Signed: Dr. Illing, Chief Counsellor of the Military Court.
C. App. 5.
Present:
President of the Court, Schweinitz.
Secretary, Lips.
Neufchâtel, February 20th, 1915.
In the examination concerning the events in Dinant the under-mentioned witness appeared and stated:
As to Person: My name is Herbert Max Reinhard Brink. I am 22 years old; Protestant; Lieutenant in the 1st Field Company, Pioneer Battalion No. 12, XII. Army Corps.
As to Case: I was leader of the platoon of the 1st Field Pioneer Company which took part in the reconnaissance in force on the night of the 21st-22nd August 1914. In Dinant, on that occasion, we were briskly fired at from the houses. I did not see the marksmen; certainly they were not soldiers. I conclude this from the numerous injuries from small shot which our wounded had. During the street-fighting a little old cylinder-revolver, from which one shot had been discharged, fell on my head. No officer and, still more, no soldier would have been likely to use such an antiquated weapon.
On August 23rd, 1914, I marched into Dinant with a part of the 1st Field Pioneer Company, and joined up with the detachment of Count Kielmannsegg. We were fired at very vigorously from the houses, among others also from those on the bank of the Meuse, but not at all from the opposite bank. The marksmen were civilians without any military badge. I myself saw several civilians with weapons in their hands. A woman also fired down at us from the stairs as we were forcing our way into a house. She was immediately shot down from below.
I was witness how four men and a woman were shot by grenadiers because they came out, armed, from the houses from which we had been fired at. I was further witness how a larger number of guilty inhabitants were shot by order of Count Kielmannsegg; the women and children were first separated from the men. I saw, at the moment when the volley was delivered, one of the men draw a revolver from his pocket and fire at the soldiers. I was astonished, too, that the weapon had not been taken away from him. In any case, he had only just been brought up at the last moment before the execution.
As far as I have seen, our soldiers did not in any way behave cruelly towards the inhabitants. On the contrary, from the houses out of which the inhabitants had been driven, our men brought out on mattresses four women, who were unable to walk on account of recent confinement, and laid them in the street in a place sheltered from the firing, close to our own wounded.