Attorney General: Hoess left at the end; after the
Hungarian operation he was brought back to Auschwitz
specifically for that purpose.
Justice Silberg: The operation in Hungary began in May. I
was asking about the summer months. In the summer was he
already in Auschwitz?
Attorney General: I believe that he came to Auschwitz – and
I shall immediately check this in his autobiography – in
June 1944.
Justice Silberg: How long was he in Auschwitz?
Attorney General: I do not remember, Your Honour.
President: On which document do you base yourself, Mr.
Attorney General, when you say that Hoess was brought back
to Auschwitz after the operation in Hungary?
Attorney General: On the autobiography.
Justice Silberg: Hoess was unable to say anything about the
scope of the extermination in the summer months, about the
numbers. He did not know about the numbers.
Attorney General: He knew exactly. He was the central
director of the concentration camps at that time. He had a
precise picture of the extent of the numbers. That is my
next point.
President: Afterwards he was appointed deputy director of
the concentration camps, correct?
Attorney General: Yes.
I should like simply to add that in T/470, a telegram from
Eichmann’s Section to Knochen, there is a reference at the
end to the fact that the Jews living in mixed marriages were
also to be transported, even if this was against
instructions, but they were to be transported as if they
were Schutzhaeftlinge (in protective custody). In other
words, this distinction between Transportjuden and
Schutzhaeftlinge was punctiliously observed.
Justice Agranat: How was this expressed in practical terms?
Attorney General: In practical terms – we heard in Raya
Kagan’s testimony that those people who arrived at the
concentration camps by way of punishment, for example, for
making a public telephone call and so on, would not go
through the selections, were not liable to be exterminated,
they were privileged prisoners, for them a concentration
camp was a place where they were segregated from the general
society because of some offence or other.
President: And when one of them died, would that be
registered?
Attorney General: That would be registered. And in
accordance with the characteristic Nazi perversion, they of
all people were the ones to be kept on, while all the Jews
who arrived as Transportjuden were exterminated.
Evidence was given here before the Court about Hoess and his
testimony about Eichmann by the psychologist Professor
Gilbert, who was the American Army’s psychiatrist in the
Nuremberg jail. He talked to the leading Nazis, including
Rudolf Hoess. In Session 55, Vol. III, on pages 1003-1006,
he testified as follows:
“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.”
After this, Professor Gilbert related in Court that when
Hoess testified that in Auschwitz two and a half million
people were exterminated, and Goering said that was
impossible, that it was a lie, Professor Gilbert approached
Hoess, gave him a sheet of paper and wrote on the top:
“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.”
And Gilbert kept this document of Hoess’ all the time until
it was submitted to the Court here. And this is what Hoess
wrote on that sheet of paper. Gilbert read it into the
record, it is on pages 1005-1006, T/1170.
President: What is T/1170?
Attorney General: The manuscript by Hoess in reply to
Goering’s query as to how it was possible to destroy two and
a half million Jews.
Justice Silberg: Was the manuscript submitted during the
trial?
Attorney General: Hoess’ own manuscript. It was submitted
and you have it before you.
Justice Silberg: Is that a transcript?
Attorney General: No, the original was submitted. The
transcript may be in the other files. But Gilbert read the
following into the record:
“The freight trains with the Jews destined for
extermination moved along a special railroad
installation which had been laid down especially for
this purpose right up to the extermination
installations. Notification of these trains was given
in advance by Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann of the
RSHA, and they were allocated consecutive numbers,
together with letters of the alphabet, in order to
prevent a mix-up with transports of other prisoners.
Each cable relating to these transports bore the
reference: `In accordance with the specified
directives, and are to be subjected to special
treatment.’ These trains consisted of closed freight
cars and contained, on the average, about 2,000
persons.”
I now omit a few lines.
“On the basis of the figure of 2.5 million, which is
the number of people who – according to Eichmann – were
brought to Auschwitz for extermination, it may be said
that, on the average, two transports arrived daily,
with a combined total of 4,000 persons, of whom twenty-
five per cent were fit for work, the balance of 3,000
were to be exterminated.”
Further down it says:
“I have to keep to the figure mentioned by Eichmann,
for he was the only SS officer who was allowed to keep
records concerning these liquidation operations,
according to the orders of the Reichsfuehrer-SS. All
other units which took part in any way had to destroy
all records immediately. Eichmann mentioned this number
in my presence when he was called upon, in April 1945,
to present a report to the Reichsfuehrer-SS. I had no
records whatsoever.”
Concerning the mental state of Hoess when he wrote these
words in the Nuremberg jail, Professor Gilbert made the
following comments, on page 1007:
“He was apathetic – as he always was, I gathered from
the psychological examination; he was resigned to his
death; he had no interest whatever in falsifying any
testimony; what he had already told me in his cell in
Nuremberg, in our conversations, he repeated again on
the witness stand. It was all an automatic culmination
of a career that was marked by death and must end in
death, and he had no particular feelings about any of
this – he just automatically wrote what he knew, when
asked.”
Hoess wrote about Eichmann himself in his book, on pages 214-
215. The book was submitted in the English translation, and
I shall read this in English:
“Eichmann was absolutely convinced that if he could
succeed in destroying the biological basis of Jewry in
the East by complete extermination, then Jewry as a
whole would never recover from the blow. The
assimilated Jews of the West, including America, would,
in his opinion, be in no position (and would have no
desire), to make up this enormous loss of blood and
there would therefore be no future generation worth
mentioning…
“Eichmann was completely obsessed with his mission and
also convinced that this extermination action was
necessary in order to preserve the German people in the
future from the destructive intentions of the Jews.
This was the way in which he regarded his task, and he
employed all his energy in fulfilling the plans for
extermination which the Reichsfuehrer-SS had made.
