30 Nov. 45

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Do you know to whom or to what organizations such orders were usually addressed?

LAHOUSEN: Orders of this kind, involving the question of principle, went to the OKW, because things relating to prisoners of war were and had to be the concern of the OKW, and in particular of Reinecke, which also explains the discussions with Reinecke.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): So usually the members or some of the members of the General Staff would have known of such orders, would they not?

LAHOUSEN: Certainly, many members of the Wehrmacht knew of the essential contents of this order, for the reaction of the Wehrmacht against this order was tremendous. Apart from official discussions which I have reported here, these orders were discussed a great deal in casino clubs and elsewhere, because all these matters became manifest in the most undesirable form and had a most undesirable effect on the troops. As a matter of fact, officers, and high-ranking officers at the front, either did not transmit these orders or sought to evade them in some way and this was discussed a great deal. I have named some of these officers; some are listed in the notes, diary, et cetera. It was not an everyday occurrence, and it was then the topic of the day.

THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): And were the orders known to the leaders of the SA and SD?

LAHOUSEN: They must have been known to them, for the ordinary soldiers who watched all these proceedings knew and spoke about them. To a certain extent they were even known to the civilian populace; civilians learned far more details about these matters from wounded soldiers returning from the front than I could tell here.

THE PRESIDENT: General Nikitchenko wants to ask a question.

THE TRIBUNAL (Major General I. T. Nikitchenko): You have told us that you received instructions about the murder of prisoners of war and brutal treatment. You received these orders from Reinecke?

LAHOUSEN: Well, I must correct something that I said. It is not I and not the Amt Ausland Abwehr who got the order, because we had nothing to do with it, but I knew about it, as I was present at this conference as a representative of the Amt Ausland Abwehr. But we ourselves had nothing to do with the treatment of prisoners of war, and certainly not in this negative sense.

THE TRIBUNAL (Gen. Nikitchenko) Apart from these meetings, the meetings of the High Command, were such instructions