The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-090-02


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-090-02
Last-Modified: 1999/06/11

Q.  Oh yes, we shall come back to the Canon, and we shall
see which Canon you may have arrested after all. You did
testify, did you not, that you had arrested a Canon. We'll
come back to that. At this point we are dealing with the
journey to Palestine. But, for instance, this passage in the
report, that there are no Aryans in Palestine who can be
cheated, and the Jews cheat each other - did that originate
from you?

A.  No, those are Stuermer ideas. I did not carry Stuermer
ideas with me; Hagen carried them with me.

Presiding Judge: When he said "with me," that was apparently
a slip of the tongue. Did he mean to say: "Hagen carried
them with him?"

Accused:    Yes, Hagen carried them with him. The fact that
six months later I rebuilt, in Vienna, the offices of the
Keren Kayemet leIsrael, the Keren Hayesod, the Jewish
Agency, the Palestine Office etc., which had been broken up,
and made them fit for business again, indicates the
contrary.

Q.  We will come back to Vienna, but in Hungary, for
instance, when the German Embassy did not intervene sharply
enough against the emigration of certain Jews to Palestine,
did you not - as transpires from exhibit  T/1216 - demand
that Guenther take steps to get the Reich Foreign Ministry
to instruct the embassy in Budapest to prevent this sort of
thing?

A.  For one thing, at that time there prevailed a different
attitude towards the emigration to Palestine, as directed by
my superiors. As for the other: document No. 182 I must
reject as a forgery, and I do this for the following
reasons: it has no registry number; it is not certified and
has no seal of Service; it is addressed to Reich Security
Head Office, Department IV - attention Guenther. There is no
such thing. Department IV, that is Mueller. Guenther was
never IV. And as for the other: Although it went to Reich
Security Head Office IV, this document carries a control
number of the Foreign Office, and furthermore, it is a copy.
Therefore, I have to reject this document, and it is
inexplicable and incomprehensible to me how such a document
can exist. In terms of contents, text and style - these are
not my words. I know this document only from here.

Q.  But this, also, you forgot to tell the police at the
police interrogation.

A.  I do not know whether the document was presented to me.
It meant a lot that during the police interrogation I was
presented with only a small fraction of the numerous
documents which I later received. I saw just one excerpt out
of the total proceedings, in a matter which one can no
longer picture in one's mind after 15-20 years or more. I
tried, again, with the best will, to reconstruct the matter,
as I have indicated.

Q.  I suppose, therefore, that you will regard exhibit
T/1215 too, as a forgery. This is a document from
Veesenmayer where you state that you do not accept the new
order of the Reichsfuehrer-SS regarding the emigration of
Jews to Palestine, that you protest it, that you demand a
new decision, and after all, you will try to arrange things
so that before the formal aspects are concluded, the Jews
will be deported.

A.  The way I understand document No. 161 is that it was the
Reichsfuehrer-SS who did not permit this emigration to
Palestine, and it was not I who objected to this, but,
rather, I read here: "The leader of the local Jewish Special
Operations Units of the Security Service, SS
Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann, has taken an emphatic
position, stating that, as far as he knows, the Reichfuehrer-
SS does not agree under any circumstances to the migration,
to the emigration, of Hungarian Jews to Palestine.

Q.  Yes, go on, please, go on, read on.

A.  "The Jews in question are without exception biologically
valuable material, very many veteran Zionists, whose
emigration to Palestine would be undesirable in the
extreme."

Q.  And that, Mr. Eichmann, naturally is a forgery, isn't
it?

A.  No, not a forgery, but an express order which I had to
obey, as I was a recipient of orders, not a giver of orders.

Q.  And that, then, is your attitude towards Zionism?

A.  As recipient of orders one has to perform what one is
ordered - that is my conviction.

Q.  I see. Go ahead, read on.

A.  To read on? "In view of the Fuehrer's decision, which
has been conveyed to him, he intends to communicate with the
Reichsfuehrer-SS, and, if need be, ask for a renewed
directive from the Fuehrer. Otherwise..."

Q.  Well, what do you say to this passage?

A.  That the written directives I had received contained the
prohibition on the part of my superiors of emigration to
Palestine; these directives had to be renewed first, by way
of a counter-order.

Q.  And when the embassy informed you that Himmler did,
after all, agree, you then requested a direct order from the
Reichsfuehrer-SS.

