Eichmann Resumes Trial Evidence

Press, Volume C, Issue 29548, 24 June 1961, Page 11

Eichmann Resumes Trial Evidence

thiZ Pi ess Association—C'opvnpht) JERUSALEM, June 23. Adolf Eichmann portrayed himself yesterday as a friend of the Jews, not their persecutor, news agencies reported. In the third day as a witness in his own defence—he has pleaded not guilty of murdering millions of Jews—he said he was the author of the “Madagascar plan” to resettle deported Jews on the island of Madagascar, on Africa’s east coast.

“The plan was mine. II was trying to put some ■ ground, some soil under the! feet of the Jews." he said. ' Hitler for a time favoured' the plan because he thought the severe climate on the island would exterminate the Jews sent there. Eichmann said that his department dealt solely with the transport of Jews evacuated and deported by Nazis. "I never made a decision.” he said. “I referred everything to my superiors. ... I was known as a man who required confirmation of everything.” Penal Cede Eichmann's defence counsel (Dr. Robert Servatius) asked him if he had been a party to the enactment of a special Penal Code for the Jews in 1941. “I do not know a thing about this matter,” Eichmann replied. Was he responsible for orders to step up Jewish deportations to eastern areas after the German defeat at Stalingrad in 1943?

"No. . . . After Stalingrad there were considerable efforts to find scapegoats." The Jews were a "red herring drawn across the path of the Stalingrad disaster." Eichmann said. The deportation of Jews was financed by confiscated Jewish funds and every "evacuated Jew" had to pay a cash sum of 50 marks. Eichmann again brought up the name of Dr. Hans Globke, a government councillor in the Nazi Interior Ministry and now an adviser to the German Chancellor (Dr. Adenauer). Dr. Globke, he said, was present at a meeting which drafted a law revoking German citizenship for Jews and providing for the confiscation of properly owned by these "stateless" Jews. In Bonn today—for the second day—Dr. Adenauer’s office issued a statement rejecting Eichmann's evidence. “Eichmann's evidence shows that he knew nothing about Globke's activities from actual experience," a spokesman said.