Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-077-05
Last-Modified: 1999/06/08

Judge Halevi:  Are you not mistaken about the year?  Was it
not a year later?

Accused:    Yes.  In the year 1943, we also had an increase
in the deportations, and it is this second increase which I
confused just now with this first one.  Strictly speaking,
we had three peaks.  First, this one here in the late spring
of 1942, the second one after Heydrich's death, and the
third after Stalingrad.  That is how I confused the third
peak with this one.

Judge Raveh:   If that is so, you have not yet replied to
Defence Counsel's question.

Accused:    Excuse me, may I request that the question be
put again?

Dr. Servatius:  The question was whether you yourself or
your office ordered these evacuations;  whether you did so -
because your file number appears on this communication - or
whether you caused Mueller to do so, so that you were the
mainspring of the whole affair.

Accused:    No.  I was neither the mainspring, nor did I
cause it.  Moreover, it completely contradicts the nature of
my chief at that time, and I should like here to refer to
his deputy at that time or later, the Deputy Chief of
Department Huppenkothen, who shared my opinion and that of
all the rest of us, namely that Mueller personally
intervened even in matters of minor importance and gave
orders himself, and did not suffer independent action.

Dr. Servatius:  I am passing over two exhibits that were on
my list and come to exhibit T/718, document No. 1285.  This
is a communication to the State Police dated 24 November
1941 with an enclosure, a supplement to the evacuation list
of 19 November 1941.  It concerns legal representatives for
Jewish minors.  The court dealing with matters of
guardianship had to appoint these legal representatives.
Witness, did it ever come to your knowledge that a judge
dealing with matters relating to minors ever refused to make
this appointment as being unlawful?

Accused:    No.

Judge Halevi:  Dr. Servatius, I do not know whether a legal
representative was always appointed, or whether he was
appointed by a judge.  Was not the father the legal
representative?  For example here, the first name is Adler,
Sarah, the legal representative is also called Adler.  Was
not the father of the minor the legal representative?

Dr. Servatius:  It is possible that some of the parents went
along with them and are listed here, but a legal
representative is, after all, only necessary if the real
representative is no longer available, or if there is a
separation.  I assume that it was done here for serving
writs for sequestering the property of these minors.  That
is the impression which I got from the communication.  A
closer look at the names, which I had not managed before,
shows me that, after all, it was mainly the parents who are
the legal representatives listed here.  The reason for it is
not quite clear to me.

Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, I should now like to deal
with the Duesseldorf Files, those four volumes.  I have not
got them in front of me, but I prepared some notes from
them, so that the Court can turn to the relevant pages from
the files, as required.  To begin with, on page 23, there
are numbers, each of which is framed in red.  To begin with,
I call attention to page 24, which refers to the decision of
the Reich Minister of the Interior, concerning the
collective declaration that the property of Jews to be
deported is property of enemies of the nation and the state.
Decision of 2 March 1942, Section IIA5.

Presiding Judge: We have this as T/1395.

Dr. Servatius:  Those are the numbers T/1395-1398.  On page
37 is the District Governor's (Regierungspraesident) decree
of sequestration, and on page 53 the difficulty as to the
serving of the decree is cleared up, namely the President of
the District Court approves serving by his bailiffs, that
is, delivery of the writ of sequestration of property.

Judge Raveh:   As far as I remember, he merely sends the
bailiff.

Dr. Servatius:  He has to grant permission to the bailiff to
act in such a matter at all, and this he gives.  On page 97,
the general declaration which was mentioned just now,
concerning the assets of enemies of the nation and the
state, appears once more.  Then, on page 187, the Probate
Court in Duesseldorf enquires about curatorship of the
estates, or administration of the estates of Jews who
committed suicide prior to evacuation.

Presiding Judge: We have this as being from exhibit T/1397.

Dr. Servatius:  The Court is referred to the general
declaration of the Minister of the Interior, as has already
been mentioned.  Page 242 is a communication by
Kaltenbrunner dated 21 May 1943, setting the deadline of 30
June 1943, by which date the Reich is to be clean of Jews.

Presiding Judge: That is from T/1398.

Dr. Servatius:  Finally, on page 276 is a communication from
the Head Office for Reich Security of 5 November 1942.  It
is from the Reich Leader (Reichsfuehrer), File No. IVC2, and
says: "No further admission of Jews to Auschwitz, Ghetto
Lublin"; the actual wording is: "from now on out of
question."  Signed: Mueller.  It is an order of the Reich
Leader of the SS.

