DR. SERVATIUS: You spoke of an organization; but you don’t know anything about this organization, do you?
VON DEM BACH-ZELEWSKI: No, I don’t mean it in your sense, a large independent organization; that is not what I mean. But it was obvious that a man who was responsible for the whole of manpower must have an organization at his disposal. I beg your pardon, it was a mistake on my part.
DR. SERVATIUS: Then you do not know that Sauckel had no executive power at all and that he was not provided with an administrative machine of his own.
VON DEM BACH-ZELEWSKI: No, I don’t know that.
THE PRESIDENT: I want the attention of the defendants’ counsel. What I want to say is this, that unless counsel and the witnesses speak slowly and make adequate pauses between the questions and the answers, it is impossible for the interpreters to interpret properly, and the only result is that the questions and answers do not come through to the Tribunal, nor do the defendants’ counsel get the benefit of the true meaning of the answers which have been given in the examination-in-chief, and everything that you may think you gain by rapidity of cross-examination, you lose by the inadequacy of the translation. I will repeat, that you should pause at the end of your sentences and at the end of your questions, so as to give the interpreter’s voice time to come through.
DR. STAHMER: Witness, you said that from 1942 onwards you were Chief of Anti-Partisan Combat Units. As such, it was your duty to fight the partisans in the East?
VON DEM BACH-ZELEWSKI: Yes, that is correct, in the East.
DR. STAHMER: Now, you said that it was not quite clear what was to be understood by the term “partisan”; the concept of “partisan” was never during the entire period clearly defined. Is that correct?
VON DEM BACH-ZELEWSKI: Yes, the sense of that is correct. In my opinion a distinction should be drawn between partisans and partisan suspects. The troops did not always make this distinction. A partisan was a man carefully selected and trained by the enemy. He was also very well armed. I always insisted that this concept was not vague, but concrete. If fire is opened from a wood, a house, or a village, it is not correct to say that everyone in the wood, house, or village is a partisan; for this reason: The tactics of the partisans were to disappear rapidly after a successful action; they relied on the element of surprise inherent in this method of warfare. If the troops took their counter measures without being specially trained and without exact knowledge of this concept of “partisan,” then they would conclude from the fact that they had been fired on from a village, that all the inhabitants were partisans. In my view, a partisan can be considered as such only if he is encountered or captured with a weapon in his hand. If he has no weapon, he cannot be considered a partisan.
DR. STAHMER: Now, what did you do in a positive way to clarify this concept of “partisan”?