Tuviah Friedman – Renowned Nazi Hunter and Yad Vashem Director: His Personal, Signed Account of His Audacious Letter to Adolf Eichmann, Seeking Evidence to Convict Former Nazis in Germany; with Eichmann’s Original Manuscript Response to Friedman, One of Enormous Historical Importance in the History of the Holocaust

He also discusses who issued the deportation orders, the Nazi apparatus and chains of command, etc.

 

The letter of Eichmann, from Friedman’s files, is still present

 

This very letter of Eichmann helped Friedman have three Gestapo officers arrested and imprisoned

The name Tuviah Friedman is synonymous with the appellation “Nazi hunter.” Friedman was born in Radom, Poland, and passed away in January 2011 at the age of 89. In the spring of 1941, along with the rest of Radom’s Jewish population, he was imprisoned in the city’s ghetto. Labor camps would be his home until the summer of 1944, when he escaped, hid in a cemetery and tried to join the partisans. In November 1944 he was captured by the Germans who intended to execute him as a partisan. Friedman managed to kill his guard and escape death once again. The Russian Army entered Radom at the beginning of 1945. This was Friedman’s opportunity to try and realize his greatest aspiration – revenge on the Nazis – an ambition to which his life would be devoted. He found a way to enlist in the Polish police, using a fake identity, and thus reached the city of Danzig as a Polish investigative officer. Friedman worked energetically to apprehend Nazis, interrogated many of them and saw them tried. In 1946 he decided to leave Poland and went to Vienna.

There he encountered the Aliyah Bet movement (a clandestine organization that smuggled survivors out of Europe) and the activities of Arthur Ben-Natan who recruited him to track and interrogate Nazis. Friedman was particularly interested in locating Nazis who had participated in the expulsion and destruction of the Jews of his hometown of Radom. In 1945, he captured SS operative Konrad Buchmayer by infiltrating a prisoner-of-war camp, where he posed as an SS officer in a tattered uniform. He succeeded in capturing Konrad Buchmayer, who went to prison. and then Richard Sheigel, who had sent Jews of Radom to the Treblinka death camp; he died in prison while awaiting trial. Friedman worked in Vienna for several years, locating several Nazi criminals and having them arrested and in certain cases incarcerated for long periods of time.

In 1952, Tuviah Friedman moved to Israel. He served as director of the Haifa branch of Yad Vashem for several years. Then, in 1957, he established the Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes. For the rest of his life, Friedman documented, published, and attempted to track Nazi criminals and pressure governments to prosecute those known to have committed war crimes. Friedman collected many materials about the architect of the “final solution”, which he later turned over the Israeli police. Friedman’s contribution to the capture of Adolf Eichmann holds a special significance among his achievements. He worked hard to raise awareness of the existence of Eichmann through the media. Friedman began receiving snippets of information, one of which indicated that Eichmann was in Argentina. It came from a half-Jewish German resident of Argentina by the name of Lothar Hermann, who had himself fallen victim to Nazi persecution. After some time, urged on by Friedman, the Israeli Mossad decided to address the information. The details proved accurate and filled in the key part of the puzzle for Israeli intelligence operatives who eventually captured Eichmann in Argentina. He also played an important part in lobbying public interest in efforts to root Eichmann from his hiding place.

Friedman’s autobiography, “The Hunter”, has been translated into five languages. When he died in 2011 he entrusted much of his extensive archive to the National Library in Jerusalem. However, some of his personal papers were released into the marketplace during his lifetime.

Tuviah Friedman’s booklet

This is Friedman’s personal signed copy of his account, “Two German Counts Fight Over a Five Million Gold Mark Inheritance, and the Jewish Lawyer is Sent to His Death.” It is published by his Institute of Documentation in Israel with date of 1992, and is 17 pages long counting introduction. The first page bears his ownership signature – “T. Friedman”.

