Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Appeal/Appeal-Session-04-02 Last-Modified: 1999/06/15 According to the directives received by those handling Jewish affairs from Eichmann's Section and following these directives, they were also in touch with each other, without any further contact with Berlin, on matters of common concern such as the introduction of the Jewish Badge, mixed marriages, preparing legislation for withdrawal of rights, and so on. The Court will find examples of this in T/405 and T/406. T/405 is Knochen's letter about the Jewish Badge, and he asks for there to be co_ordination in Holland with the Unit in France, as a result of a joint discussion that took place on 4 March 1942 in Berlin. President: To whom does he write this? Attorney General: To the Unit in Holland. Both T/405 and T/406, as the Court can see from the initials in the top left-hand corner, were dictated by Dannecker. Justice Agranat: Both of them? Attorney General: Yes. Justice Silberg: What is the letter "j" which appears there? Attorney General: The reference is to "juifs" (Jews). Justice Silberg: Was that the designation in all countries? Attorney General: There were various designations. In France it was "j." Justice Silberg: There is also the number 4. Attorney General: Yes. Section 4. T/484 is Roethke's letter from Brussels. Roethke informs the Security Police Commander in Brussels about the implementation of the deportation of French Jewry, and he indicates that the Jews with French citizenship must also now be expelled from Belgium, rather than waiting for them to be stripped of their French citizenship. In T/530 Rajakowitsch reports from The Hague to Paris and Brussels, with a note to Eichmann, that Dutch Jews have already been deported, although the law to strip them of their citizenship has not yet been issued, and consequently it is now possible to also expel Jews who are Dutch citizens from France and Belgium. Eichmann determined when transports of Jews should travel from France to Auschwitz. "He has decided," it says in T/439, which is a memorandum from Dannecker dated 21 July 1943. President: On the deportation of children from France, there is document T/438. He asks what to do with 4,000 chldren. What is T/439? Attorney General: T/438 is a notice indicating that Eichmann and Novak were in touch with Eichmann's office on 20 July 1942. This is a memorandum from Dannecker concerning the deportation of Jews. And it starts by saying that on 20 July 1942 Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann and SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Novak from the RSHA IVB4 were in touch with this office. Talks were held with Eichmann about the transports of Jews. He decided that immediately after the deportations to the Generalgouvernement it would be possible - the children could move. President: I made a note for myself that this apparently comes from T/438. What is T/438? Attorney General: We shall check on this in a moment, Your Honour. I believe that T/438 is a request for instructions from Dannecker to Eichmann, where he asks what to do with the 4,000 children. President: Is T/438 also a memorandum from Dannecker? Attorney General: It is a question, Eichmann tells him, as shown by T/439, "When things in the Generalgouvernement are straightened out, you will be able to move the chldren." And things got straightened out. Telegram T/443 will show this. The Section informs Paris, "send the children from Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande to Auschwitz." When Eichmann ordered that Argentinian Jews be arrested and sent the instruction to the Security Police Commanders, it was clear that the operational instruction to arrest every single Jew would be issued by the various police stations. And the documents which the Defence now wishes to add to the file on this matter simply reinforce our version, and there is no need to add them, because they are already before Your Honours. T/501 includes the documents for carrying out Eichmann's primary instruction. Justice Agranat: Do we already have both these documents before us? Attorney General: Yes. Justice Agranat: Is one of them T/501? Attorney General: T/500 is Eichmann's instruction to arrest the Jews from Argentina immediately. Justice Agranat: Have the two documents which Counsel for the Defence wishes to submit already been submitted to the Court? Attorney General: Yes, they are part of T/501. If the Court would look at T/501, it will see the command path followed by this instruction. Justice Silberg: But the Court bases itself on another document, dated four years earlier. The Court, as would appear from Paragraph 100, based itself on a memorandum or a request by Dannecker dated 24 October 1941, and Counsel for the Defence bases himself on a document dated 28 January 1944. Is that or is that not correct? The two documents discuss Argentinian Jews, and that may perhaps have confused him. I am reading from the documents submitted by Counsel for the Defence. Attorney General: Yes, Your Honour. Justice Silberg: And the Court does not base itself on this letter, but on another letter dated 28 January 1944. Attorney