Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, after being sworn, declares: I was a member of the SD from 1938 until the German collapse except for two interruptions during the years 1939 and 1941-1943. Until 1939 I had charge of the department "Catholic Church" with the SD in Vienna, subsequently I was employed in Department VI, Foreign Information Service. In connection with my activities in Vienna, I made the acquaintance of Obersturmbanfuehrer Eichmann, whom I met again in 1943 as a section chief in Department IV of the Gestapo. There he handled the Department for Jews [Judenreferat]. In August 1944 at the occasion of a visit in my apartment in Budapest, Eichmann told me that he had to make a report for Himmler on the number of Jews killed, and that he estimated the sum-total of the Jews killed as 6 millions. Of those 4 million had been killed in the extermination institutions in the East, while the additional 2 millions were killed by shootings -- mainly by the Einsatzgruppen of the SIPO and the SD during the campaign in the East. About 1942 I had a conversation with SS-Brigate commander Dr. Stahlecker who had been in command of such an Einsatzgruppe of the SIPO and the SD in the East. He told me that he had been ordered by Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich to take command of such an Einsatzgruppe, whose field of action was the area of an Army group. He had the order to exterminate the Jews in that district by shootings. From my conversations with Eichmann and Stahlecker and other members of the SIPO and SD I conclude that the Jews were killed since the beginnings of the Russian campaign (1941), at first by the Einsatzgruppen of the SIPO and the SD and later -- probably since the beginning of 1943 -- in the extermination camps of the East. The arrest of the Jews and their shipment to the extermination camps was carried out by a special detachment [Sonderkommando] under the direction of Eichmann, which was composed of members of the SIPO -- especially Gestapo. Heydrich had given the instructions for this to Eichmann. In the RSHA his chief was the head of the Gestapo, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Mueller. [signed] Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl Subscribed and sworn to before me this 5th day of November 1943. [signed] Whitney R. Harris Lieut, U.S. Naval Reserve [Nizkor note: The date of signing is incorrectly transcribed. The original German document is dated "5. November 1945." knm]
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