Adolf Eichmann - Most Hated People in History

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anyone the chilling the SS had to have been aware that anti-semitism was the core of that ideology he was acquiring a position and sort of getting the sense of conference in press stage maybe the first D ever had in his life when I came to Vienna as a uniform semi-god he must have felt that he had finally shown those austrians how wonderful he is he brought all of his very considerable talents and all to considerable expertise about how to manipulate people and how to move them if it doesn't surrender see it like this how could so much evil be concentrated into one person he looks so long what was a secret neither as others it [Applause] [Music] in 1961 the world was transfixed by a sensational trial the first ever broadcast on television Adolf Eichmann was brought to justice in Jerusalem to answer for his part in the Nazi murder of six million Jews but when news had broken of Eichmann's capture in argentina eleven months earlier few had any idea who this man was at the end of World War two Nazi leaders on trial at Nuremberg had named SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann who was the man who had arranged the transport of Jews to the death camps but Eichmann had vanished from public view even when Ike mminton five fifteen years later from the glass we to thank for his protection you remain shrouded in mystery how could such a normal-looking man have committed such heinous crimes only hints can be found in Eichmann's apparently normal early life that life began on March 19 1906 when Adolf Karl and Maria Eichmann gave birth to their first of five children Adolf in Soliman Germany baikman later recalled that his siblings made the years of his youth quite sunny in school he had trouble with subjects like literature and art but his father was not discouraged he believed his son would be a technician pushed young Adolf to improve his math and engineering skills soon Eichmann became fascinated by the vehicles of combat when Mike Minh was 8 the family moved to Linz Austria after his father became marketing director of the local electric company moving to a new country might have been difficult for a young child but Germany and Austria were then world powers that shared both a language and culture and by 1914 they would share a war in July Austria at act Serbia at World War 1 began a new road it all cheered as Germany joined Austria in bath they even flaunted before Austrian classmates a German soldiers cap that his father had given him as a gift Eggman's family lived in an apartment in Lentz for only two years when in 1916 Eichmann's mother died his father remarried just a few months later his stepmother came into the family as a devout Protestant and strict disciplinarian also I understand that his father was strict and rather authoritarian so with that kind of household environment it's no surprise to see that Eichmann was somebody for whom rules were very important as a child Eichmann was a follower when classmates emulated their Austrian heroes training for the front Mike Minh worked harder than any of his peers to obey the drill masters commands young Adolf was devastated when World War one ended Germany's and Austria's defeat the Allied powers prohibited these countries from ever unifying again but many Austrians still held on to pan-germanism belief that the two nations were forever bound by culture and history the fall the war ended Eichmann entered the same secondary school that Adolf Hitler had attended 17 years earlier they even had the same history teacher dr. Leopold touch who was known for his veralyn nationalism and openly racist views he was a believer in pan-germanism he was a believer in the absolute perfect of Jews he was a he was a Amin if you pardon the expression and he filled the heads of those boys with stories of the Magnificent race of Germanic people Eichmann was lazy and unmotivated and dropped out of school at 19 he always found life easiest when he took directions from his father who decided in 1928 that his son should become a traveling salesman for the Saucony vacuum oil company here he would set up gas stations and sell kerosene throughout Upper Austria that same year the Nazi Party won few votes as an 11 as a result Adolf Hitler appealed to the middle class by exploiting a centuries-old hatred for Jews he blamed them for every problem in post-world War 1 Germany and Austria which he eventually hoped to annex either for members with administrative skills Hitler particularly tried to enroll students professionals and veterans into the Nazi Party Hitler himself of course was a war veteran much of the ethos of the party was built around that wartime experience either people who were themselves soldiers of the front or people like Eichmann who were actually too young to have been in the war but who were war watchers who were young boys during the war so these veterans organizations were pran recruiting grounds twenty-two-year-old Eichmann even lacked the ambition to direct his leisure time he fell easy prey to a friend suggestion but he joined the youth section of the German Austrian Veterans Association now many of those people who joined including iseman they are not really veterans they were lured in by a certain camaraderie of going into the mountains of meeting perhaps learning how to shoot learning how to