Notes

Introduction

    1.  Hannah Arendt to Karl Jaspers, February 5, 1961, in Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers: Correspondence: 1926–1969, ed. Lotte Kohler and Hans Saner, trans. Robert and Rita Kimber (San Diego, Calif., 1992), p. 423.

    2.  Answers to questionnaire for Paris Match, May 1962, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/252, p. 38.

    3.  I know of no publication about Eichmann in which this sentence does not appear in one form or another. Seven years ago I was fully convinced of its truth myself. One current example is the extensive study on the German Foreign Office by Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes, and Moshe Zimmermann, Das Amt und die Vergangenheit: Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik (Munich, 2010), p. 604.

    4.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (Amsterdam, 1755), the first few sentences of part two.

    5.  After the end of the war in 1945, some confusion arose about Eichmann’s forenames, and it has stubbornly persisted over the years. His name is, however, clearly verifiable. It appears not only on his birth certificate (BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/236) but also in official documents from the Nazi era—for example, in the records of the Central Office for Race and Settlement (BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, BDC, RuSH record Adolf Eichmann). The name Karl was the result of a conflation of his name with his father’s. Eichmann’s father, who was in the Linz telephone directory, was also a card-carrying member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). Eichmann’s name was also mentioned in Israel in the same breath as his father’s (Adolf, son of Karl Adolf Eichmann), and so the misunderstanding persisted. Not unusually for an eldest son, Eichmann was named after his paternal grandfather.

    6.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 22, written in March 1961 in Israel. The text, which Eichmann wanted to call “On a May Night in 1945,” is quoted from the typescript according to the handwritten pagination. BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247.

    7.  Anyone supposing these details to be literary embellishment can find the proof of their existence in photos taken in Eichmann’s house on June 6, 1960, after he was kidnapped, and published in a number of contemporary magazines (in particular Stern, June 26–July 16, 1960). Other details are taken from the letters written by Eichmann in Israel to his family. Copies in the Israeli National Archive and in BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/165 and 248.

    8.  Eichmann in Jerusalem was first published in New York and London in 1963 (Viking Press). The later, enlarged edition (Penguin, 1994) will be quoted here. German readers initially only had around twenty pages available to them, a shortened version of chapters 2 and 3, published in the journal Merkur. The first German edition of the book appeared in 1964 as Piper Paperback no. 35.

    9.  Hannah Arendt to Mary McCarthy, June 20, 1960, in Arendt and McCarthy, Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy, 1949–1975, ed. Carol Brightman (San Diego, Calif., 1996), pp. 81–82.

  10.  Ibid., p. 82.

“My Name Became a Symbol”

    1.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 22, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247.

    2.  The most recent and striking example is Klaus W. Tolfahrn, Das Dritte Reich und der Holocaust (Frankfurt am Main, 2008). His chap. 4.22, “ ‘Notes on the Trial Against Eichmann,’ ” which is problematic in many respects, states: “The impression Eichmann made on the world’s public rested not least on his unremarkable character and invisibility. Before the war, Eichmann was an invisible SD official, during the war he was an invisible SS officer, after the war a Nazi in hiding and, until the start of the trial, an invisible prisoner in Israel” (p. 359).

1 The Path into the Public Eye

    1.  Here Eichmann was able to use his first-hand knowledge to his advantage: in 1960–61 very little was yet known about the SD. But by the time he applied to the SD in 1934, the organization was already past its start-up phase and listed eighty-six officers besides Heydrich (according to the SS’s organizational chart from October 1, 1934).

    2.  Franz Mayer, witness statement at Eichmann trial, session 17.

    3.  Sassen transcript 24:2 (cited according to the 1957 Sassen discussion, as tape: original pagination).

    4.  In the heads of departments’ meeting of December 18, 1937, Hagen detailed various failings in discipline and organization and set strict deadlines for improvement. Prosecution document T/108.

    5.  Ernst Marcus dates his first encounter with Eichmann at November 1936. The incident he describes, however, must have taken place in November 1937, at the same time as the description of Eichmann’s behavior that follows. So Marcus is incorrect either on the occasion of their first meeting or on the year. Probably he met Eichmann before November 1937, so his date is correct and he has merely confused the occasion. Ernst Marcus, Das deutsche Auswärtige Amt und die Palästinafrage in den Jahren 1933–1939(Yad Vashem Archive O-1/11, 1946); English translation in Yad Washem Studies 2 (1958).

    6.  The surveillance photo was made available for the Eichmann trial, but the file is still classified.

    7.  Joachim Prinz was given a huge send-off on June 26, 1937, when he emigrated to America. Benno Cohn, Frankfurter Rundschau, June 1, 1960; Eichmann trial, session 15. Eichmann described the event in his lecture on November 1, 1937 (published as document 16 in Michael Wildt, Die Judenpolitik des SD 1935–1938: Eine Dokumentation [Munich, 1995], p. 123) and justified his behavior again in Argentina; see “The Others Spoke,” Argentina Papers.

    8.  Otto von Bolschwing denounced Ernst Marcus and Ernst Gottlieb to Eichmann, having eavesdropped on their conversation about him. Eichmann’s reaction can be found in handwritten comments on the letter. Documented and with a commentary by Günter Schubert, “Post für Eichmann,” in Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung 15 (2006), pp. 383–93, facsimile pp. 392–93.

    9.  For the development of the SD and the self-image of those who worked for the Jewish Department, see the introduction from Wildt to, Judenpolitik des SD.

  10.  Eichmann’s handwritten commentary on Bolschwing’s letter: see the facsimile in Schubert, “Post für Eichmann.”

  11.  Progress reports from II 112, in particular that of February 17, 1937; prosecution document T/107.

  12.  Minority status for Jews was repealed on May 15, 1937. Thereafter, on May 22, Eichmann traveled to Breslau to oversee the province’s implementation of anti-Jewish measures and legislation. There he had his first independent experience of registering and creating card indexes for Jews. See progress report July 6–October 5, 1937, BA Koblenz, R58/991, SD Central Office collection, II 112. See also Wildt’s introduction to Judenpolitik des SD, pp. 13–64, esp. p. 34; and David Cesarani, Eichmann: His Life and Crimes (London, 2005), p. 52.

  13.  Eichmann’s contact was Paul Wurm, the editor of Der Stürmer in Berlin. Eichmann accepted Wurm’s invitation (September 2, 1937) after discussion with his superiors (August 3). They hoped that this was the way to gain access to Der Stürmer’s archive “without Gauleiter Streicher’s knowledge.” BA Koblenz, R58/565, note II-1 Six. Eichmann attended the party congress from September 5 to 9, 1937, also meeting Julius Streicher and a group of American anti-Semites who frightened even him. SSHauptscharführer Eichmann’s duty report, II 112 v. 9/11, 1937, prosecution document T/121; identical with BA Koblenz R58/623; discussed in Magnus Brechtken, “Madagaskar für die Juden”: Antisemitische Idee und politische Praxis 1885–1945 (Munich, 1997), pp. 72ff.

  14.  Sassen transcript 62:1.

  15.  This encounter happened between March 15 and 25, 1938; it has not been possible to date it more accurately. There are several descriptions of the incident. Afterward Adolf Böhm had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to the closed ward of a psychiatric hospital. See Doron Rabinovici, Instanzen der Ohnmacht: Wien 1938–1945: Der Weg zum Judenrat (Frankfurt am Main, 2000), pp. 70ff.

  16.  Dr. Jehuda Brott, interview by Herbert Rosenkranz, “Advice Center of the Vienna Youth Alijah,” Jerusalem, March 22, 1977, Yad Vashem Archive O-3/3912; quoted in Herbert Rosenkranz, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung: Die Juden in Österreich, 1938–1945 (Vienna and Munich, 1978), p. 109.

  17.  On December 14, 1939, Eichmann became special plenipotentiary for the assets of the Jewish Religious Community in the Eastern March. “The Reichskommissar’s Directive for the Reunification of Austria with the German Reich,” signed by Bürkel, December 14, 1939, ÖStA, AdR Bürkel-Material, 1762/1,31; quoted in Rosenkranz, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung, pp. 221 and 334.

  18.  See the somewhat one-sided but impressive contrary view, focusing on the role of the Gestapo: Thomas Mang, “Gestapo-Leitstelle Wien—Mein Name ist Huber”: Wer trug die lokale Verantwortung für den Mord an den Juden Wiens? (Münster, 2004).

  19.  Eichmann to Herbert Hagen, May 8, 1938, prosecution document T/130; identical with BA Koblenz, R58/982, folio, pp. 19ff. Twenty-five issues of the newspaper (editor-in-chief Emil Reich) appeared, between May 20 and November 9, 1938. The censor’s direct influence is discernible.

  20.  Dr. Martin Rosenbluth to Dr. Georg Landauer, May 17, 1938, in Deutsches Judentum unter dem Nationalsozialismus, ed. Otto Dov Kulka (Tübingen, 1997), p. 1:381. See also Leo Lauterbach, “The Jewish Situation in Austria. Report Submitted to the Zionist Organization,” strictly confidential, April 19, 1938, quoted in Rosenkranz, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung, pp. 275ff; and Israel Cohen, “Report on Vienna,” Prague, March 28, 1938, ibid., pp. 51ff.

  21.  Israel Cohen in “Report on Vienna.”

  22.  Tom Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (New York, 2010), p. 12.

  23.  Ben-Gurion diary, entry for November 30, 1939, Ben-Gurion Archive, cited ibid., p. 13.

  24.  Short-term requirement of November 11, 1938; conference on November 12, 1938; prosecution documents T/114; identical with IMT 1816-PS (compare with IMT vol. 28, p. 499).

  25.  Bernhard Lösener (Reich Ministry of the Interior and contributor to the “Nuremberg Laws”) agreed to visit, even if his subsequent report misrepresents his own role. Manuscript June 26, 1950, reprinted as “Als Rassereferent im Reichsministerium des Innern,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 9, no. 3 (July 1961), pp. 264–313. There is also evidence of visits by Heydrich and by representatives from the Reich Ministries of Finance and Propaganda.

  26.  Sassen transcript 32:8.

  27.  Sassen transcript 4:3, 60:2, and elsewhere.

  28.  Sassen transcript 32:8.

  29.  SS Gruppenführer Hinkel gave Eichmann a dedicated copy of his book Einer unter 100 000 (One in 100,000) on this occasion, which Eichmann mentioned proudly both to Sassen and in “Meine Memoiren.”

  30.  The work camps at Gut Sandhof (near Waidhofen on the Ybbs) and Doppl (in the Mühltal near Linz) were active from May 1939 to December 1941 and were called “camps for the compulsory re-training of Jews in technical and agricultural jobs.” They were run by staff from the Vienna Central Office. For more on this long-overlooked step in anti-Jewish policy, see Gabriele Anderl’s groundbreaking study “Die ‘Umschulungslager’ Doppl und Sandhof der Wiener Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung,” atwww.david.juden.at/kulturzeitschrift/57-60/58-Anderl.htm (2003 and 2004).

  31.  Eichmann was suspected of paying too high a price when he bought his lover’s real estate; see Anderl, “Die ‘Umschulungslager.’ ”

  32.  Sassen transcript, unnumbered tape, sheet 2. Also 54:12.

  33.  Minutely detailed in Gabriele Anderl and Dirk Rupnow, Die Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung als Beraubungsinstitution (Vienna, 2004); and Theodor Venus and Alexandra-Eileen Wenck, Die Entziehung jüdischen Vermögens im Rahmen der Aktion Gildemeester (Vienna and Munich, 2004).

  34.  Wiener Völkische Beobachter, November 20, 1938 (illustrated Sunday edition).

  35.  Ladislaus Benes, in Pester Loyd, February 11, 1939.

  36.  Benno Cohn, subpoena of representatives of the German Jews in spring 1939 to appear before the Gestapo (Eichmann). Reported to the meeting of the “Circle of German Zionists,” report recorded by Dr. Ball-Kaduri, April 2, 1958, Yad Vashem Archive O-1/215. Transcript of the 1958 meeting published in Kurt Ball-Kaduri, Vor der Katastrophe: Juden in Deutschland 1934–1939 (Tel Aviv, 1967), pp. 235–39. See Rabinovici, Instanzen der Ohnmacht, p. 151, though it incorrectly cites Yad Vashem no. 227 (containing the transcript for the 1940 meeting with Erich Frank). Benno Cohn emigrated at the end of March 1939, as stated in session 14f.

  37.  Many times, according to the Sassen transcript 2:4 and 6:1.

  38.  The Pariser Tageszeitung was the successor to the Pariser Tageblatt, which explains the confusion about this title in the memories of the people involved. The paper was published in German from the start and not, as is occasionally reported, in Yiddish.

  39.  BA Berlin Lichterfelde, ZA I, 7358, A.1, 1 (former NS-archive of the MFS, ministery for state security of the GDR, German Democratic Republic: 15.5(6!), 1937. This relates to a discussion between SS Hauptscharführer Eichmann and SSObercharführerHagen; quoted in Venus and Wenck, Entziehung jüdischen Vermögens, pp. 48ff. Report from Heinrich Schlie to Eichmann and Lischka, March 5, 1939, Yad Vashem Archive O-51/0S0-41; quoted in Avraham Altman and Irene Eber, “Flight to Shanghai, 1938–1940: The Larger Setting,” Yad Vashem Studies 28 (2000), pp. 58–86, esp. p. 59.

  40.  At the first meeting with the Jewish Council in Budapest. Eichmann admitted to Sassen that he had said this “out of a mixture of humor and sarcasm.” Sassen transcript 72:6. The Sassen transcripts are cited according to the original 1957 pagination: (tape number): (page).

  41.  Anton Brunner, statement, October 3, 1945. Anton Brunner was a civilian colleague in the Central Office, unrelated to Alois Brunner; Anton Brunner was executed in Vienna in 1946. DÖW, Document 19 061/2. See Hans Safrian, Eichmann und seine Gehilfen(Frankfurt am Main, 1995).

  42.  Josef Weiszl to his wife Pauline, no date, no place given (Doppl), trial of Josef Weiszl at the District Criminal Court in Vienna, Vg 7c Vr 658/46, File no. 56, from sheet 2567; quoted in Anderl, “Die ‘Umschulungslager.’ ”

  43.  Witness statement from Inheritance, a documentary by James Moll (USA, 2006).

  44.  Sassen transcript 40:1 and 32:8.

  45.  “As I sometimes said to the important Jews, when I had them, something like: ‘Well then, do you know where you are? You’re with the Czar of the Jews. Don’t you know that, didn’t you see the Pariser Tageblatt?!’ ” Sassen transcript 72:16.

  46.  During the Eichmann trial, Benno Cohn recollected the incident for a second time: “He was very upset that we had published something about him in that paper … that he was ‘der Bluthund Eichmann’ (bloodhound Eichmann)—I am using the language used at that time—‘Der Bluthund Eichmann,’ ‘blutunterlaufene Augen’ (blood-shot eyes), ‘ein neuer Feind,’ ‘Judenfeind’ (a new enemy, an enemy of the Jews). I don’t remember all the expressions, but they were very trenchant” (session 15).

  47.  Benno Cohn, witness statement at Eichmann trial, session 14–15.

  48.  Sassen transcript 13:5 and 6:1.

  49.  Contact with the editor of Der Stürmer was motivated by business considerations. It was so uninteresting for II 112 that Eichmann evidently let the contact drop, particularly as he increasingly disagreed with Der Stürmer on the basic tactics for anti-Semitic “reconnaissance.” As a result, Wurm made contact with Franz Rademacher at the Foreign Office and had substantial involvement in the Foreign Office’s Madagascar Plan. See Brechtken, “Madagaskar für die Juden,” p. 72.

  50.  Sassen transcript 6:1.

  51.  Franz Novak, witness testimony for Eichmann trial, April 3–5, 1961. Eichmann had “made a certain name for himself among the Jews.” Novak blamed Eichmann’s contact with functionaries from Jewish organizations for it.

  52.  No one has reconstructed this collection, for any of several possible reasons: the attractive image of the “man in the dark”; the necessary doubts cast on Eichmann’s boasts (if they were noticed in this case); and the fundamental problems of newspaper research. For this section I searched through the following German-language exile papers, from 1938 until they folded: Aufbau (New York), Pariser Tageszeitung (Paris), and Die Zeitung (London). A card index of names and keywords exists for Aufbau,though it is neither complete nor free from errors and requires a creative research approach. For all other newspapers, one has no choice but to read through them. To date, apart from professional information in the official publications, I have found Eichmann’s name in none of the Nazi regime’s newspapers, including Völkischer Beobachter (Berlin and Vienna editions), Das Reich, Der Angriff, and Das Schwarze Korps.

  53.  Sassen transcript 6:1.

  54.  General Alois Eliáš charged Ministerial Adviser Dr. Fahoún with negotiating the “question of the establishment of a Central Office for Jewish Emigration … which Herr Oberfü. Stahlecker and his representative Hstuf. Eichmann had personally communicated to him.” Inventory of the Chair of the Council (PMR), SÚA, box 4018; quoted in Jaroslava Milotová, “Die Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung in Prag: Genesis und Tätigkeit bis zum Anfang des Jahres 1940,” Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente,no. 4 (1997), pp. 7–30, 2.

  55.  Information for the Minister. Memorandum from the conference in Petschek Palais, July 19, 1939, SÚA, PMR, box 4018. Memorandum on the negotiations of the Occupation and Protectorate government regarding the Central Office for Jewish Emigration from July 19, 1939, SÚA, Prague Police Authority collection (PP), shelf mark 7/33/39, box 1903; quoted in Milotová, “Die Zentralstelle.”

  56.  František Weidmann, secretary of the Jewish Community of Prague, was ordered to visit Vienna on July 20, 1939, before the government delegation, “on the instructions of Herr Hauptsturmführer Eichmann.” At the same time, a representative of the Vienna Religious Community was sent to Prague for “training.” Weekly report from the Jewish Community of Prague, covering July 23–29, 1939, prosecution document T/162.

  57.  Stanislav Kokoska, “Zwei unbekannte Berichte aus dem besetzten Prag über die Lage der jüdischen Bevölkerung im Protektorat,” Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente, no. 4 (1997), pp. 31–49.

  58.  Ibid.

  59.  Stiller to the Reichskommissar of the Netherlands, The Hague September 19, 1941, prosecution document T/526. This “achievement” had a lasting reputation: by 1941, two years into the war, the “Central Emigration Offices” were of little importance. Eichmann no longer led them, even if his Jewish Office in Berlin continued to issue directives regarding them.

  60.  Sassen transcript 51:7.

  61.  Such an article appeared on the front page of the Pariser Tageszeitung on October 26, 1939: “The immediate thought, according to a report in ‘Lietuvas Aidas’ [the official news publication of the government of Lithuania], was of establishing a ‘Jewish state’ in the Lublin Voivodeship. But this plan was not the complete ‘solution’ of the Jewish question that Hitler has in mind. His ‘peace program,’ as he announced it in his last speech to the Reichstag, includes a ruling on the Jewish question, and he is thinking of a complete evacuation of the Jews from the whole of Europe, and their resettlement in closed territories overseas.”—Lietuvas Aidas appeals to government circles in Berlin.

  62.  “Transportation to Lublin,” Pariser Tageszeitung, November 18, 1939, p. 2. The article reflects the uncertainty over how to classify the situation and the Nazis’ aims.

  63.  On October 10, 1939, Josef Löwenherz of the Vienna Jewish Religious Community received the instruction from Eichmann’s representative Rolf Günther that Viennese Jews had to report to Eichmann in Ostrava and should prepare for a stay of three or four weeks. Josef Löwenherz, file memorandum on the audience with Herr Obersturmführer Günther at the Central Office for Jewish Emigration on October 10, 1939, prosecution document T/148 (identical copy under T/153).

  64.  The mistake is understandable. When handwritten in capitals, the names EICHMANN and EHRMANN are difficult to tell apart. Pariser Tageszeitung, November 25, 1939.

  65.  On October 19, 1939, Hans Günther noted the “rumors flying around in Ostrava” and the demonstrations. He emphasized they were taking great pains to avoid a riot by holding events to reassure people. Günther’s memorandum, “Rumors in Ostrava,” October 23, 1939, SÚA, 100-653-1; quoted in Miroslav Kárný, “Nisko in der Geschichte der ‘Endlösung,’ ” Judaica Bohemiae 23, no. 2 1987), pp. 69–84, esp. p. 81.

  66.  Prague Jewish Religious Community, weekly report covering November 10–16, 1939, prosecution document T/162.

  67.  Sassen transcript 68:6.

  68.  In order to protect the informant Edelstein, who eventually had to travel back to Prague, no names were mentioned. The article claimed that someone who had escaped from the group of deportees crossing the border into Russia had given them the information. This shows just how precise Edelstein’s knowledge and that of the other observers was: when Nisko failed, the Nazis hounded whole groups of deportees over the nearby Russian border, firing shots after them. The correspondent—also unnamed—was Lewis B. Namier (Bernstein-Namierowski). Compare the complete text of the article, documented by Livia Rothkirchen, “Zur ersten authentischen Nachricht über den Beginn der Vernichtung der europäischen Juden,” Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente, no. 9 (2002), pp. 338–40. This issue also contains a facsimile excerpt from the original article. See also Margalit Shlaim, “Jakob Edelsteins Bemühungen um die Rettung der Juden aus dem Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren von Mai 1939 bis Dezember 1939: Eine Korrespondenzanalyse,” Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente, no. 10 (2003), pp. 71–94.

  69.  Sassen transcript 57:4.

  70.  Eichmann trial, session 27.

  71.  Christoph Hoffmann founded this colony in 1871, after his outlandish settlement plans failed in Turkey. It was not the only Templar settlement in Palestine, but it was particularly tenacious. The British instructed all the German Templars to leave Palestine in 1943. Mildenstein describes his romantically idealized impression in two travel reports: LIM (Mildenstein’s pseudonym), “A Nazi Goes to Palestine,” series of articles in Der Angriff, September 26–October 9, 1934 (book edition: Rings um das brennende Land am Jordan [Berlin, 1938]); and Leopold von Mildenstein, Naher Osten—vom Straßenrand erlebt (Stuttgart, 1941), p. 114.

  72.  There are hints about Sarona in the August 1934 issue of the German journal Palästina: Zeitschrift für den Aufbau Palästinas (edited by Adolf Böhm) and again in December 1937. Kaiser Wilhelm II also visited the colony on his trip to Palestine in 1898, thus assuring it a place in colonial literature.

  73.  Heinrich Grüber, witness statement at Eichmann trial, session 41. For his impression of Eichmann, see also Heinrich Grüber, Zeuge pro Israel (Berlin, 1963).

  74.  Adolf/Dolfi (Daniel) Brunner, 1938 leader of the Maccabees youth organization, remembers many of these conversations. Dr. Daniel Adolf Brunner, taped statement on the “Vienna Maccabi Hatzair,” 1977, Yad Vashem Archive O-3/3914; quoted in Rosenkranz, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung, p. 111

  75.  Murmelstein told Simon Wiesenthal about it. See Wiesenthal to Nahum Goldmann, March 30, 1954, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

  76.  “In the year 1938/39, when Eichmann came into contact with Jewish personalities in Vienna, he wanted to impress them with his knowledge of Palestine and Jewish problems, and his language abilities. He implied he came from Sarona near Haifa, from a German family in the ‘Templar sect,’ and so nobody could ‘pull the wool over his eyes.’ Since then, the rumor has spread through Jewish circles, and Eichmann is always amused by this.” Dieter Wisliceny, “Report on former SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann,” twenty-two-page handwritten paper, Bratislava, October 27, 1946, known as the Cell 133 Document (prosecution document T/84), p. 5. It must be pointed out that Wisliceny is reporting this version from what Eichmann said, since at this time he was not in close contact with him. They began to work together again in late summer 1940. Wisliceny did not have a marked tendency to tell the truth, and when it came to Eichmann, this tendency was hardly discernible.

  77.  Charlotte Salzberger, witness statement at Eichmann trial, session 42.

  78.  “The Man We Are Looking For,” Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für die Britische Zone, January 6, 1947; Simon Wiesenthal, Großmufti—Großagent der Achse (Salzburg and Vienna, 1947), p. 46. The rumor was still being circulated in Tel Aviv even in 1952.

  79.  Wisliceny dates Eichmann’s interest in the Hebrew language to 1935 and appears to give Eichmann’s self-description verbatim: “Since he had a lot of free time, he started to occupy himself with old languages, particularly Hebrew, spurred on by a collection of Jewish cult objects and coins that was in his custody. He acquired this knowledge through independent study. He could read Hebrew well and make reasonable translations. He read and translated Yiddish fluently. He could not, however, speak fluent Hebrew.” Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document (prosecution document T/84), p. 3. Wisliceny also reported that Mildenstein had spent “many years” in Palestine, which underlines both his penchant for grandiloquent exaggerations and his distance from Mildenstein (and thus Eichmann).

  80.  The date that Eichmann gave both in Argentina and in Israel throws up a few problems because of his earlier deployment in the SD and could also be a lie.

  81.  The first application is mentioned in the second. The teacher who recommended himself for the job was Fritz Arlt. See reference to the SD Oberabschnitt Southeast’s initial conversation on July 3, 1936. BA Koblenz, R58/991. See Götz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth, Die restlose Erfassung: Volkszählen, Identifizieren, Aussondern im Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt am Main, 2000); and Hans Christian Harten, Uwe Neirich, and Mattias Schwerendt, Rassehygiene als Erziehungsideologie des Dritten Reichs: Bio-Bibliographisches Handbuch (Berlin, 2006), pp. 238–42.

  82.  Application no. 2, June 18, 1937, prosecution document T/55(11); a better copy under T/55(14), document 13, marked “Betrifft: Übersetzungen neuhebräisch-deutsch.” See also R. M. W. Kempner, Eichmann und Komplizen (Zurich, Stuttgart, and Vienna, 1961), p. 39. The first application in June–July 1936 is mentioned in the second.

  83.  Hebräisch für Jedermann von Dr. S. Kaléko, Buchausgabe des Hebräischen Fern- Unterrichtes der Jüdischen Rundschau: Mit einem Vokabular der 1500 wichtigsten Wörter, Grammatik-Index und Anhang (Berlin, 1936). Published by Verlag Jüdische Rundschau GmbH, the volume is available in a few German libraries, including the National and University Libraries in Hamburg, A1949/7278 (5th ed., 1936). Eichmann was still able to recall the author’s name and the rather odd title during the Sassen interviews. A possible reason is that Saul Kaléko taught Hebrew in Berlin until 1938: Saul Kaléko (Barkali Shaul), Teaching Hebrew in Berlin, 1933–1938 (1957), Yad Vashem Archive O-1/132; another possible reason is that his book was advertised in theJüdische Rundschau, which also published selected lessons.

  84.  Simon Wiesenthal to Nahum Goldmann, March 30, 1954, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. Wiesenthal’s source is Benjamin Murmelstein.

  85.  Dolfi Brunner (leader of the Maccabi Hazair, who encountered Eichmann several times in Vienna) and Ernö Munkácsis (of the Budapest Jewish Council) were convinced that Eichmann was just using set phrases to show off. Dr. Daniel Adolf Brunner, “Vienna Maccabi Hazair,” audio recording, Jaffa, 1977, Yad Vashem Archive O-3/3914, quoted in Rosenkranz, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung; and Dr. Ernö Munkácsis, statement, in Eichmann in Ungarn: Dokumente, ed. Jenö Levai (Budapest, 1961), p. 211.

  86.  Sassen transcript 2:4.

  87.  Otto Bokisch and Gustav Zirbs, Der Österreichische Legionär: Aus Erinnerungen und Archiv, aus Tagebüchern und Blättern (Vienna, 1940), p. 37.

  88.  Sassen transcript 22:14.

  89.  Werner Best uses the phrase “Dienststelle Eichmann” (Eichmann’s office) in his sworn statement of June 28, 1946: “Himmler [had] his own leader from Eichmann’s office—Günther—come out from Berlin.” Documents from the Nuremberg Trials IMT vol. 41, p. 166 (Ribbentrop-320). See also Thadden (Foreign Office) in IMT 2605-PS.

  90.  Rudolf Mildner, affidavit, read out on April 11, 1946, IMT vol. 11, p. 284.

  91.  Sassen transcript 14:2.

  92.  Prof. Dr. August Hirt, Strasbourg University, wanted the collection and persuaded Eichmann to organize this project with the WVHA (the Main Economic and Administrative Office of the SS), via Wolfram Sievers of the Ahnenerbe think tank, whom Eichmann had helped with “Aryanization” measures in 1941. Prosecution document T/1363-1370. The idea for the collection came in February 1942. Eichmann petitioned for an official assignment from Himmler in November 1942, and received it.

  93.  The old Madagascar idea was taken up again by Franz Rademacher in the Foreign Office, working with Paul Wurm. Eichmann’s office became involved only when Heydrich began to fear for his own influence in Jewish policy, and the work was then delegated to Theodor Dannecker and Erich Rajakowitsch. The fact that everyone involved afterward gave a different version of events is one of the most compelling examples of witness statements not necessarily being truthful just because they corroborate one another.

  94.  Stiller to the Reichskommissar of the Netherlands, The Hague, September 19, 1941, prosecution document T/526. In the letter he discusses his conversation with Lösener from the Reich Home Office on that day.

  95.  The Germans tried in vain to keep the deportation of thousands of Jews to the General Government of occupied Poland confidential; information still reached the rest of the world. Internal information on the February 15, 1940, press conference for German representatives: the news of thousands of Jews transported to the General Government is correct “but is to be treated as confidential.” Prosecution document T/667; identical with IMT NG-4698. On February 15, 1940, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung’s Berlin correspondent reported on what was happening, and on February 17 the Danish newspaper Politiken published an alarming article on the inhuman deportations from Szczecin: “Germany deports nationals. Old people and toddlers are being deported—to nowhere. As are frontline soldiers from the World War.” There were numerous deaths, and even President Roosevelt requested a report. The Germans closely monitored the subsequent press, and translations were prepared. German Translation of the Danish Report for use in the RSHA, IMT NG-1530: Bern German News agency to the Foreign Office with the Swiss Press, February 16, 1940, prosecution document T/666.

  96.  Ephraim (Erich) Frank, report on the “Representatives of the Jewish Umbrella Organizations in Berlin, Vienna and Prague, Before the Gestapo in Berlin (Eichmann), March 1940,” given in the meeting of the circle of German Zionists on June 23, 1958, transcribed by Dr. Ball-Kaduri, Yad Vashem Archive O-1/227; published as document 2 (though under the wrong heading and thus the wrong date for the transcript) in Kurt Jacob Ball-Kaduri, “Illegale Judenauswanderung aus Deutschland nach Palästina 1939/40: Planung, Durchführung und internationale Zusammenhange,” Jahrbuch des Instituts für deutsche Geschichte 4 (1975), pp. 387–421. There are several reports from attendees at the discussions on March 27 and 30, 1940, as well as the (also incorrectly dated) Löwenherz-Bienenfeld Report, prosecution document T/154.

  97.  Sassen transcript 2:4 and 6:1.

  98.  Correspondence on the exhibition: Archiwum Głównej Komisji Badania, Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce (AGK, Archive of the Main Committee for the Study of Nazi Crimes in Poland), EWZ/L/838/1/2. BA Koblenz 69/554. See also Götz Aly,“Endlösung”: Völkerverschiebung und der Mord an den europäischen Juden (Frankfurt am Main, 1995), p. 250. Photos of many of the displays are still extant.

  99.  On October 28 Die Zeitung referred to the same source, reporting that “on October 21 the third transport of around 800 Jews left Grunewald Freight Railroad Terminal for the east. On the same day, the Jewish Emigration Office in Kurfürstenstraße was closed, with no reason given for the closure.”

100.  In conversation with Sassen, Eichmann made a joke of the fact that someone had taken him for a general. In Israel, he called it a malicious exaggeration.

101.  Quoted in Peter Longerich, Politik der Vernichtung: Eine Gesamtdarstellung der nationalsozialistischen Judenvernichtung (Zurich and Munich, 1998), p. 282.

102.  Minutes of the meeting on March 20, 1941, prepared on March 21, Reichsring Main Office for National Socialist Propaganda, published in H. G. Adler, Der verwaltete Mensch: Studien zur Deportation der Juden aus Deutschland (Tübingen, 1974), pp. 152–53.

103.  “Expulsions in the Reich,” Aufbau, October 24, 1941. Zvi Rosen found the article in the Horkheimer Archive. See Zvi Rosen, Max Horkheimer (Munich, 1995), p. 40.

104.  The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, ed. Elke Fröhlich, commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary History, with support from the Russian National Archive Service (Munich, 1996), pt. 2, vol. 2, p. 194.

105.  There were documented deportations from Berlin in 1941 on October 18 and 24, November 1, 14, 17, and 27.

106.  “I can’t recall exactly now: either I coined it, or it came from Müller.” Sassen transcript 1:4.

107.  Göring’s edict of July 31, 1941, tasked Heydrich with developing the “complete solution to the Jewish question,” which Heydrich then used to legitimate decisions such as those taken at the Wannsee Conference. “After this [edict] Eichmann’s power in this area [Jews] grew exponentially. He was able to use this edict to brush aside all objections and influences from other ministries and officials.” Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document (prosecution document T/84). This is Wisliceny’s version of events, in a statement made in his own defense, but Eichmann’s typical tone can be heard clearly in his words. It sounds very much like Eichmann explaining to Sassen why the Wannsee Conference was such a turning point for him personally. The same tone can even be heard inIsrael, where he tries to relate the relief the conference brought to his newly discovered conscience.

108.  Sassen transcript 17:8.

109.  Lead story in Die Zeitung (London), March 6, 1942.

110.  New York Times and Daily Telegraph (June 25, 1942), and BBC (June 30, 1942). Mass murder by gas, and the first suggestion of collecting the perpetrators’ names, were reported in the Times (London), (March 10, 1942).

111.  Die Zeitung (London), June 19, 1942. After the Baum group’s attack on the propaganda exhibition The Soviet Paradise in Berlin, there were mass arrests and shootings of the attackers. Eichmann informed the representatives of Jewish organizations about the Nazis’ retaliation and organized the transports to Sachsenhausen. Documents corroborate Eichmann’s admission in Argentina. Sassen transcript 69:1f. Josef Löwenherz, memo on the hearing with the RSHA, IV B 4, May 19, 1942, prosecution document T/899. See Wolfgang Scheffler, “Der Brandanschlag im Berliner Lustgarten im Mai 1942 und seine Folgen: Eine quellenkritische Betrachtung,” in Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Jahrbuch des Landesarchivs Berlin (1984), pp. 91–118.

112.  Newsweek, August 10, 1942.

113.  Eichmann decided that “Kindertransports can roll”: Dannecker’s note on July 21, 1942, about a phone call with Eichmann and Novak on July 20, prosecution document T/439; identical with IMT RF-1233. Published in Serge Klarsfeld, Vichy–Auschwitz: Die Zusammenarbeit der deutschen und französischen Behörden bei der “Endlösung der Judenfrage” in Frankreich, new ed. (Darmstadt, 2007), p. 441. Facsimile in Kempner, Eichmann, p. 212. Press reports: Paris Soir, August 19–20, 1942; and “Children’s Fates,” Die Zeitung (London), September 4, 1942.

114.  Jewish Frontier, November 1, 1942.

115.  New York Herald Tribune, November 25, 1942; and New York Times, November 26, 1942, where Rabbi Stephen S. Wise warns of the possibility of four million deaths. See also New York Times, December 2 and 4, 1942.

116.  Survivors’ reports bear nightmarish witness to these moments of recognition. This image of Eichmann emerges in particular from the moving recollections of Leo Baeck, Benjamin Murmelstein, Joel Brand, and Rudolf Kasztner, who all wrestle with their own feelings of guilt and their entanglement in the catastrophe.

117.  After Himmler’s visit to Auschwitz, Special Unit 1005, under Paul Blobel, was tasked with searching for suitable methods. The special unit was housed in Eichmann’s building and remunerated through Eichmann’s office payroll, about which Eichmann complained several times in Argentina.

