I always gave them to SS Obersturmfuehrer Schulz. He was in Cologne. He was the political leader of the political division. He recommended to me to say nothing to anyone, otherwise we would be immediately liquidated. That is why I immediately told my comrades -- we had never been afraid of death -so we thought that if anyone could get out of the camp they would be able -
THE PRESIDENT: I think we have heard enough of this detail that you are giving us. But come back for a moment to the place you were speaking of where the Russian prisoners of war in 1943 -- just a moment; I want to put a question about. heaviest stones.
THE WITNESS: No, just small stones or less, about twenty kilos, to show in the pictures that the work that Russian officers were doing was not heavy work. It was very heavy work that they were required to do -- not really forced labor -- that was for the pictures. But in reality it was entirely different. BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q I thought you said they carried big heavy stones. Were the photographs taken while they were in their uniforms carrying these light stones?
A Yes, sir; they had to put on clean uniforms, and neatly arranged in order to show that Russian prisoners were as they should be.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. Is there any other particular incident you want to refer to?
THE WITNESS: Yes. I come back to block twenty. This little detail of which I want to speak -- in that block I succeeded in taking advantage of my knowledge of photography. I was able to keep the light in there in order to take my pictures, so I was able to get all sorts of details as to what was taking place in these barracks. In these barracks seventy metres wide by fifty metres long the prisoners there did not receive even one-fourth of what we received by way of food. They didn't have any spoons; they didn't have any plates. The bad food was thrown away under the snow, then the Russians had to eat what was thrown away. The Russians were so hungry that they would fight in order to eat that.
Then when such fights broke out the SS -BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q Do you mean that Russians were put into block twenty?
A No, the Russians came specially. They did not enter directly into the camp. Those who were not immediately gassed went to number twenty. Even the inner leader of the camp could not enter there. Small groups of fifty or sixty several times each week. And then one could always hear the shouts and the blows of the fights that went on inside. From new arrivals the Russians knew that the Russian Army was approaching Jugoslavia, so they took one last chance. They took one last chance and they beat the soldier, they took the machine gun, then they tore down the barbed wire with their own wooden shoes, with anything they could find, in order to be able to find weapons. Many died on the spot. There were seven hundred of them. Only sixty-two of the seven hundred succeeded in passing to Jugoslavia with the Partisans. On that day the leader of the camp gave the order by radio that all civilian prisoners were to cooperate in liquidating the Russian criminals. And if anyone brought proof that they had assassinated any one they would receive special rations. That is why those who belonged to the Nazi Party in Mauthausen and in the vicinity went to work. They brought more than six hundred down. There were many who could not drag themselves as far as ten metres. survivor of the group. And it was he who told me the details of the fateful -
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think the Tribunal wants to hear more details which you didn't see yourself. Does any member of the defense counsel wish to ask any question of the witness upon the points which he has dealt with himself? BY DOCTOR BABEL (Counsel for SS and SD): figures. How were you in a position, yourself, to count them? camp of columns of five. It was easy to count them. There were always transports who were sent from the Wehrmacht prisons somewhere in Germany.
They were always sent from all prisons in Germany -- from the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the SS and SA.
THE PRESIDENT: Just answer the question and don't make a speech. You have said they were brought in in columns of five, and it was easy to count them.
THE WITNESS: Very easy to count them, particularly for those who wanted to be able to tell the story some day. BY DOCTOR BABEL: things? returned to the camp. At that time we always had two or three hours where we could wonder about in the camp waiting for the bell that would tell us to go to bed.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness may now retire.
M. DUBOST: If the Tribunal permits, we shall now hear Mr. Cappelen, who is a Norwegian witness. The testimony of Mr. Cappelen will be limited to the conditions that were imposed on Norwegian internees in Norwegian camps and prisons.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well. the stand.
THE PRESIDENT: I understand that you speak English.
THE WITNESS: Yes, I speak English.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you take the English form of oath?
THE WITNESS: Yes, I prefer to speak out in English.
THE PRESIDENT: What is your name?
THE WITNESS: My name is Hans Cappelen.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me.
truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
(Witness repeats oath in English)
THE PRESIDENT: M. Dubost, can you spell the name?
