The Eichmann Trial

SESSION LXXII

SESSION 72 of the trial of Adolf Eichmann took place in the morning of Friday, June 9, 1961. It consists entirely of the submission of documents into evidence by prosecuting Attorney General Gideon Hausner. It begins with the prosecution’s submission into evidence of testimony from the respective trials of Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoess. Hausner attempts to submit a secondhand account of the Auschwitz Report but is rejected by the judges. The judges also reject the attempt to submit an interrogation of former Nazi Georg Michelson, who was involved in deportations of Jews. Additional documentation on Auschwitz is submitted into evidence, followed by documents regarding a collection of skeletons given to the Ancestral Heritage foundation by Eichmann. Documentation on sterilization experiments is submitted. The session concludes with the beginning of a discussion on the admissibility of the ‘Sassen documents’, transcripts of the audio recordings of conversations between Eichmann and Dutch journalist Willem Sassen that were conducted during Eichmann’s time in Argentina. Defense Counsel Dr. Robert Servatius voices objections to the submission of these transcripts, stating that Eichmann denies their accuracy. This discussion will continue in SESSION 73.

Although much of the footage from SESSION 72 has been lost, the approximately one hour of surviving material is presented here. The first surviving section exists only in audio form featuring a simultaneous English translation, and consists of Attorney General Gideon Hausner quoting from Hoess’s testimony. The final section survives only via a contemporaneous news broadcast, and contains edits made by the broadcaster, as well as a simultaneous spoken German translation.