118.  Dieter Wisliceny, “Re: Editor in Chief of the ‘Grenzbote,’ Fritz Fialla [sic],” handwritten note, July 26, 1946, Bratislava; prosecution document T/1107. Wisliceny’s version seems credible, though not because it corroborates Eichmann’s. It is impossible to verify statements by comparing them with Eichmann’s: he simply corroborated other people’s lies if he thought they might exonerate him. The Madagascar case is one example of a tangle of lies and false corroborations that resulted in the falsification of the whole history of the affair. The tangle is masterfully unraveled in Brechtken, “Madagaskar für die Juden.” Rademacher claimed it was Eichmann, not he, who came up with the idea, although the work on the Madagascar Plan can be clearly traced back to Rademacher. Eichmann agreed with the lie, because the legend that he came up with a plan for a Jewish state, rather than just deporting Poles and Jews to Eastern Europe, was significantly better than the truth for his self-image. The stories are a perfect match but are some considerable distance from the truth. There are many documented examples of Eichmann’s use of the lies other people told in their defense.

119.  Eichmann is proved to have been with Himmler on August 11, 1942, but it is not known whether they spoke about the Fiala reports on this occasion. Heinrich Himmler’s Appointment Diary, entry for August 11, 1942.

120.  Himmler visited Prague on July 6–7, 1942. Heinrich Himmler’s Appointment Diary, p. 606. The first article appeared on July 7, 1942.

121.  Der Grenzbote—deutsches Tagblatt für die Karpatenländer, nos. 301, 302, and 304, Bratislava, November 7, 8, and 10, 1942.

122.  Eichmann to Thadden, June 2, 1943, prosecution document T/1108. Eichmann mentions Slovak, Sklovenská politika: Gardiete, Magyar Hirlap, and Pariser Zeitung, as confirmed by all witnesses (including those for the prosecution).

123.  The first reports were broadcast on the radio news from London on March 3, 1942. Print media followed, with the usual delay. See, for example, the front-page story “New Ghetto Policy: Theresienstadt in Place of Lublin—The Martyrdom of Jews in the Protectorate” in Die Zeitung (London), March 6, 1942:

Neutral correspondents in Berlin bring news of Himmler and Heydrich’s new plan, to send all the Jews still living in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to the fortress town of Theresienstadt, whose population is to be evacuated. The town will be turned into a large ghetto. This plan signals a change in the original Jewish policy of the “Third Reich,” resulting from the new situation. The vision of the original plan was to transport all Jews from Germany and German-occupied areas to Eastern Poland, where they would live in large concentration-camp ghettoes as slave laborers.—The Jewish center of Lublin was one of the first results of this diabolical plan. The Nazis banked on the unaccustomed hard work and insufficient food supplies decimating Europe’s uprooted Jewish population in short order. The remainder—if indeed there was a remainder after the end of the war—would be taken to a Jewish reservation overseas, along with the Jews from the rest of the German-enslaved world. The island of Madagascar was provisionally earmarked for this.

124.  Walter George Hartmann from the German Red Cross wrote a fundamentally positive report after the visit on June 28, 1943. Memo on the organizational course of the visit to Theresienstadt, June 30, 1943, Hartmann, Deutsches Rotes Kreuz Archiv, 176/I. See Birgitt Morgenbrod and Stephanie Merkenich, Das Deutsche Rote Kreuz unter der NS-Diktatur 1933–1945 (Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, and Zurich, 2008), pp. 386ff. In the days following, however, he gave a different opinion of this visit to André de Pilar: “The situation in the ghetto is appalling. There is a shortage of everything. The people are terribly malnourished,” and the medical supplies were “entirely insufficient.” But Hartmann still fell for the event’s most important propaganda lie and referred to Theresienstadt even to Pilar as a “terminus camp,” which was reassuring. Gerhart Riegner, World Jewish Congress, notes on his conversation with André de Pilar, July 7, 1943, prosecution document T/853.

125.  “Theresienstadt: A ‘Model Ghetto,’ ” Aufbau, August 27, 1943, based on an article by Alfred Joachim Fischer in Free Europe (London), June 1943.

126.  Aufbau, September 3, 1943, p. 21.

127.  Hannah Arendt, “The True Reasons for Theresienstadt,” Aufbau, September 3, 1943, p. 21.

128.  “Heydekampf Report” on the visit on June 23, 1944; held with the written correspondence on the organization in the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz Archiv, 176/I. See Morgenbrod and Merkenich, Deutsche Rote Kreuz, pp. 390ff. Maurice Rossel, the International Red Cross delegate, wrote a blindly naïve report that fulfilled the organizer’s wishes. Eichmann’s colleagues had managed to get a look at this report by September 22, 1944.

129.  In her impressive book, Leni Yahil sees a connection between the rumors of mass murders and the attempt to hide evidence. Die Shoah: Überlebenskampf und Vernichtung der europäischen Juden (Munich, 1998), pp. 610ff.

130.  Sassen transcript 32:8.

131.  See Bettina Stangneth, “Dienstliche Aufenthaltsorte Adolf Eichmanns, 12.3.1938 bis Mai 1945,” annotated list for the special exhibition Facing Justice: Adolf Eichmann on Trial, Topography of Terror and Memorial Foundation, Berlin, July 2010 (unpublished).

132.  Sassen transcript 3:5.

133.  Sassen transcript 11:13.

134.  Sassen transcript 22:14.

135.  Eichmann’s extreme reaction to the failed deportations in Denmark has still not been adequately explained. He was with Himmler on September 24, 1943, shortly before the campaign was due to begin, so the possibility that he might have supported it himself cannot be ruled out. Tatiana Brustin-Berenstein, “The Attempt to Deport the Danish Jews,” Yad Vashem Studies 17 (1986), p. 191, quotes the microfilm of pages from Himmler’s diary (Washington; originals in BA Koblenz, September 24, 1943, MF 84/25). According to Thadden’s statement (April 16, 1948), Rolf Günther had told him in confidence that the campaign was “being sabotaged by German offices, presumably the embassy.” “Eichmann had already reported to the Reichsführer and wanted the head of the saboteur.” Eberhard von Thadden, affidavit, Nuremberg, April 16, 1948, prosecution document T/584.

136.  Wilhelm Höttl and Dieter Wisliceny—evidently having colluded while they were in jail in Nuremberg—claimed that Eichmann reacted aggressively toward photographers, even smashing their cameras in the heat of the moment, though he paid for the damage afterward. The collection of photos of Eichmann from earlier years is, for the period, very extensive.

137.  Klaus Eichmann, “My Father Adolf Eichmann,” Parade, March 19, 1961.

138.  Bernard Lösener referred in detail to these bully-boy tactics. See Lösener, “Als Rassereferent im Reichsministerium des Innern,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 9, no. 3 (July 1961), pp. 264–313.

139.  There is no independent source for Eichmann’s claim. He told Sassen that Wolff had tried to push through an exception to the deportations, but he had vehemently refused, citing some basic considerations: “So in this case I had to countermand him, and when he said that I was SS Obstubaf. and he was SS Ogrf. [a more senior rank], I said yes indeed, I know that Ogrf., but may I remind you that you are attached to the Gestapo and you are speaking to an adviser to the Secret Police, Ostf. Eichmann.” Eichmann then challenged Wolff to a duel, but Himmler did not allow it. Sassen transcript 14:8–9. The fact that Ludolf von Alvensleben, long a close friend of Wolff’s, also belonged to the Sassen group increases the story’s plausibility.

140.  Wisliceny reports by turns that either he or Eichmann was Himmler’s brother-in-law, or that Eichmann claimed either he or Wisliceny was connected to power in this way. Der Kasztner-Bericht über Eichmanns Menschenhandel in Ungarn (Munich, 1961) (in fact, the report of the Jewish Rescue Committee from Budapest, 1942–45), hereafter cited as the Kasztner Report; and Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84.

141.  The few existing accounts of this affair follow either Wisliceny’s contradictory version or the statement Eichmann gave in his interrogation, sometimes without mentioning these highly dubious sources. For example, Klaus Gensicke, Der Mufti von Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini und die Nationalsozialisten (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), esp. pp. 164–67, which relies entirely on the interrogation. Martin Cüppers and Klaus-Michael Mallmann, “ ‘Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine’: The Einsatzkommando of the Panzer Army Africa, 1942,” Yad Vashem Studies 35 (2007), pp. 111–41, base their account uncritically on Wisliceny’s, which is a surprising feature of their otherwise impressive work. See also Zvi Elpeleg, The Grand Mufti: Haj Amin al-Husseini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement (London, 1993). Even Wiesenthal, Großmufti—Großagent der Achse, remarkable in many other aspects, largely follows Wisliceny, again without revealing this source (pp. 37ff). He also conducted a conversation with Kasztner, from whom he heard Eichmann’s Hungarian story.

142.  Adolf Eichmann on II-1, Re: Foreign travels, September 1, 1939, BA Koblenz, R58/523, folio 23; identical with Yad Vashem Archive, M-38/194.

143.  The meetings were the subject of colorful press coverage, starting with the Wochenschau and the Völkische Beobachter.

144.  Jeffrey Herf, “Hitlers Dschihad,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 58 (April 2010), pp. 258–86.

145.  Kurt Fischer-Werth, Amin Al-Husseini: Großmufti von Palästina (Berlin-Friedenau, 1943), with a color cover image featuring an unmistakable portrait of al-Husseini.

146.  Fritz Grobba (Foreign Office), annotation, July 17, 1942, PA AA, R100 702 C/M, p. 153.

147.  Suhr’s secretary witnessed this meeting. Margarethe Reichert, hearing, October 17, 1967, BA Ludwigsburg, B 162/4172, sheet 296.

148.  Four-page handwritten report “Re: Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,” Bratislava, July 26, 1946 (prosecution document T/89) and Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document (prosecution document T/84).

149.  Moshe Pearlman, The Capture of Adolf Eichmann (London, 1961), p. 98.

150.  Andrej Steiner, statement, corroborated by his colleagues Oskar Neumann and Tibor Kovac, Bratislava, February 6, 1946. Wisliceny’s commentary of March 5, 1946, quoted next, is handwritten on the transcript of the statement; prosecution document T/1117.

151.  Al-Husseini protested to Ribbentrop on May 13, 1943, and wrote to the Hungarian and Romanian foreign ministers. Documented in Gerhard Hoepp, Mufti-Papiere: Briefe, Memoranden, Reden und Aufsätze Amin al Husseinis aus dem Exil 1940–1945(Berlin, 2004), documents 78, 82, 83.

152.  We now know that al-Husseini’s source of information was not Eichmann but a contact in London.

153.  One route these lies took was from Eichmann to Wisliceny to Kasztner (passing into the history books via Kasztner’s postwar conversations with Simon Wiesenthal). This is evident from the word-for-word agreement between Wisliceny’s unpublished reports and Wiesenthal’s early texts. Another route went via the Foreign Office. Kasztner Report, p. 115.

154.  The contact he claimed to have with Chief of the Abwehr (German military intelligence service) Wilhelm Canaris is one example.

155.  “Meine Memoiren,” p. 119.

156.  Interrogation, pp. 564ff.

157.  On March 25, 1944, al-Husseini noted in his diary, in Arabic, that he wanted to meet the “expert in Jewish matters.” On September 29, 1944, there is another Arabic entry: “Topic: the Jews of Italy, France and Hungary. And who is the expert on Jewish matters?” The entry containing Eichmann’s name, on November 9, 1944, is noted in painstakingly produced Latin characters. We can assume from this that someone had answered al-Husseini’s question. The interpretation of this entry is still suspect, but it does allow us to tentatively conclude that Eichmann had not made enough of an impression on al-Husseini in January 1942 for the grand mufti to remember his name. Facsimiles of all the relevant pages can be found in the trial papers. Prosecution document T/1267-69; enlarged, T/1394.

158.  Gerhard Lehfeldt, “Bericht über die Lage von ‘Mischlingen’ ” (Berlin, mid-March 1943), in Berlin, Rosenstraße 2-4: Protest in der NS-Diktatur: Neue Forschungen zum Frauenprotest in der Rosenstraße 1943, ed. Antonia Leugers (Annweiler, 2005), as document 6, pp. 233–38; here p. 235. On the background, see Nathan Stoltzfus, “Heikle Enthüllungen. Gerhard Lehfeldts Bericht an Kirchenfürsten beider Konfessionen über den Massenmord an den Juden Europas,” ibid., pp. 145–80.

159.  Eichmann spoke about Günther at length in Argentina, explaining that Günther had used his absence to push through death sentences against Eichmann’s Jewish contacts whom Eichmann had wanted to spare for tactical reasons. But since Eichmann assumed Günther was still alive, he asked Sassen to remove this transcript. It is missing from the Hagag version and from the original transcript (Eichmann Estate). The page is now in BA Ludwigsburg, “Miscellaneous” folder. See “Aftermath” in this book.

160.  The fact that the witnesses had the opportunity to discuss their statements with one another in Nuremberg, and to get their stories straight, explains some of the extraordinary parallels in what they said later. There was contact between Höttl, Kaltenbrunner, Wisliceny, Wilhelm Bruno Waneck, and later Rudolf Jänisch, as reciprocally evidenced by their statements. There was a similar connection between Hans Jüttner, Otto Winkelmann, and Kurt Becher.

161.  For Eichmann’s first appearance in Hungary, see the stenographic transcript of his speech to the Jewish representatives on March 31, 1944, prosecution document T/1156.

162.  Sassen transcript 9:10. Eichmann liked this phrase and used it often. See 10:6 and 33:8.

163.  Sassen transcript 9:4.

164.  Kasztner Report, p. 110. Joel Brand gives a similar quote, but this one is taken from Kasztner.

165.  Ibid., p. 244.

166.  Eichmann made such dire threats to Raoul Wallenberg that there was a diplomatic protest in Berlin, which the Foreign Office smoothed over for Eichmann. Shortly afterward one of Wallenberg’s employees died in an attack on his official car, and the Hungarians saw a probable connection between the attack and Eichmann’s threats. Foreign Office to Edmund Veesenmayer, December 17, 1944, prosecution document T/1232. BA Koblenz, Blue volumes, Dokumente des UD zu Wallenberg von 1944–1965,49 vols., no. 800-2: telegram no. 438 of October 22, 1944. See Christoph Gann, Raoul Wallenberg: So viele Menschen retten wie möglich (Munich, 1999), p. 126. Based on the memories of Elisabeth Szel, who was married to one of Wallenberg’s chauffeurs. From a report by Eric Sjöquist. See Bernt Schiller, Raoul Wallenberg: Das Ende einer Legende (Berlin, 1993), pp. 97ff.

167.  Kasztner Report, pp. 135ff.

168.  Wisliceny reported to Kasztner, “Eichmann is afraid of a new scandal,” ibid., p. 295.

169.  “As Eichmann confessed to me himself in Hungary, this plan came from him and Globicnig … and was suggested to Himmler by him. Hitler then gave the order personally.” Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document (prosecution document T/84), p. 8.

170.  Sassen transcript 34:6.

171.  Der Weg: Zeitschrift für Fragen des Judentums (Berlin) 1, no. 26 (August 16, 1946).

172.  Kasztner Report, p. 139.

173.  Ibid., p. 178, and later in the prison notes.

174.  At the end of 1944, Wisliceny even claimed that Eichmann had been dismissed and that he, Wisliceny, had been made the inspector of Theresienstadt, to protect the Jews—two lies he tried unsuccessfully to deny in Bratislava. Kasztner Report, Wisliceny commentary, March 25, 1947, prosecution document T/1116.

175.  As early as May 3, 1944, Wisliceny claimed that Eichmann had “cut him off” because of his overly close personal contacts with Jews, but this was a lie. Kasztner Report, p. 85. In the fall of that year, he claimed: “I tried to intervene to help stop the unhappy foot-march out of Budapest. But it was unbelievably difficult to do even the smallest thing against Eichmann.” Ibid., p. 274.

176.  Sassen transcript 12:6–7.

177.  Kurt Becher avoided punishment thanks to an affidavit from Rudolf (Rezsö) Kasztner, having managed to play the role of helper convincingly. Kasztner’s support of him was taken badly, but in 1947 he was clearly still not in a position to recognize how Becher had entrapped him. And he was by no means alone in this regard: in 1955, Andreas Biss, Alex Weissberg, and Joel Brand were still trying to secure Becher’s cooperation on a book. Kurt Becher, statement for Eichmann’s trial, Bremen, June 20, 1961. Becher’s image cultivation clearly functioned better than Eichmann’s.

178.  For instance, Laszlo Ferenczy, who as head of the Hungarian police force was substantially involved in all anti-Jewish measures, He explained to Kasztner that he was terribly afraid of Eichmann. Kasztner Report, p. 155.

179.  Ibid., p. 62.

180.  Brand was held in Cairo from June 12, 1943, to January 5, 1944. The interrogation of Bandi Grosz, who traveled with him, was submitted to London on July 13, 1944.

181.  The cover was blown on Joel Brand’s mission after only a short time. On July 18, 1944, a flood of radio reports and newspaper articles appeared. Translations were published in Hungary by July 19. Public opinion was disastrous (prosecution document T/1190). The New York Times headline on the same day was “A Monstrous ‘Offer’: German Blackmail. Bartering Jews for Munitions.” See also New York Herald Tribune, July 19.

182.  Shlomo Aronson, “Preparations for the Nuremberg Trial: The O.S.S., Charles Dwork, and the Holocaust,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 12, no. 2 (1998), pp. 257–81.

183.  Sassen transcript 73:8.

184.  Wilhelm Höttl, statement for Eichmann’s trial, Altaussee, May 26, 1961.

185.  Sassen transcript 49:8.

186.  Horst Theodor Grell, statements for Eichmann’s trial, Berchtesgaden, May 23, 1961. See also IMT NG-2190.

187.  Presenting the list, Ben-Gurion called Eichmann the “worst and most dangerous of all war criminals,” and Wiesenthal used the phrase “number-one enemy of the Jews.” Wiesenthal, Großmufti—Großagent der Achse, p. 46.

188.  Sassen transcript 25:5.

189.  Stefan Hördler, “Die Schlussphase des Konzentrationslagers Ravensbrück. Personalpolitik und Vernichtung,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 56, no. 3 (2008), pp. 222–48, especially p. 244. Hördler corrects the assumption that the final mass murder using gas was committed on March 30–31, 1945, after which the gas chambers were dismantled. According to his investigation, the mass killings ended between April 15 and April 24, 1945, since Moll’s mobile Sonderkommando was also being used in Ravensbrück.

190.  Charlotte Salzberger, witness statement at Eichmann trial, session 42. Frau Salzberger dated this interrogation as March 3, 1945. She quoted Eichmann in German at his trial, eliciting one of the few visible reactions from him.

191.  Rumors about the building of gas chambers in Theresienstadt led back to Eichmann (not least due to Wisliceny’s statement about him to Kasztner). Afterward Eichmann referred to Majdanek, which he had been accused of maintaining, and said this would not happen to him again. Kasztner Report. H. G. Adler assumes that these plans did exist but that Eichmann was forced to withdraw them: Theresienstadt, 1941–1945: Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft (Tübingen, 1960), p. 201. At the start of March, Eichmann called a halt to the preparations for extermination and led a second round of “beautification.” Adler, Der verwaltete Mensch, p. 354. Moritz Henschel also mentioned these plans in “Die letzten Jahre der Jüdischen Gemeinde Berlin,” lecture in Tel Aviv, September 13, 1946, extract in prosecution document T/649.

192.  “L’activité des CICR dans les Camps de Concentration en Allemagne,” prosecution document T/865. A heavily abridged version was published in Jean-Claude Favez, The Red Cross and the Holocaust (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 305–6. See also attendee list for the event, prosecution document T/866. The visit was supervised by Ernst von Thadden (of the Foreign Office), Erich von Luckwald, and Erwin Weinmann (head of the SD in Bohemia and Moravia). The evening reception took place in the Hradčany castle district at the house of Reichsprotektor Karl-Hermann Frank.

193.  Wisliceny and Eichmann both spoke about the promotion to SS Standartenführer that Eichmann had been offered. Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84, p. 8; Sassen transcript 4:5.

194.  Sassen transcript 11:11. In an earlier transcript, Eichmann spoke of “30 Eichmanns,” Sassen transcript 3:1.

195.  Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84, p. 14. Wisliceny spoke in detail about the story Eichmann told, and about comparable information given to him by Höttl in Nuremberg, regarding a conversation he had had with Eichmann.

196.  Eichmann gave this version of events several times, and it was corroborated at least on this point by the testimonies of Zeischka, Goettsch, and Waneck. June 17, 1946, information date April 1945, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

2 The Postwar Career of a Name

    1.  CIC Report, June 17, 1946, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

    2.  Facsimile in Manus Diamant, Geheimauftrag: Mission Eichmann (Vienna, 1995), p. 224. Also in Simon Wiesenthal, Ich jagte Eichmann: Tatsachenbericht (Gütersloh, 1961), p. 25.

    3.  Robinson to Jackson, July 27, 1945, World Jewish Congress Collection (MS-361), American Jewish Archives, box C106, file 16; cited in Tom Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (New York, 2010), p. 13.

    4.  Arrest Report Wisliceny, Dieter, August 25 and 27, 1945, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

    5.  Arrest warrant in Staatspolizei Fahndungsblatt, under the terms of article 1654/46 (1946), paragraphs 3 and 4, KVG (Kriegsverbrechergesetz Österreich). The proceedings were unsuccessful, but the file was made available to Fritz Bauer in Frankfurt ten years later.

    6.  One part was made available according to the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act 1998, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann, box 14–15.

    7.  In the Paris 1945 edition (unpaginated), Kiel University Library. The Berlin, March 1947, edition, mentioned Eichmann seven times (once as Eickmann) and said he was wanted in the United States and France for war crimes, murder, and torture.

    8.  Sassen transcript 10:17.

    9.  Adolf Karl Barth had been the name of a colonial goods merchant in Berlin, Eichmann later said. In Ulm, Eichmann claimed to be a Luftwaffe Obergefreiter, and when he was transferred to the collecting camp at Weiden, Oberpfalz (Stalag Xiii B), he said he was an SS Oberscharführer in the Waffen-SS. See “The Others Spoke,” in the Argentina Papers. The transfer to Oberdachstetten in Bavaria followed, in August 1945. The first reference to the name Eckmann comes from a witness statement from June 1945: interrogation of Rudolf Schneide by L. Ponger, Yad Vashem Archive, M-9, file 584a. The statement is also in the relevant CIC report from December 3, 1946, NA, RG 319, Investigative Records Repository, Adolf Eichmann.

  10.  Sassen interview, BA tape 10B, starting at 1:14. Word-for-word transcription, abbreviations marked.

  11.  Shlomo Aronson, “Preparations for the Nuremberg Trial: The O.S.S., Charles Dwork, and the Holocaust,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 12, no. 2 (1998), pp. 257–81.

  12.  One example is David Cesarani, who summarizes: “Eichmann was not mentioned sufficiently often or prominently enough to penetrate the consciousness of those who heard every word of the proceedings at Nuremberg, let alone those who received infrequent and drastically abbreviated reports from the press” (p. 1). German newspaper readers weren’t interested in names, either, using their focus on day-to-day survival as justification for their lack of interest. There is also the question of which of the trial observers Cesarani is talking about. Those who knew Eichmann’s name from before, like the wide circles of his victims and his fellow perpetrators, had various reasons for either noticing or ignoring things.

  13.  The English transcripts and documents from the first Nuremberg trial have been made available as part of Yale Law School’s Avalon Project: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/imt.asp. In these endnotes, transcript quotations are given by the session date, and documents are cited according to the numbers used in the trial. IMT vols. refers to the printed edition (the so-called Blue Series).

  14.  Prosecution document T/585, identical with IMT 2376-PS, Gestapo-62 (June 22, 1945).

  15.  Dieter Wisliceny, witness statement, IMT, January 3, 1946.

  16.  Gustave M. Gilbert, Nürnberger Tagebuch (Frankfurt am Main, 1962), p. 109.

  17.  This announcement was quickly spread via Eichmann’s adjutant Rudolf Jänisch and appears in the CIC files. It was frequently documented. Eichmann confirmed this trick in detail in Argentina: Sassen transcript 10:17.

  18.  The name frequently given in the secondary literature is Feiersleben, which stems from the incorrect entry in the residents’ register from Eversen, and interviews in Altensalzkoth in summer 1960. The additional “von” was crossed out in the registry book (Bergen City Archive, shelf 585 no. 2). Later documents give the correct name. Thanks to Kurt Werner Seebo at the Bergen City Archive for his expert help.

  19.  Eichmann mentions this stopping point, which has not been closely researched, twice: in conversation with Sassen in 1957 (only on the original tape, BA tape 10B, 1:22:15) and in the manuscript “Meine Flucht,” p. 21 (March 1961), BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247. The latter implies that Eichmann obtained new papers in the Rhineland.

  20.  Sassen transcript 11:2.

  21.  The brother’s housekeeper gave an interview in 1960 that has previously been overlooked, in which she mentioned the letters between the brothers about Eichmann’s escape. She knew numerous details that we have only recently been able to verify, lending credibility to her statement. “Adolf Eichmann Dug His Own Grave: The Family Housekeeper’s Story,” Neues Österreich, June 2, 1960.

  22.  Much later Robert Eichmann admitted that his stepfather had stayed in constant contact with his stepbrother Adolf—though the family discovered this only after his death. Robert Eichmann to Leo Maier-Frank, police captain (retired), March 8, 1990, in Die Rattenlinie: Fluchtwege der Nazis: Eine Dokumentation, edited by Rena Giefer and Thomas Giefer (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), pp. 71– 73. (The letter also contains other, more dubious information.)

  23.  “Henninger” is a mishearing. The entry in the residents’ registry book from Eversen is clear. Eversen arrival and departure registry, Bergen City Archive, shelf 585, no. 2. Thanks to Kurt-Werner Seebo.

  24.  Eversen registry book, ibid.

  25.  Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84, p. 22.

  26.  CIC Report, NA, RG 319, Investigative Records Repository, Adolf Eichmann; and NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann, SS Obersturmbannführer A.E. 1946.

  27.  Declaration under oath, read out on April 11, 1946.

  28.  Ibid.

  29.  Ibid.

  30.  Eichmann’s misremembering of this speech is telling. In Argentina, he quoted Jackson: “He [Jackson] felt he had to attest on the occasion of this trial, that I … was ‘In truth the most sinister figure of this century’ ” (“Re: My Findings,” part 2 of “The Others Spoke”), which included two separate elevations of what Jackson actually said.

  31.  IMT, Gest-39, Huppenkothen’s declaration under oath.

  32.  Otto Winkelmann, SS Obergruppenführer and senior SS and police leader in Hungary, and Hans Jüttner, SS Obergruppenführer and general of the Waffen-SS, told an outrageous story (corroborated by Kurt Becher) absolving each other of responsibility for the death marches, although Winkelmann was responsible for the deportations and Jüttner wanted the forced labor. Jüttner stated: “At that time [November 1944] Winkelmann said he was completely powerless in the matter, and would be very grateful if I could raise an objection.” Jüttner attempted it, although “I was well aware of the fact that this intervention could have very unpleasant consequences for me personally.” Eichmann, however, claimed both of them had congratulated him on the idea for the foot marches, which is not unlikely. The only thing that may have disturbed Jüttner was the demographic of the foot marches—there were too few men capable of work. Jüttner’s statement, Nuremberg, May 3, 1948. All three repeated their performance for the Eichmann trial: Winkelmann at Bordesholm, May 29, 1961; Jüttner at Bad Toelz, May 31, 1961; Kurt Becher at Bremen, June 20, 1961.

  33.  Kasztner Report, p. 194. For Kasztner, the term stood for the unassailable position of power that Eichmann’s system established for anti-Jewish policy in all occupied countries, against which no one could say anything.

  34.  Judgment read out on September 30, 1946. IMT vol. 1,298.

  35.  Ibid. IMT vol. 1,283.

  36.  The handwritten note appears on an internal document called “Suggested Frame of the Judgment, in bare outline (for consideration and criticism only),” which was strictly classified because the news that the judges were already preparing notes for a judgment could itself have disastrous consequences. This suggests it was a very early document. Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y., Francis Biddle Papers, box 14. Thanks to Nicolette A. Dobrowolski for her expert help in finding the note and for her information on the document. The description in Bradley F. Smith, Reaching Judgment at Nuremberg (New York, 1977), p. 115, is problematic.

  37.  The final version of the indictment was submitted in the opening session, on October 18, 1945.

  38.  The apt phrase comes from Moshe Pearlman.

  39.  Sassen transcript 3:3.

  40.  Sassen transcript 6:1.

  41.  The formulation comes from Dieter Wisliceny, who claimed his boss had operated in secret in order to protect himself. Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84.

  42.  Israeli government, note to the U.S., British, French, and Russian governments, published in full in Jüdische Allgemeine, July 27, 1951. The other names are Heydrich, Höß, Frank, and Hitler. Eichmann is named twice in this relatively short text.

3 Detested Anonymity

    1.  Contemporaries unanimously report that hunger was not a problem in the region.

    2.  “The Others Spoke,” handwritten text, marginal note, p. 57, BA Ludwigsburg, “Miscellaneous” folder.

    3.  Eichmann claimed Rudolf Höß had told him about this saying of Himmler’s. “Meine Memoiren,” p. 110, and the interrogation and trial.

    4.  Sassen transcript 11:2. Eichmann corrected this section in his own hand, excising any mention of helpers. What remained read “there I found a whole pile of old newspapers, with articles about me among other things.”

    5.  Eichmann quoted the book in detail even in the Sassen interviews, although it was not one the group was reading. He also had a copy in Israel (in its fifth edition) and used the volume for his last attempt to justify himself, “Götzen” (1961).

    6.  The volume was among Eichmann’s books in Buenos Aires. His handwritten notes on it have also been preserved. Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-89.

    7.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 11, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247.

    8.  Sassen interview, original tape 10B, 1:22. Word-for-word transcription, grammar errors uncorrected.

    9.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 22.

  10.  “The Others Spoke,” handwritten text, marginal note, p. 57, BA Ludwigsburg, “Miscellaneous” folder.

  11.  Ruth Tramer, interviews by Robert Pendorf (Stern) and Richard Kilian (Daily Telegraph), June 1960, used in Stern articles (June 16–25, 1960) and in Quentin Reynolds, Ephraim Katz, and Zwy Aldouby, Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story (New York, 1960). Also confirmed in the documentary I Met Eichmann (Adolf Eichmann—Begegnung mit einem Mörder) (BBC/NDR, 2002), and in interviews by Raymond Ley in 2009 and on July 24, 2010, in Menschen und Schlagzeilen (NDR, broadcast July 28, 2010). The witnesses’ names are omitted here at their request.

  12.  Children’s memories are drawn from interviews in Altensalzkoth, July 24, 2010, in Menschen und Schlagzeilen (NDR, broadcast July 28, 2010).

  13.  Journalists (e.g., Robert Pendorf of Stern) conducted the first interviews in and around Altensalzkoth in summer 1960. Many people, like Woldemar Freiesleben, claimed to have had “no idea” (Spiegel, June 15, 1960). Witness statements still concur on Eichmann’s behavior and on his role in the sparsely populated area. When it became clear who had been living in their midst, the general horror was entirely credible. It was also clear that maintaining a fearful silence about one’s own past had become a general strategy for survival. Extensive research was done there by Karsten Krüger (2002), partly printed in Frankfurter Rundschau, May 30, 2002. See Neue Presse, July 23, 2009. See also interviews for the production I Met Eichmann (Adolf Eichmann—Begegnungen mit einem Mörder) (NDR/BBC, 2002) and interviews for the docudrama Eichmanns Ende (ARD, 2009). The 1960 Stern and Life interviews with Nelly Kühn (née Krawietz) complete the picture: Reynolds et al., Minister of Death, p. 185; Stern, June 16–25, 1960.

  14.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 12.

  15.  Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963; reprint New York, 1994), p. 236.

  16.  If this “Uncle Willi” who paid Eichmann regular visits really was an SS man himself, then Koch and Eichmann must have known each other. Willi Koch was born on September 22, 1910, and worked at the Central Emigration Office in Posen in October 1940, then headed the Gnesen field office. The emigration office in Posen was under Eichmann’s jurisdiction at this point. SS rankings list December 1, 1938, and June 15, 1939, no. 4813, SD main office.

  17.  See “I Had No Comrades,” in this book.

  18.  Luis (occasionally Alois) Schintlholzer, born December 16, 1914, in Innsbruck, SS no. 308210, no. 2076 in the Waffen-SS rankings list (on July 1, 1944) as Hauptsturmführer in the reserves. BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, BDC files. See Gerald Steinacher, Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice (Oxford, 2011), pp. 50–52. This work also uses the Schintlholzer files in BA Ludwigsburg, Central Office collection.

  19.  See Philipp Trafojer, “Die Spuren eines Mörders. Alois Schintlholzer (1914–1989),” editorial in the Austrian journal Vinschgerwind (September 8, 2005).

  20.  Schintlholzer said this to an acquaintance who he didn’t realize was an informant for the West German secret service. Found in the supplementary file to BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 121 099, 1664: writings from June 3, 1960, “On Foreign Office Questionnaire”; 1784: August 11, 1960. Thanks to Christoph Partsch for permission to use the quote.

  21.  Passage found only on original tape and left out by the transcriber in Argentina. BA tape 10B, 1:22:30.

  22.  A piece of film shot in the living room of these aging women gives us a glimpse, as they were still able to argue vociferously about whether the eyes of that unassuming Herr Heninger from the south who loved sweet things were blue or brown. I Met Eichmann (Adolf Eichmann—Begegnungen mit einem Mörder) (NDR/BBC, 2002). Eichmann’s eyes were blue-gray.

  23.  “Liebl, Vera, Ex-Wife of Eichmann, Otto Adolf,” November 26, 1946, and “Interrogation of Parents and Brother of SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Adolf Eichmann,” mid-October 1946, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

  24.  Eichmann later said that his wife had spent the whole time living at his uncle’s property. According to a report by Valentin Tarra, a policeman in Ausseerland, to Fritz Bauer, January 6, 1960, it was a hunting lodge. On July 30, 1948, Vera Eichmann and the children moved to a farmhouse in Fischerndorf. Valentin Tarra to Fritz Bauer, January 1, 1960, in Mahnruf (Austria), June 1960.

  25.  David Cesarani, Eichmann: His Life and Crimes (London, 2005), p. 27; Vera Eichmann, interview in Daily Express, December 12, 1961.

  26.  According to Valentin Tarra’s notes, Vera’s sister married Leopold Kals in Altaussee after the war. Vera’s other sister lived with her mother and husband on the Hörsching airbase near Linz.

  27.  Wiesenthal dates this attempt at April 30, 1947, in Ich jagte Eichmann: Tatsachenbericht (Gütersloh, 1961), p. 85. The date in the corresponding CIA Name File is unclear: “SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, Report from Berlin,” June 17/?? (illegible). Wiesenthal gave more frequent reports and described his intervention against Vera Eichmann’s application as his most important contribution to Eichmann’s capture. For the Altaussee police perspective, see Valentin Tarra, report to Bauer, January 6, 1960.

  28.  For the house searches, see CIC report on Adolf Eichmann, June 7, 1947, NA, RG 319, Investigative Records Repository, Adolf Eichmann. Ingrid von Ihne’s house in Bad Gastein was also searched. For the discovery of the first photo, see Manus Diamant,Geheimauftrag: Mission Eichmann (Vienna, 1995), p. 223. The 1945 date was a mistake made by the German press. The photo is often mistaken—the correct one is reproduced in the cited volume.

  29.  Josef Weiszl was turned over to France in 1947 and sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the deportations to Auschwitz. In 1955 he returned to Austria a free man, where he was not brought to justice for his other crimes. See Hans Safrian,Eichmann und seine Gehilfen (Frankfurt am Main, 1995), p. 328.

  30.  Sassen transcript 3:3. Eichmann appeared in the Austrian “wanted” book from March 1955.

  31.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 12.