In the Introduction, Friedman writes: “Two German Counts were engaged in litigation over a five million gold Mark inheritance and as a result of their legal battle over the fortune, which continued over two decades, the Jewish defense counsel of one of them was sent to his death in Auschwitz. Count Philipp Kuenigl of Breslau sued Count Lazarus Henckel von Donnersmarck for a sum of five million gold Marks, the inheritance left by their common aunt. The litigation continued from the 1920″s until April 1942…Count Kueniql, who had lost his fortune and was living in reduced circumstances, was represented by a Jewish attorney Dr. Alfons Lasker of Breslau, who…was in fact appointed by the court to represent the Count, and he did so faithfully {from the start of the case in 1925 until the Nazis sent him to his death)…Count Kuenigl, through his able counsel Dr. Lasker, won his case in every instance all the way to the Supreme Court. Count Donnersmarck…put on his Nazi uniform and attempted to reverse the decision of the courts by exploiting his influence with the Nazis to have the Jewish lawyer eliminated…Donnersmark was a relative of the Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and through this connection was able to wield influence with the chief of the Gestapo in Breslau, Dr. Ernst Gerke. A short time before the case was due to be heard by the Supreme Court for a final judgment, he was able to effect the deportation of Dr. Lasker and his wife to Auschwitz. In the notorious death camp they were gassed and cremated.

“In 1961 I received a letter from Count Kuenigl…asking me to interrogate Adolf Eichmann regarding his murdered Jewish attorney Dr. Lasker. The Count hoped in this way to effect the arrest of the Nazi Count Donnersmark and restore his own fortune as well as to avenge the murder. of his former attorney, who paid with his life for his efforts to pursue the Count’s case. In 1962 I wrote a letter about the Case to Eichmann, who was then in prison in Israel, and in February 1962 Eichmann sent me his reply, a four page long letter, handwritten in red ink responding to my questions regarding the two Counts, the Jewish lawyer and the chief of the Gestapo in Breslau. The full account of this strange and tragic tale is here set out…Eichmann*s letter, ending with “I hope to have served you”, helped me to have the three Gestapo officers, Dr. Gerke and his assistants Fey and Hampel arrested. They were tried in Essen and sentenced to imprisonment. In a small way Dr. Lasker was avenged.”

There follows the 15 page story. Translations of all letters are Friedman’s.

Tuviah Friedman’s letter to Adolf Eichmann

Friedman asks Eichmann whether it was conceivable that the Gestapo chiefs did not know the Jews were being deported to be exterminated: “One day I ran into the director of the Israel Prison Service, Mr. Mir, in the cafeteria in the Knesset building…I asked Mir whether he could arrange for me to meet Eichmann in his cell to enable me to interrogate him…I appealed to Ben Gurion, calling his attention to the fact that I had…received the highest orders for discovering Nazi criminals…as well as for my part in running Eichmann to earth. Ben Gurion turned down my request and through his secretary informed me that I was free to make a written application to the Attorney General who would see to it that at the proper time Eichmann would be questioned about the things I wanted to hear from him. It was clear to me that after the Court would pass sentence Eichmann would refuse to make any more statements because I was convinced he would be sentenced to die. That is how I came to think of the idea of writing to Eichmann. I had some experience with Nazi suspects, They respected only strength…” An audacious letter, thought Friedman, was such a show of strength.

This was his letter to Eichmann, dated January 29, 1962, and addressing him as Former chief of the Jewish department of the Gestapo in Berlin. “”I have been asked to examine a matter about which you can undoubtedly give me some information. The case concerns the Jewish lawyer Alfons Lasker who represented Count Philipp Kuenigl in a court case that was heard at different times between 1930 and 1942 by the Supreme State Court of Breslau. The case concerned a claim for three million Reichsmarks which a certain Count Lazarus Henkel von Donnersmark was obliged to pay to Count Kuenigl under the terms of a will. The Jewish lawyer Dr. Lasker received a special permit from the Reich justice ministry allowing him to represent Count Kuenigl in the Breslau Supreme State Court.

“In 1939 Count Henkel yon Donnersmark was appointed a Hauptsturmfuehror in the Nazi party whereupon he put pressure on the leaders of the Breslau district (Gau) as well as on the local legal authorities and the Gestapo to cancel the special permit of the Jewish
lawyer and have him sent to a concentration camp because the Nuremberg laws did net permit a Jewish lawyer to appear before a German court. It is believed that Count Lazarus Henkel von Donnersmark…appealed to you or your department in Berlin to have the special permit rescinded and have Lasker sent to a concentration camp. Dr. Lasker was indeed banned from the Breslau court on April 8, 1942, and the very next day the Gestapo deported him to Auschwitz with his wife. He never returned.

