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Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts//Appeal/Appeal-Session-03-03


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-03-03
Last-Modified: 1999/06/15

Justice Silberg:  Did Mildner state this to the Nuremberg Tribunal?

Attorney General:  At Pohl's trial. He states the same in
the first document, on page 3, in the second paragraph from
the top. The same appears in his affidavit of 22 June 1945.
These were documents submitted by the Defence, if it please
Your Honours, in defence of the Accused.

Justice Silberg:  The Accused does not deny this?

Attorney General:  He most certainly does deny it.

Justice Silberg:  In respect to the formal position.

Attorney General:  He denies utterly and completely that he
was the representative of the Head of the RSHA. If matters
came up in the Department, they were the province of IVB4.
And what did he have to do with extermination camps? He
says: "I was someone who arranged transport timetables, like
a booking clerk at a railway station who provides
information about when the next train is leaving.

"I drew up the transport timetables, the times, when a train
is going to arrive, when a train leaves, where it is going.
But I had no such powers."

Justice Silberg:  You are going by the words.

Attorney General:  Not just the words. The person in charge
of the negotiations with the camps, the negotiations with
foreign representations. He says, "I was not in any position
to come into contact with them." Look at all of the
descriptions he gave, all the plans and sketches, about the
organization structure, the chain of command, and he claims
to be off in a corner. And he describes the extermination
machinery very well, and on the sidelines there stands
little Eichmann, secluded and timid. This is what Mildner
says about him...

President:  Mildner, you say, was the Commander in Vienna?

Attorney General:  Yes.

President:  The whole time?

Attorney General:  I do not believe so.

Justice Sussman  He was at Auschwitz too.

Attorney General:  Yes, and he was in Denmark as well.

Justice Agranat:  Was the designation IVB4 the final
designation?

Attorney General:  Yes. It varied. At the beginning it was
IVD4, then IIB4, and then IVB4. Incidentally, in order to
accept this description, Counsel for the Defence based
himself - and for that purpose requested a decision by the
Court - based himself on Section 15 of the Nazis and Nazi
Collaborators (Punishment) Law.

President:  What was the purpose of this being submitted by
Counsel for the Defence?

Attorney General:  Perhaps this question should be asked of
Counsel for the Defence.

President:  The reason why I am asking is because I am not
yet totally acquainted with all this material.

Attorney General:  At the beginning there is something which
hints at other matters in respect of status, but there are
general statements in Mildner's affidavit which are just as
damning for the Accused as a hundred witnesses. I very much
wanted to submit this material, but I believe that it would
not have been admitted if I had submitted it.

President:  What I wanted to ask was this: You have shown
passages which help you, but perhaps there are also passages
which help Counsel for the Defence too.

Justice Silberg:  (To the Attorney General) Perhaps you
could read out the last paragraph.

Attorney General:  Which affidavit are you referring to,
Your Honour? There are two affidavits.

Justice Silberg:  The first one. It says there: "Die
Stellen, die die Befehle hinsichtlich der Judenfrage in der
SIPO erteilen, waren nur durch Gespraeche mit Gruppenfuehrer
Mueller and anderen Kameraden der SIPO bekannt" (The
authorities which gave the orders to the SIPO on the Jewish
Question were known only through conversations with
Gruppenfuehrer Mueller and the other members of the SIPO).

Attorney General:  Perhaps. I believe that it is not up to
me to indulge in suppositions when Counsel for the Defence
is sitting here. I believe that he wished to submit this
document in order to prove that Eichmann did not give the
overall order for extermination. Here he is pushing at an
open door: I have never made that argument. He did not have
the power to do that. And here in the last paragraph it says
that "Himmler issued the orders to deport the Jews from the
Reich and from the territories conquered by the army to the
labour camps and the concentration camps, and the orders
carried his signature." I was not denying that in the least.

Another document submitted by Counsel for the Defence is
N/5.

Justice Agranat:  Let me clarify something, Mr. Hausner:
Could you not submit that, since corroboration was
necessary?

