Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-096-04
Last-Modified: 1999/06/13

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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