Q.   Well, you have the Fuehrer's order to allow the
departure of Jews from Hungary to Palestine, and you wish to
have a new decision from the Fuehrer, because you disagree
with it. Is that correct?

A.  Surely this so-called Fuehrer's decision does not appear
to have been available in writing, whereas the other order
was available in writing. Besides, I was not the one who
decided, but while in Hungary I had two superiors. First,
the commander of the Security Police, Wisliceny, and
secondly - Higher SS and Police Leaders. I could not do
whatever I pleased, I had to do what I was ordered to do.

Q.  The Reich Plenipotentiary for Germany, Veesenmayer,
wanted to carry out the Fuehrer's order, and you resisted
it. Is that correct or not?

A.  No, I did not resist, since I could not resist.

Q.  And at the end of this document it says that no matter
what happened you were considering how, through appropriate
measures, to prevent those Jews who had reached French
territory continuing their journey.

A.  I have read that too. That is incorrect, because the
next document states that I had supported the transfer to
Lisbon.

Q.  So Veesenmayer is also lying?

A.  I would not say that he is lying, but an error is always
possible.

Q.  Let us go back for a moment to the previous document
which you describe as a forgery. Please take a look at what
you said about it on page 1316 of the police interrogation.
Read that please, and tell me whether you still insist that
it is a forgery.

A.  I read here at the time...

Q.  I am not asking you what you said then; that is written
down. I am asking whether, on the basis of what I have shown
you, you wish to correct what you said about a forgery, or
whether you insist on your previous answer.

A.  I must correct the testimony which I gave at the police
interrogation, but not the explanation which I have given
now, because I arrived at this explanation through studying
the files, when I had the entire selection of the Hungarian
files at my disposal. At that time, on the other hand, I
only saw this one single file, or several of them, perhaps
two or maybe more.

Q.  The indications which you listed here, showing that the
document is seemingly forged, were not clear to you at the
time, during the police interrogation?

A.  No, this I did not notice at the time, and, furthermore,
I had no time for it, then. Only when I gave careful
attention to the files, there, I also occupied myself with
the examination of such possibilities, especially whenever a
file appeared to me in any way peculiar, whenever the
content of a file appeared peculiar.

Q.  Or that you realized that the document spoke against
you, and therefore it would be advisable to disclaim it. Is
that correct Obersturmfuehrer?

A.  No, that was not decisively significant. Several
documents speak against me, and I have nonetheless not
disclaimed them.

Q.  You stated that your work in Austria had afforded you
satisfaction and creative joy. Is that correct?

A.  Yes, indeed. That is right.

Q.  You agree with me that what you did in Austria was
actually the forcible expulsion of the Jews?

A.  It was a regulated, planned emigration, and all I regret
is that this activity could not continue throughout the
entire War, until the end. That is what I regret.

Q.  Is it correct that in the Sassen Document, on page 736,
you called this "forced emigration"?

A.  Is that in File 17, if I may ask?

Q.  File 17.

A.  Forced emigration meant accelerated emigration, yes.

Q.  And the purpose was to rid the German people of the
Jews, and to force the Jews as quickly as possible out of
all walks of life, and thus force them to emigrate. Is that
correct?

A.  I was not one of those...

Q.  Did you act in this way? That is my question.

A.  No, I did not force any Jews out of the walks of life.

Q.  We shall, then, remind you of it. Page 737: "The final
exclusion of the Jews from the public life of the German
people, which began quickly, and was rapidly followed by the
displacement of this group of persons from all walks of
life." That is what you did in Austria, right? Is that
correct? You wrote this yourself.

A.  I have just found it this moment.

Q.  Is this what you did in Austria?

A.  This is a statement of fact, but it does not signify
that I initiated it.

Q.  But that is what you write. Read it!  Is that what you
did?

A.  "But the fact is that this theory did not prove itself;
on the contrary the final exclusion of the Jews from the
public life of the German people, which began quickly, and
was rapidly followed by the displacement of this group of
persons from all walks of life, now induced the individual
Jew to initiate of his own accord, suddenly, in a panic-like
manner, anything which could serve his emigration."

Q.  That is what you did.

A.  No, no, definitely not.

Q.  No?

A.  I did not pass the laws which resulted in the
displacement of the Jews from public life. I had nothing to
do with this. I have stated here what happened, but I did
not say that I did it.