Attorney General:  It was obvious to me that the Court would
ask, "Where is Mildner?," and would wish to cross_examine
him. And I do not know where he is and I cannot make him
available for cross-examination. Thus it was obvious to me
that my application for the submission of the document was
doomed to fail, and I refrained from submitting it. But this
is a Bureau 06 document, it was presented to Counsel for the
Defence by us, and he saw fit to submit it.

My learned colleague has drawn my attention to the fact that
when Counsel for the Defence submitted the document (Session
87, Vol. IV, p. 1553), he based himself on the passage which
says that the concentration camps were under the control of
the Economic-Administrative Head Office in Oranienburg, near
Berlin. The Chief of the Office was SS Obergruppenfuehrer
Pohl. He was directly subordinate to the Reichsfuehrer-SS.

President:  Is that also the Court's finding?

Attorney General:  Yes. And I never denied this. And if we
are already talking about this aspect, may I point out that
in the Economic-Administrative Head Office trial, Pohl and
his colleagues were acquitted on charges of murder. The
Court will find this in the fifth volume of the Green
Series.

Justice Silberg:  Although the camps came under their
control?

Attorney General:  Although they were in control, because
the orders for the extermination of the inmates did not come
from them. They were sentenced to death and hanged on
charges other than the murder of the inmates.

Justice Silberg:  Namely?

Attorney General:  Crimes against humanity, detention of the
inmates, and so on.

I turn now to N/5, which contains a passage from the
testimony of Karl Hoffmann.

Justice Sussman  Who is Dr. Mildner? Is that the examiner?
Whose examiner?

Attorney General:  This is one of the witnesses whom they
brought to Nuremberg.

N/5 is a passage from Hoffmann's testimony to the
International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Hoffmann was a
Referent, a Head of Department in the Gestapo, and he made
the following comments:

"At that time responsibility for dealing with Jewish affairs
was in the hands of Eichmann, who never served in the State
Police, but was from the SD. He and his unit lived in a
separate building, and he had no contact with the other
Referenten. In particular he did not get other Referenten to
countersign documents (Mitzeichnung), for example when he
ordered the expulsion of Jews. When we complained about
this, he replied that he was carrying out special duties,
that the instructions concerning them were received from the
highest authorities, and consequently an additional
signature by other Departments was no longer necessary,
because there was no need for them to express their opinion
in this matter." And further down it says: "Eichmann had
special plenipotentiaries (Sonderbeauftragte) in the
conquered territories with the various Police Commanders."
In reply to a further question, Hoffmann replied that he
knew of the operations of Eichmann's representatives in the
conquered territories from the Police Commanders' monthly
reports which he received from time to time.

President:  Whose monthly reports?

Attorney General:  Reports of the Police Commanders in the
field, which he would receive as the Department Head in the
police. He complained that, instead of receiving the
information from the Head Office, from his friend the
Referent Eichmann, he had to make do with reports he
received from abroad, from the police representatives
abroad.

Justice Silberg:  He writes: "die monatlichen Berichte der
Befehlshaber" (the monthly reports of the Commanders).

Attorney General:  Yes, of the BdS.

In the Defence testimony, material is cited that comes from
the Dutch attorney van Taalingen-Dols, who in 1943 handled
the case of Professor Meyers, and intervened with the
Gestapo in order to prevent him from being sent to the East,
i.e. to his death. I am referring to exhibit N/105(a). What
follows appears in her diary, on page 214.

President:  Is that a book?

Attorney General:  N/105 is a book. N/105(a) are passages
which the Defence submitted together with a translation into
German. The book is in Dutch.

Justice Sussman  We do not have this document, Mr. Attorney
General. Do you have a copy?

Attorney General:  The Defence gave me a single copy. I will
be happy to lend it to the Court after I have used it.
Actually, I do not need it now, so I shall be happy to hand
it over to the Court.

If you would turn to page 214 in the diary to which I have
referred, dated 22 July 1943, in van Tallingen-Dols' diary:
"A discussion in the Head Office for Reich Security in
Berlin at 10 a.m. about Professor Meyers: Eichmann, who is
the representative of Reichsfuehrer Himmler, the supreme
chief in the complex of Jewish affairs throughout Europe -
"der hoechste Chef im Komplex der juedischen Angelegenheiten
in ganz Europa" - is in Czechoslovakia. His deputy,
Guenther, knows about the matter and is, according to him,
competent to take binding decisions. Those present at the
talks were Guenther, his secretary Dr. Hoffmann, and
myself."

