http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/
von Manstein, Friedrich Erich von Lewinski gennant (1887-1973) [Generalfeldmarschall] -- WWI service as officer; company commander in 5th Infantry Regiment Oct 1921-Sept 1923; staff officer, 2nd Division Oct 1923-Sept 1924; staff officer, 4th Division Oct 1924-Sept 1927; staff officer with Infantry Commander in Military District IV (Infanterieführer, Wehrkreis IV) Oct 1927-Aug 1929; staff officer in Reich Defense Ministry Sept 1929-Sept 1932; commander, II Battalion 4th Infantry Regiment Oct 1932-Jan 1934; staff officer, 3rd Division Feb 1934-Jun 1935; department chief in Army General Staff Jul 1935-Oct 1936; First Quartermaster (Oberquartiermeister I) in Army General Staff Oct 1936-Feb 1938; commander, 18th Division Feb 1938-Aug 1939; chief of staff, Army Group South 18 Aug-Oct 1939; chief of staff, Army Group A 26 Oct 1939-Feb 1940; commander, XXXVIII Army Corps 1 Feb 1940-Mar 1941; commander, LVI Panzer Corps Mar-Sept 1941; commander, 11th Army 15 Sept 1941-22 Nov 1942; commander, Army Group Don 22 Nov 1942-Jan 1943; commander, Army Group South Jan 1943-31 Mar 1944 [Knights Cross 1940; Oakleaves 1943; Swords 1944] {arrested by British security police 31 Aug 1945 and interned (LT 1 Sept 1945:4:g); to be freed by British authorities (NYT 16 Jul 1948:10:4); released from internment in Norfolk (NYT 23 Jul 1948:2:6); to face war crimes indictment (NYT 28 Aug 1948:4:6; NYT 12 Sept 1948:30:1; NYT 23 Sept 1948:5:5; NYT 3 Nov 1948:32:6; 23 Jan 1949:2:4); delay announced (NYT 20 Mar 1949:3:6; NYT 20 May 1949:2:3); impending trial announced 25 May 1949 (NYT 26 May 1949:8:7; NYT 3 Jun 1949:3:1; NYT 17 Jul 1949:25:2; NYT 24 Jul 1949:26:6; NYT 17 Aug 1949:16:5; NYT 23 Aug 1949:13:1; LT 6 May 1949:4g; LT 25 May 1949:3g; LT 26 May 1949:3f; LT 23 Jul 1949:3d); put on trial before a British military tribunal 23 Aug 1949 on war crimes charges (NYT 24 Aug 1949:4:6; NYT 25 Aug 1949:7:5; NYT 26 Aug 1949:10:4; NYT 30 Aug 1949:14:6; NYT 31 Aug 1949:12:4; NYT 22 Sept 1949:9:2; NYT 11 Nov 1949:5:2; NYT 17 Dec 1949:6:5; LT 10 Aug 1949:3d; LT 23 Aug 1949:3e; LT 24 Aug 1949:4g; LT 25 Aug 1949:4c; LT 26 Aug 1949:4e; LT 27 Aug 1949:4f; LT 30 Aug 1949:3c; LT 31 Aug 1949:3b; LT 3 Sept 1949:3d; LT 6 Sept 1949:3e; LT 7 Sept 1949:3c; LT 8 Sept 1949:3e; LT 13 Sept 1949:3e; LT 14 Sept 1949:3e; LT 6 Oct 1949:3e; LT 7 Oct 1949:3d; LT 8 Oct 1949:3e; LT 22 Oct 1949:3d; LT 25 Oct 1949:3d; LT 26 Oct 1949:3c; LT 27 Oct 1949:4d; LT 1 Nov 1949:3d; LT 2 Nov 1949:3d; LT 8 Nov 1949:3c; LT 11 Nov 1949:4f; LT 23 Nov 1949:3c; LT 13 Dec 1949:3e; LT 14 Dec 1949:3d; LT 15 Dec 1949:3c; LT 16 Dec 1949:3d); convicted of hostage killings, murders under the Commissar Order (Kommissarbefehl), mistreatment of POWs, allowing deportations for slave labor purposes and acting in disregard of his duty to ensure public safety and respect individual life; sentenced to 18 years imprisonment 19 Dec 1949 (NYT 20 Dec 1949:1:2; NYT 21 Dec 1949:12:3; LT 20 Dec 1949:4c; LT 21 Dec 1949:3d); commuted 24 Feb 1950 by British Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Keightley, commander of the Army of the Rhine, to 12 years in prison (NYT 25 Feb 1950:4:6; LT 25 Feb 1950:3c); allowed brief parole Feb 1952 (LT 27 Feb 1952:4a); allowed medical parole Aug 1952; released 7 May 1953 (NYT 8 May 1953:5:4); died at Irschenhausen 10 Jun 1973 (ABR-H) or 12 Jun 1973. (Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals vol. X p. 55; Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression VI, pps. 624-634 [Document 3739-PS]; ABR-H; Who's Who 203-5; Encyclopedia of the Third Reich pps. 571-2).}
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DR. LATERNSER: As my second witness I am going to call Field Marshal Von Manstein.
[The witness Von Manstein took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your, full name, please?