Eichmann was also a determined opponent of the idea of
selecting from the transports Jews who were fit for
work. He regarded it as a constant danger to his scheme
for a `final solution,’ because of the possibility of
mass escapes or some other event occurring which would
enable the Jews to survive. In his view action should
be taken against every Jew that could be got hold of,
and such actions ought to be pursued to their
conclusion as quickly as possible, since it was
impossible to anticipate the final result of the War.”
It will therefore come as no surprise that at the end of
the War, Eichmann expressed his satisfaction that he at
least had won his war, and although the Reich collapsed and
Hitler lost his war, Adolf Eichmann won. And that is the
finding of the Judgment on this matter, at the end of
paragraph 293.
There remains the incontrovertible fact in respect of
Eichmann that at the end of the War, he expressed
satisfaction at the death of millions of Jews and declared
that the thought of this would make it easier for him to
jump into the pit. This was satisfaction at the major blow
that had been dealt the enemy of the Reich on that front on
which the Accused was active during the years of the World
War as well as prior to it. This psychological stock-taking,
which the Accused carried out in the midst of the general
despair surrounding him, is sufficient to show us his real
attitude to the murderous work he performed.
Wisliceny was one of his chief assistants. They were also on
friendly terms. T/85 is one of Wisliceny’s reports which
were submitted. Wisliceny describes in great detail
Eichmann’s work on all fronts, his great authority, together
with his unswerving tendency to cover himself for every
single action on his part. What he says here is too long to
read out to the Court, and I would ask the Court to examine
this document, in which one of his main assistants describes
the blood-stained work which continued over so many years.
I shall quote just one passage, from page 3:
“It was not until later that the expression `Final
Solution’ acquired an entirely different meaning, and
Himmler and Eichmann used it as a term of camouflage
for the biological extermination of European Jewry.
This was done deliberately by Eichmann, in order to
mislead other authorities, who were introduced to the
secret of the resettlement plans, by using the password
which until then had been used for the resettlement
operation.”
I questioned Eichmann on his various tactics of deception,
and these are his replies in Session 104, Vol. IV, page
1791:
“Q. You told us that Jewish Affairs had to be heavily
camouflaged even vis-a-vis the Foreign Ministry: but
you will admit that these camouflage systems and
methods were also applied to other countries, for
example to the Slovaks.
“A. I never denied that; in fact, Himmler gave these
orders.
“Q. But you carried them out?
“A. I was not the only one who carried them out.
“Q. It is you who are the Accused here, and not
others…And you suggested referring the Slovak
Government to Fiala’s articles and the deportees’
postcards, didn’t you?
“A. Yes, exactly as I was ordered.
“Q. And you signed the letter to the effect that the
Slovak Government’s fears and concerns about the fate
of the deportees were unfounded, and that there was no
reason for concern. Is that not true?
“A. Yes, that was the required use of words, and I had
to apply it.
“Q. And you suggested to the Slovak Government that it
would say what had been stated about the fate of the
Jews was only atrocity stories (Greulmaerchen ) and
nothing more.
“A. Yes, that was ordered, too.”
After this comes the definitive reply:
“Q. So the camouflage system and the camouflage staff
worked in all directions, both vis-a-vis the foreign
governments, vis-a-vis the Jews, and also vis-a-vis the
Foreign Ministry, did they?
“A. Yes.”
I asked him about the meeting in March 1944 with the
Jewish representatives in Hungary.
“Q. …At this meeting you promised the Jews that
nothing would happen to them…
“A. At that time I did not know that they were being
transported to Auschwitz, I have already said that. But
I did know that they were being deported.
“Q. But you told them exactly the opposite! You told
them that nothing would happen to them, that they would
not be sent away from Hungary. Is that right?
“A. Yes, those were my orders.”
Justice Silberg: When did Eichmann first see the Auschwitz
camp?
Attorney General: In the summer of 1941.
Justice Silberg: When was this camp set up?
Attorney General: Approximately at that time.
Justice Silberg: He visited there five times, correct?
Attorney General: Including at the end of the War, when in
April 1945 he had a meeting with a Red Cross representative
– T/865, that is an International Red Cross report dated
June 1946 about the Red Cross operations to help civilian
detainees in concentration camps in Germany; the person
making the report indicates that on 6 April he met with
Eichmann, the specialist in all Jewish affairs, and he
quotes Eichmann as saying that Eichman told the Red Cross
official that he was the direct plenipotentiary – der
direkte Bevollmaechtigte des Reichsfuehrers-SS for all
Jewish affairs, and Eichmann stated this (page 3); as far as
the general question of the Jews was concerned, Eichmann is
of the opinion that Himmler now wishes to consider humane
methods. Eichman personally does not quite agree to these
methods (Eichmann persoenlich billige diese Methoden nicht
gaenzlich), but as a good soldier he of course will carry
out the Reichsfuehrer’s instructions.
Justice Silberg: This was in April 1945?
Attorney General: Yes.
In T/294, to which I have already referred, the minutes of
the meeting on 10 October 1941, in which reference is made
to a solution to the problem of the Jews in the Protectorate
and the Old Reich, the question was where to send the 88,000
Jews in the Protectorate. It was said that consideration
must be paid to the difficulties confronting the authorities
of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, i.e. Lodz. The decision was
taken to transport 50,000 Jews to Minsk and Riga, after
Eichmann indicated that the camps of Nebe and Rasch in the
East could accommodate these Jews. Nebe and Rasch were
Operations Units commanders, and in their camps the Jews
were shot immediately.
Justice Silberg: Riga belonged neither to Nebe nor to
Rasch, but to Stahlecker.
Last-Modified: 1999/06/15
