Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-04-05 Last-Modified: 1999/06/15 Justice Sussman: It says here: "betreffend Evakuierung von Juden aus Rumaenien" (concerning evacuation of Jews from Romania). But this is not T/1021. Attorney General: The same day that Eichmann wrote T/1021, he ensured that a letter would be written to Himmler, which is referred to in T/1023, and this reveals his deception. Justice Sussman: Is there proof that the Appellant drafted the contents of T/1023? Attorney General: I read this out to Your Honours. President: This was for T/1021. Justice Sussman: In any case, 1021 is signed by Mueller, that is his Department. But what about T/1023? Attorney General: I believe that in T/37, page 1737, he speaks about both documents. If that is not the case, I shall find the reference in a moment. On page 2222 he mentions that the letter which is quoted in T/1023 was drafted by himself. Justice Sussman: But we do not have the letter itself. Attorney General: It is referred to in T/1023. This chapter comes out very clearly from my examination of Eichmann in the District Court in Session 97, Vol, IV, page 1685. I ask him: "That means, then, that at one point you write to the Foreign Ministry that only able-bodied Jews are to be deported, and to the Reichsfuehrer you write that non- able-bodied Jews are also to be deported. Is that correct?" "A. I had to deal with this as I was instructed by orders. I do not want in any way to dispute this business, but I cannot give the details." Justice Silberg: Have you finished this point, Mr. Hausner? Attorney General: Not yet, Your Honour. Apparently the Foreign Ministry reprimanded Killinger for his weakness, and then Killinger wrote exhibit T/1029 in which he indicates his anger at Eichmann's interference in his affairs and claims that of course it is he, Killinger, who despatched Richter to act in this affair. Killinger speaks here of the methods of the gentlemen from the SS, with which he is only too well acquainted. But what actually happened we know from the Sassen Document and from my examination of Eichmann in Session 102, Vol. IV, page 1760. I read out to him the following passage which he said to Sassen: "Richter came to Berlin several times and complained that he had been muzzled by Killinger, which was why he had come in person, as he could not report it in writing. This happened half a dozen times, as I recommended to Richter - or gave him my opinion - that whenever he was unable to see clearly how to cope with his matters, if it involved opinions of principle, to get on a plane or a train and to come to me and report to me. From what I knew of Richter, he combined business with pleasure, and that is why it was half a dozen times. Apparently Killinger in Bucharest was a gentleman who wished to command in a very authoritarian fashion, who got along very well with everyone, including Richter, as long as he knew that Richter was tied to one of the traces of his carriage. People there had all the freedom which they were entitled to on grounds of their official positions. "But if Ambassador Killinger complained about me, I must counter this by saying that in Bucharest, far from home, Ambassador Killinger did not know how the cards were shuffled and played there. He could not know that at least once a week, the responsible Legation Counsellor of the Foreign Ministry turned up in my antechamber and asked to see me. For several years that was Rademacher, and after that von Thadden. If Ambassador von Thadden now says that he, like a good soul, sent all letters via the Foreign Ministry to the Security Police and the Security Service - but the other way round there were complaints - then he is doing the Security Police and the Security Service a grave injustice, which because of his general stupidity might be forgiven him. He could not know that Department IV initially had a far closer connection with the Foreign Ministry than chasing written notes back and forth. And he could not have any idea that the competent officials-in-charge of the Security Police and the Security Service - the Foreign Ministry - sat down at the same table at least once a week with the man from the Security Police about whom he spoke so unkindly, and discussed the matter." "Q. You did say that, didn't you?" "A. Yes." After that there begins the discussion as to whether this is substantively correct, and now he tries to show some handwritten corrections. And at the end he says : "In general it is right." Justice Silberg: Now that you have completed this point, Mr. Hausner, I should like to ask you a question in a different context. If you would take T/1023, you will see that the date is 19 August 1942. Heydrich is already dead. Kaltenbrunner has not yet been appointed. Who now is the Chef of the Sicherheitspolizei and of the Sicherheitsdienst? This would appear to be Himmler