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Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-092-04


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-092-04
Last-Modified: 1999/06/12

Q. But what is involved here is the implementation of these
matters.  And here Heydrich states "that you are my
specialist officer."

A. And that is true.  Because a consultation was planned for
6 March.  However, what happened was that, although I am
shown here as the specialist officer responsible, I did not
take part in that consultation, but I did take part in a
consultation in October 1942.

Q. I am not asking you now about taking part in conferences.
I am asking you whether, with regard to the special
assignment entrusted to Heydrich, Heydrich selected you as
his competent specialist officer, and you replied that he
did.

A. No, that is not correct.  I was not a qualified
specialist officer on all these matters.  I received the
administrative work, so as to handle these matters.  I had
nothing to do with the actual and technical side of things.
I was responsible for drawing up timetables, but not
including the Generalgouvernement and not including the
occupied territories.  And that can be proven by all the
documents.  The documents show clearly what I did do and
what I did not do.

Q. But there is no denying what appears in black and white.
Heydrich writes here that he is delighted that there is
general agreement on the Final Solution of the Jewish
Question, and in order to have a discussion now on practical
implementation, he invites a representative of the Foreign
Ministry, and he says here that you are his competent
specialist officer.  This is what is written in the document
- how can you deny it?

A. What it says here - I am not trying to deny that, but I
must protest, Mr. Attorney General, at the implication that
I was the competent official-in-charge for the entire Final
Solution; that is not true.  I was simply assigned the task
of writing the invitations, in other words, to carry out the
administrative work of inviting these people to the
conference in March of the same year, 1942, and this is
shown plainly by the organization chart and the documents.

Q. Leave the documents for a moment.  We have already agreed
that the extermination of the Jews was not a part of your
sacrosanct organization chart.  What is referred to here are
the organizational, technical and practical details of the
solution, and in this connection you were appointed as
Heydrich's specialist officer.  This is after all what is
written here.  If you want to see it, I can show it to you.

A. That is correct, Mr. Attorney General.  I, too, have read
it.  But when all is said and done, if so, I should have
also been the head of the gas van Section of Department II,
and I should have been Bilfinger's chief, and of all his
section heads who laid down all these requirements by the
negotiations and in interministerial channels.  There was a
head of a Jewish Section in Department VII who provided the
memoranda and what have you.  So it is just not true.

Q. I am talking about the Final Solution.

A. And I believe that the gas van Section of Department II
was a vital component of the Final Solution.

Q. Look, Accused, it is quite obvious to me that you cannot
singlehandedly have exterminated six million Jews; that you
must have worked together with others; that you had to work
hand in hand with other bodies in the Reich - this is not
new to me, and that is why I have charged you with doing
this together with others.  But now I am asking you a simple
question which derives directly from this document: that
after Heydrich received a free hand, with the approval of
all the authorities of the Reich, to run Jewish affairs as
he saw fit, you were appointed his competent specialist
officer in this respect.  And that is what it says here.

Accused:    No, Mr. Attorney General, first of all I do not
read this as meaning that, and secondly, in actual factual
terms it is completely untrue.

Q. Were you not Heydrich's specialist officer?

A. No, I was not Heydrich's specialist officer for the Final
Solution of the Jewish Question, I was a Specialist Officer
on Jewish Affairs under Mueller.

Q. And so, when Heydrich in this letter writes "my competent
specialist officer," that is not true?

A. This was about the discussion on 6 March, the invitation,
even the date appears here, and what was to happen on 6
March?  On 6 March the Ministry of the Interior, the
specialist officer from the Ministry of the Interior, was to
state what his Stae Secretary wished to have understood by
compulsory sterilization and the dissolution of mixed
marriages.  It was for this consultation that I was to deal
with the administrative formalities for the invitations.
That is what it means here.

Q. And Heydrich informs Under-Secretary of State Luther that
you are his specialist officer for drawing up invitations.
Is that what you are saying?

A. No, I would not go so far as to say that at all, but
Heydrich did have several advisers on Jewish affairs under
him, not just me, as the organization chart shows.

Q. Very well.  Let us look, for example, at T/297, where
Heydrich writes on 10 January 1942, that all Jewish affairs
are to be dealt with by the police, and that the official-in-
charge is SS Sturmbannfuehrer Eichmann.  This time, what
does that mean, that not only invitations are referred to
here?

A. I have just one answer to this document.  Why was this
whole matter not dealt with by the competent Head of
Section, Eichmann, as it says here, but instead, with
stubborn obstinacy, Department II of Group A2, Section 2.
There must have been some reason for that after all.  I have
commented on this.