Q.  But by using these laws which were introduced and by
dislodging the Jews, you forced them to emigrate.

A.  I did not force any Jews to emigrate. On the contrary,
Dr. Loewenherz came to me...

Q.  I want an answer. Look at page 746. You boast about
having organized Jewish emigration by the conveyor-belt
system!

A.  Yes, that is true, and I only regret - I must repeat
this - that this could not go on for the duration of the
War.

Q.  Yes, we have heard that. And your plans, how this could
be sped up - that we find in T/112. Thus, for instance to
deprive the Jews of their possessions slowly, so that they
would be compelled to emigrate. Isn't that true?

A.  It is true, but I would like to be allowed to give an
explanation.

Q.  In a moment you may give an explanation. And for this
purpose you needed a free hand for the Security Service,
right?

A.  I cannot explain this matter out of context, because if
my words are torn out of context, necessarily there occur...

Q.  I request an answer: "For this purpose I required a free
hand for the Security Service." And after that you may give
explanations!

A.  Yes, that is correct.

Q.  Now you may give the explanation.

A.  This material, that is to say, this programme, which was
to have been arranged at the time for the Chief of the
Security Police and the Security Service, originated in the
constraints which the Foreign Office put up against
emigration. May I recall the Kennedy telegram, or the
declaration by the State Secretary at the time, Weizsaecker,
who was against any capital transfer whatsoever. What was
required, then, was to consider how to solve the Jewish
problem. I was consulted, too, as an expert official. I
listed these points here, but I also wrote that this matter
cannot be carried out without the aid of Stapo measures.
"Stapomeasures" at that time meant following the Security
Service line, and the Security Service line, in turn, meant
emigration, and a few months later, I was able to put this
into practice in Vienna. The Stapo-line, the old Stapo-line,
was to break-up, seal-up, lock-up, while the Security
Service line at that time was the opposite of locking up,
that is rather, letting people emigrate - that is how this
should be understood..

Q.  Who was the Security Service? Heydrich?

A.  At that time, yes.

Q.  Heydrich, then, was in favour of letting the Jews
emigrate?

A.  I do not even think that it was Heydrich himself.

Q.  Was he for it or against?

A.  He was for it, but he was not the initiator.

Q.  Who was the initiator? You?

A.  I was one of the initiators, yes, indeed.

Q.  Who else?

A.  The originator of this idea was actually, at that time,
a certain Untersturmfuehrer von Mildenstein and a certain
Mr. von Bolschwing. One of them had most certainly lived for
some time in Palestine, whether the other one, von
Mildenstein, had been to Palestine, I do not know. These
were, in a way, the originators of emigration idea, if I may
say so, and this was at the time, when all is said and done,
the least of all evils.

Q.  And in order to overcome the opposition of the Foreign
Office, which was against letting Jewish money leave along
with the Jews, you proposed to pauperize the Jews slowly, so
that the Foreign Office would stop objecting and permit the
Jews to leave. Isn't that so?

A.  I did not propose to pauperize the Jewish people. Rather
I suggested that the poor Jew be allowed to emigrate at the
expense of the rich Jew.

Q.  To "de-capitalize slowly" (Langsam entkapitalisieren),
that is what you proposed, isn't it?

A.  Yes, indeed, the rich Jew had to finance the costly
emigration of the poor Jew.

Q.  You took total control over the Jewish functionaries,
you held them in the palm of your hand, and you did as you
pleased with these Jewish functionaries in Vienna.  Correct?

A.  By no means did I do with the Jewish functionaries as I
pleased. Rather, there was mutually correct, businesslike co-
operation.

Q.  That we shall see. I refer here to T/130, a private
letter you wrote to your friend. You write that you have
control over the people and here, in the third paragraph you
write: "They are in my hands, they dare not take one step
without me."  And at the top, in the first paragraph you
write: "In any event I have these gentlemen do as I please,
believe me." These extracts are marked here. Look at them.
Is that the correct and honest co-operation, Mr.
Obersturmbannfuehrer?

A.  Well, honest it was. One has to distinguish between the
jargon of a soldier which, after all, differs from the
jargon used among clergymen or doctors. Among soldiers it is
fresh and jolly, and anyhow open and honest. After all, I
built up the whole thing and I brought the Jews out of jail,
and the Jewish functionaries were quite happy to work with
me. I never heard anything to the contrary.

Q.  The rich Jews, for instance, obviously willingly gave
you their money so that you could expel the poor Jews from
Austria, right?

A.  Yes, they did not give me the money; they gave it to the
Jewish community in Vienna.


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

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.