Even embittered Israelis were forced to admit that Eichmann was a good witness, however garrulous and diffuse. He claimed that as a timetable technician he at first had no idea that the ultimate destinations of the trains were death camps. In late , the court reassembled to hear the verdict. His argument that he had merely been following orders proved unconvincing.
Eichmann was guilty. He was executed in by hanging. His ashes were dumped at sea. The number of books published and the amount of research done about the Holocaust increased notably after the trial, Bascomb says, as it was a major motivator for the world to examine what had happened, and why and how. As he sees it, the Eichmann trial was the end of the era of sweeping the Holocaust under the rug and the beginning of a new phase, marked by the exhortation to never forget — an idea that still governs Holocaust education.
Write to Lily Rothman at lily. Nazi Adolf Eichmann standing in prisoner's cage during reading of indictment against him at his trial for war crimes, in By Lily Rothman. Get our History Newsletter. Put today's news in context and see highlights from the archives. Please enter a valid email address. Please attempt to sign up again.
The trial was a significant step in conveying the Holocaust to Israeli and Jewish students, a process that reached fruition in the eighties and nineties, in the form of school delegations to Poland; to the sites of the former ghettoes and camps; and with youngsters writing essays about their own roots.
As a result of the trial, the Holocaust is now perceived as an integral part of their identity as Israelis and as Jews. The Eichmann trial also served as a catalyst for promoting other important trials of German Nazis. The most significant of these was the trial of the Auschwitz criminals, launched in in Frankfurt am Main. The consequence was a growing nervousness among other fugitive criminals, principally in South America, obliging them to adopt heightened precautions.
In Paraguay in , following the capture of Eichmann, Mossad assassinated Herbert Cukors who had overseen the annihilation of the Jews of Latvia. Another outcome of the trial was the spotlight directed upon former Nazi criminals who were playing an active role in administration and culture in post-war Germany.
The storm surrounding Hans Globke and Kanzler Konrad Adenauer, which raged in Israel and the Western world, can be attributed to this moral and legal aspect, and likewise, the campaign Israel waged against German scientists operating in the military field in Egypt.
The trial gave rise to a rich literature. To date, some works of various categories have been published in numerous languages. A poor student, he completed his basic schooling and began training in mechanical engineering. He did not finish his studies. In the uncertain economic times of the s, he drifted from job to job as a day laborer, an office worker, and as a traveling salesman for Vacuum Oil Company, AG. There, he engaged in a few months' military training.
He still worked for this organization when it became part of the RSHA in In the mids, Eichmann worked for SD office II, which had among its objectives the surveillance of Jewish organizations. Assigned to a section dealing with Zionist activities, Eichmann negotiated with Zionist functionaries and made an inspection tour of Palestine in His efforts to promote a "Zionist emigration of Jews from Germany by all [available] means" would serve him well in preparing him for his future activities.
According to internal estimates, the Central Office "facilitated" the emigration of , Austrian Jews between August and June Eichmann led the Central Office beginning in October Here he met with less "success," particularly as deportation of Jews began to replace emigration as a strategy for a "Jew-free" Germany.
In this area, Eichmann was ultimately to play a pivotal role. In the summer of , Eichmann became responsible for promoting the expulsion of Czech Jews from the newly annexed Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , and created a further Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Prague, after the pattern of its Viennese counterpart.
He coordinated the deportation of some 3, Jews from Moravia and Vienna to Nisko on the San River, in that part of German-occupied Poland to be designated as the General Government Generalgouvernement.
Although problems with the deportation effort and a change in German policy put an end to these deportations, Eichmann's superiors were sufficiently satisfied with his initiative to ensure that he would play a role in future deportation proceedings.
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