Eichmann trial - The District Court Sessions















The Trial of Adolf EichmannSession 1(Part 1 of 5)


Session No. 1
Tuesday, 25 Nissan 5721 (11 April 1961)
Clerk of the Court Criminal Case No 40/61. The Attorney General: versus
Adolf, the son of Adolf Karl Eichmann. On behalf of the prosecution, Mr. Gideon
Hausner, Attorney General, Dr. Ya'akov Robinson, Assistant to the Attorney
General, Mr. Gabriel Bach, Mr. Ya'akov Bar-Or, Mr. Zvi Terlo- Assistant State
Attorneys; the Accused in person and his Counsel Dr. Robert Servatius.
Presiding Judge: Adolf Eichmann, are you Adolf Eichmann, the son of
Adolf Karl Eichmann?
Accused: [standing] Yes.
Presiding Judge: Are you represented in this trial by Dr. Robert
Servatius and by Mr. Dieter Wechtenbruch?
Accused: Yes.
Presiding Judge: You are accused before this Court in terms of an
indictment containing 15 counts. I shall read the indictment to you and this
indictment will be translated for you into German. This is the indictment
against you on behalf of the Attorney General.
FIRST COUNT
Nature of Offence: Crime against the Jewish People, an offence against
Section 1(a)(1) of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, 5710-1950
and Section 23 of the Criminal Law Ordinance, 1936.
Particulars of the Offence: (a) The Accused, during the period from 1939 to
1945, together with others, caused the deaths of millions of Jews as the persons
who were responsible for the implementation of the plan of the Nazis for the
physical extermination of the Jews, a plan known by its title "The Final
Solution of the Jewish Question."
(b) Immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War the Accused was
appointed to be the head of a department of the Gestapo in Berlin the functions
of which were to locate, deport and exterminate the Jews of Germany and of the
other countries of the Axis as well as in the areas which the Axis States had
occupied. The Department bore, in succession, these identification numbers:
IVD4, IVB4, IVA4
(c) Instructions for carrying out the plan of extermination in Germany were
given directly by the Accused to local headquarters of the Gestapo, whilst in
Berlin, Vienna and Prague the Accused's instructions were given to the central
offices (Zentralstelle fuer Juedische Auswanderung) for the administration of
which he was personally responsible until their dissolution, shortly before the
end of the Second World War.
(d) In the areas of German occupation the Accused operated through the
offices of the commanding officers of the Security Police and the SD and the
persons specifically responsible for Jewish affairs who were appointed from
amongst the personnel of the Accused's Department in the Gestapo, and who were
subject to his directives.
(e) In the countries of the Axis and the occupied areas, the Accused made use
of the offices of Germany's foreign representatives in each individual place,
and he did so in constant liaison with the special departments of the German
Foreign Ministry in Berlin which dealt with matters concerning Jews. In these
representative offices advisers were appointed subject to his directives.
(f) The Accused together with others perpetrated the extermination of Jews,
inter alia, by means of putting them to death in concentration camps, the
purpose of which was mass murder, of which the more important ones were:
1. Auschwitz Millions of Jews were exterminated here, commencing from the
year 1941 and until the end of January 1945, in gas chambers, in incinerators,
by shooting and by hanging. The Accused directed the commanders of this camp to
use the gas Zyklon B and during the years 1942 and 1944 actually took steps to
ensure the supply of a quantity of gas for the purpose of exterminating Jews.
2. Chelmno This extermination camp was operated from the beginning of
November 1941 until the beginning of 1945, and in it, inter alia, poisonous
gases were used.
3. Belzec This extermination camp was operated from the month of March 1942
until October 1943, and in it poisonous gases were used, among other means of
extermination.
4. Sobibor This extermination camp was operated from the month of March 1942
until October 1943, and in it were installed, inter alia, five rooms built of
stone into which poisonous gases were introduced.
5. Treblinka This extermination camp was operated on 23 July 1942 and until
the month of November 1943. Here too, inter alia, poisonous gases were used.
6. Majdanek This extermination camp was operated from the year 1941 until the
month of July 1944, and in it, inter alia, poisonous gases were used.
g)Immediately following the invasion of the German Army into Poland, in
September 1939, the Accused carried out acts of expulsion, the uprooting of
populations, and extermination which were coordinated with massacre units
mobilized from the ranks of the German Security Police and the SS and called by
the name "Operations Units" (Einsatzgruppen).
Such units operated also after the invasion of the Soviet Union in the year
1941, and advanced in the wake of the German Army. They received their orders
directly from the "Reich Security Main Office" (RSHA) and operated in
collaboration with the Accused in the extermination of Jews, each within the
area of its authority. The Units were made to act especially on the Jewish
Sabbath and Feast Days - dates which were selected for the massacre of Jews.
