Adolf Eichmann: Murderer of millions

Adolf Eichmann son of Adolf Karl Eichmann and Maria Nee Scheffering was born in 1906 in the city of Splingen in Germany but later moved to Linz in Austria. His mother died when Adolf was just eight and his Father soon remarried. Adolf hadn’t many friends as a child and he told an interviewer during his trial in the 1950’s that his best friend in fact was Jewish. This could have been a ploy by Eichman before his trial. He stayed in school as far as secondary level when he dropped out to become a travelling sales man with the Socony vacuum company. The job did not work out and Adolf moved on, getting a job with an American oil company.

After a Nazi Party meeting in 1932, Adolf was entranced by the nationalistic fervour of those who attended and he immediately signed up as a member. At the same time he was dropped from the Oil Company (due to cutbacks) and he sought help from Dr. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the same person who had invited him to the Nazi meeting. Kaltenbrunner arranged for Adolf to be accepted into the S.S Brigade. Soon he was invited to join the S.D, the S.S’s secret service and given the rank of sergeant. In 1935 he was assigned to the Jewish Department of the S.D where he worked his way up to a position of authority. During this time Eichmann learned all about the Jews, gathering information about their leaders, Synagogues business and culture. In 1937 Eichmann was given his military commission starting with the rank of second lieutenant.

At the beginning of World War 2 Eichmann’s reign Of terror began. In October 1939, Eichmann was put in charge of a newly created office set-up to organise the deportation of Jews so That ethnic Germans could return from Poland to a‘’Greater Germany’’. Jews who survived the deportation ended up in Ghettos, many people dieing of starvation. Eichmann hoped the conditions of these ghettos would deplete the Jewish population. These places would serve as a holding area for eventual deportation to the death camps.

Einsatzgruppen were Special German units who followed behind the advancing troops in the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1939. Under orders from Eichmann, these units hunted down and killed Jews. Eichmann was the supervisor of these units and it was estimated that the Einsatzgruppen murdered an estimated 1.4 million Jews.

The Einsatzgruppen methods of mass murder were considered inefficient and it was Eichmann’s duty to develop and implement methods to hasten the annihilation of the Jews under Nazi Occupation. The Einsatzgruppen killed a million Jews in only 6 months. Nazi Leaders felt that so much up close cold blood murders would be too much for the solders to handle. A meeting was held to find a better method .The Wansee conference was held to find this solution. At this conference Eichmann presented estimates of the numbers of the Jews that would be deported and killed. . The use of gas was decided as a suitable means of annihilation. This was theFinal Solution or the annihilation of the Jewish people and was to continue right up until the war ended.

By 1944 despite the fact Germans war efforts were on the wane, Eichmann ordered 50,000 Jews to be rounded up. Unable to deport them due to the fact that all railways had received massive damage from Allied Bombing, Eichmann marched them to their death camps in Poland.

With The War lost to the Allies, Eichamann decided to retreat to the mountains knowing he would be high on the list of war criminals. He also wanted to destroy all documents, which implicated him with the most heinous mass murder in History. His attempts to hide away in the mountains after Germany’s surrender failed. He was captured by the Americans and taken to a prisoner of war camp. After one successful escape he was recaptured but escaped again. He adopted the name Otto Eichmann and became a chicken farmer in the mountains of central Germany.

As Eichmann was as the mass murderer of millions of Jews, people fanned out to avenge the deaths of millions of Jewish People. He found refuge in a monastery in Italy where he was given a refugee passport with the name Ricardo Klement. Eichmann soon left For Argentina at which was a safe place to go at this time for Nazi’s. He stayed for two years and felt comfortable enough to send for his family. In 1956 a Dutch Ex-nazi Wilhelm Sassen invited Eichmann to co- write a book about his experiences.

Nazi Hunters looked for Eichmann and in 1959 they got a tip that Eichman was living in a poor suburb of Buenos Aires under the name Ricardo Klement. Special agents were sent out to Argentina. Eichman was kept under surveillance. The agents took pictures of him and even sometimes made contact with him, posing as tourists (they asked Eichman for directions) Finally on May 11 1960 Eichman was captured. Knowing he would never be able he evade or escape again Eichman went to trial for his crimes he commited. Family and Friends of those who had died knew his time was over and also Eichman knew his time was over. Eichman for two months sat his trial. The trial was broadcast on American television as a media event. Adolf Eichman sat watching and listening as the prosecution rest .It was impossible for Eichman to deny his role in killing Europe’s Jews. Emotions were high when the judge read out the verdict Eichman was found guilty of all 15 crimes against him. Eichman was hung for his crimes. No grave marked his death.

Farrington, K F: Whiteness to WWII. Alfred A. Knopf inc. United States 1997.

Purnel, inc. History of WWII Volume 1 United States 1994

Volume 2 Great Britain 1994.

Volume 6 Great Britain 1995.

http://www.pbs.org/eichmann/study1.htm

http://www.pbs.org/eichmann/study2.htm

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Reasons why this was worthy of study are:

1. It was such a significant event in WWII it is because millions of Jews were killed following the actions of Eichmann he had the control to save millions of lives or -kill them.
2. The Leaving Cert book tends to end after Hitler’s death and doesn’t tell what happens to Nazis afterwards. There is no mention of the Nuremberg trials.

One of the sources used was Whiteness to WWII by Karin Farrington. The Alfred Knopf inc. published the book in 1997. The book gives the insight into the lives of the Nazis worst war criminals. Eichman was just one of those mentioned.

The book had a good amount of primary material including reports from Eichmans trial, Diaries from those who sat on the jury and plenty of newspaper articles. The book also has many pictures of Eichman before and during the trial. The book gave a good insight into the ways the Nazis felt about their country and the Jews. The Bibliography in this book. This book had a good Bibliography and gave prefences for

other books which were associated with the same topic.

The experience of doing a special study topic introduced me into the following skills of the historian:

1. I have learnt to find suitable books in the school library and the local library.(research skills)
2. I have learnt how to look for information on the internet(research skills)
3. I have learnt how to read many sources before writing the essay(analysis skills)
4. I have learnt new skills on Microsoft word(IT skills)

GTä