drill and always with an eye on pan-germanism [Music] the group often took the trolley to a suburb of lenss to practice their marksmanship this interested the SS the Nazi party's elite enforcement unit which always sought new recruits who knew how to shoot in a beer hall rally in lengths in 1932 Eichmann's childhood friend who Ernst Kaltenbrunner now seven feet tall and disfigured by scars from dueling loomed over the impressionable 26-year old you're going to join us common brooder declared that's how it was done in those days Eichmann would later reflect so I joined the SS it was certainly possible for people to join the not-see party without any anti-semitism be the prime motivation people who are radical nationalists joined people who are heavy Marxist people who were concerned about the loss of German prestige turned power however anyone that joined the SS as opposed to simply joining the Nazi Party had to have been aware that anti-semitism was the core of that ideology according to Vilhelm Hertel who joined the Nazi Party soon after Eichmann the way Eichmann looked may have helped shape his attitude toward Jews the zoo kondal social I noticed very quickly that he had a lot of difficulty because of a variety of reasons people didn't take him serious come Hartman versus one document the main reason for this especially at the beginning was that other spoke maliciously about him they thought he looked like a Jew then it's not on see he as well they called him Ziggy which happened to be a Jewish name up here to the past I'm sure that that was something that impacted on him very strongly he struggled to try to overcome and didn't overcome it very successfully because his self-esteem was quite low so insure it was a factor in his needing to demonstrate as an adult that he could really do something to set himself apart from the Jews when the Austrian branch of the ciccone vacuum oil company began laying people off Eichmann was let go he later believed he was fired because he was a Nazi Reich 'men moved to Germany to look for work with the company's Bavarian branch but on his arrival a friend of the family convinced him to train with an Austrian SS Brigade in Germany the year of military service followed in which the SS fashioned Eichmann into a soldier the SS just like the German army prided itself on the motto that every Corporal carried a Marshal's baton in his knapsack by that they meant that any man should have the initiative the independence of mind not just to blindly obey an order but to know what the mission was and to pursue the mission itself in September 1934 Eichmann transferred to Berlin to join the SD an organization that gathered SS intelligence pikemen thought that the SD was an elite bodyguard unit but to his surprise the SD gave him a desk job it was probably the reason they accepted him with his middle level education he was a little bit more capable of handling paperwork than the average SS man and so suddenly he found himself as a file clerk which did not please him at all eventually Eichmann was approached by his boss Leopold von mildenstein who was setting up a department for Jewish affairs in the SD mildenstein gave Eichmann books on Zionism the movement to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine building Stein entrusted Eichmann to write indoctrination pamphlets for the SS based on this material I think this was probably a very significant point in nitrogens development I mean here's a highly educated person who treated him like he had some intellectual capacity and he was acquiring a position that sort of gave him a sense of confidence and prestige maybe the first T ever had in his life for the next ten years item on would remain in the so-called Jewish Department he would ascend to direct the most despicable activity known to history during a trip abroad in 1932 Adolf Eichmann met Veronica liebe a 23 year old woman from Bohemia the two dated on and off for three years until eight men realized that SS officers with families were favored for promotion the two married in 1935 but only after the head of the SS Heinrich Himmler gave his approval P Bern SS bride you had to establish your genealogy back to 1750 and it had to be completely free of any non Aryan blood line and furthermore also had to be completely free of any kind of genetic defect any kind of hereditary illness that of the sort at least that troubled him ler even had to look at the photographs of the brides while the SS approved of Eichmann's marriage his friends and associates were not as willing to accept his non German bride yeah she was a Czech citizen again and people thought that this was kind of outrageous but for humanitarian reasons I tried to be polite to him in civil to this wife of his I invited them to various parties especially around Christmastime he thought that this was very kind of me and considered it a very endearing trait of the Eichmann's bought a villa on the outskirts of berlin dear Veronica gave birth to their first son Klaus followed by Horst and dieter while proud of his children heightened only derived true fulfillment from his work at the Jewish department of the SD he studied Hebrew and Yiddish and even went to Palestine in 1937 to explore the possibility of deporting German Jews there at 31 year old Eichmann aspired to be more than just a sergeant his day came on March 11 1938 the newly appointed Nazi chancellor at Austria