| Source: http://www.nizkor.org Accessed 18 October 1999 Judgment in the Trial of Adolf Eichmann [Part 24] 222. By what we have said up to
now, the Accused's attempt to rely on superior orders for the
justification of his acts, or even in mitigation of his punishment
according to Section 11 of the Law, is already untenable.
Since the order was manifestly illegal, they cannot be used as an
excuse. Yet, we shall continue to examine what was the Accused's
attitude to the orders
within the framework in which he acted: Did these orders disturb his
conscience, so that he acted under compulsion from which he saw no
escape; or did he act with inner indifference like an obedient
automaton; or perhaps, in his heart, he identified with the contents of
the order. Although this
makes no difference as regards the conviction of the Accused, yet it is
important to examine these questions, in order to define the measure of
the Accused's moral responsibility for his acts.
For this reason, the Attorney General rightly requested that we
draw our conclusions already at this stage from the evidence before us,
in answer to this question as well. 223. What is in fact the
Accused's version on this matter? He
was verbose before this Court and in his statements outside the Court,
but when all is said and done, we do not see in his words a clear
consistent version. Besides
the repetition of his statement that he acted according to orders, and
that the oath of loyalty which he had taken as an SS man and an SD man
strengthened even further his absolute duty to obey any order given to
him, he keeps on saying that until a certain time he was carrying out
his duties willingly and with inner satisfaction.
It was thus, he said, as long as he was working at the Central
Offices for Jewish Emigration in Vienna and Prague, for in this he saw
work beneficial to both sides - his side and the Jewish side.
This, too, was his attitude to the Madagascar Plan, on which he
laboured so much, for also this was still a "political
solution." But when
this plan was also shelved, his world crumbled around him and his
attitude to his work changed from one extreme to the other. He lost interest in his work and decided that in the future
he would act as an ordinary official, obeying instructions and no more.
Thus far the version is more or less clear.
From here onwards the picture becomes more and more blurred.
How does he describe his reaction to the horrifying sights he saw
from time to time with his own eyes during his visits to the East: the
mass slaughter of Jews - men, women and babies; the shooting on the
brink of the pits; the blood spurting from a mass grave; the loading of
Jews into the gas vans in Chelmno; the cremation of bodies there; the
transport of Jews into the gas chambers?
This is what he said, quoting his own words to Mueller on his
return from such a journey: "`Terrible, I tell you, the inferno, this I cannot bear,' I told him. (T/37, 177) "`Please
don't send me to that place. Send
someone else, send someone more robust (Jemand robusteren).
Look, I have never been allowed to go to the front.
I was never a soldier... They do not collapse.
I cannot watch it.' I said, `I cannot sleep at night! I have
dreams - I cannot carry on this way, Gruppenfuehrer.'" (218) Elsewhere in his Statement to
Superintendent Less he explains his desire to be transferred to another
post, giving as additional reasons his chances for promotion and his
lack of interest in police work as such from the very beginning, from
the time of his transfer to Berlin in the year 1939 (T/37, p. 250). And also in his evidence, in
answer to the Attorney General (Session 94, Vol. IV, pp. xxxx13-14): "I
referred to him [Mueller] with such a request for the first time and
asked not to be transferred to Berlin at all, because I wanted to remain
where I lived with my family. I
sent in a second urgent request and told him I would not be able to
stand this physically, after the service trip to the East, the first
trip, and later on I applied after each trip.
Mueller was aware of my state of mind at the time after such a
trip." 224. It is therefore clear that,
according to his contention, he requested a transfer to another job for
reasons of convenience, to obtain promotion, and also, according to his
own words, because physically he was not robust enough to bear all the
horrifying sights with which he was confronted in the East.
But there is not one word here about inner revulsion against the
extermination of Jews for reasons of conscience. True, when pressed by the Attorney General, who asked, "And you did not mind acting as the great transporter to death?" his answer is:
225. But this version - that he
asked to be relieved of his post for reasons of conscience - is
contradicted by the Accused himself.