These Units exterminated hundreds of thousands of Jews in the German area of
occupation in Poland. h. Before the invasion of the German Army into the regions
of the Soviet Union and the Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia,
which were annexed to her, four Operation Units were organized by the Reich
Security Main Office (RSHA) working in collaboration with the Accused in the
extermination of the Jews in the aforementioned regions in that part of Poland
which had been annexed to the Soviet Union after September 1939. The acts of
these Units included, inter alia, the following operations:
(h) Before the invation of the German Army into the regions of the Soviet
Union and the Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which were
annexed to her, four Operation Units were organized by the Head Office for Reich
Security (RSHA) working in collaboration with the Accused in the extermination
of the Jews in the aforementioned regions in that part of Poland which had been
annexed to the Soviet Union after September 1939. The acts of these units
included, inter alia, the following operations:
(1) Operation Unit "A" put to death in the course of the first four months of
the German Army's invasion into the aforementioned regions:
Lithuania: over 80,000 Jews;Latvia: over 30,000
Jews;Estonia: about 470 Jews;Belorussia: over 7,600 Jews;Russia:
about 2,000 Jews;The province of Tilsit: about 5,500 Jews.A total of
over 135,000 Jews.(2)Operation Unit "B" up to 14 November 1941
exterminated upwards of 45,000 Jews in Belorussia and other zones.
(3)Operation Unit "C" up to 3 November 1941 exterminated in the Ukraine more
than 75,000 Jews - and amongst them about 33,000 Jews of Kiev.
(4)Operation Unit "D" exterminated about 54,000 Jews up to 12 December 1941.
(5)During the period August to November 1942, these Operation Units
exterminated approximately 363,000 Jews.
These Operation Units dealt on this scale and with this objective in the
aforementioned areas in the extermination of the Jews, beginning from June 1941,
and until the year 1944, and exterminated hundreds of thousands of Jews in
addition to those previously specified.
i) At the end of the year 1941, the Accused gave orders to deport thousands
of Jews from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia (the Protectorate) to ghettos
in Riga, Kovno and Minsk. These Jews were exterminated - and amongst others- (1)
A transport of these Jews from the Reich (Germany) was murdered on 30 November
1941 together with about 4,000 Jews of Riga.
(2) About 3,500 Jews from Germany who were sent to Minsk as mentioned, upon
the orders of the Accused, were liquidated by an Operation Unit in Belorussia,
together with 55,000 Jews from amongst the residents of the area.
j) The Accused, together with others, caused the deaths of thousands of Jews
between the years 1940-1945 in forced labour camps which were administered under
a concentration camp regime and where Jews were enslaved, tortured and starved
to death in Germany and the countries it conquered.
k) The Accused, together with others, caused the deaths of additional
hundreds of thousands of Jews between the years 1939-1945 by means of mass
deportations and the assembly of the Jews in ghettos and other places of
concentration, which were implemented under cruel and inhuman conditions in
Germany and the other countries of the Axis, and also in the occupied regions,
namely - in the following countries:
GermanyAustriaItalyBulgariaBelgiumThe Soviet
Union and the Baltic countries Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia which were
annexed by her, and that part of Poland which had been annexed to the Soviet
Union after September
1939DenmarkHollandHungaryYugoslaviaGreeceLuxembourgMonacoNorwayPolandCzechoslovakiaFranceand
Rumania.l) The Accused caused the deaths of approximately half a
million of the Jews of Hungary by means of their mass deportation to the
extermination camp at Auschwitz and other places during the period between 19
March 1944 and 24 December 1944 when he was serving as Head of the "Eichmann
Special Commando Unit"(Sondereinsatz-Kommando Eichmann) in Budapest.
m)The Accused carried out all the acts detailed in this count with the
intention of destroying the Jewish People.
SECOND COUNT
Nature of Offence: a) Crime against the Jewish People, an offence against
Section 1(a)(1) of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, 5710-1950
and Section 23 of the Criminal Law Ordinance, 1936.
Particulars of the Offence: the Accused, together with others, subjected many
millions of Jews to living conditions which were likely to bring about their
physical destruction, during the period 1939 to 1945 and to this end operated in
Germany and the other countries of the Axis, in the areas of their occupation
and also in areas which were in practice subject to their authority. In the said
period and by virtue of his functions mentioned in the First Count, and in order
to implement "The Final Solution of the Jewish Problem" he acted in the
following ways:
1. Enslaving them in forced labour camps2. Placing and keeping
them in ghettos3. Driving them into transit camps and other places of
concentration4. Their deportation and their mass transportation under
inhuman conditionsAnd all of this was done by the Accused for those
same objectives, by the same methods of operation and in the same places as
described in the First Count.
b) The Accused carried out these acts with the intention of destroying the
Jewish People.
