DR. STAHMER: I should like to make a suggestion, that the cross examination be interrupted and another witness be called, and I will have this material typed. That would be my suggestion, that we interrupt the cross examination for a minute, call another witness, and then go on from there.
THE PRESIDENT: You can read it. Take the book back.
DR. STAHMER: Mr. President, I propose to read only short sentences. BY DR. STAHMER: or limited themselves to dissecting one corpse only and to carry out an autopsy on only one corpse. In thisreport the following is set down. I quote:
"Of the members of the commission, nine corpses were submitted for autopsy by members personally and numerous, selected cases were submitted for inspection."
Is that right? the exception of Professor Devile, did open one body. Heim carried out two autopsies. the corpses being inspected. we carried out very hastily on the first day and no individual dissection was carried out but they were inspected as they lay there. the concept, under the expression of inspection of corpses? corpse is undressed and inspected and after that there is an inner inspection of the insides, when the inner organs are inspected. This was not done to the hundreds of bodies which were exposed there because this was not possible, it was not physically possible. We were there only before lunch. Therefore, I consider that there was no actual medical legal expert examination of these corpses in the real sense of the word. found there and you said that an expert explained the age of the trees according to the rings found in their trunks. In the protocol and the report, the following is set down. I quote:
"After the inspection by the members and according to the testimony of Forstmeister vo n Herz, who was called in as an expert on forestry, they were small trees of at least five years of age which had been standing in an area of large trees and had been transplanted to this spot about three years ago."
inspection and that you convinced yourself on the spot whether the statements made by the forestry expert were actually correct? only refers to the fact that in the Katyn forest there were clearings where small trees were growing and a German expert showed us a cross-section of these trees. But I do not consider myself competent and cannot make any deduction and I cannot judge whether his deductions were correct, the deductions which are set forth in the report. Precisely for that reason it was judged necessary to call in a forestry expert for we doctors were not competent to do so. therefore, these conclusions are merely the conclusions of a competent German expert. you have any doubts whether these statements or whether this testimony was correct? of the delegates neither I nor the other delegates expressed any opinion as to whether his conclusions were correct or not and therefore, these conclusions are set down in the report in the form in which the expert expressed himself. of the Polish officer which you dissected was clothed and in detail you described the clothing. Was this winter or summer clothing that you found?
Q In the protocol, in the record, it says further and I quote:
"Furthermore, Polish cigarettes and matchboxes were found amongst the dead in single cases tobacco containers and cigarette butts and the inscription 'Kosielsk' was inscribed thereon.
The question is, did you see these objects?
A These tobacco pouches were ingraved with the name "Kosielsk" thereon. We saw them. They were exhibited to us in the glass cases which were shown us in the peasant hut not far from the Katyn forest. I remember Buch drew out attention to it.
and I quote:
"In the clothing documents were found and they were put in safe keeping under the folder number 827."
Now, I should like to ask you how did you discover these documents? Did you personally take them out of the pockets? As far as I can remember they were taken out by a German who was undressing the corpse in my presence.
Q. At that time, were the documents already in the envelope?
A. They were not yet in the envelopes, but after they had been taken out, they were put into an envelope which bore a number, as this was usually done we were told:
Q. What was the nature of the documents?
A. I did not examine those documents, as I have already said, and I refused to do so, but according to the size, I believe that this was a certificate of identity. I could distinguish individual letters, but I did not know whether one could read the inscription, for I did not attempt to do so.
Q. In the protocol the following statement is made, and I quote:
"The documents found among the corpses (diaries, letters and articles from newspapers) dated from the fall of 1939 up until March and April 1940. The last date which up until this time had been fixed was the date of a Russian paper of 22 April 1940." accordance with the findings that you made.
A. Letters and newspapers were indeed in the glass cases that were shown to us. Some similar papers were found by some members of the Commission who were dissecting the bodies, and if I remember correctly, they were destroyed by them, but I did not do so.