“The officials who were active in his deportation include the chief of the Gestapo in Breslau, Regierungsrat Dr. Gerke, and his two assistants Hampel and Fey. They were recently discovered in West Germany and interrogated by the prosecutor’s office in Essen.
The Gestapo chief Dr. Gerke admitted that he had been responsible for the deportation of Jews during the years 1941 to 1944, but claimed not to have known that they were deported in order to be exterminated. Do you think that it is true, or even possible, that a Gestapo chief of his high rank did not know in the years 1942-44 that the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Problem’ as adopted by the Wannsee Conference, signified the physical extermination of the Jewish people? Surely this decision of the Wannsee conference was passed on to the Chiefs of the Gestapo in the larger German cities so that they would carry out the deportation of the Jews to the concentration and extermination camps.

“Would you kindly give me your opinion regarding this matter. I await your reply with great interest, and sign this letter, T. Friedman, Director of the Documentation Centre.”

Adolf Eichmann’s reply to Tuviah Friedman’s letter

Eichmann admits that Hitler, and indeed all Germans, knew about the fate of the Jews. Eichmann’s letter was a long one, covering four large pages, handwritten in red ink, and dated the same day as Friedman’s – January 29, 1962.

“In reply to your letter I am hereby sending you the opinion you requested.

“1. I have no personal knowledge of the case you described, nor have I ever talked to a man named Henkel von Donnersmark. 2. The authority to issue orders to local police stations was at that time vested in the chief of the local security police S.D., the senior officers of the SS and police in the different districts in their capacity of personal deputies of the Reichsfuehrer of the SS and chief of the German Police, as well as in the Gauleiters (leaders). It appears from your letter that Count Henkel von Donnersmark put pressure on the leadership of the Gau in Breslau. If the deportation order you mentioned had been sent by the chief of the security police or the senior SS and police chief of Silesia to the Breslau police, it would certainly have influenced the Gau leadership. It was presumably the Gau leadership who issued the deportation order against Dr. Lasker.

“3. The minutes of the Wannsee conference were not sent to the local Police directors, though I no longer recall the exact procedure. I do not know whether the chief of Bureau IV of the Reich security office, the former Gruppenfuehrer and lieutenant general Mueller, who was also my own chief, informed the leaders of the local police orally about the Wannsee conference, when they came to Berlin to make their periodical reports. 1 do not know about this because I did not participate in their consultations. But the then Fuehrer of Germany talked quite unmistakably (about the fate of the Jews) to the German public on the State radio. However it is clear that neither an official of the Security Office, or of the police, would have known whether those deported, and how many of them, were put to death, because those who issued the orders always talked of the need for large reserves of forced laborers. This matter was under the exclusive jurisdiction of Himmler, who issued the orders either personally, or through Messrs. Pohl and Glueck, and through Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner, as well as through Greiser who maintained personal contact with Himmler regarding these matters.

“4. Neither a local police chief, nor Bureau IV which I directed at the time, could issue deportation orders on their own authority, or carry them out. Even the chief of Bureau IV was unable to issue such orders, as far as I know. Only the following officials issued orders regarding the number and type of persons to be deported, the deportation routes, their terminals etc.: a. Within the territory of the Reich: Hitler (on the strength of the wishes expressed by the leaders of the Gaus (the regional districts); the chief of his bureau, and Himmler, Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner. b. The occupied territories in the east: Hitler, Himmler, Frank, Heydrich and Kaltenbrunner. c. All other areas: Hitler, Ribbentrop, Himmler. The polices carried out the orders of the above. I can give you an example from Denmark. The superior officer of the Sipo and security services in Denmark had some doubts about a deportation order issued through Ribbentrop – Himmler. He flew to Berlin for consultations. As the chief of the Sipo was absent he talked to the chief of Bureau IV, Mueller. Mueller consulted his own superior and then gave his visitor a negative reply.

“The documents presented by the prosecution at my trial (with the exception of a small number I could not accept) gave a very clear picture of the situation. They show that neither I, nor any local Police chief, was empowered to order a deportation or to stop one. The double, even threefold controls, to which I and the local police chiefs were subject, were too strict. The whole matter was under the exclusive jurisdiction of the authorized persons.

“in conclusion I am bound to say that I am not providing you any new information and indeed none could now be given. All these points were exhaustively discussed the course of my trial.”

What is included:

1.Friedman’s personal copy of his account, “Two German Counts Fight Over a Five Million Gold Mark Inheritance, and the Jewish Lawyer is Sent to His Death”, bearing his ownership signature – “T. Friedman”.

2. The original four page letter Friedman received from Eichmann, one of enormous historical importance in the history of the Holocaust.