himself, as the Court found. Now see what it says - it says here: "Der Bericht des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienstes," in other words Himmler is writing on 26 June to the Reichsfuehrer-SS, that is Himmler once again. Himmler is writing to Himmler? Attorney General: No. The Office of the Chief of the Security Police is sometimes Eichmann and sometimes Mueller and sometimes someone else who signs below the heading "Chef der Sicherheitspolizei." All the letters which Eichmann issued went under this heading. Justice Silberg: It specifically says here, "des Chefs," and it does not say on behalf of or "i.A." Attorney General: It cannot be assumed from this that there was official correspondence which bore this heading, nor we cannot say who signed and in what form. But Eichmann testifies that he dictated this letter that somebody signed. In any case, this does add anything in favour of the Accused. The argument that, allegedly, Eichmann was passive in respect of the Operations Units is also contradicted by all the exhibits in the evidence submitted. From Blume's affidavit (T/306)... President: Where was the affidavit given? Attorney General: At Ohlendorf's trial in Nuremberg, Your Honour. We know what happened at the briefing of Operations Units Commanders at the Prince Albert Palais in Berlin, a meeting in which Eichmann took part, as he himself admits, where an instruction was given to exterminate Jewry in the East. This was just before Operation Barbarossa, before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. This was a briefing session for Operations Units Commanders. Apparently the date was June 1941. There were several meetings, and Blume refers to one of these, and Eichmann speaks about it in his Statement. Blume says: " The Commandos met in May-June 1941 when the Operations Units were being set up. At that time we were already informed about the tasks of exterminating the Jews. It was explained that East European Jewry provided the intellectual reservoir for Bolshevism, and accordingly, in the opinion of the Fuehrer, it had to be destroyed." This address was delivered to a small circle. Heydrich subsequently made the same points in a speech at the Prince Albert Palais in Berlin, and the Accused admitted that he was present at a meeting where the Commanders were briefed. He says that he remembers that they based themselves on some order, but he cannot remember what it was. Justice Agranat: Where was this testimony submitted? Attorney General: At Ohlendorf's trial in Nuremberg. His Section sent out instructions to the High Command of the Police, including the Commanders of the Operations Units, concerning anti-Jewish measures. T/271. President: Which Office was Blume in? Attorney General: Blume belonged to the Einsatzkommando. President: What is T/271? Attorney General: T/271 is an instruction from Section IVB4 about dealing with Jews who were foreign nationals, mixed marriages and others, which went to all the police units, including the Einsatzgruppen. And in his police interrogation Eichmann admitted that this instruction was drafted by his assistants Guenther or Suhr. T/37 page 1432. Justice Agranat: Was this instruction drafted by his staff? Attorney General: Yes, and it bears the reference IVB4. President: What were the instructions? Attorney General: That is not of particular importance to me at the moment, Your Honour, rather what is important to me is to show to whom the instructions went. Counsel for the Defence talks about that part of the activities of the Operations Units which was illegal and which was not known to the Accused. He knew about their activities right from the start, and he admitted as much, and this is found in the Judgment, and what were these? Justice Musmanno defined them: "a slaughter_house on wheels. All of their actions right from the outset were the bloodshed of innocent victims." [Recess] Attorney General: I shall now discuss Eichmann's control over the concentration and death camps. Counsel for the Defence claims that only the Economic-Administrative Head Office had control over these camps, and not Eichmann. Let me state at the outset that no one from the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps participated in the Wannsee Conference, because they only served as the instrument. In T/1357, page 24, Hoess testified that the machinery was operated by the Security Police Unit. In Hoess' testimony at his trial, T/1356 page 5, it says that when Himmler's orders were issued that it was forbidden to exterminate any more Jews, he went to Berlin to check what had happened. It says: "I was sent by Pohl to the Head Office for Reich Security, to Mueller. Mueller was unable to give me any information and sent me to Eichmann, who was conducting negotiations in Switzerland and in Turkey, together with somebody called Becher. For this reason they sent