JODL: There was no other way open. And even on these orders, he always acted in accordance with his own legal judgment. Who could stop him from doing that?
DR. LATERNSER: The Prosecution have also submitted Affidavit Number 15, by General Röttiger, Document 5713-PS which is numbered Exhibit USA-559. In this affidavit General Röttiger states, in the middle of Page 1:
“Only now, on the strength of documents put before me, do I realize that in issuing the order to employ the severest measures to combat partisans, the highest levels might possibly have had in mind the final aim of using this combating of partisans by the Army to achieve the relentless extermination of Jewry and other undesirable elements.”
Did the military leadership at the highest level hold any such point of view, and was that their final aim?
JODL: No. Of course, one is wise after the event. I too have learned many things today which I did not know before. However, this knowledge does not apply at all here, because there were next to no Jews among the partisans. In the main, these partisans were fanatical Russian fighters—mostly White Russians—and were as hard as steel. And, to a question put by my counsel, even the witness Bach-Zelewski had to admit that there were just about no Jews among these partisans.
As regards the extermination of Slavs, I can only say that the Slavs who were killed in the partisan fighting amounted to no more than one-twentieth or one-thirtieth of the numbers which in the normal, large-scale battles with the Soviet Russian armies the Russians lost in dead or wounded. As far as figures are concerned, that carries no weight at all. Therefore that is a completely erroneous view.
DR. LATERNSER: A further Affidavit, Number 16, by the same General Röttiger, was submitted by the Prosecution under Document 5714-PS, Exhibit Number USA-560. In the last sentence General Röttiger states the following, and I quote:
“Although generally speaking one knew what the special tasks of the SD units were, and although this apparently happened with the knowledge of the highest leaders of the Armed Forces, we opposed these methods as far as possible since it meant endangering our own troops.”
In other words, General Röttiger, in his affidavit, maintains that the special tasks of the SD units were apparently carried out with the knowledge of the highest military leaders. If that is correct, then, you, Generaloberst, must have known about the tasks and these questions you have already...
JODL: Yes, I have already answered. I have never spoken to a single officer who had knowledge of these matters and told me about them.