The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-101-02


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-101-02
Last-Modified: 1999/06/14

Q. Can you tell me why it was your concern - what business
of yours was it to write to the Foreign Ministry that the
Attache of the French Legation in Bucharest, who is trying
to release Jews from a collective fine, is apparently a Jew.
What does that have to do with you?

Accused:    This is also a report - a denunciation - which
is passed on from the police to the competent
authority...just like all these matters.

Q. But here there is no reference whatsoever - as far as I
can make out - there is no reference whatsoever here...

A. No, but it does not say that the Adviser on Jewish
Questions in Bucharest has reported the matter, and what
Section IVB4 has to do with this. It then passes it on to
the Foreign Ministry.

Q. So you mean if Richter wishes to inform the Foreign
Ministry of such a matter, he cannot directly inform
Killinger of it, so that he can notify you of it? So that
you pass it back to the Foreign Ministry or to Killinger?
Are you seriously trying to tell us that?

A. No, that is not what I am trying to say, but this
letter...this document proves that that was actually the
case - Richter reports something and the Head Office for
Reich Security is not competent in that area...IVB4 rejected
it...and in fact it goes off without any comment...not even
with the request that it be considered or commented on...it
is simply handed over to the Foreign Ministry. So that means
that in these matter IVB4 did not feel at all
competent...matters are submitted to a central authority
from all sorts of places.

Q. All right. A few more matters of the same type: I
understand that neither you nor Mueller had any power to
assign people to concentration camps - that is what you
said...

Accused:    Not "neither...nor Mueller to concentration
camps": Mueller did definitely...I never said that Mueller
did not have the power to send people to concentration camps
- of course Mueller did...

Q. So Mueller had the authority to send people to
concentration camps.

A. Yes, Mueller did.

Q. But such authority was not transferred or delegated to
you?

A. No. Not...I believe...to any Section Head whatsoever.

Q. If I show you T/764 where you say that you want to send
Romhanyi to a concentration camp, and where it says "I
intend" (ich beabsichtige), then you will once again say
that "I" (ich) means Mueller. Or perhaps I should hand you
the document and then you will say something else yet again.
Will you not?

A. First of all, this is a report from the Fuehrer's
Plenipotentiary for the Supervision of the Entire Spiritual
and Ideological Education, and so on. The only reason I am
mentioning this is to prove that I could never have decided
on such matters on my own. I myself was never able to order
an assignment to a concentration camp. But since I am now to
discuss this document and make a statement on it, I must
stress this point in order to prove that I could never
interfere in such matters. If it says here...

Presiding Judge: First of all, what is the number of this
exhibit?

Attorney General: I gave the Accused the document with my
transcript, T/764, document No. 135.

Accused:    And as far as the use of the first person is
concerned, I have already explained this. I have nothing
further to say about this other than that in the
bureaucratic sphere that was the usage, and that that does
not mean the writer himself.

Q. Can you explain what does it have to do with you in
Berlin whether the Jew Max Ausschnitt does or does not leave
Romania? He does, it is true, have property, and you hope to
get your hands on this property by means of the Final
Solution. But do you have any other reason for that?

A. I cannot now reconstruct this case from these few
documents - document No. 133 of 3 June gives a reference
which I do not have. But this Ausschnitt case was a big
case, and there were various documents involved. I have one
here in Reitlinger...because of other fundamental matters,
and the reasons can be seen from the proceedings in the case
as a whole. At the moment, I do not remember them. If I am
allowed to study the matter, then I would be ready to
provide information here, Mr. Attorney General.

Q. I am only interested in the problem in principle. Romania
is apparently at that time still an independent State, with
which you have diplomatic relations. So what business is it
of the German police whether a Jew does or does not leave
Romania?

A. Of course it did not concern Section IVB4 of the German
police. But the Ausschnitt case was also dealt with by the
Deputy Romanian Prime Minister, Mihai Antonescu. It is
obvious, and quite clear, that Section IVB4 could not on its
own take any decision whatsoever, and it dealt with the
matter, just like all others, in accordance with orders,
without any analysis of its own, without any proposals of
its own, and without any authority of its own.

