The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-096-03


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-096-03
Last-Modified: 1999/06/13

Q. Perhaps you could show me where this is - I cannot see
it.  Perhaps you can find it.

A. If it is not here, then it must be somewhere else. In my
statement at the time I definitely said this.

Q. Well, it is difficult to deny facts.  Have you found it?

A. It is not here, but I definitely said it, just as I have
repeated it here.

Q. Very well, we shall look for it.  But what are the facts?
You wrote to Richter, Suhr wrote to Richter.  Richter
replied to you directly, you gave instructions which were
carried out?

A. I have never disputed this.

Q. There you are.  Yesterday you agreed that Dannecker was
someone who chose his words carefully.  You said, "He was a
fairly meticulous man."  Is that true?

A. I did not say that he chose his words carefully; he was a
meticulous, bureaucratic worker.

Presiding Judge: Mr. Hausner, this is not on page 673.

Attorney General: Thank you, Your Honour.  We shall find it.

Presiding Judge: Very well.  Let us continue in the
meanwhile; we shall find it later.

Attorney General: Very well, we shall continue.  Exhibit
T/400, document No. 316.  This is a minute by Dannecker,
dated 22 February 1942, in which he writes that, as a result
of various decrees from the High Command of the Armed
Forces, the High Command of the Army and the Military
Commander in France, the Paris office has been given
practical responsibility for combatting inimical tendencies
originating in Jewish circles.  He also says that in
European terms the Chief of the Security Police and the
Security Service, in accordance with the decree of the Reich
Marshal, dated 31 July 1941, is for all practical purposes
the "Jewish Affairs Commissioner for Europe."  Is what
Dannecker wrote correct?

Accused:    I do not believe that someone like Dannecker was
in a position to have a complete picture of these facts.

Q. I am asking if this is correct.

A. No; factually as well, to my mind and according to my
feeling, this is not correct.

Q. Not correct at all?

A. According to my feeling, not correct.

Q. According to your feeling?

A. Yes, and I will explain why, because if this were so, the
Chief of the Security Police would have been the sole person
to give orders to all the other offices, while it can be
seen clearly that all the central bodies interfered and
worked their way in.

Q. And this is the meticulous Dannecker?

A. His opinion has nothing to do with whether or not he
carried out bureaucratic work meticulously.  It is simply
not correct in factual terms.

Q. Again something incorrect in a document, is it not?
These are the documents on which you are relying, about
which you keep saying that that follows from the documents.
That follows from the documents...

A. Well, all the time only those documents are selected
which the Prosecution considers to be important and correct,
but the other documents then indicate that what it says
somewhere is not true, because it can be seen how the
Foreign Ministry worked, it can be seen how the Ministry of
the Interior worked, this can be seen here, there and
everywhere. And therefore, because I know this, I have to
say that this statement by Dannecker is factually not
correct.  I cannot say anything else about this.

Q. Look how Dannecker concludes this document: "The
acknowledged leadership expressed itself in the holding of
the consultation at this office."  So that was the
acknowledged leadership for the solution of the Jewish
Question in Europe - your leadership.

A. I could even go a step further in the statement made here
by Dannecker.  I could say that, after all, Heydrich did
receive full powers from Goering, but despite these full
powers, which he had received from Goering, it is
nevertheless strange that over all these years matters were
constantly directed by the central authorities mentioned. So
there had to be some mistake there or...I cannot imagine
that what I read could not be right.

Q. Perhaps you would agree to acknowledge as correct  what
was admitted on this subject as evidence from your mouth in
the Sassen Document?

Presiding Judge: What would that be?

Attorney General: This appears in those pages which were
accepted with the agreement of Counsel for the Defence.  You
speak of men who worked abroad, "whom I had out there": "who
also had to observe these provisions, so I had the central
authority..."  You were the central authority?  Look at it.

Accused:    Exactly the same as I said before about all
these things, documents, applies here, too.  Who can
guarantee to me that it is true that, for example, the word
which is being emphasized was said by me...

