 |
again and again while the
adjacent camp was hardly ever hit — he told me he could not take the
responsibility for rebuilding this camp in the same place. Another camp was
prepared, which I visited at that time, which from the point of view of space
and in every other respect was without fault. When I told the prisoners of war
that they would be transferred to this new camp the spokesman of the French
prisoners of war came to me and requested me — I should even say, he
entreated me — to leave his fellow prisoners in the camp in the
Noeggerathstrasse, although the camp had been completely destroyed. And the
unfortunate people lived in the most primitive possible conditions, and his
reason was this: Immediately adjacent to the camp there was a railroad shelter
with an extremely strong layer of cement on top, and in this railroad underpass
which was not open to traffic any more, Krupp had set up a large straw depot,
and there the prisoners of war found shelter. The best possible shelter was in
this railroad underpass, and they could lie there during the whole night. And
that was the reason the spokesman gave me for his fellow prisoners of war
wanting to remain at the Noeggerathstrasse camp under those primitive
conditions, rather than to move into a new and nicer camp. He told me
literally, the ‘railroad tunnel is our life insurance.’ I repeated
this to Dr. Lehmann, who immediately stated his willingness to let the
prisoners of war stay in Noeggerathstrasse, and to rebuild the camp once more,
I believe for the sixth time." |
The witness further testified that the Frenchmen volunteered to
rebuild the camp themselves and did so. The railway tunnel referred to could
accommodate but approximately half the prisoners. The others lived in the
plants of the Cast Steel Factory which was a target for increasingly severe air
raids.
We do not think that the testimony of Borchmeyer presents a
defense to the violation of the obligation of the Krupp firm to furnish
adequate air raid protection to the prisoners of war. Quite apart from the fact
that it was illegal to employ them at all for war work, and to employ them in
so dangerous an area, it was the duty of the employers to see that these
prisoners were properly housed and furnished with adequate air raid protection.
They were helpless, and in a very real sense they were wards of their masters.
As before said, the Russian prisoners of war began to arrive in Essen
in 1942. They were located in Raumerstrasse, Hafenstrasse, and Herderstrasse. A
report by Eickmeier to the defendant Lehmann of an inspection of camp
Herderstrasse on 13 October 1942 offered in evidence by the defense states
among other things (Lehmann 347, Defense Ex. 1146):* |
__________
* Reproduced above in
section VIII G 1.
1393 |
. 
