Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1946-01-02
KaItenbrunner Gave
Order for Execution Of
IS Yanks, Court Told
AP Writer With Group OF
OSS Men Captured in
1914 and Killed
ay the Associated Press.

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NUREMBERG, Jan. 1.-The
international Military Tribunal
heard testimony today that
Ernst Kaltenbrunner, former
head of the Gestapo and secur-
ity police, personally ordered
the execution of from IL to Is
Americans, including War Cor
respondent Joseph Morton of
the Associated Press.
Mr. Morton and a group of men,
bers of the Office of Strategic Serv-
ices were captured late in 1914 far
behind German lines in Slovakia
They were put to death without a
trial.
American prosecutors put into
the records of the war crimes trial
of Kaltenbrunner and 20 other rank
ing Nazis an affidavit by Adolph
zutter, adjutant at the Mauthausen
murder camp, telling how the
Americans were brought In from
Slovakia. The trial resumed today
after a 12-day holiday recess.
II suppose the number of ar
rivals was about IL to Is men,"
Cutters deposition said. They
wore a uniform which was Amer
lean or Canadian, brown-green in
color, and a shirt and cloth hat.
Eight or 10 days after their arrival,
an execution order came in by
telegraph of teletype.
"Standarten Fuehrer zeireis Cthen
commandment of the camp came to
me in my Office and told me: Now
Kaltenbrunner has given permis-
sion for the execution The letter
was secret and had the signature:
Signed, Kaltenbrunner
received later to destroy all files
relating to the killing of the Amer
lean party.
Mr.. Morton, "a, was captured
near Plomka in Slovakia December
rs, 1914. He first was taken to Brat
islava and sthen to Mauthausen, Is
miles east of Linz, Austria. He had
accompanied a group of nine other
Americans and four Britons on a
flying trip into Slovakia to bring
out stranded American flyers.
An earlier affidavit said Kalten-
Drummer personally visited the
Mauthausen camp and watched the
Nazis gas their victims.
Hitler Ordered Slaughter,
The court heard earlier that Hit
Ter personally ordered the "slaugh-
ter to the last man" of all Allied
parachute and commando troops
captured after October 10, 1912
The evidence today was the first
that any of the ranking Nazis were
actual witnesses of the grue-
some, wholesale slaughters. 1t was
presented in an affidavit by Alois
Hoellriegel, former S. S. guard
at Mauthausen, which said:
"On one occasion. I believe it was
Fin the fall of 1912, Ernst Kalten-
Drummer visited Mauthausen. I was
on guard duty and saw him twice.
He went down to the gas chamber
with Ziereis, commandant of the
camp, at the time when prisoners
were being gassed. The sound &C
companying the casing operation
was we'll known to me. I heard the
gassing operation taking place
while Kaltenbrunner was present" "
Kaltenbrunner was absent from
the court as the case against him
personally was started. He is re-
covering from cranial hemorrhage
An effort by his attorney to obtain
a delay was overruled. He is the
only defendant absent from the trial
now except for Martin Bormann
Hitler's deputy, who is being tried
, in absentia.
CA Reuters dispatch Monday
quoted Czechoslovakian reports
as saying Bormann had been ar
rested by the British in Germany,
but there was no official con-
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