When his Counsel asks him, "It
does seem that, from the remarks in the reminiscences taken down by
Sassen, as well as now, you were quite satisfied with the Conference
[the Wannsee Conference]. Can
you express your opinion about this?" (Session 79, Vol. IV, p.
xxxx2) then his answer is: "Yes,
but the origin of my satisfaction is to be sought in another direction,
not in that of Heydrich's satisfaction... "And
so, after many efforts [to find other solutions], after the Wannsee
Conference I could say to myself that, in spite of my wish, and not due
to my own preparations, through no fault of mine, and having the feeling
of a Pontius Pilate washing his hands, I could feel that the fault was
not mine. But at this
Wannsee Conference, the men at the top, the elite, the popes of the
empire, laid down the line to be followed.
And I? I had only to
obey." It should be remembered that
even before the Wannsee Conference he had already seen what was
happening in the East and had begun deporting Reich Jews to the
slaughter; yet, in spite of this, according to his testimony here, he
feels like a Pontius Pilate, that is, like a man who could find a way of
soothing his conscience. And
this, in fact, is his basic contention: that the order sets his
conscience free; that blind obedience, according to an oath of loyalty,
comes first and stands above all, and that against this obedience the
voice of one's conscience cannot even make itself heard.
Dr. Grueber, the German priest, one of the righteous men of this
world, who because of his activities on behalf of persecuted Jews was
himself thrown into a concentration camp, described before us this type
of the German mercenary, the "Landsknecht": "A
German Landsknecht, the minute he dons his uniform, doffs his
conscience; it is said that he deposits them in the cloakroom."
(Session 41, p. 737) And here, in the evidence of the Accused, is the argument in all its nakedness:
Later, when cross-examined by
the Attorney General, he retreats somewhat from this extreme position
and clings to the most miserable of excuses (Session 95, Vol. IV, pp.
xxxx33-34): "In
my opinion, to break an oath of loyalty is the worst crime and offence
that a man can commit. "Q.
A crime greater than the murder of six million Jews, amongst them one
and a half million children, is that correct? "A.
Not that, of course. But I
was not occupied in extermination.
Had I been occupied in exterminating, had I been ordered to deal
with extermination - I believe that I would have committed suicide by
shooting myself." This answer calls to our mind matters in the same spirit which he noted in his remarks to the article in Life magazine, in connection with the activity of Section IVB4:
That is, had he been ordered to
throw the gas container amongst the victims, then his conscience would
have woken up, but since it was his duty to hunt down the victims in the
countries of Europe and transport them to the gas chambers, his
conscience was at peace, and he obeyed orders without hesitation. 226. The Attorney General
submitted that, had the Accused seriously tried to be released from his
murderous task, he could have found ways of attaining his desire.
He could have asked to be transferred to the front; he could have
made various excuses to get away as others did, or he could have stated
openly that his heart was not at one with the task assigned to him.
In the evidence before us, there is ground for this submission.
For instance, Justice Musmanno stated that in his conversations
with Schellenberg, he was told that men were released from Operations
Units when it became clear that they were incapable of taking part in
murder (Session 39, Vol. II, pp. 725).
Such a case (concerning a man named Jost) is also mentioned in
the affidavit of Best, which was submitted in the Einsatzgruppen Case
(T/687), and in a affidavit made by Burmeister about the release of the
witness for the Defence, Six, from the Operations Units (T/688, pp.
24-26; see also the evidence by Six himself in the present case, p. 8).
Himmler's speech at Poznan also hints that whoever showed signs
of abhorrence at the business of murder could obtain his release
(T/1288, p. 151). But we do
not intend to go into this problem in depth, because, in our opinion,
this whole discussion is not to the point, since such a problem never
troubled the Accused. He
never thought of giving up his important job behind his desk at the RSHA,
a position he had obtained because of his being an expert on a problem
which kept the Third Reich and its heads busy.
