DR. STAHMER: Did you talk to Hodt on those occasions?
OBERHÄUSER: If he was the officer in charge of the advance party, which I cannot say today, then I must certainly have talked to him. At any rate, I did talk to the officer whom I had sent ahead and also to the one from my regiment.
DR. STAHMER: Did you hear anything about shootings occurring during that time?
OBERHÄUSER: I heard nothing, nor did I hear anything at all except in 1943, when the graves were opened.
DR. STAHMER: Did you or Regiment 537 have the necessary technical means, pistols, ammunition, and so on, at your disposal which would have made it possible to carry out shootings on such a scale?
OBERHÄUSER: The regiment, being a signal regiment in the rear area, was not equipped with weapons and ammunition as well as the actual fighting troops. Such a task, however, would have been something unusual for the regiment; first, because a signal regiment has completely different tasks, and secondly it would not have been in a position technically to carry out such mass executions.
DR. STAHMER: Do you know the place where these graves were discovered later on?
OBERHÄUSER: I know the site because I drove past it a great deal.
DR. STAHMER: Can you describe it more accurately?
OBERHÄUSER: Taking the main road Smolensk-Vitebsk, a path led through wooded undulating ground. There were sandy spaces, which were, however, covered with scrub and heather, and along that narrow path one got to the Dnieper Castle from the main road.