Afternoon Session
MARSHAL: If Your Honors please, the Defendants Kaltenbrunner and Streicher will continue to be absent this afternoon.
M. DUBOST: We left off this morning at the enumeration of the tortures that had been practiced habitually by the Gestapo in the various cities in France where inquiries had been conducted; and I was proving to you, by reading numerous documents, that everywhere accused persons and frequently witnesses themselves—as seen in the last letter—were questioned with brutality and subjected to tortures that were usually identical. This systematic repetition of the same methods of torture proves, we believe, that a common plan existed, conceived by the German Government itself.
We still have a great many testimonies, all extracts from the report of the American services, concerning the prisons at Dreux, at Morlaix, and at Metz. These testimonies are given in Documents F-689, 690, and 691, which we now submit as Exhibits RF-311, 312, and 313.
With your permission, Your Honor, I will now refrain from further citing these documents. The same acts were systematically repeated. This is also true of the tortures inflicted in Metz, Cahors, Marseilles, and Quimperlé, dealt with in Documents F-692, 693, 565, and 694, which we are presenting to you as Exhibits RF-314, 314 (bis), 309, and 315.
We now come to one of the most odious crimes committed by the Gestapo, and it is not possible for us to keep silent about it in spite of our desire to shorten this statement. This is the murder of a French officer by the Gestapo at Clermont-Ferrand, a murder which was committed under extremely shameful conditions, in contempt of all the rules of international law; for it was perpetrated in a region where, according to the terms of the Armistice, the Gestapo had nothing to do and had no right to be.
The name of this French officer was Major Henri Madeline. His case is given in Document F-575, which we submit as Exhibit Number RF-316. He was arrested on 1 October 1943 at Vichy. His interrogation began in January 1944; and he was struck in such a savage manner, in the course of the first interrogation, that when he was brought back to his cell his hand was already broken.
On 27 January this officer was questioned again on two occasions, during which he was struck so violently that when he returned to his cell his hands were so swollen that it was impossible to see the handcuffs he had on. The following day the German police came back to fetch him from his cell, where he had passed the whole night in agony. He was still alive; they threw him down on a road a kilometer away from a small village in the Massif Central, Perignant-Les-Sarlièves, to make it look as if he had been the victim of a road accident. His body was found later. A post mortem showed that the thorax was completely crushed, with multiple fractures of the ribs and perforation of the lungs. There was also dislocation of the spine, fracture of the lower jaw, and most of the tissues of the head were loose.
Alas, we all know that a few French traitors did assist in the arrests and in the misdeeds of the Gestapo in France under the orders of German officers. One of these traitors, who was arrested when our country was liberated, has described the ill-treatment that had been inflicted on Major Madeline. The name of this traitor is Verière and we are going to read a passage from his statement:
“He was beaten with a whip and a bludgeon; blows on his fingernails crushed his fingers. He was forced to walk barefooted on tacks. He was burned with cigarettes. Finally, he was beaten unmercifully and taken back to his cell in a dying condition.”
Major Madeline was not the only victim of such evil treatment which several German officers of the Gestapo helped to inflict. This inquiry has shown:
“. . . that 12 known persons succumbed to the tortures inflicted by the Gestapo of Clermont-Ferrand, that some women were stripped naked and beaten before they were raped.”
I am anxious not to lengthen these proceedings by useless citations. I believe the Tribunal will consider as confirmed the facts that I have presented. They are contained in the document that we are placing before you, and in it the Tribunal will find, in extenso, the written testimonies taken on the day which followed the liberation. This systematic repetition of the same criminal proceedings in order to achieve the same purpose—to bring about a reign of terror—was not the isolated act of a subordinate having authority in our country only and remaining outside the control of his government or of the Army General Staff. An examination of the methods of the German police in all countries of the West shows that the same horrors, the same atrocities, were repeated systematically everywhere. Whether in Denmark, Belgium, Holland, or Norway, the interrogations were everywhere and at all times conducted by the Gestapo with the same savagery, the same contempt of the rights of self defense, the same contempt of human dignity.
In the case of Denmark, we cite a few lines from a document already submitted to the Tribunal. It is Document F-666 (Exhibit Number RF-317), which should be the sixth in your document book. It contains an official Danish report of October 1945, concerning the German major war criminals appearing before the International Military Tribunal. On Page 5, under the title, “Torture”, we read in a brief résumé everything that concerns the question with regard to Denmark:
“In numerous cases the German police and their assistants used torture in order to force the prisoners to confess or to give information. This fact is supported by irrefutable evidence. In most cases the torture consisted of beating with a rod or with a rubber bludgeon. But also far more flagrant forms of torture were used including some which will leave lasting injuries. Bovensiepen has stated that the order to use torture in certain cases emanated from higher authorities, possibly even from Göring as Chief of the Geheime Staatspolizei but, at any rate, from Heydrich. The instructions were to the effect that torture might be used to compel persons to give information that might serve to disclose subversive organizations directed against the German Reich, but not for the purpose of making the delinquent admit his own deeds.”
A little further on:
“The means were prescribed, namely, a limited number of strokes with a rod. Bovensiepen does not remember whether the maximum limit was 10 or 20 strokes. An officer from the criminal police (Kriminal Kommissar, Kriminalrat) was there and also, when circumstances so required, there was a medical officer present.”
The above-mentioned instructions were modified several times for minor details, and all members of the criminal police were notified.
The Danish Government points out, in conclusion, two particularly repugnant cases of torture inflicted on Danish patriots. They are the cases of Professor Mogens Fog and the ill-treatment inflicted on Colonel Ejnar Thiemroth. Finally, the Tribunal can read that Doctor Hoffmann-Best states that his official prerogatives did not authorize him to prevent the use of torture.
In the case of Belgium we should recall first of all the tortures that were inflicted in the tragically famous camp of Breendonck, where hundreds, even thousands of Belgian patriots, were shut up. We shall revert to Breendonck when we deal with the question of concentration camps. We shall merely quote from the report of the Belgian War Crimes Commission a few definite facts in support of our original affirmation, that all acts of ill-treatment imputed to the Gestapo in France were reproduced in identical manner in all the occupied western countries. The documents which we shall submit to you are to be found in the small document book under Numbers F-942(a), 942(b), Exhibits RF-318, 319.
