Eichmann Before Jerusalem

by Bettina Stangneth

  60. “Too many people are interested in emphasizing the collective innocence of whole departments.” Ormond to Lingemann, April 4, 1956, quoted in Das Amt, p. 591.

  61. Thomas Harlan, “Kto to był Eichmann?,” Polityka, May 28, 1960.

  62. Ormond and Langbein, detailed letters in Hermann Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106.

  63. The correspondence between Ormond and Langbein from February 1961 contains the meeting arrangements, the questions of finance, the bill for Harlan’s travel costs, and the note to Langbein in the hotel about when Harlan would arrive. Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797.

  64. Wiesenthal reported this contact to the Israeli ambassador in Austria, Ezechiel Sahar, on February 29, 1960. There is more proof of this event, as Wiesenthal also told his biographer Hella Pick about it, and in February 1960 Isser Harel accused Wiesenthal of endangering the hunt for Eichmann with this action. Hella Pick, Simon Wiesenthal: A Life in Search of Justice (London, 1996), p. 147; Isser Harel, Simon Wiesenthal and the Capture of Eichmann, unpublished manuscript, quoted in Tom Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (New York, 2010), p. 144.

  65. Thanks to Thomas Harlan for his memories of the events. The extent and the quality of the copy in particular speak for it having come from Robert Eichmann. The handwritten parts also contain the note that these were all the documents, apart from what had been sold to Life. See also BA Ludwigsburg, “Miscellaneous” folder.

  66. Note dated March 7, 1961, HMJ Wiesbaden, Veesenmayer, Edmund—Novak; now: Adolf Eichmann, vol. 2, sheet 211; documented in Wojak, Fritz Bauer, p. 582n93.

  67. We can rule out the possibility that Robert Eichmann handed over the Argentina Papers voluntarily, and he surely must have noticed the theft. (If Langbein had merely instructed somebody to photograph the papers and leave the originals in the office, he would not have needed to get films made afterward, as we know he did.) Robert Eichmann should really have warned his brother via his lawyer. According to helpful information from Helmut Eichmann, Adolf Eichmann’s family appeared not to know anything about the purloined documents prior to my inquiry. See also the correspondence from Servatius in March–April 1961, and from Fritsch to Servatius, esp. All. Proz. 6/253, 60–62. A 2009 inquiry with the police and the public prosecutor’s office in Linz yielded no results.

  68. According to Harlan, in an interview in Jean-Pierre Stephan, Das Gesicht Deines Feindes: Ein deutsches Leben (Berlin, 2007), p. 124.

  69. Thanks to Daniel Passent for his willingness to share his memories with me. Without his openness, I would never have hit upon the idea of searching for the sources with which these events could be reconstructed. I would never have dreamed that the copies of the Argentina Papers that have been floating around since then might be different bundles, and that it would be worth taking another close look at each pile of papers labeled “Sassen Interview” and counting the pages.

  70. Mieczysław F. Rakowski noted in his diary that Daniel Passent had received a copy of the Sassen transcript from Thoman Harlan and that criminologists from the Milicja Obywatelska had found it to be genuine. Mieczysław F. Rakowski, Dzienniki polityczne 1958–1962 (Warsaw, 1998), p. 286. The written summary of the evaluation from the Central Criminal Police, the KGMO in Warsaw, followed on May 9, proving the authenticity of Eichmann’s handwriting on the Sassen transcript presented to Polityka. Part of it was printed in the first article. Thanks to Christian Ganzer for his help in translating the Polish documents.

  71. The translation of the transcript with the explanations was 1,258 pages long, according to Polityka. Unfortunately, the manuscript apparently no longer exists in the newspaper’s archive. Krystyna Zywulska, Harlan’s girlfriend, claimed that all the copies of it were stolen. However, Zywulska’s memories were not always correct, as Liane Dirks (who also wrote a novel about her) recalls. See “Interference at the Highest Level” in Frankfurter Rundschau, June 20, 2006, p. 10, and Liane Dirks, Krystyna (Cologne, 2006).

  72. Mieczysław F. Rakowski, diary entry from June 20, 1961, Dzienniki polityczne, p. 293.

  73. I am personally grateful to this brief side-column note in the Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung for the first reference to the Polityka articles. I must also confess (to my shame) that before this I had not thought to look for any such publications in the former Eastern Bloc. The “wall in our heads” is still frighteningly solid. See also Die Welt, May 24, 1961.

