COL. PHILLIMORE: Do you know that then their bodies were sunk in the fjord with charges attached, and destroyed, as it says in the document, “in the usual way”—Paragraph 10 of the affidavit—and their belongings in the concentration camp were burned?
WAGNER: No, I do not know that.
COL. PHILLIMORE: Very well. A further point: Do you remember that in March or April 1945, at the very end of the war, do you remember that this order, the Führer Order, was cancelled by Keitel?
That is Paragraph 11 of the affidavit, My Lord.
Do you remember that? Just read it.
WAGNER: Yes, I have heard of that.
COL. PHILLIMORE: Yes. You thought you were losing the war by then, and you had better cancel the Commando Order, is that not the fact?
WAGNER: I do not know for what reasons the OKW rescinded orders.
COL. PHILLIMORE: Is not this right: You did not worry about this order in 1942 when you thought you were winning the war, but when you found you were losing it, you began to worry about international law. Is not that what happened?
WAGNER: It is absolutely impossible for me to investigate orders. This paragraph of the Commando Order states clearly and distinctly that these Commandos had orders—that these Commandos were composed partly of criminal elements of the occupied territories—that they had orders to kill prisoners whom they found a burden, that other Commandos had orders to kill all captives; and that orders to this effect had fallen into our hands.