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Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts//Appeal/Appeal-Session-04-09


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-04-09
Last-Modified: 1999/06/15

I come now to the last part of my reply - I hope that I
shall be able to conclude shortly - concerning Hungary.

The "master himself," as Himmler called him, was sent to
Hungary. Eichmann said that this was just an expression,
Session 98, Vol. IV, page 1698. The instruction he was given
and the duty assigned to him were to comb Hungary and
transfer its Jews to Auschwitz. He admitted this in T/37,
pages 1879, 2212, 3273, 3274. He was also accompanied by all
his assistants who had already completed extermination
operations in the rest of Europe. It was necessary to act
speedily because the Soviet front was approaching across the
Carpathians, and the day after the entry of the Germans, on
20 March 1944, his messengers - Krumey and Wisliceny - had a
meeting with the Jewish leaders and informed them that from
now on, the Unit headed by Eichmann would handle all Jewish
Affairs. The Unit was called "Sondereinsatzkommando
Eichmann." Krumey testified - and his testimony in these
proceedings is on pages 15-16 - that he received
instructions from the Accused concerning how to run the
meeting with the Jewish representatives. What happened at
the meeting we know from the report about it, T/1155. This
is a report by the Jewish participants concerning the
meeting of 20 March 1944. We also know from Freudiger's
testimony, Session 51, Vol. III, pages 934-935. As early as
31 March 1944 Eichmann had a personal meeting with the
Jewish leaders and reassured them that all of the Germans'
actions were currently intended simply to deal with the
problems arising under the emergency conditions, and after
the War the Jews would become as free as they had been
previously, and the Germans would go back to being as
pleasant as they had always been. We know this from T/1156,
which is an extract from Munczi Erno's book, which was
confirmed by an affidavit by Dr. Erno Boda (T/1156). And
while he was conducting these reassuring negotiations,
Eichmann sent Novak, his transport officer, to make
arrangements for transporting the Jews to Auschwitz. He
admitted this too. Session 103, Vol. IV, page 1770.

President:  Where did he send Novak?

Attorney General:  He sent Novak to Vienna, to the meeting
at which arrangements were made fro transports from Hungary
to Auschwitz. It is true that there were other people in
Hungary as well. It is true that Winkelmann was there, it is
true that Geschke was there, it is true that they had
general duties, and it is true that in administrative terms
Eichmann was subordinate to them. It is also likely that in
the first few months, in the first few weeks at least, until
Eichmann managed to establish relationships with Endre and
Baky, Winkelmann and Veesenmayer handled the various
affairs, and of course they were also active in persecuting
Hungarian Jewry, and the District Court made an explicit
finding about Veesenmayer's part in the criminal activites,
Paragraph 117. Consequently in April-May 1944, in the
documents on which Counsel for the Defence based himself,
N/72, N/73, N/74, N/76 there appear, primarily in respect of
the Hungarians, Winkelmann and Veesenmayer. Later, and in
particular after Kaltenbrunner's visit to Budapest,
Eichmann's status grew and he became the central figure in
the tragedy of Hungarian Jewry. We know about this from the
Kasztner Report, T/1113, from the testimony of Freudiger in
Session 51, of Joel Brand in Session 56, and of Hansi Brand
in Session 58. The forces of the Hungarian Gendarmerie
(T/1158-T/1166) which carried out the dirty work for
Eichmann's Operations Unit, also indicate the control
exercised by the Accused's Unit over the entire operation.

For example, in T/1158, on the second page, it says that the
command of the transit camp consists - among others - of the
Hungarian police officer, the Hungarian Gendarmerie officer,
and Hauptsturmfuehrer Abromeit. Abromeit was from my Unit -
said Eichmann, in Session 103, Vol. IV, page 1767. T/1159,
first paragraph, refers to an announcement by the
Gendarmerie in collaboration with advisory German bodies.
T/1160 refers to a Joint Hungarian-German Committee that
prepared the plan for deporting the Jews, to begin on the
15th of the month and finish on 11 July. 15 May to 11 June.

