The future German officer and employee of the Gestapo, Adolf Eichmann, was born in 1906, March 19, in the town of Solingen in Westphalia. His father was an accountant and employed in a new company in Linz, Austria. That was in 1924.
Childhood and youth
The boy received Catholic education from childhood. History knows many strange coincidences. Here, for example, Eichmann went to the same school in Linz, in which Adolf Hitler, who was two decades older than his namesake, had previously studied.
In childhood, war and revolution came. The Eichmann family survived turbulent times calmly, and the head of the family achieved success at all and even opened his own business. His entrepreneurial activities included a mine near Salzburg, as well as several mills. However, after the revolution, the economic crisis began, due to which the senior Eichmann was burned out and stopped his attempts to manage the company. This was not surprising, since all entrepreneurs went bankrupt. Adolf Eichmann during this time could not finish his studies at the school and was sent by his father to his own mine to help workers. He later studied electrical engineering and worked for a fuel company, supplying kerosene to areas with poor electrification.
Joining the SS
At the end of the 1920s, Adolf Eichmann joined the Youth Union of Front-line Soldiers thanks to the connections in this association. This environment was full of SS agitators who offered union members a place in their organization. Front-line soldiers could carry weapons, which was very important for the curators of the NSDAP. Adolf Eichmann joined the SS and the National Socialist Party in 1932. He still lived in Austria, where the government did not like the vigorous activity of the German radicals. Therefore, as early as next year, the SS were banned, and Eichmann left for Germany.
At first he served in Passau and Dachau. This year he became Unterscharführer, which corresponds to the rank of non-commissioned officer. This was followed by work in the clerical apparatus of the Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler. This was the head of the SS. He instructed Eichmann to enter the new department in charge of the Jewish question. At this time, the Reich was preparing to expel the entire Semitic population from the country. Adolf was to make a reference on the book "The Jewish State." Later it was used in the SS as a standard circular.
In 1937, Eichmann tried to travel to Palestine in order to get acquainted with the orders of this country. He met with representatives of Hagala, a paramilitary Jewish group banned in the Middle East. After anschluss with Austria, the officer returned to this country, where he made plans for the accelerated emigration of unwanted persons from the country.
The Jewish Question
With the onset of war in September 1939, Department IV-B-4 was created in the General Directorate of Imperial Security, led by Adolf Eichmann. A Jew and any other citizen associated with Semitism fell under his vigilant control. It was he who agreed that the famous death camps, opened in 1941, should appear in Auschwitz.
Later, he worked as a secretary at a conference where measures were discussed to "finally resolve the Jewish question." He kept the minutes of the meeting and suggested exiling those arrested to Eastern Europe. In the second half of the war, when atrocities broke out on a special scale, Adolf began to lead the Sonderkommando. They sent Jews from all over Europe to Auschwitz. In 1944, SS leader Himmler received a report on 4 million murdered Jews, authored by Adolf Eichmann. The biography of this functionary is inextricably linked to blood and murder.
Flight to Argentina
When the Third Reich was defeated, the Allies began to raid the surviving leaders of the repressive Nazi machine. Many of them ended up in the dock during the Nuremberg trials, from where they went to death. Among them was Adolf Eichmann. The photo of the offender was a guideline for many military and special services of the USA, USSR, etc.
Once he was unable to escape, and he was imprisoned. But even at that moment, Eichmann lied about his identity and introduced himself as a member of one of the SS voluntary divisions. While he was imprisoned in a local prison, he managed to escape. To survive, Nazi criminals had to flee Europe. Most often, the goal of their route was Latin America, in the vastness of which to find a person was tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack. There was a whole system of “rat paths” along which fugitives found holes in the borders and vehicles.
The key issue was the change of identity and documents. Who is Adolf Eichmann after the advent of a new passport? He chose the Spanish name Ricardo Clement and, with the help of the Franciscan monks, made himself a Red Cross certificate in 1950. He ended up in Argentina, where he moved his family and got a job at the local Mersedes-Benz plant. Eichmann Adolf, whose birth date was March 19, 1906, changed it in a new passport.
Mossad is looking for a criminal
During this time, the state of Israel appeared in the Middle East. Local intelligence Mossad engaged in tracking down Nazi criminals. For Jewish society, this was the most pressing issue, since many citizens of the new country (or at least their relatives and friends) suffered from the Holocaust. Eichmann was number one target, as it was he who directed the sending of the innocent to the Auschwitz death camps . But for about ten years, the searches were inconclusive, until the case turned up.
In 1958, scouts received intelligence information that Eichmann was hiding in Argentina. It happened literally by a miracle. The son of a former member of the Gestapo began dating the girl and boastfully told her about his father’s past. A new friend also had a dad named Lothar Herman. He was a Jew of German descent who suffered during the purges in the Reich. He was already blind, but retained a clear mind and was interested in the fate of Nazi criminals. Having learned from his daughter about a young man with the surname Eichmann, he immediately remembered the famous Gestapo. Lothar managed to contact Mossad and tell his thoughts.
Preparation for surgery
The operation to capture the fugitive was carried out with the maximum concealment measures. It was led by Mossad director Isser Harel. All agents went to Argentina individually, at different times and from different countries. In order to facilitate the movement of scouts, a fictitious travel company was created. In April 1960, direct monitoring of the facility began by Mossad employees who arrived. In total, 30 people participated in the operation, 12 of which were direct executors of the capture. Others provided technical and information support. Several cars and houses were rented for maneuver in case of unforeseen situations.
Eichmann in the hands of Israeli intelligence
Eichmann was waiting for seven agents in an ambush when one of the performers called for him in Spanish. Adolf was stunned by Nelson's reception and was pushed into a car. He was brought to a safe house, where he was immediately checked for the presence of hidden poison. Many Nazis carried tubes with them in case of unexpected detention. This habit did not leave the persecuted until their death. Eichmann immediately admitted that he is the one whom the Mossad is looking for. They held the captive for nine days in a villa, while the question of sending him to Israel was being decided. During this time, he was interrogated several times, which was later used in court.
When Eichmann was brought to the airport, he was pumped with drugs and sedatives. He was dressed in the uniform of an Israeli pilot so that he would not arouse suspicion among customs officers (they were provided with a fake passport).
Court and execution
In Israel, Eichmann was put on trial, where many victims of the Holocaust appeared. The convict was sentenced to death. After his appearance in Israel, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion told the media that the Nazi criminal is in the hands of local justice. The process had a huge public outcry around the world. On June 1, 1962, he was hanged for crimes related to genocide.