JODL: I have known this document for a long time; it is signed by me.
MR. ROBERTS: Yes. Perhaps I might just read parts of it to the Tribunal. Dated 28 October 1944. It is from your staff, and the distribution is to the Army supreme command; commander-in-chief, Norway; to the Reich Commissioner, Norway; and the Navy.
“Because of the unwillingness of the northern Norwegian population to evacuate voluntarily the Führer has agreed to the proposals of the Reich Commissioner and has ordered that the entire Norwegian population east of the Fjord of Lyngen be evacuated by force in the interest of their own security, and that all homes are to be burned to the ground or destroyed.
“The commander, Northern Finland, is responsible that the Führer’s orders be carried out without consideration. Only by this method can the Russians with strong forces, aided by these homesteads and the population familiar with the terrain, be prevented from following our withdrawal operations during the winter and shortly appearing in front of our position in Lyngen. This is not the place for sympathy for the civilian population.”
Lyngen is in the very north of Norway, is it not, on the west coast?
JODL: No, on the northern coast, where Finland is closest to the coast of the polar region and very near Norway.
MR. ROBERTS: Now, that order was carried out, according to the Norwegian report, UK-79, which the Tribunal will find as the last document in the small book, 7A, Page 26 of the Norwegian report, at the bottom of the page, Page 26:
“As a result of the advance of the Russian troops and the retreat of the German Army in Finnmark, October-November 1944, the Germans practiced the ‘scorched earth’ policy for the first time in Norway. Orders were issued that the civilian population was to evacuate, and that all houses, transport, and stores were to be destroyed. As a result of this, about 30,000 houses were damaged apart from 12,000 items of damage to chattels amounting to 176 million kroner.”
And then, for photographs will the Tribunal turn to Pages 62 and 63; 62 is a copy of the German order, and 63 is a photograph of the ruins of a fishing village.
That was a cruel order, was it not, Witness?