President:  What is the date of T/1160?

Attorney General:  9 May 1944.

President:  When did the evacuation start?

Attorney General:  The deportation began on 15 May and
finished on 11 June.

Justice Silberg:  Are you referring to the ghettoization?

Attorney General:  The deportations to Auschwitz began on 15
May.

Justice Silberg:  Only three weeks were set aside for that?
Mr. Hausner, you said: from 15 May to 11 June.

Attorney General:  The operation which was planned for this
period was supposed to finish on 11 June. T/1161, top of the
second page, refers to the fact that on that morning the
local commanders of the German Security Police received an
instruction by telephone from the Commander in Budapest to
the effect that in areas where the Jews were being rounded
up, Jews should not be conscripted for labour duty.

In T/1162, at the end, Officer Ferenczy states that Germans
must run the selections now, that they are experts in this
field. In the same document there is a reference to a German
attached to the Gendarmerie, the Gestapo officer called
Zoldi.

In T/1163 in the third paragraph it says: The German
Security Police, led by German officers, will take over
operations in the camps in Hungary and the technical
implementation of the loading operations in the future. The
outside guard details will be provided by the Hungarian
executive branch under its own command. In Paragraph 6 it
says: "It is the wish of the German Security Police, for
tactical reasons, that meetings in the Ministry of the
Interior should take place only a few days before the
commencement of the cleansing operation in a particular
region, and only a very limited circle should participate."
This was in order to avoid leaks. In paragraph 8 it says:
"On 25 June the German Security Police arrested these
members of the labour service in Ungvar, confiscated their
call-up orders and delivered them to Obersturmbannfuehrer
Adolf Eichmann."

In T/1164, second paragraph, commanders of the camps are
already appearing who are officers of the German Security
Police.

In T/1165 in the third paragraph it says that Dr. Bela
Berend, a member of the Jewish Council in Budapest, had been
arrested. The Gendarmerie officer reports: I brought him
together with others for interrogation to Munkacs. After
interrogation, I handed him over to SS Obersturmbannfuehrer
Eichmann.

The Appellant's claim that his duties in Hungary were
limited to ensuring that foreign Jews would not by some
mischance be included in the transports is utterly
unfounded. It takes an enormous amount of effrontery to
claim that this was the only part he played in this
murderous operation. Incidentally, we know from
Veesenmayer's telegram to the Foreign Ministry, T/1188, that
this role, of ensuring that Jews with foreign nationality
would not be loaded on to the trains and would not be
included in the transports was given to a special person
from the Embassy who was included in the Eichmann
Sonderkommando. This is Veesenmayer's telegram to the
Foreign Ministry.

When Von Thadden visited Budapest, he received the
information he required about Jewish affairs from Eichmann
and his Section, and not from Winkelmann and Geschke. We
learn this from his memorandum, T/1194. He writes about the
talks he had with Eichmann, who gave him a general report at
noon when he was the guest of Eichmann and his colleagues.

After the success of the first organizational operations,
the May deportations began at a dizzying pace. Eichmann
admitted that during the period of deportations in Hungary,
he visited Auschwitz. From one of the Holocaust witnesses,
Ben-Zvi (Session 71, Vol. III, p. 1301) we know that at that
time the crematoria were working night and day in order to
be able to swallow all the victims.

In the meanwhile, Eichmann's contacts with Endre and Baky
became ever closer, as Veesenmayer indicated approvingly in
a telegram he sent to the Foreign Ministry (T/1193, T/1193).
He says  this was what made it possible to carry out the
operations of rounding up and deporting the Jews.

All the evidence in the Prosecution documents, all the
witnesses, prove incisively and unequivocally that Eichmann
was responsible for all the stages in the deportation of
Hungarian Jewry, because he was eager to annihilate the Jews
of that country to the very last person, and that it was
only the military developments and Horthy's withdrawal which
frustrated his plan, at least in part.