  32.  There were only two gauleiters of Carinthia: Hubert Klausner (d. 1939) and Friedrich Rainer (hanged in Yugoslavia in 1947). Uki Göni believes a CAPRI employee called Armin Dardieux was in fact Uiberreither, meaning Eichmann and Uiberreither met inArgentina. See also Holger Meding, Flucht vor Nürnberg? Deutsche und österreichische Einwanderung in Argentinien 1945–1955 (Cologne, 1992), pp. 150 and 217, and CEANA, Third Progress Report (Buenos Aires, 1998). The claim that Uiberreither lived in Argentina was disputed by journalists from KORSO and subsequently by Heinz Schneppen, who suspected Uiberreither was in Sindelfingen under the name Friedrich Schönharting. Eichmann himself made no further mention of Uiberreither’s actual location, as far as we know. Eichmann knew about the speculations in 1947, he remembered them in 1960 when he wrote this remark, and he never contradicted them. He had been personally acquainted with Uiberreither since the 1930s.

  33.  Neue Zeitung (Munich), September 23, 1949. See also “The Weg That Leads into the Abyss,” Neue Zeitung, June 7, 1949; “Imported Wehrwolf,” Lübecker Nachrichten, June 11, 1949; “The Masters of the ‘Descamisados,’ ” Tagesspiegel, September 28, 1949; and “The Hitlers in South America,” Gronauer Nachrichten und Volkszeitung, November 5, 1949.

  34.  Spiegel, June 2, 1949. See also Lübecker Nachrichten, June 11, 1949. Rudel, Galland, Baumbach, and Lietzmann are all named.

  35.  Wilfred von Oven, Mit Goebbels bis zum Ende (Buenos Aires, 1949). See Oven’s description of his years in Schleswig-Holstein in his Ein “Nazi” in Argentinien (Gladbeck, 1993).

  36.  Neither the identity paper nor the short-term visa has been found, but there are detailed records of them in the application for the Red Cross refugee passport and in the passport itself, also documented in the Argentine Immigration Office records (file no. 231489/48, cited in Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina, rev. ed. [London, 2003], p. 298n506). June 2, 1948, is theoretically also a possible date, as the Red Cross records switch from Roman to Arabic numerals at random. The extant Termeno papers of Josef Mengele, Ernst Müller, and “Kremhart” (Ludolf von Alvensleben), however, were all filled out between Friday and Sunday. If these were the usual hours when these papers were issued, then the date was probably June 11, 1948.

  37.  Eichmann knew the name Hudal during the Nazi period: the rector of the German Seminary of the Santa Maria dell’Anima German National Church in Rome often informed the Foreign Office about the mood in Rome. On October 23, 1943, Eichmann received a report in which Hudal warned him not to have Jews arrested in public in Rome, so as not to provoke the pope into taking an official stand against it. Prosecution document T/620.

  38.  Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document. prosecution document T/84, p. 18.

  39.  There were high hopes for an east-west conflict within the prisoners’ wing at Nuremberg, and it was a frequent topic of conversation outside the courtroom. See also Gustave M. Gilbert, Nürnberger Tagebuch (Frankfurt am Main, 1962).

  40.  Frau Lindhorst, statement in I Met Eichmann (Adolf Eichmann—Begegnungen mit einem Mörder (NDR/BBC, 2002).

  41.  Press conference, October 24, 1960, quoted in “How Eichmann Was Hunted,” Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden, October 28, 1960.

  42.  Tom Segev has achieved an impressively delicate juxtaposition of all the available accounts, allowing us to see the discrepancies among them. Where no other sources are mentioned, the following summary rests on the corresponding chapters. Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (New York, 2010), pp. 19–28.

  43.  Leo Frank-Maier, Geständnis—Das Leben eines Polizisten: Vom Agentenjäger zum Kripochef Oberst Leo Maier (Linz, 1993), pp. 25ff.

  44.  Bloch’s report on the operation, January 3, 1949, cited in Segev, Simon Wiesenthal.

  45.  Eichmann said he had considered this possibility in mid-1950. “Meine Flucht,” p. 17.

  46.  The majority of articles appeared at the end of October 1948 and are for the most part verbatim repetitions of the report in Welt am Abend. Quotations here are taken from Südkurier and Oberösterreichische Zeitung of October 2 and 3, 1948, and Neue Woche,November 13, 1948.

  47.  The BND gave the relevant files to the Bundesarchiv/Federal Archives in November 2010. “Case of Adolf Eichmann. Failed capture by Israel, and Urban’s claims about possible help with his escape,” BA Koblenz, B206/1986. Der Spiegel used this collection of files for its online article “Israelis Tried to Abduct Eichmann from Austria,” January 15, 2011, though without reference to current research.

  48.  Frank-Maier, Geständnis, p. 21; photo of Urban for identification purposes, p. 24.

  49.  Peter F. Müller and Michael Mueller, Gegen Freund und Feind: Der BND: Geheime Politik und schmutzige Geschäfte (Hamburg, 2002), p. 226.

  50.  See also the CIC/CIA file, NA, RG 263, Name File Josef Adolf Urban (born June 14, 1920).

  51.  Müller and Mueller, Gegen Freund und Feind, p. 226.

  52.  Bruno Kauschen came from Office VI (SD-Ausland), Department C2 of the RSHA.

  53.  BA Koblenz, B206/1986.

  54.  For Urban’s Nazi career, see Hermann Zolling and Heinz Höhne, Pullach Intern: General Gehlen und die Geschichte des Bundesnachrichtendienstes (Hamburg, 1971), p. 217. See also his CIA file.

  55.  Wiesenthal wrote to Kasztner after the trial, on December 5, 1948, to ask if what was heard there was correct. Cited in Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 103.

  56.  “Causes and Background to the Attack Against Dr. H,” report dated July 16, 1952, quoted in Müller and Mueller, Gegen Freund und Feind, p. 227. The report was compiled by someone close to Wilhelm Höttl, who will be spoken of again here. Urban was his direct competitor in the business of selling false news, but Urban’s sympathies lay elsewhere.

  57.  Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 14.

  58.  NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. There are several references to Wiesenthal.

  59.  Zvi Aharoni said he had asked Eichmann about his children.

  60.  Otto Lindhorst, the son of Eichmann’s landlady, statement in I Met Eichmann (Adolf Eichmann—Begegnungen mit einem Mörder (NDR/BBC, 2002). See also Karsten Krüger’s interviews. Life reporters interviewed Nelly Krawietz in 1960. According to Nelly, Eichmann wrote to her: “ ‘If you don’t hear a sign of life from me in four weeks, you can write the sign of the cross over my name,” a phrase that sounds very like Eichmann’s language. Quentin Reynolds, Ephraim Katz, and Zwy Aldouby, Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story (New York, 1960), p. 188.

  61.  Eichmann told this story to the Israeli agent Zvi Aharoni after his capture in 1960. Zvi Aharoni and Wilhelm Dietl, Operation Eichmann: The Truth About the Pursuit, Capture, and Trial, trans. Helmut Bögler (New York, 1997), p. 147.

  62.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 13.

  63.  For example, in Sassen transcript 21:10.

  64.  For unimportant dates, we can give Eichmann the benefit of the doubt: he may just have been mistaken about one or two of them. But we can prove that he also consciously changed dates, claiming things happened later than they did to make himself look better (and later, to aid his defense). The process helped him succeed in the Nazi period as well. This method of outwitting bureaucracy was probably one of the tools the men of the SD learned to use in the early 1930s.

  65.  Klaus Eichmann, interview for the German magazine Quick, January 2, 1966.

  66.  Even the early CIC reports contain clues that SS men used the innocuous-sounding city name to make themselves known to one another as discreetly as possible. It had the very practical advantage of occasionally getting them larger rations. CIC file Organisation Odessa, first document, October 25, 1946. Heinz Schneppen describes how the myth was created in Odessa und das Vierte Reich: Mythen der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 2007), although he sometimes focuses too strictly on the word Odessa and doesn’t look at the organizational structures that were actually present. Unfortunately, Schneppen uses only a few Eichmann statements and ignores notable networks and contacts among the people who escaped to Argentina. The following text shed more light on these networks.

  67.  Eichmann didn’t mention the names of sympathizers to Sassen: “I was smuggled through Germany,” etc. Throughout “Meine Flucht” he refers to “the organization.” Schneppen is quite right: Eichmann never once mentioned “Odessa” (Odessa, p. 27). However, the absence of a name does not mean that the thing did not exist. Eichmann clearly referred to an organization that was supported by former SS members. He kept quiet about it in Israel, as “the organization” was still in existence, its structures still in place, and it still offered support, not least to Eichmann’s family in his absence. Counter to Schneppen’s claim, even in 1960 speaking about it would have meant posing a “danger to his own person or to third parties” (p. 23).

  68.  Moshe Pearlman, The Capture of Adolf Eichmann (London, 1961).

  69.  Supplemental file to case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 121 099, 1664: letter of June 3, 1960 “auf AA Anfrage” (on Foreign Office query), 1784: August 11, 1960. See “I Had No Comrades” in this book.

  70.  Surveillance of the Eichmann family revealed that their financial circumstances visibly improved at this point; Simon Wiesenthal to Nahum Goldmann, March 30, 1954, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann also hinted at this contact in “Meine Flucht,” p. 16.

  71.  Gerald Steinacher assumes Eichmann was baptized by the priest in Sterzing, as the baptism register there shows the rebaptism of Erich Priebke. But there is no evidence of a baptismal certificate for Eichmann. Steinacher, Nazis auf der Flucht, p. 167.

  72.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 18.

  73.  Ibid., p. 24.

  74.  Giovanni C is a frequent misspelling, going back to Eichmann himself. The documents in Argentina are clear, however (and ships usually have female names).

  75.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 17.

  76.  Ibid., p. 22.

Interlude   A False Trail in the Middle East

    1.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 18, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247.

    2.  Two representative examples of the judgment passed on Wiesenthal’s error are Heinz Schneppen, Odessa und das Vierte Reich: Mythen der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 2007), p. 12; and Guy Walters, Hunting Evil (London and Toronto, 2009), p. 207.

    3.  Wiesenthal, who cited the reports from Linz, remained convinced of this hiding place and the Austrian connection long after Eichmann was captured. The theory can be found in all his books and many notes. Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance: Recollections (New York, 1990), p. 74. His most detailed account is quoted here—namely Wiesenthal’s letter to Nahum Goldmann, March 30, 1954, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

    4.  One source of information on the Nazi organization suspected to exist in Austria was none other than the disinformation specialist Wilhelm Höttl. NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhelm Höttl.

    5.  The reports from Linz on the stories told by the imaginative informant Mitterhuber have been publicly available since November 2010, in the BND files held at BA Koblenz, B206/1986. Mitterhuber even claimed that Eichmann was leading a resistance cell to combat any potential Communist overthrow—financed by the United States.

    6.  NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. “Spinne” also appears in CIC Name File Otto Skorzeny. The United States speculated about these secret organizations’ gold reserves and routinely implicated the USSR. Walters, Hunting Evil, p. 207.

    7.  Alfred Fischer, “No Trace of Karl Eichmann,” Der Weg, August 16, 1946. See Alfred Fischer, “Karl Eichmann—Head of Gestapo’s Jewish Section,” Zionist Review, October 4, 1946.

    8.  R. B. Haebler, “The Man We Are Looking For,” Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für die britische Zone, June 1, 1947. This text was quoted repeatedly over the following years by National Socialist authors, who tried to use it as proof that Eichmann was Jewish.

    9.  Simon Wiesenthal, Großmufti—Großagent der Achse (Salzburg and Vienna, 1947), p. 46.

  10.  Leon Poliakov, “Adolf Eichmann ou le rêve de Caligula,” Le Monde Juif (Paris), June 4, 1949. This photo from the early 1930s is reprinted in David Cesarani, Eichmann: His Life and Crimes (London, 2005), the first image in the middle photo section.

  11.  Sassen transcript 22:1. The photo in Poliakov’s piece has been clumsily reprinted but not retouched.

  12.  Jüdisches Gemeindeblatt für die britische Zone (the predecessor of the Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland), June 23, 1948. More coverage appeared in late 1948, following an article in the Vienna Welt am Abend, with headlines like “A Member of the Arab Legion.” Südkurier, October 2–3, 1948.

  13.  Tom Segev describes this episode in his biography of Wiesenthal and points to a letter from Wiesenthal to Avraham Silberschein on June 22, 1948. Tom Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (New York, 2010), p. 121.

  14.  For example: “Mass Murderer as Military Adviser,” Frankfurter Rundschau, March 22, 1952; “SS Generals in the Middle East,” Die Gegenwart, April 1952, and Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden, April 18, 1952; “The German Soldier in the Middle East,” Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden, April 25, 1952; “German ‘Advisers’ in Cairo Plotting Against Bonn. Former SS and SD Leaders in League with Nagib and Mufti,” Welt am Sonntag, November 23, 1952.

  15.  Incorrect information was given by the BND, on the basis of a statement by Saida Ortner, who spoke of Eichmann arriving in Syria in 1947. NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. See also “New Eastern Connections,” BND report to the CIA, March 19, 1958, so far accessible only in the NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. Johann von Leers, who still had contact with Eichmann in Argentina, was one of the most famous Nazis to have converted to Islam. Alois Brunner is also known to have taken the route to Syria.

  16.  See note 98 to “Eichmann in Kuwait” in this book (page 515), for the article series and the background details. See also Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, pp. 140– 41.

  17.  Quentin Reynolds, Ephraim Katz, and Zwy Aldouby, Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story (New York, 1960), p. 189.

  18.  Reynolds’s error could also have been due to Otto Skorzeny being mistaken for Walter Rauff, who really did take this escape route. Reynolds’s source is an interview bought from Heinz Weibel-Altmeyer, with a man he claimed to be the third business partner, “Fuad Nahdif.”

  19.  Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust, trans. Haim Watzman (New York, 1993), p. 149.

  20.  Michael Bar-Zohar, The Avengers (New York, 1970), p. 65. Bar-Zohar was the first to recognize the true role of Fritz Bauer and is tremendously well informed in other ways as well. His book appeared in many languages but never in German.

  21.  Segev, Seventh Million, p. 148. Segev interviewed Abba Kovner, who survived the Warsaw uprising and founded an avenging force even before the war was over, as was first brought to light in Bar-Zohar, Avengers. Both conducted interviews with men from the murder squads.

  22.  Alfred Fischer, “No Trace of Karl Eichmann,” Der Weg, August 16, 1946.

  23.  Eichmann’s accident in 1932 resulted in a fractured skull, a broken collarbone, and the scar above his eye. These traces would later give Mossad conclusive proof of their prisoner’s identity in 1960. The noticeable asymmetry of his face was not the result of this accident, however: it can be seen in Eichmann’s childhood photos, and his siblings have similarly lopsided features.

  24.  The rumor that Eichmann had had facial surgery surfaced at the end of the 1940s and can be found in various popular articles over the next few years. Wiesenthal reported it in his letter to Nahum Goldmann of March 30, 1954; NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. Benjamin Epstein, who knew Eichmann, spread the rumor in an interview at the time of his arrest. “Mass Murderer Eichmann Had an Operation on His Face,” Neues Österreich, May 26, 1960. The rumor ceased only after Eichmann’s arrest, when subsequent photos proved it to be untrue. Eichmann hinted that he had met Nazis in South America who had changed more than just their names, but this could have been just his usual self-importance talking. Interview for Paris Match, June 2, 1952, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/252.

  25.  “Götzen,” p. 589.

1 Life in the “Promised Land”

    1.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 22, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247.

    2.  Eichmann mentioned this connection, but in typical fashion, he omitted the name of the person involved. Ibid., p. 23. Evidently people in these circles introduced themselves by their real names and not their new, fake identities.

    3.  Ibid.

    4.  Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina (London and New York, 2002), p. 301.

    5.  It appears that only forty of the three hundred employees were engineers by trade. See Ernst Klee, Persilscheine und Falsche Pässe: Wie die Kirchen den Nazis halfen (Frankfurt am Main, 1992); and Goñi, Odessa.

    6.  Eichmann wrote of this several times in Israel, in “Meine Flucht” and elsewhere.

    7.  Eichmann mentioned Fischböck during the Sassen interviews: “He’s still alive!!!” is his handwritten annotation on the Sassen transcript, 59:9. After Eichmann was arrested, Fischböck’s wife said she had been one of the last people to speak to him. She also mentioned that she knew him well from his time at CAPRI, where her husband also worked.

    8.  Eckhard Schimpf, Heilig: Die Flucht des Braunschweiger Naziführers auf der Vatikan-Route nach Südamerika (Brunswick, 2005), p. 110.

    9.  BA tape 10C, 1:28:00.

  10.  There is still clear evidence of around twenty contacts, from letters or notes on conversations, including a phone call.

  11.  Rajakowitsch joined the SS in 1940. See Eichmann’s staff report on Rajakowitsch, July 19, 1940, prosecution document T/55(6). Between February and August 1952, there is evidence that Eichmann occasionally went to Buenos Aires during his Tucumán period.

  12.  Pathetic tales of Germans’ fear of being unmasked, which can be found in Juan (Hans) Maler’s late texts, belong to the realm of fiction. Buenos Aires had a German infrastructure, with its own restaurants, a cinema, a theater, and many shops, forming a natural part of the city. Argentina was particularly welcoming to Germans.

  13.  Goñi found proof of Armin Dadieu, Berthold Heilig, Erwin Fleiss, and Franz Sterzinger (Odessa, p. 301). The presence of Siegfried Uiberreither, former gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Styria, also mentioned by Goñi and Holger Meding, is still disputed. Eichmann explicitly mentions Uiberreither as a direct influence on his own escape to Argentina, in “Meine Flucht,” p. 12

  14.  According to his daughter Karin (née Heilig). See Schimpf, Heilig, p. 111. Heilig arrived in Buenos Aires on January 17, 1951; his children followed in 1953. He told them he had met Eichmann in Rome, which kept him from having to explain to his family where he had really met the Adviser on Jewish Affairs—Rome didn’t sound suspicious.

  15.  Herbert Hagel, interview by Joshua Goltz and Abel Basti, 1998 and 1999, cited in Goñi, Odessa, p. 282n494. Habel (SS no. 112171) was secretary to SS Obergruppenführer August Eigruber, the gauleiter of Linz.

  16.  Heinz Lühr, interview in I Met Eichmann (Adolf Eichmann—Begegnungen mit einem Mörder) (NDR/BBC, 2002). Lühr dated the conversation to shortly after Vera Eichmann’s arrival, which was in July 1952.

  17.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 24.

  18.  Occasionally incorrectly written “Davmanin.”

  19.  In Israel, Eichmann was shown to be unable to read French texts. The tapes made in Argentina reveal him as anything but a talented linguist, as he spoke Spanish with a heavy German accent.

  20.  Identity card no. 1378538, produced by the Buenos Aires district police. The Tucumán district produced two further identity papers for Eichmann in short order: on February 8, 1952, one numbered 341952, and on April 3, 1952, a CdI (identification key) numbered 212430, a facsimile of which is in Gideon Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem (New York, 1966).

  21.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 25.

  22.  Constantin von Neurath (1902–81) was said to have been president of Kameradenwerk for a time. Neurath, interview by Wilfred von Oven (Gaby Weber in “hr2 Kultur,” Wissenswert, broadcast on May 8, 2008); interviews by Ludwig Lienhardt and Josef Janko. Holger Meding, Flucht vor Nürnberg? Deutsche und österreichische Einwanderung in Argentinien 1945–1955 (Cologne, 1992), p. 176. Neurath officially worked for Siemens from 1953, becoming director of Siemens Argentina S.A. in 1958. He then worked in Munich (where he gained joint procurement responsibility for the company headquarters by 1965) and retired in 1966. Thanks to Frank Wittendorfer of the Siemens Archive in Munich, where surprisingly little was known about this employee. See “For Better, for Worse” and “I Had No Comrades” in this book, for the help Neurath provided to wanted war criminals.

  23.  Rudel (with help from his ghostwriter Sassen) talks about Fritsch’s life in Zwischen Deutschland und Argentinien (Buenos Aires, 1954), p. 220. Also published by Dürer, this book contained a right-wing paean to the publisher. Fritsch’s short visit is the only grain of truth to the rumors of his involvement in war crimes and high offices in Germany. He was far too young to have made a career under Hitler. There was only one of these “world congresses,” which allows us to pinpoint its date.

  24.  Holger Meding’s first-rate study “Der Weg”: Eine deutsche Emigrantenzeitschrift in Buenos Aires 1947–1957 (Berlin, 1997) has uses far beyond what the title suggests. It is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand these groups of German nationals in Argentina and beyond. And it opens up exciting fields for further research, as we are still a long way from knowing about everyone who worked for Der Weg. For in-depth study, there is no substitute for reading the Dürer publications and Der Wegitself. The following description is based on these sources. I thank Eberhard Fritsch’s grandson for his willingness to provide me with as much information as he could.

  25.  “Dry goods store” is a translation error. The descriptions in Fritsch’s letters are clear, however.

  26.  Hans Hefelmann, statement, December 28, 1960, Js148/60 Generalstaatsanwaltschaft, Frankfurt am Main, against Prof. Werner Heyde, Hefelmann, et al. For the particulars, see Klee, Persilscheine.

  27.  Fritsch to Werner Beumelburg, August 19, 1948, Werner Beumelburg Estate, Rheinische Landesbibliothek Koblenz; quoted in Stefan Busch, Und gestern, da hörte uns Deutschland: NS-Autoren in der Bundesrepublik: Kontinuität und Diskontinuität bei Friedrich Griese, Werner Beumelburg, Eberhard Wolfgang Müller und Kurt Ziesel (Würzburg, 1998). Thanks to Barbara Koelges of the Landesbibliothek Koblenz for her thorough insight into the correspondence.

  28.  We can now be certain that Werner Beumelburg, Hans Grimm, Kurt Ziesel, Eberhard Wolfgang Möller, Friedrich Griese, Erhard Wittek, Paul Alverdes, and Heinrich Zillich were among them, and they all went on to write for Dürer. See Der Weg—El Senderobut also indirect letters from Fritsch to Beumelburg of February 10, 1948, and February 9, 1949, in which he brags about his correspondents. Werner Beumelburg Estate, Rheinische Landesbibliothek Koblenz,.

  29.  Fritsch to Beumelburg, February 10, 1948; Grimm to Beumelburg, March 5, 1948; both in Werner Beumelburg Estate. Rheinische Landesbibliothek Koblenz. Thanks to Birgit Kienow of the German Literature Archive in Marbach for access to Hans Grimm’s correspondence.

  30.  This is no literary invention, either: Dürer sold the crochet instructions for it. A contemporary claims she still owns one, which we can believe, as she declined to have her name printed in connection with it.

  31.  Wilfred von Oven, Ein “Nazi” in Argentinien (Gladbeck, 1993), p. 19.

  32.  For the way the EROS travel service was used in practice, see the correspondence between Fritsch and Werner Beumelburg, where it emerges that Beumelburg was also paid in kind. Beumelburg Estate, Rheinische Landesbibliothek Koblenz.

  33.  The following information is drawn not only from my own archive research and interviews but also from the excellent fieldwork done by Natasja de Winter.

  34.  Volberg gave a rather implausible denial of his leading role in his memoirs. See Heinrich Volberg, Auslandsdeutschtum und drittes Reich: Der Fall Argentinien (Cologne and Vienna, 1981). For background on the office in Argentina, and the extant staff lists, see Frank-Rutger Hausmann, Ernst Wilhelm Bohle, Gauleiter im Dienst von Partei und Staat (Berlin, 2009).

  35.  Heiner Korn’s successor, Heriberto Korch, did not want to be interviewed. The company was apparently bought by Kühne and Nagel just a few years ago.

  36.  Names and addresses mentioned in Fritsch’s correspondence.

  37.  Inge Schneider, interview by Roelf van Til (1999).

  38.  Ibid.; Saskia Sassen, interview by Raymond Ley (2009); Saskia and Francisca Sassen, correspondence with the author.

  39.  On February 4, 1959, Gustav Flor was tried before the fourth chamber of the Lüneberg District Court for distributing National Socialist writings. Large stocks of Dürer publications and a list of subscribers had been seized from him; the publisher had recruited him a year before. Fritsch, who was also summoned, did not appear. See the articles in the Stuttgarter Zeitung and Die Welt, February 4, 1959, and the coverage in the local Hamburg papers. Unfortunately the evidence is no longer available: it was probably destroyed after the retention period elapsed. Berchtesgaden is mentioned in Fritsch’s correspondence.

  40.  Thanks to Daniel Fritsch for his information.

  41.  Rudel, Zwischen Deutschland und Argentinien, p. 206.

  42.  Sassen is named as an employee of CAPRI in a CIA report from 1953. As the informant was also from Argentina, we can at least be sure that the foreigner Sassen was on the CAPRI staff. German Nationalist and Neo-Nazi Activities in Argentina, July 8, 1953, declassified on April 11, 2000 (CIA-RDP620–00 856 R000 3000 30004–4). Pedro Pobierzym, interview by Raymond Ley (2009), also claims Sassen was often in Tucumán for this reason.

  43.  Eckhard Schimpf describes the distribution channel used by Berthold Heilig, through his old contacts in Rome, whom he also used to obtain passports for his family, and through the SS organization Stille Hilfe (Silent Aid). With Heilig too, letters were sent via a variety of cover addresses. Schimpf, Heilig, p. 111. Helene Elisabeth, Princess of Isenburg, who ran Stille Hilfe, also had contacts with Rudel’s Kameradenwerk.

  44.  Eichmann told this version for the first time to the Mossad team’s interrogation specialist. Quoted in Zvi Aharoni and Wilhelm Dietl, Operation Eichmann: The Truth About the Pursuit, Capture and Trial (New York, 1997), p. 67.

  45.  According to the commune’s records, Vera Eichmann moved to Fischerndorf on July 30, 1948. See also Valentin Tarra to Fritz Bauer, January 1, 1960, in Mahnruf (Austria), June 1960.

  46.  Wiesenthal’s press conference in Jerusalem, October 24, 1960, quoted in Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden, October 28, 1960.

  47.  See Tom Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (New York, 2010). Segev was able to look over Tarra’s papers and analyzed his letters to Wiesenthal (p. 99).

  48.  We know about this letter thanks to Eichmann’s uncle’s housekeeper in the Rhineland, who was interviewed in “Adolf Eichmann Dug His Own Grave: The Family Housekeeper Speaks Out,” Neues Österreich, June 2, 1960. When Eberhard Fritsch left Argentina for Austria in 1958, Eichmann had told him his family’s address in Linz. See “Aftermath” in this book.

  49.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

  50.  Valentin Tarra to Fritz Bauer, January 1, 1960, in Mahnruf (Austria), June 1960.

  51.  This refers to Fritz Eichmann, Eichmann’s half brother from his father’s second marriage.

  52.  Current Federal German residency applications confirm this point.

  53.  Tarra to Wiesenthal, January 19, 1953, Wiesenthal Private Papers, quoted in Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 100.

  54.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick.

  55.  The Bild published a facsimile of the first page of the index card from the Eichmann BND file, labeled “Eichmann/Aichmann, Adolf DN Clemens,” on January 8, 2011. From supplementary file to case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 100 470, p. 1.

  56.  In Wilhelm Fuchs’s trial in Yugoslavia, the accused referred to him as “Standartenführer,” which suggests that Eichmann had been giving himself airs in advance of this promotion.

  57.  This message suggests the possibility that the informant was Josef Adolf Urban. But there are too many people it might have been for us to speculate in any meaningful way. The informant could have been any one of the links in the information chain or an employee of the Eichmann family in Linz.

  58.  Only in the very first issues in 1947 did Fritsch hide behind his printer Gustav Friedl. After that he not only regularly wrote the foreword but gave his details clearly in the masthead. It is sometimes claimed, incorrectly, that Johann von Leers was the editor-in-chief. This error can be traced back to a report from the German embassy in Buenos Aires to the German Foreign Office in 1954, as Leers was leaving Argentina. The embassy was obviously aware of the influence Leers exerted in editorial meetings. West German embassy in Buenos Aires to Foreign Office, June 11, 1954, “Politische Beziehungen zu Argentinien” Aktenzeichen 81.33/3, PA AA, dept. 3, vol. 74, cited in Meding, Der Weg, p. 125.

  59.  This interpretation was given by Die Welt (online edition) as a reaction to the publication of the index card from the BND file on January 8, 2011.

  60.  Jorge Camarasa even found the name Ricardo Klement in the Buenos Aires telephone book, as Eichmann seems to have had an entry there in 1952. Jorge Camarasa, Odessa al Sur: La Argentina Como Refugio de Nazis y Criminales de Guerra (Buenos Aires, 1995), p. 157; Goñi, Odessa, p. 385. This clue can unfortunately not be verified. In 1951–52, the name was neither in the regional edition nor in the full directory for Buenos Aires. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, as the edition containing new entries for 1952 is 1953–54, which is nowhere to be found (either in the official edition or in Edition Guia de Abonos). Thanks to Natasja de Winter, who searched for it with admirable patience in various libraries and archives in Buenos Aires.

  61.  The cover name is not only to be found on the index card; it also features in the mere twenty-two pages on 1960 contained in the file. See the supplementary file to case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 100 470, pp. 1–18.

  62.  The number of aliases appearing in the rumors about Eichmann’s disappearance is impressive. If you take into account the CIA reports, newspaper articles, and books prior to the start of the trial, there are around twenty different names, including the false name that Eichmann had actually chosen.

  63.  Questionnaire, September 1, 1959, and answer, September 8, 1959, in supplementary file to case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 100 470, pp. 17–18. Thanks to Christoph Partsch.

  64.  Salto is a misprint.

  65.  Under the official exchange rate of the time, 100 pesos was a little over 5 U.S. dollars or 20 Deutschmarks—it really was a lot of money. For more on exchange rates, see note 80 for this chapter. Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

  66.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 25.

  67.  Ibid.

  68.  Vera Eichmann had kept the photos of her husband well hidden, as evidenced by the substantial collection she sold to Life and Stern in 1960 alone, via Willem Sassen.

  69.  Vera Eichmann, interview for Paris Match, April 29, 1962; original transcript in BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/252, p. 23.

  70.  The notorious Nazi Erich Kernmayr (alias Kern) said this in the presence of a CIA informant in March 1952. CIA report, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhelm Höttl.

  71.  In 1966, Klaus Eichmann was still full of admiration for his father, whom he said was “able to do a whole lot of things.” Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick.

  72.  Adolf Eichmann was still talking about his trip to Aconcagua in letters he wrote in Israel. Conquering that mountain was clearly an ambition among German immigrants, and Hans-Ulrich Rudel proudly published photos of his climb.

  73.  Schimpf, Heilig, p. 111.

  74.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 25.

  75.  When he applied to Mercedes-Benz Argentina in 1959, Eichmann said his employment relations with CAPRI ended on April 30, 1953. Facsimiles in Heinz Schneppen, Odessa und das Vierte Reich: Mythen der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 2007), pp. 160–61.

  76.  Argentina Federal Police, report on Eichmann’s kidnapping, June 9, 1960, Archivo General de la Nacíon (AGN), DAE, Bormann file, pp. 77–79; cited in Goñi, Odessa, p. 316.

  77.  Berthold Heilig’s family—Annegret, Karin, and Hannelore “Richwitz”—arrived in Argentina on March 25, 1953, but left on December 21, 1953, as Berthold Heilig (alias Hans Richwitz) was unable to decide between his old family and his new partner. Annegret was the same age as Eichmann’s second son. According to him, Heilig worked for Fuldner and CAPRI until 1955. See Schimpf, Heilig, pp. 110 and 129. After Eichmann was kidnapped, Hans Fischböck’s wife said that he and her husband had been employed by CAPRI until 1955.

  78.  Siemens Argentina S.A. was officially founded in 1954. The engagement in Rosario predates the founding. Neurath was on the payroll from December 1, 1953. Thanks to Frank Wittendorfer from the Siemens Archive.

  79.  Neurath lobbied the German embassy in Buenos Aires not to extradite Schwammburger in spite of an extradition order from the Federal Republic.

  80.  In 1950 the average income in the Federal Republic was 500 Deutschmarks. I am grateful to the employees of the German Bundesbank for helpful information regarding historical exchange rates. The basis for calculation in this case is the Frankfurt am Main stock prices. The information on Eichmann’s income comes from the interview with Klaus Eichmann in Quick on January 2, 1966. Eichmann’s son has a tendency toward understatement when it comes to financial questions, and we can assume that the figures here are the ones his father gave him. In his application to Mercedes-Benz Argentina in 1959, Eichmann said he had earned 3,500 pesos at CAPRI, and 4,500 pesos at Efeve, Buenos Aires. Schneppen (Odessa, p. 159) seems to confuse Deutschmarks and U.S. dollars. These exchange rates correspond to what was actually paid, as we can see from the record of fees paid to German authors by Dürer. See Fritsch correspondence.

  81.  Cited in CEANA’s final report, Carlota Jackisch, Cuantificacion de Criminales de Guerra Según Fuentes Argentinas (Informe Final, 1998), p. 9.

  82.  Still, a remarkable number of witnesses claim to have met Eichmann personally, even if they emphasize that he was unremarkable. See the current head of ABC, interview by Raymond Ley (2009), and Pedro Pobierzym, interview by Raymond Ley (BBC, 2002).

  83.  The Argentine newspaper La Razón published the first information on Eichmann’s life in Argentina at the end of May 1960. In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine used this as the basis for its report from an unnamed “correspondent in Buenos Aires”: “Proof of Eichmann’s Life in Argentina,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 2, 1960.

  84.  Fabrica Metalúrgica Efeve in Sta. Rosa/Buenos Aires; see Goñi, Odessa, p. 385n525. Eichmann mentioned the firm in his application to Mercedes-Benz Argentina in 1959.

  85.  Eichmann himself gave a higher salary of 4,500 pesos in his application to Mercedes-Benz Argentina. But this was the basis for his salary expectations with Mercedes, so Klaus Eichmann’s memory seems the more credible source.

  86.  This can be seen most clearly in the fifteen-page document he wrote in Israel before the start of the trial: “Mein Sein und Tun,” All. Proz. 6/253, p. 12.

  87.  Wislicency, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84, pp. 12 and 16. None of the witness statements about Eichmann contradicted him.

  88.  Aharoni and Dietl, Operation Eichmann, p. 140.

  89.  But at the end of May 1960, La Razón managed to find people who admitted that Ricardo Klement’s true identity was known by 1952 at the latest, when his wife and children arrived. Quoted in “Proof That Eichmann Was Living in Argentina. Under the Name Ricardo Klement Since 1950. Inquiries Made with His Employer and Family,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 2, 1960. Details of the statements show that one of the witnesses was Horst Carlos Fuldner.

2 Home Front

    1.  Tom Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (New York, 2010), p. 106.

    2.  Variations of this story can be found in Simon Wiesenthal’s Ich jagte Eichmann (Gütersloh, 1961), p. 224, and Justice Not Vengeance: Recollections (New York, 1990), p. 76. The letter to Arie Eschel is contained in Wiesenthal’s private papers, which Tom Segev has thoroughly analyzed. We therefore know that Wiesenthal did not invent the core of the story, as Isser Harel, the head of Mossad, later claimed he had done. See Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 102.

    3.  Simon Wiesenthal to Nahum Goldmann, March 30, 1954, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

    4.  Simon Wiesenthal to Juniczman, April 18, 1952, Wiesenthal private papers, cited in Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 103.

    5.  For the Heinz-Dienst, see the groundbreaking study by Susanne Meinl and Dieter Krüger, “Der politische Weg von Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz,” Vierteljahrsheft für Zeitgeschichte 42, no. 1 (1994), and Susanne Meinl, “Im Mahlstrom des Kalten Krieges,” inSpionage für den Frieden?, ed. Wolfgang Krieger and Jürgen Weber (Munich, 1997). For the connections among the German secret services, see Peter F. Müller and Michael Mueller, Gegen Freund und Feind: Der BND: Geheime Politik und schmutzige Geschäfte (Hamburg, 2002), p. 226, particularly the chapter “Parallelaktion in Österreich,” p. 166. On Gehlen hearing at the start of 1952 that Höttl was working for Heinz, see CIA Pullach Operations Branch to Special Operations, January 9, 1952, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhelm Höttl.

