Affidavit concerning a conversation with Adolf Eichmann in August 1944, on the killing of four million Jews in the extermination camps and two million others, mostly by security police (einsatzgruppen) in the Soviet campaign

AFFIDAVIT OF DR. WILHELM HOETTL 26 November 1945
I, Wilhelm Hoettl, state herewith under oath:
My name is Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, SS-Sturmbannfuehrer (Major of the SS). My occupation until the German collapse was that of a reporter and deputy Gruppenleiter in Amt VI (Office VI) of the Reichs Security Office [Reichssicherheitshauptampt].
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Amt VI of the RSHA was the so-called Foreign Section of the Security Service and it was engaged in the Intelligence Service in all countries in the world. It corresponded somewhat to the English Intelligence Service. The group to which I belonged was occupied in the Intelligence Service of Southeastern Europe (the Balkans).
At the end of August 1944 I was talking to SS-Obersturmbann-fuehrer Adolf Eichmann, whom I had known since 1938. The conversation took place in my home in Budapest.
According to my knowledge Eichmann was, at that time, Abteilungsleiter in Amt IV (the Gestapo) of the Reich Security Office [Reichssicherheitshauptampt] and in addition to that he had been ordered by Himmler to get a hold of the Jews in all the European countries and to transport them to Germany. Eichmann was then very much impressed with the fact that Rumania had withdrawn from the war in those days. Therefore, he had come to me to get information about the military situation which I received daily from the Hungarian Ministry of War and from the Commander of the Waffen-SS in Hungary. He expressed his conviction that Germany had now lost the war and that he, personally, had no further chance. He knew that he would be considered one of the main war criminals by the United Nations since he had millions of Jewish lives on his conscience. I asked him how many that was, to which he answered that although the number was a great Reich secret, he would tell me since I, as a historian, would be interested and that he would probably not return anyhow from his command in Rumania. He had, shortly before that, made a -report to Himmler, as the latter wanted to know the exact number of Jews who had been killed. On the basis of his information he had obtained the following result:
Approximately four million Jews had been killed in the various extermination camps while an additional two million met death in other ways, the major part of which were shot by operational squads of the Security Police during the campaign against Russia.
Himmler was not satisfied with the report since, in his opinion,
, the number of Jews, who had been killed, must have been more than six million. Himmler had stated, that he would send a man from his Office of Statistics to Eichmann, so that he could make a new report on the basis of Eichmann's material, in which exact figures should be worked out.
I have to believe that this information, given to me by Eichmann, was correct, as he, among all the persons in question, certainly had the best survey of the figures of the Jews who had been
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murdered. In the first place, he "delivered" so to speak the Jews to the extermination camps through his special squads and knew, therefore, the exact figure and, in the second place, as Abteilungs-Ieiter in Amt IV (the Gestapo) of the RSHA, who was also responsible for Jewish matters, he knew indeed better than anyone else the number of Jews who had died in other ways.
In addition to that, Eichmann was at that moment in such a state of mind as a result of the events, that he certainly had no intention of telling me something that was not true.
I, myself, know the details of this conversation so well because I was, naturally! very much affected and I had already, prior to the German collapse, given detailed data about it to American Quarters in a neutral foreign country with which I was in touch at that time. -I hereby swear, that the above statements have been made by me voluntarily and without duress or compulsion, and that the above statements are true according to my best knowledge and belief. /
[signed] Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl
Signed and sworn to before me in Nurnbei*g, Germany this 26th day of November 1945.
[signed] Frederick L. Felton
Lieutenant USNR #253345