In this context, I would still like to deal with document 3,
which is T/37(134), and which, I think, we do not have
before us now.  I only found it very late.  However, it is
quite short.  This is a communication from Himmler to the
Head of the Security Police and Security Service.  It has
three short paragraphs.  I shall read them out.  The date is
9 April 1943.  "I am in receipt of the statistical report by
the Inspector for Statistics concerning the Final Solution
of the Jewish Question."  I am skipping the next paragraph;
it goes on to say in the last paragraph: "What is most
important to me, as it always has been, is that as many Jews
as only humanly possible be now sent to the East."

Witness, would you state your position as to what influence
this had on your activity?

Attorney General: Merely, for the sake of good order, I
think that Counsel for the Defence ought to submit this
document, because this part of it is not yet an exhibit in
the Court.  I have no objections to the submission of this
document, but it has not yet been submitted.

Presiding Judge: That is correct, Dr. Servatius.  This is
how we acted towards the Prosecution, and that is how we
shall act also towards the Defence.

Dr. Servatius:  I assumed that it had been submitted,
because it has a T number.

Presiding Judge: No, this was apparently one of the exhibits
shown to the Accused during his examination in Bureau 06.
What we always did when the Prosecution wished to submit
such a document as an exhibit was to have it submitted
separately, the document being given a separate exhibit
number.  That is how we did it right from the beginning, so
that if you, on your part, now wish to submit it as your
exhibit, you are free to do so.

Dr. Servatius:  I herewith request to admit this document 3
from Bureau 06 as an exhibit.  I shall later hand in a
proper copy of it, without the handwritten notes.

Presiding Judge: That will be N/12.

Dr. Servatius has put a question to the Accused in
connection with this document, to which we have not yet
received an answer.

Dr. Servatius:  Yes.

Accused:    May I reply?

Presiding Judge: Yes.

Accused:    On the basis of this command by Himmler to send
to the East what is humanly possible, Section IVB4 was
ordered through the official channel, via Kaltenbrunner and
Mueller, to prepare the appropriate basic decree for all
State Police District Headquarters and local stations, etc.,
with the usual key words, as reflected in the telegram in
the Duesseldorf Files on page 242, if I am not mistaken,
namely Kaltenbrunner's telegram of 21 May 1943, in which he
sets 30 June 1943 as the deadline.

Judge Raveh:   Who supplied the material for this
statistical report?

Accused:    As a rule, the local State Police and District
State Police headquarters.  I think that, on their part,
these offices procured the material from the heads of the
local administration, from the offices of the Party
leadership; in Austria, conceivably the Central Office for
Emigration of Jews was also involved.  Anyway in this manner
the whole of the material was put together.

Judge Raveh:   Was not this a report which a statistician
drew up on the basis of material he had received from your
office?

Accused:    As far as I know, at the time when Himmler gave
the order to send what is humanly possible, the statistical
report had long since been handed in.

Judge Raveh:   Do you mean to say that this does not refer
to the report which was drawn up by the statistician on the
basis of the material he got in your office?

Accused:    When, in 1943, in April I think, the various
State Police branches asked for numerical data, as a result
of this command by Himmler and Kaltenbrunner, then these
data were for one purpose only, namely to serve as
guidelines for drawing up a transportation timetable.

Dr. Servatius:  Witness, I would ask you to read this report
yourself.  Have you got it before you?

Accused:    I have not got it here.

Dr. Servatius:  You can see from the report that this is not
a matter of a temporary assembly of details for transports,
but of something quite different.

Accused:    In document No. 3, Himmler acknowledges receipt
of the statistical report.  After he had read it, he
commanded the Chief of the Security Police and the Security
Services henceforth to send to the East what is humanly
possible.  That was on 9 April 1943.  Thereupon...

Dr. Servatius:  Witness, the aim of the Judge's question
was: From where did the statistician get his material?
Whether you gave him the material for his scrutiny, for
preparing the statistics as regards the state of the Final
Solution.  This word actually appears in paragraph 2.

Accused:    I had not understood this correctly.  I assumed
that it concerned the telegram which Kaltenbrunner had
signed.  The material used in the preparation of the Kurherr
Report was supplied by many different departments.  First,
from my Section, secondly, from the Head Office for Economic
Administration, from the Department of Statistics of the
Reich Ministry of the Interior, also from the Jewish
organizations themselves.  From Section IVB4, from my
Section, he could only obtain the numbers of those who had
been evacuated.  However, the Section itself had first to
obtain the number of Jews still residing within the area of
the Reich from the different offices.  As regards the number
of Jewish inmates in the concentration camps, including
those deported, the Head Office had to supply this
information; my Section was not able to provide any
information on this.  Likewise, my Section was unable to
supply statistical information on the subject of the
Generalgouvernement; instead, instructions had earlier been
given to obtain these data from the authorities of the
Generalgouvernement. During this period, when Kurherr was
engaged in drawing up the report, he sent innumerable
telegrams to all kinds of authorities in the Reich, to the
Generalgouvernement, and the Protectorates of Bohemia and
Moravia.

