Q And who was behind Sturmbannfuehrer Tschentscher?
A Behind him there was a wireless car.
Q A wireless car?
A Yes. There was a wireless car in order to keep up liaison or something else. I don't know what it was used for.
Q And what was behind the wireless car?
A It was another vehicle, which sometimes was driven empty and sometimes it had a machine gun in case of raids or air attacks.
Q Where was the medical officer, the field exchequer? Where was Sturmbannfuehrer Schaefer's car?
A They were all with the staff, because the staff followed immediately on the battalion commander. In some cases the vehicle stopped and rested from the long drive and then later on they caught up again.
Q Were they immediately behind the car with the machine gun or ahead of it?
A Sometimes they went ahead and perhaps talked to Sturmbannfuehrer Tschentscher. Sometimes they were with him and towards the end when they stopped.
Q In the sequence before the bridge in Zclozow, where were you?
A We were in the center of the town.
Q I don't mean you, I mean the cars?
A They were at the bridge.
Q But not ahead of the car of the regimental commander?
A I don't know whether they were ahead of the MG car or not, because, after all, the company had left the town before us.
Q Who was your company commander?
A Haupsturmfuehrer Kocholaty.
Q Was he among those present?
A Haupsturmfuehrer Kocholaty was present in Zclozow.
Q Who was the company commander of the Bakery Column?
A Hauptsturmfuehrer Braunagel.
Q Was he present?
A Whether he was present or not, I don't know, because these vehicles were behind us.
Q They were behind you?
A Yes, the second company was behind you.
Q And yesterday you said that Einsatzgruppen were not in that neighborhood.
A No, I did not see any Einsatzgruppen at all.
Q Now I want to have the following points very clearly summed up. You say you arrived at Zclozow at 4 or 5 in the afternoon?
A Yes, our company did.
Q You stopped there and stayed the night?
A Yes.
Q Including the Supply Column?
A Yes, certainly they stayed the night also.
Q The Bakery Column came after the Supply Column, did it?
A Yes, the Bakery Column overtook us and reached the gravel pit and after the Bakery Column, we reached the gravel pit also.
Q But that happened only after the Supply Column was there already?
A Yes, they had been there already.
Q And you told us that when these Jews were being herded together the Supply Column did not take part?
A I did not see anybody from our column.
Q Now, as far as the bomb craters were concerned. You were not struck by anything peculiar when you drove past them?
A No, nothing was to be seen at that point when we drove past.
DR. VON STAKELBERG: May it please the Court, for the record, I would like to point out that these last points are clear contradictions of what Witness Otto has told us.
I have no other questions for the time being.
DR. KRAUSS: (Attorney for the defendant Tschentscher): May it please the court, with your permission, I wish to cross-examine this witness.
BY DR. KRAUSS:
Q Witness, what profession did you learn?
A I am a butcher.
Q And what are you doing nowadays?
A I am a clerk with Viag in Munich.
Q From when to when were you a member of the Viking Division?
A I was a member of that division from the time it was established until I was wounded on 21 October 1944.
Q 21 October 1944?
A Yes, then I went to the hospital and then I went back home.
Q Were you a member of the Allgemeine SS?
A Yes, from 1938 to 1939 in April.
Q And you were transferred from the Allegemeine SS to the Waffen SS?
A Yes.
Q Until Sturmbannfuehrer Tschentscher left were you with the unit?
A Yes.
Q Did you form an impression of Tschentscher's character and his human qualities?
A We had very little to do with him, unless there were special company conversations, as I said yesterday, and I repeated my testimony.
Q Herr Saur, Tschentscher was not the commanding officer of your company, was he?
A No.
Q What was your last rank with the Waffen-SS?
A Unterscharfuehrer.
Q Herr Sauer, how did it come about that you have become a witness in this trial here?
A I was requested by the Tribunal as a witness.
Q Did you volunteer for this?
A How do you mean? I received a request to come voluntarily as a witness in this trial.
Q No, you did not understand me. It wasn't easy, surely, to find your name and find you altogether. Did you volunteer and say, "I wish to give testimony in this trial?"
A Well, I saw a request which invited me to come here and I said that I would like to testify in this trial what I know.
