by Albert Holl
The judge first established our identities. Once the formalities had been gone through, the prosecution statements were read out, which amounted to a refusal to work by all of us. This offence was classed as sabotage. Next, each of the accused was heard individually. Our points were essentially as follows: the Soviet Union had not adhered to the agreement signed in Moscow in April 1947 with the countries of England, America and France. As German officer prisoners of war we were not obliged to work under the rules of the Hague Convention. We had worked until then in order not to worsen the general pressure that had been brought against us. We were now protesting against the Russians’ non-adherence to the Moscow Agreement, demanding immediate repatriation and handling in accordance with the Hague Convention and the Geneva Agreement.
The judge told us that the Soviet Union was a member of the International Red Cross and adhered to its regulations, but we would still be punished. Apart from this, all German officers up to the rank of captain were duty bound to work according to an order from Moscow. We demanded to see this order, but this was refused. Malichin went on to say that refusing to work in the Soviet Union was sabotage against the establishment of Socialism and was among the worst crimes that one could commit. Our protests and arguments against this found no response.
As witnesses against us appeared the commandant of Camp 7100/6, Major Gudenkov, the duty officer of the day, Senior Paymaster Bräunlich, and Captain Aulich. Except for Bräunlich, who acted very cleverly, they all accused us strongly. Even Aulich made accusations against App that showed his low character. Gudenkov made some false allegations that we refuted. The judge did not respond to our objections. The prosecutor meanwhile sat there untroubled, as we would be condemned in any case.
When I looked at our accused bench, it seemed to me that the prosecutors were sitting here. None of the accused shows any fear nor is impressed by what might happen. Each one of us has acted in his own way so everyone is clear about the possible consequences. When Franke reproaches the court on the Soviet prosecutor’s quotation at Nuremburg and compares it to the present situation, it is as if he has poked a hornets’ nest. Franke says that the Soviet prosecutor at Nuremburg actually said: ‘Germany has left a memorial – the Soviet Union will leave a memorial to itself!’ The judge and prosecutor had understood him exactly.
Back and forth the argument raged. I and my comrades understood little of what was said. In his speech for the defence the advocate pleaded for acquittal as it was not proven in the Moscow order if officer prisoners of war had to work.
Towards midnight the judge rose and deferred the session until the following day. We had been sitting here for fourteen hours. I had not expected that it would have lasted so long. The defence gave us hope that we could reckon on a disciplinary sentence. We also had the impression that Malichin had adjourned the session so that not everything remained afloat. The prosecutor’s witnesses had been very shaky. Additionally, Malichin had to obtain new instructions. Our guards, who had been present in the room throughout the whole proceedings, are also of the opinion that we will not be sentenced. I have the contrary opinion, for we have set a dangerous precedent and others may follow our example.
We have to smile when we get back to the camp. Even the camp barber had already been summoned to the tribunal to shear our hair. Von Neuroth and Sippel are astounded when they cross over to the isolation compound and listen tensely to our experiences.
Next afternoon we are sitting in the courtroom in the same order as the previous day. The same persons have appeared, only the witnesses have been stood down. Once more the film rolls before our eyes in an abbreviated form. Each one of us gets a last word and the court adjourns. After about fifteen minutes the court returns to announce the verdict. We rise from our seats. In the name of the people of the ‘most socialist country on earth’, we are sentenced for sabotage contrary to the Ukrainian Punishment Code paragraph 206/P: Lieutenant of the German Wehrmacht Hans Mütschele and Second-Lieutenants Kurt App, Oskar Franke, Georg Breske and Wolf Schroeter to ten years’ hard labour; Captains Siegfried Korff and Adelbert Holl, Lieutenant Otto Götz, Second-Lieutenants Otto Doerr and Hans Mendes to eight years’ hard labour. Objections are to be raised in the course of the next five days at the Highest Military Tribunal in Kiev.
As the judge announces the sentences I look at him openly without pulling a face. My comrades do the same. The judge seems to find this unpleasant.
Soon we are standing alone in the room with just our guards and the interpreter, and we are given the order to collect our packs. The interpreter gives us a briefing, then we are led below and locked into a prison cell in the cellar. The policemen here are very harsh towards us, but become a bit more friendly when they discover that we are condemned prisoners of war. After only a few minutes we are taken out of the cell individually. Curious eyes look at us through the spyholes in the other cell doors. All kinds of riffraff are sitting here in the cellar, even women.
The camp barber is waiting for us in the washroom. With a few quick hand movements he shaves off our hair. The female interpreter from the camp is here to help with the writing of the personal files that will be kept about us. It is interesting how well organised the system is here. As the duty policeman paints both my hands with black printing ink and takes an impression of each finger, I hear Schroeter say to the female interpreter in a mockingly scornful tone: ‘Dear lady, would you still marry me like this?’ I turn around and watch as he takes a small round cap from his head and makes a deep bow to this woman, her face thickly made up with artistic colours. I cannot hold back my laughter; this 187cm tall lad with a completely undernourished body, a thick head and big popping eyes has proposed to a female interpreter in shimmering colours in the outer rooms of the GPU cellar at the war tribunal.
