Eichmann was an expert on management and logistics. But … Otto Adolf Eichmann (19 March 1906 – 1 June 1962) was a leading member of the Nazi Party in charge of organising mass deportations of Jews to ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination camps. [184] During later examination by the judges, he admitted he meant the Jews, and said the remark was an accurate reflection of his opinion at the time. [56] From the start of the war until April 1941, around 63,000 Jews were transported into the General Government. [100], On 24 December 1944, Eichmann fled Budapest just before the Soviets completed their encirclement of the capital. When in 1939 Himmler formed the Reich Security Central Office, Eichmann was transferred to its section on Jewish affairs in Berlin. Eichmann joined the Nazi Party in April 1932 in Linz and rose through the party hierarchy. [85][86] Hitler's appointment of a Hungarian government more amenable to the Nazis meant that the Hungarian Jews, who had remained essentially unharmed until that point, would now be deported to Auschwitz concentration camp to serve as forced labour or be gassed. At the end of the war, Eichmann was captured by the United States (although his identity remained unknown as he used a false name) and placed in a camp for SS officials in Germany. He provided these photographs to Mossad agents on 18 February. [15], A few months after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in January 1933, Eichmann lost his job due to staffing cutbacks at Vacuum Oil. [c] The trial was widely followed in the media and was later the subject of several books, including Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, in which Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to describe Eichmann. Art. [176] In his testimony throughout the trial, Eichmann insisted he had no choice but to follow orders, as he was bound by an oath of loyalty to Hitler—the same superior orders defence used by some defendants in the 1945–1946 Nuremberg trials. Barracks were planned but never completed. I am ready. "[146], Eichmann was taken to a fortified police station at Yagur in Israel, where he spent nine months. These two events represent a microcosm of modern Jewish history. [106] He departed from Genoa by ship on 17 June 1950 and arrived in Buenos Aires on 14 July. Adolf Eichmann or Otto Adolf Eichmann was a SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer or a lieutenant colonel in the German Army who played an important role in organizing the Holocaust in which almost six million Jews from different countries were exterminated. Later published as Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, her articles’ portrayal of Eichmann as banal rather than demonic provoked a storm of debate that lasted for almost a decade. After an unremarkable school career, Eichmann briefly worked for his father's mining company in Austria, where the family had moved in 1914. My nerves aren’t strong enough. [95] In June 1944 Eichmann was involved in negotiations with Rudolf Kasztner that resulted in the rescue of 1,684 people, who were sent by train to safety in Switzerland in exchange for three suitcases full of diamonds, gold, cash, and securities. I die believing in God. [39] Polkes suggested that more Jews should be allowed to leave under the terms of the Haavara Agreement, but Hagen refused, surmising that a strong Jewish presence in Palestine might lead to their founding an independent state, which would run contrary to Reich policy. [120], Harel dispatched Shin Bet chief interrogator Zvi Aharoni to Buenos Aires on 1 March 1960,[121] and he was able to confirm Eichmann's identity after several weeks of investigation. The Final Solution of the Jewish ‘Problem’ was given direction. [64] Hitler continued to mention the Plan until February 1942, when the idea was permanently shelved. Eichmann was captured by the Mossad in Argentina on 11 May 1960 and subsequently found guilty of war crimes in a widely publicised trial in Jerusalem, where he was executed by hanging in 1962. [174], The defence next engaged in a lengthy direct examination of Eichmann. [183] When Hausner produced evidence that Eichmann had stated in 1945 that "I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction", Eichmann said he meant "enemies of the Reich" such as the Soviets. Long live Argentina. [131], Eichmann was taken to one of several Mossad safe houses that had been set up by the team. [127] The agents had arrived in April[128] and observed his routine for many days, noting that he arrived home from work by bus at about the same time every evening. [16] The party platform included the dissolution of the Weimar Republic in Germany, rejection of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism, and anti-Bolshevism. Most of the victims were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, where about 75 per cent were murdered upon arrival. [135], Near midnight on 20 May, Eichmann was sedated by an Israeli doctor on the Mossad team and dressed as a flight attendant. [167] Hausner ignored police recommendations to call only 30 witnesses; only 14 of the witnesses called had seen Eichmann during the war. "[169] Defence attorney Servatius repeatedly tried to curb the presentation of material not directly related to Eichmann, and was mostly successful. He worked as a traveling salesman in Oberösterreich (Upper Austria) for an oil company but lost his job during the Great Depression. [29] He was assigned to study and prepare reports on the Zionist movement and various Jewish organisations. The elder Adolf moved to Linz, Austria, in 1913 to take a position as commercial manager for the Linz Tramway and Electrical Company, and the rest of the family followed a year later. [193] Appeal hearings took place between 22 and 29 March 1962. