Presiding Judge Brand: I would like to ask a question. The case was pending for investigation from September 1944 until March 1945? Is that what you meant to say?
Witness Hagemann: Yes.
Presiding Judge Brand: Thank you.
Dr. Schilf: Mr. Hagemann, did you ever hear—
Presiding Judge Brand: Just a moment. One question.
Judge Harding: What else did the Ministry do about it?
Witness Hagemann: Well, naturally I don’t know what steps the Ministry took, but I assume that the Ministry tried to get the Party Chancellery to give its consent for the Kreisleiter to be interrogated; again and again I suggested to the Ministry to take such a step.
Q. But you heard nothing further from the Ministry, is that right?
A. No, no, I heard no more later on, because—well, I don’t really know why they didn’t write again. I have already told you that transportation difficulties were great, and that it became more and more difficult to keep in touch by letter or by telegram. For example, since the middle of March—or anyway I think it must have been since the middle of March—we were still in a sort of cauldron, we in Duesseldorf were cut off on all sides from the outside world.
Presiding Judge Brand: In March 1945?