The Trial of Adolf Eichmann

Attorney General: Now, Professor Gilbert, you say that you took Judge Musmanno to Goering and acted as translator. What was said in that conversation?

Witness Gilbert: Well, Goering said more or less the same things that he had said to me, namely that he was sure that Hitler was dead and that his political testament was genuine. This was the political testament, I’m sure you all know, in which Adolf Hitler accused the Jews of starting a war and admitted ordering their extermination as punishment.

There is psychology behind that, but we need not go into it. Then Goering, of course, was asked what he thought about this crime of extermination and he immediately said: “Well, this, of course, was not any business of mine, it was not in my jurisdiction, it was under the jurisdiction of Himmler and his boys, Heydrich, Eichmann and so on.”

Q. Did you introduce Judge Musmanno to other accused persons?

A. Yes, there were some others, but frankly I don’t remember the details at this point. There were other interpreters available, enlisted men, and some of the other accused did speak English.

Q. Did Judge Musmanno also see other accused men, such as Ribbentrop, Frank, von Schirach, von Papen and Kaltenbrunner?

A. I believe so, but frankly, I don’t remember all the rest of the details.

Q. Did you talk to Judge Musmanno about Eichmann?

A. No, we didn’t. There was really no occasion to speak about Eichmann at the time. Frankly, he wasn’t thought of very much by the major Nazi war criminals, and anyway, I had reason to believe that he was dead, at that time.

Q. What led you to the conclusion that Eichmann was dead?

A. Well, his own boss, Kaltenbrunner, told me he was dead. I remember this conversation very vividly, because it was the one day on which, I’m afraid, I lost a little of my professional aloofness. This was a day on which a survivor of Auschwitz testified how the children born in concentration camps were taken from their mothers and never seen again, and then, in the rush season of 1944, children were thrown alive into the furnaces of Auschwitz.

This was too much, even for a psychologist, and I went to Kaltenbrunner at lunch that day, and I said: “Herr Kaltenbrunner, now do you really mean to tell me that you know nothing about these things?” And he said, “No, no, really. I didn’t have anything to do with the extermination programme as such. This was done by Heydrich and Eichmann and the people in that context – Heydrich, Eichmann and the others involved in this chain of command, from Himmler on down. And,” he added, “they’re all dead.”

Q. Is that to be found on page 163 of your book?

A. Yes, this is a correct recording of the conversation I had with Kaltenbrunner, right out of my diary.

Q. Eichmann’s name is mentioned here on a further occasion, after Wisliceny’s evidence – I think on page 102. This is Goering’s response when already in gaol, after Wisliceny’s evidence.

A. Yes, I remember that conversation.

Q. What did Goering say then?

A. Well, his comment on Wisliceny’s testimony was that Wisliceny looks like a big Schweinehund only because Eichmann isn’t here – or to make it exact, that “Wisliceny is a little Schweinehund who looks like a big one, because Eichmann isn’t here.”

Q. Does this appear in your book?

A. Yes, this can be found in the original diary – all of these notes that are in the public version can be found in the original diary which I kept at the time.

Q. Did anyone else in the Nuremberg gaol talk to you about Eichmann when you were on your official mission?

A. Yes, the name came more and more into discussion, not so much amongst the main Nazi war criminals, but among the SS men of whom we had practically the entire military and police power in gaol in Nuremberg. There were many higher SS police officials, and I frequently ran across Eichmann’s name there – at first, somewhat to my surprise, but more and more a clear picture emerged.

Q. Did you speak to Oswald Pohl about Eichmann?

A. Yes. Oswald Pohl – I believe his title was Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl, the Chief of the WVHA – was also in Nuremberg, and I, of course, discussed the atrocities with him.

Q. What did he say to you?

A. Well, he tried to get into a jurisdictional dispute about who had charge of the extermination programme. He, of course, disclaimed responsibility for himself, insisting that this was under Kaltenbrunner’s jurisdiction, but he made it quite clear that Eichmann was involved.

In other words, both Kaltenbrunner and Pohl tried to shove on to the other the responsibility for being in charge of the bureaucracy, but both agreed, automatically, that Eichmann was the one involved, at least one of those involved.

Q. Pohl was kept in the witness wing in the Nuremberg gaol – is that correct?

A. Yes, in the witness wing there was the rest of the top hierarchy of Nazi Germany, and they were interrogated at times, called at times as witnesses by the defendants, sometimes by the prosecution; I had access to all of those – just as free access as I had to the top Nazis themselves.

Q. Is that where you also met Ohlendorf and Rudolf Hoess?

A. Yes.

Q. Was there any contact between the witnesses detained in the witness wing and the principal accused who were imprisoned in their cells?

A. No, that’s why they were kept in a separate wing. They could only be called to discuss particular cases, if they were needed as witnesses, and then the attorney might call the witness to discuss something with the defendant. Otherwise they were kept quite separate.

Q. You said that other people spoke to you about Eichmann. Who were they?

A. Well, the main one was Rudolf Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz.

Q. What did Hoess say about Eichmann?

A. Well, he seemed to be unable to discuss the extermination programme without referring to Eichmann, and at first I hardly noticed this, but when I started to get written statements from him for psychological purposes, the name came in more and more, and it gradually dawned on me that this man must be a key figure in the whole extermination programme.

Q. What do you mean by “it dawned on me”?

A. Well, I was starting to investigate something else. What I was really interested in was what makes these Nazis tick. So I was trying to find out what made Colonel Hoess tick, how could he do things like this? And in the orderly procedure of getting a case history on a subject, I asked Colonel Hoess to write an autobiography telling his entire history from childhood up to the present time.

Q. Are you referring to that autobiography which was published under the title “Commandant of Auschwitz”?

A. Oh, no – I am speaking of the original autobiography which Colonel Hoess wrote for me in Nuremberg, for purely psychological purposes, in his own handwriting.

Q. You have kept it in your possession until now, and it has not been published so far?

A. That’s right – that is one of the original written documents I had to confirm my conversations, and it hasn’t been published except for excerpts which I used in analysing the case of Rudolf Hoess in my second book, The Psychology of Dictatorship.

Q. Did Hoess write it before he wrote his autobiography in Poland?

A. Oh, yes – definitely; he had not yet been brought to Poland to stand trial, and I was the first one, I believe, to ask him for his case history.

Q. I notice there is a date at the top – 10 April 1946. And Hoess ended it on 12 April. It took him two days to write – would that be correct?

A. Yes, that would be about right.

Q. And it has not yet been published?

A. Not as such, no – as I said – except for brief excerpts.

Q. Is this the original handwriting of Hoess?

A. This is the original.

Q. Signed by him?

A. Yes, this is Rudolf Hoess’ signature, and this is exactly the document which he wrote for me.

Presiding Judge: Did the witness receive this from the hands of Hoess?

Witness Gilbert: I received this from Hoess himself and have kept it in my possession ever since, except that I showed it to Mr. Hausner when I came here.

Attorney General: I submit this document. To my regret we have not managed to make copies. We shall make copies for the Court. We shall ask for the document to be returned to us so that we may print it. The handwriting of Hoess is quite legible.

Presiding Judge: This will be exhibit T/1169.

You will receive it back after the session, in order to make copies of it. Has Dr. Servatius seen the document?

Attorney General: Dr. Servatius has received from us a copy of the English translation, since Dr. Gilbert made an English translation for himself. And I gave him the complete translation.

Presiding Judge: Please also give him the German original.

Attorney General: Certainly.

Dr. Servatius: May I request a photocopy of the handwritten document, in order to show it to the Accused?

Attorney General: I have no objection to Defence Counsel receiving the document and showing it to the Accused.

Presiding Judge: The document will be returned to you, and you can submit it to Defence Counsel.

Attorney General: I have a manuscript of Hoess which has also not yet been published. I shall let him have it immediately.

I understand that Eichmann is mentioned in the autobiography written by Hoess?

