Adolf Eichmann's Involvement in World War II
Adolf Eichmann's Involvement in World War II
When the Holocaust, or the persecution of the Jews around World War 2, is mentioned there is one name that immediately comes to mind: Adolf Hitler of course. And sure, he was the chief culprit, but he had many collaborators. One of them was Karl Adolf Eichmann.
Born in 1906 in Cologne, Germany into a middle class protestant family, as a boy he was teased and nicknamed “the little Jew” by classmates, because of his dark complexion. At age 26 he joined the growing Austrian Nazi Party at the suggestion of a friend.
A year later he took a job in Heydrich’s SD, the powerful SS security service. He was assigned to the Jewish section, which was at this stage collecting information on all prominent Jews. At this point in time began Eichmann’s almost obsessive interest in the Jews. He studied all aspects of Jewish culture and gradually became the acknowledged Jewish specialist. In 1939, Eichmann was appointed Head of the Gestapo, the secret state police of Germany, and became one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich.
In Poland, Heydrich and Eichmann ordered all Jews to be rounded up and forced into ghettos and labor camps. Methods of execution used at this time involved gathering Jews to a secluded location and then shooting and burying them. SS leader Heinrich Himmler witnessed such a killing and nearly fainted. He then ordered more “humane” methods of killing to be found, mostly to spare his SS men the ordeal of such a direct method. The Nazi’s then turned their attention to gassing. At Auschwitch the gas chamber, disguised as a shower room, could accommodate 2000 people at a time.
In 1941, Eichmann was told to prepare “a general plan for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question”. With boundless enthusiasm for his task and fanatical efficiency, Eichmann traveled throughout the Reich coordinating the Final Solution and victim numbers tallied into the millions as the war dragged on.
Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May of 1945, Eichmann was arrested and confined to an American Internment Camp, but he managed to escape because his name was not yet well known. In 1950 he fled to Argentina and lived there under an assumed name for ten years until Israeli Mossad agents abducted him in 1960.
You may have noticed that the name Eichmann appears in Billy...