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“I have not been but a loyal, neat, correct, industrious member of the SS and of the main office for security of the “Reich” – not but inspired by ideal feelings for my fatherland I had the honour to belong to. […] Having sat in judgement on myself conscientiously, I cannot but confess to me that I have been neither a murderer nor a mass murderer. […] My subjective attitude to the things that happened was my belief in the necessity of a total war because I could not but trust, to an ever-increasing extent, the omnipresent announcements of the leadership of the German “Reich” of the time – either victory in this total war or decline and fall of the German people. Acting out of this attitude, I embraced the duty I was ordered to do with an easy conscience and a faithful heart.” (Jochen von Lang, “Das Eichmann-Protokoll”. Tape recording of the Israeli questioning. Paul Zsolnay publishers, Vienna 1991, pp. 251-252)
Adolf Eichmann, organiser of the Holocaust and of far-reaching deportation action directed for instance against Sinti and Roma, joined both, the Austrian NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei / National Socialist German Labourers’ Party) and the SS (Schutzstaffel / Security Echelon) already in 1932. When Austria forbade the NSDAP in 1933, Eichmann left for Germany. As early as June 1935, Eichmann found himself in the position of a caseworker in department II 112 of the SD (Sicherheitsdienst / Security Service) and, in this function, came to be responsible e.g. for expediting the emigration of Jews from Germany. After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in March 1938, he was advanced to be SD leader and built up, together with Alois Brunner, the “Central Agency for Jewish Emigration” in Vienna, an office instrumental in expelling Jews now also from Austria. This growth of “expertise” won him the order to set up and develop such an “Emigration Agency” in Prague, too, after Czechia had been annexed in March 1939.
Early in 1940, the main office for security of the “Reich” laid it into Eichmann’s hands to run the affairs of department IV D (Evacuation Affairs and the “Reich’s” central agency for Jewish Emigration) consequentially renamed department IV B 4 (Jewish and Evacuation Affairs) after the legal ban on Jewish emigration action had been passed in October 1941. Adolf Eichmann was primarily responsible for the expulsion of the Jews accompanied by pillage and culminating in their deportation from Germany and the European states occupied by Nazi Germany. With the managing directors of the German railway, he secondly shared in the responsibility to see to the smooth coordination of thousands upon thousands of deportation convoys. After the end of the Second World War in 1945, Eichmann escaped from an American internment camp.
Asher Ben-Natan, Head of the Austrian Escape Aid Organisation “Bricha”, recalled his and his fellow workers’ pursuit of a first clue nourishing their hopes to find Eichmann as early as 1946: “Immediately after the war, the name or person of Adolf Eichmann was virtually meaningless to most survivors, because he had acted in the background – though on an outrageous scale. […] All information on Eichmann available to us was gathered and put in an extra file in September 1946. While holding the hefty ‘File Eichmann’ in my hands, I thought about who could be entrusted with the search. Manus Diamant came to my mind; I had him come and see me asking him: ‘Do you know who Eichmann is?’ Manus started: ‘I have once seen him in Debrecen, and I think he is one of the principal perpetrators we have to search for and find.’ Seeing the zeal in Manus’ eyes, I smiled and said plainly: ‘We want to find Eichmann at all cost.’ […] The tip we were given by an employee of JOINT from Bratislava led us to a former murderous collaborator of Eichmann for a start. Dieter Wisliceny […] was the sort of man one forgot a minute after one had seen him. […] Since then, I have known that the outward appearance of a person is completely irrelevant; a mass murderer may have the looks of a drowsy civil servant. I compelled me to stay quiet and controlled, though knowing that I spoke face-to-face to a murderer of my people. I snapped at him asking my questions in the brief tone of military order, and he stood to attention before me – before me, the Jew! – and answered me, a good boy with his thumbs on his trousers seams. Somehow, I began to feel disgusted!“
Helped by a former lover of Eichmann, the Bricha could get a photo showing him: “Manus arrived in Vienna when it was still night and kept ringing the doorbell to awake me and hand me the photo. I was left speechless when I saw this face which gave the expression of inconspicuousness and strain. A bureaucrat of death. I called the head of the Mossad branch in Paris and had copies of the picture made, we sent the photo to all police stations in Europe and Israel. […] Although Manus and Tuviah remained on the trail of Vera Eichmann after our commission had been dissolved, they could not prevent her and her children from vanishing without trace all of a sudden in 1952. This was the proof that Eichmann was still alive and had gone into hiding. […] In 1961, when Eichmann stood on trial in Israel, we learned that he had hidden out in the Lüneburg heath and posed as a wood cutter, until he managed to escape via Italy to Argentina along the ‘rats’ line’, probably helped by the Vatican. Eichmann lived in Buenos Aires and worked for Daimler-Benz. Following months of observation, the Mossad captured Eichmann in 1960 and abducted him to Israel to bring him to trial there. Thanks to the many people who did not give up and firmly believed it their duty to the dead to pass judgement on him for his misdeeds, he could be found eventually. Tuviah Friedman, Manus Diamant, the German prosecutor Fritz Bauer, Simon Wiesenthal and all survivors who had told us their stories have made their contribution to capturing Eichmann. […] I had been in the courtroom once and witnessed one of the many trial days. But neither could I stand the expression of conceit and smug self-satisfaction in Eichmann’s face, nor the way he tried over and over again to justify his deeds. […] Like most Israelis, I listened to the court proceedings and the final pronouncement of the verdict on the radio because that spared me the sight of Eichmann.” (Asher Ben-Natan, Susanne Urban: Die Bricha: Aus dem Terror nach Eretz Israel. Ein Fluchthelfer erinnert sich, Düsseldorf 2005, pp. 241-250.)