This report comprises minutes which I will not read, inasmuch as it contains testimonies which are analogous to, if not identical with, those that were read concerning France. However, on Pages 1 and 2 you will find the statement made by M. Auguste Ramasl and a statement made by M. Paul Desomer, which show that the most extreme cruelties were inflicted on these men and that, when they emerged from the offices of the Gestapo, they were completely disfigured and unable to stand.
And now I submit to you with regard to Belgium, Documents F-641(a) and F-641(b), which now become Exhibits RF-320 and 321. I shall not read them. They, too, contain reports describing tortures similar to those I have already mentioned. If the Court will accept the cruelty of the methods of torture employed by the Gestapo as having been established, I will abstain from reading all the testimonies which have been collected.
In the case of Norway our information is taken from a document submitted by the Norwegian Government for the punishment of the major war criminals. In the French translation of this document—Number UK-79, which we present as Exhibit Number RF-323—on Page 2, the Tribunal will find the statement of the Norwegian Government according to which numerous Norwegian citizens died from the cruel treatment inflicted on them during their interrogations. The number of known cases for the district of Oslo, only, is 52; but the number in the various regions of Norway is undoubtedly much higher. The total number of Norwegian citizens who died during the occupation in consequence of torture or ill-treatment, execution, or suicide in political prisons or concentration camps is approximately 2,100.
In Paragraph B, Page 2 of the document, there is a description of the methods employed in the services of the Gestapo in Norway which were identical with those I have already described.
In the case of Holland, we shall submit Document Number F-224, which becomes Exhibit Number RF-324 and which, is an extract from the statement of the Dutch Government for the prosecution and punishment of the major German war criminals. This document bears the date of 11 January 1946. It has been distributed and should now be in your hands. The Tribunal will find in this document a great number of testimonies which were collected by the Criminal Investigation Department, all of which describe the same ill-treatment and tortures as those already known to you and which were committed by the services of the Gestapo in Holland.
In Holland, as elsewhere, the accused were struck with sticks. When their backs were completely raw from beating they were sent back to their cells. Sometimes icy water was sprayed on them and sometimes they were exposed to electrical current. At Amersfoort a witness saw with his own eyes a prisoner, who was a priest, beaten to death with a rubber truncheon. The systematic character of such tortures seems to me definitely established.
The document of the Danish Government is a first proof in support of my contention that these systematic tortures were deliberately willed by the higher authorities of the Reich and that the members of the German Government are responsible for them. In any case these systematic tortures were certainly known, because there were protests from all European countries against such methods, which plunged us again into the darkness of the Middle Ages; and at no time was an order given to forbid such methods, at no time were those who executed them repudiated by their superiors. The methods followed were devised to reinforce the policy of terrorism pursued by Germany in the western occupied countries—a policy of terrorism which I already described to you when I dealt with the question of hostages.
It is now incumbent on me to designate to you by name those among the accused whom France, as well as other countries in the West, considers to be especially guilty in having prepared and developed this criminal policy carried out by the Gestapo. We maintain that they are Bormann and Kaltenbrunner who, because of their functions, must have known more than any others, about those deeds. Although we are not in possession of any document signed by them in respect to the western countries, the uniformity of the acts we have described to you and the fact that they were analogous and even identical, in spite of the diversity of places, enables us to assert that all these orders were dictated by a single will; and among the accused, Bormann and Kaltenbrunner were the direct instruments of that single will.
Everything I described to you here concerned the procedure prior to judgment. We know with what ferocity this procedure was applied. We know that this ferocity was intentional. It was known to the populations of the invaded countries, and its purpose was to create an atmosphere of real terror around the Gestapo and all the German police services.
After the examination came the judicial proceedings. These proceedings were, as we see them, only a parody of justice. The prosecution was based on a legal concept which we dismiss as being absolutely inhuman. That part will be dealt with by my colleague, M. Edgar Faure, in the second part of the statement on the German atrocities in the western countries: crimes against the spirit.
It is sufficient for us to know that the German courts which dealt with crimes committed by the citizens of the occupied western countries, which did not accept defeat, never applied but one penalty, the death penalty, and that in execution of an inhuman order by one of these men, Keitel; an order which appears in Document Number L-90, already submitted to you by my United States colleagues, under Document Number USA-503. It is the penultimate in your large document book, Line 5:
“If these offenses are punished with imprisonment or even with hard labor for life, it will be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Effective and lasting intimidation can only be achieved either by capital punishment or by measures which leave the relatives and the population in the dark about the fate of the culprit. Deportation to Germany serves this purpose.”
Is it necessary to make any comment? Can we be surprised at this war leader giving orders to justice? What we heard about him yesterday makes us doubt that he is merely a military leader. We have quoted you his own words, “Effective and lasting intimidation can only be achieved by capital punishment.” Are such orders, given to courts of justice, compatible with military honor? “If in effect”—Keitel goes on to say in this Document—“the courts are unable to pronounce the death penalty, then the man must be deported.” I think you will share my opinion that, when such orders are given to courts, one can no longer speak of justice. In execution of this order, those of our compatriots who were not condemned to death and immediately executed were deported to Germany.
We now come to the third part of my statement: the question of deportation.
It remains for me to explain to you in what circumstances the deportations were carried out. If prior to that the Tribunal could suspend the sitting for a few minutes, I should be very grateful.
THE PRESIDENT: How long would you like us to suspend, M. Dubost?
M. DUBOST: Perhaps ten minutes, Your Honor.
[A recess was taken.]
DR. OTTO NELTE (Counsel for the Defendant Keitel): The French Prosecutor just now read from Document L-90, the so-called “Nacht und Nebel” decree. He referred to this decree and cited the words:
“Effective and lasting intimidation can only be achieved by capital punishment, or by measures which leave the relatives and the population in the dark about the fate of the culprit.”
The French Prosecutor mentioned that these were the very words of Keitel.
In connection with a previous case the President and the Tribunal have pointed out that it is not permissible to quote only a part of a document when by so doing a wrong impression might be created. The French Prosecutor will agree with me when I say that Decree L-90 makes it quite clear that these are not the words of the Chief of the OKW, but of Hitler. In this short extract it says:
“It is the carefully considered will of the Führer that, when attacks are made in occupied countries against the Reich or against the occupying power, the culprits must be dealt with by other measures than those decreed heretofore. The Führer is of the opinion that if these offenses are punished with imprisonment, or even with hard labor for life, this will be looked upon as a sign of weakness. Effective and lasting intimidation can only be achieved by capital punishment, et cetera.”
