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Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-07-08
Last-Modified: 1999/06/15

                           II

1. Learned Counsel has asked us to admit further evidence on
appeal, and also to admit, as such, notes made by the
Appellant while in prison, after his conviction by the
District Court, and prior to the hearing of the appeal.

By virtue of Section 71 of the Criminal Procedure (Trial
Upon Information) Ordinance, this Court may allow further
evidence on appeal, but it is an established rule that the
Court will not exercise this power save in exceptional
cases.  So far as we are aware, this Court has not allowed
further evidence to be given except on two occasions: in
Cr.A. 24/52 (8 Pesakim 123) on the ground that the evidence
of a witness as recorded was unclear and ambiguous, and in
Cr.A. 49/55 (9 Piske Din 1937) with the consent of the
prosecution.

Already during the period of the Mandate, the Supreme Court
ruled that it would not admit further evidence on appeal
except where the evidence tendered was prima facie of such
importance that, if it had been before the Court of First
Instance, it would have had an influence upon the court in
favour of the applicant, and provided he was unable, despite
reasonable diligence, to adduce such evidence in the Court
of First Instance: Cr.A. 10/42 (11 C.L.R. 149).  See also
Cr.A. 73/39 (7 C.L.R.21).

2. The evidence now proposed does not comply with the above
two requirements.

Notes made by the Appellant after the event, that is after
the termination of the hearing in the District Court, are of
no evidentiary value.  We have, therefore, not called upon
the Attorney General to reply to Counsel's application for
leave to produce these notes.

3. By the evidence of Dr. Serafim, a lecturer at the
University of Goettingen in Germany, the Appellant sought to
prove that under the Nazi regime in which he served, he
could not have been relieved of the duties imposed upon him
by his superiors, even had he wished to do so.  But in the
District Court the Attorney General tendered an affidavit of
Serafim in evidence for the purpose of rebutting the
contention of Counsel for the Defence, and he offered to
bring him to this country to give evidence viva voce.  This
was opposed by Counsel for the Appellant on the ground that
Serafim was only a lecturer in the university, and had not
attained the rank of professor.  In view of the attitude of
the Defence in the Trial Court, we saw no reason to grant
the Appellant's application to hear the witness at this
stage.

4. The application to hear the witness Dr. Wetzel is related
to the findings in paragraph 167 of the Judgment of the
District Court.  Counsel for the Appellant contends that
this witness has only now returned to Germany from long
imprisonment abroad, and that he now resides in Hanover; it
was therefore impossible for the Defence to call him before
the Trial Court.

What does Dr. Servatius seek to prove by the evidence of
Wetzel?

Wetzel was, in 1941, a Specialist Officer in the Reich
Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories.  A sheaf of
documents (Exhibit T/308) was produced to the District
Court, including a handwritten memorandum, a typed copy of
such memorandum, and drafts of two letters prepared on the
same subject.  The subject matter of the said document is
the introduction of a method of killing by gas through
specially constructed death-vans.  The names of Wetzel and
Eichmann are not mentioned in the memorandum, but from the
draft copy and the drafts of the two letters it transpires
that a conversation concerning this subject took place
between three persons, viz. between Wetzel, a man by the
name of Brack, of Hitler's Chancellery, and the Appellant.
The documents were shown to the Appellant in the course of
his interrogation by the police, and he stated twice - an
interval of time having elapsed between one interrogation
and the other - that the documents describe the situation
"very accurately," and that "there is no doubt that Wetzel
came to me on this matter, ... and thereafter I informed
Wetzel of the attitude of the Chief of the Security Police
and the SD  Only thus is this reasonable."

These were the words of the Appellant on which the District
Court based its conclusion that in 1941 he conveyed the
consent of his office to the use of gas vans for the purpose
of extermination.

In what way can Wetzel's evidence help the Appellant, in
view of his statement to the police?

Counsel for the Appellant raises two points.  He says,
first, that the typed copy differs from the memorandum, in
that the memorandum (which is not clearly written) mentions
a conversation which Wetzel had with Brack or another person
(i.e., the Appellant), and not a conversation with Brack and
another, third, person, as stated in the typed copy.
Counsel further argues that the drafts of the said letters
remained drafts, and the letters were not dispatched.  But
the District Court did not find anything to the contrary.
It is irrelevant whether or not the letters were actually
dispatched by the Ministry where they were prepared.  The
essential fact is that the Appellant talked to Wetzel, and
in view of the Appellant's admission to the police, coupled
with the fact that the method of killing referred to in the
said exhibit was actually introduced - the Appellant cannot
benefit from any evidence that may now be given by Wetzel to
the effect that the letters were not dispatched.  Even if
they were not dispatched, the conversation referred to in
the letters took place, and at that conversation the
Appellant made his statement.  And even if Wetzel were now
to come forward and say in evidence that he did not speak to
the Appellant, his evidence would not detract from the
Appellant's admission that he had a meeting with Wetzel and
spoke to him.

We, therefore, have rejected this application as well.

