The Eichmann Trial - Proceedings: The 15 Charges

Charges from the court transcript:

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.

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) 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 Section 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 Section 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 für Jüdische 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 Section 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 Einsatzgruppen ("Operation Units"). 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 "Head Office for Reich Security" (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 Festival 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 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. (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. (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:

• Germany, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Belgium.
  

• The 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 1939.
  

• Denmark, Holland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, and Romania.
  

(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.

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) 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 Question" he acted in the following ways:

1. Enslaving them in forced labour camps
   
2. Placing and keeping them in ghettos
   
3. Driving them into transit camps and other places of concentration
   
4. Their deportation and their mass transportation under inhuman conditions
   And 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.

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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 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.

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) 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.

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.

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 in committing the acts described in Counts 1 to 5 persecuted Jews on national, racial, religious and political grounds.

Nature of the Offence

Crime against humanity, an offence against Section l(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

(a) During the period of Nazi rule in Germany and the other countries of the Axis, in the occupied countries, and also in the areas which were, in practice, subject to their authority, the Accused, together with others, caused the plunder of the property of millions of Jews who were residents of these countries, by means of inhuman coercion, robbery, terror and torture.

(b) Amongst the Accused's deeds were:

1. The establishment, organization, and management of the "Central Office for Jewish Emigration" (Zentralstelle fur Jüdische Auswanderung) in Vienna, immediately following the entry of the Nazis into Austria in the month of March 1938 and until the end of the Second World War, by means of which the Accused transferred the property of the Jews of Austria and of the Jewish communities of that state to German control. This property was in part plundered in order to finance the expulsion of the Jews of Austria beyond the country's borders and in part transferred through coercion to the possession of the authorities by means of terror against the owners thereof.
   

2. The establishment of the "Central Office for the Emigration of Jews" in Prague following the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in the month of March 1939, and its organization and management by the Accused, until the end of the Second World War, according to the model of the Central Office in Vienna. Through this office a "Special Account" was administered as a channel for the transfer of the property of the Jews whom the Accused, together with others, robbed -- within Czechoslovakia and in other countries.
   

3. The establishment of the Central Office for the Emigration of Jews and for Jewish Affairs in Germany (Reichszentrale) in Berlin in the year 1939 and its management by the Accused until the end of the Second World War. By means of this Central Office, following the example of the Central Office in Vienna, the Accused, together with others, plundered the property of the Jews of Germany and the property of their communities by the same means and under the same conditions as he laid down in respect of the offices in Vienna and Prague.
   

4. By means of collecting forced payments from persons deported from Germany and the occupied territories, the Accused compelled hundreds of thousands of Jews to finance their deportation to the extermination camps and the sites of other concentrations for mass slaughter. To this end the Accused set up the Special Account "W" which was at the exclusive disposal of his Section.
   

5. The property of the Jews slain in the countries of German conquest in Eastern Europe was also plundered by their murderers -- the men of the SS. For purposes of centralizing the act of robbery, special operations were organized in the years 1942 - 1943 within the framework of a special campaign for the slaughter of the Jews of Poland, which was known by the description "Reinhardt Action" (Aktion Reinhardt). The person in charge of this special operation was the Senior Commander of the Security Police and the SD for the district of Lublin. During these two years property estimated at a nominal value of 200 million marks, but the actual value of which amounted to several times this sum, was stolen.
   

6. During the Second World War and until shortly before its conclusion, freight trains were dispatched to Germany every month from the areas of occupation in the East, containing the movable property of those murdered in the extermination camps, in the concentration sites and in the ghettos. This property also included enormous quantities of parts of the bodies of those done to death such as hair, gold teeth, false teeth, artificial limbs; furthermore, every other personal item was plundered from the bodies of the Jews before and after their extermination.
   

7. The Accused, together with others, planned all the operations of comprehensive robbery so that the property of millions of those brought for extermination might be taken from them and brought to Germany. The extent of his success emerges from the fact that, when at the time of their retreat in January 1945, the Germans burned 29 stores of personal effects and articles of value out of 35 such stores established in the extermination camp at Auschwitz, there were found in the stores that were saved from the fire, inter alia:
   348,820 men's suits, 836,255 women's costumes, 38,000 men's shoes.
   

(c) The Accused carried out the said operations until the end of the year 1939 by virtue of his special duties in the Security Service of the SS (SD); and since the end of that year the Accused merged these duties with his functions in Department IV of the RSHA.

(d) The Accused carried out the robbery of the property of the Jews in Germany and in the other territories of occupation, over and above those already mentioned in this count as aforesaid, by means of issuing instructions to the local commanders of the Security Police and to those in the countries of the Axis and the occupied areas, through the foreign representatives of Germany as described in the First Count.