The decree then goes on to say:
“The enclosed directives on how to deal with the offences comply with the Führer’s point of view. They have been examined and approved by him.”
I take the liberty to point out this fact, because it was just this decree, which is known as the notorious “Nacht und Nebel” decree, which in its formulation and execution was opposed by Keitel. That is why I am protesting.
M. DUBOST: I owe you an explanation. I did not read the decree in full because the Tribunal knows it. In accordance with the customary procedure of this Tribunal, it has been read. It is not necessary to read it again. Moreover, I knew that the accused Keitel had signed it, but that Hitler had conceived it. Therefore, I made allusion to the military honor of this general, who was not afraid to become the lackey of Hitler.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal understood from your mentioning of the fact that the document had already been submitted to the Tribunal and does not think that there was anything misleading in what you did.
M. DUBOST: If the Tribunal accepts this, we shall proceed to the hearing of a witness, a Frenchman.
[The witness, Lampe, took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: This is your witness, is it not? Is this the witness you wish to call?
M. DUBOST: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: [To the witness] Will you stand up. What is your name?
M. MAURICE LAMPE (Witness): Lampe, Maurice.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me: Do you swear to speak without hate or fear, to say the truth, all the truth, only the truth?
[The witness repeated the oath in French.]
THE PRESIDENT: Raise the right hand and say, I swear.
LAMPE: I swear.
THE PRESIDENT: Spell your name.
LAMPE: L-A-M-P-E.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
M. DUBOST: You were born in Roubaix on the 23rd of August 1900. Were you deported by the Germans?
LAMPE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down.
LAMPE: Thank you, Mr. President.
M. DUBOST: You were interned in Mauthausen?
LAMPE: That is correct.
M. DUBOST: Will you testify as to what you know concerning this internment camp?
LAMPE: Willingly.
M. DUBOST: Say what you know.
LAMPE: I was arrested on 8 November 1941. After two years and a half of internment in France, I was deported on 22 March 1944 to Mauthausen in Austria. The journey lasted three days and three nights under particularly vile conditions—104 deportees in a cattle truck without air. I do not believe that it is necessary to give all the details of this journey, but one can well imagine the state in which we arrived at Mauthausen on the morning of the 25th of March 1944, in weather 12 degrees below zero. I mention, however, that from the French border we traveled in the trucks, naked.
When we arrived at Mauthausen, the SS officer who received this convoy of about 1,200 Frenchmen informed us in the following words, which I shall quote from memory almost word for word:
“Germany needs your arms. You are, therefore, going to work; but I want to tell you that you will never see your families again. When one enters this camp, one leaves it by the chimney of the crematorium.”
I remained about three weeks in quarantine in an isolated block, and I was then detailed to work with a squad in a stone quarry. The quarry at Mauthausen was in a hollow about 800 metres from the camp proper. There were 186 steps down to it. It was particularly painful torture, because the steps were so rough-hewn that to climb them even without a load was extremely tiring.
One day, 15 April 1944, I was detailed to a team of 12 men—all of them French—under the orders of a German “Kapo,” a common criminal, and of an SS man.
We started work at seven o’clock in the morning. By eight o’clock, one hour later, two of my comrades had already been murdered. They were an elderly man, M. Gregoire from Lyons, and a quite young man, Lefevre from Tours. They were murdered because they had not understood the order, given in German, detailing them for a task. We were very frequently beaten because of our inability to understand the German language.
On the evening of that first day, 15 April 1944, we were told to carry the two corpses to the top, and the one that I, with three of my comrades, carried was that of old Gregoire, a very heavy man; we had to go up 186 steps with a corpse and we all received blows before we reached the top.
Life in Mauthausen—and I shall declare before this Tribunal only what I myself saw and experienced—was a long cycle of torture and of suffering. However, I would like to recall a few scenes which were particularly horrible and have remained more firmly fixed in my memory.
During September, I think it was on the 6th of September 1944, there came to Mauthausen a small convoy of 47 British, American, and Dutch officers. They were airmen who had come down by parachute. They had been arrested after having tried to make their way back to their own lines. Because of this they were condemned to death by a German tribunal. They had been in prison about a year and a half and were brought to Mauthausen for execution.
On their arrival they were transferred to the bunker, the camp prison. They were made to undress and had only their pants and a shirt. They were barefooted. The following morning they were at the roll call at seven o’clock. The work gangs went to their tasks. The 47 officers were assembled in front of the office and were told by the commanding officer of the camp that they were all under sentence of death.
I must mention that one of the American officers asked the commander that he should be allowed to meet his death as a soldier. In reply, he was bashed with a whip. The 47 were led barefoot to the quarry.
For all the prisoners at Mauthausen the murder of these men has remained in their minds like a scene from Dante’s Inferno. This is how it was done: At the bottom of the steps they loaded stone on the backs of these poor men and they had to carry them to the top. The first journey was made with stones weighing 25 to 30 kilos and was accompanied by blows. Then they were made to run down. For the second journey the stones were still heavier; and whenever the poor wretches sank under their burden, they were kicked and hit with a bludgeon, even stones were hurled at them.
This went on for several days. In the evening when I returned from the gang with which I was then working, the road which led to the camp was a bath of blood. I almost stepped on the lower jaw of a man. Twenty-one bodies were strewn along the road. Twenty-one had died on the first day. The twenty-six others died the following morning. I have tried to make my account of this horrible episode as short as possible. We were not able, at least when we were in camp, to find out the names of these officers; but I think that by now their names must have been established.
In September 1944 Himmler visited us. Nothing was changed in the camp routine. The work gangs went to their tasks as usual, and I had—we had—the unhappy opportunity of seeing Himmler close. If I mention Himmler’s visit to the camp—after all it was not a great event—it is because that day they presented to Himmler the execution of fifty Soviet officers.
