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

President:  I suggest that for the sake of clarity, we
should distinguish between these and give each of them a
name. There is a handwritten memorandum, let us call this
the memorandum. Then there is the typed memorandum, let us
call this the typescript. After that there is a draft, this
is dated 25 October 1941.

Attorney General:  I am speaking of the shortest document,
the undated letter NO 997.

President:  Who is the person who wrote the letter?

Attorney General:  If I might crave the indulgence of the
Court, I hope things will be explained in a moment. There is
a sentence here which begins: "I have no worries about your
proposal concerning the Jewish Question."

This is marked at the top NO 997.

Justice Sussman:  NO stands for "number."

Attorney General:  No. "NO" is "Nazi Organization," this was
the abbreviation at the Nuremberg Trials. And NG stands for
"Nazi Government."

President:  Perhaps I can make a compromise suggestion. I
gather that you prefer, Mr. Hausner, not to call this a
first draft and a second draft, because you do not agree
that the second draft is an elaboration. Let us call it
Draft A and Draft B. If that is the case, there is a
handwritten memorandum, a typescript of the memorandum,
Draft A and Draft B.

Attorney General:  I am referring to Draft A. And the
transcript of Brack's examination is to be found in Vol. 1
of the Green Series, Trials of War Criminals, pages 886-887.
He is asked:

     "Is the name Eichmann, Obersturmbannfuehrer Adolf
     Eichmann, familiar to you?
     
     "A.  Yes. I know the name now.
     
     "Q.  You did not know him before? That is, during the
     war?
     
     "A.  No, not to my knowledge.
     
     "Q.  Did you know anything about his activities during
     the war from your own knowledge, not what you heard
     now?
     
     "A.  I cannot remember ever having heard the name
     Eichmann before."

And here the letter is read out.

     "Q.  Did you receive a copy of this letter?
     
     "A.  May I first ask you what the date of this letter
     is?
     
     "Q.  Only 1941 is mentioned here. But that is the date
     I told you. Did you receive a copy of this letter, Herr
     Brack?
     
     "A.  I did not receive a copy of it nor did I even see
     a copy of that letter, nor do I know this
     Amtsgerichtsrat Wetzel.
     
     "Q.  Did you have a conference with Eichmann on this
     problem, on the solution of the Jewish question?
     
     "A.  I already said that I cannot even remember the
     name Eichmann, nor can I remember the name Wetzel."
     
Now it was the turn of what we call Draft B.

President:  This testimony shows nothing whatsoever.

Attorney General:  It will in a moment. On page 888 it says:

     "Q.  I want to put to you Document NO-365" (his numbers
     are different from ours) "which will be Prosecution
     Exhibit 507 for identification, Your Honors. This is a
     draft from the Reich Ministry for Occupied Territories
     dated Berlin, 25 October 1941."

And here we have what we call Draft B:

     "Herr Brack, are you still going to maintain what you
     said here in direct examination, namely, that you tried
     to protect the Jews and to save the Jews from their
     terrible fate and that you were never a champion for
     the extermination program?
     
     "Q.  I should even like to maintain that misuse,
     terrible misuse, was made of my name. I see from this
     letter and from the date of this letter that all these
     negotiations were carried out at a time when I was far
     away from Berlin, when I was on sick leave."

I examined Eichmann on his links with Brack in another
connection. This was in Session 98, Vol. IV, page 1706.
Eichmann relates how he was once summoned to appear at the
Reich Chancellery to see Brack, and was extremely surprised
that Brack asked him, Eichmann, for the extermination
programmes that Brack dealt with - the extermination of the
insane - asked Eichmann to spare for Brack several of the
trains that he had managed to obtain. And in the Sassen
Document Eichmann writes the following:

     "Here I am sitting in this shop - the shop is after all
     the most important in the Reich, and here is this
     avuncular figure asking me whether he can have a couple
     of trains. And he is being very friendly to me because
     he wants to beat up a few idiots."

I asked him if that was correct. He said, "Whether the
conversation was literally like that, I do not know, but the
gist was like that."