M. DUBOST: C-a-p-p-e-l-e-n.
THE PRESIDENT: It would help the Tribunal if the names of these witnesses could be handed up. It is extremely difficult to get these names.
M. DUBOST: They were given, Mr. President, last evening, I had taken to the Tribunal a letter addressed to you, Sir.
THE PRESIDENT: I haven't seen it. BY M. DUBOST:
Q. M. Cappelen, you were born 18 December 1903?
A. Yes.
Q. In what town?
A. I am born in Kvietseid, Telemark, Norway.
Q. What is your profession?
A. I was a lawyer; but now I am a business man.
Q. Will you tell what you know of the brutalities of the Gestapo in Norway?
A. My Lord, I was arrested the 29th of November 1941 and brought to the Gestapo prison in Oslo, Moellergata 19. After ten days I was interrogated by two Norwegian N.S. or Nazi police agents. They started in at once to beat me with bludgeons. How long this interrogation lasted I can't exactly remember, but it did lead to nothing. So after some days I was brought to 32 Victoria Terrace. That was the headquarters of the Gestapo in Norway. It was about eight o'clock in the night. I was brought into a seemingly big room and they asked me to undress. I had to undress until I was absolutely naked. I was a little bit swollen after first treatment I had by the Norwegian police agents, but it wasn't so bad. kriminalrat was his title -- Femer. He was very angry, and they started to bombard me with questions which I couldn't answer. So Mr. Femer run upon me and tore all the hair off my head, so hair and blood was laying on the floor around me.
And so all of a sudden they all started to run upon me and beat me with rubber bludgeons and iron wires. It hurt me very bad, and I fainted. But I was brought back to life again in the way that they poured ice-cold water over me.
I vomitted, naturally, because I was feeling very sick. But that only made them angry, and they said, "Clean up, you dirty dog," and I had to make an attempt to clean up with my bare hands. led to nothing because they bombarded me and asked me of persons whom I did'nt know or scarecely knew. the prison, I was placed in my cell and felt very sick and ill, I was. All during the day I asked the guard if I couldn't have a doctor; that was the 19th. After some days -- I suppose it must have been the day before Christmas Eve, 1941 -- I was again in the night brough to the Victoria Terrace. The same happened as last time, only that this time it was very easy for me to undress because I had only a coat on me; I was torn up from the beating last time. As last time, six, seven, or eight Gestapo agents were present. BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. German Gestapo, do you mean?
A. Yes, German Gestapo, all of them. And then there were present at that time too Kriminalrat Gemer, and he had a rank in SS and was criminal commissar. Then they started to beat me again, but it was useless to beat a man like me who was so swollen up and so bad looking. Then they started in another way: they started to screw and break my arms and legs. And my right arm dislocated. I felt that awful pain, and fainted again. Then the same happened as last time: They poured water over me and I came back again to life.
Now all the Germans there were absolutely mad. They roared like animals and bombarded me with questions again, but I was so tired I couldn't answer. home-made wooden thing with a screw arrangement on my left leg, and they started to screw so that all the meat loosened from the bones.
I felt an awful pain and fainted away again. But I came back again, and I have still big marks here on my leg from the screw arrangement now four years afterwards. still have marks here (indicating) -- and loosened the meat here. But then I had a collapse, and all of a sudden I felt that I was sort of paralyzed in the right side. It has otherwise been proved that I had a cerebral hemorrhage. And I got that double vision; I saw two of each Gestapo agents; and all was going round and round for me. That double vision I have had four years, and when I am tired it is coming back again. But I am better now so I can move again in the right side, but I am -- the right side is a little bit effected from that.
Well, I can't remember much more from that night, but the other prisoners who had to clean up the corridors in the prison had seen them bring me back again in the morning. That must have been about six o'clock in the morning. They thought I was dead, because I have no iron on my hands. If it had been for one day or two days, I can't tell, but one day I moved again and was a little bit clear, and then the guard at once was in my cell where I was laying on a cot among my own vomitting and blood, and afterwards there came a doctor.
