AHRENS: Yes. He belonged to this regiment ever since the beginning of the Russian campaign.
DR. STAHMER: Just one more question dealing with your discussion with Professor Butz. Did Professor Butz mention anything about the last dates on the letters which he found?
AHRENS: He told me about the spring of 1940. He also showed me this diary and I looked at it and I also saw the dates, but I do not recall in detail just which date or dates they were. But they ended with the spring of 1940.
DR. STAHMER: Therefore no documents were found of a later date?
AHRENS: Professor Butz told me that no documents or notes were found which might have given indications of a later date, and he expressed his conviction that these shootings must have taken place in the spring of 1940.
DR. STAHMER: Mr. President, I have no further questions to put to the witness.
THE TRIBUNAL (Gen. Nikitchenko): Witness, can you not remember exactly when Professor Butz discussed with you the date at which the corpses were buried in the mass graves?
AHRENS: May I ask to have the question repeated?
THE TRIBUNAL (Gen. Nikitchenko): When did Professor Butz speak to you about the mass graves and assert that the burial of the corpses must have taken place in the spring of 1940?
AHRENS: I cannot tell you the date exactly, but it was in the spring of 1943, before these exhumations had started—I beg your pardon—he told me that he had been instructed to undertake the exhumation and during the exhumations he was with me from time to time; therefore it may have been in May or the end of April. In the middle of May he gave me details of his exhumations and told me among other things that which I have testified here. I cannot now tell you exactly on which days Professor Butz visited me.