Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-03-05
Last-Modified: 1999/06/15

The heads of the State and top echelons of the Reich took
part in the Conference. The Head Office for Reich Security
is referred to in the minutes. It was represented by three
of those present: Heydrich, the chairman, Mueller and
Eichmann. It was agreed that the entire Final Solution,
unfettered by any geographical limitations, throughout the
entire area under the control of the Reich, would be in the
hands of the Head Office for Reich Security. A list was
drawn up of countries where the problem of the Jews had to
be solved definitively, including fifteen countries which at
that time were already in German hands and sixteen countries
over which Germany still needed to gain control in order to
exterminate their Jews also, including England, Switzerland
and so on. In all, the list covered eleven million Jews to
whom the Final Solution was to be applied. As it said in the
minutes, the subject was: Various types of possible
solutions -- this is on the last page. As we know from
Eichmann's testimony in Session 106, Vol. IV, p. 1810, the
meaning of this reference to "various types of possible
solutions" is that they discussed ways of killing Jews. On
page 9 of the actual minutes it says that an authorized
Referent  will be appointed on behalf of Heydrich for these
matters, and that he will hold discussions with
representatives of the Foreign Ministry on matters
concerning the Foreign Ministry. And when a representative
of the Foreign Ministry raises problems - in the second
paragraph on page 9 - the Foreign Ministry representative
will discuss matters with the authorized Specialist Officer
of the RSHA and the SD. Immediately after this Heydrich
writes T/186 to the Foreign Ministry, and there he announces
that the "zustaendiger Referent," i.e. the Section Head who
is competent to deal with matters concerning the Solution,
is Eichmann.

Heydrich repeated this in another document that deals with
the famous "Brown Folder," which contained the announcement
of the destruction of East European Jewry (T/297).

President:  In conjunction with the guidelines.

Attorney General:  In connection with the guidelines and
changes in instructions that Rosenberg wanted:

He writes that the person responsible for dealing with them
is SS Sturmbannfuehrer Eichmann, which was his rank at the
time. My question: "Did Heydrich write the truth in the
document?" And he admitted in Session 92, Vol. IV, on page
1621, that Heydrich had written the truth.

When he was questioned on this subject during the police
interrogation, when I showed him the minutes of the Wannsee
Conference and asked him: Who is the authorized Specialist
Officer who is referred to on page 9 of the minutes? - and
here I am reading from T/37, page 856 - he admitted that the
authorized Specialist Officer who is referred to on page 9
of the minutes of the Wannsee Conference as dealing with all
these matters is Adolf Eichmann.

I questioned him about this, whether there was anyone else
who handled the complex of Jewish affairs. And after much
determined prevarication when being questioned, trying to
find accomplices in other Sections and Offices, finally he
admits that his Section was the only one to deal as a
centralizing body with all Jewish affairs. In Session 92,
page 1622 - and this takes up a page and a half, with
evasions and prevarications - finally he says: "If I ignore
the unfilled post in Department VII, I have to agree that
there was this arrangement in Department IV." I asked him:
"Apart from you, there was no other?" And the reply: "I was
the only Section Head in Department IV."

And what were "Jewish affairs"? We know this full well. This
was to exterminate them. They did not deal with education
for the Jews; or welfare for the Jews, or cultural, economic
or artistic matters. Department IV was the department for
suppressing opponents, and as of the summer of 1941,
suppressing the Jewish opponent meant his extermination.

Eichmann also admitted in Session 93, Vol. IV, p. 1627, that
all of the instructions, directives and decrees that were
issued after the Wannsee Conference were part of the Final
Solution.

Justice Silberg:  Reading from the minutes of the Wannsee
Conference, I have a question: Is there a difference between
Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei und des
Sicherheitsdienstes  (Senior Commander of the Security
Police and the Security Service) and Kommandeur der
Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienstes? My question
is: was there any duplication here, or is this the same
thing? I am asking in order to understand several documents.

Attorney General:  This is the "BdS."

Justice Silberg:  Are they both "BdS"?

Attorney General:  I do not think so. I think that the
Kommandeur is the district official, the local figure, while
the Befehlshaber is the person appointed for the entire
country. Because as Your Honour will see, the Kommandeur
comes as a representative of the "BdS."

Justice Silberg:  This is a wider appointment, because this
refers to the entire Baltic area and White Russia.

Attorney General:  This is an entire region.

