DR. SAUTER: You heard that too?
LAHOUSEN: That did not settle the matter, but these words of Ribbentrop’s were frequently discussed.
DR. SAUTER: Witness, something else. You have told us about murderous designs on which you or your department or other officers were employed or which you were charged to carry out. Did you report these to any police station as the law required? May I point out that according to German law failure to report intended crimes is punishable with imprisonment or in serious cases with death.
LAHOUSEN: Well, when you talk about German law, I cannot follow you. I am not a lawyer, but just an ordinary man.
DR. SAUTER: As far as I know, that is also punishable according to Austrian law.
LAHOUSEN: At that time Austrian law, as far as I know, was no longer valid.
DR. SAUTER: In other words, you never reported the intended crime, either as a private person or as an official?
LAHOUSEN: I should have had to make a great many reports—about 100,000 projected murders, of which I knew and could not help but know. You can read about them in the records—and about shootings and the like—of which of necessity I had knowledge, whether I wanted to know or not, because, unfortunately, I was in the midst of it.
DR. SAUTER: It is not a matter of shootings which had taken place and could no longer be prevented, but rather a matter of intended murder at a time when perhaps it could have been prevented.
LAHOUSEN: I can only answer: Why did the person who received this order at first hand not do the same thing? Why did he not denounce Hitler for instance?