VON MANSTEIN: Erich von Manstein.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me:
I swear by God-the Almighty and Omniscient-that I will speak the pure truth-and will withhold and add nothing.
[The witness repeated the oath.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
DR. LATERNSER: Field Marshal, what was the last position you held?
VON MANSTEIN: My last appointment was Commander-in-Chief of Army Group South.
DR. LATERNSER: How did you get that position?
VON MANSTEIN: I was given that position in November 1942 on the strength of an order from Hitler.
DR. LATERNSER: The other commanders-in-chief were appointed in a similar way, were they not?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: For many years you have held important positions in the General Staff. In which capacity?
VON. MANSTEIN: In the last war I was in the General Staff with the troops. Then in 1929 1 joined the Reichswehr Ministry; there I joined the First Division of the Troops Department.
DR. LATERNSER: Was the General Staff an elite body which set the standard in the Armed Forces?
VON MANSTEIN: The General Staff officers were an elite group as far as they were
selected on the basis of their tactical abilities
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and also on the strength of their character. They did not set the tone in the Army, as their views were exactly the same as the views of all other officers. As to the General Staff setting the tone in the Armed Forces, there really cannot be any question of that. The Navy did not have a General Staff. As for the Air Force, as far as I can judge, the General Staff officers may have played a smaller part than "outsiders" like Milch, Udet, and so forth, but to begin with, the Armed Forces did not have an Armed Forces General Staff. Therefore one can hardly speak of the General Staff setting the tone within the Armed Forces.
DR. LATERNSER: Did the General Staff have authoritative influence on all military plans? And was it, shall we say, the brain of the Army?
VON MANSTEIN: At its headquarters, that is, in the Reichswehr Ministry, the General Staff dealt in its various departments with the main questions as far as they concerned the direction and employment of troops. But all other matters were in the hands of the various departments or of the Army Inspectorate. These offices worked in parallel with the General Staff, and as far as matters referring to the ' troops were concerned, they were dealt, with in these departments.
DR. LATERNSER: But then surely the General Staff gave opinions?
VON MANSTEIN: The General Staff could, of course, express itself on the questions dealt with by the departments, on training and armament, for instance. But the chiefs of the other departments were on exactly the same level as the chiefs of the Troops Department, and important personnel questions, in particular, were dealt with entirely outside the General Staff.
DR. LATERNSER: Was the Chief of the General Staff the decisive adviser to Hitler, or was it the Commander-in-Chief of the Army or of the Air Force?
VON MANSTEIN: One cannot possibly say that the Chief of the General Staff was the decisive adviser of Hitler. The position of Chief of the General Staff in the Armed, Forces of the Third Reich differed entirely from the position held by the Chief of the General Staff at the time of the Kaiser. In those days the Chief of the General Staff was immediately subordinate to the Kaiser, that is to say, he could report directly to him.
In the Wehrmacht (Armed Forces) of the Third Reich on the other hand, and even of the Weimar Republic, that was entirely different. The Chief of the General Staff of the Army, for instance, was nothing else than the adviser of the Commander-in-Chief of the Army regarding matters of military leadership. Between him and
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Hitler there was, first of all, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and then, as long as we had a Minister of War, in the person of Blomberg, there was the Reich Minister of War, too. Thus, there was no question at all of the Chief of the General Staff advising Hitler. But even as regards the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, he shared his work, in peacetime at least, with the chiefs of the departments, that is to say, the Personnel Department, the Armament Department, and the Defense Department, who were all on his own level.
DR. LATERNSER: Was there a special service channel for the General Staff?
VON MANSTEIN: A special service channel for the General Staff did not exist. On the contrary, that was strictly taboo. Towards the end of the first World War something similar was developed when Ludendorff in practice had gained control of military matters and always communicated with the General Staff chiefs who were his subordinates instead of addressing himself to the commanders-in-chief themselves. This deterioration, as I might call it, of military leadership was radically done away with by Generaloberst Von Seeckt, and a special service channel for the General Staff as is meant here therefore did not exist.
DR. LATERNSER: And what about the privilege of recording varying opinions?
VON MANSTEIN: In the old Army, every chief of the General Staff had the right, if he was of an opinion that differed from that of his commander, to record that dissenting opinion, although, of course, he had to carry out the order of his commander. In the Armed Forces of the Third Reich, on the other hand, that was expressly discontinued with the agreement of the Chief of the General Staff, General Beck.
DR. LATERNSER: Was the High Command of the Armed Forces, shall we say, the central brain of the Armed Forces?
VON MANSTEIN: The High Command of the Armed Forces, of course, in the form in which it is now being mentioned, only came into being in 1938 as a working staff for Hitler. Before that Blomberg was Reich Minister of War, and in his position as a Minister he held a position which dealt with all matters affecting the Armed Forces, which he represented to both State and Party. In his hands, too, was the distribution of funds for the various branches of the Armed Forces as well as the rearmament capacity for the Armed Forces. Gradually, no doubt, Blomberg was trying to achieve a more outstanding leadership of the Armed Forces, but in that connection he soon got into considerable difficulties, particularly with the High Command of the Army, for the reason that in the opinion of the
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High Command of the Army Blomberg was too lenient with the Party. He himself then attempted to establish a sort of tactical leadership staff, which later became the Armed Forces Operations Staff. But that was still in the early stages. Then came his dismissal, and subsequently the Wehrmachtfuehrungsstab (Armed Forces Operations Staff) was created under Hitler. This, however, is not to be regarded as the head of the three General Staffs of the Armed Forces or as the dome of the structure; it was nothing else than the practical leadership staff of the Fuehrer.
