Archive/File: 
people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Testimony-Abroad/Franz_Novak-02
Last-Modified: 1999/06/14

(2): As an assistant Specialist Officer, I had to draw up
the timetables for the specific train journeys and to
organize the manner of reporting.  For this purpose, I was
provided by Guenther with the stations of departure and
destination and the number of persons, and I then had to
prepare the requisite documents for the Reichsbahn (Reich
Railways) about the means of transport, etc.  Guenther or
Eichmann would then sign these documents.  After the
timetables were submitted for each specific train journey, I
then had to prepare the reports to the Departments
concerned.

(3): As far as I know, the RSHA was divided into
Departments, which were in turn divided into Groups, and
then the Groups were split into Sections.  All I know is
that Eichmann was the Section Head of Section 4 of Group B
in Department IV (IVB4).  I do not know anything about
Eichmann heading a Group or Department in the RSHA.

(4): I have no way of knowing whether Eichmann himself gave
orders for deportations or only carried out orders.  I can
only say that the RSHA was organized along strict military
lines, and everyone knew only what he had to know in order
to carry out his duties.

(5): I do not know whether Eichmann reported, or had to
report, to the authority superior to him about the
implementation of orders, but given the military
organization, I assume that this was the case.

(6): I rarely received orders from Eichmann, and they
concerned transport matters only.  However, I cannot say
whether he gave me these orders on his own initiative or
not.

(7 and 8): I did not know anything about this, as I was not
in a position to see what was going on.

(9): I do not know anything about Eichmann being reproached
by his superiors for not implementing their measures.

(10 and 11): I do not know anything definite about this.
However, I would think it possible that the Party or other
bodies might have intervened, because of their anti_Jewish
attitudes.

(12 and 13): I do not know anything about this.

III. Questions of the Attorney General.

(1 to 3): I arrived in Vienna in May 1938 as an SS candidate
to the Security Service and worked first in the Sports
Section.  In June or July 1938, I was attached to the
Central Office for Jewish Emigration, where I made the
acquaintance of Eichmann, the head of this office.  However,
already then, my immediate superior was Rolf Guenther.

(4): Around summer 1939 I was transferred from the Central
Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna to the Central Office
for Jewish Emigration in Prague.  In Prague my immediate
superior was Hans Guenther (a brother of Rolf Guenther).
Eichmann came to Prague from time to time, and I believe
that he was also the head of the Central Office for Jewish
Emigration in Prague.  In Vienna and Prague my duties were
to receive applications for emigration.

(5): Around the end of 1939 I went from the Central Office
for Jewish Emigration in Prague to Berlin, to the section
for the evacuation of Jews, Poles, Gypsies and Slovenes.
The Section Head was Eichmann, and my immediate superior was
Rolf Guenther.

(6): No authority over the Reich Representation of the Jews
or the Reich Association of Jews in Germany was accorded to
me.

(7 and 8): I cannot give any information about this, since I
know nothing about it.  I am not familiar with any
supplementary designation "RZ".

(-) Juliane Beringer
(-) F. Fiedler
(-) Franz Novak

Continued on 22 June 1961, 9.00 a.m.
Present:

District Court Judge Franz Fiedler

Recording Clerk VB Juliane Beringer

On Question 9: My immediate superior was always Rolf
Gu67nther, and from spring 1944 until roughly November 1944
in Budapest, SS Hauptsturmfu67hrer Wisliceny was my
superior.  However, in the period indicated, I was not in
Budapest the entire time; for a while I was also in Berlin,
and for a short time in Arad.  In Berlin, Rolf Gu67nther was
always my superior, and in Arad Wisliceny was also my
immediate superior.  After Budapest I returned briefly to
Berlin again, and then towards the end of 1944 was
transferred to a course for bunker fighting, and then went
to the Eastern Front with a unit of the Waffen-SS.  This
unit was under Fighting Commander von Konitz, a colonel in
the army.

(10): I always belonged to Section IVB4, which at the
beginning was called IVD4.  There were no personnel changes
when it was renamed IVB4.  I am not familiar with Section
IVA4b and was never assigned to such a Section.

In Budapest the Eichmann Commando (not Operations Unit) was
subordinate to the Senior Commander of the Security Police
and the Security Service in Budapest, SS Standartenfuu67hrer
Geschke.  I never had any official title, and all the time I
worked for the Head Office for Reich Security I was an
assistant Specialist Officer for timetable and reporting
matters.

(11): There were no material or personnel changes when
Section IVD4 was renamed IVB4.

(12): IVB4 was not a Department, but a Section in the RSHA.
The Department was in charge of the Section.  The Section
was the last link in the organization of the RSHA.  There
were no sub-sections or sub-departments in a Section, at
least not in Section IVB4.  The Sections only employed
Specialist Officers, but these had no authority to sign.
Only the Section Head had the authority to sign.

(13): Within the Section, the fields of activity dealt with
by the Specialist Officers were designated a, b, etc.  As
far as I remember Section IVB4 had three or four Specialist
Officers, depending on the work load.  Field "a" was
transport.  The Specialist Officers here were my immediate
superiors, as I have already indicated.  In Budapest,
however, instead of the term IVB4, there was the Eichmann
Commando, but its field of activity was the same as in IVB4.
As far as I am aware, however, there was a basic difference
between IVB4 and the Eichmann Commando, i.e., that the
Eichmann Commando was not, organizationally speaking, part
of the RSHA, but was subordinate to the Senior Commander of
the Security Service in Budapest.

Whether Eichmann was the head of the Eichmann Commando as
well as of Section IVB4 in Berlin, I do not know.

As far as I am aware, there was a Specialist Officer for
each of the following fields: the registry, individual cases
(interventions) and matters concerning property law.  I had
no official links with the other Specialist Officers and am
unable to recall any more the names of the Specialist
Officers; apart from that, there was a frequent change of
Specialist Officers.

