ODD CHRISTIANSEN

On 1 September 1947 in Kraków, a member of the Kraków District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Appellate Investigating Jan Sehn, on the written application of the First Prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal dated 25 April 1947 (file no. NTN 719/47) heard in accordance with the provisions of and procedure provided for under the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293) in conjunction with article 254, 107, 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure as a witness the below mentioned former prisoner of the camp in Mysen (Norway), who testified as follows:


Name and surname Odd Storm Christiansen
Date and place of birth 25 November 1902 in Rygge
Nationality Norwegian
Place of residence Idd near Halden

On 13 March 1945, I was transferred from the concentration camp in Grini to the newly founded concentration camp in Mysen, [approx.] 60 km [south] east of Oslo. The group in which I was deported to Mysen numbered 200 prisoners. We were kept in the barracks that were already there, and we were hired to extend the camp, which was supposed to grow to a camp for more than 20,000 prisoners. I stayed there until 7 May 1945. At that time, the number of prisoners grew to 335. They were almost all Norwegians, but from among the other nationalities there were three Dutch, two French, one Fin and eight to ten Russians.

SS-Sturmbannführer Aumeier was the commandant of the camp. He is a very short man with a loud voice. I fully recognize Aumeier from the photographs I have been shown at present (a photograph of the accused Aumeier was shown). The guards were Hungarian SS men one company strong.

In the first week, we didn’t receive any food; we only had water to drink. Aumeier would ride through the camp on horseback and any time he could, he would beat any prisoners he came across with his reitpeitsche [a riding crop]. He was constantly drunk and we owe our rescue from the camp in Mysen to his drunkenness, because in a state of intoxication he struck up some argument with another SS man, during which he was severely beaten up and on the eve of Germany’s capitulation he was transferred to a hospital in Oslo. According to the information we obtained from the members of the SS staff in Mysen – Remmler and Blattenspieler, now residing in Akershus landsfengsel Oslo – Aumeier intended, if necessity dictated, to eliminate the camp and liquidate all the prisoners interned in Mysen. I don’t know the details of this plan.

The report was read out. After the report, in which the witness testified, was read out and translated into German, the witness declared as follows:

Das vorstehende Protokoll ist mir in die deutsche Sprache übersetzt worden. Die Aufnahme wiedergibt meine Aussagen wortreu und sinngemäss. Als Beweis dessen zeichne ich das Protokoll eigenhändig. [The above report has been translated into German. The wording reflects my statements faithfully and correspondingly. As proof of this I personally sign the report.]