7 Jan. 46

come through to the Tribunal, nor do the defendants' counsel get the benefit of the true meaning of the answers which have been given in the examination-in-chief, and everything that you may think you gain by rapidity of cross-examination, you lose by the inadequacy of the translation. I will repeat that you should pause at the end of your sentences and at the end of your questions, so as to give the interpreter's voice time to come through.

DR. STAHMER: Witness, you said that from 1942 onwards you were Chief of Anti-Partisan Combat Units. As such, it was your duty to fight the partisans in the East?

VON DEM BACH-ZELEWSKI: Yes, that is correct, in the East.

DR. STAHMER: Now, you said that it was not quite clear what was to be understood by the term "partisan"; the concept of "partisan" was never during the entire period clearly defined. Is that correct?

VON DEM BACH-ZELEWSKI: Yes, the sense of that is correct. In my opinion a distinction should be drawn between partisans and partisan suspects. The troops did not always make this distinction. A partisan was a man carefully selected and trained by the enemy. He was also very well armed. I always insisted that this concept was not vague, but concrete. If fire is opened from a wood, a house, or a village, it is not correct to say that everyone in the wood, boom, or village is a partisan; for this reason: The tactics of the partisans were to disappear rapidly after a successful action; they relied on the element of surprise Inherent in this method of warfare. If the troops took their counter measures without being specially trained and without exact knowledge of this concept of "partisan," then they would conclude from the fact that they had been fired on from a village, that all the inhabitants were partisans. In my view, a partisan can be considered as such only if he is encountered or captured with a weapon in his hand. If he has no weapon, he cannot be considered a partisan.

DR. STAHMER: Now, what did you do in a positive way to clarify this concept of "partisan"?

VON DEM BACH-ZELEWSKI: As I have already said, ever since 1941, even before I was Chief of Anti-Partisan Combat Units, not only I but also General Von Schenkendorff, continually sent numbers of memoranda containing suggestions. Moreover, in the Russian Army Group Center, for instance, we organized schools for fighting partisans, where the troops were to be trained along these lines. Schenkendorff and I, together, worked out a series of regulations for fighting partisan%, but they were never published. Immediately after I was appointed Chief of Anti-Partisan Combat Units, that Is, in the beginning of 1943, my staff began to prepare