The internal division, if the Court is interested in it, can
be seen in T/98. This is one of the Prosecution exhibits
which we submitted to the Court in order to explain the
structure of the SS and the structure of the Gestapo.

Justice Silberg:  Is that T/99?

Attorney General:  No. In T/99 there is the distribution of
authority within the RSHA, the designation of the
departments and their various tasks.

Justice Silberg:  I asked my question in order to identify
the persons.

Attorney General:  I said that the various decrees that were
issued, as he admitted, were part of the Final Solution.
These decrees, as he admitted, concerned the expulsions,
which you can find in Session 95, Vol. IV, p. 1650, and
matters concerning Jewish property in Session 95, also on
page 1650.

He admitted in general terms that all of the instructions he
issued after the Wannsee Conference were part of the Final
Solution.

This was in Session 93. After that I asked him about the
contents of the decrees. He said that they concerned
deportations and matters of property.

President:  Was that in Session 95, page 1650?

Attorney General:  Yes. Further down the page there is
reference to matters of property.

For example, here is a document typical of these
instructions, which came out just eleven days after Wannsee,
T/730. It is issued in Eichmann's handwriting, dated 31
January 1942, to all the Gestapo offices in the Old Reich,
as well as to the Central Office for Jewish Emigration,
Vienna, and for information of the Inspekteure der
Sicherheitspolizei im Altreich und Inspekteure der Sipo,
Wien. Subject: Deportation of Jews. He opens by saying:
"Deportation of the Jews to the East is the beginning of the
Final Solution of the Jewish Question in the Old Reich."
From now on, the problems will be that the
"Aufnahmemoeglichkeiten im Osten und
Transportschwierigkeiten beruecksichtigt werden konnten"
(the possibilities for reception in the East and transport
difficulties might have to be taken into account). These are
now the problems confronting the Final Solution: Are there
enough trains to transport the Jews? Are there enough places
to accommodate them in the concentration camps?

But he did not deal just with this.

Justice Silberg:  This was after the Wannsee Conference?

Attorney General:  Immediately after the Wannsee Conference.
This is part of the Final Solution.

He was also involved in locating and marking the Jews - this
transport clerk! In Session 97, Vol. IV, on page 1681, it
says:

      "Matters of marking - as proved by the documents - had
     to be dealt with by Section IVB4, and so the Commander
     of the Security Police had to pass on matters of
     marking to Section IVB4 - that is to say, to my
     Section."

President:  There is also an exhibit in which he secretly
contacts the Foreign Ministry and informs them that he has
already received authorization concerning marking with the
Jewish Badge.

Attorney General:  When he wanted to know whether it was
possible to introduce throughout the Reich the wearing of
the Jewish Badge and whether this could also be required of
foreign subjects, he contacted the Foreign Ministry.

Justice Silberg:  And who issued the decree concerning the
wearing of the Jewish Badge in the occupied territories,
which began as early as November 1939?

Attorney General:  The operational order is always issued
locally.

Justice Silberg:  But this was done some two years earlier?

Attorney General:  It was done about two years earlier, and
was certainly issued by Frank in Poland. We also submitted
these exhibits. But this was a result of another operation,
about which we have heard no appeal whatsoever here, and
consequently I did not refer to this either. This was in the
famous meeting with Heydrich on 21 September 1939,
immediately after the partitioning of Poland between the
Third Reich and the Soviet Union, to which much reference is
made in the Judgment, and Counsel for the Defence did not
see fit to speak about this.

Justice Agranat:  In this meeting in September 1939,
reference is made to the other deportations to the
Generalgouvernement.

Attorney General:  Reference is made there to a long_term
solution, which for the moment will remain completely
secret, and to short-term stages: ghettoization, marking,
establishing Councils of Elders and settling the Jews next
to railway junctions, in order to make it possible to
transport them.

Elsewhere Eichmann admitted that, as far as he was
concerned, the aim of the Jewish Badge was to facilitate
rounding up Jews for deportation (Session 96, Vol. IV, p.
1672).

He also admitted that every individual inquiry and instance
of an individual Jew who asked for help, rescue, an
exception or exemption, was a matter for his Section
(Session 98, Vol. V, at the bottom of page 1702). Such
matters came to his attention, hundreds and thousands of
individual cases, he said (Session 93, Vol. IV, p. 1630).
Expropriation of Jewish_owned dwellings was a matter for his
Section (T/736). This is a document which deals with the
dwellings of expelled Jews.

