Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-100-04
Last-Modified: 1999/06/13

Attorney General: On page 175 of the official Polish record
Rajewski states:

     "Since, from March 1942 onwards, the transports of the
     Head Office for Reich Security started, and the office
     might have had too much work to be able to register
     those groups individually, an instruction was issued to
     prepare a stamp and to affix that to all the sheets
     with the same given numbers which I shall now state to
     the Supreme Court, in other words on those sheets there
     were the following lists..."

And below:

     "Jews from France, Belgium, Holland - Head Office for
     Reich Security IVB4a; Jews from Germany - IVB4a; Jews
     from Greece - IVB4a; Jews from Croatia - IVB4a; from
     the Protectorate, from Theresienstadt, from Romania,
     from Hungary, from Italy, later - IVB4a; Jews from the
     Generalgouvernement and Bialystok, and finally we see
     Poles, Aryan Poles - IVB4a."

Presiding Judge: This is not at all clear in this
translation.  Do we have the original?

Attorney General: There is the Polish original.  I did in
fact submit the Polish original, Your Honour.

Presiding Judge: I remember - the marking of the pages here
is somewhat unclear.  We had this problem then as well; the
marking is repeated several times.

Attorney General: With all due respect, I thought it was
clear.

Presiding Judge: It is not entirely clear, Mr. Hausner,
whether it refers only to Aryan Poles or to Jews from the
area of the Generalgouvernement as well.

Attorney General: I think it is perfectly clear.  It says
here: "Jews from the Generalgouvernement and Bialystok,
2093/42g/39," and then: IVB4a.

Presiding Judge: Does that refer to Jews?

Attorney General: Yes, of course.  It says so.

Presiding Judge: So where is the designation from the
Protectorate?  Jews from Theresienstadt, Jews from
Romania...

Attorney General: He says the following: IVB4a 3013/42g/1310
- that applies to Jews from Croatia, from the Protectorate,
from Theresienstadt, Romania, Hungary and Italy.  And
afterwards: IVB4a 2093/42g/39 - Jews from the area of the
Generalgouvernement and Bialystok.  That is perfectly clear.
At the end we see: Poles, Poles-Aryans    IVB4a
3666/42g/1505.

[To the Accused] In any case, Rajewski who worked there in
the Political Section gave the precise designations of Jews
who came to Auschwitz from the Generalgouvernement, he
indicated the precise designation of IVB4.  How can you
explain that?

Accused:    I cannot give any explanation whatsoever of this
because IVB4 had no unit nor any office in the
Generalgouvernement - unless it was at Zamosc, where Krumey
worked, and Krumey received the timetable, as far as Berlin
and Birkenau were concerned.

Q. You have seen here the forms of the Political Department
in Auschwitz, and on the forms there is an item about the
"allocating authority." On two of the forms submitted there
was a clear entry, "Allocating authority IVB4."  You do
remember that, I suppose?

A. Yes, I remember the document.  This is a local regulation
of the Economic-Administrative Head Office, which clearly
issued the assignment according to the timetable
arrangements.

Q. And I am telling you that all the Jews who arrived in
Auschwitz reached there with this designation of the
allocating authority, IVB4.

A. All?  That just cannot be, in my opinion, and secondly, I
must once again say...in the Generalgouvernement I know of
nothing at all, and I know that there there was neither a
unit nor an office of IVB4, with the exception of Zamosc.  I
must correct myself here, too: There was not an office of
IVB4 at Zamosc; there was a Migrants Central Office of
Department III, but IVB4 had to draw up the timetable.

Q. And how did the Poles come from Zamosc to Auschwitz? What
was the designation of their allocating authority?

A. I do not know - not IVB4 - as far as I know, but I am not
absolutely certain about this.

Q. But if I am not very wrong, Rajewski referred to this,
too?

A. I cannot, after all, say anything more here than what I
know, and as for what other people know, that is something I
have no knowledge of.  I was not in the Generalgouvernement,
nor did I see such transports arrive at Auschwitz, so if I
might once again make a suggestion: Novak is available, who
certainly knows this subject much more thoroughly and can
give far more detailed information about the matter than I.