    6.  “Re: establishment of an ND [intelligence service] line for Spain—L909,” report from “XG,” the group formed by Heinrich Mast and Wilhelm Höttl, March 1, 1952; quoted in Müller and Mueller, Gegen Freund und Feind, p. 195n653.

    7.  Peter Black, Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Ideological Soldier of the Third Reich (Princeton, 1984), p. xiii.

    8.  Höttl tried to play down the incident as an “invitation.” Interrogation of Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, transcripts and notes from February 26–27, 1953 (first interrogation), April 3, 1953, April 9, 1953, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhelm Höttl. See also Norman J. W. Goda, “The Nazi Peddler: Wilhelm Höttl and Allied Intelligence,” in U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis, ed. Richard Breitman (Washington, D.C., 2004), pp. 265–92.

    9.  CIA Report, April 3, 1953, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhelm Höttl.

  10.  Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 104.

  11.  Ibid.

  12.  A CIA report from January 16, 1950, contains a collection of rumors that arose after Wiesenthal was supposed to have recruited Höttl. The source is classified as unreliable, being based on hearsay. This does not mean that Wiesenthal didn’t recruit Höttl for the CIC—it just means the report should not be taken as hard evidence that he did. NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhem Höttl. Thanks to Martin Haidinger for bringing me a copy.

  13.  “The elimination of HOETTL … would be to the general good of intelligence in Austria.” August 11, 1952, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhelm Höttl.

  14.  April 9, 1952, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhelm Höttl.

  15.  “Intermezzo in Salzburg,” Spiegel, April 22, 1953, p. 17.

  16.  Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 105

  17.  Wilhelm Höttl, interviews (Bad Aussee, 1996, 1998), and Stan Lauryssens, interview, with the usual caveats. The mythical letter has never been unearthed. Thanks to Martin Haidinger, Vienna, for letting me see his interview with Höttl, and for directing me to Höttl’s estate, ÖStA, B1226.

  18.  Höttl never even hinted that Mast had acted against his wishes. Such an act would have been very unlikely, given the bond of trust between Mast and Höttl.

  19.  Spiegel, April 22, 1953.

  20.  Given in detail in Bettina Stangneth, Quellen- und Datenhandbuch Adolf Eichmann 1906–1962 (unpublished), in the chapter on Wilhelm Höttl (with suggestions for evaluating witness statements). The literature on Höttl remains unsatisfactory, particularly regarding the Nazi period. The most comprehensive publication, though it is too uncritical in places, is Thorsten J. Querg, “Wilhem Höttl—vom Informanten zum Sturmbannführer im Sicherheitsdienst der SS,” in Historische Rassismusforschung: Ideologie—Täter—Opfer, ed. Barbara Dankwortt, Thorsten Querg, and Claudia Schönigh (Hamburg, 1995), pp. 208–30. For his postwar activity with an emphasis on his work for the CIC/CIA, see Goda, “Nazi Peddler.” The most comprehensive attempt to address the subject of Höttl, using the most source material, is Martin Haidinger’s unpublished thesis, Wilhelm Höttl, Agent zwischen Spionage und Selbstdarstellung (Vienna). Thanks to the author for sending it to me.

  21.  Goda, “Nazi Peddler.”

  22.  The complex web of Eichmann stories that Höttl peddled can now be deciphered and traced back to its sources in minute detail. His knowledge of Eichmann’s behavior in the prison camp came from his co-worker Rudolf Jänisch, though he didn’t reveal that source. Other set-pieces came from Kurt Becher and Dieter Wisliceny. Höttl used his talent for telling stories to make himself more interesting than the original sources. The details are too numerous to list here, but anyone taking the trouble to lay out the original texts side by side and take note of the dates will find that a comparison reveals exactly who was really borrowing from whom in this case.

  23.  Friedrich Schwend, one of the organizers of the money-counterfeiting project “Operation Bernhard,” helped Höttl with his second book, by writing letters from exile in Peru, where he also pursued a few (sometimes criminal) financial projects. Schwend to Mader, July 15, 1964, HIS, Schwend Collection, Loose folder I 2.

  24.  Originally published in German as Die geheime Front (Linz and Vienna, 1950); English edition The Secret Front: The Inside Story of Nazi Political Espionage, trans. R. H. Stevens (London, 1953). The volume is filled with indiscreet pieces of gossip, which are sometimes so far from the truth you have to marvel at them. In this book, Admiral Canaris blackmails Heydrich using his Jewish grandmother (his grandmother was definitely not Jewish), while Heydrich inveigles Hitler into the extermination of the Jews, and Himmler doesn’t know what hit him. And in case readers get bored, Höttl scatters bordello stories through the book and hints about the sexual proclivities of men he didn’t like. His judgment of the criminals who were close to him is similarly exuberant.

  25.  Höttl, Secret Front, p. 41.

  26.  The parallels are clear, when you compare Eichmann’s stories in Argentina about Hitler’s “diet cook” Lina Heydrich, Heinrich Müller, and Heinrich Himmler, with Höttl’s book. As we know precisely when Eichmann read Höttl’s book for the first time, the influence cannot possibly have worked the other way around.

  27.  A really thorough investigation of Höttl’s estate has yet to take place. Höttl Estate, ÖStA, B1226.

  28.  HIS, Schwend collection, in particular loose file I 2. Schwend had relationships with Buenos Aires at the start of the 1950s but no contact with CAPRI or the Dürer circle, apart from Hans-Ulrich Rudel. His documents make it unlikely that Schwend himself was the informant, as he knew nothing about Adolf Eichmann or Alvensleben.

  29.  Otto Skorzeny, Meine Kommandounternehmen (Wiesbaden and Munich, 1976), p. 405. According to a letter of December 14, 1956 [!], Höttl let himself be enticed into giving this statement at Nuremberg by “CIC Jews.”

  30.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

  31.  Der Weg (1954), no. 1, p. 28. In Der Weg (1952), no. 1, p. 51, there is a reader survey on the acceptance of an exile government.

  32.  Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Zwischen Deutschland und Argentinien (Buenos Aires, 1954), p. 34.

  33.  Rudel speaks of the “strongest ally we could have, namely our young age, while on the opposing side various gentlemen are gripped by an eleventh-hour panic, as the upcoming election will be their last or their second-last.” Ibid., pp. 246–47.

  34.  On the far-right party landscape in West Germany at this time, see Kurt P. Tauber, Beyond the Eagle and Swastika: German Nationalism Since 1945, 2 vols. (Middletown, Conn., 1967), which remains excellent to this day; Peter Dudek and Hans-Gerd Jaschke,Entstehung und Entwicklung des Rechtsextremismus in der Bundesrepublik (Opladen, 1984); Henning Hansen, Die Sozialistische Reichspartei (SRP): Aufstieg und Scheitern einer rechtsextremen Partei (Düsseldorf, 2007); and Oliver Sowinski, Die Deutsche Reichspartei 1950–1965: Organisation und Ideologie einer rechtsradikalen Partei (Frankfurt am Main, 1998). Details of the contacts described in the following section, where not otherwise indicated, are taken from Adolf von Thadden’s extensive estate. Thanks to Messrs. Krake and Frank and to Sonja von Behrens for their support during the intensive study of the largely unexplored yards of shelves in the Magazin Pattensen of the Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv.

  35.  In May 1951 the SRP achieved 11 percent of the vote in the Lower Saxony state elections, but then quickly lost votes as the burgeoning economy started to make the idea of a “people’s socialism” seem less attractive. By the time the SRP was banned in October 1952, it had long been finished.

  36.  Sassen published this text using the same pseudonym he used for Der Weg, Willem Sluyse, along with a collection of academic titles: “Open letter to the European Commander-in-Chief General Dwight D. Eisenhower, from Dr. Dr. Willem Sluyse, Private First Class (retired),” Der Weg (1951), no. 7, pp. 46–56. The piece also appeared as a separate supplement with illustrations.

  37.  Hans-Ulrich Rudel published his books there as well as in German license editions.

  38.  The BfV was so alarmed that, in the following year, it was seriously concerned about Fritsch and Rudel’s contacts in Brazil. BfV (i.A. Nollau) to the Foreign Office, December 8, 1953, PA AA. Thanks to Holger Meding.

  39.  Fritsch’s presence is the subject of a news article, “Der Weg des Obersten a.D. Rudel,” in Hessische Nachrichten, July 3, 1952. I have, however, found no concrete proof of this trip, even if Fritsch himself announced his first trip to Germany in a letter to Werner Beumelburg. But the cooperation with Karl-Heinz Priester and Nation Europa could have come about by other means than a visit to Germany. Thanks to Frau Klein from the Hessische/Niedersächische Allgemeine archive for her help in researching this article.

  40.  Holger Meding interviewed Dieter Vollmer for “Der Weg”: Eine deutsche Emigrantenzeitschrift in Buenos Aires 1947–1957 (Berlin, 1997). Vollmer also provided an insight into his contacts in later articles and books. See for example Nation Europa 11, no. 11 (1961), pp. 37–42. Also see “Aftermath” in this book.

  41.  Documents including a telegram to Córdoba, dated August 4, 1953, about the financing that had been secured, Adolf von Thadden Estate, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, VVP 39 no. 45 II, sheet 508.

  42.  Frankfurter Rundschau, June 9, 1953.

  43.  “On a conversation with Oberst Rudel in Düsseldorf on December 6 (1952),” file note, Adolf von Thadden Estate, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, VVP 39, no. 45 II, sheets 505–7. The New Right’s meetings are documented in several places.

  44.  Thadden also clearly knew much more about the recordings than Sassen’s prominent clients like Life and Stern.

  45.  German embassy in Chile to Foreign Office, April 18, 1953, PA AA, section III b 212-02, vol. 3; German embassy in Buenos Aires to Foreign Office, December 28, 1953, PA AA, section 3, vol. 74; quoted in Holger Meding, Flucht vor Nürnberg? Deutsche und österreichische Einwanderung in Argentinien 1945–1955 (Cologne, 1992), p. 177.

  46.  “German Nationalist and Neo-Nazi Activities in Argentina,” July 8, 1953, declassified on April 11, 2000 (CIA-RDP620-00856 R000 3000 30004-4).

  47.  For anyone who doubts that Höttl was a National Socialist anti-Semite who believed in the Jewish world conspiracy until his dying day, his last autobiography is recommended reading. Here you will find almost all the usual theories, including the claim that the Wannsee Conference transcript is a forgery. Wilhelm Höttl, Einsatz für das Reich: Im Auslandsgeheimdienst des Dritten Reiches (Koblenz, 1997).

  48.  This oath is on record in the CIA files from March 1952 (source: Erich Kernmayr). Report 1952, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhelm Höttl. For the Langer text: BA tape 03A, 10:00 (corresponding to Sassen transcript 64, though the recording goes into more detail).

  49.  A CIA report from September 29, 1952, also says Heinz and Achim Oster denounced their contact Höttl as a con man and fabricator of facts. Höttl’s reputation was certainly terrible by the summer of 1952. He was officially forbidden to claim to be a representative of the Heinz-Dienst in Vienna but was seen not to be observing this ban, which caused the service some concern. CIA report from Frankfurt, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Wilhelm Höttl, declassified on March 20, 2009.

  50.  Anti-Semitic clichés can be found in Höttl’s output up to the end of his life, although in a less crude form, as he made a good living from officially recognizing the genocide. He may not have been a Holocaust denier, but he used his final book to cast subtle doubt on the scale of the murder of the Jews. He aimed to represent the Holocaust as the actions of a tiny group, to bring its magnitude into doubt, and to expose documents as forgeries made to benefit Israel—and he was writing in 1997! Höttl, Einsatz für das Reich, esp. p. 410.

  51.  Konrad Adenauer himself was one of these representatives. His few pronouncements on the extermination of the Jews were so wooden that, even taking his usual delivery into account, they stand out as formulaic. So do his memoirs, his speeches, and his (relatively few) edited letters.

  52.  Guido Heimann (pseud.), “The Lie of the Six Million,” Der Weg (1954), no. 7, pp. 479–87. The volume is still highly sought after on the antiques market and is sadly unavailable in most libraries. Thanks to Carlo Schütt from the Research Centre for Contemporary History in Hamburg for conjuring forth the article from the Cologne University library.

  53.  Bundestag reports on the first parliamentary term, 165th sitting, Bonn, September 27, 1951, p. 6697.

  54.  Survey by the Institut für Demoskopie, Allensbach, August 1952. Forty-four percent of Germans thought the agreement was “unnecessary,” 24 percent thought it was correct in principle, though the amount was too large, and only 11 percent were clearly in favor. Elisabeth Noelle and Erich Peter Neumann, eds., Jahrbuch der öffentlichen Meinung 1947–1955 (Allensbach, 1956), p. 130.

  55.  Myriad far-right websites—untroubled by expert knowledge of Eichmann’s one thousand pages of comments—still hold firm to the belief that “the truth” would have come out if the Israelis hadn’t been in such a hurry to kill Eichmann. This theory is also widespread in the Arab reception of the events. On the latter, see “Old Guilt and New Soldiers” and “Aftermath” in this book.

  56.  New York Times, May 29, 1960; Spiegel, June 15, 1960; and Stern, June 25, 1960. For the press roundup in Nation Europa, see Suchlicht, 1960, I no. 7ff.

  57.  “Eichmann Fue un Engranaje de la Diabólica Maquinaria Nazi, Dice el Hombre que Escribió sus Memorias en Buenos Aires,” La Razón, December 12, 1960.

  58.  Adolf von Thadden, “Eichmann’s Memoirs,” Nation Europa 31, no. 2 (1981), pp. 60–61.

  59.  Wiesenthal mentioned this source in his letter to Nahum Goldmann, March 30, 1954, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. Tom Segev managed to throw some light on this still largely unknown figure in Wiesenthal’s life and documented the letter from Ahmed Bigi to Wiesenthal on September 28, 1952. Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, pp. 88–90.

  60.  Bigi, the son of a well-known Islamic intellectual, became a close friend of Wiesenthal’s. Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, pp. 88–90.

  61.  Wiesenthal to Goldmann, March 30, 1954, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

  62.  Illus, the Berlin Telegraf’s Sunday supplement, reported on the reappearance of Eichmann in Tel Aviv on February 24, 1952. The Frankfurter Rundschau’s headline on March 22, 1952, was “Mass Murderer Is Military Adviser. Dirlewanger and Eichmann Serving in the Egyptian Army.” And the Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden reported on April 18 and 25 on an “SS General in the Middle East,” who was suspected to be “Karl Eichmann,” among others. In “German ‘Advisers’ in Cairo Plotting Against Bonn: Former SS and SD Leaders in League with Nagib and Mufti,” Die Welt am Sonntag, on November 23, 1952, Eichmann was said to be one of the grand mufti’s direct associates.

  63.  Nahum Goldmann later admitted that he had immediately forwarded the letter to the CIA. The CIA dossier on Adolf Eichmann shows that Goldmann gave the document to Rabbi Kalmanowitz in New York, who used it to try to convince the CIA and even the U.S. president to search for Eichmann. Appeal to DCI by Mr. Adolph Berle and Rabbi Kalmanowitz, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann,. On the correspondence with Wiesenthal and his reaction, see Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, pp. 113–16.

  64.  Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance: Recollections (New York, 1990), p. 77

  65.  Ibid., p. 74

  66.  Bundestag report on the first term, 234. Meeting, Bonn, October 22, 1952, p. 10736.

3 One Good Turn

    1.  Franz Alfred Six to Werner Naumann, “Re: SS UStf Eichmann,” May 16, 1938, prosecution document T/133. See also the notorious staff report from July 19, 1938, in which Eichmann is referred to a little less quotably as a “specialist recognized in his field”; prosecution document T/55-3. Six may have been employed, immediately after the war, in recruiting spies for the Gehlen Organization. See Peter F. Müller and Michael Mueller, Gegen Freund und Feind: Der BND: Geheime Politik und schmutzige Geschäfte(Hamburg, 2002).

    2.  Pedro Pobierzym, interview in Neal Bascomb, Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World’s Most Notorious Nazi (Boston and New York, 2009).

    3.  Eichmann trial, session 105, July 20, 1960. German transcript, Y1.

    4.  Skorzeny told this story to the U.S. intelligence service after Eichmann had been abducted. NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Otto Skorzeny; also held in the Eichmann file.

    5.  Rudel proudly mentions the use of this technology, which was still very new in 1953, in Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Zwischen Deutschland und Argentinien (Buenos Aires, 1954), p. 224.

    6.  The sixth chapter is a reworking of his own escape from Ireland to Argentina, with his very pregnant wife and their child.

    7.  Der Weg (1954), no. 10, pp. 679–85. The chapter was abridged for the magazine and made a little “milder.”

    8.  Willem Sluyse, Die Jünger und die Dirnen (Buenos Aires, 1954). A few examples of these formulations are the repeated use of the phrases “It doesn’t interest me” (e.g., p. 55); “If you ask me, … so I will answer to you that” (p. 56); “It is not for my own sake that I now say to you” (p. 66); “I—I who am …” (p. 68). Like Eichmann, Holz mixes up the Morgenthau Plan and the supposed Kaufmann Plan. See also “An Untimely Peroration” in this book.

    9.  On Mengele, see “I Had No Comrades” in this book.

  10.  Sluyse, Die Jünger und die Dirnen, pp. 55, 63, 64.

  11.  Stan Lauryssens has claimed that Eichmann approached Sassen because he felt this fictional character represented him so well, he wanted to meet the author. This claim cannot be true, however, even without taking into account Lauryssens’s rather free interpretation of sources, as Sassen and Eichmann already knew each other by the time the book was published.

  12.  Warwick Hester, “On the Streets of Truth,” Der Weg (1954), no. 8, p. 574.

  13.  A UN wanted list for the key figures in the Nazi hierarchy from February 1947 contained the note on Eichmann: “believed to have committed suicide US CIC source.” Archives of the UN War Crimes Commission, UN Archives, New York, quoted in Guy Walters, Hunting Evil (London and Toronto, 2009), pp. 115 and 598. From a document by the British War Crimes Group, also dated February 1947. Walters suspects that this story was believed in England and that this was why the British never made an effort to assist in the hunt for Eichmann.

  14.  Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84.

  15.  Holger Meding, “Der Weg”: Eine deutsche Emigrantenzeitschrift in Buenos Aires 1947–1957 (Berlin, 1997), p. 131.

  16.  Der Weg (1954), no. 8, p. 575.

  17.  Ibid., p. 578.

  18.  Hugo C. Backhaus (Herbert Grabert), Volk ohne Führung (Göttingen, 1955). A second edition appeared in 1956; quotes here are taken from the 1955 edition, p. 233. Grabert was the founder of the “Group of Noncurrent (Displaced) University Lecturers” (from 1950), publisher of the Deutschen Hochschullehrer-Zeitung (from 1953), and a conscientious networker in the far-right milieu. See Martin Finkenberger and Horst Junginger, eds., Im Dienste der Lügen: Herbert Grabert (1901–1978) und seine Verlage(Aschaffenburg, 2004).

  19.  Two articles that clearly draw on Der Weg (without naming their source) claim that only 300,000 opponents of the Nazi regime were killed, some of them Jews. This is a further reduction of the figure of 353,000 claimed by Guido Heimann, “The Lie of the Six Million,” Der Weg (1954), no. 7, p. 485. The Die Anklage articles are “The Basest Falsification of History” (January 1955) and “Proof from Switzerland. What Now, Prosecutor?,” (April 1, 1955). Both are quoted in Wolfgang Benz, who admittedly was not aware of the connection to Dürer’s magazine and was therefore unable to pin down the name Warwick Hester. Wolfgang Benz, “Realitätsverweigerung als antisemitisches Prinzip: Die Leugnung des Völkermords,” in Antisemitismus in Deutschland: Zur Aktualität eines Vorurteils (Munich, 1995), pp. 121–39, esp. p. 130.

  20.  For the anatomy of this forgery and how it was spread from a European perspective, see Benz, “Realitätsverweigerung.”

  21.  Udo Walendy reproduced this nonsense under the title “The Dr. Pinter Report” in Historische Tatsachen, no. 43 (1990), pp. 20–23. He manufactured the reference to Stephen F. Pinter there.

  22.  Holger Meding searched in vain for a U.S. jurist by the name of Pinter, though he wasn’t aware of the connection between Warwick Hester and Die Anklage. Meding, Der Weg, p. 64. On Pinter, see Nation Europa 10, no. 4 (1960), p. 68. This issue contains a reference to a statement by Pinter in the Catholic weekly Our Sunday Visitor (Indiana), June 14, 1959. There he (allegedly) bears witness against the gas chambers, in particular Dachau. In reality the item was a reader’s letter, which has since been cited as an article. Thanks to John Norton, the current editor-in-chief of Our Sunday Visitor, for letting me know that no one in his publishing house knew about the far-right popularity of this letter. Unfortunately, the original letter does not seem to be extant.

  23.  Eichmann claimed to have seen it this way, in his very restrained remarks in Israel. He praised Sassen as a journalist “accredited” by the Argentine government and described Fritsch as a respected publisher. Interrogation, p. 397; Eichmann trial, session 105, and elsewhere.

  24.  Sassen transcript 3:4.

  25.  Sassen transcript 6:2. I was unable to find what Eichmann claimed to have read in any of the articles, but if anyone is more successful, I would appreciate references.

  26.  Ha’aretz, September 17, 1954.

  27.  Reynolds et al. draw on Eichmann’s dating of the article to the 1940s and also claim Bauer served in Gustav Noske’s Einsatzkommando 12 and in the SS Einsatzgruppe under Otto Ohlendorf. Reynolds quotes a newspaper article that states “at the end, he was a man again,” which goes back to the Sassen transcripts. These had already formed the basis of the Life collage. See Quentin Reynolds, Ephraim Katz, and Zwy Aldouby, Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story (New York, 1960), p. 30. Pendorf, who says he researched the case, also fell for Eichmann’s story, as he clearly couldn’t find any newspaper articles. Since then, the story has cropped up repeatedly in the literature on Eichmann. It is correctly dated only by Wiesenthal.

  28.  BND report, “Near Eastern Connections,” March 19, 1958, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

  29.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

  30.  The issue date for each passport is August 20, 1954. The details came to light in 1960. Note by Raab to State Secretary and Minister, July 27, 1960, PA AA, vol. 55; cited in Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes, and Moshe Zimmermann, Das Amt unddie Vergangenheit: Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik (Munich, 2010), pp. 603 and 792.

  31.  Horst Eichmann, transcript of a hearing with Fritz Bauer. Bauer then passed the information on to the West German foreign minister, via Hesse’s minister of justice, on March 10, 1961. PA AA B82/432.

  32.  The passport was issued on June 23, 1954. It would not be the last: Josef Schwammberger would receive another from the embassy in 1962, according to investigations by the Stuttgart public prosecutor’s office. See the letter from Werner Junker (ambassador) to the German Foreign Office, December 13, 1962, published as document 483 in Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik des Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1962 (Munich, 2010), pp. 2060–61. Schwammberger and Eichmann had known each other a long time, having qualified in military drill from the same training camp.

  33.  See also Nikolas Berg, Der Holocaust und die westdeutschen Historiker: Erforschung und Erinnerung (Göttingen, 2003), pp. 284–89. The board meeting took place on June 25, 1954.

  34.  Helmut Krausnick, “Zur Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus,” in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, supplement to Das Parlament, August 11, 1954.

  35.  The Attorney General of the Government of Israel vs. Malchiel Grünwald, Case 124/53. For a detailed account, see Anna Porter, Kasztner’s Train: The True Story of an Unknown Hero of the Holocaust (New York, 2007), pp. 324ff. Porter relies largely on the Hebrew typescript by Yechiam Weitz, which has been translated only unofficially (as The Man Who Was Murdered Twice), and on the documentary film Mishpat Kastner (Israel Broadcasting Authority, 1994). See also Ladislaus Löb, Rezsö Kasztner, The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews: A Survivor’s Account (London, 2008), and Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust, trans. Haim Watzman (New York, 1993), pp. 255–320.

  36.  This episode also cost Halevi the leading role in the Eichmann trial in 1961, which he had to concede to Moshe Landau.

  37.  For example, “On Trial,” Time, July 11, 1955; “Zionist Ex-Leader Accused of Perjury,” New York Times, July 8, 1955; and “Israeli Case Revived,” New York Times, August 1, 1955. An even greater wave of publicity followed after Kasztner was assassinated on March 3, 1957, which was another topic for the Sassen circle.

  38.  Even in 1993 Wilfred von Oven referred to it as a paper “principally read by Jews and leftist intellectuals.” Wilfred von Oven, Ein “Nazi” in Argentinien (Gladbeck, 1993), p. 9.

  39.  Sassen transcript 12:4.

  40.  Valentin Tarra to Fritz Bauer, January 1, 1960, in Mahnruf (Austria), June 1960.

  41.  The investigations and the newspaper cuttings were included in Eichmann’s wanted file, which was sent to Fritz Bauer in Frankfurt am Main in 1956. Unfortunately, in spite of reports to the contrary, this file has now vanished. All that remains are a few pages of notes on the events and collected excerpts. These pages can be found in Vienna National Criminal Court to the investigating judge, November 18, 1954, HHStA Wiesbaden, Section 461, no. 33,531, pp. 118ff. Thanks to Herr Pult from the HHStA Wiesbaden for his kind help in searching for the pages in question and the commitment to finding a few more. Irmtrud Wojak, contains misprints in the footnotes on this source in both of her books. (Eichmanns Memoiren. Ein kritischer Essay, Frankfurt a.M., 2001; Fritz Bauer 1903–1968. Eine Biographie. Munich, 2009.)

  42.  Entry on “Johannes von Leers” in Die deutschsprachige Presse: Ein biographisch-bibliographisches Handbuch, comp. Bruno Jahn (Munich, 2005), vol. 1, p. 617.

  43.  Reader’s letter, “Johann von Leers: A Correction” in Nation Europa 11, no. 4 (1961), p. 68.

  44.  His departure from Argentina was reported to Germany. See West German embassy in Buenos Aires to German Foreign Office, August 11, 1954, under 212, no. 2116/54. The Foreign Office passed the information on to the BfV (306212-02/5.20973/54). Thanks to the BfV for copies.

  45.  Pedro Pobierzym, interviews by Uki Goñi (1997) and Roelf van Til (2000) and in the documentary I Met Eichmann (Adolf Eichmann: Begegnungen mit einem Mörder) (BBC/NDR, 2003). Pobierzym occasionally worked for Dieter Menge and evidently observed his guests with surprise and displeasure. Rumors about Menge’s memorabilia collection and subscriptions to all the far-right publications still circulate in Buenos Aires to this day. Thanks to Uki Goñi and Natasja de Winter for their help and information.

  46.  “All the Jews talked about in Argentina was Mengele.” José Moskovits, leader of the Jewish Religious Community of Buenos Aires, interview by Raymond Ley and Natasja de Winter (2009), extract in Eichmanns Ende (NDR/SWR, 2010).

  47.  Willem Sassen, interview in The Hunt for Dr. Mengele (Granada Television, 1978). For Sassen’s statements about Mengele’s “research,” see the interview fragments in Edicion Plus (Telefe Buenos Aires, 1991).

  48.  Heinz Schneppen, Odessa und das Vierte Reich: Mythen der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 2007), p. 139.

  49.  Ibid., p. 153.

  50.  Ibid., p. 136.

  51.  Documented in I. S. Kulcsár, Shoshanna Kulcsár, and Lipot Szondi, “Adolf Eichmann and the Third Reich,” in Crime, Law and Corrections, ed. Ralph Slovenko (Springfield, Ill., 1966), pp. 16–32, esp. p. 28.

  52.  Quentin Reynolds, Ephraim Katz, and Zwy Aldouby, Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story (New York, 1960), p. 201.

  53.  “Peron as Protector of Rudel and the Fascist International,” Argentinisches Tageblatt, December 17, 1955.

  54.  The research group headed by Norbert Frei quickly discovered a reference to the article from the Argentinisches Tageblatt (December 17, 1955) in the Foreign Office archive. Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes, and Moshe Zimmermann, Das Amt und die Vergangenheit: Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik (Munich, 2010), p. 596.

  55.  The Argentinisches Tageblatt gave a commentary by Korvettenkommandant (retired) Hermann Brunswig under the title “Peronazism,” the main aim of which was to protect the German immigrants from a collective accusation. For this reason, within its sober realism, it also tended to downplay the issue.

  56.  Zvi Aharoni and Wilhelm Dietl, Operation Eichmann: The Truth About the Pursuit, Capture, and Trial, trans. Helmut Bögler (New York, 1997), p. 70. Eichmann said he started work at the farm on March 1, 1955, but since he wrote it on a job application form, its accuracy is not entirely certain. Personnel form for Mercedes-Benz Argentina, March 20, 1959; facsimile in Schneppen, Odessa, p. 160.

  57.  Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84, p. 16.

  58.  Eichmann’s annotation on the title page of Fritz Kahn, Das Atom (Zurich, 1948), quoted in Stern, July 9, 1960. Eichmann confirmed the quote was correct in interrogation, September 15, 1960.

  59.  Application to Mercedes-Benz Argentina; facsimile in Schneppen, Odessa.

  60.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 25.

  61.  BA tape 29:05ff. (corresponds to tape 64, but the remarks have been left out of the transcript).

  62.  The property-owning arm of the Vienna Central Office, the “Vienna Emigration Fund,” acquired a paper factory in Doppl (Mühltal) / Altenfeld near Linz, in Upper Austria, on May 8, 1939. Among the documents there is the note: “a valuation of the property [is] not necessary.” AdR, Ministry for Interior and Cultural Affairs, Dept. II, Gr. 4, Office: Foundations and Funds, Emergency Matters, Vienna 1, Ballhausplatz 2, Zi. II / 4-127.517, 1939. Object Emigration Fund (AWF), Acquisition of Property, May 11, 1939; attachments: purchase contract between M. Mösenbacher and the AWF, May 8, 1939: Gudrun Rohrbach, file no. R76/39. Quoted in Gabriel Anderl, “Die ‘Umschulungslager’ Doppl und Sandhof der Wiener Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung,” article at www.david.juden.at/kulturzeitschrift/57-60/58-Anderl.htm (2003 and 2004).

  63.  An Israeli spy heard this rumor after the war, and as late as the 1990s, journalists conducting investigations in Lemburg heard it there. It concerned Maria “Mitzi” Bauer, the manager of the Pension Weiss, which functioned as the secret meeting place for Eichmann’s men and later played a significant role in their escape. Manus Diamant, Geheimauftrag: Mission Eichmann (Vienna, 1995), p. 209, and Georg M. Hafner and Esther Shapira, Die Akte Alois Brunner: Warum einer der größten Naziverbrecher noch immer auf freiem Fuß ist (Hamburg, 2002), p. 73.

  64.  Sassen transcript 59:3. Eichmann mentions it only as an Easter trip, but Vera Eichmann’s birthday also fell on the holiday that year.

  65.  Zvi Aharoni convincingly contradicted this with reference to his operation book. Eichmann was not at home on this day: according to his son’s statement, he was visiting Tucumán.

  66.  The description comes from Rosemarie Godlewski and Emilie Finnegan, two department secretaries, interviewed for I Met Eichmann (Adolf Eichmann—Begegnungen mit einem Mörder) (NDR/BBC, 2002); from Maria Mösenbacher, Mitzi Bauer, and Margrit Kutschera, Eichmann’s lovers (Diamant, Geheimauftrag, pp. 210–28); and from Eichmann’s female contacts in Altensalzkoth (interviews for Stern, June–July 1960, and for I Met Eichmann).

  67.  Eichmann’s nickname appears in the first CIC reports and, as the context shows, this information comes from Wisliceny and Höttl. Arrest Report Interrogation Wisliceny and CIC Report Eichmann, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann; Rudolf Höß,Kommandant in Auschwitz: Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen (1958; reprinted Munich, 2000), p. 336.

  68.  BA tape 02 A, from 8:25 (Argentine tape no. 68).

  69.  David Cesarani, Eichmann: His Life and Crimes (London, 2005), p. 188.

  70.  Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84, p. 13.

  71.  BA tape 9C, 27:30–29:30. Cuts were made in the transcript because of frequent stuttering in this sequence.

  72.  Examples can be found in Sassen transcript tapes 17 (concentration camp bordellos) and 67 (BA tape 05B, starting at 20:00) and elsewhere.

  73.  In Israel, Eichmann even announced his plan for world peace: women should be in power. “Götzen,” p. 199. He didn’t mention that he thought world peace was “un-Aryan.”

  74.  “Mein Sein und Tun,” fifteen-page paper written in Israel, All. Proz. 6/253, here p. 10.

  75.  Peter Longerich convincingly proved that what was done in practice bore little resemblance to Himmler’s theory. Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: A Life (Oxford, 2011), p. 370.

  76.  Sassen transcript 10:7. Kurt Becher showed Eichmann an expensive jeweled necklace that he had obtained by extortion in Hungary on Himmler’s orders. Eichmann was also a witness to Becher handing the stolen goods over to Himmler.

  77.  Himmler’s memos from April 1936 and June 1937, quoted in Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, p. 370.

  78.  Kulcsár, Kulcsár, and Szondi, “Adolf Eichmann and the Third Reich,” pp. 30– 32.

  79.  Ibid., p. 17. Three people were involved in the psychological examinations. Kulcsár himself conducted the interviews and tests, and his wife and (in one case) Lipot Szondi evaluated them. Many years later a further evaluation of individual test results, partly using blind trials, did not differ greatly from the Kulcsárs’ results. They have not been seen outside the profession until now.

  80.  Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963; reprint New York, 1994), p. 77, and notes by Avner W. Less on February 7, 1961, Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich, NL Less, 4.2.3.2.

  81.  Examples are early pamphlet-style publications, like Dewey W. Linze, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann (Los Angeles, Calif., 1961); Comer Clarke, The Savage Truth: Eichmann, the Brutal Story of Hitler’s Beast (London, 1960); and John Donovan, Eichmann: Man of Slaughter (New York, 1960). The most extreme example in film is Eichmann, dir. Robert W. Young (UK/Hungary, 2007).

  82.  Sassen transcript 39:3.

  83.  Chapter 6 of his novel Die Jünger und die Dirnen gives an account of Sassen’s escape that is only superficially fictionalized; here p. 168.

  84.  The date 1953, given by David Cesarani and others, is a misprint, which is made clear by Eichmann’s paternity declaration of May 29, 1962, and other documents. BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/237.

  85.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 26.

  86.  Eichmann inadvertently gave this away himself, in his written answer to a question on worries about his family, shortly before his execution in 1962. Answers to questionnaire for Paris Match, May 1962, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/252, p. 20. The magazine printed parts of the interview immediately after Eichmann was executed.

  87.  The account occasionally given, of the baby being registered in the name of Eichmann, is incorrect.

  88.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 26.

  89.  Answers to Paris Match questionnaire.

  90.  Willem Sluyse (Sassen), “Letter to a Despairing Friend, Christmas 1955,” in Der Weg (1956), no. 1, p. 12.

  91.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 26.

  92.  Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Zwischen Deutschland und Argentinien (Buenos Aires, 1954), pp. 259 and 157.

  93.  Theodor Heuss, “Der deutsche Weg—Rückfall und Fortschritt,” address on the jubilee celebrations of the Evangelical Academy, Bad Boll, published in Das Parlament 42 (October 19, 1955), pp. 9–10, here p. 9.

  94.  Sassen entitled his summary of the years 1945–55 “Interregnum Furiosum” in Der Weg (1955), pp. 295–99, here p. 299.

  95.  Sluyse (Sassen), “Letter to a Despairing Friend,” p. 14.

  96.  Ewout van der Knaap and Nitzan Lebovic, “Nacht und Nebel”: Gedächtnis des Holocaust und internationale Wirkungsgeschichte (Göttingen, 2008).

