Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Judgment/Judgment-012 Last-Modified: 1999/05/27 When the Accused was cross-examined about this report, he alleged that it had been written by Hagen, and therefore he was not responsible for its contents (Session 75, Vol. IV, p. xxxx97 et seq.). It is true that, according to the dictation initials, Hagen appears to have been the author of the report, but the Accused introduced corrections in his own handwriting, and there is no doubt that the report was written in the name of both of them and that the Accused identified himself with its contents. This is what he states to Superintendent Less: "We wrote a report about this (the journey), a very detailed report, yes. I had to give a thoroughly negative report, negative from a material point of view" (T/37, p. 93). "Certainly, ... I must take responsibility (for the report) - I have no option but to agree to this" (es bleibt mir nichts anderes uebrig). (Supra, p. 346.) 62. As stated above, during this period of his service in the Head Office of the SD, the Accused was engaged in pure intelligence work. His contacts with Jews were only for the purpose of this work. Thus, the witness Cohn remembers the presence of the Accused as an observer at a Zionist meeting in Berlin in 1937 (Session 15, Vol. I, p. 220-221), and the witness Dr. Franz Meyer, who was at the time acting chairman of the Zionist organization in Germany, tells us that the Accused sought detailed information from him about various Jewish organizations. Of the Accused's behaviour up to the end of 1937, Dr. Meyer says: "I thought that he was a quiet person, who behaved in an ordinary fashion...simply cold, correct." (Session 17, Vol. I, p. 266.) Interesting evidence of the Accused's attitude towards the solution of the Jewish Question at that time is to be found in document T/111, in which he noted down for himself some points for a memorandum which he had to prepare. It says there: "In at least another ten years there will be only about 60,000 Jews left in Germany, if the present trend continues. After the emigration of those without means will come the turn of the capitalists, who by then will lose their capital gradually as a result of economic measures, assisted by State Police measures" (Stapomassnahmen). In simple words: The Jews would all be compelled to emigrate, but the capitalists would emigrate only after they had been robbed of their capital by terrorist measures. The Accused's activities in the Central Offices for Emigration in Vienna, Prague and Berlin 63. After the annexation of Austria to the Reich in March 1938, the Accused was sent to Vienna to deal with the forced emigration of Austrian Jewry. It was his duty to administer the Central Office for the Emigration of Austrian Jews. His superior there was the Security Police and SD Commander, Stahlecker (later one of the Operations Units' commanders). At this point, the Accused ceased, in effect, to be engaged in intelligence work, although from the personnel point of view he always remained an SD man (T/37, 1544 et seq., Session 90, Vol. IV, p.xxxx14), and he began to deal with executive measures. This work gave the Accused an opportunity to carry out his theories in practice, at an increased pace. He began to display new qualities. He now began to reveal his organizational skill, by simplifying the bureaucratic procedures connected with the emigration of Jews from the country, through the device of assembling representatives of the various authorities concerned under one roof. As for his activities and his appearance before the Jews during that period, the Accused sought in his Statement before Superintendent Less and his evidence in Court, to describe them as an idyll of fair co-operation between him and the leaders of the Jewish Community, with both sides striving towards a common aim in a spirit of mutual understanding. He also takes credit for the release of these Jewish leaders after they had been arrested by the Gestapo, and the re-opening of the Jewish institutions which had been closed down by the Gestapo (T/37, p. 97 et seq.; Session 90, Vol. IV, p.xxxx8 et seq.). He does, however, admit that the general line was that of forced emigration, but asserts that he was not responsible for this line, which was determined from above. This is the claim made by the Accused. But witnesses and the documents speak otherwise and contradict his version. Dr. Meyer, whose testimony we have just mentioned, saw the Accused again during his Viennese period, when the leaders of German Jewry were summoned to Vienna in February 1939, in order to become acquainted there with the methods of operation of the Central Office for Emigration, with the view to copying them in Berlin. And this is how the witness describes that meeting (Session 17, Vol. I, p. 268): "... I immediately told my friends that I do not know whether I am meeting the same man. So terrible was the change ...in the whole approach...previously I thought that here was a minor official, what they call a `clerk_bureaucrat' who carries out duties, writes reports, and so on. Now, here was this man with the attitude of an autocrat controlling life and death; he received us impudently and crudely..." And this is the impression gained by the witness after seeing the arrangements at the Vienna Central Office for Emigration and speaking with the Jewish leaders there (Session 17, Vol. I, p. 269): "This is like an automatic factory, like a flour mill connected to some bakery. You put in at the one end a Jew who still has capital and has, let us say, a factory or a shop or an account in a bank, and he passes through the entire building