In the written submissions of the Appeal the Appellant
argued - and this was not repeated in the oral pleadings -
that he did not have responsibility for the deportation
arrangements. Apparently he was referring to Grell's letter
from the Embassy in Budapest to the Foreign Ministry in
Berlin, T/1125. This was a result of a hitch which occurred
during the deportations.

President:  To which document are you referring, Mr.
Hausner?

Attorney General:  I am talking about T/1125, Grell's letter
to the Foreign Ministry, in which he says that in the wake
of a particular incident which occurred, Eichmann is not
responsible for the deportation arrangement. But that this
is not true we know from Veesenmayer's telegram to the
Foreign Ministry, T/1124, and Guenther's letter to the
Foreign Ministry T/1126.

President:  What is said in these two documents?

Attorney General:  That he was also responsible for these
arrangements and apparently by this time Eichmann was able,
simply by arguing on the basis of an absence of formal
responsibility, to evade responsibility for measures which
fell under his control.

From the Kasztner Report and from Wisliceny's comments about
this Report, T/1116, we know about the unrelenting struggle
against halting the deportations.

President:  Is T/1116 from Wisliceny?

Attorney General:  These are Wisliceny's comments on the
Kasztner Report.

Justice Agranat:  What do we know about it?

Attorney General:  That he fought against halting the
deportations. Yesterday I read out to the Court the
translation of T/1215, which refers to the 8,700 families.
T/1216 is a document which the President mentioned when
Counsel for the Defence claimed that Eichmann wrote to
Guenther about the energy needed for the Germans to counter
emigration.

But the important document is T/1217. In the second
paragraph it proves that Eichmann not only said in Budapest
that he would protest against Hitler's instruction to let
8,700 families go, but that he actually did protest.

President:  What is document T/1217?

Attorney General:  T/1217 is a telegram from Veesenmayer to
the Foreign Ministry. In the second paragraph it says that
the Reichsfuehrer-SS, as reported, protested on the basis of
information provided by Eichmann against the sending of Jews
to Palestine through Romania. In the first paragraph of this
document, it refers to the fact that as a result of
personnel changes in the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior,
Eichmann saw the new Minister of the Interior and decided to
begin evacuating Budapest Jewry on 25 August. Thus the
argument was about bringing the date of the evacuation
forward, because Eichmann, as it says here, wanted to start
the evacuation on the 20th.

President:  What is the date of T/1217?

Attorney General:  It is dated 14 August 1944. After he
failed in his machinations to get the Jews of Budapest
deported, he announced that he saw himself as being
superfluous in Hungary and proposed removing his Unit from
there. Veesenmayer wired his Foreign Ministry about this on
24 August 1944. And so yesterday, in reply to a question
from Justice Silberg, I said that the suggestion to evacuate
the Special Operations Unit was made in August. And this is
document T/1219.

Justice Agranat:  This was simply a proposal.

Attorney General:  But in fact the Special Operations Unit
was disbanded later (T/1215).

President:  What is the date of exhibit N/89?

Attorney General:  24 October 1944.

President:  On 24 October Eichmann was not in Budapest. In
his argument. Dr. Servatius based himself on T/89 and says
that Reich Plenipotentiary Veesenmayer makes the following
announcement there: "Upon the urgent and repeated request of
SA      Obergruppenfuehrer Winkelmann, I have asked Szalasi
to lend us for at least half a year, at least 25,000 Jewish
forced labourers - Winkelmann's request, in fact, was for
50,000 Jewish forced labourers, but the Hungarian
authorities objected." And this was on 24 October 1944.

Attorney General:  Yes. Following the political upheaval,
Eichmann turned up in Budapest again.

President:  Was Eichmann in Budapest on 24 October?

Attorney General:  Yes, he had returned.

President:  When did he return?

Attorney General:  In the middle of October.