Q. In your examination justa little while ago you stated that few scientific statements were contained in this protocol and that this was done intentionally. I should like to quote from this record as follows:
"Various degrees and types of decomposition were caused by the position of the bodies in the grave and the position that the bodies had one to another Aside from some mumification at the upper levels and around the edges of these corpses, there is some maceration found among the center corpses -- in other words, the corpses found in the center of the graves. The sticking together of the adjacent corpses and the soldering together of corpses through cadaverous acids and fluids which had been covered over and particularly because of the pressure that obtained which brought about corresponding deformations among the corpses, show a condition of primary preservation of the bodies.
"Among the corpses insects or remains of insects which might date back to the time of burial are entirely lacking, and from this we may gather that the sheeting and the burial took place at a season which was cold and free from insects." are in line with your findings.
A. I said that little was said on the condition of the preservation of the corpses, and indeed as can be judged by the quotation, one is speaking in general phraseology which concerns the various degrees of decomposition of the corpses, byt there was no concrete or detailed description of the corpses. that they were not discovered is in flagrant contradiction to the conclusions of Professor Palmieri, which are recorded in his personal record concerning the corpses which he himself dissected. In this protocol, which is published in the same German White Book, it is said that there were traces of remains of insects and their larvae on the corpses.
Q. Just a little while ago you spoke of the scientific investigation dealing with skulls undertaken by Professor Orses. The record also refers to this matter, and I quote:
"A large number of skulls were examined with respect to the change that might have taken place, which, according to the background and experience of Professor Orses would be of great value in fixing the date of death. In this connection, we are concerned with stratified encrustations at the surface of the mush found in the skull as a residue of the brain. These symptoms are not to be found among corpses which have been in their graves for less than three years. Such a condition, among other things, was found in a very decided form in the skull of corpse number 526, which was found near the surface of a large mass grave." here on the skull of one corpse, but among other corpses, according to the report of Professor Orses such a condition was discovered.
A I can answer this question quite categorically. We were shown only one skull, and that skull which is precisely mentioned in the report and which was numbered 526. I do not know whether very many other skulls were examined. I consider that Professor Orses had no possibility to examine many corpses in the Katyn Woods, for he come with us and left with us. Therefore, he did not stay in the Katyn Forest any longer than I did, or any longer than any ether members of the Commission. I should like to quote the conclusion, in which it is stated:
"From these statements made by witnesses, the letters and correspondence found among the corpses, the diaries, newspapers, and so forth, it may be seen that the shootings took place in the months of March and April, 1940. The following herewith are in complete agreement -- the materials found among the mass graves, and the pieces of evidence found among these single corpses."
Is this statement actually correct?
THE PRESIDENT: I did not quite understand the statement. As I heard you read it, it was something like this: From the statements of witnesses letters, and so forth -
DR. STAHMER: In complete agreement: The remains found among the mass sites and among the single corpses of the Polish officers. That is at the end of the quotation.
THE PRESIDENT: It doesn't say that the following persons are in complete agreement, but that the following facts are in complete agreement. Is that right?
DR. STAHMER: No. My question is, "Is this statement approved by you? Do you agree with it?"
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I know, but you read out certain words, which were these: "The following are in complete agreement." What I want to know in whether that means that the following persons are in complete agreement, or whether the following facts are in complete agreement.
DR. STAHMER: Special facts had been set down, and this is a summarizing expert opinion signed by the entire membership of the Commission. Therefore, we are concerned with a scientific statement.
THE PRESIDENT: Would you just listen to what I read out from what I took down? "From the statements of witnesses, letters, and other documents, it may be seen that the shooting took place in the months of March and April 1940. The following are in complete agreement."
Just a moment, Dr. Stahmer. Listen to what I say.
What I am asking you is this. Does the statement mean that the following persons are in complete agreement, or that the following facts are in complete agreement?
DR. STAHMER: No, no. The following people testify that this fact, the fact that the shootings took place in these months of 1940, agrees with the statements which they made after looking at the remains in the mass graves and these materials that they found with these single corpses. That is what is meant. That is the finding, that the things which have been found are in agreement with that which has been set down and determined scientifically. That is the meaning.