Witness Gilbert: Yes, I noticed that. That is how I began to get the impression that Colonel Hoess cannot describe the extermination programme without referring to Eichmann, even though he is only supposed to be writing a personal autobiography for psychological purposes.

Q. At a later stage we shall draw the Court’s attention to what it says there.

Tell me, Professor Gilbert, did Hoess testify in Court?

A. Yes. He was a witness for Kaltenbrunner.

Q. He gave evidence, or at any rate evidence was led, showing that 2,500,000 men, women and children had been exterminated in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

A. Yes.

Q. What was the effect of this evidence on the other accused in that trial, as far as you remember?

A. Well, this was one of the main psychological problems at the trial. The atrocity evidence of the extermination and the films of the atrocities and concentration camps sometimes had a very shocking effect on the defendants themselves, and I was very anxious to find out just how genuine this was, and what their guilt reactions were from a psychological point of view.

Q. Do you remember what Hans Frank said to you?

A. Yes. In connection with the testimony of Rudolf Hoess, he stopped me in the hall on the way to lunch or from lunch and said: “Captain Gilbert, this was the lowest point of the trial. Just imagine a man sitting there and saying out of his own mouth: I murdered two and a half million men, women, and children.” Oh yes, I remember the additional comment: “People will talk about this for a thousand years.”

Q. Do you recall the testimony of Keitel who, I believe, was the Chief of the German General Staff?

A. That’s right. I recall Keitel’s reaction to the atrocities particularly vividly in connection with the atrocities films. And when I saw him in the cell later, he said: “Those dirty SS swine! If I had known what they were up to, I would have told my son, I’ll shoot you rather than let you join the SS.” He was, of course, at the same time trying to indicate that it was not the army that had committed these horrible atrocities. But he did react emotionally and with great shock.

Q. Do you remember any unusual reaction on the part of anyone else?

A. Well, there were a number of them. We could, of course, go on and on, but I think we want to come back to the documents that form the picture that I gradually formed of the role of Adolf Eichmann.

Q. That is correct.

A. Well, in connection with getting these guilt reactions, I would have to present the reaction of Goering, which leads to the next document which I received from Colonel Hoess. Goering’s reaction was to try to brush it all aside, to tell everybody that this was all exaggerated propaganda. “Oh, they are a bunch of SS Schweinehunde doing some dirty things, but it is all exaggerated, it’s all propaganda.”

So, I would engage Goering in conversation in front of the others and say: “Well, now, you can’t just brush off the murder of two and a half million people. The German people themselves will demand to know how did this happen. The conscience of the world demands to know how did this happen. Do you want to go down in history as a man who just laughed it off?” …And we would argue along this line.

You see, the only way of appealing to Goering was not through conscience, but through his egotistical role in history. And I knew that he was trying to brush aside the crimes, so that he would not lose his chance to get his picture in the German history books, because he knew that even the German people would be horrified by it. Particularly because women and children had been murdered. The killing of the men would not damage his picture in the German history books, he told me.

Now then, realizing that he was determined to try to blot out the memory of this horrible crime from history, I felt that, psychologically, historically and humanly, it was absolutely necessary to see to it that this was properly documented – both from the historical and the psychological point of view.

Q. And then, what did you do?

A. I therefore told him…I’m sorry. No, the next step was his clinching argument, namely, that it was technically impossible to exterminate two and a half million people inside of the three or three and a half years that Colonel Hoess was Commandant of Auschwitz. This seemed to be very convincing to some of the other Nazi leaders.

Q. What did you do, then?

A. I then told him that, of course, I was no expert in mass production of extermination, but that there was an expert in the witness wing, and I could get the details from him. I was, of course, referring to Colonel Hoess.

Q. And then you took a sheet of paper and you wrote at the top certain words in German?

A. That’s right. I wrote a question in German.

Q. And you gave it to Hoess and got his written reply?

A. That’s right. I handed it to him, and he wrote the reply in his own handwriting.

Q. You gave it to him on 23 April 1946, and you received his reply on 24 April 1946?

A. Yes. I believe the dates are recorded on the document.

Q. Kindly read out to the Court the question and the answer (I already have a printed copy here – it is a short document).

A. The question which I wrote down in German was: Goering wants to know how it was at all possible, from a technical point of view, to destroy two and a half million people in the course of three and a half years.

Q. What was Hoess’ reply?

Presiding Judge: Mr. Hausner, this is going to take very long, with the translation.

Previous | Index | Next

State Attorney Bach: This is our document No. 281. Mr. Steiner first tells us that Wisliceny described his talks with Eichmann, why Palestine cannot be considered as the destination for emigration: “When I asked him why, he laughed and asked whether I had never heard of the Grand Mufti Husseini. He explained that the Mufti has very close contact and cooperation with Eichmann, and therefore Germany cannot agree to Palestine being the final destination, as this would be a blow to Germany’s prestige in the Mufti’s eyes.”

Then he goes on: “At this further conversation Wisliceny gave me more details about the cooperation between Eichmann and the Mufti. The Mufti is a sworn enemy of the Jews and has always fought for the idea of annihilating the Jews. He sticks to this idea always, also in his talks with Eichmann” – and here we have one of the points about which Wisliceny has reservations – “who, as you know, is a German who was born in Palestine.

The Mufti is one of the originators of the systematic destruction of European Jewry by the Germans, and he has become a permanent colleague, partner and adviser to Eichmann and Himmler in the implementation of this programme.”

Here Wisliceny adds: “I have read these descriptions and find them correct, except for this, that Eichmann was born in Palestine, and that the Mufti was a permanent partner of Himmler’s; this is not what I said.”

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1117.

State Attorney Bach: Dr. Steiner, as part of your efforts and work on documentation, did you also make an album containing photographs and documents?

Witness Steiner: Yes.

Q. Are you holding that album in your hand?

A. Yes, on the catastrophe of Slovak Jewry.

Q. Were you the editor of that album?

A. Of the documentary part of it, yes.

Q. Where did you get these photographs from?

A. As I said, our institution’s task was to document, to collect material on the catastrophe of Slovak Jewry, and to issue publications concerning it.

Q. And this album contains the reproductions of documents and photographs that you obtained?

A. Yes.

Q. I am requesting the Court’s permission to submit this album in evidence. I will then question the witness about several photographs and exhibits contained in the album.

Presiding Judge: Very well. This will be marked T/1118.

State Attorney Bach: Dr. Steiner, please open the album at page 41. What are these photographs?

Witness Steiner: These are photographs taken during the 1942 deportations. In the top picture one can see that the people have numbers; this was the serial number they were given. In the bottom picture they are going to the train. This may well be how they went to Zilina.

Q. Please open page 50. Can you identify the persons in the top pictures?

A. Yes, they are Dieter Wisliceny and Ludin.

Q. Open page 52, please. Can you also identify those?

A. Yes, I can identify Wisliceny and Mach together, and on the right Vasek, and on the bottom Koso and all the others, as it says there.

Q. Please open pages 54-55.

A. Page 54 shows a picture of the labour camp in Novaky, and page 55, in Sered.

Q. And pages 64-65?

A. The photographs on all these pages I received from the Jewish communities – the pictures shown on page 64 I obtained after the War from Nove Mesto nad Vahom, the town where I was born.

Q. And on page 65?

A. That is Spisska Nova Ves.

Q. Yes, but what do they show?

A. The vandalism, what they did to the places of worship during the War.

Q. To the synagogues?

A. Yes, to the synagogues.

Q. What does the picture on page 66 show?

A. That is from Spisska Nova Ves, these are also synagogues, these pictures show the same thing.

Q. But the picture at the bottom?

Presiding Judge: That is clear. These are tombstones that have been destroyed.

State Attorney Bach: And page 83?

Witness Steiner: On page 83, at the top, one sees Zilina at the time of the 1942 deportations. At the top – I really don’t remember – that may very likely be in the vicinity of Svidinik and Stropkov, in Slovakia.

