COL. AMEN: Do you know where the original or any copy of that agreement is located today?
OHLENDORF: No.
COL. AMEN: To the best of your knowledge and recollection, please explain to the Tribunal the entire substance of this written agreement.
OHLENDORF: First of all, the agreement stated that Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommandos would be set up and used in the operational areas. This created a precedent, because until that time the Army had, on its own responsibility, discharged the tasks which would now fall solely to the Sipo. The second was the regulation as to competence.
THE PRESIDENT: You’re going too fast. What is it that you say the Einsatzkommandos did under the agreement?
OHLENDORF: I said, this was the relationship between the Army and the Einsatzgruppen and the Einsatzkommandos. The agreement specified that the army groups or armies would be responsible for the movement and the supply of Einsatzgruppen, but that instructions for their activities would come from the Chief of the Sipo and SD.
COL. AMEN: Let us understand. Is it correct that an Einsatz group was to be attached to each army group or army?
OHLENDORF: Every army group was to have an Einsatzgruppe attached to it. The army group in its turn would then attach the Einsatzkommandos to the armies of the army group.
COL. AMEN: And was the army command to determine the area within which the Einsatz group was to operate?
OHLENDORF: The operational area of the Einsatzgruppe was already determined by the fact that it was attached to a specific army group and therefore moved with it, whereas the operational areas of the Einsatzkommandos were then fixed by the army group or army.