THIRD COUNT
Nature of the Offence: Crime against the Jewish People, an offence against
section 1(a)(1) of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law 5710-1950,
and section 23 of the Criminal Law Ordinance, 1936.
Particulars of the Offence: a) During the period of Nazi rule, the Accused
fulfilled functions in the Security Service of the SS (SD) for dealing with
Jews, according to the plan of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). These functions were
amalgamated after the outbreak of the Second World War with the functions of the
Department in the Gestapo described in the First Count and which was headed by
the Accused.
b) Throughout that entire period the Accused, together with others, caused
grave harm to millions of Jews, physically and mentally, in Germany and in the
other countries of the Axis, in the occupied areas them and also in the areas
which in practice were subject to their authority in those countries specified
in the First Count.
c) The Accused, together with others, caused this grave harm by means of
enslavement, starvation, expulsion and persecution, confinement to ghettos, to
transit camps and to concentration camps - all this under conditions intended to
humiliate the Jews, to deny their rights as human beings, to oppress and torment
them by inhuman suffering and torture.
d) The Accused, together with others, carried out these acts by adopting
methods, of which the most important were:
(1) Sudden mass arrests of innocent Jews, without judicial process, and only
because of their being Jews, and their torture in concentration camps, such as
those at Dachau and Buchenwald;
(2) The organization of mass persecution by means of arrests, cruel beatings,
the infliction of serious injury, and torture in concentration camps, of
approximately 2,000 Jews of Germany and Austria on the night between the 9th and
10th November 1938;
(3) Organizing operations of social and economic boycott of the Jews and
stigmatizing them as a subhuman racial group;
(4) Putting into practice the laws known as "The Nuremberg Laws" for the
purpose of depriving millions of Jews in all those countries specified in the
First Count of their human rights.
e)The Accused carried out these acts with the intention of destroying the
Jewish People.
FOURTH COUNT
Nature of Offence: Crime against the Jewish People, an offence against
Section 1(a)(1) of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, 5710-1950
and Section 23 of the Criminal Law Ordinance, 1936.
Particulars of the Offence: a) Commencing in the year 1942, the Accused,
together with others, adopted measures calculated to prevent births amongst the
Jews of Germany, and the occupied countries.
b) The adoption of these measures by the Accused in his official capacity as
Head of the Department for Jewish Affairs in the Gestapo in Berlin was also
intended to advance the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."
c) Amongst these measures were: (1) Instructions by the Accused to Dr.
Eppstein, head of the Council of Elders in the Concentration Camp at Terezin
(Theresienstadt) in the years 1943-44, concerning the ban on births in the camp,
and concerning the termination of pregnancies by means of artificial abortion in
every case and in all stages of pregnancy;
(2) An order of the German police in the Baltic countries in the year 1942
against Jewish women in the Kovno Ghetto forbidding them to give birth and
compelling them to undergo operations for abortion in every case of pregnancy;
(3) On 27 October 1942 in the offices of the Accused (RSHA) IVB4 in Berlin,
the Accused, together with others, prescribed measures for the sterilization of
persons of mixed descent of the first degree of Jews in Germany and in the
occupied territories according to the following principles:
(aa) The sterilization would be carried out on the person of the individual
of mixed descent, Jew or Jewess, upon their agreeing to this in return for the
favour of receiving permission to remain within the borders under the rule of
the German Reich;
(bb)The individual of mixed descent would be entitled to choose between
sterilization and deportation to the extermination areas in the East;
(cc) The authorities were to suggest to individuals of mixed descent to
choose deportation;
(dd) Those choosing deportation would be separated according to their sex in
order to prevent any further births;
(ee) The sterilization would be performed privately and secretly.
d) In laying down these measures the Accused intended to destroy the Jewish
People.
FIFTH COUNT
Nature of the Offence Crime against humanity, an offence against Section
1(a)(2) of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law 5710-1950, and
Section 23 of the Criminal Law Ordinance, 1936.
Particulars of the Offence: The Accused committed acts, during the period
between 1939 and 1945, in Germany and the other countries of the Axis, in the
occupied territories and also in the areas which were in practice subject to
their authority, which are to be defined as crimes against humanity, when,
together with others, he caused the murder, extermination, enslavement,
starvation and expulsion of the Jewish civilian population in those countries
and areas. The Accused committed these acts in the course of fulfilling his
functions as specified in the First Count.



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