Q. And pages 84 and 86?

A. Page 84 is a continuation of the same pictures, and page 86 also belongs to the deportation.

Q. Page 96 contains certain statistics.

A. Yes. That diagram shows where the transports came from and where they went. But I should add that these figures also include parts of Slovakia that then belonged to Hungary.

Q. Which were later incorporated into Hungary?

A. Yes.

Q. And that is the deportation to Hungary?

A. Yes.

Q. The section from page 98 to page 111, are these pictures from Auschwitz?

A. Yes, these are pictures from Auschwitz.

Q. How did they come into your possession?

A. When we decided to publish this book, I went to the museum in Prague, the “Jewish Museum,” and the museum director – Soyka I think his name was – told me that he had original photographs of Auschwitz. These are the photographs.

I asked him where these pictures had come from, and he said that they had come from Bodenbach on the Elbe; an SS man who had been living there had fled, and his apartment was handed over to another person – a man or a woman, that I do not remember – and that person had given the photographs to the Jewish Museum.

Q. And that is how you got these pictures?

A. Yes.

Q. On pages 112 and 113 one can see mass graves of naked women.

A. In 1947 we held an exhibition – I think it was that year – and I received these pictures from the “Vojensky Museum,” the military museum, in Zizkov, Prague.

Q. Page 116 contains the photograph of a certain newspaper article. Can you tell the Court what article that is?

A. This is an article by Fritz Fiala, who was the Chef-Redakteur (editor-in-chief) of the Grenzbote. In it he describes his visit to Auschwitz, and tells about the Slovak Jews and what they were doing there.

Q. I have had a Hebrew translation of the article prepared. With the Court’s permission, I wish to submit to the Court this translation of the article. Of course some parts of the article we could not see, these parts being obscured by the picture on the lower section of the page.

Presiding Judge: Which page are you referring to?

State Attorney Bach: To page 116 of the album. I wish to draw the Court’s attention mainly to two passages. Relating to Sosnowiec and describing the Jewish dwellings, Fiala states:

“Inside the Jewish apartments it is less appetizing. The Jewish women apparently use water only on the tip of their nose and leave the rest of their face covered by a thick layer of kohl and rouge.”

About Auschwitz he says the following:

“When I tell the Jewesses that the enemy’s atrocity propaganda claims that the German authorities are mistreating them, they start laughing, as though they had just heard a good joke. Aranka Singer, an 18-year old girl, warns me that there are no men at all in the women’s quarters, and Roosevelt ought to know that it was the Germans who introduced legislation for the protection of the race. Food supplies are based on precisely the same rations as in the Reich. Those who do hard work, or very hard work, receive extra rations.

All the Jews declare that they are being treated justly and humanely in every respect, and if they regard anything as being unjust, it is the fact that all the Jews of Europe are not yet here. One of the Jews with whom I spoke told me: ‘I have to tell you, in all frankness, that it is quite easy for us to reconcile ourselves to our life here; as one who was previously in Palestine, I can definitely say that here we are better off, far away from the vicious struggle for survival which I saw there’.”

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1119.

State Attorney Bach: Dr. Steiner, at the top of page 122 the Court will see a picture with Abba Kovner, who appeared as a witness in this trial. We did not know of the existence of this picture. One can see on it partisans and soldiers.

Presiding Judge: What page are you referring to?

State Attorney Bach: I am referring to page 122. In the middle of the upper row you will see Abba Kovner.

Judge Halevi: Mr. Bach, perhaps the witness can explain about the article on page 116; there is a photograph shown, alleged to be a photograph of nurses.

State Attorney Bach: Dr. Abeles gave evidence on that, because that appeared with the original article.

Judge Halevi: What does it say below that picture? Perhaps the witness can translate it for us.

State Attorney Bach: On the copy that I handed to the Court, the caption below the picture reads as follows: “Jewesses of Slovakia in their new settlement.” Dr. Steiner, on page 127, the lower part, there is a document.

Witness Steiner: Yes.

Q. Did you at the time see the original document?

A. Yes, I did. I received it and handed it back. I think it appears also in the trial of Dr. Vasek.

Q. Finally, on page 130, what is the list shown there?

A. As I have said, after the War 150 mass graves were discovered in Slovakia. One of them was in Kremnica, near Banska Bystrica, where 372 bodies were found; this is a list of the persons who were buried in that mass grave. It gives name, nationality, religion, date of birth, by whom the people were delivered to the firing squad, and the date they were shot, and finally, the length of time spent by that person in the camp.

Q. The date shown here is the date of execution?

A. Yes.

Q. Please look at No. 18 on the list. What does it say after the name?

A. It says 17 months. The name given is Goldenerova Noemi.

Q. Who was 17 months old?

A. Yes. The name may be that of her mother.

Q. The last point, Dr. Steiner. Do you know what the sign “DA” on a transport means?

A. Yes, it means “David.” The transports had that sign.

Q. What did it mean when a transport bore that sign?

A. That it was a transport of Jews.

Q. That is a transport in which Jews were deported?

A. Yes, a transport of deported Slovak Jews.

State Attorney Bach: Thank you.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any questions to the witness?

Dr. Servatius: Yes. Witness, how many times did you talk to Wisliceny after he had been convicted?

Witness Steiner: I never spoke to him.

Q. In that case, I did not quite understand. Were these reports, these documents, handed over to you by the prosecution after Wisliceny had been convicted?

A. No, before that. Wisliceny was convicted in May 1948. All his statements, the evidence he gave, all his reports were made before that and were delivered to us only in 1946 or 1947.

Dr. Servatius: In that case, I have no other question for the witness.

Judge Halevi: When you posed the questions to Wisliceny, did you do that in writing and never talked to him?

Witness Steiner: Yes, I put them in writing.

Q. Did you then give them to the prosecutor, so that he put the questions to him?

A. Yes.

Q. And you did not speak to him at all?

A. I never spoke to him.

Q. You mention the plunder and looting of the Jewish property in Slovakia. Perhaps you could look at one of the Wisliceny documents submitted to us, look only at the amounts and the estimates; is that correct? I am showing the witness Exhibit T/1085. This includes only movable assets. Do you have any comment on the contents of this document?

A. As regards the sum of 150-200 million, that I would say refers to “Mobilbesitz,” that is to say “Kapitalbesitz” (capital assets). It does not include the rest.

Q. That is about one twentieth of the sum that you mentioned.

A. Yes. I can tell you how much that was. What I said referred to the gross amount. Of that, the part in capital is 1,444 million, that is 1.4 billion; and that, I believe, was approximately the amount that the Jews had in the banks.

Q. Tell me, in general terms, who received all the Jewish property? Who took the Jewish property? To whom was this stolen property delivered, to the Germans or to the Slovaks?

A. To the Slovaks and to the Germans, depending on the population. There were two different things: There was the liquidation, and then there was “Aryanization.”

Liquidation meant that the business was dissolved. Aryanization was applied only to large businesses. I have seen documents showing that businesses were taken over by Germans. It all depended on the region, if there were Germans there…

Q. What Germans? German nationals?

A. It means residents of Slovakia, local residents. For example, in the town where I was born, Nove Mesto nad Vahom, there was a Jew by the name of Reiss, who had a factory; that factory was taken over by Germans who were local residents.

Q. This was sold cheaply, was it?

A. Yes, this was in the Aryanization stage.

Q. In case of confiscation by the state, in the name of which state was property confiscated, was it the Slovak state?

A. Yes, by the Slovak state.

Q. To the Germans, as a state, no property was handed over?

A. I do not think so.

Presiding Judge: Thank you, Dr. Steiner, you have finished your testimony.

We shall now adjourn the session. The next Session is at 15.30.

Previous | Index | Next

Judge Halevi: Is this a sworn statement by Wisliceny? What is it?

State Attorney Bach: This is actually not a sworn statement. Before the day is over we will call to the stand a witness who was in Bratislava during and after Wisliceny’s trial; as a matter of fact, the documents that we have submitted “Cell 133,” “Cell 106,” were brought to Israel by this witness who, through the Czechoslovak prosecution, asked Wisliceny to reply to questions concerning certain specific subjects, such as the Mufti; one of these questions was: “What do you know about the Fiala affair and the article in the Grenzbote?”