I must tell you that I was then working in a Messerschmidt gang, and that day I was on night shift. The block where I was billeted was just opposite the crematorium; and in the execution room, we saw—I saw—these Soviet officers lined up in rows of five in front of my block. They were called one by one. The way to the execution room was relatively short. It was reached by a stairway. The execution room was under the crematorium.
The execution, which Himmler himself witnessed—at least the beginning of it, because it lasted throughout the afternoon—was another particularly horrible spectacle. I repeat, the Soviet Army officers were called one by one, and there was a sort of human chain between the group which was awaiting its turn and that which was in the stairway listening to the shots which killed their predecessors. They were all killed by a shot in the neck.
M. DUBOST: You witnessed this personally?
LAMPE: I repeat that on that afternoon I was in Block 11, which was situated opposite the crematorium; and although we did not see the execution itself, we heard every shot; and we saw the condemned men who were waiting on the stairway opposite us embrace each other before they parted.
M. DUBOST: Who were these men who were condemned?
LAMPE: The majority of them were Soviet officers, political commissars, or members of the Bolshevik Party. They came from Oflags.
M. DUBOST: I beg your pardon, but were there officers among them?
LAMPE: Yes.
M. DUBOST: Did you know where they came from?
LAMPE: It was very difficult to know from what camp they came because, as a general rule, they were isolated when they arrived in camp. They were taken either direct to the prison or else to Block 20, which was an annex of the prison, about which I shall have occasion . . .
M. DUBOST: How did you know they were officers?
LAMPE: Because we were able to communicate with them.
M. DUBOST: Did all of them come from prisoner-of-war camps?
LAMPE: Probably.
M. DUBOST: You did not really know?
LAMPE: No, we did not know. We were chiefly interested in finding out of what nationality they were and did not ask other details.
M. DUBOST: Do you know where the British, American, and Dutch officers came from, about whom you have just spoken and who were executed on the steps leading to the quarry?
LAMPE: I believe they came from the Netherlands, especially the Air Force officers. They had probably bailed out after having been shot down and had hidden themselves while trying to go back to their lines.
M. DUBOST: Did the Mauthausen prisoners know that prisoners of war, officers or noncommissioned officers, were executed?
LAMPE: That was a frequent occurrence.
M. DUBOST: A frequent occurrence?
LAMPE: Yes, very frequent.
M. DUBOST: Do you know about any mass executions of the men kept at Mauthausen?
LAMPE: I know of many instances.
M. DUBOST: Could you cite a few?
LAMPE: Besides those I have already described, I feel I ought to mention what happened to part of a convoy coming from Sachsenhausen which was executed by a special method. This was on 17 February 1945.
When the Allied armies were advancing, various camps were moved back toward Austria. Of a convoy of 2,500 internees which had left Sachsenhausen, only about 1,700 were left when they arrived at Mauthausen on the morning of the 17th of February. 800 had died or had been killed in the course of the journey.
The Mauthausen Camp was at that time, if I may use this expression, completely choked. So when the 1,700 survivors of this convoy arrived, Kommandant Dachmeier had selected 400 from among them. He encouraged the sick, the old, and the weak prisoners to come forward with the idea that they might be taken to the infirmary. These 400 men, who had either come forward of their own free will or had been arbitrarily selected, were stripped entirely naked and left for 18 hours in weather 18 degrees below zero, between the laundry building and the wall of the camp. The congestion . . .
M. DUBOST: You saw that yourself?
LAMPE: I saw it personally.
M. DUBOST: You are citing this as an actual witness, seen with your own eyes?
LAMPE: Exactly.
M. DUBOST: In what part of the camp were you at that time?
LAMPE: This scene lasted, as I said, 18 hours; and when we went in or came out of the camp we saw these unfortunate men.
M. DUBOST: Very well. Will you please continue? You have spoken of the visit of Himmler and of the execution of Soviet officers and commissars. Did you frequently see German personalities in the camp?
LAMPE: Yes, but I cannot give you the names.
M. DUBOST: You did not know them?
LAMPE: One could hardly mistake Himmler.
M. DUBOST: But you did know they were eminent personalities?
LAMPE: We did indeed. First of all, these personages were always surrounded by a complete staff, who went through the prison itself and particularly adjoining blocks.
If you will allow me, I would like to go on with my description of the murder of these 400 people from Sachsenhausen. I said that after selecting the sick, the feeble and the older prisoners, Dachmeier, the camp commander, gave orders that these men should be stripped entirely naked in weather 18 degrees below zero. Several of them rapidly got congestion of the lungs, but that did not seem fast enough for the SS. Three times during the night these men were sent down to the shower-baths; three times they were drenched for half an hour in freezing water and then made to come up without being dried. In the morning when the gangs went to work the corpses were strewn over the ground. I must add that the last of them were finished off with blows from an axe.
I now give the most positive testimony of an occurrence which can easily be verified. Among those 400 men was a captain in the French cavalry, Captain Dedionne, who today is a major in the Ministry of War. This captain was among the 400. He owes his life to the fact that he hid among the corpses and thus escaped the blows of the axe. When the corpses were taken to the crematorium he managed to get away across the camp, but not without having received a blow on the shoulder which has left a mark for life.
He was caught again by the SS. What saved him was probably the fact that the SS considered it very funny that a live man should emerge from a heap of corpses. We took care of him, we helped him, and we brought him back to France.
M. DUBOST: Do you know why this execution was carried out?
LAMPE: Because there were too many people in the camp; because the prisoners coming from all the camps that were falling back could not be drafted into working gangs at a quick enough pace. The blocks were overcrowded. That is the only explanation that was given.
M. DUBOST: Do you know who gave the order to exterminate the British, American, and Dutch officers whom you saw put to death in the quarry?
LAMPE: I believe I said these officers had been condemned to death by German tribunals.
M. DUBOST: Yes.
LAMPE: Probably a few of them had been condemned many months before and they were taken to Mauthausen for the sentence to be carried out. It is probable that the order came from Berlin.
M. DUBOST: Did you know under what conditions the “Revier” (infirmary) was built?
LAMPE: Here I have to state that the infirmary was built before my arrival at the camp.
M. DUBOST: So you are giving us indirect testimony?
LAMPE: Yes, indirect testimony. But I heard it from all the internees, also the SS themselves. The Revier was built by the first Soviet prisoners who arrived in Mauthausen. Four thousand Soviet soldiers died; they were murdered, massacred, during the construction of the 8 blocks of the Revier. These massacres made such a deep impression that the Revier was always referred to as the “Russen Lager” (Russian Camp). The SS themselves called the infirmary the Russian camp.
