Attorney General: We followed the original transcript. There
are places where the name was changed. Here it was not
changed and we typed what we heard. But there is no doubt
that Krumey is meant. The typist apparently made a mistake
when listening to the tape. I continue reading:
“Theoretically, if there was a conspiracy between
Wisliceny and Krumey at that time, if they tried their
luck in contravention of the service directives,
perhaps in co-operation with the Jews – if this is
really so, then another question arises: Perhaps the
trial now in progress against my permanent deputy in
Frankfurt am Main, perhaps this is a prearranged game,
not only in order to substantiate the theory about the
five million Jews, as it were, and in order to increase
the theory of five million perhaps to eight million and
to extract further billions in reparations. An
indication can perhaps be found, if one wants to take
this into account at all as an element of truth, in
Krumey saying to the Jew B. (that is, Joel Brand) at
the time of his take-off: ‘Apart from Eichmann, there
are also Wisliceny and Krumey.’
“If this is not a lie, then Krumey and Wisliceny sinned
against German blood; if this were the case,
Wisliceny’s reports contradicted the facts as he knew
them; if this were the case, he obstructed me, as it
were; if this were the case I really could not have
reached deportation figures to be proud of in any way –
as I would have wished, because of my uncompromising
fanaticism. I could not then achieve my ultimate aim,
which was to free Hungary of all its Jews. If that was
so, then Wisliceny and Krumey are responsible, in the
last resort, for the fact that the Hungarian nation of
today is exposed to the terror of Jewish secret
policemen.
“Question Do you think this is possible – of course on
the theoretical assumption that Wisliceny and Krumey
gave you faked figures about the deportations?
“Answer: Yes, now I do!”
Presiding Judge: Does it say “question” and “answer” in the
transcript, or as it appears here?
Attorney General: No, this has to be understood from the
context only.
“Question Do you think it is possible that when
Wisliceny told you: ‘today a transport of 12,000
persons was sent off’ – that in reality only 6,000
left?
“Answer Yes, now I do!
“Question Did you not have a means of checking, that
the place they were sent to would have informed you:
Yes, 12,000 did in fact arrive?
“Answer They were not counted.”
The next passage is on page 432 and deals with the question
which was of concern to the persons recording this tape: Who
initiated the Wannsee conference. And here the Accused says
– he begins with the Spanish word “bueno” (well):
“Answer Bueno, it was Hitler himself – neither
Heydrich nor Himmler, they were not the initiators. No,
of this I am sure, and I could not say anything else.
As things stood, and on the basis of my knowledge of my
superiors – no, after all Heydrich was no actor and he
always spoke frankly, he never kept anything from me. I
had a very good relationship with Heydrich. He would
tell me: At last, Eichmann, we have succeeded, we have
acted and we have thrown out all the…”
Here follows a vulgar word which I might translate as
“backsides” – the Court will know what expression is meant.
Presiding Judge: Yes.
Attorney General:
“Now we have thrown out all the ‘backsides’ of the
Ministries, now we can rule to our heart’s content –
something like this Heydrich would have said to me.
But Heydrich did not say that.”
This is followed by the words of the Accused, and that is
why we agreed with Counsel for the Defence to include these
pages which you have before you, from page 492 onward.
Presiding Judge: Is this all that is left?
Attorney General: This and one more earlier passage. The
method employed here was that the person talking with the
Accused read passages from the Wannsee report and asked the
Accused for his reaction. First the passage:
“State Secretary Dr. Buehler stated that the
Generalgouvernement would welcome a beginning of the
Final Solution of this Question in the area of the
Generalgouvernement…
“Yes, now I can remember, I can remember Buehler.”
Attorney General: Another passage is read to him:
“It is the Jew in particular who has to be removed from
the Generalgouvernement, because as bearer of
infectious diseases he constitutes a most serious
danger, he causes disarray in the economy of the
country through constant blackmarketeering. And apart
from that, half of the two and a half million Jews in
question are not fit for work.”