invited Hitler to unify the two countries into a greater right despite the 1919 treaty forbidding their union on march 12 1938 German troops marched into Austria unopposed the clues dream of pan-germanism had finally become a reality the people went wild there was such a joy in everybody and Jews were being molester than beaten and it was at a time of such blatant meanness that I have never forgiven these days four days later Eichmann was sent to Vienna to rid Austria of its Jewish population the old Rothschild mansion Eichmann organized all the government agencies necessary for Jewish expulsion he streamlined the whole exodus process and one of his strokes of genius as it was seen by the Germans of course was that he introduced attacks on the wealthy Jews to subsidize the removal of their poor compatriots like when superiors finally noticed him they sent him to Prague the next year to start an office for emigration modeled on the one he had set up in Vienna but in 1939 countries were not as willing to accept Jewish immigrants as they had been in 1938 Aikman began brainstorming different solutions to the Jewish problem he didn't know what to do about what he called his Jews he wanted to send them on but he didn't know where he could send them on to one of his ideas was to send them to Madagascar we know that he actually sent representatives to the tropical Institute in Humble to seek out information about what would be involved in settling the population to place like Madagascar and he sent other agents to Paris to investigate colonial records of the French Empire you might say to see what things were like in Madagascar Eichmann was called back to Berlin in July 1939 to administer Jewish immigration for the entire Reich then on September 1st Germany invaded Poland and world war two began with three million new Jews to expel from Poland Eichmann was switched to the Gestapo where his ability to order arrests and executions with speed integration he would even run his own department called for be four four four Gestapo be for religion for for Jews by 1941 the war forced Nazi leadership to abandon the Madagascar plan and begin testing other ways of dealing with the Jews that summer German troops invaded the Soviet Union on their heels were operation units called Einsatzgruppen ordered to execute entire Jewish communities but such bloodshed worried Nazi leaders who thought it would undermine their soldiers morale in August 35 year old Eichmann visited a concentration camp in Poland called outfits he discussed with the camp's command at the possibility of gassing Jews there on a regular basis by October 1941 this mechanism was put into place and Hitler suspended all Jewish emigration Aikman now and obersturmbannführer or lieutenant colonel was told by his superior to organize a meeting in the Berlin suburb of Vannes a to iron out the details of this so-called final solution the conference was set for January 20th 1942 Eichmann makes up the list of invitees Eichmann sends out the invitations Eichmann plans the agenda Eichmann actually sits at the table and takes the minutes the conference itself which lasted between an hour and an hour and a half discussed very directly without any camouflage the destruction of the Jews of Europe after which there was a lively discussion then lunch was served and people went home to put it into practice the Jews from all over Europe would be transported to collection points in the East your special installations would be built using poison gas it was Iceman's all of us that was going to be responsible for the transport and moving the organization of moving Jews from Holland from France from all of nazi-occupied Europe to these killing installations in the East in each new country occupied by the Nazis Eichmann ordered the Jews into either ghettos or internment camps in near railway stations demanded that Jewish leaders give him lists of Jews to be deported and then arranged the trains to roll to the death camps Jews were stuffed literally stuffed into the deportation trains the doors from Fulton the goal was to get as many as 100 of Jews into each and every one of these cars these were cattle cars there were of course no toilets no food no water in this fashion almost all of Europe had been emptied of Jews by 1944 only one country with a significant Jewish community invaded Lightman's handy burg with the red army approaching Hungary's eastern border Hitler worried that the Hungarian government will attempt to negotiate its own peace march 1919 44 Germany seized Hungary by the end of the month Eichmann arrived in Budapest and personally to take charge in the deportation of Hungary's Jewish between May 15th and August 15th approximately four hundred and seventy-five thousand Jews were deported in about a hundred and seventy trainloads of Hungarian Jews sent to their death camps at Auschwitz altogether the last great bloodletting of the war is this effort by Eichmann to murder the Jews of Hungary German leaders watched helplessly as Allied forces gained ground in Italy France Russia and Poland knowing that the Allies would soon enter Hungary Eichmann began preparing his departure in August 1944 he stopped by to see Hetal now an SS foreign intelligence agent in his apartment in Budapest said to me I don't think we will ever send each other I'm not sure I have a chance because I know that I am considered a high-ranking war