Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-04-02
Last-Modified: 1999/06/15

According to the directives received by those handling
Jewish affairs from Eichmann's Section and following these
directives, they were also in touch with each other, without
any further contact with Berlin, on matters of common
concern such as the introduction of the Jewish Badge, mixed
marriages, preparing legislation for withdrawal of rights,
and so on. The Court will find examples of this in T/405 and
T/406. T/405 is Knochen's letter about the Jewish Badge, and
he asks for there to be co_ordination in Holland with the
Unit in France, as a result of a joint discussion that took
place on 4 March 1942 in Berlin.

President:  To whom does he write this?

Attorney General:  To the Unit in Holland.

Both T/405 and T/406, as the Court can see from the initials
in the top left-hand corner, were dictated by Dannecker.

Justice Agranat:  Both of them?

Attorney General:  Yes.

Justice Silberg:  What is the letter "j" which appears
there?

Attorney General:  The reference is to "juifs" (Jews).

Justice Silberg:  Was that the designation in all countries?

Attorney General:  There were various designations. In
France it was "j."

Justice Silberg:  There is also the number 4.

Attorney General:  Yes. Section 4.

T/484 is Roethke's letter from Brussels. Roethke informs the
Security Police Commander in Brussels about the
implementation of the deportation of French Jewry, and he
indicates that the Jews with French citizenship must also
now be expelled from Belgium, rather than waiting for them
to be stripped of their French citizenship.

In T/530 Rajakowitsch reports from The Hague to Paris and
Brussels, with a note to Eichmann, that Dutch Jews have
already been deported, although the law to strip them of
their citizenship has not yet been issued, and consequently
it is now possible to also expel Jews who are Dutch citizens
from France and Belgium. Eichmann determined when transports
of Jews should travel from France to Auschwitz. "He has
decided," it says in T/439, which is a memorandum from
Dannecker dated 21 July 1943.

President:  On the deportation of children from France,
there is document T/438. He asks what to do with 4,000
chldren. What is T/439?

Attorney General:  T/438 is a notice indicating that
Eichmann and Novak were in touch with Eichmann's office on
20 July 1942. This is a memorandum from Dannecker concerning
the deportation of Jews. And it starts by saying that on 20
July 1942 Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann and SS
Obersturmbannfuehrer Novak from the RSHA IVB4 were in touch
with this office. Talks were held with Eichmann about the
transports of Jews. He decided that immediately after the
deportations to the Generalgouvernement it would be possible
- the children could move.

President:  I made a note for myself that this apparently
comes from T/438. What is T/438?

Attorney General:  We shall check on this in a moment, Your
Honour. I believe that T/438 is a request for instructions
from Dannecker to Eichmann, where he asks what to do with
the 4,000 children.

President:  Is T/438 also a memorandum from Dannecker?

Attorney General:  It is a question, Eichmann tells him, as
shown by T/439, "When things in the Generalgouvernement are
straightened out, you will be able to move the chldren." And
things got straightened out. Telegram T/443 will show this.
The Section informs Paris, "send the children from
Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande to Auschwitz."

When Eichmann ordered that Argentinian Jews be arrested and
sent the instruction to the Security Police Commanders, it
was clear that the operational instruction to arrest every
single Jew would be issued by the various police stations.
And the documents which the Defence now wishes to add to the
file on this matter simply reinforce our version, and there
is no need to add them, because they are already before Your
Honours. T/501 includes the  documents for carrying out
Eichmann's primary instruction.

Justice Agranat:  Do we already have both these documents
before us?

Attorney General:  Yes.

Justice Agranat:  Is one of them T/501?

Attorney General:  T/500 is Eichmann's instruction to arrest
the Jews from Argentina immediately.

Justice Agranat:  Have the two documents which Counsel for
the Defence wishes to submit already been submitted to the
Court?

Attorney General:  Yes, they are part of T/501. If the Court
would look at T/501, it will see the command path followed
by this instruction.

Justice Silberg:  But the Court bases itself on another
document, dated four years earlier. The Court, as would
appear from Paragraph 100, based itself on a memorandum or a
request by Dannecker dated 24 October 1941, and Counsel for
the Defence bases himself on a document dated 28 January
1944. Is that or is that not correct? The two documents
discuss Argentinian Jews, and that may perhaps have confused
him. I am reading from the documents submitted by Counsel
for the Defence.

Attorney General:  Yes, Your Honour.

Justice Silberg:  And the Court does not base itself on this
letter, but on another letter dated 28 January 1944.