  74. “Eichmann par Eichmann,” Paris Match, no. 630 (May 6, 1961); no. 631 (May 13, 1961); and no. 632 (May 20, 1961).

  75. Based on his own notes, in December 1960 Avner W. Less was familiar only with the Life articles. On February 2, 1961, Servatius forbade Less from carrying out any further interrogations, so they officially ended in January. But Eichmann himself didn’t observe this prohibition. “He was too fond of the sound of his own voice to forgo the ‘pleasure,’ ” and Less wanted to try to get his cooperation. NL Less Notebooks 4.2.3.2, Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich. But Less’s superiors decided against letting Eichmann know that the Sassen transcripts had reached Israel, wanting to save the element of surprise for the trial. Later report by Less, NL Less, 4.2.3.2, personal papers, folder 2, ibid.

  76. Ormond-Langbein correspondence, esp. Langbein letter of January 25, 1962, Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106. Quotes that follow are also from this source.

  77. Eichmann trial, session 16, April 26, 1961.

  78. Gabriel Bach, “Conversation with Herr Gabriel Bach, Deputy Prosecutor in the Trial Against Adolf Eichmann, on the Occasion of the 65th Anniversary of the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, on January 18, 2007, in the Haus Der Wannsee-Konferenz,” in Haus der Wannseekonferenz Newsletter 8 (December 2007), pp. 2–21, here p. 5.

  79. Wiesenthal also mentioned this in an early letter to Ben A. Sijes, December 28, 1970. See Segev, Simon Wiesenthal, p. 150.

  80. Wiesenthal’s letter to Hausner, October 5, 1980, Simon Wiesenthal Archiv, Vienna correspondence. Thanks to Michaela Vocelka for sending it so quickly.

  81. As a meticulous comparison of the pages shows. Anyone wanting to see for themselves can do so with little effort, by looking at a typical piece of damage that doesn’t exist on the Langbein copy (or on Sassen’s original). Sassen transcript 18:12 has a large burn mark in the shape of a P on the left-hand side, which has destroyed about 10 percent of the page.

  82. This version comes from Heinz Felfe (who was unmasked as a Soviet spy shortly after the Eichmann trial). See Heinz Felfe, Im Dienst des Gegners: 10 Jahre Moskaus Mann im BND (Hamburg and Zurich, 1986), p. 248. A glance at BND file 121 099 confirms that they had the Argentina Papers by the end of 1960, from the United States.

  83. The Hagag evaluation of May 31, 1961, was submitted to the court on June 9 and is therefore accessible as a trial document (prosecution document T/1392). Hagag clearly marks May 25, 1961, as the date all pages were handed over, but also mentions two previous objective evaluations, from March 17 and April 10, 1961. A mere six days would not have been enough for the evaluation of this mountain of paper. Many thanks to Irina Jabotinsky, Berlin, for the translation from the Hebrew.

  84. In the literature, particularly the more popular books, myriad witnesses claim to have seen these two binders with the seventeen files in Sassen’s house. We can dismiss their claims immediately, as Sassen owned at least four hundred more pages of material. If he had sorted them the same way Hagag did, he would have ended up with around twenty-eight files.

  85. I had the pleasure of ordering the second part of the transcripts together with the BA Ludwigsburg staff. Unlike Inspector Hagag, I had the advantage of being very familiar with most of the pages I had to sort. However, a great deal of humor was still necessary for this undertaking.… I would like to take this opportunity to offer my heartfelt thanks once again to Tobias Hermann and Sidar Toptanci for one of the most pleasant archive experiences of my Eichmann research.

  86. This is clearly an error, as there is no reference to pages l
ater removed in the double paginations. These doubles are pages 112=113; 224=225; 508=509.

  87. This page contains a discussion about Eichmann’s former deputy Rolf Günther. On the original tape of this discussion (BA tape 09D), Eichmann asks for these remarks to be left out, because he was convinced that Günther was still alive, and he didn’t want to do him any harm.

