Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-04-08 Last-Modified: 1999/06/15 Attorney General: Perhaps the Court would turn to Paragraph 160 in the Judgment: "Sievers requests the Accused `to create suitable conditions in Auschwitz' for carrying out the examinations in accordance with Himmler's instructions, and the Accused replies that he needs to have a letter from Himmler or from his personal staff. On 2 November 1942, Sievers again approaches Brandt and supplies him with a draft for such a letter from Brandt to Section IVB4." After this a conversation took place between Sievers and Guenther on 28 April 1943 and "on 21 June 1943, Sievers informs the Accused's Section that the research work in Auschwitz has been completed and that the people examined (79 Jews, 30 Jewesses, two Poles, and four other persons) are to be transferred to the Natzweiler concentration camp. In August 1943, about eighty detainees were sent from Auschwitz to Natzweiler." And here the circle is complete. President: Is this in the same letter, T/1366? Attorney General: Paragraph 160 refers to all the exhibits: T/1362, T/1363, T/1364, T/1367, T/1366 and T/1370. The evidence on the Lidice children is set out in the Judgment and I shall not engage in polemics here with Counsel for the Defence over an Israeli Court's competence to try crimes against humanity. President: I wish to make a comment at this juncture. When the learned Counsel for the Defence dealt with the Lidice children, I asked him a question and I see that in certain circles my question has been misunderstood. I asked, "Does the theory of the difference of blood between races still exist?" The only reason why I asked my question was because of a misunderstanding, and had I understood in the first place I would not have asked it. I would like this to be understood. Justice Silberg: I understand that he is not attacking the finding in terms of national law, he is attacking the finding under international law, and to the extent that the Attorney General endorses the District Court's assumption that there must be some link between the offender and the State trying him - he must reply to that point. Attorney General: Earlier I argued that in the case of crimes which are universal - any state has the authority to try these, any state is competent to try such crimes even if those crimes have been perpetrated against persons who were not its nationals. The killling of the Jews of Belgrade and Eichmann's conversaion with Rademacher about this, or the "minor incident" as Counsel for the Defence calls this, cost the lives of 7,500 people. In his Police interrogation Eichmann admitted that he told Rademacher "to shoot." Rademacher testified on oath that this is what Eichmann told him. Is the Appellant now going to complain that his denial to the Court was not believed? President: Is there really something like this in T/37? Attorney General: Yes, certainly, on page 2356. This is also referred to in the Judgment: "...I did not myself give the order to kill by shooting, but, as all those matters, I handled this one in the service channels, and the order by my superiors was at the time in fact: To kill by shooting." Counsel for the Defence tells you: look at the Department's organization chart. In other words, because it does not say in the RSHA hierarchical chart that Eichmann has to give the order to shoot Jews in Belgrade, this shows that he did not give that order. And this, according to his argument, is more convincing proof than Rademacher's memorandum drawn up at that time, than Rademacher's words in his testimony, and even than the Accused's own admission in his Police interrogation. But, Your Honours, none of the events of the extermination is included in the RSHA's hierarchical chart. Nowhere does it say there: extermination of Jews. There are references to Jewish matters. All of the extermination was a special assignment, assigned to the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, and carried out by the man whom he appointed, Adolf Eichmann. This is also how it is phrased in Goering's letter of appointment to Heydrich. Heydrich raises the essence of the problem as early as June 1940, when he wrote to Ribbentrop (T/173) that there are already so many Jews, something like three and a quarter million, in the area under German control and some Endloesung (Final Solution) must be found. And he requests a discussion with him, with Heydrich, about this matter. We know that the discussion took place, the plan took on shape. After that came Heydrich's official appointment, and the matter of the shooting of Serbian Jews was in fact only a minor incident in the larger scheme of the extermination as a whole. But it was the Accused's bad luck that a reference to this also appeared in writing. Even at this stage in the Appeal the Accused wishes to benefit from the fact that he expelled Austrian Jewry, and thereby, he says, saved them from death. This is after he has unreservedly admitted before the Court that he was not at all thinking of saving them, that in 1938 he had not the faintest idea of the extermination, and it is obvious that he therefore pursued with the utmost severity and resolution the Reich's policy concerning the Jews at every single stage. At that time the talk was of expulsions. He carried out expulsions but did not think he was saving Jews (Session 90, Vol. IV, p. 1591). But he expelled them and extracted their assets from them using every type of terror