The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

The Trial of Adolf Eichmann
Session 96
(Part 4 of 4)


Q. In order not to leave it at "possible," look at T/405, document No. 457.

A. Ah yes, this is not unknown to me, this document: What it says is...it is a document from Knochen in Paris, it says that the Jewish Badge is to be introduced simultaneously in the occupied Dutch territories, in the Belgian and French territories. The stress here must be laid on the word "simultaneously," since Section IVB4 could not decide whether Jews in these territories were to be thus marked. But what it could do in accordance with the orders was to influence things, so that the introduction of the marking occurred simultaneously and not successively.

Q. What was the purpose of introducing the wearing of the Jewish Badge?

A. In the occupied territories, the regulations in the Reich were copied, and the regulations in the Reich emanated from the central authorities, as has been seen here.

Presiding Judge: You did not understand. The question was, what was the purpose?

Accused: Marking the special status. How can I put it?

The purpose of marking was to have the Jews stand out externally as Jews.

Judge Halevi: That is a definition of marking. What was the purpose of marking?

Accused: Obviously it was a political purpose, since it was initiated and pursued by the politicians.

Q. And you do not know for what political purpose?

A. For Goebbels it was definitely for propaganda purposes.

Q. For what purpose in the areas occupied by Germany?

A. It must definitely have been by imitation of the regulations in the Reich. But I would like to say here, to avoid giving rise to inaccuracies, although that was not the main purpose, such marking did in fact facilitate rounding up people for deportation.

Q. That was a secondary purpose?

A. Yes, of course, because otherwise the marking would have been carried out earlier, right at the beginning of the deportations or, shall we say, at the beginning of the marking in the Generalgouvernement, which occurred far earlier than anywhere else.

Attorney General: Will you agree with me that, from your point of view, this minor secondary purpose, facilitating rounding up, was in fact the main purpose?

Accused: My wishes or intentions about this had nothing at all...

Q. From the police point of view, was that not the main purpose?

A. From the police point of view, I must say yes.

Presiding Judge: In order to facilitate the seizure of Jews in police raids?

Accused: Yes, because it made this fact considerably easier, I assume so.

Attorney General: Did these participants in the conferences - Dannecker, Guenther, Wisliceny, and other participants - know what fate awaited the Jews during deportation, or did you conceal that from them?

Accused: I did not myself discuss that with them, since I was not authorized to do so.

Q. So they simply did not know what happened to the deported Jews?

A. The people outside - for a long time they did not know that; I myself also did not in fact know whether these transports...for example, if they went to the Generalgouvernement, then I knew that nothing at all happened to them as long as Globocnik did not do his work. If they went to Auschwitz, then it is obvious that the bulk were put to work. I was also left in the dark as to how many, or who was perhaps killed. But I also did not concern myself with this, because it was not my field. It cannot be denied that I did know about these things, due to the fact that I was ordered to make trips to the East.

Presiding Judge: Keep to the topic.

Attorney General: We have already heard that you knew of Globocnik's murder operation in the autumn of 1941 at the latest, is that correct?

Accused: Yes, I knew then of the preparations.

Q. And at that time you saw the murders which were carried out in the regions of Lublin, Minsk and Lemberg? That was in the autumn of 1941, that is what you said?

A. No, that was 1942. In 1941 I did not see any killings at all.

Q. You did not see any killings?

A. The earliest were in the winter of 1941/1942 at Kulmhof near...and that is why I can give the date very precisely - it is not something which I have thought up. I found this again in Reitlinger as well, who writes that at the end of December the gas installations were set up at Kulmhof, setting up of the gas installations at Kulmhof, and I said to myself then, when I checked the times when I made my official trips, ah yes, I was ordered out there shortly after that. So that is correct, it was in the winter of 1941/1942.

Q. Let's leave Reitlinger and the documents. When did Globocnik talk to you and insist that you give him a retroactive confirmation of the murder of so-and-so many hundreds of thousands of Jews, which you dictated to Mrs. Werlmann?

A. Globocnik did not demand that from me; he made his demand either to Mueller or to Himmler or Heydrich, but I had to bring it to him. And I did bring it to him, and I have also testified to that.

Q. You dictated that to Mrs. Werlmann.

A. I have also said that it is not clear whether I dictated it or whether I received the letter. I do not remember.

Q. What did this letter say?

A. I remember roughly that he is authorized to convey a further 150,000 or 250,000 Jews to the "Final Solution."

Q. When was that?

A. I do not know by heart, and I have also tried to check this by means of a timetable I have drawn up for myself. It must have been around the summer or late summer of 1942.

Q. And that was signed by Heydrich?

A. I thought it was signed by Heydrich; if it was not Heydrich, because he was possibly already dead, then it will have been Himmler. I cannot say definitely. I made a statement on these facts right at the beginning and of my own free will and voluntarily, so that there could not originally have been any suspicion that I wanted to get out of any such affair which I was ordered to carry out.

Q. Was that the only order to murder Jews which you took to Globocnik?

A. I said once or twice. I have a very clear recollection of one occasion, I do not know about the second time, I do not know whether I am imagining things or whether it really is true that I brought it. I cannot say for sure.