  88. Sassen transcript 6:1.

  89. Dietrich Zeug to Fritz Bauer, June 2, 1961, BA Ludwigsburg, Central Office collection, III 44/28.

  90. The approved pages, according to Hagag’s numbering: 18, 57, 90, 100, 102, 106, 110, 118, 124, 131, 151, 152, 158, 168, 201, 202, 209, 213, 221, 227, 230, 246, 253, 265, 267, 272, 276, 277, 278, 279, 281, 283, 288, 292, 293, 303, 304, 306, 307, 308, 313, 314, 323, 336, 361, 362, 368, 369, 372, 373, 384, 398, 407, 408, 420, 421, 424, 425, 426, 432, 513, 514, 516, 519, 521, 522, 524, 525, 574, 577, 578, 582, 585, 587, 609, 610, 613, 616, 617, 662, 663, 665, 667. A page concordance can be requested from me and viewed in the Bundesarchiv.

  91. The initialing was not, as Wojak believes (Eichmanns Memoiren, p. 50), an expression of Eichmann’s pedantry but a common practice in the hearing of evidence, for continuous authorization of transcripts and corrections. Less described this practice in detail several times. Avner Less Estate, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH Zurich.

  92. “Testimonies on the Sassen Memoirs,” six-page typescript, Jerusalem, June 9, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/254.

  93. Only in his last interview did Sassen speak about the autobiography Eichmann wanted to write. Broadcast on Edicion plus (Telefe Buenos Aires, 1991).

  94. Nation Europa 11, no. 11 (1961), pp. 37–42; here p. 41.

  95. Vollmer would keep in touch with people in Argentina even after the Eichmann trial. Juan Maler (Reinhard Kopps) said that Vollmer led the “midwinter celebrations” in Punta Chica near Buenos Aires in December 1980. Juan Maler, Frieden, Krieg und “Frieden” (Bariloche, 1987), p. 403.

  96. Even before reading the Life articles, Adolf von Thadden spoke about the extent of the Sassen papers, which he knew quite well—through Rudel, as he later admitted. Thadden to Erich Kernmayr, December 6, 1960, Adolf von Thadden Estate, Niedersächsisches Landesarchiv, VVP 39, Acc. 1/98 no. 49, Sudholt correspondence.

  97. On June 23, 1961, Bauer announced to the Hesse Minstry of Justice that Steinbacher (a public prosecutor) would like to question Eberhard Fritsch in Vienna. Cited in Irmtrud Wojak, memo June 23, 1961, HMJ Wiesbaden, Veesenmayer, Edmund—Novak; now: Adolf Eichmann, vol. 2, sheet 346, in Wojak, Fritz Bauer, p. 582.

  98. Wojak, Eichmanns Memoiren. On the problematic nature of the references, see chapter “One Good Turn,” note 41, p. 475.

  99. Hausner’s reference to Eichmann’s note “this no. 29 is for your information only” on one of the tape transcripts refers not to a tape, as Wojak thinks could be the case (Eichmanns Memoiren, p. 222n93), but to the transcript on which one can read this inscription. Sassen transcript 29:1. Tape 29 is missing from Eichmann’s estate, as his heirs at least heeded this instruction. All references in Hausner’s Justice in Jerusalem (New York, 1966) clearly relate to the copy ordered by Hagag.

  100. Saskia Sassen, interview by Roelf van Til (2005) and Raymond Ley (2009); friend of the family Inge Schneider, interview by van Til (2005).

  101. Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem.

  102. Gabriel Bach, Hausner’s deputy, always said how important the knowledge of what had been said in Argentina was for him personally, to prevent him from falling for Eichmann’s pretense.

  103. Cross-examination, Eichmann trial, session 96, July 13, 1961. The film of the trial shows with frightening clarity how convincingly Eichmann lied.

  104. As well as the Life articles, Hannah Arendt used the typed copy of Eichmann’s handwritten fragment that had been made in Israel (“Re: My Findings”) for her book. This fragment was among the prosecution’s trial documents and so was available to all journalists attending the trial. She didn’t get to read the Sassen transcript. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963; reprint New York, 1994), p. 27.

  105. BA Ludwigsburg, Central Office collection III 44/104.

  106. BA Ludwigsburg, B162/428 and 429.

  107. The covering letter and the other correspondence from the Baden-Württemberg LKA is on the letterhead of a special commission, about which there are now no records whatsoever to be found in the LKA. As Norbert Kiessling explained to me, this is unusual: the diaries recording outgoing mail are usually kept. The letterhead reads: LKA BW Special Commission Central Office Diary no. SK.ZSt.A/14-111/61.

  108. There is a copy in the archive of the Research Centre for Contemporary History, Hamburg.

  109. Hans Rechenberg sheds light on the joint public relations activity with Genoud before the start of the trial in his letter of March 31, 1961; since the argument over the Bormann estate and the Goebbels diary, Genoud’s litigious nature had become notorious.

