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Testimony of: Brig. Gen. Henning Linden (Contd)

406 A and the gatehouse with their bear hands. They tore holes in the fence and gatehouse and such things as they could get their hands on. We were able to keep some control over those that poured through the holes in the fence along the moated roadway, but the surge through the gatehouse building and its bridge opening directly across the moat became a problem. By taking personal command of the situation and ordering all of the soldiers we had available at the bridge plus the few PW inmates underground we formed a cordon around the gate house and after about half an hour to an hour were able to push back all of those outside and relieved the pressure on the gate house, and after about two hours restored order in a large measure through the prison inmate underground itself. Sometime during this period Col. Sparks of the 45th Division came up and stated he had about a battalion moving through the camp and had some soldiers along the fence who all this time had helped to stem the flow of prisoners out of the stockade. Being the senior officer present I placed Col. Sparks with his troops in command in charge of all of the camp area outside of the moated stockade. I gave command of the stockade to Col. Fellenz of the 222nd Infantry, and directed the two commanders to execute relief of any 45th Division soldiers around the moat as soon as practicable. During this period there was some shooting from the east flank tower, and other small arms fire from both flanks.

407 Q Could you tell the nature of this shooting from where you were?

A No, except some fire sounding like a German burp gun came down along the moat towards the gatehouse, ricocheting in the moat. This machine gun fire stopped after a few minutes after some small arms firing occurred. I understood that there was some fire from a tower, whether to keep the inmates back in or to fire against Americans I don't know, but I also understood that when that occurred the Americans fired into the tower and stopped it.

408 Q When did you leave the camp?

A I think it was about 8:00 or 8:30 in the evening after things had quieted down and I was assured that order was restored inside the cage.

409 Q While you were there did you see the mistreatment of German guards or German soldiers by either inmates or by American soldiers?

A The only incident that I saw was one or two persons who looked to me to be in civilian clothes were being escorted by American soldiers out of the cage, these persons having been beaten up, as I understood, by inmates inside the cage, and rescued by the soldiers.

410 Q In addition to what you saw did you learn from any other sources of mistreatment of German personnel by either inmates or by American soldiers?