criminal and it will ever survive at this point I asked him point-blank how can he choose murdered yes because he finally answered he said and what about six million four million were killed in the extermination camps and two million were killed by the Einsatzgruppen and by disease and so on regarding the numbers from the Einsatzgruppe every night after they would finish their murderous activities in Russia would Telegraph back home the number of victims that they had created during the day with regard to the death camps they knew how many people were deported on trains they knew how many people had arrived in Auschwitz and the daily tallies that went into the gas chambers that's one thing the Nazis did was keep quite meticulous records these records would detail Eichmann's crimes to the Allies when Christmas 1944 were only two weeks from occupy Budapest Eichmann hurried back to Berlin three months later Allied forces would enter Germany and Eichmann would begin running for his life may 2nd 1945 both Berlin and the Nazi hierarchy were in ruins Hitler had just committed suicide two days earlier and the day before that he had stripped Himmler of his rank for attempting to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies the only person left to give Eichmann orders was Ernst Kaltenbrunner who had originally recruited Eichmann to the SS in 1932 and had been his boss since 1943 Eichmann visited Kelton Brunner at his mansion in out houses a Austria petal was there when I'm in Iraq I seen hot day on Delta feed the fish beard owner Eichmann complained bitterly about counting Boehner who no longer wish to see him on an item said to me I guess Carlton Brunner wants nothing to do with me anymore probably because of my actions against the Jews you love this mate Eichmann but there is angry [Music] five days later on May 7th 1945 Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies and in Altos a cripple his SS colleague farewell with he of course did the stupid thing and fled into the mountainous I actually spoke with him before he left and told him don't do that don't sleep but he was fully convinced that he would one day be needed the party will come and get me he said so you can imagine a situation which man in that position still believes that he will be needed again Eichmann left his family and out out say and began to drive north but was arrested by an American patrol unit he told them he was airman 2nd class adolf karl barth but as soon as they discovered Eichmann's SS tattoo he was placed in a POWs camp four SS officers in fight in Germany a few weeks later in July 1945 the faint Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal heard Adolf Eichmann's name for the first time all this was immediately after the war when I was working with the American group of war crimes in the name of Eichmann was on the list but at that time I have received false declarations about that man that is born in Palestine that he speak Hebrew with an inaccurate biography and no photograph vision tall didn't have much confidence as he began his search for Eichmann in war-torn Europe that same month Eichmann who had since assumed the alias Otto Eggman was transferred to a camp 45 miles west of Nuremberg six months later one of Eichmann's lieutenants testified at the Nuremberg trials to Aikman's role in the final solution sensing that the ground was hot under his feet Eichmann escaped the poorly guarded camp two days later he fled to northern Germany where he got a job as a lumberjack under the name Otto Henning her three years passed Holocaust survivors hunted desperately for Eichmann throughout Europe and the Middle East aware that he better keep moving I contacted Odessa the organization of former SS members in early 1950 to provide him with an escape route from Europe then in May they sent him to Genoa Italy where a Franciscan father secured Eichmann a passport under the name Ricardo Klement he departed for Buenos Aires in the beginning of June when he arrived Eichmann began to work as a land surveyor for a German waterworks company in May 1952 he considered the area safe enough to son of his family from Alto see meanwhile visa natal had few clues as to Eichmann's whereabouts but in 1953 his luck would change in tirol austria recent all visited the lakeside Manor of an old Baron who shared his passion for stamp collecting but visa Hall mentioned his work hunting Nazis the Baron showed him a letter from an old friend in Argentina left Germany because he hated the Nazi Party imagine whom I saw the Barons friend wrote and even had to speak to twice he's the tall read the rest of the letter aloud this Svein iseman that had commanded the Jews I saw him once he is here and work for a votive our company not wanting his interest in Eichmann to get back to the Barons friend decent all tried to contain his excitement but the Baron asked him is this letter of use to you I don't know what to say I am aus think about it after a time he was talking I asked him it I must go to the toilet and then the toilet I read don't this but I have read about him visit all immediately sent this information to the World Jewish Congress which in 1954 began to search for Eichmann at waterworks companies in Buenos Aires but Eichmann still Ricardo planet was now doing odd jobs around Buenos Aires laundromat owner rabbit farmer mechanic and then foreman at a mercedes-benz plant eventually