dtufail/nuremberg-trials-corpus huggingface dataset:
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You have just stated that the Red Army widely used the civilian population for constructing anti-tank ditches, et cetera. I want to explain that to you. That was really so, because the whole Soviet people, including of course, the Soviet women, participated in all possible actions against the Fascist in-vaders; but give me an illustration, just one illustration, of the Red Army utilizing German women for purposes of this kind.
VON MANSTEIN: I cannot give you an instance from the war.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Because there were none; but this decree of Hitler talks of utilizing Soviet women for erecting defense con-structions for German forces. That is what I am speaking about. Now we will go on to another question. Did you know that in May 1944 a special conference of generals was held in Sonthofen on the subject of National Socialist education of the army units?
VON MANSTEIN: In May 1944 1 was no longer in service, and therefore did not hear anything about this conference.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You never heard anything about the conference?
VON MANSTEIN: I did not hear anything about that confer-ence, no. .GEN. ALEXANDROV: I should like to mention one fact in con-nection with that conference. You probably know that at that conference the Defendant Keitel, among others, stated as follows: "Any officers who express doubts about victory or who criticize the Fuehrer I shall have shot."
THE PRESIDENT: The witness says he knows nothing about it. Is this a new document you've got or not? Is it some new document?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: No. We do have a document on which I think it is necessary to ask the witness some questions, but we are not submitting this document immediately, because we have only just received it and it has not yet been translated. It is an affidavit by Lieutenant General Vincent Mueller of the German Army, in which he mentions Keitel's remark at this conference. If the Tribunal considers it necessary, this document will be put in at the end of this afternoon's session, or at the latest tomorrow morning.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, all I mean is this: If you aren't putting in the document and the witness says he wasn't at the conference and never heard of the conference, I don't think you can put to him what was stated at the conference in order to get that in evidence.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I understand, Mr. President. In that case I will ask another question. [Turning to the witness.] Witness, are you aware that the High Command of the German Navy suggested a plan for the invasion of Norway already in October 1939? Were you aware of that?
VON MANSTEIN: No. I knew nothing about that. I heard of the entire Norwegian affair only when it had become an ac-complished fact. I learned the details only from the Indictment, before that I did not hear a word about it.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: What do you know about the plan for an operation under the code name "Jolka"?
VON MANSTEIN: I did not understand the code name.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Under the code name "Jolka" -- that means "Christmas Tree" in English or "Tannenbaum" in German.
VON MANSTEIN: Tannenbaum? No, it does not convey any-thing to me; I do not know.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I shall point out to you a few details relating to the plan. In the middle of July 1940, after the armistice with France, the chief of the German General Staff, General Halder, visited Von Leeb's Army Group Headquarters in Dijon. General Halder told Von Leeb to prepare a plan for the occupation of Switzerland, taking into consideration the fact that the Swiss would resist. This plan was worked out under a code name and submitted to the OKH. Do you know anything about it?
VON MANSTEIN: No, I was commanding general at the time, and in the summer I was transferred to the Channel Coast. I heard nothing about this plan.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You frequently emphasized here in your answers that the war against the Soviet Union was a "special war," and that you, as other German generals, acted only as soldiers, and that the so-called "ideological war" was conducted by 11itler and his colleagues. Did I understand that correctly?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: My American colleague reminded you yesterday about your own decree in which you spoke about the an-nihilation of the Soviet political system and other measures to be taken in the occupied territories. You also stated that you were aware of the decree of Field Marshal Von Reichenau about the conduct of the troops in the East. Witness, was such a decree, in your opinion, prompted by a military sense of duty, or by any other consideration?
VON MANSTEIN: No, it was certainly issued only out of a military sense of duty. In connection with this, I should like to add that these ideas were appearing in every newspaper and were, of course, promoted by higher authorities. They certainly did not originate with us. We, together with our soldiers, conducted the war in a military manner.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Do you not think that such decrees can only be explained by the fact that their authors were not generals brought up in the military tradition, but in the Hitlerite tradition?
VON MANSTEIN: I did not quite understand that. May I ask you to explain the meaning of the question again.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: I will repeat it. Do you not think that such decrees, political decrees really -- I mean the order issued by Reichenau --do you not think that such decrees can only be ex-plained by the fact that their authors were not generals brought up in the military tradition, but generals brought up in the Hitlerite tradition?
