30 Nov. 45

GEN. RUDENKO: You have misunderstood me. You are speaking about sabotage and I was asking you concerning terroristic acts of these organizations. Do you understand me? Was terror one of their tasks? Let me repeat again, as well as the sabotage acts, were there any terror acts assigned to them?

LAHOUSEN: On our part never.

GEN. RUDENKO: You have told me that from your side there was no question of terrorism; from whose side was the question put, who worked on this aspect?

LAHOUSEN Well, that was the whole point all the time. Each one of these military Abwehr units was asked again and again to combine our purely military tasks which were determined by the needs of the Wehrmacht leadership with political or terroristic measures, as is clearly shown by the memorandum on our files concerning preparation of the campaign against Poland.

GEN. RUDENKO: Answering the question of Colonel Amen as to whether the Red Army man was looked upon as an ideological enemy and was subjected to corresponding measures, what do you mean by corresponding measures? I repeat the question. You have said that the Red Army man was looked upon by you, I mean by the German High Command as an ideological enemy and was to be subjected to corresponding measures. What does it mean? What do you mean by saying corresponding measures?

LAHOUSEN: By special measures I mean quite clearly all those brutal methods which were actually used and which I have already mentioned and of which I am convinced there were many more, more than I could possibly have seen in my restricted field and more than was known to me.

GEN. RUDENKO: You already told the Tribunal that there were special Commandos for the screening of prisoners of war. I understand that they were screened in the following way: Into those who were to be killed and the others who were to be interned in camps, is that right?

LAHOUSEN: Yes, these special Commandos of the SD were concerned, however, solely with the execution of those selected amongst the prisoners of war.

GEN. RUDENKO: That of course makes the chief of the Commandos responsible and decisive for the question as to who was to die and who was not to die.

LAHOUSEN: Yes, in the course of a discussion with Reinecke, the question was raised whether to give to the head of one such Commando unit the right to decide who, in view of the order, was to be looked upon as Bolshevistically tainted or not.