Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Judgment/Judgment-043
Last-Modified: 1999/05/27

136. There is no doubt that, side by side with the special
orders sent from time to time to the Generalgouvernement
directly from Himmler, and perhaps also from Hitler's
Chancellery, there existed the authority of the RSHA, and
therefore also the authority of the Accused, concerning the
Generalgouvernement area.  This authority could be exercised
through the Commander of the Security Police and the SD
(BdS) in the Generalgouvernement and its subordinate local
police authorities.  Perhaps in practice a large measure of
freedom of action was left in the hands of the local police,
if only because of the large scale of the actions
perpetrated there against Jews.  But the Accused admits the
fact that such an authority was possessed by the RSHA, when
asked by the Superintendent Less if he had prepared orders
to the Security Police in Poland as well, based on
Heydrich's directives of 21 September 1939 (these are the
directives concerning the concentration of Jews in towns
etc., mentioned above):

     "If during the course of time there was any ambiguity,
     then of course the BdS was permitted to turn to the
     RSHA with a request for an explanation, a directive or
     a decision; and then the official in charge...gave the
     suitable information." (T/37, p. 3148)

Elsewhere, he explains that this authority was exercised
only in regard to "matters beyond the horizon of the
Generalgouvernement" (Session 99, Vol. IV, p. xxxx20), and
in his Statement to the police, he describes these matters,
with which he himself was authorized to deal, as of national
importance to the Reich (reichswichtig) (T/37, p. 3128) -
for instance the treatment of Jews of foreign nationality in
the area of the Generalgouvernement.

We have before us the Accused's letter dated 18 February
1942 (T/267), in which he informs the Foreign Ministry that
the inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto are to be immediately
separated from the rest of the population, and he therefore
proposes to treat Jews, nationals of neutral countries, in
the same say as Jewish ex-Polish nationals.  In a memorandum
to the German Foreign Ministry dated April 1942 (T/268), we
read that the Accused, as representative of the Head of the
Security Police and the SD, stated that in future foreign
nationals would be included in the measures taken by the
Security Police within the Warsaw Ghetto to ensure public
order, for instance, to halt epidemics (in other words, the
extermination of these Jews).  Here, it is to be remembered
that the large "actions" in the Warsaw Ghetto began in July
1942.  It transpires from a later document (T/270 dated
3.9.42) that the Foreign Ministry supported the attitude of
the Accused in this matter.  Here, therefore, the Accused
appears as a decision-maker on behalf of the RSHA in matters
concerning the Warsaw Ghetto, and he certainly had authority
to carry out his decisions.  This is proof of the fact that
he implemented the authority which was granted to him as a
result of the Wannsee Conference.

We also refer to document T/310, signed by Kaltenbrunner,
dated 5 March 1943, with the designation of the Accused's
Section.  This document is based on a draft prepared by the
Accused and his assistant Hunsche (T/271), and its contents
are once again instructions that the measures taken are to
be applied also against those Jews of foreign nationality of
certain countries who live in the Generalgouvernement area
and in occupied areas in the East.  The letter is also
addressed to the Commander of the Security Police and the SD
in the Generalgouvernement, and notice of it is given to the
Senior Commander of the SS and the Police, Krueger (see also
T/784, a letter dated 23 September 1943, on the same
subject, signed by Mueller and also bearing the reference
IVB4).

But the Accused's Section deals not only with general
instructions in the Generalgouvernement area, but also with
individual cases.  We have documents before us concerning a
number of cases in which Section IVB4 occupied itself with
cases of Jews of foreign nationality in the
Generalgouvernement area, in answer to questions referred to
the RSHA by the German Foreign Ministry.  For instance, the
Accused's Section orders the transfer of a Jew of foreign
nationality and his family from the Warsaw Ghetto to a
concentration camp (T/355).  The Section deals with a
request by the Argentine Embassy to prevent the transfer of
one of its nationals living in the Generalgouvernement area
to a concentration camp.  This last-mentioned case, of
Gershon Willner, is worthy of mention also for another
reason, for the cynical language used by the Accused when,
on 9 July 1942, he reports that this Jew died on 12 April
1942 of weakness of the heart muscle "in spite of large
quantities of tonics administered to him" (T/437).

The Argentine Embassy applied for the first time on 17 April
1942 (T/346).  On 4 June 1942, the Commander of the Security
Police in Cracow (KdS) sent word that they are about to
transfer Willner to Auschwitz.  It was proved by the
evidence of (Gershon Willner's brother-in-law) Aaron
Silbermann (Session 30, Vol. I,  p. 525), that Willner was a
man in good health who never had any heart trouble, and that
he died in Auschwitz.  Notification of his death was
received by his family on 25 June 1942.  A copy of a letter
from the representative of the Foreign Ministry attached to
the Governor General of Cracow was submitted to us (T/346).
From this letter it appears that Willner was still alive
early in June 1942.  It is clear that the Accused's report
about the date and cause of the death or Willner was false,
and that the man died an unnatural death.  The excuse given
by the Accused in his evidence (Session 81, Vol. IV, p.
xxxx5), that all he did was to pass on a message which he
received from Cracow, is not plausible, because undoubtedly
he knew the value of the tale about "administration of
tonics," to which he put his signature.