Q. If you wish to carry on making a laughing-stock of
yourself, you are free to do so.

A. No, I do not in any way want to make a laughing-stock of
myself...

Q. But you have been doing this for two weeks.

A. I said that I do not know, and I made a formal request
for the tapes to be obtained, but I cannot admit to
something which I myself do not know, whether I said this or
not.  If I knew, I would say so.

Presiding Judge: Is this from the part agreed on with the
Defence?

Attorney General: Yes.  The men who dealt with Jewish
affairs abroad, in the occupied territories, were also
designated IVB4, were they not?

Accused:    Not all of them, but that is of no importance.
In France, I believe this office under the Senior Commander
of the Security Police and the Security Service was called
IVJ; in Holland IVB4, in Italy I read that it was called
IV4B.

Q. In the Generalgouvernement, there too it was IVB4?

A. I did not deal with the Generalgouvernement.

Q. No, but what was the Section called - not IVB4? A. I do
not even know that - that can be checked.  In fact, there
are no documents about this here.  I know that in Holland
and France and Italy there were different designations, I
know that from the documents here, too.  But I do not mean
that...the difference is actually of no importance; the
principle is the same.

Q. And as a staff officer in the Head Office of the Gestapo,
you co-ordinated the activities of Sections IVB4 or the
Jewish Affairs Sections, whatever their name was in the
occupied countries?  That is true, is it not?

A. No, not co-ordinated, I would not say that; rather, I
provided these divisions with the instructions with which I
had to provide them.

Q. And your duties, or one of your duties was to eliminate
the difficulties they came up against, and to help them in
their work, was it not?

A. If these difficulties involved Security Police matters,
yes.  If they fell under the sphere of - let us say under
the jurisdiction of - the Foreign Ministry, no.

Q. Look at what you said about this, for example, on pages
199 to 203, on page 387, and on other pages which I shall
show you shortly.  You did in fact say that your duties
involved eliminating difficulties.  Pages 199 to 203.  Have
you found the passage?

A. Yes, I have it.  I have skimmed through it, but I must
say that what it says here is basically correct, and it also
coincides with the documents.

Q. You repeated all of this in a concise, summary fashion at
the bottom of page 666:

     "Because as long as the matter had not been initialled
     as receiving the full approval of all the relevant
     authorities, as I have already pointed out several
     times, nothing was allowed to happen.  Because
     otherwise there would have been difficulties.  And I
     was responsible - that was, after all, also my
     assignment, to ensure that there were no difficulties."

A. Yes, I had those orders.  That can also be seen from the
documents.

Q. So one of your duties was to ensure that the overall
measures were implemented smoothly.

A. To ensure that any difficulties did not in fact occur -
that is also shown by the documents.  If my responsibility
was exceeded, my Department Chief Mueller intervened
personally, as the documents also show.

Q. I wanted to know what was the scope of your activities.
When, for example, Himmler writes in T/252, document No.
1537, "I have been in touch from here with the offices
involved, and it would appear that all the measures are
being implemented smoothly," does that mean that you were
this office contacted, in order to ensure implementation of
these matters?

A. Who is supposed to have said that, Himmler?

Q. Yes.

A. No, then I was definitely not the office in question,
because Himmler never talked to me about such matters.

Q. Himmler says that he has been in touch with the
appropriate offices; that does not mean that he was in
direct contact with you.

A. This document, to which your comments apply, Mr. Attorney
General, is a letter by General Wolff of Himmler's personal
staff to the State Secretary at the Reich Transport
Ministry, Ganzenmueller, in order to handle timetable
matters concerning timetables in the Generalgouvernement.
Section IVB4 of the Head Office for Reich Security never
handled any such matter - they were handled by the
Generalgouvernement's own authorities, and in this document
it can be seen that it was Wolff - doubtless on Himmler's
orders - who directly contacted the State Secretary of the
Reich Transport Ministry.  IVB4 is not meant by these
"offices involved," nor is the whole of the Head Office for
Reich Security meant.  I can even go as far as this about
that.

