Eichmann's Executioner

by Astrid Dehe

  You have to write it the way it was. With those words he leaves me alone. When I’m back in front of my typewriter, I can hardly believe he was really here. But the meat is still on the table. The way it was? It could have been like this:

  May 31, 1962, is Nagar’s day off. He has slept in, cleaned his tools, patched up the wire mesh of the chicken coop. Now he goes for a walk with Ora and their little boy, through the dusty alleys to the edge of the development. Ora is busy with the child; Nagar walks alongside them, arms folded across his chest, head bowed, deep in thought. When they get home, there is a car outside the house with two men standing beside it, both of them smoking. Nagar recognizes one of them as his commander. Now the commander sees Nagar, too, drops his cigarette on the ground, stamps it out, straightens his uniform, approaches him. It’s time, Shalom, he says. Nagar nods, as if shaking his head.

  No Fear, No Hope

  The condemned man does not know that his executioner is on his way. He has had to endure a tedious medical examination, the results of which satisfied the doctor. The condemned man is ready to be hanged. Ready for death.

  Now he is back in his cell, lying on the prison bed. Opposite him stands a guard whom he does not know and does not like, because he is as stiff as a board. He misses the small, stocky man. The one with the trustworthy eyes and the incongruous womanizer’s mustache. There are still stacks of books on the table, essays that the condemned man has spent a great deal of time working through. Scoundrels, cheats, and liars, all of them. Reitlinger and Poliakov, not to mention Brand. He could prove it, he will prove it, if only they would give him some more paper. The evening meal comes, simple as always: bread, sausage, olives, black tea. He eats everything, as always.

  The crockery and cutlery are cleared away, passed item by item through the door hatch, which has been kept mostly closed since the appeals court announced its decision. The condemned man, who no longer has any hope of appeal, is to be given the pretense of privacy, the illusion of being alone. Some time later the hatch is opened once again, the guard gets up stiffly, stiffly takes the key, unlocks the door, and salutes as the prison director enters the cell. The condemned man, too, has gotten up and is standing to attention. The director nods to him. It is a long time since he has looked at him. His gaze was always lowered when he entered the cell, as though the tiles were the only thing of any interest to him. Now he looks at him. At midnight, he says. Asks two or three questions, then asks for paper and pencils to be brought.

  The condemned man starts writing again. First, a letter to his wife and his sons. My last wish was to compose this letter, he writes, to be able to smoke freely, and to have a bottle of red wine. They have promised to bring the red wine a bit later, he adds in brackets.

  Many people say he drank a bottle of Carmel wine, the wine made in the country of the victims that has been loved by the Germans ever since it was served at the Berlin trade exhibition in 1896. Kosher wine from the vineyards of Baron Rothschild. To choose this wine as the execution drink would have been a special gesture, it could have been interpreted as a concession, perhaps even as a desire for some sort of reconciliation. Had the condemned man not written: I would like to find peace with my former enemies, too? A desire so absurd that you might, absurdly enough, want to believe him.

  But it was not so. I have now been given a bottle of wine as well, continues the condemned man in his letter. They gave me the choice of sweet red wine or dry white wine. After brief consideration, I picked the latter.

  So, dry white wine, while smoking one cigarette after the other. Does he eat something, has he chosen a last meal? It seems not. He is not hungry anyway, he has no time, he must write, must describe the events in detail, provide evidence that will explain everything. He keeps writing after the letter is finished; the director has given him plenty of paper, the pencils are well sharpened as always. The condemned man writes and drinks the half liter of wine—the whole bottle.

  His work is interrupted by a final visit. So once again into the meeting room, once again talking through the glass. The condemned man is almost reluctant to put down his pencil, but then he straightens himself, stands up, and follows the guard.

  On the other side sit Reverend Hull and his wife, who is wearing a black-and-white suit and a small, fashionable hat decorated with a dove feather. In preparation for this final conversation, Hull has written the condemned man a long letter in which he discusses his vision of man, the history of mankind, and the great philosophic order into which everything is integrated.

  You say, writes Hull, that man is still a work in progress and is continually developing toward perfection. It is a shame that in the last two years you have not been in touch with this world. You only need to look at the world to see the hopeless circumstances that mankind has created on Earth. Development toward ever greater perfection? I fear mankind has reached the utmost limit and is about to throw the world into utter chaos. You say that God does not get angry or inflict punishment. In other words, you do not believe he is the judge of the entire world. You say your soul will be freed from your body when you die; you are convinced of this, and you ask who can prove it is not so? I ask: Where is your proof that this is the case? Cast your own ideas aside. Read God’s words and believe. Take Christ as your savior and allow yourself to be saved. THAT IS YOUR ONLY HOPE.

  Yours in devotion, (Rev.) William L. Hull

  He is slightly embarrassed by the capital letters now. The sentence is like a faded poster. Useless. It is not about hope now. The man who sits before him does not know this passion. Someone, something has killed it inside him. This man fears and hopes for nothing. No virtue, no desire for virtue, and in this emptiness completely calm, as if legitimized by some higher power. Satan stands tall within him, holds him, drives him, but to where? Hull shivers, then pulls himself together. His headphones crackle. Good evening, says the condemned man. You look so distressed. Why are you sad? I am not sad at all.

