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The office was the Third Army, Judge Advocate headquarters, which
kept moving as the front kept moving up. It was either in
Erlangen or it was in Munich or it was someplace else, and you
know we usually took over a German concern and we had a room and
a desk and a typewriter. So I would get back there with whatever
notes I had, whatever documents I had, and write up a report. And
the reports would say: "On certain date U.S. army troops entered
the camps of X"--let's assume Mauthausen, for example. "There the
troops encountered the following scene: there were originally
50,000 inmates in the camp, there were 12,000 still alive, 10,000
had been marched out the day before. The camp officers were
so-and-so. The crematoria were still going, there were so many
bodies stacked in front of the crematoria. I took witness
statements from ten witnesses, they are attached as exhibits one
to ten. The suspected persons responsible for these crimes are
so-and-so and so-and-so. Issue orders immediately to have them
put on the CROWCASS list, the Central Registry of War Criminals
and Security Suspects. Have them distributed to all members of
the U.S. army wherever any POWs are, compare them with this list,
have them arrested, and report back to headquarters." So, the
goal of my investigation was to describe what had happened, to
collect credible evidence admissible in a court of law, which
could be used to convict the persons responsible of a known crime
under International Law. That was the objective, and that's what
we did.
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