  110. Langbein to Ormond, January 25, 1962, in Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106: correspondence with Henry Ormond.

  111. Hannah Arendt, who was accused, among other things, of having attended only a few days of the trial in person, was one of the most thorough readers of the interrogation and trial transcripts, which she took back to the United States with her.

  112. Langbein and Ormond both spoke of Harlan and the book that was never written with respect and understanding, and exchanged views on their regret that Harlan withdrew because he was obviously ashamed. Langbein Estate, ÖStA, E/1797, binder 106.

  113. Thomas Harlan described the contents of the box to me as best he could. In 2009 Frau Wojak told me that she had not yet found the time to go through the box and therefore could neither confirm nor correct what Harlan had said. Unfortunately, there has been no further communication from her.

  114. Thanks to Katrin Seybold-Harlan for sending me these pages, which not only allowed me to verify Thomas Harlan’s information on the document collection but also proved that Harlan’s copies came from Henry Ormond’s office.

  115. The speculations here should not be confused with the so-called “missing pages,” documents that are sitting in unused but known archive collections. See Jürgen Bevers, Der Mann hinter Adenauer (Berlin, 2009), chapter on “The Eichmann Trial and the Missing 40 Pages.”

  116. It has since been proved that Farago bought both genuine and false information and invented elaborate stories about Eichmann. However—and this should be emphasized—the book still contains some accurate details about Nazis in South America, which reveal how incredibly good Farago’s sources must have been, although they are so tightly interwoven with bad sources that picking them out requires a huge amount of work.

  117. Stan Lauryssens, who wrote a linguistically thrilling and imaginative book on Willem Sassen, profited extensively from Farago’s work, without always making as clear a division between quotes and his own story as we might wish. De fatale vriendschappen van Adolf Eichmann (Leuven, 1998).

  118. Ladislas Farago, Aftermath: Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich (New York, 1974), chaps. 15 and 20, starting pp. 283 and 372 respectively.

  119. Farago speaks of “Eberhard Fritsche”—the names he gives are imprecise in many cases.

  120. Farago, Aftermath, p. 373.

  121. Ibid., p. 374. Lauryssens also claims to have seen the seventeen files. Contrary to all the stories, Israel is the only place in the world they could have been seen, because they were the work of Avraham Hagag.

  122. The numbers 659 and 695 come up only in the context of the Israel copy, in Gideon Hausner’s writing. All the other instances come from Farago’s typing error, which makes the number a clear indicator of the source that has been used.

  123. Farago, Aftermath, pp. 376–77.

  124. Gerd Heidemann and Karl Wolff stayed with Sassen in 1979. Heidemann said that at this point he (and everyone else) was convinced that Sassen had sold Eichmann, or at least the Argentina Papers, to the Israelis, and Sassen
was still anxious about it. Heidemann was also interested in Bormann but told me that Sassen was no help in this regard—though he did make good on a promise to introduce him to Klaus Barbie, with whom Heidemann then got an exclusive interview. So Sassen didn’t need fairy tales about Bormann to impress Farago: he could have introduced him to plenty of other headline-grabbing Nazis, like Josef Mengele, who died only in 1979.

  125. For an initial overview, see Meir Litvak and Esther Webman’s excellent paper “The Representation of the Holocaust in the Arab World” in the conference volume After Eichmann: Collective Memory and the Holocaust Since 1961, ed. David Cesarani (New York, 2005), pp. 100–15.

  126. Faris Yahya (pen name Faris Glubb), Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany (Beirut, 1978), p. 71. Other examples of this line of argumentation can be found in the reflections of Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) and Jurji Haddad, who see the commonalities between National Socialists and Zionists in their capitalist aims.

  127. Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, “ ‘Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine’: The Einsatzkommando of the Panzer Army Africa, 1942,” Yad Vashem Studies 35 (2007), pp. 111–41.

  128. Sassen transcript 10:11.

  129. Eichmann to Robert Eichmann, February 22, 1961; discussion note about the visit to Eichmann, December 5, 1961, BA Koblenz, All. Proz. 6/238.

  130. Eichmann to Robert Eichmann, February 22, 1961, Letters to the Family. A copy entered the BND files by return of mail. See also the CIA report dated October 17, 1961, NA, RG 263, CIA Name File Adolf Eichmann (nonscanned files, declassified May 2009).