Wisliceny gave his replies to these questions in writing; the original document is in our possession, here.

Presiding Judge:

Decision No. 49

We accept Wisliceny’s statement concerning the article that appeared in the newspaper Grenzbote, on the grounds mentioned in our Decision No. 7.

State Attorney Bach: Wisliceny states here that he has known the editor of Grenzbote, Fritz Fiala, since 1940. In the spring of 1942, during the deportation of the Jews of Slovakia, he met Fiala who asked him for information where the Jews were being expelled to, and said that it would reassure the population if at some point a newspaperman would be able to see a labour camp in Poland and would then publish appropriate articles in the Slovak press.

Wisliceny mentioned this to Eichmann, who at that point did not take a stand on Fiala’s request, but in the summer of 1942 Eichmann called Wisliceny and told him that Himmler, with Ribbentrop’s agreement, had ordered that articles be published in the foreign press about the Jewish labour camps, as counter-propaganda.

Eichmann was considering a visit to Theresienstadt, but still he asked what sort of newspaperman that Slovak was. Wisliceny then gave Eichmann the details, and Eichmann decided that they would also visit Auschwitz and said that he would tell Hoess that Fiala be permitted to talk to Slovak and French Jews in the labour camp.

The program for the journey was drawn up by Eichmann. Wisliceny then describes the journey. First they went to  Zilina, where Fiala made a tour of the place, and from there they proceeded to Katowice, where they had to report to the Stapo post, to meet with a Kriminalkommissar whom Eichmann had appointed to be their guide.

From there they went to Sosnowiec, and finally to Auschwitz. There they were received by Hoess who showed them a sleeping hall, a wash room, a very modern kitchen, and a hall in which the camp orchestra was just at that time having a rehearsal. Fiala was also given the opportunity to talk with some Jews from Slovakia and France, and to take their photos. The tour ended in the afternoon.

Wisliceny adds: “We did not see anything in Auschwitz that gave even the faintest hint of the existence of gas chambers and crematoria.” On their return to Bratislava Fiala mentioned to Wisliceny that he was an honorary member of the Security Service, something that Wisliceny had long been aware of.

The articles Fiala wrote were sent to Eichmann by courier, and Eichmann passed them on to Himmler; Eichmann then sent  Regierungsrat Bosshammer, a member of the staff of his  Section, to Vienna, where he met with Wisliceny and demanded that certain changes be made in Fiala’s articles. But Fiala, as a well-known journalist, was reluctant to accept stylistic changes, and Bosshammer waived most of the objections. The articles were then published in the Slovak press. Wisliceny is of the opinion that Fiala thus was a victim of deception.

The next document is No. 143 which was handed to the Accused and given No. T/37(70). This is the Accused’s reply to the letter I submitted earlier, on the deportation of Slovakia’s Jews, the pastoral letter of the Slovak bishops. In his letter Eichmann informs von Thadden of the tour in which the editor-in-chief of the Grenzbote, Fiala, had taken part on the Slovak side, and of the article which was published in a large number of newspapers; Eichmann lists them and adds that the newspapers can be obtained from the Adviser, Hauptsturmfuehrer Wisliceny.

He then adds: “In addition, in order to counter the atrocity legends about the fate of the Jews who had been evacuated from Slovakia, one can also point to the postal communication of these Jews with Slovakia which pass centrally through the Adviser on Jewish Affairs at the German legation in Bratislava which, e.g. in February-March this year, added up to to over 1,000 letters and postcards, for Slovakia only.”

To quote the original German: “Im uebrigen kann zur Abwehr der ueber das Schicksal der evakuierten Juden in der Slowakei umgehenden Greuelmaerchen auf den Postverkehr dieser Juden nach der Slowakei verwiesen werden, der zentral ueber den Berater fuer Judenfragen bei der Deutschen Gesandschaft in Pressburg geleitet wird und fuer Februar-Maeerz ds. Jrs. beispielsweise ueber 1,000 Briefe und Karten allein fuer die Slowakei betrug. He adds that, on the part of the Accused’s office there are no objections to these letters and postcards being read. Signed: Eichmann.

The Accused’s reaction to this document appears on page 1222. On page 1230 Inspector Less asks him: “Was it not the practice that the expelled Jews who were brought to extermination camps were forced to write postcards in which they said that they were well, and then the Jews were killed and the postcards arrived?”

The Accused answered: “I, too, have heard about that, but it was not done in every case.” Question: “But such things were done?” Answer by the Accused: “Yes, yes.”

Judge Halevi: The pastoral letter, the “Hirtenbrief, which was attached to the document that you submitted – is that here?

State Attorney Bach: The pastoral letter itself is not here, only its contents are given in that letter.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1108.

State Attorney Bach: Next is our document No. 144, which was also handed to the Accused and given No. T/37(71). This is a response to Eichmann’s above-mentioned letter, from Ludin, who reports to the Foreign Ministry that Eichmann’s letter, dated 2 June 1943, the last Exhibit, was not satisfactory, and that Dr. Tuka insists on a visit to the camps; Ludin asks whether it is nevertheless possible to arrange for a visit to the camps in the East, in one way or another.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1109.

State Attorney Bach: Ludin writes that Tuka told him that many of the members of the Council of Ministers are of the opinion that sending Jews to camps outside Slovakia means their physical liquidation. And now the final reply on this subject, a letter signed by Eichmann – our document No. 145, which was handed to the Accused and given No. T/37(72). In this letter to von Thadden, in reply to the latter’s letter of 30 November 1943, Eichmann states:

“Wisliceny, the Adviser on Jewish Affairs at the German legation in Bratislava, who had been temporarily sent to Greece, has been ordered to resume his duties in Bratislava without delay. He has received appropriate instructions and will again raise with Minister of the Interior Mach the implementation of the deportation of Slovakia’s Jews. After results of these talks will be reported, the possibility of a Slovak Commission visiting the Jewish camps will be reexamined.”

This is not the last letter on the subject; it is an interim reply, in which Eichmann says that he will again look into the matter.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1110.

State Attorney Bach: The next document is our No. 1017. This is again a reply by von Thadden to Eichmann’s letter, in which he states that refusal to permit visits to the camps or delay in giving a reply to that request will hamper the further deportation of Jews and may put an end to any further deportation of Jews to the East.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1111.

State Attorney Bach: And now the final document I referred to earlier, our No. 146, which was handed to the Accused and given No. T/37(73). Here the Accused says that a visit to the Jewish camps would be difficult to arrange, but there would be no objections to a visit by a Slovak commission elsewhere, for example to Theresienstadt, and the date for such a visit could be fixed. Let me quote the final sentence, which is characteristic:

“It may be assumed that this will allay the concerns voiced by various members of the Slovak Government – which in themselves are completely unjustified – and that the negotiations that are now envisaged will be brought to an appropriate conclusion” (entsprechenden Ziel).

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/1112.

State Attorney Bach: I had intended to call a witness, but perhaps first I should like to submit as evidence at this stage the report of the Budapest Relief and Rescue Committee, by Dr. Kasztner.

Presiding Judge: Are we now dealing with Hungary?

State Attorney Bach: Actually no; that report contains very many facts relating to the Slovakian chapter. I am submitting this document at the present stage for a further purpose. The witness whom I intend to call next will be asked to submit to the Court another Wisliceny document, which contains Wisliceny’s comments on that report of the Relief and Rescue Committee. I do not intend to submit that document in order to confirm or contradict the report, but the facts as related by Wisliceny add to the Kasztner report and complement it.

Logic dictates, however, that before submitting to the Court comments on a report, the report itself should first be submitted. The report, of course, deals primarily with the Hungarian chapter, but it contains many facts on the course of the negotiations with the Germans that began in Slovakia, Rabbi Weissmandel’s negotiations, of which we have heard, and the entire chapter of Gisi Fleischmann, her activities, her ultimate fate, and the efforts made by various quarters to save her life.