M. DUBOST: How many Frenchmen were you at Mauthausen?
LAMPE: There were in Mauthausen and its dependencies about 10,000 Frenchmen.
M. DUBOST: How many of you came back?
LAMPE: Three thousand of us came back.
M. DUBOST: There were some Spaniards with you also?
LAMPE: Eight thousand Spaniards arrived in Mauthausen in 1941, towards the end of the year. When we left, at the end of April 1945, there were still about 1,600. All the rest had been exterminated.
M. DUBOST: Where did these Spaniards come from?
LAMPE: These Spaniards came mostly from labor companies which had been formed in 1939 and 1940 in France, or else they had been delivered by the Vichy Government to the Germans direct.
M. DUBOST: Is this all you have to tell us?
LAMPE: With the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to cite another example of atrocity which remains clearly in my memory. This took place also during September 1944. I am sorry I cannot remember the exact date, but I do know it was a Saturday, because on Saturday at Mauthausen all the outside detachments had to answer evening roll call inside the camp. That took place only on Saturday nights and on Sunday mornings.
That evening the roll call took longer than usual. Someone was missing. After a long wait and searches carried out in the various blocks, they found a Russian, a Soviet prisoner, who perhaps had fallen asleep and had forgotten to answer roll call. What the reason was we never knew, but at any rate he was not present at roll call. Immediately the dogs and the SS went up to the poor wretch, and before the whole camp—I was in the front row, not because I wanted to be but because we were arranged like that—we witnessed the fury of the dogs let loose upon this unfortunate Russian. He was tom to pieces in the presence of the whole camp. I must add that this man, in spite of his sufferings, faced his death in a particularly noble manner.
M. DUBOST: What were the living conditions of the prisoners like? Were they all treated the same or were they treated differently according to their origin and nationality or, perhaps according to their ethnic type, their particular race, shall we say?
LAMPE: As a general rule the camp regime was the same for all nationalities, with the exception of the quarantine blocks and the annexes of the prison. The kind of work we did, the particular units to which we were attached, sometimes allowed us to get a little more than usual; for instance, those who worked in the kitchens and those who worked in the stores certainly did get a little more.
M. DUBOST: Were, for instance, Jews permitted to work in the kitchens or the store rooms?
LAMPE: At Mauthausen the Jews had the hardest tasks of all. I must point out that, until December 1943, the Jews did not live more than three months at Mauthausen. There were very few of them at the end.
M. DUBOST: What happened in that camp after the murder of Heydrich?
LAMPE: In that connection there was a particularly dramatic episode. At Mauthausen there were 3,000 Czechs, 600 of whom were intellectuals. After the murder of Heydrich, the Czech colony in the camp was exterminated with the exception of 300 out of the 3,000 and six intellectuals out of the 600 that were in the camp.
M. DUBOST: Did anyone speak to you of scientific experiments?
LAMPE: They were commonplace at Mauthausen, as they were in other camps. But we had evidence which I think has been found: the two skulls which were used as paper weights by the chief SS medical officer. These were the skulls of two young Dutch Jews who had been selected from a convoy of 800 because they had fine teeth.
To make this selection the SS doctor had led these two young Dutch Jews to believe that they would not suffer the fate of their comrades of the convoy. He had said to them “Jews do not live here. I need two strong, healthy, young men for surgical experiments. You have your choice; either you offer yourselves for these experiments, or else you will suffer the fate of the others.”
These two Jews were taken down to the Revier; one of them had his kidney removed, the other his stomach. Then they had benzine injected into the heart and were decapitated. As I said, these two skulls, with the fine sets of teeth, were on the desk of the chief SS doctor on the day of liberation.
M. DUBOST: At the time of Himmler’s visit—I would like to come back to that question—are you certain that you recognized Himmler and saw him presiding over the executions?
LAMPE: Yes.
M. DUBOST: Do you think that all members of the German Government were unaware of what was taking place in Mauthausen? The visits you received, were they visits by the SS simply, or were they visits of other personalities?
LAMPE: As regards your first question, we all knew Himmler; and even if we had not known him, everyone in the camp knew of his visit. Also the SS told us a few days before that his visit was expected. Himmler was present at the beginning of the executions of the Soviet officers; but as I said a little while ago, these executions lasted throughout the afternoon; and he did not remain until the end. With regard to . . .
M. DUBOST: Is it possible that only the SS knew what happened in the camp? Was the camp visited by other personalities than the SS? Did you know the SS uniforms? The people you saw, the authorities you saw—did they all wear uniforms?
LAMPE: The personalities that we saw at the camp were, generally speaking, soldiers and officers. Some time afterward, a few weeks before the liberation, we had a visit from the Gauleiter of the Gau Oberdonau. We also had frequent visits from members of the Gestapo in plain clothes. The German population, that is, the Austrian population, were perfectly aware of what was going on at Mauthausen. The working squads were nearly all for work outside. I said just now that I was working at Messerschmidt’s. The foremen were mobilized German civilians who, in the evening, went home to their families. They knew quite well of our sufferings and privations. They frequently saw men fetched from the shop to be executed, and they could bear witness to most of the massacres I mentioned a little while ago.
I should add that once we received—I am sorry I put it like that—once there arrived in Mauthausen 30 firemen from Vienna. They were imprisoned, I think, for having taken part in some sort of workers’ activity. The firemen from Vienna told us that, when one wanted to frighten children in Vienna, one said to them, “If you are not good, I will send you to Mauthausen.”
Another detail, a more concrete one: Mauthausen Camp is built on a plateau and every night the chimneys of the crematorium would light up the whole district, and everyone knew what the crematorium was for.
Another detail: The town of Mauthausen was situated 5 kilometers from the camp. The convoys of deportees were brought to the station of the town. The whole population could see these convoys pass. The whole population knew in what state these convoys were brought into the camp.
M. DUBOST: Thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Does the Soviet Prosecutor wish to ask any questions?
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): I should like to ask a few questions. Can you tell me, Witness, why was the execution of the 50 Soviet officers ordered? Why were they executed?
