MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You testified yesterday that you did not consider Hitler’s Commando Order binding on you, and that you did not carry out that order, is that right?
KESSELRING: In the Mediterranean theater, yes.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Was that because the order left discretion in your hands, or because you just took discretion into your hands?
KESSELRING: I made those reservations myself, firstly for ideological considerations, and secondly because in the Mediterranean I had, as I said yesterday, a twofold command, and the German orders could not be included in the general administration without modification.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Well then, the extent to which an order of that kind was carried out depended somewhat on the character and courage of the officer who received it, did it not?
KESSELRING: I would like to express it somewhat differently. These orders could be interpreted in different ways—that Commando Order, for instance—insofar as it was certainly quite possible for the Commander-in-Chief to consider an operation either as a special task or as a tactical measure which was militarily justified.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You were in command of the forces in Italy at this time, were you not, at the time of the Commando Order?
KESSELRING: With a difference. I did not have full powers until September 1943.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: I will ask to have you shown Document Number 498-PS in evidence as Exhibit Number USA-501.
I call your attention to Paragraph Number 6 of that order which reads as follows: