Immunity was promised by Israel today to two ex-Nazis enabling them to come to Jerusalem to testify as witnesses for Adolf Eichmann who is now on trial here for directing the annihilation of 6, 000, 000 Jews under the Nazi regime.
Dr. Robert Servatius, Eichmann’s lawyer, submitted the names of 10 ex-Nazis whom he wanted to summon to the trial as witnesses. The other eight were not promised any immunity and their testimony will be taken by courts in West Germany. The two who can now come to Jerusalem to testify are Dr. Willhelm Hoettl, a former major of the Gestapo in charge of security matters and Walter Huppenkothen, formerly a functionary in the same office.
As Eichmann’s trial opened here this morning for its fifth week, Mr. Hausner, who is not only Israel’s chief prosecutor against the ex-Gestapo colonel but also the Israel Government’s chief legal officer, announced that the two men will be permitted to come to Israel to testify on Eichmann’s behalf “should they desire to do so.” Dr. Servatius had listed Hoettl and Huppenkothen among ten former Nazis he would like to put on the witness stand.
“There is no record of crimes against the Jewish people by either of these men,” Mr. Hausner told the court. “We have therefore decided to grant them immunity.”
“Even if they incriminate themselves?” asked Dr. Servatius. “Yes,” replied Mr. Hausner.
(From Vienna, a Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch today reported that Dr. Hoettle, who is now head of a school in the Austrian town of Bad Aussee, said he will not be able to go to Israel for two months, “for professional reasons. ” He said he is willing to testify, now that Mr. Hausner has granted him immunity from arrest in Israel, but expressed the belief that his testimony would not be useful either to the defense or to the prosecution in the Eichmann trial. He declared he had already said what he might have to say on Eichmann’s position in the Nazi security services, when he testified at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials.)
On November 25, 1945, Dr. Hoettl had taken the witness stand during the Nuremberg trials, and told of a conversation he had had with Eichmann in Hungary. He testified Eichmann had said he was convinced the Nazis had lost the war and that, personally, he “had no chance. ” Eichmann had said, Dr. Hoettl testified at Nuremberg, that he knew he would be regarded as one of the main war criminals “since he has millions of Jews on his conscience.”
Dr. Hoettl testified that Eichmann had given the number of Jews who had perished in concentration camps as 4, 000, 000, saying also that 2, 000, 000 more Jews had been killed by “special troops” of the Nazi regime.
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