Q. We shall come to the reason.  However, I am asking about
Heydrich's letter.  Heydrich says here that you are the
official-in-charge for all Jewish affairs.

A. And the same Department which set...

Q. Is that correct or not?

A. The documents say that that is not correct.

Q. Another falsification?

A. It is not a falsification, but actual practice shows that
all affairs in these matters were dealt with by Section
IIA2, although I am shown as being the official in charge.

Q. Did Heydrich write this letter or not?

A. Heydrich did sign it.

Q. And he writes here that you are the "Sachbearbeiter" (the
official-in-charge) of all Jewish affairs.  Was he lying or
was he telling the truth?

A. He signed it.  The actual practice shows that this was
not the case.

Q. Did he write the truth?

A. He undoubtedly wrote the truth, but the person who
drafted it did not stick to this, although it was ordered by
Heydrich.

Presiding Judge: Order!  I will not allow this and will not
repeat this any more.  I am ready to exclude the public from
these proceedings.

Attorney General: And you continued to be the specialist
officer of the chief of the Head Office for Reich Security
also when Kaltenbrunner held the post?  As he said in a
document in the Duesseldorf Documents, file 4, pages 242-
244, when he talks about the ghettos of Katowice and
Litzmannstadt: "Mein Referent SS Obersturmbannfuehrer
Eichmann" (my Specialist Officer SS ObersturmbannFuehrer
Eichmann).

Accused:    May I ask if that is with reference to the first
transport to Litzmannstadt?

Q. Please answer my questions.  During Kaltenbrunner's time,
did you continue to be the expert official on Jewish
affairs, the expert to the chief of the Head Office for
Reich Security?

A. In Kaltenbrunner's time I was also only one of several
expert officials on Jewish affairs in the Head Office for
Reich Security, just one under Mueller, the chief of
Department IV.

Q. So does that mean that, when Kaltenbrunner writes in this
document "Mein Referent SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann,"
this is not true?

A. It is not necessarily untrue, as he had four or five
expert officials on Jewish affairs.

Q. Perhaps you could tell us of one who dealt with the Final
Solution?

A. Of the expert officials on Jewish affairs in the Head
Office for Reich Security?

Q. Who dealt with the Final Solution, apart from you.

A. I dealt with the transport aspects, for example I had to
draw up the timetables.

Q. But apart from you, who else was "Judenreferent," an
expert official on Jewish affairs, in the entire Head Office
for Reich Security?  There was no one else.

A. In Department VII, for example, we had an expert official
on Jewish affairs, as shown in the organization chart, but I
do not know what his name was.  The documents establish that
there was an expert official on Jewish affairs in Department
II called Rauff, who handled the gas van affair.  There was
also an expert official who dealt with legislative matters
affecting Jews in Department II: The group leader was
Bilfinger, and the expert official was Neifeind, as
established by the organization chart.  There were also
expert officials on Jewish affairs in Department III, as can
be seen, and in all legal matters they - I cannot say
exactly, but this passage shows that they were all - all
expert officials on Jewish affairs.
Attorney General: You will agree with me that for none of
these was there any reference to Jews as their task, and
that you are the only one to have indicated as your task
"Judenangelegenheiten" - Jewish affairs.

A. In Department VII it is also mentioned, for example, but
at many discussions the name Neifeind appears in the
documents as the lawyer who was responsible for drawing up
regulations dealing with legal matters.

Attorney General: Take the organization chart - apart from
you, there is no expert official on Jewish affairs.

A. There are some pages missing from this organization chart
- there is a reference here to this - page 33, Department
VII - Ideological Research and Evaluation - these do not
appear here - only Department, as far as I can see, IV is
given in detail; for the other Departments only the name is
given, and then there is a page reference as to the page on
which they can be found.  Department VII, Ideological
Research and Evaluation, page 33 - that should also be in
the March 1941 organization chart...

Presiding Judge: Which document are you referring to?

Attorney General: I am speaking about the organization chart
of 1941.  Look at it. Show me where there is any specialist
officer who deals exclusively with Jewish affairs - except
Adolf Eichmann.

Accused:    That is what I meant here in Department VII -
Freemasons and Jewry - at that time, it is true, it was not
staffed.

Q. And Department VII dealt with research, and had nothing
to do with implementation?

A. In Department II, for example, it says drafting...

Q. Yes or no?  About Department VII first of all.

A. I have already said that Department VII dealt with
research...

Q. And therefore had nothing to do with any implementation?

A. On the basis of the memoranda issued by Department VII,
Department IV then gave instructions for the measures
ordered by Mueller.  I would here refer to the Sephardim
affair.