The report was also handed to the Accused, and he commented on it; it is already before the Court and was marked as Exhibit No. T/37(237). The Accused made comments on certain parts of the report that were pointed out to him. I believe it is hardly necessary for me to ask the Court to base itself on Section 15. We are speaking of the author of a report which was actually submitted by the person heading that committee, by virtue of his office, to the Zionist institutions who had appointed him, and who is no longer alive. The only thing that could perhaps in the ordinary way make the report not admissible as evidence is the fact that the law demands that such a report has to be contemporaneous with the events it describes.

Presiding Judge: When was this report written?

State Attorney Bach: The report was written in 1946, and it contains a wealth of details – first of all, of course, about Dr. Kasztner’s own activities, but also about the activities of the German authorities, the activities of the Accused and of Wisliceny and all those who operated in Hungary and Slovakia, about the struggle against these forces, and about the Holocaust of Hungarian Jewry. With  the help of the report, we shall endeavour to present to the Court a very broad and exceedingly detailed description of those events, all the more so because the documents that we shall submit to the Court accord with the facts contained in the report.

I will mention, for example, something to which I had not attached importance on first reading. For example, Dr. Kasztner mentions that Wisliceny came to see him on a certain day and made a certain announcement to him; we have in our possession telegrams that the German authorities had received that same morning – telegrams that Kasztner could not have known about, but which together illustrate Wisliceny’s trustworthiness, and also the meaning of the events that were taking place at the time.

I mentioned earlier that generally such a report is accepted as evidence. I should now like to quote from Archbold, 33rd Edition, page 396: “Declarations by deceased persons in the course of duty or business,” where it says that such declarations and reports are admissible as evidence. “But such statement or entry is only admissible to prove those acts which it was the duty of the person making the statement or entry to include in it.”

There is no doubt that it was Dr. Kasztner’s duty to report on his mission and the actions that he took; but, as I said, it is there stated  that the report actually has to be contemporaneous. It is always a question of appraisal and of the discretion of the Court, what exactly does the term “contemporaneous” mean, and there, in order to be sure, I am asking the Court here, too, to base itself on the authority it has under Section 15 of the Nazi and Nazi Collaborators Law.

Actually, in a decision in Criminal Appeal to which the attention of this Court has already been called, the Supreme Court has held that in crimes of this nature hearsay evidence and other types of evidence are admissible, which  otherwise would not be admissible. That decision concerned this very report, by Kasztner himself.

Presiding Judge: On which page is that?

State Attorney Bach: I refer to Piskei-Din, Volume 12, pp. 2084-2088. The Court also considered the date of the report and found that the date was close enough to the actual events, and that there was therefore no risk in admitting it as evidence. The Court decided to accept it.

If this applied in a case of libel, it applies all the more in the case of crimes of the kind we are dealing with here, when the reference is to the very same activities, the same events, that Dr. Kasztner’s report deals with, and when the Accused has already commented on very important portions of the report. I am therefore asking the Court to admit the report as evidence.

If the Court will accept the report in principle, I will also submit a Certificate by a Public Official, made by the Deputy District Attorney, Jerusalem District, Mr. Tel, who had submitted the report in the case I mentioned, Criminal Case No. 124/53, before the District Court of Jerusalem. Mr. Tel, through me, passed a copy of the report on to Bureau 06.

Presiding Judge: Where is the original now? Is it T/37?

State Attorney Bach: The copy that was handed over to Bureau 06 by Mr Tel – which is a photostatic copy of the original – is the one that is now in the Court file, under T/37, the original that was submitted to the District Court at the time is still in that District Court’s file, but the Court will note that the photostatic copy, which bears Mr. Tel’s signature on many of its pages, was delivered to Bureau 06, which fact is certified by the Certificate by a Public Official that was submitted to the Court together with the statement made by the Accused.

Presiding Judge: Did Mr. Tel appear in Criminal Case..?

State Attorney Bach: Mr. Tel appeared in Criminal Case 124/53 in the District Court of Jerusalem, and there the report was submitted as an exhibit; Mr. Tel confirms that the report that was submitted to this Court is a correct copy of that report.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any comment to make?

Dr. Servatius: I have doubts about this document being admitted as evidence. First, it is not clear from the report itself who is the person making this report. It says in the introduction that the Budapest Committee is hereby submitting a report on its activities. I do not know who bears the responsibility for the whole of the report.

I hear from the State Attorney that it was Dr. Kasztner only; it also says in the document “presented by Dr. Kasztner.” But it is not a report that was made at the time in the performance of a duty, but it appears to me that the report was prepared rather in order to justify one single person. This is also borne out by the last pages of the report, which mention other reports by Philipp von Freudiger and Ludwig Levai – which are said to contain contradictions to this document of justification.

These two reports should be produced here, so that it can be established whether Dr. Kasztner was authorized to submit such a report as a report on behalf of a committee. In addition, it is my opinion that this report is largely irrelevant to these proceedings.

We are not concerned here with disputes between various groups on the Jewish side – we are concerned with the Accused Eichmann and not with disputes and differences that may have arisen at a time of distress. I therefore think that it would be better to do without this report in large measure, and to rely on the other testimonies that are supported by documents. In any case, I object to the admission of this report.

Presiding Judge: [ to State Attorney Bach] We do not usually  hear you in reply.

State Attorney Bach: That was an objection, and I wish to reply.

Presiding Judge: Only by way of exception, if you have something to observe.

I have a question, Mr. Bach: Do you have any proof that this document was composed by Dr. Kasztner and not by anyone else?

State Attorney Bach: Dr. Kasztner testified on that point in that trial. We can submit evidence on that, too. Apart from that, there is clear evidence that he was chairman of the committee, and that the report was submitted by him – not only submitted, but that he also bore the reponsibility for it. When a committee submits a report, then it is clear that, whether or not he wrote the report in its entirety or in part, it is the chairman who, of course, bears the responsibility for the report as such. He submits it, and he is responsible for it.

Moreover, we know that he did, in fact, write the whole report. Counsel for the Defence admits as much. I do not want to touch upon the question of credibility. Counsel for the Defence mentioned the report by Philipp von Freudiger. Mr. Freudiger will be a witness in this Court, maybe already today, and Counsel for the Defence will have the opportunity, of course, to question him also about the credibility of the report – so that he should have no problem with that.

Presiding Judge: What about Levai?

Previous | Index | Next

1 Sivan 5721 (16 May 1961)

Presiding Judge: I declare the forty-first Session of the trial open.

Attorney General: With the Court’s permission, my colleague, Mr. Bach, will now give the Court the names of the other declarants, whose statements have not yet been submitted, since their turn has not yet been reached at the stage of submitting the evidence, but the Prosecution intends to make use of them. If the Defence wishes to make any comment, we would ask the Court to decide whether they should be heard in the same way as was decided in the case of other declarants.

State Attorney Bach: We have, in fact, reduced the number of these witnesses – whose affidavits, or the record of whose interrogations, we should like to submit; we have reduced their number to three, and these three witnesses, in fact, belong to the chapter of the holocaust of Hungarian Jewry.

The first of the three is Kurt Becher, a former SS Standartenfuehrer. He was interrogated a number of times by the American military authorities at Nuremberg, and these interrogations have been included by us in two documents, bearing the Prosecution numbers 774 and 827. Document No. 774, which actually contains the majority of these interrogations, was, in fact, also shown to the Accused, and he made his comments on these interrogations.

Hence the document is already before you. It was given the number T/37(235). He made his comments on these interrogations from page 2888 onwards, and later on again from page 2903 onwards.

Kurt Becher was, in 1944, the head of the economic office of the SS in Budapest, and he was also Himmler’s accredited representative in the negotiations with the Jewish institutions in Budapest, in connection with the proposal to grant exit permits to a certain number of Jews from the German occupied areas, mainly Hungary, in exchange for the payment of money and the supply of goods to the SS.