Thus far the Wannsee report, and now the answer of the
Accused:
“Answer This is of course an exaggeration. Especially
in the Generalgouvernement the opposite was the case –
the Generalgouvernement in particular provided most of
the artisans.”
Attorney General: And again an excerpt from the Wannsee
report:
“Finally the various ways of possible solutions were
discussed, and in this connection both Gauleiter Dr.
Meyer and State Secretary Dr. Buehler were of the
opinion that some preliminary work had to be done
immediately in the areas concerned in preparation for
the Final Solution, but that panic among the population
had to be avoided. What does this mean?
“Answer Perhaps liquidation. But this was being done
already since 1941, in the occupied areas in the East.
But this sentence has to be struck out, I cannot accept
it although taken altogether these are mostly my words.
“Summing up, one has to say that this report is
textually quite authentic, and that it misses the point
only where it touches on the substantive part, i.e.,
the figures and also some hints about certain methods
of solution of the problem by force. Or rather, this
was surreptitiously introduced into the text.”
Presiding Judge: Is this the report of the Wannsee
Conference?
Attorney General: Yes.
Presiding Judge: Does he not say somewhere in T/37 that he
wrote this report?
Attorney General: No, he says that he wrote the main points
for Heydrich’s speech at the conference.
Presiding Judge: Not the report?
Attorney General: No, not that I remember, Your Honour.
Presiding Judge: We shall check that.
Attorney General: Here he says that the report is authentic,
but that the figures – the Court will remember that eleven
million Jews were mentioned for the Final Solution. About
that he says: This was surreptitiously introduced.
[Continues reading.]
“When you first mentioned ‘Wannsee record’ I said that
I remembered almost nothing. But later, when I heard my
own words, I understood what this was about. Well it
was like this: After he was empowered by the
Reichsmarschall, Heydrich ordered me to invite such and
such persons to a meeting at which the questions would
be clarified on a general basis. And there he firmly
intended to have his own way.
I was ordered to write letters of invitation and he
gave me key words, which I took down and he ordered me
to compose a speech for him, as usual in such matters,
such a speech had to be polished two or three times and
in the end the speech was ready. As for the letters of
invitation, I used the same wording in all of them. I
obtained information about the marking of the various
offices, and I also had to find out the correct way of
address – either official or personal. Then I brought
him the portfolio and he scribbled ‘Heydrich’ on one
letter after the other, after which they were sent out.
Some people declined and sent representatives for
various official reasons, etc. And then the matter took
its course.
“I remember that at the end of this Wannsee Conference
Heydrich, Mueller and my humble self settled down
comfortably by the fireplace and that then for the
first time I saw Heydrich smoke a cigar or a cigarette,
and I was thinking: Today Heydrich is smoking,
something I have not seen before. And he drinks cognac
– since I had not seen Heydrich take any alcoholic
drink in years. After that I saw Heydrich drink once
more, at some friendly get-together of the Security
Service, where Heydrich, already in high spirits,
introduced me to Pappenheimer, whom I had not known
before. We sang a song, we drank, we climbed up on a
chair and drank again and then onto the table and down
again and so on – a type of merrymaking I had not
known, it was a North German custom. And after this
Wannsee Conference we were sitting together peacefully,
and not in order to talk shop, but in order to relax
after the long hours of strain. I cannot say any more
about this.”
The last excerpt concerns the visits to the concentration
camps and is to be found on page 279.
“Question And now the second point: Why did you go to
the concentration camps?
“Answer I visited Auschwitz, Oranienburg and the camp
very near Lublin. I went to Oranienburg because of the
Grynszpan affair. So this was an individual matter and
therefore was of little consequence. But in the other
concentration camps I visited Hoess several times. I
had, of course, to keep in constant touch with the
receiving camps, especially Auschwitz before the
arrival of a large sector, let us say, Hungary. The
escorting units reported about this.”