President:  The learned Counsel for the Defence based
himself on this document in order to show that this was not
only a matter for Eichmann, but for Winkelmann too, that
Winkelmann was not satisfied with 25,000, but asked for
50,000.

Attorney General:  When Eichmann returned, he called
Kasztner to see him and told him: You see, I am here again.
But now there are no more trains, now people will go on foot
(T/1113 page 109).

Counsel for the Defence referred to T/89, dated 24 October
1944. But on 18 October 1944 - in other words, six days
earlier - Veesenmayer reported to his Foreign Ministry
(T/1234) that with the change in the political situation,
the Jewish Question had also entered a new phase.
Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann was conducting negotiations to
receive 50,000 Jews. And on the same day, in a further
telegram, Veesenmayer reports...

Justice Agranat:  Was this also a telegram from Veesenmayer?

Attorney General:  Yes. Another telegram dated 18 October,
T/1235, following on the former one. He says that during the
negotiations between Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann and the
new Hungarian Foreign Minister, it was agreed that 50,000
Jews would be obtained for transfer to the Reich. And in
paragraph 5 it says that Eichmann is planning - as stated in
the utmost secrecy - that after he gets these 50,000, he
will get a further 50,000 Jews for transfer to the Reich.

In point of fact, there is no contradiction whatsoever
between the documents. And the affidavit by the Hungarian
Minister of the Interior in the Szalasi Government, Vajna
Gabor, will prove this.

President:  Which affidavit is this?

Attorney General:  This is an affidavit which Vajna Gabor,
the Minister of the Interior in the Szalasi Government, gave
to the American military authorities, T/1245. In paragraph 1
he says that Himmler informed him that in Hungary operations
would be carried out under Obergruppenfuehrer Winkelmann and
mainly Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichman. Paragraph 4:

     "That Kaltenbrunner demanded the immediate handing over
     of the Jews and said that both Winkelmann, and
     especially Eichmann, were authorized to carry out this
     operation. Then on one occasion Eichmann accompanied
     Winkelmann to the Ministry of the Interior, and not
     only was he outstandingly zealous, but also
     outstandingly insolent, because he claimed that German
     power, and in particular Kaltenbrunner's power, were
     behind him. In Budapest Eichmann wanted to remove the
     children, the women and the men. I objected to this.
     And finally he said: If that is the case - the Germans
     will take it upon themselves to deport the Jews."

Naturally Vajna Gabor had no reason to single out Eichmann
as being specially responsible compared with other Nazi
commanders.

From General Juettner's testimony as given in this trial we
know that he was sent to Eichmann's office when he wanted to
protest about the foot march. And in Krumey's evidence in
this trial it says that when he approached Eichmann about
the march, Eichmann told him: "You saw nothing." Becher
also, when examined in Nuremberg, T/689, says that the
operation was carried out by Eichmann and that this was
plain murder. There are several items of testimony, I am
referring to the evidence of 10 July 1947, page 5.

President:  Very well, we shall adjourn here.

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, I assume that the Attorney
General will complete his arguments tomorrow. May I apply
for my closing argument to be postponed until the day after
tomorrow, in order to allow me to read the record, because
it was difficult for me to follow everything in the
translation, and I would also like to consult with the
Accused.

President:  In other words, Thursday.

Dr. Servatius:  Yes, Your Honour.

President:  First of all let us check whether the Attorney
General will conclude tomorrow morning.

Attorney General:  Yes. I am prepared to conclude, if the
Court would agree to sit in the afternoon, I am prepared to
conclude in twenty minutes.

President:  No. In any case the learned Counsel for the
Defence has requested a day's break. Very well, that is
accepted. Tomorrow morning we shall hear the conclusion of
the Attorney General's arguments, and then we shall recess
until Thursday morning. On Thursday morning we shall hear
the final reply of the learned Counsel for the Defence. Is
that acceptable?

Dr. Servatius:  Thank you very much, Your Honour.



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