Trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946, volume 17

by Various

DR. STAHMER: Where was your staff accommodated?

AHRENS: I prepared a sketch of the position of the staff headquarters west of Smolensk.

DR. STAHMER: I am having the sketch shown to you. Please tell us whether that is your sketch.

AHRENS: That sketch was drawn by me from memory.

DR. STAHMER: I am now going to have a second sketch shown to you. Will you please have a look at that one also, and will you tell me whether it presents a correct picture of the situation?

AHRENS: May I briefly explain this sketch to you? At the right-hand margin, that large red spot is the town of Smolensk. West of Smolensk, and on either side of the road to Vitebsk, the staff of the army group was situated together with the Air Force corps, that is south of Krasnibor. On my sketch I have marked the actual area occupied by the Army Group Center.

That part of my sketch which has a dark line around it was very densely occupied by troops who came directly under the army group; there was hardly a house empty in that area.

The regimental staff of my regiment was in the so-called little Katyn wood. That is the white spot which is indicated on the sketch; it measures about 1 square kilometer of the large forest and is a part of the entire forest around Katyn. On the southern edge of this small wood there lay the so-called Dnieper Castle, which was the regimental staff headquarters.

Two and a half kilometers to the east of the staff headquarters of the regiment there was the first company of the regiment, which was the operating company, which did teleprinting and telephone work for the army group. About 3 kilometers west of the regimental staff headquarters there was the wireless company. There were no buildings within the radius of about 1 kilometer of the regimental staff headquarters.

This house was a large two-story building with about 14 to 15 rooms, several bath installations, a cinema, a rifle range, garages, Sauna (steam baths) and so on, and was most suitable for accommodating the regimental staff. Our regiment permanently retained this battle headquarters.