LAMPE: As regards the specific case of these 50 officers, I do not know the reasons why they were condemned and executed; but as a general rule, all Soviet officers, all Soviet commissars, or members of the Bolshevist Party were executed at Mauthausen. If a few among them succeeded in slipping through, it is because their records were not known to the SS.
GEN. RUDENKO: You affirm that Himmler was present at the execution of those 50 Soviet officers?
LAMPE: I testify to the fact because I saw him with my own eyes.
GEN. RUDENKO: Can you give us more precise details about the execution of the 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war which you have just mentioned?
LAMPE: I cannot add much to what I have said, except that these men were assassinated on the job probably because the work demanded of them was beyond their strength and they were too underfed to perform these tasks. They were murdered on the spot by blows with a cudgel or struck down by the SS; they were driven by the SS to the wire fence and shot down by the sentinels in the watch towers. I cannot give more details because, as I said, I was not a witness, an eyewitness.
GEN. RUDENKO: That is quite clear. And now one more question: Can you give me a more detailed statement concerning the destruction of the Czech colony?
LAMPE: I speak with the same reservation as before. I was not in the camp at the time of the extermination of the 3,000 Czechs; but the survivors with whom I spoke in 1944 were unanimous in confirming the accuracy of these facts, and probably, as far as their own country is concerned, have drawn up a list of the murdered men.
GEN. RUDENKO: This means, if I have understood you correctly, that in the camp where you were interned executions were carried out without trial or inquiry. Every member of the SS had the right to kill an internee. Have I understood your statement correctly?
LAMPE: Yes, that is so. The life of a man at Mauthausen counted for absolutely nothing.
GEN. RUDENKO: I thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any member of the defendants’ counsel wish to ask any questions of this witness? . . . Then the witness can retire. Witness, a moment.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Francis Biddle): Do you know how many guards there were at the camp?
LAMPE: The number of the guard varied, but as a general rule there were 1,200 SS and soldiers of the Volkssturm. However, it should be said that only 50 to 60 SS were authorized to come inside the camp.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Were they SS men that were authorized to go into the camp?
LAMPE: Yes, they were.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): All SS men?
LAMPE: All of them were SS.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire.
M. DUBOST: Thank you. With your permission, gentlemen, we shall proceed with the presentation of our case on German atrocities in the western countries of Europe from 1939 to 1945 by retaining from these testimonies the particular facts, which all equally constitute crimes against common law. The general idea, around which we have grouped all our work and our statement, is that of German terror intentionally conceived as an instrument for governing all the enslaved peoples.
We shall remember the testimony brought by this French witness who said that in Vienna, when one wished to frighten a child, one told it about Mauthausen.
The people who were arrested in the western countries were deported to Germany where they were put into camps or into prisons. The information that we have concerning the prisons has been taken from the official report of the Prisoners of War Ministry, which we have already read; it is the bound volume which was in your hands this morning. In it you will find, on Page 35, and Page 36 to Page 42, a detailed statement as to what the prisons were like in Germany. The prison at Cologne is situated between the freight station and the main station and the Chief Prosecutor in Cologne, in a report . . .
THE PRESIDENT: F-274?
M. DUBOST: Yes, Your Honor, F-274, on Page 35. The Document was submitted under Exhibit Number RF-301. The Tribunal will see that the prison at Cologne, where many Frenchmen were interned, was situated between the freight station and the main station so that the Chief Prosecutor in Cologne wrote, in a report which was used by the Ministry of Deportees and Prisoners of War when compiling the book which is before you, that the situation of that prison was so dangerous that no enterprise engaged in war work would undertake to furnish its precious materials to a factory in this area. The prisoners could not take shelter during the air attacks. They remained locked in their cells, even in case of fire.
The victims of air attacks in the prisons were numerous. The May 1944 raid claimed 200 victims in the prison at Alexander Platz in Berlin. At Aachen the buildings were always dirty, damp, and very small; and the prisoners numbered three or four times as many as the facilities permitted. In the Münster prison the women who were there in November 1943 lived underground without any air. In Frankfurt the prisoners had as cells a sort of iron cage, 2 by 1.5 meters. Hygiene was impossible. At Aachen, as in many other prisons, the prisoners had only one bucket in the middle of the room, and it was forbidden to empty it during the day.
The food ration was extremely small. As a rule, ersatz coffee in the morning with a thin slice of bread; soup at noon; a thin slice of bread at night with a little margarine or sausage or jam.
The prisoners were forced to do extremely heavy work in war industries, in food factories, in spinning mills. No matter what kind of work it was, at least twelve hours of labor were required—at Cologne, in particular, from 7 o’clock in the morning to 9 or 10 o’clock in the evening, that is to say, 14 or 15 consecutive hours. I am still quoting from the file of the Public Prosecutor of Cologne, a document, Number 87, sent to us by the Ministry of Prisoners. A shoe factory gave work to the inmates of 18 German prisons . . . I quote from the same document:
“Most of the French flatly refused to work in war industries, for example, the manufacture of gas masks, filing of cast iron plates, slides for shells, radio or telephone apparatus intended for the Army. In such cases Berlin gave orders for the recalcitrants to be sent to punishment camps. An example of this was the sending of women from Kottbus to Ravensbrück on 13 November 1944. The Geneva Convention was, of course, not applied.
“The political prisoners frequently had to remove unexploded bombs.”
This is the official German text of the Public Prosecutor of Cologne.
There was no medical supervision. There were no prophylactic measures taken in these prisons in case of epidemics, or else the SS doctor intentionally gave the wrong instructions.
At the prison of Dietz-an-der-Lahn, under the eyes of the director, Gammradt, a former medical officer in the German Army, the SS or SA guards struck the prisoners. Dysentery, diphtheria, pulmonary diseases, and pleurisy were not reasons for stopping work; and those who were dangerously ill were forced to work to the very limit of their strength and were only admitted to the hospital in exceptional cases.
There were many petty persecutions. In Aachen the presence of a Jewish woman prisoner in a cell caused the other prisoners to lose half of their ration. At Amrasch they had to go to toilets only when ordered. At Magdeburg recalcitrants had to make one hundred genuflexions before the guards. Interrogations were carried out in the same manner as in France, that is, the victims were brutally treated and were given practically no food.