Israeli agents received a tip from a Jewish businessman in South America that Ricardo Klement was living with Adolf Eichmann's white betwee sons outside when Osiris they began to monitor climate in September 1959 Clement returned home with a bouquet of flowers on a dolphin Veronica Eichmann's anniversary on March twenty first nineteen sixty days confirmed that Clement was Prime Minister David ben-gurion ordered the agents to capture Eichmann and bring him to Israel to stand trial the only problem was how to get it there [Music] in May 1960 an Israeli delegation would arrive in Buenos Aires for Argentina's 150 Independence Day celebration the plane would then be available to fly Eichmann to Israel the agents prepared to strike Adolf Eichmann had resided peacefully in Argentina for ten years on the evening of May 11th 1960 he conducted his daily ritual for the last time he rode the bus home from the mercedes-benz plant where he worked and got off at his usual stop suddenly at the corner of his Street two men attacked him and dragged him into an awaiting car Eichmann was immediately bound and blindfolded one of the men told him in German be quiet or get shot they drove him to a safe house and held him there for ten days mr. Harrell who masterminded the operation finally had a chance to observe Eichmann who also found a lead that he was lying in a vet I looked at him and asked myself how is it possible that this is a man who gave the orders to murder six million people he looked so normal man what was the secret how could so much evil be concentrated into one person I have never solved that riddle at this day [Music] Aikman was sedated and smuggled to Israel and placed under arrest for war crimes crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people on May 23rd 1960 in a statement that shocked the world Israel's Prime Minister David ben-gurion announced Eichmann's captured Eichmann had visited Palestine in 1937 as a site to expel German Jews now 23 years later Palestine had become Israel a homeland for the Jews Eichmann could never have dreamed that this region would one day prosecute a Nazi for his crimes the district court in Jerusalem were Eichmann would stand trial made an unprecedented decision to allow video cameras inside the courtroom reichman's trial would be the first ever televised April 11th 1961 Adolf Eichmann a man who spent 15 years avoiding the public eye entered the courtroom to an audience of millions of viewers he sat in a bulletproof glass booth specially constructed to prevent attempts on his life under Israeli law three judges would determine Eichmann's guilt the presiding judge was Moshe Landau Eichmann's attorney was dr. Robert serv arias who had defended other Nazis at the Nuremberg trials prosecuting Eichmann was Israel's polish-born Attorney General Gideon Hausner Hausner supported his case with photographs films and hundreds of Nazi documents many of which contained Eichmann signature his most effective strategy however was to present live witnesses who would give I witness details pikeville's crimes we decided to present at least one live witness from every country to describe and bring home and show people really what what happened in the human level because you know documents and figures and even heaps of corpses that comes a moment when these things don't signify anything anymore people cannot cannot somehow identify with that one of these witnesses was dr. Jorge Villa err who described how Jewish children was gathered for deportation from France 42 children would cry and quarrel and then the police would go upstairs and take the weeping and resisting children downstairs forcibly the lair went on to describe the telegram that authorized the children's transports to begin rolling to the death camps authorized of course by Eichmann deportations of Jews from 17 countries were portrayed by the 110 witnesses for the prosecution but houses star witness was the writer Yeldon or known mainly by his pen name katz ethnic German slang for camp inmate while cats ethnic was in Auschwitz he had the unusual experience of meeting Eichmann but reliving these memories would be too much for kids ethnic the world would never hear about his meeting with Eichmann [Applause] it's ethnic suffered a mild paralytic stroke and would be confined to a hospital bed for months his collapse culminated two months of dramatic testimony for the prosecution which had drawn much of the world to hear about these atrocities for the first time Hausner then projected allied films taken in the liberated death camps on the wall opposite Eichmann's glass booth at last Eichmann prepared to take the stand in his own defense it was his only chance for survival [Music] June 20th 1961 after two months of prosecution testimony Adolf Eichmann who finally took the stand in his own defense many expected Eichmann to rant but to the public surprise his responses were calm decomposed after the first quick victory lindsaym that was forced upon German state leadership of the time carried away by these victories on the presumption of a supposed invincibility went awry and then because of this attitude went on through stupid senseless unrestricted measures and brought about a tragedy which nobody could have foreseen including me for that my rank was too low and my position too insignificant no it terribly surprised that Johnson absolutely normally quietly not nervous I didn't