(14): While I was working in the RSHA, I had dealings only
with the Reich Transport Ministry and the Reich Railways
Eastern Management.

(15): In Budapest, I dealt only with the Budapest Transport
Headquarters.

(16): Responsibility for drawing up timetables for
evacuating Jews belonged to the Reich Ministry of Transport,
in conjunction with the Head of Transport Matters in the
army.

(17): I had no special assignments and would refer here to
what I said under Question II(2).

(18): I had no dealings at all with agencies of the
Generalgouvernement and of the Reich Commissariat of the
Eastern Occupied Territories.

(19): I know nothing about this.

(20): I do not know Sturmbannfuehrer Hoefle.

(21): I had nothing to do with the Commander of the Security
Police in Lublin.  I do not know Huppenkothen and Wirthoff.
Mueller was the Department Chief of Department IV in the
RSHA, but I had nothing to do with him.

(22): I know the name Stahlecker, but I had no official
relationship with him.  The only thing I know is that in
1938 Stahlecker was the Inspector of Security Police and the
Security Service in Vienna.

(23): I had no duties or links with the Security Police or
other bodies in the Eastern Occupied Territories.

(24): I know Otto Hunsche; he was for a short time a
Specialist Officer in Section IVB4 and was also a member of
the Eichmann Commando in Budapest.  I had no official links
with Hunsche and also do not know for which field he was the
Specialist Officer.

(25): I did go to Budapest in May 1944 to take part in the
timetable conference in Vienna.  However, I no longer
remember whether I received this assignment from Eichmann or
from Wisliceny.  An official from the Reich Railways was in
the chair, and there was a discussion in general terms of
timetables for future movements, including those of the
army.  My assignment was to receive the timetables for
special trains for evacuating Jews from Hungary.

(26): I do know by name a Hungarian gendarmerie captain
called Kullay or Lullay, but I had no official dealings with
him.  This captain also took part in the Vienna timetable
conference, and I frequently saw him at the Eichmann
Commando office in Budapest.

(27, 28 and 29): As far as I can remember, it must have been
around the end of July 1944 when the transports of Jews from
Hungary were stopped.  However, I do not know which
authority ordered this halt.  I did not discuss the halt of
transports with Eichmann, nor did I receive any instructions
from him on the matter.  After transports were halted, I
returned to Section IVB4 in Berlin for a few weeks and left
with the Eichmann Commando for Romania.  I do not know what
was the purpose of the transfer to Romania.  In Arad we
evacuated a German field hospital and helped with the
repatriation of the ethnic Germans.  As a result of military
events, the Eichmann Commando withdrew together with the
fighting forces.  At the time of the Arrow Cross revolt in
Hungary (around autumn 1944), I was again temporarily in
Berlin and then had to return to Budapest.  After that,
until the Eichmann Commando was dissolved, around the end of
November, transports of Jews to Vienna were carried out, and
those included in the transports were to be used as
labourers in building the Ostwall.

(30 to 32): I did not receive from anybody an order to
deport Jews from the Kistarcsa assembly camp, nor do I know
anything about such deportation.  I do not know the
Kistarcsa location, nor have I ever been there, although in
the proceedings pending against me in the Vienna District
Court for Criminal Cases a witness alleges to have seen me
at the Kistarcsa assembly camp.

(33): Eichmann was not always in Budapest, nor was he always
with the Commando in Romania.  However, I do not know for
what purpose and where Eichmann made his trips.

(34): I know nothing about this.

(35): Rolf Guenther was my immediate superior and Eichmann's
deputy in Berlin.

(36): Before taking up my duties in Budapest, I received a
written movement order to report to Mauthausen.  It may have
been that this was on 19 March 1944.  I did not know for
what purpose I was to report to Mauthausen.  It was only
later that I found out that all Security Police and Security
Service personnel operating in Hungary received such orders.
I saw Eichmann as well in Mauthausen.  I do not know whether
Rolf Guenther was superior to Eichmann at the time.  I have
already mentioned that I do not know whether Eichmann headed
Section IVB4 during his tour of duty in Budapest.  If this
was not the case, then it was quite possible that, as Deputy
Head of Section IVB4, Rolf Guenther was able to issue
instructions to Eichmann through the Senior Commander of the
Security Police and the Security Service in Budapest.

(37): I do not know who was the Head of Department IVA4b,
nor do I know which section this was.  I did not even know
the Section Heads of Group IVB.

(38): In this connection I would refer to my above
declarations.

(39): In the winter of 1945, I was no longer part of the
Head Office for Reich Security, and I would refer to my
declaration under Question III(9).

(40): I do not know anything about this.

Read, confirmed, signed

(-) Juliane Berlinger
(-) F. Fiedler
(-) Franz Novak

Section 153 of the Code of Criminal Procedure reads:

If the giving of evidence or replying to a question would
result in a direct and major material loss for the witness,
or would bring discredit upon himself or one of his
relatives, and he therefore refuses to give evidence, he
should only be compelled to give such evidence in
circumstances of extreme importance.

33a Hs 3484/61

To the Federal Ministry of Justice

Re: Criminal Proceedings against Adolf Eichmann

It is hereby reported as an addendum to the report dated 23
June 1961 that, in accordance with Section 170, paragraph 1,
of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the witness Franz Novak
could not be sworn, as he is suspected of being an accessory
to the crimes of Adolf Eichmann, and for this reason
criminal proceedings against Franz Novak are pending before
the Vienna District Court for Criminal Cases on a charge of
murder, file number 27b Vr 529/61.

Vienna District Court for Criminal Matters, Dept. 33a, 28
June 1961
(-) F. Fiedler

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