DR. LATERNSER: Did the high commands of the Armed Forces branches or the General Staff nevertheless agree with the High Command of the Armed Forces in their aims?
VON MANSTEIN: Naturally the three branches of the Armed Forces were in agreement with the High Command of the Armed Forces that the national element should be kept up. Furthermore, that they were there to uphold the idea of national honor, of equality, and most of all security for Germany, which they considered to be their task. Apart from that, one can hardly speak of a unified determination. I should like to say, for instance, that the Army had one basic thought, which was that under no circumstances must Germany ever again fight a war on two fronts. The Navy, in my opinion, was always guided by the idea: never again war with England. What Goering, as the reigning head of the Air Force aimed at personally, I cannot judge. But I do not suppose that he was interested in jeopardizing the position of the Third Reich and his own position in another war.
DR. LATERNSER: And the High Command of the Armed Forces?
VON MANSTEIN: As far as the High Command of the Armed Forces is concerned, if it had a will of its own at all, it did not, in my opinion, have the possibility seriously to express that will in opposition to Hitler.
DR. LATERNSER: What was the importance of the Schlieffen Club and what were its aims?
VON MANSTEIN: The Schlieffen Club was, generally speaking, a club of elderly gentlemen who were ex-members of the General Staff. Apart from that, General Staff officers and assistants to leaders of the young Wehrmacht were in it, too. They met once a year at an annual dinner preceded by a so-called business meeting during which the treasurer's report was read; and that was about the principal business. Then, of course, the Schlieffen Club had a council of honor, which usually had to occupy itself with settling quarrels between the older members resulting from Ludendorff's attitude toward Hindenburg.
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We younger ones did not go to those discussions any more; and apart from that we were not subject to this council of honor. Any political or military aims on the part of this club did not exist and at all events, it cannot be considered a club where intellectual schooling or training was being carried on, taking the place of the General Staff.
DR. LATERNSER: What were the relations between the 129 military leaders affected and the High Command of the Armed Forces and the General Staff?
VON MANSTEIN: The bulk of them, according to their position, had no relationship to them at all.
DR. LATERNSER: A little more slowly, Field Marshal.
VON MANSTEIN: Only four of them belonged to the High Command of the Armed Forces, these are Keitel, Jodl, Warlimont and Winter; and only the Chiefs of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe and of the Army belonged to the General Staff, although they were changed frequently. I think there are five of each of the Armed Forces branches. All the others belonged neither to the General Staff nor to the High Command of the Armed Forces.
DR. LATERNSER: But what else are these military leaders?
VON MANSTEIN: They are the holders of the highest positions in the military hierarchy, as they are in every country.
DR. LATERNSER: Did not these military leaders, according to, their views, represent an entity with a uniform will?
VON MANSTEIN: Naturally, as far as the conception of their work was concerned, they agreed; that is a matter of course. Also they agreed regarding the view of the necessity of Germany's being strong because she was surrounded by three neighbors from whom one might, after all, expect one thing or another. Over and above that, however, such a uniformity of thought cannot be spoken of. I might say that, horizontally considered, the three branches of the Armed Forces were on the same level; and each branch had different military ideas and aims which were quite often at cross purposes. Considered vertically, these 129 officers in the military hierarchy were classified in four grades, let us say, governed by the relationship of superiors to subordinates. The highest grade was the Fuehrer and his working staff, the High Command of the Armed Forces. On that level rested the entire military and political responsibility which, according to military principles, can only be assumed by the highest leader.
The second grade consisted of the three commanders-in-chief of the branches of the Armed Forces. They were responsible for the military tasks of that branch of the Armed Forces which, was under
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their command. On the level of command, they, of course, had full responsibility. They were, naturally, to a certain extent Hitler's advisers too, if he asked their advice in military matters.
Grade 3, which, in the persons of the 129 officers, only existed in war, comprised the commanders of army groups, and then, below that, Grade 4, the commanders of armies. The commanders of army groups were responsible for the leadership of the operations which they were to carry out. The same measure of responsibility for their armies was in the hands of the army commanders below them, who also exercised territorial authority in their operational areas. But this third and fourth grade had no contact. Let us say, there was no mental nexus with Hitler, with the Fuehrer, because the grade of the commanders-in-chief intervened. They received orders and had to obey them, as in all phases of military life the relationship is that of one who gives orders and one who carries them out.
DR. LATERNSER: How could anyone, within the measure of this responsibility which you have just described, have the possibility of expressing his views on Hitler's plans?