He had, I suppose, quite a high rank; which rank I can't exactly say. He told me that I most probably would die, especially if I wasn't -- I asked him, "Couldn't you bring me to a hospital, because He said, "No. Fools are not to be brought to any hospital, before you do just as we say you shall do. As all Norwegians, you are a fool."
Well, they put my arm into joint again. That was very bad, but two soldiers hold me and they draw it in, and I fainted away again. So the time passed and I rested a bit. I couldn't walk, because it all seems to be going around for me. So I was laying on the cot. And so one day, it must have been in the end of February or in the middle of February 1942, when one night they came again. It must have been about ten o'clock in the night, because the light in my cell had been out for quite a long time. They asked me to stand up, and I made an attempt and fell down again because of the paralysis.
Then they kicked me, but I said, "Isn't it better to put me to death, because I can't move?" Victoria Terrace; that is the headquarters where they made their interrogations. This time the interrogation was led by one SS man called Stehr. I couldn't stand. So naked as I was I was laying on the floor. This Stehr had some assistants, four or five Gestapo agents, and they started to tramp on me, kick me. So all of a sudden they brought me to my feet again and brought me to a table where Stehr was sitting. He took my left hand like this (indicating) and put some pins under my nails and started to bring them up. Well, it hurted me badly, and all things going around and around for me, the double vision, but the pain was so intense that I draw my hand back.
I shouldn't have done that, because that made them absolutely furious. I fainted away, collapsed, and I don't know for how long a time, but I came back to life again by the smelling of burned flesh or burned meat. And then one of the Gestapo agents was standing with a little sort of a lamp burning me under my feet. It didn't hurt me too much, because I was so feeble that I didn't care, and I was so paralyzed my tongue couldn't work, so I couldn't speak, only groaned a bit, crying naturally, always.
Well, I don't remember so much more of that time, but this was to me one of the worst things I was through with respect to interrogations. I was brought back again to prison and time passed and I attempted to eat a little bit. I spewed most of it up again, I thre it up again, most of it. But little by little I recovered. I was still paralyzed in the side, so I couldn't stand up. with other Norwegians; people I know and people I didn't know. And the most of them were badly treated; they were swollen up, and I remember especially two of my friends; two very good persons. I had been confronted with then, and they were very bad looking for torture. And when I came back again after my prison trip I learned that they both were dead; they died from the treatment. to do it - was a person called Emil Halwuschen. He was one day - that must have been the autumn or in August or October 1943. He was a little bit swollen up and very unhappy, and he said they had treated him so bad. But he and some of his friends had been in some sort of a court where they had been told that they were to be shot the next day. They placed a sort of sentence upon them, just to set you an example. asked the guard to bring - the head guard, that was one person, Mr. Goetz. He came and asked what the devil I wanted. I said, "My comrade is very ill, couldn't he have some aspirins". "Oh, no," he said, "it is wasted to give him aspirin, because he is to be shot in the morning."
found him up at Trondheim together with other Norwegians in a grave there with a bullet through his neck. twenty-five months, was a house of horror. I heard every night, nearly every night, people screaming and groaning, One day, it must have been in December 1942, about the 8th of December, they came into my cell and told me to dress. It was in the night. I put on my ragged clothes what I had. Now I had recovered practically. I was naturally lame in the one side, couldn't walk so well, but I could walk, and I went down in the corridor and there they placed me as usual against the wall, and I waited that they would bring me away and shoot me. But they didn't shoot me, they brought me to Germany together with heaps of other Norwegians. I learned afterwards that some few of my friends - and through friends I mean Norwegians - not exactly - we were so-called "Nacht and Nebel" prisoners, "Night and Mist" prisoners. We were brought to a camp called Natzweile, in Elsace. It was a very bad camp, I dare say. mountains. But I shall not tell you about - bore you about my tales from Natzweile, My Lord; I will only say that all other nations: French, Russians, Dutch and Belgians were there, and we are about five hundred Norwegians between sixty and seventy percent died, there or in other camps of concentration. Also two Danes were there. well-known. The camp had to be evacuated in September 1943. They were then brought to Dachau by Munich, but we didn't stay long there; at least, I didn't stay long there, I was sent to a command called Aurich in East Friesland, whore we were about - that was an under-command of Nevengamme, by Hamburg. We were there about fifteen hundred prisoners. We had to dig panzer graves where we worked. The work was so, so, so strong and so hard, and the way they treated us so bad, the most of them died there, I suppose about half of the prisoners died by dysentery or by ill-treatment in the five, six weeks we were there.
