30 Nov. 45
COL. AMEN: How long did this training last?
LAHOUSEN: This training lasted 3 years.
COL. AMEN: In 1933 to what regular army unit were you assigned?
LAHOUSEN: In 1933 I was serving in the Second Austrian Division,
that was the Vienna Division.
COL. AMEN: What type of work did you do there?
LAHOUSEN: I was an intelligence officer; that branch of the
service for which I was already destined at the end of my training.
COL. AMEN: Did you then receive a further promotion?
LAHOUSEN: I was promoted normally in accordance with the
regulations valid in Austria, and roughly at the end of 1933 I became
a major. About 1935 or the beginning of 1936 I was transferred to the
General Staff, and in June, or at any rate, in the summer of 1936, I
became a lieutenant colonel of the Austrian General Staff.
COL. AMEN: And were you assigned to the Intelligence Division at
or about that time?
LAHOUSEN: I entered the Austrian Intelligence Division which
corresponds technically to the Abwehr in the German Army. I must add
that an Intelligence Division was only added to the Austrian Army
about this time, i. e. 1936; before that year it did not exist. Since
it was planned to re-establish within the framework of the Austrian
Federal Army the military Intelligence Division which had ceased to
exist after the collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, I was
trained to assist in organizing this division within the framework of
the Austrian Army.
COL. AMEN: After being assigned to the Intelligence Division, how
were your activities principally directed?
LAHOUSEN: My responsible chief, or more exactly, the responsible
chief at that time, was Colonel of the General Staff Böhme. He
was the division chief to whom I was subordinate, the Chief of the
Intelligence Division, the man to whom I was responsible, from whom I
received my orders and instructions; later on it was the Chief of the
Austrian General Staff.
THE PRESIDENT Can't you shorten this, Colonel Amen? We really
need not have all this detail.
COL. AMEN: Very good, Sir. It is, however, I think important for
the Tribunal to understand more of this information than you
ordinarily would by virtue of the fact that he was taken over
subsequently to a corresponding position in the German Army, which I
did want the Tribunal to appreciate.