  97.  The first case against Otto Bräutigam was abandoned in 1950. The suspension ended in 1958 with his reemployment, although documents showed that Bräutigam not only had detailed knowledge of the murder plans but was also involved in making them. During the first Nuremberg trial, a paper was produced referring to a meeting with Eichmann. IMT 3319-PS, Ribbentrop material collection, identical with prosecution document T/1003. It was even suspected that he personally led a Wannsee follow-up conference. In August 1959 Bräutigam received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. See Michael Schwab-Trapp, Konflikt, Kultur und Interpretation: Eine Diskursanalyse des öffentlichen Umgangs mit dem Nationalsozialismus (Opladen, 1996).

  98.  Der Weg (1956), no. 7–8, p. 240.

  99.  Quotes in order of appearance, all from Der Weg (1956): pp. 480, 480, 240, 242, 357, 610.

100.  Ibid., pp. 477, 610.

101.  Ibid., p. 608.

102.  Ibid., p. 477.

103.  Paul Beneke (pseudonym), “The Role of the ‘Gestapo,’ ” Der Weg (1956), no. 7–8, pp. 353–58; and no. 9, pp. 476–80.

104.  The author of these lines is a child of someone born in Danzig herself.

105.  I would not completely rule out Reinhard Kopps, who wrote under the pseudonym Juan Maler, among others, and was born near Hamburg. As somebody who was born near Hamburg, he grew up in a city with a special connection to Paul Beneke. But overall the article is presented too academically for Maler. It has footnotes, which were a rarity in Der Weg.

106.  “Meine Memoiren” (1960), p. 108. The article in Der Weg is such a fundamental attack on everything Eichmann held to be true as to rule out the possibility that it was written in collaboration with him. However, it could have been based on conversations with him, as well as other insider knowledge.

107.  Report, November 30, 1956, Deutsche Reichspartei Collection, Archiv des Bundes der Verfolgten des Naziregimes, Berlin. Thanks to Ms. Rehfeld for her help researching this report, which is not contained in the estate of Adolf von Thadden, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, VVP 39.

108.  The most detailed story of this sort can be found in Werner Brockdorff (an alias for Alfred Jarschel, a former Nazi youth leader), Flucht vor Nürnberg: Pläne und Organisation der Fluchtwege der NS-Prominenz im “Römischen Weg” (Munich-Wels, 1969), esp. chap. 17. On the history of these fantasies, see the rest of this chapter.

109.  Johann von Leers, reader’s letter in Nation Europa.

110.  Willem Sluyse, “Garbage Men! A Balance Sheet for Our Atomic Age,” Der Weg (1956), nos. 11–12, pp. 673–76.

111.  Der Weg (1954), no. 7, p. 487.

112.  Thanks to the Konstanz City Archive. Sassen remained in Konstanz until February 4, 1959, at 61 Schottenstraße, then moved to Munich and officially registered his address there as 12 Hohenstaufenstraße. It isn’t clear why Sassen chose Konstanz, although during this year the census system was changed there, and such fundamental changes always provide loopholes for people with something to hide. This was why Eichmann chose Breslau as his birthplace during his escape.

113.  Anti-Semitism does not always forge ahead as it did in Argentina, but presumptions of this sort clearly informed the reception of the first publications on the persecution of the Jews. Hardly a single reviewer omitted a clear labeling of the authors’ names as Jewish.

114.  Wolf Sievers (pseud.), “The ‘Final Solution’ of the Jewish Question,” Der Weg (1957), no. 3, pp. 235–42. All the following quotes are taken from this article.

115.  Ibid., p. 239: “The participants (of the Wannsee Conference): as well as Heydrich, Gestapo-Müller, Eichmann, Schöngarth and Lange from the Gestapo, Luther from the Foreign Office, and representatives of a very specific and highly suspicious category of the Reich Ministry bureaucracy.” In total, Adolf Eichmann was mentioned only twice in all the articles appearing in Der Weg up to 1957, the first being the news of his “suicide.” His name appeared once more after this, in a “reader’s letter”.

116.  Rudel, Zwischen Deutschland und Argentinien, p. 260.

117.  “Eichmann Fue un Engranaje de la Diabolica Maquinaria Nazi … ” La Razón, December 12, 1960.

118.  Only some of Sassen’s pseudonyms have been pinpointed. We know the names Willem Sluyse, Steven Wiel, and the old family name Sassen chose for respected publications like Stern, Wilhelm S. van Elsloo. Other names, like Andre Desmedt and Juan del Rio, are also mentioned occasionally, but it is to be feared that Sassen wrote under a great many more names for Der Weg and other magazines in Germany. On his suspected authorship of various articles, see the account of the Sassen interviews that follows.

The So-Called Sassen Interviews

    1.  Gabriel Bach reported this frequently (and admiringly) in his interviews. Eichmann himself gave thanks in his letter to his family, April 17, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/165.

    2.  Sassen contract with Time, Inc.; Fritsch to Eichmann’s family and Hans Rechenberg; Eichmann several times in Israel. BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253. See also “Aftermath” in this book.

    3.  Thanks to Saskia Sassen for providing a great deal of information about this event, and for her generosity in engaging in an exchange of thoughts in 2009. See also Saskia Sassen, interviews by Roelf van Til (March 21 and 27, 2005) and Raymond Ley (June 7, 2000), whom I also thank for our discussions.

    4.  Inge Schneider, interview by Roelf van Til (2005). More detail on her follows.

    5.  Both can be heard several times on the surviving tapes.

    6.  In 2005 Saskia Sassen was still saying that Payne was probably the man in the attic, though she corrected herself in 2009 and is now sure he was a man she did not know.

    7.  L’Express, no. 494, December 1, 1960.

    8.  Sassen, and Eichmann’s defense counsel Robert Servatius, accused each other in 1960 of having given this article to the magazine with malicious intent. This suggests that neither of them was the originator of the article. See “Aftermath” in this book. So many of the claims made in the article are incorrect that Sassen’s denial seems plausible.

    9.  “Coups in South America’s Biggest Countries and Forces Behind Them,” Life, November 28, 1955, pp. 44–47. The article is unattributed.

  10.  Thanks to Uki Goñi for these thoughts from the point of view of an experienced journalist. Goñi, correspondence with the author (2009).

  11.  These dates and this information are based on Payne’s reportage (Time, March 17, 1952; Life, January 31, 1955) and on Payne’s available dispatches to Time, including a report from Buenos Aires dated May 10, 1957, and a report on the Eichmann trial dated April 12, 1961. Estate of Roy E. Larsen, former president of Time, Inc., Harvard University Library, Harvard (Dispatches from Time Magazine Correspondents: First Series, 1942–55, MA 02138; Second Series, 1956–1968, MS AM 2090.1).

  12.  “Israel: On Trial,” Time, July 11, 1955.

  13.  Sassen transcript 6:3.

  14.  Saskia Sassen has patchy memories of the time of the interviews, which is not unusual for children of that age. The children were also not always at home when the guests arrived. In any case, it would have been highly unusual for someone to explain such a large and delicate book project to a child.

  15.  Stan Lauryssens—an expert weaver of fact and fiction, which unfortunately cannot always be disentangled from his texts—even claims that Payne himself was involved in the intelligence services. Payne, according to Lauryssens, told no less a person thanIsser Harel, the head of Mossad, about the conversations between Eichmann and Sassen, after Harel had received a tip-off about the exclusive offer from Time, Inc. He supposedly traveled to meet Payne in Argentina, who was then able to show him pages of the transcript. Stan Lauryssens, De fatale vriendschappen van Adolf Eichmann (Leuven, 1998), p. 179.

  16.  HHStA Wiesbaden, Section 461, No. 33 531, T 20/1. Bundesministerium der Justiz to chief public prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, Bonn, October 6, 1956. Thanks to Herr Pult of the HHStA Wiesbaden for his kind help in finding the relevant pages. The complete wanted file, contrary to claims made elsewhere, is unfortunately not held in the HHStA Wiesbaden.

  17.  Crime according to §§ 211, 74 StGB. A facsimile of the arrest warrant can be found in Heinz Schneppen, Odessa und das Vierte Reich: Mythen der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 2007), p. 158.

  18.  Document quoted ibid., p. 162. Unfortunately the author seldom cites sources to academic standards.

  19.  BfV (i.A. Nollau) to the Foreign Office, December 8, 1953, PA AA, Section 3, vol. 87, 81.11/2. Thanks to Holger Meding.

  20.  Payne to Time, Inc. on Arbenz, dispatch no. 317, Estate of Roy E. Lasen, former president of Time, Inc., Harvard University Library, Harvard (Dispatches from Time Magazine Correspondents: Second Series, 1956–1968, MS AM 2090.1).

  21.  Thanks to Saskia Sassen for the openness with which she has exposed herself to a complex mixture of memory, emotion, and projection.

1 Eichmann the Author

    1.  “Götzen,” p. 8/AE: 3.

    2.  Ibid.

    3.  In 1933 Mildenstein spent six months in Palestine with Kurt Tuchler, writing under his pseudonym Lim. The pro-Zionist article series, which appeared between September 26 and October 9, 1934, had a clear anti-Semitic tone. A blaze of publicity accompanied its publication, which even the Jüdische Rundschau (September 28, 1934) commented upon. In 1938 the series was published as a book. For a discussion on the first article series, see Axel Meier, “ ‘Ein Nazi fährt nach Palästina’: Der Bericht eines SS Offiziers als Beitrag zur Lösung der Judenfrage,” in Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, no. 11 (2002), pp. 76–90. Unfortunately, the biographical information given on Mildenstein’s SD career follows Eichmann’s (incorrect) account.

    4.  Interrogation, p. 66.

    5.  The internal SD Leithefte (guidance booklets) were manuscripts for official use only, classified top secret. For example, a text available in BA Koblenz, from March 1937, titled “Verlagswesen” (Publishers) comprises thirty-five pages of A4, is numbered, and bears the header “The Reichsführer-SS, Head of the Security Service Head Office.” It is a dense account of the topic, clearly meant only for insiders. BA Koblenz, R58/1107. The SS-Leithefte, by contrast, was a popular monthly tabloid magazine, with illustrations and articles by various authors. It was initially edited for the Reichsführer-SS by the RuSHA and later by SS head office.

    6.  Interrogation, p. 66.

    7.  In Israel (Eichmann trial, session 102), Eichmann claimed he had written the book in May 1942, though he also said he had wanted to dedicate it to Heydrich after his death (which would have been after June 4). To Sassen, he said he had written it “after the trip to Bialystok and Minsk” and that he had suggested to Heydrich that it should be published under his name (so, before June 4).

    8.  April 20, 1942: U.S. Holocaust Museum, Washington, RG15 007M reel 23: HK Warsaw 362/298 folio 1.5: report on the work conference with Prof. Franz (Günther Franz, professor at the “Reich University” of Strasbourg) with VII C on September 10 and 11, 1942, published as document 6 in Jürgen Matthäus, “ ‘Weltanschauliche Forschung und Auswertung’: Aus den Akten des Amtes VII im Reichssicherheitshauptamt,” in Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, no. 4 (1996), pp. 287–330, here pp. 309–12. Also folio 6, the remark by Dittel on the position taken by the department head (Six) on April 20, 1942, on the transcript of the conference with the work plan, published as document 7, ibid., pp. 312–14. The plan was apparently then abandoned. See transcript of the follow-up conference on July 1, 1942, folio 12, 15.18–19, published as document 10 in Matthäus, “ ‘Weltanschauliche Forschung,’ ” pp. 314–20, and the transcript of the conference of January 16, 1943, folio 21, 25, 27, published as document 12, pp. 321–24.

    9.  For example, “Ziel und Methodik in der Lösung der Judenfrage,” February 23, 1938, BA Koblenz, R58/911, p. 144.

  10.  Rudolf Peckel of the Süddeutsche Rundfunk regularly dissected Der Weg in the series Für und Wider (For and Against) (June 8, 1954; November 23, 1954; January 4, 1955). Holger Meding also points to programs on the Bavarian radio station Bayerische Rundfunk; Meding, “Der Weg”: Eine deutsche Emigrantenzeitschrift in Buenos Aires 1947–1957 (Berlin, 1997), p. 133.

  11.  For the discovery of a few documents previously believed to have disappeared, see “Aftermath” in this book.

  12.  Thanks to Helmut Eichmann (one of Eichmann’s grandchildren) for his willingness to talk to me about the manuscript in his family’s possession, and for asking his father, Dieter Eichmann, about the possibility of granting access to this document. The family is seriously considering publishing the manuscript but only with an appropriate level of remuneration. Even a critical comparison of the document with accessible material is to be undertaken only in the context of a concrete offer.

  13.  Servatius, “Einlassungen zu den ‘Sassen-Memoiren,’ ” six pages, Jerusalem, June 9, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/254.

  14.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

  15.  This also goes for many quotations in the so-called subject literature.

  16.  This distinction is not always seen, but there is plenty of evidence for it. Eichmann wrote and spoke an idiosyncratic language, the main marker of which was its combination of snatches of Nazi and bureaucratic jargon with other styles.

  17.  The first time in tape 8:1, a conversation that can be dated to mid-April 1957, as it took place after the murder of Rudolf Kasztner (who was attacked on March 3 and died on March 15), and a newspaper article relating to it in the Argentinisches Tageblatt(April 15, 1957). Krumey’s arrest is also mentioned (8:9.2; April 1, 1957).

  18.  Sassen dictated a part of the Eichmann manuscript onto tape for typing up. This indicates when it must have been completed, i.e., before tape 15, which contains this dictation. Sassen transcript 15:5–9, corresponding to “The Others Spoke,” pp. 54–65.

  19.  “Allgemein” (General), two-page handwritten text on blank paper, Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-92. Clearly composed at the same time as “Persönliches” (Personal), ibid. Both texts are attempts to formulate an introduction to the picture of himself he wished to present.

  20.  Vera Eichmann, interview in Paris Match, April 29, 1962; original transcript in BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/252.

  21.  Die Welt, August 17, 1999.

  22.  Irmtrud Wojak, Eichmanns Memoiren: Ein kritischer Essay (Frankfurt am Main, 2001), p. 68. Wojak explains that “the manuscript cannot be verified.” Most authors quote Robert Pendorf or the highly problematic edition Ich, Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann’s handwritten text “Persönliches” is in Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-92. Contrary to what Pendorf claims, it is a manuscript on lined paper of varying sizes, or rather an exercise book with larger pages inserted: nine pages, with two double-sided pages. The manuscript entitled “Allgemein” (General) is on squared paper. As Pendorf evidently knows both parts, he has probably simply confused the two. “Allgemein,” handwritten fragment, Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-92. An unreliable contemporary transcript can also be found in N/1497-73.

  23.  All quotes in the following paragraphs are taken from the handwritten text “Persönliches” (Personal), Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-92, unless stated otherwise. Here, p. 4.

  24.  Ibid., p. 5.

  25.  Ibid., p. 7.

  26.  Ibid., pp. 6, 7, 9.

  27.  In his farewell letter to his family before his execution, Eichmann wrote: “Let history create [!] the verdict.” BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/248.

  28.  “Persönliches” (Personal), handwritten text, p. 4, Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-92, p. 6.

  29.  Ibid., p. 9.

  30.  One hundred seven pages, handwritten on squared Din (close to A4-size) paper. Parts of the manuscript and various fragments are scattered over several archive collections, and sometimes over several files, in BA Ludwigsburg, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6 (Servatius collection), and BA Koblenz, Eichmann Estate. See also “Aftermath” in this book. One should not expect an ordered or professional script. We have several disordered collections of handwritten pages and typed copies that have been divided up. None of these is complete. There is neither a consistently logical pagination nor reliable chapter headings. Anyone wishing to read Eichmann’s texts must first assemble them—though here they may ask for the instructions I put together, which can be found in BA Koblenz and Ludwigsburg: “Adolf Eichmanns Aufzeichnungen und die sogenannten Sassen-Interviews 1956 bis Frühjar 1960. Annotiertes Findbuch zu den Beständen in den Bundesarchiven Koblenz und Ludwigsburg.” Hamburg 2011. The inventory also contains a guide (for use in the Bundesarchive only) to reading Eichmann’s handwriting, which is difficult to decipher. In the following text, page numbers are cited as comprehensively as possible. It is, however, impossible to avoid citations that at first glance appear contradictory.

  31.  For the publication history of the Argentina Papers, see “Aftermath” in this book.

  32.  “The Others Spoke,” introduction (pt. 1), p. 1.

  33.  Ibid., p. 2.

  34.  Ibid.

  35.  Ibid., p. 7.

  36.  Raphael Gross, Anständig geblieben: Nationalsozialistische Moral (Frankfurt am Main, 2010), p. 191.

  37.  “The Others Spoke,” introduction, p. 7. This manuscript page is missing, as Sassen evidently sold the original to Life. The reference to it, and to the contemporary copy, can be found in BA Ludwigsburg, “Miscellaneous” folder.

  38.  “The Others Spoke,” pt. 2, p. 1.

  39.  “The Others Spoke,” pt. 2: “Re: My Findings on the Matter of ‘Jewish Questions’ and Measures by the National Socialist German Government to Solve this Complex in the Years 1933 to 1945.” The text is quoted from the handwritten pages. “II: Betrifft: Meine Feststellungen,” p. 65; page numbers according to the handwritten original. The manuscript has been reconstructed from the parts contained in the above-named archives, as there was no complete, or completely legible, version in any one collection.

  40.  Ibid., p. 1.

  41.  Ibid., p. 2.

  42.  For the full quotation, see above. Robert H. Jackson’s summation, July 26, 1946, IMT vol. 19, p. 397.

  43.  “Re: My Findings on the Matter,” p. 54.

  44.  Ibid., p. 57.

  45.  Himmler to Müller, January 18, 1943. See also Peter Witte and Stephan Tyas, “A New Document on the Destruction and Murder of Jews during ‘Einsatz Reinhardt,’ ” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15 (2001), pp. 468–86.

  46.  Dieter Wisliceny described the “card room” in his handwritten document “Re: Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,” Bratislava, July 26, 1946, prosecution document T/89. The descriptions of Rolf Günther’s wall charts, and of the map hung behind Franz Novak’s desk with flags for the extermination camps, come from testimony of Erika Scholz, former secretary in Eichmann’s department, at the Franz Novak trial, March 27, 1972, published as document 46 in Kurt Pätzold and Erika Schwarz, “Auschwitz war für mich nur ein Bahnhof”: Franz Novak, der Transportoffizier Adolf Eichmanns (Berlin, 1994), p. 171.

  47.  On the argument about the Korherr Report and other figures, see “The Lie of the Six Million” in this book.

  48.  The transcriber of this handwritten text, which found its way into the Sassen transcript as part of tape no. 15, misread rund (around) as und (and). Sassen transcript, Hagag copy, p. 116. The handwriting, however, clarifies the error.

  49.  “Re: My Findings on the Matter,” p. 64.

  50.  Ibid., p. 65.

  51.  Ibid., pp. 63–64.

  52.  Tape 67, BA tape 10B 1:01:00.

  53.  Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-90, Bl.1. Sassen probably ensured this note could not be seen on the copies that he prepared to be sold, not wanting to create any difficulties for Eichmann. See “Aftermath” in this book.

  54.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

  55.  Eichmann openly calculated, as he was sitting in prison in Israel, that a “monster trial” would turn a simple collection of notes into a best seller. Letter to his family “on the eve of the trial,” April 17, 1961, All. Proz. 6/165.

  56.  Eichmann compiled the source material for Heydrich’s lecture at the Wannsee Conference, among others. He explained this to Sassen, as they were discussing the conference transcript. Sassen transcript 47:10 and elsewhere. In Israel, of course, he claimed not to remember this.

  57.  “The Others Spoke,” part 3, p. 10.

  58.  Ibid., p. 4.

  59.  Ibid., p. 3.

  60.  Ibid., pp. 5, 6, 7.

  61.  Ibid., p. 9.

  62.  Ibid., p. 10.

  63.  Ibid., p. 7.

  64.  Eichmann to Hull, in William L. Hull, Kampf um eine Seele: Gespräche mit Eichmann in der Todeszelle (Wuppertal, 1964), p. 75.

  65.  Bettina Stangneth, “Adolf Eichmann interpretiert Immanuel Kant,” lecture at Marburg University, 2002.

  66.  Lauryssens, De fatale vriendschappen, p. 137. Stan Lauryssens “quotes” Eichmann as expressing his admiration for Kant in the Sassen circle, but on closer inspection this text combines his words from Israel with sections taken from the Sassen transcript. Nowhere in the transcript, or on tape, or in Eichmann’s Argentine texts, is there the slightest hint of the devotion to Kant that Eichmann exhibited in Israel.

  67.  “The Others Spoke,” part 3, p. 10.

  68.  Ibid., p. 11.

  69.  Ibid.

  70.  Sassen transcript, 3:3 BA tape 33:10.

  71.  “The Others Spoke,” part 3, p. 3.

  72.  Karl Beyer, Jüdischer Intellekt und deutscher Glaube (Leipzig, 1933), p. 28; and Otto Dietrich, Die philosophische Grundlage des Nationalsozialismus: Ruf zu den Waffen deutschen Geistes (Breslau, 1935). There are whole shelves of Nazi literature on the constructs of “Jewish” and “German” philosophy. They can also be found in popular publications, like the later editions of Theodor Fritsch’s Handbuch der Judenfrage (Leipzig, 1943), especially the chapter “Das Judentum in der deutschen Philosophie,” p. 393.

  73.  Walter Groß, Der deutsche Rassegedanke und die Welt (Berlin, 1939) (Texts I, 42), p. 30.

  74.  Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963; reprint New York, 1994), p. 135.

  75.  Facsimiles of the redrafting of the closing statement into the form in which it was actually given have been easily accessible since 1996: they can be found in Zvi Aharoni and Wilhelm Dietl, Operation Eichmann: The Truth About the Pursuit, Capture, and Trial, trans. Helmut Bögler (New York, 1997). Robert Servatius demanded comprehensive changes. The closing statement was, in Eichmann’s mind, part of the “Götzen” (Idols) book he was planning. BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/196.

  76.  Avner W. Less, interview, Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich, NL Less, tape 7.1.IX.

  77.  Hull, Kampf um eine Seele, p. 131. Hull was a Christian missionary who described himself as an “unofficial observer on Protestant spirituality.” He visited Eichmann at his own wish, with the aim of setting a man who had been baptized Protestant back on the right path and saving him from damnation. Hull was a devotee of a fundamentalist, revivalist Christianity, that was shaped by an arrogance toward other forms of belief and displayed clear anti-Semitic characteristics. (In an interview with Canadian journalists, he explained that all Eichmann’s Jewish victims would obviously burn in hell anyway, because—in contrast to their murderer—they had not been baptized and had not found Christ.) One of the grotesque consequences of these “conversion conversations” is that Eichmann actually appears in a positive light, having put up a respectable defense against Hull’s aggressive attempt to convert him. As a reader, you feel something like genuine sympathy for Eichmann in the face of such an odious fundamentalist visitation—something you then hold against Hull personally. Still, it is a shame his book is almost never used, despite containing three very interesting letters from Eichmann. In contrast to the back-translated conversation transcripts, made from memory, the letters are undoubtedly reliable sources.

  78.  Heidegger’s infamous address to the campaign rally of German academia in Leipzig, November 11, 1933, document no. 132 in Guido Schneeberger, Nachlese zu Heidegger (Bern 1962), and Die Selbstbehauptung der deutschen Universität (1934; reprint Frankfurt am Main, 1983), p. 14. Heidegger stands as a representative here for several philosophers who rushed to conform to National Socialist thought.

  79.  Eichmann mentions this letter to his brother Robert in his answers to the questionnaire for Paris Match, May 1962, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/252, p. 27.

  80.  Rosenberg used these words at the memorial celebration for Copernicus and Kant in Königsberg on February 20, 1939.

  81.  Shlomo Kulcsár reported that after a brief period of irritation, Eichmann was quite enthusiastic about this new idea and told the psychologist he was correct: “You seem to be right. He was indeed only a Gauleiter (Nazi rank of regional officer) in Palestine,” and so it was probably appropriate for Eichmann to compare himself to him. I. S. Kulcsár, Shoshanna Kulcsár, and Lipot Szondi, “Adolf Eichmann and the Third Reich,” in Crime, Law and Corrections, ed. Ralph Slovenko (Springfield, Ill., 1966), p. 33.

  82.  “The Others Spoke,” part 3, p. 13.

  83.  Quoted in Stern, no. 28, November 9, 1960. Eichmann confirmed this was genuine during his interrogation, on September 15, 1960.

  84.  Eichmann told Sassen that he allowed the killing of a relative during the extermination campaign, and that he had not even stopped it on the express wishes of a family member. Tape 67—in more detail on tape than in the transcript: BA tape 05B, from 21:00.

  85.  “The Others Spoke,” part 3, p. 13.

  86.  Rudolf Höß, Kommandant in Auschwitz: Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen (1958; reprinted Munich, 2000), p. 194.

  87.  He really did write this: “Götzen,” p. 138, A.E. 97.

  88.  “Allgemein” (General), handwritten text, Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-92, p. 2.

  89.  Vera Eichmann, interview in Paris Match, April 29, 1962.

  90.  “Allgemein” (General), handwritten text, Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-92, p. 2.

  91.  “The Others Spoke,” part 3, p. 14.

  92.  Ibid., p. 16.

  93.  Ibid., p. 21.

  94.  Ibid., p. 23.

  95.  Ibid., p. 24.

  96.  Ibid., p. 25.

  97.  “Regret is something for little children” is much quoted but seldom referenced. Eichmann made this statement in cross-examination, Eichmann trial, session 96, July 13, 1961. He uttered it after denying ever holding the “little closing speech” in Argentina.

  98.  The reference Eichmann was looking for is John 4:22.

  99.  “The Others Spoke,” introduction, p. 1.

100.  “The Others Spoke,” part 3, p. 26.

101.  Argentine federal police, report on the abduction of Eichmann, June 9, 1960, Archivo General de la Nacíon (AGN), DAE, Bormann files, pp. 77–79; quoted in Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina, rev. ed. (London, 2003), p. 316n543.

102.  On Mildenstein’s postwar career, see Timothy Naftali, “The CIA and Eichmann’s Associates,” in US Intelligence and the Nazis, ed. Richard Breitman (Washington, D.C., 2004), pp. 337–74, based on NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Leopold von Mildenstein.

103.  In 1960–61 Eichmann wrote about the possibility of hiding in Chile, which he had stupidly not made use of. “Meine Flucht,” p. 27, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247.

104.  Franz Rademacher, handwritten note on Felix Benzler’s telegram to the Foreign Office, September 12, 1941, prosecution document T/873. Facsimile in R. M. W. Kempner, Eichmann und Komplizen (Zurich, Stuttgart, and Vienna, 1961), p. 291. Identical to IMT document NG-3354.

105.  Shlomo Kulcsár, “De Sade and Eichmann,” Mental Health and Society 3 (1976), p. 108.

106.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

107.  Avner Less, interview, Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich, NL Less, tape 7.1.IX.

108.  The last line in Eichmann’s farewell letter to his family reads: “I am now being fetched to be hanged. It is the 5/31/62, 5 minutes before 24:00. Farewell!” (The last words of the letter—“Pfuat Euch!”—were in Austrian dialect.) BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/248.

2 Eichmann in Conversation

    1.  Sassen transcript 18:8.

    2.  Many thanks to Peter F. Kramml, Salzburg City Archive, who was kind enough to look into the registration cards for me.

    3.  Rudel (Sassen) mentions Fritsch’s visit to Germany in Zwischen Deutschland und Argentinien (Buenos Aires, 1954). See also “German Farewells 1974,” the obituary in the right-wing publication Deutsche Annalen, Jahrbuch des Nationalgeschehens, year 4 (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1975), unpaginated. The rumors about Fritsch’s Nazi career were started by Fritsch himself: in his letters to Nazi authors, he claimed to have heard them give a reading in person. See, for example, Fritsch’s letter to Werner Beumelburg, February 10, 1948, Werner Beumelburg Estate, Rheinische Landesbibliothek Koblenz.

    4.  Saskia Sassen, interview and correspondence with the author (2009).

    5.  Fritsch to Werner Beumelburg, April 23, 1948, Beumelburg Estate.

    6.  Fritsch to Werner Beumelburg, June 6, 1949, Beumelburg Estate.

    7.  Fritsch to Werner Beumelburg, August 19, 1948, Beumelburg Estate.

    8.  “German Nationalist and Neo-Nazi Activities in Argentina,” July 8, 1953, declassified April 11, 2000 (CIA-RDP620-00856 R000 3000 30004-4). Uki Goñi also assumes that Rudolfo Freude was a co-owner of Dürer Verlag.

    9.  Ibid. In the early years, Fritsch also cooperated with Theodor Schmidt, the owner of the El Buen Libro bookstore. However, this partnership seems not to have lasted long due to financial disagreements, if we believe what Fritsch said about it in his correspondence.

  10.  “Argentinisches Tageblatt,” in Asociaciones Argentinas de Lengua Alemana, Argentinische Vereinigungen deutschsprachigen Ursprungs: Ein Beitrag zur sozialen Verantwortung (Buenos Aires, 2007), pp. 589–97.

  11.  Saskia Sassen, interviews and correspondence with the author (2009).

  12.  Hans Rechenberg, who came into contact with Fritsch after 1960 in connection with the financing of Eichmann’s defense, complained about this attachment to Robert Servatius. See “Aftermath” in this book.

  13.  Adolf von Thadden mentioned in a letter that Rudel was the last person to finally turn away from Sassen. Thadden to Gert Sudholt (Druffel Verlag), September 10, 1981, Adolf von Thadden Estate, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, VVP 39, Acc. 1/98 no. 49, correspondence S.

  14.  In trial session 95, Eichmann claimed that Fritsch listened to the conversations only for a short while, then didn’t come anymore. However, the transcripts and tapes show that Fritsch and Eichmann were still in touch during the last recordings.

  15.  When it became known that Eichmann had been abducted in 1960, Eichmann’s brothers Otto and Robert met with Eberhard Fritsch straight away. This suggests that they knew one another before this point. See “Aftermath” in this book.

  16.  On Sassen’s life until he fled Europe, see Gerald Groeneveld, Kriegsberichter: Nederlandse SS-oorlogsverslaggevers 1941–1945 (Haarlem, 2004), pp. 356–68. See also Sassen’s own literary reworking of his escape in his novel Die Jünger und die Dirnen, chap. 6. For Sassen’s escape and his life in Argentina, see Roelf van Til’s documentaries, and interviews with Inge Schneider and Saskia Sassen (as well as those by Raymond Ley in 2009); Saskia Sassen, correspondence (2009); Francisca Sassen, correspondence (2009); Anthony (Hesselbach, December 1960), “He wrote Adolf Eichmann’s Memoirs,” Kölnische Rundschau, December 16, 1960. Huge thanks to Wolfgang Birkholz and Annette Krieger from the Kölnische Rundschau for their generous help. Stan Lauryssen’s De fatale vriendschappen van Adolf Eichmann (Leuven, 1998) has entertainment value more than anything else, and the interviews with Sassen by Stanislav Farago are clearly fiction. See “Aftermath” in this book.

  17.  The source of this information is problematic. Several of Lauryssens’s statements are incorrect, and doubt must be cast on an author who admired the single spire of Cologne’s cathedral (which famously has two spires) on a visit to the city, and who claims to have seen document files in Sassen’s house that existed only in Israel.

  18.  Eichmann later emphasized that he had also “fought at the front.” For the sharp divide between members of the Waffen-SS and men like Eichmann in Argentina, see Pedro Pobierzym, interview by Raymond Ley (2009): “Eichmann was no SS man … he was a filthy swine.”

  19.  The following details come from Inge Schneider’s recollections (interview with Roelf van Til) and the documentary Willem Sassen (KRO, 2005).

  20.  Saskia Sassen remembers that the novel Die Jünger und die Dirnen led to bad blood between her parents. Even without the abstract level of National Socialist ideals, the chapter that deals with their crossing to Argentina, in which Sassen delighted in describing rapes and dying fetuses, clearly indicates why a woman might object to being immortalized in this way. Pedro Pobierzym heard one of these arguments as a guest of the house; interview by Raymond Ley (2009).

  21.  Sassen’s files: 186 912/48; Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina, rev. ed. (London, 2003), p. 176. Saskia Sassen, interviews by van Til and Ley (2005, 2009) and correspondence with the author (2009).

  22.  Inge Schneider, interview by Roelf van Til for Willem Sassen (KRO, 2005); Saskia Sassen, interviews and correspondence with the author (2005 and 2009).

  23.  Saskia Sassen, interview by Raymond Ley (2009).

  24.  For his life in Argentina, see Inge Schneider, interview by Roelf van Til (2009); Saskia Sassen, correspondence with the author (2009); and Francisca Sassen, correspondence with the author (2009).

  25.  According to Inge Schneider and Saskia Sassen.

  26.  Miep Sassen’s critical stance on National Socialism was not simply a projection by her daughter, as evidenced by Inge Schneider’s memories, and Miep’s refusal to take German citizenship, although this would have made it much easier for her to settle down in Europe. There is a reference to Miep Sassen’s brother in supplementary file to case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 121 099, 1853 (note on the background to the Life contract on November 23, 1960).

  27.  Eichmann trial, sessions 102 and 105; also Eichmann’s remarks to his lawyer and to Avner W. Less.

  28.  Vera Eichmann, interview in Paris Match, April 29, 1962.

  29.  Pedro Pobierzym had bought the tape recorders in New York, to sell on in Argentina, “and one of my customers was Sassen.” Interview by Raymond Ley, 2009.

  30.  Thanks to Saskia and Francisca Sassen for aiding my understanding of the historical documents with their memories of the interior of their parents’ house.

  31.  Saskia Sassen’s phrase.

  32.  Saskia Sassen remembers that both her parents made a concerted effort to pass on their educational ideals to their daughters.

  33.  All the contemporary witnesses who have spoken about this mention the discussions at Sassen’s house (Sassen’s daughters, Pedro Pobierzym, Willem Sassen from the 1970s onward, Vera Eichmann, Klaus Eichmann). Not one of them mentions a recording session in Eichmann’s house. In particular, the fact that Eichmann’s family knew nothing of the content of the tapes speaks conclusively against the story he told in Israel.

  34.  In Israel, Eichmann talked about Saturday afternoons and evenings, and Sunday mornings (trial session 92). The transcripts and documents allow us to verify this. Details following in this chapter and notes. Saskia Sassen remembers the Sundays in particular, but we can now establish that these were not the only sessions. Of course, Saturday was a normal school day, quite apart from the fact that Miep Sassen liked to take her daughters on outings and little trips.

  35.  Sassen transcript 10:2.

  36.  “Comrade Sassen” is used countless times, “my dear Comrade Sassen” (11:13). Elsewhere Eichmann frequently refers to “Langer” and “Fritsch” when they are not present but also to other absent associates like “Rajakowitsch.” “Gentlemen” is used in larger groups, for example 18:8: “But that must be apparent to you, gentlemen …”

  37.  Even the transcriber (who was not present at the recordings) occasionally adds “Eichm” in brackets for clarification (13:11).

  38.  E.g., BA tape 09D 5:59, Sassen to Eichmann: “I would just like to ask you to think about this again this week.”

  39.  E.g., 72:6, Eichmann: “You recently gave me a number of pages on the activities of the Foreign Office.”

  40.  Eichmann: “I believe that these papers that I gave to Comrade Fritsch give a much more exact account of the matter” (meaning newspaper articles on Raoul Wallenberg); 10:2.

  41.  Sassen transcript 9:17.

  42.  “The Enthusiasts of Zion”—a long article about radical groups in Israel, in reaction to discussions after the assassination of Rudolf Kasztner, which Eichmann read so closely that he was able to quote it word for word.

  43.  “Religion: Two Kinds of Jews,” Time, August 26, 1957 (published August 20). The article refers to a speech made by Ben-Gurion on Zionism at the start of August. Albert Ballin was born on August 15, 1857, and the Argentinisches Tageblatt reported on the celebrations on the Thursday (“Albert Ballin’s Life’s Work,” August 15, 1957). This dates the recording sessions 37–39 to the weekend of August 24–25, 1957.

