JODL: May I add that this sentence became the source of all trouble. The troops made use of that sentence and on principle, or as a rule, did not kill Commandos but took them prisoner.
DR. EXNER: You said this last sentence made you indignant. Were you also convinced that it was against international law?
JODL: One might have doubts in that respect too. But I found it distasteful from a human point of view, for if one does shoot a man, I think it is base to extort all information out of him first.
DR. EXNER: I want to ask one more question concerning what you mentioned before the recess. You said that you did not report everything to the Führer; you did not report all Commando raids to him. That is quite clear. But you said you also did not report information which you obtained from the enemy—killings, and so on. What did you mean by that?
JODL: I reported the results of Dieppe and, should we say, the violations of international law which we considered had been committed there—the shackling of German prisoners, and so on. There was only one thing which I did not report, namely, the shackling of some men belonging to the Todt Organization in such a manner that they strangled themselves. I did not report that, and it did not appear in any order or Wehrmacht communiqué.
THE PRESIDENT: The defendant has already told us about this, so why you should ask him again I don’t know.
DR. EXNER: I thought it was not quite clear.
[Turning to the defendant.] We now pass to another subject, the order regarding Leningrad and Moscow. How did Hitler’s order about the fate of Leningrad and Moscow come into being? It is C-123, second volume, Page 145 of my document book; it was submitted under the number USSR-114. This is the order stating that surrender was not to be accepted. How did this order come into being?
JODL: At the beginning of the second paragraph appears the sentence: “The moral justification for this measure is clear to the whole world.” I shall now explain that. The first reason was a report from Field Marshal Von Leeb, the Commander of Army Group North at Leningrad. He reported that the population of Leningrad had already begun to flock out toward his lines in the south and west. He pointed out that it would be absolutely impossible for him to keep these millions of Leningrad people fed and supplied if they were to fall into his hands, because the supply situation of the army group was deplorable at that time. That was the first reason. But shortly beforehand Kiev had been abandoned by the Russian armies, and hardly had we occupied the city when tremendous explosions occurred one after another. The major part of the inner city was destroyed by fire; 50,000 people were made homeless; German soldiers were used to fight the flames and suffered considerable losses, because further large masses of explosives went off during the fire. At first the local commander at Kiev thought that it was sabotage on the part of the population, until we found a demolition chart, listing 50 or 60 objectives in Kiev which had already been prepared for destruction some time before; and this chart was in fact correct, as investigation by engineers proved at once. At least 40 more objectives were ready to be blown up, and for most of them a remote-control was to set off the explosion by means of wireless waves. I myself had the original of this demolition chart in my hands. That proved...
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think we need go into the details of Kiev. This deals with Leningrad. The defendant might briefly state in substance what he says happened at Kiev; but we cannot investigate details of it.