tactic he could. From the memorandum of his conversation with Loewenherz, T/797, we gather that Eichmann announced on 11 December 1939: a particular house must be vacated by 15 January. All the residents must leave by then. If not - they will be transferred to Buchenwald. From the memorandum he drew up for himself, T/111, we know what his plan was at the time. President: Is T/111 a memorandum that he was required to submit, containing the beginnings of the Madagascar plan? Attorney General: That is how we understand this. The Jews must be slowly ruined and expelled. When I asked him what this meant, he told me, in Session 90, page 1589: "The rich Jew had to finance the emigration of the poor Jew," and on page 1590, he admitted that the Jews who were expelled at that time from Austria never saw a penny of their money, and every Jew who emigrated from Austria enriched the German Reich. Consequently the words of praise and commendation which his superior showered on him in order to have him promoted were indeed deserved by him, Eichmann. He himself expressed similar words of praise for help in purging Austria from Jews in respect of another man whose promotion he suggested, a man called Kraus (T/1431). Justice Silberg: Dr. Servatius indicates on page 9 of the German original that there would appear to be a contradiction between one affidavit by Dr. Loewenherz, his affidavit of 19 December 1939, and his affidavit of 1961. What is the 1961 affidavit? Attorney General: The Defence is in error here. Loewenherz did not write any reports in 1961. Loewenherz wrote his major Report, T/154, immediately after the War, and he simply authenticated it a few days before his death in 1960. Justice Agranat: What do you mean by he "authenticated" it? Attorney General: He was abroad, and an emissary from the Embassy went to him, he was old and sick, we have an affidavit about this, I believe it is T/35, the affidavit of the Israeli Consul. Loewenherz was commanded by Eichmann to draw up all the reports about the talks between them and to give him a copy of every such memorandum that was kept at the Community Offices. Everything that Loewenherz wrote went through Eichmann's office. And in all these memoranda we can see the humiliation, the oppression and the tortures inflicted on that Jewish leader in Vienna. Justice Silberg: If you would look, Mr. Hausner, at Dr. Servatius' arguments on page 9, as grounds for the Appeal. Attorney General: I am aware of what he writes. Counsel for the Defence is in error. T/154 to which he is referring, and he thinks that it was drawn up in 1961, was not drawn up then. Lowenherz drew it up immediately after the War. Furthermore: Eichmann was interrogated by the Police in many sittings concerning this Report, and confirmed that it was largely correct. Justice Agranat: What is the short report? Attorney General: These were the interim reports about meetings or instructions that Lowenherz would receive from time to time. Justice Agranat: What is the designation of the long report? Attorney General: T/154 is the long report. Justice Agranat: What is the designation of the ongoing reports that Eichmann ordered Lowenherz to submit to him? Attorney General: We have a large number of reports. The Court will find them all, from T/144, T/145, T/147, T/148, T/152. President: Mr. Hausner, I would like to ask Dr. Servatius if he could briefly explain what he meant when he drafted this ground for appeal. Dr. Servatius: Your Honour, when I referred to the short reports - I meant the reports which were drawn up at the time of the events by Dr. Lowenherz. In one of them it says that he has to complain about the attitude to the Jews in other offices and that in this connection he is contacting Eichmann. I also referred to the report in which there is a mention of drawing money, as if Eichmann was drawing on monies and property of the Jewish Communities which had been confided to his care. That is what I had to say about the short reports. While in respect of the long essay, which I believe is 70 pages long, I argued that it was drawn up close to his death and that - this is what I was arguing - because of his age he obviously could not have written it on his own but would have had to be assisted by others. President: Thank you very much, Dr. Servatius. Justice Silberg: Dr. Servatius: has referred to the date of 19 December 1939. This can relate only to exhibit T/798. This is a memorandum concerning - an aide-memoire about Dr. Lowenherz' visit to Eichmann and it contains no exchange of letters concerning any details. Dr. Servatius: I did not say that this involved any bilateral correspondence; I referred to unilateral reports by Dr. Lowenherz, in which he reports chapter by chapter on what occurred. Justice Silberg: These are not notifications - this is a memorandum about Dr. Lowenherz' visit to Eichmann. He has written up an aide-memoire about Dr. Lowenherz' visit. Dr. Servatius: Yes, these are memoranda that he was ordered to draw up. It can be seen that these are not worded for personal use, but that he had to present them. Attorney General: The Report was not drawn up in 1961, that was simply when it was authenticated. President: What do you mean by authenticated? Attorney General: He was asked to confirm that Report, and this document bears the date of 1961. The more important thing is that Eichmann was questioned about this Report in T/37, pages 2728-2877, and he confirms the correctness of every single detail