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Israeli Mossad agents seized him there and smuggled him out of Argentina to stand trial in Israel. [49] On 27 September 1939 the SD and the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo, "Security Police") – the latter comprising the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) and Kriminalpolizei (Kripo) police agencies – were combined into the new Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, "Reich Security Main Office"), which was placed under Heydrich's control. [27][28][e] Eichmann's transfer was granted in November 1934. Adolf Eichmann was found guilty by an Israeli Court and sentenced to death. At stake was not only justice but also honour, as well as an opportunity to educate a new generation about the Holocaust. [114] Eichmann's father died in 1960, and Wiesenthal made arrangements for private detectives to surreptitiously photograph members of the family; Eichmann's brother Otto was said to bear a strong family resemblance and there were no current photos of Eichmann. [53] Meanwhile, as part of Hitler's long-range resettlement plans, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans were being transported into the annexed territories, and ethnic Poles and Jews were being moved further east, particularly into the General Government. Both organisations had known for at least two years that Eichmann was hiding in Argentina, but they did not act because it did not serve their interests in the Cold War. The Nazis began the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and their Jewish policy changed from emigration to extermination. [139], In Argentina, news of the abduction was met with a violent wave of antisemitism carried out by far-right elements, including the Tacuara Nationalist Movement. His last words were, “I had to obey the rules of war and my flag”. [168] Hausner's intention was to not only demonstrate Eichmann's guilt but to present material about the entire Holocaust, thus producing a comprehensive record. [57][58] While Eichmann claimed at his trial to be upset by the appalling conditions on the trains and in the transit camps, his correspondence and documents of the period show that his primary concern was to achieve the deportations economically and with minimal disruption to Germany's ongoing military operations. The execution was prepared to take place at midnight on 31 May but was slightly delayed; Eichmann thus died a few minutes into 1 June. [214] Prominent historians such as Christopher Browning, Deborah Lipstadt, Yaacov Lozowick, and David Cesarani reached a similar conclusion: that Eichmann was not the unthinking bureaucratic functionary that Arendt believed him to be. [115], Lothar Hermann, a half-Jewish German who had emigrated to Argentina in 1938, was also instrumental in exposing Eichmann's identity. On his own initiative, Eichmann also laid plans to deport Jews from Vienna. When Adolf Eichmann’s trial began in a Jerusalem courtroom on April 11, 1961, the world was about to reckon — in an infinitely deeper and more meaningful way than it had before — with the blinding horror of the Nazi genocide. [148] The interrogator was Chief Inspector Avner Less of the national police. [72], To co-ordinate planning for the proposed genocide, Heydrich hosted the Wannsee Conference, which brought together administrative leaders of the Nazi regime on 20 January 1942. Then and Now; ... stress that I am guilty of having been obedient,having subordinated myself to my official duties and the obligations of war service and my oath of allegiance and my oath of office, and in addition, once the war started, there was also martial law. Ultimately, the books were but a small part of the masses of information the staff of Bureau 06 – the special police unit established for the investigation and interrogation of Adolf Eichmann – would collect and verify, translate and catalog in the following nine months. Adolf Eichmann, in full Karl Adolf Eichmann, (born March 19, 1906, Solingen, Germany—died May 31, 1962, Tel Aviv, Israel), German high official who was hanged by the State of Israel for his part in the Holocaust, the Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II. As such, they constituted the foundation for the conviction of a Nazi criminal in a trial that would become a formative event in … As Britain still controlled the Atlantic and her merchant fleet would not be at Germany's disposal for use in evacuations, planning for the Madagascar proposal stalled. Sixty years ago I was assigned by a Brazilian weekly news magazine to cover the trial in Israel of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. [89] Round-ups began on 16 April, and from 14 May, four trains of 3,000 Jews per day left Hungary and travelled to the camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, arriving along a newly built spur line that terminated a few hundred metres away from the gas chambers. [18], On the advice of family friend and local SS leader Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Eichmann joined the Austrian branch of the Nazi Party on 1 April 1932, member number 889,895. He worked as a travelling oil salesman beginning in 1927, and joined both the Nazi Party and the SS in 1932. [7] His parents were Adolf Karl Eichmann, a bookkeeper, and Maria (née Schefferling), a housewife. His family moved to Austria following the … Mossad agent Peter Malkin engaged him, asking him in Spanish if he had a moment. [35], Nazi Germany used violence and economic pressure to encourage Jews to leave Germany of their own volition;[36] around 250,000 of the country's 437,000 Jews emigrated between 1933 and 1939. [165][166], The prosecution case was presented over the course of 56 days, involving hundreds of documents and 112 witnesses (many of them Holocaust survivors). [178] Servatius also proposed that decisions of the Nazi government were acts of state and therefore not subject to normal judicial proceedings. [67] On 31 July, Göring gave Heydrich written authorisation to prepare and submit a plan for a "total solution of the Jewish question" in all territories under German control and to co-ordinate the participation of all involved government organisations. After settling the controversy that arose over this Israeli violation of Argentine law, the Israeli government arranged his trial before a special three-judge court in Jerusalem. The Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann pleaded for his life in a letter to the Israeli President two days before his execution, newly released documents show. [54] Heydrich announced Eichmann to be his "special expert", in charge of arranging for all deportations into occupied Poland. [161] Capital Cities Broadcasting Corporation of the United States obtained exclusive rights to videotape the proceedings for television broadcast. On This Date in 1962, Nazi War Criminal Adolf Eichmann Hanged in Israel ... Of these 75-90 percent were murdered in the gas chambers immediately after arriving in the death camps.