He did that while maintaining a measure of contact with the Accused, as we shall prove. This statement, these interrogations, of Becher are most relevant from a number of points of view.

With the aid of what he stated, we want to prove, firstly, that Himmler was the one who initiated this proposal. We shall also see what were Himmler’s motives, mainly political, for this plan. We shall show that, in fact, Becher was required – as he himself put it – to promise the Jews anything he liked; what would be fulfilled was a totally different question. More important, as we shall see, the Accused was opposed to this deal right from the  beginning and was very glad when it failed.

We shall show what were Himmler’s motives in August 1944 in giving orders to stop the deportations and, in fact, to prevent the deportation of the Jews of Budapest – what caused it, and what preceded it; what caused Himmler’s order to stop the extermination of the Jews in October 1944. We shall be able to prove the attempts by the Accused to contravene and, indeed, to sabotage this decision of Himmler’s.

We shall also prove here, by the same statement, that Becher actually complained to Himmler about this conduct on the part of the Accused and that Himmler, in fact, summoned the Accused before him and rebuked him in the presence of Becher. I do not wish to go into details here, but this episode is exceedingly interesting in order to prove in which way the Accused exercised the initiative which was open to him.

This evidence also has ample probative value, for we shall be able to link it at almost each and every step, with all sorts of other evidence, whether oral evidence or documents we have discovered, mainly documents which have reached us from Himmler’s personal archives, and those we have received from the United States.

We have here an exchange of telegrams between Becher and Himmler, during those decisive days, with the aid of which, and with the aid of this interrogation – if the Court will admit it – and with the aid of other reports we shall ask to submit, we shall be able virtually to reconstruct the events of certain days almost hour by hour, during those decisive days.

Presiding Judge: Is Becher alive?

State Attorney Bach: Becher is alive, and already at this stage I wish to say that we shall not agree to summon Becher to come to the State of Israel in order to appear here. We shall not summon him to come here as a witness, and in fact he will be treated in the same way as the Attorney General has declared before you regarding other witnesses, such as von Thadden, Bach-Zalewski and others. For our part, there would be nothing to prevent the man from coming here, but he will not be granted immunity.

Presiding Judge: I do not understand – there would be nothing on your part to prevent him from coming; does that mean that he would be given an entry visa?

State Attorney Bach: Actually, the Attorney General has declared this in regard to other witnesses – that we shall not object to their coming here, but we shall not promise them immunity. He will be treated like all those others, except for Hoettl and Huppenkothen, who fall into a special category. The position of Becher in our opinion is exactly the same as that of all the other witnesses whose examination in Germany the Court has requested.

Presiding Judge: Has he been charged with having committed offences?

State Attorney Bach: Yes, with offences under the Nazis (Punishment) Law, both under section 1 and under other sections as well.

Judge Halevi: Not only for membership of the Nazi organizations?

State Attorney Bach: Not only for his membership. I should like to add here that, although we shall ask the Court to consider Becher’s statement to be trustworthy, namely that he was interested in the success of the notorious transaction “life in exchange for goods,” and at a certain stage also to the point of stopping the deportations, we nevertheless see no reason to remove him from the list of Nazis whom we regard as criminal offenders against the Jewish people, as persons who committed crimes against humanity.

In our opinion, the difference between him and the Accused lies in the fact that, whereas the murder of an additional several hundred thousand Jews would have done credit to the Accused as part of his task, in Becher’s case this would not have been regarded actually as a success on his part, but the plunder of further large sums of money from the victims who were destined for extermination, and the extortion of monies and goods – that would have been regarded as an achievement.

And we shall see, when we shall ask the Court to admit the report of the Head of the Committee for Relief and Rescue, Kasztner’s report, we shall see how he mentions, for example, that when there were negotiations about payment per head for each Jew allegedly to be saved, then the Accused mentioned a sum of money even smaller than Becher.

It is true that the Accused was opposed to the entire deal, but as long as he had to negotiate in this sense, the amount of money was not so important; it was important to Becher. For these reasons we do not regard Becher as not being a criminal under our law, and therefore we cannot promise him immunity.

Presiding Judge: Where does he live?

State Attorney Bach: I understand that he lives in Germany, I believe in Bremen. If Defence Counsel so wishes, there will be no objection on our part to his examination before a German judge, in accordance with the arrangement which the Court laid down in its Decision No. 11.

Accordingly, I would ask you at this stage – I think that would in fact be the correct procedure – to admit these two documents in evidence, and to give your decision along the lines of Decision No. 11.

Presiding Judge: Perhaps you would first complete your whole list?

State Attorney Bach: The second witness is Horst Grell. That is our document No. 985. Here, too, there is an affidavit which was shown to the Accused.

Presiding Judge: Were both statements of Becher sworn affidavits?

State Attorney Bach: In part, Your Honour. Here we have interrogations, partly on oath, partly not. I believe that, in fact, the interrogations that were tendered to the Accused, for his comments, are – for the most part – not sworn, whereas the second document contains sworn interrogations.

The second document is that of Horst Grell, an affidavit under oath, Prosecution document No. 985. It was submitted to the Accused and was given the number T/37(267). The part of the Accused’s statement referring to that document begins on page 3193. Grell handled Jewish affairs in Budapest at  the agency of the German Foreign Ministry in Budapest. He was a kind of liaison officer between Veesenmayer and the Accused’s Section IVB4.

Presiding Judge: Under what circumstances did he make this sworn statement?

State Attorney Bach: He made this statement at the trial of Veesenmayer, at the trial of members of the German Foreign Ministry, in defence of Veesenmayer. This man, as I have said, was the liaison officer between Veesenmayer and the Accused. He describes in this statement the division of authority between the holders of various posts, the camouflage efforts of the Accused vis-a-vis the German Foreign Ministry.

And, most important of all, he mentions an episode to which we shall attach special importance when we come to the chapter of the holocaust of Hungarian Jewry. That is the chapter of the Kistarcsa camp. That was an episode which came after an order had been given by the Regent Horthy, who forbade any further deportation of Jews from Hungary.

The Accused then made use of a ruse, and we shall bring its details before the Court, mainly through Jewish witnesses. By means of this ruse he succeeded in taking 1,500 Jews from this camp, and in bringing them to Auschwitz, despite the fact that they had previously been returned to the same camp in compliance with Horthy’s order.

As I have said, these are witnesses from the Jewish side, and we shall produce them before you. But Grell, in this affidavit, mentions this trick of the Accused, and it proves the existence of this trick. Details of the implementation of this special operation were also known to some of the Germans, and even to members of the German Foreign Ministry.

Presiding Judge: What was the name of that camp?

State Attorney Bach: Kistarcsa. That is, in brief, the contents of this affidavit, and hence it is relevant; it also has probative value – it links up with many of the testimonies and documents, and the Court will be able to assess its weight at the end of the trial.

Presiding Judge: Is his name Horst or Theodor Horst Grell?

State Attorney Bach: It says in the affidavit: Dr. Theodor Horst Grell.

Presiding Judge: Where does he live today?

State Attorney Bach: I think he lives in Germany. I am told that he lives in Frankfurt.

Judge Halevi: What would be his position in Israel?

State Attorney Bach: His position would be the same as that of Becher and the other witnesses. There is no doubt that he participated, very actively, in the operations that brought about the deportation of the Jews of Hungary.

The last witness is Hans Juettner. He was an Obergruppenfuehrer in the SS. He was a general in the Waffen SS. He was Chef des Fuehrungshauptamts SS – that was actually the same office of the SS as that of the Reichsfuehrer SS, of the Fuehrungshauptamt.

Presiding Judge: The chief of Himmler’s secretariat.

State Attorney Bach: The chief of Himmler’s secretariat. He was also the “Chief Adjutant” of Himmler himself. I think that this is sufficient to substantiate our claim that his position is similar to that of the two previous witnesses as regards granting, or declining, immunity to him. He also made an affidavit at Nuremberg. That is the document which was given the number NG 6216.

Presiding Judge: What is your number?

