"Eichmann Had Free Hand"

Press, Volume C, Issue 29516, 18 May 1961, Page 8

"Eichmann Had Free Hand"

( W Z.P.A .-Reuter—Cony right)

JERUSALEM, May 16.

Adolf Eichmann had been “all powerful in the extermination of the Jews,” according to evidence at his trial yesterday.

Field-Marshal Hermann Goering had told this to an investigating American official. Judge Musmanno. in 1945, it was stated.

Yesterday, Judge Musmanno, now a Pennsylvanian Supreme Court Judge, appeared as a witness for the prosecution and gave lengthy evidence of his talks with Goering and other Nazi ch i cfs.

The American Judge’s right to give evidence was challenged when yesterday’s hearing began. Eichmann’s defence counsel (Dr. Robert Servatius) submitted that the evidence Judge Musmanno had been called to give was either irrelevant or hearsay. But after half am hour’s adjournment, the Court decided that the Judge could give evidence under the special provision in Israel’s 1950 law on the punishment of Nazis—the law under which Eichmann is being tried.

In his talks with Nazi leaders, the Judge said, he had come to the conclusion that Eichmann had possessed unlimited authority over the Jewish extermination programme. One after another the

captured Nazi leaders had named Eichmann as being among those chiefly responsible for planning and overseeing the mass exterminations, he said.

Eichmann’s face, paler than usual, twitched from time to time, but he rarely took his eyes from the face of the American Judge as he gave evidence.

Judge Musmanno quoted a Nazi leader as saying: “Eichmann ran his department with a completely free hand."

The Judge said he also had learned from General Karl Koller, the last Chief of Staff of the Lutfwaffe, that Eichmann had pressed for the execution of all Allied pilots who had Jewish blood.