Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-05-01
Last-Modified: 1999/06/15

Session  No. 5
22 Adar Bet 5722 (28 March 1962)

President:  Please proceed, Mr. Hausner.

Attorney General:  With the Court's permission, I am in the
middle of the chapter concerning the Budapest foot march.
Yesterday I referred to Krumey's testimony concerning the
march.

President:  We interrupted you in the middle, when you were
referring to the testimony of 10 July 1947.

Attorney General:  Becher's testimony (T/689), in which
Becher says that the march was organized by Eichmann and
that it was plain murder.

In Kasztner's report (T/1113 page 126), there is a reference
to the fact that at the time of the march Juettner, Krumey
and Hoess happened to be in Budapest, and that they saw the
bodies lying by the roadside, and spoke about this with
Becher, and Hoess was horrified at what he saw.

I examined Eichmann about what he was reported to have
stated  in the Sassen Document concerning that atrocity
(Session 104, Vol. IV, p. 1785). And this is what Eichmann
says:

     "When during my deportation - that is to say, the
     transports carried out by me - of the Jews from Hungary
     transferred to me by the Hungarian executive...the
     Allied air force bombed the Gyoer Railway Station to
     pieces, one of the railway junctions in addition to the
     many other stations on the Budapest-Vienna line which
     they bombed to smithereens, so that for weeks it was
     impossible to run any transports whatsoever over this
     route, at that point, in order, so to speak, to show my
     iron fist to the Allies and also to tell them at the
     same time, it is not going to change anything even if
     you destroy the lines of communication to the Reich and
     bomb them to pieces, we will still march."

Here Eichmann stopped reading his testimony and said: "Now
there is a correction, which I am unable to read." And I
helped him (as it says in the record), he read the words:
"And perhaps also Budapest, on the urging of Secretary of
State Endre."

I asked him:

     "You did propose this, correct, you admit that much."
     
     A.  "Yes."

And on pages 1787-1787 of the same Session there are other
passages from the Sassen Document:

     "What I can tell you about this is that I know very
     precisely that at that time there was crossfire from
     left, right and centre. I know this, but I forget today
     from whom...neither does it...me, I don't know, it is
     nonsense...it is also possible...I do not remember,
     there was crossfire from many offices, from so many
     offices, that I just do not remember. You might just as
     well include Juettner, too. It really does not matter
     any more, there were so many offices... Dr. Endre
     congratulated me on the elegant execution. With Endre,
     I must say, I celebrated it with a drink, and it was
     brandy made of mares' milk, that was the first time I
     had drunk it..."

I asked him whether it was true that he was congratulated
and they drank in celebration. He replied: "No, that is not
true, that is a literary embellishment of this entire
matter."

I should point out that the passage in question from the
Sassen Document, which is before the Court, contains a large
number of corrections in Eichmann's handwriting.

In the Kasztner Report we can see the desperate efforts made
to keep at least the children and the old men off the death
transport. Hansi Brand also told us about the useless
approach to Eichmann. The harrowing descriptions of the foot
march were given by Aviva Fleischmann in Session 61, Vol.
III, pages 1107-1111.

A young Swedish diplomat, a Righteous Gentile, whose name
shines like a beacon in the dark for the Jewish People,
Raoul Wallenberg, tried to get as many people out of the
foot march as possible by providing them with foreign
passports, giving them diplomatic immunity and so on.
Eichmann was furious about this, so much so that he
threatened to kill him, "I shall shoot dead that individual
Wallenberg, that `dog of the Jews'" (T/1243). This is a
notification sent to the Foreign Ministry in Budapest of a
complaint presented by the Swedish Embassy in Budapest about
these threats by Eichmann.

President:  By whom?

Justice Sussman  By Erdmannsdorf.

Attorney General:  Yes, that is correct. Thank you.

President:  Who is Erdmannsdorf?

Attorney General:  From the Foreign Ministry in Berlin the
notification went to the Embassy in Budapest. This is a
telegram from the Foreign Ministry in Berlin.

Justice Agranat  There is a reference to a complaint by the
Swedish Embassy.

Attorney General:  In the telegram it indicates that the
Swedish Ambassador, apparently in Berlin, had submitted a
complaint about Eichmann's threat that he intended to kill
that "dog of the Jews Wallenberg." At the end the Foreign
Ministry reports that he told the Swedish Ambassador that no
one could have taken these words seriously (sicher nicht
ernst gemeint sein  ).

Justice Silberg:  Who is the Chief of the SS Commando? It
says here "Chef des SS-Kommandos fuer die Loesung der
Judenfragen in Budapest" (Chief of the SS Commando for the
Solution of the Jewish Question in Budapest).

Attorney General:  This could be the Hoeherer SS- und
Polizeifuehrer. This is what Eichmann had to say about men
like Wallenberg or Consul Lutz who took action at the time
to save the Jews.

President:  But in T/1243 it says that the complaint was
that it was Eichmann who made these threats.

Attorney General:  Yes, of course it says here that this was
done through Eichmann's intermediary. There is a reference
to the fact that it was Eichmann who threatened Wallenberg.

Justice Silberg:  Is there any reply to this?

Attorney General:  Yes, T/1244 is Veesenmayer's reply, and
he explains the difficulties which Wallenberg was creating
for the Germans' operation in Budapest. As far as the
incident itself is concerned, he says at the end of the
telegram that a final account can only be given after
consulting Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann, who is currently
away, and therefore no definitive check can be carried out:
"Eine endgueltige Sachdarstellung kann jedoch erst nach
Befragen des Obersturmbannfuehrers Eichmann, der sich zur
Zeit unterwegs befindet, gegeben werden. Sobald dies
moeglich ist folgt weiterer Bericht. Veesenmayer."