  44.  Eichmann: “Take the case of Schörner, since it is current right now.” Eichmann’s thoughts on the verdict follow (72:2). Ferdinand Schörner was sentenced to four and a half years for manslaughter by the Munich I District Court in October 1957.

  45.  Amendment 3:9 (to vol. 20:2): “Last Sunday we found a dating in the ‘thick book.’ ” BA Ludwigsburg, “Miscellaneous” folder, p. 12.

  46.  The handwritten attempts to order the transcript were obviously made by Sassen, as they are the same on the originals as on all films and copies. Tape 10, p. 3, is a good example, to gain a quick impression of these markings (including the mistakes).

  47.  Based on a line-by-line evaluation, the Sassen transcript contains 11 percent quotes from books and 6 percent other material (sections that are not conversations with Eichmann, Sassen’s notes and dictations). Eighty-three percent is therefore genuine discussion. The number of quotations on single pages can be well over 90 percent, when Eichmann limits himself to comments like “that’s right” and “that’s incorrect,” as on tapes 63 and 65. In one case, an entire page consists of one such quote, from Poliakov, p. 236, at 63:5. Léon Polikov, Joseph Wulf: Das Dritte Reich und die Juden (Berlin-Grunewald, 1955).

  48.  The putative edition of the transcripts from Druffel Verlag (Aschenauer, Ich, Adolf Eichmann [Leoni am Starnberger See, 1980]) is unusable: it smooths out phrases throughout and turns the dialogue structure into a monologue, as the editors failed to recognize the presence of various other speakers and quotations. It puts a jumble of words into Eichmann’s mouth that he did not say. Moreover, the Druffel edition effectively blocks any opportunity to recognize that the problem even exists. As a result, things said by Sassen and Alvensleben have slipped into otherwise serious secondary literature as Eichmann’s words. On that edition, see “Aftermath” in this book.

  49.  To mention a few examples: Eichmann’s amendments were sometimes written over several tapes at one time and numbered all the way through, showing the order in which the recordings were made. On tape 8, Eichmann has not yet read Brand and Weissberg’s book, and his impression of it follows on tape 24. Tapes 11, 12, and 13 feature a discussion that is complete in itself; internal markers like “before” (tape 42), which clearly relates to tape 41, show the order, as do “a few weeks ago” (tape 46, referring to tape 37), “yesterday” (tape 54, referring to tape 51), and planned discussions that subsequently take place (Langer’s lecture is announced on tape 50 and follows on tape 64). Discussions of the subject literature was very detailed, following the books’ content; it is therefore possible to order the discussions based on quotes from the books. For example: tape 58 ends with a quote from Reitlinger’s page 399, and tape 59 starts with Reitlinger’s page 399. This also allows us to connect the middle of tape 54 to tape 58. Tape 54 ends with the chapter on France from Reitlinger, and tape 58 starts with the chapter on Belgium that follows it. Such evidence is abundant, allowing for a surprisingly exact reconstruction of the original chronology.

  50.  Tape 72 has a question mark instead of a number, as it was not clear to the transcriber whether it was tape 72. Tape 7, according to a note from Sassen, never existed. No trace has yet been found of tapes 70 and 71. Tapes 55 and 69 are obviously fragmentary.

  51.  Tape 61 contains a conversation about the Poliakov book, and then the debate on Reitlinger’s pages, 218–20. The unnumbered tape that was made when Sassen picked up the wrong reel contains the previous conversation on Reitlinger, covering pages 212–17.

  52.  BA tape 8A, 30:10 onward.

  53.  Vera Eichmann, interview in Paris Match, April 29, 1962.

  54.  Sassen transcript 67:6. The tape goes into more detail: BA tape 10B, 38:50 onward.

  55.  Eichmann during interrogation by Avner W. Less, June 6, 1960, p. 397: “This was the first time I spoke to Mildner again, about three years ago … and I picked this issue apart in the presence of a certain Herr Sassen.”

  56.  The planned large-scale deportations from Denmark could not be implemented as there was too much resistance from the Danes. As Eichmann was directly involved in the plans, he took the failure personally and looked for someone to blame in his own ranks.

  57.  All the sources that suspect Mildner was in Argentina are based exclusively on Eichmann’s incriminating statement in Israel, and appear to be independent only where this basis is not mentioned or not repeated frequently enough, as in Wiesenthal, Goñi, Schneppen, Wojak, and Cesarani. It does not mean that Mildner cannot have been in Argentina. But it does mean that Eichmann should not be called as a witness to it, since to date we have no other evidence. Mildner was certainly never part of the Sassen circle.

  58.  We can safely dismiss the charitable notion that Eichmann might have misheard Dr. Langer’s name in Buenos Aires. Langer was a long-term fixture in the Sassen circle, and Eichmann pronounces the name audibly several times on the tapes and even writes it correctly on one of the transcribed pages. Sassen transcript 59:6.

  59.  Amendment 4:1 on Sassen transcript tape 37, BA Ludwigsburg, “Miscellaneous” folder, p. 14.

  60.  BA tape 8A, 27:50 onward. The context suggests that this recording is a relatively early tape, from the first third of the discussion sessions.

  61.  See also Holger Meding, “Der Weg”: Eine deutsche Emigrantenzeitschrift in Buenos Aires 1947–1957 (Berlin, 1997), p. 117.

  62.  Juan Maler, Frieden, Krieg und “Frieden” (Bariloche, 1987), p. 340.

  63.  Josef Schwammberger lived there for a while but returned to Buenos Aires by 1954 at the latest.

  64.  BA tape 03A, from the beginning.

  65.  Sassen transcript 3:4.

  66.  From what remains of the Telefe interviews, broadcast in the Argentine Edition Plus in 1991. Regrettably the raw material was not archived.

  67.  Sassen transcript 3:3.

  68.  I myself noticed the clues to the ladies’ visit, and Ludolf von Alvensleben, which were actually obvious, only after several readings—or more precisely, once I had followed the advice of my esteemed teacher in the interpretation of hermetic texts, Klaus Oehler, and read the material once more from back to front. He had used the method to read Aristotle with us, but it is also an excellent tool for approaching the Eichmann papers.

  69.  Sassen transcript 3:2.

  70.  Sassen transcript 3:1.

  71.  Sassen transcript 29:4. The transcript of tape 29 has Eichmann’s handwritten note on it: “This tape 29 is for your information only.” The correction sheets also state clearly that this sort of biographical information was “not for the book.”

  72.  Eichmann later told different versions of this story, but his personnel file allows it to be dated to the first half of 1938. SS files, BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, BDC.

  73.  Document from the SS files; produced at the trial as prosecution document T/37(12).

  74.  See note 77 to “The So-Called Sassen Interviews” for more information on Hull.

  75.  Sassen transcript 3:2.

  76.  The transcriber’s habit of shortening “National Socialism” in a way that could easily be misunderstood persists through the first transcripts, until Sassen can be heard on the tape giving clear instructions on these abbreviations. However, the problems with this term continue to crop up.

  77.  See the SS files, BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, BDC; Karl Schlöger, ed., Russische Emigranten in Deutschland 1918–1994 (Berlin, 1995).

  78.  Sassen transcript 3:2.

  79.  Ibid.

  80.  Erika Elisabeth Garthe de Galliard, who was married to a Belgian friend of the war criminal Pierre Daye. She didn’t conceal the fact that she knew about Sassen’s project, as Uki Goñi was kind enough to tell me, or that she had close ties to Wilfred von Oven and Dieter Menge. These close ties don’t exactly speak for her being somebody who would have posed a lot of critical questions about the National Socialist mentality.

  81.  Inge Schneider, interview by Roelf van Til. She explains that she never understood why her sister wanted to listen to this nonsense, or why she didn’t end her affair with Sassen, even though Miep Sassen knew about it. Antje Schneider died of cancer in 1990, and Inge Schneider lived in Argentina and Bremen until her death in 2006.

  82.  BA tape 09D, 29:08

  83.  The spelling “Dr. Lange” occasionally appears in the transcript, but as Eichmann corrected the name by hand and pronounced it several times on the tapes, there is no doubt that this man was called “Langer.”

  84.  Sassen transcript 47:12.

  85.  Sassen transcript 44:9.

  86.  Sassen transcript 46:8.

  87.  Sassen transcript 44:10.

  88.  Sassen transcript 59:10.

  89.  A handwritten amendment on Sassen transcript 16:1.

  90.  Sassen transcript 44:10, handwritten addition by Eichmann: “This was said by Dr. Langer, not me.” Eichmann was evidently keen to avoid any suspicion that he might have helped a Jew.

  91.  Sassen transcript 47:16.

  92.  Sassen transcript 50:2.

  93.  BA tape 09D, 53:45 onward.

  94.  BA tape 09D, 1:04:30 onward.

  95.  BA tape 09D, 29:55 onward.

  96.  Dieter Vollmer, interview by Holger Meding; and Dieter Vollmer, “On the Professional Ethics of Journalists,”Nation Europa, no.11, issue 11, 1961, pp. 37–42. Vollmer left Argentina again at the end of 1953 but continued writing for Fritsch until the end, and he apparently looked after the distribution of Dürer Verlag’s banned publications in Germany. By 1961 at the latest, he knew so much about the 1957 project that he even made an effort to mitigate the danger that the Sassen transcript represented. See “Dismantling the Evidence” in this book.

  97.  Sassen transcript 54:14.

  98.  BA tape 10D, 22:45 onward.

  99.  See the schedules of responsibilities from the RSHA (IV), all prosecution documents at the Eichmann trial. Prosecution document T/99, BA Koblenz, R58/840. For IV A 4: circular from Kaltenbrunner, February 10, 1944, BStU, RHE 75/70, vol. 3, sheets 12–17; Gestapo schedule of responsibilities in Department IV, dated March 15, 1944, ibid., sheets 2–10. Evidence of department name IMT 42, p. 315, Walter Huppenkothen affidavit (Gestapo-39), and Wisliceny’s testimonies.

100.  Personal notes, Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich, NL Less, 4.2.3.2.

101.  BA tape 10D, 21:30.

102.  Sassen transcript 53:15.

103.  Eichmann trial, session 102.

104.  I have not come across a single case of anyone trying to hide their identity from anyone else in the group, or not calling someone by their name, either in the transcript or on the tapes. There is not even any evidence of ironic references to aliases. The only “name changes” are the result of typing errors, as names like Globocnik and Wisliceny are not as simple to write as Eichmann or Sassen.

105.  The officers lists of the SS (and to be on the safe side, the Waffen-SS) were checked, for Langer or similar names, as were the BDC files in BA Berlin-Lichterfelde. There are only two records that could have come into question here, namely Otto Langer (no SS number given, born March 18, 1899, SS Scharführer, with a single entry “Concentration camp Mauthausen”) and Fritz Langer (SS no. 54691, born January 13, 1904, police secretary, possibly Vienna). Fritz Langer’s position as “assessment officer” with the Gauleitung in Vienna (RS-PK) suggests it might be him, but unlike the Dr. Langer of the tapes, who apparently had no experience of frontline fighting, he received commendations for dedicated fighting against partisans in northern Italy. This “Front deployment” (R70) earned him an entry in the Allies’ CROWCASS wanted lists. The files R70 and RS-PK also throw up inconsistencies. I have not been able to find enough documentation on Otto Langer to properly identify him, but his rank is clearly too low for the assignments Dr. Langer describes. Thanks to Lutz Möser from BA Berlin-Lichterfelde for his involvement.

106.  Special thanks to Barbara Bieringer, University of Vienna Archive.

107.  Thanks to Michael Wildt, Bertrand Perz, and the staff at DÖW, who took the time to consider further possibilities for tracking down Langer. Uki Goñi tried to find traces of Langer in Argentina but found no clues in the records, on Langer or Lange or “Dr. Klan.”

108.  Tape 73, BA tape 8A, 10:35.

109.  I have consciously avoided including speaker names or other reading aids in this chapter. It would not only make the text illegible through all the “sics” and exclamation marks, but would also prevent the reader observing the effect of the language.

110.  Sassen transcript 5:6.

111.  Sassen transcript 21:10.

112.  Sassen transcript 9:3.

113.  Sassen transcript 17:1. Eichmann added a handwritten amendment to the phrase to make it read like this!

114.  Sassen transcript 18:3.

115.  Sassen transcript 21:6.

116.  Sassen transcript 34:4.

117.  Sassen transcript 5:5.

118.  Sassen transcript 68:9.

119.  Sassen transcript 34:4.

120.  Sassen transcript 11:6 and 11:8.

121.  Sassen transcript 23:4.

122.  Sassen transcript 13:6.

123.  Sassen transcript 13:7.

124.  Sassen transcript 17:1.

125.  Sassen transcript 12:2.

126.  Sassen transcript 14:9.

127.  Sassen transcript 14:10.

128.  Sassen transcript 41:1.

129.  Sassen transcript 22:9.

130.  Sassen transcript 8:4.

131.  Sassen transcript 13:5.

132.  Tape 8 was transcribed onto fanfold paper, which was impractically long. The pagination therefore related to the double pages into which it has now been cut. The reference for this quote, 8:8.2, means “tape 8, page 8, sheet 2.”

133.  Sassen transcript 9:8.

134.  Sassen transcript 10:5.

135.  Sassen transcript 10:1.

136.  Sassen transcript 13:4.

137.  Sassen transcript 64:4.

138.  Sassen transcript 50:5.

139.  Sassen transcript 33:10.

140.  Sassen transcript 72:16.

141.  Sassen transcript 68:5.

142.  Sassen transcript 26:7.

143.  Sassen transcript 73:1.

144.  Sassen transcript 21:8.

145.  Sassen transcript 19:5.

146.  Sassen transcript 61:4.

147.  Sassen transcript 52:13.

148.  At 42:5 the discussion centered on the so-called euthanasia campaign, in which Sassen had little interest and therefore omitted from the transcript. For most of these quotations, see BA tape 7B, 39:15.

149.  Sassen transcript 43:8.

150.  Sassen transcript 39:4.

151.  Sassen transcript 56:7.

152.  Sassen transcript 56:9.

153.  Tape 23. For the untranscribed passage, see BA tape 09D, 51:55 onward.

154.  Sassen transcript 15:3.

155.  Sassen transcript 15:3.

156.  Sassen transcript 60:2.

157.  Sassen transcript 43:5.

158.  Sassen transcript 46:5.

159.  Sassen transcript 16:10.

160.  Sassen transcript 18:3.

161.  Sassen transcript 17:9.

162.  Sassen transcript 20:7.

163.  Sassen transcript 44:4.

164.  Sassen transcript 51:11.

165.  Sassen transcript 58:5.

166.  Sassen transcript 68:6.

167.  Kulcsár, Kulcsár, and Szondi, “Adolf Eichmann and the Third Reich,” p. 28.

168.  Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963; reprint New York, 1994), pp. 49–50.

169.  Some of these departures can be found on the few surviving tapes. E.g., an unknown voice, clearly audible, on BA tape 06A,47:55: “Excuse me, but I have to go …”

170.  See BA tape 09C, 1:51:55. Sassen closes the session, the men fall into a conversation, and a voice discusses with Sassen the submission deadline for another text.

171.  Examples: BA tape 8A, 27:50 onward; 10C, 39:46.

172.  BA tape 10B, 1:11:00 onward.

173.  Sassen transcript 1:1.

174.  Sassen transcript 1:2: Eichmann as a “fanatical Zionist.”

175.  Sassen transcript 1:2, on the claim that a mass shooting was organized in Poland by Eichmann himself. Sassen transcript 1:3, on the Eichmann quote, “I would leap joyfully into the grave …”

176.  The first edition appeared in 1952, as part of the series Das Ausnahmerecht für die Juden in den europäischen Ländern, but the Sassen group used the affordable single edition (Düsseldorf, 1954).

177.  A rough overview of the basis for discussion in each case: Weissberg, tapes 6, 8–17, 19–22, 24–26; Poliakov/Wulf, tapes 28, 34, 37–39, 42–44, 49–52, 54–57, 61–67; Blau, tapes 39–40, 44–47; Hagen/Hottl, tapes 10–11, 51, (56), 64; Reitlinger, tapes 1, 18–19, 22–23, 25–27, 33, 49, 52–54, 58–61, 68, 69, 72, 73, and unnumbered tape.

178.  For example, Hermann Graml, Der 9. November 1938, “Reichskristallnacht” (Bonn, 1955); Gerhardt Boldt, Die letzten Tage der Reichskanzlei (Hamburg, 1947); and Charles Callan Tansill, Die Hintertür zum Kriege (Düsseldorf, 1956).

179.  Tape 37:1 onward. Sassen read that article hot off the press, as we can see from the precise date that can be given to the recording.

180.  The photos, which were made public at the start of the trial, were published in various places. Claims that they showed Eichmann working on his “Götzen” manuscript are incorrect—he got the books at the request of his lawyer, who wanted him to take a position on them. In addition to the volumes mentioned, there were a few books that had been published since the Sassen interviews, namely Rudolf Höß, Kommandant in Auschwitz (1958); Albert Wucher, Eichmanns gab es viele (1961); Joel Brand, Fakten gegen Fabeln (1961); Léon Poliakov and Joseph Wulf, Das Deutsche Reich und seine Diener (1956); Poliakov and Wulf, Das Dritte Reich und seine Denker (1959); and H. G. Adler, Theresienstadt 1941–1945 (1960). Special thanks to Carlo Schütt, who made the books available at the Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte Hamburg library to reconstruct the pile and, with it, the list of books.

181.  Avner W. Less, interview by Rolf Defrank, for Erscheinungsform Mensch, at Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich, NL Less, tape 7.1.IX.

182.  Sassen transcript 50:6.

183.  Sassen transcript 49:16.

184.  Sassen transcript 4:6; 39:8.

185.  Sassen transcript 18:1; 33:9; 40:2; 52:1; 52:5; 52:6; 54:4.

186.  Sassen transcript 49:14.

187.  Sassen transcript 2:7.

188.  Sassen transcript 24:1.

189.  Sassen transcript 31:10; 61:3.

190.  Sassen transcript 17:5.

191.  Sassen transcript 21:3.

192.  Sassen transcript 62:1; 72:8.

193.  Sassen transcript 2:4.

194.  Sassen transcript 73:13.

195.  Sassen transcript 68:15.

196.  Sassen transcript 6:1.

197.  The Deutsche Forschergemeinschaft (German Researchers Foundation) published a whole journal series to establish a “German mathematics” (Leipzig, 1936–44).

198.  Sassen transcript 20:4.

199.  Sassen transcript 11:6.

200.  Sassen transcript 11:4.

201.  Sassen transcript 25:8.

202.  Sassen transcript 8:2.

203.  Sassen transcript 10:14.

204.  Sassen transcript 10:17.

205.  Tape 24 and the start of 25 contain Eichmann’s book review. The notes are also extant and are held in Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-87. They show that Eichmann’s lecture was given almost word-for-word from his script.

206.  Sassen transcript 8:2.

207.  Sassen transcript 12:1.

208.  Sassen transcript 14:7.

209.  A long handwritten addition by Eichmann on the transcript, 52:16.

210.  “Götzen,” sheet 19 (Eichmann’s numbering: 1) and elsewhere.

211.  Sassen transcript 3:6.

212.  Sassen transcript 26:4.

213.  Sassen transcript 31:9.

214.  BA tape 10C, 55:40.

215.  Sassen transcript 54:5.

216.  Pedro Pobierzym, interviews by Natasja de Winter and Raymond Ley (2009).

217.  BA tape 09D, 41:30.

218.  Sassen transcript 47:12.

219.  Ibid.

220.  Sassen transcript 36:2. This sentence clearly comes from Willem Sassen, from a long dictation that he had transcribed in the context of the discussions. It has previously been assumed to be a statement by Eichmann and has always been attributed to Eichmann. This is simply incorrect. There is also no evidence that Sassen took the sentence from Eichmann—quite apart from the fact that Sassen was much too assured in his own phrasing to help himself to Eichmann’s language, of all things.

221.  Sassen transcript 36:5.

222.  Sassen transcript 52, with handwritten addition by Eichmann.

223.  Sassen transcript 54:9.

224.  Eichmann, during a telephone call with his subordinate officer Theodor Dannecker, prosecution document T/439; identical with IMT RF-1233. Dannecker’s note of July 21, 1942, about telephone calls with Eichmann and Novak on July 20, 1942, is published in Serge Klarsfeld, Vichy—Auschwitz: Die Zusammenarbeit der deutschen und französischen Behörden bei der “Endlösung der Judenfrage” in Frankreich (Nördlingen, 1989), p. 416; new edition (Darmstadt, 2007), p. 441. Facsimile in R. M. W. Kempner,Eichmann und Komplizen (Zurich, Stuttgart, and Vienna, 1961), p. 212.

225.  Sassen transcript 3:6.

226.  On one of the untranscribed parts of the tapes, Eichmann demonstrates that he has no idea about other drugs. For example, he doesn’t even know how morphine is taken. Sassen interviews, BA tape 10B, 1:14 onward.

227.  BA tape 10C, 1:00:00 onward.

228.  Ernst Klee, Persilscheine und Falsche Pässe: Wie die Kirchen den Nazis halfen (Frankfurt am Main, 1992).

229.  BA tape 10C, 1:00:00 onward.

230.  Sassen transcript 44:6.

231.  Two references date tapes 37 and 39 to the end of August. On tape 37, Sassen translates from a current article in Time, issue dated August 26, 1957 (published a few days earlier, on August 20, as is usual for U.S. magazines); and on tape 39, Eichmann refers to an announcement he has read the previous week of the centenary celebrations for Ballin, which can be identified as an article from the Argentinisches Tageblatt of August 15, 1957.

232.  On his biography, see principally the files on Dieter Wisliceny at BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, BDC. Also the information in the CIC Arrest Report, August 1, 1946, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

233.  Eichmann always emphasized that Wisliceny had still been with him in Altaussee. Wisliceny disputed this, but there is evidence he was arrested on May 12, 1945, by the lake that gave the little town its name.

234.  Wisliceny’s essential statements and notes on Eichmann include a discussion with Kasztner, in which Wisliceny tried to promote an image of Eichmann that blamed him as much as possible and exonerated Wisliceny, January–February 1945, Kasztner Bericht[Kasztner Report], pp. 273ff; detailed statements after his May 3, 1945, arrest by U.S. authorities, dated August 25 and August 27, 1945 (Arrest Report, and Reports from NA, RG 263, File Name Adolf Eichmann); an affidavit in Nuremberg, November 9, 1945, prosecution document T/57; a witness statement in Nuremberg, January 3, 1946, prosecution document T/58; a statement in Bratislava to Michael Gerd, May 6, 1946, police document B06-899; handwritten notes on the Fiala affair, July 26, 1946, prosecution document T/1107; handwritten notes on Eichmann’s relationship with the mufti, July 26, 1946, prosecution document T/89; a twenty-two-page handwritten report “Re: former SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann,” aka Cell 133 Document, October 27, 1946, prosecution document T/84; a conversation with Moshe Pearlman about Eichmann, November 14, 1946, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, Paris, 88-47, published in Pearlman, The Capture and Trial of Adolf Eichmann (New York, 1963); and a report on “The Final Solution,” aka Cell 106 Document, November 18, 1946, prosecution document T/85, excerpted in Poliakov and Wulf, Das Deutsche Reich und die Juden (Berlin, 1955), pp. 87–98.

235.  Wisliceny, Cell 133 Document, prosecution document T/84, p. 17.

236.  On February 27, 1948.

237.  In the early 1930s, Eichmann had been a witness to several Gestapo interrogations, which as an SD man, he could not conduct himself but could initiate. His own interrogation methods can be reconstructed in a few cases and can only be described as perfidious psychological terrorism. In Auschwitz, for example, he tried to break Jacob Edelstein during his interrogation using a letter from his wife, which he had extracted from the unsuspecting woman in the adjoining camp complex. She had written in the belief that her husband was still in (relative) freedom, and that Eichmann would simply be good enough to take the letter to him. Eichmann would leave the room when the physical violence began, but return in order to make use of its consequences. Adler,Theresienstadt 1941–1945, pp. 730 and 810.

238.  Sassen transcript 44:5.

239.  Sassen transcript 42:3–44:6.

240.  Sassen transcript 44:5–44:8.

241.  We have two recordings from before this turning point, so the change in tone can be observed acoustically. Unfortunately, the crucial session is missing.

242.  BA tape 08A, 42:13 onward.

243.  Sassen transcript 46:8.

244.  Sassen transcript 47:7.

245.  This section of the book is a summary of my unpublished manuscript “Noch ein Nazi in Argentinien: Ludolf von Alvensleben im Gespräch mit Willem Sassen,” which Raymond Ley and the NDR used as the basis for the docudrama Eichmanns Ende(NDR, 2009). The manuscript contains a complete edition of the interviews with a commentary.

246.  Sassen transcript 54:5.

247.  Tape 56 is not a foreign body in the transcript: it was a component of the discussion project, was numbered and transcribed in the same way, and remains a reference point for further discussions. Sassen did not therefore accidentally put the interview in the wrong pile.

248.  The information that follows is primarily based on Alvensleben’s SS files, BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, BDC. Also indispensable were Ruth Bettina Birn, Die höheren SS- und Polizeiführer: Himmlers Vertreter im Reich und in den besetzten Gebieten(Düsseldorf, 1986), esp. p. 330, but also pp. 311 and 382ff. (footnote 2); and Christian Jansen and Arno Weckenbecker, Der “Volksdeutsche Selbstschutz” in Polen 1939/40 (Munich 1992). And of course Stanislaw Mucha’s great film Mit “Bubi” heim ins Reich: Die Spuren eines SS-Generals (ZDF, 2000).

249.  Heinz Schneppen, Odessa und das Vierte Reich: Mythen der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 2007), p. 125. Schneppen made a concerted effort to dismantle the Odessa myth and trace its origins. Regrettably, some of the research on individual Nazis is not what it might have been, and his depiction of them occasionally tips over into another kind of myth. Even in the source material he cites, significantly more connections can be seen than he actually uses. The idea that one soon hits a brick wall when attempting to research the lives and personalities of these fugitives is unsupportable in the cases of Alvensleben, Eichmann, Mengele, Heilig, Rajakowitsch, and Klingenfuß, although admittedly, the source research is rather taxing. (Rudolf Mildner, incidentally, slips into the list of Nazis in Argentina, because Schneppen did not recognize that Wiesenthal was drawing on Eichmann’s testimony in Israel.)

250.  In the seniority lists of the Waffen-SS from November 1944, original Berlin 1944.

251.  The numbering in the officers lists of the Waffen-SS is confusing at first glance, as the grades were a combination of numbers and letters, but Alvensleben is at place 41f in the SS-Gruppenführers and lieutenant generals, after 43 SS Obergruppenführers and generals. This puts him at number 90 of all members of the Waffen-SS. Dienstaltersliste der Waffen-SS. Stand vom 1. Juli, 1944. SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Hauptsturmführer (Osnabrück, 1987), p. 14.

252.  Alvensleben’s SS file, staff appraisal from June 15, 1938.

253.  There are many examples of this, both on the tapes and the transcript. Eichmann had no qualms about shouting over other participants, upstaging them or finding some other way to bring the conversation back to him as quickly as possible. The Alvensleben discussion offered enough inducements for him to butt in and contradict what was being said. And Eichmann didn’t tend to suffer in silence.

254.  On tape 58, Alvensleben talks about Himmler’s reaction to the bombing of Dresden in 1945, which he knows about “from my own experience.” Alvensleben reported to Himmler shortly after the event in Dresden, which fell under his jurisdiction as HSSPF. He then gave an account of Himmler’s behavior to Goebbels, whom he also visited. The propaganda minister wrote about Alvensleben’s visit in his diary on March 6, 1945. None of the other participants in the Sassen circle (apart from Eichmann) had even come close to Himmler or Goebbels.

255.  The possibility that Alvensleben was only pretending to be a devoted National Socialist in order to gain access to the Sassen circle, or to “infiltrate” it, is slight. The discussion groups at Sassen’s house were no secret, and there is no evidence of any “entry criteria.” Anyone wanting to claim that Alvensleben changed his views after 1945 has a heavy burden of proof.

256.  See Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, p. 3: “In the postwar years no Himmler legend was waiting to be born.”

257.  Sassen transcript 56:7.

258.  Gerald Steinacher, Nazis on the Run: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice (Oxford, 2012).

259.  The letter and the reply are held in the National Archive in Bozen. Many thanks to Gerald Steinacher for making it available so quickly.

260.  The letters from Alvensleben to Himmler in the SS files serve as a comparison. Handwriting is individual in so many respects that very few people succeed in changing theirs. Alvensleben tried to write in a slightly florid, “feminine” way, but the writing samples in the SS files are a clear match. Someone with twenty years’ experience in identifying handwriting can show the similarities in detail: the writing angle, the extension of letters above and below the line, the particular capital letters, the way numbers are written, line spacing. But in this case I didn’t need my experience—it is obvious at first glance. Anyone wanting to try for themselves could digitally merge the two samples.

261.  Alvensleben and his wife Melitta, née Guaita, had four children: two daughters, born in 1925 and 1934, and two sons, born in 1942 and 1944. The elder daughter was an adult by this point (and most probably already married) so didn’t count as a child to be registered. Detailed information in SSO File Alvensleben, BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, BDC.

262.  There are actually two applications for “Theodor Kremhart” with two different photos of Alvensleben, possibly because an error was made in completing one of the forms. Many thanks once again to Uki Goñi and Gerald Steinacher for their help with these documents.

263.  Uki Goñi told me he knew of only two passport applications signed by Dömöter.

264.  Juan Maler, Frieden, Krieg und “Frieden” (Bariloche, 1987), p. 345.

265.  Stanislaw Mucha, Mit “Bubi” heim ins Reich, ends with a suspicion of this kind from a member of the Alvensleben family. Mucha had insufficient evidence to argue against it.

266.  Sassen transcript 49:15.

267.  See Der Weg (1957), no. 7, pp. 495–96. The reader’s letter is signed “Dr. Ernst Rauhart, Sao Paulo, Brazil.” Many of the readers’ letters in Der Weg were written by the editors themselves, so this name may not be genuine. In any case, Fritsch decided to print this text on this particular date.

268.  Published in IMT vol. 31, pp. 85–87; in Poliakov and Wulf, Das Deutsche Reich und die Juden, pp. 99–100.

269.  Sassen transcript 4:10.

270.  Sassen transcript 50:1.

271.  Wisliceny, statement at IMT, January 3, 1946, 4, p. 412. On further figures, ibid., p. 411.

272.  Grell, statement for Eichmann trial, Berchtesgaden, May 23, 1961.

273.  Judge Yitzhak Raveh confronted Eichmann with the sentence in his own handwriting (notes, prosecution document T/43).

274.  Sassen transcript 24:1.

275.  Sassen transcript 4:2.

276.  Sassen transcript 50:10 onward.

277.  Sassen transcript 49:9.

278.  Sassen transcript 49:8.

279.  BA tape 02A, 43:30.

280.  If any further proof had been needed that the Heimann and Herster articles were homemade forgeries, this fact would suffice. The Sassen circle read every publication that had anything to do with the topic, even articles from Time magazine. Only Der Weg’s articles were not discussed. Everyone present knew that it was unnecessary, as they bore little resemblance to reality.

281.  Sassen transcript 53:11.

282.  Sassen transcript 73:3.

283.  Sassen transcript 61:3.

284.  Sassen’s dictation, accidentally transcribed along with the discussion, and ordered in the Hagag copy as the start and pp. 326–35 of transcript 36. Further details of the dictation can be found on BA tape 08A, 32:37 onward.

285.  Thanks to Martin Haidinger for letting me read his interview transcript.

286.  Tape 67.

287.  The ten tapes held in the Bundesarchiv also contain copies of this speech in various lengths and with cuts made in different places. Unfortunately, for this reason, not every transcription to be found in the literature and media today is complete. The following is the first complete transcript from the uncut BA tape 10B, 52:30 to 1:02:58.

288.  Misheard words in other transcriptions have been corrected and are not noted here.

289.  “Kaufmann”: in the conversations with Sassen, the so-called Kaufmann Plan is repeatedly confused with the Morgenthau Plan. Theodore N. Kaufman self-published a pamphlet with the title Germany Must Perish, calling for the extinction of the Germans through sterilization. The Nazi Ministry of Propaganda used the publication to support the thesis of a “monstrous Jewish extermination program”; Völkische Beobachter, July 24, 1941. In 1944 Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the U.S. secretary of the treasury, commissioned the development of a plan for the division and deindustrialization of the German Reich. Goebbels used it as a warning in his calls for perseverance. Although both plans remained theoretical, they have always served National Socialists as a justification for German war crimes and crimes against humanity. They also led to the confusion in the Sassen circle. See Wolfgang Benz, ed., Legenden Lügen Vorurteile: Ein Lexicon zur Zeitgeschichte (Munich, 1990), pp. 85 and 145.

290.  “Morgenthau”: see note 289.

291.  “The cautious bureaucrat” is a quote from the report by Dieter Wisliceny, who applied the label to Eichmann. For an SS man, it was an unforgivable insult. The Sassen circle read and discussed this report several times.

292.  “Your louse” refers to Sassen’s effort to distance Hitler and “the essence of the German race” from anti-Jewish policy, to make it impossible to accuse the Führer and National Socialism of historical mass murder. Eichmann, however, wanted to be recognized as typically German, a good officer following the ideas of “the Führer.”

293.  “Records”: Eichmann had no real interest in technical matters. He understood nothing about the recording technology and frequently chose the wrong terms to describe it.

294.  “Four months”: when it comes to timing, Eichmann is often unreliable. He used such phrases as “decoration” for rhetorical purposes, and liked to cite round or symbolic dates. Even a text that Eichmann wrote, shortly after being incarcerated in Israel, he dated as “15 years and one day” after Germany’s capitulation, although everyone present knew that this was a lie, as he had still been at large in Argentina on May 9.

295.  “Korherr” and “10.3 million Jews” refer to the Korherr Report, which the Sassen circle had discussed in detail, and to which Eichmann had added his own “disinformation”-style commentary.

296.  “Most cunning enemy” corresponds exactly to Hitler’s characterization of the Jews as an “enemy race,” a single homogenous race that posed a genuine threat to the “Aryan race,” whom they must therefore fight for survival. All other races were simply “inferior races” that posed no threat.

297.  “Streicher” refers to Julius Streicher, the anti-Semitic and pornographic rabble-rouser and editor of Der Stürmer who was executed in Nuremberg and was controversial even among anti-Semites. Streicher and Eichmann are known to have met in 1937, when Eichmann was invited to the Nuremberg Party Congress as Streicher’s guest. The direction taken by Heydrich’s outfit was influenced by its opposition to Der Stürmer’s methods: they didn’t want beatings and murder in the streets, but rather a more “respectable” (secret) anti-Jewish policy.

298.  “Schooling”: the SD saw science and scholarship as a Jewish “weapon” in the struggle for world domination, a view based in the National Socialists’ anti-intellectualism.

299.  “Law making” refers to the Ten Commandments. In National Socialist criticism of the church, the Bible itself is considered “Jewish”—a reason for Eichmann to tear apart his wife’s Bible. See “The Lady Visitors” in this book. Eichmann describes the incident in Sassen transcript 3:1.

300.  “Interventionists”: during the Sassen conversations, Eichmann repeatedly gives examples of people who got in the way of his extermination plans. They were often senior figures in the regime who were trying to push through exceptions for friends (or hoping to be remunerated for their efforts). By 1944, Eichmann viewed even Kurt Becher, who was acting on Himmler’s orders, as an obstacle of this kind.

301.  Harry Mulisch, Criminal Case 40/61, the Trial of Adolf Eichmann: An Eyewitness Account (Philadelphia, 2009), p. 114.

302.  Sassen transcript 67:11–12. These are two pages that the typist was unable to place, but that Sassen marked as being connected to the “conclusion.” However, before the sale of the transcript, he removed them, together with all the pages that followed, allowing the “Sassen transcript” to end with the pithy conclusion, which was not, in fact, the last word. The two pages remained in Sassen’s own copy of tape 67 and are there today in Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497-65.

