. NMT05-T0820
Volume V · Page 820
| Q. That is sufficient, Witness.
You see, as a defense witness you are not here to give speeches, but you are
only here to answer my questions. A. I have answered your question. |
| * * * * * * * * * * |
| REDIRECT EXAMINATION |
| DR. FROESCHMANN (counsel for the defendant
Mummenthey) Witness, I want to put to you a few brief questions. Did you, when
you were in your concentration camp, hear anything about the air raids on
Dresden, Hamburg, and our ancient Nuernberg? WITNESS NICKEL: We heard about these air raids, the ones on Hamburg we saw and experienced ourselves. We experienced them inasmuch as we had to salvage the corpses from Hamburg, for which our commandant received the Iron Cross 1st Class, I believe. Q. What were the means you had to keep informed about what was happening outside? A. We received newspapers for our own money, the Reich Unity newspaper. We had our wireless connections which we could use sometimes. Of course, we also had our secret radios and we listened to BBC and Allied soldiers stations. We had first-rate sources of information from our own initiative. Q. These were secret radios which you had in the camp? A. Yes. We had secret receivers and transmitters. Q. And from there you gained your knowledge about what was going on outside? A. Yes. Apart from the fact that people would tell us things and we would tell people things. There was an exchange of ideas and facts going on because from that time onwards inmates worked among people. I said before that the whole camp went out in so-called "construction brigades" to dig up the corpses after air raids and the people were kind and receptive after we dug up one of the corpses of their relatives. They talked to us and were receptive to what we told them, until the next propaganda speech restored their former peace of mind again. Q. Therefore your knowledge is confined to a particular sector among the German people? A. No. Our knowledge went quite beyond what the German people themselves knew because we had unlimited — in our eyes unlimited — possibilities of receiving news by radio. Q. You therefore had means which a large part of the German people did not. A. They would have had the same means had they had the same will as we had. |
