“I will hold responsible, under military law, for failing to carry out this order, all commanders and officers who either have neglected their duty of instructing the troops about this order, or acted against this order where it was to be executed.”
You see that paragraph in the order?
KESSELRING: Yes, I have just read it.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: Now, did you ever report that you were not carrying out this order or did you deceive your superior officers as to whether it was being carried out?
KESSELRING: In one special case that question was treated very decisively at headquarters. This concerned the Commando action “Pescara” where Adolf Hitler ordered the shooting of certain people in spite of the fact that we, my troops and I, wanted to spare them. I think particularly that the influence of Jodl here, as an intermediary, was decisive; namely, that this subject was forgotten and that consequently these people were kept alive, in hospitals and prisoner-of-war camps.
But I should not like to call it deception, the word you used just now, for I wish to emphasize that, in my military sector, I considered actions of this kind as guiding orders, and this Commando Order certainly allowed for several interpretations.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: In other words, the extent to which one of these orders was carried out depended on the commanders in charge, is that right, that Hitler could not depend on it that an order as emphatic as this would be carried out by his commanders? Was that the state of the German Army?
KESSELRING: No, not that, but the situation can be explained as follows: If, on the part of an army, such an operation is reported to a superior as a Commando operation in the sense of that order, then the necessary measures would have to be carried out. That depended, however, on the way of reporting by the units concerned, and I already explained in detail yesterday that a unified conception had gradually set in, that men in uniform, who carried out a tactical move, were not Commandos within the meaning of this order.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON: You testified today, and another witness has testified here, that if an order of Adolf Hitler was resisted, it meant death. You are also testifying that an absolute order to execute Commandos, under threat of punishment if you failed, left you discretion to do it or not, and I want you once and for all to tell the Tribunal which is the fact, and then we will leave that subject.
KESSELRING: I must repeat what I said before, namely, that the Italian theater of war was not to be compared with the other theaters of war. Through the co-operation of Hitler and Mussolini there was always a very obliging attitude, therefore, these orders made by OKW could not easily be applied to the Italian theater of war.