document is the draft order prepared by the Legal Department: "Members of terror and sabotage detachments of the British Armed Forces who demonstrably break the rules of an honorable way of fighting will be treated as bandits: To be exterminated mercilessly in battle or in flight. If in case of military necessity they should be temporarily arrested, or if they fall into German hands outside combat actions, they are to be brought before an officer immediately for interrogation and are then to be handed over to the SD. "Holding them in a prisoner-of-war camp is forbidden. "This order may be distributed only down to armies. From there to the front it must be transmitted only verbally." And did you-do you remember having a conversation on the telephone with the head of the Legal Department about this order?
JODL: No, I do not remember.
MR. ROBERTS: Well, will you look at the next document; it Is dated 14 October. It is in the same bundle, the next page of it-I beg your pardon, it is a memorandum. Now you notice the heading, the original heading was: "Reprisal Actions-Prisoners of War." Somebody struck that out and put instead: "Combating of Enemy Sabotage Detachments." "Memorandum. (Telephone discussion with the Chief of the Armed Forces Legal Department). "The Chief of the Armed Forces Legal Department has spoken with the Chief of the Armed Forces Operations Staff by telephone." That is you, is it not?
JODL: Yes.
MR. ROBERTS: "The latter"-that is you-"said that the Fuehrer's aim in this action was to prevent this manner of waging war (dropping small detachments who do great damage by demolitions and then surrender)." That was the object of the order, was it not?
JODL: Yes, but by using methods contrary to international law.
MR. ROBERTS: Well, that is a matter perhaps neither for you nor me to discuss. But if I might be allowed to ask you this question: Do you draw any distinction between a British airman who bombs a power station from the air and a British parachutist in uniform who is landed and blows it up with an explosive? Do you draw any distinction in international law?
JODL: No. As such, the destruction of an objective by a demolition troop I consider completely admissible under international law; but I do not consider it admissible during such an operation for civilian clothes to be worn under the uniform and armpit pistols to be carried which start firing as soon as the arms are raised in the act of surrender.
MR. ROBERTS: Well, there are two things there, you see, and one answer and I am not going to argue at all with you; but when you consider the case you will find many, many cases where these persons were executed and there is no suggestion they had anything but a uniform at all.
JODL: I believe that these cases were quite rare, that at least these people were mixed with those who wore civilian clothes.
MR. ROBERTS: Well, I am not going to argue with you because there are other documents and they will have to be, perhaps, summarized sometime. But would you agree that a parachutist in uniform, with no civilian clothes, acting like that, if he is killed, shot by the SD, would you agree that that would be murder? Or would you rather not answer that?
JODL: I have already said that if a soldier in full uniform only blows up or destroys an objective, I do not consider it an action contrary to international law; and for that reason I opposed the Commando Order in this form almost to the last moment...
MR. ROBERTS: I hear your answer and I will not pursue that matter. Then the document goes on-I do not want to read it all: "The Chief of the Armed Forces Legal Department spoke to the effect that under these circumstances one should consider issuing an order fit for publication. Article 23c of the Hague Land Warfare Regulations, which forbids the killing or wounding of an enemy who lays down his arms or is unarmed, if he surrenders unconditionally, had to be explained; when the Land Warfare Regulations were concluded this manner of waging war was not yet known and the regulation therefore could not apply to this." Well now, that was the first bundle. Now I want to put you a...
JODL: I should like to make a brief comment on this document. I have not seen any of these papers before; I am now seeing them for the first time; but they prove, word for word, what I said here the day before yesterday under oath, that on their own initiative, the members of my staff, as they heard that the Fuehrer had demanded an executive order, began preparatory work for the draft of such an order with the Legal Department and with the Foreign Department, but that I did not accept and did not submit any order to the Fuehrer.
MR. ROBERTS: Well now, I want to put to you another document, 1265-PS. My Lord, I offer it as GB-487. Now the first document in the bundle is a teletype dated 13 October and it is signed by Canaris. Is that right, Witness?
JODL: Yes, a teletype message from Canaris.
MR. ROBERTS: Yes, and it is a teletype to the OPS Staff. The subject is "Treatment of Prisoners of War." "Regarding discussions and measures in pursuance of OKW's announcement of 17 October 1942 the following general attitude is taken:" Number 1 does not matter; it is about chaining. Number 2 is the important one: "Treatment of Sabotage Units: Sabotage units in uniform are soldiers and have the right to be treated as prisoners of war. Sabotage units in civilian clothes or German uniform have no claim to treatment as prisoners of war ( francs-tireurs )." You agree, of course, with the correctness of that, do you not? The rest of that document does not matter. You agree, do you not, with that opinion in Paragraph 2, as a man who knows international law?
JODL: Yes, I agree with Paragraph 2; it corresponds entirely with my opinion; it agrees completely with my point of view.
MR. ROBERTS: And now the next document. If you go to the-if the Tribunal would kindly go to the last document of the three; and would you go to the document which is headed, "Telephone call; Reference: Letter Ausland Abwehr of 13. 10. 42." My Lord, that is the one I have just read. "Opinion of the Armed Forces Legal Department"-Paragraph 2, that is referring to Canaris' opinion-"Fundamentally in agreement. "It may, however, be possible to support the following train of thought with regard to special cases: "Fighting methods such as exist now and such as it is intended to prevent came about long after the creation of the Hague Regulations for Land Warfare, in particular as a result of war in the air. Special attention is drawn to the mass use of parachutists for purposes of sabotage. Anyone who commits acts of sabotage as a soldier with the intention of surrendering after the act of sabotage without fighting does not act like an honest fighter. He misuses Article 23c of the Hague Regulations for Land Warfare during the formulation of which no such methods were contemplated. The misuse lies in the speculation on surrender without fighting after successful completion of the act of sabotage. "This view regarding the inadmissibility of sabotage Commandos can be backed up without reservation provided we also apply it to ourselves." That document has your initial on the top, Witness? Is that right?
JODL: I have read this document. It contains a statement on international law by the Armed Forces Legal Department, which on this point agrees with the Fuehrer's opinion. It actually confirms the possibility that a misuse of international law may be committed by surrendering immediately after an action and thus securing for oneself complete absence of danger in the conduct of a war operation. That interpretation is disputable; I do not fully approve of it, but it was the view of the highest legal authority at that time.
MR. ROBERTS: Many, many brave soldiers, when they are outnumbered, surrender, do they not? Many Germans surrendered at Bizerte and Tunis, thousands of them. How did that put them outside the pale of international law or the protection of it?
JODL: But they were soldiers captured in the normal manner of war, which the Fuehrer always recognized. This is a disputable case and very doubtful under international law, but, as I said, it is not an idea of mine and has nothing to do with me; I only took note of it.
MR. ROBERTS: Very good. My Lord, the intermediate document is a letter signed "Lehmann," who was head of the Legal Department. It merely confirms the telephone conversation which I have read, and I do not think it is necessary to read it again. It is before the defendant. [Turning to the defendant.] Well now, the last of these documents before the order was finally drawn up and issued, the Court has already seen, because it was put in. It is 1263-PS, RF-365, My Lord, it was in Jodl's Document Book Number 2, Page 104. Will you look at the original, please. There is an unfortunate omission from Page 110 in Dr. Exner's book, which I am perfectly certain is quite inadvertent. Will you look at the document dated 15 October 1942? My Lord, I think that is the first in your bundle. It is Page 110. It is first in the single documents. It is Page 110 of Dr. Exner's book, and I apologize to him because I have just seen the marginal writing. It was covered over before, and I had not seen it. I apologize. My Lord, the... It is a note, is it not, Witness, signed Warlimont, your deputy, 15 October. I think you will find it the second document in your file. I do not want to read it all again because it has been read, but you see: "The Proposal of the Amt Ausland Abwehr will be submitted as Appendix 1." The Tribunal will find Appendix 1, in which he says-in which it is suggested, under letter "A," that sabotage troops who do not wear uniforms should be court-martialed. You have said "no." You have given your reasons. I will not worry you about that any more. And then "B"; members of sabotage units who are in uniform but are guilty of dishonorable activities are after capture to be put into special confinement. Do you say that that does not go either? And then, if you will go back to 15 October, just the second paragraph down: "The Chief of WR"-that is the Legal Department-"has made a statement to the effect that the order was to be drawn up in such a way that it will take into account our own interests . . ." Is it `'our own interests," Witness? "Take into account our own interests"?
JODL: Yes, "our own interests."
MR. ROBERTS: ". . . our own interests while considering the future conduct of the war. In this way he wanted to avoid repercussions which would run counter to our further intentions. Sabotage is an essential part of conducting war in time of total warfare; we ourselves have strongly developed this method of fighting." And you write against that, do you, "But the English make much more use of it"?
JODL: Yes, it is an undeniable fact that at that time of the war the English made much more use of it than we.
MR. ROBERTS: Is that a reason for making a law, an order of this kind, to try and discourage the English from using sabotage detachments?
