HTML Transcription © F.Coakley , 2020
[Taken from TNA FO383/70]
The following is a translation from the original German text, there are several
amendments in pencil to the original typescript - the replaced items shown thus
and the replacements {thus}.The text has been reformatted into short paragraphs
to ease reading online.
It would appear common for the German authorites to take sworn statements from repatriated internees, usually at Goch, the frontier station for those transiting through Rotterdam.
Kolass being a recognised Minister of Religion was eligible for repatriation and was released on 9th December 1914 by order from the Home Office - Col Madoc was not enamoured of him.
March 19,1915.
Court of the Thorn Corps.
Present (1) Dr Tschorn, Advocate at Field Courts-martial.
(2)Substitute Burkert, Clerk of Field Military Courts
Appeared as witness Sanitatsgefreite Kolass of the 29th Landwehr field-hospital,
who, after the importance of the oath to be taken had been pointed out to him,
gave evidence as follows:-
(personal) My Christian name is Franz. I am 28 years of age. I am of the Evangelical Creed. In civil life I am Minister to the German Evangelical community at Neu-Berlin-Forqueta in Brazil.
(concerning the facts) As it rained a great deal in October, the camp resembled a washed-out fair. The tents, drenched with rain, stood in the midst of a sea of slush and were only approachable through a quagmire. One day it rained without ceasing and after dinner the prisoners refused to return to their tents from the mess. They did not obey the soldiers when they told them to go, but sang instead German songs - as they were allowed to do, At last the commandant was informed and soon appeared on the scene. He made a speech in which he regretted the deplorable conditions in which they were lodged and gave permission to those whose tents were quite soaked through to sleep in the mess. At the same time he promised to improve our condition by the speedy erection of huts.
However we had to wait a long time for the huts to be built. Great discontent was thereby caused in the camp, made more acute by the badness of the food . The midday meal was particularly unsatisfying in quality. It consisted invariably of watery potatoes with some frozen meat mixed in. Only on Sundays and Wednesdays we got some sauce with it. Then the potatoes often contained maggots of the elator obscurus [weevil] about an inch long. Representations to the commandant were as good as useless.
Thereupon the men decided to protest against the midday fare by a hunger-strike. When the room was full they all sat down at their tables and began to sing patriotic songs to the accompaniment of a ship's band which was frequently allowed to play. When the English soldiers saw what was up, the singing was forbidden. For the rest everyone kept quiet in the most exemplary manner. No one ate as much as a bite. Even in the canteen nothing except tobacco was bought on that day. We hoped that this display of unanimity, backed up by the complete quietness by which it was accompanied, would not fail of its aim. But we were disappointed.
On the following day we got the same food. Then the riff-raff among us started to hiss and whistle, and one of the worst of them stuck onto the window a red hand, the trade-mark of a firm which supplied roofing-material for the huts. This was a harmlessly meant act of thoughtlessness. The soldiers who, as a rule, went about among us on good terms with the majority, were ordered to quiet down their friends, The latter replied with scornful laughter, pointing at the same time to the bad food. Even the soldiers admitted that the food was not too good. The noise steadily increased.
One man took up a dish, carried it to the kitchen and is said to have thrown it at the feet of the owner - a Jew[sic] whom we used to reproach with too great a readiness to line his own pocket. Another hurled a dish through the window, thereby breaking a large pane. I sat during all these occurances, which occupied only a few minutes, in the gallery of the mess. An attempt to leave the room proved vain on account of the steps bring crowded. I therefore drew back with several students into a corner of the gallery.
Suddenly two shots were fired, aimed, probably with intention, at the ceiling
All shrank back horrified. "They are firing ball" shouts someone, but already
fresh shots ring out and a man falls to the ground hit. Everyone throws himself
flat, but the shooting goes on uninterruptedly, as in deliberate firing
{& deliberately}, at the defenseless men lying on the ground and at those
who are flying from the room. In this way one man got a bullet in the back as
he was climbing through a window,
During this shooting I lay in the gallery. The gallery, in particular, was riddled with bullets, because plates had been thrown thence at the soldiers as they forced their way in before the firing began, Thus some five men were severely wounded close to my side. When the firing ceased for a moment, individual men stood up and put up their hands. Yet from some unintelligible motive the firing immediately recommenced and a young waiter had, I believe, his hand shattered as he held it up, so that afterwards his arm had to be amputated at the elbow.
Finally several soldiers came into the gallery. They pointed their bayonnets
at us and ordered us to leave the room with our hands up, we were unable to
establish who gave the order for the shooting to begin. At all events, it was
admitted even in the English Papers that throughout the whole proceedings, which
ended in the death of 6 men and the wounding of about
15, no officer was present, In my estimation, it could not have come about
{happened}in Germany that, under such circumstances uncontrolled soldiers
{who were not under supervision} should have fired blindly into the crowd. There
was altogether no reason for shooting, for a bugle-call or a roll of. drums
would have brought the utterly unwarned men, to their senses at once. That nothing
of the sort was done by the commandant is clear from the fact that men who were
not in the mess at all were wounded and endangered through ricochet bullets.
The captains who were in an annex to the mess were similarly surprised by shots
which penetrated into the room through the wall. A young sailor too, forgotten
by the world {oblivious of what was happening}, was carving at an aeroplane
outside his tent, got a shot in the hand. The worst was that the guard standing
outside fired on the fugitive from the mess, and a number of prisoners who were
just then, near a side-entrance to the camp on their way to fetch their postal-packets{parcels}
likewise had bullets rained upon them by the guard although they had neither
seen nor heard anything of the incident.
Read to me, approved and signed, (sgd) Franz Kolass witness was regularly sworn.
Closed. (sgd) Dr Tschorn (sgd) Burkert.
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