Prior to the trial on Eichmann, Israel – i.e. both, its population and its politicians – did not show much empathy with the special psychological condition of the survivors. Diaspora had turned out a deadly fallacy, so it seemed. The Zionist ideal of an emotionally stable and balanced Israeli was diametrically opposed to the external appearance most survivors arriving in Israel gave. Nonetheless, the Shoah was considered a corporate constituent of the state of Israel right from its foundation – “Such a thing shall never happen to us again!” The dilemma they faced – to build up a state in response to this mass genocide without being able to publicly recollect it – was a deeply moving experience for the survivors. Their trauma turned into an enduring taboo insofar as it took so long a time, up to the trial against Adolf Eichmann in 1961, before they were listened to, before the other Israelis started to comprehend. The first day of the lawsuit against Eichmann marked the beginning of the second phase of Israel’s endeavours to cope with the Shoah – finally and lastingly breaking open the silence and scepticism previously prevailing towards the survivors. Although Eichmann had been abducted from Argentina to Israel in May 1960 already, court proceedings were not instituted until early in April 1961. Gideon Hausner, the Israeli Chief Prosecutor, had been unwilling to base the trial on archival material alone.
“To ensure Eichmann’s condemnation, it would have been sufficient to present the archives, the documents and to have them speak for themselves; a fragment of them would have been enough evidence to sentence Eichmann ten times. – But I knew that we needed more than the persuasive powers of the files; what we needed, was real-life evidence of this gigantic human and national tragedy, even though this can never be more than a remote echo of the true events … I decided to build my argumentation in the case on two pillars instead of one: on documents and eye witnesses reports. I wanted the people in Israel to learn as many facts as possible from the survivors themselves … as many as could legitimately be included in the trial. Coming to know the whole truth on what had happened was indispensable for young people’s psychological strength because it is the recognition of the truth only which will make them understand, reconcile with and accept the past … either born into the state of Israel or having seen the light of day during the combat for the state, most young people had no profound knowledge, and, therefore, failed to comprehend how their own flesh and blood once had perished. There was a deep rift between the generations which might turn into a source of irritation, of antipathy to the Diaspora past. This could only be prevented by enlightenment and knowledge of the facts.”
(Gideon Hausner Justice in Jerusalem, New York 41977, p.291 – retranslation from German into English)
Survivors from every country from which the Nazis had deported Jews were summoned to appear as witnesses of the prosecutor giving an account of persecution and annihilation. The 15th December 1961 saw the trial culminate in the judges’ pronouncing capital punishment on Eichmann.
Documents in the ITS Archives
In many of its departments and sections, the International Tracing Service gives or rather is a picture of what Eichmann and his fellow workers, the German railway (“Reichsbahn”) and all offices and institutions taking active part in the “final solution” scheme – the Holocaust – prepared and performed. Deportation lists from the most various countries, correspondence on deportation schedules, meetings at the “Reichsbahn” and not least the millions of records showing the names of the persons Eichmann had deported to be killed attest to his misdeeds. In addition to these archives, the ITS keeps records on the witnesses of the Eichmann trial.
Selective Literature:
Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem. Ein Bericht von der Banalität des Bösen, Munich 1986.
Gideon Hausner: Gerechtigkeit in Jerusalem, Munich 1967.
Peter Krause: Der Eichmann-Prozess in der deutschen Presse, Frankfurt/Main 2002, Wissenschaftliche Reihe des Fritz Bauer Instituts, Bd. 8.
Jochen von Lang (ed.): Das Eichmann-Protokoll. Tonbandaufzeichnungen der israelischen Verhöre, Jochen von Lang (ed.), Berlin 2001.
Yaakov Lozowick: Hitlers Bürokraten. Eichmann, seine willigen Vollstrecker und die Banalität des Bösen, Zurich 2000.
Harry Mulisch: Strafsache 40/61. Eine Reportage über den Eichmann-Prozess, Berlin 2002.
Hans Safrian: Eichmann und seine Gehilfen, Frankfurt/Main 1995.
Irmtrud Wojak: Eichmanns Memoiren. Ein kritischer Essay, Frankfurt/Main 2001.
Hannah Yablonka, The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann, New York 2004.
Web Tips:
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/ (Transcripts of the trial in English)
http://www.zukunft-braucht-erinnerung.de/nachkriegsdeutschland/die-juristische-aufarbeitung-der-ns-verbrechen/111.html (Summary of the essential trial charges against Eichmann)
Website on the special exhibition on the topography of terror, Berlin, on the Eichmann trial, term of the exhibition: from 6.4. until 18.9.2011:
http://www.topographie.de/topographie-des-terrors/ausstellungen/sonderausstellungen/
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