These documents are dated October 1941. This was a fateful
month. As Eichmann put it (Session 98, Vol. IV, p. 1705) he
made a visit to Himmler's headquarters in Kiev, reported to
Himmler on the scope of Jewish emigration, and immediately
after this report Himmler prohibited emigration from
anywhere in the Reich. The wall of death had already been
erected round European Jewry, and the problem was how to
exterminate them. There was some report or other from the
Commissioner in Ostland, which was referred to in both Draft
A and Draft B, dated 4 October 1941. We do not know what it
was. There are two reactions to this from Wetzel: one which
is undated, Draft A, sending a note of a conversation
between himself and Brack and Eichmann and asking for
appropriate steps to be taken. After this there is the draft
dated 25 October 1941, which is based on the same report,
and completes a previous letter of 18 October 1941. This is
what it says there. We do not know what the letter of 18
October 1941 was. This may be Draft A.

Justice Silberg:  Draft A? That is impossible.

Attorney General:  I will explain why in just a moment.
Because in Draft B things are specified. In the meanwhile
matters had advanced and it was clear that it was not yet
feasible to carry out gassings. The installations had to be
supplied and erected. And in Draft B it says that it would
be best to do this on the spot, not to bring them from the
Reich. In Draft B there is a reference to requiring the
assistance of the chemist Kallmeyer, whom Brack is prepared
to make available for this purpose. Reference is also made
to the need for operating safety precautions. It says that
Eichmann agrees to the operation. Further down in Draft B
there is mention of the Reich Jews being deported by
Eichmann to Minsk, Riga and Lodz. This is not mentioned in
Draft A. We know about these deportations from other
sources, that Eichmann did indeed carry them out, and
therefore what is ascribed to Eichmann in Draft B in this
passage is not hidden even by himself. The letter, Draft B,
finishes with a statement that it is impossible to continue
with public shootings as in Vilna, because this is no longer
workable.

It is our argument that these are two letters, both of them
were found in an official repository, one follows the other,
both were exhibits at Nuremberg, and Draft B explains the
development which had taken place in the meanwhile.

Justice Silberg:  In the meanwhile means the seven days
between 18 October and 25 October?

Attorney General:  Yes. It is perfectly possible, but I
cannot prove it, that Draft A is the letter of 18 October.

Justice Silberg:  Now, the letters were written by
Rosenberg, through Wetzel, to Lohse. Is that correct?

Attorney General:  Yes, both of them. And they are both
based on the report by Lohse dated 4 October 1941.

Justice Silberg:  So what advantage do you derive, Mr.
Hausner, from the fact that these are two things...

Attorney General:  No advantage, Your Honour, I simply want
to mention the facts. The fact that in the handwritten
memorandum Eichmann's name is illegible does not mean
anything. His name is extremely clear in the memorandum...

Justice Silberg:  Are you saying, Mr. Hausner, that this is
legible or that this is not handwritten, in the memorandum?

Attorney General:  In the handwritten memorandum it is
difficult to identify the name.

President:  Is it there but impossible to identify, or is it
not there at all? The Judgment says that it is not there at
all.

Attorney General:  Your Honour, I maintain that something is
here and that it is impossible to identify it. That much can
be seen. But in the typed memorandum it says explicitly:
Eichmann.

Justice Silberg:  That is correct, but in the typed
memorandum it says...

Attorney General:  It says a great many things.

Justice Silberg:  The Court finds that the name is not
mentioned, even Wetzel's name is not mentioned. The Court
states: In the memorandum it says that a conversation took
place between Wetzel, Brack, and the person who is handling
the Solution of the Jewish Question. The place earmarked for
the name of that person who is handling the affair, the
Sachbearbeiter  ( Official in Charge), is left blank. It
should also be noted that the name of Wetzel himself is not
filled in there. In other words, the Court finds that there
is no name here. And you are asking us, Mr. Hausner, to find
that there is a name in the memorandum also, but that it
cannot be identified.

Attorney General:  In my argument, I accept the Court's
finding that there is no name there.

Justice Agranat:  I gather that you are primarily relying on
Draft A and Draft B, Mr. Hausner, as well as on Eichmann's
testimony in conjunction with what he said in the Sassen
Document...

Attorney General:  What he said in the Police interrogation
first and foremost, that if that is what is written, then
that is correct.

President:  Except that in his opinion this is a result of
an order from above.

Attorney General:  An order from above. I am prepared to
accept this version.

Justice Agranat:  Did he say that what appeared in the
Sassen Document was correct?

Attorney General:  The reference here is to the statement to
the Police.

