The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

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Q. To whom was a Waffen SS division subordinate, when it was
not engaged in a tactical task? That is, when it was neither
in battle nor in an operational area?

A. In any event, not the Army. It was subordinate to the
Waffenfuehrer SS or to the OKW.

Q. And to whom was it subordinate in the home area?

                                                   [Page 32]

A. To the Reichsfuehrer SS.

Q. Was the Waffen SS paid out of the budget of the
Wehrmacht?

A. Certainly not from the budget of the Army.

Q. And the budgets of the Luftwaffe and the Navy would be
even less concerned?

A. Just a little, I think. As far as I know, the SS not only
had its own budget but it also had its own armament clothing
and administrative departments, etc.

Q. Therefore, between a Waffen SS division and the Wehrmacht
there was  only a close and tactical contact when this
Waffen SS division was actually in  combat?

A. It was under the Army the moment it was used in an
operational area, or when, in order to be moved up, it was
placed at the Army's disposal.

Q. Would it be a good comparison if I were to, say that
between a Waffen SS division and the Army no closer
connection existed than if, for instance, an Italian or
Spanish division had been subordinate to the Army for a
battle?

A. That would have been similar.

Q. In general, what was the relationship of the leadership
of the Waffen SS to that of the Army, Luftwaffe or Navy? Was
it a particularly harmonious one?

A. Under battle conditions, yes; otherwise there was little
connection.

Q. Field-Marshal, can you give us the circumstances under
which Hitler issued the notorious Commissar Order?

A. In March, 1941, Hitler had summoned the military leaders,
and in a rather lengthy address he once more stated that the
reasons for the attitude to be adopted towards Russia were
these: that it was a battle which was of an ideological
nature which could not be fought with the chivalrous methods
to which the Army was accustomed. He knew that the officers
could not make this opinion their own, but he was demanding
the unconditional execution of the orders he issued. And in
connection with this he issued the order dealing with the
treatment to be given to the Commissars.

Q. What did you do in order to prevent the carrying out of
this order and to prevent excesses on the part of the troops
in the East?

A. At the conclusion of the conference, after Hitler had
left, some of the Commanders-in-Chief came to me, and I
remember particularly well that the Commanders-in-Chief of
the three army groups, Field-Marshal von Rundstedt, Field-
Marshal von Bock, and Field-Marshal von Leeb, as well as
another group of army Commanders, came to me and in an
excited manner expressed themselves to the effect that such
a way of waging war was intolerable to them. I agreed with
their point of view and told them that as far as the OKH was
concerned no order like that would be issued. I would first
have to think things over as to what steps I might take.

In the meantime, I had come to know Hitler well enough to
know that once he had reached a decision and, as in this
case, had made it public, that is, had told it to the
military leadership, from then on he would under no
circumstances be dissuaded from this decision. I knew also
that I had to give a pretext to the Army not to adhere to
this order. For this reason I issued an order dealing with
the maintenance of discipline.

Q. And what was the approximate wording of this order on
discipline?

A. It is not possible for me to give you the exact wording.
The substance of the order, however, was as follows:

  Discipline in the Army was to be strictly observed, along
  the lines and regulations that applied in the past.
  
  The attitude towards the population was to remain correct
  in every way, and any excesses were to be punished.

Q. Would an open refusal have been successful with Hitler,
or your threatened resignation?

A. As I have already said, no.

                                                   [Page 33]

Q. Now, one more question dealing with the Eastern campaign.
Did the German Army, in 1941, in its push through Russia,
find considerable destruction which the Soviet Army had
itself caused when it retreated?

A. The situation was quite as we expected it to be. The lack
of consideration of Russia for her own country, in such
circumstances, was well known for a century past. There were
numerous bridges and railways which had been destroyed;
power plants and factories too. The mines in the Donetz
Basin were damaged in such a way that even though we worked
for months they could hardly be used by us. In the cities we
met special detachments of young Russian troops, who had
partly carried out their task of burning the villages.

In Kiev and other places we found delayed action mines which
had been prepared by them, which caused us considerable
loss.

