Königliches Amtsgericht, Langendreer.
Present:
Magistrate Hidding, as Judge.
District Court Assistant, Harries, Secretary.
On the suggestion of the authorities of the hospital at Werne, the above-mentioned Court Commission visited the hospital in order to examine a sick soldier.
There was brought before them Gottfried Hilberath, of 60 Moselstrasse, Cologne, who, after being warned against the giving of a false oath, was examined as follows:
As to Person: My name is Gottfried Hilberath; hotel waiter; born at Neuenahr, August 12th, 1893; Catholic; Ersatzreservist, Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 236, 3rd Battalion, 12th Company.
As to Case: Our regiment marched off on September 13th, 1914. We were conveyed by rail from our manœuvre ground. In the middle of October 1914 our detachment lay in the neighbourhood of the Belgian village of Deynze, near which we had to throw up trenches. During the night we occupied quarters in the town. At dawn we again entered the trenches. On the evening of October 25th we brought the wounded into the field hospital established in a village. At Deynze, with ten to fifteen comrades, we entered a house which was lighted, and found a number of our men already there, sitting in the room and drinking coffee. The housewife made coffee for the party of soldiers, as well as for ourselves, who came in afterwards. The husband was busily occupied with his grocery shop. All the soldiers spent the night in the house. That same evening about eight of our men filled their field flasks with coffee made by the woman. In the evening some bought themselves sugar in the shop for 10 centimes. I did this myself, and put it into my field flask, like the others. The sugar was ready for use in little packets. It struck me that a sticky mass adhered to the paper, which looked like gum-arabic. The sugar was made up in twisted pieces of paper, which were not stuck together and were apparently filled by the shopkeeper.
On the following day, some ten minutes after partaking of the coffee in the trenches, I became unconscious, and must have remained in this condition about five hours. Two cyclists brought me through the village of Deynze to the field hospital at West-Roosebeck. Here I heard that the other comrades too had been poisoned, and also that some of them were already dead. What happened to the grocer and his wife in consequence of this, I do not know.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: Gottfried Hilberath.
The examined witness, after once more being warned against the giving of false evidence, thereupon took the oath.