from counter to counter, from office to office, and he comes out at the other end without any money, without any rights, with only a passport in which is written: "You must leave the country within a two weeks, if you fail to do so, you will go to a concentration camp!" Another German Jewish communal worker, Mr. Aaron Lindenstrauss, confirms this statement in a description of the same visit to Vienna (Session 15, Vol. I, p. 234): "...I still remember that these officials of the Jewish Community and the Palestine Office seemed to me like disciplined soldiers who stood to attention all the time and dared not utter a word..." Further confirmation of this is found in a letter written by the Accused, when he was still in the early stages of his work in Vienna, to his friend and colleague, Hagen (T/130): "At any rate, I keep these gentlemen here on the run, this you can believe me..." And again: "I have them completely in my hands, they dare not take a step without first consulting me. That is as it should be, because then much better control is possible." These were not just empty words, for in fact this is how the affairs of the Jewish institutions were administered, as evidenced by the memoranda prepared by Dr. Loewenherz, Chairman of the Jewish Community in Vienna, and the chief representative of Austrian Jewry in negotiations with the Accused (T/148, T/152, etc.). 64. The Jews of Austria lived in an atmosphere of terror ever since the entry of Hitler into Vienna. Mr. Fleischmann, one of the Jewish leaders in Vienna at the time, tells us how he was compelled by the SS to scrub the pavement (Session 17, Vol. I, p. 260). But the Accused did not content himself with the general feeling of fear for the advancement of his aim - to "purge" Vienna and the whole of Austria of Jews in the shortest possible time. He added threats of his own in order to increase the pressure on the leaders who came to him on behalf of the Jewish Community. It has not been proved to us that he took part in organizing the Crystal Night pogroms, on the eve of 10 November 1938, in Austria (behind which were the Gestapo and the SD), though the very same night information about the events was transmitted to him through service channels (T/138, T/140, N/34). But it is a fact that he exploited for his own purposes the panic which reigned amongst the Jews because of these events, in order to speed up the process of forced emigration. Mr. Fleischmann described the speech made by the Accused to the Jews who crowded into the Palestine Office in Vienna on the day following Crystal Night: "He (the Accused) spoke about the unsatisfactory rate of the disappearance of Jews from Vienna. He said that entirely different ways and measures would have to be used, and that he would see to that." (Session 17, Vol. I, p. 262.) And so we read in the general report describing the activities of Dr. Loewenherz about a conversation which took place in March 1939, when the Accused said to him, "that the number of applications for emigration had gone down considerably in the last few days, and if the number of applications did not go up within two days, he would propose the adoption of measures which could take on the same form for everyone as in November 1938" (T/154, p. 9; Session 90, Vol. IV, pp.xxxx15, 16; with regard to the authentication of the report, see Mr. Zidon's affidavit, T/37 (233)). A similar threat was uttered by the Accused to the representatives of German Jewry after their visit to Vienna, when it displeased him that, while there, they contacted the Jews of Vienna of their own accord." "If this happens again, you will go to the Konzertlager" (instead of Konzentrationslager - concentration camp). (Session 15, Vol. I, p. 228.) The Accused also takes credit for having organized the financial arrangements connected with Jewish emigration by means of the Central Office for Emigration. But the outcome of all these arrangements was that a Jew who was forced to emigrate to another country was allowed to take with him, in addition to his personal effects, only the sum of money which was needed to obtain the entry permit to the country to which he was immigrating (Vorzeigegeld). The rest of his property he had to make over to the German Reich (Session 9, Vol. I, p. 126). To enable those without means to emigrate, people of means were compelled to pay an extremely exaggerated rate of exchange for this sum of money, and this was transferred to the "Emigration Fund," set up at the Emigration Centre (T/37, p. 104; T/135). This fund was also supported by gifts in foreign exchange obtained by Austrian Jews from their brethren abroad, with the Accused's encouragement, in order to make mass emigration possible (T/152, para. 3). (Of course, the reference here is to emigration during the first stage, i.e., overseas). The communal property of the Jewish organizations in Austria was also concentrated in the hands of the state (T/147). The Accused's absolute control over the funds which were gathered in this way becomes apparent from Dr. Loewenherz' memoranda and from his final report (T/154). 