Q. Before the entry of Italy into the war, or before the
declaration of war on America, were you advised of it in
advance?

A. No. We regretted both incidents very much.

Q. Were military agreements with Japan known to you?

A. I do not even know them today.

Q. The records dealing with the testimony of Gisevius are
known to you through the fact that I gave them to you for
your perusal. Do you know the witness Gisevius?

A. In April, 1946, I learned of the existence of Herr
Gisevius for the first time from the newspapers. In the
papers I read that he was to appear here as a witness. I
would have overlooked it, if the name had not struck me as
familiar, for a Dr. Gisevius was my parents' physician in
the 90's.

Q. But the witness gave various and quite detailed
statements about your person and especially to the effect
that he talked with you about taking part in a "putsch"
together. What can you say about that?

A. I believe that anyone who knows me, however slightly,
would laugh at the thought that I would discuss plans of a
putsch against the head of the State with a young person who
was a complete stranger to me.

Q. These statements -

A. I can only try to reconstruct the situation from the
records, and, from these writings, my impression is that
those are the entirely unsupported manoeuvres of a man who
believes that the whole world is revolving about him alone.

Q. Gisevius further stated that the generals had enriched
themselves. Is that true?

A. I do not quite know in which way.

Q. Did you yourself receive any grants?

A. No.

Q. Field-Marshal, you furnished two affidavits to the
prosecution, affidavit No. 2, Exhibit USA 532, and affidavit
No. 4, Exhibit USA 535; both of them with the date 7th
November, 1945. Were you under arrest at that time?

A. Two American officers had asked me to tell them about the
organization of the Army and so forth.

Q. Field-Marshal, I believe you misunderstood me. I asked
you whether, at the time you made these affidavits, you were
under arrest?

A. Since 19th October of last year I have been a witness in
custody in the prison here at Nuremberg.

Q. And about these affidavits, who set down these
statements?

A. They were drafted by two American officers.

Q. And who demanded these statements?

A. That I do not know, no names were mentioned.

Q. Were you told to what purpose these statements were to be
put?

A. No. On the basis of the conferences which took place
prior to that, I assumed that they were to serve for the
purpose of information dealing with organizations and which
was to be used by experts.

                                                   [Page 34]

Q. Did you make any alterations?

A. I undertook a series of alterations but I cannot tell you
how many.

Q. These statements, that is, in your opinion, of course,
could they be misunderstood?

A. Even after I had made the changes, in my opinion, they
were clear only in conjunction with the conversations that
had taken place previously. They were a series of
conversations in which I was told that we were not under
oath as witnesses, a matter which, of course, was of no
consequence to me anyway, but it was for the purpose of
gathering information about organizations; the problems were
often discussed and looked at from different angles.

Q. In signing affidavit No. 2, which also contains a chart,
did you point out that this was not correct or might be
misunderstood?

A. I pointed to the fact that this chart might be
misunderstood and I received the answer that matters were
entirely cleared up and that the chart was not very
important in the first place.

Q. Affidavit No. 1, Exhibit USA 531, which General Halder
signed on the same day, completely agrees with your
affidavit No. 2 word for word with the exception of the last
paragraph; were you interrogated together with General
Halder?

A. No.

Q. As you just mentioned a moment ago, when signing the
affidavit No. 2, you pointed to the fact that the' chart was
incorrect. Now, I shall have this chart presented to you and
I should like to ask you just what is wrong in it?

A. This chart causes misunderstandings -

THE PRESIDENT: Had you not better ask the witness - if he is
your witness - whether there is anything wrong about the
affidavits?

DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I beg your pardon, I did not
understand you for I was listening to the wrong channel.

THE PRESIDENT: Had you not better ask him whether there is
anything wrong in his affidavits? He has not yet said there
was anything wrong about that.

DR. LATERNSER: Mr. President, I shall ask questions about
that presently. First of all, I want to ask the witness
about this chart and the further questions, of course, will
follow.

THE WITNESS: This chart may be misinterpreted, especially in
so far as the lines are concerned, and if you wish to show
the hierarchy by means of this chart then, in my opinion,
all the staffs of the OKW and the various branches of the
Wehrmacht should not be shown in it.