Presiding Judge: Handed this over – apparently the
transports.
Attorney General: They reported on the transports.
Presiding Judge: No, it seems that the escorting units
handed over the transports.
Attorney General: Lastly, I should like to ask the Court to
accept a number of documents, not very many, the result of
the search we have carried out.
Presiding Judge: Have you informed Dr. Servatius in advance?
Attorney General: Yes, he has been notified.
First, still on the chapter of deportations of Polish and
Jewish inhabitants from the areas annexed to the Reich, from
the incorporated areas of former Poland, the areas called
the Warthegau, – Wartheland – and others.
Our document No. 1461 is an interim report summing up the
operation until 26 January 1940. It is signed by SS
Sturmbannfuehrer Rapp and was written in Poznan. I shall not
burden the Court with details. On page 5 he mentions that
the first transport plan had been completed and that until
17 December 1939 eighty transports comprising 87,883
deportees had been dispatched to the area of the
Generalgouvernement. He summarized the difficulties and
problems with which the operation was faced.
Presiding Judge: This will be T/1405.
Attorney General: The next document our No. 1485, concerns
the same subject. It is a memo by an official of the
deportation office in Poznan. He summarizes a telephone call
from Eichmann from Berlin on 8 March 1940. Eichmann informs
him that an earlier instruction, according to which every
deportee would be allowed to take with him food for two
days, has to be changed and that now food for eight days has
to be taken along. He insists that the deportation
authorities should strongly demand provisions for eight
days. He announces that he will supply a new schedule
beginning on 1 April 1940, and that from that date daily
transports will be arranged.
Judge Halevi: Does this concern Jews or Poles?
Attorney General: Poles and Jews. The Court can see this
from the previous document I submitted.
Judge Halevi: It speaks of farmers who have food on their
farm.
Attorney General: We have already submitted documents about
the fact that, in the end, they did allow the Jews to take
with them even the standard minimum quota in money. But this
is just in order to complete the picture.
Presiding Judge: This will be T/1406.
Attorney General: Our document No. 1486 is a telegram from
Eichmann to Rapp in Poznan. He demands a report on the
progress of the settlement of Germans from Volhynia in the
vacated areas. It is dated 30 March 1940.
Presiding Judge: this will be T/1407.
Attorney General: Document No. 1462 is a telegram signed by
Eichmann, dated 15 February 1941 and addressed to several
officers of the Security Police and the Security Service in
Koenigsberg, Katowice, Gotenhafen, Posen and Litzmannstadt.
What I want to point out here is the fact that this is also
directed to Brunner in Vienna because it fits in with T/811,
dated two days earlier – 13 February 1941 – about the
deportation of the Jews of Vienna to the
Generalgouvernement. Thus Brunner in Vienna also receives
the announcement concerning the deportation arrangements,
advance information to the office of the Generalgouvernement
about the departure of the deportation trains, and
indication of the addresses within the Generalgouvernement
to which reports and information about the departure of
transports have to be given.
Presiding Judge: This will be T/1408.
Attorney General: Our document No. 1110 is about another
matter concerning the Generalgouvernement, but no longer the
evacuations. Von Thadden writes to Guenther on 7 July 1943
that Jews of foreign nationality, who are in camps in the
Generalgouvernement, are prepared to pay 100,000 dollars in
foreign currency to redeem their lives with this ransom and
to obtain transfer to a special camp in exchange for this
payment. Von Thadden says that he does not regard this
proposal as serious. At any rate, he is sending
Untersturmfuehrer Boehm there to clarify the situation.
Judge Halevi: No, at first he did not think it was serious,
but Boehm found out that apparently there really was a sum
of money in foreign currency.
Attorney General: And therefore he sends Boehm to
Switzerland in order to report back.
Judge Halevi: No, he has already sent him.
Attorney General: He will be enabled to go to Switzerland on
official business.
Presiding Judge: This will be T/1409.
Last-Modified: 1999/06/08