VON MANSTEIN: To state one's view about Hitler's plans was quite out of the question for the third and fourth grades, because they would only learn of them when they appeared in the shape of an order. If in individual cases the commanders-in-chief were called to a conference with Hitler, then it was only to hear the announcement of some unalterable decision already arrived at. The commanders-in-chief of the Armed Forces branches could, of course, when previously asked by Hitler, of which I cannot judge individual instances, state their views, their opinions. How far they might have succeeded in that is entirely another question.
DR. LATERNSER: Now, did not nearly all of these military leaders come from the General Staff, and was it not for that reason that these leaders formed an entity?
VON MANSTEIN: Certainly, a certain part of these leaders did come from the General Staff. In the case of the Army, of the 94 Army officers who are supposed to belong to the so-called organization, 74 had been General Staff officers; 20 on the other hand were not. With the Air Force, there were, as far as I know, only 9 out of 17 ex-members of the General Staff; and the Navy, of course, did not have any at all. Uniformity, let us say, as far as it existed at all, was therefore due to the fact that they had the same military training, the same military courses in the General Staff, but no more.
DR. LATERNSER: So that the conceptions of High Command of the Armed Forces and General Staff on one hand, and these 129 officers on the other, were entirely different?
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VON MANSTEIN: Yes, of course they are quite different. They were mainly the military leaders, and not the General Staff and not the High Command of the Armed Forces; and you can neither ideally, nor materially, nor practically, nor theoretically call them one unified organization.
DR. LATERNSER: Were there not certain SS leaders amongst that group? Was not the SS the fourth branch of the Armed Forces?
VON MANSTEIN: No, it certainly was not a fourth branch of the Armed Forces. Certainly a large number of the reasonable leaders of the Waffen-SS, and during the war the mass of the Waffen-SS units wished to be incorporated into the Army. But, naturally, considering the opposing will of the Fuehrer and of Himmler, it was not to be thought of.
The units of the Waffen-SS fought during the war very bravely as our comrades at the front; but they were not the fourth branch of the Armed Forces. Quite the contrary, Himmler prohibited everything which could have exerted any influence on the SS by the Armed Forces. That individual leaders of the SS were incorporated amongst the group must be described as grotesque, considering Himmler's personality; because if there ever was a mortal enemy of the Army, it was Himmler.
DR. LATERNSER: Why do you say Himmler was a mortal enemy of the Army?
VON MANSTEIN: There is no doubt whatever that Himmler wanted to replace the Army by his SS; and in my opinion the generals of the Army were particularly persecuted by him with hatred and Ebel. I know that in my case, at any rate, according to an entirely reliable source, my discharge was largely due to Himmler's intrigues, especially his malicious libel. As far as the other leaders are concerned, I know only that some of them had formerly been in the Reichswehr and had been discharged, so that they were not exactly favorably disposed toward us and did not feel they belonged to us; that is pretty clear.
DR. LATERNSER: But did not the Party and the Armed Forces work together on one plan in the interests of the Reich?
VON MANSTEIN: The Party was working in the political field; and we were working in the soldier's sphere. There can be no talk of a common plan of the Party and the Armed Forces because the prerequisites for it were missing. First of all, the most important requirement, a common basic attitude, was lacking. With many methods of the Party, as is known, we did not agree at all; and if there is no agreement even on such basic questions as, for instance, Christianity, one can say only that the intellectual basis for a common plan is obviously missing.
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The second reason against it was the Party's claim for total power, which again and again attempted to influence the Armed Forces, and I can safely say that we officers were fighting a continuous battle against the influences of the Party which sought to win over our soldiers, and thus remove the soldierly element which we represented.
Then the third reason is that under Hitler any planning would have been out of the question. If anyone made a plan, it was Hitler alone, and no one under him was allowed to make plans; people just had to obey. Quite apart from that, in the political and practical life of the Third Reich one branch never knew what the other was doing, or what its orders were, so that here too, there was no kind of uniformity. There was, therefore, a lack of all the necessary prerequisites for such a uniform plan.
DR. LATERNSER: What was your capacity in the General Staff of the Army?
VON MANSTEIN: In the General Staff, that is to say, at the very center, I was from 1929 to 1932 employed as senior General Staff officer, in the First Division of the Troops Department. Then in 1935 1 became the chief of the Operations Department of the Army, and in 1936 1 became Oberquartiermeister I, that is to say, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Army.
DR. LATERNSER: Did the Operations Department come under your command as Oberquartiermeister I?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, the Operations Department came under my orders. So did the Organization Department and various others.
DR. LATERNSER: So that you as chief of the Operations Department would have had to deal with the employment of troops in the event of war?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, of course.
DR. LATERNSER: But then you must have been informed about the aim and the degree of armament?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: Please be very brief.