General: Instructions trickled down about the nationals of various countries, and one must be very cautious in this area. When the District Court refers to instructions concerning foreign nationals, this does not necessarily include all the foreign nationals, and this did not in fact include all the foreign nationals. Only in T/500 is an instruction given to arrest Argentinian nationals. And the Court does in fact refer to this in Paragraph 153 of the Judgment. President: What is the date of T/500? Attorney General: 27 January 1944. President: Perhaps it is as my colleague Silberg asked. Perhaps the answer is more straightforward, that there is simply a mistake, and instead of 1944 it says 1941. Attorney General: What it says in the Judgment is correct. And these are two different documents. I would ask the Court to distinguish between them, and not to mix them up. Justice Silberg: But T/439 also includes Argentinian nationals, they could also be Argentinian nationals. Attorney General: It could but it does not include them. The reference here is to Austrian, Czech or Polish Jews. But it does not make much difference. Justice Silberg: In 1941, the Austrians, Czechs or Poles were no longer Austrians, Czechs and Poles, but half Germans. Attorney General: Your Honour can see what the document says. Justice Silberg: Yes, but according to what it says, they could also be Argentinians. Attorney General: In any case, I would draw the Court's attention to this document and I shall not add anything further to it, it speaks for itself. To repeat: the first instruction to arrest Argentinian nationals is T/500... President: To whom it is addressed? Attorney General: It is addressed to the police units in Brussels, to all the police stations in the Reich, and for information to the Hoeheren SS- u. Polizeifuehrer (the Higher SS and Police Leaders), and in T/501 the Court will see how this instruction develops into operational orders for actual arrests. There are several pages here, containing the actual implementation of that order. Justice Agranat: Is this document of 28 January 1944, which Counsel for the Defence enclosed, one of them? There is also a reference there to a document of 27 January 1944. Attorney General: Yes. One of them is dated 28 January 1944. Justice Agranat: But I cannot find it, there is no Knochen. Attorney General: Here is the document of 28 January 1944. T/400 is a memorandum by Dannecker dated 22 February 1942, from Paris, in which it says that the practical authority for measures against the Jews has been given to his office, and that on a European level the Chief of Security Police and SD has been appointed as the Commissioner of Jews in Europe. And after a description of the operations already carried out and a listing of the planned means to be used against the Jews, Dannecker concludes proudly that the handling of Jewish affairs is to be concentrated in his office. As I have already indicated, Dannecker received the practical directives from Eichmann. He also reported to Eichmann. For example, in T/433, Dannecker's letter to Eichmann, the Court will find the report of 6 July 1942, when Dannecker announces what he has already done following his talk with Eichmann six days earlier, on 1 July. As is clearly seen from the Eichmann's announcement to Roethke, that he would need to consider abandoning France as a country of deportations, and as is shown by T/419 to which I have already referred, it was in Eichmann's power to determine within the general instructions the order of countries for deportations, which would come first and which next, who would go to an immediate death and who last, as he determined for example for the few Dutch Jews who were members of the N.S.B. National Party, on whose behalf the Nazis intervened. President: What is 528? Attorney General: That is a memorandum in Rajakowitsch's file about his talk with Eichmann. And Rajakowitsch notes that in his talk, Eichmann insisted in principle on the view that there is no reason for any exceptions in respect of these Jews, and they are also destined for extermination with all the others, but they will be put to death last. I apologize for my slip in saying "put to death" - that was incorrect. It says they will be deported. But it is obvious that the meaning is unambiguous. Justice Silberg: What was the practice in the Nazi hierarchy? When it says "for information," was that a more junior or a more senior official writing? Attorney General: Sometimes a more junior official provides something for the information of a more senior official. Justice Silberg: For example, this letter is written by Dannecker, this is letter 439 from Dannecker, you quoted it earlier, Mr. Hausner, he is an Obersturmbannfuehrer and Roethke is an Obersturmfuehrer, i.e. junior to him, and he writes for the information of an Obersturmfuehrer. This is a sign that he is more junior. Attorney General: I do not believe that it makes any difference. The person is simply informed that there are matters which must be brought to his attention, whether he is more junior or more senior. We do, however, get confirmation from these documents of what Justice Musmanno