Mr. President, yesterday I already stated that I still wished to deal with the Katyn case; and I intend to do so now, before I go on with my conclusion. I am sorry I was not able to get any translations because the testimony was only given a few days ago. However, this matter is not very long. The interpreters have a copy. I shall begin with this report now.
A detailed opinion has still to be given on the Katyn case, in which the taking of evidence was concluded only a few days back. The Russian Prosecution based their indictment on the findings of an investigation which is set down in Document USSR-54. The following conclusion is drawn from the entire evidential material as presented:
(1) Polish prisoners of war, who were in three camps west of Smolensk, were still there in these three camps when the Germans came into Smolensk, up to and including September 1941.
(2) In the Katyn forest German occupation troops undertook the mass shootings of the prisoners of war from the aforesaid camps in the autumn of 1941.
(3) The mass shooting of the Polish prisoners of war in the Katyn woods was carried out by the German military authorities who had camouflaged themselves under the code name “Staff of Construction Battalion 537” at whose head was Lieutenant Colonel Ahrens, together with his collaborators First Lieutenant Rex and Lieutenant Hodt.
The question is, did the Prosecution prove this accusation? This question must be answered in the negative. No confirmation of guilt can be found from the contents of this document. The accusation is made against a definite military unit and names specific officers. The time mentioned for the perpetration of this deed is September of 1941. The Katyn forest is given as the scene of the crime. In view of the scanty facts, which considerably restricted the accusation, it was merely the task of the Defense to prove that this assertion would not bear examination.
First of all, let us consider the persons involved. Colonel Ahrens, who is obviously the Lieutenant Colonel Ahrens mentioned, is eliminated as the perpetrator because this deed is said to have been committed in September 1941, while Ahrens did not take command of Regiment 537 until the end of November 1941. He arrived only at that time at Katyn and had never before been in the eastern theater of war. Before Ahrens, Colonel Bedenck was in command of the regiment and he joined the regimental staff in August 1941. Before Bedenck, First Lieutenant Hodt took lodgings in the little Dnieper castle in July 1941, immediately after the capture of Smolensk. He came with an advance unit of the 537th Regiment and remained there until the arrival of the regimental staff, to which he was not yet attached at that time. He was transferred to the regimental staff only in September 1941, and from that time on he lived permanently in the little castle.
Special facts which would incriminate Hodt or Bedenck cannot be derived from the document which has been submitted, and such facts have not been presented here. Therefore, it is not proved that Bedenck and Hodt could be considered as perpetrators.
The following circumstances contradict the theory that Unit 537 or any other military unit had participated in this act. The Polish prisoners allegedly fell into the hands of the Germans in the three camps west of Smolensk. Thereby they would have become German prisoners of war. The fact that they had been captured would have had to have been reported to Army Group Center. Such a report was not made, as testified by the witness Eichborn. Considering the tremendous number of prisoners, it is quite out of the question that anyone could inadvertently have failed to make a report of that nature. Apart from that, the capture of 11,000 Polish officers could under no circumstances have been concealed from the Army Group. As results from the testimony of General Oberhäuser, the Army Group never had any knowledge of this.
From the statements of the two witnesses, Eichborn and Oberhäuser, it can be concluded that at the time of the capture of Smolensk by the Germans there could not have been any Polish officers present in these camps. Moreover, no eye witnesses who saw the officers after that date were interrogated by the Russian commission. The railroad employee who was interrogated on this subject knows nothing from his own observation.