It is possible that he was not at ease when watching bloody
sights. Perhaps he even spoke to Mueller about it, although this is
difficult to accept as a fact, because such a manifestation of weakness
was not appropriate for an SS man like him, for in the SS toughness was
one of the principal personal qualities demanded.
As we have shown, the Accused's version is far from clear in this
matter. As far as he talked
about a troubled conscience, his words are not worthy of belief, since
they are altogether contrary to his actual attitude as regards his work
on the front against the Jews at every stage. 227. With this, we reach the
heart of our discussion of the inner motives which prompted the Accused
in his activities. That he
was merciless in all his deeds, is almost undisputed.
One illustration will suffice, in connection with the transaction
"goods for blood" in Hungary.
When asked why he regarded the idea of this transaction
favourably, he explained that he took this matter up because he felt
that Becher was his rival and had been poaching on his preserves in the
matter of Jewish emigration. Then
he is asked by his Counsel: "In your negotiations with
your superiors, did you also speak of the sense of pity which had been
aroused in you in regard to the Jews, and say that this was an
opportunity to help them?" And he answers: "I am giving evidence under oath and I must tell the truth. I did not approach the matter out of pity. Also, I would have been fired, had I adopted such an attitude." (Session 86,Vol. IV, p. xxxx16) And in answer to the Attorney
General in the same matter: "Q. "...You will perhaps agree with me that your heart was not in this affair? "A.
I did not contend otherwise. I
have already said that this was done for reasons of utility. I did not say that this was a rescue operation."
(Session 103, Vol. IV, pp. xxxx18-19) That is to say, it never entered
his head that human beings could possibly save their lives in this way.
This reveals to us the same block of ice, or block of marble,
which Dr. Grueber saw before him when he came to the Accused on the
humanitarian mission which he had taken upon himself. 228. But the Accused tried to
convince us that only obedience to orders motivated and guided him in
all his activities, that only blind obedience, "cadaver-like"
obedience (Kadavergehorsam) is what silenced his conscience.
That is why he presented himself as an insignificant official,
with no opinion of his own in all matters with which he had to deal, and
as lacking all initiative in his work. We have already discussed this
allegation in a different context, when evaluating the Accused's
activities. Now we repeat
that, also regarding his inner feelings towards his work, the picture
which he has tried to draw for us is entirely distorted.
It is true that the Accused gave such obedience as was demanded
from a good National Socialist and as an SS man in whom blind obedience
was deeply inculcated. But
that does not mean that he fulfilled his task only because he was
ordered to do so. On the
contrary, he carried it out wholeheartedly and willingly, at every
stage, also because of an inner conviction. Let us review briefly the evidence which has led us to
this conclusion. The Accused admits that he was a
zealous National Socialist, devoted to his Fuehrer (T/37, p. 325), but
he contends that he was not an anti-Semite.
The answer to this contention is found in the words of Dr.
Grueber (Session 42, Vol. II, p. 750): "Q.
Did you find that the Accused showed personal hatred of the Jews, acute
anti-Semitism or National Socialist fanaticism? "A.
These are hard to separate. National
Socialist fanaticism was organically bound up with anti-Semitism, was it
not? They went hand in
hand, to my knowledge." Indeed, this is common
knowledge: In Hitler's bogus ideology, the elevation of the German
nation to the position of "master-race" is bound up with
hatred of the Jews and their degradation to the rank of
"subhuman." 229. It is possible that the
Accused did not believe in Streicher's crude methods of incitement, for
he considered himself an expert in the fight against Jewry, as one who
had studied the problem thoroughly, and he was thus regarded by his
superiors. As an expert, he
understood that it is not always the crude methods which are efficient.
However, his attempt to argue that he - the Specialist on Jewish
Affairs in the Head Office for Reich Security - he, of all people - was
that "white raven," the National Socialist who did not hate
Jews, is unbelievable. Had
a man of his kind, a man who stood in the thick of the fight against the
Jews - first in the field of ideology and afterwards in the actual fight
- shown the slightest deviation from the anti-Semitic orthodoxy which
was demanded from every member of the Party, however lowly, he could not
have remained there for even one day.