testified to the District Court concerning what Goering said, Session 40, Vol. II, page 720, where he stated: "He [the Reichsmarschall] did not refer to Eichmann as a small official. On the contrary, he made it very clear that Eichmann was all-powerful on the question of the extermination of the Jews. Eichmann had unlimited power to declare who was to be killed from among the Jews, chronologically, and by segment of population, what countries geographically and throughout." Justice Musmanno also testified about what Schellenberg had said, to the effect that Eichmann could determine as he saw fit all the countries destined for the Final Solution (Session 39, Vol. II, pp. 711-714). The exhibits also prove how Eichmann struggled to deal with the obstacles that faced him in his attempts to destroy the Jews. When the Italians did not co-operate, he asked for a personal meeting with Lospinoso, the commander of Italian- occupied France, T/482. This is Eichmann's communication to the Foreign Ministry, a letter in which he requests a meeting. But in the Foreign Ministry memorandum, T/483, it says that Lospinoso sees no point in such a meeting at that time. The machinery of deception was implemented in France also. The Association of French Jews approached the German Security Police with a request to issue certificates about the deported Jews, where they were, in order to be able to collect pensions, insurance benefits and similar payments. This is in letter T/464. President: A letter from whom? Attorney General: From the Association of Jewish Communities in France to the Commander of the Security Police and SD. And in the same exhibit the Court will find the correspondence on this subject between Roethke and the Accused's Section, and at the end Eichmann's instructions in a telegram to write in the certificate that the whereabouts of the deportees are not known. In the Section's telegram to the units in The Hague, Paris and Brussels, T/480, an urgent instruction is issued to refrain from informing the deportees... President: This is a letter from whom to whom? Attorney General: A telegram from the Section to the units in The Hague, Paris and Brussels, that there are complaints from Auschwitz that the deported Jews know in advance where they are being sent, and this creates panic, and therefore they must not find out on the way where they are going. Eichmann and his men also had control over the concentration camps. The Court will find this in Wellers' testimony in Session 32, Vol. II, pages 586-589, about the absolute control wielded by Brunner and Dannecker over those camps, and dealing with every individual Jewish case. When Eichmann found out that the Jew Max Golub was trying to escape to Switzerland, he took the initiative and requested his immediate arrest and deportation to the East in accordance with the directives (T/496). When the Jew Avraham Weiss made an important patent available to the Germans, and Roethke asked Eichmann about him, Eichmann replied that "since Weiss has already registered his invention with the Reich Patent Office, there is no further interest in the matter here. I request that the aforementioned be included in the Jewish measures in accordance with the guidelines" (T/499) ("besteht an der Angelegenheit hier kein Interesse mehr. Ich bitte, den Genannten gemaess den Richtlinien in die Judenmassnahmen einzubeziehen"). And when the Romanian Government asked for the return of a Jew from France, Advocate Rosenthal, Eichmann informs the Foreign Ministry that for reasons of principle he cannot make exceptions, because that would complicate the purging of France of Jews (T/491). When the Foreign Ministry had to take urgent measures in Occupied France in respect of Jews who were citizens of neutral countries and was unable to communicate with Eichmann, because apparently he was not at his office at the time, he is informed accordingly after the event in an apologetic tone: "We had to act without you because it was impossible to get in touch with you" (T/466). Even the appointment of the French Commissioner for Jewish Affairs and the choosing of this individual was a matter for Eichmann; and he warmly recommends the appointment of Du Paty de Clam, the son, it says, of the well-known French officer from the Dreyfus trial, "and I therefore consider him a most suitable candidate for the post of Commissioner for Jewish Affairs in the French Government" (T/504, from IVB4). About the same Brunner of whom we know from Wellers' testimony which I have already cited this as well as on pages 586-589. We also know from Dr. Abeles' testimony about the Sered camp (Session 49, Vol, II, pp. 893-894 and from Rosenberg's testimony (Session 51, Vol. II, 921-923). Brunner the sadist, who would maltreat the detainees, torture them, was Eichmann's favourite, as was testified by Wisliceny in T/56, page 21. Justice Silberg: Where did Wisliceny say this? At his trial in Bratislava? Attorney General: When he was in custody in Bratislava. Perhaps in testimony. Justice Silberg: Perhaps in testimony at Nuremberg? It says here, "Wisliceny's statements to investigators."
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