It was too much even for the SS, who had to take care of the camp, so they gave it up, I suppose, and I was sent from Nevengamme, in Hamburg, to a camp called Grossrosen, in Silesia; it is near Breslow. That was a very bad camp too. We were about forty Norwegians there, and of those forty Norwegians we were about ten left after four or five months.
THE PRESIDENT: You will be some little time longer, so I think we better adjourn now for ten minutes.
(A recess was taken from 1130 to 1840 hours).
THE PRESIDENT: Continue.
QUESTIONS BY M. DUBOST: camps, and speak to us specifically of what you know of the camp of Natzweiler and the role at Natzweiler of Dr. Hirtz of the medical German faculty of Strassbourg? Just beside camp there was a farm they called Struthof. That was pratically a part of the camp, and some of the prisoners had to work there to clean up the rooms and, well, not so often, but sometimes, on the call they were taken out. For instance, one day I remember all the gypsies were taken out, and then they were brought down to Struthof. They were very afraid of being brought down there. the hospital - so-called hospital in the camp, and he told me afterwards, the day after the gypsies were brought away down to Struthof, he said, "I tell you something", he said. They have so far as I understand, attempted some sort of gas upon them," "HOW do you know that?"
I asked.
"Well, come along with me." gypsies lying in beds. They didn't look well, and it was so easy to look through the glass, but they had some mucus, I suppose, around their mouths. And he told me that they had - Widing told me that the gypsies couldn't tell much because they were so ill, but so far as he understood this was gas which they had used upon them.
There was twelve of them; and the four that were living, the other eight, so far as Widing understood, died down there at Struthof.
Well, Widing told further on, "You see that man who sometimes walks through the camp together with some others?"
"Well, I have seen him," I said.
"That is Professor Hirtz from the German University in Strassbourg."
I am quite sure Widing said that this man is Hirt or Hirtz. He is coming here now nearly daily with a so-called Commission to see those who are coming back again from Struthof, to see the result. That is all I know about that so far.
Q HOW many Norwegians died at Grossrosen? know about forty persons who had been there, and I also know about ten who came back again. Grossrosen was a bad camp. The worst of it all was the evacuation of Grossrosen. I suppose it must have been in the middle of February, this year. The Russians came nearer and nearer to Breslau.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q You mean 1945?
A 1945 I mean; excuse me, 1945. One day we were placed upon a so-called "apellplatz". We were very feeble, all of us. We had hard work, little food, and all sort of ill treatment. Well, we were started to walk in parties of about two to three thousand. In the party I was with we were about 2500 to 2800, We heard so and so many when they took up the numbers.
They were very nervous and behaved as mad persons. We saw several were drunk.
Feeble as we were, we couldn't walk fast enough, and five of them,- and they said, "So geht es wenn man nicht"--"If you don't walk in an intelligent way see what will happen to you."
wasn't good to help them.
railway station. It was very cold, and we had only such striped prison clothes on and bad boots, naturally, but we said, "Oh, we are glad that we have come to a railway station.
It is better to stand in a cow track than to walk in the middle of winter."
It was very cold, 10 to 12 degrees, I suppose-very cold.
It was a long train with open tracks.
In Norway we call them sand tracks, and we were kicked at on those tracks, about 80 on each track.
We had to sit so together (indicating), and on this track we sat for about five days without food-cold-without water.
When it was snowing we made like this (indicating) just to get some water in We came there.
They kicked us down from the tracks, but many were dead.
The man who sat by me, he was dead, but I had no right to get away.
I had to sit with a dead man for the last day, and I didn't see the ciphers myself, naturally, but about half of us Well, from Dora I don't remember so much, because I was more or less dead.
