This case is also known as the "Southeast Case" because all of the defendants had once been German generals leading the troops in Southeastern Europe during the Balkans Campaign, i.e. in Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia, and they were charged as those responsible for the hostage-taking of civilians and wanton shootings of these hostages and of "partisans" that the German troops committed there in the years in 1941 and later. The defendant Lothar Rendulic was further charged in respect of the 'scorched earth' total destruction of all towns, settlements and civil infrastructure in the Norwegian county of Finnmark in the winter of 1944.