Dr. Servatius: I would first note that, as far as I know,
these documents have all already been introduced in the
proceedings. I would now read out from page three, the top
of page three:
“My task was to organize the transport by rail required
to carry out the compulsory transfer from the Warthe
District of those Poles evicted from their farms by the
District Commissioners, in order to accommodate ethnic
Germans. These Poles were now to be transported to
Poland. By Poland I mean the Government General. I do
not know any more details about this action which was
directed by the District Commissioners.”
At the bottom, last paragraph:
“When these compulsory transfers caused difficulties
and unacceptable situations” – I omit part of the
sentence – “a separate organization was set up in order
to run this operation properly. The Central Office for
Migrants was set up for this purpose in Posen, under
the Inspector of the Security Police and the Security
Service. A branch office of this Central Office was
set up in Litzmannstadt. This was preceded by a field
office of the Central Office, under Hauptsturmfuehrer
Barth. When this field office became an office in its
own right, I was appointed to head it. That was in the
spring of 1940.”
At the top of page four, continued:
“There were several field offices subordinate to my
office, as well as a transit camp in Litzmannstadt.
The purpose of the office was to handle the processing
of the Poles on their way to the Government General,
after they had been evacuated by offices controlled by
the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German
Folkdom; in the transit camp, those Polish families
which had been identified by the Main Race and
Settlement Office as qualifying for Germanization were
sorted out, as well as those Poles whom the Labour
Office took away as workers for use in the Reich.”
At the bottom of the same page:
“As the head of the Litzmannstadt office, I always sent
my train requirements to Department IV B 4 in the Head
Office for Reich Security and no longer dealt directly
with the Reich Railways. In the matter of transport,
the main concern was to ensure that the evacuees were
deported in good time, so as to guarantee accommodation
for the settlers as they arrived. All this was the
concern of my office in Litzmannstadt.”
On page six, on the Lidice affair, in the middle:
“It has been pointed out to me that the 20.6.1942
teletype to Eichmann does not mention the term “special
treatment”, but that in my teletype to Ehlich, dated
22.6.1942, I dictated the following sentence: `I have
notified IV B 4 of the transfer of these children, on
the assumption that they are destined for special
treatment’. I would like to state on that: I do not
remember exactly what was in my mind when I drafted the
teletype. It is my opinion that I did not then take
the words “special treatment” to mean extermination. I
am sure that at that time I was not aware of, and
familiar with, the term “special treatment” in the
sense of extermination. The children were a special
matter within our camp operation and required a special
treatment relative to our conditions.”
On page eight it also says the following – there is a
reference to a teletype, and it says there:
“giving the time of arrival as 11.30 (sic: original
statement reads 21.30) and asking for the children to
be met at the station and then immediately assigned to
suitable camps.” In this document it says that those
who are not suitable for Germanization are to be sent
on `via the Polish camps at your end’. It goes on to
say, `The children are bringing with them only what
they have on their bodies. No special care for them is
required’. To-day I no longer have any special
recollection of these teletypes I have been shown, but
I would like to point out that, contrary to what it
says in the remark in this teletype, I had to have
special care arranged for in the Gneisenaustrasse camp,
and I did so.”
Page nine, below in the middle, I now come to Hungary, the
commando’s arrival in Hungary.
“Around midday on 19.3.1944, i.e. on the Sunday on
which Hungary was invaded, we arrived in Budapest and
were for the time being accommodated in a hotel. At
first I did not have the impression that we had any
fixed organization and division of work. I remember
that right at the beginning Geschke gave me the
assignment of establishing contact with the Hungarian
police, in order to guarantee that supply services in
Budapest would remain undamaged.”
Then, page ten at the top, at the beginning of the
paragraph:
“At some point Eichmann definitely told me that I was
now a member of his department. It is also possible
that Geschke ordered me there. I was not on good terms
with Geschke. In any case, subsequently, when the
Hungarians two or three weeks later made rooms
available, and Eichmann opened an office marked as
such, I was with him. He appointed me as his deputy in
his office.”
At the bottom of page eleven the witness speaks about
transmission of orders and what he knows, and then says
that, in general, he does not know anything.