Q. Globocnik was the only one who insisted on something like that in writing, was he not?

A. Yes, he was the only one, and I remember that either - it must have been Mueller, I think - said that he is a strange man, he demands this confirmation, I still remember that. In any case what I have just said is definitely correct in substance - whether it is literally true I cannot, of course, say any more, but in substance - yes. I also conclude from that today, that he was the only one who demanded something like that.

Q. Think back how that was with Globocnik. You came to him and said to him that the Fuehrer had ordered the extermination of the Jews. That was in 1941, was it not? And you did that on Heydrich's orders?

A. I said "The Fuehrer has ordered the extermination of the Jews"? I did not say that - Heydrich said that to me.

Q. And you passed that on?

A. I did not need to pass that on at all, since Globocnik certainly knew that already before, just like Heydrich or at least at the same time, but in any case long before I heard it from Heydrich's lips, because he did not send me there in order to hand over this order, but the preliminary measures for implementing this order of Hitler's, they were already underway. And they were what I had to look at and report on - that was what my orders said.

Q. Very well. So you saw that as early as 1941?

A. Yes, but then it was...it was even...I would reckon ...it must have been the autumn or late autumn, because I can still see the landscape, there were leaves on the trees, and the trees...

Q. All right, all right, but that was in 1941?

A. Yes, but there was no killing as yet for a long time - at that time the personnel there were just putting up the two small houses.

Q. All right. When did they start killing there?

A. I cannot give a date, because I was not present.

Q. Roughly, roughly when? The beginning of 1942, immediately after Wannsee?

A. It must...I would think...yes, it must have been around the time of the Wannsee Conference, but I do not know for sure.

Q. When did the deportations from the West begin?

A. From the Western Occupied Territories?

Q. Yes.

A. I believe that the first deportations began in March 1942, once Abetz had settled things and the transport situation made it possible, just as the order said. I think it might be March 1942, perhaps April 1942. I think the documents also show that.

Q. Very well. But in any case that was after the murders in the East had started, so that means that on 4 March 1942 the slaughter had already got underway, and I repeat the question which I asked you half an hour ago: In March, at this conference, did you or did you not inform the participants of the fate awaiting the deported Jews?

A. In March 1942 I myself had no idea what happened to the Jews deported from France...

Q. For Heaven's sake!

A. ...because I have no idea where they were transported to. I believe they were taken to the Generalgouvernement and were then allocated to different places, at least that is what I gather from the documents, I do not know whether I am mistaken. If I am mistaken, then, please, I must retract this, but at this time, at this time, as far as I know, the transports from the West were allocated to different places and not taken to extermination sites. I definitely believe that.

Q. Why did Globocnik ask Heydrich to authorize the extermination, and not Krueger or Frank?

A. Because I believe that Heydrich and Globocnik, and of course Krueger as well, had received this special assignment from Himmler. I have to assume this for a fact, although I do not know anything definite about it.

Q. Look - this was something exceptional, after all. You yourself said that it was exceptional, that this was the only time that someone demanded something like this in writing. Why did you not say to Globocnik: Go to the Generalgouvernement, to Frank, to the autonomous government?

A. But I have already said - Globocnik did not ask that from me...

Q. Through you...

A. No, not through me either; I was ordered by my superiors to take this letter there, and I myself was surprised that I had to do that, since I did not deal with such things. But it was probably as part of the various assignments on which I was sent to report on things, as in the East, to Mueller, that I was given this mission as well.

Q. Without any authority, like a messenger boy?

A. Yes, exactly like that.

Judge Halevi: I have another question here.

Accused: I wish to amend that; obviously not as a messenger boy in the literal sense, but as an officer who has personally to hand over a secret state matter. That is precisely how it was.

Judge Halevi: I am going to ask you a question. I have just looked at your Statement to the police, and here on pages 170-171 it says:

"As ordered, I went to Lublin, to Globocnik, where I reported, and I said that the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service had sent me, and then I repeated to him the sentences which I have just mentioned, that the Fuehrer had ordered the physical extermination of the Jews. The Fuehrer - that was Hitler. I reproduced Heydrich's words, the words he had said. The Fuehrer, Hitler, has ordered the physical extermination of the Jews."
A. Your Honour, I do not wish to deny that I repeated what I had heard. But that was not what caused the preparatory works, because they had already been underway for a long time, and I had said in fact that there was an officer of the Order Police there working in his shirt-sleeves, making the buildings airtight. That is how that is to be understood ...that that came up in conversation...of course it was...for me it was the latest information, and I informed Globocnik of what Heydrich had more or less said to me.

Q. You did not hand this order over to him as an officer who was personally handing over a secret state matter?

A. Are you talking about the first visit, Your Honour?

Q. Yes, about the first visit.

A. I did not hand anything over then. It was on the second visit.

Q. ... first visit.

A. No, I did not at all - then I only had to see how far Globocnik's measures had got. That was what the orders said.

Q. You did not have to hand over the Fuehrer's order to him?

A. No.

Q. You only mentioned it in conversation?

A. That is exactly how things were. And in fact the work which he had already commenced some time earlier, because evidently - I must conclude this from the facts - he had also received orders along these lines and knew about these things, just like Heydrich who had told me of it as well, and I did not need any orders in writing for this. I just looked to see how far...what had been done, I made notes about this and reported to Mueller.

Q. That will do. Thank you.

Presiding Judge: The Court will now adjourn. The next Session will be at 8.30 tomorrow morning.


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