Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-081-02
Last-Modified: 1999/06/09

Judge Raveh:   Would you look at your last letter, dated 24
September 1943. What is the meaning of the last sentence
there? Already nearly a year earlier, in November 1942, you
wrote that the person in question had been transferred to
the Riga Ghetto.

Accused:    I understand from this document, Your Honour,
that the initial communication in this exhibit concerns the
ghetto, and I understand from this letter that this ghetto,
apart from being a ghetto, also had, in addition a
concentration camp.

Judge Raveh:   What was new in that? Perhaps that is not the
same letter of 25 September?

Accused:    This shows that the Jewess can henceforth no
longer live freely in the ghetto, but rather that she has
been transferred to the concentration camp of the Riga
Ghetto. I have never been there, I cannot say, I must assume
it from the file.

Presiding Judge: This was, then, a deterioration of her
condition.

Accused:    Yes.

Presiding Judge: Why did you order that?

Accused:    I did not order it. Rather the Chief of
Department IV ordered it, and I had to transmit his order.

Presiding Judge: This does not appear from the letter, does
it?

Accused:    It says: "By order." I had the order to write
that.

Dr. Servatius:  I have another question for clarification.
Witness, could you explain the situation when you compare
the dates of the first letter and the second one? The first
letter, which speaks of the ghetto, is dated 10 November
1942, and the last letter is dated 25 September 1943.

Accused:    It indicates to me that in the meantime the
Foreign Ministry had intervened twice in this case, and that
the Head Office for Reich Security, acting upon Himmler's
order, which it could not ignore, in turn had to provide the
same answer.

Dr. Servatius:  Can this change be connected with the
document that was submitted today, according to which the
ghettos were to be converted into concentration camps?

Accused:    This I do not know. I can no longer answer this
question.

Dr. Servatius:  I come now to another sector, to Austria.
First, exhibit T/129, document No. 1512. This is a
handwritten letter from Eichmann to Herbert Hagen, a
colleague at the Head Office for Reich Security, dated 23
April 1938, in which he reports, from Vienna, about his
first experiences at his new post there. The letter deals
with several points. Point 2 states: "Loewenherz has been
released." Did you have anything to do with the arrest of
Loewenherz?

Accused:    No, because when I came to Austria, Dr.
Loewenherz had already been in detention for eight to ten
days.

Dr. Servatius:  Did you make any efforts to have him
released, or how did this come about?

Accused:    This release was connected with the change in
the political line regarding the problem in Austria.

Dr. Servatius:  Do I understand correctly, then, that you
had no influence on it?

Accused:    Yes, Sir. I asked the State Police, Vienna
District, to appoint Dr. Loewenherz to be the director of
the office of the community in Vienna, so that he would take
up the work in accordance with the principle of speeding up
emigration.

Dr. Servatius:  It says here, further: "200,000 RM have
already been paid. Engels has to undertake further
collections."  Are these contributions which you ordered?

Accused:    Since the Jewish organizations had to start
functioning again, after having been under lock and key for
several weeks, their officials in custody, and their funds
secured by the State Police, the Community had now to see to
it that they received some initial capital for starting up
operations. Engels was the representative of Dr. Loewenherz,
and Engels now endeavoured, in ways familiar to him, to
raise this initial operating capital for launching the work
of the organization. This was reported to me, and I passed
it on, as it was the necessary basis for future operations,
as seen from the financing aspect.

Dr. Servatius:  Further down it says: "The general line of
our work in Austria, as it had been worked out with the
Obersturmbannfuehrer and with you, was reported by me
yesterday to Freytag (who new of nothing about it), and to
Hasselbacher, so that everything here is co-ordinated."

Witness, would you please explain this sentence?

Accused:    "Obersturmbannfuehrer" does not refer to Six,
who was the Chief of Department. May I say the following in
this connection: The general policy of the Secret State
Police had been since 1933 - and we are now talking of 1938
- to ban, to dissolve, to lock-up, to detain. Now, regarding
the solution of the Jewish Question on the part of the
Security Service Head Office, another conception gained
support: not only the hitherto accepted practices of the
Secret State Police Office, but also that of the Foreign
Ministry, as the documents have already shown. This policy
was for emigration, and for that purpose it was necessary to
put on the agenda the exact opposite of banning, detaining -
namely the creation of organizations which served this
purpose. And since the officials of the Secret State Police
were not familiar with this, as the first step in Vienna, I
had to explain the policy to the relevant officials of the
State Police Office - the Assessors and the Regierungsrat.
"Freytag" refers to Assessor Freytag, who was in Vienna at
that time. Hasselbacher was Regierungsrat, and in addition
to Jewish affairs he had to deal with other matters -
churches, etc. Thus, he had to be informed of this matter,
since in the end he was the one who had to present the
proposal, through official channels, that the persons
detained by the Vienna headquarters of the State Police
should be released, and the organization which had been
closed could be reopened, since the Security Service had no
executive competence.