Dr. Servatius:  The next exhibit is T/1408, document No.
1462.  This is a telegram signed by the Accused and
addressed to various offices.  It deals with the departure
of evacuation trains.  One sentence in this communication
requires clarification: "Notification is to be given, by
telephone or by telegram, in the prescribed wording."

Would you give an explanation what that is supposed to mean?

Accused:    Yes.  This regulation was intended first and
foremost to do away with so-called "wild" evacuations which
the local offices liked to carry out occasionally.  They
compelled the State Police offices and the agencies charged
with the evacuation to act exactly according to the
instructions of the Head Office for Reich Security,
according to those same instructions issued by the Chief of
the Head Office for Reich Security, and the Chief of
Department IV.  In practice, minor infringements obviously
occurred also after this, conditioned by the special
position of the Gauleiter who wielded sovereign power.

Presiding Judge: I cannot see this as a reply here to the
question of the Counsel for the Defence.  The question was,
what is the meaning of the words "in the prescribed
wording," not the existence of instructions for
implementation, but the existence of a prescribed wording
for the report.  At least, that is how I understand these
words.

Accused:    Yes, that is also how I meant it, Your Honour,
the Presiding Judge.  By means of this prescribed wording,
the subordinate department was compelled to make a precise
and a prescribed report.  It was thus impossible, or hardly
possible, to cover up any partial operations by local
holders of powers without the knowledge of the Head Office
for Reich Security.

Presiding Judge: Now I understand the answer.

Dr. Servatius:  I am passing over several exhibits on my
list and come to exhibit T/384, document No. 1395.  This is
a telegram from Mueller to various offices; it says: "I
therefore request you to carry out no more transports of
evacuation as from the date mentioned, namely 16 March
1941."  It is signed by Mueller.

Witness, did Mueller here interfere in arrangements you had
made, maybe exaggerated evacuations?

Accused:    Not only was there no interference in
arrangements that I had made - I could make no arrangements.
This telegram clearly proves that.  I could neither order
nor halt deportations.  This order to stop had likewise to
be signed by Mueller.

Dr. Servatius:  Witness, how then do you explain the
existence of this communication?

Accused:    Looking at the date, the matter is fairly clear
to me, because that is the period of the large troop
movements to the East which obviously made excessive demands
on the rolling stock of the Reich Railways, and that is why
the evacuation was being stopped.

Dr. Servatius:  The next exhibit is T/711, document No.
1602.  This is a communication from the Reich Minister of
Justice, dated 17 April 1941, signed by Dr. Schlegelberger
as the competent official.  The communication is addressed
to the Head of the Reich Chancellery and to the Reich
Minister, Minister for Cultural Matters, Lammers.  It
concerns the criminal law against Jews in the incorporated
Eastern Territories.

Was your Section involved in drafting this special criminal
law for Jews in the East?

Accused:    No, I know nothing about this.

Dr. Servatius:  The next exhibit is T/197, document 501.
This is a report by Reich Minister of Justice Thierack,
dated eptember 1942, about a consultation with Himmler and
other senior SS officers.  On page 2, it says that
annihilation through labour is to be brought about - by the
Reichsfuehrer-SS - without exception.  Jews, Gypsies, etc.
in preventive detention are to be handed over.

Witness, were you and your office involved in these
measures?

Accused:    No, I had nothing to do with delivering to the
Reichsfue-SS those intended for annihilation by labour, thus
excluding them from ordinary penal measures.  Also, I think
I am certain that at that time I had not even read this
formulation, but only subsequently.  Thinking it over, it
could not have been otherwise than that the local offices of
the Reich Minister of Justice contacted the Inspectorate of
the Concentration Camp Authorities directly.  I cannot
really imagine any other way.  To sum up, I am not aware
that somehow in these sixteen hundred documents I came
across anything of this nature, according to which my
Section dealt with such matters.

Dr. Servatius:  Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, I now come
to a different chapter, the Operations Units.

Presiding Judge: I think there is still exhibit T/196 - does
that still belong to the preceding subject?

Dr. Servatius:  I was not going to deal with this document
any more, because it is superfluous.

Presiding Judge: If that is so, we can now adjourn.  The
next Session will be held tomorrow at 8.30.

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