[Recess]

Attorney General: If it please the Court, I should like to
announce that I have tried to clarify what is missing from
exhibit T/297, but we have not quite managed to ascertain
what the missing sections are.  If I might, I should like to
ask the Accused another question.  My question concerns the
last passage of the exhibit in question.

Presiding Judge: All right.

Attorney General: You do agree, do you not, that this
exhibit, T/297, was drafted by Bilfinger himself, as is
shown by the reference number at the top of the letter.
Heydrich signed this letter, but Bilfinger drew it up.

Accused:    I cannot see any initials by Bilfinger, but I
see IIA2 in the heading.  And Bilfinger was the IIA Group
Leader.

Q. So that means that Department IIA drew up a letter for
signature by Heydrich, in which it says that you, Eichmann,
will make the corrections.

A. According to this letter before me, I should have
received this matter.

Q. No, my question concerned something different. Was it in
fact Group IIA which drew up the letter, in order to ensure
that the entire matter should go to you?

A. According to this letter, yes, I should have received it.

Q. All right.

Judge Halevi:  Mr. Attorney General, I have a question which
concerns yesterday's session.  I believe you said that in
the Generalgouvernement there was a permanent representative
of the Foreign Ministry.  Is this corroborated by documents?

Attorney General: There are Frank's diaries, Your Honour,
which show who took part in the meetings of the
Generalgouvernement.

Judge Halevi:  Including a representative of the Foreign
Ministry?

Attorney General: Yes, as far as I know, Your Honour; I
shall check that.

Judge Halevi:  I should like to check whether that was not a
mistake.

Attorney General: We have a more complete volume of Frank's
diaries - not the entire diary, because at Nuremberg there
were crates full of them, but we have the Polish version,
which is more complete.  We can check the matter again on
the Yad Vashem microfilm.

Judge Halevi:  I should be grateful if you would.  I believe
that even the Accused answered "yes" to this question, but
still, perhaps this is an error.

Attorney General: If this is an error - we would not wish to
mislead him on anything.

Presiding Judge: Please proceed.

Attorney General: You knew with regard to concentration
camps in the West, as well as about the camps' capacity and
possibilities for reception, as at Bergen-Belsen, for
example, as shown in the documents.

Accused:    Yes, that is the internment camp at Bergen-
Belsen.

Q. Well, that is what I am talking about - was there another
camp there?

A. Yes; Bergen-Belsen was in fact originally a concentration
camp, and then an area was cleared or added for what were
known as "exchange Jews," who were placed there as the
result of consultations between the Foreign Ministry and the
Head Office for Reich Security.

Q. Over which of the two did you have control or knowledge?

A. I knew about the camp where the internment Jews went, but
it was not under me.

Q. And what about Theresienstadt?

A. Theresienstadt, too, as far as matters of importance to
the Reich were concerned, IVB4 also had to have its finger
here in Theresienstadt, according to instructions.

Q. Was the arrangement of the beds in the Theresienstadt
camp a matter of importance to the Reich?

A. I do not know, but I know that at that time, the
beginning, naturally there could have been some influence on
questions of accommodation, and I did in fact go there...and
I have read that, too, on the urging...I am sure on the
urging of the Council of Elders, to look into this matter.
The fact was that if I went to Theresienstadt, then
Edelstein also made it his practice to approach me with all
his requests and complaints.

Q. Look at T/846, document No. 1198 - during a visit of
inspection to Theresienstadt, you gave instructions as to
how the bedsteads were to be installed there.

Accused:    Yes, this was one of the official journeys
ordered to Theresienstadt, and I would here gather from
point two as mentioned, that I did settle the bedstead
business there.

