Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-04-01 
Last-Modified: 1999/06/15

Session No. 4
21 Adar Bet 5722 (27 March 1962)

President:  Mr. Hausner, yesterday I skimmed the Hebrew
record. There are a few imprecisions there. I should like to
clarify things. There is a reference to identifying Novak
from a photograph. This was done by Dr. Brody and not by
Freudiger?

Attorney General:  This was done twice. This was done once
by Brody and once by the Accused himself.

President:  Not by Freudiger? Because in the record it would
appear to indicate that this was done by Freudiger.

Attorney General:  It was Brody who identified the picture,
as did Hansi Brand.

With the Court's permission, had we known about Eichmann
only what I said yesterday, that would have been sufficient.
But we know more about him. Although he tried very hard to
burn documents, to cover his tracks, hundreds of documents
survived, all of them soaked in Jewish blood, from each of
which there arises the cry of destruction of the Jewish
People. But there are witnesses who have survived and who
have testified here.

We shall now, in a limited way and in the form of headings
only, follow the bloodsoaked trail of his actions in one
country, France. As usual, the Accused is trying to hide
behind formal arguments to the effect that he was following
orders and acting on the initiative of others. Perhaps
Abetz, Hitler's Ambassador in Paris, as Counsel for the
Defence claims, was eager to be the first to claim the title
to fame of ridding France of Jews. Naturally Knochen, the
BdS in Paris, was also most active in the area. But the
District Court held, in Paragraph 100 of the

Judgment, that in practice Eichmann and the people of his
Section, Dannecker, Roethke and Brunner dealt with Jewish
affairs. It is true that formally speaking, the latter were
under the command of Knochen of the Security Police, but in
practice they worked in accordance with Eichmann's
directives, obeyed his practical instructions. And he
himself says as much in T/37, pages 412-413. Less asks him:
"All right, but those people, such as Dannecker, Wisliceny,
Brunner, Guenther, they belonged to your Group, to Section
IVB4?" And here the discussion, the argument and the
standard evasions start again. And finally Eichmann says on
page 413: "Jawohl."

President:  It seems to me that in T/37 there is a general
explanation by the Accused - if I am not mistaken, on page
151, and also on page 412, there is a general explanation by
the Accused, to the effect that they were local
representatives and advisers, that they were IVB4 personnel
and received instructions. He does not say in this way that
they received orders from him.

Attorney General:  That is exactly the point. I just read
page 412 out to the Court.

President:  That is correct.

Attorney General:  Yesterday I read out to Your Honours what
the Accused said to Sassen, to the effect that he had no
powers of command, but only the power to issue instructions.
He draws a distinction between the power to command and the
power to issue instructions in respect of those people as
well.

But I would like to show how this power to issue
instructions worked in practice, because this is important
not just in general terms but also in terms of how it was
implemented. At this appeal stage, I cannot take the Court
back to all the countries in which the extermination took
place. I have therefore chosen a single country, France. In
T/404, Dannecker's memorandum of 10 March 1942, Dannecker
announces that he had taken part in a meeting of the Jewish
Specialist Officers, a meeting held on 4 March 1942 in
Berlin. In Paragraph 2, it says that Eichmann laid down the
following (hat Folgendes festgestellt ), and there follow
the directives and instructions concerning the deportation
of French Jews.

Justice Silberg:  Is CdS Heydrich?

Attorney General:  Yes, Chef der Sicherheitspolizei  (Head
of the Security Police).

From T/407, a telegram from Eichmann to Paris, to Knochen,
we learn that two days later, i.e. on 6 March, a further
joint meeting was held between Dannecker and Eichmann, and
that Eichmann issued further directives for the deportation
of Jews from France, laid down the composition of the
transport, the possessions that the deportees would be
allowed to take with them, the composition of the escort,
the destination, Auschwitz, and the duty to report the
departure of the transport, and for the report to be sent to
these places, to him, to his Section, to the Concentration
Camp Administration in Oranienburg, and to the Auschwitz
Camp.

In other documents, and I shall here submit T/460 as an
example, a telegram from Eichmann's Section to Knochen, he
issues an instruction to transport the Jews with Greek
nationality from France without any delay, and releases them
from the duty of informing Auschwitz, and he writes: "Das Kl
Auschwitz wurde von hier verstaendigt," i.e. I will make
sure that Auschwitz is informed of the transport.

On 11 June 1942, the Jewish advisers from Paris and Brussels
met at Eichmann's office, as we learn from Dannecker's
memorandum, T/419. In this memorandum Dannecker reports to
Knochen on the discussions concerning the continuing
deportations of French Jews, on including non-able-bodied
people in those transports. On page 2 it says that Eichmann
had instructed (hat angeordnet ) the advisers to report
again to him in Berlin on 2 August 1942 for a summin-up
talk.