303.  The clue to the time of day comes from Sassen transcript 68:15.

304.  BA tape 01A, 7:22 onward.

305.  Sassen transcript 69:2 and 72:1.

306.  The transcript of tape 69 is incomplete, and those of tapes 70 and 71 are missing, making it impossible to tell if they were ever prepared.

307.  “No experiments” was the slogan on Adenauer’s campaign posters.

A False Sense of Security

    1.  “Former SS-Oberstleutnant Arrested,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 4, 1957, but also smaller daily papers like the Hamburger Abendblatt and the Argentinisches Tageblatt.

    2.  The following letters from Lothar Hermann have so far emerged: to Fritz Bauer, June 25, 1960, Fritz Bauer Estate, Archiv der sozialen Demokratie, Bonn, with thanks to Christoph Stamm; published in Irmtrud Wojak, Eichmanns Memoiren: Ein kritischer Essay (Frankfurt am Main, 2001), p. 27. To Friedman, September 17, 1959; November 5, 1959; March 28, 1960; April 27, 1960; May 26, 1960; May 30, 1960; May 1, 1961; May 26, 1961; May 14, 1971; June 2, 1971. To Ben-Gurion, May 20, 1961. All these letters are in Tuviah Friedman, ed., Die “Ergreifung Eichmanns”: Dokumentarische Sammlung (Haifa, 1971), along with a few letters between Friedman and Erwin Schüle. In grateful memory of Tuviah Friedman for the documents. Further letters are in BA Ludwigsburg, Central Office Collection, III/24.

    3.  The text is missing from the French edition, Les Vengeurs, which was published in Paris in 1968, before Bauer’s death, and from the U.S. edition, The Avengers. There was no German translation. For Bar-Zohar’s interview with the Associated Press, see “Did Clue from Frankfurt Lead to Finding Eichmann?” Frankfurter Rundschau, February 12, 1969. For the reception outside Israel, see the review “New Story About the Hunt for Eichmann,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, February 19, 1969.

    4.  Isser Harel, The House on Garibaldi Street: The Capture of Adolf Eichmann (London, 1975). From the 1997 English edition, the book has (largely) been published with a key to most of the aliases.

    5.  Lothar Hermann to Tuviah Friedman, June 2, 1971, in Tuviah Friedman, Die Ergreifung Eichmanns: Dokumentarische Sammlung (Haifa, 1971).

    6.  Carl Schmitt and Hans Dietrich Sander, Werkstatt—Discorsi: Briefwechsel 1967–1981 (Schnellroda, 2008), p. 247.

    7.  Aharoni analyzes in detail, among other things, the invented dialogues between Malkin and Eichmann that Harel presents as historically verifiable facts, although everyone involved knew that Malkin and Eichmann didn’t have a common language. Zvi Aharoni and Wilhelm Dietl, Operation Eichmann: The Truth About the Pursuit, Capture, and Trial, trans. Helmut Bögler (New York, 1997), p. 142.

    8.  At the press conference for his docudrama Eichmanns Ende in 2010, Raymond Ley reported that in spite of his illness, Klaus Eichmann had recognized Lothar Hermann’s daughter in a photo and reacted positively to the memory of a girlfriend from his youth. Unfortunately, no other statements by the Eichmann family are known. It is difficult to imagine that someone would still think well of a friend if he regarded her as having betrayed his father.

    9.  Klaus Eichmann was born in Berlin, in 1936; Silvia Hermann in Buenos Aires, in 1941.

  10.  Thanks to Natasja de Winter, Buenos Aires, for her excellent research on the biographical dates and living conditions of the Hermann family. Particular thanks to Raymond Ley, Jasmin Gravenhorst (docstation, Hamburg), and Patricia Schlesinger (NDR), not only for using an academic adviser on the scripts for the docudrama Eichmanns Ende, but also for granting her access to their research findings.

  11.  Hermann to Friedman, June 2, 1971, which also contains some biographical information.

  12.  Hermann is in the database of Dachau inmates. Thanks to Dirk Riedel from the memorial site for the detailed information. After this point, Hermann’s claims basically tally with information from the available documents.

  13.  Even people who claim to have owned this photo have not been able to find it.

  14.  Hermann to Bauer, after Eichmann had been abducted, June 25, 1960.

  15.  This date is sometimes given as August 27, 1957. Hermann himself only mentioned a letter from the year 1957. The original letter has not been found. According to Wojak, Fritz Bauer gave it to Felix Shinnar. Irmtrud Wojak, Fritz Bauer: 1903–1968: Eine Biographie (Munich, 2009), p. 286. This is problematic, as Bauer (also according to Wojak) did not initially reveal the name of his informant, and Hermann used headed writing paper for all the other letters that have been preserved. The “document” in Dan Setton’s film “The Hunt for Adolf Eichmann” is certainly not the original, as it contains a factual error: “Hermann” describes himself as a “half Jew” in this letter. But according to Nazi criteria, Hermann was a “full Jew” and was also aware of it, as later letters show.

  16.  Documents on press affair, Arnold Buchthal Estate, Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt am Main, S1/138. See also “The Man Has to Go,” Spiegel, October 16, 1957.

  17.  According to Wojak, Fritz Bauer: HHStA Wiesbaden 461, 32 440, File 2.

  18.  July 1, 1957, quoted in Heinz Schneppen, Odessa und das Vierte Reich: Mythen der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin, 2007), p. 162. Unfortunately Schneppen does not always cite sources to academic standards, but his access to collections of files is doubtless excellent.

  19.  As Eichmann reported in “Meine Flucht,” p. 28, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247. He also accuses himself there of having become too careless, on the basis of this kind of information.

  20.  Based on “Terrorism and Concentration Camps on the Nile,” Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden, July 12, 1957; see also “Cairo, SS Rendezvous Point,” Frankfurter Illustrierte, August 17, 1957.

  21.  Kai Jensen, “Cairo, SS Rendezvous Point—a Canard!” also appeared in Die Brücke, Auslandsdienst, no. 18, year 4 (1957), pp. 6–8. The article is a surprisingly pedantic refutation of all possible rumors, using details obviously designed to distract readers from the National Socialists who actually were in the Middle East.

  22.  NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

  23.  Isser Harel dated the meeting as November 6, 1957; Irmtrud Wojak dated it November 7, 1957, in Fritz Bauer, p. 295.

  24.  See Hanna Yablonka, The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann (New York, 2004), p. 15.

  25.  Dieter Schenk, Auf dem rechten Auge blind: Die braunen Wurzeln des BKA (Cologne, 2001), p. 302.

  26.  Lothar Hermann’s second wife said in an interview in 2009 that after her husband’s death, she had sent all his papers to Germany so they could be kept in an archive. Unfortunately, the old lady didn’t remember who the mail sack had been addressed to—just that she never received a reply.

  27.  Hermann to Bauer, June 25, 1960.

  28.  Wojak, Eichmanns Memoiren, p. 30.

  29.  At least, this is the story told in the Eichmann family to this day. Thanks to Helmut Eichmann for this detail.

  30.  Mertig was a former NSDAP member. See Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina, rev. ed. (London, 2003), p. 289, and Holger Meding, Flucht vor Nürnberg? Deutsche und österreichische Einwanderung in Argentinien 1945–1955 (Cologne, 1992), p. 162. Eichmann himself dated the start of his work for Mertig to January 31, 1958: application to Mercedes-Benz, facsimile in Schneppen, Odessa, pp. 160ff.

  31.  The records-office card file on Eberhard Fritsch, born on November 21, 1921, in Buenos Aires, begins with his residency application of March 6, 1958. His occupation is given as “publisher, hotel porter.” Thanks to Peter F. Kramml from the Salzburg City Archive for his help.

  32.  The issue is labeled as issue 12, 1957, but it contains a reference to March 1958. The publication of Der Weg was not as regular as the issue numbers would have us believe.

  33.  François Genoud turned to Eichmann’s family immediately after his trial was announced, with his typical combination of good business sense and responsibility for comrades in need. He wanted to purchase the rights to Eichmann’s story and finance his defense. He found Fritsch with the Linz Eichmanns, when he arrived there a few days after Ben-Gurion’s Knesset speech. François Genoud, interviewed in Pierre Péan, L’extrémiste: François Genoud, de Hitler á Carlos (Paris, 1996), p. 257.

  34.  Thanks to Anne-Marie Sana and Jürgen Klöckner from the Konstanz City Archive for the precise information. Unfortunately the copies of the declarations and documents no longer exist. Sassen gave his new address in Munich as Hohenstaufenstraße 12.

  35.  Inge Schneider said that Miep Sassen’s determined stance was to her own disadvantage: without German identity papers she wasn’t allowed to work in Germany, although in the summer Inge Schneider had offered her the opportunity to stay with her in Bremen.

  36.  The history of the Argentina Papers speaks against any contact between Sassen and the BND. The BND evidently didn’t obtain its copy of the Sassen transcripts from Sassen himself. See “Aftermath” in this book.

  37.  Saskia and Francisca Sassen, correspondence with the author (2009); Gerd Heidemann, conversation with the author (2009) about his visit to Sassen in 1979. The BfV files on Sassen and Rudel have not yet been made public. Both of them must contain these notes, as Sassen visited Rudel. Thanks to the BfV for its extremely brief but helpful information. In the case of BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, the files presented don’t black out Sassen’s reference to the Gehlen Organization and “General G,” which suggests that this was just idle talk from Sassen. The question of what documents about Sassen from 1959 are doing in the Eichmann file with documents before 1960 is more difficult to answer. See supplementary file on the above case, BND files 100 470, pp. 9–13.

  38.  Tape 67, BA tape 10B, 1:03:30.

  39.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

  40.  Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes, and Moshe Zimmermann, Das Amt und die Vergangenheit: Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik (Munich, 2010), p. 608, cited hereafter as Das Amt.

  41.  Fritsch’s claims about being denied entry cannot be verified. The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior no longer holds files on these sorts of occurrences, as the file retention period has elapsed for these dates. (The Bavarian border police were responsible for the control of the West German border.) Letter from December 27, 2010. The BfV could confirm only that there was a file on Fritsch. Fritsch’s heroic version of the story was given in his obituary in the Deutsche Annalen, published by Druffel Verlag. For this right-leaning publisher, Fritsch counted as one of the “Great Germans.” “German Farewells 1974,” Deutsche Annalen, Jahrbuch des Nationalgeschehens, year 4 (Leoni am Starnberger See, 1975), unpaginated.

  42.  Eichmann trial, 2JS178/56. According to the letters that Fritsch wrote to Robert Servatius, he had exhausted all the legal means to try and get the Lüneberg District Court’s decision reversed, and his appeal against the refusal of his application for a revision finally failed with the Federal Court in Karlsruhe. BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6. The correspondence is divided between the 253 collections and section 4.

  43.  When I told Uki Goñi about Eichmann’s contacts in Plata del Mar, he was completely taken aback, not having imagined that Eichmann could ever have afforded a trip to this expensive spot. Eichmann mentioned friends and accommodation here gratefully in his letters from prison.

  44.  Eichmann to Avner W. Less, the interrogating officer, June 1, 1960, Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich, NL Less, 4.2.3.2.

  45.  Strictly speaking, we also know little about Müller’s biography in the previous period. Most of what has been said rests on claims by Eichmann—unfortunately not always cited as such—which are notoriously unreliable. A glance at the sources for Andreas Seeger, “Gestapo Müller”: Die Karriere eines Schreibtischtäters (Berlin, 1996), clearly shows how much this biography relied on Eichmann.

  46.  Report, March 19, 1958, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann: “Adolf Eichmann (201-047132) was born in Israel and became an SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer. He is reported to have lived in Argentina under the alias CLEMENS since 1952. One rumor has it that despite the fact that he was responsible for mass extermination of Jews, he now lives in Jerusalem.”

  47.  Thanks to the BfV for allowing me to read and quote the following pieces of writing from the Eichmann file. For the files submitted in the case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, see “Aftermath” in this book.

  48.  BfV to Foreign Office, “Re: Karl Eichmann, Argentina. Connection: none,” April 11, 1958, VS-Confidential (downgraded in April 1971 to VS–Official Use Only).

  49.  In this regard, the rumors are myriad. For example, Ludolf von Alvensleben is supposed to have lived in a house in Córdoba owned by Fritsch. It was not possible to check.

  50.  At least the files in question from the BfV have been classified “archivable,” which gives us the joyous news that they will be given over to the Bundesarchiv over the coming years. It is, however, impossible to know when that will be. Still, I must thank the BfV for taking the trouble to answer my questions. BfV to the author, December 3 and 20, 2010.

  51.  Michael Frank, Die letzte Bastion: Nazis in Argentinien (Hamburg, 1962), p. 108.

  52.  Foreign Office, July 27, 1960, quoted in Schneppen, Odessa, p. 164.

  53.  Ibid., p. 163.

  54.  Foreign Office to BfV, July 4, 1958, ibid. Thanks to BfV for a copy.

  55.  West German embassy in Buenos Aires to the Foreign Office, August 11, 1954, under 212, no. 2116/54. The Foreign Office passed the information on to the BfV on August 25, 1954 (306212-02/5.20973/54). Quoted at length in the draft replies of August 21, 1958; see note 56 below for details of these drafts.

  56.  The two available drafts of the BfV’s reply to the Foreign Office allow us to reconstruct the decision-making process. The first draft contains a request to report any further discoveries in the Eichmann matter to Cologne. This is crossed out by hand. The second draft contains no reference to this apart from the subject heading. BfV to Foreign Office, draft with handwritten corrections and additions, VS-Confidential (downgraded to VS–Official Use Only in April 1974) and draft with censored date, but with a revision date of August 21, 1958 (VS-Confidential). It isn’t clear whether the letter, which also contained a few remarks on the case of Franz Rademacher, was sent in this form.

  57.  Schneppen, Odessa, p. 136.

  58.  The source editions are edited by the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. We can only hope that the gap in the years 1954–61 will now be immediately closed. The recent volumes on 1962 were taken into account for this book, which, because of the selection of documents they contain, was unfortunately a quick and easy process.

  59.  Mohr and his predecessor, Werner Junker, who was ambassador in Buenos Aires until 1963, knew each other well. They had met in 1936, when they were working in the embassy in Nanking. For information on their lives, with a few gaps, and certain things downplayed, see Biographisches Handbuch des deutschen Auswärtigen Dienstes 1871–1945 (Paderborn, 2005), vols. 2 and 3.

  60.  “Götzen,” p. 360; p. 40; the letter from Mohr to the RSHA, February 26, 1941, was a prosecution document.

  61.  Hubert Krier, interview by Dan Setton in Josef Mengele: The Final Account (SET Productions, 2007).

  62.  Answers to questionnaire for Paris Match, May 1962, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/252.

  63.  Eichmann’s note in Israel: “Vorgeschichte der Entführung,” BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253.

  64.  Vera Eichmann, interview in Paris Match, April 29, 1962; commentary and explanation to the publisher Dr. Sudholt, according to information given by Dr. Sudholt in 2009, and the sworn statement from Vera Eichmann published in Druffel Verlag’s 1980 edition of the Argentina Papers: Ich, Adolf Eichmann. See also “Aftermath” in this book.

  65.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

  66.  For example, Miguel Serrano, Das goldene Band (Wetten, 1987). The legend of Hitler’s survival in an eternal block of ice is, as a simple Internet search shows, still around today, although in the age of artificial insemination and cloning, the modern variation is slowly softening to say that Hitler deposited only his “genetic material,” so that he could be born again.

  67.  Unidentifiable staff member to Hanns Martin Schleyer, May 30, 1960, quoted in Gaby Weber, Daimler-Benz und die Argentinien-Connection (Berlin and Hamburg, 2004), p. 91.

  68.  Immediately after the press reported Eichmann’s abduction, Mengele noted: “Now you see, I was right.”

  69.  “Not a Templar After All: Eichmann’s Birthplace: Solingen, not Sarona,” Die Zeit, September 11, 1959. The article is a correction to the Israel report by Gerhard F. Kramer, who wrote for the magazine as the former attorney general of Hamburg.

  70.  Principally Weber, Daimler-Benz, pp. 87–95. For a facsimile of the application and the personnel record, see Schneppen, Odessa, p. 160. Fuldner made no secret of the favor and mentioned it in his statement to the police following Eichmann’s abduction. The information is also in the report from the German embassy, Argentina, to the Foreign Office.

  71.  Unidentifiable staff member to Hanns Martin Schleyer, May 30, 1960, quoted in Weber, Daimler-Benz, p. 91. Weber questions the authenticity of the letter. The content, however, fits perfectly with the other pieces of writing we have from Eichmann’s helpers, as they attempted to justify themselves.

  72.  The contributions to be found in the literature so far rest on incorrect exchange rates and frequently confuse dollars and Deutschmarks. The average gross monthly salary is generally given as around 600 Deutschmarks for men. Thanks to the staff of the German Bundesbank for their help in providing this information. The fact that this exchange rate corresponded to what was actually paid can be traced in Dürer Verlag’s statements of fees paid to its German authors. See Fritsch correspondence.

  73.  Facsimile in Weber, Daimler-Benz, unpaginated appendix. For the period April 8 to June 30, 1959, Ricardo Klement received 15,216.60 pesos.

  74.  David Filc, interview by Gaby Weber (2000), in Weber, Daimler-Benz, p. 91.

  75.  Eichmann to Nebe, October 16, 1939, DÖW. File 17 072/a. Nebe had asked whether they might take the opportunity of the transports to Nisko to also transport “the Berlin gypsies,” and Eichmann suggested adding “3 to 4 cars of gypsies” to the trains.

  76.  Sassen transcripts 13:7.

  77.  Simon Wiesenthal, Ich jagte Eichmann (Gütersloh, 1961), p. 239.

  78.  Hermann Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797. Evidence, documents, and commentaries on this campaign can be found in several folders and boxes. See, for example, Folder 106, correspondence with Ormond at the start of 1959; the green correspondence folder with Germany (20:21—press; 23:24—justice).

  79.  BfV to Foreign Office, June 9, 1960 (II/a2-051-P-20364-5a/60). Thanks to the BfV for permission to quote.

  80.  Paul Dickopf’s friends included the famous/infamous Hitler fan François Genoud, with whom he maintained a close relationship after their work for the SS and the Nazi regime. Genoud then helped to finance Eichmann’s defense from 1960. See “Aftermath” in this book.

  81.  Two former colleagues of Fritz Bauer, who prefer not to be named, conversation with the author.

  82.  Annette Weinke, Eine deutsch-deutsche Beziehungsgeschichte im Kalten Krieg (Paderborn, Munich, Zurich, and Vienna, 2002), pp. 151–57.

  83.  F. J. P. Veale, “Eichmann’s Abduction—Coincidence or Staged?” Nation Europa 11, no. 1 (1961), pp. 73–78, esp. p. 73.

  84.  Bauer wrote to Sassen in 1962 with a plea for background information, and nothing in Sassen’s reply suggests that they had been in prior contact. Willem Sassen, Comodoro Rivadavia, to Attorney General Bauer, Frankfurt am Main, July 16, 1962, cited in Wojak, Eichmanns Memoiren, pp. 48 and 218. Unfortunately the source given there is incorrect (Landesarchiv Berlin, no. 76, BRep 057-01), as the staff there assured me. Nor was it possible to find the letter in any of the other likely archives (Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Wiesbaden, Fritz Bauer Archiv Frankfurt, Archiv der Sozialen Demokratie Bonn).

  85.  Interview in Fritz Bauer—Tod auf Raten (Ilona Ziok, 2010).

  86.  The search turned up fourteen SS men with this name.

  87.  Wolfgang Rabus to author, December 7, 2010, which in spite of its banal content was cc’d to four other people in the firm.

  88.  Thomas Harlan to author, 2010; and the film Fritz Bauer—Tod auf Raten (Ilona Ziok, 2010).

  89.  Also mentioned in Quentin Reynolds, Ephraim Katz, and Zwy Aldouby, Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story (New York, 1960), p. 206.

  90.  For information on this site of horror, see Jules Schelvis, Vernichtungslager Sobibór (Berlin, 1998); Thomas “Tovi” Blatt, Sobibór—der vergessene Aufstand (Hamburg and Münster, 2004).

  91.  In 1967 Szmajzner also sold this business and became the director of a paper-recycling firm in Goiania. He died in 1989. See Schelvis, Vernichtungslager, pp. 291, 314, and 220 (photo); Richard Lashke, Flucht aus Sobibór, Roman (Gerlingen, 1998), appendix of source material, p. 436.

  92.  Or rather Inferno em Sobibór—A tragédia de um adolescente judeu (Rio de Janeiro, 1968). The work has not yet been translated.

  93.  Gustav Franz Stangl, the former commandant of Sobibór, confirmed this himself in 1969; quoted in Schelvis, Vernichtungslager.

  94.  Simon Wiesenthal recounted several versions of his search for Stangl, which Tom Segev reconstructed. Segev suspects that Wiesenthal did not give the real information but obviously found no reference to Szmajzner, just a conspicuous hole in the archive. Tom Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (New York, 2010), pp. 208–9. Szmajzner spoke of his memories of Stangl later, in conversations with other Sobibór survivors. There are photos of the encounter with Wagner where he identified him. See also Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance: Recollections (New York, 1990).

  95.  Jules Schelvis conducted long interviews with Szmajzner for his book on Sobibór; Schelvis, Vernichtungslager, p. 314. The journalist Mario Chimanovich, who acted on Wiesenthal’s behalf in Brazil, was convinced that Wagner was murdered. Tom Segev, interview by Mario Chimanovich, October 29, 2008; see also Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 209. Even the police photos contradict the story that Wagner hanged himself.

  96.  This article appeared in almost all the newspapers the following day, including the Argentinisches Tageblatt. Quoted here from the Schwäbische Albzeitung, December 24, 1959.

  97.  Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 177.

  98.  Heinz Weibel-Altmeyer, “Hunt for Eichmann,” Neue Illustrierte, June 11–July 8, 1960, a five-part series.

  99.  BfV to Foreign Office, June 9, 1960 (II/a2-051-P-20364-5a/60). Thanks to the BfV for permission to quote from this document.

100.  BfV to Foreign Office, June 9, 1960 (II/a2-051-P-20364-5a/60).

101.  Langbein to the Federation of German Industry, February 12, 1960; the Federation to the Comité International d’Auschwitz, April 26, 1960. Both letters are in Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797-25, green correspondence folder, Germany A-C.

102.  As with all operations of this sort, Langbein first asked the Frankfurt prosecutor Henry Ormond whether he would be causing any damage with this letter. Evidence in correspondence folder Ormond, Langbein Estate, ÖStA. For the connections among Ormond, Langbein, and Bauer, see “Aftermath” in this book.

103.  BfV to Foreign Office, June 9, 1960 (II/a2-051-P-20364-5a/60).

104.  Erwin Schüle to Tuviah Friedman, August 20, 1959, in Tuviah Friedman, ed., Die “Ergreifung Eichmanns”: Dokumentarische Sammlung (Haifa, 1971).

105.  “Israel and the Eichmann Case,” Argentinisches Tageblatt, October 16, 1959.

106.  Some facsimiles of press articles are in Tuviah Friedman, We Shall Never Forget (Haifa, undated). Investigating authorities faced an increasing number of issues caused by Friedman acting on his own authority; see the 1970s correspondence between Simon Wiesenthal and the Central Office in BA Ludwigsburg. See also the report by Dietrich Zeug to Ludwigsburg in 1961, both in BA Ludwigsburg, Central Office collection.

107.  On Bauer’s fabricated statements to the press, and the position taken by the British foreign minister on October 13, 1959. The campaign continued until well into 1960. Evidence appears even in the smaller newspapers; for this account, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurter Neue Presse, The Times, Die TAT, Schwäbische Albzeitung, Weltwoche, Deutsche Woche, and Neues Österreich were checked.

108.  Deutsche Woche, January 27, 1960.

109.  Federal Ministry of Justice to the Foreign Office, December 16, 1959, quoted in Schneppen, Odessa, p. 163. Schneppen does not give an archive reference but usually consults the Foreign Office’s Political Archive.

110.  Anyone thinking this is malicious is recommended to spend a few hours with Adolf von Thadden’s estate. The shelves of Thadden’s correspondence, comprising thousands of letters, contain reams of genuinely malicious gossip and rumor. Sassen wrote at least one article for Thadden (Reichsruf, October 29, 1955). Thadden even denounced Sassen in public. See “Aftermath” in this book for a review of the Druffel publication.

111.  BfV to Foreign Office, June 9, 1960 (II/a2-051-P-20364-5a/60).

112.  “Neo-Nazi Leader ‘Was MI6 Agent,’ ” Guardian, August 13, 2002. Thadden thoroughly cleansed his estate of all evidence that he might have spied for the British.

113.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966.

114.  Hermann’s correspondence with Tuviah Friedman. Tuviah Friedman, Die Ergreifung Eichmanns: Dokumentarische Sammlung (Haifa, 1971).

115.  BA Ludwigsburg, Central Office collection, III 24/28.

116.  Friedman to Hermann, April 27, 1971, talking about Arie Tartakower. Friedman, Die Ergreifung Eichmanns.

117.  Hermann to Friedman, March 28, 1960, ibid.

118.  Friedman apologized to Hermann in his letters from 1971.

119.  For the decision, see Hanna Yablonka’s excellent book The State of Israel vs. Adolf Eichmann (New York, 2004).

120.  Ibid., p. 15; Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 141.

121.  Interestingly, I also found a copy in Langbein Estate, ÖStA, Eichmann press folder.

122.  A photo of them as children shows how similar the brothers were, even then.

123.  See also Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 143.

124.  Aharoni did not say which assignment he had been on in March 1959.

125.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 26, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247.

126.  “Vorgeschichte der Entführung” (Background to the Abduction), dated November 7, 1961, and the lengthy “Verhaftungsbericht” (Arrest Report), undated but written before the start of the trial, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253. The content tallies with Eichmann’s “Meine Flucht” (March 1961), BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247

127.  The theories that Eichmann willingly left Argentina, traveling to Israel via various other places—or that Argentina extradited him—still exist. But the only possible reason for anybody continuing to subscribe to them today would be some evidence that Eichmann was forced to lie in both his written testimonies, and his statements in court. There is no sort of evidence for it. Based on a thorough investigation of the sources, ideas that Eichmann consented to go to Israel, and scenarios other than that of an abduction, simply don’t stand up.

128.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick, January 2, 1966; Vera Eichmann recounted this dream in her interview in Paris Match, April 29, 1962.

129.  “Vorgeschichte der Entführung,” November 7, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253; “Meine Flucht,” p. 28.

130.  Eichmann’s own reports also give detailed information, backed up by the other accounts from the people involved.

131.  Inge Schneider confirmed this point. She was living in Europe, and Miep Sassen came to stay with her. Inge Schneider, interview by Roelf van Til (2005).

132.  Vera Eichmann, interview in Paris Match, April 29, 1962; Fuldner’s very understated statement to the Argentine police; Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick.

133.  Klaus Eichmann, interview in Quick; Mohn to Servatius, Servatius Report, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253.

134.  Klaus Eichmann and his family initially stayed in their own apartment, then disappeared from the press’s gaze for a while. After May 23, 1960, the press started looking for traces of Eichmann in Buenos Aires. A warning to Israel soon appeared in newspapers from Nation Europa to Der Spiegel: it would damage the reputation of “the Jews” if they had laid hands on Eichmann’s family as well.

135.  As it later emerged, Werner Junker, then the ambassador in Buenos Aires, had frequently withheld information from his employer, Heinrich von Brentano.

136.  José Moskovits, interview by Raymond Ley (2009). Herr Moskovits speaks a broken but comprehensible German. The content of his words cannot be misunderstood. When probed further, he remained absolutely sure about these dates.

137.  Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, pp. 333–34.

138.  Everyone involved confirms this fact. Moskovits, in his 2009 interview by Raymond Ley, mentions the help he provided: he even made it possible for Aharoni to visit the embassy incognito. Tom Segev found an extensive correspondence between Wiesenthal and Moskovits in Wiesenthal’s private papers. Zvi Aharoni mentions Moskovits as a helper from the start, even if he only names him later on. Moskovits helped Aharoni get hold of information and arranged the inconspicuous rental of an apartment and cars for the Mossad team. Even Isser Harel alludes to a Hungarian in Buenos Aires, with good police contacts, who had been Aharoni’s point of contact. Isser Harel, The House on Garibaldi Street (1997), p. 35. Moskovits’s and Aharoni’s cover names are not explained.

139.  Moskovits’s, Aharoni’s, and Harel’s accounts do not contradict here, either.

140.  See the federal government publication Die antisemitischen und nazistischen Vorfälle: Weißbuch und Erklärung der Bundesregierung (Bonn, 1960), p. 36.

141.  Spiegel, June 15, 1960.

142.  From the Federal Chancellery Office’s explanation of why the BND’s Eichmann files cannot be released, even in 2010 (p. 3). See “Aftermath” in this book for more details.

143.  Rolf Vogel to Günther Diehl, August 30, 1960, cited in Raphael Gross, Anständig geblieben: Nationalsozialistische Moral (Frankfurt am Main, 2010), p. 197. Institute for Contemporary History, Munich, B145, 1132.

144.  Werner Junker’s report on Sassen, November 29, 1960, PA AA, B83, vol. 55; Brentano to Janz, December 1, 1960, quoted in Das Amt, p. 608. There too one can find detailed reactions from the Foreign Office to Eichmann’s abduction—although clearly very little was found during the research on the files covering the Nazi community in Argentina in the 1950s.

145.  Ambassador Werner Junker to the Foreign Office, December 13, 1962, published as document 483 in Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: 1962 (Munich, 2010), pp. 2060–61.

146.  See Irmtrud Wojak, Fritz Bauer: 1903–1968: Eine Biographie (Munich, 2009).

147.  For the CIA, see Richard Breitman, ed., U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis (Washington, D.C., 2004).

148.  Das Amt, p. 609.

149.  Ibid., pp. 600ff.

150.  This double bookkeeping can be clearly seen in Servatius’s papers in BA Koblenz, which contain detailed financial statements. For the financing of Eichmann’s defense, see “Aftermath” in this book.

151.  Quoted from the strictly confidential memo to ministers in Das Amt, p. 614.

152.  Adenauer to Ben-Gurion, January 22, 1962; published as document 37 in Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: 1962 (Munich, 2010), pp. 206–7.

153.  The events up to the end of 1960 are documented in the supplementary file to case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 121 099, 1664: letter of June 3, 1960 “on Foreign Office inquiry” and 1784: August 11, 1960. Thanks to Christoph Partsch for permission to cite these.

154.  Members of the family publicly distanced themselves from the notice. See Philipp Trafojer, “Die Spuren eines Mörders. Alois Schintlholzer (1914–1989),” editorial in the Austrian journal Vinschgerwind (September 8, 2005).

155.  “Eichmann’s Route Went via the Vatican,” in the Austrian newspaper Volkswille, July 23, 1960, which, in comparison to other articles from the time, is extraordinarily well informed.

156.  Argentine state police, report on Eichmann’s abduction, June 9, 1960, Archivo General de la Nacíon (AGN), DAE, Bormann file, pp. 77–79, quoted in Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina, rev. ed. (London, 2003), p. 315n543.

157.  Kurier, May 31, 1960, and others.

158.  See Timothy Naftali, “The CIA and Eichmann’s Associates,” pp. 341–43. On Mildenstein’s activities in Egypt, see the CIA report from Cairo, “Combined Allied-Israeli Invasion of Egypt,” January 3, 1957, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Leopold von Mildenstein.

159.  A threat to avenge Eichmann and kill Fritz Bauer—the only one that I know of—is in the notorious “ODESSA protocol” from the private archive of Friedrich Schwend. This peculiar piece of work is allegedly the report from a meeting of an SS secret society in Spain in June 1965. (The date was unclear for a long time.) The “protocol” contains a call to murder Fritz Bauer. As Schwend was a professional counterfeiter, it cannot be determined whether this was a counterfeit or the transcript of an overly ambitious men’s drinking session. HIS, Archive, Schwend papers.

160.  Report from March 3, 1961, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. Otto Skorzeny himself may have been the source of this report. The story of the assassination plans probably goes back directly to East German propaganda: on May 29, 1960, theBerliner Zeitung reported, under the headline “Eichmann—a Middleman for Bonn Companies in Kuwait,” that the BND head Gehlen had personally ordered Eichmann to be liquidated, to protect West German Nazis.

161.  Ulrich Völklein, Josef Mengele: Der Arzt von Auschwitz (Göttingen, 2003), p. 270.

162.  The article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung by its correspondent “Nikolaus Ehlert” in Argentina clearly rested on information from Wilfred von Oven and Horst Carlos Fuldner.

163.  See also Friedrich Paul Heller and Anton Maegerle, Thule: Vom völkischen Okkultismus bis zur Neuen Rechten (Stuttgart, 1995), p. 93.

164.  Buenos Aires police report, cited in Goñi, Real Odessa, p. 315.

165.  “Eichmann, alias Klement. Jodenvervolger in zwaar verhoor,” Volkskrant, June 8, 1960.

166.  Saskia Sassen is still convinced that her father couldn’t stand Eichmann. But his sympathetic texts on Eichmann, and his later efforts to support his defense, tell a different story. Sassen referred to his Americanized nickname in an interview with La Razón.

167.  “The Manager of the ‘Final Solution,’ ” Widerstandskämpfer (Austria), May–June 1960; “Eichmann: Manager of Mass Murder,” Arbeiterzeitung, May 25, 1960.

168.  “The Crime Has No Fatherland. The Eichmann Trial Throws Its Shadow Ahead,” in Der Heimkehrer, year 12 (Göppingen, 1961), p. 6:1.

169.  “Preview of a Show Trial,” Nation Europa 11, no. 4 (1961), pp. 37–41, here p. 41.

170.  A facsimile of this diary entry from June 7, 1962, is in Schneppen, Odessa, p. 155, citing the HHStA as the source. An inquiry, however, revealed that although this archive has a few of Mengele’s diaries, it does not have this one. Also cited in Völklein,Mengele, p. 270.

171.  Eichmann to his family, April 17, 1961, p. 6, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/165.

172.  Mengele, diary entry, June 1, 1962, immediately after hearing news of the execution; quoted in Völklein, Mengele, p. 270.

173.  Eichmann really wrote “create a judgment.” He didn’t understand that natural rights exist independently of any particular period, because there is a general, human idea of “right,” according to which he would never be absolved.

A Change of Role

    1.  Transfer declaration, prosecution document T/3.

    2.  Avner W. Less, Avner Less Estate, Archive für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich, NL Less, 4.2.3.2.

    3.  Avner W. Less, interview with Gespräch in 3, Avner Less Estate, Zurich, NL Less, tape 7.1 X.

    4.  Avner W. Less, interview for the documentary Erscheinungsform Mensch: Adolf Eichmann (Hamburg, 1978–79), cassette in Avner Less Estate, 7.1 IX.

    5.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 39, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247.

    6.  This tale, which Eichmann polished again in Israel, was one of his most successful fabrications. As he explained several times in Argentina, he had the job of censoring the transcript in accordance with the “language rules,” before it was sent to the ministries. Heydrich introduced Eichmann to the conference as the point of contact for everyone involved, and afterward everyone present treated him this way. Why anyone ever believed that Eichmann could have been in charge of transcribing the conference is a mystery, particularly as he lacked the training for it. Eichmann was the one directing the real transcriber. The quote is from “Auch hier im Ansicht des Galgens,” BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/193, p. 16.

    7.  Answers to questionnaire for Paris Match, May 1962, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/252.

    8.  “Auch hier im Ansicht des Galgens,” BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/193, p. 22.

    9.  Particularly overpowering in his text “Mein Sein und Tun,” BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, p. 8.

  10.  “The Foundations of Bureaucracy” in Das Schwarze Korps (the official SS newspaper), June 12, 1941, develops an impressive image of a new bureaucracy according to SS ideas.

  11.  See the early documentary Erscheinungsform Mensch: Adolf Eichmann (Hamburg, 1978–79), as well as notes and further interviews by all those named.

  12.  This is also the case with many of the photos in David Cesarani, Eichmann: His Life and Crimes (London, 2005). Eichmann’s face is so asymmetrical that it is easy to spot a reversal; the uniform also provides a clear orientation.

