THE INCREDIBLE PEDAL-DRIVEN BRAIN-BASHING MACHINE

Or

HOW I KILLED 840,000 RUSSIANS BY “FEET POWER” AND BURNED THE BODIES IN FOUR PORTABLE OVENS

(Translation, from the original Russian, of excerpt of “confession” of Paul Waldmann, Document USSR-52, Nuremberg Trials, emphasis added).

At the end of 1941, the Sonderkommando of the Security Police, which was directly subordinate to the State Office of the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, killed 840,000 Russian prisoners of war in the Sachsenhausen Camp. I have the following to report on this ‘Special Action'.

The Russian prisoner of war trains arrived at Sachsenhausen Station on overcrowded goods trains. Every day, 8-10 trains arrived, each of them carrying 1,800. So every day, 28,000 Russian prisoners of war arrived. Execution continued for 30 days. It was interrupted because of an outbreak of typhus. The camp was closed. The execution detachment with their apparatus left Sachsenhausen Camp. I did not hear whether or not the extermination was continued in some other place, because I was held in quarantine with suspected typhus.

Execution of the prisoners

From the station to the camp, the line of Russian prisoners of war stretched for about a kilometre. They stayed in the camp for one night without food. The following evening, they were taken out for execution.

All the time, the prisoners were being taken from the inner camp on three trucks, one of which I was driving. The inner camp was about three quarters of a kilometre away from the execution yard. The execution itself took place in a barracks, which had been equipped for this purpose not long before. One room was for undressing, and another was the waiting room. In the rooms, a radio was playing quite loud music, to prevent the prisoners from guessing that death awaited them. From the second room, they went one by one through a passage into a small screened-off room, on the floor of which was an iron grating; under the grating, a drainage pipe had been made. As soon as a prisoner had been killed, the corpse was carried away by two German prisoners, and the body was carried away by two German prisoners, and the blood was cleaned off the grating. In this small room, there was a slit measuring about 50 centimetres. The prisoner stood with the back of his head to the slit, and a gunman who was behind the slit shot him. In fact, this arrangement was unsatisfactory, because the gunman often failed to hit the prisoner [!]. After eight days, a new system was introduced. They stood the prisoner against the wall, as before, and then slowly lowered an iron plate onto his head. The iron plate contained a hammer, which came down and hit the prisoner on the back of the head, so that he fell down dead.

The iron plate was controlled by means of a foot-operated lever located in the corner of this room. The attendants were from the above mentioned Sonderkommando. At the request of the officials of the execution detachment, I, too, operated this apparatus. I will speak about this below. The prisoners of war who were killed in this way were burnt in four mobile crematoria, which were transported on a truck trailer.

All the time, I had to drive from the inner camp to the execution yard. At night, I had to make 10 trips at intervals of about 10 minutes. During these intervals, I witnessed the execution.

One of the members of the execution detachment, whose surname I never knew, suggested that I should operate the apparatus. I agreed. In each case I killed 8-10 people. So, in one night, I killed 80-100 people. During the period of execution I personally killed 2,400-3,000 Russian prisoners of war, some of whom I shot with a pistol, and others I killed with the apparatus described above. Once more I repeat that, out of a total of 840,000 Russian prisoners of war, I personally killed 2,400-3,000 people. I myself expressed a wish to operate this apparatus. The official of the execution detachment could not compel me to do so, because he was not my superior. There were no other methods of execution apart from these…

I can now make no further statements. I have described everything. If I remember anything later, I shall voluntarily report it.

I have compiled and written the present supplement myself, and I confirm this with my signature.

Paul Waldmann,

Poznan, 10 June 1945.

[Statement is printed in Russian.]

[Name “Paul Waldmann” is printed in Russian.]

[Handwritten] I hereby confirm that these documents are true copies of the originals which are kept among the proceedings of the Special State Commission in Moscow.

Authorized representative of the Special State Commission, D. Kuzmin, 7/1/1946.

[stamp]

Special State Commission

THIS IS A NOTARIZED TRANSLATION PERFORMED THROUGH A PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATION AGENCY IN THE CITY OF LONDON. THE ENTIRE DOCUMENT WAS TRANSLATED, NOT JUST THE EXTRACT. THE ENTIRE DOCUMENT IS 12,000 WORDS LONG.

Soviet propaganda image stolen from http://www.reichslieder.com/reichslieder_Tshirts_150.html.