5. The evidence of Shimoni and Tohar, and statements of the
Ministry of Justice in respect of the request of the
Government of Argentina to investigate the circumstances of
the occurrence, on which Counsel sought to base his
contention that the Court had no jurisdiction, are
irrelevant, in view of the conclusion arrived at by us on
the merits of the case.  The same applies to the evidence of
Dr. Hans Globke, whom Counsel asked the Court to hear as an
expert on the Nuremberg Laws enacted by the Reich
Government.

6. Finally, Counsel requested the Court to admit as evidence
a report by the witness Joel Brand, if such report would be
found in another of the Court's files (the Kasztner case),
or to call Joel Brand to give further evidence.  This
application refers to the transaction `Blood for Goods' in
Hungary, and was dealt with in paragraphs 116 and 117 of the
Judgment.

The Appellant contends that he promised Brand - who tried at
the time to mediate in a transaction for the saving of Jews
from Hungary - that he would immediately, and without any
consideration given in return, release 100,000 Jews as soon
as Brand obtained the consent in principle of the Jewish
representatives in Constantinople to supply trucks to the
Reich in exchange for the release of Jews.  This contention
was rejected by the District Court which held that the
Appellant adopted his version of willingness to release
Jews, in token of his friendly attitude towards them, only
after he had read the book of Joel Brand and taken advantage
of an error of Brand in his memoirs.  Counsel seeks to have
that finding disturbed by the production of further
evidence.

The line of defence pursued by the Appellant was that he did
nothing relating to the persecution of Jews except upon
orders of his superiors, and that he personally was not
competent to determine their fate.  It follows, therefore,
that if there existed at any time any willingness to release
100,000 Jews without consideration, contrary to the findings
of the District Court, it was the Appellant's superiors who
were willing to do so, and not the Appellant.  The Appellant
acted as he was ordered to act, and we are not here judging
his superiors.  But the Appellant's version was rejected,
also on its merits, in paragraph 116(b) of the Judgment of
the District Court, and there again the Court based itself
upon the Statement of the Appellant to the police.  It
should be added that the transaction concerning 100,000 Jews
did not directly constitute one of the particulars of the
Indictment, and the Court, therefore, pointed out that it
had no intention of going into details, but confined itself
to a number of observations which were in the nature of
obiter dicta.

For these reasons, we refused the application by the
Defence.

It is immaterial to the question with which we are concerned
whether or not the `promised' shootings were indeed carried
out; neither is it material to establish whether there was a
cause-and-effect relationship between the Appellant's
recommendation and the killing of those Jews.  Important to
us is the blatant fact that the Appellant's interest was not
restricted to the `transportation of the sentenced' only.

(c) March-April, 1943.  On 3.3.43 the Appellant writes to
the Foreign Ministry to say that:

"In accordance with reliable information, which must be kept
confidential, Jewish officials are conducting, through their
offices in Constantinople, promising negotiations with
Turkey as to the issue of Turkish transit visas to a group
of one thousand Jewish children, together with one hundred
accompanying staff, from Romania, to be transported to
Palestine, overland, via Bulgaria and Turkey, in co-
operation with the `Waggons Lits Company.'  You are
requested to thwart this emigration project, if possible"
(T/1048).

Similarly, Guenther (the Appellant's deputy) appeals on
2.4.43 to the Foreign Ministry and requests `anew' that that
office see to it that "no Jewish emigration overseas takes
place" (T/950).  That appeal came in the wake of a broadcast
report to the effect that the British Ambassador in
Washington stated to the Jewish Congress that "the
negotiations between Bulgaria and Great Britain in the
interest of the deportation of 4,000 adult Jews and 4,000
Jewish children have been successfully concluded."

The Appellant was overjoyed when he succeeded in stopping
the rescue of Jewish children, for that was the most
effective blow he could deal to the physical survival of the
nation, and against such emigration he fights everywhere
(e.g., France, T/439).

(d) September-October 1943.  The Appellant sees everything,
nothing is hidden from him, nor does any error escape his
prying eye.  He examines and re-examines, scrutinizes and re-
scrutinizes, with a pathological and pedantic
suspiciousness, all the figures laid before him by the
various authorities, and knows - or believes he knows -
thoroughly, the most minute detail on the most insignificant
internee in any of the camps, as may be seen from the
following cases:

(aa) On 23.9.43 the Appellant telegraphs to
Standartenfuehrer Dr. Knochen in Paris that he has received
secret information that in Switzerland attempts are being
made to obtain citizenship of a South American country for
the Jew Gollub, in order to enable him to go abroad.  This
Jew is at present in the Drancy camp. He (the Appellant)
passes this information on (to Knochen) and requests that
the matter be investigated and that the Jew Gollub be
arrested immediately and, if possible, to include him in the
evacuation transport to the East, to reception camp
Auschwitz" (T/496).

