On May 11, 1960, the war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who had fled to Argentina with a false identity, is kidnapped by a group of Israeli secret services after a multi-year search operation. Ten days later, drugged and dressed in an El Al airline uniform, he is taken by Mossad agents to Israel. Instigator of the "Final Solution", the plan to exterminate the Jews during World War II, Eichmann will be tried and executed by hanging in 1962 at the age of 56. The following is the chronicle of the secret operation based on the telegrams of the French Agency (AFP) of that time.
"War criminal is arrested by the Israelis"
The security forces proceeded to "arrest one of the biggest Nazi war criminals and he will soon be tried by an Israeli court", announced on May 23 Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion. "Final Solution Man...is in Jail", "War Criminal Arrested by Israelis". The press unanimously welcomes the Israeli venture.
Eichmann's name and evidence of his horrific role in the deportation of Jews to the concentration camps of Eastern Europe emerged during the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946). "A German who killed a Jew six million times," sums up the Nobel Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel, an Auschwitz survivor. The former chief of sub-directorate IV, department B.4 of the Gestapo, in charge of the Jewish question, disappeared after the fall of the Third Reich, after taking care to destroy documents about his activities, as well as photographs that would allow his identification.
The Argentina chapter
A search operation began as early as 1945, by members of the Jewish community, especially Shimon Wiesenthal, the well-known "Nazi persecutor", also a concentration camp survivor. In 1957, thanks to the prosecutor of the German state of Hesse Fritz Bauer, the Israeli secret services learn that Eichmann is hiding in Argentina under the name Ricardo Clement. It will take more than two years of research to locate his residence, without electricity or water, in the district of San Fernando, in the Buenos Aires region.
During a special mission in 1960, Israeli agents, provided with his photographs, will make sure that Ricardo Clement is their man. Watching him, Zvi Aharoni, a Mossad agent, is right behind him on a bus. "The urge to bend down and strangle him was overwhelming...but I knew he should be tried, not murdered, for the sake of those he killed," he would later tell AFP.
Thriller
With Ben-Gurion's approval, the operation would be orchestrated down to the last detail by Mossad chief Isher Harel and implemented by Rafi Eitan. "When I was entrusted with this mission I knew that we would enter the history of Israel and humanity." The kidnapping was set for May 11. A department head at the Mercedes-Benz factories, the former Nazi colonel returns to his Garibaldi Street home every night from the same street, at the same time.
Shortly after 10.05, Eichmann is arrested as he gets off the bus. He resists, calls for help. They throw him into a car and cover him with a blanket. "It seemed to me that a century had passed," Tzvi Aharoni would later say. Inside the car, Eichmann will say in German to his pursuers:"I have accepted my fate." He is taken to a mansion rented for the occasion, tied to the bed, blindfolded.
“I uncovered his eyes and checked his scars. When I was sure it was him, I shook my partner's hand and told him our mission was accomplished," Rafi Eitan will tell AFP. On May 20, the Mossad team transports him to Israel with a fake Israeli passport on the chartered plane carrying the Israeli delegation participating in Argentina's 150th independence celebrations.
The banality of evil
On April 11, 1961, Adolf Eichmann, charged with 15 indictments, is brought to the Jerusalem court, before which 111 prosecution witnesses will testify. Wearing a black suit, dark tie and white shirt and large bone-rimmed glasses, the accused, with gray hair, bald forehead, pursed lips, entered the glass canopy intended for him at 9, according to an AFP cable.
According to Chaim Ghuri, the trial will give genocide survivors the opportunity to be heard for the first time. About 450 foreign journalists and a hundred observers and diplomats attend the meetings.
Alongside Chaim Gurry, writers Elie Wiesel, Joseph Kessel, Roger Vaillon and Hannah Arendt cover the trial. The American philosopher will publish in 1963 the book that will become a point of reference. "Eichmann in Jerusalem", an essay on the banality of evil. Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death on December 15 for crimes against the Jewish people, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. On May 29, 1962, his appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court. He is executed by hanging at midnight on May 31. His ashes are scattered in the sea, outside the territorial waters of Israel.
SOURCE:APE-ME