President:  But what is this exhibit? Is this someone's
testimony?

Attorney General:  This is an instruction for
implementation.

President:  An instruction for implementation to whom?
Justice Silberg:  It says there that there was to be no
expropriation of the dwelling of the Jewish Countess
Sacconi.

Justice Sussman  An instruction not to adopt any measures
against the Countess, and not to confiscate her dwelling
until further notice.

Justice Agranat:  As an example of the attention given to an
individual case.

Attorney General:  Individual attention to the confiscation
of a dwelling.

He also intervened in the postal arrangements at the
Westerbork transit camp (T/559). When I asked him, why was
it your business what the postal arrangements were at
Westerbork, he gave me a general reply - Session 95, Vol.
IV, at the bottom of page 1651, and after that on page 1652:
"It was Jews..." About the postal arrangements I asked him:
"Why did your Section deal with it, why not Department VI?"
Answer: "Because Jews were involved."

President:  It is not sufficient to tell us that there is
T/559. I want to know what this is - an instruction or
testimony?

Attorney General:  This is an instruction that goes from
Eichmann's Section with his signature to the Police
Commander in Holland and it concerns the passports provided
to Jews who were in the Westerbork camp, for emigration
purposes. Eichmann issues an instruction not to give the
passports to their recipients, to destroy the passports, and
if the Swiss Post Office which sent the passports to Holland
expresses interest in what happened to the passports or what
their fate was, to inform them that they were lost in an
enemy action.

Justice Silberg:  In our list it says that in T/559 Eichmann
contacts Neumann and forbids correspondence with the
detainees in Westerbork because of the counterfeiting of
passports.

Attorney General:  Inter alia he issues instructions that
from now on, one postcard will be sent and no letters, and
on the postcard there are to be only greetings. He issues
instructions as to how the Jews in the transit camp are
allowed to deal with correspondence. I asked him: What does
this have to do with you? He gives a simple reply: It
concerns me, it is a Jewish matter.

Justice Sussman  I did not find an instruction here to
destroy the passports. I do not know whether this is
important, but I did not find such an instruction here.

Justice Agranat:  He asked for each of the cases to be
examined.

Justice Sussman  And to provide a report.

Justice Agranat:  It says that a special instruction will be
given as to how to deal with this further. But in connection
with the mail, he says that it must be collected every week
by plane in order to check it.

Attorney General:  I remember, Your Honour, that there was
an instruction for destroying the passports. Perhaps the
instruction was in another document. My colleagues will help
me find it. I shall inform the Court in the course of my
argument.

In Session 97, Vol. IV, on page 1681, I questioned him about
documents T/511 and T/580, which concern a military escort
that had to be provided for the transports. It appears that
he was contacted, so that he and his Section would apply to
the Supreme Command to instruct the Armed Forces to
co_operate with the expulsion and transport operations.

Justice Silberg:  Did you say T/511 and T/580, Mr. Attorney
General?

Attorney General:  Yes, I shall return to these two
documents when I get to the chapter on France.

In Session 93, Vol. IV, pp. 1634-1635, I questioned him on
the destinations of the transport sites. I asked him:
     
     "Look at the instructions issued here with your
     signature. You issue instructions for a report on each
     transport to be sent to you, to the Senior Commander of
     the Security Police and the Security Service, Cracow,
     and to Globocnik, and Globocnik is furthermore
     instructed to report back to you on every transport
     which arrived. Is that correct?
     
     "Answer  Yes, that is what I ordered."

In other words, the dispatcher had to inform Eichmann that
the transport had left; Globocnik, the commander of the
death camps in the Lublin area, was to inform Eichmann that
the goods had arrived.

On page 1635 of Session 93:

     "Question  When in T/476 you instructed Roethke to send
     the transports to Cholm on 23 March 1943 and 25 March
     1943, where were these transports to go, what were
     their destinations?

     "Answer It says here - to Cholm.
     
     "Q.  That means to Sobibor, does it not?
     
     "A.  As far as I know, Cholm is not the same place as
     Sobibor.
     
     "Q.  That was the station from which you would dispatch
     transports according to Globocnik's instructions to
     Sobibor, to Treblinka and to Majdanek. Did you know
     that?
     
     "A.  Yes, and also Cholm."
     

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