I have always been a man of good humor and high I don't remember so much before, so I had a good chance, camps, and the few, comparatively few Norwegian "NN" prisoners who were living in very bad condition.
Many of my friends are still in the hospital in Norway.
Some died after coming home.
That's what happened to me and my comrades in the three and
QUESTIONS BY M. DUBOST:
Q For what reason had you been arrested?
called Hoestboehl. That is a sort of sanitarium where you go for
Q What had you done? What was held against you?
and naturally we, most of us, were against them by feelings; and also, as the Gestapo asked me I remember, "What do you think of Mr. Quisling?"
I only answered, "What would you have done if a 'Better forget the Mobilization Order'?" A man can't do that with they unaware of what went on in the camps?
A That is naturally very difficult to me to answer. But in about how the Germans treated their prisoners, at least.
And there working, I was in Dachau for that short time.
I had once to go with to seek for persons and forms and things like that.
I suppose that was the idea.
They never told us anything, but we knew what was on.
We were about a hundred persons, prisoners. We were looking like dead persons, all of us very bad looking.
We went through the dangerous and which should in some way help them.
Some of them were hollering to us, "It is your fault that we are bombed."
Q Were there any Chaplains in your camp? Did you have the right to pray?
A Well, we had in the "NN" prisoners in Natzweiler a priest from Norway.
He was, I suppose, what you call in English, Dean. He was quite a high rank.
In Norway we call it "Prost." From the west coast of Norway.
He was also brought to Natzweiler as an "NN" prisoner, and some of my comrades, they asked him if they couldn't meet sometimes so he could preach to them.
But he said, "No, I don't care to do it.
I had a bible. They have taken it from me and they joked about it and said, 'You dirty churchman.
'" If you show the bible and things like that, you know--therefore, we didn't do of religion at the time of their death?
Q Were the dead treated with decency?
Q Was there any religious service conducted?
M. DUBOST: I have no further questions to ask.
GENERAL RUDENKO: I have no questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Has the United States?
witness any questions?
QUESTIONS BY DR. MERKEL (Counsel for the Gestapo):
German Gestapo?
learned afterward, the so-called State Police. That was not the police in Norway.
They were working together with the Gestapo; in fact, it was the same.
But it was by them I was interrogated after the ten days.
But they, as I heard afterwards, usually did it in the Germans couldn't speak Norwegian.
Most of them couldn't. I call them Gestapo practically.
They let them handle the persons there were German or Norwegian officials present?
interpreter, but as I spoke the German language I can't with one policemen there.
It is difficult. But as Victoria Terrace was the to help them there.
But most of them were German.
Q Were these officials who interrogated you in uniform or not?
too. But when they tortured me they were most civil. So far as I remember, there was only one person in uniform during one of the torture interrogations.
Q You stated that you were then treated by a physician. Did this physician come of his own free will or was he summoned by the police?
A First time I asked for a doctor, but then I did'nt get any. But at the time when I came back to myself, when I was supposed perhaps to he dead, the guard possibly had been looking at me, because he was then running away, and afterwards they came with a doctor. an absolute prohibition against speaking about what went on in the camps, and what offenses against this prohibition were punished most strictly? less understood that it was more or less forbidden to talk about the tortures we had gone through, but naturally we in the camps, the Nacht and Nebel Camps where I was, the situation was so bad that even torture sometimes seemed to be better than dying slowly away like that, so the only thing we spoke about nearly was "when shall the war end; to help our comrades; and are we to get some food tonight or not."
DR. MERKEL: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT : Does any other Defendant's Counsel wish to ask any questions? Mr. Dubost, have you anything you wish to ask?
M. DUBOST: I have nothing further to ask, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Then the witness may retire.
M. DUBOST: If the Tribunal will permit, we will now hear a witness, Roser, who will give a few details and the conditions under which they kept in reprisal camps French prisoners of war.
THE PRESIDENT (To the witness): What is your name?
THE WITNESS: Paul Roser.
THE PRESIDENT: You swear to speak without hate nor fear, to state truth, all the truth, only the truth? Raise your right hand and say "I swear."