VON MANSTEIN: I can only speak for myself, for my own order. That I personally was nothing more than a soldier, to that I think every one of my subordinates and my superiors can testify. I was not a political general, nor was 1, shall we say, a National Socialist general in the sense in which you mean it. This order was a consequence of the growing danger of the partisans, and of the necessity to make it clear to our soldiers that they could not afford to be so careless, and that they must be aware that the fight on both sides was an ideological fight. The order itself is composed of two entirely different parts. Part One, which deals with the necessity of safeguarding the rear against attack, et cetera, and with the alertness of the soldiers, contains some ideas about the meaning of this struggle. When the order speaks of the extermination of the system, then it means the political system, and not human beings, it means exactly what is today meant when the other side speaks of the extermination of National Socialism. Part Two I would say contains my own ideas, it states what has to be done positively, and it also states quite clearly that the soldiers must avoid all arbitrary action, and that any violation of soldierly honor will be punished. I believe that this order is evidence of the fact that I 6onducted the light as a soldier, and not as a politician.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: What you were during the war is best shown by your own decree, and the Tribunal will be able to judge it. My last question. Did you know what measures the High Com-mand of the Armed Forces initiated for the purpose of conducting biological warfare?
VON MANSTEIN: Biological warfare? I do not know at the moment what you mean by the expression "biological warfare." Would you explain that, please?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: The use of various types of dangerous bacteria in warfare. That is what I mean by "biological warfare."
VON MANSTEIN: No. I knew nothing about it. I have never heard of a bacteriological war or of poison warfare.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: You will now be shown several details of this plan for biological warfare, and you may then be able to recall it. I am submitting to the Tribunal Document USSR-510, which consists of the affidavit of the former Major General and Professor of the Military Medical Academy in Berlin, Walter Schreiber. I am reading it into the record. "In connection with the Trial of the Major War Criminals in Nuremberg, 1, as Professor of Hygiene and Bacteriology of the Military Medical Academy in Berlin and former Major General of the Medical Corps of the German Army, consider it my duty to our people who have undergone such severe trials and to the whole world, to disclose one more page of Germany's preparation for war which has not been touched upon in Nuremberg. Aside from the former political and military leadership of Germany a large part of the guilt is borne by German scientists and particularly by German doctors. Had that type of weapon which was being prepared been used, it would have meant putting to a shameful and evil use the great discoveries of Robert Koch, whose native country was Germany and who was a great teacher..."
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, counsel for the Defense, would like to say something. DR. HANS LATERNSER (Counsel for General Staff and High Command of the German Armed Forces): I should like to raise an objection. On looking through the document, I have discovered that the author of this affidavit is raising particularly grave accusations.  -I do not know against whom these accusations are directed, but I should like to ask that the author of this document appear as a. witness, so that I may cross-examine him.
THE PRESIDENT: Where is he?
GEN.ALEXANDROV: I can answer that, Mr. President. The former Major General Walter Schreiber is now in the Soviet Union_ as a prisoner of war. If the Tribunal think it necessary to have Walter Schreiber testify here as a witness, the Prosecution will not object.
DR. LATERNSER: I think that if he is making such a serious allegation he should appear here in person.
THE PRESIDENT: General Alexandrov, could you inform the Tribunal how long it would take to get this witness Schreiber brought here for the purpose of cross-examination?
GEN. ALEXANDROV: We shall take all steps to get the witness  here in the shortest possible time, but I cannot guarantee that or state a number of days, since the distance is rather great. I would like the Tribunal to take this into consideration. However, regard-less of whether the witness is going to be brought here or not, I request the permission of the Tribunal to have this document pre-sented in this cross-examination.
DR. LATERNSER: May I be allowed to reply to that?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser, you can make your objections, if you wish to do so now, and then the Tribunal will consider the matter when they adjourn. We don't propose to allow the document to be presented now at the moment. We will consider the matter when we adjourn.
DR. LATERNSER: I request that the Tribunal decide that the document must not be read until Walter Schreiber can appear here as a witness.
THE PRESIDENT: Your application is that the document should -not be admitted unless the witness is brought here for further examination?
DR. LATERNSER: I should like to go even further, Mr. President, and apply that the document should not be admitted at all, since the witness is now going to be produced by the Prosecution, and- can then state these facts under oath.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: Mr. President, may I oppose the ap-plication of the defense. It seems to me that the affidavit of Walter Schreiber could and should be read during the cross-examination of the witness Von Manstein, regardless of whether Walter Schreiber will or will not appear here as a witness. A photostat of his affi-davit is before the Tribunal; it is certified by the Extraordinary State Commission, which is the plenipotentiary of the Soviet Gov-ernment. Therefore, regardless of what the Tribunal may decide about calling Walter Schreiber as a witness, I insist that the docu-ment, which I put in as USSR-510, be accepted by the Tribunal and that I be given an opportunity of reading it into the record during the present cross-examination.