State Attorney Bach: Our number is 1297; and this affidavit, in fact, is submitted in respect to a limited episode. This man, in November 1944…

Presiding Judge: For what purpose was it submitted at Nuremberg?

State Attorney Bach: This is not so apparent here. I think it was one of the interrogations that was also conducted – so I presume – in relation to the Foreign Ministry, but not necessarily so; it is very likely that they used it for a number of cases. At any rate this does not emerge from the body of the document itself.

Presiding Judge: Is this statement sworn or not?

State Attorney Bach: It is a sworn statement.

Judge Halevi: Was he sentenced at Nuremberg?

State Attorney Bach: No. I do not think he was sentenced – I think he was not brought to trial. This man, in November 1944, visited Hungary in the course of his duties, and saw, en route, the notorious “foot march” – that forced march with the direction and execution of which we have charged the Accused.

He relates here that he was shocked by what he saw, how his attention was directed to these atrocities by Becher, how he tried to stop this thing, how he turned to Winkelmann, and how he realized that Winkelmann was unable to intervene, but referred him to the Accused and said that only the Accused would be able to change matters. He also described that he went to the Accused’s office, the contemptuous attitude that he experienced on the part of the Accused’s subordinates, and his reply.

This evidence is important, because it links up with other evidence, with the statement of Hoess, which we are still going to submit (Hoess is no longer alive, and no question about submitting his statement arises). That was the testimony of the commandant of Auschwitz, who also witnesses this “foot march,” and he also gives his reaction to that episode. Kasztner’s report also refers to that episode, and he mentions the same Juettner, so that Juettner’s intervention was known already then.

Wisliceny also says the same in his examination, in that statement which we have already submitted. So that here, once again, it has become possible to present the Court with a complete picture by means of these testimonies, which is more reliable and more weighty than is the evidence of witnesses who are able to come here and testify as to what occurred sixteen years ago. Accordingly, I apply to have this affidavit accepted in evidence.

Judge Raveh: Where is he now?

State Attorney Bach: Juettner, as far as I know, is in Germany. I do not know where.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, what observations do you have on these applications?

Dr. Servatius: I request to summon the witness Becher here  for the following reasons: Firstly, he was a leading figure in the negotiations with Brand. Amongst the documents, there is one of a special character. That is an examination – I do not remember at the moment whether it is 774 or 827 – the strangest examination that I have come across so far.

It is a conversation between Becher and Brand, in which they exchange mutual compliments about their achievements in rescuing Jews. Thereafter, each asks the other: Do you remember that this is how it was? No? Perhaps you could make a special effort? And so it goes on, over many pages.

Therefore, it becomes necessary to confront these witnesses with each other.

Forgive me – I have been made aware of a mistake. The document refers to Becher and Kasztner – and not to Becher and Brand. Hence, what I have said about confrontation is invalid. At all events, in my opinion this document should not be admitted, but the witness Becher must be heard here.

With regard to the other witnesses, with regard to the witnesses Grell and Juettner, their examination in Germany will be sufficient for me, and I have submitted the appropriate applications. It will not be worthwhile to bring them to this Court, and in the known circumstances we should not demand this of them.

State Attorney Bach: May I be permitted to add a certain clarification? These interrogations of Becher were conducted in the normal way by the American military authorities, as appears from the transcript itself, by Curt Ponger and other interrogators of the American army.

The fact is that some of these interrogations took place in the presence of Dr. Rudolf Kasztner, upon the request of Becher who said that Dr. Kasztner might know a substantial number of facts that would be able to serve in his defence, since he was present during some of Becher’s activities; and therefore he asked the interrogator that Dr. Kasztner be present, and Dr. Kasztner was actually present at some of these interrogations.

Since, at a later stage, we are also going to ask the Court to admit the report of the Head of the Rescue Committee, namely Dr. Kasztner, it seems to me that the questions which were put by Dr. Kasztner can only add to explaining the background and establishing the weight of Becher’s evidence. At any rate, it was a perfectly regular interrogation and a confrontation in the normal manner.

Judge Halevi: What kind of interrogation was that? Was he being interrogated as a suspect or an accused?

State Attorney Bach: He was being questioned both as a suspect and as a witness. Here they question him both about his own activities and also about the activities of others. He covers the whole field and describes events that took place during that period in Budapest. He did not ask at that time to be confronted with the Accused – it was impossible at that stage to have such a confrontation. And, as I have said, it seems to me that this presence of Dr. Kasztner at the time certainly does not detract from the value…

Presiding Judge: Let us not discuss now the weight of the matter.

State Attorney Bach: It surely does not rule out the admissibility of the document as evidence.

Previous | Index | Next

Q. I now come to the hearing of evidence in Trial No. 9, in which you, Sir, sat. There you spoke about the accused Bieberstein, Ohlendorf and Blobel. Did any of these accused allege that Eichmann was the one who caused him to perform the acts that he committed? Did he allege that in his favour, against his conviction or to mitigate his punishment?

A. They were accused of actual, premeditated murder. You mention only three – there were twenty-three. They were charged with having killed one million unarmed human beings – men, women and children; and their defence was directed along the line of exculpating themselves in the best fashion they could. Now, in that respect Ohlendorf introduced as part of his case all the testimony that Wisliceny had given in the I.M.T. trial, so that there was an attempt on the part of Ohlendorf to indicate that, to a certain extent, he was under the domination of Eichmann.

Q. Would it be correct to say that no such argument of any one of the accused was included in your judgment, and that you yourself did not mention Eichmann in your judgment by so much as one word?

A. That is true. I did not mention Eichmann in my judgment because I did not see any necessity to do so. Eichmann’s power came by speaking through Himmler and through Heydrich, so in my judgment I referred to what Heydrich did, what Himmler ordered, and I did not mention Eichmann in my judgment because Eichmann was not on trial – he was not a defendant. There was no point in…

Presiding Judge: Excuse me, Justice Musmanno, the question also was whether you mentioned any such defence on the part of any of the accused, that they had acted under orders from Eichmann or under the influence of Eichmann.

Witness Musmanno: I did not.

Dr. Servatius: Judge Musmanno, you said later that there had been a possibility of being released from these Einsatzgruppen, that a man was freely able to get out of this duty and be transferred, let us say, to another department. Do you know what the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg said on this question? I shall quote it to you:

Here it states as follows:

“Throughout the war men of the security police and the SD had no chance to clarify for themselves their position and their duty, and if there were anyone who refused to take upon himself any duty at all, mainly in the occupied zone, the matter was likely to result in heavy penalties.”

Do you concur with this determination of the facts by the International Military Tribunal?

Witness Musmanno: This is a general statement made by the I.M.T. I sat for seven months presiding over the Einsatzgruppen Trial and we took up case for case, and I told you about Erwin Schultz who refused to go along with his superior orders and asked that he might be released. And he was released by no one less than Heydrich. And not only was he released from carrying out these onerous, bloodthirsty deeds as a colonel, but later on he was even promoted to general. So, therefore, he did not suffer by refusing to obey these orders to kill in cold blood.

The same thing was true with Franz Six – and a document has been introduced along that line. The same thing was true with regard to Noske. Noske was in the East as a leader of an Einsatz-Kommando, and then returned to Germany. In Germany he was assigned to Duesseldorf and there he was ordered to kill the Jews and half-Jews.

He refused to obey the order because he felt something quite revolting from his point of view, at killing a person at one German camp. But he refused the order and nothing happened to him seriously. He was subjected to some inconvenience, but he was not even degraded; certainly he was not shot.

Ohlendorf himself stated that he could have gotten out of this assignment by simulating illness, but that he felt that he should not do that. And – well – I can give you a number of illustrations. I do not know just how far Dr. Servatius has asked me to speak on this subject…

But if there is one thing that was demonstrated in this trial of the Einsatzgruppen, it is that, if one really did not feel capable of killing in cold blood, he could be released. That was stated a number of times.

