THE PRESIDENT: Does the Soviet Prosecutor wish to ask any questions?
GENERAL R. A. RUDENKO (Chief Prosecutor for the U.S.S.R.): I should like
to ask a few questions. Can you tell me, Witness, why was the execution
of the 50 Soviet officers ordered? Why were they executed?
LAMPE: As regards the specific case of these 50 officers, I do not know
the reasons why they were condemned and executed; but as a general rule,
all Soviet officers, all Soviet commissars, or members of the Bolshevist
Party were executed at Mauthausen. If a few among them succeeded in
slipping through, it is because their records were not known to the SS.
GEN. RUDENKO: You affirm that Himmler was present at the execution of
those 50 Soviet officers?
LAMPE: I testify to the fact because I saw him with my own eyes.
GEN. RUDENKO: Can you give us more precise details about the execution
of the 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war which you have just mentioned?
LAMPE: I cannot add much to what I have said, except that these men were
assassinated on the job probably because the work demanded of them was
beyond their strength and they were too underfed to perform these tasks.
They were murdered on the spot by blows with a cudgel or struck down by
the SS; they were driven by the SS to the wire fence and shot down by
the sentinels in the watch towers. I cannot give more details because,
as I said, I was not a witness, an eyewitness.
GEN. RUDENKO: That is quite clear. And now one more question: Can you
give me a more detailed statement concerning the destruction of the
Czech colony?
LAMPE: I speak with the same reservation as before. I was not in the
camp at the time of the extermination of the 3,000 Czechs; but the
survivors with whom I spoke in 1944 were unanimous in confirming the
accuracy of these facts, and probably, as far as their own country is
concerned, have drawn up a list of the murdered men.
GEN. RUDENKO: This means, if I have understood you correctly, that in
the camp where you were interned executions were carried out without
trial or inquiry. Every member of the SS had the right to kill an
internee. Have I understood your statement correctly?
LAMPE: Yes, that is so. The life of a man at Mauthausen counted for
absolutely nothing.
GEN. RUDENKO: I thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Does any member of the defendants’ counsel wish to ask
any questions of this witness? . . . Then the witness can retire.
Witness, a moment.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Francis Biddle): Do you know how many guards there
were at the camp?
LAMPE: The number of the guard varied, but as a general rule there were
1,200 SS and soldiers of the Volkssturm. However, it should be said that
only 50 to 60 SS were authorized to come inside the camp.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): Were they SS men that were authorized to go
into the camp?
LAMPE: Yes, they were.
THE TRIBUNAL (Mr. Biddle): All SS men?
LAMPE: All of them were SS.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire.
M. DUBOST: Thank you. With your permission, gentlemen, we shall proceed
with the presentation of our case on German atrocities in the western
countries of Europe from 1939 to 1945 by retaining from these
testimonies the particular facts, which all equally constitute crimes
against common law. The general idea, around which we have grouped all
our work and our statement, is that of German terror intentionally
conceived as an instrument for governing all the enslaved peoples.
We shall remember the testimony brought by this French witness who said
that in Vienna, when one wished to frighten a child, one told it about
Mauthausen.
The people who were arrested in the western countries were deported to
Germany where they were put into camps or into prisons. The information
that we have concerning the prisons has been taken from the official
report of the Prisoners of War Ministry, which we have already read; it
is the bound volume which was in your hands this morning. In it you will
find, on Page 35, and Page 36 to Page 42, a detailed statement as to
what the prisons were like in Germany. The prison at Cologne is situated
between the freight station and the main station and the Chief
Prosecutor in Cologne, in a report . . .