THE PRESIDENT: Go on. BY DR. STAHMER: conviction? the corpses is supposed to correspond with the date quoted by the witnesses, but this date is actually in contradiction to that which I myself observed on the corpses which I myself opened. That means that I did not consider that the date which could be deduced from the dissection of the corpses was actually the date named by the witnesses or mentioned in the documents -- that is, the date of the occurrence. If I had been convinced that the condition of the corpses did indeed correspond to the date of death mentioned by the Germans, I would have given a statement in an individual protocol; that is, I would have made a similar statement in my individual protocol. However, I always had doubts. sentence of the report -- the sentence which precedes the signatures -- I realized that this sentence was absent in that draft of the protocol which we saw at the conference in Smolensk.
worked upon in Smolensk, in that protocol it was only stated that we were shown papers and that we heard witnesses, and this was supposed to prove that the killings were carried out in March or April of 1940. medical ascertainment, nor was it confirmed by purely medical terminology. That was the reason for the signing of the protocol being retarded and for this protocol not being signed in Smolensk. fully aware of the political significance of your task. Why, then, did you desist from opposing or fighting this report which was not in accord with your scientific training? Why didn't you protest it? circumstances which had been created on this isolated military spot, there was no other way for me to act, and therefore I could not make any objections.
Q Why did you not take steps later on ?
what I am stating here. I repeat, I was not convinced of the truth of the German version. I was invited many times to Berlin by Director Tietz. I was also invited to Sofia by the German embassy. And in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs also invited me to make a statement over the radio or to the press, and I was requested to say what conclusions we had come during our investigation. However, I did not do so, and I always refused to do so. Because of the political situation in which we found ourselves at that moment, I could not make a public statement and declare that the German version was not really the correct one. exchanged between me and the German embassy in Sofia. And when, a few months later, another Bulgarian representative was asked to be sent to prevent a similar commission for the investigation of the corpses in Vinizza in the Ukraine, the German ambassador stated quite openly to the Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs that the Germans did not wish me to be sent to Vinizza. opinion on that matter. In our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister Plenipotentiary Ceratov had some documents, transcripts, which, if the Honored Tribunal considers it necessary, can be sent here from Bulgaria. col to carry out any activity with the propaganda aims or responsibilities, I have stated here, namely that the conclusions laid down in the collective protocol do not answer my personal conviction. And I will repeat that if I had been convinced that the Corpses were buried for three years, I would have signed a statement after having dissected a corpse, and I would not have left my personal protocol unfinished; for this is a quite unusual thing in the case of a medical-legal examination. carries the signatures of eleven, Dr. Birckler, whose name you gave yesterday, and some of the scientists enjoying world reknown. Among these men is found a scientist of a neutral country, Professor Navile. the meantime so that the protocol could be corrected or so that you would bring about a correction of the record ?
A I cannot say for what reason every delegate signed the protocol. But they also signed it in the same circumstances in which I signed it. However, when I read their individual protocols, I see that they also refrained from stating the precise date of the killing of a man whose corpse they had dissected, with the exception, as I have already said, of Professor Miroslavich, who was the only one who asserted that the corpse which he had dissected was that of a man buried for at least three years.
Q Mr. Witness, -any one of these persons who signed the collective protocol.
Q Mr. Witness, you gave two versions, one in the protocol, which we have just discussed, and another here before the Court, Which version is the correct one ?
A I do not understand which second version you mean. Will you please give a complete explanation ? to the personal belongings found and according to your findings, the shooting must have taken place three years ago. Today you testified that the findings were not correct, and between the shooting and the time of your affidavits there could only be a space of perhaps a year and a half. my personal conviction.
Q "Is in accord", or "was in accord" ?
DR. STAHMER : I have no further questions.
COLONEL SMIRNOV : Mr. President, I have no further questions to put to this witness. BY THE PRESIDENT : this delegation exhumed from the ground in your presence ? the graves which had been already exhumed, and they were taken out of them for it to dissect.
Q Was there anything to show, in your opinion, that the corpses had not been buried in those graves ? were preserved, they were stuck to each other; so that if they had been transferred, I do not believe that this could have been done recently.
This could not have been done immediately before our arrival.