65. It is true that the Accused set the Jewish organizations in Vienna functioning again after they had been closed down by the Gestapo immediately after the annexation of Austria to the Reich. But this was nothing else but the beginning of the system of "indirect rule" which the Accused developed so cleverly - a system which saved the German ruler manpower and turned the Jewish organizations against their will into an instrument in the hands of the ruler, for the realization of his sinister plans which increased in harshness from stage to stage. Through the pressure of the terror exercised against the Jews, the Accused succeeded in bringing about the emigration of a considerable part of Austrian Jewry (close to 150,000 persons - T/185, p. 4). At a meeting presided over by Goering immediately after the Crystal Night, Heydrich boasts of the activity of the Central Office for Emigration in Vienna which had succeeded until then in bringing about the emigration of 50,000 Austrian Jews (T/114, pp. 19-22). At the same meeting it was agreed to set up a similar office also in the area of the Old Reich. The practical result was an instruction from Goering to the Minister of the Interior, dated 24 January 1939, to set up the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration (T/125). The directives contained in this letter show that the experience gained in the Central Office for Emigration in Vienna under the Accused's direction was now used for the setting up of this central authority. Its administration was entrusted by Goering to Heydrich himself as head of the Security Police. Heydrich, in turn, put Mueller, the head of the Gestapo, in charge of the Central Office (T/116). The Accused argues that at that period he was not active in this central authority. But Mr. Cohn and Mr. Meyer gave evidence that already in March 1939 the Accused visited Berlin and told the Jewish representatives there, after their visit to Vienna, that in Berlin, too, a Central Office for Emigration would be set up along the lines of the Central Office in Vienna, and he demanded of them, in the harsh style which he had developed in the meantime, that they co-operate with this Central Office (Session 15, Vol. I, pp. 228-230; Session 17, Vol. I, p. 268). It appears, therefore, that the Accused, as the emigration expert, already began to deal, in fact, with matters belonging to the Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Berlin a short time after its establishment, though it is possible that in the spring of 1939 he had not yet been formally appointed to direct the affairs of this Centre. From the Chart N/2, which he himself drew up, it appears that he received the formal appointment at the beginning of October 1939 (see also T/43, p. 5). 66. In the meantime, Hitler established his domination over Bohemia and Moravia - first, in the autumn of 1938, over Sudetenland, and later, in March 1939, also over the interior of the country - and the Protectorate was set up there. Thus the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia also were caught in the trap. The Accused moved from Vienna to Prague, together with his superior, Stahlecker, and was given the task of setting up there also a Central Office for Emigration like the one in Vienna. We heard from Dr. Paul Meretz, who was then chairman of the Czech Zionist Organization, about the activity of this Central Office in the short period from its establishment to the outbreak of war. Here, too, great pressure was exercised upon the Jews to emigrate to other countries, legally or illegally. After paying taxes (the `flight' tax and the `Jewish' tax), the emigrant had also to pay the full value of the movable goods which he was allowed to take with him. He also had to hand over his apartment and was compelled to give a Power of Attorney to a bank in respect of the rest of his property, so that he left the country bare of all his property, with the exception of baggage weighing a few kilogrammes (Session 19, Vol. I, p. 294-295, and see also the evidence of Mrs. Walli Zimet, supra, p. 297). 67. After the outbreak of war, in the autumn of 1939, the Accused was recalled to Berlin. In the meantime he had risen to the rank of Hauptsturmfuehrer (Captain). To conclude our survey of this period, of the setting-up of the Central Offices for Emigration, we quote from personnel reports about the Accused - first from one of the reports contained in exhibit T/55 (3): "Special qualities and abilities: to conduct negotiations, to speak, to organize. "...An energetic and impulsive man, with great talents in the administration of his area of activity...a recognized expert in his field." And from another, later, report, signed by the head of the Personnel Department in the RSHA (contained in exhibit T/55 (12)), in which he proposes that the Accused be promoted: "on the basis of the exceptionally fine achievements of Eichmann, who had already distinguished himself by purging the Ostmark (Austria) of Jews, when he was in charge of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. Thanks to Eichmann's work, tremendous assets were secured for the German Reich. Similarly, Eichmann's work was excellent in the Protectorate, where he displayed striking initiative and the requisite stubbornness." If we translate these words of praise into ordinary language, we can agree, on the basis of the evidence before us, that the Accused played a major role in forcing the Jews to emigrate, especially from Austria and the Protectorate area, while robbing them of their private property and that of their institutions. These Jews, in tens of thousands, were thus saved a much more bitter fate, but the Attorney General is right in emphasizing that it was not in order to rescue them that the Accused carried out his work, but because at that time he, too, did not yet know what fate was in store for those who did not manage to escape in time. Thus the Accused returned to Berlin, crowned with success in the eyes of his superiors, and especially of his commander, Heydrich. It is not surprising, therefore, that from then on central responsibilities were placed upon him in regard to the battle against the opponent - Jewry.
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