Attorney General:  Instructions trickled down about the
nationals of various countries, and one must be very
cautious in this area. When the District Court refers to
instructions concerning foreign nationals, this does not
necessarily include all the foreign nationals, and this did
not in fact include all the foreign nationals. Only in T/500
is an instruction given to arrest Argentinian nationals. And
the Court does in fact refer to this in Paragraph 153 of the
Judgment.

President:  What is the date of T/500?

Attorney General:  27 January 1944.

President:  Perhaps it is as my colleague Silberg asked.
Perhaps the answer is more straightforward, that there is
simply a mistake, and instead of 1944 it says 1941.

Attorney General:  What it says in the Judgment is correct.
And these are two different documents. I would ask the Court
to distinguish between them, and not to mix them up.

Justice Silberg:  But T/439 also includes Argentinian
nationals, they could also be Argentinian nationals.

Attorney General:  It could but it does not include them.
The reference here is to Austrian, Czech or Polish Jews. But
it does not make much difference.

Justice Silberg:  In 1941, the Austrians, Czechs or Poles
were no longer Austrians, Czechs and Poles, but half
Germans.

Attorney General:  Your Honour can see what the document
says.

Justice Silberg:  Yes, but according to what it says, they
could also be Argentinians.

Attorney General:  In any case, I would draw the Court's
attention to this document and I shall not add anything
further to it, it speaks for itself.

To repeat: the first instruction to arrest Argentinian
nationals is T/500...

President:  To whom it is addressed?

Attorney General:  It is addressed to the police units in
Brussels, to all the police stations in the Reich, and for
information to the Hoeheren SS- u. Polizeifuehrer (the
Higher SS and Police Leaders), and in T/501 the Court will
see how this instruction develops into operational orders
for actual arrests. There are several pages here, containing
the actual implementation of that order.

Justice Agranat:  Is this document of 28 January 1944, which
Counsel for the Defence enclosed, one of them? There is also
a reference there to a document of 27 January 1944.

Attorney General:  Yes. One of them is dated 28 January
1944.

Justice Agranat:  But I cannot find it, there is no Knochen.

Attorney General:  Here is the document of 28 January 1944.

T/400 is a memorandum by Dannecker dated 22 February 1942,
from Paris, in which it says that the practical authority
for measures against the Jews has been given to his office,
and that on a European level the Chief of Security Police
and SD has been appointed as the Commissioner of Jews in
Europe. And after a description of the operations already
carried out and a listing of the planned means to be used
against the Jews, Dannecker concludes proudly that the
handling of Jewish affairs is to be concentrated in his
office. As I have already indicated, Dannecker received the
practical directives from Eichmann. He also reported to
Eichmann. For example, in T/433, Dannecker's letter to
Eichmann, the Court will find the report of 6 July 1942,
when Dannecker announces what he has already done following
his talk with Eichmann six days earlier, on 1 July.

As is clearly seen from the Eichmann's announcement to
Roethke, that he would need to consider abandoning France as
a country of deportations, and as is shown by T/419 to which
I have already referred, it was in Eichmann's power to
determine within the general instructions the order of
countries for deportations, which would come first and which
next, who would go to an immediate death and who last, as he
determined for example for the few Dutch Jews who were
members of the N.S.B. National Party, on whose behalf the
Nazis intervened.

President:  What is 528?

Attorney General:  That is a memorandum in Rajakowitsch's
file about his talk with Eichmann. And Rajakowitsch notes
that in his talk, Eichmann insisted in principle on the view
that there is no reason for any exceptions in respect of
these Jews, and they are also destined for extermination
with all the others, but they will be put to death last. I
apologize for my slip in saying "put to death" - that was
incorrect. It says they will be deported. But it is obvious
that the meaning is unambiguous.

Justice Silberg:  What was the practice in the Nazi
hierarchy? When it says "for information," was that a more
junior or a more senior official writing?

Attorney General:  Sometimes a more junior official provides
something for the information of a more senior official.

Justice Silberg:  For example, this letter is written by
Dannecker, this is letter 439 from Dannecker, you quoted it
earlier, Mr. Hausner, he is an Obersturmbannfuehrer and
Roethke is an Obersturmfuehrer, i.e. junior to him, and he
writes for the information of an Obersturmfuehrer. This is a
sign that he is more junior.

Attorney General:  I do not believe that it makes any
difference. The person is simply informed that there are
matters  which must be brought to his attention, whether he
is more junior or more senior.

