THE PRESIDENT: You’d better let him go on. We do not want to argue about it. Go on, make your comments on the document.
KALTENBRUNNER: Karwinsky arrived on the eighth day of the hunger strike. He did not come into our barracks, but we were brought on stretchers into the administrative building of this Austrian detention camp. None of us were even able to walk any more. And for this fact, there are a great many more witnesses—490 internees who had been confined in this camp with me. Karwinsky talked with us in this administration building and stated that if the hunger strike were to stop the Government would be willing to consider a dismissal of all internees. We had been interned without having committed any offense at all, and prior to that the Government had already given their promise three times to release us but had never kept these promises.
Therefore, we requested a written statement from Karwinsky, either signed by him or signed by the Federal Chancellor. We wanted this statement so that we could believe the promise, then we would immediately end the strike. He refused. The hunger strike went on and we were taken to a hospital in Vienna. On the 11th day, the hunger strike stopped because even the giving of water was prohibited on that day. These were the facts, and not that we created disorder.
THE PRESIDENT: When I said you could make your comments, I did not mean you could go on giving the details of the hunger strike.
KALTENBRUNNER: My Lord, I just wanted to point out that what has been testified by the witness is incorrect—that I was the leader in the resistance and that I was still in my barracks. I had to be carried on a stretcher all through the camp; none of us could walk any more at that time.
Point 2; I talked with the cousin of Karwinsky again and again later on. His cousin was in charge of the social insurance department at Linz. He told me that his cousin, that is the witness mentioned here, never had been at Mauthausen, that he was at Dachau from the first day of his detention. There is a difference whether it is Mauthausen or Dachau, for he was sent there as a former member of the Austrian Government who had committed crimes against National Socialists. He was arrested by the RSHA, which already existed, I believe by Heydrich in Berlin, and not by some Austrian office. I also never saw this man afterwards. I also never visited Dachau. It should, therefore, be easy to ascertain whether this man was in Dachau from the beginning of his detention or in Mauthausen. If he was in Dachau, as I am charging, then everything is a lie. If he were in Mauthausen, it must be first proved whether he does not confuse me with another man. This first proof, whether he has erred in the person, is not up to me. If the Prosecution endeavor to find out whether he was in Dachau from the very beginning—for I know he was in Dachau; he was arrested in Innsbruck when trying to escape to Switzerland, his cousin had let me know that when asking me to intervene on his behalf. I could not intervene because the man was transported to Dachau directly via Innsbruck-Mittenwald. Thus, he was completely out of my sphere and power as the then State Secretary for Security of the Austrian Government.
THE PRESIDENT: We will adjourn now.