On page 218 reference is made to the congratulations
expressed to Mrs. van Tallingen-Dols for having obtained a
decision allowing her to come to the Kurfuerstendamm, to the
"Holy of Holies," as she calls it, and to talk with the
deputy of the supreme chief of all Jewish affairs.

President:  Is this referred to in the Judgment?

Attorney General:  Yes, Your Honour.

Another piece of Defence evidence consists of passages from
the testimony and the affidavit of SS Judge Morgen: Exhibits
N/94-96. Morgen refers to the extermination operations,
which he investigated in the camps as part of his duties.
And this is what he says about Eichmann, in N/95, on page 3:

     "Von diesem Kommando getrennt war die Organisation
     Eichmanns, deren Aufgabe lediglich dahin bestand, die
     europaeischen Juden in die KZ, bzw. Vernichtungslager,
     zu schaffen" (Distinct from this commando was
     Eichmann's organization, whose task was solely to
     transfer the Jews of Europe to concentration camps or
     extermination camps.)

In N/96 Morgen adds that he was informed that Eichmann was
running the Final Solution operation in the Head Office for
Reich Security  (at the bottom of page 3). He is one of
those against whom he issued an arrest warrant, as he did
also against Hoess, following the atrocities he uncovered.
But in his testimony Morgen said that following
Kaltenbrunner's intervention, these proceedings were rapidly
stopped, because he was told that Eichmann was involved in a
special secret mission. It should be noted that Eichmann is
referred to here before Hoess.

In the same exhibit, on page 4, Morgen testifies about the
system which Eichmann operated, using tactics of deceit,
fraud and camouflage, for the extermination operation.

This concludes the Defence documents.

President:  But in our session on Friday, I believe, Dr.
Servatius referred to another document by Morgen which seems
to indicate that he carried out an investigation and did not
find anything.

Attorney General:  He carried out an investigation at the
Head Office for Reich Security, looking for an order, which
he did not find.

President:  What was it he did not find?

Attorney General:  He did not find an order for the
extermination of the Jews.

That concludes the Defence documents.

And what do the Defence witnesses say?

The testimony of Six, the Head of Department VII in the Head
Office for Reich Security, was read out in Session 107 of
the District Court's proceedings. I shall read a few
passages from it. On page 1836 (Vol. V), this testimony
says: "The Eichmann Section occupied a special position.
More people were employed in this Section than in the other
Sections."

Then:

     "Had I wished to obtain an exemption or something
     similar for a Jew, I would not have gone to Eichmann,
     as he was an exponent for the other side."

And then:

     "I am not familiar with Eichmann's various powers.
     However, there is no doubt that he had wider powers
     than other Section Heads.  This was the general view in
     the Head Office for Reich Security.  The general
     impression was that Eichmann was not only under
     Mueller's orders, but that he was somewhat on the same
     level as Mueller.  Mueller was known as one of the
     worst instigators, and I would say that the two were
     very well matched.  Under a different superior than
     Mueller, Eichmann's powers would probably not have been
     as extensive as they actually were.  It was known that
     Eichmann had access to Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner,
     although I cannot now give any actual facts to attest
     to that.  I also saw Eichmann in Heydrich's antechamber
     - as far as I remember, definitely once or twice."

And on the same page he says:

     "In my view that was another reason why Eichmann's
     superior considered Eichmann to be particularly suited
     for his job, as he was a National Socialist of long
     standing.  I believe that Heydrich in particular
     attached value to the Eichmann Section being in the
     hands of a National Socialist of long standing.  In my
     opinion, Mueller and Eichmann teamed up fairly well."

And then:

     "Eichmann believed absolutely in National Socialism.
     Essentially, the world was fulfilled for him by means
     of the Nazi outlook on life."

Justice Agranat:  This is also cited in the Judgment.


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