"I, Wilhelm Scheidt, belonged to the War History Section of the OKW from the year 1941 to, 1945.

"Concerning the question of partisan warfare I state that I remember the following from my knowledge of the documents of the Operations Staff of the OKW as well as from my conversations in the Führer's headquarters with Major General Walter Scherff, the Führer's appointee for the compilation of the history of the war.

"Counter-partisan warfare was originally a responsibility of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler, who sent police forces to handle this matter.

"In the years 1942 and 1943, however, counter-partisan war- fare developed to such an extent that the Operations Staff of the OKW had to give it special attention. In the Army Operations Section of the Operations Staff of the OKW, a specific officer was assigned the development of counter- partisan warfare as his special task. It proved necessary to conduct extensive operations against the partisans with Wehrmacht troops in Russian, as well as Yugoslavian territory. Partisan operations for a long while threatened to cut off the lines of communication and transport routes that were necessary to support the German Wehrmacht. For instance, a monthly report concerning the attacks on the railroad lines in occupied Russia revealed that in the Russian area alone from 800 to 1,000 attacks occurred each month during that period causing among other things the loss of from 200 to 300 locomotives.

"It was a well-known fact that partisan warfare was conducted with cruelty on both sides. It was well known that reprisals were inflicted on hostages and communities whose inhabitants were suspected of being partisans or of supporting them. It is beyond question that these facts must have been known to the leading officers in the Operations Staff of the OKW and in the Army's General Staff. It was further well known that Hitler believed that the only successful method of conducting counter-partisan warfare was to employ cruel punishments as deterrents.

"I remember that, at the time of the Polish revolt in Warsaw, SS Gruppenführer Fegelein reported to Colonel General