Eichmann Says He Accepts Death Penalty; Admits 6,000,000 Jews Were Killed

“I am prepared to atone and accept the death penalty for the terrible things that were done,” Adolf Eichmann–who is now on trial here for directing the mass-murder of Jews under the Nazi regime–declared on a tape recorder in an Israel prison during police interrogation which preceded the trial. He estimated that 6,000,000 Jews were annihilated in Nazi Europe. Portions of his tape recorded statements were played back in the courtroom today as part of the prosecution.

“There is no doubt that I will be tried as an accomplice for these murders,” Eichmann said in the playback. “I know I may have to face the death sentence but I cannot claim mercy because I know I do not deserve it. Perhaps I ought to hang myself publicly so that all the anti-Semites of the world will learn a lesson or maybe I ought to write a book which will serve as a deterrent–in this way I may complete my duty on this earth.”

Avner Less, the police officer who supervised the questioning, said that these statements were made by Eichmann on June 6, 1960 before police officer Hoffstadter. Included in the portion of the tape run off today before the three-judge court trying Eichmann for crimes against the Jewish people and crimes against humanity was a warning from the Israeli police to Eichmann stating:

“According to your evidence you committed crimes against the Jewish people and against humanity. You are free to continue to give evidence or to refuse but it must be made clear to you that whatever you say may be used against you.” Eichmann was recorded as saying that he wanted to continue giving testimony.

TELLS OF HIS VISITS TO THE GAS CHAMBERS IN AUSCHWITZ CAMP

The playback indicated that Eichmann was questioned closely on his visits to the Auschwitz murder factory, particularly since he had claimed that he visited Auschwitz only a few times and that he had not actually watched the death struggles of victims in the gas chambers through the peepholes built into the chambers for that purpose.

That contention was in conflict with statements made by Rudolf Hoess, the Auschwitz commandant, and other Nazi war criminals during the Nuremberg trials. During the interrogation, the playback indicated, the police read to Eichmann testimony given at Nuremberg about his activities at Auschwitz but Eichmann insisted he visited Auschwitz only four times.

He told the police that he visited the murder factory twice before the “Hungarian affair” and twice after it. The Hungarian affair was the term used consistently by Eichmann throughout his interrogation to refer to the annihilation of 400,000 Hungarian Jews. He insisted that he saw the gas chambers and the furnaces only from the outside because he was “incapable” of watching the actual executions and cremations.

The playback was the first time in the trial that Eichmann’s statements and views, in his own voice, were being presented. The defendant himself showed somewhat more animation than in the earlier days of the trial. Several times during the playback, he spoke to Dr. Servatius, his chief defense counsel, on his special intercom, But he showed no visible emotion when listening to his own totals of the number of victims of the various camps and countries, an exercise in addition to which he ended with the statement: “I said myself that about 6,000,000 Jews were killed.”

DESCRIBES HIS FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH EXTERMINATION OF JEWS

He described what he said was his first experience with “physical extermination of Jews.” He said he had been summoned by Reinhardt Heydrich, the head of the Nazi security police, and ordered to go to Lublin to convey Hitler’s instructions to the Lublin commander Globocnik for the murder of Jewish inmates. Eichmann told the police that “I had nothing to say to such a brutal solution, of such a brutal solution I had never thought.”

He told the Israeli interrogators that he proceeded to camp “Treblinka or some other name, I really cannot remember” where he said he saw a hut construction going up. The huts looked like two or three-roomed villas and the camp commander, Hauptmann, told him that gas would be poured into the rooms and the Jews would be poisoned. He added he was sure this happened in the summer of 1941 because it was the season of deciduous fruits and one could see blossoms falling and fruit emerging.

Referring to the explanations he received at Treblinka, he said: “This I shall never forget even if I live long.” Ordered to witness and report on the “Operation Against Jews.” Eichmann related that “there was a room, rather large, in which Jews were ordered to strip naked. They were then herded into trucks and driven to the huts. There the naked Jews were forced in, the doors hermetically sealed.”