THE PRESIDENT: No, General Alexandrov; the Tribunal has said that they will not admit the document at this stage. We propose to adjourn at 11:30 and will then consider the application. I observe that the affidavit was made in April 1946 and there was plenty of time to bring the witness here.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: The question of bringing the witness here has never had to be considered up to now. If the Tribunal commands me not to use the document, I shall not be able to ask the witness the questions which arise out of the affidavit of Walter Schreiber. Moreover, I shall thereby be prevented from putting questions on Walter Schreiber's affidavit at another stage of this Trial.
THE PRESIDENT: General Alexandrov, you will be able to ask him the question after the Tribunal has decided upon the admissi-bility of the document; that is to say, if it is decided as to its admis-sibility, can you not ask him then? But he has already said he knows nothing of biological warfare.
GEN. ALEXANDROV: He does not know what is in the affidavit of Dr. Schreiber. I have no further questions at the moment, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Is there any further cross-examination?
DR. LATERNSER: Field Marshal, you were questioned about the order, or alleged order, by Quartermaster General Wagner, which prohibited the feeding of prisoners of war from supplies of the Armed Forces. I would like to ask you, do you know that Generaloberst Halder, during a visit to the front on the occasion of a conference at Orsha, actually ordered that the food supplies to the troops should be cut so that prisoners of war could be better fed?
VON MANSTEIN: That is not known to me, because it did not take place in my area. I do know that in the winter of 1941-42 1 had to reduce the rations for my army in the Crimea since supplies from home did not arrive in sufficient quantity on account of the shortage of railroad transportation, and also since we could not completely strip the country of all food reserves to feed the popu-lation and the prisoners. As far as I can recollect, we reduced the meat ration at that time, and I know that I expressly prohibited that the one cow which would have remained the farmer's own property even under the Soviet Government should be taken away from him, even though the army needed the meat. I also remember that when the food situation became critical at times during that winter, we sent flour down to the South coast, although hundreds, in fact thousands, of horses belonging to our army on the South coast perished at that time because the lack of transport space prevented us from bringing hay and straw for them.
DR. IATERNSER: The order USSR-155 was submitted to you. Who signed that order?
VON MANSTEIN: I do not know which one you mean, USSR...
DR. LATERNSER: I mean Document Number USSR-115.
VON MANSTEIN: I do not have the number.
THE PRESIDENT: We can see for ourselves by whom it is signed.
DR. LATERNSER: I merely want to know by whom it is signed.
VON MANSTEIN: Oh, yes, I see; it is signed by Adolf Hitler.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes, that is the order. You were questioned with regard to Figure 2 g. It says there that "the land should be made useless and uninhabitable." Do you know, Field Marshal, if that was actually carried out?
VON MANSTEIN: I cannot give information about the Kuban district, because I was not there, and it did not belong to my area.
DR. LATERNSER: Were explosives, mines, and troops available in large numbers at that time, that is, in 1943?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, of course we had mines and explosives, but they were certainly not sufficient for such purposes.
DR. LATERNSER: Were not these supplies very short at that time, in 1943?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, at any rate we never had enough mines to lay mine fields in sufficient numbers ahead of our positions.
DR. LATERNSER: The Russian Prosecutor went on to ask you about Number 3 c, about the ruthless conscription of the civilian population, particularly the women. You did not answer the ques-tion of the Russian Prosecutor, whether you had ever heard that similar or other measures of force were applied to German women?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes. I know that that happened during the war, but even now women are conscripted for all sorts of work. My wife, for example, has been put to work collecting potato beetles.
DR.LATERNSER: I mean, what happened in East Prussia in 1944?
VON MANSTEIN: I cannot say that from my own observation, as I was not there, but I am sure that the civilian population had nothing to laugh about.
DR. LATERNSER: The American Prosecution submitted to you Document Number C-52, Exhibit Number GB-485. Will you please once more look at Figure 6. Is this a directive or an order?
VON MANSTEIN: That is a directive, but not an order.
DR. LATERNSER: So that, if "draconian measures," as this directive says, were to be enforced, orders to that effect from the commanding generals were necessary?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, of course, it was said that they were not to ask for security forces but to find a means themselves by taking draconian measures; and so further orders from the commanders were necessary.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you know of any orders which were issued on the basis of this Figure 6?
VON MANSTEIN: No, I do not recall any order issued on the basis of that paragraph.
DR. LATERNSER: Now, I have one question regarding Docu-ment Number 447-PS. Please look at Page 2, 2b. Does not Figure 2b show, first, that the Reichsfuehrer SS was given special tasks in the operational zone, and secondly, that in discharging -these tasks he acted independently and on his own responsibility?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, the order says so quite clearly:
DR. LATERNSER: Then it follows that the special action groups, the Einsatzgruppen, were not 'tactically under the commanding generals?
