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Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-103-05


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-103-05
Last-Modified: 1999/06/14

Attorney General: "When he with his division..."

Accused:

     "When he with his division - which was treated
     shabbily, probably because of practical shortcomings,
     how I helped him...do you think that if I had such an
     order from the Reichsfuehrer, motorize the 22nd and 8th
     with ten thousand trucks in return...then the million
     Jews should go to the moon...the main thing is that
     from this I could give my friend five thousand trucks
     for his division.  I never asked my heart - nor was
     there any need for me to ask my heart.  I had to ask
     Germany - not my heart, which is basically the same
     thing."
     
     "Can you tell me what was Mueller's attitude to this
     deal?"
     
     "Just as cold as mine.  If we could exchange a certain
     number, X, of enemies of the Reich for military
     advantages, then implementing any deal was justified.
     And I am convinced about this - if necessary we would
     have exchanged, at a pinch, two million for these ten
     thousand trucks.  And then I would have negotiated
     whatever could have been negotiated.  And this is
     another piece of evidence for the fact that the Jews
     were not in fact incinerated - that they were in fact
     alive...you have no idea of what both sides would have
     got out of this source - Jews and non-Jews alike."

Q. Did you say this?

A. In this form, I do not know - in any case, the sentence
read out earlier gives the lie to much of this, because it
has been seen that a witness, Brand - a witness for the
Prosecution - has confirmed that...

Q. Will you tell me whether you said this - "yes" or "no"?
Or in this form?

A. In this form - I do not know whether it was recorded in
this form, or whether it was touched up - I have no way of
knowing that.

Q. Not "touched up" again!

A. By "touched up" I mean that it was listened to, and
incorrectly dictated, and also possibly reworked in
journalistic style.

Q. But you yourself did correct the entire page.

A. I did not sign, it nor did I pass it...there is no slip
attached to it.

Presiding Judge: Mr. Hausner, would you give the interpreter
the transcript...

Attorney General: By all means.  Please, on the first page,
before the red box.  Now, having seen this, perhaps you
could admit to me that in your heart you could not be
reconciled yourself to this transaction.  Is that true?

Accused:    I never claimed that - I said that it was for
reasons of expediency.  I did not say that this was in some
way a rescue operation.  I said that I did this for reasons
of expediency...it was certainly influenced by this matter I
have described.  But I...

Q. Without the "but" - I will accept your reply without the
"but"!

Zehenter was a friend of yours from early on, wasn't he; a
proper, real friend from the days of your youth?

A. He was not a friend from the days of my youth; I only met
him much later.

Q. Later he became your friend?

A. One cannot really call him a friend; he was a colleague
of mine, the divisional commander.

Presiding Judge: Is it true that the reason why you
supported the deal was to help Zehenter's division?

Accused:    It was a chain...that was one of the
considerations, because I did in fact have to present the
matter in Berlin, and I did then present this, and because I
still do not know who initiated this truck affair, whether I
initiated it or someone else...Zehenter is involved here,
because at some point Hitler said the 8th and 22nd Cavalry
Divisions should be motorized.

Q. All right.  Did you support the truck transaction?

A. Yes, of course.

Q. And why did you do so?

A. Because through this matter the subject of emigration
could be taken away from Becher again.  That is what I
calculated.  That was in fact the original motive, the
Becher business.

Q. I see.  So it was in order to get the emigration business
out of Becher's hands, correct?

A. Let us first of all have a proper look at my
considerations.

Q. And afterwards?

A. And afterwards I considered how this could be made to
work, and the "how" consisted of various components.  The
German intelligence services had negotiated with the Jews;
Becher had negotiated with the Jews; there was Krumey.

Q. I did not ask you about the "how," I asked you why.  I
would nevertheless like to have a clear-cut answer to my
question.  Why did you support this truck transaction?  You
have said about this that it was in order to get this matter
out of Becher's hands, in other words a question of rivalry
between you and Becher.  Was there another reason or motive?
And please do not start relating now how you wanted to
implement it, but why you agreed to it in the first place.

Q. The "why" involved Becher's emigration matters and his
pressuring me to go along with deportations.  That was the
reason.

Presiding Judge: All right.

Attorney General: I assume that your anger with Becher
continued to burn in your heart all along.  In any case, you
have a very clear memory of this.  Right?

Accused:    I have always remembered Becher very clearly,
that is true.  I even said that here in my Statement, what
my relationship was with Becher at that time.

Q. In any case, as far as the transaction is concerned, I
cannot find the slightest indication about rivalry or anger.
Would you please look at this in your own Statement: "I do
not know who gave the order or made the suggestion;
naturally the order came from above.  That is clear.  But as
to who made the suggestion, whether it was me or whether it
was the Reichsfuehrer or Becher - it must have been someone.
And, in any case, I did submit the matter to the higher
authorities."

Do you agree that there is no rivalry here, no anger, no
rage?

A. Could I then ask that the addition be read out which I
wrote down somewhere under letters 'a' to 'q'?  That must be
in there somewhere.

Presiding Judge: The quotation is from the end of page 2905.

Attorney General: Perhaps in the meanwhile you would like to
look at it and tell us which passage you are referring to.
You can do this tonight, and then would you please tell us
to which passage you are referring, which shows your rage or
anger or rivalry with Becher about the transaction.  But in
any case you will agree that you did not wait at all for the
results or outcome of the transaction.  And as soon as Joel
Brand left Hungary, the deportations started up once again.