At Asperg the doctor had heart injections given to the prisoners so that they died. At Cologne those condemned to death were perpetually kept in chains. At Sonnenburg those who were dying were given a greenish liquor to drink which hastened their death. In Hamburg sick Jews were forced to dig their own graves until, exhausted, they fell into them. We are still speaking of French, Belgians, Dutch, Luxembourgers, Danes, or Norwegians interned in German prisons. These descriptions apply only to citizens of those countries. In the Börse prison in Berlin, Jewish babies were massacred before the eyes of their mothers. The sterilization of men is confirmed by German documents in the file of the Prosecutor of Cologne, which contains a ruling to the effect that the victims cannot be reinstated in their military rights. These files also contain documents which show the role played by children who were in prison. They had to work inside the prison. A German functionary belonging to the prison service inquired as to the decision to be taken with regard to a 4-month-old baby, which was brought to the prison at the same time as its father and mother.
What kind of people were the prison staff? They were “recruited amongst the NSKK (National Socialist Motor Corps) and the SA because of their political views and because they were above suspicion and accustomed to harsh discipline.” This is also to be found in the file of the Public Prosecutor at Cologne, Page 39, last paragraph.
At Rheinbach those condemned to death and to be executed in Cologne were beaten to death for breaches of discipline. We can easily imagine the brutality of the men who were in charge of the prisoners. The German official text will furnish us with details regarding the executions. The condemned were guillotined. Nearly all the condemned showed surprise, so say the German documents of which we are giving you a summary, and expressed their dissatisfaction at being guillotined instead of being shot for the patriotic deeds of which they were declared guilty. They thought they deserved to be treated as soldiers.
Among those executed in Cologne were some young people of eighteen and nineteen years of age and one woman. Some French women, who were political prisoners, were taken from the Lübeck prison in order to be executed in Hamburg. They were nearly always charged with the same thing, “helping the enemy.” The flies are incomplete, but we have those of the chief Prosecutor of Cologne. In every case the offenses committed were of the same nature. Keitel systematically rejected all appeals for mercy which were submitted to him.
Although the lot of those who were held in the prisons was very hard and sometimes terrible, it was infinitely less cruel than the fate of those Frenchmen who had the misfortune to be interned in the concentration camps. The Tribunal is well informed about these camps; my colleagues of the United Nations have presented a long statement on this matter. The Tribunal will remember that it has already been shown a map indicating the exact location of every camp which existed in Germany and in the occupied countries. We shall not, therefore, revert to the geographical distribution of the camps.
With the permission of the Tribunal I should now like to deal with the conditions under which Frenchmen and nationals of the western occupied countries were taken to these camps. Before their departure the victims of arbitrary arrests, such as I described to you this morning, were brought together in prisons or in assembly camps in France.
The main assembly camp in France was at Compiègne. It is from there that most of the deportees left who were to be sent to Germany. There were two other assembly camps, Beaune-La-Rolande and Pithiviers, reserved especially for Jews, and Drancy. The conditions under which people were interned in those camps were somewhat similar to those under which internees in the German prisons lived. With your permission, I shall not dwell any longer on this. The Tribunal will have taken judicial notice of the declarations made by M. Blechmann and Mme. Jacob in Document Number F-457, which I am now lodging as Exhibit Number RF-328. To avoid making these discussions too long and too ponderous with long quotations and testimonies which, after all, are very similar, we shall confine ourselves to reading to the Tribunal a passage from the testimony of Mme. Jacob concerning the conduct of the German Red Cross. This passage is to be found at the bottom of Page 4 of the French document:
“We received a visit from several German personalities, such as Stülpnagel, Du Paty de Clam, Commissioner for Jewish Questions, and Colonel Baron Von Berg, Vice President of the German Red Cross. This Von Berg was very formal and very pompous. He always wore the small insignia of the Red Cross, which did not prevent his being inhuman and a thief.”
And on Page 6, the penultimate paragraph, Colonel Von Berg was, as we have already said earlier, very pompous. I skip two lines.
“In spite of his title of Vice President of the German Red Cross, of which he dared to wear the insignia, he selected at random a number of our comrades for deportation.”
Concerning the assembly center of Compiègne, the Tribunal will find, in Document F-274, Exhibit Number 301, Pages 14 and 15, some details about the fate of the internees. I do not think it is necessary to read them.
In Norway, Holland, and Belgium there were, as in France, assembly camps. The most typical of these camps, and certainly the best known, is the Breendonck Camp in Belgium, about which it is necessary to give the Tribunal a few details because a great many Belgians were interned there and died of privations, hardships, and tortures of all kinds; or were executed either by shooting or by hanging.
This camp was established in the Fortress of Breendonck in 1940, and we are now extracting from a document which we have already deposited under Document Number F-231 and which is also known under UK-76 (Exhibit Number RF-329), a few details about the conditions prevailing in that camp. It is the fourth document in your document book and is entitled “Report on the Concentration Camp of Breendonck.”
THE PRESIDENT: What did you say the name of the camp is?
M. DUBOST: Breendonck, B-r-e-e-n-d-o-n-c-k.
We will ask the Tribunal to be good enough to grant us a few minutes. Our duty is to expose in rather more detail the conditions at this camp, because a considerable number of Belgians were interned there and their internment took a rather special form.
The Germans occupied this fort in August 1940, and they brought the internees there in September. They were Jews. The Belgian Government has not been able to find out how many people were interned from September 1940 to August 1944, when the camp was evacuated and Belgium liberated. Nevertheless, it is thought that about 3,000 to 3,600 internees passed through the camp of Breendonck. About 250 died of privation, 450 were shot, and 12 were hanged.
But we must bear in mind the fact that the majority of the prisoners in Breendonck were transferred at various times to camps in Germany. Most of these transferred prisoners did not return. There should, therefore, be added to those who died in Breendonck, all those who did not survive their captivity in Germany. Various categories of prisoners were taken into the camp: Jews—for whom the regime was more severe than for the others—Communists and Marxists, of which there were a good many, in spite of the fact that those who interrogated them had nothing definite against them; persons who belonged to the resistance, people who had been denounced to the Germans, hostages—among them M. Bouchery, former minister, and M. Van Kesbeek, who was a liberal deputy, were interned there for ten weeks as a reprisal for the throwing of a grenade on the main square of Malines. These two died after their liberation as a result of the ill-treatment which they endured in that camp.