Q. You said this morning that it was possible to extricate oneself from the Einsatzgruppen. Would it not be correct for me to say that there were various ways of doing so: Either a man had good connections or he had already acquired many privileges in the course of his past work in this field, or a man could have feigned illness. But there was no possibility to declare: I object to this on principle; this is an enormous crime and I protest against it. Would you agree with me?

A. I do not agree with you, and the facts are to the contrary. There are many ways to evade performing these horrible deeds. There was one instance where a man got out of it by becoming drunk all the time.

Presiding Judge: Excuse me Justice Musmanno, the question was not about feigning all sorts of excuses, making excuses, for being excused from this service. But the point of the question was, if I understand it correctly, perhaps it did not come through in translation, that you could not say: “I object to this on principle, to killing Jews on principle, because this is a crime.” Nobody got out, or tried to get out of the Einsatzgruppen or any other service on such a ground.

Witness Musmanno: I thank you Mr. Presiding Judge for clarifying the question. Certainly in military discipline no subordinate officer or soldier could say outrightly to his superior officer: “I absolutely refuse to carry out this order!” But he could say to him, and there were many who did say that: “I am incapable of shooting anybody down in cold blood, and so I would like to be excused.” And that of course is what I had made reference to.

One of the defendants, Willi Siebert, Colonel Willi Siebert, who was in Ohlendorf’s Einsatzgruppe, began his testimony by saying that he had to obey his superior’s orders. His attorney put the question to him, Dr. Raul, that isn’t it a fact that the Kaiser once declared that if a soldier is ordered to shoot his own parents, that he must obey. And Siebert agreed with that. He said: “Yes, that is what we understand in the German Armed Forces.”

After he had made that statement, then I said to the defendant: “Let us assume that you are ordered to shoot your mother and your father. Would you shoot them?” He did not reply directly. He said: “I’ll have to think this over a while.” I said: “Take as much time as you wish.”

Then he gave some tentative, ambiguous response and he indicated that he still wanted a great deal more time to deliberate, and so I said: “We will adjourn court and you reflect on this as much as you wish and then tomorrow morning we would like to have your answer, because after all it was not the tribunal who put this question, it was your own attorney and you accepted that that was the norm and the criterion, that you had to obey superior orders regardless even if it meant killing your own parents.”

The next morning he arrived and the question was put to him. “Let us suppose a military situation where you are ordered to shoot your parents, your mother and your father, will you do it?” He said: “No, I wouldn’t do it.”

Dr. Servatius: The reply of the witness is sufficient for me. I have a few questions on another subject. You certainly knew very well the conditions in the Nuremberg gaol. You were there on repeated occasions for interrogations. Who was in charge of security there? Soldiers or prison guards?

Witness Musmanno: Soldiers.

Q. Did the witnesses and the accused have a chance to talk to one another and were they able to try and reach mutual agreement concerning the evidence to be given by them?

A. Sometimes they could shout across the corridor – Schellenberg told me of an episode when Goering admitted to him when they were in the Nuremberg Gaol that Schellenberg was correct in some division of opinion that they had before as to who was right or not, so that evidently at times they could communicate with each other.

Q. Did not a very strict discipline prevail between the accused which ensured that no one could take a line of his own, and if someone had been found taking a line of his own, was there not someone there who would see to it that reprisals would be taken against members of his family and that vengeance would have been visited upon them?

A. Are you speaking of conversations between…

Presiding Judge: No, that there was discipline in the sense that everybody had to toe the general line.

Witness Musmanno: Is he speaking of the prisoners now?

Presiding Judge: No, the accused at the Nuremberg Trial or  Trials.

Witness Musmanno: I was thinking about the prison itself. I did not quite understand. Would you please repeat that question then?

Dr. Servatius: Would I be correct in saying that among the prisoners in Nuremberg there was a general strict agreement as to the taking of one line. If anybody would not take that line in his defence, his relatives outside would be made to pay for it.

Witness Musmanno: I do not know of any such thing.

Q. On another occasion I shall submit to the Court a document from which it will appear that such things happened – it is specifically stated there.

When an accused passed from the accuseds’ wing to the witnesses’ wing, was there any advantage in that? Would he receive any privileges? Did they regard this as one step towards liberty? Do you know anything about that?

A. I know nothing about the prison regulations. I could not comment on that.

Q. On this point, too, I shall submit a document to the Court at a later stage.

You wrote a book, if I understand correctly, about the last days of the Reich Chancellery?

A. The book was called Ten Days To Die.

Q. When was this book published?

A. I think in 1950.* {*First published by Peter Davies in 1951.}

Q. Did you interview many witnesses with a view to obtaining the relevant material?

A. Oh yes, yes. I testified this morning there were over one hundred. It was really over two hundred.

Presiding Judge: The question was, did you bring before you many witnesses in order to obtain material for your book? That was the question.

Witness Musmanno: Well, in this investigation I saw many witnesses and it ran into about two hundred of them.

Dr. Servatius: This was a private research, so to speak, for writing your book, was it not?

Witness Musmanno: My situation was very similar to that of Trevor Roper. Trevor Roper, a professor at Oxford University was in the British Air Corps during the War and he was directed by his General to conduct an investigation regarding the circumstances surrounding the disappearance or death of Hitler.

I was not aware that he was conducting an investigation about the same time that I was. After he had made his report to the British Government, he then published a book and it was called The Last Days of Hitler. My situation was quite similar.

Presiding Judge: But if I may ask, did you make additional investigations with a view to publishing your book, in addition to what you had already investigated on behalf of the United States Navy?

Witness Musmanno: That is true, Mr. Justice.

Dr. Servatius: Is its true to assume that you especially invited all the secretaries of all personalities concerned and that you questioned them?

Witness Musmanno: Oh yes. I spoke to the secretaries, the dentist, the barber, the housekeeper, the butler – all of them, because I wanted to get information about Hitler.

Dr. Servatius: Thank you very much. I have no more questions.

Attorney General: Shall I begin at the end? With regard to the alignment of the accused in the case of the main war criminals at Nuremberg; is it true that there were several groups among the accused, one of which wanted to put the blame on Hitler and another which wanted to keep faith with him to the end?

Witness Musmanno: You are speaking of the I.M.T. trial?

Q. The I.M.T., that is correct.

A. That is correct.

Q. And you spoke to people of all these groups?

A. I was not interested in any schism between the witnesses, and at the time I was not aware of it – and after all – these visits were not long ones: I would go to them, I would put to them two or three questions, three or four, and that was it. Some volunteered information.

Q. No, I am driving at another point. Who was the exponent of the “faithful and loyal” group to Hitler? – Goering?

A. Yes.

Q. And the exponents of the group which denounced Hitler were Frank and Speer?

A. Yes.

Q. These were the two main exponents, weren’t they?

A. Also von Schirach, Schacht…

Q. I see. Now, you wanted to add something, Justice Musmanno?

A. Yes. I spoke to Goering shortly after he had testified, and in his testimony had defended Hitler throughout. I asked him why he did this, in view of the fact that Hitler had degraded him, ordered his arrest and, in fact, was on the verge of ordering him to be shot; and I said to Goering: “Marshal, I do not understand why you would defend a man who would have shot you had we, the Allied troops, not captured you; and you know that he has mistreated Mrs. Goering…”

And he said to me: “Commander, I stood with Hitler when he was alive – I’ll stand with him when he is dead.” And the remark was so insincere, to me, and so pompous and so utterly…annoying, that I could not restrain myself – I laughed in his face. Then he looked about furtively, and he said: “Commander, some day I’ll tell you the real truth.”

Q. Now, Justice Musmanno, did any of those accused people you spoke to, who were awaiting their judgment and sentence at the I.M.T. – did they stand to gain anything by what they told you or by what they said to Professor Gilbert?

A. No. Nothing whatsoever.

Q. You said you did not mention in your judgment the instructions or orders of Hitler to Ohlendorf, but did you mention in your judgment anything about RSHA?

A. I did.

Q. What was that?

A. Well, I indicated, of course, that the Einsatzgruppen were a special operation of the RSHA.

Previous | Index | Next