with the exception of one matter, which was entirely without significance. At one point Eichmann says that Lowenherz "war ein korrekter Mensch gewesen" (had been correct in his behaviour), and he has to confirm the accuracy of his words. At a certain point he is even upset that Lowenherz ascribes something to him. This is the only thing where he disagrees with him (page 2877). And he says something in connection with the "Red Paradise" Exhibition held in Berlin. He says that he was not the one responsible for this, but Mueller. This is the only thing which Eichmann denies out of Lowenherz' long report. President: When you say that this was authenticated in 1960, how was it authenticated? Attorney General: Our Consul, Zidon, went to him and asked him to authenticate it. President: What did he do? How did he authenticate it? Did he add a signature of some kind, and what did he do? Attorney General: If I might direct the Court's attention to T/30. This is the statement by Consul Zidon, who states: "On 23 October 1960 I visited the home of Dr. Lowenherz in New York and showed him a booklet entitled `Report on the Vienna Community,' which is appended to this statement, and after examining it in my presence he told me that he was very familiar with its content, since he also had a copy in his possession, and he confirmed that the booklet reflects the events as they occurred. At the same meeting I gave Dr. Lowenherz a sheet of paper containing a number of questions drawn up by the Bureau 06 investigators, and I asked him to reply to them. Dr. Lowenherz asked me to leave the questions with him and to allow him to prepare his replies after refreshing his memory, something which would take him several days because of his illness. I accepted his suggestion and it was agreed that he would notify me of the date of our next meeting. On the same occasion Dr. Lowenherz gave me three files containing documents and told me that these were original copies of documents of the Jewish Community of Vienna dating back to the years under Nazi domination; and he asked me to make sure that they reached Israel. "On 24 October 1960 I passed on these three files as I had received them by diplomatic mail to Bureau 06, Israel Police. The day following my meeting with Dr. Lowenherz Mrs. Lowenherz, Dr. Josef Lowenherz' wife, informed me that following a heart attack her husband was extremely ill, and after that his situation deteriorated steadily until his death - and I had no opportunity to obtain a sworn statement from him." President: Do I understand rightly that a booklet which was drawn up immediately after the War is appended to T/30, and it is in this sense that it was authenticated? And in addition to this he passed on three files? Attorney General: Yes. In addition to this Eichmann was questioned, and he denied just one detail from Lowenherz' Report. Justice Silberg: How did you obtain this memorandum, the aide-memoire by Dr. Lowenherz about Eichmann's visit? How did it come before the Court? Attorney General: It was in the files which Lowenherz gave Bureau 06 and we submitted it together with Zidon's statement. I would simply add that according to Fleischmann's testimony, after each meeting with Eichmann Lowenherz would return broken and crushed (Session 17, Vol. I, p. 261) and that it is strange to hear here about the favours that Eichmann did for the Jews of Vienna, that out of the goodness of his heart he is supposed to have released their money. In order to complete the picture it should be added that he first confiscated the money, seized all the Community's property, and then gave permission to use certain sums for the most pressing needs, normally to finance expulsions. The expulsion of the Jews of Baden to Vichy France was not an act of grace on Eichmann's part. At the same time, in October 1940, the deportations to Nisko were halted because after the Schneidemuehl and Stettin deportatons in March 1941 Goring issued instructions, in the wake of the scandal raised by Frank about this, to halt the deportations to the area of the Generalgouvernement (T/383). This is Goring's instruction of 23 March 1940. We know about Goring's opposition to continuing the deportations to the Generalgouvernement from the Accused himself (T/37 page 125). Consequently, the only way Eichmann had of getting rid of the Jews from the Altreich, or from Austria, was to drive them into France. And he did not do this to save their lives or to do them any favours. The Stettin deportations were carried out by him, and all of the proof before the Court is outlined in Paragraph 75 of the Judgment. He also admitted this in Session 98, Vol. IV, page 1697, after his usual evasions, he admitted that he had also played a role in this deportation. I have already referred to the Dutch doument in which Eichmann was identified as the person responsible for the deportation from Stettin. That is the document to which I referred yesterday, T/526. Perhaps at this juncture, since the question arose yesterday, I could say something about this document. It was submitted in Session 34, Vol. II, page 623. Stiller was a senior official with the Commissioner General for Internal Affairs and Trade - Dr. Wimmer, in the original document Stiller's signature in pencil can be seen, and this is how we referred to it, but the original document was not submitted at the time. Instead, with the Court's permission, a copy was submitted.
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