Dr. Hans Globke, State Secretary to former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and Dr. Robert Servatius, counsel for Adolf Eichmann in his Jerusalem trial, were the principal witnesses today in the trial here of Max Merten, former key German occupation official in Greece.
The latter is on trial on charges of making false accusations in declaring publicly five years ago that Dr. Globke, as a major official in the Nazi Justice Ministry, opposed a Merten proposal to save a large number of Jews from deportation from Salonika to Nazi death camps.
According to Merten, Eichmann agreed to the proposal and then telephoned Dr. Globke, who allegedly opposed it. Merten repeated the charges in full when he appeared at the trial last week. Dr. Globke charged that the Merten story was false and demanded an investigation which led to Merten’s indictment and trial.
Dr. Globke said in his testimony today that the entire story was an “absolute falsehood,” that he had never had any official contact with Eichmann, then head of the Gestapo Jewish Affairs department, and that he had met Eichmann only once. He also testified that even if Eichmann had wanted to telephone somebody to ask permission in such a situation, that he (Globke) was not in a position then to deal with such a request because it was outside his duties.
Dr. Servatius testified that, at the start of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, he had asked Eichmann about the Greek case and that Eichmann then said he could not recall either Merten or Globke but that later, Eichmann told him “now I remember.” Dr. Servatius said that Eichmann had not wanted to involve Dr. Globke in his trial because he hoped that the West German Government would ask his (Eichmann’s) extradition to West Germany.
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.