  We—we are sad because your end has come, Hull answers, annoyed with himself for stammering. He must stay strong! And he has already lost the thread. The peace in this face, this soft smile. Hull cannot bear it. Satan should spit, drool, roar!

  If you repent we will no longer be sad, says his wife. Her voice, already high, clangs when she speaks. Are you sorry for what you have done? Are you ready to repent?

  I have not changed my mind, answers the condemned man, with a friendly calmness. Nor have I lost my inner strength.

  When did they tell you that your end is upon you? asks Hull.

  Just now, says the condemned man. They barely gave me two hours to prepare. They are rushing it, just like the appeal.

  Think of the murderer on the cross, says Hull. In the last minute, hanging on the cross, he repented. Call Jesus’ name.

  Yes, call Jesus’ name, repeats his wife.

  The condemned man moves his gray-blue eyes over her. He sees a tightly wound woman, clad in the armor of her evangelical fervor, who sits as though she is already standing again, and stands as though she is already well on her way. But where to? Not to his destination. Just knowing that is enough for the condemned man.

  Will your husband stay with me to the end? he asks the preacher’s wife quietly. The woman seems, wholly unexpectedly, to drop her armor. Her expression becomes almost warm and she settles against the back of her chair as though it were a protective shoulder. Yes, she answers. Until the very last moment.

  The condemned man takes off his headphones, gets up, gives a hint of a bow. The guards escort him back to his cell. The moment the door is locked, he begins writing once more.

  The Walk to the Gallows

  He is still writing when the door hatch is opened, the key passed through, the door unlocked, and two guards and the prison director enter the cell. They nod to their colleague in the cell. It is time.

  The condemned man looks up, rises from his chair, hesitates, and rests one hand on the table top. The other he raises, places over his glasses, covering his
eyes.

  A sudden faintness, the director thinks. Now the man is feeling the weight of his guilt, for which he is about to pay with his life. Now the end is in sight, he finds he does not want to see it after all. This faintness is a sign, for which the man has waited long enough, thus far in vain. At last there is a human being standing in this cell, and the director feels for him, he cannot change that. He surreptitiously gives the guards a signal to keep back. He expects correctness and steadiness from them, but compassion, too.

  Meanwhile, the condemned man has sat back down on his chair, taken the pencil in his hand and continued writing. Faintness? Not at all. He simply wanted to concentrate in order to bring to an end his thoughts, his sentence, this thing that he is writing as though driven by the furies! As he realizes his mistake the director is overcome with disgust, even hatred. This is no human! This is a monster.

  Again he gives the guards a signal but this time with a grimmer expression. They move to the table, one of them lays a hand, hard and dry, on the condemned man’s shoulder. Unperturbed, he continues writing. The two guards are forced to grab his arms and pull him away from the paper. Confused, he looks at the guards; he seems genuinely not to understand them. One of the guards points to his glasses, which he no longer needs. Obediently, the condemned man removes them.

  He stands there with exposed eyes, focuses his now-swimming gaze on the director, points questioningly at the prison clothing that he is still wearing. Where is his blue suit? Surely they do not want to hang him in a brown shirt and baggy brown trousers, and these felt slippers? After all, the agreement was that whenever he appeared publicly he would be given the blue suit, the white shirt, the blue striped tie. And what is this if not a public appearance?

  The director says no. He will not be wearing the blue suit.

  The guards handcuff the condemned man, stand either side of him, and enter the hall, where Reverend Hull is already waiting, a copy of the New Testament, with a black cover, in his hands. They go through the hole that has been made in the wall of the meeting room. The ground is scattered with pieces of stone and brick that crunch underneath Hull’s black loafers, the guards’ sturdy boots, the condemned man’s felt soles. The prison director brings up the rear.

  The five men begin marching, they cross the landing and enter the long corridor. Slowly! Slow down! The prison director’s call is aimed at Hull, who is leading the procession and has picked up the pace. Is the preacher shying away from the physical proximity of the condemned man? No glass wall separating them now, no conversation distanced by microphones and headphones, only the sound of footsteps behind him, growing ever closer. Only the eerie feeling of having soulless eyes trained directly on his back, through his back and on his heart. The condemned man sways slightly, perhaps that is to do with the wine that he drank too quickly, perhaps because he was not allowed to finish his writing and his final, incomplete sentence is playing on his mind—the guards drive him forward, the sentence pulls him back, he must add in the final period, otherwise these things, these matters will never be explained.

  Halfway there he begins to sway more severely, the guards brace themselves against him, the condemned man stands still. Reluctantly, the prison director barks an order from behind, the guards grab hold of him, the condemned man struggles against their grip. Now Hull stops, too, turns around, the New Testament raised like a shield.

