Otto Adolf Eichmann was a German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust. Because of his organizational talents and ideological reliability, Eichmann was charged by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich with the task of facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe.

After World War II, he fled to Argentina using a fraudulently obtainedlaissez-passer issued by the International Red Cross.

He lived in Argentina under a false identity, working a succession of different jobs until 1960.

He was captured by Mossad operatives in Argentina and taken toIsrael to face trial in an Israeli court on 15 criminal charges, includingcrimes against humanity and war crimes. He was found guilty and executed by hanging in 1962.

He is the only person to have been executed in Israel on conviction by a civilian court.

Otto Adolf Eichmann was born in 1906 to a Lutheran family in Solingen,Germany. His parents were businessman and industrialist Adolf Karl Eichmann, who would own a mining company, and Maria née Schefferling.

After his mother Maria died in 1914, his family moved to Linz, Austria. During the First World War, Eichmann's father served in theAustro-Hungarian Army. At the war's conclusion, Eichmann's father moved the family back to Linz, where he operated a business.

Eichmann left high school—Realschule—without having graduated. He began apprentice training to become a mechanic, which he also discontinued.

In 1923 at the age of 17, he started working in the mining company of his father.

From 1925 to 1927 he worked as a sales clerk for the Oberösterreichische Elektrobau AG; next between 1927 and spring 1933, Eichmann worked as district agent for the Vacuum Oil Company AG, a subsidiary of Standard Oil. During this time, he joined the Jungfrontkämpfervereinigung, the youth section of Hermann Hiltl's right-wing veterans movement.

In late 1933 he moved back to Germany.

On March 21, 1935 Eichmann married Veronika Liebl (1909–1993).[13] The couple had four sons:

Klaus Eichmann (b. 1936 in Berlin),

Horst Adolf Eichmann (b. 1940 in Vienna),

Dieter Helmut Eichmann (b. 1942 in Prague) and

Ricardo Francisco Eichmann (b. 1955 in Buenos Aires).

Execution

Adolph Eichman walking in the yard of his cell in Ayalon Prison, Ramla, 1961

Eichmann was hanged shortly before midnight on May 31, 1962, at a prison in Ramla, Israel. His executioner was Shalom Nagar. Eichmann allegedly refused a last meal, preferring instead a bottle of dry red Israeli wine produced by Carmel Winery, consuming about half the bottle.

He also refused to don the traditional black hood for his execution.

There is some dispute over Eichmann's last words. One account states that these were:

Long live Germany. Long live Austria. Long live Argentina. These are the countries with which I have been most closely associated and I shall not forget them. I had to obey the rules of war and my flag. I am ready.

According to David Cesarani, a leading Holocaust historian and Research Professor in History of the Royal Holloway, University of London, Eichmann is quoted thus:

Long live Germany. Long live Argentina. Long live Austria. These are the three countries with which I have been most connected and which I will not forget. I greet my wife, my family, and my friends. I am ready. We'll meet again soon, as is the fate of all men. I die believing in God.

Shortly after the execution, Eichmann's body was cremated in a specially designed furnace, and a stretcher on tracks was used to place the body into it.

The next morning, June 1, his ashes were scattered at sea over the Mediterranean, beyond the territorial waters of Israel by an Israeli Navy patrol boat. This was to ensure that there could be no future memorial and that no country would serve as his final resting place.

Summary of SS career

SS number: 45,326

Nazi Party number: 899,895

Primary positions: Sub-Department IV-B4 (Gestapo), RSHA

Waffen-SS service: SS-Untersturmführer der Reserve (November 9, 1944)

Dates of rank

SS- Anwärter : April 1, 1932 (candidate)

: April 1, 1932 (candidate) SS- Mann : November 9, 1933 (private)

: November 9, 1933 (private) SS- Scharführer : December 24, 1933 (sergeant)

: December 24, 1933 (sergeant) SS- Oberscharführer : May 1, 1934 (staff sergeant)

: May 1, 1934 (staff sergeant) SS- Scharführer :[79] July 1, 1934

:[79] July 1, 1934 SS- Oberscharführer : September 1, 1935

: September 1, 1935 SS- Hauptscharführer : September 13, 1936 (sergeant first class)

: September 13, 1936 (sergeant first class) SS- Untersturmführer : November 9, 1937 (second lieutenant)

: November 9, 1937 (second lieutenant) SS- Obersturmführer : September 11, 1938 (first lieutenant)

: September 11, 1938 (first lieutenant) SS- Hauptsturmführer : January 30, 1939 (captain)

: January 30, 1939 (captain) SS- Sturmbannführer : August 1, 1940 (major)

: August 1, 1940 (major) SS-Obersturmbannführer: November 9, 1941 (lieutenant colonel)

Nazi awards and decorations