Aftermath

    1.  Raul Hilberg, Sources of Holocaust Research: An Analysis (Chicago, 2001), p. 160.

    2.  According to a letter from Mohn, a former Luftwaffe officer, to Eichmann’s lawyer, Robert Servatius, who was looking for the Argentina Papers, Sassen and Klaus Eichmann appeared in his office at Mercedes-Benz on May 12. Servatius Report, “Re: copyright ADOLF EICHMANN, publication LIFE, USA,” BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, pp. 10-17 (hereafter cited as Servatius Report).

    3.  Inge Schneider, interview by Roelf van Til.

    4.  “Meine Flucht,” p. 31, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/247.

    5.  Quotes from Eichmann’s handwritten texts in press and literature can therefore be used only with caution. The hasty transcriptions made from 1960 to 1979 are thoroughly unreliable. Anyone getting horribly tangled up in Eichmann’s handwriting is welcome to contact me, however, as transcriptions of most of the handwritten texts were produced in the course of this research. The tapes, by contrast, were transcribed immediately after the recordings were made in 1957. Eichmann’s handwritten corrections can be found even on the last transcript of tape 73 (pp. 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8).

    6.  Sassen’s daughter remembers the long nights during which the texts were typed onto fanfold paper, which had to be neatly cut up by the family. You can still see these cut edges on the originals.

    7.  Knowledge of the history of copier technology is very important for the evaluation of individual items in the Argentina Papers. During the years of the Eichmann trial, the conversion to Xerox machines was being made. The copier familiar to us today, which allows us to make dry copies on normal paper, came onto the market only at the start of 1960 and gradually took over in private and public offices thereafter. Sassen, and the Hesse attorney general’s office, mainly used photostats, a copier based on camera technology, using photosensitive paper. Reflex copies and Thermofax duplicates were also used in the Eichmann trial.

    8.  The letters from Sassen to Servatius are held in BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, here January 13, 1961. Sassen said similar things in early interviews.

    9.  Even Der Spiegel imagined in detail the existence of torture chambers directly beneath Eichmann’s cell, in which he would be made to change his mind about any statements the Israelis didn’t like. Der Spiegel, June 15, 1960.

  10.  Copy in BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, pp. 18–19, pp. 70–71, copy sent by Vera Eichmann to her brother-in-law in Linz. According to a letter from Mohn to Servatius, Vera Eichmann felt pressured by her “press adviser.” Servatius Report.

  11.  Utopian sums are also sometimes named. Sassen wasn’t particularly skilled in business matters, and in his great haste to conclude the sale of the Eichmann papers, alone and without aid, he made crucial mistakes. His lack of experience cost him the copyright to the Life articles, which he would have retained if Life had actually left the compilation of the texts to him. Servatius was able to find speculations about the sale price between $50,000 and $1.2 million; see Servatius Report, November 26, 1960, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, and Servatius to Robert Eichmann, December 5, 1960 BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253.

  12.  Servatius to Vera Eichmann, November 28, 1960, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253.

  13.  Frondizi traveled around Europe from June 14 to July 10, 1960, which was too late for the flight out and too early for the return flight. Sassen did, however, pursue contacts with presidents after Perón. A photo from the national archive shows him with President Arturo Umberto Illia—accompanied by Rudel. Thanks to Uki Goñi.

  14.  Stern published this information itself after a long silence; Stern, June 24, 2010.

  15.  Saskia Sassen has said repeatedly that her father spoke of Stern, Spiegel, and Life. It has not yet been possible for me to conduct thorough research in this area.

  16.  Report, December 1, 1960, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

  17.  Robert Pendorf, Mörder und Ermordete: Eichmann und die Judenpolitik des Dritten Reichs (Hamburg, 1961), p. 7.

  18.  According to rumors that I have so far been unable to prove, Der Spiegel checked over the material, declined to use it, and sent it “to Munich.” Saskia Sassen says that her father claimed he was also a correspondent for Spiegel, and a CIA report from a Munich informant on December 1, 1960, talks of Sassen having sold eighty pages to “Spiegel and Stern.” NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. Saskia Sassen, interview and correspondence with the author (2009).

  19.  Servatius researched this contract and spoke of a fee of more than 50,000 Dutch florins (around 50,000 Deutschmarks). This contract could explain why the Dutch filmmaker Roelf van Til found a copy of some Sassen material in Dutch archives. Servatius to Robert Eichmann, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, pp. 30–32; Roelf van Til, personal conversation with the author (2004).

  20.  Interrogation, June 5, 1960, p. 397.

  21.  Ibid.

  22.  Servatius Report, November 26, 1960; Servatius to Robert Eichmann, December 5, 1960; both in BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253.

  23.  Servatius Report and letter both dated November 30, 1960.

  24.  On François Genoud and Hans Rechenberg, and the details of their involvement with Eichmann, see the impressively well-researched work by Willi Winkler, Der Schattenmann: Von Goebbels zu Carlos: Das mysteriöse Leben des François Genoud (Berlin, 2011), esp. chap. 9. A necessarily but less detailed account is Karl Laske, Ein Leben zwischen Hitler und Carlos: François Genoud (Zurich, 1996). See also the interview with Genoud in Pierre Péan, L’Éxtrémiste: François Genoud, de Hitler à Carlos (Paris, 1996), pp. 257ff. Substantial original interviews appear in the documentary L’Éxtrémiste de Hitler à Carlos (Television Suisse Romande, 1996).

  25.  Servatius was the defense counsel for Fritz Sauckel, and Rechenberg worked on the defense for Walther Funk.

  26.  Rechenberg and “his friend G.” are named as trial financers in the Linz correspondence, and in Servatius’s estate there is further clear evidence. BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, p. 257. Servatius tried in vain to make the German government officially responsible for the trial costs. In the end, the State of Israel paid his fee. The substantial finances raised by Genoud and Rechenberg were never officially declared. The statements in Servatius’s estate, however, clearly reveal Rechenberg’s role. Rechenberg was also being watched by the CIA; details in NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Hans Rechenberg, but also under Franz Rademacher. The BND file 121 099 also shows that Rechenberg was one of their sources and passed material for the defense on to the BND, who were also kept informed of the activities for financing the trial.

  27.  Peter Woog, handwritten note, February 24, 1965, ETH Zurich, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, JUNA archive/567, Peter Woog correspondence.

  28.  In a meeting on July 25 Eberhard Fritsch promised the defense counsel Servatius his cooperation and provision of all documents, in return for the exploitation rights for Europe. Servatius Report.

  29.  Servatius Report, November 26, 1960, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253; correspondence between Robert Servatius and Hans Rechenberg, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253.

  30.  Many of the documents so far presented from the Eichmann files are collections of sometimes fantastical fears about what Eichmann might have said. Every page of the Argentina Papers that was released was pored over for names. The work was not so thorough as the evaluation that Fritz Bauer commissioned, but the index of names was entirely usable. Supplementary file, case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 121 099, pp. 1–66; 100 470, pp. 181–253.

  31.  September 13, 1960, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. Most of this correspondence is missing from the documents so far released from the BND’s Eichmann file.

  32.  CIA report, September 20, 1960.

  33.  I couldn’t find the name while listening to the tapes, or on the pages that Life didn’t have.

  34.  The Servatius Report dates the requests from Allen Dulles (CIA) to Henry Luce (Life), and the argument with Fritsch, to the end of September or October 1960.

  35.  On October 11, 1960, a CIA informant reported from Frankfurt (obviously someone close to Die Welt) that Eichmann had already written five hundred pages. NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann.

  36.  Sassen transcript 21:2, 12.7.

  37.  Servatius Report: “While being held in Israel, he has been dictating reports daily.” Servatius made an effort to advise Eichmann against it, though without much success.

  38.  The BND files contain several pieces of writing from Israel and large parts of the Servatius correspondence.

  39.  Negotiations took place with Patrick O’Connor from Glasgow, who among other things represented the British agency Curtis Brown. There was talk of six-figure sums in pounds sterling. Genoud also negotiated with the Italian Epoca and the English magazine People. Servatius Report and interview with Genoud, in Péan, L’Extrémiste. Eichmann photos from Argentina that had not previously been seen were published in Epoca, and selections from “Meine Flucht” appeared in five issues of People, April 30–May 28, 1961. Vera Eichmann, interview in Paris Match, April 29, 1962; original transcript in BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/252; Paris Match 683, May 12, 1962.

  40.  Answers to questionnaire published in Paris Match 687, dated June 9, 1962.

  41.  For Genoud’s disappointment, see François Genoud, interview by Péan.

  42.  Servatius Report. Sassen would only telegraph in December 1960 to say that he was coming.

  43.  The issues of Life went on sale the Tuesday before the printed date, which is normal for U.S. magazines. The advance notice from Harry Golden was published in the November 21, 1960, issue (appearing November 15). The two issues that followed then contained the serial “Eichmann Tells His Own Damning Story.” The November 28 issue appeared on November 22, and the December 6 issue on November 29, 1960.

  44.  Vera Eichmann, interview in Paris Match, April 29, 1962.

  45.  Servatius Report. Reports appeared in almost all the German daily newspapers on December 1, 1960. Another press conference took place on December 9, 1960, and Servatius further qualified his resolution.

  46.  Zwi Wohlstein was responsible for Eichmann’s health and well-being following his imprisonment and kept a diary of what was for him a difficult experience. Extract from Wohlstein’s notes, December 4, 1960, published in Die Welt, September 1, 1999.

  47.  Vera Eichmann to Servatius, telegram, November 28, 1960, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, p. 59.

  48.  Servatius Report. A copy also reached the BND files, supplementary file, case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 121 099, 1840–43.

  49.  “Eichmann parle,” L’Express, no. 494, December 1, 1960; Sassen to Servatius, January 13, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, pp. 113–14. Servatius used this article in the trial to discredit Sassen as a potential witness. Trial transcript, session 105.

  50.  “Eichmann Fue un Engranaje de la Diabólica Maquinaria Nazi, Dice el Hombre que Escribió sus Memorias en Buenos Aires,” La Razón, December 12, 1960.

  51.  Sassen to Servatius, January 13, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, pp. 113–14, and Sassen to Servatius, January 28, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, p. 110. Sassen’s advice betrays his intimate knowledge and his anti-Semitic and Nazi attitude, which made some of his offers of help simply naïve, even if we can see they were well intentioned.

  52.  The letter giving power of attorney to his stepbrother, Robert Eichmann, on February 7, 1961, envisaged 50 percent for his children and 50 percent for Servatius. BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/253, p. 6.

  53.  Report, December 21, 1960, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann. The informant’s name is blacked out.

  54.  NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Léon Degrelle, 023-230/86/22/04. The clue is contained in the Degrelle file because Zwy Aldouby had apparently planned to abduct Léon Degrelle. Heartfelt thanks to Willi Winkler.

  55.  Robert Pendorf, Mörder und Ermordete: Eichmann und die Judenpolitik des Dritten Reichs (Hamburg, 1961), p. 7.

  56.  The information on Langbein and the following account are supported by Hermann Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797.

  57.  Langbein, March 12, 1959, reported to Ormond on “a few pictures of SS men” that he had picked up on his trip to Poland. Ibid., E/1797, binder 106. Correspondence on the criminal charges, ibid.

  58.  The correspondence with Hermann Langbein includes several commentaries on the magazines. They also consulted one another on their press activity, when they feared a backslide into Nazi hero-worship. Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106.

  59.  Henry Ormond’s estate is now held in the Yad Vashem Archive. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to look into it. Thanks to Werner Renz (of the Fritz Bauer Institut) for sending Walter Witte’s Ormond biography (Alles zu seiner Zeit: Rechtsanwalt Henry Ormond 1901–1973, undated typescript), which contained no references for this chapter but provided valuable information on his biography. The following reconstruction of Ormond’s role rests on his extensive correspondence with Langbein, which is now in the Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106. Thanks to Anton Pelinka for the permission to use this incredibly rich source for my Eichmann research.

  60.  “Too many people are interested in emphasizing the collective innocence of whole departments.” Ormond to Lingemann, April 4, 1956, quoted in Das Amt, p. 591.

  61.  Thomas Harlan, “Kto to był Eichmann?,” Polityka, May 28, 1960.

  62.  Ormond and Langbein, detailed letters in Hermann Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106.

  63.  The correspondence between Ormond and Langbein from February 1961 contains the meeting arrangements, the questions of finance, the bill for Harlan’s travel costs, and the note to Langbein in the hotel about when Harlan would arrive. Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797.

  64.  Wiesenthal reported this contact to the Israeli ambassador in Austria, Ezechiel Sahar, on February 29, 1960. There is more proof of this event, as Wiesenthal also told his biographer Hella Pick about it, and in February 1960 Isser Harel accused Wiesenthal of endangering the hunt for Eichmann with this action. Hella Pick, Simon Wiesenthal: A Life in Search of Justice (London, 1996), p. 147; Isser Harel, Simon Wiesenthal and the Capture of Eichmann, unpublished manuscript, quoted in Tom Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (New York, 2010), p. 144.

  65.  Thanks to Thomas Harlan for his memories of the events. The extent and the quality of the copy in particular speak for it having come from Robert Eichmann. The handwritten parts also contain the note that these were all the documents, apart from what had been sold to Life. See also BA Ludwigsburg, “Miscellaneous” folder.

  66.  Note dated March 7, 1961, HMJ Wiesbaden, Veesenmayer, Edmund—Novak; now: Adolf Eichmann, vol. 2, sheet 211; documented in Wojak, Fritz Bauer, p. 582n93.

  67.  We can rule out the possibility that Robert Eichmann handed over the Argentina Papers voluntarily, and he surely must have noticed the theft. (If Langbein had merely instructed somebody to photograph the papers and leave the originals in the office, he would not have needed to get films made afterward, as we know he did.) Robert Eichmann should really have warned his brother via his lawyer. According to helpful information from Helmut Eichmann, Adolf Eichmann’s family appeared not to know anything about the purloined documents prior to my inquiry. See also the correspondence from Servatius in March–April 1961, and from Fritsch to Servatius, esp. All. Proz. 6/253, 60–62. A 2009 inquiry with the police and the public prosecutor’s office in Linz yielded no results.

  68.  According to Harlan, in an interview in Jean-Pierre Stephan, Das Gesicht Deines Feindes: Ein deutsches Leben (Berlin, 2007), p. 124.

  69.  Thanks to Daniel Passent for his willingness to share his memories with me. Without his openness, I would never have hit upon the idea of searching for the sources with which these events could be reconstructed. I would never have dreamed that the copies of the Argentina Papers that have been floating around since then might be different bundles, and that it would be worth taking another close look at each pile of papers labeled “Sassen Interview” and counting the pages.

  70.  Mieczysław F. Rakowski noted in his diary that Daniel Passent had received a copy of the Sassen transcript from Thoman Harlan and that criminologists from the Milicja Obywatelska had found it to be genuine. Mieczysław F. Rakowski, Dzienniki polityczne 1958–1962 (Warsaw, 1998), p. 286. The written summary of the evaluation from the Central Criminal Police, the KGMO in Warsaw, followed on May 9, proving the authenticity of Eichmann’s handwriting on the Sassen transcript presented toPolityka. Part of it was printed in the first article. Thanks to Christian Ganzer for his help in translating the Polish documents.

  71.  The translation of the transcript with the explanations was 1,258 pages long, according to Polityka. Unfortunately, the manuscript apparently no longer exists in the newspaper’s archive. Krystyna Zywulska, Harlan’s girlfriend, claimed that all the copies of it were stolen. However, Zywulska’s memories were not always correct, as Liane Dirks (who also wrote a novel about her) recalls. See “Interference at the Highest Level” in Frankfurter Rundschau, June 20, 2006, p. 10, and Liane Dirks, Krystyna (Cologne, 2006).

  72.  Mieczysław F. Rakowski, diary entry from June 20, 1961, Dzienniki polityczne, p. 293.

  73.  I am personally grateful to this brief side-column note in the Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung for the first reference to the Polityka articles. I must also confess (to my shame) that before this I had not thought to look for any such publications in the former Eastern Bloc. The “wall in our heads” is still frighteningly solid. See also Die Welt, May 24, 1961.

  74.  “Eichmann par Eichmann,” Paris Match, no. 630 (May 6, 1961); no. 631 (May 13, 1961); and no. 632 (May 20, 1961).

  75.  Based on his own notes, in December 1960 Avner W. Less was familiar only with the Life articles. On February 2, 1961, Servatius forbade Less from carrying out any further interrogations, so they officially ended in January. But Eichmann himself didn’t observe this prohibition. “He was too fond of the sound of his own voice to forgo the ‘pleasure,’ ” and Less wanted to try to get his cooperation. NL Less Notebooks 4.2.3.2, Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich. But Less’s superiors decided against letting Eichmann know that the Sassen transcripts had reached Israel, wanting to save the element of surprise for the trial. Later report by Less, NL Less, 4.2.3.2, personal papers, folder 2, ibid.

  76.  Ormond-Langbein correspondence, esp. Langbein letter of January 25, 1962, Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106. Quotes that follow are also from this source.

  77.  Eichmann trial, session 16, April 26, 1961.

  78.  Gabriel Bach, “Conversation with Herr Gabriel Bach, Deputy Prosecutor in the Trial Against Adolf Eichmann, on the Occasion of the 65th Anniversary of the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, on January 18, 2007, in the Haus Der Wannsee-Konferenz,” in Haus der Wannseekonferenz Newsletter 8 (December 2007), pp. 2–21, here p. 5.

  79.  Wiesenthal also mentioned this in an early letter to Ben A. Sijes, December 28, 1970. See Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 150.

  80.  Wiesenthal’s letter to Hausner, October 5, 1980, Simon Wiesenthal Archiv, Vienna correspondence. Thanks to Michaela Vocelka for sending it so quickly.

  81.  As a meticulous comparison of the pages shows. Anyone wanting to see for themselves can do so with little effort, by looking at a typical piece of damage that doesn’t exist on the Langbein copy (or on Sassen’s original). Sassen transcript 18:12 has a large burn mark in the shape of a P on the left-hand side, which has destroyed about 10 percent of the page.

  82.  This version comes from Heinz Felfe (who was unmasked as a Soviet spy shortly after the Eichmann trial). See Heinz Felfe, Im Dienst des Gegners: 10 Jahre Moskaus Mann im BND (Hamburg and Zurich, 1986), p. 248. A glance at BND file 121 099 confirms that they had the Argentina Papers by the end of 1960, from the United States.

  83.  The Hagag evaluation of May 31, 1961, was submitted to the court on June 9 and is therefore accessible as a trial document (prosecution document T/1392). Hagag clearly marks May 25, 1961, as the date all pages were handed over, but also mentions two previous objective evaluations, from March 17 and April 10, 1961. A mere six days would not have been enough for the evaluation of this mountain of paper. Many thanks to Irina Jabotinsky, Berlin, for the translation from the Hebrew.

  84.  In the literature, particularly the more popular books, myriad witnesses claim to have seen these two binders with the seventeen files in Sassen’s house. We can dismiss their claims immediately, as Sassen owned at least four hundred more pages of material. If he had sorted them the same way Hagag did, he would have ended up with around twenty-eight files.

  85.  I had the pleasure of ordering the second part of the transcripts together with the BA Ludwigsburg staff. Unlike Inspector Hagag, I had the advantage of being very familiar with most of the pages I had to sort. However, a great deal of humor was still necessary for this undertaking.… I would like to take this opportunity to offer my heartfelt thanks once again to Tobias Hermann and Sidar Toptanci for one of the most pleasant archive experiences of my Eichmann research.

  86.  This is clearly an error, as there is no reference to pages later removed in the double paginations. These doubles are pages 112=113; 224=225; 508=509.

  87.  This page contains a discussion about Eichmann’s former deputy Rolf Günther. On the original tape of this discussion (BA tape 09D), Eichmann asks for these remarks to be left out, because he was convinced that Günther was still alive, and he didn’t want to do him any harm.

  88.  Sassen transcript 6:1.

  89.  Dietrich Zeug to Fritz Bauer, June 2, 1961, BA Ludwigsburg, Central Office collection, III 44/28.

  90.  The approved pages, according to Hagag’s numbering: 18, 57, 90, 100, 102, 106, 110, 118, 124, 131, 151, 152, 158, 168, 201, 202, 209, 213, 221, 227, 230, 246, 253, 265, 267, 272, 276, 277, 278, 279, 281, 283, 288, 292, 293, 303, 304, 306, 307, 308, 313, 314, 323, 336, 361, 362, 368, 369, 372, 373, 384, 398, 407, 408, 420, 421, 424, 425, 426, 432, 513, 514, 516, 519, 521, 522, 524, 525, 574, 577, 578, 582, 585, 587, 609, 610, 613, 616, 617, 662, 663, 665, 667. A page concordance can be requested from me and viewed in the Bundesarchiv.

  91.  The initialing was not, as Wojak believes (Eichmanns Memoiren, p. 50), an expression of Eichmann’s pedantry but a common practice in the hearing of evidence, for continuous authorization of transcripts and corrections. Less described this practice in detail several times. Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich.

  92.  “Testimonies on the Sassen Memoirs,” six-page typescript, Jerusalem, June 9, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/254.

  93.  Only in his last interview did Sassen speak about the autobiography Eichmann wanted to write. Broadcast on Edicion plus (Telefe Buenos Aires, 1991).

  94.  Nation Europa 11, no. 11 (1961), pp. 37–42; here p. 41.

  95.  Vollmer would keep in touch with people in Argentina even after the Eichmann trial. Juan Maler (Reinhard Kopps) said that Vollmer led the “midwinter celebrations” in Punta Chica near Buenos Aires in December 1980. Juan Maler, Frieden, Krieg und “Frieden” (Bariloche, 1987), p. 403.

  96.  Even before reading the Life articles, Adolf von Thadden spoke about the extent of the Sassen papers, which he knew quite well—through Rudel, as he later admitted. Thadden to Erich Kernmayr, December 6, 1960, Adolf von Thadden Estate, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, VVP 39, Acc. 1/98 no. 49, Sudholt correspondence.

  97.  On June 23, 1961, Bauer announced to the Hesse Minstry of Justice that Steinbacher (a public prosecutor) would like to question Eberhard Fritsch in Vienna. Cited in Irmtrud Wojak, memo June 23, 1961, HMJ Wiesbaden, Veesenmayer, Edmund—Novak; now: Adolf Eichmann, vol. 2, sheet 346, in Wojak, Fritz Bauer, p. 582.

  98.  Wojak, Eichmanns Memoiren. On the problematic nature of the references, see chapter “One Good Turn,” note 41, p. 475.

  99.  Hausner’s reference to Eichmann’s note “this no. 29 is for your information only” on one of the tape transcripts refers not to a tape, as Wojak thinks could be the case (Eichmanns Memoiren, p. 222n93), but to the transcript on which one can read this inscription. Sassen transcript 29:1. Tape 29 is missing from Eichmann’s estate, as his heirs at least heeded this instruction. All references in Hausner’s Justice in Jerusalem (New York, 1966) clearly relate to the copy ordered by Hagag.

100.  Saskia Sassen, interview by Roelf van Til (2005) and Raymond Ley (2009); friend of the family Inge Schneider, interview by van Til (2005).

101.  Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem.

102.  Gabriel Bach, Hausner’s deputy, always said how important the knowledge of what had been said in Argentina was for him personally, to prevent him from falling for Eichmann’s pretense.

103.  Cross-examination, Eichmann trial, session 96, July 13, 1961. The film of the trial shows with frightening clarity how convincingly Eichmann lied.

104.  As well as the Life articles, Hannah Arendt used the typed copy of Eichmann’s handwritten fragment that had been made in Israel (“Re: My Findings”) for her book. This fragment was among the prosecution’s trial documents and so was available to all journalists attending the trial. She didn’t get to read the Sassen transcript. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963; reprint New York, 1994), p. 27.

105.  BA Ludwigsburg, Central Office collection III 44/104.

106.  BA Ludwigsburg, B162/428 and 429.

107.  The covering letter and the other correspondence from the Baden-Württemberg LKA is on the letterhead of a special commission, about which there are now no records whatsoever to be found in the LKA. As Norbert Kiessling explained to me, this is unusual: the diaries recording outgoing mail are usually kept. The letterhead reads: LKA BW Special Commission Central Office Diary no. SK.ZSt.A/14-111/61.

108.  There is a copy in the archive of the Research Centre for Contemporary History, Hamburg.

109.  Hans Rechenberg sheds light on the joint public relations activity with Genoud before the start of the trial in his letter of March 31, 1961; since the argument over the Bormann estate and the Goebbels diary, Genoud’s litigious nature had become notorious.

110.  Langbein to Ormond, January 25, 1962, in Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106: correspondence with Henry Ormond.

111.  Hannah Arendt, who was accused, among other things, of having attended only a few days of the trial in person, was one of the most thorough readers of the interrogation and trial transcripts, which she took back to the United States with her.

112.  Langbein and Ormond both spoke of Harlan and the book that was never written with respect and understanding, and exchanged views on their regret that Harlan withdrew because he was obviously ashamed. Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106.

113.  Thomas Harlan described the contents of the box to me as best he could. In 2009 Frau Wojak told me that she had not yet found the time to go through the box and therefore could neither confirm nor correct what Harlan had said. Unfortunately, there has been no further communication from her.

114.  Thanks to Katrin Seybold-Harlan for sending me these pages, which not only allowed me to verify Thomas Harlan’s information on the document collection but also proved that Harlan’s copies came from Henry Ormond’s office.

115.  The speculations here should not be confused with the so-called “missing pages,” documents that are sitting in unused but known archive collections. See Jürgen Bevers, Der Mann hinter Adenauer (Berlin, 2009), chapter on “The Eichmann Trial and the Missing 40 Pages.”

116.  It has since been proved that Farago bought both genuine and false information and invented elaborate stories about Eichmann. However—and this should be emphasized—the book still contains some accurate details about Nazis in South America, which reveal how incredibly good Farago’s sources must have been, although they are so tightly interwoven with bad sources that picking them out requires a huge amount of work.

117.  Stan Lauryssens, who wrote a linguistically thrilling and imaginative book on Willem Sassen, profited extensively from Farago’s work, without always making as clear a division between quotes and his own story as we might wish. De fatale vriendschappen van Adolf Eichmann (Leuven, 1998).

118.  Ladislas Farago, Aftermath: Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich (New York, 1974), chaps. 15 and 20, starting pp. 283 and 372 respectively.

119.  Farago speaks of “Eberhard Fritsche”—the names he gives are imprecise in many cases.

120.  Farago, Aftermath, p. 373.

121.  Ibid., p. 374. Lauryssens also claims to have seen the seventeen files. Contrary to all the stories, Israel is the only place in the world they could have been seen, because they were the work of Avraham Hagag.

122.  The numbers 659 and 695 come up only in the context of the Israel copy, in Gideon Hausner’s writing. All the other instances come from Farago’s typing error, which makes the number a clear indicator of the source that has been used.

123.  Farago, Aftermath, pp. 376–77.

124.  Gerd Heidemann and Karl Wolff stayed with Sassen in 1979. Heidemann said that at this point he (and everyone else) was convinced that Sassen had sold Eichmann, or at least the Argentina Papers, to the Israelis, and Sassen was still anxious about it. Heidemann was also interested in Bormann but told me that Sassen was no help in this regard—though he did make good on a promise to introduce him to Klaus Barbie, with whom Heidemann then got an exclusive interview. So Sassen didn’t need fairy tales about Bormann to impress Farago: he could have introduced him to plenty of other headline-grabbing Nazis, like Josef Mengele, who died only in 1979.

125.  For an initial overview, see Meir Litvak and Esther Webman’s excellent paper “The Representation of the Holocaust in the Arab World” in the conference volume After Eichmann: Collective Memory and the Holocaust Since 1961, ed. David Cesarani (New York, 2005), pp. 100–15.

126.  Faris Yahya (pen name Faris Glubb), Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany (Beirut, 1978), p. 71. Other examples of this line of argumentation can be found in the reflections of Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and Jurji Haddad, who see the commonalities between National Socialists and Zionists in their capitalist aims.

127.  Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, “ ‘Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine’: The Einsatzkommando of the Panzer Army Africa, 1942,” Yad Vashem Studies 35 (2007), pp. 111–41.

128.  Sassen transcript 10:11.

129.  Eichmann to Robert Eichmann, February 22, 1961; discussion note about the visit to Eichmann, December 5, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/238.

130.  Eichmann to Robert Eichmann, February 22, 1961, Letters to the Family. A copy entered the BND files by return of mail. See also the CIA report dated October 17, 1961, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann (nonscanned files, declassified May 2009).

131.  Some caution is therefore advisible in using this copy, because not all the handwritten notes were made in Argentina. This is true for the large question marks and crossed-out words in particular.

132.  Thanks to Francisca Sassen for this idea.

133.  Friedrich Schwend, a friend of Klaus Barbie’s who lived in Lima, Peru, spread the story that Sassen didn’t even know the SS ranks, and because an SS man would never forget something like this, Sassen (whom he called “Sasse”) could not be one. HIS, Schwend collection, 18/89, Lima, May 6, 1965.

134.  Schwend to Obermüller, Ciudad, January 7, 1966, HIS, Schwend collection, 38/27, 47.

135.  Zvi Aharoni, interview by Dan Setton in Josef Mengele: The Final Account (SET Productions, 2002), and Zvi Aharoni and Wilhelm Dietl, Operation Eichmann: The Truth About the Pursuit, Capture, and Trial, trans. Helmut Bögler (New York, 1997).

136.  Thanks to Gerd Heidemann for his willingness to tell me about this stay with Sassen, from which there are also tape recordings and photographs. Unfortunately I have not yet had the opportunity to listen to this material, which is still in Heidemann’s possession.

137.  Nation Europa 31, no. 2 (1981), pp. 60–61. Thanks to Dr. Sudholt for this reference to the review, about which he is still genuinely annoyed today. In this connection, two letters from Thadden to Sudholt, which can be found in Thadden’s estate, are illuminating: they contain even clearer criticism of Aschenauer. Thadden took up a central position, as he recognized the extermination of the Jews as a fact, but tended toward an unrealistically low death toll. Letters of December 10 and 17, 1980, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, VVP39, Acc. 1/98, No. 49.

138.  David Irving’s website, The Eichmann Papers,http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/Eichmann/Buenos_Aires_MS.html.

139.  Even without access to the Aschenauer manuscript, Leni Yahil managed to write an excellent essay: “ ‘Memoirs’ of Adolf Eichmann,” Yad Vashem Studies 18 (1987), pp. 133–62.

140.  Irving’s quotes (Eichmann Papers, Irving’s website) allow a very precise identification of the pages he mentions. There are no references to previously unknown Eichmann texts in the bundle of papers he found. The value of this source lies in the rediscovered missing parts of the Sassen texts it contains.

141.  Irving talks about “eight unpaginated chapters of a biographical work, numbered from V to XII,” but the chapter that was released had both obvious page numbers and the chapter number IV.

142.  In several places, this chapter relativizes, decontextualizes, or twists Eichmann’s words to serve Sassen’s aims: idealizing Hitler and presenting the extermination of the Jews as the result of Jewish manipulation. Anyone wishing to see this for themselves can find very obvious misrepresentations of what Eichmann said in IV, pp. 15 and 19.

143.  The reference even stopped researchers like David Cesarani and Irmtrud Wojak from looking at the Eichmann Estate, BA Koblenz, N/1497, which they both noted. Use of the Druffel edition unfortunately means that Cesarani and Wojak’s books also contain “Eichmann quotes” that are actually quotes from Langer, Sassen, or Alvensleben. In particular, recent large-scale works on Rudolf Kasztner, and the people forced to become Eichmann’s Jewish negotiating partners, were also written without the four “missing” tapes on this very topic. This is the case for Ladislaus Lob, Reszö Kasztner (London, 2009); Anna Porter, Kasztner’s Train: The True Story of an Unknown Hero of the Holocaust (New York, 2007), p. 324; and Christian Kolbe, “ ‘Und da begann ich zu überlegen’: Adolf Eichmanns zwiespältige Erinnerungen an sein ungarisches ‘Meisterstück,’ ” in Im Labyrinth der Schuld: Täter, Opfer, Ankläger: Jahrbuch 2003 zur Geschichte und Wirkung des Holocaust, ed. Fritz Bauer Institut (Frankfurt am Main and New York, 2003), pp. 65–93.

144.  The Ludwigsburg film copy displays much of the same damage as the Israel copy, which suggests that the Ludwigsburg film and the Israel copy come from the same line of copies.

145.  Tape 7 did not exist, according to one of Sassen’s notes, and was probably typed up under tape 8 by accident—a possibility suggested by the number of pages there. The transition from tapes 6 to 8 shows that there is no missing text.

146.  The short piece obviously belongs with tape 61. Sassen apparently started recording using the wrong tape but quickly realized his error.

147.  These are filed with the Eichmann papers, and their real author was overlooked. Probably not even Sassen remembered, as he took all the rest of his notes out of the papers.

148.  Isser Harel, The House on Garibaldi Street (New York, 1997).

149.  They can be found under shelfmark B206/1986.

150.  In January 2011 I was able to see the file collection in the context of this case. Here I would like to thank Hans-Wilhelm Saure, his lawyer Christoph Partsch, and Rosa Stark for an intensive and enjoyable weekend of work in Berlin, and the opportunity to cross-check my book. All quotes from the file are with the kind permission of Christoph Partsch.

151.  You must forgive a dedicated academic this observation, but academics don’t like to be told by someone with other interests why files on their topic, which has not interested anyone else until this point, cannot be important, because everything that has been found “has only marginal relevance for the information interests of the claimant [Gaby Weber seeking information on the Eichmann case]” (p. 9). Only someone currently pursuing a research project can determine what is interesting for it, not anyone else: not the staff of a national institution, and in many cases not even other subject specialists.

152.  Most are documents from the Israeli police and prosecutors, which haven’t been made public because they weren’t used by the prosecution in the trial. On the practice of blacking out, and the construction and extent of the files presented, see Bettina Stangneth, “Kurzgutachten zu den Akten BVerwG 7A 15.10. aufgrund der Sichtung der Beiakten zum Verfahren BVerwG 7A 15.10 mit den Signaturen 100 470, 100 471, 121 082, 121 099 am 21. und 22. Januar 2011” (Hamburg, January 25, 2011), seven pages, with document appendix.

153.  I expressly refuse to entertain the idea that a Federal German intelligence service could have made efforts to keep Adolf Eichmann a free man, for the psychological reason that I would find it unbearable.

154.  As Gaby Weber is demonstrably one of these resourceful researchers, the argument can’t be made that this statement was not written for public consumption.

155.  Even Zvi Aharoni, who tracked down Eichmann in Argentina and was part of the abduction team, said that he had tried in vain to get Eichmann to talk about Mengele. This remarkable refusal is all the more surprising when you consider that Aharoni was one of Mossad’s most feared interrogation specialists, whose nickname was “the Grand Inquisitor.” In later years, he even managed to persuade Willem Sassen to help in the search for Mengele, in an interview that lasted over ten hours. See Aharoni and Dietl,Operation Eichmann; Zvi Aharoni, interview by Dan Setton for Josef Mengele: The Final Account (SET Productions, 2007); Wilhelm Dietl, interview by Roelf van Til for Willem Sassen (KRO, 2005).

156.  Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, BND: Der deutsche Geheimdienst im Nahen Osten: Geheime Hintergründe und Fakten (Munich, 2007), p. 94.

157.  Deutscher Bundestag, Stenografischer Bericht, 83. Sitzung, January 19, 2011. http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btp/17/17083.pdf. Thanks to Jerzy Montag’s office.

158.  Supplementary file to case BVerwG 7A 15.10, Saure vs. BND, BND files 121 099, 1665.

159.  Willem Sassen, interview broadcast on Edicion plus (Telefe Buenos Aires, 1991).

160.  Willem Sluyse (Willem Sassen), Die Jünger und die Dirnen (Buenos Aires, 1954), pp. 51–53. The text is slightly abridged here.

161.  According to Saskia and Francisca Sassen, their father left no incomplete manuscripts.