Q. Yes, yes. You wanted to refer to another Department.

Do continue.  Where else were there "Jews"?

A. Just a moment.  I shall start with IIA2.  Regierungsrat
Neifeind, "Legislation," that is the same Neifeind who is
always being mentioned in the various negotiations - IIA5
Confiscation of Property of Enemies of the State and the
People - Deprivation of German citizenship.

Q. I am not asking you who dealt with Jewish affairs.  I
have already told you that you obviously worked together
with many others.  I am simply asking against whose name it
says here "that his duties were Jewish affairs" - except for
yours.

A. If I ignore the unfilled post in Department VII, I have
to agree that there was this arrangement in Department IV,
where the name appears here next to the sphere of Jewry -
but that does not in any way mean that I was the head of the
Jewish affairs Section or the chief of the Security Police.

Q. Why not?

A. I was the Specialist Officer on Jewish Affairs in
Department IV under Gruppenfuehrer Mueller; I have never
denied that.

Q. And apart from you, there was no other in the Head Office
for Reich Security?

A. I have just pointed out, Mr. Attorney General, that there
were several who dealt with Jewish affairs in the Head
Office for Reich Security, but I was the only Section Head
in Department IV.

Q. No, no - I have already said that you do not have to
convince me that you worked in conjunction with others: I am
simply saying that in the entire Head Office for Reich
Security there was no other specialist officer whose
official duties were dealing exclusively with Jewish
affairs.  That is the case, is it not?
A. No, that is not the case, because apart from myself there
were other specialist officers who dealt with Jewish
questions.  In fact, I believe that Regierungsrat Neifeind,
for example, who appears here in the organization chart,
dealt exclusively with Jewish affairs.

Judge Halevi:  Neifeind dealt with legislation, did he not?
Does that mean that all the laws issued by the Head Office
for Reich Security were exclusively anti-Jewish laws?

Accused:    No, Your Honour, in Department III we...the
organization chart shows for legislation a very large
passage where a distinction appears even between the
individual laws, the sets or groups of laws.  Whereas the
specialist officer in Department III who dealt with these
matters very rarely appeared in person, Neifeind, as shown
by the documents, tended to appear at practically every
inter-ministerial discussion on the matter, and also as the
person in overall charge of the area at discussions on
behalf of the Head Office for Reich Security, including the
chapter of the "Brown Folder," where it says that Eichmann
is the official in charge.

Presiding Judge: Are you, therefore, saying that Neifeind
dealt only with anti-Jewish legislation?  Please look at
another page: There is also a column marked "Participation
of all departments involved."

Accused:    Your Honour, I can only say that IIA2 - that is
Neifeind's Section, Legislation - that this Section appears
everywhere and dealt with these matters as being in charge,
whatever the subject matter, if it involved Jewish affairs.
Whether, in addition, Neifeind dealt with other matters too,
I do not know; I, in any case, came across him wherever
Jewish affairs were concerned.  And there he dealt with
these matters as the person in charge (federfuehrend).  If
I, however, had been the only expert official in the Head
Office for Reich Security in the sphere of Jewish affairs,
then basically, according to the organization chart, no
other specialist officer could have dealt with Jewish
affairs as the person in charge.

Judge Halevi:  What is this term "federfuehrend," could you
explain?

Accused:    "Federfuehrend" is the term used when a section
head in a particular matter - when he is given exclusive
direction - more or less the running - of a subject, but
that does not exclude the possibility of other sections
signing with him, as is normal in all offices, if they are
marginally involved.

Judge Halevi:  And in what areas was your Section
"federfuehrend"?  For what were you "federfuehrend"?

Accused:    For example, I had the power to decide -
federfuehrend - on all timetable matters, transport matters,
all these negotiations with the Reich Transport Ministry,
instructions, dispatching directives handed down from above
to those responsible for evacuation, that is to say, the
State Police Regional Headquarters handling the matter - in
brief, the documents give a very good cross-section of the
activity of my Section, of which I had to be in charge.  But
where I was certainly not federfuehrend was all matters
which concerned legal affairs, matters of ordinances, and so
on; here it was Department II which was federfuehrend, and
of course Department IV was involved marginally.  And in
reverse, when there were things where Department IV had this
"federfuehrend" responsibility, Department II was entirely
free to detach a member of its staff or not, as it saw fit.

Presiding Judge: We shall now adjourn.  The Court will
reconvene at 8:30 tomorrow morning.


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