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Nature of the Offence

War crime, an offence against Section l(a)(3) 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 performed acts, during the period of the Second World War, in Germany and in the other countries of the Axis and also in the occupied territories, which are to be defined as war crimes, when, together with others, he caused the persecution, expulsion and murder of the Jewish population of the countries occupied by the Germans and the other countries of the Axis. The Accused committed these acts in the course of fulfilling his functions as specified in the First 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, between the years 1940 and 1942 committed acts in Poland, which at that time was occupied by Germany, which are to be defined as crimes against humanity when, together with others, he caused the deportation of more than half a million Polish civilians from their places of residence, with the intention of settling German families in those places. The displaced Poles were transferred, some to Germany and the territories occupied by her for the purpose of employing them and holding them under conditions of servitude, coercion and terror; some were abandoned in other regions of Poland and the German areas of occupation in the East; some were concentrated in labour camps organized by the SS under inhumane conditions; and some were transferred to Germany and were destined for the purpose of Rückverdeutschung ("Germanization"). The Accused committed these acts of his by virtue of a special appointment in the month of December 1939, according to which he was empowered by the Chief of the Security Police in Berlin to act as the person responsible for the "evacuation" of the civilian Population.

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

(a) The Accused committed acts in the year 1941 in Yugoslavia in parts then occupied by Germany, which are to be defined as crimes against humanity when, together with others, he caused the deportation of more than fourteen thousand Slovene civilians from their places of residence, with the intention of settling German families in their stead;

(b) The deported Slovenes were transferred to the Serbian province of Yugoslavia by methods of coercion and terror, and under inhumane conditions.

(c) The planning of these expulsions was effected by the Accused at a meeting on 6 May 1941 which took place in Marburg (Untersteiermark) and to which the Accused invited representatives of the other authorities dealing with the matter. The expulsion headquarters continued to be located in that city, and acted in accordance with the directives of the Accused. The Accused committed these acts by virtue of his special appointment as mentioned in the Ninth 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 of the Second World War which are to be defined as crimes against humanity in Germany and the occupied territories when, together with others, he caused the deportation from their places of residence of tens of thousands of Gypsies, their assembly in places of concentration, and their dispatch to extermination camps in the areas of the German occupation in the East, for the purpose of murdering them. The Accused committed these acts by virtue of his special appointment as mentioned in the Ninth Count.

Nature of the Offence

Crime against humanity, an offence against Section l(a)(2) of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, 5710-l950, and Section 23 of the Criminal Law Ordinance, 1936.

Particulars of the Offence

In the year 1942 the Accused committed acts which are to be defined as crimes against humanity when, together with others, he caused the deportation of approximately 100 children, residents of the village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia, their transfer to Poland and their murder there. The Accused committed these acts in the course of fulfilling his functions in the Gestapo in Berlin.

Nature of the Offence

Membership of a hostile organization, an offence against Section 3(a) of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law 5710-1950.

Particulars of the Offence

The Accused, during the period of the Nazi rule in Germany, was a member of the organization known by the name of Schutzstaffeln der NSDAP (SS) and during the course of his service in this organization attained the rank of SS Obersturmbannführer. This body was declared a criminal organization in the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal on 1 October 1946 in accordance with Section 9 of the Charter of the Tribunal which was attached to the Agreement of the Four Powers dated 8 August 1945, in regard to the trial of the major war criminals.

Nature of the Offence

Membership of a hostile organization, an offence against Section 3(a) of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, 5710-1950.

Particulars of the Offence

During the period of Nazi rule in Germany, the Accused was a member of an organization known by the name Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers SS (SD). This body was declared a criminal organization in the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal on 1 October 1946 in accordance with Section 9 of the Charter of the Tribunal which was attached to the Agreement of the Four Powers dated 8 August 1945 in regard to the trial of the major war criminals.

Nature of the Offence

Membership of a hostile organization, an offence against Section 3(a) of the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law 5710-1950.

Particulars of the Offence

During the period of Nazi rule in Germany, the Accused was a member of the Secret State Police (Geheirne Staatspolizei) known as the "Gestapo" and served therein as Head of the Department for Jewish Affairs. This body was declared a criminal organization in the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal on 1 October 1946 in accordance with Section 9 of the Charter of the Tribunal which was attached to the Agreement of the Four Powers dated 8 August 1945 in regard to the trial of the major war criminals.

Presiding Judge: Did you understand the indictment?

Accused: Yes, certainly.

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