Noteworthy in this request are: the directions to send the
internee to Auschwitz, without waiting for the results of
the review, which he himself ostensibly ordered, and the
designation `reception camp' here given to the great camp of
destruction at Auschwitz.  After a lapse of five days, a
report is received from Drancy to the effect that "no such
person is known in the camp" (see note on T/496).  The
wickedness was therefore in vain.

(bb) A Jewish lawyer by the name of Rosenthal, an old man of
over 71, of Romanian nationality, had lived since 1943 in
occupied France.  The government of Romania, in gratitude to
this lawyer for his past good record, made representations
to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin not to evacuate Mr.
Rosenthal to any of the eastern camps.  The Foreign Ministry
refers to the competent evacuation Section IVB4 of the RSHA,
and one of the Appellant's assistants, Hauptsturmfuehrer
Woehrn, informs them by telephone that the Appellant had
ordered his Section in Paris not to carry out Mr.
Rosenthal's planned deportation until further notice.

The Appellant, however, is uneasy lest his order,
communicated by telephone, was not properly understood, and
lest the Foreign Ministry misconstrue it.  He hastens,
therefore, four days later, to dispel the bad impression by
explaining clearly in a letter the purely temporary tenor of
the order.  In that letter (T/491 of 11.9.43) he refers to
Woehrn's telephone communication, and then proceeds to say:

"Even if the Romanian Government grants the Jew Rosenthal a
special status by reason of his services for Romania, even
then it would be undesirable, from a police security point
of view, and because of the steps taken to de-judaize
(Entjudung) the European continent, that the Jew Rosenthal
continue to live in France...

"If, therefore, I gave an order to refrain, for the time
being, from the planned deportation of the Jew Rosenthal, in
the light of the reasons set out above, this is by no means
to be seen as an absolute and definitive decision."

Again, the sounding of a warning to the Foreign Ministry, to
say: Lest you forget that the supreme object is the de-
judaization of the whole of Europe, including those parts of
the European continent that have not yet had the benefit of
indoctrination by the Nazi doctrine.  Certainly there could
be no question here of the `transportation of the
sentenced.'

(cc) The Monagasian episode, in which we find the detecting
hand, the prying eye, of the Appellant behind the scenes and
over the heads of all other authorities.

In mid-September 1943, the Appellant's Section begins `to
take an interest' in the Jews living within the Principality
of Monaco. The Appellant, who was then in France, telephones
to the RSHA in Berlin to report that some 15,000 Jews have
escaped from Southern France to the hills of Monaco, and
that the government of Monaco agrees in principle to their
capture within Monaco territory by the Germans, should that
be requested by the Reich Government.

On 21.9.43 the RSHA forwards the message of the Appellant to
the Foreign Ministry, requesting that they consider the
possibility of an appeal to the Monaco Government, with a
view to the capture of the above-mentioned Jews.  The
Appellant's message is referred to in a minute (T/492) by
von Thadden, the Specialist on Jewish Affairs in the Foreign
Ministry, who adds there, in brackets, as though in passing,
the most interesting and instructive observation:

"It was impossible to establish in what way
Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann managed to come into contact
with the Government of Monaco, and whether the consulate
took part in this."

The Foreign Ministry therefore communicates with the German
consulate in Monte Carlo, which reports that, in its view,
there can be at most 1,000, not 15,000, Jews in Monaco, most
of whom have been residing there for many years.  The
competent unit of the Security Police in Nice also confirmed
that estimate.  Therefore - and for other reasons stated by
von Thadden - he holds that the appeal to the Government of
Monaco must be regarded as premature (T/494).

On 30.9.43, a conference is held on this subject between the
Appellant and von Thadden.  The Appellant says that the
figure (1,000) given by the consulate cannot possibly be
correct.  He had just arrived from a visit to Southern
France, and the information he received from the SD Chief of
Southern France was that in Monaco there were some ten
thousand to fifteen thousand Jews (T/493).  In view of the
`astounding difference' (verblueffende Differenz) between
the figure given by the RSHA and that given by the German
consulate in Monte Carlo, the Appellant contemplates (or is
requested by von Thadden) sending immediately an express
telegram to the competent SD unit, requesting it to review
the matter afresh (T/494, T/493).

In the end Guenther, the Appellant's deputy, reports on
22.10.43 to the Foreign Ministry: "it has meanwhile been
established that there are in the territory of Monaco not -
as was formerly believed - fifteen thousand Jews, but only
1,000-1,500 Jews," and he requests the Foreign Ministry to
see to it that "the government of Monaco makes these 1,000-
1,500 Jews available and ready for deportation" (T/495).

It was thus the estimate of the consulate, not that of the
Appellant, which was accepted; yet that loss was `offset' by
another `profit': No discrimination is made any longer
between refugees from Southern France and permanent
residents of Monaco proper.

The Appellant's long hand reaches as far as Sweden, and he
does not despise even the paltry figure of 64 Jews, for when
the Government of Sweden agrees, out of humanitarian
sentiments, to grant Swedish nationality to 64 Jews who were
citizens of Norway, to save them from Nazi enormities, he
(the Appellant) is the only one to foil the plan (T/593,
T/605).



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