The heads of the SD and the Gestapo with whom he worked would
certainly soon have detected any such deviation.
But let us quote the words of the Defence witness Six, who knew
the Accused closely from the time of his work in the SD Head Office,
when Six was head of the branch in which the Accused worked.
In his evidence taken in Germany, he says (p. 6): "Eichmann
believed wholeheartedly in National Socialism ...I believe that, when in
doubt, Eichmann invariably acted according to the doctrine of the Party
in its most extreme interpretation." 230. The evidence before us
fully confirms these words. Even
today, when he makes his remarks on the article in Life, the Accused
explains to Sassen, why Hitler disappointed him (T/48, p. 8): "I
said that the real agitators for war were the infernal high finance (die
infernalische Hochfinanz) circles of the Western hemisphere, whose
servants are Churchill and Roosevelt, and the puppets, the pawns in this
game of theirs, are Hitler, Mussolini, Daladier, Chamberlain." The "infernal finance
circles" are, of course, the Jews according to the concepts of the
"Protocols of the Elders of Zion," that "International
Finance Jewry" about whom Hitler spoke in his speech in January
1939 and whom he threatened to exterminate.
This is the style used by the Accused even in 1957, so deep was
his conviction from the past that the Jews are the enemies of mankind,
and he reaches a new peak in the development of the Nazi mythology:
Hitler himself was a plaything into the hands of the Jews.
Thus he also unhesitatingly adopted the official Nazi doctrine,
that the Jews, being enemies who have declared war upon the German
Reich, must be exterminated. As
Himmler said in his speech in Posen on 4 October 1943: "We
had a moral duty towards our own people - it was our duty to exterminate
this nation which wanted to exterminate ours." (T/1288, p. 2) This hatred is echoed in the
Accused's words in the Sassen Document, in the part (File 17) written in
his own handwriting, and to which he confessed (supra, p. 735): "The
slogan of both sides was: The enemy must be exterminated! And world Jewry...obviously declared war upon the German
Reich." A couple of lines before that,
he makes it clear that the Jews had always been the enemies of the
German people, not only after the outbreak of war, and that Hitler had
already declared war upon them years earlier (supra, p. 734). And again, he has a ready excuse: The intention was not actual extermination, for neither the British nation, nor the French nation, were exterminated during the War (Session 96, Vol. IV, pp. xxxx9-10) - a hollow excuse. 231. Out of this soil of
hatred for the Jews grew the actions of the Accused, and it is clear
that mere blind obedience could never have brought him to commit the
crimes which he committed with such efficiency and devotion as he
evinced, were it not for his zealous belief that he was thereby
fulfilling an important national mission.
We have already seen the Accused's position within the RSHA
apparatus, which was a key position in the implementation of the Final
Solution. It is true that
in matters of principle he received orders from above, and these orders
decided for him the various stages of implementation.
But within this general framework he still had much scope left,
in working out the details of implementation which were entrusted to
him. This, too, was a
considerable, and ramified task when taking into account the manifold
activities needed to round up the Jews in their countries, to deport
them for extermination, and to remove all obstacles which stood in the
way of these activities. The Accused also headed of a widespread establishment of
officials, who obeyed his orders and whom he set to work, constantly
supervising them and spurring them on.
All this required a great deal of initiative, continuous thought
and consistent striving towards the end in view. 232. Here, we shall mention
another of the Accused's arguments, which is also entirely devoid of
foundation: that the Nazi apparatus was, as it were, divided into two
sections - one consisting of those who gave orders, bearing full
responsibility; and the other of those who received orders, who were
supposed only to obey, and carried no burden of responsibility.
