Which is usually claimed to originate from "testimony" Wisliceny gave at Nuremberg, actually appears in a statement Rudolf Katsner made in January 1946, in which he attributes this quote to Wisliceny, claiming he had said it to him in Budapest during June 1944!In my opinion, the Grand Mufti, who has been in Berlin since 1941, played a role in the decision of the German government to exterminate the European Jews,
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=181493
- UK NA, FO 371/52585, p.28 (E1984)COPY
(E 1984/515/31)
STATEMENT.
I, the undersigned Dr. Rudolf Kasztner, at present Geneva, Pension Sergy, 16, Chemin Krieg, herewith make the following statement:
As the leader of the Jewish Rescue and Relief Committee in Budapest, I requested the competent German authorities to grant the emigration to Palestine of a group of Hungarian Jews.
In the course of these negotiations, which are the subject of my testimony deposed in the minutes of the Nuremberg trial, the high Gestapo official Adolf Aichmann [sic] declared he would be willing to recommend the emigration of a group of 1681 Hungarian Jews, on condition that the group should not go to Palestine.
"They may get to any country but Palestine" - I was told by Aichmann, who, as the leader of the Department IV.B. of the "Reichssicherheitshauptam" [sic] was personally responsible for the execution of the deportation and extermination of the European Jews. At first, his argument for his negative attitude towards the emigration to Palestine was that he did not want to rouse the Arabs against the Reich. At last he said to me literally:
"I am a personal friend of the Grand-Mufti. We have promised him that no European Jew would enter Palestine any more. Do you understand now?!"
Some days later, SS Hauptsturmführer Dieter von Wisliczeny [sic], a close collaborator of Aichmann, confidentially confirmed to me the above statement of his chief and added:
"According to my opinion, the Grand-Mufti who has been in Berlin since 1941 played a role in the decision le the German Government to exterminate the European Jews, the importance of which must not be disregarded. He has repeatedly suggested to the various authorities with whom he has been in contact, above all before Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler, the extermination of the European Jewry. He considered this as a comfortable solution for the Palestine problem. In his messages broadcast from Berlin, he surpassed us in anti-Jewish attacks. He was one of Aichmann's best friends and has constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard say that, accompanied by Aichmann, he has visited incognito the gas chamber in Auschwitz."
According to my information, Wisliczeny has made similar statements in 1942 before Engineer E. Steiner and M.B. Weissmandel, members of the Jewish Rescue and Relief Committee in Bratislava.
I wish to mention that Aichmann made the above statement in his office in Budapest on June 4, 1944.
The confirmation by Wisliczeny was given some days later, also in Budapest.
Wisliczeny was inquired in the Nuremberg trial as a witness for the prosecution.
Geneva, January 3, 1946.
I don't know whether this statement also appears in a Wisliceny Nuremberg affidavit as claimed, although it would be bizarre if it did.
Below is a letter found amongst Wisliceny's Nuremberg interrogation documents, which states that Wisliceny did make an affidavit for the Zionist Gideon Rafael (Ruffer) which claimed the Mufti "wholeheartedly shared in and even stimulated the Nazi ideas for the extermination of the Jewish people of Europe."
https://www.fold3.com/document/231903760/