Dieter Wisliceny

Dieter Wisliceny (January 13 1911 – May 4 1948) was a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS), and a key executioner in the final phase of the Holocaust. Wisliceny was extradited to Czechoslovakia, where he was tried and hanged for war crimes in 1948.

Quotes

• Eichmann was in every respect a painstaking bureaucrat. He at once recorded in the files every discussion he ever had with any of his superiors. He always told me that the most important thing was to be covered at all times by one's superiors. He shunned all personal responsibility and took care to shelter behind his superiors - in this case Mueller and Kaltenbrunner - and inveigle them into accepting liability for his actions.
  • Quoted in "Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny" - Page 240 - by Edward Crankshaw - History - 1956

• It was perfectly clear to me that this order spelled the death of millions of people. I said to Eichmann, 'God grant that our enemies never have the opportunity of doing the same to the German people', in reply to which Eichmann told me not to be sentimental; it was an order of the Fuhrer's and would have to be carried out.
  • Quoted in "Gestapo: Instrument of Tyranny" - Page 241 - by Edward Crankshaw - History - 1956

• Eichmann told me that the words "final solution" meant the biological extermination of the Jewish race... I was so much impressed with this document which gave Eichmann authority to kill millions of people that I said at the time: "May God forbid that our enemies should ever do anything similar to the German people". He replied: "Don't be sentimental – this is a Führer order". I realized at that time that the order was a death warrant for millions of people and that the power to execute this order was in Eichmann's hands subject to approval of Heydrich and later Kaltenbrunner. The program of extermination was already under way, and continued until late 1944. — SS-Hauptsturmführer Dieter Wisliceny, International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 3 January 1946.
  • Prof. Stuart Stein: "Affidavit of Dieter Wisliceny", from Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume VIII. USGPO, Washington, 1946, pages 606–619.

Disputed

• The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichmann and Himmler in execution of this plan...He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz.
  • In a conversation with Andrej Steiner in Bratislava (June 1944). The statement is uncorroborated, and historians dispute Wisliceny's claim.

About Wisliceny

• "It wasn’t Hitler, it wasn’t me [Wisliceny], it was the mufti... I am not sure if Wisliceny ever met the mufti. I doubt it, but it’s doesn’t matter. It’s clear that his account is untrue: the Germans had started annihilating the Jews half a year before Hitler and the mufti met."
  • Yehuda Bauer in an interview with Times of Israel