expect it but as we now know he was tremendously prepared for the for the answering job he's not a person who's going to be peculiar in his behaviors behave in ways that cause problems for others as matter of fact just the opposite he distanced himself from feelings from anything that that was a least bit stressful or unpleasant by intellectualizing and rationalizing in one instance Eichmann rationalized his expulsion of Europe's Jews by claiming that he was a Zionist working toward the establishment of the Jewish homeland the Zionists advocated emigration I to promote enforcedly the goals of Zionism at that time and I don't believe that any single Zionist official who claimed that I hamstrung his work on the contrary I'd facilitated it forced emigration in your opinion was something positive in my opinion yes it was something very positive and I was strengthened in my opinion by the desire of the Jews to emigrate I could see that on a daily basis but this desire wasn't in a result of fear but I had not instilled this fear I was able to say to myself I have been placed here and I am now to help in emigration and make the best of this terrible situation now I'm human throughout the entire trial never once looked at the audience and much of his time he was watching justice Landau and it was suggested almost at one time that I was looking at him almost with admiration it was almost as if he'd found another fear of replacement Eichmann argued that a man of his rank and responsibility during the war shouldered little of the blame for mass extermination he claimed that after the van's a conference which set in motion the final solution he no longer had any authority and therefore could not be held accountable for his actions I've had to render an account to myself to determine to what extent I was responsible for the result of the onesy conference the Flies eat and I am satisfied in my self-examination that I tried to find other solutions peaceful solutions and after the van's a conference I made it a point not to make any decisions no matter how minor on my own initiative and without the orders of my superiors that's another reason why he was such a good soldier because he would not resist orders he didn't want to get his superiors angry and he didn't want to be angry himself he was not a highly aggressive person as a matter of fact aggression both his own and others was quite disorganizing for him in his cross-examination Attorney General Gideon Hausner exploited Eichmann's inability to handle aggression he tried to make Eichmann admit that he was more than just a follower of orders there was only one document out of hundreds of documents will you mention orders from your superior and in all other documents you speak in the first person I know but for example can you show me another document that mentions orders from your superior can you show me one single document well here I did not find such a document but this is only a small fraction there were at least 20 or 30 thousand documents all of which you burned I was ordered to do so and had to obey orders are you telling us that such a reply was dictated to you as if to a lowly female clerk what are you an uber slump on Fuhrer or an office girl if you wish to carry on being a laughingstock you are free to do so no I don't want to be anybody's laughingstock but you have been doing this for two weeks I'm just saying I don't know Aikman testified for four straight weeks on August 14 1961 the court adjourned for judgment while Eichmann's guilt was never really in doubt his sentence was a subject hotly debated at the time of the trial I'm Adam so what do you do with a man who bears responsibility for the murder of six million people in the philosophical moral sense there is no such thing as a fitting punishment for such a person you manatee does not know how to punish me like this after a four-month recess on December 11th 1961 presiding judge motion Landau assembled the court to deliver his verdict [Music] if we have found that the accused acted out of blind obedience as he himself argued we would still have said that a man who took part in crimes of such magnitude as these over several years must pay the maximum penalty known to the world this court sentences out of Eichmann to death Eichmann would receive the first and only death sentence in the history of the State of Israel on May 31st 1962 55 year old Adolf Eichmann stood before the gallows and spoke his last words long live Germany long live Austria long live Argentina I owe a lot to these countries and I shall not forget them I had to obey the rules of war and my flag even in his final moments Eichmann evoked the doctrine on which he based his life obedience the sanctity of nation and war and the supremacy of quarters at 11:58 p.m. Eichmann was pained at his body then cremated the following morning his ashes were dispersed into the Mediterranean Sea Adolf Eichmann was one of the last major Nazi war criminals brought to justice his trial would provoke an examination of the Holocaust that has continued to this day not only of its crimes but also of the people who perpetrated [Music] [Music]

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Channel: Hal Monroe

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Length: 43min 32sec (2612 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2017

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