Judge Halevi:  But the Gestapo had this authority?

Accused:    Your Honour, it did not...I have already said
once...submit this matter to my Department Chief.

Q. In general? So Department IV had the authority?

A. Yes, for such matters, if the Department Chief had
ordered that, and if it was passed on, naturally it depended
whether the Foreign Ministry was involved. It was necessary
here to co-ordinate with the various central bodies.

Judge Halevi:  Very well.

Attorney General: Now listen closely: I am going to read to
you something which as far as I know you told Sassen in
Argentina about such matters. This then is a summary of the
chapter, so confirm if it is correct.
"Now I have already said that the only Department Chief whom
Kaltenbrunner preferred - to my Department Chief's chagrin -
was Schellenberg. And when once Mueller was away for quite
some time - I forget whether he was on holiday or whether
there was something else going on - at the time the Deputy
Chief was Standartenfuehrer or Obergruppenfuehrer
Schellenberg during the War. If the Section Heads had
queries - and that happened two or three times a week - then
we had to come along with our bundle of files, and first of
all clarify basic matters by means of these consultations."

Is that correct?

Accused:    That is not correct. As far as I understand,
Kaltenbrunner was never Department Chief, and Mueller was
never away for a longish period; and as for my going for
consultations to Schellenberg several times a week, that is
also not correct since, as far as I know, Schellenberg was
only once Mueller's substitute, not even for half a week, I
believe.

Attorny General  Very well, I shall read on.

Judge Halevi:  Perhaps he did not understand the beginning
of the passage. There was some misunderstanding somewhere
about Kaltenbrunner.

Attorney General: I can read out the passage to the Accused
or show it to him.

I shall read on:

     "Before we could refer to the relevant orders or
     ordinances, because often we could, in fact, cite this
     or that law, or this or that ordinance, and thus there
     were many questions of principle which had to be
     cleared up."

Is that correct?

Accused:    I do not understand the meaning or the context.

Presiding Judge: It does sound somewhat like an incomplete
sentence.

Attorney General: What I have read out to you so far is
marked in red on the second half of page 40.

Accused I have already said that the leave...Mueller's
lengthy absence is not correct. Nor is it correct that
Schellenberg was a Standartenfuehrer or Oberfuehrer when he
once deputized for Mueller for two days, he was
Obersturmbannfuehrer. The rest is a hodgepodge of some sort
of...the meaning, I understand the meaning, what it means,
but this is an unintelligible jumble, this matter, it
definitely is not from me. For example, this sentence...

Presiding Judge: So, if this is a jumble, there is no point
in reading it.

Attorney General: But I should like to continue.

Presiding Judge: All right, do so.

Attorney General: Would you please look at this - you can
follow the manuscript here:

     "I know that one day I went to Schellenberg with a
     request for a consultation about some matter, and he
     decided in a certain way. Which led me to say to
     myself, Mueller would not have decided like that, and I
     let the entire matter rest, and did not take it up
     again until my Chief, Mueller, was back."

Is that correct?

Accused:    I do not know.

Q. Was it possible? Could that have happened?

A. It might just as well have been possible as impossible. I
do not know.

Presiding Judge: The question is, first: Did you say that?

Accused:    I do not believe that I said it. It seems to me
to be so odd that I cannot identify with it - not the whole
paragraph.

Judge Halevi:  But if you did not say it, is it possible
that it did happen like that, even though you did not say it
in this form?

Accused:    Excuse me, I did not say it in that form.

Q. Although you did not say it in this form, is it possible
that the content of this event might be correct, that it
really did happen like this?

A. This is really so odd, because I remember only one single
occasion when I went to Schellenberg: this letter from
Vienna about the ban on emigration from the Occupied
Territories, in order to preserve the emigration
possibilities from Reich territory. That was the only
instance at all which I remember talking to Schellenberg.

