|
Trending Topics
|
Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,754133,00.html
On the Trail of Holocaust Organizer Adolf Eichmann
(Der Spiegel-Germany) Klaus Wiegrefe - Adolf Eichmann was the chief organizer behind the Nazi mass murder of Europe's Jews. Following the end of the war, he found refuge in a village in northern Germany before ultimately escaping to Argentina. Documents unknown until now show that he could have been captured earlier than he was - if West Germany had been interested. Eichmann, a lt. col. in the SS, had been the head of the "Jewish Section" at the Reich Main Security Office, the SS organization charged with fighting "enemies of the Reich," a position in which he was responsible for the deportation of Jews from Western Europe, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and Greece to the extermination camps. Figures showing the current status of the genocide were displayed in his office in Berlin. He sought to kill Jews from neutral countries as well as converted Jews. He stationed "Jew consultants" all over Europe, whose job was to intervene with German officials and those of other countries whenever the murderous transports were not moving quickly enough. After the war, Eichmann was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp in northern Bavaria, where he used a false name. On Feb. 5, 1946, Eichmann escaped from American captivity and promptly obtained false papers through a network of German and Austrian Nazis. He went to Argentina in 1950.