Q. And also the post business?

A. I have already in this respect said here that I was
informed of postal difficulties by the Council of Elders,
and I then reported on them and they were relaxed.  This was
a matter I could not authorize myself, otherwise I would
have authorized it immediately on the spot.  A few days
later, the instruction was issued for the post ban to be
removed, or at least relaxed.

Q. What you are here calling difficulties were death
sentences, were they not?

A. I had nothing to do with those.

Q. Were these death sentences or not?

A. Excuse me - which difficulties?

Q. These postal difficulties, as you call them.

A. Because of the...but not when I was there...these were
the death sentences on Poles...

Q. Were they death sentences, "yes" or "no"?

A. They were difficulties...these were the death sentences,
the cases of death...that is to say, the executions at
Theresienstadt took place because of the strict postal
censorship which was imposed, and afterwards I was notified
of this.  It was the Council of Elders, Edelstein himself,
who informed me and asked me to annul the postal ban.  I was
unable to take a decision on that myself.  A few days later,
Edelstein was informed that the postal ban was being
relaxed.  That proves that I was not entitled to impose or
annul postal bans there.

Q. Who imposed the death sentences at Theresienstadt?

A. I found this out from the weekly report, or the daily
report by the Elder of the Jewish Council - the Commander of
the Security Police and the Security Service in Prague.

Q. Did he have the power or competence to do so?

A. Yes, if he was so instructed by a Senior SS and Police
Leader, who was also State Secretary for Security in the
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; that is correct, then
he had the power.

Q. Do you perhaps know on the basis of which law - was there
some German law which empowered or authorized the Senior
Commanders of the Security Police and the Security Service
or the police to impose death sentences?

A. I do not know that; I only know that where there was a
State Secretary for Security, that these matters were dealt
with by this authority on its own for its area of
jurisdiction, without any involvement of the Head Office for
Reich Security.

Q. Was there any law which empowered the Commander or the
Commandant of an extermination camp to exterminate people?

A. There was certainly no law...I do not know about anything
else, because I really had nothing to do with that.  I only
know that people relied on the saying, "Fuehrerworte haben
Gesetzeskraft" (the Fuehrer's words have the power of law)
that was the saying at that time.  I myself neither gave
orders for these matters nor had anything to do with them.

Q. Was there any law which allowed Globocnik to exterminate
hundreds of thousands, and a quarter of a million Jews from
the Generalgouvernement?  Here you did have something to do
with this, because here you dictated or wrote him the ex
post facto, or after-the-event, authorizations for these
activities.

Q. I did obtain orders for this, that is correct, and I have
also admitted that, but as for the other aspects, at that
time they were not supposed to be of any concern to me,
since I had nothing to do with them; that was dealt with by
the higher authorities.

Q. Was there any law which empowered you to carry out the
deportations from the Reich and the occupied territories?

A. I do not know...I was not an independent holder of an
office; I obtained my orders from my immediate superiors, I
had to comply with these orders.

Q. And you did not care in any way to know whether they were
legal, or whether the orders were illegal, legal or illegal
even from the point of view of Reich law - that was of no
concern to you?

A. If I received the order from my Department Chief, the
Head of the Reich Criminal Police and Lieutenant General,
then it was on his responsibility, and he would have looked
after things appropriately with regard to his superior.  It
was not up to me to concern myself with this, as a Section
Head who obtained the orders from my immediate superior.

Q. That means that it was of no concern to you whether it
was legal or illegal - that did not concern you in any way?

A. This question did not arise, as I obtained the orders,
the unambiguous and clear-cut instructions of my superior.

Q. That is precisely why I am asking you whether you were
interested to know whether these orders were legal or
illegal, "yes" or "no"?  Did you ever ask, where are the
powers, where is the legal framework on the basis of which
we are acting?  Did you ever ask this question?  Did you
concern yourself with that?

A. I am not a lawyer.  I had to obey, I had only learned the
life of a soldier.

Q. Did you go to the south of France, to Monaco?

A. Yes, that is correct.

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