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Walter Warlimont Testimony University of North Dakota

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Walter Warlimont Testimony University of North Dakota University of North Dakota UND Scholarly Commons Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Nuremberg Transcripts Collections 6-21-1948 High Command Case: Walter Warlimont Testimony University of North Dakota Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/nuremburg-transcripts Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation University of North Dakota, "High Command Case: Walter Warlimont Testimony" (1948). Nuremberg Transcripts. 15. https://commons.und.edu/nuremburg-transcripts/15 This Court Document is brought to you for free and open access by the Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Nuremberg Transcripts by an authorized administrator of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 21 June 48-M-DC-9-4-Hoxsie (Schaeffer) Court 5, Case 12 [....] THE PRESIDENT: You may call the next witness, Dr. Leverkuehn. DR. LEVERKUEHN: The next witness is General Warlimont himself. _________ WALTER WARLIMONT, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: THE PRESiDENT: 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 will be seated,. DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. LEVERKUEHN: Q. Please state your nane, your surname and Christian name. A. Walter Warlimont. Q. When were you born? A. On the 3rd of October, 1894. Q. Where? A. Osnabruck in northwest Germany. Q. Where did your family originate? A. My parents were both born in the German-Belgium frontier 21 June 48-M-DC-9-5-Hoxsie (Schaeffer) Court 5, Case 12 area, Eupen-Malmedy. My family, on my father's side, originated in the Belgium Ardenees Mountains, where large circles of his family still live today. Q. Where did you attend school? A. I attended school in Osnabruck, the Humanistic Gymnasium, but I left at my matriculation at the beginning of 1913. Q. What profession did you take up thereafter? A. Immediately after having finished school in February, 1913, I entered an artillery regiment in Strassburg in Alsace. Q. At the outbreak of the war, 1914, were you already an officer? A. Yes, after having attended the military school in Danzig for nine months, in July 1914, one month before the outbreak of the First World War I was promoted to officer. Q. In what assignments did you participate in the First World War? A. During the First World War I was a front line officer in the artillery. Q. What was your rank at the conclusion of the First World War? A. First Lieutenant. Q. What did you do after the First World War? A. A short while after the war I entered the Free Corps of General Merker which was stationed in central Germany, and participated particularly in the suppression of Communistic insurrections. When the 100,000 man army was formed, I was taken over into an artillery regiment with a rank of first lieutenant. Q. How did that period of your service close, witness? A. Two or three years after the First World War I remained in the artillery, and then I was commanded to a training course for Fuehrer- Gehilk in Military District Command 6 in Muenster. 21 June 48-M-DC-9-6-Hoxsie (Schaeffer) Court 5, Case 12 Q. Who was your teacher there? A. The later Chief of General Staff, General Beck. Q. Did you have personal or official relations with him prior to this period? A. Yes, prior to that he had been my battalion commander in the artillery regiment of the 100,000 man amy. Q. After you had finished your training did you immediately return to the troops? A. No, at the conclusion of this training period I was given a scholarship to go to England to study languages. Q. Had you been abroad at an earlier time? A. Yes, from my earliest youth onwards I went every year, sometimes to Belgium, and later on as a senior scholar, and after the war as a young officer, I made several trips to Switzerland and Italy. Q. Did you return to the front after your stay in England? A. No. In Fall 1926 I was commanded to the General Staff, or as it was callen [sic] then, to the Fuherstaf. My first position was the one of a second adjutant to tho Chief of the Truppenamt in the Reich War Miinistry in Berlin. Q. What were your tasks there? A. In this position I only had to deal with the anteroom work in a similar way as my A. D. C. who just testified here. Q. And thereafter what became of you? A. I remained in that position for six months, and thereafter I was transferred to the Heereswanffenamt. There I had to concern myself with the military econonic experiences of the First World War. German experiences as well as foreign experiences were my sphere of task there. Q. How long did you remain in thatposition [sic]? A. First of all I remained there for two years, from Spring, 1927, to Spring, 1929. 21 June 48-M-DC-9-7-Hoxsie (Schaeffer) Court 5, Case 12 Q. And then? A. In Spring 1929, I was commanded to the Army of the United States for one year in order to study the economic mobilization of the array there. 21 June 1948-M-DJG-10-1-Hoxsie (Schaeffer) COURT V, CASE XII Q Was it customary that German officers were commanded to foreign armies? A. After the First World War that had been the first case of this type. Another captain of my own age went with me who had also worked in the Reich Defense Ministry, and he was commanded to the Air Corps of the Army of the United States in order to study those matters which we had lost during the ten post war years. Q Why do you think that you were chosen for this assignment? A Minly [sic] I believe the selection of my person was connected with my official activity which I had carried out in the two previous years. I had concerned myself with the German military economy after the First World War, and therefore, I was one of the very few officers who was suitable for this reason to study economic mobilization in the United States. An additional factor might have been that my wife and her mother were a branch of the Anheuser-Busch family in St. Louis, and she spent her school years during the First World War in the United States, and her brother lived there for twenty years. Q Now, who assigned the mission to you to proceed to the Army of the United States? A The mission originated with the then Reich Defense Minister Groener, because, as I learned at that time, he had personally concluded the agreements for this mission with the American War Ministry. Q How were you received in the American Army? A I was welcomed with great hospitality and all possibilities were opened to me to carry out my studies. Q Were you able to show your recognition and appreciation? A I tried to do that at the time after I had looked around somewhat in the United States. In Washington, before the officers of the War Department, I gave a number of lectures about the German military economic experiences of the First World War, and also about artillery matters. 21 June 1948-M-DJG-10-2-Hoxsie (Schaeffer) COURT V, CASE XII Q Was your assignment restricted to Washington? A No, I spent approximately half of this one year, which was the period of my assignment in Washington. During the other six months, I visited the rest of the United States, and at the end for two months I was assigned to an artillery regiment in Texas. Q Apart from the military economic purpose, did Groener explain any other purposos of this mission to you? A Yes, Reich Defense Minister Groener received me in person briefly before my departure to the United States. On this occasion he told me, even more important than the study of economic mobilization was it for me to obtain as many friendly contacts as possible with officers of the Army of the United States. Q Were you in a position to keep up such contacts at a later time? A I believe I can state that I succeeded in fulfilling this mission at the time and I cultivated these contacts later on. I tried to express my gratitude. Q How could you manage to keep up contact with American officers later on in Germany? A The consewuence [sic] of this assignment was that I maintained contact principally with officers of the American Embassy in Berlin. Those gentleman visited me even when I was outside Berlin with troops. They visited me mainly during large troop maneuvers. These contacts were also cultivated mainly during the time when I served in Berlin proper. Q Contacts with whom? A I believe that between 1933 and 1939 I knew all officers who worked in the American Embassy, but primarily I know very closely the military attache who served there from 1936 to 1939, this was the then Lieutenant Colonel Truman Smith. Q About that portion of your testimony we are going to submit two affidavits which are Documents 57 and 87. They are affidavits of 21 June 1948-M-DJG-10-3-Hoxsie (Schaeffer) COURT V, CASE XII Truman Smith and of Heidel. Did you later on succeed in returning to the United States? A No. It was my most urgent desire to be military attache in Washington myself, but this wish was never fulfilled.
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