DR. EXNER: Could you yourself exert any influence on the practices followed by the troops?
JODL: I tried to exert my influence on various occasions. When it was reported to me that a Commando unit had been captured—which according to the Führer decree was not allowed—then I raised no questions or objections. I made no report at all to the Führer on Commando operations which met with only minor success. And finally, I often dissuaded him from taking too drastic views, as in the Pescara case, which Field Marshal Kesselring has already described here, when I succeeded in convincing the Führer that only a reconnaissance unit was involved.
DR. EXNER: Were many units actually wiped out?
JODL: Commando operations decreased considerably as a result of the public announcements in the Wehrmacht communiqué. I believe that not more than 8 or 10 cases occurred in all.
For a time, during the months of July and August 1944, increasingly large numbers of terrorists were reported killed in the Wehrmacht communiqué; these, however, were not Commando troops, but insurgents who were killed in the fighting in France. That may be proved if the Tribunal will read Document 551-PS, Figure 4. There the order is given—it is USA-551, on Page 117.
MR. ROBERTS: My Lord, it is Page 70 of Book 7.
JODL: Or Page 117 of our Volume II. There it is ordered...
DR. EXNER: What is ordered? I should like to deal now with another document, Document 532-PS.
THE PRESIDENT: It is time to break off.