Q. And what did Schellenberg decide at that time?

A. He did not take any decision whatsoever: he only
signed...the case was decided by Mueller. That, I still
remember precisely, but I had to go to Schellenberg for a
signature. That is why I say that this matter totally
baffles me.

Judge Halevi:  Very well.

Attorney General: Perhaps the matter will become more
intelligible to you if I remind you that your Defence
Witness Professor Six says the following on page 4 of his
testimony, in the middle of the page:

     "Had I wished to obtain an exemption or something
     similar for a Jew, I would not have gone to Eichmann,
     as he was an exponent of the other side. I would first
     have gone to a head of a foreign mission, and perhaps
     then to Schellenberg, who had a reputation for being
     able to arrange such exemptions."

Perhaps that will make this somewhat clearer to you now.

Accused:    I should like to say the following about this: A
head of a mission or a Schellenberg - they could probably
also take a decision. I could certainly not take
decisions... There would have been no point coming to me,
because I could not have given him any information. In
addition, it seems to me extremely strange that it is
precisely Dr. Six who needs this - who in 1944 was still
blowing his trumpet, and now in 1961 is picking on a little
ex-Section Head. Extremely strange, and this also appears to
me to be not particularly credible.

Presiding Judge: I think that this means something else, as
far as my reading goes. He is not attaching personal
responsibility to the Accused. In fact he specifically says:
"He was the exponent of the other side." But he adds: "Given
the structure of the Head Office for Reich Security, it was
impossible for a Section Head to allow exemptions to these
orders on his own authority, or above the head of his
superior."

Attorney General: That is not why I quoted Six. He also says
elsewhere that Eichmann was not an ordinary Section Head,
that he was close to Mueller - he says that on page 5: "The
general impression was that Eichmann was not only under
Mueller's orders, but that he was somewhat on the same
level."

So that is not why I read this out to him. I read this out
to him in an attempt to remind him of that particular
instance where he did not wish to follow Schellenberg's
decision, as I am claiming he said, and where he waited for
Mueller's arrival. Because apparently Schellenberg made
exemptions, and Mueller did not.

Presiding Judge: Quite. That means that the comparison is
between Schellenberg and Mueller.

Attorney General: Between Schellenberg and Mueller, and not
as against the Accused. Precisely.

[To the Accused] All right. I shall now continue. I am
telling you that you also said the following:

"Of course there were things which had to be decided on
immediately, and I decided on them as if I had talked to
Mueller, as I knew him and his decisions."

Is that correct?

Accused:    No - here I must say that then all of these
people, such as Krumey and so on, should [not] have been
surprised when they were notified over the telephone about a
single transport train, and that I would send word about it
later. I could not decide even about that - so I was even
less able to decide on other matters. That would have been
entirely contrary in practice to this, and to what it states
here. And if it is not possible to approve or cancel, on
one's own initiative, a transport train for a timetable
which is in any case under way, well then, you can have some
idea of how little I was able, or how utterly I was unable
to take a decision myself.

Q. Not even to allow Jews to send relief parcels to the
Generalgouvernement or to unoccupied France, right? Mueller
himself had to take decisions about such matters, did he?

A. Not about every individual case, Mr. Attorney General, as
I have stated...but the first time I obtained a decision for
myself...and there really must be something in that, because
otherwise people would not have maintained up until 1961
that they never received a decision from me.  There must be
something in this, because otherwise they would have long
since forgotten it.

Q.  The reason why they said that was also because you
always wanted to be covered in formal terms. That has
already been said.

A. That has nothing to do with any formal cover, Mr.
Attorney General. I had to ask in advance.

Q. And you also said that when Mueller was not present, you
took decisions in his absence and reported to him later on
this, and everything was all right.

A. Of that I am not aware at all, as Mueller was always
there, and if he was not there, his Deputy was there. At the
beginning, as I have said, that was Schellenberg; later it
was Panzinger, and then Huppenkothen.


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