Exhibits T/356, T/357 testify to another case of a Jew of
foreign nationality, an inhabitant of the
Generalgouvernement area, who was sent with his family to a
concentration camp, according to information sent to the
Foreign Ministry by the Accused's Section.

We also have before us a letter (T/266) dated 17 September
1942, signed by Mueller, marked IVB4, wherein Mueller
informs the head of Himmler's personal staff that he has
ordered the issue of directives to the Commander of the
Security Police and the SD in Cracow that Jews employed by
the Beskides Oil Company are to be evacuated only to the
extent that replacements are available.  It appears that
these orders were given by the Accused's Section, and hence
this is further confirmation that this Section was
authorized to decide the fate of Jews in the
Generalgouvernement area whenever the necessity for such
special instructions arose.  Mueller's letter gives the
impression that it was written in the ordinary course of
business, and not as an isolated, unusual case.

137. Evidence was also submitted in connection with the
transport of Jews of the Generalgouvernement area by rail to
extermination camps. This included an exchange of letters
between Ganzenmueller, the State Secretary in the German
Ministry of Transport, and Wolff, the head of Himmler's
personal staff.  Ganzenmueller informs Wolff on 28 July 1942
about a timetable of trains from Warsaw to Treblinka (one
train per day, 5,000 Jews each) and from Przemysl to Belzec
(one train per week, each 5,000 Jews).  He adds that the
running of these trains was decided upon together with the
Commander of the Security Police in Cracow, and that
information was sent to Globocnik (T/251).  To this, Wolff
replies on 13 August 1942, expressing joy - also in the name
of Himmler - at the fact that a train leaves daily with
5,000 "of the Chosen People" to Treblinka, and requests the
assistance of Ganzenmueller in the matter also in future
(T/252).  As the Accused himself testifies (Session 100,
Vol. IV, p. xxxx17 and top of p. 18), this was after the
death of Heydrich, when Himmler himself was acting as Head
of the Security Police and the SD.  It is possible that on
this occasion Himmler acted in this capacity, and that
therefore this matter also passed through the RSHA channels.

On the other hand, we have before us the minutes of a
conference held in Berlin on 26 and 28 September 1942, about
the evacuation of 600,000 Jews within the
Generalgouvernement area, and 200,000 Romanian Jews to the
Generalgouvernement area (T/1284).  There is no list of
those who participated in the conference.  It concerns
urgent transports proposed by the Head of the Security
Police and the SD between Warsaw and Treblinka, and between
Lemberg and Belzec.  In his Statement to Superintendent
Less, the Accused says (T/37, p. 3545) that possibly Novak,
one of his own Section, took part in this conference, but
almost in the same breath he contends (pp. 3540, 3544) that
his Section never dealt with deportations within the
Generalgouvernement area, and in his evidence in Court he
reiterates this more strongly (Session 100, Vol. IV, p.
xxxx15 et seq.).  But we do not believe this denial, for in
our opinion the fact that the Head of the Security Police
and of the SD was concerned with the matter is decisive, and
therefore it is logical that someone from the Accused's
Section - which was the Section authorized to deal with
Jewish affairs - participated at this meeting on behalf of
the RSHA.  The Accused was right in assuming, as he did in
his Statement to Superintendent Less, that the suitable man
for this was Novak, the expert in matters of transport in
Section IVB4.  It is to be noted that negotiations on
general policy in this matter took place in Berlin, and not
in Cracow, which was the seat of the Eastern Railways
management, and that questions of transportation within the
Generalgouvernement area were discussed at one and the same
conference with matters of transport from Romania, which
were, without dispute, within the competence of the
Accused's Section.  The Commander of the Security Police in
Cracow, mentioned in letter T/251, is also a member of the
RSHA.  The allegation by the Accused, in his Statement to
Superintendent Less, that such matters of transport were
within the scope of Globocnik's authority, is unfounded.  In
T/25, we see that Globocnik only received notice of matters
which had been agreed upon by others, and naturally such
notice had to be given to him, as he was receiving the
transports of Jews in the extermination camps.

Novak himself, in his evidence for the Defence taken for his
trial in Vienna (p. 8) admits that he did negotiate with the
management of Eastern Railways, although he denies contact
with the authorities of the Generalgouvernement.

Ludwig Rajewski, who gave evidence at the trial of Hoess in
Poland, worked in the Registry Office in Auschwitz.  In his
evidence (T/1356), he said that Jews from the
Generalgouvernement area also arrived at Auschwitz and
mentions these transports together with transports from
Bialystok.  This is an important fact, since the Accused's
Section undoubtedly dealt with the Jews of Bialystok (see
supra, para. 134).  Here lies the proof that the Accused's
Section had a hand also in the deportation of Jews from the
Generalgouvernement area to Auschwitz.  From the evidence of
Mrs. Rivka Kuper (Session 26, Vol. I, pp. 431-433), we also
learn about the deportation of Jews from the
Generalgouvernement area (Cracow) to Auschwitz.

To conclude this chapter, we find that the Accused and his
Section were also authorized to deal with matters concerning
the Final Solution of the Jewish Question within the area of
the Generalgouvernement, and that according to the evidence
they were also active, in fact, in this matter from time to
time, although it would be true to say that the Accused's
main activity was not here but elsewhere, whilst in the
Generalgouvernement area there existed other channels of
command, wherein the Accused had no part.

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