Justice Agranat:  Are you basing yourself, Mr. Hausner, on
that part of Draft B which refers to the transports which he
actually carried out at that time? Does this prove the
authenticity of this document?

Attorney General:  Naturally, because it also refers to
Eichmann's operations which are not subject to controversy,
something which does not appear anywhere in Draft A.

Justice Silberg:  What is your argument, Mr. Attorney
General, in respect of Draft B? Where did you get it from -
from Yad Vashem?

Attorney General:  No, I believe this is one of the NOs
which we received from the Nuremberg documents.

Justice Silberg:  But here it does not say NO. NO appears
only on Draft A.

Attorney General:  It says it here too. This was submitted
at Nuremberg.

Justice Silberg:  Does that indicate where you got this
from? What I want to know is whether a document like this
was submitted at Nuremberg. Dr. Servatius claimed that NO
997, i.e. Draft A, is typed on a special typewriter with
large spaces. Draft B is typed on a different typewriter.
Now, my question is whether you submitted to the trial a
photocopy of Draft B as submitted at Nuremberg, or whether
this is already a transcript?

Attorney General:  No, no. We did not have the documents
retyped. We photocopied the Nuremberg document and submitted
it in that form. And it was submitted at Nuremberg. It is in
Volume 1 of the Green Series.

Justice Silberg:  And how was it submitted at Nuremberg, as
a photograph from some German office or as a transcript?

Attorney General:  I cannot answer this at the moment. I
assume that what we currently have is how it was submitted
at Nuremberg.

Justice Silberg:  But Dr. Servatius explains that one draft
is typed on one typewriter and a second draft is typed on
another typewriter. You received many documents from
Nuremberg. Can you identify the kind of typeface?

Attorney General:  You mean whether this is identical with
other findings? If Your Honour requires me to compare the
output of different typewriters, we can do so.

Justice Agranat:  What is the reference in T/37 to which you
were making, Mr. Hausner?

Attorney General:  In the Judgment it is Paragraph 167. The
reference is to page 2313 in T/37. When these documents were
submitted to him, to the Accused, when he made his Statement
to Inspector Less, the Accused said:

     "Yes, to this I can only say - it is all described with
     accuracy... I cannot raise any doubts here as to it
     being so."

Afterwards, the Accused returns to the same subject of his
own accord and says (p. 2339):

     "There is no doubt that Wetzel came to me on this
     matter. This I cannot at all explain in any other way,
     after reading the report - that I brought the matter up
     through Gruppenfuehrer Mueller - but I cannot say that
     Gruppenfuehrer Mueller decided in this matter - to the
     Head of the Security Police and the SD, and after this
     I informed Wetzel of the attitude taken by the Head of
     the Security Police and SD.  It makes sense only in
     this way."

This is what Eichmann said in his Statement to the Police.

The Court did not accept Eichmann's excuses. It did not
believe what he said here in his testimony. It held that the
letters had been in an official repository. It accepted our
arguments concerning the evidential weight of documents held
in such a repository. May I direct the Court to the legal
material which we submitted concerning various problems
raised in the Lower Court.  We submitted this material. This
is on pages 42-44 of the legal material.

President:  Are the final arguments in writing?

Attorney General:  Apart from this we submitted a folder
containing the main legal authorities which we submitted.
This is before the Court.

President:  What is its title?

Attorney General:  Legal material that we submitted for our
final argument. And the file is called: "Factual Material,
Links between Items of Evidence and their Evidentiary Weight
for Various Purposes."

Justice Silberg:  What do you mean, Mr. Hausner, by "Legal
Material"?

Attorney General:  What we put down in writing concerning
all the legal problems which came up in the proceedings, and
instead of reading out all the citations we typed them up in
a file. I would ask the Court simply to refer to pages 42,
43, 44 at the end - official documents as evidence.

I would direct the Court to these legal references and I
would ask that it apply the principles which apply to
documents which were placed in official repositories.

Eichmann's actions in the gas business are known to us, as I
have already indicated, both from what Hoess said and also
from the Gerstein documents.

President:  We said that during the arguments there would
also be your respose to the matter of calling witnesses.
Would you please comment on this?

Justice Silberg:  Do you not remember the passage, Mr.
Hausner, where it said that he could not speak on the
telephone and he could not accept confirmation on oath
because proceedings were pending against him. How can he
accept this?

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