JODL: No, that is certainly not a reason. It is only a denial of the statement that we had strongly developed this method of fighting; hence my remark, "Yes, but the English to a much greater extent than we." That, of course, has nothing at all to do with the reason for the order.
MR. ROBERTS: Then I am not going to take more time on that particular document, except-have you got a document dated 14 October with 1, 2, 3, 4 at the end? I think it is on a separate page, the 1, 2, 3, 4.
JODL: Yes.
MR. ROBERTS: It says: "With the view in mind-to prevent the enemy's fighting the war by using sabotage troops-following questions have to be clarified before formulating an order: "1) Have we ourselves the intention of dropping sabotage units in the zone of rear echelons of the enemy, or also far back in the interior? "2) Who will drop more sabotage troops, the enemy or we? "3) Can we establish the principle: Sabotage troops do not conduct legal war; they are to be exterminated in the fighting without mercy? "4) Do we attach importance to first arresting the single members of this group for interrogation by Counterintelligence and not killing them immediately?" These were the considerations which were discussed in your office before the orders were drawn up.
JODL: These were questions-not points of view-questions which were raised in the Armed Forces Operations Staff as a result of the Armed Forces communiqué. Fortunately, the submission of all these documents proves the complete correctness of everything I said here 2 days ago. The staff, the Legal Department, and the Ausland department racked their brains and pondered how they could draw up the executive order implementing the Fuehrer's additions to the Wehrmacht communiqué. Neither they nor I came to any conclusion, and no proposal was made to the Fuehrer; nothing was done. That is what I stated here the day before yesterday, and that is what, fortunately, you yourself have proved by submitting these documents.
MR. ROBERTS: You have said, I think, that part of the Fuehrer's order disgusted you?
JODL: Yes.
MR. ROBERTS: And you have said in your interrogation that circulating this order was one of the things which went against your inner conscience-one of the few things. "Your inner convictions"- to use your actual words.
JODL: In the preliminary interrogation I said that it was one of the few-or the only-order I received from the Fuehrer which I, in my own mind, completely rejected.
MR. ROBERTS: You rejected it, but these young men went on being shot, did they not?
JODL: I have already described exactly how the commanding generals at the front, vigorously supported by me, interpreted this order in the mildest imaginable way in practice; actually, only very few such incidents occurred, and I believe that most-at any rate, nearly all that came to my knowledge-were highly justified, because the fighting methods of those people were not methods of honest soldiers.
MR. ROBERTS: You see, you talk about your "inner convictions." I think Keitel spoke about his "inner conscience." But should we have heard anything about these convictions and this conscience if Germany had not lost the war?
JODL: No, but then we might have heard of the strangled at .Dieppe in a similar trial.
MR. ROBERTS: It is very late and-now, I just want to deal with a few examples, very very quickly, of the order being carried out, as you said it was only carried out a few times. I just, first of all, want to refer to UK-57, which is Page 309 of Document Book 7, the German copy Page 33-German copy Page 344. I am sorry, I had given you the wrong number. I can read this out. It is a report which is initialed by Keitel. "On 16 September 1942"-mark the date, that is more than a month before the Commando Order came into force-"10 Englishmen and 2 Norwegians landed on the Norwegian coast, dressed in the uniform of the British Mountain Rifle Regiment, heavily armed and equipped with explosives of every description. After negotiating difficult mountain country, they blew up important installations in the power station Glomfjord on 21 September. A German sentry was shot during the incident. Norwegian workmen were threatened that they would be chloroformed if they resisted. For this purpose the Englishmen were equipped with morphium syringes. Seven of the participants have been arrested. The others escaped into Sweden." Then follow seven names, which I read out to this Court, I think, in January. They were shot on 30 October 1942. That would be, shot as a result of the order which you circulated, although it was not in existence when those men blew up that power station. You told me some little time ago that that power station was a proper military target. These men were in uniform. Can you begin to justify that?
JODL: No, I cannot justify that, and I will not justify it. I consider it completely illegal, because this order could certainly not have been retroactive; but I did not learn of this affair at the time. Of UK-57 I read the first and second parts here for the first time; the third part I read in April 1944.
MR. ROBERTS: Well, now, there are other exhibits dealing with this matter which I am not going to put to you. They have been referred to before, and I do not want to be cumulative. I would like you-or perhaps I will ask you one question first. I think it was laid down, was it not, that every action taken under this Fuehrer Order was to be reported in the Wehrmacht report?
JODL: Yes, that was ordered.