Q In other words, you received a request and then you came here?
A Yes.
Q You did not report to some agency that you wished to testify in this trial?
A No, I did not.
Q Were you brought together with Witness Otto? Where you interrogated together?
A Otto was interrogated first. Then I was interrogated, and then we were both interrogated together. Otto and I were confronted with each other and I was asked if I know Otto.
Q Were you present when Otto was interrogated?
A No, I was not present. When he was interrogated, I was always told to leave the room, and he also, but then we were confronted with each other and we were together.
Q Did you know Otto well when you were at the front together?
A I knew him as a driver and the last time I saw him was when he left us and went to face the court-martial at the Miesk front in the citadel. I was doing guard duty and I was guarding him, because on the next day he was to be sent to his court-martial.
Q When you were interrogated here, together with Otto, did it become clear that Otto, from August 1945 until August 1946 had been committed to a lunatic asylum?
A I did not know that.
Q And that he escaped from it?
A That he was in Eggelfing-Haar, Otto told me himself, but that he had escaped from there, I don't know anything about.
Q You did not know that Eggelfing-Haar was a lunatic asylum?
A I knew that a lunatic asylum was in Haar.
Q. Did you know anything about how the court-martial was held and what conclusion it reached against Otto?
A. As far as I know he was sentenced at the time. I don't know how many years he got and he was sent to Danzig-Matzgau. I heard through two comrades from my company who had been sentenced for an offense and had been sent to Danzig-Matzgau and they wrote us and told us that Otto had arrived now.
Q. Herr Sauer, was it know in the company at that time that Otto, because of paragraph 51 -- this is the paragraph which deals with deficiency of responsibility because of a lack of mental capabilities -- that he was not sentenced to death for those reasons, but merely was locked up in protective custody to protect the community?
A . All I know was that Otto faced his court-martial because of a shot through his hand, a self-inflicted wound, it was held to be, but how it was handled in detail, I don't know.
Q. You have misunderstood me. I would like to know whether you knew that for Otto paragraph 51 was applied at the time. You didn't know that, did you?
A. No, I did not.
Q. Do you know what other punishment was usually given when people inflicted wounds on themselves?
A. Well, if this happened at the front, it depended on the conduct of the defendant in the battalion. It was either a death sentence or penal servitude for seven or eight years.
Q. Herr Sauer, I now wish to talk about the time in Dachau. As you have described it, Tschentscher gave a few lectures?
A. Yes.
Q. In one lecture it seems he also discussed the Jewish question?
A. Yes.
Q. And here it was said at least you said, so yesterday, that the Jews were a foreign body in the German national community?
A. Yes.
Q. I would like to ask you, Herr Sauer, did Tschentscher in some form or other explain the fact that Jews must be killed and that they must be exterminated and that they must be annihilated, and that they must be sent to concentration camps and concentrated in ghettos, or did he merely give you general ideas that Jews simply were a foreign body in our nation.
A. That the Jews were a foreign body in our nation and that within Germany they must be taken away -- under "taken away" you can understand concentration camps or ghettos, but that they must be sent to ghettos or concentration camps Tschentscher did not say in so many words.
Q. Did he say that they must be killed?
A. Nothing was said about killing, only the general aspects of the Jewish question was discussed.
Q. Herr Sauer, I shall briefly touch on your description of the Zclozow incident. You told us that in the city at various points of the city, dead Jews were lying around.
A. Yes.
Q. Why do you think they were killed?
A. Well, when we saw the treatment of the Jews on the road to the citadel, when they were being beaten not only by members of the Wehrmacht, but also by civilians; after all it was a fairly long road, about 500 or 700 meters drive that reached the citadel, they simply collapsed and died through the beating.
Q. Herr Sauer, would it be possible that these Jews had been perhaps the victims of air raids, preceding air raids, perhaps?
A. No, if anybody had been killed by air raids, the civilian population would also have suffered, whereas one say nobody else except the Jews who were lying around in the street.
I can remember three or four I saw lying around.