me to Budapest in order to check whether the extermination of the Jews had been temporarily halted, or whether it would continue later." In order to check on what brought about the ban on exterminating the Jews, Hoess is sent to Eichmann in Budapest. Justice Silberg: When was this? Attorney General: At the end of 1944, when there was an order from Himmler to stop. On page 19 of the same exhibit Hoess talks of transports which were despatched by Eichmann's Section. He is asked by the prosecutor: Were these orders from Berlin that they all have to be taken? And he answers: Eichmann personally supervised the transports and also set the date for the gassings. I would also like to mention T/1278. This is an instruction by Mueller to all Security Police and SD Units with a notification to the Economic-Administrative Head Office dated 30 May 1942, to the effect that the transfer of the concentration camps to the Economic-Administrative Head Office in no way infringes the authority of the Head Office for Reich Security in respect of the transports and releasing of detainees from the camp. I have referred to the directives which required Globocnik to report to Eichmann concerning the transports which Globocnik received at his camps in the Lublin area. This is T/737. Justice Silberg: During which period? Attorney General: March 1942. I move on now to T/1399. Justice Agranat: Is that the Duesseldorf File? President: You related that to T/737. Attorney General: T/737 contains directives concerning the dispatch of a transport of Jews to the Generalgouvernement. President: From whom do these directives come? Attorney General: From the Gestapo. From the Wuerzburg File and part of the Duesseldofr Documents. Justice Silberg: The Duesseldorf Documents relate to transports to Riga, and Riga is not in the Generalgouvernement. Attorney General: In the Duesseldorf File there are all the directives which related to transports from the Reich as a whole. Out of these, the Court based itself on the transports to Riga. T/1399 is an instruction to Duesseldorf signed by Eichmann, to which instructions are attached as to how the expulsion of the Jews to Generalgouvernement territory would be carried out. On page 7 the Court will find the instruction that the recipient of the transports, Globocnik, must report back to IVB4 that the transports had been received. Justice Silberg: On this point did the Court rely on Hoess, to the effect that Eichmann determined the date of the killing? The Court says in Paragraph 145: "It follows, therefore, that every trainload of `Transport Jews' reached the Auschwitz camp with its Jewish passengers condemned to death by a general decree." President: Here it based itself on the Appellant's powers concerning deportations to Terezin that exterminations were to take place six months later. In the Judgment there is a reference to the Paragraph which deals with the subject of Terezin. Attorney General: Precisely. President: What is the proof? Attorney General: There were various testimonies, both by Yehuda Bakon who was one of those deported to Terezien and related his experiences, when the instruction to exterminate them was postponed for a while in order for them to send postcards in the meanwhile to Terezien in which they would reassure the remaining inhabitants of the Ghetto that they were all right. Justice Silberg: I understood that the Court found, on the basis of various testimonies and documents, that the transports to Auschwitz included a transport which was conditionally destined for death subject to the proviso that the Camp Commander could postpone the implementation on Eichmann's order. If he did not receive such an order, that meant that a selection was to be carried out and the unfit were to be killed. Is that correct? Attorney General: Hoess says that Eichmann was involved with the gassings. President: Apart from Hoess, who else said anything about this? What is the witness's name? Attorney General: Yehuda Bakon. The Appellant ignores the abundance of proof of Eichmann's responsibility for Terezien - the setting up of the Ghetto, maintaining it and running it. All of this has already been detailed in the Judgment, and I shall not repeat it. I come now to the Wetzel document (T/308). In the Doctors' Trial Brack was questioned about these documents. President: Was Brack the name of the accused? Attorney General: The accused. He was sentenced to death and executed. This is in Vol. 1 of the Green Series, page 886. He was first questioned about the short document. President: What is the short document? In general there are four documents: there is a memorandum, the typescript of the memorandum, a draft and a letter. Attorney General: His argument is that the first two are separate, the draft and the typed draft. And I am speaking of the short document.
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