Justice Agranat  Is that the reply to the telegram?

Attorney General:  That is Veesenmayer's reply to T/1243.

I should like to add a comment about the use of gas, to
which I referred briefly yesterday.

President:  Was he questioned about this?

Attorney General:  No, not as far as I am aware, Your
Honour, I did not consider it appropriate to question him.
For me the documents were sufficient, they speak for
themselves. Counsel for the Defence did not attempt to
explain them.

Justice Agranat  Is there no document other than this one?

Attorney General:  We are not aware of any other, we do not
have another one.

In Session 99, Volume IV, page 1710, the following question
and answer exchange with Eichmann took place about gas.

     "At that time there was a great deal of talk about
     these things in the Head Office for Reich Security.
     
     "Q.  Between whom?
     
     "A.  ...at meetings between Section Heads and so on,
     there was talk of this.
     
     "Q.  About gas, about exterminating Jews by means of
     gas?
     
     "A.  Someone must have spoken one way or the other
     about it, because otherwise I would not have known
     about it.
     
     "Q.  Precisely. In 1941.
     
     "A.  I do not know the year. I cannot say. But I must
     say that this was no secret. Because I did in fact hear
     about it right from my first visit. But this was not
     gas. I was told at the time that it was done with
     exhaust gases. Of course, in principle it is the same
     thing, is it not?"
     
Justice Silberg:  His first visit to Poland?

Attorney General:  Yes, to Poland to Globocnik.

Justice Silberg:  Is it known when they began to use Zyklon
`B' in Auschwitz?

Attorney General:  This can be determined from Hoess' diary.

Justice Silberg:  Or from Gerstein's Report?

Attorney General:  I am not sure that Gerstein was there
right from the beginning. That was in 1942, but the Court
will be able to obtain this information from the diary of
Hoess, who was the first to use this method of killing.

Justice Silberg:  Did they use this only in Auschwitz, or
was it used elsewhere sa well?

Attorney General:  As far as we know, only in Auschwitz. In
other places they used diesel exhaust gas, either a tank
engine or a submarine engine.

As far as the "Blood for Goods" deal was concerned, I really
do not have to give a lengthy answer because Counsel for the
Defence said, in the end, that the details neither add to
nor detract from the picture, but he wishes to clear his
client's good name, and I do not think that this Court is a
venue for clearing the Accused's name. Therefore, I will
briefly say the following...

President:  He cites Brand, too, in this connection.

Attorney General:  Once he admitted, Your Honour, that this
matter neither adds to nor detracts from his criminal
liability, it seems to me that this settles the outcome of
this application.

President:  There is more than that: the District Court did
not accept his new version given to the Court, but the Court
held that this was not his initiative.

Attorney General:  And the Court made this finding on the
basis of the clear-cut evidence before it, which I would
like to review briefly.

In Session 103, Volume IV, page 1777, Eichmann answered me:
"I said that it was for reasons of expediency. I did not say
that this was in some way a rescue operation. I said that I
did this for reasons of expediency." And when I questioned
him about the deal, as reflected in the Sassen Document, in
the same Session, page 1776, I read out to him what he said
to Sassen, in the following words:

     "I never whole-heartedly related to any opponent
     whatsoever - if I had related whole-heartedly, I would
     rather have seen every single opponent of the Reich
     dead than alive, because the only good opponent of the
     Reich is a dead one. When I received an order, I
     certainly carried this order out."

I asked Eichmann whether that was correct, and then he went
into an explanation about a commander of the 22nd SS Cavalry
Division who needed field guns, they knew each other, and
had he had an order from the Reichsfuehrer to provide the
22nd and 8th Divisions with ten thousand trucks and then
"`the million Jews should go to the moon' as it says in the
Sassen Document. `I am convinced' - it says further - `if
necessary we would have exchanged, at a pinch, two million
for these ten thousand trucks. And then I would have
negotiated whatever could have been negotiated. And this is
another piece of evidence for the fact that the Jews were
not in fact incinerated - that they were in fact alive'."

"Q.  Did you say this?
"
A.  In this form - I do not know whether it was touched up."

And in T/37, pages 3248-3249 Eichmann specifically says that
he worked on this operation in accordance with an
instruction he had received, and the Court so found in
Paragraph 116 of the Judgment. There is therefore no need to
read any additional testimony on the subject.

I would direct the Court's attention to the overall and
cumulative weight of the evidence that we submitted. We
submitted documents from the actual period of the events, we
presented witnesses who testified separately, without having
had any opportunity to discuss matters with each other.
Hoess testified at Nuremberg, Wisliceny testified in
Bratislava. We know from Dr. Tibor Ferencz about what Endre
and Baky said in Budapest just before they were executed.
There was the evidence of Vajna Gabor - they all point in
one direction, in one direction only. This cannot be the
result of a conspiracy, of consultations between people who
decided to shift the guilt onto somebody. This clearly
indicates the main person responsible for this catastrophe.

In my reply to the arguments of Counsel for the Defence I
was able to present only a fraction of the large amount of
evidence submittted by us. Our reply to the written grounds
for the appeal, as well as the description of the documents
and the other important items of evidence, their
interconnections and evidentiary weight are to be found in
the written pleadings for the Prosection which were
submitted by my colleagues Bar-Or and Bach, and I would
respectfully request the Court to peruse them (they are in a
separate booklet, not in the legal material but in the final
pleadings). I would also request that the Court consider my
final arguments in the District Court, in Sessions 110 to
113 of the record of proceedings.

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