Q. What I wanted to ask you, Herr Sauer, is how could you be sure that they were only Jews?
A. You saw that from the long caphtan they were wearing and their features, which showed clearly that they were Jews.
Q. Did you observe that members of your units took part in these killings, as you call it, or did you merely see the Jews when they were dead already.
A. We reached the town and not very far from our vehicle there were two Jews. Whether the men of our unit had taken part in this or not, I don't know, because most of the Supply Column was busy fetching supplies on the right hand side of the street. It was the Supply Depot of the Russian Army.
Q. This taking up of corpses in the citadel which you mentioned was done under the supervision and direction of the Field Police of the Army?
A. Yes, I saw the Field Police of the Army standing around there We were not allowed to come very near. We were told to go away, but we saw the dead who were being gathered into the citadel. They were being laid down in the court yard.
Q. A general question and I want you to think very carefully before you answer, because of the gravity of the accusations raised here. Did you observe yourself at any time that Tschentscher himself became guilty of any excesses which led to the death of somebody else?
A. I did not see Tschentscher when he killed Jews. All I know is what other comrades have told me.
Q. What you have described, in other words, Herr Sauer, were none of your own observations. You were basing yourself only on hearsay?
A. On hearsay, yes, and the incident in Zhitomir.
Q. You told us yesterday that Tschentscher had been a correct officer?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you think that as a person Tschentscher is a man who would use his pistol indiscriminately and take part in excesses in so many spots and places as they have been enumerated here, killing local inhabitants, Jews, and so forth? You did go to the nearest point -
MR. FULKERSON: Your Honor, I would like to object because he didn't hear Otto's testimony and he has given a summary by counsel of what Otto is alleged to have testified. If he wants to ask this, I suggest that he be told the specific incidents and asked if he thinks Tschentscher is capable of doing such a thing.
THE PRESIDENT: Even that question would not be proper. It is a question for the Court to determine. It is formed on the basis of speculation and opinion, and it is not admissible. You might just as well ask the question whether Tschentscher is guilty or innocent, the same thing.
DR. KRAUSS: May it please the Court, I apologize. I did not ask whether Tschentscher had done this or that. I only asked whether Tschentscher as far as his knowledge on Tschentscher goes things of that sort and actions would be possible and conceivable on the part of Tschentscher. I think there is a large difference between the two types of questions.
THE PRESIDENT: There is a difference but it is not a very large one. You asked his opinion as to Tschentscher's capacity at committing crimes.
MR. FULKERSON: After all, Judas led an immaculate life, they say or know of, except as to one occasion.
THE PRESIDENT: The same might be said of Benedict Arnold.
DR. KRAUSS: If Your Honor please, no translation has come through, so with your permission I shall continue. The point is the prosecution did not speak in the microphone, I am afraid.
THE PRESIDENT: You understood what the Tribunal stated, Dr. Krauss.
DR. KRAUSS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, never mind what the prosecution said, then.
BY DR. KRAUSS:
Q. Witness, did you find an occasion of such in Tarnopol?
A. I did not see the civilians drive Jews in Tarnopol. May I say something else, that in our unit, our butcher company, were employed Jews and Ukranians in the slaughter company, I should like to add.
Q. Why did you suddenly tell me this?
A. Because I was not asked that question yesterday.
Q. Herr Sauer, please let me ask you this question. Did you or Otto or any member of the prosecution discuss these things last night?
A. No. Last night when I left this court, I want to say to you that by tomorrow -- that last night I thought if I am asked that question tomorrow I must tell this, because yesterday when I was being interrogated by the prosecution I was not asked whether our unit employed Jews and civilians or Ukranians. All I was asked was whether civilians had herded Jews together there.
Q. Herr Sauer, I shall put this to you, of course, I have not got yesterday's record before me, but you told us yesterday in Zhitomir Jews were being employed by the Bakery Column?
A. Yes.
Q. And you said emphatically that the butcher company never employed Jews?
A. In Zhitomir.
Q. Now let's talk about the Zhitomir incident. You saw yourself, Herr Sauer, that Oberscharfuehrer Sirth shot six Jews?
A. Yes.
Q. Where did this happen, locally speaking?
A. In Zhitomir, they were stationed by the parachute barracks, where the tanks were kept. Where we could put our amphibious tanks, and also there were some Russian tanks standing around, and there Oberscharfuehrer was standing in front of a sort of grave, I don't know who dug it, and there these six Jews were being shot.
