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 in Argentina. 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. CI
C 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 k
new 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.
Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer Page 59