Justice Agranat:  Who were these advisers of his?

Justice Silberg:  What was the relationship of the BdS to
the advisers on the one hand, and to the Senior Commander of
the SS on the other hand?

Attorney General:  The Senior Commander of the SS is
something completely different.

Justice Silberg:  But was there one in all the occupied
territories?

Attorney General:  No.

Justice Silberg:  Was not Winkelmann one of these?

Attorney General:  He was in the East. There were
territories where Himmler had direct, personal
represenatives, such as in Poland, for example, and apart
from that there were RSHA represenatives, who were the BdS.

Justice Silberg:  And there were advisers with the Legations
in certain places?

Attorney General:  There were advisers with the Legations in
places which were not at that time occupied countries.
Places where there was a German Embassy were not in occupied
countries, such as Bratislava or Belgrade.

Justice Silberg:  Or Romania.

Attorney General:  Yes, Bucharest, there were Jewish
advisers there. He would direct such activities.

Justice Silberg:  Who is that?

Attorney General:  He would direct, he would lay down
guidelines. If you take an example from the regular army, if
there is a battalion at the front, it would have, for
example, a quartermaster. This quartermaster is under the
orders of the battalion commander, but he receives his
professional directives from the Quartermaster General at
the General Staff - that is obvious - although the
Quartermaster General cannot issue instructions to the
quartermaster who is on the spot. Such instructions have to
go through certain command levels, but it is obvious that
the person at the General Staff who is co-ordinating matter
of supplies is also co-ordinating the supplies for that
particular battalion. So if we take this as an analogy, this
is roughly how the relationships were between Eichmann and
the various Jewish Specialist Officers in the occupied
areas.

Justice Silberg:  In those places where there were advisers,
such as in Hungary, Romania and other countries which were
under Nazi influence and were not actually occupied
territories, did the BdS receive instructions directly from
the Accused or did they receive instructions through the
advisers?

Attorney General:  This went in two directions, Your Honour.
Eichmann would ensure that Knochen would receive
instructions from Heydrich or Kaltenbrunner when necessary,
and there was a direct channel of command. On the other
hand, Eichmann would give directives to his man, such as
Dannecker or Brunner or Roethke in Paris, and that man would
pass on his Section's wishes to Knochen.
We can see this very clearly from the way Eichmann himself
describes the position of Richter in Bucharest.

Justice Agranat:  If you have already raised this subject,
Mr. Attorney General, I have a question concerning documents
T/98 or T/99 in conjunction with the distribution of powers;
there is a reference there to the powers of the Senior
Commander of the SD, and it says that those who deal with
special assignments do not have to act through him. The
question I want to ask is this: does this refer to an
assignment such as Eichmann's, is that a special assignment?
Or does it mean someone else who has been given a special
assignment?

Attorney General:  I shall check on this in a moment. T/99,
this is the distribution of powers of the Head Office for
Reich Security.

Justice Agranat:  T/98 speaks of the powers of the senior
officers.

Attorney General:  I shall come back to this later in my
argument, with the Court's permission.

On 28 August 1942 a further meeting of the advisers took
place.

President:  Before you said that he insisted that the
representatives report to him again in June.

Attorney General:  We know nothing about June, but we do
know about 28 August. This time we also know that Richter
was summoned from Romania, as we see from Eichmann's
announcement, T/1028, from his telegram of 23 August 1942;
and Wisliceny from Slovakia, as can be seen from telegram
number T/1102.

President:  Also from the Appellant?

Attorney General:  No, from the German Foreign Ministry,
instructing Hauptsturmfuehrer Wisliceny to report for
consultations at the Head Office for Reich Security on 22
August, for discussions between the various
Judensachbearbeiter, the  officials-in-charge of Jewish
affairs. What happened at that meeting?  We know this from
the report submitted by the man in charge of France, T/451:
"Eichmann announced during the meeting that the deportation
of stateless Jews had to be completed by the end of 1942. He
promised to supply an increased number of trains in October.
Among other things, he noted that it was still impossible to
confiscate the property of Jews with foreign nationality,
and announced that the matter was being discussed at the
Foreign Ministry and various Legations.

President:  Apart from Richter and Wisliceny, who else was
there, is that known?

Attorney General:  We know that the people from France were
certainly there, because they report on it. Roethke was
there, he is referred to in the document, and the author of
the report - Ahnert.