Asked how many there were, Eichmann told his captors: “I tried to avert my eyes. The Shrieking and screaming made me too disturbed to look. Then came the most breathtaking sight my eyes ever saw in my life. Bodies were transferred in vans to an open pit where the corpses were flung out as if they were beast flesh, into the ditch. I also saw that gold teeth had been extracted. I could not look at this heinous act of turpitude.”

WITNESSED MASS-SHOOTING OF JEWS IN MINSK AND BIALYSTOK

In another section of the tape played in the court, Eichmann described a visit to the Minsk area, where he said he saw Jews shot and their bodies dumped into pits. At Bialystok, he said he saw the skulls of dead people. “There was shooting into a rather large size pit. I saw a woman, her arms seemed to be at the back and then my knees went weak and I went away,” he stated.

From there he proceeded to Lvov. He visited the police headquarters at Lvov–“I don’t know why, maybe only curiosity.” He said he was invited by the camp commander to see how the shootings were carried out but, he said, he refused. He added that he was told he would see the actions nevertheless, since it was along his route.

“There was a trench which was already filled in and there was a kind of spring of blood gushing from the earth and this too I had never seen before. As far as I was concerned, I had, had enough,” he told his interrogators. Eichmann said he told the police commander at Lvov: “It’s terrible what they are doing there, putting bullets into women and children. Our men will either go insane or become sadists.”

Eichmann claimed he made this statement to Group leader Mueller, adding “I told it to everybody. Later I told Mueller ‘this is not the solution to the Jewish problem.’ ” Eichmann added that Mueller could do nothing because the orders apparently came from Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler who had probably received them from Hitler. Asked whether he had ever seen a written order for the murder of Jews, he replied negatively. In another section of his tape-recorded statement, he said: “All I know is that Heydrich, Himmler’s deputy, told me the Fuehrer ordered it.”

DESCRIBES PARLEY AT WHICH THE DECISION TO ANNIHILATE JEWS WAS TAKEN

The accused described the Wannsee conference of Nazi top leaders at which the decision to exterminate the Jews was made. He spoke in an awed voice like someone telling about a small dinner party attended only by very important people. He stressed that this was the first time in his Nazi career he had sat in meeting with “such important people” but he added “I was compelled to be there.”

He said he had been impressed by the way the Wannsee meeting had been conducted–“quietly, with much politeness. The meeting did not take long. Afterwards servants served drinks, cognac, I think, then the meeting was over.” This was the first eyewitness-account of the meeting where Heydrich was given overall authority to speed the “final solution” and the occasion which initiated large-scale mass extermination. Apparently by that time, the hundreds of thousands of victims already murdered were inadequate to the Nazi leaders.

When Eichmann described how an SS commander asked Heydrich for retroactive permission to exterminate 150,000 Jews, the tape listed Officer Less as asking whether it was 150,000 or 250,000. Eichmann was heard replying: “I don’t exactly remember, yes, I think it was 250,000, but those people were already dead.” In a similar effort at recall, Eichmann mused audibly when he was asked about a certain date. “Now, let me see,” came the voice on the recorder, “when were the Jews of Litzmanstadt (Lodz) exterminated? Ah, yes, it must have been in autumn, 1941.”

SAYS HE REJECTED FALSE NAZI DOCUMENTS TO DISGUISE HIMSELF

In the final section of the recorded interrogation presented before the recess this morning, Eichmann told of learning of a special Nazi office which was issuing false documents to top SS and security police officers to enable them to transform themselves into insurance clerks businessmen and other disguises. Eichmann said he had rejected an offer of such documents.

He said that during the hasty burning of incriminating Nazi records, the disposal was interrupted frequently by air raids. He said he told his “downhearted subordinates,” who were forced to idleness during the Allied air attacks, that he knew the war was lost, there was nothing to save. “I said I would jump into my grave. I said this about the offer of false documents. I said I preferred a bullet.”

At 10 a. m., Justice Moshe Landau, the presiding judge, announced a halt in the proceedings for two minutes of silence in memory of the Israelis who fell in Israel’s War of Liberation. Eichmann stood with all the others in the court. The court adjourned later until Friday for Israel’s celebration of its 13th anniversary which begins tonight.