Q. In that barracks in Zhitomir were there all the units of the butcher battalion stationed?
A. Yes, all units.
Q. All units?
A. Yes, all the units of the Supply Column.
Q. Do you know the reason why these six Jews were shot?
A. No, I don't.
BY JUDGE PHILLIPS:
Q. Let me ask you something. With what outfit or what company was Oberscharfuehrer Sirth?
A. Oberscharfuehrer Sirth was in the second company.
Q. Who was the commanding officer of that company?
A. Hauptsturmfuehrer Braunagel.
Q. Was this company or battalion the one that the defendant Tschentscher was the commanding officer of?
A. Yes, that was the battalion that the defendant Tschentscher was in command of.
Q. Do you know where Tschentscher was at the time the six Jews were shot?
A. Where Tschentscher was? He was in the barracks.
Q. About how far from where the shooting took place?
A. It was a very large barracks, but the vehicles of the first company were farther in the background against the wall of the barracks.
Q. About how far was that shooting away from where Tschentscher was, that is what I want to know. I don't care how large the barracks were.
A. I shall think about this for a moment. Might have been about four hundred meters.
Q. Do you know where the defendant Tschentscher was at that time?
A. I don't. I am very sorry. I don't even know whether he was present or not.
Q. Was any action taken by any one in superior command against Oberscharfuehrer Sirth for the killing of these six Jews?
A. Do you mean whether any of the defendants were present during the execution?
Q. No, no, no. Listen please and get it. Did any officer, Tschentscher, Fanslau, or any superior officer to Sirth, take any action against him for shooting the Jews?
A. No, nothing was done against that.
Q. Was it generally know by the members of the battalion that these Jews were killed there?
A. Yes, that was quite generally known after it happened, within the battalion it was known.
Everyone in the battalion must have known it.
THE PRESIDENT: What is the name of this Oberscharfuehrer Sirth.
MR. FULKERSON: S-i-r-t-h, Your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT: Sirth.
MR. FULKERSON: Yes.
BY DR. KRAUSS:
Q. Herr Sauer, do you know for certain that all units were accommodated in the barracks?
A. Yes. There were men who first of all went to the barracks and discovered a wine depot. They drank wine and got drunk, and they therefore were afterwards punished.
Q. Would it be possible, Herr Sauer, that Tschentscher's company, the Supply Column, in other words, was stationed outside Zhitomir on an estate?
A. No, I saw Tschentscher's car in the main street of the barracks on the right-hand side, parked there, and Sturmbannfuehrer Tschentscher had told officers, Unterscharfuehrers and Oberscharfuehrers, about the wine, because they had been drinking wine.
Q. You mean he told them not to drink that wine?
A. Yes, quite.
Q. Wasn't the shooting done under a roof?
A. In a barn. Yes, in a barn.
Q. Did you report the incident to your superior officer?
A. No, because most of the company and battalion simply had to know this, because if anything like that happens everybody knows immediately that six Jews were shot, and quite a few people were standing around as spectators.
Q. But you had yourself no reason to go to your company commander, or some other officer, and tell him about the incident?
A. No, because the officers would know about this, too, and if they wanted to rap this Oberscharfuehrer over the knuckles they could have done it later.
Q. Whether Tschentscher was in the barracks that particular moment you don't know?
A. Whether he was in the barracks at this particular moment I don't know. All I saw was his vehicle.
Q. Let me touch upon the incident in Byelaya-Tserkow; he is alleged to have shot a Jew with a gun there. Who told you that?
A. A comrade of the first company told me that.
Q. Were you also told how the incident occurred?
A. How it happened, I was told that Obersturmbannfuehrer Tschentscher took his gun and shot at the Jew and that comrade Stamminger jumped out of his vehicle to get out of the way, or avoid the range, because the shots were aimed in the direction of his car.
