A Cologne attorney who defended many Nazi political leaders in the Nuremberg trials, disclosed today he had offered to defend Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi murder specialist, at his forthcoming trial in Jerusalem.
The attorney, Robert Servatius, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he made the offer in a letter sent a week ago to Pinhas Rosen, Israel Minister of Justice.
“I have not yet received word whether Israel authorities consider me acceptable, ” he added, “There is also the question of whether I need Eichmann’s approval.”
The attorney refused to say who had engaged his services for Eichmann but he emphasized that he was not commissioned by either a Government institution or a public organization.
He explained that he had “offered” to assume Eichmann’s defense “not for political but for purely legal reasons. This is purely a question of protecting the legal rights of the individual.”
The attorney, who defended among other Nazis, Fritz Sauckel, the Keichs Commissar for Forced Labor, asserted that he had never been a member of the Nazi party. He said “I was a common soldier throughout the war.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
