LAHOUSEN: I was promoted normally in accordance with the regulations valid in Austria, and roughly at the end of 1933 I became a major. About 1935 or the beginning of 1936 I was transferred to the General Staff, and in June, or at any rate, in the summer of 1936, I became a lieutenant colonel of the Austrian General Staff.
COL. AMEN: And were you assigned to the Intelligence Division at or about that time?
LAHOUSEN: I entered the Austrian Intelligence Division which corresponds technically to the Abwehr in the German Army. I must add that an Intelligence Division was only added to the Austrian Army about this time, i.e. 1936; before that year it did not exist. Since it was planned to re-establish within the framework of the Austrian Federal Army the military Intelligence Division which had ceased to exist after the collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, I was trained to assist in organizing this division within the framework of the Austrian Army.
COL. AMEN: After being assigned to the Intelligence Division, how were your activities principally directed?
LAHOUSEN: My responsible chief, or more exactly, the responsible chief at that time, was Colonel of the General Staff Böhme. He was the division chief to whom I was subordinate, the Chief of the Intelligence Division, the man to whom I was responsible, from whom I received my orders and instructions; later on it was the Chief of the Austrian General Staff.
THE PRESIDENT: Can’t you shorten this, Colonel Amen? We really need not have all this detail.
COL. AMEN: Very good, Sir. It is, however, I think important for the Tribunal to understand more of this information than you ordinarily would by virtue of the fact that he was taken over subsequently to a corresponding position in the German Army, which I did want the Tribunal to appreciate.
Now, will you state to the Tribunal what your principal activities were after being assigned to the Intelligence Division? What information were you interested in and seeking to obtain?
LAHOUSEN: May I repeat—I don’t know if I understood you correctly—I was a member of the Austrian Intelligence Division, and not of the German Abwehr.
COL. AMEN: After the Anschluss, what position did you assume?