Q. Do you know where Stamminger is today?
A. Yes, Stamminger is in Munich.
Q. Where in Munich?
A. In Munich, Richildenstrasse 10.
Q. Should the company have heard about this incident also?
A. Yes.
Q. I shall now touch upon the incident in Fyidorky. Where is Kirsch now, today?
A. As far a I know and have heard from comrades in a letter when I reached home after being in a hospital, Undershcarfuehrer Kirsch, who had been promoted in Russia, must have been killed in fighting in Hungary.
Q. What do you know, and all you know about the Fyidorky incident comes from Kirsch tales?
A. Yes. I do.
Q. Did Kirsch tell you at the time what had happened to the Jews?
A. No. Kirsch returned, and all he told me was that he had been called to see the commanding officer, and he was given an order to shoot the Jew, and he refused to carry out the order, and that Sturmbannfuehrer Tschentscher told him, "If you don't carry out this order, you will be shot."
Q. Do you know, or were you told at that time whether the Jew was actually shot?
A. Whether he was actually shot or not, I don't know. Or if some one else carried out the order I am unable to tell you.
Q. Do you know when Hauptsturmfuehrer Schaefer took over for Tschentscher?
A. We left Lasowatks more in the direction of Krementshuk, and on that road I left my vehicle, in it I had a machinggun against air raids, which were left behind, and we returned to our unit only four weeks later.
Q. And Schaefer was always with Tsenchtscher during the advance until he finally took over?
A. I am afraid I can not remember that at the moment. I could not tell you that.
Q. So yesterday you said, concerning Tschentscher, what happened in the Supplt Company, that he simply had to become aware of it?
A. Yes, certainly.
Q. Would this incident also be known to the other companies, the commanding officers of which he was not.
You can think about that before you answer?
A. I don't quite understand what you mean? Do you mean about the shooting of Jews?
Q. I am speaking in general, now. You said yesterday Tschentscher must have known about the things which happened in his company?
A. Yes.
Q. Would this incident also be known to the Bakery Company and the Butcher Platoon?
A. Yes. If something happened, for instance, within the battalion, everybody talked about it very quickly, and the other commanding officers of the various companies simply had to know about them.
Q. Who was the commanding officer of the battalion?
A. Sturmbannfuehrer Tschentscher.
Q. What was Fanslau?
A. He was the Divisional Administrative Officer of the Wiking Company.
Q. I put to you the fact, witness, that Fanslau as the Administrative Officer of the Division, combined in his capacity also as an officer the commanding officer, as did Tschentscher, Braunagel and Kocholaty were commanding officers of the companies within the battalion?
A. What you mean then, that Tschentscher was in his capacity the commanding officer of the battalion, and he was partly commanding officer of the First Company.
Q. According to your knowledge, Tschentscher as an administrative Directive Officer was also in command of the battalion?
A. I am afraid I don't know.
Q. Herr Otto, what function did you exercise within the Wiking Division--- I am so sorry, Herr Sauer?
A. Don't mention it. Within the battalion I was attached to the Butcher Company as a butcher, and when we were resting and not working, I trained infantry men within the company, in the battalion.
I took a NCO course, and when we were not at work I trained other men in an infantry course.
Q. Did you, Herr Sauer, in your civilian life, ever receive punishment from a court, and do you have a record?
A. No.
Q. While you were in the military service, did you received any punishment?
A. Yes, I was three days in a guardhouse.
Q. What was the reason for that?
A. It happened in Hamburg-Langenhorn.
Q. When was that?
A. In 1940.
DR. KRAUSS: May it please the Court, I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Any further cross examination by defense counsel? Mr. Fulkerson.
BY MR. FULKERSON:
Q. Witness, I want you to describe what you saw at the slaughter house at Tarnopol in more detail?
A. Yes. Certainly. In the Butcher Company in Tarnopol Jews and civilians that is Ukrainians were employed to clean up the slaughter house. They were also employed in the actual slaughtering of cattle.
Q. Were these Jews there voluntarily, sofar as you know?
A. As far as I know the Jews were brought along in a truck, and these civilians came along voluntarily, because of better food, and the civilians as well as the Jews, they were accommodated in the Administrative wing of the slaughter house.
Q. Did the Jews go along voluntarily?
A. No, the Jews were brought along on a truck, which I saw. I saw how they were being unleaded from the truck. They come from the city.
