Nazi Witness for Eichmann in Germany Says He Has ‘nothing to Hide’

Eberhard von Thadden, the 51-year-old former Nazi Foreign Ministry official whose testimony will be sought on behalf of Adolf Eichmann, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that he was ready to testify before West German authorities.

“I have nothing to hide, “he said, but refused to give further information except that he had talked with Eichmann’s chief defense counsel, Dr. Robert Servatius, only once and then by telephone.

Von Thadden is one of four former Nazis which the three-man court hearing the Eichmann trial agreed to accept as defense witnesses on the basis of testimony before the West German courts with the provision that Israeli representatives would be present for such hearings. The others are Max Merten, one-time Nazi military governor of Salonika, Greece; former Nazi Major Hermann Krumey, an aide of Eichmanns; and Dr. Franz Six, a Nazi officer in occupied Russia.

Merten said in Berlin that he could prove who gave the orders to exterminate Jews during the Nazi regime but that he intended to give the name only during legal interrogation. He said he could not really be considered a witness for the defense because all that he would be able to testify was that–on the basis of his experiences in Salonika–Eichmann always obtained backing from higher agencies for the measures planned against the Jews.

(The United Press International reported that Krumey was in a Frankfurt jail, due to go on trial some time early in 1962 when the Frankfurt state prosecutor opens several trials of Nazi war criminals, all of whom are now in jail in Frankfurt. From Kressbroom, it was reported that Six’s wife said that her husband, a former senior officer in the Nazi secret police, was not available for comment on the proposal to get his testimony because he was recovering from a heart attack.)