The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts//Sessions/Session-075-04


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-075-04
Last-Modified: 1999/06/15

Attorney General: Now, to complete the picture of the
Krumhuebel Conference, I submit our document No. 168. It is
a document of the German Foreign Ministry dated 4 March
1944. I wish to direct the Court's attention to the second
passage which says that the conference will be held on 3rd
and 4th April, with an agenda worked out in co-operation
with the Head Office for Reich Security.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/1410.

Attorney General: Some documents about the activities of the
Einsatzgruppen.  Our document No. 1612 is a report of 12
November 1941.  I should like to direct your attention to
two passages: At the bottom of page 6 it says that the
Wehrmacht displayed full understanding for the security
operations of the Sonderkommando 4b. On page 7, in
connection with a document which we have already submitted
about the executions of the Jews of Kiev at Babi Yar in the
course of two days, we have an addendum here to which we
wish to draw the attention of the Court. In the fourth
paragraph (on page 7) it says that after the executions at
Zhitomir and Kiev, 137 trucks of clothing were delivered to
the National Socialist Welfare Association.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/1411.

Attorney General: I pass on to our document No. 1615. I
apologize in advance if some pages are not easy to read; the
original is legible. The document is important because it is
a report of 4 September 1942 in which the Court will find
hardly any reference to operations against Jews. The report
is a long one on all the activities in the occupied areas,
but as for Jews, the Court will only find that warfare
against partisans is mentioned several times and that Jews
were also caught. It is always stated that the Jews  co-
operate with the partisans. But for reasons which we shall
point out in our summing-up, the Einsatzgruppen do not
include Jews in their regular report in September 1942.
There is a reason for this which we have in my opinion
already proved in earlier documents.

I should like to draw attention, if I may, because of its
significance, to what is stated on page 4 about the fighting
methods of the Einsatzgruppen.  The loyalty of the
population to the occupying forces was once tested and the
Reich Security people dressed up as partisans, came to two
small towns and spoke before the general public. After
enthusiastic contact had been made they of course disclosed
their real identity. Whereupon eight persons - a woman who
had said she was ready to co-operate and seven Jews - were
handed over for Sonderbehandlung (special treatment).

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, I should
only like to point to the heading of the letter. It says
"Head of the Security Police and the Security Service
Command Headquarters" i.e., this is the authority which
issues these reports, which is apparently in command of this
operation. So that the Accused is altogether excluded from
this affair.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1412.

Attorney General: Our document No. 1611 is a file minute of
the KdS (Commander of the Security Police and the Security
Service) Minsk, Obersturmbannfuehrer Strauch: A conversation
with Gauleiter Kube. This is a report on an interesting
conversation in which Gauleiter Kube maintains that the
removal of Jews working in his enterprises is in his eyes a
deliberate chicanery and a personal affront directed against
him. This is his reaction to the fact that the KdS of Minsk
has executed 70 Jews, as mentioned in the first paragraph of
the minute.

The conversation then turns to the activities of the
Einsatzgruppen and the killings in general. The KdS says: "I
stressed that I could not understand why Germans should
quarrel because of a few Jews." To this Kube replied that
"such behaviour is unworthy of Germans, of the Germany of
Kant and Goethe." "I replied," concludes Strauch, "that it
was enough that we had to do this unsavoury work ("diese
ueble Arbeit") and that there was no need to throw dirt at
us in addition."

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1413.

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, here I
also shall only point to the letterhead. It says here: "The
Commander of the Security Police and the Security Service,
White Ruthenia" - who is subordinate to the Commander of the
Security Police and the Security Service, who is in turn
subordinate to the Senior Commander of the SS and the
Police, who is directly under Himmler. So that the Accused
is also excluded from this matter.

Presiding Judge: This was T/1413, this quarrel with Kube.
Regarding Kube we already had a quarrel before.

Attorney General: Yes, we did. In the end he was killed by a
woman partisan.

In our document No. 845, an order of the Minister for the
Eastern Occupied Territories  - that was Rosenberg - is
transmitted to all his subordinates as follows: "On account
of a particular incident, I herewith prohibit the active
participation of officials of the Administration, and in
particular of the East, in execution of any kind. The
implementation of executions, and in particular the
liquidation of Jews is the task of the Security Police and
the Security Service.

Presiding Judge: Who wrote this?

Attorney General: A person whose name we have not been able
to decipher.

Presiding Judge: But what office is this?

Attorney General: This is the office of the Minister for the
Eastern Occupied Territories, Rosenberg. He announces: My
staff will not deal with executions. Executions, and
especially the liquidation of Jews, are the task of the
Security Police and the Security Service.

Presiding Judge: Does "HA" mean "Hauptamt" (Main Office)?

Attorney General: Yes, "Hauptamt."

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1414.