Q. Whose trucks was that? Was it on army truck?
A. It was a truck of our unit.
Q. Was it a truck of the Butcher Company?
A. From the Butcher Company.
Q. And it was being driven by member of the Butcher company?
A. Yes, member of the Butcher Company and the driver was a member of the Butcher Company, yes.
Q. Were these Jews under guard?
A. They were guarded, yes.
Q. Now were they treated generally, by the guards and people who supervised them?
A. Well, they had to put the work out, a good deal that had to be especially fast; then if they were unable, to work, they were helped along not by beatings, byt they were simply kicked, and so on, as they had to work as fast as they could.
Q. And who was administering the kicks?
A. The men who were there, the guards.
Q. And these guards were alos members of the Butcher Company?
A. Yes, they were members of the Butcher Company.
Q. Now you testified on cross examination about the lectures you were given on the subject of the Jewish question?
A. Yes.
Q. You testified yesterday, I believe, that a suggested solution of the Jewish question was that the Jews should disappear from Germany, is that correct?
A. Yes, the Jews must disappear from Germany.
Q. Well, now how was this disappearance to take place? Was that either implied or directly described?
A. It was not described. All we were told that the Jews were a foreign body within the German community. They must disappear from Germany, ans as I saw it at the time this meant that they must be put into a concentration camp, or into ghettos. No other solution was possible. You could not expel them, for instance, sofar as I know.
Q Then your inference there of whar was said, was that the Jews were to be put into concentration camps and ghettos?
A. Yes. I did not say that Tschentscher said they must be accommodated into concentration camps and ghettos. Only that the Jews were a foreign body within the German community, and they must be eliminated.
Q. Yes. I understand, in other words, all the words that were used actually by Tschentscher were, "The elimination and disappearance," The words you thought of, "Ghetto" and "Concentration camp" naturally were to be inferred from that?
A. Yes. Because sofar as I could remember no other possibility existed in Germany.
Q. Ther never mas any real doubt in your mind that was the way this solution was to be achieved, was it?
A. I am afraid I did not go the last three words.
THE PRESIDENT: I think he already answered that.
MR. FULKERSON: Never mind.
BY MR. FULKERSON:
Q. Did you ever hear directly, or by general hearsay, in you unit, while you were in Russia, what was Tschentscher's general attitude towards the Jews?
A. Well, what Tschentscher's general attitude towards the Jews was his attitude, you mean, I am afraid I can not pass judgment on that because I can not say anything on how much Tschentscher hated the Jews, or how far he was interested in having these Jews removed from Germany. His inner attitude and his mentality is something I can not see.
Q. But you said yesterday that there was one outward manifestation that you did notice and that after Tschentscher left your outfit there was no more mistreatment of Jews by its members?
A. No, after Tschentscher left the unit, no further mistreatments of Jews or other people were carried out.
MR. FULKERSON: That's all. Take the witness.
RECROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. VON STAKELBERG (for the defendant Fanslau):
Q. Witness, did you not say yesterday that you were not in the slaughterhouse at Tarnopol at all?
A. No, I never said that.
Q. Did I misunderstand you yesterday? You said yesterday that you had been stationed outside Tarnopol?
A. May I describe that to you once again? We went to Tarnopol; and shortly before we reached it, there was an airraid, We went into the town; and in passing a street of destroyed houses, we dug up a civilian who had been buried in the ruins. On a detour roughly to the left of the town, we camped on a meadow. Some of our company went with their vehicles to the slaughterhouse in order to find out how much it still could be used and to find out what should be done to the slaughterhouse in order to reconstruct it and use it again for our work.
I went there myself on that day and saw that in the slaughterhouse there was still some rotten meat. Everything was very unclean. Then there same a truck of the company filled with Jews and civilians, who were told to clean up the slaughterhouse. I myself went on my vehicle back to the company as I was attached to another detachment in the company.
Q. But you made statements about the treatment of the Jews just now?
A. Yes. I saw how the Jews jumped down from the vehicle.
Q. Oh, that is when you saw it. Now, about Hauptsturmfuehrer Braunagel, you said you didn't see him in Zclozow?