Statement on the treatment of foreign workers and POWs who had escaped and been recaptured, who were starved and denied care at Mauthausen under Kaltenbrunner's orders (in the "bullet" action)

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Authors

Josef Niedermayer (supervisor at Mauthausen (1942-45))

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Josef Niedermayer

supervisor at Mauthausen KZ

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  • Born: 1920-04-11 (Salzburg)
  • Died: 1947-05-28 (Landsberg Prison)
  • Country of citizenship: Austria; Nazi Germany
  • Occupation: military personnel; plumber

Date: 07 May 1946

Literal Title: Translation of Josef Niedermayer Statement

Defendant: Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Total Pages: 1

Language of Text: English

Source of Text: Nazi conspiracy and aggression (Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.)

Evidence Code: PS-3844

HLSL Item No.: 451768

Trial Issues

Concentration camp system (administration, forced labor, abuse of inmates)… Civilians, mistreatment of, including murder, imprisonment, deportation, f… Prisoners of war, abuse, forced labor, or killing of (IMT, NMT 2, 5, 12)

Document Summary

Staff Evidence Analyses

PS-3844: Affidavit of Joseph Niedermayer re: Extermination of foreign workers and PW's in the 'Mauthausen' concentration camp

Red Series Doc Descriptions

PS-3844: Affidavit by Josef Niedermayer, 7 March 1946: two so-called "bullet" decrees ordered the transfer of foreign civilian workers and pow officers and Nco’s to the concentration camp Mauthausen after repeated attempts to escape. Kaltenbrunner’s responsibility for the treatment of these persons in the camp Mauthausen, which in most cases caused their death

Before me, Paul C. Guth, 2nd Lt. AUS, being authorized to administer oaths, personally appeared Josef Niedermayer, who, being by me first duly sworn in German, made and subscribed the following statement in his own handwriting:
I, Josef Niedermayer born 11 April 1920 in Salzburg declare herewith the following:
1. From the fall of 1942 until May 1945 the so-called cell-
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barracks of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp were under my supervision.
2. During the beginning of December 1944 the so-called "bullet" orders were shown to me in the political department of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Those were two orders each of which bore the signature of Kaltenbrunner. I saw both of these signatures myself. One of these orders stated that foreign civilian workers who had repeatedly escaped from work camps were to be sent to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp under the "bullet" action in case of recapture.
The second order stated that the same procedure was to be followed with officers and noncommissioned officers who were prisoners of war with the exception of British and Americans if they repeatedly escaped from prisoner of war camps. These prisoners of war were also to be brought to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
3. On the basis of this "bullet" order and the oral instructions of Kaltenbrunner which went with it 1,300 foreign civilian workers, officers, and noncommissioned officers were brought to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. There they were lodged in block number 20, and fed badly according to orders so that they had to starve. Eight hundred of them died from hunger and illness. The bad food and the lack of medical care resulted from the personal oral orders of Kaltenbrunner.
This statement was written by me on 7 March 1946 in Dachau, Germany in my own handwriting of my own free will and without compulsion. I swear before God that it is the truth.
[signed] Niedermayer Josef
Subscribed and sworn to before me at Dachau, Germany, this 7th day of March 1946.
[signed] Paul C. Guth, 2nd Lt. AUS
' Investigating officer