(The witness raises his right hand and repeats the oath in French). QUESTIONS BY M. DUBOST:
Q Your name is Paul Roser, R-O-S-E-R?
Q You were born on the 8th of May, 1903? You are of French nationality?
Q You were born of French parents?
Q You were a prisoner of war?
Q You were taken prisoner in battle?
A Yes; I was.
Q In what year?
Q You sought to escape?
A Yes; several times.
Q How many times?
Q Five times. You were transferred finally to a disciplinary camp? Will you indicate the regime of such camp -- you will indicate your rank, and you will indicate the treatment to which you were exposed, to people of your rank in those disciplinary camps, and for what reasons?
A I was an aspirant in France: it is between a Top Sergeant and Second Lieutenant. I was in several disciplinary camps. The first was a small camp which the Germans called Strafkommando, in Lindberg, near Hanover. It was in 1941. There were thirty of us. to escape once again. We were recaptured by our guards at the very moment when we were leaving the camp. We were naturally unarmed. The first among us -
THE PRESIDENT: You are going too fast for us to follow you. Now continue more slowly, please.
A (continuing) Very well. make him reveal who the others were who also sought to escape. The man remained silent. The guards hurled themselves upon him, beating him with the butts of their pistols in the face and with bayonets - with the butts of their rifles. At that moment, not wishing to let our comrade be killed, several of us stepped forward and revealed that we sought to escape. I then received a beating with bayonets applied to my head and I fell into a swoon. When I recovered consciousness one of the Germans was kneeling on my leg and was continuing to strike me. Another one, raising his gun, was seeking to strike my head, I was saved on that occasion through the intervention of my comrades, who threw themselves between the Germans and myself. That night we were struck for three hours exactly with butts of rifles, with bayonet blows and with butts of pistols in the face. I lost consciousness three times.
The following morning we were taken to work, nevertheless. We were digging trenches for the draining of the marshes. It was a very hard sort of work, which started at 6.30 in the morning to be completed at 6 o'clock at night. We had two stops, each of a half hour. We had nothing to eat during the day. The soup was given to us when we came back at night with a piece of bread and a small piece of sausage or two cubic centimeters of margarine and that was all.
parcels which our families sent to us for a whole month. We could not write nor could we receive our mail. shipped to the regular Kommandos. I, personally, was quite ill at that time and I came back in Stalag 10 B at Sandbostel. an officer?
Q Had you accepted to work?
A No, not at all. Like all my comrades of the same rank and like most of the non-commissioned officers and like all Aspirants, I had refused to work, invoking the prescription of the Geneva Convention, which Germany had signed and which prescribed that non-commissioned officers who were prisoners cannot be forced to perform any labor without their own consent.
The German Army, into whose hands we had fallen, practically speaking, never respected that engagement taken by Germany. 10B? or Allied prisoners. Robin, who had prepared with some of his comrades and escape and for that purpose had dug a tunnel, was killed in the following manner. The Germans, having had knowledge of the tunnel which had been prepared, Captain Buchmann, who was a member of the Officers' Staff of the camp, watched for the exit of the would-be escapees with a few German guards. Lieutenant Robin, who was first to emerge, was killed with one shot while obviously he could not in any manner attack anyone whatsoever or defend himself.
Other cases of such character occurred. One of my friends, a French Lieutenant Ledoux, who was sent to Graudenz Fortress, where he was exposed to a detentionary regime, saw killed his best friend, a British Lieutenant Anthony Thompson, by Hauptfeldwebel Oesterreich with one shot of a pistol in the neck in their own cell. Lieutenant Thompson had just sought to escape and had been recaptured by the Germans on the airfield. Lieutenant Thompson belonged to the RAF. where I spent five months, several of our comrades
Q Would you tell us why you were at Ravaruska?
A In the course of the winter '41-'42, the Germans were seeking to intimidate the non-commissioned officers who were refractory labor; secondly, those who had sought to escape, and third, the men who were being employed in kommandos and who were caught in the act of performing sabotage. The Germans warned us that from 1 April, 191;2 onwards all these escapees who could be recaptured would be sent to a camp, a special camp called a "punishment camp" at Ravaruska in Poland.