“It has always been my personal view that the treatment of the civilian population in operational areas and the methods of guerrilla fighting in the operational zone offered a welcome opportunity for the supreme political and military leadership to carry out their aims, that is to say, to bring about the systematic reduction of Slavs and Jews.”
I want to ask you now, can you explain how General Heusinger could have arrived at that view?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: I worked closely with General Heusinger and very often I talked to him about questions concerning anti-guerrilla warfare.
DR. LATERNSER: Yes.
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: He never said anything to me which might express this view and I cannot explain this statement of his, because it is entirely contrary to the basic views of the military leaders in regard to the conduct of anti-guerrilla warfare.
DR. LATERNSER: Thank you. Why was the general command over anti-guerrilla fighting in the East in 1943, as well as in Italy at the end of 1943 and the beginning of 1944, transferred to Himmler by the Führer’s order?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: The Führer always held the view that anti-guerrilla warfare was predominantly a task for the Police and that police forces were more suited to carrying it out than the partly over-aged security forces of the Army which we could detail for these tasks. Just how far Himmler wanted to obtain a new increase of power in this connection I do not know, nor how far he might have suggested it to the Führer.
DR. LATERNSER: What was the attitude of the OKW and especially of the Armed Forces Operations Staff to this decree of Hitler’s?
VON BUTTLAR-BRANDENFELS: It must be emphasized first of all in this connection that, so far as operational areas were concerned, there was no change. The operational area remained until the end, in the case of guerrilla warfare too, under the orders of the commanding generals. In the remaining areas the Armed Forces Operations Staff did not altogether disagree with this arrangement, because we hoped that in these zones the Reichsführer SS would be in a position to use some of his reserves, which were, mostly unknown to us; and we should then have some forces released for the front.
DR. LATERNSER: Do you remember, Witness, that the Commander, Southwest made an urgent request to be excepted from this measure, that is, from transferring his authority in anti-guerrilla warfare to Himmler?