THE PRESIDENT: It is a new document?
COL. AMEN: A new document, Your Lordship.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it in German?
COL. AMEN: Yes.
[The document was submitted to the defendant.]
This, you will note, Defendant, refers to a dying confession of Ziereis, as reported to the individual making the affidavit, and I call your attention first to the last two paragraphs on the first page, which we will read together:
“There was one SS man for 10 prisoners. The highest number of prisoners was about 17,000, not including the branch camps. The highest number in Mauthausen Camp, the branch camps included, was about 95,000. The total number of prisoners who died was 65,000. The complement was made up of Totenkopf units numbering 5,000 men, comprising guards and the command staff.”
And, now, at the middle of the next page, the paragraph begins:
“According to an order by Reichsführer Himmler, I was to liquidate all prisoners on the instructions of SS Obergruppenführer Dr. Kaltenbrunner; the prisoners were to be led into the tunnels of the Bergkristall works of Gusen and only one entrance was to be left open.”
KALTENBRUNNER: I have not yet found the passage.