MR. ROBERTS: Yes, I just want to give you an example of the Wehrmacht report. 526-PS, USA-502, My Lord, it is 7a, Page 15. It is dated 10 May 1943, German Page 21 of the small book. [Turning to the defendant.] It is a notice from the "Q" branch of your staff. "On 30 March 1943 in Toftefiord an enemy cutter was sighted. Cutter was blown up by enemy. Crew; 2 dead men, 10 prisoners. "Cutter was sent from Scalloway (Shetlands) by the Norwegian Navy. "Arms: Two Colt machine guns, two mounted machine guns, a small transmitter...1,000 kilograms of explosives.... "Purpose: Forming an organization for sabotaging strongpoints, battery positions, staff and troop billets, and bridges.... "Fuehrer order executed by the SD. "Wehrmacht report of 6 April announces the following: "In northern Norway an enemy sabotage unit was engaged and destroyed on approaching the coast." That was false, was it not?
JODL: I confirmed this communiqué of 6 April which included the contribution from the commander in Norway as I received it on 6 April; this brief formulation always originated with the commander at the front. But what actually happened is set down in this note of 10 May which, Most unfortunately, I never saw, because on 10 May 1943 I traveled by train to Bad Gastein to begin a cure for a severe case of lumbago; and so, unfortunately, I saw this document for the first time here in Nuremberg. I am sorry, because this would have been one of the few cases in which I might have been able to intervene.
MR. ROBERTS: Yes, but, Witness-keep it in front of you- because you see the action was not taken on 10 May; it was taken before, or on 6 April. Look at the last paragraph: "Wehrmacht report of 6 April announces the following: ". . . enemy sabotage unit engaged and destroyed on approaching the coast." Whereas, in fact, they had been taken prisoner and then shot like dogs by the SD.
JODL: Yes, I have just said that. Before this contribution of 6 April, I heard nothing about the whole matter, but only on the 10th of May did it come to our knowledge, and then the Armed Forces Operations Staff drew up this note. The whole investigation into these events was made by the Intelligence Service, the office of Canaris, together with its Security Police; it was not the SD; that is wrong; it was the Security Police. Unfortunately I did not know of these details; the Intelligence Service knew them. I was concerned with the whole question only because I had to edit the Armed Forces communiqué; otherwise I would never have dealt with the Commando Order, I was quite innocent of it.
MR. ROBERTS: Now I just want to show you one more instance. It is 2610-PS. It is, My Lord, in small Document Book 7a, Page 23, the German small book Page 41. Now, I want you to notice, Witness, this is the only document which I rely on, which is not one of your own captured contemporaneous German documents. This is a report from the Judge Advocate General's Department, United States Army. It concerns 15 United States personnel who were shot under this order. You look at the second page: "On the night of 22 March 1944, 2 officers and 13 enlisted men of the Special Reconnaissance Battalion of the Army of the United States disembarked from some United States Navy boats and landed on the Italian coast near Stazione di Framura. All 15 men were members of the United States Army and, were in the military service of the United States. When they landed they were all properly dressed in the field uniform of the United States Army and they had no civilian clothes. Their mission was to demolish a railroad tunnel on the main line between La Spezia and Genoa. That rail line was being used by the German Forces to supply their fighting forces on the Cassino and Anzio Beachhead fronts." That was a good military target, that tunnel, was it not? JODL: Yes, a military target, absolutely.
MR. ROBERTS: And all 15 men were shot because of the order that you circulated...
JODL: I did not understand. The order which-which I circulated; yes.
MR. ROBERTS: Which you circulated on the 19th of October You circulated a supplementary order to the Fuehrer Order, the last paragraph of which, I thinly, disgusted you. That is 503-PS.
JODL: It would be more correct to say "which you had to circulate."
MR. ROBERTS: I will take that question up in a moment. I do not agree. I must not argue with you, but I must put some questions. General Dostler, who ordered the shooting of those men, he himself, you see, was also shot by sentence of this court martial I am going to turn now from the Commando Order and...
JODL: May I say something else about this document?
MR. ROBERTS: Yes, anything you like.
JODL: This incident never came to my knowledge; at least, I have no recollection of it. As far as I know' it never appeared in the Armed Forces communiqué, because General Dostler did not report the incident to his commanding officer, Kesselring, who might have been able to take, and might have taken, a different course in this affair.
MR. ROBERTS: Why do you say that you had to circulate this order? No man can compel another to circulate an order for murder, unless he does it.
JODL: I have explained at length that this order could not simply be interpreted as an order to murder, but that very serious and justified doubts and considerations could arise with regard to international law and with regard to the justness of this order. In any case, you should have complete appreciation of such a delicate situation, because even now, in my position here, I cannot say or do as I like, and that exactly is what I experienced during these last 51/~ years.