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 than Isser 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 cl
aims, 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.
Eichmann Before Jerusalem Page 63