  No attack to fear: It is only the condemned man’s nose running. Without his hands, which are secured behind his back, he raises his shoulder as a gesture, points with his chin at his left breast pocket. Now one of the guards understands, too, he takes the tissue from the pocket and holds it to the condemned man’s nose, in a surprisingly gentle way, as a father might do for his son. As they start moving again a guard appears at the end of the corridor and holds his hands up as if to ward them off. Stop! Not ready. What a ghastly situation, notes Hull later in his writings, behind me, the condemned man stands swaying between his guards, he is ready for death, but the executioners are not ready for him.

  Halting actions that seem to follow some kind of pattern; first, braked from behind, then from the middle, now from the front. All that remains is for something to happen from below, or to stop them in the very last few meters from above. As though this train should not, must not, reach its specified destination. Perhaps the prison director is thinking something similar, perhaps he, too, has noticed the strange pattern in these interruptions to the timetable. He gives a word of command that is intended to banish the ghosts, cut this knot once and for all: This must be seen through! An imperative used as a declaration. Forward!

  They walk on. The guard at the end of the corridor who tried to stop them opens the door. The preacher stands still to allow the director, the guards, and the condemned man to walk ahead.

  A part of the room about the size of a cell has been separated off by a black sheet hanging over a length of wire, a curtain that swings slowly and then stops. The sheet, Hull thinks, is hiding a long lever that sticks up out of the ground. He can see someone behind it—one man, or two?

  There are four journalists huddling in front of the curtain, here to act as eyewitnesses, as well as the prison doctor, and some more guards. Fifteen people in total. Some say ten. Another source says four. The others apparently stood in the adjacent room and watched the proceedings through a pane of glass.

  What is certain is that those waiting tried to keep their distance. None of them touches the condemned man; none of them touches the square iron plate in the middle of the room.

  Penultimate Sentences

  No one moves. The guards look at their commander, the commander watches the director, the director stares up at the ceiling. One of them must take control of the situation.

  There are no guidelines for this procedure, but everyone knows how hanging works. The director knows from his manual, and the process is familiar to the guards from novels. Or from the movies.

  One of the guards seems to be staring at the condemned man; a man of the same age, medium height, with a round, bald head, glasses with lenses like magnifying glasses, a mustachio. It is not clear whether the condemned man can see him at all, he is missing his glasses but perhaps he can distinguish enough to appreciate the similarity; the man could be the twin brother of the officer who spent so many months interrogating him long before the trial even began. The kidnapped man confided so much to this captain, who seemed so gentle, so polite—he confided more than he wanted to. He had to revise some statements, take them back when he was given the interrogation reports to look through the next day. He even spoke of the hanging in the interrogation, explained that he was prepared to string himself up in this country, publicly, as a deterrent. And he spoke about courage, about his desire not to shift the blame but to take responsibility for the things in which he had been involved. It is of course a sad courage that I have to muster today, he had said, but back then I had the courage and said yes, so today, too, I have courage and say: Here you are! My head is—lying on the—there, where it belongs.

  Where it belongs: The condemned man takes two steps, stands on the square plate, straightens himself up, feet together in his checked slippers. Now that he is in this room he is no longer swaying.

  As though they had been waiting for this, the others now start moving, too, they scribble headlines for the next day’s papers on their notepads, fumble in their coats for their stethoscopes and mirrors, wind the crank that will lower the rope with the noose down from the ceiling. Jesus, Jesus, Lord Jesus, my savior! comes the voice of the preacher, who has stepped in front of the condemned man and calls the savior with fervor, in the hope of a miracle, a conversion, a confession beneath the gallows. It does not require many words, no debate, no justification. The condemned man must simply call the name of the Lord. Just this one word. This one time. The condemned man opens his mouth. But what he wants to confess requires more than one word and a larger audience than the deathly pale Hull, whose message he probably has not even heard. It i
s not a poor penitent who speaks from the plate in the middle of this room, not a remorseful soul. Instead, it is a statesman who speaks into the vastness, who goes into raptures with his own sentences, which he presents like flags flown at full mast:

  Long live Germany. Long live Argentina. Long live Austria. These are the three countries to which I was connected most closely. I will never forget them. My regards to my wife, my family, and my friends. I had to obey the laws of war and my oath. I am ready.

  The guards tie his feet with a belt. I cannot stand like this, says the condemned man. They loosen the strap. The commander loops the noose around his neck, a rope measuring four centimeters in diameter. The noose is coated in rubber and double knotted; the condemned man must strain his neck as though in a choker to make it fit. The commander shows him a black hood, others say it was a black blindfold. Do you want this? he asks. No, I do not need it, says the condemned man. His tone is impatient, it is clear he no longer wants to be bothered, prepared, interrupted. Because he is not yet finished.

  His eyes fixate on the guards standing behind the commander, their backs to the wall. In any case, gentlemen, he says, we will see each other again soon. That is the lot of all people.

  The guards do not move; they do not understand German. The commander understands, but he does not move either. Only the preacher, gripped by a vague terror that took hold when the condemned man began to speak, shows any reaction. With his last strength, which he takes from an unfailing belief in the inviolability of his delivery, he responds to this lost man with the New Testament: Jesus. He manages only these two syllables, he lays them on the book like a communion wafer, searches pleadingly for the gaze of the condemned man. The condemned man does not look at him. He no longer looks at anyone.