THE PRESIDENT: Now, the Tribunal would like to know now
whether this witness is saying that there is anything wrong
with this affidavit; whether it is not true.

DR. LATERNSER: Yes, Mr. President.

BY DR. LATERNSER:

Q. Field-Marshal, in affidavit No. 2, you used the word
"Gruppe" four times. Is this expression -

THE PRESIDENT: I said: "The Tribunal would like to know now
whether this witness says there is anything untrue in his
affidavits and we want to know it now." Do you understand
the meaning of the word "now"?

DR. LATERNSER: Yes, indeed.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I will ask the witness myself.

BY THE PRESIDENT:

Q. Field-Marshal von Brauchitsch, are you saying that there
is anything wrong in your affidavits, your two affidavits,
which is inaccurate or untrue?

                                                   [Page 35]

A. No, nothing which is untrue but something which can be
misunderstood -

Q. Something which you mean might be misleading?

A. Various questions which might lead to misunderstandings.
One thing is the chart and the second thing which might lead
to error is the expression "Gruppe" (group). The expression
"Gruppe" which I understand exactly to mean a "figure" or
"number" but not a collection of a certain number ... of a
certain series of offices in an organisational or spiritual
way. For no connection whatsoever existed between the
various branches of the Wehrmacht. The connection here was,
at the top, the Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, Adolf
Hitler, and Hitler personally always played off one branch
of the Wehrmacht against another. He repeatedly talked to me
about the Navy and the Luftwaffe and their Commanders-in-
Chief in this way, and I know that he did the same thing
about the Army and myself. The expression "Gruppe" therefore
can be misunderstood and is misleading in its context here.
It was understandable only in conjunction with the
conversation that we had before.

BY DR. LATERNSER:

Q. Field-Marshal, this expression "Gruppe" (group) did you
use this expression yourself when you talked with the
prosecution?

A. Well, I really cannot tell that exactly. It is quite
possible, for under the word "Gruppe" I do not understand
anything other than a number of people, or a series, but not
anything organisational or anything closely bound together.

Q. In the sense that you just mentioned now, that was the
sense that you wanted to give the word "Gruppe" when you
signed?

A. Yes.

Before then, that is, before this interrogation by the
prosecution dealing with this point, had you used the word
"Gruppe" (group) in connection with the highest military
leadership?

A. No, for a group like that did not actually exist, neither
in an organisational nor in a spiritual way did it exist. In
the German Army we only knew organization according to the
war structure of division, corps, army, or whatever the case
might be.

Q. Now, I shall turn to my last questions, Field-Marshal. At
the end of the year 1941 you resigned. What were the reasons
for your resignation?

A. In the summer of 1941 Hitler's influence was growing
stronger and stronger on all Army questions and the OKH had
a complete lack of influence in all spheres of political and
economic administration of the occupied countries, and their
inner opposition to the policy followed by Hitler was
becoming stronger and sharper. In the autumn of 1941 this
tension increased still more. Parallel with that, there were
the constant battles with the leadership of the Party, who
wanted to increase its influence on the Army more and more.
I saw there was no longer any possibility of bringing about
a change in any way. Hard as it was for me to take that
decision at this time to leave the Army - in which millions
had lost their lives - and to separate myself from it, I
nevertheless decided to take the decisive step. On 7th
December, 1941, I asked Hitler, when I was alone with him,
to relieve me of my office. He answered me that he would
have to think it over and that he did not want to speak
about this matter at present. On 17th December, when we were
again alone together, he told me that he had decided to take
over the command of the Army himself and the reason he gave
for doing this was that in view of the seriousness of the
winter offensive he would have to put in the scales the
entire confidence which he enjoyed in the Army. On 19th
December he again told me not to say anything - and on the
same day I was relieved of my post. On the 20th in the
evening, I travelled home and I did not see Hitler again
after that. Hitler was the fate of Germany and this fate
could not be escaped.

DR. LATERNSER: I have no further questions to put to this
witness.

                                                   [Page 36]

THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn.

(A recess was taken.)


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