The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-012-01


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-012-01
Last-Modified: 1999/10/10

Session No. 12

7 Iyar 5721 (24 April 1961)

Presiding Judge: I declare the twelfth Session of the trial
open. Meanwhile we have marked the documents referred to in
the Accused's statement,  and they have been given the
numbers T/37/1 to T/37/317.

Attorney General: Thank you very much. Mr. Less, you are
continuing your evidence under oath?

Witness Less: Yes.

Attorney General: Mr. Less,  apart from the material you
have presented to the Court so far, did the Accused give you
further material in writing?

A. Yes.

Q. What material?

A. His notes and sketches that he handed over in the course
of the interrogation. He had notes which he had prepared for
himself for purposes of the interrogation, statements
prepared in advance which he read into the tape-recorder,
and further, as I have already mentioned, notes he had made
at my request. I mentioned the list of decorations and the
technical aspect of [official] correspondence. In addition,
the Accused handed me his memoirs - 127 pages.

Q. He gave all this to you of his own free will?

A. Yes, definitely.

Q. Kindly submit the material to the Court. Witness submits
the material to the Court.

Presiding Judge: Are you submitting this as one package?

Attorney General: As one package. There are two series of
documents, Your Honour. There are the notes, separately, and
what we call the memoirs separately - we have  also
catalogued each of them as a separate entity.

Witness Less: I also prepared a report concerning these
twenty-four sets of notes I received, apart from the memoirs
and  other material I shall mention later. In it I have
pointed out on which pages of the statement reference is
made to them, and the dates I received them.

Presiding Judge: And what are the remaining pages  you have
in your hand?

Witness Less This is a printed version of the handwritten
notes.

Presiding Judge: Perhaps we ought to separate them?  There
is no connection between the two items which you have now
mentioned.

Witness Less: They are connected with each other.

Presiding Judge: Show me this document. Does this include
everything, including what you term the memoirs?

Witness Less: These are not the memoirs, but merely the
notes  he made apart from his memoirs. These are 24 sets of
notes for the purposes of the interrogation. Here, there are
various, items he recorded into the tape-recorder, items
which he read from a paper.

Presiding Judge: And what about the memoirs?

Attorney General: That is something separate. We shall
submit them shortly.

Presiding Judge: Is this marked according to the annotation
here?

Attorney General: Our serial number is 1491.

Presiding Judge: Yes, I see. I wish to see the individual
document each time. Let us take this document as an example.
It is marked 'A'. Is there any marking apart from 1491?

Witness Less: I signed each page for the purpose of
identification.

Presiding Judge: We shall mark this T/43. The 24 documents
are the Accused's notes. Correct?

Witness Less: Yes.

Attorney General: Mr. Less, in the preamble to  the
prosecution's document No.1491,  there are explanatory
notes. Are they signed by you and are the contents correct?

Witness Less: Yes.

Q. Apart from this, you spoke about memoirs, Mr. Less. What
are these memoirs?

A. These are the memoirs of the Accused which he wrote at
Camp Iyar - 127 pages of his handwriting.

Q. During what period did he write them?

A. In the month of June 1960. He gave them to me on 16 June.

Presiding Judge: Is this apart from his biography, as he
related it at the beginning of his statement?

Witness Less: Yes - perhaps as a supplement to it.

Attorney General: Did he give them to you of his own free
will?

Witness Less: Yes.

Q. Please submit them to the Court.

[Witness submits them to the Court.]

Presiding Judge: We shall mark this T/44 - the Accused's
memoirs. Perhaps you can give us two more copies.

Attorney General: We shall do so with all our catalogued
documents. They will be submitted to the Court in three
copies.

Presiding Judge: We mentioned this when documents were first
submitted, when Mr. Bach was examining Mr. Bar-Shalom. I
see, nevertheless, that you were correct. Perhaps this will
actually be more convenient.

Attorney General: Mr. Less: Apart from these, were these the
books you read out to the Accused and to which you requested
a response?

Witness Less: Yes.

Q. What books were these?

A. A Red Cross pamphlet published in June 1945 in Geneva.

Q. Do you have it in your possession?

A. No, it has already been submitted to the Court as one of
the exhibits.

Presiding Judge: Which exhibit?

Witness Less: Our number is 855.

Q. Is this amongst the 317 documents?

A. Yes, this was in the French language and the extract that
had been read was translated into German.

Q. What is your catalogue number?

A. 855. Apart from this I read to him from the book by Hoess
Commandant of Auschwitz, from the English edition, and these
extracts were translated into German.

Attorney General: Were they translated from English into
German by you?

Witness Less: Yes.

Presiding Judge: This is the number of the extract from the
Red Cross booklet: T/37/240. Are you submitting this?

Attorney General: Yes, this is the booklet from which Less
read to the Accused.

Witness Less: This was on reel 21, where the passage I read
from the booklet appears.

Presiding Judge: But I saw remarks of Hoess in the first
volume as well.

Witness Less: Apart from this, from the Blue Book of the
International Court as well.

Q. Was this his evidence there?

A. This was his evidence in Court.

Q. And here - this is one extract you read from that book.

Attorney General: This is an addition where Hoess describes
various personalities while he was in gaol. The Court will
find a supplement on Adolf Eichmann.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/45.