VON MANSTEIN: The goal of our armament, first of all, in the twenties, in the years before the seizure of power, was the most elementary security against an unprovoked attack on the part of any one of our neighbors. After all, since all our neighbors had certain designs on German territories, we had to reckon with such a possibility at all times. We were perfectly aware of the fact that at best we could stand up to such an attack for a few weeks only. But we did want to achieve that at any rate, so as to prevent a fait accompli, for instance, in the event of an attack by Poland by the
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occupation of Upper Silesia. We wanted to make sure we could put up a fight until the League of Nations would intervene. Practically speaking, we were relying upon the League of Nations, and we could do so only if we ourselves could in no circumstances whatsoever be called the aggressors. At all times, therefore, we had to avoid everything which might be considered a violation of the Treaty of Versailles, or a provocation. For that reason we in the First Division of the Troops Department had formed a special group of officers who had the sole duty, whenever the High Command of the Army, or at that time the Army General Headquarters, were issuing orders, to make sure that no such violations would result from them.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you have plans for a mobilization at the time when you were Oberquartiermeister I?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes. We had the very first mobilization plan, which became effective on I April 1930; it concerned the transformation of the 100,000-man Army to a war footing. That mobilization plan was then brought up to date annually after 1930.
DR. LATERNSER: And before that time?
VON MANSTEIN: Until then there was no mobilization plan at all.
DR. LATERNSER: Were there plans for strategic concentrations?
VON MANSTEIN: Plans for strategic concentrations did not exist at all from the end of the first World War until 1935. In 1935 the first strategic concentration plan was worked out; it was the so-called "Red" concentration, which was a defensive "forming-up" along the Rhine, that is along our Western frontier, with defensive "forming-up" at the Czech and Polish borders at the same time. And then a second concentration plan, called "Green," was worked upon in 1937, that ...
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, by "forming-up" do you mean deployment? What do you call, a forming-up plan? You mean deployment?
VON MANSTEIN: By a "forming-up" or "concentration plan" I understand a plan according to which troops, in the event of a threatening of war, are got ready along the frontiers, that is to say, a plan for the event of threatening political conflagration. Whether it may lead to war or whether from this formation one would enter into a war has actually nothing to do with the concentration plan. It merely states how the troops are to be assembled and, in the event of war, what would be the first tasks for the army groups and armies.
DR. LATERNSER: Were those all the troop concentration plans the two which you have just described?
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VON MANSTEIN: Those were the two forming-up plans which I as Deputy Chief of the General Staff had been engaged in. The concentration plan "White," which was against Poland, was not worked out during my time. It must have been worked on in 1939.
DR. LATERNSER: When did you cease to be Oberquartiermeister I at the High Command of the Army?
VON MANSTEIN: I left on 4 February 1938, at the same time when General Von Fritsch was removed.
DR. LATERNSER: And at that time the plan for concentration against Poland was not yet in existence?
VON MANSTEIN: No. Only the concentration plan "Red" existed, which was a defensive measure along the Polish frontier in the event of war.
DR. LATERNSER: What was the attitude of the High Command of the Army with reference to the declaration of Germany's military sovereignty in 1935? At that time you were still in the High Command of the Army, were you not?
VON MANSTEIN: In 1935 - no, I was still chief of the General Staff at the headquarters of Wehrkreis III (Military Area Number 3) when military sovereignty was declared. But from my knowledge of the General Staff I know that that declaration completely surprised all of us at the time. I personally, and my commanding general in Berlin, only heard of it over the radio. The General Staff, had it been asked, would have proposed 21 divisions as the size of an Army increase which we would have considered suitable and feasible from a practical point of view. The figure of 36 divisions was due to a spontaneous decision made by Hitler.
DR. LATERNSER: Was the occupation of the Rhineland demanded by the military, and was it intended as a preparation for war?
VON MANSTEIN: No. We did not demand the military occupation, and above all we did not intend it to be a preparation for war. On the contrary, at the time the occupation was carried -out, I was the chief of the Operations Department, and I myself had to draft the orders for that occupation. Since we were completely surprised by the decision of the Fuehrer, I had only one afternoon in which to do it, because the following morning the generals concerned came to receive their orders. I know that at that time the Reich Minister of War and General Von Fritsch stated their objections, and warned Hitler against such a one-sided solution of this question. That warning is the first source, in my opinion, for the distrust which subsequently the Fuehrer increasingly felt for the generals.
Later, at a private conference which I had with him, he himself admitted that
that was so, and particularly that Blomberg at that time, when
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France was mobilizing 13 divisions, had suggested that the three battalions which we had pushed across the Rhine to the Western bank should be withdrawn. The intentions we then had for the fortification of the Rhineland were purely defensive ones. The Siegfried Line was planned, just as was the Maginot Line, as a wall which would be as impregnable as possible in the event of attack.
DR. LATERNSER: To what extent did military leaders participate in the case of Austria? Surely you are well informed about that, Field Marshal?
VON MANSTEIN: One morning, and quite to my surprise, I was summoned to the Fuehrer, together with General Beck, the Chief of the General Staff. It was, I think, about 11 o'clock. The Commander-in-Chief of the Army was not in Berlin. Hitler revealed to us that he had decided that the Austrian question was to be settled in view of the intentions announced by Schuschnigg the day before. He demanded our suggestions for a march into Austria, should this be necessary. The Chief of the General Staff thereupon suggested explained that we should have to mobilize the corps required for this, namely the Bavarian Corps VII and XIII and a Panzer division, but that such a mobilization, in fact such a measure was in no way prepared, since the political leaders had never given us even so much as a hint of such instructions. It would be necessary, therefore, to improvise everything.
