Adolf Eichmann, one of the key architects of the Holocaust, was captured by Mossad agents on May 11, 1960, in Argentina and flown to Israel for trial.
Originally born in Solingen, Germany, Eichmann moved with his family to Austria but later returned once the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933.
During his time as part of the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) - the Nazi Security Service, he was involved in the surveillance of Jewish organizations. In 1937, he visited the British Mandate of Palestine to promote the Zionist emigration of Jews from Germany. This experience would later prove instrumental when he was appointed head of the Gestapo’s Jewish Affairs division at the outset of World War II.
Eventually, Eichmann was placed in charge of organizing the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’ in Europe. He presented at the infamous Wannsee Conference in 1942, in which the Nazis discussed how they would implement this plan.
The US army arrested Eichmann at the end of the war, but he soon escaped from his captors and fled to Argentina, where he lived under several false identities, including the alias Ricardo Klement.
How did Israeli authorities track down Eichmann?
The Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) began to gather intelligence regarding his whereabouts in the late 1950s. On May 11, 1960, Eichmann was abducted near his home in Buenos Aires by a team of Israeli agents, smuggled out of Argentina, and flown to Israel.
Eichmann was placed on trial in Jerusalem in April 1961 and convicted in December the same year for crimes against the Jewish people and humanity. The Eichmann trial was a major event in Israeli society due to its significance in revealing the true horrors of the Holocaust, which had not previously been exposed.
During the Nuremberg Trials, which took place shortly after the end of the war between 1945-46, the Nazis were prosecuted for war crimes, but nothing to do with the Holocaust. The Eichmann trial, which took place at Jerusalem’s Bet Ha’am community center, brought to light some of the first testimonies from survivors, and started a chain reaction for other trials of Nazi war criminals and Holocaust research.
The trial gained attention from the international media, particularly through its coverage of survivor testimonies. It was also one of the first trials to be broadcast internationally, helping to raise global awareness of the Holocaust.
Earlier this year, in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Prime Minister’s Office made available a digitized collection of documents relating to Eichmann’s trial. It includes 380,000 pages of court documents, correspondence involving the prosecution and then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion, testimonies, letters, lists, and photographs, all collected by the Israel police in preparation for the trial.
Eichmann was hanged at midnight on June 1, 1962; he was the only person in Israel’s history to be executed by the state. His body was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea, beyond Israel’s territorial waters.
Carl Hoffman contributed to this report