Soon everything required has been done and we are sitting again in a small cell in which there is hardly room for ten men. The bucket in the corner for the emergency use of the prisoners spreads a pervasive stink. On the ceiling and in the corners our predecessors have scratched their names and the number of years of their sentences. But I can only see Russian names.
While we knew each other only distantly or fleetingly on the day we refused to work, in the time waiting for the tribunal we had had the opportunity of getting to know each other better. Here, after the sentencing, we let all conventional formalities drop and now only used the commonly binding ‘Du’.
It is shortly before midnight when the cell door opens and we are ordered to get out. Outside four militia men are waiting to take us to the town prison.
IN THE RAYON PRISON OF SAPOROSCHJE
It is a clear, cold night. The town lies in nightly peace and only the ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ of the prison sentry standing in the corner tower of the prison shakes us out of our dozing. The small barred window in the big iron door opens briefly. The warder comes and checks the papers of the guard commander, then opens the rattling door and we find ourselves in a small yard blocked on the far side by a trellised gate. Our guard escort has to wait outside the prison; only the sergeant comes with us inside the high stone fencing after leaving his weapon at the guardhouse. A second prison warder leads us to a second door in the building. The building and various doors show us that we are in a proper prison. Despite the darkness I can make out the outline of some parts of the building.
The duty militia officer sits at his desk behind the barrier. We stay in the reception room. The guard sergeant hands over our files and vanishes again. He has completed his task. We are now alone with the lieutenant. In his Jewish language he asks us how many years we have been given. When we answer eight and ten years, he says: ‘Miniscule!’
Our personal files are compared. A warder appears and searches our things. Razor blades, knives and needles are all taken away. I try to keep my pictures and my Russian dictionary, but without success. Soon afterwards we are put into a narrow cell without any beds but with the usual stinking bucket. We lie down on the cold stone floor and sl
eep – more or less – until the morning.
When the little shutter in the door is opened we are on our feet in no time. We are handed warm coffee as well as a piece of bread that we estimate weighs 600 grams. We consume this with real hunger. The bread is hardly better than that of the prisoner of war camp and very damp.
We are discussing our experiences until now when the cell door is opened and a warder orders us to get out. Now out in the corridor, it becomes clear that we are not in the real part of the prison where there are proper cells. That part is separated from our corridor by a thick iron door, and a warder stands there to ensure that no unauthorised person goes through.
We now leave the building by the same way as we came in, and shortly afterwards we find ourselves standing as God made us in the dressing room for the baths and waiting for our clothing, which has been hung on rings for delousing. A hairdresser, who has only a one-year sentence and therefore has not gone to a work camp, gives us hair-cutting implements. When we point out that we have already lost the hair from our heads, he says that we are to get rid of our beards and body hair. From the barber we also discover that Second-Lieutenant Bauer is still here in the prison. However, he was sentenced as a war criminal under paragraph 54, and the war criminals are kept in a separate block with special supervision. With a nail that we found by chance in the dressing room, we scratch our names on the side of the oven.
It has been a long time since we bathed as well as in this bathroom in which there are twelve baths, though they could have given us a little more soap. Our clothing is still very hot when it comes back from delousing, and the wire rings burn red stripes on the skin if one is not careful.
Sweating from the hot water and the hot clothing, we go back through the prison yard into the old building. The clear, clean winter air does us good and we draw it strongly into our lungs. The iron-grilled door to the real prison cells is opened and then the warder opens the door to Cell 12 and shuts it behind us.
A thick stench from tobacco smoke and body smells assaults our senses. The room is crammed full of men and at first glance we do not know which way to turn. Each of us was then surrounded by a crowd of curious people. I establish that here the age group is from fifteen to sixty years. The three sentenced Hungarians are also in this room. As we came from the 7100/2 and 7100/6 camps, there is a warm greeting. The Ukrainians – there is hardly a Russian among them, only one Tartar and one Usbeck – have recognised us immediately from our clothing as German prisoners of war and we are questioned from all directions. In general, they are all friendly; when some youngsters try to annoy us, they are rebuked by the older ones. They have full understanding of our handling and the way it led to our sentencing. A major influence on our treatment by the Russian prisoners is above all the behaviour of the room senior (or Starschoi, as the Russians say). As a former lieutenant, he handles us benevolently. The others dare not go against him as he is without doubt the strongest character in the room. The majority follow his lead and are friendly toward us.
We get to know the most unusual people here. There is, for example, a small young lieutenant who was sentenced to six years’ hard labour because while he was on leave with his sister he was caught stealing. He was the first to hoist the flag on the Brandenburg Gate and was awarded the decoration ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’. Another one was given eight years’ hard labour for embezzlement in a shop. A one-legged, one-eyed man, who got around on an artificial leg, had been sentenced to five years for cheating. Others had stolen small amounts of corn from the Kolchose during the hunger period and been given five to ten years. Workers whose machines had been damaged somehow got three to ten years.