Accused:    It was not up to me to halt or order transports
to start or run.

Q. Is that correct or not?

A. I cannot...yes, it is correct.  But I did not give orders
for this.

Q. And do you also admit that Becher tried to stop the
deportations, by means of teletypes to Himmler, such as
T/1220, and so on, and you tried to bring the deportations
from Budapest forward from 25 August to 20 August?

A. This letter from Becher had nothing to do with Himmler's
ban on deportations.  This can be proved by checking the
time which elapsed between Himmler's order to deport
received at three o'clock in the morning by Veesenmayer...

Q. That was not what I asked.  Please answer to the point.
I asked whether with regard to the deportation of the Jews
of Budapest, what Becher did, as far as we have been shown,
was to approach Himmler, in order to have the deportation
stopped; whereas you did everything you possibly could to
bring forward the dates for the deportation.  If it
reassures you, I would only like to tell you that in my eyes
Becher is also not a wonderful person, but at any rate in
this matter we see that he did try to help, along the lines
of the transaction, whereas what you did was to advance the
dates for deportation.

A. It says here that the beginning of evacuation of Jews
from Budapest was proposed for the 25th and the Minister of
Interior stated on Eichmann's request he was prepared to
advance this to 20th.

Q. That is your doing.  That is your contribution to the
transaction.

A. But these five days did not originate in my mind.  They
came from those who were to draw up the timetable.

Q. Ah yes, the timetable.  And this was despite the fact
that Kasztner kept warning you that as long as Jews were
deported, no one would take the transaction seriously.

A. I was the least suitable recipient for a warning in
Hungary.

Q. Is it true that Kasztner said that to you?

A. That is possible, and I passed on these reports which
Kasztner gave me; I could not do any more.

Q. In other words, you knew that the continuation of the
deportations would thwart the transaction.

A. I did not know that, because from the outset it was said
the order originally stated that deportations were not to be
held up by that.  I did not agree with that, but that was
the order which was given, and that is also why I said to
Joel Brand that he should be quick, and I arranged for the
plane.

Q. In any case you were told that continuing the
deportations would jeopardize the entire transaction,
weren't you?

A. Certainly I was told that, and I also reported it.  I
repeat once again, however much more I had been told, I
could neither have held things up nor halted them.

Q. But planning for the sudden deportation of the Jews of
Budapest, that was under your control?

A. No, this matter was initiated by the Foreign Ministry, it
was not under my control.

Q. All the documents indicate that you planned to mobilize
post office and local authority officials and others on one
day, in order to carry out, by one blow, the deportation of
the Jews of Budapest.  You did not discuss this with Baky
and Endre, this was not your idea?

A. No, but I had nothing to do with this, nor have I read
anything about this either in any document.

Q. Apparently you only read those you wish to read.  Do you
not remember the document where it says that you planned to
carry out a one-time deportation of the entire Jewish
population of Budapest on one day, by one blow?

A. No, but if I read that and see it, then I must say that I
suppose that is true, but I have not read it.

Q. You really have no recollection of that?  You have no
recollection of this operation?  Of the preparations for
this deportation?

A. No, I did not in fact make any preparations, there was
nothing for me to prepare...

Q. Do you have no recollection whatever of any planning for
deporting the Jews of Budapest in one day?

A. In one day it would have been...whoever even dreamt up
the expression shows that it was someone who never had
anything to do with transport matters.

Q. All right then.  A man who is so well versed in transport
matters as you: How long would something like that take,
with maximum concentration?

A. I don't know; that was the task of the Operations
Department of the Hungarian gendarmerie, they would have had
to work it out.  I was unable to do any calculations.

Q. In any case, if it appears in a document, you will say it
is correct?

A. Yes, I have even read that the matter came from Berlin,
that a condition was laid down that certain Hungarian wishes
were to be satisfied as soon as Budapest was evacuated, and
I also know that preparatory work to this effect was being
carried out.  I cannot deny this, either.  But nothing came
of this.  I do not know what the reasons were.

Q. You have already told us that Rudolf Hoess, the
Commandant of Auschwitz, visited you in Budapest.  In what
connection and on what business did he come to see you?

A. I don't know whether I have spoken about this in my
Statement.  I vaguely remember, and now I do of course know
that he came to Hungary to check on the age limit and the
fitness for work of the Jews to be deported.  I have
gathered this from the documents.

Q. Just forget the documents.  What do you remember about
Hoess' visit to you?  This concerns people's lives and
deaths, so try and remember something without documents.

A. The only thing I still know from memory is that Hoess
might have been in Hungary.  I cannot see the man in front
of me, nor can I in any way see the situation in which I
spent time with him.  So I cannot say this from memory, and
if I had to base myself solely on my memory of that time, I
would probably not have a great deal to say altogether.

Presiding Judge: What is the situation, Mr. Hausner?

Attorney General: To my regret, I have not yet concluded, as
I had hoped, but I can do so tomorrow morning.

Presiding Judge: Very well, then, tomorrow we shall conclude
the cross-examination, and immediately after that Dr.
Servatius will be able to re-examine the witness.

Dr. Servatius:  I am prepared for that.

Presiding Judge: The Court will adjourn until 8.30 tomorrow
morning.


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