There were also in that camp some black market operators, and the Belgian Government says of them that “they were not ill-treated, and were even given preferential treatment.” That is in Paragraph (e) of Page 2.
The prisoners were compelled to work. The most repugnant collective punishments were inflicted on the slightest pretext. One of these punishments consisted in forcing the internees to crawl under the beds and to stand up at command; this was done to the accompaniment of whipping. You will find that at the top of Page 10.
In the same page is a description of the conditions of the prisoners who were isolated from the others and kept in solitary confinement. They were forced to wear hoods every time they had to leave their cells or when they had to come in contact with other prisoners.
THE PRESIDENT: This is a long report, is it not?
M. DUBOST: That is why I am summarizing it rather than reading it; and I do not think I can make it any shorter, as it was given to me by the Belgian Government, which attaches a great importance to the brutalities, excesses, and atrocities that were committed by the Germans in the Camp of Breendonck and suffered by the whole of the population, especially the Belgian elite.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, I understand. You are summarizing it?
M. DUBOST: I am now summarizing it, Mr. President. I had reached, in my summary, the description of the life of these prisoners who had been put into cells and who sometimes wore handcuffs and had shackles on their feet attached to an iron ring in the wall. They could not leave their cells without being forced to wear hoods.
One of these prisoners, M. Paquet, states that he spent eight months under such a regime; and when, one day, he tried to lift the hood to see his way, he received a violent blow with the butt of a gun which broke three vertebrae in his neck.
Page 12 concerns the following: discipline, labor, acts of brutality, murders. We are told that the work of the prisoners consisted in removing the earth covering the fort and carrying it outside the moat. This work was done by hand. It was very laborious and dangerous and caused the loss of a great many human lives. Small trucks were used. The trucks were hurled along the rails by the SS and often broke the legs of the prisoners who were not warned of their approach. The SS made a game of this, and at the slightest stoppage of work they would rush at the internees and beat them.
On the same page we are told that frequently, for no reason at all, the prisoners were thrown into the moat surrounding the fort. According to the report of the Belgian Government, dozens of prisoners were drowned. Some prisoners were killed after they had been buried up to their necks, and the SS finished them off by kicking them or beating them with a stick. Food, clothing, correspondence, and medical care—all this information is given in this report as in all the other similar reports which I have already read to you.
The conclusion is important and should be read in part—second paragraph:
“The former internees of Breendonck, many of whom have had experience of the concentration camps in Germany—Buchenwald, Neuengamme, Oranienburg—state that, generally speaking, the conditions prevailing at Breendonck in regard to discipline and food were worse. They add that in the camps in Germany, which were more crowded, they felt less under the domination of their guards and had the feeling that their lives were less in danger.”
The figures given in this report are only minimum figures. To give but one example (last paragraph of the last page), M. Verheirstraeten declares that he put 120 people in their coffins during the two months of December 1942 and January 1943. If one bears in mind the executions of the 6th and 13th of January, each of which accounted for the lives of 20 persons, we see that at that time, that is to say, over a period of two months, 80 persons died of disease or ill-treatment. From these camps the internees were transported to Germany in convoys, and a description of these should be given to the Tribunal.
The Tribunal should know, first of all, that from France alone, excluding the three Departments of the Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle, 326 convoys left between 1 January 1944 and 25 August of the same year, that is to say, an average of ten convoys a week. Now each convoy transported from 1,000 to 2,000 persons; and we know now, from what our witness said just now, that each truck carried from 60 to 120 individuals. It appears that there left from France, excluding the above-mentioned three northern departments, 3 convoys in 1940, 19 convoys in 1941, 104 convoys in 1942, and 257 convoys in 1943. These are the figures given in the documents submitted under Number F-274, Exhibit Number RF-301, Page 14. These convoys nearly always left from the Compiègne Camp where more than 50,000 internees were registered and from there 78 convoys left in 1943 and 95 convoys in 1944.
The purpose of these deportations was to terrorize the populations. The Tribunal will remember the text already read; how the families, not knowing what became of the internees, were seized with terror and advantage was taken of this to round-up more workers to help German labor which had become depleted owing to the war with Russia.
The manner in which these deportations were carried out not only made it possible more or less to select this labor; but it constituted the first stage of a new aspect of German policy, that is, purely and simply the extermination of all racial or intellectual categories whose political activity appeared as a menace to the Nazi leaders.
These deportees, who were locked up 80 or 120 in each truck, in any season, could neither sit nor crouch and were given nothing whatsoever to eat or drink during their journey. In this connection we would particularly like to bring Dr. Steinberg’s testimony taken by Lieutenant Colonel Badin of the Office for Inquiry into War Crimes in Paris, Document Number F-392, which we submit as Exhibit Number RF-330, which is the 12th in your document book. We will read only a few paragraphs on Page 2:
“We were crowded into cattle trucks, about 70 in each. Sanitary conditions were frightful. Our journey lasted two days. We reached Auschwitz on 24 June 1942. It should be noted that we had been given no food at all when we left and that we had to live during those two days on what little food we had taken with us from Drancy.”
The deportees were at times refused water by the German Red Cross. Evidence was taken by the Ministry of Prisoners and Deportees, and this appears in Document RF-301, Page 18. It is about a convoy of Jewish women which left Bobigny station on 19 June 1942:
“They travelled for three days and three nights, dying of thirst. At Breslau they begged the nurses of the German Red Cross to give them a little water, but in vain.”
Moreover, Lieutenant Geneste and Dr. Bloch have testified to the same facts and other different facts; and in Document Number F-321, Exhibit Number RF-331, entitled “Concentration Camps,” which we have been able to submit to you in French, Russian, and German, the English version having been exhausted, on Page 21, you will find, “In the station of Bremen water was refused to us by the German Red Cross, who said that there was no water.” This is the testimony by Lieutenant Geneste of O.R.C.G. Concerning this conduct of the German Red Cross and to finish dealing with the subject, there is one more word to be said. Document RF-331 gives you, on Page 162, the proof that that was an ambulance car bearing a red cross which carried gas in iron containers destined for the gas chambers of Auschwitz Camp.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn now until Monday.