First of all, the Fuehrer did not want to agree to this mobilization, but then he realized that if he wanted to march in at all, troops would have to be mobile, and he agreed, saying that he would have to march in the following Saturday - the day before the intended plebiscite - if he wanted to march in at all. The result of it was that the order for the mobilization of these corps had to be given that very day, if the mobilization and concentration of the forces on the border were to be completed in time.
The conference started about 11 o'clock and went on until about 1 o'clock and the orders would have to be ready to go out that afternoon at 6 o'clock. They went out 20 minutes late; I had to draft the orders for this concentration myself, so that I had 4 or 5 hours altogether to do it in. Before that, no thought whatever had been given to such a thing.
The so-called Case "Otto" had nothing at all to do with this entire affair.
DR. LATERNSER: So that, as the man responsible for the working out of this order, you had just a few hours from the moment when you knew nothing until the moment the order was ready to be issued?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, that is right-about 4 or 5 hours.
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DR. LATERNSER: Did you, as the responsible Oberquartiermeister I (Deputy Chief of General Staff, Operations), responsible for war plans, know anything at all about the conference which Hitler held on 5 November 1937?
VON MANSTEIN: No, I knew nothing about it.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you participate in the conference of 10 August 1938?
THE PRESIDENT: Dr. Laternser-Witness, the Tribunal would like to know what you say the plan "Otto" was for. What was the plan made for?
VON MANSTEIN: We in the Army did not have a completed plan called "Otto." I only know that that was a code word for some measures or other of the High Command of the Armed Forces, for the event of a restoration attempt on the part of the Hapsburgs in Austria, in connection with Italy. That possibility was always pending, and I want to supplement my statement by saying that at the time when Hitler gave us the orders for Austria his chief worry was not so much that there might be interference on the part of the Western Powers, but his only, worry was as to how Italy would behave, because it appeared that Italy always stuck together with Austria and the Hapsburgs.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, are you telling the Tribunal that you do not know whether the plan "Otto" was a plan for the German Army or part of it to march into Austria?
VON MANSTEIN: No, the plan "Otto" only came to my mind and became clear to me when I read the interrogation record of Jodl. In any case, a plan for a march into Austria did not exist in the High Command of the Army, because I had to prepare these orders within a few hours after the conference with Hitler.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but if the plan "Otto" was not a plan for the marching into Austria, what was it for?
VON MANSTEIN: That I cannot say because I only know that it was some sort of plan on the part of the High Command of the Armed Forces connected with an attempted restoration of the Hapsburgs in Austria, but we ourselves did not introduce any measures, as far as I can remember, nor do I know whether I myself had anything at all to do with this code name at the time; it may be so, but I do not know now.
DR. LATERNSER: Meld Marshal, you participated in the conference on 10 August 1938. What was the purpose of that conference? What was said there?
THE PRESIDENT: Go on.
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VON MANSTEIN: That conference was something quite unusual. The Fuehrer had ordered to appear before him at the Berghof the chiefs of the General Staff of those armies which, in the event of a march into Czechoslovakia, would have to take up their positions on the border; but he did not summon the commanders-in-chief to appear as would have been natural, but only, I might say, the younger generation of chiefs. He must have known from the memorandum of General Beck and its submission by General Von Brauchitsch that the commanders-in-chief and commanding generals opposed any policy which might lead to a war and that was why he summoned us in order to convince us of the necessity and the correctness of his decision.
This was the only and last time, at a meeting of that kind, that he permitted questions and a sort of discussion afterwards. He was mistaken in this, inasmuch as even the chiefs of the General Staff raised objections regarding the possibility of an interference on the part of the Western Powers, and generally regarding the danger of a war that might ensue. This led to a very serious and most unpleasant clash between the Fuehrer and General Von Wietersheim with reference to these questions. After that, whenever such meetings took place, there was not a single occasion when any questions at all, or discussions, were permitted by him.
DR. LATERNSER:, Were the operations in Austria and the Sudetenland to be considered military rehearsals for a war?
VON MANSTEIN: No, that they certainly were not, because not only were our troops not fully mobilized, but the mobilization of the corps on the occasion of the march into Austria also demonstrated to us in any case that matters had not yet reached the stage where a reasonably satisfactory mobilization could be effected. If a war had broken out, neither our Western border nor our Polish frontier could really have been effectively defended by us, and there is no doubt whatsoever that had Czechoslovakia defended herself, we would have been held up by her fortifications, for we did not have the means to break through. It cannot therefore be called a military rehearsal. But it was a matter of testing the political nervous system.
DR.LATERNSER: When you were informed of the military preparations against Poland, did you have the impression that an aggressive war was intended?
VON MANSTEIN: I was chosen for the position of chief of the General Staff of Army Group South in the mobilization plan for the Polish campaign. When I received the plans for the concentration, I realized that it was really a strategic concentration for an attack, but there were various very essential points which militated against any aggressive gesture.
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The first one was that in the spring of 1939 and, by order of the Fuehrer, a sudden start was made with the erection of the strongest; fortifications along all the Eastern border. Not only thousands of workers, but entire divisions were employed there to build these fortifications, and the entire material from the Czech fortification was transported there and built in. A broad strip of the most fertile land in Silesia was taken up by these fortifications, and that, of course, would indicate anything but an aggressive intention.
