The witness Funke was thereupon sworn. Proceedings took place as above.
Signed: Stahl. Signed: Fredersdorf.
App. 58.
Military Court Examination of Reservist Ernst Baldeweg, Infantry Regiment No. 35.
Magdeburg, November 1st, 1914.
Gericht der immobilen Etappen-Kommandantur No. 1.
Present:
Military Assistant-Judge Dr. Pauls, Judge.
Gladrow, Secretary.
At the request of the Deputy-General in Command of the IV. Army Corps, the Reservist Ernst Baldeweg, dairy assistant in Berlin, 37 Rathenower Street, 11th Company, Infantry Regiment 35, 28 years of age, Reformed Church of Germany, after the sanctity of the oath had been pointed out to him, was examined as follows:
About the 8th of August 1914, in a village close to Verriers, I saw with my own eyes that in one stable one horse, and in another stable four horses, had had their tongues cut off. In the first case I noticed that the tongue had not been completely severed, but hung from the mouth on the jaws by a small fragment of flesh. I am of opinion that Belgian civilians had mutilated the animals in order to prevent their being taken on farther by the Germans.
Either on Sunday, August 9th, 1914, or on Monday, August 10th, 1914, I saw at a village quite close to Herve in Belgium a German hussar bound to a tree by his hands and feet. Two large, long nails had been driven through his eyes and his head, so that he was fixed to the tree by the two nails. The hussar had ceased to live. In the same village there was lying by a wooden fence in front of a farm an infantry-man of the 52nd Infantry Regiment. His eyes had been put out, his ears, nose, and fingers cut off, and his stomach slashed about so that the intestines were visible. The breast of the dead soldier had also been so badly stabbed that it was completely mangled. For both these cases of gross cruelty the Belgian civilians alone can be held responsible.