It is a well-known fact that in the Nazi regime, which was based
on the principle of leadership, every rank, except Hitler himself, both
received and gave orders. And,
as is customary in any hierarchical regime, an order becomes more and
more detailed and takes on flesh and blood as it is passed down from one
level to the next. Certainly
the Accused was not only a channel for the passing on of an order as
received, without change of form and content.
Had it been as he says, had he done his work in a purely routine
manner, he would have been removed from office, and someone else would
have been put in his place, because the activities of Section IVB4 were
far from being routine. But
it was not so, for the Accused was praised by his direct superior,
Mueller, who said of him: "If we had had fifty Eichmanns, we should
automatically have won the War" (Session 98, Vol. IV, pp.
xxxx17-18; T/1432 (6)). We
do not believe the Accused that this statement referred only to his last
activities, namely the preparation of his office building in readiness
for the Battle of Berlin, but that it was a concise evaluation of all
his activities carried out under Mueller. 233. There is a great deal of
evidence indicative of this attitude of the Accused, in his very acts
and in his declarations on various occasions, as has been proved to us. No single case brought to our notice, revealed the Accused as showing any sign of human feelings in his dealings with Jewish affairs, except when, according to his own words, he helped the daughter of his uncle (his stepmother's brother), who was half-Jewish, and one more Jewish couple, on whose behalf this same uncle intervened (T/37, pp. 114-115). In all his activities the Accused displayed indefatigable energy, verging on overeagerness towards advancing the Final Solution, both in his general decisions and in his treatment of individual cases of Jews who sought to escape death. Many illustrations of this
attitude have already been mentioned in this Judgment, in the course of
the description of events. We
shall add here a few more remarks on this same point. 234. Von Thadden gives evidence
(p. 9) that the Accused invariably refused applications for the granting
of exceptions. He remembers
that, when he once requested the grant of an exception in a certain
case, the Accused described his (von Thadden's) approach as
"weak-kneed" (knieweich).
And in his statement, made in defence of the State Secretary,
Steengracht, at Nuremberg (exhibit T/584), von Thadden said that in the
opinion of the German Foreign Ministry the immediate deportation of the
Jews of Denmark was impossible for political reasons, but the Accused
`ironically' informed him that pressure would be brought to bear upon
the Foreign Ministry to reconsider its attitude.
And after the failure of the action in Denmark - von Thadden
continues - Guenther, the Accused's deputy, told him that this was a
case of sabotage, seemingly on the part of the German Embassy in
Copenhagen, and that the Accused had already reported the matter to the
Reichsfuehrer (Himmler) and that he, Eichmann, would demand the head of
the saboteur. (Today, von
Thadden claims that he can no longer remember the details, but he does
not go back on his declaration - p. 13 of his evidence). 235. To make his version of the
transaction of "goods for blood" stronger, the Accused
relinquishes his argument that he acted only out of routine.
Here, he suddenly turns into a man of initiative, who `ponders'
things and who conceives a far-reaching plan entirely on his own
(Session 86, Vol. IV, p. xxxx12). This
version is not worthy of belief, as we have already found above when
speaking about the chapter on Hungary, but the very description of
matters in this light contradicts that of the colourless figure which
the Accused tries to assume. Thus
he tells Sassen in a passage submitted by his Counsel (N/100): "I have always worked one hundred per cent, and above all I have thought over matters" (ich habe die Sache durchgedacht) "and when giving orders, I was certainly not lukewarm." Certainly, he was not
lukewarm in giving his orders nor in his deeds, but energetic, full of
initiative and active to the extreme in his efforts to carry out the
Final Solution. He
appears thus in September 1941, when his advice was "to kill by
shooting" the thousands of Jews of Belgrade, and continued in this
manner until the last days of the Third Reich.
The representative of the International Red Cross reports these
words as coming from the Accused in April 1945: "Concerning the general
Jewish problem, Eichmann was of the opinion that Himmler was at that
moment about to consider humane methods.
Eichmann personally did not entirely approve of these methods,
but as a good soldier, he was, of course, blindly following the orders
of the Reichsfuehrer." (T/865, p. 3) |
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