On what reel is the extract mentioned?

Witness Less: Reel 21 on pages 1026-1035.

Presiding Judge: Of T/37.

Attorney General: There was a complete article from the
periodical Der Stern, passages from which you read out to
him - is that it? Is this a photocopy thereof?

Witness Less: This is a photocopy thereof. I also have the
original.

Attorney General: Please submit this to the Court.

Presiding Judge: The periodical Der Stern will be marked
T/46.

Attorney General: Did you examine the Accused in connection
with the articles about him which appeared in the Magazine
Life?

Witness Less I gave the Accused a German translation of
Life.

Attorney General: Please submit to the Court the original
and the German translation which you produced to the
Accused.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/47.

Attorney General: What did you request from the Accused in
regard to the publication in the magazine Life?

Witness Less: I asked him whether he was ready, voluntarily,
to respond to that article.

Q. To respond?

A. To reply, to make his comments, and he replied: Yes. And
I told him to do so in writing.

Q. Did he do so in writing?

A. Yes.

Q. Kindly explain to the Court at what stages. What did he
give you in the beginning?

A. In the beginning, this was on  15 December 1960, he gave
me his comments on this article in 20 pages of his own
handwriting. Subsequently he handed over, not to me, but to
the Duty Officer from whom I obtained them, another three
supplementary comments on that article in Life.

Q. Three supplements. And thereafter there are markings on
the translation. Is that correct?

A. Yes. He also explains the markings on the German
translation.

Q. He explains the meaning of the various markings  he made
in his own handwriting in the version translated into
German. Is that correct?

A. Yes.

Q. All this appears in the document in your possession?

Presiding Judge: Are all the Accused's markings those made
in ink?

Attorney General: An explanation of the markings appears in
the Accused's handwriting. Mr. Less, please submit this to
the Court.

Presiding Judge: I have marked the notes T/48 and the three
supplements T/49, T/50 and T/51.

Attorney General: Did you ask the Accused to make an
organization chart of the office in which he worked?

Witness Less: Yes.

Q. When?

A. In September 1960. I think it was on 20 September.

Q. Did he say so?

A. Yes, he did so.

Q. When did he give it to you?

A. On 30 November 1960.

Q. Please submit this to the Court.

A. This chart goes together with some notes.

Q. Please submit the notes as well.

A. In those notes the Accused gave explanations. There were
stages. At first I showed him a rough sketch; when I
explained to him what I wanted, he asked questions; I asked
him to put them on paper, and I replied to them in writing.
In this way, subsequently and ultimately, this chart came to
be made. All this appears in the Accused's comments
regarding the chart, it appears in the notes.

Q. And your questions regarding the manner in which the
chart was drawn up - all this appears in writing?

A. Yes.

Attorney General: I request you to submit it to the Court.

Presiding Judge: In whose handwriting is the chart?

Witness Less: The chart itself is in my handwriting.

Q. Were you sitting with him?

A. No. I prepared this afterwards, according to the notes,
and he confirmed it. At the time I brought two copies for
his confirmation. This is attached to the supplements. To
the extent he had any comment he could have added it, or he
could confirm it in the same way as he had written his
confirmation on the back of the chart itself. This is taken
from the material of the Blue Series; there is a sort of
"Stand" - the state of the Department at the date 1 January
1941, and also in regard to the main offices mentioned; it
was also taken from the books and the material that was
available.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/52 - the organizational
chart, let us call it.

What is this?

Witness Less: This is the first rough sketch  I produced to
him, and I asked him to fill in the spaces.

Presiding Judge: Let us call this the material for the
chart. This will be T/53.

Attorney General: Drafts.

Presiding Judge: These are not only drafts, but an exchange
of words between them. Let us call this material for the
preparation of the chart.

Attorney General: Mr. Less, I understand that you also read
out to the Accused extracts from the judgment of the
International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.

Witness Less: Certain passages.

Q. From what series did you read to him, in what language?

A. Always in the German language.

Q. From an official edition?

A. Not always. This was a German edition, since both in the
English and French editions the documents appear in the
German language.

Attorney General: We shall place at the Court's disposal all
the volumes of the Blue Series and the Green Series, so that
we shall be able to refer to this later as one exhibit. We
shall do so during the course of the day.

Presiding Judge: Do you want this to be given an exhibit
number?

Attorney General: Perhaps not. For when we will refer to
specific material contained therein, we shall not submit the
same material again but we will state that it is to be found
in such and such a place.

Mr. Less, you yourself, together with members of your
department, as I understand, prepared two organizational
charts of the Accused's office.

Witness Less: We prepared the two charts for working
purposes or for summarizing the work of Bureau 06.

Q. On what basis did you prepare these charts?

A. According to consultations with members of the
Department, the investigators who dealt with various
aspects, in different countries, in accordance with
documents and material in our possession.

Q. And was this the material that served to guide you, as to
the way you visualized the structure of these offices?
Please submit them to the Court. I submit these documents
for guidance - with the same validity as mentioned by the
witness. But we shall need them in the course of the
evidence, and it would be a good thing for them to be before
the Court so that we can have recourse to them whenever
necessary.


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