“However, I do know that Eichmann was repeatedly
summoned to Geschke, and that this happened very often.
I never went with him to Geschke, so I did not hear
what instructions and orders he received there.
Eichmann also went several times to see Winkelmann and
Veesenmayer. I do not know whether he was summoned to
see them. It is my opinion that, as a Higher SS and
Police Leader, Winkelmann could have issued orders to
Eichmann.”
At the bottom of the same page:
“By deportation I mean both concentration and also
despatch. Novak was our office’s liaison with the
railways and was responsible for transport matters. It
is my opinion that he must also have arranged and
organized deportation transports with the railways. I
am referring here to railway trains.”
The witness then talks about the activities of Eichmann’s
office. At the top of page 13 he says:
“I did observe that his typist did not have a great
deal to do. Eichmann spent little time in the office
itself. He came and went when he wished. In Budapest
he had a very full private life which took up a lot of
his time. I also do not know anything about Eichmann
having intervened or having been able to intervene in
deportations positively or negatively on his own
initiative. During the time that I belonged to my
office in Hungary, I did not notice Eichmann acting on
his own initiative in the sphere of Jewish affairs,
either exceeding or acting counter to any instructions,
of which, moreover, I had no knowledge. My impression
of Eichmann was always that he was not the type to do
something on his own responsibility. The reason why I
had this impression was that previously, when I was
active in the Warthe District, whenever I asked him
something, he would not immediately take a decision
himself, but would ask for my query in writing, and
would send me the reply later. To-day I no longer
remember whether I had this impression only from the
matter of the Lidice children, or whether there were
various other incidents of the same type in which
Eichmann evaded giving an immediate decision. What I
do remember is that I had always to submit a request
for a transport train to him in writing, and the same
was true of changes. I considered that this
demonstrated exaggerated caution on the part of
Eichmann.”
Page 14, a reaction to the Kasztner report, in the middle:
“I have been shown the passage from Kasztner’s report,
pages 26 and 27, in the Israel Prosecution Document
900, where Kasztner describes two instances of money
being handed over in my presence. I wish to state in
this connection that the words I am described as saying
were certainly not spoken by me. I did not make any
promises of this nature.
In reply to questioning: It is correct that I
accompanied Brand and Bandi Gross to Vienna for their
flight to Turkey. However, it is not correct that I am
supposed to have told Brand before the flight left that
he should make it known abroad that there were still
decent SS leaders such as myself and Wisliceny. I
never said anything of the sort.
In reply to questioning: I do not know any details
about Becher’s business via Brand. I was never brought
into this transaction. Eichmann sent me to Vienna with
Brand for his flight. I had to fetch Gross from
somewhere else, on the orders of a Hauptsturmfuehrer
from the office of Commander Geschke.”
The examination then passes on to the foot march. The
witness describes what he saw and then says – I am
quoting from the last lines at the bottom: “In Budapest
I went to see Eichmann about the matter; I told him
about this transport and its state and remonstrated
with him that this was inadmissible. I believed that
he could have intervened in the matter. The only thing
Eichmann said when I remonstrated with him was: `You
have not seen anything.’ Whereupon I went to
Winkelmann and informed him of my observations, but my
impression was that he was already informed of the
circumstances I had observed.”
On the same page, at the bottom, last paragraph:
“Around the end of April or in May 1944, i.e., the
beginning of May 1944, I lived with Eichmann in a large
yellow house on the Schwabenberg. It was a large
villa, which I thought was lived in only in the summer.
At the back of the house there was a large flight of
stairs, underneath which there may have been some sort
of storage room. In front of the house was a sandy
forecourt; the garden at the back of the house dropped
away steeply. I do not remember there being a garage,
hut or shed at the back. I also do not remember air-
raid trenches already there or being dug. The latter I
would have seen, because very often I came back by the
early afternoon, as we were not very busy in the
office. It may be that there was a tennis court next
to the villa, below the garden, alongside the next
parallel road. We only lived there some three or four
weeks. After that Eichmann moved into a villa further
down the hill.”