The second point which was against it was the fact that training continued on an entirely peacetime basis. I myself - I was a divisional commander in peacetime - remained with my division at the training camp in Lusatia, far away, therefore, from that part of the country where my division would have to be drawn up.
Besides, we knew of Chamberlain's speech in the House of Commons, in which he assured the Poles of Britain's assistance, and since Hitler on every occasion during the time I was in the High Command of the Army repeated the statement that he would never enter into a war on two fronts, one could not possibly think that, in view of that promise, he would indulge in such an adventurous policy. On the other hand, however, we had the most reliable information - which was confirmed by subsequent facts - that the Poles were proposing to concentrate their troops in Poznania for an offensive towards Berlin.
We completely failed to, understand this gesture in view of the entire situation, but in fact that was the way the Poles drew up their troops at a later stage. The eventuality of war might well be envisaged, therefore, and it was most likely, since the Poles could look to Britain for assistance; and if the political negotiations should teach a crisis, the Poles might on their part be reckless enough to attack, since they were already forming-up offensively, and then, of course, a war would have been inevitable.
Considering all these signs, one could hardly assume that Hitler would, so to speak, pick a quarrel with Poland to unleash an aggressive war against her. The conference at Obersalzberg, for instance, on 22 August, did not give me the impression either that war was bound to come, an impression that was neither mine nor that of Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Von Rundstedt until the night from 31 August to 1 September, since an
order to march in had been withdrawn on the 25th.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.
[The Tribunal adjourned until 10 August 1946 at 1000 hours.]
607
Two Hundreth Day
Saturday; 10 August 1946
Morning Session
[The witness Von Manstein resumed the stand.]
DR. LATERNSER: Field Marshal, how did you judge the intention to attack in the West?
VON MANSTEIN: In my opinion, since a political agreement with the Western Powers by peaceful means was no longer possible, there was no other way out than to launch an offensive in the West and thus end the war.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you participate in the preparations against Norway, Greece, and Yugoslavia?
VON MANSTEIN: No. I learned about these campaigns, or that they had started, only over the radio.
DR. LATERNSER: How did you, as a military leader, regard the war against Russia?
VON MANSTEIN: I considered the war against Russia to be a preventive war on our part. In my opinion, there was for Hitler no other way out of the situation into which he had brought Germany, after he had not dared to risk the invasion of England in the autumn of 1940. In my opinion, we were forced to acknowledge that the Soviet Union was a very great threat in 1940 and 1941 - a threat which would become real as soon as we finally tied up our forces in the fight against England. The only chance of extricating ourselves from that situation would have been a landing in England in the autumn of 1940, but that was a risk which Hitler did not take.
DR. LATERNSER: How is it possible that the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the Chief of the General Staff of the Army, in the most important military decisions, such as for instance a war against the Soviet Union, were bypassed by Hitler?
VON MANSTEIN: In my opinion that can be explained as follows: Politically we generals had not had any say for a long time, because the political objections raised by the generals, for instance on the occasion of the occupation of the Rhineland and the march into Czechoslovakia, had turned out to be without substance. Hitler had carried his point. He no longer concerned himself with political objections but only with military questions.
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With regard to military matters, I was personally of the opinion, as I have just said, that the offensive in the West, from the point of view of the soldier, was an imperative necessity. The High Command of the Army was of a different opinion, and in this, to my thinking, they advocated the wrong military course. There again the results proved Hitler to be right, and it became apparent from his whole behavior that after that he thought that he knew more than the soldiers, so that on the decisive questions of the fight against the Soviet Union he carried his point and would no longer listen to the High, Command of the Army.
DR. LATERNSER: You received the Commissar Order, did you not?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes.
DR. LATERNSER: What attitude did you adopt with reference to that order?
VON MANSTEIN: It was the first time I found myself involved in a conflict between my soldierly conceptions and my duty to obey. Actually I ought to have obeyed, but I said to myself that as a soldier I could not possibly co-operate in a thing like that, and I told the commander of the army group under which I came at the time, as well as the commander of the armored group, that I would not carry out such an order, which was against the honor of a soldier. In practice, the order was not carried out. My divisional commanders, who had already received the order independently from me in the Reich, shared my view and, apart from that, the commissars, as good fighters, defended themselves to the last and in many cases shot themselves before being taken prisoner, or they removed their insignia of rank and could not be identified by the troops. The troops, who inwardly disliked the order intensely, certainly did not look for commissars amongst the prisoners.
DR. LATERNSER: You have just mentioned the commander of your army group and the commander of the armored group. Who were these generals?
VON MANSTEIN: The commander of the army group was Field Marshal Von Leeb, and commanding the armored group was Generaloberst Hoeppner.
DR. LATERNSER: And what was their attitude to this order?
VON MANSTEIN: Field Marshal Von Leeb, as my superior, took cognizance of my report that I would not carry out the order, in other words, he tacitly approved. Generaloberst Hoeppner who, with another general commanding an armored group, called Reinhardt, also raised objection, promised that he would transmit the
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objections to the High Command of the Army. However, he was not successful.