Dr. Servatius:  On the second page there is another
reference. It concerns seizure of the material in the
archives. These are presumably the Jewish archives, and some
mention is made of yearbooks. Would you explain what that
means?

Accused:    Regarding the Eisenstadt Archives mentioned
here, I seem to remember that...I am not sure whether this
is the correct name, but it seems to me that this concerned
the Wolf Museum. This was, I think, a private institution
which had an archive connected with it, where, I think,
exclusively historical matters were deposited which related
to the closer political matters between the Burgenland and
Hungary. But I don't know this exactly any more. In any
event, I received orders to have these materials, which were
seized by the State Police in the early days after the
invasion of Austria, packed and shipped to Berlin. Regarding
the yearbooks, it should correctly say: "Jewish yearbooks."
These are yearbooks, which, I think, each country published
from time to time, that is to say annually, where the entire
organizational, the total organizational structure of Jewish
life in these countries was described. I had orders to
obtain these yearbooks from the neighbouring countries such
as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Italy, which at that
time, I think, were very easily and simply obtained, since
it was not a matter of any secret books.

Judge Raveh:   What is the meaning of "U.A."?

Accused:    This presumably means Unterabschnitt, which is
"Sub-District," that is to say a sub-district of the SD.

Judge Raveh:   What was the intention, then? Where were you
to be sent?

Accused:    The sentence reads, I think: "I hear that I will
then go to a sub-district. This is fine with me. In two to
three years I will again knock at the door in Berlin."
Should I explain this?

Judge Raveh:   Yes.

Accused:    I had heard that in the sub-district of Linz in
Upper Austria the post of Department Director had become
vacant, or was still vacant. Linz was my home town, so I
tried to be sent there.
Judge Raveh:   I understand.

Dr. Servatius:  I come now to exhibit T/132, document No.
1516, and to this belongs exhibit T/130, document No. 1515.
The first is a letter signed by Adolf, this is from Eichmann
again to Hagen, Herbert. It says in the third paragraph on
the first page that the president of the Jewish Community of
Vienna, Dr. Friedmann, was brought by transport from Dachau
to Vienna. He is presently under arrest in prison, and is
available for questioning. Would you explain this matter?

Accused:    In the following period, Dr. Loewenherz began,
as was natural, to raise with me any kind of difficulty he
encountered, or where he wanted to have something arranged,
but was not able to arrange it himself, because he did not
have access to these offices. This included requests by Dr.
Loewenherz that one person or another had been arrested, was
being held at such and such a place, and he requested to
have him released. This included the efforts on the part of
Dr. Loewenherz to secure the release of the former President
of the Vienna Jewish Community, Dr. Friedmann. I replied
that I had no executive authority, and I myself had to apply
to the State Police of Vienna, and to intervene so that the
request be granted. I can no longer recall, today, whether
he was released. I think he was, that I was at least
successful in having him brought back again from Dachau to
Vienna. And I assume that he was also set free from the
police prison in Vienna. But I cannot remember exactly what
the outcome was.

Dr. Servatius:  Then, on page 2 of this handwritten letter,
we have the following paragraph: "I summoned Assessor Lange
to my office on Tuesday."

Presiding Judge: Are you moving on to exhibit T/130 now?

Dr. Servatius:  This is the handwritten letter by the
Accused, dated 1 May 1938, to Hagen. At the outset, the
Jewish yearbooks are mentioned. I would like to point to
paragraph 2, on page 2. I have already read the first part,
stating that the Assessor is being summoned to the office,
and then it goes on to say: "I shall give him an appropriate
introductory lecture, because he is still hardly familiar
with Department II/112."

Witness, what kind of instructions were these that you gave
to Assessor Lange?

Accused I had not yet succeeded in reaching Assessor Lange.
I was able to reach Freytag and Hasselbacher, but now I
could reach Assessor Lange. I still needed him, and
therefore I gave him that lecture which I mentioned in the
first letter, that is to say, the change of the general
line, and I asked for support of these efforts of the
Security Service on the part of the State Police. What kind
of efforts these were in particular appears more or less,
from the letter, from the three letters.