The years seem of little relevance here. What by us is punished with months, is punished here with years. A typical case was the sentencing of locksmith Heinrich, who was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment because he did not report the illegal sale of petrol by a director who was sentenced to fifteen years. In comparison, the little Ukrainian with the flickering restless eyes is given six years because he hit his mother-in-law during a quarrel. There are very many young lads here that didn’t go to work. They get six months’ hard labour.
The impressions that I get in such a short time here are numerous. Lying in the corner on the ground under the bed, I get no sleep and spend the time thinking over my experiences. There are ninety-eight convicts here this evening as reported by the room elder to the duty officer. Lying on the floor with me are five of my friends as there are insufficient beds for this number of prisoners, even though the two-storey bed frames run right up to the wall and the doorway with its two observation holes. High in the wall are three small barred windows, and in the middle of the room stand two small tables with two benches each. Directly next to the entrance is the toilet bucket.
A former major, who was sentenced in Hungary back in 1944 for some racket or other and got ten years, recounts his story to popular demand. The story begins just like a fairy tale with: ‘Once upon a time …’. The location of the deed is Paris, the characters a rich young aristocrat and a poor but pretty sales girl. I can understand the content quite well and learn some new vocabulary from listening. Ottel and Siegfried, who had called me crazy three months ago for studying Russian so hard, are now pleased that I can understand it and can speak for them. I fall asleep from the speaker’s monotonous account.
Already several days have passed. The routine hardly differs from day to day. Before reveille at five o’clock in the morning the early risers are ready to have their morning wash with the first batch of water brought to the washroom. At the same time they take the opportunity to use the toilets. We are taken to the washroom room by room. We do not look like the other prisoners. As a rule the supervisor has to bring three batches of us to the washroom until our whole room has been through it. The old prisoners have their hiding places in the toilets or the washroom, which they use to exchange news with other prisoners, as every prisoner uses the washroom at least once a day. Despite constant supervision by the warders, they are always able to exchange messages. After we have washed, the room is swabbed down by the two room orderlies, who get a second helping of food for their work. Then comes the order: ‘Get ready for counting!’ Shortly afterwards the duty officer appears. Those who can sit down on the beds, and the remainder stand. Once the count is complete, the duty officer asks if we have any requests. Paper and writing materials can be requested, or prisoners can ask for an interview with the prison governor.
Once the counting is complete, breakfast is served through a small hatch in the door. It consists of a thin soup, 600 grams of bread for the whole day and a small lump of sugar. The fish is either in the soup or distributed by hand. From 1000 to 1020 hours we have access to the prison yard, which is about 20 x 20 metres and hermetically sealed. Lunch consists of about 500 grams of soup similar to the morning one. Up until 1800 hours we can play domino or chess or other games, or do various activities. In the evening there is more soup and after the evening count everyone has to lie down to rest. No one may climb into the upper bunks. Every week we are taken to the baths, which is connected with a delousing of our clothing.
On the second day of being here we were photographed for the criminal record.
There is always coming and going as new prisoners are inducted and old ones released. My ear has grown accustomed to the voices of the speakers. Many discussions with the natives were conducted and I learned things from bystanders that I, as a prisoner of war who had never lived so closely with the inhabitants, could never otherwise have been able to learn. I gather from the talking among the prisoners that one can purchase one’s freedom from the state prosecutor with the appropriate sum of money. They tell me that the state prosecutor informed them at the beginning of their case how much money it would take for their release. But I also learn here the true attitude of these people to their government and Communism. It naturally happens that everyone talks a lot about it, even in front of the room spy, about whom we had been warne
d on the very first day by the well-meaning Ukrainian.
The people here that are going into exile for several years, and do not know when and whether they will ever go home again, are awaiting liberation from Bolshevism by the Americans. The name of the president of the United States of America has a special resonance for them. They see in Truman a demi-god who will bring them freedom. They follow political developments with special interest and speak a lot about the new war that they see coming. As they tell me, they would not fight any more. The way these people speak amongst themselves is anything but polite. But they try to be loyal to us.
There are other cells in which professional criminals conduct a truly shocking regime, without those afflicted daring to report them. Food, and anything else that the recipient gets from his family, is simply taken from him and he is happy if a few crumbs come his way.
Cells with reduced rations are not used for punishment, and should a prisoner repeatedly offend against prison discipline, then he goes into the Rubaka. Not only that, he is stuck in a rubber sack for a length of time, and his legs are tied to his back.
It is interesting to see how the Russians trade with the adjoining cell, in which the women are. They hold a cup against the wall, press their mouths to it and shout loudly into it. Their partner the other side has pressed an ear to the wall to listen. Then they change round. In this way they maintain contact.
Every day relatives living in the neighbourhood bring packages to the prison, which, after careful checking by the guards, are passed on to the prisoners. They are mainly the same things, from which I gather that the Jews in our cell live substantially better than the others. While the Ukrainians’ packets contain mainly bread, machorka, potatoes and milk, the Jews also have butter, eggs and bacon. The dozens of condemned men watch the mouths of those eating with hungry eyes.