DR. LATERNSER: How did you reconcile your disobedience in this case with your conception of the military duty to obey?
VON MANSTEIN: In itself military obedience is, of course, unconditional, indivisible, but during wars there have always been cases where higher military leaders did not obey an order or carried it out differently. That is part of the higher responsibility which a high military leader bears. No army leader can be expected to join a battle when he knows he is bound to lose. In these questions, that is to say, operational questions, there is in practice in the final analysis a certain right to deviate from orders given, which, however, must be confirmed by success. In the German Army particularly that independence of lower-ranking leaders has always been strongly emphasized. The situation is quite different in the case of orders which deal with actions on the part of all soldiers. In such cases, disobedience on the part of a small man can be dealt with by means of punishment. If the higher leader, however, has disobeyed orders in such cases, then he undermines not only his own authority but discipline as a whole, and thereby endangers military success. In such cases it is more binding on the higher leader than it is on the soldier and the lower-ranking leader, because he, the higher man, should be an example.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you not undermine discipline by this disobedience of yours?
VON MANSTEIN: No, not in that case, because the troops felt the same as I did. In other words, the soldierly feelings which we had instilled into our troops opposed the political will imposed upon them by Hitler. Apart from that, we were able to refer to the order issued by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army to the effect that the maintenance of the discipline of the men should take preference over everything else.
DR. LATERNSER: How was the military jurisdiction exercised on the basis of the order from the Commander-in-Chief of the Army according to which discipline was to be strictly observed?
VON MANSTEIN: We exercised military jurisdiction as we had to do according to our training, in other words, according to right and law and as decent soldiers.
I should like to quote as an example that the first two death sentences with which I had to deal were imposed at the beginning of the Russian campaign on two German soldiers in my corps for the rape of Russian women, and it was the same everywhere.
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DR. LATERNSER: Now let us turn to another chapter. What can you say about the treatment of prisoners of war?
VON MANSTEIN: With reference to the treatment of prisoners of war, as far as it came under our jurisdiction, I must say first of all that basically we as soldiers respected every brave enemy, and secondly, that we knew very well from the first World War that any maltreatment of enemy prisoners of war would finally have repercussions upon our own soldiers. As a matter of principle, therefore, we treated prisoners of war in the manner which we had been taught as soldiers, and as we were bound to do in accordance with the laws of warfare.
DR. LATERNSER: Did you yourself ever have knowledge of a violation, and did you ever take any action against wrong treatment?
VON MANSTEIN: Let me say first of all that I have seen many prisoner-oil-war columns on the march. In these columns I have never seen a prisoner of war who had been shot. But on one occasion, when I was commander-in-chief of the army group, I saw a German soldier hitting a prisoner with a stick in order to clear the way for my motor car which was trying to pass the column. I at once stopped and took the man's name, and on the following day I had his commanding officer appear before me and ordered him to punish the man, and I told him personally that the next time he himself would face a court-martial if he permitted such excesses amongst his troops.
DR. LATERNSER: Can you give any explanation for the mass casualties amongst Russian prisoners of war during that first winter?
VON MANSTEIN: My army too had huge numbers of prisoners later on, up to 150,000, and it is of course always difficult to provide suddenly the necessary food and accommodation for such large numbers. As far as my army was concerned, we managed to do that. We gave permission to the population, for instance, to bring food into the camps for the prisoners and thus ease the situation. During the large battles of encirclement in 1941 which took place within the Army Group Center and near Kiev, where the prisoners ran into many hundreds of thousands, the situation was different. When the Russian soldiers came out of the encircled areas in which they had held out to the last, they were already half-starved, and in this case, an army with its transportation space cannot possibly bring with it the means to feed 500,000 prisoners at once, and accommodate them in Central Russia. After all, the same conditions arose in Germany after the capitulation, when hundreds of thousands of soldiers spent weeks in the open and could not be fed properly either.
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DR. LATERNSER: To what extent were the commanders-in-chief responsible for prisoners of war?
VON MANSTEIN: We were responsible for prisoners of war as long as they were in the area of our armies, that is to say, until they were handed over to transit camps.
DR. LATERNSER: So that was an entirely temporary state of affairs?
VON MANSTEIN: Yes, unless prisoners of war were employed in our army area.
DR. LATERNSER: In cases where the prisoners remained with the army, how were they treated?
VON MANSTEIN: Those prisoners whom we retained in our army areas were required to help in the work we had to do, and for that reason they were, of course, decently treated. After all, every division had about 1,000 - sometimes more - prisoners whom we employed as so-called auxiliary volunteers, that is, voluntary helpers. These auxiliary volunteers remained faithful to us and even came along during our retreats, and that certainly would not have been the case if we had treated them badly. I should like to quote another example. When I became Commander-in-Chief of Army Group South I was accompanied only by my own personal staff and had no guard, and for about 8 or 10 days I had only Cossack guards in my house. If we had treated the prisoners badly, they would certainly have killed me.
DR. LATERNSER: Now, in regard to prisoners of war in the Reich, to whom were the camp commanders responsible?
VON MANSTEIN: As far as I know, the camp commanders within the army districts came under a general for prisoners of war, and he in turn was under the Commander of the Reserve Army.