We do, however, get confirmation from these documents of
what Justice Musmanno testified to the District Court
concerning what Goering said, Session 40, Vol. II, page 720,
where he stated: "He [the Reichsmarschall] did not refer to
Eichmann as a small official. On the contrary, he made it
very clear that Eichmann was all-powerful on the question of
the extermination of the Jews. Eichmann had unlimited power
to declare who was to be killed from among the Jews,
chronologically, and by segment of population, what
countries geographically and throughout."

Justice Musmanno also testified about what Schellenberg had
said, to the effect that Eichmann could determine as he saw
fit all the countries destined for the Final Solution
(Session 39, Vol. II, pp. 711-714).

The exhibits also prove how Eichmann struggled to deal with
the obstacles that faced him in his attempts to destroy the
Jews. When the Italians did not co-operate, he asked for a
personal meeting with Lospinoso, the commander of Italian-
occupied France, T/482. This is Eichmann's communication to
the Foreign Ministry, a letter in which he requests a
meeting. But in the Foreign Ministry memorandum, T/483, it
says that Lospinoso sees no point in such a meeting at that
time.

The machinery of deception was implemented in France also.
The Association of French Jews approached the German
Security Police with a request to issue certificates about
the deported Jews, where they were, in order to be able to
collect pensions, insurance benefits and similar payments.
This is in letter T/464.

President:  A letter from whom?

Attorney General:  From the Association of Jewish
Communities in France to the Commander of the Security
Police and SD. And in the same exhibit the Court will find
the correspondence on this subject between Roethke and the
Accused's Section, and at the end Eichmann's instructions in
a telegram to write in the certificate that the whereabouts
of the deportees are not known. In the Section's telegram to
the units in The Hague, Paris and Brussels, T/480, an urgent
instruction is issued to refrain from informing the
deportees...

President:  This is a letter from whom to whom?

Attorney General:  A telegram from the Section to the units
in The Hague, Paris and Brussels, that there are complaints
from Auschwitz that the deported Jews know in advance where
they are being sent, and this creates panic, and therefore
they must not find out on the way where they are going.

Eichmann and his men also had control over the concentration
camps. The Court will find this in Wellers' testimony in
Session 32, Vol. II, pages 586-589, about the absolute
control wielded by Brunner and Dannecker over those camps,
and dealing with every individual Jewish case. When Eichmann
found out that the Jew Max Golub was trying to escape to
Switzerland, he took the initiative and requested his
immediate arrest and deportation to the East in accordance
with the directives (T/496).

When the Jew Avraham Weiss made an important patent
available to the Germans, and Roethke asked Eichmann about
him, Eichmann replied that "since Weiss has already
registered his invention with the Reich Patent Office, there
is no further interest in the matter here. I request that
the aforementioned be included in the Jewish measures in
accordance with the guidelines" (T/499) ("besteht an der
Angelegenheit hier kein Interesse mehr. Ich bitte, den
Genannten gemaess den Richtlinien in die Judenmassnahmen
einzubeziehen").

And when the Romanian Government asked for the return of a
Jew from France, Advocate Rosenthal, Eichmann informs the
Foreign Ministry that for reasons of principle he cannot
make exceptions, because that would complicate the purging
of France of Jews (T/491).

When the Foreign Ministry had to take urgent measures in
Occupied France in respect of Jews who were citizens of
neutral countries and was unable to communicate with
Eichmann, because apparently he was not at his office at the
time, he is informed accordingly after the event in an
apologetic tone: "We had to act without you because it was
impossible to get in touch with you" (T/466).

Even the appointment of the French Commissioner for Jewish
Affairs and the choosing of this individual was a matter for
Eichmann; and he warmly recommends the appointment of Du
Paty de Clam, the son, it says, of the well-known French
officer from the Dreyfus trial, "and I therefore consider
him a most suitable candidate for the post of Commissioner
for Jewish Affairs in the French Government" (T/504, from
IVB4).

About the same Brunner of whom we know from Wellers'
testimony which I have already cited this as well as on
pages 586-589. We also know from Dr. Abeles' testimony about
the Sered camp (Session 49, Vol, II, pp. 893-894 and from
Rosenberg's testimony (Session 51, Vol. II, 921-923).

Brunner the sadist, who would maltreat the detainees,
torture them, was Eichmann's favourite, as was testified by
Wisliceny in T/56, page 21.

Justice Silberg:  Where did Wisliceny say this? At his trial
in Bratislava?

Attorney General:  When he was in custody in Bratislava.
Perhaps in testimony.

Justice Silberg:  Perhaps in testimony at Nuremberg? It says
here, "Wisliceny's statements to investigators."

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