Q You mean, that you think the corpses had been buried in those graves?
after death had come, as I have no data to confirm this but they did not look as if they had just been put there. March or April of for such a short period as that, three years before the examination which you have made? to say, on thestate and condition of the corpses, one cannot--when it is a question of years, it is impossible to determine the precise date with such precision and it is impossible to determine whether they were killed in March or in April; therefore, apparently, this month of March and April were not chosen on the basis of medical data for that would be impossible, but it is based on the testimony of the witnesses and on the documents which were discovered. My Lord, I repeat: But apparently the date of March and April was determined not on the basis of medical data but on the basis of witnesses' testimony or the document which they were discovered. you for your observations and for your corrections and that you madenone. Why was that? I did not make any conclusion, I did not add any conclusion because it was sent to me by the Germans and because in general at that moment, the political situation in our country was such that I could not declare publicly thatthe German version was not a true one. Sofia?
A Yes, only my personal protocol was sent to Sofia. As to the collective protocol, I brought it back myself to Sofia and handed it over to the Minister here. corporated in the whole protocol and signed by all the delegates?
A In my personal protocol, there is only a description of the corpses and of the clothing of the corpses which I dessected.
the corpse and clothing and the degree of decomposition. is more accurate as regards the condition of the corpses--the more so, that they were made out during preparation of dissection and were dictated on the spot to the stenographers.
Q Just listen to the question,please. Is your personal protocol, in the words in which you drew it up, incorporated in the collective protocol in the same words? included in the book which the Germans had together with the general protocol, in the white book.
Q It is there, then, in the report, is it? It is in the white book?
A Yes, quite right. Quite right, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness can retire. Yes, Colonel Smirnov, do you have another witness?
COLONEL SMIRNOV: Yes, Mr. President. I beg you to allow me to call as a witness, Professor of Loyal Medicine Prosorovski.
testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Will you state your full none, please.
A. Prosorovski, Victor Ilich.
Q. Will you repeat this oath after me: solemnly promise and swear before the High Tribunal, to say all that I know about this case, and to add and withold nothing.
(The witness repeated the oath).
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down. BY COLONEL SMIRNOV:
Q. Witness, just before questioning you, I beg you to follow the following order: After my question, please pause in order to allow the interpreters to make the translation, and speak as slowly as possible. I beg you to tell the Tribunal very briefly, and to give the Court some information about your scientific activity, and your past work as a legal doctor.
A. I am a doctor by profession; Professor of Legal Medicine and a Doctor of medical Science. I am the Chief medical Expert of the Ministry of Public Health of the Soviet Union. I am the Director of the Scientific Research Institute for Legal Medicine at the Ministry of Public Health of the USSR; in the main, in the scientific activity, I am President of the medical Legal Commission of the Scientific Medical Council of Ministry of Public Health of the USSR.
Q. What is your past experience as a medical legal expert?
A. I practiced for seventeen years in that sphere.
Q. What was your participation in the investigation of the mass crimes of the Hitlerites against the relish officers in Katyn?
A. The President of the Special Commission for the inves-
tigation and ascertaining of the circumstances of the shootings by the German Fascist aggressors of the Polish officers; in the beginning of January 1644, the Acadmeician Burdenka offered me the position to lead the Medical Legal Experts Commission. Apart from this organizational activity, I participated personally in the exhumations and examination of those corpses.
THE PRESIDENT: Colonel Smirnov, perhaps that would be a good time to break off.
(A recess was taken until 1400 hours).
AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours, 2 July 1946)
THEMARSHAL: May it please the Tribunal, the Defendants Hess, Fritsche, and von Ribbentrop are absent.
COLONEL SMIRNOV: May I continue the examination of this witness, Mr. President?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. BY COLONEL SMIRNOV: burial grounds where the corpses were discovered? Commission, Academician Burdenka, Academician Tolstoi, and other members of this commission, betook themselves to the burial grounds of the Polish officers in the so-called wood of Katyn. This spot is located about fifteen kilometers from the town of Smolensk. At a distance of about 200 meters fromthe Witebsk highroad, these burial grounds were situated on a rather abrupt slope. One of these graves was about sixty meters long and sixty motors wide; the other one, situated a small distance from this first grave, was about seven meters long and six meters wide.