Justice Silberg:  Was Dannecker no longer in France by then?

Attorney General:  Dannecker was not the only one, there was
no shortage of these fiends.

Justice Silberg:  The Court finds that after Dannecker,
there were Roethke and Brunner. Was Dannecker in Bulgaria at
that time?

Attorney General:  In August 1942; I have the Bulgarian
material here, it is perfectly possible that at that time he
was in Bulgaria.

Justice Silberg:  Who sent out these invitations, T/1028?

Attorney General:  The Appellant addresses the Foreign
Ministry as follows: "Send Richter, I need him for
consultations." We do not know who got the Foreign Ministry
to invite Wisliceny, we assume that he did, just as he
invited Richter, we know that he gave instructions as to
when to report, other documents indicate the close link
between the branch office in France and the central office
in Berlin. Thus in T/411, which is Knochen's letter to the
Accused's Section, Knochen bases himself on a telephone
conversation between Dannecker and Novak, announces that the
German Army is not prepared to provide escorts for the
deportations, and Knochen asks for influence to be brought
to bear on the Fuehrer's Headquarters, in order for the Army
General Staff to be instructed to provide such escorts.
Knochen requests prompt attention to this matter, and
announces that he will not be responsible for any loss of
prestige caused by delays in the departure of the train
scheduled to leave on 28 March 1942.

In fact, after this Knochen asked for Eichmann to intervene
in order to tackle the difficulties from the German Army
over deporting the Jews, and to do this at the same time in
Belgium, France and Holland, and Knochen asked for
Eichmann's Section to take the necessary steps for the Army
to receive the appropriate orders to assist with the
operation (T/511).

Justice Silberg:  It would be interesting to know what the
Appellant says about these documents.

Attorney General:  He does not deny them.

Justice Silberg:  These documents are extremely interesting,
because they were written during the period between Heydrich
and Kaltenbrunner, this was after Heydrich's death and
before Kaltenbrunner was appointed. Who of the top echelons
gave the order?

Attorney General:  It was not after Heydrich's death. It was
on 20 March 1942, Heydrich was still alive.

Justice Silberg:  I am referring to the meeting in Paris,
this was after Heydrich's death. The way he explains it,
this was someone else's initiative.

Attorney General:  There is no difference at all between the
Heydrich-Kaltenbrunner period and the interregnum. During
the interregnum, Mueller ran the RSHA in practice, and there
was no tangible difference in terms of operations affecting
the Jews.

T/418, which is Dannecker's letter to the Accused's Section,
once again shows the constant, ongoing letter and telephone
link between the central office in Berlin and its branch
office. There is an interesting comment in Roethke's
memorandum of 15 July 1942. This is T/436. This is referred
to in the Judgment. Roethke worked at the Police
Headquarters in Paris and he noted that Eichmann telephoned
him on 14 July 1942 at 7 p.m. and asked why the train which
was supposed to leave the next day, 15 July, had been
cancelled.

Roethke writes that he replied to Eichmann that he was
allowed to arrest only stateless Jews, and he had managed to
round up only 150 such Jews. Because of the shortness of
time avaiilable to him, he was unable to carry out the
operation. Roethke added that Eichmann had informed him that
this was a question of prestige, that there had been many
talks in the Transport Ministry before it had been possible
to obtain the train, that nothing like this had ever
happened to him before, and that it was really embarrassing.
He did not wish to inform Mueller at this stage of how
things were, because that would simply mean putting himself
to shame, and he would have to consider whether it would not
be best for him to drop France as a country of deportations.
Roethke added in his memorandum that he asked Eichmann not
to do something so dreadful, that it was not his Section's
fault that the train had been cancelled. There were no more
than 150 stateless Jews in Bordeaux, and he promised that
other trains would leave as planned.

On 1 July 1942 Eichmann visited Paris. There was an in-depth
conversation with Dannecker about the Final Solution of the
Jewish Question in France, in order to be able to complete
the deportations without carrying out a round-up.

T/429 is a cover note from Dannecker to Knochen, accompanied
by the minutes of the talk between himself and Eichmann,
T/428. In his note to Knochen, Dannecker writes that he is
sending the report on the talk concerning the arrangements
for the major transport of the Jews from France. In the
document itself, T/428, which is the minutes of the talk
signed by the two men, by Eichmann and Dannecker, there is a
reference on page 2 to the fact that a clear and binding
agreement was reached by them on the deportation
arrangements and destinations from then on. It was laid
down, finally, that the current rate of three transports a
week, each with a thousand Jews, had to be stepped up as
soon as possible, in order to finally rid France of its Jews
in the near future.

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