The witness was thereupon sworn.
Signed: Kleberger, Lieutenant of Reserve and Officer of the Court.
Signed: Sergeant Richter, as Clerk of the Military Court.
C. App. 83.
Present:
Lieutenant of Reserve Kleberger, as Officer of the Court.
Sergeant Richter, as Clerk of the Military Court.
Orainville, March 17th, 1915.
Summoned as witness there appeared Lieutenant Lemke, who, after the importance of the oath had been pointed out to him, made the following statement:
As to Person: My name is Martin Lemke, 27 years old; Protestant; merchant at Zürich, now Lieutenant of Reserve, 6th Company, Infantry Regiment No. 103.
As to Case: One night between the 23rd and the 26th August 1914, a large column of 3700 captured Belgian soldiers came through Dinant. I had been left behind with a platoon of the 6th Company, Infantry Regiment No. 103, as bridge-guard, and was, during the days named, Local Commandant of Dinant-Bouvignes. This long column of prisoners I lodged in double columns of route on the railway track in the neighbourhood of the station at Dinant. At intervals 100 paces I had lighted large wood-fires. Towards 3 o'clock a heavy fusillade broke out. Two Belgians jumped down from the railway embankment into the road and were shot by my sentries. A wounded Belgian was at once taken to the "Red Cross" near by, where a small-shot wound in the posterior was able to be ascertained with certainty. The firing with small shot came down from the wooded height on this side of the railway track amongst the resting column, and the result was, that a panic broke out among the prisoners, of which the two Belgians were the victims. The Belgian officers present, as well as the Mayor of Bouvignes, to whom I explained the affair, expressed their indignation about the francs-tireurs.
The inhabitants were well treated by the soldiers under my command. On August 24th a number of women, children, and men were fetched out of the cellar of a burning house on the road to Bouvignes by our soldiers at the risk of their lives. During those days I provided with victuals a total of over fifty inhabitants, mostly women, also children and various men belonging on the average to the better classes. Among them were also patients from the wrecked hospitals. An old lady who could not walk was carried by our soldiers to the "Red Cross." We provided the people with woollen coverings for the night, and gave up some mattresses from our district, which had been quite forsaken. For the invalids and a little child we provided milk. For the "Red Cross" in Bouvignes, where some twenty wounded French soldiers were lying, among them one Major and one 1st Lieutenant, we also provided victuals, especially flour for baking bread. The people could not adequately express their gratitude. The Lord of the Manor at Bouvignes, the Mayor of Bouvignes, a Mons. van Willmart of the same place, have taken a note of my home address in order, after the war, to inquire after my welfare. The people had all acquired a high opinion of Germany. Mons. van Willmart even wants to visit me after the war. A health-resort patient at Dinant, a legal official from Brussels, who was staying there with his two sisters, has written a card to my mother to testify his gratitude.
Read over, approved.