Perhaps I could further emphasize the veracity of what I am
saying by referring to the fact that, in accordance with a
decree, which is also available here, the State Secretary
for Security and Higher SS and Police Leader, Krueger, was
appointed in a Letter of Commission to deal with these
matters.

Presiding Judge: Are you going to get to the
Generalgouvernement?

Attorney General: Yes, certainly.  I just wanted to know
whether this smooth implementation applied to him.  He said
"no..  We shall return to this chapter later, at the
appropriate time.

I understand that the men who worked on Jewish affairs
abroad, such as Wisliceny, Dannecker, Richter and Guenther
were summoned to your office from time to time?

Accused:    Yes, that is correct.

Q. And such meetings took place, as far as we know, on 4
March 1942, 6 March 1942, 11 June 1942 and 28 August 1942.

A. I do not know, but I am sure that is correct.

Q. Can you tell me who took part in these conferences?

A. I cannot say offhand, but there are, for example...I do
not know of which, but there are even the records of some of
these conferences among the documents.

Q. Very well.  Try to remember.  Just forget these documents
for a moment.

A. Dannecker certainly, Ahnert, I read, Zoepf was definitely
also present at consultations - I cannot in fact remember
whether he was there at these...on the dates given -
Wisliceny, because there is a document in which the embassy
requests permission for the Foreign Ministry to authorize
Wisliceny to attend a meeting to which he was invited or
summoned; Richter was probably in Berlin.

Q. Roethke, Abromeit.

A. Roethke, certainly, although I do not have any
recollection of him personally, but it could
easily...why...I mean I can neither deny nor confirm this,
but it is probable that he also came to Berlin.  I cannot
remember.

As for Abromeit, I cannot say, as Abromeit was often in
Berlin, particularly when he had to visit Department III on
something to do with the newly annexed Eastern Territories.
There was a Central Migration Office, and here it was
controlled by Department III.  And when he was making these
calls and obeying his summons, he also came repeatedly to my
Section, but I cannot say anything about when that was.

Q. You presided at these consultations?

A. If I was there, I presided.  Otherwise one of the other
officials-in-charge presided over them.  For these
consultations, orders for which were given by the Department
Chief, an agenda had to be drawn up, and this agenda was
worked through during the consultation.

Q. Who from the Head Office took part apart from you?

A. I have just now read about this only from the documents
submitted - the officials-in-charge, I have already said so
- all sorts of officials-in-charge were there, and their
names appear...

Q. Who, who?

A. ...and they are referred to, such as Woehrn, Hunsche or
Suhr... I do not remember, but in any case their names
appear, Guenther's name appears, my name appears.  I think
that is...

Q. You do not know that from what you remember, only from
what it says in the documents?

A. Not at the moment, but I must say - and this can be
ascertained any time - it is not a question of any intention
on my part at the moment...this need only to be ascertained,
I myself have read the document.  It occurs to me just
now...Novak, too.

Q. Tell me what was discussed at these consultations?

A. Over a certain period of time, all sorts of problems
accumulated with Mueller which he got from the Commanders of
the Security Police and the Security Service directly.  From
the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service
or, during this period when there was no Chief, from
Himmler, deportation orders were received.  These matters
then went through Mueller and came to me, and I had
instructions from Mueller to discuss such and such a matter,
in accordance with his orders.  These matters were then
talked over at these discussions.

Q. What was their subject matter?

Presiding Judge: Do you want to know the subjects?

Attorney General: The subjects which were discussed.

Presiding Judge: He has already referred to deportation
orders.

Attorney General: Was there a discussion on introducing the
Jewish Badge?

Accused:    That is also possible, although I cannot
remember, but I will not deny it.  Timetable matters were
discussed, I remember.


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