Present:
Lieutenant of Reserve DACHSEL, as Officer of the Court.
Non-commissioned Officer of Reserve STEIGER, as Clerk of the Court.
LA VILLE-AUX-BOIS PRÈS PONTAVERT, _March 6th, 1915_.
At the request of the Imperial German Court of Justice of the
General Government in Belgium there appeared by order, as witness,
Medical-Corps Non-commissioned Officer Rost, who, after the importance
of the oath had been pointed out to him, and he had been warned to
speak the truth, made the following statement:
As to Person: My name is Paul Richard Rost, Medical-Corps
Non-commissioned Officer, 6th Company, Rifle (Fusilier) Regiment No.
108; 25 years old; Protestant.
As to Case: When I was attending the wounded in Dinant on the night
of August 21st and 22nd, I noticed that behind the men, some in their
shirt-sleeves, who were firing from the windows, the heads of women
were also visible.
The next day I saw in the courtyard of the Château of Sorinnes, among
the dead lying there on biers, Corporal Kirchhof of my company. He had
an injury to the skull which could only have originated from a blunt
instrument. The brain-pan was quite smashed in.
On August 23rd I found on a detached estate near Dinant, close by the
road which leads from Sorinnes to Dinant, a German soldier almost
completely carbonised, lying under a burnt heap of straw. He appeared
to be a Jäger, judging from portions of his equipment which lay near. I
was told by comrades that a second Jäger had been found in a field in
the vicinity of Dinant, with his face burnt. The estate, where I found
the Jäger, had been organised as a dressing-station for wounds.
Read over, approved, signed.
Signed: PAUL RICHARD ROST.
The witness was thereupon sworn.
Signed: DACHSEL. Signed: STEIGER.