When the Adolf Eichmann trial resumes tomorrow, Attorney General Gideon Hausner, chief prosecutor, is expected to tell the court whether he could guarantee immunity from prosecution for two of six former Nazis whose names were submitted Friday by the defense as witnesses for Eichmann.
No immunity was granted earlier to four former Nazis whom the defense wanted to summon to Israel as witnesses. However, this did not deter Dr. Robert Servatius, Eichmann’s lawyer, from asking for immunity for six other ex-Nazis.
When the list of the six was submitted on Friday, Attorney General Hausner said four of them were Nazi war criminals, and would be arrested as soon as they came to Israel. He listed them as Otto Winkelmann, one of the higher leaders in the SS and chief representative in Hungary of SS head Heinrich Himmler, during the time the Hungarian Jews were slaughtered; Dr. Edmund Veesenmayer, Minister Plenipotentiary to Hungary of Hitler Germany; Erich von dem Bach-Zewlewski, leader of a Nazi execution squad in occupied Russia; and Richard Baer, last commander of the Auschwitz murder factory.
The Attorney General asked for the delay until tomorrow to decide whether he could guarantee immunity to two former SS officers, Willi Hoettl and Walt Huppenkotten. After he labeled the four former Nazi officials as war criminals, the three-man court ruled that they should be questioned before a West German judge, with an Israeli representative present.
This was also the procedure ordered for the first four former Nazis whose names Dr. Servatius proposed for calling to Israel as defense witnesses–Dr. Fanz Six, a Nazi secret police officer; Hermann Krumey, a former SS major; Max Merten, Nazi military governor of Salonika, Greece; and Dr. Eberhard von Thadden, the Nazi Foreign Office expert on Jewish affairs.
The Attorney General submitted to the court a series of questions for cross-examination for the four ex-Nazis before a West German court. Though the questions also were made available to Dr. Servatius, the Attorney General asked the court to forbid publication of them so that the prospective witnesses would not learn their contents. Presiding Judge Moshe Landau said he could not do so without the consent of Dr. Servatius. The latter agreed to non-publication of questions from both defense and prosecution.
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.
