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Roesler,
Major
presently Kassel, January 3, 1942
Report
The
notification from the Infantry Reserve Regiment 52 concerning
"Conduct with regard to the Civilian Population in the
East" causes me to submit the following report:
Towards
the end of July 1941, I.R. [Infantry Regiment] 528, of which I
was in command, was on its way from the West to Schitomir,
where it was to move into a rest camp. On the day of our
arrival, in the afternoon, when I had moved into the Staff
Quarters together with my Staff, we heard salvoes of rifle
fire at regular intervals, fired at no great distance, and
followed by pistol shots after a little while. I decided to
investigate this matter and with my Adjutant and Ordnance
Officer (First Lieutenant v. Bassewitz and Lt.
Mueller-Brodmann) set out in the direction of the rifle fire.
We soon received the impression that some cruel show must be
taking place here because after a while we saw numerous
soldiers and civilians streaming towards a railway embankment
in front of us; we were informed that executions were being
carried out continuously behind it. Throughout this time we
were unable to see across the railway embankment to the other
side, but at regular intervals we heard the sound of a
trilling whistle and then a salvo of about 10 rifle shots,
followed after a certain interval by pistol shots. When we
finally climbed up the railway embankment a sight was revealed
to us on the other side of a horrible cruelty that was bound
to shake and disgust anyone who came face to face with it
unprepared. A pit had been cut in the ground, about 4 m. wide
and 7-8 m. long, and the excavated earth had been piled up on
one side. This mound and the side of the pit beneath it were
stained all over with streams of blood. The pit itself was
filled with human corpses of all kinds and both sexes in such
numbers that it was difficult to estimate them; it was not
possible to judge the depth of the pit. Behind the mound of
excavated earth a Police Commando was lined up with a Police
Officer in command. The uniforms of the commandos were stained
with blood. In a wide circle stood countless soldiers of troop
units already stationed there, some as spectators, dressed in
swimming trunks, as well as many civilians with women and
children. I stepped right up to the pit to obtain a picture
that I have not been able to forget until this day. Among
others there was an old man with a long white beard lying in
the grave, with a little walking stick still hooked over his
left arm. As this man still gave signs of life by his
stertorous breathing, I requested one of the policemen to kill
him off, but he answered with a laugh: "I fired seven
shots into his belly, hell croak on his own." The persons
who had been shot were not placed in the grave in any order,
but stayed there lying as they had fallen from the wall of the
pit after they were shot. All these persons had been killed by
shots in the back of the neck and then finished off with
pistol shots from the top. I did not acquire any excessive
sensitivity of the emotions during my service in the World War
and in the French and Russian campaigns of this war; and
experienced much that was more than unpleasant when I was
active in the volunteer units in 1919, but I cannot recall
ever having witnessed a scene such as that I have described
here. I am not concerned here with whatever court decisions
may have formed the basis for the executions I have described,
I felt it was not reconcilable with our concepts of custom and
decency up to the present time and that a mass slaughter of
human beings should be carried out quite publicly, as on an
outdoor stage. I wish to add that according to statements by
soldiers who frequently watch these executions, several
hundreds of persons were said to be shot every day.
Prestupnye
tseli-Prestupnye sredstva. Dokumenty ob okkupatsionnoy
politike fashistskoy Germanii na territorii SSSR, 1941-1944
("Criminal Aims Criminal Means Documents on Occupational
Policy of Fascist Germany in the Territory of the USSR,
1941-1944"), Moscow, 1968, pp. 110-111. |