VON MANSTEIN: No, tactically they were, at most, under the local commanders, for instance in the fight against the partisans or in the battle zone at the front, but in any case as far as their police tasks were concerned they certainly were not under them.
DR. LATERNSER: Document Number R-102 was also submitted to you-that is a Top Secret matter. What does that mean?
VON AL4-NSTEIN: A Top Secret matter is, I think, an order or a directive or an announcement which is issued only to the highest authorities in the Reich or to certain specified persons, and which is not allowed to be generally known.
DR. IATERNSER: Is the distribution indicated on this document?
VON MANSTEIN: No, it should be noted at the end, but it is not.
DR. LATERNSER: So you cannot determine if this document also went to offices of the Army?
VON MANSTEIN: No, that cannot be determined, but quite cer-tainly it did not go to offices of the Army, because we never received such reports.
DR.LATERNSER: During your examination last Saturday, you said that you were convinced that the other commanding generals would also have taken steps against mass executions, had they been reported to them?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, naturally.
DR. LATERNSER: Is it known to you that when Field Marshal Von Kuechler, during the Polish campaign, heard of the execution of Jews, he used every means at his disposal to prevent it?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, I heard of that here in Nuremberg. I did not know of it at the time.
DR. LATERNSER: It is known to you that the mayor of Marinka, who was a racial German, was sentenced to death by court-martial for a crime against a Jewish woman? '
VON MANSTEIN: I cannot recollect that. I do not know either whether it happened in my area; if it had, been in my area, it would have been reported to me, but I cannot remember it.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you know that General Von Knobelsdorff, an officer also affected by the Indictment, had an SS leader arrested because he wanted to carry out executions?
VON MANSTEIN: Of that I also heard here. I did not know anything about the executions at that time.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you know of any other cases in which the commanding generals took steps against particularly outrageous arbitrary actions?
VON MANSTEIN: I know, for example, that Generaloberst Blaskowitz, who succeeded Field Marshal Von Rundstedt as com-mander in the East, that is, in occupied Poland, protested and raised objections against the conduct of the Police in the Government General, and that there was some sort of a row about it, whereupon he was relieved.
DR. LATERNSER: Now, I come to the last point. Regarding the subordination of the Einsatzgruppen, the American Prosecution referred to Affidavit Number 12 of Schellenberg, Exhibit USA-557. You do not consider that affidavit correct, I believe, because in practice the facts did not correspond to what is said in the affidavit, is not that so?
VON MANSTEIN: Do you mean the one in which Schellenberg speaks about the agreement with the Quartermaster General?
DR. LATERNSER: Yes.
VON MANSTEIN: The subordination mentioned in that affi-davit does not by any means give a picture of the situation in practice, nor can I imagine that that was the agreement made by Wagner. As I said, there were two types of subordination, the tactical subordination for fighting, and the economic subordination for supplies, accommodations, et cetera. There were those two types of subordination, but the tactical subordination, as I said, only applied in battle conditions. Then there was a third possibility, subordination for military service, troop training, and so forth, but that certainly never applied in practice.
DR. LATERNSER: I shall now read to you the affidavit, which I propose to introduce as evidence shortly, from Generalrichter Mantel, who, fortunately, had discussed just that point with General Wagner, and after reading it, I should like to ask you whether the contents of the affidavit correspond with the facts in practice. He states: "Shortly before the beginning of the Russian campaign, I temporarily participated at the headquarters of the OKH -in a conference which Quartermaster General Wagner was having with the chief quartermasters of the armies in the East. Among other things, Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos of the Security Service in the operational zones of the Army were discussed on that occasion, and it was clearly stated that they would receive instructions for their activities exclusively from the Reichsfuehrer SS, and that the command auth6rities -of the Army had no jurisdiction over them from the point of view of discipline and service, although economically speaking they might be attached to the Army." I now want to ask you: Do the contents of this affidavit in regard to the Einsatzgruppen and their subordination correspond to the facts in practice?
VON MANSTEIN: In the statement of Ohlendorf it is pointed out that Himmler gave his orders to the Einsatzgruppen, for in-stance at Nikolaiev, orally and only directly to them; and that Army agencies did not hear anything about them becomes apparent from the following, which I heard afterwards here in Nuremberg: Even though Himmler was at that time in Nikolaiev where the army command, then under General Von Schobert, was situated, he did not visit the army command, although he was well acquainted with Schobert. That shows that he intentionally refrained from mention-ing his plan.
DR. LATERNSER: Thank you. I have no further questions to the witness.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn. [A recess was taken.]
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Dodd, the Tribunal would like to hear the submission of the Prosecution with reference to Dr. Sauter's application.