Then, on the next page, the last paragraph:
“When I lived together with Eichmann in the yellow
house, there was a man called Slavik with him.
However, he did not work in the department; he acted as
caretaker for our billet. I do not know whether he
stayed with Eichmann in his later villa. Both villas
were situated in an estate of villages where the houses
were detached, each in its own garden. There were
fruit trees planted at the yellow house. I do not know
whether the second house also had fruit trees. At the
time Eichmann was driving an amphibious vehicle.”
That is what I wanted to read out.
Presiding Judge: Mr. Hausner.
Attorney General: (to the consecutive interpreter) You have
marked passages there, please read them out.
Consecutive interpreter: If these are passages which have
already been read out, should they be read again?
Presiding Judge: No, that is not necessary.
Second paragraph on page nine.
“After that Eichmann, who held the same rank as I did
but whom I always considered to be my superior, sent me
with Wisliceny to summon the Jewish Council; I also
remember standing subsequently with Wisliceny in front
of a large group of Jews, with Wisliceny talking about
what was going to happen. To-day I no longer remember
what he said in detail. The general tendency was
reassuring.
Page 13, at the bottom:
“In reply to questioning: I remember an incident when
Wisliceny asked me to accompany him, in order to fetch
money. We then went together to some living room or
other. I forget where this room was. It is possible
that Kasztner and perhaps Brand, too, were also
present. As far as I remember, it was anyhow Wisliceny
and not Hunsche who was with me. It is not impossible
that I fetched money somewhere another time with
Hunsche.”
On page 15:
“On the way to Budapest, not very far from the
Hungarian border, I saw groups of Jews, on foot,
accompanied by Honveds or gendarmerie. The column of
Jews was very stretched out, guards were few and far
between, and the people looked exhausted. Some of them
were sitting and lying around on the road.”
And further down, on the same page – this has already been
read out by Counsel for the Defence. That is all.
Presiding Judge: I have designated this exhibit IX, and the
appendices as appendices to IX.
Judge Raveh: I wanted to ask Mr. Hausner: Do you consider
this document on which Dr. Servatius had reservations to be
authenticated?
Attorney General: I believe that Dr. Servatius relied
especially on this document.
Judge Raveh: He was basing himself on a reservation about
this document. That is what I understood.
Attorney General: It is somewhat difficult to accept the
document without accepting precisely what it contains. We
have no other text or version of this document. Either one
accepts the document or one does not accept it in its
entirety. I assumed that this document was precisely one of
those on which Dr. Servatius builds his defence. He cannot
accept one part and say: Up to here it is authenticated, and
from here this is an addition.
Dr. Servatius: As far as I understand it, this is the first
document of the –
Presiding Judge: Yes, this is the document about which you
spoke earlier.
Dr. Servatius: The document contains both incriminatory
material and exonerative material. If it is not accepted, I
do not have to defend myself against the document.
Presiding Judge: This is what was shown to Krumey when he
was examined in Germany, and this is how it reached our
files.
Dr. Servatius: Very well, I leave it to the Court’s
discretion.
Presiding Judge: In that case, whom would you like to take
now.?
Dr. Servatius: Witness Baer, one of the last commandants of
the Auschwitz concentration camp. This is the examination
of 6 June 1961 before the Court of First Instance in
Frankfurt am Main. I would refer to the last page, three,
where it says: “When I took over command matters, Hoess was
there. However, at that time Hoess was a Bureau Chief in
the Economic and Administrative Main Office, Bureau Group D.
He was not a commandant any longer. Before I arrived, Hoess
had ceased being a commandant; Liebehenschel had taken over
this post, previously occupied by Hoess. However, when I
took up my office, Liebehenschel was not present and did not
hand matters over to me.
I did not know the Accused Adolf Eichmann, nor did I have
anything to do with him. I also did not know of him as
someone in the Head Office for Reich Security. I do not
wish to answer any further questions.” This is all I wish
to read out from the document.
Presiding Judge: I designate this exhibit – i.e., this
statement by Ber – Number IX.
The Court will adjourn until 3.30 this afternoon.
Last-Modified: 1999/06/14