Attorney General: Our document No. 544 is an internal office
memorandum about an arrangement between the German Foreign
Ministry and the Head of the Security Police and the
Security Service, dated July 1942, on the transmission of
official mail from the Police Attaches abroad to Germany. It
says that ordinary official mail should be sent in
accordance with a certain routine and then it prescribes how
so-called illegal mail (illegaler Schriftverkehr) shall be
handled. In paragraph 2 the meaning of "illegaler
Schriftverkehr" is explained: Mail of illegal documents
includes instructions from the Reichsfuehrer-SS and from the
Head of the Security Police and the Security Service. These
are to be transmitted in closed, green envelopes. On page 3
it states that most such mail has so far been sent by Mr.
Moyzisch from Ankara on matters connected with "Operation
Cicero." Other green letters have come from Madrid, Lisbon,
Stockholm and Lausanne. And then the author of the
memorandum, Steengracht, who succeeded Weizsaecker as State
Secretary, explains his guidelines regarding the
transmission of SS and Security Police letters, which in
this official memorandum are called "illegal documents."

Presiding Judge: That is to say, illegal documents as far as
the Foreign Ministry is concerned, which can be disowned in
case of need?

Attorney General: Yes.

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, this is
the privileged position of Bureau VII, the foreign
intelligence service of the SS. You will remember
Schellenberg and our witness Hoettl, who collaborated with
the Security Service and who had a good opportunity here to
get his mail through.

Presiding Judge: Are you saying, Sir, that this is signed by
Steengracht?

Attorney General: By Steengracht, who replaced Weizsaecker
in 1943.

Presiding Judge: No, he was one of his subordinates.

Attorney General: I think that he later became State
Secretary.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1415.

Attorney General: Our document No. 1560 is a communication
from Himmler, a few days after the Wannsee Conference, to
Gluecks, the Superintendent of concentration camps. The
document is dated 25 January 1942. He informs Gluecks that,
as Russian prisoners of war cannot be expected in the near
future, he will send 100,000 Jews and 50,000 Jewesses from
the Reich to the concentration camps. SS-Gruppenfuehrer Pohl
will provide him with detailed information.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1416.

Attorney General: Document No. 1175. This is an order from
the SS Economic-Administrative Head Office concerning the
management of Jewish property, or what remained of it on the
date of this order - 4 July 1944. In paragraph 1 it is said
that all Jewish property in the area of the Reich, the areas
of occupation, the Generalgouvernement, Bohemia and Moravia
must be handed over; for each area the address for
delivering the rights to Jewish property is given. Paragraph
3 deals with property and rights of deceased persons in
assembly camps (Sammellager) of the Security Service which
cannot be delivered to the addresses given for reasons of
secrecy; these must be handed over to the Head Office for
Reich Security.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1417.

Judge Raveh:   With regard to the previous document: it
seems that there is no mention of extermination there.

Attorney General: No, it mentions concentration camps.

Judge Raveh:   Because important economic tasks are
mentioned here.

Attorney General: Yes, this fits the Wannsee Conference
exactly. After all, we remember what was said there, that
Jews would be supplied in large columns for work in the
East. We can see how the implementation begins five days
later.

And the last document, our No. 115. It is an order by the
Security Police and the Security Service in the
Generalgouvernement, of 20 July 1944, that all prisons are
to be emptied with all possible speed and that the prisoners
are to be transferred to concentration camps as far as
possible. If transfer is not possible, the prisoners must be
killed on the spot in order to prevent their being
liberated. The bodies must be destroyed, if possible, for
example by burning or blowing up. On page 2 it says:
Prisoners or Jews must not be liberated by the enemy under
any circumstances, whether by the Red Army or by fighters of
the resistance movement (Widerstandsbewegung); they must not
be liberated or fall alive into the hands of the liberation
forces.

This completes the case for the Prosecution.

Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/1418.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hausner.

We shall now have an intermission of twenty minutes.

[Volume IV, p. 1371]

Presiding Judge: [To the interpreter] Tell the Accused to
stand up.

[The Accused rises.]

You may remove your earphones. The case for the Prosecution
has now been concluded, and the case for the Defence will
begin. Do you wish to make a statement in your defence?  If
you wish to do so, you may do so without being sworn or on
oath.

The Accused:  I wish to be sworn.

Presiding Judge: Should you make a statement on oath, the
Attorney General or his representative will be entitled to
cross-examine you.

Accused:  Yes, Your Honour.

Presiding Judge: You are also at liberty not to make a
statement at all and to remain silent. You have, therefore,
three possibilities: To make an unsworn statement, a
statement on oath or to remain silent. What do you choose?

Accused:  A statement on oath.

Attorney General: May I call the attention of the Court to
Section 5 of the Courts (Offences Punishable by Death) Law,
5721-1961 as to the place from which the Accused will give
his testimony after having elected to make a statement on
oath.

Presiding Judge:

Decision No. 84

By virtue of Section 5 of the Courts (Offences Punishable by
Death) Law, 5721-1961, I hereby order that, in order to
reinsure the personal security of the Accused, he will
testify from the accused's box.

[To the Accused] Put your right hand on the New Testament.

Accused:  I do not swear by the Bible. I swear by God, for I
am not bound by any confessional creed, but I do believe in
God.

Presiding Judge: We shall permit you to take the oath in the
form which you consider binding upon you. Therefore say: "I
swear by God that my evidence in this trial will be the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

Accused:  I swear by God that my evidence in this trial will
be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Presiding Judge: Now you will answer the questions put to
you by your Counsel.

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, may I be permitted to make some
short introductory remarks to show how the evidence will be
produced.

Presiding Judge: Please do.  The Accused may meanwhile be
seated.


Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.