Q How many corpses were exhumed by the Commission you headed? and examined, from various graves and from various layers, all together 925 corpses. were called by you for this work? this Commission. In September and October, 1943, they had exhumed and examined the corpses of the victims of the Germans and -
Q At what spot did they examine the corpses? Among the membersof this Commission were Professor Brosorovski, Professor Smolianinov, the Senior Assistant Dr. Semenovski, Professor of Pathological Anatomy Woropaev, Proffessor of Legal Chemistry Schwaikowa, who was invited for consultations on legal chemical subjects.
With the aid of this Commission, they called also medical legal experts from the military. Among them were Nikolski, Dr. Soubbotine -
Q I doubt whether the Tribunal is interested in all these names. I beg of you to answer the following question: What method of examination was chosen by you? I will explain. Did you investigate the clothes of the corpses? Did you carry out a superficial examination or did you carry out a complete medical dissection of all nine hundred corpses? examination, particularly their clothing. Then an exterior examination was carried out and then they were subjected to a complete medical dissection of all three parts of the body; that is to say, the skull, the bronchia, and the thorax, as well as all the inner organs of these corpses. burial grounds bore traces of medical examination carried out previously? been examined, and even then only partial examination of the skulls; but no other traces of former or previous medical examination could be ascertained, for they were clothed and the overcoats were buttoned, their trousers were also buttoned, as well as the shirts, the belts were strapped, the knots of ties had not been undone, and neither in the area of the headner in the area of the body were there any traces of outs or other traces of medical examination. Therefore, this excludes the possibility of their having been subjected to any medical legal examination.
2 July A LJG 13-1 out by your commission, did you open the skulls? the areas of the skull were examined.
Q Are you acquainted with the expression "pseudo callous"? Institute of Medical-Legal Science. Before that, in the Soviet Union, not one medical legal expert observed any similar phenomena . cases of pseudo callous? these 925 corpses observed line sediments on the skull surfaces. of the skulls.
Was the clothing also examined? Upon the request of the special commission, and in the presence of its members such as Nikolas, Burdenka, and other members of the commission, the medical legal exports examined this clothing, turned out the pockets of the trousers, of the coats, and of the overcoats. As a rule, the pockets were either torn open or ripped open or cut open, and this testified to the fact that they had already been searched. The clothing itself, the overcoats and the jackets and the trousers as well as the shirts, were moist with the corpse acid. This clothing could not be torn asunder, notwithstanding violent effort.
Q Therefore, the tissue of the clothing was solid? spattered with earth. the clothing and did you find any documents in them? some of them remained intact. In those pockets, and also under the lining of the overcoats and of the trousers we discovered, for instance, notes, papers, closed and open letters and postcards.
2 July A LJG 13-2 cigarette paper, cigarette folders, pipes, and so forth, and even valuables were found, such as ingots of gold and gold dollars. beg you to refrain from giving them. I would like you to answer the following question: 1940 and also dated 1941?
A Yes. I myself discovered certain documents, and my colleagues also discovered them. Professor Smolininov discovered on one of the corpses a letter written in Russian, and it was sent by Sophie Zigon, addressed to the Red Cross in Moscow, with the request to communicate to her the address of her husband. The date of this letter was the 12th of September 1940. In addition, on the envelope there was the tamp of a postal office in Warsaw for the month of September 1940, and also the stomp of the Moscow post office, dated the 28th of September 1940.
Another document of the same sort was discovered. It was a postcard addressed from Tarnopol, the post office at Tarnopol, and dated the 13th of November 1940. with the name -- if I am not mistaken -- of Ratkivich, certifying to the receipt of money with the date the 6th of April 1941, and another receipt in his name also referring to a money deposit was dated the 5th of May 1941. of June 1941, with the name of Kuckinski, as well as other documents of the same sort. were any bullets or bullet eases exhumed? I beg you to tell us what was the trade mark of these bullets? Were they Soviet firms or were they foreign firms, and if they were foreign firms, which one, and what was their caliber? brain. In the case of blind firearm wounds, in the tissues of the 2 July A LJG 13-3 brain or in the bone of the skull we discovered bullets which were more or less deformed.