Dr. Servatius:  The letter ends with an observation about
the possibilities for promotion, and states:

     "I think I shall be sent as Department Chief to a
     district, after matters are dealt with in Vienna, and
     after..." - this should say Referent (expert) but it is
     not fully written out - "will be here. You know, I am
     truly sorry that I shall probably have to leave this
     work which I did gladly, and in which, so to speak, I
     have been at home for some time now. But you will
     understand that at the age of thirty-two I don't want
     to 'go backward' in the service. Our Chief is an
     excellent superior, who has understanding for this kind
     of thing."

Before the Accused comments on this, I would like to add the
next exhibit, which is T/133, document No. 1169. It is a
letter from the above-mentioned superior; it must have been
Six, who is commenting on the matter of promotion.

Witness, your superior, of whom you said that he was
understanding about such desires, opposes your wish in this
case, on the ground that you are an experienced
practitioner, that is to say to some extent a specialist.

In what field were you a specialist and practitioner. What
did that refer to?

Accused:    This referred to the field of emigration, which
at that time, through all kinds of numerous legal
restrictions constituted an extraordinarily complex picture,
which had to be understood down to the last detail.

Dr. Servatius:  Does it not emerge from this letter that a
large Jewish department was to be established, of which you
were to be the head?

Accused:    No, this does not show that a large Jewish
department was to be established, but on the contrary. I was
the only one, I was altogether alone, I was my own boss,
because I had no one else, no assistant, whereas - as he
writes here on the other page - on the other hand there has
been a considerable expansion of the Jewish Department of
the State Police and that he would give me a typist; no,
that I would get a typist and an assistant, that appears in
another document. I have confused this. Here he merely
touches upon the question that if I express the wish again
to become head of a department instead of a Referent, then
this Referent's post must simply be turned into the post of
a department head. This is a reference to matters of
endowment, that is of pay, because the head of a department
naturally receives higher pay than a Referent. This was
originally in connection with another document in my
personal file, where from time to time new department heads
were placed over me as a Referent, whenever this post of a
department head became vacant, whereas I did not get this
post of department head. Now, however, I had this
opportunity in Linz.

Dr. Servatius:  I would like to present, in this connection,
a document which has not yet been submitted and has no T
number. It concerns this establishment of the office, and it
shows the hierarchy and the composition.

Presiding Judge: I mark this document as N/33.

Dr. Servatius:  This is a letter signed by Ehrlinger as
deputy - that is the deputy of Six - to the Security Service
leader Stahlecker. It concerns the assignment (Abstellung) -
it says here the cancellation (Abbestellung) of a Referent
for this Central Office of Migration. It should say Office
for Emigration. It says here, there are two paragraphs: The
first: "...with the appointment of SS Standartenfuehrer
Stahlecker as head of the Central Office for Migration, the
Security Service was assigned a task in the solution of
which the Head Office for Reich Security was strongly
interested inasmuch as it is 'of importance for the Reich'."

And in paragraph 2:

     "In view of the considerable increase of work to be
     anticipated, the Security Service Head Office considers
     it to be necessary to give personnel support to SS
     Untersturmfuehrer Eichmann, who has been entrusted with
     the execution of these tasks."

Accordingly, it is requested that  SS Hauptscharfuehrer
Kronberger be placed at his disposal. He is already familiar
with the problem through his activity in Munich. It is to be
for about three weeks" - this is a handwritten addition -
"and in addition a female assistant for the duration of two
weeks."

Witness, would you please explain whether you were the head
of this central office, or what position you held, and
whether you had a superior. What other offices of the
Gestapo were also active in Vienna at that time in the same
field?

Accused:    Yes, Sir. In accordance with an order or
directive by the Reich Commissioner for the Reunification of
Austria with the German Reich, the Head of the SS Main
District (Oberabschnitt) Danube, Stahlecker, was charged
with heading the newly-established Central Office for the
Emigration of Jews. I was entrusted by Stahlecker, head of
the SD Main District and my superior, with the
implementation of these tasks. According to the regulations
at that time, there were three grades which implied a
certain competence and authority with regard to decisions by
those holding official positions. The lowest position was
called "Entrusted with carrying out the duties." Then, the
next grade was called "commissioned," and, when he was the
definitive Head, it was called "Head of the office."
Stahlecker was the Head, I was "commissioned," I had to
submit all matters for decision and ask for instructions. I,
myself, was not authorized to issue any instructions on my
own initiative, not even in the area of emigration.

Dr. Servatius:  Did you have anything to do with executive
matters? The Security Service, after all, was not only
concerned with emigration but also with sequestration,
detention and that type of thing. What was your attitude
with regard to carrying out activities?

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